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South Asian toddy cats / SAT 7-2-22 / Saya for a katana / Decorative painting on an airplane fuselage / Painting that inspired an iconic "Home Alone" movie poster / Locale for a power wash / Bathing suit portmanteau / Verbal equivalent of picking up the gauntlet / Plant that symbolized purity in ancient Egypt
Saturday, July 2, 2022
Constructor: Evan Kalish
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: Prix de Lausanne (57A: Competitor in the Prix de Lausanne (BALLERINA)) —
The Prix de Lausanne is an international dance competition held annually in Lausanne, Switzerland. The competition is for young dancers seeking to pursue a professional career in classical ballet, and many former prize winners of the competition are now leading stars with major ballet companies around the world. The competition is managed by a non-profit foundation organised by the Fondation en faveur de l'Art chorégraphique and is maintained by various sponsors, patrons and donors. [...] Entry is reserved for young student-dancers, aged 15 through 18, who have not yet been in professional employment and open to candidates of all nationalities. // Currently, participants are required to submit a 15–20 min digital file recording showing them performing a combination of barre and centre-work exercises in a studio environment and pay a non-refundable registration fee of CHF 120. Those candidates selected to participate in the competition pay a second fee of CHF 120. // Around 80 candidates from 30 or so countries compete each year, in the hope of being selected for the final, reserved for the best 20 among them. The final of the competition is broadcast live on television. (wikipedia)
• • •
Sure enough, following the Munch painting, CHANT EDIT ARE got me moving, and then I could see that 15A: Sugar cubes, e.g. ended in -HEDRA, and NUT and REBUS, and with KANGAROOS off the table (probably intended as a trap answer at 17A: Certain Australian boomers (male) and flyers (female)), WALLABIES made the next most natural guess there, and so before I knew it, whoosh, that corner was done. And at that point I had the front ends of both long exit answers all cued up and reading to rocket into the center of the grid. Sadly, one of those potential rocket answers was GREAT RECESSION, an answer I don't understand wanting to build a puzzle around ever, let alone when the country is on the cusp of ... another GREAT RECESSION. It's not a "bad" answer, per se, but you make choices with your marquee answers, and I do not understand why, tonally, you'd want this one right at the heart of your puzzle. I had GREAT and wanted it to be ... something more specific, actually. More bygone. Instead it feels like when people called WWI the "Great War" or the "War to End All Wars." There's this assumption that that was *it*. That *that* was the "great" one. I feel like any minute now, God or Fate or whatever is gonna be like, "hold my beer." I tend to remember that time as "the subprime mortgage crisis," but I guess the global repercussions ballooned out from there. There's no joy in reflecting on any of this, so why is it one of your handful of marquee answers? Dunno.
I like TRIX RABBIT, but again, as with THE SCREAM, you just hand that one over like it's Monday (29D: Commercial mascot with floppy ears). And then NETFLIX SPECIAL becomes obvious and you're well set up to get into the remaining corners and finish them off. There was a brief period in there where I had SERB and KURD (LOL) before TURK (29A: Bosporus resident), and (thus) couldn't quite get a grip on ALKENE (22D: Certain hydrocarbon), but that was more or a Wednesday struggle than a Saturday struggle. And it was the only struggle this puzzle really offered. I mean, ASTRIDE LACONIC SHEATH, bam bam bam, off their first one or two letters. The SE corner never stood a chance. And if it weren't for the "???" quality of NOSE ART, or my apparent preference for the MANKINI over the TANKINI (12D: Bathing suit portmanteau), the other corners would've been just as easy. As it was, still pretty easy.
As usual, the names were the things I didn't know, but there weren't that many of them. SAL (4D: Comedian Vulcano of "Impractical Jokers") and ALI (11D: Tony-winning actress Stroker) were unknowns, but the crosses were just plowed right through them, so I didn't have to spend any time piecing them together. And I knew Rachel DRATCH (49A: "S.N.L." alum Rachel) and DELLA Reese (49D: "And That Reminds Me" singer Reese), so no trouble there. I saw Rachel DRATCH in the market at Grand Central one time, with a child that I assume was hers. That is my Rachel DRATCH story. Oh, and one of my colleagues was at Dartmouth at the same time as her. I think I got that right. So two Rachel DRATCH stories, neither of which qualifies as a story. This is me at my raconteuriest. I'm here every night.
A few more things:
- 53A: Taken charge (FEE) — a FEE is a "charge" that is "taken" (from you)
- 6D: Image problem? (REBUS) — I'm so used to thinking of REBUS in crossword terms (multiple letters, sometimes representing an image, in one square) that this kind of REBUS (the picture puzzle kind) always surprises me. A very "children's placemat" kind of puzzle. Here, see if you can figure out this one:
- 34D: Tick or tock (SEC) — Hmmm, I guess this is, literally, true. That is what the ticking (or tocking) of the clock represents: the passing of one second. I feel like I was *just* watching a documentary of some kind ... or a video online ... about how "tock" is not actually a different sound from "tick," but we talk about it as if it were ... I can't remember why this fact warranted attention. The end.
 |
| TOCK! |
See you tomorrow,
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88 comments:
What I liked most about this was gradually watching longer answers emerge as crosses filled in – which happened with WALLABIES, GREAT RECESSION, NETFLIX SPECIAL, TEXAS TECH, TRIX RABBIT and MASTER COPY. When the answer finally hits, it’s a “whee!” and an “ahhh” – excitement, relief, and satisfaction all rolled in one.
I loved EX-LOVER, THWACK, WALLABIES, MASTER COPY, and THE SCREAM, and my favorite clue was [Image problem?] for REBUS. I also loved the PuzzPairs© of RABBIT / KIT and TAT / NOSEART.
Above all, I loved whee-ing and ahhh-ing through this beautiful creation – thank you so much, Evan!
This puzzle is subtitled "Gary knows squat."
Here I am awake at 3:30 am again, so let's talk about puzzling, eh?
Part 1:
Never heard of a HEXAHEDRA, but it sounds like we've upgraded the humble cube way too far.
Fractions don't always have slashes, especially if you have decent handwriting. I've now learned the horizontal bar is sometimes called a vinculum if it's flat and a virgule if it's diagonal. When I was 17, I was good at math, now I am good at going for ice cream.
I'm having a heck of a time learning all these gender related terms, and now I'm asked to know the genders of Australian WALLABIES. The internet told me there were basketball teams with those names, so I had BALL-- for way too long.
I've heard of the SANAI. Didn't know about a war. I personally am opposed to war.
No idea about CIVETS. Who among us is a CIVETS savant?
I listen to quite a bit of comedy, but Hannah Gadsby and Hasan Minhaj were unknown to me. I kinda like the phrase NETFLIX SPECIAL, but it's Saturday so they pick two stars we're highly unlikely to know. Ah fame, such a fickle friend. Does it feel like having a NETFLIX SPECIAL is a bit like being a YouTube star? You know, not being very starry?
SNL has never been funny enough for me to stay up past 10 pm, so Rachel DRATCH was never going to be in my brain. I recognize her face on research.
Tobiko and masago. You guys know these eggs, right? Is it a New York champagne socialist charcuterie culture type of knowledge? You know your ROE and donate heavily to the charity fund of the evening? I probably should move to New York where more people appreciate a platter of tobiko and masago.
Gotta be honest and admit my ballet competition knowledge has been slipping lately, so Prix de Lausanne was as meaningful as all things NASCAR.
It turns out there are FOUR Will Rogers and his horse statues. That's too many. There appears to be only one Einstein statue and there are NO Gary Jugert statues.
Roquefort source is sheep's milk. I really gotta get a book on cheese plates. Sometimes I walk past all those cheeses at Whole Foods and I think yum, and then I pick up the smallest wedge of something I will eat before leaving the parking lot and it's $12, so I put it back down. Where's the plastic tub of cheese doodles?
Part 2
Here's a surprise. My public education did not cover the hydrocarbon ALKENE. Pretty sure gasoline has something to do with hydrocarbons, and I think they're bad, but it'll turn out shampoo has hydrocarbons and I'll quit trying.
I'm pretty sure I know Tick or tock is NOT a SEC, but at this point I am so unclear on everything that matters in life I suspect our constructor knows about a type of Gen-Z SEC that's news to me. Did you hear Tik Tok is in trouble with the government? They can't protect us from machine guns or allow women to be in charge of their own bodies -- but dance videos? Well yer darn tootin' our best people are ONIT.
Everybody has a Tony. Hell, I probably have a Tony in a cardboard box around here somewhere. Not entirely sure how I'd know ALI Stroker or the fact she has a Tony, but I am glad she does.
This just in to the news desk, the NYTXW universe will be asking you to know brewing company names like Lagunitas. I can walk to 20 different brewing companies in my neighborhood, so I want to alert you the word Spangalang is not jibberish, but a place where, get this, they use high quality ingredients and really care about the craft. You can Google "gentrification" and they should show up.
As a casual bikini fan, how did not one person ever tell me about the TANKINI? Thanks for nothing, and now I have to go clear my browsing history.
LACONIC = Succinct. Hm. Honestly, I thought both were metal bands.
Things I actually knew on a Saturday:
I did know Bosporus (!) and confidently wrote in TURK so there's one thing.
My high school girlfriend wrote a paper on Edvard Munch and The Scream and then she dumped me in the parking lot of a Mexican food restaurant. I don't blame her as I am aware of my boyfriending skills and they're limited.
The TRIX RABBIT was often my morning breakfast companion growing up, but as an adult I've dumped him/her/they for coffee, a banana, and this wreck of a puzzle. I've made some poor choices in life.
SEXY, ehem. I know SEXY.
On the one hand, very tough. On the other hand, I can be obtuse.
“Finished,” but it wasn't pretty, felt like a last place marathon runner crawling across the line while the crowd is dispersing.
Liked the Hasan Minhaj Netflix Special so much that I watched it twice, but for some reason (that it was 2:00 am, that I didn’t know a Special on Netflix is thing?), I just didn’t see it for the longest time.
Got Heading for Direction but have no idea what it means. Gel was a head slapper when it went in. This One was That One for the longest time. Image problem, forgot about that kind of Rebus but typed it in because it looked like it should be Rebus. Sinai War, only ever heard of it as the Suez Crisis.
More stuff like that, plus a lot of playing Wordle (staring, looking for vowel and consonant blends, accepting X’s).
Sal, the new Eno. Never knew Ticktock was one word so wasn’t thinking abbreviation.
Thank you Evan Kalish. It seems that you have a beautiful mind.
A rebus puzzle on Saturday is always welcome.
Rex’s dictum (1A sets the tone) definitely held today. 1A was a gimme, and other than a brief flirtation with kAngArooS most of the rest was pretty easy. The IPA/PSAS cross was my only real sticking point, and I'll never be a fan of crossing initialisms.
A nicely filled grid that needed some humor.
Ancestors on both sides of my family made the TREK west to California during and just after the Gold Rush, some in wagon trains and others in ships. One group really had a rough time. The husband, wife, and six kids had already had a difficult journey, with a baby born and buried on the prairie. The group opted to follow the advice of a person who assured them the route he knew about was the quickest and easiest. But Sonora Pass is, in fact, the highest pass over the Sierra Nevada at 9,626 feet. It was so rocky the travelers had to take their wagons apart to get over, then reassemble them on the other side. One of the children -- my great-great grandmother -- who was around ten years old became very ill so they stopped for a while and this spot became known as "Traveler's Rest," still called that today. There is a mountain named after the family. A year later Grizzly Adams took the same route and reported that "on all sides lay old axle-trees and wheels...melancholy evidence of last season's disasters."
A nice Saturday puzzle that provided me with sufficient challenge among the occasional gimme.
But the quality of the puzzle is greatly exceeded by the quality of Gary Jugert's two-part mini-blog today. Thx, Gar - A fun way to start my day!
Pretty much the same solving experience as OFL here. Except I had to Google Dratch. My SNL knowledge stopped with Akroyd , Belushi, and Curtin. That may date me. And may explain why I finally broke down and bought my first TANKINI a few years ago. My days of sporting bikinis well are over (and the entire neighborhood swimming pool community thanks me). Hello middle age! WALLABIES. (Always makes me want to say 'Well I'll be!') Vs. kangaroos. That's the emu/ostrich pairing of the fur world. And reminded me of some bizarre TV show I vaguely remember from my youth in Europe. It was called Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo. I think the title kangaroo was like Flipper or Lassie in that it saved the day with some young kid pal every Wednesday at 4 PM on channel ZDF. The funny thing is that I caught an episode of it 40 years later on some middle of the night programming. I had begun to suspect that I had imagined such a bizarre story line (like having an imaginary friend) until that popped up. Even funnier, I found an article about it that claimed that the studio used two different animals for the show...one being an actual kangaroo, and the other, a wallaby! Apparently the city and indoors scenes were easier to shoot with the wallaby for some reason. Seeing that episode, I realized the wallaby looked like a flea-bitten, mange-riddled, unhappy camper. Oh how I miss the rose-colored glasses of youth when it looked like the cuddliest Best Friend ever!
Overall went easily, but the DRATCH/DELLA cross is exactly the worst kind of pop culture trivia usage. Two people who I’ve never heard of, but they cross each other and they’re not common names easily worked out once you have enough other letters.
Compare that to SAL, who I also have never heard of, but it crosses regular words and is guessable from any two letters.
A tale of two sections in the the south. I enjoyed the SW, with straightforward clues for NOSE ART, E READER and TAX TIME, crossed by a grammar clue for EAT, and ADIOS, a foreign entry that’s actually in common usage (jeez, what a concept).
Contrast that section with the SE, which is an excellent example of an area that I find no pleasure in attempting to slog through. The entry to the section is guarded by HANNAH GADSBY and HASAN MINHAJ, while the clues include SAYA, KATANA, TOBIKO, MASAGO, PRIX DE LAUSANNE and one of a group of perhaps hundreds of SNL alums by now. Pretty much a well-crafted example of a crossword puzzle in the SW and a jumble of yuk in the SE.
HEXAHEDRA looks out of place and a little gimmicky, but the NYT uses that cluing convention frequently and it is Saturday after all, so no harm, no foul. CIVETS and TANKINI were new to me - apparently companies do actually market TANKINI’s !
Absurdly easy for a Saturday. I set a personal best and felt zero triumph. And a few weeks ago I'd set a personal best that I thought would be super, super tough to beat. I liked the puzzle just fine, but when you do a Saturday and end up with Wednesday times, well...I just want to throw my hat in with the folks observing that the NYT puzzle seems like it's trending easier these days. Especially Friday/Saturday, my favorite puzzle days of the week. Where's the crunch?
I’m on your side. What you said, ditto.
Fun puzzle. Interesting how EXLOVER is definitely a thing but not a word you encounter much except in news headlines. "Ex-lover pleads guilty ..." And the Kinks song "In a Foreign Land":
Please tell my mother and all my ex-lovers
That I've finally made the grade
Please tell my debtors and the money collectors
That all of my bills will be paid some day
I'm away, I'm away, far away in a foreign land
Natick-town for me at “tobiko or masago” crossing “saya, for a katana”.
Not as straightforward for me - but fun nonetheless. Agree that some of the longs were flat - TAX TIME and GREAT RECESSION could have been splashier. But the balance was nice with WALLABIES, BALLERINA etc. all solid.
Of course my eyes were drawn to the ORAL - SEX(Y) block.
My wife handles all of the streaming services - I just watch so there’s no logical connection between shows and service. No idea on DRATCH - thank you DELLA and LACONIC. I’ve mastered grilled chicken THIGHS.
Ex-friends, EX-LOVERs and enemies
Enjoyable Saturday solve.
Uh, Tioga Pass is at 9900+ feet. Though I wouldn't be surprised if it was impassable to wagons in those days.
I'm with @Joaquin - Great post from @Gary Jugert! Thank you.
This was a smooth easy Saturday that seemed much more typical for a Friday. It started fast with 1A being a gimme and rarely slowed down. Other than thinking that " the Prix de Lausanne" was a car race and that 12D might be a mANKINI this puzzle was a saya for my solving katana.
For those having difficulty recalling 49A maybe a mnemonic like Debbie Downer DRATCH might help. DELLA Reese is just crossword 101. The latter isn't as common as say Etta James but like Etta crosswords beat DELLA into my head years ago.
yd -0
This really was an easy Saturday - until I hit the SE. Didn't know Rachel DRATCH or what Lagunitas offers. Bad cross for me. Lagunitas looked like a Spanish lagoon to me so I first threw in Ile hFrench, I know) and decided the CDC offered LSAT exams? Somehow I disentangled myself from all that, including my second guess of DRoTCH and Lagunitas offering IPos.
So overall, this was fun. Thanks, Evan Kalish.
DELLA crossing DRATCH was a clear Natick in this household. Ugh. I hate to see a nice puzzle by that sort of fill.
*EASY*?!?!?!!! Good Lord....
The "needlework" part of the clue had me thinking "lace", which led to TAT, which was right for the wrong reason, OK.
Didn't know ALI as clued or ALKENE or HEXAHEDRA. but otherwise just too easy for a Saturday. I should still be working on this and I've only had one cup of coffee, which is just wrong.
I liked a lot of the fill, EK, but Essentially Knew too much stuff right away. Thanks for some fun anyway.
I had FISH for 29A: Bosporus resident because, you know, the Bosporus is a body of water. It well may be a TURKish fish, but it's a FISH nonetheless.
I spent a good bit of time yesterday working with, and thinking about, Wing NUTS. I had 1/4-20 threaded rod but only one 1/4-20 wing NUT and whereas I needed many, and many 3/8 wing NUTs but no 3/8 thread rod, which of course I needed. I also wondered how to best permanently affix a wing nut to the rod. I have had little success with epoxies over the years, even less with crazy glue. All this is a prelude to the fact that I couldn't get WING ___ for the life of me. My CHANT was a CHART (USA most certainly appears on nautical CHARTs), and I was willing to accept that Wing RUTS exist. Perhaps in crash landings.
Team Easy.
Biggest hang up was half of my brain wanting American Gothic while the other half was SCREAMing, “No! That’s not it!” So the other other half decided to write in I SAID sO and SLASH and build from there. Had another slight hiccough with hi-res before hi-HAT, but basically sailed down the diagonal and through the SE before going back to the two warring halves of my brain. KNEW to THWACK to “why do I know CIVETS? Oh, yeah. I solve crosswords” to HEADING and EX-LOVER to “D’Oh! THE SCREAM.” No idea on time but it didn’t take long.
It seems like a few of you may have elided past part of the SINAI clue.It actually references The Suez Crisis, The Six-Day War, and The Yom Kippur War.
No problem here with HEXAHEDRA. I guess my HS Geometry teacher was just better than your HS Geometry teacher. Also, no problem with the Lagunitas clue. The brewery expended a great deal of creative energy naming their IPA. It’s a pretty popular IPA. If your grocer carries craft beer it probably carries Lagunitas IPA. The branding is mostly white with black lettering that looks like what you would see on shipping crates on the dock in old movies.
BTW - Lots of easy and hard early comments so I did a PPP count. 22%, on the low end of NYTX normal. So it is not the PPP making it hard for people.
And That Reminds Me. Man oh Man does that orchestration SCREAM Mid 20th Century.
My Rachel Dratch story is that her dad was my parents’ physician for many years.
DREECH? DROOCH? DROACH? DRENCH? What on earth is that Rachel woman's last name???
What's [a] "lagunitas"?
Does the CDC offer spAS?
What kind of RIDE for "in a saddle, say"? Never thought of ASTRIDE.
Four blank squares left in my grid. PSAS for "CDC spots" was clever, I must admit.
I managed to guess SHEATH from ??EATH -- even though I don't speak Japanese. I cursed plenty but I got KRIX RABBIT (who dat?) from the crosses. Also got the USPS/USB initials cross. I really don't like initials. I do, however, appreciate that today's NOSE ART was to be found on an airplane and not on a nose.
Tough and mostly enjoyable -- though I thoroughly disliked the SE section for the above reasons.
While I'm all for using the popular names, the real title of the painting (and woodcut) is Das Geschrei, or The Cry. Just FYI.
What Gary Jugert said! And really- a katana sheath? I have spent weeks in Japan - how did I not know this? Do I need to watch more martial arts movies?
My general rule is that I will run a search for an obscure PPP in a New Yorker or AVC puzzle, but not for the NYT. Today I broke that rule, maybe a dozen times. Partly it's my fault -- I have seen that Home Alone poster, but couldn't call it to memory, so I wanted the painting to be someone's dREAM. No idea about the boomers, either -- and when I finally looked them up, my dictionary said "large male kangaroo," so I needed most of the crosses (well, the W and the B) to get WALLABIES. And while I know what CIVETS are (remember civet coffee anyone? The beans were fed to civets, passed through their bodies, then washed, ground and brewed, for like $100 a cup. Never tried it myself.) but not that they were "toddy cats."
But my real problems were:
1) Putting in TuRK as my first entry, but then not seeing how it would work with a hydrocarbon (ethane? butane? octane?), so cleverly realizing that the Bosporus is a body of water, so its inhabitants must be "fish."
2) Seeing the INI and deciding, Aha! A burKINI! What a clever answer, and confirmed by KIT.
When I'm going paperless, I use a scannER, so that held me up too.
Ah well, Monday will be a new day. Enjoy your weekend, folks!
Tough one, but I got through it. I got "The Scream" right off, but little else. BTW, the "rebus" clue is why I hate the crossword puzzle version. It just seems a cheat to me. The illustration is what I first think of when I hear the word. Generally a feature of children's place mats in diners, with the world's easiest maze to solve and some bad puns. Not that there's anything wrong with that....
I believe this is the second time in a few weeks that we’ve seen a puzzle with a single REBUS.
Hey DELLA! If EWE KNEW how SEXY EWE ARE in a GRAY HAT and TANKINI…..
I liked @Gary Jungert’s two-part “Gary knows nothing” dispatch. After missing the fact that the Thursday puzzle was built around “uniclues”, he seems to be in the doldrums. Hey Gary! I ambien serious when I say there is a pharmaceutical path to avoiding those 3:30 am crossword crises.
Fun puzzle for sure, but I agree it was easy for a Saturday, which is not the constructor’s fault. Thanks, Evan Kalish.
Hey All !
Well, for me, the NW was the toughest and last spot to go. Had kangArooS in, as it for nicely with the A in CHANT. Had only CHANT and NUT up there for a while, and just couldn't ferret out anything else. So I erased it all to start over. Found EXLOVER off the final letter, then HEADING. Then wrote in WALLABeES, changing it when nothing was working to WALLArooS, then getting enough surrounding fill to see it was WALLABIES. Dang. Finished on ARE as a tentative thing, although pretty sure it had to be HEDRA ending 15A. Then, *Happy Music*!
Was solving in fits and starts, but still managed 32 and a half minutes. Wow! Seemed longer. So whenever I get a 30-ish minute solve on a Fri or SatPuz, I know Rex will rate it easy.
Hi res messing me up a bit. Hi HAT. Aha. Had else for KNEW as a further thorn in the NW. Korea before SINAI, although I was shaky on Korea lasting into the 70's. But PSST straightened that out.
NOSE ART gets the Har Award today. I've seen graphics on planes, but they are on the side, not the NOSE, right?
Gonna throw a HEXAHEDRA of sugar or two in my coffee and bid you ADIOS. 😜
yd -13 (again! C'mon, brain, work with me!), should'ves - at least 8
Duo 37, missed 1-3-5-7-14
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Oops. I see that it's ALKENE and not ALdENE from Gary J's post -- meaning that my kRIX RABBIT should have been TRIX RABBIT.
Who knew? And since I'd DNFed on the puzzle already, I won't beat myself up. But I think I was confusing my TRIX brand with my KIX brand. Are they both cereals? Remember, I don't ever watch commercials.
Not easy for me, at all. I couldn't think of any of the longer answers (including the should-have-been-obvious SCREAM), so I relied on short ones to give myself a foothold. And they turned out to be wrong; Wing "tip" instead of NUT, Who "else" instead of KNEW, "met" instead of GEL, Hi-"res" instead of HAT, "USs" instead of USB for the port reference, "ahi" instead of ROE - all of which made their respective crosses impossible to see. But thanks to the correct SEC, I got GREAT RECESSION and struggled my way up and down from there. Fell exhausted across the finish line at Lausanne.
I'd assumed that the Hannah Gadsby clue would refer to the content of "Nanette." NETFLIX SPECIAL, phooey. What a letdown.
Help from previous puzzles: learning that a katana is a sword. No idea: SAL, ALI, DRATCH.
My 10:36 comment needs a further explanation:
I was so pleased with myself when the"U" in GUESS AT made me quickly change seRb to kURd for the "Bosporus resident". (What I don't know about the Bosporus could fill, well, the Bosporus.)
When I finally changed kRIX RABBIT to TRIX RABBIT, I then had to change kURd to TURK. Giving me ALKENE and not ALdENE.
The End, I hope.
No clue here either. Went with Celia, Cratch & I nailed it!
Oh crud. I am so sorry. Three posts in one day. Tomorrow I will only have a one sentence review. Promise. But I was so distraught at how hard I found this puzzle and then beaten down by Rex (grr, Rex) and all the early solvers saying, "Yeah, it's cake," that I totally forgot my uniclues which have become my biggest joy in life next to everything about my wife. So I guess this is Part 3 (really, really sorry).
Uniclues:
1 Best location for sharing family feuds with the neighbors.
2 "Brush your teeth," sayeth the government.
3 My thoughts exactly when the Black Swan dies... or maybe the White Swan... or really any swan.
4 Why that joint account was a disastrous decision.
5 Result of too many pizza-for-breakfast Thursdays.
6 TIX A BIT.
1 THE SCREAM PATIO
2 ORAL GRAY PSAS
3 ADIOS BALLERINA
4 EX-LOVER TAX TIME
5 REBUS THIGHS
6 EDIT TRIX RABBIT
Easy ??? Over 1 hour for me. A few coffee refills, but still... I guess the key was knowing "The Scream" reference. I was familiar with both but never put them together before. Oh well.
That wasn't my only tough spot, of course. Seems to me that we are getting more Japanese references every week, and I have a real problem when they are showing up in the same quadrant. And I knew Della cause I'm old but the cross with Dratch ? Did the editors start their Fourth of July break a little early?
I guess I might have to start reading the short stories I have been skipping from @GJ since he's getting rave revues.appy Fourth, y'all. We need to be reminded that we are all in this together.
Like the Bosporus among the TURKs, I was caught in the middle in this grid. I had several moments of Rexian ease interspersed with long spans of a solve more in keeping with @Gary’s multi-post angst. SINAI was gimme, but HEXAHEDRA took ages. I CALLED IT with THE SCREAM, but DRATCH & BALLERINA tied my TANKINi in knots. Good to see that ROE still is acceptable in NYTXW even though it’s suffered a GREAT RECESSION on more important fronts. Don’t wanna WADE into that one, so ADIOS mis amigos.
Neither tick nor tock is an abbreviation. SEC is an abbreviation. THIS ONE needed an EDIT.
Mediumish. I thought this was going to be easy when 1a and 10a were gimmes. Not so. Dumb mistakes like @Rex serb before TURK (no excuse as I recently finished reading “Cloud Cuckoo Land”) and a fair amount of WOES...e.g. BALLERINA and WALLABIES as clued...pushed this into Saturday territory. Solid with a smattering of sparkle, liked it.
@Gary Jugert -- What a witty and delightful addition to the blog you are! I just love reading your comments. Seems that many people here feel the same way.
@Shirley F -- Your family and family history are really fascinating. What hardy and intrepid people you descend from! I wonder if I can Google that mountain?
Thx, Evan, for a very crunch Sat. challenge; lots to chew on! :)
Med.
Smack-dab avg. time, but felt tougher. One of those where I felt 'there's just too much I don't know'. Very gratifying to finish successfully.
Had EX LOVER / KNEW / EWE in the NW, but needed to come back at the end of the solve to suss out the rest of it.
Needed all the crosses for DRATCH, and even then, was thinking something was amiss.
Learned that WALLABIES are 'boomers' or 'flyers'.
Another very enjoyable Sat. puz! :)
___
yd 0 (finally got the missing 6er from last Sun. D'oh!) / Duo: 34
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
About the average amount of themeless SatPuz solvequest sufferin, at our house.
Got the NW area pretty quick, despite no-know SAL Vulcano. But then, faced with the MAS+7 letters goin out one way, and the GRE+11 letters join out the other, M&A was , well … goin nowhere fast. Smellin a nanosecond sinkhole, frightened M&A lepted over to the NE corner, deftly and incorrectly splatzin in BAD for 23-A's {Word with mess or press}. Also got PSST pretty quick and more correctly. Thrashed around in the NE for quite a spell, but eventually got it all filled in all right.
Then I saw GRE + … + ION, and got GREATRECESSION, pronto. Then M&A wrongbreath jumped at splatzin in THATONE, ahead of THISONE. Figures. TRIXRABBIT and NETFLIXSPECIAL both were quick GUESSATs, tho. A bright spot.
Have had some relatives attend TEXASTECH, so a nice gimme, down there at the southern puzborder, too boot.
staff weeject pick: ALI. no-know. M&A was close, with his initial ELI guesstimate.
some faves: WALLABIES. TEXASTECH. NOSEART [More debut-ier than snot]. THWACK. GUESSAT.
Thanx for the non-easy challenge, Mr. Kalish dude.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s. M&A has recently been informed by a test solver than Runtz is a new-ish form of real primo marijuana.
**gruntz**
When I pick up a gauntlet, I say DRATCH.
HEXAHEDRA = 1/2 dodecahedra. Whenever the talk turns to numbered hedra, I think of Dr. Who (Tom Baker)'s deadpan intensity: "Good -- now show me the Dodecahedron!"
What the hell does "OHITSON" mean??!!!
I managed to finish the puzzle without cheating but count me in the crowd that thinks the puzzle today was much harder than the Friday offering. I had DRATCH on the tip of my tongue and since I knew a katana was a type of Japanese sword finally got SHEATH. Meanwhile up in NW, THESCREAM was sitting there somewhat alone with HEXA and I’ll say to @Zed that he MAY have indeed had a better geometry teacher because I don’t really recall getting into the names of 3D geometric objects. At any rate, I thought the puzzle was fun and a bit of a challenge.
@Gary Jugert…lol, is it safe to say you were NOT LACONIC today? Btw…are you sure you had SANAI? Just sayin’ cuz it is SINAI as in the peninsula.
Lagunitas is a brewery. They make several IPA’s, including “Little Sumpin’”
100% agree. I had to just try a bunch of consonants in that spot. I didn’t even know if Reese was the singer’s first or last name, so there were lots of plausible options.
Civets were briefly popular at the time of the movie “Bucket List”. Civets, specifically their gastrointestinal tracts, are necessary for obtaining kopi luwak coffee beans.
As the crow flies, I lost some of my bearings. I was able to take the fast train from point A and I actually SCREAMed with some delight. The crow led me to fly through most of the northern atmosphere but it came to a halt many times:
I really enjoy Evan's puzzles but I always need a break or two. Get up... walk away... come back and try to get a first class ticket. The starts and stops really help. Some bumps, some unknown areas, a need for a mind map, and eventually you arrive at your destination.
THE SCREAM was my first entry followed by EX LOVER and TANKINI. I think there's a story there. This seemed awfully easy (so far)...I was glad that I new TURK. I kept on flying. I came to a roadblock as I tried to crawl my way through the very end. NOSE ART? I had LOGO. Erase, Erase. Go back and start over. I know Lagunitas even thought I don't drink beer. Has to be either ALE or IPA. Picked the latter. DRATCH (sigh) was a look up and so was DELLA. Neither popped in. Damn! I was riding high for such a long time. I got to ASTRIDE and laughed. I can't unsee Putin riding ASTRIDE his horse sans a shirt. Next, he'll probably show us his naked body with a TAT of his bestie, whatshisname. I hope to never see his Annus Horribilus" or you'll hear THE SCREAM from me. Am I being too LACONIC?
I learned and will forget HEXAHEDRA, that Saya is a SHEATH and Tobiko is ROE. Or maybe I will remember.
A very enjoyable ride...I arrived safe and sound. I'd like more of these Satudays.
I’m with those who didn’t find this easy at all. (2 min slower than average Saturday, and that was with a couple of Google-cheats: 46D/54A natick !!!
@Pabloinnh: actually, you weren’t off with your connection to lace. TATting is the process of making lace with a needle and shuttle-thingy. How to video here: https://youtu.be/DFskQKYIYm4
@MetroGnome: yeah I balked at that too. I hear it as: “The game is on!”- “OH ITS ON, alright!”
@teedman: The (usually dry) lake on Stanford’s campus had me thinking of some kind of water for Lagunitas,(but “eau” is French, and “agua” didn’t fit) til I remembered I had some IPA bottles in my fridge…
p.s.
Oh, yeah … Last letter filled in was at the SHEATH/ROE crossin E. Both their clues made no sense to m&e, but the E made two civilized words, so was strongly persuaded to go with it -- even tho I'da normally gone with a U.
M&Also
Challenging for me…(but Am impatient today)
And after yesterdays sparkle and zing this one felt flat and boring via dull clues and with some exceptions- answers.
Hooray for 😱 THE SCREAM and BALLERINA (but not their clues)😜
😱😱🦖🦖🦖😱😱
I really couldn't parse 14 down (OHITSON) for the longest time and insisted that it must be SHITSON.
Not easy for me even though THE SCREAM went right in. The NW added only CHANT, REBUS, EDIT, and the unfortunate for me MoviE REELS, which I thought was correct for the longest time until I saw I had to recast it to MASTER REEL – of course! – because the clue is singular, that’s what’s wrong. [tick tock] Uh-oh, wrong again. Finally worked that all out by going elsewhere and seeing GREAT RECESSION.
Last to fall was DRATCH, unknown to me and looking suspect, but on entering the R in REELS the app said it’d take it.
Other unknowns as clued inferable with crosses: SHEATH, BALLERINA (reworked from bicyclist), ROE, NETFLIX SPECIAL (it has specials?), and TEXAS TECH.
THWACK is one of those words that doesn’t look like a real word but is fun to say.
Enjoyed the ride (hi, @ Gill 12:34; enjoyed your post too). Thanks, Evan!
Amen! And, thanks to JD, too. Sometimes doing a crossword can seem like an ordeal. Nice to know I’m not the only one going, “WTF?” on days like today. I’m amazed, though, that with all the angst I still beat my best time…
I'm relatively new to doing the NYTXW daily. My hubby and I did Sunday religiously for about 10 years. Now we are split, and I've taken up the daily NYTXW grind. What does it say about me that I found today's puzzle so very satisfying, while so many commenters here had so many complaints about difficulty? I'm 61 years old. Boomer through and through. I never heard of ALI Stroker. I did not know about boomers and flyers being male and female wallabies. I did not know that CIVETS were from South Asia, and I never heard of toddy cats. I did not recognize Hannah Gadsby or Hasan Minhaj. I was not familiar with the Prix de Lausanne. I know virtually nothing about hydrocarbons. I had no idea what Lagunitas was. I don't know a saya, or a katana, from a whole in the ground. And I did not know any Will Rogers horse besides Trigger. And did any of that both me? Not at all! For me, that's the fun part!! This is what makes it a *puzzle,* and not just a quiz from your fifth grade teacher. You have to figure shit out. You have to take what you do know, and let it lead you to what you don't know. I do not time myself. But I can feel it. This puzzle did not take me more than an hour. I often rush in where I might reasonably fear to tread, so I went ahead on a hunch and put *pulitzer prize winners* for 36A, the Hannah Gadsby and Hasan Minhaj thing—Sometimes I just like to have some kind of stake in the ground, even if it turns out to be wrong. I have zero fear of write-overs. Over time, NETFLIX SPECIAL fell into place based on crosses. Yes, I was a little ashamed and embarrassed about my presumptive, and presumptuous, *pulitzer prize winners.* But there was no blood, broken bones, or damage to internal organs, so I considered it within my limits (little BDSM reference there, just to mess with @Anonymous). Crosses gave me ALI, WALLABIES, CIVETS, and others. I think I see what my advantage is to some extent. I may not know Hannah Gadsby or Hasan Minhaj, but I know what NETFLIX is, and I know that it produces SPECIALs. Until I read this blog today, I did not realize they were comedy SPECIALs, but that makes total tense, and learning that gave me a pleasurable sensation. There are other examples of my knowing stuff even when I did not know it quite enough to get the clue right off the bat. For example, the clue for 29D, about the floppy-eared mascot, made me think of the Hush Puppies basset hound (like I said, boomer to the core), but that was obviously wrong. But I had TURK, and GREAT RECESSION, and enough of a hunch about enough other things, for TRIX RABBIT eventually to hit me—It’s definitely something I knew; it just wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. With something like Prix de Lausanne, it was sheer delight to get enough letters on crosses to realize it was BALLERINA, and there I was, an old dog learning a new trick! With TEXAS TECH, I thought, okay, I have the T from TRIX RABBIT, and it's Roy Rogers, so that's prolly TEXAS, and what the hell, it's prolly TEXAS TECH...and indeed, it was. I suppose I'm just recounting the experience all of you had, and have, on a regular basis. I suppose what I'm adding is that this sort of thing never bothers me—I consider it the fun part of solving crosswords. The fact that I don't know something is no excuse for not figuring it out!
A little more straightforward than recent days. I had a few typeovers: naturally a Prix de Lausanne competitor was a BICYCLIST (how could that be wrong?) I also had a MANKINI which is not an attractive mental image.
I toured the Munch Museum in Oslo many years ago, and remember seeing quite a few different versions of THE SCREAM. I'm not sure which one was stolen in 2004. (Also, a quick search reveals yet another version at a different gallery was stolen in 1994!)
[Spelling Bee: yd 0; my last word.
@bocamp... I can't believe you kept a SB tab open for 6 days. Now that's devotion!]
Lots of my daily enjoyment of the NYTXW solve comes from reading the often widely varying comments here. Today is a great example of very easy for some and very difficult for others. I’m a bit of both. Like the nursery rhyme little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, today’s was easy when it was easy and when it was hard it was horrid.
It was the NW, where my tragic mistakes coupled with some shameful hubris caused that corner to be the very last to fall. The remainder was easy overall, but I laid a couple rotten eggs down there too. Believe me, 60+ consecutive years of solving this puzzle can make one think she knows the ubiquitous Jack 💩. And time after time, that ego trips me up. “Hoo-boy I hope to tell you what,” as my sweet morher-in-law used to exclaim when caught by surprise. I should forget old Jack and live by the adage “trust (your knowledge and experience) but verify. As my Grandmother taught me, “That’s why we have both across and downs. Just like in school, you must check your work.” If I had a nickel for every time a teacher told me not to try to rush through something and check my work, I would not be complaining about inflation for sure. Oh well.
So, the NW. THE SCREAM got me off to the races. And right there, I though “oh boy, easy Saturday.” I did get SAL and MASTER COPY down and CIVETS across, but had “who else” at 28A and the be that really did me in was “wing man” at 20A. I was sure that was it. Consequently, I just had to move on.
Solved the NE, diagonally down through GREAT RECESSION, and then had “stand-up” i stead of NETFLIX SPECIAL. After that my only other snag was YSS as “port (as in ships) letters”, easily corrected when the commercial animal had to be a RABBIT. The only RABBIT I could recall was the Energizer one but I had never heard that it had a name and I was pretty sure it was also referred to as a “bunny.” Left the RABBIT and it took way too long to get TRIX. I hardly ever ate any cereal as a kid and never sweet cereal. It was finally getting NETFLIX instead of “stand-up” that gave me TRIX.
Done in quick order . . . except the NW. back to the drawing board where I had wanted kangaroos to be the a seer for the Australian critters. Damn it, it fit! Caught in the trap. While I had been solving the easy parts, the word kangaroos just sat there in my frontal lobe toying with me. When everything but the NW was done (and my work checked by the way), the first line of a song “Tie me kangaroos down boys . . .”just kept playing on a loop. All if a sudden, the second phrase “Watch me WALLABIES feet mate . . . “ seeped through. And that gave me all I needed, including enough to verify that my hunch of CHANT was correct which made “man” a bust giving me wing NUT, and there we are.
This was such fun today. Everything I want: some tough, some clever, some confusing as all get out and some easy. Thanks Mr. Kalish.
'Concentration' was a great Game Show of the 60s (may be 50s, too?).
the gauntlet bit made, and only makes, sense with Ok ITS ON. it's an aggressive response.
I enjoyed this very much
Got THE SCREAM right out of the gate and then it was all downhill from there. Not downhill as in getting easier but downhill as in getting worse. I had to GUESS AT too many in THIS ONE and was finally convinced that I was unworthy and I cried OH IT'S over. I left the gauntlet lying on the ground.
I have long thought one of the reasons why the Ford Edsel (1958-1960) was such a spectacular failure was that the front grill looked like the facial expression on the character in THE SCREAM.
I do think the clue for 6D REBUS "Image problem" was spot on. The misuse of the term creates a crossword world image problem for those who are familiar with REBUS puzzles like the ones on the game show "Concentration" and, especially for those who are familiar with how The REBUS Principle is used by linguists to demonstrate how primitive pictographs and hieroglyphics evolved into alphabets with abstract letters.
I had always thought that REBUS was misused in xwords but was not motivated to say anything about it until I saw A to Z: The First Alphabet on PBS in 2020. I have included the relevant excerpt from the show's script that motivated me to speak up in a blog post Rebusgate.
Another possible answer for 37D "Aid to going paperless"? How about BIDET?
@MiBS - For future reference - Roy Rogers is not Will Rogers. I looked quite a far down the list of hits and all I could find of Will and Soapsuds were pictures of the statue.
@Anon 11:31 - I cannot say for certain that your HS Geometry teacher was a worse teacher than mine, but I can say with a great deal of certainty that, after a certain baseline minimum, there is no correlation between educational attainment and pedagogical proficiency. I also can’t help but wonder what a Rhodes Scholar was doing teaching high school.
@Beezer - Mr. DeNeef was very good.
@Eddie M - You’re a better artist than translator.
It had to be MANKINI. There was absolutely no other possibility. None. There are many things I would power wash before my PATIO, so that was no help. I wondered for a long time what a PAMIO or maybe HAMIO was, but the M was guaranteed to belong there. as, essentially, were the rest of the downs. HSSSSSSST.
@Anoa Bob:
If your of a certain age, the only answer for 37D - "in country".
No serious difficulties aside from the DELLA/DRATCH natick. I took a few stabs at it before I got the D. Not a fair cross in my opinion.
As a Tech alum it was nice to see it make an appearance after seeing TCU dozens of times as filler.
A hexahedron is an polyhedron with 6 faces, just like a tetrahedron (alias a pyramid with a base and 3 sides) is a polyhedron with 4 faces.
Since it's a Greek word, the plural of hexahedron is HEXAHEDRA.
An octahedron has 8 faces, a dodecahedron has 12, and an icosahedron has 20.
Those 5 types of polyhedra are the only ones that can be regular, i.e., have all faces be identical. A regular hexahedron is more commonly called a cube.
Villager
It might have gone better for me, but I kept wondering if Johnny Unitas had a brother named Lag and if he ever hooked up with Laus Anne dePrix.
Really enjoyed this! Bizarrely had a hard time getting TRIX RABBIT. Loved seeing Rachel DRATCH. And glad to see SAL Vulcano get a mention: the Impractical Jokers guys have made it into a few of my grids that haven't seen the light of day -- if you've never seen that show, by the way, give it a shot. Some of the most hilarious, absurd things I've ever seen on television.
Well imagine that, Will Shortz messes up another science one (just like calling GRAMS a "weight" in yesterday's mini, when it's not a weight but rather a mass). ALKENE is not a certain hydrocarbon; it's a class of hydrocarbons. Ethene, butene, propene, pentene, etc. are specific hydrocarbons; but every single one of them is an ALKENE.
@Zed 4:50 PM - Oops! 🤷🏻♂️ Thank you!! I'm so ashamed!!! 😖
Medium until I hit the SE corner. Fell for the misdirect and had Byciclist before BALLERINA. LabS before PSAS. 40D IPA is supposed to be a product of Lagunitas. What on earth is that? I know. A brewery. But not a famous one. (Rachel) DRATCH was a complete unknown to me. I had to GUESSAT the A in DRATCH as it could have been DRoTCH and IPo (Guessed right). SHEATH at 46D was a nasty Natick as clued especially since it crossed ROE at 54A which was also clued to kill. Combine that with 53A and 53D - FLAX and FEE which were also clued a little too cutely and you have the makings of a puzzle which could have been among the cream of the crop. Instead we got THESCREAM of the crop from all of the frustrating moments caused by that cruel SE corner.
EDIT - Make that Bicyclist not Byciclist…
SEXY SEC
ISAID, "OH NO, IT'S ON",
he KNEW ICALLEDIT a dream,
I GUESS my EXLOVER's gone,
TISONE SAIDNO to THESCREAM.
--- DELLA DRATCH
We all scream for THESCREAM, I guess.
Had to look up a few... (see @Foggy's review for names)
Diana, LIW
@foggy 12:19pm :
I do not drink alcohol at all, and knew the answer to Lagunitas was IPA immediately. I see it everywhere. The gas station, the drugstore, the grocery store, and liquor store(lottery tickets,only). Fifth top selling IPA in the United States.
Well, it has finally happened:
GGGGG!
Never had an ACE in real life, but now that Wordle hurdle is behind me.
To the puz: I can't believe OFF didn't even MENTION focUS as an answer to image problem. Anyway mine is one of the SEA of hands up for that little mislead. (I did not immediately connect Culkin with THESCREAM. Seems obvious after the fact).
The GREATRECESSION had me fooled too. I thought SURELY that an "early 21st-century crisis" just HAD to be the Y2K kerfuffle with computers, even though it was much worse in peoples' imagination than it turned out to be. So the whole deal was not as easy for me as some. Plus I never suspected there might be a surname like DRATCH in real life. Not a celeb, anyway. I would most certainly have changed it. It sounds so...well, dratch-y.
Mini-sketch from the NE:
Bratty teen: I wanna wear my TANKINI!
Exasperated parent: I SAID NO!
B.T.: OH, IT'S ON!
After which she might receive a THWACK from said parent. Hey no, not really, I don't condone physical abuse. Fun puzzle; not that easy. Birdie.
Congrats on your ace Space! Do you use the same word every timea? If so, are you going to retire this one and use another one so you can work towards your second hole in one?
@ the fogster: ALIEN has been a go-to starter when nothing suitable turns up in the (previous) day's grid. I like the three vowels--and hey, it's my genre! Now I suppose I'll go with RATIO, another 3-vowel goodie. With 111 "holes" played, and counting 7 for the 4 DNFs, my average is 4.001.
Cheers Spaceman!
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