.png)
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
I like the idea of a WEED tumbling across the grid a lot, but there's a question of ... I DUNNO, physics? ... that is making me dizzy as I try to follow the "tumbling." So ... there are three different kinds of movement involved, by my count. There's our movement through the "WEED," which is west to east / left to right, with that little two-letter jump (up over and down) every time we hit a "WEED." Then there's the "WEED" itself, which you read clockwise, but which tumbles counterclockwise. So, 1. us moving through it 2. the movement of "WEED" itself in any given configuration, and 3. the tumbling. All different. Madness. The only thing about it that I really don't like is that the "WEED" is allegedly "tumbling" through the grid (according to the revealer clue) but if it's "tumbling" in a counterclockwise direction (which it is) then that means it should be moving west / left at all times, so ... how does it get from the NW corner to the NE corner. You can see how it "tumbles" very nicely from NE corner to SW corner, as the letters in "WEED" rotate counterclockwise, but that first "tumble" makes no sense to me. You cannot call attention to the mechanics of tumbling and then not have the "tumbling" make physical sense. Well, you can, and you have, but it's maddening. Maybe the "WEED" tumbles off-grid and back on again? Again, I DUNNO. I've seen this up and over and down again thing done with theme answers before, in other themes, but the revealer puts a cool twist on the concept. I just wish the "tumbling" made a bit more visual sense to me.
- SPEEDWALKING (17A: Form of racing that requires one foot on the ground at all times)
- TANGLED WEB (26A: Complicated situation)
- "WOULD WE EVER!" (38A: "Count us in!")
- TWEEDLE-DUM (52A: "Through the Looking-Glass" character)
What Do You Meme? is a humorous party card game from Jerry Media in which players propose caption cards as a match to a designated photo (or meme) card. The judge of the round chooses the caption that they think is the best match to photo card, and whoever played that card gets a point. The name of the game refers to internet memes and is a play on the phrase what do you mean. The game has been compared to Cards Against Humanity. The game was created by Elliot Tebele and Ben Kaplan in 2016. It was launched on Kickstarter on June 14, 2016, and it exceeded its goal of $10,000. The following year, in 2017, it was the 9th best selling game on Amazon. (wikipedia)
• • •
That said, I like the theme answers themselves a lot. "WOULD WE EVER!" is particularly inventive—and very hard to parse (the toughest themer to get, for me, by far). Other "inventive" answers in the puzzle weren't always as pleasing. Along with "WOULD WE EVER!," these other "inventive" answers were the toughest things in the grid, but unlike "WOULD WE EVER!," they didn't quite hit the mark, seeming more "made up" than "inventive." I would absolutely buy "PUH-LEASE" (or even "PUH-LEEZE" or "PUH-LEAZE" or something nuts like that), but I am not really buying "SUH-WEET." I mean, yeah, I can hear someone holding the "S" part longer, for emphasis, but this spelling feels jury-rigged. I just don't hear the "UH" sound so much—it's more like the "S" gets its own syllable, and then the "WEET." Anyway, I had "SO SWEET!" there at first, as did probably a lot of people. This made the NE a bit hard. [I made it harder on myself by confusing ELSA and ILSA (again!) (10A: Who says "Play it, Sam" in "Casablanca").] But even if the spelling on "SUH-WEET!" is suspect to me, I like its moxie. I cannot say the same about MIDGUT, which is just awful. I don't believe in it, in that I don't believe it is a place that is real. Further, that clue, what the hell. [Intestine's place]? First, which intestine?, and second, your intestines are alllllll over your "gut." I would argue that they *are* your gut, are synonymous with your gut (with your guts, for sure). It sure would be nice if "gut" were an actual medical term, because maybe that would lend some clarity here. The point is that I had the "M" and needed almost every single cross to get ... well, an answer that I've never heard (despite having a father who was a physician and a mother who was a nurse and a stepmother who was a nurse and a sister who *is* a nurse). It gave me an unpleasant feeling in my MIDGUT, that one.
There are six cheater squares in this one, which is a lot, under normal circumstances. Cheater squares are the black squares that do not add to the word count and have no bearing on theme answer placement—unnecessary black squares that are there solely to make filling the grid easier. Today, see the black squares immediately after ARK ARGON and ADLIBS (and their symmetrical counterparts). In a theme this dense and complicated, I have absolutely no problem taking pressure off the grid with cheaters in order to make the fill come out clean. There are times when cheaters can seem like crutches, but I don't think that's the case today. Anyway, that's why the grid looks kind of choppy and black square-riddled toward the center there.
Once again we have two UPs in the grid (MEET-UPS, STAY UP), and once again I don't care. Aside from the "inventive" answers mentioned above, the only trouble spots were the "popular modern" party game at 1A (proving once again, as if proof were needed, that I am neither popular nor modern (nor invited to many parties), and EDWIN, who I very much forgot existed (4D: Singer McCain with the 1998 hit "I'll Be"), though man that song is now in my head and I'm none too happy about it. One of them waltzy sea-chantey-esque songs like "Iris" by the Goo-Goo Dolls (also 1998! it was a fad!). OK, I'm gonna play "Dancing Queen" to get it out of my head now. See you tomorrow.
[Warning: this is A.I.-generated Sinatra-sings-ABBA, do not listen while operating heavy machinery]
[shout-out to WFMU for the three-hour "Dancing Queen" covers marathon yesterday!]
Easy. EDWIN was my only WOE. I kinda caught the theme early and the rest was pretty straight forward except for a bit of side eye at SUHWEET (hi @Rex). Much easier than last Thursday’s. Fun solve, liked it.
ReplyDeleteAs a Mets fan, he is definitely a woe.
DeleteDeep woe
DeleteTangleeb? Complicated situation indeed.
ReplyDeleteI must disagree with Rex about SUHWEET, which sounds better and more common than Rex’s SSSWEET, the long schwa sound being the hallmark of that expression. Now, leaving that nit behind, I must say I found the puzzle clever and fun, to my surprise because I generally don’t care for puzzles with shaded squares. But with this one, you go sailing along and bump up against a weed that is in fact TUMBLING. Cute! Finally, I’m sure everyone will find it interesting that not five hours ago I texted “I DUNNO” to my daughter in answer to question that I had no opinion about, and low and behold, mirabili dictu, it appears in tonight’s puzzle. Will wonders never cease!
ReplyDelete@CWT5:05 AM
DeleteAdded mirabili dictu to my cool Latin phrases I should try to use in the wild. Thanks.
It’s actually “mirabile dictu”, using the ablative case. ;)
Delete
ReplyDelete4D was a WOE. 1A would have been one as well, but I'd encountered it in a recent crossword.
@Rex SosWEET before SaHWEET before SUHWEET at 12D. The "a" is at least defensible because of the rapper Saweetie
TWIst before TWIRL at 33D
MIDrif before MIDGUT at 56A
Why didn't this puzzle run on 4/20 (which happens to be a Thursday this year)
I was thinking the same thing! Big missed opportunity.
DeleteI would've gotten this in under 7 (possibly a personal record for a Thursday) if I'd remembered that it's Mort SAHL, not Mort SAUL and/or trusted my gut for a little longer that SUUWEET was not an ok way to spell that.
ReplyDeleteSame here! Especially since the clue had Bee (double e)
DeleteSUHWEET was ugh. And I paused at TWEEDLEDUM, could it be his brother TWEEDLEDee? Loved the EXPEDIA misdirect clue “Kayak” . MIDGUT seemed a bit slangish and should have been indicated so in the clue. Loved the puzzle, great construction.
ReplyDeleteMidgut is the embryologic source of the intestine.
ReplyDeleteAdored this one. This is a great example of a puzzle that is both a flex of construction skills and *also* manages to be a fun solve. I had SAHWEET before SUHWEET but I’ve definitely seen both spellings; I suspect that as one of the younger members of the commentariat I might be in the minority, but it is definitely something a certain type of bro says upon finding WEED they’d forgotten about, say. (SUHWEED?). MIDGUT is a known anatomy term, at least as confirmed by Ye Olde Google, so I think it’s fair game for a Thursday.
ReplyDeleteTANGLEEB really got me before I remembered I needed to figure out the theme; I briefly thought I had lost my faculties. I loved the cluing almost across the board. “Sees” next to “seize” was fun. The trivia was not generally in my wheelhouse, but largely fairly crossed for me. What a good time.
@CDilly, I saw yesterday’s comments, and I just wanted to send some good thoughts and care in your recovery. It can be a long road and sometimes it’s hard to feel like we’re making progress. I promise that you are. I hope you can be gentle with yourself along the way - you got this.
(Sending that message to myself too as I head to an intake appointment for a fancy scoliosis physical therapist; fingers crossed!)
Hope it goes well
DeleteThe NE corner was rough. I had SCHWEET there for a while, convinced there was no other possibility. I also remembered the Casablanca character as ILSE. So it took some extra thinkage, but managed eventually to suss it out.
ReplyDeleteGot a kick out of OFL today. It’s a crossword puzzle theme and he goes on and on about how the WEEDs aren’t tumbling the right way, as if they were somehow defying the laws of physics. Jeez, even he admits that words and phrases can defy gravity here in CrossWord.
ReplyDeleteI also considered the two outliers today to be SUHWEET and MIDGUT - they just seem so out of place with the tone and voice of the rest of the puzzle. Not that they are inherently bad, they just seem forced or contrived in this context. I’m guessing it’s a concession to the theme constraints since this constructor runs circles around the NYT editors talent-wise, so if she couldn’t get it to work, they weren’t going to be of much assistance.
@Rex, I share your confusion of Elsa and ILSA. I also went for the lioness today, doh. But I don’t have your excuse. If your father’s a doctor and you mother’s a nurse, I’m guessing they got an employee discount for your delivery. Maybe you were even Born Free.
ReplyDeleteI may groan for the rest of the day after reading your little snippet. But, that is what a good pun is supposed to do-make you 'reluctantly' laugh and groan for some time after. That you took it from Rex's commentary adds to the appeal. If you made it up yourself, I nominate you to the non-existent pun hall of Fame.
DeleteThis was a great puzzle. Had to be very tough to construct. And a very nice revealer that made sense of the puzzle. I found it difficult but solvable, once I realized that OEDIPEAn should be OEDIPAL. Didn't know the Hawaiian goddess. I tumbled to the theme at TWEEDLEDUM. Kudos to Rebecca Goldstein and Will Shortz.
ReplyDeleteMIDGUT is quite a real term. MIDGUT malrotation is quite a real problem.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Dr. J. Rex’s rant was cringey. I used the word “gut” at least twice in rounds today.
DeleteSigned,
Another Dr. J
What do you MEME, eh? Now there’s a game I would absolutely suck at. I know the Mckayla Maroney one (the ‘not impressed’ face), and Bernie’s mittens and the Philip J. Fry one, and that’s it; that’s the list.
ReplyDeleteAs the current age bracket champion in our local Senior Olympics in both the 800m and 1600m disciplines, I can tell you it’s called race walking, not SPEEDWALKING. SPEEDWALKING is just … walking fast, and has no formal rules. It did lead to the funniest entry, though, SPEW AL KING.
Also: MIDGUT; a valid word as long as I’ve been alive (quick look-up -– since 1875), well-clued. And the tumbleweeds are tumbling the right way; they are just spinning faster than Rex thought.
Surgeon here.
ReplyDeleteMidgut is a Real Thing.
I can’t even follow Rex’s physics professor objection to the theme. C’mon, Rex, just roll with it! (Get it?) And I know he’s wrong on SUHWEET, which youngsters definitely say (or said, it’s probably passé now). He’s also wrong on MIDGUT. My doctor brother is sitting right next to me as I write this (he and his family are visiting for the week), and he confirms MIDGUT is a medical term. There’s also a hindgut, which is even more comical sounding than midgut. I would have thought a hindgut is what a hunter removes when dressing a female deer.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has never constructed a puzzle, I don’t really get the concept of “cheater squares.” They don’t bother me in the least, nor do words repeated in the puzzle, such as UP today.
I liked LIARS crossing TANGLED WEB since they are the ones practicing to deceive and thereby weaving said webs.
Tons of great clues today. Those for FEUD, LIARS, BILE and TWIRL are standouts, but there were many others.
Much closer to @Weezie’s opinion on this one than OFL’s. I thought the theme was clever, enjoyed SUH-WEET, plus I was amused by the Sees/Seize neighboring. Was also very impressed by the stacking of TAGTEAM, INUTERO, and RATEDPG for some reason.
ReplyDeleteIs sea-chantey a little put down on sea shanty? I suppose if the sea shanty craze of 2021 was any longer it might have spun off and fused with other forms of music and we could have the crossword clues SHANTYPOP or SHANTYRAP. Actually, now I kind of want to hear that.
“Gut” actually is an anatomical. I used to teach Embryology to medical students and they learned that the midgut gives rise to all of the small intestine and most of the large intestine.
ReplyDeleteSuh-WEET was in the popular lexicon for a time in the early 2010s. I used to text it A LOT. I found a reference in a South Park episode from back then, but it was uttered only once in a segment called “Nice” and, being South Park and all, it wasn’t very “nice.” 😏
ReplyDeleteA well-executed (construction-wise) puzzle that I found easy and fun to solve. Even with her 10A clue, Ms. Goldstein did not Bogart this WEEDy puzzle.
ReplyDeleteNote to @Rex - This is a crossword puzzle, not a physics or biology Ph.D thesis.
Didn't know the game in 1A and then tried to make RACEWALKING fit somehow, in spite of "race" being in the clue. Sorry, it's my first crossword ever. Then I had Rick for the Casablanca character, which was unhelpful. I think they both ask Sam to "play it". And nobody ever says "Play it again Sam" a frequent misquote that makes me wince.
ReplyDeleteI've seen scrambled words in boxes like this before, so it was just a question of how WEED was going to fit. Also spent some nanoseconds wondering why MIDGET was a good place for an intestine. Liked seeing GARP, a new clue for PELE, and was shocked that OFL didn't complain about MOIST, which I thought was a word he hates. SUHWEET is tortured but it had to be right.
Nice solid Thursday, RG. Required Gnarl, and thanks for all the fun.
My heart did a little somersault of glee when I saw Rebecca’s name atop the puzzle. Her cleverness and humor perfectly ping my happy button. For instance, her last puzzle, a Sunday three weeks ago, featured similes re-imagined with commas, i.e., she clued PRETTY AS A PICTURE as if it were PRETTY, AS A PICTURE: [Photoshop?]. Oh, how I adored that.
ReplyDeleteToday I loved the riddle of the theme and the wit in the cluing. For the theme, I filled in the gray squares, but purposely left the reveal blank, to see if I could figure it out. I couldn’t. I looked at the letters of those squares, did notice that they had double-E’s, but did I see that the letters spelled WEED? I did not. How, I ask myself now, how could I have missed that? And once again, my head remains unbig. But man, I loved the riddle itself.
The cluing, oh yes. The lovely [Ingenuity org.] misdirect, for NASA. The riddle clue that had me mining my imagination – [Hexagon bordering two rectangles], for UTAH. And two devilish clues that brought huge ahas when I finally cracked them: [Kayak alternative] for EXPEDIA, [Wings things] for AD LIBS. Regarding the latter, “ad libs’ has often been clued [Wings it] but never [Wings things], which adds a layer of toughness, highly original, IMO.
I did love how the answer TWIRL echoed the theme.
Rebecca, I so loved the gyrations and grins you brought me today. Once again, a puzzle of yours clicked with me just right. This was a huge joy. Thank you!
When I started writing about health issues many years ago I was surprised and amused to discover there's a medical journal called Gut.
ReplyDeletehttps://gut.bmj.com/
I found this one to be very fun and cute. I am a physician and midgut is sort of a word. It’s usually used in association with the condition “Midgut Volvulus”. It’s more of an embryologic term, in which there is a foregut, midgut and hindgut and they develop into different things. the midgut develops in to the intestines and if something goes wrong, you get a twisting called a Volvulus which can be life threatening and needs to be recognized quickly after birth. I agree intestines is vague and the clue is not well worded and the answer is not really appropriate but as for being a “thing”, it does exist.
ReplyDeleteNice puzzle, with a reasonable theme (unlike some Thursdays). I don't think SUHWEET belongs in any puzzle, but that's because I'm a stodgy old guy. I also question whether TAGTEAM is an actual verb, as it's used here.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed this one a lot. Got the trick but didn’t grok the theme until the revealer. Regarding Rex’s nits:
ReplyDelete—it seems to me the tumbleweed rarely travels solo. To the extent I thought of it before reading Rex’s write up, I thought of each WEED as a distinct plant blowing across the barren landscape of CrossWorld, rather than tracing the path of one plant.
—SUH-WEET is absolutely a thing, and in fact was used to clue NEATO back in December.
Fun to solve but lacks nuance - we’ve seen this theme plenty of times before. Thanks to Rex for pointing out the cheaters - scrunched my face at first glance at the grid.
ReplyDeleteNice misdirect on EXPEDIA and liked the GAMMA x ARGON cross. Can’t have B GAME and RATED PG together. The clue for DWI seemed a little tame. MAMIE, HOWE and SAHL are slightly reactionary.
Enjoyable so there’s that - just south of a top Thursday.
Golden SMOG
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteFun puz. Caught on at the WOULD WE EVER, as I kept seeing WOULD EVER, and scratching the ole head wondering why it didn't contain the WE. And I already had HOWE in. Man, sometimes I amaze myself. Eventually saw that WE (in shaded squares, no less!) and had the "Aha - lightbulb" moment. "Oh, you have to go up, over, down for the full effect,!" said I, quickly followed by "You dolt!"
Disagree slightly with the Rex-ster. The WEEDs are tumbling across the grid correctly, ala West - to - East, and they do correspond to that rotation when using them for the answer. You still go up, over (west-east), back down. Unless I'm misreading him (which is highly likely.)
Rex mentioned the 6 cheater squares, and yet there is still only 38 Blockers. That's why there are nice big open corners.
A fun puz for me. Gonna take my BGAME and TUMBLE out of here.
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
I'd imagine it would be faster to look up MIDGUT in an online medical dictionary than to write half a paragraph about how it doesn't sound like a real medical term. But hey, I'm not a crossword blogger. (I am a doctor, and still had trouble getting MIDGUT -- but I blame that on the fact that my coffee mug is still mostly full :)
ReplyDeleteAmy: fabulous. Have been eschewing Thursday puzzles for a while. Really liked this one. Sparkly clues, clever theme that helped the solve. Clue for UTAH is an AHA!
ReplyDeleteSUHWEET is meh, especially crossing SAHL - my last snag before finishing the puzzle. The DAWGS/GARP crossing is "meh" as well, but DAW_S was gettable. I mostly flew through this one (starting with MEME which I knew), with only a few slowdowns like the NE (where I had DUI before grokking the theme). I noticed that WEED was in the circles before I got to the revealer, but I still had a nice aha moment on TUMBLEWEED.
ReplyDeleteFavorite fill: MEETUPS, TAG TEAM. TWEEDLEDxx (a banger of a theme answer!) is one of the rarest kealoas ever. Only 5 appearances from the two of them combined in the Shortz era.
I was bound to like yesterday's puzzle because gaming is right up my alley. But this was on another level. Much more POW-worthy than this week's actual POW, at least to me.
Two Uniclues today:
ReplyDelete1. "Who's Line Is It Anyway," mostly
2. What the trauma doc might do with male colleagues on a weekend off?
Really liked this puzzle a lot, clever in conception and execution.
My younger son was born on December 20, 1989 and developed life threatening health issues three days later, leading to a helicopter flight from Central Louisiana to New Orleans (without mom or dad) for a tiny baby, and what I have and will always describe as emergency surgery--Sunday afternoon, Christmas Eve!! The life threatening issue was a MIDGUT Volvulus, so no problem with MIDGUT as a legit medical term. Thanks to a gracious and skilled pediatric surgeon, we received our son from the pediatric NICU at the Ochsner Clinic on Christmas morning. He's thirty-three now, and married.
Loved Rex this morning--classic stuff. Nobody can delve as deeply as OFL into the intricacies of a theme; it is such an entertaining read! Then to follow it up with his savvy analysis of the "cheater squares" and how in this case they cause the grid to look a little "choppy" in the MIDGUT, er, center--delightful.
As for the TUMBLing TUMBLEWEEDS (I can almost hear Gene Autry crooning), maybe the wind is changing directions and blowing those poor suckers every which-a-way, pardner.
Answers to Uniclues:
1. ADLIBS RATED PG
2. LEAD ER STAG TEAM
I'll be breezing along now.
+1 for SAHWEET before SUHWEET but it's absolutely acceptable and good even. Took me a minute to get on the puzzle's wavelength but once I did it was consistent, enjoyable, nicely balanced content wise, and fair.
ReplyDeleteRex’s commentary seems to be overthinking the themes. OTOH, the themers only come into play with one of the across solves, and not the other cross nor either of the downs?
ReplyDeleteAside from the above, I had zero problems with SUH-WEET. Maybe because I haven’t had morning coffee yet?
Russian thistle in New Mexico
ReplyDeleteEE
TUMBLEWD
Grass in Harlem
EE
DEVILSWD
Mired
EE
INTHEWDS
Harbinger of hay fever
EE
RAGWD
Rex was on high babble today.
ReplyDeleteI had fun figuring out the WEED boxes. They are in the four possible clockwise positions.
UTAH is shaped in a hexagon and it borders Wyoming and Colorado, both rectangles.
Not much sparkle but few threes and smart cluing throughout. Excellent!
Dear Mort, Why isn't your name spelled SAUL? Look at how much fun you'd have if people called you SUUWEET.
ReplyDeleteWell, however you spell it, this puzzle fit the bill. It did. I figured you out at TANGLEEB. I know my spelling is bad and that people make up words all the time, but that sure looked like a tangled web I'd want to unravel. I did.
MEME and EDWIN a woe I needed to climb out of. Since I somewhat knew we had this DWEE thing going on, perhaps I can make it fit in the first theme clue. I new EXPEDIA and MEET UPS looked plausible, so, while you tried to get me to use Google, I didn't. I don't want to MEME, though, and "I'll Be" can grab his monkey's uncle and say sayonara . It did.
I really enjoyed this. Perhaps because everything was doable. Nothing felt "oldish" and we get some "newish." My only "ye gads" was WDS at 35D. Essay count is WDS? Is that for words?
I'm going to ask ANNE, ANA and ARI to be my guest bartenders tonight....they aren't OEDIPAL and neither has the YIPS. This...according to GARP.
Character introduced in the opening scene of The Big Lebowski
ReplyDeleteTUMBLEWEED
Fueled the birth of jazz
DEVILSWEED
Understaffed ER
INTHEWEEDS
Peaks in mid-September
RAGWEED
Fun to solve. Not at all like the typically (for me) obscure and overly cute Thursday puzzle. Easy to infer the theme.
ReplyDeleteFun! My eye saw the revealer clue and, knowing the song -- which I'll post for you shortly, assuming no one else has done so already-- I knew that it was a WEED that was going to be TUMBLing before even going down there to fill the revealer answer in.
ReplyDeleteThe easier trick puzzles are when the tricks stay the same throughout. Although here, you do have to figure out in which direction the WEEDS will be tumbling and where they begin in each answer.
This is my favorite kind of puzzle: one that provides plenty for both the constructor AND the solver to do. Nicely constructed and entertaining too. The trickiest entry was WOULD WE EVER since WOULD EVER makes sense on its own -- just not as clued.
A lovely puzzle -- and what a pleasure after the two highly "niche" puzzles in a row. Here you don't have to bring formidable knowledge of either video games or college basketball -- just an eagerness and ability to match wits with the constructor.
Thx, Rebecca; SUHWEET! :)
ReplyDeleteMed+
Caught on to the trick at TWEEDLE DUM. Thot rebus at first, but that wouldn't work, so bided my time until TUMBLEWEED came 'rolling' along.
Coached baseball with one of Canada's top master's div. 'race' WALKers.
Knowing OAHU & HOWE helped cement the central portion.
The 'U.S.S. Arizona Memorial' is on Ford Island, Pearl Harbor. Our ship moored adjacent to it.
'Tumbling TUMBLEWEEDS' ~ Roy Rogers & The Sons Of The Pioneers
Just a fun solve all the way! :)
@CDilly 🙏
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
When the REXter goes off on dubious tangents—like today’s MIDGUT rant—I chalk it up to a wild hair and sympathize.
ReplyDeleteNot only is suh-weet a thing, it's a thing in a movie Rex likes.
ReplyDeleteThe Cameron Frye character in Ferris Bueller's Day off has a memorable scene at the Cubs game where he says "hey batter, batter, batter, suh-wing"
the Queen of Twirl
ReplyDeleteI saw the tumblers as four separate weeds.
I thought 12d was maybe going to be SCHWEET, which I could picture Rick saying to Ilsa. ("Look, schweetheart, you're getting on that plane.") But SUH-WEET doesn't bother me. I liked the whole puzzle just fine. To-the-point, no-crap cluage, for a change.
from EJ's best album
As @Young and Sweet Only 17 hints at, TUMBLEWEEDS are not native to the US. Any show set prior to 1870 that shows tumbleweeds bouncing across the landscape is inaccurate.
ReplyDeleteI thought the TUMBLing WEEDs were an imaginative and fun spin through the grid. Slight shifts in wind direction and various surface obstacles like rocks, hills. gullies, etc. might result in erratic TUMBLing action so the somewhat erratic location of the grid WEEDs seemed realistic enough.
ReplyDeleteI did a furrowed brow "Huh?" at 56A MIDGUT and its clue "Intestine's place". I thought GUT of whatever location---Fore, MID or hind---was synonymous with intestines. There's even a peer reviewed medical journal "Gut", a publication of the British Society of Gastroenterology. That said, I'm not sure how else one would clue MIDGUT.
Usually it's ANAL but today we get 42D OEDIPAL as the NYTXW once again proclaims itself as one of if not the last bastion Freudian mythology. I believe Freud dreamed up these crazy ideas after doing some cocaine while sitting with Franz Mesmer in a large tub of water surrounded by powerful magnets. And all that after a few sessions of blood-letting.
Hated invader of the Old West
ReplyDeleteTUMBLEWEED
Cigarette of the psycho-billy
DEVILSWEED
Devilish details
INTHEWEEDS
North America native hated by many
RAGWEED
Really SUHWEET Rebecca! Your grid made our Thursday & it’s not even light outside 👍🏼
ReplyDeleteNot at all troubled by the erratic TUMBLE WEED path that OFL took issue with as they go wherever the wind takes them. More in tune with @weezie as others have noted (fingers crossed for all commentariat undergoing medical, personal and weather related stresses). I’m amazed at how much I miss the rando voices when expected voices do not sound or posters leave the blog in mid-snit…..sigh, @Evil Doug you are missed.
SUHWEET puzzle. I always enjoy learning new words like TANGLEEB and TWDLEDUM.
ReplyDeleteSUHWEET is a thing at our house but we'd spell it SUUWEET and not knowing SAUL is SAHL meant I couldn't find my error today. People will probably quibble over SUHWEET, but I like it.
ReplyDeleteMIDGUT seems crummy and could be fixed by MIDGET and a little very-much-welcome engineering on the extra crummy INUTERO. Pick yer favorite "-ETERO".
Do you think Tweedledee and Tweedledum are the longest kea/loas?
Uniclues:
1 "Every one, let's all just calm down."
2 Comedian who riled the locals hurrying to the car.
3 Result of being an adult.
4 Repeatedly say, "Stockholm is the best."
5 Barbed wire fences.
6 Lunch with mom after dad's funeral?
7 Hawaiian madam.
8 Trash talked by bench warmers.
9 The staff.
10 Salty dad jokes.
1 FEUD AROAR AXED (~)
2 SPEEDWALKING SAHL
3 "I DUNNO" TANGLED WEB
4 ROIL OSLO STIR
5 TUMBLEWEED YIPS (~)
6 OEDIPAL MEET UPS
7 "OAHU DATES" GAL (~)
8 B-GAME BILE
9 LEADER'S TAG TEAM
10 ADLIBS RATED PG
This puztheme is clearly on weed. Like.
ReplyDeletestaff weedject pick: WDS. WeeDS! (If U allow a one-shot Downs-only tumble dealy).
Got a big kick out of @RP's convenin his special committee on proper weed rollin directions. M&A meanwhile had his weed, and was content to just roll with it.
OTOH: Cheater squares can sometimes make the puzgrid look more unique ... and prettier. Like today's, f'rinstance. It's got a suhweet design to it. Cheater squares can really light up an E-W symmetric(al) puzgrid, btw -- makes U see visions, with or without the aid of weed.
This mighta played out a bit easy-ish for a ThursPuz, once U caught onto the theme mcguffin. Which M&A did, at WOUL(DWEE)VER. Primo theme revealer, in any case. Downright planted it.
Thanx for the cool fun, Ms. Golstein darlin. It plumb lit up the joint.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
For anyone who has lived in New Mexico and observed tumbleweed motion in high winds - it all makes perfect sense!
ReplyDeletep.s.
ReplyDeleteGolDstein. Sorry about that mis-spell. I blame the weed's influence.
M&Also
Great puzzle. I'm with Rex; "cheater squares" quickly tend to gum up the flow/works. A necessary device when warranted, but inelegant.
ReplyDeleteAn enjoyable solve, but I wanted more to gnaw on for a Thursday. Experienced the same kinks as many here, but I prefer to relish Thursday and this was too speedy to the finish.
Agree with Rex on the "midgut" But do not see his problem with the tumbleweed(s) I definitely see it(them tumbling clockwise and west to east.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed a lot of clever answers and clues - smiled big at 16A "Beef that's aged". May have liked it partly because made me feel clever that the answer occurred to me so quickly - I am not the speediest of crossword puzzlers.
Found some of the trivia "members" Olsen from"Wandavisio","Edwin" overly obscure, but on the whole a really good puzzle.
@Anoa
ReplyDeleteI did notice that IDUNNO MIDGUT were an appropriate symmetrical pairing.
@Young and s(uh)weet
Never knew or forgot your favorite film Xanadu with Olivia Newton John and
disco Gene Kelly in his final movie. Checked it out. Ten award nominations, seven of them Razzies for worst awards. I cast no aspersions however. I just saw Lisztomania, an over the top Ken Russell film, that I am sure many folks would call the worst film of the 1975. I loved it. And Gene Kelly was from Pittsburgh!
The theme answers ranged from pretty good to excellent and the reveal was a gem.
I do not get Rex's lack of acceptance of the limits of crossword grid depiction of movement. The letters cannot be printed sideways or upside-down. Maybe the wind changed direction.
And maybe he would get the pronouciation of SUHWEET better if it was SUUUHWEET.
I also enjoyed the 5-7-7 columns in the corners. Well the NW stack was a little blah.
Thanks for a good Thursday.
As a surgeon I find the use of midgut pretentious.Some pompous colleagues consider esophagus to be foregut and colon to be hindgut so it is a real thing, just sorta stuck up.
ReplyDeleteFun Thursday. @Natasha and @Gill I, the SUuWEET/SAuL problem was where I got stuck at the very end. MAmmoth/MASSIVE and travago/EXPEDIA options got me off to a slow start, but all worked out. Stuck by TWEEDLEDEE too long, just cause that sounded nice near TUMBLEWEED, and all the other WEEs in here.
ReplyDeleteDidn't really follow Rex's take on all the weed movement, but speaking of Madness, LOL, exactly 3 of us including myself thought an NCAA pool for us here would be fun to join. Guess I won't try that again, but'll let everyone know who wins.
thfenn - I joined the pool, but had a hard time picking teams on my tablet. The logos were too small and the site wouldn't let me expand the window... Welp, I tried 😕
DeleteActually liked this one, an infrequent experience for me with NYT puzzles in recent years. And any puzzle that has both "WEED" and "LSD" is absolutely cool by my now-long lost '70s self.
ReplyDeleteLove you, Mike.
ReplyDelete"I'll Be" is a low-key banger.
I don't really understand Rex's objection to the theme, and I get the sense that he doesn't either. It's a tumbleweed -- it tumbles around in whatever direction the wind takes it. It changes direction with the wind. It does not set off on some purposeful journey to reach a given point.
ReplyDeleteI could care less about perfect precision in the direction the weeds tumble. This was clever and fun. And TANGLEDWEB was brilliant.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw RP's use of the term "jury rigged," I thought he meant to say "jerry rigged." I was thinking rigging a jury referred to buying off a member of the jury in a legal case. But it doesn't -- it refers to the "jury mast" on a ship which is used in an emergency to make a hasty and temporary repair. And "jerry rigged" just means something that is badly put together. (Unless I'm wrong, in which case, please LMK.)
ReplyDeleteThese gimmick puzzles are SO easy to dislike.
ReplyDelete@Tom T…such a great story about your son! Thank you! 🥲
ReplyDeleteI must be old because I am not sure what exactly is an meme.
ReplyDelete@JoeD - always my favorite of his albums too
ReplyDeleteDNF, I guess no one else here was stumped by DAW_S/_ARP (I put DAWES/EARP and it didn't look wrong at all).
ReplyDeleteWhy is Shakespearean humor bile?
ReplyDeleteArg! Why did you say Dancing Queen. Now it’s my earworm………..
ReplyDeleteMidgut is definitely a real thing and absolutely used incorrectly by the clue. The foregut ends part way through the small intestine, and the hindgut begins roughly half way through the large intestine which is, obviously, also intestine. The "intestine" therefor has fore, mid and hindgut components.
ReplyDeleteI got the “su” part of suhweet because I’ve heard that slangy way of saying it before, but I had forgotten how to spell Mort Sahl, so I had Saul and Suuweet until the end when I knew something had to be wrong there!
ReplyDelete@anon607pm
ReplyDeleteBile was one or two of the four humors in c the Greek theory of personality that The Bard refers to on occasion.
I saw the gimmick right away, but only the puzzle maker gets fun out of the tumbleweed. Contrived!
ReplyDeleteDNF because I had SAuL-SUuWEET. SUUWEET is not a real word so this isn’t fair. Other than that, the puzzle is pretty good. Medium-challenging.
ReplyDeleteOFF confused ILSA with ELSA; I must have been REALLY confused. I wrote in Rick! On further contemplation, I later realized it was Rick who said only "Play it" but ILSA who said "Play it, Sam." Ink mess there.
ReplyDeleteThis played harder than easy-medium because of late-week cluing. "Chairs" for LEADERS, "Shakespearean humor" for BILE, etc. Not what you'd come up with on first--or third--thought.
Started with the side-by-side gimme couple of MAMIE and BEN. This produced an -MB- combo on the revealer line, so the jig was UP early at the Space station. (Nice "Ingenuity org." clue for NASA, BTW.) Right after, I found STAYUP/YIPS in the SW, so TWEEDLEDUM materialized pretty quickly, and I got the "roll" aspect of it. Still can't follow the rotation as OFF tried to explain it; I failed that section of the skills test, you know, where you have to identify a solid after it's been flattened out. I don't even remember what they call it.
A very clever theme and execution, for me. Fill is interesting too. SUHWEET is just fine. It is actually HEARD IRL. Half a stroke deducted for the RATED [letter-add], but a great, if sawed in half, DOD in ARI ANA Grande. Birdie.
Wordle birdie as well.
ADLIBS ARGON
ReplyDeleteIDUNNO HOWE WE WOULD EVER
SET UP MAMIE and ILSA with boys,
IF a TAGTEAM TUMBLE WOULD never
STIR those GALs to be MASSIVEly MOIST.
--- EDWIN & BEN OLSEN
@spacey, it might be spatial recognition or some such.I wasn't much good at it either. Another hand up for Rick. And I tried to fit raceWALKING in there. ARI ANA, SHE's the GAL.
ReplyDeleteWordle eagle!!
4/20 here in syndi-land and look at the theme. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
ReplyDeleteI remember it now! Spatial relations, thanks to @rondo for the word spatial to jog it loose.
ReplyDeleteNot until I began to comment did I realize that being in the "WEEDS" could relate to today's date. Har.
ReplyDeleteSo anyway - for a Thursday, this was blessedly regus-free and fairly easy.
Play it again!
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords