Martial art with bamboo swords / TUE 9-20-22 / Accolades presented in Nashville / Local produce org. / Four-letter member of the Four Corners / Email action with paper clip icon / Glutes developed while dancing at the Moulin Rouge

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein and Rachel Fabi

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


THEME: 3x — wacky phrases made out of 3 identical components, where the first two components are one unit and the third is another:

Theme answers:
  • "TUT TUT, TUT" (17A: Verbal disapproval of a boy king?)
  • CHOW CHOW CHOW (28A: Food for a sturdy Chinese dog?)
  • "ZOOM ZOOM" ZOOM (47A: Conference call for Mazda's marketing team?)
  • CAN-CAN CAN (64A: Glutes developed while dancing at the Moulin Rouge?)
Word of the Day: CHOW CHOW (28A) —
The Chow Chow is a spitz-type of dog breed originally from northern China. The Chow Chow is a sturdily built dog, square in profile, with a broad skull and small, triangular, erect ears with rounded tips. The breed is known for a very dense double coat that is either smooth or rough. The fur is particularly thick in the neck area, giving it a distinctive ruff or mane appearance. The coat may be shaded/self-red, black, blue, cinnamon/fawn, or cream. (wikipedia)

• • •

Ooh, a good reason to keep this short today: personal bias! These are my friends. Good for them. So happy to see their names. This feels like a theme I've seen before, like, a long time ago, maybe, and maybe more Monday than Tuesday (if such a distinction exists). The theme presented zero challenge, is what I'm saying. Once you get the TUT string, the others don't require more than a cursory glance at the clue, and maybe not even that if you're just humming along and decide to risk a guess on a themer based solely on the crosses you have in place. In retrospect, I can't say I recommend this strategy, as it got me CHOO-CHOO CHOO at first, and then when I very quickly looked at the clue, I really only picked up "Chinese" and thought "is CHOO a Chinese ... vegetable of some kind?" Very dumb brain glitch. Speed kills, folks. But for the others, I just had to see "Mazda" to get the ZOOM one and I don't think I even looked at the CAN one ... which is too bad, because the clues are really where the action's at, with a theme like this. Speaking of CHOO-CHOO CHOO ([Shoe designer Jimmy's nickname in the train enthusiast community?]?), this is one of those themes that seems like it could be done many times over, with different themers each time. Where's my [Scot's refusal to do a hip-hop dance?] or [Hand drum somehow played by male turkey?]? These are ridiculous enough that maybe I've answered my own question, but still, there are probably a bunch more potential answers out there. That doesn't take away from these, which work fine.


The grid is clean and I really liked UPPER HAND, AT NO POINT, ASKED WHY, and LIZ LEMON. I also weirdly liked METRICS. I don't get it. That doesn't seem like a particularly likable answer, and yet ... here we are. OCTAD is really the only answer I wish would crawl back in the crosswordese bag. Kaley CUOCO was on a very popular TV show ("The Big Bang Theory") and has been nominated for lead actress Emmys twice (for her HBO show "The Flight Attendant"), so she's famous enough, but still maybe it would be nice if you put something, literally any identifying information about her, in her clue (61A: Actress Kaley). I of course, being me, didn't bother to look at the clue initially; faced with CUO-O, I wrote in CUOMO and immediately thought "Why are my friends making me see that guy's name this morning!?" But of course they weren't doing that at all. Again, speed kills, folks. Read your clues. Funniest "not reading the clues" moment came near the very end when I was staring down F-CAL and thinking "whaaaaat is happening?!" But, no, yes, FOCAL, normal word, all is well (53D: Central). Biggest of all the little mistakes today was staring at 27A: Part of 10-J-Q-K-A and thinking "what the hell kind of textspeak is that!?" (it's playing cards, of course) (ACE). Maybe I didn't get enough sleep. My cat has taken to pawing *at the wall art* at 4 in the morning. I think he thinks it's a window. In his defense, it is covered in glass and in a frame. Anyway, hope my wife doesn't trip on the pillow I threw across the room when she gets up this morning. OK, coffee time. Congrats, Rebecca and Rachel. Lovely to see you, as always.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

66 comments:

Loren Muse Smith 5:30 AM  

Got CHOW CHOW CHOW and settled in to uncover the other reduplicative phrases. I love stuff like this. The hardest one was CAN CAN CAN; CAN isn’t at the top of my go-to list for fanny words.

Rex – I liked your other suggestions. It’s always fun to try to come up with your own. I’m pretty sure that for his size, the silverback gorilla isn’t that, ahem, well-endowed. So he has a wee. . .you do the math. If a frontrunner for March Madness loses a couple of late-season games, their coach may be thinking bye-bye bye. And if these CHOW CHOWs are noisy eaters, there is the possibility of a din-din din. (Rex – since you kinda opened the bathroom door with your F_CAL. . . if you’re of a certain age, you buy Milk of Magnesia ‘cause you’re hoping to do. . ., ah, never mind.

The clue for ERASE reminds me of when my kids were little, and we’d play a game of who could draw the best elephant on an Etch-a-Sketch. This was always great fun, and we invariably ended up cackling. My friends and I played this once in grad school after a night of drinking. Sober, drunk, doesn’t matter – if you’re not an accomplished Etch-a-Eketcher, it’s pretty much impossible.

Liked the ALTAR/LACE cross. Hundreds of white roses perfuming the church, strains of Pachelbel floating in the air, the beautiful bride in a LACY strapless gown, her massive back tattoo of a dragon glaring out at the guests. . . lovely. (Look, I know I’ve probably insulted some people here who sport massive back tattoos (my sister has one of a bear), but for me, I find a big back tattoo too too much if you’re wearing a strapless gown. *Clutches pearls*)

TAUPE, mauve, cerise . . . the French are pretty good at naming colors. These three sound elegant and refined. But I wanna know who over there decided it’d be swell to name a color puce after a flea? A FLEA?!?!

A: Have you set a date?
B: Yes! Next spring!
A: What are your colors?
B: Eggshell and puce.
A: [speechless]
B: The puce matches the tattoo of a flea on my back.

Anonymous 5:31 AM  

Only stumble was at 10+ miles triathlon clue. The most famous triathlon ever has you running a marathon.

IKE 5:45 AM  

I though this was a really fun and well-constructed puzzle. My only gripe was with the triathlon clue (56D) One also runs 10+ miles in ironman (26.2) and half-ironman triathlons (13.1), and super-sprint triathlons involve only a 10-km (6.25-mi) bike phase. So why have the number at all?

Anonymous 6:02 AM  

All the middle distance and long course triathletes are rolling their eyes on 56 down.

Conrad 6:08 AM  


Monday easy. No overwrites, just a kealoa moment at 3D: OCTet or OCTAD?

Son Volt 6:15 AM  

Agree with the big guy that there is some nice fill here - too bad it’s overwhelmed by this witless theme. We’ve seen these word repetitions before - there’s really little to no rational thought in filling these in.

The long downs were nice - AT NO POINT and UPPER HAND and METRICS is neat - I hear it during every Yankee game now. Of course knew REO but drew a blank on both LIZ LEMON and CUOCO - I guess I didn’t watch those shows.

A little bit of everything

For me it’s typically the fill that drags a puzzle down.

Anonymous 6:27 AM  

It is 6:17 AM and there have been 3 posts regarding the triathlon clue. That is plenty to get the point across. I beg of you. No more please. But wait a minute, read this.

On average, you will swim 1/2 mile (750 meters), bike for 12.4 miles (20K), and run for 3.1 miles (5K). Depending on your fitness level, course conditions, and the weather on race day, you can expect to complete these three legs in about 1.5 hours.

And this.

How far is the bike ride in a triathlon?
IRONMAN TRIATHLON DISTANCES
Swim 3.9 km (2.4 miles) 1-2 hours
Bike 180 km (112 miles) 5-9 hours
Run 42 km (26.2 miles) 3.5-6 hours

It's going to be a long day.

Clotho 6:42 AM  

I had A TO Z for one across. Zetrics just didn't feel right.

CDilly52 6:57 AM  

Not much to add after this charming breezy little offering from two of my favorite constructors. Easy, solid theme with some humor and loooong legs to do it again and again. @LMS, the silverback gorilla 🦍 one - 😆! Clean, entertaining and simple but fulfilling. Well done Rebecca and Rachel - as always. My only tiny slow down was the spelling of CUOCO. It always looks like it might be incorrect to me.

Areawoman 7:42 AM  

Hi LMS! Longtime fan of your musings, thought since you brought up puce you would like to know it is actually named after the color of dried flea blood not the flea itself which makes it an even better wedding color choice...

pabloinnh 7:44 AM  

After the TUTTUTTUT answer it wqs pretty much fill in the blanks, except for the LIZLEMON and Kelly CUOCO clues. Easier than a Monday, for the most part.

OFL's early morning cat problems are similar to one we have, or had, as our soon to be 18=year old, who still has a mighty yowl, decided that 3 or 4 in the morning was the best time to practice it, for no discernible reason. We started putting him two floors down in the man cave and shutting the door, and then one night we left the door open and, mirabile dictu, no yowling. I opened our bedroom door at 6 and he was just sitting there, so no more man cave.

I realize this is of limited interest but I didn't have much to say about the puzzle.

OK Tuesday RG and RF. Rated G and Reasonable Fun factor, but I'm off to look for a little more challenge. Thanks for some fun.

Anonymous 7:48 AM  

Another silky smooth, enjoyable early week puzz. My only problem with the repetitive theme answers was that, as soon as I typed in TUT TUT TUT (my favorite of all of them), my brain immediately went to "Bye Bye Bye" and I've had a bad ear worm ever since. I do not want NSync playing in my head, but there it is.

Nice: KAPUT following the TUTs. The clues for 1A and 5D. The clue for 8D made me remember that horrible paper clip "character"--Clippy? Was that its name? That Microsoft thing that would pop up to ask you what you wanted to do every time you paused while writing something in Word? Hated that little bastard!

I got 52A but stared at it for a long time, trying to understand how IDIOM connected to the clue. Then, literally (it's getting later every day!), the light dawned. Oh. Duh.

Good Tuesday!

SouthsideJohnny 7:48 AM  

Congratulations to Rebbeca and Rachel - a couple of Rex-faves score big today. Even though the theme was pretty much a gimme, this felt a touch difficult for me on a Tuesday, mostly because (as usual) the PPP was not in my limited wheelhouse - the LEMON lady crossing a marital art (KENDO) was a total wack-a-vowel for example. I also struggled with CUOCO (no clue), wanted OCTet and briefly paused before dropping in ELSA, because after all, she is the OREO of princesses. A couple of fun puzzles to start the week off so far.

Lewis 8:30 AM  

You may think that Rachel’s been at the constructing game for a long while, but she started constructing just a bit over three years ago. And talk about a sweet day for a constructor: The day her first puzzle was published in the NYT, another of hers was also published in USA Today. Rachel has range; today’s puzzle is her third for the Times, the other two being a Friday and Saturday.

Rebecca has a fiendishly clever mind. You may recall her Rock, Paper, Scissors puzzle from April, or her Salt Shaker puzzle from last year, which had NACL rebuses.

I love word gymnastics, so I loved this clever theme, and three items in the puzzle especially pushed my happy button:
1. A nine-letter palindrome (TUTTUTTUT)!
2. The elegant clue for ENNUI – [Lack of joie de vivre]. This answer has appeared 185 times in the Times, and many more times elsewhere in major outlets, but never with this clue (I checked). Brava!
3. CANCANCAN, which brought out a big “Hah!”

Plus, I learned a new word while noodling around after solving: EPIZEUXIS, the repetition of a word or phrase in immediate succession.

So not only warm smiles at seeing a puzzle by a columnist I adore, and happiness over another brush with a constructor whose inventiveness I get a kick out of, but also lots of happy sparks from the puzzle itself. Thank you, R&R, and please consider doing more up the road!

Joe Dipinto 8:39 AM  

Marveling at the UTAH clue. I can see the answer is four letters. Your feeble attempt at cuteness by connecting that with Four Corners is...really dumb (also 4 letters).

KarenRackle 9:10 AM  

Why is 37-42 for a pregnancy a TERF? From the mini.

RooMonster 9:19 AM  

Hey All !
Clean fill, nice job on that ladies. Lots of land mines to work around. Handled the Z's nicely.

I've either seen this theme before, or have had a similar theme in a puz I made, the ole brain refusing to let me know which. 😁

How about - Star Wars machine @? ATAT AT
Har, terrible!

Haven't heard of CSA as clued. Cobb Salad Association? Cabbage Sales of America? Crabapple Studies Association?

Anyway, good TuesPuz. Gonna ZOOM before I'm LED AWAY.

One F
RooMonster
DarrinV

Dr Spock 9:32 AM  

@KareenRackle - Perhaps consider that TERF may be wrong, it's probably TERM

Nancy 9:43 AM  

What fun!! A second really enjoyable and interesting early week puzzle in a row.

My favorite is TUTTUTTUT. I imagine us digging up the mummy, only to have him rebuking us for disturbing him after all these years. Adorable answer.

After I had done the first two, I decided to try to do the next one with no crosses. No such luck. I wouldn't know a Mazda if I fell over one. I needed the first ZOOM to get it.

Did anyone else originally have A TO z instead of ATOM for "a little bit of everything"? It seems dumb now, but it made perfect sense at the time.

Tricky clue for IDIOM at 62A and it baffled me for a while. Very un-Tuesdayish and I loved it. A highly entertaining puzzle with a bit of challenge to it.

tea73 9:54 AM  

@RooMonster Community Supported Agriculture. You pay the farmer up front, he brings you weird vegetables (and sometimes other farm produce) once a week.

Glad (?) to hear I'm not the only one humming "Bye, bye, bye".

Thankfully my youngest was really into Japanese swords for a while. We had them in both wood (bokken) and bamboo (shinai). Kendo was banned by the occupation forces after World War II, but reinstated in the early 1950s.

Another hand raised for not knowing that "can" could mean glutes. Almost 50 years of crosswords and I don't recall seeing it used this way. As a synonym for loo sure.

Blue Stater 10:04 AM  

*Bad* Natick at LIZLEMON and KENDO. Otherwise fine.

bocamp 10:06 AM  

Thx, R & R, for a very creative Tues. puz! :)

Med.

Top to CAN solve.

No hitches, save for CUOCO; needed all the crosses.

Enjoyed the 'dance'.

@jae & pabloinnh

4 hrs. into Croce's 744 with lots of holes left to fill in Texas and the SE. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏

Tom T 10:34 AM  

If this could be expanded and run on Sunday, the title could be @Lewis' EPIZEUXIS. That would cause some head scratching!

Indeed, Karen Rackle, the answer is TERM, the M being part of the credit card expiration clue MMYY (09/22, for example).

I had a bit of a test in the SW, where I needed crosses for LIZ LEMON and spent a long time wondering why the constructors thought an IDIOt was a person who "Put two and two together, e.g." Har. Also not familiar with KENDO.

Finished in a below average Tuesday time.

jae 10:37 AM  

Mediumish. nurse before SIP ON, each before APOP, some hesitation in the SE, being iffy on KENDO made this slightly tougher than the typical Tuesday for me. Cute and smooth, liked it.

Whatsername 10:43 AM  

Another day, another dynamic duo on the byline. I briefly skimmed Rex’s review and agree it was Monday easy, in fact to me easier than yesterday’s. That’s not a criticism of the construction of course and it’s still a fun theme and a good effort on either day.

I’ma fanatical dog lover but I would not want a CHOW. All that hair, I CAN only imagine the shedding. The horror! And the wrinkled face and the black tongue. They’re just unfortunate looking.

Anonymous 10:48 AM  

@KareenRackle. You have the wrong answer but same day mini cannot be discussed on this blog. At least not without a spoiler alert.

egsforbreakfast 10:49 AM  

As Aretha would say, “Chain, chain, chain…..”. I don’t think the theme fooled anybody, or even kept anyone wondering, for long. The effect was to make this a very, very, very fast Tuesday. But it was still a nice theme, and I enjoyed it all the way through. Like how a robin sings or a Dodo do. Of course later I had to clean the tartar tar out of my teeth, while explaining to the French orphan, “Je ne suis ton papa pas.” (I was never a stickler for word order en François). My grammatical mistakes were pointed out by my favorite puzzler and bestie, Ken Ken Ken and he even went on to criticize my childish form of punning jokes, which I considered to be a knock knock knock by him. My mood was lifted later when Mr. Ma dropped by with his yo yo yo-yo.

I think CMA is text speak for Cover My Ass, although our constructors may prefer CAN to ass.

Were this puzzle not constructed by Rexpals, METRICS would likely have been criticized for ruining his mood by the early introduction of science/math concepts. Instead, today it is lauded.

A very nice and fun stroll through the park today. Thanks Rebecca and Rachel.

Beezer 10:51 AM  

Very enjoyable but easy puzzle for a Tuesday! My solve mirrored @LMS as CAN is not one of my “go to” words for one’s bottom but since I figured it HAD to be CANCANCAN due to Moulin Rouge reference. And, since I have been known to “waste” my time watching a few good sitcoms I was up on LizLEMON and Kaley CUOCO. CUOCO did a good job of making her character evolve from a somewhat shallow but nice “ditz” to a person of some substance (and still nice).

@LMS…I got a kick from your Etch-a-Sketch challenge and I have to say you sound like a better “play mom” than I was. I’m not sure I ever bought an Etch-a-Sketch for my kids cuz I remember as a kid (once I struggled with the knobs for awhile) I thought, why am I doing this when I can draw a much better picture with a pencil! Ah well, I suppose fiddling with those knobs probably developed something in my motor skills. In my defense, I did do a lot of Lego building and I noticed I pretty much stuck to boring buildings even though my kids would build many “non-kit” non-building creations. Hey, bricks make buildings, not spaceships and whatnot! 🤣

@Joe DiPinto…I didn’t even notice the UTAH clue/answer until you mentioned it.

Newboy 10:56 AM  

I like Ike, I like Ike, I like @Ike [5:45] (does that take me back to a distant past?) thought the tri clue was trying too hard. Maybe with “Olympic triathlon” it would have the proper METRICS? Nice to see OFL acknowledge his conflict of interest for these pal constructors & also nice to see recognized faces over at xwordinfo. Usually go for an alternate grid for these early week solve, but couldn’t pass on today’s tag team effort (Monday New Yorker was a worthy opponent if anyone is interested).

Anonymous 10:58 AM  

@Nancy, I had ATOz also, quickly corrected because METRICS. But it's not dumb and I'll bet ATOZ has been clued similarly before.

Anonymous 11:03 AM  

The plural, "CANS", is slang for another body feature.

Anonymous 11:04 AM  

Wow! Get up on the wrong side of the futon today?

Anonymous 11:05 AM  

Term

Carola 11:05 AM  

Thank you to @Rex for pointing out how the theme words form phrases, rather than being just a row of three as in, say, "yada yada yada." For me that switched the theme from being "hmm, kind of random" to very clever. I should have dug a little deeper on the ASKED WHY front. I thought the cluing was engaging, too. The hardest one for me to get was "All-seeing being," as I couldn't get Argus with his 100 eyes out of my head. Neat misdirection (for me) that the ORACLE's "seeing" isn't via the eyes.

Help from previous puzzles: I CARE (i.e., I only encounter this phrase in crosswords). No idea: LIZ LEMON, CUOCO.

KarenRackle 11:09 AM  

Thanks, Tom T. I guess I’m embarrassed now … ha ha.

Beezer 11:09 AM  

And btw, having absolutely nothing to do with the puzzle, I had blood taken today in conjunction with my annual physical and I think my technician must have a superpower. I literally gushed to her…YOU are the BEST drawer of blood I have EVER had! When you said..”little pinch” I BARELY felt a prick, THEN when you went from one vial to the next I COULDN’T EVEN TELL! Needless to say, she seemed as pleased as I was at that moment.
I’ll try to tie into the puzzle by saying the whole experience was like being at CHEZ ZOOMZOOMZOOM!

Anonymous 11:20 AM  

Wow! if this isn't the exemplar of a friend of Rex review nothing is.
This puzzle was pretty poor. Setting aside the triathlon and Utah problems, the grid was full of junk. Eleven three word answers? I mean, nib, rip, hot, bio, ria, apt, oer, ets, wad and wiz? Gee.
Thought experiment: If Bruce Haight had loaded up a puzzle with that many 3-ltter pieces of excrement, how far from Binghamton, NY would you have to be before you couldn't hear Rex's rant?

jberg 11:20 AM  

I've done the mini already, but many haven't, so please quit with the spoilers!

As for the puzzle -- I loved it! To those who complain that the theme is too easy, that's not the point (it's Tuesday!). The point is the fun clues.

As for the CAN doubters, I think it's mostly used when you get knocked on your can, literally in a boxing march, or figuratively in some other kind of contest. It did take a few crosses (well, one at least) for me to see it.

The hardest part for we was actually SIP ON. I had SIP at, until the aforementioned boxing match came along.

Anonymous 11:23 AM  

Newboy,
rex acknowledged they were friends. He didn't acknowledge hat he gave them a friendly--and undeserved-- pass on a pretty poor ( and by his admission, original) puzzle.

Whatsername 11:38 AM  


@pablo: I can relate to your cat’s behavior. Mine likes to go out in the garage to futz around and catch an occasional mouse. If the door is closed she’ll raise an awful fuss to go out there and then hide so I can’t catch her. But if I prop the door open so she can come and go, she’ll stay about 15 minutes and then come back inside.

Gary Jugert 11:39 AM  

What a lovely lovely lovely puzzle. We can expect every one's comments to come in threes today.

Nice to see my motto: BAH. And my #1 favorite word: ENNUI. Together.

Not to freak anybody out, but today was your pop quiz to prove you could finally handle ELSA without openly weeping. We've been working on this people. I know you did great! Hopefully CUOCO was the tough starlet.

Never heard of KENDO and that O was the last thing to drop in because who knows what Liz's last name is. Lemon is a pretty good last name don't you think?

Uniclues:

1 The sound every one of my cars made until I was in my 40s.
2 Wild success less wild.
3 Sometimes seven occasionally nine but certainly never eight.
4 Seahorse fan amazed at fishy choice.

1 TUT TUT TUT KAPUT
2 PALER PROFIT
3 OCTAD AT NO POINT
4 ASKED, "WHY ORCA?"

Bax'N'Nex 11:48 AM  

"Personal bias" at it's utmost!
Can you imagine the thrashing this would have gotten if Bruce Haight had constructed this? Three of the same word in a row? Multiple times?
C'mon, Mike, call it like it is for everybody, not just your friends...

Unknown 12:09 PM  

I thought the theme was cute, but of course, once you sussed it out, the remaining answers fell pretty quickly.
Still, ZOOMZOOMZOOM made me laugh.
My only little nits were : SIPON and TONOW. I guess that was the best they could come up with to complete those parts of the grid.

I think we can all agree that if rex were to be perfectly objective, he would solve the puzzles "blind," without knowing who the constructors were. But hey, it's his blog, and we're just along for the ride.

Query: Is ANONYMOUS one person, or more than one? That's been keeping me up at night.

Anonymous 12:48 PM  

I have seen this type of theme before. I did like Rex's idea of "Hand drum somehow played by male turkey?" Tom-Tom-Tom

Masked and Anonymous 12:53 PM  

@RP: yep. This kinda theme was once sorta used before, back in 1983, by Richard Silvestri dude. The only themer completely shared was the CHOWCHOWCHOW one. Most of the '83 answers used a sound-alike triplet, such as: CANNESCANCAN. It did include a very nice POOHPOOHPOOH, tho.

Anyhoo … Good TuesPuz, we got here. Nicely updated, with themer stuff like ZOOMZOOMZOOM. Plus, it has the UPPERHAND and METRICS. Another fave: LIZLEMON [She wants "to go to there".]

staff weeject pick: CSA. M&A had no earthly idea … unless Gen. Lee & the rebs sold veggies on weekends.

But but butt dept.: Luved the CANCANCAN clue, btw.

Thanx for gangin up on us, Ms. Goldstein & Ms. Fabi darlins. Seems like a pair of gals just ganged up on us yesterday … only one lady, last Sunday, tho. Still … great to pump lotsa extra estrogen into the rodeo.

Masked & Anonym007Us


**gruntz**

okanaganer 1:20 PM  

Hands up for CUOMO before CUOCO. I thought she got married and changed it to CUOCO-SWEETING but I see from Wikipedia that didn't last. As a kid I also knew a family FUOCO, which is Italian for fire, but which we pronounced "fee-yoh-koh".

Anyway, thin theme; all the art is in the clues, not the answers. And now this 80s song is in my head; I thought it was DUH DUH DUH but not quite.

[Spelling Bee: yd 0; just a ton of ---ING words. QB streak of 6 straight and 10 of last 11 days.]

Anonymous 1:36 PM  

I thought this was fun, and it turn out a PB for me, but it there were interesting contrasts: the theme entries made things go very fast, but some of the non-theme entries seemed harder than usual for Tuesday: alga, octad, ria, cuoco, plus a few more crosswordese entries.

No complaints, though; just an observation.

Anonymous 1:52 PM  

I think Will Shortz takes a lot of undue criticism but this one never should’ve seen the light of day. Awful.

sixtyni yogini 2:44 PM  

CHARM in the center.
Appropriate.
Enjoyed it.
🤗🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🤗

Beezer 4:37 PM  

@M & A…you made me laugh on 1983 comment! Way to go on being subtle!

Harry 5:30 PM  

Love a light and airy solve on the odd Tuesday; this fit the bill perfectly. I was so engaged in speeding through the grid that when the "success" music popped up it caught me completely by surprise.

Forgive the indulgence and let me share a 4a cat story: Many years ago wife and I were startled awake by a cacophony being voiced by our cat, sitting bolt upright at the end of the bed and fixated on the wall. Turns out that the full moon that morning caught him just right to cast a perfect silhouette of his head, pointy ears and all!

He didn't know who this "intruder" was, but he wasn't welcome!

Anoa Bob 6:17 PM  

The grid has ready-made ratings for both sides of the aisle today. For those who liked it, there's 30D CHARM and for those who didn't, there's either 36A BAH or 43A ENNUI (or both). The that's-just-too-easy nature of the thermers had me leaning toward the latter.

ChE Dave 7:36 PM  

Redial? When was the last time you saw a phone with a dial on it?

Anonymous 8:03 PM  

Can anyone explain IDIOM as the answer to : Put Two and two together.

BZ 8:07 PM  

Cannot understand how the answer to PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER IS “idiom”. Please help me.

Harry 10:42 PM  

The IDIOM clue really should have been in quotes ... it's an example of an idiom (e.g.)

Anonymous 10:52 PM  

The phrase "put two and two together" is itself an idiom.

CAK 12:15 PM  

Hand up for ATOZ! ✋Made perfect sense until I had zETRICS 🤔

MetroGnome 3:12 PM  

I call "FOUL!" on 49 Across / 51 Down: Pop culture Proper Noun-ism (BACK *IN* BLACK? BACK *TO* BLACK? BACK *ON* BLACK? BACK *OR* BLACK?) crossed with "Abuela's Grandchild" (impossible for anyone -- like me -- who has no idea who "Abuela" is).

kitshef 9:18 PM  

Had no idea that CHOWs were known for being sturdy. Add me to the triathlon clue haters.

thefogman 10:27 AM  

The NYT’s team of editors should have fixed the cluing for 56D. There’s a million other ways to clue BIKE without upsetting all the triathletes out there. Moderate AMOUNTS of three-letter glue (CSA, BAH, UMA, ETS etc.) hold the puzzle together. It seems like a simple gimmick until you try to come up with alternative themers. Not so easy after all! Nicely done Rebecca and Rachel!

Burma Shave 12:01 PM  

PROFIT AMOUNTS

LET'S say ICARE a BOUT LIZ,
(her GLUT of CHARM you CAN buy),
a HOT UPPERHAND WIZ,
ATNOPOINT have I ASKEDWHY.

--- KENDO TARO CUOCO

spacecraft 12:22 PM  

Yep, okay, it's only Tuesday. A no-revealer theme that pretty much fills itself in, which gives us the UPPERHAND in a hurry. The clues are cute, though.

So are the DOD candidates: UMA, CUOCO and LIZLEMON's portrayer Tina Fey. Give 'em all sashes.

ATNOPOINT was I slowed down on this one: super-easy. No junk fill, so again, for its slot, birdie.

Wordle par.

Oh--and somebody? Wake up the linker...yet again.

Anonymous 3:12 PM  

@ChE Dave 7:36pm:
Today, in the bedroom. I own an antique phone from the 1930
's that came from a warehouse in France. It works. It's completely original, save the innards were updated to work with modern landlines.
Yes, I still have a landline phone. It will come in handy during the apocalypse.

rondo 4:25 PM  

Around the turn of the century NSYNC was telling us BYE BYE BYE. That would have done as well or better than the rest. Kaley CUOCOO, yeah baby.
Wordle par.

Diana, LIW 6:57 PM  

Early present from Santa (ho, ho, ho)?

ezpz

Diana, LIW

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