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Color from the French for unbleached / THU 3-9-23 / Neutrogena dandruff shampoo / Pitched as speech / Applies the first row of loops to a knitting needle / Show from which Pinky and the Brain was spun off
Thursday, March 9, 2023
Constructor: Simeon Seigel
Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
Very quick write-up today, as my internet went down just after I finished solving; it's back up now, somehow, magically, but half of my morning writing window is gone. Sorry to all concerned. Anyway, this is a fine enough theme. It's at least interesting that you can take one phrase and then make another phrase by just moving its latter part to its front. But I don't know if it goes much beyond merely "interesting," and I really really don't understand why the official layout of this puzzle gives away the entire conceit by putting hard black bars between the two "sides" of each theme answer:
- PRINTOUTS (17A: *Defeat in a 100-meter dash, say) ("outsprint")
- TOOLBARS (26A: *Pub seat) ("barstool")
- ALEHOUSES (33A: *Realtor's objective) ("house sale")
- WINGBACKS (45A: *Start of a golfer's action) ("backswing")
- HOTHEADS (51A: *Bio pic) ("head shot")
J-pop (Japanese: ジェイポップ, jeipoppu; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as pops (ポップス, poppusu), is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in traditional music of Japan, and significantly in 1960s pop and rock music. J-pop replaced kayōkyoku ("Lyric Singing Music", a term for Japanese popular music from the 1920s to the 1980s) in the Japanese music scene. (wikipedia)
• • •
The fill was fine. Not terribly interesting. Pretty ECRU. Pretty EZINE. Pretty USOFA. So, pretty tired, overall. I had a few struggle points. One was SUNBATH (4D: One way to get baked), which I initially thought was part of the theme because I wanted it to be SUNBATHE (a word one might actually use), and I figured the final "E" just went ... somewhere. "I'm sunbathing," yes, "I'm taking a SUNBATH" ... I dunno, maybe that's what Phyllis Dietrichson says she's doing at the beginning of Double Indemnity, in which case, I'll give it a pass, but it still rings weird in my ears.
Had BAE / BEY (!?) before J-LO because I got my inaugurations confused. Had GAS before ION and LET GO before LET IN (21A: Clear for entry). Did not know speech was TONAL (only ever heard that word in relation to music) (16A: Pitched, as speech). Had ANGST before AGITA (19A: Uneasy feeling). Forgot T-GEL and had all manner of letters in there after the "T" (there was T-SEL and also T-FAL, which I think is a brand of kitchenware) (40D: Neutrogena dandruff shampoo). What are these "R-rated pics" in the NSFW clue (31D: Like R-rated pics, in brief)? Like, are you watching full-ass movies at work, what the hell? If not, the "R" rating makes no sense here. No one uses "R-rated" metaphorically. It's a weird, weird clue. Most stuff marked NSFW ("Not Suitable For Work") is either still pics or short videos, but only full motion pictures get actual "R" ratings. Bizarre clue. Lastly, had an odd lot of trouble with 65D: Walker's charge (PET). I was like "is that a fee for walking or ... is this about comedian Jimmy Walker or Walker, Texas Ranger, or ...?" But no, you walk your pet, your pet is in your "charge." No other issues, no particular joy. An interesting theme that wasn't particularly thrilling to solve. "Yes, those answers do ... that." That was peak excited reaction from me. Hope your experience was brighter. See you tomorrow.
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79 comments:
Seemed easy for me. I’m new enough where I regularly struggle on Thursdays and I did this one in half of my average Thursday time. I thought the theme was extremely simple, as the theme clues were easy to figure out and “flip” with a couple of down clues. By the second one I didn’t even need any downs to finish the theme.
The fill was pleasant, very few weak clues and no EEL on the grid for once! USOFA was a bit of a stretch, but the clue was well written enough that I understood exactly what they meant for the answer.
Good, if a bit underwhelming, Thursday.
It's probably time to stop cluing TRIBE as Native North American nations/cultures. I think some nations refer to themselves as tribes, but a lot of Native people are (rightly) offended by it, and it has a pretty racist history.
The struggle this morning was terrifically fun. My grid lacked those barriers, too, so I was flummoxed forever, refusing to look to the reveal for help. I finally got the trick with TOOLBARS/BARSTOOL, and my brain imploded with the effort of sorting out how Simeon found these pairs. After overthinking thinking it over, I realized that it was much easier than taking the last letter of the entry written in (S), adding it to the front (STOOL) and then switching the order. Nope. You just take two halves and FLIP the SIDES. TOOL*BARS = BARS*TOOL. Having those dark bars would have saved me some ridiculous mental gymnastics, but I’m happy that I got’er done without them. How cool is this, though? Simeon found pairs that upon being divided and flipped result in compounds with a different word thanks to that S.
Spoiler alert – this link shows the finished grid: I really, really loved this puzzle by Joel Fagliano that has a cousin theme, but in his, the words stayed intact when you flipped them – fast break/breakfast, light green/greenlight. . .
Four mistakes held me up:
“Rest” before LESS
“Begin” before BEATS (I was thinking a time clock, maybe.)
“Tony” before ESPY
“Purls on” before CASTS ON. That was my low point. I crochet. Well, used to crochet.
Because I’m an awfulizer, if I get a text from my daughter or son when I shouldn’t be getting one, and it says simply YOU UP?, my mind goes immediately to thoughts involving fire trucks, emergency rooms, bomb squads... They’re starting to learn that for me it’s kinda like having my principal emailing with a Could you stop by before you leave? message. Sure. Let me pack up all my stuff ‘cause I’m about to be fired. I think now they’ve started texting stuff like, YOU UP? If not, no problem. This can wait. Nothing terrible has happened. Just wanted to catch up. Don’t worry. I’m fine. Really. Everything’s fine It must be exhausting worrying about worrying me.
The clue for PET threw me, too, but in a different sense. Is there any other PET that would be a walker’s charge? I think my sister walked her cat once. And for some reason, we thought it’d be a swell IDEA once to walk our PET guinea pig Scooby to the bus stop. Had this tiny little leash and everything. Scooby wasn’t a team player, and it went south pretty fast. I get that the clue works, but still.
At one of our ponds in WV, we had a dock with a ladder so you didn’t have to walk over to the edge and step through that Dis. Gust. Ing soft bottom/mud/silt/scum to get out. Shiver. But I was convinced that under that dock, swimming all around the ladder were hundreds of grumpy WATERSNAKEs. Boy howdy I could go up that ladder like nobody’s business. Snakes I’m prepared for and can see don’t scare me. Snakes waiting in a watery ambush, though, sheesh.
Agree with Rex, the bars were totally unnecessary— luckily, I solve with AcrossLite so they didn’t exist. Like Rex, I had Angst for AGITA. Unlike Rex, the fill didn’t bother me. Mainly, I thought the theme answers were great.
One of the few times not only did I catch the theme during the solve, those answers were pretty crucial for my solve. It happened after TOOL|BARS and WING|BACKS which had me wondering if the theme might somehow be chair related. Thank goodness, at least it wasn’t [i]that[/i].
But even with that I struggled with rESt for LESS and APraISE for APPRISE. Appraise isn’t the right word there, but apprise is not a word I regularly use in day to day conversation, so that’s my excuse at least.
I’ll bet the purists here will share Rex’s less than flattering opinion of the “helper bars” in the theme squares. Personally I don’t mind if they “dumb down the theme” since I’m not in the cryptic = crunchy (I.e. good) camp. I would prefer to see them get rid of stuff like TGEL and Pinky and the Brain, and of course a big improvement would be to eliminate the whole genre of GENRE clues.
I’m neutral on the “we need to ban from all public discourse any word that anyone may possibly find unsettling” issue, so TRIBE probably gets a pass from me. I would advocate a more common sense approach, so for example I would not include the names of rap “artists” who advocate beating up women and killing people - but that ship sailed long ago.
Nice to see MOUE make a quick return appearance, though I suspect I will forget it by the time I need it again.
I cannot allow this puzzle to pass by without expressing love for the Animaniacs
Technically a DNF for me because I put in rOUE instead of MOUE. I know what roue means - in the plural it would have been a valid answer for “bad guys” (CADS). But it looked right and I had forgotten about the word moue. ARr certainly looked wrong, but that clue (“it may extend a hand”) was delightfully tricky (poker? applause? helpful robot?) so it took me a while to see ARM.
The word “pic” in two clues threw me. In both (“like R-rated pics, in brief” and “bio pics”), I was thinking movie, but it meant photo in both cases. Rex is right that the first one (for NSFW) is a bit of a stretch, but the second one (for HEAD SHOT/HOT HEADS) was great.
Dplus before EFLAT held me up n the center.
Two “opposite” themes this week.
I look forward to seeing what the unicluers do with PESTO SAND PIES.
I agree with Rex about those little bars in the theme answers, which did appear in my grid. That took all the challenge away because one immediately said to oneself, “there’s a trick here, what could it be” and then as soon as I had PRINT and the clue had to do with dashing, I supposed there was some wrap-around thing going on. And then it was a bit of a slog from there.
PET took awhile bc really, I have heard of walking a cat but basically only dogs get walked. I love the guineapig story, @Loren Muse Smith.
I also had a little trouble with YOUUP, I think most texters would write ruup? But I tend always to write full sentences in my texts so how would I know. In my family, if anyone calls at an odd time, the first words spoken are, “everything’s fine!”
Agree that the black bars were insulting and annoying.
PRINTOUTS and TOOLBARS are particularly neat because 'OUT' and 'BAR' are completely repurposed.
For your, @LMS, a non-dog pet being walked
I had SUNBurn for SUNBATH, and couldn’t shake it for a long long time.
Agree with @SouthsideJohnny about cryptics in general and the bars in this one. Very impressive that the themers read as two different and legitimate answers, as opposed to the Fagliano puzzle mentioned by @LMS.
I thought the puzzle was terrific and loads of fun.
I'm surprised Rex didn't comment on this being our second opposite-themed puzzle on three days.
We’ve seen these word swaps before - but I had fun working this. Agree that the oddball black lines were unnecessary. The themers dropped fairly quickly - HEAD SHOT/HOT HEADS stuck out for me. With Rex on SUNBATHe.
Sisters of MERCY
Overall fill had an early week bent - not much pushback anywhere. Didn’t really know J LO in context and don’t like EZINE. DUFFS - YOU UP and NSFW mash up seems to be going in a certain direction.
BOZ in better times
I liked this puzzle - enjoyable Thursday solve.
killer STRAT in E FLAT
Once again the NYT and WaPo have identical answers - I think that is twice this week. So something is definitely up. I’ll be on the look out for the coded messages warning of the upcoming alien invasion or zombie apocalypse.
I love it when a puzzle is a Puzzle. When the theme eludes you, when areas take satisfying work to fill in, where standout clues vex you. When a Puzzle finally fills in, I feel fulfilled, deeply satisfied, and grateful.
And yes, today’s offering was a Puzzle for me. Oh, the “Hah!” at cracking the theme, and the “Whee!” at immediately thereafter filling in the remaining theme answers that only had a few letters, followed by splats of fill-in. That’s Crosslandia heaven. Topped by amazement that our language has word pairs that do this, and high respect for how skillfully this grid was put together. And pings of glee at sighting the rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap (STRAT), and the lovely PuzzPair© of BEATS and OUTSPRINTS.
So this was not only a Puzzle for me, but a Puzzle Plus. I loved this, Simeon. Thank you so much for making it!
Actually the weird bar thing initially threw me off! I was thinking it had to be “involved” somehow and was trying to figure out how, and then with the downs, realized it is not involved and so I ignored it completely after that. But for a hot second there, I was was very confused.
I LIKED having the minibar gimmick) goes well with ALEHOUSES and BARSTOOL).
What to Rex and XWord elites is dumbing down gives me and other non-whiz kid solvers hope for a chance - and the aha of getting one toehold (for me, TOOLBARS) and grokking the rest.
Often on Thursdays, I get frustrated, will check out an answer on Jeff Chen and just fill out the rest after the conceit has been given away. Not a satisfying “win”.
Since so many of us do it in the app, why not give Exoert Challenge Options in settings? Down Only, Across Only, No Art?
Get rid of the circles, minibars and anything else that the rest of us can see (and need), along with the temptation to peek when doing Down Only on Mondays or Tuesdays. Would cost next to nothing to program (unlike, say, writung a set of harder clues) and make the puzzle more of a challenge to those who want one.
Fun puzzle today, for me at least…
Oof yeah, this is one of those Thursdays where my non-cryptic bent and my general lack of experience is showing. I just haven’t done enough puzzles to have immediately grasped what was going on, and I’m very stubborn about not looking at the revealer until I’ve worked my way down to it on the first pass. So, full of overwrites, long solve time, lots of grumbling. This was a gym workout puzzle for me. Was happy to have finished, but glad to be done with it. Still learning!
Another note on the black lines - my friend who is a type designer and illustrator and is a fellow daily NYT puzzler is deeply perturbed by the fact that three of them are off in their placement. I imagine whoever the designer of the grids themselves to have said something like, “Wait, really? I have to do *what* now? Okay, fine, whatever, good enough.”
Very tricksy!
I print out these puzzles and solve them on paper. The little dark bars did not appear on my printout, so I didn't have the benefit of that clue, which made this a bit more of a challenge, but still fun. This was definitely not one of those puzzles you could solve without correctly filling in the revealer.
I liked the theme, although sort of with Rex on the black bar (or blahbar to quote 30 ROCK). Ideally the NYT app would allow you to set your own difficulty level that would determine whether hints like that or shaded squares or whatever showed up.
the only themer I didn’t like was HEADSHOTS/HOTHEADS because it was clued with a misdirect while all of the others were clued in a straightforward manner. It should have been something like “photo for bio”. Otherwise the theme was great.
No idea what the heck MOUE is, don’t know any knitting terms and thought CFLAT was just higher than D, so I had a DNF on that answer.
This was a very enjoyable puzzle. Yes, might have been more fun if the helper bars were eliminated. But I'm always grateful for a pleasant diversion, and that's what this was. I am loath to criticize unless something in the puzzle is really awful.
My print version didn't have bars, but it did have BARSTOOLS. Was going top to bottom down the West Coast when I ran into ALEHOUSES, and boom there's your trick. That became obvious to me as we've been looking at houses, unsuccessfully, for a couple of years now. Bad timing.
I'm involved in music enough to come up with STRATocaster and HOOKS with no problem, but I can see how they might be unfamiliar. Also knew CASTSON somehow. Where did THAT come from?
My favorite answer was MERCY which made me think of the late great Red Sox radio announcer Ned Martin, who would describe a truly fantastic and amazing unbelievable play and simply sum it all with "MERCY". Still miss him.
Hey Roo--no pablos today, but we did get a PAUL. The Bono connection was news to me.
Really great Thursday, SS. Simply Stunning, and thanks for all the fun.
Nice musical puzzle with fun fill. And our favorite slush pile editor kept things in focus by ensuring nice DUFFS were waiting for us today at the bottom {tee hee}. I hope xi's first year of middle school is going well.
When I sorta figured out the theme's jig, I used it to help the solve. It's nice when that happens. I like them being normal phrases, and then borrowing the last letter to make a new idea. Silly, not silly.
I dunno why, but I really dislike the phrase "US of A." I think it sounds like something a dude wearing a leather vest would say.
@pabloinnh 10:13 AM Yesterday
Thanks for introducing me to Bob and Ray. Spent an embarrassing amount of time with them on YouTube yesterday.
Uniclues:
1 Keeps the demons at bay.
2 Sit myself down, look sad.
3 Prepares to knit a psychedelic bikini top.
4 Realtor® spam.
5 The windup before slamming the guitar into the stage.
6 Bad place for a dance.
7 Bootie call friends of yore.
8 Escape route for runway models.
9 Most comical and ab-forward misspelling of lawn mower brand name, according to some.
10 Literary areas where emotionally conflicted cartoons battle vastly superior foes.
11 Exploit children for economic gains.
12 Proof on a report card a swimming ophidian is above average.
1 OUT SPRINTS AGITA (~)
2 ARM BAR STOOL (~)
3 CASTS ON NEONS
4 HOUSE SALE E-ZINE
5 STRAT BACKSWING (~)
6 HOT HEAD'S LAP
7 OLD "YOU UP?" TRIBE
8 SLIM SECRET DOOR
9 TORSO, THEY SAY
10 STAN LEE BEATS
11 ANIMANIACS IDEA
12 WATER SNAKE BEES
This was fun. My grid has the bars – they didn’t offend me, but I didn’t think they were necessary. And I agree with argument for leaving them out so as to increase the challenge. I tumbled to the trick at TOOLBARS/BAR STOOLS, but that wasn’t as quick as you’d think because I’d done a certain amount of wandering around before I got there.
I made the Angst/AGITA error. I tried both tonY and obie for ESPY. I started entering “A LOT at stake” (too long) for A LOT TO LOSE, and “sunken” (too short) for DEEP SET. Does [Played out] really mean OLD? I thought it meant exhausted, and was obscurely offended by the association with age.
Enjoyed seeing BOZ, as I’d just watched a documentary about Charles Dickens which said that BOZ was a pseudonym he used at the beginning of his career for short pieces about daily life that he published in various periodicals (Sketches by BOZ). The notion of walking a PET other than a dog reminded me of a story my mother once told about being in a florist’s shop in a hotel. The only other customer was a woman walking a gorgeous and amazingly well-behaved cat on a leash. My mother couldn’t contain her curiosity and asked. The woman said she travelled a lot and took her cat everywhere. The cat had been trained to the leash since kittenhood and had adapted completely. And they were in the florist’s because the cat didn’t get a chance to spend much time in nature and enjoyed walking around and sniffing the flowers! A bunch of other, rather more practical questions occurred to my mother but I think she felt she shouldn’t pry. And she did love seeing the cat reveling in its flowery surroundings.
UNICLUES:
1. Major New York art institution reverses its policy of banning flying elephants.
2. Villainous captain’s unexpected rose-gardening and basket-weaving hobbies.
3. Takes first step in crazy light-tube knitting project.
4. Little-known custom entrance for Jack Sprat.
5. What resulted when the 5-year-old raided the kitchen for interesting additions to her outdoor “cooking.”
1. DUMBO LET IN MET
2. HOOK’S FLIP SIDES
3. CASTS ON NEONS
4. SLIM SECRET DOOR
5. PESTO SAND PIES
[SB: Tues and Wed, 0. On Tuesday, I wondered about this, which seems like a blatantly commercial word. Yesterday, I was sorry to see that they’d stopped accepting the 5er, and I was amused by the literary quaintitude of the other two. @okanaganer, I hope your streak survived all that.]
On a high school canoe trip, one stop was swimming in a deep section of the New River in NC. Upon reembarking and continuing, we passed a set of rocks about 30 yards down the river, each teeming with water moccasins having a SUNBATH. Still gives me the heebie-jeebies wondering what else I was swimming with.
I'll never know if I didn't need the little bars - they seemed superfluous to me.
Thanks, BTS and KPOP for my JPOP guess.
@Southside, include the New Yorker puzzle in your conspiracy theory - they frequently have almost identical clue/answers as the NYT.
I loved the "great plays" Tony/ESPY misdirect.
I was thinking movie before pic for R-rated, but disagree with Rex about using the rating scale in non-movie applications. "Let's keep it G-rated, folks" for example.
Took me a bit to realize that AAA sells batteries. I associate them with towing and maps that I haven't used since google maps came out, way before that come to think of it. We loved following the TripTiks as kids on cross country trips.
Hey All!
ANIMANIACS! The best cartoon ever. Followed by Darkening Duck. 90's classics!
That helped me in the NE. A Long Down immediately is always a good thing.
I had the Dark Lines, and I have to admit, thank goodness. I may have eventually figured out the theme without them (strong *may have*), but even with them, took me a minute to figure it out. Ah, shrinking brain (or is it shirking brain? Unable to help me out. Har.)
Double U for @M&A, a rarity.
Nice to see our old friend ECRU. You've been away for a while.
rearS before DUFFS. Can't be the only one.
SUNBATH? Is that the noun of sunbathe? "Time to oil up and SUNBATH!"
MOUE getting popular.
Can someone explain BEATS as clued?
E fest in SE. O fest in SW. Double letter fest in SCenter. Weird the things you notice.
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Those black bars so many of you are complaining about -- all I can say is: Thank you, Simeon! Because boy did I need them! I just did not see the trick for, like forever, and I might have muddled through anyway -- but then there was all that pop culture in the NE to contend with. I didn't know any of it.
But once I got the trick, finally, finally at WING BACKS ("Oh, I see: you move the last letter of the last part to the first letter of the first part and then you read them in reverse order") I was able to parse the answers I had filled in without understanding them and fill in all the answers I hadn't been able to fill in. It became an entirely different puzzle for me. Frustration turned to "Aha" -- and a deep appreciation for the cleverness of the trick.
Congrats, Simeon, on a fresh and fiendish theme that damn near killed me.
@Kitshef -- I sent you some very good news yesterday afternoon. Have you seen it?
@Barbara, I think OLD in the sense of an OLD joke.
I grew up in a small city and oddly there was a tiny dairy in this town. Yes I can verify that many pets can be walked as it was common to see the farmer’s children walking their pet raccoon around the city streets. I solve the puzzle on The NY Times digital app and the grid had no bars. The thing that slowed me down a bit was that the answers to the flipped clues had the same number of letters as the straight answers would have had. I found it a fun solve anyway and I did notice that it was the second opposites puzzle of the week as another person noted above.
Rex - tonal refers to languages, like Chinese, in which words change meanings depending on their tonal inflections. In Chinese they use five tones. Ma can mean “horse” or mother depending on which tones is used, for example.
@Barbara S. 9:12 AM
#1 That's it! I knew there was a Dumbo clue, but I couldn't find it. The museum, of course. Barbara for the win.
Amy: thanks to everyone here for today's lively discussion. Realizing that Thursday puzzles need a mindset I seem to have misplaced. Love everyone's views, especially folks who agree with Rex about the "training wheels." Thinking that changing when I solve on Thursday might give me more patience with the trickery.
Better clue for HOOKS than "memorable parts of songs" would have been memorable parts of bras.
*****
So this guy and his dog walk into a bar and the guy takes a seat on one of the BAR STOOLS and his dog sits on the one next to him. And he says to the bartender: "I'd like a Jack Daniels, and please bring a light beer for my dog." The bartender says, "I'm sorry, you're going to have to go to the bar across the street, we don't allow pets in here."
The guys says, "You don't understand, this is a very special dog -- he can talk." The bartender says, "Okay, let's see." And the dog says, "Yes, I can talk, and I would enjoy a light beer, please."
The bartender says: "What kind of a trick are you trying to pull? You're a ventriloquist! -- you're talking and you're making it seem like it's the dog."
And the guy says, "No, it's not a trick. Look, I'll prove it. I'll go downstairs to the mens room and you'll see -- it's the dog talking." So he gets up and leaves the room.
The bartender says to the dog, "Well?" And the dog says, "It's no trick -- I can really talk."
The bartender says, "That's amazing. Hey, do me a favor -- here's ten dollars. Go to the bar across the street, order a beer, take a sip, and then spit it out and say my beer is better."
The dog takes the money and walks out of the bar.
The guy comes back from the mens room and sees the dog is missing. "Hey, where's my dog?"
The bartender explains what happened and the guy says, "Oh, man -- you shouldn't have let him leave without me. I better go and make sure he's okay."
So he walks out of the bar and starts crossing the street, and he sees the dog in the middle of the street having sex with another dog!
He goes up to him and says: "What's going on here? You've never done anything like this before."
And the dog says: "I never had ten dollars before."
Thx, Simeon; I really FLIPped for this one! :)
Med+ (can't SAY it was 'nice' and EASY).
Hit and miss until getting the general idea at OUTSPRINTS.
DUhMB me, as I dropped jUMBO right in. 🤣
Also, had CASTS iN, and took a few precious seconds to get the 'O' to make sense of MOUE.
Good fun, tho, so all's good! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Hendrix, Strat. But Harrison?? No, Rickenbacker!
There are a zillion guys whose main axe is a Strat, why clue a guy famous for playing a Rickenbacker?
Ingenious and easy (I had the help from the black bars). At first I only saw that the final S needed to be moved and accepted "sprint out" with a shrug; the following TOOL BARS cleared things up and made the next two quick to solve. But "Bio pic" brought me to a halt, as I could only think of movies (Hi, @Wanderlust). So, that one was my favorite clue. Otherwise, I felt the ratio of theme ingenuity to time of solve was off.
Do-over: me, too, for Angst. Help from previous puzzles: k-POP that suggested J-POP, YOU UP as clued. Moment of feeling cool: knowing STRATocaster. Uni-clue: Add strawberries to your rhubarb filling: SULLY PIES.
I’m with @SouthsideJohnny and @andrew on the “helper bars”: I’m not enamored of Thursday gimmickry, so I appreciated the aids. I also like Andrew’s idea of a two-level alternative for this type of puzzle—one for the expert-purists and one for the rest of us. Many commenters here describe the visuals as “dumbing down.” Seriously? Most—certainly many—of the puzzles day in and day out have dumb-assed, silly themes. But they lighten our day, and visual clues simply supplement the recipe.
For the second day in the row, I got LESS than the full package. My trusty paper PRINTOUT had no black BARS, just as yesterday I had no italics. Something tells me there’s a TECH at the NYT web site who’s asleep at the switch. Or maybe he’s busy looking at HOT R-rated NSFW pics. Or could be a glitch in the SYST? Whatever. Neither one caused me much AGITA.
But SNAKES are a different story. They definitely give me that unEASY feeling. I automatically FLIP OUT and FLEE the premises, whether it be in the WATER or dry SAND. A friend actually had one inside her HOUSE once. She had a large rubber plant on her patio that she brought inside for the winter, only to discover a large black snake coiled around the base of the plant. Poor thing had probably been enjoying a nice peaceful SUN BATH before she disturbed him. Yes they are harmless but MERCY!
Oh yes, the puzzle. I thought it was fun but extremely easy for Thursday. I was onto the trick at the first themer and even the trivia and propers went in smoothly. Would have been nice if there had been no other crosses with an S at the END but For the second day in the row, I got LESS than the full package. My trusty paper PRINTOUT had no black BARS, just as yesterday I had no italics. Something tells me there’s a TECH at the NYT web site who’s asleep at the switch. Or maybe he’s busy looking at HOT R-rated NSFW pics. Or could be a glitch in the SYST? Whatever. Neither one caused me much AGITA.
But SNAKES are a different story. They definitely give me that unEASY feeling. I automatically FLIP OUT and FLEE the premises, whether it be in the WATER or dry SAND. A friend actually had one inside her HOUSE once. She had a large rubber plant on her patio that she brought inside for the winter, only to discover a large black snake coiled around the base of the plant. Poor thing had probably been enjoying a nice peaceful SUN BATH before she disturbed him. Yes they are harmless but MERCY!
Oh yes, the puzzle. I thought it was fun but extremely easy for Thursday. I was onto the trick at the first themer and even the trivia and propers went in smoothly. Would have been nice if there had been no other crosses with an S at the end but no biggie. All the theme entries were very clever and I would imagine this was a bit of a challenge to construct. I finished with a good “I liked that“ feeling. Now if I can just keep from dreaming about you-know-whats in the house all night.
For the second day in the row, I got LESS than the full package. My trusty paper PRINTOUT had no black BARS, just as yesterday I had no italics. Something tells me there’s a TECH at the NYT web site who’s asleep at the switch. Or maybe he’s busy looking at HOT R-rated NSFW pics. Or could be a glitch in the SYST? Whatever. Neither one caused me much AGITA.
But SNAKES are a different story. They definitely give me that unEASY feeling. I automatically FLIP OUT and FLEE the premises, whether it be in the WATER or dry SAND. A friend actually had one inside her HOUSE once. She had a plant the size of a small tree on her patio that she brought inside for the winter, only to discover a large black snake coiled around the base. Poor thing had probably been enjoying a nice peaceful SUN BATH before she disturbed him. Yes they are harmless but MERCY!
Oh yes, the puzzle. I thought it was fun but extremely easy for Thursday. I was onto the trick at the first themer and even the trivia and propers went in smoothly. Would have been nice if there had been no other crosses with an S at the end but no biggie. All the theme entries were very clever and I would imagine this was a bit of a challenge to construct. I finished with a good “I liked that“ feeling. Now if I can just keep from dreaming about you-know-whats in the house all night.
SUNBATH ruined this for me. Theme was super easy to suss out.
@Nancy - thanks for the heads up. I'll go take a look now.
Count me appreciative of the training wheels. I got we'd have to move the S from the end to the front, but i had to get FLIPSIDES before the whole thing (t)gelled. And I still get a kick out of a reveal that reveals something, so all good.
Enjoyed all the 4 letter options - neat/tidy/easy, obie/tony/espy - and lots of fun misdirection in the fill.
@pabloinnh, loved Ned Martin. He and Jim Woods on the radio in mid-late 70s were must-listening. Missed him for awhile when he went to NESN, but was back as a favorite by the '86 series. MERCY that was a long time ago. Good luck with the house hunting.
Not so. Did not need revealer to figure out gimmick.
I gave up on owning animals for a while. I just [Tore PETs] from my life. But eventually I missed them, so back I went to the [PET Store].
Is there a Panamanian music genre called PPOP? If you had a band (with their STRATs) who combined Indian and Ugandan music genres, would they play WEPOP?
A text before a late night booty call might be “YOUUP for it”.
The nudist gardner next door WATERSNAKEd. You can bet I keep an ION her.
I don’t like the idea of life without bars, so I’m not objecting to these ones. I enjoyed the puzzle for the brief time it took. Thanks, Simeon Seigel.
@Gary Jugert-You're welcome. I've got about two hours of Bob and Ray on my laptop from their radio shows on NPR. Pure gold.
@thefenn-And now no more Eckersly. I'll still watch NESN, but under protest. Thanks for the encouragement.
got the trick early so it was not that difficult but I could imagine it being a bear if you were not able to decipher the theme. For the life of my I wanted Happy Days somehow for the ANIMANIACS answer (PS I have never heard of ANIMANIACS). thinking, of course of “Pinky” Tuscadero... Am I aging myself? I even remember “Leather” Tuscadero played by Suzi Quatro.
Mid-month betrayals, like Brutus's of Caesar: IDES FLIPS
@Roo – in a time signature the top number represents the number of beats per measure and the bottom number is the note value that equals one beat. So a 3/4 time signature means there are three beats per measure, with a quarter note getting one beat.
I thought the puzzle was fine, not spectacular. It felt sluggish to complete, even though I never quite got stuck anywhere. I originally guessed LACE at 15a and OCTAD at 7d, then for some reason thought both were wrong, then put them back in, then had to change OCTAD to OCTET. Also had THREADS for the knitting clue at first, thinking it wss probably wrong as I typed it in. Stuff like that kept happening.
What's the scuttlebutt?
Impossible before getting the Thursday trick, but pretty easygoing after that. Agree with Rex about NYTXW giving “training wheels” on this otherwise outstanding grid. It’s Thursday for crying out loud, so thanks for nothing in taking away that extra level of challenge. Now going FLIPSIDES to see if others enjoyed as much as we did.
One reason Japanese is easier to learn than Chinese is that the sounds are not TONAL, so rising/dropping inflection doesn’t present an additional problem for tone deaf US OF A TRIBE attempting to expand their SLIM ethnocentric world view. So I’ve been told. I grapple with English as a fella with an Ozark heritage I reckon 😉
My favorite word AGITA made me antsy. Angst was pushed aside.
Let's see...where did I figure out that each theme has a little S at the end.... Did that help?...No. Oh, wait..there are these dark bars telling me that it's probably two words. TOOL BARS/BAR STOOLS...That's it! Take off my dumb hat that I always wear on Thursday, and have some fun. I did.
I had a few gaps in my thinking. Of all things...SLAW at 9A. What in the world is a dish made with mayo? French fries certainly did'nt fit and soups sounds awful. Just keep going on to greener pastures and it will fill itself in. It did...with WATER SNAKE. Like @Loren, I'm not particularly afraid of snakes but I don't want them slithering around me particularly if I've fallen off my ski's at "Circle F Dude Ranch Camp For Girls and Boys" in Lake Wales, Fl. Everyone said the lake was crawling with water moccasin's and you would die from a bite. Super ghastly way to tell everyone just learning to slalom....Was there a moral to this story?
I also had a long pause at 52D. DUFFS? I know DUFFS as a British pudding. I was thinking dings or dents - not ones derriere. I learned another word that @Gary J and @egs can use. "Whoopie."
Anyway, although several answers like ANIMANIACS and CAST ON and HOOKS and guessing at STAN LEE were not really known to me, they were gettable. I like gettable.
Oh one other thing...NSFW. I had NSFV as the V would be for viewing. No...it's a W. So I seriously thought that R-rated pics were banned for Women? I'm not always up on trends and this didn't sound very PC,... But WORK????? Who watches porn at work? Is that why cubicles were invented?
I think I'll go walk my two doxiepoos now.
Tough for me. I had around half of this filled in before I figured out what was going on and it still took a while to finish. A clever and fun Thursday challenge, like it.
Hey @ROO! I was wondering how many folks would be scratching their heads over the BEATS clue. In a musical time signature the top number indicates number of BEATS in a measure. The bottom number indicates which kind of note gets the beat. For example, a typical waltz would have 3 beats in a measure and the quarter note gets the beat - 3/4 time. Oom pah pah, oom pah pah.... If you’re curious, here’s more on time signatures in popular songs.
Return to the bar and put a quarter in the jukebox for AC/DC’s
Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap
& TY for the best chuckle today
Double Indemnity is an AMAZING movie. And I believe she did say that she had been taking a sunbath.
Oops, I see @Joe D already answered @ROO while I was looking for examples on YT. Interesting that we both used 3/4.
Haven’t had much time to think of anything interesting to contribute but still enjoy reading @Rex and y’all most days. Oh well, I’ll go ahead and chime in today even if it’s not interesting.
No bars on my grid, thankfully - I wanted, and got, a brain teaser this morning. Like @Nancy, I was lost at some of the PPP - I had ANI-ANIACS before I realized what that was. Also wanted purl-something for CAST ON, like @LMS. My wrong answer for AGITA was AGITe, leading me to turn my skis into SLedS. But MEd made no sense so I avoided what would have been a DNF. Love the word awfulizer, @LMS, and your example - reminds me of some of my worst-case imagined scenarios.
Most of my head scratching was over clues, like wanting feD for “Played out” and something like SEcond DOOR for “Private entrance.” Even took me a while to see EFLAT.
Agree with @Rex that SUNBATH is not a thing real people say. But I thought the theme was good, except I half-expected the revealer would also do the SIDE FLIP. That would’ve been tres cool.
Never heard of MOUE and thought I had a DNF. Came here to see what I did wrong. Apparently I did nothing wrong. Puzzle was WAY too easy for a Thursday. Go Rumble Ponies.
My experience was brighter than @RP's, I reckon.
He mighta been a tad happier, if there'da been a PANNING/GRIDS themer.
staff weeject picks: ACH & SAO. Foreign words of convenience. [FWOCs]
faves included: WATERSNAKE. SECRETDOOR. ALOTTOLOSE. STANLEE. YOUUP.
M&A did the regular printed version, that had the little "dark bars" in the themers. This made the theme mcguffin almost instantly obvi just from the PRINT/OUTS one, at our house. Just sayin.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Seigel dude. Nice flippers.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
Yes I quite liked this, the twist where the S moves and changes the first word. I use Across Lite so no bars; no problem, but I can see they might help solvers that aren't on the lookout for these sorts of hi-jinks.
Thankfully no WATER SNAKES in the lake at our cabin. However where I live we definitely have rattlesnakes. Twice on a hike I have had to bushwhack off the trail to avoid one. The second time I didn't notice the snake until I heard it; thank gof for the rattle! Actually more of an angry buzz than a rattle, but my lizard brain recognized it as a warning.
[Spelling Bee: yd -2 NOOOOOO... QB streak ends at 10 (25 / 26 days). Missed these. I would swear I tried that 6er, but I have never heard the long one which makes me feel less bad. @Barbara S, I too always try that discontinued 5er.]
I agree with Rex that the bars should've been ditched (although I didn't mind getting to solve it more quickly so I can get on with my day).
But I disagree about movie ratings being used metaphorically. I've definitely heard other forms of content being described as G-rated, PG, etc.
I still have a couple of 27D BOZ Scaggs' vinyl LPs so got that one right away.
I've never heard DUFFS (52D "Rear ends") used as a euphemism* for ass. I would have gone with something like "Beer served in Moe's Tavern on 'The Simpsons'". The brand spokesperson is Duffman, a take off on the old Malboro Man cigarette ad icon. DUFFman's promo jingle is "Can't get enough of that wonderful DUFF".
*Remembering the grammar directive that "A" goes before words that begin with consonants and "An" goes before words that begin with vowels, I typed in "an euphemism". Didn't sound right so went with the more natural sounding to me "a euphemism" but I'm still experiencing cognitive dissonance over that poser.
@Anoa
Maybe remembering when you were a young man will ease your dissonance. ;-)
@Anoa Bob
"A" before a word that begins with a consonant sound, e.g. "a uniform", "a euphemism".
This really should not have had the divider bars because it made the theme way too easy to grab. Nothing wrong with the puzz and lots to like. I’m no pro and do not want to sound all snooty here, but Simeon Siegel has been a Thursday favorite of mine and I expected a bit more resistance.
The traditional start in the NW was very easy to grasp and it just flowed down the left side. The theme answers were not that difficult and frankly, the extra bar was the most confusing part of the theme. But maybe I am kist in a blah mood.
Was in a bad accident last week and finally got out of the hospital yesterday. I miraculously have no critical injury but just the aggravation and administrative crap has me bummed out. Coming here cheers me every single day. Thanks everyone!
@A – good to see you!
Also wanted to note that the king of changing time signatures mid-song recently passed away: Burt Bacharach.
@CDilly52 - cheers back at you! Here's to a speedy recovery.
@CDilly52. OMG! Glad you’re okay. Welcome back.
@cDilly --So glad you are doing okay! And Simeon has become one of those I really look forward to as well.
@CDilly52 (5:15 PM)
🙏's for a speedy and full recovery! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
@CDilly
Happy to hear you're OK. Welcome back!
@CDilly - glad to hear you’re feeling better!
Hate Agita clued as anxiety or uneasy feeling. As someone who uses the word since I was a child, 60 years ago, it doesn't mean uneasy feeling. Yes, I know some American journalists appropriated the word from Italian-Americans and used it incorrectly in a newspaper article, which allowed this definition to be entered into the dictionary.
But Shortz ALWAYS uses this crap definition, barely in the dictionary, instead of the real definition which is Heartburn, or Indigestion as the physical symptom and Aggravation as your emotional feeling. Aggravation and Anxiety are not the same thing. If you say this gives me Agita, it's aggravating you not making you nervous. If you says I always get AGita when I eat this, that's heartburn.
Welcome back, @CDilly. Glad you have no permanent ill effects and are feeling better.
@CDilly52 5:15 PM
Yike-o-rama... glad you're gonna be okay. We need you around here.
You can turn off “overlays” (such as the black bars) in the app settings.
Upstairs neighbor has a cat that she walks--on a leash--every day. Do not get between her and that cat.
I too found this fairly EASY for the day; agree that the bars were not really needed but am not "insulted" by them. I've taken insults from masters at the craft, and it takes more than a few bars to upset me.
Not a bad layout, TGEL notwithstanding. JLO, of course, is DOD. Par.
Wordle par.
Good concept. The trouble is not all of the themers are solid,.
I got the joke, but didn't get the final final answers. PPPland galore.
Diana, LIW
BEATS YOUUP
THEYSAY she HADALOTTOLOSE with him,
he told A SECRET about her TORSO,
FLIP her and her BACK SIDES not so SLIM,
butt HOT birds and BEES with JLO.
--- PAUL "DUMBO" DUFF, LAPD
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