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Relative difficulty: Medium (10:22, while distracted) (I was watching Iron Chef: America muted and had to keep looking up to read the subtitles)
THEME: Boat puns
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: ART POP (Music genre related to glam rock) —
Hey squad, and welcome to another Malaika MWednesday. If you are in NYC (or anywhere in the NE / Eastern Canada?), I hope you are staying healthy and safe with all this air pollution. It looks downright apocalyptic outside! My solving music today was this Leon Bridges song... he really has a penchant for writing the most beautiful songs in the world.
Pun puzzle.... usually I hate them but I was kinda vibing with this one! Tragically, the last entry was the least funny pun, in my opinion. LEAKED FOOTAGE was the one that got an actual chuckle from me. Why did I like this puzzle when normally I don't like puns?? Could not tell you. Perhaps I liked the reminder of Boat Stuck, such a chaotic and incredible moment of 2021. Or maybe looking outside and seeing a landscape that looks like a horror movie just has me feeling a little more generous towards crossword themes.
- "BREAKING STORY: Large, crashing waves threaten cruise ship"
- "LEAKED FOOTAGE appears to show that the ship has been damaged"
- "Water is pouring into the ship! You can see it here STREAMING LIVE"
- "Changes in ocean conditions allowed the ship to return safely to port. Stay tuned for more CURRENT EVENTS"
Word of the Day: ART POP (Music genre related to glam rock) —
Artpop (stylized in all caps) is the third studio album by American singer Lady Gaga. It was released on November 6, 2013, by Streamline and Interscope Records. Gaga began planning the project in 2011, shortly after the launch of her second effort, Born This Way. Work continued until 2013 while Gaga was traveling for her Born This Way Ball tour and recovering from surgery for an injury she had sustained while touring. Gaga described Artpop as "a celebration and a poetic musical journey". It displays an intentional "lack of maturity and responsibility" by comparison to the darker and anthemic nature of Born This Way.
• • •
Pun puzzle.... usually I hate them but I was kinda vibing with this one! Tragically, the last entry was the least funny pun, in my opinion. LEAKED FOOTAGE was the one that got an actual chuckle from me. Why did I like this puzzle when normally I don't like puns?? Could not tell you. Perhaps I liked the reminder of Boat Stuck, such a chaotic and incredible moment of 2021. Or maybe looking outside and seeing a landscape that looks like a horror movie just has me feeling a little more generous towards crossword themes.
 |
| boat stuck |
URI and ELLISON were the biggest stumbling blocks for me here, plus I really wanted "birds' eggs" over BIRD EGGS, but the rest of the short stuff seemed like standard crossword fare. Like, FAS isn't elegant or anything, but I can type in the little letters without thinking too hard. And an impressive amount of fun entries!!l CIAO BELLA and PEA BRAIN and PLASMA TV and IRIS SCAN. I would have loved to see a Lady Gaga clue for ART POP, but I know what to expect with the Times. (And we got a Miley Cyrus reference!! So I shouldn't complain.)
Bullets:
- [Belle's counterpart] for BETE — There is an excellent restaurant I go to called Bar BETE, so my first thought was "Why didn't they write a clue about that restaurant?" Then of course, I remember that basically no one except me would know that lol. I also didn't love how this entry was crossed with BELLA when the clue used the term "Belle" but that's a nitpick for sure.
- [Hammer end] for PEEN — Okay. I'll say it. To me, PEEN has one meaning and it is "word that my friends used when talking about a p*nis in middle school." Every time I see this word in a puzzle I lose my mind and revert back to a sixth grader talking about a p*nis and I am like "Will Shortz why did you put a p*nis in my puzzle??" Sorry for talking about this but I needed y'all to know.
- [Fix, as code] for DEBUG — I am very curious to know if this term is new for y'all! I am a software engineer and have been debugging things for about five years now. I was recently chatting with a friend who told me that no one in her family knew that "bug" was a term for "coding problem." They were very confused when she was telling them a story about a bug she had to deal with at work.
Easy (no erasures), cute, mildly amusing and smooth with some fine long downs, liked it.
ReplyDeleteDid not know BETE, ART POP and BIRD EGGS (as clued).
Hi Malaika! Nice Leon Bridges song; it sounded familiar so I thought (cuz I'm so out of touch musically) it must be a cover of an older song, but no; looks like it's his song.
ReplyDeleteI feel for you dealing with bad air; here in western Canada we have that pretty much every summer now, due to wildfires. Right now really good air quality, but just wait til August (dreaded August!).
This theme is cute, but geez those clues are long. I had two typeovers: BEAU before BETE (because French adjectives BELLE = fem., BEAU = masc.) and LATINX before LATINO.
I really loved the Pat Benatar clue for LOVE; such a memorable song from my young adulthood.
[Spelling Bee: Tues 0, very quick 2 minutes to pg, then another 6 min to QB. No goofy words!]
Easy with several stumbling moments: BIRDmeat for EGGS, siX (?) for LAX, ASAP x PRIZE instead of PLEA x ADORE. At least I got that "treasure" was a verb.
ReplyDeleteThe constructor might've considered something-BOX instead of BONOBOS, crossing FAX, to have three (!) Xs in the grid, but PEABRAIN is a great bonus entry. Not to say that I like it when JQXZ get shoved where they don't belong - I'm with REX (25A) on this topic.
Might've had a rough start if PAPA was clued via the bear, not the Smurf. I can never remember which one's porridge or bed or whatever was which.
ReplyDeleteNice writeup, Malaika! I found it easier than you did, probably because I wasn't watching Iron Chef America.
@okanaganer, I was thinking BEau for BETE too, but discarded it because CARET was already in place.
limE before Kiwi before KALE for the green juice thing at 14A. And with the incorrect Kiwi in place was thinking TiLe a 6D, but a tile could be small or smooth but not sweet.
I did the same 3 words, though kiwi stayed only a second. I had forgotten about healthy juices.
DeleteLiked the puzzle.
I don't want to be too Pacific about it, but there were some things I laked about this puzzle and others that I couldn't Bering. Oh well ... Water ya gonna do?
ReplyDeleteJust go with the flow, @Joaquin.
DeleteHey Malaika!
ReplyDeleteWe have one commenter certain to say this floated his boat.
Not withstanding the brutal pluralization, as a musical FYI, anything can follow mi, including do re fa so la ti and yes even mi, and the red-headed step children Julie Andrews drowned in the river di ri fi si li ra me se le and of course te. Honestly, maybe if OBOE is your full understanding of crossword-worthy musical terminology, clue MIS as [Intro to poor management.] and move on to patting yourself on the back for CIAO BELLA ET VOILÀ which I love and might make a nice song where FAS follow MIS.
Congrats to 🦖 for another appearance in the grids.
Uniclues:
1 "Git dad anuddah beer."
2 Vegan support group religious awakening.
3 French friend fighting in flight.
4 Bikini biz.
5 Nice fellah who hates 4K LED-backlit LCDs.
6 Slogan for a pansexual.
1 PAPA ITEM PLEA
2 AMEN! KALE LANDS.
3 AMI AERODUELS
4 GET A TAN ECON
5 PLASMA TV GENT
6 ADORE ANY LOVE (~)
The pun groan is not my favorite either - but this one was cute and well filled. Our SB friend BONOBOS adjacent to ET VOILÀ was fantastic. Overall a pleasant solve.
ReplyDeleteI like your juvenile take on PEEN Malaika. Yes - Gaga would have been easier - but there’s been some great ART POP around for over 50 years. Start with Brian Wilson and as an ENCORE try Bowie
Will and company have righted the ship, so to speak, after yesterday’s debacle. I’ll take a punny groaner over that stunt any day. I liked these just fine.
ReplyDeleteMalaika, me too on PEEN.
Nice misdirection on the clues for DORM and EASEL. I’ve never heard of a CLUB steak.
I’ll keep it short today instead of what I usually do: DRONE ON.
Cute puzzle. Perfect for Wednesday. And no: “debug” is not new to me - even though I’m just a software user not an engineer.
ReplyDeleteOk, so today’s “genre” is ARTPOP which sounds like it could apply to anything. I like K-POP way better (as a genre, I’ve never heard even one BTS song - but at least I know they come from Korea).
ReplyDeleteHow many people know anyone in the United States that has said ET VOILA in say, the last decade ?
At least the theme was harmless and kind of cute - which is a major step up from yesterday.
So far, so good in Prince Edward Island for smoke!,debugging is familiar to me and I am no I.T. guy! Lots of areas with terrible smoke risk..jim
ReplyDeleteReally belonged on a Tuesday. Difficulty level was much more like a Tuesday, and the theme would have been less disappointing.
ReplyDeleteAssist from Futurama on ASCOT:
Bendee-Bendee-Boo, what's wrong with you?
You're such a lousy mascot.
No one understands a single word you say,
Not even the jerk in the ascot.
@Malaika - Ascot seems like much more of an outlier, familiarity-wise, then debug.
Like the sun glistening on a lake, this one sparkled.
ReplyDeleteA pun falls into one of three categories for me, depending on how it LANDS – Primo, neutral, or wince. In today’s pun-orama, three theme answers – BREAKING STORY, LEAKED FOOTAGE, and STREAMING LIVE – were primo. On top of that, they were NYT debut answers, fantastic additions to the oeuvre. Standing O!
The sparkles continued. The theme had a lovely echo in IMMERSE, lovely answers scattered about (CIAO BELLA, ET VOILA, IRIS SCAN BONOBOS), and enough bite to satisfy my brain’s work ethic, both in the clues and in trying to guess the theme answers with as few crosses as possible. There was also the heart-warming ADORE over LOVE, and a pair of rhyming anapests in IRIS SCAN / GET A TAN.
This offering perfectly balanced yesterday’s semordnilap-orama, with a paucity of same; a mere quintet in my first scan: METS, ATE, PIN, PAC, and IPA.
Jennifer and Victor, your puzzle today brought the same fresh brightness and humor as your first two collaborations did (7/27/21 and 11/9/21). I relish the voice you bring to Crosslandia. Thank you!
DEBUG is NOT a new term. My mother (yes my mother who is now 85) was a computer programmer back in the very early days of card punching and stacks of green and white print outs and she used to say if she ever got a vanity plate it would say “DEBUGGER’ so that it is that old. We are going way back here to the 80’s. So maybe that’s the problem, it’s a really old term? Anyhoo, that was a fun memory for me, watching her sit and carefully review every line until she said with a smile. “Found it”. And by “it” she usually meant a missing dot or something equally obscure.
ReplyDeleteWay back to the 80's Lol. I was debugging in the 60's. Liked this puzzle!
DeleteMystified how BETE is the counterpart of Belle. Can someone enlighten me?
ReplyDeleteBeauty and the Beast
DeleteI had to look it up. Bete is "beast" in French.
DeleteThank you!
DeleteThe puns and buildup in this puzzle had me reminiscing about the incomparable Merl Reagle. This was his kind of clueing on the themers.
ReplyDeleteFully agree. I begrudgingly enjoyed the boat puns. Leon Bridges' Beyond was my wedding song and still a weekly dancing in the kitchen song. Great choice.
ReplyDeleteWhy did I like this puzzle when normally I don't like puns??
ReplyDelete...
There is an excellent restaurant I go to called Bar BETE, so my first thought was "Why didn't they write a clue about that restaurant?"
Why do you like this restaurant when normally you don't like puns?? I know, I know, they're separate things, but it made me laugh.
(The name "Bar BETE" may have a different meaning from what I'm thinking, but the obvious interpretation is it's a pun on the common phrase "bar bet".)
Finished it cleanly thanks to a lucky guess at the IPA/EPI cross. IRISSCAN didn't look right, but nothing else worked with the crosses. ETVOILA might have been hard for one who didn't take French, but I did (many years ago).
ReplyDeleteGood puzzle all around, I thought. Subtle theme that worked well in the end.
Last evening I took one of my dogs out, and almost called about the fire the smoke was so bad here in central NJ. It's a little better today, but Canada - you may want to do something about those fires.
ReplyDeleteNot to thrilled with puns, or sinking boat puns, but the puzzle was fair enough. Hammers with PEEN ends are real things, with real uses in today's world. I can virtually guarantee that each of you has at least one thing that's been formed via PEENing.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteWater water everywhere.
Har.
"News Headlines" type themes seem to me an odd theme. This one was quirky in a good way, though. The Themers work very well tied together and as apropos to the clues. I know what I'm trying to convey, but it's not coming across in my writing! Summary: I liked it. 😁
Neat having two answers ending in YX. Yes, BONOBOS, have that one down on SB. But find I miss a lot of common words every day I do it. I did get the QB YesterBee, however. Even though it was an easy one, I'll take it!
Gotta go before I DRONE ON more. CIAO!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Thx, Jennifer & Victor; nicely done! 😊
ReplyDeleteHi Malaika, good to see you again; thx for your take! 😊
Med.
Smooth top to bottom solve.
No hitches; only ?? was BETE, which I now know is Fr. for beast.
Ralph ELLISON's 'Invisible Man' is a worthwhile read.
Speaking of TVs, mine finally gave up the ghost. I don't plan on replacing it, as I can do my streaming via my laptop browser and Apple TV+ app. Already seeing a reduction in my utility bill.
Enjoyable cruise; no 'crashing waves' here.
___
New Yorker Mon. doers: had a one cell dnf on Natan Last's excellent construction, ironically, at the Monday / sandwich cross. Easy, with the exception of the SE, which took longer than rest of the puz combined. Nevertheless, a very worthwhile mental battle. I just happened to lose this one, but hopefully learned a couple of things. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
BIRDEGGS seems redundant. ARTPOP? cringe
ReplyDeleteAlligator eggs anyone? Fish eggs too. Though most people think of birds first, it isn’t really redundant.
DeleteI didn’t think I was going to like this, too much trivia, but it grew on me. And as I chipped away at it, the trivia wasn’t as bad as it seemed like at first.
ReplyDeleteDEBUG has been a thing since the early days of computers with the old punchcards. I learned to write code decades ago and like @DrA said, the task of debugging was often a matter of simply finding a dot that was out of place.
A cute, punny wordplay theme combined with playful cluing. Even ordinary words are clued with a bit of flair: ITEM (5A); TALK (6D); LOVE (38D); CLUB (22D); EASEL (50A). As opposed to yesterday's puzzle, these constructors are trying to give pleasure rather than trying to show off. I liked the result a lot. And even though I don't know my Smurfs from my Muppets, the puzzle was quite easy for me.
ReplyDeleteThe only hiccup was writing in nATIve instead of LATINO at 46D -- confirmed (or so I thought) by "STREAMING news". NANA enabled me to change to STREAMING LIVE -- I called my own mother's mother NANA in fact.
I don't speak the language, but isn't CIAO BELLA a bit of Italian "vernice verde"?
A breezy and entertaining puzzle that I enjoyed.
Well, if your mind goes there, one can only wonder what you think a ball peen hammer looks like.
ReplyDeleteAccording to CHATgpt :
ReplyDeleteThe term "debug" originated in the early days of computing and has its roots in the work of Grace Hopper, a prominent computer scientist. In 1947, while working on the Harvard Mark II computer, Hopper encountered a problem caused by a moth that got trapped inside the machine and disrupted its operation. The moth was removed, and Hopper recorded the incident in her logbook, coining the term "debugging" to describe the process of identifying and fixing software or hardware problems. Since then, the term "debug" has been widely used to refer to the process of locating and resolving issues in computer programs.
Funny, here we are in NH which is closer to Quebec than a lot of you and our air quality is OK. Spectacular sunrise yesterday though.
ReplyDeleteThought the themers were not quite groan-worthy and tied together nicely, and I approve of any puzzle with CIAOBELLA and ETVOILA. Romance language power! My wife used to teach seventh grade English and had a student write his tada! moment as "and, wala!". Always liked that one.
GETATAN nearly checks my EATASANDWICH box, but I'll give it a pass. Also, all this PEEN discussion has me thinking about ball PEEN hammers, and wondering what a ball PEEN might look like. Hmmm.
Easy breezy Wednesday, JL and VG . Just Like a Very Good Wednesday ought to be, and thanks for all the fun.
Thanks Malaika, glad to see your return on a threepeat day for Jennifer & Victor. Their collaboration even gave us REX today, a fitting tribute and puns enough for those who like/loathe them. Never understood why that tool got its name, but you opened my eyes!
ReplyDeleteFor me the theme boat barely limped into port, but I enjoyed the smooth sail through the grid, with stops in Italy, France, Serbia, and Norway; the fine long Downs as additional ports of call, and the sighting of two words ending in YX.
ReplyDeleteDo-over: STREAMING sItE. No idea: ART POP. Dunce-cap moment: thinking "mi" was a Greek letter.
As Cain said, “I’ve tried to LOVE ABEL, but he’s not lovable.”
ReplyDeleteJust yesterday I found myself wandering around a parking lot saying “where’s my CARAT?”
Andy Warhol knew how to make ARTPOP with his POP ART.
Spoiler alert: I’m partial to puns, so this was a hoot. Thanks, Jennifer Lee and Victor Galson.
Don't like pun puzzles, so didn't enjoy this at all... Groan.
ReplyDeleteNice to ‘see’ you Malaika!
ReplyDeleteI am surprised to hear that your non-techie relatives are not familiar with the term bug/debug. In my experience these are well known terms even to us non-techies.
Fun puzzle! Now I’m going to go cancel my upcoming cruise :)
Not sure it’s already been mentioned, but…
ReplyDeleteBELLE = Beautiful
BETE = Ugly
@Mikey10:41am:
DeleteWrong thrice.
They are nouns, not adjectives.
Belle = Beauty
Bete = Beast
It was a French fairytale.
Hey, yawl. Once I decided to barge past the Smurf clue, I sailed through this fairly easily. Since I don’t mind being deluged with corny puns, it’s not hard to sea why I might lake a theme like this, though I’m not so sure a boat those mis and FAS.
ReplyDeleteI'm ancient. It was mandatory for the boys to take shop and the girls to take home ec when I went to high school. One of the first tools we learned about was the ball-peen hammer. Everyone in my generation would know peen as the round end of the hammer, without ever thinking of genitals.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what kind of cave you need to live in not to know "debug" or "bug" as a code glitch.
Gaga! Yes!
@Mikey - Bete = Animal or beast, not ugly.
ReplyDelete@Alice - Possums do eat turtle ,snake, etc. eggs, so the specificity isn't a redundancy.
Fun puns indeed. I was reminded of the one time I have ever attended a Kabuki play (well, the morning half of one, the whole day was too expensive). At one point a leading character urges everyone to go with him to accomplish some task, then adds "But first, let's make some puns about water!" which they proceed to do for several minutes. You have to have been there, I think, but if you ever are it's well worth it.
ReplyDelete@Southside, I have to confess that I occasionally do say "LA VOILA!" But then, I used to wear ascots in my youth, too.
There was a time a few decades back when you could use LATINO to include people of both genders, just as you could do with "men." That time is long gone, though; it should be LATINX (or o/a, but that won't fit). I looked up XNYX to see if it would work with the crosses; there is a website, but it seems to be some sort of computer sex thing, from the way Duck Duck Go coyly remarks that it's not allowed to tell me about the content. I didn't try it myself.
@pablo, I thought you'd moved to NC? Or is that a seasonal thing?
Here in Boston we are being warned to stay inside, but not really seeing smoke -- just a little haze. I think something is going on with the atmosphere to hold it off, but probably just for a day or two. I guess I'll go write to my cousin in Ottawa to see how she and her family are doing -- frightening story about that city on NPR just now.
Fun puzzle - thanks Jennifer & Victor.
ReplyDeleteMalaika - I wish they'd film some new chef battles on Iron Chef.
@Anon (9:59). I don't know what part of the playground you're in but we're near the water fountain. We've got a nice piece of cake for you here.
ReplyDelete@Dr A 7:46
ReplyDeleteTry the 60s, 20 years before the 80s. Started work at Bell Labs in 1962 and we debugged our code.
Grow up! You can say or write the word penis. It's not a dirty word.
ReplyDelete@Pete 8:59
ReplyDeleteTone deaf comment: "but Canada - you may want to do something about those fires."
Here in Vancouver, we get our fair share of smoke from Oregon and WA later in the summer. In actuality, brave firefighters cross the border in both directions to help one another.
Oooh...I liked this. I go through phases with puns. Today's phase? I liked this. My only petite BETE was looking at FAS. It just kinda sat there right in the middle of my sinking boat. I suspect you were needed to get some FOOTAGE and to highlight a little POC for the magnificent BONOBOS.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite? PEABRAIN. I'll throw in CIAO BELLA because I love hearing it. Even if a very old rickety man with no teeth utters it to me, I feel honored. (Apologies to any old rickety old men)....!
My BETE noire turned out to be CURRENT EVENTS. Why? you may ask...I had trouble getting the downs I needed. I had dALE for the low lying area and I didn't know ART POPS and I had some trouble with that ACDC and I had no idea that opossums eat BIRD EGGS. I eat BIRD EGGS, too. Mine come from a friends farm. Fried gently, mind you. Anyway, my boat was saved from drowning. A stare fest helped. Alls Well That Ends Well.. AWTEW for those not in the know.
@Pete 8:59. I feel your smoke pain. Two years ago, California had the worse fire season in memory. The smoke was unbearable. Waking up to an ugly brown sky...eyes watering...wheezing...coughing - even my pups started coughing. If I could've figured out a way to put a little mask on them, I would've. I opted for puppy pads.
@nancy: ciao bella is very much an in the language, if potentially sexist Italian term.
ReplyDeleteI have heard and used "bugs" for problems in non-computer systems and wonder if that predates the computer programming usage.
My connection was La Belle et le BETE--Beauty and the Beast.
ReplyDelete@XYZ You can't really be serious in thinking I was actually chastising anyone or any entity within Canada for the drought, the lightning strikes, or this weeks air currents are you? I wasn't, but I am serious about building a wall between the US & Canada to keep our atmospheres from co-mingling in the future. I'm sick of their Alberta Clippers, their lake-effect snows, and now this smoke. I'm going to make them pay for it too. I'll put in doors so they cand send us Maple Syrup & LaBlatts beer, and we can give them back Celine Dion & Neil Young. I'm serious about this one, I promise.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't want to DEBUG, you say, "It's not a bug, it's a feature"
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry but there is no consistency to the theme clues at all. The puns are vaguely water related, yes, but the cluing isn't parallel. The one for "Breaking news" mentions crashing waves but the one for "Leaked footage" has nothing related to a water leak at all. Likewise I don't think it's at all accurate to call a "current" a change in ocean conditions. Half baked and lame.
ReplyDeleteCurrents do change with ocean conditions (strengthening or weakening). A damaged vessel certainly suggests a leak.
DeleteSha na na na, sha na na na na, GET A TAN. Anyone in my generation knows the reference. I think the puns did not always LAND, but I ADOREd the concept. LATINS is a pretty broad category, I think. Maybe could include Italians or Romanians (whose language is amazingly close to LATIN).
ReplyDelete@Pablo just posted what I was about to say. LA BELLE et LA BETE is originally French, and the later versions in other languages are mere retellings. Many answers were Friday-hard for me, especially PLASMA TV. And I had "help" instead of PLEA there forever, which made the NE a mystery. As was LAX, because I never heard the song, or pretty much any song that came after the Beatles and the Stones, except for all those great singer-songwriters who have dominated my musical taste in recent years.
The clue for 54 Down is well off the mark. An Econ class features theory, some accounting and math, history and philosophy as part of the humanities. Stock market investing would be in a Finance class dealing with securities analysis, i.e., a business course.
ReplyDeleteMalika,
ReplyDeleteRun--don't walk--away from those friends and family who aren't familiar with bug as a problem with a computer program. Bug has been used as a synonym for a problem in a machine sine at least the 1870s. That's a century and half of usage. If these folks haven't heard it, there's something deeply, deeply wrong.
XYZed,
ReplyDeletePay no attention to Pete. No one else does.
You don't have to censor "penis" when you type it, it's not a slur or curse word or anything. It's especially disingenuous when you are the one bringing it up in the first place.
ReplyDeleteThanks, @burtonkd, for telling me that CIAO BELLA is in the language in Italy. As far as it being sexist -- well, what can I say? If a gorgeous Italian guy (and a huge percentage of them ARE gorgeous, yes?) were to say CIAO BELLA to me, I'm sure I'd be immensely pleased -- even though I'd probably be careful not to show it TOO much. I do have some strengths as a feminist...but also some glaring weaknesses as well:)
ReplyDeleteAnd I hope these won't be my very last words ever on the blog as I write from End-Of-The-World-Looking-Right-Now NYC. The sky is a creepy hazy combo of otherworldly orange, tan and gray -- and while my windows have been tightly closed since early afternoon yesterday, the smell of smoke began permeating my apt around 11:45 a.m. today. For some reason it's better in the BR than in the LR, so I did think to move there to read a book ("Chemistry Lessons") and am back in the LR only to write this.
At 2 p.m., I really wanted some vodka. Unlike a martini, a mid-day Bloody Mary is considered permissible. But I have no tomato juice in the house. No worries: I mix a generous amount of Tito's Vodka with an almost equal amount of cold water with ten drops of Worcestershire Sauce with seven drops of fresh lemon. (Alas, I'm out of Horseradish Sauce, which belongs in the mix as well.)
But when the Apocalypse is staring me in the face, my ad hoc concoction tastes pretty wonderful. Hey -- you do what you have to do. Right?
@jberg-Haven't moved to NYC, or even ever considered it because, you know, Yankees.
ReplyDeleteThis one really focused on my knowledge, which includes both The Invisible Man and Miley Cyrus apparently. DEBUG wasn't new for me, and I had very similar thoughts regarding PEEN. Ball-PEEN hammers have always been funny that way.
ReplyDeleteEasy solve, but I kinda liked it.
Is this what you kids would call a humble brag? Took you all of 10 minutes to finish puzzle because you were so distracted by reading closed captions.
ReplyDelete1) why didn’t you just keep audio on and listen while you whooshed?
2) why didn’t you take 5 minutes (or whatever) to solve with TV off?
If you were thrown by the naughtiness of PEEN, good thing you didn’t have to comment on the recent puzzle with DAP, TATAS, SCAT or AMAL (one letter away from the A in DAP)!i
Pun themes rarely stick the landing for me but today's was mitigated by being naval related. I've had a fascination with all things nautical starting with a hitch in the Navy and I've owned and sailed a couple of boats so anything about a ship in trouble grabs my attention.
ReplyDeleteI thought there was a nice balance between the theme and the fill. PEA BRAIN and IRIS SCAN were my favorites. Overall, the grid shows some quality constructioneering©®™M&A.
One way to avoid dealing with using the gendered LATINO/A is to go with "Hispanic".
I remember reading that BONOBOS are humans' closest genetic relatives, Just checked and both BONOBOS and chimpanzees share 98.7% of their DNA with us. That's not typo folks. It's 98.7%
Anoa Bob - Latino/a and Hispanic are not always interchangeable terms. While a person can certainly be both Latino and Hispanic, it is also true he can be one without being the other.
ReplyDeleteMalaika! i just want to say that I like the positive energy you bring to this blog.
ReplyDeleteAlso if you get this far down I think you (and anyone) should read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
I read it for the first time last year and it was engrossing. Incredibly poignant and well written. I can’t say enough good things about it.
Here IAM ready to pounce down on the constructors for trying to wring humor out of the Titanic disaster--but then at the last moment, their ship makes it back safely after all. So it was NOT the big T.
ReplyDeleteThe best joke of all is LANDS, as in the ship LANDS safely. A very, um, PRACTICAL one.
Nifty including STYX/ONYX. Not so cool: FAS. Rhymes with VASE (the way the dog says it in that TV ad).
Just enough weird stuff to give it a few midweek teeth; medium for the day. I won't say I ADOREd it, but I did like it. Birdie.
Wordle par.
The theme doesn’t quite LAND. A valiant effort but it just wasn’t bang on every time. LEAKEDFOOTAGE is weak. And it’s BREAKING news not BREAKINGSTORY So clunk and clunk.. Two out of three ain’t bad, but it ain’t great either..
ReplyDeletePEABRAIN ITEM 'LEAKED'
ReplyDeleteSo PRACTICAL are CURRENTEVENTS,
ANY BREAKINGSTORY TO be seen,
some LIVE'STREAMING' of A MEAN old GENT,
FOOTAGE of REX and where he's PEEN.
--- ROB ELLISON
Malaika:
ReplyDeleteI know you probably won't see this, but my sister went to IBM school in Chicago in the early sixties , when punch cards were prevalent. She was coding and debugging back then, and when a new coding language would come out, back to school she'd go and learn it.
This puzzle was just...odd. To me. It BUGged me. not sure why
ReplyDeleteDiana, LIW