Sci-fi cult classic of 1974 / THU 4-13-23 / Romantic music genre originating in the Dominican Republic / Dutch astronomer with an eponymous cloud / Onetime auto replaced by the Chevrolet Aveo / Trendy and overconfident slangily

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Constructor: Robin Yu

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging? Hard then Easyish? Somewhere in there...


THEME: TOO LITTLE TOO LATE (65A: Not enough, and without the urgency, to make a difference ... or a literal hint to 18-, 30-, 38- and 48-Across) — familiar phrases that begin with "TOO," where the word "TOO" is "little" (i.e. crammed into one box) and appears "late" in the answer (i.e. at the end instead of the beginning):

Theme answers:
  • CLOSE FOR COMFORT (TOO) (18A: Dangerously near)
  • HOT TO HANDLE (TOO) (30A: Like a controversial political issue, maybe)
  • COOL FOR SCHOOL (TOO) (38A: Trendy and overconfident, slangily)
  • "LEGIT TO QUIT (TOO)" (48A: Triple-platinum 1991 Hammer album)
The "TOO"s:
  • ARTOO-DETOO (14D: Film character whose lines were all bleeped out?)
  • TOOTIN' (43D: "Yer darn ___!")
  • TOOLBOX (53D: Place for a screwdriver)
Word of the Day:
"DARK STAR" (7D: Sci-fi cult classic of 1974) —

Dark Star is a 1974 American science fiction comedy film directed and produced by John Carpenter and co-written with Dan O'Bannon. It follows the crew of the deteriorating starship Dark Star, twenty years into their mission to destroy unstable planets that might threaten future colonization of other planets.

Beginning as a University of Southern California student film produced from 1970 to 1972, it was gradually expanded to feature-length until it appeared at Filmex in 1974, and subsequently received a limited theatrical release in 1975. Its final budget is estimated at $60,000. While initially unsuccessful with audiences, it was relatively well received by critics, and continued to be shown in theaters as late as 1980. The home video revolution of the early 1980s helped the movie achieve "cult classic" status; O'Bannon collaborated with home video distributor VCI in the production of releases on VHSLaserDiscDVD, and eventually Blu-ray.

Dark Star was Carpenter's feature directorial debut; he also scored the film. It was the feature debut for O'Bannon, who also served as editor, production designer, and visual effects supervisor, and appeared as Sergeant Pinback. (wikipedia)

• • •

I went from howling "how am I supposed to know that!?" at BACHATA to howling, louder, "how is anyone but me supposed to know that!?" at "DARK STAR." LOL, how many of you have seen or even heard of "DARK STAR"? I actually watched it recently, but the only reason I even knew it existed was because it was one of the first movies featured on Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary's podcast "Video Archives," which started just last summer, and which I listen to semi-religiously. I just want you to know that at the same moment I was thrilled to see that movie in the grid, I was thinking of alllll of you who would be going "what ... the ... hell is that???," and I sympathized. Hopefully, the crosses were helpful enough to get you through. As they were for me and BACHATA (27D: Romantic music genre originating in the Dominican Republic), though man was I sweating that last letter (i.e. which for me was the first letter, the "B," which seemed like it could've been annnnnything, until SNOB became undeniable). But I've gotten ahead of myself a little here (this is what happens when you finish up with a one-two punch like BACHATA / "DARK STAR"). Let's back up and take a look at the theme, which is the highlight of every Thursday, the day when themeness is typically at its most complicated and flashy. Actually, let me talk about how I stumbled into the theme, which involved a bizarre path through the grid that had me getting the revealer first. After fumbling around a bit up top I took the TAO wormhole (i.e. followed the cross-reference in the clue 31D: "The way," per 48-Down) down to LAO-TSE, who I knew was going to be the answer at 48-Down (even if I wasn't entirely sure which spelling I was going to be dealing with; sometimes you see -TZU, I think...). Once I got down there in the SW, it was like a different puzzle—the whole corner went in super-easily, which gave me the front end of that last themer, which was actually the revealer. So this was me, very early in the solve:


Sometimes, on Thursdays, it can be extremely helpful to attack the revealer first (assuming the puzzle has one), and today was Definitely one of those days. I have no idea what it must've been like to descend the grid  from top to bottom, trying to make sense of the themers. Maybe it was easy—the answers themselves are pretty straightforward. There's just that little hitch in how you enter them in the grid. I don't know how much not knowing the gimmick would've made those answers hard. But I can tell you that having the revealer in place gave me an 'aha' real quick. I had the front end of "Too Legit to Quit," and knew the album title very well, so I could see the "TOO" was just ... missing. I figured maybe TOO LITTLE ... was telling me that "TOO" was so little it ... disappeared? And that was the lovely little revelation in this one. "TOO" wasn't gone, it was just "little" and "late." I had tried to make sense of the whole MALIK / ALMOND area and was getting nowhere when I realized "oh! TOO goes in that last square after "LEGIT TO QUIT," so it's ... (TOO)LBOX!" (53D: Place for a screwdriver). And then it was off to the races. I could put "TOO" at the end of every themer, then mentally supply it at the beginning of every themer to figure out what the answer was. Cake walk, all the way back to the top of the grid for the little AR(TOO)-DE(TOO) rebus double whammy.


So, by total accident, I ended up getting the revealer first, and that made all the difference. Gave me a nice push, and then Hammer gave a nice big "aha!," and then things sped up, moving toward the big BACHATA / "DARK STAR" finale. Super-strangely, the last square I entered was the square in the far NW corner, i.e. the square that's so often the first to go in (today, the "P" in "PAC-Man"). Because of my accidental path, I loved how this one unfolded, and the core gimmick is exactly the kind of bonkers that I enjoy. You've got a word that's both moving and shrinking, and a revealer phrase that expresses all of it perfectly. Plus, the grid is spicy enough to hold your interest between the thematic bits. I may be the first person ever to call the GEO METRO "spicy," but damn if I don't love the way that stupid bygone car name looks in the grid (3D: Ontetime auto replaced by the Chevrolet Aveo). Overall, a very nice Thursday puzzle.

[For some reason, while the Hammer *song* was stylized as "2 Legit 2 Quit," the album title had "Too" and "To" written out normally (as the puzzle has it)]

Trouble spots included, most notably, COMFITS, which ... honestly, I don't really know what that is (25D: Candied fruits and nuts). I think of COMFIT as a kind of jelly? Sauce? Like "duck COMFIT," is that something? Oh shoot, that's CONFIT. Anyway, yikes and yikes, COMFITS ... don't see that word very often. Needed every cross. MONOXIDES also meant nothing to me (71A: Some compound gases), though that one was somewhat easier to infer (eventually). Had to wait on the second vowel in MALIK because I thought maybe MALYK (there's a "Y" in "Zayn" so why not one in "Malyk"?) (58D: Singer Zayn). The only parts I didn't really like were -PEDE (a terrible standalone suffix) and RETAPE, which isn't the worst answer I've ever seen, but it's not a good answer, and you should not put tricksy "?" clues on your clearly not-good answers, because now I just have to spend more time struggling with your not-good answers, which only serves to highlight their not-goodness (13D: Take over?). Plus "take" just feels too close (!) to "tape" here for the "joke" to be any good. Otherwise, loved this one, thumbs-up, would solve again. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 



[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

124 comments:

Prefab 5:51 AM  

I tried to start with the MC Hammer clue, since I was sure the album title was also spelled "2 Legit 2 Quit" and I thought somehow the numbers would come into play as a rebus. It wasn't until I got the "Too Little Too Late" reveal and figured out a few of the Downs intersecting the MC Hammer clue that I got the answer. Then the various COMFITS and ASMARAs slowed me down, so I'd also rate this one as Medium-Challenging for a Thursday.

Smitty 6:04 AM  

So funny, I'm the other person who knew (and loved) Dark Star...but I was sure it was too obscure to be the correct answer. I think CSN&Y also came out with a song "Dark Star" around the same time.

Robin Yu 6:08 AM  

Wow, I got a rave review from Rex!

I've been reading your blog for years and this absolutely made my day. Thank you!

Anonymous 6:11 AM  

Because I didn’t know who singer Zayn is, the 74A clue for KEEP (“fortified tower”) naticked me. I thought maybe JEEP, as it is sometimes armored and sometimes it tows things.

Conrad 6:13 AM  


I kinda caught on to the theme early, when it became obvious that 18A would be CLOSE FOR COMFORT with an extra square at the end. But that didn't help a whole lot; the puzzle was Medium-Challenging due to the fill.

Overwrites:
GEO prism and stoRm before METRO at 3D
ThIrD before TRIAD for the simple chord at 22A (don't yell at me; I'm musically illiterate)
bAA before MAA at 36A (also, apparently, goat illiterate)
TiE before TEE at 68D

WOEs (in addition to @Rex DARK STAR and BACHATA):
NENEH Cherry at 16D
Jus SOLI at 35D
LEGIT TO QUIT [TOO] at 48A
MALIK Zayn at 58D

Anonymous 6:22 AM  

Didn't hit the revealer quite as early as Rex but when I did things got snappy. My goats said BAA, so I stuck with COBFITS (shrugging) until the very end, and then, ok, MAA if you insist (more like "meh" but that *really* bolixes things up), then shrugged also at COMFITS.

Anonymous 6:29 AM  

I couldn’t be happier —RP

Weezie 6:38 AM  

Hi, it’s me, I’m the person who tried to work my way down the puzzle without the revealer. It was… a dangerous journey, let’s just say that. But then at some point I relented and went straight to the revealer, and similar to Rex, the footholds in the southwest made that one easy.

This was one of those puzzles that really had me sweating for a while, dreading a DNF at the beginning. Once I got the revealer, it was a delightful mix of whoosh and good hard work on some crosses. I enjoyed the fill, which felt pretty fresh. I especially liked “Food often served in bed?” - because it feels like the kind of clue maybe meriting an explainer for some, RICE = Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation, aka what you might do after a sprain.

Also, I’m sure some of this crew may WOE over Zayn MALIK, but before becoming a successful solo artist, he was a standout member of One Direction, aka one of the best selling (boy) bands of all time. That said, I wouldn’t put him in a puzzle because he was abusive to his then partner, Gigi Hadid, and physically attacked his mother-in-law as recently as 2021, but I know we all have different views on who and what makes for acceptable fill.

Anyway, that QUALM aside, in general I found this to be a lovely Thursday - congratulations Robin for both the great puzzle and the rave from OFL!

Wanderlust 6:38 AM  

Loved this! Very different experience from Rex’s. My first inkling of the theme was getting the rebus at TOOTIN, which seemed like the only thing that could follow “Yer darn…” and I already had the second T and the N. Then I saw a second rebus in TOOLB … something. Wasn’t sure if it was BOX, Bag, Bar (I was actually thinking it could have something to do with a screwdriver being served in a bar). Next, I got the revealer, and it all became clear. I went back and filled in the TOOs at the end of each themer and the rest whooshed in.

I don’t know DARK STAR (eager to check out how any sci-fi movie could be made on $60K), but I did know BACHATA, which anyone who knows anything about Latin music would know. Speaking of Latin/Spanish, “roble” means “oak” in Spanish. I am guessing that’s in Spain, and “encino” is oak in Latin America? Any native speakers care to confirm or deny?

I will always disagree with Rex about putting a clever clue on a meh answer. To me, the “take over” clue doesn’t make RETAPE worse, it *saves* RETAPE from being bad fill. I also liked “deal breaker” for NARC, though I might have seen that before.

I recently saw a “product” description that made me cringe and laugh at the same time - “BANned in Florida and Afghanistan!” Send me ten of whatever it is.

Is any animal more associated with joy than my favorite beast, the OTTER?

Anonymous 6:51 AM  

Kinda surprised the NYT website didn't accept "2" in lieu of the rebus. After all, it does come late, and a single numeral is smaller than the word.

That cost me some time and consternation at the end.

JJK 6:55 AM  

Since I knew neither GEOMETRO nor NENEH, I needed all the crosses there and MEN just wouldn’t come to me. The clue was so vague - yes, some people are MEN, but… just couldn’t get there from the clue. Also found the NE hard, but overall I liked the puzzle. I didn’t get the theme until TOOLBOX fell into place and the lightbulb went off.

A nice, pleasantly tricky Thursday.

Anonymous 7:01 AM  

COMFITS crossed with MAA (????) Is really.....a choice.

GAC 7:01 AM  

So very nice to see a Rex review that showers praise on a puzzle that I loved. Also nice to see that Robin Yu, the constructor, dropped by to thank Rex for his rave review. The stars are aligned. I found the puzzle to be challenging and had to do a small, little bit of cheating to finish it.

SouthsideJohnny 7:03 AM  

I had to dig about three deep into the definitions of KEEP to make the tower connection. I forget if it is considered archaic, but it sure was a new one to me.

It seems like there should be a name for the whole group of words, phrases and terms that the NYT embraces that few other puzzles will even consider - stuff like GEOMETRO, NENEH, ASMARA and BACHATA. I’m thinking like “Rescue Words”. Similar to the animals that you might find at a Rescue Center (or is that Animal Shelter?) - all lonely and waiting for someone to take them home and show them some love. It’s probably a very valuable public service being performed by the Times (come on, be honest - if you passed a NENEH or BACHATA on your way to Starbucks in the morning, would you even stop and say hello?).

Anonymous 7:05 AM  

Nothing is making sense in my solving. Yesterday was super hard for me. Today was just north of east for me. Maybe being a senior citizen has warped my brain.

Taylor Slow 7:07 AM  

Woo-hoo! It's been a while since we had such a twisty, fun Rebus Thursday! Absolutely loved this puzzle. I followed much the same path as Rex--TAO to LAO-TSE to the SW corner to the themer solve. And since I was working at the bottom, it was TOOLBOX that got me the "TOO LATE" part, and with LEG in 48A, Boom! (Thanks for posting that video, Rex. I actually remember it from IRL!)

Seems like everyone had trouble with 25D, including me. COnFITS is the only chef-word I know that fits, so that's what I went with, even though "duck confit" doesn't seem to have anything in common with candied fruit and nuts. One of my very few disappointments with this delightful solve was MAA, even though it give me COMFITS. (13D was not a favorite either.) BUT...such minor nits in a puzzle that was so much fun to solve!

@Robin Yu: Lovely to see you here! And congrats on your "Would solve again" from Rex. Me too!!!

kitshef 7:11 AM  

Great, great puzzle.

My first thought was that the themers would want something like HOT HOT HANDLE (which fit) and COOL COOL SCHOOL (which fit), but it did not work with the first themer. It was not until (TOO)TIN that I clued in, and even then did not know why. Reveal was perfection.

This will go down with the likes of June 19 2016 and June 26 2021 as puzzles to be cherished and remembered.

kitshef 7:13 AM  

Knew DARK STAR; did not know BACHATA or COMFIT.

In the world of Will Shortz, sheep go bAA and goats go MAA. Remember this, and your solves will be that much easier.

CWT 7:31 AM  

I caught on to the them right away and just plopped in the correct phrases early and often, but even though they came easily they were refreshing and clever and enjoyable. Was afraid I would never be able to identify the Hammer song, but it filled itself in with no problems. It’s not hard to come up with many more examples of this theme, a lot of them fresher and zingier: too big to fail; too pooped to pop; too big for his britches; too old to cut the mustard any more…(and I wonder how many of us remember that song!)

Son Volt 7:31 AM  

Hah - you’re not alone here Rex. I saw DARK STAR in ‘76 as the opener of a double feature with Logan’s Run. Dan O’Bannon went on to do the Alien movies and Return of the Living Dead.

I loved this puzzle - got the trick with ARTOO and it was smooth sailing after that. A lot of short glue - weird shaped grid. GEO METRO and LEMONADE are solid long downs.

OTTER, SLUICE, BACHATA etc - some really fun fill. ASMARA, SOLI, MONOXIDES we’re unfortunate.

Enjoyable Thursday solve.

There we’re some great DARK STARs in the early 70s - but this one from the Kesey farm is my favorite

Lewis 7:32 AM  

Now that’s what I’m talking about! Big “Aha!” along with a big “Hah!” at uncovering this reveal. An “Oh how clever!” along with a genuine LOL. Not only the satisfaction of cracking a mystery today, but also the balm of mirth.

And freshness, along with bite, from words we don’t often see in puzzles: MONOXIDES, BACHATA, STURGEON, COMFITS, NENEH, DARK STAR, GEO METRO. Not only that, but the theme answers (with the “too” in front), every one of them, sing with zing. Punch with a punch line. All this in a NYT debut puzzle!

Plus ooh, look at all those double-O’s, eight from the rebuses plus another seven besides. Actually, as your resident alphadoppeltotter, a role I’ve inexplicably taken on over the past six years, I must report that there is an unusually high (more than 20) number of double letters – 25 – which matches the highest I’ve ever encountered, but alas, it comes with an asterisk, being theme related.

No matter. This puzzle kicked it, and yer darn tootin’ that my eyes are wide open for your next offering, Robin. You totally won me over today. Thank you for this!

Anonymous 7:45 AM  

I usually dislike rebus puzzles (Does every single Thursday have to be a rebus?) but I got the theme pretty quickly (a miracle), so I was able to finish. Other than a few wonky answers it was enjoyable!

Kent 7:49 AM  

A lively and lovely puzzle. The theme answers were pretty quick to come, but I couldn’t figure out the trick of putting them in the grid - it was clear the initial TOO was lopped off, and there was an extra space at the end, but … then what? I got to a point where I looked at the revealer, but didn’t have any crosses and couldn’t make heads or tails of it, so went back to the top and kept working. It was our little Star Wars buddy that got the ball rolling. With that great clue, I was pretty sure the answer involved the little droid. I thought I remembered it being shortened to ARTOO in previous puzzles, but that was too short, and then it hit me. I looked at the last squares of the other themers and sure enough, the rebus worked!

DARK STAR and BACHATA and a couple of others (OORT, MALIK) did require every cross, but I only had a couple of erasures. For some reason I couldn’t see PAGE as clued “one side of a sheet” and had PAnE, and was trying to figure out if a Dodge nEOn would have replaced by a Chevy when I made the connection (I actually owned a GEO METRO back in the day, one of my favorite cars!). And then at the end when I didn’t get the happy music I realized the goat sound was NAA instead of mAA and COnFITS had nothing to do with candied fruits and nuts.

andrew 7:49 AM  

Not TOO LAO-TSE!

Thought I was heading for a DNF, but revealer made my chances too legit to quit!

Thanks, Robin!

Ted 7:51 AM  

COMFITS crossing MAA was a bit of a Natick. Like... goats can make any noise you want to bang out of your keyboard. BAA, NAA, MAA, WAA, GAA... SHEEP are known for BAA in the US, but goats? Dealer's choice.

So I had CONFITS at first because, shit, why not? Like Rex I don't know the difference.

Eater of Sole 7:54 AM  

DARK STAR fell in easily. I thought I had the theme very early when I plopped in CLOSE FOR COMFORTs, i.e. I thought it was a play on "2 CLOSE..." as in pluralizing CLOSE FOR COMFORT. That continued to work for all the across themers but started to fall apart when I looked at downs. Darn TOOTIN eventually led me out of that hole. Had the same problem as others with COnFITS. "nAA, really?!?" I do love me a good duck confit, I will say, and I know perfectly well that it is more about fat and salt than fruit or candy. I think I would have let go of it sooner but it was so obviously etymologically related to "confections."

Nice puzzle.

Andy Freude 8:04 AM  

My experience was a lot like Rex’s, if you swap out DARKSTAR and BACHATA, the latter of which is very familiar to lovers of Latin music and dance (hi, Wanderlust). To me, the former is a Grateful Dead cover band, once you add “Orchestra” to the band name. Anyway, a lovely puzzle, Robin Yu, whether the musicality was intentional or not. (And that’s coming from a lifelong rebus hater).

Twangster 8:08 AM  

I had no trouble with the theme but finished with INASEC, ICE, CAD and GEOMADRE, which mostly seemed plausible.

M@ 8:15 AM  

Exactly the same for me! I had "2" in all the rebus squares instead of "TOO". Spent an extra four minutes hunting for errors because of that.

Bob Mills 8:20 AM  

This is why I stopped doing Thursday puzzles once before. I figured out the trick, but still couldn't finish.

Barbara S. 8:23 AM  

I enjoyed this one, too, even though I had a semi-false start. I got a couple of the early acrosses and then, with no letters in place, started to splatz in TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT at 18A all the while gloating at how smart I was to get a grid-spanner with no help. Until I realized that it was too long and I had to take it out. Damn! But then, as I started to get some of the early downs, I noticed that TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT was starting to take shape, without the initial TOO and with an extra space at the end. Well, that was suggestive. I’d also just got the AR(TOO)DE(TOO) joke at 14D, but didn’t know how to enter the name with that number of squares. So, yay! The theme came together for me pretty early. I got HOT TO HANDLE(TOO) with no problem but the other two were a little slower in coming. I recognized the SCHOOL expression once I saw it but it wasn’t top of mind. And I simply didn’t know the Hammer album. When I got to the revealer – yes, that’s it! A very enjoyable and satisfying solve all around.

Except…when I thought I was finished, I got the “keep trying” message. Damn! (again) It turned out that on the west coast, I had iNaSEC over cAd resulting in GEOMadRO. Well, what do I know about cars? (Not much.) I fixed that and still no music. Oh, no! Two adjacent typos in the SE in MALeK and LEMONAnE had given me MONOXenES! Damn! (number three) It finally all got sorted and I was a happy if somewhat incompetent camper.

Hand up for knowing neither DARK STAR nor BACHATA, but crosses took care of both. Crosses gave me COMFITS, too, and when I saw the word I thought, “isn’t that COnFIT?” (Hi, @Taylor Slow.) Turns out they’re different things: COMFITS being candied fruits or nuts (per the clue), and COnFIT being this (per Wiki):

Confit is any type of food that is cooked slowly over a long period as a method of preservation. Confit, as a cooking term, describes when food is cooked in grease, oil, or sugar water, at a lower temperature, as opposed to deep frying.

Okay. Oh – and someone else I didn’t know was NENEH Cherry. Yikes, looking back, this whole comment seems to be a list of things I didn’t know or initially got wrong. That usually leads to crossword disaster. But the magic of this puzzle was that the unknowns barely impeded the solve, my trouble with GEOMETRO notwithstanding. And with every problem I did have, either crosses took care of it or I was able to fix it myself with no need for outside help.

UNICLUES:

1. Famished hooligan in a rush to get to the richest looting grounds.
2. Keep only the sweetest nuts.
3. Why certain aquatic mammals are always happy.
4. The god of love finding his Way to the edge of the solar system.
5. Summer drink, made with youthful joy and enthusiasm, that’s good for the heart.

1. ATE-AND-RAN RIOTER
2. AXE SOUR ALMOND
3. OTTER RAGE BAN
4. EROS TAO OORT
5. ATRIAL LEMONADE

[SB: Tue -2, Wed 0. Yesterday’s last word was a 6er and I went through a whole rejected menagerie trying to find it: GUPPIE, PUPPIE, PIGGIE. And then it turned out to be this!]

Anonymous 8:47 AM  

Great puzzle!

DrBB 8:50 AM  

I graduated HS in '74, was into all kinds of obscure and outsider-ish music and art*, and it was amazing what you could see after midnight on the UHF channels out of NYC So DARK STAR was a near-gimme for me, one of those "Oh I hope it's X" but not wanting to fill until I had at least a sold cross or two.

Darn-TOO-tin sat there for a bit, until I got the revealer, which gave me permission to enter it as a rebus and the whole puzzle tumbled pretty quickly thereafter.

*Always thrilled when some version of "Stage name of the American musician, singer-songwriter and artist Don Van Vliet" shows up in a XW, as it occasionally does. Much more satisfying than the all-too-handy-for-3-letter-fill ENO.

DrBB 8:54 AM  

Smitty @6:04 I think CSN&Y also came out with a song "Dark Star" around the same time.

Grateful Dead, 1969, a perennial concert jam fave for Dead Heads. Can't claim to be one myself, but even I know that one. :-)

Anonymous 8:54 AM  

I had a Geo Metro many years ago. I was pulled over on the freeway and given a ticket for “Attempted Speeding.” Bah-Dump. Got a million of ‘em.

Anonymous 8:57 AM  

Amy: another hand for using 2 instead of TOO. Very cool puzzle: yup, not too cool, just the perfect amount. (GET OUT made me think of the Jordan Peele movie, 😎). Thanks, Robin.

beverly c 9:02 AM  

Like @wanderlust, it was darn TOOTIN which clued me in. I had enough crosses then to see what was happening with 18A so popped back up to fill that in. What fun! I didn't know Mr. Hammer, but the crosses and title made sense, and I saved the perfect revealer for last . Mwah!

I had all the expected unknowns, DARKSTAR, NENEH, BACHATA, ASMARA, MALIK, but like others here, it was the MAA/COMFITS cross which prevented the happy music. The NW was a real struggle, even though I had ARTOO. Nice clue for him/it by the way.

Oh, thanks @Weezie for the explanation of RICE!
Loved seeing the word SLUICE for some unknown reason. A kind of OTTER slide?

Thanks @Robin Yu!

Sir Hillary 9:10 AM  

My solve was completely different than Rex's. Got the theme early via AR[TOO]DE[TOO], then solved downward, carefully avoiding the revealer until the very end. That made for a satisfying punchline, an apt finish to an enjoyable puzzle.

Randomness:
-- I always thought that Zayn MALIK had the best voice among the 1D guys, so assumed he would be the most successful solo artist. Obviously, it's Harry who holds that position, by a mile.
-- Been dealing with ATRIAL fibrillation for 10 years now. Never really got in my way, even as it evolved from periodic to persistent, and I have actually been mostly in normal sinus rhythm since I was cardioverted last June. I am quite fortunate to have a relatively mild case.
-- First heard the word SLUICE long ago in Elton John's "Grimsby" off his quite uneven album "Caribou", but I'm not sure I even knew what it meant until the last few years.
-- The lemonade clue made me smile.
-- Multiple Brendan Frasers? ENCINO MEN.

Anonymous 9:14 AM  

I was surprised Rex did not find it easy. I am new to crossword and it was the very first time I completed aThursday one. I got the “theme” early (18A) and ran through the grid. I got Neneh, Malik, encino and bachata from the crosses. I am still puzzled by artoodetoo, but it worked!

Kent 9:19 AM  

Musical musing prompted by 48A: my pop music tastes were very mainstream in the 80s (as a youth on the Plains of Nebraska, there wasn’t a whole lot of choice in cultural consumption). So in 1990, when MC Hammer sampled Rick James and Vanilla Ice did the same to Queen/Bowie I had little to no frame of reference for the original songs because they weren’t huge mainstream hits (Super Freak peaked at 16 on the Hot 100 and Under Pressure at 29). Those sampled hooks in my mind were associated with the newer songs, not the originals. Somewhere over the years I’ve listened to enough “oldies” radio that my associations have reversed, and the original songs are top of mind.

Which is a long way of saying that seeing MC Hammer in the puzzle has firmly embedded Under Pressure in my mind for the day.

Anonymous 9:21 AM  

With all due respect, I think the Grateful Dead wrote and published Dark Star in 1968.

RooMonster 9:23 AM  

Hey All !
Dang, no time to read y'all first before posting.

Grid is 16 wide, it anyone noticed, or cares.

Like Rex, the SW corner for some reason was quite quick to crack. I also got the Revealer first, which helped me with the center Themer. Had NARC at 24D, _TIN at 43D, then after scratching the ole head, said, I think it's TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL, but why is there a space after SCHOOL, and where's the TOO if the phrase starts with C? Plus, isn't it TOOTIN? What is _TIN?"
Then someone turned the lightbulb on, and let out an "Ohhhhhhhhh, it's TOO, LITTLE! And it's LATE! Nice."

Filled in the other TOOs, which perplexed me ONE SEC at 14D with the two TOOs. Then that also hit me, ARTOO DETOO, with a great clue!

So a fun puz, even though I got my one-letter DNF. Yes, back in the saddle. Har. Had COnFITS because I've heard of that, but not COMFITS. Who makes up these similar words? Did @LMS have something to do with that? 😁 Sure, NAA is always either BAA or MAA, but shoot, I figured Goats can NAA, no?

Gotta check out DARK STAR. I like comedies and Sci-Fi, I've seen plenty of obscure movies where you hate yourself for watching the whole thing cause it royally sucked. You know what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV

Carola 9:24 AM  

My second conceptual DNF of the week, after missing the earlier coast-to-coast state abbreviations. Today, led astray by Artoo's alternate spelling R2-D2, I went with Ar2De2 (Hi, @Prefab 5:51, @Anonymous 6:51) and 2s for all the remaining rebus squares. Not even the TOO's in the reveal were enough to make me pause: I thought we were working with a homonym, a single digit 2 being LITTLE in comparison with the a three-letter TOO. So, getting the theme idea with the first of the phrases availed naught. Ah, alas.

Otherwise: loved the theme phrases, enjoyed the challenge of a tough grid, with plent of "No idea" entries: GEO METRO, NENEH, COMFITS, DARK STAR, BACHATA, MALIK, TOO LEGIT TO QUIT.

Anonymous 9:33 AM  

Must not be a deadhead

Gary Jugert 9:34 AM  

The power is out in our neighborhood so I am thankful for cell phone batteries and an invisible network floating in the sky all around me, the dewy glow of the New York Times crossword app, and the knowledge crews are out fixing something way beyond my comprehension.

We're also having a legit glorious sunrise this morning so it's a great moment to marvel about life in our times. The hostile phone calls and texts from unhappy condo owners will begin arriving within the hour as residents realize the elevator is out and assume I (the board president) have a Jedi-like magic power to fix all inconveniences. and also assume it's my fault.

As for the puzzle, at first I thought that's a sTOOpid idea -- all those little TOOs piled up on the east coast. Then I pondered the revealer and it's perfect. Yer darn tootin'. Really apt. Wise almost. Only problem was how easily the phrases were after figuring out the jig on the first one.

What I'm really dreading is another day of debating the spelling of R2D2.

Some of you don't like rebus puzzles because you think that word should be reserved for all time only for pictures of female sheep, and others just don't want lotsa letters in a space God created for only one letter. For me, Thursdays have become my favorite day as I know there's likely to be shenanigans. It's also the last day before two straight days of Go-ogle-ing actresses.

I added SLUICE onto the end of my favorite words list for future consideration. It's fun to say and brings back pleasant memories of gold panning in the Colorado Rockies and being perfectly happy finding pyrite because it's so sparkly.

I read the Wikipedia entry on the Oort cloud and I'm too dumb to understand it, but I think I learned comets come from there. And comets are very confusing to me. I did better trying to understand what bachata is.

Oops. Power's on. Time to reset the clocks.

Uniclues:

1 Anarchist needing Rolaids.
2 Complaint by alleyway culinary expert.
3 Why they're sooo cute.
4 General malaise one feels upon approaching a black hole.
5 Blood, to jokester EMTs.

1 ATE AND RAN RIOTER
2 RAT TOO HOT TO HANDLE
3 OTTER RAGE BAN
4 DARK STAR QUALMS
5 ATRIAL LEMONADE

DCDeb 9:38 AM  

I guess I’m the only person on Earth who doesn’t know who Hammer is (are?).

Anonymous 9:44 AM  

Said song is now running through my head. Not a bad earworm!

GY 9:54 AM  

Geo Madro. I had the same mistake!!

mathgent 9:57 AM  

I know duck confit and so was uncomfortable putting "confit" in 25D, but it is also the name for a kind of candied fruit.

I love all rebuses and this is one of the better ones. Too bad the constructor needed 24 Terrible Threes.

Are Will and the gang taking a shot at Nancy with 26A?

Happy to learn Jus SOLI.

egsforbreakfast 9:57 AM  

My advice to Robin: Don’t get big for your britches (too). Keep producing these kind of gems. And for anyone who didn’t like this puzzle: Bad, so sad (too).

I’ve gotta say that the RICE clue, IMO, refers to a bed of rice, not to Rest, Ice, etc.

Anyway, thanks for a gem of a debut, Robin Yu.

mmorgan 10:00 AM  

Very similar solve to Rex’s. Got the revealer first which slowly made the themers emerge. Got DARK STAR and BACHATA entirely from crosses (without too much difficulty). Never heard of Hammer. Also Tzu before TSE. TOOTIN made it all come together. Hardest and last thing for me was APE because I kept thinking that 13D might possibly (though not likely) be RETAkE because of the question mark in the clue. I always like a puzzle that is hard hard hard for a long time and then comes together easily with fun discoveries.

Anonymous 10:00 AM  

Will someone please explain how RETAPE (Take over?) works? I must need more coffee but I can’t make that answer work.

AncramEd 10:04 AM  

I’m a longtime addict of this blog and a big sci-fi fan who has never heard of Dark Star. However, I was totally charmed by this puzzle and am writing now because I can’t stop chuckling over Rex’s final comment that he would solve again. Priceless.

Newboy 10:12 AM  

Again Rex nailed our experience with the grid that was all WTF on a first pass. Luckily,(well, not for them) our two grandsons are gluten free so the ALMOND madeleines we bake for them joined LEMONADE for a tasty snack & the climb back to the top began.

I’m once again hampered by never having been in a chemistry classroom as a SNOB English major, so MONOXIDES remains a post-Easter entry based on faith & crosses alone. But ONE SEC while I RAGE about Moby Dick. Wheelhouse? Or merely COOL FOR SCHOOL TOO hangover. Don’t want to be one of those posters who ATE AND RAN, but I need to make like an OTTER and slide back up to the top and see if others enjoyed Robin’s puzzle TOO!

And that’s my final word.

But as is TOO often the case Newboy ERRS *SNAP*

Anonymous 10:23 AM  

"Take" as in a movie shot, "over" as in once again. "Shoot another take" = RETAPE.

Anonymous 10:25 AM  

I thought all caviar had to be sturgeon by definition?

bocamp 10:34 AM  

Thx, Robin, for this TOOzy puz; what a doozy! :)

Very tough (TwO x Thurs. avg).

Last TwO days both almost TOO hard, but not TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL.

Learned td: ASMARA; TOO LEGIT TO QUIT; ALMOND; MONOXIDES; ATL; GEO METRO; SOLI; NENEH; COMFITS; EROS; OORT; DARK STAR; BACHATA; MALIK; ATRIAL. (all gettable via fair crosses)

Love these wake up calls! :)

Fun solve! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏

Anonymous 10:40 AM  

If it’s a bachata you should stop and dance! Joyful beginning to the day!

GILL I. 10:42 AM  

Well....uh....there was picking at some mental floss involved here. Sorta like a little agony here and a little ecstasy there.
I'll start with ecstasy first because I'm like that. It took me a while to warm up, but I did. CLOSE FOR COMFORT...yes!... but you're missing your TOO. Ah, ARTOO DETOO gives me the pleasure. Snap! Just like that I get it. I calmly add TOO at the end of each theme answer. Come to a complete halt at the Hammer album. Leave it alone, go back upstair and begin filling in the downs.
The agony starts kicking in. My first: ENCINO. Damn, a "Roble" is an oak tree. But it starts with an E. OK, ENCINO it tis. 7D. Pulling DARK STAR out of the mystery hat. Phew. The downs were beginning to fill in and I was enjoying all of it. EXCEPT...BACHATA?????? Ay, dios mio. I thought I knew all of my Latin American dances. Now I feel depressed. I take a pause and look it up. It reminds me a bit of my fandango tango, so that's good. MY hips are too old for those swizzles, though... This little dance is TOO HOT TO HANDLE for my fragile body.
I'm still in agony over my battle with Hammer and his album. I had most of the downs in place including Alice in Wonderlands' COMFIT. I remembered!. But then who is this OORT person. Is IT LEGIT or do I QUIT? I just wrote the name in and crossed fingers. I guess it worked.
Other agonies were NENEH and MALIK. Not TOO bad for someone who is awful with names. I did look them up to see if they were real, so a big pat on my back for guessing correctly.
Now back to the ecstasy. I guess when you really work hard to finish a puzzle and you guess right and you learn new things and it's enjoyable in a work-out way, then you've got my big smile.
Oh...and I also got DARK STAR all because of a SNOB and a MAA. It's never TOO LITTLE or TOO LATE...is it....


andrew 10:47 AM  

Just read the Jeff Chen blog with Robin’s self-introduction “As a ‘foreigner’ (living in Singapore) it always feels a bit weird making crosswords for an American audience.”

How on earth did he come up with such American gems as “too cool for school”?

Just a remarkable debut puzzle!

wrollinson 10:48 AM  

Yes, "Dark Star" is probably best known as a Grateful Dead song title.

From Wikipedia:
"Dark Star" was an early Grateful Dead classic, which the group often used as a vehicle for extended jam sessions during live performances. One such performance, lasting 23 minutes, was included on the Dead's breakthrough 1969 album Live/Dead and is the best-known version of the song. "Dark Star" is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list and was ranked at number 57 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time."

Hence the name of the well-known Dead cover band "Dark Star Orchestra" (mentioned in an earlier comment).

Whatsername 10:50 AM  

Robin I think you’ll find “rave review” is going TO be the order of the day here. This is what the Thursday NYT crossword is supposed to be like. Great fun to solve with a fascinating LITTLE trick to find and well, pretty darn 2TIN close to perfect. Hard to believe this is a debut and only your second submission but hopefully it won’t be the last. I can’t wait to see what else you have in your crossword 2LBOX.

Dan 10:52 AM  

I, too, have to chime in with a little love for the Geo Metro. My first wife had a Yellow Geo Metro convertible when we started dating in 1994 in Seattle. Not too many days in Seattle you can put the top down, but when you could, that thing was so much fun driving through the city and across Lake Washington. Got about 50 mpg, having a 3 cylinder engine, but it zipped along pretty fast, considering the whole car probably only weighed a couple hundred pounds. Ah... the 90s were a beautiful time.

Nancy 10:57 AM  

A clever theme wrapped in a shroud of pure awfulness.

BACHATA? OORT? DAR STAR? JUS SOLI? NENEH? COMFITS? (I tried to cheat by typing "COMF" into Google and Google replied "Nuthin' doin".)

And don't even get me started on cluing the 4th themer with a "Hammer" album. I've never heard of Hammer, much less the album. And that's because I'm a 26A.

Oh, yes, I just love being called a SNOB because I refuse to be force-fed the pop culture that's important to various makers of crossword puzzles. I have my own pop culture interests, but I don't inflict them on other people when I construct my own puzzles. Have I ever asked you, say, what was the last lyric Oscar Hammerstein wrote before he died? I never have, have I? Not even once.

The cluing of SNOB today? Them's fightin' words, Robin.

With different fill, this puzzle could have been a lot of Thursdayish fun. With this highly arcane fill, it was nothing short of painful -- at least for me. But I did solve it without cheating. I tried once, but Google didn't let me.

Masked and Anonymous 11:05 AM  

79-worder, but a 16x15 puzgrid, to allow a great puztheme to fit in there. Sooo … wide to be wild (TOO).

no-knows: BACHATA. DARKSTAR [M&A needs to check it out!]. NENEH. COMFITS. MALIK.

CLOSE FOR COMFORT to no-knowin (TOO): ASMARA. GEOMETRO. LAOTSE [Mainly cuz M&A had BUDDHA in there].

staff weeject pick: MEN (Members of the PAC-).

fave fillin, bar-none: TOOTIN.

Theme mcguffin weren't hard to figure out (TOO), at our house. Looked at partly-filled first themer, peeked ahead at revealer, got it.

Thanx for the fun, Robin Yu. Extra-cool last name, btw. And congratz on a primo debut.

Masked & Anonymo3Us


illustrated puppy:
**gruntz**

p.s. Tomorrow … the horrors of the blog comments' uni-clue, runt-style. Set aside lotsa extra solvequest time.

Nancy 11:10 AM  

Ah -- I hadn't yet read @mathgent when I wrote my comment. Thank you for your support and understanding, @mathgent.

pabloinnh 11:11 AM  

Same unknowns as most folks here and a similar solve to those who got the long themers early but could only make them fit without the TOO and finishing with a blank. I'm not sure when the light went on but it was definitely after I had the revealer. Maybe TOOLBOX for the screwdriver? The double surprise and pleasure of realizing that the requisite TOO was both little and late was just great.

I'm with @Wanderlust in having the wonderful OTTER as my favorite animal, to the point where I once had a t-shirt made that said "OTTER POWER". Many years ago I picked up a book about OTTERS and the first sentence was "If an OTTER cannot have fun doing something, he simply will not do it". I think I have quoted this before but it bears repeating.

Terrific stuff, RY. Please let me Reward You with the seldom-given Thursdazo! Prize, adn thanks for all the fun.

Whatsername 11:14 AM  

The post by @anonymous at 8:54 made me recall a former coworker who actually did get stopped for “attempted speeding” in a GEO METRO. This guy commuted 125 miles each way, much of which was through the mountainous areas of northern Arkansas where he was pulled over. He explained to the patrolman that he had to go as fast as he possibly could on the way down the mountain; otherwise he wouldn’t have enough speed to make it back up the next one. The patrolman stepped back, looked at the vehicle, shook his head and sent him on his way without so much as a warning.

Newboy 11:26 AM  

Ditto to @Andrew (10:47?). This is an amazing success story: acceptance on a SECOND submission? TOO much! And for any other commentariat who enjoy a robust Imperial Oatmeal Stout I want to give credit to Fremont Brewery’s DARK STAR a quaff about which I have no QUALMS. Enjoy one this afternoon with Robin’s intro at xwordinfo if you get a chance.

jae 11:31 AM  

Mediumish. Clever and amusing, liked it. A fine debut!

tart before SOUR had me wondering if there was some other eponymous cloud besides OORT?

...me too for prism before METRO

NENEH and BACHATA were WOEs.

Joseph Michael 11:36 AM  

Started out thinking this was clever by half (too) and ended up thinking it was good to be true (too). Congratulations on your debut, Robin. My accolades are numerous to mention (too).

Joe Dipinto 11:37 AM  

@Weezie – you may be overthinking things: many dishes are served on a bed of RICE.

Anonymous 11:37 AM  

Wrollinson,
No way. Dark Star is big in the world of The Dead but not in the broader culture. Surely Truckin', Shakedown Street, Sugar Magnolia, Friend of the Devil, ( the almost grotesque) Touch of Gray all get world's more radio play than Dark Star. Hell, CSN's Dark Star gets more radio play.

Everyone else,
Can we please finally put to bed the fiction that Sharp doesn't read the comments? Surely his comment of 6:29 AM ends what was always a risible claim.

TJS 11:41 AM  

Had only the A of atrial and the final S of eases when I confidently popped in too close for comfort. Alright ! Lets hit those crossses ! Uhoh...

First puzzle ever that Yer darn tootin saved the day. Nailed the South and solved the close for comfort issue and off to the races. Great rebus Thursday. One of my all time faves. Thank you, Robin.

Not getting Page as the side of a sheet.

Anonymous 11:57 AM  

This may already be well known amongst experienced solvers, but it wasn’t to me: A fellow cross-wording friend once told me that (at least in NYT crossword land), goats always say MAA and sheep always say BAA.

I’m not sure about the “always” part, but I use that rule as my default and 90% of the time it works every time!

Joe Dipinto 11:59 AM  

This was a terrific puzzle. I figured out the displaced TOO rebuses pretty quickly, but couldn't fathom what they might signify. Then of course the revealer was perfect.

BACHATA was a gimme. Walk down practically any New York street and you'll hear it emanating from a passing vehicle. It's hugely popular. It was once considered vulgar —some older-generation Dominicans still don't like it— but in the last few decades younger artists embraced it.

Never heard of DARK STAR, but since it fell in from the acrosses, I didn't really notice it was there until afterward.

One point off for the dumb clue for MEN.

Too Close For Comfort
Bachata Rosa (I saw this guy at MSG once)
Too Much Too Little Too Late

@Nancy 10:57 – so what was it? Climb Every Mountain?

Masked and Anonymous 12:01 PM  

p.p.s.s.
Just to clarify … have been admirin and fascinated by the uni-clue offerins on the Comment Gallery for a long time, now. The "horrors" part tomorrow will be the runtpuz usages of said uni-clues. (That runtpuz biter plumb chewed thru the runtpen fencin.)

And once again, primo ThursPuztheme idea today, Mr. Yu dude. Lookin forward to what yer mind cooks up, next time.

M&Also

Diego 12:09 PM  

Well, except for snobby Nancy @10:57 (and a few other picky dissents), this seems to be a big hit—and deservedly so.
I was SHOCKED to read that it’s a debut!
BRAVISSIMO, looking forward to more of your creativity and great sense of play.

jberg 12:15 PM  

Like many here, I could see what most of the themers were (not the Hammer song, which could have been "Legit to Quit" for all I knew; and I have always heard "too COOL to go to SCHOOL, which was too long), but couldn't figure out how to make them long enough. Finally got it with TOOTIN' and filled them all in. Brilliant concept.

I also loved the dueling suffixes, PEDE/PDF. I had inked in PEDE before realizing that it could as well be 'gram,' but PDF clarified that.

But that goat did me in. I finished with CObFIT. At least now I've learned a new word.

I usually poke (gentle) fun at those who don't know the world capitals, but I was drawing a blank on ASMARA and had no crosses until I took a stab at ATRIAL, and the city bubbled up, letting me fill in that whole quadrant. I guess "A-fib" is very well known if you know someone who has it, but not to me.

Pedantic quibble: EROS is the god of love. Fertility would be Demeter, I think; but close enough.

@Nancy, well, you've asked us now, if only indirectly, and it's driving me crazy! I can't even figure out how to look it up -- oh wait, I just did. An alpine flower, but if you clued it that way people would try to put inn AARE.

jberg 12:19 PM  

Thanks to everyone who found and clued anagrams for me yesterday!

As to whether Rex reads the comments, the note just below where I am typing this says "All commments must be approved by the blog author," so I guess he's reading them today. Some days it says "approved by a moderator" instead.

Anonymous 12:23 PM  

Pretty angry with the COMFIT/MAA cross. I’ve found descriptions online describing both COMFIT and CONFIT as candied fruits (albeit different processes). MAA vs. NAA? Having a little experience around goats, we always called it BLEAT. I’m calling my answers of CONFIT/NAA correct anyway.

Anonymous 12:29 PM  

GEO METRO? Oh. I was wondering why they would name a car GEOMETRO and what it had to do with geometry.

Just like Rex, I went straight to LAOTSE after TAO, got the revealer and then the TOO squares. I loved ARTOODETOO and TOOCOOLFORSCHOOL. My biggest slowdown was entering ATEASNACK with ATEA- ,crossing PNG. Glad to see that the actual answer was much more interesting than a very close EATASANDWICH relative. I didn’t know TOOLEGITTOQUIT and I finished around that area.

Overall I’d say easy-medium for me considering it’s oversized (16x15 to accommodate the 16-letter revealer).

Anonymous 12:31 PM  

Loved the puzzle Robin

Bonnie Buratti 12:55 PM  

Everybody into B movies - and I suspect there is a large crossover with Xword solvers - knows about Dark Star. I first watched it in 1973 (+/- a year) when a student at MTI. Nerds loved it - I could never understand why it got into the B lineup. Oort on the other hand is obscure. I'm an astronomer, so I knew it, but I don't think anyone outside of the astronomy community would. I liked this puzzle.

Anonymous 12:56 PM  

Agree. This was excellent (though the “maa”/“comfit” threw me).

mathgent 1:17 PM  

Nancy is definitely not a snob. She doesn't know much about pop culture because it bores her. SNOBs use their avoidance of pop as evidence of their superiority. In all her comments about not knowing about pop, she has not once even implied that that makes her better than anyone else.

Anonymous 1:30 PM  

This old timer is always happy when the constructor chimes in. Great work Robin!

Anonymous 1:54 PM  

Glad you posted this. Highly recommend that folks read Robin Yu’s bio.

okanaganer 2:03 PM  

This actually went pretty fast; the easy downs made me see CLOSE FOR COMFORT with an extra square at the end, and right away I got the theme. I TOO tried 2 because R2D2!

Knew NENEH Cherry and saw DARK STAR during my science studies in the late 1970s. But I saw MALKIK and thought: that's the guy who sang those lovely Beatles songs in the movie Yesterday! Wrong... the character was named Jack Malik.

[Spelling Bee: yd 0; my last word this 7er. @Barbara S, your last word... snicker snicker. QB streak 5 days.]

okanaganer 2:03 PM  
This comment has been removed by the author.
CDilly52 2:08 PM  

Easy except where it wasn’t. Don’t know how many of you who are old enough to have had someone, probably an adult who loved you very much but whom you vexed frequently (and in my case in so many different ways) recite the “There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead . . . “ poem when at their most vexed. Well, this puzzle reminded me of that little bit of doggerel. When this was easy, it was very, very easy, but when it was hard it was horrid! (Re the little girl: “when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad . . .” You get it).

For real, I started with a big mistake by putting fAcE instead of PAGE at 1A. Hear me out. It was the word sheet in the clue that made me steer away from thinking “book” and the obvious PAGE. “Face plant.” By itself, that might not have been such a biggie, but my brain just did not want to connect up there at the top, all the way across. All I had in the top tier on my first pass was TIER, PEDE, and TRIAD going across with ATL, EROS and SIFT going down. So I skipped to the bottom.

Whole different story down there. I blazed through the bottom tier like the veritable floodgates rather than a single SLUICE had been opened. The only one I didn’t get immediately was the Hammer album, but after I got EXTOLS and GET OUT, I knew the reference was to TOO LEGIT TO QUIT. I also saw that the “rub” was with the word TOO that simply had to fit somewhere else, not where it belonged. I smelled a rebus, but where?

And along comes the easy reveal. Even without the Hammer album (I quit the top before I even tried the first theme clue), I thought the clue for TOO LITTLE TOO LATE was really easy. To be fair to our able constructor, Robin Yu, I also couldn’t figure out a shorter, more clear yet less obvious way to clue it. Kudos Robin for a clever Thursday idea well executed. I do love the rebus Thursday.

Back to the top for the theme clues first I went and the TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT gave me a little more of that top tier. I remained stuck because of fAcE though and had no idea about the car but I had the -ETRO part which somehow helped me recall the GEO METRO which fixed PAGE and also helped me get MEN, remember NENEH and all I had left were a few very pesky blank spaces on the extreme east. The capital of Eritrea is not one I recall easily. I had to MOOR my brain in the extreme dusty stacks of my ancient library for just a bit, SIFT through some junk, recall that during the days after my recent car accident I did in fact have several issues with ATRIAL fib and problem solved. RIOTER took me too long to get and was the last one to fall.

Again, great job Robin! Well done, fun, just enough resistance to dust off some of the musty shelves way back in the stacks and a very satisfying Thursday rebus.

gdaddywinz 2:10 PM  

My wife and I wound up taking a rote through the puzzle and figured out the theme before the revealer- at first without the TOO appendage and then, thanks to TOOTIN, the rest. Didn't know Bachata but Dark Star seemed likely.

CDilly52 2:11 PM  

I love BACHATA!!

CDilly52 2:13 PM  

@Whatshername 11:14. AM 😂

Whatsername 2:14 PM  

I second @mathgent’s statement that @Nancy is definitely not a snob. She doesn’t come across that way at all in her comments about pop culture or anything else.

CDilly52 2:15 PM  

Hang in there @Nancy. We know and love you just the way you are. To each her own. And I agree 100% with @mathgent.

Anonymous 2:16 PM  

Didn’t know the M. C. Hammer album. Didn’t know Neneh Cherry. Didn’t know Dark Star. Didn’t know Zayn Malik. Didn’t know Bachata. Didn’t know Eritrea’s capital. That was enough to sink me for this puzzle. Too many proper nouns that I could not get with the crosses.

Anonymous 2:36 PM  

It isn’t part of the theme but you can put TOO before or after(as was done) or not include it at all and you get common, ordinary , delightful phrases.

I don’t quite understand SNOB. At any rate , I will consider myself such and continue to try to learn more about such things as Zahn and company. Listened to his Pillowtalk today and it was quite impressed favorably. Wonderful voice. Somewhat a little bit less than a full SNOB, I am I guess.

A nice puzzle but not quite as much fun as a typical Thursday.

Anoa Bob 2:41 PM  

I was proud of myself until I wasn't. I've never seen "Star Wars", DARK STAR version or otherwise, but I learned from crosswords that the bleeping film STAR at 14 Down was AR2 DE2 so I had all four themers ending with 2. That worked until the reveal revealed that the correct solution used TOO rather than 2.

Aha! A verbis puzzle, verbis being Latin for "with or by way of words". Not sure how or why crosswordworld started using rebus, Latin for "with or by way of things", for a puzzle with words crammed into a single square. This has generated a bit of a dustup as discussed at Rebusgate.

I first thought of Los Robles For 8D "Los Angeles neighborhood whose name means 'oak' in Spanish" but had also heard of ENCINO so that went in quickly. As best as I can tell, roble means generic oak (there are lots of oak species) while ENCINO means holm oak, a species of evergreen oak.

I join those who were wondering how 25D "Candied fruits or nuts" could be COMFITS. Thought COMFITS and its opposite DISCOMFITS, were verbs and the nouns would be COMFORTS and DISCOMFORTS.

Not sure how 26A SNOB would be "One who eschews all pop culture". A SNOB would be someone who arrogantly EXTOLS their pop culture while disdainfully eschewing all other pop cultures, right?

ghostoflectricity 2:45 PM  

A lot of near-naticks for me though I was eventually able to navigate them, and I wasn't crazy about the theme. But I do love the reference to the film "Dark Star"' John Carpenter before his "Halloween" fame/notoriety, and the late/lamented Dan O'Bannon before he wrote the screenplay for the original "Alien." O'Bannon was also hilarious as the whiny Sgt. Pinback, kvetcher extraordinaire, on board the interstellar spacecraft of the title, whose crew members are all Southern California stoners/slackers/surfers who go about their job with bored indifference. The movie should have a wider audience. Not to be confused with the Grateful Dead song of the same title (a great song) or the pop song of the same title by Crosby, Stills, & Nash without Young, which is ok if you like easy listening.

Anonymous 2:50 PM  

Yep! For me ‘2’ was a little ‘too’!

Alice Pollard 3:19 PM  

This was a great puzzle . I am not a wrap guy and all I could think of was U Can’t Touch this. And I stared at RETAPE for far too long thinking it was RETAkE and wondering why they would give it away so much in the clue. and SLUICE? was not familiar with that. This was a challenge, but I finished no errors . Loved it

Nancy 4:07 PM  

@Joe D --

The answer is look-up-able (see below) and evidently that's what @jberg did. But it's a bit of trivia I've always known -- just like some people know the Hammer album. Which is the problem with pop culture cluing: the people who know it cold will scribble it in on automatic pilot and the people who don't know it can stare at it until the cows come home and never get it without a LOT of crosses.

The answer -- from an easy Google search:

What was the last song written by Oscar Hammerstein?

Edelweiss

Oscar Hammerstein died of stomach cancer on August 23, 1960, at his home Highland Farm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, aged 65, nine months after the opening of The Sound of Music on Broadway. The final song he wrote was "Edelweiss", which was added near the end of the second act during rehearsal.

Anonymous 4:48 PM  

Got the first themer, but unsure why it cut the TOO and why I had an extra square at the end, the started getting the same with the rest and went into wait-and-see mode. Then got the revealer, and thought it might be something clumsy like a 2 at the end…? When I shrugged and typed in TOO as a rebus, and saw how little it was, I laughed out loud. Perfect execution. Well played!

Joe Dipinto 4:55 PM  

@Nancy – I know, I saw jberg's post. Really though, if he'd had any sense of timing it would have been "So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehn, Goodbye." :-D

Georgia 4:59 PM  

MC Hammer, an early rapper with "U Can't Touch This."

Anonymous 5:03 PM  

Young millennial solver…without geometro and Nineh (???) the crosses didn’t come as easy so took a little time to clean up that NW part. Loved the themer though!

Anonymous 5:12 PM  

Came here to see if I was alone with this stumbling block... I had the exact same fills and the puzzle took twice as long as a normal Thursday!

Anonymous 5:43 PM  

Boy band - can’t remember which one.

Weezie 5:44 PM  

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh! *slaps forehead* Thanks Joe!

Anonymous 5:49 PM  

But it was manufactured by GEO, a short lived division of GM, not Chevrolet.

CDilly52 5:58 PM  

You deserve every rave, Robin!! I rarely agree with Rex but 100% today! And a debut; you go!!

CDilly52 6:07 PM  

@Weezie 6:38 AM. While I don’t disagree with @Joe Dipinto, and think it more likely that our constructor was thinking food on (or in) a bed of fluffy RICE, my first thought was also the therapeutic representation because I have been using it regularly since my car wreck!

Anon 8:07 PM  

I liked this! Even though I had to look up ASMARA. Got ClOSEFORCOMFORT_ and knew something was us, but didn't get the revealer fully 'til later. Nice puzzle.

Joe Dipinto 9:43 PM  

@Weezie & CDilly re RICE – Yeah,
it's one of those punny clues that doesn't I>quite land, the way it's worded.

Anonymous 9:56 PM  

Neneh Cherry is not obscure, and you’ve absolutely heard of MC Hammer - he dropped the “MC” later on.

Anonymous 11:25 AM  

As a USC cinema graduate, Dark Star was a gimme.

spacecraft 1:09 PM  

More PPP woes...and WOEs. NENEH, really? BACHATA? What's that, a condensed Bach cantata? Yikes, when will it stop?!

Challenging, for this puppy. AR2DE2 indeed! Rather AR-bitrary spelling, don'tcha think? Not D2 or DEE2, but just a single E. Reeks of desperation.

I really don't know quite how I finished this, except to say I guessed a lot. A severely contrived theme, and weekend clues. How did I do it? Luck, pure and simple. Trying @ hard there, Ms. Yu. Bogey.

Wordle bogey; can't be lucky all the time.

Anonymous 1:45 PM  

Pretty darn good for a first timer. Bravo Robin Yu!

Anonymous 2:58 PM  

Of no redeeming value, like the usual Thursday puzzle.

Burma Shave 4:38 PM  

EROS' QUALMS

FOR COOL COMFORT you OTTER wear sandals
when you GET her OUT FOR a date,
ORE FOR a SCHOOL girl TOO HOTTOHANDLE,
MEN, a LEI is TOOLITTLETOOLATE.

--- NENEH ENCINO

Anonymous 4:49 PM  

I can't believe people don't know the baa/maa, sheep/goat thingie, which I learned as a wee little lad. But then again, I'm a former shepherdist, who has converted to goatherdism.

rondo 5:43 PM  

Kinda what OFL said. Decent I guess, as far as a rebus puz goes.
Wordle par.

Diana, LIW 7:27 PM  

A proper name almost flummoxed a perfect solve, but a one-letter (correct) guess saved the day.

So. Was anyone else surprised not to see someone wearing a 2-2? And yes, I used "2," and not TOO, in the rebussy places.

Don't usually like a rebus - this one was okish.

Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords

  © Free Blogger Templates Columnus by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP