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Hot tub shindig / THU 8-118-22 / Proverbial assessment of whether or not an idea can be taken seriously / Prefix meaning "10" that's associated with 12 / Fitness class inspired by ballet / Cleric's closetful / 1972 Gilbert O''Sullivan hit with a melancholy title / Small oily fish / Half of the only mother/daughter duo to be nominated for acting Oscars for the same film
Thursday, August 18, 2022
Constructor: Adam Wagner
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easy for a rebus...)
Theme answers:
- HEAVEN ON EARTH / RENO, NEVADA (18A: Paradise / 10D: Home of more than 16,000 slot machines)
- BIKINI LINES / VANILLA (3D: Targets of some waxing / 22A: Bland)
- LAUGH TEST / NAUGHTIER (40A: Proverbial assessment of whether or not an idea can be taken seriously / 32D: More likely to get coal, perhaps)
- JACUZZI PARTY / MARZIPAN (64A: Hot tub shindig / 49D: Almond confection)
The Poisoned Pawn Variation is any of several series of opening moves in chess in which a pawn is said to be "poisoned" because its capture can result in a positional loss of time or a loss of material. [...] The variation was used in the Monk episode "Mr. Monk and the Genius". (wikipedia)
• • •
If you know ALBS (and boy do I) then this puzzle was likely very easy to open up. ALBS STEELS BAIT ABCTV CUKE all in a row, which made the BIKINI part of BIKINI LINES easy to see. And since the word I wanted to be VANILLA ended up looking like VANLA, I knew pretty quickly a. that there was a problem, and b. what the problem was—rebus alert! (pause to lament this puzzle's VANILLA slander—a good VANILLA ice cream is anything but "bland"; VANILLA malts are my favorite drinks after coffee and Manhattans).
So I put NIL in its box and off I went, not yet knowing why NIL was in a box, but confident that I'd find out. Every subsequent rebus square involved me tiptoeing up to the square, testing the ground, and then eventually finding the target. HEAVEN... [tap tap tap ... check surrounding areas ...] ah, there it is, the NONE square! And so on. The AUGHT square was probably the hardest, just because I couldn't think of what kind of TEST was in play (I knew there was a TEST, just not which kind, at first). But NAUGHTIER fixed that (proverbially, naughty kids get coal instead of toys at Christmas, in case that clue wasn't clear). I got the revealer about halfway through:
Knowing the premise made getting that AUGHT square much easier than it would've been otherwise. That the puzzle remained interesting even after the revealer did its revealing is a real testament to its overall strength. This one has a strong premise, but more importantly, executes the premise in a way that makes the whole solve interesting and entertaining. The second half of the solve was at least as entertaining as the first half. That ... is something. And then to play me out with the world's most wonderfully depressing song!? Mwah, perfect. Thank you.
- 33D: Prefix meaning "10" that's associated with 12 (DEC) — I didn't fully understand the "12" part as I was solving ... my brain was yelling something about "doDECahedron" at me, but I wasn't really listening. After I was finished, I realized that DEC. could be short for "December," i.e. the 12th month.
- 56D: Small, oily fish (SPRAT) — weird that the guy who could eat no fat would be named after an "oily fish" but OK.
- 59D: Stately estate (MANSE) — I had MANOR. I still want MANOR. I associate MANSEs with priests ... why is that? Perhaps because "A manse (/ˈmæns/) is a clergy house inhabited by, or formerly inhabited by, a minister, usually used in the context of Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and other Christian traditions." (wikipedia). There's a MANSE, Nevada, I just found out. It's in the far southern part of the state, relatively close to Las Vegas and about 400 miles from RENO, NEVADA.
- 15A: Google's streaming device (CHROMECAST) — weirdly never heard of this. Tried CHROMEBOOK in this space at first.
- 2D: Half of the only mother/daughter duo to be nominated for acting Oscars for the same film (LAURA DERN) — she and her mom, Diane Ladd, were both nominated for 1991's (fabulous) "Rambling Rose"
- 65D: Back (AGO) — not AFT!? But it's always AFT! Curses!
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89 comments:
Like @Rex, MANor before MANSE at 59D and CHROMEbook before CAST at 15A. But I had a different small oily fish, SmelT, before SPRAT at 56D. But my favorite mistake of the day was fro for "Back" at 65D, thinking "to and fro." I'm 100% on board with the "Easy for a rebus" difficulty level.
I spent way too long trying to figure out how clerics had closetfuls of ALMS. Also tried everything before accepting the ABCTV/TVTRAY partial dupe. So the NW was a bit painful, but other than that, the rebus experience was really enjoyable.
I thought INBOXZERO might be fodder for a puzzle theme after seeing it in the NYTXW on 21 Mar. It's a nice surprised to see that come true.
Really surprised to see the review of this puzzle as "fun" and "easy," if only because I found the rebus squares and their corresponding answers to be absolutely tortured. I've never heard the expression "jacuzzi party" in spoken English ("Pool party," sure. But not "jacuzzi party"). And I've never heard of a "laugh test"; I kept trying to figure out ways to fill in "smell test" or "sniff test." Even "aught" is far less common than "naught," which I kept trying to cram into that square. When you add in all the stale crossword fill like "sprat" and "emetic," this one left a bad taste in my mouth.
Chromecast is an inexpensive plug in to your TV that then casts anything on one's phone onto that TV. We watch all streaming channels (Netflix, Hulu, etc) and YouTube that way. Easy!
Not too bad for a rebus. Only 2 of the 8 rebus entries work when spoken aloud. NAUGHTIER and VANILLA.
Putting BACON in a salad is like putting turds in a milk shake.
IN BOX could also be the answer for 37D, "Still shrink-wrapped, say" and is just two columns away form the real answer, NEW.
EATIT crosses PANPIZZA
ROB and STEELS(sic) in the puzz.
CUKE juice is a thing?
Reggie THEUS used to play for the Bulls. I never noticed his name could read THE U.S. They should put him on the US Olympic team one year, just for that.
Bunch of stuff I’ve never heard of today:
LAUGH TEST
ALONE AGAIN referred to without the “(Naturally)”. I know stuff in parentheses is supposed to be optional, but I’ve never – NEVER – heard that song called just ALONE AGAIN.
CHROMECAST
Detroit-style pizza
BIKINI LINES
An unfortunate number of those were in themers, but all forgivable for an overall enjoyable theme and puzzle.
Rex – very enjoyable write-up. I’ll say it again, I just like your writing style. It’s effortless to read.
I always try to figure out the trick before resorting to considering the reveal, but today I accidentally saw 35D and couldn’t unsee it. So I made a BEEline right back to NAUGHTIEST. . . the rest was history.
True to its clue, BEE is indeed a creature in this rebus (sharing the grid with APIAN. And BAIT!). You could argue that in a sense it’s an Easter egg, or, well today, a goose egg. Hah.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a LAUGH TEST, but it makes sense.
Loved the clue for ERRS and was reminded of the famous beware of Greeks bearing gifts chess dealie. That’s a bishop, though, right? Once in a high school chess tournament, Paul D. was in a helluva mess, even though his next move was to promote a pawn. After like forever, he promoted and asked for a knight instead of a queen. I forgot the next couple of moves, but he ended up checking his opponent, then sacrificing the knight, and winning the game. I was stunned. And so proud that he was my friend.
HEAVEN ON EARTH. . . any place with a lot of BACON. @This ‘N’ That – I guess I’ll have to give turds in a milkshake a go.
Never been invited to a JACUZZI PARTY, but if I were, my untargeted BIKINI LINE wouldn’t be an issue since I’ve joined the ranks of women of a certain age who wear suits with those little skirts. Mind you, mine are sporty-looking, not flouncy and stuff, but I’m not fooling anyone. When I get in the water I make sure to do a few strokes of fly and then opt to hop out of the water without using the steps and hoisting myself up so that my foot lands on the side, and not my knee, but, again, I’m not fooling anyone.
“Reared” before RAISED – snob mom’s influence. We continue to argue about calling progeny kids instead of children. You raise livestock, you rear humans. Yeah, right, Mom. Pick another fight. That ship has sailed. I’m your kid, not your child. With. A. Masters. Degree. In. Theoretical. Linguistics. I. Have. Met. Noam. Chomsky. Would you please just trust me on this?
“Irons” before SANDS. And then I sat there, smug, remembering the death blow I delivered to someone else who thought they knew a lot about language and was arguing about how dumb it was to say /nu * kyu * lur/ instead of /nu * klee * ur/ ‘cause no one would just switch the order of two letters. Let’s not even get into the fact that how a word is spelled isn’t that interesting to a linguist – I didn’t have time and knew he could never understand that part – I just said, Oh. So you /i * run/ your shirt and not /I *urn/ it? For once, I shut someone up.
“Break into parts and analyze” – anything I’ve said to this woman, part of the brass at Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, who’s in our building all the time. If I’ve had an exchange with her, I review it in my mind all the way home, mining my words for idiocy and something that will make her hate me and fire me. So far, so good. Fingers crossed.
Loren Smith, I feel sorry for your mom LOL
My rebus creature was a gnu before it was a BEE.
A very enjoyable puzzle, and a very very enjoyable review by Rex. Glad to have him back in the saddle. The substitutes did their best, but all of us have our own writing style; Rex's is recognizable; even if the blog was authored by Anonymous we would all know who wrote it.
I liked the trick - nice aha after NAUGHTIER. Overall fill fell flat - ABCTV is bad enough but Rena it with TV TRAY and we get strike one. The ICE IT - EAT IT combo was strike two and the swing and miss on the brutal plural TOPAZES sealed it.
Always thought it Naturally was part of the song title. Like PARSE in the center of a rebus grid.
18a needs “is a place”
Enjoyable time figuring the deceit here - shame the rest of the puzzle didn’t hold up.
For all the reasons Rex gave--and because last week's Thursday puzzle defined "meh"--I loved this puzzle. Clever, fresh, fun every which way. If MANSE had been MANOR, it would have been perfect. Enjoyed every minute of the solve and loved seeing my local Detroit pizza in the grid!
For those who don't know, Detroit-style pizza was first made in rectangular tool pans used in--of course!--the auto factories. Is it an urban legend to say that some of those pans, first used in the mid-20th century, are still in use today? The cheese is spread all the way to the edges so it infiltrates the outer crust, which is like focaccia. If you ever find yourself in southeast Michigan, stop in to a Buddy's Pizza and give it a try. As Rex said of the puzzle, "Mwah!" As with pretty much all pizza, skip the frozen offerings, which bear little or no resemblance to the real deal.
@Mike Herlihy: Ah, so you must be a "gnu-bee" :)
If going slightly off topic is permitted (spoiler for Wednesday's NY Times word puzzle, below)?
The question was a word that is something that stings, but remove the first letter and it's still something that stings. The answer is wasp. But who ever, ever said that Cleopatra killed herself by allowing herself to be stung by an asp?
Villager
This had all that a Thursday should have. A clever theme, one that required work even if it was figured out early. Some rub to satisfy the brain’s work ethic (for me, at least). Finally, a fulsome wordplay presence, today in the theme with those in-box zeros, as well as in the clues, such as those for ECHO, ATOMIZERS, BOW, AVATAR, and the glorious [One working on a tablet] for ETCHER.
Adam has a bent for making Thursday puzzles, as five of his nine NYT offerings have come on that day. Let me remind you of his last puzzle (in May), based on the FIBONACCI series, which not only had the Fibonacci spiral gracing the grid art, but FIBONACCI was spelled out in the squares whose numbers were the first nine numbers of that series. So yes, Adam is mighty good at Thursdays. (Then, to top it off, he donated his earnings to a worthy charity.)
Today’s grid had bonuses as well. There were nine NYT puzzle debuts, including PAN PIZZA, LAURA DERN, and ATOMIZERS. It had DISCS to go along with PAN PIZZA, and it included the lovely MARZIPAN, BARRE, and PASSE. Speaking of the latter, I was hoping CAROM would have been “masse”, where we’d have had the marvelous MASSE-PASSE PuzzPair©.
Adam, just as you love making Thursday puzzles, I love cracking them, and today’s was especially satisfying for me. It beautifully hit that sweet spot, and thank you so much for all you put into making it!
@rex -- Excellent writeup, and I was with you on most every point. Regarding EMETIC, did you notice that it crosses HEAVE?
Chromecast is growing in popularity. At Costco recently, I noticed that it was the most common user interface on the new TVs. A year ago it was Roku.
Just when I think I'm pretty good at this I mess up in some spectacular way. Today it was trying to fit a rebus into the SANDS line instead of the __TEST line. I had ITEST (as in "eye test") and would NOT take it out. I knew it had to be NAUGHTIEST but could I make that go in somewhere? No, I could not. Even googled Mr. Khan, and found Salman, which was no help, as SAL just did not occur. That kind of a morning. Oh well. S*** happens, or as the Buddhists say, suffering is.
Otherwise really liked this. Wanted ALBS right away but started in the SW with old friend RAJAS and moved in an easterly fashion to where the revealer was, and went on a ZERO hunt, which was fun.
IPECAC before EMETIC and a long time to see the DERN family, but otherwise pretty smooth.
Wicked cool Thursday, AW. Have been Anxiously Waiting for a tough Thursday. That'll learn me. Thanks for all the fun.
@LMS
As a fellow teacher, I chafe at referring to our STUDENTS as KIDS. Kids is a diminutive. Students is a more apt term IMHO.
As a former nuclear engineer and budding linguist, /nu * kyu * lur/ versus of /nu * klee * ur/ has always bothered me too.
Even Jimmy Carter, a POTUS with a conscience and a nuclear engineer in the Navy, mispronounced this.
My theory is the misconjoining of two similar terms: molecular and nuclear.
One is small and the other even smaller.
Both refer to things we cannot see but believe in otherwise.
@Mike Herlihy - my rebus animal was ewe before BEE.
@Son Volt - I was hoping Rex would post that video. Thanks for doing so.
The rebus words are so beautifully embedded in this puzzle! And the puzzle also has the two elements I most like to see in a rebus puzzle: all the rebus words are different and each rebus works in both the Acrosses and the Downs.
NIL, NONE, and ZIP all came nicely. No problems. But then I hit the [NAUGHT]IER one and I came to a dead stop. I didn't know SAL, I didn't know LAUGH TEST as clued (I've only heard of "doesn't pass the smell test") and I was trying to fit NAUGHT or NOUGHT (didn't know which) into the SANDS line, not the TEST line. I finally cheated on SAL (where all I had was the S) and then -- only then -- did I see LAUGH.
So a DNF for me -- mostly because of the Khan guy. All the Khans I know are AGAs or ALIs or ALYs. But still I'd call this a first-rate rebus puzzle -- and is there anything better than that?
Have to say I hated this one. ALBS was a the red flashing warning sign, then ETCHER?? I don't think I have ever heard someone described as an ETCHER.
Then move on to the duplication of TV with ABCTV and TVTRAY. While the latter is a good answer, the former has no need for TV in it. No one calls it ABCTV, it's just ABC.
Then on to the true fail, the inclusion of the word "AUGHT" in the theme. The correct word is NAUGHT. Aught has been bastardized and used incorrectly so that some assign it a meaning of nothingness, but that isn't what the word means. Do better NYTXW.
I'm with @Rex all the way on this one, including regarding the superiority of VANILLA, especially in a malted. After NIL, I enjoyed ferreting out the other IN-BOX nothings, appreciating the added levels of mystery that that they were all different words and were randomly scattered. HEAVEN ON EARTH x RENO, NEVADA? Not sure. PAN PIZZ x EAT IT - no question there.
Do-over: SmelT before SPRAT, RuB (as in "rub the wrong way") before ROB. No idea: BARRE, LAUGHT TEST.
I have NIL/NONE/AUGHT/ZIP to say about this puzzle - except this: I thought it was very cool; nice job Adam Wagner!
I see we made the same initial mistake, @pabloinnh.
I don't know if someone else said this, but a cat USES litter, cats do not "make" litter.
Poison control remedy? EMETIC??? No, no, no! Correct thing to do is call 9-1-1 or 1-800-222-1222. Poison specialists will guide appropriate treatment. Emetics can be very dangerous in many cases.
Amy: just leaving this on the MANSE issue. Have visited many times.
https://www.livingconcord.com/listing/the-old-manse/
Great rebus puzzle. Every rebus square spans multiple words in at least one direction, and the northernmost one does it in both directions -- so top marks for that.
Took me quite a while to figure out what was going on. I wandered all over the grid filling in what I could, until N[AUGHT]IER showed me the way.
I am just old enough to remember hearing "ALONEAGAIN (Naturally)" on the car radio seemingly all the time.
Today's learning: That Diane Ladd is LAURADERN's mother, and that they were both nominated for the same film. Cool.
I side-eyed the ABCTV/TVTRAY and EATIT/ICEIT pairs, but they were a small price to pay for a puzzle this good.
Like that BEE and APIAN are in the same grid. But help me out, folks; my brain is not processing: How is a BEE a common creature in rebus puzzles? Because it sounds like a letter, like CUE, SEE, TEE, ARE, etc.?
Snooty instead of SNOTTY at first. Love the clever revealer! Fun!
Thought the IN in INBOXZERO referred to letter “n.” So, spent time looking for NADA and NAUGHT. Had N…IL and N…ONE.
@Unknown 9:12 - a cat can "make" a litter of kittens.
Loved this puzzle, but I thought a couple of the clues were hard. The poisoned pawn thing just for ERRS was unnecessarily esoteric. One would need to know that capturing a poisoned pawn in chess is always an error. I dunno, maybe it can be part of a strategy?
Also, I've never heard of ICE IT.
And for "hive-minded?" I really wanted "alien"! Because they have hive-shaped minds! I had A_I_N, and alien fit perfectly. That threw me off though, obviously.
@Nancy-Same mistake indeed, but you were smart enough to recognize SAL.
As for me, I am fortune's fool.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again; "rebuses" are GARBAGE. How many letters can we fit in one square? I know, let's make a puzzle that's one square, filled with rebuses. Hate 'em. One letter per square is what makes it a crossword!!! Fight me.
I knew NAUGHT to mean nothing, didn't occur to me that AUGHT also did. TIL
Hey All !
Tougher than normal ThursPuzRebus here. I got the Revealer first, and then decided to leave the first Rebus square I found empty, thinking nothing (ZERO) would go in them. Once I finally (took a while) got AUGHT, I decided that the Rebus had to be written in.
I laughed at Rex saying NE corner was easy. It was my toughest corner, last to go in.
That DEC clue, the story I heard - the calendar (Gregorian? What's the other one?) used to have 10 months, ergo September (Sept-7) was the seventh month, October (Octo-8) was the eighth, November (Nov-9) was the ninth, December (Dece-10) was the tenth. Then Julius Caesar, him being of big ego, wanted a month named after him, so he added a month to the calendar, JULY, named after him, natch. And of course, it had to have 31 days. Years later, Augustus Caesar said, Hey, if my Dad can have a month named after him, then I want a month too! So they added another month, AUGUST, also him wanted 31 days. Thereby regulating the Sept, Octo, Nov, Dece to be 9, 10, 11, 12. I heard that somewhere, unsure of the truth. Feel free to double check. 😁
Anyway, had a one-letter DNF, having SNOoTY in, regardless that I'd never heard of a SPRAo fish. Hell, too many fish in the sea! Har
Nice puz, Adam. Who had masse first for CAROM?
ZERO F's, NONE, ZIP, NIL, AUGHT
RooMonster
DarrinV
Oh, meant to add, in the SB today, Sam missed a Pangram! I had to Goog to see if I spelled it properly, and yes, I did. C'mon Sam! It's tough enough (for me) to find words, and when I find a nice one, it's not in there! 😁
Roo
The NAUGHT/AUGHT thing is a major transgression, if you ask me. It's ill-conceived to have two almost identical, equally plausible choices to make a rebus out of, with the arguably less-used term being the correct one.
Aside from that the theme works quite well.
A plethora of plurals in the grid. An abundance of ALBS, an ostentation of OVALS, an amplitude of ATOMIZERS, a tubful of TOPAZES, a shitload of SACS.
Anyone know when was the last time the 'rebus' entry was a different string each time?
in politics at least (and L&O episodes), LAUGH TEST is well known. just means some idea/notion/plan/etc. that's so stupid even stupid people would LAUGH at it. anything coming out of the mouth of 45 fails said test. except WY, apparently.
@Roo:
Who had masse first for CAROM?
Yes, of course. CAROM is just any rail shot. masse` is much tougher. esp. if you end up ripping the baize.
I take issue with "aught". It means anything, it doesn't mean nothing.
Enjoyable Thursday. Had SNOoTY (a better answer than SNOTTY) but biggest fail was NasTIER before NAUGHTIER (though LasTEST made no sense).
I kinda like “Nasty and nice” as a replacement for Santa’s list categories.
Reminds me of Chatsworth Osborn Jr. being described by his SNOoTY mom as a “nasty, nasty boy” on Dobie Gillis…
It doesn’t though. It’s a mistake that is so frequent as to be almost common usage, a bit like when people say “peruse” to mean “browse”, but it’s not technically correct. This sort of breaks the puzzle for me.
@LMS's rant regarding "kids" reminded me of the conversation I had with my father, who was in his 90s at the time. He told me, "The kids are coming by later today." I assumed he meant his 5- and 7-year-old great-granddaughters who lived nearby. Nope. He meant my older sister had her husband.
I said, "Dad. Those people you refer to as 'kids' are in their 70s. I don't think they qualify as 'kids'any more." He replied, "They will always be 'kids' to me."
Now that my own children are middle-aged, I get it!
Medium. Fun solve and tough to construct according to Adam’s comments at Xwordinfo. Delightful Thursday, liked it a bunch.
ewe before BEE, but I hadn’t read the down clues.
Holy crud. A Thursday rebus without researching anything. One of two explanations: Either the puzzle was pick-another-day easy, or I'm getting better. My bet's on the former. Of course if it is the latter I'm looking forward to being one of the early-in-the-day commenters bemoaning how easy every puzzle is these days because of the dumbing down of America, or WS, or some other lurking evil. Please take my thumbs away if I ever do that.
Really enjoyed working this. The top was noticeably more challenging for me and I worried I'd never get anywhere. Thankfully the SE corner caved first along with the revealer and I was off to find those four squares. It really helped me do the puzzle. I don't think I would change anything about this puzzle. Oddly, I think it's perfect.
My only grumble is that when I entered in the last square, AUGHT, I accidentally hit enter right after I hit A, and the Times app accepted that for the answer, and now I can't go back and change it. So I'm left with an AUGHT-free puzzle which makes me think of Gene Autry and now Back in the Saddle Again is wafting through my brain.
Uniclues:
1 Streaming a fishing show or To Catch a Predator.
2 A farmer's mkt.
3 Forgoes dining room table.
4 God offering his speedo for strip poker buy-in.
5 Dinner in Azeroth.
6 Evidence she was frying breakfast and herself at the same time. (~)
7 Classified ad for a feline with good financial sense.
1 BAIT CHROME CAST
2 CUKE HEAVEN ON EARTH
3 TRIES OUT TV TRAY
4 ARES' LAUGH TEST ANTE
5 AVATAR PAN PIZZA
6 BACON BIKINI LINES
7 CAT, CPA RAISED
Fun and challenging puzzle today! I briefly flirted with idea of Streep/Gummer Oscars then the light bulb went on with LAURADERN and also was gratified that I actually knew INBOXZERO (an impossibility for me). Sussed out most of the rebuses then realized I had total nonsense in SW since I had misread Indian princes (princesses) which left me with RANIS and me toying with the idea that some hot tub shindigs involved NACHOS. Well, it all got straightened out in my mind in the end. D’oh!
TIL that there is an oily SPRAT(had smelt first) and that Detroit is yet another city that takes credit for special pizza. Oh. I guess I MAY be one of the few that have heard of passing the LAUGHTEST but even so I wanted the SMELL. The smell test being passed with no SPRAT aroma.
For whatever it’s worth, aught might not mean nothingness, but it does literally mean the digit zero.
@AUGHT deniers, see see M-W definition #3.
@DD but it is correct: AUGHT refers to the digit zero. I guess nobody in these comments has shot a .30-06, or bought horseshoes, or remembers when the nineties rolled over to the aughts?
@LMS…omg on the KIDS scene. My mother passed away when I was twelve and the following Christmas I decided I would be most helpful to my father by signing and addressing Christmas cards. My Dad dutifully got me stamps and cards. I spent an evening signing, addressing, and stamping. My father worked at a power plant so there were a lot of cards to the folks he worked with. Well. He quickly looked distraught, looks at ME and says…Beezer, KIDS are goats! Yep. Mr and Mrs John Doe and kids
Nice write up, Rex.
Had trouble in the center. Got the theme. After NIL, ZIP, and NADA I wanted NONE. And from that incorrect inference arose my center woes. Didn’t know SAL. So I was helpless in the center. And hopeless.
Fun puzzle, entertaining blog post, great uniclues, Noam Chomsky on kids vs children. Does it get any better?
Late to the PARTY today thanks to some unfortunate printing glitches. I really must get a new computer. And even later by the time I got through the struggle of this puzzle. I see from skimming comments that most people gave it a thumbs up but I found it more akin to a painful dental procedure.
Normally I’m delighted to see a rebus on Thursday but I won’t take any BOWS today. JACUZZI PARTY was tough to PARSE and I’m still shaking my head over AUGHT. That one frustrated me to no end because the word naught also means ZERO and has far more common usage according to uncle google - who BTW also says AUGHT is considered archaic. LAUGH TEST is not familiar to me either so that didn’t help matters any. Just not my day I guess.
@Loren: Suits with little skirts? I remember those. But hey, you’re still on the cutting edge. After my last trip to the beach and the trauma of my reflection, I admitted defeat and moved on to the ones with Bermuda shorts. 🤣
Utter and complete failure with the themers here. Like OFL I refuse to think of VA NIL LA as bland. It can be if you favor cheap ice cream. Otherwise the flavor is glorious and I too used to order VANILLA malts. I would have done OK if I had thought of an AVATAR as a game face or had any idea that RENO had so many slot machines -- I was trying to somehow fit Las Vegas in. But for some reason after a few crosses I put LAURA DERN right in.
I do know about Roman months though. The first month was March. Followed by April, May, June, so the fifth month, and the first with numbers was Quintilis, which JC renamed in his honor. The next month was of course sextilis, which his great-nephew Augustus renamed in his honor. The following months we still have: Septem ber Octo ber, Novem ber, Decem ber. The "ber" was I believe "bris" in Latin. March remained the first month of the year in English law until the calendar reform of the 18th Century. March 15 (the old Roman Ides of March) was the first day of the legal year. If you read Pepys's diary, the dates before March 15 are a combination of the Gregorian and Julian calendars: You would have, e.g., March 1/10 1661/62. The problem with using the Julian calendar was that Easter was no longer in the Spring. The final switch to Pope Gregory's calendar essentially confiscated 11 days. So Washington, who was born February 11, suddenly had his birthday on February 22.
It is also true that Augustus gave himself an extra day, which he borrowed from February. Before that, February had 29 days, and 30 in leap years.
Thx, Adam; very Nice; nothing NAUGHTY about this one! :)
Med+
Only ALBS / STEEL in the NW; had to come back at the end to finish it.
Getting INBOX ZERO was a huge help with the other themers; just had to figure out where they were.
Fun Thurs. rebus; liked it a lot! :)
___
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
I had to take out my eenie, meenie, miney, mo calculator.....Here's what happened:
I'm indecisive, I can't decide
I keep on looking from left to right
Got a bit closer, looked in my eyes
Searching is so wrong, I'm Mrs. right.
I jumped from hither and yon trying to figure out where this wonderful Thursday rebus might be hiding and ask Alfie what it was all about.
A treasure hunt, indeed. VA[NIL}A jumped in to take me on a surprise lovely walk. NIL? Sniff around for other NIL's. None to be found. A sublime treasure hunt....I love them.
Found a key to my BOX that read HEAVE[NONE]EARTH. What can this be? What does AUGHT mean? What is a LAUGH TEST? I will become NAUGHTIER and follow a map to the theme answer. X marked the spot. It's an INBOX ZERO. I've won my prize.
Best rebus Thursday since CHROME CAST was invented.
The NE ate up a lot of time for my solve. I had the rest of the grid filled, was completely confident that I understood the theme requirement but I let HEAVEN and RENO stand while wondering whether ONE in 18A or NEV in 10D could mean ZIP. I finally saw where NONE could work, sigh.
I join @pabloinnh for trying ipEcaC first. It's my favorite crossword poison remedy and it works in SB also.
And then there's my favorite crossword billiards shot, the "masse". Are CAROM shots a thing? I'm assuming that's a bank shot. I thought the balls caromed off the banks and each other, did not know it was the name of the shot also. Ah, Google tells me it's not a bank shot but what we call a "combo" where you use more than just the cue ball to get to your ball.
Thanks, Rex, for the DEC explanation because I was thinking doDECahedron also. And I spared a thought for Jack SPRAT and the oily fish at 56D.
Pretty fancy clue for ERRS, using a chess term. And I circled 5D's clue as clever for cluing ECHO as "Bounce off the walls" which I thought would reference something frenetic.
Adam Wagner, nice Thursday, albeit not easy for me!
And does anyone else get a Juke Box Hero earworm when they see INBOX ZERO?
How is this a rebus?
btw. if you've spent any time in a pool hall, no one calls it a CAROM, it's a combo or combination shot.
Busy morning, but I’m back to say how much I enjoyed today’s solve. Rex says, “ This puzzle feels very thoughtful, very polished, and the revealer is both a lively, contemporary phrase and a genuine "aha" surprise.” Of course, he found it easily gettable too, so I’m not in total agreement! Saw the ZERO option early, but boy howdy did I struggle to find those gems! Expected as much from this constructor who is becoming legendary for his Thursday grids…at least in our house. Now I have the joy of reading the commentariat above—after I finish the cream of tomato soup & garlicky cheese bread lovingly provided by herself (whose help was needed to dig out the final two rebus squares).
Well, this was not my cup of tea. It played easy enough, but I didn't like the start at 1A/1D. ABC is simply ABC. The TV is just so redundant that it grates. That next to some singer name (who apparently peaked before I was listening to the radio)? And ALBS? yes, I've learned it from xwords, but what an ugly start to a Thursday. Then, I did get the theme at MARZIPAN (love that stuff!). Went back up the the NE and accidentally rebused ONE into the square. So for a second, I thought there would be a progression. Some sort of countdown? But then got NIL and realized that I had missed an N in NONE. Reo Nevada, indeed! ; )
Then the fact that the theme squares are just willy-nilly here and there, leaving the entire SE without anything of interest just seems sub-par for a real ZIPpy tricky Thursday. None of the longer, neat words (that have been mentioned already) could reverse that feeling. So, NIL ZIPpiness for me in this.
@Mike 2:47: From the NYT guide to crosswords:
"When you find yourself cursing at the puzzle because none of your expected answers fit, it probably has a rebus element.
...
A rebus element can be a letter, number or symbol that represents a word, but in many crosswords, the rebus will be a word or group of letters that need to be written inside a single square."
I think it's ironic that 11A "Common creature in a rebus puzzle" BEE accurately describes the fundamental feature of a rebus puzzle. A picture of a BEE will appear as part of the puzzle but will not mean literally the animal BEE but rather the sound BEE will be used to solve the puzzle.
For example the solution of a rebus puzzle with "2 [image of a BEE] [image of a row boat oar] [image of a knot in a rope] 2 [image of a BEE] would be the opening of Hamlet's soliloquy "To be or not to be". Something like this might have appeared on the old TV game show "Concentration" and fits with the Latin translation of rebus meaning "with or by way of things".
And then OFL adds to the irony with "---a rebus puzzle where some WORD meaning 'zero' can be found 'in' its own 'box' four times" (my emphasis). If a Latin word is needed to describe a crossword puzzle where the solution is "with or by way of words" then it would be a verbis puzzle, not a rebus puzzle.
I have always felt that using rebus to describe a puzzle with multiple letters or a complete word in a single grid square was wrong but was never motivated to speak up until I watched the PBS Nova show "A to Z: the First Alphabet" in 2020 where "the Rebus Principle" is used by researchers and historians to describe how writing went from pictographs and hieroglyphics to modern alphabets. "Rebus" is being used in crosswords in a completely different way than how it is used by linguists, philologists, Egyptologists, etc. More on this at Rebusgate.
Great puzzle, brainless comments.
@old timer 12:36
Ah, thanks for the real explanation, not the wacky story I heard! Silly Roo...
RooMonster Me Buy A Bridge In Brooklyn? Sure! Guy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0XshfiDA0Y
Not sure I would have called this one "easy," but I guess if ALB (1A) comes to you right away, then God bless that Catholic education is all I can say.
Brilliant puzzle. Not sure that I agree with mathgent @ 5:58 -- - - those are the sort of comments that leave a bad residue.
But I am still hearing "the aughts" for this century's first decade, so it is more common than you implied. Also the cross is fairly easy, And the expression " doesn't pass the laugh test" is reasonablly common. I don't think the rebuses were tortured.I always try to remind myself that just because I don't know or remember something doesn't mean it's unfair.
Only infrequently do I attempt Thursday puzzles - a little too hard for me, and this one took me some time. The rebus AUGHT was my last square. I should not be trying these later at night after work!
See you all on Sunday!
With Rex on this one. So entertaining. The wrong answers like RuB SNObbY SNooTY TUb provoked interest. The crosses like EMETIC-HEAVE, the subthemes like BEE and on an on. One gift after another.
And Aught means ZERO. perfecto!
@Anoa
Rebus - I get your point and your desire to defend that hill but that ship has sailed. Switching surfaces there. Look at AUGHT. It means all everything and 0. Words do that. And some rebus crosswords could be a presented in traditional rebus form. A BEE picture in a square instead of the word bee in a single square.
A last minute interception now would ice the game, seal the deal.
What, nobody mentioned the PAN dupe?
I struggled like many of you with expecting NOUGHT rather than OUGHT however this section was an order of magnitude harder when my subconscious brain whispered to me "remember the null hypothesis in college statistical analysis - it was called an 'H NOUGHT TEST". So I was convinced that 40A somehow had to be an H NOUGHT TEST (even though it doesn't quite fit) and that 32D somehow had to be NAUGHTIER (but that doesn't quite fit either). So I finally had to ignore my subconscious (which is hard, because it does somehow magically remember things my conscious never would) and finally I tried putting "AUGHT" in where it actually fit, and LAUGH TEST happened, without a laugh of course.
I am surprised at the number of people who have not heard of the "laugh test." It is common among lawyers for determining whether an argument is too weak to include (as an alternative argument, one hopes) in a brief. If it doesn't pass the laugh test, it's probably a bad idea to present it to the judge.
This was a great puzzle.
Very much enjoyed this puzzle. Took me a L O N G time to figure out what was going on with the rebuses. But when the payoff is worth the effort and the inherent maddening frustration, the experience ultimately gives me far greater pleasure and joy than if it had all been totally smooth sailing from the start.
Now I do…
I have never understood your use of the word “rebus.“
This is the definition of the word “Rebus:
representation of words or syllables by pictures of objects or by symbols whose names resemble the intended words or syllables in sound.”
BEN TRIESOUT VANILLA
ALONEAGAIN with LAURADERN,
like MARZIPAN in NAUGHTIER times,
HEAVENONEARTH you've COME to earn,
EATIT between THE BIKINILINES.
--- ETHYL ETCHER
MARZIPANPIZZA, ICEIT EATIT on an ABCTVTRAY. Are AUGHT and nAUGHT the same?
Can't help but think of Jethro Bodine wanting to be a double nAUGHT spy.
Haha!!! Ace on the wordle!! After 133 TRIES using various starting words.
Some folks love the tricky Thursday puzzle with their rebii and "guess what we want to be zero now" riddles. I am not of that ilk. I just wanna BEE a normal one-letter-per-square solver. Fair and square.
onward...
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Pretty good, although some of the cluing was a bit too cute and obtuse. Also the use of alphabet soup (mostly) non-words like ABCTV, SSN, CPA, NYNY, ACDC, TVTRAY, ESL, HOV, THEUS, DEC, TIC, BAO etc. A bit of that stuff is understandable but this is a little too much. A TUN some might say. Other than that, it was a clever theme and fun to solve.
You're kidding me. You want to clue CUKE as a JUICE veggie? Really? Who in the hell would drink THAT? Might as well call it puke juice; it would surely make an excellent EMETIC for me. Horrible, awful clue, and not the last.
This one played weirdly for me; I got the only section without a rebus but with the revealer: SE. Ah but soon there was the ZIP line, and things got better after that.
Set me up with the vision of a nice night on the town with dinner and a movie--and then crash me back down to EARTH with a TVTRAY. In real life, much more my speed, but ya dashed a dream there.
LAURADERN for DOD. Tricky little Thursday rebus, with different expressions of the same thing; entertaining to solve and worth every bit of the slot. Birdie.
Congrats to @rondo, whose ace beat my bogey by four strokes!
PS - Will Shortz missed a duplicate. TVTRAY and ABCTV. Two TVs. That’s a no-no, no?
I hope not a dumb question, but in relation to this puzzle, could you walkie through the revealer? Is it always only one answer or is it any answering which you say, "aha" because you figured it out? Do constructors use only one revealer?
Explain, please, as if speaking to a very small child.
Many thanks, barbara
To Barbara - The rebus can be many things. Sometimes it is one word repeated in a square throughtout the puzzle and sometimes (like today) it is a word that changes and is different in every square it appears in but in both cases they follow a theme or gimmick. Today’s gimmick is INBOXZERO so all the rebus squares contain a word that is a varuatuion on ZERO (NONE, NIL, AUGHT and ZIP). The rebuses in today’s case worked both across and down. They don’t always. Sometimes they only work in one direction - or forwards one way and backwards the other. Sometimes there’s a revealer clue (in this case 35D) that hints to the rebuses presence and sometimes not. You’ve always got to be on your guard that a crossword may have rebuses is in the grid. Hope this helps.
This was my most enjoyable puzzle in a looooong time. I especially liked the cross of HeaveNONEarth and ReNONEvada. Excellent work by Adam Wagner.
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