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TUESDAY April 19: POWER OUTAGE
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
I have no power. No way to blog til it’s back on. Check back later. Thanks, Rex (4:40am EDT)
UPDATE: Still no power. Entire Southern Tier of NY is a disaster zone. (8:00am EDT)
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52 comments:
Golly, @Rex, sorry to hear about your power outage. Please allow me to fill in:
Gaaah! Horrible puzzle! Why these themers? Why here? Why now? Where's my favorite one? Who ever heard of YES in that sense? Time for the editors to step aside.
Did I miss anything?
You TRYNA get it back on?
Thx Olivia, for good Tues. workout; definitely needed some INSPIRATION for the SE corner. :)
Easy-med-tough.
Breezed thru this one until I plopped VELvet in and really got myself into a fix in that corner.
Didn't know PLUS-ONE, ANNE, TRYNA; wasn't sure of MOANA or YELP. Finally thot of VELOUR, and Bob was my uncle. :)
My kind of challenge; loved it! :)
@jae
Sorry for the false alarm yd; I thot Croce's 700 really had me this time. Finished with a very foolish error at the 'bills' / 'game piece' cross. Didn't pay close attn to the clue, i.e., there was no indication of an abbr. :( (total time: 3 1/2 hrs.). Another terrific workout; very rewarding to have almost nailed it! :) See you next Mon. :)
@puzzlehoarder 👍 for -0 yd! :)
___
(yd's) pg -2 / Phrazle: 3/6 / Duotrigordle 33/37
WordHurdle 180 2/6
🖤💛🖤💛💙🖤
💙💙💙💙💙💙
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Tryna was as bad as anything I've ever seen in NYT puzzle. I had it filled in last and just stared at it tryna to figure out my mistake. Finally it the button and it was correct.
Our last power outage we had just stocked up on delicious cornish pasties from our local pasty shop. Wound up having to throw away about fifteen of them, which was very sad.
Did not enjoy the puzzle at all. Was looking forward to a Rexrant today.
Miss you Rex. Can't make any sense of the they. There is a revealer, but no theme words?
Figured we were gonna trash TRYNA. (BRR, Rex. Keep us posted.)
Could it be a serendipitous twist to save you from a bas puzzle? Ooxteplemon is watching over ye.
Sorry to hear about Rex’s situation, could well be a big mess in the Northeast from a snowstorm this late in the season.
For me, about 75% of this seemed like it was Monday-easy. In the “good walk spoiled” department we bump into the likes of OLMOS, Asterix and Obleix (thrilling stuff, I know) and then in the SW with a mortal Gorgon (which at least has some well-clued company like EXPIATE, MOTIF and FLAILS).
The theme entries themselves were all fine and kind of fun, although they were all pretty much gimmies for me - I thought the revealer was kind of flat (and uninspiring) though.
It will be fun to see if OFL does his best @Conrad impression when he gets back on line.
Haa!
I guess Things/People that strike can certainly be a theme, but I'd think it's almost OBLIGED to include some reference to baseball. FLAILS is in there, but entirely unrelated. so not really close enough for me. Some interesting down pairs today (ABUSE/MEDUSA, NEWTAKE/EXPIATE, GOGH/NOHO, CRASHED (as in wedding crashers)/PLUSONE, and TRYSTS/TRYNA. altIMA before MAXIMA slowed me down in the SW - I was TRYNA break a record til I got there. Quite a storm in the NE, meaning the weather - hope OFL and all those slammed with this one emerge unscathed.
Some random reactions:
• This is a beautifully scrubbed grid, no ugliness or winces anywhere, IMO. May I impress upon you how much skill it takes to create such a sparkling grid?
• Oh, I did like TRYNA. It made me think. It made me smile. It made me realize how much I use it.
• Lots of beautiful answers: DEFT, MIRAGE, TRYSTS, STANZA, VELOUR, MOTIF.
• I can’t believe that in all the decades of NYT puzzles, INSPIRATION has never appeared in a puzzle before! Amazing!
• There’s a lovely schwa-cap parade: STANZA / MAXIMA / MOANA / GALA / MEDUSA / LIRA / TRYNA.
• It’s sweet to see ADD over PLUS ONE.
The smoothness and the end note of INSPIRATION left me with a good feeling, balm for the soul. Thank you for this lovely puzzle, Olivia!
I didn't like EMPLOYEE as a themer. One singular employee does not strike. A *Union* strikes. A strike requires everyone, plural, to work (not work) together. One employee striking is just Kramer walking off his job at H&H.
If you visit a home that has a "foyer", keep your shoes on.
"divulge" does not mean "let on".
USA,Oct,Brr,Eek,Alt,Ama.
Tryna
@Lewis and I might be the only two (so far) who like TRYNA. A funny, fun contraction.
A friend of mine from Germany has been living here for about two years. She speaks excellent English. I have nothing but admiration for her mastery of our crazy language, especially because I know few German words beyond schnell! (always said with an exclamation point), gleaned from many old, dark WWII movies. As I said, not proud. Anyway, some of our slang and especially contractions really trip her up. She and her son Felix were visiting our house and Felix finished a difficult task. "Atta boy!" I told him.
I found myself tryna explain to my friend the provenance of "atta,: a contraction of "that's a boy," (right?) which makes no literal sense either. She liked it.
Then we were fixing a fruit snack. I told her the apples were kinda mooshy. Her eyes flew up in alarm. German slang is funny too.
I’m seeing things that strike as a theme and it works just fine for me, INSPIRATION being my favorite. Like most people I imagine. TRYNA was my last entry and I had to say it several times aloud to get the gist of it. It made me laugh. In my head I’m saying “trying to” but nope. Sadly It’s TRYNA at least 50% of the time. Thanks Olivia for reminding me to enunciate!
Sorry to hear your power’s out.
LL it’s central NYS. Stay safe & warm from the storm
nytimes.com/2022/04/18/us/northeast-snowstorm.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DJDm8SiPkORI6H4VvNaKN4e54o2TOEX8NGKrppROB3yqUXGX1RfDSSg8nOnoUZcWJyoJivX2gy0tWRAOhmrzLjNCyyeLslgeDk70_DOWi-WbjchnMncAszpJNhJVG6yDdfkPe-Z-1z3dl92vkhBYkrBmtTIXnX4IS7Tkl2K96EbRrD6wQpW-E_WTvbndeU6rxoYxwFQBudDys5uTBgnYsabNAHP6__LAoifN79idgSCG9rLYSrAf4hVpO_Om8Fixzuoi_UHVW6YAQ
Hope you get your power soon! An easy solve, TRYNA was the worst
Didn't love it. Didn't hate it. Finished faster than my average Tuesday time. Had no idea what TRYNA was supposed to mean until I read some of the earlier comments. Hope it doesn't show up again anytime soon.
Hey All !
Dang people in the outage area. That sucks! You never realize how much you need electricity until you have none. Been there, done that. Here, and living in other places. Hopefully it'll get fixed quickly. Good luck.
Today's Theme is stuff that strikes. Nice for a TuesPuz. Was thinking how clean the fill was as I was solving, with having some odd combination letter crossings happening. But then got TRYNA. *Insert balloon deflating sound* TRYNA? I don't even think that's SLANG. TRYIN, sure. But dang, I'm TRYNA not to let that taint the puz. It's tough. Alt clue "Drink a 0% alcohol beer for the first time?"
Neat X fest in SW-SCenter.
Again, fill remarkable clean, so I guess one @Southside Johnny non-word is acceptable. How about maybe ALA/ARYNA? Is ARYNA a word?
Didn't run into any trouble, even with said made up word. Well, maybe EXPIATE, but crossers knocked that one out. Nice open corners. Satisfied the TuesPuz urge. 😁
yd -6, should'ves 3
Duotrigordle: Have been finishing lately, but they've been 37/37 a lot because of silly errors. Still waiting till I can guess a correct word to start!
Phrasdle (or whatever that one is) Too tough!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Visiting friends an hour south of Albany, we got a little snow but no power outages around here. Wonder what happened.
Found this one really easy, even though I'm solving online because my printer is back in NH. We rarely bring it with us when we travel. Typed(!) in BOWLINGBALL without a second thought and had a similar experience with the other themers. Missed a baseball reference but it did make me think of "Johnny Strikes up the Band", a cool song.
That's about it. A Tuesday the end.
If you search for weather alerts in NYS you find that a snow storm was forecast to drop about a foot in snow in central NYS. With springtime rain, that means soggy ground and that means downed trees and that means electrical outages. Depending on where you live, the outages could take a bit of time to fix. Not a happy time for Sharp. A know someone who owns a pub in Scarsdale who owns an electric generator for such occasions. I guess that's not such a bad idea. I guess you could say his area was hit by a late winter storm strike. Sadly ironic.
About the puzzle. Tuesday level difficulty with five theme entries. Perhaps more PPP than I like which made the puzzle more of a slog than an entertainment for me to solve. But that's just me. Since I have to prepare for a precautionary colonoscopy to be administered tomorrow, I guess I know what will strike me this evening.
If you don't tweet and don't go to children's movies you'd find te MOANA/TRYNA crossing mysterious. At least that was my experience.
Big snow? BRR! And sympathy to those of you dealing with it. Puzzle was not dazzling but really quite a good Tuesday for a new solver, a quality which I appreciate. A simple but pleasing theme and a couple of places where I had to dig down a bit to find the answer - like TRYNA which I get [sigh] but really hate.
Had a TRYST with my BAE yesterday but unfortunately there was nothing secret about it since it was in a hospital room. By the time I walked the half mile from my car and back to get this, that and the other, I was so tired when I got home I CRASHED like a bad computer.
When it comes to furever friends, remember . . . ADOPT, don’t shop. And don’t EVER even think about ABUSE.
I'm TRYNA control myself but it isn't EASYA. The "TRYNA" fiasco made me MOANA. It also made me gagga.
Could that corner have been cleaned up without redoing the whole grid? Quite possibly -- but if not, then ya gotta redo the whole grid. Get what I'm TRYNA say?
Also, "The name on Woody's shoe in 'Toy Story' may be the silliest clue I've ever seen.
I also found the theme un-italics-worthy. Things loosely involved with strikes? Sort of needs a revealer, I would think. But despite much that's AMISS here, the constructor has made a MAXIMA effort not to clue right on the nose. Some thinking was required. The puzzle was not, in fact, unenjoyable -- at least I didn't find it so. For example, I loved the droll clue for LOL (8D). So, on a Tuesday, I'm TRYNA be grateful for what we got.
OK, the theme is “things that strike.” But instead of a clever revealer, the theme TS are clued as…things that strike. So there goes 30% of the solving fun. Why?
I did like Asterix and his pal. Now I’m feeling hungry for some wild boar.
And at the risk of seeming crude, I chuckled over TRYST crossing LAY.
EEK! IAN AGREES! —Fleming takes on an unpleasant task
DEFT! OPAL ADD - shoplifting at Tiffany’s
SEA ROAD YELP- Avast ye lubbers!
This one came in fast-ish Monday time, and very fast Tuesday time for me.
One cute coincidence is that if you look a few rows directly up from MAXIMA, you'll find another Nissan model: STANZA. Back in 2004, after moving back home from several years in Budapest, I needed a car quick for work, and ended up buying a black manual transmission 1991 Nissan Maxima with 100K+ miles on it. The guy must've really wanted it off his lot, as he listed it at $800 and was willing to part with it for $500. I walked up the street to an ATM, took out the cash, and bought the car. Who knew you can buy a car with cash from the ATM? The car ran fine and did its job; had to replace the alternator (myself, only around $100), and at some point my clutch slave cylinder went, for $250 in repairs. That was all the costs. I sold it a year later once I had enough saved up for a 2004 Mazda 3. I do miss that little rust bucket; it's a good thing I didn't name it.
The theme was just that all the clues contained the word "strike"/all the answers involved a "strike" of some kind? Well ... okay. I just skip over any starred or italicized theme clues early in the week as trying to figure them out only slows me down. I get 90% of the fill in and then work on those. But these didn't even need a revealer. They were all straightforward clues. The italics suggested to me that some trickiness would be involved, but there wasn't any.
@TJS (8:55) - typing in "let on definition" into Google I get: "1. reveal or divulge information to someone." I thought it was a fair clue, and the dictionary (in this case, Oxford Languages) agrees.
I had TRYin for TRYNA originally. I furrowed my brow slightly at TRYNA, but decided I liked it. It's in the language, even if it's not in everyone's language, and I have seen it spelled out, like "finna". No qualms there.
The real world hits the blog! Hope everyone is okay up there. This is a bad week for TIOGA county. Lots of overnight rain in NYC kept the noisy motorcycles/sound systems away.
@Conrad - you may have missed a possible Bond sexism rant for Ian Fleming, and definitely a Natick at UMAMI/OLMOS.
Fine for a Tuesday puzzle, if a little thematically thin. Different ways to use "strike"
Haha! I never even saw TRYNA while solving so didn't know about it until reading comments. I would have said that was the crossword equivalent of "a face only a mother could love" ... which I guess would be a word only @Lewis could love, but I see several others liked it, too. And surprisingly, @Southside Johnny didn't object to it. I thought that thump was his newspaper hitting Nancy's wall, but it must have just been a transformer blowing.
@7:32 anon Why a Wordle spoiler? Don't do it.
Funny - Is TRYNA a thing???
Possible SE corner replacement:
ATL - EAR
VELOUR - VERONA
ETSY - AND I
MOANA - HENRY
ANNE - IDEA
AMA - AHI
LET ON - RATED
LAOTIAN - LEONINE
PLUS ONE - PANDORA
TRYNA - RAINY
If Rex has no power how was he able to post those two notes? TRYNA is the worst thing ever in a NYT puzzle.
🙏 for all affected by adverse weather conditions!
@pmdm (9:50 AM)
🙏 for your procedure!
@gerry w (9:50 AM)
Agreed! that was my final (semi-educated) guess. lol
"Moana (also known as Vaiana[4] or Oceania[5] in some markets) is a 2016 American 3D computer-animated musical adventure film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures."
"The film tells the story of Moana, the strong-willed daughter of a chief of a Polynesian village, who is chosen by the ocean itself to reunite a mystical relic with the goddess Te Fiti. When a blight strikes her island, Moana sets sail in search of Maui, a legendary demigod, in the hope of returning the relic to Te Fiti and saving her people. The plot is original, but takes inspiration from Polynesian myths." (Wikipedia)
___
td pg: 5:46 (0 in 14:34)
Wordle 304 X/6* (1st fail)
🟨🟩⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
@Pete, Nope. It means pretend you know more about something than you really do. "He hasn't been to a game in years but he let on that he was a huge fan."
No issue with TRYNA - it was the rest of the puzzle that bored the hell out of me. Not sure it even classifies as a theme or not.
I’ll second @jberg and my juvenile self getting a kick out of the LAY x TRYST cross. Also a big fan of anything VELOUR.
Beyond easy - but conceptually mindless.
Well....While this puzzle didn't exactly tickle my fancy, it did make me wonder who'd come up with a TRYNA MOTIFF. @Nancy wins what I'm TRYNA say award.
I'm like @Hartley. I like new words that I've never heard that make me laugh. We have some bodacious ones like Hangry, Crunk, Tope, Turnt....See? Slang can be fun. Maybe one of you smarty pants constructors could come up with a slang puzzle so that we can hear heads blowing up electrical power plants.
I liked the showcasing of the versatility of "strike," one of those, "Hm, never thought about that" themes and a fine INSPIRATION for Tuesday, I thought. Other PLUSes: EXPIATE, MIRAGE, NEW TAKE, and learning that MEDUSA was the only mortal Gorgon. Thankfully, I never saw TRYNA until reading comments.
Sorry to hear about your power, Rex. Maybe it was this puzzle that blew it out.
I’m TRYNA think if there could be a worst possible answer than TRYNA for a crossword puzzle and so far I can’t come up with anything else (other than maybe NEWTAKE), so it’s a definite contender for Worst Answer of the Year (the coveted WAY Award).
And did GAUL really have to be clued as a comic book place?
Wish I had something more positive to say. I do like BOWLING BALL, SAME SEX, and PLUS ONE. But overall this puzzle strikes out in my ballpark.
EASY A in the USA: MOANA earned a LIRA by writing a STANZA about TRYNA drive with MEDUSA in her MAXIMA to the PTA & AMA GALA.
Nice re-working of that corner, @kishef (10:26)! I just sent you an email about it.
@TJS - You can say "nope" all you want, but the dictionary (and my experience of the usage -- there's more than one) disagrees.
Merriam-Webster: "1.to make acknowledgement: admit. 2. to reveal a secret //nodboy let on about the surprise party. 3. Pretend" Phrases have multiple usages. Yours is only #3 there. Let's look at American Heritage Dictionary: "1. to allow (something, such as a secret) to be known; reveal: he never let on that he was married. 2. (tr) to cause or encourage to be believed; pretend." The "divulge" usage is first. Yours is second. The Oxford definition I quoted had the word "divulge" even in it. Wiktionary's synonyms: "disclose, divulge, give away." Penguin: "a. to reveal one's true feelings: She was terrified at the prospect, but didn't let on." Cambridge: "to tell other people about something that you know, especially when it is a secret: if he did know the truth, he didn't let on."
And so on.
Mary Catherine (9:09) Never really thought about it before but you’re right, attaboy/that’s a boy makes no sense. I have great admiration for anyone who takes on the challenge of learning a new language.
@pmdm (9:50) Your comment from yesterday about those brainstorming meetings (“I think the results of some of the sessions were worth the stupidity other sessions produced.”) really summed up the entire experience perfectly. Good luck with your evening festivities. I hope everything comes out all right. 😉
@jberg (9:59) Re TRYST/LAY, I completely missed that. Thank goodness someone was paying attention. LOL
Pretty darn nice, smooth solvequest -- until M&A got to TRYNA/MOANA, that is. Its crossin had what "strikes" M&A as not an EASYA to get. Sorta an honorary sixth puz strike, if U will. TRYNA/MOANA was both no-knows, at our house.
TRYNA seems in retrospect like a sorta neat debut non-word, tho. har
And MOANA could hereby now be slang for a tough puz crossin … for example: "That crossin was a real MOANA!" (Shoot, probably not even slang, in the Boston area.)
staff weeject pick: BRR. Dedicated to poor @RP and all his powerless neighbors. Part of the primo weeject stacks in the NE & SW.
some sparkly moments: STANZA. NEWTAKE. CHUM. OBLIGED. EXPIATE + SAMESEX + EXPEL [XXX - string of "strikes"]. FOYER [snort]. MIRAGE.
Thanx for the funna solvequest, Ms. Framke darlin.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
**gruntz**
Look for TRYNA and ONEHR to be Wordle answers later this week.
When you have TRYNA in your puzzle, what else is there to say about it? The rest of the puzzle fades away and you're left with the image of this solitary nonword of a Downer, and you think "Why? WHY?"
Then you dig your old Lou Christie 45s out of the closet and admire your Phrazle triumph.
Phrazle 16: 2/6
🟪🟨🟩⬜⬜🟪⬜ 🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟪⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Top half easy bottom half tough. I held on to altIMA and VELvet for way too long, which ate up a ton of nanoseconds in the south. Not too bad if you ignore TRYNA (which also gummed up the south), mostly liked it.
I did the puzzle early this morning and then watched last night's "Jimmy Kimmel Live"(HULU streaming). He usually ends the show with a musical guest. Last night it was Orville Peck** singing "C'mon Baby, Cry". Guess what! (2nd line)
I can see the sadness in your eyes
You've been TRYNA hide what you left behind
They say it's darkest before the dawn
But you've been smiling for so long
A thousand teardrops can't be wrong, no
I had never knowingly seen or heard TRYNA before and then twice in an hour it shows up.
**It was a good song but I guess Mr. Peck never shows his face. He wore a very unusual mask. Pretty F###ing strange in my book but he sounded very good.
Hello all! I got busy for a bit and had to forgo my favorite blog, though I did read the comments some days. So happy I didn’t miss @CDilly’s NYTXW triumph story. Also enjoyed some good music links, like the Brubeck from @Joe Dipinto. I was also INSPIRed by the word SHEILA to go exploring and found a fun video to share: Sheilas, Badass Women of Australian History
Today’s offering started out easier than most Mondays but I had to turn on the brain in the lower half. Had to correct both VELvet and YEow to crack the SE. PLUS I learned two great words, EXPIATE and TRYNA. I can’t see TRYNA without laughing.
TRYNA decide if I want to do Phrazle again today - I TRried it yesterday and I find it more entertaining than wordle. Just conjuring up a starting phrase that fits and has a good variety of letters was challenging. Came up with a few pretty silly ones. Hope I don’t get hooked. Thanks a lot @bocamp and @Joe D!
Phrazle 15: 2/6
�������� ⬜���� ����⬜������
�������� ������ ������������
In other non xword related news, today is the birthday of yet another composer I hadn’t heard of, Georg Abraham Schneider, German horn player and composer, born in Darmstadt, Germany (1770-1839). Looks like his daughter may have married Schubert’s son. Anyway here is an INSPIRATIONal live performance of his Quartet for flute and strings.
INSPIRATION - "c. 1300, "immediate influence of God or a god," especially that under which the holy books were written, from Old French inspiracion "inhaling, breathing in; inspiration" (13c.), from Late Latin inspirationem (nominative inspiratio), noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin inspirare "blow into, breathe upon," figuratively "inspire, excite, inflame," from in- "in" (from PIE root *en "in") + spirare "to breathe" (see spirit (n.)). ,
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. [Genesis ii.7]
The sense evolution seems to be from "breathe into" to "infuse animation or influence," thus "affect, rouse, guide or control," especially by divine influence. Inspire (v.) in Middle English also was used to mean "breath or put life or spirit into the human body; impart reason to a human soul." Literal sense "act of inhaling" attested in English from 1560s. Meaning "one who inspires others" is attested by 1867." -from etymonline.com
Good luck to OFL and others suffering from nasty weather, and thanks to Avery and Sam for their writeup - good point about that single EMPLOYEE. Congrats on your graduation!
I just got a call. The coroner has signed the death certificate for the kealoa concept. Cause of death was listed as "Just plain worn out from overuse, becoming meaningless".
@A – Welcome back! That Schneider flute quartet is really very nice. I was taken aback to find out Schubert had a son, though; it seems to be not the famous Franz but a unrelated musical Schubert with the same first name.
Btw, in order for the green and yellow tiles of Wordle and its ilk to display properly, you cannot Preview your post before hitting Publish. Or, if you really must Preview it, do this:
1. Put your entire post into the text box.
2. Highlight the entire post (or press Select All) and then press Copy.
3. Now hit Preview to see what your post will look like.
4. Then press Edit to go back to the text box. The gobbledygook symbols will be there. Press Select All and Paste your copied post *over* the text that's there. You'll see the colored tiles in the text box again.
5. Now, hit Publish *without* hitting Preview first. When your post eventually appears, it will look fine.
Very easy Tuesday puzzle, except for hanging on to altIMA and, VELvet for too long, like @jae.
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