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Letter opening / WED 3-1-23 / Experimental-but-accessible music genre / Bun holder, so to speak
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
Constructor: Aaron M. Rosenberg
Relative difficulty: Medium?? (7:16)
THEME: Various puns(??) related to kings
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: OMAR Little, "The Wire" antihero —
Hey besties, it's Malaika here for another Malaika MWednesday! The drink of the night is an Aperol+soda (highball glass, slice of orange) and the song of the night is "Let the Music Play." You can put it on while reading this review for the full Malaika Experience.
I do not like this type of theme so it is hard to critique. It's like when you are watching an episode of "Chopped" and the contestant uses red onions and the judge is Scott and he's like "I hate this because I hate red onions!!" and you're like "Scott!! Please!! Look past your own personal prejudices and try to give a holistic and unbiased evaluation of the dish!!!!!" So that's what I'm going to attempt to embody. I will look past the red onion of "regular phrase turned wacky" and I will give a holistic and unbiased evaluation of the puzzle.
Bullets:
- Hark! And hear of the vengeful ruler who took great pleasure in expelling disloyal subjects, for he was the … PERSONAL BAN KING
- Listen now! And I shall relate the story of the curious sovereign who adorned his castle with images of red fruit, for he was the … CHERRY PIC KING
- Lend me your ear! And I will speak of the clumsy monarch who took twice as many golf strokes as his opponents, for he was the … DOUBLE PAR KING
- Give heed! And listen to my tale of the mad tyrant who decreed that all toilets in his realm be installed the wrong way, for he was the … BACKWARD LOO KING
Word of the Day: OMAR Little, "The Wire" antihero —
He is a notorious Baltimore stick-up man, who frequently robs street-level drug dealers. He is legendary around Baltimore for his characteristic duster, under which he hides his shotgun, large caliber handgun, and bulletproof vest, as well as for his facial scar and his whistling of "A-Hunting We Will Go" when stalking targets. Omar's homosexual character is based on the heterosexual Baltimore area robber and hitman Donnie Andrews.
• • •
I do not like this type of theme so it is hard to critique. It's like when you are watching an episode of "Chopped" and the contestant uses red onions and the judge is Scott and he's like "I hate this because I hate red onions!!" and you're like "Scott!! Please!! Look past your own personal prejudices and try to give a holistic and unbiased evaluation of the dish!!!!!" So that's what I'm going to attempt to embody. I will look past the red onion of "regular phrase turned wacky" and I will give a holistic and unbiased evaluation of the puzzle.
I think the funniest of the phrases was DOUBLE PAR and the least convincing was CHERRY PIC. The "voice" that they gave to the clue struck me as corny and obnoxious but listen... I am twenty-five years old and Extremely Online. Most things strike me as corny and obnoxious. What did y'all think about it? Opinions in the comments please, and be nice!
I definitely liked a lot of the mid-length fill, like LEMON LAW and AVANT POP. And it's always good to see Ted CHIANG who I am fuckin obsessed with. Please, stop what you're doing right now and go read "The Lifecycle of Software Objects." (It's part of his collection, "Exhalation.") I didn't like to see JAIL TIME, which was kinda a bummer, but maybe it was the only thing that fit well in that slot.
- [French destination that's one of UNESCO's "Great Spa Towns of Europe"] for VICHY— I had never heard of this town!
- [Mobile dwelling for modern nomads] for VAN — I know a couple of people living the #DigitalNomad lifestyle, but none of them are in vans
- ANZAC Day is apparently a holiday in Australia and New Zealand similar to Veteran's Day here? This was new to me.
Malaika
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124 comments:
Attend! as I relate myriad tales of the fairminded decisions pinned on the fabled ruler of the donkeys, for he was the JUST ASS KING.
(Yes, I've been obsessed since Sunday.)
Funny you should mention chopping onions, Malaika– we were talking about that yesterday. Today Rex would have complained about PERSONAL BANKING because he doesn't like finance-related puzzle content.
Dusty
This deserves more. criticism, bad theme and i like that style sometimes.
ANZAC Day is much more than veterans day. It is a reminder of the stupidity of war.
Hi Malaika! Thanks for the write up. I personally didn’t enjoy this theme either. Too easy for a Wednesday and I don’t get why they chose that voice for the theme clues. Maybe if king was a rebus, and/or each clue was a different face card (i.e. Queen, jack, joker?) for some kind of royal family (royal pain in the butt?) this idea could be worth salvaging. As it is, it seems like a play on that immature playground joke about being the “sofa king” which makes me feel like even the elementary school kids have a better sense of humor than this puzzle does. Hated LEARNT. Think WAR SONG could’ve been clued better. Enjoyed PAPILLON as it brought up a fond memory of a first date I had years ago where I tried to impress the person with my chef skills and the fish came out dry and underwhelming after the intensely performative effort. Soeaking of cooking techniques, is VICHY where vishyssoise comes from?
-Brando
Hi from Melbourne, not the Florida one. ANZAC day stems from the acronym Australian New Zealand Army Corps which was the name given to armed forces fighting in world war. April 25 is the day that Australia commemorates the storming of beaches in Turkey by ANZAC ‘diggers’ on orders from British commanders where they were swiftly mowed down by Turkish machine guns. The event is seen now as the birth of a nation as Australia was only federated a few years earlier in 1901 and many see it as the establishment of a national identity. Please accept this brief explanation, I don’t like typing on my phone. Cheers.
I like ya, Malaika! Even though you do make me feel incredibly old. Please google “Vichy” for a little history lesson! By the way, I totally agree with you about the puzzle. Even the worst Dad Joke is better than these attempts at Wackiness.
At some point while solving I thought to myself... There must be a listless ruler lounging on couch somewhere doing this particular puzzle. Because you know... Sofa King What.
Malaika – I feel just the opposite about this kind of theme. Just the other day I was remembering this puzzle (spoiler alert – it’s the solution) and still enjoying it. So I absolutely loved today’s theme.
Possessing the soul of a 13-year-old boy, my favorite was that BACKWARD LOO KING. Hah. A good name for a porta potty tycoon could be Better Loo King. (But I’m still pedaling my “Dear John Letter” name to some high-end porta potty company.)
I have a bunch of BEQ Monday themelesses on my clipboard, too, and when I saw 6D, I did a quick glance to make sure I hadn’t accidentally started one of those. That clue is Classic BEQ.
I bet KARL BENZ would object to LEMON LAW crossing his name.
MONONYM: When Sage was in high school and fretting that she didn’t know what to do with her life, I said, Hey! You can learn photography and become a world-famous pet photographer! You have a magical connection to animals; they’ll do any pose you ask! Fancy movie stars will hire you for their Christmas cards. Dog food advertisers will insist that they book “Sage” for the shoot! You’ll be so famous that you’ll be known just as “Sage” like Cher! She looked at me for a minute and said, Mom. I want to do something meaningful that helps people. I felt shallow and pedestrian.
I liked the clue for LINE. Wanna know where else you can see a big ole LINE? In the combo store of Home Goods and Marshalls in Huntersville, NC. Jeez Louise.
So, honestly, shouldn’t the clue for DUSTY be for All attics? You’re telling me that there are attics out there that aren’t dusty? And while I’m on DUSTY, it could have had 1A’s clue. Mom, of course, has several arrangements of fake plastic flowers here and there, and boy howdy are they DUSTY. I look around at these FAKE flowers, the ornately fringed shower curtain, the valances and floral pattern couch from the Reagan administration. . . and I wonder how my kids will judge my home décor when I’m in my 80s.
The clue for RIMS is timely. I picked up some new glasses yesterday – the rimless kind – and they’re those progressive lenses. I think I’m going to love them, but it’s a learning curve. I imagine people will see me for the next few days and wonder if I’m tracking the flight of a gnat or checking to see if I still have a crick in my neck.
PS - @Nancy from yesterday – your onion-cutting spiel yesterday was too funny!
Malaika has never heard of Vichy? Do they still teach WW2 in schools. It was the seat and the name of the pro Nazi French government after the surrender in 1940. Also know for it's mineral waters
Might have had it if clued differently.
Or golf!
Anyone else have FAcE plant? I was 99% sure Mr Benz was KARL but talked myself into the C version since I liked the answer so much more than FAKE
It was pretty corny and old school, but also unoffensive and fine.
I agree with you about this theme, Malaika! Silly it was, and CHERRYPICKING crossing ENBANC was a Natick for me - so distressing, and on a Wednesday!
Malaika, re: VICHY, I recommend you watch Casablanca.
As @CWT said, Malaika, you really need to know something about Vichy. Since you're "mostly online," please Google it.
I definitely had a tough time with ANZAC and ENBANC. The whole genre of “genre” clues needs to be retired, and AVANT POP is exhibit A. The theme seemed pretty weak - just not a lot their after you get even one of them. Is CHERRY PIC KING supposed to be witty or something ? No ASS today, or did I miss it? That would make two days in a row. I hope everything is all right.
Better hurry if you want to check out Malaika’s Ted Chiang book rec. There’s only one copy available on Amazon and it’s $85. No Kindle, paperback, or Audible on offer. :(
Lots to recommend this puzz, though, including groaner-less fill — even if our pinch hitting blog queen suffered a bit at the oft-maligned-dad puns! Poor dads.
The repeated -KING entries assisted with medium challenging clueing, for me. Loved the inclusion of VICHY — also a popular European bottled water — and stumped by ENBANC, new to me and I’m old.
Hi folks, constructor here!
Always great to hear from Malaika, but frankly I was hoping to see Rex pan this one right out of the gate. After all, he is the ADVANCE BOO KING.
I put mUSTY for the attic adjective and failed to get happy music. I went over the whole puzzle twice LOO KING for the error, and I did give IBIm the side eye, but I kept thinking it was the B that was wrong - but of course it couldn’t be. I had to come here to find the mistake and slapped myself silly. I know IBID.
I like bad pun puzzles, but this one fell a bit flat for me, mostly because the types of kings aren’t all that funny except for BACKWARD LOO KING. but it does seem like there are endless KING possibilities and it’s fun to try to come up with others. How about “potentate who liked to dally with sailors on his fleet” for BATTLESHIP SIN KING? “Roi who whispered sweet nothings to his petite AMIE” for FRENCH COO KING? “Majesty who built a pub so his hounds could enjoy a quaff after the hunt for DOG BAR KING? I could go on but you probably have moved on.
I agree with you on Ted CHIANG, Malaika, but I haven’t read the one you recommend. Added to my long list!
Not exactly a "tight" them either, but it's fun to find other examples.
I won't try to do the silly voice, which seems to exist only to flesh out a thin concept:
the monarch always trying to please his mother
the monarch with botched piercings
the slowest monarch
the yo-yo dieting monarch
the monarch whose collection of pet doves keeps him happy
the monarch who plays chess with his frat cohort
LOVEMAKING (well, there are a jillion "___MAKING" examples)
EARMARKING
OUTRANKING
RETHINKING
THEJOYOFCOOKING
PAWNBROKING
Kinda liked this one…a few of my own-
All hail the chief pigeon who really draws out his words! He is the…. SLOW COO KING
All hail the the ruler who made it to the end of the pub crawl! He is the NONSTOP BAR KING
All hail his majesty who always expresses his dissatisfaction twice! He is the DOUBLE BOO KING
Loved it. In addition to the great theme, you've got the EN BANC PAPILLON column, AVANT POP WAR SONGs, ANZAC symmetrical to SAJAK.
On the down side, not fond of ANZAC crossing UCLA as crossing initialisms is generally a no-no. UCLA, though, is well known enough to let you get away with it.
Before reading Malaika, I had always assumed that "Chopped" is about motorcycles.
I got a book of Ted CHIANG's short stories and made it through two before I decided they were not for me and gave the book away.
I completely understand not knowing VICHY as a 'spa town', but (in my day) it was prominently featured in history class when we did WWII (Hi, @Todd).
Yeah, I'm always going to feel about VICHY the way Rex feels about NRA. You can clue it any way you want, my primary association is still going to be murderous racist fascists, and it's going to give me an ick over my morning coffee.
I did think this theme was tighter than Malaika gave it credit for. It's not just "various puns related to kings." The puns all had the same structure: a common gerund phrase where the -ing is preceded by a K, and the "king" is separated from the rest of the gerund to create wackiness. In each case, the meaning of the "wacky" (clued) phrase was sufficiently far removed from the original (unclued) phrase that it gave me a little goofy smile. BACKWARD LOO KING was especially enjoyably bizarre.
Oh I ADORED this puzzle - and I’m 39 and somewhat online and surrounded by young millennials and zoomers at work. I don’t give a pass to all groaner puns and I’m still working it out, but I think my criteria for double-entendre themer puns like these are:
1. The first meaning of the clue’s answer must be reasonably interesting, funny, silly, clever, or absurd (all themers met this bar for me, BACKWARD LOO KING was a fave).
2. The second meaning of the clue’s answer must be clever, or at least serviceably capable. I want to admire the constructor’s skill and ingenuity when I grasp the second meaning. All themer answers whoosh over that bar in this puzzle.
3. For the love of all that is good and sacred, at least one of the meanings has to be a *real thing*. Once again, all clues in this puzzle meet that criteria. Last week’s infamous CAR ROLL is a great example of one that didn’t (it still makes me grumpy to think about, I am an absurd person).
And listen, there are exceptions. After learning about Merl Reagle, I sought out some of his puzzles, and almost all the time, he more than earns the groaners. There’s something sparkly and fun and often so absurdist that you have to hand it to him. But he was a master of the “not really a thing, but I’ll give you a pass” groaner, and I’m learning that imo it’s very hard to do well.
Curious what criteria others have for this kind of thing!
Anyway, oh man, the cluing on the fill in general was sublime. I would start to pick nits in my head over cluing, only to quickly correct myself. “Allergic reaction” for ACHOO, for example, where at first I was just grumpy that it wasn’t HIVES and that as someone with a close-and-personal relationship with my allergist, I had an overwrite. But then thought to myself, “ohhhh, it’s a bit of a slant definition of reaction. They’re right; you’re just petty, Weezie.” From the simple MAIL SLOT to the jokey LEMON LAW, this puzzle was exactly my IDEA of a good time.
Uniclue:
DeSantis assessment of "Blowin' in the Wind"
(answer below)
Speaking of LOO (hi, @lms), this puzzle was loaded with 'em. The BACKWARD LOO is crossed by not just one but two Hidden Diagonal LOOs, and there is another Hidden Diagonal LOO in the NW (begins with the L in 14A).
Cautionary note: you want to be careful doing your business in a diagonal LOO.
Could Neil Armstrong's famous "One small step for man" speech on the moon be characterized as a DUSTY TANG YELL?
Uniclue answer:
A WOKE WAR SONG
I’m old! I thought it was cute. But having KING at the end of each one kind of helps too much with the puzzle, makes it too easy. I did not learn about Vichy or WW2 in school and I’m 53. I know it because I’m a Francophile, I listen to the podcast SYMHC and other cultural references in novels, etc. Soo yeah, not gonna throw any shade on that. Never heard of Anzac Day either, and otherwise it was pretty easy.
Yes, being a spa town is what VICHY is famous for. Not being the capital of Nazi collaborationist France.
Okay, I’m only letting myself come up with one, because I have financial planning homework to do (I’m in accelerated night classes to get a CFP certificate, I’m somewhat regretting thinking I could handle all this coursework in a somewhat foreign subject on top of work and life.)
The filially pious sovereign who runs a fan account for his father
PAINSTAKING
@Aaron M. Rosenberg - nice one for the King of Crosswords! BTW, did you also do today’s Spelling Bee? Check it out if you haven’t already.
I like wackiness! Unless it’s really bad, and this was not. Sure, some of the wackiness was better or worse, but this was a pleasant way to spend however much time I spent solving it - which wasn’t much, as I found it quite easy, but that doesn’t matter. Never heard of this Chiang person, but I’m not sure I saw the clue. Thanks Andrew, and funny comment!
This is the second out of Aaron’s four NYT puzzles where the theme answers have long italicized clues. Maybe you’ll remember his first (2/17/22), about scientists at a party who have a “shrink ray”, with theme answers such as LITTLE DIPPER, SMALL FRIES, etc.
I found it great fun today to try to guess the theme answers with as few crosses as possible, trying to come up with a KING-ending phrase that fit the clue. I practically jumped over backward with joy – truly – when I got BACKWARD LOO KING with just the final six letters.
I loved [Like some plants that don’t need watering] for FAKE. Almost always, FAKE is given a far more prosaic clue. When a puzzle starts off with a smashing clue like this, it sets such a great tone for the solve to follow. Also, I, who love fruit, liked seeing CHERRY and LEMON, not to mention the oblique “orange” reference with TANG, and oblique “apple” reference with TELL. Finally, I thought the theme clues were delightful.
It’s been an especially fun week so far, with Monday’s BEAR WITH ME, yesterday’s Seussational theme, and now this today. Aaron, you gave my brain pleasure as it tried to crack your theme answers, and your humor filled me with smiles. A most lovely combination. Thank you so much for this!
No errors no Writeovers. Didn’t know Ted . Anyone remember 37D w Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman? Great movie - 50 years ago. Never heard of ANZAC but the crosses were easy.
Niche theme - I really don’t want puns in my puzzle but whatever I guess it’s harmless. Well constructed but filled with too much trivia and nouns - didn’t do the deep dive but it appeared close to a pangram. With these the goofier the better - my favorite was CHERRY PIC KING.
Danny and DUSTY
Always thought it was Otto BENZ. No idea on ANZAC or CHIANG but the crosses were fair. PAPILLON will always be McQueen - it was the beginning of my dislike of Dustin Hoffman. ENBANC was unfortunate.
AMIE
Just not my kind of puzzle.
Tim Hardin
Incredible!
Welcome!
Re 1A and 3D. Wikipedia spells 3D as CARL BENZ. So FACE plant looked good and definitely doesn’t need watering!
"And I AWOKE, and faintly dancin' 'round the room was the echo of whomever spoke." -- Phish
Well Friends, today being March 1st and the end of the line for the online NYT acrostics and cryptics, I move on. Twenty+ years a subscriber, and six, maybe seven years a true lover of the commentaries here, good and great friends. Now into the woods until we meet again.
And in the meantime, thank you --
Old-timer here, and I loved this puzzle—an ideal Wednesday (and, per @Lewis, continuing an especially good run this week so far). As soon as I read Malaika’s comment about Vichy, I knew a bunch of my fellow geezers would jump down her throat. Knowing that bit of history is fine, of course, but c’mon, people, stuff falls out of common knowledge all the time. Imagine all the WWI dates and places your parent might have known but you don’t. Or the Spanish-American War factoids beyond the mere four that come to my mind. (Teddy R, Rough Riders, San Juan Hill, Remember the Maine. Anything I’m leaving out? There must be.) My point is, get over the fact that a young person doesn’t know stuff you know. And take some comfort in the likelihood that decades from now Malaika will be asking a young person, “You’ve never read Ted Chiang?!?”
As an avid golfer, the DOUBLE PAR KING has a limited cluing phrase. Double par can only be 6, 8 or 10 strokes. This assumes that the king's opponents only shot par on each hole he shot double. Unlikely, but true in only a very limited number of occurrences. Picking nits, but isn't that what we all do most of the time?
For anyone interested in reading the Chiang story recommended by Malaika, it's available online for free at the publishers website here https://web.archive.org/web/20130306030242/http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2010/fiction_the_lifecycle_of_software_objects_by_ted_chiang
It's also included in his collection "Exhalation: Stories" which I highly recommend.
Try your local library! https://worldcat.org/title/567188308. And if they don't have it...try interlibrary loan.
ANZAC stands for Australia New Zealand Army Corps
Amy: hiya Malaika, good to see (read) you. Theme is funny punny. Had some trouble in the NW over to the middle as didn't know Mr. Benz's first name was Karl, MONONYM didn't flow into my solve and AVANTPOP was a woe: got the POP, but hoo boy howdy. Add to my errant entry of eyes instead of TELL, and I am lucky to have made it here.
Happy March!
I am so tired of doing crosswords by people who either have never left the New York Burroughs or was born before the end of WWII
Not a flying start as for "like some plants that don't need watering", I wanted DEAD, but FOP fixed that soon enough, and off to the races. I was working down the West Coast when CHERRY appeared from downs, and I thought, hmm,, CHERRY followed by some spaces? CHERRYPICKING? And there was the theme and it was fun guessing the rest of the KINGS, my only complaint being that the clues had to be so descriptive that you could read them and just fill in the answers with not too much thought.
I grew up near Saratoga NY which has mineral springs and a company that sells, or sold, Saratoga VICHY water, plus I knew the other VICHY so easy there. Who was actually drinking that awful stuff is still a mystery to me.
It was the kind of trivia day that was right in my wheelhouse-KARLBENZ, ANZAC, even ENBANC and of course VICHY went right in. I may have to put this one up on the refrigerator door.
I'm a big fan of this kind of word play so I enjoyed this one a lot, and as a Dad I think I am required to like Dad jokes.
Nice work, AMR. A Merry Romp on a Wednesday morning, and thanks for all the fun.
I found this easy, because it was clear all the theme clues ended in KING, and the fill wasn't tricked up with misdirect clues. One minor nit...an INN doesn't have to be quaint. Overall, an enjoyable half-hour.
The monarch who complained that he only qualified phonetically. Bellyaching.
@anon 8:23 - good point, though it may be the somewhat flippant tone of the write-up that might be setting off "geezers". At 56, we covered WWII, but I knew it as the spa, but needed to be reminded that it was the center of the Nazi government in France.
Aaron, thanks for the comment to put the crown on the puzzle!
This was fun, and it is great to see someone be the first to come up with a theme that is hiding there in plain sight (kind of like Nancy's onion-comment synthesis yesterday). Plus we all get to play along at home:
All hail the bi-lingual crossing guard who tells you not to walk in reverse -
BACKWARDMASKING
@Loren - do you stay up all night coming up with this stuff?? Fine form today, esp the avatar.
@Southside, you can read Joe's early comment to get your xword ASS fix for the day.
Thank you. That's the funniest thing I've heard or read in days.
THEJOYOFCOOKING was truly outstanding. Thank you!
Hi Malaika!
There ya go, a tortured uniclue puzzle. See, it is a thing.
Here's some from me:
Ruler implementing the two wrongs make a right policy: COUNTERSINKING
Ruler ruining the most furniture: BENCHMARKING
PR stunt promoting the leader: PITCHFORKING
Demagogue ruling from the dovecote: UNDERCOOKING
Self-aggrandizing leader of gratis weight-loss program: FREETHINKING
A delightful solving experience for me and a wonderful puzzle. I don't know CHIANG, and assumed it was spelled VISHY, so that took awhile to fix.
I somehow never knew PAPILLION means butterfly. I love that. I also like all the longer answers.
Uniclues:
1 Where you once sent "Wish you were here" postcards prior to Instagram.
2 Girlfriend who refuses to promenade on the Champs Élysées at night.
3 "It tastes like it's been in the back of the cupboard since the 60s," loudly.
4 Hussein, to detractors.
5 Melody made murder.
6 Taking your neighbors wheels to the pawn shop.
1 INN MAIL SLOT
2 "I FEAR NEON" AMIE
3 DUSTY TANG YELL
4 OBAMA MONONYM (~)
5 WAR SONG AWOKE (~)
6 VAN RIMS RELO
I once said I never met a pun I didn't like, but I do have my limits.
And while I'd rather have this type of a puzzle than many other types of possible puzzles -- pop culture names!! word ladders!! -- this collection of perfectly dreadful puns really had me groaning from top to bottom.
The biggest problem? The clues were too long and too tortured. It's like that garrulous drunk in a bar who takes ten minutes to set up a one-line joke.
But I didn't hate it -- though I imagine some of you will.
Excellent review!
Hey All !
Liked it. Reparsing of long answers is always fun.
AVANT POP was a never-ever-heard-of-before thing. Is it new? Old? Weird? Apparently it's accessible...
Liked the middle Down column, TELL INUSE IDEA. Also the three-K Down column of ICK UNTACK OKAY. And who knew OBAMA was with Springsteen in anything?
Nice one Aaron.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I kind of get Extremely Online.
I don't at all get never heard of Vichy.
Please remedy this. Please.
Thx, Aaron, for this KINGly puz! :)
Hi Malaika; nice to see you again! :)
Aaron: ADVANCE BOO KING. 🤣
Med++
Lots of pushBACK today.
Had a truly laughable dnf (took too long to find my gaff): FAcE 'plant'; altho that would've def needed a '?' (@A Grimwade (8:12 AM): thx for the company!) :)
Loved the theme! :)
An invigorating trek! :)
___
Two cell dnf on Natan Last's Mon. New Yorker. Failed on the first two letters of 'Digitally locatable'. Other than that, an excellent adventure; just shy of 2 hrs. :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Arthur Miller also wrote a play The Incident at Vichy, which is excellent. But it’s likely no longer taught since he’s a dead white guy, and what could he possibly teach us? — CP from TO
@Aaron M. Rosenberg 7:12 AM
+1
Malaika is our DR A-G QUEEN: Royal woman with Ph.D. (someday) Assisting Grumblebunny (on occasional Wednesdays).
I read the "hey besties" opener and was like "oh shit, Rex is in an amazing mood today" lol. I love Malaika Mwednesdays! Don't tell anyone, but I unwillingly laughed at cherry pic king. Oops.
Anonymous, (2:49am)
Vichyssoise comes from the New York Ritz-Carlton, created there in the first part 20th century by a French Chef to offer something cool to diners before there was air conditioning.
It's in the fine American middle-brow tradition of making up meaningless names that sound exotic - like Häagen-Dazs - though the chef that said that he created it as an homage to a soup that his mother made during his childhood near Vichy that she would cool with cold milk during hot summer days.
Proud of myself that ANZAC day was a gimme, but I only learned about it in the last few years. When I was 25, it would be another 45 years before I learned it. With age, wisdom!
Except I learned about it watching a show on the Idiot Box/Boob Tube. But after said program, I looked it up on the internet/Wikipedia. With time passing, more technology available to quickly learn shit. This is one of the things I like about the modern Era.
Things I love about the 20s: GPS in cars, streaming music and streaming channels-especially easy access to British, Irish, Australian and Kiwi programs. DVRs, face to face phone calls (A picture phone- I remember us imagining this in grade school, that some day you might be able to see each other while on the phone! It seemed incredible but impossible)
What I hate about the 20s: Passwords. Email spammers, hair extensions on everyone on TV-ladies it looks fake, its not natural for hair to start out thin and stringy and end up thick and fuller 2 feet down your back. Passwords is the number 1 hate tho. I wish I could start over, I'd have a better system.
Finally, the best thing in this review was: it was a bummer to see JAIL TIME, but "MAYBE IT WAS THE ONLY THING THAT FIT WELL THERE" HUH?
You mean you can't just stick all your favorite words and things you love in a puzzle? Rex?
Bouncing Around the Room. It's the name of the song!
@Wanderlust 6:45 – Right. And parking. "These are some of the 2,618 things that I don't care about, they're boring and they should never be in the puzzle."
If you don't appreciate wordplay for its own sake, you'll never like this kind of theme. And even if you find such groaners unbearable, learning how to see them and tease them out will make you good at a surprising variety of other things.
I enjoyed today’s puzzle, and had fun with puns. I often don’t, so maybe I was just in a more jovial mood? I’m nearly 44 and was never taught about VICHY either. I knew it only because of a local spa’s Vichy-themed services. It’s always fascinating to come here and realize how much I didn’t know about the answers I “knew!”
Royal who decreed that henceforth the national anthem shall be his self-penned peaen to the Oakland baseball team.
HERE IS MY SONG FOR THE AS KING
[I wrote this last night before going to bed. Now I find that two others have come up with this pun, but I’ll put it up anyway]
Hear ye! Listen now to this tale of the sovereign who found great happiness in one sound only, the sound made by the dove. For he was the …
(answer below).
I have a bit of a nit to pic with 28A (CHERRYPICKING). It is the only one of the themers that doesn’t work as (standalone word + KING). There are plenty of others out there to be cherry-picked. The constructor found today’s by writing a Python script (see xwordinfo.com). I applaud this approach, as I’m a huge fan of Life of Brian, and who the f*** doesn’t love Holy Grail? However, it isn’t a good way to compose crossword theme clues.
Charles ||| (or Chuckie Matchsticks as Priscilla now calls him) already generally has me in the royal mood, and then this wacky “King loves peeing backwards” puzzle come along and I’m ready to watch the next 6 Harry and Mehgan standup specials on Netflix. I even took MAILSLOT to be the illegitimate half-brother of LANCELOT.
I really enjoyed this theme and the puzzle as a whole. Thanks, Aaron M Rosenberg.
Answer: JOYOFCOOKING
Yes yes I had this too!!!!!!!!!
Many of the KING lines here are better than any of the four in the puzzle. Shortz's crew should have sent this one back.
Nancy, please come down to this corner of the playground. I've got a nice piece of cake for you.
I had PERSONAL, CHERRY, & DOUBLE with no idea what came next for any of them -- but finally saw the trick with BACKWARD LOOKING, and quickly backfilled the others. Sturgeon Bay, the town where I grew up, was surrounded by cherry orchards, and we kids all spent the season (2-4 weeks) picking the fruit. We'd be transported to the orchard, and back home at the end of the day, standing on the back of a flatbed truck, and showing off by jumping off the back before it came to a complete stop. During the day we'd sit on ladders, throw cherries at each other, eat a few of the sour fruit (good for pies), get very sticky, and feel we were good if we picked 20 pails in a day. Only a few orchards hire local kids; most were picked by migrant workers who were brought up from Texas in trucks and buses, housed in unsanitary camps out in the orchards, and who could pick 120-150 pails a day. Then while I was away at the state university a local nun invented a cherry-picking machine that soon eliminated human pickers. Now the kids have to spend their summers swimming, I guess. Anyway, that made me pretty nostalgic about the second themer.
On small nit. Here in MA, at least, jails are strictly for people who are being held in custody pending trial, so JAIL TIME is not the consequence of any legal proceeding. I mean, I guess you could call the denial of bail a legal thing, but that's a stretch.
On the plus side, I liked seeing the clues "chowderheads" and "screw-up" right next to each other, even though the answers went in different directions.
Everyone should stop picking on Malaika. Do you all know the capitals of Chad and East Timor? Knowing where the headquarters of Petain's government was is really not all that important. (Hmm, I didn't know the second of those myself; it's DILI. Seems like that would be useful in puzzles.)
Happy March! In like a lamb, here.
Oh...I loved this. I need to poke my head into silly mood character from time to time and today, Aaron paved the yellow brick road. Remember the elephant jokes? When I was trying to learn the "KINGs" English, everyone around me would tell elephant jokes and I would giggle sick not knowing why. I was tickled pink with BACKWARD LOO KING. Who doesn't love a good LOO pun.....
I did come out of my 12 year old self to admire PAPILLON and CHIANG and EN BANC and ANZAC and remembering KARL BENZ and humming "Over There"...Memories of visiting VICHY in the Rhone- Alps region and wanting to dip my toes into a famous spa; drink the mineral waters and hope it would make me look young again.
So...Aaron gave me the pleasure of laughter and memories today.
There is nothing here that makes me squirm. I hardly ever squirm unless unless you make me eat okra.
I haven't read everyone yet (have to walk my pups) but I did get a kick out of @Waderlust and his potentate dallying with sailors....Hah! Did he dilly as well?
For me, nothing is better than veteran’s day. War is stupid.
Time to construct a puzzle of your own! But check your ageism.
How can you never have heard of Vichy? It was the seat of government of the collaborationist government of the part of France that was temporarily unoccupied by the Nazis in World War II. One of the things that trouble me about your generation is the ignorance of history. Perhaps I should say "indifference" to history. Not everything in the human experience has occurred during your lifetime. UNESCO may think of Vichy as a great spa town; I think of it as a place in France where nazis were welcome and comfortable and wher the leaders of France were traitors.
I so wish you would rethink this (understandable) decision. Your comments have been highlights
Not true. It’s definitely available on Kindle. And it’s worth reading for the story “The Great Silence” alone. I dare anyone to read it and not cry.
Good for a midweek solve. Thanks to Aaron for the puns & his history reminders. Probably easier this AM because we watched All Quiet on the Western Front last night. I’m reminded of the famous quip by someone I’ve forgotten: “History teaches us that we don’t learn from history.”
ANZAC & VICHY both/either should trigger reflection as we watch our news feeds. That’s not bad for a Wednesday puzzle I’d say.
And thanks M for the critique and reading suggestion.
Easy-medium. No problems with this except needing to reread the theme clue/answers post solve to make sense of them. This was goofy and, as I’ve said before, I like goofy.
I was watching Colbert a couple of nights ago and he did a bit about thieves on MOPEDs in NYC stealing Apple head phones from pedestrians. The picture he put up for the bit was a Vespa.
Great extra KING-themers, thru-out the comments. Also, sign m&e up for the BACKWARDLOOKING themer bein the best of the puz's funking lot.
Anybody else come up with THROWPILLOWKING? No … wait … never mind.
Fairly friendly solvequest, other than for that ENBANC-PAPILLONKING #8-Down column.
Not very many ?-marker clues to slow yah down.
staff weeject pickking: GEL. Mainly cuz it crossed a rhymer, YELL.
other faves: JAILTIME. MONONYM. SUNDAE. VICHY/HONKS (Kinda reminds yah of #8-Down column).
no-knows: ANZAC. CHIANG.
Thanx for the funny WedPuz a la king, Mr. Rosenberg dude. Punking good.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
@jae 11:55. If the thieves were stealing in order to finance drug purchases, they’d be dopeheads on mopeds. Except that they were on Vespas. Oops!
I rated this one as "genius, of its kind," if that even makes sense. Anyway, I thought it was lots of fun. @Wanderlust and others, thank you for adding to it with your own panoply of KINGs.
Do-over: evian before VICHY, APp before APE. No idea: CHAING.
@Birchbark, goodbye and all best wishes from here down south (lower tier of Wisconsin, but still birch territory).
Excellent
Nice
Thanks to @Joe Dipinto, @Eater of Solie, and @Nancy from yesterday for the laughs!
Not sure why it took me so long to PIC up on the KING part of the answers but I was shaking my head over the odd clues until I got to 57A. At that point, I was coming from the back end of the answer and had KING in place. Oho, I get it now! (Sheesh, DUNCES or what?)
So an odd theme became a REASON for a smile. Thanks, Aaron Rosenberg!
And goodbye @Birchbark, hate to see you go...
One of my favorite songs. I am putting it on right now. "Alexa, play Bouncing Round the Room."
"Well Friends, today being March 1st and the end of the line for the online NYT acrostics and cryptics, I move on. Twenty+ years a subscriber, and six, maybe seven years a true lover of the commentaries here, good and great friends. Now into the woods until we meet again." --@Birchbark
So on the New York Times I wreak
The wrath that garners in my heart:
It puts our lives so far apart
We cannot hear each other speak.
Sometimes I truly hate you, New York Times.
A very sad goodbye to @Birchbark. I for one will greatly miss the blog's resident Renaissance Man -- equal parts outdoorsman and philosopher.
And don't forget about your local library! 99% of the titles recommended on this blog I've found at the library. Many of them are also available in e-book format, but give me a printed-on-paper book any day!
Yes!!! Nice job @Weezie!
Lol Arthur Miller plays are revived quite regularly on Broadway and taught extensively at high schools and colleges around the country. And it’s possible to know about Vichy France without knowing the eponymous town. Or to have known, and simply forgotten. Such things happen.
Yes, and had to check puzzle because I couldn’t find the error - cracked myself up when it lit up!
PIC as in photo is pretty common these days. "Could you take a pic for me?" "Send me a pic of that!" My autocorrect didn't even try to change it when I typed it in! I like the plural PIX - use it all the time 😍
Happy Malaika Wednesday everyone, and a happy one it is. Great job, M. I especially liked your thorough analysis after admitting your dislike of the theme type. And your Scott Conant description made me laugh.
I lime these goody themes provided they hold up to inspection as @Weezie described. This one mostly made it. Some were better than others and the fact that each answer included KING made the solve easier but since it was an integral part of the theme story, I give it a pass (which also fits @Weezie’s criteria including the occasional exception).
This whole puzzle was in my wheelhouse and I zipped through like it was Monday. Maybe it was the incredibly old school theme, maybe the oldish vibe in some spots (VICHY and WAR SONG). Whatever the reason, I enjoyed goofiness, and applaud Aaron’s work in putting this together. Quite a feat.
Love ya, M&A! Please remind us why you count 'U's 🤔
@Birchbark....Are you really leaving? I hope it's not for long....In the meantime...happy trails, my friend.
A song for thee, @Birchbark
@GILLI
See your 3/2/2011 comment
@Wanderust. Loved your additional kings
Not knowing Karl Benz and avantpop and Chiang, and having a hard time with mononym, I found the puzzle difficult for a Wednesday until I finally completed a theme entry and saw what they were doing.
I liked them, especially (for some reason) Backward... and Double...
I smiled big at the double meaning in the clue 63A Element of theVegas strip.
Good puzzle
Enjoyed this puzz! Pretty smooth sailing except for LEMONade for LEMON LAW! Did not know that genre of POP, but it made sense once I figured it out from crosses. I credit my years of studying French and Spanish (I have a BA in French) for being able to fill in those "foreign" answers, as well as a smattering of German. Latin is the base for Romance languages so that helps as well. Writing a term paper or two introduces you to a lot Latin crosswordese, too! Currently, I'm on my third year of auditing Korean language classes at the local university - a whole new world in language learning for me. Hope to see some Korean related clues/answers in the NYTCW someday 🤗
Absolutely best part of this puzzle was remembering Omar in the Wire..and then I do like October Opals, and our local ice cream stand reopens this Friday, time for a hot fudge sundae! But my attic is MUSTY not DUSTY ! It was an OK puzzle, it’s a beautiful sunny day for the first of March so I’m quite forgiving today.
Girl, You are showing how young you are. As someone already mentioned ANZAC day, is a joint Australian New Zealand day of remembrance of their terrible losses during wars, especially WW2. And while we are on WW2, Vichy is from where "Free France" was governed during the German occupation in WW2.
Really happy to learn you also are a Ted Chiang fan!!!
the Australian & New Zealand Army Corps was formed in 1915 to attack Gallipoli in Turkey with disastrous result due to the utter incompetence of British planning. Australia & New Zealand were transitioning from colonies to countries and ironically, this disaster is an important symbol of both countries' emerging national identity, despite the severe casualties.Respect for the "mother country" dropped dramatically. Great Australian movie about the battle "Gallipoli".
If these are puns then they are the worst ever, along with the rest of then”clues”. And I got the solve, no fun at all.
I've just now looked at the blog for the first time today, only to find that we're saying goodbye to @Birchbark. You will be missed. For you, a poem.
BIRCH BARK
by Michael Ondaatje
An hour after the storm on Birch Lake
the island bristles. Rock. Leaves still falling.
At this time, in the hour after lightning
we release the canoes.
Silence of water
purer than the silence of rock.
A paddle touches itself. We move
over blind mercury, feel the muscle
within the river, the blade
weave in dark water.
Now each casual word is precisely chosen
passed from bow to stern, as if
leaning back to pass a canteen.
There are echoes, repercussions of water.
We are in absolute landscape,
among names that fold in onto themselves.
To circle the island means witnessing
the blue grey dust of a heron
released out of the trees.
So the dialogue slides
nothing more than friendship
an old song we break into
not needing all the words.
We are past naming the country.
The reflections are never there
without us, without the exhaustion
of water and trees after storm.
@Unknown 2:58....Is it all right to change my mind with age? I guess there are puns and then there are puns. I'm less curmudgeonly now than I was then?
Thanks for outing me out. ...:-)
@Anon, 2:51pm - Can do, easy-peasy.
U's get no respect. They get the minimum 1-point letter score, yet get used far less in crossword puzs than any of the other vowels.
Rough NYTPuz averages (based on semi-rigorous research):
* Daily crossword: 3-4 U's.
* Sunday crossword: 7-8 U's.
Hopefully, callin attention to this gross injustice may prod constructioneers a little to think twice, when they are scrabble-twerkin a puzgrid corner with other low-use letters. Or somesuch.
Thanx for the luv,
M&A Help Desk
One of the challenges that any constructor has when it comes to cluing is generational. You've never heard of Vichy? I'm 73 and I've never heard of Ted Chiang. Okay? This is a problem. Avant pop I can get with the crosses but I've never heard anybody actually use that term in describing music. To be fair, I've never heard of Anzac either. What took you 7:26 took me a whole lot longer, so I tip my old hat to you. I thought it was medium challenging for a Wednesday.
@jae and the Croce crew - catching up from vacation, and was shocked by your rating Freestyle 786 as easy. For me, it was the worst DNF ever on a Freestyle, with the entire NE and bits of the middle unsolvable.
What is “cherry pic”? I have seen it without the ‘k’, i.e., to cherry pick. Creating new phrases or spellings to resolve a puzzle building conundrum is always a turn-off to me.!
What gifts, all --
@Nancy, you're one of the few real people who could summon up the queens in Shakespeare's "War of the Roses" histories. Silence is a kind of conversation among the sympathetic. I say this to you with a smile.
@Joe DiPinto -- Unexpected joy.
@Barbara -- Thank you for your gifted understanding depth, and the "blind mercury" of the water. It's true in a canoe on the river -- what an unexpected image. I'll look for it in print.
@Gill I. -- Eat good food and be happy --
@Teedmn, @Carola -- May our good snows melt and our common wit be renewed.
@Anon -- Thank you. I'll miss you most of all.
@Other Anon -- At my skill level, "bouncing" and "dancin'" are synonyms. And of course you're right -- thanks.
Me too!
p.s.
@Birchbark - Fair thee well, sir knight of the crossword solvequest. Please check back in for a visit, now and then. Maybe work a runtpuz (no refunds, tho).
M&A Hospitality Desk
Nice signoff, tee-hee.
What sad news is this that Birchbark be now gone? For cryptic and fair acrostic loss you leave us? O cursed be The Times!
Hail and farewell Birchbark. Try a Marx Brothers movie. Always cheers me up anyway. Or come back if you want.
@Malaika
Speaking of movies, vans, nomads shirley you've seen Nomadland. If not give it a try. Oscar for Actress in a van. I say without checking.
I watched To have and have not with Humphrey Bogart today. Vichy, France is part of the movie.
I too had not heard of this town. Yet, todays it came up twice in my life. Weird.
That is all.
Yup
It would have been great if the phrases without "KING" stood on their own without the tortured clues. "BACKWARD LOO KING" was kind of good though...
Malaika,
Have you heard of Vichy France? If not, you need to do some reading about mid-20th century history, by which I mean World War II.
rbs
Thanks, M&A Help Desk! I should've said "LUV ya!" 😚
Vichyssoise is also connected to Vichy. The chef in NYC who invented it spent some of his childhood there.
I will refrain from the monarch who made fun of his mother (JOKEMAKING). Look, one of these, maybe two, might get a chuckle. But a whole theme? Nope. Doesn't do it for me. This is one of those "Why did you do it?" ones. No REASON I can see. Bogey.
Wordle bogey.
LOOKING INN
KARL and ANNE had TIME to PARK,
I LEARNT the REASON was for licking.
IFEAR KARL left a DOUBLE mark
from PERSONAL CHERRYPICKING.
--- OMAR VAN SAJAK
Wears shades to hide TELL ? Does anybody else think that is an odd construction ?
@anon 5:59: Not at all. TELL in this case is a noun. A TELL in poker is a facial expression or perhaps a slight muscle movement that "tells" the opponent whether you have a good hand or you're bluffing.
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