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Stubborn Seuss character, with "the" / WED 5-3-2023 / Language in which "Nebraska" means "flat river" / "100 Years ... 100 Movies" org.
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
Constructor: Samuel A. Donaldson
Relative difficulty: Hard!! 16:13
THEME: OOPS I DID IT AGAIN — Phrases that already contain the word "it" have the letters IT inserted a second time, to wacky effect
[Edit, 12:30pm: A commenter suggested I highlight the added letters, so I've done that now.]
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: ZAX (Stubborn Seuss character, with "the") —
Hey pals! Happy Malaika MWednesday to all those who celebrate. This evening I had Indian food and then saw the movie Polite Society with a friend on 34th St. Then we watched all the Knicks fans exit MSG as though it were the great wildebeest migration in the Serengeti. Anyway, puzzle time.
- WHO CAN IT BITE NOW-- Vicious pet handler's query?
- ITS A GOOD TITHING-- Observation when the collection plate is overflowing?
- I GUESS ITS FINITE-- "So much for my theory that the universe has no end"?
Word of the Day: ZAX (Stubborn Seuss character, with "the") —
A story from the book The Sneetches and Other Stories features The Zax from the Dr. Seuss book. They are stubborn and arguable and have messy hair and hairy bodies. They live in the Prairie of Prax. Varieties of Zax include a North-Going Zax and a South-Going-Zax. Due to their stubbornness, they refuse to go in any direction other than their assigned directions. If a south-going Zax encounters a north-going Zax, they cannot solve their issue and the world progresses without them as years pass by, such as a highway being built over them and a city nearby while still standing grumpily at each other.
• • •
My thought when I started this puzzle was definitely blechhh.... I do not do well with pun themes, and I honestly only skimmed the clues of the long answers. Until!! I got to the revealer. Britney!! My girl!!!! I dropped in the entry with zero crosses, and also immediately changed my solving music (Prince + Rosie Gaines' version of Nothing Compares 2 U --> Britney's Toxic). What a reinvigorating entry. At the end of the day, this is still Add-Some-Letters Wackiness, but I loved the "reason" for it.
 |
| our queen |
The non-theme stuff felt a little tricky or crunchy or tortured, whatever you want to call it. Lots of fill that made me wrinkle my nose, like KIR and SERA and SEZ and SECO and EFT and RIOJA and SSR and AFI. I filled those in with ease because I've seen them all before, but if you're a new solver, those are the types of entries that might make you think crosswords are only for people who are wine experts or herpetologists or whatever. (New solvers!! Please know that very few of us are wine experts!!!! We just look at the solution the first few times, and then memorize all those little words for future use.)
I was also aware of how many prepositional(?) phrases there were. (Is that what they're called?? Someone correct me.) Things like HOP IN / SEE TO / STIRS IN / IRON ON / IN TIME / GLOM ONTO. The phrasing of clues for those types of terms can feel sort of clunky, and they're tough to parse when you're new to Crossword Grammar.
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94 comments:
The EUROZONE has more than one currency.
Since when does GLOM ONTO mean “seize hastily”? It has more of a mooch/misappropriate vibe to me. Nothing hasty about it.
Strange thing that happened to me today: I had heard "Oops I Did It Again" and "Who Can It Be Now," hours before this puzzle had been released.
Hi Malaika! I got that IT was being inserted but didn't notice that IT was already in the answer, which makes "did IT again" work! So thanks for pointing that out. As a physics major I kinda love I GUESS IT'S FINITE. Although reading current science articles I'm a little puzzled whether that's actually true.
The theme was fine, but once again I was quite annoyed with all the names. The unknown ones: BEE, ZAX, DAN, RHEA. And the known but still annoying KENOBI, YODA, ODIE, ITT, TSO, IKE. Will: please stop it!! There was absolutely no need to clue BEE as some obscure name. (I know you can do better, just look at how TOM is clued... not as a name!) Please just stop it.
[Spelling Bee: Tues 0, last word this 7er.]
What a great idea! It took a while to see that an IT was being added. Ok. Sure. Malaika, I always like adding letters to phrases to birth startling new phrases. So I was good with IT. But when the reveal showed me that the phrase already had an IT in it and that Sam did IT again. . . Hah! Brilliant. I know coming up with the three themers wasn’t easy. Find three phrases containing an IT and then a word that you can add another IT to. . . Sam, you da man. Polite position? Legit twitch? Military bandit? Nah. That’s why Sam gets paid the big bucks. (@M&A – my avatar’s for you.)
@okanaganer – I feel the opposite about the clue for BEE. I’m always struck by how deftly the clues for certain words take us from Monday easy to Saturday brutal.
“Eff” before NEO.
“Ram” before TOM – actually that goof kept me stumped for quite a while.
And my dumb “amigo” resulted in “KATMONDU” but since Sam had said this is how it’s sometimes spelled. . . well, I just felt so embarrassed for him. Then I realized it was AMIGA, and I was relieved.
I took the “Vicious pet handler’s query” as something they say after they’ve put a muzzle on their dog. Who ya gonna bite now, buddy? Huh? You asked for it, man. Your fault. Whenever I see a dog in a muzzle I understand that there’s a story there and want to ask how the trans(ag)gression went down. I guess there’s a story there for people with casts and crutches, too, but I’m usually not curious about those. I have a couple of there’s a story theres in my classroom in the form of big, capitalized, desperate, screamy signs. DO NOT ENTER! (barring the access to behind my desk), DISPERSED STUDENTS SIT HERE! (bad fourth block a while back), STUDENTS, DO NOT INTERRUPT THIS CLASS FOR ANY REASON! (kids wanting an apple). This last one feels mean, but I tell you – when you finally have everyone settled down and engaged, one knock at the door breaks the spell, and I want to cry. It takes forever to rein my students back in. To wait for the next knock.
(51A:) Little-known fact – ET’s full name is Ethan.
Those pamphlets or palm leaves-cum-fans? I would add wedding ceremony programs and restaurant menus to the mix. Poor people all dressed up sweltering outside on a 95-degree summer afternoon. Look. I know everyone loves to be outside when it’s nice, and I know I’m a heat grump, but I’ll cheerfully climb over your face to get to the air-conditioning.
“Dessert that sounds like a cause for a lawsuit.” I’ll just leave that here and see myself out.
Since the shirt fill was fairly easy, I was able to see the long acrosses taking shape and caught on quickly to the surfeit of “iTS”. So I breezed through to the the revealer line and stumbled over the song. I tried my best to put in “DOITOMEONEMORETIME”, which I mistakenly attributed to Britney. Well, first of all, that song wasn’t by Britney, but by The Captain and Tenllle, and the correct wording is “do THAT to me one more time,” so felt pretty foolish. Finished the puzzle, packed my bags, and slunk outta there asap.
Like @LMS, I had AMIGo before AMIGA at 17D and because of the "as it's sometimes spelled" part of the clue, KATMONDU seemed okay.
Hi! I always observe Malaika Write Up Day :)
PHRASAL VERBS = "get up," "make out," "sleep in" etc.
Have a great day, all. :)
Hey Malaika, nice write-up!
The Addams cousin could have worked as a revealer, too.
In my time the term was "phrasal verbs".
https://youtu.be/SECVGN4Bsgg
41 & 44a uniclue: "I guess Galifianakis isn't Greek".
Speaking of which, XSANDOS is a good name for a movie villain.
ZAX crossing XSANDOS seems like a bit of a Hail Mary for some reason (in the sense of a desperation pass ala American football, not in the strictly religious sense). Wonder what that was all about. I didn’t bother checking, but if the constructor was trying to use every letter of the alphabet - the result was not worth it.
I had exactly the same problem with AMIGo and KATMoNDU. Spent at least 10 minutes at the end trying to find the error.
webwinger
Actually, you were pretty close.
The Britney hit was "...Baby One More Time". (15 letters too, btw..).
I also dropped in OOPS I DID IT AGAIN with no crosses. No idea if it's really a classic (a highly overused designation, IMO), but it's the only Britney title I know, so at least it was a hit. And it fit. I was taught to like KIRs (in fact, pretty much anything with cassis syrup) while visiting France as a HS student and felt very sophisticated ordering my own aperitif. I also had raM before TOM and was preparing to self-righteously explain that vino can be SECO but not SECA. Relief that the constructor got it right outweighs disappointment at not getting to correct him.
The Eurozone doesn’t refer to the EU zone, it refers to the countries which have the Euro as their principal currency.
@malaika -- I loved loved loved that puzzle last week you made with Erik!
Well, I loved this theme, how it adds a layer to the common “insert-a-word” motif. That is, we don’t simply add IT to IT’S A GOOD THING to make IT’S A GOOD TITHING, we also have an IT preceding it, turning the motif into a far fresher “insert-a-previous-word”. And to top it off, the insertion is justified by the perfect revealer.
Give me that in a puzzle, and my nits dissolve. Add some bite to satisfy my brain’s work ethic (as I got in much of the NW), and all I see are plusses. Further, add a lovely PuzzPair© -- FANGS and WHO CAN IT BITE NOW – and four four-letter semordnilaps (OGRE, SERA, AGAR, ETAL), and I start my day in celebration mode.
That is, the absolute opposite of what the constructor’s initials spell. Sam, thumbs high up here for an uber feel-good outing. Thank you!
I briefly wondered what euphemism or slang term for toilet paper was going to fit in 5D (Pamphlet or palm leaf, in a pinch).
Richard Thompson does an interesting cover of "Oops ...":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WGsMplGxU
Pretty breezy here but I'm way out of the Britney loop. Good thing her song title is a common expression.
I think Samantha BEE is famous enough to warrant inclusion, but I knew it instantly, so of course I think that.
My favorite answer was almost my last entry (didn't help that I abbreviated Seattle incorrectly) viz., INGOTS. This made me think of old friends Bob and Ray again, one of whose "sponsors" was The Monongahela Steel Foundry, Makers of INGOTS for the Home. They were always reminding housewives that their old INGOTS were probably getting dusty and it was time to replace them with some new and shiny ones. Classic stuff.
Liked seeing AMIGA and RIOJA, but SERA should always be Que SERA, SERA.
Nice Wednesday, SAD. Seemingly Adequate Difficulty for a midweek, and thanks for all the fun.
Is OGRE a Mythological meanie? I thought that was more of a Fairy Tale meanie. That hung me up much longer than it should have.
Ram before TOM made that NW tough and the first themer a beast to parse, until a deeper dive on barnyard boys and got there.
M’s blog write-up short and sweet, but absolutely should have included the original phrase as well, to highlight/emphasize the common phrase transformation. Or at least the extra “IT”s in red letters. For newer solvers, you know actually demonstrate the theme and why it works.
Re the dessert @LMS links to, it's one of the few items in restaurants for which a note from your urologist is required before they'll serve you.
Enjoyed the puzzle and the writeup.
Thanks for the write up, Malaika!
I didn’t much care for this puzzle. I don’t know if it’s that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today or what, but it felt awash in crosswordese, and the theme was just okay to me. Maybe the punnery was a little too weak to justify the conceit? I dunno. I imagine we’ll have a split verdict on the theme among the commentariat.
Another hand up for the raM/TOM overwrite.
I’m not even going to get into the nits, I had so many of them. Okay, just one, and I recognize this might be a me thing: I find it really annoying when Westerners persist in using antiquated transliterations that don’t reflect the preferred local spelling of a word and instead reflect anglicized and therefore warped pronunciation (ie, KATMANDU). So while yes, even though the clue and answer is technically fair game, the implicit suggestion in the way the clue is worded is that this is an acceptable alternate spelling. It’s not, in my view.
A lot of the cluing and the phrasal verbs today had me grumbling I GUESS ITS FINE, but at least it was FINITE. There’s always tomorrow.
P.S. @mathgent, re: your wonderment yesterday that a young hipster would drink Manhattans regularly - my brother and sister-in-law drink them often, and my brother is a DJ and music curator who co-owns a bar and music venue in Brooklyn. A classic cocktail, enjoyed by folks of all ages, I think!
Has any pet owner since the dawn of time -- unless it's some comic-book villain from the Marvel Universe -- ever wondered: "WHO CAN IT BITE NOW?"?
But the thing about this style of "wacky phrase" puzzle is that it doesn't matter. If figuring out the answer requires the solver to furrow up his brow and think, then the puzzle has done its job.
What's more, you can see this genre of puzzle over and over again -- and that doesn't matter either. Because figuring out one incarnation of the wacky phrase-style puzzle won't help you at all with the next one.
I found this on the hard side for a Wednesday. Remarkably, because they've been force-fed to me often enough, I knew both YODA and KENOBI without ever having seen the films. (I walked out of the first Star Wars 50 minutes in and never saw any of the others. This IS Star Wars, right?) But I didn't know The ZAX.
I also had GRAB ONTO before GLOM ONTO but couldn't get the crosses to work. And the Kraken (????) = SEA? Is that the Seattle Seahawks we're talking about? They're called the Kraken? What does that even mean?
My favorite clue was for FAN (5D). This enabled me to figure out that --NGS for "parts of a Halloween costume" was FANGS and not WINGS. (I do tend to like my Halloweens on the happy side.)
More challenge than I normally get on a Wednesday. I enjoyed it.
Amy: congrats on your recent puzzle, Malaika! Glad you like this one; so do I. And you have me thinking about Indian food...there's a really good Indian vegetarian restaurant within walking distance that I may have to visit later...
Happy Koala Day. (Another piece of intel from BING.)
I was really out of IT during this solve until a very late stage. For starters, I had a lot of trouble getting the beginning of WHO CAN IT BITE NOW. UGH was invisible to me (because I thought there had to be some sense of repeated events in the answer), PROTESTS didn’t occur to me, and I was thinking exclusively in Italian so I thought SECO had to be SECcO. I got IT’S A GOOD TITHING fairly quickly, but I was thinking the wordplay was about TIdING/TITHING. I started to twig at I GUESS IT’S FINITE which, when I fully grasped what was going on, I thought was a hilarious answer. But I’m clueless about Britney’s music, so I didn’t know OOPS, I DID IT AGAIN and had to get it from crosses. Anyway, after it was all in place, I plodded back over the themers and revealer and finally said, “Oh, duh.”
BUT…I didn’t think the base phrases to which the extra IT was added were terribly strong: WHO CAN IT BE NOW, IT’S A GOOD THING, I GUESS IT’S FINE. Sure, they’re all things you might say in conversation, but they seem pretty weak tea. Oh wait, maybe I’m just ignorant: this calls for research. [Looking them up:]
WHO CAN IT BE NOW: Song by Men At Work. OK, right! I played this and I remember the sax, but obviously not the lyrics.
IT’S A GOOD THING: Martha Stewart catchphrase. Yes, I knew that. I’d just temporarily forgotten. (Not an MS fan.)
I GUESS IT’S FINE: Song by Roan. I played this, too, and I’ve never heard it. It’s newish – seems to have been released in 2020.
OK, did everyone but me have the base phrases for all three themers at their mental fingertips? If so, I salute you.
I always forget what beer pong is, even though it comes up from time to time in crosswords. I had to look it up to get CUPS. (That was the area in which I couldn’t get any downs – see above.) Hah, used to drink KIR all the time – loved the taste and the pseudosophistication! I, too, had the raM/TOM struggle – another kealoa? No problem with Samantha BEE: I’ve never seen her but her delightful name has stuck with me. I left the last letter of AMIG_ blank, so didn’t have to deal with KATMoNDU. Never heard of The ZAX but knew all the other names, so that was a bit of luck (which I sorely needed).
[SB: yd 0. Cue the music, @okanaganer – we had the same last word. Although I did wrestle with this rejected critter, before hitting on the right one. I see now that it’s a proper noun and refers to something specific in the sci-fi world, which I didn’t know when I tried it.]
Not sure if I'm bragging or confessing to being out of it, but ... I'm not familiar with even one song by Britney Spears. I did, however, get the theme (sorta - realized there was an extra "IT" inserted but failed to notice it was "it" #2).
A fun to solve puzzle and I learned a couple of things, too.
Uniclues:
1) The worst, most unhelpful math class ever!
2) Berkeley, back in the '60s
3) When monsters emerge, you just have to accept it
4) A nauseating-sounding Chinese dish
1) TRIG OMITS ASKS
2) PROTESTS UTOPIA
3) OGRE AFOOT SERA
4) STIRS IN EFT TSO
I didn't have any real hangups other than the aforementioned raM, but didn't feel especially fast. I was wondering if Rex would call it Easy or Medium, and about fell out of my chair with Hard!! 16:13 - then remembered it was Wednesday.
I see there are lots of names, now that some commenters mention it, but I guess they were in my wheelhouse.
@StaceyCT, same thought that GLOM onto means jumping into something you weren't really invited to, or following the crowd on a fad. Anyone who makes LMS's dessert tonight might qualify.
@Nancy - the Kraken would be the hockey team.
I thought this was a spectacular set of themers with an apt revealer. All are solid phrases, and all are 15 letters. I saw the constructor's name and figured I would be in for his unique combination of brilliance and wonkiness; not disappointed.
I was wondering which form of SE- would finish the wine: sere, seco, secco, seche
I loved the theme, with the one nitpick that the phrase "I GUESS ITS FIN(IT)E" isn't unique enough to be the building block for a themer. "ITS A GOOD T(IT)HING" and "WHO CAN IT B(IT)E NOW", sure those are common and unique enough of an expression to be a thing, but that's just a quibble.
Glad to see a shout out to KIR, a lovely little beverage I met the acquaintance of on a trip to Paris back in my salad days. We were fancy then and had the KIR royale (made with champagne in place of the white wine.)
@Weezie @ Mathgent
Our hipster under 30 Park Slope dwelling son & partner drink cocktails, notably recently something called an espresso martini. Once when said son was in hs we met my brother at the Algonquin and they had Manhattans, I think, (nod to Mad Men, all the rage at the time). DH and I have zero interest in cocktails because to us it seems like something our parents drank. Remember when the parents had cocktail parties?? Ugh, what a concept. But maybe you have to be old now to have that reaction...
The Kraken is Seattle’s pro hockey team
Not hard, very easy, even though the *only* thing I know about Britney is the title of that song, and by the time I got there I had seen the trick. Minor quibble, maybe, in that they only work in writing... the extra IT is not pronounced.
I was thinking while solving that, although I saw the first Star Wars movie when it came out, I haven't kept up with the franchise, and the last one I saw (over a decade ago) was dreadful. Took some kid and friend. Sappy love story. But anyway it seems I'm familiar with all the crossworthy characters (missing Leia from this puzzle).
Fast but pretty fun, thanks, Sam!
Finished it with one cheat...at the ICY/YODA cross. I enjoyed the theme, even though I was slow to get it because I was unfamiliar with OOPSIDITITAGAIN. I found it the puzzle bit harder than the average Wednesday.
Hey All !
Isn't KATMANDU the correct spelling? *Looks it up* Aha, it's got an H - KATHMANDU. Messed up my DUCAT, figuring it might be KATMANDo. A DoCAT is as good as a DUCAT.
Neat theme. An extra IT. OOPS, har.
How have I not heard of The ZAX? Apparently I missed that Seuss book.
Pangram-ish, but missing the Q and V.
Who eats Steak Tartare? It can't be safe, right? Cook mine well done, seeing red runny meat is not my cuppa. I believe I'm actually in the minority on that.
Enjoy your Hump Day.
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Agreed. Poorly clued.
After the first themer I thought all the themers were going to be song titles, so I was just a bit disappointed when they weren't.
But I really liked the puzzle anyway.
Nice write up. I think iron on, see to, write up, break down, etc. are various kinds of multi-word verbs classified as
prepositional verbs ( run into) or phrasal verbs (iron on).
Fun puzzle. Tougher than usual.
So our old friend Malaika thinks she can waltz in here on a MWednesday and make no mention of how she punched me in the face with her puzzle a week or two ago. Well. She punched and now she's waltzed.
And while solvers may not be wine experts, they are definitely drunk if this blog comment section is any indication. Shaken vs. stirred, please.
I worried throughout I'd be beaten by the puzzle. Lotsa names, lotsa grocery-store crossword gunk, and not-so-cute theme entries. Still I finished and nobody punched me in the face.
Britney's song is 23 years old, or basically brand new in crossword time. It's a cute entry on its own. Men at Work 1981, Field Music 2016, PsySo 2020. This is how you make everybody struggle. The internet has allowed art of all genre to be siloed into fan bases. Why constructors build puzzles around narrow topics like song titles at the exclusion of the majority of those likely to do the puzzle is still a bizarro world phenomenon to me.
That IS how I spell KATMANDU.
Uniclues:
1 Stubborn yahoo.
2 How my dentist intends to pay for the boat.
3 Bovine cycle bling.
4 Pickets perfect place.
5 Annual convention for Tic-Tac-Toe aficionados.
6 Jedi-branded robe and tunic brand with retro-80s vibe.
1 ZAX AMERICAN
2 GLOM ONTO JAW
3 COW BIKE INGOTS
4 PROTESTS UTOPIA
5 X'S AND O'S FAN CON (~)
6 KENOBI ACID WASH
ZAX was tough for me and _SANDOS looked wonky. but I got it . Cousin ITT sure has gotten alot of mileage lately. The Britanny song I filled in with few crosses. Toughish Wednesday. But fun, really enjoyed the theme.
Britney Spears is the one with the controlling father, right? That's about the limit of my knowledge, but I'd already figured out the theme by the time I got to her, so the phrase was easy to guess from the initial OO.
Nancy, to answer the other part of your question, KRAKEN is a sea monster of some kind--maybe one with lots of tentacles that pulls you down into the water.
It's not quite the same as a malapop -- but, like many, I changed SECO to SECa to fit raM, then corrected it, and later put in AMIGo before AMIGA. Good thing I don't live in Texas, the Governor there would lock me up.
Malaika, loved your puzzle last week! And thanks for your write-up today.
Thanks @Barbara S. I didn’t know it was koala day – word hadn’t reached the rock I live under. The recent NYT obit for Dame Edna said she lost a daughter years ago who was taken by a “rogue koala.” Edna didn’t speak of her often, but in an interview on NPR in 2015 she said she never gave up searching for her. “Every time I pass a eucalyptus tree, I look up.”
Loren is amazing. She correctly notes that finding double-IT phrases that still make sense after removing one of the ITs is difficult. And then quickly comes up with three such beauties. Wow!
Kinda liked the theme, but it cost 27 Terrible Threes. UGH.¡
Well, I wasn't gonna, but with @Nancy, @Gary Jugert and @Karl Grouch setting such good examples, I can't resist. Picked five that hadn't been tackled by anyone else.
UNICLUES:
1. What vampires drink when they can’t get blood.
2. The universal reaction to finding toast crumbs in the bed.
3. Possible world-weary response when your best woman-friend tells you she hates men who can’t share their feelings.
4. Sign seen in a bank. You know there’s something very wrong with it (including at least one typo) but you can’t quite figure it out.
5. Foreign spy with ovum-related code name became aware of who was surveilling him.
1. FANGS’ KIR CUPS (~)
2. UGH, ET AL. GALORE
3. “AMIGA, AS DO I.”
4. IRON-ON RATE IKE
5. RAW-EGG KNEW N.S.A.
What's Malaika Wednesday and what's the celebration.....For us that are new to crosswording
I quit about 2/3 of the way through. Blech is correct!
Well, to put IT mildly, this left me wondering why I couldn't come up with a few AHA's or even an OHO.
IT felt old. I don't like feeling old. Nothing was really difficult. Maybe because I've been doing puzzles for a long time. That's old.
My favorite answer was GALORE. I like that word. Remember Pussy Galore? That was old as well.
Ler's see....I also liked TORTE. Lawsuit and all.
OK, here's another old thing: Steak tartare. I don't think you can find IT in any restaurant these days. I still make it. Since discovering that bison is the most delicious meat these days, I use only that. However, it's topped with just the yolk, NOT the whole egg. AND, the egg has to be one just freshly plucked from a laying hen. Food lesson for the day.
Anything else fancy my tickle? Maybe ZAX. He's from The Sneetches. They live in the Prairie of Prax and have greasy hair and hairy bodies. So I now leave the puzzle with this last impressive image.
There's always mañana ....
On the tough side for me too. Partly because I had the wrong abbreviation for AFI and partly because I struggled with 16a. I also had the wrong abbreviation for SEA, but I did know the Spears song. The wackiness mostly worked for me, and the revealer was delightful, liked it.
Right?!!!
Thx, Samuel; this was a toughie, but IT's FINE by me! 😊
Hard.
Not at all on S.D.'s wavelength, but enjoyed the challenge.
Took some TIME to grok the theme post-solve. Cute!
Fun adventure! :)
___
@pablo, et al: Brooke Husic's Mon. New Yorker was a doozie (med-hard @ 2:14). It seems like almost every Croce, Sat. Stumper & Mon. New Yorker starts out the same: after an hour, wide open white spaces, and a feeling of despair [how will I ever do this one]. Eventually, most of them arrive at a successful conclusion, in great part, thx to Lewis's 'faith solve' mode.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness & Freudenfreude to all 🙏
@Nancy
Love your 3rd uniclue!
I’m really glad to see someone else thought it was Hard because it didn’t take me long to look at the calendar and make sure it’s still Wednesday. And agree with Malaika, I cringed at some of the fill like SEZ, the XS in XS AND OS, and the clue for GLOM ONTO which strongly (“hastily”) suggests GRAB. Seems insignificant but my SW corner was mostly blank for a long time because of that.
And the theme. Well, the only thing that kept this from hitting @Nancy’s Wall was the fact that the revealer is the only Britney Spears song I actually KNEW. Otherwise I GUESS I would’ve gone completely BUST. And that’s never A GOOD THING.
I was glad to see that this puzzle was rated “”Hard.” I did solve it, but struggled mightily, especially in the NW where I thought the first themer started with “Where” and ended with “you.” And now I have a Britney Spears earworm to deal with for the rest of the morning. I wish the theme had better payoffs for the agony it caused, but I did manage at least to enjoy most of the suffering.
For those familiar with “Citizen Kane,” XSANDOS sounds like a poor man’s Xanadu.
Tortured theme, lame humor, stale fill: I didn’t like it. DefinITely lower tier.
@Muse darlin: yep. M&A was much relieved, that the answer to {Observation when the collection plate is overflowing} weren't AFULLPEWITDIDIT.
Great to have a master constructioneer like Mr. Donaldson back for a visit. Really enjoyed the solvequest, with it's [sic] primo theme revealer.
Not a real feisty WedPuz, as it was packin a mere whisper of 2 near no-knows: ZAX & SECO.
And lotsa cool stuff, includin: KATMANDU. UTOPIA. YODA & KENOBI. FANGS/FAN. EUROZONE.
staff weeject picks: ZAX & JAW. Them lil weejects were really tryin hard to lasso up a full pangrammer rodeo. But, alas, turns out that they also woulda needed a QVC, to seal the deal.
honrable weeject mention to IT/IT & ITT, of course.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Donaldson dude. Nice foursome of grid-spannin themers, btw.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
Thanks malaika 🙏🏾
Wednesday cute as expected, but like the ZAX I remain unmoved. Popular music beyond Etta , Bing & Otis remains an Achilles heel for which I seek no immediate treatment. Must admit that Crossworld does provide a limited access point to this strange new land whatever IT holds.
Challenging and clever. I'd noticed the double ITs early, and reacted with "Adding another IT? Seems random, but whatever." So the reveal was a triple delight, funny, perfect for the phrases, and also proving me wrong - something I hate in real life but love in crosswords. I also found I GUESS IT'S FINITE genius. Seeing Sam Donaldson's name at the top, I'd expected the puzzle to be on the difficult side, but even so, I found myself "telling" him, It's Wednesday for Pete's sake! Lots of Saturday-type ambiguous clues, especially in the FANGS and INGOTS area. But with that winner of a theme, I can't complain.
@Lawrence Welk: “Malaika Wednesday” means that Ms. Malaika Handa - who often fills in for Rex Parker on Wednesdays - is graciously writing the review today. And I believe she used the word celebrate sort of tongue in cheek as in “Happy Saint Swithin’s Day … to all who celebrate.” Welcome to the world of crosswords - or Crosslandia as @Lewis calls it - and to the blog commentariat.
CROSSES was my first thought at 43D, and NAUGHTS/NOUGHTS also fits. But no, it's XSANDOS making its 11th (!) NYT appearance.
Got a normal Wednesday time, but I noticed all the crosswordese, especially that ACA AMSO EFT OTO clump. What I didn't notice while solving was the huge amount of 3-letter answers (27?! That's one more than that VERTIGO puzzle from last week which had a lot of constraints with the spiral of themers.)
@Barbara S. @Nancy @Karl Grouch
Nice uniclues today everyone. Funny stuff. OOPS, WE DID IT AGAIN.
LOL, I don't read this column every day and was very surprised that Rex Parker loves Britney! (And doesn't expect people to be wine experts.) Very much enjoyed Malaika MWednesday and will be back for them in the future. (Also, totally agree, since when does "glom on to" mean "seize"?)
I enjoy /very much the comments to this blog , particularly those of a group of ladies and gentleman including someone who goes by the delightful name of @nancy, a beautiful old-fashioned.name, that I find adorable. I know it ain’t no contest but her comments are always the best., so much more fun to read than the other regulars, so to the point, beautifully worded, succinct, clever, humorous ( I am running out of praise). Just simply the best.
Your uniclues , @nancy, are top- drawer. Keep ‘em coming!
Me too. Depending how many hours you allow :)
Played really tough for me for a Wednesday, but fought my way through to a "happy" ending (musically).
It was big news when the Times switched from KATMANDU to Kathmandu. At least the Times thought it was. According to themselves, they glommed onto the "h" spelling after they noticed other English language entities had done it. Copycaths!
(Somehow I doubt the folks in Nepal gave a rat's ass – they had other stuff to worry about.)
@bocmp-"Doozie" is right. I was trying to get into it while watching an 11-month old and you can guess how that went. Put it down with maybe half of it done and forgot to pick it up again, or subconsciously didn't really want to. Too much stuff so far out of my wheelhouse that I could have filled in every letter and still not known who or what some of the answers were. Yikes.
Weezie, What's the name of the bar/venue in Brooklyn??? I must know!
16A needed a clue rewrite. Who's vicious? The pet or the handler?
Well, I came here mostly to heartily second @GILL's admonition that you must never include the whole raw egg in your steak tartare (UGH!), only the yolk -- and also to ask her where on earth she gets an egg "just freshly plucked from a laying hen" in Sacramento because we sure as hell can't get anything remotely like that in NYC.
After which, before signing off, I was also going to thank @Smith, @Gary and @Barbara for their nice comments about my Uniclues.
But then @ccredux's incredible 12:33 comment drove everything else completely out of mind -- as well it might. Thanks so much, @ccredux!!!! Wow!!!! I was headed out the door to do a very unexciting errand, but instead I think I'll go back to bed to rest on my laurels for the remainder of the day:)
I liked the puzzle.
I agree with ccredux 12:33pm. that Nancy’s comments are always witty & well written. Even though I don’t always agree I love to read her posts!
When I was very young I was very into Broadway shows. (South Pacific was the first musical I saw at a local in the round theater) But then I lost interest in the American songbook. as I fell in with my (boomer) generation tastes. Much later on I realized again that the former music was great also And Nancy and Joe Dipinto know so much about older popular music in the US. Very much nformative
@ccredux 12:33
De gustibus non est disputandum
Complete 180 from what I think!
@Barbara S... I tried that word too! In fact I'm sure I tried it a few times because it is so close to the accepted word which I knew was out there teasing me.
Oh and @Lewis, I did your Sunday puzzle and really enjoyed the trick though it took me a while to get it.
KATHMANDU with the H is a lovely banjo tune by Bela Fleck.
Oh and re The Kraken: what a game last night! I can't believe they won.
@Nancy 1:31 When you come back from your errands, hop on a plane and come on over!. My son-in law's parents have a little "finquito" in the El Dorado hills and have some chickens. The chickens are treated to treats and love and pecking food and they lay the most bodacious eggs this side of the Mississippi. Once you eat "fresh" you are spoiled for life....Plus, they are free!
A Britney Spears tune could be playing on the radio right now and I would have no idea.
I also got tripped up by the AMIGo/KATMoNDU cross, which felt like a forced error.
Steak tartare made with just-laid eggs and bison meat!!!! I'm there, @Gill!!! Can't wait!! Thanks for the invite. See you soon!!!
To tell the truth, though, I'm not sure my palate's that good. By the time I've stirred not only the raw egg yolk, but the onions, the (drained) capers, the freshly-made Coleman's English Mustard and the dash of Worcestershire Sauce into the beef*, I'm not sure I'd be able to distinguish a just laid-egg from an egg that was laid...well, whenever. There's so much else going on in the final (and absolutely exquisite) product.
*You're welcome for the recipe, everyone. It's a good one. But @GILL's the cook here -- and her recipe is probably better.
And their 1 up in the second round!
I was stuck on the northwest. I spent half my time trying to solve TOM, SECO, and the pun. I like a challenge but that wasn’t satisfying.
Total SW Natick -- No idea what "umami" is (or what MSG has to do with it), did NOT know the name of the song (Thought it might be "OH NO I DID IT AGAIN," which makes perfect sense but threw off the entire corner), no idea about "SEA" (??).
Ugh.
Only one prepositional phrase, “in time”. To me the puzzle was easy. Momentary slip-ups as above mentioned, but quickly resolved.
I am sorry to report my head exploded about two hours into this puzzle. Hello, this is WEDNESDAY!!!
Very sad because I thought I was a solid Wednesday solver and I couldn’t get more than half of this even after coming back to it a day later which usually works.
Happy to hop in. Those phrases are called two-word verbs or verb plus particle. A prepositional phase will lead with a preposition and end, eventually, with a noun.
I had "grab" first ...
Across only. Yes, I put baby one more time in before taking it out for OOPS ...
Failed miserably and had to reveal the down clues to finish. That often happens with insertion/deletion themes.
Agree that that's not what GLOM ONTO means.
Anonymous 2:12am - the very definition of EUROZONE is those countries that use the EURO as their currency. There are no non-euro-using countries in the EUROZONE.
Second day in a row I've hated the theme. Rough week so far.
WHOCANIT(BE)NOW?
ELSA SEZ IT'SAGOOD(THING)
TO GLOMONTO EURO men.
IGUESSIT'S(FINE) TO have A fling,
AND GO, "OOPS,IDIDITAGAIN."
--- NAT PARK
WHO CAN IT BITE NOW said no one ever. Absolutely no sense. Why now? Who else? UGH
Anyway, I GLOMMED ON TO that one and couldn't let go, but I didn't BITE!
Diana, LIW
Medium-challenging for me. The NW corner was the toughest part - I had raM before TOM and that held things up for a while..XSANDOS and ZAX was another tricky spot. I really liked the theme. Well done Sam.
I'm not a FAN of this one. And BTW, if the universe IS finite: what lies beyond? Inquiring minds want to KNOW.
XSANDOS is simply horrid. Theme isn't a world-beater--and neither is the fill. Double bogey.
Wordle bogey.
Sorry, Malaika. This was a very easy Wednesday, but for you, I guess, IT was more hard.
@okanaganer 3:16am:
Samantha Bee is hardly obscure. She was on The Daily Show for a dozen years, then had her own show Full Frontal until last year. Plus she is Canadian!!!
@Barbara S 8:57am:
"It's a Good Thing" is also the title of a song!!!
Look it up. I was amazed.
All 3 spanners without the extra "it" are the titles of songs.
Bonus points!!!
I have just finished reading all the comments, and am amazed at how many found this puzzle hard or even medium! I kid you not, that it felt to me , maybe slightly harder than a Scholastic magazine xword puzzle. A number of commenters said the NW corner was hard. Except for the o at the intersection of 3D & 16A, I filled that corner in almost as fast as I could write. Yes, I'm slightly younger than dirt, and yes, I've been doing xword puzzles for over 60 years, but I truly found this to be a very very easy Wednesday. I'm still scratching my head (and no, it's not because of all the nits that others have found.)
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