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Mononymous artist who designed dresses at age 6 / FRI 12-9-22 / Monster called Miche in Tibetan / Part of a flower's gynoecium / Bird that can recognize itself in a mirror / Lawyer/voting rights activist Sherrilyn
Friday, December 9, 2022
Constructor: Brooke Husic and Hoang-Kim Vu
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Word of the Day: Gwen VERDON (45D: Tony-winning actress Gwen) —
Gwyneth Evelyn "Gwen" Verdon (January 13, 1925 – October 18, 2000) was an American actress and dancer. She won four Tony Awards for her musical comedy performances, and served as an uncredited choreographer's assistant and specialty dance coach for theater and film. Verdon was a critically acclaimed performer on Broadway in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, having originated many roles in musicals, including Lola in Damn Yankees, the title character in Sweet Charity and Roxie Hart in Chicago. She is also strongly identified with her second husband, director-choreographer Bob Fosse, remembered as the dancer-collaborator-muse for whom he choreographed much of his work and as the guardian of his legacy after his death. (wikipedia)
• • •
This played far more Saturday than Friday for me, either because it's hard, or because I've gotten so used to the NYTXW throwing me softballs on the weekends that I'm out of practice or because, well, see my IN A STUPOR comment, above. Managed to get YETI ERTE DNA (wrong) and TAY-TAY (hyphenated??) at first pass, but I wasn't sure about any of it, and that "R" for "D" error at DNA meant parsing PRAYER MAT was tough (after WELCOME MAT, I was out of ideas). PSI clue was brutal (1D: Abbr. at a pump) (not a gas pump but a tire pump), as was the ambiguous clue on RUG (2D: Runner, e.g.). No idea re: MOSSY (7D: Lime some stream banks—actually thought "stream banks" was some kind of internet thing. Even when I finally got going, I never got that whoosh-whoosh momentum, though eventually "APOLOGY ACCEPTED" dropped and that flowed easily into "LET'S DO THAT AGAIN," and that was sorta fun. The grid is solid but didn't have as many high points as I was expecting. Again, this makes me wonder if I missed a theme. Lots of crosswordese in that SW corner (incl. ELENA ENERO SRO), but mostly the grid stays clean and the cluing stays properly tough. Would've liked this better tomorrow, since I expect a slower, thornier experience on Saturday. But the puzzle doesn't decide when it runs, and it's not that much harder than an average Friday. Just harder than most Fridays have been lately.
After the NW, there were no specific trouble spots, just an overall feel of toughness. Every clue seemed tricky or vague (and thus tricky), except the proper nouns, which (by the grace of god) I happened to actually know today. All of them: TAY-TAY, NOPE, IFILL, ERTE, ELENA, and VERDON (though I misspelled her VERDUN at first). If I left a proper noun out of that list, oh well, I knew that too. I absolutely botched LOGOS because when reading the clue (30D: Greek for "word") my brain rendered "Greek" as "Latin" what the f*&$!? Seriously, just looked at the clue now and was startled to see that "Latin" wasn't in there at all, LOL. That's not IN A STUPOR, that's ... I don't know what that is. A ridiculous misreading. I kept trying LEX... something. So SWAB / BOTTOM / LOGOS was a choke point that really stopped my flow cold. SWAB and NUDES were both effectively hidden from me by make-up clues that I mostly (SWAB) or completely (NUDES) failed to understand. I had NEONS before NUDES (46A: options in some eye shadow palettes). Ooh, I just noticed that PEELER is a nice nod to NOPE, which is directed by Jordan PEELE and rated "R", which makes it ... a PEELE "R" ... and now I'm back to wondering if there's a theme again. Ah well, probably better just to leave it here and let one of you tell me what I missed (if anything).
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100 comments:
A big NAY NAY to TAYTAY. I found this a real slog with no entries that sparkled or made me smile. Just dull.
I agree with Medium-Challenging. Major trouble in the NW, where I fell into all the traps @Rex mentioned, plus I wanted some sort of cOlA for the pop star at 15A. A few correct guesses (MOVIE and TALLS in the NE, the three long downs in the SE and the grid-spanner 58A) helped me finish cheat-free.
I was stuck for awhile in the NE because I wanted the natural rubber to be latex, and thought maybe there’s a new kind of Starbucks order I don’t know about. That wouldn’t be surprising since our downtown Starbucks, where I liked to go occasionally for a nice seasonal peppermint spice latte, moved to a strip mall and is drive-up only, an awful trend in the Starbucks world, please excuse the rant, and I don’t even think Starbucks coffee is that great.
But I generally liked the puzzle, which I found to be hard but do-able. I liked the clues (and answers) for PRAYERMAT, DONTGETUP, LETSDOTHATAGAIN. A good solid Friday.
Rex, I think you got up too early for this one. Then again, I did it late, and ugh.
I don't think I have never heard of PRAYER MATs before (YOGA MATs, sure). But seeing as that answer crossed RUG, I figured out pretty quickly that PRAYER RUG was probably not going to be the answer for 1A.
Definitely way too many UPs in this thing, which I commented to self about when entering 11D.
Just realized that the layout of this puzz has no symmetry. WTF?
That southwest corner was brutal, even for a Friday. ELENA Ferrante, ENERO Mes del Dia de los Reyes Magos, and GWEN Vernon are just a painful trio down there. Kudos to any of you who would consider all three of them household names.
Lots of good punny clues that gave in with just the right amount of pushing at them. Perfect Friday fodder, to my taste.
Found this to be a tough Friday. Neat diagonal symmetry. SW corner was particularly tough with unknown VERDON, ELENA.
With eleven number one albums, TAYTAY just tied Barbra Streisand for tops among women.
“There’s this odd mirror symmetry on the diagonal…”
@Robin. Symmetry is diagonal as @Rex described.
Pretty sure the correct name is EASTERS Island.
That stack in the NW – PRAYER MAT / SUPERNOVA / I GOTTA SAY – is a thing of beauty, buttressed by YETI and TAYTAY.
The rarely-seen diagonal symmetry plus seven NYT answer debuts, gave the grid the zing of freshness. Plus, there were 14 long answers (eight letters or more) with hardly a scent of junk fill – this was top-tier construction.
I was totally fooled by [Natural rubber], threw in LATEX with full confidence. Oh, how I love being totally fooled by a clue – that huge “Hah!” that comes at the moment of revelation ("Oh, because it rubs!"), the high and delight at the wordplay brilliance.
I hope LET’S DO THAT AGAIN is a hint that more collabs by you two are in store. Please? You are a combo that GELS. Thank you for a superb ride!
(An aside to Grant Thackeray. Grant, I didn’t comment yesterday on your puzzle due to the strike, but may I now say that your three-trick pirate-centric creation was highly original, brought me some delicious confusion capped by rousing applause. I was entertained and awed, and am extremely grateful. Bravo!)
I found it a delightful trek. Nice to get some challenge back, but even better were the clever clues, like what's due past due and right on the map. The Crosswordese barely counts as such. Good puzzle!
Wow, surprised to see the lack of love from Rex and early commenters. I think this was my favorite Friday in memory. It was challenging, which a lot of Fridays and Saturdays haven’t been lately. All of the long answers sparkled. And most importantly for me, the clues were superb.
My absolute favorite was “What’s past due?” for TRE. I just love when a boring crosswordy answer gets a delightful clue. The whole NW (which took me a while to get) was excellent with great clues for PRAYER MAT, SUPERNOVA and especially APOLOGY ACCEPTED. Really nice misdirection on the clues for POP UP SHOP (“Store for a short time”) and TATTOO ART (“Wall décor in some parlors” — I was envisioning gilded mirrors and sconces or something.)
I did not notice or care about the four UPs. I did not notice the diagonal symmetry but it’s kind of cool when I look at it. The NE was the hardest for me. It came together when I realized I DID know the voting rights activist after all (Sherrilyn IFILL). Her name has stuck with me because I have wondered if she was related to the late great PBS journalist and author Gwen Ifill, and now I have a good reason to check … (we now pause for a peek at Wikipedia) …yes! They are cousins. In this era of attacks on our right to vote, almost entirely in RED STATEs, she is a name worth knowing.
Loved so many of the clue misdirections
Solidly medium.
Up for doing this again.
I thought you’d say this was Easy because I found it medium. I also knew none of the proper nouns at first pass. Of course I do know Gwen Ifill but didn’t get it from the clue immediately. I guessed on Taytay. Seems a pretty easy to guess nickname.
Tend to agree with the big guy that this trended towards a more stodgy Saturday than fresh Friday. Like the mirror from SW to NE. The clueing felt a little strained - although the fantastic SUPERNOVA stood out. Nice to see limited people - although didn’t know ELENA.
The engr./CIV combo is pretty ugly - most of the threes here just take up space. Learned about MAGPIEs.
Not an ideal Friday - but an enjoyable solve.
SITting STILL
Speaking of themes that weren't: Today's Letter Boxed contains the words "BALTIMORE, HUN" but not in sequence.
Thank you Brooke and Hoang-Kim for today’s puzzle! I liked the mix of clues consisting of both current and past terms. Great way to start a Friday!
Amy: like this a lot. Of course, coincidentally have Elena Ferrante on the bookshelf, know some Spanish, and as a Broadway geek, know Gwen Verdon, so the SW was not woeful. Do not like amusement rides, so was looking to fit a NOT in "Let's do that again." All the ups are fine; better than downs! TGIF
Learned more about ERTE, the dress design part. I just associated him with cool Art Deco design. ENERO and ELENA were gimmes. No idea on TATAY but pretty obvious. Thought this was on the easier side overall (decidedly under avg per NYT app) and really enjoyed the diagonal symmetry!
I really liked this: challenging, colorful, fun. Put in PRAYER with no hesitation at 1A, but wasn’t sure about MAT or “rug” (hi, @Robin), then did the NW downs, found RUG at 2D and it all fell into place. So the NW got resolved amazingly promptly…except that I had SUPERdiVA at 15A until the very end. It almost worked with [Huge pop star?], only a) what is the question mark doing there? b) what bio subject is RdA? and c) how can stream banks be MiSSY? These three queries didn’t pose themselves until I was trying to get the happy music, so I had to do some last-minute damage control on the way to victory.
There’s some tricky stuff here: I just this minute figured out [Natural rubber]/LOOFA (confirmed by @Lewis). Very clever. Loved 48A TRE, [What’s past due?], but then I know my Italian numbers. Took me a minute to get RED STATE [It’s right on a map]. And another to get PALER [More fair] – fair-skinned, of course. Sadly, I filled in downs in the SE and didn't notice the punny [Move-y trailer?]. It was funny to see MAUNA as an answer, the first half of the classic kealoaulu.
I was fortunate in my wheelhouse today: knew ELENA Ferrante, ERTE, and Gwen VERDON. Didn't know TAY-TAY, but found it inferable. Liked the SITS STILL/DON'T GET UP cross. Nice shout-out to (our) MODS. My favorite answer was LET'S DO THAT AGAIN! Such a paean to joyful existence.
I had a laugh at the clue for 22A ["Odi et ___" (start of an old Latin poem)]. What? As opposed to a *new* Latin poem? Anyway, it’s Catullus (1st C. BCE), it’s a poem known as Catullus #85, and the whole thing is:
“Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.”
“I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask.
I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.”
A paean to miserable existence? On that cheery note…
[SB: I didn’t do the SB yesterday, but Tues and Wed, both 0. In both cases my last word was an annoyingly elusive 4-letterer. On Tuesday, I got a word through one of those serendipitous let’s-put-these-letters-together-and-see-what-happens situations. I love it when that works out!]
" I ADMIT that was a LIE, sorry"
"APOLOGY ACCEPTED, I'm not SORE"
TGIF 👍👍
Here's to the MODS, who got a shout-out at 23A, Online forum V.I.P.s.
Great Friday stuff.
No issue with the up- abundance.
Loved the misdirections and the originality of the clues.
Let's definitevely do that again.
@WANDERLUST
You mean like the Georgia voting suppression? That resulted in massive, record turnout, particularly in minority communities?
Yeah. I thought so.
Loved the puzzle.
I was put off by PRAYERMAT as to me it's always been PRAYER[rug], and a mat seems a poor replacement for an archetypical hand woven prayer rug. The internets say that I'm just a judgmental, out of date and opinionated old fool, and we all know the internets are always right.
Gwen VERDON made me wonder out loud how many of us are really that old so as to not wonder WTFI Gwen VERDON? I just now got TheJoker's joke. I admire a joke that takes about a half hour to sink in, and still be a good joke.
@Southside - I know approximately zero Spanish, but even I can translate the clue to Month of the day of the three magi. Add that to the fact that if you've done 20 or more NYT Crosswords then you've encountered ENERO for January, and you're all set.
I appreciated a real Friday amidst the half-baked Fridays we've been getting lately
Hey All !
Puz was on the UP and UP, twice! BUYING UP, UPON, POPUP SHOP, DONT GET UP. Even IN A STUPOR gets in on the UP action. Great for @M&A's U's.
Another fantastic thing, crossing ROOs! That's a win in my book! 😁
Puzzle has Diagonal Symmetry. Starts from the NE corner square (14) traveling to the SW corner square (64). So if you folded the puz along that line, the Blockers line up. Neat, huh? Kind of a cheat when a one-block-Blocker gets folded in half, but, as the saying goes, it is what it is.
ADMIT/AMBIT pair seems like it should mean something. Neat either way.
Had pePsicOlA for SUPERNOVA first. Worked with the clue! Surprised I finished with no errors! IFILL was iffy. Odd clue for ENERO. I know about *this* much Spanish, but all I got from the clue was "the day of the". Unsure what Reyes Magos means. @Gill? @pablo? Red mangoes? Har. Or is it a person?
SITSSTILL odd looking with no space twixt the words. shakER for PEELER first, thinking how smart am I.
Nice FriPuz, Brooke and Hoang-Kim. Seems like I was hung up all over, but finished in a quick time for me, 24 minutes. Gives me hope for the ole brain. 😁
One F (I FILL ROOs!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Am I the only one? I always print out a hard copy and solve on paper. The printout I got today is for Saturday's puzzle.
Maybe has something to do with yesterday's strike?
One of those morning leaving me feeling real smart-like. This was one of my fastest fridays ever. MOSSY and TAYTAY gave me PRAYER MAT and SUPERNOVA immediately. From there I zoomed all over the grid. With just a few letters I got APOLOGY ACCEPTED, and then LETS’S DO THAT AGAIN which really opened everything UP. I was certain something must be wrong with all of these UPs but got the happy music when I lastly filled in the only real trouble for me: PISTIL crossing CIV crossing VERDON. I knew the plant part, but couldn’t recall the spelling. A lot of fun, new, and clean fill, making for a great solve. I finally saw NOPE last weekend after delaying because of bad reviews and I found it excellent. Wish I had trusted my gut and seen it in theaters. C’est la vie.
-brando
Typically tough Friday, with some odd cluing. APOLOGYACCEPTED in a closing argument? That doesn't work for a lawyer's argument in court, or for a realtor at a cluing. Don't get the clue for POPUPSHOP.
But I managed to finish it without cheating, once I realized ELLE was not the one-named vocalist. I'm old enough to have remembered Gwen Verdon, which helped in the SW.
About that strike... the tweet from Oliver Darcy Rex included yesterday said the strike would begin at midnight Thursday -- which would mean it's today, not yesterday. But my subscription is prepaid, the paper is delivered to my door, and the NYT doesn't get any revenue from my commenting here, so here goes.
I started off strong, throwing in PRAYER rug with no crosses. But 2D had to be RUG (Rex found that clue vague, but what else could it be in three letters?), and I went into a tizzy of mentally checking crosses without writing anything in. MOSSY/BYLAW/SWAB gave me the confidence to put in MAT, and T seemed a good start to Ms. Swift's nickname.
I went for the Latex trap, too, and my mixologist had a jiggER in her toolkit, but that all sorted out.
What didn't sort out was I GOT To SAY. I never checked the cross to see RNA, so that's on me.
@Barbara S., Harvard still has a student deliver a Latin address at Commencement, so I bet that someone somewhere is writing new Latin poems, as well. I don't know who, however.
Although there are indeed three of them, the phrase in the clue would translate to something like "day of the magi kings." The "three" is in a different answer, in a different language.
Technical question: is OVERDRIVE (36-D) really "high gear?" According to my dim memory from high school days, it was a device you used to let each gear get the car moving faster. I never did know how it worked, however.
Yes, TRINA - I love it when attempts at voter suppression make people so angry they show up in droves! Hooray for Warnock!
I highly recommend you read Ferrante’s books. Incredible depiction of a young girl growing up in Italy while navigating friendships and poverty. They’re beautiful.
Loved the north! SE started out a little sticky, SW was a bit scary, but ended up inferable. This made it feel less fun overall, but I still really enjoyed the many clever clues & long answers
The argument the clue is getting at is a relational quibble, not legal.
Loved every minute of this solve. Bravo for construction, bravo for clue-writing. Thanks very much for an enjoyable morning activity.
Spa Nua
Rapa Nua
Thx, Brooke & Hoang-Kim; excellent job! :)
Easy-med.
Smooth Fri. puz, with the exception of the SW, which offered some welcome resistance (but not too much).
Had to LOL, as my first entry was RED CARPET (obviously didn't pay attention to the 'faithfully' part of the clue).
Unknowns/learnings: 'Odi et' AMO; VERDON; 'Dias de los Reyes Magos'; TAY TAY; IFILL.
When and where Is Reyes Magos?
"Known in the Anglophone world as the Epiphany, the arrival of the Three Wise Men is defined in Spain by the enormous expectation and the tremendous annual celebrations that revolve around the event. Festivities officially start the evening before Epiphany, on the night of January 5, when the Cabalgata de los Reyes Magos (Three Kings' Parade) takes place in every town and city, with hundreds upon hundreds of people crowding the main roads of the urban settlements in order to get a glimpse of the reenactment of the arrival of the Three Kings into town." (Enforex)
BOTTOM line: I was pretty much on the right wavelength for this one; definitely UP to the challenge! :)
@Barbara S. (9:09 AM) 😊 for recent SB 0's!
Agree with @OffTheGrid (9:13 AM) re: 'shout-out' to the MODS! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
I got to the end of the puzzle and thought LET'S DO THAT AGAIN. I loved it!
My first quandry was what I thought would be two RUGs -- the RUG of PRAYER RUG at the punny 1A -- which went in right away -- and the RUG for "runner", the only possible 3-letter answer. So something had to be changed, and then I thought to change 1A to PRAYER MAT.
Don't know what LOOFA is, but the right side of the puzzle was mostly pretty easy. The left side was another story and I really struggled with the long Spanish clue for our old standby ENERO -- which in this case was a great big "Huh?" for me.
So they call her TAYTAY, do they? I find that a pretty nauseating nickname -- but I suppose that if she doesn't mind...She's probably gagging all the way to the bank.
Never would have gotten APOLOGY ACCEPTED just from the clue, but it made the puzzle crunchier. Must go and look up AMBIT which I didn't see from "limits".
An elegant grid -- the kind of "lots of white space" puzzle that I tend to really enjoy.
First came the Automat, then the Laundromat. For a while, there was the Fotomat. And now, ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to announce the PRAYERMAT, where no clerks or clerics, fry cooks or friars, come between you and whatever you pray for or to.
Without an ass in sight, I think we’ve hit BOTTOM. Especially when it’s crossed by both SWAB and DONTGETUP. Maybe toilet training is a mini theme today.
Rex is looking for a theme, but I’m not BUYING UP as a candidate. I did notice the 4 UPs, and was prepared to devise an hilarious wordplay regarding them, but since they’ve already been acknowledged, I’ll keep my powder dry.
Speaking of already acknowledged, the clues contained a slew of wonderful misdirections. I won’t list them again, but I will say thanks to Brooke Husic and Hoang-Kim Vu for a great collaboration.
Reckon I'm pretty day-em confused right now. Where's the ThursPuz discussion go to?
Also, when I waited and printed off the NYTPuz this mornin, I got the SatPuz.
Think I'll go on strike, until it all sorts out...
M&A
Medium. oct(ane) before PSI and ADopT before ADMIT made the top half a bit tough. The bottom half was on the easier side. Smooth with some sparkle and a fair amount of resistance. Liked it.
Re: Yesterday’s: Easy and a little odd. Liked it too.
Maybe I was INASTUPOR like @Rex seemed to suggest he was or maybe I wasn’t on the same wavelength as the constructors. Anyway, I found the puzzle a bit of a slog today even though I knew most of the PPP, ie TAYTAY and ELENAFerrante (I read the Neapolitan novels). There WERE some clever clues but two that I did not like were for ADMIT and BOTTOM. I KNOW they are technically fine…I just don’t like them. Probably because I had LATEX and tried to make my Starbucks offerings EXLGS because I HATE burnt bean coffee and always thought their sizing system was stupid.
@Kishef, interesting to know that TAYTAY is tied with Barbra now. I mentioned this to my husband and he said “Hmmm. I think they need to account for population size adjustment and the fact that young people today have more money to buy music.” Well, he did mention indulgent parents, etc.
I did the same with red carpet! Thought after I filled it in, “I’m clearly missing something faithful or I don’t get the pun” (which happens sometimes).
Victor Borge used to tell of a relative of his who was a chemist but dreamed of being an inventor. He came up with a formula for a new soft drink and sank all of his savings into it. He called it "4 Up," but it failed and he lost everything.
He spent years improving the formula and saving up cash and tried again, this time calling it "5 Up." Again, it failed and he was ruined.
Undaunted, he spent years revising the formula again, went into debt, and produced it under the name "6 Up." This time when it failed he grew depressed. He died several years later, embittered, never realizing how close he had come.
Re 24D, while the clue is the past tense of START, the answer - BEGUN - isn’t the past tense of begin!
Yesterday @Rex said, " The blog will return to a regular schedule on Friday, Dec. 9, at which time I will also solve today's (Thursday's) puzzle and add basic information about it to this post."
Does anyone know if Rex did that and how to find it?
The REDCARPET is rolled out for faithful fans and it fit perfectly for 3 Down answers:. REG, RNA and TAYTAY. Do the faithful refer to it as a MAT? I doubt it.
Great, tough puzzle. Perfect Friday in most ways.
@Anon 11:06. You are right. However, "BEGUN" can substitute for "Started". e.g., The party has started. The party has BEGUN. Yay English!
I GOTTA SAY that seeing Brooke tag team with Hoang-Kim was intimidating! Her recent New Yorker grid gave me fits….in a good way I ADMIT, but gees her clueing is just consistently faking me into entries that lead directly to the brick wall at the end of the mental culde-sac. Red carpet and PRAYER MAT as possible nonet options for 1A??? Come on. And “natural rubber” made latex so obvious (but wrong) that LOOFA was a tragic misdirected 16A clue without the helping question marks that made “what’s past due” a more easily seen 48A trick. Thanks for a great Friday you two; dare I say “LETS DO THAT AGAIN.”
I’m with the crowd today: Tough but a delight! A good number of clever and/or chuckle-inducing clues with multiple opportunities to be led in the wrong direction—LOOFA not LATEX being one of the best examples. Lovely to see IFILL in the puzzle this morning, the surname of two great African-American icons, Gwen gone far too soon.
Bravo to the constructors. . . an outstanding Friday.
Very fun solve! I connected with many of the tricky clues--PRAYER MAT went in instantly. Time-wise, I'd call it a Medium-Easy (as distinct from an Easy-Medium).
Felt like I ran into a V every other answer, but there are only 5 of them in the grid.
I, too, fell for the Latex misdirect, then "corrected" it with LOuFA! So that was a holdup. Briefly had LETS DO THis AGAIN.
I ended with the A at AMO/AMBIT. Can somebody explain AMBIT to me as an answer for "Limits?" I can't figure that out at all.
What’s “UP” with this puzzle and/or the editors? Glad to see a true themeless Friday, but like OFL, I was tricked into looking for one fir quite some time. This week really messed with my head. That, and I am battling the bilateral iritis again and can’t see worth squat.
I always get some extra caffeine going when I see a Brooke Husic byline, and this one comes with a to me nee constructor who paired very nicely with Brooke to create a really crunchy Friday! If it hadnt been for getting SUPER NOVA early on, I might never have finished today because even understanding that the “faithfully” in 1A clue “something faithfully rolled out,” wouldn’t let Prayer mat fall largely because I already had RUG in 2D in response to “runner.” I always think of a PRAYER rug, so for some idiotic reason my brain wouldn’t let PRAYER stay in. Go figure. I blame it on the “runner” and its deke RUG. Super clever construction ploy for sure. I would live to know if it was intentional. Maybe @Rex will ask his friend Brooke for us.
So then I got hung up on the LOOFA. Fell right into the misdirect and did was so proud that I know that a loofah is not made of a natural rubber, so I skipped down a bit and got a solid start down the right side.
In fact, I wasn’t one who SITS STILL and thinks, but rather got my @Rex-like “whoosh” going all the way to the BOTTOM of the right. Put my imaginary football on the TEE and right through the goal posts! And the. Spent about three times as long with the remainder of this one.
Talk about being IN A STUPOR! The puzzle might as well have been clued in ancient runes! If it weren’t for CIV, ROOSTS and ENERO, I do believe this would have been a DNF (what with the RUG/MAT issue at the top). But I persevered. This was a fabulous Friday. I get to justify my extra coffee and feel good about grinding through a good puzzle. What’s not to like?
I forgot to mention (and apologize if this is a repeat - haven’t had time to read all the posts yet) but the loofa plant is lots of fun to grow. It isn’t “rubber” and the “loofah” sponges aren’t from the loofa plant. Real loofa is part of the cucumber family, the fruit is edible but grows so quickly (in a hot summer, the fruits often grow 2 inches a day! Took me only a moment to understand that usage if “rubber” in the clue meant a tool by which through friction, massages the body. Truly clever.
Tried RED CARPET instead of PRAYER MAT and it took a long time to sort out 🙁
And the "My Brilliant Friend" series on HBO Max is excellent!
Prayer "rug" hung me up til the end.
Kudos to Brooke and Kim for a crunchy Friday puzzle with lots of great answers and clues.
Favorite answers: LET’S DO THAT AGAIN, DON’T GET UP, and APOLOGY ACCEPTED
Favorite clues: What’s past due?, Store for a short time, and Wall decor in some parlors
Least favorite thing for multiple reasons : TAY TAY
My only real complaint is the headache I got from trying to see the diagonal symmetry.
My kind of crossword. Lotsa sparkle (16 red plus signs in the margins). Smart cluing with a sense of humor. Fourteen longs. Brava, Ms. Husic!
AMBIT? ugh
I really liked this puzzle - the two PPP I didn’t know were gettable (TAYTAY and ELENA), the longs were real phrases (INASTUPOR much better than INAPET), and the cluing was FUN!
Couldn’t solve the NW - was stuck on REDCARPET and SUPERDIVA (which gave me PISSY as Like some stream banks - which kinda made sense, in terms of contents of some webstreams and the actual streaming of the act itself. Did seem somewhat use for NYTXW but looking for a reason to believe).
But who cares about streaks? - when the challenge is entertaIning and lively, I can’t be pissy! Thanks Brooke and Kim!
Brooke really seems to be churning these puzzles out. They are all well made and hard, yet fair. I just don’t get any joy from them. Often obscure PPP, long answers that aren’t fun like Robyn Weintraub’s, and slogs overall. There isn’t much flow to them, kind of like what Rex hinted at.
I'm going to DO THAT AGAIN, and say that in my experience Fridays are tougher than Saturdays, and today's certainly was. I fell right into the latex trap, and my writeover was to replace latex with LOOFA. Had I remembered the alternate name for the ANVIL bone, I would have done much better. And that bartender tool was a surprising PEELER. Which I should know, since for quite a while I was a regular consumer of cocktails that required a twist of lemon or PEEL of orange.
Lotsa TRAPS here, and I'm not complaining. I wanted something including East for "right on a map" but of course REDSTATE was perfect. I can remember when both Georgia and Arizona were reliably RED in their politics. And KUDOS (a fine old xword answer, seldom seen now) for DON'T GET UP and POPUP SHOP.
I bet lots of us saw OVERDRIVE and immediately thought of Hot Rod Lincoln. "Man alive, I shoved it on down into OVERDRIVE." The Commander did the best version, IMO. But I often heard the original as a kid, and have driven the original route over the Grapevine Hill, and even spent the night in Lebec, at the first-rate Best Western there.
But I am still waiting for OFL to publish his review of yesterday's puzzle, which I was really looking forward to. I hope the time will come soon when I can see it, and if he expresses his regret for the delay, I will say, "APOLOGY ACCEPTED."
Well, I got a solved yesterday's puz, and a solved tomorrow's puz. Sooo … not much puzly-ish to comment on about today's, here.
But evidently today's puz featured entries like TAYTAY, and zero theme, so M&A is ok with missin out on all that.
Fearless forcast: Tomorrow's SatPuz, by S.S., has a 1-Across clue that starts with the Word "Eye" and a 1-Down clue that starts with "Woe". So I hopefully didn't just dream all this.
And, of course, for all I know they'll switch puzs again, before tomorrow. snort
Confusion-struck M&A
p.s. Only 15 shoppin days left. Bought my gift to bro-in-law yesterday [steamin pile of schlock flick dvds]. The young-ish check-out clerk was mighty impressed -- said my inlaw was real lucky.
While I was diggin thru the bargain movies bin, overheard another clerk and a customer tryin desperately to recall who the two stars in "Lethal Weapon" were. M&A was able to help em out, on that.
**gruntz**
This was an enjoyable solve, just what I needed after a rough night at the poker table. I join others in saying "more of these please".
I was, however, writing a sanctimonious screed about there being no symmetry in this grid since there was no counterpart to 3D APOLOGY ACCEPTED. About half way through I realized it was not another Down but rather an Across, 58A LETS DO THAT AGAIN, that was the symmetrical counterpart. D'Oh! Quickly pressed the erase key as my high dudgeon turned into sheepish contrition. Diagonal symmetry is tricky, right?
Nice to see some Latin love and respect on display at 22A "Odi et AMO". Now if we could just extend that to rebus, as in Non Verbis Sed Rebus (Not by words but by things).
Another "can't be RUG twice" here, so MAT, which led to other things, which led to other things, and finished having had a fine old time with no real WTF moments. Well, maybe TAYTAY. but that was kind of obvious. Not my fastest time ever, I'm sure, because I was watching Croatia/Brazil which was a great game.
Took too long to see RADON. I may have a mental block on that one as we had to invest a lot of money in RADON remediation when we sold our house. We lived there for fifteen years without even thinking about such a thing, which is probably why it didn't affect us.
@Roo-A couple of folks have explained the Reyes Magos already. I'll just add that in Spain they're the guys who bring the goodies, not Santa, so kids have to wait until Jan. 6. They are thoughtful enough to leave shoes filled with straw outside the door for the camels. The common question is "What do you want the kings to bring you?".
I print the puzzle and got the Friday version. Wonder what was going on elsewhere?
Very nice Friday indeed, BH and HKV. Big Huzzahs and Hugs, Kisses and Valentines to you both. Thanks for all the fun.
Liked this one. A lot of the longer answers were intuitive enough to help with the shorter fill. PRAYERMAT slid in smoothly and instantly for me. Rug would not have entered my mind as a possibility. A rug, to my way of thinking, generally stays in one spot, whereas a mat is portable (see also yoga mat), which is handy when there's a good chance that not all five of your daily prayers are going to be at home.
Also liked yesterday's pirate one. I liked the variety of gimmick styles, and that they were all punny and/or metacommentative in some way. It was the right kind and amount of clever for me. There was some IRL serendipity with it for me personally as well, as I'm currently building a pirate-themed deck in Magic: The Gathering.
It was disappointing, albeit unsurprising, to see such nastiness toward the strike yesterday. I did the puzzle before I learned about it here, but I at least sat out Wordle and Spelling Bee. I will always default to siding with workers sight unseen, unless they give me a compelling reason not to. Labor creates everything. Management creates nothing. Management merely exploits labor. Therefore, when labor perceives a problem with the way things are going, I will believe them before I believe management.
There also seemed to me to be a very simplistic understanding of how strikes, especially such short ones, impact businesses in the short term. People ought to have enough sense to leave garbage like "iF there WaS a StRiKe ThEn WhY did I sTiLL get My PaPeR???" in their brain's drafts folder. Even with so many walking out, it's more likely there would be a paper than not. A lot of columns and features were probably already in the can, and it's not like scabs don't exist.
I liked this... the long answers were great. Has anyone mentioned that PRAYER MAT crosses RUG? Also, did no one else immediately type in RED CARPET as the thing being rolled out?
I had an error at square 45, I guess because I thought that "engr." in the clue meant "engraving". After correcting, I stared at CIV and thought whaaat?
[Spelling Bee: yd 0; QB streak now at 7 straight and 10 of last 11. @Barbara S, I had the exact same last words on Tue and Wed!]
Brooke Husic is fast becoming my immediate backup to Robyn Weintraub. Their puzzles are so fresh and the "?" clues pretty much always lead to at least a big smile, often a laugh. There's never a sense that the puzzle was constructed for the joys of showing off the constructor's skills or making the solver feel small by scattering near-impossible answers throughout. Just a joy from start to finish.
P.S. Please do not call me TAYTAY. Ugh!
@MarthaC 9:35....Same thing happened to me!!!! I never pay attention to dates because I don't want to. BUT...I downloaded my puzzle last night and thought this is the hardest Friday I've ever done....YIKES.
On to today's....
I GOTTA SAY LETS DO THAT AGAIN....Compared to what y'all get tomorrow, this was sweet and more on the easy side for moi.
Did anyone else have RED CARPET for 1A? I left that area and went singing with a MAGPIE. LOVED the misdirect for LOOFA. IFILL (I actually knew the name!) gave me the F and I did the AHA dance. See..you use a LOOFA to rub your body free of germs. Also loved the TRE clue...as in uno due TRE..Another AHA...And so it went....
Back up stairs to stare at my bad RED CARPET. AHA... 4 down has to be YETI so there's a Y beseeching me to just fill in PRAYER and get on with it. I did. TAY TAY? Ay dios mio...Did someone say NAE NAE? I can't SIT STILL. There' a SORE BOTTOM lurking somewhere. I finally got to the end with TEE, and thought of riding a smooth rollercoaster. It was fun.
Amigo ROO....Just for you: "We Three Kings of Orient Are.........Or maybe We Thee Wise Men come baring some gifts to all the children in Spain.
Can't wait to hear the comments mañana ...it's a doozy.
Jberg,
Yes, in fact, overdrive is the highest gear. And though film, TV and song have the mistaken impression that it somehow makes a car go faster, in fact overdrive only reduces engine RPMs. It's a device used to improve gas mileage by making the engine work less.
And Rex, PSI is used at an air pump. No such thing as a tire pump.
Correct! BEGUN is the past participle of "to begin" and is used with "have/had" as in The Carpenters song: "We've only just begun" 😊
Start, started, has/have started : Begin, began, has/have begun. The past tense and past participle of "to start" are the same.
@TaytaySlow 1:32 (sorry, couldn’t resist!)
Agree with you on Ms. Husic. Before I open up app, look at Chen’s xinfo site to see the author (just the front page - the cheating on the second page comes later).
Whenever I see the smiling face of Brooke or Robyn, I have to smile too. (Apologies for butchering James TAYTAY’s lyrics).
Really liked this, much more than the weird pirate stuff yesterday. Blog was also strange yesterday, filled with more Anon comments than usual. I’m a union supporter and also generally partial to the NYT (which is not an endorsement of management), and I was surprised to see so much hostility toward it expressed yesterday. Whatever that means.
@jberg (9:44)
I'm so glad you mentioned that! It does my Latin-loving heart good to think that there may be 21st-century poets writing in that venerable language.
@okanaganer (1:26 PM)
Our last words the same two days in a row -- that's amazing -- Snap! And for once we're both getting QBs at the same time.
Hah! I see a lot of people hate TAY-TAY. But I think it's a lot better than "Taylie," another nickname possibility, which to my ear sounds the more babyish of the two. Mind you, I have a very dear friend of longstanding who calls me Babsie, so who am I to judge? I've never tried to dissuade her because I think the name is so darn funny.
@MarthaCatherine I downloaded the PDF version of the puzzle early this morning and raced through it. I wanted Rex's opinion and saw his "medium-challenging" and thought srsly? Then I saw his answers were for a completely different puzzle.
I looked at the PDF again and sure enough it says 12/10/22.
I went back to the NYT site and they fixed the link, so I got Friday. Which I also thought was easy.
I'm really not that smart. Perhaps divine intervention. I gotta buy a lottery ticket.
@andrew: Somehow, somewhere, you're gonna pay for that! ;>)
@Anonymous 1:50: You are correct, sir (or madam)! I drive a stick, and gear 6 boosts my mileage considerably.
Decided at this point that @RP ain't gonna do much more bloggerizin about yesterday's puz, so I just splatzed my ThursPuz comment over there under the Strike Announcement blog dealie. Liked the ThursPuz, btw.
Kinda conflicted on workin today's puz now. I had worked the SatPuz, thinkin it was the FriPuz, then came over to here and read @RP's write-up. Looked at it for a while, and thought "This sure don't sound familiar." Yep. Wrong puz, M&A breath.
Guess I'll save up my already-completed SatPuz solution for tomorrow's blog, and delay doin the FriPuz solvequest until tomorrow, so I'll still have a NYTPuz to work. Hopefully by then I can forget most of what @RP said about it [other than TAYTAY, which is really too grizzly to cleanse from memory that fast].
But, I digress. Back to the future …
Masked & Anonymo2tays
p.s. After takin a tay … er … day off for the one-day strike time, today M&A wordled in 2. May have been tomorrow's wordle, I suppose … I'm startin to lose track of my current time travel location. Anyhoo, the one wordle-day off to rest up mighta helped. Need to do that, more often.
I agree with Anon @1:50 that, contrary to popular belief, 36D OVERDRIVE doesn't make a car go faster, it changes to a higher gear ratio that lowers the engine RPMs while maintaining the same road speed (MPH). I learned this from my Austin Healey 3000 I had back in the 60s. It had an electrically actuated OVERDRIVE that would drop the engine RPMs down from 3100 to 2700 at 65 MPH. That was the peak of the torque curve and a very efficient RPM for the engine. It also produced a silky smooth, deep, rich "muffler note", as the Brits would say. Loved that sound. Great car.
I do however disagree that there is "No such thing as a tire pump." I have a manually operated one in the trunk of my car. I once had a manually operated bicycle tire pump that had a built-in pressure gauge with a PSI scale.
Thought it was a decent puzzle that was hard to get on the wavelength of. Mostly seems like editorial failure in not setting the right tone and distinguishing better when and where to use the ? and other misdirections.
So am I the only one who thought maybe the third pirate theme is that a hook hand can give somebody a real POKE if wielded at a certain angle? Pirates play poker. Sheesh.
That “past due” clue is ancient
didn't get the rubber pun until I started reading the posts, so thank you all for that!
started 1A off with red carpet, which is faithfully rolled out each year for the oscars, so that took a bit of re-thinking after a while
I liked the puz but thought that there were a bit too many proper names which is where my troubles ran deep. other than that, a regular friday.
Enero - January in Spanish - is often in crosswords. All those vowels -
There’s something about puzzles by constructors such as Ms. Brooke Husic, and others like Mr. Erik Agard that really bring a lot of freshness with their word lists, but I never seem to get on the wavelength with the clues by any of these creators. They always end up being easier than they seem, but it’s usually a lot of wordplay clues (which I love, but I also love balance) or esoteric trivia for simple answers. I dunno. And then the word lists are definitely fresh, but often a bit dull in the end. I dunno. This one finally clicked and became pretty easy. Just not very rewarding, I guess.
It’s late and probably no one will see this, but I just needed to say that 40A is Incorrect (the way it’s clued, at least). If you mean to imply Spanish (because of AGUA FRESCA) then the fruit is GUAYABA. There’s no GUAVA in Spanish; that is just how Americans say it because….I don’t know, because guayaba is too long? Whatever. This need to change the spelling of original words is fastidious.
So I am a moron: please explain TRE? Thx
due is two in Italian tre is three
I would call this medium for a Friday. With a YETI/LIE/RUG start, I saw the double entendre meaning of 15 across right off--perhaps because I'm an astrophysics junkie. SUPERNOVA let me finish the NW; then noticing the APOL- start to 3-down it was easy to get APOLOGYACCEPTED, and I was off and running.
Unusual diagonal symmetry; I have no idea how you would even set that up. And speaking of UP... well, you know. It does seem that the offending area could be reworked--but not by me! There's some other fill that didn't exactly thrill me, so I'll say par.
Par also in Wordle, but it felt like a birdie, progress-wise: BBYBB BBYYB YGBBB GGGGG. Weird.
ALAS DON'T LIE
IGOTTASAY it MADE some SENSE
THAT ELENA OPTED for men,
IN OVERDRIVE when NUDE with gents,
with TACT says, "LET'SDOTHATAGAIN."
--- OTTO PEELER
Saturday-level toughness but fair. Not much junk fill. IGOTTASAY, nice work Brooke and Huong-Kim. LETSDOTHISAGAIN.
EDIT - LETSDOTHATAGAIN
Got most of it - that's saying a lot! Especially since I got the long answers. (as is often the case)
Thanks, @Foggy, for saying it was Saturday level. And I agree - fair. Except for the random Latin phrase.
Good brain workout.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Inkfest again with my natural rubber as Latex before LOOFA. The rest MADESENSE although names and Latin are not always my best chance of getting an answer.
Wordle birdie!
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