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First animated dinosaur 1914 / FRI 5-5-23 / Impish fruit artist 1943 / 1983 Herbie Hancock funk classic / Leeward island where Alexander Hamilton was born / Joint chief of staff?
Friday, May 5, 2023
Constructor: Jacob McDermott
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: GERTIE the Dinosaur (7D: First animated dinosaur (1914)) —
Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur. McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act; the frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master. McCay's employer William Randolph Hearst curtailed McCay's vaudeville activities, so McCay added a live-action introductory sequence to the film for its theatrical release renamed Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist, and Gertie. McCay abandoned a sequel, Gertie on Tour (c. 1921), after producing about a minute of footage.Although Gertie is popularly thought to be the earliest animated film, McCay had earlier made Little Nemo (1911) and How a Mosquito Operates (1912). The American J. Stuart Blackton and the French Émile Cohl had experimented with animation even earlier; Gertie being a character with an appealing personality distinguished McCay's film from these earlier "trick films". Gertie was the first film to use animation techniques such as keyframes, registration marks, tracing paper, the Mutoscope action viewer, and animation loops. It influenced the next generation of animators such as the Fleischer brothers, Otto Messmer, Paul Terry, Walter Lantz, and Walt Disney. John Randolph Bray unsuccessfully tried to patent many of McCay's animation techniques and is said to have been behind a plagiarized version of Gertie that appeared a year or two after the original. Gertie is the best preserved of McCay's films—some of which have been lost or survive only in fragments—and has been preserved in the U.S. Library of Congress' National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" since 1991. (wikipedia)
• • •
Plus there were a Lot of proper nouns, many of them pretty ... marginal ... so you have to hack around a lot to get them. Or I did, anyway. If the names had been sparkly or new, maybe there'd be merit, but ROSS? (24D: Nellie Tayloe ___, first female governor of a U.S. state (Wyoming)). OTIS? (19A: Asa Butterfield's role on "Sex Education"). I mean, *I* love GERTIE, but I'm an outright Winsor McKay fan. I do not think of this as normal. It's not any one name, it's the accumulation of them, little names, obscure or obscurely clued. Death by a thousand (or, you know, four or five) cuts. That NEHRU NEVIS HANA SAVALAS mash-up is gonna mess some younger solver up, for sure. OK, maybe not NEHRU, but if you didn't live through "Kojak" then you're looking at some real potential potholes there. You're already making younger folks reach way back into the unknown for "ROCKIT" (27A: 1983 Herbie Hancock funk classic) ... I dunno, this puzzle felt casual to the point of careless with its names, even if none of them tripped me up—although I did struggle to remember NEVIS, I'll admit (43A: Leeward island where Alexander Hamilton was born)—that "S" was the last square I filled) (crossing 36D: Tulipieres, e.g. (!?!?!), yeesh (VASES)).
I really liked FAN LETTER and its clue (14A: One way to reach a distant star). That was tough but, ultimately, clever. Nice play on words. I also liked FONDUE POTS 'cause I like remembering iconic '70s dining experiences and related accoutrements (37A: Holders of many long-handled forks), and I liked POPPED. The clue made it pop, for sure (38D: Was visually exciting). But too much of the longer stuff was on the dull side. ITSUPPORT? Zzzzzz. AFRAMES, MINISKI ... hard to get excited about that stuff. The clue on EASY READ is overly precious or wrong or insulting or all of the above (51A: Little romance, maybe). Cluer is trying So Desperately for a misdirect here ("must ... use ... wordplay!") but oof. What makes it "EASY"? The "little" part? I hope it's the "little" part, because if it's the "romance" part (and it *feels* like the "romance" part), that's slightly insulting to romance readers. Plus, in order for the wordplay to Really work, the clue should read [A little romance, maybe]. "Little romance" on its own, without the indefinite article preceding it, just looks dumb.
No idea, none, zero, non-existent idea of how "sallies" is being used in 23A: Silly sallies. That was the clue that really turned me permanently against this puzzle—the sing-songy stupidness of the phrase "Silly sallies." Cloying and annoying and (to me) completely opaque. Aren't WISECRACKS smartass remarks. Cutting, sarcastic, funny maybe. Is that what "sally" means? I thought it was a military term (or my mom's given name at birth—she'd later decide Sally sounded silly and change it to Sarah). Well what do you know, our old friend merriam-webster (dot com) has definition 2b of "sally" as "a witty or imaginative saying." Even if I'd known that, which we've established I didn't, that doesn't quite get at WISECRACKS. Both "silly" and "sallies" seem off, and with "EENIE meeny" already in this grid, I've had just about enough grating rhyminess for one puzzle (or ten). If recent patterns hold, tomorrow's puzzle is gonna be great, so really looking forward to that, but I continue to mourn the demise of the breezy bouncy zoom-zoom Friday puzzle.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. 29A: Owl-light [?!?!?!] (DUSK)—the silliest sally of them all. Who talks like this?
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104 comments:
I’m glad I’m not the only one to be completely lost on how “Silly Sallies” leads to WISECRACKS. Totally lost on me
Agree with Rex … on the awful “silly sally” clue for WISECRACKS. Otherwise, I really liked it. Very challenging for the second day in a row, which is one reason why I liked it.
Rex’s “clunky, cutesy clues” at every turn are my favorite thing about crosswords. I have absolutely no problem with TATTOO / TATOOINE (which I misspelled TATtoINE, leading to a slowdown, and which I doubted momentarily when it became apparent because Chewie wasn’t from there) or the repetition of ONE in opposite corners. I know it’s a “rule” not to do that, but maybe because I’m not a constructor, I just don’t care. And I loved the clue for ONE SOCK (“the odd thing about laundry”). I did see that one coming, but there were many other clues that tricked me (delightfully), especially “one way to
reach a distant star” for FAN LETTER, “popular TikTok character” for HASHTAG, and “sources of some dings” for ALERTS. And the three of them crossing was brutal - but again, delightfully so once I got one of them and the others became
apparent.
The smaller corners in the NE and SW fell pretty quickly, but in the NW and SE, I was in an @Lewis “faith solve.” I just had confidence I would finish and especially in the NW, got to the point that I was thinking of letter patterns that might work. I think it was getting HTTP (Oh yeah, another misdirection in the same corner - I was thinking golf) and then ALLURE that finally got it done.
As usual for me, PPP is either a gateway or an obstacle. Knowing ROSA, OTIS (can’t wait for the next season of “Sex Education”), HANA (huge tennis fan), NOVA, NEVIS, PERU, NEHRU and SAVALAS opened up new territory. Not knowing AKELA (I guess this is “Akela and the Bee”?), GERTIE, or ARP’s first name gave me obstacles to work around.
Does anyone actually say PULSE RATE? Seems like you measure either your pulse or your heart rate.
There’s my one Rexian rant that Rex himself didn’t write. Otherwise, I was a happy solver today.
I just *knew* that part of the Friday toughness was going to be Kashyyyk as the planet with the Wookieepedia article. I mean, that's where the Wookiees live. And those three Ys in a row were going to be fun.
Alas, no. And that kept me out of the NW for a long, long time.
Ended up with a DNF because of proper names I'd never heard of.
Le sigh. So much for my streak.
I’ve been doing a lot of crosswords from the Times archives recently. I honestly had to look at the date of this one to make sure I wasn’t solving some ancient puzzle. Sheesh.
I used to feel some sorrow and empathy while witnessing the NYT slide into self-parody as they embraced nonsense like TATOOINE, GERITE and AKELA. Now, things have gotten to the point where I actually find it amusing. Go ahead - throw in an AESIR here, have a NEVIS cross a NEHRU there, the more the merrier.
Do people really just use one MINISKI on a Bunny Slope - then do they switch to a MAXISKI when they ski on the mountain part? Or maybe MINISKI is an activity unto itself - sort f like MINI GOLF? Ah - the secrets of the universe do not reveal themselves without putting up some resistance I suppose.
Mostly easy, with some challenge in the NW. GERTIE was a gimme, and led me to HASHTAG, but then I spend some time spinning my wheels. Really wanted kashyyyk (Hi, @Jim in Canada) where TATOOINE wound up, onseT before START, sped before TORE, etc.
As I happily filled in the likes of HANA and SAVALAS and ROCKIT I did wonder how this was going to play out for younger solvers.
I liked it.
Man, when Rex and I disagree, we really disagree.I loved this puzzle, from GERTIE (my first entry) to the head-scratcher “Crossover” SUV (my last). That I started with the dinosaur and had no idea what the TikTok character might be speaks volumes about my wheelhouse.
My dad was an AKELA, though that didn’t keep me from misspelling it at first.
And I love cute clues like “silly sallies.” Whoosh, whoosh!
While WARDEN [Joint chief of staff?] rates only a P.P.S. notation from Rex, it was my favorite clue in the puzzle. Oh well. One man's fondue ...
Top half difficult, bottom half much more approachable. Lots of WOEs, most of which @Rex already covered. No idea bout GERTIE.
I had --CK IT and thought, "Could Herbie Hancock do that? Would the NYTXW?" But no, to my disappointment it turned out to be ROCK IT.
This is Jacob’s fifth NYT puzzle and a huge leap to Themeless Friday, as his previous puzzles were three Tuesdays and a Wednesday.
Part of that huge leap is in the cluing, going from mainly direct cluing to the opposite, clues that misdirect, are vague, and involve wordplay. And wow, did Jacob come through on this front. I starred 11 clues, when usually five or six is a lot, with an emphasis on that which I love, wordplay. Thus, clues such as [Vital concern] for PULSE RATE, [Epic fails] for PLOT HOLES, [Sources of some dings] for ALERTS, and [One way to reach a distant star] for FAN LETTER.
I love rub in a puzzle, because overcoming it feels so good, and rub I found, especially in the NW, where each long across, for me, was hard-earned, and fell with a huge “Yessss!”. I also love when PuzzPairs© jump out, such as EASY READ and DR. SEUSS, and the neighbors SLEPT and a backward NAP.
Thus, there was zing from the cluing and pleasure from vanquishing rub, a sweet outing indeed. Thank you for making this, Jacob, and WTG on your seemingly seamless leap into the themeless-sphere!
I was also trying to remember Carmen Miranda for 1Down, but got ARP, and gave her up!
Well, about fifteen minutes ago I wrote a lengthy post, which of course was cogent and witty and incisive as all hell, only to have it disappear into cyberspace when I punched “POST”, never to return. Don’t have the energy to reconstruct it, but maybe that’s a good thing, since my comments echoed so much that has appeared since then. Liked it more than Rex, enjoyed the misdirects, got a few arcane answers like AESIR right of the bat, having taught an entire course on Norse Mythology about ten times during my sojourn in Academia some forty years ago. Had to guess wildly at the unfamiliar trivia, or consult Uncle Google. Had some fun with it, neither exciting nor a slog.
Granted, it felt a little old-school, but I enjoyed the challenge. GERTIE went in first, and felt like that would be the only answer I’d get for a while.
Loved the “silly sallies” clue and knew immediately what the clue meant, but the answer took a while to reveal itself.
A lot of the other clues had me guessing though. I spent way too much time trying to think of a prefix related to golf before the more common meaning of “links” occurred to me. And I was pretty grumpy about having to know the name of a TikTok star at 1A before I realized what kind of “character” was meant.
If I’ve seen Arp’s first name in a puzzle, I don’t remember it. Parsing that added to the challenge of the NW.
AKELA is something I know only because of Call the Midwife.
“ gonna mess some younger solver up, for sure.” 33 years old here and mail on the head. I threw up my hands and began googling the plethora of proper nouns from the early to mid twentieth century. Then I threw my phone to the side when google’s answer to “impish fruit” was incorrect (jean ARP not HANS ARP). To me this puzzle was an unsolvable slog, DNF.
Read 1A and my heart sank, as any clue involving anything to do with TikTok will require every cross, which eventually it did. Wound up starting on the bottom with good old Telly SAVALAS and was cruising along until FONDUESETS put the brakes on. Oops.
Back up top where I had to look up how to spell TATOOINE, which may be cheating, but I excused myself by sort of remembering it at all. Had the ARP from acrosses which meant JeanARP until that was clearly wrong.
How do you do, Ms. ROSS and OTIS and you too GERTIE. Nice to meet you. I'm surprised I don't remember ever seeing AESIR, which is just a dandy collection of crossword letters.
But MINISKI? I have been skiing a very long time, and never heard this one. "Monoskis" used to be a thing, but they never gained popularity for what to me are obvious reasons.
I found this one to be more challenging than medium, but that Just Made the solve more satisfying, so thanks to JM for some hard-won fun.
Also, “pulse rate” is not a thing. The pulse is a measure of heart rate…there is no pulse rate. It’s like saying I have 5 gallons volumes of milk
I read your first sentence as: "There were few enjoyable moments in this one, but on the whole it was pretty unpleasant."
You’re right. I’m married to a pediatrician and I ran an EMR software company. There is no PULSE RATE. It’s either pulse OR heart rate, 99.4% the former in the medical community. By definition, a pulse is a rate, so “rate” must have been added by the Department of Redundancy Department.
Is HANS ARP related to Jean ARP? Turns out they’re the same guy. But I was so familiar with Jean that you can imagine my struggles in the NW. I’m not sure that any FANLETTERs reach distant stars anymore, but it was a nice clue pertaining to a past practice.
I’ve adored the word MORON since The Princess Bride. Plato, Aristotle, Socrates ……. MORONs!
I thought this was a delightful puzzle. While some of the answers have been around the block a few times, the cluing was mostly fresh and yummy. Thanks, Jacob McDermott.
I’m completely annoyed by Hans Arp, much better known as Jean Arp, the artist who painted Impish Fruit. That made the NW a total slog.
The NW killed me, after I had breezed through the rest of the puzzle. HANSARP is known as JEANARP in the United States, and that's where we live. HTTP is a prefix for the links? Only if "the links" is a computer term, which isn't the case. It's a golf term. And, hopefully, TikTok won't be part of our lives much longer, and crosswords can return to the sane world.
“Altar wise by owl light” from Dylan Thomas’s “Under Milk Wood.”
“Altar Wise by owl light“ is from “Under Milk Wood” by Dylan Thomas.
Previously my wife demanded that I take a semester class on rappers names so I could do the puzzles. Now I have to become a TikTok kid? Echo the sentiment that links is a golfing term. No chance to solve the NW. A
rare DNF.
I thought Rex was too hard on this puzzle. I enjoyed it from beginning to end, my last hurrah being that large, difficult NW corner. I’ve never been able to get excited about repetition, so couldn’t follow him down that path, and I’m all for tricksy cluing. I guess one’s person’s clever is another person’s “groaner,” “clunky,” “overly precious,” “cloying” or “annoying,” to use a bunch of Rex’s adjectives for today’s clues. I laughed at EENIE when I got it, which took a while. And I thought [Silly sallies] was sparkly, but I was lucky enough to know that meaning of “sally.” Before I solved that one, I kept expecting it to be something about puns or dad jokes or spoonerisms or the like, but I’ll take WISECRACKS. Also enjoyed WARDEN as a [Joint chief of staff?] and everyone’s favorite nemesis, the ONE SOCK, as [The odd thing about laundry].
I always like to find art historical references in my puzzles. It’s not poor Mr. ARP’s fault that some have dubbed him crosswordese. (Rex: “Reanimated corpse”; Me: Harrumph.) ARP is tricky, though, because, as many have pointed out, his first name is sometimes rendered as HANS and sometimes as Jean. I started with HANS, got nowhere, switched to Jean, got TATTOO beside it and saw that an unlikely double-A had formed in 14A, so went back to HANS. Got a kick out of seeing Telly SAVALAS and immediately thought lollipops and “Who loves ya, baby.” I didn’t watch Kojak much – it was around at a time when I was out and about and had much more exciting things to do than watch TV – but I think my mother had a crush on Telly. Which is quite extraordinary, come to think of it. He was decidedly unlike her usual buttoned-down type (think Efrem Zimbalist Jr., if you can).
I actually filled in “cuff” for [Prefix on the links] and was crushed when I had to take it out. I like my wordplay better. I wasn’t sure about ALLURE in response to [Intrigue], but the idea has grown on me. I doubted at first that ALLURE implied sufficient mystery to equate to “intrigue,” but maybe. Rex hated the clue [Owl-light] for DUSK, but I thought it was wonderfully evocative. Poetic, even. I actually put in “moon” at first, which I think is another good answer.
[SB: Wed -4, Thu -1. I’m not exactly killing it these days.]
Owl light = dusk is beautiful to me. Belongs in a poem. Oh, thanks Doris, it is already! Loved the one sock clue, and several others. Tough puzzle but fun overall.
Big fan of 'join chief of staff'. Elsewise, meh
Hello, it’s me; one of the youngest and newer solvers in the commentariat, here to say that yeeeeah this was very much not my cup of tea and was quite difficult for me. It had some good trivia info, I’ll give it that, but that really didn’t make up for the torturedly clunky cluing and answers.
I had to confirm several PPP answers via Google, which I try to almost never do and when I do I generally limit myself to one per late week puzzle. And again, I’m generally fine with not knowing PPP, but this was so laden with antiquated crosswordese l didn’t stand a chance.
Also, yes, I’m with @Wanderlust — as someone with a neurovascular disorder that requires regular monitoring, I take my bpm (beats per minute), my PULSE, or my heart RATE, never my PULSE RATE. It’s a fun time; my resting heart rate is 65 bpm but it can spike to as high as 135 just on standing if I’m not good about compression clothing, hydration, and consuming -5,000 mg of sodium daily, and sometimes it still does. If that agita doesn’t at least mean that I nail a crossword answer on the first pass, what *is* it good for?!?
My only complaint about this puzzle is that the four corners are highly segmented so it was like doing four separate puzzles. But otherwise I loved it, hokey clues and all! I thought the wordplay was really fun and clever, and it was a very satisfying solve. Maybe I’m just old!
This was a "keep the faith" puzzle for me -- but not of the kind I normally like. I had hit the completely unknown to me TATOOINE/GERTIE/OTIS crossing section and was wondering if there was any point in going on? Would I eventually come to a "Eureka! Tada!" moment where those infernal Natick-y crosses would clear up like magic or would I solve everything else, come back to them still with no clue, and wonder why the heck I even bothered?
Dear Reader, I continued -- and was well rewarded for my pains. Because everything that wasn't a Natick-y name turned out to be pretty delicious. (With the exception of the WISECRACKS clue which entirely misses the underlying nastiness and snark.)
Such great clues for FAN LETTER (14A); IT SUPPORT (16A); FONDUE POTS (37A); PULSE RATE (46A); PLOT HOLES (49A); and ONE SOCK (9D). I'd include the SAVALAS clue here too -- except that it cheats a little: "telly" is a word only used in the UK and SAVALAS is an American actor.
My life as a tennis player saved me in this puzzle. ON SERVE -- which I got off the "V" of ENVOY -- was a big help in the (much-easier-than-the-rest-of-the-puzzle) SW. But it was HANA in the SE who truly saved my bacon; I would not have solved this puzzle without her. Loved you as a player, HANA, because your athleticism on the court was such a joy and revelation to watch. But I've never loved you as much as I loved you today.
As I say, I ended up quite enjoying this puzzle. But I wouldn't have bet a nickel at the outset that that would end up being my reaction.
Gen X puzzle if I have ever seen one... Horrible slog
After reflecting on yesterday’s comments, I want to apologize for making so many of my posts political - and highly contentious at that.
You’re right, this is Rex’ blog. It’s also not an appropriate forum for politics from the peanut gallery (me being front and center).
It’s about crosswords, not cross words! Sorry I sent out the latter.
“Ugh, it’s Andrew” is a phrase I never want to read - or cause - again. Will try to send cyber hugs - not Ughs - going forward.
Again, I’m sorry. #mea/kea/loa #culpa
Amy: sadly, agree with a lot of what Rex wrote. Liked WARDEN and FAN LETTER Clues. If you enjoy FONDUE POTS, check out "The Big Moo." It's cheese you can grill, bake, or saute. Crispy on the outside and melty in the middle, a fun snack. Happy Friday!
P.S. just have to share the joy: Sox swept the Jays and it was a 4 game series.
Just here to say after years of trying to get back to consistent puzzling, I finally have a new streak record at 280 days!! Trying for 365!!
Agree with Rex. Not a great puzzle, and genuinely annoying in parts. When you’ve seen an artist’s name for decades as JEAN ARP, and you have to look up a different name for him, then that’s a big no-no in my book. That’s like a clue that points you to the star of North By Northwest and Arsenic and Old Lace, only to discover that the puzzle designer wants you to put his real name (Archie Leach), which very few people remember, instead of the name everyone knows him by, Cary Grant.
Hey All !
Thanks to all yous for helping me understand HANS ARP. Not knowing anything artsy (well, Money and Manet), I was reading it as one name, HANSARP. Or maybe it was HAN SARP, a relative of HAN SOLO? But, how does Appeasement=SOP?
DNF there, as had a T for the P, and also with VinES for VASES. Apologies to HANA thinking she was HANI.
Tough all over, but managed to complete the grid with no cheats, albeit incorrectly. Didn't ROCK IT.
Lost a hand towel last time I did laundry. I guess it's hanging out with all the ONE SOCKs, wherever their far-away land is.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
This took me WAY longer than a typical Friday, but I never had to stare at large white areas, just small patches of mystery crossings scattered around the grid. Two massive slowdowns from filling in ALaRmS (classic kealoa) - no idea about OTIS and I saw right through that "distant star" trick, but the A from ALARMS was making it impossible to see FAN LETTER. I even started off strong with HASHTAG SLEPT TALLTALE TATOOINE HTTP in quick succession.
In the SW I didn't know AKELA and I guessed SERVE... but then finished it as NO SERVE, maybe I got mixed up with the much more common crossword answer NOHIT for baseball. AFRAMES, also unknown, and it took some time to get BOOK from BOOKONE and see ABROAD.
In the SE, SAVALAS was a big unknown as well as SUV and HANA. I guessed NEVIS from NE_I_ (thinking St Kitts and Nevis, is it the same place? Then _ASES was most likely VASES because the clue had something to do with tulips. And the V got me SUV. H_NA x S_VALAS was a guess, quite the Natick.
Oof. Got naticked so badly. Mostly in the SE: HANA/SAVALAS/NEVIS and the word in the VASES clue?? All of those were completely unknowable for me. Just had to look up those names to finish the puzzle.
And then the bonus terrible cross in the NW of HANSARP (who?) and SOP (come on, that's not a word). Had to look that one up too. My only thought was SOU, like, I don't know, you give a SOU to someone, so you're appeasing them? I don't know.
@Andrew - well said, and the 'ugh/hug' thing is a good example of why your posts are valued.
For the vanishingly small number of folks who have not heard, Ding Liren is the new world chess champion. I expect he will appear in a puzzle soon, both names being fairly crossword-friendly. (Had Nepomniachtchi won, it would be less likely.)
Thank God for the AESIR -- oh, wait, that phrase doesn't work. Anyway, that was the first non-ambiguous clue, and my first entry. I came to love all the tricky clues, but it was tough getting them. Fortunately, there were a few more gimmes -- NEHRU, ROSA, AKELA, SAVALAS, & ... ARP. I guess HANS/JEAN isn't officially a kealoa, because the letters are all different, but it's always annoying.
I was a Cub Scout back in the early 1950s, and the only den leader was the Den Mother. AKELA is a character from Kipling, and the motto "The Cub Scout follows AKELA" just meant to emulate him.
I do think the meaning of sally as a small attack fits both the military and the conversational use.
In addition to the trick clues, I liked the childbirth theme with WOMB, SCRUBS (as clued) and oocytes.
@Roo, if you throw someone a SOP, you're giving them a little something to appease them for not getting what they actually wanted.
@Nancy, I was hoping you would explain what ON SERVE actually means, or rather, why it means that!
I'm a fan. I appreciated the riddle-like clues and enjoyed the solve - the top half because it was really hard for me but I managed it, and the bottom half because I swept through it like a champ, providing me with what my pre-school son once called an "ego burst."
First in: TATOOINE and WE'RE BACK, then START and SOP, the A and P of which suggested Jean or HANS ARP; decided to go with the H. Then, a struggle. Took forever to see the HASHTAG "character," evoking "you got me good on that one!" (similar: the HTTP-associated "links"). After WISECRACK, I was able to ROCK IT through the rest. Loved the final literary trio of PLOT HOLES, EASY READ, DR. SEUSS, and, overall, matching wits with the constructor.
I’ve always liked TALLTALE. It lives in my mind with Paul Bunyan and Babe. But did I see it? No, not for eons. That NW was very stubborn, without knowing GERTIE, ARP or OTIS. There are a million (well, almost) kinds of needlework, but if it's the NYTXW bet on TATTOO.
It was a pleasure to find SCRUBS, ONESOCK, PLOTHOLES, HTTP, and even HASHTAG, from their clues, though the last was a stretch for me. I knew sally as a verbal foray, but I agree it misses the snark of WISECRACK. I missed the finesse of the WARDEN clue until I saw it here.
I've never heard of AKELA, so when I didn’t get the happy music, I looked there and couldn’t change anything. It turned out my error was tulipieres crossing the leeward island. My guess was it meant tulip fields, so I had vales. Vales of tulips. I like it.
Thanks @Andrew for the gracious apology. Sorry for being rude. At times I also vent a little here about current events. And regret it.
It's very frustrating how far we are from what we could be as a country.
@Andrew-
Good for you. The world needs lots more of this.
This one was a miss for me. Way too much misdirection and weird flying. Joyless.
Youngsters will be lost on all the old timey crosswordese and trivia (SAVALAS, GERTIE). Oldsters will be clueless on the tech (HTTP) and social media refs ((HASHTAG).
Here’s hoping Saturday makes up for this clunker.
"Epic fails" for PLOTHOLES. Does that mean that epics have plots which are partially unexplained? And they're still epics?
It wasn't easy for me to say something positive about this puzzle but here it is. Only six Terrible Threes.
Well I'm not that young and I'm not that old but I had problems with both
Young: I haven't met a TikTok HASHTAG. TATOOINE is in Wookieepedia? ....and so that part gave me my angst agita.
Old: OTIS AESIR. I forgot what oocytes [OVULAR] do. I've never heard of silly sallies or her WISECRACKS. I've never heard of ROCKIT and I've never seen the word Tulipiers.[VASES].
I sat for a long time staring.
My first entry was SLEPT and my second entry was ALERTS. I was finito before I began. So I SLEPT and hoped my ALERTS were better in the AM.
I forged on with GERTIE and then I cheated like hell. I cheated everywhere. You'd think I'd get FONDUE POTS (I still have my old one and when I'm feeling rich, I'll buy filet mignon and make a million sauces and have company over and sit and talk for hours and eat the delicious meat cooked in good olive oil and dipped in my homemade aioli.)....but...I cheated big time on you.
Cheat, cheat, cheat....that was my motto this morning. I did because I felt like it. The puzzle didn't elicit any real Ooh's nor any Aha's... instead, I was tempted to visit @Nancy, show her how to make a nice fried egg, and then toss my puzzle on her wall.
@andrew 9:27. Nice....! DR. SEUSS would be proud.
Most of this was easy-medium, the NW however was pretty tough. I finally stumbled on FISTS and was able to finish. Solid with just a hint of sparkle. Liked it more than @Rex did, but he makes some valid points.
GERTIE, ROSS, and ROCKIT were WOEs.
moon before DUSK and jean before HANS (which apparently is also correct)
@Andrew: Very classy mea culpa. If our politicians could figure out how to behave half as beautifully, we wouldn’t have anything to complain about.
@danindc: Congratulations on your streak, quite impressive. Hope you reach your goal.
Thx, Jacob, for this excellent Fri. workout! 😊
Very hard (2x avg time).
As far as wavelength, I was definitely on a 'distant star'.
Very clever clueing by Jacob, Will & the crew! :)
Agree with @mmorgan (9:15 AM) "… that the four corners are highly segmented so it was like doing four separate puzzles."
The NW was by far the toughest section.
Lucked out on my final entry: knew neither SOP nor HANSARP. Wanted a 'd' at the end of the artist, but SOd just didn't ring true, so 'P' it was. I'm with @RooMonster (9:48 AM) wrt thinking of HANSARP as one name. Have to remember to parse unknowns to possibly get a better understanding.
As for MINI SKIs, the term is new to me, altho, I see they are a thing: here. When introducing students to skiing, we started them off with relatively 'short' skis on the 'bunny slope' (I'm assuming this is what Jacob was thinking). 🤔
As always, appreciate a good battle; this was one, indeed! :)
@andrew (9:27 AM) 😊 and for the freudenfreude displayed by other bloggers! 👍
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness & Freudenfreude to all 🙏
For my pal, @jberg (10:25) -- an explanation of ON SERVE. Though I sort of thought the clue itself might have made it clear. @mathgent, @Beezer and @Wanderlust surely won't need this and perhaps many, many others as well. I forget who all the tennis players on the blog are.
"They're ON SERVE" (or "we're ON SERVE") is said somewhere in the middle of a set of tennis and it means that, so far, each server has held serve (i.e. won his own service game) in every service game played. Hence no "breaks" of serve, which is what the clue is alluding to.
Brief anecdote. I'm watching a match of two of my (female) tennis friends at Central Park. It's something like 4-3 and every game has been a break of serve. Now this is not at all unusual in women's matches at the 3.5 or even at the 4.0 level -- and particularly when the match is played on clay rather than on a hardcourt. In fact, we've all seen it even at the pro level, haven't we? Like when Chris Evert played Tracy Austin, for example.
Anyway, another friend comes by, sits down next to me and asks me how the match is progressing.
"It's 4-3," I answer. "They're on break."
(For those of you who are not chuckling right now, "on break" is not a tennis term. I made it up.)
Well, as usual, if I manage to correctly solve a Friday or Saturday puzzle without cheating I feel like shouting “What a good girl am I” ala Little Jack Horner. Then…sometimes I get a little Eeyore bummed out when I see what @Rex has to say. Then I realize I’m in the wheelhouse for “dated” puzzles because I knew SAVALAS. Ah well. Basically my sentiments were a combo of @wanderlust and @Nancy comments.
With respect to Herr/Monsieur Arp…I HAD the HAN filled in and when I finally “cracked” the ARP my thought was hmmm…I didn’t know that was his first name! @Bob Mills…Arp was German-French so the Jean is derived from French. Maybe since we are in U.S. we should call him John? ;)
Yep. I resisted WISECRACKS for the longest time because I don’t think of them as silly BUT I managed to live through the horrible experience! (Is THAT a WISECRACK?)
In two words: Palette Clenser. Very needed after taking a bite of that Shit Sandwich yesterday.
Really wanted JEAN ARP for the “Impish Fruit” and AIR BNBS for the chalet alternatives so I got entangled in grid confusion and didn’t think I would ever manage to claw my way out. Yet here I am on Planet Tatooine listening to Herby Hancock and having fondue from a tulipiere while I write a fan letter to Dr. Seuss.
@Jacob, thanks for a fun puzzle.
@whatsername from yesterday, thanks for your defense of what we do here and how we do it.
I already had the H so I knew it had to be Hans once I got ARP.
I think the Times usually uses Hans. The French called him Jean after he arrived in Paris - apparently they didn’t like the sound of Hans and he went along with it,
I didn’t dislike the puzzle but Rex and others have a point. If you never heard of Hans Arp or Gertie and you hate the idea of Star Wars, I can see why the NW would turn you off. I thought the Tatooine clue was TOO cutesie! But otherwise a decent puzzle.
PS to @jberg as to ONSERVE question for @Nancy and I’ll be curious to see if she knows (I’ll check later) but having played for years it just the “expression” used to indicate that neither player has lost his serve in the set (at least until one does).
Going with the ARP misnomer and knowing that mini had to precede golf wasn’t a START that had merit. Like many above, I had mixed feelings about this one: delightful bottom half & frustration above. Resorting to the check word button or a Google for OTIS is forgiven on Saturday, but resorting to both on a funky Friday causes angst.
Another puzzle (on a Friday yet!) that I'm not gonna enjoy or finish.
I guess being Cub Scout den leader for 5 years is finally paying off. AKELA was a gimme. Our den cheer: we follow Akela, we make good friends, we don't care if the fun never ends..something like that.
I.
"On serve" seems to mean something different in Central Park than it does on the courts here in San Francisco. Here, if the score is 4-4 and both players have been broken once, we say that they are on serve. It means that neither player is up a break.
Had MARLEY before WARDEN on joint chief of staff. Still prefer my answer.
Seemed like a very reasonable FriPuz, at our house. Clues were kinda feisty at times, I'd grant.
66-worder puzgrid with only 6 weejects. staff pick: SUV.
fave feist-ridden clue: {Owl-light} = DUSK. Runner-up: {Joint chief of staff?} = WARDEN.
fave answer: HANS/JEAN ARP. Primo alias-gotcha.
fave moment of fill desperation: PLOTHOLES.
Thanx for the themeless ROCKIT ride, Mr. McDermott dude. Good job.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
@mathgent…I am quite willing to believe that…after both players have been broken…they can be “back on serve” so I kind of doubt whether there is a SF/Central Park/flyover country (me) distinction. @egs and @wanderlust…what say you?
With @Nancy almost all the way on this one. Left the NW with a clean slate Nuthin. Nada. Somehow fought my way all the way back to the NW after realizing how cutesy the cluing was going to be in almost all cases.Finally had to google Arp and got a million computerese sites not related to the artist. Wiki finally reminded me of "Jean" which of course proved to be no help. Back to Wiki for the Hans breakthrough.
As tough a Friday as I have seen in a long time, but ultimately fair for the most part, IMO.
(Finally broke down and got a simplified keyboard replacement. I know you're all thrilled.)
Oops. I just looked it up and @mathgent appears to be correct -- at least according to what it says online. But I, personally, would never say ON SERVE if there have been, say, two breaks of serve to even up the score. I would instead say "They're back on serve".
I wonder what Bud Collins used to say?
Hans Arp?? Really? Who in the English- or French-speaking world ever referred to him that way? It’s Jean Arp. I know he was sometimes referenced this way, but rarely if ever outside the German-speaking world. I call BS.
After finally finishing the puzzle (after cheating & at an ungodly hour), I have to say that I've been doing the NYT crossword for a long time & have never enjoyed so few before. I don't know what's going on with the NYT (as in "where are our favorite constructors"? Have they jumped ship too?) but I'm not happy with it. This should be fun - it's quite often NOT! That's it - I've had my say.
According to the annoying little stats pop-up screen they don't seem to let us turn off on the Android app, I Go-ogle-d faster than average today.
After looking up the encyclopedic list of people, the actual puzzle was kinda fun, except for ONE SOCK which was groany even for me.
I don't see why a puzzlemaker would use Jean Arp's given name when nobody uses it unless you're just trying to be a creep. Nobody calls Cher Cherilyn, or Jamie Foxx Eric, or Paul McCartney James.
Hmm: Appeasement = SOP? AKELA is a person in scouting? Two tennis things in one puzzle? Silly sallies feels like a real stretch for WISECRACKS, but Friday's gotta fri, amirite?
ANY romance would be a very very not EASY READ for me.
Uniclues:
1 #None-aya-bizness
2 Since the last person who knew how postage works died a few years back, we'd have to assume a steep decline.
3 Maui-based restaurant specializing in melted cheese.
4 On the rise since the boys voted to work on their grizzly bear fighting badges.
5 Result of George Lucas touching anything.
6 Important activity for Republicans once they learned about the racist images being canceled by the woke mafia.
7 What social media influencers hope to achieve.
8 Death Star took out Luke's home planet.
9 Main characters in every Marvel movie ever.
10 What you have after the flowers die.
1 WOMB HASHTAG (~)
2 FAN LETTER TREND
3 HANA FONDUE POT (~)
4 AKELA PULSE RATE
5 MORON PLOT HOLES
6 SEEK DR. SEUSS
7 HAD A LOOK ALLURE (~)
8 TATOOINE POPPED
9 "WE'RE BACK" HEROES
10 BED REST VASES
Not fun. Actively upsetting. Jacob McDermott - this was bad, and you should feel bad.
NEVIS crossing SAVALAS - terrible. The V is not inferrable.
PULSE RATE is redundant. We just call it one’s pulse. No one says PULSE RATE.
HANS ARP crossing SOP - awful. Still don’t understand how SOP means “appeasement.”
Is the question mark on the clue for PLOT HOLES supposed to make up for how much of a stretch that clue is? PLOT HOLES are in no way unique to epics. Trying too hard to be cute in a puzzle already filled with crap.
I hated this. I hope you have a bad day, Jacob.
Hands up for JEAN ARP. Right next to TATTOO and I just knew they were both correct, even though the crosses insisted one of them was wrong. When I saw HANS pop up I thought they must be brothers or something.
The surplus of Names I Don't Know seemed actually not quite as bad here as recent days: GERTIE AESIR ROSS NEVIS AKELA and of course HANS. Actually that's still pretty bad. Then there's the Knowns: BOSE NOVA ROSA DRSEUSS NEHRU SAVALAS.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0, last word this SB favorite.]
Fiendishly difficult and I did cheat to look up Herr (or M.) ARP. I like the explanation that he changed "HANS" to Jean, that is, the French name for John. The French seem to have this strange distaste for Germans. Losing in 1870, losing a generation in 1914-1918, and being occupied 1940-1944 may have something to do with it.
I liked the use of the two-T planet as well as the three-T INK. I disliked, very much, AKELA. I was a Cub Scout in the late 1950s. There were no AKELAs, none! We had Den Mothers (my mom took her turn) and an overall Scoutmaster, whom we saw maybe once a year. The Cub Scout goal was achieving Webelos, whatever that may mean.
Where I lived, in the western part of LA, one unusual facet was that the dens were integrated between Gentiles and Jews, and there would have been Blacks, had any lived in that part of town. Which meant that my mother, who never associated with Jews, had to be on good terms with the Jewish mothers, and vice versa.
Hello AESIR, my old friend. You've come to help my solve again. Where oh where have you been? How is our Nordic crossword friend, ODIN?
How the heck do you lose a SOCK in the laundry? And if you did lose a SOCK, would you need to specify ONE SOCK?
Bit of a minitheme with WOMB, SCRUBS and OVULAR.
I was thinking along the lines of farmers for 37A "Holders of many long-handled forks" as in pitchforks. Or maybe peasants carrying pitchforks and torches while storming the castle.
Is a MINISKI the opposite of a BUTTINSKI?
Well, when you understand that Wyoming was the first State to allow women to vote, and Nellie Tayloe Ross was elected Governor in 1925, you might understand why the name should be known; amd maybe even has some merit.
Otherwise, I'm pretty much right there with you on this puzzle.
By the way, did you know that Wyoming's Constitution guarantees equal rights to all "all members of the human race" in their State? Kinda seems like few folks in Wyoming know this, let alone anywhere else. That merits a mention as well. Probably could be a Final Jeopard answer.
One unimportant observation re: ONSERVE. If you’re watching tennis on TV and you miss some of the action because you had to go out for more rye for your Old Fashioneds and you come back in saying to yourself “I can just tell that this is one of those matches where Federer gets into a rut where he couldn’t beat me, much less Tsitsipas” and then you look at the score in the little box on the screen, and Tsitsipas is up 5-4, but the little dot is next to Federer, meaning that he is serving, then you say to yourself “OK, they’re on serve and maybe Roger will win this thing.” You don’t know how they got to 5-4. There might not have been a hold in the entire set. But they’re on serve. So you make yourself a double.
I was so grateful that we didn't get a Star Wars theme yesterday; I guess Tatooine is the price we must pay for that mercy.
The Cub Scout follows AKELA, but the leader of a cub scout sub-pack is a DENMOTHER, and you can't tell me different.
I enjoyed it! Was able to infer the unknown proper names with the crosses. TG o knew “savalas” though.
As some wrote above. It is an expression I heard more often in the past, throw a sop to someone, usually used when you are trying to make someone with an annoying complaint go away. The clue is valid, but old. Ditto Savalas. For people of a certain age Savalas is a lot more than inferable, he is a gimme!
Also, epic fail doesn’t mean or imply that plot holes only apply to epics. Epics have plots don’t they? So the clue is valid. Crosswords do this all the time. Oh well. To each his own
@tennis ?s: ONSERVE can mean no breaks all the way up to all breaks as long as they are even.
If there have been no breaks whatsoever, "We are on serve"
If there have been 2 breaks "We are on serve"; immediately after the breaking back, you might hear "we are back on serve here in the 2nd set". (@Nancy - Back on serve is still on serve.)
If the breaks happened early in the set, by the time of the score being 5 all, probably just back to "we're on serve"
I got HANA confused with the Maleeva three sisters; fortunately the only 4 letter name I could come up with was the correct one. I thought they were all a little more current until I looked them up, time flies...
@oldtimer - I still remember "Webelos" being parsed as "We be loyal scouts". Of course, I didn't say "parsed" at 8 years old.
14a I got the misdirect immediately, but could only come up with "stalking". FANLETTER much better. That NW required some "check grid" action. onseT>START, flew/sped>TORE.
Also in that section, who knew that SOG and its strange usage would be one-upped a day later by SOP - only used for pancake syrup or tears in my book.
I didn't know that sense for "sallies". RP's explanation for why that clue was bad actually made me admire it:)
@beverly c - of all the comments yesterday, yours had the most impact. “And then we get Andrew - ugh.”
Ugh! Ugh? UGH!!
Yes, a bit Mean Girls and dismissive but also eye-opening - what difference does it make to be right, wrong, or somewhere in between if the reaction is UGH!?
I don’t want to be UGH!
Crazy that in a group of erudite cruciverbalists, the word that has the most impact is a funny sounding, 3 letter interjection:
“Ugh is used in writing to represent the sound that people make if they think something is unpleasant, horrible, or disgusting.”
We’re all frustrated by various things that are unpleasant, horrible or disgusting. But when it comes down it, we should never be UGH!
Thanks for setting me straight! :)
@egs regarding “on serve”…well said! @Nancy, I think we our timing on comments was off, but I think we are on the same page! Lol, on Bud Collins.
👌
@andrew (4:09 PM)
Your chrysalis from 'ugh' to 'hug' has helped to make my day! 🦋 🤗
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness & Freudenfreude to all 🙏
Honestly, participating in this commentariat is a really welcome break from the very far left, Zoomer and Millennial circles in which I usually find myself. I was impressed by @Bob Mills last week and @Andrew today.
That is to say that for one hope that we don’t eschew politics *entirely*, for those of us who occasionally care to discuss them. But I hope that we can continue to be in dialogue when we do, and assume that we all fundamentally are of good will towards each other and seek to discuss in ways that actually create understanding instead of shut each other down. I think I was overly strident a few times when I first starting commenting, and I regret that (even as I can also cut myself some slack for that intensity, given how close to home some of these issues are.) Anyway, I’ve been grateful for the grace y’all have shown me as I’ve adjusted and found my footing here, and I’ll keep trying. Thank you. 💕
p.s.
@Lewis: Really cool recent Fireball xword of yours! Different. Liked.
Due to a server outage, many may have missed out on this crucial explanation of Brit peer groups … essential for yer max enjoyment of the upcomin coronation…
**gruntz**
M&Also
Epic comment?
Also why all the references to pregnancy? As a currently pregnant woman myself, crosswords offer a moment of escape and I hated being reminded not 1 - but 4 times - of how uncomfortable I am! Ha. (Referring to WOMB, ABS, SCRUBS, and OVULAR, which could have all been clued differently except WOMB)
The Akela is the pack leader - not the den leader. Mostly in Cubs the dens are led by Den Mothers and occasionally Den Fathers.
Under Milk Wood? No. Not in that play.
But "Altarwise by Owl-Light" is a poem by Dylan Thomas, published first in Life and Letters Today in December 1935 and then the next year in his book 25 Poems.
It's a sonnet sequence, and here's the first stanza:
Altarwise by owl-light in the half-way house
The gentleman lay graveward with his furies;
Abaddon in the hangnail cracked from Adam,
And, from his fork, a dog among the fairies,
The atlas-eater with a jaw for news,
Bit out the mandrake with to-morrow's scream.
Then, penny-eyed, that gentleman of wounds,
Old cock from nowheres and the heaven's egg,
With bones unbuttoned to the half-way winds,
Hatched from the windy salvage on one leg,
Scraped at my cradle in a walking word
That night of time under the Christward shelter:
I am the long world's gentleman, he said,
And share my bed with Capricorn and Cancer.
@Andrew - You got me to look up ugh and I had a great laugh at wordcounter.com What I should have made clear was that I meant the Ukelele Guild of Hawaii! Or Urinary Growth Hormone. And I also learned that our crossword favorite EGAD is considered a synonym. Good to finally know how to use egad. Seriously, it just goes to show our emotions live in the gut more than in the head.
The NW, wow,, tough. All y’all seem to know GERTIE as clued but I didn’t. From _E___E, I threw in nEssiE, imagining some old silent film about Loch Ness. This had me wondering mightily how to match 14A's clue with the answer FAlsETTos. Was “star” in the clue a euphemism for high note? I can't remember how I threaded my way out of that mess but it took some effort.
I totally disagree with Rex that the cluing was cutesy. I thought there were many clever clues, 4 of which I circled as especially good, all of which have been mentioned here by others. I will say I didn’t find EASY READ compelling as an answer for “Little romance, maybe”.
Thanks, Jacob McDermott.
Calling 'Rockit' Funk shows a serious lack of musical appreciation. Just googling it gives this:
Genres: Electro, Electropop, Dance/Electronic
Do the NY Times editors actually do anything?
For all those people writing comments like 'Gen X' puzzle, reads like something from the archives . . . Gen Xer here. I liked Maleska's puzzles. I have gone into the archives. This puzzle was nothing like the ones that got me doing crosswords when I was younger. It's this guy's third puzzle? He's still figuring it out. Hopefully, he will get better.
One of my least favorite puzzles. Had no way into any corner, with things like HANSARP ROSS OTIS HANA NEVIS AKELA in the grid.
If you're going to clue a star wars planet because of its entry on wookiepedia, it should be Kashyyyk.
Another Firesign Theater fan!
DNF. NW. Nuff said.
Wordle bogey. Bad day.
Here we go again with my personal nemesis: the NW. Sticking up there like R2D2's undercarriage out of the sand was TATOOINE...and that's it. I could get NOTHING else up there. Never even tried to get 1-across; my idea of a perfect hell is having a phone strapped in front of my eyes that receives only TikTok. I can hear myself screaming just thinking about it.
So once again, DNF.
Wordle birdie, anyway.
ALLURE ALERT
HANA HADA PULSERATE deal,
so the DR. HADALOOK,
that MORON WISECRACKS, "EASY feel,
lie BACK for BEDREST by my BOOK."
--- GERTIE SAVALAS
@Anonymous 8:14am:
Hans is his real first name.
Misleading and misdirecting clues up the wazoo! The neurons in my brains must have created at least a million new synaptic connections. Plus I learned Jean was born Hans. I am feeling so much more smartier!!!
God I hated this one... Lots of dreck here, zero fun
Since when is the purpose of a fondue pot to Hold Forks? Total failure of a clue....
A really good challenging puzzle. Enjoyed it muchly.
@Anonymous 7:35pm:
Take a look up above. There's a picture of a fondue pot with 4 forks in it. The clue and answer are spot-on correct.
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