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Hockey goalie's domain / THU 3-30-23 / Two-stringed Chinese instrument / Spaces where people pay to destroy household objects with sledgehammers / Sudden temporary loss of athletic ability / Lax lax option / Word rhymed with Intelligent in TS Eliot's The Waste Land / Shell propellers
Thursday, March 30, 2023
Constructor: Adam Wagner and Brooke Husic
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Theme answers:
- RIB ROAST (16A: Tease / Tease)
- CRAPSHOOT (10A: "Drat!" / "Drat!")
- POTHEAD (34A: Toilet / Toilet)
- GOT CAUGHT (30D: Heard / Heard)
- DROPKICK (54A: Quit / Quit)
The erhu (Chinese: 二胡; pinyin: èrhú; [aɻ˥˩xu˧˥]) is a Chinese two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, which may also be called a Southern Fiddle, and is sometimes known in the Western world as the Chinese violin or a Chinese two-stringed fiddle.
It is used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles and large orchestras. It is the most popular of the huqin family of traditional bowed string instruments used by various ethnic groups of China. As a very versatile instrument, the erhu is used in both traditional and contemporary music arrangements, such as pop, rock and jazz. (wikipedia)
• • •
So, the SW corner. There's ERHU, sure, but it crosses HITS AT (37A: Tries to swat). This is one of those ___SAT phrases where I have no idea what's supposed to happen in the blank. I thought maybe PAWSAT? BATSAT? Shrug. See also GAH, which I had as UGH and BAH before getting anywhere near GAH (44A: "Blast!"). It's really hard to get excited when the you are struggling *and* so much of your struggle is coming around answers that are ambiguous in this way—a CRAPSHOOT kind of way. SAW TO before SET TO down there as well (58A: Got busy on). You see how this gets dreary. Also, PC HELP is ... what is that? I mean, I can infer. But as a standalone answer it seems odd. "Tech support" is the service. Maybe IT HELP. PC HELP felt roll-your-own. But this is its third appearance in the NYTXW, so I guess it's a thing. Oh well. It's too bad that the long Downs are tangled in a bunch of ambiguous sludge, because they're fine, particularly GOING ONCE (29D: Presale alert?), which is maybe not the greatest standalone answer, but the "?" clue (again, hard as hell) works really well, and gave me that same "oh nice" feeling I had after getting ARM HAIR. I was subjected to SUH-WEET again (twice this month?!), but fool me once etc. No issues there.
I resent being stumped by a "?" clue and then having the answer be a damned corporation, so the clue on MICRO, though clever, can go jump in a lake (8A: Soft opening?). Struggled with LUM, even though every part of her damn name(s) has been in the puzzle before (most often cluing NORA, I think) (31A: Nora ___ a.k.a. Awkwafina). Weird to me that SOAP PAD is a thing since I don't think I've ever called it that (20A: Brillo offering). It's definitely the name for those things you wash dishes with, but I think I just call them "dishwashing pads" or I don't call them anything. I wanted SOSPADS there, for sure. I have trouble believing RAGE ROOMS are real because they seem so stupid—seems like a fictional idea from a bad TV show that people started pretending was real—but reality is so often stupid these days, so, sure, RAGE ROOMS, whatever (32D: Spaces where people pay to destroy household objects with sledgehammers). If you say so. Had EDIE before EVIE (57A: Nickname that sounds like its first two letters), though I did not have EDS before EVS (35D: Chevy Bolts and Nissan Leafs, for short). I wish I hadn't found the final part of this (the SW) so unpleasantly frustrating, because I really do believe the bones of this puzzle are solid, and there are definitely some brilliant cluing moments in here. I wonder how the rest of you FARED ... see you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. The TSA would probably quibble with the idea that TSAPRE is "lax" (24A: Lax LAX option?)—I definitely see what you're doing there with the lax/LAX thing, very clever, but TSAPRE is faster because you have been pre-screened, right? "Lax" strongly implies "not up to snuff" or otherwise "insufficient" and seems inaccurate here. The "?" gives you some creative license, sure, but only some. Expedited screening is not "lax" screening.
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102 comments:
The Chinese instrument at 28D and Awkwafina's birth name were WOEs.
I found the puzzle Easy-Medium for a Thursday until I got to the W and SW. I couldn't make sense of the two long downs and I stalled on nearly all the acrosses in the region. The thing I'd say when someone said they'd colored on the walls is a letter shorter than "You WHAT?!?" (and also ends in "T"). Luckily I knew the YIPS (50D) from Ted Lasso or I would've DNF'd.
Enjoyed it a bit more than Rex did, although I struggle to keep up with all the different versions of SOSWEET, SUHWEET etc. GAS seemed a reasonable answer to "Blast"... Would have thought they could find other clues for SHE/HER this week, especially with the "Trans Day of Vengeance" imminent. But otherwise a fine Thursday, no rebus!
one suhweet was bad enough, seeing it again was a serious wtf moment
I think the “lax LAX” clue was trying to let us know that the answer had an abbreviation in it, not disparaging the security system.
I had the same feeling you did in the NE corner. It was difficult but not a joy. Would have been easier if I had taken Spanish in high school. Why did I choose German?
Sally is right! Gah is worse in my mind, though
Very nice puzzle. Agree with first word of Rex rating. All the stuff I did not know could be solved with the downs or acrosses. Like ERHU. Two thumbs up.
Cool beans. How did I never notice that RIB ROAST and CRAP SHOOT’s parts were synonyms? Those were by far my faves, but I also really got a kick out of reconsidering GOT CAUGHT, POTHEAD, and DROP KICK. I’ll be thinking about this theme all day.
TSA PRE was new to me. I guess you apply for it so that you can breeze past the line of hapless people like me fretting over making the flight even though they’re there like three hours early? I leave tomorrow morning at 7am for the ACPT, and I’m already at the gate just in case. Just kidding. But my sister will drop me off at the airport at 4:45am. No, really. I don’t travel much, so the hideous scenarios I imagine are exhausting. There will be a wreck on the interstate, and I won’t be able to get to the airport. They’ll have no record of my ticket. All flights to NY will be cancelled because of a rogue blizzard. They’ll lose my luggage. The car service I arranged to take me to Stamford was a scam, and I’ll have to walk, dragging my suitcase, because the idea of figuring out a train or bus is beyond my ken. The Marriott will have no record of my reservation even though I’ve called three times now confirming. Like all other times I fly somewhere, I’ve made myself sick with worry.
Loved the clue for YOU WHAT?!
*Mom – I decided to cut Sage some bangs.
*I ate that last piece of ham I found in the back of the fridge drawer stuffed behind the Brussels sprouts. (I had hidden it for a future sandwich.)
*I decided to start selling Amway.
I also liked the clue for BED, “one might be turned down.” I did an Outward Bound winter camping and dogsledding week in the Boundary Waters (Minnesota, February) for my 40th birthday, and it was beyond cold. Like, colder than 30 below at night. When we got back to civilization, we invited one of our instructors to sleep in our heated cabin on a real bed. She actually declined and slept outside in her sleeping bag. Wait. She WHAT?
“Opie” before EVIE. I mean heck – there must be dozens of possible answers here. EVIE made me laugh – my son visited my school last week to talk about surveying. He really just wanted to visit to see what’s what, and this was the subterfuge. It went really well, and he now gets why I like it there so much. Anyway, he spent a long time talking to one of my more, well, interesting students. We’ll call him Sean. Sean talks very quietly and slowly. You can’t really see his eyes ‘cause he’s got a sheepdog hair thing going on. He told Gardiner that his plan was to buy a mansion in Charlotte and keep 5 hyenas in the backyard for protection. Then he will raise alligators ‘cause he loves the meat and can cook it better than anyone. He’s gonna have Gardiner over for some alligator when he gets settled. Sean chided me yesterday for calling him Sean. Wanted me to call him Eve. I said, Eve? As in Adam and? He said yes. But later he switched it to Apple. Sounds like he’s been dabbling in the Old Testament. Maybe today he’ll be going by Leviticus.
For me, an obstacle course puzzle. Barriers to overcome left and right. First, to get the theme itself. Then, even after that happened (with CRAPSHOOT), figuring out the other theme answers. Oh, what a clever theme! How did they think of those answers?
Then more obstacles. Cracking devious clues – vague clues, wordplay clues, pull-from-brain-recess clues – every single one of the tough wrenching ones, it turns out, fair.
Thing is, when you successfully complete an obstacle course, you pump your arms and shout, you feel proud, you’re glad for having done it, for having persisted over the temptation to quit. One of the best feelings in life. And here it was. What a gift!
I expected quality plus a tough row to hoe from this pair. Brooke, so skilled in construction, and, IMO, one ensconced in the small knot of top cluers. And Adam, whose overall excellence was clear to me after his Fibonacci puzzle last year.
And I got both. Oh man, I hope you two enjoyed your first collab, to where you’re hungry to do it again. Thank you for a supremely satisfying, quality through-and-through gem!
I felt exactly the same as Rex on this one - nice theme, mostly enjoyable experience until the SW, which was brutal in all the unpleasant ways he mentions. I thought the lax LAX clue was more aimed at the passenger than the wanders (reminding me of the brilliant clue some time ago “wanders at the airport” for TSA). Either way, I think the clue is a stretch because no one is being lax in the TSA PRE line.
And I agree with Rex on the GREAT “tricep curls” clue.
Back to the theme. It’s always fun to come up with your own possibilities for alternative theme answers after solving, but I have absolutely no idea how to do it in this case. I’m just thinking of random two-word phrases to see if their parts could be clued with the same word, and I am getting nowhere. Might have to read their notes to see how they came up with them.
Sorry, Rex, but a RAGE ROOM sounds like a lot of cathartic fun to me. Might make a nice team-breaking exercise at work.
I agree that EGGS are sold in the dairy aisle, but doesn’t that answer kind of grate anyway? Dairy definitely feels like stuff that comes from a cow’s udder. It feels like eggs kinda belong in the meat aisle. Speaking of meat, I made a huge batch of my mom’s spaghetti sauce recipe, as I do every year, and I subbed fake meat for half the real stuff. I could not tell the difference.
Although ERHU was a total WOE for me, I kind of liked it in the same puzzle with HARP, with each clued by its number of strings. They could not sound more different.
Once in a blue moon I do enjoy the wit and cleverness that went into the theme entries - nice job by the constructors. And they kept the grid relatively junk-free, although the cluing can be a little cryptic for my taste (like invoking TSE to get to ELEGANT for example - so pretentious, unnecessary and oh so New York Times).
I enjoyed reading Rex describe his mini-meltdown because he had no clue on ERHU - poor Rex has no idea what the rest of us mere mortals go through on a daily basis, lol. I probably have to overcome about a dozen of those instances from Wednesday on every week - heck I don’t recognize half of the proper names they include right off the bat. Add in some foreign gibberish and non clues like the seat of some county and I’ve really got my hands full. So, Rex big guy, I enjoyed your rant but really can’t say that I empathize with you much on that one.
I was scratching my head at the clue for OARS - had to dig down into the 5th or 6th entry in the dictionary for shell post-solve to learn that apparently it is a sleek boat of some sort.
Well, it’s all a question of what’s in your wheelhouse. Big erhu fan here, so no worries. The koto is Japanese, by the way, Rex. A close Chinese relative (I.e., both are zithers) is the qin, a very useful instrument in Scrabble.
SW corner was a bit roughly constructed. Has 38D and its variants become a thing? Seems like that’s been in several puzzles recently.
The theme today is nifty. And mostly, the fill is fine.
But crossing GAH with SUHWEET, and using 'tricep' in any context are very, very bad.
So on balance ... good but not great.
I don't watch a lot of hockey, but over the decades it has added up. Yet only very recently I learned that in addition to the goalie's CREASE, there is a referee's CREASE. Basically it's a no-go zone so when the ref is consulting with the scorer, he isn't being harassed.
Opening day. I expect the pitch clock to hugely improve the watchability baseball. On the down side, the Nats will probably lose 120 games this year. I am interested to see what Jake Alu can do at the major league level. But when your opening day starting pitcher led the league in both losses and earned runs allowed in both of the last two years, that's a really bad sign.
Can nosetly say I’ve never heard any one say Blast! Or Blast it! Except in cartoons and black and white movies. And I have personally never used GAH to express any kind of frustration.
If I don't encounter SUH-WEET again in the next decade, I won't be bereft. I cringe at the recall of the fill and can't find a way to accommodate it.
Had GAs instead of GAH right to the end.
Good construction, but I'm left with the sense that some clues qualified as "tricky", at the expense of the solve pleasure, rather than "witty".
I like @Lewis characterization of "obstacle course". Except my experience of this was akin to navigating objects in the dark as I make a sojourn from bed to the bathroom in the dark (for the sake of DW's sleep), stubbing my toes on something hard more than once and muffling my curses.
Can we just retire SUHWEET forever?
Like some others, I caught the theme at CRAPSHOOT, which was a big smile, and them I returned to the NW for the now evident RIBROAST, which was another one. And so were the others. Great stuff.
I almost settled for a DNF on this one but picking away at things like Croce and the Stumper made me want to finish, and eventually GAH appeared, and then TSAPRE, which, like LUM was news to me. We even have those Global Travelers cards that get you through the passport line in a hurry, but that was no help.
Just seeing a clue like "two stringed Chinese instrument" takes me back to the early days of solving and crossword puzzle dictionaries. Obscure geographical references, foreign currencies, curious musical instruments. The good old days.
I think it's official now that the spelling is SUHWEET. Oh good. Now go away.
Wicked clever theme, AW and BH. A Well-constructed Basically Harrowing affair, which is just what I like on a Thursday. Thanks for all the fun.
It's Opening Day, calloo, callay! Or as I say to my other baseball-loving friends, Happy New Year!
Crossing SUHWEET with GAH is garbage. Both non-words. Either one alone is bad; crossing them should never have been allowed.
So would a pre-screened lacrosse team be "Lax lax LAX option?"
Ugh. And E-TICKET and EVs in the same puzzle? Thumbs down.
@LMS I spent a week in the Boundary Waters ca. 1990. We caught up with a couple of OB instructors and chatted with them. Their charges were out doing the solo thing; they'd leave a note at each portage saying when they were there. The instructors would find the note, see that everything was OK, and hang out for an hour or so to let the students get further ahead again. They said they spent most of their day hanging out waiting. We never did catch up with the students.
I use a sampled ERHU in some of my music but had to look up to confirm I had it right. Found this easy (for Thu) until the SW corner which brought it back near medium territory. I immediately wanted ARMpitHAIR for tricep curls, was disappointed that it didn't fit. My ARM HAIRs aren't actually curly, whereas my ARMpitHAIRS are, very much. Anyone else? Or is that TMI?
As for the theme, there is a geographic feature in these parts known as Table Mesa.
My trouble spot seems to have been similar - Erhu. No idea. Otherwise woosh woosh everything dropped in pretty easily. I liked the theme. It was fast and fun for me.
Only player to ever pinch-hit for Aaron? LUM, as in Mike Lum.
Cute theme - wasn’t as enamored with the fill. POT HEAD and CRAP SHOOT shine. Overall grid layout creates A LOT of disjoint segments.
DROP KICKs
Third time recently we’ve seen the full ROSA. No idea on LUM but crosses were fair - not so much for EHRU. I’ll back the big guy on RAGE ROOMS. Didn’t care for PC HELP and TSA PRE together. DMS, GAH, AHS, SHE/HER = MEH.
In the end an enjoyable Thursday solve - but could have been epic.
Come over to the window look outside take a peek
*Terrible* cluster of Naticks around 25D - ARMHAIR, PUT, etc. Just *awful*. I had struggled through the rest of this mess but just ran into a brick wall there.
It's TSA Precheck. No one says TSAPRE, ever. That was a dud.
Amy: sayhey ERHU fans, check out the Kora, a west African instrument. Yes, @LMS, go early. Almost missed a flight when living in Fort Myers. It was March (spring training), and both the Sox and the Twins were home. Both games ended about the same time and both stadiums dumped out fans onto the main road to the airport. Have fun, enjoy all the AGILE minds there.
Love this puzzle! Outstanding.
Thx, Adam & Brooke; good Thurs. workout! :)
Med.
Loved the theme! Only tough one was GOT / CAUGHT. In fact, the greater SW area took me as long as the rest of the puz combined.
ERHU gave me the YIPS, and YOUbrAT, along with SawTO made for lots of trouble down there.
Happy to say, it all worked out in the end, having to trust that ERHU was a thing. :)
Was first acquainted with MARA Rooney in 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'. Great actor!
Fun adventure; liked this one a lot! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
I liked this a lot. It left me wondering how you come up with an intricate set of theme answers like this? And it also made me feel that perhaps the field of puzzle construction remains safe -- at least for a while -- from the predations of A.I. that will very shortly take over every other human endeavor.
Because how you do you program even the smartest machine (or maybe the question should be how does even the smartest machine program itself) to:
1) Find two synonyms of the same word that...
2) Placed side by side will make up another word?
I ask the computer programming experts among us: Can that sort of thing be programmed? Now? Ever? Sure hope not.
Anyway, an ELEGANT puzzle. (And, btw, T.s Eliot couldn't rhyme worth a damn, could he? Although maybe -- if memory serves -- his "elegant/intelligent" rhysters were sloshed at the time.)
I have the strongest hunch that CRAPSHOOT was the original idea that sparked the theme. I'll go read the Constructors' Notes now and see if they tell me. Anyway a SUHWEET puzzle.
I hated the Lax LAX clue because it was a DEKE to the them structure, which made the correct answer nonsense. @Rex couldn't even enter it in his writeup without making it Lax/LAX.
Correction: "rhymesters"
Had ‘low’ for 34d and wanted 34a to start with ‘loo’ kind of got married to that idea and really tired me up in the middle.
Agree with Rex -- tricep curl is a clever clue for ARM HAIR. Except that tricep is not a word! The correct word is triceps, which is both singular and plural. The clue should have read "triceps curl." It needs an "s," even if you're completely focused on only your left triceps!
I'm glad this got a medium-challenging because it was definitely a workout for me, but in the end MEANTALOT. RETuRn before RETORT held me up, leaving me intrigued by CRAPSHOuT and InSY, as did stOPKICK before DROPKICK, let alone dicES before CUBES. But the put-it-down/sleep/solve routine worked its magic again. I just completed our Rotisserie Baseball League auction so GOINGONCE offered some special appeal. And it's opening day, which along with trout season are spring's true markers. Safe travels, @LMS.
Hey All !
SW corner did me in. Partly because I started puz late (for me, do in the morning before going to work, only have a limited amount of time), partly because it was tough! Shoot, I didn't even get ROO! Sacrilegious. ERHU was a What The HU, and HITS AT?? So, getting nowhere with angstiness setting in, I Googed for AA Milne Baby ___. Can never remember Milne wrote Winnie the Pooh. Dang.
Also PC HELP. Had IT HELP, but that left YII_ for 50D. Check Puzzle to the rescue! Also Reveal Word for HALO, being frustrated at that point.
So a good puz that defeated me nicely. Took me a minute also to figure out theme. Some days...
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Gary J -- When your email didn't work, I posted a late comment on the blog yesterday in answer to your comment about puzzle construction.
I was teaching my Project Management class yesterday and asked my students for good team building experiences and one enthusiastically recommended RAGEROOMs
Wonderful! Besides the genius gimmick, I put 15 red plus signs in the margins.
I hadn't heard of RAGEROOMS. I just looked them up. We have ten or so here in the San Francisco Bay Area, some right in town. For $25 a half hour you can destroy stuff with a baseball bat.
Loved YOUWHAT.
That is SO interesting! I went to the Constructor's Notes because I was looking for a mention of what the seed idea was. Instead I got a discussion of exactly what I discussed in my own comment: the fact that the making of this puzzle was blissfully free of any A.I./Chatbot participation. Great minds, and all that. I promise you, Adam and Brooke, that I didn't read your Notes prior to writing my comment. But it was the very first thing I thought of.
The “Gah” “Suhweet” cross caught me. It’s the first time I saw that one as I missed a few puzzles in the last 3 weeks. I got a life line and eventually found it. I know it’s fair to define a desert as a wasteland but all I kept picturing were the beautiful forms of life that struggle to flourish in the desert. That said I really enjoyed all the little areas in the puzzle where clues intersected in a meaningful way! Thank you to the constructors for a wonderful start to Thursday morning!
What a blast. Loved this one. I have spent the last hour listening to ERHU music. You can get one for $60 on Amazon.
I also will one day remember Awkwafina's real name, surely.
I don't eat red meat much anymore, ya know, 'cuz all the murderiness, but I Go-ogle-d RIB ROAST to see if it's the one you tie up with string (for my re-cluing efforts below) and holy moly at 7 am I am Jonesing for a big ole slab of beef after staring at those images like I was scrolling through an illicit website. Way to rear your ugly head carniverousness and way to inflame those carnal desires Go-ogle image search algorithm programmers.
I can see the allure of a RAGE ROOM, but it would take away from my sitting around and moping time, and my judging others harshly time.
The first two words I put in were AGUA and EAU and I thought, "Uh oh @SouthsideJohnny," -- that's the power of 🦖 to assemble an army to change the way you think about filling in squares. I also wrote in SUHWEET without any crosses and spelled it correctly, but I needed every single cross for FACT. The brain on English is a mysterious thing.
When you're spending your days being an anti-Semitic, you start to think ELEGANT rhymes with [Intelligent], but they'll still put you in the anthology.
Gosh I reeeeeeally want a ✔️ after TSA PRE.
I like EL CID next to DEKES. Hi-Yah.
YIPS was a story line on an episode of Young Sheldon recently. I've come to enjoy those reruns. In 20 years the NYTXW will start including answers from the show.
Tee-Hees: POTHEAD. CRAP SHOOT.
Uniclues:
1 The line from the twine.
2 Unkitsch dish.
3 Editor agrees reenvisioning a beloved AA Milne character is funny and likely profitable.
4 Normalized it.
5 Football player at work.
6 Rubiks stopped rubiking.
7 ... but geez an electric guitar would have been way better on account of this being for eternity.
8 Waxing salon.
9 Usher yelling at theater-going Boomer needing hearing aids and fumbling with an iPhone.
1 RIB ROAST CREASE
2 ELEGANT SOAP PAD
3 OKS POTHEAD ROO (~)
4 RUINED HER GAH (~)
5 IN GEAR DROP KICK
6 CUBES GOT CAUGHT
7 HARP MEANT A LOT (~)
8 DAD ARM HAIR HUT (~)
9 "I REPEAT ... ETICKET"
I'm pretty much with Rex on this one. Wonderful theme, and a quite challenging puzzle overall. The SW was the last to fall, not least because of my smug assumption that "low" was the only possible word that fit before and after "down".
Loved the clues for MICRO (easy) and ARMHAIR (really hard). AGUA leading into EAU is a wonderful sequence and a great use of the "same clue" gimmick. Also liked CREASE and DEKES both getting the hockey treatment. As Rex notes though, the clue for TSEPRE is a miss.
Thought of hermit crabs for SHELL PROPELLERS, and both CRAB and LEGS fit. That messed me up for awhile. And you have to be pretty hairy to have curly arm hairs on your triceps but I still liked the clue when I finally got it.
OK so fourth day is the charm, finally a theme I understand and enjoyed. I kind of knew when I saw the names on the byline that we were in for an ELEGANT treat today. I loved AGUA/EAU, MICRO/NARROW and ITSY crossing ETSY. No need to DROP KICK this one, as tasty as a juicy RIB ROAST.
Not nearly as appealing though was the POT HEAD with ARM HAIR. That combo barely passed the breakfast test for me. GAH! If you are a female of a certain age who has ever ONCE surfed through a dating app and seen your “matches,” you’ll understand what I mean. It’s quite a CRAP SHOOT to PUT it mildly.
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?’
‘I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
‘With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
A clever theme, but a puzzle ruined by non-words like GAH and SUHWEET. A damn shame, when so much of the puzzle was entertaining and likable.
Barbara,
Thank you. Tricep is not a word. Neither is bicep. It’s maddening that rank ignorance is met with a shrug or, as one long-time big mouth used t bloviate here “language evolves.”🙄
Shane on Shortz for allowing this error.
My problem with the TSAPRE answer is that the clue too closely matches the theme clues, which got me stuck there looking for 3 letter synonyms for lax.
inre RAGEROOM: One summer during college, I got a temp job at a furniture plant in NC. My day 1 assignment was to go into a room with a sledge hammer and crowbar and make slightly flawed furniture they didn't want to go out the door completely unusable. I can vouch for the visceral thrill of going nuts on a corner cabinet - plus I got paid; glad I got in before they realized they could charge for that.
One of the first Rex blogposts I read featured him going off on GAH; permanently burned in and always noticed henceforth whenever it appears.
I think a couple of these clues/answers belonged in a Saturday puzzle:
ERHU?...ARM HAIR?...TSA PRE?...RAGE ROOMS?.....Further, I felt there were way too many ?'s here.
I liked the theme. I thought it was clever and different. It was sure a lot easier to "get" than some of the other non themes. RIB ROAST....yum. CRAP SHOOT and POT HEAD ensued.
I don't think I've ever had the YIPS. I've had some jitters and my pups do some YIPS when they want to go out....I know (or I think) it's a golf term but I have no idea if it's short for something else.
That TSA PRE answer gave me the YIPS. I suppose it's supposed to be a clever way to say that PRE boarding in LAX is lax? My friend always asks for a wheelchair and they zip her right through. She doesn't need one and it sorta makes me mad but she tips the wheelchairpusherperson a ton of money. She says it makes her feel good.
Why in the world would anyone want to do a RAGEROOM thingie....! I suppose if your toaster always burned your toast, you could take revenge and sledgehammer it to death....That gives me the YIPS.
Another YIPS image is ARM HAIR. I once had a boyfriend who loved to twirl my arm hairs and I'm not making that up. Don Quijote would've been proud of him. I did a fast DROP KICK..it worked.
I have to go walk my pups now and when I return I shall read all of the interesting comments here. Can't wait...
Mostly medium. The SW corner was the toughest part for me too for the reasons @Rex covered...ERHU of course was a WOE and the long downs took some work and then there was GAH. Clever theme that mostly worked (GOT CAUGHT is sorta iffy), mostly liked it.
Bad puzzle. Two nonsense words crossing is poor form.
Harry @ 7.39am: A "sojourn" means a "stay", and has nothing to do with a -your "journey" from bed to bathroom. And L@9.00am: My boarding pass says "TSAPRE" every time. And that's what the TSA folks at the airport call it, too. Finally, shout out to everybody who complained about the bogus singular "tricep": it's "triceps" people, both singular and plural!
@jberg—got the theme early, and had a lot of fun figuring out the other ones. But having seT for PUT and forgetting Awkwafina’s surname kept me from seeing ARM HAIR and TSA PRE. Finally had to cheat and look up LUM.
My wife’s family likes to do group chats with silly pictures, and her son-in-in law, in his early 50s, says both SUHWEET and NIIICE, so that was gettable. But I can’t tell an ERJU from a pops, so that needed crosses.
People who complain about SUSWEET have never tried constructing a Xword. It may have saved a few weeks and time in a RAGEROOM.
GA? for a DNF and a give a ?
Thought the concept & MICRO clue were equally brilliant as expected from either of these constructors. ERHU will never stick unfortunately though it’s a recognizable image for sure. Not going to HARP on how a DNF RUINED my “streak” since I never bought into early week grids & skip over almost any Sunday slog, but I bet when I read the above…….
44A is the worst clue for the worst word ever. Having GAH is bad enough. Cluing it with something that has a million more common meanings is unforgivable. Ruined my puzzle.
Apter 28-Down clue: {With 35-Down: No-know / no-know}.
Cool theme mcguffin. Got/Caught on to it fairly early, at RIBROAST. Would be fun to think up other themers that didn't make the CRAPSHOOT.
fave themer: POTHEAD & clue. Twas a looloo.
staff weeject picks: DMS & EVS. Both were pretty much no-knows, at our house. Kinda almost blend together to form DMVS, almost.
Didn't have much trouble in the SW, after I got past ERHU. Best extra-har-larious answer in the puz: SUHWEET [a recent March rerun, back to haunt us]. Luved the clue for ARMHAIR.
But then how does TSAPRE work? M&A avoids airports like the plague, but is still curious. Do U mail in some sort of picture of yer carry-ons? Do U visit a TSA agent at their house the night before, and show em yer stuff? Do U just purchase a life-long membership? [Hey. What could go wrong with any of those.]
Thanx for gangin up on us, Wagner & Husic folks. Collabs every day this week except Wednesday. Fun semi-feisty ThursPuz.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
What do you call an eagle coin image tattooed on someone's fuzzy tricep [sic]?
*
*
*
*
*
*
An ARMHAIR QUARTERBACK.
That's all I have to say about this puzzle.
"I suppose if your toaster always burned your toast, you could take revenge and sledgehammer it to death." --@GILL
This for you, @GILL, because of your rage against the toaster rant, and for anyone else who has ever wanted to murder an appliance. It's classic; it's vintage. I remembered it almost word for word from ca 60 years ago.
Anonymous @9:23 and others - LOWDOWN/DOWN LOW could actually work as a themer here! ("Sad / Sad")
I solved this faster than yesterday, oddly enough. Some "?"s fell quickly with the letters I had: MICRO, TSAPRE (could only be one thing with TSA in place), ARMHAIR (the pun can't be on "tricep", had to be on "curls"). The SW was the hardest corner, with ERHU and whatnot, but thanks to the Thursday puzzle from two weeks ago, I remembered how to spell SUHWEET. The only appearance of this entry before March of 2023 was on a Sunday in 2015.
Top-notch theme, but it's not the POW, so I have high hopes for the weekend. Though April Fools is on Saturday and that worries me.
@ Upstate George, what my boarding passes say is "TSA Pre✔️".
Totally agree on the tricep/triceps thing. That’s what editors are for. But even worse, triceps curls are not a thing. Triceps extensions, yes. Its biceps curls. Our arms don’t work that way.
Evidently it's ROSA PARKS month!
@pabloinnh said: "I think it's official now that the spelling is SUHWEET. Oh good. Now go away." Well put!
@Nancy: Sorry to say, I'm sure a program to find words or phrases that consist of two synonyms is pretty straightforward, as long as it has access to a thesaurus. Jim Horne at xwordinfo could probably do it in a minute or two.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0; only this 8er stumped me for a while. QB streak at 4.]
@anon 5:58 AM Hand up for Gas for “Blast” at 44A. Whew! I don’t know “GAH” as a word other than it having appeared in crosswords for quite a while.
Iconic appliance rage scene from Office Space:
https://youtu.be/pD2xBXm4y70
burtonkd
SW corner brought on a DNF. PC help didn’t. GAH!?
Loved this one. Brooke Husic is one of my very favorite constructors. Her partner today, Adam Wagner is also up there, so seeing their by-lines made raised my hopes. And they delivered!
This is such a great example of constructors’ noticing something about words and being able to develop a puzzle theme based on the particular oddity or happenstance of words. Today’s theme words are not unlike Monday’s. The difference is that this theme works smoothly and gives us an “aha!” Whereas Monday’s was factually interesting but didn’t quite rise to the “aha” level. Today, it’s the fact that the theme words’ parts are synonymous that was so “cool beans” (hi @LMS). This one is going to stick with me until I find some other examples.
Most of this was easy. I was chuffed to remember ERHU. No idea how many times I have thought to myself (and told my daughter) that nothing we ever learn is wasted. My 60 or so years of solving this and many other crosswords has indeed given me a plethora of mostly unused words and facts . . . until I need one. ERHU is a prime example. It took a minute and KOTO came up first, but was instantly rejected because it’s Japanese.
Great clues, tight theme, fabulous fun and I am still thinking of all the things I’ve said “YOU WHAT?!” about in my daughter’s 43 years on the planet. My all time favorite was “Mom, look! I made Max a Dalmation!” upon my daughter’s painting black spots on the (unbelievably patient and tolerant) dog.
An early RIB ROAST induced solver's swagger of "Cute, but geez, too easy for a Thursday." It's a good thing I like it when I need to suffer for my crossword hubris, which I did, like many others, in the SW. Wrong guesses in the Acrosses made it impossible for me to see the two long Downs: batS at, d'oh or bAH or pAh, Saw TO, plus dithering over SUHWEET or SssWEET. Erasing, alphabet runs, and brain-racking finally got me there.
But that SW section ended up being my favorite. I thought "Presale alert" was genius, and GOT CAUGHT a perfect closer (in my case). At first, I was ready to pick the nit that it's not a noun phrase like the other theme answers, but then it was so apt, as I really did get caught there by the trick.
The YIPS: when I was growing up, my parents were avid golfers, playing themselves and watching endless hours of golf tournaments on TV; I learned the YIPS from discussions of golfers' being prey to them and struggling to overcome. I wonder if sports psychology has advanced in the meantime to offer help.
Loved, loved, loved the clip with erhu! Simple, satisfying ... I'm completely gobsmacked ...
Definitely encourages me to expand my musical tastes ...
Got a bit stuck when I had EBAY instead of ETSY — has it been remarked on yet what a kealoa that can be when itʼs vaguely clued as an online marketplace?
@egs – I know, I was wondering is Rosa Parks part of the Marvel Entertainment Universe now? She's in the puzzle often enough to be.
Oops, that response was meant for @okanaganer, not @egs. Sorry, @ok!
Is it just me but isn’t the correct name for the facilitated security process called Pre-check? You forgot a word there, Adam and Brooke.
@stephen, they did give a date. eBay was around in the 90s. Etsy is usually clued as some kind of crafty site
When will the NYT delete the disparaging, sexist term 'dad joke' from it's word list?
@Loren 6:41. If you haven't already left for the airport a day in advance , I just wanted to say your "making the flight" comment had me laughing out loud. I used to be that way flying stand by....Now I just worry that they won't serve a good stiff drink on my flight.
@Nancy 12:45. GAH...!!! You gave me Woody Allen.....!!!! Did his toaster get sledgehammered before or after his little Christmas affair with Soon-yi? Hah!
Got the theme quickly but still struggled with some of them. Some clever clues and AHA! moments which was fun. Not familiar w/ Adam but I know Brooke's style so went in expecting that. NW and SW were kinda rough. "TSAPRE" is that TSA precheck? I dunno about "TSAPRE" by itself. "ERHU"....okay. "PCHELP," I was sure it was "ITHELP." On 2D stuck with "ACUTE" for a while for some reason vs. "AGILE", also stuck on "SOSPAD" until I got 8D "MARA." Could not suss out the spelling of "SUHWEET" even though I knew what they were getting at. Solid Thursday I thought.
*A note on "cheating:" I never Google answers but occasionally I will use the Check feature in Across Lite to identify a wrong answer - sometimes a wrong answer is worse than empty, usually reserved for Saturdays - but I did have to do that today in the SW, I think it was on 41A, I can't remember what I had there but it was not "UNCUT" and I think I also had "BATSAT" at 37A which mucked up that whole section.
I also reserve the right, if there's a book I know I have that I can't recall the title or the author's full name, to look for if it's in the room - used this earlier this week for Paulo Cohelo's "The Alchemist." I think it was "PAULO" that was the answer....
Eggs aren’t dairy products. Dairy products come from cows, whereas eggs come from chickens.
No doubt about it,
Woody is a funny guy.
This was a delight to solve. A bunch of ambiguous and inventive clues demanding an agile mind, but once a foothold was established it filled in with minimal jumping around. Steady progress throughout. Got the theme on the first double clue that half- filled in, and it was fun getting the rest as I got to them. GOING ONCE with one cross.
ARMHAIR POTHEAD did not upset me at all. Why would it? I had a friend who let his nosehair grow and braided it into his mustache. That was a bit of a challenge. But he spent a good hunk of his life in a mental hospital. I mean you gotta find some way to amuse yourself in there, right?
I would have filled this post with compound words made up of synonyms if I could have thought of any. Maybe Antonyms would have been easier.
Agree with Mr Grumpypants and Anonymous: "suhweet" = non-word.
And "Gah"? Not inferable except by crosses.
And I will only accept "Ack" if it is clued with a Bill the Cat reference.
Shall we be expecting puzzles filled with scat singing syllable?
How about "Hut sut Ralson", or "Boodley acky sacky"?
At least they're song lyrics!
MEH frequently appears as answers in NYT xwords. I have lived a long time and have been around a lot of English speaking persons with all sorts of backgrounds. I have never heard anyone say this word .Perhaps I don’t have the proper degree of sophistication. I have never heard of a TSAPRE, for instance.
I forgot to link a song earlier. But better late than never. Is everybody ready? All right now, here we go! A-one, a-two, a-one, two, three...
Lum di lum di lie
(Lum di lum di lie)
But it does.
It "says" TSA Pre" on the boarding pass!
Not getting the connection between EL CID and DEKES...
You can see those words on a boarding pass, so what's the problem?
You go to the TSA website and answer a bunch of identity questions. If you are not a threat in the system, you can pay annually for the precheck service which gets you through security more quickly.
Yeah, when he said "fondle" it gave me the creeps!
I guess anything in a refrigerated case at the grocery store is considered a dairy product...
Sorry Rex had a problem with ERHU: it was a gimme for me, because I frequently encounter a busker playing one in Manhattan's Chinatown and I'd asked many years ago. Rex, can I also introduce you to the yangqin, a Chinese hammer dulcimer?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/frank_lynch/52333571022/
I recommend all who are curious to visit the musical instruments collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: well worth an hour of your time (I spent more, I play a number of instruments).
Terrible puzzle.
Not fun with many answers that once you got them made you go “oh, that’s just wrong.”
@Nancy …
Here's Merriam-Webster: ˈe-li-gənt , in-ˈte-lə-jənt
Both the antepenultimate and last syllables of "intelligent" and ELEGANT rhyme perfectly; the penultimate syllable is the least accented, so seems fine to me.
GOING AT ONCE
EVIE was SETTO smoke POT,
TO HER it would MEANALOT,
so SHE's A POTHEAD,
GOT IN TO TED'S BED,
took A few HITS and GOTCAUGHT.
--- PAT MARA
DNF. TSAPRE????? What the devil is THAT? Plus, the entire W/SW was a fog, couldn't get anything at all in that area.
At least I'm on a Wordle heater: BBBBB, BBBBY, GGGGG!
I liked the gimmick. But I don’t like SUHWEET. Note to editors: No more SUHWEET please. Also no more MEH, DMS, ESP, AHS, ROO, GAH, AVG, OKS and LUM.
Big plus today with no rebus-iness. At first misidentified Awkafina as Nora LaM, otherwise no write-overs. Noticed: SETTO TOSCALE; BISECT YOU ELCID. Circled: Rooney MARA, descended from 2 NFL families.
Wordle bogey, wrong first letter guess for par.
Dreck filled reason to skip Thursday puzzles.
So the Thursday "trick" is two words that mean a similar thing? OK
I'm with @Spacey on the bogus use of TSAPRE. (and yes, I do have TSA PRE-check)
Yes, the rebuslessness made it quite doable.
Diana, LIW
Not too hard once I figured out that my paper had clue numbers 12 down through 54 down misplaced by one. So 15 down in the paper was actually 12 down, 17 down was actually 15 down and so on. Never encountered that before.
@anon 12:24 PM - Agreed, and no more TSA either please.
If anyone is solving this on the Seattle Times site today--well, you probably won't read this until it's too late, but there's an error. The number 12. for the downs appears in the middle of the clue for #11! It's fairly easy to get that it's all one clue, but that means that every down clue after that is off by one number, and the last down clue (54 down) doesn't appear at all. I don't know what it's supposed to be, but "Pop" would work if it helps.
Anyway, good theme, but I agree with those who say the Gah/Sahweet cross was quite unfair.
I downloaded from the Seattle Times also… took a while to figure out the down clues were mis-numbered… then the SW corner… UGH… GAH?? really? SUHWEET?? Then I had ITHELP for 55A … for which I then had GOING RATE for 29D … what a mess!!
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