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Spirit of Oaxaca / FRI 2-24-23 / What musicians pluck on an mbira / Metaphor for fitting items into a moving van / Sources of psilocybin informally / Transport in the film Roman Holiday / Green cappuccino alternative / Question from a friendly interviewer / One of two penguin species endemic to Antarctica / Lizard with a third eye / Emphatic confirmation about oneself
Friday, February 24, 2023
Constructor: Margaret Seikel and Sophia Maymudes
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: LEAD climbing (2D: ___ climbing (discipline that debuted at the 2020 Olympics)) —
Lead climbing is a climbing style, predominantly used in rock climbing. In a roped party one climber has to take the lead while the other climbers follow. The lead climber wears a harness attached to a climbing rope, which in turn is connected to the other climbers below the lead climber. While ascending the route, the lead climber periodically connects the rope to protection equipment for safety in the event of a fall. This protection can consist of permanent bolts, to which the climber clips quickdraws, or removable protection such as nuts and cams. One of the climbers below the lead climber acts as a belayer. The belayer gives out rope while the lead climber ascends and also stops the rope when the lead climber falls or wants to rest.
• • •
 |
| [8D: One of two penguin species endemic to Antarctica] |
“No-makeup makeup is makeup that you wear that just slightly enhances your features in a very natural and minimal way,” says makeup artist Lindsay Katsuk.
I wrote in NO MAKE-UP MONDAY. Seemed legit. "I didn't know that was a thing. Cool!" Alas, no. To be very clear, I'm not mad at this answer at all. It seems original and others will recognize it and enjoy it. It's just one of those answers that missed me. I do like its fearless repetition of MAKE-UP. Bold.
["Put on a little make-up, make-up..."]
Wish I could like anything about CONTENT CREATOR, but it just reminds me of the reduction of everything online to the undifferentiated sludge of "content." Gotta fill that feed, get those posts up, go go go. Distraction arms race leading god knows where. "Content" has a dystopian corporate vagueness that makes my skin crawl. But there's no doubting that CONTENT CREATOR is a type of ... person. And it's an original answer. It's just that seeing it doesn't make me feel good feelings. But again, not all puzzles are for me, and that's good. Probably.
Never heard of LEAD climbing and wasn't sure if it was the "lead" as in "leader" or "lead" as in "lead balloon." "Why are they climbing [the element] LEAD?" I kind of briefly wondered. I also balked and rebalked at TINE (20A: What musicians pluck on an mbira). I think VINE and TONE were in there before TINE, which I stared at, thinking it must be wrong. I'm really Really glad I have seen ADÉLIE penguins before, because that "I" ... if I were a more novice solver, I might believe TONE or TUNE there. I mean, they're both musical—more (apparently) musical than TINE, that's for sure. Mbira are a "family" of Zimbabwean musical instruments, and each instrument consists of a "wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal TINEs" (wikipedia). Looking forward to seeing MBIRA in some future, let's say, Saturday grid.
I didn't encounter much difficulty beyond the difficulties already mentioned. I could not get ROBYN from that particular clue (33D: One-named singer with the 1997 hit "Show Me Love") both because I don't know that song (I didn't discover ROBYN til sometime around 2010, I wanna say), and because if you say "hey, do you know that song from the '90s called "Show Me Love?" my response is gonna be "hell yes I do ... and it goes a little something like this":
[How is this "Show Me Love" also by a ROB(I)N!?!?!]
GAY ICON and POP STAR are fine answers, but I've seen them an awful lot now, and since they are the longest fill the grid has outside of the Big Four, their lack of freshness costs the puzzle some much-needed sizzle. Ooh, forgot to mention that I do love "I SURE AM!" (5D: Emphatic confirmation about oneself). I like the brash confidence, as well as the genuine originality. And I like BALL HOG (31D: One unlikely to make a pass). And I really love MEZCAL (37D: Spirit of Oaxaca). Maybe too much. But we may be talking about my life and not the grid now, so let's wrap things up. Good puzzle, out of my wheelhouse, that's OK! See you tomorrow.
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110 comments:
OFL's Medium difficulty sounds about right.
Overwrites:
PiCK AT before PECK AT (14D) made TRESS hard to see
spasm before THROE at 20D
oaT before NUT at 21A
pearS before BOSCS at 26D
WOES:
@REX LEAD climbing (2D)
La ROCHE-Posay (24D)
ROBYN (33D)
Jason ALDEAN (52A)
Felt like a Saturday puzzle that was not quite hard enough to run on a Saturday. I agree with @Rex, not much flow, but otherwise enjoyable — even though I DNF with MEsCAL/sEE. Doh.
I initially suspected it may be some super-cryptic theme, as the first three long acrosses sounded fictional - NOMAKEUPMAKEUP, SNEAKERHEAD and MATCHALATTE all sounded, well MADE UP to me. CONTENT CREATOR broke the mold though.
Good job by the constructor laying off the hard-core arcane stuff on a Friday - there are a few, but spread out nicely over the grid.
My only real regret was seeing my favorite deadly sin SLOTH clued as a mammal instead.
Frequently, with puzzles that seem by-and-for millennials and Zoomers, I feel both a bit relieved because it balances out some of the old guard tendencies in NYT cluing, *and* a bit bored because terms like NO MAKEUP MAKEUP and CONTENT CREATOR are very far from what I find most interesting about current and recent cultural trivia. That said, I appreciated that they seemed to balance it out with some cluing aimed at different generations.
And in general, I liked this puzzle a lot. Clever cluing in places, clever alternate meanings in others. Ie, the botanical definition of AREOLA (google STOMATA for another nerdy bit of leafy science). Lots of other biology trivia - I’m curious whether folks will see this puzzle as being too PPP-laden. I tend to think of GAY ICONS as people who are not only beloved by queer communities but are also LGBTQ+ identified themselves, but I think I’m in the minority on that one.
My father’s name is Wayne, which means I tend to pay attention to famous Waynes. So I had BRADY for too long, and got myself into a mess thinking that it *had* to be a person’s last name, even though I had most of the crosses and neighbors (but blanked on TACO BAR and THROE). I felt… verrrry sheepish when I finally looked it up, making it a DNF for me.
All in all, I’d say this puzzle was easy-medium. And, for the record in response to some commentary yesterday critiquing those who might congratulate ourselves or be publicly proud of a personal best, etc, I’m always delighted to read folks’ varying experiences of difficulty and yes, that includes bragging. I assume that most of us come here to discuss crosswords with friendly internet strangers because we want to geek out with others with others with similar levels of passion for words and puzzles (and to spare our loved ones in many cases, I imagine 🙃). Part of what keeps it fun for me is trying to get better - and since past a certain point solving ease is so subjective, I can only truly judge my current self against my self of past weeks, months, and eventually years. How I rate a puzzle is never meant to be an implicit judgment of how others experience it, or what their priorities are in doing puzzles. I’m trying for speed at this stage; I may not in the future. There are as many wheelhouses as there are people in the world. Basically, IMO, keep kvetching and crowing, kvetchers and crowers.
Re: SquirrelGate - thanks all for the tips. I wish I could just give in to the squirrels, but my landlord cut a LOT of corners on the house when he renovated it, and so we don’t have mesh on the chimney and the squirrels have taken to gnawing on the roof edges to try and get in and nest. Basically, they’ve gotten just a bit too comfortable with us given the readily available food source. Our rent is low because we’re responsible for most home maintenance and minor repairs, so soon I’ll be learning how to install roof flashing (landlord covers materials at least). Fun times.
The music choice for this post reminded me of the existence of this excellent Deerhoof cover from the bygone AV Club Undercover series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1ByQL6KTKU
Anyone else irked at 15A Transport in the film "Roman Holiday"? It was a Vespa, dammit! A motor scooter if you must, but moped, just no. /rant
Can't remember a puzzle when I had to resort to as many wild guesses as today.
When I decided it had to be LEAD climbing, then threw in the TH of THROE and the IE of ADELIE, then got the "happy music," the only thing that kept me from whooping out loud was my sleeping wife in the next SHROOM (I mean, ROOM).
Speaking of SHROOMS, I was getting nothing in that western section, when suddenly I guessed BOSCS, and SHROOMS appeared and USABLE and MENUS and NUT and STAR--a tiny burst of whoosh!
Overall an epic struggle start to finish (just over 55 minutes) but the thrilling finish makes it an especially fun Friday
Handsome grid layout - agree with Rex that it doesn’t look like a typical free flowing Friday. I’m 50-50 - I usually base themeless puzzles on the longs - which this one fails miserably on. SNEAKER HEAD was fine I guess. The remaining fill teetered between near wordplay and TV Guide trivia.
Birds and chickens and the like PECK AT - when people aren’t hungry they pick AT. ADELIE was encyclopedic. Water is a POLAR molecule and has an overall neutral charge. Another AREOLA sighting today. If I’m a constructor - I wouldn’t double down on ICK and YUK.
I know AIMEE is the critics’ darling and we’re supposed to fall in line but I’ve tried and it doesn’t hit for me. AIMEE adajace
There was a lot of good fill today - loved the TACO BAR x BALL HOG cross and the cluing for BOSCS and ATTIC. My wife uses the ROCHE stuff so knew it but don’t know it. DASHER earlier in the week and BEETLE today.
@Nancy from late yesterday - loved TOSTADA
An enjoyable solve in the end - just not a typical Friday.
INN Town
Best part of this puzzle to me was its fresh feel. Yes, it only had four long answers, and Fridays usually abound with them, but those four answers anchor the puzzle, and they are all NYT answer debuts. And they are lovely. Furthermore, there’s nothing tired, in general, in the rest of the fill, or the cluing, for that matter. Everything feels crisp. The puzzle shines.
I didn’t fly through this by any means, nor was I frustratingly stuck anywhere. Some weekend puzzles have a degree of difficulty where the flow ends and I have to go through the clues in search of footholds. Today, every answer (except the first) emerged from letters of answers already filled in. And yet, no splat fills. Thus, a very Good Friday.
Loved loved loved that BRA clue.
In the one degree of separation department – PECK AT brings “hen” to mind, which elicits LAYER.
S&M, it felt like I just went to the apple farm, found a beauty, bit into it, and it tasted divine. The whole world feels more beautiful. Thank you!
Re: 55A - I have no idea how I did it, but I managed to get through the 90s never knowing there was a boy band rivalry. I'm assuming Perry Como wasn't involved.
Had to chuckle at Rex's analysis about how the ADELIE/TINE cross might trip up some solvers. I had the _ _ NE of TINE in place and was totally stumped. I considered putting in boNE (thinking perhaps you could get some sort of musical tone by plucking the bone of say, a bird, against a sounding board). Then, seeing the N in the third position, I thought, "Oh, lord, you can't pluck an ulNa, can you?!" Fortunately, REPPED eliminated that possibility.
Also, I tried NO fAKE UP MAKE UP, thinking there might be a singer names Alfee Mann.
How is THROE a contraction? What am I missing?
My big issue is that ROBIN doesn’t spell her name w a Y!
Good stuff. Always nice to learn new things, and today it was that something called NOMAKEUPMAKEUP exists.
SHROOMS: the ultimate NORUSH experience. I'll wash them down with a MATCHALATTE, but I'm sticking with MEZCAL at the TACOBAR
Gotta believe tons of us had PiCKAT first. PECKAT seems something only a bird could do.
I couldn't tell you a single Jason ALDEAN song -- never been a fan of the mainstream country music he embodies. But bazillions of people feel otherwise, so there's obviously something there.
My son is a burgeoning SNEAKERHEAD. He chooses to devote lots of space in his small Manhattan studio to boxes and boxes of old-school kicks -- Air Jordans, etc. I don't really get it, but he seems to have a decent handle on the secondary market, so OK. It's not like my 19 framed James Bond film one-sheets are any more rationale.
I thought the theme was “Things for People Younger Than Me.” Which is totally fine because I’m old.
Too much esoterica to enjoy this one. Rock climbing would have been sufficient, but between SNEAKERHEAD, country singers, ADELIE etc it was a slog.
I knew there was something different about this puzzle the second I saw it print out. Where are the stacks? There's no big central stair stack no big white corners. If you think about it those features are like theme into themselves so maybe a grid like this is actually the most themeless of all
Medium is just how I'd describe the difficulty. It could have been easy but for LEAD. Poor AIMEE and ICK just sat up there unsupported. SHROOMS, SLOTH, STIEG and GAYICON took me right down to the SE. That last one could have been GAYIDOL so I had to figure out which and then I backfilled the puzzle from there. Weird solve.
With BEE_LE in place I still needed TRESS to recognize BEETLE. That's the most word blind I've ever been.
LICIT is an SB classic speaking of which....
Sun-Thu -0
Shouldn't MEZCAL be clued with "Var."?
Does that convention get thrown out because it's Friday? I know Shortz was inconsistent with its use early in his tenure but I thought it was pretty standard now.
Good Friday (wait, that’s not for a few weeks).
I had a lengthy, witty comment that was lost when screen accidentally refreshed and don’t have energy to recreate. But my expression when I lost it was stronger than “Good Friday” - think many GDs with a splash of MO and FO were exclaimed.
Loved. This. Puzzle.
MEZCAL is the dominant spelling; MESCAL would be the anglicized variant, I think. And a further argument could be made that because it specifically says “of Oaxaca” that you would use the Spanish spelling. In my experience (though Pablo would know more), s’s in Spanish tend to be much more sibilant, without the ZEE sound that s often (ie) has in English and French.
The long acrosses weren’t really my thing either but I still liked the puzzle and loved three clues: wireless support providers, at times, for BRAS; one unlikely to make a pass, for BALL HOG; and creepy story, for ATTIC.
About thos le SHROOMS: I bought some ravioli stuffed with wild mushrooms at the farmers market, and they were delicious. But later that night and the next morning, I felt buzzed, like the time I ate a piece of candy at a party and someone asked me, “Did you
Just eat that WHOLE candy?” That high lasted about three days. Luckily, this one wasn’t as long but I do think there was some magic mushroom in those ravioli.
I SURE AM GAY! I sure am not a gay icon.
There is a song from 10 years back titled "Pumped Up Kicks". Vaguely remembering that helped me today.
ADELuE/TuNE Natick, other than that completed in a Fridayish time. I like BRA and AREOLA in the same puzzle
Oops, four great clues - add “Shell filling station” for TACO BAR.
You’re right about the spelling of MEZCAL and the pronunciation of the Z. In Spanish Z is always pronounced like an S, never an English Z sound - except in Spain, of course, where it is pronounced like the English TH (as is a soft C as in “center.”)
Ginger Capellini is dead right. 15 Across is flat-out, 100% incorrect. Moped and scooter are not, and never have been, synonymous or interchangeable. That the Princess and Joe Bradley are riding the most iconic scooter of all time--a Vespa--makes the error that much more grotesque.
DNF. I finally looked up ROBYN, ALDEAN, and ETHAN. That let me see a bunch of other things that I was stuck on. And while I sorted all these out, I had THROb, I SURE do, STeiG, and believe it or not, MulEs before MOPED. I've never seen that movie, and for all I knew there might have been a trip to the countryside. Also EvAdeS before ENACTS.
MATCHA LATTE sounds horrible. After puzzling over it for quite a bit, I finally put in MATCHA tea, without noticing the stray LA in between them. I don't think anyone says "matcha tea," anyway, it's just matcha.
I did get TINE -- figuring an mbira was some kind of thumb piano. From Rex's photo, I think I guessed right.
In 2018, I was wandering around the earthen wall surrounding Lucca Italy where they were shooting ads for,the upcoming 50h anniversary of Vespa. They were referencing photo stills from Roman Holiday to attempt to recreate some of the more famous shots from the movie. Vespa….yes. Moped….no.
Struggled a bit but wrapping up a Friday in under half an hour still thrills. As usual, made my own mess with ISUREdo, giving me a Wayne oAteR - sometimes I just can't stop making a Friday harder than it needs to be. But persistence paid off there and elsewhere.
Was going to quibble about Adelies being one of two endemic species to Antarctica, as several are native there, but forgot the "restricted to" sense of the word, so that clue was correct and i learned something, which is always good.
Anon 0806....a 'throe' is a spasm. A muscle may suffer a sudden throe, spasm or contraction.
First puzzle back after a break is normally a bit of a struggle (as today's was) and normally a lot of fun (but not today).
Of the four long answers:
- Never heard of NO MAKEUP MAKEUP, but it was inferable
- Never heard of SNEAKERHEAD, but it was inferable by analogy with gearhead.
- Never heard of MATCHA LATTE, and the first half needed every cross
- I knew CONTENT CREATOR.
PiCK AT before PECK AT.
Odd clue for IGUANA, as most lizards have a third eye. It's like cluing ROBIN as 'Bird that can fly'.
That threw me, too. I think it's contraction in the sense of a labor contraction (during birth). THROE definition: "intense or violent pain and struggle, especially accompanying birth, death, or great change"
weezie (7:08). Come down to this side of the playground. I've got a nice piece of cake for you.
When I think of gay icon, I think of Judy Garland. I hadn't heard that about Princess Diana but it makes sense. Her not truly being accepted by the Royal Family.
Very sharp cluing. One of the few times that Chen's POW was a lot of fun.
Please add me to the list of people who enjoyed this puzzle, but were irked at MOPED instead of VESPA. But also irked about “apolar” — it’s like nonpolar, meaning no distribution of charge (ie, no dipole moment). Apolar molecules and groups are electrically neutral, but that’s not really the meaning. (Oh . . And when i went to post this, CAPTCHA made me identify all boxes with MOTORCYCLES…).
Hey All !
Wow, brain not turned on this morning yet, apparently. Tough one for me. Had to Check Puzzle to be able to finish. So, would that be a FWC (Finished With Cheats)? Then again, is it really cheating if all you're doing is double -checking if your answers are correct? The mind boggles.
MATCHA LATTE sounds like a Salsa Dance. Or an insult en Español.
CONTENT CREATOR has a tinge of Green, no?
NO MAKE-UP MAKE-UP was properly strange.
BYAIR and emAIl have the AI in the same spot...
Happy Friday, all.
NO F's (ICK!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Amy: yay @Josquin for the Perry Como mention! When I was a little girl, loved him. And today's puzzle is a welcome Friday solve. Maybe not whooshy, but a good flow.
Skipped yesterday's as I just wasn't in the mood for a Thursday puzzle. Felt liberating.
Agree! As a Caspar owner I can assure you it is NOT a moped! Foul!
Caspar for Vespa? Come on autocrap. You can do better than that!
Maybe Mr.Gregory pecks at his food but he don't ride no moped!
Maybe Gregory Pecks at his food but he don't ride no moped
Me, too, for "medium" and for enjoying the shorter entries and the tricky clues (favorite: BALL HOG) more than the longer answers.
Do-over: MEsCAL, corrected by ZEE. Help from previous puzzles: SHROOMS, ATTIC as clued. Help from reading nature books to kids: ADELIE. No idea: ROBYN, ALDEAN, LEAD. Paradox?: When you PECK AT your food, you don't feel like eating, but when you're "peckish," you do.
First ”longer than average time” puzzle in a long while. Today I became a silver-star member of the “I’ve never heard of…Club”:
LEAD climbing, SNEAKERHEAD*, MATCHALATTE*, ALDEAN (tried ALlmAN). I guess that plus Wayne MANOR, ELY, SHROOMS, and (barely) *NSYNC put me solidly in the silver generation.
For a while I thought SNEAKER- was going to be a theme, as I had it in sneakerMAKEUP, and SNEAKERxxxx.
TINE is one of my go-to boggle-type game words. The mbira has metal strips (like the TINEs of a fork)that you pluck with your thumb.
SLOTHs are the new darling of the baby-world—every 2 yo-or-younger I know has a stuffed, lovey, chew toy or pjs bearing a SLOTH.
About a Medium, sure. I guess. PECK AT sounds like it shares a kealoa with PiCK AT. Also I put in MEsCAL before MEZCAL, and found the SW a little harder than the rest (not knowing ALDEAN, and blanking on LEAR).
Long before BOSCS I had had sOleS (poached fish, not poached pears). I wanted "scarab" instead of BEETLE since the former is a bit more specific. I tried something along the lines of "taquiera" but ran out of letters, but yeah, TACO BAR.
New to me were NO MAKEUP MAKEUP and also ADELIE. Oh, and also SNEAKERHEAD which Rex loves (I think predictably) and I rather less so (again somewhat predictably). ROBYN isn't very familiar to me.
I didn't know Princess Di was a GAY ICON either. A little strange to clue POP STAR with both Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus since they are different names for the same person.
How often is a quarterback (in the NFL) referred to as a BALL HOG? My guess is: only vanishingly rarely.
THROEs is more common than THROE by more than an order of magnitude. The last time it was the other way around was some time in the 1800's.
I had fun constructing my own "ode" clues yesterday, and posted a link to answers on yesterday's blog this morning, if anyone is interested (@Nancy gamely worked on and presumably solved the first, I know that).
SB: -2 yd, dang it. The one that galls me more is the first of this pair.
Sometimes somebody freaks out about a bit of esoterica they feel the NYTXW team failed to fully grasp in a clue leading to a wrong answer (even though we all filled in the answer just fine), and today is my day!
Lots of you have already pre-freaked.
Vespas are scooters. Mopeds have PEDALS! It's in the name for goodness sakes. They're not the same thing. Tell a Harley owner you like his Honda and after you get back up off the floor you'll understand how powersports people think. Thank you for those who've previously freaked and ranted. We need to draw the line on loosey-goosey low-powered two-wheeler terminology, or next thing you know NO MAKEUP MAKEUP will be a thing.
Loved SNEAKERHEAD. There's a great scene in Ted Lasso where the players change their expensive sneakers for cheap dress shoes to attend a funeral. It's the first moment I understood the old ways don't make much sense.
I'm a huge fan of matcha lattés.
A delightful puzzle.
Uniclues (man... some days these gush forth):
1 "Phew, thankfully I was on a plane to Bogotá."
2 That inescapable hatred for your opponent when you've lost one horse and your queen.
3 Rent-a-castle.
4 Action of a hater after just one sip.
5 When bi-focals aren't helping.
6 A list that gets blurrier the more you use it.
7 The reliable image buried in the pages of a Cosmo magazine a pre-teen boy is flipping through while waiting for his mom at the beauty parlor (not that I would know).
8 All of them.
9 Cordelia... c'mon girl, just get with the program.
10 My feeling about hospitals.
11 Buy a Volkswagen.
12 Question and answer I can't say yet, but I keep hoping the day will come if I keep singing show tunes and wearing jewelry.
13 What you do.
14 Penguin with no assists.
15 Lizard who refuses to vacation in cold climates, primarily due to the paralysis.
1 ALIBI BY AIR
2 PIECES GRUDGE
3 USABLE MANOR
4 LOB MATCHA LATTE (~)
5 EYES ALLY ERRS (~)
6 MEZCAL MENUS (~)
7 NO RUSH AREOLA
8 TRENDY POP STAR (~)
9 LEAR LEAD-SLOTH (~)
10 ICK. ANEMIA INN.
11 SELECT BEETLE (~)
12 GAY ICON? I SURE AM! (~)
13 PECK AT TETRIS
14 ADELIE BALL HOG
15 A POLAR IGUANA (~)
Where do I begin to bore everyone with things I didn't know....I kept thinking should I know this? Here's looking at you ROCHE...Are kings and queens really only PIECES? LOB is a question from a friendly interviewer? I thought LOB was lost on board... and I certainly fit that descriptor.
At some point last night, I wasn't sure I wanted to even try and finish. Friday is my favorite day and I love learning new things. New things that I might use in everyday language...or at least words I should commit to memory for future puzzles. The latter is more plausible.
I will never have the need to say NO MAKEUP MAKE UP. I won't call anybody a SNEAKER HEAD and I will never drink a MATCHA LATTE. Oh...have you tried the new Starbucks "Oleato"? Try slurping your coffee with a Tbs. of olive oil in it....BUT....that's why I like doing puzzles. You commit all these things to a memory bank of your dwindling brain power and hope they may be of service further down the line. The names can be tossed in my ash can because I never know them...Here's looking at you ALDEAN ROBYN ETHAN STEIG. They only sound like a law firm I could never afford....(Hi @JD...You've been missed..) The fiendish cluing is what I sometimes enjoy more than the answers. Here's looking at you BALL HOG.
I finished with the name cheats. I was getting antsy because I try to stick to only 2 on a Friday. I was
curious about how I would feel if I just took my time and tried to figure this out.
Here are my smiles today: SHROOMS/TACO BAR/CHEAPO/MEZCAL. All were fun to suss and USABLE in my everyday talk. Seeing a sweet ADELIE and a BEETLE and guessing correctly at TINE.
Here were my frowns today: PECK AT...(I PICK)...and MOPED (I thought it was a VESPA). Don't know why a TRESS is plaited... Never heard of LEAD climbing (my bad) and hoping TETRIS was really a word.
I've bored you to tears but I feel better for getting this off my chess.
@Beeze ad @Whatsername...Gracias for the welcome back. I do miss my puzzle time!
I could do with not giving pro insurrectionist trump lovers any airtime (see: Aldean, Jason)
There were the things I didn't know and there were the things I couldn't remember. And the things I couldn't remember were driving me absolutely NUTs.
I've seen "Roman Holiday". More than once. What the heck was the mode of transportation? Couldn't for the life of me remember.
I saw at least one of the many splendid penguin documentaries. I loved it. So what was that penguin -- the ADEL one -- called? I could only rmember the emperor one.
Oh, Senioritis, you can be so cruel.
And then there were all the things I didn't know. What a QR code is. What psilocybin is. What someone who collects sneakers is called. What a MATCHA LATTE is. (If Starbucks relied on my patronage, they'd go broke.) That Princess Diana was a (specifically) GAY ICON. Who knew? I think she was an icon for just about everyone at one time. Don't you?
A word about "NO MAKEUP MAKEUP" -- another thing I've never heard of. If you're a CHEAPO like me, it will cost you a lot less to wear no "NO MAKEUP MAKEUP". Remember: no "NO MAKEUP MAKEUP" is absolutely free. We all wear it the moment we get out of bed in the morning. So if that's your preferred "look"...
A puzzle I found very hard, but that I happily finished with no cheats.
I thought this puzzle rated a "hard." And I got it all..I'm very proud of me.
Like Rex, I had a LICIT feeling we were looking at a themish grid but following a deeper dive into the CONTENT, happily found I was wrong. Very nice, neat looking grid too by the way. Some pretty tricky clues; THROE and TETRIS - even though easily completed with the downs, made me think before I got the translation. Clever and fun Friday. My gratitude to both of the brilliant and lovely CREATORs.
I do the lion’s share of my pet food buying from chewy.com which based in Florida. I placed an order late yesterday so imagine my surprise when Fed Ed dropped the goods on my doorstep while I was solving the puzzle this morning. I would say it was shipped BY AIR. Chewy is a business which has a proven record of exceptionally good customer service. The folks who run that place must really be NSYNC.
Do you know who is probably the most famous SNEAKERHEAD in the country? Anyone? Well he’s an ICON but no BALL HOG and his picture is front and center on my avatar. Last count he was reported to have nearly 200 pair and is an ALLY in partnership with several manufacturers. I can’t imagine the amount of sales generated by the mere fact that he’s seen wearing a pair on his feet. It would buy a lot of TACOS that’s for SURE, maybe the entire BAR.
CONTENT CREATOR = EAT A SANDWICH. There I said it.
I had difficulty also with the TRESS/PECK cross for whatever reason!
No Makeup makeup is all the rage on IG and TikTok etc. they pile on a ton of make up and then say it’s a “no makeup” Look. For someone like me, who eschews all makeup, for the most part, drives me bonkers because it makes no sense.
Medium. I got hung up in the SW. ALDEAN was a WOE and I bit on the spirit misdirect. Also, it took a while to grok the BOSCS clue/answer. Otherwise, this was on the easy side. Smooth and sparkly, liked it a bunch. A well deserved POW at Xwordinfo.
Definitely a Millenial Puzzle as some have said. Clever, but difficult for this X'er!
@TTrimble
In case you weren't joking, I think BALLHOG refers to basketball player, not a football player.
Ummmmm 🦖, you might want to sit down for this, but um, YOU are a CONTENT CREATOR. And not in the weird tortured logic way I usually like to say things, but in the 100% legit accurate way we use that term these days.
Let's review: You're a dude wandering around in the forest using electricity produced by a corporation (let's say Excel) to power a gee-gaw produced by a corporation (let's say Apple) and using an internet connection produced by a corporation (let's say Xfinity) to post daily to a website owned by a corporation (let's say Google) to share your feelings about a puzzle produced by a corporation (let's say the New York Times) all so those of us similarly wandering around in the forest can connect on a global basis. Think of yourself as a Kardashian of the grids.
I SURE AM pleased that I PiCKED AT the grid until it was done, but then didn’t hear the mystical music? My TINE needed retuning before that pesky “e” dropped in to replace the “i” like the final TETRIS block. Vespa before MOPED like many others I suspect who agree that the puzzle aimed at solvers a few decades younger than we. Still fun, of course, and SNEAKER HEAD like NO MAKEUP MAKEUP seem worthy of adding to our vocabulary….besides, Converse apparently is becoming a treasure once again! And I can’t imagine not having fun when there’s MEZCAL at the TACO BAR. Gracias señoritas por la fiesta bien🎉
Well, "content creators" are "creatives" you know. That says tons about our "culture" in the 21st century.
Pretty tough puzzle for me somehow. Found the cluing kinda weird which, I suppose, is the point of cluing...
Seems like Rex had no feelings feelings for this one.
When God loosed the deluge on us, was he a disCONTENTCREATOR?
I loved Eraserhead, and can’t wait to see the sequel, SNEAKERHEAD.
Fun Friday for me. Thanks, Margaret Seikel and Sophia Maymudes.
Some of the mistakes others have made and mentioned already, but I nearly gave up in the SE, as I had GAYIDOL and the D was messing up the CONTENT person and the L was making NSYNC invisible. Add that to a wonderful misdirect on ATTIC and not knowing the Tom Cruise role and, oh oh. Thank goodness there is no "check puzzle" feature on my printout, as I stuck with it and everything was resolved eventually but it was a Stumper/Croce challenge for me.
I guess lots of women around here are wearing MOMAKEUPMAKEUP. On the other hand, how would I know?
Those of us of a certain age probably remember the "Horrifying Cliches" that used to appear in Mad Magazine. One of my favorites was someone bearing a GRUDGE, which was a cartoon of a poor guy carrying around a large ugly beastie, obviously a GRUDGE.
Great chewy Friday, MS and SM. Made Sense eventually but Sure Mystified me for a while, which is just right. Thanks for all the fun.
Wow, the ending of my solve was bizarre! I had the entire grid filled, except for every single square in 20-down (THROE). And I couldn't figure out ANY of the crossers! I had to stare at the grid for an embarrassingly long time before I could figure out what word came after SNEAKER, and then THROE, and then I retrospectively figured out the other four clues. They're all fine clues, I was just completely on the wrong wavelength for all of them.
Since when is a Vespa a moped?
Wow, @Gary thanks for promoting the commentariat to Kardashian status; now this SNEAKER �� HEAD can focus on creating more CONTENT. Brilliant analysis for another LAYER of fun ��
From the Be Careful What You Google Dept:
Intrigued by the blog in general and @Whatsername's comment in particular, I decided to look up the completely unknown-to-me SNEAKER HEAD.
I couldn't believe the very first thing that popped up. It's a densely written, heavily annotated, heavily footnoted, exceedingly dry academic paper on the subject -- written by a trio of college students at three different universities. It features the type of impenetrable prose you might expect in a Ph.D thesis on, say, geological history.
It does seem, however, that this treatise was commissioned by some corporate entity. Otherwise I'd ask: Is this what today's college kids are studying in depth?
@Rex’s last comment perfectly sums up my feeling about the puzzle today…”Good puzzle, not in my wheelhouse. That’s ok”!
I also had a DNF because I had to look up LEAD climbing to straighten out and fill in everything around it.
@Dr A, if you were like me, PiCK before PECK screwed up my ability to see TRESS.
@Gary Jugert, Hah! You saved me the time of stating my post-solve Google search on scooter v moped! I will say this TODAY some scooters are allowed to be called mopeds (with no pedals) if the motor is small enough. At any rate Gregory and Audrey were on a Vespa scooter and not a moped.
@Nancy…you cracked me up with your NOMAKEUPMAKEUP comment! As someone who wore foundation everyday when I really didn’t “need” it but was vain, I would have LOVED using the result advances in texture, etc. of foundation today that evens out the imperfections, yet looks natural. Plus, today, most of it provides moisturizing and sun protection!
As a millennial woman I can't think of a NYT puzzle that's ever been so fully in my wheelhouse, so that's nice to see. Really loved a lot of the fill here, NO MAKEUP MAKEUP is definitely "a thing" and would never have expected to see it here. SNEAKERHEAD, SHROOMS, TACO BAR, MATCHA LATTE, POP STAR (as clued) and BALL HOG all made this fun and fresh for me!
@Weezie (7:08) Re the general content of blog comments - reasons for writing and reasons for reading - you said it well and I agree. I think of it as an open forum, both to express opinions and to generate discussions. I often learn as much from the comments as I do from the crossword. And I thoroughly enjoy the more personal commentary, memories from one’s childhood or funny stories which are often triggered by something in the puzzle. My only request of anyone is - whether good, bad or indifferent … keep it civil.
@Joaquin (7:48) Yer killin’ me! 🤣
I think it was a Vespa not a MOPED that Audrey Hepburn rode in Roman Holiday.
Irked.
Thx, Margaret & Sophia; excellent Fri. puz! :)
Med.
MEsCAL before MEZCAL; ess didn't work, so ZEE it had to be.
BOSCS and the SW held me up a bit; otherwise a pretty smooth ride on my MOPED.
"Traditionally, mopeds had fully operative pedals but modern mopeds are usually more like small motorcycles with an automatic transmission and no pedals." (wisconsindot.gov)
"A Vespa is a scooter that can be classified as a moped or a motorcycle. The Vespa 50cc small frame can be considered a moped as it doesn’t exceed 30mph/48kph. Large and small frame Vespas with a 125cc engine or more are motorcycles. Usually, these types of Vespas are allowed to hit the highway." (vespavirgin.com
Fun adventure! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
I also thought the lack of Var. odd, so I checked. Indeed, Merriam-Webster and dictionary.com both consider MEZCAL the variant.
The only place Princess Diana is a "gay icon" is in this puzzle, because she shares her name with Diana Ross and Will Shortz strains for what he considers to be clever connections (but they rarely are) at every opportunity.
As @Whatsername has noted, Patrick Mahomes has an entire room of his house devoted to displaying his sneakerwear.
I've always wondered what you meant by a "whoosh-whoosh Friday", and today I got it. This puzzle was clearly geared towards me, and I sure do appreciate it.
For 37 across looking at M-TCHALATTE I thought: there's no T in MOCHA LATTE. And they aren't green!
Re GAY ICON: 40 years ago I'd just moved to Winnipeg for my graduate degree, and one day taking photos of the Legislative Building I ran into a guy I recognized from our faculty. We got to talking and he invited me to his house for tea. It was fine, but he was acting a bit weird. He had a big poster of Lucille Ball on his wall, and a couple of times he said, in a very campy gay voice "Don't you just LOOOOOVE Lucy?" So I thanked him for the tea and left. Soon I learned the grounds of the legislature were a hot gay pickup zone. How was I supposed to know?
[Spelling Bee: yd 0, QB streak 14 days!]
The whole puzzle was a challenge with unfamiliar phrases and unusual cluing.
I am not at all familiar with NO MAKEUP MAKEUP and so when that had crosses of the 'today I learned' type (LEAD climbing and three-eyed IGUANAs), crosses cluing I want to quibble with (GMS being clued as a type of VIP - wha? do people call GMs VIPs ever?), to crosses I just couldn't break the cleverness of (wireless support providers), well let's just say the North third required a bit of cheating for me to solve. This spread further down with mbira TINEs, contractive THROEs, and la ROCHE-posay clues. Very challenging!
The bottom two-thirds had its own challenges, but I was able to work my way through that after probably a record number of re-writes: LegIT before LICIT, MATCHA__TEA before MATCHALATTE, popICON before GAYICON (I hadnt solved POPSTAR yet), laneHOG before roadHOG before BALLHOG (wrong type of passing in my head), and then perhaps most amusingly/frustratingly sandBAR (hey, I've found shells on sandbars) before foodBAR before TACOBAR.
Maybe OFL can do crosswords at 5 am, but I don't think that works out so well for me: It took the entire reveal of BY AIR before I was able to parse "How many packages..." as not referring to a quantity. As the yutes say, SMH.
Shout outs:
@Son Volt: Agreed! PECK AT is for birds and PiCK AT is for people, +1 for you. But -1 for not liking Aimee Mann, so that leaves you APOLAR?
@Anon (8:10): Looks like Robyn with a Y is the Swedish performer's stage name and her given name is Robin with an I. So, I guess both answers could be correct.
@RooMonster: FWC FTW!
bocamp,
Did you read any more of Vespa virgin's page? Just below the bizarre und unsubstantiated claim that a Vespa is both a moped and a score ( a claim with no supporting citation) she goes on to define the Vespa as a scooter entirely omitting the moped claim.
Yes, there are large and small frame Vespas. So what? Frame size has nothing whatsoever to do with what makes a scooter a scooter. Neither does engine size. Nor top speed. As Gary Jugert correctly stated, it's pedals which make a moped a moped. And it's bodywork that distinguish a scooter froma motorcycle. Mopeds are so named because they can be started by pedaling to to get the piston up to speed for ignition instead of using an electric or kick starter. Scooters don't heave pedals. All mopeds do. They are not the same.
p.s. The next time you watch "Roman Holiday" pay attention to the clock in the background during the Spanish Steps scene. It displays at least three non-consecutive times, hours apart.
@anonymous 2:05, yes @Gary Jugert is right. I mean c’mon…it’s MO-PED. However, I found many references to “moped scooters” (impossible!) and I believe the term has now become conflated to anything that has a very small engine and will not exceed a certain speed. In my state you can get a license at 15 to drive a moped or scooter that has a very small engine AND cannot exceed 35 mph. The law only allows this vehicle to be on public streets that have a speed limit of 35 mph or less.
I don’t think @bocamp was disputing what Gary said but was just pointing out how many people use that term today. Anyone of a certain age and had seen Roman Holiday (like me) resisted putting in MOPED until it was clear from the crosses.
The following is from the wikipedia entry for "Gay Icon:"
Highly regarded by the LGBT community due to her work with gay men suffering from AIDS, Diana, Princess of Wales, is considered to be a gay icon. The hardships she faced during her life within the British royal family and her struggles with bulimia have been cited as factors to which members of the LGBT community can mostly connect. Writing for Them, David Levesley described Diana as "a symbol of the familial oppression many queer people know all too well," and added that "[queer people] admire her for how long she lasted in the face of a shitty situation. Is there anything more queer than a fabulous woman trapped in a bleak household?" James Greig from Vice also held a similar viewpoint, stating that "her status as a tragic diva aside, it's undeniable that Diana made real, material changes to the lives of LGBT people – particularly through the work she did around AIDS." In an article for Newsweek, Desmond O'Connor wrote that Diana's work with dying HIV+ gay men was crucial for reminding "the people of Great Britain that their 'untouchable' sons deserved to be loved."
In 2009, a panel including Sir Ian McKellen and Alan Hollinghurst chose Diana's portrait to be shown in the Gay Icons exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London. In October 2017, the Attitude magazine honoured Diana with its Legacy Award for her HIV/AIDS work. Prince Harry accepted the award on behalf of his mother.
First of all, blessings upon the house of Professor Bruno Nettl, one of the founders of the discipline of ethnomusicology and one of the kindest, most creative and intelligent people I have ever met. I had a double major at Illinois in music performance (flute and voice) and music history. This meant two recitals and a senior thesis. And lots of masters level seminars because the major was newish in the days gone by.
Anyway, my seminar with Dr. Nettl was in African music. It was one of the best classes I ever took and it was an opportunity for me to work with my new “steady” and eventual husband on my final project. As a percussionist, he was already familiar with every percussion instrument introduced in class and he and Dr. Nettl were well acquainted since the percussion department at Illinois was then and still is known for new music and percussion ensemble work that employs every sound one could imagine and incredibly creative composers percussionists.
Throughout the course of the semester, I was starting work on my thesis about J.S and CPE Bach‘s flute music and performance practices/ornamentation. Since I also had to have a final project for ethno, I really threw the spaghetti at the wall to see if it would stick.
I took a movement of the CPE Bach unaccompanied partita with its persistent atomic rhythm and we added African percussion underneath. It included a passage with the mbira trading off portions of a sequence with the flute with African drums underneath syncopating the atomic rhythms of the Bach. And that’s why the TINE of the mbira was a gimme. And to this good day, I wish I had a recording of that piece, but reel to reel tape was all that would have been possible and the line was long to get the department sound guys to help set up to record. Undergrads were at the end of the end of the line.
As for the remainder of today, I enjoyed it. I’ve a small quibble with the MATCHA LATTE being a “green cappuccino alternative,” since I am under the impression that green cappuccino is actually a flavorful and creamy cucumber soup with a topping of extra whipped cream. I suppose the MATCHA LATTE could be an alternative, but it seems like the two are very far apart except that they are both green liquids with white foam on top. OK, maybe its all right, just seems . . . off.
I also liked the little whooshes with sudden screeching halts. That’s fun on a Friday. Getting lulled into hubris and then face planting at something like Cruise’s character name or a party to a boy band rivalry. Sudden eviction from the wheelhouse for sure. Or wanting LegIT instead if LICIT and having to unstick that little area. But that’s Friday for you. And a pleasant one it is. Thanks to our wonderful collaborators! Have a good weekend everybody!
Precisely @Anon 2:05 PM. And @Gary Jugert.
Irked.
Exactly!! Mopeds must have PEDals. I ignored the issue in my post knowing that it would have been covered (probably extensively) before my entry. But really. . .
NO ONE RODE A MOPED IN ROMAN HOLIDAY. YOU'RE FIRED.
Vespa ('wasp' in Italian) and Lambretta were two motor scooters of the 50s and 60. Moped was a motorized bicycle. I join the chorus pointing out the error in 15 Across.
just adding my voice to the holy war of mopeds vs scooters - UGH - such brutality in the morning!
@Nancy (12:13) Good grief!!
@Joe D (1:36) Thanks for the link. I don’t think I’d ever seen that particular video.
Agreed! Vespa it is!
@Joe DiPinto 2:45. You’re probably watching the highly edited version realeased in theaters. In the original, the Spanish Steps scene lasted 7 hours and 42 minutes. And the original title was Roam On and On and On Holiday.
Beezer,
Yes, I agree people who don't know what they're talking about have conflated two different vehicles into one. That's pity, not a reason to indulge their mistake. For of course, no matter how widespread the error is, it remains an error. And error has no rights.
There are critical differences between scooters and mopeds. Speed is not one of them, regardless of what state licensing agencies, Vespa virgin or anyone else says.
orangeblossmanspecial,
True. there were other marks as well. Cushman, Zundapp, Heinkel, Durkopp, Lohner, Honda, Siambretta to name a few. None had pedals. Some had engine displacements below 50CCs and could not exceed 35 MPH>
At first blush, I would tend to agree with the with the following comment by @Beezer (12:15 PM):
"TODAY some scooters are allowed to be called mopeds (with no pedals) if the motor is small enough. At any rate Gregory and Audrey were on a Vespa scooter and not a moped."
"The term moped has now been applied by some regional governments to vehicles without pedals such as motor scooters, based on criteria of restricted engine displacement, speed, and/or power output. This is a misnomer, as they are no longer "mopeds" at all, and might instead be called a "noped" if they appear to look exactly like a typical moped, but no longer include pedals.[6]" Wikipedia
The use of MOPED in lieu of Vespa in today's puz seems quite a stretch, given the look of the scooter from the movie. However, modern usage of the word may have justified inclusion by the constructors and editor. (Web Bike World)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Ah great! VESPA!... uhhhh (...moped?...) resist, resist, oh no!... cringe.... Nooooooo! Seems like the last few years have seen an increase in the number of errors in clueing "sticks-n-bricks, hardware-based, non-internet-based" objects. As if close enough is good enough for pedestrian kick-the-wheels objects. Sign.
Throe....Tine...Sneakerhead...Cheapo...Roche...all in the same general area...hung me up. I disliked all of them. And yet I got them right! I hate when that happens...when you are sure the error is in one place and is somewhere else...
About your comment that you enjoy people's "carping or crowing". I do too. And many of the comments are so well written.
Anyway, I found the puzzle very difficultl though I liked it. I was determined to finish and I did but in almost double my average time
You go @ bocamp! My guess is, young constructors/young editors. I’ve decided at my age not to get too hung up on these types of things…that is, concepts tend to morph over time.
And btw, as per the MOPED enraged: 30 lashes with a wet noodle for the constructors AND editors! 🤣🤣🤣
@egs – I've seen the 7 hour version. It took that long because the director was waiting for Vespa to send over a moped for the next scene. The Vespa rep told William Wyler that they only made scooters, but Wyler said "Well you'll be making mopeds as well in 2023, so I want one now. Get on it!" The Vespa rep replied that he didn't even know what a moped was, but Wyler told him to look it up in Wikipedia.
So while they waited for the moped to be built, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck had a long conversation about the relative merits of go-karts vs. tricycles, while they consumed 50+ gelatos. William Wyler filmed the whole thing. Then after six hours Wyler decided he would use a scooter after all so he called Vespa to tell them, "Just kidding!" But he got a voicemail message saying the office was closed until tomorrow.
All of this is detailed in the Director's Cut anniversary edition.
PiCKAT, MEsCAL and bLurb ( for alibi) held me up. Also vespa. Nice , entertaining one, though. Good show!
Speaking of vespas, wasn’t there a parody of that vespa ride in the latest season of White Lotus? Jennifer Coolidge may have swallowed a bug.
An Olympic lap is 164 feet, not 328.
Revisiting this blog and the commentary re Rex's political characterization of the grid. I didn't make note during my solve but, yeah, this grid has of lot of "good ol' boy" stuff. But, the only thing that I see gets you to "voted for trump" is simple bias.
I'm going to pass this off as a consequence of all the political jetsam and flotsam floating about on the airways, in the press, and crammed into my email box. I can see how one might get carried by the flow ...
DNF because I thought a graphic image could be on a tie rather than tee and had no idea who Aldean or Aldian was.
Who the heck is ROBYN?
DNF: that damn NW again! 11-down was my undoing. This is the same person, no? So: PERSONA. Cluing POPSTAR that way? I call foul. I can't say the statement is untrue, but come on now. That's not fair. Probably wasn't going to get SHROOMS anyway, but still.
Wordle par.
TRENDY GRUDGE
ISUREAM not CONTENT,
he'll MAKEUP NO ALIBI so far,
those CHEAPO SHROOMS ALEC sent
are USABLE AT a TACOBAR.
--- ROBYN ROCHE
Kinda tough going for me. CHEAPO is a good place to find new and used records, CDs, etc. in St. Paul.
Wordle par.
Everyone knows it was a VESPA, not a MOPED. Have you ever been to Rome? Vespas everywhere. zoom, zoom
And LEAD climbing. Those were just two of my error areas. Hey! Error areas! EAs! @Spacey had an EA in the NW. Make sense?
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Almost no moped built today has pedals.
Let the screaming begin!!!
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