.png)
Certain cookie spinoff / SAT 11-12-22 / Travel for someone who's feeling bad / Actor Siriboe of Queen Sugar / Southwestern city that produces most of the U.S.'s Snickers bars / Platform for a modern job interview
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Constructor: Billy Bratton
Relative difficulty: Very Easy
Word of the Day: TIA Carrere (25A: Grammy-winning actress Carrere) —
Althea Rae Duhinio Janairo (born January 2, 1967), known professionally as Tia Carrere (/kəˈrɛərə/), is an American actress, singer and former model who got her first big break as a regular on the daytime soap opera General Hospital.
Carrere played Cassandra Wong in the feature films Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2; Juno Skinner in True Lies; Nani Pelekai in the Lilo & Stitchfilms and TV series; Queen Tyr'ahnee in Duck Dodgers; Richard Lewis's girlfriend, Cha Cha, in Curb Your Enthusiasm; and starred as Sydney Fox in the television series Relic Hunter, as well as Lady Danger opposite RuPaul in Netflix's AJ and the Queen. Carrere also appeared as a contestant in the second season of Dancing with the Stars and the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice. In addition to acting, Carrere has won two Grammy Awards for her music [ed.: Best Hawaiian Album! Twice!]. (wikipedia)
• • •
That's HAT AT HAND RDS HOT WAR OTRA ATOM TRACTS all in quick succession. And then I looked up and saw WACO sitting there and just wrote in TEXAS without even needing to look at the clue (Snickers? And Dr Pepper!? What a city!). The whole NNW section went in no sweat and then I just rode the STALAGMITE Highway down to the bottom. Or, rather, I dipped my STALAGMITE toe into the waters down below, seeing if it was safe to go in. Took me a few seconds of thinking to get TSAR (42A: Peter or Paul, but not Mary), and then I was off and running again in the SE—a bizarre transgrid symmetrical start to my solve (I don't normally spread out like that, but you gotta go where the energy takes you). Cleaned up the SE corner and then took the PASSING LANE back up again. Lots and lots of whoosh whoosh today:
I assumed that the SW and NE corners were gonna give me at least a little roughing up, but my fears were unfounded. The center was a piece of cake (cliché again, sorry!), and then the "Y" and the "Z" from YOGA and ZOOM made the SW corner easy to get into and conquer, and that just left the NE corner, which was maybe the hardest, in that it was chock full of trivia, but it wasn't hard at all (KIWI to the rescue!) (9D: Fuzzy fruit that's technically a berry). While I enjoyed the feeling of ZOOMing around the grid, as answers go, only DIPPIN' DOTS (21D: "Ice Cream of the Future") and "KINDA SORTA" (52A: "Uh ... in a way ...") felt truly inspired. Nothing wrong with any of the rest of it, but if you're not gonna have a ton of surface sizzle, you gotta give me something fun or tricky in the clues. I liked the clue on GUILT TRIP a lot (49A: "Travel" for someone who's feeling bad?). Could've used more of that playfulness today. Yes, I'm actually *asking* for more "?" clues, which never happens. Maybe not more "?" clues per se, but more liveliness in the cluing for sure.
- 4D: Refuse to squeal (NAME NO NAMES) — speaking of "Refuse to," I "refused to" write in this answer at first (as you can see in the last grid posted above), because it is ridiculous and my brain said "Nope, I will not be complicit in this." You name NAME NAMES, for sure. I've seen that in crosswords before and liked it fine because it is an actual tight phrase. NAME NO NAMES ... oof, I don't know what that is. You either did or didn't NAME NAMES. It's hard to imagine anyone actually saying NAME NO NAMES. "Don't name names, Rocko, or it's a Chicago overcoat for you!" "Don't worry, boss, I will NAME NO NAMES." "Why are you talkin' all weird and formal like that, Rocko!? You worry me! You're my nephew, and I love you, but you worry me!" [end scene]
- 21A: LED component? (DIODE) — OK maybe this is the answer that gave me the most pause. I had to work around it. The "?" was throwing me. I thought it was going to be something really tricky, but it's just the "D" in LED.
- 54A: Supergirl, e.g. (ALIEN) — had the "AL-" and wrote in ALIAS, which works perfectly. That's the kind of mistake that can really get you stuck, but not in this puzzle. The obvious IDES (50D: November 13, e.g.) lifted me right out of the hole and back on track.
- 34A: Time when it helps to be flexible (YOGA SESSION) — got this easily, but do not like it. Is this a one-on-one tutorial? There's YOGA CLASS and YOGA PRACTICE, but SESSION, while plausible, gives the answer an eerie, off quality, a la NAME NO NAMES.
- 6D: Pop open, perhaps (UNCAP) — had the "UNCA-" and was all prepared to be mad at UNCAN, but then it was UNCAP, which is the mot juste here. UNCAN is what you do with your herbal organic antioxidant vitamin healing water after your YOGA SESSION. You UNCAN it from the can and then drink it from a lotus flower while you sit in silence, NAME-ing NO NAMES. Namaste.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Save And Share :
99 comments:
Don't care about what a certain day's puzzle is "supposed" to be. But yes, it was not as difficult as most end of week puzzles. Point is, it was smooth and enjoyable. I'll take that any time. Apt shoe for a plumber/CLOG made me smile.
I used to be concerned about my “streak” and one Saturday a long time ago for some reason now forgotten I had to solve on paper. Realizing that this would cost me my streak, I later entered it, copying from paper. That was and remains my PR for Saturday. Today’s puzzle came in just 2-1/2 minutes slower than that. No major overwrites, just teaM MEETING before ZOOM MEETING at 35A and uglI before KIWI at 9D.
Enjoyable puzzle, but jarringly easy for its day of the week. No real hiccups whatsoever.
A fast solve which is fine with me any day of the week!
Naming no names is a common enough expression over here - you regularly hear things like “naming no names, but I saw lots of people in our road breaking lockdown rules’. I guess by naming no names you could be said to name no names…
It’s hard enough, when making a puzzle, to put long answers (eight letters or more) side-by-side, or one above the other, without forging ugly crosses. It’s harder still to make those long answers lovely and appealing.
Billy’s grid does this again and again, and that’s what I love about it. Look at these abutting combos:
NAME NO NAMES / STALAGMITE
GUILT TRIP/ KINDA SORTA
BANANA SPLIT / YOGA SESSION / ZOOM MEETING
And if you allow seven-letter answers:
YOU GOT IT / ZAMBONI
FAD DIET / OREO THIN
To add to my happiness was a favorite crossword element of mine, the dook. Manifested today in the answer NOUSE. (A dook is a word whose looks can be misinterpreted. DOOK can be seen as a daffy one-syllable word in a crossword grid, when it’s meant to be DO OK. Other dooks include DOORDIE and GOON.)
Thus, a lovely grid to uncover. I’ve learned over my years of solving that a crossword outing is all the richer when I stop to smell the roses. And they were sweet today. Thank you, Billy!
Record Saturday for me. Not a terrible grid, the middle three stack had two winners and a zoom meeting, something I have no interest in seeing on a weekend. I had stalactite for a hot minute but it never caused me any real problems. With tougher cluing this could have been a little more Saturday. 49A “Travel” for someone who’s feeling bad? - A clue with quotes and a question mark both is the worst. You’re allowed to stretch on a Saturday. And speaking of cluing - that zoom meeting “Platform for a modern job interview” - could it have been anything else?
How many of us immediately saw through the “growing up in a cave” clue and wrote in STALA—ITE? I know there’s some way of remembering which is which, but I can never remember it.
Then I had the M and the E from the biography subject, which I mistook as autobiography title (it’s early). I put in My lifE, and thought, “What a boring title for an autobiography. That could be anyone!”
I like learning factoids in puzzles, such as that polo was invented in IRAN, but the fact that most Snickers bars are produced in WACO, TEXAS is of absolutely no interest.
It was indeed a great clue for GUILT TRIP, and I’ll bet that journey made for some fun vacation photos. Can I see them please?
Think I’ve just about had it with the NYT. Thank God the Stumper still exists.
I agree with Rex that this puzzle was very easy for a Saturday. Still, well constructed and fun.
Agree, Rex, and everyone else. Played like the easiest Saturday I can recall. Enjoyable but too easy for Saturday.
Record Saturday for me too. What a weird week. Thursday was a PR that's faster than my Wednesday record and now Saturday is a PR that's faster than my Friday record. Well, I'm still gonna go around bragging about it to people who don't do crosswords. "Two PRs in one week—I must be getting pretty good!" is what I'll say.
PB for me - I'll bet there are a lot of these today. Many years ago I had a lovely customer named Kofi. He told me that Kofi meant "Friday" in his native language - the day he was born. I've never met another Kofi but think about this whenever I see the name.
The phrase I remember from many years ago is "when the mites go up the tights come down".
I too found this surprisingly easy and quick for a Saturday, and was gratified that Rex did as well. I also enjoyed it a lot. Thanks, Billy!
Really, the only holdup was that tortured clue for GUILT TRIP. Well, I did consider ‘mAD DIET’ and ‘bAD DIET’ before settling on FAD.
@Wanderlust 7:33 - here are two:
stalaGmite has a 'g', which means it comes from the ground.
stalaCtite has a 'c', which menas it comes from the ceiling.
Or ...
stalactites cling tite/tight to the ceiling.
stalagmites mite/might get there some day.
While stopping to show my partner a few clues and chat a little with him about them, I finished this puzzle in 5:43, which is a minute and ten seconds faster then my previous record (which I think was a minute or two shorter than my record before that). That's a casual Tuesday/normal-to-fast-ish Wednesday time for me. Even with how much easier the puzzles have been getting in the last few years, that's unreasonable.
Have not had a had a personal best this century until today. This was a Tuesday.
Some posters say they don't care what day of the week rating a puzzle has, but if you purposely wait for the end of the week to get a challenge, this was unfair.
Yes Easy Saturday. But it felt very fresh and the clues were fun. Enjoyed this very much
Favorite clue all week: It resurfaces after twenty minutes. What's not to love about a Zamboni?
Perhaps the easiest Saturday I've ever done, but after yesterday's struggle, that was fine with me.
I thought there had been, maybe, a bio of Anne MORROW Lindburgh, forgot about "Tuesdays With MORRIE", and so, when I had MORR?? for the memoir, I...well you know. But when it gave me PoES for the budget graphics and wST for the population fig -- well, something had to be done.
I did think to change BAD DIET to FAD DIET before it was too late -- KOBI?/KOFI? being no help at all. I had a friend who used to do juice cleanses all the time, and she died relatively young at 71. So you can imagine what I think of juice cleanses.
STALAGTITE or STALAGMITE? I waited for the crosses on this kealoa. And then, bang, it was over just like that.
Rex, how about a subject who is brought in for questioning, who thinks to himself, "I will NAME NO NAMES"? Especially in case that subject is Hop Sing from Seinfeld.
Agreed that this was surprisingly easy for a Saturday. My very modest whooshing (or should we say ZOOMing) skills were on display with ZOOM MEETING and KINDA SORTA and THAT'S MY CUE.
Inspired and devious clue for ZAMBONI.
Speaking of freezing over, I haven't seen a DIPPIN DOTS in a while; it's had a troubled PAST it seems. I'm reading about it now. Apparently one of their flavors is BANANA SPLIT, but if my guess is correct, that must be in their trademark weird form -- they don't actually use bananas, do they?
Tuesdays with MORRIE, like so many things, was catapulted into prominence by Oprah. Stylistically, the book isn't really my thing, but I'm much more annoyed with her for creating Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil. (I don't mind Rachael Ray much -- she seems to stay in her lane.) Generally, I've come to be a little suspicious of Oprah (NEE Orpah) and her branding and to what degree she VETS her anointed ones. Remember that guy James Frey who wrote several memoirs and was promoted by Oprah, and who was hauled back onto her show after it could no longer be denied (by anyone, including Oprah) that he had fabricated many of the details? She went still further, going on to shame on her show Nan Talese, head of Doubleday, for marketing the book as non-fiction. David Carr has a pretty good read on the whole episode. (The title of his article is amusing in retrospect!) KINDA reminds me of that old Chiffon commercial, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"
11/12/22 will be a date of PB infamy for many of us (too easy to be that proud of it).
Favorite clue was “it resurfaces every 20 minutes” - the length of a professional hockey period. I played recreationally till I was 62 and couldn’t keep up with the 20- 30-somethings in our beer leagues and waited often for the Zam to finish resurfacing the ice from the game before.
Speaking of NAMENONAMES, how fortunate for Frank J. Zamboni that they named his invention after him. He died in 1988 - his name lives on forever!
Sign me up for a trip on the Easy But Enjoyable train. I'm with Lewis all the way (we are sharing a compartment)--the long answers, though not hard to get, made me smile. Don't know how I knew DIPPIN DOTS. My favorite was KINDA SORTA.
Had no idea there was a TSAR Paul; nice clue on that one. Also nice to know that polo was invented in IRAN. Unlike Rex, no issues with NAME NO NAMES or YOGA SESSION. Maybe just because the ride was so smooth. Reached the end in a time exactly equal to my PB. A sweet ride.
I learned to differentiate STALAGMITE from STALActITE by remembering that the C stands for ceiling.
"When the mites go up the tights come down". That will tell you whether the answer is stalagmite or stalactite.
Nice puzzle - not Stumper level but clean and well filled. Not a fan of the ubiquitous ZOOM MEETING but the center stack was nice. Forgot MORRIE and hand up for not knowing KOFI or LAURIE.
Liked ZAMBONI and GUILT TRIP. Trying too hard with KINDA SORTA and FAD DIET. No real pushback.
Cross the Brazos at WACO
Enjoyable Saturday solve. Not saying much but best puzzle of the week. Steve Mossberg’s Stumper is a little more old school for a stormy morning.
to wanderlust... as my old geography teacher told me decades ago... stalagmites vs stalatites...."tites come down"
Anyone else remember KOFI Annan? Only KOFI I ever heard of.
There was old friend ASTA and a ZAMBONI, which took me back to college days and my introduction to D 1 hockey. Between periods in one game a big German shepherd who was kind of an all-campus pet got on the ice and managed to avoid the new and very slippery stuff until the last pass of the ZAMBONI, at which point he had to get off and did a pretty good imitation of Bambi on the frozen pond. Good times.
Nice smooth fill but the cluing was too straightforward for me. Beastly Bedevilment is what I like on a Saturday, BB, but thanks for some fun.
On to see by how many magnitudes of difficulty the Stumper exceeds this one.
@Wanderlust
The mnemonic my dad taught be was to think of the shape of the letter M in STALAGMITE as the shape of two stagmites, and to think of the shape of the first T in Stalactite as that of a hanging stalactite.
Flat Wednesday time. The most disappointing Saturday ever and I've been doing them for 30 years. NOUSE says it all. If a puzzle doesn't give you any puzzling it's of NOUSE whatsoever.
Amy: Had Waco Tex US, which gave me UNCUP for the "Pop open, perhaps" clue. Was okay with that (think bra) so took some time rectifying the good. It was a personal kealoa.
Liked this, although it agree it was a fast solve. Happy Saturday.
@Nancy in school, we were taught stalaCtite -C is for ceiling, from whence they come
Have never forgotten that.
Hey All !
Nice, fast SatPuz. NW corner ended up toughest spot por moi. TRACTS oddly clued, and HOTWAR something I've heard before, but odd also. Could've clue TRACTS ala Monty Python.
"Quest for the Holy Grail" quote: "She's got huge.... TRACTS of land."
Only real hold up was the fuzzy fruit (9D), first was ACAI (is it fuzzy?, was he), then uglI, finally KIWI.
After putting last letter in, puz app said YOU GOT IT! So no GUILT TRIP on missing one-letter, going back to find it, and getting a KINDA SORTA finish. Felt like one of the ELITES of puzzledom.
Whoever invented OREO THINs should be shot. The whole point to an OREO is the cream. Now, Chips Ahoy thins are fine ..
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
@ Wanderlust 7:30
Stalactites cling tightly to the ceiling. Stalagmites are the other ones...
I would say that clog (30 down) is an INapt name for a plummer. Also we might consider stalaGMite and stalaCTite as a kind of Kealoa.
Ooh, just checked my stats, and found out this was my fastest SatPuz solve ever! Unsure what my last fastest time was, as when you set a personal record, the old time gets replaced with the new time. I finished in 10:39. And I wasn't even trying to be fast. So this rates as a Very Easy puz. YAY ME!
RooMonster Record Setting Puz Guy
Har.
Lol, glad this was so easy for you all. I did it without cheating, in half an hour, so maybe that makes it super-easy after all, but had to work at it. Had nearby before ATHAND so no quick start out of the NW for me. Also sat there staring at the south with only TSAR and KINDASORTA thinking ok, I guess mist athletes are AlIve, and maybe ReNde works with encounter, avec vous. Also thought GOSOLO only worked KINDASORTA.
Big PAPI is selling little bats filled with weed (Sweet Sluggers) now, so fun to see him again. And yes @pabloinnh, always happy to see KOFI here, no matter how clued. Still miss him.
I agree with Rex that it was an easy, breezy Saturday, but I'm not complaining.
Under Monday time. Quite a surprise for Saturday. Weirdly the app says 3:47 but it was more like 6, not sure how that happens. Not important just interesting. I thought it was a super "wavelength" thing as the long answers filled in with just a letter or two, but clearly everyone had a similar experience.
Struck me as a high number of 2 word answers. Does anyone keep track of that?
HOT WAR
AT HAND
NO USE
OREO THIN
FAD DIET
LOAD UP
RUN IN
GO SOLO
....
The best mnemonic is the one you can remember - simplicity helps. Thus, for me:
stalaGmite comes from the Ground
slaCtite hangs from the Ceiling
Nice to know Waco produces good stuff other than another memory device: "wackos" from Waco at the Branch Davidian compound.
10 minutes while eating a bagel and drinking coffee is a little thin for Saturday, but totally enjoyable nonetheless. I love Zamboni as a word and concept (a slow highway chase led by a Zamboni with all the cars behind sliding off the road is priceless), except that the one at my school uses all the hot water to refill its tank, leaving none for the men's showers in the middle of winter.
If you are not in a YOGA class, what else do you call a period of time in which you practice YOGA, say at home? I went to google: "yoga se" brings up sequence, sets, and sessions, with 110,000,000 hits (google hits is not my favorite metric, but still). Sure Yoga classes, shows up on many sites, but it seems totally in the language to me.
Great aha moment on _OUSE -"Hopeless". m,l Fun to have the DOOK appear from the crosses.
pope before TSAR
stalagTites = top
I had to slow down for the proper names but otherwise found this a refreshing breeze. Too easy for a Saturday? Oh STOP! Easy in this case is another term for well constructed which was fine with me after a tough one yesterday and the still painful (OMG!!) memory of Thursday. Thank you Billy! This was a very enjoyable solve to start the weekend.
I loved WACO TEXAS where the BAE and I were stuck for a long, HOT and very expensive day getting repairs done on a fifth wheel trailer. Also BANANA SPLIT crossing DIET and KINDA SORTA which is something I say often and may be my all-time favorite crossword entry.
I’ve had PIES on my mind the last few days when I realized Thanksgiving is now less than two weeks away, and THATS MY CUE to LOAD UP the car and eat turkey with the fam on the farm, lest I suffer a GUILT TRIP instead. Regarding cave structures, my memory association trick is that STALAGMITES with a G grow from the ground and stalactites with a C grow from the ceiling.
I had Bad Diet too and since I didn’t know the name Kofi, Kobi seemed appropriate.
Wow. A Saturday PB that I was faster than my Friday PB as well. It played like a themeless Wednesday. That said I enjoyed the smoothness and thought the grid was kind of eloquent.
Same experience as @Rex and many here: very easy, with too many kindergarten-level clues. (But fairness requires a nod to the great "resurfacing" ZAMBONI and the "budget" graphics.) I felt bad for the constructor for any "wrong day"-based criticism and wished that the NYT would occasionally run a themeless puzzle on an early weekday (as it has sometimes done on a Sunday); I think this would have been a good Wednesday choice.
Re: STALAGMITE - In the "tight/tite" group myself, I wouldn't have expected that learning about the various mnemonics was going to be such an entertaining topic of the comments. My favorites so far are the visual M/T (TTrimble 9:09) and the "up and down" from GAC 8:17, although I'm not sure if it's racy or hygiene-related.
The only place I've seen DIPPIN' DOTS is at sports events in arenas where various carts are set up in the concourses, including last night at Wisconsin volleyball, where the boy right behind me was enjoying his first game and first dish of the treat. As far as I can tell, if any adults are eating this confection, they're not doing it in public.
Another hand up for ZAMBONI clue (if I were @Lewis, it would be a favorite clue this week), and for the Very Easy rating of this puzzle. Fastest Friday/Saturday combo for me.
However, this was about a minute off my PR for a Saturday. I was surprised by that, so I went back in the archives to take a look at my fastest Saturday (9/3/22, according to the app). It was not memorable, but it did have UNPIN (hello, UNCAP) and, as coincidence would have it, ZOOMMEETING! Apparently I ZOOM when ZOOMMEETING is in the grid.
For those in search of more of a challenge, today’s LAT puzzle provided that for me
There were a lot of comments on Wordplay today about mnemonic devices you can use to help remember what's a STALAGTITE and what's a STALAGMITE. Here was my response:
STALAGTITE or STALAGMITE -- Wow!
So many of you know a
Great mem'ry trick to make it stick --
For me a kealoa!
I am guessing that a new solver dipping a toe into Saturday for the first time and finishing this with no help, is now singing "Happy Trails."
I kept thinking that some bugaboo would crawl up from a bottom pit and nip me where it hurts. It never did. I was clean and free...
I got to 35D. I wanted the gentle MANATEE to appear. I knew he wouldn't because he doesn't start with Z. I did like ZAMBONI, though...I learned what that was from watching "Peanuts." The music played still sticks in my head.
My first BANANA SPLIT was in a small diner my sister and I went to in LA. My Dad took us there just to indulge us in something we had never tried before. I still remember it to this day. The fudge on top of the ice cream and having the red cherry for last.....
Only name I didn't know was LAURIE. She wasn't ignored...thanks to her friends LOAD UP, ZAMBONI, YOU GOT IT and BOOR, I was introduced to her.
A nice little Saturday breeze...
November 13. I was so stuck on what the date is for my grandson that it took me waaaaay too long to suss out IDES.
But "James's birthday" wouldn't fit. Happy Birthday, little guy!
I clocked in a new record Saturday time a week or two ago and crushed that with this puzzle. It was a nice, easy journey through the grid but I look forward to the challenge of Fri/Sat. This was unsatisfying.
I loved KINDASORTA as much as I disliked HOTWAR.
Hope Sunday is a hearty meal of a puzzle yo balance it out.
Easy peasy but liked it, a PB for a Saturday. Not familiar with ZAMBONI (do NOT know hockey) or DIPPINDOTS, but readily gettable with crosses. I find BB’s vibe engaging, sorta kinda offbeat, look forward to more of his work.
I arrived at 34A (Time when it helps to be flexible) with this situation:_ _ GAS _SS _ _N. Seemed a little risqué for the Gray Lady, even in the current environment of ASS, BUTT and TUSH. But still, orGASmsSooN seemed to fit the clue well enough.
I refused to pay my contractor (he was an ASS), so he installed a giant statue of Supergirl on the roof. Now there’s ALIEN on my house.
ASTA crossing AND should be a nominee for an anti-Natick. OTOH, the constructor very humorously references his inclusion of ASTA at xwordinfo.com. In fact, his whole write-up is a hoot/whoo.
It hadn’t occurred to me until I was filling in 7D (“Minnesota March” composer) that SOUSA is SO USA. Also, I wonder if Aaron Copland had any tongue in cheek intent in twisting that title into Appalachian Spring.
I liked the puzzle. All the good stuff was in the clues, which is okay by me. But it was awfully easy for a Saturday @ 45% of yesterday’s time. Thanks for the brief fling, Billy Bratton. Your picture makes you look young, but what with the mask and all, I still harbor the hope that you’re the former NYC Police Commissioner.
Yep C for ceiling G for ground was the one we learned in elementary school - nice to see someone else remember that too.
ThemelessTuesday
It's "I won't name no names."
Lewis's note made me wonder if the plural of NOUSE is NOUSES or NICE.
Fellas -- don't google Tia Carrere's photos -- you'll have a stroke. Rex took it easy on us.
Probably just a glitch, but does 40D highlight 1A for anyone else on the website. Like it implies the two are related or cross-referencing, but they're not?
Yep, very very easy. This was a tough Tuesday at best. It would have been even easier if I hadn’t put acaI before KIWI. I think I saw the word berry in the clue and didn’t carefully read the rest of it. Me too for LAURIE and KOFI being WOEs.
Nice center stack and very smooth, liked it but not Saturday.
The Zamboni clue was excellent.
Thx, Billy; smooth puz! :)
Easy.
Went thru this one like it was a Tues-Wednes.
Needed all the crosses for DIPPIN' DOTS; other than that, very much on B.B.'s wavelength.
Mitch Albom fan here!
"Tuesdays with Morrie is a memoir[1] by American author Mitch Albom[2] about a series of visits Albom made to his former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz, as Schwartz gradually dies of ALS. The book topped the New York Times Non-Fiction Best-Sellers List for 23 combined weeks in 2000, and remained on the New York Times best-selling list for more than four years after.[3] In 2006, Tuesdays with Morrie was the bestselling memoir of all time.[3]" (Wikipedia)
Son played (still plays) hockey, so ZAMBONI was a gimme.
Fave MEG Ryan flick: 'Kate & Leopold'.
Fun solve today; nice to have an easy, breezy Sat. on occasion. :)
On to Steve Mossberg's Sat. Stumper, which I'm sure will provide all the push-back I need for the day! lol
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
A major disappointment. Not the puzzle, as I sailed through it and enjoyed it while doing so. Just disappointed to read all your comments and find out I am not the brilliant solver I thought I was. Seems like everyone found it easy. Oh well ...
I got a real chuckle just now with WACO TEXAS. Very recently,(some little Halloween candy tidbit on a morning show, possibly), I recall finding out that today Topeka, Kansas produces most of the Mars candy bars, so I plopped in Topeka KS. And as my sweet mother-in-law would have said, “Boy howdy,” did that make the NW a mess!
So I went through the remainder if the puzzle delighting in the clever clues. And astonished at the light and easy feel. It was the bounty of clever clues that finally made me erase Topeka. Well, that and returning to the little center top clump that I had been ignoring.
I did erase Topeka, but avoided the NW. hadn’t really read the clues for the top middle so tackled it. To my delight, ONYX, SOUSA, EYE, ANNOY and then NO USE and . . . MY CUE gave me the push I needed.
At that point, TEXAS was obvious. And spelled out rather than represented by its postal code. Hmmmm. Well, with only four letters it must be . . . Oh!!!! It’s more cleverness and this one is the best yet! I knew it had to be WACO and “checked” the clue - too quickly, or with a mind to make it fit and still have Topeka still be technically correct (weird how my brain works, I know), my brain ignored a bunch of the clue, put a ? at the end of it and read “Snickers” to mean laughs and WACO (pronounced more like “whacko”) it’s clever, funny and I get the happy music!
Then I come here ti find out about the gigantic Snickers bar. Oh well, I like my take anyway. As well as the clues for STALAGMITE (just love seeing that word, period), INSEAM, CLOG, ATOM and PASSING LANE. So much to enjoy, and that’s why I solve. Don’t care that it was easier than most Saturdays.
I will NAME NO NAMES, but sometimes a certain xword blogger really misses the point. And so, IMO, does a certain xword editor. Because the problem there is in the clue. "Squeal" is KINDA SORTA a Mafia term, and as OFL does point out, seems KINDA silly in that context, though it comes up in more low-level police work. A burglar caught red-handed might, for instance, be asked where he was going to unLOAD his loot, and might very well say, he knows where it could be sold but he will NAME NO NAMES.
As for level of difficulty, I so often have found Saturdays easier than Fridays that I am not surprised when the solve is easier. Today's was tough only because I knew almost none of the actors' names. But the crosses were fair, and some of the clues were amusing.
Seems to me a UNIT, in college-speak, is not a course, but a measure of how much credit towards a degree a course merits. But that is the only error that jumped out at me.
Also, if a puzzle should never invoke feelings of horror or disgust, as OFL so often seems to think, then I for one was horrified and disgusted at having to think about ZOOM MEETINGs.
My BANANASPLIT memory is from the soda fountain counter in Woolworth's in Cody, Wyoming. Waay back when I was eleven, they had a bunch of balloons and you'd point at one for the counter-lady to pop. Inside was a paper with the amount she'd charge you - anything from free to full price. I never had a free one, but the BANANASPLIT was a win every time!
I flew through this but had an error I couldn’t find. I knew it had to do with DaPPINDOTS but PAPa seemed right. I thought maybe this future ice cream has to do with cannabis? - isn’t there a product called Dapp? But no.
I'm on the holding TITE team.
Neat that everybody got their official weekend themeless fix, today. With the official Jaws of Themelessness in the puzgrid, too boot. Justice prevails, for all. Banana splits with dippindots & oreothins, all-a-round.
fave fill: WACOTEXAS [Home of Dr. Pepper, also]. BANANASPLIT. STALAGMITE. KINDASORTA. ZAMBONI. YOUGOTIT.
UNCAP. har
staff weeject pick: KAT. Krazy Kat by George Herriman. All-time M&A fave comic strip.
Thanx for not havin a theme, Mr. Bratton dude. Great job.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
harder than snot, unless U is very multi-lingual:
**gruntz**
Some very clever clues, fun,
For three days now:
what 🦖said.
⭕️ to add.
🤗🦖🦖🦖🦖🤗
Thought it was fun and fast. A lot of clever answers and clues. Perfect for a Saturday. Now can enjoy the rest of the day!
This puzzle seems to be written by a six-year-old who overdosed on Halloween sweets, what with DIPPIN DOTS, OREO THINS, BANANA SPLIT, and Snickers Bars. I suspect he tried to clue 52d with Kit (KAT) but mom said "That's enough."
Mnemonics have been developed for which word refers to which type of formation; one is that stalactite has a C for "ceiling", and stalagmite has a G for "ground",[4] another is that, as with ants in the pants, the mites go up and the tights (tites) come down.
Uhh...Why not just remember that stalactites and stalagmites go in alpha order from top to bottom.
For the latest trend in dubious grid fill run amok, see AP ____. Can't wait till AP BASKET WEAVING shows up. (Back in the day, basket-weaving was a euphemism for any easy but pointless course you could take to fill up your electives quota.)
You're doing it wrong wrong wrong!
Scheduling this on a Saturday has to have been a mistake. Not only did I record a personal best and not only was my time considerably faster than my Friday time, but it was 16 seconds faster than my Friday _record_.
A diode IS an LED component (well, it's the whole thing, really), so a ? seems out of place.
Not entirely "easy" for me, w/ a brand name and two pop-culture names jumbled together in the NE, and DIPPINDOTS (WHA?!!) just to the west of them, making DIODE impossible for me to get.
If I hadn't spent a minute staring at NOUSE in frozen bafflement, today would have been my first sub 15 Sat. But yeah it's not really a Sat; yesterday took my twice as long.
If the process goes on for long enough, a stalactite and its corresponding STALAGMITE will meet and form what's called a....column. Surely there could be a more interesting word for that, right? Something along the lines of "spelunkagora" (cave meeting place).
Hereabouts---around 450 miles due south of WACO TEXAS---34D YOU GOT IT is frequently a reply to "thank you", especially in casual, everyday situations like holding the door for someone.
I saw the " Common symbol in a rebus" clue for 8D EYE and said THAT'S MY CUE (17A). The EYE would not literally be an EYE but would stand for the pronoun "I". A string of symbols with drawings of a EYE, a body of water and a sheep would translate to "I see you" in a rebus puzzle. The NYTXW has always used rebus as a "picture puzzle" or some variant thereof. Never as multiple letters is a single grid square. More on this at Rebusgate.
YESTERDAY FRIDAY NOVEMBER 11
Wordle 510 2/6*
⬜R🟨A⬜ I ⬜S🟨E
🟩M🟩E🟩D🟩A🟩L
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Didn't know MORRIE so I got hung up in the SE for a while b/c I thought 55A must be PIES but I couldn't figure out why that was a "budget graphic." So I just put it in anyway, and then realized "---as in PIE chart" after the fact. As sometimes happens.
The online version for some reason gave that "linked clue" yellow highlight, connected-clue thing for !A and 40D, HAT and GOPAST respectively. Anyone have any idea what that was about? Neither clue made reference to the other and I certainly don't see any other connection. Just a glitch probably.
Interesting to discover that my favorite candy comes from the same town as my favorite soda, Dr. Pepper. Way to go Waco!
I had the privilege of playing Morrie in the stage version. Quite an experience going from cane to walker to wheelchair to bedridden and paralyzed in a couple of hours. It was like a dress rehearsal for my own demise. Now I'm 90 and only at the "cane" stage so far.
Growing up, we at one point acquired brother and sister tuxedo kittens thanks to our older cat. My dad chose the name Curtains for the male, who had dramatic black rectangles symmetrically parted over his eyes, but we couldn't think of a good name for his sister, so we named her Noname. Curtains turned out to be a wimpy fraidy-cat; Noname was much more sociable, apparently unfazed by her non-appellation.
Since we seem to be taking a poll, I vote for g=ground c=ceiling.
Great puzzle; love the clue for ZAMBONI.
Every time I see Peter and Paul in the same sentence, it takes me back to Kamloops, where I grew up. Two mountains by those names loom over the city; Mount Paul is basically a giant talus slope which makes it quite distinctive. When I was in Berlin I walked past a TV store which had about 40 TVs in the window, all showing Mts Peter and Paul. I just about fainted!... it was a documentary on helicopter skiing.
[SB yd pg-1; I got all those dozens of difficult words but somehow missed this stupid 4er. Brain!]
Time was, a Saturday was nigh insurmountable for me. This one I did in 6:56. I don't know if I'm getting better or the crosswords are getting worse. Maybe both. Agree with others that ZAMBONI is today's winner and that the clue for DIODE didn't need a ?.
This week was crazy busy and today is too but I made time to finish yesterday’s puzzle. I’m saving today’s for tomorrow, so hope it’s all right to post a short comment and a link about Friday because no one mentioned the Washington Post’s annual PEEPs diorama contest, which was amazing and creative and fun for ten years.
Like Teedmn yesterday, I too laughed at calling those PEEPs a confection, and smiled that those PEEPs were the cause of BrightLight’s first post (welcome!).
PS: One more: about those “Hidden PEEPs”
@okanaganer-Nice to hear about your mountains. My brother is named Peter, and no, there's no Mary, a question I have answered a lot.
I've been commuting to a conference the last couple of days; I solved the puzzles on the subway, but didn't have time to come here. I was looking forward to a return to normalcy today -- but I slept late, solved the puzzle, and then had to rush off to my grandson's soccer game, the last one of the season. I did manage to get here before sunset, though!
Speaking of the subway, one of the great joys of my commuting experience was the discovery a few years back that some of the older Boston underground stations have stalagmites forming on the floor, and tiny stalactites dangling from the ceiling. Sadly, they scrub or polish them away every year or so, so they will never grow up to be columns. Poor things.
If you follow the tradition that the Apostle Peter was the firs pope, then Peter or Paul, but not Mary, could also be
POPE. Fortunately I did not think of that.
Welcome back ASTA! It's been too long.
I often don't see EYE to EYE with Rex on a puzzle's difficulty level, but today I'm in complete agreement. If this wasn't the easiest Saturday I've ever done, it was at least close. I'd say it was too easy even for a Friday, but there is a reason it would be appropriate for that day, since KOFI is a Ghanaian name traditionally given to a boy born on Friday. Kofi Annan was in fact born on Friday, though by my reckoning Siriboe was born on a Wednesday; perhaps the old traditions are not so strictly adhered to in more recent times. I'm posting just for today under the name I might have been given had I been born in Ghana (I was actually made in Japan).
Stalagmites push up with all their might.
Any puzzle that causes Rex to share a Marianne Faithful song is a good one!
Kofi Burbridge, the brother of Oteil Burbridge, was an accomplished musician that passed away sadly in 2019. He played keyboard and flute for the Tedeschi Trucks Band.
Always like to read the stories from your acting career. I especially liked this because it reminded me to stop whining about reaching 70 and having hearing troubles.
Us east coast elites get our Snickers from Hackensack, NJ.
I don't approach crosswording like many of our more experienced Ivory Tower solvers, and as such I am not overly bothered by researching things I don't know. What I have discovered on Fridays and Saturdays is Go-ogle-ing the C-list personalities constructors love to use to make a puzzle more difficult reduces what's typically a slog into a rather pleasant and enjoyable experience. As such, today I learned about all of our little starlets and athletes, and once those annoyances were out of the way the rest of the puzzle solved itself with early week ease. Frankly I enjoyed the heck out of working on this one.
Uniclues:
1 Dedicated bachelor announces the TV Rom-Com has convinced him. Then he gets hitched.
2 Spousal weaponry.
3 How one should treat a child who is not the first born son.
4 Procedure for increasing adrenaline in one's system knowing full well the consequences for poor planning will be firey death.
5 Annual "it" way to eat backed by an ad campaign.
6 Third base.
1 THAT'S MY CUE. WEDS.
2 ABOVE GUILT TRIP
3 KINDA SORTA DOTE (~)
4 EYE PASSING LANE
5 ELITES' FAD DIET (~)
6 GO PAST INSEAM (~)
Rex's write up resonated soundly with me. A best Sat for me as well.
I suppose there's nothing inherently wrong with a well constructed Saturday that's "very easy". Yet, I embark on each day's solve with proportionately higher expectations. Saturday's grid is when I take pains to eliminate distraction and prepare to focus more intently than on other days.
I spent a minute or two with this puzzle trying to find a solid "in" with the shorter words. Failing that on first approach, I turned my attention to the longer stack and was disconcerted when I suddenly was filling letters in rapid shot succession, nailing one of the stack right off the bat, followed by 3 or 4 of the crosses and then filling the rest of the stack, proceeding to fill the 8- and 10-letter downs; all within the span of about 2 minutes. The remainder of the grid simply rolled over in "defeat".
Had this been Wednesday, I would have smiled with the accomplishment (not the it was that singular, as evidenced by the discussion here). But, being Saturday, I was unsated. At minimum, wasn't there ample cause in publishing this as a "Saturday" to suggest that the constructor introduce a handful of slier cluing?
Just my "2 cents". Could be the editors are striving to make each day's puzzles more approachable, at least occasionally, for the general public. But I'll assert that this risks skewing what has been a reliable progression in difficulty through the week that establishes a delectably savored gradient enriching the weekly experience.
As a kid I never liked Dr. Pepper. Today, regarding Dr Pepper, I am still a child.
The IDES clue reminded me of a fun little mnemonic poem from high school Latin --
In March, July, October, May,
The Ides fall on the fifteenth day,
The Nones the seventh; all besides
Have two days less for Nones and Ides.
(of course, that should really be "fewer" in the last line there, but unfortunately it wouldn't scan properly then)
So there you go -- now you, too can know when the Ides and Nones of any month are! It's funny the things you remember.
I have to disagree with extremely high praise for a ZAMBONI clue. I loved the hockey reference (huge fan) and it was easy to see the reference in the clue to a period's length. However there's a serious drawback in that clue: the actual "resurfacing" time for a ZAMBONI is closer to 40 minutes as twenty is just a "playing" time, not elapsed one. So for all its cleverness this clue is, alas, incorrect.
Pretty meh and easy for a Saturday. But the three-letter word count is very low, which is good. This one was misfiled. It should have run on a Thursday, maybe a Wednesday. It’s KINDASORTA between the two. Learned something new today. DIPPINDOTS. Little balls of ice cream frozen in nitrogen. I think I’ll stick to OREOTHINs…
Easy, breeezy...and with a cover girl (DOD TIA Carrere)! What's not to like? Eagle.
Another Wordle birdie: burning up the course.
NO DIPPIN' GUILTTRIP
Some ELITES like MEG AND LAURIE
make your MEETING then they SPLIT,
IT KINDASORTA ANNOYs MORRIE,
"YOU had your SESSION AND GOTIT."
--- KAT ZAMBONI
@Wanderlust 7:33am:
stalaCtite - ceiling
stalaGmite - ground
It must have been easy for others because, even though it started out hard for me, once I got going - it was gone!
Diana, LIW
PS My first entry was THATSMYCUE - this boded well for the rest of the puz.
this was a Wednesday puzzle. (11-12 minutes) There are plenty of puzzles of average difficulty out there. On a Saturday I want a high quality TOUGH puzzle that destroys my self congfidence.
Post a Comment