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Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Word of the Day: PAPILLA (17D: It's on the tip of your tongue) —
: a small projecting body part similar to a nipple in form:a: a vascular process of connective tissue extending into and nourishing the root of a hair, feather, or developing tooth see hair illustrationb: any of the vascular protuberances of the dermal layer of the skin extending into the epidermal layer and often containing tactile corpusclesc: any of the small protuberances on the upper surface of the tongue often containing taste buds (merriam-webster.com)
• • •
I had one serious trouble spot—a collision of baffling answers, the bafflingness of which was instigated by one long, wrong answer: EASY AS PIE (24A: "No problem at all" => EASY-PEASY). The cluing was hard enough in that NE corner without my having made the whole situation much worse with a wrong answer, an answer that drove through the two toughest things in the puzzle for me: PAPILLA and CYRUS. As for PAPILLA ... I have to admit, I just don't think I know that word. I'm looking at it and it seems slightly familiar, but no, I don't think I could've defined it for you (before I made it today's "Word of the Day"). I wanted something meaning "taste bud," but couldn't find the word. I also wanted ... well, every different kind of "tongue" I could think of, which mostly resulted in my thinking of shoes (to no avail). So I needed almost every cross to make a reasoned guess about PAPILLA. I should add that I was in no way sure about TURIN, which also ran through this PAPILLA CYRUS pairing, and that made everything in the section feel even dicier.
As for CYRUS, wow ... by far the most baffling clue in the puzzle. And I have to tip my hat to the clue. It's perfectly accurate. But there was no way on god's green earth I was ever gonna pull Hannah Montana from my mental list of "Montana"s. I was thinking there must be a team in Montana (University of?) and I was supposed to be looking for their mascot (they're the "Grizzlies," btw). Then I was thinking of Joe Montana. And yeah, that pretty much did it for me, Montana-wise. I was finished with the puzzle, with CYRUS written in its proper place, and I still had absolutely no idea how it could be right. Was King Cyrus ("The Great") somehow involved? CYRUS Vance? Totally lost. And then somehow, finally, Miley CYRUS's name occurred to me and I had a giant "D'oh!" reaction. Miley CYRUS did indeed "play" Hannah Montana. You got me there. You really did. Wish that answer hadn't come at what was already the toughest part of the grid, but these things come when they come.
 |
| [Rubens, "Head of King Cyrus Brought to Queen Tomyris"; I saw this painting once, in Toledo (Ohio!), and it was awe-inspiring (~2 meters x 3.6 meters)] |
I know I gave the puzzle a hard time for its overreliance on trivia, but I did appreciate the "Simpsons"-ness of this one, and liked getting not one but two fairly detailed "Simpsons" clues, first for "WOO-HOO" (37D: Exclamation that might be followed by "D'oh!" on "The Simpsons") and then again for GROIN—a deeper cut, for sure (46A: What gets hit by a football in "Man Getting Hit by Football" in a classic episode of "The Simpsons"). I would've preferred THE GROIN here, since it's more accurate, but GROIN will do :)
See you tomorrow.
Easy peasy because I am of a certain age. There was was lot of unfamiliar trivia, but most was gotten by crosses.
ReplyDeleteI knew AOL because one of my favorite scifi authors, John Scalzi, started writing full time when he was layed off from that company. Thanks, AOL.
I don't believe I've ever actually heard "AHME" and don't hear JALOPY nearly enough.
Happy Friday
Look, I totally adore The Simpsons in its heyday, quote it constantly, etc., but I do wonder if they’re overrepresented in puzzles. Knowledge of it is practically required for crossword completion.
ReplyDeleteOne day, I will see the clue “crowning event” and not immediately think, “birth.” Today is not that day.
ReplyDeletePAPILLA was a WOE and I had to fill it with crosses and inference. The first name of the estimable Mr. UTNE (6D) was also unknown to me.
Went through the same gyrations as @Rex over CYRUS but didn't get that the Montana in question was Hannah until I came here.
NEuterS before NEGATES at 23D
My bakery treats at 32D were dOnutS
Wasn't The Noid (47D) a character in a pizza commercial? Yes, it was.
I think that if Miley we're reading this comment section, she would be quite gratified by our collective forgetting of Hannah Montana.
DeleteSimpsons fans might also recall the time Mr Burns needed an autoGIRO to deliver a mail to the Prussian embassy in Siam!
ReplyDeletePost haste!
DeleteI suppose it’s weird of me never to have watched The Simpsons, but I generally hate cartoons, esp ones that employ an ugly distortion of human faces. So I’m always annoyed at the assumption that of course I know all Simpsons trivia. Today’s clues were especially recondite.
ReplyDeleteAlmost everything in my wheelhouse somehow. Very fast Friday for me.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn’t call this EASY PEASY, but it was tough enough. Once I changed “peso” to MASA, I was able to dispatch the northeast, the last to fall.
ReplyDeleteRex, I know, right? Couldn’t you argue that MOLTEN LAVA is redundant like foreign import or false pretense? Bakery treats? Also – I’m with you on noticing the all the cities with their Trivia Night feel clues.
DO NOT GO/PROM – after the three spectacular meltdowns my daughter had leading up to PROM her junior year, I offered her $500 (about what we spent) not to go her senior year. Jeez Louise. She declined, rolling her eyes.
Liked SWEET TALK crossing WOO. And BABEL is right over TALK. I guess speaking in tongues isn’t really connected to the whole BABEL deal, but “my brain does what it does and that's what it did / is doing,” and it reminded me of yesterday. We were eating our Spring Break Festive Luncheon in the media center, and speaking in tongues came up. I was climbing up on my linguistics soap box preparing to debunk glossolalia and explain that the “tongue” being spewed forth is just a bunch of nonsensical syllables, all following the speaker’s native language’s phonological patterns. Before I could start, someone said something about how the tongue-speaker is supposed to always have an interpreter present, someone who speaks the language. I pivoted and just said, Oh wow. Who knew?
Ok. While I’m on tongues . . . that “tip of the tongue” phenomenon is part of the argument that not all of the thoughts we have in our mind are couched in actual language. So you can absolutely be having the thought of, say, divine intervention or spontaneous combustion, but despite the thought being in your mind, it’s there in some form other than language. Cool.
If I were a barista at Starbucks, and someone asked for just a small black coffee, I’d deadpan THAT’S A TALL ORDER and enjoy a private little joke at their expense.
MIND BENDER feels a little different from a twisty puzzle. Anselm’s Ontological Argument is a MIND BENDER. And sitting, really sitting, with Descartes’ conclusion that if he can think, he must exist . . . I just kant. Reminds me of a joke that goes something like
Bartender: Can I get you another martini? [He gestures to the empty glass.]
Descartes: I think not. [He disappears.]
One of my favorite “joke quotes” is: I think, therefore I am; and in a moment of thoughtlessness I ceased to be.
DeleteMy favorite T-shirt at school: I drink therefore I am!🍸
DeleteThank you LMS for your wonderful brain. I love your riffs on tongue today!
DeleteYour creative and clever brain is such a treat. Thanks @LMS!
DeleteNice puzzle - didn’t trend musty at all. I get Rex’s interpretation of DODGED A BULLET but it’s a conversational phrase used all the time. Spanning cross with TALL ORDER is fantastic.
ReplyDeleteMakes you dig your jive on the mellow side
DELIGHTS, SWEET TALK, HAVANA, JALOPY - the grid is loaded with good stuff. Yea - there’s some unfortunate trivia - BANEL, TURIN etc but overall smooth and slick. CYRUS is classic.
Wendell GEE
Highly enjoyable Friday solve.
Gonna be a dental floss tycoon
Having BAsEL instead of BABEL caused all kinds of trouble and an eventual DNF. I had no idea what DEsTS could be, but figured that's because I'm not a collector.
ReplyDeleteI.P.O.S, N.Y.S.E., A.O.L., P.S.A., K.F.C., D.E.A. Not quite in the outrageous zone, but pretty high and definitely noticeable while solving.
Startups don’t IPO and, certainly, don’t list on the NYSE
ReplyDeleteLike Rex, I still didn't understand CYRUS until after the puzzle was over. It's a great clue.
ReplyDeleteWell, this was just a garden of delights.
ReplyDeleteMainly, answers that ring with loveliness: HAM IT UP, TOP BANANA, EASY PEASY, TORPID, DODGED A BULLET, SWEETTALK, KID GLOVES, FREEBIES, MINDBENDER, THAT’S A TALL ORDER, MOLTEN LAVA, JALOPY. Plus:
A DOOK – NOID. The A-fest squeezed into that little NE corner, with seven. The rhyming SMITE, IGNITE, and DELIGHT in the NW, that could be the basis of a limerick. The top row, where the first answer is HAM IT UP, and the first two letters of both words spell HAHA. The tallest answer in the grid being THAT’S A TALL ORDER.
When I gaze at the completed grid, it just comes across as calming and sweet, and I feel at peace. That is rare and wonderful. Thank you for this, Lindsey.
I liked this more than the puzzles I've liked less, but less than the puzzles I've liked more... and about the same as all the rest.
ReplyDeleteA very enjoyable puzzle. Felt like a classic NYTimes puzzle to me--clever and junk-free and light on the pop culture trivia, except for "The Simpsons." I think Rex is being very old-cootish in his critique of it, ironically enough. I prefer the jazzy slang he cited--HAM IT UP and TOP BANANA--to much current slang, which is often related to phones and often consists of a lot of initials that don't yield any mental images. MOLTEN LAVA is a commonly used description of what volcanos spew; no need to criticize it.
ReplyDeleteI understand the wincing about using DODGED A BULLET in the current (horrible!) climate here in the US, but it's a legitimate and useful phrase (I used it twice yesterday in emails) unrelated to the unprincipled, cowardly, power-above-all-other-considerations, and just plain awful politicians who not only refuse to do one damn thing in terms of common-sense gun control, but actually expel politicians who do have a conscience from their legislative body. Whew! OK. Done with that.
Missteps: "peso" for MASA (nice twist on a twist there), "gyro" for GIRO, "hip" for HEP. Had trouble with 33A: couldn't picture a picture by Bruegel and kept thinking, "Basel?" Switzerland didn't seem right, though.
Definitely leans older I think..
ReplyDeleteHad no trouble,( well except for the cross of masa and asana)
Didn’t know either one,only rough spot.
Much more fun than yesterday misfire.
It was a fast solve until I had to hunt for my mistakes. _IRO could've been anything to me, as well as KR_GER (for a non-American). As such, the first body part that came to mind with _R_IN was BRAIN, and I was picturing some cartoony BRAIN shot of the guy getting conked right in the head. Nope, the answer was a lot more... normal.
ReplyDeleteI hate EASYPEASY themeless puzzles so I was surprised by my enjoyment of this one. My first thought was that it wasn't quite as easy as the grid made me think it would be and that I'm also becoming inured to Friday's being a themeless extension of the early week. Then I read our host's review and I realized how full of the things I like the puzzle was and they're always things he hates. If the constructor had been a man he would have gone right for the GROIN on it but this was made by a woman so he gives it the KIDGLOVES treatment.
ReplyDeletePAPILLA may be a debut for the NYTXW but it's an SB classic. Speaking of which....
Sun-Thu -0
I enjoyed this puzzle, and found it played easier for me than a typical Friday (and I’m sure the two facts are related). I really loved the misdirected cluing that yielded words like CYRUS and MASA and ION, and there were a lot of clues like that.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn’t all gravy - DO NOT GO edged into green paint territory for me, fwiw. I was annoyed by having two Simpsons clues in one puzzle - either go hard and make it a theme or have just one clue, especially because there are a ton of ways to clue GROIN. I like the show fine, but something about the duplicate reference being neither a theme nor a one-off bugged. Definitely nitpicking, though; in general I liked the puzzle even if it wasn’t consistently sparkly for me.
Feeling dumb: why is the answer to "Cameo appearance?" OVAL? I don't get it....
ReplyDeleteJewelry cameo
DeleteA “cameo” as a piece of jewelry, is almost always oval-shaped.
DeleteI guess I am in the minority and am not an-NOID by trivia in my crossword, but that's probably because I'm a trivia nerd hound. SWEET TALK me with trivia clues and I'm all "ITS on! WOOHOO!" GEE, it can't be all definitions and wordplay, can it?
ReplyDeleteThis was one of those puzzles that a couple of big answers came to me fairly quickly. I saw right through the clues on PAPILLA, TONNES, and KIDGLOVES, the longs TOPBANANA, THATSATALLORDER and DODGEDA... all came with only a few crosses. (I'm with the thought that we should take a break from gun analogies for awhile. There are plenty of other phrases out there) and was HEP to both EASYPEASY Simpsons trivia clues, both of which getting a smile.
AHME is wrong though. Oh, Aww, or even Woe is would be better fits.
Wrote a super witty post about how easy I found this some time ago and now, where is it?
ReplyDeleteKarma.
It's here 8:24 and it isn't super witty by any standard.
DeleteBefore you criticize you should read more carefully. 8:24 is a different person. In any event, pabloinnnh is obviously being self-deprecating.
DeleteFine puzzle. Learned lots of new things.
ReplyDeletePacino wouldn't fit for Montana player. Got it through crosses.
Was flummoxed at the start; had to work it bottom up and it fell into place. Enjoyable start to the day!
ReplyDeleteEven more so with the Rex stretch in being offended by DODGEDABULLET. How can his delicate sensitivities be forewarned when a TRIGGER warning would just, well, trigger him!?
Yet BULLETTRAIN is ok even as it combines two of the deadliest forms of extermination (or have we forgotten East Palestine OH already?)
Fine puzzle. Pacino wouldn't fit for Montana. Learned lots of new stuff.
ReplyDeleteI was glad to see Rex’s medium-challenging label as I got through this pretty swiftly. I started in the NE corner with HAJ and got the down answers HAVANA and ASANAS off it, but was so sure about peSo at 12A that I took out HAVANA and thought I was looking for a city that began with “He.” I didn’t know what DFW stood for in the airport clue, and I hadn’t heard of PLANO, so that was no help either. I ended up abandoning that area and moving across the grid to ION, PROM and OPT IN, which went a lot better. Finished up back on top. By this point I’d filled in enough of MOLTEN LAVA to realize I had to take out peSo – it was clear the answer to [Mexican dough] was a word I didn’t know. Reinstated HAVANA, grasped that [Heap] was JALOPY (a word I’ve always loved, although it was old slang when I was a kid), and I was done.
ReplyDeleteI loved the structure of the grid with THAT’S A TALL ORDER as a vertical spanner, and DODGED A BULLET (with implied quick movement to left and right) horizontal across the center. Hah! AVERY labels are old friends – in the pre-digital age, I used to use them all the time in the art history slide collection. PAPILLA was no problem – per @puzzlehoarder, it’s a Spelling Bee word! The notion of slamming on the brakes is ultra familiar but does SLAMON ever look weird – misspelling of SALMON? That CYRUS clue was a tough and brilliant – one for the ages.
Learned this: “TURIN is sometimes called 'the cradle of Italian liberty' for having been the political and intellectual centre of the Risorgimento [the unification of Italy in 1861] as well as the birthplace of notable individuals who contributed to it, such as Cavour.” (Wiki)
Here’s some SWEET TALK about Bruegel’s Tower of BABEL.
And here’s a little something for @Lewis
Violent movies today, how they SMITE
You over the head, and IGNITE
The screen with explosions,
Your brain with CORROsions;
They’re anything but a DELIGHT.
[SB: Wed 0, Thu -1. Silly word fest: my last word on Wed. and, inanely appropriate, my miss yesterday.]
@Steven at 8:50 am - they mean “cameo” in the sense of a piece of jewelry (often a ring, or a brooch worn on a high neck), typically OVAL in shape. You’re not dumb; it was a clever piece of misdirection!
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteAdd me to the grunters who, well, grunted once I got CYRUS. "Ohh", says I, "That Montana!" Had it down to _YRUS, and it still took a bit to sink in.
The Popeye clue (50D) was also diabolical. Thinking Brutus (or is it Bluto?). Either one too long. Wanted HAG for the SeaHag we've seen before. But it had to be KIDGLOVES, so what kind of character that starts with K is Popeye's rival? "Ohh, the Chicken places!" I exclaimed after getting the F of FREEBIES. Ya got me!
Is AVERY a specific company that makes Label Makers? Otherwise I can't figure that clue out. And seconding the question on OVAL that @Steven 8:50 posed.
I shop at a KROGER affiliate, Smiths, out here in Las Vegas. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have known that. I used to work for ShopRite in PA and CT. They were part of BIG V, then BIG Y, now I've no idea who their parent company is.
So a nice crunchy puz today, that was prodding me to cheat, but I held steadfast, and completed all on my own. 😁 And finished with no errors! SWEET!
Gonna jump in my JALOPY soon and head to work. Happy Friday y'all!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Steven and Weezie: I had to look up cameo. M-W didn't even mention the shape, but gave me enough info that I could picture the oval with a relief sculpture.
ReplyDeleteLava is molten until it cools and makes things like Hawaii.
@Taylor Slow - I like to keep politics out of here, but agree that the TN legislature seems like a new low of removing people that disagree with you. Based on their decorum rationale, I assume they would never approve a certain ex-pres, ha...
Very serious error in this puzzle. "IPOS" are not start-ups. They are established companies that are making their first appearances on a stock market. IPO stands for "initial public offering," and it doesn't necessarily appear on the New York Stock Exchange.
ReplyDeleteStart-ups aspire to IPO. Not many do, but it happens.
DeleteHow is 25D bit of income for magazine = SUB?
ReplyDeleteSUBSCRIPTION
DeleteWell, that puzzle must have been in my wheelhouse - Easy Peasy. Even though it was late at night, shift had ended not long before and a large glass of wine was nearly drained (a combo that usually results in a well-above-average time), finished slightly closer to record than to average.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I was more inclined to put in answers I wasn't fairly sure of - most of which fortunately happened to be correct - FREEBIES, HAM IT UP, for example. Did have peso before MASA - but forgot to change the E to A, so had MeSA and HeVANA when all the squares were filled. D'oh!
OK, a tiny bit risqué here, but it was print in WaPo back in 1999....and ties in with the puzzle and what Loren Muse Smith wrote. In the paper's Style Invitational one week, readers were given "Jeopardy!" answers and asked to supply the questions. Two of the answers were "Nipples on Men" and "Cogito Ergo Something or Other." Jennifer Hart got an honorable mention for the Nipples answer with, "What is right on the tip of my tongue? Oh, wait, sorry, That's the answer for Cogito Ergo Something or Other."
Despite being neither of the generation nor gender that would have been Hannah Montana fans back in the day, the Cyrus answer came to me shortly after I discarded the University of Montana sports teams.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this puzzle, probably in part as I finished somewhat quicker than average for a Friday. Somehow the misdirection clues—like the Montana one—all came fairly easily to me.
Terrific m
ReplyDeleteOnly the NE was close to being Friday-hard for me, but that's because there sometimes seem to be 8,000 different ways to spell HAJ.
ReplyDeleteThe rest was EASY PEASY. The fact that Rex calls this "Medium-Challenging" I find nothing short of amazing.
After yesterday's bear, I suppose the solving community deserves a softball today. Thing is -- it's such a beautiful grid, filled with DELIGHTS like THAT'S A TALL ORDER; KID GLOVES; SWEETTALK; and MINDBENDER. So where do you, if you're Will Shortz, schedule a puzzle like this. It falls between two stools -- but you wouldn't want to not use it.
Which brings me to an observation: You can have a "rule" that puzzles must get progressively harder from Monday through Saturday or you can have a "rule" that you can't have a themeless puzzle in your Monday through Thursday slots, but you can't have both "rules" simultaneously without being sure to break at least one of them from time to time.
And the thing is: Both "rules" are completely arbitrary and self-imposed. If they didn't exist at all, it would not be necessary to invent them.
This is a lovely, graceful themeless -- a little challenging, but certainly not a lot challenging. It would have made a perfect Wednesday, in my opinion.
Another EASY PEASY solve for me, for basically the opposite reasons that gave Rex a hard time. At < 2 weeks short of my 80th bday, I am hardly old-fashioned, but I have little or no interest in keeping up with modern slang just so I can solve a crossword.
ReplyDeleteClues were fun; answers not so much. RAPANA is still a mystery, but I can follow OFL all the way to Montana being CYRUS.
ReplyDeleteLoads of clever misdirections, giving me those AHA! moments I come here for. I think it's simply whether you think like that constructor thinks, that day. To me, puzzling (is that a word?) is like skiing. You get on the mountains some days with flat light, brutal winds, frozen toes and wonder what the hell you're doing there. And then you get a day of pure calm, fresh snow, the brilliance of white against the blue sky, the sun's warmth filtering through the mountain air, carrying tiny snow particles like fairy dust and all the other days were worth it because they brought you there, to that magical run on that exquisite day, right then. OK, skiing is better. But puzzles are easier to get to. And thinking like a constructor is as serendipidous as what we call a "bluebird" ski day. Enjoy them.
ReplyDelete“AH, ME” is not real. No one says it. Delete it from your word lists. Sincerely, the person who wrote “oH, ME” and was convinced that was correct.
ReplyDeleteI say "ah me" every single day, shortly after getting up. But then again, that's just me being me.
DeletePAPILLA was in the NYT Spelling Bee today (never heard of it) and then lo and behold it's in the puzzle. MINDBENDER indeed.
ReplyDeleteI've decided to disown my previous limerick (9:05) on the grounds of its being too NEGATivE. Here's attempt #2:
ReplyDeleteYour dangerous eyes, how they SMITE
My soul to the core and IGNITE
A fiery passion:
I'm ready to dash in
And leap headlong into DELIGHT.
More easyish than EASYPEASY. Solid (hi @Rex) and pretty smooth with a bit of sparkle, plus an interesting grid pattern, liked it.
ReplyDeleterad before HEP and emERY before AVERY (I have a sleeve of those labels, D’oh) which LAVA fixed were my major erasures.
...and it also took me a while to get the CYRUS clue/answer.
I just could not get BABEL. I also had a type iwth DODGEE a bullet instead of DODGED and I agree 100% that it was not a positive image, that it could have been avoided and after getting that one I really did not even care to finish. I am really glad you mention these things because it has to be said. This is going on too long, too many people have died (1 would be too many) and there’s no end in sight.
ReplyDelete@Barbara S -- Marvelous! I was hoping someone would bite, and you came through with panache!
ReplyDelete@Loren -- Terrific post, and great catches re SWEETTALK / WOO and BABEL over TALK.
WOO HOO. Nice to return from my travels and find my wheelhouse waiting for me here. Enjoyed the puzzle from start
ReplyDeleteto finish and especially liked CYRUS as clued, GROIN as clued, KID GLOVES, MIND BENDER, and THAT’S A TALL ORDER.
They say that if you’re having problems with your NOID, a diet of Coho SLAMON is often the best remedy.
Liked this one, easier than usual for a Friday, which is good IMHO.
ReplyDeleteParker’s contradictory rant about dodging a BULLET but approval of the BULLET train is really rich.
I also find his constant “musty” references tiresome, not the least because they are implicitly ageist. The mix of older and younger slang and other language usage seems pretty balanced in the daily puzzles. Why use age as yet another way to divide?
Good stuff today. Very crunchy for a Friday. Loved THATSATALLORDER, KIDGLOVES, SWEETTALK, DODGEDABULLET, TURIN and JALOPY.
ReplyDeleteDONOTGO looks funny without "there" there. Or without Jim Carrey following it up with "in there!"
As a kid in Southern California, I was incessantly pelted with this ad and others like it. Never flew in one of their highlighter pens though.
Yes, yes, yes on the CYRUS clue -- superb! Are they the University of Montana Bison? Was Joe Montana ever portrayed in a movie? Al Pacino played Tony Montana, but didn't fit. Is there some famous musician from Billings or Bozeman or Butte? I was truly stumped until CATNAP and EASYPEASY revealed themselves.
Speaking of revealing...Had I been solving on paper, I would have DNF'ed because of course Bruegel the Elder depicted BAsEL, and DEsTS must be collector-speak for hard-to-find objects of philately or numismatism or some such geekery. As it was, the app saved me, although it took me two alphabet runs to find the B.
I thought this was a great, fun and funny puzzle. Especially since I’m a Hep Cat myself.
ReplyDeleteI think this was the easiest Friday I've ever done. I was a bit disappointed that it was over so quickly. I prepare myself to really work for my supper, but this was served gratis. Alas, the garnish was missing and some of the flavors reminded me of my grandmother's cooking.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if there's a name for when you look at the longest answer in your puzzle, and without so much as a PAPILLA in sight, you plunk down THATS A TALL ORDER. I supposed it helped that the H in DELIGHT and the A in BANANA gave me some in-sight....?
I had a couple of wrongs. Peso before MASA and mediators before KID GLOVES. Usually when I immediately plunk down a wrong answer it takes me forever to correct. This was so easy to fix, I smiled.
A trivia laden puzzle usually gives me the angst agita flutters. I knew MIAMI was the Art Deco city.... Actually it's Miami Beach. Those Cubanos from HAVANA know how to jazz up a city block or two. Miami Beach at one time was boring to look at...then voila! Eye candy for all to behold.
I got CYRUS without even looking; the crosses were pretty EASY. PEASY hid around for a while until I remembered a word called PAPILLA. TURIN was up next and that allowed for a plucky CYRUS to rear her head.
Speaking of ....will Clarence DODGE A BULLET because FREEBIES for a TOP BANANA DELIGHTS the king of TORTES? SMITE, indeed.
The logo for Popeye's used to be more "bouncy" and the letters less aligned. The first time I saw such a restaurant many years ago, I thought it said "Pope yes" chicken.
ReplyDeleteWe never call it anything else now. "Oh, let's go to Pope yes!"
@Georgia (10:27). Lovely description of the joy of skiing. C'mon down to this corner of the playground. We've got a nice piece of cake for you.
ReplyDeleteVery little sparkle for a Friday. Only five red plus signs in the margins.
Thx, Lindsey; what a DELIGHT! :)
ReplyDeleteEASY (but not PEASY)-med (felt tougher).
Smooth start in the upper left quad, but found enuf pushback in the SW & NE to make it interesting.
Learned something about the themer cities. Didn't know any of those facts.
Fun puz; most enjoyable solve! :)
___
Looking forward to @jae's rec for today's Croce adventure.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
====
Repost from late yd for those who've been victimized by Blogger's occasional vagaries. I use a similar method as @A (3:35 PM yd), but my create, cut & paste is all done right in my browser:
@M&A (2:25 PM yd)
Bummer! 😔
This article (a portion of which follows) includes a line of code that Blogger will not allow to be included in this post:
"Among the many things you do online in a single day, we bet that taking down a note or two is somewhere at the top of your list. Was it for research? Recording a reference number? Brainstorming? Whatever the reason, having a scratch pad at arm’s length is a necessity. One trick that can solve that problem—turn your browser into a note pad. It may sound odd, but it’s entirely possible. For this tip, we tried it in Chrome, and we have to admit that this is a neat little trick everyone should have handy. All you have to do is copy and paste this single line of code into your browser’s URL bar:"
This works for me on my MacBook Air, with Chrome, Brave and Safari. I keep the tab open next to Rex's blog tab. The only down side is that if you do a computer reboot, page refresh, or accidentally close the tab, all the info is gone. Therefore, I keep a copy in both my 'Text Edit' app, as well as on my clipboard, since I have quite a lot of info on it, in addition to my daily contribution to the blog.
Meh. Put me with those who want never to see another Simpsons clue, let alone two in the same puzzle. Enough is enough. The show was only mildly amusing to begin with, and by now has looong outstayed its welcome.
ReplyDelete@Roo 9:24 – yes, the labels made by the Avery corporation are the lifeblood of mundane filing jobs across the nation.
@A, from yesterday afternoon: my recent avatars and other fun stuff can be acquired here:
Dissent Pins
(I haven't bought anything yet, I have to decide between the pins, the patches and the t-shirts.)
Twofer from the spring of 1966:
19d
36a
This was a very impressive construction with all of the long answers coming together smoothly. I thought that I was headed for one of my quickest Friday finishes but that NE corner was a beast. No FREEBIES for me there.
ReplyDeleteSomeone who leaped off the Japanese train tracks in the nick of time just DODGEDABULLET.
ReplyDeleteIf your first 14 schemes don’t work, I guess you go to PLANO.
Did you ever see a salmon SLAMON the brakes? It’d probably cause the car to fishtail.
Kudos to @LMS for reminding us all of Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God. It’s more difficult than a Friday crossword. Particularly this one. My solving experience was was more like Warp Factor 8 than whoosh! Whoosh! Just a casa de wheels thing I guess. The only do over I recall should have been a keeper, as my answer for 36A (Charm) was initially ShEETTALK.
Nifty puzzle. Thanks, Lindsey Hobbs.
Wow, this FriPuz had oodles of good stuff. Well, hey -- it *is* Good Friday.
ReplyDeletesome faves: The Cornered Jaws of Themelessness. WOOHOO. JALOPY. TOPBANANA. MINDBENDER. THATSATALLORDER, spannin the puzgrid from top to bottom. EASYPEASY. FREEBIES.
only no-know I recall: PAPILLA. Lost a few precious nanoseconds, piecin that pup together.
staff weejecta picka: DEA. Cool sneaky {Traffic org.} clue.
Here's hopin that my comments gets posted, today [Unlike two attempts yesterday.] They mean no harm, gallery monitors. They're mostly just SWEETTALK.
@A: I'll try harder today to save a copy of my comments, in case of emergencies. Yesterday, things got kinda confusin for the M&A, as I was takin PuzEatinSpouse to the hospital, etc. [Looks like she'll be OK.]
Thanx for the fun, Ms. Hobbs darlin. Real good job, on yer first themeless rodeo.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
For U sweet peeps:
**gruntz**
@RoomMonster – Avery is a company that makes labels. My last job I went through hundreds of their 5160 labels every month.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed this one way more than Rex and got through it in less than average time for a Friday. Especially liked the way THAT'S A TALL ORDER stands tall through the center of the grid. And despite the fact that I'm pushing 70, I nailed CYRUS without needing any crosses.
ReplyDeleteWho/what is AVERY, and how/why/when does he/she/it create "labels"??
ReplyDeleteIt's a company that sells all sizes of labels for file folders, addresses for my Xmas cards, etc.
Deletetechnical foul on 3D. Miami Beach is a separate city with its own mayor, police dept, etc. so the answer to "city" is not correct. it is commonly thought of as part of Miami and the answer was obvious so just a technical foul that doesnt affect the puzzle. replacing the word city with something else like "home to" might have been better.
ReplyDeletei thought this was a great friday. slow to get started but then it flowed nicely. except for OPAL, which can appear in a cameo:-/
thankyou for NYT Crossword Clue Answers today
ReplyDeleteNatick'd on MASA/ASANAS/PLANO and GROIN/BILBO (sorry, but I'm "Simpsons"-impaired and the only "Bilbo" I know of is that egregious racist/white supremacist governor (later U.S. Senator) from Mississippi. In fact, given who/what Theodore G. Bilbo was, I'm surprised Rex doesn't protest mightily whenever the name even occurs here. That would be no more arbitrary than his ongoing NRA fetish).
ReplyDeleteAnother one for Lewis:
ReplyDeleteA foe that you don't want to SMITE.
A conflict you cannot IGNITE.
A land that is civil
And free of Trump's drivel --
Now wouldn't that be a DELIGHT?!
👏🏻
Delete12d reminded me of this.
ReplyDelete@Nancy (12:21 PM)
ReplyDeleteGreat limerick -- love the civil/drivel rhyme and agree with the sentiments expressed.
I somehow missed @Lewis's first comment, and was wondering why he hadn't lauded this puzzle with praises. He did, when I searched for him. A DELIGHT indeed, and that was my feeling. I wanted EASY PEASY from the get-GO, but the puzzle was Friday-tough for me. Hands up for not knowing PAPILLA, for putting "peso" in before MASA, and being totally mystified by CYRUS and KFC. Ate a lot of KFC back in the day, because they built an outlet a half-block from my law office. Never had Popeyes' version, and probably never will.
ReplyDeleteHow did I remember BILBO lived in Bag End? NO IDea, but it sure saved my a**e, as they say in England. It made the KID GLOVES and the rest of the section Easy, rather than practically impossible. I did know TURIN right away. It was the capital city of the Kingdom of Savoy, and the King had a lot to do with the unification of Italy, and as long as Italy had kings, they were from the House of Savoy. One of the oddest things about Italy, btw, is that our English names for Italian cities are all from the French: TURIN, Rome, Venice, Naples, etc. You have to rewire your brain to remember to use the Italian names when you are touring in Italia.
A source of unending DELIGHT
ReplyDeleteIs when @Rex attempts to IGNITE
An ado over clues
Or a mate’s right to choose
Though his Kiwi wife always sayS MITE.
Thanks, Barbara!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt's a great puzzle. I had fun in the opening northwest unlike 🦖. Every time he says a puzzle is musty, I'm like, "Well, duh, you've been doing them for decades. Seems unlikely anything never imagined before is on the way."
ReplyDeleteThe northeast went above my abilities with MASA, [Cameo], PAPILLA, CYRUS and TURIN teaming up and inviting me to Go-ogle.
JALOPY just edged out YACHT on my favorite words list.
Uniclues:
1 Comedian's life path.
2 Procedure for getting a room at the Hotel California (although leaving may be more problematic).
3 That tower is kinda lame.
4 Please please please print straight.
5 Uh, sure, go team.
6 Opt for acrylic.
1 HAM IT UP HAJ
2 EASY PEASY OPT-IN (~)
3 SLAM ON BABEL (~)
4 SWEET TALK AVERY
5 TORPID WOOHOO
6 DO NOT GO ENAMEL
Very easy but a lot of fun. Nice to have one almost devoid of slang! I would like the people who do limericks, uni clues and , essays written in great detail early in the morning let them know how much I enjoy them. To be sure, they are very crude and amateurish but that is what to makes them so very charming! Here is a forum where people can have fun , to feel good about their responses.A DELIGHT!
ReplyDeleteIs the "giro"copter being piloted by Myley Cirus?
ReplyDeleteOther than that, really nice Friday puzzle. I liked it a lot more than Rex.
A peSo, an ION, and an AOL walked into an empty grid and looked around. Where was everyone? They looked Down. Ah, there were some "rad" ALBS, Eric UTNE, and frodO from Bag End. So, a motley crew, some of whom, obviously, had to be ushered out. At least the ALBS and UTNE disclosed the TOP BANANA, and that unlocked the rest - which I thought was a barrel of fun. Ditto to all comments above delighting in the many non-bakery treats offered here. JALOPY!
ReplyDeleteDo-overs: peSo, frodO, rad before HEP, No idea: PAPILLA. Enough yet: Simpsons clues.
re: @Rex on DODGED A BULLET. I know what he means. For me, expressions I've used without hesitation, like coming in "all guns blazing" just don't seem so metaphorical any more.
@those doing the Spelling Bee or Mini - Could you please not refer to answers in the current day's puzzle(s)? Some of us do the Bee and/or Mini after the Crossword and coming here. Thank you!
I finished with an error: STRAGA crossing GOER. Those damned unknown names! I also had HADES before BABEL for Bruegel's locale.
ReplyDeleteI wanted THAT'S A TALL ORDER to be some variation on "big ask" which we had a few days ago. All I could think of was THAT'S A BIG REQUEST which is a clunky phrase and didn't fit anyway.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0; my last word this 6er which even when I get it I have to look up the meaning again.]
I got an email from the Times today saying that my paper would be delivered late because of "general delay." It finally got here around noon, so I'm here pretty late -- and feeling depressed because @Loren beat me to that Starbucks joke.
ReplyDeleteLike most of you, I put in PESO and stuck with it wy too long; I was hanging back from HAJ because I was thinking of a different kind of heap, and that wouldn't work with J. But I finally saw that it had to be HAVANA, and that opened the whole thing up. (Also, I misread a clue number and wrote in DALLAS where it should have been CATNAP. I thought that was too easy a clue, and should have listened to myself. To make things worse, I put in cAPILLA, thinking of capillaries, I guess.
@Roo and others -- the whole point is that AVERY's peel-off labels come on letter-sized sheets; you can feed them into your computer printer, tell it the label number, and they will come out neatly formatted. (Or maybe you tell your word processor the label number, it's been years since I put out a mailing.)
Did anyone fall for the 'shingles' misdirect at 53-A? I already had the F for FREEBIES, but I did admire the clue!
@nancy, @egs, @joe D. -- Lovely additions to the oeuvre!
ReplyDeleteHelp - ALBS?
ReplyDeleteSigned,
Daughter of an AH, ME’er
A Catholic priest, or Father, wears an alb during mass.
Delete@dgd 7:28pm:
DeleteAnd don't forget that the alb goes under the chasuble. Another priestly vestment coming soon to a xword puzzle near you.
Definitely an EASY PEASY but enjoyable solve today. I'm still driving my '93 vehicle. It's not quite a "Heap" (as clued) yet but it is entering into its 10D JALOPY years.
ReplyDeleteFor 19D "Twisty puzzle" I was thinking some kind of maze or brain teaser. I consider a MIND BENDER as more of a revelatory experience that reshapes one's world view in some way. Maybe doing some peyote cactus in the high deserts of Mexico under the guidance of a local shaman.
I got my Social Security number long ago in the previous century while a high school sophomore working as a bag boy after school and on weekends at a local 39D KROGER store. I still have my KROGER I.D. badge. (If you had NOID, you couldn't go to work.) Back in those days I was Anoa Bobby.
I thought it was a nice touch that 5D THATS A TALL ORDER was the TALLest of all the Down answers.
Thanks for the limericks @Nancy and @egs! Maybe in my next life I’ll be clever. Thanks everyone for all the thoughts that always delight me. This blog reminds me of the value of differing opinions and the value of same.
ReplyDeleteI am in the easy-ish camp today for whatever reason. CYRUS was a killer and it took me forever to change peSo to MASA. Such a clever clue. I fell for it hook, line and sinker. Well played Lindsey. I agree with @Lewis today; this was a delightful puzzle. Each time I got going something slowed me down. Pretty perfect Friday solve.
The answers to 46-across works at so many levels!
ReplyDeleteEditing my 2:03 poem to fix the duplicated "always" and adjust the syllable count—
ReplyDeleteThe Doors can always my fire ignite
Roberta's song softly doth me smite
But one thing I know
Will ever be so:
My hatred for "Afternoon Delight"
There, that's better.
I really liked this puzzle. When my daughters were preteens, they were obsessed with the show "Hannah Montana," and I loved being reminded of those days--that was one of the first clues I figured out in the NE vicinity. I also was so proud of myself for getting "peso" right away--and of course that became a WOE as I tried to figure out that section. (Adding to the challenge was trying tao/dao for HAJ, trying head for OVAL, and thinking that "oodles" was the heap before I stumbled on JALOPY. Yesterday in class I taught Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gently into that Good Night," so loved seeing DONOTGO as an answer. And in the same class, we were talking about W. H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts," which references paintings by Bruegel, so it was fun to see him here, though it did take me a while to come up with BABEL. It took me a moment to remember what Bag End was from, but I felt good when I remembered it was a hobbit. I also liked learning that the UTNE in "The Utne Reader" is named after a person; I've not paid much attention to the publication, but it was based in Minneapolis, and I lived there in the 1990s. (I didn't know any of the trivia about any of the cities, but they all came quickly.) Bottom line: So many answers came fast for me that I saw it as "easy"; my time was 26:05--about 15 minutes faster than my typical Friday.
ReplyDelete@Carola (2:38 PM)
ReplyDeleteVery sorry. I hadn't looked at the Spelling Bee before I posted and I was quite abashed when I did. Promise to be more careful in future.
@Barbara S, I'm pretty sure Carola was referring to @anonymous 10:31 am which was a blatant spoiler.
ReplyDelete@okanaganer
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'd missed that 10:31 post. Glad I wasn't the only blabber.
Loved it
ReplyDeleteLove the blog name
DeleteEspecially Yo for emphasis.
@Barbara S, yes, @okanaganer is right. Reading earlier comments that it was "a Spelling Bee word" didn't tell me about "today." I'm not very good, or at least very fast, at the Bee and tend to chip away at it all day, sometimes even leaving it on my phone all night to see if inspiration has struck during sleep. I'm happy with Amazing, very pleased with Genius, and as for QB - file under "as if!" :)
ReplyDelete@Joe D.- FTW.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite anyway.
@Carola
ReplyDeleteThanks for clarifying. Oh, and -- SB forever!
Oddly enough, I got PAPILLA because it made an appearance in Spelling Bee which I had done earlier today…
ReplyDeleteHighest concentration of Art Deco buildings in the world is not Miami but Miami Beach. They are different places with different city governments. Moreover, Miami Beach is on an island whereas Miami is on the mainland. While there are some Art Deco buildings in Miami, there is no where near the number found on Miami Beach.
ReplyDeleteI finished in the top left, which was unusual, and wasn’t sure I was going to get the music, as I really thought I had something wrong. No idea what HEP or ALBS mean, both looked like mistakes. I thought it would be HIP.
ReplyDeleteI may have missed it, but no one commented on the use of "giro." Although invented by a Spaniard, it has always been known in English as a "gyrocopter" or "autogyro." As a child, our next-door neighbor had one, so I remember it well. I guess it is like Spelling Bee -- "no foreign words except the ones I choose."
ReplyDeleteYeah, Mr Fickle, I guess Simpsons and GROINS were fun and KIDGLOVES was easy enough they gave it a pass. It's just wrong, though, so annoying puzzle right at the end, after all the rest had been pretty fun.
ReplyDeletePer Jeff Chen, though, I guess that it's a piece of 'malcrosswordese' during the Will Shortz era and they're just used to it, though. Since the creators' comment there is that they not only muffed her xword but nixed the original seed, I choose to blame Shortz for thinking it's a thing.
ReplyDeleteA good challenging Friday puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI kept trying to squeeze GRIZZLY into the space for Montana player. Then I thought of Joe...but he WAS a player. Then, as EASY became apparent, finally the CYRUS connection--a nice aha moment.
ReplyDeleteJames Whitmore as Brooks Hatlen, describing the duties of the prison library: "EASYPEASY, Japanesey." (That last would today be censored for non-PC-ness.)
Mini cities theme, mini Wall St. theme (symmetrical, at that), mini Simpsons theme. In a themeless.
All well and good, Friday toughness, nothing outrageous. Birdie.
Wordle par.
The B in the BABEL, DEBT cross was my last letter, because my brain didn't want let go of Basel, Switzerland. But what in Odin's name is a dest??? And the clue wasn't asking for an abbreviation for an answer.
ReplyDeleteDEBT!!!
WOO HOO!!!
DOH!!!
TIL there are 9 places in the world named BABEL! Who knew?!
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought, Cyrus Hannah had played Miley Montana in John Waters' "Female Trouble".
ReplyDeleteEASY BABEL ARTS
ReplyDeleteOH, DONOT HAMITUP, use KIDGLOVES,
SWEETTALK her as if IT'S PROM night.
TOP of MIND, FREEBIES for HOO she loves,
THAT'S the ROAD to her DELIGHTS.
--- CYRUS AVERY KROGER
EASYPEASY save for writing over peSo to get MASA; wrong dough. Noticed: IT'S HAMITUP. Circled: Miley CYRUS.
ReplyDeleteWordle birdie.
The last two days I feel like the TOPBANANNA. (I remember in grammar school being called "Diana Banana"
ReplyDeleteHand up, @Rondo, for wanting PESO, but it wouldn't work with what I had.
Brought to mind the picture of the painting of the Tower of BABEL in the Bible my grandma had.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords