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Spanish city enclosed with intact medieval walls / SUN 2-19-23 / Onetime Turkish title / Full house in poker slang / Presidential pet that sprouts an Afro / Disposable sock in a shoe store / Family-style meal with simmering broth / 2006 mockumentary with a 2020 Subsequent Moviefilm / Tea served with a jumbo straw
Sunday, February 19, 2023
Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- CLEAR AS CRYSTAL (22A: Bus?)
- GREEN AS GRASS (32A: Photosynthesize?)
- SOUND AS A BELL (48A: Peal?)
- PRETTY AS A PICTURE (65A: Photoshop?)
- SMART AS A WHIP (83A: Sting?)
- SMOOTH AS SILK (97A: Iron?)
- PLEASED AS PUNCH (112A: Quenched?)
information or evidence that is based on personal experience or observation rather than systematic research or analysis. [wow, only the weakest attempt to change the dictionary wording on that clue, I guess ... weird] (emph. mine) (google i.e. Oxford Languages)
• • •
There are two notable original answers in the grid, but they made me wince more than smile. That's almost certainly a Me-Problem, but, yeah, CHIA OBAMA somehow doesn't do anything for me. It was easy enough to get (after the CHIA part became clear), but ... do I really wanna see CHIASHREK and CHIAGROOT and CHIAZOMBIE and CHIAHELLOKITTY in the grid? I do not. And for the record, I didn't make *any* of those up. Real chias, each and every one. And as for ANECDATA ... that one really made me make a face. Maybe it's a necessary technical term for ... someone. But I just wrote in ANECDOTE because ANECDOTE really really seemed to fit the clue (39D: Evidence derived from personal experience and observation rather than systematic research and analysis). I know the term "anecdotal evidence," but not ANECDATA, which is an ugly portmanteau. The clue here is especially ugly, in that it's long and ungainly and obviously just lifted, almost word for word, from the dictionary (see "Word of the Day," above).
I did learn some things today, though. Like apparently "B-52s" are shots ... of some kind (82D: Down B-52s, say = DO SHOTS). [Looking it up] Hmm, apparently it's a layered shot of Kahlua, Irish cream, and Grand Marnier. Apparently it was named not after the bomber, but after the band! In 1977. Well, that's one origin story, anyway, and since I like it, I'm gonna stick with it. I also learned that BIG AIR is an actual snowboarding event and not just something a snowboarder can catch. I adored the clue on "SAVE ME..." (64A: Words stealthily mouthed to a friend while stuck in a boring conversation). LABOR OF LOVE and PARTY-POOPER are both great longer answers. ALLYSON Felix was a brand new name to me, but that was about the only sticking point in the puzzle, which was fantastically easy on the whole. Not sure anything else needs explaining. ALBS are seen at royal weddings because they are clerical garments (51A: Garments often seen at royal weddings). BOBA tea is otherwise known as "bubble tea" and you need jumbo straws because they need to be able to handle the "bubbles" (balls of tapioca starch). THE "Y" is two words (THE + "Y" ... as in "The YMCA") (109D: Place to swim or play b-ball). You'll let me know if there's anything else you don't understand. See you next time ...
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. some news items that may be of interest to you. First is the recent New Yorker interview with Will Shortz ("Will Shortz's Life in Crosswords"). It's wide-ranging and contains lots of crossword history. Also, it's pretty charming. Second, a NYT article from yesterday that provides some context for my (recent, ongoing) intolerance of all anti-trans rhetoric; it details the politically popular and morally abhorrent legislative war on trans kids and their parents, a war which seeks to deny trans kids the gender-affirming care that keeps them healthy and in many cases saves their lives. Importantly, maddeningly, the medical care in question is unequivocally called for by medical science and supported by major medical associations ("When Parents Hear That Their Child 'Is Not Normal and Should Not Exist'"). This is care that keeps trans kids from depression and suicide. The consequences of dehumanizing trans people are real, material, measurable, and widespread. Seems like people ought to be speaking out a hell of a lot more about this rather than (say) fear-mongering and lying about the alleged threat that trans women pose to "real" women. Lastly, there's this article from The Onion, which gets to the heart of the matter better than I ever could ("It Is Journalism's Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possible"). Thanks, everyone. Good day.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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107 comments:
Easy. No real problems except for chasing down a couple of typos. Like @Rex I thought some of the theme answers were a bit of a stretch, but this was mostly fun and breezy, liked it.
64A is “Save me” rather than “Help me”.
Here we go again: another Sunday NYT xword puzzle with a mildly amusing theme completely spoiled by a natick. A DUNK is an exquisitely crafted basket? In what obscure tongue? DOSHOTS might make sense to someone who understands that a B52 is an alcolic beverage, but a Neanderthal like me only understands it as a bomber plane, so kOSHOTS (knockout shots) was the only thing that remotely made sense. These constructors always seem to presuppose that every reader uses their same patois, and it just ain't necessarily so!
MARTi/MiCRO seemed naticky.
Yes this theme took a bit of effort to appreciate. I guess I'm a little more willing than Rex to put in that effort. I think GREEN AS GRASS could have been better clued as "Fertilize?"
I remember a few decades ago, being at a bar with my brother and several attractive young women acquaintances of his. One of them was being hit on hard by some random guy, so she wandered over to me and whispered "HELP ME!" I gladly took her hand and we danced. Those were good days.
Hands up for ANECDOTE... it must be correct. What, it isn't?? And evidently, B-52s are: big airplanes, a musical group, or SHOTS.
[Spelling Bee: Sat 0, my last word is one of those SB specials you never hear in real life. QB streak at 9 days!]
[BTW Spelling Bee fans: my go-to dictionary Merriam-Webster has a game called Blossom. It looks very similar to SB, but with a twist: you only get to play 12 words. There are a few other differences, but I enjoy playing it to see how many points I can score. Saturday I broke 400 for the first time.]
Maybe I'm under too much stress, but I legitimately liked this puzzle and breezed through it like somebody who knows how to do these things. I don't understand the theme as I write this tonight, but am confident 🦖 will help me in the morning. OHHH, first word is a verb, dump the simile.
CHIA OBAMA is straight up hilarious. ANECDATA is straight up fake.
Subatomic particles weren't covered in my high school science classes. Maybe they weren't discovered yet? I dunno. MUONS filled itself in, but I only know about protons, electrons, and neutrons, so I am assuming these other particles are components of those other three.
SAVE ME shoulda been KILL ME. The correct clue for SAVE ME is [What grampa thought the first instruction was for every owner's manual ever, apparently, based on all those file cabinets in the garage.]
Lymerick-ish:
Patty McClellan was a PARTY POOPER SCOT
In tea-totaling ways he'd often cry "OH STOP"
The NYTXW gave him classes
On BUMS, and HINDs, and ASSES
Now he SHOPS for HOT POTS to DO SHOTS
Moral of the story: The more you know about your pooper, the less of a pooper you are.
Uniclues:
1 Cinderella's shoes.
2 Marijuana stores.
3 When you put tuna salad in them.
4 Fancy sheet worn by the CSI employee of the month.
5 Dominatrix job description.
1 CLEAR AS CRYSTAL DERBIES
2 GREEN AS GRASS SHOPS (~)
3 ARM PITS PLEASED AS PUNCH
4 ORNATE DNA LAB'S TOGA (~)
5 LABOR OF LOVE: SWAT BUMS
Rex – you articulated the issue that had me squinting at how CLEAR, AS CRYSTAL works one way grammatically but PLEASED, AS PUNCH works in a different way. Even now, though, I can’t to the mental acrobats to fully understand the latter. I guess in CLEAR, AS CRYSTAL, there is an unknown force doing the clearing. In PLEASE, AS PUNCH, that force doing the pleasing is the punch itself.
No matter – I enjoyed the ride. And since any portmanteau just floats my boat, I really, really liked learning ANECDATA.
Ok. So about those musical chairs. I’m a lifelong sufferer of globophobia – a fear of balloons. But over the years I’ve come to realize that it’s a broader fear, the fear of being startled. The extreme anxiety when I know something is about to happen, I just don’t know when. The anticipation of that music stopping during musical chairs is as scary as waiting for a balloon to pop. I. DETEST. Musical. Chairs.
PARTY POOPER. So my daughter recently adopted a dog, Finn. After a couple of days, she had her landlord/old college friend, his wife, and their dog over for a little meet-and-greet party. Finn had been doing beautifully, but I guess at that point, he just kinda lost it and, well, yeah. All over Sage’s living room floor.
I don’t care how “exquisitely made” that (fish) basket is on Naked and Afraid. You’re not going to catch anything, so keep looking for snakes.
SAVE ME – mine is “call me” what I surreptitiously text my sister while I’m politely looking at pictures on a coworker’s phone of trees in his back yard. No, really. I have 45 minutes to grade those papers and then put my agenda, targeted standards, essential question, and learning target on the board and I’m looking at %$#@ing trees.
Loved the clue for TEMPT FATE. How ‘bout cleaning desks with a bleach spray while wearing your favorite khaki sheath? Yup. Had to throw it away, and dresses just didn’t get more perfect than that one. Sigh.
I also loved the clue for TAO, loved learning that you can be the “Mozart” of something. I’m convinced that we all possess some kind of gift akin to Mozart’s for music; we just haven’t had the good fortune to stumble across it. The geniuses, the Mozarts, the Newtons, the Monets, the Patrick Berrys. . .they happened to discover theirs. What if Mozart had been born out in the country on a farm and had never been exposed to music? Would he have died never knowing? I think I believe this, and so it follows that I’m going to die never having discovered my genius. There are, quite literally, a bajillion things out there that we’ve never tried. You could be a brilliant brick mason or ocarina player, a world-class throat singer or honey badger whisperer – you just don’t know it and probably never will.
On that note, Happy Sunday, everyone.
Dunk as in a basketball shot.
I canceled my Games subscription after the NYT made it clear whose side they're on. I know there's some lead time on articles, but they still ran that garbage literally one day after many of their contributors asked them to consider improving their coverage on trans people? Loathsome. Despicable. I have many trans friends, and they're more important to me than watching my daily streak go brrr. There are better daily crosswords out there that are free, anyhow. So I probably won't be commenting much around here anymore, since I won't be able to speak to the NYT puzzle experience, but I'll probably still read.
Fun puzzle for me. Nothing amazing, but a pleasant experience nonetheless. I want to thank Rex for adding the link to the Onion; that’s one hell of an editorial. Wishing a nice holiday weekend to all.
As the parent of a trans child, I really appreciate your using your platform to help protect trans kids.
Dunk is referring to basketball.
Easy here as well. I solved without reading the clues for the long acrosses, and for once that actually helped. I got that the theme was "common similes," and filled them all in easily. It took several post-solve passes to get the "bus=clear, as crystal" bit and I was still confused by all the inconsistencies that @Rex called out.
I didn't love the solving experience on this one, but that's almost always how I feel about Sundays. The mixture of gimme answers with PPP trivia that's unknown, especially to a non-US solver, is a little too jarring. I don't like having to slog over short choppy stuff; it just doesn't feel rewarding when it eventually falls into place.
I didn't mind the theme too much or have an issue with the differences between them, but I was a little put out that SMARTASAWHIP and SOUNDASABELL weren't alliterative, and I've never heard anyone phrase it CLEARASCRYSTAL (only 'crystal clear') so those held me up a little. KEPTWARM also felt a bit 'ate a sandwich' to me, but I learnt a few things and that's always nice.
Fwiw I agree JKR's transphobia is repugnant and the over reliance on HP clues is both plain tedious and unnecessarily aggravating given the very current nature of the issues with its author. While in general I advocate for untethering the creator from their work (but perhaps considering their biography as part of a wider context in which their work belongs, and to be particularly mindful of noting problematic aspects of people's character when they are highly celebrated in other areas) I don't think that's easy to apply contemporaneously when creators and their work are occupying public space at the same time. You can privately love HP and have it be an important part of your childhood or etc, regardless of whether you denounce JKR, but that's different from continually bringing her into the public consciousness and thus tacitly supporting her status as a significant figure by evoking HP at seemingly every opportunity. To me there's a real difference between - for example because it was used a couple of days ago - the potential but likely largely unknown and definitely historical issues with Chopin and the live discourse JKR is participating in. That's not to say last crimes are irrelevant or don't have a connection to what's happening in the current period, just that it's not quite the same as giving focus to someone who is right now, today, calling into question the right of certain (vulnerable) people to exist on their own terms and equally with others.
Oh, I also didn't love ANECDATA but not for the same reasons. To me it evokes positivist 'hard science' disdain for the social sciences. It's absolutely possible to produce rich, quality, rigorous data from small scale qualitative studies and even autoethnography - if it's done well. Just like in the natural, medical, and mathematical sciences, a good researcher can produce high quality research if they are skilled in their methods and reflexive about their conduct, and a poor researcher or someone who doesn't know what they're doing, ask the right questions, or who uses the wrong methods to answer their questions, will produce something less robust.
The CHIAOBAMA answer struck me as a micro aggression against our only black president.
The theme doesn’t really work does it…
@okanaganer -- Oh, I love "Fertilize?" Yes!
@loren -- Here it is, right in front of your eyes, one of your "Mozarts". Your talent for seeing things and writing them down in a way that we can relate to and be entertained by. I'm still waiting for your "Best Of" book, culled from your posts, that would take the country by storm and propel you into the grateful consciousnesses of all.
Rebecca is clever. Remember her ROCK / PAPER / SCISSORS puzzle that visually demonstrated the game (4/13/22)? Or her SALT SHAKER offering that rebused anagrams of NACL (12/2/21)?
Today that cleverness continued, IMO, with the theme clues in the *grid* and the theme answers in the *clues*, AND where we re-imagine the meaning of phrases by mentally adding a comma, such as turning SMOOTH AS SILK into SMOOTH, AS SILK (a standard crossword clue type). Subtle theme, maybe, but to me delightful.
I was also inspired by learning (from her notes) that Rebecca worked on coming up with this theme set for a year! That she let her brain bake on it for so long, that she stuck with it until she was satisfied, that she put all this work into pleasing us, the solving public. Bravo and thank you for that, Rebecca!
Finally, I thought this was a good placement for this puzzle, as a lovely gentle chaser to yesterday’s lovely steep climb.
Clever, inspiring, and kind. A sweet combination, and a sweet puzzle. Applause and gratitude!
Even with the inconsistent theme (as pointed out by R.P.) this felt like a Tuesday puzzle in a Sunday grid. A bit too easy. Also. after last Sunday's quadruple "ends meet" theme, and this week's dual references to the posterior, the NYT might consider cooling in on
the bottom references.
tc
To think that all these years I have been traveling the globe searching everywhere, among craftspersons and basket weavers in remote villages and city centers alike, in practically every culture of the world, looking for the prized and elusive DUNK -- only to discover that all that time it was there for me to possess just around the corner at THE Y.
If you let yourself submerge into a very loose wackiness and let go of consistency and strict logic, then themers are all pretty fun. It takes some work, but it’s possible.
It took me forever to give up ANECdoTe for ANECDATA and it involved a near-brain-shattering wince, but once the shock receded, I actually kinda began to embrace it.
It felt like there was a lot of bone- and Yiddish-related stuff here. Just a comment.
The play here does not support a Sunday sized grid - ended up solving as a themeless - and early week level at that. There’s some decent fill intermixed throughout - really liked LABOR OF LOVE and PARTY POOPER.
Either way I LOSE
As someone who went deep into Physics academia - I appreciate that the great TAO seems to base much of his work in that uncomfortable area that attempts to reconcile randomness and order. I’ve read Solving Mathematical Problems and have tried to understand some of his eigenvalue work and the Green-TAO Theorem but didn’t get very far. I love that he’s in the center of the grid crossing HOT POT. Interesting too we get UCLA, SUM and the somewhat anti take of ANECDATA.
Gram Parsons
A lot of trivia and convenient plurals today - I see you ASSES. Liked BEEFS x STEW.
Monday or Tuesday wordplay usually doesn’t scale up too well as we see today. However - the strength of the fill here made for an enjoyable Sunday solve.
I’M A MESS
I’m not as much of a stickler for theme consistency as Rex is, but I agree on this one. I got many of the themers quickly without really getting it. Finally I started putting in the mental commas and understood it better, but I still couldn’t grok the outliers (GREEN AS GRASS, SMART AS A WHIP, PLEASED AS PUNCH) that didn’t follow the same pattern as the others. Maybe it matters that they are all flush right in the puzzle? Probably not. I don’t usually look at the puzzle title but I checked this one to see if it gave me an aha, but it only confused me more.
Super easy in any case.
I like the whispered “SAVE ME,” too, especially sharing a grid with “AND THEN,” repeated over and over in a boring story. Please do not tell me about the bizarre dream you had last night, unless I was in it. Then I want to know so I can parse your subconscious to figure out how you really feel about me.
I also liked OH STOP, which could have been clued as “You’re embarrassing me, but please go on!” The opposite of the mouthed SAVE ME.
Loved “exquisitely made baskets” for DUNKS and “down B52s” for DO SHOTS. And they crossed. That D deserves a medal.
@GARY JUGERT - “Dominatrix job description” for LABOR OF
LOVE: SWAT BUMS may be your best uniclue ever.
@Lewis already pointed out one of @Loren MUSE Smith’s “Mozart-esque” skills but she actually has two (at least). Teaching the kids no one else wants to teach is another.
Thanks, Rex, for the link to the Onion editorial. It perfectly hits the mark as a critique of the NYT’s recent coverage of trans issues. You’d think they would have learned after being so on the wrong side of history in their coverage of LGB issues for decades. The Onion piece made me guffaw many times, such as the reference to doctors creeping through windows at night to sew penises onto unsuspecting cheerleaders. There’s ANECDATA about it! Trust us.
100% agree on every single thing you said here, the theme, the word ANECDATA (and I’m a physician with a biostatistician husband, never hear it before), and the war on Trans kids, you could not have said it better. As a pediatrician, kids know who they are, their parents see them getting depressed and nothing is more painful that worrying your child will commit suicide. There is a window of opportunity before puberty sets in, after which physical changes become MUCH more difficult if not impossible. Much love to you for recognizing and publicizing this crucial issue.
"challah braids" said no one, ever. Challah is a loaf of bread that is most frequently made by braiding strands of dough. There are no challah braids.
I thought this was a great theme and somewhat unusual: using the simile format, changing adjectives to verbs and switching the position of clue and answer. As with many themes of this type, it worked better in some cases than others. I thought PRETTY AS A PICTURE was the weakest because we normally say “PRETTY up” when we use PRETTY as a verb, but that doesn’t disqualify it IMO. I noticed the mixture of AS A and just AS without the article. Both are valid choices and the variety adds interest to the puzzle. Interesting mixture, too, of the agency that’s carrying out the action described – some restaurant employee CLEARing CRYSTAL, or the PUNCH itself PLEASing people. I found the permutations in this one, pleasant rather than problematic. And I agree with @Lewis’s discovery of sweetness here.
The D in DUNK was my last square and at the time I had no earthly idea what was meant. I’d just had the revelation that B-52s were drinks and not planes, but couldn’t suss the clued “basket.” D’oh! CHIA OBAMA – yikes – I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Was it at all controversial when it first came out? I had a small giggle over [Chow chow chow], because it was a Purina slogan (Cat Chow) rather than ALPO. (Oops, looks like both Purina and ALPO are now part of Nestlé. Man, corporate concentration has run amok.) Why do I always think “myrmecologist” has something to do with mushrooms? [Looking it up…] Oh, that’s “mycologist.” Gotta remember, the extra syllables mean ants. Enjoyed SWINE crossing SOWS – always a fan of the porcine. I went down a surprisingly deep rabbit hole in search of the kind of STAY referenced in 122A. Who knew there were collar STAYs and shirt STAYs and they’re different. I laughed at ANECDATA – found it new and amusing. Also tittered at how the crossword transformed THE Y into THEY.
Getting back to clothing, loved [Wear white to a chili cook-off, you might say]. The constructor must know me. Not that I’d ever be foolish enough to do such a thing, but I’m the champion spiller of staining foods on my clothing. I could rival any kid in a highchair. I remember the time in a restaurant that my cousin, who was sitting beside me, spilled red wine all over my white sweater. She felt awful but I just wanted to hug her because, for once, I hadn’t done it. (Surprisingly, the sweater recovered – I can’t remember if I rushed it to a dry cleaner or used my considerable talents in stain removal at home, but it’s back to being white and wearable.)
[SB: Friday, -5. Gaah, crashed and burned, and there was I trying to tie my record of 4 consecutive QBs.
Yd, -1. Brought down by this, which I’m sure has foiled me before.
And, btw, LANDAU has been removed from the list of the acceptable.]
Probably 75% of the puzzle felt like a throwback Wednesday grid. Didn’t understand the theme (even though I thought I grokked it at BUS, but then ran into the same problem that Rex and others described).
I unfortunately had to throw in the towel eventually as there were just too many answers I really had no clue about - AVILA, MUONS, BOBA, SEPTA (as clued), even MARTA x MACRO was never going to drop (MICRO is much more close-up friendly choice).
Ok folks, we have a sock in a shoe store, and PED, which also sounds foot-related as an answer - but that’s where the connection seems to end. Can someone enlighten me on this one ? I definitely didn’t get the memo on that one.
Btw, nice to see Rex offer some thoughts/elaboration regarding the Trans issue instead of just lobbing a grenade at the other side. Everyone is free to agree/disagree with him, but I do believe he does more of a public service (and a benefit to his cause) when he offers up his thoughts on the matter instead of just calling names.
Hand up for the MARTi/MiCRO Natick. A lovely solving experience until I had to finish by chasing that one down.
UNICLUES:
(I decided to attempt a Sunday, bless me.)
1. Transparent, like bowlers that show off your receding hairline.
2. Immediately end production of Glaswegian summer headwear! (They never get good weather, you know, so they don’t know how to dress for it.)
3. What happens to your upper arm if you stop exercising and really let yourself go.
4. Spanker’s avocation.
5. The three S’s.
6. New professional dress at forensic facilities.
7. Ark deer who moans about the cramped accommodations while all the other Cervidae are dancing on deck.
1. CLEAR AS CRYSTAL DERBIES
2. OH, STOP SCOT SUNHATS!
3. BICEPS, AND THEN – ASH
4. LABOR OF LOVE: SWAT BUMS
5. LESSONS: SUM, SEGA, SEW
6. DNA LABS: TOGA, ORNATE
7. NOAH HIND PARTY POOPER
okanaganer, I don't know whether to thank you or hate you for pointing me towards the Blossom rabbit hole! Just spent many, many minutes playing. A different kind of challenge than Spelling Bee. I'm very impressed you got over 400 on Saturday! It was great to have the opportunity to have that unusually large number of pangrams and long words, but I'm going to have to practice more to get anywhere close to 400.
It's ANECDOTAL evidence and has been for centuries. ANECDATA is made-up, dumb, and unnecessary. Much like this puzzle.
Agree! So much so that I believe it’s actually MARTa/MaCRO
Big Ben does not reflect GMT per se. It reflects the city of London's time.
London recognizes daylight savings, therefore Big Ben's clock changes when this occurs....thus differing from GMT by an hour. While it is true that during 'standard' time Ben equals GMT, it does not equal it in total.
Cheerio
I had exactly the same BEEFS as Rex. You "make pretty" or you "prettify" but you don't "pretty". You "make green" but you don't "green". This theme works well where it works well, but it doesn't work everywhere.
And the puzzle is so easy. I found the clues EASY AS PIE. I found the fill FLAT AS A PANCAKE. After three wonderfully challenging days in a row, this one was DULL AS DISHWATER.
That Onion article was really great, Rex. Sometimes sarcasm seems to be the only way to get through to people.
I'm always happy to see Tao's name in a crossword, and find it almost miraculous that people can be expected to have heard of him, as in quick: name five famous mathematicians living today. I'd think a lot of people would peter out after Tao and Wiles and maybe Perelman. (Surprise me!) But I have to think a moment about what would make Tao the Mozart of Mathematics (as opposed to many other mathematicians I could name). Both were child prodigies, and both have been incredibly prolific, but those apply to lots of people. Past that, I expect the analogies would be somewhat strained. But surprise me again.
(I don't know what Mozart was like personally, but Terence Tao is a fine egg. Friendly, supportive, generous, ... one could go on. He doesn't fit the tormented soul archetype.)
I agree, @MUSE, that there are untold thousands of potentially great mathematical talents all over the world, living in rain forests or tundra regions or eking out subsistence livings on farms or goodness knows where else. Such talent is distributed evenly over the world, or so it seems to me.
Gee, how many times do you say SEPTA in real life without referring to transportation in the Philly area?
ALE TAP sounds slightly made up. (Maybe it isn't, but it sounds that way to me.) Do people refer to lager taps as well? People mostly just say "beer taps", right? Making such fine distinctions kinda verges on the pointless (stout taps, bock taps, porter taps, etc.).
LIT CRIT will probably always remind me of this SNL sketch.
Just because you tuck it away in a corner doesn't make it right. Looking at you, 17D. It BUMS me out that Shortz can't get this out of his system.
SB: -1 dbyd (faltered here), 0 yd (last words were this and then this). @okanaganer: agreed that using that word will generally get you hooted out of the room, unless you put an 'e' on the end and live in Montreal.
Enjoyable puzzle, except for a few crosses that required guesswork (I guessed wrong on MARTA/MACRO and never heard of MUONS. I figured out ANECDATA but don't agree that it's a legitimate new word in the lexicon.
The puzzle's title gave away the theme, which made it an easier solve than most Sundays (except for a few crosses).
1000% agree, especially with clue as given for MACRO
@Barbara S.
I won't miss LANDAU! That stupid, arbitrary list.
On spilling wine, I forget which Rabbi said this, but the lesson was if you are the host of a Passover Seder and one of your guests accidentally spills red wine on your white tablecloth, you should "accidentally" do the same so that he or she doesn't feel too bad. (Probably also best to avoid screaming "WHAT THE F**K, MURRAY?" if possible.)
Whoosh! New personal record. Didn’t even read most of the theme clues. Solved from the back and put in the “standard’ front end for each simile ending which then filled a lot of spaces. When the suspected front end fit I just moved on 🚀
The Shortz interview is indeed charming.
@Barbara S -- Your #3 is absolutely priceless!
Anything left for me after Gary and Barbara?
Uniclues:
1) Those critters simply refuse to look at my mid-section -- either directly or by means of their special gifts.
2) If you haven't a clue what that designer dress costs new, how on earth will you know if the markdown is a good buy?
3) Yiddish laments identified by being spun in a research lab
1) ABS GALL ESP SEAL, EMU
2) SHOPS GREEN AS GRASS
3) OYS ANECDATA WHIRLED
This theme just didn't do it for me, and neither did the puzzle's title. I haven't read all of my fellow puzzle-solvers' comments but I thought something to do with the comma would have been more helpful. This was a very easy puzzle and it took me all the way to "SMART AS A WHIP" to understand what the heck was going on. And even then, someone used the phrase "mental gymnastics" - I felt like that was exactly what was required to "get" the themers.
@Rex, I'm being nitpicky but I believe that in the first paragraph of your excellent review you might mean add a comma (and not an apostrophe). Sorry if anyone else has called this out.
Fun because it was easy, frustrating because it didn't quite hit the mark. Merry Sunday!
Pretty straightforward compared to today’s cryptic, which I guess will be my last ever in the Times. Mad as a hatter.
Hey All !
Well, I liked it. I'm not too invested in Grammatic Rightness, so the Themers were all good in my mind. I speak well enough (well, I talk low a lot and mumble), but I at least sound like I'm knowledgeable of English (to myself, anyway!)
Had a quick time for me for a SunPuz. Actually filled puz in top down, which usually doesn't happen. I'm usually all over the place, getting foot-holds where I can. As a matter of fact, my last letter in was the actual last letter, the Y of THEY/STAY.
And yet still a DNF! Argh! Hit Check Puzzle, and found I had MiCRO/MARTi. Ugh. But, it didn't sting as bad as that's a legitimate (to me 😁) misstep.
ASSES and BUMS and HIND, oh my!
Funny Down, LABOR OF LOVE SWAT BUMS.
Also - HIND PARTY POOPERS. 😁
Had hOLeS for YOLKS first. Har. Fits the clue, no? [66D, Breakfast centers?] Donuts, bagels...
Anyway, have a great Sunday, y'all!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I went through the whole thing with the vague feeling of unease so nicely expressed by OFL and LMS, writing in answers and thinking OK, I guess. Same with ANECDATA, which I only think is a word if you need two A's for crosses.
I liked seeing BIGAIR, which I knew as an event, close to the B-52's. I imagine when the B-52's performed in England, people thought the women in the group had BIG'AIR.
The frequency of moo-cow easy answers (hi M&A) was a little disappointing and the themers were all well known enough to be fairly obvious. SMOOTHASSILK is OK but personally I prefer SMOOTHASASMELT.
OK Sunday, RG. Didn't Really Grab me but as one of my hootenanny crowd says after performing a song, nobody got hurt. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
A dunk is anything but an exquisitely made basket. The only skill it exhibits is high jumping.
Fun, pleasant solve. Theme was a bit vague, agreed - I was trying to say the answers without "AS", etc. A little late to the game this morning because this section of the paper did not arrive yesterday, as it usually does.
Thanks for the link to the Will Shortz interview!
I seem to be in a minority of one, but I only just now heard of ANECDATA -- and I love it!
Unlike the godawful textspeak, abbrevs and acronyms that younger people keep coming up with, there seems to be no such thing as a bad portmanteau. All the new ones I've heard I find quite clever -- and ANECDATA also serves a real need. I'll explain:
There's such a thing as asking, say, three of your closest friends their opinion or experience of something -- and then using that as legitimate "polling data". And there's a term for doing that: It's called "mother-in-law research".
ANECDATA sounds like the exact same thing. And isn't the lovely portmanteau ANECDATA shorter, punchier, and a lot funnier than "mother-in-law research"?
Rex, thank you for your support of the trans community. The rampant dehumanization, segregation, and vilification in the US is awful.
I somehow ended up failing this one. I had ILOSt for ILOSE and didn’t know PED so PTD seemed like a plausible brand.
❤️
❤️
When you're on the right side of history, you don't owe any explanation to the stragglers who refuse to get with the program.
I'm on a four-hour flight so my bar for entertainment is pretty low.
This was still 100% joyless.
I loved the theme. I thought the idea of repurposing common similes as illustrative examples of actions was so clever, and the fact that the same phrase structure could work in different ways part of the charm. Totally smitten. The first one I got was SOUND, AS A BELL, which like Pavlov's bell then had me panting and salivating to get the next (sorry). I had no problem accepting GREEN as a verb, although like @Barbara S with PRETTY I'd usually use it with "up" ("The grass is starting to GREEN up nicely.") So many other pleasures in the grid, too. Like others, I appreciated TEMPT FATE as clued; for me it's more like, "Surely the oil from the pan won't spatter on me this time."
@Rebecca Goldstein, I had so much fun with this. Thank you.
Between the bland theme and the unchallenging fill this puzzle just bored me.
When I finished the only thing I wasn't completely sure of was PED. This meaning for that half word is news to me. At least in the Shortz era it's never been clued that way. It doesn't really help that it's crossed with ILOSE. That's an only in crosswords phrase and one we just recently had. However PTD made no sense at all.
What is this MiCRO lens that a number of people have come up with. I've never heard of one. MACRO, on the other hand, is a common if somewhat misleading term.
yd -0
This is a Sunday where I didn't stop to figure out the theme, i.e., the adjective to verb thing. It was easy as pie to solve the theme answers with a handful of crosses.
ANECDATA is a thing.
Trust me. My job involves climate science and dealing with ANECDATA is a pain in the tushy.
ANECDATA kept me up last night, so much did I despise it. I looked up what dictionaries said it meant, and the good ones haven't acknowledged it as of yet, and the crappy ones differed on what it meant. My take was that we have a perfectly good term for things that we know because we've observed them - Empirical Data. I'm pretty sure gravity works because of a lifetime of empirical data. I don't need someone to make up a new word for that, yet someone did. Some dictionaries include 'opinions' as another source of ANECDATA, which confirmed my original suspicion that the term was harmful, so my hatred grew. I then looked at some sites on the net that purported to support ANECDATA, and my hatred diminished somewhat, if you look at it as crowd-sourcing observations in one spot. I participate in that, in the Audubon's Annual Bird Count, and cumulatively we all produce data that is of some use, but not sufficiently rigorous (everyone uses different sampling, etc) to qualify, as an agglomeration, as empirical data.
As to the rest of the puzzle, I don't care about themes, I just like zoning out filling in squares, so it doesn't bother me as much that some of the themes don't make sense.
FATE, should it exist, exists on its own. You can't tempt it. If something is alterable by someone's actions, it isn't inexorable, as is FATE.
I saw CLEAR AS CRYSTAL and, even with the idea of bussing tables, didn't get the theme until SMOOTH AS SILK for "Iron?" showed up too. I was able to see PRETTY AS A PICTURE and SMART AS A WHIP after that with minimal crosses so this was as fun a Sunday as a Sunday can be, with a nice title besides. Only PLEASED AS PUNCH fell a little flat, for me.
I did have a DNF with the cross of MARTi crossing MiCRO. I figured at the time that it could go MARTA/MACRO but tossed a coin and lost. Another one I was totally up in the air about was PED crossing I LOSE. PtD made as much sense for the 58A clue (still don't get it) which would make 36D I LOSt. But I won the coin toss there because the 36D clue seems slightly more in the present than the past tense.
ANECDATA is a word? New to me anyway.
Very tricky clue, "Ideal course" for PLAN A. And I loved seeing through 1A's clue and plopping NEON in as my first answer.
And does "Imagine WHIRLED Peace" have mashed peas in it? I'm sure that would be a very popular ice cream flavor :-).
Breakfast centers as YOLKS, nice. And "Antiquated, quaintly" is a nice touch, for 29A's clue.
Rebecca, thanks for the lovely Sunday puzzle!
I refer you to this Sunday’s NYT Magazine page 7.
Thx, Rebecca, 'Irresistible', indeed; loved it! :)
Med.
Terrific theme!
Laughable dnf at nUON / I'M A nESS! 🤣
Cherished my Converse HIGH TOPS! Don't think they were 'Chuck Taylor All Stars', tho.
A PRETTY SMOOTH solve; enjoyed every minute of it! :)
@okanaganer (1:16 AM): I join @Anonymous (8:56 AM) in extending kudos for your 400+ performance on 'Bloomer'. I don't dare get into anything that resembles the SB – well except maybe Duotrigordle. lol
___
Tough NYT cryptic today; got it right, but still trying to fully grok a couple of the clues (17D; 28A). Will get back to you, @TTrimble.
@Son Volt: working on the Sat. Stumper; 80% finished (at 2:10), with the upper left quad providing much resistance. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Photosynthesis involves chlorophyll, which is what makes plants green. So GREEN AS GRASS fits the pattern just fine.
@LMS
"I have 45 minutes to grade those papers and then put my agenda, targeted standards, essential question, and learning target on the board and I’m looking at %$#@ing trees."
OMG do I sympathize!! And my kiddos were all under 10 years old. Imagine doing that for Kindergarten! Just so any observer could see that you did it. A large part of why I resigned.
Puzzle: easy, 1 min off my PR from last May when we were still in Berlin and I was using a lot more German than English.
I go to THE Y 3x a week to work my BICEPS and ABS.
@Pete
Not saying you don't know this, but ANECDATA, which is new to me, sounds like observational data that has not (necessarily) been subjected to appropriate statistical constraints like control groups and random sampling methods. "Dewey Defeats Truman" [based on flawed polling methods] could be an infamous example of ANECDATA, if I understand what it's supposed to mean. So what I'm saying is that Empirical Data, as a suggested synonym, could be a little too exalted, at least in terms of setting up people's expectations.
@TTrimble - That was my point, no? On one hand you can have high-quality empirical data, and in my initial understanding of ANECDATA, the other hand is that you have a grouping of observations/opinions from a bunch of randos, which is crap, and I objected to giving crap a reasonable sounding name. However, upon further though I recognized and pointed out one example of ANECDATA that I participate in, and that I and many others find useful. The population decline of certain bird species highlighted by the Xmas survey not in any way rigorous and is in no way dispositive, but sure as hell is true. For another example, the comments here about puzzles being easier than they were a decade ago. Does it prove anything - hell no. Is it likely correct? Probably.
Good to see one last Richard Silvestri Cryptic, ere the Times removes Varieties/Acrostics from our online subscriptions, and I cancel mine and snowshoe into the woods, just as the sap on the big maple trees is starting to run. I'll shave bark from the willow and birch shoots just coming into their virtues, make a tincture of them to ease the pain.
Richard Silvestri is my favorite cryptic constructor, always a challenge, the "aha's" more endorphic when finally solved. Today it was 13 across, and the unusual sound I made on understanding the clue prompted my wife in the other room to ask after my well being.
I wonder that @Rex, who can leap to polemics with little or no prompting, hasn't addressed the NYT's business decision to drop these puzzles or their stated rationale . I followed the lead of others here and sent the editors an e-mail, expecting at least a canned response, receiving none.
"While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies"
-- John Keats, "To Autumn"
Love your post script today
When your theme is a series of dad jokes that take longer to explain than solve, maybe pick another one.
@Pete
Thanks for amplifying what you meant. I was confused by what you wrote:
My take was that we have a perfectly good term for things that we know because we've observed them - Empirical Data. I'm pretty sure gravity works because of a lifetime of empirical data. I don't need someone to make up a new word for that, yet someone did.
You seemed to be saying there that ANECDATA is a new word for Empirical Data, and gave gravity as an example.
Anyway, I think with your last post, we're now on the same page.
When Obama heard about ChiaObama he laughed.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-nov-10-fi-ct-neil10-story.html
For those of you baffled by PED (Southside Johnny, puzzlehoarder, Teedmn) I'm guessing you've never been in a women's shoe store. They always have PEDS, which are disposable nylon half-socks that prevent users from sharing cooties.
It played like a large Monday puzzle. Aren’t most of the theme answers simply common similes we’ve seen a million times? What’s the challenge? A big disappointment.
@Birchbark, I'm a fan of Richard Silvestri's cryptics, too, which I find diabolical in the best way. Today's was the rare - or maybe only - one I've been able to do in one sitting, so I'm basking in the glow of that achievement. I'm sorry you're going to have to do without.
Given the abundance of deftly handled derrière referents, I’d classify this puzzle as being of the SMOOTH ASS ILK.
It seems like we have a new “go to” type of clue for when the constructor’s brain just isn’t working.. JUST CLUE IT WITH THE ZIP CODE!!! No need to stop with UCLA clued as “Campus with the Zip Code 90095.” For example, if you’re stuck on a clue for FARGO, just clue it as “City containing the Zip Code 58104.” Can’t come up with a clue for WHITEHOUSE? How about “Residence located in Zip Code 20500.” Trying to clue DFW? How about “ Airport located in Zip Code 75261”?
I just tested positive for you-know-what, so apologies if my comments over the next few days aren’t up to my usual low standards.
I’m more or less in the Rex camp on this puzzle, but enjoyed it nonetheless. Thanks, Rebecca Goldstein.
It got me. ☹️
Really want HATS for seen at Royal weddings.
exceedingly easy and no point at tall to the theme, just fill in the blanks and as you go similes will just fill in. No need at to bother figuring out the (un-amusing) puns. That just slowed down the process. Get a couple letters in, find the ... as ... and the simile is all to obvious.
Horrible puzzle, sorry
Similes redefined, usin one-word clues. The whispers of redefinition desperation were kinda amusin, I'd grant. Not quite as funny as snot, tho.
Great pun in the puz title, btw.
And a 22x21 puzgrid … more for yer moneybucks. Made extra room for The Jaws of Whatever, too boot.
Also, wonderful fillins. Some faves included: PARTYPOOPER. LABOROFLOVE. GOGETTER. ANTFARM. YOLKS clue.
staff weeject pick: TAO as in Terrence. One of a handful of no-knows, at our house.
Other no-teworthy no-knows: CHIAOBAMA [debut -- inferable, at least]. ANECDATA [debut -- not a big surprise]. MARTA. ALLYSON/BOBA. A nice, small list.
Thanx for the big as a spy balloon puz, Ms. Goldstein darlin. Way too good to shoot down, IM&AHO.
Masked & Anonymo9Us
déjà vu all over again, based on some recent NYTPuz entries/clues:
**gruntz**
What is a dunk in basketball?
noun. basketball. a scoring shot in which a player jumps up and forces the ball down through the basket.
We’re grateful for your compassionate and insightful comments about trans individuals.
Your grass (and leaves) are brown without photosynthesis, so the clue works for me.
@Birchbark
I'd be sorry to see you go, but it sounds like it's heading that way. But I also hope the NYT loses a ton of subscribers, to force them to reconsider.
When I wrote to say that I thought they were making a terrible decision, they responded thus:
Thank you for contacting The New York Times. We appreciate you taking the time to write in regarding the decision to remove the Acrostic and Variety puzzles from our digital games catalog starting March 1, 2023.
The main reason behind removing the Acrostic and Variety puzzles from our online platforms is due to the complex nature of these puzzles, the digital version is difficult to support for our technical teams. Please note the ability to download and print these puzzles will be discontinued on February 26, 2023 and the archive will be available until March 1, 2023.
If you are interested in subscribing to home delivery with us, we are offering 50% off the first year of a Home Delivery subscription to solvers who want to continue enjoying these puzzles.
We are collecting feedback on this change, and I have passed your message along to the Games team for review. Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts.
The first sentence of their second paragraph sounds, frankly, preposterous. It makes their technical team sound inept and incompetent. I'll bet they could find a bright high school student who could sort it out. Could it be a cover for some other reason? (The crossword itself, with all its bells and whistles, ought to be even more difficult to maintain, but they would never have the temerity to drop that.)
@Birchbark, @Carola,
I thought this weekend's cryptic was a little trickier than usual. I'm embarrassed to say that one trouble I had was with 14D, on account of my poor vocabulary. At least I learned a new word. h/t to @bocamp for some behind-the-scenes comments.
@egs
Nice one! Or: RIGHT ON RIGHT ON!
Get better soon.
Totally agree with all points in your P.S. Thanks for passing on that Onion skewering. Brutal and brilliant.
This was a true old style Sunday. I grew up with my immigrant Gran who spoke German and English and was quite the grammarian. My mother taught English, and I was in school back in the dark ages when we diagrammed sentences. All that helped me understand this theme instantly. All my years solving beside Gran certainly didn't hurt. She always pointed out the salient language and grammar issues and themes as we went through each day.
Catching this theme easily doesn’t mean that I didn’t like the puzzle. I did. Iy was well conceived and cleverly executed and had a nice smattering of clever word play. Surprised me to need a collar STAY today. Back on the day before automatic washers and dryers, we soaked all the white dress shirts in blueing, washed them, ran them through the wringer (no automatic spin cycle) into a rinse tub, wrung them again, folded them and placed them into a plastic bag until they were starched and ironed and each collar point had its STAY reinserted. Whew! I remember so vividly my Gran’s delight when my parents bought their first totally automatic washer and dryer. I was as happy as they were. All this from a dang collar STAY.
This wasn’t very tough but I enjoyed the solve.
LMS: may I quote you on the Tao of Mozart?
Just waaaaaay too easy for Sunday.
@CDilly52-Sounds like laundry day at our house when I was growing up, except you didn't mention the part about hanging everything on the clothesline.
Also, nice to see "wringer used correctly". I keep seeing people talk about being put through the "ringer", and wonder what that might be.
Thank you! I second this.
Rex was being kind to a friend as this puzzle had some of the worst clue/fill pairs I have ever seen. If it weren't for keeping my streak alive, I would have walked away from this puzzle in disgust. Examples: PLANA is not ideal, it is just the first, best option and no one says PLAN A, they say "Let's go to Plan B." The reason for this clue is that every other good clue has been overused for this now trite fill. Same for ALPO. OLDE, AAAS, SLOMO, ELLE, and the list goes on. For dozens of other overused answers, the constructor didn't even bother to come up with original clues. A DUNK is not exquisite, it is atheletic! Rex, we know eviscerating lame themes is your thing but after a few sentences your analysis becomes lamer than the theme. At least the constructor tried. I don't need perfect parallelism in the theme. Say theme was inconsistently executed and go on to something else.
Give us an overall assessment and don't let crud like this fill not get called out.
@TTrimble -- Thanks for the kind words -- 14D solved by true clue first, then slouched into acknowledging that yes, the cryptic is correct.
@LMS It seems pretty obvious to me that you are the Mozart of blog commentary.
I made the same mistake about ants & mushrooms! Good idea, try to remember the ant one is longer.
I liked the puzzle also, thought the theme was very easy but balanced by some tricky fill clues
So average for me.
Not all of the similes given are actual similes. Only three of the seven theme answers use …as a… format.
Check out the dunk contest if you think it doesn't require skill
I’m so old I thought B52 was a vitamin shot popular in the 1970’s . Couldn’t make it fit but I tried!
@Birchbark, @Carola, @TTrimble -- Re the Cryptic:
I thought this was quite a tough one. My favorite clues were for 1A; 13A; 7D (took me forever, even when I had all the "checked" crosses); 23A; 18D (the name thing is so clever!) and especially 26A.
Some clues I parsed only after getting the answer: 7D was one; also 3D; 4D; and 16D.
And some I solved based only on the definition part of the clue and have not parsed yet: 15A seems almost explainable, but not quite. One letter seems to be missing. And I don't get the last two letters of 28A at all.
I'm going to cut and paste this comment on the Cryptic comments board at Wordplay. Maybe someone will answer me there. Or maybe you guys will mosey over there and explain 15A and 28A to me.
FYI -- Everyone's been urged to write to the NYT by some of the commentariat over at Wordplay -- people just as upset as you are by the new Times policy on Cryptics and Acrostics. So I did. Here's a copy of my letter to the Games Dept:
I'm a pen and paper puzzle solver -- just like God intended. I'd rather be boiled in oil than have to solve any kind of puzzle on any kind of gadget. And therefore it's not my ox that's being gored by your new policy.
I've been a Home Subscriber for 52 straight years, so, again, it's not my ox that's being gored. But I have good puzzle friends whose oxes are being gored. They are very, very unhappy and they have done nothing to deserve being made very, very unhappy.
By doing this, the NYT is not exactly endearing itself to its online subscribers, is it? Your excuse on why you're doing this is risible. Surely reproducing a Cryptic puzzle online is not harder than reproducing a regular crossword online. It should actually be easier. Half as many letters in the grid, after all.
I know a shakedown when I see one. This is why people hate Corporate America so much. But I never expected such a greedy and cynical policy from the NYT. Do you want people to hate you? For heaven's sake, reverse this ill-advised policy.
@Nancy (10:09) -- Thank you. I hope your influence as a constructor, published NYT editorialist and all-around powerfully good woman will rate something more considered than what others received after responding thoughtfully to the NYT's "we want to hear from you about this" invitation. It's worth reposting yours from tonight or something similar in the daylight hours, when more people are active on this blog. And the response you receive, if any, from NYT, which matters.
It just didn’t hold together and, yes, definitely should have had commas. My peeves: “Sound as a bell” was just annoying since “Clear as a bell” is the familiar simile, but that wouldn’t have worked. And “pretty” as an alternative to “photoshop??” What? Agh!
Very, very easy. A couple of the themers did not quite seem to work, but overall a good idea.
Nice and easy. I like the repurposing of the expressions changing the adjective to a verb. Very clever, if sometimes stretched a bit. Nothing awful in the fill, and my #1 honey SELA back so soon as DOD. What's the HARM? Birdie.
Wordle par.
GOODAT IT
I'M PLEASEDASPUNCH to know ELAINE,
IT's CLEARASCRYSTAL THE VALUE OF
being SMOOTHASSILK AND TEMPT NO pain,
SMARTASAWHIP in THE LABOROFLOVE.
--- KRIS WIIG
@Ken Freeland 12:30am:
In what sense is it patois??? You could probably get that drink in almost any bar in the world! I knew what they wanted, and I don't drink alcohol. Plus it is named for the band The B52's, and been around for 50 years.
Marginally entertaining. I guess sayings like thickasabrick or snugasabuginarug or hungryasahorse won't work. I had both SELA Ward and Kristen WIIG circled. HOTsPOT.
Wordle birdie!
Completed perfectly with absolutely no help - not even from Lambo! Even with the names!
Fun Sun!
Diana, LIW
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