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Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
- MOSQUITO (1D: Criminal patterns, in brief) (MOS "gains" "capital" of Ecuador)
- RIGATONI (3D: Writer Morrison) (TONI "gains" "capital" of Latvia)
- TIMBERLINES (18A: What "x" might mean) (TIMES "gains" "capital" of Germany)
- BAKING STONE (59A: Sweetheart) (BAE "gains" "capital" of Jamaica)
- PARISHES (39D: Fellows) (HES "gains" "capital" of France)
- LOS LOBOS (41D: Some corp. takeovers) (LBOS "gains" "capital" of Norway)
A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loans, along with the assets of the acquiring company. The use of debt, which normally has a lower cost of capital than equity, serves to reduce the overall cost of financing the acquisition. The cost of debt is lower because interest payments often reduce corporate income tax liability, whereas dividend payments normally do not. This reduced cost of financing allows greater gains to accrue to the equity, and, as a result, the debt serves as a lever to increase the returns to the equity. (wikipedia)
• • •
Lucked out by knowing ONI (37A: Demon in Japanese folklore). If I hadn't, that corner would've been Much harder. ABOUNDIN was already hard to parse, plus you've got two themers up there, and the eerie mysterious SOG. Really thankful for that ONI, for sure. The great thing about this theme was that I was genuinely curious to see what other capitals would appear, and where, so even though I had the concept early, the puzzle was still fun to work through. The only off-putting thing about the theme was that the base answers were often the kind of short dreck that no one wants to see. HES? LBOS? And yet the theme transforms those ugly answers, via the magic of added capitals, into beautiful butterflies. Plus a surprise guest appearance by LOS LOBOS! Good stuff. ALTAMONT does evoke some unpleasantness, namely the considerable violence associated with the concert in question (40D: California concert site featured in the documentary "Gimme Shelter"), but it was a culturally momentous event, it's a solid 8-letter answer, and this puzzle is bright enough to withstand the occasional bad vibes. Speaking of bad vibes ... nobody really wants to see BEN / SASSE, a feckless and intellectually dishonest senator who occasionally wagged his finger at political bad actors but voted with them every time and generally did nothing to stem the tide of conspiracy-theory thinking and white RACIAL animosity that engulfed his party. So now he's the president of a university, I think. Yep, University of Florida. Probably wagging his weary wagging finger at the "woke mob" as we speak. Yawn. Good riddance. And yet even his unwelcome presence in the grid did little to deplete the joy I felt while solving this puzzle.
ELASTIC METONYM is the best band name I've seen in a while. I think they used to open for LOS LOBOS back in the late '80s. All the names in this puzzle were familiar to me*, even Jeannette RANKIN, about whom I thought "I have no idea," but then, after the RA-, I thought "it's RANKIN, how do I know it's RANKIN? I just do (46D: Jeannette who was the first woman elected to Congress (1916)). The "name" that gave me the most trouble was actually COSMO (58A: Mag that began endorsing political candidates in 2014). I don't think of that as a "mag" that still exists. I miss mags. Remember mags? Or "magazines," as we sometimes laboriously called them? Newsstands with huge arrays of mags. Whole stores mostly given over to mags. It's how you got your pictures and words before this stupid internet thing you're on now. Sigh. Good times. Anyway, COSMO feels like it belongs to a bygone era. And yet here it is, trying to stay relevant, I guess, by endorsing political candidates. Thank god! Just in time to save us from impending fascism. Hey, I learned something new today, which is that the helicon is an instrument in the TUBA family (7D: Helicon, e.g., musically speaking). I know Helicon as the mountain location of the spring that is sacred to the nine Muses, but ... also a TUBA! Did you know Terpsichore played the TUBA? She didn't, but it's fun to imagine she did. Much funnier than that lyre she's always toting around.
I liked the theme as well, but was more disappointed at the slop. Rex must have had some great coffee, because normally he’d be spewing vitriol at hes, acuter, and the singular pec.
ReplyDeleteI *did* knock HES, and I don’t think PEC is any worse than DELT or LAT in the singular. I’ll grant you ACUTER :) ~RP
DeleteAgreed! “Capital Gains” was a clever idea, but the execution was terrible. Hes? Lbos? The only one I laughed at was rigatoni….
DeleteWhen I got the happy NYT music I couldn’t even be bothered to go back and figure out all of the capitals.
I expected Rex to savage this puzzle since he usually skewers these ones…
Agreed. Got the theme fairly quickly with Kingston but did not enjoy the rest of the capital clues. They all seemed forced and nonsensical.
DeleteUgh. Reality tough if you don’t pick up the theme. RIGATONI and MOSQUITO were enough to alert me that it was going to be one of “those” days. By the tome I got to BAKING STONE for a sweetheart I was too beaten, bruised and battered to even attempt to parse together the CEYLONs, COSMOs and METONYMs scattered among the wreckage.
ReplyDeleteToo bad that the theme escaped me and the rest of it was way out of my wheelhouse, as this could be a fun concept if dialed back a bit (or dialed back a lot in my case- maybe to Tuesday-level difficulty, lol).
Hated it. Maybe I’m dense, maybe my head is clouded with pollen, or maybe I’m just bitter that I had to cheat to complete. I got CAPITAL GAINS early on, but that didn’t help.
ReplyDeleteI never got the theme, even when I had a full answer with crosses. I couldn’t understand why these were the answers to the clues I had. I had L(OSLO)BOS but since LBOS is way too obscure of a term for me to pull, I couldn’t see the city or understand why it was the answer. Ditto for (PARIS)HES especially so because even though it’s the most obvious capital, HES is a horrible, miserable, ugly answer for the clue ‘fellows’. Rinse and repeat for TIM(BERLIN)ES; ‘x’ is a stand in for so many things that I just accepted it as being correct and outside my wheelhouse. Same for BA(KINGSTON)ES. I just scratched my head and moved on.
All this just was the fuel for my frustration fire in the NW. The crosses weren’t enough to parse the longs. Don’t know ONI, doubted OBI (sure it’s a sash, but i associate it more with a kimono), cringed at SOG (pencilled it in right away but doubted it every step). So MOS(QUITO) and (RIGA)TONI were both unattainable. It was so bad, that even mid-cheat I couldn’t complete RIGATON- even knowing who Toni Morrison is.
That said, YMMV. You guys are a clever lot and I’m sure a lot will like this puzzle.
Same!!
DeleteI'm with you. Couldn't understand the theme even after getting the revealer.
DeleteHard same. I loathed this puzzle. Came here to find out what the theme meant and it just made me more annoyed.
Delete@Suzie: I am so with you on that. “As straightforward a revealer as you’re likely to get”?? C’mon.
DeleteSAME. Brutal S(L)OG for me.
DeleteHardest Thursday I can remember.
DeleteI hated it too. I got all the answers without ever quite getting the theme. I thought several answers were forced such as the aforementioned “sog” and “acuter.” I loved Los Lobos in their prime, but “LBOS” wrapped arou“Oslo?!?” Gimme a break! Maybe it’s because I didn’t have time to do it until late at night and am sleep deprived.
DeleteNo, it isn’t sleep deprivation. This is a horrible excuse for a puzzle that I hate from the depths of my very soul.
DeleteI felt like the puzzle did not play fair today with the very limited entries to the two corners with two themers each. And because the themers are semi-unclued, having those entries was important.
ReplyDeleteSolved, but without much enjoyment.
GREAT puzzle. Was difficult for me in that I was unsure which answers would have the capital. 1D and one 3D had one and for the life of me I was trying on 2D to fit in Rome, Dublin, London.... before ABOUNDIN occurred. the cross of METONYM/CEYLON was tough and I ran the AEIOU pattern, my last square filled. I am a financial accountant so CAPITAL GAINS was easy and filled in first. I had gloria before BEATIT. Never hear od Ben the Nebraska politician. PALO Alto was nice to see. My daughter just got accepted to Stanford so we will be in Palo Alto soon. Loved DISCO “Summer music”. This one took me awhile - but finally finished no errors and it was fun. Thanks David Kahn. Real good one.
ReplyDeleteThis is David’s 188th NYT puzzle, yet there’s no hint of staleness here. David is known for trickiness and man, to me, that reputation was affirmed with this one.
ReplyDeleteA pitch-perfect theme/revealer and excellence in execution. Wow, David J. Kahn, you will hear moans today from the flummoxed, but please brush them off, and stay the path.
This was tough for me, even after I uncovered the revealer and knew what was going on. SWEAT indeed. Clues deflected me, got my brain searching in all directions, laughed at me, basically, and when their answers did fall, I was filled with respect for how fair they turned out to be.
At puzzle’s start, just before I fill out the first square, my world consists of me, the puzzle, and excited anticipation. It’s like the moment before opening a present. That momentary gap before plunging in, well, IMO, that is one of Crosslandia’s sweetest gifts, where I’m filled with “What’s it going to be?”
Today it was an exercise in persistence, humility, discovery, and, at finish, a wow at your skill, David. Thank you so much for this!
I finished the puzzle without understanding the theme. Kept thinking it had something to do with advancing the first letter by one. Was about to give up and then I saw OSLO.
ReplyDeleteI saw Los Lobos on Sunday at Jazzfest, my first time seeing them since 1989 (opening for the Grateful Dead), a new record for years between shows for a band.
@SouthsideJohnny – right? The longer I went without looking at the reveal, the more impatient I got. I knew that it had to be TONI, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out even one of the other themers’ “base” words. I was pretty sure 59A was BAE, but jeez Louise, this was hard. I finally gave in and looked at the reveal. Hah! Then everything fell into place. So cool that David found phrases with embedded capitals, phrases that, sans capitals, are still viable words or phrases. I’m joining the group here who liked it. A lot.
ReplyDeleteRex – fun idea to find possible band names in the grid. I’ll put forward the WEBBED MOSQUITOES.
That southwest was brutal what with the K in RANKIN and falling for the seasonesque clue for “Summer music.” I had “ditty,” revisiting Jack and Diane and wondering id somehow I had missed that ditties were just for summer. Oops.
“You might calmly tell someone not to do this.” Hmm. DON’T YOU THROW THAT CHEESE STICK ACROSS THE ROOM. I could see it in her eyes – when someone asked her if he could have it – she was gonna throw it. (The background story is that she is at my school for attacking a teacher. And she towers over me.) Not taking her eyes off mine, she winged it across the room. Shit. Now what. Our eyes were still locked as I walked over to her, looked up, and said I’m so disappointed and hurt that you just threw that. She was still. I went on, fanning my face, I think I’m gonna cry. She said, Don’t cry, Ms. Smith. I sniffed, Wanna hug it out? She laughed, Oh God, no. I just said, Don’t do that again or we’re gonna have a real problem. I know I handled it wrong; I should have written her up and kicked her out as a message to her and the other kids, but, well, heck. Baby steps and all that. She’s been good for me ever since.
I misread 62A as “lead-in to globin.” So when my daughter started a blood-borne pathogens class in vet school, we had an exchange that kind of went like this:
Me: Sage, here’s what you have to do. You might want to get a pen to write this down. At some point, you have to raise your hand and say, “Professor? These are pretty bad actors, these pathogens, right?” She’ll agree that, yes, they’re bad. So then you have to tilt your head, squint your eyes a little but not too much and say, “So you could argue that they’re, well, hemogoblins.”
Sage: I’m not gonna do that, Mom.
I have decided to apply to vet school solely for the purpose of telling that joke. Or making that pun. Or whatever.
DeleteHemogoblins. Hah!
Not on my wavelength. Ditto Rex with Jeanette R. For a brief moment I thought writer Morrison might be RIta Mae . . . No, that’s Brown.
ReplyDeleteThe good news: we’ve made it through Thursday. Friday’s on deck!
When Eli Apple (5D) was drafted tenth in the 2016 NFL draft by the NY Giants he became the latest in the short line of professional fruit athletes. Before him were Milt Plum and Raymond Berry of the NFL, Don Cherry of the NHL, baseballers Chet and Bob Lemon, and, of course, Daryl Strawberry. Their mascot is Otto the Orange, of Syracuse U.
ReplyDeleteEli was actually born Eli Woodard, but adopted the surname Apple to honor Tim Apple, the man who raised him from infancy and married his mom. Apple is a Jersey man and was all set to attend Rutgers when its coach (Schiano) left for the pros, so he went to Ohio State instead and had an outstanding college career, which included winning the National Championship in 2015. As a pro, he had some behavioral/personality issues with the Giants and no longer plays in the "Big Apple." He's with the Bengals now.
Definitely not medium for me. Very challenging but a nice feeling of accomplishment when I finally finished.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t get the theme until all the way down at BAKING STONE. The next one I got was LOS LOBOS (whom I think I have seen live more than any other band). Because of those two, I thought all the capitals would be nestled inside the long answers, not at the beginning or the end. That caused major problems in the brutal NW. I had MO to start the 1 down themer so I thought the S of MOS had to go at the end. (No idea about ONI.) I thought the Morrison author name had to be split between the beginning and end of the long answer, and I was pretty sure about MAR and OBI, so I assumed it was a different Morrison. Finally figured out that QUITO and TONI were at the end of their long answers.
I am a geography nerd, so I did love the find-the-capitals fun. I do wish they’d been a little less Eurocentric with only QUITO and KINGSTON outside that continent. Couldn’t you make Ouagadougou work, David?
The puzzle was definitely MARred by a few awful answers, as Rex and others have noted. The NW might have fallen sooner if I’d followed my instinct and put in SOG but I truly hoped it wouldn’t be right. HES for “fellows” is so bad I would have rejected it if I were the editor.
Rex, the one place you still see racks of magazines is airport shops. I guess you gotta have some celebrity crap to page through on a long flight.
Completely forgot about EDGAR in King Lear. My first thought was, “There was a son?”
Lots of great clues — BATHE, SWEAT, DISCO, ROBOTS … and I guess SILT. I didn’t think silt is bad for the mouth of the river, I thought it just … is. I guess they’re always dredging silt but isn’t that just that it’s convenient for us to have it siltless? Or maybe silt in the river mouth isn’t natural but the result of our agricultural runoff? Yes, I could look it up, but I know there is some hydrologist here who will be happy to explain.
Took me over an hour, but I finally caught on to the gimmick. I knew "Writer Morrison" had to be TONI, so when RIGA appeared from the crosses, I remembered that it was the capital of Latvia. That led me to MOS plus QUITO.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest puzzle was BAKINGSTONE, because KINGSTON left me with BAE. But then I remembered that BAE is an abbreviation for "best" something.
It felt good to finish a Thursday, for a change.
Really clever, well-constructed theme. Like @Lewis, I found it challenging even after grasping the theme. What was the base answer? What capital went in, and where? Didn’t help that I had a brain fart and thought RIGA was a currency (?!) so thought we were looking for two different kinds of “capital.”
ReplyDeleteThis one threw me! I got the theme, but still had trouble figuring out where the capital was in LOS LOBOS. Now it’s so obvi but I didn’t know about LBOS so it made it a lot harder. Hindsight is 20/20! I’ll admit I looked up a few of the names. BEN SASSE is not someone I knew, sadly because I hate the news. It’s always so depressing. And ELI APPLE because.. sports. Thanks again as usual for a fun write up!
ReplyDeleteTerrific Thursday 👍👍
ReplyDeleteWonderful puzzle. Only quibble is that CAPITAL GAINS is misclued: they are profit, not proceeds.
ReplyDeleteI agree
DeleteSurprised Rex didn't hate on it
When RP says nobody wants to see BEN/SASSE…he means nobody in the cocoon in which he resides wants to see BEN/SASSE…It’d be fine by my friends, as would seeing Ilhan Omar, Mike Lee, AOC or any other famous political figure, Democrat or Republican, past or present. BTW, BEN SASSE wasn’t in David Kahn’s original submission. He writes in Xword Info :
ReplyDeleteAfter I submitted the puzzle, I was asked to change the answer SERIO to SASSE at 22-Across, easy enough to do. But I wanted to write a clue referring to the fact that all the letters in his FULL name could be spelled using only the letters in NEBRASKA, his home state. Since BEN wasn't yet an answer in the grid, I redid the lower left corner and, in doing so, changed 54-Across from YIN to BEN.
Sometimes it's worth extra work to add a really cool clue.
Agree with Dave L in spot #1. Fun theme but too much of the fill was garbage.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of the cleverness of today’s trick, I thought this was the worst fill I’ve seen in months. I still don’t understand 10% or more of the answers. Rex, is it possible you threw the constructor a bone because you like him? I think this was a lot more deserving of a vitriolic panning.
ReplyDeleteIsn’t anyone upset about the “Ben Sasse” clue suggesting that every letter in NEBRASKA is used in this name? So misleading. I can’t believe that got past the editor.
ReplyDeleteExactly. I wasted tons of time trying to figure out who BEN KARAS was.
DeleteI was SOOOO hoping that the answer to 4-across was going to be Africa (which was from 1983) and we also had Toto at the bottom! Alas ‘twas not to be
ReplyDeleteUtterly confounded by this one. No fun. No joy.
ReplyDeleteLeft with sadness.
The gimmick was amazing and I thought the rest of the full kind of sucked
ReplyDeletefuck ben sasse and fuck this puzzle
ReplyDeleteLots of whoosh! in this one, as in the whooshing sound that the revealer made going over my head. Even with everything filled in, I didn't get it.
ReplyDeleteNot much more to say about this, although SOG as a verb should never be allowed anywhere near a puzzle.
Very clever, DJK. Didn't Just Knock me down, it stole my lunch money too. Thanks for some tortuous fun.
The first themer I figured out, the capital was in the middle of the answer. So later on, I find that two of the themers, the capital was at the very start of the answer. Which, okay, may I'm being picky, but I just found that inconsistent.
ReplyDeleteVery much agree with an earlier commenter about (PARIS)HES for "Fellows"? Yuck.
And is that really PAL sitting atop PALO in the fill?
Not real happy about BEN/SASSE either, as it entirely leaves out two letters from NEBRASKA. But I guess the clueing for that didn't say that all the letters in NEBRASKA had to be used. Still, yuck.
I did like the clue "Summer of music", even if I did not like that music back in those days.
Well, I did it, but without understanding the CAPITAL GAINS until I came here. Like someone else I had RI___ and figured it was a different Morrison, and even when I got RIGATONI I found
ReplyDeletemyself thinking ...pasta...? Definitely not thinking capitals. And "x" could be buried treasure, a kiss, eyes on a dead cartoon character, a destination, "the spot", but times did not occur to me, which is funny because just before that I had put Sign for 10A, thinking of a mathematical operation before a hospital one.
Another writeover, although it didn't quite parse, was Donna before DISCO. Right church (dance club?) wrong pew.
And ACUTER sounds like a German comparative, of which the superlative would be am acutesten. In English we typically use "more" to form the comparative of multisyllable words and words from Latin: more important, more productive, more elaborate, more acute. The pain was more acute when she stood up.
Here endeth the lesson...
Rex never fails to put his extraneous neoliberal politics into any apolitical xword. Along with his squeamish take on people, places or things he finds objectionable.
ReplyDeleteALTAMONT was a place where a terrible event happened (unlike,say, BERLIN). So he shudders a bit, but will allow it!
Anything RACIAL is of course in his wheelhouse. And if he’s going to bring up fascism, great book I recently read was WOKE FASCISM. Thought Chris Hedges’ book on Christian Fascism a decade or two ago was going to be our fate, but neolibs have turned out far worse.
I’m sure ANONYMOUS (Rex) will make another comment about how I’m what’s wrong with this country (he initials RP when he wants to be known but stays anon when he does his parting shots). But for the record, I’ve been an antiwar, anti authoritarian progressive since I first voted for McGovern. I haven’t changed - the left has gone loony. Speak out against the madness, as CSN used to sing.
As for the puzzle itself, the conceit was clever enough but solving it was a SOGgy slog!
(Hope Rex publishes this post - he hasn’t on several of mine when he didn’t like the critique. Which in itself is a small example of Woke Fascism - Rex seems to have more of a problem with the Woke term than the fascist actions).
You should try looking up “neoliberal” some time. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Delete@andrew 9:20 AM
DeleteIt's 🦖's blog and you know what you're getting into around here. It's as predictable as your right-wing bumper sticker jingoism. Here's your award 🏆for being the yang to his yin. The saddest part is you're actually worth reading when you talk about the crossword.
"Sog" is not a verb.
ReplyDeleteGotta agree with a couple other posts that seemed vexed by the puzzle but moreso by Rex’s gentle tut tutting barely affecting a strangely boundless joy in the review.
ReplyDeleteI’m sorry but half of every themed answer is just unclued! Other constructors would and have taken a pummeling.
It’s not consistent how long or where that unclued portion will fall! Or even where the themed clues/answers are! Here we get a light tut tut.
Also the theme is based around a combination of geography and a finance term as is one of the themed answers which I feel pretty confident Rex is not a huge fan of.
A two part clue on a heinous politician (mentioned but “did little to block the storm of rainbows and sunshine of smiles and glee”)!
These are cardinal sins that Rex has blown gasket on time and again for other constructors (except maybe the geography aspect).
I’m still confused how anyone parsed Los Lobos to be an acronym for Leveraged Buyouts plus OSLO.
The rest of the fill felt like a stereotypical puzzle from the 90s:
3 additional geography clues
Golf clue
Shakespeare clue shoehorned in
Clue about a Latin phrase
Maybe just not meant for me but completely surprised it was for Rex. Glad he can still surprise us.
@Anonymous 9:28am:
DeleteLos Lobos is the exact point at which I figured out the theme answers. LBO(s) has been answer in many xword puzzles, which made Oslo visible to me. That made finding the rest of the capitals much easier. It still was a very hard puzzle for me.
Thx, David; an epic mind-bender! 😊
ReplyDeleteHard to the max!
This one was plenty tough, then I got to the SE and good golly miss molly, I was clueless for way too long.
Finally twigged that HES might just be the spark I needed for 'Fellows', and sure enuf, along came gay PARee to save the day.
What a blast! Loved the challenge! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness & Freudenfreude to all 🙏
YAY!!!! I figured it out myself before coming here!!!!
ReplyDeleteBut not until the very end -- after I'd filled in everything but MOS[QUITO]. Meanwhile, I remained dumb and clueless for much too long. Dumb, clueless, and completely baffled. I had CAPITAL GAINS long before I saw the trick in any of the answers.
What a genius puzzle!!!!
It makes one's bafflement all the greater because it teases you from the get-go with "easy" themer answers you're sure you know. Of course it's MOs! Has to be! Of course it's TONI! Has to be! Only it's not.
Once I saw the CAPITALs that appear in MOSQUITO and RIGATONI, I expected all CAPITALS to emerge at the end of the answer. Which they don't. Making all the other themers trickier and harder to pick up.
My "Aha Moment" was huge -- belated though it was. Wonderful puzzle, David. Bet you screamed out "EUREKA!" many times both during the conception of it and the execution of it. Bet you couldn't help yourself. That's certainly what I would have done.
After an hour I chucked this at Nancy's wall. I knew the revealer and had the two horizontal themers, but I couldn't see the capitals inside them. I was thinking of capital letters.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know any of the people except the golfer and the ambient music dude.
So at the hour mark I opened up Go-ogle, filled in the rest of the puzzle without any understanding of the theme and went to bed knowing 🦖 would save the day as always.
Seems like the -onym list is growing and I WORRY the eponyms, metonyms, aptonyms, and homonyms will rise up with the DANK ROBOTS.
Uniclues:
1 Local museum ad campaign aimed at fretters.
2 Neighborhood for stoned cybertrons, for short.
3 Spider brought home the bacon, so to speak.
4 Nickname for congressional representative after ordering an Italian meal.
5 Rain on Sri Lanka.
6 Flimflammer flophouses.
1 WORRY? SEE ARTS!
2 DANK ROBOTS STS.
3 MOSQUITO WEBBED
4 RIGATONI RANKIN
5 BATHE CEYLON
6 CON MAN PARISHES
Hey All !
ReplyDelete*WHOOSH*
That was the sound of the Theme completely flying over my head. Had no Earthly Idea what in tarhooties those odd answers to some of the clues were all about. I've said it before, I need my hand held. Put some shaded squares in and make this a WedsPuz. 😁
LBOS as a base word? Yikes. I do like that the "CAPITALs GAINed" turn out to be real words.
Never heard of the ONI, and I've watched every season of Supernatural (well, the last season I haven't seen yet.)
This may have been A CUTER puz to those who grokked it, but it went (TEN)PAST me. I did think the DISCO clue was great.
EAT IT by Weird Al Yankovic;
Just Eat It, Eat It, Eat It, Eat It
Open up your mouth and feed it
Have some more chicken
Have some more Spam
It doesn't matter
If it's fresh or canned
Just Eat It, WooHoo, Eat It
Have a banana
Have a whole bunch
It doesn't matter
What you have for lunch
Time for me to BEAT IT
No F's (RANK)
RooMonster
DarrinV
With the clued parts of some of the themes being tiny abbreviations like LBOS and MOS, and then HES as a theme answer, and then SOG and ACUTER, when I finished the puzzle, I thought, "Rex is going to hate it."
ReplyDeleteBut he doesn't. I am more confused by this than by anything in the puzzle.
Brilliant puzzle that I managed to “finish” but felt EXACTLY like @Pabloinnh…WHOOSH! Still in all, great fun!
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if any of the rest of you are like this but some days I just don’t think I’ve brought my full brain in to solve the puzzle, especially the theme if I don’t have to. Today I brought enough to “fill in” the puzzle and when I got to (successful) end I just thought…”I’ll look @Rex to see why there were recognizable word answers that had nothing to do with clues.” WHOOSH. Now, of course, I look back and think…sheesh….RIGA, QUITO, etc. kind of embarrassing.
I blew this one, even though I had figured out the theme and had five of the six theme answers. But when I saw the GPS clue I just automatically put in rTS (for routes). That gave me PARISHEr, which is a thing. I couldn't see how HER meant fellows, but I let it go.
ReplyDeleteNot only that, but I thought the drops in the gym were SwEAm (they form on the walls of the steam room) and you went back and forth when you were playing tAG. METONYM/MEmONYM-- I didn't remember the former until I came here and saw it.
But it was fun figuring out the theme. Harder than it should have been as I had QUell before QUASH. I only fixed that when I got to the revealer. I think I'd've figured it out myself except for that error.
I could see that I didn't need to use every letter in NEBRASKA, but that K clouded my mind to that the only NE senator I could think of was Roman Hruska. I needed most of the crosses on SASSE to get beyond that.
LBOs are in the news a lot, but I know finance isn't everyone's cuppa. However, more people should know about Jeanette RANKIN, the only member of Congress to vote against declaring war twice (the first and second world wars).
I can't decide whether those two clues with Colombo, another capital, in them MAR the puzzle or add to it.
Good one! Very tough for me to get a grip on, and very satisfying to finish. In the NW I had only MAR and OBI, but managed to back my way into TIMBERLINES from the NE corner, having no idea what they had to do with an "x". After that, though, LENTIL and CEYLON got me my CAPITAL GAINS - absolutely essential to my finishing. KINGSTON was easy for me to see, but not those verticals. Crept my way to QUITO and RIGA, really struggled to get PARIS and OSLO to work. Genius concept, I thought, and a perfect Thursday challenge.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised at the objections to SOG, although, in fairness, I'd use it with "out." If your cornflakes aren't SOGging out, what are they doing as they get...soggy?
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ReplyDelete@Gary Jugert - absolutely it’s Rex’s blog and I enjoy the snarkiness and his critiques. Such a nice change from the gooiness of Jeff Chen (who is by all signs a nice guy but a bit hard to read).
ReplyDeleteAnd as much as I say he’s knee jerk in his political reactions, I realize I’m equally so in my responses to them. “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Nietzsche.
Not that I think Rex is a monster, but neither am I. I’m fine with being the Yang to his Yin. Duality and divergence are healthy.
But here’s the thing that YOU need to understand. I’m not a right winger or Trumper and certainly not jingoistic. I hate US policies of eternal war, forced hegemony, and the surveillance state on all Americans. I was avidly pro-Obama when he was at 1% in 2007, and even was a Omar supporter when I lived in downtown Minneapolis pre-Floyd (at which point the boarded up windows, closed businesses and barbed wire fence took away the city’s charm. And the hatred and fear made it ridiculous to stay)
I’m pro-choice (up till 5 months), anti-imperialism, anti-war, anti-mandates, anti-authoritarianism, anti-discrimination, pro live and let live.
Because I’ve CLAPPEDBACK a bit at Rex (and such terms as WHITEY, which I merely said was a racial slur), I’ve been called all sorts of terms ending with phobe or ist. Fine, it goes with the territory.
But there are lots of people like me who don’t go along with some of the antics such as shutting down opposing voices on college campuses, discriminating against Asians who have earned the right to enter those campuses, and intimidating all who dare speak out against the agenda (even a little bit).
I appreciate Rex’s daily - day in, day out - analyses. He’s funny, smart and worth reading. And is open (usually) to posting my comments even when I “yang” him.
I appreciate the comments here - very intelligent bloggers.
And I appreciate that you said my crossword comments at least are worth reading.
But please don’t associate those who disagree even slightly with the agreed narrative as right wing jingo Johnnies.. It’s so reductive and just adds to the chasm that caused us loose cannon Trump followed by a Blue No Matter Who (!) incompetent.
COEXIST! (If you want to reduce me to a bumper sticker, that’s a good one.). And PEACE!
I read an article yesterday headlined “Musical ecstasy: Woman has ‘loud and full body orgasm’ during LA Philharmonic concert“. I guess it might have MARred the concert for some, but most found it intriguing. I didn’t reach an orgasmic state over this puzzle, but I’m RANKIN it way, way up there. LO SLOBOS who carp about the fill aren’t seeing the difficulty of finding a way to embed capitals in real words/phrases that can be clued in a solvable way when the capital is subtracted. ALEAST I think this was fantastic. Thanks, David J. Kahn.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved this puzzle. Got TIM[BERLIN]ES early on, so went hunting for cities, which I assumed would be capitals. Found KINGSTON pretty quickly, but had no clue where the rest might be, nor how many there were. Eventually got the revealer (which is about as good as a revealer gets) so I knew I had four more to find. What a twist to find out they were all downs! Overall, the experience was so fun, it felt like a "puzzle" that went far beyond merely a crossword. Those who are denigrating the fill have a legitimate gripe, but for me the joy of the solve outweighed any of that.
ReplyDeleteRandomness:
-- LOL, ELI Apple. Guess someone wanted a new clue for this overused entry, one that didn't mention Manning or Yale. This particular ELI is known in my house as Apple Crisp, because he gets burned a lot.
-- I disliked the clue for BEN/SASSE; just clue the person and leave out the goofy letter nonsense.
-- Similarly, the clue for ERIN; jeez, what a waste of keystrokes, ink, whatever. Please, no more of this.
-- By contrast, "Summer music" for DISCO is wonderful.
Speaking of music, Rex killed it today with his links. Been a fan of The (English) Beat for 40+ years; in fact, just yesterday I went down a Spotify rabbit hole listening to "Save It For Later" being covered by others. And LOSLOBOS -- just a brilliant band, still soldiering on for what's about a half-century now. Their mix of influences is amazing, and they are terrific live.
This was a great Thursday gimmick!! And write-up by RP! Even after reading the revealer, I didn't know how to apply it. After the turning sideways puzzle, I thought it might have to do with changing the letters into uppercase somehow. Rigatoni and Timberlines looked like the words coming into view, so I filled them in assuming I could figure it out later (or not). What a great "aha" when MOSQUITO made it obvious.
ReplyDeleteHands up for not remembering Senator BEN's last name and trying to work in a K, before re-reading the clue (usually a good idea).
one, two, six, oh TEN past - starting to get a little close to quarter past.
@andrew, if you turn off whatever right wing media you are taking in, you will never notice the "woke mob". I live in one of the most "woke mob"-centric parts of the country and the worst that has ever happened is someone politely reminded me to use a different pronoun for someone.
For "suppress", I wanted sQUASH - and it took an embarrassingly long time to figure out that QUASH worked also...
Iams seemed more the same generation of pet food as Pedigree than ALPO, so that false flavor lingered too long.
I didn’t see where the capitals came into it until the bitter end. After googling the former Nebraska senator (who cares) and the 1983 Grammy winning album (ditto), I finished and studied the grid, in spite of being tempted to leave it to Rex to tell me what in heck was going on. But then I saw Paris. Well, whadda-ya-know. The little HES was not so hot, considering all that real estate. And the initialism LBOS was another head-shaker for a theme answer.
ReplyDeleteAnd then we get @Andrew. Ugh. Today isn’t off to a very good start.
So, okay, what did I like? I liked @LMS winning her student's cooperation by showing vulnerability. You're the best!
TIMBERLINES! I like the high country. ELASTIC - nice. RIGATONI is always tasty, even if your diet app thinks it's the embodiment of Satan. WORRY - I've had “Don't WORRY About a thing” going through my head since Ted Lasso a couple weeks ago. Also nice. Nice to see the fans of LOSLOBOS turn out.
I saw a comment on a YouTube clip yesterday - “I used to be just a fan - now I'm a whole air-conditioner!!”
Medium. Things that helped: knowing BEN SASSE was a senator from Nebraska, eating LENTIL soup yesterday, remembering RANKIN, having been to a golf tournament and watched OMEARA play, knowing about the Stones and ALTAMONT, not being fooled by the Summer clue...
ReplyDeleteWOEs: ONI, EDGAR (as clued), PACO, ELI (as clued)
Very clever, liked it a bunch!
I’ve been working through the 1996 Thursday puzzles from the archives and David Kahn authored several of them. Let’s just say he hasn’t lost his touch!
A number of us who weren't able to solve the puzzle are citing minor flaws and saying that it's the puzzle's fault. No it isn't. You need to get better.
ReplyDeleteI skimmed Rex's comments and sort of Go what he said about how well the theme works. But I thought it was mess.
ReplyDeleteHOw to guess where the capital willl be and what it will be?
Doid like the revealer sitting in the middles as a ross
Two things
ReplyDelete1. The crosswordese OBI and ONI in the same corner, along with the unheard-of SOG and the one themer with a capital I’m unfamiliar with (QUITO), made this nigh on impossible for me. The rest was better but in TOTO I agree that some of the base phrases in the themer set are sketchy.
2. Missed a golden opportunity to clue TOTO as a cross-reference with BEAT IT. Toto (the band) was basically the backing band for MJ on most of “Thriller.” Even if that’s too obscure for most people you could throw the yacht-rock fans a bone by cluing it as “Hold the Line” band or something
Welp! I finished but feel like I was kicked - blindfolded - from BERLIN to KINGSTON and back. Would someone please LOB me a couple of extra strength Excedrin for the headache I’m about to get.
ReplyDeleteRIGA TONI was the only answer that was clear to me and the others I stared at before saying to heck with it, I don’t want to waste another minute trying to figure this out. My margins are filled with question marks. SOG? Holy SEE? HES? ACUTER? And am I really supposed to know the CAPITAL of Ecuador? What an LBO is? This seems like a great theme idea so probably it was just over my head or out of my league or maybe I just need a RESET but this mostly felt like an exercise in frustration for me.
Not a puzzle for geography-challenged people or for those who wouldn’t know a BAE, MOS, HES, or LBOS if it walked into the house and sat down for dinner. But I’m glad those acuter than me enjoyed it. Now I’m off to the gym to work on my left pec.
ReplyDeleteYour last sentence made me laugh out loud.
DeleteOnly after I had completely finished the puzzle, completely puzzled by the weird answers, did I figure out the theme. I kept trying to fit CHLOE in before TONI since that is her real first name. It finally clicked when I looked at MOSQUITO and saw Quito. Also thought Los Lobos might be a real answer for corporate mergers — “The Wolves”, but that might be a bit anticapitalist for the Gray Lady. I think marking the weird answers in some way would have made it friendlier.
ReplyDelete@Lewis says, “ Today it was an exercise in persistence, humility, discovery, and, at finish, a wow at your skill, David. Thank you so much for this!” That says it all. And thanks to Rex for revealing the reveal to save hours of head scratching.
ReplyDelete@Andrew, I found your first post very interesting. I then proceed to Google since (while I have heard of him) I knew very little about BenSASSE. Turns out he is one of only 7 Rs that voted for Trump impeachment for January 6. While it looks like he does have views that are “socially” conservative and contrary to my POV, it seems that one of his last acts as a U.S. Senator was pretty “intellectually honest.”
ReplyDeleteEven though Rex describes the revealer as one “that does not leave you in the dark about how it’s going to work,” I finished this one and was still as in the dark as those of you who solve the Monday puzzles upside-down and blindfolded. Now that I understand the concept, I do like it, but I wish it could have been executed with answers sharper than MOS, HES, and LBOS.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, just worked around all the bullshit and filled in the crosses. I had no idea what the theme was, and totally didn't care. Is it clever? Randomly inserting unclued world capitals into meaningless hybrids? If you say so.
ReplyDeleteThrow a frikkin bone to modernity: Ian Rankin is a fairly popular author.
@Andrew 9:20
ReplyDeleteIf it walks like a right wing jingo Johnnie and talks like a right wing jingo Johnnie. it probably IS a right wing jingo Johnnie!
@Joseph Michael: thanks for making me laugh again today. And it’s not even Monday. 😂
ReplyDelete@Beezer (11:41) I agree completely. In fact, SASSE was among several whom I EMAILED following that vote just to say thank you for standing on their integrity.
NYT has to get rid of Will Shortz. Puzzles are getting increasingly arcane and forced.Not been fun for awhile and todays is a good example of an inexcusably tortured puzzle that drives people from attempting NYTimes crosswords. Goodbye!
ReplyDelete@Anonymous 12:38pm:
DeleteGrow up.
Good riddance.
I'm having a debate with myself today regarding X = TIMES. Clues referring to what X stands for are common in crosswords but for some reason, I never come up with TIMES as a possibility. Ten, a kiss, Tic-tac-toe, but never TIMES. As someone who has worked in accounting for over 30 years, I do my share of multiplying every day. My theory on why I have a blank spot for X = TIMES is that the X in an equation has taken on a different symbolism for me. +, -, ÷ and x all create a separate path in my brain from letters or dashes when it comes to arithmetic is my theory and so I never equate TIMES with a letter of the alphabet. I'm going with that theory and not the one that states I'm just an idiot. :-)
ReplyDeleteAlthough I got enough crosses in the NW to see what was going on relatively early and even allowed me to fill in the theme answers, this doesn't mean I solved this easily. I was so blank in the top central area that between BATHE and LENTIL I had nothing for a long time. Didn't know ELI or what a helicon was (after I finally thought of BEAT IT, I put in Tone for 7D. Not helpful.) The clue for TERSE was vague but once I guessed that, I threw in BERLIN and it finally filled in all the way, with some gym drops thrown in.
The SE also gave me trouble with COSMO coming with difficulty and PACO a no-know. I gave a big sigh of relief when I finished this, because the outcome had definitely been in doubt.
I agree with everyone who liked this puzzle and theme, very nice. Thanks, David Kahn!
@Andrew: I have to agree with what @Gary J said at 9:57. I always take the time to read your comments because I enjoy hearing your take on the puzzle. But I don’t really like to be lectured about politics from either side of the house. In that vein, I do not wish to debate with you but just feel the need to say a few words in defense of our blog host.
ReplyDeleteRex Parker has his views, you have your views, and I have mine. We come here to express those views, and we have the right to say what we please about the puzzle because it’s a product we pay money for, like writing a review about a book purchased on Amazon. But no one is required to pay for what Rex Parker faithfully produces every single day of the year without fail. Not only that, but he also generously provides this forum - again, free of charge - so that we may all share our common love of crosswords. In doing so, he generally allows a wide range of opinions, even political ones, with very reasonable moderation and rarely a censure. I believe at the very least, we should afford him the same courtesy.
I don’t know about you but I think of this group as a community of friends. Being able to share my thoughts with them feels like a bonus gift that comes with my subscription. And it seems to me that when someone consistently offers me a free gift every day without expecting anything in return, I can either graciously accept it or politely say no thank you. But it really isn’t my place to critique them on how they package it.
Ay Dios mío...I said to myself. Then I added: Is this going to be another THURSDAY where all I do is stare at words and wonder If I should reach for my big girl pants.: I'm looking at you MOSQUITO.
ReplyDeleteI skipped things that made no sense and guess what? I get the revealer first thing. So it's CAPITAL GAINS. Then my conundrum sneaks in and I say: Well what am I supposed to do with them...
I moved along hoping a bright shiny light would come to my rescue.
It did....eventual....I'm still hoping for a bite with MOSQUITO.
OK, so wait a minute. I go back upstairs. It HAS TO BE TONI Morrison. I began putting in some across answers I knew had to be correct AND et voila....RIGA TONI to my feeble rescue. It was right there that I saw the light. It was bright. A tremendous AHA emitting from my mouth. God, I loved it!. More please. There's QUITO in my MOSQUITO and look there, I see a BERLIN in TIMBER LINES. Joy.
Delightful. happy face from moi.
But wait!...I have one question: How does BEN SASSE get his name from NEBRASKA. His last name has to esses. Am I reading this wrong? I don't even know who he is. I bet @Rex and @andrew do.
Enjoyed Los Lobos many times at Laguna Seca when they opened for the Dead. Glad to hear that they are still truckin'.
ReplyDeleteA number of us who weren't able to solve the puzzle are citing minor flaws and saying that it's the puzzle's fault. No it isn't. You need to get better.
ReplyDeleteCounterpoint: I solved the entire thing in reasonable Thursday time, and hated basically every section of it. Words that simply don't get used that way (SOG), two straight-up trivia names right next to each other (SW corner) in a puzzle with several others, an inconsitent theme (first two themers with the capital at start/end, and then a bunch crammed in the middle) that also includes the awful LBOS and HES in the same corner. Plus, the word ODIST is just terrible.
"Summer music" did make me smile, though, and METONYM is a great word.
Funny that nobody, including Lewis, has mentioned that this theme is pretty much exactly half of the theme in his Sunday puzzle. Lewis's extra fun was where the names came from.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of names, and I'm being a broken record again, there were just too many:
ELI SRI SASSE MAE ALPO OMEARA RANKIN BEN ERIN CEYLON EDGAR PALO ENO! Of course the theme capital cities don't count.
[Spelling Bee: yd -1, missed this 7er. There were a LOT of goofy words!]
Repeatedly insulting Joe Biden without mentioning a policy you disagree with labels you as the right wing.
ReplyDeleteCalling the president "Sleepy Joe", something Donald Trump coined and his supporters gladly adopted, labeling you a Trump right winger.
Not being able to enjoy a simple crossword puzzle blog for a week without feeling compelled to do right-wing political commentary labels you as a Trump right-wing zealot.
If you do all of the above while denying that you are a Trump right-wing zealot, you are delusional.
Thanks for this comment. Right on the money.
Delete@Whatsername: Amen. I’m continually astonished by Rex’s stamina and his almost always entertaining point of view, even when—maybe especially when—it’s not my point of view. I’ve learned so much from him and the community of solvers who gather here every day, thanks to him. What a blessing!
ReplyDeleteI went straight to the revealer after filling in MAR and OBI. Immediately got it. The rest was easy. I didn't even have to pay the tax on the CAPITAL GAINS.
ReplyDeleteKinda late gettin it all done … but, hey -- CAROMED weren't built in a day.
ReplyDeleteSorta figured out the theme mcguffin from MOS+QUITO & RIGA+TONI. Cuz they were two of the friendliest themers, as the clued answers remained intact, with the capitals just tacked on at one end or the other.
Extra-neat CAPITAL/GAINS cross-central revealer, btw. Made BA(KINGSTON)E & L(OSLO)BOS almost worthwhile.
staff weeject pick: PAL, perched right above PALO. Nice weeject stacks in the NW & SE, btw.
fave stuff: METONYM. ELASTIC. CONMAN.
Spent a lotta time on TENPAST, tryin out stuff like ONEPAST, TWOPAST, SIXPAST. Lost at least ten precious nanoseconds.
Also fruitlessly spent a lotta time tryin to come up with a bonus themer that had LIMA in it. Did not attempt KATMANDU, tho. Did briefly try to come up with famous jail names with TRUMP in em, tho.
Thanx for the capital fun, Mr. Kahn dude. Good to see another master constructioneer back in the rodeo saddle. And nice ROBOTS clue.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
Where can we go to see pictures of the cats?
ReplyDeleteMOS? HES? LBOS? STINKS
ReplyDeleteTo further nitpick on 4A, as clued I assumed it to mean the winner of the 1983 Record of the Year. The album "Thriller" dropped in 1982, "Beat It" was released in 1983, but won the Grammy in 1984. Perhaps interesting to no one but me, the 1983 Record of the Year was Toto's "Rosanna" (almost fits 4a), from the 1983 Album of the Year, "TotoIV," (fits) which included the band's first and only #1 hit, "Africa" (fits.) #musicnerd
ReplyDeleteAgree with MkB@2:09 -- I got the revealer early, got the theme, and still hated this. A lot. This wasn't a matter of not being able to solve the puzzle, for me... it just wasn't any fun at all.
ReplyDeleteThat was funny, I'd thought it said four answers were themers and not six, so came away thinking that "sweetheart" was another name for a baking stone, and came here ready to complain about "x" somehow meaning timber lines.
ReplyDeleteI picked up the theme quickly enough, but it didn’t help me that much. The filler just wasn’t my wavelength. Doesn’t help that I had digItal instead of EMAILED for quite a while, which held up that corner pretty badly
ReplyDeleteI can tell by the bickering that this is the NYT crossword puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI'm not as good at it as you folks and I do it on paper. I have no idea about the folks who come up with the puzzles but lots if folks seem to keep track of that.
Many of you seem to want us to know how smart you are but when you get the names of comic book heroes...the latest TV shows (or the most popular) I wonder what you do all day.
I never saw "The View" until it was on for several years...It sort of sounds like a reverse Rush Limbaugh which a co worker tuned into in the office every day in the 1990s.
I'm surprised folks can't just watch and think. Two ears, two eyes..one mouth. Just be glad to finish the puzzle. Why complain and snipe at it? Doesn't seem too friendly.
Got the theme at the very end. Figured out the capital part (OSLO & PARIS were gimmes), but not until the end did I suss out the full theme.
ReplyDeleteNot sure why the six themers were not starred? It did up the difficulty factor.
Overall I thought the theme was super clever, and I love a tough puzzle.
Makes me overlook ELI, ONI (ugh!), ABOUNDIN, and ERIN, which I thought were either poor fill or poorly clued. But there's always a little give and take in a puzzle, and the six clever answers meant that something was going to have to give. Two thumbs up.
As an aside, to me ONI is a bit tough for a Thursday.
I applaud @Beezer and @Whatsername for their political sanity and great good sense on the blog today re BEN SASSE.
ReplyDeleteLook, I'm a Democrat. I'm also a liberal. But if BEN SASSE ended up being the next President of the U.S., I'd dance on the table in joyous relief -- knowing that our country would survive and not descend into either authoritarianism or Fascism.
Sasse is really smart and thoughtful, as well as decent, honorable, highly articulate, and a true democrat with a small d. I agree with almost nothing he stands for, policy-wise, but he's no monster and he's certainly not dangerous. If those on my side of the political divide can't see the difference between a Sasse and such anti-democracy Republicans as Trump, Cruz, MTG, Hawley, Jim Jordan, Graham, and the spineless and completely amoral McCarthy, we're going to end up with one or more of the latter. And we'll deserve exactly what we get.
Sasse reminds me of such Republicans as Charles Krauthammer and George Will. All his opinions, conservative though many may be, are well thought out. There's nothing knee-jerk about his opinions. He plays nice with those who have different political philosophies. Go to YouTube and listen to any interview or speech at random. You may actually be impressed.
Would I prefer a Democratic president? Of course. For a zillion different policy reasons. But at this point I'll settle for any President who isn't hellbent on ending the American system of government as we know it.
@M&A - Subject of the 2015 movie Concussion: C(LIMA)TE
ReplyDeleteLook, this is Rex’s blog. If he chooses to make it a left-wing echo chamber that is his right. This is America man.
ReplyDeleteI had trouble filling in too much until I got to the revealer and was able to fill CAPITAL GAINS pretty easily which then enabled me to fill in a bunch of the puzzle fairly quickly... below average time for me.
ReplyDelete@Nancy (6:41) Precisely. You said it perfectly.
ReplyDelete@Nancy 6:41. Bravisima....You made me look into BEN SASSE. I didn't know him!. I don't live in a box but somehow I felt I did. Then I read you.
ReplyDelete"But at this point I'll settle for any President who isn't hellbent on ending the American system of government as we know it." Says it all for me.
P.S. for what it's worth....I've had my taste of fascism, Communism and some serious ravaging dictatorships. Our system has its flaws but I'll take it. At least I get a fair vote.
Big nope on this one.
ReplyDeleteFormer Republican senator mixed w/ golf hall-of-famer mixed w/ corporate takeovers mixed w/ "capital gains" (not to mention having that as a split revealer when we already had BEN SASSE as a split and the two had no relation) made for a crusty puzzle.
30 yo female here.
Sorry, but BEN SASSE is a bigot and I don't need to see bigots' names in crossword puzzles. That's nice that he spoke out against Trump and all, AKA the bare minimum to prove you're not a facist, but at the end of the day I think his anti-gay beliefs should disqualify him from appearing in a NYT puzzle.
Rex, your inclusion of 'Ranking Full Stop' brought far more delight than this puzzle.
ReplyDelete@Nancy. I agree completely on your distinction between thoughtful conservatives and lying fascists. I very often find myself thinking about my vehement opposition to Mitt Romney when he was the nominee and my current feeling that he would be fine, though less than ideal, as president. I reside somewhere to the left of Bernie Sanders, but I know that Ben Sasse is a decent and thoughtful man.
ReplyDeleteReally surprised at Rex’s response here. Perhaps being away from Twitter has had a positive mental impact? Either way, I normally disagree with Rex for being too harsh, and now I find myself disagreeing with him for going too easy.
ReplyDeleteTheme revealer was clever. Theme execution was frustrating; used terrible base “words” (MOS and BAE not substantially better than LBOS or HES, so a miss on 4 of those 6); and sloppy - sometimes putting the capital at one end of the base word, sometimes in the middle, and always unindicated.
This is the closest I’ve come to losing my completion streak.
This was all but impossible for me. Almost an hour, even with googling a few things. I didn’t get the theme at all until coming here. Never heard of several of the capitals and failed to realize what was happening with the ones I did know. Miserable time.
ReplyDelete@Nancy - Well said!
ReplyDeleteHow is the answer to 39D PARISHES? The clue is FELLOWS. Simply a community of believers, hence "fellows". I hope I'm missing something.
ReplyDeleteRead the theme description. Answer is HES (+PARIS)
DeleteWhat is with all these Ben Sasse defenders??? Please, please look into him proposing to repeal the 17th amendement. He is also vehemently opposed to gay marriage. That does not make him a reasonable person. Plenty of GOPers out there who are not against gay marriage. He is BIGOTED.
ReplyDeleteBrutal. My head still hurts.
ReplyDeleteBest things about this one? Way easier than last Friday. Being of that age where throwing down ROCKIT was a gimmie. Then getting doubly rewarded with a link Herbie's video here. Thought Rex would grouse more at HANSARP verses jeanARP. Jean I know. Hans, not so much.
ReplyDeleteHerbie Hancock really makes everything better. Gonna make a cocktail and put on Head Hunters.
Another Thursday disaster. I want a refund.
ReplyDeleteThe proceeds from the sale of an asset are not capital gains. A capital gain is the difference between the sale and the book value (or cost basis). Proceeds are the cash realized from the sale, which has nothing to do with the capital gain. Aside from that, I thought the puzzle was clever.
ReplyDeleteRANKIN' A TEN
ReplyDeleteACUTER BAE MAN will never SEE,
ERIN doesn't SWEAT nor hurry,
some TIMES you'll TAMER for A fee,
then she'll BEATIT so don't WORRY.
--- EDGAR O'MEARA
Medium? No way! This puzzle left medium around the first turn. As for most of us, the NW made no sense initially, so I went trundling off to the NE. From there I wormed into the middle, where the revealer emerged. Okay, CAPITAL GAINS. What to do with that?
ReplyDeleteI slid down into the SW, coming up with BAKINGSTONE. Is that even a thing? Trying to imagine heating a stone so you could bake something on (?) it. Plus the clue had nothing to do with it. I was at absolute SEA with this.
When, where did I see it? I don't even remember now. I think it must have been in the SE, perhaps with PARISHES. So, the clues were only for the NON-capital parts of the words. Really, really tough to see, and a far, far cry from medium. This bad boy makes the top ten challenging list of all time, weekends included, for me. (Of the ones I managed to finish!) As such, triumph points are virtually uncountable. Therefore I forgive whatever anomalies appear in the fill, and award an eagle.
wordle birdie.
I remember now. It was indeed BAKINGSTONE, when I finally saw KINGSTON leaving that ridiculous new-age word "BAE." What, too lazy to pronounce the second B of BABE? Homonym of BAY...that's a horse color. So now your "sweetheart" looks like a HORSE?? Weeeird.
ReplyDeleteVery very hard puzzle until you completely grok the theme. I enjoyed SWEATing it out, even though I STUBbed my toe . I had a DArK RANKIr, instead of a DANK RANKIN.
ReplyDeleteI’m not sure whether I loved it or hated it. A bit of both I guess. I loved the theme. But I hated the BEN SASSE entry which was unfairly clued in my opinion on top of being a WOE. It took me forever to decipher the theme. It was still tough even after that initial Aha! moment which occured at PARISHES. Very cunning and wily Mr. Khan!
ReplyDeleteFinished the puzzle, but could only suss out two of the "themers." Could be the weirdest puzzle I've done. I can't even blame the haze, as I'm in the NW.
ReplyDeleteand yes, some - like BAKINGSTONE - made no sense until I read the writeup - even though I did notice BAE.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
As in the previous comment, there's nothing about this puzzle (other than the original vague idea of the theme) that deserves any defending, but
ReplyDeleteSince no one else said it yet, for the confused the "Summer music" is DISCO because of Donna Summer, not because of the season.