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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: RAUL Esparza (50A: Actor Esparza with four Tony nominations) —
Raúl Eduardo Esparza (born October 24, 1970) is a Cuban-American stage, screen, and voice actor, as well as singer. Considered one of Broadway's leading men since the 2000s, he is best known for his Tony Award-nominated performance as Bobby in the 2006 Broadway revival of Company and for his television role as New York Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Rafael Barba in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, where he had a recurring role in Season 14 and was promoted to a series regular in Seasons 15 to 19. [...] Esparza has been nominated in all Tony categories for which an actor is eligible. He is widely regarded for his versatility on stage, having performed musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, Boy George, the Sherman Brothers and in plays by Mamet, Pinter, William Shakespeare, Tom Stoppard, and more. // His film work includes Sidney Lumet's Find Me Guilty and Wes Craven's My Soul to Take, and his television credits include roles on The Path, Medium, Hannibal and Pushing Daisies. He narrated the audiobook for Stephen King's Under the Dome as well as several others, and he sings in concerts across the country. (wikipedia)
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| ["Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall". (nielsenhayden.com)] |
The puzzle is refreshingly free of obscurities and is mercifully unreliant on proper nouns ... which makes it sound like I don't like proper nouns, which I do, it's just you Know how those things can really divide an audience and make the same puzzle easy for some and brutal for others. Always sucks to get on the side of brutality. But today, no such side. The only proper nouns are in the connective tissue, tiny things like RYAN and RAUL (the only answer I wasn't familiar with). Sometimes those little answers can make a big difference, though. Today, for instance, I was saved by ANKA. I'd dropped ENLARGE down at 5D: Option in a photo editing app and I needed Paul to pull me out of that trap (thank you, Paul). I thought "ENHANCE!" was the easily parodied exclamation that investigators shout at blow-ups of grainy surveillance footage in TV shows. I did not know it was an actual "Option." Other things I didn't know ... not much. Took me a bit to figure out who this RYAN person was (he's the RYAN that comes after "Saving" and "Private") (18A: Title paratrooper in a 1998 war film). DOGSTAR also took me a bit because I was not taking the "familiarly" part of the clue seriously (39D: Brightest point in Canis Major, familiarly); or, rather, I was taking it ... Siriusly.
Definitely stalled (!) on the RACEHORSES clue (17A: Animals that all share the same "birthday" (January 1)). I guess the horses' actual birthdays don't matter for race classification purposes. I think I knew that, but it certainly didn't help me here. I had RACEL- (because of ENLARGE!), which wasn't getting me anywhere, so I was a bit slow right out of the gate (!!). Other, much smaller issues:
Issues!:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
- 36A: Greek philosopher known for reductio ad absurdum arguments (ZENO) — some small part of me alllllllways wants to spell his name XENO (Warrior Prince!?).
- 49D: Without direction (IDLY) — hard / impossible to tell if this is going to be adjectival or adverbial. I went with adjectival but thankfully the cross was unambiguous (brie is RUNNY, not RUNNE).
- 11D: Laundry room detritus (DRYER SHEET) — "detritus" had me thinking of ... lots of things. That is, multiple things. Plurals. And SHEETS wouldn't fit, so I futzed about here for a bit until I realized I was just dealing with a singular, which is accurate enough, "detritus" being both the singular and the plural (see ... I dunno, "sheep?"). Also, I never know if it's DRIER or DRYER. I guess the former is the comparative adjective and the latter is the appliance? Yes, let's go with that.
See you tomorrow.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Lovely puzzle, very Friday, slightly on the easy side. No rap singer or supermodel names: yay!
ReplyDeleteAnother boomer complaining about rappers - never too late in life for some education!
DeleteMy new friday personal best. Better quicker than a lot of my Wednesdays. And from my phone which slows me down with fat finger mistakes. Pleasant but felt too easy for a Friday.
ReplyDeleteGood puzzle and good way to end the week and begin the weekend in earnest. I’m a fan of the Oxford comma. Most of the time it doesn’t matter either way, but in some cases it really helps to clarify the meaning and avoid ambiguity. I’ve never heard it called a serial comma, though. Before I red Rex’s column, I guessed the term referred to people using commas in place of periods (which I’ve been seeing again and again over the past decade). I learned something new today.
ReplyDeleteEnhance is not an actual option
ReplyDeleteNot sure what photo editing app you have but everyone of mine has an Enhance tab
DeleteAgreed. This seems more like something from aTV show or movie than something I've ever seen in an actual app.
DeletePhotoshop, Lightroom, and Google Photos all have enhance options.
DeleteThere are a number of photo editing apps that have "enhance" commands
DeleteMy Google Photos "Enhance" option is my go-to.
DeletePhotoshop, Lightroom, and Google Photos all have Enhance options
DeleteEasy-easy for me, a total whoosh-o-rama. Very enjoyable but very quick. As always with Robyn, tons of clever clues. I was ready for them right out of the gate, first thinking of the obvious “track” for “a train might get pulled along it,” but then saying to myself, “Not going to fall for it, Robyn!” I thought of a bridal train, checked 1-down, knew it was AGRA, and AISLE went in. Then, sometimes that “I’m on to you” strategy backfires. I was sure “like a sore loser, perhaps” would be a misdirection toward something like “achey,” but, no, it was your standard-issue POUTY sore loser.
ReplyDeleteThere were too many other good clues to mention - but I’ll mention one, “game you can’t stand to lose” for MUSICAL CHAIRS.
There were two places where I wanted a word with an X - “oxford COMMA” for SERIAL COMMA and “Xavier” for LOYOLA. Easy to check the crosses and X out those possibilities.
Contranym (run FAST or hold FAST) sent me down a rabbit hole. If you’d asked me for examples, I probably could have come up with two - oversight and sanction. But I found a list with 75 of them, many evoking a “Huh!” as I perused them. (Peruse: to read without attention to detail or to read in great detail.) I wonder if they started from people just getting a word 180 degrees wrong so much that the opposite meaning took hold. I wonder if other languages have these. Further down the rabbit hole. I found a few in Spanish, like “oler” - to smell (a flower) or to smell (bad).
Love learning new things like SERIALCOMMA. Grew up in an era where Puppy Love was Donny Osmond’s no. 1 hit single so some times forget that ANKA did it first. This played more like a Wednesday but enjoyable nonetheless. Wanted DRYERSHEETS to be dryer lint but too short.
ReplyDeleteENHANCE is the software’s best guess at optimizing the image without adjusting each variable manually. Also thought about Enlarge but resisted the temptation as the crosses didn’t look favorable.
Now that's a nice puzzle. It took me a rather long time to complete it, but it was a pleasure all the time. All those nice long entries, both up and down, were a treat. Thank you Robyn Weintraub and Will Shortz.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, those smile-producing wordplay-heaven clues and the conversational gems that mark Robyn’s puzzles are present today. I marked three clues as terrific before I even left the NW (those for AISLE, SECT, and ACE), for heaven’s sakes. Then I headed east and ran into [Glum drops] for TEARS – need I say more? As for conversational gems, may I direct your attention to TELL ME ABOUT IT, a phrase that has never appeared in the NYT puzzle’s 80 years.
ReplyDeleteThese high-entertainment elements may mask the underlying skill in a RW. An answer set that has been scrubbed and polished, banished of junk. The grid designs themselves that allow Robyn to insert a high number of those luscious long words and phrases, eight letters or more.
Which is to say that Robyn is an all-around pro. And, IMO, a Crosslandia treasure. Before I went to bed last night I peeked at who made today’s puzzle (I solve at wakeup), and when I saw who it was, it felt like a holiday eve.
I did like seeing that sweet schwa-train of AGRA / MEGA / POLKA / AREA / ANKA / LOYOLA.
Robyn, once again I’m stepping into my day with a happy bounce to my step. You’ve got that knack, and please, please, continue to pour forth with your sparkling jewels – thank you!
Enjoyed this a lot, but it played like a very easy Wednesday for me. This is now my best Friday (10 minutes exactly) and my best Thursday is 12:53. Weird. Sometimes you simply click with the creator I guess.
ReplyDeleteWow, a Friday-level (in difficulty) puzzle with clean, crisp clues, real words as answers and pretty much devoid of PPP and arcane trivia (save ZENO, perhaps). I’ve been doing the NYT puzzles for so long now that I forgot that constructing one and adhering to those type of constraints was even possible. Thank you for gracing us once again with a fine sample of your elegant craftwomanship Robyn (I think I just made up a word - perhaps I aspire to be an Xword editor for the NYT).
ReplyDeleteThe only thing mildly distasteful about this entire grid is contemplating the possibility of encountering some RUNNY Brie.
Never met a Robyn puzzle I didn’t like. Some wonderful stuff today. Contranym! Serial comma! That great clue for musical chairs! Thanks, Ms. Weintraub.
ReplyDeleteEasy (no surprise given the constructor) and entertaining (no surprise given the constructor) puzzle.
ReplyDeleteClue for AREA is uncharacteristically poor.
AGRA was a bit of a surprise. Taj Mahal, of course. But who knew the other two (Fatehpur Sikri and the Red Fort at Agra)?
My laundry room detritus is a bunch of used tissues left in pockets, now washed and dried.
Tissues in the dryer and filter! You must be my husband!
Delete
ReplyDeleteI subscribe to all the wonderful comments about Ms. Weintraub. I finished the NW and thought to myself, "This is going to be a fun puzzle. I wonder who the constructor is?" (I don't normally check that before I start). I scrolled up, saw the byline and smiled. On the easy side of a Friday, but totally enjoyable.
My only overwrite was LEo before LEE at 4D. I (briefly) thought that brie at 58A might be RiNdY, but then I remembered who the constructor is. Robyn wouldn't do that to us.
My biggest disappointment is that I filled in MUSICAL CHAIRS from crosses before reading the excellent clue.
BOOOORING.
ReplyDeleteThis was ridiculously easy. According to the NYT app I finished in less than 1/3 of my average Friday time -- and I don't even speed-solve.
The only hangup was SOUP TO NUTS -- a phrase I've never heard and almost certainly will never hear again.
I'm a boomer. "From soup to nuts" means "everything" as in "from appetizer to dessert," but it was used for non-meal situations. I chuckled when I saw it coming on the crosses ... hadn't realized that it isn't used any more. Even 40-50 years ago it was outdated, as formal dinners with soup and nuts weren't common.
DeleteS0up 2 Nutz is featured on a track on FUTURE's new album.
DeleteIs SERIALCOMMA the same as OXFORDCOMMA? BTW I’m totally in on that comma. No debate from me.
ReplyDeleteIt is. And I'm with you on that subject.
DeleteThis was a KEALOA for me! Was hoping Rex would identify it as such.
DeleteI liked this one but it played like Tuesday - very easy but with long answers.
ReplyDeleteLess than splashy - but true to form and a pleasant solve.
ReplyDeleteLaura Cantrell
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWeintraub is the Monarch of Clues and the all-around GOAT
ReplyDeleteYAAAY - A Robyn puzzle.
ReplyDeleteSo good to see you Robyn - made my day:)
I don’t recognize a lot of constructor bylines, but RW is an exception. I always love her puzzles. This one was one of her easier offerings - my time was about half my average for a Friday - but nonetheless enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteMy job involves writing news releases (AP Style, no serial comma) on a college campus, where people are used to academic styles which prescribe the comma, so that was a pretty easy answer to write in; it’s definitely a debated topic in my world. I firmly believe the AP will eventually drop their guidance. Until that distant day, I will continue to man the barricades, but without any zeal. There may have been reason for it in the days of print, but any justification is long gone. The best one can say about the absence of a serial comma is that it’s usually not confusing. Always using it is so much cleaner and clearer.
The issue with rap artists isn't their music. It is that their names are often little more than random letter sorts. If you don't know them you can't figure it out. Especially obscure ones. IceT and Drake are one thing. But names like Lil Uzi Vert don't belong in puzzles aimed at a wide audience.
ReplyDelete@Todd and others - i don't comment too much anymore, but this is an absurd critique i am just...so tired of reading. it's fine if you don't care for unguessable PPP in your crossword - especially if the crosses are more of the same. that's totally understandable. if that's the issue, then say that. it seems like the other issue is that rap simply isn't in your wheelhouse, which is also okay - we all have our own blindspots to be sure. but the names of rappers are no more letter salad than ancient artists, random architects, biblical characters, gods of mythology, and any number of rulers past, to give several examples of NYT crossword fodder that has contained names comprised of "random letter sorts." so to see commenters consistently complain about rap specifically - when this issue spans so many other categories of clues - is just odd to me. (again, please note i'm not ragging on anyone for saying "rap isn't my thing so i didn't know [name] and that made part of this puzzle hard for me" - i'm specifically responding to the "rap doesn't belong in crosswords" crowd.)
DeleteIf there was ever a perfect time for a puzzle “more solid than sizzling,” it was today. Yesterday I had the thought that I hoped Friday would at least be uncomplicated. Then what to my wondering eyes should appear but the Queen BEE herself - the divine Ms. W - a MOST welcome sight for this weary solver.
ReplyDeleteNo tilting grids, no added instructions, no circles or shaded squares, no TEARS of frustration - just a smooth, clean crossword which was a joy to complete. Not to OVERSTATE the situation but after the past week, it felt like a gently floating cloud of PEACE. Thank you Robyn, for this MOST refreshing start to the weekend.
Wow, everything in this puzzle I knew from somewhere else Gunpowder plot is an episode on the podcast Stuff You Missed In History Class (which is a fabulous podcast), Zeno is a name of a character in a book I loved, Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antony Doerr and the story states that he is named for the Greek Philosopher. I rarely “know” the answers like that, i just figure them out, so it was fun for once to just be able to write them in!! Anyhoo, excellent puzzle.
ReplyDeleteSOUP TO NUTS? SOUP TO NUTS?!
ReplyDeleteOtherwise a thoroughly enjoyable fill. Hooray.
As noted above, another expression that was once very common. In my case ( I am a boomer) I am just learning that it is an unknown among younger ( 2 comments by previous bloggers) people. Ah me, as crosswords like to say, again reminded how old I am.
DeleteI do remember a lot of soup to nuts holiday dinners.
What @Conrad said about having a good time and then checking to see who the constructor was and saying, yep, that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteSomehow I knew the thing about RACEHORSES, which I remembered after enough of the fill was in. Found out that Pvt. RYAN was a paratrooper and made the acquaintance of RAUL, mucho gusto, Sr. RAUL.
Extra added supplemental bonus points for including TENORS. At least 65% of TENORS will agree with me.
A tad easy for a Friday, and over too soon, RW, but a Real Whoosh can be a treat. Thanks for all the fun.
Heaven - a week of Robyn Weintraub puzzles, each with comments by LMS!
ReplyDeleteTerrific puzzle and write-up today. Nice to see a late week RW. I ended on the wonderful "elbow alternative", PSST, so I'll do the same.
ReplyDeleteWelp, AISLE be having a HAM and RUNNY Brie for lunch. I always love to “eat a sandwich.”
ReplyDeleteI went to bed last night with a DRYERSHEET than what I woke up with. Lying there this morning I felt like I had SOUPTONUTS.
I’ve never done a RW puzzle that I didn’t love. I agree that this one was easier than most. Here a whoosh! They’re a whoosh! Everywhere a whoosh, whoosh! But pure solving joy. Thanks, Robin.
As an Oxford Comma true-believer, I say to the NYT, "Bah humbug on your anti-serial comma stance." And although I might die on this hill, I won't cancel my subscription over it!
ReplyDeleteMy first time ever commenting, but this was my fastest Friday ever! Just thought I'd mention for you fans of the Oxford/serial comma - look up the British poet Brian Bilston and find his poem The Importance of the Oxford Comma. I think you'll enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteFor more on the serial comma, search:
ReplyDeleteLack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions in Overtime Dispute
This was my fastest Friday ever! This is also my first time commenting, but for you fans of the Oxford/serial comma, look up the British poet Brian Bilston. His poem "The Importance of the Oxford Comma" is very amusing.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteFun, not too taxing FriPuz for me. Always like to feel smarter than I am when I knock out a puz like this quickly! Then I go back to the SB, and realize how fast the ole brain is waving goodbye!
GREENPEACE, I do admire their efforts, but a scene I remember from "Armageddon" (the Bruce Willis movie) is he's on his oil rig, shooting golf balls at the GREENPEACE boat, yelling, "Do you know how much diesel that clunker burns?!" Admirable, but try a bit harder/smarter.
Got MUSICAL CHAIRS right off with no crosses! But doubted it, as oxford COMMA is how I know it, SERIAL COMMA is a new one here. I flip twixt using it, and not using it. Whatever the mood strikes. Har.
Nice puz, Robyn. No ASS, came close with tha ASP.
No VANS for me, I'm a Converse Chuck Taylor guy.
Happy Friday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Forgot to brag about my QB yesterday. Today's SB put me back in my place. Yikes.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of being too much of a Robyn Weintraub fanboy, I was quite happy when I saw her name today. I'm with Rex -- not her most sparkly offering but excellent nonetheless, and better than 90% of what we typically get on Friday. High-quality long entries, zillions of access points into various sections of the grid, minimal junky fill.
ReplyDeleteRandomness:
-- Loved the clues for ACE and MUSICALCHAIRS, as well as the ANT/AIDE pair. The SECT clue didn't quite land for me; "decision" seems a stretch.
-- RACEHORSES brings to mind Emily Litella's screed against conservation of "natural RACEHORSES" when so many other kinds of horses don't get the same preferential treatment (man, I miss Gilda). I'm actually feeling a little queasy about RACEHORSES these days, with all the recent deaths at Churchill Downs and Santa Anita before that. There's talk here in greater NYC that tomorrow's Belmont Stakes may be cancelled if air quality remains poor.
-- Errata: vIpS >> BIOS and EliDE >> ERODE.
-- I use POUTY frequently in Wordle, often right before or after a word like AISLE. That way, I have insight into all 6 possible vowels.
-- Surprised to see that SOUPTONUTS is unfamiliar to some. Maybe it's a regional thing?
-- Re: the clue for UNIT...Upon initiation to my college fraternity, every new brother was given a mean nickname. We had a "Newton" (guy who seemed really dumb; was actually very smart) and a "Kelvin" ("absolute zero" personality; that one was true). Full disclosure: I was "Hemorrhoid" because I was a complete pain in the...you know.
Good, solid puzzle and a relief from Thursday's chaos. I had trouble with the NE section, but finally figured out DRYERSHEET. Nice to finish a Friday without cheating once.
ReplyDeleteI don't think HARBOR is a fair answer to "secretly feel." One can HARBOR thoughts, but in that case the clue should read, "Retain secret feelings" Also, I think HDTV should be clued as an abbreviation.
The trickiest clue is at 1A -- but I knew that Robyn would never stoop to the pedestrian answer "track" and therefore I looked for AISLE immediately. All the Down answers confirmed it, so in it went.
ReplyDeleteThis was one answer among a great many where I felt I was on the same wavelength as Robyn. And if I always feel that way, it's because her cluing -- even when it's at its trickiest -- is so scrupulously accurate and so scrupulously fair.
Not for her the kind of vague approximations we get from too many constructors where one vague idiomatic phrase is clued with another vague idiomatic phrase that doesn't really mean the same thing. When Robyn says "I've never seen anything like it," she means it literally. As in THAT'S A FIRST. A perfect clue/answer.
There was only one vague answer -- but it wasn't vague for the solver so much as it was vague for the photo editing app. "ENHANCE". What, exactly, are you telling the app to do? Make the foliage lusher? Make the sand whiter? Make the buildings taller? Make the boobs bigger? If I were a photo editing app I'd be really confused.
As always, this lovely puzzle is completely junk-free. Another delightful RW Friday. And, btw, I knew it was you, Robyn, before I even saw the byline.
soup to nuts ruined this for me
ReplyDeleteCan someone enlighten me as to why "brie" in the clue was capitalized? Totally threw me, wanted a proper name like Brie Larson or something, so for a while I had IDLE instead of IDLY and was seriously contemplating Googling to see if "Brie Runne" was someone I'd never heard of...
ReplyDeleteEasier than most Fridays for me. Re 6D, isn't the serial comma (aka Oxford comma) an issue of punctuation, and not one of grammar? After a discussion with correspondents, we decided in favor of the extra mark.
ReplyDeleteThx, Robyn; par excellence! 😊
ReplyDeleteMed.
Was on track for one of my fastest Fri's until I hit the SE corner, where I could not for the life of me figure out what 'brie' could be. I didn't know ABU (altho the 'U' would've been my pref) and had IDLe in place, so what I wanted was some French region, e.g., Rhone, etc.. Anyhoo, that left me with R(pick a vowel)NNe. I spent over 10 mins racking my woeful brain process until the bulb finally went on, 'remember to think 'Y' for 'e' when all else fails': voila IDLY shifts brain into gear and comes RUNNing to the rescue. 🧀
I'm with @Andy Freude (7:09 AM); never met a R.W. puz I didn't like. This was no exception!
BTW, re: my imagined Natick, one of the reasons I pressed on is the fact that Robyn would never have allowed it. 😉
Fun mental exercise down south; loved the battle! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
I enjoyed this one, though I did think it was very easy--only 31 seconds shy of my Friday record.
ReplyDeleteIf this is your introduction to RAUL Esparza, welcome! I've been a fan for half my life at this point and recently sat through the NY City Center production of Oliver!--a show I hate with the fire of a thousand suns--because he was playing Fagin. And he was every bit as charismatic and wonderful as I hoped he'd be live. (I've never managed to snag a ticket to one of his shows before, to my great regret.)
Delightful clues! Even things I didn’t know, like FIESTABOWL went in easily. Only SERIALCOMMA needed nearly every cross - I kept wanting mules for PUMPS. SOUPTONUTS is a phrase I've heard but don’t use. It made me think of “Squirrels to the nuts!” from Cluny Brown. Thanks Robyn!
ReplyDeleteNice straightforward puzzle after an uneven week. Probably a little too easy for many of you. My only hangup was ABU because I did not know brie could be RUNNY and I had IDLE instead of IDLY.
ReplyDeleteSOUP TO NUTS! Laughing. WOE.
I've always heard it called an Oxford comma, and yeah, it's unclear if it helps sometimes. I used to be an advocate, but I have moved on to lamenting quotation punctuation rules.
Uniclues:
1 The front lawn of political houses around the world.
2 "No really, the Pope's a good guy," and, "We're extra Catholic-y Catholics."
3 González Blanco is the greatest.
4 The line into the front door of the Taj Mahal.
5 Bring in a character wearing a bikini.
6 Successfully wrangles an accordion.
1 GREEN PEACE AREA
2 LOYOLA FOGS
3 RAÚL OVERSTATED
4 AGRA MEGA TRAP
5 ENHANCE PLOT
6 PULLS OFF POLKA (~)
While this puzzle wasn't Monday-easy, it never stumped me. Mondays are like NASCAR (just go around and around as fast as you can); this one felt more like Formula One: there were plenty of twists and turns but I enjoyed plunging into the corners just as much as I liked the straightaways.
ReplyDeleteFor me, a combination of easy (MOST of it) and medium (the NE, which I had to climb up into via DRYER SHEET). I loved the quartet of the intersecting 11- and 13-letter answers: MUSICAL CHAIRS with its great clue, SERIAL COMMA getting the marquee billing it deserves, and the exclamatory exchange, "THAT'S A FIRST!" "TELL ME ABOUT IT!" Other favorites were HARBOR and COAST, for both of which I needed almost every cross. I made quick work of a couple of the tricky clues - AISLE, ACE - but was slowed down by incorrect guesses - ENlArge, Acre. Me, too, at being surprised at SOUP TO NUTS being unfamiliar to some here...not sure if it might be regional, or more age-related?
ReplyDeletePOW indeed! Robyn, Jeff & Rex are all outstanding today! Great SERIAL COMMA example, @Wanderlust’s rabbit hole (optional comma)and conversational gems ENHANCEd the solve. Yesterday’s comments were great because they critiqued a very split decision puzzle; today’s commentariat brilliance seem dulled by how smooth most found the solve (& both AST & TOTO missed out).
ReplyDeleteWanted DUCKDUCKGOOSE for MUSICAL CHAIRS!
ReplyDeleteSurprised that several have never heard of SOUP TO NUTS. Must be generational but to this boomer a very common phrase.
Easiest Friday for me ever - 17 minutes versus usually close to an hour.
"Enhance" on my phone makes the photo slightly
ReplyDeleteJeff Chen gave this a POW? I don't think so. It's dull even for the perennially unexciting RW.
@me 10:42 – that was supposed to say "slightly brighter"
DeleteI knew this would be fun when I saw Robyn's name, and it did not disappoint. For me, it was mostly an easy, breezy Friday romp. The only rough spot was in the southwest, where I finally gave in and looked up the first name of "Actor Esparza." After that the rest fell into line. Especially like PSST as the answer to "Alternative to an elbow."
ReplyDeleteI'm just here to say thanks to Rex for the Psychic TV clip.
ReplyDeleteWhooshy easy. RAUL (hi @Rex) and ABU were it for WOEs. Solid gird and very smooth with a bit of sparkle, liked it. Jeff gave it POW.
ReplyDeleteI did this puzzle at 3am when I couldn't sleep because i had coffee yesterday. I saw the GREENPEACE clue and thought, it's the group that Russel Darryrimple joined on Seinfeld, but it wouldn't come to me. I just saw that episode. He was the president of NBC and in love with Elaine. She refused to date him because he worked in television. She said something like: maybe if you worked for Greenpeace I'd consider dating you. Last scene, we see him in a Greenpeace boat. Ha ha. See Seinfeld comes in handy.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyable solve from beginning to almost the end. After nailing every answer along the way, I crashed on the final box, settling for a fatal E in an idle runne brie. Loved the puzzle anyway, especially TELL ME ABOUT IT.
ReplyDeleteLots of fun clues in this one and a very whoosh-whoosh experience for me (my fastest Friday solve ever and quicker than the previous two entries from this week).
ReplyDelete@Bass (9:54 AM)
ReplyDeleteThx for raising this issue. I didn't notice the capitalization, and in fact, in my previous post, I wrote it in lowercase, as did some other bloggers. Also, my experience down there was much the same as yours.
ChatGPT on The capitalization of "Brie":
The capitalization of "Brie" cheese is a matter of grammar and style conventions. In English, proper nouns, which are names of specific people, places, or things, are typically capitalized. "Brie" in "Brie cheese" refers to a specific type of cheese that originated in the Brie region of France. Since it is named after the region, "Brie" is considered a proper noun and is capitalized.
Capitalizing "Brie" helps distinguish it as a specific cheese variety and emphasizes its connection to the region from which it comes. It follows the same convention as other proper nouns, such as "Camembert cheese" or "Cheddar cheese." By capitalizing the name, it also adheres to grammatical rules for written English.
It's important to note that capitalization conventions may vary in different languages or writing styles. In some cases, specific style guides or publications may choose to deviate from the general rules. However, in standard English, capitalizing "Brie" when referring to the cheese is the accepted practice.
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Another vote for the easy side. Not close to personal best for Friday, but well under average time.
ReplyDeleteHad OxfordCOMMA before SERIALCOMMA. OVERthetop before OVERSTATED.
On the serial comma and AP - I've worked for the outfit for more than 30 years. I don't see that guidance changing, nor would I like it to. One note - the Stylebook says to consult the punctuation section of Webster's New World College Dictionary for further guidance on the use of commas.
And there is wiggle room - to avoid unfortunate results, such as the one Rex cited (my father's middle name was Merle).
This was aTuesday or Wednesday level for me. But then my grandfather regularly used the expression “from soup to nuts“
ReplyDelete"Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives,
ReplyDeleteKris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall"
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The sentence doesn't need another comma. It needs an editor -- Among those interviewed were Kris Kristofferson, Robert Duvall and Haggard's two ex-wives.
A fun Friday that feels like a Friday and a personal Friday best for me - along the lines of an average Tuesday. I didn’t feel like the clues were too easy - more that I was on the creator’s wavelength - usually the colloquial clues leave me at sea, but today they immediately jumped to mind, and the few bits of trivia were either at the top of my mind (I did not know I knew that about GREENPIECE) or easily retrievable with a cross or two (RAUL Esparza sounds vaguely familiar). Very enjoyable puzzle!
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle started off easy for me, I thought I could COAST through it -- but it took a turn uphill when I threw in TELL it brother! from the TE, as well as smoking some eel instead of HAM. Plus xENO, and, most hilariously, sIESTA BOWL. I eventually sorted all that out, but it slowe me down.
ReplyDeleteI hesitated about AGRA, because I thought it was a city -- but according to Wikipedia the name is used for the city, the district, and the division of Uttar Pradesh. OK.
Aside from spelling him right it had to be ZENO, but I didn't think his paradoxes qualify as reduction ad absurdum arguments, as it wasn't clear to me what he was proving by the reduction. Wikipedia says he was, though, and that he was upholding the principles of Parmenides, whatever those may have been. I learned about them when I took calculus, where they were used to explain the concept of a limit.
Fowler's Modern English Usage contains, among many other delights, many examples of absurdities that can arise from leaving out the SERIAL COMMA, all taken from actual published writing.
Well, I learned 2 things: 1) "Soup to nuts" is a saying. Boomer here. 2) Racehorses share birthdays! And I call myself a sports fan... Thanks Robyn
ReplyDelete@Bass: Brie is capitalized because the cheese is named after the city where it was originally made. Same explanation for Camembert & Roquefort.
ReplyDeleteOf course I loved it, shining, witty, and clever as it was. See what I did there. Take that AP style book.
ReplyDelete@Anons on Soup To Nuts, it was before your time. It meant from beginning to the end and refers originally to a full course dinner.
I enjoyed this one, too. The "enhance" clue made me think of Harrison Ford in Blade Runner; telling his computer to "zoom in/enhance."
ReplyDeleteRobyn for Editor
ReplyDeleteThanks @bocamp, hopefully I don't have to deal with "Edam" anytime soon ;-)
ReplyDeleteFaster and easier than yesterday. Enjoyable longer answers... SOUP TO NUTS I haven't heard in a coon's age. Several 4 letter names most of which I knew: RYAN ANKA ZENO RAUL. (Notice I skipped commas entirely... I'm a serial comma killer.)
ReplyDelete[spelling Bee: yd 0; very quick and no goofy words again.]
@Bass (1:44 PM) yw 😊
ReplyDeleteI lived for a year ('68-69) in Haarlem (not far from Edam); I recall visiting a cheese market a few kms north, but I think it was Alkmaar.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
The serial comma is a more appropriate name than the Oxford comma, because Oxford itself has nothing to do with it. In fact, it’s largely an Americanism.
ReplyDeleteIt’s necessary to eliminate ambiguity in exactly one situation: when you are listing exactly three nouns, the first of those nouns is a plural, and the list is at the end of a sentence. Otherwise it doesn’t serve much of a function. It can still be helpful stylistically (I happened to use it in the first sentence of this paragraph) but I still see it as a matter of choice, not necessity. For the life of me I will never understand people who care so vehemently about it.
Soup to Nuts
ReplyDeleteSoup to nuts mind your P's and Q's
Sit up straight or you get no food.
Eat your bread like the upper class do
With a knife and a fork
no crumbs on you!
You don't really have to capitalize cheeses that were named for locations if you are referring to them in a generic way. Almost no one capitalizes "cheddar", which is named for a village in England. The name comes to symbolize the taste, texture, look, etc., much more than where it's actually from. Your runny brie cheese may not have been produced in the region of Brie or even in France.
ReplyDeleteThe above lyrics should read “eat your bread like the upper CRUST do”. Much better wordplay!
ReplyDeleteAnd belated thanks to Joe DiPinto for telling me how to link (as well as his comment on my Alex Trebek from 1976!)
All race horses are given the birthday of the 1st of January in the year they are born. I know. Esoteric.
ReplyDeleteSOUPTONUTS is v familiar to this NYer. I think I got it on the SOU.... Easy Friday, but thats ok - it offsets the tough ones . My only real problem was I had IDLe before IDLY.
ReplyDeleteWhy should the word "brie" be capitalized in the clue "Like some Brie"? The place name is Brie, the cheese is simply brie.
ReplyDeleteAlmost a record time. This was a nice and breezy garnish for my afternoon martini. Great puzzle to wind down the day.
ReplyDeleteI love this puzzle! When I saw that I had SERIA_ _ _ _ _ _ I let out a squeal of delight, because, to me, the SERIAL COMMA belongs everywhere it can clean up ambiguity. I’m looking at you, newspapers! I’m looking at you, marketing ads! Well, no, not the latter. Some things you just can’t fix. But newspapers? Places where you’d like to see clarity? Does eliminating a multitude of tiny specks of ink* every day really save enough money to accept the bound-to-occur confusion? Well, I think not.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rex, for the hilarious Merle Haggard example. Also to @Anon 9:02 am and @Anon 9:08 am for the Brian Bilston poem, @jberg 12:09 pm for Fowler’s,* and okanaganer 2:01 pm for the clever pun. @Joaquin 9:02 am – agree; bah, humbug indeed!
More to love: MUSICAL CHAIRS, TELL ME ABOUT IT, GREENPEACE,* and RACEHORSES (looked up the why of this after finishing, and further learned that in the Southern Hemisphere all racehorses’ birthdays are August 1).
Thanks, Robyn Weintraub, for another gem! And a well-deserved POW from Jeff Chen, who also notes that “serial comma” is unique to this puzzle.
* Or as Lynne Truss described them: “the friendly little tadpoley number-nine dot-with-a-tail.” As a Brit, the lovely serial tadpole was missing from the title of her wonderful book Eats, Shoots and Leaves. But so it goes...
Had dryerlint first
ReplyDelete"glum drops" 😂
ReplyDelete@"All race horses are given the birthday of Jan 1 ... " folk. Not quite. The three major racing breeds: Thoroughbreds, Standardbreds & Quarter horses in Northern Hemisphere follow this convention. In the Southern Hemisphere it's a different story, some normalize the birthdate to September 1, some to August 1 ( I believe ).
ReplyDeleteNot often I agree with Rex, but definitely ALWAYS use the serial comma. No effort to include (except one keystroke) but lots of opportunity for confusion if you dont.
ReplyDeleteI think runny brie is grounds to return. Only time I have had runny brie is from a European restaurant near me in a baked dessert with a croissant shell and fruit and nuts on top of it.
Totally agree with all the encomia. Great puzzle with great cluing. So much wanted the detritus to be dryer lint which I DESPISE when others leave it behind but it would not fit.
ReplyDeleteI know it can never happen but paradise would be Robyn and Patrick Berry alternating Fridays. Their approach and structure are so aligned. Best of a generation.
I second the above Psychic TV comment.
ReplyDeleteSHEET MUSICAL
ReplyDeleteRESTEASY and IDLY in CHAIRS
in PEACE OFF the COAST,
TELLMEABOUT SECT STARs who care
THAT IT’s FIRST and the MOST.
--- RAUL VAN RYAN
Learn Something New Dep't.: SERIALCOMMA. I grokked what this was, but have never heard that specific term for it. OTOH, I knew about the RACEHORSES. Used to bet on 'em when I was young and stupid.
ReplyDeleteRW is always a pleasure, even if she had to throw a PSST in there. Easy for a Friday, and as usual for her, fun to do. Birdie.
Wordle birdie as well.
Robyn Weintraub. That’s all I needed to know. Always a delightful solve.
ReplyDeleteIt took me way too long to remember Vans for 13D, and I actually own a pair those "iconic" shoes, from way back when.
ReplyDeleteMEGA-FAST Friday. GREENPEACE, RACEHORSES, OVERSTATED, and FIESTABOWL were gimmes so the NW and SE solved like a Monday. Taught for 10 years at the LOYOLA Campus of one of our local institutes of higher learning so that opened up the SW AREA. And HDTV plus RYAN prevented any TEARS in the NE.
ReplyDeletePossible thematic candidates for a SOUPTONUTS puz:
Leftover from Bletchley Park: PSST! TELL ME ABOUT IT.
From the BIOSphere: TUBERS, RACEHORSES, BEES, an ANT, an ASP, and a DOG(star).
From the world of footwear: VANS, an EYELET, and a PUMP.
From card games: ACE and ANTE
And, of course, the long, lost twin brother of Paul ANKA: RAUL
RW does a fine job. Had scores and scores of problems with Ages/AeON/ATON.
ReplyDeleteNot so much trouble elsewhere.
Wordle par.
A happy RW Friday puzzle. Best of the week, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteDiana, LIW