.png)
Get a move on, slangily / MON 5-15-23 / Flatbread made with atta flour / Bovine animals that are raced in Tibet / Kind of oil derived from marijuana, for short / German skin care brand
Monday, May 15, 2023
Constructor: Tomas Spiers
Relative difficulty: Easy, probably (solving Downs-only: KINDA tough)
Theme answers:
- SMALL WORLD (17A: Earth or Tatooine)
- LITTLE LEAGUE (27A: N.B.A. or W.N.B.A.)
- MICROBREWERY (44A: Heineken or Pabst)
- TINY DANCER (57A: Ballerina or Rockette)
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and is currently headquartered in Santa Monica, California, United States. In addition to its flagship Lionsgate Films division, the company contains other divisions such as Lionsgate Television and Lionsgate Interactive. It owns a variety of subsidiaries such as Summit Entertainment, Debmar-Mercury, and Starz Inc.
• • •
Well this was definitely a day when solving Downs-only was a blessing. I could see, as the puzzle was coming together, that the theme answers all had "small" synonyms as first words, but I couldn't see the clues ... thank god, because this gimmick is insipid. You just shrink the font? Yeesh. I feel like lots of solvers won't even notice the smallness; in the app and online, the "small" clues are also superscript, so you can't help but notice them, but in the newspaper (or at least in the "Newspaper version" as it is offered online), they're just smaller, but not by sooooo much that you'd necessarily notice. Bizarre that they resorted to superscript—that is, it makes sense, you definitely need to make sure people *see* those words, but still, why do the answers relate only to smallness and not superscriptness, then? It's all so ill-conceived. But I missed all that, and guess what? I had a really good time. I didn't need to know *why* the theme answers started with "small" synonyms. I just figured out that they did, and that eventually helped me work my way through an entertainingly challenging Downs-only solving experience.
This puzzle actually works pretty well if you look at it as a themeless. I struggled a bunch in the NW and N, but finally managed to get something going after putting down UDON and BED, and then changing PHOTOG (!) to CAMERA (10D: Picture snapper). This made CLUB and AIDE clear, and bam, down went LIONSGATE (a very flashy and original answer). Right after that, another showy answer, SKYLINES (38D: Urban photography subjects), and then my favorite part of the solve—the way HAUL ASS came slowly into view (48A: Get a move on, slangily). I filled in the Downs methodically in the SE, and then thought, "damn, something's wrong, there's no word I can make out of -AULASS." And I was right—there's no *one* word I can make out of -AULASS, but there's a two-word phrase I can make just fine, woo hoo, HAUL ASS!. Then I got a little Elton John thrown into the mix right after that (my first full themer), and then the great movie PARASITE (I just gave it my own movie clue in my head, that's what I do sometimes). Just one nice bit after another. I never managed to HAUL ASS during this solve, but the struggle to put it all together was very satisfying, very rewarding. Discovering the nature of the theme, much much less so.
This is only the second appearance of CBD in the grid. It's so ubiquitous in modern life (and products), I figured I'd be seeing it a lot more by now. Telling that it's appearing on a Monday—the puzzle thinks, rightly, that it's not exactly obscure, so sure, Monday, why not? I like that CBD appears kind of kitty-korner to POT (37A: Bonsai tree holder) (again, I just reclued this in my head, this time to be marijuana-related). I had a bit of trouble getting SNACKFOOD to come into view (33D: Crackers, chips and other between-meal bites). That clue definitely says SNACKS, but how I was going to get "SNACKS" into a 9-letter phrase, I didn't know. SNACKTIME! SNACKFEST! No, it's SNACKFOOD, which seems reasonable enough. The NW and N remained tough for me til the end. I had ROGUE for KNAVE (3D: Scoundrel) and no idea what ADMIN could be (2D: Online community moderator, for short). In my experience, the "Online community moderator, for short" is the MOD, so I was like {shrug}. I had SAW and AGRA and END but still couldn't make sense of the longer Downs up there, or put together SMALL WORLD. As you can see (in the posted grid), the last thing I put in was COLD FEET—which is actually a dramatic and entertaining way to end. Nice to finish by taking down a big answer, rather than just filling in some tired old 3- 4- or 5-letter thing. Hope those of you I've converted to Downs-only solving had success today. And I hope the rest of you had a decent time too, despite the puniness of the theme.
I also hope you all had an enjoyable Mother's Day, if that's the kind of thing you enjoy enjoying. We had a beautiful day in Beacon, NY with our daughter, who came up from the city to see us. Perfect weather, decent lunch, plus I got to go to a cute little stationery store I like and stuff my fists with fancy pencils and pens. Then we had ice cream, and *then* I bought chocolate and records. All in the company of my favorite people. Just a perfect day. Excited for my daughter to move to NYC at the end of the summer because it means I will see her (and the city) more often.
See you tomorrow.
Save And Share :
73 comments:
Medium but it seemed tougher. Stuff like LIONSGATE, LEONE, ROTI, ACCRA, OTOE, UDON...are not exactly novice friendly. WHY not before YES was my only erasure. Something a little different, liked it.
The theme was very apparent in the NYT app, but, according to @Rex and based on the grid I saw at Xwordinfo and Jeff’s comments, not as much in print.
Croce Solvers: Croce’s Freestyle #808 was easy-medium for me. A interesting combination of off the wall clues and colorful answers. Good luck!
Haha ... we're starting out another banner week for the programming team. In my Android app the words are the same size as always but the OR is dropped down a bit. Nice. Must have a lot of folks on vacation.
Tee-Hees: POT STEM, HAUL ASS.
Uniclues:
1 The gravitational pull in your heart dragging you toward the infamous Disneyland ride.
2 Go one mile per hour over the posted speed limit.
3 Fun-yuns and deviled eggs.
4 How a certain former president got "rich," apparently.
5 My brother-in-law when he hears dinner is ready.
6 Question and answer explaining how a bachelor stays bacheled.
1 SMALL WORLD MOOD
2 KINDA HAUL ASS
3 KNAVE SNACK FOOD
4 SALES LOG RIFFED
5 PROMPT PARASITE
6 COLD FEET? WHY YES.
The theme had me baffled because Across Lite just showed the clues in the regular font size. But Rex is right, it's kind of a goofy theme anyway. For a while I thought maybe it was a song theme: "TINY DANCER" and "It's a SMALL WORLD After All". But LITTLE LEAGUE was a film, and MICRO BREWERY... just a phrase.
For 45 down "Improvised, musically" I was sure it would be one of those Latin / Italian terms, like LEGATO or ADAGIO.
Rex, love your father/daughter/mother pictures! I lost my mother 19 years ago on my birthday, and wish I'd told her more often what she meant to me.
[Spelling Bee: just returned this evening from weekend at the cabin, too tired even to try today's, so no SB on Sat or Sun. Last week, Sat to Fri: -3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.]
After three days in a row of getting beat up by the crossword bullies, it's KINDA fun to just be able to fill in the blanks today. A fun and different sort of crossword; nice start to the week!
Very sweet photos and sounds like a great day, Rex, thanks for sharing. My folks briefly lived in Beacon and it’s a great day trip from NYC, between the cute town, the Dia Beacon art museum, hiking, and the MetroNorth station being right there. I hope folks who observed Mother’s Day had a lovely time, and I hope folks for whom the day is a complicated one or brings up grief had as easeful a time of it as possible.
A little bit of bite for a Monday which is a nice thing. Having solved the traditional way, can confirm that had I solved themeless I would have had a better time of the puzzle. The visual gimmick just bugged for some reason; I would have much rather seen cutesy cluing like “petite performer” for the theme. Otherwise enjoyed the puzzle, I even learned something! I’d always idly wondered why they were called the LAKERS but didn’t care enough to google; makes perfect sense now.
Not as easy as most Mondays. I had DACCA instead of ACCRA, for some reason, and that made the SE troublesome for a while. I got the "little" part of the theme, but didn't understand why the letters were elevated. Guess I over-thought that.
Easy, harmless theme and mostly clean fill give this one a “cute puzzle” vibe. I like the way they elevated HAUL ASS to almost a featured entry (it definitely caught Rex’s eye) instead of tucking the poor ASS into a corner somewhere just to check that box. Would have been nice if they included that other support group (DAMM - Dyslexics Against Mad Mothers) just to round out the juvy humor component.
I had to give up on the downs-only solve at the end to get the NW and N sections (same ones that held Rex up). I had the N and EA for 20 across, and figured it HAD to be NemEA. That was fatal. And I just wasn’t seeing COLD FEET with so many of the crosses (SPA-E, MA-, -AIRS, E-LS and PO-) having multiple letter options.
And yes, when I looked at the clues for the themers, I was glad I didn’t see them while solving. This puzzle was not made for the enjoyment of those of us with fading vision. Even with reading glasses, I struggled to get those tiny words.
Got TINY DANCER (one of my favorite Elton songs) first, then saw SMALL WORLD and grokked the theme. That helped fill in LITTLE LEAGUE but didn’t help me with MICROBREWERY, in part because I had filled in naan, forgetting that ROTI was also an option. It felt odd that the two breweries used in the clue, Heineken and Pabst are definitely not micro. (I know they don’t need to be for the clue to work but it still felt odd.)
Loved HAUL ASS!
ERIE is the only one of the Great Lakes I have yet to swim in.
I loved that Tiny Dancer video. One of the best ever. Thanks
Rare post from me on a Monday. I liked this cute and breezy puzzle, finished this in good time (for me).
Also enjoyed Rex's photos. We ourselves were in NJ visiting with my in-laws, who are north of 90 (not I-90!).
I too now know why the LAKERS are so-named!
Colin
Love the photos of your fam!
A sparkly much-to-like puzzle for me:
• It solved in typical Monday time, but my brain was more involved than in the usual auto-fill-in Monday outing. The NW corner, for instance, had only EDNA filled in for a bit. That and other hesitations greatly happified my brain.
• A slew of double letters, 19. Just shy of what your resident alphadoppeltotter calls “highly unusual” (more than 20), but more than has appeared in daily puzzles for quite some time.
• Loved that last line of MADD / MESSY / SANE, because the third word certainly includes the first two (if you think of MADD as “mad”).
• Lovely answers in KNAVE, COLD FEET, and WHY YES.
• Terrific NYT debut answer of MICROBREWERY, a worthy addition to the oeuvre.
• In the NW area, ONE STEP reminded me of Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for a man…”, and just above it is SMALL, and just above that is SPACE. A sweet moment of serendipity.
So yes, a very make-me-happy Monday puzzle, and thank you for making it, Tomas!
I found this tough as a downs-only, and had to resort to looking at the across clues much sooner than I’d have liked. And as has been mentioned, in AcrossLite there was no indication that the themer clues were “small.” I got that the answers reflected smallness but I had no idea why. It all added up to a strangely unnerving solving experience for me.
Was definitely frustrated at first that the NYT app didn't properly size the words in the themer clues. Thankfully it was Monday and you could get around it soon enough.
@Wanderlust Best place to swim in Erie is on Canadian side where there are some great beaches in southern Niagara. Come for a visit !
biceps, not bicep, right?
My five favorite clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Sum of this and sum of that (6)
2. Neckwear that's not constricting, one hopes (3)
3. Musician's mouthpiece (5)
4. Flower shower (4)
5. Bit of tea, to Brits (6)
TOTALS
BOA
AGENT
VASE
RUMOUR
I solve on https://downforacross.com and I assume that its interface doesn't support smaller type size. The theme clues were all in lowercase ([earth or tatooine, e. g.] and so on) so I still got what they were going for with the theme.
Indeed biceps. There is no such thing a a bicep. Biceps means "two heads" and refers to thetwo anatomic structures that form the muscle. Likewise the triceps and quadriceps muscles with three or four heads. You can't make it a single noun. Don't get me started on the item of clothing called a PANT!!!
Popeyes enlarged forearm muscle is NOT a bicep. There four muscles in the forearm. The bicep is above the elbow, not below.
What's the over/under on the bicep/biceps issue today? I'll take the over.
On a normal Monday, most clues can go in automatically. Today, we had a bunch that I had no plausible first guess for, most notably:
Sch. founded by Ben Franklin
German skin care brand
Simple ballroom dance
Bonsai holder
Second letter after epsilon
"But of course!"
Movie studio behind "The Hunger Games"
There was enough moo-cow easy stuff to still make it an average Monday, but it was weird to have so many head-scratchers. Also, I really need to learn the Greek letters.
Hey All !
The past few puzs we're rendered exactly as intended in my NYT $40/year App-subscription I use on my desktop computer to solve said puz. Today, got small words, not superscripted. YesterPuz, got the Arrow Sign things, plus the highlighted columns when you were pre-merge that corresponded to the other merger. This is the best way to constantly get what the puz intended. Unsure if it's different on a phone/device, but on a desktop, Bam, it's there.
Neat puz, with all the Themers real things, so you don't have something like MINITABLESAWS or somesuch.
NW corner actually threw a punch or two back at me, but deftly avoided a direct hit, and sussed out that pesky area. Unsure how well a YAK race would go. "C'mon Yakkatoo! I've got money on you!"
Not even mad at MAD and MADD in same grid. Counterbalanced by SANE.
Lots of ASS. Now we're starting to HAUL it.
Nice F bunch in SW.
19 Double Letters, seems a tad high. I know @Lewis is gone for a bit. Just happened to notice them today.
Onto the day. Another Monday...
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I'm with @Joaquin on the over. Here we go again.
Solved this online as the print version was going to be one of those weird things I can't get to print properly. I don't mind doing this on a Monday when you just read a clue and fill in an answer, but I still miss my print version.
Really didn't notice the smaller font and thought the theme was "things that are way below average size" which worked just fine. Of course happy to see any puzzle with an OTTER, but the description as "semiaquatic" somehow seems demeaning. Also happy to see a MICROBREWERY. They're all over the place here in New England, which is definitely cause for celebration.
Nice Mondecito (small, little, micro, tiny Monday) TS. Took Slightly longer than a Novice Monday, and that's a good thing. Thanks for all the fun.
Croce 808 - very, very, very hard. Got the NE and SW corners fairly easily, then took forever to get the rest. The NW corner alone, the last area to fall, took more than twelve minutes for 18 squares.
Har, guess I should read the comments before posting.
Nice to see you back, @Lewis, and doing your Alphadoppletottering.
RooMonster Impatient Poster Guy
Thx, Tomas; excellent early week puz! 😊
Med.
Very smooth solve.
Had tons of baseball and football cards, but don't recall having basketball ones. If I did, George Mikan of the LAKERS would have been a high pick.
LITTLE LEAGUE always fosters fond memories.
Fun adventure; liked it a lot! :)
___
Enjoyed Alex Eaton-Salners PandA puz from the NYT Variety Games yd.
___
Thx, @jae; on it! 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness & Freudenfreude to all 🙏
On the slow side for me - like @kitshef 9:16, I had to pause over more clues than usual on a Monday, e.g., COLD...?, SNACK...? and SKY...? I was also slowed down by having to squint and guess what the theme clues said, which was not the puzzle's fault but my own for not having upped the strength of my reading glasses. Cute theme idea, nicely solid theme phrases. Also some smiles for SALE SLOG (fruitless search through multiple stores for the fantastic advertised deal) and the idea of multiple ARSONS but only one "BICEP."
@Wanderlust 7:09 - A swim in Lake Superior? Wow! I couldn't even make it up to my ankles. Michigan was enough for me.
@JNKMD 9:02 - I hear you on "pant"! It reminded me of beauty blogs and their "smoky eye" and "nude lip."
It's very nice grid-making when you can have four long themers and still have such long and smooth Down answers as LIONSGATE, COLD FEET and SNACK FOOD. And if the price of accomplishing all that is HAUL ASS -- well I suppose it's an acceptable and thoroughly understandable tradeoff.
Although I did keep saying to myself when I was in the SE corner: "Oh, please don't be HAUL ASS! Please don't be!" We're living through such a gratuitously vulgar moment in history -- one that affects every part of current culture. Indeed, when referring to the NYTXW, you might call our times "The Ass Age".
Still, this is a lively and junk-free Monday puzzle that's nicely done. Easy though it was, I found it mildly diverting.
I’m surprised to be the first to congratulate the LAKERS for moving on to the NBA West finals (tho they did beat my team, the Warriors, who were sadly not at their best!!) Not many west coast solvers out there?
I’d love to! Thanks for the invitation
This was cute enough. The Times online app showed superscript, which left me no doubt as to what was being indicated.
Pretty good fill now that a look at it; I missed much of it while solving. The one thing I didn't like was the YES dupe -- WHY NO, don't do that.
@Rex -- Your "pride and joy" show through clearly; parenthood is just amazing. Beacon is a cool town, too. And the shirt rocks!
At the suggestion of @liveprof, I tried solving this while wearing two eye patches, but it still turned out to be incredibly easy. I’m thinking maybe that next Monday, I’ll try wearing the patches over my eyes.
Yes, in two places: Apostle Islands in Wisconsin and Pictured Rocks in Michigan. You gotta just go all in, no slow wading.
This was my experience....just kind of figured it out because it was a Monday, but still didn't get it until I got here
Lovely family!
Today’s puzzle was a fine Monday.
Still thinking how creative yesterday’s was, and the way Jeff Chen and Jim Horne suggested NYT could have improved the print and online versions with some color (since Sundays are printed in color magazine).
Color Coding Coolness for a Classic Sunday
I would not have easily seen the zipper merges that, well, eMerge without this without coming to explanatory blogs. Online and print both have the capabilities to improve the USECASE. Why don’t they do it?
Before retiring, I transported donkeys for a living. I was damn good at it too. People used to say, “ That @egsforbreakfast can really HAULASS.” I stuck to donkeys because they’re smart, unlike the YAKS. I never met a brainiac.
My wife drags me from one store to another to see the specials. It’s a real SALESLOG.
I solved this while being waterboarded while blindfolded and without being told whether a given clue was across or down. I came away thinking that a puzzle that RIFFED on synonyms for SMALL was a trivial pursuit. But I did still enjoy it, so thanks, Tomas Spiers.
So, Ella was what, 7 years old, when all this Rex Parker stuff started? Now she's a grown-ass woman moving to the Big Apple to stage manage Broadway (I assume, and expect nothing less) productions? How old we've all gotten. I remember the "My Little Pony" incident of '97. A whole damned generation ago. At this point, I'm waiting for grandkids.
@Will S so, you run line of business whose sales are in the tens of millions which has only 4 outlets, all of which you have 100% control over. Yet you continue to produce product that, from time to time, doesn't work on at least one of them. The Android version, failed to show the puzzle correctly. How difficult is it to check each of 4, count them 4, presentations to see if it works. If they didn't do it, and just don't care about that 1/4 of the population that solves on an Android device, screwing their customers because their lazy. If they did check and said 'who cares', they're purposefully screwing their customers.
If you get a submission that requires special type sets, check to see if the presentation works on all 4 platforms (print, WEB, IOS, Android). If it doesn't, don't accept the puzzle. That simple.
Relatively difficult Monday for me! NW was tough.
An update on whether I did or didn't try to finish yesterday's puzzle (no spoilers) for all of you who didn't ask.
Reader, I didn't.
After finishing today's puzzle, I went to yesterday's blog to see what the gimmick was. The staggering amount of pop culture knowledge needed to fill in enough answers to even get to the gimmick was so soul-crushing that I just couldn't go on. [Big sigh. Brow wipe.] And now that I see how tangled and complicated and baroque the gimmick itself is, I'm sure glad I stopped early.
Cute Little MonPuz theme. Kinda a vision test, provided in the themer clues.
The printed version, which M&A solvequested, Had themed clues with small print except that the "or" word was normal-sized; this made the smaller print parts stand out as bein different.
NW corner was the hardest part, at our house. Was able to HAULASS pretty well, once I got out of there.
Yet, fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue goes to the one thing that went in first, in that NW corner …
{Name hiding in "named names"} = EDNA.
staff weeject pick: CBD. A no-know. May well stand for Cannabis But Different.
other fave stuff: HAULASS. PARASITE. COLDFEET. SNACKFOOD. LIONSGATE [maker of many a schlock flick enjoyed on our FriNite Schlock Movie Fests]. M&A misses not havin our regular fests, as bro-in-law has been on vacay in Europe for quite a spell.
Thanx for all them little bits of fun, Mr. Spiers dude.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s. Real nice pics of the @RP fam.
**gruntz**
“Yes” dupe is unacceptable (IMHO)
Just curious: how many of you access the puzzle from a paper NYT delivered to your door each morning? * I tend to get the feeling that the overwhelming percentage of people who comment here regularly solve on some kind of on-line version.
* Yes, it's EXPENSIVE and obsolete but, at least as far as the "obsolete" part goes, so am I. I'm too old to spend a lot of money on a lot of the stuff I used to spend a lot of money on, so I blow some of it that way.
I solve in Times Crossword app, and the small font was so tiny that it was not readable on my iPhone SE (2022 edition), but fortunately the theme answers were common phrases that were easy to infer. That said, the editors and/or app designers should have considered that not everyone carries a book-sized phone.
KINDA slow for me for a Monday (22 minutes). I thought some of the answers were hilarious, since the NBA is by no means a LITTLE LEAGUE, though its formal name, Association, might imply otherwise. And the named BREWERies are by no means MICRO. (I went to the Heineken BREWERy at age 18, and remember it fondly (I wonder if it is still a major attraction for first time visitors to Amsterdam? Probably not, as beer geeks love all those small Belgian towns more (Bruges, for instance). And really, ballerinas are not unusually large women, so TINY DANCERS is not such a contradiction in terms.
I'm still a little shocked by the term ASS in my puzzle, but the clue was a good one. More shocked that I live across our main street from a POT store, which used to be a pleasant little restaurant -- and which years ago was a fish n chips place that stank up the neighborhood.
Charmed by the pics. Young Ms. Sharp looks like a future CEO to me. But good luck finding a good place in the City -- ideally near Astor Place, my favorite subway stop, with great eateries nearby.
I should add that the tiny clues were accurately printed in tiny type, in the newspaper I got this morning. And a singular PANT is right there in the dictionary, meaning a trouser, or an undergarment. Comes from PANTaloon, which is a single leg of those big long PANTs of yore. Usu. plural, says Merriam-Webster.
@bocamp-KAC in the NYorker today. Thought it would do me in but a long nap by the grandson gave me a stretch of free time, and got 'er done, which surprised me a little. Good stuff.
Oops, the latter was meant to respond to @Carola (below) about Lake Superior
@pabloinnh (12:53 PM)
Good on ya! 😊 I'll prob get to KAC's tm; by @kitshef's acct., I'll be sufficiently occupied with Croce 808 for most of the PM. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness & Freudenfreude to all 🙏
@JNKMD (9:02). We've got a nice piece of cake for you down here.
JM -- too funny!
I started yesterday's puzzle yesterday, but put it aside for a lovely Mother's Day with my wife -- a visit to a garden I had not been to before, then dinner with her empty-nester daughter and her husband. So I finished it this morning, then solved this one in somewhat faster time. I won't comment here on yesterday's, lest I spoil it for anyone.
As for today--yes, @bigsteve, I get the paper delivered and solve it on newsprint; and I figured out the small print right away. I'd never heard of the Elton John song, so I thought that was out of place until I looked it up post-solve.
I've made this point before, but it needs repeating: the leagues listed in the clue are not EXAMPLES of LITTLE LEAGUEs; they are a visual representation of a league that is little. Same for all the other theme clues.
I don't know if a CAT SCAN is an alternative to an MRI; they show you different things..
I could see the BICEP comments coming, but pant? That seems more complex, since a single garment is a pair of pants. One imagines a time deep in history when each leg was a separate garment, just as bread did not come sliced.
Now I have to go see what Rex said yesterday.
This was fun, just pure fun. How can I pick at it when it was just so dang much fun. And it is just what I love to see on a Wednesday. I did mess up the MICROBREWERY section by just squinting at the teensy letters and immediately thinking MIni, but didn’t have enough to figure out what area of beer we were beeding to complete that one . So with the east side of the bottom pretty blank, my first mistake led to compound errors of Sega for SONY and that just made a big mess. IFFY and KINDA being the only things that would work helped untangle my mess. I KINDA head smacked when I realized that MICROBREWERY (duh!) was the answer since I am a mega fan of craft beer (my German heritage, I guess).
Every time we traveled, my husband and I would search for craft breweries (and locals’ favorite diners) in new places. We had a log of camping and rv trips with our favorite “Three Calendar” diners and beers/breweries. We found so many from traveling the “blue highways” (less traveled roads) of the US. It was so rewarding in so many different ways to slow down and meet people and really see America. For an intro into slower travel, I highly recommend “Blue Highways” by William Least Heat-Moon.
But I digress; I do that often here. I enjoyed today’s puzzle and admit that it had its challenging moments. The theme wormed, and was entertaining. Just what I want in a Wednesday.
Nancy @ 10:09 Are you really *that* offended by HAULASS?
If so, it must be very difficult for you to navigate the modern world.
Mind you, I'm not a fan of crassness or poor manners, but I just fail to see the horror in a crossword puzzle.
I thought the puzzle (and theme) were delightful, and I'm usually not a fan of Mondays.
@bocamp-Croce tomorrow for me, and thanks.
Good luck!
There was a theme?
Thanks for the pics, RP. Next I wanna see Ida Mae.
I also remember his forearm being the "Big muscle for Popeye after he eats spinach" (55A) rather than the, AHEM, BICEP so I went to YouTube and watched a collection of excerpts of him eating spinach and most seemed to confirm it was his forearm muscle although sometimes other muscles would come into play including once or twice for the BICEPs. My favorite was when his feet would swell up and he would kick Bluto, aka Brutus, into the next county. Ay-uck, uck, uck, uck, uck.
I've been subscribing to the online NYTXW for several years. There were a some KINDA IFFY times where the solve was not the smoothest, for example when the cursor would jump to another section of the grid after filling in an entry, but it's been smooth sailing of late. As @Roo mentions, it's only about $40 a year, plus (and it's a big PLUS in my book) you get access to the puzzle archive going back to '93. That's over 7,000 puzzles and they all solve with the same software as contemporary puzzles.
Spent my first Christmas away from home on a Navy ship in HONG Kong in '64. It was a beautiful city that had a fairy tale look. It was easy to see why it was called "The Pearl of the Orient". Went back again in '84 (as a civilian) and the city had changed enormously. The population had exploded. The main drag was no longer two lanes with a streetcar running down the middle. It had become a multilane freeway choked with traffic. All the beautiful white buildings now had a sooty gray exterior from all the traffic exhaust. The pearl had definitely lost its luster.
Did King Kong ever visit HONG Kong?
I do, in Arizona
To Bigsteve46 - count me as one who still solves on paper - & prefers to. (Though I do Mini, SB & Wordle thanks to. my NYT subscription).
Yes people can and do. That’s language, not medicine. It is called a back formation. Happens all the time. That is why we say pea, not pease. (As in -singular-pease porridge hot etc. ). Nothing wrong with it.
I am one of those who does the NYT crossword only in the dead tree edition. For the same reason.
Thanks for the nice family photos. Thank god she got her mother’s looks.
p.s.
@RP: What's yer t-shirt with the xword grid on it say? All I'm seein "GRID IS LI???"
Just curious. Might need one.
Thanx,
M&A
@Pete 10:44 AM
+1
I run a few websites and I have to check them in four different browsers and on two different phone systems and things must work everywhere or it gets scrapped. For this I make next to nothing.
Seems like the times puzzle department could try to do a little bit better based on the 12¢ I and millions of others send to them every day.
NO MOOD?
The TINYDANCER had COLDFEET,
KINDA like a LITTLE girl,
IN time she’d SAY, “WHYYES, let’s meet,
to HAULASS IN this SMALLWORLD.”
--- TOM PENN
Those weren’t microbreweries.
My newspaper did not have the theme clues in small type so the gimmick totally escaped me. The editor(s) should think twice before accepting puzzles that don’t work in both digital and print formats.
I do the print version in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. We get it 6 weeks after the original publication date. Love reading Rex and the comments, but it’s an eerie, uncomfortable time-travel vibe to do so.
Not only did I NOT have small type for the themers (I was wondering where the "revealer" clue was), yesterday's Sunday puz was from years and years ago!!! Whazzup with that? Talk about an editing oopsie!
But it all worked out in the end - even tho LITTLE doesn't really belong with the pro LEAGUE teams. IMHO (not that many would care one IOTA)
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
By the way...if you go look at the puzzle for Sunday Feb 16, 2020, you'll see the Sunday puz I had in my paper yesterday. And looking at the SyndieCats' comments, there was a big (by years!) mix-up with that puzzle also. Hmmm...a haunted puzzle? Could it be?
Lady Di
Agreed @anon 10:35. No difference at all in my printed clue list, it's all that same font where you can't tell whether it's "m" or "rn."
Ergo my confusion: Okay, you might classify Tatooine as a "small," i.e., unimportant, world, and even Earth, from the viewpoint of ADMIN officials in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" universe. But it got even harder to understand the farther south I went.
-->Neither the NBA nor the WNBA can be called a "little" league.
-->Neither Heineken nor Pabst is a "micro" brewery.
-->While it is possible for a ballerina to be "tiny," it is emphatically NOT for a Rockette. Those ladies must conform to strict height, weight, and measurement statistics because the finished product must look as much alike as possible. There are NO "tiny" Rockettes.
After reading this blog, I get what the theme was trying to do, but I'm sure I wouldn't have been more impressed. I give it points for having SPACE at the top center, but that only sinks a long par putt.
BTW, congrats to Wyndham Clark, Open winner. We will hear more from him. I have no doubt.
Wordle par, but for a word that contains a 5er, a 10er and a double vowel, seems more like a birdie.
@Diana, LIW - I also noticed last Sunday's syndicated puzzle was pre-empted by an old, crappy one from 2020, with one "showcase" answer being DOBBY THE HOUSE ELF. Thanks to this blog, though, I figured out the correct Sunday puzzle was Pride-related. And I guess Pride is now too controversial to post. Thanks for nothing, NY Times syndication team!
Post a Comment