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Color-matching puzzle game with billions of downloads / TUE 4-11-23 / Spiritual leader who rides in a customized car / Uberfan in modern lingo / Acronym for a champion among champions / Cola brand with a lightning bolt in its logo / Teen drama that inspired Laguna Beach
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Constructor: Taylor Johnson and Jeff Chen
Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
- "WANT A PIECE OF ME?" (16A: Famous fighting words)
- ORGANIC PRODUCT (23A: Item made of ingredients grown without pesticides)
- CANDY CRUSH SAGA (43A: Color-matching puzzle game with billions of downloads)
2: the ultimate ground of all being in Hinduism (merriam-webster.com)
• • •
The highlight of the puzzle for me was MONDEGREEN. There was a point in the '90s when this word became popularized and books of MONDEGREENs were published and everything (this was *just* before the Internet went wide, if I recall). "'Scuse me / While I kiss this guy" (instead of "kiss the sky," from "Purple Haze") is paradigmatic. Everyone has their own collection of MONDEGREENs they've amassed over the years, though the lyrics may be so "real" to you that you don't even know you've got 'em wrong. I mean, for well over a decade I thought that in "Keep on Lovin' You," REO Speedwagon was singing "Instead you laid still in your dress / All coiled up in Houston" before I realized, sometime in the late '90s (?!) that they were just using a standard snake metaphor ("Instead you laid still in the grass / All coiled up and hissing"). Your brain is very happy to "Insert Nonsense Here" when the words don't quite make sense. Or my brain is, anyway. It's a fun if occasionally dangerous kind of brain to have.
Really don't like the THE on THE POPE. Like, really really. "THE O.C.," yes, THE POPE, no. But the rest of it is pretty sharp and sassy for a Tuesday, even if I did have to endure ATTILA for the second time in as many days. "CAN I GO?" is nice, and it gave me a little trouble—I got the "O" first and thought "??? What ends in 'O'"?). I like that Saoirse RONAN was sitting (aptly) under FLICK. Overall, I don't know if the fill was AMAZING, but it was pretty good. NY GIANT is a bit weird, since you would only write that, never say it (as opposed to, say, L.A. DODGER). GIANT would be a perfectly good answer here. And NY GIANT is singular, which is also weird—there are logos out there that have the name stylized NY GIANTS, but only in the plural. But still, it’s a viable answer. So OK. It's very pop culture-y, this crossword, but in ways that I found really accessible. From Dua LIPA to "Clueless"'s CHER to ARI Aster to Janelle MONAE to JODI Picoult to STAN, all the pop stuff seemed Tuesday-familiar to me. OK, that's all. gotta run. See you tomorrow.
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130 comments:
Hand up for thinking "Well, yes, those answers do cross the grid, but ... so what?" and then getting on with my day.
My personal Mondegreen dates from when I was very young and Kate Smith had a daytime variety show on TV. Her theme song was "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain." The second line of the song goes, "Every dream brings a dream, dear, of you." Only I heard it as "Every dream brings a dreamdeer in view."
What's a dreamdeer, you might ask? Well, if there are reindeer ...
I always thought the line in Helen Reddy’s 1972 song “I Am Woman” was “…but it squeezed out all the pain.” Many years later I learned the line is “…but it’s wisdom learned from pain.”
Saw Jeff Chen’s name and was concerned that we might be in for one of those convoluted, “trying to hard” jobs that gets all gummed up. Well, we certainly got the “convoluted non-themed theme” box checked right away. Nice concept for a Tuesday - NOT. Say goodby to all of the newbies who won’t be back after feeling so welcome to the party yesterday.
Nice job of BELA crossing BRAHMA - a Bartok crossing a Hindu god. That’s definitely what most people look forward to as they are sitting down to their morning cup of coffee.
I think I actually played Candy Crush probably 5-10 years ago - don’t remember any of the specifics (omg, I just checked - I still have the app on my phone, lol). I wonder how many people will pick up on that one.
So out of my way culturally---Mondegreen, Lipa, Ari, Candy Crush--that it felt like a triumph to finish it, even though it's just a Tuesday.
"And the piano sounds like a power mower, and the microphone smells like a beer".
Downs only. Only real problem was having to guess at ARI at 6D (could have been ELI, for all I knew).
I was Clueless during the solve about the theme. Post-solve, looked at the clue for 54A that’s definitely clever.
Yet another day where my relative lack of interest in themers saved the puzzle for me, I suppose! I found this medium to a bit challenging, because I truly had no idea about MONDEGREEN or the fact that CANDY CRUSH SAGA is a color sorting game. Fairly clued, relatively fairly crossed, I just didn’t know them. I’m curious if other solvers who weren’t adults in the 90’s have the same knowledge gap re: MONDEGREEN. My partner did, but they’re savant-ish when it comes to words. Maybe it’s just me!
And a hand up for ORGANIC PRODUCe instead of PRODUCT… I had bypassed the TESLA down and had to check the whole puzzle to find that errant “e”.
I really loved the fill in general. Loved learning why UNITARIANS are called that, loved “That’s some nerve!”, and positively adored seeing a Clueless reference - one of the few movies I own. I’m sure some of it was wheelhouse bias, but I though the full was solid and sometimes sparkly, a lovely Tuesday.
♪The sky's in love with you ♪
Pope Week continues:
4/9 Gregory
4/10 Urban
4/11 THE POPE
Today we also have the rhyming LAMA and BRAHMA for religious balance. Plus, coincidentally, the Catholic-raised BÉLA Bartók converted to UNITARIANism later in life.
Initially I thought the W and E at the ends of the first theme answer represented West coast and East coast. And then I couldn't figure out why ORGANIC PRODUCE ended similarly with E (east) but started with O (occidental?) And then I realized it must be PRODUCT because EESLA didn't mean anything, and that it was state postal codes at the edges.
Not a mondegreen, but I always liked this line:
♪ Coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago ♪
I want there to be dreamdeer.
There’s a bathroom on the right.
Dreamdeer are real
My favorite character in “Silent Night”? Round John Virgin.
Good experience. I did the exact same thing with produce vs. product. I never saw the theme until I read today’s post. Thank you. That cleared that up.
What diminished my solving experience were the numerous extraneous state postal codes throughout the grid. 1A had 2! And at least one of the theme codes (CA) appeared elsewhere.
My partner *didn’t - they knew MONDEGREEN.
I believe
This is why Rex is the GOAT of crossword bloggers. If it were my blog, I’d have written a screed about what a boring theme this was, then been humiliated when a commenter mentioned that I missed the postal codes. I’ll bet very few of us got that before coming here.
I thought the theme was going to be something cool when I got WANT A PIECE OF ME off just a few crosses. But the second themer’s clue was boring so I didn’t know where this was going.
Not many other options since WA, OR and CA are the only West Coast states. Wait, AK is too, now that I think of it. How about, A KISS FROM MAMA? (This is why I am mot a constructor.)
I did not know the term MONDEGREEN but I love the idea of it. One of my many is “wrapped up like a douche” from “Spirits in the Night” (instead of “revved up like a deuce”). I hope every commenter posts one.
I also did not know that UNITARIANS don’t believe in the trinity, though it does make sense now that I know it. I just thought it was a quasi Christian church for liberals who want to meet like-minded souls without having to deal with Confession, you-will-burn-in-hell sermons and the like. That’s why I went to one when I moved to South Carolina, where like-minded souls were hard to find.
I think there's an additional element to this theme that makes it a bit tighter than Rex gives it credit for: ME is indeed roughly opposite WA, CT opposite OR, and GA opposite CA (among other states on the east coast in each case, but point is, it's valid). And it goes from north to south in that order. If you're going to do a postal code theme, I enjoy some semblance of geographic accuracy.
Isn’t it always “the NY football GIANTs”?
@Anonymous 7:17: I still hear the line that way! I didn't know the term for those mishears before now. And now I also know its etymology:
The word originates with journalist Sylvia Wright, who wrote a column in the 1950s in which she recounted hearing the Scottish folksong The Bonny Earl of Morray. Wright misheard the lyric "Oh, they have slain the Earl o' Morray and laid him on the green" and thought it was "Oh, they have slain the Earl o' Morray and Lady Mondegreen."
Enoyed the solve and didn't get the theme at all. Neither part.
Well, those postal codes flew right over my head. I wonder if I would have picked that up had I stared at the grid longer. But in any case, it’s there, and once it’s pointed out, it’s oh-yeah obvious, and I say, “Well played, gentlemen!”
An astute commenter on WordPlay noted the apt USPS in the puzzle’s final slot. I wonder if it was an intentional Easter egg, hinting toward those postal codes in the theme answers. Would one of the constructors like to chime in?
The mondegreen of my early early youth was in the song “Runaway” by Del Shannon, where what I heard was, “I’m a walkin’ in the rain / Through the groin I feel a pain”.
My Libra sense of balance was satisfied with ASSET, after Saturday’s TESSA, clued [Name that spells something nice to have backward]. It would have been uber-satisfied had ASSET been clued [Something nice to have that spells a name backward].
This grid had some spots of tug and rub for me, which is lovely to experience on a Tuesday. Thank you, Taylor and Jeff, for that, and thank you for getting me good on this theme. That will keep me on my toes.
The house of Radison
Two answers made me wonder, "Is the pope Unitarian?"
Could barely find the will to finish. Not just "low-key mad" about "organic" product, but seething mad. It's dangerous pseudoscience to continue the farce that "organic" products are pesticide free. They aren't. Not even a little bit. It's not just a dumb answer, it's a factually incorrect answer
Do MONDEGREENs have to be from song lyrics or can they be from ordinary conversation? In my youth a friend and I biked into town to *get peanut butter cups.* Seems really weird now that we'd make a special trip just for that; we weren't pot smokers. Maybe we bought some ORGANIC PRODUCe as well, it's hard to remember. Anyway, we bumped into another friend and told him of our mission, and he replied: "What? You came into town to get beat up by the cops?!?"
“Like a virgin, touched for the thirty-first time” - there’s an inside joke in our family about our second time doing anything being our “virginal experience,” so that one made me laugh out loud when I saw it emblazoned on a pint glass in a Facebook ad.
Enjoyed this one, but agree that PRODUCT rather than PRODUCe was a stretch too far to fit the theme.
Awkward shaped grids always throw me off at first. Agree that the theme appears to be an afterthought? It’s cute I guess but I can’t see building a puzzle around it. Overall fill is solid - limited short glue.
Chimes of FREEDOM
I think we saw MONDEGREEN a few years ago and @Z posted some details of it - makes for interesting discussions. Our friend STAN again. I liked UNITARIANS and BRAHMA. POPE without the THE could be anyone.
Agree with @anon 7:32a that in New York - GIANT fans always refer to their team as the NY football GIANTS. The baseball GIANTS left 65 years ago but it gives them the connection to the past.
As Clemenza said “leave the theme - take the fill”.
RAGgle TAGgle Gypsy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFpKs4FEITo
There’s a baboon on the right….
Couldn't finish it, even after cheating. A EURO is 100 cents (naturally, I had "Buck")? The NE was impossible for an old guy who isn't into popular culture. Never heard of MONDEGREEN. A theme that only the constructor will understand. Hardest Tuesday I can remember.
Got the postal code solution immediately but that was only thing of any significance I got. Rather than criticize these things unknown to me, decided to spend at least a few minutes learning about one. Picked STAN and learned it was from a piece by Eminem . A real delight!
Why the THE? Shouldn’t there be an AN before ORGANIC and a YOU before WANT?
Nice but challenging puzzle for me. Nice write-up, too.
The whole state abbreviations thing passed me by and I thought we had an essentially themeless Tuesday. Which I didn’t mind at all – pleasant puzzle – but I thought Rex would go into orbit. Sometimes it’s nice to be wrong. So it turns out to be a solid early-week theme, if a bit opaque. You wonder if it’s on the constructor or on the solver when a large number of people finish a puzzle without fully grasping the theme, but I really don’t see how the constructors could have made the theme any more explicit without giving the game away.
I loved the opening one-two punch of LAMA and LAM. Wish 8A had been clued/answered “Ovine youngsters.” RONAN was one of those things you don’t know you know. I saw “Saoirse” (pronounced SUR-shuh, btw, I have Irish roots) and immediately her last name popped into my head, although I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her in anything – missed Lady Bird. Found out that “pontiff” has the same number of letters as THE POPE. Lucky to have had no problem with BELA/BRAHMA – wheelhouse, I guess. I already had TESLA in place, so no thoughts of PRODUCe, although I see why people think it’s a better answer. Enjoyed [That’s some nerve!] for OPTIC and [The rain in Spain?] for AGUA. Was a bit disappointed in the [Battle cry in “Braveheart”] = FREEDOM. Was hoping for something a bit more colorful like “Skewer the bloody English bastards!” (I also have Scottish roots – and English.)
Petula Clark: “Listen to the rhythm of the crackers in the city” or sometimes when I really heard the F-sound “Listen to the rhythm of the catfish in the city.”
UNICLUES:
1. Maverick monk movie.
2. Actor Lugosi brought court action against Boris Karloff, who always got top billing.
3. Much of central and eastern Europe in the early 5th century.
4. Capricorn currency.
1. LAMA LAM FLICK
2. BELA SUED
3. ATTILA MAD ZONE
4. GOAT EURO
[SB: Sun and Mon -1. I’m going through a thoroughly aggravating period of missing obvious 4ers. Gotta get a grip.]
I give Jeff Chen a "POW" for this puzzle - pow, right in the kisser! Worst Tuesday theme ever.
But I do love me a MONDEGREEN or two.
"Now that you've gone, all that's left is a xylophone" (band of gold).
I count it as a conceptual DNF as I didn't get the state abbreviations. Shoulda paid more attention to the ZIP and USPS clue and entry. The theme fell a little flat for me otherwise, too, as I've never heard "WANT A PIECE OF ME?" and have no knowledge of CANDY CRUSH SAGA; as for ORGANIC PRODUCT.... Redeeming feature: RAGTAG.
Heard in church as a child: In "Onward, Christian Soldiers," "Christ the royal master leans against the phone" (= leads against the foe). Obviously from the olden days of wall phones.
Help from previous puzzles: MONDEGREEN, STAN, LIPA.
@JHC 7:26 - Thank you for pointing out the geographic elegance.
Found this tough, particularly for a Tuesday. I got there in the end, apart from alpha-bashing to get the last letter which was the bottom-right of the grid with 'S' of 'TBS' and 'USPS' - I thought acronyms weren't supposed to cross each other to help us Brits out who never know any of these. I wanted TBC and USPC which are equally plausible if you've no idea.
Also took me a while to work out what the theme was, it was a bit of a shrug but I thought it was fine overall.
Not being a constructor, I don’t typically comment on answer choices. (Clues - sure.) But today you can just see ORGANIC PRODUCT straining to be ORGANIC PRODUCE. When I wrote the T over the E, I did a double take, then a triple take, then cringed. Guess the powers that be really couldn’t find a way to make that E work and it shows. Pulled me out of an otherwise pleasant and run-of-the-mill Tuesday solving experience.
@Wanderlust – Right album, wrong song. “Wrapped up like a douche” is from Blinded by the Light. Tremendous album that I'm going to go listen to now.
Agreed! Plus you’ve got USPS in the bottom right corner giving it that final flourish.
If you’re filled with affection
You’re too shy to mate
Meditate on my erection
Feel your way!
I always wondered why Sandy sang about her erection.
Kind of a sticky Tuesday with the usual mysterious pop culture references. Hand up for PRODUCE and not knowing the SAGA appendix. The highlight had to be getting the revealer and then finding the state abbreviations which was the only way the revealer made sense and was a nice aha! and made the unknowns worthwhile.
Great to see ATTILA so soon again as I remembered how to spell it, Also great to see MONDEGREEN, as I'm familiar with quite a few and also its origin. One of my favorites comes from "God Bless America"--Stand beside her, and guide her, through the night with the light from a bulb.
Impressive theme and execution, TJ and JC. Took Just a little longer than usual and Jeez, Cut down on the pop culture, OK? Thanks for lots of fun.
Did downs first, so I got product instead of produce. Still missed the theme.
Make sure you 🎶Lock the cash box. Lock the cash box.
Hey All !
14 wide grid, in case no one's said it yet. So expect slightly faster times than your normal.
This had a bit of a bite for me. Didn't catch the State Abbrs. ends, so the COAST TO COAST thing only had the one-dimension of being grid-spanners. IMO, the Circles were needed today at the COAST ends. But then y'all'd be complaining that we didn't need the circles, we'd be able to figure it out... But how many Did figure it out? Not me, although that's a low bar.
Still making puzs, but have slowed way down, submitting one maybe three times a year now, as opposed to many over a month. Getting tired of rejections. Just got one today, on a Rebus puz that included the Circles in a design that fit the Rebus. AH ME. The email said (paraphrasing) " You're puz isn't up to snuff, we have plenty of ThursPuzs that don't suck hard like yours". Har, I made that last part up. But, dang, can I just get one in someday?
Self pitying aside, with the extra element of the Themers going from West Coast USA State Abbrs. to East Coast, moves the coolness of the puz up several notches. Too bad the ole brain didn't catch that.
Uniclue: (going across a row):
"Just worry about matching a four on this hole, Janelle."
PAR TOO, MONET
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
When my daughter was about 5, she sang My Country Tis of Thee thusly:
My country tizeree
Sweet land of liberee
Uh vee I sing
Land of my father eye
Land of the pilga pie
From every mountain sigh
Let freedom ring
"Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah, CRAZY the Lord!"
Ha. Haven't read THE 🦖 yet, but after a couple of years of reading THE blog, THE "theme" here ... well, it's a bad, isn't it. (OK, just read him and he grokked THE state abbreviations, but that doesn't make THE ORGANIC PRODUCT any better, does it?)
I did not know THE term MONDEGREEN and according to THE internet there's a broader coinage in EGGCORN. Apparently MONDEGREEN is specific to lyrics, while EGGCORN includes other types of miss-hearings.
My mom went to a crazy far right Christian church her entire life and they warned us against THE Unitarian plague sweeping THE country, because if you believe in everything, then you believe in nothing and will fall for anything. It's a classic strawman argument, but it turns out not many in her faith had taken an Intro to Logic course. To this day when I drive past THE Unitarian church down the street I imagine there's a Stepford Wives style seance going on in there preparing THE flock to sweep THE nation.
Uniclues:
1 Meandering monk at the movies.
2 RuPaul.
3 Rome.
1 LAMA LAM FLICK
2 THE DIVA POPE (~)
3 ATTILA MAD ZONE
“Hold me closer Tony Danza”
MONDEGREEN where have you been all my life?? Never saw the term before today, but if it was a '90s thing, we can't forget the one made famous on Friends about Elton John's Tiny Dancer:
"hold me closer, Tony Danza"...
https://youtu.be/4o2u2RjEFHo
Technically not a Mondegreen because you’re not singing it but David Niven, when he was young heard the Lord’s Prayer as “Our Father, which art a Niven…”
“I pledge allegiance to the flag, and to the republic for witches stands…” I recall my five-year old self asking my mom what the witches stood for.
Amy: totally oblivious to the states at both ends, even though I appreciated the ZIP clue. Liked it a lot; very lively Tuesday.
My MONDEGREEN offering:
All the lonely Starbucks lovers.
"Got a long list of ex-lovers" from Blank Space, Taylor Swift
I know Shortz is prioritizing novel, innovative theme concepts that haven't been done before, but sheesh. Just because it's new doesn't make it an enjoyable solve. This theme is awful, thin, punch-less, IMO. I'd much, much prefer a well-executed, clever twist on a more common theme concept than this nonsense.
It's impressive that the themers stretch all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic and that they are latitudinally correct. Not that exciting to solve though.
My wife has two MONDEGREENs I've never encountered anywhere else:
-- The bridge of Boston's "PIECE OF Mind" starts with "Take a look ahead" which she sings as "Tangle in your hair".
-- Barry Manilow's titular refrain "Looks like we made it" becomes "Looks like tomatoes" which she sings every single time we eat or cook with heirlooms, beefsteaks, Romas, cherries, grapes, etc. I love her beyond words, but she can't carry a tune to save her life, so it's equally painful and hilarious.
There's a man who leads a life of danger
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger
With every move he makes
Another chance he takes
Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow
Secret ASIAN Man
Secret ASIAN Man
They've given you a number and taken away your name
23 minutes for a Tuesday. I was doing so good staying under 8 these past weeks…
CCHHEENNNN!!!!
Yes. Complete grind. Ugh.
Thx, Taylor & Jeff; nice job! :)
Med.
PRODUCe before PRODUCT hid TESLA for a while.
Other than that, smooth journey 'cross-country'.
Enjoyed the trip! :)
___
Croce's 800 was 3x a challenging NYT' Sat. for me. Easy top & bottom 3rds, but the 3 long centers were brutal, with tough crosses in the mix. One semi-educated correct guess got the job done, tho!
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
@RooMonster 9:22 AM
Are you prominently displaying your BUTTS? Focus on a high assery quota. 🙄
Bangles Eternal Flame: "Do you feel the same" heard as "Do you feel the pain" which forced the entire love tune into a surprisingly sadistic vein.
With you on wrapped up like a douche. I always loved the way Spanish speakers interpreted English song lyrics, both translated into Spanish and an English version. I lived in Latin America where "Forever in Blue Jeans" became "Reverend Blue Jeans" and the obscure English song, "Don't mess with my tutu" became "No mates al chucho" or "Don't kill the dog!"
CANDY CRUSH SAGA is well known in NYC as what NYPD officers spend half of their shifts playing because it beats paying attention to what is happening outside the confines of their squad cars.
I've been prone to MONDEGREENs ever since I was 5 or 6 years old due to hearing loss. Family use to giggle about it until they wised up.
ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down": Jeff Lynne isn't actually saying "Bruce," it's "groos"/gruss. A word he just through out to fill the space, and then discovered that "gruss" in German is a greeting.
I enjoyed the puzzle and knew MONDEGREEN from previous puzzle.
My example of a MONDEGREEN is a little different. In Steve Miller Band’s The Joker, there is a line: “,Cause I speak of the pompatus of love.” Trying to make something that made NO sense into some sense, I always substituted “prophetess of love” when singing in my car. Today I checked it out and found this:
Pompatus (or Pompitus) (/ˈpɒmpətəs/) is a nonce word coined by Steve Miller in his hit single "The Joker" (1973).
Um. Alrighty then.
Bold move leading with LAMA after yesterday's news.
Good thing I got Mondegreen in the crosses. Never have I ever heard that phrase.
I got a nice little chuckle out of “Hammurabi’s area of expertise” and “Musician Barton or Fleck”. But yeah the theme 👎
Philadelphia, give me a ruling please. Isn’t just “Penn?”
[Splat!]
Nope. Not my cuppa. Too many no-knows for a TuesPuz.
Also had trouble with the themers, even tho I thought I had the cross-country mcguffin almost nailed down:
* WAshington to MainE.
* CAlifornia to GeorgiA.
* ORegon to CEylon.
Yep. Since I didn't know MONAE & that SAGA thingie, and had went with PRODUCe, got pretty day-um confused.
Anyhoo, put m&e also in the MONDEGREEN no-know group. Nice to have so much good company.
staff weeject pick: ALA goes from ALabama to LouisianA. ARI goes from ARkansas to Rhode Island. PAR goes from PennsylvaniA to ARkansas. QED. They all go from weeject state to weeject state.
14x15 grid, huh. Needed to save the also mysterious CANDYCRUSHSAGA, I reckon.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Johnson & Chen dudes.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
MONDEGREEN is by far the most interesting thing about this puzzle. The one I remember is “Bela Brahma was a lama,” but I forget what the song was.
I want to be nice. So I will. I had a yummy chocolate croissant for breakfast.
Oh wait..we have MONDEGREEN.... that Shirley counts for something. Just last night we watched "The Long Goodnight" and listened to Samuel L Jackson sing "I'm not talking about the linen." It was a good time to pause the movie and explain to my daughter that that mishear is called a MONDEGREEN. I have many...I am good at screwing up lyrics...So we have CHER and her "Gypsies transplant seeds.
Oh...and I think I counted about 13 names.
Medium. movie before FLICK was it for erasures (I really need to start checking the crosses). Pretty clever (I saw the postal codes fairly quickly) with two excellent long downs, liked it.
...hand up for “bathroom on the right”...
@Gary Jugert (9:30)
#1: Love our alliteration affiliation!
I finished and was inclined to say that the theme was weaker than weak. But then I noticed that Jeff Chen was a collaborator and just knew that I was missing something. A few minutes of hard staring and brain wracking brought it all home! Funny to think that I got a theme mostly because I knew who constructed it. I’m certain that Taylor Johnson actually came up with it and Jeff just helped massage it into acceptable NYTXW stuff. So thanks to both of you.
My favorite Mondegreen came from a neighbor kid who thought that “She’s got a ticket to ride” was “She’s got a chicken giraffe” (and she don’t care!).
Who doesn't say "THE Pope"? "Did you see Pope is visiting America?" "Pope is addressing the issue of (whatever)" it's always THE Pope. SMH
Liked it very much. Jeff Chen is smooth as silk. Smart cluing, sparkly, no junk. The only flaw is ORGANICPRODUCT but he needed the final CT for the theme.
WANTAPIECEOFME was the highlight for me.
I looked up what ZIP in ZIP code stands for but I've forgotten it already. I is for "improvement" maybe.
Ten seconds longer than my personal best and I'm 62! Maybe my young adult children keep me hip to pop culture.
I also had organic produce before product.
My reaction upon finishing was to look from one COAST to the other and think precisely what Rex said . . . so what? Now after the fact, it’s interesting to see the hints ZONE and USPS but unfortunately they MEAN nothing until you understand the significance of the themers. Thank goodness for Rex’s explanation or as he said, I would’ve just gone on with my day, albeit still wondering how on earth that theme got past the editors. I have to agree with @Wanderlust (7:26), that’s why Rex is the makes the big EUROs. He’s the GOAT.
Thanks to @JHC for pointing out the latitudinal symmetry and the geographical flow from north to south. A really nice touch which increases the ASSET side of the grid considerably.
Billions of downloads for CANDY CRUSH? Must be a lot of bored people in the world.
OK, I had PRODUCe too, and was struggling to figure out eESLy when it suddenly dawned on me what kind of currents were on hand. But then I looked more closely at the clue, which refers to "Item made of ingredients..." TBF, that would apply to PRODUCT, not to produce.
But my real problem was confusing that English-Albanian singer with Kelly rIPA. Gave me on the 'run' which just screwed everything up.
I finished the solve, couldn't understand the theme, came upstairs and sat down at my computer, and there it was, specifically OR....CT. Nice, in retrospect.
@Gent, take a look at this comic I used to follow. I suppose Tak Toyoshima, the artist, had the mondegreen in mind.
@wanderlust, it's so like Unitarians that you could actually attend the church and never be told what it's theological basis was. They took it a lot more seriously here in Boston 200 years ago. But the question I had was whether they are actually Christians, as the clue states. (I know, @Joaquin's rule, but still). But maybe this isn't the place for theological discourse.
It's not exactly a mondegreen, just an out of context phrase, but I always wonder if Handel was a little tongue-in-cheek when he had a chorus of male voices singing "for we like sheep" over and over again.
"one nation in a windowsill" - heard on a legal TV series episode about the Pledge of Allegiance, a lawyer recalling what he'd thought as a child
The girl with colitis goes by...
It isn’t Bruce?!? TIL
I attended Penn and called it that. From what I remember, I think others use UPenn to distinguish it from Penn State (I know, it doesn’t make a lot of sense)
I've really enjoyed the mondegreens, so I wanted to post my own.
Gloria! She had a wall eye, yeah! Gloria!
It was ASS-less, maybe that's the problem! 😜🤣
I haven’t heard a really good MONDEGREEN since the dawning of the Age of Asparagus.
I was looking at lists of mondegreens, and here's one I'd never come across that I like:
You hardly talk to me anymore
When I kung-fu the door at the end of the day
– "You Don't Bring Me Flowers"
Or Wayne’s world: she’s got electric boobs and mohair suits…
When I was 7 or 8 I thought Frankie Valli (and the Four Seasons) were saying “Big girls, small fry.” Hey. A comparison?
Oof. I guess @Nancy threw her paper at the wall today? ;)
I liked the puzzle just fine, though like many, I never quite got the WA to ME, OR to CT, and CA to GA trick. Nice, too, they are properly aligned North to South. Really never heard of CANDY CRUSH SAGA, and cheated to make sure that TESLA was involved in the War of the Currents. He came a bit too late for the War of the Roses.
I dunno, maybe Lady MONDEGREEN and her Lord were in those wars. Just wanted to point out that MONDEGREEN was invented by the humorist Sylvia Wright, and popularized in my era by Jon Carroll, whose syndicated column for the SF Chronicle was the first thing I turned to every morning when I lived in The City. Jon wrote many thousands of columns in his day, and is still alive and living in Oakland.
Does anyone other than the NYT Crossword know the names of so many obscure movie directors and think others should know them as well?
In Tom Waits' song 16 Shells, I thought he was singing "I'm gonna wheel you inta a kiln!" Although it is pretty much impossible to tell what he's actually saying: "I'm gonna whittle ya inta kindlin'!" where "kindlin" is one syllable.
Glad to see BELA Fleck mentioned... some really great banjo music.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0, my last word this 6er (and I notice it isn't the first time cuz the link is purple in Google). @Barbara S, I sympathize about those 4ers; my second last word was this.]
I first learned about MONDEGREENs on this comment board so seeing it in the grid today was a nice tie in. I vote that we expand its meaning beyond just song lyrics to mishearing any words or phrases. That way what I just saw today before dropping by here would be one if spoken aloud. It was in a Yahoo News report about some of the latest images from the James Webb Space Telescope. And I would bet that the writer of the headline did this on purpose: "Uranus has never looked better".
@Bax 11:23, of course in normal discourse we would use an article before most nouns as with THE POPE, the USPS, a LAMA, the ZONE, the UNITARIANS, a MONDEGREEN, etc. So the issue is "Why an article only for THE POPE but not for other nouns in the grid?" I would say that it's there to arbitrarily boost (double!) the letter count of POPE to fill that 20 Across slot. It's an article of convenience. We could use AOC for "article of convenience" but that's already taken so how about ARTCON as in "Along with plurals of convenience, prefixes, suffixes and the like, ARTCON is another method of letter count inflation (LCI)".
These songs may be a bit niche, but the two that stick in my mind are:
And then we ask all the questions
And you take all your clothes off
And dance in the kitchen sink
(Housemartins - Happy Hour)
No Professor Doom gonna stand in my way
(Mary Chapin Carpenter - I Feel Lucky)
Northwest Runner,
It's Penn. And only Penn. This recent addition of the letter U in front of it is, I say unhappily a phenomenon you hear now. But it's an affront to everything Quaker. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard, or a Princetonian: simply abhorrent.
Hurrah for the Red and Blue.
Jberg,
This is as good a place for a theology as any. But as your post implies, Unitarians don't really have a theology today. Or any coherent ethos. Frankly, I don't believe they did two hundred years a go either. Surely though, only a madman would contradict this simple fact: Unitarians--or anyone who denies the Trinity--are not Christians.
The Spaniard with vision: Jose can you see …
Yet another example of why no one should give a hoot what Jeff Chen thinks is the POW. His puzzles are consistently garbage, either they too staccato (no flow), are grounded in too many dorky and lame clues/answers, or have pointless themes. Quantity does not equal quality, certainly not re JC.
A+
Hey Rex, I'm surprised you didn't highlight my favorite Mondegreen of all time, which I believe came from you (or was it Shaun?): The Bee Gees hit single Four Legged Woman. I can't un-hear it, not that I'd want to...
✋on wrapped up like a douche!
😍
My most recent MONDEGREEN: Charlie Puth's Attention. "You've been runnin' round, runnin' round, runnin' round throwin' that "turtle" on my name" - ("dirt all") then I started hearing "face" instead of name! Turtle on my face - WTH? 🤔😂
@Beezer (1:19) -- She did. Good thinking.
So much pop culture and I said to hell with it. But I also had no idea what a MONDEGREEN is. "S'cuse me while I kiss this guy" sounded perfectly swell to me. If you don't know the original...
Anyway I dropped by to say that I had a MONDEGREEN from my early childhood that I would fail to correct for the next 50 or so years. The first Broadway theater album I listened to was "Annie Get Your Gun" where I sang along with Ethel -- especially with my favorite song of hers; "You Can't Get a Man With a Gun."
I sang the lyric thusly:
If I shot a rabbit, some furry little rabbit
For a coat that would warm someone..."
(After all, does a 6 or 7-year-old child have the slightest idea what a "furrier" is?)
Not until 2 or 3 years ago,, no longer than that, did I find out for the first time what the lyric actually is:
If I shot a rabbit, some furrier would grab it
For a coat that would warm someone..."
It's taken a lifetime to give Irving Berlin his due. Sorry, Irving.
I noticed the postal codes as soon as I got the themer, saw they were all geographically accurate, and thought "nice!". Guess I'm in the minority there.
My nephew and I were drawing pictures from songs, and I (confidently!) drew a picture of a big jar holding a house, a woman, and even a little mailbox with 'C. Moonbeam' on it. I legit thought the song went "Would you like to swing on a star/ Carrie Moonbeam is home in her jar".
Too much PPP out of my wheelhouse, especially for a Tuesday. But I made it through, ending with the J in JODI/JOLT (which I first had as a B).
Will always cherish my elder son, age 2, sitting on the carpet in our den, much too close to the TV, watching for the umpteenth time "An American Tale," and singing at the top of his voice, along with Fievel the mouse for the umpteenth time, "Somewhere, out there, beneath the camel sky ..." ("beneath the pale moonlight," for the mouse).
@okanaganer – Your Tom Waits mondegreen made me think of this Aunty Donna skit
I think it is a bit unfair to the constructors to say that only they could get the theme. In my case, the ME in the first themer caught my attention and so when I read 54 across I thought of Maine and then saw the theme. Many others did so. I can see it is easy to miss, but it isn't impossible to get.
@Joe Dipinto, that is the funniest thing I've seen in ages.
Knew you would hate it. Shortest review ever!
I personallly liked it. I have always been a champion mondegreen creator so remembered the word.
For some reason I filled this in quickly even though I had never seen the word MONDEGREEN before. And for the record, most modern-day Unitarian Universalists do not consider themselves Christian.
I agree that the theme was extremely weak. I also hated the crossing of MONDEGREEN and BELA. Maybe these answers are more familiar to the elder solvers here, but both were completely unknown to me and I could only finish by guessing the vowel in the crossing.
Summon a peach
Didn’t catch the theme until I finished the puzzle. Not a real fun solve for me, but love the mondegreen conversation! I thought The Squeeze was “Pulling Muscles on Michele” also “Lucy in Disquise with dyed mints” Both sixth grade.
Christians would follow Christ (that’s only one outta three)
That COAST TO COAST movie poster is so early 1980s (as in, I see it is from 1980), even if I have no freaking recall of the movie. Gods, after all these years, I should know who the artist is, because whoever he was, he did a metric shit-ton of movie posters back around then. There are some sad-ass hints of Frank Frazetta, but no, the photo is not sexualized enough for that.
At one time I thought that God’s name was “Howard”. I recall chanting “Our Father who art in Heaven, Howard be the name….”
Since we on the West Coast receive our syndicated puzzle a month or so later than the folks on the East Coast the themers should run east to west, don't you think ? I'm sure in the future a constructor will figure a way for that to happen.
Bela/Brahma caught me out. There were a few others that I didn't know but managed to fill in from the crosses.
Mondegreen was a word that I may have heard of, but couldn't recall. Of course though, as most are I am very familiar with the concept. My personal favourite isn't one of my own, but one that got called out on the local radio station in Victoria, BC in either the late 80's or early 90's. The overnight show got a request to play "that fire engine song". When the DJ asked for clarification, the caller expanded to say, "You know, Slow Walking Walter, Fire Engine Guy", confusing the lyrics to Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water (Fire in the Sky). This went as "viral" as you could go pre-internet and made the local news. One local musician went so far as to create a parody song with those lyrics. Still makes me chuckle.
The theme is a bit of a letdown. Jeff Chen is usually better than this.
Blinded by the light, ripped up like a ??????? The rest of the line made no sense to me whatever. Years later I found out it was "Ripped up like a deuce, another runner in the night." Okay. Well. It STILL doesn't make any sense. Nor, to me, does the word "MONDEGREEN," which went in totally on crosses.
ALOT of trouble with this one, including the above. Then there are the PPPs, LOADS of them, most of which I guessed at. Also, of course, with the word "grown" in the clue, I confidently wrote PRODUCe. Who wouldn't? To me a "PRODUCT" is something that comes out of a machine. If you GROW it, it's PRODUCE. But, since there's no such person as EESLA, I reluctantly wrote it over. My only blot.
Bottom line? @Jeff, you really ought to stick to TFS and stay away from MTW. You just can't dumb yourself down enough. Bogey.
Wordle par.
GET THE INFO (TO GO TOE TO TOE)
It's AMAZING TO MEETUP with STAN,
he's got A MAD CRUSH, you see,
TO GET ASSET takes ALOT OF man,
IMEAN, he'll WANTAPIECEOFME.
--- JODI MONAE
Same initial feeling and follow-up as OFL. Noticed: CANIGO GOCOASTTOCOAST, THEPOPE THEOC. Circled: Janelle MONAE.
Wordle birdie.
And like @spacey I overwrote EESLA. PRODUCe looked sooooo right.
@spacecraft: Just out of curiosity, what is TFS and what is MTW?
I did not see the state abbreviations on the west coast and east coast ends. That certainly takes this puzzle up a couple of notches.
@Bob Mills 8:11am:
I'm in my 70's and thought this puzzle was almost a cakewalk for a Tuesday puzzle, and I didn't know several of the names, but the crosses were easy. The word mondegreen was just on this blog the other day, and has been brought up on several occasions. Plus the clip from Seinfeld with Mr. Constanza was very recent.
I take issue with Rex's complaint about THE pope. If someone said to me: Look it's pope.
I would have responded: It can't be, Bob Hope is dead.
I can't believe how many regulars of the blog have commented that they don't know the word "mondegreen". I know that word precisely because of this blog. It was used on here just the other day. Rex has used it in his precomments shtick. I guess the word mondegreen has shtuck in my mind.
I usually align with Rex, but lots of differences today.
I got the west-coast-east-coast/cross country thing, so that clicked for me, and I agree with a previous poster that ‘the Pope’ is used very frequently, so no issue for me there.
The football team is called the Giants, but an individual player is described as a Giant, not a Giants (same for any sports team, e.g., Derek Jeter was a Yankee not a Yankees). And NY Giant could be used to make sure you don’t think he was a baseball player in San Francisco.
Another very close "almost," dashed by the trivia of PPP.
Diana, LIW
@anon 1:09: Days of the week. Chen belongs at the end.
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