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Relative difficulty: Easy (a Downs-only breeze, so I'm assuming a breeze in general)
Theme answers:
- SOAP OPERA (18A: Daytime television drama) (soapbox, opera box)
- JUICE PRESS (24A: Kitchen gadget for the health-conscious) (juice box, press box)
- TINDER MATCH (35A: Romantic prospect after swiping right) (tinderbox, matchbox)
- SQUEEZE TOY (53A: Stress ball, e.g.) (squeezebox, toy box)
The term squeezebox (also squeeze box, squeeze-box) is a colloquial expression referring to any musical instrument of the general class of hand-held bellows-driven free reed aerophones such as the accordion and the concertina. The term is so applied because such instruments are generally in the shape of a rectangular prism or box, and the bellows is operated by squeezing in and drawing out.
• • •
I'm assuming that, for those of you (nearly all of you) who solved it normally (i.e. using the Downs *and* the Acrosses), the puzzle played very fast, even for a Monday. I can tell you that from a Downs-only perspective, it was for sure on the easy side. I can't remember a NYT Downs-only puzzle I've solved so easily. With all those long Downs right up front, I thought the opposite was going to be the case, but BLUEJAY was a gimme and a godsend (that "J" really helped put together JUICE BOX, eventually). There were really only a small handful of Downs that didn't go straight in the grid, and those never bogged me down, as the surrounding answers eventually made the answers clear. The most initial holes in the grid came in the NW, where I didn't get - RAPTURE, ANTSIEST, or COMIC at the first go (I thought that last one might be STRIP) (25D: "Doonesbury" or "Dilbert"). But the Downs that actually ended up giving me the most real *trouble* were SCALES (13D: What kosher seafood has that nonkosher seafood does not) and SNYDER'S (43D: Big name in pretzels). I had no idea that SCALES were the Kosher dealbreaker. I knew that shellfish were a no-no, but never thought about the actual parameters. SCALES and fins—that's the deal. Gotta have SCALES and fins or ... not kosher. As for SNYDER'S, I am vaguely familiar with the brand, but no way was I getting that from the clue alone, so I just had to wait for the point when I could infer enough of the crosses to make sense of the answer. I think the "Y" from SQUEEZE TOY was the thing that finally triggered my SNYDER'S memory. I had some trouble with BEASTS at the very end (46D: Wild animals), but the neighboring Downs were so easy that BEASTS became clear rather quickly.
Aside from ALB and YES'M and the playground retort (truly the worst crossword answer genre) (DOES SO), there wasn't much to make me frown today. As usual, I couldn't remember the vowel that went at the end of PESET- (19D: Bygone Spanish currency). I always want it to be PESETO because of PESO. My brain makes an analogy and won't let go. But I know better than to write it in, and I just wait for crosses to take care of the issue. While I was solving (and not looking at Across clues), I was kinda hoping the STANTON was going to be Harry Dean STANTON. But it's never, ever been Harry Dean STANTON. Just the suffragist STANTON or Lincoln's Secretary of War STANTON. It's time to give one of our greatest character actors his due! In a 60-year career that included appearances in over 80 movies, from Paris, Texas to Pretty in Pink ... it's Harry Dean STANTON. Coming soon, to a grid near you, I hope. Good day.
Easyish. Just about right for a Monday. Smooth grid, familiar theme well executed, liked it.
ReplyDeleteI too did not know the kosher fact about SCALES.
Croce solvers: Croce’s Freestyle #786 started out early week easy. The NW went very quickly. Alas, the rest put up a pretty good fight. So, medium a Croce over all for me. Good luck!
Rex - I think these BOXES are absolutely fused into common phrases; no matter that they are separate words. The fact that they’re legitimate in-the-language noun phrases is “fused” enough for me.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is a most excellent example of the theme type. Bravo, Emily, for thinking of this.
Fun to have DATES right over TINDER MATCH. And the aftermath (under) – after realizing that it’s not a good fit and the DATE becomes a CHORE. OOPS.
SQUEEZE TOY reminded me of this. It was our newfie Beverly Ann’s favorite toy, has become my son’s dog’s favorite toy, and Sage reports that it’s also Finn’s favorite toy. They’re eviscerated pretty quickly, but not matter; they’re cheap. If you have a dog who’s so inclined, hie thee to your nearest Walmart to buy a few.
Ok. So in my never-ending quest to be seen as cultured and word-traveled, I get that I’m not supposed to order cappuccino after 11am lest someone pegs me a philistine. I wonder if there’s a SCONE rule, too? Like, they really are just for afternoon tea and not a breakfast option? I already know to add milk, not cream, to my tea, but if I’m showing my Yank slip by eating scones in the morning, I’ma have to re-evaluate. [brief google dive] . . . I’m right – they’re just for teatime. Noted.
(I’m reminded of how always I spot the very scone I want the barista to grab for me, the biggest one with the most visible blueberries, but I’m too ashamed at my piggery to actually ask for it.)
To piggyback on the SCALES/non-kosher dealie – here’s a question: does anything with scales and a fin qualify as seafood? So like fish caught in a pond or river would be considered seafood? I feel like it is, but my son vehemently disagrees.
DENZEL is timely; Mom and I watched one of his movies yesterday on Netflix, and she reminded me that his wife Pauletta is from Newton, NC, where Mom is from. I found myself for the umpteenth time trying to wrangle this factoid into making Mom, and myself by extension, kind of a big deal. It’s my plan when I meet Denzel to share this commonality casually, not desperately, so that he trusts me to form a strong friendship. Maybe he and Pauletta will pop over to Denver when they’re in town for scones or something. I haven’t worked out all the details yet.
Speaking of Mom, the clue for HOT TODDY reminded me of this bottle she keeps in her bedside table – Mr. Boston’s Rock and Rye - for when she can’t stop coughing. She’s not a big drinker, so it lasts forever, but she swears by it. I think it’s cool to have an 88-year-old mom who swigs liquor straight from the bottle next to her bed. You go, girl.
Solving downs only, the complete unknown names URSULA and SNYDERS were a real problem. But somehow I got those sorted out, only to be flummoxed by having "Pepto Bismol dosage" be CUPFUL (clued!... it seemed perfect!), crossing UREA (unclued). But wait, there's more! For "Greeted the day" I had AWOKE instead of AROSE. Real fail for me tonight. But I did get the theme pretty quick, and a good theme it was!
ReplyDeleteI have lived in two 1940s era houses, but have never had a FUSE BOX. I guess fuse boxes were so archaic that they got upgraded to breaker panels long before I lived there. I'm also grateful that the arrival of natural gas here in the 1950s resulted in prompt removal of the coal/sawdust burner furnaces, and the coal rooms becoming... rooms not full of messy flammable fuel. Sometimes progress is good!
[Spelling Bee: Sun 0, but it was a struggle! There were a couple of words I tried in desperation and was quite surprised were accepted. Then I tried several that are real words but were rejected: tuple, tuplet, pluton, lepton. I think Sam has a bias against science and tech. Anyway, QB streak 10 days!]
A good deal harder than usual, a good bit better than usual, and a theme reveal that took me a good while to understand, but was joyful when I grokked it.
ReplyDeleteAREOLAS and ASS ... just keep it coming NYTXW team. You leave us in awe.
Another day, another white lady with a messed up philosophy on who counts and who doesn't in Elizabeth Cady STANTON. Spoiler alert, she worked for enfranchisement of women... who looked like her.
A lymerick-ish:
There once was a boy named DENZEL
his bright smile brought glory to ENAMEL
the gals swooned ENRAPTURED
HOT TODDIES became encaptured
by the results of toothpaste by the LADEL.
Uniclues:
1 Out of control anger at juiced biker Armstrong.
2 Super model Kate goes without makeup.
3 Online cartoon mocking healthy habits.
4 Poop patrol.
5 Early 70s Soul Train dancer.
6 Aardvarks.
7 Republican health care plan.
1 LANCE IRE MANIC
2 UPTON SOAP OPERA
3 JUICE PRESS ZINE
4 OOPS CHORE (~)
5 ULTRA-FRO ELDER
6 ANTSIEST BEASTS
7 ANEMIA HOT TODDY
“Mama’s got a squeeze box, daddy never sleeps at night.”
ReplyDeleteAnd a big yes! to Harry Dean STANTON!
My five favorite clues from last week
ReplyDelete(in order of appearance):
1. Ones who don't want to hear that you're laying down on the job? (7)(6)
2. Directive for the board (4)(5)
3. Popular pubs for college grads (6)(4)
4. Exquisitely made basket (4)
5. Wear white to a chili cook-off, you might say (5)(4)
GRAMMAR POLICE
DON'T ERASE
ALUMNI MAGS
DUNK
TEMPT FATE
I counted three Z’s, an X, a J and a Q. Pretty cool because it didn’t seem forced. I wonder if that was by design.
ReplyDeleteThis puzz really "got down" with initials (NCO, MBAS, NFL, XFL, EPA) in a very narrow strip just W of center.
ReplyDeleteAlternative UNICLUE for ANTSIEST BEASTS (hello, @Gary Jugert): CHIHUAHUAS.
Heard of Ron Chaney but not Lon, oh well.
ReplyDeletePre Brexit we could get Snyders in the UK, they are great, shame we can’t buy them anymore.
I guess I’m ULTRA dense but I did not immediately understand the revealer. I kept looking for some way that each half of the themers was supposed to FUSE with the other half. Never occurred to me the trick had anything at all do with the BOXES part. Now that I know, I understand how the concept of fusion is supposed to work. I think. Two words which can both come before BOX are joined together to mean something else. Anyway, it was a perfectly good Monday which I enjoyed. Props to Emily for a pleasant, headache-free solve.
ReplyDelete@LMS: I’m with your Mom on the nightstand cough remedy. I’ve found the inexpensive labels are more effective than the smoother blends so my elixir of choice is Seagrams Seven. Medicinal purposes only of course. Please let me know how things go with Denzel. I have a similar plan for the next time Brad Pitt comes to town. I figure I have a legitimate claim to greatness because he dated my best friend’s sister in high school. I mean I know someone who sat on the couch and watched TV with his actual teenaged self. I figure that makes me pretty high on the list of people he’d want to meet. Right?? He’s reportedly a Chiefs fan so I’m thinking we’ll bond over football and he’ll be impressed with my advice on the best cough suppressants.
Solved it without understanding the theme, and despite never having heard of a TINDERMATCH. I also misspelled PESETA at first. Also, I had a hard time guessing that anybody would spell his name ERIQ.
ReplyDelete@Graham, WTH is RON Chaney?
ReplyDeleteLON Chaney Jr was the Wolf Man, Lennie in Of Mice and Men, and numerous other memorable movie roles. And that's assuming the clue was about him, because his dad LON Chaney was "The Man of a Thousand Faces" in the silent era, including the Phantom of the Opera and the Hunch of Notre Dame.
Scrabbly grid - never warmed up to theme during the short solve. Overall fill was up and down.
ReplyDeleteBack to back - sacroilliac
Like Rex - BLUEJAY helped - but the adjacent ANTSIEST killed the vibe - brutal superlative. Kind of liked LA PAZ and HOT TODDY. Lots of trivia but all straightforward except for the Disney entry.
MANIC Street
35 years ago when we bought our house it had a 30A FUSE BOX - lots of memories with that antique. Been watching the remake of All Creatures so SCONES have been on my mind.
@LMS - take the L your son is right.
@bocamp - Stan Newman tends to go with Mossberg Stumpers quite often - his clueing is unique and ups my solve times. This past week was no different.
A pedestrian Monday.
the great Howard Devoto
Solved only the black squares. Record time for me.
ReplyDeletePretty easy downs-only for me too, except for the SW, where I didn’t have any of the downs coming off FUSE and where aFL instead of XFL kept me from seeing BOXES. Wasn’t aFL a thing once?
ReplyDeleteOnce I did finish, it took me a while to figure out the theme (an added bonus of doing downs only). All of the long acrosses just felt like things, and I first thought TINDER MATCH, in its center spot, was the revealer. Then I noticed that FUSE BOXES was the only plural, and the light bulb went on.
@LMS Annabelle destroys toys like that in a matter of seconds. I buy the super indestructible ones, and their lifespan in her jaws might stretch to minutes but not much longer. All of our friends know to hide their dogs’ favorite toys when we bring her over. Otherwise, she’ll find their TOY box and work her way through it, probably wondering why this dog does not understand its mission in life.
Staying with Dad and Stepmom for a bit at their wintering grounds in Florida. She is a huge General Hospital fan. Staying with them makes me see all the things that are still clinging to life through their generation, like SOAP OPERAS, land lines, speakers wired to a stereo, printed newspapers. I still get the WaPo in print too, but very few of even my generation (late 50s) still do. It mystifies me that the NYT is encouraging us to get a print subscription to continue doing the acrostic and cryptic - I thought newspapers wanted us to go completely digital, which is much cheaper for them to “deliver.”
I have signed up for ChatGPT, which I encourage you to do if you want to see the future, and I showed it to them last night. Of course they’d never heard of it, and their jaws dropped. I first asked it to write my obituary (adding where I work so it would not confuse me with someone else of my name). In seconds, it spooled out a long paean to my illustrious life, bringing tears to all our eyes. It was spot-on accurate for my career and included quotes from occasions when I had been interviewed. It made me seem like a saint. BUT, it also included the tidbit that I was a “devoted husband, father and grandfather,” none of which I have ever been. (Partner and stepfather, yes.) That’s the thing about this early AI - if it doesn’t know something, it makes it up. I think it added that because just about every obituary of a man that it scanned has that line. Anyway, we went on to ask it all kinds of questions, some of which (“why is Donald Trump a danger to democracy?”) it wouldn’t answer. I can see so many ways this will make life easier - and so many others in which it will doom us.
Oh shoot, why can’t I ever remember to solve down-only on a Monday until I’m 3/4 through? And then it’s no fun. Oh well, maybe next week.
ReplyDeleteRex’s write-up made me like this puzzle more than I thought I did.
LMS: my husband’s grandparents - also not really drinkers (and long gone) - always had a small (half pint?) bottle of Mr Boston’s Rock & Rye in the medicine cabinet. We still have it as a momento! I believe it remains at least half full. I wonder if they still make it?
ReplyDeleteGary, nice of you to mansplain your disdain of Stanton who campaigned for “white women who looked like her”. I’ll be sure to revise my opinion of her. Not.
High quality Monday. Clean grid, interesting theme answers, solid theme answers, perfect reveal, variety in answers, solve-able for new and newer crossworders, yet for me, a veteran solver, fresh feeling and fun, all topped with a rare and wonderful Monday wordplay clue (for OOPS). Bam! The whole package, a Monday jewel. TADA indeed. CLASS indeed.
ReplyDeleteGolf fans may like the cross of LEA and ELDER (not exactly right but close enough for me), and it's nice to have A ROSE keeping company with AZALEA.
There’s a bit of an echo in the answers with my life at present. I’m in RAPTURE over our new dog, part POODLE, and a SQUEEZE TOY lover (hi, @Loren!). I have a breaker in my FUSEBOX which has been misbehaving (electrician has been contacted). And I’ve been reconnecting with the piano, with many SCALES involved.
All in all, then, this beautifully-made grid was a gift box for me today. Thank you, Emily!
Played Monday medium for me. The theme was exceptionally solid.
ReplyDeleteLA PAZ is one of those things that would have been a gimme in my youth, but most geographic knowledge appears to have leaked out of my brain at some point over the last decade or two.
A HOT TODDY is now my bedtime cocktail of choice during cold and flu (and Covid) season. It’s a good use for the cheaper whiskey in the liquor cupboard.
Normal, casual Monday solve for me. Thought it might be a panagram but couldn't find a K.
ReplyDeleteHaving lived in Canada my whole life and Alberta for 25 years, I've never, ever seen it abbreviated as ALB. That was my only real sore spot.
Big day for actors who rose to fame playing doctors on acclaimed TV medical dramas.
ReplyDeleteBeing semi-asleep at the switch this morning, I didn't fully appreciate the theme at first pass: not reading the reveal carefully enough meant that I focused just on the first word of each phrase as being fused to the second. Which I thought was such a clever theme. Only when going back to review @Rex did I think, "Wait a minute, OPERA goes with 'box,' too.". Uh-huh. As did all of the other second words. So I got a nice double whammy of appreciation: wow! on Emily Carrol coming up with the idea and nailing it with four solid phrases. Great Monday.
ReplyDelete@Wanderlust, I love your obit story.
Forget Down only, if you want a REAL challenge, try solving on an iPad (where you can’t pinch up the puzzle size) after cataract surgery and not being able to read the clues. Just kind of guess at what they are when some letters come slowly and somewhat into focus. (The light adjustment fine tuning of the lenses starts next week at which time I hope to get some near vision back.)
ReplyDelete[Update: as I was writing this, dawned on me that THAT can’t be right. Cruciverbalists skew older! Went to info cog and sure enough, can set a Large and Larger clue size. D’oh!
Still it was a personally challenging Monday due to personal stupidity!]
Well this is timely, because it's Monday, night of the hootenanny, and one of our participants will play "Squeeze Box", and probably dance while doing so. I am sure of this because it's one of the three-chord songs that he always does but he's having such a good time no one minds. He comes with his wife, who is a paid performer and loves to hear herself sing, but that's another story.
ReplyDeleteRe SCONEs--I've always pronounced this with a long "o", like "bones" and then I heard a friend pronounce it "scun". I asked him for another example of an "--one" word like that and he said "one" and I conceded.
I was living in Spain when the exchange rate changed so that a dollar equaled 70 pesetas instead of 60. Easy money.
Our NH house that we lived in for thirty years, built in 1784 had two FUSEBOXES and knob and tube wiring. None of this is recommended.
If you haven't had a SNYDERS pretzel, you have my sympathy, as they are top notch. Also, hi ERIQ. You know that's wrong, yes?
Really good Monday, EC, with a swell theme and the Exact Crunch needed for a satisfying solve. Thanks for all the fun.
Amy: wonderful Monday. Easy yet amusing.
ReplyDeleteHave a question for @Whatshername and @LMS about cough elixirs. Am interested in the process for testing brands, e.g., which ones? How long to test before moving onto the next candidate? Does a rejected candidate go to the liquor cabinet or is it discarded?
Intriguing. Hope this is a school vacation week for you, @LMS.
Do any of you whiz kids ever solve your Mondays across only? Or maybe filling in the squares backwards from the bottom up? Just curious ...
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Rex, the app is Tinder, not Tinder.
ReplyDeleteSorry. Autocorrect got me.
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteMissed the Pangram by a K. CMON, Emily! Just change PEA to AKA! Bam! Pangram 😁
Neat puz. All the Scrabbly letters are in the Themers. Got yer J, Q, X, Z.
Watched some XFL yesterday. First week of their 10 week season. It's actually the same iteration that was started in February 2020, but then the World closed because of the Vid, and they stopped playing. Las Vegas has a team that moved from Florida, the Vipers. They play out of our once AAA Baseball field, that is now home to our soccer team, Las Vegas Lights FC. So a once empty stadium now hosts two different sports venues. Nice. Our AAA Baseball team built a new stadium, and changed their name. Never been there, but hear it's a really neat stadium.
Got a bit on a tangent there.
EROQ LaSalle was a popular actor for a while, haven't seen him in a puz in a minute. Welcome back.
Thanks for a fun MonPuz, Emily. Back to the ABYSS called the work-week.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
never really got the theme til I got here. Not sure if I know what a TINDER box is. LON Chaney is a legend, as outlined by Robin, and is in the crossword all the time. I had TINDERdATes then TINDERMATes then TINDERMATCH. never used Tinder, never had to :) . I thought the clue for OOPS was cute. Nice puzzle, solid Monday
ReplyDeleteTinderbox is something very dry/burns easily. Eg “no rain for a year made the Oregon forests dry as a tinderbox ready to burst into flames at the first spark.”Tinderboxes held kindling in the “old” days.
DeleteI've kept kosher for most of my 60-something years and not once have I heard a fellow Jew (who keeps Kosher) refer to what they were eating as seafood. Seafood is treife (non-Kosher) beings such as crabs, shrimp, lobster. Kosher folks eat fish. Yes, the fish have to have fins and scales, so we don't eat shark. The clue should have read, "what makes Kosher fish Kosher."
ReplyDeleteI grew up in an apartment in Queens, and we had a fuse box on the wall in the tiny foyer. There was also a dumbwaiter, which was inoperable. I think my sister and I got in trouble for messing around with both things.
Fish is def “seafood”
DeleteWhat about freshwater fish? Can't call it seafood.
DeleteWhat's so wonderful and so holy about SCALES on fish? I mean we're not commanded to eat only animals with SCALES, are we? We'd be hard-pressed to find any, wouldn't we? This dietary rule makes absolutely no sense at all.
ReplyDeleteBut it's a really interesting way to clue SCALES and I thank you for that, Emily. I learned something today I didn't know.
As for the "big name" in Pretzels, I'd say: "Not all that big a name." Not exactly like Lay's Potato Chips. But I did think that BRAND was clued with a certain flair.
A smooth Monday by a good constructor. Proving that if you put a good constructor in charge of a Monday, you'll end up with a good Monday.
Seafood: Lobster? Crab? Shrimp? Prawn? Oyster? Whelp? Mussels?
DeleteWow, Nancy! Way to diss Jewish dietary laws. Next you'll have to go after Catholics who don't eat meat on Fridays, or Muslims who don't eat pork, or Hindus who don't eat beef. It would behoove you to do some research on religious dietary practices before you get all huffy. No one is telling YOU what to eat.
Delete@Whatsername (7:46) - Looks like we have more of a connection than just the Chiefs. My folks were close with Jon Voight when he was a young father; as a result Brad Pitt's future (now former) wife was in our home on several occasions. I'm guessing that if you add that nugget to your Brad invite, you and he will be an item in no time!
ReplyDeleteUniclues
ReplyDelete1) Chintzy amount of birdseed
2) Chintzy U.S. Senator from a Latino background
3) A time when tiny legumes speak up for themselves. And speak and speak and speak and speak
4) Did I ever tell you I'm really lazy?
5) Cocktail made with whiskey, honey, lemon and iron
1) BLUEJAY CAPFUL
2) PESETA TED
3) PEA SPAM SEASON
4) CHORE? OOPS!
5) ANEMIA HOT TODDY
I'm assuming that, for those of you (nearly all of you) who solved it normally (i.e. using the Downs *and* the Acrosses), the puzzle played very fast, even for a Monday.
ReplyDeleteYou assume wrong. Slowest Monday in a while. I think if you handed this to a neophyte, they would agree, and maybe that's who you should be thinking of here.
Some Downs that caused me trouble or slowed me down: BLUE JAY, ANTSIEST, URSULA, ERIQ, SNYDERS, DOES SO, PESETA, XFL, HOT TODDY. (I've heard of them, just didn't know what went into them, so didn't recognize it from the description -- and surprised by the whiskey. I thought "TODDY" came from a language of India, so might have expected rum or some other alcoholic beverage associated with British colonialism.)
That's just the Downs. Couldn't come up with JUICE PRESS without crosses, nor TINDER MATCH. As for UPTON, I wasn't sure at first if it was that or "Lewis". I seem to vaguely recall that Upton Sinclair (what a funny name, Upton) wrote about meatpacking in the Chicago area, and that Sinclair Lewis wrote Elmer Gantry, but I wouldn't bet my house on either. STANTON went in easily, but a neophyte might find otherwise. Courteous contraction: I had ma'aM before YES'M.
But, very solid puzzle. Rex articulated well its strong points.
SB: gah, -4 yd. Congrats to @okanaganer for his winning streak; in light of yesterday's, that's amazing. I think you're right, @ok, about Sam Ezersky and science-y words; I tried the same ones you did.
@Roo
ReplyDeleteI didn't see any G's.
@R Tom (7:57) Thanks! You made me laugh out loud. I’ll try that next week.
ReplyDelete@Lewis (8:05) Congrats on your fur baby! A new pet can bring such a fresh breath of life into your home, not to mention indescribable joy.
@andrew (8:31) Hope you’re all better and back to normal soon.
@Amy (8:46) Assuming you’re serious . . . In general, stick with the lower-end brands but not too low. You want something that will burn and numb your throat and the higher price labels tend to be too smooth for that. As for the testing process, I suppose that depends on how much you like or dislike your choice. I’ve only ever tossed one out and that was Canadian Club as I recall. I’m intrigued by Loren’s Rock & Rye which I’d never heard of and is not available in my area. From reading internet reviews, it sounds almost like a brandy and some people swear by it as a cold remedy. Although I did wonder about one lady who complained because the “new” shape of the bottle makes it harder to hide it in her purse. Apparently she gets sick a lot. 😆
Great cold remedy: hot water, lemon, honey, TABASCO, and of course a shot (or two) of your “toddy” of choice.
ReplyDeleteGreat puzzle. Playing normally (acrosses & downs) I thought it was a tad more difficult than the usual Monday. But doable with catchy, solid theme.
A little ASS is ok, but AREOLAS appropriate?
ReplyDeleteCompared to a FUSEBOX, a reFUSEBOX seems trashy.
Spelling your name ERIQ defies logiq.
I learned yesterday that a MYRMECOLOGIST is one of the ANTSIEST people around.
2nd day of Covid. I don’t recommend it. Nice puzzle.. Thanks, Emily Carroll.
I recommend the Slow & Low rock and rye, around $25 a bottle. Like a poor man’s Grand Marnier.
ReplyDelete@egsforbreakfast (11:14) - So you think spelling the name "ERIQ" defies logic do ya? Last night I tuned in to the XFL game and saw the DC Defenders quarterback named D'Eriq King. Can't wait to see that one in a NYT crossword (and hear of the damage to Nancy's wall that ensues).
ReplyDeleteI've got an old-fashioned JUICE PRESS somewhere in the basement, and a FUSE BOX, no longer functional, in a closet. We took out the knob and tube about 3 years ago, and got rid of the working fuses at the same time. . When I was young there were constant warnings not to put a penny in behind the fuse lest you burn down your house, so I guess some people must have actually done that. I never had a TINDER box, though, not quite THAT old.
ReplyDeleteLots of unknown-to-me actors and characters, so it wasn't really all that fast.
The STANTON thing is a little complicated. She and her husband spent their honeymoon traveling to London, where they attended a world antislavery convention. The Boston chapter had sent Lydia Marie Child as a delegate, but she's was barred from speaking because of her gender; this incident reportedly convinces Stanton of the need to organize for votes for women, as well as the abolition of slavery. She and Frederick Douglass were allies and friends, both seeing the removal of race and gender restrictions on voting as a single goal. But then the 15th Amendment removed race but not gender, leading to a falling out between the two. They had a public debate, which I used to assign to my students.
Fortunately, I had the UP when I got to 17-A, and the A when I got to 10-D, so I avoided putting in Lewis or Sucre, two equally correct answers.
I don't think there are any Vs or Ws either, so the puzzle is far from a pangram.
Thx, Emily, for this BOXy puz! :)
ReplyDeleteMed.
Loved the theme!
I'm reminded of the time ('60s) when I undertook a health regime: got a JUICEr, purchased a very large bag of carrots, JUICEd some of them and put the remainder into the freezer for later use. Lesson learned: don't freeze carrots sans blanching; the JUICEr didn't like soggy ones. 😔
Perfect Mon. offering; liked it a lot! :)
___
@jae: thx, on it! :)
@Son Volt: the remaining 20% fell in less than 4 mins. The key was getting the 'buffet staple'. :)
___
On to Croce's Freestyle & Paolo Pasco's Mon. New Yorker. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Re Cough suppressants: Now who am I to argue with booze as the best way to suppress a cough? Although, truth to tell, suppressing a cough is the one thing that liquor has never done for me. It does temporarily open up the sinuses when I have a cold, but that's about it.
ReplyDeleteLet me add a serious suggestion to the discussion. NO cough syrup had ever worked for me -- and then a doctor from maybe 30 years ago recommended Mucinex, which is a pill, not a syrup. I've found it to be pretty miraculous. It doesn't work in every single case, but it works in most. It's quite amazing. On the other hand, I recommended it once to @Mathgent, and he told me it didn't work for him. But it's certainly worth a try. It's OTC.
Cool theme idea. I'd think it would be slightly tough, to dream up a passel of symmetric(al) box+box theme answers, tho. But this was definitely a solid set. Well done on U, Emily Carroll darlin.
ReplyDeleteThere were a few no-know answers, at our house, but not enough to bother a fun solvequest. They were: SNYDERS pretzels. URSULA octopi. Elizabeth Cady STANTON [Agree with @RP … Harry Dean is great … He was aces in my book, ever since I caught his "Alien" appearance.]
staff weeject pick: XFL. League re-formed so that crosswords can justifiably continue to live off its scrabbly letters.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Toronto MLB player} = BLUEJAY. A nanosecond refresher at our house, as we once attended a game at their Toronto home stadium.
More faves: AZALEA. PSALMS. The HOTTODDY & POODLE/ABYSS. OOPS clue.
For some reason, M&A was a bit confused about what the theme mcguffin was, even after seein the revealer. Sooo … had a primo ahar moment, but it took a while. Didn't blow no fuses, tho.
Thanx for the boxes of fun, Ms. Carroll darlin. thUmbsUp.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
SQUEEZE BOX was such an incredibly good song. Everyone knew what it was really about. But they could not censor it, since the lyrics clearly referred to an accordion, worn on the chest, by a mama who almost certainly was fully clothed.
ReplyDeleteI loved the puzzle, because it was easy enough to solve top to bottom, and you really needed the revealer to figure out the theme. SCONES were the highlight of my stay at Stanford's original campus in England, at Harlaxton, Lincs. Afternoon tea was the only meal always worth eating, and it was just tea and SCONES for the most part. But the SCONES were baked fresh in the Manor's kitchen, and were first-rate. I think it was in some other part of England that I heard a different pronunciation -- maybe Yorkshire? Pronounced "scons", rhyming with "dons".
As for kosher SEAFOOD, it is perfectly OK to eat fish that is not from the ocean, even (I suppose) from a pond, and definitely from a freshwater lake or river. You may recall that Peter and his brother Andrew were fishermen in the Sea of Galilee, as were two other apostles.
Easy as a Monday should be. Without the revealer, the answers seemed a bit silly. With it, the puzzle made sense, and it was fun to go back and make all the BOX phrases work. Had a fuse box once, at a rented house. My old house, fortunately, had been REMO'd to use circuit boxes, sometime in the Sixties.
ReplyDeleteSQUEEZE BOX is a great song, and even though I personally had not engaged in the old in and out when it was a hit, I knew what it was about. And it really could not be censored, since clearly it referred to an accordion, worn on Mama's chest.
As for the kosher seafood, freshwater fish, with SCALES and fins, was definitely kosher. Remember Peter and Andrew and a couple of other Apostles were fishermen on the Sea of Galilee.
My Pappy's favorite saying was, "of all the things that don't cure a cold, I like liquor the best", and he always seemed to have a cold.
ReplyDeleteGiancarlo Stanton. HELLO.
ReplyDelete@Joaquin (9:56) Wow! You’re right. That might just be the connection that seals the deal. LOL.
ReplyDelete@Nancy (12:40) Yes, I agree that Mucinex is some powerful stuff. But if you ever do need a product specifically for a cough, most of the Tussin branded cough medicines - Robotussin and generic labels- contain lower doses of guaifenesin, which is the active ingredient in Mucinex. And on another serious note, a persistent cough which I attributed to bronchial congestion finally got bad enough that I went to my doctor last year. Turned out it was not congestion at all, but a bad case of GERD which was treated with acid reflux meds and that was the end of it. I had no idea coughing was a symptom of esophageal/stomach distress but there you go.
Re. Croce-What @ae said. Tough but doable New Yorker. Fun Monday.
ReplyDeleteWhat a Monday occasion! Holiday, easiest downs only ever and a clean, well constructed and clever theme. So clever in fact that I nearly missed it!
ReplyDeleteI rarely try “downs only. It just isn’t a thing for me. On an extremely easy puzzle that has not really engaged me, I’ll go downs out of boredom or frustration or both but that is not today. My “downs only adventure” began from nothing more than brain fog.
Had some surgery Friday that was a bit more of a deal than I anticipated and I am still working at half speed. BRANDS just did not occur to me a 1A. I equated the Nike, Nestlé and Nabisco names as companies or corporations but BRAND just would not pop out of the fog ipstairs. So I started to do the downs to get a toe hold and I just kept going since (as @Rex would say) the whoosh whoosh was going so I just kept doing the downs.
The whoosh was so soothing that pretty soon I was finished. I hadn’t even been reading the across clues or many of the answers. I finished without a single groan or side-eye and hadn’t actually cringed throughout the solve. Sure, the answers weren’t very challenging but we didn’t have a bunch of crosswordese junk. My downs only solve gave me a jolt when I realized that I failed to pick up a theme. I almost closed it up thinking “wow, what a weird move; a themeless Monday and no homage to Presidents’ Day!” But it bugged me so I reviewed the answers.
I live in one of the many old houses with FUSE BOXES, so that caught my eye right away. Of course it didn’t take more than a minute to figure out the rest. But reviewing the theme answer’s certainly impressed me. I agree completely with OFL’s assessment of Emily Carroll’s opus. Sure, this is a classic theme type. What sets this on a Monday pedestal is the completely cohesive and clever theme. The junk free grid is gravy.
Re today's New Yorker by Paolo Pasco: let me tell you something. If you're going to clue 35D there, that's how you should do it. Go all in. No holding back.
ReplyDelete(Although it does cause me to wonder if the cancer is spreading.)
As a lifelong resident of Edmonton, I'd have said the abbreviation for Alberta was either AB (the official postal abbreviation) or Alta., but a little Googling reveals that "Alb." is used as the abbreviation in the French. So, I'd suggest that it would be better clued as"La province d'Edmonton: Abbr."
ReplyDelete@CDilly52 (3:46 PM)
ReplyDelete🙏 for a speedy and full recovery from your surgery! 😊
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
I had a COVID-induced sore throat two weeks ago. None of the accepted sore throat remedies (cough drops, NyQuil, steam, lemon-honey tea, aspirin, ibuprofen) made a dent in the pain. I started taking tiny sips of Cointreau, which did the trick!! It's really hard to stay hydrated when you wince with every swallow.
ReplyDelete@Teedmn
ReplyDeleteI feel that. In general I think Ibuprofen works great, but nada in the case of something like strep throat, and that pain can be just so distracting and ever-present. Glad you found your remedy. Cointreau is great stuff even if you're not sick. :-)
I like your avatar-photo.
Played medium for a Monday for me, solved across only mostly and the theme never even registered. I wonder how many folks who are hip to Tinder know who LON Chaney is, have read OIL! or have ever seen a FUSEBOX? Am I getting old? Damn it.
ReplyDeleteI live in Edmonton. ALB is not a thing.
ReplyDeleteHar, need to actually look for letters before putting my foot in my mouth. I'm sure it'll happen again. 😁
ReplyDeleteRooMonster Pangram Mistaken Man
Harry Dean is/was ubiquitous, but there was a day, decades ago that you would complain that DICK MILLER appeared in damn near anything. For reference, he's the gun store salesman in THE TERMINATOR, which I saw first release in 1984 and OMG, WTF?
ReplyDeleteAlice Pollard I left a comment for you explaining “tinderbox “ as Anonymous because Blogspot wouldn’t accept myURL.
ReplyDeleteI was very impressed by the theme. Much more so than the more common "first half of the theme answers" or "hidden within the theme answers" types.
ReplyDeleteMATCH ALERT
ReplyDeleteSO URSULA, the ANTSIEST of SIRENS,
had ULTRA HOT DATES with males,
RAPTURE AROSE in UTERO environs,
is it ODD the BEAST had SCALES?
--- TED SNYDER
Another Monday with those lovely wide corners! This, I thought, is gonna be a good one. And it was.
ReplyDeleteThe theme is one of those that has you scratching your head on the way down: what in tarnation do all these things have in common? And then you hit the revealer (I saved the SW for last on purpose!) and it all comes into focus. Very satisfying.
The fill is a cut above, as well. Okay, one entry DOESSO smack of desperation, but it coulda been lots worse. A DOD bounty, with UPTON (not as clued, of course, but Kate) and URSULA Andress, Bond Girl #1. Her character Honey Rider appears in the HOTTODDY clue. Eagle.
I have to mention another remarkable puzzle I found in the Sunday Review-Journal, from The Observer. It's a themeless, but the title is "No threes or fours." And there aren't! Gotta check it out.
Wordle birdie, hitting the century mark!
Yes - easy, peasy, breezy. Whenever I see so many Qs and Zs and Us and Js I check for a pangram. Nope. A good SQUEEZETOY to start the day.
ReplyDeleteDiana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Now that's a good Mon-puz. For a Bond fan there's really only one URSULA. Yeah baby. I think she recently had a birthday. Yup, last week, 87. And yes, I remember FUSEBOXES.
ReplyDeleteDisappointing Wordle par after a GGBBB start.