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Reason to get gussied up / TUES 3-15-22 / Vanquish, as a dragon / Game with skip cards / Capital near Casablanca
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Hello, everyone, it’s Clare (surprise!) filling in for Rex for today. I hope that everyone is having a good March, with the start of spring in less than a week! It randomly snowed in D.C. over the weekend but now is seemingly going to stay pretty warm. I certainly hope so, at least for the sake of the cherry blossoms! In other news, I recently discovered my TV package has the Tennis Channel, which has made my productivity go wayyy down the last few days. Though, I was productive enough in a meeting last week where I had my first mediation and got called “counselor” for the first time, which was pretty fun!
Relative difficulty: Fairly easy
Theme answers:
- GREEN OLIVE (17A: Classic martini garnish)
- CASINO FLOOR (23A: Locale for baccarat or roulette)
- NASCAR TRACK (36A: Daytona International Speedway, for one)
- CONCERT HALL (50A: Philharmonic's home)
Amélie (also known as Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain) is a 2001 French-language romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The film is a whimsical depiction of contemporary Parisian life, set in Montmartre. It tells the story of a shy waitress, played by Audrey Tautou, who decides to change the lives of those around her for the better while dealing with her own isolation. The film received critical acclaim, with praise for Tautou's performance, the cinematography, production design, and writing. The film was a commercial success, grossing $174.2 million worldwide against a budget of $10 million, and is one of the biggest international successes for a French film. (Wiki)
• • •
This puzzle was decidedly not “the pits.” This puzzle was a steady solve for me, and I quite enjoyed it (which doesn’t always happen on Tuesdays). The theme was a pleasant surprise when I got to the reveal; I was originally confused as to how GREEN OLIVE would fit alongside those other theme answers, which are all locations, but it all came together well. I really enjoyed some of the answers, and a lot of the puzzle felt fresh. NANNY CAM (36D: Home-monitoring device) is fun and something I don't think I’ve seen in a puzzle before. Same could be said for HOT DATE (20A: Reason to get gussied up) and ARE YOU OK (11D: Words of concern). 54A: Reminder to arrive with good spirits? as BYOB was quite clever. It was fun seeing Aly RAISMAN (55A) in there; she’s a fantastic gymnast and a massive inspiration for what she’s done off the gymnastics mat. And, I enjoyed the clue and answer for BO OBAMA (40D), even if the answer when it’s written out looks a tad bit strange (boobama) — I do like reading the answer as “boo, Bama,” as the Crimson Tide is far from my favorite football team.
The whole puzzle is a pangram, which is a cool feat and one that I can appreciate given that the fill was mostly very good, with some really clever clue/answer combos.
Some of the three-letter fill was annoying, as they were almost all crosswordese (See: TON, OBI, SSN, IRA, EMU, IRE, REB, ETC, etc…). I particularly hate a clue like 32A: Mauna __ because you never know whether it’s going to be “kea” or “koa” or “lea” or LOA; there’s no skill in the solve, just a guess or a delay while you get the crosses. I also didn’t love the QUOTE / QUOTA crossing at 5A/5D, as it feels pretty cheap.
I had a few hang-ups in the puzzle, which slowed me down some. I can never decide whether to spell the color OCHRE (26D: Earthy pigment) or “ocher.” I completely forgot that “dogs” (11A:
Dogs' "dogs") can mean feet. 28A: "Gimme a break!" annoyed me because I really wanted it to be “sheesh,” which obviously didn’t fit and was YEESH instead. I’ve actually seen a number of episodes of “The Blacklist,” but I didn’t know Christine LAHTI (52D) was in the show, so I guess I didn’t make it to her seasons! 33D: Person in a cast also spun me around a bit, but the answer being ACTOR was clever.
Misc.
Misc.
- Whoops! For 57D: Source of unwanted feedback, I had the “M” when I got to this clue, and I thought the answer was “mom”... (not MIC). Please don’t tell her I’d ever think she gives me unwanted feedback!! (I texted my sister, and she apparently did the exact same thing — sorry, Mom!)
- 57D: PC alternatives as MACS reminds me that, while I have a personal laptop, which is a Mac, my work computer is a PC, and man alive does it confuse me! I haven’t used a PC in so long that I don’t know any of the helpful shortcuts (such as taking a screen grab), and, because I switch back and forth between computers, I’m constantly pressing the wrong keys when I try to copy and paste something.
- The theme made me think of when I was in L.A. with my family a couple months ago and we realized we were passing La Brea Tar Pits on our way to see the Academy Museum, and they were absolutely fascinating, in a very morbid way. I had heard of them but had no idea that the tar pits were so sneaky – I mean, the pits, which are still there, look like friendly little ponds, but when animals wandered in for a drink they’d get stuck in the tar at the bottom.
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111 comments:
The theme revealer was cute. I thought it was a themeless puzzle until that point. How many ways are there to spell east in foreign languages? Mauna Loa, oh boy, here we go. NASCAR, I know, you don't watch it so just let it be. People must like it for some reason. I always misspell the town Epsom as if it were the printer Epson. Boobama is hilarious. I like nanny cam and Cosmo. Apparently I don't know how to spell tartar, and I'm not sure how it's a dentist calculus, and I also didn't know Rabat or Lahti so the final squares in the south left me guessing. I wish I was more like the main character in Amelie. Lovely Tuesday.
Hi Clare! Yes this was a likeable Tuesday. However there were a few too many names for my liking: AMELIE RAISMAN LAHTI RABAT ATARI to name a cluster. Although I do fondly remember AMALIE, that was a pretty fine movie.
NASCAR TRACK: my boss was a race car guy, I mean he owned a race car and he raced it every weekend. We lived in different worlds, and hanging out with his race car pals was discomfiting. Example... Race car guy: "Did y'all watch the Busch races yesterday?" Me: "What, they go racing out in the bush?" Race car guy, after a pause: "No, it's at a regular racetrack, sponsored by the beer, Busch?" Me: "There's a beer called Bush?"
Writeover: target of a filter was LINT before SPAM.
[Spelling Bee: yd -1; td so far -2, stalled...]
When you take the pit out of my GREEN OLIVE please fill the space with an anchovy, those are the best in a lovely Martini.
Of course I read it as BOOB AMA, my favorite answer. I also love the word MENSCH.
Fun puzzle.
@Clare Congrats on your new [spoken aloud for the first time] title, counselor!
I'm never quite sure whether word cousins like QUOTE and QUOTA crossing each other is lazy or playful, but someone like me who didn't even notice it certainly doesn't have the answer.
Themes that I don't get until the revealer are always preferable to writing rote rot from beginning to end with no challenge whatsoever.
I found this theme cute and clever and very Tues-apropos.
Had NACHOS entered before the 32A literal kealoa showed up, so that whole petty annoyance was avoided.
A lot of "tar art" in that middle south: ARAT TAT RABAT ATARI TARTAR ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay.
🧠
🎉🎉.75
Local band of my friends called the ppits. Everyone hAd a ppits name. Jedclam Peach Zazu Elijah Labreatar Snake ETC. Their tagline We're the ppits. Did eccentric covers of many styles and original stuff like Heavy Metal Hallelujah. Profuced a couple of
professional musicians.
Solid theme. It tuezzed although I have no idea of what that means or how it's spelled.
Minimal PoC and neither S in the reveal counts. No double PoCs unless you count SSN which you don't. No EDs or INGs.
A few too many 3s and 3s that are not words but so what. Very good theme and not a gimmie.
I had doT and IDS THE PITS for a while until I decided that didn't make a TON of sense.
RoBAT, RABAT Lets call the whole thing off.
Medium. I needed the reveal and a reread of the theme answers to grok the theme, which @Frantic I tend to prefer. I also needed a few nanoseconds to parse BOOBAMA. Not bad for a Tuesday, liked it.
@clare - Yup for the OCHER/ OCHRE ???
I got stuck on the REB/BYOB cross forever, as I had Yanks' opponent as RED (as in the Revolutionary War, not the Civil War) and thought BYOD for Bring Your Own Drinks made sense.
@Clare: Good writeup; I'm in complete agreement. But is it really fair to call TON, SSN, IRA and ETC crosswordese? I thought the term refers to things that appear in crosswords and nowhere else. But I hear those words/acronyms with some frequency IRL*. OBI, IRE and REB are definitely crosswordese, and these days EMU is borderline, thanks to a certain insurance company.
* Apologies in advance to those who think crosswords ARE real life
Thx Michael, for a nice smooth Tues. puz! :)
Hi Clare, good to see you again; thx for a great write-up! :)
Easy-med.
Swapping Mon. & Tues. would've worked for me; just sayin'.
Breezed thru this one. Only concern was not knowing SBA; pretty sure RABAT was correct, tho.
Forgot to go back and check out the themers, altho, did think 'something PIT' before CONCERT HALL, so that turned out to be a semi-malapop (or half-a-pop) as @Frantic once suggested).
Two of my faves, coincidentally, meeting each other: Aly RAISMAN & AMELIE.
🙏 for those caught up in the WAR ZONE. 🇺🇦
@okanaganer
There was a new word for my List from yd's SB
@jae
Typical Croce; undoable until it's doable. Only took the AM to solve, so med. See you next Mon. :)
___
yd pg: 8:57 / W: 4*
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@albatross shell - This puzzle didn’t tuezz enough so they made it a pangram to get that tuezzsome feel back.
The theme was 👍🏽👍🏽. Sufficiently diverse meanings of PITS to not be immediately obvious, so a nice little aha moment at the revealer. As for the pangram, Lieberman almost pulls it off. Most of the high value letters flow nicely and I’m guessing JAY-Z crossing JFK barely caused a stumble for most people. But QUOTE/QUOTA is just a screaming mimi of “this is the only way I could get the Q in here I hope y’all don’t notice.” I will say this, stuffing the high value letters near the top is less annoying than cramming three of them in a small corner at the bottom. Somehow UNBOX/EXE feels less, well, stuffy when it’s in the north than in the south. You barely even notice that the Q,X, and V up there makes that section the ughliest section of the puzzle. Barely even noticed.
ARE YOU OK? next to WAR ZONE is all too timely.
On the other hand, a BOOB AMA seems like the kind of Q and A the world needs. (hi @chef wen)
NANNY CAMs seem creepy and invasive and very much “get a life.” But then the entire “be afraid” industry has always bothered me. No really, that little spy camera on your door bell is not making you safer. Where I live now people like to pretend they have cameras to get badly lit photos of bears and coyotes, but no. Some company just convinced you that being afraid made sense. I want to say “just stop.”. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.* So love the fresh answer, hate that the thing is a thing in our society.
*Extra points if you know where I stole that from
@clare -- Excellent writeup, balanced and insightful.
On puzzles like this, after I’ve uncovered a couple of theme answers, I try to figure out the theme before getting the reveal. So today I had GREEN OLIVE and CASINO FLOOR and started looking for connections, and nothing came. Then I had all four theme answers and still couldn’t get it. And lord knows I tried.
So when I finally uncovered the reveal it was a terrific “Oh THAT’S it – cool!” combined with “Oh you got me, you devil Michael, you!” A leap combined with a bow of respect, plus a bit of “Dang! Should have seen that…” mixed in. That reaction salad is one of those Crosslandia moments I live for.
There are many different sorts of precious moments that can pop up during or after a solve – I think they could fill a book. But this was today’s, and it took a high-quality concept and excellent execution – that is, the work of a skillful and passionate constructor – to pull it off. Thank you, Michael, for being just that, and for bringing this bright spot to my day!
I guess you could call a MAC an alternative to a PC, in the same way that, say, a pet worm is an alternative to a golden retriever.
Is there any evidence that BO was called BO OBAMA? I’m more than a little skeptical of that answer.
I wonder what slice of humanity you have to be in to know what Crystal Castles is?
@Z. A big AMEN to your NANNYCAM/fear comments.
A CONCERT HALL rarely has a "pit." If a venue carries the moniker of CONCERT HALL, it typically is reserved for concerts only. While some places have multi-purpose venues (hosting concerts, musicals, ballets, and/or operas), they usually are called performing arts centers or other terms that have a broader implication.
Note to Will Shortz: If the puzzle is a pangram publish it on a Tuesday.
@kitshef. Didn't know you were a Mac snob. PITy.
@kitshef. I wonder what slice of humanity disparages people that may be familiar with a 1980's video game? What's your point?
Crystal Castles is an arcade game released by Atari, Inc. in 1983. The player controls Bentley Bear who has to collect gems located throughout trimetric-projected rendered castles while avoiding enemies, some of whom are after the gems as well. Crystal Castles is one of the first arcade action games with an ending, instead of continuing indefinitely, looping, or ending in a kill screen.
@Z -- FH
@Z -- Ok, I looked it up.
I thought the first word of the revealer clue summed up this crossword: “Awful.”
By my count this is 33% PPP — *one in three clues is trivia.* And relying on too much trivia is garbage, weak sauce, crossword constructing with a crutch.
But 33% isn’t *that* bad, in and of itself. Where this puzzle really screws the pooch is in the crossings. I’ll point out the most egregious: If you don’t *just happen* to know RAISMAN, RABAT and LAHTI (which *all* *three* *cross* *one* *another*) then you are, as my autocorrect likes to suggest, totally ducked.
And guess which solver has two thumbs didn’t know *any* of those three?
I did manage to get it eventually just by plugging in random vowels and consonants, but that is a frustrating way to end a puzzle and it ruins it. This is 100% the fault of the constructor for not minding their crossing with *three* answers, and creating a rancid, fetid bowl of Proper Noun Soup in the southeast there.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I do the NYTXW because I love words, not because I want to play pub trivia. I always immediately walk out of a bar if pub trivia starts up while I’m there. Similarly, if I weren’t pathologically impelled to keep my NYTXW streak going, I would’ve immediately walked out of this puzzle after reaching that horrible, horrible, “Awful,” IT’S THE PITS southeast corner.
P.S. Oh I forgot to mention the theme. Which… I guess they all have pits, and… so what? Nothing clever about this. It played as a themeless to me, and grokking the theme only made me like the puzzle less, except my appreciation that the revealer described the puzzle.
P.P.S. Also, who can cross QUOTE with QUOTA (on the Q no less!) and just *leave* it in the puzzle like that? That should’ve been the hint that the whole thing should’ve been reworked or else wholesale scrapped for a better idea altogether.
P.P.P.S.: For those who may have seen my comment on Sunday, about my household’s chaotic few weeks, things have improved! The cat is finished with his antibiotics and is feeling better than ever. And my wife’s former employer, though still out of business, managed to make payroll for her final check. And also she starts a new job tomorrow morning, with a 25% salary increase, having ultimately been out of work for only seven business days. We are grateful and relieved!
Cute theme - well constructed. Felt trivia heavy - but nothing obscure other than RABAT for me. Side eye to the QUOTE x QUOTA cross. Never heard of BO OBAMA. My martinis are sans GREEN OLIVEs and vermouth for that matter.
Always loved that big control ball on the Crystal Castles machine. ALEC’s OBI Wan was a true MENSCH.
@Z - I am on a kick watching segments of the new Dune movie over and over - it’s growing on me.
Enjoyable Tuesday solve.
This one really sparkled at the outset, however for me the SW definitely WAS THE PITS. You’ve got LAHTI, AMELIE, RAISMAN, RABAT and even a “Crystal Castles” all stuffed into that poor, defenseless one section. So that was truly unfortunate for a puzzle that showed so much promise. Really would have been stellar if they had cleaned that mess up a little bit.
I liked this just fine until I ran into the Southeast Corner's name soup.
Amelie and Lahti crossed with Rabat and the revealer? No thank you. Instant turn off for me.
Did no one else have problems with the LAHTI/RAISMAN cross? I got naticked on a Tuesday there, opting for LeHTI/ReISMAN. Had to use "check puzzle" to see where my amiss square was. That left me feeling slightly grumpy about this puzzle.
I am grateful for the term kealoa, for even after doing puzzles regularly for about three years now, I could never remember what the possibilities after Mauna ____ were. Kea? Koe? Lea? Loa? Moa? Now it's forever stuck in my head. I personally like kealoas as an added challenge -- maybe not as much for simple fill-in-the-blank clues or alternate spellings (like OLAF v. OLAV or the various permutations of AMUN-RA), but I feel a good puzzle should have a sprinkling of clues where more than one sensible answer, preferably with shared letters, can fit an n-letter space. Working in two directions at once to suss out an answer is part of the joy for me of a crossword.
I didn't even notice the theme until after finishing. Clever, but I'm glad I didn't think about it during the solve as it would have slowed me down. Still that LAHTI/RAISMAN cross frustrated me enough to have an overall unfavorable impression of an early-in-the-week puzzle.
😀 happy solve. Lovely write up, Counselor.
Just to concur with an earlier Anonymous: opera houses have pits, concert halls do not.
I came here to say exactly that too! In a CONCERT HALL the musicians sit on the stage. That’s the distinguishing feature of a CONCERT HALL. A theater or, more generally, hall, auditorium, etc, may or may not have a pit, and the musicians may or may not be hidden for different performances. Seems like more and more musicals seat the musicians on stage to become part of the backdrop.
Am I the only one who gets irked at clues like 52 down? There have been 286 episodes of the The Blacklist. Christine Lahti was in only NINE of them — as a GUEST cast member. And IMDB lists more than 2,800 cast members during the course of the show.
I have never heard of Cyrstal Castles, but [blah blah blah] console in 5 letters == ATARI. It's a universal fact. There's no point in whining about Crystal Palaces, it's just a place holder. No one expected anyone to know Crystal Castles. Just fill in ATARI and move on.
I don't know how anyone cannot know Aly RAISMAN. I get not knowing how to spell her name, but get angry about her appearance in the puzzle? She was pretty much the face of the women who stood up and told the truth about the doctor who spent decades sexually abusing young girls and the various institutions who should have been protecting the young girls rather than themselves and the doctor. She is character and courage personified. And yeah, about a dozen or so Olympic medals. Were it not for the Orange Shit-Gibbon, it would have been the scandal of the decade in the 2010s.
* and by 'about a dozen', I of course mean 6. Don't want anyone** to get upset with my occasional hyperbole.
** You know who you are.
This one played Monday-easy for me with just a slight slowdown in the SE, and it wasn't the names, it was SAYING before SIMILE and not coming up with MENSCH as quickly as I should have, as it's a great word.
I'm with the "didn't see that theme coming until the revealer, and that's the way I like it" crowd. OLIVEGREEN made me think we might be getting a noun and a color, like "lemon yellow", but that went nowhere.
Today's triumph was JAYZ. Heyj! I said. I know a rapper!
@oceanjeremy-I think I'm not alone in being a word lover and also having a lot of fun with trivia. Coming up with RABAT, off just the clue is as satisfying to me as sussing out MENSCHM and my favorite puzzles tend to be a mix of both. Glad to hear that your wife and your cat are both doing well, when that situation obtains in my house, all's well with the world.
Nice Tuesdecito ML, More Like this would be fine. "Guess That Theme", oh yeah. Thanks for all the fun.
@Concert halls don't have pits folk - Unless you live in a city that has separate Opera House(s), Symphony Hall(s), and Ballet Theater(s), and yet hosts Symphonies, Operas and Ballets, you have a Concert Hall that serves all three. This Concert hall has a raised stage, with the floor on the front portion removable. For Symphonies, the floor is in place, and there's no pit. When they're performing Ballets or Operas, they pull the floor up, and voila, there's a pit.
@Z. It's a nanny cam. checking on the baby and the sitter when you're out. No paranoia involved. Reminded me of hiring a new sitter for our first child. The girl was the daughter of a family that had just moved into our building. My wife is giving her the big rundown on everything and the girl says "Don't worry.Its not like I'm going to take a knife and stab the baby or anything." My wife and I looked at each other, shrugged,and went out anyway. We really wanted to get out...the baby survived.
.
@kutshef 7:19
I felt the same about MACS until I got one last July and now fir the most part I really like it, altho (@Clare) I can *never* remember how to take a screenshot, what a random key combo (compared to the obvious PrintScreen on a PC).
Also had same thought about BOOBAMA, but I think it has to do with vets and travelling. Our son & dil have a cat with a last name (it's on his carrier). But I agree it sounds weird.
No idea on Crystal Castles...
Hey All !
Nice puz, and got a chuckle out of the Revealer, as all the Themers indeed have PITS. My nit, however, is the Revealer wording seems off. Seems to me should be IT HAS PITS, which is too short, and not a real saying. Maybe THEY HAVE PITS, but too long, and also not a saying. Or maybe the ole brain is off? (Odds good on that...)
I liked that the theme used the whole Themers, as most of the time with two-word themes, it's either just the first or second word that's used, and not both.
That QUOTE/QUOTA cross gave me a little twinge of ickness, but if it allows for a pangram, so be it. UNBOX is unwieldy, too. Maybe that was the best fill up there. Sometimes you have to take what you can when constructing. Hence the set of three Blockers in row 4. Notice the first two Themers are only one row apart. Tough to fill cleanly with close Themers.
So a nice TuesPuz that wasn't THE PITS.
When I hear or see MENSCH, it always feels like the opposite of what it means. Seems to me to get a bad thing. Unsure why, but one of those things that's hard to try to reparse in the brain.
All the Themers are also OVAL, no?
yd -4, should'ves 3 (never would've got the one @bocamp missed)
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
It was fine for me to solve this as a themeless for most of the trip down the grid. There was some nice cluing for a Tuesday and I chuckled at the idea of BO OBAMA. So nice to be fully welcomed as a member of the family.
But somewhere along the way I got curious. What was the theme that wove these disparate things together? "Aha", I thought. "OVAL!" An OLIVE is oval and a NASCAR track is OVAL and I suppose that a CASINO FLOOR and a CONCERT HALL can be oval too. "Good thinking, Nancy!", I thought.
Turns out not such good thinking.
But here's the problem with the actual theme. Three of the themers are PITS. The fourth one contains pits, but isn't itself a pit. So I don't really think the theme works very well.
Didn't really matter to me. I'm perfectly content to solve a themeless puzzle if it's enjoyable. And, as Tuesdays go, this one wasn't half bad.
@Pete 9:07 - as a child of the 80s who visited the arcade, Crystal Castles was very well-known to me. It was an eye-catching game at the time, with its trimetric 3D-ish graphics, its fast track-ball controlled game play, its ending (one of the first games with an ending instead of constant looping or a kill screen), and the way the initials of the top player on the leaderboard was incorporated into the design of the first level. That said, I wouldn't have remembered it being produced by Atari, save for the answer having five letters. I suppose Namco could fit, too, but I already had an R down there.
Although I don't specifically remember Crystal Castles once I had AT___ it was pretty obvious.
My error (which I fixed!) was SlA and RAlAT. Didn't notice Ralat at first and was thinking Savings and Loan Association (dating myself?), but found it when I got the "amiss" screen.
Nice write up, counselor!
LAHTI crossing RAISMAN caused a big slow down as I could not figure out where I had gone wrong. They are both well known, so perhaps it should not have held me up so long. Otherwise a great puzzle, I stared at the themers just before tackling the revealer and didn't have a clue what they had in common. Nice aha moment when I found out.
I suppose the trick is to see the theme before getting to the revealer and I failed. I was mentally scratching my head as I solved from top to bottom and finally got the Ahhhh. It was a very neat job even though fleeting. It could have been a Monday for me because nothing slowed me down. I felt like a lawn mower with no sticks in my path. My favorite answer was BOOBAMA and I’d like to see that word enter the vernacular. I’m enjoying imagining various definitions.
LAHTI / RAISMAN was a total NATICK for me.
What is "crosswordese"? It's not ONLY seen in crosswords but it's seen there much more often than elsewhere. Among the eight Clare mentioned, I would agree on OBI, EMU, and IRE. Others today are LOA, TSETSE, and TAT. Some classics: APSE, NAVE, OREO, ASTA, AHAB, ESME, ILSA, SMEE, ETE, ETTU, AGEE, ERTE.
I just learned that the Obamas had two dogs while they were in the White House, Bo and Sunny. I hadn't heard of either.
ITSTHEPITS is the sanitized version of the expression I used to hear a lot.
Another theme that's irrelevant to the solving process.
@Pete9:07
Your problem is he lied? That's it? All Politicians lie.
Gas prices? World thinking we're a laughing stock?
Much better last one.
Cute puzzle !
Also Amelie was -- and still is -- a gem of a film. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something uplifting but not cloying, it's quirky and delightful and a much-needed antidote to the news (not that we should forget what is happening, just that sometimes we need to breathe)
thanks for the great write-up Clare!
Starting with the first themer, I immediately thought either colors or food would be involved. I certainly would never have figured the revealer was going to turn out as it did … but I liked it. Pretty clever to come up with four totally different things - an OLIVE, a CASINO, a race TRACK and a concert HALL - all of which contain PITS. Nice!
Some years ago I attended a NASCAR race at Indianapolis and had tickets which included passes to the garage and pit areas. My SO/pilot friend was hired to fly a group of VIPs and they generously provided tickets to both of us. We sat in one of the fancy club boxes with unlimited drinks and food and even had a police escort to and from the track. It was quite an experience.
Delighted to see former First Dog BO OBAMA. May he rest in peace.
TJS,
The sitter is employed to check on the baby. So checking on the baby and the sitter IS the paranoia.
I loath agreeing with Z, but he's onto something. For a number of years safety has become something of a religion. You see it everywhere. Instead of wishing people a Merry Christmas, you're likely get "Have a safe holiday." What? What is dangerous about the holiday? It's not a small matter besides subverting the important thing--the holiday---it introduces the idea of danger where none is evidence. Frankly, it's bizarre. And problematic. No one is snatching up kids waiting for the school bus. Or anywhere else for that matter. Yet in the Northeast I see parents standing with their kid at the foot of their own driveway waiting for the bus. It's nuts. Absolutely nuts.
Watch the stupid sign outside your nearest elementary school this June. I guarantee it will say "Have safe and happy Summer". Why? No one wants to see a child injured, but why the reflexive and pre-emptive focus on safety? Why not just: "Have a great Summer. See you in September"? This misplaced focus on safety has distorted the country's notion of danger.
And we
re seeing the hideous consequences of this Safety religion in our response to Covid. The fact is, much of the things that we're preached in the name of heath and safety were more theater than science. But setting that hot potato aside, the dat on its lethality is clear. Covid was deadly only to the old and or infirm. and now with vaccines even the aged and those with co-morbidities have an excellent, excellent chance at recovery.
Why we terrorized children and retarded their growth for the past tow years is one of the most shameful things I've ever seen. And it's largely the result of this safety fetish.
Almost immediately I thought to myself, this is a pangram. That did not spoil it for me. Do not know of Lahti or Raisman (become I'm stupid) and that did not spoil it for me. Never heard of Crystal Castles (must have come out after my playing days) and that did not spoil it for me. Neither did the rest of the PPP because most of the crosses were pretty fair. So thumbs up, surprisingly so.
I'm not sure Apple owners will find the negative comment humorous, even if taken as a jest. You can see many Mac laptops by Columbia University (especially outside the Hungarian Pastry Shop on Amsterdam between 110 and 11). Wish I had converted my IRA to Apple stock when it was selling at 50 cents a share. I'd be very rich today.
Z: As one who lives in the NYC area, I am always surprised when I visit my brother in San Diego how less paranoid they are out there (in lower crime neighborhoods). Sadly, some around my way have tried to get me to buy a gun out of fear. Sorry, I refuse to live in that mindset.
This grew on me....like a little green plum hanging on a tree, waiting to turn into a juicy little grape jam color and eaten up with relish when ripened.
AHHHHHA...It's the PITS.
I see folks here didn't like the QUOTE/QUOTA section. Some people don't like a COED nor a BRA. I like it all.
@chefwen.....I like my GREEN OLIVES filled with Blue Cheese. I'm just that kinda girl. I haven't had a god martini in a looong time. Hey @JC...what are your OLIVES stuffed with?
By the way...The Baker-Baum Concert Hall (which has incredible acoustics) has an orchestra pit. Perfect for a dance and some good opera. There's room for all.
I wish Christine Lahti had been clued with her role in "Leaving Normal." She and Meg Tilly are so good in that movie. Worthy of a BYOB, sit down with bodacious NACHOS, share the couch with BOO and perhaps a HOT DATE.
Worth the price of pitted prunes.
“Is it a dog with a last name, a football jeer, an idiotic association of doctors. or a cartoon character’s mother?” he asked, as he EYED 40d for a moment too long.
An entertaining Tuesday puzzle with a true revealer. Until I got to 58a, I had no idea what these themers had in common. Liked NANNY CAM and ARE YOU OKAY? and the way that IRE intrudes on SMILE in the SE corner.
Mazel TOV!
@kitshef - I think you meant, I guess you could call a MAC an alternative to a PC, in the same way that, say, a golden retriever is an alternative to a pet worm.
As for your question, apparently that slice of humanity who is easily offended.
@Lewis - Somehow I suspected you were not a huge 1960’s science fiction fan and that you’d be intrigued by the quote. That book plays fast and loose with religious and spiritual traditions, which is part of what makes it fascinating.
@oceanjeremy - It’s good to hear things are returning to order. As for 33%, I think that at 33% it becomes almost inevitable that there will be not just crossing PPP, but crossing PPP that gives somebody trouble. It’s less obvious on a Tuesday, but now that you say the PPP is at the 33% line I am not surprised to see DNF comments.
@Son Volt - I’ve pulled Dune off the bookshelf to reread. I feel like the latest iteration was much better than the first movie, especially in not trying to cram 500 pages of novel into a 2 hour movie. I also feel like it is much truer to the source novel than Foundation has been. The latter feels more like fantasy than science fiction so far, which is very much not aligned to the source material.
@Pete - Just fill in ATARI and move on. Yep. I felt the same way about the 52D clue, which to me was just “5 Letter actress who is in puzzles a lot because her letters are useful.”
Also - 👍🏽👍🏽 on your Concert Hall comment.
@Peter P - Just in case you are ever tempted to write in “Namco” please note that ATARI has been in the NYTX 187 times while “namco” has never appeared (now just watch, we’ll get a Dig Dug clue this Saturday).
@TJS - Thinking you need to check on the baby and NANNY while you’re out is the very definition of paranoia. And if you happen to catch the babysitter snogging in the living room who is the creep?
@Anonymous: "Covid was deadly only to the old and or infirm" - I suppose it depends on what your definition of "old and infirm" is, but certainly not "only" deadly to those. Mostly. With the kids, it's not so much them I worry about, but their teachers and staff that they are exposed to. I have two kids, six and seven. Their schools are now mask optional, but they still wear their masks to school. I've told them it's okay not to, but they prefer it for the moment. They are hardly developmentally "retarded" as you put it. Their personal and academic growth surpasses where I was at their age, and their regard for others and empathy is much more mature. They have plenty of spaces to interact with other children mask-free. I have no worry for them. The only people who bitch about the masks are the adults. The kids roll with it. I have too many medical professionals among my family and friends (including one who is an epidemiologist) to discard medical information and safety.
@Anon - 10:13 - "Covid was deadly only to the old and or infirm"? That's 100% factually incorrect. Obscenely so. A statement from a lunatic so. If 80% of the American dead were old and/or infirm, then about 200K Americans died of Covid. If 200,000 deaths = nothing to you, please make that number 200,001 and leave us in peace.
@Gary Jugert I was surprised to see no one had answered your “question” but TARTAR on the choppers is also called calculus.
Good Tuesday puzzle although it seemed like it had as much PPP as yesterday’s puzzle but maybe today’s puzzle fell into more wheelhouses?
Glad to hear that a young new counselor has difficulty going back and forth for Mac to PC. Before I retired and was working from home during the CoVid shutdown I got used to working on my MacBook. When the office reopened my work was definitely slowed for a bit as I became reacquainted with my PC desktop. Sheesh and yeesh! Btw…autocorrect turned YEESH into “eyeshadow”…?..
But @Kitshef…earthworm….🤣🤣🤣
When I filled in the first themer or I would never have thought the revealer would turn out to be what it was. I was thinking in terms of colors or food or possibly even St. Patrick’s Day … but I wasn’t disappointed and I really liked this. Pretty clever to come up with four distinct things – an OLIVE, a CASINO, a race TRACK, and a performance HALL – all of which contain PITS within. Nice!
Some years ago I attended a NASCAR race at Indianapolis and had access to the pit and garage areas. My SO/pilot friend was hired to fly a group of VIPs and they generously provided tickets for both of us. We sat in one of the fancy club boxes with all manner of food and drink and even had police escorts to and from the track. It was quite an experience.
Nice to see former First Dog BO OBAMA. May he rest in peace
@GILL
Blue Cheese.
@Z10:37 No, I had it the right way round (for me). Macs are terrible.
And I wondered briefly whether it was "slice" or "humanity" that was considered disparaging before moving on.
Came to read Rex complain (justifiably) about "Opposite of Yank". Ah well...
Anyone remember when this was fad?
Wordle 269 3/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟨🟨🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Claire should keep politics out of the puzzle. Please.
@kitshef - I knew what you meant. I like you anyway. 😉
Maybe a buttery olive would be okay with an anchovy, but the idea of meeting my RDA of salt with a single bite sized nosh has me reaching for a beer to wash it down and it’s not even noon yet.
@10:13 - Please. I beg you. Don’t ever agree with me again.
Z
It pains me more than it does you.
@Moderators: I’ve had two posts disappear today. First at about 10:09 and reposted same at 10:52. No biggie, just FYI.
What? Where is the politics? Bama is short for Alabama, if that's where you have an issue.
@TJS. Oh, your story gave me laughter tears! Thanks!
Enjoyed the revealer - didn't see it coming - , but had an e at the LAHTI/RAISMAN cross. Fortunately I found the error. Overall, nice Tuesday puzzle.
Wow, for a minute there I thought@Lewis was cursing out Z.!
And @Z, if the first thing that comes to mind with a nanny cam is catching the babysitter " snogging" than who's the creep ? We always used ours in the babys' room.
********* Wordle Brag **********
My first word gave me two greens and a yellow. A lucky putt gave me an eagle. I've used this same word the last 23 days and I'm nine under. That's about a 3.6 average.
**********************************
I’m always surprised by how many commenters hate a given puzzle because, apparently, they don’t read a newspaper or any literature. If I ended up with feelings of hatred or rage because a puzzle wasn’t obvious enough to someone who only watches TV, I hope I would have the sense to discontinue doing the puzzle. But, instead, certain commenters can be relied on to call for the ouster of Will Shortz, presumably to be replaced by an expert from TV Guide. Sorry to be cranky about this, but it occasionally gets overwhelming, and today marks one of those occasions. Why don’t I just quit reading these blog comments? Because there are many literate and/or funny commenters that I look forward to hearing from each and every day. End Rant.
When my dogs have Barrack and Michelle’s dog over, it’s always a BYOBBOOBAMA situation.
As several commenters pointed out yesterday, COSMO should have been in that puzzle, and then he shows up today, dashing in likes he’s late for something.
I thought it was a very nice, easy Tuesday puzzle. Thank you, counselor, for a great write up, and thank you, Michael Lieberman for a fun puzzle.
@Smith
Yikes, sorry about all the typos @kitshef
For the technically incoherent: Spring, the meteorological version, runs from 1 March to 31 May. Likewise for the other 3 seasons: the weather critters have decided that the 'seasons' begin on the first day of the month of the solar event and end on the last day of the month preceding the next event. I lived in DC for about a decade (70s to 80s) and there was one winter, don't recall which, where we got a big snowstorm (big for anywhere, not just DC). DC had (has?) almost no plows, so the snow just sat there. We lived on Capitol Hill with narrow streets and parking on both sides; little alley parking. Cars packed the snow into washboard ruts, and the temperature stayed mostly below freezing for weeks. A lovely time was had by all.
Never knew they gave the dog an official last name. Only ever heard him called BO.
Hi, and welcome, Clare darlin! Looks like @RP finally was able to head out on vacation. Hope he has a great one.
Nice theme, but closest it came to the namesake armPITS was BO (+OBAMA, coincidentally).
Pangrammer. Any time U hanker for a pangram puz, cool stuff like JAYZ/JFK sure can help. Or UNBOX/EXE, if U get desperate. TARTAR/ATARI won't get U far, tho.
some fave sparkle moments: BOOBAMA. YEESH.
some tense moments: LAHTI/RAISMAN/AMELIE. Kinda knew two of em, but not how to spell them.
staff weeject pick: OBI. Needed to save the mighty UNBOX. OBI was also part of some weeject stacks action, so double-good stuff.
Thanx for pittin all the letters against us, Mr. Lieberman dude. Good job.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
**gruntz**
@egsforbreakfast The other thing I find weird is when peeps come to Rex's blog to complain about Rex. Maybe don't?
@Beezer Thanks. Tartar=Calculus. New to me.
A fun and easy puzzle. I was pleasantly surprised by the themer too; I didn't make the "pit" link between the long answers. However a minor music note. Concert Halls don't have pits. They have stages. A pit is in a theater - it's the depressed area in front of the stage where the orchestra is seated. The orchestra might be called a "pit band" or something similar in a musical comedy; they're the orchestra in an opera. In a concert hall the orchestra is usually on the stage. Minor detail - it didn't take away from the puzzle.
@10:13
just so you know, apparently your ignorant: Covid-ο is
- more lethal to the under 65 cohorts than the wild-type or any variant
- peak deaths already exceed that of Covid-δ
- it is being reported today that the UK and European countries, having dispensed with mitigations, are having 50% increases in infections and 20% increases in hospitalizations
- Covid-π, aka BA.2 is on the order of 80% more transmissible that vanilla omicron and is taking over on the Other Side of The Pond
IOW, the Phat Lady Ain't Sung Yet.
OTOH, if your goal is to kill off as many uneducated, Red state Rednecks as possible, then keep telling them, "What, me worry?"
Totally agree with @oceanjeremy -- I spent a good chunk of my solving time trying to suss out LAHTI RABAT RAISMAN. It's one thing to have to run the alphabet on one square (not a big deal) but when you have to do 2 or more, it becomes a headache.
My writeover today - Saying before SIMILE. Absolutely no problem to fix.
I thought this was a cute theme. Also, as 40D kept filling in, BO, then BOO, I looked at the dates given in the clue a couple of times, because the Clintons had their cat, BOOts, but wrong decade. I wasn't sure what was going to comprise the back half of the answer, whether it was BO or BOOts, so BOOBAMA was interesting.
Michael Lieberman, thanks for a nice Tuesday puzzle.
MFCTM.
okanaganer (1:30)
Conrad (5:59)
Anonymous (7:42)
egsforbreakfast (12:02)
@Nancy, I went back to your comment about “one BEING a pit” and figure you must have meant CASINOFLOOR. Since I’m not really up on gambling casinos I read up on Casino Pit on Wikipedia (Hi @Z!). Apparently the games that require a casino employee face outward (like maybe a square) and only casino employees are allowed in “the pit” area. For instance, the slot machine areas would be on the CASINOFLOOR but not “in the pit.” Why did I look this up? Who knows, but definitely not to prove you wrong!
This leads me to say to @Mathgent…for me, the theme revealer didn’t not help me with the themers (they were pretty straightforward) but the themers caused me to figure out the theme revealer, so that made me happy.
Nice write-up by Counselor Clare. Hilarious “Mom” story.
Very easy Tuesday until I reached the SE. For some reason my brain/mind filtered out SPAM for a while, and I also stuttered over the PPP. I forgot to look for a theme so the revealer was a bit of a “oh, uhunh, they all have PITS” moment, but mostly I liked this one. Yes we got a good helping of cheap threes - SSN TSE TSE EXE ETC - but some fun cropped up here and there:
BOOBAMA
OBI Wan and Sir ALEC
the symmetrical pairs NANNYCAM/ARE YOU OK, UNO/TON, and ROAST/SNACK.
EPSOM. Feels like I should have known EPSOM salts were named for a town in England. Probably one of the millions of things I’ve learned and forgotten.
Wasn’t sure if dental TARTAR was spelled the same as TARTAR sauce but I went with it. TARTeR was plausible but RABeT not so much.
Something different (maybe @M&A will like it) from today’s birthday composer, Colin McPhee (1900-1964). A Canadian, McPhee heard Balinese gamelan music in NYC and spent years in Bali studying it. His Balinese Ceremonial Music from 1934 is one of 41 direct transcriptions he made while in Bali. It’s interesting to hear some elements of minimalism, like repetition and layering, in this traditional music of Indonesia. One root word for classical gamelan music literally means ‘Intricate’ or ‘finely worked’. I’m not a big fan of minimalism but this is captivating. Also cool are these silent movies McPhee shot while in Bali.
Did you know that if you say "The La Brea Tar Pits" you are really saying "The The Tar Tar Pits?" Now you do...
Same natick for me. And I guessed wrong also. Fixed it when I didn't get the happy music.
Fun puz. I needed the comments to separate BO from OBAMA. Writeover on the NASCAR one because I'd carelessly put RACE instead of TRACK at the end.
yd -1; td -2.
Agree w/you re fear. Haven't locked my doors in 12+ yrs. Just moved to new city. Last week found a man in my front hall at 11:45PM. As my two 100-lb dogs and I ushered him outside, I didn't think tech (though I am locking the door), I thought puppies! Four dogs is double the joy!
Don't know the quote, but I had no hope with Lahti/Raisman/tartar/Rabat.
@GILL I, I just finished the Gorski puzzle you recommended…fun AND a work of art…lol…apropos, no?
Thank you councilor, your objections are sustained😉
@Whatsername - Your comments were in the spam folder. I have restored them as well as a comment yesterday from @bocamp.
Mazel tov, Clare. You're a real mensch. Take a break for a nosh!
PC's / MACS, whatever works for you. Competition is good; no need to disparage. :)
@A (1:23 PM)
Thx for the 'Balinese Ceremonial Music link. :)
@Eniale 👍 for recent SB results. :)
@A Moderator (2:18 PM) 😊
___
td pg: 8:03 / W: 3*
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Forgot to mention another word I liked: STROBE. Has anyone made a horror film featuring a STROBE NANNYCAM - or using one?
@bocamp - a new word! Wonder if there’s a way to do yesterday’s SB to see if I can figure it out.
@egs, I got a big kick out of your “they don’t read a newspaper or any literature” comment. Thanks for the guffaw. Nice image also of COSMO dashing in.
Think we’ll just have to apply Joaquin’s Dictum to CONCERT HALL PITS.
@Frantic, I’m a QUOTE/QUOTA lazy/playful fence-sitter, too, except I did notice it. Noticed and still didn’t have the answer. Naturally I ran to etymoline.com to see if there was UNO shred of hope that they might not share the same root. They do, of course, but QUOTA stayed closer to the original:
quote (v.)
late 14c., coten, "to mark or annotate (a book) with chapter numbers or marginal references" (a sense now obsolete), from Old French coter and directly from Medieval Latin quotare "distinguish by numbers, mark off into chapters and verses," from Latin quotus "which in order? what number (in sequence)?," from quot "how many," from PIE *kwo-ti-, from pronominal root *kwo-.
The sense development is via "to give as a reference, to cite as an authority" (1570s) to "to copy out or repeat exact words" (1670s), in writing or printing, "inclose within quotation marks." In Middle English also "to compute, reckon." The modern spelling with qu- is attested from early 15c. The business sense of "to state the price of a commodity" (1866) revives the etymological meaning.
@Z, I see it was wrong but my first thought was this: “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.” Fitting for today’s date, too.
@bocamp 6:02am, re Spelling Bee, that's 1 of the 2 I missed yd. td: reached pg in 2:02... new record!
@Z 10:37a - agree with the fantasy feel of Foundation plus I haven’t warmed up to the actor playing Seldon just yet.
I was very lucky that I didn't fill in the obvious answer for 23A, CASION table until I had some crosses to show it didn't work. No, I didn't fill it in then, either, so that was OK. I did go for Saying before SIMILE, but RAISMAN and IRE fixed that up. Surprised so many never heard of Aly RAISMAN, she was extremely famous as she organized fellow gymnasts to accuse their team doctor, and testified against him in court. Even so, I needed a couple crosses to remember her last name.
I don't really care that many CONCERT HALLs do not have pits; Joaquin's rule, isn't it?
@Z I think many people use nannycams when they're at home, so they can check the baby without disturbing it. My daughter and her husband put their babies bedroom on the third floor (all the second floor rooms were in use); the nannycam was extremely useful if they heard the baby cry, as they could see whether they needed to go up there. My ex and I raised our three kids before such devices existed, so we followed Dr. Spock's advice, viz., to hold each other to prevent either one of us from rushing to the rescue. It worked, but was a little nerve-wracking; a camera would have been great.
Welcome back, @Clare, hope to see more of you here.
@A (3:20 PM)
There doesn't seem to be an archive yet. You can see the letters for yd's SB here. The word I added to my List is 7 letters, and may or may not be known to you. I didn't know it, but certainly do now. :)
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Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I am outraged at PAWS/PEDAL in the NE corner. Almost the same since they deal with feet and a pretty sneaky way to get another "P" in the puzzle.
Litany Against Fear
“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Frank Herbert, Dune
I 100% Naticked at the RAISMAN/LAHTI crossing....I remembered her name as Aly Reisman, and Lehti seemed reasonable. Took me a while to find that error.
@Son Volt - Does the fact that he is Richard Harris’ son affect the way you feel about him? He’s definitely not the way I remember Hari Seldon but I think that’s more due to how his role is being written. I’ve resisted the temptation to pick up Foundation again just because there’s so much current stuff on my to read list and I am at least mildly fearful to see what doesn’t hold up anymore.
@jberg - I hear you. By kid three one overcomes the idea that one needs to check on the baby unless the babe is crying. IMO Parents should be weaned from their NANNY CAM binkys.
@A - Yep, a very apt Ides of March quote. Which reminded me of this from Twitter this morning:
People are losing the spirit of the Ides of March. It’s not about just stabbing. It’s about coming together to stab in groups.
Yes. I laughed. Tragedy + time = Comedy
@bocamp - Where’s the fun in not disparaging those PC heathens? We just won’t discuss what happened on August 6, 1997.
@Z (6:04 PM)
Good stuff! :)
August 6, 1997: "Microsoft buys a minority stake in struggling Apple Computers for $150 million and they agree to share technology. The deal helped Apple on Wall Street, sending the company's stock up to close at its highest price in over a year. Microsoft no longer owns Apple stock, but this was an important moment in the development of Apple as a major corporation." (thepeoplehistory.com)
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Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@Z
OMG! After years of reading your comments and somehow just assuming you were of the male persuasion, now I find out you are Bene Geseret trained, and thus, I assume, female!
Or are you the Quidditch Haberdashery (or whatever it was they called Paul)?
It’s old news that but for Bill Gates, slave labor in China and no moral compass, Apple wouldn’t exist.
@7:09
well... Steve looked cool in the black turtleneck. shafted Woz, of course, but who's counting?
The clue for 50A CONCERT HALL is "Philharmonic's home". When I typed that in on google the first response to come up was the New York Philharmonic's home, the David Geffen Hall. When I checked out some images, here's one, there was no PIT. I'm not sure how anyone's dictum can justify ignoring what looks like a major issue there, as in one of the themers doesn't have a PIT.
Another clue for 40D:
A Trump-ette's name foe a fan of the president before Trump
BOOB-AMA.
@David from CA - Quidditch Haberdashery - 🤣😂🤣😂🤣
@Z - I was one of the outliers who read Dune before Asimov. After the first three - I did read Edge and Earth but never the prequel books. I don’t have the patience to go back and revisit them now. Earthsea on the other hand…
A list of four things that all have pit? Really? Why on earth did this get the green light from Will Shortz? Micheal Lieberman is lucky Rex was away. He would have said: ITSTHEPITS.
PS - DNF because of the Natick at the LAHTI - RAISMAN crossing. I guessed an E instead of an A. Two unknown names like that should never cross. That’s just NASTy.
QUOTA MENSCH
AMELIE asked, "AREYOUOK?"
YEESH, what a COED, dressed to SLAY,
TRU, I EYED up her ITSY bits,
"UNLESS you're a CCUP, IT'STHEPITS."
--- ROD RAISMAN
@spacey - I did try calling and texting . . .?
Would have liked to shake your hand.
thefogman just beat me to commenting on the same Natick I had, with the same error. On the other hand, I did enjoy 35A crossing 35D, probably because I went to a certain college mentioned within the past year in the NYT Crossword (hint: the clue compared it to Hampden-Sydney).
I have actually been to EPSOM. The TRACK (for the Derby--pronounced "Darby" of course) is incredibly on the side of a hill. A horse named Santa Claus came from last place around the final turn to win, flying by the field like they were standing still. It was one of the most electrifying finishes I've ever seen.
Back home, we have a puzzle, and one whose theme I didn't get until the very last letters: a change from ScAM to SPAM, and from AMELIa to AMELIE. A nice aha! moment.
It's a bit of a name-stuffer, and there is some short fill junk, but basically it was a rewarding experience. Par.
The SE corner was THE PITS, with all those unknown (to me) names. Still, I managed to get it all done with only one incorrect (guessed) letter. the E/A thingy. That...does...not...count! (I'm with @Foggy and the @Eights) (sounds like a band name)
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
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