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Opera daughter of Amonasro / FRI 8-19-22 / Jazz great Evans / Putdown to a klutz in dated slang / Big purveyor of frozen desserts / Author of the six-book poem Fasti / Bigwig in the admissions dept.
Friday, August 19, 2022
Constructor: Patrick John Duggan
Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: META (59A: Like casting Michael Keaton in "Birdman" as an actor who used to play a superhero) —
adjectiveUS
• • •
This puzzle has two very worthy marquee answers. The rest is just OK. I wonder what the age cut-off is for "SMOOTH MOVE, EX-LAX" being a super-familiar "putdown to a klutz." Ex-Lax still exists, so there's no real reason the slang should be "dated," but it definitely is, so ... I'm quite sure Gen-X (and older) folks know it well. If you're younger, chime in, please. It's an excellent slangy 15, imho. "I WON'T MINCE WORDS" also has a nice colloquial quality. I no-looked the answer, having crossed it a bunch of times before ever bothering to look at the clue. Still good. Clue shmue. Outside the grid-spanners, though, this one is a bit limp. "I'VE HAD IT!" keeps some of the same energy as the longer answers, but the rest is mostly just adequate. The only real objection I have is (and continues to be) to TASE, which I find increasingly (and aptly?) jarring. I got an email from reader Arjun Byju the other day about this word, which I'm going to quote at length, because it's so clear and smart. I don't like TASE because it evokes police brutality specifically, but Arjun's email gets into greater detail about the term:
So even if you love seeing TASE in your grid, you now have some more context for why others might not be so happy to see it.I'm writing because, like you, I was troubled by today's inclusion of TASE, which I've seen come up a time or two in the puzzle. You may already be aware of this (so apologies in advance) but it was only recently that I learned that the company that produces Taser — Axon International — has a pretty shady history of involvement with law enforcement, the courts, and medical examiners. This Reuters investigative piece examines many of Taser/Axon's connections to physicians and researchers who have advocated for the stun gun's safety and the pressure medical examiners have felt from the company.Last year, I wrote an article about Excited Delirium, a highly questionable "diagnosis" that is often invoked when people die in police custody and has been supported by Axon/Taser as a way to shift blame away from their devices. Eg: "No, this person didn't die from cardiac arrhythmia induced by multiple shocks from our gun. They died from excited delirium." Axon has used this defense quite successfully in court.So yeah, there's a lot to feel icky about when I see TASE in the NYT Crossword, and I thought I'd share some of the reasons why—beyond the basic unsavoriness of shocking civilians, it' tied up in a broader medico-legal controversy that allows police to avoid culpability for what would otherwise be considered murder.
I got into this grid easily. Wanted GUAM at first for 1A: Former British colony whose national flag includes the Union Jack, but that's just because it's a four-letter colonized place. FAST (1D: Unfading) put me on the track to FIJI and then ANEW and IWO JIMA and off I went. Wanted ZOO for ADO (7D: Big scene) and had TIVA before TEVA there at the end (38A: Big name in sandals), but otherwise, no real struggles.
Add'l notes:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
- 46A: Member of high society? (POT USER) — sure, OK. Mostly what I see when I look at this answer is that it contains "POTUS." Can one president be POTUSER than another?
- 39A: One in a state of disbelief (ATHEIST) — I adore the juxtaposition of this answer with ST. PETER (42A: Bigwig in the admissions dept.?). Great thematic opposition. ("admissions dept." because ST. PETER is the one who "admits" you (or not?) to heaven)
- 20A: They're open to change (TIP JARS) — smiled at this one as I roared past. A very nice clue.
- 29A: Opera daughter of Amonasro (AIDA) — wanted AIDA but the name in the clue sounded Italian, so I waited for crosses. I see now that it contains "Amon," as in "Amon-Ra," the most popular Egyptian deity in CrossWorld. "Opera daughter" is a bizarre, crosswords-only kind of phrase.
- 38D: Russian ___ (iconic restaurant near New York's Central Park) (TEA ROOM) — I ate here once with my mom and sister in the summer of 1983. It's where I first had Chicken Kiev. Family lore has it that my father apparently once barfed in the planters outside the Russian TEA ROOM. I wish there were a zany, drunken story to go with this fact, but I think he was just sick. Sorry for breaking my own rules and bringing vomit on stage. Won't happen again.
- 4D: Literally, "sulfur island" (IWO JIMA) — read this as [Literally, "surfer island"] and thought "wow ... that is *not* how I know it."
 |
| [me and my [Striped cat] Olive] |
Explainers:
- YOLO = "You only live ONCE"
- "Green" in 30A: Green sort (INGENUE) means "inexperienced" or "naive"
Good day.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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137 comments:
@Rex wasn't posted when I finished so I went to Xword info. POW! I was kinda shocked by that and the gushing write up. I enjoyed solving this one (I almost always do) but it doesn't make my fave list. EXLAX? Seriously? EMTS,NBA,TCBY,USDA are crammed into the S & SE. Not an elegant puzzle but OK over all. Solid B.
("Birdman" was a horrible movie)
I'm 45 and got the SMOOTH MOVE easily enough but needed every cross for the EXLAX.I mentioned it to my very non-crosswordy partner, who is 33, because I thought it was really dated and it was familiar to her. Still a quick solve as the crosses weren't bad.
Easy?? Took me a long time to get any answers, especially when I thought Dr. Seuss was the one who wrote good things are wild and free. But the two X's led to SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX, one of my mother's too frequent comments, and she was born in 1934, so "dated slang" might be an understatement.
Nice pic of Olive. My kitty Swann has those markings and those colors, with slightly longer fur. His sister Odette has the stripes, but in silver-gray. Recently learned that such cats are "mackerel tabbies."
I’ve waded through the muck of old slang for 67 years and never encountered “smooth move exlax”. Now I am complete.
26 years old and have very much never heard SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX in my life, and EXLAX just looked so wrong that I spent a while looking for mistakes in my crosses.
But that hurdle aside, loved the wordplay in the cluing throughout this puzzle. The ST PETER clue is one of my favorites in a while (though I originally tried putting in HEADMISS, because it's literally 'in' "the admissions office"...trying to be way too clever).
TEAROOM was my toehold, and then OVID, a gimme. I love, love, love “Fasti” and reread all six volumes at least twice a year. Non possum satis illius cacas.
This one had some terrific clues: those for TIP JARS, ST PETER, DREW, SCALES. Good stuff.
“Fume” before FUSS. I think “fume” fits the clue better, but no one ever calls and asks my opinion.
“Waikiki” before IWO JIMA because like Rex, I misread the clue as “surfer” island. Oops. Huge difference.
COOLEST POT USER TOKES. Hakuna matata, man. I’m reminded of this meme.
I WON’T MINCE WORDS. . . but in my case, please do. I never, ever want the truth, especially if there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t reattach my hair, so tell me the new cut looks great. We’ve just rung the doorbell at the Christmas party, tell me these pants to not in fact make me look fat.
“It might slowly grow on you” – where do you even start with a clue like this? OVID’s “Fasti”? Your waistline? A fungus?
Like others, I had never heard the expression SMOOTH MOVE, EX LAX and kept going back to look at it. With the “dated” in the clue, I was thinking it was from the ‘20s maybe. Nope. Seems it’s from the ‘80s, and the MOVE part really does have to do with, well, ahem, movements. EX LAX is a weird name. If I had a laxative, I’d name it Nudge˚. And the milder Suggest˚
EAT OUT – I’m constantly amazed at the number of people at my school who use Door Dash to have their lunch delivered. That has to be incredibly expensive, right? I’m thinking that every morning they lie to themselves and are like, I’ll just skip lunch today and have a big dinner when I get home. Oh hell no you won’t. It’s either chips from the vending machine or Door Dash Chinese. My situation isn’t great, but it’s cheaper; I meal prep every Sunday. Five identical Tupperware containers with five identical meals. Sure, by Thursday I’m starting to tire of the Banquet Salisbury steak and broccoli, but it doesn’t matter ‘cause when lunchtime rolls around, I’m so hungry, I’d eat my cardigan.
If your constipation causes anxiety, I recommend the new drug XANEXLAX. Takes care of both problems.
In the 60's we'd say, "Way to GO, EXLAX!" or "Nice play, Shakespeare!".
AIDA should be clued via Glengarry Glen Ross.
FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE
Surprised to learn that the word SEXISm did not exist before 1963. I can imagine puzzle solvers in the ‘70s complaining about damn modern slang like ‘sexism’, ‘upscale’ and ‘telemarketing’ (all coined in 1963).
For the most part, a wheelhouse puzzle with NIELS BIHR, THOREAU, FIJI, TEVA, etc. bROW before PROW led to STb____, which confused me for a while, but everything else felt pretty straightforward.
Thanks, @Rex and Arjun Byju, for the explanation of TASE/AXON. Another thing I learned from crosswords.
The NE was a bear. At 16A I tried the O, L and O words several times each before settling on ONCE. This early Boomer got SMOOTH MOVE easily but like others never heard of the EX-LAX part. Fell into the TOtES-for-TOKES trap at 23A.
When I was fresh out of college I visited the Russian Tea Room with my sister. It turned out to be much more expensive than either of us had anticipated and the didn't take plastic, so we had to pool all the money we had just to pay the check. That left only a $2 tip for the waiter. I folded it up carefully and slid it under a plate, hoping he wouldn't find it until we were long gone. SMOOTH MOVE, EX-LAX. As we left, the waiter pursued me to the door to ask, "Was there something wrong with the service?" I left thinking, "Thank G-d I wasn't on a date!"
For a data point on SMOOTH MOVE EX LAX, I'm 35 and I know I've heard it before but I couldn't possibly tell you where.
TOKES and POTUSER. NIELS BOHR AND THOREAU. I WONT MINCE WORDS...best puzzle in quite some time. For you children all butthurt about EXLAX, that's how I feel about Harry Potter clues, and there's one of those in damn near every puzzle.
Another fast Friday for me. But it was a tale of two puzzles. The West fell almost seamlessly. Hesitated at FIJI/FAST, but IWOJIMA had such unique letters that the whole NW then just filled itself in. For some reason, I then went straight down and finished the entire left side of the grid with ary a hitch. Liked the clue/answer pairs for ATHIEST better than for POTUSER. Then I got lost for a second at my first scan through the NE clues, but NIELS BOHR helped and the only place left for me to get stuck was the SE with my striped cat being a Tiger instead of the TABBY. That gave me the pgA instead of the NBA having double representation. Nah, that can't be right? says brain. Or does that mean that there are two championship golf courses in each of those locales? And. my misplaced Tiger's E also indicated Edey ice cream. Brain again, "You are definitely in the weeds now! That's not right, and you know it. Try again!". Finally looked at the grid-spanner; got the phrase since the beginning was pretty much filled by now; fixed my mistakes; and stumbled into the SE. Where TEAROOM was my savior that helped confirm for-me-iffy stuff like OVID and THOREAU. (I'm just not that cultured). Also liked the clues mentioned by OFL. A propos things mentioned by OFL, I recall that story of his about the TEAROOM from some earlier write-up. I just can't remember if he promised not to bring up vomit again back then, too.
I had the final X, but never in my septuagenarian life have I heard SMOOTH MOVE EX-LAX. And--Ew! I don't want to hear it again! Since it was clued as "dated slang," I wanted it to be [SOMETHING] SKEEZIX. "Dated" depends a great deal on how old you are. I was thinking of the 1920s-30s.
Looking at the grid now, it's strange to recall how hard I had to work at this, ending up with one of the longest Friday times in ages. Well above average. But I enjoyed it and found the puzzle clever and fun, with special fondness for the clues for JEOPARDY, COOLEST, and INGENUE. And yeah, loved the ATHEIST...STPETER neighborliness. Been a while since we've seen NIELS BOHR, hasn't it? And with both his names.
Patrick had me at the gorgeous answer INGENUE, and kept me amped with clue after clue that made me “Hah!”, especially the world class [What makes you question everything you know?].
My machete felt well-honed as I whacked my way through the East and SW, then ran into a mass of brambles in the NW, where I had to lay that machete down and ponder. I had a moment where the devil on one shoulder cooed sweetly, “Aw just look that one itty bitty word up”, while the angel on the other insisted, “Not yet! You can get this!” I went with the angel, who rewarded me with a wise crack (crack as in cracking a riddle), and oh, filling that quadrant in was a good feeling.
So, happiness and drama – a killer Friday combo – plus the lovely PuzzPair© of the abutting BAT and IN MIDAIR, and a festival of words that ended with S sounding like a Z, ten of them.
I come into Fridays with the hope of meeting satisfaction and joy, and you brought it today, Patrick. Bravo topped with a heaping mound of gratitude!
Nice puzzle - although I’ve never heard SMOOTH MOVE EX-LAX. Wonderful wordplay and cluing - TIP JARS, ST PETER, BAR MENU are all top notch. Not sure Buck had THOREAU in mind
POT USER sounds like my mother talking. The TEA ROOM is just not the same.
Oh Lord let it be the last FOXHOLE - or maybe FOXHOLE FOXHOLE or from Elvis’ last really great record I’m in the FOXHOLE, I’m down in the trench
Enjoyable Friday solve.
62 and never heard SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX. Wonder if it's regional more than age. Had TOTES for TOKES for a while, so that corner took a while to figure out.
I’m a lot older than Gen X and I’d never heard SMOOTH MOVE, EX LAX. Luckily. Alas.
Very interesting (and troubling) details about TASE. Still, it would be a good thing if law enforcement had some way to immobilize people safely, temporarily, and when justified, that doesn’t involve bullets.
Mid-elder millennial (34 going on 35) here checking in to say I've absolutely never heard SMOOTH MOVE, EX-LAX.
Can someone explain the “Unfading” clue for FAST? It’s just not making sense to me thx
Unfamiliar with 17A. Old guy. Just the facts, ma'am.
This one was an eraser workout. All those answers that were instantly obvious, like TIGER, had to go. See also INTHEAIR, AIMFOR, ONLY, and TIVA. Buh bye.
I don't think "cool", as in COOLEST equates to "neat" as in "maximally neat". Neat is cool's little brother.
Really enjoyed this one, as the cluing was a lot of fun and there were lots of small aha's! Along the way. Love me a puzzle where one thing leads to another and another but without many gimme's, which is what we had here.
Very nice Friday indeed, PJD. Please Just Do more of these. Every Friday would be fine, and thanks for all the fun.
@Anonymous 8:33 AM: Think of the term "color-fast," meaning you can throw that shirt or pair of pants into the washer with other colors because the color won't fade. The word "fast" itself is also defined as "resistant to fading."
Altogether a most enjoyable puzzle for me. Just difficult enough to put up some resistance without a lot of PPP or other arbitrary impediments.
I only know SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX from Neil Stephenson's "Snow Crash," where the skate punk character YT (Yours Truly) has a sticker saying that that she slaps on cars that try to shake her off when she "poons" them. Still one of my favorite novels ever. Used to teach it in my Science Fiction course at Tufts U., so my paperback is heavily thumbed and notated. My wife (a techie) brought my copy to a conference where NS was the keynote speaker, and got him to sign it. He inscribed it with his name and "Stop writing in my book!"
Other things that struck me: "TOKE" and its variants as acceptable XW fodder. My memory is that the appearance of the word in the NYTXW well predates the widespread legalization we now enjoy (making it even more absurd how many are in prison for having or selling it) but it's funny that it still feels a bit of an eyebrow raiser to me.
I'm with @bagelboy. 17A seems like a regionalism. I'm 58 and have never heard it before. The two Xs from the Down clues made it gettable.
Putting in TIGER for 55A slowed things down for quite a while. Because I was blinded by my confidence, SLAYS went it, came out, and went back in again after I realized 55A was TABBY instead.
I'm 74 and have never heard SMOOTHMOVEEXLAX. Icky.
A good Friday puzzle. Not easy, not too hard, just right.
The fact that you put “yuck” after Ayn Rand tells me everything I need to know about you and the current state of education in this country…
Terrific puzzle, with all the great cluing already referenced. But for me, very not easy! I won't say how long it took (with some interruptions during which I failed to hit pause, but it's hard to believe I would take the time out of my busy retirement schedule for such a struggle. But the Congratulations! screen made it all good, after I found the typo at OLDER/BOHR (I went first with eLDER, so didn't notice BeHR when I solved NIELS later.
For the second time in my relatively short tenure as a participant on this blog, I have noticed how much Rex is on the tip-top of his game when he returns from vacation. Always a fun read, @Rex, but truly delightful this morning ... not counting the "Easy Medium."
“How do you do, fellow kids? We’re all POTUSERs, right?”
I had the same reaction as Rex to the Thoreau quote. Finally remembered it is from the song “La Isla Bonita” by Madonna.
Anonymous @ 8:33: FAST meaning "fixed" not speedy. As in "held fast," or colorfast ink (which doesn't fade). Or my favorite: "fast and loose," which in Shakespeare's day referred to a taproom gambling scam. A leather strap was folded back and forth in a deceptively convoluted manner and then pierced with a dagger. You'd get the mark to wager on which loops were pinned by the blade--"fast"--vs which could be pulled free: "loose." So the expression was about grifters and rigged games--think 3-card monte--not running around and stretching the rules.
Colours that don't fade hold fast
Yes. Being anti-gun and anti-taser is all very well, but what does one do when confronted by an armed and violent person?
FAST colors don't fade when you wash them.
I've heard SMOOTH MOVE, not the EXLAX part but obvious from crosses.
Don't know about POW but thought it was pretty good. Is TWOWAY MIDAIR a round trip? And what was all that FIJI BEARD FUSS about?
An ATHEIST in TEVAs was strolling along the shore of the GALILEE when he met THOREAU, ST PETER and a POT USER... THOREAU had the COOLEST EYES. ST PETER said, TRY ME FIRST. The POTUSER took another TOKE despite his LIP RASH. Next they META OLDER INGENUE with a BARMENU and a TIPJAR. No FUSS, they all just got OLDER.
Loved this puzzle; lots of fun and lots of new stuff. Only nits:
Cluing 17A as " ... dated slang" is the understatement of the century. I think the last time I heard or used that expression I was in the ninth grade - and that was 1957.
Also, the exclamation point in [The drinks are on me!] seems misplaced considering the answer.
Pretty decent Friday, but I won't remember a thing about it beyond 2:00 this afternoon.
For now though, I can say that SMOOTHMOVEEXLAX brought me back to, oh, 1978 middle school days -- so yeah, it's dated. Spent some time at the very end wondering how TWOdAY implied give-and-take, because I had dropped in IdONTMINCEWORDS early on, before finally corrected it.
I learned of GIL Evans backwards. I had no interest in jazz until I was well into my 30s. Years earlier, I was introduced to Evans on Sting's "...Nothing Like The Sun" album, on which Evans orchestrated Sting's version of "Little Wing" -- I liked the song (still do) but the significance of Evans still eluded me. Only later was I introduced to his work with Miles, and both "Miles Ahead" and "Sketches of Spain" remain on heavy rotation in my house.
You go back to your ivory tower and ignore that reality
Gen X here, and I’ve never heard SMOOTH MOVE EX LAX in my life. yuck.
@Rex, were you thinking of Kelleigh Bannen’s “All Good Things”?
Loved this puzzle. Great clues. Great fill. But had a rare actual DNF at the cul de sac area of 34A. The only 3-letter part of a cup I could think of was rim. And since I know virtually nothing about tennis or golf, neither LET SERVE nor PAR leaped to mind. And it turns out that nET SERVE is also a thing in tennis, and I thought one could maybe shoot for the bAR, so I ended up wondering what part of a cup the nIb was. 🤷🏻♂️
The song where I remember "wild and free" from is Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) by Edison Lighthouse.
I assume this is the POW. It is for me thus far. I had a great time with this one, abandoning areas early until finding that mind-meld with the composer that lets you see through the misdirection. Loved it.
Re. the taser issue : I'm wondering how many shooting incidents have been avoided since tasers were available to police. If you are in favor of the changing of physical standards that allowed women, among others, to patrol the streets, and who isn't, than utilizing tasers is generally a better choice when involved with violent offenders than having to resort to personal combat or use of a gun. There is more to consider than just crying "police brutality".
Bravo on some very clever and creative cluing, including 3D "What makes you question everything you know?" and 24D "The drinks are on me!"
Hey All !
Wow, zoomed back to pre-teen memory with SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX. It seemed so dirty and edgy to say. What rebels we were. We didn't MINCE WORDS. Har.
I struggled throughout puz, so naturally I knew Rex would rate it Easy. Had to Goog for ELMS, unsophistication rearing its head again. Once more for Title IX, although that's what I thought it was, so that counts as only a half-cheat. 😁
Some nice clues throughout. Good FriPuz. Slow brain day so far. Maybe need some TOKES. (Which I had as TOtES first, nicely holding me up I'm the NE.)
my treat first for BARMENU. Nice one, Patrick.
Three F's (two right away!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
I have Alone Again, Naturally stuck in my head since yesterday. This is a bad one- I can't make it stop!
HELP!
An atheist is absolutely not in a 'state of disbelief.' I get the pun - and loved the puzzle - but I've grown tired of folks representing atheism as a lack of belief. It 100% IS a belief that religion is bullshit. If I sound reactionary or woke, note that 40% of Americans would not vote for a qualified atheist Presidential candidate. Would you?
Like any person with faith, I rely on my atheism to inform me to take full advantage of every day and enjoy this life as much as possible without harming others. That's a belief, not disbelief.
Why I remember back in nineteen-AUGHT-seven how the TIPJARS would overflow when the twins Gypsy Rose and GALI LEE would perform. IWONTMINCEWORDS, they were a TWOWAY HOTONE that could turn ANEW BEARD OLDER. They were POTUS-ER than the UNFIT SEXIST Shitgibbon to boot.
The cluing today was fan-f***ing-tastic!!! Everything was smooth, fast, flowing and fun. Thanks for a really great Friday, Patrick John Dugan.
Tough cluing! And that made the puzzle not at all "easy" for me: reading clue after clue, all I could see in the idea bubble above my head was ??? or, too often, wrong answers. Those started off with "eLDER" followed by "livE" instead of ONCE, and continued with the arabian SEA, Tiger, "inapt" for UNFIT, and "mutual" for TWO-WAY; I also misremembered "Nils" BOHR, so eliminated him from consideration. Et cetera. Anyway, this one gave me the kind of Friday challenge I hope for - fun to untangle, very satisfying to finish.
Thanks to those who pointed out the GALILEE, ATHEIST, ST. PETER cluster - around a cross, no less.
Just want to chime in and say I enjoyed the puzzle, maybe a little less than Chen and a little more than Sharp. Got the two large entries from the crosses, and actually enjoyed the trickier clues. Of course, I had to research (now called google)to solve the puzzle. Still, one of the better puzzles. At least in my book.
I wish solvers could ignore the entries they don't like - I don't care what one thinks about tase as long as I don't get tased myself.
@Joaquin. [The drinks are on me!] is an example of WAY TOO CUTE cluing style that seems to have taken hold in Crossworld. I don't care for it. I would clue BARMENU as "Place for drinks" or something else like that.
A little above average in resistance for a Friday but after yesterday's solve it felt like a pushover. I printed out both puzzles last night and did them back to back.
SMOOTHMOVEEXLAX and POTUSER brought the quality of today's solve down. The first is puerile and the latter just grates on my nerves, is this the 70s?
Maybe this constructor is just a maximally neat dude in a loose mood. I have to go stick my hands in fans for fun now ala Eugene of song.
@Brian Walsh. I really appreciate your comments about atheism. Well said.
@Joaquin, that exclamation point bothered me too, but I guess it's better tha quotation marks,and it would have been bothersome with no punctuation as well.
Haven't heard the "exlax" line in 60 years or so, but it was used in Chicago back then. Didn't miss it.
@DRBB, neat story about the "Snow Crash" author. I think I'll look for the book.
Medium here. SMOOTH MOVE EX-LAX went out with the barest precious nanosecond pause on EX-LAX. @LMS says it’s from the 1980’s, which makes sense based on the comments so far. Seems like it is of the same period as “I’ve got to make like a banana and split” and “Why don’t you make like a drum and beat it.”
Hand up for loving the JEOPARDY clue. 🧑🍳💋 on that one. And I couldn’t help smirking at ATHEIST ST. PETER. Wasn’t familiar with the THOREAU quote, but I had the T and it sounded like something he would write. As for Fasti, since I had TEA ROOM the clue was essentially “four letter poet starting with O,” so OVID was obvious. I’m surprised no one has pointed out that using Fasti in a clue when FAST is in the puzzle is sub-optimal.
@LMS & Rex - Sulfur Surfer sounds like slang for a POT USER
@LMS - What’s wrong with the cafeteria food?
DrBB - Nice Stephenson story.
@Son Volt - One of those Elvis songs where I keep deciding that I really don’t understand the lyrics. And it reminded me that this song is roughly the same vintage. Don’t look back.
@Hillaryfan - 62 years old and I’ve never been confronted by an armed and violent person. Armed people, sure, mostly cops and hunters (fortunately @Lewis didn’t bring his machete to lunch, such a violent person*). And violent people, sure, mostly teenagers hopped up on hormones and drunks. But never an armed and violent person. And it seems to me the easiest thing to do would be to make sure the potentially violent don’t have easy access to arms.
@8:57 - Fremdschämen inducing comment.
*It occurs to me that some people might not realize that making absurd statements is meant to be humorous.
To add to the survey: I'm 47, so comfortably Gen X, and "Smooth Move, Ex-Lax" means nothing to me. Never heard that in my life that I know of.
Had a ton of write-overs on this one. emeRson for THOREAU, with edys for TCBY on the cross that made emeRson work even better. mlb for NBA. Tiger for TABBY. Stoner didn't have enough letters for POTUSER, and my brain just couldn't think of a synonym. ("POT USER" is just such a flat phrase for me.) eLDER for OLDER. NeiLS for NIELS. Aimfor for ASPIRE. Took a lot of housekeeping to clean up my mess.
Overall, felt like an easier Friday, but some bad guesses took me into slower than average time.
Dated slang? I’m pretty dated and I’ve never heard that expression in my life. Wondering if it might be an East Coast thing. Left it blank until I finally admitted that’s all it could be. Bleh! Yesterday we had the LAUGH TEST but today we needed the breakfast test.
Thanks for the photo RP. Miss Olive looks like she has things well under control.
@Gio 9:45
(And apologies to everyone else)
How to get a song out of your head:
Think of "The Brady Bunch" song.
RooMonster Har Guy (hopefully @Gio isn't too young to not have heard of said song)
aGio - For you, Alone Again, Or (There are other versions and covers, but this is my favorite).
I'm 82 and remember 17A from Junior High School.
@Z
I think law enforcement officers risk encountering armed and violent people more than we civilians do.
The mini showed in miniature how even when I don’t know 20% of the answers, they’re still gettable through crosses. Joel Fagliano presented an engaging theme today in a boxlet, as he’s done time and again. I don’t know whether you just dash these off or sweat over making them, Joel, but, IMO, this little corner of the world that you create crackles with brilliance.
17A was used here in San Francisco in the 40s and 50s, usually by one of the dorky kids.
In the Bible, Jesus walked on the Sea of GALILEE.
ORBIT is a cavity in our skull housing an eyeball. Shouldn't that clue have a question mark?
One of the few Chen's POWs which was fun to solve. Liked it a lot.
Only seven threes, lowest in a long time. But it only produced six longs.k
The inventor of Ex Lax was named Max Kiss. I live half a mile from the old Ex Lax Building on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn (see avatar). It was turned into condos in the early 1980s.
I could swear there was also a giant Ex Lax sign visible from the Long Island Expressway approach to the Queens-Midtown tunnel back in the 1960-70s. Also a Hiram Walker sign. But I can't find any pix on the web. Strange.
I liked this puzzle but once again it was a shade too easy for Friday.
This tune was also covered instrumentally by Miles Davis, with a Gil Evans arrangement.
Thx, Patrick, for the excellent Fri. workout; great clueing! :)
Hard (Sat. time). Way off PJD's wavelength on this ONE.
NIELS BOHR got me started.
Just watched Martin Clunes 'Islands of the Pacific' yd, which featured FIJI.
Fair crosses resulted in a successful solve. :)
Enjoyed the challenge.
___
Peace 🙏 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Another puzzle that was a real pleasure! Thank you!
Odd coincidence- just two days ago while walking my dog, I recalled SMOOTHMOVEEXLAX. Hadn’t thought of or heard it in ages. I assumed it was from advertising, but I remember my mom saying it to me. Whether it was snark or humor will remain a mystery.
Awesome clues. The one for JEOPARDY is inspired and the ones for SCALES, LET SERVE and BAR MENU also gave me great big "Aha"s when they finally (very belatedly) came in.
I can certainly be something of a klutz from time to time, but I'm quite sure no one has ever said SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX to me...ever. What does it even mean? When did it come into existence? Those of you who've heard it will have an easier time with this puzzle than the rest of us.
My biggest writeover was TSP before LIP for "part of a cup". If LET SERVE was hard to see having the L, imagine how hard it was when your answer began with a T.
Loved I WON'T MINCE WORDS. Loved it much more than its symmetrically matching SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX. But all told, this is a great Friday puzzle with wonderful cluing and very SMOOTH grown-up fill. A treat.
I’m 24 and my dad says the ‘smooth move’ thing. Never heard it anywhere else. Liked this better than most. But found it tough. A steady head wind from start to finish.
Agreed, should be yuckiest
Easy-medium. Fun solve with some clever cluing a quite a bit of sparkle. Liked it a bunch, although I think yesterday’s should have been POW.
Tiger before TABBY was it for erasures.
66 here, never heard of smooth move exlax. I've lived my life entirely among morons, so it's probably a regional thing.
@LMS - Is your icon a reference to a FAT ASS? That's meaner than you normally are. Not that I disagree with that assesment
@Tasers are better than guns / guns are better than cops or innocent civilians dying folk. Sure, but your argument is a red herring because you left out the "necessary" constraint. Lethal force should only be the used as the last resort, not the first time it is potentially justifiable, which is threshold accepted now, similarly for tasing. If you read the article, it was about a kid who died when tased as he was running away from police when he was seen spraying graffiti on an abandoned McDonalds. At five in the morning, somehow seven police officers managed to converge on a teen-ager spray-painting windows, and one of those officers was in such dire peril that he tased the teenager, who died within minutes. You never know, the kid could have thrown the spray paint can at the officers with such force and accuracy that is sequentially bounced off each of their heads, rendering them all unconscious or worse.
And, tasing is frequently fatal. Read the article. Think about one thing regarding the article: even if you believe the bullshit theory used to explain away taser-deaths, question whether or not the taser caused the biomarkers or not. That's not explained.
Nice pic of Olive and Rex - they look like they WON’T MINCE WORDS.
TWO fine puzzles in a row. Today I DREW smiley faces by 6 clues. @Rex mentioned ST PETER and TIP JARS. I thought the clues for JEOPARDY, EYES, LET SERVE and GERUNDS were also above PAR. So when [Striped cat] turned out to be a plain old TABBY it was like a sneak attack.
I was on the same wavelength as OFL re Rumi, Amonasro and POTUS-ER. TASE too, just because of how those potentially less deadly weapons are misused. Interesting letter about Axon. Now we can only hope no constructor will try to fit “excited delirium” into a grid.
After a RASH DNF yesterday, leaving SNOoTY without checking the cross (Hi, @Roo), I made sure I corrected any left overs, like eNvioUs for INGENUE. I thought NIELS was right but I was thinking the [Green sort] might be an ENVIOUS person. Knowing [Jazz great Evans] had to be GIL got me out of that jam.
FUme before FUSS (Hi, @Loren). METe before META. I also had iN LieU until TOKES revealed UNLIKE. Thankful that didn’t get a social media clue.
Finally all corrected and @A SLAMS the pen down for a triumphal Friday. I’ll be happy to see more from Mr. Duggan.
@Pete
I think @LMS's avatar refers to DREW ((9D)Carey,
"Wild and free" got me to humming All I Want is You from Juno. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQESZszV0Sg
Still stuck in my ear.
I'd probably vote for AGNOSTIC rather than ATHIEST as one who's in a state of disbelief (an atheist DOES believe that God does not exist -- an agnostic is determinedly not sure), but it's still a cute clue.
Elder millennial here (1986) and I do remember "SMOOTH MOVE EX-LAX" being a thing.
@TJS, @Joaquin-To me the quotation marks around a clue mean "take this literally", like "Step on it!" for MAT.
@Roo (10:17) The Brady Bunch! Love it. I usually go with Amazing Grace but that’s a great suggestion.
I’m 38 and very easily remembered Smooth Move Ex-Lax as a thing, although I can’t remember actually using it myself or hearing it IRL… just on TV
The term LET SERVE would never be used by tennis players. It’s a “LET,” simply. Similarly, a fault is a fault, not a fault serve .
Great puzzle that was a lot of fun to solve.
I'm 25 and I've never heard "smooth move, exlax", but the crosses were all solid, so: fair play. All the same, its prominent positioning and its status as the most colloquial thing in the puzzle leave me confused. It is as though a perfectly decent puzzle from 30 years ago found its way into today's newspaper.
I got an easy start thanks to my son-in-law’s sis and her hubs (Catherine and Dean) blissfully ensconced in their lovely home in Dunedin NZ where they just returned from a spur of the moment weekend beach trip to FIJI. Yep. FIJI. Spur of the moment no less. I WON’T MINCE WORDS here. I’m jealous. We had a mega-call last weekend with my kids and Jonathan’s (son-in-law) parents, his sis and hubs, Dean and me. I mostly drooled over the pix. Anyway, thanks Catherine and Dean! Can’t tell you how fortunate I feel to have such truly wonderful folks in the extended fam. We all hit it off at the wedding and my kids and their daughter and both sets of grandparents vacationed together in July and had a fabulous time. I WON’T MINCE WORDS, I am one fortunate woman. So I will quit the jealous whining, continue to save my pennies or remortgage my house for plane fare to NZ and count my blessings.
OK, so once in, I found the puzzle fairly easy with a dollop of medium and a lovely garnish of wordplay. At “Mideast capital, I immediately thought our able constructor wanted me to use some nasty “Americanized” spelling (Hooboy there’s a rant I could so without breaking a sweat!) of Riyadh, but a little more coffee hit the brain and I thought “Oh, capital 💰!” Head smack, duh. RIAL cha-ching! So many other excellent wordplay examples from start to finish.
Im old, we all know that, and just last weekend, while playing a board game with niece and nephew (27 and 34 respectively) and when being suddenly both frustrated and impressed by his clever blocking my ability to build my train across America while also setting himself up to SLAY both Emily and me, I with all the sarcasm I could muster said SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX. Hilarity ensued as they had not heard that before and adopted it instanter. They may have les sheltered lives, and everyone else surely has heard that one before. Anyway, glad to see it in the puzzle for sure.
In other news, I had most of THOREAU in crosses so it turned out to be easy, but independently I had no idea his work generated the phrase. Also, INGENUE has now gotten “Primadonna” from “Phantom” playing loudly in my head. Thank you. Not. That one nasal line “My precious little INGENUE.”
The SW gave me fits. Couldn’t get in and when I did things fell fairly quickly. Throughout, the puzzle seemed to play harder than my ultimate time indicated and I like that for a Friday.
I like this one lots and enthusiastically look forward to the next PATRICK JOHN DUGGAN. Good weekend everybody! Thank you - all of you for being here every day.
PS @Rex: Yes absolutely I experience the same type of musical brain blockage you describe. Having sung and played opera and musical theatre, and gigged, my daughter swears that I know the lyrics to everything ever written (not pop after 1980 but what ya gonna do . . . ). Often when trying to recall one thing something else lodges itself in my brain and laugh.
Also, heartfelt thanks for sharing your thoughts and those of your reader re TASER-Axon. Pure corporate greedy evil. I am familiar with the “excited delirium” ruse used to pull the wool over jurors’ eyes. Sickens me to admit I have seen it in action and the pride dripping from its employer’s face after a jury has been successfully hoodwinked. Shameful. Can’t wait until that theory is well and truly debunked vis TASER use anyway. I agree that “excited delirium” exists, but not that it connects to use of the TASER.
c'mon OFL, every Red Blooded 'Murican knows that Guam is a US territory; it's most often first/last in the Presidential election night. Can't recall which side of the Date Line it lies.
This puzzle was fun and challenging at the same time for me. Loved it! So many great misdirects! Of course I had my usual spelling screwup with Neils in lieu of NIELS which took me awhile to straighten out.
My VERY MINOR nits, or let’s just say ‘observations”:
Hand up for NOT knowing SMOOTHMOVEEXLAX. That’s ok. Looking through the comments it appears it’s been around for ages. I will GUESS that more men have heard it than women (comments indicate this) and this is because (judgmental warning!) I think men tend to be snarky/mean to other guys (when young) about klutziness in sports whereas women (as girls) were snarky/mean about other types of things, ie clothes, make up.
I agree with @Son Volt…POTUSER? Yes. I had POThead for way too long BUT I’m 67 and I can’t imagine anyone saying POTUSER.
I don't think I was here during the EX LAX movement. My panacea, though, was being able to fandango tango through a maze of unsures.
Is it potatoe or is it patata? Get up, walk the dogs, wash my hair and try your JEOPARDY moves. You know you can't spell but with luck you'll figure out NIELS BOHR. You also wonder why you say "BAR MENU" when you are saying "The drinks are on me?" You then ponder what is TEVA....but you managed the IWO JIMA SWAHILI entrances. ST PETER smiled at me. I told him "I'm not an ATHEIST" and he was happy.
Speaking of...Haven't we all, at some point tried grasping at the devine? I have two friends who are devout atheist and they have their interesting theories. To me, GOD means many things. I imaginate on that word all the time. I just put it out there as something that is bigger and more fascinating than we are. Name "it" anything you like....I like the word DOG.
I had to look up THOREAU and OVID. I wanted all the good things that are wild and free to be an AUDUBON name. Luckily, I knew the TEA ROOM and so there was an R lurking in the wilds.
As mentioned, this took some time. I got the agita, angst, dyspepsia tics but, sometimes when you take your time, the answers eventually come through the dead zones.
Enjoyable work-out.
Finished it with no errors. Three writeovers: Notto MINCE WORDS before I WONT, Neils before NIELS, and INtheAIR before IN MIDAIR. Took a while to find JEOPARDY, though it is the one program my wife and I watch every night. First-rate clue, that. And when is the last time any of you thought about GERUNDS?
Of all the folks on this blog, @LMS is definitely the person I would most like to meet. She must be the last person since Macaulay (d. 1859) to read Latin for pleasure. Maybe Greek, too? As a big Macaulay fan, I knew he liked OVID's Fasti. I took Latin in school, and have never been tempted to read it again though I plan to re-read the Aeneid in translation.
Being a California boy I never heard of SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX. But I knew about the Russian TEA ROOM. In the summer of 1958 I could have asked my mother to take me there but I asked to go to the Edwardian Room at the (pre-Trump) Plaza instead. Memorably elegant. Been to NYC many times since but fell in love with the Union Square Cafe, and its sister restaurant, Gramercy Tavern, and have been to one or the other every time, often with family. I loved them because they reminded me so much of my favorite place in San Francisco, Zuni Cafe. And maybe also because I was in the habit of staying on the East side, and it was easy to take the subway to Astor Place or Union Square. Very often dinner was preceded by a trip to the Strand bookstore.
I assume most people who do this puzzle are adults, or have near-adult intelligence, discretion and judgment..
They don't need to be protected from words.
They are quite capable of sorting these things out themselves.
@8:57
Rand was, and her current acolytes are, a huckster, with no education beyond some Russian state school. It's a wonder that so many blue collar Right Wingnuts, gulled by the Trumpster into believing he's on their side, also fall for Rand's elitist crap.
@Hillaryfan:
Well... why are so many Tased folks neither?
"Four of five cases that ended in death began as calls for nonviolent incidents, and 84% were unarmed. In cases where race could be determined, Black people accounted for nearly 40% of those killed, about three times their share of the U.S. population."
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2021/04/23/police-use-tasers-ends-hundreds-deaths-like-daunte-wright/7221153002/
if memory serves, EX-LAX got its name as an EXcellent LAXative? these days the teeVee is filled with much more modern (and way more expensive) alternatives. many of which claim not to be laxatives.
A lovely Friday. Here's what Uncle G helped me with: RAND and OVID. Apparently I know nothing about authors with four-letter names.
RIM then LID then LIP. Who knew cups are so complicated.
TOKES and POT USER (tee-hee).
How many bearded ladies doing the crosswords? Seemed SEXIST.
Uniclues:
1 Polynesian chin hair ado.
2 Angry image in disciple's head upon realizing his life's work has only amounted to him becoming God's doorman.
3 Plowed pond man.
4 Mile high club admission requirement.
5 Ken Jennings.
6 Noisy underground Earl Grey parlor.
7 Ace.
8 Dieter's exasperated comment to the enemy.
1 FIJI BEARD FUSS
2 ATHEIST ST. PETER
3 POT USER THOREAU
4 IN MID AIR TWO-WAY
5 JEOPARDY HOT ONE
6 FOX HOLE TEA ROOM
7 UNLIKE LET SERVE
8 "SCALES, I'VE HAD IT."
Really like this one! ‘Twas a good fit for me: not so easy that I didn’t have to think, and clever, mind-stretching clues that did not overly obscure the answers.
No names that were out of reach either - thankful for that. And yes, I did pause at Rand, and thought “hmmm, guess I can’t always be reminded of cool people.” (Isn’t there any one else besides Ayn with that name? MitterRAND?)
But do hope the truly wicked, EXLAX heads will be kept out. I’ve read the debate about that here - and I see both sides, but personally do not want to see Hitler or other mass murderers in a puzzle-game. Oops just opinion here and did not intend to run on or restart debate. 😜
Anyway, a fun 🧩.
🤗🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🤗
WFMU?!? Love to know your favorite shows.
I don’t know that I’ve ever done a puzzle with so many clever clues and misdirection, all of which Rex and others have enumerated. I don’t know how @Lewis will pick five faves from this puzzle alone. I did especially love the ATHEIST and ST PETER, eyeing each other across the divide and arguing over whose clue was better. (I am an atheist, but I didn’t mind the “state of disbelief” clue. Sure, I believe in things, but not in a deity or spiritual power of any kind, which I think is the point.)
As for EXLAX, the expression might as well have come from SWAHILI as far as I am concerned, and I’m almost 60. I do wonder if it’s regional. Trying to figure out how and why someone said it for the first time and how it caught on.
SWORN enemies - I finally saw Hamilton last night (on tour in DC). Hamilton and Burr certainly were that. I did not realize that Hamilton’s son also died in a duel. The show was amazing, of course. With Miranda’s sense of wordplay, I’ll bet he would be a great crossword cluer.
In my mid '70s; never heard of "smooth move exlax. I am amused by tip jars = a fine clue by the way.. Where I live many coffee shops won't take cash anymore, only plastic. However I notice that the tip jars still gratefully accept real money.
Um, this was not an easy Friday. It was an absolute slog. And on my birthday no less!
@anonymous 12:21p, as a fellow tennis player I agree that no one yells LETSERVE when the ball hits the net but lands in. However, as a club tennis player level person I have not often been privileged to play on a tennis court without people playing on both sides of me, and any player on your court can yell LET if a ball from another court lands in your court and the point you were playing starts over. I guess one might call this is a “player safety” let. Given there are two types of LETs I have no problem with LET SERVE.
Looks like I'm the oldest one here (yes, I checked)and today is the first time in my life I've heard SMOOTH MOVE, EXLAX. I'm an Metropolitan area gal.
Aw shucks, @old timer (12:40.) As you're pining to meet @LMS, I've just decided on the spur of the moment that I'm pining to meet you! Any young boy (what were you in 1958 -- 11? 14? 16?) who has the sophistication to ask to be taken to the Edwardian Room rather than the Russian Tea Room is my kind of guy!
! especially love your thoughtful and interesting post today, @GILL -- even more than usual. If I answer it here, I'll probably end up offending both the very religious and the very irreligious people on the blog. So I'll email you about it later. As a teeny hint I'll just say this; If ST PETER actually exists, I'll bet he loves you a lot!
Nancy at 11:03, my mother used "SMOOTH MOVE EX LAX" when one of us kids did something clumsy or dumb, as suggested by the clue. I was born in 1952 and, by the way old-timer 12:40, I'm a 6th generation Californian, and don't think this phrase was regional. Commenters today from various parts of the US were familiar with it.
The phrase didn't originate in the 1980s. It's way older than that. What i remember about it was that it was considered edgy in the early and mid 1960s, or even considered kind of naughty. You wouldn't hear a teacher say it, probably, not then. Remember that in those days people didn't say a lot of things in "polite company."
Say what? There's a bowel MOVEment joke as a marquee entry at 17A? Not even my inner nine year old thinks that's funny. Kind of cast a scatological pall over the rest of my solve.
I've noticed a trickle that has turned into a steady stream of cannabis related entries like today's POT USER and TOKES. These may have been edgy back in the 70s when Cheech and Chong were doing bong hits but nowadays they just seem forced and dated.
I believe I read some Ayn RAND stuff like back in the 60s or 70s but it must have been someone else, judging by the comments I see here. I remember (misremember?) her as an advocate of enlightened self interest (not necessarily always a ME FIRST approach) and of using logic and reason as the best path to knowledge. Some of yous seem to be saying she was right in there with Hitler, Stalin, Ivan the Terrible, Pol Pot, Vlad the Impaler, Genghis Khan and others of their infamy. Was she a promoter of dystopian enslavement and mass genocide or something along those lines?
Love the cat name theming. I suppose as a responsible pet parent natural issue is unlikely, but may you enjoy Gilberte and Robert when the time comes.
The Sea of Galilee isn't fed by the Jordan, it feeds the Jordan, which runs from the Galilee to the Dead Sea.
I believe I've heard the umpire call out "let service" while watching Wimbleton.
@anon 4:04 -- Wikipedia says that the main source of the Sea of Galilee is the Jordan river.
Sensor Rand Paul, whose father, Ron, named him after Ayn.
I was born in 1969, grew up in Portland, OR. I recognized SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX right away. Not sure exactly why. Feels like it was from some teen movie in the 80's. Something a dumb teenage high school bully said. Maybe in something retro like Back to the Future or Peggy Sue got Married? Anyway, it's definitely a deep, DEEP cut –– and I feel like I might be one of the privileged few who can appreciate it.
@Beezer (2:10)-- Nice explanation of why LET SERVE didn't bother me -- also a lifelong tennis player -- either.
As far as what you call the "player safety LET, I called it perhaps more than most since I was always concerned with my own safety on the court. And while there are exceptions to every rule (the hypochondriacal Bob F. was surely one such male exception and called LETs all the time), it seems to me that women call LETs for balls rolling on their court much more often than men do. It seems to be a macho thing with men: You're sort of a wimp if you're not willing to play a point with a ball right at your feet. That more of them don't end up in the hospital is nothing less than a miracle.
at zed 10.19 makes me wanna watch 'bottle rocket' immedietely.
@Miranda THANK YOU!!
@8:57
So, tell us Swami: how is the Rand-ian cabal telling us what to do about widespread drought in West & Southwest?? laissez faire??? how about a wee bit of 'We're All In This Together'?? Or is that the slippery slope to Socialism?? Whoever is at the head of the stream gets to keep all the water that passes by???
Or air/water pollution??? Again, self-interest will solve the problem??? Ignoring the bald fact that self-interest (others be damned) is the cause of the problem. Someone pointed out, in the comments within the last few days (on a slightly different vein), how mining tailings have been allowed to pollute watersheds all over the USofA. One of the benefits of self-interest??
One could list so many, many cases where the rich and powerful (aka, the Elite) screw Joe Sixpack. And Joe Sixpack, says (like Kevin Bacon in "Animal House") "Thank you, sir! May I have another? " and votes for the like of Trump. Some humans are too stupid by half.
One more contribution:
71 and never ever heard of SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX.
Villager
I am 30, and “Smooth move, Ex-Lax” is lost on me.
@Nancy...I saw your interesting and very moving E-Mail. I think you should've posted it here and I'm sure anybody with heart would've enjoyed your experience. So subjective...personal in many ways... but also fascinating to hear what others believe.
St PETER would've smiled...or maybe nobody...I don't care. Comfort and solace is important.
I like helping out with the homeless by making my deviled eggs. I probably won't be invited to the Pearly Gates BBQ but at least I've done something!
My wife and I are 30 and she knew it but I'm sure I've never heard that before.
So per your 5:43 p.m. request, @GILL, I'll post the email that I sent to you this afternoon on the blog:
@GILL -- I just loved the image of you greeting ST PETER by telling him "I am not an ATHEIST."
I'm an agnostic -- someone who thinks that the entire concept of not only a God in the first place, but a God who's lovingly watching over you every step of the way is much, much too good to be true. So good, in fact, that God had to be invented.
But I'm also an agnostic who would would really love to eventually be proved wrong!
For this reason, militant Atheism is just about the hardest religious position for me to understand. Wouldn't even the most diehard Atheist also like to be wrong, if at all possible? Bad enough to be smug about your irreligiousity. But gleeful? That makes no sense to me.
Whenever anyone deeply religious, from any religious tradition at all, offers me a blessing or prayer or anything of that nature, I smile and say "Thank you". And I mean it. They are offering me something precious in their own eyes, and who knows -- maybe it even is.
During my mother's first stint in Lenox Hill Hospital for heart failure, a nun came to my mother's room while I was visiting. (They rotated people of the cloth from various religions -- and who popped in on any given day was the luck of the draw.) "May I pray for your Dear Mother?" asked the nun.
You should understand that this was not a Vatican II/Philip and Daniel Berrigan--style nun. This was a really, really old-school nun. She didn't seem terribly bright and she also seemed incredibly fatuous to me.
I'm betting that 99 out of 100 Jews -- whatever their level of adherence to their own religion (my adherence, btw, is non-existent) -- would have told her to go away. As in What is this nun of all people doing in my mother's hospital room anyway?"
But, hey, maybe she had a good pipeline to God. Whereas I on the other hand didn't have any pipeline to God. So all I said was "Thank you, Sister."
She prayed silently. And my mother eventually recovered.
Five years later my mother was back in Lenox Hill -- again for heart failure. This time there was no nun. My mother passed away less than two weeks after she had been admitted.
So what I say is: You never know.
Brava, @Nancy...So glad you posted this.
Abrazos, GILL I.
Thank you for a puzzle where the clues made sense.
@Nancy:
One hopes that The Mods leave your 6:21 post up. I've seldom cleaved to other posters, just because this site's commentariat is totally anarchic. But this is an exception. That you might not feel elevated by this bon mot, is a separate concern.
Generation Jones here: SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX was completely new to me today. I didn't hear the expression on the west coast before 1975 or the east coast afterwards. Maybe I was just an inattentive kid, though.
POT USER also has an old-fashioned sound to it, and checking Google Book Ngrams, it seems to have peaked in the early 1970s, at least in appearances in books.
TASER... I'm guessing that people think the name derives from laser, but it's apparently an acronym for "Tom A. Swift Electric Rifle", according to the inventor. Yes, that Tom Swift. People object for understandable reasons; CAR BOMB and PIPE BOMB have produced similar reactions.
Thank you
I wonder if the person who coined "Smooth move, Ex Lax" also came up with "No shit, Sherlock".
The other day, I commented to a pharmacy lady that on the laxative shelf the brand "Smooth Move" was situated right to the left of "X-Lax". I don't know if she got it.
Hi @Beezer and @Nancy. This matter of the LET in tennis seems to raise a question that is as puzzling as the how we got the term “love” and that 15, 30, 40 scoring. Some say it comes from a verb, lettian, meaning to hinder. Others say from the French word for “net,.” As a kid, I was told it comes from the expression, “let it be served again.” .¿ Què dices??
All this God stuff tickled a lower brain stem memory. Well, half of it, the punch line. I thought it was Carlin, but can't find it.
So, the quote starts with something like 'there is no God.' then the punch line, "God help me if I'm wrong!"
Anyone know?
I enjoyed this solve. Like @TJ’s, I had a hard time landing much in a single corner at first (started with JEOPARDY [which almost seemed too good to be true], DAIS, SWAHILI) before I could really get the mind meld. Then after all the too-clever cluing, I literally took a guess and thought I bet this constructor is a THOREAU guy, and we were off and running. Just the right amount of difficulty and wordplay to fill in the trivia I didn’t know without having to google. And I thought the fill was pretty solid! Not one PLO, STU, or EOS; not even an ETNA or ERIE, and we got a little break from SELA and ULNA. EMTS and USDA aren’t bad.
And I’m at the tail end of GenX, but am familiar with SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX only because it featured in an episode of 30 Rock when Kenneth quoted what his mom’s boyfriend would say to him, and I thought it sounded funny (then it was somewhat reworked and featured prominently in the episode where Kenneth quips, “Smooth move, Ferguson.”). Perhaps that is where some are finding it vaguely familiar?
Good Friday solve (STPETER pun); tricky enough, but SMOOTH enough to finish after the workday without losing my evening.
Not sure why SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX is not getting more love. The crossword regularly has "archaic" word choices that people don't complain about - most likely because they are regularly in the crossword. And speaking of regular, SMOOTH MOVE EXLAX is not too difficult to parse if you put two and (number) two together. Even if you've never heard of it (I hadn't), understanding the phrase and why it used to be a 'thing' makes perfect sense.
Wordle 427 3/6*
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Really? We're letting THIS crap in (@DECLAN WASHINGTON)?? If EVER there was a TMI post, this would be it. Come on. monitors, wake up.
Today's offering is fraught (fr + 0?) with clues worthy of Loki himself. Admissions bigwig. Yeah, that guy. Made for a Friday-tough excursion.
Working down from north central, I first had MOVE in the big one: instantly remembered SMOOTHMOVE--but forgot what came after! Only after more NE work did I finally see it: of course, EXLAX!
The north fell rather quickly; the south not so much. Finally tried ATHEIST, and groaned audibly over GERUNDS. Yes, they certainly are. SE was last to go, with the unheard expression LETSERVE (?) and some kinda sandals named TEVA. If you say so. Overall a Friday-worthy test, medium with some leanings toward challenging. ONSET, the bleedover, will be my start Wordle word again tonight. I certainly hope I can improve on today's bogey. Puzzle = birdie.
Today's offering is fraught (fr + 0?) with clues worthy of Loki himself. Admissions bigwig. Yeah, that guy. Made for a Friday-tough excursion.
Working down from north central, I first had MOVE in the big one: instantly remembered SMOOTHMOVE--but forgot what came after! Only after more NE work did I finally see it: of course, EXLAX!
The north fell rather quickly; the south not so much. Finally tried ATHEIST, and groaned audibly over GERUNDS. Yes, they certainly are. SE was last to go, with the unheard expression LETSERVE (?) and some kinda sandals named TEVA. If you say so. Overall a Friday-worthy test, medium with some leanings toward challenging. ONSET, the bleedover, will be my start Wordle word again tonight. I certainly hope I can improve on today's bogey. Puzzle = birdie.
Now that was WEIRD. I hit "publish" on my original comment and it just wouldn't take, nothing happened. Then I removed the first paragraph because I thought that was blocking things, and this time it went through--but so did the first one! Go figure; this is one crazy site.
My original comment “disappeared” into the ether.
Just wasn't on this one's wavelength - but upon second reading, all was fair.
OTOH, I was proud to get GERUNDS. Just favorING some words I guess.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
IN JEOPARDY
DREW’s a HOTONE, such a FOX,
an OLDER INGENUE at worst.
IWON’TMINCEWORDS ONCE she talks,
until I’VEHADIT, “TRY MEFIRST!”
--- PETER THOREAU
To Spacey: I think my original comment was expunged because after I made my brilliant observations about the crossword I made a little joke about @DeclanWashington and his P - ness enlargement experience.
Not EZ
Plenty of work here
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