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Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Theme answers:
- FIGHT OR FLIGHT (19A: Innate response to a threatening situation)
- PAY-TO-PLAY (24A: Ante up for participation)
- "BACK IN BLACK" (49A: AC/DC album after "Highway to Hell")
Brandon Paak Anderson (born February 8, 1986), better known by his stage name Anderson .Paak (/pæk, pɑːk/), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and drummer. He released his debut mixtape, O.B.E. Vol. 1, in 2012 and went on to release Venice in 2014. In 2016 he followed up with Malibu, which received a nomination for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the Grammy Awards, followed by Oxnard, in 2018. At the 61st Grammy Awards, Paak won his first Grammy award for Best Rap Performance with the song "Bubblin". He won another Grammy in 2020 for Best R&B Album with Ventura and one for Best R&B Performance for "Come Home" (featuring André 3000). [...] In 2021, he formed the duo Silk Sonic with fellow singer-songwriter Bruno Mars. The duo's debut single, "Leave the Door Open", became Anderson's first single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and was the recipient of four awards including Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the 64th Grammy Awards. (wikipedia)
• • •
There are a lot of black squares here. A Lot. 44? Speaking of "L"s, there are a bunch of them (and flipped versions of them) in the black-square formations. Bonus theme content! Anyway, black squares eat up a lot of room. They are helping to keep the grid manageable, especially at the top and bottom of the grid (really looking at the blacks before and after both ABA (5A) and EPOCH (68A). Even with those extra blacks down below, you can really feel how constricted the fill gets down there with the pressure from two themers ("BACK IN BLACK" and the revealer). No surprise that that is by far the weakest part of the grid, fill-wise (NIETO and NIH are not really Wednesday words—I wouldn't use either unless I truly had to—and INKUP feels slightly desperate ... though SPUTNIK is so strong that it mostly covers for the rest of it). Other areas of the grid are very clean, and "YOU GUYS!" and BOOM BOXES are outstanding. My biggest struggle was trying to figure out what the hell the clue on NEWS was on about! (35D: The "-spel" of "gospel," etymologically). I was desperately looking for technical names for word parts, but it's just ... the meaning of "-spel" ("gospel" = "good news"). Such an awkward, wonky way to come at such a basic, infinitely clueable word.
The theme part of this was very easy, but the fill has enough rough / tough patches to make it potentially tough for some solvers. XHOSA NIETO NIH PAAK ... I can see any or all of these being new to some solvers. I know and have listened to Anderson .PAAK a lot. Knowing lots of people won't know him, and given that the name is uninferrably spelled, and that there's only one way in the world to clue that name, I don't know if I'd've chosen his name for the grid if I had other solid options ... but I did like seeing him. Names are weird. I'm always cognizant of how much personal familiarity affects enjoyment, let alone solvability. There's no reason you can't drop a new name in the grid as long as you cover your crosses, and these are all unimpeachable ... but I can still imagine a solver getting PAAK and going "... is that right? That doesn't look right?" Philosophies on the use of proper nouns in crossword grids vary Widely. Which is great, honestly. Keeps things interesting. Keeps you on your toes. Hope you didn't take the (or an) L on this one. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Happy birthday to my best friend, Shaun, who does not solve crosswords or read this blog, god bless her. In her honor, you all get bonus, date-specific music content. Enjoy!
P.S. new clue coming soon for ANDOR! ANDOR: it's not just a slash conjunction anymore! Step aside, ENDOR! It's ANDOR time! Tonight! (literally, tonight):
Learned the phrase TAKE AN L. I always say take the loss (not even Rex’s take the L), and boy howdy I say that a lot. Then I sat forever trying to come up with other themer possibilities but… NIL. Couldn’t stop there. Nope, had to dive down a rabbit hole of imagining a trick for ”take a knee” - mean man, and, well. . . mean man. The one single result of about thirty minutes of useless ruminating that I’ll never get back.
ReplyDeleteRex – I had to go back and circle the OR, TO and IN so that I could admire this flourish, too. And good catch on the black square L’s.
“Tree pose discipline” – bonsai?
Loved the clues for PARAKEETS and OARS. Oh, and the one for ARE. Always a fan of that kind. Here’s one: pronoun that sounds like its last letter?
“Lofty features in many nice hotels” – the fluffy white robes that I’m powerless not to wear as much as possible, even though I despise kimono-style robes. I don’t care how well you secure those little inner ties, the front always falls open, and I’m just too priggish and buttoned-up. Still. When I wear the hotel robe, I feel sophisticated and fancy.
I sat there forever trying to understand the clue for NEWS. Huh? New Scottish? New Slavic? I finally chased it down. As Rex reports, it’s gospel, from Old English gōdspel: gōd (“good”) and spel (“news”). Man oh man is *that* a Saturday clue if I ever saw one.
@Loren @Rex
DeleteNEWS was a gimme. If not churchy, remember Godspell? And 'spel' is related to 'spiel'.
TIL TAKEANL or whatever that was. Thinking "?rebus for knee?"
Also, on my phone it is Yahoo that has an envelope icon, GMAIL just has an M.
But still finished in Tuesdayish time.
@Smith look more closely at the shading on the white background of the Gmail app icon: the M is tracing the lines of an envelope.
DeleteA slight little HANGUP on GMAIL vs EMAIL. My bad. Anderson PAAK or PAAK Anderson also new to me. Will have to check it out. Enjoyed the theme and it’s execution . Found it easier than most Wednesdays.
ReplyDelete@lms U crack me up. Every morning.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteWOEs included XHOSA and PAAK, but what hurt most was realizing I've forgotten so much of my Quarantine Duolingo Spanish that NIETO fell into that category as well.
No siree, Bob. I've never heard anyone say, "No PROB Bob." Well, maybe I've heard it a couple of times in XHOSA but never in English.
ReplyDeleteWas just about to comment that no one has ever said “No PROB, Bob” “ No Siree Bob” is more like it
DeleteIt might be regional, but I hear "no prob bro all the time. Yes siree Bob almost never. I'm from NYC.
DeleteYep
Deletekealoa on envelope logo. Yahoo uses it, too. Maybe others, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteHow will I ever get around in the windy city? TAKE AN L.
W-3
Most grids have black L's
For once I actually pondered the theme entries and came up with the gimmick for the revealer, so a payoff for me at least. I’m with the others as the trouble spots were NEWS (and I only know PROW from XWorld and frequently forget it), XHOSA and NIETO. I didn’t know the PAAK dude but the crosses were fair. Nice, fair challenge on a Weds.
ReplyDeleteWhy hello Hermione Granger. EMMA Watson and HARRY POTTER are #1! I think we will all agree any puzzle with a bit of magic in it means we'll stand a little straighter, walk a little lighter, think bright, piercing and nuanced thoughts, and of course, we will dazzle those we find most alluring.
ReplyDeleteA Plan: We should see if we can't find a youngish female Master's degree graduate in English from an Ivy League school and get her hired onto the NYTXW staff solely as a mole to find out the name of the lonely editor showing up with these racy clues and tee-heeing as they slide right past the overly bizzy executive editor (God love him) and onto the door steps of the six people still receiving newsprint with the plan of tossing it away before nightfall. Let's plant our spy to find the guy squishing in these gems again today -- Top corner left: HIGH EMMA MOAN. Bottom corner right: EAT TRY SEX. Saucy symmetry. Add in PABST, USERS, HANG UPS, and I can't bring myself to type out the phrase in the revealer lest my pink colored glasses become fogged. We ask our operative to find that editor and we'll find a guy (probably, and 99% hetero) desperately in need of love and trapped in a fun house of his own design filled with wavy mirrors that make him feel fat, or skinny depending on the poses he strikes alone at night. Now, here's why we'd do this: We have so many know-it-alls among our glittering Anonym-oti -- frankly, we're either filthy with so many geniuses, or we have one muli-posting fool, but my money's on lotsa smarty pants-ers. We could smush loneliness up against ego in NYC like the eHarmony for cruciverbalists nation, and thereby reduce the nasty nuggets in our lives, you know, due to the delirious happiness of together-itude. I could finally let go of these pearls I'm clinging onto like a life raft in a stormy sea. Long live (or rather, please die) the Lonely NYTXW editor's tee-hees (LNETHS).
It's a gruesome theme, but it'll help us appreciate the good ones even more, so in this respect, it's brilliant.
UTAH continues to WOWEE our constructors. Congrats to 🦖 for another puzzle celebrating him. Geez there's a lotta S-es.
Uniclues:
1 Santa admitting he loves the whole chimney gig.
2 Good name for an eastern-themed restaurant specializing in potato and peas delicacies.
3 From: An Old and Bitter Me. To: Sound Systems with Twin Cassettes from My Childhood. Subject: We're Done. Message: Listen, things we're great between us back in the day, but I've found someone else called iPhone, and I think you and I have outgrown each other. Plus, your music sucks.
4 Scotch tape, often.
5 Trainer making reference to his teams' chest muscles.
1 FLUES AMUSE
2 SAMOSA OCEANS
3 GMAIL BOOMBOXES
4 IMACS CAULK
5 YOU GUYS' PECS
“… familiar three-word phrases where the last word = the first word minus the letter ‘L’” — but isn’t the last word the first word PLUS the letter L??
ReplyDeleteHighlights for me included YOU GUYS (a NYT puzzle debut), three palindromes, the FLUES/AMUSE row (Hi, @Gary Jugert!), and seeing BACK IN BLACK, which joyfully reminded me of Lewis Black’s scintillating recurring segment on the Daily Show.
ReplyDeleteI think I know why Matthew was shooting for this being a Monday puzzle (according to his notes at WordPlay), as he’s just that day away from hitting the cycle, that vaunted constructor accomplishment of having a puzzle published every day of the week in the NYT. Simplify, simplify, Matthew – you’ll get your cycle!
The theme is tight (read Jeff Chen’s comments on XwordInfo for confirmation) and the grid polished, as it should be, for three reasons: Relatively low number of theme squares, high number of black squares (which increases the constructor’s fill choices), and the fact that Matthew is so skilled.
It’s a brilliant theme, IMO. How did Matthew come up with it? The more I try to answer this question, the more brilliant I think the theme is.
Matthew, your puzzle not only was fun to solve, it got me thinking about lots of things, a perfect springboard for the day. Thank you for making this!
Ovid 3 days in a row? Come on.
ReplyDeleteRead Ovid's Metamorphosis in Latin 4 in a public high school. How many public high schools teach Latin these days. Next to typing and band, one of my most useful subjects.
DeletePersonal wheelhouses are in fact widely varying. I was shocked, shocked! to see Rex mark this not just medium but medium challenging. I, who bow to *everyone* in my respect for their crossword knowledge and expertise and general wittiness and savvy punniness and wordplay, found this one a smooth sail on a calm sea on a 75 degree low-humidity sunny day.
ReplyDeleteExcept for entering TEal for 25D and not knowing whether 45A was SAMOSA or SAMOas (I know, I know...). Took me a while to unknot that area.
I like this feeling, especially because of the many days (many, many) when I read commenter after commenter remark how easy a given puzzle was when I have my laptop permanently open to Google. Not today. Yay me.
Best clue of the day: 15A, Two in a row.
I feel the same way. Easy one for me where I often struggle! Go to South Africa a lot so Xhosa was a gimme with no crosses which probably helps.
DeleteOnly issue was thinking it was TURN instead of TERN.
Well, it's a good day to feel sort of smart, as I knew both NEWS and NIETO right away, and sort of recognized XHOSA after I had it filled in. I'm with @Joaquin, as usual, in thinking no one says No PROB Bob, at least no one I know. PAAK is news ("-spel") to me and my favorite answer was YOUGUYS, although I missed its introductory "Oh...", which at least appeared in the clue.
ReplyDeleteToday's old friend was TERN, and no ROO, but we do have REX, and OFL is too modest to mention it.
Had a little trouble parsing TAKEANL, as I was wondering where you could take a National League, but I eventually recognized that new-fangled expression the kids use.
Nice enough Wednesdecito, MS. Minimally Stressful here, and thanks for all the fun.
What mmorgan said at 7:52 AM
ReplyDeleteThe gospel is good news!
ReplyDeleteHaving attended a fundamentalist Christian church for a stretch (as a youngster), that clue was a gimme for me. It’s a lead-in to “He’s coming soon,” specifying the return of Jesus.
Raised a Catholic pre Vatican Council, I know little of the Bible.
DeleteBut I remember hearing about "Good News for Modern Man" a contemporary English translation of the Bible that came out in the 1970's(?).
Start the week with two Mondays in a row and then jump right into Wednesday headfirst with a little bit of challenge IMHO. Fill was exceptionally good but I had to do some fancy footwork to come up with some of the trivia and proper names. I mean I’m old friends with PABST and dusted the cobwebs off of SPUTNIK but XHOSA? PAAK? Ack!
ReplyDeletePretty sure I’ve never heard anyone say TAKE AN L or no PROB Bob. And I did not get the clue for 5D. I had SOLO, then ARIA because I couldn’t think how ALTO would be considered an a cappella part. I’m not a musical expert but I thought that meant a lower range of voice. Not asking for an explanation but just saying it was a mystery to me.
And another mystery is the continued absence of the Z Meister. I bet he could ‘splain that alto thing. Where is he anyway? Hope all is well.
OVID & UTAH are in the puzz a lot lately but there is no OVID in UTAH. However there is one nearby in IDAHO. Also in CO, MI, NY & OH.
ReplyDeleteNote that “Paak” is the same Korean surname as the more common “Park”, just transliterated differently. Since Koreans don’t pronounce R or do diphthongs it’s a more accurate spelling.
ReplyDeleteNeat theme - well filled. Appears as if it played a little easier for me than the big guy. In terms of the revealer - the phrase I know and hear is “TAKE the L” - but no real issue with the AN. Liked PARAKEETS and BOOMBOXES.
ReplyDeletePlenty of plurals today - most were smooth but a side eye to OCEANS and FLUES.
The general concepts of HALAL and kosher are similar but the details are not. I think recently we had a similar entry clued as the opposite - haram - of HALAL.
AND SO it is - the shorter story
Enjoyable Wednesday solve.
You have the best and most eclectic music selections - thank you! I look for your post right after I read Rex.
DeleteMan, listening to Earth Wind & Fire tear it up on September really makes me wish Taylor Swift did a toned down version. I also loved this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteMatthew thought of this theme, came up with Themers numbering 13, 11, 9, and Revealer of 7. Hmm, he says, I suppose I can make it L/R symmetry. And viola! Here 'tis. As he was setting the Blockers, I'm sure he came up with this pattern without the cheater squares. As he kept filling, the cheaters were necessary to get fill that would fit. Been there, done that. Although,. 44 is quite a high number. Six more than usual max. Nitty, I know. But sometimes you just need the extra Blockers.
TAKE AN L. Agree with Rex that TALE THE L is more common. Also think the way Revealer is clued, answer works better as ADD AN L, although that's not an expression. Agree with @mmorgan 7:52 that Revealer words "last" and "first" should be reversed.
Sounds like I didn't like this puz, but au contrere, I actually did. Maybe it's Nit-Pick Day, or something.
Lots of X's today (well, four, but they were found back-to-back for me, making them seem aplenty).
If Bob's your uncle, it's No Prob. (Keep the moans to a minimum!)
AND SO, IM OFF
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Whatshername-Think of someone asking you "what part do you sing?". The "a cappella" is really unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteFor young folks the idiom absolutely, absolutely is "take THE L" because of Fortnite. My wife and I work with kids so we know lol.
ReplyDeleteAlso in Chicago we "Take the El" to go lots of places!
Seems to me that the theme is really “add an l”. You add an “l” to the first word to get the second. I mean, the first word is what you start with - it comes before the second word. You don start with “play” then take the “l” so its pay and then add the “l” again to make it play - you just add the “l” to pay to make play. To contort what you actually do to fit the saying “take an l” seems just that - contortion. That’s especially true when the common saying is “take the l” not “take an l.” I mean “take an loss”? - its “take the loss.”
ReplyDeleteFIGHT OR FLIGHT and PAY TO PLAY were easy and familiar. I didn't know the album, natch, but having the initial BA, I guessed at a BACK/BLACK combo. Unfortunately I chose BACK TO BLACK -- which still sounds better to me than BACK IN BLACK. When I finally got the latter, I grumbled to myself: "Who the hell is NIETO anyway?"
ReplyDeleteMy SAMOSA initially was SAMOAS. I guess I was thinking of the cookie. Don't ask.
I didn't know rollerballs were PENS. I'vd heard of fountain pens and ballpoint pens, but not of that. I wonder if the new BICs I bought this year -- different from anything I've ever used in the past 50 years and not nearly as good -- are an example of rollerballs. If they are, what I say is "Boo/Hiss".
Two clues feel just a tad off: To hype something is not to PEP it up. And I don't like AXE as a synonym for cancel. They're almost alike...but not exactly.
Harder than most Wednesdays for me -- but perhaps not for you. Let me now go and see how you all fared.
this was very easy. and take an L is most definitely a thing
ReplyDeleteAnother day where my solving experience is pretty much the same as @Rex! I may be wrong @MarthaCatherine but I think Rex would normally have (for a Wednesday) next to his “medium challenging” designation. In spite of some “later in the week” clueing the crosses made it seem very fair. I learned me some new Spanish today with NIETO, and learned there is a TOOL called a gouge (did anyone else think there might be a typo and it meant ‘gauge’?)
ReplyDeleteHand up for never having heard No PROB, Bob. I HAVE said No Prob. I don’t think I’ll ever add Bob to it.
@This n That…yeah, I know what you mean but I’m pretty sure that GMAIL is the only one that has the envelope LOGO that appears on your home screen. The other envelopes are buttons once you get into the app.
@Diego, I didn’t attend a “fundamentalist” Christian Church but at Confirmation we received a modernized version of the New Testament called “Good News for Modern Men.” That is the ONLY reason I knew the answer to the gospel clue.
Fun Wednesday puzzle!
I found it to be do-able, slightly tricky Monday.
ReplyDeleteDitto mmorgan and k9doc. The theme explanation is backwards.
ReplyDelete@This n That postscript. Yeah…just looked at the GMAIL logo. It never really occurred to me that the elongated M was meant to look like the back of an envelope. I DO have a “generic” envelope icon on the bottom of my iPad and if I press it I can get into ALL my email accounts, including GMAIL.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a great Wednesday. @lms, did indeed suspect bonsai and thought some rebus must be coming. Also made things tougher because I thought "checkers" when I read les echecs and confidently entered "rouge", but SPUTNIK fixed that pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteI don't really think parakeets trill but fine, fun clue.
What I really enjoyed was I got the AC/DC answer, got the reveal, and then the other themers came to life. Fun Wednesday.
Nice puzzle. Only question I have is the use of “take.” It’s ok to say that any word that includes an L in spelling , the word “takes”;an L. But to say that it takes it in relation to another word? Could be any word not containg an L. Have to include some other clue why BACK, PAY , FIGHT are relevant, wouldn’t you? Standing alone none of these words have anything to do with the other.
ReplyDeletePaak the Cah,in Boston. MY friend insists on using the speech recognition app for her texts and the results from her heavy Boston accent are sometimes hysterical.
ReplyDeleteIn Chicago, park the car, take an L.
Nice clean puzzle.
Had no PROW PROBs. But things got slower toward the puz stern, where all my no-knows were lurkin: NIETO. XHOSA. PAAK. Didn't take no L, tho.
ReplyDeletefave stuff: SPUTNIK. PARAKEETS. BLACK/BLANC. All the longballs were plurals, but still gotta luv havin budgies flyin around in the puz.
Got yer E/W puzgrid symmetry, with all the extra black-square L's, as noted by @RP. Kinda neat variation on the "lose a letter" theme genre. Gotta of course wonder if there's other lost-L themer possibilities out there…
staff weeject pick: NIL. Only one with an L in it. Nice weeject stacks in the SW & SE, btw.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Stock dude.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
@lms- I’m stumped by your pronoun challenge. Brain fog?
ReplyDeletePls help!
you
DeleteNifty theme, and I appreciated its elegance even more after reading @Rex and comments, for the three different 2-word connectors and the black L-shapes in the grid. But I think I liked the puzzle even more for the long Downs: I was won over immediately by YOU GUYS!, which I felt was speaking directly to me, and I thought parallel audio pair BOOM BOXES and PARAKEETS was great.
ReplyDeleteRe: PLUSH. I AMUSE myself by reading cooking and baking blogs and have noticed that PLUSH is the new "moist," a word which now, inexplicably for me, seems to connote "icky" rather than "yummy" (even @Rex has taken exception to the word in puzzle write-ups). So these days, those browsing recipes online are tempted by the likes of "Plush Coconut Cake" and many more. Taking a bite of moist chocolate cake: formerly: MOAN with pleasure; today: gag.
Do-over: GRill before GRATE. Happened to know: NEWS, XSOSA. No idea: PAAK, PROB as clued, BACK IN BLACK, NIETO.
Think God Spell (the play) for gospel.
ReplyDelete“what the hell the clue on NEWS was on about!“
ReplyDeleteI see what you did there. :)
The clues for OARS and PARAKEETS were my favorites. I've never used the TAKEANL phrase or its close relative, but I've heard it once or twice so was able to figure out the revealer without every cross. All the words Rex thought might be unfamiliar to someone were unfamiliar to me, except NIH.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard Bob added to NOPROB. I thought it was just clue humor. If I remember I might try it out.
I liked working this puzzle, and seeing YOUGUYS.
Have a great day!
Easy. My only PROB was spelling PARAKEET. Delightful and smooth with an “aha” revealer. Liked it a bunch!
ReplyDeletevis-a-vis in the revealer means "in relation to or compared to". The word "TAKE" here means use or require, not TAKE from. So the last words in the 3 themers, compared to the first words require (take) an "L". The L is not taken from the first word.
ReplyDelete@Carola -- PLUSH seems like a peculiar word, not an "icky" word, for recipes. Since I don't cook, I've never seen it used that way. But unlike "moist" (not that I harbor any particular antipathy to "moist" and indeed never thought about the word at all until coming to this blog), PLUSH is one of my favorite adjectives. It connotes comfort in the extreme. I love comfort, and hence I like my chairs plush and my sofas plush and my mattresses plush -- as long as the plushness doesn't make them so high I need a stepstool to climb up on them.
ReplyDeleteStory: I went to a family-owned mattress store on the UWS to buy a mattress. The beds were all so high, I needed help climbing up to try the various mattresses. Literally. No exaggeration. "I can't buy ANY of these!" I told the salesperson. "They're all much too high." "Don't worry," she said. "For just $100 we'll sell you a low-rise frame and you can have both a PLUSH mattress set and a bed low enough for even a child to get into."
And that's what I did. The frame of my bed is only about an inch off the floor. And getting in and out of bed is a breeze.
(Un)Fortunately all I know about AC/DC is how to spell their name. I've never heard of Andersen Paak, and believe that SCAT is a specific type of jazz singing. I thought "solos" fit the bill. I appreciate misdirection but it needs to make sense. All in all, a giant Natick at 38D/49A. I did not take an L but think that area of the puzzle is poorly done.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous @10:03. You almost got the “takes” thing: fLight, pLay & bLack each “takes an L (in them) relative to FIGHT, PAY, & BACK, which do not “take an L”. For the others: Here “takes” is synonymous with “has”, not “removes.”
ReplyDeleteI found the phrase NO PROB BOB quite familiar. Seems like nobody else here did. Thinking that it might be because I’m upper Midwest, namely Minnesota. But perhaps the best reason is that I am a geezer, and the phrase was most widely used in the 60’s.
ReplyDelete@Mr. Cheese: YOU.
ReplyDeleteI had a few "dust the cobwebs" moments....I'm amused at myself that taking a three day break from puzzling can cause an axon of despair here and there.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really familiar with these phrases. I know I've heard or read them somewhere...probably while reading "War and Peace."
19A was FIGHT the fight.. Well...that was obviously wrong. I waited until the downs corrected me. They did. Oh..it's FIGHT OR FLIGHT. Next! PAY TO PLAY. I took a moment to see what they had in common... then I did what I always do...look at the grid. Are those L"s? Is that what this may be about? I'm so glad that I never ever time myself. If I were in it for speed, then I wold never be able to enjoy a ponder hither and yon.
YES...PAAK was uninferrably spelled. (is uninferrably a real word?)...I needed a cross a finger moment and hope I guessed correctly. I knew SAMOSA so there was the A. Hope AND SO was correct....it was.
I didn't know BACK IN BLACK but the downs again made it possible. TAKE AN L is a virgin entry for me. It shall forever remain in my XHOSA dictionary that I keep by my bedside.
I finished nicely. I again looked at the grid and knew that I would remember this puzzle.
@Gary Jug 7:31. FLUES AMUSE indeed!.... You're in a fine form today!
@MarthaCath 8:24. Great post!...I with you'd come here more often.
@Carola 10:33..."Plush coconut cake" ay Dios mío...Would that be stuffed toys a la mode?
@Rex: "The theme answers here are all solid and strong, and I like how the middle word changes each time ..."
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, even though I already had FIGHTORFLIGHT and PAYTOPLAY in my grid, I got to the last themer and convinced myself that they all had the word TO in the middle. So I plunked in BACKtoBLACK and had a problem! Had to clean that up.
TAKE AN L is very familiar phrasing to me, especially when offered by the one who is the loser instead of the gloating opponent.
Hand up for the many comments that indicate that the revealer clue should read, "what the FIRST words do vis-a-vis the LAST."
I typed in S'REE for the Bob clue. That took some undoing.
Love "cheep trills."
ReplyDeleteThat weird "dot" in Anderson .Paak is part of his stage name. He says the dot stands for "detail," i.e, the need to pay attention to detail.
We’ll, as they say, no spel is good spel.
ReplyDeleteSome people decry modern cancel culture, but I say AXON.
To our friends in the Peachtree State, I say “YOGA, please vote for Stacy Abrams.”
Nice theme concept. Those who think the revealer is backward need to brush up on Joaquin’s Dictum. Thanks for a fun puzzle, Matthew Stock.
Is it OVID’s birthday month? Does it seem like a lot of OVID’s lately?
ReplyDeleteI'm a poet and once traded one of my works for a sea bird. I took a tern for the verse.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the theme was cute...and then I got to the revealer and then I thought it was awesome. It doesn't make any difference how you parse it -- you can have the first word take an L out of the second; or the second can take an L from the letter pile to transform itself into a new word. Works either way.
ReplyDeleteBTW, it's true that the connecting words are always in the same columns, but they have to be that way. Since the themers are of different lengths, you can only get symmetry by centering each one in the grid. And since the second word has to be one letter longer than the first, the second letter of the connecting word will always be in the central column. The connecting words don't have to be the same length, but they need to be an even number (with this grid). Still looks neat, though.
OK, I'm a political scientist, but the struggle for power between Nelson Mandela, a XHOSA, and Gatshi Buteleza (not sure of the spelling), traditional king of the Zulus, was big news at the time.
Me too for 4 years of Latin in a public high school. We didn't get to OVID< but it helped me know REX.
⇨⇨ Brooklyn
ReplyDeleteMy $.02: Definite "the" may fit the first half of the revealer clue better, but indefinite "an" fits the second half better. So it's a wash.
I like this puzzle. It's almost as excellent as Monday's, light years better than yesterday's. But who is No-Prob Bob? One of the characters in "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover?"
⇦⇦ Manhattan
To PEP up the morning, I decided to get HIGH, INK UP a rollerball, and solve the puzzle in XHOSA. Best Wednesday ever.
ReplyDeletep.s.
ReplyDeleteKinda hard to come up with any extra themers for this puztheme. I LIKE IKE is maybe a distant cousin, but that's about it, so far. Makes yah respect the theme all the more, if the constructioneer nailed all the day-um possibilities.
I mean, FAT TO FLAT maybe works, as a possible weight-loss gym's logo. Ain't real proud of it as a themer for this here puz, tho. BENDERS USIN BLENDERS is also slightly sub-par, NYTPUZ-wise. [sigh]
M&Also
SANG IN SLANG? … yeah, didn't think so.
@8:16
ReplyDeletewell... isn't that the same cycle as ovulation???
Nobody noticed that Rex's theme description is backwards?
ReplyDeletep.p.s.s.
ReplyDelete@Muse darlin, on yer pronoun poser: I ?
M&A Answer Desk
Thx, Matthew, good puz! didn't have to TAKE AN L. :)
ReplyDeleteEasy-med.
Pretty much breezed thru this one, altho had to wait for crosses at XHOSA. (should have that one down pat soon 🤞)
NIETO & PAAK were new, but filled themselves in.
Served on the USS 'Bryce Canyon', but not in UTAH. lol
Was a so-so SPRINTer, but long distance was my forte.
Stopped using GMAIL; too much spam. Very seldom have a problem with it on Apple Mail.
One of my best projects was in grade 9 Science class on The International Geophysical Year, including SPUTNIK.
Loved the 'Go spel' clue. I'm a King James Bible GUY, but also very much like the Good NEWS version.
Much more confident playing BLANC than 'noir'. I just discovered the NYT' relatively new chess game, which is included in the Games subscription.
Enjoyed 'participating in today's game'. I PAY TO PLAY with my yearly NYT' subscription.
@jae & pabloinnh
Croce's 744 finally fell after 5 1/2 hrs. (whew!) 😊
___
In celebration of International Day of Peace Pax Vobiscum! 🕊
@M&A 11:52 - lol
ReplyDeleteBtw – Anderson .Paak does some good stuff. This was the first song of his I heard.
YOUGUYS! with your HANGUPS! It's lunch time, perhaps a SAMOSA!
ReplyDeleteNifty theme.
I does seem like we are seeing a lot of UTAH and OVID lately, but that's how she rolls. NOPROBBOB not that I've *ever* encountered that phrase before.
I had no idea re some of the proper nouns, but the crosses were all so easy that all in all this was one of the easier Wednesdays I've encountered.
In the mid-90s, a work colleague and I were in Kansas City, trying to get to the Golden Ox for dinner, when we encountered a surprising amount of traffic. Why are all these people trying to get to the West Bottoms? Then we heard on the radio that AC/DC (already a nostalgia act then) was playing at Kemper Arena. So we spent the time stuck in traffic trying to think of all the similar bands from that era: Foreigner, Journey, Kansas, Styx, Boston, Supertramp, Cheap Trick . . . .
ReplyDeleteEasy to medium difficulty. Like others, I found TAKEANL an awkward theme, since one takes A loss, not AN loss. And TAKE is the wrong word -- I’d prefer to add or insert. A nit perhaps, but could have been neater.
ReplyDeleteKiller words: PAAK, HALAL, NIETO, and the impossible XHOSA (click, click).
Best clue: Two in a row? (OARS)
I have also TAKEN THE EL in Chicago. Heading into the south side, I was pretty much the only white person on the train (new experience!).
ReplyDeleteI remembered what Gospel means, but for some reason I first put in NOUN, thinking "well, news is a noun, etymologically" or something like that.
I turned on the TV after dinner last night; it was the bottom of the 9th for the Yankees, down by 4 runs. Oh, well, I'll watch anyway. Judge leads off with his 60th homer to tie Babe Ruth! Then a double, a walk, a single, and a walk-off grand slam to win the game. Not bad!
[Spelling bee: yd 0; QB streak now at 7 straight and 12 of last 13.]
Since egsforbreakfast has had his entreaty, I'd like have mine. Keep the polls out of the Peach State ( Yeah egs, its Peach not Peachtree) accurate. Re-elect Brian Kemp.
ReplyDeleteGene,
People noticed. there's been at least one post about Rex getting it 180 degrees wring.
59 A - Crossword commentator Parker.
ReplyDeleteI actually found this puzzle Monday-easy. Pretty rare that Rex considers a puzzle more challenging than I do.
ReplyDeleteI ignored any unknowns like Xhosa and crosses saved my butt. My best Wednesday time ever!
ReplyDeleteIf you’ve ever been to South Africa and heard people speaking XHOSA, you will realize that there are some languages you are physically incapable of learning to speak. I think clicking is something you can only learn as a child. It is so wonderful to listen to a conversation in it.
ReplyDeleteI worked with a woman from India named SPUTNIK. She was born in the day of the satellite’s launch, and apparently it was a big deal in India, which was very pro USSR at the time.
This one was fast for me, and I liked it. With that, I’M OFF, YOU GUYS.
After seeing -spel often enough, I finally remembered this-
ReplyDeleteWormtongue to Gandalf "Lathspell I name thee. Ill NEWS is an ill guest." Tolkein knew some old words, fer sure.
@bocamp- Well done you.
Puzzle was not too tough but I've never heard the phrase "take an L" in my life...and I watch sports. *Throws arms up*.
ReplyDeleteI call "FOUL!" on 49 Across / 51 Down: Pop culture Proper-Noun Prepositional trivia (BACK *TO* BLACK? BACK *IN* BLACK? BACK *OR* BLACK? BACK *AT* BLACK?) crossed with "Abuela's granddaughter," which is utterly unknowable for anyone (like me) who has no clue who "Abuela" is.
ReplyDelete@bocamp - congrats
ReplyDelete@pabloinnh (3:23 PM) ty 😊
ReplyDelete___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Strange. I thought this was easy. Much was in my wheelhouse, and the rest I got from crosses. Xhosa, Sputnik, Emma, atria, samosa, Utah, axon, Rex, for instance, all gimmes. Rhyming theme words easy to figure out.
ReplyDelete@nancy - DUH!!! Brain Fog, indeed.
ReplyDeleteThx… I’ll leave now.
@anonymous 2:26…yes…I think “yessiribob” (I can’t even spell it) is dated since almost no one today whose name is Robert goes by Bob unless they are a “boomer.” My apologies to anyone who is GenX or younger that goes by Bob. I’m a Boomer so maybe I’m wrong.
ReplyDeleteI loved this puzzle enough to comment. The phrase "Take An L" is decidedly zoomer; take the L I feel is used more in a specific circumstance whereas taking AN L is a phrase for a loss in general. Either way, I laughed with delight at the answer -- I found it so charming. Similar charm in the X placements for STYX and XRAY, though I wish the Ys followed suit. NEWS gave me trouble (I only got it off crosses) and INK UP made my face twist. I already hate ink as slang for tattoo (and all associated phrases) and I can say with certainty that if someone told me they were gonna get inked up I would laugh at them.
ReplyDelete@Smith and @anonymous 3:29…YES! I addressed that in my post script to @This n That, but I think the “key” is that the Gmail app is a logo and the others are icons. As I said earlier…it never really dawned on me that the colorful “Google-like” elongated M was meant to look like the back of an envelope!
ReplyDeleteFun puzzle and relatively easy with a bit of help. NIH, XHOSA (once XH appeared), and NIETO weren't especially difficult. Did not know PAAK but the crosses helped. Fortunately SPUTNIK was something everyone was aware of when I was in elementary school, so that went right in. After some pondering, NEWS became apparent; the clue was inspired.
ReplyDeleteFIGHT OR FLIGHT response should be familiar to anyone who has had an Intro Psych or Biopsych course as a shorthand description for what happens when the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system is activated.
ReplyDeleteA long, long time ago, November 3, 1957 (I checked), the Rooskies launched SPUTNIK 2. Our local radio station had alerted us to when it would be passing overhead. It was well after sunset on a crystal clear, moonless night. This was in rural Tennessee and there were no outside lights within 20 miles. The Milky Way and a bizillion other stars were on magnificent display and I wondered how we were going to see the single tiny light of a satellite among all those other lights. Then we all saw it at the same time when it first appeared over the horizon. We all oohed and ahhed in unexpected amazement. It was moving! The movement made it stand out in sharp relief against all those stationary* stars.
Years later I would recall that flashbulb memory when learning how our visual system is designed to be extra sensitive to movement, especially in our peripheral field of view.
*Yeah, I know that all those stars are also moving as a result of the earth's rotation but it is too slow to be perceived as movement by our visual system.
Didn’t know XHOSA. Suppose I should’ve. Happy to learn it.
ReplyDelete@jae (3:44 PM) ty 😊
ReplyDelete___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Anonymous 3:53,
ReplyDeleteSwing and a miss. I wasn’t sharing the good news.
What on Earth made you think I was?
Felt fairly easy because of the theme, but man alive did I struggle with news.after reading rex’s Log I now remember hearing that once, but it did not come to me. I continually forget the parts of a boat, which much like Roman and Greek gods continues to haunt me in crossword land, yet no where else in my life. I also was slowed by email and gmail, but fixed that in the end. All in all, good times.
ReplyDeleteNot too late to play this...
ReplyDelete@Anoa Bob, what a cool memory.
ReplyDeleteBaffled by the clue for REX - should the Mardi Gras king be Roi?
ReplyDeleteMaybe because of this:
DeleteRex (founded 1872)[1] is a New Orleans Carnival Krewe which stages one of the city's most celebrated parades on Mardi Gras Day. Rex is Latin for "King", and Rex reigns as "The King of Carnival".
Maybe Zed was serious about quitting the NYT puzzles in favor of others. He did suggest that some days ago and has been stepping back for awhile now.
ReplyDeleteI miss him. He helps round out the cast of characters here that I find so engaging.
DeleteWhat about the typo on clue for TOOL. My copy said gouge.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a typo. It's a tool used on wood.
Delete59A… Was that a tip of the hat to Our Fearless Leader?
ReplyDeletePLAY PENS
ReplyDeleteI’ve got NEWS for YOUGUYS, I’MOFF TOPLAY with REX,
ANDSO IF you ARE wise, you’ll come BACK for GRATE SEX.
--- PLUSH PATSY PAAK
HERE's a grid with UTAH in it--but no Utahs amongst the BLACK squares. Guess he was too busy with those Ls, which yield no fewer than eight (8) "cheater squares" of erstwhile OFF complaint. So, some of them ARE OK?
ReplyDeleteEasy enough to do, thanks to fair crosses for the far-outliers (PAAK, XHOSA, NIETO). Especially XHOSA, coming so soon after SAMOSA; makes me want to delete one of them OSAs!
I do heartily agree about "TAKE the L." That's in the language. However, TAKEANL is actually more descriptive of what this theme does. I mean, in real life, you've got two choices: W or L. In the alphabet you have 26. Just sayin'.
Fill ranges from lively to desperate, but the latter is handled with crossing care, so we can issue a par.
Another Wordle birdie wannabe; one letter off, dang it, so par.
Oh, and thanks to the alarm clock for waking up you-know-who.
L oh puzzle - how's your Wednesday?
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to pay to play when you have a cat helping you solve.
Lady Di