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Fatalistic sort in slang / SUN 10-15-22 / Actress who played Jessica in "Parasite" / axis half of an ellipse's shorter diameter / Old-fashioned letter opener / Ritual with bamboo utensils / Pastry with the same shape as an Argentine medialuna / Currency for the prize on Squid Game / Popular subcompact hatchback from Japan / Country whose flag depicts a machete / French equivalent of Stephen
Sunday, October 16, 2022
Constructor: Paolo Pasco
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Theme answers:
- SIDE AR(M) (A)DAMAR (6D: *Baseball pitching style ... or a weapon = SIDEARM + 24A: Old-fashioned letter opener = DEAR MADAM + 14D: *Big name in hotels = RAMADA)
- BITEMAR(K) (E)TINGIER (36D: *Indentation on a chew toy = BITE MARK + 53A: Online promotions, collectively = E-MARKETING + 38D: *Light again = REIGNITE)
- LESTRAD(E) (N)AMESRON (40D: *Whom Holmes tells "You do find it very hard to tackle the facts" = LESTRADE + 56A: What businesses go by = TRADE NAMES + 43D: *Many a Viking = NORSEMAN)
- THOUSAN(D) (S)TONEUGUH (62D: *Grands = THOUSANDS + 89A: Rock commonly used in asphalt = SANDSTONE + 65D: *Early French Protestants = HUGUENOTS)
- US VS THE(M) (E)ROOM IMED (67D: *Basic rivalry = US VS. THEM + 91A: Part of a hotel with décor fitting a certain motif = THEME ROOM + 70D: *"G.I. Jane" star, 1997 = DEMI MOORE)
- ANOTHER ON(E) (T)TESSAB (100D: *"Encore!" = "ANOTHER ONE!" + 122A: "Be My Baby" group, 1963 = THE RONETTES + 106D: *Actress Angela (BASSETT)
: a street on which a vehicle must stop just before entering a through street (merriam-webster.com) [So it's just ... a street that has a stop sign on it perpendicular to one that doesn't? Is that it? This term is baffling to me]
• • •
The fill, on the other hand, gave me some grief. ILIADS? Plural? (68A: Long, tragic stories). Not really buying that. Sunday SCARIES? That is some infantilizing dopey terminology right there (112A: Sunday ___ (end-of-week anxiety, casually)). DOOMER? (75D: Fatalistic sort, in slang). Come on, do people actually say that? I know that there are BOOMERs who DOOM-SCROLL but are they really DOOMERs? Also, being "fatalistic" and believing you are / the world is "doomed" are very different things, actually. Moving on: the clue on WHEY, wh(e)y!? (80D: No ___! (punnily named dairy-free chocolate brand)). So unnecessarily hard and proper-nounified. If you stuff something into a hole (say) (41A), you CRAM it down. RAMS DOWN is something you with an idea or concept, to someone's throat. REHOUSE was rough, esp. coming so close on the heels of the themer REIGNITE. There were two times when cross-references were in the same small section (IN RE / MEMO and AQUA / LUNG), which always makes solving said sections awkward / tougher. I just grew WEARIER as the puzzle went on because of a pile-up of these little annoyances. Again, the big picture = amazing theme. But I felt like the non-theme stuff was slowly pecking me to death. A little.
I loved "Parasite" but confess that I know none of the actors names, so PARK SO-DAM was a toughie. But since her name was largely free of theme entanglements, I could pick it up from crosses just fine. Not a fan of the TMNT, so "COWABUNGA" didn't amuse me the way it will amuse others, but I really Really liked seeing THE RONETTES plastered across the bottom of my grid. Just an amazing connector phrase for those two final theme answers. TEA CEREMONY is another lovely long answer (45A: Ritual with bamboo utensils). Biggest mistake was writing in YEN for WON (never watched "Squid Game," though if I'd thought about it for half a second, I did know it was Korean, not Japanese). This made the already hard DOOMER and WHEY even harder. Don't think I had any other out-and-out errors. Found "AS A FOLLOW-UP" really hard, esp. as clued (69D: "Continuing where we left off last time ..."). I had the first few letters and could only think of "AS AFOREMENTIONED..." which wouldn't fit. Speaking of fit, HONDA FIT, nice. I mean, cars, boo, product placement, boo, but I thought getting the whole make + model in there was at least original.
Not sure I'd've kept MEN in the puzzle (1D: Bachelors, e.g.) when NORSEMAN is already there, in a theme position (I've definitely had editors flag less flagrant etymological dupes than that), but that's a very minor consideration, especially consider how big the grid is and how far away those answers are from one another. The clue on IDAHO was fantastic (84D: U.S. ID?), maybe my favorite of the puzzle. So deceptively simple. All in all, far more fun than I have most Sundays. Paolo is truly gifted, and I think my standards for him are thus very, perhaps unfairly high. Hence the grousing. Anyway, that's all. See you ... whenever you come back again, I suppose.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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140 comments:
Somewhat of a stretch by @Rex to consider HONDA FIT as product placement when it is no longer sold as a new vehicle in the US. Yet AQUA LUNG gets a pass.
I thought this was one of the very best Sunday puzzles in a loooong time.
Dang, tough Sunday! Some of the clue/answers were Monday easy (MEALS, ELECTS, ALONE, ESTATES...) and some were major WOES (PARK SO DAM, @Rex REL, KEEF, ZUNE...). So, it was a pretty bumpy road on the way to finishing this one, even after I sussed out the theme, which BTW took some effort to keep track of. Jeff at Xwordinfo admitted to a DNF.
Extremely clever and surprisingly smooth, liked it a bunch!
Ouch my head hurts! Yes this is an ingenious theme but boy was it hard slogging. Too many names, a lot unknown (thanks for IRENE CARA at least). I mean, PARK SO DAM is crossed by ATARI, OSAKA, and BARR. But I did finish no errors, somehow. Devious how he worked the HUGUENOTS and DEMI MOORE in there, backwards.
[Spelling Bee: Sat 0, several goofy words to track down.]
The meta theme within the overlapping theme obscured by the theme was tiresome for me. I appreciate, and indeed applaud, this feat of construction. I didn’t, however, find it joyful. In fact, I usually love to stare at a completed grid and come up with clever wordplays that I note for the thoroughly uninterested commentariat. This grid, however, makes me want to just pull the covers up and go to sleep, which is what I’m going to do.
Isn't it possible that the clue meant a street stop, not a stop street? I think that the "word with" clause does not imply any specific words order.
This is one of those puzzles that's an invitation to just figure out the themers and then forget about the rest of it, the better to get on with your life.
And so it was that I got ANOTHERONETTESSAB right off the bat and tooled around getting all the others, hardly needing to look at a cross anywhere. At some point I saw that the termini were going to spell out MAKE ENDS MEET, which helped me polish off the last two themers. And...scene.
The Diagramless was more rewarding. I couldn't make out what the diagram might possibly represent vis-à-vis the theme until I was done and took a good look at it. Très bien, AE-S.
Having ALL at 96A and HI ALL at 97D seemed like a flub, as did crossing THÉ with THE RONETTES on the H.
Great puzzle - really enjoyed it. Wonderinng why Rex didn't use a link to the Ronettes' "Be My Baby." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSPpbOGnFgk
I haven’t read a Sherlock Holmes story in 20+ years, but knew with just a couple of crosses that answer was LESTRADE. He was one of the Scotland Yard detectives that Holmes regularly insulted.
Otherwise, impressive construction, but solving it was a slog,
97A "...sounds like a pronoun"---HER _is_ a pronoun, what kind of stupid clue is this?!
I have the advantage of having grown up in a town with a Huguenot Street, so HUGUE was easy but I figured the NOTS part was just not there.
Then I got THOUS(and), so I figured that the trick must be all about missing conjunctions.
Ah well. Eventually...
Villager
How did the use of both DESK SET and OTTOMAN SETS not draw an objection from Rex?! As I was doing the puzzle, I actually thought as I was filling it in, “Ooooh! Rex is gonna have something to say about that!!”
FWIW , Sunday scaries is a pretty common phrase amongst my mid-30s age cohort. I hear how it could seem infantilizing, but somehow it doesn’t strike me that way.
Rex, you're clearly not a Baker Street Regular if you don't know LeStrade.
Got THE RONETTES right off the bat; guess I'm old.
Really fun puzzle, impressive feat of construction.
Do ottomans come in sets? I thought they were just individual items.
I agree with you, Rex. Loved the theme, found some of the clues way outside my knowledge base but did manage to get them. My biggest challenge was that I had to guess at the L in Lestrade. I guessed correctly, only because the L sounded right and, like you, I had a certain vampire in mind. But none of this stopped me from loving the theme … so clever. This one took me longer to solve than usual.
When I first saw the theme, I wondered if we would be treated to anodes and cathodes, or "pos" and "neg" in the answers. This was clever, and while Rex had some difficulty typing in the answers, I had no trouble writing in the answers - the power of the pen over the keyboard!
I'd not heard of LESTRADE, and so the REL/LESTRADE cross got me. I was held up for a spell in the center north, when I had IMIN instead of ICAN. Agree ILIADS seemed strained. My wife (also) insisted no one buys OTTOMANSETS; ottomans are paired with matching chairs (mostly), which are the set. But these were minor annoyances.
Thank you for a fun and well-constructed puzzle, Paolo!
BTW, we live close to New Rochelle, NY, which was founded by the Huguenots. And we drive a Honda Fit! So, those were gimmes.
Well, the theme is ridiculously impressive. Come on. Words that angle in to form a third word? How the heck did Pablo come up with these, not to mention make them work in a grid? And then those circled letters spell MAKE ENDS MEET??? This is the work of a master technician, a wow inducer of the top order. Bravo, sir!
I found the solve ridiculously difficult, mostly because of answers out of my knowledge combined with not knowing the theme for what felt like a long time. Oh, I like being presented with gauntlets like this. I dig my heels in deeper and plug away with my fist held high with determination, and WNOL (Whee! Not Out Loud) when new squares fill in. And I’ll easily take a roll-my-sleeves-up Sunday over a pushover that makes me feel like I’m just marking time.
Here’s something I love, as I look over the finished grid. There, quietly, to counter the intricate workings of the theme and the battle to fill in the grid, sits the peaceful TEA CEREMONY, with its calming clinks. Below it lies the luscious and gorgeous CROISSANT, radiating pleasure. And further down are those OTTOMAN SETS, an image that triggers a wave of relaxation. These three answers are the balm!
The word nerd in me also loves those five consonants in a row in US VS THEM. That’s a rare sight in a puzzle, and I thought it would be rare in single words, but Google showed me that our language is rife with them. My search also taught me that the most consecutive consonants in English words is six, such as in “catchphrase”.
So, your puzzle, Pablo, gave me wow, whew, aaah, and learn-something-new. A rich experience indeed. Thank you for making this!
Is “street stop” a phrase?
The name in question is H.E.R.
One can admire the intricacy that went into constructing this grid, but boy did it make for a rough solving experience. Felt the wind going out of my sails has I entered that north central section, which is basically closed off from the rest of civilization - just what I needed, lol - a self contained section containing LEONA Lewis, IRENA CARA, a clue about something in Italy and a SEMIMINOR axis - omg, talk about a face plant (or a BIT IT) situation.
The rest of the grid had similar characteristics - just a lot of work and once the gimmick is groked, not much of a payoff - I didn’t have a lot of motivation to parse together cross after cross in order to find out that there is an actress named Angela BASSET for example.
Loved the elegant concept - the rest of the puzzle not so much. Had fun sussing out the themers - BITE MARK and ANOTHER ONE topped the list. The density and the grid restrictions didn’t help this one.
The remaining fill is useless trivia and attempts at playfulness. The top center block with the full IRENE CARA and ORA sets the stage for an ugly solve. Yep - nice to see THE RONETTES get props - but ISOGON said no one ever and a load of “casually” and “slang” clues drag this down.
The grid does give us the great BLUE NILE and Saint ETIENNE
Big fan of the constructor - but like the Yanks last night - a big swing and miss.
@Pablo from yesterday - Stella’s Stumpers do not disappoint. I really like the fact that Stan is giving her a lot of play recently.
Had the same thought
Your wife is right!
My thought exactly.
@Joe Dipinto: Why even bother figuring out the themers? Why not just forget the whole thing and get on with your life? Another in a long recent line of puzzles made for the Constructor Strut and not for the solver--with a few goofy themers and then a grid full of totally uninspired fill.
More and more I am grateful for the LA Times/WaPo puzzle on the weekends.
Really loved the theme, well done! I didn’t finish because I got stuck at the AQUA LUNG and ESQUE cross.
DESK SET and OTTOMAN SETS was another duplicate I was surprised to see.
Naticked at REL x LESTRADE. This one was a hard “No” for me.
You’re going to let DESK SET and OTTOMAN SETS fly?
Got about two thirds through this and thought "What the hell am I doing this for ?"
All roads lead to Natick.
Excellent theme. Really excellent. Multilayered and all the bits work.
A few nits:
- Neither ‘street stop’ nor ‘stop street’ are sufficiently strong phrases for that clue to work
- DOOMER
- There is nothing ‘mossy’ about LICHENS
- Too, TOO, many names
o IRENE CARA
o OSAKA
o LEONA
o REL
o BARR
o DUNST
o HER
o THE RONETTES
o KEEF
o RAMOS
o NADAL
o NILS
o PARK SO-DAM
o DEMI MOORE
o BASSETTE
o LESTRADE
An ingenious theme does not make a fun solve. So many bad answers here. Has anyone ever bought an OTTOMANSET? And the clue for STREET is a crime. We can admire the constructor and still hate the puzzle.
Agree that this was a construction feat and also found it enjoyable to solve but difficult. It took me longer than it should have to suss out the theme – answers turning at right angles is not unknown – but I finally figured out what was going on at HUGUENOTS (of all things). This was during my signature “manically-jumping-all-over-the-grid” method of solving. I forgot to go back and look at the circled letters, so missed their message until I read Rex.
My husband and I have been reading the Sherlock Holmes canon aloud to one another for several months, so LESTRADE was a gimme. In one story, Holmes actually calls LESTRADE an imbecile (I think this may be the same one from which the clue’s quotation is drawn, “The Boscombe Valley Mystery”), although as time goes on, Holmes and LESTRADE develop something of a mutual respect. He was, apparently, Agatha Christie’s model for her Inspector Japp (foil of Hercule Poirot).
That top line of acrosses was off-putting – I don’t know Spanish, couldn’t fathom the ellipse clue, and couldn’t see the punny meaning of “see” – brutal. But hooray for IRENE CARA for giving me a start. (I did a little study of IRENE CARA’s appearances in the NYTXW, and she’s shown up some 52 times since 1994 as IRENE, CARA, or her full name. That’s pretty good for someone of limited celebrity...I know, I know, we're not supposed to like PPP.)
Are you aware that we’re living in the Phanerozoic EON, the Cenozoic era, the Quaternary period, the Holocene epoch and the Meghalayan age? Try dropping that list at the next cocktail party. I find geologic time scales fascinating, but then I'm a born classifier. For those who don’t know, EONs are divided into eras, which are divided into periods, which are divided into – well, you get the picture. There have been only four EONs since the formation of the Earth, and the one we’re in is characterized by the evolution of complex organisms – so we share it with the dinosaurs. If it comes to an end with the extinction of multicellular life, I guess we won’t be around to mark its passing. (Hmm, sounds like I’m a fatalistic DOOMER.)
BTW, never heard of OTTOMAN SETS and was going to cry foul, but I guess they’re a thing.
Too many proper names and other trivia. Horrible puzzle despite the interesting construction.
@lewis, the balm for the Sunday SCARIES, also sitting right there. Today's didn't induce any, so that's good. Thought the theme and construction was brilliant, but chimes at the end were less gratifying today, more like 'glad that's over'...
I am up at 4 am doing the puzzle thanks to my in-laws' "head in the sand" approach to aging. (By the way, if you're old, don't do this to your family. The chances of you dying peacefully in your sleep after maintaining your mental and physical acuity to the end are extremely thin. Have a Plan B.)
I've ended up with their ugly little dog and she wouldn't do her business last night so here I am after a brisk morning walk filled with resentment. As a life-long cat guy, I just don't get the whole dog thing, especially since we live in a high-rise. My cat would be sitting on my lap taking another 45-minute bath, but instead he's locked in the bedroom with my wife, and I am out here with this gross thing sitting next to me breathing like a puffer fish. I would stab her to death except ... the rug.
So with this emotional turmoil as background, I will admit to enjoying this crossword immensely. I usually don't approach Sundays with the proper attitude. They're usually way too long and way too unfun, but this was a delightful mental escape from the pacing, and panting, and those infernal claws clip-clip-clippin' all along the hardwood floors.
I was half done before I understood the words were taking a turn in the middle. I thought they were getting cut off for some yet-to-be revealed reason. Then I saw DEMI rounding the bend and as they say, the jig was up.
Fascinating the Phanerozoic lasted 538 million years, and we screwed it up in less than 200 years. Go humans. We're also the only animal pouring grease down drains.
Don't you love THEME ROOM inns? They make Sunday SCARIES (whatever those are) go away. Unless the theme is murder.
I bet someone will be sad over French accents today, namely in, "Beverage at a café = THÉ." Without the aigu, it's just "the." Fun.
I went to MARIST college for one semester in the 80s. There were giant ice sculptures in the cafeteria thanks to the culinary school up the road, and I visited Vassar's library once and it was magical. School computing was new and came with green screens and compilers. Other than the face of one pretty girl in a history class, that's all I remember about MARIST.
Looked up several of the people stuffed in here, but otherwise no need to Go-ogle. Oh wait, I had FEMIMINOR for the math problem in 6A to get FIREARM for the weapon in 6D leading to the historic REAR MADAM letter opener. That required Uncle G to straighten out since I couldn't imagine what a lady's bottom would have to do with opening letters, especially since we've all become ASS experts with the lonely NYTXW editorial team's work in this area. SEMIMINOR and SIDEARM do make more sense, eh?
Here's a list of happiness: Clue for PAPAL, the fact I still know IRENE CARA (hope she's doing well ... looks like she might be single and might be living in Santa Fe ... wonder if she wants a dog), TEA CEREMONY and CROISSANT stacked, REHOUSE had a great clue, GUV (always hilarious, but do they really say it in England?), they do say, "ER"S on the British baking show, HI ALL!, IDAHO's clue, US VS THEM (looks a mess, but it's great).
Here's my cringes: RAMS DOWN, BARR (he should be required to take this dog after being such a poop emoji), "STREET stop" or "stop STREET" -- neither works for me, there's only one ILIAD, Squid Game currency (SRSLY?), Chief KEEF (gah), ISOGON made me WEARIER as did DOOMER, what's a NO-GO AREA?, and there's quite a lot of junk at the bottom of the puzzle.
Uniclues:
1 Each place painted Realtor beige.
2 Headline in an interior design magazine for a piece on the shortage of blue foot stools.
3 Ninja Turtles beach dinghy.
1 SANDSTONE THEME ROOM
2 AQUA OTTOMAN SETS AWOL
3 COWABUNGA RUNS AGROUND
Great puzzle. Finished in 1:12, probably average an hour for Sundays. I’ll also complain about the clue for STREET,. I had several writeovers—Honda CRX, pre for ERE, and menus for MEALS.
That makes it worse!
"I don't Really know who LESTRADE is." Thank you for your wonderful column. You, my friend, need to spend some time with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Then you will know who Lestrade is.
Loved the puzzle!
A friend's daughter worked for Epic right out of college, and that's when I learned about Sunday SCARIES. Also about Epic employees crying in airports. For 2 years (!) she flew back and forth between NYC and Madison, WI every two weeks. End of 3rd year she quit, to become a contractor for ... Epic.
I don't think OTTOMANs come in sets. That would be weird. Ok, so you have a SET of places for your feet but no place for the rest of you? Or does it just mean a SET that happens to include an OTTOMAN?
I absolutely loved this gem of a puzzle. The theme was clever and original and worked so well on every single themed answer. I also love that it was challenging. I like being able to do a puzzle and be stumped, come back to it awhile later and some answers jump out at you. Thanks and more please to Mr. Paolo Pasco.
I have two minor comments. I am not clear about the clue to "Papal". The thing that is "see-worthy", I think, is the Pope, not the word Papal (which refers to things about the Pope, like visits?) Am I missing something?
And I loved the revealer in spelling out the word in the two connecting circled letters I didn't find the title of the puzzle to be very helpful. I got the theme, as many others did, at "Huguenots" but was expecting something to do with, oh, I don't know, trains or something, based on the puzzle's title clue. I thought the "Make Ends Meet" was a much cleverer, and more fun, descriptor and revealer for the puzzle.
Thank you for a great start to my un-scary Sunday!
Started, of course, with MUCHO and was reading clues and filling in answers straight down from top to bottom all down the west coast and then things came to a screeching halt. Pogoing around, something here something there, and a lot of clues that didn't make sense. Finally (finally!) caught on with what had to be SIDEARM and the gimmick was confirmed with LESTRADE, of all things. Wow and whew. Went around filling in blanks and finally finished with probably twice a Sunday average for me, but congratulating myself on my superior solving ability, ignoring the time involved.
Lots of proper names that were unfamiliar, but I stuck with my no-googling rule and went with my assumption that "I don't know that. Yet." which ultimately proved successful.
Amazing concept and execution, PP. Practically Perfect, nits and all. I wish I could claim some credit for this one (nice try, Lewis, but this guy seems to be Italian and not Spanish), and thanks for such a rewarding workout.
Wordle 484 4/6*
⬜🟨⬜🟨🟩
🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
onelook.com script: spa?e,//as???-ritc
Missed random letter @ guess 3
"Street stop" is solid. Cops do it all the time.
I’m pretty sure the SUNDAY SCARIES are related to the beginning of the week, not to the end as clued. You’re worried about going back to work on Monday, about a new week starting, not about anything ending
So many of today's youthy constructors just can't resist ruining their clever and difficult themes by futzing them up with a plethora of pop culture trivia. This puzzle was tough enough without having to contend with the likes of the car and the video game and the actor and the country singer and the Squid Game currency and the chocolate brand -- oh I can't go on, I'm too tired.
Would I cheat or would I bail? I cheated like mad -- I'm too tired to sum up exactly where -- and then I failed to finish anyway.
The tricky theme was just intriguing enough to keep me suffering much longer than I should have and I resented every pop culture roadblock that was put in my way. This could have been a delicious puzzle -- only it wasn't. You have talent, Mr. Pasco -- please grow out of your youthy pop culture phase soonest.
Originally had the Parasite actor as Paris Odam, that sounded like a name. I always felt sorry for Dennis Hoey’s ill-respected Inspector Lastrade in the Rathbone Holmes films. I’ve heard of gloom-and-doomers, never just a doomer (and autocorrect doesn’t like it either!).
HI ALL ! (😁)
Thoroughly impressed by the construction of this puz. Holy ANGOLA! Pablo got in 12(!) Themers that not only had to be put in in an L shape, forward and backward, but also had to connect to each other while forming an actual real word/phrase, which were all Long entries, AND he managed to get the circled letters/connectors to spell out a phrase! Corresponding to the theme! SCARIES! This is a next level puz. I'm in AWE.
If you are now bald, Pablo, I'll understand. Har.
And this feat of construction didn't take away from the solving experience. It was fun trying to figure out what in tarhooties was happening. For G.I. Jane clue, had MOORE in because it fit. Then saw Encore! clue, and put in MORE, thinking it would be a match-up-similar-words type thing. But couldn't make sense of the seemingly random circles. Finally grokked it after I erased MOORE, having gotten ___ROOM, and seeing it could be DEMIMOORE if I turned from the Down to the Across. Then the silly brain decided they would all turn backward, until I looked at 40D (just randomly) and saw a Blocker where I wanted to turn. Got the AHA that some turned one way, some the other.
Have to admit not putting the circles together to see the phrase. Extra credit! Puz so amazing, I let things like OTTOMANSETS go. I'm sure they sell OTTOMANs in SETS, but c'mon.
Anyway, fun start to a Sunday. Even if I had a PDNF. (Personal DNF). (Many shameful mistakes I won't admit! 😁)
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Another one of those puzzles that was clearly more fun for the constructor than for the solver.
NYDenizen. Know that you are favored by the mods. When I comment on Wordle it gets disallowed. Carry on.
PP the new PB?
As an example of the Constructor’s craft at the highest level this puz transcends most negative comments today. This Is an occasion to sit back and marvel at the sheer difficulty of concept and elegance of execution.
I guessed Lil RED Howery and DESTRADE on that very unfair cross, then just ran the alphabet until I got to L.
Yeah, this must have been a bear to construct. The theme works so many different ways. But c’mon, Paolo, couldn’t you have made all the downs real xword answers too? Some are (SID, RAM, BITE, LEST, BASS and maybe NORS and THOUS) and some aren’t (REIG, HUGUE, USVST, DEMIM, ANOT).
Lots of wrong answers in the SW slowed me down - Era for EON, she for HER, square for ISOGON, randy for TRITT, and the very long crashes upon for RUNS AGROUND.
I liked that NADAL and OSAKA were a mixed doubles team in the NE corner, but with the NET CORD down in the SW, I couldn’t tell who they were playing.
Rex, now I’m curious who the four characters you would name from Sherlock Holmes are? And why four, in particular? I’ve never read any of the Sherlock Holmes books, and have watched maybe 2 or 3 episodes of Sherlock. If I had to name four characters from the Sherlock Holmes universe, they would be, in order, Holmes, Watson, Moriarty, and….. Lestrade.
@Barbara S. -- the EON, era, et al info you provide is really quite fascinating. And it's all completely new to me. Is there a mnemonic formula for remembering those categories the way there's a mnemonic formula for remembering the "order, class, phylum, species" et al categories?
I know there's a formula for those because a tennis partner of mine who's a biology teacher at Dalton provided it to me once. Alas, I've long since forgotten it:)
#########
@Gary Jugert -- While I adore dogs but can take or leave cats in the same manner that they apparently can take or leave me, I really enjoyed your amusing and thoughtful post today -- despite your anti-canine rant. It made thoroughly entertaining reading.
I had DIVE SHOP instead of AQUA LUNG, and that whole SW corner suffered for it, but that was the least of my worries. This puzzle felt very much like the Japanese class I took in Tokyo years ago: I'd tested into the 2nd level, since I already knew a little of the language from having lived there, and that was a huge mistake; nothing made sense. The entire class, oral and written, was entirely in Japanese from the get-go. That's how this puzzle felt: I knew a little but I was in way over my head. The whole puzzle felt like a foreign language I almost knew, but didn't. Yikes.
What ‘s more impressive… coming up with the theme or constructing the darn thing.
I had to stop because my head hurt.
Congrats to all who solved this beast!
@Roo0I am nowhere near bald, thank you, and please address any further comments to "Paolo".
(Har.)
Haven't seen anyone else mention it, but yes, Rex, DOOMER is very much a real, in-the-language slang term that you'll find all over Twitter and even in the New York Times itself: Jane Coaston had an op-ed titled "Try to Resist the Call of the Doomers" just this past July. It's an answer I dropped right in. The term refers to the sort of people who crap all over any positive individual policy change, because it's not enough to truly fix, once and for all, the larger problem it seeks to address. "Climate doomerism" is particularly common.
As I live my slug-like existence, I've turned to the NYTXW for a daily diversion, for a smidgen of mental challenge, and for the satisfaction, usually, of a task, however trivial, completed before I go out the door into--you know--life. But when the this artifice becomes the preening province of a puzzler's ego-boost, count me out. Yeah, I know, a lot can be done with all those little squares and those alphabet letters, Paolo, and you're the cutest. But the NYT has to ask itself for whom does the puzzle toll? For an elite cadre over there or for the greater unwashed over here?
How did @ REX miss the two “SETS”?!
PPP made what should have been a fun solve a true slog.
It was hard and i got the turn part but never got the terminal phrase even after completion.
Thx, Paolo, for a most invigorating Sun. mental exercise! :)
Hard (over 2 x avg).
Great start on the West Coast, but the rest was an ordeal.
My first thot re: the THEME was something to do with battery ends or train stations. More or less caught on at SIDEARM, altho, didn't grok the 'Terminal Connections' part until very late in the game. It actually helped somewhat with the toughest answer: LESTRADE.
The trickiest cell was the 'L' at the REL / LESTRADE cross. Guessed right! (whew!). Also, was tempted to go with RuL, but seem to recall making a mistake with 'uRS' rather than ERS in a previous xword.
Re: Lil REL Howery:
"Playing high school basketball, he reminded people of his older cousin Darrel, and was nicknamed Lil Rel." (Wikipedia)
Enjoyed Kirsten DUNST in 'Hidden Figures' & 'Fargo'. Have 'The Power of the Dog' cued on Netflix for later today.
I got 'easy' STREET, but 'stop' STREET just didn't resonate:
"… a street on which a vehicle must stop just before entering a through street" (M-W)
Fave clue: 'Volume on an iPad, say'.
Interesting fact re: Naomi being born in OSAKA.
A most rewarding effort this a.m.; loved the workout! :)
@pablo, etal.
Excellent Sat. Stumper by Stella Zawistowski. On a par with a med. Croce or 3 x yd's NYT. Took forever to get a solid foothold.
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
What about Irene Adler. She shows up here frequently
Loved this!!!!!!! What a delight. Another NYT worthy puzzle!
@Lori 9:50
The Holy See
Of the regular characters in the Sherlock Holmes canon beside Holmes and Watson, there are Moriarty (who appears in one short story and is mentioned in a few others), Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock’s smarter older brother who appears in several stories), and then Lestrade, who appears in about 12 of the 56 short stories and 3 of the 4 Holmes novels. Irene Adler, who shows up in the NYTX quite often, appeared in one of the short stories and is alluded to in another. Lestrade is, by far, the most frequent character other than Holmes and Watson, in the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. It really isn't even close.
This started out as a slog for me but about halfway through I figured out the MAKEENDSMEET concept which resulted in me 1) having fun, and 2) finishing without cheating. I say YAY to both!
Thanks @ Barbara S for the OTTOMANSETS link. Yeah, I dunno. What passes these days as an ottoman looks more like a foot rest shaped like an ottoman to me. In the olden days they were substantial pieces of furniture.
Speaking of olden days, I think Paolo strikes a nice balance between youthy (as Nancy calls it) and non-youthy answers. Yeah, there was Lil REL, but there was also THERONETTES. LESTRADE may be a proper name but is Conan-Doyle still considered pop culture? Guess my question is, when does pop culture just become culture that will be historically remembered? Not baiting here. I think of this about every time there are complaints. I GET the fact it is suboptimal to have too much PPP. I struggle with the “youthy” v “non-youthy” thing.
I, for my part, thought this was one of the very *worst* puzzles of recent memory. But it has a lot of competition.....
Impressive feat of construction, but I would really rather not solve puzzles like this. Too much pop culture. I should have stopped early on when I got to the tennis star crossing the “Parasite” actress or at least the Holmes character crossing the “Get Out” actor. But my cruciverbalist addiction forced me to fight this thing to the death. And now that it’s done, I am resting in peace.
Whatever happened to just filling in the word from a clue?
KUDOS to a young construction wizard!
I am (almost) 60 years older than Pasco and have no clue about some of his fill and, yet, I always enjoy his work. His current puzzle in The New Yorker is far tougher than this one but, in the end, another learning delight.
His inclusion of THE RONETTES alone rocked my boat. (I had to YouTube Be My Baby, one of the greatest pop tunes of the last century). Please give that man a cigar! Or maybe not.
That answer and multiple others reveal Pasco’s genuine effort to provide cultural variety in his puzzles. The doomer-boomers have no issue with Ella and Frank and Gershwin and Cole and Janis and the Beatles, but god forbid we consider some potential icons of the 21st century. There’s a lot of complaining on this blog about (mostly) minority artists, the Spanish language, and youthful preoccupations. Maybe we should work on relinquishing our cultural blinders as Pasco is doing here.
I’ll get off my soapbox now and revisit today’s exceptional puzzle.
@bocamp - I’ve seen Power of the Dog, I wish I had the time spent back.
Well the dregs represented by this puzzle is better stated by Nancy *(about the only daily poster worth reading every day - the rest of you should consider taking a day off now and then.)
"* This puzzle was tough enough without having to contend with the likes of the car and the video game and the actor and the country singer and the Squid Game currency and the chocolate brand -- oh I can't go on, I'm too tired."
Amen, says me: my sentiments exactly - only I would be a little cruder in my language if I weren't such a gentleman.
Nicest Saturday themer in a long time.
When the Ottomans are storming the gates of your walled city with their siege engines, you will hane no doubt not only that they come in sets, but that they will be nobody's footstool!
People who don’t highlight the themers miss out on something. This puzzle has (almost) perfect symmetry. I say “almost” because the connection spot of the last themer where the E meets the T is slightly askew. But other than that, it all forms a beautiful pattern. Well done Paolo Pasco.
I like answers that turn corners and I habitually look in grids for unintended ones, so I caught on to that aspect pretty quickly. Didn’t try to figure out the circles beyond ‘ok, these are the ends.’ I would love for a constructor to do a puzzle like this without so much “suboptimal” fill/cluing. This one almost ended up on @Nancy’s Wall. I finished with errors due to my last themer being fIrEARM - actually had SEMIMINOR briefly but took out the S when I thought of firearm. Had I not been WEARIER than hell from tilting at all the PPP I’d have tried to untangle the RE-ARMADAM mess.
LESTRADE I knew, thankfully. I can see how he might not be in someone’s top four, if you include Holmes. Watson is obviously second, but then you might say Mrs. Hudson for sheer frequency, then Moriarity for significance. Lestrade’s part, I think, may have been more emphasized in the various film/tv versions than in Doyle’s stories.
Today is the birthday of Uruguayan guitarist and composer Carlos Pedrell (1878-1941). Trumpeter Ray Mase playing his Vocalise will dismiss any Sunday SCARIES left over from the puzzle.
aaah, thank you!
@wordler: Maybe you’re right. It does seem as if I’ve found a sweet spot here for this game.
It never occurred to me that an actress could be named PARKSODAM. So I got a DNF.
@bocamp you may want to forgo watching Power of the Dog as per @jae. I fell asleep during it, my husband finished it but pretty much said what @jae said. In fact, I’ve seen nothing good written about it. Not sayin’ I COULDNT find something but I wouldn’t want to dig that hard. My apologies to Kirsten Dunst if she reads this blog as she is a fine actress but great acting doesn’t always guarantee a good movie.
Agreed, I thought “street stop” as well.
If you liked this (and I did), you should check out the Atlantic's daily crosswords, such are almost exclusively by Paolo Pascal. They are very current-pop culture-heavy, so if you consider that a shortcoming in your knowledge base, it's definitely worth adding to your solving routine. (Lil Rel has definitely shown up there!)
I’ve heard it plenty of times, although it’s a little too cutesy for my taste. I wouldn’t call it an end-of-week phenomenon, though: it refers to anxiety about the weekend being over and a new workweek beginning.
Love you, @bigsteve47!!!!!!
First of all: Epic-great theme idea, with the meta-message bonus spelled out by The Circles. Primo stuff. This pushes M&A toward forgivin a lotta stuff. Nice E/W puzgrid symmetry, too boot.
staff weeject picks: Luv rows 13 & 16 of the grid … all weejects! 9 of the lil darlins.
honrable mention to SID & RAM, who got to participate in the make-ends-meet theme ceremonies.
fave entries: USVST. RIEG. DEMIM. HUGUE. Tho the theme lacked much (essential for a SunPuz solvequest slog) humor, it did make up for it bit, with those four weirdos splatzed into the final puzgrid presentation. Almost seemed like KEEF should also join the club, but its buddy NILS mellowed things out, some.
Thanx for the unique solvequestin experience, Mr. Pasco dude. Kinda cool how the theme helped us out, givin us three shots at some of the themer's letters. U musta suffered, comin up with that there MA-KE-EN-DS-ME-ET set of U-shaped (!!!) themer sets, tho. Bravo.
Masked & Anonymo11Us + the 6 U-shaped themer thingies.
p.s. fave unsung corner-turner: DRAINGOLA.
**gruntz**
Sure, I'll add to the chorus that this was an architectural feat, stunning the more I look at it, and kudos to Mr. Pasco for pulling it off, but this was quite tough for the likes of me. The PPP was tough anyhow. PARK SO-DAM (is that how you parse it?), LEONA Lewis (sorry, who?), ZUNE (what?), OTTOMAN SETS (I never), TRITT (only country music Travis I know is Randy -- I had the IT, and stabbed in the dark with faITh), LESTRADE (didn't know; my bad), NILS, NADAL (I guessed lendL at first), KEEF (not my wheelhouse), ETIENNE (had a hard time there -- Stefan, Stephan, etc. are all serviceable in France), REL (?), ... The bumps in the road went on and on, and without my grasping the theme for the longest time.
From the gimme a break department: ISOGON, SEMIMINOR. I'm a mathematician and never, ever have I used or felt a need to use these terms. ISOGON is actually new to me, although the Greek roots are familiar enough. SCARIES, there's another. And GUV spelled that way? The HONDA FIT. Also new to me. WON? No idea. ILIADS? Same reaction as Rex's. COWABUNGA? I associate that more with Bart Simpson. Don't ask me anything about Ninja Turtles. USVST: almost impossible to see or parse before I was done with the puzzle.
AMA: Ask Me Anything, I think. I'm not a Redditor or anything, but I use it occasionally. I don't know AMA as a prominent Reddit feature, even though the concept itself is familiar enough.
Hm, Phanerozoic. I question whether this is a useful item of scientific information for people to know. I think we should get much more used to the idea that we're currently in the Anthropocene Era, when it's largely human activity that puts intense pressures on animal and plant life everywhere.
Bitching over. Objectively, it's a great puzzle, with answers from all over the map -- just a lot not in my wheelhouse, and rather harder than an ordinary Sunday. I like what I took as misdirection by F^-, and coming up with BLUE NILE felt like a small victory. Smug satisfaction putting in TEA CEREMONY right away. I'll take such pleasures where I can get them.
I really loved the construction after getting the first one and seeing not only the end/beginning, but seeing the two circled letters were the beginning of a palindrome, "madam." Wow!, I thought. So I expected the same and it didn't happen. Oh well.
Desk set? Ottoman set? The first is a classic Hepburn/Tracy movie, the second doesn't exist (at least not in my world).
Set set men men. Ugh ugh. Stop street is a bit off its Afrikaans origins here, but it does exist even if only makers of maps and GPS units use it (and probably not much either). "Bachelor" should go the way of "maiden" and, especially, "maiden name" methinks.
Way too many names for me but there ya go; others think differently.
I do believe my appreciation of the construction outweighed some of the slogginess I felt while solve it. It's really quite brilliant. Now, if only all the meetings had also begun/ended palindromes, THAT would have been both genius and magic.
@Nancy (10:48)
I just found the taxonomy mnemonic: Dear King Philip Came Over For Good Soup (Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species). I’d never heard that and it’s a hoot. Thanks for mentioning it!
The only geologic time series mnemonic I found is…[drumroll]…[wait for it]… Pregnant Camels Often Sit Down Carefully, Perhaps Their Joints Creak? Possibly Early Oiling Might Prevent Permanent Rheumatism. Which stands for Precambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Recent (i.e. Holocene). That’s a mixture of periods and epochs, mostly within the Phanerozoic EON, except for the Precambrian which precedes everything. You’ve got to think, though, that such a so-called mnemonic is an end in itself. Is that long exposition on dromedary arthritis really going to help anyone remember anything?
As far as EON, Era, Period, Epoch and Age is concerned – the sequence I mentioned earlier – the only thing I came up with is: Edith Evans, Posh English Actress, although what Dame Edith has to do with geologic time scales I know not. (She did have a 60-year career, though, so that was pretty long.)
Sort of a slog today. The theme was difficult for me only because I was having trouble seeing the reversed answers right-to-left. I had to open a note on my phone to take a look at them left-to-right before I could see them, but that’s a me thing.
My real gripes (and others’, apparently) are with HER, LICHENS, and ILIADS. I kept trying *not* to write ILIAD in there. No one refers to other stories as Iliads. Terrible. HER *is* a pronoun. I thought this would be some homophonic answer like HUR or HIR or something, but no, it’s just a bad, bad clue. And lastly, a LICHEN is not mossy. Moss and lichens are just different organisms entirely. They both grow on trees, but a LICHEN is not mossy. Really terrible. Actually one of the worst clues I’ve ever come across.
@pablo
Oops! I'm pretty sure autocorrect changed my Paolo to Pablo. Yes, that's it. 😁
So many differing opinions here. What an eclectic bunch are we.
RooMonster I'm Eccentric, Not Odd Guy (even though I'm not rich...)
@Diego (12:59 PM) / @John (1:41 PM)
Thx for the tips re: Paolo's New Yorker & Atlantic xwords; I'll give them a go! :)
@jae (1:04 PM) / @Beezer (1:35 PM)
Thx, but I'll be from 'Missouri' on this one. You may be right, but a Jane Campion picture w/ DUNST & Cumberbatch makes it enticing, to say nothing of 94% / 76% Rotten Tomatoes ratings. IMDB has it at 6.8. OK, so the critics like it more than the audience. I'll get back to you.
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
You're a nerd after my own heart!
He did!
I absolutely loved this, beginning to end. Bravo, Pablo!
I tackled this whole grid word by word and only then looked at the clues, the wonky words (Angela Bass?), the 2-letter "terminals" ... a beautiful ride! My AHA moments started coming thick and fast.
Luckily I got Lestrade and mustiest and The Ronettes (I now have Be My Baby stuck in my head but I love it so okay) which cleared a lot of real estate. Last thing to go in was "hi all" ... doesn't really match the clue IMHO.
I feel like I have to speak up on behalf of millennials here and say Sunday SCARIES is very much in the vernacular, as inelegant as the word may be. It's the dread of having had a fun weekend and now looking down the barrel of the work week (I also think working it into a Sunday puzzle earns additional points). Also, agreed with those above, LESTRADE is a staple of the Holmes stories—and a great character in the excellent Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu TV adaptation Elementary—even though, as sort of a hapless foil, he may not be as memorable as salient nemeses Moriarty or The Woman/Adler.
FWIW, I disagree with them. I thought it was great.
Rich Furman - loved your comment! You win the day!
No traction in the NW again today, went east, and got the trick fairly early, at 14*D&S (down & sideways), RAMADA. Kept working clockwise looking for the asterisk downs. At 40*D&S I got LESTRADE, and at 43*D&S I discovered the full meaning of “terminal connections” when it had to be NORSEMAN, whereby the terminal parts of those entries connected for the puzzle and for me.
But there was more to this construction marvel. I looked back at the circles to see what they spelled, and there was a clever subtitle in MAKE ENDS MEET. Plus, the 6 across answers where the themers met were clued straightforwardly and were a help if you could get them all straight off (I didn’t, needing the themers).
I finished without the music’s agreement. Lots of answers were new to me, so I considered the PPP cross of PARKSODAM and OSAKA. I was certain of all the crosses except the K in OSAKA, but it rang a faint bell so let it be.
The rest of my guesses looked plausible until I got to the SW with ESQUc crossing LcDS. Brain took a breather and let me imagine LCD and the unknown ESQUc were correct. Used the iPad app to check the grid and saw that the C *was* the error and doh (thanks, @ Joe Dipinto, @kitshef, and others for yesterday’s discussion about this), corrected to LED and the suffix -ESQUE, finishing with one missed square.
Didn’t put CROISSANT in right off, thinking that’s a baked good not a pastry, but on checking MW, the (1a) answer is a dough for baked goods with a high fat content (well, that sure fits); (1b) then mentions the sweet side.
Favorite clues/answers: EBOOK, PAPAL, IDAHO, REHOUSE, TOGA, CAN’T DO above DOOMER, STAT & STET, COWABUNGA (though Ninja Turtle connection unknown; thought of surfers when I had enough letters to fill it in), and especially “No _” WHEY!
Not so much: ILIADS, OTTOMAN SETS, DESK SET, THEME ROOM, AS A FOLLOW-UP, STREET (thought “cred” instead of “stop” better, but thanks, @Rex, for clearing that up, sorta).
Thanks, Paolo, for the enjoyable solve and lots to learn.
@Joe R 10:45 am – My fourth character in Sherlock Holmes stories would be Irene Adler (hi, @alexscott68 and others) – even Sherlock called her simply “the Woman” in admiration (from “A Scandal in Bohemia”).
@Barbara S 2:13 pm – In one of my classes back when, someone mentioned there was another mnemonic, King Philip Came Over For Great Sex. It was college level, so it was allowed. And wow, that is working it for geologic time. Right; think I'd just look those up.
@Anon 7:45 It may not be defined in a dictionary but I did hear it dozens of times as opposed to stop street which I heard exactly never.
@VL Perhaps. But it's still just a bad clue, not a stupid one in my opinion.
DOOMER is definitely a real term, and it's not the same thing as a doom-scroller. I had no trouble getting that.
bocamp@2:29
I thought The Power of the Dog was yet another beautiful film from Jane Campion’s long career of great filmmaking. Both Cumberbatch and Dunst excel but the entire cast is top drawer. Nevertheless, I can understand how this film isn’t everybody’s cup. It upends a big chunk of mythology about the American West and contributes singularly to the ongoing discourse on toxic masculinity.
Sunday Scaries is definitely common terminology among gen Z, millennials and even some Xers. Doomer too. Had no trouble at all for either of those, plugged them right in, and I suspect that most people under 40 would also get those answers with ease. As for Lestrade, it's crazy you'd admit to not knowing this. He's probably the best known character after Holmes, Watson, and, like, maybe Adler. Rel blew up after Get Out but perhaps he's not so familiar to a white man who consider himself authority on what is popular knowledge and what is not. Naticks are a bullshit concept in any case, but this isn't one.
my rescue dog came with the name lestrade which we kept once we googled it. we call him les.
@jae /@Beezer
Just finished watching DUNST in 'The Power of the Dog'. Excellent film! @Diego (4:57 PM) pretty much hit the nail on the head. Probably not a movie I'd rewatch, but I'll rate it 8/10 for being an all-around fine production.
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
@Barbara -- That's a different mnemonic for kingdom/phylum etc than the biology teacher gave me, and I like it much better. It seems considerably easier to remember, but maybe that's just because I haven't had a chance to forget it yet.
For the eras: Way too many "P"s and too many "C"s for any mnemonic to work.
It's like my remembering MIMAL as a mnemonic for the States going down from top to bottom on a map. I was told that it created good "glue" for being able to "see" a map of the US in my head (I have mentioned, haven't I, that geography is not my strong suit?) Well here's the problem: I always manage to remember MIMAL and I remember that Louisianna is the "L" at the bottom. But I have NO idea what the first M (Minnesota? Michigan? Montana?) is nor the I (Idaho? Iowa? Indiana? Illinois?) nor the second M (Mississippi? Missouri?) nor the A (Alabama? Arkansas? Arizona?) So MIMAL does me no damn good at all:)
Thank you!
I knew it was a thing but couldn't remember how.
I've known people who had *an* ottoman in their living room or bedroom - but never, EVER, have I known anyone to shop for or purchase an "ottoman set."
I can understand people not liking it. But it fascinated me.
Perhaps I am influenced by the paucity of gay themed serious movies - I am gay- but my reaction was diametrically opposed to yours and that of other blogger. I was wide awake.
I note that Bocamp has very eclectic tastes and he might react differently from you Teo.
About "guv". It is an old Cokney thing and that is it is spelled.
As I said above, I thought you would like it.
Wonderful film!
@Barbara -- That's a different mnemonic for kingdom/phylum etc than the biology teacher gave me, and I like it much better. It seems considerably easier to remember, but maybe that's just because I haven't had a chance to forget it yet.
For the eras: Way too many "P"s and too many "C"s for any mnemonic to work.
It's like my remembering MIMAL as a mnemonic for the States going down from top to bottom on a map. I was told that it created good "glue" for being able to "see" a map of the US in my head (I have mentioned, haven't I, that geography is not my strong suit?) Well here's the problem: I always manage to remember MIMAL and I remember that Louisianna is the "L" at the bottom. But I have NO idea what the first M (Minnesota? Michigan? Montana?) is nor the I (Idaho? Iowa? Indiana? Illinois?) nor the second M (Mississippi? Missouri?) nor the A (Alabama? Arkansas? Arizona?) So MIMAL does me no good at all:)
What a feat of construction! This was just the best Sunday stumper of a creative, ingenious and utterly impressive if a puzzle in such a long time. I hope Mr. Pasco’s imagination serves him well and brings us more!
A feat of a puzzle. Definitely some tricky spots, but love a theme so consistent and artfully constructed that it actually helps you suss out the other answers. Really impressive.
Also really nice to see a write up from Rex that isn’t all about the answers he didn’t know, or tearing down a decent puzzle over a few minor nitpicks. Fine to be critical, and everyone relates to puzzles making them grumpy, but enjoyed the better balance today. A much more interesting read about a really well-done puzzle.
While a single ottoman may be paired with a chair or sofa, a common living room arrangement is to place a pair of matching ottomans side-by-side, instead of say a bench or another chair. It can help balance the space, and provides flexible seating. Ottomans are absolutely purchased in sets.
“The balm!” Love it. Great write-up.
So the crossword can’t include anything current? That’s an odd take. So should it be nothing but mountain ranges and animals? All crosswords include pop culture clues, just of varying time periods. Are cultural references from the past allowed in your rulebook?
A street stop is what the police do when they find someone suspicious or think they've spotted someone with a warrant out for them.
ILIADS: Merriam-Webster has three lowercase L definitions of “iliad”, including “a series of miseries or disastrous events.”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Iliad
I know this because I got pissed off at my computer Scrabble game when the computer played the plural.
Also who buys a whole set of fucking ottomans?
For me this one walked a very thin line between "laudably clever" and "look at my big brain being big, isn't it so big?" Sometimes veered over on one side, sometimes the other. Appreciative of the technical mastery for sure, but the execution left me a touch cold, possibly because it took me so long.
DOOMERs and DOOMERism are certainly a thing. OTTOMAN SETS and no-go AREAs are not. Although I'm an early millennial, the term "Sunday SCARIES" has escaped my awareness, possibly because I work an overnight job on a 3-week rotation that seems to be completely impenetrable to anyone who doesn't work there.
I'm gonna argue that WON is a great clue because you're tempted to put yen, but you know that Squid Game is Korean, not Japanese, so it messes with your head a little and makes you check your racism at the door. "Oh, Japanese, Korean, it's all Asian, right? I can throw yen in there and move on, right? ...right??"
I also liked ISOGON because I'd never heard it, but could cobble it together from prior prefix and suffix knowledge.
Can't believe no one's complaining about NET CORD. That one was "who farted?" levels of noxious to me.
Had RElOdgE instead of REHOUSE for a while—that definitely threw me in some ways.
@Nancy, @Beezer You’re getting at the trouble with PPP in general: if it’s in your sphere/era of cultural experience, no problem; if not, well… Of course any crossword will have generational linguistic issues, I suppose, but at least if PPP can be limited, it’s a much better playing field and solving experience. This was a slog for me too. Clever premise, but if there’s enough exasperation in it it, it kills the joy.
Nope to OTTOMAN SETS.
Well, indulge me while I get one more dig in re "LASTRADE".
I won't fault Rex for his ignorance of Lestrade (I strongly suspect that had "inspector" been included in the clue that he'd know what character was being referenced, even if he wasn't strictly familiar with the name.
The irony is that had the clued character been Irene Adler, Rex would have nailed it in a heartbeat despite her appearance in only one Sherlock Holmes tale (a name that qualifies as "crossword-ese").
An earlier post was largely dismissive of Lestrade. I'll suggest that the character deserves considerably more respect. While Lestrade is both plodding and anxious to grasp the first straw presented when pursuing a case (a characterization that I'd say Doyle extends to much of the force at that time, with notable exceptions), Holmes's interactions and developing relationship with Lestrade define Holmes's character as much as his relationship with Watson.
While Holmes and Lestrade regard each other with a mix of dismissiveness and contempt at the outset, Lestrade comes to respect (and admire) Holmes' deductive feats while Holmes recognizes that Lestrade's persistence and dedication has elevated him amongst his peers. They not only come to readily tolerate each other's companies, but actually welcome and enjoy it on occasion.
Ditto!
Never heard of sandstone being used in asphalt. It’s too soft. Sand, yes and bluestone also, but not sandstone
My fantasy football team is called HUGO KNOTS in honor of my ancestors
I doubt there's any such thing as an Ottoman Set, ha! And I waited to enter "set" because it had already been used. Rex must be tired, indeed.
As a true millennial and also an avid Sunday NYT crossword enthusiast, what I look forward to more than cracking the theme of the puzzle is reading the comments on this blog. I will say the clues seem to be appealing to our generation more and more.....I also really like H.E.R. AND Chief Keef so I had no qualms with those clues....but lol....
Surprised that there have been few comments about WEARIER. Has anyone ever used “wearier” in that context? Seems like a huge stretch.
OK. Just rethought my comment about WEARIER. I was seeing it in the context of a run/down structure, not a person. I suppose a person can be “wearier,” like I was when I finally solved this puzzle!
@eniale touché, my man. Agreed.
HER MEMO (LICHEN IT)
DEARMADAM, ASAFOLLOWUP,
INRE: THE THOUSAND MEN you use,
THUSFAR your HOTTIE loving cup
still PASSES as MUCHO BIGNEWS.
--- LEONA LESTRADE
A couple SEMIMINOR nits: THE crossing THERONETTES; half, not ALL of THE down parts of the themers are other actual words. A fully spelled out themer in yeah baby DEMIMOORE.
Wordle bogey; kept dancing around the answer.
Pretty much what @Rondo said
Did no one catch the botanical error? LICHEN is in no way mossy. A lichen is formed from an alga and a fungus, hence a hybrid organism. A moss is something completely different. They are completely biologically unrelated.
STOP STREET is totally in my language. There are arterial streets, which we call thru streets, and there are stop streets, that are not the ones you want to travel any distance on, because they don't get the right of way - you get a stop sign on almost every block. Maybe it's a Canadian thing, I don't know. @Doomer David mentioned its use by makers of maps - it would be a street that a map would not choose for a routing, so there must be some actual indicator for that type of street; I wonder what the map route programs call it.
And speaking of terms that exist that commenters say don't exist, I love all the comments saying OTTOMAN SETS don't exist, when @Barbara S already posted the link to 98 of them from one well-known store on the internet.
I loved figuring out the gimmick and then the gimmick fill on this puzzle. I had a few wrong answers in the end. But I had something in every square, so I could come read the blog.
Seattle Times Syndi-Cat here: I agree almost entirely with Rex. Mr Pasco is a great constructor and the nits that Rex had were just, but, as he said, minor compared to the overall puzzle brilliance. I can't see how anyone could solve this puzzle with no error. I stuck with it for half a night but still had a few at the naticks Rex mentioned. The things that held me up the most - before I corrected them - were EON instead of what I was sure would be era. The answer of HUGUENOTS. And then once I figured out the theme that problem went away but I still had the REL / LESTRADE problem. Initially I had David Bowie for the foxy IRENE CARA but the crosses ruled that out. btw - check out the Irene Cara "live" Don Kirshner "Fame" video on you tube. Awesome lip sync performance. Rondo - you missed one of the "yeah baby" ladies (IMO)
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