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1998 Robert De Niro crime thriller / SAT 4-16-22 / Footslog / Early Macedonian capital / Drink marvelously sloganeer / Silent counterparts once / Native Costa Ricans informally / Famed Portuguese explorer / Big name in crackers
Saturday, April 16, 2022
Constructor: Hemant Mehta
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL (17A: Line of Pokémon) —
Gotta Catch 'Em All is the English slogan for the Pokémon franchise. It may also refer to:
- The alternate name for "Pokémon Theme", the first theme song of the English dubbed Pokémon anime series
- "Gotta Catch 'Em All" (song), a 2001 song by 50.Grind (wikipedia)
• • •
I wanted 14A: Social elites to be ELIT...ISTS? But for multiple reasons, that wasn't happening. So I actually had to abandon the NW ship and go to the NE section to get traction, but the vibe wasn't exactly hospitable over there, either. Thank god for Susan ORLEAN, whose name I knew well and who made all the Downs in that section possible (before her, they were not ... except maybe TALKIES (12D: Silent counterparts, once)). After working my way through the NE, I figured out GIRLS Who Code (20A: ___ Who Code (nonprofit)), which gave meant I had the -AG in DRAG, which was all I needed to get DRAG INTO COURT (7D: Sue). It was then and only then that I felt a real sense of confidence with this puzzle. There's a tipping point with Th / F / Sat puzzles that I have to get to before I have the inner belief that I'll actually be able to solve the thing. Never mind that I've solved every puzzle to completion going back as far as I can remember—I still expect to be completely stymied every time I embark on a late-week puzzle, and it took longer than usual today to get that confidence. Side note: I thought the phrase was HAUL INTO COURT, but LOL when I GOOGLE that phrase in quotation marks I just get crossword sites. The DRAG version is apparently 100x more common.
[Warning: extreme booty content]
I didn't really have *fun* with this puzzle until STICKY FINGERS (15D: Propensity for pilfering). Since I balked at DRAG, DRAG INTO COURT didn't give me the thrill it should've, but STICKY FINGERS came close behind and did the job nicely. And then the middle of the grid ended up being pretty delightful. I didn't know Daisy Dukes were known as BOOTY SHORTS (28A: Daisy Dukes, e.g.)—I just knew them as short-shorts, denim cut-offs, but I will be honest and say the BOOTY part was not exactly hard to infer. I think I kinda like [Draft status?] for KING OF BEERS though it's weird to have a Budweiser slogan here with no direct reference at all to Budweiser in either the clue or the answer. Clydesdales are "draught" ("draft"!) horses, so I thought maybe there was some oblique reference there, but maybe that was accidental, since the "draft" in the clue clearly refers primarily if not exclusively to beer. Anyway, I still liked the clue, even if it feels ... odd. I also like GEOCENTRIC ORBIT, which has a deceptively innocent-looking and potentially highly misdirective clue (43A: Travel around the world).
- 38A: Sound of the West Coast (PUGET) — Puns! The PUGET Sound is off the coast of NW Washington. Seattle is on the Sound. This clue brought back fond (fondish) memories of the college recruitment brochures I received in the mail as a high school student from the University of PUGET Sound, which had the tagline: "How Does PUGET sound ...?" As I said, Puns!
- 23D: New York county near Pennsylvania (TIOGA) — As someone who lives in a New York county near Pennsylvania, my first thought here was "... all of them!?" What a bizarre clue. New York sits right on top of Pennsylvania. "Near Pennsylvania" tells you nothing. It's vague *and* bland. Just terrible. TIOGA County is part of the Binghamton, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area (I just found out). I drive through the county seat, Owego, every time I go to Ithaca. The point is, don't come into my backyard with junk clues. It's insulting. Look at alllllllll these counties that are "near" Pennsylvania!:
 |
| [PA is the blank space below NY. TIOGA County is in red] |
- 49A: Divinity (GODHOOD) — really wanted GODHEAD. Like, really really. I still kinda want it.
- 41D: Contests in which the competitors are eliminated one by one (BEES) — In retrospect, yes, of course, but somehow it took me an embarrassingly long time to see this.
- 13D: Where cruise passengers end up (ON LAND) — what is this clue doing? ON LAND? That's also where cruise passengers start. It's a ridiculously nonspecific phrase, one that also looks a lot like ISLAND (sorry if you fell in that hole). I mean, the answer may as well have been GRAVES for how meaninglessly "accurate" it is.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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96 comments:
Got Naticked by _ICOS and _IOGA. Just had to alphaguess my way through it.
Has Mehta constructed for the NYT before? Same guy as the atheist activist?
For some odd reason, the three long downs were essentially "gimmes" for me, with almost no crosses needed. The rest of the puzzle - not so much. Except for the Pokemon clue which took me from "not so much" to "not at all".
Thanks Mr. Mehta for the excellent mental workout.
@Zen. a quick Lookup in a GOOGLE way shows Mr. Mehta to be a writer, blogger, and (Hooray) an "atheist activist".
TIOGA/TICOS is a Natick for the ages.
Well, let me say this, Hemant can fill a 64-worder – a full-of-white grid – cleanly. That is ridiculously hard to do, requires great skill and great perseverance. And let me add this: He knows how to give a puzzle a fresh feel. Here we have nine NYT puzzle answer debuts, including the three long abutting downs and the stagger-stack in the middle. They’re all debuts! And five of those six answers are so lively and colorful:
BOOTY SHORTS
DRAG INTO COURT
MEDIA CIRCUS
KING OF BEERS
STICKY FINGERS
Magnificent construction. But most important, how was the solve? Well, for me, Saturday grueling, where I claw for holds anywhere and have a momentary fiesta at actually placing an answer in. Usually, for me, a new answer begets another, or if I’m lucky, a splat fill, but that happened maybe twice today. And so, a tramp through thick mud – just the trek my brain craves and hopes for on Saturday. I swear it keeps my brain feeling young.
I liked the PANDA / BAMBOO / BITE ME mini-tale, and the EL NINO / GEOCENTRIC ORBIT / ASTRO macro-feel. I liked the symmetrical MOVIE AD and TALKIES. I smiled at STAY near the [“Oh, get outta here!”] clue. And how did I fall for so long for the [Sound of the West Coast] misdirect?
Fresh and tough. A worthy and wonderful Saturday. Thank you, Hemant!
Lots to like (STICKY FINGERS, CROSS BREEDING, MEDIA CIRCUS, to name a few). For Daisy Dukes, I had “cut off jeans” before “short SHORTS” before getting it right with a phrase I had never heard. Interesting that 3 long answers were the right number of letters
This might be "medium" if you can get a foothold anywhere up top, but I can tell you from experience that it was "challenging" to solve from the bottom up. I just stared blankly for the first ten minutes before giving up and starting down South, from where I slowly inched my way diagonally up to the NE and eventually finished in the NW. Not a complaint, just an observation.
I cheated. Not only did I cheat, I committed a cheat-within-a-cheat. When the Wikipedia article on "Macedonia (ancient kingdom)" yielded only Aigai and Pella, neither of which fit 48A, I searched inside the other Macedonia disambiguation entries until I found EDESSA. If a constructor expects me to know Macedonian arcana and New York counties not in the NYC metro area, he can 3D.
meaninglessly accurate - I love this concept.
Cannot believe how long it took me to see through the Not West Side Story But Hockey misdirect.
Isn’t TIOGA an RV? OMG - it is! Why do I know that?
I don’t know about you but I’m personally and deeply offended by the W in SNOWCONE. It’s a SNOCONE, dammit.
Thx Hemant, for an awesome Sat. challenge! :)
Very hard.
I was definitely in GEOCENTRIC ORBIT on this one; not even close to HM's wavelength. Won't belabor the things I didn't know; just suffice to say, they were legion.
Dropped in de GAMA (later corrected) right off, but had to go all the way down to PUGET Sound to get a more solid starting point, and branched out from there.
So gratifying to be able to hang in there on such a stumper. Getting the music was a GODsend.
But, any time you've got fair crosses, you've got a fighting chance!
What an exhilarating journey thru outer space! Enjoyed every nano second of blood, sweat and tears.
___
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Is GEOcentric orbit the right answer for the clue “travel around the world”? Isn’t a Geocentric orbit on that is stationary over a point on the globe? Thus it would not travel around the world.
Ooh, everybody clap, I nailed a Saturday. In and of itself, very rewarding, but I even enjoyed this one. It's nice to know OFL meets late week puzzles with a sense of trepidation, despite no DNFs in sight for eons and, I imagine, no times over a few minutes. I flew thru this in under ONEHR, so am very happy.
@lewis, appreciate the mini-tale and macro-feel points, hadn't gotten there. My own revolved around COO, COEUR, BOOTYSHORTS, GIRLS, BARED, and GOTTACATCHEMALL, but those are days long past. Let's KEEPTO the puzzle.
Toughest part for me was the NE. No idea how SKA and rocksteady are related, fist before CAIN (tho should've let go of that quicker given it's Saturday), and the same problem with ONLAND as Rex (INPORT? ATDOCK? INASEA? ONDECK? - nothing there).
@Beezer from yd, wasn't feeling corrected at all, and most certainly would not amend what sounds like fun exchanges with your husband (smiles, though may some be of the huckleberry wreath for a knight variety). Doc says "I'm your huckleberry" twice, tho i think the first time lands best, when he's taking Ringo up on a fight. Search 'Tombstone clips' on YouTube if you want another dive into Tombstone fandom. I found a couple funny ones on their exchange in Latin that I hadn't taken in.
Hope all here have a fine holiday weekend, whatever celebrated.
Quite a challenge for me, which I liked.
A lot of the difficulty was due to unknown names or products (AVERY, HECHT, CARRS, EDESSA) but, and this is key, everything was crossed fairly, so that once the answer was filled in, I felt comfortable that it was correct.
Minor downside is that many of the clues just seemed off. Bad thing to miss for MEMO, Good luck with that for CLOVER, Oh get out of here for BITE ME. But still, a good time was had overall.
One thing I did know was TICOS. Costa Rica’s national soccer team is known as the TICOS, and they are pretty good. All time versus the USA, when playing in Costa Rica, they are 11-1-1.
Today my knowledge base was sorely tested and found wanting. I hadn't a clue for Line of Pokemon, Daisy Dukes, and the Geocentr part of Round the World Travel. Dagama went in easily, but everything after was like pulling teeth. Wish I had stuck with it, but lost this round. I say Challenging.
Still chuckling at ‘bite me’ in the NYT!
@Swimwolff - ASTROphysical scientist - “Hey, where’s our satellite?”
ASTROphysical scientist’s assistant- “Oh, it’s somewhere around here.”
Ticos ? They're okay with that ? I went for Nicos/Nioga, which admittedly is no better.
Very proud of Sticky fingers with one letter help, the k from rinks. So much of the cluing was aggravating for me, but it is a Saturday so I guess aggravation is part of the deal. But what era was the "rocksteady" genre ? That's from way out in left field.
BTW, Sticky Fingers is superior to any album from that other Brit group.
Got Naticked by Orlean/eres.
EEC=European Economic Community; more or less the predecessor of the European Union. Tough, tough puzzle today. Did not like "Booty shorts." Hot pants? Si. Short-shorts? Sure. Booty shorts? Hell, no.
Tough clues. Some lovely misdirects...but Sharks and Jets would have been more fun as turf. And isn't "ticos" a rude term?
Nonetheless, great fun to solve.
Tough one. Say, does anyone do the mini puzzle? If so, do you think it sometimes has a clue or two that references the daily crossword?
Not a fan of the NW corner. There's no hint of an abbreviation in DC BASED (like there is later with the weak ONE HR), A LISTERS sounds like the kind of celebrity worship I try to avoid, and "Oh, get outta here" can just BITE ME. Speaking of that one, we get a 'folksy' clue for the straight BITE ME, but we get a straight clue for the folksy GOTTA CATCH EM ALL? What gives? Finally, I get tens of MEMOs every week and frankly, missing most of them would not be a bad thing.
Other than that, most of the rest was solid, with the exception of ONE HR and the TICOS/TIOGA NATICK crossing. I liked the long downs and the PPP and foreign languages were kept to a minimum.
This was the most difficult Saturday I've completed in a long time. For me it was primarily the NW. That section alone took twice as long to fill as the rest of the puzzle. The rest of the puzzle wasn't easy either.
The start and the end of the solve were oddly similar. A wrong guess of RICOS for 23A was all I needed to get STICKYFINGERS which got the ball rolling for most of the puzzle. Luckily I'm familiar with enough with TIOGA to recognize it. Being convinced that 1D was DeGAMA was what allowed me to get the NW and I've never seen the term eLISTERS so that A was my final correction. This was on paper last night so no prompting from software.
I'm amazed that 17A isn't a debut. I must have missed that puzzle. It would have saved me much work but wouldn't have been half as gratifying. My initial guesses for those first five letters were GOAND and GETEN neither of which helped even though they were partly right. Changing 22A from MEAL to MARK and then MEMO finally broke the dam.
As @Lewis pointed out those crossing center stacks are amazing. This is the kind of puzzle that should get the POW!
yd -0
Pokémon got me - somehow I conflated Pokémon and Tamagotchi and I was shopping at the Gettagatche mall. Yeah, CLeVER wasn't going to bring anyone luck but I had spent 6 minutes on that NW already and just threw in the towel.
Like Rex, ORLEAN was a gimme and it was my entry into the puzzle. NE and SE were easy but the SW was a little glitchy - I'm still not convinced OIL goes with “color” in the same way as it goes with “change” (water color, yes. Oil color, what?) and Edessa is a WOE. I did like the clue for LANCED.
Hemant Mehta, nice puzzle and a lovely looking grid. Thanks!
What a rubbish puzzle. A bad thing to miss is a MEMO? Good luck with that is CLOVER? You have got to be kidding me. What a miserable slog through a lot of totally random tirvia and poor clues.
Personally, I was a bit put off by BITE ME, which I always seem to feel is more pejorative than a simple “Oh, good luck with that”. On the other side of the coin, got a kick out of the hockey rinks clue and the “Stuck in the Middle Ages” for LANCED, which I thought was marvelous.
I knew yesterday that we were way under budget on trivia for the week, and today we at least began the reversion to the mean: Sue Orlean, Pokémon, RONIN, HECHT, COEUR, CARRS, TIOGA, EDESSA . . . that’s some industrial-grade PPP right there - at least most of it is from the last 50 years or so though (and fair enough for a Saturday).
If the NYT staff could bring us these types of puzzles week-in and week-out, they would in fact be the gold standard.
All I had for a while was ERES and a feeling of desperation, but still, I persisted, and completed one of the more satisfying Saturdays in a while. I was thinking I knew nothing about Pokemon, for instance, until most of the slogan filled in and there it was, duh.
Lots of names I didn't know, AVERY and ORLEAN for two. If a three-letter music thing isn't EMO it must be SKA, so that helped.
When I was in seventh grade in NYS I had to learn all the counties and be able to put them on a map, so TIOGA went in off the T. I grew up in Fulton county, and my wife's maiden name is Fulton, so, kismet.
The TICOS have the best motto ever-Pura Vida!. Amen to that.
Great Saturday, HM. At first a Hot Mess but now I feel like I deserve a Hero Medal. Thanks for all the fun.
This puzzle is on its transcontinental voyage to Nancy's wall.
Is there some connection between Tioga and Pennsylvania? What an odd clue.
And I'm sure the last time TIOGA appeared, I mentioned: my birthplace is on the other side of the state line. So TIOGA is also a Pennsylvania county near New York. The two counties don't touch.
Low word count themeless - tough task but I liked this for the most part. Agree that some of the cluing is obtuse - ON LAND , BOOTY SHORTS even KING OF BEERS.
No issue with DRAG - liked that entire center tri-stack. Hand up for SNO CONE - drop the W. Knew - but still backed into the Pokémon phrase. No clue on ORLEAN or EDESSA.
Thinking about PANDAs is always enjoyable.
Good Lord....
@Swimwolff - First, you're thinking GEOsynchronous orbit. Second, even they orbit the earth in a GEOCENTRIC orbit. As do you, more or less. Every day.
It makes me happy to know Rex has that same feeling that he'll never be able to finish late week puzzles. We're all in this together! It's probably why we STAY around. I love his GRAVES answer suggestion, although hopefully not pending watery ones. I'm also on team haulINTOCOURT.
Without the obvious GOOGL-E, I probably would have thought that the Macedonian empire somehow extended as far as oDESSA.
Lots of white space to fill after initial passes, but never felt stuck - a great Saturday experience.
Hands up for taking way too long to see NHL/not West Side Story: it took a vowel run at R-NKS.
Somehow I could remember the terrific movie Adaptation, and the screenplay adaptor Charlie Kaufman, but took a long time to get to (Susan) Orlean.
I'll never figure out how someone who goes into a male-gaze rant if OGLE appears in a puzzle could post that video.
I think the clue for MEMO is specifically referring to the phrase "Didn't get the memo" / "got the memo"
Parents lived in Federal Way, on PUGET Sound, for a spell in the '70s.
"Gotta catch 'em all! is the English slogan of the Pokémon franchise, including the English language Pokémon video games. The Japanese equivalent is Get Pokémon! (Japanese: ポケモンゲットだぜー！ Pokémon get da ze~!, also spelt ポケモンＧＥＴだぜー！)" (bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net)
Pokeman - GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL (w/lyrics)
I want to be the very best
Like no one ever was
To catch them is my real test
To train them is my cause
I will travel across the land
Searching far and wide
Each Pokemon to understand
The power that's inside
@puzzlehoarder (9:09 AM) 👍 for -0 yd! :)
___
td pg: 24:16 / W: 4*
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
===
“Our goal is never revenge, just restoration. / Not dominance, just dignity. / Not fear, just freedom. / Just justice.” (Amanda Gorman from “Fury and Faith”)
Hey All !
Whoo! Finished error free! Didn't think I'd be able to. Decided to tough it out without Check feature or GOOGLE. Which I did. Perseverance at its finest. Some hairy spots in NW and NE.
Kept waffling twixt KEEPTO and KEPTTO. Anyone notice TSARISTS fits where PEASANTS is? But figured the TSARISTS were the ones getting revolutioned on, not the ones doing the revolutionizing. That C block was tough, CAIN,CANED,CARRS. Wanted CHIN for CAIN. Wanted KERRS for CARRS. Was finally able to see PEASANTS, and threw in my final letter, which was the R of ORLEAN/ERES, held my breath for a second, and ... Happy Music!
NW was also tough. Not knowing AVERY, and ALISTERS clued as Social elites and not Movie actors was strange. Plus that DCBASED. Got through it, though.
Had Oast for OVEN first. Funny how you misdirect yourself, thinking how smart am I to know OAST right off the bat! Now, why doesn't it fit the crosses?
shortSHORTS first. BOOTY SHORTS is a modern reappropriation of that. Kids these days...
So a fun solve for me, as I eschewed my normal "this puz is too tough, time to cheat!" routine, and completed in less the ONE HR. DAMN(S)! 😁
YesterComments comment:
With my wonderful memory, forgot who said that yes indeed, there were V's in the puz. I knew that, I was just seeing if anyone was paying attention. (Oops!)
yd -4, should'ves 1
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
I like GEOCENTRIC ORBIT.
GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL -- It's funny that a Pokemon clue puts me in mind of baseball. Specifically, the avuncular former Twins radio announcer John Gordon -- whose home-run catch phrase was "TouCH 'EM ALL!"
As in, "TouCH 'EM ALL, Tori Hunter!" And the crowd goes wild, fellow car horns a-honk upon the highway, we won!
Like @Rex, GODHeaD before GODHOOD, figuring EL NINa confirmed it. Today being Holy Saturday, it makes sense to run a puzzle by an atheist activist -- this liminal time on the liturgical calendar when the man upstairs is elsewhere. I enjoyed the challenge today.
When you don't know zilch about Pokemon, like me, you won't even know whether the "line" in question is something someone says or whether it's a "line" on the board of a board game. And when you build half your puzzle around it...well, don't even get me started.
MALL came in first, so I thought we were going to tHE MALL. Eventually CROSS BREEDING -- I'd come up from the bottom -- made me realize that we had CHE MALL. What on earth???
I eventually changed ERES to ERaS (no, I don't speak Spanish) because GOTTA CATCHA MALL (whatever that means) makes somewhat more sense than GOTTA CATCHE MALL. (Gitchy-gitchy-goo???)
GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL??? Never even saw it.
Moving right along: I never even heard of BOOTY SHORTS, much less knowing that Daisy Dukes are one of the brands. And if I had gone to my grave not knowing that, it would have been just ducky.
Mere CLOVER doesn't bring good luck. It has to be a four-leaf clover to be lucky. Just an awful clue.
I did like STICKY FINGERS and MEDIA CIRCUS. I needed one cheat, AVERY, to finish the impossible NW corner.
At the end, I had two wrong letters. First was the rIOGA/rICOS cross. More perplexing was not being able to get BAMBOO to work with GODHeaD. I already had EL NINa (don't ask) and I didn't know what to do with BAMBOe. GODHOOD is a thing? I couldn't get GODHEAD out of my head. I left it BAMBOO/GODHOAD and came here. EL NINa was a really dumb mistake.
Whelp, 32D GOOGLE made solving half this puzzle possible for me. Way beyond my solving chops.
Hilarious, @mathgent!!!! Absolutely hilarious!!!
I thought this was a terrific Saturday, very tough, very rewarding. It was a two-session puzzle for me, as I gave up last night with the grid half full and my brain empty. This morning, DRAG INTO COURT x BOOTY SHORTS sprang into view, and I was able to complete my commando crawl into the NW. Last in: BITE ME x AVERY. So many lively phrases made this one a delight.
Despite knowing a couple of the A-LISTERS up top - DA GAMA and ORLEAN, along with HECHT in the middle, I only was able to get some traction in the SE corner, with EL NINO + BAMBOO. I agree with @Lobster11 7:45 about it being challenging to solve from the bottom up, and I'd add, to solve by backing in from the right edge: the beginnings of those six marvelous central phrases just wouldn't come to me, without a lot of hard-won crosses. I did have a couple of no-crosses "triumphs," PUGET and LANCED to spur me on when finishing prospects looked a little bleak.
@Lewis 7:15, thank you for pointing out the grid "extras."
I'm amazed that I finished this. At the very last second before looking up "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," which I've never seen, I saw that ACERY would fit there, that it really was BITE ME, and that the White House press, while it might be DeBASED was also DC-BASED, and that I did not need good luck with an e-LOVER.
Before I got there, I was seriously slowed because I remembered the Pokemon slogan as "GOTTA geT thEM ALL," and because I was confusing Daisy Duke with some combination of her cousins Doris and Patty, whom I figured had done something with SpORTS, or maybe resORTS. I finally remembered Ben HECHT, which more or less sorted it all out for me.
I did know GIRLS Who Code (though wrongly thinking that it had something to do with ace constructor Aimee Lucido, who wrote a children's book "Emmy in the Key of Code"), and for some reason was sure of TICOS. The former helped me overcome my bad Spanish, which wanted 'de donde Esta?'
But the hardest thing for me was RINKS. If Rex doesn't know what the EEC was, I feel it's OK not to know about Winnipeg athletic teams, and I was pretty sure Joe Namath didn't play in a rink. Ah well.
I thought sno-cone sans W was a brand name, but M-W says it's just a variant spelling.
Oh. My. Gof. For the first time, my puzzle experience was so much like @Rex’s that I can tell you that the only things I disagreed with was his takes on “miss the memo” and ASTRO. I am in the sweet spot of age that I knew the Pokémon clue because my son collected the cards but a definite toughie for those who did not collect or had children that collected them.
Only potential minor nit. I’m running short on time today so I will look later for confirmation or “wrongness”…but to ME “caning” is a particular kind of handiwork that is not what I associate with wicker. I think of wicker as “woven” and confidently plopped that in at first.
@thefenn…I stand happily corrected! I think of the scene when Doc has had one of his TB bouts but he then musters up for the battle!
@mathgent…I’m sorry to hear you didn’t like the puzzle but I’ve been wanting to tell you I’m reading The Plot now…so far, I’m engaged!
@Zed…🤣 on SNOCONE and if you can do it with THAT you might as well do ORIO for the cookie!
Hoo boy, I’m glad I did this one in the app and not with my Sunday pen to paper. I had so many rewrites! Circumnavigation, Cut-off jeans (then shortSHORTS when I got the East fixed), DeGAMA, etc.
One thing I did know was TICOS, so I didn’t get Naticked there. Helps to have been to Costa Rica.
Lots of fresh… loved STICKYFINGERS, one of my favorite albums.
Never heard GODHOOD before, but makes sense.
Hated almost everything about this puzzle. What an unenjoyable slog.
I don't think there is any viable _IOGA word besides TIOGA.
One word can sum my experience today - frustrating. Even with a GOOGLE on some of the PPP, it was a tough go. Not even in the same ORBIT as this constructor I’m afraid. Among those that CROSSed me up were the clues for TALKIES, MEMO, CLOVER, OIL. I know about oil changes but WOE is oil color? Wanted SHORT SHORTS on the long cross, never heard of EEC and Pokémon was a distant dusty memory.
Finally KOHLS as an alternative to Target? No no no no no no NO! I’ve spent a lot of time in Kohl’s stores so trust me. Yes they do both sell such things as clothing, shoes and accessories but at Kohl’s you will not find a single grocery item; no pet supplies, office supplies, hardware, electronics, computers or pharmaceuticals; and you certain can’t get a Covid vaccine - at least not in any Kohl’s store I’ve ever visited.
Anyone else put DeBASED for the Washington press corps? I’m a recovering journalist, and I hate to denigrate my profession, but I still wanted it.
I am DC-BASED, but definitely not among the A-LISTERS who all got Covid at the recent Gridiron Dinner. And while I was occasionally part of a MEDIA CIRCUS, I have yet to be the object of one and hope I never will be.
I liked this a lot, other than ONE HR, which seemed like something no one would ever write, and EDESSA, which I’v never heard of. Of course I tried ODESSA even though it made no sense geographically. And I think ODESSA would have had a more contemporary clue like “city besieged be a Russian navy that just got its flagship sunk and should really sail on home now.”
Loved the clue for LANCED. I was not fooled by the “sound” misdirect, but you did get me with the RINKS. I just watched the new “West Side Story” and loved it. Ariana DeBose absolutely deserved that Oscar.
As for the TICOS, all I have to say is “¡Pura vida!”
A bit off topic here, but maybe someone can help. I love to do the New Yorker magazine’s crosswords. I like to solve them on my Ipad. But lately there is an on-screen virtual keyboard which pops up at the bottom of the page and you cannot disable. At least I can’t. The on-screen keyboard is crappy and I want to disable it so I can continue to solve using my Ipad’s bluetooth (Logitech) keyboard. Has anyone else encountered this and solved it? Thanks!
I had quibbles with some of the clues. At 5A, [Stick with] is keep at, not KEEP TO. At 45D, COO is a verb, and only a verb, as far as I can tell, while the clue [Soft-spoken words] wants a noun.
This past week I've been researching Costa Rica for an upcoming trip. I hadn't heard of TICO/TICA before reading up on it.
This is not considered an offensive term. It comes from the Costa Rican propensity to use the suffix -ico or -ica as a diminutive, as in momentico (whereas I learned momentito in Spanish class)
Even though not considered offensive, it's best to use it only when in familiar/informal conversation.
@thefogman 11:23 - Yikes, same here! My iPad's bluetooth keyboard won't register. I've been doing the puzzles in the mag lately, so hadn't noticed this, but I also like to go back to earlier puzzles and solve online. My solution will be to take a screen shot of the one-page "Print" version and then write in the answers with my finger, using "Mark-up." Anything to avoid a horrible onscreen keyboard! But maybe someone else will know how to make an external keyboard work?
The term Booty Shorts may be used today, but back when The Dukes of Hazzard was airing on tv (featuring Daisy Duke in her famous cutoffs), the term was definitely SHORT SHORTS. Not sure if the constructor or the editor got this one wrong but they definitely got it wrong. I watched that show every week and all anyone talked about were Daisy Duke's short shorts. Catherine Bach (who played Daisy Duke) even calls them short shorts. The only acceptable synonym is Daisy Dukes. Booty Shorts? No. Someone's been watching way too much Keeping up with the Kardashians.😂😂😂
I thought it was a good omen when I popped DAGAMA and ARE right into the grid. Then I hit Fresh Prince and Pokemon and knew I was in over my head by a generation or two. I vaguely remembered some critters called Hatchimalls (sic). Could they be related to Pokemons? Who the hell knows?
Of course they are called shortSHORTS! There’s a jingle stuck in my head now, “who wears etc”. I stuck BOOTY in there but I just felt sad for the disenfranchised pirates.
I did like STICKYFINGERS ( ahh glazed Krispy Kreme) and DRAGINTOCOURT. Illegality and sugar belong together.
KINGOFBEERS was too great a leap from that clue.
GODHOOD somehow smacked of blasphemy this weekend guys. It’s time for more sensitivity training for the editorial schedulers.
I finished if you can call it that with a cheat for AVERY and KETELONE. I’m not much of a drinker, but I’d make an exception for @Gill.
COO BAMBOO and GOOGLE too!
Experts recommend not having interccourse in the midst of a fight as CROSSBREEDING is a “Practice that yields mixed results.”
DRAGINTOCOURT must be the new Ru Paul remake of Perry Mason, possibly replete with BOOTYSHORTS.
As I look out my kitchen window at PUGET Sound, I find myself thinking that this was a hard but rewarding puzzle. It took me until the SE corner to really get a toehold, but I built steadily back from there. Thanks, Hemant Mehta.
Well well, isn't @Rexy full of surprises. "Brown Sugar" is off the Stones' set list —or did you not get, excuse me "miss", the memo? Also, part of the blank space below New York on your map is New Jersey. But no one cares about New Jersey.
Hated this puzzle. As evidence of why, I am dragging into court Exhibit A:
ONEHR
I rest my case. I could complain more but today I GOT A CAT AT THE MALL so I have to give him beer, plus I have pandas to crossbreed with geocentric bees. Then I have to learn all the lyrics to this.
(Guessed today's Phrazle in 3, woo-hoo.)
A word to those who kvetch that geosynchronous orbit isn't really an orbit, since it means the satellite remains over, more or less, the same spot on the ground: orbit is relative to the axis of rotation, not an intermediary object, e.g. Mother Earth. Without that kind of functional orbit, we'd have low earth orbit satellites turning into the LA Freeways at rush hour... oh wait, that's exactly what Musk is doing. So he can turn Twitter into a global Qanon factory. Brave New World, indeed.
Ugh. Most challenging Saturday for me in a month of… Saturdays, I guess? Northwest almost ended me, starting with the ridiculous DCBASED clue. Does this open up a new era of random, location-BASED clues? Like most movie productions? CABASED? Like most sled dogs? AKBASED? Like many corporate tax-havens? DEBASED? Just, no. And surely we could have had a less obscure clue for AVERY, one that didn’t evoke our latest sad, Hollywood head-case.
Had DENIM and SHORT before BOOTY (ew). Lived in New York State most of my life and never heard of TIOGA county. NIOGA sounded better to me, albeit non-existent. I mean, they named a whole library system that, shouldn’t it be a county, too? And when’s the last time you had a SNOWCONE with a W? Sheesh.
You are thinking of a geosynchronous orbit. Any satellite that goes around the earth has a geocentric orbit.
We'll find out in June if the make the World Cup.
Two errors today. I wished for good luck with eLOVER and found press releases DeBASED. I also misspelled DeGAMA.
I did manage to fill in the Pokemon phrase with no exposure to the game(?) whatsoever.
I guessed the gangs took their dates ice skating - never imagined hockey.
I had KegsOFBEERS for a while, inventory-wise.
I did like the three long downs, getting STICKYFINGERS with almost no crosses, but it wasn't much help.
Yay! for LANCED.
My SO gave me HECHT and TICOS, but only knew of Pella in Macedonia.
I kept trying to come up with a term for cartoon beauties or hillbilly lasses, or finally jeansSHORTS for the Daisy Dukes. You can keep your BOOTYSHORTS. Sigh. Maybe it’ll go better next week.
And you don't "win" at an auction with the highest bid..you " buy" it!!!
I looked up AVERY, as I just don't watch TV, except for the news hour that precedes Jeopardy! I have been hooked on radio all my life and see no reason to change. Also had to look up that slogan, to come up with KETEL ONE. I never drink vodka, and won't so long as someone is making good gin. And that at least verified what I already had found out, that trying to squeeze "circumnavigate" in there was a Mistake. One I had put in in ink, no less.
I also did not know GOTTA CATCH EM ALL but there it was, thanks to the crosses. I certainly was able to guess KOHLS, and having studied Spanish, was sure of ERES. Also TICO, because where I live we have immigrants from every Central American country.
I fell for "Odessa" but those mystic chords of memory (thanks Abe) made it easy to switch to EDESSA. And I can't believe Ms DOWD won that prize, though I do read her columns, if only out of some sense of obligation.
We have a world famous TIOGA Pass here in California, the scenic way to cross the Sierra. Still snowed in and will be for a while, but by far the nicest way to get to the Owens Valley from Northern California. And I did know it was named for Some Place Back East. (Two places, I now learn).
I'll be happy to never see ALISTERS or any LISTERS in any puzzle ever again. I don't mind A-team somehow.
A Saturday:
You've waited for this day. You get dressed up in your finest; your chauffeured limo is on time; you get to your favorite restaurant only to find you have to wait several hours before you get seated.
But wait....!!! Oh my...was the wait worth it? you ask. I do believe it was.
When I finally sat down, I looked through the menu several times. So many things I had never heard of. What side comes with GOTTAMATCHEMALL? Is my waitress the one in BOOTY SHORTS? I'll ask her. She said it might come with StiCKY FINGERS . Ok, I said. I'll give it a try. I also needed her to explain what BEER I should order with the TIOGA and the RONIN. She told me that she'd have to check with GOOGLE, the proprietor . She came back promptly and explained in great detail what these dishes were. I ordered them. I will always try something new and hope I remember it for the second time around.
Dessert came and I needed some more help. I asked, in detail ,what the HECHT was an AVERY with GODHOOD cherries on top...I got a reply... but I passed on dessert.
In the end, I was slapped happy. I left the waitress a 30% tip and felt somewhat fat, furry and my ivories were tickled.
Can't complain...even though my check was pretty steep.
This one played more on the difficult side for me, partly because of the intentionally obtuse cluing, and then got stuck wanting DEBATED for "Like much White House press". When you get an answer that makes so much sense, it is hard to let it go. And I'd already taken some time letting go of BALBOA for the Portuguese explorer (could have sworn he was Portuguese, but apparently he was Spanish), so was not in the mindset to let go of another answer in that NW corner.
Could have made it through the SW corner a lot faster too if I had not confidenty dropped in ODESSA for EDESSA. Sometimes just a single letter difference like that can really prevent you from seeing the big picture.
@gil -- Hah! Great post!
For some reason, asked for a NY county that was near PA, I got Tioga right away. And then I asked myself, why? Who notices the county they are in as they race along a hghway? Then I realized that when I drive north through PA, heading to places like Ithaca, I go past signs telling me I am entering Tioga County. So we could turn that clue around, ask for a PA county that borders NY and Tioga would be an answer. Fortunately they do not abut each other, and yet they are not far apart.
yep. The Jaws of Themelessness, splatzed right there where they belong, in a SatPuz.
staff weeject picks (from only 8 candidates): EEC & COO. They make the best sound effects.
9 debut answers in this rodeo -- and all of em are longballs. faves of that brood: MEDIACIRCUS. STICKYFINGERS. GEOCENTRICORBIT.
no-know crossers: KETELONE/EDESSA.
just plain regular no-knows: ORLEAN. AVERY. TICOS. HECHT. COEUR. CARRS.
sorta knows: TIOGA. County m&e lucky --knew it only cuz I had it in a recent runtpuz.
fave comment today: @mathgent 9:18am one. har
Thanx for the nice crossbreedin of answers, Mr. Mehta dude. Smooth job. Primo bonus runt-roll, on BOOTYFINGERS.
Masked & AnonymoUUs
**gruntz**
Tough. Almost got Naticked by TIOGA/TICOS but had an aha moment after walking away for a while. Me too for shortSHORTS, DeGAMA at first, GODHeaD, doubting ASTRO and CLOVER, AVERY as a WOE, plus MEal before MEMO (you don’t want to miss one of those). A fine Saturday challenge, liked it.
Rex protests too much about the NY county clue since just one of the counties that abut PA has five letters.
This whole thing was a really unpleasant slog for me ... c'mon Pokemon?!?!?
Some comments:
1. Tioga is the only county with 5 letters that fits the definition and since I'm west of the Rockies, I feel justified in looking at a map.
2. Booty shorts is just downright ugly. I put cut off jeans and that fit just fine.
3. Pokemon is right up there with college sports and rap performers trivia ... obscure and forgetable for those not in the loop ... which I wager is 95% of us!
SORRY FOR THIS
@Photomatte (11:49) Thanks for the clarification on the Daisy Dukes. I didn’t like much like BOOTY either but figured it was just me being prudish me. I’m glad to see a few others raised an eyebrow too.
@GILL (1:18) I’m laughing out loud. And now trying to decide which would be worse, a waitress in [those] SHORTS or one with STICKY FINGERS? 🤣
Ha, I stuck with short shorts too long here ....
Should 1A have been clued as an abbreviation or is DC not considered an abbreviation? Curious about cluing rules there.
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
@lewis at 3:27 is not me, "long-time" Lewis.
@various commenters:
A geosynchronous orbit does not necessarily stay over the same point. That is a geostationary orbit.
Geocentric: goes around the earth
Geosynchronous: goes around the earth AND takes the same amount of time to do so as the earth does to rotate once.
Geostationary: goes around the earth AND takes the same amount of time to do so as the earth does to rotate once AND does so in the plane of the equator.
@Whatsername…I know it’s late and you may never see this but I thought the same thing about Kohls and Target. Honestly the K led me to KMART but I knew TICOS so knew it had to be KOHLS. Lol…in the olden days Kmart would have definitely been the answer!
WHAT I hated:
Pokemon line = GOTTA CATCHEM ALL is a "gimme"? How? I’m serious. In what universe is that a "gimme"?
BOOTY SHORTS? People use that phrase in real life? Again, in what universe?
KING OF BEERS is great. But the clue just sucks. A generic reference to a generic draft beer is supposed to lead you to Budweiser? How? Why?
What I liked: GEOCENTRIC ORBIT, STICKY FINGERS, DRAG INTO COURT, CROSS BREEDING.
Being from, PA, I was pretty sure 23D was Tioga. In my hometown of Philly, there is a Tioga Street. Hmm.. Google tells me there are Tiogas in Pittsburgh and Allentown also. I guess it’s an important name in PA. I wonder if its origins a language of one of the indigenous peoples who once lived in that part of the continent?
All told, wasn’t a fan of this one.
Late to the party since I needed a long walk, a pleasant lunch and a refreshing nap to finally wrestle Mr Mehta’s grid into submission. Idaho is such a long way west that TIOGA is only known via the tourism draw it suffers each summer. SKA clueing was mystifying but those cruisers crossing it at 13d left me totally at sea. And I can only report that the KING OF BEERS left me sadder, Budweiser. CLOVER I thought CLeVER & LANCED punctured my bloated ego, so all in all about what I expected on a Saturday. A semi-full day of fun indeed. Thanks 🙏🏾
I can't tell if the first name of tomorrow's constructor has four letters or five.
I’m really surprised that so many people had trouble with TICOS. I guess you’ve never been there, and don’t follow international soccer either. I’ve been there and even have the apura Vida t-shirt, so that was the easiest one in the grid for me.
Deeply offensive
The puzzle is fine. It’s the cluing that is not spot on. Trying to be too cutesy or obtuse does not result in an enjoyable solve IMO.
DNF. Fell into the KMART trap, it seemed so obvious. There must be 100 KMARTs for every KOHLS. The Pokemon thing? For some a gimme, for me: "Gimme the answer because otherwise I'll never get it." And CLOVER for good luck with that??? Other total unknowns: the _____who code one, and the Costa Ricans. Last thing I grokked was the Jets/Sharks one, a very clever misdirect that didn't hit me for a long while. The south was a breeze by comparison.
However, there will be a DOD today: she who so admirably filled out those BOOTYSHORTS, Catherine "Daisy Duke" Bach. Wow, did they call them that back then?
I've had much better luck with Wordle. A third straight birdie completed my second round for a total of 128, a sizzling 16-under.
GBBGB
GYGGB
GGGGG
Once again, start word from yesterday's grid.
From Syndication Land
DNF for me! Too many tricksy clues.
@spacecraft if you want to be more scientific in Wordle start with the common Wheel of Fortune letters. Something like TEARS. Next put in a word with the rest of the vowels. Something like OCULI. That way you know the vowels and you've tried 10 different letters.
BREEDING BASED
GIRLS ARE wearing BOOTYSHORTS
BARED for each MALE's thrall,
I've GOT STICKYFINGERS OF sorts,
DAMN, I GOTTACATCH'EMALL.
--- LANCE DOWD
DNF. Pretty much what both @foggy and @spacey said except RINKS was my first sure entry. Downfall was the Kmart store and bAlboA the explorer. And shOrtSHORTS for too long.
4 on the wordle today, leaving me at 7 under after 17.
Hemant Mehta and I do not share the same wheelhouse. Or namebase.
I hate name-based puzzles. DCBASED media is fine in comparison.
I like crossWORDS - with WORDplay, not a trivia contest.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Oh and...btw, I did get KOHLS and CLOVER.
D, LIW
I believe there are only 3 Kmarts left in the US.
There are almost 1200 Kohl's.
@anon 1:59: Thank you for the tip. In my first round, I played the front nine with ALIEN as a starter, and the back nine with RATIO. In Round 2 I tried to use a reasonably common word from the previous NYTXW puzzle's grid. My last three holes used SHARE, STAGE and STEAL respectively. I think the added handicap of picking a word out of the grid provides an interesting challenge--but if I start getting bum (burn?) results I will probably settle on ALIEN. After all, who can say no to Sigourney?
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