I could tell this was gonna be bumpy before I ever left the NW. When one crosswordesey Disney princess crossed another crosswordesey Disney princess, I had a sense that things were not going to go well, and then when LO-RES (?) showed up in that same section, along with AROAR, well, it was all rough enough that I stopped to take a picture, so I could remember just when I knew for certain that this one was gonna be rough all over.
It's Monday. There is no day where the short fill should be cleaner than on Monday. This is not a demanding theme. Yeah, it's got five themers, which is a little on the dense side, but there's just no reason for things to get this clunky, right out of the gate. It's a completely unremarkable little corner, and it should be easy to fill unremarkably (at a minimum). Of course the fill never got better, because why would it? The longer Downs are OK, but for the most part filling this one in felt like a chore, albeit a brief one. ORIT EEL EON THE RNA EER TATAR DRU LIL NEO ONO BLAH RERUN YETIS etc. ... this stuff is fine, but only in much smaller doses. AT NOON, oof, very rough. Also, it's a BREAD BOX—"is it bigger than a bread box?" Not "BREAD BIN" ... it was a whole thing. BREAD BIN? Bah. BIN shmin. In this household (literally, in *this* household) we have a bread *box*. Also, it's "I DON'T MEAN TO PRY, but..." That's when you hear that phrase. What is up with this strange past-tense version? Yes, people might say it, but it doesn't feel On The Nose. What it feels is "15 letters long," which is what it has to be to make the theme answers work out symmetrically today. With a theme that is this old-fashioned (one of the oldest theme types there is), I expect some serious polish in the fill. Actually, I expect some outright flair. Pray pree pry etc. isn't much. The theme answers are fine, but you aren't winning any friends with TENNIS PRO. When I was done, I thought the theme was "silent X" at first (ANNIE PROULX is the real winner of the bunch, though isn't her name *E.* ANNIE PROULX!? When did she drop the "E"?) (the "E." is for EDNA, I just learned, so ... there's a new EDNA clue for you, folks). Anyway, the theme was just so-so and the fill did not hold up its end of the bargain.
I found the puzzle pretty much normal Monday levels of Easy. I got thrown on the first theme clue by all the birds, which all looked like sports teams. So I used crosses to figure it out, and even though it looked very much like BIRDS OF PREY, I kept expecting there to be some pun or wordplay or something (BIRDS OF PLAY? Because they're sports teams???), so really did use every cross to get that. Once I realized that the clue was just straightforward (not "?"-tricky), then I got back into a Monday groove. Very much slowed down at the end by ONE BY ONE (41D: Individually) crossing Isle ROYALE, which ... how is the "least-visited National Park in the contiguous United States" a Monday answer? Battle ROYALE. ROYALE with Cheese. These are the ROYALEs of Monday. I'm sure Isle ROYALE is gorgeous, but save it for Thursday, Michigan. Could *not* believe the puzzle was trying to get me to choke down AREEL when it had already served me AROAR (*and* ARIEL). I as agog and annoyed. BITTER END and TVDINNER give the grid some much-needed non-thematic personality. I've certainly had worse Monday experiences, but it costs nothing for constructors and especially editors to insist on cleaner fill than this, particularly in early-week grids.
Easy-medium. Bottom half was a tad tougher than the top....I’ve read PROULX but I’ve never needed to spell her name. Solid vowel sound progression with some interesting long downs, liked it more than @Rex did. A good debut.
@bocamp - Croce’s Freestyle # 729 was easy-medium for a Croce or about 2X a Saturday NYT. One of the clues refers to a Seinfeld episode which I had just rewatched the night before. Hope you have similar luck!
Solving by only looking at the down clues, I finished with a couple of errors. 1: Steely Dan's little known album AHA crossing HESSE which was obviously the author. 2: BREAD TIN... that's what we called it growing up; I have never heard of BREAD BIN. That's just crazy talk.
Early PC graphics were JAGGY, then they were CRUDE, before they were LO RES. And the sun is not highest in the sky AT NOON, especially under Daylight Time. The correct answer is actually LOCAL SOLAR NOON, which averages around 1 pm daylight time in most time zones. Or perhaps SUMMER SOLSTICE (outside the tropics) thinking seasonally rather than hourly. Okay, too much for Monday.
[Spelling Bee: Sat pg-1; missed this 5er. Sun pg-1, missing a 5er again. 2nd day in a row the pangram (the 7er, that is) is a word I don't think I've actually ever seen or heard.]
Yesterday ARSE and ASS. Today more ARSE. And last Tuesday had an ARSE. So many butts. I think we had a butt of the joke clue recently too. The Lonely NYTXW Editors Tee-Hees (LNETHS) are reappearing after a bit of a hiatus. Let's assume one of our beleaguered Ivy League educated Masters of English editors, perhaps the sleepy one who "edited" yesterday's puzzle, has been weeping over a missed connection or lost love and is now letting the bottoms get saucy exponentially. We should root (OLÉ!) for their love life to improve lest we face more body parts and functions. (Remember our recent FART?) Add REEFER and POT FARM and we're bringing the apex of civilization down to a nice bump on the road of editorial misery masked as "omigawd i can't believe we got it thru." Anybody know any singles or escorts ready to help our editors in the NYC area? The Times are a-callin'.
Otherwise, it's a perfectly lovely puzzle and I never noticed a theme until I showed up here. Probably time to commit Disney princesses to the common knowledge category. Ariel and Elsa have earned their place next to Holden Caulfield and Boo Radley, at least in crosswords.
Uniclues:
1 Sell vintage flapper. 2 Non-enthusiastic eval of rec center pro. 3 How Accordion Crimes author introduces herself when feeling a bit of ego. 4 Basically any sword fight loser. 5 Old screen in the dumpster. 6 Vaccine denier got the vaccine. 7 Biz meeting when the budget is blown. 8 Name change in honors program to more accurately reflect the long-term value of the honors program.
1 CASH BOOP 2 TENNIS PRO BLAH 3 THE ANNIE PROULX 4 SABRE TIP STEW 5 LOW RES BITTER END 6 SAD. FACED RNA. 7 ORG'S TV DINNER 8 LOLLIPOPS LAUDE
I enjoyed this Monday puzzle and found @Rex's litany of nit-picking a big-time off-putting read. However ... since "Pulp Fiction" is one of my all-time favorite movies, I will give Rex a pass, with my thanks to him for attaching that iconic clip.
A tad bit more difficult than your usual Monday, for me, but quite doable. Of course I had BREAD Box in first as I guess most of us did. My parents had a largish meeting metal lined drawer that I guess you could call a BREAD BIN, we just called it the bread drawer.
I DIDN’T MEAN TO PRY made me laugh, of course you did or you wouldn’t have asked.
Isle ROYALE and ANNIE PROULX were WOEs, which made OR IT (59D) hard to see. Was thinking something along the lines of "There was an event but pics OF IT didn't happen."
Liked it more than Rex. Got the theme pretty fast and wondered how they were going to pull off the proof sound. Never heard of that name even though I saw Brokeback Mountain. Still, it filled in ok with crosses. Went across the top and said, "Oh no," at ONO and all the dreck, short 3s. But it's a Monday, so I just accepted them all. Liked some of the double ups like WED and I DO, EON and EER, and POT and REEFER. Not a fan of the repeated IN in 12D INBOX and 54D ALLIN just a little bit below it. INBOX helped me fix BREADBIN, though, which I also had as BREADBox until I got to INBOX, and thought, "Surely they wouldn't repeat a noticeable word like that!". Actually thought there might be a BOX theme for a second. Had Apogee for ATNOON, since that is the correct answer in my mind for 28D. 59D ORIT gave me my only resistance since I would have thought that there should be a comma in the clue after Pics. Pics, or it didn't happen. So I didn't get that phrase at all til crosses built it. In general, though, a fine Monday for me.
As always thanks for unveiling the theme, Kind of slept walked though this one in better than average time and it never clicked in, Not a fan of made up stuff like BREADBIN. Overall found it a little chioppy.
A BREADbox (chiefly American) or a BREAD BIN (chiefly British) is a container for storing BREAD and other baked goods to keep them fresh. Although BREAD is slang for CASH, a CASH BOX is a different thing.
I think Isle ROYALE is the largest national park east of the Mississippi. It is also very famous for a long running predator-prey study involving moose and wolves, if you happen to run in those circles. Probably my favorite entry. My least favorite (as Rex notes, a lot to pick from) is OR IT. Both as an ugly partial, and a sad commentary on the world.
I'm with Rex today, especially with bread box. I read "The Shipping News" shortly after it was published so she'll always be "E. Annie Proulx" in my brain.
The big guy was a little picky today. Granted the vowel progression thing has been done often - this was a workmanlike early week puzzle. Thought BITTER END, LOLLIPOPS and TV DINNER are solid long downs.
Didn’t really know PROULX and TENNIS PRO was flat. Keep the emojis out.
Agree with OFL that DISNEY x DISNEY (or cartoon x cartoon) is bad form (or should be).
YETIS are super popular in CrossWorld. Not so much in the real world. I don't even think that there is one at a zoo near you. Does anyone remember William Shatner's Twilight Zone episode from about 60 years ago. A classic in my opinion.
Saw where this was going after PREY and PRIX and I just wondered if the last one was going to have something to do with the PRU Center in Boston, so ANNIE the author was pretty neat.
Yes on BREADBOX, CASE before CASH, did the DOOK thing on LORES, and HUA was a HUA TF, but otherwise sped through this one. It did seem a little heavy on the -ese, but hey, it's a crossword puzzle.
Oh, and ROYALE should be "Casino_____". Always.
Nice enough Mondecito, MTB. My Tired Brain appreciated the break, and thanks for some fun.
Didn't pay attention to capitalization, and entered TEAMMASCOTS without checking the Downs. Big mistake. That coupled with BOX instead of BIN (BIN? BIN??) gave me my slowest Monday time in quite a while.
Amy: Luckily, Isle ROYALE was in my wheelhouse as I am a native Michigander. Had BREADbox, thought we were doing something with the letter x. Needed Rex to get the theme. Fast solve. Stay cool, everyone.
I liked it! The shipping news by Annie proulx is one of my all time favorite books, highly recommended, so a satisfying final themer. Though i guess it could have been something ending with Pru from great British baking show….Pics or it didn’t happen was the spot i checked to see who was the constructor!
I think we can easily accommodate Britishisms (today BREADBIN) in Xwords, especially given the plethora of Latin, French, Spanish and other tongues that are a regular part of most puzzles. Not to mention (but I am) all kinds of foreign place and people names.
This puzzle was better than one would gather from reading the write up but I admit the theme is (was) rather common and the PPP is annoying to me for a Monday. Still, it's only a puzzle and I would guess maybe a better debut than most. Perhaps if the clues were a bit more involved and it appeared on a Tuesday ...
re: Southside Johnny 7:47 A.M.: Always thought it interesting that William Shatner, to me, kind of a run of the mill actor, was the central character of two of the best ever Twilight Zone episodes: the one mentioned involving the Yeti on the wing of the airplane - and - the one where he, along with his new bride, becomes mesmerized by a penny fortune telling machine in a diner.
The guy (Shatner) did go up in a space ship of some sort after his 90th birthday so if nothing else he's got some guts. I still get a little edgy on a flight from NYC to Florida.
Rex writes things that are objectively true, the theme type is very common and goes way back in xword history, the fill is full of crosswordese and some of the more common banes we see people complain about here (ARIEL crossing ELSA, oof), and then highlights some of the elements he liked, and still with the “nit picking” accusations.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, If you want to feel good about the puzzle you made read Wordplay. If you want to make better crosswords read Rex.
DNF on a Monday (oof). Hard CASe/Cold CASe and I didn’t really see the RHYME clue. D’Oh. Or maybe D’Oh D’Oh is more accurate.
Clearly more difficult than a normal Monday. Way slower than usual. The write-up implied that even if it wasn't the conclusion offered. But BIRDSOFPREY was one of the easier long answers. The Disney clues were no fun but funny seeing REEFER next to them.
I wasn’t exactly AROAR over what seemed IMHO like a sort of ODD theme but it was a perfectly nice Monday puzzle. It was impressive there were five theme answers - and in the proper phonetic order - plus the bonus long downs. I certainly would not call it BLAH as I found it interesting and an enjoyable solve which is the bottom line. Congrats on the debut Mr. Burke! Hoping to see you CASH in with the NYT again soon.
Hand up for having a BREAD box before the BIN which sounded more British, as in trash bin. AROIL before AREEL. NEPAL before TIBET.
Although our NOON sun is still set on broil ALERT here, a cooling trend is in sight. Not exactly STEW POT weather but I’ll take it.
Zed @ 8:58 AM puts it just right. After completing this puzzle last night I wondered how folks would defend such a poor offering. Sure enough, “it’s just a puzzle,” accusations of nit-picking, and similar remarks appear above. You’d hardly know that oftentimes a puzzle is mediocre or worse, and it’s okay to recognize that. Also, for what it’s worth, the Twilight Zone episode with Shatner on the airplane does not feature a yeti. But a excessive number of NYT crossword puzzles do, because it’s a four-letter word with three vowels.
Since Lewis is on vacation, I'll point out that there are many double letters and a few palindromes today. Happy summer, everyone!
I like the double fake out of the list of birds that are NFL teams. "Hey, birds - no wait, I've seen this before - it's NFLers except Hawks, wait Eastern seaboard (seabird pun?) teams. D'oh, it's actually just birds".
I think ORIT is not so beautiful, but a clever current way to clue it saved it.
Does this kind of theme have a name? I guess I'd call it a vowel-sound-progression-ladder puzzle and it's one of my least favorite types. What I noticed instead about the puzzle, though, were the IX and the LX -- combined with AT NOON -- and I wondered if we had some kind of old-timey kind of clock thing going on. Not that there's a place on a clock face for 60 hours, but still...
The high point of the puzzle for me was the RHYME clue -- which I didn't see because I had CASe for "Cold, hard stuff". I was thinking of detective work: A "cold case". A "hard case". Until I had the "H" from CASH, I was looking at ReYME for what Dancer and Prancer do -- and I must say I was very perplexed.
This was the high point of a puzzle in which I stayed to the BITTER END but which I found pretty BLAH. And there really isn't anything at all wrong with it. It just didn't...sing, at least not to me.
Having seen her name written but never heard it spoken, I always assumed it was pronounced "Annie Prool". So, nice to have that new bit of knowledge. Aside from that, not too much to say about this one.
yeah but... don't puzzles often, if not always, tell us if an answer is French, German, etc.? shouldn't the same protocol be adhered to for Limey-isms? BREAD BIN, bah. when was the last time you saw a clue for LOO that didn't tell you it was Brit?? eh?
Did you know that Minnesota borders Michigan? Right there in the cold waters of Lake Superior off Isle ROYALE.
I wonder why Isle ROYALE is in Michigan, being much closer to Minnesota's North Shore than to the mainland of the Upper Peninsula. The resident moose, the wolves, doubtless the SAD-FACED BIRDS OF PREY -- if you ask them they'll say it's more of a Minnesota island, vibewise. They'll tell you they identify as Minnesotans.
If JESSE Ventura were still governor, I think he'd appreciate my point. I bet he'd just go ALL IN and annex Isle ROYALE, settle things once and for all. Maybe he should RERUN.
Here's a clue for a Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) to be found in today's grid:
Female synonymous with an Eagles' song title (5 letters, answer below)
Thought this played a bit tougher than the usual Monday.
I was unfamiliar with the phrase "Pics or it didn't happen." Seems like it needs a punctuation mark of some sort after "Pics," or parentheses around "or it didn't happen." But I've learned a new colloquialism, so all is well.
Agree with Rex on AREEL and AROAR.
Just recently in a conversation with someone whose family summer vacations always included Isle ROYALE National Park. (Of course, I had forgotten the name of the park already--but thought it was fairly crossed.
Answer to the HDW clue:
CRONE (begins at 48D and moves to the SW--the Eagles' title being Witchy Woman)
Hey All ! A toothy MonPuz today. Got stuck a couple of times, when usually I can fly through with either the Across or Down if either one stumps me. The SE corner in particular. Agree with Rex on ROYALE as clued. How about "Fleming's 'Casino ___'" Now there's an appropriate Monday clue. The clue for ORIT really needs a comma, as in "Pics, ___ didn't happen!" Right?
Anyway, didn't catch the theme. Brain not fully awake yet. If you pronounce ANNIEs name PROO, what in tarhooties is that L doing in there?
Seem to forget AJA every time it comes up. Unsure why, as it seems memorable. AROAR, har. SB will not take that as a word, but I try it every time when those letters are there. Every time. Because the one time I don't try it, Sam will have added it. See also: ANOA (Hi @Anoa Bob!)
Disagree with Rex on I DIDN'T MEAN TO PRY. Statement said after you've pressed someone, intentionally or not, into saying something painful. Usually preceded by "sorry".
It's BREAD Box. Throw your BIN in the trash. 😁
yd QB!!! Can you believe it? I had slightly extra time to do it yesterday, and looked at the hints to see how many words left and points left, which I usually don't do. But still sweet, first one in 2 and 1/2 months! Happy, but sad...🙂
As you know, I write my first comment before reading the blog. I see that @Zed and I made the same CASe/CASH error, resulting in the same unable-to-see-RHYME result.
Well, I enjoyed the puzzle and I hope this debut constructor understands that @Rex is just doing his humanitarian mission for all constructors. Hey. I know I ALWAYS appreciated it when I spent two weeks or more researching and writing to have it improved in hindsight by someone who might spend an hour on it. Well, I jest yet I don’t jest because everyone needs their work reviewed. Was @Rex particularly rough today compared to some other times…nah.
With the advent of twist ties do people use BREADBINS today to keep the bread fresh or just to keep it out of sight? Yeah…I had BOX at first.
I read The Shipping News years ago and for whatever reason never noticed her first initial and always thought of her as ANNIE. On the other hand, I never think Night Shyamalon….
I saw the PR vowel sounds, checked whether they might all be pronounced EE, and never noticed they were in alphabetical order. Dh!
I've always wanted to go to Isle ROYALE, but never have and probably never will. I thought there was a second national park in Lake Superior, but it's actually Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. I'm not sure what that is.
Only birders know this, and maybe biologists, but the part of a bird's face right behind the eye is called the LORES. Neat to have it crossing BIRDS OF PREY.
BOOP and her BRO, HUA were always SAD FACED. She had lost her ROYALE POISE because of the STEW POT full of SALSA. HUA, licking his LOLLIPOPS would always shout "ONO, You've put on the LBS again..." BOOP would toss a TV DINNER at him and yell " No steak TATAR for you!" Then she'd wander over to the BREAD BIN, smell the CARBS, and would feed THE BIRDS OF PREY lurking out by THE STY. SARA, THE nosy neighbor, would arrive AT NOON and offer a REEFER or two. "LAUDE, shouted BOOP, ONE BY ONE the HEXES will ENSUE!!!" She'd shout it in A ROAR and the POSTER of ORIT and LORES would come crashing down. HUA would have to get off his ARSE and sweep the mess. I DIDN'T MEAN TO PRY whispered SARA, but it looks like the YETIS from TIBET are about to TROD INDIE living room. ONE BY ONE and til THE BITTER END the HEXES would end. Nothing was LOST and they all kept on eating that BLAH POT of STEW, and hope that THE TENNIS PRO on TV would DYE.
ARSE, by my unofficial count, has now appeared in 18 consecutive NYTXWs. It feels like someone has just discovered that there is a semi-acceptable way to say butt.
Let us not forget that, according to Pulp Fiction anyway, the Quarter Pounder was, and perhaps still is, called the ROYALE in France. I don’t tend to spend my time in France at Mickie D’s, so I’ve not personally verified this.
There was a nice article about wetlands by Annie Proulx in the New Yorker an issue or two ago. It was so distinctly written that after about three pages I turned back to see who had authored it. I gave myself the old “doh” head slap when I saw.
Congrats and thanks for a nice debut Michael T. Buerte.
As I sit here in a cabin about 50 miles from the ferry to Isle Royale, it was not at all difficult for me to see that one. I suspect the reason it’s so rarely visited is that anybody who goes to Michigan expecting to find the park is woefully disappointed. The ferry leaves from Minnesota.
There is another theme running through this - each themer is also a well-known 'blank'P phrase. BP - batting practice/British Petroleum; GP - general practitioner; IP - intellectual property; TP - toilet paper; AP - Associated Press. (And, a bonus at 11D - LP for long playing!)
Apologies to anyone who beat me to the fact that while her given name is Edna Anne Proulx, she writes as ANNIE PROULX. Never has been Anne E. Got that out of my system. I’m a big fan (duh).
I enjoyed the theme because it is Monday and I know that the solve will most likely zip by in a trice or possibly couple trices - or something. Like OFL, I thought perhaps it was going to have something to do with “Xs” but alas no. I do line puzzles with Xs and Qs and Js and Zs, but ‘twas not to be today. But I enjoyed the pr+vowel sound progression because it is a cool word thing and I do love words.
Took a lovely couple of minutes to recall one summer when after spending year after year beating the stifling August heat and humidity in Columbus, OH (way before anywhere but the biggest movie theatres had air conditioning) by leaving for the north. My family would camp its way to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to enjoy the environment, the woods, the lakes and the birds. I adored it but begged for at least 5 years to get all the way up to Isle ROYALE to enjoy the primitive wilderness and rugged beauty of those pristine islands - many only accessible by boat. I honestly have never since enjoyed as many consecutive days of clean air and water and the sounds of nature unblemished by any sounds of humanity other than some wood chopping, fire crackling sounds if cooking freshly caught fish and a little conversation. Nor have I had to work so diligently to provide for my basic needs. A truly life changing experience in such good ways.
And that memory alone added so much to my enjoyment today that I have no complaints at all about this puzzle.
@bigsteve46…Shatner also went scuba diving around sharks with Josh Gates when he was 90! I don’t CARE if he already KNEW how to scuba dive! Who woulda thunk when he was peering out of that airplane window at a “griffin-like” creature at around age 39 he’d be pushing the envelope in 2021!
We do accept Britishisms, "loo" and "arse" mostly. But they're usually clued as being so. Bread bin without the HEY IT'S SAID IN GB clue is as bad as boot or tappet or wind screen without it.
I hate everything Disney, and I doubly hate that every NYTimes Xword puzzle clue that references children's literature from Arabian Nights to the Grimms to Mother Goose to Pooh (one of their worst debaunchments) is referencing Disney animations and not the actual stories.
And it wasn't a Yeti Shatner saw, it was a gremlin. Just like Bugs Bunny.
For those of you who the excellent comments by Loren Muse Smith, here’s an email exchange I just had with her:
Hi Loren,
Just did an NYT crossword from the archives and reading one of your delightful comments on Rex’s blog I realized how much I miss seeing you there. Hope all is all right with you.
Thanks for the laughs,
Jarrett
Thanks for the note! All's well with me - just adjusting to my "new" job. I hope to get back to commenting soon. . .!
@egsforbreakfast 10:45 AM I wrote a paragraph today on how much "bottom" nonsense we've been enduring lately, but it didn't make the cut. Maybe not as funny as I thought it was, so it's fine.
We'll complain mightily about ELSA which has shown up dozens and dozens of times since 2014 (a character every little girl on Earth knows) and ARIEL who's appeared about a hundred times since 1994 (and again, everybody knows her on sight), but when it comes to British versions of body parts, Biblical donkeys, whooppee cushion emanations, and all manner of weedy jocularity, well that's so rad I guess, eh? Bro? Amirite? Sheesk. Gimme my pearls back.
The puzzle theme seemed to be naming the vowel order with silent y’s and x’s. How does ‘pro’, the only ending actually having the vowel contained, fit this pattern?
Hooray for Isle Royale. I've always wanted to go. As for it being the least visited ( in the Lower 48), well, Not last year. North Cascades owns that honor with a mere 17.8 Thousand visitors. Isle Royale had 25 K plus.
I've been to number 9 on the list: Dry Tortugas. Highly recommended. And the only real chance for Masked Boobies if you're aiming to increase your life list. ( Got my life brown noddy there. And my Life black noddy at Vocanoes National Park)
I didn't see any red-eyed vireos eating berries on holly trees in either park
By GRAND PRIX, I said to myself, "Haven't seen one of these kinds of puzzles in a while."
By Isle ROYALE and JESSE Ventura, I figured the constructor was from Minnesota.
And with P__LX in place, ANNIE PROULX filled right in. I have a book of her short stories I've been meaning to read. Sorry Annie, I'll get right on that...
Congratulations, Michael Beurke, on your NYT debut. Maybe you know my friend Pete, who also works for his beloved Twins, delivering beer at Target Center, his dream job.
We've seen this type of theme several times, but I gotta admit, these are a pretty neat set of themer entries. Good set of peripheral longballs, also. [fave-est: LOLLIPOPS.]
staff weeject pick: AJA. Far far better clue: {Like an overly agreeable German dude??} = A-JA. Then it scores the triple play, in concert with A-ROAR and A-REEL. Primo weeject stacks, in the NE & SW, btw.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Dip for tortilla chips} = SALSA. Got my solvequest arollin, right outta the chute. M&A figured the editors did that, becuz they feared that some of them NW fillins might spell trouble brewin, for the new solvequestors. As an olde solvequest pro, M&A knew ELSA & ARIEL, even tho he never saw their flicks.
Thanx for the PRAEIOU fun, Mr. Buerke dude. And congratz on yer debut. Nice RHYME clue.
I thought butt was a semi-acceptable way to say butt.
@Sunvolt Great duet singing, Kitty and Red. Somehow I don't think I ever heard that one. Thanks.
NW corner was a bit of a slow start. Then zoomed until I hit the South. There progress was steady but needed to jump around alot for a Monday.
But after changing BREADBin to BREADBOX I got hung up on wondering if a bread bin was bigger than bread box? What if in 20 questions you were thinking of a bread box and someone asked is it bigger than a bread box? Would you be able to give a NO answer smoothly without giving the game away? Could you say no, definitely not, trying to mislead? My mind wandered a bit.
Vowel progression theme. Unless their is something special about it, I seldom even notice it. Blah meh boring. But OK it does something no matter how trivial . But it is such a purely CW thing, how would a rookie even notice. So a Monday? I was looking for the TP AP stuff above.
@Rex Sorry. IDIDNTMEANTOPRY is the expression when you have asked a question that unintentionally asked a question that leads to a subject that is embarrassing to a person. Or when you are pretending that is the case. The clue clearly implies the question has already been asked.
When I was young, my parents played a guessing came with me that they got from TV. The standard question was "is it bigger than a bread box." So I was sure the theme had something to do with X. Eventually, that didn't work and I never realized there was a theme. Didn't matter, my time was a completely normal Monday.
@birchbark - I know Michigan gave Toledo to Ohio and got the U.P. in exchange. I assume Isle Royale was part of the deal. I guess the question, then, is what do you have to trade? And don’t say Toledo.
Buerke missed the chance to have more fun with his BLAH theme, in the middle East. Rather than ODD, could've made it OPA and thrown PRUdence to the wind. Must've had too much to smoke in the West.
If anyone cares... The lores are the areas of a bird's face on either side from the base of the bill to the front of the eyes. The lores do not extend further up or down than the width of the bill base. Incredibly useful as a field mark in some species. White-Throated sparrows have unmistakable yellow lores. Absolutely diagnostic. The white lores of the yellow-breasted chat are connected making it appear to be wearing spectacles. And of course the white-eyed vireo gets its name not from white eyes, but white lores. ( they don't eat berries in holly trees either)
Ask me about malar stripes, auriculars, and submoustachial stripes any day.
@bocamp-Managed to finish what I think is the latest Freestyle (731), which was a real workout, but fair enough, and made me glad I have lots of free time. Phew.
I'd take Isle Royale over Toledo, Casino Royale, the Royal family, and Yale. Tastes may differ.
LIL ONO connects Rap and the Beatles and their respective generations. So amusing in a way. But LIL ONO LBS is a pretty pathetic 3X3. At least it is followed by BLOT instead of ALOT.
Some of the POT-REEFER related answer stuff peps things up a notch. The BITTER END was where I started to go to live blues and rock shows.
LOLLIPOP reminds me of the song and that I made fresh squeezed lemonade with a sprig of mint on Sunday. Completely forgot what a great drink that is.
Minimal PoCs in this one. Blah theme but good themers. ORIT gets a high five.
I prefer my Royale with cheese… especially in 🧩 and any reference to Pulp Fiction and/or Kill Bill is the 💣 ! Though this puzz missed the boat on Pulp Fiction, haha, 🦖 did not! 👍🏽 Good Monday! It had some teeth despite the so-sp PR. 🤗🦖🦖🦖🦖😜
@Michiganman (3:24) -- Point taken. But, you know, 49th parallel and all. Our border to the North has been so friendly for so long, not sure we want to mess with it. Otherwise what was the point of the War of 1812?
@Zed O'Phone (1:54) -- I'll trade you Yakutsk and Irkutsk for Isle ROYALE.
I wouldn't go so far as to say I don't like them but I'm not a big fan of progressive end of word/phrase vowel sounds either. I did soldier on to the BITTER END though, just to see what the "-PRU" answer would be. I'm not familiar with ANNIE PROULX and would never have been able to correctly guess how her last name is pronounced. Not even 100% sure now.
I noticed that two of the themers needed some letter count inflation (LCI) when neither BIRD OF PREY nor I DON'T MEAN TO PRY were not up to the task of filling their slots. The former gets a one letter uptick with a plural of convenience (POC) and the latter gets a present to past tense modification. LCIs are not unusual in xword grids (see the lower, rightmost square, for instance, for a two for one POC) but I think its more of a demerit to the puzzle when they happen with themers, right?
@Anoa Not always. Or not to the same degree. BIRDSOFPREY has traction of its own. There is the Harley Quinn movie. Also when I went to the first few bird of prey sites on Google they all started talking about birds of prey. As I pointed out above the I didn't mean to pry also has usage. I do not mean to pry also has a healthy usage which the puzzle could have used instead. Both are letter extensions but certainly some are less offensive than others.
I just am somewhat dubious about dumping on phrases that have minor variations in general use and folks get upset when the most common variation is not used. To me it's like complaining when an uncommon synonym is used as a clue instead of a more common synonym. I do seem to be in a minority here on this issue. Of course the more sparkle the puzzle has the more this situation is overlooked.
@Michael Fleming - There are ferries from Grand Portage, MN, to Isle Royale: the Sea Hunter III and the Voyageur II. But there are also ferries from Copper Harbor, MI: the Isle Royale Queen IV and from Houghton, MI: the Ranger III. The Ranger docked about 300 yards from the house I grew up in, visible from our kitchen window.
Isle Royale is one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Anyone who has been to Isle ROYALE will tell you it's a beautiful place. I am somewhat involved in the funding for the ferry - the only one in MN. Anyone who remembers JESSE Ventura will have an opinion, PRO or otherwise. A TV that I bought with my 'JESSE check' tax rebate just conked out. TENNISPRO is the only themer that is spelled solely with the letter as sounded out. Wordle birdie.
Her idealization of a parent who would sell her children to a child pornographer is permanently unforgivable. Don’t get me started on her “stylized” prose.
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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84 comments:
Easy-medium. Bottom half was a tad tougher than the top....I’ve read PROULX but I’ve never needed to spell her name. Solid vowel sound progression with some interesting long downs, liked it more than @Rex did. A good debut.
@bocamp - Croce’s Freestyle # 729 was easy-medium for a Croce or about 2X a Saturday NYT. One of the clues refers to a Seinfeld episode which I had just rewatched the night before. Hope you have similar luck!
Solving by only looking at the down clues, I finished with a couple of errors. 1: Steely Dan's little known album AHA crossing HESSE which was obviously the author. 2: BREAD TIN... that's what we called it growing up; I have never heard of BREAD BIN. That's just crazy talk.
Early PC graphics were JAGGY, then they were CRUDE, before they were LO RES. And the sun is not highest in the sky AT NOON, especially under Daylight Time. The correct answer is actually LOCAL SOLAR NOON, which averages around 1 pm daylight time in most time zones. Or perhaps SUMMER SOLSTICE (outside the tropics) thinking seasonally rather than hourly. Okay, too much for Monday.
[Spelling Bee: Sat pg-1; missed this 5er. Sun pg-1, missing a 5er again. 2nd day in a row the pangram (the 7er, that is) is a word I don't think I've actually ever seen or heard.]
Yesterday ARSE and ASS. Today more ARSE. And last Tuesday had an ARSE. So many butts. I think we had a butt of the joke clue recently too. The Lonely NYTXW Editors Tee-Hees (LNETHS) are reappearing after a bit of a hiatus. Let's assume one of our beleaguered Ivy League educated Masters of English editors, perhaps the sleepy one who "edited" yesterday's puzzle, has been weeping over a missed connection or lost love and is now letting the bottoms get saucy exponentially. We should root (OLÉ!) for their love life to improve lest we face more body parts and functions. (Remember our recent FART?) Add REEFER and POT FARM and we're bringing the apex of civilization down to a nice bump on the road of editorial misery masked as "omigawd i can't believe we got it thru." Anybody know any singles or escorts ready to help our editors in the NYC area? The Times are a-callin'.
Otherwise, it's a perfectly lovely puzzle and I never noticed a theme until I showed up here. Probably time to commit Disney princesses to the common knowledge category. Ariel and Elsa have earned their place next to Holden Caulfield and Boo Radley, at least in crosswords.
Uniclues:
1 Sell vintage flapper.
2 Non-enthusiastic eval of rec center pro.
3 How Accordion Crimes author introduces herself when feeling a bit of ego.
4 Basically any sword fight loser.
5 Old screen in the dumpster.
6 Vaccine denier got the vaccine.
7 Biz meeting when the budget is blown.
8 Name change in honors program to more accurately reflect the long-term value of the honors program.
1 CASH BOOP
2 TENNIS PRO BLAH
3 THE ANNIE PROULX
4 SABRE TIP STEW
5 LOW RES BITTER END
6 SAD. FACED RNA.
7 ORG'S TV DINNER
8 LOLLIPOPS LAUDE
I enjoyed this Monday puzzle and found @Rex's litany of nit-picking a big-time off-putting read. However ... since "Pulp Fiction" is one of my all-time favorite movies, I will give Rex a pass, with my thanks to him for attaching that iconic clip.
Um.
I say HUA to this answer.
A tad bit more difficult than your usual Monday, for me, but quite doable. Of course I had BREAD Box in first as I guess most of us did. My parents had a largish meeting metal lined drawer that I guess you could call a BREAD BIN, we just called it the bread drawer.
I DIDN’T MEAN TO PRY made me laugh, of course you did or you wouldn’t have asked.
pics ORIT didn’t happen was highlight. the rest, I’m with Rex.
Isle ROYALE and ANNIE PROULX were WOEs, which made OR IT (59D) hard to see. Was thinking something along the lines of "There was an event but pics OF IT didn't happen."
@Rex's "job" is to look for and find fault. He did it well today. Not that I agree with him.
THIS came to mind.
Liked it more than Rex. Got the theme pretty fast and wondered how they were going to pull off the proof sound. Never heard of that name even though I saw Brokeback Mountain. Still, it filled in ok with crosses. Went across the top and said, "Oh no," at ONO and all the dreck, short 3s. But it's a Monday, so I just accepted them all. Liked some of the double ups like WED and I DO, EON and EER, and POT and REEFER. Not a fan of the repeated IN in 12D INBOX and 54D ALLIN just a little bit below it. INBOX helped me fix BREADBIN, though, which I also had as BREADBox until I got to INBOX, and thought, "Surely they wouldn't repeat a noticeable word like that!". Actually thought there might be a BOX theme for a second. Had Apogee for ATNOON, since that is the correct answer in my mind for 28D. 59D ORIT gave me my only resistance since I would have thought that there should be a comma in the clue after Pics. Pics, or it didn't happen. So I didn't get that phrase at all til crosses built it. In general, though, a fine Monday for me.
As always thanks for unveiling the theme, Kind of slept walked though this one in better than average time and it never clicked in, Not a fan of made up stuff like BREADBIN. Overall found it a little chioppy.
POT/REEFER
tortilla chips and poker chips (clues)
ONO, AJA, LIL
ARIEL, AREEL
WED, IDO
SALSA, STEW, BREAD___, LOLLIPOP, TVDINNER,
A BREADbox (chiefly American) or a BREAD BIN (chiefly British) is a container for storing BREAD and other baked goods to keep them fresh. Although BREAD is slang for CASH, a CASH BOX is a different thing.
I think Isle ROYALE is the largest national park east of the Mississippi. It is also very famous for a long running predator-prey study involving moose and wolves, if you happen to run in those circles. Probably my favorite entry. My least favorite (as Rex notes, a lot to pick from) is OR IT. Both as an ugly partial, and a sad commentary on the world.
I'm with Rex today, especially with bread box. I read "The Shipping News" shortly after it was published so she'll always be "E. Annie Proulx" in my brain.
The big guy was a little picky today. Granted the vowel progression thing has been done often - this was a workmanlike early week puzzle. Thought BITTER END, LOLLIPOPS and TV DINNER are solid long downs.
Didn’t really know PROULX and TENNIS PRO was flat. Keep the emojis out.
You’ve shattered my dreams ONE BY ONE
Enjoyable Monday solve.
Agree with OFL that DISNEY x DISNEY (or cartoon x cartoon) is bad form (or should be).
YETIS are super popular in CrossWorld. Not so much in the real world. I don't even think that there is one at a zoo near you. Does anyone remember William Shatner's Twilight Zone episode from about 60 years ago. A classic in my opinion.
Monday Monday....
Saw where this was going after PREY and PRIX and I just wondered if the last one was going to have something to do with the PRU Center in Boston, so ANNIE the author was pretty neat.
Yes on BREADBOX, CASE before CASH, did the DOOK thing on LORES, and HUA was a HUA TF, but otherwise sped through this one. It did seem a little heavy on the -ese, but hey, it's a crossword puzzle.
Oh, and ROYALE should be "Casino_____". Always.
Nice enough Mondecito, MTB. My Tired Brain appreciated the break, and thanks for some fun.
Didn't pay attention to capitalization, and entered TEAMMASCOTS without checking the Downs. Big mistake. That coupled with BOX instead of BIN (BIN? BIN??) gave me my slowest Monday time in quite a while.
Well, here in the UK I’ve always called it a ‘bread bin’
Amy: Luckily, Isle ROYALE was in my wheelhouse as I am a native Michigander. Had BREADbox, thought we were doing something with the letter x. Needed Rex to get the theme. Fast solve.
Stay cool, everyone.
I liked it! The shipping news by Annie proulx is one of my all time favorite books, highly recommended, so a satisfying final themer. Though i guess it could have been something ending with Pru from great British baking show….Pics or it didn’t happen was the spot i checked to see who was the constructor!
Got Naticked by lores and elsa--parsed it out unsatisfyingly.
I think we can easily accommodate Britishisms (today BREADBIN) in Xwords, especially given the plethora of Latin, French, Spanish and other tongues that are a regular part of most puzzles. Not to mention (but I am) all kinds of foreign place and people names.
This puzzle was better than one would gather from reading the write up but I admit the theme is (was) rather common and the PPP is annoying to me for a Monday. Still, it's only a puzzle and I would guess maybe a better debut than most. Perhaps if the clues were a bit more involved and it appeared on a Tuesday ...
re: Southside Johnny 7:47 A.M.: Always thought it interesting that William Shatner, to me, kind of a run of the mill actor, was the central character of two of the best ever Twilight Zone episodes: the one mentioned involving the Yeti on the wing of the airplane - and - the one where he, along with his new bride, becomes mesmerized by a penny fortune telling machine in a diner.
The guy (Shatner) did go up in a space ship of some sort after his 90th birthday so if nothing else he's got some guts. I still get a little edgy on a flight from NYC to Florida.
@OFF 8:51 - Lol, don't encourage them!
Rex writes things that are objectively true, the theme type is very common and goes way back in xword history, the fill is full of crosswordese and some of the more common banes we see people complain about here (ARIEL crossing ELSA, oof), and then highlights some of the elements he liked, and still with the “nit picking” accusations.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, If you want to feel good about the puzzle you made read Wordplay. If you want to make better crosswords read Rex.
DNF on a Monday (oof). Hard CASe/Cold CASe and I didn’t really see the RHYME clue. D’Oh. Or maybe D’Oh D’Oh is more accurate.
Clearly more difficult than a normal Monday. Way slower than usual. The write-up implied that even if it wasn't the conclusion offered. But BIRDSOFPREY was one of the easier long answers. The Disney clues were no fun but funny seeing REEFER next to them.
I wasn’t exactly AROAR over what seemed IMHO like a sort of ODD theme but it was a perfectly nice Monday puzzle. It was impressive there were five theme answers - and in the proper phonetic order - plus the bonus long downs. I certainly would not call it BLAH as I found it interesting and an enjoyable solve which is the bottom line. Congrats on the debut Mr. Burke! Hoping to see you CASH in with the NYT again soon.
Hand up for having a BREAD box before the BIN which sounded more British, as in trash bin. AROIL before AREEL. NEPAL before TIBET.
Although our NOON sun is still set on broil ALERT here, a cooling trend is in sight. Not exactly STEW POT weather but I’ll take it.
Zed @ 8:58 AM puts it just right. After completing this puzzle last night I wondered how folks would defend such a poor offering. Sure enough, “it’s just a puzzle,” accusations of nit-picking, and similar remarks appear above. You’d hardly know that oftentimes a puzzle is mediocre or worse, and it’s okay to recognize that. Also, for what it’s worth, the Twilight Zone episode with Shatner on the airplane does not feature a yeti. But a excessive number of NYT crossword puzzles do, because it’s a four-letter word with three vowels.
Since Lewis is on vacation, I'll point out that there are many double letters and a few palindromes today. Happy summer, everyone!
I like the double fake out of the list of birds that are NFL teams. "Hey, birds - no wait, I've seen this before - it's NFLers except Hawks, wait Eastern seaboard (seabird pun?) teams. D'oh, it's actually just birds".
I think ORIT is not so beautiful, but a clever current way to clue it saved it.
Does this kind of theme have a name? I guess I'd call it a vowel-sound-progression-ladder puzzle and it's one of my least favorite types. What I noticed instead about the puzzle, though, were the IX and the LX -- combined with AT NOON -- and I wondered if we had some kind of old-timey kind of clock thing going on. Not that there's a place on a clock face for 60 hours, but still...
The high point of the puzzle for me was the RHYME clue -- which I didn't see because I had CASe for "Cold, hard stuff". I was thinking of detective work: A "cold case". A "hard case". Until I had the "H" from CASH, I was looking at ReYME for what Dancer and Prancer do -- and I must say I was very perplexed.
This was the high point of a puzzle in which I stayed to the BITTER END but which I found pretty BLAH. And there really isn't anything at all wrong with it. It just didn't...sing, at least not to me.
Having seen her name written but never heard it spoken, I always assumed it was pronounced "Annie Prool". So, nice to have that new bit of knowledge. Aside from that, not too much to say about this one.
yeah but... don't puzzles often, if not always, tell us if an answer is French, German, etc.? shouldn't the same protocol be adhered to for Limey-isms? BREAD BIN, bah. when was the last time you saw a clue for LOO that didn't tell you it was Brit?? eh?
Did you know that Minnesota borders Michigan? Right there in the cold waters of Lake Superior off Isle ROYALE.
I wonder why Isle ROYALE is in Michigan, being much closer to Minnesota's North Shore than to the mainland of the Upper Peninsula. The resident moose, the wolves, doubtless the SAD-FACED BIRDS OF PREY -- if you ask them they'll say it's more of a Minnesota island, vibewise. They'll tell you they identify as Minnesotans.
If JESSE Ventura were still governor, I think he'd appreciate my point. I bet he'd just go ALL IN and annex Isle ROYALE, settle things once and for all. Maybe he should RERUN.
Here's a clue for a Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) to be found in today's grid:
Female synonymous with an Eagles' song title (5 letters, answer below)
Thought this played a bit tougher than the usual Monday.
I was unfamiliar with the phrase "Pics or it didn't happen." Seems like it needs a punctuation mark of some sort after "Pics," or parentheses around "or it didn't happen." But I've learned a new colloquialism, so all is well.
Agree with Rex on AREEL and AROAR.
Just recently in a conversation with someone whose family summer vacations always included Isle ROYALE National Park. (Of course, I had forgotten the name of the park already--but thought it was fairly crossed.
Answer to the HDW clue:
CRONE (begins at 48D and moves to the SW--the Eagles' title being Witchy Woman)
Hey All !
A toothy MonPuz today. Got stuck a couple of times, when usually I can fly through with either the Across or Down if either one stumps me. The SE corner in particular. Agree with Rex on ROYALE as clued. How about "Fleming's 'Casino ___'" Now there's an appropriate Monday clue. The clue for ORIT really needs a comma, as in "Pics, ___ didn't happen!" Right?
Anyway, didn't catch the theme. Brain not fully awake yet. If you pronounce ANNIEs name PROO, what in tarhooties is that L doing in there?
Seem to forget AJA every time it comes up. Unsure why, as it seems memorable. AROAR, har. SB will not take that as a word, but I try it every time when those letters are there. Every time. Because the one time I don't try it, Sam will have added it. See also: ANOA (Hi @Anoa Bob!)
Disagree with Rex on I DIDN'T MEAN TO PRY. Statement said after you've pressed someone, intentionally or not, into saying something painful. Usually preceded by "sorry".
It's BREAD Box. Throw your BIN in the trash. 😁
yd QB!!! Can you believe it? I had slightly extra time to do it yesterday, and looked at the hints to see how many words left and points left, which I usually don't do. But still sweet, first one in 2 and 1/2 months! Happy, but sad...🙂
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
As you know, I write my first comment before reading the blog. I see that @Zed and I made the same CASe/CASH error, resulting in the same unable-to-see-RHYME result.
As Straight-Talk Czar, I hereby ban the use of "I'm not a big fan of" from the language. Henceforth, we shall say "I don't like."
Well, I enjoyed the puzzle and I hope this debut constructor understands that @Rex is just doing his humanitarian mission for all constructors. Hey. I know I ALWAYS appreciated it when I spent two weeks or more researching and writing to have it improved in hindsight by someone who might spend an hour on it. Well, I jest yet I don’t jest because everyone needs their work reviewed. Was @Rex particularly rough today compared to some other times…nah.
With the advent of twist ties do people use BREADBINS today to keep the bread fresh or just to keep it out of sight? Yeah…I had BOX at first.
I read The Shipping News years ago and for whatever reason never noticed her first initial and always thought of her as ANNIE. On the other hand, I never think Night Shyamalon….
I saw the PR vowel sounds, checked whether they might all be pronounced EE, and never noticed they were in alphabetical order. Dh!
I've always wanted to go to Isle ROYALE, but never have and probably never will. I thought there was a second national park in Lake Superior, but it's actually Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. I'm not sure what that is.
Only birders know this, and maybe biologists, but the part of a bird's face right behind the eye is called the LORES. Neat to have it crossing BIRDS OF PREY.
@Nancy-
Yeah, me too (7:55).
Thx, Michael, for a very crunchy Mon. puz!
Hard; played like a Wednes. pour moi.
Never felt in control on this one; in fact, wouldn't have been surprised if I'd've dnfed.
Many unknowns: LORES HUA, ROYALE, ANNIE PROULX, AJA, OR IT, DRU.
BREADBox before BREAD BIN; Soup before STEW.
Loved the Mon. challenge; a nice wakeup call! :)
Thx @jae; on it! :)
@RooMonster 👍 for QB yd :)
___
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Book was better than the movie. Still had no idea of the name!
To Brits it's a bread bin
BOOP and her BRO, HUA were always SAD FACED. She had lost her ROYALE POISE because of the STEW POT full of SALSA. HUA, licking his LOLLIPOPS would always shout "ONO, You've put on the LBS again..." BOOP would toss a TV DINNER at him and yell " No steak TATAR for you!" Then she'd wander over to the BREAD BIN, smell the CARBS, and would feed THE BIRDS OF PREY lurking out by THE STY.
SARA, THE nosy neighbor, would arrive AT NOON and offer a REEFER or two. "LAUDE, shouted BOOP, ONE BY ONE the HEXES will ENSUE!!!" She'd shout it in A ROAR and the POSTER of ORIT and LORES would come crashing down. HUA would have to get off his ARSE and sweep the mess.
I DIDN'T MEAN TO PRY whispered SARA, but it looks like the YETIS from TIBET are about to TROD INDIE living room. ONE BY ONE and til THE BITTER END the HEXES would end. Nothing was LOST and they all kept on eating that BLAH POT of STEW, and hope that THE TENNIS PRO on TV would DYE.
the problem is... with Photoshop and the like, pics and it never happened.
ARSE, by my unofficial count, has now appeared in 18 consecutive NYTXWs. It feels like someone has just discovered that there is a semi-acceptable way to say butt.
Let us not forget that, according to Pulp Fiction anyway, the Quarter Pounder was, and perhaps still is, called the ROYALE in France. I don’t tend to spend my time in France at Mickie D’s, so I’ve not personally verified this.
There was a nice article about wetlands by Annie Proulx in the New Yorker an issue or two ago. It was so distinctly written that after about three pages I turned back to see who had authored it. I gave myself the old “doh” head slap when I saw.
Congrats and thanks for a nice debut Michael T. Buerte.
As I sit here in a cabin about 50 miles from the ferry to Isle Royale, it was not at all difficult for me to see that one. I suspect the reason it’s so rarely visited is that anybody who goes to Michigan expecting to find the park is woefully disappointed. The ferry leaves from Minnesota.
There is another theme running through this - each themer is also a well-known 'blank'P phrase. BP - batting practice/British Petroleum; GP - general practitioner; IP - intellectual property; TP - toilet paper; AP - Associated Press. (And, a bonus at 11D - LP for long playing!)
Apologies to anyone who beat me to the fact that while her given name is Edna Anne Proulx, she writes as ANNIE PROULX. Never has been Anne E. Got that out of my system. I’m a big fan (duh).
I enjoyed the theme because it is Monday and I know that the solve will most likely zip by in a trice or possibly couple trices - or something. Like OFL, I thought perhaps it was going to have something to do with “Xs” but alas no. I do line puzzles with Xs and Qs and Js and Zs, but ‘twas not to be today. But I enjoyed the pr+vowel sound progression because it is a cool word thing and I do love words.
Took a lovely couple of minutes to recall one summer when after spending year after year beating the stifling August heat and humidity in Columbus, OH (way before anywhere but the biggest movie theatres had air conditioning) by leaving for the north. My family would camp its way to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to enjoy the environment, the woods, the lakes and the birds. I adored it but begged for at least 5 years to get all the way up to Isle ROYALE to enjoy the primitive wilderness and rugged beauty of those pristine islands - many only accessible by boat. I honestly have never since enjoyed as many consecutive days of clean air and water and the sounds of nature unblemished by any sounds of humanity other than some wood chopping, fire crackling sounds if cooking freshly caught fish and a little conversation. Nor have I had to work so diligently to provide for my basic needs. A truly life changing experience in such good ways.
And that memory alone added so much to my enjoyment today that I have no complaints at all about this puzzle.
GILL I. 10:32 AM I hit refresh over and over until your story shows up and then I can go on about my day. Love these chaotic pots of stew.
@bigsteve46…Shatner also went scuba diving around sharks with Josh Gates when he was 90! I don’t CARE if he already KNEW how to scuba dive! Who woulda thunk when he was peering out of that airplane window at a “griffin-like” creature at around age 39 he’d be pushing the envelope in 2021!
We do accept Britishisms, "loo" and "arse" mostly. But they're usually clued as being so. Bread bin without the HEY IT'S SAID IN GB clue is as bad as boot or tappet or wind screen without it.
I hate everything Disney, and I doubly hate that every NYTimes Xword puzzle clue that references children's literature from Arabian Nights to the Grimms to Mother Goose to Pooh (one of their worst debaunchments) is referencing Disney animations and not the actual stories.
And it wasn't a Yeti Shatner saw, it was a gremlin. Just like Bugs Bunny.
For those of you who the excellent comments by Loren Muse Smith, here’s an email exchange I just had with her:
Hi Loren,
Just did an NYT crossword from the archives and reading one of your delightful comments on Rex’s blog I realized how much I miss seeing you there. Hope all is all right with you.
Thanks for the laughs,
Jarrett
Thanks for the note! All's well with me - just adjusting to my "new" job. I hope to get back to commenting soon. . .!
@egsforbreakfast 10:45 AM I wrote a paragraph today on how much "bottom" nonsense we've been enduring lately, but it didn't make the cut. Maybe not as funny as I thought it was, so it's fine.
We'll complain mightily about ELSA which has shown up dozens and dozens of times since 2014 (a character every little girl on Earth knows) and ARIEL who's appeared about a hundred times since 1994 (and again, everybody knows her on sight), but when it comes to British versions of body parts, Biblical donkeys, whooppee cushion emanations, and all manner of weedy jocularity, well that's so rad I guess, eh? Bro? Amirite? Sheesk. Gimme my pearls back.
The puzzle theme seemed to be naming the vowel order with silent y’s and x’s. How does ‘pro’, the only ending actually having the vowel contained, fit this pattern?
Hooray for Isle Royale. I've always wanted to go. As for it being the least visited ( in the Lower 48), well, Not last year.
North Cascades owns that honor with a mere 17.8 Thousand visitors.
Isle Royale had 25 K plus.
I've been to number 9 on the list: Dry Tortugas. Highly recommended. And the only real chance for Masked Boobies if you're aiming to increase your life list. ( Got my life brown noddy there. And my Life black noddy at Vocanoes National Park)
I didn't see any red-eyed vireos eating berries on holly trees in either park
In my house, it is, has always been, and probably will ever be BREAD BIN. That might just be a Canadian thing tho.
By GRAND PRIX, I said to myself, "Haven't seen one of these kinds of puzzles in a while."
By Isle ROYALE and JESSE Ventura, I figured the constructor was from Minnesota.
And with P__LX in place, ANNIE PROULX filled right in. I have a book of her short stories I've been meaning to read. Sorry Annie, I'll get right on that...
Congratulations, Michael Beurke, on your NYT debut. Maybe you know my friend Pete, who also works for his beloved Twins, delivering beer at Target Center, his dream job.
We've seen this type of theme several times, but I gotta admit, these are a pretty neat set of themer entries. Good set of peripheral longballs, also. [fave-est: LOLLIPOPS.]
staff weeject pick: AJA. Far far better clue: {Like an overly agreeable German dude??} = A-JA. Then it scores the triple play, in concert with A-ROAR and A-REEL. Primo weeject stacks, in the NE & SW, btw.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Dip for tortilla chips} = SALSA. Got my solvequest arollin, right outta the chute. M&A figured the editors did that, becuz they feared that some of them NW fillins might spell trouble brewin, for the new solvequestors. As an olde solvequest pro, M&A knew ELSA & ARIEL, even tho he never saw their flicks.
Thanx for the PRAEIOU fun, Mr. Buerke dude. And congratz on yer debut. Nice RHYME clue.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
**gruntz**
I thought butt was a semi-acceptable way to say butt.
@Sunvolt
Great duet singing, Kitty and Red. Somehow I don't think I ever heard that one. Thanks.
NW corner was a bit of a slow start. Then zoomed until I hit the South. There progress was steady but needed to jump around alot for a Monday.
But after changing BREADBin to BREADBOX I got hung up on wondering if a bread bin was bigger than bread box? What if in 20 questions you were thinking of a bread box and someone asked is it bigger than a bread box? Would you be able to give a NO answer smoothly without giving the game away? Could you say no, definitely not, trying to mislead? My mind wandered a bit.
Vowel progression theme. Unless their is something special about it, I seldom even notice it. Blah meh boring. But OK it does something no matter how trivial . But it is such a purely CW thing, how would a rookie even notice. So a Monday? I was looking for the TP AP stuff above.
@Rex
Sorry. IDIDNTMEANTOPRY is the expression when you have asked a question that unintentionally asked a question that leads to a subject that is embarrassing to a person. Or when you are pretending that is the case. The clue clearly implies the question has already been asked.
When I was young, my parents played a guessing came with me that they got from TV. The standard question was "is it bigger than a bread box." So I was sure the theme had something to do with X. Eventually, that didn't work and I never realized there was a theme. Didn't matter, my time was a completely normal Monday.
@birchbark - I know Michigan gave Toledo to Ohio and got the U.P. in exchange. I assume Isle Royale was part of the deal. I guess the question, then, is what do you have to trade? And don’t say Toledo.
Buerke missed the chance to have more fun with his BLAH theme, in the middle East. Rather than ODD, could've made it OPA and thrown PRUdence to the wind. Must've had too much to smoke in the West.
If anyone cares...
The lores are the areas of a bird's face on either side from the base of the bill to the front of the eyes. The lores do not extend further up or down than the width of the bill base.
Incredibly useful as a field mark in some species. White-Throated sparrows have unmistakable yellow lores. Absolutely diagnostic. The white lores of the yellow-breasted chat are connected making it appear to be wearing spectacles.
And of course the white-eyed vireo gets its name not from white eyes, but white lores. ( they don't eat berries in holly trees either)
Ask me about malar stripes, auriculars, and submoustachial stripes any day.
@bocamp-Managed to finish what I think is the latest Freestyle (731), which was a real workout, but fair enough, and made me glad I have lots of free time. Phew.
@Birchbark. Nice try with your land grab. Actually IR "should" be part of Ontario if proximity matters.
'
I'd take Isle Royale over Toledo, Casino Royale, the Royal family, and Yale. Tastes may differ.
LIL ONO connects Rap and the Beatles and their respective generations. So amusing in a way. But LIL ONO LBS is a pretty pathetic 3X3. At least it is followed by BLOT instead of ALOT.
Some of the POT-REEFER related answer stuff peps things up a notch. The BITTER END was where I started to go to live blues and rock shows.
LOLLIPOP reminds me of the song and that I made fresh squeezed lemonade with a sprig of mint on Sunday. Completely forgot what a great drink that is.
Minimal PoCs in this one. Blah theme but good themers. ORIT gets a high five.
I prefer my Royale with cheese… especially in 🧩 and any reference to Pulp Fiction and/or Kill Bill is the 💣 !
Though this puzz missed the boat on Pulp Fiction, haha, 🦖 did not! 👍🏽
Good Monday! It had some teeth despite the so-sp PR.
🤗🦖🦖🦖🦖😜
Here here @Gill!
Had me chuckling the whole way! 🙂
@Michiganman (3:24) -- Point taken. But, you know, 49th parallel and all. Our border to the North has been so friendly for so long, not sure we want to mess with it. Otherwise what was the point of the War of 1812?
@Zed O'Phone (1:54) -- I'll trade you Yakutsk and Irkutsk for Isle ROYALE.
I enjoyed the theme immensely, but like many, found the puz to be a bit on the dull side.
Isle Royale should be pretty well known.
If you really want to visit a far-flung national park, I highly recommend Great Basin.
Never heard of it? Few have. But it's awesome.
I wouldn't go so far as to say I don't like them but I'm not a big fan of progressive end of word/phrase vowel sounds either. I did soldier on to the BITTER END though, just to see what the "-PRU" answer would be. I'm not familiar with ANNIE PROULX and would never have been able to correctly guess how her last name is pronounced. Not even 100% sure now.
I noticed that two of the themers needed some letter count inflation (LCI) when neither BIRD OF PREY nor I DON'T MEAN TO PRY were not up to the task of filling their slots. The former gets a one letter uptick with a plural of convenience (POC) and the latter gets a present to past tense modification. LCIs are not unusual in xword grids (see the lower, rightmost square, for instance, for a two for one POC) but I think its more of a demerit to the puzzle when they happen with themers, right?
@Anoa
Not always. Or not to the same degree.
BIRDSOFPREY has traction of its own. There is the Harley Quinn movie. Also when I went to the first few bird of prey sites on Google they all started talking about birds of prey.
As I pointed out above the I didn't mean to pry also has usage. I do not mean to pry also has a healthy usage which the puzzle could have used instead. Both are letter extensions but certainly some are less offensive than others.
I just am somewhat dubious about dumping on phrases that have minor variations in general use and folks get upset when the most common variation is not used. To me it's like complaining when an uncommon synonym is used as a clue instead of a more common synonym. I do seem to be in a minority here on this issue. Of course the more sparkle the puzzle has the more this situation is overlooked.
@Michael Fleming - There are ferries from Grand Portage, MN, to Isle Royale: the Sea Hunter III and the Voyageur II. But there are also ferries from Copper Harbor, MI: the Isle Royale Queen IV and from Houghton, MI: the Ranger III. The Ranger docked about 300 yards from the house I grew up in, visible from our kitchen window.
Isle Royale is one of the most beautiful places on earth.
CARBS ATNOON?
SARA, IDIDN'TMEANTOPRY,
POT or REEFER's no sin,
but THE TVDINNER, why
is IT IN THE BREADBIN?
--- LI'L JESSE CASH
Anyone who has been to Isle ROYALE will tell you it's a beautiful place. I am somewhat involved in the funding for the ferry - the only one in MN.
Anyone who remembers JESSE Ventura will have an opinion, PRO or otherwise. A TV that I bought with my 'JESSE check' tax rebate just conked out.
TENNISPRO is the only themer that is spelled solely with the letter as sounded out.
Wordle birdie.
Her idealization of a parent who would sell her children to a child pornographer is permanently unforgivable. Don’t get me started on her “stylized” prose.
Meh. Another lunchbag letdown. Pretty thin, even for a Monday.
SALSA, CARBS, and a TVDINNER. I'd rather do puzzles - and Mondays are a fave!
Diana, LIW
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