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1962 #1 hit that the BBC once deemed "too morbid" to play / FRI 12-2-22 / Banks who coined the term "smizing" / Inclination to prioritize new events over historical ones / What a camera emoji in an Instagram caption often signifies
Friday, December 2, 2022
Constructor: Scott Earl
Relative difficulty: Easy (once again, Very easy)
Word of the Day: MELBA toast (1D: Toast opening?) —
Melba toast is a dry, crisp and thinly sliced toast, often served with soup and salad or topped with either melted cheese or pâté. It is named after Dame Nellie Melba, the stage name of Australian opera singer Helen Porter Mitchell. Its name is thought to date from 1897, when the singer was very ill and it became a staple of her diet. The toast was created for her by chef and fan Auguste Escoffier, who also created the Peach Melba dessert for her. The hotel proprietor César Ritz supposedly named it in a conversation with Escoffier.Melba toast is made by lightly toasting slices of bread under a grill, on both sides. The resulting toast is then sliced laterally. These thin slices are then returned to the grill with the untoasted sides towards the heat source, resulting in toast half the normal thickness. Thus, it can be described as a thrice-baked food (see rusk).
Melba toast is also available commercially, and was at one time given to infants who were teething as a hard food substance on which to chew.
In France, it is referred to as croûtes en dentelle. (wikipedia)
• • •
It's too bad the puzzle didn't make me slow down at least a little, because then I might've gotten to really get that aha feeling of discovery when I got all the good stuff, like that fantastic "I CAN'T WATCH!" / "NO SPOILERS!" pairing in the middle of the grid (30A: Comment made with eyes closed, perhaps / 42A: "Don't tell me what happens yet!"). And with HATES ON as the creamy center in between! That is such a great screen-watching onslaught of terms (I assume the viewer is at the movies with a friend who has already seen the movie, and they're watching a horror movie with a lot of jump scares, and she ends up hating—your internal narrative may vary). There are no weak parts of this grid (well, I never like ETERNE, but that's just one answer). No thrown-away, phoned-in corners. Brightness everywhere you turn, from LIFETIME BAN (17A: Highest bar?)* in the north to RECENCY BIAS (58A: Inclination to prioritize new events over historical ones) in the south, with a lot of lesser but still plenty-bright moments in between. Just tighten up the clues a bit, would you? It should take me more than five minutes to solve a Friday at my normal strolling pace.
Bullet points:
- 12A: Supplements supplier (GNC) — I always—always—have a "GMC?" moment with GNC (and vice versa)
- 20A: Like Chicago, geographically (UPSTATE) — I was not aware that anyone but New York had an UPSTATE. People like to argue which parts of New York are included in the term UPSTATE. It's a very boring argument.
- 56D: Banks who coined the term "smizing" (TYRA) — TYRA Banks is the creator and host of "America's Next Top Model" (although it looks like one recent season was hosted by crossword stalwart Rita Ora!). "Smizing" is ... well, here, I'll let her tell you:
["smiling with the eyes"]
See you tomorrow.
*I assume [Highest bar?] both because a LIFETIME BAN is the "highest" (or "longest") amount of time that they can "bar" you for, and also probably because the reason you got banned was because you were the "highest" person in the "bar" and ... mistakes were made.
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107 comments:
Yes, it was easy. But it was fun too.
My best overwrite was 53A, "Steak option for a pescatarian". I had A--TU-- and entered AndTUrf.
Illinois has a downstate but not an upstate.
Same experience as @Rex with MONSTERMASH. North seemed trivia-heavy. Did not really like the highest bar clue and First indication/ONSET felt a little off. Pleasant enough solve. Didn't strike me as all that easy, but I'm not all that bright. THIS IS FUN
From Canberra, most of New South Wales is UPSTATE.
Nice puzzle with fair cluing and not much dreck. Only a few nits from me today - ECCE crossing ETERNE is definitely Friday-caliber tough and TASHA crossing NIH loses style points for a PPP cross.
I checked the definition(s) of OATH (there aren’t many) and just don’t see how we get from “mild or minced” to OATHS. Then I tried to start lawyering the “words” angle - mild or minced words, OATHS can be a form of cuss . . . that all seems like a real stretch though. Hopefully someone can enlighten me.
Frosty's nose is a carrot not a button!
With a corncob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made out of coal
It was on the easy side for me, too, but not record-settingly so, and I very much liked it. GREAT GAME.
The top is another example of how the much despised (ODIUMed?) PPP often gets me into a puzzle quickly. I knew ERIN Moriarty (“The Boys” is a fun show), MAE Jemison and Rick HENSON, and those plus TOTO (not PPP today) got me MONSTER MASH, and I was off. Having the last part of EDITORIAL WE, I really tried to make “the royal we” fit. It seemed so close.
I really thought OATHS could not be right for “they can be mild or minced.” I guess you can mince an oath like you can mince words? I’ve never heard anyone say that.
Never heard of STETSON U in Florida. Should be in Texas.
Great clue on AFRO PICKS (“ones long in the tooth”).
Instagram is the only social media that I really like, because I use it to see great photography (and show off my own less-great photography). So I knew that the camera icon means you are CREDITing someone else for a PHOTO. But most people use Insta not to show off great photography but to post selfies. I can post what I think is a stunning photo of say, a street scene, a natural wonder, an architectural detail, and it’ll get a dozen likes. But stick my ugly mug in the pic - thereby ruining it, in my opinion - and it will get a hundred likes. I don’t get it. Meta is ruining the platform anyway by trying to turn it into TikTok. Sorry, but I CAN’T WATCH your dance reel.
ERRS and GOOFS are clearly a sly reference to yesterday’s puzzle.
Knew most of the proper names today, but note TASHA or ERIN.
Never heard of smizing, but it seems like an appropriate word for the COVID mask era, where the eyes were more important then ever in judging emotions.
Me too!
You nailed it, Rex. You hit all my points. Thanks for the writeup.
Not a lot of black squares here - densely filled. A little more pushback than Rex but a nice puzzle for the most part. Liked NO SPOILERS, AFRO PICS and HATES ON. It’s been so long MAE.
Some rough patches - a bunch of short glue in the SW and NE. The ODIUM x AMYS cross is ODIoUs.
the great MELBA and George
Enjoyable Friday solve.
Michael and Natalie, thank you for that :)
I finally finished Good Girls last weekend and they used the word "upstate" in regards to Michigan (where the show takes place), and I had the same realization. (I'd actually told people in the past that "upstate" was only used in New York State, so I had to internally eat some crow on that one.)
I initially put in 🦞
Did the puzzle feel fresh? It did to me. Perhaps because Scott inserted seven fantastic NYT answer debuts so good, IMO, that they deserve to be mentioned again: AFROPICKS, EDITORIAL WE, GREAT GAME, I CAN’T WATCH, LIFETIME BAN, PHOTO CREDIT, RECENCY BIAS. Uber-worthy additions to the oeuvre.
Two riddle clues and two wordplay clues worth a reprise, I believe, as well:
[Things people pay not so see]
[Something that’s dropped after it’s finished]
[What may come as a relief]
[Ones long in the tooth?]
So many cool things. GOOFS abutting ERRS, a four-letter palindrome (ECCE), the rhyming TOTO / GOPRO / PHOTO, and Scott was ON today, with five answers ending in those letters. There’s also a “See no evil” answer (I CAN’T WATCH) and a “Hear no evil” answer (NO SPOILERS). Finally, there was the echo of Wednesday’s theme with K-POP.
Just a wealth of pleasure packed into the box today. Thank you, Scott. What a beauty!
Chicagoan here. While we don’t refer to ourselves as “upstate” we definitely are at the top of a very large state. I had to rewrite over MIDWEST…
Anybody else find it depressing that MONSTER MASH was a #1 hit? I had barely gotten the miserable HORSE WITH NO NAME out of my head. Where's Perry Como when you need him? Probably in Canberra, NSW.
Definitely getting easier. I subscribed to the AVCX puzzles at your recommendation and their “easy” is hard for me and these are super easy for me. So I’m not getting better either. Hey, my very last filled in answer today was AMYS which is hilarious since it’s not only my name, I have multiple Amy’s products in my house at all times. Oh the irony. See, I’m definitely not getting better.
Downstate exists in IL, but not upstate
I am originally from extreme southern Illinois and even Springfield is upstate.
Moreover how was it considered "too morbid" 😆? People in England were scared of this novelty song? Well I guess the censors were scared at least.
Olaf’s nose is a carrot
Wish I could say I popped in MONSTER MASH right out of the gate – I’ve always loved the zaniness of that song. (@Joaquin: I guess we could never get together to listen to our favorite oldies). And I’ve always assumed it really was Boris Karloff, doing a send-up of himself. Who’s this Bobby “Boris” Pickett? Anyway, abandoned the NW corner after filling in “carrOt” for Frosty’s nose and finding nothing worked. (@Anonymous, 7:01, has it exactly right and I should have remembered because in my bookstore days, I had every secular Christmas song memorized: the sound system played them relentlessly all through December.) I agree with Rex that the puzzle was very easy – I got the rest pretty quick and then came back at the end to finish the NW corner.
I learned stuff from this puzzle: about the aforementioned Mr. Pickett, minced OATHS (hi, @Southside), RECENCY BIAS, STETSON University (named after the hat man, who was an early benefactor), and the Tubman Museum. I knew about Nellie MELBA and the foods named after her, but not that “Nellie MELBA” was a stage name. RECENCY BIAS is a useful concept: the unconscious tendency to consider events that happened recently, or information received recently, to be more important than those that are less recent. As a historian, I feel I my bias tilts in the opposite direction. Certainly the dismissal of the historic as unimportant, which I see more and more often in all sorts of contexts, leaves me both disturbed and puzzled.
In addition to MONSTER MASH, loved EDITORIAL WE, LIFETIME BAN, NORTH STAR, and the long-in-the-tooth clue for AFRO PICKS. I undoubtedly would have clued GEAT GAME with a reference to the imperial power struggles in Asia in the nineteenth century (but see the bias discussion above). My inability to remember GNC is intact, but is balanced by my instant recall of NEHI, thanks to Radar’s O’Reilly’s taste in soda pop.
@albatross shell (from yesterday)
I didn’t mind the ignominy-rehashing. In fact, I thought that was one of my better ignominies because it led to entertaining discussion and a good article.
@egsforbreakfast (from yesterday)
If I’d had a chance to comment on Thursday’s puzzle, I don’t know if I would have waded into Neo-Dadaist waters. Some time ago I took the pledge in relation to art after about 1900, vowing that I’d stop posting about it on the grounds that such discussion never goes well. However, in the anarchic spirit of the ND movement itself, I might have thrown caution to the winds and let ‘er rip. We’ll never know.
Amy: @Joaquin, if you find Perry, let me know. Watched his show when I was small. Loved him. "Tomboy" was a favorite.
And really enjoyed the puzzle. (Minced Oaths is puzzling.) TGIF for everyone working M-F.
@Natasha. Michiganders don't generally use "UP STATE". "Up north" is the term for portions of the state north of the urban areas, roughly the northern half of the lower peninsula and the upper. But "down state" is used in the north to refer to the southern portion. Go Blue!
As some anonymouse said, this was both easy and fun. Lively fresh answers but they came too quickly. But I had a relatively tough time in the NW, having carrot for Frosty’s nose for a while. So I did have some struggle, enough to remember it’s a Friday. Really enjoyed Rex’s write up today, too.
@Anonymous 6:17 AM: Right you are. There is downstate Illinois but no upstate. Just Chicagoland and some stuff out to the west.
@OfftheGrid: I didn't find it particularly easy either. Never heard of RECENCY BIAS. Still don't quite get LIFETIME BAN for "highest bar." And add me to the list of those who don't get the "minced" OATHS. Dr. Google has not helped. I wanted the answer to be "onion," but there was that troublesome "They" in the clue.
It took me a little while to unravel the top with carrOt for BUTTON and nelSON for HENSON. I knew the last one being a Fraggle Rock fan as a kid, but my brain somehow misfired.
@Joaquin. Your post made me think of Saturday night TV from my childhood. Perry Como and Perry Mason.
Two obscure songs came to me when I thought Monster Mash was too easy.
Tell Laura I Love Her - Ray Peterson, 1960. Boy crashes in race and says those final words.
Laurie (Strange Things Happen in this World) - Dicky Lee, 1965. Why do bad things happen to good Lauras/Lauries? He never met Laurie, apparently it was a hallucination. Then found the sweater he loaned her at her grave. Weird, wild stuff!
Here’s a whole list of songs that could have worked - but, alas, it was the Mash (it was the Monster Mash).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_tragedy_song
(Loved the shout out to Disney tick-o-nomics - like bra cup sizes, the later the letter, the greater, the better. And you know who sure could stuff that graveyard sweater? LAURIE!)
https://youtu.be/M0N4nyYS5aA
As you might have imagined, the Stetson teams are called The Hatters.
STETSON U was the thing that got me into the NW corner. MONSTER MASH is barely in my peripheral vision, but I actually played at Stetson once, at a conference on the music of JS Bach that was held simultaneously with biker week at Daytona. In general the Bach people were too terrified of the bikers to venture outside the ivied walls, but midway two of us donned our leather jackets and went looking for a bar, where among other things we told a table full of tattooed people all about the joys of Bach. They all said they'd come to my concert the next day, but none of them showed up. I bet they were just as scared of us as we were of them. Oh, the puzzle -- I left the letter at the crossing of 47a and 32d blank. Never heard of either a gopro or an afropick. And no idea at all what a minced OATH is.
I entered carrot first .... til it didn't work and I sang ".... with a corncob pipe and a button nose and 2 eyes made out if coooooal!"
I wanted Teen Angel to have more letters ....
I am feeling so much better that lots of other people had "carrot." All I could remember was "with a something mouth and a carrot nose and two eyes made out of coal." I was so sure of carrot that I erased "Monster Mash." Melba toast and Peach Melba were named for the same Australian opera singer, and yet she eluded me til the end. Because of carrot.
Today the NYT had a "delta follows it" and the WSJ had a "beta followers". Got them with the crosses.
Nothing from 1A so I bopped around, started in the middle and filled in the bottom although REGENCYBIAS was a "probably" and PHOTOCREDIT was an all-crosses, as my knowledge of Instagram stops at having heard of it.
Hesitated between ICANTWATCH and IWONTWATCH but that one cleared up. UPSTATE to me refers to NYS but I granted others the right to use it, and back to the dreaded NW.
Hadn't read the Frosty clue, so in went CARROT had to erase STETSON, which I thought was right. Have seen both SWOP and SWAP , forgot MAE , didn't know ERIN . Getting nowhere, until I finally realized that I was trying to think of a song from 1982 and not 1962. When I finally saw the actual date, in went MONSTERMASH, which I had just been singing around Halloween. And this with my reading glasses on. I mean, really.
So overall medium for me, but I had a good old time with this one. Nice job, SE. Stupid Error on my part spoiled some of the fun, of which there was a lot, for which thanks.
Nice to see a ROO (hello, @RooMonster) and a MONSTER in the same puzzle! And ROO's cousin RUE appears as a Hidden Diagonal Word in the SW.
Weird geographic puzzle for me--MACON (Ga.) was a gimme for the Tubman Museum. Macon is my hometown (although I haven't lived there in 50 years) and my sister-in-law has served as a docent at the Tubman. OTOH, having recently lived in Central Florida, I was very confident typing Rollins in for the university in question--it fits and is definitely more central in the state than STETSON. And that caused my MONSTER MASH inclination to be placed on hold.
So, the NW was the only slow part; I finished with the M in AMYS/ODIUM. Another "Easy" Friday, a tad more resistance than the previous two (mid-20's as opposed to low 20's). With OFL and other long-time solvers' confident assertions that the puzzles are getting easier, I am sure that's the case. But having only been solving daily for a couple of years now, I think it is a combination of easier puzzles and increasing skill/familiarity on my part.
Loved this one. Got almost nothing out of the NW and and headed South leaving only Erin and Mae behind. I knew I was not going to quit before getting one across. Hell, I was 14.
Anyway, @Lewis said it all for me today. I never had OFLs sense of easiness, just enjoyed the quality of the fill and deaded back up to the NW where editorial we somehow took form.
Agree that there is only downstate Illinois, no upstate. Thought Michiganders were either Upers or Trolls.
Enjoy the weekend, Folks. I'm off to the playa. Not in Illinois.
Because you live upstate
@Minced OATH people --
Check out the link in my 8:29 comment.
Or just read this (the first paragraph of the write-up):
A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics. An example is "gosh" for "God".
@Joaquin. Your post reminded me of Sat. night TV from my childhood. Perry Como and Perry Mason.
Another one stuck on carrot!
South Carolina uses the term “upstate” but with a unique twist - it is “The Upstate”.
https://discoversouthcarolina.com/articles/discover-the-upstate
If you didn't need to do the first three lines, this puzzle was NIFTY. The problem is the proper names crossing the top: MELBA, STETSON, ERIN, MAE and HENSON. If you could get those then you had a fair shot at the long acrosses, but I am not sure those were particularly gettable either thanks to some iffy clues.
Otherwise I quite enjoyed working on this one. I'm pretty sure there will be "too easy" complaints today and as an ongoing reminder, this venue may not be for you anymore. You got good, maybe it's time to explore more challenging venues.
Uniclues:
1 Brits frenching for fame.
2 You already know what they're selling.
3 Blingy brushes.
4 Cowboys.
5 First place to look when Breaking Bad wannabes are missing.
6 That happy feeling when you've demoralized the competition with three hotels on Boardwalk.
1 ON-SET SNOGS
2 MIND READERS' ADS (~)
3 NIFTY AFRO PICKS
4 STETSON SORT
5 TAOS LAKE BED
6 GREAT GAME PRIDE
Never heard of Minced OATH - wanted carrOt for BUTTON. Love MONSTERMASH, play it on the piano and we all sing along on Halloween. Had Alpo before AMYS - never heard of her. And for some reason had CARGOHOLe before correcting it. Nice puzzle, enjoyed it :)
Agree with Rex again. Too easy. Need a new editor.
Must say this was one of the more pleasant Fridays I can ever remember. Not difficult but not too really too easy either. I needed a teensy bit of help with the proper names in the NW corner to get started. Otherwise though, a clean satisfying google-free fill. GREAT before NIFTY, CARROT before BUTTON, GEESE before SWANS. And I haven’t looked it up yet, but I can’t wait to find out what smizing is.
@ROO! Look at you, right up there at the top of the heap. Sorry there weren’t more F’s.
I’m with the CARROT crowd, eventually accepted BUTTON. Started slow in the NW but once the monster was unveiled, it was pretty smooth sailing. I liked this one a lot, unlike yesterday’s slog fest.
Hey All !
Wanted MiNuTEwaltz for 1A. 😂
Toughie for me today. Actually had to hit Check Puzzle, as I was spiralling into a wrongness-storm. Crossed out a few things I had in the NW. Managed a finish with a Goog for AMYS (has that company been around for a while?), plus SmAP (didn't see it) crossing EDITORIAL mE. Har.
Got let go from my job of selling classic cars the other day, no warning. Slow sales time. Bosses financial advisors said "cut costs", apparently I was a cost that needed cutting. Life goes on, I'm now job hunting and trying to work with ID.me, which is what you need to do to get to my state's unemployment site. It needs a selfie through their site, but it won't work. There's no phone number to call. Argh!
Sorry for dumping this here, but y'all are like bartenders, you get told all the stories!
At least we got a ROO. 😁
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Hand up for thinking “you’re kidding” on MONSTERMASH for being morbid! So many OTHER songs I can think of (thanks @ andrew!). I haven’t gotten into @andrew’s link yet, but the original Last Kiss (1961) (Oh where of where can my baby be) comes to mind. And…I’m still mystified that Pearl Jam did a remake of THAT song.
I’m embarrassed to say that while I found most of the puzzle easy I DNF’d at CAF/AFROPICKS! Okay. I simply was stuck on the concept of a toothpick instead of comb AND…wth with CAF!? Am I missing something? I mean I GET deCAF but for COFfee isn’t CAF the norm? I know. AFROPICKS is a fair cross for someone whose brain is firing properly, but fuhgeddabout CAF.
Thanks to all that commented on UPSTATE. Being from around them there parts I have only heard the term “southern” for Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. THAT area is usually delineated where the glacier quit flattening those states. And btw, my first geographical entry was COASTAL.
The crossword has been getting easier lately - which is a little frustrating, paradoxically. I think NYT really needs to embrace the potential of having an App and really make this a proper game. Bring on Global leaderboards - Let’s have crossword Seasons - keep the traditional weekly difficulty ramp, but then also add in an overall increase over like three months. Then reset back to easy and ramp back up. That way we can have our really hard puzzles and the NYT can have periodic entry points for new solvers. Theres a lot of untapped potential with the App that NYT is just not using
Well, at least I have a new earworm. Maybe now I can go through the desert with the MONSTER MASH instead of on the nameless horse (hi @Joaquin). Not an upgrade though it did give me a chuckle to recall that some thought it “too morbid.”
This was very easy, but unusually enjoyable for such a quick Friday solve. This is such a great example of too drawer construction in terms of meaty, cleverness without lots of pushback. Our ever-articulate @Lewis pointed this out above, and I concur 100%.
The NW fell last because I just refused to believe that MONSTER MASH was ever thought to be “morbid,” and I am of that era. ‘NAM was morbid, and that’s putting it mildly. Not so much with the “‘. . . Mash.” Oh well. Also, my thought at 15A was the ‘Royal we,’ but alas one square shy of possible.
Being initially stumped up too, I kept moseying down and caught ‘NAM, OATHS, ONSET, SNOGS and completed the center diagonal down through the SE lickety split. As I came back to clean up the top, UPSTATE made me groan out loud, so loud in fact that my cat, Pip, ensconced in my lap after her first breakfast (she is named for a Hobbit after all and thus accustomed to a “second breakfast” as well) raised her head to see if Something was up. Thank you for all the “there’s no UPSTATE” in Illinois comments. Sure, technically true but not part of the referential lexicon of the Illinoisan as far as I know.
Today’s fill impressed me. So few people, and those included were certainly either easy or obtainable from the crosses. Just such solid construction today. I have no complaints, particularly since I am still suffering from my tryptophan ”food hangover,” and am needing a short daily nap.
I am never upset if a puzzle plays easy as long as the fill is good. Since I do not speed solve, a grid like today’s lets me wander around during and after just admiring the construction. Today was a joy. Thanks Scott Earl. More, please!
Yesterday we had a GOON TOUR. Today we can have a GOOF TOUR for all those who wanted to plant a CARROT in Frosty’s face (myself included).
This puzzle was for me anything but “very easy” because I kept running into names I didn’t know: STETSON, ERIN, MAE, HENSON, etc. Most of my woes were UPSTATE in the grid. Downstate proved to be much friendlier as I traveled south in spite of TASHA trying to block my way.
Did have a fatal error at 32D since I was thinking about the bites of AFRO TiCKS and had no idea what daredevils attach to their helmets.
The most amusing entry is 58A. Would I be guilty of RECENCY BIAS if I prefer a fresh AHI TUNA instead of one caught last year?
Thx, Scott; GREAT puz! A MONSTER this one wasn't; not at all 'too morbid'! :)
Easy+
Pretty much on Scott's wavelength, thx to fair crosses for all the unknowns.
Decent footHOLD in the NW, despite not knowing STETSON, and malipopping Neato in where NIFTY belonged.
More or less worked down the left half and back up the right, finishing with ALBUM, SWAP & HENSON.
Had AFRO comb before PICK.
Unknowns/learnings: EDITORIAL WE; AMY'S; TASHA; 'Blackpink' or 'Red Velvet'; RECENCY BIAS; PHOTO CREDIT; GNC is still a bit hazy.
Smooth solve; enjoyed it muchly! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Easy? U folks are much smarter than the M&A. Maybe I relive the nanosecond carnage encountered in the NW too much? But, I'll digress …
NW problems (at our house):
1. Got MONSTERMASH at 1-A pdq. thUmbsUp, for that puppy.
2. 15-A is 11-long, has a ?-marker clue, and I aint't never heard of EDITORIALWEs.
3. 17-A is 11-long and has a ?-marker clue.
4. 1-D has a ?-marker clue, also. Crossin ?-markers! Arrgh city.
5. 4-D is a Florida university I've never heard of. Or it's a hat, maybe.
6. 6-D is a no-know actress ERIN.
7. 8-D is a no-know astronaut MAE.
8. 9-D clue of mystery for ALBUM. I always try not to ever drop my record albums.
9. No idea what 11-D's "Fraggle Rock" is.
QED.
staff weeject picks: Torn between EPS (plural abbreve meat, and more phono-record trivia) & MAP (cool clue).
Primo weeject stacks in the NE & SW, btw.
Also liked that NEHI clue. And the two self-contained "Swell!" clues.
Yo, @Anoa Bob: They nailed all 3 SE corner squares, along the right side of the puzgrid, with crossin POCs. Admirably desperate.
Thanx for the swell themeless, Mr. Earl dude. Any puz that seeds itself outta the gate with MONSTERMASH and finishes up with MINDREADERS is A-ok by m&e. Weren't no "easy" solvequest, tho. No RECENCYBIASin' way.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
**gruntz**
Not easy but I liked it a lot. Sparkly cluing and a novel choice of words. Learned a few things, too, like "minced oaths." I remember in college (the fifties) that a girl might get so exasperated that she would exclaim "Shootie!" I also learned RECENCYBIAS.
No, you blithering idiots, it's a CARROT, not a BUTTON!!!!
It's not? I thought all snowmen had CARROT noses.
Moving right along to THE ROYAL WE which I wrote in dark, dark, confident pen (already having the WE from SWAP) only when I got to the WE, I was short one letter.
Looking up THE ROYAL WE for a substitute -- one that would fit and incorporate my "O" from TOTO -- I happily got VICTORIAN WE and wrote it in dark, dark pen over my dark dark THE ROYAL. What a mess! And, alas, VICTORIAN didn't work either.
But now I finally had enough crosses to think of EDITORIAL WE which I wrote in dark, dark pen over the other two. Perhaps the biggest and blotchiest mess I have ever created in what Lewis likes to call Crosslandia.
Oh, and BUTTON in dark ink over CARROT in dark ink didn't look so great either.
Despite the hurdles -- all of them self-inflicted -- I quite liked this puzzle.
DNF the NW corner. This one was wayyyyy harder than a usual Friday for me -- Tons of of trivia and strange old words/phrases that mean nothing to me as a Young.
- Never heard of MELBA, STETSON, AMYS.
- ODIUM - Maybe could have pulled it out with some crosses.
- I think the clue on LIFETIME BAN is a ridiculous stretch.
- EDITORIAL WE meant nothing to me. I know of the Royal We, and I assume it's grammatically similar.
- I have heard of "MONSTER MASH", but I didn't know that it was a song. Someone's going to come along and yell at me for this. Keep yelling at me, it only makes my opinions Worse
- In TOTO. Also new to me.
- I know ERIN Moriarty from crosswords.
- "Fraggle Rock". Skeptical that that's a real thing.
- Lumpy the Heffalump... Now we're actually just making things up.
- No idea Frosty had a BUTTON and not a CARROT.
- Mild or Minced OATHs? must be old people stuff.
- ECCE, NEHI. nope, nope.
Not a BUTTON!! What the heck?
CARROT!
Minced
ONION
not OATH!
SO not easy! 😜
(But will cop to being intimidated 😱 by the long crosses and being half-awake during solve.)
🥕 🧅🦖🦖🦖🧅🥕
Right!
Chicago is not referred to as “upstate” in Illinois. It’s sometimes referred to as northeast Illinois, but usually just as Chicago. The rest of Illinois is “downstate” though.
Looks like I'm an outlier - I give it a "challenging verging on impossible." I found the cluing opaque, and after yesterday's romp through the PPP, today balance was restored to the universe as I knew almost none. At the end, faced with a NW blank except for a feeble TOTO and RIM and a poison carrOt, I resorted to the double desperation move of committing to UPSTATE (thank you to my Illini neighbors for confirming my doubts on that one) and then doing an alphabet juggle to find letters that could reasonably flank the U. Very happy to finish. GREAT grid, especially the threesome in the center.
@Andrew 8:43 and @Georgia 9:20 - Me, too, for thinking "Teen Angel!" "That fatal night the car was stalled upon the railroad track..." But I knew the year couldn't be right.
This ass thing with the Gray Lady may be getting out of hand. I mean, c’mon. Saying that Frosty has a BUTT ON nose?
Child: Should I edit this out?
Father: STETSON
Child: KPOP
This puzzle is right on, because if you write ON, you’ll have filled in a lot of it. There’s STETSON, HATESON, HENSON, BUTTON, ONSET, ONAIR, MACON, CONES and MONSTERMASH.
You’ll generally find proctors ATTESTS.
IMHO, A HI TUNA beats a deep bass.
I liked this puzzle, but agree with several comments that the some clues could have been hardened to a challenging Friday level. Thanks, Scott Earl.
Yep, pretty easy with the bottom half slightly tougher than the top for me. No real problems with this one, I put in MELBA off the A in AMYS and just kept going. Solid with more than a bit of sparkle, liked it.
Easy except for the NW section. That alone was like a tough Saturday for me. AMY, ERIN and MAE we're unknowns as well as STETSON. I'm not familiar with the term drop in regard to an ALBUM. Recognizing MONSTER MASH was a big break but MAZEL blocked out MELBA for a long time. My CARROT/BUTTON write over was another stumbling block. When MELBA finally popped up all was well.
Anyone who thinks that Chicago is in UPSTATE Illinois is the same kind of person who calls it Chi-town. Thankfully they don't live here.
Ay Dios Mio...this was tres difícil por moi.
I remember many years ago when I shyly tippy-toed into this blog. I kept thinking of all the really smart people who could zip through a puzzle and leave me behind like the dunce sitting in a corner sucking a thumb. That's how I feel today.
I'll start with MONSTER MASH. I eventually got it but after I got it I wondered why the BBC deemed it too morbid to play. That song is as silly as that horse with no name.
NEATO/NIFTY? Crap shoot. EDITORIAL WE? Who dat? LIFETIME BAN? huh....and so it went....down down down. Oh...may I ask the smart crowd why ALBUM at 9D is dropped after its finished? Do I need to smarten up a bit? Asking for a Mensa.
There is one long entry that I actually got through the downs: RECENCY BIAS and I have absolutely no idea what that even means. Oh, I also got MIND READERS because, well, I needed to read Scott's mind today and I couldn't.
Gee, I can't wait to fall on my face on Saturday.
@Roo, so sorry to hear about your job. My guess is that the current state of the economy has some folks going more “practical car” rather than “classic car” right now. I have no doubt that your winning and friendly personality will have you into something else soon! Good luck!
I wanted "Teen Angel," which is truly morbid, only I remembered the title as "Earth Angel," really a much sunnier song. But I counted spaces, and didn't put it in. OTOH, when I had LWE at the end of 15A I of course wrote in "the royal" before noticing that I had a space left over. Aside from that, and having no idea about STETSON, my only trouble was asseS before GOOFS.
I think if you're from Chicago, there is no UPSTATE, only downstate -- but I can imagine some folks down in Peoria speaking disparagingly of upstate. But that's just a feeling, I have no evidence.
Kind of an anti-meat feeling here, what with AMY'S and that pescatarian steak, but that's OK.
@Tom T -- Rollins is certainly in Central Florida, but it calls itself "Rollins College," not university.
By the way, as someone who drives to South Florida and back once a year, I find "Central Florida" even more puzzling than "Upstate New York." I've seen the term used to include Jacksonville, for example. Is there a North Florida? Or just Central, South, and the Panhandle?
Thankfully, the lyrics to "Frosty the Snowman" popped into my head as I was despairing of ever finishing the NW with that darn carrOt holding me up. I had put in MONSTER MASH crossing MELBA early on but crossed it all out, even with MASH standing strongly in place with the crosses and TOTO, RIM. Sigh. (That clue for LIFETIME BAN was hard to parse for me.)
Otherwise, I agree with Rex's "easy" designation. Except for "raw TUNA" making way for AHI, the puzzle is error-free. The fill was certainly entertaining. Nice job, Scott Earl.
Hey, @Roo
I was fired from every job I ever had (3, excluding newspaper delivery boy when I was 12)...and it worked out just fine for me. I'm sure you'll be just fine, too.
Wow. So much praise for this one out there in Commentaristan has me wondering why it didn't fancy my tickle nearly as much. Maybe not knowing ERIN, MAE, STETSON or AMYS and having no idea why an ALBUM gets dropped after it is finished and needing later crosses to see HENSON got me off to an inauspicious start in the NW.
The litany of three letter entries---36A CAF? Seriously!?---didn't help to bring my solve buzz out of its nose dive either. And 12A GNC always gets an anything-but-minced OATH out of me. Nothing, not one single thing in that store has any science based evidence as being nutritious. Probably more nutrients in a NEHI and Moon Pie than in all the pills and powders hawked by General Nutrition Center.
There was some nice stuff here and there but GREAT GAME, CARGO HOLD and MIND READER didn't make that list for me.
Speaking of MIND READER, at least there was an avalanche of plurals of convenience (POC) for entertainment. The POC committee was vociferously unanimous in giving this grid a POC marked rating. There were five (!) two for one POCs, where a Down and an Across get a letter count, grid filling boost from sharing a single S at their ends. The first is when both 14D CONE and 25A OATH need help filling their slots. The last is where a two for one POC is most likely to be seen, in the lower, rightmost corner. All five of those POCifying Ss could be changed to black squares, the clues slightly tweaked, and nothing of value or interest would be lost. Instead of 30 black squares the grid would have a virtual 35.
Okay, I'll go over and stand in the other corner by myself.
Came here to say this. Recently some have tried the trendier Upcountry (since we have an increasingly popular Lowcountry). But we Upstate natives know that’s not a thing.
@roo -- So sorry to hear. Godspeed and good luck!
Not easy for me - I'd give it a "challenging verging on impossible." I found the cluing largely opaque and, after yesterday's romp through the PPP, today balance was restored to the universe as I knew almost none. At the end, faced with NW corner that was blank except for a feeble TOTO and RIM and a poison carrOt, I resorted to the double desperation move of committing to UPSTATE (thank you to my Illini neighbors for confirming my doubts on that one) and an alphabet juggle for letters that could reasonably flank the U. Finally got it all, happy to finish. Overall, a GREAT grid, especially that trio spanning the center.
I did not think this was very Easy. I did think it was clever. I smiled at LIFETIME BAN and EDITORIAL WE and I CAN'T WATCH. Which I only got when I figured out CARGO HOLD.
GOPRO I had never heard of though my daughter in her late 30s knew it, and has seen it on a racing helmet. My writeover was NEATO before NIFTY, and lo and behold, NEATO was there too. The hilarious thing was forgetting AMYS, though it is produced locally. I'm no vegetarian.
Now I see ALBUM as something to be dropped, When I got it on crosses, I was thinking photo ALBUM, and you wouldn't want to drop that!
NAM brought back a few unpleasant memories. I didn't go having many years of deferments and then getting 363 as my draft number. Had it been otherwise, I would now probably be a Canadian citizen. But I knew people who did serve, and represented a group of anti-war vets in my early days as a lawyer.
Not a happy hour person myself. I can afford regular priced drinks. So I think of FOUR PM as a lovely hour for a good English tea, with crustless little sandwiches and some currant scones.
I should add MONSTER MASH went right in. Probably know the song by heart after all these Hallowe'ens. It definitely was a graveyard smash!
Well, here in UPSTATE Idaho WE did not catch on in a flash to either Frosty’s nose or MONSTER MASH—GOOFS that WE were🤕
Still had a delightful romp once WE sniffed the AHI TUNA & felt like MIND READERS by the time WE finished Scott’s grid. I’m becoming convinced by Rex & others’ assessment of the “dumbing down” of the Times puzzle, but haven’t really found an option to fully replace it. We do mostly skip the early week grids and enjoy the New Yorker grids on those days. The link I posted yesterday has provided mixed results in both quality and difficulty, so would love to hear from commentariat about their successes.
Without easily getting MONSTERMASH, the NW was really challenging for me.
I second that the NW corner was extremely difficult. I'm a pretty decent solver (not as good as Rex, of course, but I can generally pull a Friday in under 10) and I had no idea what was going on. Didn't know the names, astonished by Monster Mash, clues on Lifetime Ban and Editorial We very difficult.
Forgot in my earlier comment to add that when I got to 22A (Meatless food brand), I had _ _ YS. I thought this was an interesting way to clue EDYS.
@Roo...Yikes! I'd rather bite my tongue than throw you that old cliche: All things happen for the better...!
In my case it has been true but I sure didn't want to hear it from anyone....
May I tell you "being fired for the first of many times" story?
It was in Spain..I was young and felt I was the smartest and most competent person to ever grace that country. I was hired at Kraft Leonesas Madrid as a secretary. My boss was an American and his Espanol wasn't very good. His English, however, was straight from Harvard. I had to translate Spanish correspondence to English so that he'd understand what cheese to order. My Spanish was fine, but ay caramba did I kill Ingles. When he received my reports he'd clear his throat and ask me if I was really an American, and if so, where didn't I learn the difference between there/their, lay/lie, and, well the list grew. He was very very nice and let me go gently. I bawled right in front of him and he gave me about 20 pesetas to go have a drink at the bar downstairs and that he'd call a cab for me once I was done.
I felt sorry for myself for about two weeks. The boss that fired me called one of his pals and told him he should hire me as his secretary. Why? he'd ask....He'd tell Don Pedro that I was the best translator he knew as long as it was English to Spanish. I got the job and it lasted 4 wonderful years.........
I hope it works out for you, as I'm sure it will. :-)
Can good exist without evil?
Can odd exist without even?
Can Yin exist without Yang?
Can light exist without darkness?
Can death exist without life?
Can downstate exist without upstate?
As I was solving, I thought it was easy, but not super-duper-easy. And then I finished and found that I had broken my Friday record by 15 seconds. I was not expecting to see that. So I guess it was even easier for me than it felt like. It probably helped that I didn't do much fat-fingering, as far as I can remember.
This puzzle was so much more enjoyable than yesterday's slog. Really clever cluing.
In Michigan people tend to say “up north”
Delaware also has an ‘upstate.’ I suspect that there are other states do too
There were also the motorcycle/drag race crash-death songs. "Leader Of The Pack" by the Shangri-Las and "Dead Man's Curve" by Jan & Dean come to mind. But they weren't from 1962 either. I'd say @Andrew wins with "Laurie (Strange Things Happen)". That was one bizarro record.
@Roo, good luck. And be persistent with the unemployment claim.
I think @Roo was “laid off.”
Ooh! Ooh! I thought of another one. Damn, there was a plague of these songs in the early 60s.
Dickey Lee, who sang the weirdo "Laurie" song, also had an earlier hit called "Patches", wherein the singer falls in love with Patches, a resident of "Old Shantytown". His folks of course disapprove, and he spends the song bemoaning that he can't see Patches and she must think he doesn't love her. At the end Patches is found floating face-down in the river and the singer vows to come join her. This song was apparently banned on some US stations because of the suicide implication.
Lol! I did the exact same thing
@ Joe D - I would add Last Kiss, Ebony Eyes and of course Dolly.
Bee Gees - Gotta Get a Message, Seasons in the Sun - I forget who sang Shannon - people wanted the dark stuff back then.
That's a real shame, @Roo! It sounds very unfair. Good luck in finding something you'll like at least as much and hopefully a lot more.
@Beezer...I think nowadays there are so many words one uses to let you know that you don't have a job. Laid off, let go, downsized; all polite terms that basically means you don't have a job any more. In my days, "fired" simply meant that you better find something new and maybe even better!
Stories like this explain why I love this blog. Signed old timer.
Why is there a question mark on the clue for EDITORIALWE? We is the first person plural, and I’m not getting the play on words to justify the question mark.
Shannon was the worst song of the 70s. About a drowning dog. Ugh
I really liked this one. Hardly any junk fill. Good challenging clues, especially in the NW which is where I finished. Add me to the list of people who had carrOt before BUTTON. I wouldn’t say it was easy. Medium for me.
OATH GOOFS UP
AMY’S LIFETIMEBAN ON SNOGS she wants:
To HOLD NO GREAT man with MONSTER SWANS.
--- MELBA MAE HENSON
He did it again. An "easy, strolling" five minutes was a grueling hour and a half at the Space station. Chalk me up for NEATO at 2-down, with the N and T already in! Yeah, I knew Frosty's nose was BUTTON, per a game show question (the contestant answered "carrot" *buzz!*). This gaffe very nearly caused a DNF, on account of completely going down the wrong road with 15-across. Starting EDe___ I was convinced the "first person" was Adam, so the start was "obviously" EDEN-something. It came out looking like "EDENORMALWE," which seemed close but somehow not right. In the center I was similarly held up because 23-down "couldn't possibly" be NEATO because it was already in. This was a nightmare getting straightened out, but just before giving up I discovered NIFTY, which saved the solve.
But easy? Grrr... Nowhere was it easy. Daredevil's helmet attachment = GOPRO???? Somebody explain THAT one. AHITUNA is a STEAK?! In what universe? Here's another goodie: Ones long in the tooth for AFROPICKS. Geez, you'd have to be a MINDREADER!
I did finish, with several guesses, but I'd never call it easy, even in one isolated corner. It was, like things, tough all over. Not exactly my cuppa, but have to acknowledge triumph points: birdie.
Wordle bogey, but then words with repeated letters add a layer of difficulty. Glad I took less than six.
Yes, I too had the "NEATO/CARROT/EDEN" overall Natick. Until I didn't. And GOPRO???? Huh?
OK - it got easier once I convinced myself to give the MONSTERMASH a try. Too morbid? Too morbid? They should try the 3-hour visit to the dentist I just had if they want morbid! (speaking of loooong time in the tooth)
On to Saturday!
Diana, you-know-who
A GOPRO is a small digital camera with memory card often attached to a helmet. They tried to get me to pay extra for one while doing the ziplines at Whitefish Mountain. I just used my own camera and got probably better results. The GOPRO is part of the going rate when you jump off the Stratosphere in Vegas which I did last April. All 855 feet. You get the video as a souvineer after the jump. In that case it was attached to my wrist so I could control the direction the camera pointed.
Alternate clue for 47A: Join the major league
Well, wasn't that discouraging reading how easy this was supposed to be. I only had one correct answer out of 16 in the NW. I even knew the Frosty song, but I had here's for Toast opening, so neither carrot nor button worked so I put in edible. And it led me to put in rear admiral for Highest bar, which worked with my correct SWAP answer. Oh well, I got everything else. At least the more I read, the more I found myself in good company. Thanks for all your postings.
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