THEME: triple triples — wacky theme answers end with three three-letter strings (the three letters at the end of the first word plus both halves of the second word):
Theme answers:
TABOO BOO-BOO (17A: Injury that's so embarrassing no one is allowed to mention it?)
QATAR TARTAR (30A: Result of forgetting to pack a toothbrush for a Doha vacation?)
DACHA CHA-CHA (46A: Cuban dance performed at a Russian villa?)
LEMUR MURMUR (59A: Indistinct muttering from a ring-tailed primate?)
Word of the Day: Action Comics #1 (see 38D: Figure on the cover of Action Comics #1 = SUPERMAN) —
Action Comics #1 (cover dated June 1938) is the first issue of the original run of the comic book/magazine series Action Comics. It features the first appearance of several comic-book heroes—most notably the Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster creation, Superman—and sold for 10 cents (equivalent to $2 in 2021). It is widely considered to be both the beginning of the superhero genre and the most valuable comic book in the world. Action Comics would go on to run for 904 numbered issues (plus additional out-of-sequence special issues) before it restarted its numbering in the fall of 2011. It returned to its original numbering with issue #957, published on June 8, 2016 (cover-dated August) and reached its 1,000th issue in 2018.
On August 24, 2014, a copy graded 9.0 by CGC was sold on eBay for $3,207,852 USD; it was the first comic book to have sold for more than $3 million for a single original copy.
• • •
Not really my thing, for a number of reasons. Wacky-phrase themes are tough to do well, and this puzzle doesn't observe the First Rule of Wackiness, which is "go big or go home." The only answer that even breaks the smile mark is LEMUR MURMUR. A murmuring lemur is possibly funny to imagine. Someone dancing the cha-cha at a dacha isn't. Like, why not? Dance your heart out. You would never name your tartar based on where you were located, even at your most inebriated, and the only thing plausibly TABOO about a BOO-BOO would be using that "word" at all if you are more than six years old. Further, the theme doesn't work at the sound level, where I don't think it's actually *trying* to work, but where it could at least deliver some more pleasure (since definition-level pleasure is mostly off the table). The first and last themers work perfectly—you get not just a triple letter string, but a triple *sound* string. BOO BOO BOO! MUR MUR MUR! But the pronunciation of the first word in the other themers prevents this pleasing tripartite explosion from happening. Even as a free-standing word, TARTAR doesn't have two similar-sounding syllables (it's TAR-ter, not TAR-TAR). I just couldn't find the pleasure in this one beyond that small pleasure you get when you finally discover the theme (which took me a little longer than usual today—wacky "?" clues being inherently harder to make sense of than normal ones).
Most of the grid was very easy, but those themers took a bit. I had solved to the point that I'd touched three of them before I actually got any of them. Ended up using QATAR to build back up to the first themer, where I filled in every single square via crosses (not hard). After that I could see what was going on with QATAR, and the rest of the theme answers were transparent from there on. I "struggled" a little more than usual with the fill today, by which I mean I had to think about it some, or couldn't get it quickly. Could only think of CAPES as the "C" word at 4D: Wear for Dracula (CLOAK). Just now, I tried to get Google to tell me which "C" word was more apt, but—not for the first time—Google was absolutely no help:
[Dracula cape] gets 11M hits, [Dracula cloak] gets ~3.8M. So "cape" wins, but 3.8M is a lot, so CLOAK is absolutely fine. I couldn't turn the corner at FISHES either, off the "F"—I was even thinking of "fishing" but since the word for fishing with a net is "trawling," that is the word that was in my head (32D: Casts a wide net, maybe). This is what happens when you're rushing (and you're 53 years old and it's 4:30 in the morning and and and...). I had OCHER and then AMBER before UMBER, a color I know exclusively from childhood crayon boxes (56A: Earthy pigment). Pulled the wrong abbrev. from my Abbrev Sack and wrote in PFC before UPC (62D: Bars to be scanned, in brief). Forgot there even was a KNAVE of Hearts (QUEEN fits, but is wrong) (65A: ___ of Hearts (tart-stealing Wonderland character)). Rolled my eyes once again at the idea of an -S plural on ELKS, though it has dictionary backing, so ... gotta allow it, I guess. The pun on GEOMETRY (9D: What the acorn said when it grew up, in a classic math joke) may be the dumbest one I've ever seen. It is both baroque *and* totally implausible, in that you have to absolutely torture the word to make it sound like "Gee, I'm a tree!" I mean, I know I said "go big or go home" but ... just because it's a "classic math joke" (yeesh, that's a thing?!) doesn't mean it has to abuse the English language (as well as the concept of "joke") so much. See you tomorrow.
Forget about consulting Google. That S- is going AI, which as anyone who has been paying attention the last couple weeks has learned, it cannot be F-ing trusted. It's like the mild, almost believable version of whatever crap Fox News is spouting today, massaged to accept whatever you don't respond to negatively. (Scream!)
4D was CLOAK? Really? WTF? That should have been CAPE but the puzz wanted a 5-letter word! (Pardon while I Dracula-cough into my elbow.)
Nice to know I could fill in 38D with absolutely no crosses.
As is my habit for early-week puzzles, I solved without reading the clues for the long acrosses. I got most of 17A from crosses and enough of 30A that I knew that the last nine letters were repeating three-letter groups. That let me fill in all but two letters of the last two themers. I liked the puzzle a lot more than @Rex because I had the extra fun of guessing what the definitions would be. My fave was DACHA CHA-CHA, because it's fun to say.
I found it easy except for the AVEDA/DOULA cross, which I solved by trial and error. Clever theme, but once the repeating syllables became evident it wasn't hard. I liked the cluing on QATARTARTAR.
I will never, ever get tired of themes like this. It just floats my boat to wonder how many whatevers you can get in a row. Unlike Rex, I stumbled onto the trick really early with QATAR TARTAR, and I settled in to enjoy uncovering the others.Then I played around with trying to get four in a row, like wearing a TABOO BOO-BOO BOOtie to hide the embarrassing injury. Or the QATAR TARTAR TARget. I forgave DACHA CHA-CHA and QATAR TARTAR their pronunciation changes because just seeing the three same-letter iterations in a row pleased me so much. I will add that it could be actually the DACHA CHA-CHA-CHA. So those guys could participate in a DACHA CHA-CHA-CHA CHAllenge. Snort.
It was fun to imagine other possibilities: Yoga Gaga, crumbling bling-bling, viscous couscous, white knight night-night. The person who regularly screenshots hot shot. Ahem. That would be me. Hi, George Clooney.
CLOAK went right in, no prob.
I buy that big bag of Birds Eye broccoli FLORETS, but for the life of me, I can’t say FLORET. I mean, I know it’s supposed to rhyme with floor it, but still. I panic and get all wobbly. Nothing a glass of claret won’t help, right?
I just investigated, and it seems that we call it GRAPEfruit ‘cause Jamaicans thought they grew in bunches like GRAPEs. Mystery solved. Did they invent GRAPEnuts, too? […checking…] Nope. Seems that C.W. Post ran the baked cereal through a coffee grinder and decided that the results looked like GRAPE seeds. (Silent prayer of thanks that he didn’t think they looked like little Hercules beetles.) And then there’s the GRAPE fern. . . ok I’ll stop.
It was enjoyable for about 30 seconds until I hit the NE where I encountered the nonsensical PROBEST/ABUELA tandem crossing the MUNCH and GRIER duo and it was party over. And that theme - jeez, do away with the freakin themes for heaven’s sake. Hard pass on this one today.
I would say that offering to CO-SIGN would be considered giving support to EFFORTS to acquire a loan. When you actually CO-SIGN, the loan has already been acquired. Definitely a small nit though here in CrossWorld (well the NYT’s parallel version of CrossWorld, where stuff like ABUELA and lame themes are pretty much a mainstay).
I agree that the theme was a little clunkily executed on this one. I cracked it with QATAR TARTAR, and got the old classic “Is That All There Is?” stuck in my head.
I did like a lot of the fill, with some distinctive cluing making up for a fair amount of crosswordese. UMBER is a nice kealoa, as I imagine lots of us had the same progression as Rex - ochER to amBER before the right answer. Plus, it makes me think of an incredible pair of characters in The Magicians book series, Umber and Ember.
From yesterday, @Beezer, glad you have that space; what I wouldn’t have done for any outdoor space when living back in Brooklyn. Heck, I’d had settled for being able to glimpse the sky. And @Carola, though I’m sure you’re being modest, it’s truly incredible what a bit of tending can do to keep well-curated plantings year after year, isn’t it? I’m excited to see if the somewhat neglected hydrangea, lilac, and peony that inherited from the previous tenants last year will reward my ministrations over the past year with more abundant blooming this spring. I also spend a lot of time encouraging my plants - I’ve been known to tell the bearer of especially magnificent fall foliage “good job, tree!” And I tell off whoever is coming for my garden - insects, chipmunks, squirrels, deer. We’re also in zone 5a, so I think spring ephemerals will be coming along not too far from now - love trout lilies! I have a couple of local herbalist friends so I’m hoping to be let in on a good ramp spot (for sustainable, limited harvesting for personal use only, of course!). Living rurally with 60+ inches of snowfall so far this season, I’m really feeling why there are so many rituals to welcome in Spring this year.
Fortunately, I have learned DOULA from crosswords, or I surely would have wound with with an 'n' in that cross with AVE_A.
In the book at least, Dracula most definitely wears a cloak: I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes.
And while we're at it: The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, All on a summer's day; The Knave of Hearts, he stole the tarts, And took them clean away.
I thought it was pretty easy actually. getting the theme helped fill in most of the other theme answers without many crosses Anyhoo, Never heard of ALCOA. and I don’t think I’ll remember it. But yeah, quick and easy for me.
Cute theme - like @LMS thought it was wacky enough for some chuckles. What’s not to like about TABOO BOO BOO? No idea on PROBST - can see some bitching about the AVEDA x DOULA cross early week.
Down with the big guy on UMBER being pulled from the Crayola pack. Not down with an obviously learned and bright person relying on Google hits for justification. CABLE CAR reminds me of those old Rice a Roni commercials. DECADENT and DAPPER are solid Tuesday entries.
Oh, well, that is one uber-fun theme – after getting the first theme answer, I tried to guess the remaining ones with as few crosses as possible, making it more of a puzzle than just filling in the squares. I did get one just off the clue itself (the CHA CHA one) and basked in the triumph.
This theme is uber-tight, with the theme answers’ first words being five letters, and the second words being six, not to mention giving these answers fun and coherent clues. By the way, if you’re interested in seeing repeated words of all letter counts (including BLINGBLING, HUBBAHUBBA, FROUFROU, etc.) you can go here: https://jeff560.tripod.com/words19.html .
In the finished grid itself, I like seeing those FLAGS pinned onto the LAPEL. And, echoing the theme, there’s PAW which can be repeated to make another word, and LATER, which made me think of “Bye!”, half of “bye-bye”.
Loved your creation, Michael. It woke me up and sent me smiling into the day. Thank you so much for this!
Enjoyably silly. My fave: TABOOBOOBOO, having experienced a few of those. Same prob as OFL with ocher, amber and, finally, umber. As Tuesdays go, not bad. SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY, you’re getting boring with the daily, predictable complaints you make about common foreign words, the use of which, BTW, are not peculiar to the NYT puzzles.
I've learned to leave "earthy pigments" alone until I have a cross or two. I don't even enter the ER in case it's gonna be spelled OCHRE today.
I was confident that "one of clubs" would be "golfer" and felt pretty smug that I got that quickly with no crosses. Usually when I get that smug feeling it's a sign of a minor humbling to come, and today was no exception.
I love a lemur--whether natural or Sacha Baron Cohen-voiced--and also love the sound of 59A, my favorite. I had the last three themers filled in and knew the trick, but for the life of me, I couldn't get 17A and had to run the alphabet, *finally* seeing MAT for "Step on it!" Duh. The language of little kids always trips me up--BOOBOO, OWIE, OWEE, etc., and this one was no exception.
UMBER. Burnt. Had "ochre," had "ocher," finally got it. As Rex noted, more or less, I don't think I've ever seen or heard that color mentioned outside the Crayola box. And I've been to Tuscany!
Enjoyed the solve for the most part, even with my right-on-average time, with the exception of ELKS (I don't care what the nonprescriptive dictionaries have to say--it's "elk," dammit!). I liked the math joke. Beautiful construction and a fun ride.
Felt right at home here. With my reduplicative name, I’m ready to fall right in with reduplicative words. I thought the themers were entertaining enough, but the repetition certainly made the puzzle easy once you cottoned on. Which I did almost immediately at TABOO BOO-BOO because I solved a lot of the early downs first thing. Unlike Rex, I liked DACHA CHA-CHA a lot. Somebody said that the pronunciation's off, but it isn’t – the CH in DACHA is pronounced the same as the CH in CHA-CHA. Here’s an entertaining article about reduplicative words that takes you through the alphabet.
I think my only error was “aye aye” for YES SIR [Soldier’s affirmative]. I guess I was trying to extend the theme. I wondered afterwards whether soldiers do say “aye aye,” but apparently it’s only people serving in the Navy and Marines. Interesting (and logical) distinction – “aye aye” is the correct response to an order (“I understand and will comply”) while YES (or no), SIR is the necessary response to a yes/no question.
Hah, @Weezie, Ember and UMBER! I haven’t read the books, but did watch the TV series.
“The world is made up, for the most part, of fools and KNAVEs, both irreconcileable foes to truth,” said George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, favorite (and probably lover) of James I (early seventeenth century). Living at court, he undoubtedly encountered more than his fair share of both. It's a statement that never loses its currency.
UNICLUES:
1. Use trick lighting to make the aquarium look empty when the cat starts to get too interested. 2. The second letter of the Greek alphabet tarted up in fancy script. 3. Narrowly miss ramming your boss’s car in the parking lot while sexting with your girlfriend. 4. Result of aluminum company’s attempt to introduce tropical plant gel into the manufacturing process. 5. General atmosphere after the fifth round of spiked eggnog. 6. Club meeting participant who’s not just tardy but dead.
1. CLOAK FISHES 2. BETA DECADENT 3. SNAFU SWERVE 4. ALOE ALCOA MESS 5. MORE-SO MERRY 6. LATER MEMBER
Hey All ! Alternate 33D clue: Something you don't want to sleep with?
Nice tripling thingies. Tough to find good examples. Got a big chuckle out of @LMS viscous couscous! Good stuff.
Tough little section in East-Center. AVEDA/DOULA cross was a guess. Guessed wrong. Put in an N (isn't AVENA something?), then an R, T, finally ran the alphabet, thankfully it was early in the run!
Doing Wordle Sunday, I tried DECOR and got five yellows. The word was CREDO. What a pair of words! Not only anagrams of each other but anagrams where each letter is in a different position. I posted this late yesterday, hoping that someone would know something about pairs of words like these. No responses yet.
I am new to crosswords and just found this blog. I don't have a feel for how quickly I should be solving these. Took me 11 minutes to finish. Is that good, bad or meh?
Cute enough, but the theme feels too rudimentary and with too many options. The following took me about 2 minutes to conjure up: -- Chocolate confection from Libreville? -- Indigenous North African born on Halloween? -- Siena rendition of a music hall dance? (Ed: LMS's avatar does this better) -- "Inferno" author's family jewels?
These are nothing special, which is the point. Rex is spot-on today -- themes like these need to knock it out of the park.
Nice to see DOULA. My youngest wants to make that her full-time profession, with a focus on underserved communities. Truly noble work, and I am so proud of her, but the economic prospects make me nervous.
I went schussing down the West coast and ran into the DACHACHACHA, which gave away the trick, so I finished up that side and went straight back up to the TABOOBOOBOO, which was now obvious. Finding the other themers was fun, at least for me. I also learned, thanks to the puzzle and @Barbara S, that I've been pronouncing DACHA wrong forever (k sound). Fortunately, it's a word I don't pronounce very often.
Here's mine: Colorful bird dance.
TOUCANCANCAN.
Oye @GILL I-Your story reminded me of one I wrote for a composition class in college after I got back from Spain. It was about a trip we took as a group out into the wilds of Extremadura and going out at night with some locals to a dance. I got into it with a knife fighter and the the Guardia Civil came and broke the whole thing up. I got an A on my story which was amusing because I made most of it up, although some of the stuff I have actually done makes me wonder how I'm still around .
I liked your wordplay Tuesday just fine, ML, and More Like this wouldn't bother me at all. Thanks for all the fun.
Rex, I'm curious when you do Google searches if you're in incognito mode, or if your own search history is impacting the answers. Do you ever look at Google trends? I find that a pretty fascinating place for searching word use.
Yesterday there was a fish saying ‘dam’ and today an acorn exclaiming about turning into a ‘tree [try].’ Go figure.
As for ALCOA… it’s an acronym (sort of) for *Aluminum Company of America*. Re. the building: The ALCOA building on Sixth Street in downtown Pittsburgh was originally the first headquarters for the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA). Opened in 1953 it was the first skyscraper (410 ft., 30 stories) with an all-aluminum facade & used aluminum for most of the construction. (Detractors at the time — there are always detractors when new, innovative buildings are being built! — said it looked like “old television screens stacked on top of each other”.). When ALCOA HQ relocated to a different part of Pittsburgh in the early 2000s the use was converted to office / small business start-up / residential & the building was renamed Regional Enterprise Tower.
An iconic building to those growing up near Pittsburgh mid- 20th century.
Thx, Michael; you PASSED the test today. Nicely done! :)
Med+
Not quite a TREK, but 'no walk in the park' either.
Loved the theme; it was helpful to the solve.
Fave word of the day: ABUELA (learned from 'Breaking Bad').
Learned DOULA from previous xwords. It's now a gimme.
I pray that all the countries/peoples represented by those UN FLAGS can find ways to bring peace and prosperity to our world! 🕊 🙏
Very enjoyable journey, and no BOO BOOs to BOOt! :)
@Anonymous (9:51 AM)
I'd say your time for today's puz is very good, considering the fact that you're just getting started with xwords. You've got a bright solving future ahead of you! :) ___ Croce's 794 was med. (just shy of 2 hrs). It was easy-med. until the SW substantially upped the difficulty level (whew!).
On to Elizabeth Gorski's New Yorker Mon. 🤞 ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Love reading the theme entries aloud. They sound like you're trying to start a lawnmower. Such a fun puzzle to solve.
Last square of course was PAM/PROBST -- the old NYTXW starlet double cross.
M&A has plenty of weejects today. Probably a necessary result of the theme.
Uniclues:
1 Unheralded woman selling lapel pins, bumper decals, and iron-on patches in a tourist trinket shop outside the mosque. 2 Why we tell people you're walking funny after "stubbing your toe." 3 Dude showing up even more tardy to rehearsal and thereby making you look less bad. 4 Underestimating the power of the median to grab your tires and flip you onto your roof.
1 MECCA FLAGS PAM 2 OUR TABOO BOOBOO (~) 3 LATER MEMBER 4 SWERVE SNAFU (~)
Almost felt like a joke puzzle that would be run on April Fool’s Day but it’s a little too early for that so I guess it was for real. Not that there’s anything wrong with that AT ALL.
GRAPEFRUIT did make me wonder why such a tiny little orb would have somehow gotten paired up with another one that is many times its size. Thanks to @LMS who so graciously provided the answer, now I don’t have to look that up. And I tried my best to get @GILL’s famous FANDANGO TANGO to fit in 46 across with all those A’s. Oh so close but no Cuban cigar.
Trivia question for the day: What make and model was the burnt UMBER vehicle in the movie Fargo?
Playful Amusing Imaginative Different Very well-clued...and... Challenging for a Tuesday.
Loved it! And now some random thoughts:
*Re "TSPS" as "Largest in a set of kitchen measures"? Really? I mean you have your half-cups and your cups and even your gallons and all I have to say is "Can you spare it?" I think I'll eat at someone else's house, thank you very much.
*I had "PER???" for "End of story!" and my first thought was PERISH! Do you think perhaps the news depresses me or what?
"Step on it!" Ah, yes: the now-famous NYT quirk of showing -- by means of an exclamation point -- that you're cluing a noun with the verb that's being done to it. But an exclamation point is traditionally used to show excitement or surprise or emphasis or some other Big Emotion. And I can't of anything less exciting than stepping on a MAT. Can you? Making the clue therefore seem absurd.
But what a delightful puzzle! Hope to be seeing more from you, Michael! (And now I'll use the exclamation point correctly.)
I've done a fair amount of CHA CHA but somehow I can't imagine doing one in a DACHA. Do you suppose Putin would be amused? I looked at TABOO BOO BOO and thought about that show I accidentally watched called Honey Boo Boo. UHOH. Is this what we're into? My ears hear things differently. QATAR is pronounced like cutter and TARTAR sounds like tahr tahr. Am I the only one? I'm afraid I groaned today. I like to laugh; I like the absurd; I even like BUGS Bunny and SUPER MAN but today all I got were words that didn't sound like they rhymed to me. I like this: ABUELADOULA eating an UVA with HAMM and PAM.
1) Protect the modesty of the tiny critters in your tank 2) The reason we ended up with the Alpha version 3) Santa -- the year he was the one GETTING the gifts
Thanks, Loren, for alerting me to @Gill's wonderful DINE AND DASH story from yesterday. The weather at long last was gorgeous, I got home late, and I never got back to the blog. I would have missed it -- and it's a gem!
Funny themers. Like. As @Joe Dipinto already alluded to, M&A was kinda relieved they let TEPEE be and didn't use it to start up a theme answer.
staff weeject pick: PAW. Has PAWPAW theme-power (as @Lewis already mentioned). And yep, @Gary Jugert … nice crop of 20 of the lil darlins, today. Primo weeject stacks in the NE & SW, and near stacks in the NW & SE.
Figured out the theme mcguffin quick, at TABOOBOOBOO. Right before that point, was expectin to reveal a specific embarassin injury, but weren't exactly lookin forward to it. Somethin like SHAMBONESPUR, maybe? Dunno. Luved LEMURMURMUR. [leharharhar]
some faves: FLAGS on the LAPEL (also already mentioned). SWERVE. DOULA. SUPERMAN. GEOMETRY and clue. QUOTA. ALASKA [kinda surprised it didn't get a GEOMETRY-like clue]. SNAFU.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Lieberman manman. Nice job. (Is there an echo in here?)
Someone just sent me one of those emails with silly sayings, so in honor of 66A: "My teacher told me not to worry about spelling because in the future there will always be autocorrect, for which I'm eternally grapefruit."
@okanaganer (1:56 PM) I'm hearing just the faintest strains of scary music...!
Add me to those who enjoyed the echo effect, especially the LEMUR MUR MUR trailing off over the edge of the grid. That high point was balanced by QATAR TARTAR, which satisfied the requirement for a real groaner in this sort of theme. Anyway: fun. I enjoyed the surprise of CLOAK, which to me seems more Transylvanian than a regular cape, and of SCOURED where I'd expected SCOPED.
@Sir Hillary (10:00) You must be referring to DOULA/ALOUD. Great catch! For any five-letter word there are 44 permutations of the letters where all the letters are in different positions. It's not too rare for one of those strings to be a word.
I’m such a sucker for this type of theme. I often spend a long time after the solve trying to think of other similar possibilities (hi @LMS!). For me, solving gives me a relationship with the constructor. What sparked the idea for the theme? How many theme answers were tried before the grid worked? And on and on.
Words and language fascinate me. Maybe it’s the 40 years of choosing my words so carefully for maximum persuasion and impact, maybe it’s the upbringing to speak clearly without slang. Probably both, but the creative process of a themed puzzle constructor fascinates me. So I enjoyed this one.
The theme actually was obvious for me at TABOO BOO BOO only because I had such a slow start. Heck, not even slow-absolute brain freeze. Wanted MECCA but was stumped with the rest of the. NW acrosses. The downs and breezing through FLAGS, LAPEL across and FLORETS, LAO and APB down and I got it. There’s a silly theme here! After that, I looked forward to seeing what else was in store. I freely admit that both DACHA CHA-CHA and LEMUR MURMUR gave me a chuckle.
Another comment that makes me feel old. Alcoa use to advertise a lot and was a very well known name. Until your comment, I thought it was still well known! Stands for ALuminum COmpany of America btw. Also thought the puzzle was easy and got the theme right away.
I cracked LEMURMURMUR first out of the theme answers, so I did actually get some enjoyment from that first break. Saying LEMURMURMUR out loud is nice. I think I liked it more than Rex, overall, but LEMURMURMUR really is so much better than the rest.
Just wanted to compliment Mr. Lieberman for the Superman clue. As a long time comic book and original comic art collector I thought it quite clever that the clue was 38 down, 1938 being the year of the Man of Tomorrow’s first appearance.
@Anonyomous 9:51 AM: Sorry to see that you got only one response to your question, but on this blog, if you're not one of the long-time regulars, you won't get any responses to anything.
Your 11-minute time is excellent for a beginner! Tuesday puzzles are usually a bit easier than this one was--you'll note that Rex rated it "Medium" for a Tuesday--and it had a tricky theme. So I'd say you did extremely well. I've been solving for years and my time on Tuesday was 8:28. I found it quite challenging.
I hope you keep solving. Crosswords are such a joy! And enjoy Rex's daily column, even if no one ever responds to your posts.
The first themer looked obvious. As I filled it in I hoped there'd be more than just repeated sounds.
There wasn't.
So not ALOT of joy for this one, though the fill did its best to uphold things. Just rewatched SUPERMAN last night, and here he is. I noticed--for the first time--that John Williams wrote the excellent score. Finally, when I got down to LEMURMURMUR I just knew we'd be inundated with terminally cute videos of the li'l critters. That was cool, but too little too late. Par.
@spacecraft - I don't mind you mentioning your wordle score, but no spoilers please. I do the syndicated NYTXW first, read Rex and comments, then look at wordle. Lucky I was too busy to read Rex earlier today. I got a par today, and got the same 3 letters first.
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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73 comments:
Over-critical, methinks, Rex. I found it sweet and hilarious. Like a lychee heehee.
Forget about consulting Google. That S- is going AI, which as anyone who has been paying attention the last couple weeks has learned, it cannot be F-ing trusted. It's like the mild, almost believable version of whatever crap Fox News is spouting today, massaged to accept whatever you don't respond to negatively. (Scream!)
4D was CLOAK? Really? WTF? That should have been CAPE but the puzz wanted a 5-letter word! (Pardon while I Dracula-cough into my elbow.)
Nice to know I could fill in 38D with absolutely no crosses.
As is my habit for early-week puzzles, I solved without reading the clues for the long acrosses. I got most of 17A from crosses and enough of 30A that I knew that the last nine letters were repeating three-letter groups. That let me fill in all but two letters of the last two themers. I liked the puzzle a lot more than @Rex because I had the extra fun of guessing what the definitions would be. My fave was DACHA CHA-CHA, because it's fun to say.
I found it easy except for the AVEDA/DOULA cross, which I solved by trial and error. Clever theme, but once the repeating syllables became evident it wasn't hard. I liked the cluing on QATARTARTAR.
I will never, ever get tired of themes like this. It just floats my boat to wonder how many whatevers you can get in a row. Unlike Rex, I stumbled onto the trick really early with QATAR TARTAR, and I settled in to enjoy uncovering the others.Then I played around with trying to get four in a row, like wearing a TABOO BOO-BOO BOOtie to hide the embarrassing injury. Or the QATAR TARTAR TARget. I forgave DACHA CHA-CHA and QATAR TARTAR their pronunciation changes because just seeing the three same-letter iterations in a row pleased me so much. I will add that it could be actually the DACHA CHA-CHA-CHA. So those guys could participate in a DACHA CHA-CHA-CHA CHAllenge. Snort.
It was fun to imagine other possibilities: Yoga Gaga, crumbling bling-bling, viscous couscous, white knight night-night. The person who regularly screenshots hot shot. Ahem. That would be me. Hi, George Clooney.
CLOAK went right in, no prob.
I buy that big bag of Birds Eye broccoli FLORETS, but for the life of me, I can’t say FLORET. I mean, I know it’s supposed to rhyme with floor it, but still. I panic and get all wobbly. Nothing a glass of claret won’t help, right?
I just investigated, and it seems that we call it GRAPEfruit ‘cause Jamaicans thought they grew in bunches like GRAPEs. Mystery solved. Did they invent GRAPEnuts, too? […checking…] Nope. Seems that C.W. Post ran the baked cereal through a coffee grinder and decided that the results looked like GRAPE seeds. (Silent prayer of thanks that he didn’t think they looked like little Hercules beetles.) And then there’s the GRAPE fern. . . ok I’ll stop.
I’ll leave you with this. LEMURs are the best.
PS - @GILL I– epic story of your DINE AND DASH! I was on the edge of my seat!
It was enjoyable for about 30 seconds until I hit the NE where I encountered the nonsensical PROBEST/ABUELA tandem crossing the MUNCH and GRIER duo and it was party over. And that theme - jeez, do away with the freakin themes for heaven’s sake. Hard pass on this one today.
I would say that offering to CO-SIGN would be considered giving support to EFFORTS to acquire a loan. When you actually CO-SIGN, the loan has already been acquired. Definitely a small nit though here in CrossWorld (well the NYT’s parallel version of CrossWorld, where stuff like ABUELA and lame themes are pretty much a mainstay).
I agree that the theme was a little clunkily executed on this one. I cracked it with QATAR TARTAR, and got the old classic “Is That All There Is?” stuck in my head.
I did like a lot of the fill, with some distinctive cluing making up for a fair amount of crosswordese. UMBER is a nice kealoa, as I imagine lots of us had the same progression as Rex - ochER to amBER before the right answer. Plus, it makes me think of an incredible pair of characters in The Magicians book series, Umber and Ember.
From yesterday, @Beezer, glad you have that space; what I wouldn’t have done for any outdoor space when living back in Brooklyn. Heck, I’d had settled for being able to glimpse the sky. And @Carola, though I’m sure you’re being modest, it’s truly incredible what a bit of tending can do to keep well-curated plantings year after year, isn’t it? I’m excited to see if the somewhat neglected hydrangea, lilac, and peony that inherited from the previous tenants last year will reward my ministrations over the past year with more abundant blooming this spring. I also spend a lot of time encouraging my plants - I’ve been known to tell the bearer of especially magnificent fall foliage “good job, tree!” And I tell off whoever is coming for my garden - insects, chipmunks, squirrels, deer. We’re also in zone 5a, so I think spring ephemerals will be coming along not too far from now - love trout lilies! I have a couple of local herbalist friends so I’m hoping to be let in on a good ramp spot (for sustainable, limited harvesting for personal use only, of course!). Living rurally with 60+ inches of snowfall so far this season, I’m really feeling why there are so many rituals to welcome in Spring this year.
Fortunately, I have learned DOULA from crosswords, or I surely would have wound with with an 'n' in that cross with AVE_A.
In the book at least, Dracula most definitely wears a cloak:
I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes.
And while we're at it:
The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
All on a summer's day;
The Knave of Hearts, he stole the tarts,
And took them clean away.
This puzzle reminds me of what my old girlfriends used to say about me: "Fun while it lasted, but it didn't last long."
I thought it was pretty easy actually. getting the theme helped fill in most of the other theme answers without many crosses Anyhoo, Never heard of ALCOA. and I don’t think I’ll remember it. But yeah, quick and easy for me.
Cute theme - like @LMS thought it was wacky enough for some chuckles. What’s not to like about TABOO BOO BOO? No idea on PROBST - can see some bitching about the AVEDA x DOULA cross early week.
ABUELitA
Down with the big guy on UMBER being pulled from the Crayola pack. Not down with an obviously learned and bright person relying on Google hits for justification. CABLE CAR reminds me of those old Rice a Roni commercials. DECADENT and DAPPER are solid Tuesday entries.
English Beat
As @Joaquin elegantly opined - this was a quick one but an enjoyable Tuesday solve.
The Killer
Oh, well, that is one uber-fun theme – after getting the first theme answer, I tried to guess the remaining ones with as few crosses as possible, making it more of a puzzle than just filling in the squares. I did get one just off the clue itself (the CHA CHA one) and basked in the triumph.
This theme is uber-tight, with the theme answers’ first words being five letters, and the second words being six, not to mention giving these answers fun and coherent clues. By the way, if you’re interested in seeing repeated words of all letter counts (including BLINGBLING, HUBBAHUBBA, FROUFROU, etc.) you can go here: https://jeff560.tripod.com/words19.html .
In the finished grid itself, I like seeing those FLAGS pinned onto the LAPEL. And, echoing the theme, there’s PAW which can be repeated to make another word, and LATER, which made me think of “Bye!”, half of “bye-bye”.
Loved your creation, Michael. It woke me up and sent me smiling into the day. Thank you so much for this!
Sadly, I remember the GEOMETRY joke from my 8th grade algebra teacher. It was so awful that it stuck with me all these years.
Followed by, “what do numbers do when it starts to rain? COINCIDE!”
That was a brutal year - he had an infinite number (get it? God, what’s happening here?) of such gems…
Best puzzle of the last year! Get with it Rex, baby!!
Enjoyably silly. My fave: TABOOBOOBOO, having experienced a few of those. Same prob as OFL with ocher, amber and, finally, umber. As Tuesdays go, not bad.
SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY, you’re getting boring with the daily, predictable complaints you make about common foreign words, the use of which, BTW, are not peculiar to the NYT puzzles.
@kitshef: The version I've heard...
The Queen of Hearts, she made some farts,
All on a summer's day;
The Knave of Hearts, he smelt those farts,
And fainted dead away.
@LMS - I especially love your avatar today! ;-)
I've learned to leave "earthy pigments" alone until I have a cross or two. I don't even enter the ER in case it's gonna be spelled OCHRE today.
I was confident that "one of clubs" would be "golfer" and felt pretty smug that I got that quickly with no crosses. Usually when I get that smug feeling it's a sign of a minor humbling to come, and today was no exception.
Matriarch of the fruit orchard: BANANA NANA.
I love a lemur--whether natural or Sacha Baron Cohen-voiced--and also love the sound of 59A, my favorite. I had the last three themers filled in and knew the trick, but for the life of me, I couldn't get 17A and had to run the alphabet, *finally* seeing MAT for "Step on it!" Duh. The language of little kids always trips me up--BOOBOO, OWIE, OWEE, etc., and this one was no exception.
UMBER. Burnt. Had "ochre," had "ocher," finally got it. As Rex noted, more or less, I don't think I've ever seen or heard that color mentioned outside the Crayola box. And I've been to Tuscany!
Enjoyed the solve for the most part, even with my right-on-average time, with the exception of ELKS (I don't care what the nonprescriptive dictionaries have to say--it's "elk," dammit!). I liked the math joke. Beautiful construction and a fun ride.
It's an easy game
Felt right at home here. With my reduplicative name, I’m ready to fall right in with reduplicative words. I thought the themers were entertaining enough, but the repetition certainly made the puzzle easy once you cottoned on. Which I did almost immediately at TABOO BOO-BOO because I solved a lot of the early downs first thing. Unlike Rex, I liked DACHA CHA-CHA a lot. Somebody said that the pronunciation's off, but it isn’t – the CH in DACHA is pronounced the same as the CH in CHA-CHA. Here’s an entertaining article about reduplicative words that takes you through the alphabet.
I think my only error was “aye aye” for YES SIR [Soldier’s affirmative]. I guess I was trying to extend the theme. I wondered afterwards whether soldiers do say “aye aye,” but apparently it’s only people serving in the Navy and Marines. Interesting (and logical) distinction – “aye aye” is the correct response to an order (“I understand and will comply”) while YES (or no), SIR is the necessary response to a yes/no question.
Hah, @Weezie, Ember and UMBER! I haven’t read the books, but did watch the TV series.
“The world is made up, for the most part, of fools and KNAVEs, both irreconcileable foes to truth,” said George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, favorite (and probably lover) of James I (early seventeenth century). Living at court, he undoubtedly encountered more than his fair share of both. It's a statement that never loses its currency.
UNICLUES:
1. Use trick lighting to make the aquarium look empty when the cat starts to get too interested.
2. The second letter of the Greek alphabet tarted up in fancy script.
3. Narrowly miss ramming your boss’s car in the parking lot while sexting with your girlfriend.
4. Result of aluminum company’s attempt to introduce tropical plant gel into the manufacturing process.
5. General atmosphere after the fifth round of spiked eggnog.
6. Club meeting participant who’s not just tardy but dead.
1. CLOAK FISHES
2. BETA DECADENT
3. SNAFU SWERVE
4. ALOE ALCOA MESS
5. MORE-SO MERRY
6. LATER MEMBER
[SB: Sun and Mon, 0. My last words yesterday were this wonderful pair.]
Clue: Barrier constructed in the style of a city in Washington."
Answer: WALLALAWALLAWALLA
Sorry for that, friends.
Hey All !
Alternate 33D clue:
Something you don't want to sleep with?
Nice tripling thingies. Tough to find good examples. Got a big chuckle out of @LMS viscous couscous! Good stuff.
Tough little section in East-Center. AVEDA/DOULA cross was a guess. Guessed wrong. Put in an N (isn't AVENA something?), then an R, T, finally ran the alphabet, thankfully it was early in the run!
Puz PASSED QUOTA for a TuesPuz.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Doing Wordle Sunday, I tried DECOR and got five yellows. The word was CREDO. What a pair of words! Not only anagrams of each other but anagrams where each letter is in a different position. I posted this late yesterday, hoping that someone would know something about pairs of words like these. No responses yet.
I am new to crosswords and just found this blog. I don't have a feel for how quickly I should be solving these. Took me 11 minutes to finish. Is that good, bad or meh?
Cute enough, but the theme feels too rudimentary and with too many options. The following took me about 2 minutes to conjure up:
-- Chocolate confection from Libreville?
-- Indigenous North African born on Halloween?
-- Siena rendition of a music hall dance? (Ed: LMS's avatar does this better)
-- "Inferno" author's family jewels?
These are nothing special, which is the point. Rex is spot-on today -- themes like these need to knock it out of the park.
Nice to see DOULA. My youngest wants to make that her full-time profession, with a focus on underserved communities. Truly noble work, and I am so proud of her, but the economic prospects make me nervous.
Surprised remark at learning that it costs to see the Taj Mahal?
GEOGRAPHY
Bathroom break in a conical dwelling? TEPEE...
Gladys
Duke
@mathgent 9:26AM -- Today's NYTXW has a word that, in Wordle, could have the same pattern as DECOR/CREDO. :)
A few more:
Why me, God– why?" in Mecca?
GEOLOGY
"Look! A tiny insect, my French friend!"?
ANATOMY
"Are you getting a cold?" "No, it's just _____"?
ANALOGY
To appease Rex, maybe rewrite 30A as: Certain middle-east country's raw meat specialty?
Not sure what can be done with Dachachacha without changing the grid
I went schussing down the West coast and ran into the DACHACHACHA, which gave away the trick, so I finished up that side and went straight back up to the TABOOBOOBOO, which was now obvious. Finding the other themers was fun, at least for me. I also learned, thanks to the puzzle and @Barbara S, that I've been pronouncing DACHA wrong forever (k sound). Fortunately, it's a word I don't pronounce very often.
Here's mine: Colorful bird dance.
TOUCANCANCAN.
Oye @GILL I-Your story reminded me of one I wrote for a composition class in college after I got back from Spain. It was about a trip we took as a group out into the wilds of Extremadura and going out at night with some locals to a dance. I got into it with a knife fighter and the the Guardia Civil came and broke the whole thing up. I got an A on my story which was amusing because I made most of it up, although some of the stuff I have actually done makes me wonder how I'm still around .
I liked your wordplay Tuesday just fine, ML, and More Like this wouldn't bother me at all. Thanks for all the fun.
Rex, I'm curious when you do Google searches if you're in incognito mode, or if your own search history is impacting the answers. Do you ever look at Google trends? I find that a pretty fascinating place for searching word use.
Yesterday there was a fish saying ‘dam’ and today an acorn exclaiming about turning into a ‘tree [try].’ Go figure.
As for ALCOA… it’s an acronym (sort of) for *Aluminum Company of America*. Re. the building:
The ALCOA building on Sixth Street in downtown Pittsburgh was originally the first headquarters for the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA). Opened in 1953 it was the first skyscraper (410 ft., 30 stories) with an all-aluminum facade & used aluminum for most of the construction. (Detractors at the time — there are always detractors when new, innovative buildings are being built! — said it looked like “old television screens stacked on top of each other”.). When ALCOA HQ relocated to a different part of Pittsburgh in the early 2000s the use was converted to office / small business start-up / residential & the building was renamed Regional Enterprise Tower.
An iconic building to those growing up near Pittsburgh mid- 20th century.
Thx, Michael; you PASSED the test today. Nicely done! :)
Med+
Not quite a TREK, but 'no walk in the park' either.
Loved the theme; it was helpful to the solve.
Fave word of the day: ABUELA (learned from 'Breaking Bad').
Learned DOULA from previous xwords. It's now a gimme.
I pray that all the countries/peoples represented by those UN FLAGS can find ways to bring peace and prosperity to our world! 🕊 🙏
Very enjoyable journey, and no BOO BOOs to BOOt! :)
@Anonymous (9:51 AM)
I'd say your time for today's puz is very good, considering the fact that you're just getting started with xwords. You've got a bright solving future ahead of you! :)
___
Croce's 794 was med. (just shy of 2 hrs). It was easy-med. until the SW substantially upped the difficulty level (whew!).
On to Elizabeth Gorski's New Yorker Mon. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Love reading the theme entries aloud. They sound like you're trying to start a lawnmower. Such a fun puzzle to solve.
Last square of course was PAM/PROBST -- the old NYTXW starlet double cross.
M&A has plenty of weejects today. Probably a necessary result of the theme.
Uniclues:
1 Unheralded woman selling lapel pins, bumper decals, and iron-on patches in a tourist trinket shop outside the mosque.
2 Why we tell people you're walking funny after "stubbing your toe."
3 Dude showing up even more tardy to rehearsal and thereby making you look less bad.
4 Underestimating the power of the median to grab your tires and flip you onto your roof.
1 MECCA FLAGS PAM
2 OUR TABOO BOOBOO (~)
3 LATER MEMBER
4 SWERVE SNAFU (~)
Almost felt like a joke puzzle that would be run on April Fool’s Day but it’s a little too early for that so I guess it was for real. Not that there’s anything wrong with that AT ALL.
GRAPEFRUIT did make me wonder why such a tiny little orb would have somehow gotten paired up with another one that is many times its size. Thanks to @LMS who so graciously provided the answer, now I don’t have to look that up. And I tried my best to get @GILL’s famous FANDANGO TANGO to fit in 46 across with all those A’s. Oh so close but no Cuban cigar.
Trivia question for the day: What make and model was the burnt UMBER vehicle in the movie Fargo?
I found the theme entertaining and cute
Thumbs WAY up for a puzzle that's...
Playful
Amusing
Imaginative
Different
Very well-clued...and...
Challenging for a Tuesday.
Loved it! And now some random thoughts:
*Re "TSPS" as "Largest in a set of kitchen measures"? Really? I mean you have your half-cups and your cups and even your gallons and all I have to say is "Can you spare it?" I think I'll eat at someone else's house, thank you very much.
*I had "PER???" for "End of story!" and my first thought was PERISH! Do you think perhaps the news depresses me or what?
"Step on it!" Ah, yes: the now-famous NYT quirk of showing -- by means of an exclamation point -- that you're cluing a noun with the verb that's being done to it. But an exclamation point is traditionally used to show excitement or surprise or emphasis or some other Big Emotion. And I can't of anything less exciting than stepping on a MAT. Can you? Making the clue therefore seem absurd.
But what a delightful puzzle! Hope to be seeing more from you, Michael! (And now I'll use the exclamation point correctly.)
I've done a fair amount of CHA CHA but somehow I can't imagine doing one in a DACHA. Do you suppose Putin would be amused?
I looked at TABOO BOO BOO and thought about that show I accidentally watched called Honey Boo Boo. UHOH. Is this what we're into?
My ears hear things differently. QATAR is pronounced like cutter and TARTAR sounds like tahr tahr. Am I the only one?
I'm afraid I groaned today. I like to laugh; I like the absurd; I even like BUGS Bunny and SUPER MAN but today all I got were words that didn't sound like they rhymed to me.
I like this: ABUELADOULA eating an UVA with HAMM and PAM.
An owie on Yogi's pal: BOO-BOO BOO-BOO
Response to a nocturnal lemur sea captain: AYE-AYE, AYE-AYE
@Gill I - I'm with you on 'cutter'. Or sometimes 'cutta'. I would say I hear TARTAR most often pronounced as 'tar-der'.
Never try to make a critic laugh. This was cute and quick. A fun Tuesday. I forgive you for that AVEDA DOULA cross.
* Bird that pretends to be flightless
* Candy with a kick
* A real doozy from Southern Africa
* PSEUDO DODO
* BOURBON BONBON
* ZULU LULU
Uniclues:
1) Protect the modesty of the tiny critters in your tank
2) The reason we ended up with the Alpha version
3) Santa -- the year he was the one GETTING the gifts
1) CLOAK FISHES
2) BETA DECADENT
3) MORESO MERRY
It is customary for math jokes to abuse the concept of "joke".
Thanks, Loren, for alerting me to @Gill's wonderful DINE AND DASH story from yesterday. The weather at long last was gorgeous, I got home late, and I never got back to the blog. I would have missed it -- and it's a gem!
Medium. No problem with this one. Solid and mildly amusing, liked it.
@GILL. I - Great story yesterday!
Malian ballerina's attire?
TIMBUKTUTUTU
Nebraskan's response to a joke?
OMAHAHAHA
One who fails to pick up on sly hints?
INNUENDODODO
Brilliant!
Funny themers. Like.
As @Joe Dipinto already alluded to, M&A was kinda relieved they let TEPEE be and didn't use it to start up a theme answer.
staff weeject pick: PAW. Has PAWPAW theme-power (as @Lewis already mentioned). And yep, @Gary Jugert … nice crop of 20 of the lil darlins, today. Primo weeject stacks in the NE & SW, and near stacks in the NW & SE.
Figured out the theme mcguffin quick, at TABOOBOOBOO. Right before that point, was expectin to reveal a specific embarassin injury, but weren't exactly lookin forward to it. Somethin like SHAMBONESPUR, maybe? Dunno.
Luved LEMURMURMUR. [leharharhar]
some faves: FLAGS on the LAPEL (also already mentioned). SWERVE. DOULA. SUPERMAN. GEOMETRY and clue. QUOTA. ALASKA [kinda surprised it didn't get a GEOMETRY-like clue]. SNAFU.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Lieberman manman. Nice job. (Is there an echo in here?)
Masked & Anonymo8Us
**gruntz**
33d - You don't want to sleep with them
Starting today my drag name will be AMEDA DOULA from now on!
I think we had an identical theme not too many months ago.
I finished with a silly error: AVEMA crossing DOUMA. I must have been thinking of AVEENO; my cosmetics knowledge is minimal.
I fondly remember the Munch Museum in OSLO... multiple versions of the famous "Scream"! (Note: he's pronounced "Moonk".)
[Spelling Bee: identical to @Barbara S 9:11 am, Sun and Mon 0, and same 2 last words yesterday!]
Someone just sent me one of those emails with silly sayings, so in honor of 66A: "My teacher told me not to worry about spelling because in the future there will always be autocorrect, for which I'm eternally grapefruit."
@okanaganer (1:56 PM)
I'm hearing just the faintest strains of scary music...!
Add me to those who enjoyed the echo effect, especially the LEMUR MUR MUR trailing off over the edge of the grid. That high point was balanced by QATAR TARTAR, which satisfied the requirement for a real groaner in this sort of theme. Anyway: fun. I enjoyed the surprise of CLOAK, which to me seems more Transylvanian than a regular cape, and of SCOURED where I'd expected SCOPED.
@Sir Hillary (10:00) You must be referring to DOULA/ALOUD. Great catch! For any five-letter word there are 44 permutations of the letters where all the letters are in different positions. It's not too rare for one of those strings to be a word.
I’m such a sucker for this type of theme. I often spend a long time after the solve trying to think of other similar possibilities (hi @LMS!). For me, solving gives me a relationship with the constructor. What sparked the idea for the theme? How many theme answers were tried before the grid worked? And on and on.
Words and language fascinate me. Maybe it’s the 40 years of choosing my words so carefully for maximum persuasion and impact, maybe it’s the upbringing to speak clearly without slang. Probably both, but the creative process of a themed puzzle constructor fascinates me. So I enjoyed this one.
The theme actually was obvious for me at TABOO BOO BOO only because I had such a slow start. Heck, not even slow-absolute brain freeze. Wanted MECCA but was stumped with the rest of the. NW acrosses. The downs and breezing through FLAGS, LAPEL across and FLORETS, LAO and APB down and I got it. There’s a silly theme here! After that, I looked forward to seeing what else was in store. I freely admit that both DACHA CHA-CHA and LEMUR MURMUR gave me a chuckle.
I say well done Michael Lieberman!
Another comment that makes me feel old. Alcoa use to advertise a lot and was a very well known name. Until your comment, I thought it was still well known! Stands for ALuminum COmpany of America btw.
Also thought the puzzle was easy and got the theme right away.
I'm always amazed at the number of people that don't realize ALCOA derives from ALuminum COmpany of America. It seems like an apt acronym to me.
I cracked LEMURMURMUR first out of the theme answers, so I did actually get some enjoyment from that first break. Saying LEMURMURMUR out loud is nice. I think I liked it more than Rex, overall, but LEMURMURMUR really is so much better than the rest.
Thanks for explaining the acorn “joke”
Clue: "Naval war strategy meeting in New Jersey."
Answer: SECAUCUSSEACAUCUS.
Sorry again, friends.
STEAD/DATES?
REAPS/PARSE/SPEAR
Just wanted to compliment Mr. Lieberman for the Superman clue. As a long time comic book and original comic art collector I thought it quite clever that the clue was 38 down, 1938 being the year of the Man of Tomorrow’s first appearance.
@Anonyomous 9:51 AM: Sorry to see that you got only one response to your question, but on this blog, if you're not one of the long-time regulars, you won't get any responses to anything.
Your 11-minute time is excellent for a beginner! Tuesday puzzles are usually a bit easier than this one was--you'll note that Rex rated it "Medium" for a Tuesday--and it had a tricky theme. So I'd say you did extremely well. I've been solving for years and my time on Tuesday was 8:28. I found it quite challenging.
I hope you keep solving. Crosswords are such a joy! And enjoy Rex's daily column, even if no one ever responds to your posts.
The answer was TBSP and it is indeed the largest one in a set of measuring spoons.
The first themer looked obvious. As I filled it in I hoped there'd be more than just repeated sounds.
There wasn't.
So not ALOT of joy for this one, though the fill did its best to uphold things. Just rewatched SUPERMAN last night, and here he is. I noticed--for the first time--that John Williams wrote the excellent score. Finally, when I got down to LEMURMURMUR I just knew we'd be inundated with terminally cute videos of the li'l critters. That was cool, but too little too late. Par.
Wordle bogey; trouble with all the _O_ERs.
Well-crafted and it made me laugh a bit. What’s not to like?
A MESS
SUPERMAN made a BOOBOO,
A SNAFU, MORESO in QATAR,
YESSIR, you know it’s TABOO
to let MERRY drive A CAR.
--- PAM HAMM
Well-crafted. Except for maybe DACHACHACHA which works visually but not phonetically. Other than that, it was really good IMHO.
Hawaiian dress worn by a famous killer whale? SHAMUMUMU
@Anonymous 2:22pm:
It works just fine phonetically! I speak Russian.
@spacecraft - I don't mind you mentioning your wordle score, but no spoilers please. I do the syndicated NYTXW first, read Rex and comments, then look at wordle. Lucky I was too busy to read Rex earlier today. I got a par today, and got the same 3 letters first.
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