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Buff, and then some / SAT 8-13-2022 / Pieces of some pies / How couples elope / Leave a small tip / Cameron of Hollywood
Saturday, August 13, 2022
Constructor: John Westwig
Relative difficulty: Easy (13:10, more of a typical Friday time for me)
THEME: THEME — none
Word of the Day: ZAXBY'S (Southern fast-food chain with "Zalads" and "Zappetizers") —
Zaxby's is an American chain of fast casual restaurants offering chicken wings, chicken fingers, sandwiches, and salads. The chain operates primarily in the Southern United States and has more than 900 locations. Most Zaxby's restaurants are owned by franchisees, but 123 locations are owned by Zaxby company.[1]
• • •
Hello hello, it's Rafa here again filling in for Rex on another themeless puzzle -- a Saturday this time! As a constructor, solver, and generally somewhat-active member of the Online Crossword Community™, I sometimes struggle with talking publicly about puzzles. All my puzzle takes are (obviously) informed by my own very specific biases and opinions and experiences which may or may not reflect other people's tastes. So I was SECRETLY hoping that I would either absolutely love or absolutely hate this puzzle, which would make the write-up easier, but instead it was a journey with valleys and peaks and ... plains? Ok, this metaphor didn't work. Let's get into it.
First, some zings. (Yes, I'm adopting Malaika's "zings" and "dings" verbiage, in an act of cross-guest-blogger solidarity.) I'm always a fan of conversational entries in my themeless puzzles, so things like GIMME A SEC, I'M AFRAID SO, OH GEEZ, and even HMM, I SEE (somewhat arbitrary? Maybe! But I still liked it!) were highlights. I also enjoyed WIIMOTE and DECAF TEA, but probably my favorite entry was APTONYM. I dropped it in without any crosses, which made me feel cool and smart (95% of the reason I solve crosswords) -- it's always fun to insta-get a lesser-known term in a puzzle.
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| I believe this is a "Zalad" |
The short stuff was mostly super solid (maybe EXT is a ding). The middle was a bit proper-heavy -- JIM, JOON, DIAZ, IOLANI, SOMA, PAIGE, EREBUS but all mostly (we'll get into my trouble spot soon) crossed fairly, I thought. My controversial crossword take of the day is that I quite enjoy the name wordplay clues that don't reference a specific person! (e.g. the clue [Good name for a librarian?] for PAIGE.) Many point out that they prefer referencing actual people, especially for predominantly-female names since women are already underrepresented in puzzles. I understand/respect (and even agree with?) this, but I still like these clues!
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| I may or may not have accidentally flung this across the room many times back in the day |
The only real trouble for me was that I had AVERAGE joe (a slightly more in-the-language expression, I daresay?) instead of AVERAGE GUY and that caused a *lot* of trouble because OH jEEZ (it's my preferred spelling, I daresay?) works just as well as OH GEEZ and I was hopeless on the volcano and the Yiddish. So spent a solid few minutes thinking of every possible meaning of "pit" (there are many! -- this very fact was even made into a crossword theme earlier this year) until I was able to get myself out of that mess.
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| Iolani Palace looks pretty |
In general the clues were fun and tricky, with lots of wordplay. Maybe even too much wordplay? Some of it felt a bit tortured ([Where spring might be just around the corner?] for SPA and [What runs about a meter?] for TAXICAB, e.g.) but there were also some bangers ([Leaves totally drained of energy?] for DECAF TEA and [Buff, and then some] for MEGAFAN). The clue for ANTI-UNION, [Like those who refuse to be organized], felt a bit off to me, too. I feel like it's usually the bosses who retaliate against the workers for organizing, not the workers themselves who are against it! .... did capitalism write this clue?
Last ding-ish comment is that some of the long and mid-length stuff felt like they could have been a little more fun! Things like SECRETLY and MEATHEADS (this is a bit of a downer for a long slot, maybe?), I LOVE LA (maybe people who were alive in 1983 enjoyed this, but I was -12 years old in 1983), AGAINST, ARIDITY, ACTED ON, etc. All fine entries, but I would have loved a tad more zing!
- AP GERMAN [H.S. class with ein Lehrer] — This is very specific to me, but I'm not a fan of AP___ type entries. A popular wordlist that many constructors use to make puzzles lists these entries with the highest possible score, so I feel like they're overrepresented in puzzles.
- EL CHEAPO [Stingy sort] — I have never heard or seen this expression outside of crosswords -- I wonder if it's a regional or generational thing, or if I've just been living under a rock.
- PATTY [Ground round] — I was gonna say I was a bit iffy on a PATTY being a "round" but Google lists "a circular piece of a particular substance" as a definition for "round" so ... what do I know?
- PBS ["Antiques Roadshow" airer] — I truly don't think I've ever been able to plop one of these 3-letter networks in immediately
- SOMA ["Brave New World" drug] — SoMa is also a neighborhood in San Francisco, where I live.
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126 comments:
Hands up for AVERAGE JOE. Also at 25 down had SKI CAT, in which the incorrect letters each cross a proper noun type thing and seemed fine to me (IOLAKI and SIMA, to be specific). Also really wanted COBB for the salad base choice. In fact, if I type COBB into Google, the first suggestion is "COBB salad".
YUTZES crossing ZAXBYS was brutal; never heard of the latter. Also Rafa I agree about AP (whatever); I'm in Canada and I dunno what AP even stands for... looks like Advanced Placement? And evidently we do actually have that here, even though it's news to me! (I'm old). Actually sounds like a neat thing!
Loved DECAF TEA. I got the misdirect right away but was looking for ----- TEA, which is an invigorating drink because the energy has been drained out of the leaves into the tea! COCA TEA doesn't fit.
Okay major thunderstorm here... no rain for 6 weeks, and now a torrential downpour. Much of it running into the storm sewer; what a waste!
[Spelling Bee: Fri pg-1, missing a 5er. Thurs pg-1, missed this 10er which is not a real word because Merriam-Webster does not recognize it, and redirects to this.]
I kinda thought YUTZES crossing Zaxbys was a bit of a Natick, yes?
Both words are TERRIBLE and YUTZES may be the most ridiculous word to be in a puzzle.
Mostly easy except for ( hi @Rafa & okanaganer and others to come) AVERAGEjoe which I stuck with for way too long. In my defense OH jEEZ seemed right and EREBUS was a WOE. Pretty good Friday, liked it.
This puzzle felt just right for a Saturday. My time was about 3x that of our guest host but it's what I expect out of a good Saturday solve.
The toughest section for me was the SW. as I knew none of the trivia outright. I could recall enough of the novella's plot to surmise it's title and briefly thought 51D could be COBB. BIBB FWIW is one of those words the SB doesn't take. It galls me to see it turn up in the NYTXW.
After the ordeal of smoking out that SW my reward was filling in the SE so easily that I didn't have to read the clues for either AHA or HANSOLO.
The upper half was usual Saturday resistance. I had the JOE/GUY write over and I wouldn't know a WIIMOTE of I fell over one and that's the only conceivable interaction I could possibly have with one.
It's nice to have the blog come out at night since I'm not a morning person.
yd -0
Thanks for subbing again, Rafa. With your funny “cross-guest-blogger solidarity” remark, I take it you’re not ANTI-UNION. I don’t give unions much thought, but I do know my teaching life was much more pleasant in WV, where I belonged to a union, than here in NC, where we’re not allowed to form a teacher union. I don’t even get a thirty-minute lunch break. In fact, I get no lunch break at all.
I lost count of the clues that tickled me. For my taste and inclinations, this is one of the most delightfully clued puzzles I can remember. “Leaves totally drained of energy” is magnificent. (Hi, @okanaganer) “Ground round,” “Mean dude,” “Buff, and then some”. . . brilliant.
Two massive Naticks for me, though: the U in EREBUS/YUTZES cross (@okanagaer and @Tim Carey ZAXBYS was no prob) and the O in the JOON/IOLANI cross. I forgot to even go back and guess at those.
I had “acre” first for AURA. You divine for water with a y-shape peach tree branch. Yeah, not too defensible.
Rafa, I’m with you 100% on the APTONYM – by far my favorite entry. Close second is WIIMOTE. Hah. Is there a jogging Wii - a wiirun? Challenge your buddy to a wiimatch. Plug it in with the wiicord. Buy a wiiset at the wiitailer. Ok, I’ll stop.
Back to APTONYM. PAIGE as a librarian. William Wordsworth. Thomas Crapper (who didn’t actually invent the toilet, but he was a plumber and worked with toilets.)
I had fun exploring inaptonyms. In Charleston, WV, the person who cut my hair was Lee Ann Butcher. Cardinal Sin is an obvious one. The drummer for ZZ Top is Frank Beard. (When I was in grad school at Carolina, we had a linguistics symposium and invited a prominent linguist as the keynote speaker. He had a beard just like the ZZ Top guys. Just like it. Serendipitously, ZZ Top was performing in Chapel Hill that weekend. My thesis director and I took the linguist to lunch, and several people approached our table to ask him for his autograph.)
No idea that ARIDITY was a word, but we in NC could sure use some. This heat and humidity flatten me. And my hair.
HAN SOLO – I read about a funny prank where you put up those papers/posters with the tear-off-able phone numbers on the bottom. The paper says, WIN 500 DOLLARS! CALL THIS NUMBER AND LEAVE YOUR BEST CHEWBACCA IMITATION ON THE VOICEMAIL! WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED NEXT WEEK! And of course you put your buddy’s number at the bottom.
PS - @kitshef – I just worked your puzzle. What a great theme! Congrats!
PPS – on THINE. . . friendly reminder that language is constantly changing. Infer can now mean imply, lectern is now a podium, lie is now lay, decimate obliterates everything, not just 10% . . . relax, oh ye of little tolerance; embrace the beauty of the constant evolution.
Agree on the "a bit tortured" clues. They don't make sense because whoever crafted them seems to be trying too hard to be tricky/funny.
There's a fine line in misdirection clues, and mostly the NYT gets it right -- clever and tricky. Those two were over the line -- tortured and bad.
It would make sense to say "Where a spring is around the corner," but leaving out the "a" makes it gibberish. The "about" in the taxicab clue similarly renders the clue gibberish. In each case I simply discerned the word that was the heart of the apparent misdirection -- spring, meter -- then tried out possible answers despite the rubbish clue.
Just my two cents.
Volcanoes crossing Yiddish? Definitely a Natick.
@kitshef, I usually solve the Universal puzzle in the a.m. after the LA Times. (I know, get a life) I throughly enjoyed it. No idea it was yours until I read the Rex comments. Please don’t quit now, the puzzle was great.
Struggled a bit with today’s puzzle, but came out on top. YUTZES messed me up, and I’m Jewish, go figure
Guess I need to get out more as I have never heard of ZAXBYS, and by crossing YUTZES I was marooned at Broadway & Main in downtown Natick.
Lots of clever [chin stroking] clues made for a fun solve.
I try not to blame the puzzle when there's an item I don't know. There were several today. Of course one tries to get enough crosses to make a reasonable guess. All but a couple of the clues were the fun kind of TRICKy, the kind that make you feel good when you get it. The TAXICAB clue is the only one that really didn't click. AVERAGEGUY went right in, Joe never crossed my mind. I feel bad for "Q", the only one not invited to the party. I used "reveal" twice. My last entry was the shared O of JOON/IOLANI. The SW had me flummoxed. THEBODY, PBS, and COO went right in. So I had B__H_ for the astronomer (NFI). I revealed the rest of that name which allowed me to finish. FWH
I'd heard of the "Zalad" place thanks to billboards when I travel in the South, but I misremembered the spelling as ZAXBe's. Tried several misspellings before getting IOLANI after not getting the happy music. When I was in grade school the astronomer's name was pronounced BRAH, but when I got to junior high the teachers had changed it to BRAY-hee.
Witty cluing plus answers with zing – just the combo to perk up a Saturday.
Look at that NW stack of EL CHEAPO, GOT A LIGHT, and AVERAGE GUY – all answers that sing – and they’re all NYT puzzle debut answers. John actually inserted 10 debut answers – Wow! – and besides these three, others debuts I especially liked were HMM I SEE, APTONYM, GIMME A SEC, and I’M AFRAID SO.
I marked eight clues as terrific, bringing “Hah!”s and “Aha!”s, my favorites being those for HINT, TEEN, AVERAGE GUY, and the most lovely [Leaves totally drained of energy?] for DECAF TEA.
Strewn about were bonuses as well. Three palindromes, the rare five-letter semordnilap (STRAP), and the PuzzPair© of AGAINST and a backward ABUT.
An uber-fun ride that brought great pleasure. I’ll sit shotgun next to this driver any time. John, thank you for your skill and that merry glint in your eye. Bravo, sir!
Why have a CrossWORD. puzzle and fill it up with stuff like IOLANI, EREBUS, JOON, ZAXBY, HMMISEE, YUTZES . . . ? Just seems like it defeats the whole purpose.
I almost remembered IOLANI today – still needed a couple of letters to get started. And almost remembered JOON, but again needed a couple of letters. That seems like an awfully tough cross.
I did remember SELA – well, her name anyway. Every time SELA Ward appears, I wonder who she is. This time I looked her up. I’m still wondering, although she was in the movie Runaway Bride, in which she played the role of “Pretty Woman in Bar”. I saw that movie when it came out, but don't recall that role.
The real problem with YUTZES for me is that it means the same, or nearly enough so, as pUTZES. Knew the latter, never heard of the former. Did know the volcano though.
— Jim C. in Maine
Semi-Natick (?) for YUTZES x ZAXBYS. But I'm familiar enough with commercial-think to realize that the Z in "Zalad" and "Zappetizer" would be the first letter in the restaurant chain.
Sadly, I don't get the MEGAFAN joke. Can someone clue me in?
At the unionized school where I spent most of my adult life we got a guaranteed 30 minute lunch. But we had to wait till every student was out of our rooms, the halls were clear and then walk to the farthest side of the building to get to the oasis, a room with actual adults and adult conversation. Then we had to be back in our rooms before the students got there. So the thirty minute guaranteed lunch was actually 22 minutes. Guaranteed indigestion. I think they wanted us to stay in our rooms so that we didn’t badmouth the bosses too much.
Good write up. Big complaint: AVERAGE GUY isn’t a thing. Needs - of course - AVERAGE JOE.
The clue for Zaxby’s strongly suggested an opening Z
If you Google Soma, the first thing across the top will probably be "Soma® Official Website - $29 Soma® Bras," because it's a popular brand of women's undies. Maybe not fitting the vibe of:
"Any a you Meatheads Got A Light? No? What about you Yutzes over there, brains MIA as usual?"
"Buy your own lighter El Cheapo! I heard the Feds was after that bastard. Now what was you sayin' about that Aptonym Patty?"
Loved clues Field Of Divination, Touching, and They Might Be Powdered Or Stuffed. Up A Lot? was diabolical for an insomniac because I hung onto Sleep for a long time.
Good Saturday.
HMM - ARIDITY you say? Pretty cool form I’ve never heard. In fact that entire SE corner is top notch. The clueing of THINE, SECRETLY all good.
Don’t know EL CHEAPO, WIIMOTE or JOON. Not sure GIMME A SEC is aptly clued. Learned ZAXBYS from watching SEC football - ate in one outside Memphis a few years ago. Stand by Me is one of the great coming of age movies.
GUY not right? I’ll refer you to Lou
Enjoyable Saturday solve.
Because those are all words…?
I ain't no Christian or no born again saint
I ain't no cowboy or Marxist D.A.
I ain't no criminal or Reverend Cripple from the right
I am just your average guy, trying to do what's right
I'm just your average guy, an average guy
I am just an average guy, I'm just your average guy
Average guy, I'm just your average guy
I'm average looking and I'm average inside
I'm an average lover and I live in an average place
You wouldn't know me if you met me face to face
I'm just your average guy, average guy
Average guy, I'm just an average guy
I worry about money and taxes and such
I worry that my liver's big and it hurts to the touch
I worry about my health and bowels
And the crime waves in the street
I'm really just your average guy
Trying to stand on his own two feet
I'm just your average guy, I'm just your average guy
I'm just your average guy, average guy
Average looks, average taste, average height
An average waist, average in everything I do
My temperature is 98.2
I'm just your average guy, an average guy, average guy
I'm just an average guy, average guy
I'm just your average guy...average
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Lou Reed
@Casimir: Agree 100% about the nature of the tortured clues. It really bugs me when it's clear that the constructor is trying too hard to be clever--at our expense. I'm still not sure about MEGAFAN; doesn't "buff" mean sculpted, like a body? Does it have some other meaning having to do with fandom?
On the other hand, there were some fabulous clues here, notably the ones for DECAF TEA that everyone has already stood for and applauded, TUBA, and GIMME A SEC.
Never heard of ZAXBY'S (one glance at the menu: don't want to hear of it again). Was never a teenage boy so never heard of WIIMOTE. The NE corner was tough with WIIMOTE on top of HMMISEE; couldn't help but think that one of the HMM crosses was wrong, and had "small" for 14D. Also, *TWO* Yiddish words in one puzzle?? I knew YUTZES, but not YOM.
So, 50/50 for a Saturday. Some wonderfully devilish stuff, some "Look how clever I am!" cluing.
For Anonymous: A real film buff, for instance, is a MEGAFAN of the cinema.
I went the AVERAGE JOE > JEEZ route at first as well. But AVERAGE GUY is a thing, or Joe Walsh wouldn't have written this song (Ordinary Average Guy):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLNAkPsjAEk
Two Hawaiian names too many, even if one of them is the ever-popular ALOHA. Otherwise, the puzzle was delightful.
@anon 7:17a - think sci-fi or history buff
I now better appreciate Rex, and look forward to having him back. I have dinged him from time to time for his unnecessary (I thought) criticism of puzzles. But I now miss his tone and cleverness. The guest hosts are doing a fine job, but they can't measure up to OFL. As for today's puzzle, I was Naticked at the intersection of 41A and 42D. But had a good time solving the rest of the puzzle.
The clue for decaf tea was great. I really liked this puzzle. Wishing all pleasant weekend.
"Buff" here means "enthusiast" or "expert"... as in "movie buff". So if you're a movie buff and then some, you might be a movie MEGAFAN.
@MaxxPuzz: D'oh! Thank you!
annyoying inelegant impossible
I'll echo most of the complaints so far. AVERAGE joe is a better answer than AVERAGE GUY, putzes is a better answer than YUTZES, jeez is a better spelling than GEEZ (I mean, the dude's name wasn't Gesus), etc.
The biggest problems with this puzzle (which is actually pretty good) have to do with cluing. AP GERMAN needs a more specific clue (all German H.S. classes have ein Lehrer). And if you're going to go with a mostly unused word like EL CHEAPO, it needs to be clued in a way that differentiates it from all the other normal terms for [Stingy sort]. Maybe something like, [Stingy sort in Mexico, maybe?]. There are others, but they've been covered already by other commenters.
@Anonymous 7:53 AM: My first experience with a WIIMOTE was from my preteen nieces, so I don't think teenage boys have a monopoly on that word.
@Irene 8:02 AM: I'll gladly take Hawaiian words over the NYT's obsession with Yiddish slang that's not used anywhere outside New York. At least people actually say, "Aloha" in the real world.
Never heard of an APTONYM or ZAXBYS. I always thought NY-centric clues were fair, it's the NY Times after all. But some chain based in Athens, GA? Fuhgeddaboutit. Although I've played WII, I thought it was a wand, not a WIIMOTE. Definitely some tortured word play here.
Ground round is a fairly common term for hamburger thus the patty answer
Workers have in recent years voted down being represented far more often than they supported it, across various industries . So a majority of those workers who voted must be anti-union. I really need to start a crossword blog not run by people way left of Bernie Sanders. Maybe one where the quality of the puzzle is more important than whether there are 3 more male proper nouns than female that day.
Hand up for AVERAGE joe. I’ve lived in NC so ZAXBY was a “GIMME A nanoSEC.” I’ve seen IOLANI in crosswords before so only needed a couple of crosses for that. YUTZES was going to be pUTZES but joe stopped me from writing it in. I finished on the low end of my Saturday range, so I’d go easy medium here.
I LOVE L.A.
“Tortured cluing?” Maybe challenging crosswords aren’t your thing. Tortured cluing is the good stuff. Let’s look at 1A, Buff, and then some. Buff as a noun isn’t the garment or the color or the nakedness or even the polishing device. No, we have to go down to noun definition 5 to get the enthusiast meaning needed to get to the answer. And we can’t really be sure it’s even a noun from the clue. That clue reads as if “buff” is a verb, or maybe an adjective. That’s Saturday cluing at its indefinite, vague, twisty best. That is wordplay at its finest.
I don’t think many people realize it or draw these connections, but it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that ANTI-UNIONism is rooted in racism and sexism. That’s not to say that unions are bastions of Woke, but ANTI-UNIONism is racism and sexism writ large.
The clues - "witty" or "tortured" or, for me, mostly opaque. That, along with some wrong answers and some unknowns, made for a hard Saturday. My one bright spot was instant DECAF TEA; otherwise, slim rewards for the effort.
Help from previous puzzles: I LOVE LA, JOON. Do-overs: "match" before LIGHT; "labor" before UNION, me, too, for "joe." No idea: YUTZES, ZAXBYS, WIIMOTE, APTONYM. Random helpful contribution from memory bank: EREBUS.
I, too, will join the AVERAGE JOE/JEEZ before AVERAGE GUY/GEEZ parade.
ZAXBY'S was a great big "Huh?" to me, but at least I knew it would begin with a Z. I know nothing, however, about YUTZES. All I knew about 41A was that it would begin with either an E (JOE) or a Y (GUY) -- and whichever one it was, I'd never heard of it. All the Yiddish words for "fool" I know begin with "SCH". (I won't try to spell any of them.) As for "UTZES" words, all I know is KLUTZ.
When I saw "Where spring might be just around the corner?", I quickly wrote down BED and then patted myself on the back for getting the wordplay so fast. Would someone like to explain SPA to me? This really threw me off for a while.
Fiendish, fabulous cluing for DECAF TEA (39A); AKA (40D); HINT (54D); NOSES (12D); YES BOSS (61A); STEEP (13D) and AURA (49A). Struggled over all of them. I wasn't as wild about the clue for TAXI CAB, though -- I thought the phrasing was a bit strained and not entirely fair.
But boy can this GUY clue! A really good Saturday puzzle that gave me quite a tussle.
I resisted IMIT as long as I could because the way we played you yelled Yer it.
pUTZES until the TUBA oompahed.
butTHEAD before MEATHEAD. The reverse of TV history. A sign that Shortz is no longer arse-butt obsessed? I did like the way the fools trip over each other with the PEST off to the side.
IMAFRAIDSO HMMISEE (after I gave up on AtwIRL) ARIDITY APGERMAN (don't like the AP answers either) and the whole SW corner (after an early cheat on ZAXBYS) all went in smoothly.
Also cheated on EREBUS and ILOVELA. I love the song and the Lakers but not the city. Silly east coast thing stoked by Woody Allen. Doh. Forgot the opening line. Also cheated a couple other places I prefer not to admit to.
flySOLO early on with autopilot being the nonhuman companion. OK I must have been desperate at the time. Some clues were a bit flimsy ya know.
Others like for PATTY and NOSE were great. I'm for the clue for TAXICAB too. My justification:
About preposition
about (Entry 2 of 3)
1: in a circle around : on every side of : AROUND
//People gathered about him.
BIBB is the best lettuce. Cobb is the name of a salad, not a salad base.
@Nancy
Many SPAS are located next to springs as in hot springs cold springs or mineral springs. Best I could think of anyway.
I just thought of the answer to my SPA query. Didn't think of it because in NYC, SPAS don't have lovely "springs" or I might even frequent them. In NYC, lovely natural springs are replaced with such cringe-making things as "mudbaths" where they cover you from head to toe with a generous amount of oozing glop and expect you pay big bucks for the privilege. I never go near SPAS in NYC. In Baden-Baden though, I might.
Hey All !
On the tougher side for me today. Had my slow but steady solve sans having to Goog for anything, which always boosts the ego nicely. But .. DNF! Argh! Had STRAn/AnTONYM. Ugh. I wasn't sure what could go in that spot, so out of desperation, I threw in that N because an ANTONYM was something that sounded correct. Forget about STRAn not being anything. I went back, and slapped myself, because if I only ran a quick alphabet, I would've got it.
But still a good puz. Some stretchy clues happening with what I call Third Definition meanings. Like the funny What runs about a meter? one.
Had AVERAGE GUY in first, wasn't getting any crossers, so changed it to JOE after getting OHjEEZ, but ended up GUY. Also had MAN as an option. Another neat clue on that one.
Have heard of ZAXBYS, but never been to one. I have been to ZABAS. IOLANI for some ethereal reason, I got off the initial I. Weird.
YES BOSS was theBOSS first. Then I got THE BODY, and knew something was amiss. Wanted chuck forever for PATTY, but was able to change it, thereby seeing YES BOSS.
Decided twixt AWHIRL and AtwIRL took a SEC or two.
An overall good SatPuz. Not quite as difficult as I thought when I first started.
Later BRAH(E).
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Never seen a spring near a spa in NYC!
Is the NYTimes xword a regional puzzle designed for a NY centric readership, or is it meant to be universal? Yutzes, schmucks, schlemiels, meshugenas(sp?) are all pretty widely heard in NYC with its large Jewish population.
PATio is frequently round on the ground, no?
DEUTSCHE fit proudly until it didn't. (It wouldn't have an E at the end anyhoo). APGERMAN it is! Not hated, but wouldn't give this formation extra points, GEEZ.
As mentioned, SW really tough to get into with WOE Zaxbys. Even with MEATHEAD in place, nothing opened up. PBS solid, had SINO instead of ARAB, who can keep up with all the dedicated days, weeks, months? (Looks it up) AAPI heritage month is May, so I was off by a month and with SINO (only being Chinese) instead of AAPI.
Good solid fun crunchy Saturday. Everything fell eventually with proper resistance, and aha lol moments. TUBA is terrific. I forgive myself for looking up ZAXBY, it was the proper choice and didn't ruin an answer I could have gotten - I hate when that happens.
Yikes, some swings and misses today. GIVEME for GIMME, did the JOE/GUY thing, knew BRAHE but for some reason thought there was a C in there somewhere, knew THEBODY but couldn't remember it, and wanted to make my salad with a BEET base, based on the B. That kind of a morning.
Speaking of INAPTONYMS, my wife's hip replacement was done by Dr. Machete, who is a fine surgeon.
Tough one, JW. Fair enough, Just Wasn't on my wavelength. Thanks for the struggle.
Our Lewis did the LA Times cuz
I started wanting my Buff to be a BIG HUNK. He wasn't. Erase, erase...I try to refuse leaving my 1A until some sort of LIGHT bulb starts to grow from dim to bright. It did both in many parts of the puzzle.
The downs helped me become a MEGA FAN. I was. I loved this puzzle.
You start me off with Spanish slang and I dance. Mind wanders. Take a break. EL CHEAPO is an APTONYM of wandering delight. I'm still waiting to see "Ciera la window." That would be one big "buenazo" word.
I'm not really up on my Yiddish slang, though. I've heard of putzes (is that a bad word?), but YUTZES and ZAXBYS are the attorneys in @JD's law firm that never allow me in.
Hand up for JOE/GUY. Hand up for loving the clue for the TUBA pit bottom, hand up for really liking the puzzle.
GOT A LIGHT, JIM? GIMME A SEC while I turn off the WIIMOTE.
ALOHA @chefwen......
Even though the syntax didn’t work, I went down the muscle rabbit hole with “Buff” and got stuck with MEGAMAN. And led myself to believe that “MEDS” were reasonable Narcos “characters”.
Thx, John, for this crunchy Sat. offering! :)
Hi Rafa; good to see you, and thx for your take on the puz! :)
Med+; trampoline solve, bouncing all over the place. Success in the end! :)
Not on John's wavelength; employed @Lewis's 'faith-solve'.
The SW was especially tough; had THE CODE, but finally recalled BODY and Bob was my uncle.
AVERAGE 'joe' here.
APTONYM was a bit tricky; lucked out with YUTZES crossing EREBUS & ZAXBY'S.
Excellent workout; enjoyed the battle! :)
The NYT' Acrostic was a fun challenge. :) Always make it a bit tougher by using the clues only as they appear above the grid.
___
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Thanks Rafa, for a nice blog writeup, fair and balanced as a certain “news” network used to claim.
And as was this crossword. I always gear up for a workout on Saturday and this one certainly answered the call. Yet it was entirely doable and I managed to stumble my way through. Well other than the SE quadrant anyway which was almost blank except for AHA and YOM. Took me forever to see ARIDITY which finally broke the dam. Worth the effort just to SEE the never before seen APTONYM. How very apt. Some masterful cluing as I’m sure others will note. I was completely fooled by DECAF TEA; THINE was good and TUBA, OH GEEZ, GIMME A SEC. But MEGA FAN, PECANS, TAXI CAB didn’t play as nicely.
Tough for me but completely fair. Again, great job by John in finding that balance.
I love Yiddish. My brother-in-law is a lifetime Queens guy and his favorite insult is "putz." BTW, he's Greek, not Jewish. I didn't think that NYT would allow putz. Haven't heard YUTZ before. I suppose it's a more polite substitute. Putz is more fun to say.
I'm the first today to complain about TUBA for "Bottom of a pit?" I get orchestra pit, but why is TUBA its bottom?
Hardest Saturday I’ve seen for a while, mostly because of the tortured cluing; misdirection is one thing (basically all the ?-clues, plus pit, band, winds...) but “subordinate clause” is going too far. YES, BOSS is not a clause, which, by definition must contain a subject and predicate, i.e.,verb. YES is an interjection, BOSS is a direct address here, not a subject. I don’t mind stretches, but errors shouldn’t be published—that encourages the kind of “language evolution” LMS (with whom I almost always agree!) refers to. (See, I can drop a preposition at the end of a sentence like the best of them.) IMO, errors like are lazy excuses to not learn (split infinitives are ok by me, too) the language correctly, as in “lie/lay” : in present tense, “lay” must have an object, as in “lays an egg”—see, that wasn’t so hard, was it? To me, this use of “subordinate clause”, while cute, is as much in error as , and should not have slipped by the editor.
Count me as another person who loved the cluing but had to look online for ZAXBYS.
Rewrites: Joe/GUY. Pedi/TAXI. AnyBODY/THEBODY
WIIMOTE made me wonder if we needed a REM rebus.
Not familiar with Yiddish.
ELCHEAPO! I heard it often as a kid, not really anymore. It makes me think fondly of the days when the grown-ups I knew used playful terms like that. Once my parents - not wine drinkers - decided to try to make wine from canned grape juice. They put the bottles in the garage to ferment, and every now and then one would explode. “There goes another bottle of El Supremo!”
Really enjoyed this puzzle. Like many, AVERAGEjoe slowed me down for more than a SEC, but aside from that it was all fun. Not easy fun, but a great Saturday tussle. Wonderful clues for DECAFTEA, TAXICAB, MEGAFAN and AVERAGEGUY.
@Loren — You are the best. I laughed at least five times at your post, hopefully only at the things you intended for that purpose (e.g., not days without lunch breaks). Most notably, your avatar was brilliant, as they often are. I had never heard the term APTONYM until this puzzle, so my wife and I were trying to come up with others. The best we could do was a local NYC-area weatherman named Storm Fields, and I suspect even that is just a nickname he adopted because he’s a weatherman (haven’t looked it up). We never thought of the former Congressman, despite his constant presence in the news awhile back.
My go-to reference points are almost always sports-related, and so it is with APTONYMs. Margaret Court, Cecil Fielder (and son Prince), Rollie Fingers, Hubert Green, Anna Smashnova — I’m sure there are lists out there. One I never hear mentioned is Tiger Woods, perhaps because he is so otherwise ubiquitous. But his name works in a couple of contexts — the clubs of course, but also in a way that brings to mind a supposed (probably untrue) conversation that took place 25+ years ago when a reporter asked someone what they thought of Tiger Woods, and the person responded, “Don’t know, I’ve never played there.”
@pablo: We have a Doctor Bonebrake here. He’s a gynecologist.
@Lewis: How about posting a link to your puzzle. I’m having trouble pulling up the LAT site today for some reason.
Went with " ditzes" hence the nonsensical " average god" & no clue the volcano & tuba!!
My perfect meal? I take a TEENY TUBA BIBB lettuce, add PECANS and dump it on a PATTY (well done, of course). Then I STEEP some DECAFTEA. OHGEEZ, that does the TRICK!
What do you get if you cross a mastodon with a stage performer? ACTEDON
JOON has appeared five times in the Shortz era (although the first four were clued “Benny and ______ (1993 film)”). A few more and we might be singing JOON is Bustin’ Out All Over.
@LMS. I’m guessing that your avatar is a Yutz?
And speaking of APTONYMs, I’ve had several tooth implants done by Dr. Mark Plant, widely known as Dr. M Plant.
I had most of the problem areas being cited by many commenters, but they were all straightened out easily enough. I really, really liked the cluing today. Thanks for a wonderful puzzle, John Westwig.
“did capitalism write this clue?” loooool
your write-ups are so fun to read! feeling seen bc the exact same thing happened to me (and it seems many others) at AVERAGEGUY. also as a southerner the ZAXBYS clue was my highlight
Typical Saturday with a little less need for Uncle G than usual.
Needed to research IOLANI, SOMA (it's a bra, right?), YOM and YUTZES (I'm never going to be able to keep track of all these mean little Yiddish digs nor all the words from all the other languages including Hebrew), PBS, ARAB, BRAHE, EREBUS, and ZAXBYS. Seems like a bunch, but seems like less than usual.
Only know SELA from crosswords. Is she ethnic? Is she a supreme court judge? Will somebody mansplain to me how shocking it is I don't know her and how she's a pivotal item of knowledge anyone sucking air must have to be a functional adult.
Count me among the people living in fear of the WIIMOTE who religiously used the wrist strap.
I'll take a slice of PECAN (pee-kan or puh-cahn) pie, but I prefer cherry. But only if it's good. Otherwise I'll take fried chicken.
Yays:
The down answers upon review are quite striking. Sometimes the cutesy conversational stuff isn't my cup of DECAF TEA, but today they work. Gen-X is the last generation (I hope) that understands the phrase YES BOSS. And I resemble the phrase EL CHEAPO.
Is APTONYM a real word? I love it.
Boos:
Any Star Wars reference. Go watch the movies as an adult, I dare you. Oh, and while you're at it, go watch Frozen. We're several days out from the latest Disney tizzies, so you know it's coming this week. The answer is ELSA (spoiler alert).
ARIDITY? Adjectiv-ity much?
GROUND ROUND includes all hamburger in the suburb where my mom lived -- patty-ified or not.
Uniclues:
1 Super Boo-er.
2 Disappointed reaction of a cashew aficionado.
3 Howard Wolowitz finding a condom behind Bernadette Rostenkowski's ear.
4 Shirley.
5 Iceberg lettuce.
6 Quote from every dad entering every fraternity on every homecoming weekend at the University of Hawaii.
7 Kidnapper's duct tape.
8 Use the last teabag and put the empty box back on the shelf.
1 MEGAFAN AGAINST
2 "OH GEEZ, PECANS"
3 YUTZES' TRICK
4 YES BOSS APTONYM
5 AVERAGE GUY BIBB
6 "ALOHA MEATHEADS"
7 GIMME A SEC STRAP
8 STEEP SECRETLY
@whatsername -- I like the Washington Post site, which runs the LAT puzzle every day except Sunday: https://www.washingtonpost.com/crossword-puzzles/daily/ . It'll give you the option to solve online or print the puzzle out. If you do the puzzle, I hope you enjoy it!
@Lewis: I enjoyed your puzzle greatly. Plenty of resistance, but all of the answers were gettable (unlike some of the crossings in today's NYT), with one fun clue after another. One of the best puzzles I've done in a long time.
@whatsername
Or try this.
emordnilaps MIA/AIM
A rebus in 28D
JOON TEEN(th) No?....Ok.
STEEP TEA
PATTY PAIGE
I don't get why spa is "where spring is just around the corner" Could someone explain?
A few favorite aptonyms:
* Rollie Fingers (baseball pitcher)
* Fielder Jones (late 1890s/early 1900s baseball outfielder)
* Jazzmeia Horn (American jazz singer)
* Melody Angel (Chicago-based blues singer/guitarist)
* Scott Speed (American racecar driver)
* Francine Prose (American novelist)
* Thomas Crapper (Helped design the modern toilet)
* Marilyn Vos Savant (lays claim to highest IQ ever recorded)
As a TUBA player, I was happy to see its inclusion, even if it took me forever to figure out. For the commenter above, the TUBA is the lowest instrument in the pit.
I knew BRAHE because there’s a crater on the moon named Tycho, after him.
SELA Ward has been in all kinds of movies and TV, including “The Fugitive.”
Congratulations @Lewis on your truly outstanding puzzle published today. Some great cluing/wordplay plus I learned a few new facts from it. What more could one want from a crossword?
Well, TBH, there is one thing I would never want: A 35A.
I grew up in a home where Yiddish was spoken. Never heard of or used yutz. Putz, yes.
On the same PAIGE as those who found it tortured or somewhat challenging.
Cannot say the same for AVERAGEGUY, at which I lucked out and nailed, as it were 😂.
Yes, some very clever clues that stretched my brain, but also some misleading and obscure ones did not (annoyed my 🧠)
🤗🦖🦖🦖🦖😜
I don’t read the names of constructors - to avoid feedback bias, but I did check after writing this and looking at some comments.
So congratulations to “our Lewis.”.🤗
I still don’t get BUFF…Megafan? Can anyone explain?
GIMME A SEC!
OK, deep breath—sigh.
Not easy for this AVERAGE GUY & perhaps due to the generational issues as well. WIIMOTE is an absolute mystery unlike APTONYME that was logically inferable. PAIGE seems a great name clue, but JOON and other Hollywood denizens? HMM I SEE, but only if I’ve seen the appropriate award show by accident. At least I LOVE LA provided a sing along moment.
Nonetheless, I feel compelled to thank both constructor & commenting guest blogger for today’s ego trim.
Round is a cut of meat, as in "round steak". Grind it up and you have a patty. So ground round = patty.
@Lewis, I really enjoyed your puzzle...for me, it required just the right "amount" of puzzling over! Wonderful cluing. Thank you for letting us know.
The word is actually aptronym. Note the R. Aptonym is like saying bicep.
@Lewis
Great job. Loved it.
Thanks to commentariat for links & @Lewis for the grid. I’m sure we will enjoy as an afternoon solve to salve our wounds from the other coast!
My Urologist is Dr. Finger.
AVERAGEjoe/OHjEEZ vs AVERAGEGUY/OHGEEZ:
Tricky Saturday level misdirect? Or missed opportunity for superior answers?
Great avatar today; the ultimate aptonym!
Fantastic work @Lewis - overall fill was so smooth. 2d is one of my Mt Rushmore words and liked the play between your 8d usage and todays ANTIUNION.
DECAFTEA was my favorite answer by far. Totally wasn't going that direction when I first looked at it. Great clue.
I get that BUFF means expert, or enthusiast, or arcane-trivia-nerd, but in no way does it mean MEGAFAN. I'm a film buff but I wouldn't say I'm a mega fan of films. I like what I like; I don't necessarily like ALL movies (ie, I'm not a mega fan of film). The two words are close, but not related: when Buff is used in this way it's always (always!) used in conjunction with the word it's modifying: FILM buff, MOVIE buff, trivia BUFF, etc. Poor clue there.
Also didn't like the answer HINT for "leave a small tip." I get that hints and tips can be synonymous but adding 'small' to the clue isn't necessary, which makes the clue/answer a victim of poor editing. A tip is a hint and a hint is a tip, no matter how large or small it is.
And taxis don't "run about a meter." They run on a meter. Lots of clues here the solver thought were clever but which, to be fair, were simply poorly constructed.
Great to see THEBODY mentioned here. I'm a huge Stephen King fan (not a Stephen King buff, mind you), and that movie (Stand By Me) was filmed a few blocks from my house. 😀😀
What to do??? I grew up with Jewish god parents, but Congregational/Episcopalean, and half my high school was Jewish (and about the same percent of teachers), and putz was well used, but no idea about yutz. But...
Yiddish fools
doesn't jibe with how putz was used back in those days. Much more nasty meaning; a wilfully bad stupid dude.
@Oldactor
Many years ago, when I was newly married, my wife's OB/GYN was Dr. Finger. More appropriate, me thinks.
As to 'buff', I pencilled in, and never changed, MEGAFAb - if you're BUFF, you're lots of FABulous muskles. And who the hell knows what the Brits call anybody?
@Lewis and @JC: Appreciate the hookups. I finally got past that glitchy ad that kept cutting me off. But it was certainly worth the effort Lewis, a pleasure as always, with a little bit of bite and my all-time favorite dessert to boot. Thank you!
LOL @Oldactor!!!
No easy Saturday today to complement yesterday's easy Friday, not for me. 1A, got the gist of the clue right away. "Fanatic" fits just fine. "Mum's mum" got that changed to huGe FAN. But U_CHEAPO wasn't going to work. MEGA, right.
ERE___, what is the name of that dang volcano in Antarctic? TUBA and YUTZES were my last filled answers. I felt like ZAXBYS was a hail-mary entry but looking at the clue again, the Z should have been a gimme, sheesh. As it was, I guessed correctly.
BIBB lettuce is always capitalized and, Googling it just now, I find it is named after the guy who developed the variety, one of my favorites. But proper noun or not, I always try it in SB, you just never know.
APTONYM is so APT, I resisted putting it in. Not enough overthinking of the term!
John Westwig, thanks.
@Lewis, loved your WaPo/LATimes themeless!
I don’t think it counts as a natick just bc you might not know the words right away. What other option could have fit in both places? And I’m born and raised in CA and still got ZAXBYS and YUTZES right away because I’ve been to Florida and I watch Golden Girls (also in FL, hmmm). You never know what might be familiar to other people.
Just be glad it wasn’t PUTZES.
Since when is "APTONYM" someone's name?
Oh my, Brave New World is one of the most often improperly referenced stories of all time, along with A Good Man is Hard to Find. The reference is generally to the titles alone and made by folks who've never actually read the stories. But one may easily imagine many denizens of contemporary San Francisco are within that story and high on Soma. Who knew? Thanks for the laugh.
Personally, I hate "conversational" answers, so I had a much different experience. But "El Cheapo" is by far the worse of the bunch today. It feels like something from a bad sitcom circa 1978.
Loved aptonym and decaf tea though, but figured it really should be AP Deutsch. I love me some Yiddish in the puzzle too. Liked the double "e"s in the northeast and much else.
Pretty fun Saturday.
Yes, but AVERAGEjoe is it’s own thing; if you asked me what a “dude” was, I wouldn’t tell you it’s a “Joe,” I would say it’s a GUY.
@anonymous Never heard of a “movie buff”? History buff? Theatre buff? Trivia buff? Look those up, it will make more sense.
My beloved college roomie, Lila was Reformed and gave me such a beautiful introduction to Jewish culture, food, traditions, festivals and rites, and Yiddish. Her family welcomed me into their “mostly kosher” (as they would say) home and I enjoyed their boisterous family traditions and got to bask in the love they and their community so willingly shared with and showered upon me. Other than valuing education and higher learning, Lila’s family was nothing like my own.
She and her family and friends spoke Yiddish, Hebrew and English and used “yutz” frequently. It always meant cranky, disagreeable and oppositionally negative for no good reason. Absolutely not “foolish”. I cry foul editors - again. Yes, I am generally in a mood about the NYTXW’s seemingly lackadaisical attitude to careful editing that in my opinion would significantly improve puzzles. Seems to me so many folks are phoning it in these days rather than going the extra mile and, well, striving.
That said, I thought this was fairly easy with a couple snaggy spots. A decent Saturday although over the past year, I notice a decided lowering of the late week difficulty bar. Enough already with the kvetching (thank you, Lila) about the NYT. Not a thing I can do about it.
I actually enjoyed this one, and after struggling mightily to get a toehold, finally picked up the pace at SELA Ward and moved down the remainder of the W side. I enjoy the “good name for a (x profession)” clues and, having a Master’s in Library and Info Science,” this one was clever and newish. Liked it.
The clue that was absolutely worth the price of admission for me though was for DECAF TEA. Just excellent.”Bottom of a pit?” was a close second, just easy for me since “pit” always means “orchestra” first for me since I spent so many years there as a flautist before autoimmune disease forced me to quit playing professionally. Great clue though.
I went in and out if the wheelhouse today though, and and got slowed down a couple spots. Bong JOON-ho was unknown; never saw Parasite. I also (silly me) did not read carefully and fell right into the trap John Westwig laid by not carefully considering desert vs dessert. I had been flying through the East half top to bottom and my hubris got the better of me. Put AcIDITY in there rather than ARIDITY. And I did it after I had guessed very early on (given the clever wordplay quotient for the day) that STRAP might be the answer but did not pencil it in! Shame shame. Hubris will out.
Loved APTONYM for the very same reason as @Rafa. I love crosswords because I learn so much fascinating stuff, acquire such an extensive vocabulary and knowing arcane things and slamming little used words into a late week puzzle makes me feel smart. Good grief. Feels a little icky to admit that in such a shameless manner, but lawyers and their egos - GEEZ! And by the way, I also spell it jEEZ.
Thanks fir the excellent analysis, @Rafa. Will watch for more from you. It’s been such a fun and varied week of fascinating opinions. Hope we see all of the subs again! I’m
Hi I'm new to crosswording..what is a WOE? Thanks!
@pabloinnh: It's impossible to beat Dr. Machete for a surgeon's name, it really is. So funny!
Dr. Bonebreak is also really, really funny, @Whatsername, but it would be funnier if he were an orthopedist and not a gynecologist. No, my gynecologist of close to 40 years had the funniest name for a gynecologist in medical history. (I would have picked a different specialty had I been him; see if you agree.)
Before you go to the link, maybe you can guess his name?
The name of (and biographical details about) my gynecologist -- who I went to years before he was a famous author.
PUTZ I got. YUTZ is deep Yiddish no doubt, but has not crossed over to my knowledge.
Mean Dude absolutely MUST be AVERAGEJOE.
ZAXBYS, having first escaped its home state in 1994, has not yet promulgated to the left coast. Since learning of NATICK I have encountered the name many times outside of crosswords, but truly had never once stumbled on ZAXBYS. Ugh.
Oh, and btw, even though I went to this gynecologist, I never heard the word APTONYM until today.
GEEZ, GUYs. It always seems the vast majority of complaints come from people mad because they’re ignorant in a subject area that might be common to others, or don’t know the way something works, or what words mean. I’m no world traveler, I’m not in NYC, and none of these words were obscure to me. The way people complain, it’s hilarious: “too much Yiddish! Too much Hawaiian! Too much of things that I personally don’t know but might be everyday knowledge to the next AVERAGEGUY.” And if you don’t know? That’s what the crosses are for. I don’t get mad at a puzzle just because I don’t know a word—I bookmark that word in Wikipedia and make myself learn about it. Crosswords are supposed represent breadth subject matter; I learn a ton from them (and not just memorizing crosswordese).
There are plenty of things we come here to gripe about (an outlier theme answer that doesn’t fit the theme, ugly fill, forced made up phrases…). And constructors who purposefully clue using the most obscure reference to a word just to sound smart are surely annoying. But obscure answers are more like 18th c. battalion armor piece, or #8 disco hit from 1977, or that clue that always comes up about the nose piece thing of a gondola. And then blessed be they who know, but thank goodness for the crosses. A currently operating restaurant with over 900 locations isn’t obscure.
If you find yourself so annoyed by all the words you don’t understand and all the things you’ve never heard of, maybe it’s a you thing.
Two African-American gentlemen run into each other.
#1: Hey, I'm off tomorrow. You?
#2: No. It's Tuesday -- why are you off?
#1: Well, my boss is Jewish and it's Yom Kippur.
#2: Yom Kippur? What's that?
#1: You don't know what Yom Kippur is?
#2: No -- what the hell is it?
#1: Well, you know what Shabbos is, right?
#2: Sure, I know what Shabbos is.
#1: Well, next to Yom Kippur, Shabbos ain't shit!
Anonymous 3:34 PM What On Earth
Tom and Ray, of Car Talk, had wonderful made-up aptonyms for credits each week. Staff pollster: Marge Inoverra. Director of Upward Mobility: Zbigniew Chrysler. Staff Butler: Mahatma Kote. Staff Driver: Pikup Andropov. Many many more. My favorite was Staff Swimsuit Designer: C. Bigbee Hinds.
@Todd 9:12 AM Good idea... then report back in a decade and a half how what you are doing compares to this blog at 15 years old.
@Lewis - 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽 - Is the clue for 6D original to you? Real D'Oh slap when it finally clicked.
If you haven't solved @Lewis' masterpiece here's one place to find it. (I think they only keep a couple of weeks worth live - so don't wait)
To:
@An appreciation, @Joaquin, @Sixtini Yogini, @Carola, @JC66, @Newboy, @Son Volt, @Whatsername, @Teedmn
Thank you all for you kind words re my LAT/Washington Post themeless. It makes me happy that you enjoyed it, as that's my goal. I should say, it's the first puzzle I've had edited by the LAT's new crossword editor Patti Varol, and she did a terrific job polishing it up -- that paper is lucky to have her!
Lewis
I've heard EL CHEAPO used for a cigar that is several notches down in quality from a top of the line Cuban cigar like El Rey Del Mundo. The CHEAPO part makes it an APTONYM, right? Cluing it that way would have been a nice set up for its neighbor 3D GOT A LIGHT.
Dropped in 15A I LOVE L.A. sans crosses. I still have Randy Newman's vinyl LP "Trouble In Paradise". I guess that makes me a bit of an antique. Maybe that's why I love watching "Antiques Roadshow" on 44A PBS.
One of the amazing things about 45A "16th century pioneer in astronomy" Tycho BRAHE was that he did all his observations by unaided eye. The telescope had not yet been invented. Also of note, he lost most of his nose at age 20 in a sword duel with his cousin to settle a drunken quarrel about who was the superior mathematician! He wore a metal prosthetic nose for the rest of his life.
@mathg... Because it's a bass instrument? Very low tones...
This was our @Lewis??! Interrobang indeed... I'm even more delighted now!
I absolutely loved this puzzle. Mostly super, clever, smile-inducing clueing that was a serious struggle, but oh-so-satisfying as each clue finally gave in to my oh-so-cleverness...
Thanks!
@Liveprof:
For a little while, not long enough, NPR re-ran some of the 'better' episodes. I, for one, would be much happier if they devoted a weekend evening's hour to "Cart Talk". I'll bet their donations would move up significantly. They were, to coin a term, sui generis.
I think rex could take a lesson or two from the guest bloggers who have been gracing this blog for the past week. Well done!
The proper nouns got me, and I thought there were some very hard crosses to be sussed out, so a DNF for me. BUT I got what I wanted: a tough Saturday. And if I don't know the name of every mythological god, or Yiddish expression, that's on me. Doesn't ruin the day for me.
@tita -- Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it.
@Todd 9:12
Amen!
@Lewis
Sorry to be so late to the party. How appropriate that I LOVE LA showed up in the NYT puzzle today. Everything to love about your puzzle. Great wordplay. Masterful cluing. Terrific misdirection. Really a fun but challenging themeless with lots of aha moments. Congratulations.
Thoroughly enjoyed this one - finished all but the EREBUS/GEEZ/TUBA/YUTZES intersection this morning but had to put it aside until tonight. Finally saw that my first impulse, GUY, had been right after all and did the AHA, MEATHEAD slap.
Glorious DECAF TEA clue.
Wanted YES, miSS before YES, BOSS.
I did finish with an error. On the heels of yesterday’s FAKE TAN, I thought [Buff, and then some] was MEGA tAN. tEDS meant nothing to me but if it’s a movie or TV show that’s par for the course. Anyway it was worth the mistake just to prolong the fun.
Now off to print @Lewis’ offering for a late night treat.
Bravo, John Westwig, and thanks for the thoughtful review, Rafa.
Yutz is not Yiddish. It was a substitute for putz, as the censors of TV in the early fifties wouldn’t allow the actual Yiddish term. Legend has it that Mel Brooks invented the fake term. Sure, give it him!
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AVERAGE TEEN GUY
I ACTED out, PAIGE,
I’MAFRAID THE TRICK’s naughty,
YES, YUTZES my age
SECRETLY SEE THEBODY.
--- JIM ZAXBY
Fits in the W/NW, but it came together eventually. After I got rid of [GOTA] MATCH and, like probably your AVERAGEJOE...yeah that. Should've known LIGHT because of DOD (for me, DOAT) SELA Ward. Don't know how I missed that one.
I wouldn't call it easy--but then I'm a Northerner who never heard of ZAXBYS. The whole western half was giving me trouble, but I pieced it out. A decent pile of triumph points applied. Birdie. Wordle par.
Couple more APTONYMs: Nita Prose, the author of The Maid, and David Bird who is a noted Canadian ornithologist.
Fun Saturday puzzle other than being Naticked by ZAXBYS.
Another puzzle where I was thrilled to get as much as I did before I had to look up some...NAMES.
Plus, it was fun to solve.
Diana, LIW
The SW did me in. ZAXBYS is a complete unknown to me. DNF.
The yutzes, Zaxby's cross is not a Natick! The clue for the fast food chain, that I have never heard of, was a big neon sign that said, MY FIRST LETTER IS A "Z"!!!
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