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Schitt's Creek matriarch / THU 9-15-22 / Clark with #1 country hit Girls Lie Too / Like the creator deity Viracocha / Number of puppeteers needed to manipulate Topo Gigio / Where $50 bills and crossing your legs may be considered bad luck
Thursday, September 15, 2022
Constructor: Ruth Bloomfield Margolin
Relative difficulty: Easy to Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- (O)BJECTIONS (3D: Make one's opposition known, literally)
- (S)TINK (5D: Protest, literally)
- (M)INIMUM WAGE (99D: Alleviate income insufficiency, literally)
- (F)AMILY (11D: See children through to adulthood, literally)
- VOLUM(E) (52D: Show respect to one's neighbors late at night, literally)
- TEMPERATUR(E) (29D: De-escalate tension, literally)
- PRICE(E) (60D: Put on sale, literally)
- TOILETSEA(T) (36D: Demonstrate a bit of bathroom etiquette, literally)
India: unsorted wheat flour or meal (merriam-webster)
• • •
- With the exception of (O)BJECTIONS, the solver has to mentally supply a definite or indefinite article to make the phrase work, i.e you "raise (O)BJECTIONS," but you "raise *a* (S)TINK" and you "raise *the* (M)INIMUM WAGE." I don't so much mind supplying the article, but whether it's no article, "a," or "the," it should be consistent across the answers, or at least ... I don't know ... have some sense of structure or pattern or something. What we have here is just haphazard.
- We don't actually "raise" or "lower" the answers; they extend beyond the grid edges, but nothing moves. That is, (O)BJECTIONS is sitting flush with EGGO and POOH. The answer itself has not been "raised"; I thought that first themer was "BJECTIONO" at first, because then the whole "raising" thing would at least make a little sense (answer "raised," letter "O" falls to the bottom). But that was not to be.
- The missing letters are, as far as I can see, completely unchecked. This is uncrosswords and semi-unsporting, though none of the letters is particularly hard to suss out (I had the most trouble with -TINK because I couldn't remember the ultra-crosswordesey TERRI's first letter ("KERRI?"). All letters are supposed to have two ways that you can come at them. Not true here, which leads me to my final bjection and greatest disappointment...
- The "raised" / "lowered" letters, in the aggregate, don't do anything. I thought, "well, surely they're going to spell out some message, some phrase, something purposeful and meaningful ... something!" But no. OSMFEEET would make a good name for a space alien, but I don't think it amounts to much here. Huge, huge letdown.
Add to all that the weakish-creakish fill, which you can see for yourself, everywhere. I was tolerating it OK until I hit -EAL, which was a real last straw (64D: Ending with arbor). ATTA has a funny history in the NYTXW (28A: Flour in Indian cuisine). Hard for me not to see it as crosswordese, but I'm happy the puzzle seems to have discovered its Indian-cuisine meaning in the past couple years (much better than ["___ boy!"] or [Kofi Annan's middle name] or (in the olden olden days) [Leaf-cutting ant]). What's curious is that it would be more accurate to say that the NYTXW has re-discovered the Indian cuisine meaning. That clue got used a bunch by Farrar and Weng and even a few times by Maleska, but when Shortz arrived it disappeared completely. It was last seen in 1989 (!!!) before reappearing in March of 2021 and then again in July 2022. And now here it is again. All hail the dawn of a new age of ATTA!
Didn't appreciate how the Topo Gigio clue got an Italian answer (TRE) but the "La Bohème" answer got an English one (ARIA). I really wanted 46D: One of five in "La Bohème" to be ... whatever the Italian is for "ACTS" (ACTE?), solely because I was forced to go Italian for the answer to the Topo Gigio clue (47A: Number of puppeteers needed to manipulate Topo Gigio). Boo. (And if you don't know what the heck "Topo Gigio" is, you won't be alone—if you're American, you have to have had cultural awareness of the "Ed Sullivan Show" for that name to ring a bell). I thought upholstery was maybe WELDED, so that was weird (35A: Like some upholstery). And I was leafing through a British dictionary the other day (long story...) and saw AGGRO, and so when 13D: More than miffed came along today, and I had the -GR- ... well, in it went. No other real struggles with the fill today. "SO LAST YEAR" and "NO SWIMMING" were fine, fun answers, and I like the symmetrical yin/yang thing that GOOD NEWS & NEGATIVE have going on. But the theme just didn't hum the way I wanted it to hum. ALAS. See you tomorrow.
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159 comments:
It’s so fun on Thursdays when you sense something’s afoot. Rub your hands together, settle in . . . game on. Probably like 99% of us, I was trying to tease out a rebus in order to cram in that extra letter. The aha moment was extremely satisfying. Ruth, Rex – I, too, tried to squeeze out an extra layer with the letters outside the box but came up with only SOME FEET. That the letters didn’t spell anything was not the “huge, huge letdown” for me that it was for Rex. Nor were the article inconsistencies or the “raising”/“lowering” issues. To excuse all this by saying I’m a cheap date would imply that the puzzle itself is lacking. Nope. I liked the trick a lot and had a swell time solving.
Forgetting that the suffix on “arbor” is EAL and not “ial” almost delivered a dnf death blow. From time to time there is a fancy erudite word I don’t know [see: MALA fide]; hence “solastyiar” was looking more and more like one of those. Maybe from Old Icelandic. It took For. E. Ver. to finally break that puppy into three words and get it.
Another crucial mistake was my “weed”ing in order to defend my borders. Bet I’m not alone.
Oh, and back to MALA – In good faith, I just decided it had to be the opposite of bona. Whew.
Never seen/heard of any kind of WELTED upholstery. Just googled it. Oh. Ok. Those raised border lines that separate the different sections of a cushion or whatever. Got it. As the word registers, it feels gruesome.
That bit of bathroom etiquette? Sage? Dear daughter? Could you please hang the bathmat back over the tub and close the shower curtain? Thanks in advance love ya mwah.
SAMI – In WV we lived across the street from a family who had one of those 200-pound Turner and Hooch mastiffs, except this one had not been tomhankserated. His name was Osama Bin Laden. What a lovely name. Did they consider Jeffrey Dahmer or Hannibal Lecter first? Happily, they just called him SAMI, so there was that. I love, love, love dogs, but I tell you, being around this grump of a killer dog giant was always unsettling. What made matters worse was that I couldn’t keep myself from overthinking that I was wafting over fear pheromones that he’d pick up on and run with. Like, Sure, why not. Though it hadn’t occurred to me, I can absolutely attack if that’s what you’re expecting. I mean, we were totally good, but now that you mention it. . .
PS – Yeah, that mnemonic yesterday was just me being a smartass. Sorry for the confusion.
The other day there was a link to a Zombies song. An excerpt from the lyrics would have been my advice to Will Shortz when this puzzle was submitted.
Tell her no, no, no, no, no-no-no-no
No, no, no, no, no-no-no-no
No, no, no, no, no.
I didn't grok the theme at all. I was able to solve but I didn't get the "raise/lower" part of the theme until I got here. I wish I'd had a couple of drinks last night so I could blame them.
I’m stuck on the use of “literally”, which is so often misused in conversation. I don’t like how it’s used here either.
Ugh. Thursdays.
A concept that should have been scrapped
I flat out did not enjoy this one solved it but still if they aren’t fun ugh
Just dreadful, even for a Thursday
ARIA is an Italian word.
Wow. Lotta stuff I never heard of in here … MALA, LYS, WELTED, TERRI, ATTA, MIMI … all new. Fortunately MALA was inferable based on bona fide, or that MIMI cross would have been a guess.
Liked the theme though.
Yeah, no, I’m with Rex on this one. I got the solve and the cheerful music, but missed the point of the theme until I read it here. Also, I would’ve never thought I had everything correct if the app hadn’t told me. At least it didn’t have some bizarre requirement for entering rebuses or special symbols or blanks.
Don’t know what it is - it’s definitely not a crossword puzzle (to me at least - good for you if you enjoyed it). More like a farce. I agree with Rex - no real payoff. Yuk.
This may be my least favorite puzzle of all time. The theme was both forced and obscure (like an earlier commenter, I had to come here to figure it out), and the entire solve was just a huge slog. Thursdays usually provide some smiles or clever "aha" moments. This had none. The constructor must be SMUG but I'm just NEGATIVE.
This theme? Ugh. Five-star ugh.
Few people know this but the early Roman calendar was known as the Solastyeari. It’s true.
Being not as sharp as I once pretended to be, should’ve see the game for what it was at Bjections but, (Sigh, Alas), didn’t. Not sure when the failing incandescent flickered on but even then struggled because my brain wanted an article. Stared at the SE corner, head tilted to the left with all the look and deep thinking of Scoobydoo and couldn’t get to the Toilet. Raise the Seat, Lower the Seat. And there, I tanked.
Can someone help me with DEES as an answer for defend borders?
From the misuse of the word ‘literally’ to the inconsistent theming to the poor fill in general, this puzzle had no redeeming social value. Boo.
Oh brava, Ruth, you gave me just what I look for on Thursday. There, for a bit, I was slammed, shaken, outwitted, bamboozled, “wha?”-ing and “huh?”-ing, with a deeply crinkled brow, wondering what I was missing. As this puzzle might say, you raised my lood pressure.
Crossword heaven, if you ask me -- being thrust into a Thursday thicket. Vexing clues, evasive theme. That glorious moment of pure stuckness and waiting for inspiration, and then that most glorious explosive moment when it hits. Feeling high drama, like I starred in my own film.
A most lovely Thursday in the grid with Ruth. With extras, too. A rare-to-see-in-a-grid five-letter palindrome – SOLOS – backed up by YAY and ATTA. Two symmetrical answers that balanced each other out – GOOD NEWS and NEGATIVE. Not to mention a TIL with WELTED.
I always come into Thursdays excited, and when that excitement is so well satisfied, as it was today, it’s a sweet, sweet gift. Thank you, Ruth, for a memorable beast of a puzzle!
This was just stupid and annoying
I get the idea but the implementation didn't feel quite right for the reasons Rex outlines.
Guess I'm in the minority today because I really liked this one. Started by thinking it had something to do with a misplaced "O", as it was missing in OBJECTIONS and BUENO, I thought, but that quickly went nowhere. I had probably 900% of the answers and it still wasn't making any sense until the missing T of TOILETSEA, and then I saw the lowering gimmick, which led me back to the top where the raise gimmick made sense, and my aha-ness was complete.
Did know WELTED, somehow. I believe shoes can have welts too.
Did the if not bona must be MALA thing, eventually.
SOLASTYEAR finally became three words. YAY for doing Acrostics.
And someday I will remember how to spell UMAMI, but today is not that day.
Thanks for a Thursday-ish Thursday, RBM. They've been MIA for some time. Really Beat Me up for a while, which made it all worthwhile. Thanks for all the fun.
PS @Anon 7:53--A lot of people are going to tell you that DEE is the first and last letter of "defend", ergo "borders".
I figuratively lowered this puzzle into the figurative garbage can because I literally hated it
This was certainly a fun challenge while solving, but I have to admit that the inconsistency -- "the", "a" or no article at all -- bothers me. Making it consistent would have added a wonderful elegance. But there was still plenty to like.
Took me forever to parse SOLASTYEAR -- I needed every single letter to finally get it. Great entry, clued very well.
The WELTED/PLAT cross was a total guess for me; I didn't know either term. Now I do -- YAY!
I also had no idea that a $50 bill and leg-crossing are considered unlucky in CASINOS. So THAAAAT'S why I've lost so much. What a relief to know it isn't my lack of skill or that the house always wins.
My father used to have as his mantra, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." So, following his advice, here's my comment on this puzzle:
Kinda surprised the vibe is so negative here. I’m with @LMS — “I liked the trick a lot and had a swell time solving.”
Didn't really enjoy. Fabulous - YAY? Oh pleez. OTOH, last time I checked ARIA is Italian. You're guilty of cultural appropriation... :-)
In order to read the answers, one must do the OPPOSITE of what the clue suggests. You have to RAISE the letters in the word "TEMPERATURE" in order to see the answer. If you lower it, you get "TEMPERATU" You have to LOWER the letters in "FAMILY" in order to see the word, not raise them. When you raise them, you get "AMILY"
You know what I liked about this puzzle? The Robyn Weintraub puzzle at The New Yorker.
Why not Mohamed _____ for 28 across?
I’m sorry, but they lost me at rawer…..
Horrible puzzle
ARIA is also a French word
I want to say I hated it, but that would just be sour grapes because I didn’t suss out the gimmick. (I was among the 99% who were looking for a rebus.)
Having said that, I agree with those who feel that the theme doesn’t quite work.
Just, huh. Did not at all get the raise and lower part. Thinking rebus? but nothing doing. No idea: MAV. Not helped by considering gOmUM for being thoughtful to the neighbors, even though it seemed, um, weird.
And what's with all the "literally"s? What do they add to the clue? Is it like I have to "raise" the answer, or what? Meh. Don't think it worked.
Now this is a proper Thursday theme. Made me work hard! I sussed out the missing es at the bottom easily enough, but figuring out we were raising or lowering a word or phrase was a victory. Consistency?? Hard enough to find the theme without worrying about minor inconsistency.
Some names I didn't know forced me to ask Mr. Google, but otherwise, great Thursday fun.
Loved this puzzle. As soon as I had enough crosses to see BJECT, I realized what was going on. From there, all the themers were easy and fun. At the same time as I got the "raise" thing, I guessed, correctly, that symmetrical entries would have answers with "lower." Again, easy and fun to solve those. It would have been less fun if I were doing it online. The ability actually to write letters along the top and bottom of the grid was part of the joy. Like coloring outside the lines.
Any puzzle that references Topo Gigio, even if only in a clue, is a puzzle I'm going to hate.
In opera, characters will sing arias about (or to) anything. In this Act IV aria, the philosopher Colline sings goodbye to his trusty old coat, which he is about to go sell to get medicine for the dying Mimi.
With the exception of Natick city in the north (TERRI, RCS, ENOS alongside two of the theme clues) I enjoyed this more than most of you. Cracked the theme not too early and not too late and enjoyed seeing it in action thereafter.
Nope.
Yeah, I don’t get all the animosity either. Ok, maybe for those people who never did suss out the gimmick…no Aha! moment here would have sucked. I had that moment, used it to complete several answers. Good times!
I have been doing the NYT crossword for 25 years. This was the worst puzzle I have ever seen.
The constructor reminded me of my favorite Tom Swifty: "What this team needs is someone who can hit 60 home runs a season," said Tom ruthlessly.
As for the puzzle, I am swimming against the tide. I loved it.
Small things: All the female names started with M. Maeve, Moira, Mimi, and Missy. (Well, except for Terri.)
The E in ECRU at 1D ran to the back of the line to form CRUE at 24A.
I think LMS hit on something with SOME FEET -- those little letters sticking out of the bottom of the grid are little feet.
And I liked the whole theme. It took me longer than usual to see it. My favorite was lowering the toilet seat. I wasn't troubled by the nits that have been picked here. The objections were "raised" by the O above the grid, etc. It worked for me.
I came within an inch of bailing on this -- and I'm so glad I didn't! But I had absolutely no idea what was going on until well past the 11th hour. It was only at TOILET SEAT (puzzle almost filled in but not quite yet in that corner) that I realized the TOILET SEAT was being lowered and the final"T" would have to go outside the grid. Wow!
So up I jumped to look at all the fill I hadn't understood. Popped in the "O" for raised OBJECTIONS and the "S" for raised a STINK and the "F" for raised a FAMILY. Then I went down to the bottom and did the same for all the "lowered"s: the VOLUME and the TEMPERATURE to go with the TOILET SEAT.
Very, very fiendish and quite clever. But did I have fun? Not really. I suffered much too much and was completely in the dark for much too long. And the PPP was even worse than usual today, making an already challenging solve far harder than it would be and adding an additional measure of frustration. So that you could say I hated this puzzle before I loved it. But I bow to its cleverness and deviousness.
Add me to the (few?) fans. For me, it was the kind of Thursday puzzler I look forward to. I'd rate it as challenging: even after I saw that some entries were being raised and lowered, I still had to chip away at the rest of the grid. After finishing, I highlighted the theme answers, noticing only then how they were arranged in 4 columns, e.d., raised OBJECTIONS over the lowered VOLUME. More to admire! I laughed at TOILET SEAT - I wish my husband had graduated from Monday puzzles.
Help from previous puzzles: OH SNAP, which I never see anywhere else. Should have been help: the not-long-ago ATTA.
Do-overs: BONA and a mix-up of H and He, i.e. "one" before TWO. No idea: TERRI, MOIRA, LYS. Longest "what the heck?!" moment: SOLASTYEAR. Needed two alphabet runs: DEES.
EMAILER?
Winner’s CASINO
Join the crowd - I literally haven’t liked any puzzle so far this week.
Hey All !
Well, Ruth UNCORKS a toughie. I was ET SEA (har) at just what in tarhooties was going on. I did finally figure out VOLUM and PRIC we're missing their E's, so then the thought process was all the lower "literally" words would be missing an E. Nope. Looked for an E off to the left or right of VOLUM. Nope. Once I got TOILET SEA, the thought process was "add 'Put down' or 'turn down' to the fronts of VOLUM and PRIC". Nope.
Then got to the upper missing letter words, had BJECTIONS, thought process said "they'll all be missing an initial O". Nope. Had to Goog for TERRI, because haven't heard of her, And it anchored TWO missing letter Themers. Ouch. By the time I finished in NE corner, was frustrated and stopped caring. Googed some more, and threw in letters I knew were wrong just to finish. After going back to erase the wrongness, was finally able to see YAY (oddly tough), and the "what the what" MALA.
Came here for Rex to explain the theme. Ah, got it. But hoo boy. And he rated it easy! Dang. When I agree with a RexRant, it's not the best puz. I normally like (most) puzs Rex doesn't (not a high bar, I realize), but this one, oof.
Might've set a record for longest ThursPuz. 35 minutes (again, the site tracks the time, and since it's there...), when my average comes in at 24 minutes.
Sorry, Ruth, puz wasn't the fun I normally get. It was NEGATIVE, not GOOD NEWS. I do appreciate the idea, but it needed something. A Revealer or something. Or SOME FEET. Har.
No F's (OH SNAP)
RooMonster
DarrinV
I liked it but probably because I was glad when I finally “got” it.
But like another upthread I do not get DEES
Anyone care to clue me in?
This was miserable. Where do people even get the "raise" and "lower" from? You're supposed to figure that out on your own? I realized the theme answers were missing letters on one end, but I never would have figured out that meant you mentally add "raise" or "raise a" or "raise the" or "lower" or "lower the" before them.
Count me as another one raising BJECTIONS to this puzzle.
A random act of unkindness
Looks like we had very similar solving experiences, @pabloinnh.
I basically finished the puzzle except for sections of the "literally" clues before I understood the words were going off the top and bottom. When I realized what was going on, they all went in and that was that. They just go off the end. Hm.
Ooookaaaay.
LINE A x MALA was a WOE. I had every single thing in that corner except the L.
AONE vs. aces sunk me again.
I wonder if anyone on Earth will say RAWER today.
I like NO SWIMMING, UNCORKS, and SO LAST YEAR. I do not like NEGATIVE or IRON BAR. I think Mimi is the character in Rent who needs her candle lit and that's how I knew it couldn't be BONA.
In college I rented a room from a woman who had a cat named Ecru. Once I moved in Ecru decided she would start dating me, and spent all of her time in my room. I loved that cat. It was fine until, on a rare occasion, I would bring home a lady to "study with" (hardly ever happened, I'm not that enjoyable to be around) and Ecru would bite them! She was fine with fellahs, but jealous only begins to describe her passion for me. When I moved out a year and a half later, my landlord asked if I wanted to take Ecru with me. I wasn't ready for the responsibility back in those days. My current cat, Henry, just had surgery to remove some kidney stones over the weekend. An emergency of course, so life is very challenging catwise this week.
Uniclues:
1 Rex references social issue and riles the Anonym-oti, in a way.
2 Whoa. Judgment.
1 UNCORKS EMAILER
2 OH SNAP. NEGATIVE.
Atto = act in italiano
I didn't comment last Sunday because we had over 6" of rain come down here in Chicago and the sewer backed up into our basement. This was the first puzzle I've done since then and it felt just like cleaning up the mess that I've been doing for the last four days. I got a clean grid on this but I still have a lot of work to do on the basement.
yd -0, dbyd pg -2, Mon pg -1, Sun -0
Anyone who uses ECRU and ENOS in the same puzzle should have their crossword license revoked.
I agree with the consensus here, did not enjoy it, a lame idea that totally failed on the pleasure scale. And then there’s the news on Lindsay Graham. Ugly Thursday.
Tupid...downrigh diotic.
I was just about to say this. What Italian word for aria would you prefer? Lol.
A lot of extremely grumpy people here. I kind of liked the puzzle. It worked for me, and don't quite get why so many seem to hate it. I guess you can't please everyone. And those who are not pleased are very, very unhappy. Oh well.
First things first--@LMS, you have nothing to apologize for with your Great Lakes fun yesterday--best laugh of the day for me, and how could you have made it any clearer that your tongue was not centered in your oral cavity!
As for today, "Easy/East-Medium does not describe my experience. I would not have finished it if I hadn't finally figured out the theme gimmick. As it turned out, the nyt still says my streak is active, but I had to run the vowels in order to get MAEVE (who?!) and WELTED.
Also like others took a long time to see SOLASTYEAR, partly because I had the arbor ending as -ist.
I'm not sure if I want to raise or lower my voice here. I tend to be like @Joaquin 8:34 but then....I just have to say something.
AY DIOS MIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did @Nancy get her wall repaired? Can I make an adjustment and rip out the unwanted wall paper? I promise to fling my puzzle gently.
I'm not even sure where to begin. I guess I'll just say I'm not smart. I didn't understand any of this. I actually got BJECTIONS and thought that TINKS.
I think I mentioned yesterday that if you give me a smiley for my 1A and 1D, then I'm pretty sure I will enjoy. I didn't mind EBBS ECRU but that was sorta Monday easy. The rest of the puzzle saw the onset of a headache.
I seriously have nothing more to say. Other than Arbor EAL...Egads!. I want to frame an Annus Horribilis Thursday little certificate next to a picture of me sticking a piece of gum in my ear.
@Nancy from last night. I was awfully young when I saw Roy prancing away in his stetson. My dad even gave me a Roy Rogers cowboy outfit that he managed to sneak into Havana. I was the Reina in my barrio.
But I grew up... and drooled at Omar Sharif...Those eyes!....The gap in his teeth! ....He got my annus mirabilis award for the handsomest man on earth.....
For those DEES folks: "Defend borders." What are the "borders" of the word "defend"? DEES (as in the letter). It's one of those literal clues.
I love tricky Thursdays--it's the puzzle I look forward to most during the week. This puzzle was perhaps my least favorite Thursday ever. The gimmick didn't work for me and the fill was tedious. At least I knew ATTA from cooking Indian food.
Agree completely
I wish 3D had been clued as plural, or that 2D was less ambiguous. Not only did I try BJECTIONO, I thought it was borrowing the O from the BUENO and that all theme answers would somehow borrow a letter from a neighbor. But, I’m willing to call it “good misdirection” instead of “bad clueing” if it’s just me on this one.
I got an idea,NYT. How about a crossword where all the fill is from foreign languages, but don't tell us which ones ? There are apparently people who would enjoy solving that too.
Thanks for the New Yorker tip, whoever that was.
Tough. I took me quite a while to grok what was going on. Not knowing what WELTED upholstery is was a major nanosecond drain. Also kIcK (kerri?) before TINK obscured that whole section. Protest = Kick sorta? More frustrating than fun.
This one needed a reveal or “raise and lower” in the title. Then it would have been better, but maybe too easy (for y’all) for a Thursday, I did figure that a letter was missing, but it still didn’t make sense. Like “volume” has something to do with the clue, but the word “lower” didn’t come to me.
In that state of frustration I gave up when stuck on TERRI, ENOS (knew Cooperstown means baseball…that didn’t help) and INCAN. Wasn’t sure about TINK or RAWER. The only part I was sure about was RCS and that’s only because I am RC cola old.
Terrible. I mean, what's next? An all-black grid? No squares, just a big box to fill with words? I am really growing to despise Thursdays. And as OFL points out, this one just didn't work.
Thx, Ruth; you definitely 'raised' the BAR on this one! :)
Very hard; over 2x my Thurs. avg.
Got the NW quickly and thot the trick might have something to do with missing 'O's, since I wanted BUENo. Couldn't have been farther from the truth. :(
I was way off Ruth's wavelength for the most part.
Finally caught on to the trick way down at TEMPERATUR, but still had a tough time with much of the fill.
Didn't know WELTED or TERRI, so had trouble parsing INIMUM WAGE.
MIMI & MALA were also unknowns, so a good guess on the 'M'.
MVP was tough to see, not being familiar with MAEVE.
But, the GOOD NEWS is: I finished without a dnf.
What a rush! Loved the challenging adventure! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
He would want a French word, presumably. But the word’s the same in French so…
Aw, gee, I kinda liked it. Took a long time to figure out what was going on, but enjoyed the payoff and especially liked the raised MINIMUM WAGE and the lowered TOILET SEAT.
I was hoping that OSMFEEET would mean something and was a little disappointed that it turned out to be just a covfefe moment.
To those who didn’t understand DEES, the word “defend” begins and ends with a “d” (dee).
Didn’t hate it, didn’t love it. Started out thinking rebus with BEA/NO at 2D but no go. Had BONA for MALA(?) so that corner was way off. AVG/GRID for MVP/PLAT. ICE or no ICE is not something that leapt to mind but DEAL or no DEAL did, which probably means I’ve watched too much bad TV in my day. Gagged a little at the dreadful RAWER, right up there with STALED from yesterday.
As often happens, @Nancy described my solving experience quite nicely. I tackled it, I finished it, and now I can cross it off my Thursday list of things to do. Kinda like cleaning the TOILET SEAT - not much fun but still a SMUG feeling to know I managed to get it done as efficiently as I did.
Defend borders? Defend begins and ends with the same letter.
I had a hard time catching on too, but even after I did it was a struggle. 16A IMIN was IMoN as in “Let's give a hand to our next guest.” And I didn't know MA?A . For 12D was the name of the form what was wanted? ?oNEA. But I ran the alphabet and got nothing. If I had seen the LINEA I might have been happier about it, but it's not the kind of clever or amusing answer that tickles me to figure out. Unfortunately for me this puzzle fizzled out at the end.
I knew MAEVE but not MOIRA, MISSY, or TERRI crossing ENOS.
ICE or no ICE? thats not really a thing. It could be anything. CHEESE or no CHEESE? Hated this puzzle. Look up the meaning of “literally”. And TRE is not fair. Were we to assume an Italian word based on Topo Gigio? ugh. DNF DNC (did not finish, did not care). I look forward to Thursdays - this was a dud.
If I had come up with this idea, I would have used exactly the opposite gimmick.
You would have to lower "bjections" for the missing "o" to fit, lower "tink" for the "s" etc.
And you would have to raise "volum" for the "e" to fit, raise "temperatur" , etc.
But then again, I only raise the toilet seat.
Also, is it my imagination or is ARIA not an answer at all today? The La Boheme clue is MIMI surely?
Hated it. I agree with everything Rex said.
The borders of the word DEFEND are the letters D--thus DEES. Though I'm hoping someday to see DEEZ as an answer in this crossword.
That’s 30 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
Just realized my F count should've been -1, as the F in AMILY got "raised" out of the grid.
Dang, now we're getting less F's than zero.
RooMonster Give The F's A Chance Guy
😁
🦖, Acute, thoughtful 🧩 critique 👍🏽.
I felt the inconsistencies but couldn’t put my finger on them 🫡.
(Probably bc I was trying to force 🆙 and down ⬇️ on the theme… )
Nevertheless, I do enjoy tricks in a puzz so this one was fun.
😏🦖🦖🦖🦖😏
Surprised by all the hate from early commenters. I was getting disgruntled in the top half od the puzzle cause I couldn't make sense of the theme answers. Then I think it was 29 when I caught on. After that it ws fun. Agree it wold have been better without the nee to fill indifferent articles, but still.
Never heard of MALA-FIDE so that caused me extra woe with some downs but, hey, I've learned a new word.
ARIA may well be a French word as well as an Italian word but the libretto for La bohème was written in Italian.
It is not unusual to have to add letters to the top or bottom of a grid, especially on a Thursday. Took a while to figure out, but not that hard. I agree with OFL, those extra letters really should have provided a relevant word or phrase, and the puzzle would have been far better if they had done so.
"literally" in this case literally means "relating to letters", i.e., letters of the alphabet. When you add a letter, you are making a literal addition to the word. That's how you change word to sword, or hard to shard, or ward to award. I looked it up and it is a real, though seldom used, meaning. No doubt the OED would explain that further.
I did get EAL, and thought the clue was perfect.
Well. Between the choices of “this puzzle is stupid” and I’m too stupid for this puzzle” I have chosen the latter. For one thing, I never really got the theme until I read Rex. On the other hand, I SHOULD have gotten the point if I’d bothered to look back at clues. Also, may I point out (unless I missed a comment) that it is bathroom etiquette to RAISE and LOWER the toilet seat?
Random nit. The process of smelting extracts metal from the ore it is in and is done for other metals like copper, silver, and zinc. Anyway, I think of a metal as being a product of smelting. For iron, I think of an iron bar as a product of either casting or rolling the molten iron. Okay. This is all to explain that PIGIRON is a better answer than IRONBAR and they have the same number of letters. Yeah. I had some real problems in that area of the puzzle.
@Roo, I just love it when you say “what in the tarhooties”!
Puzzle would benefit with a revealer. Thanx Rex for the revelation.
If I had to rely on here to figure out the conceit I would’ve felt stupid. But I figured it out so I don’t feel stupid and that’s a good thing.
Well, I did like the theme, though I had all Rex's objections. As for "literally" -- well, OBJECTIONS, STINK, MINIMUM WAGE, & FAMILY are all raised, in the sense that every letter is one square higher than it should be. But this doesn't work on the bottom -- VOLUME, TEMPERATURE, PRICE, & TOILET SEAT are not lowered, they just stick out the bottom. That seemed inconsistent to me.
I guess I'm the only one who looked at the clue for ATTA and read 'Italian cuisine.' And while upholstery can certainly be WELTED, it can be tufTED as well. You can guess which way I went.
I never noticed LYS in solving. That would have made me like the puzzle less.
ARIA is an Italian word that has been borrowed by English. In other words, the Italian word for ARIA is ARIA. It literally means air. Rex was reaching when he picked that nit.
Found the theme with a little struggle but not too bad, but very much did not enjoy the fill. A really odd mix of crosswordese (AONE, EMAILER, TSO, etc) with weird obscure trivia and words.
I like weird and obscure words! But WELTED crossing two themers, another even more obscure word in PLAT, some author, and a fairly meh question mark clue was enough to really put me off.
46 Down.
Rex, the Italian word for "aria" is.. wait for it.. also "aria" (although I suppose it would be more accurate to say that the English word for "aria" is also "aria")
Yeah (YAY?), not easy for me. I spent so much time thinking there was a BUE[No} rebus that I got a slow start on this one. I figured out half the trick at VOLUM in the SW but never consistently came up with the word "lower". Turn down the VOLUME, bring down the TEMPERATURE, put down the TOILET SEAT, lower the PRICE all kind of worked with the theme. But when I got back to the top and "raise" was the only good word that consistently worked, I had to rethink that variance in the "lower" half.
I've never seen MALA fide but I suppose it's the opposite of bona fide. Meanwhile, thinking 12d had a really weak clue for "names" (off the bona) was another time-suck.
47A got me with Two, then, could it be Ten? Italian numbers, gah.
So, Ruth Margonlin, I found your puzzle clever, but not easy. Thanks!
Ouch, a bunch of grumpy haters today! I thought it was fine; I got the gimmick pretty quick at (O)BJECTIONS, although it was tricky tracking down all the themers. VOLUM(E) was the last to go, cuz SO LAST YEAR was not obvious to me. Still only 14 minutes; not terrible for Thursday. And some nice longs at NO SWIMMING, GOOD NEWS, TOILET SEA(T), and of course SO LAST YEAR.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0, pretty straightforward except for these obscure 5ers which took a while.]
Yes
Not fun.
Hated it and my twin sister is going to hate it.
Agree
I’m usually better with these types of clues, but I just could not thread the needle here until the very end. Didn’t help that there was something actually happening with the border of the puzzle, as I thought this might be related to the trick.
I third this
Can someone explain this. I had BONA which held up that corner, but how did you get to MALA?
No I completely agree. Worst puzzle experience in a while.
Honestly!
Lmao!
This is Rex’s house! It’s what we’re here for!
Agreed! Had NEWER for the longest time. Ew.
Dang!
Oh dear, I'm almost embarrassed to say that I loved it...lotsa fun, great concept
This question will likely get buried and go unanswered but if anyone sees this and can help me understand MAV? And PLAT??
Ahar! The mcguffin couldn't have been clearer: OSMFEEET!
M&A wants to lower the TOILET SEA. Will set up a go-fund-m&e, soon …
staff weeject pick: EAL. Good for them. M&A was gettin plumb sick and tired of that there EEL spellin.
Much better, with regard to the Ow de Speration aspect.
some faves: WELTED upholstery [Beat it until the sofa begs for mercy]. GOODNEWS & NEGATIVE [sorta an ups and downs extra-theme-a-dingy]. SOLASTYEAR.
@Nancy: yep. Good for us to suffer, especially on a ThursPuz.
Thanx for the killer theme of near-mystery, Ms. Margolin darlin. A most cleaver theme idea. The carnage of nanoseconds was impressive, at our house.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
**gruntz**
If you didn't get CUJO you didn't get BJECTION so you didn't get oBJECTION so you didn't get the theme.
I didn't get CUJO.
But I never feel the time's been wasted; there's always something to learn, and (hopefully) remember.
How does one know what the theme of the puzzle is if one is doing it online? I can't get the daily paper delivered where I live, so I do these puzzles online and I do not see any theme mentioned. Is there some place I should be looking for it? I was completely lost doing this puzzle because I could see letters were dropped off but I didn't get the upper/lower half thing.
p.s.
Just heard on the news that Queen Elizabeth is passin on a 21-28 billion dollar estate, down to King Charles. Day-um -- now that's what M&A calls payin out some primo royalties.
btw -- Couldn't print off the PDF of the ThursPuz, usin the xwordinfo.chen site, which I usually use. Had to figure out my NYTPuz site password [was able to do it, after several valiant guesses], and go get it there. This added significant nanoseconds to M&A's overall solvequest time. [Workin now, tho.]
I didn't mind a tough-to-figure puztheme like today's, at all. It's good for us to get WELTED by the puz, occasionally. And this puppy lowered everything but the BOOM. Bring it, Shortzmeister. snort
M&Also
My sediments exactly! Doc Google’s first entry was the flour, the second was my first thought upon seeing ATTA (Muhamed, the monster who flew a jetliner into a tower on 9/11). Never heard of the flour.
Just glad she didn't use "Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters." Having read pretty much all of J. D. Salinger's oeuvre in my teens, including his self-dramatizing rendering of adolescence in "The Catcher in the Rye" and all of the misadventures of the Glass family, I have since come to loathe his work deeply, and especially his depiction of the oh-so-sensitive, oh-so-talented, oh-so-ingenious, oh-so-put-upon-by-the-philistine-cruel-world Glass family and all their execrable doings and sufferings. This may sound cruel, but to paraphrase Edmund Wilson's attack on another fiction genre, who cares why Seymour Glass committed suicide, or any of the other doings or events in Salinger's insufferable stories? BTW, I also hate Don McLean's equally obnoxious song "Vincent" for the same damn reason.
Is there a name for the gimmick of adding letters outside the puzzle boundaries? If not, I suggest that when you add tentacles to a puzzle, you “Squid the Grid.”
@GILL -- It's because of your oft-mentioned passion for Omar that I had so much trouble envisioning your (admittedly very youthful, so you're forgiven) passion for Roy.
I'm sure you must have heard this by now, @GILL, but if you haven't, here's a little musical gift for you. It's from "The Band's Visit" -- about a Jewish woman who's always had a crush on one particular Arab.
Knowing European rivers was a must for solving xwords in the bad old days. My go to river that runs through France and Belgium would be the Yser. I only know 49A LYS as French for "lily" as seen in "Fleur de LYS". It's also a river? Okay, duly noted.
When there was only one square remaining for some of the Down entries such as 3D _JECTIONS, I thought we were getting another litteris puzzle, you know, one with multiple letters in one square. The "literally" part of the clues further reinforced that idea since, as @old timer points out, one definition of "literal" is "of, pertaining to, or expressed by the letters of the alphabet" (definition 6 in my hardcopy Random House Webster's College Dictionary, from Latin littera for "letter").
Wrong buffalo breath. Those missing extra letters are just placed outside the box. Okay, duly noted.
If 3D had been the singular _BJECTION, that would have avoided the "all but one themer needed some article (the or a)" inconsistency. There the plural of convenience (POC) had mixed results; it was helpful in filling the grid but muddied the thematic waters, so to speak.
I agree that some connection between the missing letter words or in the outside the box letters would have been a nice touch. I see that "raise" or "lower" needs to precede each themer but that doesn't account for why the letters are outside the box, if you ask me.
@Therese Mageau - there are no official themes for puzzles on Monday-Saturday. Sometimes there will be an answer in the grid that reveals the theme. Other days, like today, you have to use your imagination. What Rex shows as the theme is what he comes up with.
@Teedmn -- Was it two years ago...four years ago...or even longer ago than that when you sent me, via snail mail, your lovingly handwritten instructions for embedding -- in blue -- a link on the Rexblog (where, btw, the process is completely different and much more complicated than on most other sites.)?
For years and years, I have never tried to embed anything without consulting that most analog piece of paper. It sits in what I like to call my "Luddite drawer" (under my now-but-not-until-quite recently smart TV)-- along with separate pages of other handwritten instructions: Instructions for "rebooting" my computer and why I might need to do so from time to time; for answering, returning calls, deleting messages or doing anything else on my (almost never used) flip phone; for accessing Netflix. (And, no, I'm not close to having any of these down pat.)
But something wonderful has happened to me, @Teedmn. I now seem to have your embedding instructions down pat. I always kept your handwritten instructions from my "Luddite drawer" right next to me on the desk when I went to embed something. For a long time, I would look at it before. Beginning maybe this year, I would check it after embedding it from memory but before sending. And now, for the last 3-4 times I've embedded something on Rex, I haven't looked at it at all!
But, miraculously, it's always gone through. I think I've finally got it! Thank you, @Teedmn!
ATTA is in puzzles all the time, usually as a word of encouragement, as in “atta boy/girl”. Can’t ever remember seeing it clued for the terrorist. It’s also Kofi Annan’s middle name -you used to see that from time to time but only once in the Times since his death in 2018. The flour in Indian cuisine has been the clue last two times and never before. Might want to commit that one to memory.
Love this!!!
To get MAV, one has to know both that Dallas is Big D and that cager is a basketball player, both new to me. Either bit of trivia would make sense as a clue, but needing to know both was a bit much.
I was thinking of volume down and toilet seat down, price down almost works. Also, bring up objections and bring up a family, (stink up?). It was a mess.
If the theme was consistent, it would be "raise an objection" instead of "raise objections"!!!
@Anonymous 2:09PM
Someone else may have answered before this appears, but I believe MAV is short for "Maverick", as in the Dallas (Big D) Mavericks. "Cager" is an old-timey expression for a basketball player.
PLAT is just one of those words that either you know or you don't. A plan or map, as per this definition. I expect many solvers will have gotten this from the crosses; I'm sure it's not that well-known.
It's very hard for me to see BJECTION and not think "bijection", which is a mathematical term for a one-to-one correspondence.
What do you call the daily siesta taken by actress Sandra of Grey’s Anatomy? OHSNAP
Yeah? We’ll UMAMI wears army boots!
I never saw a RAWER EMAILER than AMILY. We nicknamed her All in the F.
Nice mini theme with TOILETSEA(T) and INCAN.
I had a wonderful time with this puzzle. I’ll raise a lass to Ruth Bloomfield Margolin.
@Nancy (and by reference @Teedmn) or anyone else. I freely admit that I also have a Ludite collection, but something I have been unable to master for this site is embedding within this site. I would deeply appreciate clear instructions. And deserve any and all laughter, mockery and derision at my expense.
Not sure the constructor understands the meaning of the words , raise, lower or literally.
Literally WTF for most of today’s solve. I’ve only read through @Nancy today since her reaction nailed my experience perfectly. I’m sure others among the commentariat are going to add a chuckle or three as well as fresh reasons to whine, but I think solving on the iPad robbed so much joy from my day (coupled with a three hour drive/hair style/ lunch/drive intermission ) that a nap is needed to appreciate further wit & wisdom.
Throwing up at the clueing, literally
I have been finished for hours, but deliberately left one square blank for the express purpose of allowing me to crack the code of Thursday skullduggery. Alas, there was none beyond the missing letter. All day, after trying every idea referenced by @LMS with her first crack out of the box along with all others mentioned throughout the day, I tried and tried to “Make it work,” (homage to Tim Gunn) with no success.
I began easily and with fairly little effort at “raised” (O)BJECTIONS further supported up in the north by (F)AMILY and I proceeded quickly through the remainder of the puzzle expecting that we would lower something and indeed the ubiquitous and hopefully lowered TOILET SEA(T) was there. And yet there was nothing that worked in terms of rebus, adding squares or anything else to cause the missing letters to be “raised” or “lowered” while remaining inside the grid. And thus, the day wanes and I, with my one blank square as a place holder sit here bereft of ideas, and so I add the final letter feeling nothing but “Is that all there is?” (homage to Peggy Lee). Lo and behold, the happy music! Well then as Peggy would say, “Let’s keep dancing!” See y’all tomorrow.
@ Anonymous 2:09
MAV is short for Maverick, the basketball team in Dallas aka "Big D", as referenced in the country song lyric "I'm going through the Big D and don't mean Dallas" ("divorce" in this case). TIL that basketball was originally played in a cage https://dunkorthree.com/why-basketball-players-called-cagers/
PLAT meaning #2 from Merriam Webster: a plan, map, or chart of a piece of land with actual or proposed features (such as lots)
I misspelled (mis-homonymed?) 17A as REaL, which had me looking at 3D as BJ aCT--- at which point I started snickering like Wayne and Garth and nearly couldn't finish the puzzle.
The big question is why Enos Slaughter is in the hall of fame. If one has to ask that question, the player should not be there.
I know who he is/was and he should not be in Cooperstown (a lovely town which I have been to twice, the second time with the then reigning minor league player of the year). But, I digress. The clue made me think, "is Enos Slaughter really in the HOF?" Is his plaque made of tin? Would he remain if the electors had a re-vote? Am I too obsessed about this? Yes, I am.
By the way, got the trick almost from the get go, but thought that the puzzle was a meh.
Nit... further from the truth. Farther refers to a measurable actual distance
@CDilly
I emailed you my Embedding Cheat Sheet.
I hope it helps.
I liked this puzzle. I thought the theme was clever and well-executed. I caught onto the trickery early, which helped with the other themed clues.
Loved it! Everything a proper Thursday should be. Anticipation, good start, scary moment of not getting any more traction, heart-break at not figuring out what was going on at BJECTION no matter how long I looked at it. Some vexing clues, as pointed out. Some delightful clues, as pointed out. Even a Natick or two that made me downright cross. Fell for a misdirect or two. And then, the AHA moment! Which came for me way late at PRICE. The answer is lowered off or raised up out of the grid!!!!! Then went back through the grid and finally got it all sorted out. Absolutely delightful to conquer this one! I am a total fan of this type of theme and will forgive just about anything for it. There was a similar puzzle with a Doctors Without Borders theme some years back where famous doctors’ names went off the gird. Loved that one too! Much more refreshing than another rebus puzzle!! Will admit that there were inconsistencies here as OFL pointed out, but that just didn’t bother me. Was more bothered by the use of ‘literally’. Tried to figure out how that was going to work until I realized that it was not meant as literal in that annoying way I have of thinking of the word (see How I Met Your Mother episode about it). But, I do see that the ‘informal’ definition (as most people seem to use it) is more like for emphasis. So, moving on. Still smiling about this puzzle even hours after doing it.
This is a hi$$ys puzzle.
@CDilly -- The reason @Teedmn sent me a handwritten analog version was to avoid having the instructions themselves simply turn into a blue link instead of remaining as instructions. Let's see if I can find a way to get around the problem.
1) First go to the link you want to embed and highlight its url which appears in the top right corner of your screen. You highlight it by placing youur arrow there, then pressing the "Ctrl" key (bottom left of keyboard) and "A" at the same time. And then you press "Ctrl" and "C" at the same time. You have now copied the website on your computer and it awaits being pasted onto the Rexblog (or anywhere else).
Now go to the Comment Section and type:
xxxx
The xxxx is what you compose. It will appear on the screen in blue instead of the url. It might say: DON'T MISS THIS!!!! Or: The best movie scene ever! Whatever you want to appear in blue.
Notice that there's an = sign and then a quotation mark before the url and another quotation mark after the url. No spaces between. Without the = sign and the two quotation marks, the process won't work.
Everything I've put in the brackets is NOT included in the process.
Why not try it now, @CDilly? Hope it works for you.
I cannot tell you how much I hated this puzzle. And you thought it was easy, Rex? Even though many of my answers were right, i kept second guessing taking them out and getting stuck. I just did not enjoy this solve at all. I kept waiting for a clue to help me figure out what was going on. I should have known better.
Love the Heinlein reference!
Rarely comment, but this one was just awful. I'm a 54 year-old TV comedy writer and I barely remember Topo Gigio. I mean, who's that for, the over 65 crowd? Hated the theme (which I got, but didn't understand, a la Rex). Mala fide (you're welcome, lawyers!)? Welted? "Tre" for a clue in English? As I was solving, I kept saying to myself, "I'm missing something." Nope. NYT is missing something -- an editor.
Anon 5:55,
Why so coy? What not name the minor league player of the year? Far from being a digression, I posit that you love trotting out the fact that you were at Cooperstown with a legit ball player.
For everyone else, understand that there are scores of minor leagues. I’ve been in sports for more than three decades. I’ve never heard of a minor league player of the year except as it pertains to a particular franchise. But to my knowledge, no league bestows such an honor.
Maybe it’s at night. Or early morning. Like 3:00 in Tuckerton, Nj.
I agree. I had nearly every letter in and still couldn’t figure it out. Plus I try not to use the dictionary and I had to hit it early. I finally gave up.
I think people should really read The Three Musketeers, not just watch one of the endless number of its film adaptations. Lys is the river through Armentiers where Milady Winter dies.
@CDilly --Damn! Double damn!!!! I spent 10 minutes typing the (extremely complicated) instructions and they all disappeared into a blue xxxx. This is why @Teedmn sent me a handwritten version and didn't try to send it online. I give up. I hope whatever JC66 sent you works. He's a lot more computer savvy than I am -- a very low bar, btw.
(I sent you an email asking for your street address in case it doesn't work and you need an analog copy.)
Anon850pm
Baseball America minor league player of the year. Sports writers award first given in 1981. Sandy Alomar won one year. Probably where I heard about it. I had to google to find out who gives it out. Wiki to the rescue.
Who is Anonymous, and why is he/she compelled to post so frequently?
I'm so happy to read this. I worked on the puzzle and felt stupid and grouchy. Glad to know it's not just me.
That literally was one of the worst NYT puzzles I have ever done.
Hearts of stone with a long list of no's. That and O Du Schoene Schnitzel Bunk were my favorite piano rolls as a kid. Dylan probably liked one of them too.
Hearts of Stone Lyrics
Hearts made of stone
Will never break
For the love you have for them
They just won't take
You can ask them please
Please please please break
And all of your love
Is there to take
Yes, hearts of stone
Will cause you pain
Although you love them
They'll stop you just the same
You can ask them please
Please please please break
And all of your love
Is there to take
But they'll say no no no no no no no no no no no no no
Everybody knows
I thought you knew
Hearts made of stone
Yes, hearts of stone
Will cause you pain
Although you love them
They'll stop you just the same
You can ask them please
Please please please break
And all of your love
Is there to take
But they'll say no no no no no no no no no no no no no
Everybody knows
I thought you knew
Hearts made of stone
This was a toughie. I kept returning and finally broke through. Obscure clues. Obscure names. Tricky as hell. RAWER. Meat and experience. So much fun. WELT-PLAT nightmare of the year 4X4. Clues and theme go toe to toe for the trickiest award.
My message machine on the telly was:
Well I say no no no
no no no no no no no no no no
Everybody knows
I thought you knew
I'm not home.
Leave a message.
@Nancy951pm
See @ Nancy758pm.
Egads. Last time we talked computereese you couldn't copy anything. You taking night school?
this was so bad i just had to come here late at night to yell into the abyss. i've been getting good at thursdays and it's usually so satisfying to figure out The Weirdness because i'm very bad at rebus stuff but it gives my brain a workout and i get a little proud "aha" moment at the end. i didn't like the gimmick today (agree with others it was a letdown), but i did figure it out eventually. but the worst part for me was actually the rest of the puzzle. never heard of ENOS, TERRI, MIMI, MAEVE, LYS, or topo gigio. (went back and forth between TWO and TEN for way too long before it hit me, even after googling him.) no clue what a "big d cager" could be at all (thought maybe something about baseball?), or a finno-ugric language?? never heard of PLAT. beaux-ARTS? if you say so. at least that one was guessable. never heard of MALA-fide, or WELTED furniture either. (i had BONA and TUFTED, respectively.) i agree with others that ICE or no ICE is bad, as it could be anything and isn't a phrase like "deal or no deal." RAWER wasn't much better. i usually don't google (except on occasion if i need a spellcheck) until saturday but i googled a few and even then that didn't help, which is highly unusual and confirmed this was a total slog, and not a rewarding one at all. i said "i hate this puzzle so much" out loud to no one more than once while trying to finish it. i have never felt this way about a puzzle before and i hope i never do again. yikes.
I am gratified to hear that others hated this garbage as much as I did.
I liked the concept but the cluing was too obtuse at times and the NE corner was a brute. LINEA and MALA was just unfair. MVP, LYS and WELTED were huge roadblocks that weren’t much fun. SOLASTYEAR was hard to parse and jammed things up for far too long. Fragments like EAL, YAY EPI, MAV and RCS were NEGATIVES as well. Definitely not AONE.Glad it’s OVER.
Q - Name of a bland cover band?
A - Motley ECRU
OFF lists all the problems he had solving this, yet still comes up with "easy to easy-medium." Sorry, bub, there was nothing easy about it. It was a struggle from the start, and when I had the NE left, it became very nearly hopeless. It was very hard to parse {M}INIMUMWAGE, even with all but four letters in place! It didn't help that I never heard of WELTED upholstery, or Ms. Clark's name (Clark + country = ROY, for me). But what did the most damage was the "gimme" BONA (____ fide). Man, that was my first word in, and it was wrong! Further, it gave "rise" to NAMES (top of an IRS form). Well, wouldn't it?
Getting all that corrected on my own generated tons of triumph points, easy or no easy. Overcoming the CHALLENGE was enough for a birdie...like this:
BBBYY
BBYYY
GGGGG
A-ONE RELIC
The GOODNEWS has GONE to the PAST,
the NEGATIVE NEWS you hear:
OBJECTIONS OVER ballaots cast
is SMUG and SOLASTYEAR.
--- ENOS CASINOS
A __ fide without a BONA? Inkfest inducing. You could get SOME FEET out of those displaced letters with a bit of rearranging. A day for M women - MOIRA, MIMI, MAEVE, MISSY. Good riddle @foggy! Motley ECRU indeed.
Wordle birdie.
This pisser-fest was anything but easy. Another nudge to simply avoid Thursday puzzles.
meh
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Just did this on October 22. Published in the local paper 2 days ago. It was impossible as the Raise and Lower heading was not published here. I presume it was in the NYT, or was it inferred?
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