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Fruit used to make slivovitz / TUE 12-20-22 / Banned substances in sports for short / Creed Christian avowal / Stringed instrument that rhymes with another stringed instrument / Behind-the-arc shots informally
Tuesday, December 20, 2022
Constructor: Peter Koetters
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging?? (maybe a bit on the harder side because of the initially tricky theme...)
Theme answers:
- 17A: Gets overlooked, literally (CRACK FALLS CRACK) (i.e. "falls between the cracks")
- 24A: Gets into bed, literally (SHEET SLIPS SHEET) (i.e. "slips between the sheets")
- 45A: Makes suddenly aware of something, literally (EYE HITS RIGHT EYE) (i.e. "hits right between the eyes")
- 58A: Finding hidden meaning, literally (LINE READING LINE) (i.e. "reading between the lines")
Slivovitz is a fruit spirit (or fruit brandy) made from damson plums, often referred to as plum spirit (or plum brandy). Slivovitz is produced in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, both commercially and privately. Primary producers include Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. In the Balkans, slivovitz is considered a kind of rakia. In Central Europe it is considered a kind of pálinka (Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine—pálenka, or Greece, Romania and Italy-pălincă), and similar to Romanian țuică, corresponding to the distilled spirits category. UNESCO put it in a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists in 2022 on request of the county of geographic origin Serbia. (wikipedia)
• • •
NICENE doesn't strike me as a very Tuesday word (4D: ___ Creed (Christian avowal)). I say this as someone who knew it, but also misspelled it (NICEAN) (!?). I sort of winced as I wrote that one in, as I did when I had to guess the letter in GO_ARTS (5D: Amusement park racers). And again when I had to guess the letter in OLA_ (11D: Father of Norway's King Harald). Brendan FRASER always seems like his name should be spelled FRASIER (like the Crane). I'm slightly surprised they just left the clue [Actor Brendan] and didn't even give you a movie to work off of / think about. He is probably going to win an Oscar in the coming months for his performance in "The Whale." He's definitely going to get nominated. I haven't seen it yet, but buzz is buzz and there is a lot of buzz. Whale buzz. FRASER buzz. Yesterday I pondered the seeming non-difference between CHAR and SEAR, and today I have a similar question about OVATE v. OVOID (62A: Like the shape of an eggplant). They both seem to mean (more or less) "egg-shaped." I think we should ditch one of them on account of redundancy. You all can decide which one goes.
I call b.s. on SAY AAH because once you open up (!) the "ah" beyond two letters, you're in free-for-all territory. Why stop at two "A"s? Further, why two "A"s and not two "H"s!? It's madness. Maadness I say. Outside the theme, the puzzle wasn't very HAIRY, except for HAIRY, which took me several goes to get (25D: Difficult to sort out, informally). SCHEMERS was also kinda hard, as I didn't know which kind of "plot" I was dealing with (35D: Plot developers). I enjoyed remembering EDDIE Rabbitt (26D: Country singer/songwriter Rabbitt), as I love a rainy night, but frankly the nights here in Dunedin have been a bit too rainy for my tastes. I mean, it's paradise otherwise, so I can't actually complain, but yeah, lotta rain since I landed down here about a week ago. I was promised summer! Or at least late spring! But the high has barely made it above 60 since I've been here, at the hottest. But again, as I say, my weather consternation pales beside my overall awe at how lush, verdant, liveable, and bird-dense this place is. Dunedin is one of my favorite places on earth, and not just because my wife and several cool NZ bands are from here. You should go. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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87 comments:
Rex wants us to ditch either OVOID or OVATE on account of redundancy. But where would that leave OVIFORM? Maybe we should ditch them all and stick to EGG SHAPED.
Nice to see DOHA slipped in while the world has been focused there for a month.
Slivovitz looks like it should be a vitz made with mixed .olives.
I wasn’t jarred (speaking of olives) by the grammatical variations on what is between the bookend nouns, and thus I enjoyed the theme. It was easy to see from the first instance, but played about right for a Tuesday. Thanks, Peter Koetters.
@Rex, you got some rain?... in central BC we have arctic air, wind driven snow, and a weather warning. Wed. night is forecast -24 C, beating the old record of -16, and the coldest in the 18 years I've lived in this town. And not yet officially winter. Sucks to be us! (Of course in mid summer we have torrid heat, wildfires, and smoke. So hard to choose!)
Oddly complex theme for a Tuesday. But once you get it, you know 'the last word, is same as the first'. NICENE is one of those non Spelling Bee words. [Speaking of which: Mon 0, my last was a 6er].
Tough. I got the theme post solve, so the theme answers were kinda obtuse during the solve...hence tough. Literally liked it.
I once consumed quite a bit of slivovitz at a convention group get together somewhere in Chicago in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s. It was not a positive experience, but it was memorable except for the exact year.
It's early but I imagine(hope) others saw what I saw. The huge problem is FALLS(between the)CRACKS. If "IT" falls between the cracks it isn't overlooked. It has to fall through the cracks. If it's between the cracks it's there.
Also coulda done without "literally", which adds nothing.
I couldn’t catch the theme until the last themer, so, yes, it worked as a revealer for me. Hard for a Tuesday, but fun!
Made many of the same mistakes as Rex did (OLAf, AhH), with the same reaction. Got NICENE right on the first try, thinking, “That’s not a Tuesday word.”
I prefer OVATE as the lovelier word, but OVOID always comes to mind first.
And I too love a rainy night but am happy with our snowy days here in Vermont.
Can’t even remember the last time my doctor took out a tongue depressor and asked me to say anything. But if he decides swear to you I would only say AH. I would never say AHH unless I was sinking into a hot tub. The only time I would like to see NRA in my puzzle would be if the clue were “Org. disbanded in 2023”. Enjoyed the theme and the revealer. The inconsistencies did not bother me so much.
Enjoyed the theme and execution (they’re all 15 grid spanners!) and that there wasn’t too much clunky fill. Played hard for a Tuesday I thought, but a welcome challenge.
I caught onto the theme early and it still seemed like it could have run on a Wednesday. Some tough cluing (for a Tuesday) on HAIRY and SCHEMERS next to country singer EDDIE made for a tough mini-section over in the west for example.
Rex carps incessantly about the NRA - if he really doesn’t like guns he may want to rethink the Glock and AK-worshipping rappers as well (DRE appears pretty regularly for example).
So after forcing ‘AhH’ on us for the ‘open wide’ sound for years, now suddenly they are switching to ‘AAH’? On the one hand, I’m outraged by the inconsistency. On the other hand, I’ve been complaining that it should be ‘aah’ for years, so I’m elated by the change.
Lots of religion creeping into the grid: POPE, the Sabbath clue for EL AL, CROSS, NICENE creed, OH MY GOD, and even the ELKS, who require belief in GOD of their members.
The expression is 100% "Falls *THROUGH* the Cracks." Which works, visually, but not thematically.
Well, one of the easiest ever for me, a retired banker and one mostly void of literary knowledge! The reveal came with the "falls between the cracks" and then it was "blankfillblank"
@egsforbreakfast: "I wasn't jarred (speaking of olives)...." Love to start the day with a nice bit of wordplay, so thanks for the chuckle!
@jae: The only time(s) I have ever consumed slivovitz was when I lived in Chicago, where there is a large Serbian and Croatian community and it's a not-uncommon drink. You only have to sniff that stuff to get knocked on your butt.
I loved this puzzle--it was a lot of fun and something I haven't seen before. And because I don't construct crosswords--I just solve 'em--none of Rex's criticisms of the theme made a whit of difference to me.
This definition of PEDS was new to me. If you hop into the Wayback Machine and head for the 1950s, then ask the first woman you meet where you can get some PEDS, you won't be sent to the wrong side of town--you'll be directed to the nearest department store. They were (Oh, look! They still exist!) small, elasticized bits of nylon stocking that slipped over your toes and heels and didn't show when you wore skimpy shoes in warm weather. As late as the 1980s, there were boxes of PEDS in department store shoe departments and shoe stores, because you weren't supposed to try on shoes in bare feet--sanitary reasons. No one seems to care any more, and I haven't seen any PEDS in a long time.
"Falls between the cracks" was immediately discoverable, so the theme wasn't difficult to glean. Still, a nice puzzle with average difficulty for a Tuesday.
TWELVE is pretty rare, one out of 36. But two is just as rare.
Enjoyed discovering the "between" phrases. Plus, single-digit Terrible Threes. Bravo, Peter Koetters.
It was great seeing Aaron Rogers take apart the Rams last night. He was in total control except an occasional glitch (three sacks and an interception when he misread where his receiver was going). He's still magical at 39.
No problem it’s NRA, no matter the clue. No problem with NWA either, despite what those initials stand for.
The reason its overlooked is because it has fallen between the cracks and so is no longer seen. That’s what that phrase has always meant.
I love literalisms like this; I have since I was a kid. I love when they show up in crosswords, on Jeopardy – anywhere – and they often draw a “Hah!” So, as soon as the first theme answer showed itself, I was off trying to figure out the others with as few crosses as possible, and thus this puzzle was great fun for me.
I see that some other commenters here and elsewhere didn’t catch on to the theme until late, even after filling in some theme answers, and what a great reminder that what comes easy to one may be a bear to another, that people see the world through such different eyes, and to keep that in mind when interacting with others. I forget that sometimes.
Here, looking at the grid, I did like seeing the six double-e’s, and appreciated how tight the theme is. That is, it’s very hard to come up with other phrases that fit the “X between the Ys” motif, and especially hard to have them all come in at 15 letters.
So bravo on that, Peter, and thank you for what was a terrific outing for me!
If the clues for the first two theme answers hadn’t started with the word “goes”, then Rex wouldn’t have complained about the theme. Either one could have easily been clued differently:
“Is overlooked…”
“Climbs into bed…”
Poof, his nitpick disappears.
In-store shoe departments definitely still have boxes of peds! However, they are not included with your Zappos order.
I got a chuckle out of this puzzle, and I think Rex’s objections to the inconsistencies he sees in the themers constitute gratuitous nitpickery. To me, READING is between the LINEs just as much as FALLS is between the CRACKs. More interesting, I thought, was @OffTheGrid’s point about “between” vs “through” in the first themer. It sent me to Google to search the expression with “between” (26,900,000 hits) and with “through” (28,700,000). So “through” does have the edge but “between” is also used regularly. But really, from the point of view of sheer logic, he’s right: FALLS between the CRACKS doesn’t make sense. If something FALLS between the CRACKs of a CRACKed surface, then it’s sitting on top of the surface – it missed all the CRACKs! FALLS into a CRACK would make more sense. But, OK, @OffTheGrid – here’s my bottom line: because both the “between” and “through” versions of this expression are in common usage, I can accept today’s appearance of “between,” despite its illogic.
Hey, I got 1A instantly – it really couldn’t have been anything else. I was initially shut out by the other acrosses in the NW corner but I got all the downs, so that area – frequently my nemesis – was completed first thing. Like Rex, I felt that the fill was a bit lackluster. But I liked AT HEART, HAIRY, SCHEMERS and its clue [Plot developers], OH MY GOD, and the newly renovated BIG BEN, which I refuse to see as crosswordese. SAYAAH looks like a woman’s name and GOK ARTS looks like a cultural practice with which I’m unfamiliar (and perhaps prefer not to learn about).
[SB: yd, -1. I got all the goofy words and then missed this. OH MY GOD!]
One of the most enjoyable puzzles in recent times.
Rex is entitled to nitpick, but I thought this was nifty. He found the theme “initially tricky,” but somehow I found it right off. Also had NICEan but not for long.
Different type of wordplay - thought the theme was cute. Didn’t have an issue with the progression of the themers. Not a lot of splash in the overall fill - but other than the ERICS plural - nothing ugly. Only really delay was the K in GO KARTS.
UTAH Phillips
Enjoyable Tuesday solve.
Amy: pretty much what Phillyrad1999 wrote. And like Rex, am reading/hearing a lot about The Whale and Brandon Fraser.
Really nice puzzle. Enjoyed finding the theme - got that rather early - but it took me several runs through to finish. And at the end had to change RIAS to RIOS before I was congratulated. AS usual, don't understand Rex's complaint about what he calls the inconsistency of the theme answers. Sheesh. His criticisms usually look to me to be something contrived in order to have a long write-up. But maybe that's part of his appeal.
What a pleasure! A Cryptic-style theme, and on a Tuesday yet. And even more impressive, it contains four gridspanning themers -- not that easy to accomplish, I would think. Also, there are very few names which is another big plus.
Cryptic-type clues are what Will Shortz sometimes PUZZLESLIPSPUZZLE in order to get solvers acclimated to them. With any luck he'll get everyone else to love Cryptics as much as I do. Wasn't this fun, people?
A wierd puzzle for a Tuesday.
My cousins in Poznan gave me a bottle of Slivowitz once. They distilled it from plum wine made from the plums in their orchard. The orchard in which their grandfather had buried their valuables when the Germans were coming in 1939. They still dug the occasional hole back there, on a slow day, hoping to luck onto more valuables. They gave my mother one of the valuables once, a scapular which was a sizable piece of thick metal which would have stopped swords and bullets quite well if worn on the breast. They thought it was medieval but an art historian friend said it had phony rivets on it, it was a 19th century tourist trinket. But back to the plum brandy. I used to sip a thimbleful of it every Christmas Eve and think of the Polish relatives, till I had a drunk over for Wigilia one year and he decided based on the taste that it was cheap rotgut and swilled the rest of the bottle in about 3 large gulps.
Thx, Peter; great Tues. challenge! :)
Very hard (would have been perfect for a Thurs).
Didn't grok the trick until late in the game: LINE READING LINE.
Way off PK's wavelength for most of this one.
Unknowns/learnings: DOHA; PEDS; DRE.
Kea/loas: OLAV / OLAf; OVOID / OVate.
Excellent puz. Enjoyed the battle! :)
On to Anna Shechtman's New Yorker Mon.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Started in the NW and went down the left coast, so I was just seeing the first part of the themers, which didn't make a lot of sense. CRACK didn't seem like much of a start for "gets overlooked", e.g. Went all the way to the bottom and then across, where LINESREADINGLINES showed up, thus revealing an answer and a concept at the same time, and after that the rest was fair easy.
Thanks to the World Cup for DOHA (hi @egs). Churchy enough to know NICENE, put as many A's in AAH as you need. Knew PEDS from sports but also remember my Mom wearing them (hi Taylor Slow).
Crunchy for a Tuesday, which added to my enjoyment. Well done you, PK . A Puzzling Kind of a puzzle, and thanks for all the fun.
Hey All !
Quite a comprehensive use of "between" phrases. I did find another, as in football, NUMBERRUNSNUMBER, ala Runs between the Numbers. Although, it's a 16. You'd have to widen the grid. I'm sure others will find, well, others.
Neat puz. As TuesPuzs go, this one EYEHITSRIGHTEYE. Usually the scalawag of the week, this one was quite a fun one.
Not much dreck to be found. Couple of UPs, KEYED UP, HOLD UP. Nice to see the full OH MY GOD. I believe (I'm not in that age group, obviously, but) that when kids (these days) see OMG, it's processed as just like saying "wow" or "holy cow" or somesuch, rather than short for OH MY GOD. If wrong, someone can correct me.
Where's Leo in the POPE clue? Har.
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Rex remains the nittiest of pickers
This is a well-constructed puzzle, although I agree that it played slightly tough for a Tuesday. Took a moment to see what the theme was doing, but it's certainly coherent, despite Rex's issues.
In fact, I don't think Rex is looking at it right, insofar as I can make sense of what he's saying. The verb phrase "[verb] between the" straight up replaces the verb phrase in the clue; it doesn't matter if the verb is "gets" or "makes" or whatever, and whose rule is that all the verb phrases must use a third person singular? I think Rex is READING too much into it (between the LINEs?) and is over-complicating things. Just like some people are reading too much into a grid vaguely reminiscent of a swastika, despite the fact that one fell between the cracks on the editorial end, for sure. (Hi @CDilly52 from last night.)
Folks: it can be either "FALLS between the CRACKs" or "falls through the cracks". Don't believe me? Look it up.
I cannot tolerate tongue depressors: my gag reflex is way too strong. I tell them to put it away, I'll just open my mouth as wide as I can, and I don't SAY AAH (however that's supposed to be spelled).
If I didn't know better, I'd think that the clue for NRA would be enough to save it for Rex, since the clue implies that many find it evil. It used to be an apolitical organization promoting marksmanship and safe handling of firearms. That's all it was for me when I was a kid in summer camp, and they awarded me twice ("marksman" and "pro-marksman") for my accuracy with a BB gun. Innocent times. Things changed very shortly thereafter, though. I'm fully down with Moms Demand Action and Sandy Hook Promise (my town is practically the next town over from Newtown and Sandy Hook; to say it was devastating would be an understatement).
SB: yd -1, alas. My unfound word was @okanaganer's last (5 letters). Dang it.
Very pleasant puzzle for a Tuesday. Perhaps one of my favorites. I will be waiting for more.
I truly find some of the complaints about the puzzle silly. I guess I just don't care about some of these things. I feel as if I'm repeating myself. But the complainers repeat themselves. Over and over. So I will say again: some of it I find just silly to coplain about. So there.
I mentioned yesterday that I just watched the three episodes of Places to Love that are set on New Zealand. Based on what I saw, it is a beautiful country that I would love to visit. But the trip from NYC is long and could kill me via dislodged blood clots traveling from my legs. Even if I break up the trip by visiting my brother in San Diego. Or stopping in beautiful Hawaii. Too bad that I will probably never get there. And the weather would have to be better than what we experienced on our honeymoon. (Rained every day in Paris except the day it snowed. So much for April in Paris.)
Just in case I don't get back here for a while, happy religious holidays to all. (Actually I think the Jewish festival already began.) I am not a fan of Christmas songs during Advent and get upset that Christmas songs evaoprate during the Christmas Season. Nevertheless, good cheer to all.
Like offthegrid at 4:31 am, I was bothered by "literally" in the clue for right between the eyes. Am I missing something? Hitting one right between the eyes, meaning to become suddenly obvious, seems to me to be an excellent example of figurative language.
Our absurd misuse of "literally" in the language these days amuses but also sort of bothers me. I find it much more bothersome in this clue than any of Rex's concerns about lack of grammatical consistency in the theme clues today.
But Rex must find nits to pick (figuratively) because I so enjoy starting my day by reading his assessment of the puzzle.
I’ve got nothing to say but “Good Tuesday!”
Just a clever, fun, interesting, witty …and sometimes even quirky puzzle. A nice start to my day.
Medium puzzle for me. (Faster than my historical average, but that includes when I was first starting and slower.)
My first experiences with slivovitz/slivovica was back in the mid-90s when I took a year off of college to roam Europe, ending up for several months on a grassroots post-war reconstruction project in Pakrac, Croatia. We worked a lot on the Serbian side of town (the UN peacekeepers had left by then, so there was an understood border between the Croat and Serb sides that the internationals could cross without hassle). One morning, we walk over to Ljuba's house to go chop some wood. Ljuba was in her 70s, and lived not just through this war, but the horror of WWII. Despite her thin, frail appearance, she was still strong physically and mentally. She damned well would have chopped her own wood if we weren't around. She greets us with shots of slivovica (which we just called "rakia") and demitasses of Turkish coffee. Mind you, this is 9 a.m., and we're starting the day with shots of seriously strong coffee and seriously strong spirits before we go out to wield a sharp axe for an hour or two. But this was hospitality.
I developed a fondness and palette for the drink. Every Wednesday, there would be a morning market near the town center and, among your standard provisions, there would be around six to eight vendors selling their homemade slivovitz. With free samples. Once again, bright and early in the morning. You could wander from stall to stall and get seriously blitzed by noon. But, with the sampling, you quickly learned the nuances of slivovitz and who made it well, and who just made awful rotgut. The flavors ranged from the unsweetened essence of Damson plums to odd off-flavors of soil and leaves. A trick was to dip your finger in the slivovitz, rub it on the back of your wrist, wait a moment, then take a whiff, as if you were testing a perfume. If it smelled of fruit and nothing else, it was good.
I found one vendor near the graveyard who had the reputation for having the best slivo in the area. On my way back to the UK and then the US, I picked up three two-liter Fanta bottles of the stuff for presents and personal consumption. Customs didn't seem to care. My uncle (from Zakopane, Poland) loved the stuff so much, I gifted him an entire bottle. He swore not only that it didn't give him a hangover, but that he even felt better the next day after drinking it, as if it were some sort of elixir.
Three years later, I found myself living in Budapest. One of my fellow volunteers, a Kiwi named Jackson, came through town and stayed at my place for a month. His mother had just passed from cancer,and he was backpacking it across Europe to process his loss. In a bit of youthful spontaneity, we decided to rent a car and revisit Pakrac with a couple colleagues of mine. Part of the visit was impelled by the news of the death of Ljuba, whom we wanted to pay our last respects to at the graveyard. Part of it was for Jack. We arrive, find the graveyard and the austere plot, and say a few words. As I left the graveyard, I remembered the slivo, and I hoped I remembered the house. I approach the door, knock, and mumble the best of my half-remembered Serbian to say, "um...[mismo bili volonteri] we were volunteers here three years ago, we think we bought some rakia here, do you have any?" A blank face stared back at me, then a wave of comprehension, and a big smile. "Come in, come in! How much do you want!" We were sat, fed, and, of course, served shots of slivo. We talked about the town, how post-war life was progressing, all in my broken Serbian, and the understanding was though life was tough, things were getting better and people were tired of the tensions.
When I have a shot of slivo these days and taste the burning plum liquid slide down my throat, all those feelings and memories fill my spirit.
(If you want to see a picture of Ljuba, it's here: https://www.peterpawinski.com/images/portfolio9.jpg)
"Slip(s) between the sheets" does not google as an expression. At. All.
"Between the sheets" is a quite common euphemism, without any slippage and with a different connotation. "Hit the sheets" means "go to bed". But this theme answer appears to be totally made up.
Btw, does anyone else see a beleaguered swastika trying to fend off an attack from eight chocolate bars in the grid?
Was Rex suggesting the answer to 5D could be either 'GoCarts' or 'GoKarts'? Because the things are clearly with a K, for whatever bizarre etymological reason that may be. Though thinking about it now, I guess it's likely from some legal trademark reasoning? Hmmm... internet rabbit hole, here I come.
@Barbara S. I really enjoyed your BETWEEN/through analysis. Made sense, too. I can't disagree.
What a fun Tuesday! A theme which was not that easy to get but then once I did, the rest fell into place. Also a puzzle where the theme aided in the overall solve, always an ASSET in my book. Had to look up the definition of 62A just to satisfy myself that the clue was accurate. Yes it is but seems to me that an eggplant is more of an oblong than an OVOID.
I miss the old days when I could blow an AIRHORN at pushy telemarketers. It just doesn’t have the same effect on the robocalls.
@Peter P: Nice story. I’ve never heard of slivovitz but good to know. A plum brandy sounds like it might be good to try as a holiday treat.
I don’t know if it’s because of today’s foul mood (anyone else’s holiday drama kick in earlier than usual this year?), but I seem to be in the minority in agreeing with Rex about this puzzle.
Cryptic themes are a growth edge for me, and tbh, I never clocked the theme. I just saw the rule of what it was shaping up to be (two of the same word bookending a verb, more or less), and got there that way. So, a slower solve and less fun than usual. And almost all of the PPP’s felt too commonplace to me, even for a Tuesday.
But ah well, they can’t all be delightful solves.
Ovate vs ovoid? Opiate vs opioid? Any relation?
Reading between the lines landed first and I figured the others would be similar so the theme helped the solve.
After all the soccer stuff you'd think I might know the capital of Qatar, or what continent it's on -- the middle east -- who knew? Maybe I knew, but forgot. But I did hear Argentina won the last game and my niece is traveling in Buenos Aires right now so she posted some videos of the mayhem. Looked like fun.
I play a fair bit of guitar and I don't think I've ever noticed it rhymes with sitar. It also rhymes with Zanzibar in Tanzania and turns out to be next to Africa, and not in those islands by Sumatra like I thought.
Uniclues:
1 Subject of those never-ending political reports where you're lead to believe what's going on will shake the foundation of the way we live forever, but will ultimately play no role whatsoever in anything.
2 Result of time passing and a witch's nose existing.
3 BONG BONG and BONG.
4 When you start with a plus sign and then make the vertical line a little longer on the bottom, or when a 🦖 blog participant is stumped by two words.
5 Report in Donuts Today on the fate of their comrades vis-à-vis my belly.
1 KEYED UP PRIMARY (~)
2 HAIRY WART RISE (~)
3 BIG BEN ASSETS (~)
4 OH MY GOD CROSS (~)
5 TWELVE PERISHED (~)
I finished the puzzle before I caught the joke so I found it fun. I like those "aha" moments. The themers made total sense to me but then I read them as the catch phrases they are. For Pete's sake, if you're racing around getting ready for the holidays and forget to out gas in the car, that todo "fell through the cracks."
Peter P, your story was amazing!
Hello to all my friends. Sorry I've been gone; I'll try to do better
Will you visit the albatross breeding site while down there?
pmdm,
I'm right there with you. Christmas and Advent are two very different things. The fact that so many people conflate them is a pity. Not surprising I guess. Look at Rex who stumbled over Nicene. The unchurched and uneducated are a problem and their numbers and ignorance seem to be increasing rapidly.
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. ( And put on some speed please)
Liked the theme, but didn’t really enjoy the puzzle. Not sure why … maybe unconsciously felt…
🦖’s very acute crit?
dunno.
🤗🦖🦖🦖🦖🤗
I enjoyed the theme, but Rex's stylistic point is valid. It's not that theme clues all have to have the same clue, but that once you do that with two of them, you should do it with the rest -- go big or go home, more or less. As @doorboy pointed out, you could change either of the first two and the little jarring note would be gone.
I came to 11-d from its cross with DERIVES, so I knew right away it was OLA the Fifth.
And I'm glad Rex clarified PEDS. I was wondering why sports organizations would want to ban pedestrians.
@Peter P., wonderful story, great photo.
I believe tomorrow's puzzle is by @Nancy and Will Nediger; that's why this one had to be today.
Enjoyed the puzzle. Thanks Peter! I like the theme which was not hard to decipher.
Interesting to know the Creed was NICENE. In Sunday School way back when, we pronounced it as if it was spelled Nicean, as Rex thought it was. Not hard to adjust to that.
I thought this was a stand-out Tuesday, with its clever, light-hearted theme. I saw what FALLS was doing early, and, like @Lewis, had fun seeing how quickly I could get the rest - SLIPS and READING came fast, but the two-word connector between the EYEs faked me out nicely. Regarding the inconsistency that bothered @Rex, when I was teaching and grading essays, I was all over non-parallel construction, but now, in retirement, I've relaxed. Besides the theme I liked seeing the parallel SCHEMERS PERISHED, or if that's too harsh, at least hope they'll be facing many years in the slammer and eternal ignominy.
@okanaganer, what you have today and tomorrow, we're due to have on Thursday and Friday. Stay cozy! I'm hoping our power lines can stay up through the blizzard and 50 mph winds.
ovoid/ovate, and don't forget oviform, ovaloid, obovate, obovoid, oblong. And elliptical. Clearly our caveman ancestors had an urgent need to distinguish very fine differences among almost-circular shapes.
In too much of a hurry at 7D--saw the word "Slick" and three letters and dropped in eeL. Had to find that in the end and change the aquatic creature into the slick substance--OIL. Duh.
I suppose if something falls "between the CRACKs," it lands on a solid surface. But I like the clue and answer anyway. It makes me think of Lee Marvin watching the gold dust fall between the CRACKs in Paint Your Wagon. Gold fever.
@Whatsername - Don't be fooled by the word "brandy" there. It's not really what I would call a Christmassy drink. I didn't want to over-explain in the vignette, lest it get too long, but slivovitz is more like a vodka, except instead of being distilled from a starch like grain or potato, it is distilled from fruit. There is no residual sugar in it, so no sweetness (maybe some perceived "sweetness" from the essence of plums.) In English, we sometimes use the French term "eau-de-vie" for this type of fruit distillate. It's usually clear (as it is typically not aged in barrels) and can have a "wake the dead" bite to it, depending on your drinking experience. If you've ever had kirschwasser, it's in the same category of drinks. Grappa is closely related, as well. These fruit brandies are pretty popular through Central and Eastern Europe, most often made with: plums, pears, apricot, cherries, apples. Less often I've seen quince, white mulberry (my favorite), elderberry, etc. For slivovitz, the brand I've usually found here in the states is Jelinek (from Czechia.) They have both a clear and an aged golden version. The latter is definitely more mellow going down, but both, I believe, are bottled at 100 proof (so be forewarned.)
If you ever find yourself invited to a Serbian wedding, there will be much slivo going on.
OVOID describes a three-dimensional object. OVATE means it has an oval outline so could be either 2D or 3D.
Yes, had exactly the same trouble with NICEAN/NICENE and OLAF/OLAV.
Very easy puzzle. The themed answers were so easy, I never even noticed the inconsistencies of tense. New Zealand is absolutely amazing. I was conceived there - so my parents tell me - and I returned for my 30th birthday, just before the LOTR movies came out, so I was lucky enough to experience the country in its pre-Frodo state. Southland is beautiful.
Hey @Joe D-re "Between the sheets"-Did you ever play that game where you stand by a juke box and read the song title and then add "between the sheets"?
Great fun if you're a sophomore in high school.
Huh, I learn after all these years that I've been pronouncing SITAR wrong, putting the accent on the first syllable.
I don't know why the html in my earlier comment didn't work, but I was trying to link to Merriam-Webster here, when I was saying that "fall between the cracks" is in the language. Literally, if a needle fell between the cracks in a hardwood floor, it might be hard to find -- like looking for a needle in a haystack. Heh.
@Joe Dipinto
I found plenty of Google hits. But I think it would come in most handy if it were a furtive or silent action: you slip quietly between the sheets so as not to wake up someone already in bed.
@jberg
Sorry, it still sounds a bit fussy and prescriptivist to me. But let me ask: if the order of the second and fourth theme answers and their clues were switched, then would the jarring note go away? Asking for a friend.
@kitchef, I would have guessed “obovate” meant oboe-shaped. But Google Images shows me leaves shaped like the bell of an English horn. Close enough.
And I think I’ve finally got this one figured out: “Aah” is the sound you make at the doctor’s office; “ahh” is the sound you make in a hot tub. A world of difference.
Well done @Peter P. You “distilled the essence” perfectly.
OMG yes @Tom t!! I hadn’t thought of that show in ages.
This is one of those geography type themes, one where relative location like "over", "under", "beside" or, here, "between" is literally portrayed in the grid. I thought this one worked quite well although I also noticed a sort of grammatical construction disconnect between the last themer and the first three.
Also of note, by adding a "T", ASSES can become ASSETS. Only works in the plural, though.
Speaking of which, the plural of convenience (POC) plays a significant role in making this grid work. There are several of the two for one POCs, where a Down and an Across get a grid filing boost from a single shared S, for example, at the ends of 13D ELK and 21A DERIVE. Another happens where a two-fer is most likely to appear.....
What caught my EYE most was the uber helpful Ss that made three of the themers into grid spanners. CRACK FALL CRACK, SHEET SLIP SHEET and EYE HIT RIGHT EYE are all 14 letter entries and need some letter count boosting POC assistance. LINE READING LINE is the only one capable of spanning the grid on its own. (@Roo, just ditch the S and NUMBER RUN NUMBER is a legitimate grid spanner!)
We get yet another addition to the permanent hearing loss inducing "Stadium noisemaker" when vuvuzela and cowbell are joined by 23D AIR HORN.
This puzzle is a traditional, classic (or any of a dozen other adjectives) Tuesday for the NYTXW. I enjoyed it. I absolutely blazed through it because I saw the theme immediately. The Across answers all the way down through but excluding the theme went in smoothly. I quickly finished that top tier with the downs but only got the NW finished when I read the first theme clue and got the trick. I rarely fell this clever.
Gotta head out to a meeting. Liked this one lots.
Nice TuesPuz theme, which I figured out pretty early.
staff weeject pick (of a mere 8 choices): DRS. Plural abbreve meat. Apologies to @RP, who probably really wanted NRA.
Other likable stuff included: ATHEART [a bit theme-twitchin, in a way]. GOKARTS. BIGBEN. AIRHORN. SCHEMERS. TWELVE. ASSETS clue [the sole ?-marker]. PAD clue.
Thanx for the in-betweeners, Mr. Koetters dude. Good job.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
**gruntz**
@peter p -- Wow! Thanks for sharing that story!
Oh, thanks everyone for the kind words! I apologize for the tense inconsistencies in my vignette, but it was a running-out-the-door stream-of-consciousness post as I left to pick up Christmas cards. My inner copy editor is groaning. But when I saw slivovitz appear in the puzzle so unexpectedly, a lot of memories just raced through my mind. I love how little sights, sounds, scents, or syllables could trigger such an electric spiderweb of synapses. Thank you for reading.
@Peter P
Your story reminded me of two trips to the Soviet Union in the early 80s, prominently featuring pepper vodka (pertsovka) and many many many toasts... fun to be a student. I actually still had one bottle until we downsized 4 years ago, meaning I had it longer than my marriage, at which point I decided to toss it.
@Peter P (12:04) When I Googled slivovitz the brandy is what came up so I’m glad you elaborated on the subject. However, now that you did, I’m pretty sure 100 proof anything is something I should stay far away from. It wouldn’t take a lightweight like me anywhere near so long as noon to be facedown on free samples. Yikes!
A note about your write-up, Rex. Brendan Fraser recently said in an interview that people have been pronouncing his name wrong the whole time and it actually rhymes with "razor"!
@Smith - Oh, man, pertsovka. My roommate my first year in Budapest (who was one of the colleagues who went down to Croatia in my story) moved to Moscow several months later. I visited him three times, and he introduced me to the stuff. I'm not a big fan of plain vodka, despite it being present in endless supply at all family occasions, being of Polish extraction, but that pepper vodka was right up my alley. As were the Georgian restaurants. Sorry about the bittersweet associations for you. Hope things are better.ваше здоровье!
@pabloinnh - my high school "between the sheets" memories involve not a jukebox, but an alternate name for the card game "acey ducey." It is an evil, evil game. We played for money in between rounds of various poker games, including ones that involved stupid amounts of wild cards like "baseball."
Anyway, every four or eight hands or so when we got bored of poker, we played "between the sheets" to break up the monotony. The game is simple. It's all one-on-one dealer (pot) vs player. All players ante in to start. Deal a card faceup on the left side of the center of the table. If it's an ace, player gets to call high ace or low ace. Then deal card to the right. If an ace, it's automatically high. Make a bet (some minimum required) that the next card lies in between. We played so somebody had to bid half pot and win first before someone could bid full pot. You lose, you throw in your chips. You win, you rake in your chips. If you were far enough to bet full pot and win, game is over, and back to poker.
The evil of this game is when you get dealt a 2 and K. That's an all-in, right? Anything but a 2, K, or A busts you. But that's still 10 cards out of 50, so 20% chance of losing. And, the way we played, if it matched the table cards (so a 2 or K), you had to pay in double your stake to the pot. Three times if it was low ace-high ace. Pots would get out of hand for high school kids who didn't quite grasp the probabilities.
One game things got out of hand, with two unlikely 2-K busts, and the pot was something like $100 (in 1992 high school dollars). Mike was up next. He got ace. Calls low. Ace, automatically high. He bets pot. Flip. Ace. Two hundred more dollars into the pot. The table erupts at his bad fortune in the manner only high schoolers can do. But he takes his lumps, doesn't even flinch, just takes out his wallet and pushes in his money (and we're working/middle class kids here in Chicago), to the next player who bets pot on a 4-Q and wins.
Unlike rex, I did not find any of the themers "clunky."
To have four horizontal spanners, with a clever thematic concept, and very little dull fill, makes for a sensational Tuesday.
The only downside, which is just part and parcel of this type of puzzle, is that once you have sussed out the theme, then the remaining spanning crosses become very easy to figure out. Which is why I was a bit faster than my typical Tuesday time. But that's a very small price to pay for such an elegant gem.
BTW it took another blogger to mention it to make me LOL but great bog handle!
I liked the puzzle also.
In any event, language is not a math equation or otherwise logical.. Both expressions are used and mean the same thing
so this works for me.
Took a little while to get the actual theme but caught on to the same first & last words early with crack / crack … which helped with the solve. NICENE may not be Tuesday-ish but it is seasonal, no?
Here in CA we’re envious of all rain drenched places! Seems we’re always in a drought, or pre- or post- drought.
I’m confused what rule Rex is citing to that requires the themes clues to retain also the same pattern. The theme answers are:
“_______ between the ______”
Once again there is some arbitrary rule applied by which the puzzle is judged and nitpicked. I don’t think these answers lose elegance at all—the first three retain the same form and tense, and the last follows the same pattern but uses a present tense -ing for the verb, and likely serves as the revealer. (Love the red herring at 19D, btw…almost thought, is this some weird tucked away secret revealer?)
Anyway, it was cute and fun. Took a bit longer than the usual Tuesday because I wasn’t expecting a gimmick, so it was fun to see that take shape as a nice little payoff when it finally clicked. Nice!
@okanaganer - It's pretty nasty weather here in MN as well. NICENE is not a Spelling Bee word for the same reason that DOHA, OHIO, EDDIE, and OLAV (and for that matter "Tuesday") are not - they are capitalized and have no uncapitalized usages.
I enjoyed the puzzle, but the grid looking like a sw@st!ka on the first day of Hanukkah with a theme of "read between lines" kinda gives me a big ick - especially considering the number of eyes / approvals required before running a puzzle in nyt. Hard to believe no one saw this. As a graphic designer, we are taught to always look for inadvertent hate symbols and genitalia before print, so I find it hard to believe no one saw this. Disappointing.
Sorry rex, what a dumbo I posted to the wrong date entry
A bit HAIRY for a Tuesday. I struggled with the gridspanners until I dropped down south and finally got the gist--though not perfectly (LINEREADINGSTHE). Thus the SE inkblots. But after that, things came rather quickly into focus, so overall I'd say challenging-medium, in order of appearance.
Not as fussy as the fussbudget, I thought the theme was fine, and for the density, the fill wasn't a disaster. Birdie.
Wordle birdie also.
Pretty easy. Even for a Tuesday. The third themer is a bit of an outlier with two words (instead of one word) sandwiched between the repeated words. Not a ton of junk: DRS, DRE, NRA, INST, AHI etc. Nothing too HAIRY. Smooth. No HOLDUPS. A decent Tuesday ATHEART.
UNIT TWELVE
SAY someone SLIPS (BETWEEN THE) SHEETs,
and BIGBEN is KEYEDUP to RISE,
it's NICENE the KIND of treats
that HIT you RIGHT (BETWEEN THE) EYES.
--- DR. EDDIE LEE FRASER
Oh come on @Foggy - easy? This was a Thursday that got lost!
But, as with all other Thursdays, when I figured it out I had a feeling of triumph.
And then...there were the names.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
I actually found this puzzle to be easier than yesterday's. After I finished, I went back through the puzzle counting how many clue answers were absolute gimmes for me. There was a whole slew of them. Even Nicene Creed. Of course, it helps that I was an altar boy during the tail end of the Latin Mass era.
I agree with those above who say the actual saying is SLIPS through the CRACKs. Doesn't make sense otherwise. So I didn't see how that one matched up with the others. Still don't like it.
Wordle birdie after a lOUsy start.
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