THEME: SANS / SANS (1A: French for "without" / 70A: After 1-Across, what the first names at 20-, 36-, 43- and 57-Across all are?) — so ... I guess the idea is that the first names of the theme answers can all follow "San" (to form a city name) ... so somehow those first names are "lacking" ("without," SANS) the "San" part of their name ... only they're not ... those are just their names ... I don't understand the logic here at all:
Theme answers:
FRANCISCO GOYA (20A: Spanish painter of "The Third of May 1808")
DIEGO RIVERA (36A: Mexican muralist twice married to Frida Kahlo)
PEDRO PASCAL (43A: Chilean American actor of "The Mandalorian" and "Narcos")
JOSE FELICIANO (57A: Puerto rican singer with more than 50 albums, including "Feliz Navidad")
Word of the Day: "The Third of May 1808" (20A) —
The Third of May 1808 (also known as El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madridor Los fusilamientos de la montaña del Príncipe Pío, or Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo) is a painting completed in 1814 by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. In the work, Goya sought to commemorate Spanish resistance to Napoleon's armies during the occupation of 1808 in the Peninsular War. Along with its companion piece of the same size, The Second of May 1808 (or The Charge of the Mamelukes), it was commissioned by the provisional government of Spain at Goya's suggestion.
The painting's content, presentation, and emotional force secure its status as a ground-breaking, archetypal image of the horrors of war. Although it draws on many sources from both high and popular art, The Third of May 1808marks a clear break from convention. Diverging from the traditions of Christian art and traditional depictions of war, it has no distinct precedent, and is acknowledged as one of the first paintings of the modern era. According to the art historian Kenneth Clark, The Third of May 1808 is "the first great picture which can be called revolutionary in every sense of the word, in style, in subject, and in intention". (wikipedia)
• • •
This was grim, on many levels. I expect many people won't care—they'll be too distracted by the speed records they're setting—but the theme makes very little sense, and the fill is about as poor as I've seen in a Monday in a long, long time. I kept stopping and wondering if *this* was the best place to demonstrate how bad the fill was, and then I'd solve a few more answers and hit some new low point. It wasn't so much one bad answer as an absolute slew of repeaters. Just an avalanche. It was like the grid hadn't been polished much at all. The whole NW corner just shrieked "yesteryear," fill-wise. The theme is not demanding, so there is no reason that the solver should have to endure So Much SERFS AMORE SETTO NIPAT STENTS COED LEDS ODEON ELEC and on and on and on. AGASP PALAU LAIC and on and On and on and on and on. Just abusive. Outside the themers, there are zero interesting answers in the grid. In fact, there are only two (2!) answers of 8 letters and nothing (seriously, nothing) else over 6. And only two of those!! The rest is just short stuff and it's just ... rough. As for the theme, how are those names "SANS" "SANS"? They are not "without" the "SANS." They do not "lack" "SANS." "San" can precede each of those names in a famous (or, in the case of San Pedro, not-so-famous) city name. But there's no question of being "without." There is nothing in the way the theme is executed that justifies the French "SANS" bit. I get that you want the cutesy SANS / SANS joke, but ... you gotta at least make the first "SANS" make sense.
[San Pedro's fame peaked in 1986 with this song]
Almost laughable that PEDRO is here among the far, far, far more famous San cities. PEDRO is also by far, far, far the least famous of the SAN-less people—Goya and Rivera are legendary, and Feliciano has at least been famous for decades, whereas this is the first I'm hearing of this "Mandalorian" actor guy. So that answer is a double-outlier. I just don't get this at all. At all. Overall, it was very easy, despite my not knowing (or not remembering) that FRANCISCO was GOYA's first name, and not knowing PEDRO PASCAL's name at all, and not knowing (for the second time in a week) a "Parasite" actor's name (today, CHOI Woo-shik). It was maybe playing a little slow for me, but for the last third of the puzzle I switched to Downs-only and rattled off like twelve in a row, without hesitation, to close it out. If this wordplay worked for you, I'm very happy for you. The theme missed me completely, and the fill was almost unendurably dull / overly familiar.
Yea Sans in French means “without” And sans in Spanish means “Saints”. So those first names are sans sans…. I get it, but I don’t get it either… what is the connection to French and Spanish and the artists names and the cities?
Yep, very easy. I went through this PPP laden CA puzzle very quickly. Knowing all but one of the theme answers (PEDRO) was helpful but then they are all pretty famous. Like @Rex I’m a bit fuzzy about how the theme works and he makes some good points about the fill. So, not the most satisfying Monday I’ve done.
@bocamp & pabloinnh - Croce’s F #754 was a medium-tough Croce. I found that the tough stuff was pretty evenly spread throughout the puzzle. Good luck!
When I finished the puzzle my first thought was that I’d forgotten that today was St. Patrick’s Day. What with all of the fine old Dublin families being represented: the O’GOYAs, the O’RIVERAs and the O’PASCALs.
My next thought was “BLIMEy, perhaps I’ve got an old puzzle here on me iPad. It can’t possibly be a modern NYTXW as there’s not a whiff of ASS, ARSE, BUTT, DERRIÈRE, BEHIND, TUSH or FANNY.”
I was further confused by 1D SERFS and 57D JIVE being highlighted along with the themers when the cursor is on the revealer at 70A. But then I saw the very sly way it all tied in. The themers are California cities, right? So no JIVE, SERFS up! Cowabunga, dude.
In the end, though, I decided that it must be a tribute puzzle to Camille Saint-Saëns, whose 187th birthday is this month.
Very fun and very quick. A PR for me I think. Congrats on the debut, Joe Rodini.
I figured the “san” was just to me “saint” here (Spanish). Effectively same as if they were about cities I guess (since those cities are all named after saints).
It took a second to get the joke, but once I did, I kept whispering SANS SANS, and I was pleased. SANS SANS, SANS SANS, SANS SANS. And then I was somehow reminded of Danse Macabre, in the spirit of the clue for TANGO. Hah.
Rex – I read and reread your comment, but I still don’t understand the confusion. It’s simply that the first parts of the themers (are cities) without (their) San(s)). Just like I would like a fifth period sans disruptions. And I was too panicked by the highbrowish themers, by the fear that I wouldn’t get it, to notice the fill.
@egsforbreakfast – I hadn’t noticed that all the cities are in California. Cool.
“Equipment in a tug of war” – Heads-up: you need boots and gloves, too. I was listening to a history of tug of war on the podcast Stuff You Should Know; the game can get pretty gruesome pretty fast. Sheesh.
“Modern Christmas bulbs” - &%$$# useless. We can design cars you can call on your phone to leave their parking spot to come pick you up in front of the store, but we can’t design Christmas light strands to stay on when one bulb decides not to be a team player.
I investigated those DODOs. Seems they earned their “dumb” reputation for simply being too friendly trusting of the sailors; the poor guys didn’t understand they should be scared of humans and were easily lured onto the boats, where they were fattened up and eaten. This makes me unspeakably sad.
Liked FLOOD crossing DAM (work with me here). And I was today years old when I realized that CLEFT is the older, fancier past tense of cleave. Duh.
Also, AGASP crosses STARE with SWOON nearby. I looked into swooning, like, can you really faint with passion? George Clooney sightings notwithstanding? Apparently it used to be a Thing, probably attributed to corsets, pounds and pounds of clothes, and arsenic-laced wallpaper. But a lot of people maintain that it was all just an act to demonstrate the requisite feminine vulnerabilities. I kinda snorted until I remembered the histrionics involved nowadays when some women see a flying bug or spider in the presence of a man. There’s no way they would carry on like that if alone, right? I dunno. Maybe I’m just old and cynical.
Joe – I think this is a swell Monday. Quite a feat that you found four symmetrical names to work, *and* I got a real kick out of being shown the two takes on the word SANS.
Isnt the crissing of CHOI and FRANCISCOGOYA a Natick? A very guessable one but still. In my first pass I had CHOE and FRANCESCO. Im not familiar with the artist and hadnt yet come across the theme.
Pedro Pascal and Goya were the only ones I knew as a 20 something. Pedro Pascal is one of the more famous actors around now. Narcos, Oberyn from Game of Thrones, the Mandalorian are all pretty big shows. Though San Pedro is not a famous city.
My five favorite clues from last week (in order of appearance):
1. Make dough from scratch? (3)(3)(7) 2. Posture that might be hard to maintain (6) 3. Accessory in many a baby carriage (4) 4. Headset? (5) 5. Word on the street, perhaps? (4)
Even this griping couldn't spoil my enjoyment of this puzzle. Some of the fill was over familiar but that helped me thru names I don't know, places I don't know much about.
Some day when you have time to flesh out your griping, Rex, perhaps you could explain what's wrong with so many words you hate. Coed, serfs and odeon all seem fine to me, and quite different. Nip at is two words, so what? Etc. I liked your column better when the NYT was being sexist an very white. Plenty to gripe about then
The second SANS appeared from the way easy downs in the SE. What?! A dupe? That lasted a second before I saw the deal. I congratulate Joe on his NYT debut. Hope to see his name again.
I don’t get it. I mean, I see what Rodini is trying to do here, but it just doesn’t work. As Rex said, these names stand well on their own. The key part of the theme is that these are *cities*, SANS "San". So, without any indication that we are dealing with city names, the whole theme just falls apart.
It’s like having Orleans, Haven, York and Tripoli, and being expected to know we’re looking for cities missing their "NEW"s (actually it’s not like that at all; and it’s unlikely you’d be familiar with New Tripoli unless you live in my neck of the woods. But I couldn’t come up with a 4th city starting with "New").
Oh my - a PPP theme, bookended by foreign language quizzes. What could be more welcoming on a Monday. At least this early in the week you can just hold your nose and fill in the crosses. And it went by quickly, so an improvement over yesterday’s very tiring slog.
I got 1A and 1D right off the bat and thought that the theme would be something about missing I’s (SANS SERFS). I was delighted to know all of the themers, including PEDRO PASCAL, but when I finished I didn’t understand why there were two SANS (sanses?) I only got it when I read Rex and then I thought it was fairly clever.
A kind of interesting factoid about the Spanish words for male and female saints: Santo is a male saint and Santa is a female saint. Santo is always shortened to San when it precedes a name, but Santa has no short version. Santo/santa also means holy, so some Santa cities are named for a female saint and some are named for a holy thing. Santa Monica and Santa Barbara are female saints but Santa Cruz and Santa Fe are holy things (cross and faith). As LMS says, I’ll pause while you take this down.
Two tiny Pacific island nations in one puzzle, a Monday no less. Does anyone else play Worldle, the geography knock-off of Wordle? You guess a country each day by its outline. I am such a geography nerd that I can immediately recognize Gabon or Uzbekistan by its shape, but the Palaus and Tongas (and Caribbean or African island countries) are impossible.
I had a very different experience with this one. Felt much more difficult than a typical Monday. Needed crosses to see 23A, 48A, 31D, and 49D. Didn’t mind the theme as much as others.
Rex, you need to watch Mandalorian and Narcos just to get a taste of Pedro Pascal’s talent. He’s a fascinating actor and very in-demand. Game of Thrones season 4, the final episode - you’ll never look at a cantaloupe the same way.
A theme within a theme on a Monday - impressive. I don’t like full, proper names claiming so much grid real estate - but no way around that today. @LMS explains the SANS - SANs play pretty clearly surprised the big guy didn’t catch on.
They are all in California but SAN PEDRO is technically not a city - the restriction doesn’t appear anywhere in the puzzle but still it’s odd. Pulled out of SAN PEDRO late one night I’m not sure if there is a hotter actor than PEDRO PASCAL right now.
I like the cluing on PROPOSAL - but other than that the overall fill is flat.
What a lot of complaining about a quick and easy Monday puzzle that (for once) has a lot of famous Spanish/ Latino names instead of mostly white people PPP. The theme is simple, these are both saints and cities missing their “sans”. PEDROPASCAL is a famous guy, Rex. Even my 66-year old self knows him (well, largely thanks to my 30-year old daughter, but I did watch and enjoy The Mandolorian.) And San Pedro may not be a famous city, but he’s a very well-known Saint.
I liked this one and it’s Monday, who really cares about some ORCAs and APPS in the fill? I enjoyed it.
Obviously we have a very different background of knowledge because the only themer I knew was Pedro Pascal. Between the countries I didn't know and the other theme answers, it was a challenging Monday for me. The middle with Palau crossing laic I had to guess.
Very enjoyable overall, this puzzle, with cleverness in the theme, a touch of rub, and lovely memories evoked by RIVERA, FELICIANO, and (San) FRANCISCO.
And a TRIO of sparks: • A perfect-ten schwa train: GOYA / SELMA / RIVERA / PUMA / DIVA / CARTA / TONGA / ORCA / META / MECCA. • The almost-musical: DAMN YANK. • “Jumpin’ JIVE”. At WordPlay, Rachel Fabi (the blogger) posted a video of this, which you can also pull up at YouTube by punching in “Cab Calloway Jumpin Jive”. It is an amazing, remarkable confluence of energy, talent, art, and explosive joy that nearly lifted me into heaven. Highly recommended!
Congratulations, JR, on your debut, which gave me great pleasure – thank you!
Pip, pip, JJK!! (7:43 A.M.) It's a Monday its supposed to be easy. Perhaps a few of you "everyday" quibblers, should follow the lead of old-time NYC Irish bartenders, and consider taking Mondays off!
Same "who?" as OFL with the CHOI and PASCAL people, but otherwise an easy Monday, with TONGA and PALAU adding a little crunch. And PEDRO anybody should always be PEDRO Martinez.
I've taught both GOYA and RIVERA so minimal thought required there."El tres de mayo" is justly famous and disturbing and even high school students can be impressed by it.
A CLEFT chin runs in our family, both my sons inherited mine, and we can all vouch for the fact that it is in no way related to any super power.
The "press +" clue was borderline insulting. I know Mondays are for some first time solvers, but it's still the NYT, right? I mean, really.
@Wanderlust-There are a couple of exceptions. The most common ones are Santo Tomas and Santo Domingo. Maybe they're the exceptions that prove the rule, I really don't know.
I had no problem with the SANS/SANS ploy, JR. Made sense to me. Mostly Just Right for a Monday and congrats on the debut. Thanks for all the fun.
After my “venomous” comments about the Sunday superslog, wanted to congratulate Joe on a solid debut. I can’t imagine the effort it takes to learn how to construct and to get published in NYT is quite an achievement.
The theme was clever, keeping all the cities in CA added a bonus touch and it was more challenging than the typical Monday. Good job!
@Laura I'm not sure Rex really dislikes all those words; it's mostly that he's tired of them in crosswords. (Well, it's true that he's declared NIP as now off limits for him as a constructor, and I think he wants to convince other constructors to follow suit. Because of the anti-Japanese slur. I think he thinks that it's widely used this way surreptitiously, as in "it's getting nippy in here" said one white boy to another, based on an anecdote Rex has told. No idea how true that is.)
He wants crosswords to exhibit freshness, bounce, and sass. (He says this a lot. To the point where I'm tired of seeing "sass" in crosswords. I'm also getting a little tired of sass sans the s-, but happily we didn't see that today.) If he senses that the constructor/editing team is just phoning it in with the same old, same old, then he'll call them out.
Moving on. My curiosity was piqued by @LMS's comments on SWOON and why is it that women apparently don't swoon as much as they used to. Jeez, I've got to get to work soon, so I don't want to do a deep dive now, but FWIW there are a number of theories offered over at Quora. One is that for the most part it wasn't really fainting; it was a show of femininity according to fashions of the time, designed to excite the protective and chivalrous impulses of men who happened to be around. After all, those high-class ladies* usually managed to swoon their way over to a nearby couch, as opposed to going completely limp and losing control of their bladder, which would tend to undermine the impression of delicacy they wanted to foster. Another theory is that actually there was never all that much swooning to begin with; it was more a literary trope.
@LMS used the word "histrionic", which I've been subconsciously pairing with "hysteria" for quite some time now, but today I learned that that connection doesn't seem etymologically well-founded. The word "hysteria" traces back to a Greek noun meaning "uterus", so that "hysteria" was another of these mainly female syndromes allegedly due to a "wandering uterus" or some such thing. "Histrionic" has more to do with DRAMA LESSONS, i.e., theatrical, pertaining to an actor, etc. I learn something new here every day.
*Somehow I don't picture chambermaids and fishwives doing a whole lot of swooning.
Nice to be back after yesterday's weeping. Took me a whole box of tissues to survive that tragedy. Like 🦖 today's theme makes no sense to me either, but the individual people in the theme have delightful names... destined for fame type names. I doubt with my name there's any danger of me becoming known throughout the ages.
Unlike 🦖 I didn't find the fill terrible until looking back at the puzzle with his grumbles in mind. Nothing to go head over heels for but ODEON, PALAU, INCUR, COSMO, FLOOD, TONGA, and UNITAS were okay.
I'm already writing Christmas music arrangements for December and every year somebody wants to do Feliz Navidad. When they learn how little music is in it and how repetitive it is we're always left amazed how so little made FELICIANO so much. Go listen to it if you don't believe me.
Uniclues:
1 Buy some sneaks or be mauled on a safari. 2 A half dozen illustrated ❤️ 3 "Actually, they were stupid," -- the Anonym-oti. 4 Pretending those dolts are saying something worth hearing.
1 INCUR PUMAS (~) 2 SIX DREW AMORE (~) 3 NIP AT DODO JIVE 4 COED ONUS
The highlight of 1D and 57D is a bug in iOS, I believe. I’ve seen this on several puzzles lately where a highlight word (1A and 57A in this case) accidentally trigger the orthogonal to highlight too.
Hey All ! I always think of Mama in the Eddie Murphy movie "The Nutty Professor" when I see SWOON. She'd let out an "Ooh!", and faint.
Maybe if the Revealer clue had inserted "as cities" in it, like "After 1-Across, what the first names at 20-, 36-, 43-, and 57-Across, as cities, all are?" Then you'd see there aren't any SANS', ergo they are SANS their SANS.
@Pablo Is there no SAN PABLO out there somewhere?*
I liked this puz. Kind of a strenge-ish theme, but it works for the yuck-yuck-laugh it goes for. SANS SANS! Yuck-Yuck. 😜
*Just Googed and found San Pablo, CA! With about 30000 residents as of the 2010 census. I'm sure that number has grown since then. So a good size city. I tell ya @Pablo, no respect! 😁
I totally get Rex’s criticism of the sans sans themer. Its actually that the first name of the famous person with the word San (saint) is the name of a city, not that the name is lacking it. Should have clued it as avec (with) not sans (without). Also understood his feeling that Pedro Pascal, while well-known as a present day actor, does not inhabit the same territory of fame that the other historically and long time famous men do. Also agreed with him on the lack luster fill. I think Rex is usually hyper critical and knit picking to a fault, but his take on today’s puzzle is right on.
Thx, Joe, for your COSMOpolitan Mon. offering; loved the diversity! :)
Med.
Pretty much on the right wavelength for this one.
Knew the themers, SANS first names, save JOSE, so relied on credible crosses, esp. for CHOI.
UNITAS was a gimme.
Loved the cultural mix today.
Jack before JIVE; gotta get hep! ("Jumpin JIVE" ~ 'Cab Calloway' and the Nicholas Brothers)
Hep-hep! De-boodle-de-ack, de-boodle-de-ackasaki! Hep-hep! Oh, rang-tang, te-dah-dah, Hep-hep! Gonna tell you 'bout the jumpin' jive, Hep-hep! Jim, jam, jump, the jumpin' jive; Hep-hep! Cats gonna beat out this mellow jive; Hep-hep! Beat it out on the mellow side.
METAphysics is always a welcome addition to the grid.
Fun adventure to start the solving week with. :)
@jae
Thx; on it! 🤞
@Joe Dipinto (1:48 PM dbyd) wrote:
(Frightfully easy Acrostic tomorrow, I galloped through the whole thing in one fell swoop. Great fun.)
Nicely put! 😉, but I didn't quite 'gallop' thru it; as per @JC66, found it 'pretty easy', tho. ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
I don’t time myself so no idea whether this was a record-breaking Monday but it certainly was on the easy side. Of the themers, I only heard of DIEGO and JOSE, but getting the other two was the extent of a challenge for me. Still, I don’t expect it this early in the week and lack of effort certainly did not detract from my enjoyment of the puzzle. Congratulations go to the constructor for the NYT debut, quite an achievement on any day of the week.
While I had no trouble whatsoever with the grid, I admit to feeling a bit muddled as to the theme. After reading a couple of blogs, I now understand but I originally found the revealer confusing. I interpreted it as telling me to “sans/take away” the first name and then find the significance of the answer in what remained. Uh, the last names? I think if it had not referenced 1A at all and just said What the first names of 20, 36, 43 and 57 across all are, it would have been crystal clear and the first SANS at 1A could still have remained as a hint. But that’s just me. Maybe next time.
I'm as skeptical of this theme's cohesion as anyone else, but Rex's tone about it manages to somewhat incredibly make him sound like the less put-together one. Just a mess on all sides. Everyone take a half-day and reconvene tomorrow.
No ASS, but we did get DAMN. The NYTXW is pretty solidly a PG-rated affair now, I guess. Speaking of which, I'll be DAMNed if I commit the entire cast of Parasite to memory just to be able to solve crossword clues with them. This is I believe the third unique cast member whose name (either in part or in full) has been an answer in a pretty short time span.
Pedro Pascal is, in this particular cultural moment at least, easily the most famous of the four theme answers. Big roles in The Mandalorian, Narcos, and Game of Thrones, among others, and his star is still currently ascendant. That's not the sort of knowledge gap I personally would admit to out loud.
For some non-Christmas Feliciano, he wrote "Affirmation," beautifully covered by George Benson on the album Breezin' https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=LELQLEDnDvg
Took me forever to actually parse what the revealer meant. For anybody still confused, they’re not saying that the names are missing SANS. They’re saying that when the first names come “after” the letters “SAN”, they become SANS (i.e. saints). The meaning “without” has nothing to do with the theme
I was so happy to see Goya and Rivera in the puzzle that I forgave the mostly meh fill. I’m not really familiar with Pascal but the name rang a bell, probably skimmed over it in the various “arts&leisure” pages I read. And Feliciano is always welcome in my puzzle. A creditable debut.
On the contrary, I thought this was a clever puzzle that provided a little more resistance than the usual Monday. I liked the SAND SANS wordplay and the fact that there was enough familiar fill to help piece together the names I didn’t know, such PEDRO PASCAL. Congrats, Joe, on the debut.
Things I never really thought about before: Superman’s chin, Goya’s first name, the number of legs on an insect.
Nice puzzle with a Monday groove. No idea who Pedro Pascal is, but easy to get given the theme. Paused at SETTO but other than that rifled right through this one.
I would argue that Pedro Pascal is more well-known to the average American than any of the others (though perhaps not to the average NYT crossword solver).
It was AMORE at first sight for OMNI and CHOI. They met in SANS FRANCISCO after watching ACT I of Romeo and Juliet at the PALAU ODEON, EAST of ARMY St.
CHOI was no DIVA but she could SWOON like a DODO when OMNI would NIP AT her TOE. She would then YANK his ATOM which made him LISP a PASCAL JIVE.... It sounded NASAL, but CHOI didn't give a DAMN.
While visiting SANS PEDRO, OMNI DREW up a PROPOSAL. CHOI would EMIT A GASP and STARE when she heard it. He wanted to go to the LAKE PUMA and PROP INN and book COED ROOMS. Because she was in AMORE, and probably RUED this UNION, she went along.
They met up with a TRIO of SERFS that sported AFROS and drank COSMOS. They wore a big ASTER on their NAVY MBAS that smelled of LAIC LIME and they would FLOOD you with a big HELLO.
Selma, the LAKE hostess, would be drinking her usual TEA under her SEAT. She would then get up and dance a TONGA with IGOR from CUBA. She was SIX feet tall and looked like an ORCA, but the UNION between them was META.
No COED ROOMS were available, so OMNI and CHOI SET TO SANS DIEGO. They booked a GOYA ROOM with a RIVERA view and listened to JOSE sing a FELICIANO SWOON. It was magical. There's never a blank CARTA when AMORE is in the air.
There AR NO bad memories for them. They continue with their PDA's...CHOI will always STARE and SWOON when OMNI (SANS his LISP) sings: " I left my CLEFT....in SANS FRANCISCO"...
They would eventually tie the ROPE back at LAKE PUMA. It was a sight to behold...and SELMA, the LAIC SIX foot ORCA, made DAMN sure of it.
LSM - there are Xmas tree lights were the whole string won't go out when one light goes out. We have several of them in our home. There's probably multiple ways of doing it, but a simple way would be how they are wired together, whether in series or parallel and how much in parallel. The cheapest is to just wire it all in series, so if one goes out, it interrupts the flow of electricity and the entire string goes out.
Anyhow, quick question for everyone: does anyone have the NYTimes crosswords support email? My desktop can no longer connect to the website, as it thinks I'm part of some botnet or something. My IP appears to be banned. I've tried clearing caches and resetting the computer to no avail. My app on the phone still works, but my desktop version on the phone gets the same error, unless I drop out of my Wifi and use the cellular connection (which would make sense if my IP is banned.) I tried a VPN, and that didn't work as a go-around. Also, any support page I try to get to becomes an endless loop of "are you a robot?" questions that I've answered by clicking the box, but it never gets me past that, so I can't get to the information. Similarly, "forgot password" doesn't work, as even that is blocked for the same reason. Any body have an email?
I was going to write, "Easy and cute," until reading @Loren 4:15 and realizing that I hadn't understood how the two SANS's worked; now I'll add "and really clever." Four California cities sans their San's, not just four names of (random) saints. t was a treat to write in FRANCISCO GOYA and DIEGO RIVERA and anticipate which artist would appear next in this art-history-themed puzzle - until I was brought up short by needing to come up with the name of an actor and then a singer. An enjoyable fake-out.
smalltondoc, Lots of people know New Tripoli. It’s the closest town to Bake Oven Knob on the south side of Blue Mountain. I live more than 80 miles from there. Also, the Tripoli in New Tripoli isn’t pronounced as the one in Libya is. So, physician: heal thy post.
This was a Monday with a bit of artistry. Limes it and found the double whammy wordplay with “SANS” very clever. Only slow down was remembering artists’ first names as quickly as I did the last. Very different theme from the usual Monday fare. Kudos Joe Rodini.
Ack, it's @LMS not @LSM. Damn one hand faster than the other while typing.
The SANS theme made perfect sense to me -- I don't get the complaints. As said above the first word of the theme answers are SANS their SANs of a California city.
I didn't find this anywhere near as easy as others did, but it still fell faster than my average. It didn't help that I didn't know who DIEGO RIVERA or PEDRO PASCAL were, and only had the faintest memory of JOSE FELICIANO. Only GOYA was the gimme for me there. Thankfully, the crosses were fine and the names were inferrable with about half to two-thirds of the letters in.
Apparently San PEDRO hasn't been a city since 1909, but I didn't know that, or even where it was, nor did that bother me. I did like the revealer, although I guess if there was some way to work "urban" into it that would have improved it.
My problem was the themers. I knew GOYA and RIVERA just from the clues, JOSE FELICIANO only after several crosses (singer from Puerto Rico who recorded an album of Christmas songs? Not much to go on!), and PEDRO PASCAL not at all. Maybe it's my ageist bias, but I can't imagine why I would want to watch any of those shows, and if I did probably wouldn't remember who the actors were --- I don't even remember the actors from Parasite, which I loved.
That's all OK -- my problem was that at one point I had the entire NE and middle diagonal sections complete filled in, nothing at all in the SW, and no way into the SW except for the two unknown theme answers. OK, so I basically restarted the puzzle with 33-A, ADD, and it was pretty easy from there on, but seemed unfair on the part of the constructor.
Anybody else try PApua before PALAU? In retrospect, I don't think it counts as "Pacific," but it fooled me.
Small nit: a congregation is not always LAIC (45-D).
@Pablo, and then there's Santiago. I can deduce the rule, but I can't think of another example.
I don't get OFL's disapproval of the fill, which was totally apt for a Monday, maybe a bit on the difficult side. He just hates Chen, always has.
Samto is Spanish for "saint", from the Latin sanctus, meaning holy. Santo goes before male names or words, Santa before female. Except in the case of Santo Domingo, Santo is abbreviated to San, as in San Pedro (thanks, buddy, for the reference to Hot Rod Lincoln). The puzzle would have been better if it had referred to California, as all the cited Sans are famous in California. Indeed San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose are major cities, and San Pedro is, along with Long Beach, the port for Los Angeles.
(Side note: San Pedro would be a major city, but Los Angeles annexed it a century or more ago, connecting it with a long, tiny strip of land that was, and really still is, of no importance whatsoever. Why they did not take in all of the eventual harbor, I don't know).
@JW (10:04) I freely admit to that kind of knowledge gap. First time I ever heard of the name PEDRO PASCAL was this morning when I got to 43 across in my puzzle. But then I’ve never seen any of the shows you mentioned either. 🫤
@GILL. You outdid yourself today.
@Peter P (10:43) I was having troubles similar to what you described with my old PC. Some days I was unable to pull up the puzzle at all. I finally caved and upgraded to a new model. Problems solved. For what it’s worth.
@jberg JOSE FELICIANO did a lot more than that! He was quite popular, even with people who don't speak Spanish. My mom used to play his stuff when I was growing up. I think he's still performing (but apparently not in the best of health, according to a guy I know who played bass with him for a while).
He had a cameo in the movie Fargo; I got the feeling there was some wry irony afoot (something like the Steve Buschemi character taking the hooker he hired to see Feliciano play at a podunk Holiday Inn or similar).
@Whatsername - Thanks. I just got off the phone with them after finding a number on my phone, and a simple password reset did the trick. (Which it did not allow me to do on my desktop, saying that my IP was banned.) Who knows what that was all about. I was able to login with the old password earlier this morning on my phone's web browser, so it wasn't the password that was incorrect but ... something else. Anyhow, all seems to be good now. (And yes, I even tried turning off all extensions, using a different browser, using VPN, clearing all cookies, etc.) Damned if I know why that worked, but it worked.
I couldn't figure out the theme, so I solved it as a themeless and it was perfectly fine.
A lot of names, but grown-up, well-known names -- so that was fine too.
I forgot in the midst of a busy morning, having awakened on the late side, that I hadn't posted anything yet. I also mislaid or threw out the puzzle in getting my apartment ready for my cleaning woman today.
After the first few entries, it looked very easy so went for speed this morning but even with pausing only a few times throughout, still took almost 8 minutes to enter all of the letters into the iPad NYTXW app. Thank goodness the app stopped the clock then so doesn’t know I didn’t get the city theme for another 4 minutes!
Doc—- Um, off the top of my head: New Haven New London New Rochelle New Britain New Brunswick New Gretna ( NJ’s version of New Tripoli) New City New Iberia New Castle New Milford
My first take was … kinda neat theme idea. Plus, puz starts and ends with the same entry, which is real different. Yeah, I can kinda see how some might not quite cotton to the fillins, overall. M&A is more a fan of desperation than are most folks, I'd grant. [ELEC/ODEON/LEDS … har! … see that?]
Knew all the themer dudes except for PEDROPASCAL. And I reckon I shoulda known him, since I thoroughly enjoyed The Mandalorian show. CHOI was the only other no-know that I can recall.
Not too many longball entries today. ARMYNAVY & PROPOSAL look to be the only two over 6 long.
staff weeject pick: (SAN)TOE. TAC woulda been more perfect, tho. Only SIX weejects today, sorta ironically since SIX was one of em.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Annual football game between rival military academies} = ARMYNAVY. Made m&e wish I'd looked at that longball's clue, even before I had any of its letters; coulda spared numerous solvequest nanoseconds.
Thanx for the SAN-itized fun, Mr. Rodini dude. And congratz on yer debut. And remember: there ARNO losers, if one's puz makes it this far.
@Anonymous 6:09 - I had FRANCoSCO crossing CHOo, since the name Choo Woo-shik sounded fine to me. But Francisco is so common that I don’t consider it a Natick.
Exactly my reaction. Feliz Navidad was such a huge hit and it has become a Christmas standard. Interesting that his last name is based on the word feliz.
Puzzle-related movie trivia: In "Chinatown", the character of Curly, introduced early in the movie, is surprise-visited later by Jake (Jack Nicholson) at his house in San Pedro (which Jack pronounces "Pee-dro"; does everyone say it that way?) — but the actual house used for the scene (scroll down) was not in San Pedro but in East Hollywood.
I can’t believe I have to comment on a Monday: the theme is fine. It’s clear and consistent. It’s also clued with a “?” so it is obviously wordplay. Nobody said the names were literally lacking SANS. Come on, man.
@Joe DiPinto - "at his house in San Pedro (which Jack pronounces "Pee-dro"; does everyone say it that way?) "
I've only ever heard it pronounced as "San PEE-dro." Or, that is to say, I may have pronounced it as "San PAY-dro" once but was quickly corrected. It may be a bit of a shibboleth like "Houston" (HOW-stun) is in Manhattan, or "Paulina" (paw-LINE-uh) is here in Chicago. But, yes, "San PEE-dro." Wikipedia doesn't even give any other variant.
I lived in SAN DIEGO a long, long time ago and I definitely know the way to SAN JOSE. I've had the good fortune to visit the beautiful city of SAN FRANCISCO a number of times over the years. Didn't know PEDRO PASCAL or his eponymous city (sort of city?) but pieced it together easily enough. It was nice to be reminded of California times.
I noticed the relatively high black square count and subsequent bevy of shorter entries. Maybe the 42 black squares were necessary because of the higher scrabble value of some of the themer letters. With four longish themers an option is the pinwheel gird layout, with two themers down and two across. That way fill has only one themer to cross. Here, quite a lot of fill has to cross two themers. That really reduces the degrees of freedom left in choosing interesting fill. Just a thought.
Given the constraints, the fill holds up very well. I offer as evidence @GILL I.'s 10:42 charming vignette of the whirlwind outing of OMNI and CHOI, based largely on today's grid fill. Could this be Episode 1 of "The Continuing Adventures of OMNI And CHOI"?
@Pete P – Interesting. I wonder why the anglicized pronunciation took precedence. I guess most of the other cities couldn't really be pronounced differently in English. Well, maybe SAN DYE-AY-GO?
Yes! and I can’t believe no one on the puzzle app team hasn’t seen this and fixed it already. I know they don’t read our emails so I haven’t bothered reporting it. But you’d think at least one person on the payroll uses their own app.
I was born in LA — grew up in, and still live in, Southern California and I have never heard anyone say Pee-dro! I have friends who grew up there. We always use the Spanish pronunciation (pay-dro).
@Peter P: Glad to hear you got it resolved without too much hassle. I know my issues were just due to my outdated operating system and software because I was having trouble on other sites too. What on earth did we do with our time before we had computers? Whatsername
@anonymous 10:42. Weird. It was folks from LA who corrected me when I used the Spanish pronunciation. Looking into it more, it appears that the pronunciation is divided within the community. Apparently, if you're from the harbor area, it's PEE-dro, but if you're from elsewhere it's PAY-dro, which is odd, as these people were not from the harbor community. And I've pretty much only run into the Anglicized PEE-dro pronunciation (but it's not like I've had reason to refer to it or hear it very often.) Information from: https://losangeleno.com/places/san-pedro-pronunciation/
I thought this one was pretty good. Maybe the reveal could tweaked a little bit but I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water like Rex did. How about With 1 - Across, cities the first names become at 20 - 36 - 43 and 57 across. ?
Hm. Take the ending I off RODINI and you have...uh, not so fast. Though this grid features artists, it's hardly a work of art. It seems to be some sort of excuse to have the same word appear twice, normally a taboo but here the whole point of the gig.
The center crossing makes me want to STARE AGASP (!) at it. The more common AROAR, AGAPE and all their A-cousins that appear ONLY in crosswords are beginning to annoy me, despite being REAL words.
There is one way this puzzle hits home for me: I have SIX STENTS holding my aorta together. Didn't know CHOI or PEDROPASCAL but the crosses were so easy it didn't matter.
I guess since I owe my life to those STENTS and the surgical team who installed them (thanks again, Dr. Afifi!), the least I can do is award a par.
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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99 comments:
Yea Sans in French means “without” And sans in Spanish means “Saints”. So those first names are sans sans…. I get it, but I don’t get it either… what is the connection to French and Spanish and the artists names and the cities?
Yep, very easy. I went through this PPP laden CA puzzle very quickly. Knowing all but one of the theme answers (PEDRO) was helpful but then they are all pretty famous. Like @Rex I’m a bit fuzzy about how the theme works and he makes some good points about the fill. So, not the most satisfying Monday I’ve done.
@bocamp & pabloinnh - Croce’s F #754 was a medium-tough Croce. I found that the tough stuff was pretty evenly spread throughout the puzzle. Good luck!
When I finished the puzzle my first thought was that I’d forgotten that today was St. Patrick’s Day. What with all of the fine old Dublin families being represented: the O’GOYAs, the O’RIVERAs and the O’PASCALs.
My next thought was “BLIMEy, perhaps I’ve got an old puzzle here on me iPad. It can’t possibly be a modern NYTXW as there’s not a whiff of ASS, ARSE, BUTT, DERRIÈRE, BEHIND, TUSH or FANNY.”
I was further confused by 1D SERFS and 57D JIVE being highlighted along with the themers when the cursor is on the revealer at 70A. But then I saw the very sly way it all tied in. The themers are California cities, right? So no JIVE, SERFS up! Cowabunga, dude.
In the end, though, I decided that it must be a tribute puzzle to Camille Saint-Saëns, whose 187th birthday is this month.
Very fun and very quick. A PR for me I think. Congrats on the debut, Joe Rodini.
Like a hot knife through butter. Much appreciated after Sunday’s slogathon.
CHOI WOO-SHIK, no idea, but what a fun name. A little resistance tomorrow would be appreciated.
Pedro Pascal is one of the busier actors working right now. That's on you for not knowing who he is, not the puzzle designer.
I figured the “san” was just to me “saint” here (Spanish). Effectively same as if they were about cities I guess (since those cities are all named after saints).
It took a second to get the joke, but once I did, I kept whispering SANS SANS, and I was pleased. SANS SANS, SANS SANS, SANS SANS. And then I was somehow reminded of Danse Macabre, in the spirit of the clue for TANGO. Hah.
Rex – I read and reread your comment, but I still don’t understand the confusion. It’s simply that the first parts of the themers (are cities) without (their) San(s)). Just like I would like a fifth period sans disruptions. And I was too panicked by the highbrowish themers, by the fear that I wouldn’t get it, to notice the fill.
@egsforbreakfast – I hadn’t noticed that all the cities are in California. Cool.
“Equipment in a tug of war” – Heads-up: you need boots and gloves, too. I was listening to a history of tug of war on the podcast Stuff You Should Know; the game can get pretty gruesome pretty fast. Sheesh.
“Modern Christmas bulbs” - &%$$# useless. We can design cars you can call on your phone to leave their parking spot to come pick you up in front of the store, but we can’t design Christmas light strands to stay on when one bulb decides not to be a team player.
I investigated those DODOs. Seems they earned their “dumb” reputation for simply being too friendly trusting of the sailors; the poor guys didn’t understand they should be scared of humans and were easily lured onto the boats, where they were fattened up and eaten. This makes me unspeakably sad.
Liked FLOOD crossing DAM (work with me here). And I was today years old when I realized that CLEFT is the older, fancier past tense of cleave. Duh.
Also, AGASP crosses STARE with SWOON nearby. I looked into swooning, like, can you really faint with passion? George Clooney sightings notwithstanding? Apparently it used to be a Thing, probably attributed to corsets, pounds and pounds of clothes, and arsenic-laced wallpaper. But a lot of people maintain that it was all just an act to demonstrate the requisite feminine vulnerabilities. I kinda snorted until I remembered the histrionics involved nowadays when some women see a flying bug or spider in the presence of a man. There’s no way they would carry on like that if alone, right? I dunno. Maybe I’m just old and cynical.
Joe – I think this is a swell Monday. Quite a feat that you found four symmetrical names to work, *and* I got a real kick out of being shown the two takes on the word SANS.
To easy for a NYTimes Monday.
Not a PR for me, but close. I had the last name of 43A and before reading the clue wondered how I was supposed to fit BLAISE into five letters.
Isnt the crissing of CHOI and FRANCISCOGOYA a Natick? A very guessable one but still. In my first pass I had CHOE and FRANCESCO. Im not familiar with the artist and hadnt yet come across the theme.
Pedro Pascal and Goya were the only ones I knew as a 20 something. Pedro Pascal is one of the more famous actors around now. Narcos, Oberyn from Game of Thrones, the Mandalorian are all pretty big shows. Though San Pedro is not a famous city.
My five favorite clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Make dough from scratch? (3)(3)(7)
2. Posture that might be hard to maintain (6)
3. Accessory in many a baby carriage (4)
4. Headset? (5)
5. Word on the street, perhaps? (4)
WIN THE LOTTERY
FACADE
DOLL
TOTEM
TAXI
Even this griping couldn't spoil my enjoyment of this puzzle. Some of the fill was over familiar but that helped me thru names I don't know, places I don't know much about.
Some day when you have time to flesh out your griping, Rex, perhaps you could explain what's wrong with so many words you hate. Coed, serfs and odeon all seem fine to me, and quite different. Nip at is two words, so what? Etc. I liked your column better when the NYT was being sexist an very white. Plenty to gripe about then
The second SANS appeared from the way easy downs in the SE. What?! A dupe? That lasted a second before I saw the deal. I congratulate Joe on his NYT debut. Hope to see his name again.
I don’t get it. I mean, I see what Rodini is trying to do here, but it just doesn’t work. As Rex said, these names stand well on their own. The key part of the theme is that these are *cities*, SANS "San". So, without any indication that we are dealing with city names, the whole theme just falls apart.
It’s like having Orleans, Haven, York and Tripoli, and being expected to know we’re looking for cities missing their "NEW"s (actually it’s not like that at all; and it’s unlikely you’d be familiar with New Tripoli unless you live in my neck of the woods. But I couldn’t come up with a 4th city starting with "New").
¡Ay, Dios santo!
This reminded me of "el niños" we had to swallow in a past puzzle.
Dear editors, please por favor with lots of azúcar on top: don't try to be cutesy, especially in a foreign language.
The word is "santo" and becomes "san" when preceding a name (plural "santos"), so "sans" just does.not.work.
I will now have to submit a puzzle with famous Dutch "Vans" sporting "Vans" wear.
Piece of cake.
Oh my - a PPP theme, bookended by foreign language quizzes. What could be more welcoming on a Monday. At least this early in the week you can just hold your nose and fill in the crosses. And it went by quickly, so an improvement over yesterday’s very tiring slog.
I got 1A and 1D right off the bat and thought that the theme would be something about missing I’s (SANS SERFS). I was delighted to know all of the themers, including PEDRO PASCAL, but when I finished I didn’t understand why there were two SANS (sanses?) I only got it when I read Rex and then I thought it was fairly clever.
A kind of interesting factoid about the Spanish words for male and female saints: Santo is a male saint and Santa is a female saint. Santo is always shortened to San when it precedes a name, but Santa has no short version. Santo/santa also means holy, so some Santa cities are named for a female saint and some are named for a holy thing. Santa Monica and Santa Barbara are female saints but Santa Cruz and Santa Fe are holy things (cross and faith). As LMS says, I’ll pause while you take this down.
Two tiny Pacific island nations in one puzzle, a Monday no less. Does anyone else play Worldle, the geography knock-off of Wordle? You guess a country each day by its outline. I am such a geography nerd that I can immediately recognize Gabon or Uzbekistan by its shape, but the Palaus and Tongas (and Caribbean or African island countries) are impossible.
OK, back to my Spanish atlas.
I had a very different experience with this one. Felt much more difficult than a typical Monday. Needed crosses to see 23A, 48A, 31D, and 49D. Didn’t mind the theme as much as others.
Rex, you need to watch Mandalorian and Narcos just to get a taste of Pedro Pascal’s talent. He’s a fascinating actor and very in-demand. Game of Thrones season 4, the final episode - you’ll never look at a cantaloupe the same way.
A theme within a theme on a Monday - impressive. I don’t like full, proper names claiming so much grid real estate - but no way around that today. @LMS explains the SANS - SANs play pretty clearly surprised the big guy didn’t catch on.
They are all in California but SAN PEDRO is technically not a city - the restriction doesn’t appear anywhere in the puzzle but still it’s odd. Pulled out of SAN PEDRO late one night I’m not sure if there is a hotter actor than PEDRO PASCAL right now.
I like the cluing on PROPOSAL - but other than that the overall fill is flat.
I dig my JIVE on the mellow side
Not a typical Monday puzzle - but a pleasant solve.
What a lot of complaining about a quick and easy Monday puzzle that (for once) has a lot of famous Spanish/ Latino names instead of mostly white people PPP. The theme is simple, these are both saints and cities missing their “sans”. PEDROPASCAL is a famous guy, Rex. Even my 66-year old self knows him (well, largely thanks to my 30-year old daughter, but I did watch and enjoy The Mandolorian.) And San Pedro may not be a famous city, but he’s a very well-known Saint.
I liked this one and it’s Monday, who really cares about some ORCAs and APPS in the fill? I enjoyed it.
Obviously we have a very different background of knowledge because the only themer I knew was Pedro Pascal. Between the countries I didn't know and the other theme answers, it was a challenging Monday for me. The middle with Palau crossing laic I had to guess.
Very enjoyable overall, this puzzle, with cleverness in the theme, a touch of rub, and lovely memories evoked by RIVERA, FELICIANO, and (San) FRANCISCO.
And a TRIO of sparks:
• A perfect-ten schwa train: GOYA / SELMA / RIVERA / PUMA / DIVA / CARTA / TONGA / ORCA / META / MECCA.
• The almost-musical: DAMN YANK.
• “Jumpin’ JIVE”. At WordPlay, Rachel Fabi (the blogger) posted a video of this, which you can also pull up at YouTube by punching in “Cab Calloway Jumpin Jive”. It is an amazing, remarkable confluence of energy, talent, art, and explosive joy that nearly lifted me into heaven. Highly recommended!
Congratulations, JR, on your debut, which gave me great pleasure – thank you!
Pip, pip, JJK!! (7:43 A.M.) It's a Monday its supposed to be easy. Perhaps a few of you "everyday" quibblers, should follow the lead of old-time NYC Irish bartenders, and consider taking Mondays off!
Amy: couldn't possibly write anything as erudite as @Wanderlust's comment at 7:14. Very informative. Is a SANTA puzzle in our future?
Wordle 492 3/6*
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Same "who?" as OFL with the CHOI and PASCAL people, but otherwise an easy Monday, with TONGA and PALAU adding a little crunch. And PEDRO anybody should always be PEDRO Martinez.
I've taught both GOYA and RIVERA so minimal thought required there."El tres de mayo" is justly famous and disturbing and even high school students can be impressed by it.
A CLEFT chin runs in our family, both my sons inherited mine, and we can all vouch for the fact that it is in no way related to any super power.
The "press +" clue was borderline insulting. I know Mondays are for some first time solvers, but it's still the NYT, right? I mean, really.
@Wanderlust-There are a couple of exceptions. The most common ones are Santo Tomas and Santo Domingo. Maybe they're the exceptions that prove the rule, I really don't know.
I had no problem with the SANS/SANS ploy, JR. Made sense to me. Mostly Just Right for a Monday and congrats on the debut. Thanks for all the fun.
After my “venomous” comments about the Sunday superslog, wanted to congratulate Joe on a solid debut. I can’t imagine the effort it takes to learn how to construct and to get published in NYT is quite an achievement.
The theme was clever, keeping all the cities in CA added a bonus touch and it was more challenging than the typical Monday. Good job!
@Laura
I'm not sure Rex really dislikes all those words; it's mostly that he's tired of them in crosswords. (Well, it's true that he's declared NIP as now off limits for him as a constructor, and I think he wants to convince other constructors to follow suit. Because of the anti-Japanese slur. I think he thinks that it's widely used this way surreptitiously, as in "it's getting nippy in here" said one white boy to another, based on an anecdote Rex has told. No idea how true that is.)
He wants crosswords to exhibit freshness, bounce, and sass. (He says this a lot. To the point where I'm tired of seeing "sass" in crosswords. I'm also getting a little tired of sass sans the s-, but happily we didn't see that today.) If he senses that the constructor/editing team is just phoning it in with the same old, same old, then he'll call them out.
Moving on. My curiosity was piqued by @LMS's comments on SWOON and why is it that women apparently don't swoon as much as they used to. Jeez, I've got to get to work soon, so I don't want to do a deep dive now, but FWIW there are a number of theories offered over at Quora. One is that for the most part it wasn't really fainting; it was a show of femininity according to fashions of the time, designed to excite the protective and chivalrous impulses of men who happened to be around. After all, those high-class ladies* usually managed to swoon their way over to a nearby couch, as opposed to going completely limp and losing control of their bladder, which would tend to undermine the impression of delicacy they wanted to foster. Another theory is that actually there was never all that much swooning to begin with; it was more a literary trope.
@LMS used the word "histrionic", which I've been subconsciously pairing with "hysteria" for quite some time now, but today I learned that that connection doesn't seem etymologically well-founded. The word "hysteria" traces back to a Greek noun meaning "uterus", so that "hysteria" was another of these mainly female syndromes allegedly due to a "wandering uterus" or some such thing. "Histrionic" has more to do with DRAMA LESSONS, i.e., theatrical, pertaining to an actor, etc. I learn something new here every day.
*Somehow I don't picture chambermaids and fishwives doing a whole lot of swooning.
Nice to be back after yesterday's weeping. Took me a whole box of tissues to survive that tragedy. Like 🦖 today's theme makes no sense to me either, but the individual people in the theme have delightful names... destined for fame type names. I doubt with my name there's any danger of me becoming known throughout the ages.
Unlike 🦖 I didn't find the fill terrible until looking back at the puzzle with his grumbles in mind. Nothing to go head over heels for but ODEON, PALAU, INCUR, COSMO, FLOOD, TONGA, and UNITAS were okay.
I'm already writing Christmas music arrangements for December and every year somebody wants to do Feliz Navidad. When they learn how little music is in it and how repetitive it is we're always left amazed how so little made FELICIANO so much. Go listen to it if you don't believe me.
Uniclues:
1 Buy some sneaks or be mauled on a safari.
2 A half dozen illustrated ❤️
3 "Actually, they were stupid," -- the Anonym-oti.
4 Pretending those dolts are saying something worth hearing.
1 INCUR PUMAS (~)
2 SIX DREW AMORE (~)
3 NIP AT DODO JIVE
4 COED ONUS
The highlight of 1D and 57D is a bug in iOS, I believe. I’ve seen this on several puzzles lately where a highlight word (1A and 57A in this case) accidentally trigger the orthogonal to highlight too.
I never even noticed this puzzle had a them; the answers were so easy 😂😂😂
Hey All !
I always think of Mama in the Eddie Murphy movie "The Nutty Professor" when I see SWOON. She'd let out an "Ooh!", and faint.
Maybe if the Revealer clue had inserted "as cities" in it, like "After 1-Across, what the first names at 20-, 36-, 43-, and 57-Across, as cities, all are?" Then you'd see there aren't any SANS', ergo they are SANS their SANS.
@Pablo
Is there no SAN PABLO out there somewhere?*
I liked this puz. Kind of a strenge-ish theme, but it works for the yuck-yuck-laugh it goes for. SANS SANS! Yuck-Yuck. 😜
*Just Googed and found San Pablo, CA! With about 30000 residents as of the 2010 census. I'm sure that number has grown since then. So a good size city. I tell ya @Pablo, no respect! 😁
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I totally get Rex’s criticism of the sans sans themer. Its actually that the first name of the famous person with the word San (saint) is the name of a city, not that the name is lacking it. Should have clued it as avec (with) not sans (without). Also understood his feeling that Pedro Pascal, while well-known as a present day actor, does not inhabit the same territory of fame that the other historically and long time famous men do. Also agreed with him on the lack luster fill. I think Rex is usually hyper critical and knit picking to a fault, but his take on today’s puzzle is right on.
Thx, Joe, for your COSMOpolitan Mon. offering; loved the diversity! :)
Med.
Pretty much on the right wavelength for this one.
Knew the themers, SANS first names, save JOSE, so relied on credible crosses, esp. for CHOI.
UNITAS was a gimme.
Loved the cultural mix today.
Jack before JIVE; gotta get hep! ("Jumpin JIVE" ~ 'Cab Calloway' and the Nicholas Brothers)
Hep-hep!
De-boodle-de-ack, de-boodle-de-ackasaki!
Hep-hep!
Oh, rang-tang, te-dah-dah,
Hep-hep!
Gonna tell you 'bout the jumpin' jive,
Hep-hep!
Jim, jam, jump, the jumpin' jive;
Hep-hep!
Cats gonna beat out this mellow jive;
Hep-hep!
Beat it out on the mellow side.
METAphysics is always a welcome addition to the grid.
Fun adventure to start the solving week with. :)
@jae
Thx; on it! 🤞
@Joe Dipinto (1:48 PM dbyd) wrote:
(Frightfully easy Acrostic tomorrow, I galloped through the whole thing in one fell swoop. Great fun.)
Nicely put! 😉, but I didn't quite 'gallop' thru it; as per @JC66, found it 'pretty easy', tho.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
I don’t time myself so no idea whether this was a record-breaking Monday but it certainly was on the easy side. Of the themers, I only heard of DIEGO and JOSE, but getting the other two was the extent of a challenge for me. Still, I don’t expect it this early in the week and lack of effort certainly did not detract from my enjoyment of the puzzle. Congratulations go to the constructor for the NYT debut, quite an achievement on any day of the week.
While I had no trouble whatsoever with the grid, I admit to feeling a bit muddled as to the theme. After reading a couple of blogs, I now understand but I originally found the revealer confusing. I interpreted it as telling me to “sans/take away” the first name and then find the significance of the answer in what remained. Uh, the last names? I think if it had not referenced 1A at all and just said What the first names of 20, 36, 43 and 57 across all are, it would have been crystal clear and the first SANS at 1A could still have remained as a hint. But that’s just me. Maybe next time.
.
No reaction to 11 Down? There should be a final edit before publishing puzzles that might include defendants pleading guilty to harassment.
I'm as skeptical of this theme's cohesion as anyone else, but Rex's tone about it manages to somewhat incredibly make him sound like the less put-together one. Just a mess on all sides. Everyone take a half-day and reconvene tomorrow.
No ASS, but we did get DAMN. The NYTXW is pretty solidly a PG-rated affair now, I guess. Speaking of which, I'll be DAMNed if I commit the entire cast of Parasite to memory just to be able to solve crossword clues with them. This is I believe the third unique cast member whose name (either in part or in full) has been an answer in a pretty short time span.
Pedro Pascal is, in this particular cultural moment at least, easily the most famous of the four theme answers. Big roles in The Mandalorian, Narcos, and Game of Thrones, among others, and his star is still currently ascendant. That's not the sort of knowledge gap I personally would admit to out loud.
For some non-Christmas Feliciano, he wrote "Affirmation," beautifully covered by George Benson on the album Breezin' https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=LELQLEDnDvg
Took me forever to actually parse what the revealer meant. For anybody still confused, they’re not saying that the names are missing SANS. They’re saying that when the first names come “after” the letters “SAN”, they become SANS (i.e. saints). The meaning “without” has nothing to do with the theme
I was so happy to see Goya and Rivera in the puzzle that I forgave the mostly meh fill.
I’m not really familiar with Pascal but the name rang a bell, probably skimmed over it in the various “arts&leisure” pages I read. And Feliciano is always welcome in my puzzle.
A creditable debut.
@bocamp 9:40 Thanks for posting the lyrics to Jumpin’ Jive! It was really fun to sing along by memory.
De-boodle-de-ack!
On the contrary, I thought this was a clever puzzle that provided a little more resistance than the usual Monday. I liked the SAND SANS wordplay and the fact that there was enough familiar fill to help piece together the names I didn’t know, such PEDRO PASCAL. Congrats, Joe, on the debut.
Things I never really thought about before: Superman’s chin, Goya’s first name, the number of legs on an insect.
Nice puzzle with a Monday groove. No idea who Pedro Pascal is, but easy to get given the theme. Paused at SETTO but other than that rifled right through this one.
I would argue that Pedro Pascal is more well-known to the average American than any of the others (though perhaps not to the average NYT crossword solver).
It was AMORE at first sight for OMNI and CHOI. They met in SANS FRANCISCO after watching ACT I of Romeo and Juliet at the PALAU ODEON, EAST of ARMY St.
CHOI was no DIVA but she could SWOON like a DODO when OMNI would NIP AT her TOE. She would then YANK his ATOM which made him LISP a PASCAL JIVE.... It sounded NASAL, but CHOI didn't give a DAMN.
While visiting SANS PEDRO, OMNI DREW up a PROPOSAL. CHOI would EMIT A GASP and STARE when she heard it. He wanted to go to the LAKE PUMA and PROP INN and book COED ROOMS. Because she was in AMORE, and probably RUED this UNION, she went along.
They met up with a TRIO of SERFS that sported AFROS and drank COSMOS. They wore a big ASTER on their NAVY MBAS that smelled of LAIC LIME and they would FLOOD you with a big HELLO.
Selma, the LAKE hostess, would be drinking her usual TEA under her SEAT. She would then get up and dance a TONGA with IGOR from CUBA. She was SIX feet tall and looked like an ORCA, but the UNION between them was META.
No COED ROOMS were available, so OMNI and CHOI SET TO SANS DIEGO. They booked a GOYA ROOM with a RIVERA view and listened to JOSE sing a FELICIANO SWOON. It was magical. There's never a blank CARTA when AMORE is in the air.
There AR NO bad memories for them. They continue with their PDA's...CHOI will always STARE and SWOON when OMNI (SANS his LISP) sings: " I left my CLEFT....in SANS FRANCISCO"...
They would eventually tie the ROPE back at LAKE PUMA. It was a sight to behold...and SELMA, the LAIC SIX foot ORCA, made DAMN sure of it.
LSM - there are Xmas tree lights were the whole string won't go out when one light goes out. We have several of them in our home. There's probably multiple ways of doing it, but a simple way would be how they are wired together, whether in series or parallel and how much in parallel. The cheapest is to just wire it all in series, so if one goes out, it interrupts the flow of electricity and the entire string goes out.
Anyhow, quick question for everyone: does anyone have the NYTimes crosswords support email? My desktop can no longer connect to the website, as it thinks I'm part of some botnet or something. My IP appears to be banned. I've tried clearing caches and resetting the computer to no avail. My app on the phone still works, but my desktop version on the phone gets the same error, unless I drop out of my Wifi and use the cellular connection (which would make sense if my IP is banned.) I tried a VPN, and that didn't work as a go-around. Also, any support page I try to get to becomes an endless loop of "are you a robot?" questions that I've answered by clicking the box, but it never gets me past that, so I can't get to the information. Similarly, "forgot password" doesn't work, as even that is blocked for the same reason. Any body have an email?
Yeah, Rex, I don’t get it either. San Goya? San Rivera? San Pascal? San Feliciano? It makes no sense whatsoever.
I was going to write, "Easy and cute," until reading @Loren 4:15 and realizing that I hadn't understood how the two SANS's worked; now I'll add "and really clever." Four California cities sans their San's, not just four names of (random) saints. t was a treat to write in FRANCISCO GOYA and DIEGO RIVERA and anticipate which artist would appear next in this art-history-themed puzzle - until I was brought up short by needing to come up with the name of an actor and then a singer. An enjoyable fake-out.
Do-over: AGApe. No idea: PABLO PASCAL, CRAIG.
@Gary Jugert 9:17 - Gold stars for COED ONUS.
smalltondoc,
Lots of people know New Tripoli. It’s the closest town to Bake Oven Knob on the south side of Blue Mountain.
I live more than 80 miles from there.
Also, the Tripoli in New Tripoli isn’t pronounced as the one in Libya is.
So, physician: heal thy post.
@Lewis, I enjoy the weekly “best of” so much. Thanks. Do you start a new week on Sunday or Monday?
This was a Monday with a bit of artistry. Limes it and found the double whammy wordplay with “SANS” very clever. Only slow down was remembering artists’ first names as quickly as I did the last. Very different theme from the usual Monday fare. Kudos Joe Rodini.
Ack, it's @LMS not @LSM. Damn one hand faster than the other while typing.
The SANS theme made perfect sense to me -- I don't get the complaints. As said above the first word of the theme answers are SANS their SANs of a California city.
I didn't find this anywhere near as easy as others did, but it still fell faster than my average. It didn't help that I didn't know who DIEGO RIVERA or PEDRO PASCAL were, and only had the faintest memory of JOSE FELICIANO. Only GOYA was the gimme for me there. Thankfully, the crosses were fine and the names were inferrable with about half to two-thirds of the letters in.
Overall, a fun Monday.
Today was SANS female, unless you count SELMA, COED or DIVA.
I think of Santo Domingo as “Holy Sunday” not the name. But I’m not a native speaker!
Apparently San PEDRO hasn't been a city since 1909, but I didn't know that, or even where it was, nor did that bother me. I did like the revealer, although I guess if there was some way to work "urban" into it that would have improved it.
My problem was the themers. I knew GOYA and RIVERA just from the clues, JOSE FELICIANO only after several crosses (singer from Puerto Rico who recorded an album of Christmas songs? Not much to go on!), and PEDRO PASCAL not at all. Maybe it's my ageist bias, but I can't imagine why I would want to watch any of those shows, and if I did probably wouldn't remember who the actors were --- I don't even remember the actors from Parasite, which I loved.
That's all OK -- my problem was that at one point I had the entire NE and middle diagonal sections complete filled in, nothing at all in the SW, and no way into the SW except for the two unknown theme answers. OK, so I basically restarted the puzzle with 33-A, ADD, and it was pretty easy from there on, but seemed unfair on the part of the constructor.
Anybody else try PApua before PALAU? In retrospect, I don't think it counts as "Pacific," but it fooled me.
Small nit: a congregation is not always LAIC (45-D).
@Pablo, and then there's Santiago. I can deduce the rule, but I can't think of another example.
I thought all the first names were sans serif
I don't get OFL's disapproval of the fill, which was totally apt for a Monday, maybe a bit on the difficult side. He just hates Chen, always has.
Samto is Spanish for "saint", from the Latin sanctus, meaning holy. Santo goes before male names or words, Santa before female. Except in the case of Santo Domingo, Santo is abbreviated to San, as in San Pedro (thanks, buddy, for the reference to Hot Rod Lincoln). The puzzle would have been better if it had referred to California, as all the cited Sans are famous in California. Indeed San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose are major cities, and San Pedro is, along with Long Beach, the port for Los Angeles.
(Side note: San Pedro would be a major city, but Los Angeles annexed it a century or more ago, connecting it with a long, tiny strip of land that was, and really still is, of no importance whatsoever. Why they did not take in all of the eventual harbor, I don't know).
@JW (10:04) I freely admit to that kind of knowledge gap. First time I ever heard of the name PEDRO PASCAL was this morning when I got to 43 across in my puzzle. But then I’ve never seen any of the shows you mentioned either. 🫤
@GILL. You outdid yourself today.
@Peter P (10:43) I was having troubles similar to what you described with my old PC. Some days I was unable to pull up the puzzle at all. I finally caved and upgraded to a new model. Problems solved. For what it’s worth.
@jberg
JOSE FELICIANO did a lot more than that! He was quite popular, even with people who don't speak Spanish. My mom used to play his stuff when I was growing up. I think he's still performing (but apparently not in the best of health, according to a guy I know who played bass with him for a while).
He had a cameo in the movie Fargo; I got the feeling there was some wry irony afoot (something like the Steve Buschemi character taking the hooker he hired to see Feliciano play at a podunk Holiday Inn or similar).
@cdilly52b -- Thank you so much! I start the week on Mondays.
@Whatsername - Thanks. I just got off the phone with them after finding a number on my phone, and a simple password reset did the trick. (Which it did not allow me to do on my desktop, saying that my IP was banned.) Who knows what that was all about. I was able to login with the old password earlier this morning on my phone's web browser, so it wasn't the password that was incorrect but ... something else. Anyhow, all seems to be good now. (And yes, I even tried turning off all extensions, using a different browser, using VPN, clearing all cookies, etc.) Damned if I know why that worked, but it worked.
I couldn't figure out the theme, so I solved it as a themeless and it was perfectly fine.
A lot of names, but grown-up, well-known names -- so that was fine too.
I forgot in the midst of a busy morning, having awakened on the late side, that I hadn't posted anything yet. I also mislaid or threw out the puzzle in getting my apartment ready for my cleaning woman today.
And that's fine too.
Funny, @GILL!!
After the first few entries, it looked very easy so went for speed this morning but even with pausing only a few times throughout, still took almost 8 minutes to enter all of the letters into the iPad NYTXW app. Thank goodness the app stopped the clock then so doesn’t know I didn’t get the city theme for another 4 minutes!
@jae-Got through the 754 OK Not as tough as some of the Freestyles I've tried.
@Acrostickers-Yesterday's went pretty fast after the author and title became apparent. Fun ride.
@Wanderlust-Domingo is Sunday for sure, but it's also a man's first name.
@Roo-Sometimes my wife thinks of me as San Pablo. Not very often though, but that's on me.
@beverly c (10:24 AM) yw 😊
@Peter P (12:21 PM)
Happy to hear you got it all worked out. When all else fails, call support! :)
___
One of my fave holiday songs: Feliz Navidad ~ JOSE FELICIANO
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Doc—-
Um, off the top of my head:
New Haven
New London
New Rochelle
New Britain
New Brunswick
New Gretna ( NJ’s version of New Tripoli)
New City
New Iberia
New Castle
New Milford
My first take was … kinda neat theme idea. Plus, puz starts and ends with the same entry, which is real different.
Yeah, I can kinda see how some might not quite cotton to the fillins, overall. M&A is more a fan of desperation than are most folks, I'd grant. [ELEC/ODEON/LEDS … har! … see that?]
Knew all the themer dudes except for PEDROPASCAL. And I reckon I shoulda known him, since I thoroughly enjoyed The Mandalorian show. CHOI was the only other no-know that I can recall.
Not too many longball entries today. ARMYNAVY & PROPOSAL look to be the only two over 6 long.
staff weeject pick: (SAN)TOE. TAC woulda been more perfect, tho. Only SIX weejects today, sorta ironically since SIX was one of em.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Annual football game between rival military academies} = ARMYNAVY. Made m&e wish I'd looked at that longball's clue, even before I had any of its letters; coulda spared numerous solvequest nanoseconds.
Thanx for the SAN-itized fun, Mr. Rodini dude. And congratz on yer debut. And remember: there ARNO losers, if one's puz makes it this far.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
**gruntz**
@Anonymous 6:09 - I had FRANCoSCO crossing CHOo, since the name Choo Woo-shik sounded fine to me. But Francisco is so common that I don’t consider it a Natick.
I was wondering if Santo is used before Tomas to make it easier to hear 2 words, by repeating the "TO".
@Gill
😂🤣 "She would then YANK his ATOM..."
(In a Monty Python voice) Naughty!
@Pablo
LOL! (In an Austin Powers voice) Oh behave!
RooMonster (In My Own Voice) Thanks For The Chuckles Guy
Exactly my reaction. Feliz Navidad was such a huge hit and it has become a Christmas standard. Interesting that his last name is based on the word feliz.
Puzzle-related movie trivia:
In "Chinatown", the character of Curly, introduced early in the movie, is surprise-visited later by Jake (Jack Nicholson) at his house in San Pedro (which Jack pronounces "Pee-dro"; does everyone say it that way?) — but the actual house used for the scene (scroll down) was not in San Pedro but in East Hollywood.
I can’t believe I have to comment on a Monday: the theme is fine. It’s clear and consistent. It’s also clued with a “?” so it is obviously wordplay. Nobody said the names were literally lacking SANS. Come on, man.
@Joe DiPinto - "at his house in San Pedro (which Jack pronounces "Pee-dro"; does everyone say it that way?) "
I've only ever heard it pronounced as "San PEE-dro." Or, that is to say, I may have pronounced it as "San PAY-dro" once but was quickly corrected. It may be a bit of a shibboleth like "Houston" (HOW-stun) is in Manhattan, or "Paulina" (paw-LINE-uh) is here in Chicago. But, yes, "San PEE-dro." Wikipedia doesn't even give any other variant.
I lived in SAN DIEGO a long, long time ago and I definitely know the way to SAN JOSE. I've had the good fortune to visit the beautiful city of SAN FRANCISCO a number of times over the years. Didn't know PEDRO PASCAL or his eponymous city (sort of city?) but pieced it together easily enough. It was nice to be reminded of California times.
I noticed the relatively high black square count and subsequent bevy of shorter entries. Maybe the 42 black squares were necessary because of the higher scrabble value of some of the themer letters. With four longish themers an option is the pinwheel gird layout, with two themers down and two across. That way fill has only one themer to cross. Here, quite a lot of fill has to cross two themers. That really reduces the degrees of freedom left in choosing interesting fill. Just a thought.
Given the constraints, the fill holds up very well. I offer as evidence @GILL I.'s 10:42 charming vignette of the whirlwind outing of OMNI and CHOI, based largely on today's grid fill. Could this be Episode 1 of "The Continuing Adventures of OMNI And CHOI"?
@Pete P – Interesting. I wonder why the anglicized pronunciation took precedence. I guess most of the other cities couldn't really be pronounced differently in English. Well, maybe SAN DYE-AY-GO?
Okay, @AnoaBob, since you're in the know, how the hell do I get to San José from Brooklyn?
I agree that the theme might have been better articulated, but I enjoyed the puzzle nevertheless.
And thought it was quite creative.
Yes! and I can’t believe no one on the puzzle app team hasn’t seen this and fixed it already. I know they don’t read our emails so I haven’t bothered reporting it. But you’d think at least one person on the payroll uses their own app.
I thought you might also mention Mike Watt and the Minutemen are famously from ‘Pedro 🎶
I was born in LA — grew up in, and still live in, Southern California and I have never heard anyone say Pee-dro! I have friends who grew up there. We always use the Spanish pronunciation (pay-dro).
@Peter P: Glad to hear you got it resolved without too much hassle. I know my issues were just due to my outdated operating system and software because I was having trouble on other sites too. What on earth did we do with our time before we had computers?
Whatsername
Well, @ Joe D, I've been away so long and I may go wrong and lose my way but I say you should go East young man, go East.
Boo. I boo this puzzle. Am I saying boo-urns? No, I am booing.
But why isn’t it surfs?
Most people know Pedro Pascal from Games of Thrones. I am not one of them. This is the way.
@anonymous 10:42. Weird. It was folks from LA who corrected me when I used the Spanish pronunciation. Looking into it more, it appears that the pronunciation is divided within the community. Apparently, if you're from the harbor area, it's PEE-dro, but if you're from elsewhere it's PAY-dro, which is odd, as these people were not from the harbor community. And I've pretty much only run into the Anglicized PEE-dro pronunciation (but it's not like I've had reason to refer to it or hear it very often.) Information from: https://losangeleno.com/places/san-pedro-pronunciation/
PEDRO PASCAL seems like a huge outlier in terms of fame level. No idea what the revealer meant until I came here.
I thought this one was pretty good. Maybe the reveal could tweaked a little bit but I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water like Rex did. How about With 1 - Across, cities the first names become at 20 - 36 - 43 and 57 across. ?
Hm. Take the ending I off RODINI and you have...uh, not so fast. Though this grid features artists, it's hardly a work of art. It seems to be some sort of excuse to have the same word appear twice, normally a taboo but here the whole point of the gig.
The center crossing makes me want to STARE AGASP (!) at it. The more common AROAR, AGAPE and all their A-cousins that appear ONLY in crosswords are beginning to annoy me, despite being REAL words.
There is one way this puzzle hits home for me: I have SIX STENTS holding my aorta together. Didn't know CHOI or PEDROPASCAL but the crosses were so easy it didn't matter.
I guess since I owe my life to those STENTS and the surgical team who installed them (thanks again, Dr. Afifi!), the least I can do is award a par.
Wordle birdie.
Just noticed this one is a debut puzzle so congrats go out to Joe Rodini.
SANS PROP
SELMA did her COED ACT -
I STARE AGASP AT the master -
self AMORE I'D RUED and lacked,
DAMN, now I wish I'D have ASTER.
--- DREW UNITAS
I didn't think this puz was easy for a Monday. Didn't hate it but nothing to write home about.
Wordle eagle!! Two in the last week or so.
Even though I'm from MN, I've been to all of those SANS, even SAN PEDRO.
Usual Monday level for me, except for REALLY, REALLY hesitating to put in SANS twice. Isn't that a - um - you know, a no no? I don't know.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
BTW - MN also has cities named St. Francis, St. Peter, and St. Joseph and I've been to all of those, too.
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