THEME: IT'S A LOT TO UNPACK (62A: "So many layers here" ... or a hint to the circled squares) — the letters "ALOT" start out inside one square, and then with each successive themer, those letters get "unpacked." That is, one letter at a time is moved to its own square as you descend the grid, until all the letters are "unpacked" (into their own squares) in the final themer / revealer:
Theme answers:
"AND THAT'S SAYING [ALOT]" (16A: "Which is a big deal, considering!")
CALIFORNI[A LO][T]TO (26A: Contest for millions on the West Coast)
ALOE VER[A L][O][T]ION (47A: Popular skin moisturizer)
"IT'S [A] [L][O][T] TO UNPACK" (62A)
Word of the Day: King Harald (44A: Father of Norway's King Harald = OLAV) —
Following the death of his grandfather Haakon VII in 1957, Harald became crown prince as his father became king. A keen sportsman, he represented Norway in sailing at the 1964, 1968, and 1972 Olympic Games, and later became patron of World Sailing. Harald married Sonja Haraldsen in 1968, their relationship having initially been controversial due to her status as a commoner. They have two children, Märtha Louise and Haakon. Harald became king following his father's death in 1991, with Haakon becoming his heir apparent. (wikipedia)
• • •
I will confess that I did not know Norway still had a king. Not sure why reasonably functional western democracies still keep these monarchical relics around, but my country's got its own problems, so ... I'll move on. This is a very clever theme. Take a common (if unappealing) buzzphrase and reimagine it in grid form! The main challenge for me, beyond figuring out the gimmick in the first place, was figuring out how the "unpacking" was going to play itself out, exactly. I wanted [ALOT] (one square) to go to [AL] and [OT] (two squares) in that second themer, but then I was looking at that third themer and thinking "well they can't divide the letters evenly there, so ..." Anyway, this one-at-a-time unpacking makes the most sense. The execution of the theme here is very neat. The unpacking goes 1-2-3-4, all on a straight line (seriously, you can run a straight edge through the "ALOT" parts, no problem), and then ends with the revealer doubling as the final theme answer (themers typically stand outside the theme and point at the theme). All the themers are solid, unforced phrases ... there's not much to fault here, thematically. This one gives you ALOT without being "ALOT" (i.e. overwhelming, hard to take, difficult).
Trouble getting started consisted mainly in having the front ends of things and not seeing how to get to the back ends of things. Had MADEA- at 3D: Appeared briefly and wanted only MADEANAPPEARANCE (impossible for many reasons) (MADE A CAMEO). With the first themer, I wanted the answer to be "AND THAT'S SAYING [SOMETHING]!" At first I didn't know where CALIFORNIA was leading either, but that ended up providing my initial insight into the theme. I must have gone around and gotten ORBS and TEAM and seen that the answer had to be LOTTO. But I wasn't quite sure what to do with the letters in LOTTO vis-a-vis the circles so I just "cheated" and went down to look at what I assumed (correctly) would be the revealer clue. And that, I got instantly.
As you can see, I got it, confirmed it with TECHNO BAND (nice answer), and then sorted out the circles up top. After this, the puzzle got much, much easier. As for the fill, it holds up fine. Lots and lots of short fill, but it all runs very clean. Even though SNAZZ looks kinda weird on its own, it might be my favorite thing in the grid—and it was also super-helpful, as "Z"s often are. Helped me sort out the answers in that NE corner, particularly ZEALOTS (12D: Extremist group), which I wanted to be something benign like SECT before I'd gotten the theme sorted. The only things I truly didn't like were the clues on SCAN (34A: It's a good look) and WOKE (59D: Socially "with it"). It's such an O(W)N GOAL when you give your answer a terrible clue just to make a successive-clue trick happen, as is the case today with the clue on SCAN. The puzzle wants to do its little [It's a good look] [It's a bad look] thing with SCAN and SNEER, but ugh the clue only works for one of those (SNEER). A SCAN is neutral. All SCANs are neutral. What's this "good look" nonsense? Is the idea that if you give something a good (as in "lengthy") look, you've "SCANned" it. If anything, SCAN suggests a *less* than good look. So many times, when a clue just clunks, it's because the puzzlemakers tried to make some kind of clue pairing happen. Such a bad idea, since even good clue pairings rarely pay off the way you want them too (solvers mostly don't solve Across clues successively, so what is the point!?). As for the WOKE clue, yeesh, don't do this. It's horrible and dismissive and plays right into the furiously racist and diseased right-wing use of "WOKE" that dominates the discourse these days. Not wanting women to go to jail for getting an abortion? WOKE. Thinking migrants should be treated humanely and not physically and psychologically tortured? WOKE. Hiring a Black person for literally anything? WOKE. The cutesy quotation marks, the quaint "with it" ... nah. Either clue it as part of the Black political discourse it came out of, or just clue it as a straight verb, no politics. Today's clue is, at best, condescending—the one big miss in a puzzle that's otherwise full of hits.
It took me a while to get the theme. Often, especially on Thursdays, the clues for the long acrosses are misleading, so I avoided reading them as long as I could. Today that strategy hurt more than it helped. I had the grid about half filled before I realized that @Rex sEct wasn't going to work at 12D. ZIGS at 11D gave me SNAZZ, which gave me ZE[ALOT]S, which quickly led to the theme, and the solve.
Lots of overwrites, among them MEld before MESH at 7D, EeEny before EIEIO at 42A and OLAf before OLAV at 44A ("Does FInland really produce a lot of black pepper?").
@Rex. You missed the point of "It's a good look". A SCAN, medically, is a good look at the brain, shoulder or whatever. It's not good vs bad. There was lots of clever cluing today. Good fun!
This took far longer than usual for a Thursday solve! Agreed with Rex’s criticism of the use of the clue for WOKE here. But in defense of the clue for SCAN, a “good look” can often mean a close look as opposed to a valuable or appreciated look. Maybe it’s usually paired with “long,” as in a good, long look.
My kinda Thursday, and I loved every minute of the solve, even when I was flailing, as in trying to fit CALIFORNIA LOTTERY into 26A before I'd gotten the theme.
I had a few overwrites, the worst being "pie crust" instead of PIE PLATE. And I have to say, I don't think an inedible object is a "base" for a food. Other than that, I was very happy working this one out. Like Rex, I could do without any use ever of the co-opted WOKE, but overall, and considering how many disappointing Thursdays there have been lately, it was nice to see the NYT SNAZZ it up.
Grid is filled nicely, and there was some good indirect cluing that I really appreciated. Only downside was the theme – revealer felt forced and the circles were completely unnecessary.
Hoping for a TOPTEN OKRA NUN uniclue today. Don't let me down, GJ.
I am in the medical field so SCAN to me conjured up CAT Scans and MRI Scans etc. I thought immediately of the medical meaning so it worked for me. Just saying. I didn’t love WOKE either. Seems minimizing to an important concept.
Why is "looking at the revealer clue" cheating? Or starting somewhere other than NW for that matter? I never saw a rule that says you HAVE to start in a particular spot. I mean, top left is kind of habitual, but the more difficult puzzles often stymie you in that corner to start with and if I find myself coming up empty I'll often head to the SE to see if I can get a foothold down there. Or if there's what looks like a revealer clue down there I'll start working the crosses to see if I can tease it out. They're both perfectly fair tactics AFAIK.
I found this really really hard but it got easier as it went along. I found myself in a near-constant state of misdirection. I stopped myself from getting upset at the way WOKE was clued because I knew Rex would do it for me.
Fun puzzle - the theme layout is graphically elegant as Rex mentions. I liked working the trick here. CALIFORNIA LOTTO and ALOE VERA LOTION were flat. Love the bidirectional rebus and the scrabbly fill.
I read it as a medical SCAN - I think the big guy was off with that nit. MESH - some would argue New Order dabbled in TECHNO. I liked SNAZZ and the lack of short glue. Needed JOANIE to get ANNA - the two crossing LASS was cool. I always start with OLAf and revise accordingly.
First let me apologize. I responded to our historic canoeing expert anonymous troll yesterday and some of the conversation went sideways as a result. I am sorry and it won't happen again.
Now as for today's little puzzle, it was ALOT, ALOT, ALOT, ALOT of fun. (I just recounted to make sure I had four ALOTs ... which oddly doesn't seem like a lot of ALOTs today). All four theme elements played tough but fair and were a joy to grok.
Watched Happy Days a lot, but never JOANIE Loves Chachi. Did I miss anything?
Love "Big wheel's place" so much. I went from the plastic Big Wheel I rode until the tires literally wore through, to a big wheel executive, and finally to the steering wheel on a boat. I am afraid of boats, but I like the idea you need a giant steering wheel for some unknown reason.
Yea:
SNAZZ MADE A CAMEO IN HEELS... as "they" always do.
Boo:
Nuns are IN the habit, right? Just trying to get my "theology" in line with the geniuses among us.
Red-eyed Vireos were inadvertently left out of today's puzzle, but not in my heart.
Uniclues:
1 Greatest gift a uniclue writer could receive, or a religious leader with a spiffy name makes introductions. 2 "Would you like unicorn pancakes miss?" 3 "These, unfortunately, are not oohs." 4 Gramps in Uruguay. 5 Nickname for one of the more popular religious figures in Louisiana. 6 "I hate all these rappers in crosswords." 7 AsianStooliesRUs.edu
1 I AM IMAM SNAZZ 2 QUEUE IHOP LASS 3 LABEL AAHS 4 SENOR PAPA (~) 5 TOP TEN OKRA NUN 6 ANTI-FAD RANT 7 JAPAN RATS URL
A bounce-around start and thought I was going nowhere, and then I had the ALOEVERALOTION answer with the AL thing going on, finished up the bottom revealer, and went back and did the rest posthaste, which was ALOT of fun.
Wondering how many folks recognized SENOR as "Lord", which of course is another meaning in Spanish. Very helpful to know what "anillos" are.
Hand up for being very tired of the misappropriation of WOKE to mean "considerate".
Very clever theme, solid executution, some very fun clues and just the right amount of challenge make this one a Thursdazo! Congratulations to JN, who Just Nailed this one. Thanks for all the fun.
Thanks to Rex for that last bit in his commentary. The grotesquely trite and condescending ‘Socially “with it”’ spoiled this otherwise snappy, excellent grid.
A great meld of cleverness and simplicity and difficulty. It was so hard for me to get a start: much grid roaming, picking up random OVA, ORBS, etc., until I finally got traction in the DAMP PIE PLATE area. Some serendipity allowed me to see the unpacking of ALOE VER[AL]OTION and the reveal at the same time; then I was able to unlock the rest. ZE[ALOT]S - terrific!
Do-over: mAid before LASS. Help from previous puzzles: ELO, LEX. No idea: JOANIE.
@pabloinnh 8:53, re: SENOR - It took way too long for me to get this one, considering that in two other languages I know, the same is true: "Herr" in German and "signor" in Italian.
Hey All ! IT Did take ALOT TO UNPACK this theme. Had ALOEVERA____ in, and wrote in plant before figuring out the theme. Then seeing CALIFORNIA____, and wanting LOTTO, put in just LOT, but said to myself, "That can't be right!" Finally grokked what in tarhooties was happening when I figured out the first Themer ALOT Rebus.
Then, like Rex, wanted the second one to be AL and OT. Then befuddled at what the third one might be, as ELO was a solid entry. But the ole brain decided to figure everything out, and I finished with the Happy Music.
Thanks for mentioning the Pangram, as for some reason I didn't notice it. Usually when I see a Q and a Z, I'll look for one. I guess I was overwhelmed by the theme. Har.
Boy, am I slow on the uptake. I'm wondering why the ALOT is first in just one square and then in two and then in...
Aha! It's being unpacked!!!! Now, I see!
Clever. But all the pop culture clues -- your Tolkien and your Def Jam and your monsters and your hit double album and your biopic and your DC Comics -- spoiled this puzzle for me. I don't know how I managed to finish it, and I'm still asking myself why I struggled onward. Can't say I enjoyed it.
One thing you notice about Rex, is that he wants every element of the theme to work perfectly. That characteristic served him in good stead today--his thinking about how you would fit four letters into three squares helped him see that the second ALOT had to be divided 3-1. Would that I had done the same! I had N-A-I-L-S-SL-O-N (wondering why the clue was plural) and some kind of music creator starting with OT. It made it impossible to see SNEER or SCAB. I was getting ready to give up in disgust (preparation for which consists of getting out of my easy chair, picking up my coffee and the paper, and coming upstairs to the computer) when I suddenly did see SCAB, figured out the whole thing, and was done.
The only other real problems were PIE crust and dArn for RATS.
@Gary J., since Vatican II there has been a move to make the life of NUNs more attractive by allowing them to wear more normal clothes -- so as the clue says, a NUN "may be out of the habit."
Am I the only who one who thought, pre-crosswords, that chorus went "ee-yi-ee-yi-oh?" I learned it by rote, like everyone else, and never saw the lyrics written out.
Since the king of Norway is in roughly every 15th puzzle, I guess Rex is just feigning ignorance to get in some anti-monarchical comments. Fair enough.
My only objection to this puzzle is a grammatical one. The first themer crams ALOT into one circle, but ALOT, of course, is not a word (it's always A LOT. Thus it's already "unpacked" to some extent in that themer. The second and third themers have the letters breaking over two words, which works. But you technically end up with a duplicate in the revealer, since we have A LOT there again.
This was A LOT of fun to figure out. Seems to be a really clean, tight construction as well.
Thank you to the commenters who set Rex straight on SCAN. The misdirection was clever. I also liked the slight misdirection for LICE (that might have been my last entry).
Rereading comments from late yesterday, I couldn't figure out what the hubbub over vireos was all about; it was like listening in to one end of a heated telephone conversation. At length I realized there were quite a few post removals on the part of The Anonymous. Should have taken some screen shots (I want to test a certain hypothesis). Ah well, if we don't hear back from him today, we probably will at some point.
@Gary Jugert As far as I'm concerned, no need to apologize. I actually appreciated what you wrote about religion. I didn't grow up in such a family, but I did grow up in an area with many such families, and it haunts me to this day. (By the way, I wondered whether "historic" was a slip for "histrionic".)
The theme is nice, and it took me a while to get it but I got it early enough to help with remaining theme answers.
What bothered me about this puzzle is so much of the cluing is just off. Rex already covered SCAN, whose clue makes zero sense. Other clues I didn't like are:
"One who may be out of the habit." My first thought was NUN, but then I thought no, it can't be nun because if it were nun, the clue would be something like, "One who is in the habit?" It's just weird to say a nun may be out of the habit when nuns and pretty much only nuns are known for being IN habits, and literally everyone else in the world is out of the habit. I get that it's a pun on "habit," that was obvious from first read. I just think the phrasing should make clearer the clue is referring in fact to a nun, and not to a non-nun.
Didn't like the clue "challenging" for ANTI. I don't think the clue and answer match parts of speech or something. I don't know, something's off and it doesn't make sense to me.
Didn't like "extremist group" (singular" for ZEALOTS plural. My first thought was also that this was sect, which I also would have been mad about because a sect isn't necessarily extremist. Sure, you can have a group OF zealots, I guess. You can have a group OF anything. I think the clue should have indicated the answer was plural.
Didn't like "pet peeves?" for LICE. People get lice, pets get fleas and ticks. Those were my first two thoughts, but since the answer had only four squares, I thought of lice, but hoped that wasn't it. I grew up getting lice every once in a while, but our family dogs and cats never got lice, and I never heard of any of my classmates' pets having lice. Our family dogs and cats always had fleas, and our dog would get ticks after our annual trip to Ocala. Yeah, I don't like the clue for LICE because I really associate it with a peeve of people (primarily children) and not pets.
"Introductory remarks" for HIS. What? No.
"Eyes, poetically" for ORBS. I hate that. I get that the NYTXW loves to think of ORB as a poetic alternative to anything spherical generally. But in early- to mid-modern poetry, I really don't think of ORBS being used to refer to eyes all that often. Eyes are suns, if anything! ORBS to refer to eyes doesn't sound poetic or lovely at all, it just sounds gross. So yeah, I figured this was ORBS because of the NYTXW's obsession with ORBS, but I wished it could have been something like suns instead.
"Come back" doesn't really work for RECUR to me. To recur is to repeat. Things that recur don't really "come back," they just repeat. I just don't think the clue and answer here line up very well.
Finally, I really dislike answers that are brand and/or corporation names. Why the free advertising? And why remind me during my morning routine, which I'd like to be pleasant, that we live in a world ruled by capitalism? Do we really need Epson in the crossword? I don't want to be reminded of my home printer and how annoying it is. DKNY isn't as bad to me, because it's a fashion brand so in a sense is more cultural, but still. I'd be happy to see a rule that all brand or corporation names are banned as answers in the NYTXW. Especially car manufacturers, ugh.
Not much wrong with this and it has everything I would expect in a Thursday crossword - nice long crosses, a tricky theme, a rebus, my favorite and with a little twist on it at THAT – plus the bonus of a pangram which I always admire. A LOT of good things going on there but OTOH today they seemed a bit sloggish. Probably just me, but the receding letters in the circles for some reason made me squint like a sudoku puzzle often does - so not a good look. I just couldn’t seem to get them to line up right. But even though it won’t be going on my TOP TEN list, it’s certainly nothing to SNEER at.
PIE SHELL, then CRUST before PLATE which I don’t think constitutes a “base” for a quiche any more than a bowl is the base for soup. REX before LEX, ALOE CREAM before LOTION and what is a TECHNO BAND? Seems to me most groups produce their music electronically these days. My favorite entry was DKNY. I love her perfume.
I wasn’t bothered by the clue for WOKE but I am by the way it is often used to imply a LABEL to those who don’t subscribe to a certain hard-line political stance. I’m so tired of politicians and “journalists“ - on both sides of the fence mind you - continual mocking each other with sarcastic Tweets, eye rolling and name calling. Just talk to me about the issues, stick to the actual facts - NOT your fantasy version of them - and keep your juvenile mudslinging out of it. I don’t want a hear it. End of RANT.
Rex, you're wrong on SCAN -- to scan something means to look at it very closely. Some people may use it to mean "glance," but you shouldn't fault the constructor for using the correct definition.
This puzzle was fun. I liked the UNPACKing. And after three days of meh puzzles, I was rejuvenated enough to look back and read yesterdays blog comments -
@Pete Hilarious! Your letter to the expert to clarify vireo behavior had me in stitches.
@Gary Jugert - What I remember about Big Wheels is how hideously noisy they were. I'm convinced that the noise served to inform the busy adult inside that their charge was not getting into mischief and was within range of retrieval. Could it be the noise was part of the attraction? Did you upgrade to a Harley when you were older?
“Are you aware that being ‘woke’ means being aware?” This is a good way to respond to people who are so socially asleep they could use some friendly rousing. Being “with it” does not mean you have to be demeaning.
Easy-medium. Like @ Rex it took me a couple of tries to figure out how the UNPACKing worked, but there were no real WOEs. Smooth and fun to solve, liked it.
I doubt many of you know or have even interacted with many nuns. I suspect, without proof I'll grant, that the women you're referring to as nuns are actually sisters.
This is not matter of theology. Nor does it take a genius to know it. Only some familiarity with Catholicism.
From a Website I cant recall
The terms "nun" and "sister" are often used interchangeably. However within Roman Catholicism, there is a difference between the two. Here's a simple summary of the differences.
A Catholic nun is a woman who lives as a contemplative life in a monastery which is usually cloistered (or enclosed) or semi-cloistered. Her ministry and prayer life is centered within and around the monastery for the good of the world. She professes the perpetual solemn vows living a life according to the evangelical counsels of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. Check out the Carmelite Nuns of Baltimore for example.
A Catholic sister is a woman who lives, ministers, and prays within the world. A sister's life is often called "active" or "apostolic" because she is engaged in the works of mercy and other ministries that take the Gospel to others where they are. She professes perpetual simple vows living a life according to the evangelical counsels of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. Check out the IHM Sisters of Monroe, Michigan for example.
If you didn’t read @Pete’s late post yesterday at 5:45, it’s a classic and not to be missed.
@Gary J: Agree with TTrimble that no apology is necessary. I actually enjoyed the discussion on religion. But I do have a few relatives who might want to discuss your “barefoot hillbilly” remark. They’ll be waiting for you down by the dock while they sharpen their twigs.
@Rachel (10:47) Good point about LICE not being a pet peeve but a human one. I knew something bothered me about that clue but didn’t really zero in on it at the time.
@Ben - Scan, along with its cousin peruse, are autoantonyms, where they both mean to read carefully and to read quickly and cursorily. The "correct" definition is neither one nor the other, as the have attestations dating back a century or more. And yes, I just made up autoantonyms.
@Rachel -In fact, dogs do get lice. They get dog lice, which is a different species than that which people get, and dogs don't get people lice, and people don't get dog lice.
Also, my recurring heartburn comes back every time I eat Thai red curry.
Really great puzzle - very snazzy indeed! Only one very minor problem for me: never heard anyone say “made a cameo” (except in the context of jewelry making). When used talking about films I’m pretty sure it’s “had a cameo” or “did a cameo” and made is only used in the full phrase “made a cameo appearance.” Any other opinions out there?
This felt hard when I was doing it, but ended in an "easy" completion time. Could get no toe-hold in the North; finally got going down the East, which led to the revealer. (TECHNOBAND was a good guess/big help.) Things picked up from there. I waited quite a while before finishing SCAN, but decided that the medical angle made it legit.
Some Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) fun in this grid:
* 5D, MIA was not "missing in action"--it appears again as a HDW in the West.
* And in the East, there's a HDW CEO sharing her "C" with a HDW INC.
* And the South provides a HDW ROO (Hello, @RooMonster)
I’m all for leaving politics to the oped page & TUBing Crossworld just for fun, AND THATS SAYING A LOT I suppose about how unWOKE I remain. Finding middle ground these days seems to have about the same odds of winning that CALIFORNIA LOTTO. Anyhoo, this was a really great grid for any day, but for Thursday fun, pretty SNAZZy I thought. Even without a rebus it was a long way from DRY & needing ALOE VERA LOTION, so thanks Jeremy for sharing once again the wit we expect when your byline appears.
At our farmers’ market there is always an insane line to buy cucumbers. I call it the cuckoo cuke QUEUE.
For 37D I had _IEPLATE. I had to get the DAM P from 36A.
Rex says that WOKE is “ the one big miss in a puzzle that's otherwise full of hits.” There are plenty of other misses (JOANIE, LASS, NUN). How do we know that none of them are big?
Great puzzle. I’m in awe of the mind that can come up with a theme as cool as this, execute it perfectly, and keep the fill on the up and up. Thanks, Jeremy Newton.
@ Carola: In a similar vein, the French "monsieur" comes from "mon" meaning "my" ,and "sieur" meaning "lord". Also when you hear someone announce "Mesdames et Messieurs", the 2nd word is created by pluralizing "mon" as "mes" and adding an "s" to "sieur".
I not only agree with @Rachel that much of the cluing is off, but I also agree with her on which clues were the off-clues, with the exception of RECUR. Like her, I hated LICE, hated ANTI, and hated NUN. Which is another reason I struggled with this puzzle -- and not in a good way.
This was really hard until it wasn't. At the beginning I thought I should just give up with all sorts of partial answers which I thought might be wrong. Then I figured out the revealer and the rest just filled itself in.
It's nice to see complaints against the same clues I hated. SCAN made little to no sense to me, especially after getting the wonderful SNEER prior. I had initially guessed WOKE but didn't put it in because I gave this puzzle too much credit. When I realized it was, in fact, the answer, I yelled out to my wife about how bad it was. Theme was cute; I liked it when I figured it out. Otherwise a moderate challenge to me.
Totally agree about the duplication/repetition in the theme answers. It's a minor nit but I am surprised it wasn't highlighted. They are awfully similar phrases in which the words "a lot" mean essentially the same thing.
SCAN works perfectly fine with "It's a good look" even outside of the medical field; the word can mean *both* "a really good, deep examination" or "a quick glance". I liked it.
I got the theme well before the revealer, so it was anticlimactic when the revealer landed with such a thud. IT'S A LOT TO ------ ... I had TAKE IN, then DIGEST. When the crosses removed those, I thought "UNPACK? Never heard that". Seems like a weak phrase at best.
Hand up for PIE CRUST as well, which led to a really interesting wrong answer for "Family man": CAPO. I thought: oh yeah, as in crime family; how clever!
Was also puzzled by ON GOAL... shouldn't it be NO GOAL? If it's blocked, it never gets near the goal. If it's ON GOAL, it gets headed away or caught by the keeper. Huh.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0; QB streak now at 15! Somehow remembered both these variants.]
So annoyed by this puzzle until I got WOKE. (figured it out) Then I loved it. And I love being WOKE! (…. 🦖 was not the only one jolted by this word… but then I got a jolt from SCAB…so there you have it.) So woke!❤️😜❤️ 🤗🦖🦖🦖🦖🤗
@Okanaganer - In soccer (football) an ON GOAL shot is one that would have been a goal had it not been blocked/deflected (by anyone) or caught by the goal keeper.
I couldn't come up with the end of IT'S A LOT TO UN____ until I finally got DKNY so the SE held me up for a while, as did the NW.
I loved the clue for ANNEX, the architect "winging" it, har!
QUEUE, so many people I've played Scrabble with have tried to put down QUE for QUEUE and they give me a puzzled look when I explain that QUE is not a word in English (yet).
@Pete-Strangely enough I just read an excerpt from Mental Floss discussing words like this and the most commonly used term for them is "contranyms". They had a list of twenty.
@okanaganer-Bet you're familiar with the hockey term "shots on goal". It works for soccer too, but cluing it by way of a penalty kick is a little unnecessary misdirection, IMHO.
Now that a number of commenters are supporting @Rachel’s nits, I’d like to go on record as disagreeing with her on all of them.
1. Out of habit. Virtually no one but a NUN is ever in a habit, so being out of habit applies more aptly to an undressed NUN than to the general population. If someone is out of uniform, it might technically apply to anyone not wearing a uniform, but is more aptly said of an off duty cop or soldier. 2. Challenging/ANTI. I’m challenging that decision. I’m ANTI that decision. 3. LICE as pet peeves. Lice are a real problem for dogs. They don’t get human head lice, but they get other kinds. Look it up. 4. Introductory remarks/HIS. We exchanged introductory remarks. We exchanged HIS. 5. ORBS/eyes. From grammarlandia.com: Orbs, which means “spheres,” is sometimes used instead of eyes, often accompanied by a colourful descriptor, as in “emerald orbs.” 7. Comeback/RECUR. I hope my BACNE doesn’t come back. I hope my BACNE doesn’t recur
Got yer rebus ThursPuz. But with a neat, evolvin rebus difference. And got yer pangram. And got The Circles. thUmbsUp.
Splatzed (ALOT) into the 16-Across answer's circle, pretty darn quick. Then, started eyeballin them two circles in 28-Across, and even more circles in the other two probable themers. This concerned the M&A, as wasn't sure what answers could have multiple (ALOT)'s in em. But luved the outcome, and thought the revealer was magnificent.
staff weeject pick: ALO (T). honrable mention to IAM, and its unpacked neighbor IMAM.
@French pedant 11:45 - Thank you! I'd never seen that monsieur is a compound. But now, casting my mind back to elementary school Wisconsin history, I find etched in memory the name René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, explorer and fur trader extraordinaire. Fun to put things together!
@beverly c 10:54 AM Haha! I never considered the effect the incessant sound of those plastic wheels must have had on my mother! We live on a major street in Denver and we enjoy the sounds of car racing and Harleys daily. A few years ago, a young woman moved into our building. She was a brand new first-time condo owner, and it was shortly thereafter she called me, the HOA president (who, if you don't know, is an all-powerful being), and asked me what I was going to do about all of the noise. I wanted to tell her "absolutely nothing" and suggest if it bothered her she should probably move out. The politician in me prevailed and I told her I would call the police and ask them to do extra patrols. Of course she's now moved out of the building and today was the first police cruiser I've seen in years. In their defense, we have a pretty horrible neighborhood seven blocks to the north and I'd rather have them there anyway. Gimme the sweet vibrations of those V-twins.
as for ON GOAL. I think the point is that a penalty kick that has to be blocked is one that was heading for the goal and, if not intercepted, would have gone into the net... So it was "on goal" in the sense that the kicker sent the ball flying toward the goal.
I loved these clues. Had to really think! SCAN is perfect for that often used adjective “good.” “ I got a good look at your cat scan.”
See @Greg. Don’t quite get @rachel’s view of HIS? Isn’t that the plural of Hi? A monarch like Harald makes subjects proud of their country. If you think there shouldn’t be kings and queens of Norway, you might study the history of that kingdom.
I got Zealots easily and paused briefly on Lotto before "getting it" with the salons. Pretty easy and nice theme and unpacking of it from there. I'll take a Constitutional Monarchy over a Corporatist Autocracy any old day, thanks.
With you on "woke" for sure, as well as a good look. What? When I scan it's definitely not a good look, and many scanners are pretty bad too.
Then I had pie crust because, you know, that's the actual base of the quiche unless it's eggs they want. And, as most other people, I bring a bucket and spade to the beach, not a pail and spade. I've heard "sand bucket" plenty of times, but not "sand pail." Idioms I guess...
I knew 3D had to be "made" something but dropped in "quote" at 19A anyway, giving myself a bit of trouble.
Gary Jugert is right about Harley vibrations. Those bikes are teeth-chatterers. Really crummy. Overweight and under-powered, Harley-Davidson may well soon become a thing of the past. and relatively soon. They're in big trouble. 2021 revenues ( last year of available data) are essentially the same as 2015. No growth. Their market share is falling fast too. They were a tick under 55% In US) in 2010. Now they're down to 444% ( again, based on 20221 data. But owing to the fact that Harley has stopped production of their bike this year, that share will fall)
The problem, besides the product, is their marketing /market. Their customers are dying off. And young people simply don't want a bike associated with fat old guys in brain buckets or do-rags. Motorcyclists call Harley riders pirates, because so many affect that silly persona--beard, bandana, boots with garish accessories etc. And those pirates invariably run straight pipes. Straight pipes are unmuffled. They make a lot of noise. The pirates think that makes them cool or dangerous. Of course, what it really makes them is law breakers and anti-social. Despite Mr. Jugert's lack of sympathy for his neighbor, she was quite right about the bikes. She should've called the cops directly. There are noise ordinances in place for things like Harleys running open pipes.
As for V twins. They gave many virtues. Ask any Ducati owner. But the narrow-angled v twins out of Milwaukee? Hard pass.
1. I know all that. I still don’t like the phrasing of the clue as referring to someone who may be out of the habit, because virtually everyone may be out of the habit. I see what the cluer was trying to do, I just don’t like it because technically so many people can still be captured by the clue, even if habits makes people thing of nuns. 2. Yeah, I know what the cluer was trying to do. I just think don’t like that the parts of speech of the clue and answer don’t match. That’s evident in your example: “I’m challenging that decision” (challenging is part of a verb phrase) versus “I’m anti that decision” (anti is an adjective). 3. I get that it’s possible for pets to get lice. I just don’t think of lice as a “pet peeve?” because people’s pets having lice is colloquially so much less common than real pet peeves like fleas or ticks. The cluer really wanted that pun to work, and I think it’s too much of a stretch here. They tried too hard. 4. Yeah, I get what the clue was trying to do. But I don’t like it. “We exchanged his” said no one ever. Part of the problem here is HIS is bad fill to start with, so maybe there isn’t an ideal clue. 5. Valid point. I just don’t like ORBS for eyes, and generally am sick of seeing ORBS in the NYTXW clued as various “poetic” alternatives for spherical things, and would love for a poetic alternative for eyes be “suns” instead—would be a pleasant surprise. 6. Valid point. There are certainly some examples where both “recur” and “come back” can be interchangeable. But my reaction is that in most instances, that wouldn’t be the case.
Infernally difficult for me. Last Friday and Saturday (or the week before) played easier. Finally getting enough with cheats on the unknown names to see the theme which helped enough to do the rest. Just disaster. I'll use the bivalent booster I got as my excuse for being dumb. It is as good all-purpose excuse as covid is.
SCAN LICE ONGOAL HIS ANTI all accurate. I've had a dog and cats most my life and they never got LICE but I looked it up post solve. They do.
Does HIS count as a dook? It sure made a fool out of me.
Clever theme to boot.
@Gary Pete Aren't you glad I followed your advice and stayed out of yesterday's ado? I actually felt sorry for your target. I was tempted to do for him what he said he'd do for me in his last post to me.
@Wordler I got my eagle a day or two ago. If your first guess on that one gave you an S in the word but not in the first place and an R correctly in the 4th place, then you have only 2 non-S-plural words to choose from. USURP and USURy. I'd say I guessed right but it was such a struggle to find USURP I didn't look for another word.
I can't be the only old-school Roman Catholic here...after Vatican II it became acceptable for nuns to wear more secular attire; some orders nevertheless kept the traditional habit, while some modified it to appear more "casual", and some dispensed with the habit altogether (although a relatively conservative style of dress remained the norm).
So, much as I hate the cutesiness of the clue, a nun may be "out of the habit" if she doesn't wear a traditional habit as everyday attire.
Great theme. Nice and fresh little gimmick for a fun rebus. Surprised I picked up on it so quickly, honestly—yay, me. Lol. I tend to work quickly through the puzzles in circles, filling in more on each “cycle,” so while I was struggling to cram in LOTION and LOTTO, I got the revealer more easily, then it finally all clicked. Clever! And the circles actually had a purpose *during* the solve! Solid Thursday fun.
Gotta second egs on this one: the clues all read fine. As usual, the reader just needs to turn their head a bit (and look up something that you might be assuming incorrectly). NYTX is pretty solid on their clueing consistency to form (though I think there are some constructors to whom Shortz might defer a bit too much…), so when I think a clue reads wrong, I first try to see what I’m missing or misunderstanding. And yes, the word “group” tells you the word might be plural. An extremist is a ZEALOT. An extremist group would be made up of ZEALOTS. Grokking the word play is half the fun!
Wow I absolutely destroyed this (for me) at 14 mins and change. Vibed with it ALOT. However, I came here to see if anyone else wrote MFE (Mother-eFfing Egypt) for MIA (God knows where, casually) 😆
It’s not unpacked when it’s crammed into a single bubble. Why is that so difficult to grasp? And rebuses (rebii?) are often allowed repetition. It’s fine. The A LOT was packed and then unpacked again. Clever and easy.
I think SCAN was a terrific answer, from my own experience with it this past month. My physician sent me to have a lung SCAN, given my history as a smoker of cigarettes, off and on, sometimes heavily, for many decades. I had quit for good about 20 years ago, but that did not exempt me from a danger I had long pushed into the far margins of my mind. So, the SCAN I had on August 29 shocked the hell out of me because it turned up a small nodule 5 cm. in size in my right lung, and to make it even scarier, it was described as "spiculated" (spike-bearing), which ups the ante regarding "the big C."
Fortunately, not long afterward I met with a pulmonologist (lung specialist). She seemed a person of great clear-headedness and (I think/hope) competence, and she told me that 95% to 98% of the time, such lung debris turns out to be benign, and the whole point of the kind of vigilance they were exercising was to spot any serious problems early enough so that radical treatment measures would be far less necessary or likely. The upshot is that I was scheduled for another SCAN a month after the first.
That took place this past Thursday, and, lo and behold, the nodule had actually SHRUNK to 3.5 cm., and the spiculation was gone. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm out of danger, but the pulmonologist has recommended that I have another SCAN in SIX MONTHS.
All this taught me, if nothing else, that for ex-smokers, lung cancer screening is by no means a bad thing, and that, contrary to Rex, who claims: "A SCAN is neutral. All SCANs are neutral," SCANs, as such, can very likely be, as the puzzler claims, "A good look." As in the expression: "Take a good look." Whatever my fate or future, I will have great respect for SCANs and scanners, whether they are medical personnel watching over my health, or TSA personnel watching over the safety of a plane flight. (Even a fervently leftist lib like myself can throw my lot in with those otherwise often annoying and invasive public servants.)
The moral of the story is: If you're an ex-smoker (or, still worse, a current smoker), seek out medical supervision of your pulmonary health!
@JD 5:32pm: Former altar boy here that went from Latin mass to English mass. Grade school was Sisters of Providence. They altered their habits post Vatican II. The first time I saw a nun's hair, I was in 8th grade. High school was Carmelite priests. Freshman year they wore the full habit, cowl included, with the widest belt that I had ever seen on a man. They could have been in a Monty Python movie.
Confusing, and that includes the lead blog. WHAT is the "common buzzphrase" being referred to? I was at sea for a long while on this one; nothing "medium" about it. Clues weren't making any sense. What is "beach mold?" It came out (eventually) PAIL. Oooh...kay, I see it, a "mold" for a sandcastle turret. You could stretch it farther, but it would snap. There were ALOT like that.
I (again, eventually) pieced together THATSALOTTOUNPACK; was THAT the "common buzzphrase?" Ne. Ver. Heardofit. Points for finishing approached the uncountable. I get the "unpacking" angle, as the rebus squares were "unpacked" as we went. Clever on that score, and as I said, triumph points galore. Birdie.
Wordle bogey.
Tonight a double-header spanning two sports: PHI v. HOU in both baseball and football. Go Phillies and Eagles!!
The syndicated version, at least on the Seattle Times site, doesn't help by NOT circling the rebus squares. The other circles are there, just not those three. Weird.
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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90 comments:
It took me a while to get the theme. Often, especially on Thursdays, the clues for the long acrosses are misleading, so I avoided reading them as long as I could. Today that strategy hurt more than it helped. I had the grid about half filled before I realized that @Rex sEct wasn't going to work at 12D. ZIGS at 11D gave me SNAZZ, which gave me ZE[ALOT]S, which quickly led to the theme, and the solve.
Lots of overwrites, among them MEld before MESH at 7D, EeEny before EIEIO at 42A and OLAf before OLAV at 44A ("Does FInland really produce a lot of black pepper?").
@Rex. You missed the point of "It's a good look". A SCAN, medically, is a good look at the brain, shoulder or whatever. It's not good vs bad. There was lots of clever cluing today. Good fun!
This took far longer than usual for a Thursday solve! Agreed with Rex’s criticism of the use of the clue for WOKE here. But in defense of the clue for SCAN, a “good look” can often mean a close look as opposed to a valuable or appreciated look. Maybe it’s usually paired with “long,” as in a good, long look.
Sorry, but have to post this. Only my 4th eagle.
Wordle 467 2/6
🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Since when is Lotto a ‘contest’?
Also a pangram is imbeded herein. Another hidden level
My kinda Thursday, and I loved every minute of the solve, even when I was flailing, as in trying to fit CALIFORNIA LOTTERY into 26A before I'd gotten the theme.
I had a few overwrites, the worst being "pie crust" instead of PIE PLATE. And I have to say, I don't think an inedible object is a "base" for a food. Other than that, I was very happy working this one out. Like Rex, I could do without any use ever of the co-opted WOKE, but overall, and considering how many disappointing Thursdays there have been lately, it was nice to see the NYT SNAZZ it up.
@Roberto. Cool! First pangram in forever and I missed it. Thanks.
Grid is filled nicely, and there was some good indirect cluing that I really appreciated. Only downside was the theme – revealer felt forced and the circles were completely unnecessary.
Hoping for a TOPTEN OKRA NUN uniclue today. Don't let me down, GJ.
I am in the medical field so SCAN to me conjured up CAT Scans and MRI Scans etc. I thought immediately of the medical meaning so it worked for me. Just saying. I didn’t love WOKE either. Seems minimizing to an important concept.
Why is "looking at the revealer clue" cheating? Or starting somewhere other than NW for that matter? I never saw a rule that says you HAVE to start in a particular spot. I mean, top left is kind of habitual, but the more difficult puzzles often stymie you in that corner to start with and if I find myself coming up empty I'll often head to the SE to see if I can get a foothold down there. Or if there's what looks like a revealer clue down there I'll start working the crosses to see if I can tease it out. They're both perfectly fair tactics AFAIK.
Amy: liked it a lot. 💃
I found this really really hard but it got easier as it went along. I found myself in a near-constant state of misdirection. I stopped myself from getting upset at the way WOKE was clued because I knew Rex would do it for me.
Fun puzzle - the theme layout is graphically elegant as Rex mentions. I liked working the trick here. CALIFORNIA LOTTO and ALOE VERA LOTION were flat. Love the bidirectional rebus and the scrabbly fill.
I read it as a medical SCAN - I think the big guy was off with that nit. MESH - some would argue New Order dabbled in TECHNO. I liked SNAZZ and the lack of short glue. Needed JOANIE to get ANNA - the two crossing LASS was cool. I always start with OLAf and revise accordingly.
OKRA Records was a fantastic indie label in the 80s. The Schramm’s are still one of my favorites
Enjoyable Thursday solve.
First let me apologize. I responded to our historic canoeing expert anonymous troll yesterday and some of the conversation went sideways as a result. I am sorry and it won't happen again.
Now as for today's little puzzle, it was ALOT, ALOT, ALOT, ALOT of fun. (I just recounted to make sure I had four ALOTs ... which oddly doesn't seem like a lot of ALOTs today). All four theme elements played tough but fair and were a joy to grok.
Watched Happy Days a lot, but never JOANIE Loves Chachi. Did I miss anything?
Love "Big wheel's place" so much. I went from the plastic Big Wheel I rode until the tires literally wore through, to a big wheel executive, and finally to the steering wheel on a boat. I am afraid of boats, but I like the idea you need a giant steering wheel for some unknown reason.
Yea:
SNAZZ MADE A CAMEO IN HEELS... as "they" always do.
Boo:
Nuns are IN the habit, right? Just trying to get my "theology" in line with the geniuses among us.
Red-eyed Vireos were inadvertently left out of today's puzzle, but not in my heart.
Uniclues:
1 Greatest gift a uniclue writer could receive, or a religious leader with a spiffy name makes introductions.
2 "Would you like unicorn pancakes miss?"
3 "These, unfortunately, are not oohs."
4 Gramps in Uruguay.
5 Nickname for one of the more popular religious figures in Louisiana.
6 "I hate all these rappers in crosswords."
7 AsianStooliesRUs.edu
1 I AM IMAM SNAZZ
2 QUEUE IHOP LASS
3 LABEL AAHS
4 SENOR PAPA (~)
5 TOP TEN OKRA NUN
6 ANTI-FAD RANT
7 JAPAN RATS URL
A bounce-around start and thought I was going nowhere, and then I had the ALOEVERALOTION answer with the AL thing going on, finished up the bottom revealer, and went back and did the rest posthaste, which was ALOT of fun.
Wondering how many folks recognized SENOR as "Lord", which of course is another meaning in Spanish. Very helpful to know what "anillos" are.
Hand up for being very tired of the misappropriation of WOKE to mean "considerate".
Very clever theme, solid executution, some very fun clues and just the right amount of challenge make this one a Thursdazo! Congratulations to JN, who Just Nailed this one. Thanks for all the fun.
Took me FOREVER but well worth it. Great Thursday.
@Conrad 😄😁😆 same Finland and black pepper question before finally realizing...
Fun, average time. OLAf before OLAV. Same AL LO try as OFL but got it at TECHNOBAND.
Teacher I once knew: "I used to be a NUN but I got out of the habit."
Thanks to Rex for that last bit in his commentary. The grotesquely trite and condescending ‘Socially “with it”’ spoiled this otherwise snappy, excellent grid.
A great meld of cleverness and simplicity and difficulty. It was so hard for me to get a start: much grid roaming, picking up random OVA, ORBS, etc., until I finally got traction in the DAMP PIE PLATE area. Some serendipity allowed me to see the unpacking of ALOE VER[AL]OTION and the reveal at the same time; then I was able to unlock the rest. ZE[ALOT]S - terrific!
Do-over: mAid before LASS. Help from previous puzzles: ELO, LEX. No idea: JOANIE.
@pabloinnh 8:53, re: SENOR - It took way too long for me to get this one, considering that in two other languages I know, the same is true: "Herr" in German and "signor" in Italian.
@Gary J - Did I ever tell you about the canoe I built? I named her ReV.
Hey All !
IT Did take ALOT TO UNPACK this theme. Had ALOEVERA____ in, and wrote in plant before figuring out the theme. Then seeing CALIFORNIA____, and wanting LOTTO, put in just LOT, but said to myself, "That can't be right!" Finally grokked what in tarhooties was happening when I figured out the first Themer ALOT Rebus.
Then, like Rex, wanted the second one to be AL and OT. Then befuddled at what the third one might be, as ELO was a solid entry. But the ole brain decided to figure everything out, and I finished with the Happy Music.
Thanks for mentioning the Pangram, as for some reason I didn't notice it. Usually when I see a Q and a Z, I'll look for one. I guess I was overwhelmed by the theme. Har.
Kind of a weird Revealer clue, though...
Dare I say it was a SNAZZy puz?
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Boy, am I slow on the uptake. I'm wondering why the ALOT is first in just one square and then in two and then in...
Aha! It's being unpacked!!!! Now, I see!
Clever. But all the pop culture clues -- your Tolkien and your Def Jam and your monsters and your hit double album and your biopic and your DC Comics -- spoiled this puzzle for me. I don't know how I managed to finish it, and I'm still asking myself why I struggled onward. Can't say I enjoyed it.
One thing you notice about Rex, is that he wants every element of the theme to work perfectly. That characteristic served him in good stead today--his thinking about how you would fit four letters into three squares helped him see that the second ALOT had to be divided 3-1. Would that I had done the same! I had N-A-I-L-S-SL-O-N (wondering why the clue was plural) and some kind of music creator starting with OT. It made it impossible to see SNEER or SCAB. I was getting ready to give up in disgust (preparation for which consists of getting out of my easy chair, picking up my coffee and the paper, and coming upstairs to the computer) when I suddenly did see SCAB, figured out the whole thing, and was done.
The only other real problems were PIE crust and dArn for RATS.
@Gary J., since Vatican II there has been a move to make the life of NUNs more attractive by allowing them to wear more normal clothes -- so as the clue says, a NUN "may be out of the habit."
Am I the only who one who thought, pre-crosswords, that chorus went "ee-yi-ee-yi-oh?" I learned it by rote, like everyone else, and never saw the lyrics written out.
Since the king of Norway is in roughly every 15th puzzle, I guess Rex is just feigning ignorance to get in some anti-monarchical comments. Fair enough.
My only objection to this puzzle is a grammatical one. The first themer crams ALOT into one circle, but ALOT, of course, is not a word (it's always A LOT. Thus it's already "unpacked" to some extent in that themer. The second and third themers have the letters breaking over two words, which works. But you technically end up with a duplicate in the revealer, since we have A LOT there again.
This was A LOT of fun to figure out. Seems to be a really clean, tight construction as well.
Thank you to the commenters who set Rex straight on SCAN. The misdirection was clever. I also liked the slight misdirection for LICE (that might have been my last entry).
Rereading comments from late yesterday, I couldn't figure out what the hubbub over vireos was all about; it was like listening in to one end of a heated telephone conversation. At length I realized there were quite a few post removals on the part of The Anonymous. Should have taken some screen shots (I want to test a certain hypothesis). Ah well, if we don't hear back from him today, we probably will at some point.
@Gary Jugert
As far as I'm concerned, no need to apologize. I actually appreciated what you wrote about religion. I didn't grow up in such a family, but I did grow up in an area with many such families, and it haunts me to this day. (By the way, I wondered whether "historic" was a slip for "histrionic".)
Thx, Jeremy, for a fun Thurs. challenge! :)
Med+
Pretty much spinning my wheels on this one; hard to get traction.
QUotE before QUEUE obscured MADE & TUBA.
Didn't fully grok the ALOT 'unpacking' until post-solve analysis. Cute IDEA!
Good early morning exercise; liked it A LOT! :)
🙏s for Florida!
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
The theme is nice, and it took me a while to get it but I got it early enough to help with remaining theme answers.
What bothered me about this puzzle is so much of the cluing is just off. Rex already covered SCAN, whose clue makes zero sense. Other clues I didn't like are:
"One who may be out of the habit." My first thought was NUN, but then I thought no, it can't be nun because if it were nun, the clue would be something like, "One who is in the habit?" It's just weird to say a nun may be out of the habit when nuns and pretty much only nuns are known for being IN habits, and literally everyone else in the world is out of the habit. I get that it's a pun on "habit," that was obvious from first read. I just think the phrasing should make clearer the clue is referring in fact to a nun, and not to a non-nun.
Didn't like the clue "challenging" for ANTI. I don't think the clue and answer match parts of speech or something. I don't know, something's off and it doesn't make sense to me.
Didn't like "extremist group" (singular" for ZEALOTS plural. My first thought was also that this was sect, which I also would have been mad about because a sect isn't necessarily extremist. Sure, you can have a group OF zealots, I guess. You can have a group OF anything. I think the clue should have indicated the answer was plural.
Didn't like "pet peeves?" for LICE. People get lice, pets get fleas and ticks. Those were my first two thoughts, but since the answer had only four squares, I thought of lice, but hoped that wasn't it. I grew up getting lice every once in a while, but our family dogs and cats never got lice, and I never heard of any of my classmates' pets having lice. Our family dogs and cats always had fleas, and our dog would get ticks after our annual trip to Ocala. Yeah, I don't like the clue for LICE because I really associate it with a peeve of people (primarily children) and not pets.
"Introductory remarks" for HIS. What? No.
"Eyes, poetically" for ORBS. I hate that. I get that the NYTXW loves to think of ORB as a poetic alternative to anything spherical generally. But in early- to mid-modern poetry, I really don't think of ORBS being used to refer to eyes all that often. Eyes are suns, if anything! ORBS to refer to eyes doesn't sound poetic or lovely at all, it just sounds gross. So yeah, I figured this was ORBS because of the NYTXW's obsession with ORBS, but I wished it could have been something like suns instead.
"Come back" doesn't really work for RECUR to me. To recur is to repeat. Things that recur don't really "come back," they just repeat. I just don't think the clue and answer here line up very well.
Finally, I really dislike answers that are brand and/or corporation names. Why the free advertising? And why remind me during my morning routine, which I'd like to be pleasant, that we live in a world ruled by capitalism? Do we really need Epson in the crossword? I don't want to be reminded of my home printer and how annoying it is. DKNY isn't as bad to me, because it's a fashion brand so in a sense is more cultural, but still. I'd be happy to see a rule that all brand or corporation names are banned as answers in the NYTXW. Especially car manufacturers, ugh.
Not much wrong with this and it has everything I would expect in a Thursday crossword - nice long crosses, a tricky theme, a rebus, my favorite and with a little twist on it at THAT – plus the bonus of a pangram which I always admire. A LOT of good things going on there but OTOH today they seemed a bit sloggish. Probably just me, but the receding letters in the circles for some reason made me squint like a sudoku puzzle often does - so not a good look. I just couldn’t seem to get them to line up right. But even though it won’t be going on my TOP TEN list, it’s certainly nothing to SNEER at.
PIE SHELL, then CRUST before PLATE which I don’t think constitutes a “base” for a quiche any more than a bowl is the base for soup. REX before LEX, ALOE CREAM before LOTION and what is a TECHNO BAND? Seems to me most groups produce their music electronically these days. My favorite entry was DKNY. I love her perfume.
I wasn’t bothered by the clue for WOKE but I am by the way it is often used to imply a LABEL to those who don’t subscribe to a certain hard-line political stance. I’m so tired of politicians and “journalists“ - on both sides of the fence mind you - continual mocking each other with sarcastic Tweets, eye rolling and name calling. Just talk to me about the issues, stick to the actual facts - NOT your fantasy version of them - and keep your juvenile mudslinging out of it. I don’t want a hear it. End of RANT.
Rex, you're wrong on SCAN -- to scan something means to look at it very closely. Some people may use it to mean "glance," but you shouldn't fault the constructor for using the correct definition.
This puzzle was fun. I liked the UNPACKing. And after three days of meh puzzles, I was rejuvenated enough to look back and read yesterdays blog comments -
@Pete Hilarious! Your letter to the expert to clarify vireo behavior had me in stitches.
@Gary Jugert - What I remember about Big Wheels is how hideously noisy they were. I'm convinced that the noise served to inform the busy adult inside that their charge was not getting into mischief and was within range of retrieval. Could it be the noise was part of the attraction? Did you upgrade to a Harley when you were older?
“Are you aware that being ‘woke’ means being aware?” This is a good way to respond to people who are so socially asleep they could use some friendly rousing. Being “with it” does not mean you have to be demeaning.
Couldn’t get past SIZE for the cap and shoe…did eventually, but I was very attached to it
Hits crack the Top 10 or break into the Top 10. They don't break it. Another clue clunker.
The subject expression of this puzzle sort of irritates me irl, but I think the puzzle's illustration of it works quite well.
Here's a Top 10 hit released on CAMEO Records in 1966.
Easy-medium. Like @ Rex it took me a couple of tries to figure out how the UNPACKing worked, but there were no real WOEs. Smooth and fun to solve, liked it.
I doubt many of you know or have even interacted with many nuns. I suspect, without proof I'll grant, that the women you're referring to as nuns are actually sisters.
This is not matter of theology. Nor does it take a genius to know it. Only some familiarity with Catholicism.
From a Website I cant recall
The terms "nun" and "sister" are often used interchangeably. However within Roman Catholicism, there is a difference between the two. Here's a simple summary of the differences.
A Catholic nun is a woman who lives as a contemplative life in a monastery which is usually cloistered (or enclosed) or semi-cloistered. Her ministry and prayer life is centered within and around the monastery for the good of the world. She professes the perpetual solemn vows living a life according to the evangelical counsels of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. Check out the Carmelite Nuns of Baltimore for example.
A Catholic sister is a woman who lives, ministers, and prays within the world. A sister's life is often called "active" or "apostolic" because she is engaged in the works of mercy and other ministries that take the Gospel to others where they are. She professes perpetual simple vows living a life according to the evangelical counsels of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. Check out the IHM Sisters of Monroe, Michigan for example.
Forgot to mention... The nun/sister ignorance is a kin to the monk/ friar ignorance addressed here not so long ago..
TTrimble,
What's your theory?
If you didn’t read @Pete’s late post yesterday at 5:45, it’s a classic and not to be missed.
@Gary J: Agree with TTrimble that no apology is necessary. I actually enjoyed the discussion on religion. But I do have a few relatives who might want to discuss your “barefoot hillbilly” remark. They’ll be waiting for you down by the dock while they sharpen their twigs.
@Rachel (10:47) Good point about LICE not being a pet peeve but a human one. I knew something bothered me about that clue but didn’t really zero in on it at the time.
@Ben - Scan, along with its cousin peruse, are autoantonyms, where they both mean to read carefully and to read quickly and cursorily. The "correct" definition is neither one nor the other, as the have attestations dating back a century or more. And yes, I just made up autoantonyms.
That is one Rexian RANT!
@Rachel -In fact, dogs do get lice. They get dog lice, which is a different species than that which people get, and dogs don't get people lice, and people don't get dog lice.
Also, my recurring heartburn comes back every time I eat Thai red curry.
Really great puzzle - very snazzy indeed! Only one very minor problem for me: never heard anyone say “made a cameo” (except in the context of jewelry making). When used talking about films I’m pretty sure it’s “had a cameo” or “did a cameo” and made is only used in the full phrase “made a cameo appearance.” Any other opinions out there?
Enjoyed this A LOT. Clever theme, solid fill, and a pangram to boot.
I say this in spite a DNF. I zagged when I should have zigged and ended up with Joanae (which, in my opinion, is a much better name).
Excellent clues for NAIL SALONS, ANNEX, and TOP TEN.
Surprisingly racy clue for NUN. Was she IN HEELS?
This felt hard when I was doing it, but ended in an "easy" completion time. Could get no toe-hold in the North; finally got going down the East, which led to the revealer. (TECHNOBAND was a good guess/big help.) Things picked up from there. I waited quite a while before finishing SCAN, but decided that the medical angle made it legit.
Some Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) fun in this grid:
* 5D, MIA was not "missing in action"--it appears again as a HDW in the West.
* And in the East, there's a HDW CEO sharing her "C" with a HDW INC.
* And the South provides a HDW ROO (Hello, @RooMonster)
I’m all for leaving politics to the oped page & TUBing Crossworld just for fun, AND THATS SAYING A LOT I suppose about how unWOKE I remain. Finding middle ground these days seems to have about the same odds of winning that CALIFORNIA LOTTO. Anyhoo, this was a really great grid for any day, but for Thursday fun, pretty SNAZZy I thought. Even without a rebus it was a long way from DRY & needing ALOE VERA LOTION, so thanks Jeremy for sharing once again the wit we expect when your byline appears.
A very egocentric puzzle. IAM, IMAM, IHOP, IPA.
Shouldn’t 28D be ONGOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAL?
At our farmers’ market there is always an insane line to buy cucumbers. I call it the cuckoo cuke QUEUE.
For 37D I had _IEPLATE. I had to get the DAM P from 36A.
Rex says that WOKE is “ the one big miss in a puzzle that's otherwise full of hits.” There are plenty of other misses (JOANIE, LASS, NUN). How do we know that none of them are big?
Great puzzle. I’m in awe of the mind that can come up with a theme as cool as this, execute it perfectly, and keep the fill on the up and up. Thanks, Jeremy Newton.
@ Carola: In a similar vein, the French "monsieur" comes from "mon" meaning "my" ,and "sieur" meaning "lord". Also when you hear someone announce "Mesdames et Messieurs", the 2nd word is created by pluralizing "mon" as "mes" and adding an "s" to "sieur".
I not only agree with @Rachel that much of the cluing is off, but I also agree with her on which clues were the off-clues, with the exception of RECUR. Like her, I hated LICE, hated ANTI, and hated NUN. Which is another reason I struggled with this puzzle -- and not in a good way.
This was really hard until it wasn't. At the beginning I thought I should just give up with all sorts of partial answers which I thought might be wrong. Then I figured out the revealer and the rest just filled itself in.
Other than that, Mrs.Lincoln….
It's nice to see complaints against the same clues I hated. SCAN made little to no sense to me, especially after getting the wonderful SNEER prior. I had initially guessed WOKE but didn't put it in because I gave this puzzle too much credit. When I realized it was, in fact, the answer, I yelled out to my wife about how bad it was. Theme was cute; I liked it when I figured it out. Otherwise a moderate challenge to me.
Totally agree about the duplication/repetition in the theme answers. It's a minor nit but I am surprised it wasn't highlighted. They are awfully similar phrases in which the words "a lot" mean essentially the same thing.
SCAN works perfectly fine with "It's a good look" even outside of the medical field; the word can mean *both* "a really good, deep examination" or "a quick glance". I liked it.
Great puzzle overall.
I got the theme well before the revealer, so it was anticlimactic when the revealer landed with such a thud. IT'S A LOT TO ------ ... I had TAKE IN, then DIGEST. When the crosses removed those, I thought "UNPACK? Never heard that". Seems like a weak phrase at best.
Hand up for PIE CRUST as well, which led to a really interesting wrong answer for "Family man": CAPO. I thought: oh yeah, as in crime family; how clever!
Was also puzzled by ON GOAL... shouldn't it be NO GOAL? If it's blocked, it never gets near the goal. If it's ON GOAL, it gets headed away or caught by the keeper. Huh.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0; QB streak now at 15! Somehow remembered both these variants.]
So annoyed by this puzzle until I got WOKE.
(figured it out)
Then I loved it.
And I love being WOKE!
(…. 🦖 was not the only one jolted by this word… but then I got a jolt from SCAB…so there you have it.)
So woke!❤️😜❤️
🤗🦖🦖🦖🦖🤗
@Okanaganer - In soccer (football) an ON GOAL shot is one that would have been a goal had it not been blocked/deflected (by anyone) or caught by the goal keeper.
I couldn't come up with the end of IT'S A LOT TO UN____ until I finally got DKNY so the SE held me up for a while, as did the NW.
I loved the clue for ANNEX, the architect "winging" it, har!
QUEUE, so many people I've played Scrabble with have tried to put down QUE for QUEUE and they give me a puzzled look when I explain that QUE is not a word in English (yet).
Jeremy Newton, thanks for the tricksy Thursday!
@Pete-Strangely enough I just read an excerpt from Mental Floss discussing words like this and the most commonly used term for them is "contranyms". They had a list of twenty.
@okanaganer-Bet you're familiar with the hockey term "shots on goal". It works for soccer too, but cluing it by way of a penalty kick is a little unnecessary misdirection, IMHO.
Now that a number of commenters are supporting @Rachel’s nits, I’d like to go on record as disagreeing with her on all of them.
1. Out of habit. Virtually no one but a NUN is ever in a habit, so being out of habit applies more aptly to an undressed NUN than to the general population. If someone is out of uniform, it might technically apply to anyone not wearing a uniform, but is more aptly said of an off duty cop or soldier.
2. Challenging/ANTI. I’m challenging that decision. I’m ANTI that decision.
3. LICE as pet peeves. Lice are a real problem for dogs. They don’t get human head lice, but they get other kinds. Look it up.
4. Introductory remarks/HIS. We exchanged introductory remarks. We exchanged HIS.
5. ORBS/eyes. From grammarlandia.com: Orbs, which means “spheres,” is sometimes used instead of eyes, often accompanied by a colourful descriptor, as in “emerald orbs.”
7. Comeback/RECUR. I hope my BACNE doesn’t come back. I hope my BACNE doesn’t recur
Got yer rebus ThursPuz. But with a neat, evolvin rebus difference. And got yer pangram. And got The Circles. thUmbsUp.
Splatzed (ALOT) into the 16-Across answer's circle, pretty darn quick. Then, started eyeballin them two circles in 28-Across, and even more circles in the other two probable themers. This concerned the M&A, as wasn't sure what answers could have multiple (ALOT)'s in em. But luved the outcome, and thought the revealer was magnificent.
staff weeject pick: ALO (T). honrable mention to IAM, and its unpacked neighbor IMAM.
fave other stuff included: TOPTEN TECHNOBAND. SCAN & SNEER clue set. QUEUE. SNAZZ. FIETNAM.
Very few no-knows, for a ThursPuz. Only sticky spots were: DKNY. ANNA (almost). Operation Red Dawn.
Thanx for alot of good stuff, Mr. Newton dude. A most clever puz idea.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
**gruntz**
@French pedant 11:45 - Thank you! I'd never seen that monsieur is a compound. But now, casting my mind back to elementary school Wisconsin history, I find etched in memory the name René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, explorer and fur trader extraordinaire. Fun to put things together!
@beverly c 10:54 AM
Haha! I never considered the effect the incessant sound of those plastic wheels must have had on my mother! We live on a major street in Denver and we enjoy the sounds of car racing and Harleys daily. A few years ago, a young woman moved into our building. She was a brand new first-time condo owner, and it was shortly thereafter she called me, the HOA president (who, if you don't know, is an all-powerful being), and asked me what I was going to do about all of the noise. I wanted to tell her "absolutely nothing" and suggest if it bothered her she should probably move out. The politician in me prevailed and I told her I would call the police and ask them to do extra patrols. Of course she's now moved out of the building and today was the first police cruiser I've seen in years. In their defense, we have a pretty horrible neighborhood seven blocks to the north and I'd rather have them there anyway. Gimme the sweet vibrations of those V-twins.
as for ON GOAL. I think the point is that a penalty kick that has to be blocked is one that was heading for the goal and, if not intercepted, would have gone into the net... So it was "on goal" in the sense that the kicker sent the ball flying toward the goal.
Lots of unfounded clue complaints today. What a bunch of whiners.
I'm so happy for you
I loved these clues. Had to really think! SCAN is perfect for that often used adjective “good.” “ I got a good look at your cat scan.”
See @Greg. Don’t quite get @rachel’s view of HIS? Isn’t that the plural of Hi? A monarch like Harald makes subjects proud of their country. If you think there shouldn’t be kings and queens of Norway, you might study the history of that kingdom.
Great puzzle.
Re ONGOAL - it's like on target - if it was close enough to be blocked by the goal keeper, the shot was ONGOAL. But sadly, not a Goooooaal!
Natick in the Boston Globe today!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/09/29/business/former-ebay-exec-who-ran-scheme-harass-natick-couple-sentenced-57-months-prison/
--Rad
I got Zealots easily and paused briefly on Lotto before "getting it" with the salons. Pretty easy and nice theme and unpacking of it from there. I'll take a Constitutional Monarchy over a Corporatist Autocracy any old day, thanks.
With you on "woke" for sure, as well as a good look. What? When I scan it's definitely not a good look, and many scanners are pretty bad too.
Then I had pie crust because, you know, that's the actual base of the quiche unless it's eggs they want. And, as most other people, I bring a bucket and spade to the beach, not a pail and spade. I've heard "sand bucket" plenty of times, but not "sand pail." Idioms I guess...
I knew 3D had to be "made" something but dropped in "quote" at 19A anyway, giving myself a bit of trouble.
Rants aside, all in all a fun puzzle.
Gary Jugert is right about Harley vibrations. Those bikes are teeth-chatterers. Really crummy. Overweight and under-powered, Harley-Davidson may well soon become a thing of the past. and relatively soon. They're in big trouble. 2021 revenues ( last year of available data) are essentially the same as 2015. No growth. Their market share is falling fast too. They were a tick under 55% In US) in 2010. Now they're down to 444% ( again, based on 20221 data. But owing to the fact that Harley has stopped production of their bike this year, that share will fall)
The problem, besides the product, is their marketing /market. Their customers are dying off. And young people simply don't want a bike associated with fat old guys in brain buckets or do-rags. Motorcyclists call Harley riders pirates, because so many affect that silly persona--beard, bandana, boots with garish accessories etc. And those pirates invariably run straight pipes. Straight pipes are unmuffled. They make a lot of noise. The pirates think that makes them cool or dangerous. Of course, what it really makes them is law breakers and anti-social. Despite Mr. Jugert's lack of sympathy for his neighbor, she was quite right about the bikes. She should've called the cops directly. There are noise ordinances in place for things like Harleys running open pipes.
As for V twins. They gave many virtues. Ask any Ducati owner. But the narrow-angled v twins out of Milwaukee? Hard pass.
@egsforbreakfast:
1. I know all that. I still don’t like the phrasing of the clue as referring to someone who may be out of the habit, because virtually everyone may be out of the habit. I see what the cluer was trying to do, I just don’t like it because technically so many people can still be captured by the clue, even if habits makes people thing of nuns.
2. Yeah, I know what the cluer was trying to do. I just think don’t like that the parts of speech of the clue and answer don’t match. That’s evident in your example: “I’m challenging that decision” (challenging is part of a verb phrase) versus “I’m anti that decision” (anti is an adjective).
3. I get that it’s possible for pets to get lice. I just don’t think of lice as a “pet peeve?” because people’s pets having lice is colloquially so much less common than real pet peeves like fleas or ticks. The cluer really wanted that pun to work, and I think it’s too much of a stretch here. They tried too hard.
4. Yeah, I get what the clue was trying to do. But I don’t like it. “We exchanged his” said no one ever. Part of the problem here is HIS is bad fill to start with, so maybe there isn’t an ideal clue.
5. Valid point. I just don’t like ORBS for eyes, and generally am sick of seeing ORBS in the NYTXW clued as various “poetic” alternatives for spherical things, and would love for a poetic alternative for eyes be “suns” instead—would be a pleasant surprise.
6. Valid point. There are certainly some examples where both “recur” and “come back” can be interchangeable. But my reaction is that in most instances, that wouldn’t be the case.
Infernally difficult for me. Last Friday and Saturday (or the week before) played easier. Finally getting enough with cheats on the unknown names to see the theme which helped enough to do the rest. Just disaster. I'll use the bivalent booster I got as my excuse for being dumb. It is as good all-purpose excuse as covid is.
SCAN LICE ONGOAL HIS ANTI all accurate. I've had a dog and cats most my life and they never got LICE but I looked it up post solve. They do.
Does HIS count as a dook? It sure made a fool out of me.
Clever theme to boot.
@Gary Pete
Aren't you glad I followed your advice and stayed out of yesterday's ado? I actually felt sorry for your target. I was tempted to do for him what he said he'd do for me in his last post to me.
@Wordler
I got my eagle a day or two ago. If your first guess on that one gave you an S in the word but not in the first place and an R correctly in the 4th place, then you have only 2 non-S-plural words to choose from. USURP and USURy. I'd say I guessed right but it was such a struggle to find USURP I didn't look for another word.
People of crossword world, remember that if you don't pick nits, both you and your pets could end up with a full blown infestation of LICE.
I can't be the only old-school Roman Catholic here...after Vatican II it became acceptable for nuns to wear more secular attire; some orders nevertheless kept the traditional habit, while some modified it to appear more "casual", and some dispensed with the habit altogether (although a relatively conservative style of dress remained the norm).
So, much as I hate the cutesiness of the clue, a nun may be "out of the habit" if she doesn't wear a traditional habit as everyday attire.
Great theme. Nice and fresh little gimmick for a fun rebus. Surprised I picked up on it so quickly, honestly—yay, me. Lol. I tend to work quickly through the puzzles in circles, filling in more on each “cycle,” so while I was struggling to cram in LOTION and LOTTO, I got the revealer more easily, then it finally all clicked. Clever! And the circles actually had a purpose *during* the solve! Solid Thursday fun.
Gotta second egs on this one: the clues all read fine. As usual, the reader just needs to turn their head a bit (and look up something that you might be assuming incorrectly). NYTX is pretty solid on their clueing consistency to form (though I think there are some constructors to whom Shortz might defer a bit too much…), so when I think a clue reads wrong, I first try to see what I’m missing or misunderstanding. And yes, the word “group” tells you the word might be plural. An extremist is a ZEALOT. An extremist group would be made up of ZEALOTS. Grokking the word play is half the fun!
Neat! Thanks for this.
Wow I absolutely destroyed this (for me) at 14 mins and change. Vibed with it ALOT. However, I came here to see if anyone else wrote MFE (Mother-eFfing Egypt) for MIA (God knows where, casually) 😆
First it was UN PC, then NON PC, now it’s WOKE. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
At SEXIESTMANALIVE I perked up, until my chances were judged BLEAK at the bottom.
P.S. How do you respond to a specific comment vs showing up at the bottom of the page? I’ve seen gray responses and indents.
It’s not unpacked when it’s crammed into a single bubble. Why is that so difficult to grasp? And rebuses (rebii?) are often allowed repetition. It’s fine. The A LOT was packed and then unpacked again. Clever and easy.
I think SCAN was a terrific answer, from my own experience with it this past month. My physician sent me to have a lung SCAN, given my history as a smoker of cigarettes, off and on, sometimes heavily, for many decades. I had quit for good about 20 years ago, but that did not exempt me from a danger I had long pushed into the far margins of my mind. So, the SCAN I had on August 29 shocked the hell out of me because it turned up a small nodule 5 cm. in size in my right lung, and to make it even scarier, it was described as "spiculated" (spike-bearing), which ups the ante regarding "the big C."
Fortunately, not long afterward I met with a pulmonologist (lung specialist). She seemed a person of great clear-headedness and (I think/hope) competence, and she told me that 95% to 98% of the time, such lung debris turns out to be benign, and the whole point of the kind of vigilance they were exercising was to spot any serious problems early enough so that radical treatment measures would be far less necessary or likely. The upshot is that I was scheduled for another SCAN a month after the first.
That took place this past Thursday, and, lo and behold, the nodule had actually SHRUNK to 3.5 cm., and the spiculation was gone. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm
out of danger, but the pulmonologist has recommended that I have another SCAN in SIX MONTHS.
All this taught me, if nothing else, that for ex-smokers, lung cancer screening is by no means a bad thing, and that, contrary to Rex, who claims: "A SCAN is neutral. All SCANs are neutral," SCANs, as such, can very likely be, as the puzzler claims, "A good look." As in the expression: "Take a good look." Whatever my fate or future, I will have great respect for SCANs and scanners, whether they are medical personnel watching over my health, or TSA personnel watching over the safety of a plane flight. (Even a fervently leftist lib like myself can throw my lot in with those otherwise often annoying and invasive public servants.)
The moral of the story is: If you're an ex-smoker (or, still worse, a current smoker), seek out medical supervision of your pulmonary health!
Great puzzle. Thanks ALOT Jeremy Newton!
ON ETON
IAM SAYINGALOT -
ANDTHAT'S IHOP where I ate -
NINE or TEN flapjacks I got
IT'SALOT ON my PIEPLATE.
--- JOANIE HELM
@JD 5:32pm:
Former altar boy here that went from Latin mass to English mass. Grade school was Sisters of Providence. They altered their habits post Vatican II. The first time I saw a nun's hair, I was in 8th grade. High school was Carmelite priests. Freshman year they wore the full habit, cowl included, with the widest belt that I had ever seen on a man. They could have been in a Monty Python movie.
Confusing, and that includes the lead blog. WHAT is the "common buzzphrase" being referred to? I was at sea for a long while on this one; nothing "medium" about it. Clues weren't making any sense. What is "beach mold?" It came out (eventually) PAIL. Oooh...kay, I see it, a "mold" for a sandcastle turret. You could stretch it farther, but it would snap. There were ALOT like that.
I (again, eventually) pieced together THATSALOTTOUNPACK; was THAT the "common buzzphrase?" Ne. Ver. Heardofit. Points for finishing approached the uncountable. I get the "unpacking" angle, as the rebus squares were "unpacked" as we went. Clever on that score, and as I said, triumph points galore. Birdie.
Wordle bogey.
Tonight a double-header spanning two sports: PHI v. HOU in both baseball and football. Go Phillies and Eagles!!
Alan Parsons said it best:" It's all psycho babble to me"
Wordle par
The syndicated version, at least on the Seattle Times site, doesn't help by NOT circling the rebus squares. The other circles are there, just not those three. Weird.
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