Cute little mishap / TUE 6-13-23 / Cocktail garnished with an orange slice and a maraschino cherry / Classic theater name

Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Constructor: Juliana Tringali Golden and Wendy L. Brandes

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for a Tuesday)


THEME: "READY TO GO?" (34A: "Got everything before we leave?" ... with a checklist seen in the circled letters) — theme answers contain the "checklist," which checklist includes ID, CASH, KEYS, and PHONE:

Theme answers:
  • TAXI DRIVER (17A: One hailed on city streets)
  • VOLCANIC ASH (23A: Output from an eruption)
  • WHISKEY SOUR (49A: Cocktail garnished with an orange slice and a maraschino cherry)
  • KEEP HONEST (57A: Hold to a moral code)
Word of the Day: ELSTON Howard (27A: Yankee great ___ Howard) —

Elston Gene Howard (February 23, 1929 – December 14, 1980) was an American professional baseball player who was a catcher and a left fielder. During a 14-year baseball career, he played in the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball from 1948 through 1968, primarily for the New York Yankees. A 12-time All-Star, he also played for the Kansas City Monarchs and the Boston Red Sox. Howard served on the Yankees' coaching staff from 1969 to 1979.

In 1955, he was the first African American player on the Yankees roster; this was eight years after Jackie Robinson had broken MLB's color barrier in 1947. Howard was named the American League's Most Valuable Player for the 1963 pennant winners after finishing third in the league in slugging average and fifth in home runs, becoming the first black player in AL history to win the honor. He won Gold Glove Awards in 1963 and 1964, in the latter season setting AL records for putouts and total chances in a season. His lifetime fielding percentage of .993 as a catcher was a major league record from 1967 to 1973, and he retired among the AL career leaders in putouts (7th, 6,447) and total chances (9th, 6,977). (wikipedia)

• • •

PKW. That was the original checklist, the original mnemonic, which I think I got from "Broad City" like a decade ago. The most useful thing I ever learned from a television comedy, by a mile. I say it to myself, mentally and/or out loud, virtually every time I leave the house. My wife and I both do this. We sometimes say it to each other, with a question mark on the end. "PKW?" It's like "You got everything?" And then we literally, ritualistically touch every item on the list to make sure we got it. The "W" here stands for wallet—we both carry wallets, though sometimes I think my wife's wallet goes inside a little purse, depending on what we're doing. Anyway, the point is, it's a very, very useful mnemonic. PKW! P.K. Dubs! It's short and sweet and it works. I've tried to add letters at times, but they don't really stick. "Mask" was something I tacked on to the end during the first COVID years, but "PKWM" just didn't want to happen. I sometimes need to remember "glasses" (sun- or regular, depending on which I currently have on) or "headphones" (if I'm going to be walking for any distance, which is often). But the core house-leaving mnemonic is unchanging: PKW. The holy trinity. This will perhaps partly explain why the concept of this puzzle is appealing to me, but the execution feels slightly off the mark. Now, I don't expect everyone to share my particular checklist/mnemonic. I just need to believe in the checklist itself, and I don't really believe in this one. I specifically don't believe CASH, and I'm iffy on I.D. I like to have CASH on me sometimes, but it's not essential—nowhere near as essential as PHONE and KEYS, and anyway, WALLET takes care of it. WALLET also takes care of I.D. (which I would never say—"I.D." is what a bar might ask for, but it's not a term I'd use when referring to my drivers license). Is IDCASHKEYSPHONE a common mnemonic? ICKP? ICK-P? It's a plausible checklist, for sure, but the items on the checklist don't feel tight. The first two feel less on-the-money than the second two. I don't know why the checklisted items are embedded in longer answers. Is something conceptual happening there? Maybe the answers "have" those things the way you need to "have" those things when you leave the house? OK. As a revealer, "READY TO GO?" felt less-than-snappy when I first wrote it in, but the more I say it out loud to myself, the better it sounds. 


The puzzle as a whole was way, Way harder than most Tuesdays for me. Well, I was way slower, anyway, for sure. Those corners are massive, and a lot of the longer Downs needed many crosses before they became clear. INAHOLE TALKSUP SAWPAST and then *all* the Downs in the SE: ANTBEAR (bear!?) MOVESIT STARTLE. All required work before I could parse them. I feel doomed never to remember ELSTON. I've seen his name a bunch in puzzles, and yet it won't stick. I had EASTON there at first today. The preponderance of two-letter words in today's puzzle made things tough. SET AT was SET TO at first (31A: Programmed to, as a thermostat) (yes, I see that "TO" was in the clue ... now). MOVES IT. TALKS UP. GEAR TO, yeesh, that one was brutal somehow (37D: Make specifically for). MAY NOT, also bizarrely hard for me to parse (48A: Is forbidden to). I had VOLCANO LAVA before VOLCANIC ASH. I couldn't make heads or tails of ITEM as the answer to 29A: Meeting point? until after I was done with the puzzle (I thought maybe it was referring to two people who, having ... met? ...  became a romantic ITEM, but it's the ITEM on any "meeting's" agenda. Seems obvious ... now. 


Would never spell OOPSY that way (or at all) (51D: Cute little mishap). Kept trying to make OWIE stretch to five letters somehow. We get double Spanish gender confusion at the bottom of the grid, in practically adjacent answers, with ESA and MUCHOS (not ESO or MUCHAS, both of which were reasonable answers). The fill felt a little on the weak side overall today, despite those reasonably solid longer Downs in the corners. APOLO SETAT ARIE ATIT KBS SITU ESA ERTE, stuff like this made the grid feel stuffy / clunky at times. But overall it's probably got more life than most Tuesdays. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. Clue on CITY BUS wasn't great (24D: Subway alternative), since the alternative to the subway is the bus, just the bus, that's it. If you're going to clue it that way, it's bus. You're clearly, obviously in the "city," since that's the only place you'd find a subway. ("Subway" had me looking for a sandwich shop). Also you probably should take "city" out of that TAXI DRIVER clue (17A: One hailed on city streets) (why in the world didn't that clue reference the movie???)

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

66 comments:

Andy Freude 5:58 AM  

I generally solve downs-only on Tuesdays (with some peeking at across clues). Today I finished with no happy music and took ages hunting for a typo. SMaSHES looked like a perfectly valid cross with Toni Morrison’s SULa.

Anonymous 6:38 AM  

I got a solid Wednesday time. Some clues feel definitely toughened up. The clue on CHINESE would've felt right at home in yesterday's trivia-filled New Yorker themeless - which is meant to be harder than a NYT Saturday. It didn't help that I started with RAIN for "air drops". Also in the clue for MATCHES I wanted "sticks" to be a verb, not sure if that clue was meant to be a misdirection or a normal Tuesday-easy clue.

@prob_rick 6:41 AM  

There were some dumb answers MAYNOT, MOVESIT, GEARTO but all in all not that bad. The one thing that was wack was unit of computer memory: Kilobytes?

Conrad 7:07 AM  


I did the puzzle, knew @Rex wouldn't like it (no ESP required for that) and was prepared to start this comment with "I couldn't disagree more with OFL." But I am in agreement on one point: it was harder than an average Tuesday. Even though I knew ELSTON Howard, one of my early heroes. Like @Rex I was thinking sandwich shops for the subway alternative at 24D, but Jersey Mike's didn't fit. I also agree about the spelling of "OOPSY."

Had ANT---- at 43D, but resisted BEAR until the last cross was in place. As a former computer jockey, kept square 57 blank until it had to be K. It could have been M, G, T or P (and others).

My Spanish is rusty enough that I filled in MUltOS before MUCHOS at 48D

Son Volt 7:19 AM  

Played normal Tuesday for me. Clunky theme - mostly obtuse cluing and glue - liked ANT BEAR and SMITTEN. Tuezed again.

A few good games of pinball and a double WHISKEY SOUR

GAC 7:33 AM  

Surprised that Rex found this to be difficult. Very rare for me to be able to say this, and it improved my enjoyment of the puzzle. And I learned PKW, but is it a mnemonic? I thought that one of those had to be a word, or a string of words. But maybe not since my favorite is ROY G BIV.

Anonymous 7:38 AM  

Love the mnemonic. Pre-2010 I had my own version- KWW - keys wallet watch - that I always thought had a nice cadence.

Lewis 7:41 AM  

I had “play tickets” at the top of my checklist before a family trip to NYC many years ago – a play we wanted badly to see. And I did remember to bring them. What I didn’t remember, however, was the date of the show; I was positive our tickets were for the day after the actual date. Thus, the day rolled by, and we missed it. The resulting group seethe was palpable, and I felt like a toad. I can assure you, this has never happened since!

On the other hand, today’s theme was most lovely – original and relatable. The constructors showed that they have excellent range, as both have made themeless NYT puzzles.

This puzzle, to me, had more RUB than the usual Tuesday. There were some answers out of my knowledge base, some that could have gone several ways, and some lovely wordplay clues – all of which hooked me in and got me involved throughout. Often, Tuesdays are an experience in auto-fill, as I am an experienced solver. I hope the newer solvers didn’t find it frustrating, though, and will be interested in reading the comments as the day goes on.

But for me, a sweet outing. On top of the fresh theme, I loved the answers SMUSHES and ANT BEAR and the clues [Sun setting] for SKY and [Meeting point?] for ITEM. A sweet outing indeed. Thank you, Juliana and Wendy, for making this!

MaxxPuzz 7:58 AM  

For my wife and me, PWK was the deal when going anywhere in the car with our young son: PURSE, WALLET, KID. Even though he is now 27 and lives elsewhere, we still say it.

Bob Mills 8:03 AM  

Finished it by trial and error. Never heard of POV (can someone explain?), and it took me forever to come up with SMUSHES, because "smashes" seemed obvious.

Mostly an easy puzzle, with just enough tricky stuff to make it an average Tuesday.

SouthsideJohnny 8:18 AM  

ANTBEAR was a figurative BEAR for me to struggle with - especially with the TVS and ERTE crossers. Finally wrestled with it enough to realize that BEAR was pretty much the only option.

I remember watching ELLIE Howard play for the Yanks back in the day - I (mistakenly) believed he was also their manager for a short stint (pre-George) but according to the bio Rex posted, apparently he was just a coach. Hopefully the SCOOTER will make an NYT appearance soon as well.

Nancy 8:25 AM  

A delightful Tuesday -- clued with imagination and panache. I especially enjoyed the clues for ITEM, TONE and OOPSY. OOPSY really sparked my curiosity before I got it, since I would never describe anything that goes wrong in my life as a "cute little mishap." But now -- now that I see OOPSY -- I get it.

Were I to give this a title, I'd call it the "If Only" puzzle. As in: If only all I needed to be READY TO GO was ID, CASH, KEYS and PHONE. No way. Go out of the house with me and you'll need a Sunday-size grid to accommodate all my stuff. In addition to the aforementioned ITEMs, I need to take:

EYEGLASSES (Somewhere between 2 and 3 pairs since I can't wear bifocals. Reading, distance, sunglasses.)

MEDS (If I'm staying overnight)

UNSALTED ALMONDS (My carry-everywhere snack)

READING MATERIAL (When you're not smart enough to use a smartphone, but might need to be entertained)

WATER, of course, and so should you

My NMURC (An acronym I made up myself. It stands for "No More Uncomfortable Restaurant Chairs" and I use it to pad the godawful seats that most restaurants provide and that I'm quite sure no restaurant owner has ever sat in even once.

So there you have my READY TO GO list. Thanks to the constructors for a breezy puzzle that was fun to solve (and fun to write about too.)

andrew 8:26 AM  

SEXIEST TWIN?
IN A HOLE?
RUB A TIT?

SMITTEN, I was READYTOGO!

Then I was informed I MAYNOT.
I felt ILL - A TEASE!
I cANTBEAR it!

MOVE! SIT! What do you want?
(SIT, U! was the answer. STAYS, she says).

Not to be a PETTY MAIL, but I NE’ MO’ KICKS! ANEW SLEW of MATCHES without the SOSO TONE!

Gary Jugert 8:28 AM  

First, very important, today is my 366th uniclue list. Yep, a whole year of you scrolling past my prattle daily. Your thumb is strong.

Here's my Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year:

9 Take your stupid chicken.
9 HERE, DAMN KFC

I wrote a little tune for it:

Take Yer Stoopid Chicken

Also, after 47 years of me watching the Denver Nuggets, they finally won the national championship last night with a very nice group of fellahs. They were the best team all year and it's rare when things make sense anymore, but it did this time. I will check the news shortly to see if they burned the city down. With the ugly apartments our city has been throwing up, it's probably fine if the revelers turned a few of them into ashes. Actually I just hope nobody got hurt.There'll be a few hangovers today.

Finally, I turned on location tracking on my phone and now Google wants me to review everything I do. You'd think if A.I. worked properly, it would know about my unsolicited reviews here and refuse to let me review anything else ever.

Now, as for this puzzle, it was cute as heck. SMUSHES!

My READY TO GO list is: Money, tickets, keys, and a phone. For vacations I add pills and a passport. Anything else can be bought when you arrive. When we lived out in the mountains of New Mexico it was cat, coffee, candle, keys, lunch, locks. We didn't have money or phones back then.

Tee-Hee: SEXIEST

Uniclues:

1 Enterprising young man who takes people to Carnegie Hall at warp speed.
2 Kung Fu
3 Look for survivors in Pompeii.
4 Performance testing of first-semester massage students.
5 Benevolent September's nasty neighbor. (On a side note, the answer would make a nice band name.)
6 Tell 'em to try and hit the high notes.
7 Noticed flamethrower.
8 Leading man in Shakespearean tragedy with a shocking open liquor tab.
9 Allocate room for a sunset.
10 Booze doing its job and the resultant black eye.

1 TAXI DRIVER SULU
2 CHINESE KICKS
3 HOE VOLCANIC ASH
4 SOSO RUB EXAMS
5 PETTY OCTOBER
6 KEEP ALTO HONEST (~)
7 SAW PAST MATCHES
8 IN A HOLE OTHELLO
9 DEVOTE SKY
10 ALE AT IT... OOPSY

beverly c 8:46 AM  

I enjoyed this puzzle - the voice seemed different. Maybe it was the vocabulary for the answers - the constructors didn’t exactly make the usual choices?

I didn’t find it any more difficult than usual. And I liked the theme. I agree, cash isn’t on my checklist. Hat, yes.

Anonymous 8:51 AM  

Point of View

jberg 8:55 AM  

The point of a revealer should be that it reveals. This one doesn't -- all the revelatory work is done by the clue. I was expecting something about a purse of handbag, but just READY TO GO doesn't do it for me. Fortunately, I'd figured out the theme already.

AT IT was kind of vague, and I wanted ToM (thinking of Thom Gunn, who turns out to be a poet, not a fashion guru), so I really hesitated before committing to that I.

but the hardest part was that aardvark. I came at it from the bottom, having BEAR from the crosses -- so I went with sunBEAR. Not correct, but an animal I'd heard of, so good enough. That gave me tests instead of EXAMS, and Mustn't before MAY NOT. I ended up with an awful lot of black ink in that little corner. I can still read it, but only because I know what it says.

PWK, huh -- I never forget the WK, because I leave them in my pockets overnight, but the P can be a problem. And I use the step counter in it, as I'm obsessed with getting 10,000 a day -- so when I forget it I have to figure out how many uncounted steps there were, very aggravating.

Generational differences -- Rex can't remember ELSTON, which is hard for me to imagine, but I thought APOLO was a sprinter, because I only know him from crosswords.

Blue Stater 8:56 AM  

I make a little habit of keeping track of how many times I say "Oh, PLEASE" when there's a particularly outrageous clue-answer pair. This one broke the record (12) -- on a *Tuesday*. Absolutely crazy, nuts, outrageous. We deserve a lot better.

jberg 8:57 AM  

Does anyone know what happened to Rex's archive? The FAQ says it's the last item in the sidebar, but I can't find it.

pabloinnh 9:00 AM  

Wheelhouse here, I guess, as I found this easier than yesterday's. Even remembered ANTBEAR after anteater wouldn't fit. Nice when stuff like that happens.

I'm probably the only person I know who doesn't use a smart phone for anything. When we're out doing stuff my wife brings hers, so if I remember to bring my wife, no problem.

OFL can complain about CITYBUS being redundant, but it didn't bother me, as the only kind of bus we normally see around here is a school bus, and Subway is a sandwich shop.

How do you do, Mr. Gunn and Ms. ARIE. Thanks for my pop culture educational moment of the day.

Nice Tuesdecito, JTB and WLB. I Just Trust Both of you Will Like Being a team enough to make some more of these, and thanks for all the fun.

bocamp 9:10 AM  

Thx, Juliana & Wendy! 😊

Med-hard (Wednes. time).

Spinning wheels all the way; just couldn't get a grip.

Nevertheless, had fun with it! :)
___
@jae, kitshef, pablo: one cell dnf on Croce's 816 at the 'Fortune 500' / 'Production assistant' cross. Otherwise, easy-med. Another fine Croce offering! :)
___
On to Anna Shechtman's Mon. New Yorker. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏

Michelle Turner 9:19 AM  

POV - Point Of View

RooMonster 9:24 AM  

Hey All !
Almost worked out where the full Themers were "needed" when you leave the house. TAXI DRIVER, WHISKEY SOUR, KEEP HONEST. 😁 No one's needs VOLCANIC ASH, however.

Neat hidden things puz. Rex, love ya man, but your nitpicking about why the Themers are embedded in longer answers is strange. It's a puzzle, it's a Tuesday, it's circles for you to grasp the Theme instead of just having the answers hanging out by themselves. Enjoy the puz for what it is. You're overanalyzing.

@Nancy
Dang! That's a SLEW of stuff! Curious if you take a TAXI DRIVER or the CITY BUS more? Tee-hee (instead of an emoji, because you don't like emojis!)

If you're a smoker, don't forget MATCHES.

ANTBEAR a new one here. Wanted ANTeater, but obviously too long. Do ANTs say, "Look out! A BEAR!"

Time to MOVES IT.

No F's (OOPSY)
RooMonster
DarrinV

Ethan Taliesin 9:41 AM  

One could take a Greyhound bus from the city. You could go bar-hopping in a party bus. A school bus probably wouldn't help either, and neither would a charter bus, unless to chartered it yourself. They wouldn't get you around town like a CITY BUS and would not be a good substitute for the subway. Why am I wasting my time writing this? I liked the puzzle today.

pabloinnh 9:47 AM  

@bocamp-Haven't started the Croce yet. I'll give it a shot.

Anonymous 9:50 AM  

Felt like the constructors have a different grasp of the English language than I do.

Anonymous 10:00 AM  

Somehow, my grandfather took me into the Yankees dugout to meet Elston Howard, when I was a kid, because I played catcher in little league. So that was a giveaway. Before departure it’s always “ watch, wallet, spectacles, testicles”… although I don’t wear the former and rarely forget the latter, it helps me take inventory.

egsforbreakfast 10:01 AM  

To: Rex
Re: BUS

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to work in a crossword-friendly subject for this memo. But I really want to point out that CITYBUS could be used to differentiate from school bus, which is often also in the City. So, I think it’s fair to call CITYBUS a “Subway alternative.”

Why is a guy who transports people in a yellow cab like a waterway named after a social security number? They’re both TAXIDRIVERs.

57D happens to be my mnemonic for my READYTOGO checklist: Keys Beer Skivvies.

Fun Tuesday with, as others aver, a nice bit of RUB to it. Thanks, Juliana Tringali Golden and Wendy L. Brandes.

Magnolia 10:06 AM  

I don’t love CITY BUS either, just because no one ever says it but RP’s nit is wrong and PETTY. The “subway” in the clue is a hint that refers to the city. Similarly, double decker could be clued as “Tube alternative “ referring to London.

burtonkd 10:29 AM  

CITY BUS, as opposed to, say, Greyhound. Or School Bus, or the rare but amazing party bus.

It has taken time, but Adam Sandler has grown on me. I thought this song was pretty funny, both as RP's mnemonic in a different order, plus the inevitable complications of life: Phone, Wallet, Keys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9N6_Tj9u2U&ab_channel=NetflixIsAJoke

APOLO and ELSTON - I know both of these names, but needed the crosses to jog my memory.

Interesting that the Spanish mystery vowels are the same 2 as in LOA.

ccredux 10:30 AM  

Fun puzzle with great theme! Enjoyed the blogger’s commentary very much. I found it refreshing not to see anything about
downs- only method. I agree with Linda’ s comments yesterday about such. Also nice to see the useful advice of @bigsteve46 .

Carola 10:31 AM  

I agree with @Rex and others here that this was tougher than the average BEAR for a Tuesday. I was slowed down by some unknowns, a couple of mistakes, and a blank stare where a few of those two-word phases belong. On the other hand, the theme phrases were easy to get - well, at least after ID and CASH let me know that KEYS and PHONE would follow. I liked how the vital ITEMs were so nicely divided between words. Also SEXIEST over SMITTEN and TAXI DRIVER x CAR. BTW, I don't use a mnemonic like PKW, but rather rely on "Trust, but verify" from Reagan-Gorbachev days, as a double-check to make sure I have everything.

Do-overs: rain before MIST, cain before ADAM. Help from previous puzzles: ARiE, KIM, ESA. No idea: ELSTON, TIM.

JD 10:38 AM  

This could be a good check list and puzzle for a guy going to a speakeasy that only takes Cash, who ultimately drank too much and needed a Taxi Driver.

My 89-year-old mother's suitcase-size purse contains her checkbook Wallet (containing a checkbook, Cash, credit cards, photos, and her probably-expired license since she shouldn't be driving), lipstick, gum, coupons (those expired and those doomed to expire), numerous crumpled tissues that she swears are unused, a change purse that weighs at least a pound, and keys that she'll take forever to find because they're beneath all of the above. Her checklist is purse.

Liveprof 10:45 AM  

On forgetting things:

A gentleman in his 90's goes for a checkup and the doc says, you're doing okay, do you have any complaints? And he says, memory loss is depressing. I walk into a room to get something, but forget what I was looking for. And the doc says, make a little note to yourself.

So he and his wife get home and the wife says, "I'd like a little ice cream, dear," but make a note like the doctor said so you'll remember." And he says, "I'm not that bad -- I can remember ice cream." And she says, "But I'd like a little syrup on it, why take a chance? -- write a note." And he says, "I don't need a damn note, I can remember ice cream and syrup." Then she says, "But I'd also like a little whipped cream, I really think you should write a note." He says, I can remember ice cream, syrup, and whipped cream," and storms out of the room.

He comes back ten minutes later and hands her a plate of scrambled eggs. She looks at for a minute and says, "So, where's my toast?"

jae 10:49 AM  

Medium except for the NW which pushed this into tough territory. rain before MIST got me off to halting start. CHINESE as clued was a WOE and I needed crosses to recall ELSTON. Pretty good Tuesday, liked it.

jb129 11:00 AM  

Not at all difficult & a cute Tuesday puzzle.

(It always surprises me that what Rex considers easy, I think is hard/challenging & vice versa.

Thanks, ladies!

Whatsername 11:07 AM  

Agree it was a tougher than usual Tuesday, especially the proper names. ELSTON, ARIE and the name of the novel at 20A seemed more like Wednesday level. ERTE not so much, but I still had MUCHO trouble in ESA corner thanks to the unheard of ANT BEAR and mysterious cluing for GEAR TO and MOVES IT. I do feel better knowing that not even Rex Parker knew the baseball answer. On the other hand, 53A could have been clued as “Racing great Richard _____” and I would’ve known it instantly.

I don’t use a checklist when I get READY TO GO, since 3 of the 4 items mentioned are already in my purse. I do however count pet tails to be sure they’re all inside so I guess you could say I do a PPT - Purse, Phone, Tails.

BobL 11:10 AM  

No LMS. No M&A. Sad day.

jb129 11:13 AM  

I got a "BLOOP" message, try again" 3x so I'm trying again.

This was a cute puzzle (not at all challenging. Thanks, Ladies!

TennesseeTurtle 11:21 AM  

Well I struggle with Nancy on certain things and am enamored with her. I think that Andrew is adroit and am enamored with him! Out of my league with most of the group but love the milieu!

Anonymous 11:31 AM  

There’s a scene in Ab Fab where Eddie and Patsy are leaving for a trip. As the taxi pulls away, it suddenly stops and Eddie runs back into the house, saying, “passport, tickets, money!”

x 12:00 PM  

As usual I did this one faster than anyone else because I'm smarter than anyone else, but not smart enough to stop posting utter nonsense here like everyone else.

Anonymous 12:21 PM  

As with others, the spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch reminder stuck with me far better than PKW, even though it's maybe less useful.

I did not like the cross of MUCHOS with BASSO. I did not like it one bit. I do not know Spanish and I do not know opera terms, and man I was just guessing vowels.

Elena 12:56 PM  

I agree with Rex on the awkwardness of the CITY BUS thing. I also found TAXI DRIVER a bit "off," since you hail a taxi or a cab, not a driver. I've never once heard anyone say "I'll just hail a taxi driver!" Definitely should've referenced the movie instead.

Anonymous 1:04 PM  

No one calls him Apolo Ohno, it's Apolo Anton Ohno, so this clue confused me

GILL I. 1:26 PM  

Well...what do you know? A Tuesday worth some fun!
I'll start with getting the little circled ID. OK, one down, three more to go. I didn't know where we were going here (yet), so I was anxious - especially with the VOLCANI CASH. Ai....where could this be going and what is a VOLCANI have to do with an output eruption. It's ASH I'm looking for. SHEESH...how dumb can I be?
I did as I was told and filled in squares. I get to READY TO GO; go back up to the ID and the CASH and let out a little whoop. More whoops with KEYS and PHONE. At this point, I stopped and let my strange mind wander....
I'm a bit of a purseaholic. I have many...in different colors...in different sizes...cute ones...ugly but handy ones...and my favorite grab and go ones. I like small but handy. It must hold my little CHINESE silk purse for the CASH I always carry in case I meet a poor homeless man with a dog. I always give $10.00 and make him/her promise that the dog will be fed!.
My ID goes in my little zipper purse along with my credit cards and pictures of my grandkids. My KEYS hang on a little hook by the door entrance, and I ALWAYS seem to forget my PHONE. An here's the thing: My PHONE has to fit in whatever bag I carry and yet it's the one item I leave behind if my mind is only on taking out the garbage. I'm always worrying that I will fall, or my car will stall on the freeway, or I'm having angst and agita and need an ambulance, or my daughter will call and I can't reach her. Silly, isn't it ....
I then think back to the days we didn't have a cell phone and somehow survived. When I made sales calls for Mexicana Airlines, I memorized all the phone booth locations on my way to pay visits. I'd carry a little sanitizer wipe to clean off the phone In case someone spit on it.
ANYWAY...any puzzle that lets me wander and smile on a Tuesday gets my applause....

PS: Thanks to some of you who read and commented on my silly Monday story. We do tend to zip through that day and some have found ways to make the puzzle harder. I just let my idiosyncratic brain take over and it gives me something to do.

Anoa Bob 3:11 PM  

Simplify, simplify; my READY TO GO list is has only one item---my KEYS. That way I'm guaranteed to be able to get back inside if I have forgotten anything else.

I wasn't SMITTEN with 67A "Hold to a moral code" for KEEP HONEST. The only person that we can "Hold to a moral code" is ourselves and "Be HONEST" or "Stay HONEST" sounds more naturally in the language for that than KEEP HONEST. Maybe that's just ON ME.

I don't associate 53A PETTY with being "Spiteful" about anything, including "about little slights", as clued. PETTY has always been "of little importance" or "trivial" to me and I thought it was humorously appropriate that in the Navy, pay grades E-4 (Enlisted, level four) and above are called PETTY Officers. Kind of an oxymoron, no?

Anonymous 3:59 PM  

This puzzle today was exceptionally appreciated today to distract me from the news about the Trump trial.

Sharon AK 4:08 PM  

@Pablo 9 am LOL "remember to bring my wife". Nice take on the city bus/school bus. We see more tour buses in the summer . There are also Greyhound (or other ) long distance buses. Rex was wrong.

@jberg 8:55 The realer worked finer me. Without it I wouldn't have known what the circled words were all about.
For me it would be HKL: handbag (where my license and wallet live)keys and list. When I go out without the shopping list I always forget something - often the first, and most important thing I put on the list.

Tom 4 4:10 PM  

Easier than Rex said, I thought.
Quite a poor puzzle, though. And boring. So really nothing good at all.

TAB2TAB 5:01 PM  

Maybe one or two of these on a Tuesday, but all of these? ELSTON, APOLO, ANTBEAR, ERTE, TVA... Should TVA be something that is common knowledge? When I looked it up and saw Tennesee Valley Authority, I thought that had to be wrong, as I assumed that if the puzzle is going to include a public works abbreviation on a Tuesday, it would at least be Federal. Turns out it is Federal, but Tennessee is a sneaky misdirect. Still from the Wikipedia entry, the article took 6 paragraphs to even mention dams, from the clue. Not at all obvious for me, but I learned something!

Anonymous 5:03 PM  

kB, short for kilobytes, does not have a plural. It is both singular and plural.
There is no kBs.
That's per the International System of Units (SI).
If you are just making up your own words, then kbs is fine.

Thrasymachus 6:41 PM  

Definitely thought Subway was pushing me to “Quizno’s” or some such. You know, one of roughly a billion sandwich shops better than Subway.

Anonymous 9:13 PM  

I somehow missed @Nancy at 8:25 am. Do you really go into restaurants with a donut pillow? I guess you would not forget that nor would I if I saw someone entering carrying one where I was dining.

Harry 9:41 PM  

Standard solving time here, but I found myself concentrating far more intensely that typical for a Tuesday. ELSTON was a complete non-starter, but the crosses fell into place without too much stress. I'd welcome more Tuesdays of this caliber.

dgd 10:27 PM  

Keep honest is definitely a common expression. It implies checking on another person to make sure they don’t cheat. It may be true you can’t keep someone else honest but you can try to do that, like trying to keep politicians honest with campaign finance laws.
Since petty is from petit- small in French- it does sound like a classic oxymoron ( the term was obviously invented by commissioned officers!).

Michelle 9:25 AM  

Surprised no one mentioned this - Adam Sandler Phone Wallet Keys

https://youtu.be/e9N6_Tj9u2U

Paper arrives at 9:30 am (!!) so I am perpetually a day behind. I know I should go digital, but…

burtonkd 9:38 AM  

@Chicago Chica - I wonder if my posts are invisible sometimes: I thought the Adam Sandler bit was so on the money, and nobody responded, and you are asking after I posted the link at 10:29.

kitshef 6:33 PM  

Rex spends the entire column on PKW, but never tells us what the 'P' is?!?!?!

Downs only. Could have run on Wednesday, maybe. Mostly Tuesdayish, but the SW corner was hard. I'm doing these out of orderl after vacation so may be misremembering, but this feels like the absolute worst week of themes ever.

kitshef 6:34 PM  

Okay, I think from context it's 'phone', which isn't in my top five. Wallet, Keys, Shoes. That's the list.

spacecraft 11:13 AM  

I just don't get this "downs only" thing. It's a CROSSword. It wasn't designed to be solved in only one direction. For myself, I simply can't put blinders on or cover up fourteen columns at a time. My eyes go both ways, I can't help it. Nor do I have the slightest wish to.

This puzzle was Tuesday-medium. A few things needed some extra thought, but nothing too knotty. Agree with the BASIC list, although an ITEM or two must be added if we're going to the store. Grocery list? Coupons? Insulated bag for cold stuff? That last is important, as we are dealing with daily highs of 110+.

Corner seven-stacks are pretty solid. Birdie.

Wordle bogey; too many ___ERs.

Burma Shave 12:16 PM  

ANEW SLEW

ADAM MIST A chance for KICKS,
SO he TALKSUP girls SOS,
they MAYNOT be the SEXIEST chicks,
but HONEST and READYTOGO.

--- TIM PETTY

Burma Shave 12:19 PM  

must proofread
end of second line = SOSO

Anonymous 3:06 PM  

A really fine puzzle by a pair of relatively new constructors. Yes, it was a bit tougher than your usual Tuesday but that’s on WS for slotting it a day or two early. Hardly any junk fill. I love how every circled word overlaps between two words. Well done Juliana and Wendy. Please keep ATIT.

Anonymous 5:11 PM  

Pretty dang easy Tuesday, if you ask me.
Okay! Okay!
Nobody asked me!
Many younguns these days do not carry wallets, so they often have a card sleeve, or phone case, or back of phone attachment in which to put the things they need to have with them. Also, there are times when you might be asked to show more than one ID. One must have a photo, the second one can be just a credit or debit card. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen from time to time.

Diana, LIW 6:00 PM  

Today and yesterday flew by - both in Puzzleland and in my life! Glad I packed well for the trip.

Yeah - I don't get "downs only." More than that, I can't imagine timing myself. XWords are my time to relax!

Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for a Lazy Crossword

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