Language family that includes Zulu / MON 5-22-23 / Educator who co-hosted "MythBusters" / Stand-up comedian with a self-titled sketch show / Stringed instrument with a pear-shaped body / Popular noodle dish in Bangkok
Constructor: Dang Quang Thang
Relative difficulty: Medium (?) (normal-seeming Monday, maybe tougher if you don't know the names in question)
THEME: AS SEEN ON TV (58A: Print ad phrase for infomercial products ... or, parsed differently, a description of 17-, 25-, 35- or 50-Across) — people who appear on TV whose initials are A.S.:
Theme answers:
ADAM SAVAGE (17A: Educator who co-hosted "MythBusters")
AMY SCHUMER (25A: Stand-up comedian with a self-titled sketch show)
ANDY SAMBERG (35A: Actor who starred as Jake Peralta on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine")
AL SHARPTON (50A: Civil rights activist hosting MSNBC's "PoliticsNation")
Word of the Day: Anna SUI (59D: Fashion designer Anna) —
One of those days where I was grateful to be solving Downs-only. I really had to work for it in the S/SE of the grid, so that what could've been a very HUM-drum experience turned into a semi-harrowing adventure. That area of my greatest struggle (the, uh, BAD AREA, you might say) contained the entirety of the revealer, which was the only interesting part of the theme. So the upshot was that I was forced to spend most of my time in the most interesting part of the grid, and the revealer was pleasingly delayed, so it really came as a reward for hard work and patience, as opposed to just being a regular old easy-to-get Monday answer. Essentially, solving Downs-only turned a puzzle with a pretty mediocre theme into a really engaging exercise in inference and pattern recognition, with the revealer coming as a nice little reward. I got the "A.S." pattern early, right after getting AMY SCHUMER. "Is that it? A.S. names? Sigh, OK. The revealer better be worth it..." ANDY SAMBERG and AL SHARPTON went in pretty easily, thought Sharpton was much harder to parse (his extremely short first name threw me—I was looking for the "S" to appear closer to the middle of the answer). So I got all the themers without too much struggle. I don't really know who ADAM SAVAGE is (my Savage knowledge mostly ends with Fred and Dan), but the name rang a faint bell, and anyway the crosses all worked. Parsing his name took me longer than it should have, but it wasn't hard. Nothing else gave me much trouble until it came time to enter the SE... I got blocked all over. 36D: "It's not for me to decide" was, let's see, YOUR ... MOVE? Maybe? 38D: Unexpected blessings was G- ... G- ... Goshdarnit I don't know. 46D: "I'm set, but thanks anyway" was ... I had no idea. 41D: Heard something via the police hotline, say — also a blank (wanted something-IN or something-UP). So that's four initial strikeouts on longish Downs in the SE. Plus a revealer that I could not parse, and that appeared to end in "V" (how??!). Bad, bad news. I was legit worried about being able to finish.
But RUSTIC gave me the "C" that got me to YOUR C-, which had to be YOUR CALL. Figured LUT- had to be LUTE, and that "E" helped me see "NO NEED." From there (with other short stuff I had in place) I was able to parse AS SEEN ON TV, and that was *only* way I was able to see GOT A TIP and then (finally) GODSENDS. Love to end the puzzle on GODSENDS, hallelujah, amen. Much better than ending on GOT A TIP, an answer that lands pretty firmly in the EAT A SANDWICH category (OK maybe it's slightly more plausible as a stand-alone answer, but only slightly). If I look only at the SE corner of the grid, where I spent most of my time, then I like this puzzle fine. I was not liking it much before that. BAD AREA felt ... bad (2D: Dangerous neighborhood). I've GOT A TIP for constructors—stay away from BAD AREA. It's super-weak. The rest of the grid is passable (GLEE CLUB stands out, in a good way). But the meat of the tomato here is the S and SE. Brings the puzzle back to life. Rescues it. Even with GOT A TIP, it tilts the whole puzzle toward The Good. Those three other long Downs I struggled with, the revealer—all ended up being worth the effort. I'm grateful for the Downs-only experience, which allowed me to really soak in the best parts of the grid (and largely forget the rest). See you tomorrow.
Medium. It could have been tougher but I knew all the “TV” people. A novice solver might have problems with this one. Liked it but I don’t think it belongs on a Monday.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #810 was easy for a Croce or about 1.5 to 2 X the typical NYT Saturday. It may have been a wheelhouse thing for me as the center three stack were all gimmes. Good luck!
Ha. That's how to do a Monday. Unknown names gettable through crosses and then a cute reveal to tie them together. A S SEEN ON TV is great.
Nobody ever talked to me about NABOBs and my dad was a Bob.
Ug: We had a GLEE CLUB on my campus because I went to school in the 19th century. But then, they started lettin' in the dames, and singin' pop tunes and still tryin' to call it a glee club when it was really a choir, or more to the point, a datin' app with the intellectual purity of a Will Shortz era crossword puzzle. So no, we don't got no glee club n'more.
Uniclues:
1 Knock little boys over into the pews and swipe their pillows. 2 🎵 I am hot. 🎵 I am nude. 🎵 I am sweating like a pig. 🎵 Take your shots. 🎵 Say I'm rude. 🎵 Soon I'll be skinny as a twig. 🎵 {you know the rest} 3 "Everything is fine" said ad infinitum. 4 Where they house naked people in HD. 5 If you had to pick a time when a RWNJ would say society went into the crapper. 6 Novel about a colorful group of men who did not go into the jungle to stop a crazed warlord on account of the bugs and snakes and shirtlessness. 7 Gatorade.
1 ABORT RING BARES 2 SAUNA ARIA 3 STOIC SMOG 4 BLURAY BAD AREA (~) 5 ASSUME OBAMA ERA (~) 6 SHYNESS NOW 7 A-TEAM'S GOD SENDS
First off, before you criticize, let’s just see a show of hands from those who’ve constructed a publication-worthy puzzle in a non-native language. Now keep your hands up if you’re under 18 years old. You may now criticize, you nattering NABOBs of negativism.
I like how the revealer can kinda be parsed 3 ways: 1. AS SEEN ON TV (the familiar phrase) 2. A. S. SEEN ON TV (TV personalities with the initials A.S.) 3. A. S., SEE NON TV (Non-TV personalities with the initials A.S. Such as Anakin Skywalker and Anna Sui)
Of course if the revealer was ASs SEEN ON TV, Tucker Carlson would have once been a gimme.
I was mystified for a bit, wondering what the reveal could be for the A.S. people. When I finally allowed myself to look at 58A, I smiled. Hah. Rex – I liked your “pleasingly delayed” descriptor.
And we have two periphery themers with ANAKIN Skywalker and Anna SUI. Nice. I mean, you can see them on tv once in a while, right?
What with all the movies and such available on the streaming services, the line between tv personalities and movie personalities is getting finer and finer. I really appreciated the fact that these four are not, arguably, movie stars. But, again, you can see pretty much anyone on tv nowadays: Adam Sandler, Ally Sheedy, Amanda Seyfried. . . heck, even Aaron Spelling if you squint and play loosey goosey.
“Kind of folder to check for a missing email” – so at least for me, my Gmail has whatever it is a dryer has that adioses that one sock. I can be certain that I absolutely did not delete the email from my principal with the Zoom link for the meeting, but when I go back to find it and log on, the email is gone. Gone. Do a search. Still gone. Maybe it’s just that I have yet to understand how to navigate Gmail with its tiny little ellipses dots indicating some kind of thread – hate it – but it’s almost a given that when I’m under the gun and need to access an email fast, it’s nowhere to be found.
LAMP – I love me a LAMP. I just did a mental count, and in my classroom, I have seven. Two of those have more than one bulb, so counting total lamp light bulbs, I have 12. Overhead lights make me feel sad, so I’m really grateful that no boss has ever called me out on this. I figure I spend more waking minutes in my classroom than anywhere else, and I need to be comfortable, be at peace. Seems I’m not alone.
@egsforbreakfast – thank you. I couldn’t agree more. This is a remarkable debut for a teenager whose native language is not English. Bravo!
I had a similar feel for the names as Rex. I hadn’t grokked the “AS” pattern yet but AMY SCHUMER, ANDY SAMBERG, and AL SHARPTON all went in easily. But ADAM SAVAGE took a lot of passes and a lot of crosses. I’ve never seen Mythbusters and don’t know anything about the man, but once I got close to his name I thought “well I know I’ve heard that name at some point in my life”, so in it went.
I think the theme worked perfectly for a Monday. Nothing really tricksy or challenging, with a cute enough revealer (for some reason the revealer tickled me more than such puns normally do). I think of Mondays as a puzzle that should be fun and gettable for newbie solvers. The only quibble I had here was the clue for 3 down which was awkward and clunky. Experienced solvers are so used to seeing the vowel-rich OBAMA and ERA and OMABA ERA that we drop it right in, but for a newbie that clue reads like “what part of Biden’s vice presidency involved politics” which makes no damned sense.
I’ve been watching “Queen Charlotte,” the “Bridgerton” prequel, so I was definitely thinking ASS SEEN ON TV. There are lots of R-rated love scenes, so asses on TV galore. But @egsforbreakfast, your Tucker Carlson reference is much better.
My downs-only solve matched Rex’s pretty perfectly. I totally agree that doing it that way ups the fun level tenfold.
Fortunately the names were “just familiar enough” so that the PPP theme didn’t sink the entire grid. Some elevated difficulties for a Monday (say ANAKIN crossing NABOB for example). Tough theme/puzzle to pull off and keep at Monday-level difficulty and this constructor did it very well. Congratulations.
Strong disagree on ANAKIN/NABOB – I would think the large majority of english-speaking Americans between the ages of 5 and 85 can place at least AN.K.N without a thought. The vowels in the middle are difficult if you haven’t seen it written, for sure, but for the other five letters the crosses could be completely unguessable gobbledygook and it would still be reasonable for a Monday.
A surprisingly crunchy Monday, especially when you start your downs-only solve with ANiKeN. That led me to iDA somebody and eRiN, a country definitely north of the Persian Gulf. Even after I broke down and started reading the across clues, this was still a good challenge for starting the week.
Congratulations to a remarkable young constructor. And welcome back, @lms.
My five favorite clues from last week (in order of appearance):
1. Old English, for better or worse? (9) 2. Govt. facility in most world capitals except Washington (2)(7) 3. Result of getting side-swiped, perhaps? (4) 4. It's between one and many (3) 5. Pirate fodder, once (5)(3)
I find the backstory so inspiring – a 17-year-old from Vietnam, working to improve his English by making crossword puzzles, and within two years having a puzzle published in the Times. Wow. On top of that, the puzzle has a smile-producing revealer, is clean, and feels completely American made. Wow!
Bravo, DQT!
Me, I’m working on improving something too: Guessing the revealer after uncovering the theme answers. I at least figured out that the revealer would start with the word “as”, but the rest just didn’t come. My lesson today – more closely examine the clues. All the theme clues mentioned TV shows!
Dang Quang Thang, another constructor for whom English is not their first language is Zhouqin Burnikel (known to many as CC), and now she’s had 76 puzzles published in the Times. Thought I’d mention that. Thank you for warming my heart with your story, and for giving me a sparkly Monday outing!
A first for me - After decades of doing the NYT Xword, I couldn't figure out the theme on a Monday puzzle. I stared at it for a while and tried jacking with the pronunciation to no avail. Finally, I gave up and let Wordplay explain it to me.
You'd think a grown AS English speaker wouldn't be fooled by a 17-year old ESL guy. You'd think ...
ADAM SAVAGE I did know (and he also showed up somewhat recently, in the April Fools themeless). Then... wrong AMY! I put in POEHLER at first (I remember her having to do with comedy, am I wrong?) but SHYNESS and PLY were undeniable so I fixed it quickly. Then I moved down the SE via GODSENDS and questioned SERVES for a fraction of a second given the final V in the revealer. It works just fine for a Monday. (I didn't know Samberg and Sharpton but still got a normal Monday time).
As a non-native speaker who got super into crossword solving and construction (in my case, via Sporcle), I can relate to the constructor.
I’m continuing to struggle with the downs-only Monday thing. I get a lot of it filled in, at least half, but then I hit a wall, with too many partially-filled in across answers that could be many different things. So at some point I say, oh, what the hell, and look at some across clues, and then it’s a quick finish. Oh well, I’ll try it again next week but completing a downs-only puzzle seems an elusive goal.
I only knew NABOB as one of those words you have to remember when that particular letter string comes along in the NYT Spelling Bee and never bothered to learn what it actually means, having never come across it otherwise. Apparently it’s a Monday-level word that’s eluded me my entire life. Good to know!
Enjoyable solve. Liked it a lot! :) ___ Thx @jae; on it! 🤞 ___ @pablo: unusually easy Sat. Stumper (for the most part), despite dnfs at two separate locations (both gettable with better thinking). ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness & Freudenfreude to all 🙏
Since news and sports are about the extent of my tv viewing, I knew ALSHARPTON, the other tv types now so much. Nice revealer which more or less overturned my initial reaction (see what I did there?).
Anyway, since it's Monday, I thought I'd try some of the tricks that folks do on a Monday, so I went with the blindfolded ploy. Not only did I not get any answers, virtually all of my letters were nowhere near being in a box in the crossword. They were just all over the place. I think it's a lot harder than people are making it seem.
On a more serious note, bravo to DQT. A Decidedly Quality Talent appears, and I hope to see many more from this constructor. Thanks for all the fun, and congratulations.
Took me a while to warm to the theme but once I did, I was treated to an excellent Monday offering. Only two of the four marquee answers were household names to me; SAMBERG was only vaguely familiar and SAVAGE was a complete unknown. I’d suggest ADAM Sandler there but apparently that was rejected due to the mysterious inner workings of construction constraints.
But whether I liked it or lumped this puzzle takes a backseat today to the remarkable story of its creation by a 17-year-old Vietnamese citizen who started solving crosswords two years ago to improve his English. Then just for kicks, he decided to construct one of his own based on American pop culture even though he wasn’t that familiar with it. Well, I can only bow in humble admiration at that kind of drive and ambition. Congratulations young man! I have a feeling you’re going to go far - in the crossword world and beyond.
Quick solve, but not Monday-quick. I didn't know any of the names from the clues alone, which slowed me down a bit. Coincidentally, over the weekend I solved a puzzle from the Times archive that included AS SEEN ON TV, so I was primed to fill in that answer immediately once I read the clue.
@Loren: Sounds like your Gmail is set on Conversation View which groups related messages together in those annoying dotted threads. You can change that by going into Settings under the Gear icon on your Gmail account and turning off Conversation View. Usually it’s just a matter of unchecking a box but locating it will also depend on what device you are using. Once that’s turned off then your messages should be ungrouped and listed individually.
Yeeeeah, any nits I might have had to pick go ALL the way out the window having learned the story of the constructor. Truly impressive.
It’s especially impressive given the grasp of colloquialism. I’ll never be so fluent in any second language that I’ll start to use idioms, let alone make a crossword that trades in double meanings and cross-cultural references.
Welcome back @LMS!
@pabloinnh, I actually laughed out loud at your contribution to the “Monday alternative solving” oeuvre. Better luck next week.
Not quite BRUTal, but this was a difficult Monday for me, mainly because I had no idea about ADAM SAVAGE or ANDY SAMBERG, but also a rewarding one, with the great reveal and my momentarily delayed understanding of "parsed differently." Bonus points for REVAMP, YOUR CALL, GODSENDS, and GLEE CLUB. Thanks to those who pointed me to Dang Quang Thang's note on xwordinfo.com. Remarkable!
@Dang Quang Thang, my favorite moment in your note was reading about your rejection of the original reveal idea (AS YOU KNOW) for AS SEEN ON TV, "which is much snazzier." Snazzier! Indeed! A terrific word and exactly right. I don't think you need to have any doubts about your English proficiency :) I look forward to more of your puzzles.
I keep thinking I should try that down-clues-only thing, but so far I've always forgotten to do so. It would have saved me from SToIc before STAID, and (more stupidly) Lyre before LUTE.
The only one of the theme names I really knew was AL SHARPTON, but not as clued. I sort of knew AMY SCHUMER, but I looked at her surname in the grid and thought, "no, that's the Senate Majority Leader" and hesitated. (Turns out he's her cousin.) So it all came from the crosses.
@egs, thanks for reminding us of old Spiro. I had the same thought but misremembered it as "negativity."
@Loren, I had a colleague who did the same thing in her office--got a desk lamp and turned off the overhead light. As for me, I could have used a lamp. The overhead light would go off if no motion was detected, and I'd arranged the office (inadvertently) so that there was a bookcase between the sensor and my desk. So I'd be sitting there reading and the room would suddenly go dark. I thought many times that it would be nice to have a lamp, but never managed to act on that thought.
Anyone else immediately drop in Amy Sedaris instead of Schumer? I guess Sedaris isn't a stand-up comedian but she did have a very funny self-titled show!
Say what you will about Al Sharpton, I can't lose ten pounds without gaining it back in seven minutes. He lost 175 pounds via diet and exercise and has kept it off via determination. His daughter shamed him into it by calling him fat one day. Since thinning down he complained that his impersonator on SNL is too heavy (Kenan Thompson).
Kudos to ESL teachers and their dedicated students everywhere! One of my students won an essay contest with a snazzy piece about discrimination. It was 4 years after being my student but I was proud anyway.
Was going for downs only but didn't know the Darth Vader clue, so switched and as soon as I entered AN_____ it came to me, very weird.
Could not guess the theme although the names were all familiar - kids who watched *a lot* of Mythbusters helped.
Great start to the week and I second @Pablo's epithet!
Since someone stole my eye patches and my blindfold is at the dry cleaners again, I had to do my Monday solve the old fashioned way with a grocery bag over my head. I used to use Jewel bags for this but decided to try a Trader Joe’s bag instead because 1) it’s larger, and 2) it’s easier to breathe inside of. I’m grateful for the challenge this added to the solve, but I should have looked at the bag more carefully before putting it on. Now I have to figure out how to get this pumpkin butter out of my hair.
JM – Glopulene Propanol is an excellent pumpkin butter remover. It’s available at most sex shops for just about $5,000 an ounce. No need to rush, though. If you can get your head into an airtight container, the PB should last for up to two weeks. If you have a walk-in freezer, that would be better --- it would buy you six months.
@Liveprof, thanks for the tips. I'll keep the Glopulene Propanol in mind if this ever happens again. For now, I just took a shower and that seemed to do the trick, except that the Trader Joe's bag is ruined. There must be an easier difficult way to do Monday crosswords.
staff weeject pick: Anna SUI. A bonus A.S.-er, as @Muse darlin mentioned. fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Like the numerals I, V, X, L, etc.} = ROMAN.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Thang dude. Dang, good job. And congratz on yer debut, while still in yer teens. Looks like U are masterin English & crosswords just fine.( Just stay away from them M&A examples of funky grammar.)
Awful puzzle. Hard to understand the hype. This one had no imagination, nothing interesting, boring . Work it normally Mr. Blog and you will see. BADAREA,?? You gotta be kidding. Maybe include a clue dealing with bathing in Germany somewhere? There must have been better than this to choose from. .
I see at least one other commenter here started where I did, with SCRUB at 1A. Always nice to start on out on the right foot, isn’t it.
Discovered the error instantly upon looking at the downs, naturally…but I’m a little sore at ABORT nonetheless; might have something to do with looking at it through the eyes of a space nut. If a launch is cancelled that’s something that happens before the ignition sequence starts—often a good while before—and the lingo for that is scrubbed. Whereas an abort is when things have already gotten underway but are then, well, aborted.
For the Space Shuttle, for instance, available abort modes ranged from a pad abort (where the main engines had been started but were shut down again before ignition of the solid boosters, which could not be shut down) all the way to an abort-to-orbit (where the shuttle would still attain some sort of orbit, but not necessarily the one intended). If would be odd to refer to the latter abort state especially as a mission that had been cancelled.
Tough for a Monday, in particular because none of the themers were gettable from the clues, and so all needed a bunch of crosses. Heard of all the names, though, which is something.
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Medium. It could have been tougher but I knew all the “TV” people. A novice solver might have problems with this one. Liked it but I don’t think it belongs on a Monday.
ReplyDeleteCroce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #810 was easy for a Croce or about 1.5 to 2 X the typical NYT Saturday. It may have been a wheelhouse thing for me as the center three stack were all gimmes. Good luck!
Ha. That's how to do a Monday. Unknown names gettable through crosses and then a cute reveal to tie them together. A S SEEN ON TV is great.
ReplyDeleteNobody ever talked to me about NABOBs and my dad was a Bob.
Ug: We had a GLEE CLUB on my campus because I went to school in the 19th century. But then, they started lettin' in the dames, and singin' pop tunes and still tryin' to call it a glee club when it was really a choir, or more to the point, a datin' app with the intellectual purity of a Will Shortz era crossword puzzle. So no, we don't got no glee club n'more.
Uniclues:
1 Knock little boys over into the pews and swipe their pillows.
2 🎵 I am hot. 🎵 I am nude. 🎵 I am sweating like a pig. 🎵 Take your shots. 🎵 Say I'm rude. 🎵 Soon I'll be skinny as a twig. 🎵 {you know the rest}
3 "Everything is fine" said ad infinitum.
4 Where they house naked people in HD.
5 If you had to pick a time when a RWNJ would say society went into the crapper.
6 Novel about a colorful group of men who did not go into the jungle to stop a crazed warlord on account of the bugs and snakes and shirtlessness.
7 Gatorade.
1 ABORT RING BARES
2 SAUNA ARIA
3 STOIC SMOG
4 BLURAY BAD AREA (~)
5 ASSUME OBAMA ERA (~)
6 SHYNESS NOW
7 A-TEAM'S GOD SENDS
First off, before you criticize, let’s just see a show of hands from those who’ve constructed a publication-worthy puzzle in a non-native language. Now keep your hands up if you’re under 18 years old. You may now criticize, you nattering NABOBs of negativism.
ReplyDeleteI like how the revealer can kinda be parsed 3 ways:
1. AS SEEN ON TV (the familiar phrase)
2. A. S. SEEN ON TV (TV personalities with the initials A.S.)
3. A. S., SEE NON TV (Non-TV personalities with the initials A.S. Such as Anakin Skywalker and Anna Sui)
Of course if the revealer was ASs SEEN ON TV, Tucker Carlson would have once been a gimme.
Congrats on a fun debut, Dang Quang Thang.
I was mystified for a bit, wondering what the reveal could be for the A.S. people. When I finally allowed myself to look at 58A, I smiled. Hah. Rex – I liked your “pleasingly delayed” descriptor.
ReplyDeleteAnd we have two periphery themers with ANAKIN Skywalker and Anna SUI. Nice. I mean, you can see them on tv once in a while, right?
What with all the movies and such available on the streaming services, the line between tv personalities and movie personalities is getting finer and finer. I really appreciated the fact that these four are not, arguably, movie stars. But, again, you can see pretty much anyone on tv nowadays: Adam Sandler, Ally Sheedy, Amanda Seyfried. . . heck, even Aaron Spelling if you squint and play loosey goosey.
“Kind of folder to check for a missing email” – so at least for me, my Gmail has whatever it is a dryer has that adioses that one sock. I can be certain that I absolutely did not delete the email from my principal with the Zoom link for the meeting, but when I go back to find it and log on, the email is gone. Gone. Do a search. Still gone. Maybe it’s just that I have yet to understand how to navigate Gmail with its tiny little ellipses dots indicating some kind of thread – hate it – but it’s almost a given that when I’m under the gun and need to access an email fast, it’s nowhere to be found.
LAMP – I love me a LAMP. I just did a mental count, and in my classroom, I have seven. Two of those have more than one bulb, so counting total lamp light bulbs, I have 12. Overhead lights make me feel sad, so I’m really grateful that no boss has ever called me out on this. I figure I spend more waking minutes in my classroom than anywhere else, and I need to be comfortable, be at peace. Seems I’m not alone.
@egsforbreakfast – thank you. I couldn’t agree more. This is a remarkable debut for a teenager whose native language is not English. Bravo!
Where you been, girl?
DeleteHi Loren - welcome back. I posted a query to the crew a couple of days ago about our missing muse and I’m happy you are back and nothing is amiss.
DeleteSolved this as a themeless, Bang Bang Bang.
ReplyDeleteWhen I reparsed the revealer, I wanted a third "s" in there.
Dangeschön and Thang you.
I had a similar feel for the names as Rex. I hadn’t grokked the “AS” pattern yet but AMY SCHUMER, ANDY SAMBERG, and AL SHARPTON all went in easily. But ADAM SAVAGE took a lot of passes and a lot of crosses. I’ve never seen Mythbusters and don’t know anything about the man, but once I got close to his name I thought “well I know I’ve heard that name at some point in my life”, so in it went.
ReplyDeleteI think the theme worked perfectly for a Monday. Nothing really tricksy or challenging, with a cute enough revealer (for some reason the revealer tickled me more than such puns normally do). I think of Mondays as a puzzle that should be fun and gettable for newbie solvers. The only quibble I had here was the clue for 3 down which was awkward and clunky. Experienced solvers are so used to seeing the vowel-rich OBAMA and ERA and OMABA ERA that we drop it right in, but for a newbie that clue reads like “what part of Biden’s vice presidency involved politics” which makes no damned sense.
I’ve been watching “Queen Charlotte,” the “Bridgerton” prequel, so I was definitely thinking ASS SEEN ON TV. There are lots of R-rated love scenes, so asses on TV galore. But @egsforbreakfast, your Tucker Carlson reference is much better.
ReplyDeleteMy downs-only solve matched Rex’s pretty perfectly. I totally agree that doing it that way ups the fun level tenfold.
Loved the clue for SAUNA.
Fortunately the names were “just familiar enough” so that the PPP theme didn’t sink the entire grid. Some elevated difficulties for a Monday (say ANAKIN crossing NABOB for example). Tough theme/puzzle to pull off and keep at Monday-level difficulty and this constructor did it very well. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteStrong disagree on ANAKIN/NABOB – I would think the large majority of english-speaking Americans between the ages of 5 and 85 can place at least AN.K.N without a thought. The vowels in the middle are difficult if you haven’t seen it written, for sure, but for the other five letters the crosses could be completely unguessable gobbledygook and it would still be reasonable for a Monday.
DeleteA surprisingly crunchy Monday, especially when you start your downs-only solve with ANiKeN. That led me to iDA somebody and eRiN, a country definitely north of the Persian Gulf. Even after I broke down and started reading the across clues, this was still a good challenge for starting the week.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to a remarkable young constructor. And welcome back, @lms.
My five favorite clues from last week
ReplyDelete(in order of appearance):
1. Old English, for better or worse? (9)
2. Govt. facility in most world capitals except Washington (2)(7)
3. Result of getting side-swiped, perhaps? (4)
4. It's between one and many (3)
5. Pirate fodder, once (5)(3)
ETYMOLOGY
US EMBASSY
DATE
TOO
BLANK CDS
I find the backstory so inspiring – a 17-year-old from Vietnam, working to improve his English by making crossword puzzles, and within two years having a puzzle published in the Times. Wow. On top of that, the puzzle has a smile-producing revealer, is clean, and feels completely American made. Wow!
ReplyDeleteBravo, DQT!
Me, I’m working on improving something too: Guessing the revealer after uncovering the theme answers. I at least figured out that the revealer would start with the word “as”, but the rest just didn’t come. My lesson today – more closely examine the clues. All the theme clues mentioned TV shows!
But I still greatly enjoyed this puzzle, with that lovely theme, plus added spark by a host of little things. BRUT and LUTE; BEAR and BARE. The PuzzPair© of HUM and GLEE CLUB. A row with two palindromes (PIP and SRS). At 2D and 3D, the abutting AREA and AERA. The lovely C-tail answers RUSTIC and STOIC.
Dang Quang Thang, another constructor for whom English is not their first language is Zhouqin Burnikel (known to many as CC), and now she’s had 76 puzzles published in the Times. Thought I’d mention that. Thank you for warming my heart with your story, and for giving me a sparkly Monday outing!
Meh, clever revealer anyway. Btw, did AL SHARPTON ever apologize for his roles in Tawana Brawley hoax and the Crown Heights riots ?
ReplyDeleteHe's waiting for Trump to apologize for inciting an insurrection.
DeleteSolved it without considering the theme. The SW was a bit tricky, but overall an average Monday. Good accomplishment for a Vietnamese teenager.
ReplyDeleteA first for me - After decades of doing the NYT Xword, I couldn't figure out the theme on a Monday puzzle. I stared at it for a while and tried jacking with the pronunciation to no avail. Finally, I gave up and let Wordplay explain it to me.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think a grown AS English speaker wouldn't be fooled by a 17-year old ESL guy. You'd think ...
ADAM SAVAGE I did know (and he also showed up somewhat recently, in the April Fools themeless). Then... wrong AMY! I put in POEHLER at first (I remember her having to do with comedy, am I wrong?) but SHYNESS and PLY were undeniable so I fixed it quickly. Then I moved down the SE via GODSENDS and questioned SERVES for a fraction of a second given the final V in the revealer. It works just fine for a Monday. (I didn't know Samberg and Sharpton but still got a normal Monday time).
ReplyDeleteAs a non-native speaker who got super into crossword solving and construction (in my case, via Sporcle), I can relate to the constructor.
Anna SUI? AS seen in crosswords.
I’m continuing to struggle with the downs-only Monday thing. I get a lot of it filled in, at least half, but then I hit a wall, with too many partially-filled in across answers that could be many different things. So at some point I say, oh, what the hell, and look at some across clues, and then it’s a quick finish. Oh well, I’ll try it again next week but completing a downs-only puzzle seems an elusive goal.
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ReplyDeleteThe mention of the execrable Al Sharpton ruined an otherwise enjoyable solve.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteWhat a dumkofph am I. Never noticed the AS initials, even though the Revealer told me. Wow, sometimes...
So a teenager non-native English speaker, you say? Dang, nice one Dang. 😁
If the ole brain had decided to let me see the AS, I would've appreciated it more during the solve than admiring it after the fact.
Got an OOXTEPLERNON cousin today, NEEPIPPLYSRS. Nice to meet you. Quite clean fill. Nice Long Downs. Good MonPuz. Bodes well for the week.
AS you were.
No F's (Gotta REVAMP that next time, Dang!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
@LMS good to see you again!
ReplyDeleteANAKIN/NABOB bite me
ReplyDeleteI only knew NABOB as one of those words you have to remember when that particular letter string comes along in the NYT Spelling Bee and never bothered to learn what it actually means, having never come across it otherwise. Apparently it’s a Monday-level word that’s eluded me my entire life. Good to know!
ReplyDeleteThx, Dang Quang Thang; go 'A's! 😊
ReplyDeleteMed+ (Tues time).
Enjoyable solve. Liked it a lot! :)
___
Thx @jae; on it! 🤞
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@pablo: unusually easy Sat. Stumper (for the most part), despite dnfs at two separate locations (both gettable with better thinking).
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness & Freudenfreude to all 🙏
Since news and sports are about the extent of my tv viewing, I knew ALSHARPTON, the other tv types now so much. Nice revealer which more or less overturned my initial reaction (see what I did there?).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, since it's Monday, I thought I'd try some of the tricks that folks do on a Monday, so I went with the blindfolded ploy. Not only did I not get any answers, virtually all of my letters were nowhere near being in a box in the crossword. They were just all over the place. I think it's a lot harder than people are making it seem.
On a more serious note, bravo to DQT. A Decidedly Quality Talent appears, and I hope to see many more from this constructor. Thanks for all the fun, and congratulations.
Took me a while to warm to the theme but once I did, I was treated to an excellent Monday offering. Only two of the four marquee answers were household names to me; SAMBERG was only vaguely familiar and SAVAGE was a complete unknown. I’d suggest ADAM Sandler there but apparently that was rejected due to the mysterious inner workings of construction constraints.
ReplyDeleteBut whether I liked it or lumped this puzzle takes a backseat today to the remarkable story of its creation by a 17-year-old Vietnamese citizen who started solving crosswords two years ago to improve his English. Then just for kicks, he decided to construct one of his own based on American pop culture even though he wasn’t that familiar with it. Well, I can only bow in humble admiration at that kind of drive and ambition. Congratulations young man! I have a feeling you’re going to go far - in the crossword world and beyond.
Let’s not forget journalist Dan Savage, who popularized the term, santorum, as well as starting the It Gets Better project.
ReplyDeleteQuick solve, but not Monday-quick. I didn't know any of the names from the clues alone, which slowed me down a bit. Coincidentally, over the weekend I solved a puzzle from the Times archive that included AS SEEN ON TV, so I was primed to fill in that answer immediately once I read the clue.
ReplyDelete@Loren: Sounds like your Gmail is set on Conversation View which groups related messages together in those annoying dotted threads. You can change that by going into Settings under the Gear icon on your Gmail account and turning off Conversation View. Usually it’s just a matter of unchecking a box but locating it will also depend on what device you are using. Once that’s turned off then your messages should be ungrouped and listed individually.
ReplyDeleteYeeeeah, any nits I might have had to pick go ALL the way out the window having learned the story of the constructor. Truly impressive.
ReplyDeleteIt’s especially impressive given the grasp of colloquialism. I’ll never be so fluent in any second language that I’ll start to use idioms, let alone make a crossword that trades in double meanings and cross-cultural references.
Welcome back @LMS!
@pabloinnh, I actually laughed out loud at your contribution to the “Monday alternative solving” oeuvre. Better luck next week.
Not quite BRUTal, but this was a difficult Monday for me, mainly because I had no idea about ADAM SAVAGE or ANDY SAMBERG, but also a rewarding one, with the great reveal and my momentarily delayed understanding of "parsed differently." Bonus points for REVAMP, YOUR CALL, GODSENDS, and GLEE CLUB. Thanks to those who pointed me to Dang Quang Thang's note on xwordinfo.com. Remarkable!
ReplyDelete@Dang Quang Thang, my favorite moment in your note was reading about your rejection of the original reveal idea (AS YOU KNOW) for AS SEEN ON TV, "which is much snazzier." Snazzier! Indeed! A terrific word and exactly right. I don't think you need to have any doubts about your English proficiency :) I look forward to more of your puzzles.
nabob sucks
ReplyDeleteWhy is EYES a nostalgia evoking tune?
ReplyDeleteI keep thinking I should try that down-clues-only thing, but so far I've always forgotten to do so. It would have saved me from SToIc before STAID, and (more stupidly) Lyre before LUTE.
ReplyDeleteThe only one of the theme names I really knew was AL SHARPTON, but not as clued. I sort of knew AMY SCHUMER, but I looked at her surname in the grid and thought, "no, that's the Senate Majority Leader" and hesitated. (Turns out he's her cousin.) So it all came from the crosses.
@egs, thanks for reminding us of old Spiro. I had the same thought but misremembered it as "negativity."
@Loren, I had a colleague who did the same thing in her office--got a desk lamp and turned off the overhead light. As for me, I could have used a lamp. The overhead light would go off if no motion was detected, and I'd arranged the office (inadvertently) so that there was a bookcase between the sensor and my desk. So I'd be sitting there reading and the room would suddenly go dark. I thought many times that it would be nice to have a lamp, but never managed to act on that thought.
Happy to see @lms back!
ReplyDeleteI didn’t know 2 of the names and missed the AS directive but all easily inferable from the crosses.
Anyone else immediately drop in Amy Sedaris instead of Schumer? I guess Sedaris isn't a stand-up comedian but she did have a very funny self-titled show!
ReplyDeleteSay what you will about Al Sharpton, I can't lose ten pounds without gaining it back in seven minutes. He lost 175 pounds via diet and exercise and has kept it off via determination. His daughter shamed him into it by calling him fat one day. Since thinning down he complained that his impersonator on SNL is too heavy (Kenan Thompson).
ReplyDeleteKudos to ESL teachers and their dedicated students everywhere! One of my students won an essay contest with a snazzy piece about discrimination. It was 4 years after being my student but I was proud anyway.
ReplyDeleteWas going for downs only but didn't know the Darth Vader clue, so switched and as soon as I entered AN_____ it came to me, very weird.
Could not guess the theme although the names were all familiar - kids who watched *a lot* of Mythbusters helped.
Great start to the week and I second @Pablo's epithet!
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ReplyDeleteSince someone stole my eye patches and my blindfold is at the dry cleaners again, I had to do my Monday solve the old fashioned way with a grocery bag over my head. I used to use Jewel bags for this but decided to try a Trader Joe’s bag instead because 1) it’s larger, and 2) it’s easier to breathe inside of. I’m grateful for the challenge this added to the solve, but I should have looked at the bag more carefully before putting it on. Now I have to figure out how to get this pumpkin butter out of my hair.
ReplyDeleteGary J -- Love Uniclue #2!! Funny! Dare I guess you write your own songs? Or at least some of them?
ReplyDeleteI just saw it. They're all A.S.es. A.S. seen on TV. A much better theme than I thought at the time. But, alas, no more fun to solve.
ReplyDeleteI really liked 33A "Sauna."
ReplyDeleteGood Monday for me. Luckily I knew all of the names so the theme fell into place quite easily for me.
ReplyDeleteI had a little bit of a stumble right out of the gate by assuming that 1A was 'SCRUB' (so I quickly ABORTed and started over I guess :P)
Really liked the clever cluing on SAUNA (33A).
JM – Glopulene Propanol is an excellent pumpkin butter remover. It’s available at most sex shops for just about $5,000 an ounce. No need to rush, though. If you can get your head into an airtight container, the PB should last for up to two weeks. If you have a walk-in freezer, that would be better --- it would buy you six months.
ReplyDelete@Liveprof, thanks for the tips. I'll keep the Glopulene Propanol in mind if this ever happens again. For now, I just took a shower and that seemed to do the trick, except that the Trader Joe's bag is ruined. There must be an easier difficult way to do Monday crosswords.
ReplyDeletePretty good name-caller theme. Knew 3 of them 4 themer A.S.-er folks.
ReplyDeletefave stuff: YOURCALL. GLEECLUB. ANAKIN spellin challenge. PADTHAI. Jaws of Themedness. BEAR & BARE. BLURAY/BRUT.
staff weeject pick: Anna SUI. A bonus A.S.-er, as @Muse darlin mentioned.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Like the numerals I, V, X, L, etc.} = ROMAN.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Thang dude. Dang, good job. And congratz on yer debut, while still in yer teens. Looks like U are masterin English & crosswords just fine.( Just stay away from them M&A examples of funky grammar.)
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
Yikes. Crushingly hard for a Monday.DNF, by a mile. I hate when that happens.
ReplyDeleteAwful puzzle. Hard to understand the hype. This one had no imagination, nothing interesting, boring . Work it normally Mr. Blog and you will see. BADAREA,?? You gotta be kidding. Maybe include a clue dealing with bathing in Germany somewhere? There must have been better than this to choose from.
ReplyDelete.
I see at least one other commenter here started where I did, with SCRUB at 1A. Always nice to start on out on the right foot, isn’t it.
ReplyDeleteDiscovered the error instantly upon looking at the downs, naturally…but I’m a little sore at ABORT nonetheless; might have something to do with looking at it through the eyes of a space nut. If a launch is cancelled that’s something that happens before the ignition sequence starts—often a good while before—and the lingo for that is scrubbed. Whereas an abort is when things have already gotten underway but are then, well, aborted.
For the Space Shuttle, for instance, available abort modes ranged from a pad abort (where the main engines had been started but were shut down again before ignition of the solid boosters, which could not be shut down) all the way to an abort-to-orbit (where the shuttle would still attain some sort of orbit, but not necessarily the one intended). If would be odd to refer to the latter abort state especially as a mission that had been cancelled.
Tough for a Monday, in particular because none of the themers were gettable from the clues, and so all needed a bunch of crosses. Heard of all the names, though, which is something.
ReplyDeleteI parsed the revealer poetically, ASS, E'EN ON TV.
ReplyDeleteBAD TASTE ONTV
ReplyDeleteSometimes GODSENDS me ATIP IN the KAMA Sutra where
SHYNESS for my EYES, A PIP, to see AMYSCHUMER BARE.
--- CAL SHARPTON
Oh great: A puzzle where the THEME is PPP! I batted .500; two I recognized, two Huh??s.
ReplyDeleteStarting on the revealer with ASS---I was guessing how it would be "parsed:" wrong again.
Liked: the switch on ROMAN, with the numerals in the clue.
Didn't like: HTTPS. Vowelless desperation.
Not too much else to offend (except maybe AMYSCHUMER, it's her stock in trade). Par.
Wordle par.
A really fine debut puzzle by another young constructor. Congratulations Dang Quang Thang!
ReplyDeleteWho? What? This is supposed to be a Monday level puzzle and fails miserably. Rejected.
ReplyDeleteOnly one or two things (names) I wasn't completely sure of, so I guess it was a typical Monday. But not...
ReplyDeleteDiana, LIW