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Tiny computer with a dessert-inspired name / TUE 6-20-23 / Popeye's burly foe / Candy brand from German / First woman in Greek myth / Starchy deep-fried bite
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
Constructor: Aimee Lucido
Relative difficulty: Medium
Blown things:
- RASPBERRY PI (24D: Tiny computer with a dessert-inspired name)
- BUBBLE WRAP (18D: Poppable packing material)
- WHISTLE STOP TOUR (6D: Political campaign made up of a series of short appearances)
- "KISS ME, KATE" (21D: 1948 musical based on "The Taming of the Shrew")
Raspberry Pi (/paɪ/) is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic computer science in schools. The original model became more popular than anticipated, selling outside its target market for uses such as robotics. It is widely used in many areas, such as for weather monitoring, because of its low cost, modularity, and open design. It is typically used by computer and electronic hobbyists, due to its adoption of the HDMIand USB standards.After the release of the second board type, the Raspberry Pi Foundation set up a new entity, named Raspberry Pi Trading, and installed Eben Upton as CEO, with the responsibility of developing technology. The Foundation was rededicated as an educational charity for promoting the teaching of basic computer science in schools and developing countries. Most Pis are made in a Sony factory in Pencoed, Wales, while others are made in China and Japan.
• • •
As for the fill, there were just too many overfamiliar repeaters, too much short stuff that felt a little stodgy, a little gunky. An ... accumulation, I guess. ODE DOH EMU ACAI ARIAL ORA OLE AARP OMNI TSAR ETRE ALPO ASTI PSST OSO ESTO ECO REI TERI SLOE ACHOO ACELA PSHAW ATESTS ETTU ... you expect to see a few of the old gang in any grid, but this is one case where Getting The Whole Gang Back Together isn't such a good idea. I will say that I ended up enjoying ET TU? for perhaps the first time in my life, solely because its clue refers to Brutus, and it crosses BLUTO, and Brutus crossing BLUTO is a hilarious (if possibly unintentional) wink at "Popeye" fans—the character of BLUTO gets replaced by a virtually identical character called Brutus in the TV series because of perceived copyright issues involving the earlier animated shorts. So if you thought [Popeye's burly foe] was Brutus, you're forgiven. I mean, look at this mess:
After the theatrical Popeye cartoon series ceased production in 1957, Bluto's name was changed to Brutus because it was incorrectly believed by King Features that Paramount Pictures, distributors of the Fleischer Studios (later Famous Studios) cartoons, owned the rights to the name "Bluto". King Features actually owned the name, as Bluto had been originally created for the comic strip. Due to a lack of thorough research, King Features failed to realize this and reinvented him as Brutus to avoid supposed copyright problems. "Brutus" (often pronounced "Brutusk" by Popeye) appears in the 1960–62 Popeye the Sailor television cartoons with his physical appearance changed, making him obese rather than muscular. He normally sported a blue shirt and brown pants. Brutus later appeared in the Popeye arcade game released by Nintendo.The character reverted to Bluto for Hanna-Barbera's The All-New Popeye Hour (1978–83) and the 1980 live-action Popeye movie, as well as the 1987 Popeye and Son series also by Hanna-Barbera. The character was also named Bluto in the 2004 movie Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy.
It was long accepted that Bluto and Brutus were one and the same. However, a 1988 Popeye comic book, published by Ocean Comics, presented the two characters as twin brothers. The Popeye comic strip, at the time written and drawn by Hy Eisman, generally featured only Brutus, but added Bluto as Brutus' twin brother in several 2008 and 2009 strips. The two continue to appear as brothers in the more recent strips by Randy Milholland. (wikipedia) (my emph.)
So ET TU? ends up being partially redeemed for me by the Brutus/BLUTO collision. But overall, it's a good thing that the long answers, particularly the themers, were strong, because they were fighting against an ocean of dreary 3s 4s and 5s. WHISTLE STOP TOUR is the best answer in the grid, and it's always when the best answers knows it's the best and sits proudly in the center spot.
Aside from trying to make sense of RASPBERRY PI, I had no other real problems during the solve today except for an absolutely epic wrong answer, brought about by a highly improbable amount of shared letters. I looked at 44A: Starchy, deep-fried bite, and then I looked at the grid, where I had TA--R-OT in place, and what's weird is not just that I wrote in a wrong answer, but that I didn't even hesitate: TARO ROOT! Of course the root isn't "deep-fried" by nature, but Lay's absolutely makes taro chips (as well as potato chips), and so I had no problem getting from the clue to TARO ROOT, especially since that's really the only answer my brain could see in the particular letter combination that I had.
With all those "correct" letters, TARO ROOT got weirdly embedded, and it took "KISS ME, KATE" to dislodge it. Big "D'OH!" when I finally got TATER TOT. Otherwise, as I say, no other problems. A very standard Tuesday level of difficulty overall. Looking forward to RASPBERRY BERET tomorrow. Don't let me down, Wednesday! See you then.
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79 comments:
Fun (for me) to see KISS ME KATE. This wonderful musical was our high school class play my senior year - 63 years ago! I still have a few selections on my primary playlist.
Thank you, @Rex, for clearing up the Bluto/Brutus conflict. I’ve been wondering about the reason since my nephews corrected me when I referred to Bluto.
Fun, easy.
My middle schoolers love raspberry pi.
Yet more French!
Cute - liked the vertical themers and we get a splashy revealer. If I remember right - @Joe D provided clarity on the use of DOH vs. DuH some time back. Keep NUDIST and TOY SHOP - drop PSHAW. We get a bacronym again.
From this moment on
Never having heard of RASPBERRY PI (so no, @Rex, you're not alone), I put in RASPBERRY PC, which I figured was some kind of marketing gimmick (although honestly more suited to Apple, with its colored iMacs). But when I finished with ASOF and saw WACF I changed it and got the happy music.
I agree with @Rex on the rest of the puzzle as well. I enjoyed solving it, lots of short, easy fill, good theme answers, some good non-theme answers (CLOTHESPIN, MAPLE SYRUP, THUMBNAILS). I wasn't sure about N-TESTS or A-TESTS, but it wasn't hard to suss out. Overall a fairly happy Tuesday solve.
Rex, Raspberry Pi is a great controller for lots of tech projects. It’s all good. The way you feel about it is the way the rest of us feel when you mention some random 17th century poet.
To add another vote to the @Dave L camp - I’d bet that there are more college students working on Raspberry Pi projects at any given time than there are reading fiction…
The RASPBERRY PI made - and continues to make - a huge difference opening up entry-level computing, especially in the developing world. Totally understandable that Rex and others haven't heard of it, but it's definitely cross-worthy. And the clue gave an extra helping hand.
you say that like it’s a good thing
I had "duh" for 2-Down because I didn't know FOMO, but finally decided to go with DOH and the happy music began. I thought the cluing was surprisingly straightforward, except for the NUDIST clue, which was the highlight of the puzzle for me.
Never heard of HARIBO. I thought it was wrong, because German words rarely end in "O."
Is it weird that I've heard of Raspberry Pi but never the phrase "blowing a raspberry"? Made me very confused about the theme until I looked it up.
Omg, what a stinker. Only Tuesday and we’re already knee deep in a quagmire of trivia, arcane slop and foreign languages. Today we have one row that is ORA - BREL - ESTO. An entire row in a crossword puzzle without a single real word. Add in stuff like FUMO, HARIBO, HOMME, PSHAW, ECOLE and OSO and congrats, you’ve basically turned your grid into the literary equivalent of a floating garbage scow. Obviously, I did not care for this one at all.
Brutus was a pitiful imitation of Bluto, and it was shocking when that substitution was made. So I was glad to see the One True Popeye Villain in this delightful puzzle. Enjoyed learning about RASPBERRY PI--cheap computing (made mostly in Wales, not China) for education--sounds like a good idea. But I looked it up and the photos of it make no sense to me. How do you use it? Is there a keyboard?
Something strange: My solve time was 5:26, and that's what's showing on the Statistics page. But this morning, when I opened the completed crossword to review the answers, the time showing above the puzzle is 15:00!!! Anyone else experiencing statistical weirdness?
Exactly the same for me!
Oh, lovely theme with its wordplay reveal, and every single theme answer is lively. Bravo, Aimee!
I let my eyes linger on the puzzle after filling it in, and noticed a few things. First, the long-O undercurrent. By my count there are nine answers ending with that sound and an epic 15 answers with that sound in the beginning or middle – O, the places you went!
Second, the two palindromes using the same letters (OSO and SOS). Third, the PuzzPair© of TERI and CLOTH (of CLOTHESPIN). Fourth, two names whose sounds I love: BLUTO and BOGIE. Fifth, when I saw HOMME on the edge, my brain shouted, “Sideman!”
Finally, ACHOO, echoing the blowing-air-out theme.
Aimee, your theme made me smile, the outing was sweet, and the serendipities rounded it all out. Loveliness all around. Thank you for this!
The wrong answer I confidently entered and held on to for too long was to the clue “symbol of strength and endurance” which I simply knew must be a YAK.
This one whooshed all the way through for me. I’d never heard of a RASPBERRY PI but it was inferable from the crosses and the cluing, so I call fair.
Another hand up for loving the NUDIST clue. The fill in general was a bit lackluster, but the theme was so sharp that I’m okay with it.
I’m not generally a fan of brand names, and, this is marginally better than the usual imo. HARIBO invented the gummy/gummi bear/“goldbear” as they call label them, and is quite litigious about trademark infringement. I don’t eat them anymore because of gelatin, but Haribo’s gummy peaches were one of my fave candies. Now I settle for the veggie alternative.
Also in the “never heard of Raspberry Pi” club but it didn’t really stop me due to the easy crosses.
Agreed
Old non-techie guy here, but I knew RASPBERRY PI from my very techie 30-something son. As often happens, I did the whole puzzle without noticing the theme. Still, a very satisfying Tuesday, Aimee — thanks!
The Tallahatchie Bridge, off of which Billie Joe McAllister plunged to his death in the famous ODE(1A), was a popular "jumping off" spot, so to speak. Leflore County estimated that 40 to 50 men jumped off of it -- and none died! The county imposed a fine of $180 per jump (in 1969 dollars). The original bridge was destroyed by fire in 1972, as a result of vandalism. It has been rebuilt.
A fuss was made over what was thrown off the bridge in connection with the jump -- a baby? a wedding ring? a draft card? Bobbie Gentry said she had in mind what it was but it wasn't important (and she never told anyone) -- the focus of the song was the nonchalance with which the family greeted the news of BJ's death. In an interview Gentry called the song "a study in unconscious cruelty."
Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes include a very funny (IMO) parody of the Bobbie Gentry song called "Clothes Line Saga." In it, the "event" is the Vice President's going mad. Is CLOTHES PIN (at 60A) a nod to it? Probably not -- too far a reach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmtQ6x1c_yo&t=9s
Super easy for me because it skewed so old (Brel, AARP, Clothespin, Bluto, Teri, Whistle Stop Tour). But sometimes Aimee Lucido seems to do that. In a few days, everyone here will be saying too easy for Friday and I'll be thinking what the hillocks.
Only nit was Doh/Duh, FOMO/FUMO, because apparently I missed out on FOMO and possibly for the second time.
Found The Guide to Making Great Speeches (from the 1920s) in a Little Library box at the YMCA a couple weeks ago. One tip was that you should be able to write a summary of your speech on your Thumb Nail. AHA! Doh/Duh!
@Taylor Slow, I'm in the Brutus camp myself.
@Beezer from yesterday, I've only known one Peter Pan fan and I thought, no one eats it but it's still there, like Fresca, which no one drinks. Not sure how I thought that would make sense to anyone else but me :D
My drama teacher sister is doing it with her kids next year!
I would say RASPBERRY PI is fairly common knowledge for millenials and zoomers, but understandably not for most solvers older than that.
I first put in Hagibo figuring GASP sort of fit.
Now I see Gummi Bears and wonder why I didn't remember.
From Wikipedia:
Haribo (German pronunciation: [ˈhaːʁiːboː], English: /ˈhærɪboʊ/ HARR-i-boh) is a German confectionery company founded by Hans Riegel Sr.. It began in Kessenich, Bonn, Germany. The name "Haribo" is a syllabic abbreviation formed from Hans Riegel Bonn.
Thx, Aimee; you BLU me away with this one! 🌬
Easy-med.
Smooth sailing all the way; I BLeW thru it with no typhoons, I mean typos. 💨
Very enjoyable adventure! :)
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Easy-med Croce, save for the parts that weren't. Spent lots of time contemplating the 'concrete' / 'archer' cross. Made the correct guess for the win!
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On to Brooke Husic's Mon. New Yorker. 🤞
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Hey All !
Thbbft
Har
Blowing a RASPBERRY. That sound made when you stuck your tongue out slightly twixt your lips and blow said lips to reverberate on said tongue. Wow. That sounded complicated! And a bit naughty.
RASPBERRY PI new here, too. Just not up on my new tech/youth stuff. GEN Xer here. Is the next OK(OK) Boomer going to be "There There Xer". 😁
Nice puz. Haven't had a Downs Theme in a while, so that was nice. PSHAW always fun to say.
BLUTO, Brutus, who cares, they were both assholes. Popeye never my cup of tea. Getting bullied until you eat spinach (where'd that come from, anyway, why not broccoli?) and then beating your enemy to a pulp. Yeah, educational.
Anyway, thanks for the puz, Aimee. It didn't leave me Blowing in the wind, so to speak. 🌪️
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Familiarity breeds contempt -- so that when the theme answers are long Downs instead of Acrosses, the puzzle immediately seems more interesting. And here there's a quite nifty revealer-based reason for it.
Very clean, with no junk and some great music references. What's not to like about Cole Porter's wonderful musical KISS ME KATE and the great Jacques BREL.
Nice clues for NUDIST and YEAST.
I do think that RASPBERRY PI, whatever that is, sounds like a detective in a children's book or cartoon. Maybe even an animal detective? In a BRIGHT red Sherlock Holmes-style hat, natch.
Or maybe it's just some tech company's answer to the Blackberry?
SLOE is a fruit used in SLOE gin, a gin-based liqueur. It is not used to make gin.
Southside Johnny
One thing, it's FOMO, another thing, you do know there are other languages besides English?
I had a one letter correction at the end, which was the R to L. (I noticed that Brutus didn't quite fit, but neglected to go fix it). Nice to know there was some method to me error.
RASPBERRYPI is a great answer in that I could get it without having heard of it, then got to learn something.
@Bob Mills, I was surprised that HARIBO was German when I found out, assuming it was Japanese, since the first places I saw it were Asian markets in NYC area (Mitsuwa and H-Mart).
@anon 7:44, my symbol of strength and endurance started with O, so Ohm the symbol for resistance seemed close enough. OAK much better!
@JD, Fresca seems to be big in Europe
ALPO/IAMSealoa pretty easy to solve today.
Another thumbs up for KISSMEKATE, a very rewarding show to MD.
ABBY was created in 2006, so I forgive myself for not knowing that one. Do other muppets have last names? In the old days, crossword clues were sometimes "woman's name". That would have been equally useful today:)
Excellent themers; I didn't notice the -ese-y-ness of the fill until RP listed it.
@floatingboy - good point, I didn't catch that; although just reread the clue to see that it doesn't state used to "make" gin. Just "in" gin, which would be correct when making sloe gin.
In case anyone was curious as to what a Raspberry Pi is used for and how it works, it's basically a stripped-down, low-power computer that fits on a small circuit board. It's can easily fit in the palm of your hand. There are different models, but in general a Raspberry Pi unit has a processor, storage, ram, USB, WiFi, etc. It's comparable in power to desktop machines ~10 years ago. They start at $35.
You can do all sorts of things with a Raspberry Pi, but in general you load programs onto it that you have written/adapted which interact with the world through various inputs and/or sensors and the unit is able to send signals to control things like electric motors, cameras, etc. Hobbyists use them to do things like automate tasks in smart home setups, add functionality to drones, etc. It's akin to WD-40 or duct tape for its ubiquity within these kinds of circles.
I had my own Tarot Root moment in the same area of the grid: “My Fair Lady” has the same number of letters as KISSMEKATE.
Both for for the back-to-back puzzles w/ raspberry and it’s techie focus, knew that would be the answer with the most commentary.
Have two sons with computer science degrees, so yeah, loved seeing that in the puzzle. And, at least for me, searching just “raspberry”, links to RASPBERRYPI occupy spots 2 and 3, behind only the wiki for the berry.
Tuesday rarely standout, for me, anyway, but that answer and down themers, at least made it interesting.
I got a laugh and a D'OH out of this one: solving from right to left, I had a BLOWn KISS, WHISTLE, and BUBBLE, then got to the R from HARIBO. What can you blow that starts with an R? No idea. I needed both the S and B before I saw yesterday's RASPBERRY.
I was surprised at @Rex's enumeration of so much creaky crosswordese in the grid; I really hadn't noticed it, what with the fun of writing in PANDORA, HARIBO, TATER TOT, MAPLE SYRUP, and CLOTHES PIN.
Do-overs: ARIeL BOGey, RASPBERRies (having forgotten about the TOP part). New to me: RASPBERRY PI, and that BLUTO changed his name!?!
Gen-Xer here who not only knows what a Raspberry Pi is, but has three of them sitting in this room as I type. One of them is connected to my router, blocking ads and phishing sites on my entire home network (running "Pi-hole"). Another is currently set up to emulate old arcade games (using "RetroPi"). They're fun and versatile little gadgets!
@burtonkd, There's no accounting for taste. Especially when the taste is carbonated battery acid.
Cute and I appreciated a little different spin with the long downs instead of crosses but had to come here before I GOT how the revealer related to the theme answers. I had never heard of the PI but thought it must be some sort of relative to the BlackBerry. Also had to stop and wonder about the chances of having RASPBERRY as a premiere entry two days in a row.
Apropos to the lingering Fresca conversation, I think the last time I drank it was in Mexico more than a decade ago. It seemed to be very popular there at the time. I have a friend who is diabetic and uses it to make margaritas.
I'd never heard of RASPBERRY PI either, but so what? The clue tells you it's 'dessert-inspired' so I got the first word off the RAS. Of course I thought the last two letters would be Pc, but I waited for the crosses anyway. And what it adds to the theme, as another thing you can blow, is worth any nichey-ness. Also, I'm willing to believe those who say it's very well known among the under-50 set. Plus we get two other fruits, and some MAPLE SYRUP.
the only problem was the location of the revealer at the top of the puzzle, which cut short the process of trying to figure out what the theme was. I could have had a delightful time trying to figure out what THUMBNAILS, MISPLACE, TATERTOT, & CLOTHESPIN had in common.
Aside from that, my only question was about MARCO Polo, which I always thought was a form of hide-and-seek. Oh, I see that it is, just in the water. OK. When my children were young, the neighborhood kids played a similar game on dry land, except that they shouted "Beep! Beep!" and "Roadrunner"
I've got a Raspberry Pi set up for classic gaming emulation. It's got every NES, SNES, and Genesis game on there.
I know HARIBO because they make Gummy Bears.
I really dislike most Broadway musicals, but I love Kiss Me Kate, the songs are so infectious:
Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow
Just declaim a few lines from Othella
And they'll think you're a hell of a fella
If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopatterer
If she fights when her clothes you are mussing
What are clothes? Much ado about nussing
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they'll all kow-tow
etc. etc.
Enjoyed the theme. Did not know about Raspberry Pi despite having a techie son. (Long out of the house however.) I remember eons ago he bought some sort of very simple laptop where the deal was they would give another one to a school in Africa. I don't think the project was ultimately very successful. Sounds like this version of the project actually works.
I learned Raspberry PI & gotta remember "Ora" (Rita) for the future. A fun Tuesday puzzle - thanks, Aimee.
Easy-medium. Cute and mostly smooth. Fun solve, liked it.
Did not know RASPBERRY PI and HARIBO.
@Son Volt – I don't remember ever posting a clarification of "duh" vs "d'oh!", although there is a distinction in my mind. "Duh" is for when something is, or should have been, totally obvious. "D'oh!" is more startled exasperation when something stupid occurs.
As for "Ode To Billie Joe", a new book resolves the ending once and for all. It's revealed that the preacher recanted his story: it wasn't Billie Joe and the narrator that he saw on the bridge, it was Carly Simon arguing with some guy wearing an apricot scarf, and Carly screamed "You probably think this is about you, don't you?!" and then pushed him off the bridge.
Thought this one was way easy and had no idea there was a theme involved while solving. They all seem fine, but to "blow a raspberry" just doesn't sound quite right to me. I'm not sure what the proper verb is. "Give"? Just don't know.
Getting in relatively late has its benefits as I found out all about what a RAPSBERRYPI is, and it sounds like a good thing, but it's all news to me.
@Liveprof--Loved the info on the Tallahatchee bridge. I've seen pictures of it and remember thinking how did old Billy Joe die after jumping off something like that? We used to jump off a higher bridge in my hometown just for kicks.
The German teacher in my high school used to give out HARIBOs as prizes. Otherwise I would never have heard of that one either.
Always Like your stuff AL. A breezy Tuesday and I learned some stuff. Thanks for all the fun.
Not a computer hobbyist but I did set up an electronic calendar to hang in our kitchen using a monitor, a raspberry pi, and the dakboard application, so I had heard of it. I don’t think it’s universal by any means, but gettable from the crosses. I enjoyed the themed answers in this a great deal (though from Whistle Stop Tour, my first answer, I thought they would all include the word top). Trivia wasn’t too obscure. A good Tuesday puzzle.
Well...I thought this was delicious. It had some bodaciousness hither and yon.
I will alway invite some of the "old gang" to my party. The old-timers may harrumph but they also throw in a huzzah when needed. I like diversity.
Things that made me think:
BLOW YOUR TOP: I know what it means but I wondered how it got into our language. You can also blow your lid and your stack. I think I saw what it does when watching Saturday cartoons. I might've asked "WHY?"....
I looked at RASPBERRY PI and wanted to add a little E at the end.
And then....HARIBO. Who are you and why don't I know you....I'm a chocoholic. I have a small crystal bowl always filled with little grabbies. Everyone seems to like the Ghirardelli chocolate squares. I go for the Hershey's nuggets truffles. But HARIBO? Do you taste good? Will my 5 year old granddaughter like you?
I looked at 22D and thought..."could Aimee be bold enough to expect a French man to be Un Mec?" I guess not...just the HOMME we learned in school.
The party seemed like a success. I enjoyed watching everyone BLOWING something or other. I BLOW a KISS goodbye.
High schoolers delaying sex and getting driver’s licenses. College kids drinking less and playing with computers. When I was young, we chased girls, raced cars and did drugs and we turned out okay!
When I got no Happy Music, I assumed it was a DuH/DOH kealoa; when that failed to solve the problem, I had to spend a bit of time before finding I had hastily entered GeT for 69A--"Comprehend (ed)--not noticing in my haste that it was clued past tense and not cross-checking the down, which was obviously IDO, not IDe.
DOH! (Or DUH?)
I’ve heard “Give a raspberry,” but never “Blow” one. Otherwise, fast breezy puzzle. I liked it.
Apparently blowing things is solidly in my wheelhouse. Easy and fun today with a delightful theme (love 'em when they're vertical).
Hand up for BRUNO/BLUTO/BRUTUS head collapse.
The clear gold HARIBO gummies are the best and pineapple flavored with the finest chemicals Germans can manufacture. You can buy bags of pineapple-only and avoid the wretched red and green gummies, but they're $5 an ounce right now, so it's cheaper to fly to Dresden to eat them there.
Tee-Hee: NUDIST
Uniclues:
1 Poetic ad on Craigslist offers advice columnist for cheap.
2 New filler ads on your social feeds when Siri discovers your daughter is pledging a sorority.
3 The old man's {you know} in the gymnasium locker room.
4 Action undertaken when uttering the phrase, "I adore you and will eat you up."
5 Try getting along instead.
6 Clichéd scene in rags to riches movie.
1 ODE PAWNS ABBY
2 TOGA THUMBNAILS (~)
3 NUDIST KIWIS
4 ELBOWS TATER TOT
5 SCRAP A-TESTS
6 WAIF GOT SYRUP (~)
I LOVED the theme, thought it was uniquely playful and fresh.
Unlike so much of the so-called wit and attempts at humor in puzzles nowadays (typically referred to as DAD joking), this piece presented a theme that was fun-at-heart and whooshing, a characteristic OFL normally praises. (His take on raspberrypi was tiresome, replicating his regular rant on stuff he does not know.)
Agree that the short fill didn’t match the masterful theme and the longer fill but it was mostly clued fairly and imaginatively.
I always find AL’s work a real delight and this was no exception.
BRAVO, Aimee!
Missed that - and I didn’t know FOMO so that was my DNF square.
Cute theme. TOP-notch stuff, enabled by the vertical themer crew.
staff weeject pick: DOH. Had the F?MO/D?H decision to face, was in doubt, and went with "U". Doh! Wrong again, M&A breath.
fave fillins included; THUMBNAILS. PANDORA. TATERTOT. NUDIST & its clue.
Toughest name-them-names area, at our house: HOMME/ORA/HARIBO/BREL/RASPBERRYPI.
Thanx for the fun, Ms. Lucido darlin.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
**gruntz**
and/or
**gruntz**
Cole Porter’s last and absolutely best musical.
Solid Tuesday theme, but again I finished with an error: CLOTHES PEG. I was zooming through all the acrosses and never came back to check the down clues, as EDO and GET looked fine!
Hands up for knowing RASPBERRY PI cuz I worked in website programming, but learned that HARIBO is not Japanese although it sounds it, and the commercials somehow look Japanese.
[spelling Bee: Mon 0, but Sun missed this 7er which I have never ever heard in my life.]
I have never seen a RASPBERRY PI and am not even sure what OS they might run. But reading the clue, I wrote RASPBERRY PI into the grid with absolutely no crosses in place because I have seen enough tech nerds mention the device in social media.
This was an easy one. It ranks 4th for the fastest Tuesday ever in my log of NYTXW solve times.
DUH is the way we spelled it until The Simpsons came along. DUH. And crossing another generally unknown "modern lingo". DUH. But because I seldom see DUH in these puzzles, I correctly guess-entered the O.
@Joe Dipinto 11:01AM
@Son Volt
DUH: Someone else is being dumb
DOH: I'm being dumb.
Right?
I hadanearlier submission which I’m guessing was torpedoed by mods. It contained an innocuous nit about Rex’s commentary. It also contained a jewel of a pun. This may have been my downfall. Rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com: where humor goes to die.
Me too@Joaquin! HS musical for my huge HS with so much talent the fabulous vocal and instrumental teachers added 4 performances to give both casts equal number of Friday and Saturday night performances. If only I could dance. That’s a dance intensive show so I stayed in the pit. Great score though; so much fun.
If you don't know what a Raspberry Pi is, you definitely need to. The social implications of it are huge.
It's a computer the size of a deck of cards and costs less than $50. There's a ton of purses on the market for $500. For the same price, you can buy 10 computers and they could all fit inside it.
It's not hard to realize the implications for developing countries, elementary education, robotics, etc. It's cheap enough you can buy one for your kid and not care if they break it while experimenting with it. Compare that with your own upbringing where having a PC at home was likely a big luxury at some point during your childhood.
I had TAro roOT too — my biggest hangup of the day, not that it was huge. Just saw “starchy” in the clue, had pretty much the same letters in place as Rex described, and confidently filled it in. Should’ve paid more attention to “deep-fried” in the clue.
I remember being confused as a kid over the BLUTO/Brutus thing. Same character, different names? They were all syndicated reruns so I had no concept of episode sequencing.
Well, call me east, but I limed this one and forgive it its “blah-ness” in spots because the tradeoff was some pretty snazzy fill. Im going to like any Monday or Tuesday with a bit of crunch or novelty and I think this had both.
Rather than being unhappy with the BRUNO/BLUTO issue, I think it’s perfectly fair. Anyone who likes Gumi Beats as much as I do had zero hesitation with HARIBO. I was among the elite in my elementary classes - at least after Weinachtsabend, because my German grandmother would always fill my stocking with HARIBO delicacies from Germany (german language packages) and luscious chocolate shoes from Holland, neither of which was available in the US (or at least not readily so) until I was a young adult.
Gran always reminded me that hoarding was rude and that when you spread your good fortune it will be returned to you tenfold. I didn’t completely buy it, but always shared anyway. It was certainly a good habit that has served me well. Just another of her quiet ways to teach. And I learned a couple very hard lessons about the possible cruelty to f opportunists. But I digressed. Now I see HARIBO products everywhere, and every single time, I think of Gran and my earliest Christmas memories.
I loved that there was some crunch. The WHISTLE STOP part of the TOUR was simple but it gave a bit of nice resistance. I really wanted to BLOW a gasket, and I actually tossed it in. Too bad, but YEAST cleared it up quickly.
I chuckled over the CLOTHESPIN because just yesterday, my BFF Mary T and I were both complaining about our mutually dreaded and detested weekly task of folding and laundry. We started laughing at each other when we recalled having to help our mothers and grandmothers making us separate the whites, prepare the blueing tub, put in the whites, rinse the whites, wring the whites, wash the whites, wring the whites, hang the whites outside if possible to allow the sun to further bleach them and the sun and wind to dry them more quickly than in the basement. After they dried, dampen them with a sprinkle top stuck in a coke bottle of water, roll the whites and out them in a plastic bag for starching and ironing. And that was just the whites.
You cannot imagine how many times I complained that my brother never had to do any of these kinds of chores. To her credit, Gran approach Mom who said brother Sam was fair game to help with anything. To Sam’s credit, he was ok with helping me until Dad found out and . . . let’s just say that may have been the first time I had it out with my dad. And then t never did get any better. Hopboy, mixed feelings about that dang CLOTHESPIN.
Overall, I enjoyed this one. Its Tuesday and the puzzle fit the bill. Made me want to go see if I could find a TATER TOT (or 20) in my freezer. Does anyone really dislike a good TATER TOT? Thanks Aimee Lucido. Best consecutive Monday-Tuesday in a while.
Ditto!
@Gary J – I agree you can't say "d'oh" in reference to someone else. But I think you can say "duh" about either yourself or someone else.
@Gary J, @Joe D...
These days if I say, "Duh," it's short for, “You have a keen grasp of the obvious.”
Back in the day, I think we may have accentuated that as, "No duh."
I liked the puzzle. Thought it was easy. I have realized doing these puzzles how little I know candy names and makers unless I had them when I was young many years ago. (I tend to binge on small pieces of junk food so I never buy it. And horrors I am not a fan of chocolate). But the crosses were fair for Haribo and it must have been in the puzzle before.
I am biased because I love to learn about other languages so I like it when non English words are among the answers. In any event, it is clear that Shortz likes to see that in the puzzle so if you do this puzzle you got to expect it.
No complaints about Brel-how dare they let a French name in the puzzle!- I wonder if younger people know of him?
Whistle Stop tour didn’t get any complaints I am happy to see. It is an old political tactic famously used by Truman (HST) in his upset victory over Dewey in 1948. I think it already had an old timey feel about it even then.
It’s the same as a Bronx Cheer.
Wednesday puzzle was fun. Stumbled on salicylic acid (which, BTW is aspirin). I put "ache", which was impossible to troubleshoot since I had no idea who Idina Menzel was. Idiha Menzel made perfect sense to me.
This made a Wednesday puzzle take longer than my usual Friday puzzle.
@burtonkd Hmmmm. If I say to you that herbs are used in olive oil, you wouldn't think that I literally mean that herbs are used to MAKE olive oil because you know they're not. You would probably just think that I worded it wrong because the correct thing to say is "Herbs are used to flavor olive oil." If someone says that something is used in something, the universally-understood meaning is that it is an ingredient.
A very nice execution of a familiar type of theme. Things are looking up in puzzledom.
And with that, I'm caught up from vacation. Phew!
How can everybody not know HARIBO instantly, with that ridiculous TV ad featuring adults at a business meeting talking in TOTS' voices, and that STUPID singsong jingle? I just didn't realize it was German. Smacks much more of Japanese, I'm thinking.
Of all bleedovers, RASPBERRY takes the cake--er--PI.
Fill is a bit namey, and ATESTS should be banned (double meaning there). DOD to Pauley Perrette, who played ABBY. H.M. to Rita ORA.
Good theme, revealer, & execution. OKOK, crowded with old standbys like ASTI, ACAI, ALPO and ARIAL. Overall, par.
Wordle par.
BLOW ME A KISS
OK, remember NUDIST TERI?
Scratched from THUMBNAILS to ELBOWS?
GOT into A PLOT OF RASPBERRY,
after she MISPLACEd her CLOTHES.
--- MARCO "BLUTO" NOLTE
from yesterday:
OVER RACY
AMIE wore a BRA on TOP,
and MADE a DEMO to get FED,
ERGO, for SPORT, let it DROP,
and was SCENE to get BREAD.
--- SEN. EVAN "POPS" HALE
from Sunday (@Burma Shave has been otherwise occupied):
PLAY AOKAY
IN MEMORY of ELAINE,
whose TALENTS for SEX were HER own,
HER OINTMENT COARSE TO explain,
but WELCOME CLOSE (TO THE) BONE.
--- PETER "THEDUDE" REESE
RASPBERRYPI just didn’t land for me. Aimee is usually better than this. Not bad, but I kind of expected more.
Sunday - a repeat (and not such a hot one at that)
Monday - bread slices repeat
Tuesday - a Bronx cheer again - another RASPBERRY (tho tis a pi(e))
OKOK - repeat yourself repeat yourself
(yeah, I know...you can say that again)
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Pretty much what @D,LIW said. Tho I'd kinda like to say this puzzle BLOWs.
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