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City in ancient Crete with renowned labyrinth / TUE 11-29-22 / Hit BBC series since 1963 informally / Ratite featured on Uruguayan currency / Goose that might nest on volcanic ash
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Constructor: David Rockow
Relative difficulty: Easy (very)
The FLOCK:
- FALCON (37D: Its peregrine variety is the world's fastest avian)
- WREN (28D: Small brown passerine that holds its tail upright)
- RHEA (24D: Ratite featured on Uruguayan currency)
- KESTREL (25D: American raptor that's the size of a mourning dove)
- HAWK (38D: Iconic metaphor for keen-eyed watchfulness)
- NENE (35D: Goose that might nest on volcanic ash)
- CONDOR (19D: Its Andean variety has the largest wingspan among all raptors)
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced /(kə)ˈnɒsɒs, -səs/; Ancient Greek: Κνωσός, romanized: Knōsós, pronounced [knɔː.sós]; Linear B: 𐀒𐀜𐀰Ko-no-so) is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city.
Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the name Knossos survives from ancient Greek references to the major city of Crete. The palace of Knossos eventually became the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace was abandoned at some unknown time at the end of the Late Bronze Age, c. 1380–1100 BC; the reason is unknown, but one of the many disasters that befell the palace is generally put forward.
In the First Palace Period (around 2000 BC), the urban area reached a size of as many as 18,000 people. (wikipedia)
• • •
I did think, about halfway through this puzzle, before I had any idea of the theme, "man this is a birdy puzzle, the constructor must really like birds, cool." Hey, did you know that in "HORSE WITH NO NAME" (10D: Desert wanderer's mount in a 1972 hit by America) the wanderer is in a desert where there are "plants and BIRDS and rocks and things"!? ("things" always makes me laugh, wtf, did you just run out of vocabulary?). Seems like if you really Really wanted, you could've clued that one as a themer as well. It's at least as bird-y as URBAN AREAS, come on. COOL AS A CUCUMBER might've been harder (3D: Unruffled). Hmm. [Kestrel-like]? I don't know. Harder to turn that one birdward. (Unless "Unruffled" already suggests FEATHERs ... hmmm ...)
Didn't hesitate much at all while solving this one. I took a beat or two to remember KNOSSOS. I wrote in IBEX before ORYX (31D: African antelope) and SUET before SEED. CUSP probably gave me more trouble than anything else in the grid, and the kind of trouble I'm talking about there was negligible (52D: Edge). The grid seems very clean, especially considering how thematically dense it is in the middle. CONED was the only thing that made me squint and tilt my head dubiously (43D: Funnel-shaped), but it's word-y enough. Despite the strangeness of theme execution—or maybe because of it—I ended up enjoying this one more than not. I'll take this over a standard punny / corny / weak-laugh Tuesday any day (especially Tuesday).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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109 comments:
At the risk of being pedantic, seems like "unruffled" is already about as bird-y as it can get.
"Unruffled" dekes my brain featherwards, I do declare :)
I kind of like that the puzzle is an actual representation of the saying "birds of a feather flock together", with all the BIRDS (1D) FLOCKed (51D) around, or on a FEATHER (37A). To me, that makes the theme work.
I loved this Tuesday puzzle. FWE however. I looked very hard to find my error but all looked good. Turns out I had entered CUrb for Edge. That gave me rEED and bORE at the bottom SW. Those are words so when I reviewed it looked ok. BUT I had not read those clues because crosses had filled those 8 squares. Stupid! (headslap).
I enjoyed this one! I am by no means a bird expert but I knew “nene” as a Hawaiian goose and “rhea” both from the clues without considering them crosswordese.
What is up with a bird themed puzzle, but then having a clue about chicken (also a bird) and the answer being that they are “broth”??
Easier than Monday, I thought. But fun to solve.
Triple kealoa at 55A. The "Low-scoring soccer result" could be ONE all, ONE NIL or ONE one.
I wonder if the purists will take exception to characterizing chicken stock as a broth. It’s definitely close enough for CrossWorld and I don’t have a dog in the hunt. Not sure if that one has been debated here before.
Bird trivia and related terms - at least the clues weren’t off the wall and the theme wasn’t cryptic or gimmicky (it’s unfortunate that that is a compliment and not the expectation these days). So a pretty good Tuesday (and not a SIG EP, AMFAR or HAIFA to be found). Hopefully they keep them coming.
@OffTheGrid: same FWE here. And I had to get all the way to the bottom of that long 10D to learn that the answer wasn’t “a HORSE . . .”
Rex’s take on those song lyrics made me smile. “Rocks and things” is awfully lame. But what do you expect from a guy who can’t even come up with a name for the damn horse?
BIRDS of a FEATHER (that is, that cross FEATHER) FLOCK together. Seems like a nice twist on “of a feather,” and it explains the BIRDS / FEATHER / FLOCK sequencing.
6D is just wrong. “Molecule whose structure was solved by Rosalind Franklin”. Sha did not. She collected X-ray diffraction data of DNA fibres that Watson unethically got his hands on, and which Crick knew how to interpret. That, combined with a coup[le of other key insights, led the two of them to figure out the structure of DNA. Franklin’s data was very important, but no one who understands the science thinks she solved the structure.
I consider this a FrankenPuzzle, an everything but the kitchen sink puzzle. Surprised OFL didn't mention the bizarre SOCAL SIERRA MADRE group.
Fun theme. Easy puzzle. If this had run yesterday, it would have been off-the-charts easy for a Monday.
Yet I DNFed at the CONED/DANO cross. Never heard of the actor but cANO, gANO, pANO, tANO were my likely suspects. I thought CONEc might be a variant spelling of ‘conic’ and went with that.
I suspect this odd combination is a result of two trends in NYT puzzledom. 1) Overall, puzzles are getting easier, both in limitation of obscure place names and in the straightforwardness of the clues. 2) But puzzles are including names from the world of entertainment at a lower level of fame than they used to. I’m not saying Paul Dano is obscure – me not knowing someone would be a terrible standard for that. But the entertainment market is so fractured now that few people reach the level of fame of celebrities from back when we had only three TV channels and cinemas had one screen.
Horse with No Name is basically a two-chord song, and on guitar those two chords use the same fingers on the same frets (different strings), so one of the easiest to learn for a beginner. You really just need to get the strumming pattern down and you’re home.
how about the poor chicken who is the only bird in the puzzle that gets cooked!?!
I found the theme wonderful for two reasons.
One, it’s unusual. How often do we see a “group of similar items bunched together in the middle crossing a related word” theme? This took creativity and moxie to make.
Two, it’s bird-related. We got a feeder four years ago, and set it right outside the kitchen window. One of the great pleasures of my life is watching the birds feed and interact, and even watching their athletic abilities, i.e., seeing them so accurately move from one perch on the feeder to another, a combination of jumping and flying. Or seeing them zoom in from the side and perfectly land on a perch. I love hearing their song, watching their personalities come into play, and gazing at their beauty.
So, a memorable theme for me. Also, I like that so many other animals joined the party – the ELK, HORSE, ORYX, sheep (BAAS) and dog (ALPO). And I always like seeing a five-letter palindrome show up in a grid (STATS).
David, congratulations on your debut. I’m buzzed to see what comes from you next. And thank you so much for what came from you today!
I actually found this puzzle more difficult than many tuesdays. I know nothing of birds, and couldn’t spell KESTREL correctly (tried it with a c) and RCO seemed close to what I could remember the production company being called. Also didn’t know CLOSERS and had COOLERS for a while (!?!?) without knowing the Cretan city. My brain can normally handle conjuring up a handful of crosswordese canon, but there was too much today: RHEA, ORYX, NENE, RKO, UNC. I got a little too scrambled (bird/egg pun) to flow through the grid. I had a good time though and loved the ingenuity of the theme and construction.
BIRDS of a FEATHER FLOCK together.
Easy puzzle and I too like Kestrels (Hawks and Condors too) but feel the long song title should have been a Byrd’s song at least.
DNF on CONED/CONAL, ON A NIL sounded like something that could mean something in sports & proper noun could be anything. Didn't know a lot of the bird crosswordese, but enjoyed figuring them out from crosses.
Or nil nil, which the USMNT will seek to avoid today!
I thought the theme was the well-known “Birds that don’t normally hang out with other types of birds will nevertheless all flock together if they can do so with a feather.”
I do get the tie-in. Back in the day, whenever the song HORSE WITH NO NAME was playing, I would flip a BIRD towards the radio.
Worst. Song. Ever.
Horsefeathers! Clue for 10 down should have been "song with the worst rock and roll lyrics, ever"
"...and there ain't no on for to give you no pain" HOF awful
Horse with no name is arguably the worst rock and roll song ever written with lyrics that are beyond awful "the desert is an ocean with its life underground..."
Amy: fun and fast! Simon, the very green Eclectus Parrot who designs to live here and chases the 2 cat girls around (he believes he can herd them; they fear his beak) approves.
Assuming NENE is pronounced “nay nay”, the DABS pairing got a smile.
Like the bird theme, mainly because we are birders. And someone over Thanksgiving told me that a kestrel is often confused for a mourning dove.
I had trouble In that same area. I put sore and never read the crossclue...and searched the puzzle for minutes looking for my mistake. *Doubleheadslap
I got COOL AS A CUCUMBER off the CO, and was looking excitedly for a vegetable theme, or maybe a food one. Then I started to notice unusual words in the clues, like "passerine" and "ratite" (which I misread as "rattle," reading the tiny type in the NYT). I'm a birder, so I knew what they meant, but wondered if others would be perplexed. Then I got the revealer and quickly filled in all the theme answers, realizing that the weird words were necessary to keep from saying "bird."
So it was a neat idea, but had the weakness that once you saw it, it was all over. And CONED? I guess it sort of works if you treat 'funnel-shaped' as a verb, but that's a stretch, as is the idea that CONED is a word at all. I hated to give up CONic, but it had to be ONE-NIL, and cANO/DANO was all the same to me.
Personal peeve: NEE means "born," as in the name you were born with, not "formerly." And, OK, I'm 79, but am I becoming quaint because I say TA-TA?
@Southside, my wife sent me out last Wednesday to buy chicken stock, and there were boxes of it right next to the boxes of chicken BROTH, so evidently they aren't the same thing. Someone explained the difference to me once, but damned if I can remember.
I'm off for my morning walk. Ta-ta!
I liked the puzzle, not because of the bird theme but because it's just likeable to me. I thought the publishing days of the week between this puzzle and yesterday's should have been exchanged. Odd decisions by the editors.
Happy that at least one person who commented yesterday liked my comment.
And from yesterday's comments I learned how chili is different from chile. Nice.
If it's true.
I thought this one was fun! I also like birds. For me it was a medium difficulty for a Tuesday.
I liked the positioning of BIRDS, FEATHER, and FLOCK, because the order is consistent with the phrase, Birds of a feather flock together, which is what I figured the theme was.
Odd puzzle - grid seemed disjoint from start to finish. Cute theme - kind of like the mash up in the center - but the non theme longs and loads of questionable 3s and 4s drag it down.
TATAS are definitely not farewells. To err is TRUMAN? Nice DR WHO call out.
BlackHAWK and the white winged dove
I love birds too - but this solve not so much. Now if my piping plovers were included…
You know it's going to be easy when you fill in a long down after reading the clue, in this case "unruffled". We're bird folks here, so that was fun. There's a raptor rehab center nearby that we visit often with our granddaughter which does great work.
Side eye to CONED, and hello to old friend ORYX, which is another one of those crosswords that takes me back to my early solving days.
Fun discussion about HORSEWITHNONAME , which is a song that came up at last night's hootenanny but was not performed, thank goodness. I brought up @kitshef's observation that you can play the whole thing with basically one chord. You at least need some people that can sing harmony to make that thing anywhere near interesting, and even then you're left with the lyrics. If you want a better heroin song I'd suggest "Carmelita".
Congrats on the debut, DR, much appreciated by those of us who Dig Raptors. Could have been a Monday, but that's not on you Thanks for all the fun.
@jae, @bocamp-Finally got through the Croce after getting the center grid spanner, but t'weren't easy.
43D: CONED is just awkward, who says that? CONIC works but requires reworking that corner of the puzzle. So I'm agreeing with kitshef about the crossing with 59A too.
I like how in (near) the end, all the birds are reduced to stock.
I was glad to see a Kestrel in the puzzle, as I haven't seen one all year around here. Thirty to forty years ago, during the summer, there was one on every telephone pole or hovering over a field, wherever there was an open field. There are still plenty of open fields, just no Kestrels.
Ever year we have WRENs attempting to nest in our entrance way, every year the scare the bejesus out of me when I take the dogs out at night and they nearly smack me in the head. One year they succeeded in raising several little ones, who at one point made it into the house. Lots of fun trying to keep the dogs from noshing on them, and get them back home. They have to have the highest Sonic Volume per Physical Volume of all critters. Maybe some crickets beat them, so change 'all critters' to 'pretty critters' and I know I'm right. Or close.
Agree with all the commenters about the chicken broth . . .made me cringe. I've been following "Bird of the Week" on til-tok and learning tons; highly recommend it. Now we'll all have to spend the day getting "Horse with no name" out of our heads. .
Has Rex banned Wordle references? I prefer them to "This puzzle if too (easy/hard) for a (day of week" comments.
Like Rex, I’m a bird-lover, so I’m keen on this puzzle. Seven species crossing FEATHER made me happy as a lark. I don’t see that BIRDS at 1D and FLOCK at 51D are backwards – they seem in perfect order to me. FALCON, KESTREL and CONDOR are my favorites among the species mentioned here: I’m going for the BIRDS of prey. Loved the spanners COOL AS A CUCUMBER and HORSE WITH NO NAME. Am I the only one here who likes this song, goofy lyrics and all? It'll definitely be an ear-worm all day (see below for more on the lyrics).
No trouble with 1A or the NW corner today. I seem to have a talent for remembering advertising slogans (that I really wish I could forget). We had DO LAPS a mere two days ago. [Walks and runs, for two] was mildly tricky, but STATS suggested itself pretty quickly.
In the nit category, I didn’t like CONED [Funnel-shaped]. I thought we were going for CONic, an SB standby. I see some people were brought down by the CONED/DANO cross, which was a mild hiccup for me (I didn't know the actor), but I guess I was lucky to have thought of using a D.
[A] HORSE WITH NO NAME: When I first heard the song, I thought the vocalist was Neil Young – I suspect many people did. The singer was actually Dewey Bunnell, who admitted to admiring Young but denied trying to sound like him. The song was written (by Bunnell) in Dorset, England -- of all places! -- England's green and pleasant land being about as far from the desert as you can get. And here’s a snippet about the lyrics, including the ones Rex (and others) have criticized:
"The song has received criticism for its lyrics, including "The heat was hot"; "There were plants, and birds, and rocks, and things"; and "'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain." According to an anecdote from Robert Christgau, Randy Newman dismissed "A Horse With No Name" as a "song about a kid who thinks he’s taken acid".
Penn Jillette asked the band about their lyrics, "there were plants, and birds, and rocks, and things" after a show in Atlantic City, where America opened for Penn & Teller. According to Jillette, their explanation for the lyrics was that they were intoxicated with cannabis while writing it. In a 2012 interview, Beckley disputed Jillette's story, saying, "I don't think Dew was stoned." (Wikipedia)
KNOSSOS: I’m pretty dubious about this clue [City in Crete with a renowned ancient labyrinth]. It’s not that there’s an actual labyrinth at KNOSSOS, it’s that the palace (if indeed palace it was) has a maze-like layout which caused archaeologist Arthur Evans to call it the Palace of Minos, based on the myth of King Minos who had a labyrinth built to house the Minotaur. Evans had a spectacular if controversial career. He was the first to realize that, based on what he was uncovering at KNOSSOS, there must have been a civilization earlier than the one already discovered at Mycenae on the Greek mainland. He called his newly-discovered civilization Minoan, carrying on the Minos theme. That was all fine and good and a major contribution to history, but Evans’s work at KNOSSOS is controversial because of all the reconstruction he did (or oversaw), based on a multitude of incorrect assumptions about the chronology of the site and the functions of various rooms and structures. Subsequent scholarship has proven a lot of his restorations to be plain wrong. Still, by all accounts, it’s a grand place to visit. If Evans had set out to create a major tourist attraction, he couldn’t have done a better job.
Speaking of birds, I was glad to see the reappearance of @albatross shell last night. I was a bit worried that he’d flown the coop.
[SB: yd – 0. They almost stumped me with this tiny thing (sheesh), but I won through in the end.
@kitshef yd thank you! Looking forward to trying one.
I think Horse charted because we all thought it was Neil Young, who had many cryptic lyrics (Broken Arrow, After The Goldrush,, Tell Me Why). Maybe there WAS something deeper.
But reading America’s lyrics suggest that @JoelPalmer 8:28 might be right.
“The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound.”
A fly with a buzz? The heat was hot? This song DOES give me some pain.
Hey All !
"Man, there's a lot of birds in the middle of this puz" was what I was thinking after first run-through. Then got COOL AS A CUCUMBER, which is a cool (ha! Pun) answer, but threw off the Bird radar for a theme. Eventually got to FLOCK, cross-referenced with 1D, which I had BI___, knowing it's be BIRDS. Went back to the puz center, saw FEATHER, rereading the clue to see the seven crossers of FEATHER were all birds. Aha, says I, though what's with the CUCUMBER?
Neat to get seven BIRDS in the middle. Knew the names of all except KESTREL. Luckily, crossers got me the answer. Actually remember (which is a feat!) RKO from previous puzs. The theme necessitated SEWED ON, so that gets a pass as it looks non-wordy. Pretty good fill, having to work around the BIRDS.
TATAS All. 😁
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
This is one of the most enjoyable Tuesdays I've done as crossworder of 3 years now. Not perfect, but creative. Much better to take flight and fall than stay in the nest.
Thx, David, for the FEATHERy offering! :)
Easy+
Very smooth sailing on this one.
Only unknown: HORSE WITH NO NAME.
Fun puz; enjoyed the 'flight'. :)
@jae, pablo, et al
Easy-med Croce (2 hrs). Spent a great deal of time trying to justify my final cell: 'Get to fall' / 'So lonely ____'. Got it, but still don't grok the 'fall' part. A worthy challenge, as always. See y'all next Mon. :)
On to Brooke's New Yorker Mon. puz. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
I am not going to insert any bad bird puns here (such as this puzzle really fits the bill) because I'm sure the blog is already full of them and I'll just be repeating what's already there.
I thought this was fun. Not just the theme, but the constructor's determination to get bird clues into as many non-theme answers as possible.
My favorite answer, though, wasn't about birds. I love SAY WHEN. I love it in real life even more than in puzzles. It gives the drinker so much...control:)
And while I've never heard of America (the band? the singer?), much less any of his/her/their songs, I'll go to YouTube now and listen to HORSE WITH NO NAME. There's such a quality of mythic sadness to that title. I'm expecting a song that stirs me in the way "They Call The Wind Maria" does. Or "Ghost Riders In the Sky". Or Paul Simon's "America" ("I'm achin' and empty and I don't know why.") Will I be disappointed? I don't know -- but it seems to me that if you've titled a song HORSE WITH NO NAME, you have an obligation to make it a mythically stirring song with a certain je ne sais quoi. Off to YouTube.
Chefs make/carve cucumber birds.
"...before I had any idea of the theme, "man this is a birdy puzzle, the constructor must really like birds, cool."
- perfectly encapsulates where I was well into this avian Tuesday puzzle.
P.S. ""Harder to turn that one birdward." - love the turn of phrase.
“Flew” through this enjoyable puzzle and I enjoyed all the bird related clues and answers. Actually, when I first got FEATHER I hadn’t read the clue right so tried to put FEATHER with an element of 3 down and 10 down. Didn’t work except I thought of the euphemism HORSEfeathers(!).
As for the BROTH v stock thing, yes they are different BUT I found this on the Healthline website: The terms “broth” and “stock” are often used interchangeably. Though their ingredients are largely the same, there is a difference between them. Stock is made from bones, while broth is made mostly from meat or vegetables. Yeah, they are different but Joaquin’s Dictum and all that.
Funny the different takes on HORSEWITHNONAME…THANKS @Barbara S on your comments. I kind of fall into the neutral category with the song. I was 16 when it came out and probably had a high tolerance for nonsensical lyrics and was still naive enough that the possibility of mind-bending drug use while writing lyrics just didn’t occur to me. I think it could also be an ear worm today for me.
I was at the Palace of KNOSSOS in late May and, yes, it is quite spectacular. Amazing to me is the fact that the Minoans were not even closely related to the Greeks at the time of Homer, etc.
@Nancy…🤣…I saw your comment right after I posted and can’t WAIT to hear your review on HORSEWITHNONAME! Don’t hold back, okay?
Update: I would like HORSE WITH NO NAME a lot more if it had more than three notes of melody. And the third note appears only very sporadically.
I’m commenting via phone for the first time because I had to send my iPad in for repair. I’m not diggin’ it, so if I end up disappearing for a week or two, you can breathe a sigh of relief, but know I’ll be back.
An awful lot of commenters today saying that they like birds. This seems close to universal. Have you ever heard of anyone who didn’t like birds? Of course no one likes the kind of bird that is flipped at them, or perhaps the AFLAC duck and LIMU Emu, but overall, a likable type of critter.
I had a good time with this. Congrats on the debut and thanks, David Rockies.
Got undone as others (hello @kitshef) by the CONED/DANO cross. Perhaps a clue like, "Option for serving ice cream" would be better. Dished? Spooned? Soft-served? No, CONED!
Words from an ornithologist? SAY WrEN.
I'll show myself out.
WOW. Tough crowd. It's a wonderful Tuesday puzzle with absolutely great center symmetry. It was easy yet enjoyable and I particularly like that David did not twist himself into knots looking for a too cute clue for "oreo." That's refreshing. Looking forward for more from this constructor.
I flew through it today.
Winner, worst lyric ever (barely edging out Europe’s Final Countdown:
“In the desert, you can remember your name, for there ain’t no one for to give you no shame.”
I think we need the lyrics displayed in their entirety so as to savor how truly awful they are. (My favorite phrase: The heat was hot)
♪ On the first part of the journey
I was lookin' at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound
I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert, you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La, la, la, la-la-la, la-la-la, la, la
La, la, la, la-la-la, la-la-la, la, la
After two days in the desert sun
My skin began to turn red
After three days in the desert fun
I was looking at a river bed
And the story it told of a river that flowed
Made me sad to think it was dead
You see, I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
Ah, la, la, la, la-la-la, la-la-la, la, la
Ah, la, la, la, la-la-la, la-la-la, la, la
After nine days, I let the horse run free
'Cause the desert had turned to sea
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The ocean is a desert with its life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love
You see, I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La, la, la, la, la-la-la, la-la-la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la-la-la, la-la-la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la-la-la, la-la-la, la, la... ♪
I hope our friend @chefwen hasn't flown the coop. She's a birder and always posts the most beautiful pictures of birds on her Facebook page......Tweet, tweet...I'm calling you!
Well who doesn't like a bird or two? MY favorite in the bossy boots category is the bodacious hummingbird. The smartest and most irritating is the crow. The hummingbirds hum and the crows cah. As usual, I get off topic.
I think Tuesdays are getting better. COOL AS A CUCUMBER while riding A HORSE WITH NO NAME....ink ink, in in. So I stare and wonder what they have in common. Nothing.
Got to the center and I began to tweet with the best of them. I've seen all of these birds in the wild. Probably in Argentina. My father would point out each one to me and then we'd have wild bird broth for supper......@jberg the difference between chicken broth and chicken stock is flavor, really. The stock is thicker and made from the bones of the critter. Broth has meat and veggies and is lighter. So you can pick you bird flavor when cooking.
If this is a debut then may I say "En Hora Buena" to David. Hope to see more of you.
Easy-medium and easier than yesterday’s. Pretty smooth with two great long downs and a FEATHERed flock in the center, a fine Tuesday, liked it. Nice debut!
The melody was so...nonexistent that I didn't even notice the dreadful lyrics. Thanks for posting, Joe.
Someone should write a really good song called HORSE WITH NO NAME. It's such a wonderful title.
I’m a big fan of BIRDS and their ILK so I loved this. A little more trivia than I would have liked but it was all doable, and the two long downs were a welcome addition above and beyond the usual Tuesday. Really good job on this debut from David Rocco. Congratulations young man! Looking forward to more from you.
While I’ve never had the opportunity to see the more exotic FEATHERed friends like a CONDOR or FALCON, I frequently see a HAWK soaring, and my favorites - the House WRENs who raise their families in the houses I provide during the summers and the Carolina WRENs here now to visit my feeders all winter. Both of them are tiny adorable little creatures and a real joy to watch and listen to. BUT then, I am in AWE of nature’s miracles the year around.
Now I’m off to hum the two lines I know from HORSE WITH NO NAME for the rest of the day.
I like a lot of America's songs, and a lot of them have lyrics that make no more sense than Horse with No Name's. E.g. from Tin Man: "and cause never was the reason for the evening or the tropic of Sir Galahad".
Some songs I like because of the lyrics (Hi, @Nancy with Simon and Garfunkel's America), some for the melody, some for particular memories they evoke based on what I was about when they were popular.
Also:
Like a bang, a boom-a-boomerang
Dum-be-dum-dum-be dum-be-dum-dum
Bang, a boom-a-boomerang
Love is a tune you hum-de-hum-hum
It's snowing and cold here and I had melanoma surgery Part 1 on my scalp yesterday so there's a lot of misery here, and this puzzle mostly helped except when it added to the pain of my own personal "skin opening." There's also been the joy of upchucking the pain meds reminiscent of my drinking days in college without the manufactured joy of pretending to be sophisticated by sipping Manhattans.
In fourth grade I was given the project of making a construction paper bird for the bulletin board each week so we could learn about their habits and appearance. I have taken a bit of pride at being a 4th Grade Ornithologist, but more or less gave up the hobby until today in this puzzle.
I normally park in the garage over at school, but a pigeon moved into the beam above my usual spot with my car becoming her defacto COMMODE and so now I go one row over. These are the stories that makes this blog worth reading.
Gosh I wanted it spelled GNOSSOS clear up past the final obviously incorrect answer of RECGON, but in my defense, RECKON isn't much better. Go-ogle quaintly calls RECK "archaic." I reck-on so.
@albatross shell 9:45 PM
From last night: I did mull SHE BANG RYE SEED as you probably did as well with a certain amount of amusement. Even Go-ogle-d rye seed and learned it is "hardy and vigorous." But as one of our more ardent pearl clutchers, I abandoned the project after weird imagery got too weird.
Uniclues:
1 Transvestite does marriage better than anybody.
2 Crowd goes wild teaching English and digging wells.
3 Travel to Tuesday tardis.
4 See you laters, or sewn new taters. (I'm not feeling well, sorry.)
1 LOLA OWNED "I DO"
2 PEACE CORPS RIOT
3 SAY WHEN DR. WHO
4 MAN MADE TATAS (~)
The only big “miss” in this delightful bird puz is that our constructor did not somehow tie this with a neat bow on top by asking us “What similar of the thematic elements do” so we could answer FLOCK TOGETHER. Alas (and hi @mrudeas 5:54AM). I kept waiting for it, and was disappointed. My feathers were unruffled though. Very bird worthy, that.
I have been humming “been to the desert on a HORSE WITH NO NAME,” and will probably have that excellent earworm for the remainder of the day. So much additional fill to like about this one. CUSP stuck me for just a bit; no idea why that word just wouldn’t pop up once I had the C, but it didn’t.
What truly impressed me was the constructor’s voice. The clues seemed to be expressed a bit differently possibly to avoid the crosswordese feeling if some common words. Whatever the reason, it gave this easy Tuesday offering a bit mire resistance than usual for me and I loved it. Hope to see more from David Rocknow.
Back from the holiday, I am basking in the love of my family. My granddaughter stuck to me like a tick if I was in the kitchen. She made pie crust and put together one of the pumpkin pies all by herself and it was excellent - no leaks. Her culinary chops astound me. We made a vanilla Swiss Roll the day after Thanksgiving as her birthday cake - her birthday actually falling on Thanksgiving day this year. A Swiss Roll - at 10 years old!! Perfection. A fatless genoise sponge that was fluffy and light as air and filled with perfectly whipped cream and acres of fluorescent pink sanding sugar on top. Her favourite color. I couldn’t believe what she picked when I asked her what kind of cake she wanted to make. Who at 10 says “do you know how to make a Swiss Roll?” At least I did, but I’m telling you all, it was my first opportunity to really blow my thus far cool Grandmother image. Thankfully, the cake universe smiled upon me because last year at Halloween, I promised a pumpkin spice Swiss Roll for a brunch and had to do it three times! HooBOY! OK, done bragging about my incredible granddaughter now. I really do hope all of you enjoyed the holiday.
Sorry David Rockow about misspelling your name before. I’m blaming spell checker. Or Siri. Or someone.
Remember the diner scene in the Seinfeld episode about the pigeons?
JERRY: You ran over some pigeons?
GEORGE: Miranda thinks I’m a butcher but it’s not my fault, is it? Don’t we have a deal with the pigeons?
JERRY: Of course we have a deal. They get out of the way of our cars and we look the other way on the statute defecation.
GEORGE: Right! And these pigeons broke the deal. I will not accept the blame for this.
JERRY: So Miranda’s cooled on you?
GEORGE: I’m getting nothin!
Great, different bird theme with no PEWITs. Like different. Definite TuesPuz thUmbsUp.
staff weeject pick: UFC. Which is evidently Ultimate Feather Collection. Or somesuch.
With almost all the theme cooped up together in the center puzgrid, there was lotsa room around the rim for cool fillins. Some faves: COMMODE. PEACECORPS. COOLASACUCUMBER. SAYWHEN. RECKON. TRUMAN/MANMADE. DRWHO.
CONED/DANO. Book 'em. har
HORSEWITHNONAME is a kinda cool song, as I recall. Lyrics might be kinda weird, since the singer's been wanderin in the desert too long. But M&A has always had a soft spot for things with no name.
Thanx for this here rara avis puz, Mr. Rockow [rhymes with Flock Ow] dude. And congratz on a very memorable puzdebut.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
**gruntz**
He’s a birder but not a chef. Chicken stock is made from flesh, typically seasoned with herbs and vegetables. Broth is made from roasted bone, unseasoned and unsalted for maximum flexibility in recipes. But I quibble. Fun puzzle. “Plants and birds and rocks and things”! 😆
The Sierra Madre "mountain range" is in Mexico. The town of SIERRA MADRE is on SOCAL, yes?
@egsforbreksfast 10:48
“Have you ever heard of anyone who didn’t like birds?”
I think ALFRED HITCHCOCK may have been ambivalent.
Did the horse know that it had no name? Did it wonder why it was never summoned? Or was it summoned with “Hey You,” or “Hey you, horse?”
Did it have a name in the past, so you could refer to it as “the horse with no name, formerly known as Rusty,” like we had to do with Prince?
Could it be identified via its parents – “Horse with no name, son of Fleet of Foot and Bushy Tail?”
Or was it referred to as “Horse With No Name,” so that, paradoxically, that became its name?
Monday easy! (Switched from yesterday?)
This was just tight and sweet in theme and every avian way!
Lovey DOVE y! ❤️🕊❤️
🕊 🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🕊
Somebody asked, rhetorically I'm sure, if there's anyone who doesn't like birds. Well, I wouldn't quite say that but they are a pain sometimes. We have quail, doves, crows, magpies, flickers, and geese, all of which are annoying.
The flickers are especially bad since they love to hammer on the steel flue on my roof. The flue goes straight down through the middle of the house, right past my bedroom, and it's like living in a giant bell. They also dig up the lawn. The quail are comical, but they are such drama queens... every time I emerge from the house they go into an epic tizzy. "Bloop, bloop!" And those doves, sometimes that cooing, they just won't stop, all day long...
The little birds are just fine, they're cute and don't bug me but I don't know their names.
[SB: @Barbara S congrats yd! Me too except my last "word" was this 4er.]
Another bird lover here, especially of condors. In the 60s we lived in Ojai near the Sespe Wilderness. Condors there were placed on the endangered species list and in school we followed the efforts to rescue them avidly.
Also speaking up here as a defender of Horse With No Name - ridiculous non-grammatical lyrics and all. There's enough there to let your imagination roam. I think “The desert is an ocean with its life underground” is insightful. There is the environmental nod - the humans give the ground under our cities no love, a mindset we are seeing the price of today. Then too, plunk your average urban rock and roll teenager in the desert and they're going to be seeing lots of “rocks and things” and notice mainly that the “heat is hot” and it's quiet enough to hear flies buzzing…
And thanks @Joe Dipinto - I always thought the lyrics were worse than they are - my mondegreen for “perfect disguise above” was The perfectest skies above.
Since "horse"=heroin, I think we need someone to tell us if this song is an accurate description of a heroin experience. Oh where oh where is John X?
@anon 7:12 Loved your "What can you expect..."comment. Thanks for the chuckle
Yes chicken stock is chicken broth.
I thought having seven (!) birds crossing the seven-letter FEATHER was COOL AS A CUCUMBER. Definitely put a big smile on my face.
The 35D NENE gets a "Goose that might nest on volcanic ash" clue and Mauna Loa is erupting for the first time in forty years. More nesting material for the NENE! Speaking of which, I don't think any state bird, here Hawaii's NENE, should be considered crosswordese.
For those beating a HORSE for not having logically consistent, objectively meaningful, semantically precise lyrics, maybe that's the point. Maybe it's going for a dream-like, alone in the desert for forty days altered ideation, mystical vibe. Should all songs (or poetry or literature) pass a must make literal sense at all times test?
Actually, egsfor, I like th AFLAC duck. And I like the emu, tooo, Pity its commercials are so awful
Si, es verdad! 'Chile' is the pepper and 'chili' is the dish made with chiles 🌶
@bocamp - re: Croce - that’s exactly where I got hung up.
@beverly c: I'm with you!
I think the reason I like HORSE WITH NO NAME, while acknowledging that some of the lyrics could…um…use more work, is that it paints a series of vivid, almost cinematic pictures for me. And the limited, repeated notes combined with the driving rhythm and the intermittent ascendancy of the bongos create a sense of forward momentum that sweeps me up and carries me along.
I think there are lots of songs with less than perfect lyrics. Some are just bad (I’m looking at you “MacArthur Park” with your melting cake), but some have redeeming qualities. Songs are a potent mix of music, words, emotion, atmosphere, conjured images, and whatever alchemy makes all of these gel into much more than a sum of parts. If one element is less than ideal it doesn’t necessarily ruin the whole -- that's why to me the song stands up. But subjectivity is all in a discussion like this, so your mileage…
Same with me! Didn't know many of these birds...or the crosswordese stuff. Happy to see I'm not alone! Still a fun one though, just took me way longer than normal.
Love your cute post, @Liveprof 12:50. Aamong other things, it made me think of how Columbo's dog got to be "Dog".
Really bad lyrics don't necessarily matter when you look at a song in its entirety?? Oh, @Barbara S. -- and I thought we were pals.
(Steve's pretty upset too, I hear.)
USA one-nil
@Nancy and Steve (Sondheim, I presume?)
I knew somebody was going to jump all over me and I wondered if it might be you. And, @Nancy, we are pals. Pals who can disagree are pals for life.
I agree about the terrible clue on 6D. It is factually wrong. Franklin was an important contributor, but she did not solve the DNA structure. Watson and Crick did. Shortz should have fact checked it.
Maybe there was a typo and it was supposed to be Horse with no Mane
@Barbara S…I think you needn’t worry. As my early post indicated I pretty much knew Nancy would hate it (I mean…comparing it to They Call the Wind Mariah?) I feel quite sure she is tongue in cheek and I figure you probably know that. 😉
One thing I forgot to mention earlier is that I really had never seen the comparison to Neil Young. I mean they had similar (tenor?) voices but Neil Young’s…hard to reproduce.
@Beezer
Thanks for the encouraging words, although I'm confident that @Nancy and I are solid.
I hear a similarity to Neil Young in HORSE WITH NO NAME. Not a lot of people have expressed agreement, though, so maybe mine's more of a minority view than I thought. Apropos of nothing much -- I remember a funny moment with Neil Young when a bunch Canadian artists got together in the mid-80s to record the song "Tears Are Not Enough" to raise money for an extended famine in Ethiopia. A film was made about the recording of that song, and it showed one of these performers after another coming in and recording their part. Whoever was producing asked Young to sing his couple of lines several times and then complained that he was singing flat. "Flat?" said Neil. "That's my signature style!"
It could be that there was a typo and the song was supposed to be Horse with No Mane.
Yay to @ Anoa Bob 2:00
Also @ LiveProf 12:50 - Fleet of Foot x Bushy Tail
And Barbara S. Birds of a Feather!
We need John X for sure
@Anonymous 6:34am I took that one as a little dark humor. LOL
Cute puzzle! And I’ll say, a lot more fun than the usual Tuesday speed run. I like the theme and the construction. I actually thought it was pretty clever using the bird-related crosswordese in some of the fill—it actually made me trip up a bit on those gimmes! There’s always that one kid in your class growing up who can’t stop talking about birds, and this puzzle reminds me of that. Clever and a fun little solve.
@Southside Johnny apologies if this has already been said, but yes chicken stock is a broth. However, commercial “chicken broth” is usually not considered a stock (which is generally understood to involve more flavors, as well as clarity). But there may be a raging debate below, haven’t gotten that far. :)
@Anonymous 7:20am Interesting. The NYTX app is showing the clue as “discovered.” Perhaps was edited to correct.
While I appreciate fine clever lyrics, I have to go team Barbara on this one. Barbara, that is a FANTASTIC description of the art of a song. Sometimes if the music or lyrics are too good or clever, they can detract from the song as a whole.
While HORSE may not be great art, it is always instructive to try to consider why something has the success it does. I think the loping and repetitive guitar, bongos and minimal melodic notes create a musical metaphor for a horse walking at a fair clip. As Barbara mentions, I get a cinematic picture that is simultaneously vague enough that I can fill in the blanks for a journey through life or some other ordeal. Why are there only "plants and birds and rocks and things" at the beginning and the end? The HORSE supports him through his ordeal/journey, but then is released upon completion - probably not even actually a horse, so doesn't need a name. Youth/tedious middle age/satisfaction of old age? Addiction/recovery?
It's Doctor Who, not Dr Who
@Barbara – actually, a lot of people were reminded of Neil Young or CSNY. From Wikipedia:
The song's resemblance to some of Neil Young's work aroused some controversy. For example, in their review of "A Horse with No Name" Cash Box described America as "CSN&Y soundalikes." "I know that virtually everyone, on first hearing, assumed it was Neil", (songwriter Dewey) Bunnell said. "I never fully shied away from the fact that I was inspired by him. I think it's in the structure of the song as much as in the tone of his voice. It did hurt a little, because we got some pretty bad backlash. I've always attributed it more to people protecting their own heroes more than attacking me." By coincidence, it was "A Horse with No Name" that replaced Young's "Heart of Gold" at the number 1 spot on the U.S. pop chart.
Fwiw, I hated "Heart Of Gold" far more, but then I can't stand Neil Young's off-key whining. I liked "A Horse With No Name" musically, and it's a great title, which is why it irritates me that the lyrics are so stupid. It's like they didn't even try. I mean, it rhymes "name" with "name"!
@jberg
Tata is only one reason you might be quaint. Being 79 is another. Probably a bunch of other reasons too. The Monday reviewer mentioning she had no idea that you flick a Bic made me feel a bit quaint myself and I am only 75.
@Barbara S
Still here. No more lost than usual, but I was on vacation in St. Petersburg FL for a couple weeks and then got home and was behind in mail, newspapers and yard and house work. Life being complicated by some dental work and the possible need for some postrate work. TMI, but I wanted to mention I always forget where the R goes or if there is one at all. A-postate problem? Anyway I did ask you if I had missed something or if you had somehow missed Katharine Hepburn in your list of multiple best actor-actress Oscar award winners. If you replied I missed it. What does being on vacation mean when you are retired is another question.
@Gary
Yes she bang rye seeds does lead to some weird places. I had a bit of a johnx-ish carry-over with today's Song of the Day.
Anonymous BJs
WHORES WITH NO NAME
But put me in the group that that enjoys the song. Stop thinking the lyrics are meaningful or well-written. Suggestive of meaning at most. Like a Jackson Pollock painting. Just go with the flow.
Not quite the same, but I love listening to Sad eyed Lady of the Lowlands. Too personal to extract much meaning but a beautiful flow and sound but with lyrics that do not detract by understanding the words easily.
Doesn't everybody love You put the Lime in the Coconut. Another one chord wonder.
Walter White sings "A Horse with No Name" as he"s driving his fern green Aztek through the New Mexican desert, and again in the shower when the Salamancas are waiting for him to emerge so they can kill him, presumably for other reasons.
In fact, that episode of "Breaking Bad" is titled "Caballo sin Nombre."
Nil Nil is a NO scoring game, one Nil is a low scoring game. I did have Nil Nil first. I don't know much about soccer, is 2 Nil a high scoring game?
This was a cute theme and fun to solve. There was a bit too many three-letter non-words (UNC, UFC, ATT, BIC, PSY, RES etc.). But it was a creative debut NYT crossword, and a FEATHER in David Rockow’s cap.
I didn't find it so gosh-awful easy. Didn't know KNOSSOS. Turkey = IDIOT?? In what language? And then there's CONED. Is that even a word? [looks it up] By golly, it is; turns out CONE can be a verb. Who knew? I had to throw that D in as a guess, because I certainly didn't know this DANO guy. Come on, it's only Tuesday! Can't we have a "Book 'em,____?"
I like BIRDS too, but I thought the KESTREL was a made-up creature from the old game Rogue, which I still play. Apparently it's a real thing. I tell ya, there are times when I feel dumb, and this is one of them. Still, what other score could this puzzle possibly get, except BIRDie?
Felt smarter in Wordle; my buddy ADIEU came through. GBYBB, GGGGG! An eagle!
IDIOT CHEX CLOSER
SAYWHEN DO you RECKON it's true
that ONE MANMADE me so PORE?
Was it the NONAME DR.WHO
was the CHAP WHO RAN the PEACECORPS?
--- LOLA TRUMAN
I didn't check but I'm sure someone above must have said this puz was for the BIRDS.
Wordle, however, must have had a driveable green. After checking the wind direction (@spacey's hint) I knocked it in in one. Albatross!!(with that slight 'cheat').
I agree with @Spacey on the WeirdWords - WEIRDLES? Since everyone seems to be into wordle stuff.
Didn't PORE over this - easy enuf, in spite of the "weirdness."
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
The Sierra Madre clue is at best confusing if not just plain wrong. In SoCal are the Sierra Nevada. Sierra Madres are in northern Mexico.
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