Akbar's tomb locale / SUN 3-12-23 / Stereotypical name for a female poodle / Brit's clothespin / Emulate Rockin' Robin in a 1958 hit / Many a 21st-century liberal / Dance move used to teach children how to limit spreading germs while sneezing / Start of many a T-shirt slogan

Sunday, March 12, 2023

Constructor: David Tuffs

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME: "This and That" — familiar phrases that contain shaded letters and circled letters that (respectively) complete a familiar "___ AND ___" phrase (i.e. "[shaded squares] AND [circled squares]"):

Theme answers:
  • GIRL SCOUT LEADER (22A: One in charge of Brownies and cookies? / Easy to understand) ("LOUD and CLEAR")
  • FOLDING THE LAUNDRY (31A: Post-dryer chore / splendid) ("FINE and DANDY")
  • WEDDING CRASHER (45A: One whom the bride and groom didn't invite / Steal a meal) ("DINE and DASH")
  • HEAVEN ON EARTH (62A: Utopia / Occasionally, poetically) ("EVER and ANON")
  • BLACK FOREST HAM (82A: German deli meat / Discussion) ("BACK and FORTH")
  • LAST PLACE FINISHES (96A: They might result in booby prizes / Physical discomforts) ("ACHES and PAINS")
  • TABLOID MAGAZINE (109A: Issue featuring celebrity issues / Repeatedly) ("TIME and AGAIN")
Word of the Day: MARY I (112A: "Bloody" English monarch) —

Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, and as "Bloody Mary" by her Protestant opponents, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain as the wife of King Philip II from January 1556 until her death in 1558. She is best known for her vigorous attempt to reverse the English Reformation, which had begun during the reign of her father, Henry VIII. Her attempt to restore to the Church the property confiscated in the previous two reigns was largely thwarted by Parliament, but during her five-year reign, Mary had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions.

Mary was the only child of Henry VIII by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to survive to adulthood. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded their father in 1547 at the age of nine. When Edward became terminally ill in 1553, he attempted to remove Mary from the line of succession because he supposed, correctly, that she would reverse the Protestant reforms that had taken place during his reign. Upon his death, leading politicians proclaimed Lady Jane Grey as queen. Mary speedily assembled a force in East Anglia and deposed Jane, who was ultimately beheaded. Mary was—excluding the disputed reigns of Jane and the Empress Matilda—the first queen regnant of England. In July 1554, Mary married Prince Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in 1556.

After Mary's death in 1558, her re-establishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed by her younger half-sister and successor, Elizabeth I. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello and a Happy Daylight Saving Time to you all (it's the worst, I hate it, but I still wish you happiness on this miserable day). The first thing I should say about this puzzle is that my software doesn't do "shaded squares," which is why you can't see them in the posted grid, above. I just had to ... intuit that they were there. This wasn't exactly easy, given that CLEAR is a reasonable definition of [Easy to understand], for instance. That is, I had no reason to expect that a "LOUD" was involved as well. See also DANDY, PAINS, and AGAIN, each of which fit the clue just fine without any shaded square nonsense. But DASH, on the other hand, was clearly in need of a "DINE and," so I was left to wonder where the "DINE" was. I could see that the letters for "DINE" were inside the answer WEDDING CRASHER, but since they were not circled (and not shaded), I had no idea what the hook was. Turns out I was just dealing with a software shortcoming. The "real" grid looks like this:


Shaded squares give one half of the "___ AND ___" phrase, circled squares give the other. That "___ AND ___" phrase appears to have absolutely nothing to do with the larger phrase inside which it appears. Nothing "LOUD and CLEAR" about a GIRL SCOUT LEADER, for instance. So I guess I don't get it. I mean, I really don't get these puzzles where there's no real *meaning* to whatever structural / wordplay / letter play trickery is going on. The interest, insofar as there is any, is purely architectural: "Hey, I found these letter-string pairings inside these phrases ..." That's it. I mean, nice finds, but none of this means anything to me. It just seems fussy. I have no idea how hard / easy to find such answers, but I also don't care, since none of it has anything to do with solving enjoyment. The "THE" in FOLDING THE LAUNDRY is awkward, and now I see that it's only there to provide the "E" in the "FINE" part of "FINE and DANDY." But it's not worth it. None of this is worth it. These are structural curiosities, but there's just not enough thematic coherence or truly creative and enjoyable wordplay here to make the endeavor worth it. 


OBAMACRAT? Ugh, is that a thing? Who identifies that way?? [Many a 21st-century liberal]?!? Many!?!? I don't know one, and virtually everyone I know voted for Obama, so ... that's weird. Does the word just mean "anyone who voted for Obama?" Like, I'm deeply suspicious of this dumb terminology. I voted for Obama, but you must be HIGH AS A KITE if you think that makes me an OBAMACRAT. I refer you to this random quote I just found from a 2014 article in the Journal of Politics in Latin America:
Barack Obama received about 51 percent of the popular vote in his 2012 reelection – a far greater percentage than there are self-professed Democrats among US voters. In the United States, however, no one speaks of “Obamacrats.” Obama's votes came from his partisan base and from independents who nonetheless chose him over Mitt Romney. (my emph.)
Not all "words" you come across in life belong in your Wordlist. I'm looking around for things to love in this grid and after HIGH AS A KITE (66D: Three sheets to the wind), I don't see much. I don't think I'd spell TUSHY that way. To be (loud and) clear, I would spell TUSHY at all, normally, or use it, ever, but if I had to, I'd go TUSHIE. That seems to be the preferred spelling of most dictionaries, but lots of, uh, rear end-oriented products / sex stuff seems to prefer the "Y" spelling, for whatever reasons. TUSHY is a brand of bidet, it seems, and then ... well, there's some porn stuff out there you probably don't wanna hear about that has the "Y" spelling as well. Speaking of "Y"s, not a huge fan of the alleged contraction "Y'HEAR"—it's "YA HEAR"; that apostrophe is a lie; nothing is being elided. You still say the "A" so you may as well be honest and write the "A." A true contraction / elision would be "Y'EAR," and that's just silly. Also not a huge fan of I-BARS crossing "I HEART" at the "I" (not a fan of "I HEART" at all, frankly). And what the hell is up with that "CAN'T I?" clue (20D: "Pleeease"?). It looks like a plea from a kid, and no kid is going to say "CAN'T I!?" They'd say "CAN I?" Better clue would've been some more compact version of ["You doubt my ability to do so?"]. "I RULE" gives us god knows how many "I"s now, I'm tired of counting.


There are no tough parts to this grid. I solved it easily, and I didn't even have the shaded squares to help me out (did they really help that much, though?). I had trouble with MARY I despite teaching 16th-century English literature (for the next few weeks, in fact) (112A: "Bloody" English monarch). I wanted it to be MARY, of course, but MARY is four letters, as you can see, and I never ever think of her as MARY I, though, yes, she is. I don't think of her as MARY I because I never think of MARY II as MARY II either—she's just the MARY part of "William & Mary" (co-regents of England from 1689 until her death five years later). So I had some hesitation there, but that's all it was. I had one wrong answer that I can recall: DAP for DAB (30A: Dance move used to teach children how to limit spreading germs while sneezing). DAP is the fist bump, DAB is the crook-of-the-elbow-to-your-face move:


Not sure I've ever seen AKON and AKRON in the same grid before, so that's ... something. My wife's last name is in the puzzle. I'll let you guess what it is. Hint: it's not E-FILE. (though "Penelope E-FILE" does have a certain ring). I'll leave you with this brilliant card that one of my more creative readers sent me last month. It really speaks to me, and all of us, I presume:


See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. here's a picture of ALFIE and IDA, just because:


[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

101 comments:

Gary Jugert 12:22 AM  

Beautiful kitties 🦖!! IDA looks amazing.

Sunday sunned.

Umm, aren't washboards a feature of some abs rather than abs being the feature of washboards?

I had OBAMA BRAT rather than CRAT resulting in BLOT for CLOT. All are correct, only mine is funnier.

NANA'S NENA. Nice. HATERADE is a pure delight.

I'd spelled URKLE with a E until the dead last letter stepped up and dropped a TUSHY in my lap. And why wouldn't I have known that would be the rear I needed to complete a NYTXW? As always, thank you to the fifth-grade boy handling submissions at the Times.

Uniclues:

1 Retail outlet selling moms.
2 Tushy in nice jeans.
3 That mythical compensation package every worker imagines is coming (but ain't).
4 Prefers a beet.
5 Grocery store rag detailing the shocking debauchery of spacemen and spacewomen (spacexis?) with extraterrestrials.
6 Parisian sweetie gave directions (aller en enfers) to poorly behaved Japanese tourist.
7 Birds of prey successfully count cards.
8 The only plausible explanation for them asking me (a trypanophobiac) to come in altruistically and get stabbed by a needle.

1 GIRL-SCOUT-LEADER STORE
2 ANODYNE CREVASSE
3 GETS EVEN PAY HIKE
4 ABHORS BLACK FOREST HAM
5 TREK'S TABLOID MAGAZINE
6 ELLE AIDED TOKYO GOON (~)
7 EAGLES CON CASINO
8 BLOOD BANK HIGH AS A KITE

Dean 12:25 AM  

Calling foul on OBAMACRAT. Never heard of it. I had heard of such a thing as an Obama Mama, but on crosses I ended up with OBAMA_RAT. “Stop running, in a way” could be BLOT. Ah. OBAMABRAT. Clearly some condescending portmanteau about young voters. Could not figure out why the app errored out.

mrn 12:37 AM  

Really hate the IHEART - IBARS cross because I had THEART - TBARS there for the longest time and contend that it works better.

SharonAK 12:47 AM  

HUH/ Maybe not seeing shaded squares confused you. I found it all clear. There were double clues. The clue following the / was for the "fun and games" type answers which I found quite fun to find.

"Folding the laundry" works better for me than" folding laundry" so not contrived to provide the "e".

I thought you might complain about "rains" That just doesn't sound like a proper or ever said plural rain.

And definitely never heard of Obamacrats.

The puzzle did seem quite easy Except for some names that are totally unfamiliar:
(Akon?? Nena??..)

I see I put a smiley face by the clue "do some taxing work on line" so it must have tickled me at the time.

okanaganer 12:54 AM  

I have always said that using Across Lite hasn't made me miss notable features of a puzzle... but this is a first! I did not get the double shaded/circled thing; and why oh why wasn't there a note? There's always a stupid note saying "You may miss out if you don't follow the party line" or something like that, which is almost never true, but here it would have been. Anyway, interesting and admirable twist.

I actually finished with an error, and had a hard time finding it cuz: I had OBAMA BRAT crossing BLOT! Y'see, you can stop something running by BLOTting it! Totally reasonable. Sure, OBAMA BRAT probably isn't a thing but then as Rex said neither is OBAMACRAT.

Typeover: for "It smooths the way": GRADER before GREASE. Graders run over gravel roads to remove all the washboardy bumps.

[Spelling Bee: Sat 0, last word this 8er which was my last word a couple of times already. QB streak 3 days (big whup), but 28 of last 30 which is not bad; missed 2 days in an "average month"!]

egsforbreakfast 12:57 AM  


First 60 sec. of ACTII? MINI. (It’s probably a play about MARYI).

Glad to learn the word HATERADE. I take it that it is much used for dousing wokeness, especially in Florida.

While CMON seems to ring true enough, I’m not so sure that YHEAR is a good representation of how one contracts you + hear. Yknow?

Drink with a domed lid? Gotcha. ICEE ISEE.

Continue, henchman. GOON, goon.

I once had a pet made by baking a combination of only flour, eggs, butter, liquid (milk, water, cream, and sometimes brandy), leavening (yeast or sourdough), salt, and sometimes sugar. He was a PUREBREaDDOG and we named him BRIOCHE.

I guess YODEL is Swiss up-talk.

Agree with Rexthat the embedded words seemed pointless since they were unrelated to the longer answer in which they resided. Super easy solve, but kinda meh.





jae 1:14 AM  

Easy. I ignored what ever the theme was and solved using the first part of the theme clues. It would have been to disruptive to try to figure it out as I went along. This is one of those that can best be appreciated by parsing the finished grid. Clever idea nicely executed, but not my favorite type of puzzle. Didn’t hate it or pretty much what @Rex said.

Michael 1:15 AM  

I had BLOT crossing with OBAMABRAT. BLOT totally fits the clue, and I've never heard of OBAMACRAT, so OBAMA BRAT made sense in the context. Sigh.

Anonymous 1:51 AM  

I figured there was something called an “obama brat” and “blot” seemed to fit the clue for “clot”.

You’re right that the ‘architecture’ was the only interest. I got the first themer from the first half of the clue and from that point on didn’t even bother to read the second halves of the theme clues. The parts that clued the entire phrase were so straightforward that there was never a need to use the second part as a hint.

Joe Dipinto 1:51 AM  

Ida's nose is lookin' good.

Yeah this was kind of "okay but what is the point exactly?" I can give the constructor credit for hunting down all these this-and-that-inside-of-this-whole-thing examples, but it doesn't feel like a real theme.

10 minutes to Daylight Savings Time. Let's play all the Time And Time Again songs.

Robin 4:37 AM  

Really hated this. Solved via the NYT website, and the multiplicity of gray squares and circled squares, as well as way too much short fill. So it seemed again another #NYTXW Sunday slog and a half.

Then I got the "no, you have least one bad square" notice. Okay, screwed something up. Found up north the 37A crossing with 20D. (Which, I don't why.) Fixed that. And still, g'damn. No love.

So it was the the 57A/58D crossing that completely F-ed me up. That's Saturday trouble.

Melrose 4:39 AM  

Quite easy for me. Theme was a letdown i.e. "Oh, is that all there is?" Seems to be happening more and more on Sundays.

Conrad 5:54 AM  


I didn't need the circled and shaded squares; for the most part, I solved just by using the first part of the clue as the clue to a long across. Then I went back post-solve to understand clue part deux.

PreemiE before PAROLEE for the one getting out early at 12D.

gAToR before HATER for the -ade prefix at 71D

69D is a DOOK

Sasha 6:03 AM  

Cat pictures make everything better, including this morning and this puzzle.

Anonymous 7:24 AM  

Another vote for OBAMA BRAT and BLOT. Natick.

Colin 7:25 AM  

Sounds like the paper version of the puzzle once again works better than the online? It didn't take long to figure out the cleverness of the theme. OK, so GIRLSCOUTLEADER has nothing to do with LOUDandCLEAR, etc., etc., but the whole idea of THISandTHAT answer being buried within the longer answer is difficult to achieve. I liked this. Thank you, David Tufts.

I was working through this with my wife, tossing her a question here and there, when I announced, "Done!" And she thought I did this in 5 minutes (no, quite a bit longer but somewhere inside of one episode of NCIS, which I had on). Initially, considered IROCK (for IRULE), OLLEY (for OLLIE... always mess this up at first), CLOG (for CLOT), HOP (for BOP), LCD (for FCC). But all good in the end.

Lewis 7:37 AM  

David’s M.O. in his six NYT puzzles has been as a detective, finding cool word coincidences.

In one puzzle he found words and phrases that changed meaning when the end letters were chopped off, such as ZEN GARDEN being clued as EN GARDE, or WEATHERED as EAT HERE (the reveal was ENDLESSLY).

In another, he found two-word phrases where the second word was, in another language, the definition of the first, such as WITHOUT SIN, where “sin” means “without” in Spanish.

In yet another, he found pairs of media titles that contained the same letters, such as SINGING IN THE RAIN and STRANGER THINGS.

And once again today he finds phrases that contain “X and Y” phrases.

I love all these discoveries. Today, after filling in each theme answer, I took an “Ain’t life grand?” moment to look in wonder at the answer with its embedded second answer, and bathe in our language’s serendipity.

To add to the fun, I also stumbled upon a couple of little language-quirk discoveries of my own, the dook (GOON), and three double-O words where those double-O’s are all pronounced differently (GOON, BLOOD, HOOF).

I hope you stay on the hunt, David; I love this niche you’ve carved. Thank you for a most entertaining outing!

Danny 7:52 AM  

My favorite wrong answer in a while:

Stop running, in a way: BLOT
crossing OBAMABRAT.

I just imagined a series of those tiny, annoying Bratz dolls, all fashioned like some of our beloved Dems. I’d buy the Nancy Pelosi one.

bocamp 8:06 AM  

Thx, David; Super & Duper Sun. puz! :)

Easy & med.

Smooth & silky; no impediments.

Got the theme early (which is unusual for me) at GIRL SCOUT LEADER, which was helpful along the way.

Another Sun. with no typos (fat fingers behaving).

Finally remembered URKEL with a 'U' (not 'e' or 'i'). yay!

Love the word, ANODYNE.

Learned ALIA; AKON; OBAMACRAT; ALTON.

In the process of E-FILing right now. Got to pay full amt. by Mar. 15 to avoid installment fees.

Worked many a CASINO night for various charities.

HARPER Lee; one of my faves.

Fun; enjoyed the solve! :)
___
Matthew Sewell's Sat. Stumper was med. (1 1/4 hrs). As always, an excellent workout! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏

Anonymous 8:07 AM  

Can someone explain what is so brilliant about the ONO ENO ORR card? I’m sure I must be missing something.

Iris 8:10 AM  

What a stupid puzzle. I just filled it in as fast as I could tap letters (I solve on an IPad). I saw the annoying circles & gray squares but ignored them. Honestly I just don’t care about these gimmicks at all. I don’t admire the hidden puzzle that’s irrelevant to the task of solving. They’re like the constructor is wearing fancy underwear and needs to show it to me. I’m not interested.

SouthsideJohnny 8:17 AM  

I got the theme early on enough. It requires a bit of work for not much payoff (as most themes do). Agree that the rest of it was on the easy side.

I was sorry to see the two pure crap sections - INDUS crossing MUIR and something called an AKON crossing a Spanish AZUL. It’s become standard to refer to that type of sloppiness as Naticks, but I prefer the more accurate and descriptive term (crap), cuz that’s what they are. To be fair, the national parks dude shows up once in a blue moon, but trivia crossing trivia is still crap.

The clue for IMP (Childish nuisance) felt a little off to me - it seemed like “child nuisance” might be a better fit. I guess if you have a fictitious IMP in your story it would probably act childish, so close enough for CrossWorld I guess.

Son Volt 8:19 AM  

Busy grid on the app - circles and shaded squares. Simple enough theme - and straightforward fill. Liked the BLACK FOREST HAM themer best. Just not sure all the visuals hold up well.

HIGH AS A KITE

I’m sure @anoa bob will discuss the brutal OKRAS and all the other plurals. Wasn’t sure of the spelling on CREVASSE. Like Rex - not sure OBAMACRAT is a thing - I’ve never hear the term.

POCO

Lots of trivia and nouns today - other than ALIA and OPAH clear but tedious. Always like to see MUIR. The INDUS x PSST cross is unfortunate. BUDDHA - OBESE go together well.

Winners CASINO

The visual was a little overwhelming for a Sunday sized grid. I guess better than FOLDING THE LAUNDRY.

Always liked Don Edwards’ YODELing here

Colin 8:36 AM  

@Anonymous, 8:07 AM: Yoko ONO, Brian ENO, and/or Bobby ORR appear in almost every single crossword puzzle. It's laughable how often these answers appear, really.

Bob Mills 8:41 AM  

Got a DNF because I assumed "Westminster competitor" was a soccer team instead of a dog. I'm sure that was Will Shortz' intentional misdirect. Otherwise an easy Sunday with a theme that seemed unnecessarily complicated.

I don't think there was ever an actual OBAMACRAT. If that's a legitimate word, what about TRUMPLICAN?

Anonymous 8:48 AM  

I thought the answer was Obamabrat.

Wanderlust 8:56 AM  

Double-Natick DNF for me. I sailed through the puzzle but got no happy music and went searching for an error. I stopped on THE ART, which didn’t really make sense for the start of a T-shirt slogan, and I saw I HEART. Thought I was done, but still no happy music, so I went over the grid TIME and AGAIN with no luck. Had to come here to see that OBAMAbRAT and bLOT were wrong. (Hi, @virtually everyone.)

As for the theme, I liked it because I didn’t bother with the circles during the solve, and it was nice to go back at the end and see the pairings and admire the construction. I did look at the shaded squares while solving, and since the first couple of shaded words made sense with the second part of the clue, I thought the circles would turn out to be something completely different.

I liked the clue for GIRL SCOUT LEADER (“one in charge of Brownies and cookies?”), and I thought maybe all the themers would have some kind of cleverness to them. I was quickly disabused of that hope with “post-dryer chore/FOLDING THE LAUNDRY.

But lots of other nice clues, such as those for CASINO, PET BED and CLOT/bLOT.

Dr.A 9:00 AM  

As usual love your write up but this puzzle was just out and out boring. I felt like I was just finishing it because I always do, but this one was like a book that I wind up not reading. Just not worth the bother. Off to see what AVCX has to offer me. LOVE that site.

andrew 9:05 AM  

The shades and circles and “bonus” clues didn’t add anything to the crux of the puzzle but some unnecessary confusion with no FINE and DANDY payoff.

Without the diversions, we’re left with straightforward clues and banal long answers. Oh, WHEE!

(Hmm, TUSHY came a little TOO easy for me. Even though I live alone, may be time to clear my browser history for the sake of next of kin…)

John H 9:31 AM  

This was ok. I was hoping that guessing the _and_ first would help, but I didn't really need the boots.

But the worst thing about today is not Daylight Savings but the fact that the NYT ended the online acrostic today. Forgive me for saying this but the acrostic is (at least for me and Isaac Asimov) the more enjoyable puzzle every time. I save is as a treat for getting through the Sunday crossword. I am pretty outraged.

kitshef 9:32 AM  

From a very hard Saturday to a very easy Sunday

This is the type of theme that leaves me cold. Finding words in random positions in longer phrases just isn't interesting to me.

FIDDLESTICKS is more “I don’t believe you” while BLAST IT is “oh hell”.

I did like LAUNDRY appearing right above ERA, and the crossing of GOON with GET SEVEN.

puzzlehoarder 9:34 AM  

Is that a crap carp I hear?

Anonymous 9:37 AM  

You either get it, or you don't!

Kent 9:44 AM  

I think Rex sells the theme short because it’s not his cup of tea. None of the themers, either the long answers and the phrases hidden therein, feel clunky or contrived. I for one enjoy discovering the extra layer, even if the two parts of the theme answer aren’t connected.

RooMonster 9:45 AM  

Hey All !
Impressive from a constructing view. Finding common __&__ phrases in longer phrases. I'm sure there's an app for that. (What happened to that catchphrase?) Maybe David came up with these himself, but I highly suspect some computery help was involved.

Regardless, had a fun time finding the "hidden" __&__ phrases. My puz had the circles and the nice light green shaded squares, so all was right in Crosslandia. (I do the puz on the NYT site, with my $39/yr subscription. They always have the nice light-green shading.) Green paint, indeed.

Laughed at GOON dook. Didn't fall for the OBAMAbRAT trap, because, I RULE! 😁
@egs
I often groan at your alternate-meaning-parsings (in a good way!) of answers in the grid, but you outdid yourself with the PUREBREaDDOG today.
How is Settles the score GET SEVEN?
(JK, I know it's GETS EVEN.)
We have TUSHY, plus a -small rear- ASS-ET. Har.
I always think of OPAH as a party yell, not a fish.
Almost put in an O for the U of the INDUS/MUIR cross, thinking INDOS sounded more River-y than INDUS, but MUIR sounded better than MoIR, and also remembered @M&A's adage, "when in doubt, throw in a U."

So a nice, mostly easy puz. Good start to a lost-sleep-hour day.
Gonna HOT HOOF it outta here.

Six F's
RooMonster
DarrinV

Ooh, ooh, just noticed something Rex didn't complain about! There if FINE as part of a Themer (31A shaded squares) and FINE is the answer to 41A. You're slacking, Rex! 😁

Anonymous 9:45 AM  

Even though this was otherwise an easy puzzle, I did not finish because I had a B in that square. BLOT made sense! To be sure, I thought OBAMABRAT was a bit weird, but it probably describes well what my parents thought of me and my politics in 2008! More than OBAMACRAT.

thfenn 9:49 AM  

Happy Sunday all, DST or otherwise. I don't really understand all the HATERADE the clock change gets, or why if we pick one we should use standard time. On standard time in Maine the sun would rise around 4 in the summer, so I think I'd prefer DST year round, though an 8AM sunrise in Dec is tough. I have an idea - let's move clocks forward in the summer. Works for me.

It's sort of interesting seeing this and that pairs embedded in the themes. Can't say it enhanced the solve much, but intriguing, and thank you, @lewis, for pointing out why, and the niche.

Dine and dash tho? Eat and run, sure, but I never dine and dash.

Every now and then I take a dive into the oddities of royal succession. Had forgotten, of late, about the boy king and nine day queen's efforts to keep England protestant and out of bloody Mary's hands. 150 years later, after Queen Anne died with no heirs, they found a distant relative in Germany who spoke little English and made him King George I, also to be sure and stay Protestant. Intriguing, if not mind boggling. Love ot when the NYTXW sparks those journeys. LOL, and wish it was only 9AM instead of 10. Gotta get cracking.

Anonymous 9:53 AM  

Ditto on Obamabrat. Thought yet another Fox generated pejorative.

puzzlehoarder 10:08 AM  

Ho and Hum is the more accurate title for today's puzzle. I actually forgot to look at the title before I started solving and just glanced back at it close to halfway through. Underwhelmingy inane was my reaction.

FOLDINGTHELAUNDRY gives the other day's GOTOARESTAURANT a run for its money in our host's EATASANDWICH category.

I'm surprised by the number BLOT/CLOT dnfs. Granted that's a completely stupid clue for CLOT but OBAMACRAT does sound familiar. It never had the currency of dixiecrat but maybe a lot of people haven't heard of that either.

Today I found out that I can recognize an URKEL clue when I see one and even spell the name correctly too. That's as exciting as this solve got.

yd -0

kitshef 10:09 AM  

Two weeks ago I though the acrostic was as easy as it has ever been. This week's was easier still. If Cox and Rathvon are retiring, they are going out not with a bang but with a whimper.

Anonymous 10:16 AM  

I agree with @Iris. There is nothing about the theme that adds to the solving experience. The clues were easy enough that I didn’t need the secondary clues for help. So, what’s the point of theme except for the solver showing off? If the fill was great, it would be fine. This fill is okay.

Sundays continue to be a dud. I can’t remember the last Sunday I thought was great.

Nancy 10:21 AM  

What an incredible feat of construction! I seldom applaud construction, being much more interested in what I as a solver need to accomplish, but this grid did give me an "Aha!" moment -- and that's because I was so slow to pick up all of the trick and not just half of it.

Since half the answer alone was enough to satisfy most clues, I noticed the gray half and didn't notice the circles half. Only when I got all the way down to TABLOID MAGAZINE and saw that TIME did not equal "Repeatedly" did I pause and take stock. "TIME and AGAIN!" Wow!

I then went back and re-read all the themers and was quite charmed.

Some thoughts:

I had ?LO? for "Stop running in a way" and wanted bLOw. And what did that give me for the 21st-century liberal? OBAMA BRAT!

Now, I mean I was a big fan, but really! We weren't ever called that -- were we?

BLAST IT is a lot, a lot stronger than "Fiddlesticks".

I've never heard of HATERADE -- which I suspect is a very good thing.

I seldom notice POCs unless they're as egregious as OKRAS.

An easy puzzle -- not entirely unwelcome after yesterday. And really well done!

Anonymous 10:26 AM  

The theme was definitely clever and showed some nice coincidences, but otherwise completely not necessary for the solve. Just an after the puzzle (ymmv) amusement.

Alia Shawkat is amazing. I’m just disappointed she wasn’t clued for the vastly underrated Search Party. Seasons 1-4.5 are some of the best send ups of miserable people on tv. Look up “murdered or pancaked” on YouTube. I’ll wait here.

Lori 10:29 AM  

This puzzle was not enjoyable for me and I DNF The themed answers were clued much too concretely and after simply writing in the third one on the basis of the clue alone, there was no more joy in Mudville and I abandoned the solve. It was interesting to see the word pairs contained in the themed answers but initial clueing that was less obvious would have been nice. Sorry, Mr. Tuffs.

Joaquin 10:42 AM  

@SouthsideJohnny (8:17) - You marginalize John MUIR when you refer to him "the national parks dude". He was an early environmentalist, co-founder of the Sierra Club, and is an important person in US history. I suggest you read the Wiki article on him.

Deb Sweeney 10:45 AM  

Easy enough to solve by totally disregarding the theme, but once I tried to do a post-mortem on it I got agitated. "OK so the second part of the themed clues is the circles, right .. "easy to understand" equals "clear", "splendid" equals "dandy", "repeatedly" equals "again" . . . what, WHAT is this? On what planet does "anon" mean "occasionally"? It means "soon." The puzzle is incorrect and dumb. These grey things make no sense either." The righteous anger was most enjoyable until DD pointed out how the theme actually works. Well, touche, but much like a scratched swordsman, I'm bleeding a little bit from the encounter. A feat of construction to be sure. Thanks for the puzzle.

Carola 10:50 AM  

Opening the MAGAZINE to the puzzle page and seeing the mix of shaded and circled squares, I felt like a cartoon character whose eyes turn into whirling pinwheels. But LOUD and CLEAR captured my fancy, and I enjoyed trying to figure out the remaining This and Thats with as few crosses as possible. Success rate varied from instant (ACHES and PAINS) to having no idea (EVER and ANON). Favorite: FOLDING THE LAUNDRY, which for me is definitely a "thing," in the crossword sense. I'm with @Kent 9:44 in appreciating this double-layer puzzle; double the fun, for me.

@SharonAK 12:47 - I hesitated on RAINS as well. Later I remembered that there's a song, "The Day That the Rains Came," not that I know anything about it besides the title. There probably could have been a better clue: it seems to me that games are stopped by rain or by repeated showers, not "rains."

Nancy 11:00 AM  

Uniclues:

1) The model "Grand Voyager" becomes the "Greyhound"

2) Just love that ex-con/musician with the nimble fingers!

3) Quick! Can someone break up this ill-fated union?

4) Boy, is that ever the transfusion that I want!!!!






1) PUREBRED CHRYSLERS

2) PAROLEE HARPER I HEART

3) WEDDING CRASHER AT ONCE!

4) BLOODBANK, HIGH AS A KITE

Anonymous 11:00 AM  

We set our clocks back to January in the Southern Tier

Diego 11:12 AM  

For moi, the best element of today’s NYT puzzle experience: Rex’s suggestion that this construction was, uh, FUSSY. Boy howdy, is that RICH!
But I agree with most of his assessment, too easy really (my best time ever for a Sunday puzz), and just meh overall. I did like the Westminster clue and a few others. Yeah, another Sunday slog.
After yesterday’s master class, I guess we shouldn’t complain, can’t all be winners.
LOVE the photo of IDA and ALFIE, lovely cats. We’re going to an animal rescue soon to pick one out, hard to live fully without these alluring creatures.

Anonymous 11:14 AM  

I would think a better definition of an Obamacrat would be someone who normally doesn’t vote Democrat, but did vote for Obama.

Nancy 11:21 AM  

ALERT to @Gary, @Barbara and anyone else who's interested:

At least one person is posting Uniclues over on the Wordplay Blog -- and that's the term that's being used, too. So if after posting here you wanted to post there -- well, I just did it. It takes only a second to cut and paste and I figured why not? Why not play the Schubert and the Nederlander at the same time?

Weezie 11:39 AM  

Maybe this is generational or regional or both but to me, “Three sheets to the wind” refers to being drunk, while HIGH AS A KITE is about being on basically any other substance. Then again, I had SLIMEADE before HATERADE, so I know where my biases lie.

I *have* heard of OBAMACRAT but I thought it referred to people who worked in his administration.

Agree with much of the critique about the theme - I didn’t even look at it til I was done. I liked a lot of the gently clever cluing and the leveling up in vocabulary; that second part is one of the things I love about weekends. I might never use ANODYNE in a sentence but I like knowing that I could!

Anonymous 11:56 AM  

I had Obamabrat as well!!😂😂

Teedmn 12:07 PM  

I wasn't able to load the puzzle into my favorite e-solve sotware today (hi @r.alph!) so I solved using the NYTimes' version which I HATERADE. My laptop is teeny so I end up scrolling up and down trying to get the clues for the portion of the grid I'm working on. Grrr.

Meanwhile, I had my solving blinders on and never noticed the shaded portions of the theme answers though I saw the circles. But only the circled DASH left me looking for a second part to the phrase. The lower theme answers might have left me looking also but I was so busy trying to get to the clues in the scrollbars, I never read the whole clues for those.

Only upon finishing and looking over the puzzle thinking, "Really, that's it? Hiding CLEAR in an answer?" did I notice LOUD in the shade and suddenly the puzzle made sense and I decided it was cute. The disconnectedness of the full theme answer compared to the second half of the theme was an asset for me, not a demerit.

Thanks, David Tuffs!

Photomatte 12:13 PM  

I suppose I'm drinking the HATER-ade if I confess to not loving this puzzle? Unfortunately, the word hater has come to mean "anyone who doesn't like what I like." If Millennial A loves Taylor Swift and Millennial B isn't a rabid Swift fan, A will immediately label B as a "hater." It's a very convenient way to stay inside one's own bubble. The term OBAMACRAT is in a similar vein. I'll be very happy when phrases like "hater," "change the narrative," "level up" and "at the end of the day" have run their course in our discourse 😀

Wright-Young 12:23 PM  

I thought the puzzle was fun & appreciate what seems like a pretty hard hunt for common phrases with “this and that” in them, in order.

@ OKANAGANER (or anyone) - what is QB?

J.T. B. 12:23 PM  

I think/thought 104ais “brat,” I.e. “Obamabrat.” “Blot”also works with the clue; you blot ink (if, like me, you still use pen and paper).
Also: there is no “Mary I” any more than you ever hear of “John I” in lists of British monarchs.

Newboy 12:30 PM  

Just DANDY for a Sunday slog. Stopped after second “and” clue confirmed how easy it would be as Rex points out. Enjoyed the kitties more👍🏼

East Coaster 12:49 PM  

This is a pretty teacher-friendly group, so I will go ahead and post this even though it is off-topic. It may be behind a subscription wall, I don’t remember if they allow a certain number of free reads before they cut you off.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/03/08/teachers-woes-vulnerable-profession-robbins/”> An inside look at the brutal realities of teaching</a>

Anonymous 12:51 PM  

Pretty clever theme. Too bad the long sentence had nothing to do with the balls and the gray squares, except maybe WEDDINGCRASHER. But you can’t have everything. I did not like the potential Natick at the crossing of INDUS and MUIR. Nor did I like the junk fill like TMI, MARYI, ACTII, CANTI etc. But aside from that it was an enjoyable solve.

johnk 1:06 PM  

I easily solved as a themeless, completely ignoring those annoying little circles and shaded squares, which really REPEL me.

SFR 1:18 PM  

That one deprived me of the happy music too

SFR 1:36 PM  

The t-shirt suggestion from OFL (I HEART BINGHAMTON) doesn't work for me. We spent two days in the late fall of 2018 camped just outside Binghamton in torrential rain and deep mud. To top off this unpleasant experience, a water main in the campground broke and the bathrooms were unusable for most of our 2-day stay. So we changed plans and took the southern route back to the West Coast. It was a relief to smell sagebrush again when we got to New Mexico.

Gary Jugert 1:45 PM  

@Nancy 11:21 AM
How wonderful. Uniclues are super fun to write (and maybe read?) and makes me feel like doing a puzzle isn't a complete waste. I already spend too much time on this blog, so I won't be adding Wordplay, but love it some are exploring the concept over there. I think I learned the art of looking back over the grid from @Lewis @Roo @M&A and especially @egs among others.

bocamp 1:51 PM  

@Wright-Young (12:23 PM)

QB = Queen Bee on the NYT' Spelling Bee game. QB or '0' – as some folks describe it – indicates a perfect score, i.e., zero words left to find.

@East Coaster (12:49 PM)

Thx, I was able to read the article! My library has the book on order (with, hopefully, the ebook and/or audiobook to follow). 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏

pabloinnh 1:52 PM  

Mirrored the experience of @teedmn.

Late to the party because it was a sing in church morning. No pay involved, but at least there weren't many people there.

At least this puzzle had a "Rockin' Robin" reference and the long-lost OPAH, which is some real old-school -ese.

HIGHASAKITE reminded me of a story W. C. Fields used to tell about his uncle, who was so poor he couldn't afford a kite, and had to hire one. "I have a picture of him down in front of the saloon, hirin' a kite", said Mr. Fields.

Nice work finding all the phrases within phrases, DT. but I confess it Didn't Thrill me. Thanks for a moderate amount of fun.

Anonymous 2:14 PM  

With my children both born after Bush’s second election, Obama was the president they remember from when they were little. Now my older one is a newly registered Democrat and they’re both decidedly 21st century liberals, unlike their more 20th century liberal parents. Proud of my Obamabrats!

Joe Dipinto 2:46 PM  

@Gary J – you need to trademark UNICLUE, stat. Then charge the folks at Wordplay hefty fees to use the term.

Re CLOT/blot — Blot never even occurred to me. It doesn't really make sense grammatically with the clue (not like that hasn't happened before). But then, I'm on blood thinners, plus I habitually nick myself shaving. Waiting for blood to clot is a major part of my life.

CT2Napa 2:47 PM  


Ngrams not found: obama brat, obamacrats, obamacrat

Anonymous 3:22 PM  

Had obamabrat too. It is better

Dan P 3:32 PM  

Did not like the FINE dupe, especially in such close proximity, and especially because it could have been fixed easily.

Anonymous 3:39 PM  

Same here!

Masked and Anonymous 3:52 PM  

Different, usin both gray squares and The Circles to extract different words, not to mention &-ing em together like that. As M&A solved it, he wondered how this was gonna pan out, for solvers who only get to see the circled stuff.
Always prefer more humor than this, for a SunPuz theme edition.

staff weeject pick: BAO. The M&A brainpan repeatedly refuses to save some leftover boa chow in the brainfridge, for BAO's next inevitable puz outin.

fave themer: FOLDINGTHELAUNDRY with FINE & DANDY.
fave filler: HIG(H)ASAK(I)TE [with the (x) letters circled, in the grid]. Also kinda partial to NANAS & NENA & NONET. Nene nana nunu, to ONO ENO ORR.

Thanx for this and that, Mr. Tuffs dude. Looks like a tough puztheme to come up with themers for … just between (M)ICKE[Y]M[O][U]S(E).

Masked & Anonym007Us

p.s. yep. First time ever, M&A went to the NYTPuz site, and couldn't find the Acrostic (or any other variety puz, for that matter). Grabbed er from offa the xwordinfo.chen site, tho. Confuses the M&A. Somethin's gotta be shakin tho, all righty.

sorry, but these ain't been re-tired, yet:
**gruntz**

egsforbreakfast 4:02 PM  

I Emma fan, but without @Gary J (with assists from @BarbaraS and @Nancy) I’d be uniclueless.

Donny Most 4:17 PM  

Quickest Sunday solve in recent history and for me it played as a themeless, as I read & used only the first clue of each pairing. I suppose it's a feat of construction but my solve relied on zero themers. Loved the pussycats photo.

Anonymous 4:30 PM  

You never owned up to having a cat named Ida.

Anonymous 5:06 PM  

104 D I had BLOT and even though OBAMABRAT doesn’t make sense I thought it was just as likely as OBAMACRAT

Anonymous 5:32 PM  

Y’hear is “you hear” so the elision is kosher. That said, yuck.

Gabriel Mann 5:56 PM  

YHEAR is complete garbage, especially crossing ANODYNE, which normal people could assume is spelled with an I instead of a Y if they're not familiar with the rarely-read term. As for Rex's criticism of it, IHEAR you.

Ken Freeland 5:59 PM  

Parc it

jazzmanchgo 6:02 PM  

IHEART (they style it "iHeart") is a multi-platform online media conglomerate. I despise what they represent -- the corporate consolidation & homogenization of media (although I will give them partial credit for allowing Memphis's legendary all-Black format radio station WDIA to retain at least some of its identity as a voice for the city's Black community by retaining beloved personalities such as Bev Johnson and the late blues host Bobby O'Jay) == but they do exist, and they'd have been a less labored clue than the one given.

Ken Freeland 6:08 PM  

I agree with the minority position that this puzzle was a very impressive architectural feat. Alas, I had the same problem as Rex in not having shaded squares to work with, but this did not detract from my appreciation when I learned a posteriori of the missing element.
The only natick for me was HARPER/OPAH, but I upgrade this to a quasi-natick because the most plausible educated guess is the correct answer.

dgd 7:04 PM  

I particularly ABHOR "change the narrative". I lean liberal Democrat but can't stand the academic language that has taken over many liberals' usage of late. The Republicans are much more astute with their propaganda.

BTW at the end of the day is of British origin- no idea where it was born. It is a well established expression there. I am surprised when I hear it here., but unfortunately for your ears maybe it is getting settled in the US?

I liked the puzzle. I was annoyed I didn't get the paper and had to print it out. Much prefer the dead tree edition. ABHOR online. Printout only so so.

Anonymous 7:28 PM  

Okay, I give up. Can anyone explain the greeting card Rex posted?

Anonymous 10:28 PM  

Me too, and while ours is perhaps a bit impolite it's correct in both directions.

albatross shell 11:32 PM  

At least on the internet Mary Tudor is referred to as Mary I. And why should she not especially after a Queen Mary II appeared on the scene. Seems pretty accurate and pretty standard.

Anonymous 11:37 PM  

Never knew there was a shady aspect to this one, so had to live with “discussion” being “forth” since there were no obvious errors. Annoying, and annoyingly easy.

lodsf 1:42 AM  

Hand up for Obamabrat (aka army brat). And “blot” works just as well as CLOT for “stops running”.

Anonymous 8:32 AM  

HI ALFIE!! HI IDA!!

Wright-Young 8:47 AM  

Ah, thanks @bocamp!

Daniel Jalkut 9:39 AM  

Just a friendly reminder that your software (Black Ink) DOES do shaded squares. It's just the Across Lite version of the puzzle that you're using that doesn't support it.

Anonymous 11:48 AM  

Not particular to this puzzle, but a pet peeve. Having been involved in building design and construction for too many decades, I can assure puzzle constructors that there is no such thing as an “I-bar”. There were I-beams, which have a cross section “I” shape, not no I-bars.

Anonymous 9:55 PM  

I'm totally with you my friend. Once I caught on to how the theme was set up, I had that "OMG! "AHA!"

AS I WAS SAYING... 10:10 PM  

Somehow my reply got posted before I was finished.

As I was in the middle of saying...I too Revel in those "OMG!" "AHA!" moments of puzzling Enlightenment and Delight.

I always solve with pen & paper, so I saw the grid clearly.

TABLOID.MAGAZINE broke open the first Clue set, and seeing the enclosed 'back & forth' words and phrase revealed the second.

I used OBAMACRAT, because CLOT is a more precise way of Stopping a flow. BLOTting it works, but is more messy.

When I read all the comments and reactions to puzzles like this, it makes me think that someone should develop a database of all the various ways one can nitpick a crossword.

Anonymous 12:04 PM  

It’s simply a small collection of three letter names that xword puzzle constructors cannot do without. It is missing ELS, for the golfer Ernie.

Anonymous 12:07 PM  

It’s depressing that I’m so immersed in American culture that I know who Urkel is, even though I have no memory of ever watching whatever show the character is from. Also, I think the card is brilliant, but could be even better: ELS is missing.

spacecraft 12:12 PM  

Ick, circles AND shades!! A double downer. Why do this? As I've said before, you can cull anything you want out of a long phrase using random letters within. This was a pointless slog, but the saving grace is that it was so ridiculously easy the gruntwork didn't last that long. Raises it from double-bogey to just bogey. Next!

Wordle par.

Burma Shave 3:10 PM  

C'MON Y'HEAR?

AMY likes BACK AND FORTH, you SEE,
she'll STATE, "IT'S HEAVENONEARTH with HOT men."
SO LOUD AND CLEAR, no GIRLSCOUT she,
also had PEG IN BED TIME AND AGAIN.

--- ALTON BERG

rondo 9:13 PM  

Slog city. I appreciate the constructor's effort but CMON.
Wordle birdie!

Milwaukee Talkie 7:22 AM  

Very enjoyable. After figuring out the first themer, I filled in the "and" parts FIRST in the others. Agree that those circled and shaded words weren't necessary to solve, but it gave me a choice to take a different approach. So instead of moaning about them, just ignore them and let others enjoy it.

Could never figure out why people say "I HEART New York". Isn't the whole point of the heart symbol to have you say "I LOVE New York"?

Final peeve: It's Daylight SAVING Time. Because you SAVE daylight. Do you say "money savings coupon" or "time savings measure"? In all fairness, however, it should be "Daylight-saving" with that hyphen.

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