Coffeecake with cross-sectional swirls / MON 7-3-23 / Professionals who work with graphic designers / Video game franchise whose players gather natural resources
Constructor: Sam Buchbinder
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: "OFF TO A GOOD START" (38A: Having initial success ... as suggested by the beginnings of 17-, 24-, 47- and 60-Across) — first words (i.e. "starts") of the themers are all rough synonyms of "good":
Theme answers:
KIND OF BLUE (17A: Miles Davis classic that's the all-time best-selling jazz album)
"JUST YOU WAIT" (24A: "Oh, I'm not messing around!")
UPRIGHT BASS (47A: Big member of the string section)
NOBLE GASES (60A: Neon, argon and krypton)
Word of the Day: MINECRAFT (3D: Video game franchise whose players gather natural resources) —
In Minecraft, players explore a blocky, procedurally generated, three-dimensional world with virtually infinite terrain and may discover and extract raw materials, craft tools and items, and build structures, earthworks, and machines. Depending on their chosen game mode, players can fight hostile mobs, as well as cooperate with or compete against other players in the same world. Game modes include a survival mode (in which players must acquire resources to build in the world and maintain health) and a creative mode (in which players have unlimited resources and access to flight). The game's large community also offers a wide variety of user-generated content, such as modifications, servers, skins, texture packs, and custom maps, which add new game mechanics and possibilities. (wikipedia)
• • •
I posted a picture of KIND OF BLUE a few days back, alongside the definition of "modal jazz." Fun to see it pop up again here today. Makes a nice complement to UPRIGHT BASS. Paul Chambers plays UPRIGHT BASS on KIND OF BLUE, in case anyone asks you, which ... you never know. Those were my two favorite themers, for sure, and my favorite answers overall. The theme itself is a pretty standard "first words"-type puzzle, with a revealer that plays on words in a familiar phrase. A fine example of its kind. Importantly, the "good" words do not mean "good" in their respective phrases, so that only by reference to the revealer can you see the "good" meaning, and the pattern. I DUG this one a reasonable amount. I think I DUG the theme more than the fill. The longer Downs are reasonably strong—DUMB WAITER is the real winner there. The shorter fill gets a bit gunky in places (DAHS ULAN ERS EENSY OUIS ATEAM) and there are a bunch of repeaters (ALOHA HANOI etc.), but it's pretty solid and varied, especially for a reasonably theme-dense puzzle. From a Downs-only solving perspective, the real bear for me today was ART EDITORS, yeeeesh. Don't really know ... what those are, though I can guess. I mean, it's inferable. Just not a phrase I'm used to seeing, and the clue really didn't help much (27D: Professionals who work with graphic designers). I had the ART part but then a lot of blankness. The "I" and the "T" eventually went in because those Acrosses became undeniable, but still, I had to stare and squint a bit before my brain turned up EDITORS. ARGH!
Beyond that, just a couple Downs-only glitches. SUMO / JUDO is a kealoa* that I never considered. Is SUMO an Olympic sport? If not, why not? I would tune in for that. Anyway, I wrote in SUMO before JUDO (24D: Olympic sport from Japan). I hesitated at the ERS/ORS dilemma, for obvious reasons (36D: Locales staffed by M.D.s). Found LOUSY oddly difficult to come up with (8D: Pretty terrible), mostly because AR-O and LE-N could've been many things, and when I looked at OUI- I actually thought maybe I had something wrong. Then I figured the only thing that could go at the end of OUI- was an "S" and yup, correct. LOUSY became clear after that. The stickiest Downs-only moment, after ART EDITORS, was BABKA! Give me five letters, a "B" start, and a clue related to "coffeecake," and, well, to be blunt: BUNDT (51D: Coffeecake with cross-section swirls).
Other things:
13D: Embarrassing sound to suddenly make while laughing (SNORT) — who's embarrassed? I know several snort-laughers and they don't seem embarrassed. *You* should be embarrassed. They're laughing at you, after all.
19A: The "M" of MSG (MONO-) — because MADISON wouldn't fit
32D: Shout that might give you goose bumps ("BOO!") — absolutely not. Goose bumps are a reaction to eeriness, not shock. If you startle me, I don't get goose bumps; I get angry.
30D: Alien's ride, for short (UFO) — this clue is many layers of hilarious. Like, first, we're using slang ("ride") to talk about alien vehicles? Also, UFO? If you know that it's carrying aliens, then you have identified it. It's just an FO now.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc.
Easy. A fine set of nicely disguised theme answers and some excellent long downs. Like @Rex I haven’t heard the term ART EDITORS before so I needed some crosses there. Other than that, whoosh. Solid Monday, liked it.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #822 was a tough Croce for me. I went down so many rabbit holes I thought I was on Watership Down. Good luck!
Old timey feeling puzzle and I liked it. At the end of my days, if the tombstone guy says there's only room for one word on my cheap ass tombstone and it can be KIND, JUST, UPRIGHT, or NOBLE, I hope my heirs settle on KIND. I'm convinced every time I stray from kindness, my soul gets a permanent blotch on it.
Love UGH next to ARGH.
HP#1! I shaved my beard off a few days ago after making a noble effort to get it as long as ALBUS Dumbledore, but it turns out you need to be single if you want to grow a really dramatic beard as those closest to you will be unsupportive in a dramatic way. Sadly my unshaven face is pretty horrifying too, so I guess those around me can now deal with that.
Uniclues:
1 Busser's excuse for staying home from school. 2 Accidentally hit oil. 3 Job opportunities for not-good painters. 4 Sound effect from a twelve-year-old's description of his after-school activity. 5 Review of local wine-centric restaurant. 6 How pigs pick an alpha.
1 KIND OF BLUE. MONO. 2 DUG AWRY 3 BAD ART EDITORS 4 I DO JUDO ... UGH 5 DUMB WAITER. ALE. 6 STY SNORT TESTS (~)
Enjoyed this puzzle. Went by very quickly , no hesitation but 3 minutes over average ! Only early miss was sUmO. I don’t think it is a sport played (?) outside of one country. Well, maybe that doesn’t disqualify it. What about curling?is it popular in Argentina?
BAMBI was a BIKER. Her real name was ARLO, but out OF the BLUE, her mom started calling her BABKA BOO. GOD, it set her OFF...It put her in a a FOUL mood...BABKA BOO is no name for a BAD ASS BIKER like she was... After all, she was part of the T BONE A TEAM that RACED in the UFO PGA. She'd always be OFF TO A GOOD START and you could see those GASSES as they spewed from the DUG out. BAMBI would SNORT "JUST YOU WAIT...I'm not as DUMB as I look!!!"
BAMBI (aka BABKA BOO) had a brother named ALBUS. He has just arrived from HANOI and became the EDITOR for the ART CRAFT OPED. He was a KIND man but he did ABHOR the LOUSY STY she lived in. Her BIKER friends all seemed DUMB, needed a BATH and had BAD, FOUL smells.
Out of his KIND heart, he'd write her an EENSY ONE note and ask her to perhaps take up JUDO or wear an ALOHA PLEAT skirt and drink some ALE with ANKA at the MONO CLUB. "ARGH" she'd yell..."CAN YOU SEE me on an UPRIGHT piano playing a UTE and drinking ALE with ANKA???" "It would be the DEATH of me!!"
The ROOT of her despair, though, was not that her mom called her BABKA BOO, nor that ALBUS wanted her to wear an ALOHA PLEAT skirt while dancing atop the UPRIGHT and drinking ALE with ANKA, it was that she really DUG being a BAD ASS BIKER..
ONE day, the FOUL GASSES of her despair lifted. She was finally OFF TO A GOOD START with her BIKER friends. She waved ALHOA to mom and ALBUS, and headed to ULAN.
BAMBI never EVER looked back. You could even picture her in her BATH reading the ILIAD. It RELIT the ROOT of her JUST KIND soul. It felt GOOD and she felt ALIVE to tell this BLUE story.
Play it again, ANKA.... It's your turn on the UPRIGHT.
At the end of all the timed TESTS (55D) I took, the proctor would say, "Pencils up!" We would lift our pencils from the paper and stop writing. If "pencils down" were used at all it would be a signal at the start of a test.
Nice Monday puzzle. Not sure the clue for JUSTYOUWAIT is precise. "Look, I'm not messing around" suggests impatience, not a request for patience. Otherwise, a good start for the week.
My five favorite original clues of last week (in order of appearance):
1. Parlor decoration, for short (3) 2. Dining option where bow ties might be expected (5)(3) 3. German food that's better than it sounds? (5) 4. Break after a major fall? (4)(3) 5. Recliner setting (3)
I’m surprised Rex wasn’t irritated by the “ugh” right next to the “argh”! With almost essentially the same clue for both. That was the only blemish on a pretty smooth Monday for me.
Felt much more like a Tuesday than a Monday. Theme was immensely helpful to the solve.
Never heard of KIND OF BLUE, or if I have it didn't stick, and while UPRIGHT BASS is vaguely familiar, it is certainly not part of my normal vocabulary. BABKA, MINECRAFT, also felt like they were beyond a normal Monday. And depending on your age and background, ALBUS, ANKA, DUMBWAITER, ULAN could be troublesome (for a Monday).
Not sure how I feel about clues like “Morsel a horse’ll enjoy”. Trying to be different is generally good, but maybe trying too hard?
Perfect Monday. Easy to complete, and offered lots to think about. It's a great theme, the way KIND, JUST, UPRIGHT, and NOBLE mean different things in their phrases, and get tied together as different takes on GOOD. They aren't necessarily the first four traits you'd go with describing goodness, or a good person but lend themselves to the usage shift - WELLILLBE, isnt that a FINELINE to draw. Great puzzle.
I got a kick out of the fact that I needed OFL to explain a Monday theme to me. Granted, I solve most grids without paying a lot of attention to the themes anyway, but usually I can at least discern them post-solve.
I think that the ALBUS dude shows up in grids quite often, which is a bit of a shame.
Isn’t UPRIGHT BASS a touch redundant - is there such a thing as a SUPINE BASS ? I checked on line and found a reference to a DOUBLE BASS - which seems like one of those humongous Violins, and another site alleged that the “UPRIGHT” modifier is used to differentiate it from something like a base guitar which is played vertically ? Too confusing for me - I’ll accept it on faith.
Fast and easy, even though cluing seemed a bubble off plumb in several instances.
I've worked alongside ART directors, but never ART EDITORS. That's because there are no "professional" ART EDITORS. Google the phrase and you'll end up with a list of programs that can help you edit your art--photo editors, sketchpads, and the like. Not people.
The problem Rex noted with BOO.
The problem @Bob Mills noted for JUST YOU WAIT. The crosses made that answer inevitable, but it's not quite on point. Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" sings this to 'enry 'iggins and it means that she's going to get him back one of these days, when he's not expecting it. It's a threat, but a threat for the future: I'm not going to beat you to a pulp now, but one day, when you least expect it, I'll have my revenge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBwNWH3BDAA
As an editor, I'm bugged by this kind of not-quite-right language, as I would be if it were in a manuscript I was working on.
@Gary Jugert: Aw, Gary--I've seen your thumbnail and your face is cute. Nothing horrifying there!
I understand your point but we are dealing here with a CLUE ( a kind of hint) and answer, not correct usage in a manuscript being prepared for publication To my mind, I took the clue as asking for an expression of anger and “just you wait “ works for me. Z a one time frequent blogger here repeatedly made this point. Joaquin who still posts refers to it as being close enough for crosswords. I can see that some people don’t like this, but that’s the way most crossword puzzles work it It doesn’t bother me any way.
@Conrad -- that's interesting. Here (Chicago, 80s to 90s), it was definitely "pencils down!" as in "put your pencils down." "Pencils up" just sounds odd to my ears. I guess if you actually held your pencils up in the air at the end of a test that makes sense, but we never did anything like that. Just put our pencils down and folded our hands together (or similar).
As for Rex's comment for the clue "Alien Ride": "Like [...] we're using slang ("ride") to talk about alien vehicles?" I thought this clue sounded familiar and it's the fourth time in the Shortz era it's shown up with the jocular "ride" used in this context (though clued "ET's ride" the previous three times in 1997, 2004, and 2007).
sUmO/JUDO -- sUmO is recognized by the IOC since 2018, but has not appeared in the Olympics yet as an official event (it has shown up as an exhibition sport.) I don't think this is really a true kealoa as JUDO is the only one of the two that is an Olympic sport (unless you count the IOC's recognition of it as a sport making it an Olympic sport, despite not being in competition yet.)
A feel-good puzzle, focused on upstanding qualities, a most lovely tone to start the week with.
Sam deftly hid the theme by avoiding using KIND, JUST, UPRIGHT and NOBLE in senses that meant GOOD (Hi, @Rex!). The puzzle also has three NYT puzzle debuts, including UPRIGHT BASS and the terrific JUST YOU WAIT. And it was a sweet serendipity having SNORT neighbor STY.
I was in a curious mood after solving, and learned: • MINECRAFT is the best-selling video game in history. • ULAN Bator is the coldest capital city in the world. • One of Miles Davis’s pre-performance rituals was to wear shoes one size too small, tied as tightly as possible. • The upright bass is also known as the double bass, derived because its length is twice that of a cello. • The author of BAMBI, Felix Salten, was an avid hunter. (!!!!)
So this puzzle not only warmed my soul, it stimulated my mind as well. Thank you, Sam!
One of the best parts of solving downs only is figuring out the theme without having read any of the across clues. You don’t even necessarily know which on is the revealer, and I first thought it was NOBLE GASES because it was last. I was looking for gases hidden in the other long answers or something. I quickly figured out that the revealer must be the grid-spanning center answer, and then I saw the synonyms for good. I didn’t think about the fact that none of the words means good in their answers until I read Rex. That detail makes the theme … good.
I thought I might have a Natick on my last letter, at BABK-. I wasn’t sure if it was an A or an E, and either would work with PE-S. I decided to go with the non-urine-related option.
It was a fast solve, helped by the fact that the first two long downs, MINECRAFT and DUMBWAITER went right in. I puzzled for just a second on what word might come after ART, but since directors didn’t fit, EDITORS made sense. The clue for CAN YOU SEE (“Is the view OK?”) was much harder, and I needed to guess at a lot of crosses to SEE it. AWRY was a big help there because Y is the only option.
As for the clue for ONE (“This clue’s number minus eight”), I do crosswords because I am a word person not a number person. Stop making me do math.
Really solid Monday. I wish I had left the revealer blank and tried to guess it but it sort of filled itself in on the way down the puzzle.
The only vaguely familiar answer was BABKA, which we don't see much of around here. Liked seeing DAHS, which is how I learned Morse code many years ago in the Boy Scouts. We all acquired a permanent disdain for all those ignorant people who said "dots and dashes" instead of "dits and DAHS".
Wondering which moo-cow easy entry M&A will pick as his favorite. Seems like there were several.
Very nice Monday indeed, SB. A Speedy Beginning to a rainy day, and thanks for all the fun.
Now on to the Monday NYorker and the Croce, which should fill up the rest of this morning, if not more..
Not understanding the love for this puzzle. Probably 90%+ of the non-theme answers is tired overused crosswordese. It’s almost as if the constructor purposely tried to make a puzzle with as much of that stuff as he could cram in. Did no one have a problem with the “wait”, “dumb waiter” dupe?
Got OFF TO A GOOD START on the top 1/2, but floundered an EENSY 'bit' as I progressed south, esp in the ART EDITORS region.
Nevertheless, a most enjoyable solve. :)
Thx jae; on it! 🤞 ___ Med Mark Halpin acrostic; a fine piece of work! :) ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude, Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
The lyric of JUST YOU WAIT in both My Fair Lady and more recently in Hamilton’s opening number are the lead characters saying “look, I’m not messing around, here all the things I’m going to do, just you wait” not seeing a nit on that clue at all.
This was super easy for me which always makes me think it must be a wheelhouse thing. There wasn’t much sparkle or play to this outside of the admittedly solid theme, but perhaps that’s expecting too much out of a Monday? I liked it just fine.
Glad to have @Taylor’s insider critique on ART EDITOR - that one seemed off to me but it’s not a field I have much direct experience with. But fwiw, I feel like you can have ARTs EDITORs (who edit the Arts section of a publication) and ART Directors (who oversee visual asset creation on a campaign or project or film) but not ART EDITORs.
Today is the first full day since Wednesday when the AQI will be low enough to keep the windows open, and of course we’re waiting for a long-overdue (thanks landlord 😫) septic tank pump out arriving soon. My kingdom for some truly fresh mountain air! At least the birds are singing again - that was an eerie few days!
Croce 822: Hard, but ultimately gettable. Bogged down for a long time with the left-center and SW corner blank, or with guesses penciled in and erased. Key to the solve was hitting on the right answer to 31D, which confirmed some of those guesses.
Perfect Monday to get a beginner OFF TO A GOOD START. It would illustrate how themed puzzles work and without requiring too much specialized knowledge or proper name trivia. Pretty straightforward from start to finish. My only complaint, the YOU/YOU duplication but that’s just me. I don’t like dupes any day of the week.
Simple - but nuanced theme. The segmented center with 3s and 4s liked the overall joy but it was pleasant enough. Needed crosses for the kiddie lit entry - love BABKA.
@Conrad - Pencils are sitting on the desk crosswise in a tray before starting a test, thus pencils up signals the start and pencils back down to their resting position to when time is up. At least, in my experience, and apparently the clue writer.
@Bob Mills - JUSTYOUWAIT is not a plea for patience, lol. It is "you are going to regret what comes next"; just try me, I'm not messing around!
@kitshef - Kind of Blue is a real landmark. Listen at once. It's okay if your mind drifts on Side B.
@Southside - Doublebass, or contrabass are the lowest instruments in a classical orchestra. In jazz or pop usage, it is called "upright" as opposed to the electric bass, which is held like a guitar. Contrabass can also be any instrument that transposes down an octave.
When in Montreal, be sure to stop at Chesky's and pick up a BABKA, really obvious answer here in NYC with a large Jewish population.
LMS has been known to disappear from the blog for long periods that feel like EONS, then show up as if she'd never left without a mention of the reason for her long absence. Probably busy with her mom, or traveling with her to places w/o good internet access, or changes with the end of the school year.
@Lewis, interesting tidbit about Miles wearing shoes a size too small. Bill Parcels supposedly put gravel in his shoes to make himself extra ornery to exude authority over the NY Giants.
Good one! I skipped over the reveal clue and its row, to see if I'd be able to guess it. I'd seen nothing to link the first two theme entries, but maybe adding the other two would switch on the light bulb of comprehension. Nope. I had to give up. The reveal phrase went in quickly, but still there was a moment, of "Wait...?", then "Ohhhh!" What a great job of disguising the synonyms for "GOOD"!
The BASS discussion got me thinking back to the Bass-o-Matic sold by Dan Akroyd on SNL. No need for scaling, cleaning or deboning your fish with the Bass-O-Matic, which was simply a blender.
Shouldn’t all constructors delete PGA from their wordlists now that the tour is in league with the evil Saudis?
Key words you hope won’t appear in reviews of your puzzle: UGH, ARGH, BOO, LOUSY, DUMB, AWRY. Fortunately, none of them are in my review of this nice little Monday outing. Thanks, Sam Buchbinder.
29A -- You almost had me changing banks. Because while one can always find a GUIDE at any museum, I'm pretty sure there's no GUIDE at my bank. Your bank has one, does it? How thoughtful. Maybe I should do my banking there.
Oh, of course. GUARD!!!! And believe it or not, it took MINECRAFT to straighten me out. I have no idea what it is or how you play it, but I've heard of it -- thanks to crosswords.
OTOH, ART EDITORS didn't straighten me out because having a D where the R should have been made me think that the answer would be some sort of AD executive.
My other writeover was reading 42A as "underground part of a plan[e]t and writing in cOre instead of ROOT.
I've never heard of an UPRIGHT BASS (aren't they all pretty UPRIGHT?) and was quite frustrated when PIANO wouldn't fit.
A clean and smooth puzzle Monday with no junk. The week is OFF TO A GOOD START.
I went to a sumo tournament in Osaka once; it was a revelatory experience, and I have paid attention to it off-and-on ever since. But I don't think I'd want to see it in the Olympics, as so much of it is religion and ritual, and I don't think that could be carried over to other countries with different religions.
Like @Nancy, I started to write in UPRIGHT piano, griping that while pianos have strings, they are nevertheless part of the rhythm section, when I noticed that it wouldn't fit. @burtonkd nailed it -- it's the same instrument with different names in different genres.
I don't know if I've ever had a BABKA, but I noticed that Wikipedia says they are a type of bread, not of coffeecake. Maybe it depends on whether they are classical or jazz.
Closing philosophical musing: Is NOBLE really clued as a different meaning? My first answer was no -- they are 'noble' in that they a) have complete electron shells, and b) are able to stand aloof from other elements--just as dukes, earls, and the like stand aloof from mere commoners. But of course, there is no sense in which feudal nobles were GOOD -- many of them were horrible human beings. So the modern sense, while derived from the old one, has truly changed the meaning.
Nice full-of-goodness MonPuz, with "medium" MonPuz lack of difficulty.
@pabloinnh: Thanx for askin … fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: 9-D's {This clue's number minus eight} = ONE.
staff weeject pick: BAD. First weeject in the puz, so them weejects were off to a BAD start! har
Hardest stuff: ALBUS. MINECRAFT. BABKE. fave stuff: ATLAS's moo-cow attempt at a ?-marker clue. DUMBWAITER. CANYOUSEE. Double-digit-U-count.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Buchbinder dude. Clearly a GOOD job.
Masked & Anonymo10Us
p.s. Well, yep … it is past time for @Muse darlin to check in with us. M&A is hopin she is havin too much fun to find the chance, but it would make us feel better to get a peep out of that amazon gal. [That's actually "amazin gal", but Otto Correct begged to differ in a funny way.] Anyhoo, hi, @LMS.
You posted a pic of "A Love Supreme" and a link to "Milestones" the other day. Not "Kind of Blue".
This was a spot-on Monday puzzle. Good theme and revealer, some nice fill (AWRY and JUDO don't show up in the puzzle much). I was going to comment on "upright bass" vs. "double bass" and when those terms are normally used, but @burtonkd already did so quite succinctly. I'd note DUMBWAITER crossing JUST YOU WAIT at the W, but the editors doesn't seem to care about such things.
Speaking of which: @Acrostickers – did anyone notice in yesterday's that a certain word in the quotation also appears within an answer down below? It's a sequence of six letters, with the same basic meaning in both cases. I wouldn't think that was permissible. (Otherwise I liked it: not super-difficult, not a total breeze either.)
UPRIGHT BASS is a great example of a "retronym" - before the advent of the electric bass, you didn't call it that, because all basses were upright. But now they're not.
@bocamp – not only that, but a letter in the answer word is matched to the square with same letter in the quote word. They should at least have avoided that.
Hand up for Bundt before BABKA, I've seen more Bundts than BABKAs in this neck of the woods. That was my only BOO BOO. This puz was not BAD nor FOUL nor LOUSY. No UGH nor ARGH. But JUSTYOUWAIT DUMBWAITER. GOOD 'nuf. Wordle par, near birdie.
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Easy. A fine set of nicely disguised theme answers and some excellent long downs. Like @Rex I haven’t heard the term ART EDITORS before so I needed some crosses there. Other than that, whoosh. Solid Monday, liked it.
ReplyDeleteCroce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #822 was a tough Croce for me. I went down so many rabbit holes I thought I was on Watership Down. Good luck!
Old timey feeling puzzle and I liked it. At the end of my days, if the tombstone guy says there's only room for one word on my cheap ass tombstone and it can be KIND, JUST, UPRIGHT, or NOBLE, I hope my heirs settle on KIND. I'm convinced every time I stray from kindness, my soul gets a permanent blotch on it.
ReplyDeleteLove UGH next to ARGH.
HP#1! I shaved my beard off a few days ago after making a noble effort to get it as long as ALBUS Dumbledore, but it turns out you need to be single if you want to grow a really dramatic beard as those closest to you will be unsupportive in a dramatic way. Sadly my unshaven face is pretty horrifying too, so I guess those around me can now deal with that.
Uniclues:
1 Busser's excuse for staying home from school.
2 Accidentally hit oil.
3 Job opportunities for not-good painters.
4 Sound effect from a twelve-year-old's description of his after-school activity.
5 Review of local wine-centric restaurant.
6 How pigs pick an alpha.
1 KIND OF BLUE. MONO.
2 DUG AWRY
3 BAD ART EDITORS
4 I DO JUDO ... UGH
5 DUMB WAITER. ALE.
6 STY SNORT TESTS (~)
Enjoyed this puzzle. Went by very quickly , no hesitation but 3 minutes over average ! Only early miss was sUmO. I don’t think it is
ReplyDeletea sport played (?) outside of one country. Well, maybe that doesn’t disqualify it. What about curling?is it popular in Argentina?
Not addressing this to @Rex, but his last point definitely calls for the following reaction (could be from that unidentified pilot):
ReplyDeleteU FO
Of my UFO!
BAMBI was a BIKER. Her real name was ARLO, but out OF the BLUE, her mom started calling her BABKA BOO. GOD, it set her OFF...It put her in a a FOUL mood...BABKA BOO is no name for a BAD ASS BIKER like she was... After all, she was part of the T BONE A TEAM that RACED in the UFO PGA. She'd always be OFF TO A GOOD START and you could see those GASSES as they spewed from the DUG out. BAMBI would SNORT "JUST YOU WAIT...I'm not as DUMB as I look!!!"
ReplyDeleteBAMBI (aka BABKA BOO) had a brother named ALBUS. He has just arrived from HANOI and became the EDITOR for the ART CRAFT OPED. He was a KIND man but he did ABHOR the LOUSY STY she lived in. Her BIKER friends all seemed DUMB, needed a BATH and had BAD, FOUL smells.
Out of his KIND heart, he'd write her an EENSY ONE note and ask her to perhaps take up JUDO or wear an ALOHA PLEAT skirt and drink some ALE with ANKA at the MONO CLUB. "ARGH" she'd yell..."CAN YOU SEE me on an UPRIGHT piano playing a UTE and drinking ALE with ANKA???" "It would be the DEATH of me!!"
The ROOT of her despair, though, was not that her mom called her BABKA BOO, nor that ALBUS wanted her to wear an ALOHA PLEAT skirt while dancing atop the UPRIGHT and drinking ALE with ANKA, it was that she really DUG being a BAD ASS BIKER..
ONE day, the FOUL GASSES of her despair lifted. She was finally OFF TO A GOOD START with her BIKER friends. She waved ALHOA to mom and ALBUS, and headed to ULAN.
BAMBI never EVER looked back. You could even picture her in her BATH reading the ILIAD. It RELIT the ROOT of her JUST KIND soul. It felt GOOD and she felt ALIVE to tell this BLUE story.
Play it again, ANKA.... It's your turn on the UPRIGHT.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of all the timed TESTS (55D) I took, the proctor would say, "Pencils up!" We would lift our pencils from the paper and stop writing. If "pencils down" were used at all it would be a signal at the start of a test.
The full phrase is “Stop, put your pencils down.” Pencils down is how I’ve always heard it and makes sense.
DeleteNice Monday puzzle. Not sure the clue for JUSTYOUWAIT is precise. "Look, I'm not messing around" suggests impatience, not a request for patience. Otherwise, a good start for the week.
ReplyDeleteMy five favorite original clues of last week
ReplyDelete(in order of appearance):
1. Parlor decoration, for short (3)
2. Dining option where bow ties might be expected (5)(3)
3. German food that's better than it sounds? (5)
4. Break after a major fall? (4)(3)
5. Recliner setting (3)
TAT
PASTA BAR
WURST
SNOW DAY
DEN
I’m surprised Rex wasn’t irritated by the “ugh” right next to the “argh”! With almost essentially the same clue for both. That was the only blemish on a pretty smooth Monday for me.
ReplyDeleteFelt much more like a Tuesday than a Monday. Theme was immensely helpful to the solve.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of KIND OF BLUE, or if I have it didn't stick, and while UPRIGHT BASS is vaguely familiar, it is certainly not part of my normal vocabulary. BABKA, MINECRAFT, also felt like they were beyond a normal Monday. And depending on your age and background, ALBUS, ANKA, DUMBWAITER, ULAN could be troublesome (for a Monday).
Not sure how I feel about clues like “Morsel a horse’ll enjoy”. Trying to be different is generally good, but maybe trying too hard?
Perfect Monday. Easy to complete, and offered lots to think about. It's a great theme, the way KIND, JUST, UPRIGHT, and NOBLE mean different things in their phrases, and get tied together as different takes on GOOD. They aren't necessarily the first four traits you'd go with describing goodness, or a good person but lend themselves to the usage shift - WELLILLBE, isnt that a FINELINE to draw. Great puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI/we miss the witticism of Loren Muse Smith. I hope she is OK…..
ReplyDeleteI got a kick out of the fact that I needed OFL to explain a Monday theme to me. Granted, I solve most grids without paying a lot of attention to the themes anyway, but usually I can at least discern them post-solve.
ReplyDeleteI think that the ALBUS dude shows up in grids quite often, which is a bit of a shame.
Isn’t UPRIGHT BASS a touch redundant - is there such a thing as a SUPINE BASS ? I checked on line and found a reference to a DOUBLE BASS - which seems like one of those humongous Violins, and another site alleged that the “UPRIGHT” modifier is used to differentiate it from something like a base guitar which is played vertically ? Too confusing for me - I’ll accept it on faith.
My thoughts exactly. Played in many an orchestra. Never heard it referred to as "upright."
DeleteA well-executed theme. Only major slowdown was writing in ART directo - oh, that’s not going to fit.
ReplyDeleteFast and easy, even though cluing seemed a bubble off plumb in several instances.
ReplyDeleteI've worked alongside ART directors, but never ART EDITORS. That's because there are no "professional" ART EDITORS. Google the phrase and you'll end up with a list of programs that can help you edit your art--photo editors, sketchpads, and the like. Not people.
The problem Rex noted with BOO.
The problem @Bob Mills noted for JUST YOU WAIT. The crosses made that answer inevitable, but it's not quite on point. Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" sings this to 'enry 'iggins and it means that she's going to get him back one of these days, when he's not expecting it. It's a threat, but a threat for the future: I'm not going to beat you to a pulp now, but one day, when you least expect it, I'll have my revenge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBwNWH3BDAA
As an editor, I'm bugged by this kind of not-quite-right language, as I would be if it were in a manuscript I was working on.
@Gary Jugert: Aw, Gary--I've seen your thumbnail and your face is cute. Nothing horrifying there!
I understand your point but we are dealing here with a CLUE ( a kind of hint) and answer, not correct usage in a manuscript being prepared for publication To my mind, I took the clue as asking for an expression of anger and “just you wait “ works for me. Z a one time frequent blogger here repeatedly made this point. Joaquin who still posts refers to it as being close enough for crosswords. I can see that some people don’t like this, but that’s the way most crossword puzzles work it It doesn’t bother me any way.
DeleteSmooth, easy solve. A GOOD start to the week.
ReplyDeleteAnyone know what happened to Loren Muse Smith? Haven’t seen any posts in a long time and hope all is ok.
@Conrad -- that's interesting. Here (Chicago, 80s to 90s), it was definitely "pencils down!" as in "put your pencils down." "Pencils up" just sounds odd to my ears. I guess if you actually held your pencils up in the air at the end of a test that makes sense, but we never did anything like that. Just put our pencils down and folded our hands together (or similar).
ReplyDeleteAs for Rex's comment for the clue "Alien Ride": "Like [...] we're using slang ("ride") to talk about alien vehicles?" I thought this clue sounded familiar and it's the fourth time in the Shortz era it's shown up with the jocular "ride" used in this context (though clued "ET's ride" the previous three times in 1997, 2004, and 2007).
sUmO/JUDO -- sUmO is recognized by the IOC since 2018, but has not appeared in the Olympics yet as an official event (it has shown up as an exhibition sport.) I don't think this is really a true kealoa as JUDO is the only one of the two that is an Olympic sport (unless you count the IOC's recognition of it as a sport making it an Olympic sport, despite not being in competition yet.)
"Foul gasses of despair..." I hope to use that phrase some day.
ReplyDeleteA feel-good puzzle, focused on upstanding qualities, a most lovely tone to start the week with.
ReplyDeleteSam deftly hid the theme by avoiding using KIND, JUST, UPRIGHT and NOBLE in senses that meant GOOD (Hi, @Rex!). The puzzle also has three NYT puzzle debuts, including UPRIGHT BASS and the terrific JUST YOU WAIT. And it was a sweet serendipity having SNORT neighbor STY.
I was in a curious mood after solving, and learned:
• MINECRAFT is the best-selling video game in history.
• ULAN Bator is the coldest capital city in the world.
• One of Miles Davis’s pre-performance rituals was to wear shoes one size too small, tied as tightly as possible.
• The upright bass is also known as the double bass, derived because its length is twice that of a cello.
• The author of BAMBI, Felix Salten, was an avid hunter. (!!!!)
So this puzzle not only warmed my soul, it stimulated my mind as well. Thank you, Sam!
One of the best parts of solving downs only is figuring out the theme without having read any of the across clues. You don’t even necessarily know which on is the revealer, and I first thought it was NOBLE GASES because it was last. I was looking for gases hidden in the other long answers or something. I quickly figured out that the revealer must be the grid-spanning center answer, and then I saw the synonyms for good. I didn’t think about the fact that none of the words means good in their answers until I read Rex. That detail makes the theme … good.
ReplyDeleteI thought I might have a Natick on my last letter, at BABK-. I wasn’t sure if it was an A or an E, and either would work with PE-S. I decided to go with the non-urine-related option.
It was a fast solve, helped by the fact that the first two long downs, MINECRAFT and DUMBWAITER went right in. I puzzled for just a second on what word might come after ART, but since directors didn’t fit, EDITORS made sense. The clue for CAN YOU SEE (“Is the view OK?”) was much harder, and I needed to guess at a lot of crosses to SEE it. AWRY was a big help there because Y is the only option.
As for the clue for ONE (“This clue’s number minus eight”), I do crosswords because I am a word person not a number person. Stop making me do math.
There is a supine bass. It comes with fries and is best with cream sauce.
ReplyDeleteReally solid Monday. I wish I had left the revealer blank and tried to guess it but it sort of filled itself in on the way down the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteThe only vaguely familiar answer was BABKA, which we don't see much of around here. Liked seeing DAHS, which is how I learned Morse code many years ago in the Boy Scouts. We all acquired a permanent disdain for all those ignorant people who said "dots and dashes" instead of "dits and DAHS".
Wondering which moo-cow easy entry M&A will pick as his favorite. Seems like there were several.
Very nice Monday indeed, SB. A Speedy Beginning to a rainy day, and thanks for all the fun.
Now on to the Monday NYorker and the Croce, which should fill up the rest of this morning, if not more..
Not understanding the love for this puzzle. Probably 90%+ of the non-theme answers is tired overused crosswordese. It’s almost as if the constructor purposely tried to make a puzzle with as much of that stuff as he could cram in. Did no one have a problem with the “wait”, “dumb waiter” dupe?
ReplyDeleteThx, Sam; A NOBLE effort! 😊
ReplyDeleteMed.
Got OFF TO A GOOD START on the top 1/2, but floundered an EENSY 'bit' as I progressed south, esp in the ART EDITORS region.
Nevertheless, a most enjoyable solve. :)
Thx jae; on it! 🤞
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Med Mark Halpin acrostic; a fine piece of work! :)
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude, Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
The lyric of JUST YOU WAIT in both My Fair Lady and more recently in Hamilton’s opening number are the lead characters saying “look, I’m not messing around, here all the things I’m going to do, just you wait” not seeing a nit on that clue at all.
ReplyDeleteAbove avg. Monday.
This was super easy for me which always makes me think it must be a wheelhouse thing. There wasn’t much sparkle or play to this outside of the admittedly solid theme, but perhaps that’s expecting too much out of a Monday? I liked it just fine.
ReplyDeleteGlad to have @Taylor’s insider critique on ART EDITOR - that one seemed off to me but it’s not a field I have much direct experience with. But fwiw, I feel like you can have ARTs EDITORs (who edit the Arts section of a publication) and ART Directors (who oversee visual asset creation on a campaign or project or film) but not ART EDITORs.
Today is the first full day since Wednesday when the AQI will be low enough to keep the windows open, and of course we’re waiting for a long-overdue (thanks landlord 😫) septic tank pump out arriving soon. My kingdom for some truly fresh mountain air! At least the birds are singing again - that was an eerie few days!
Croce 822: Hard, but ultimately gettable. Bogged down for a long time with the left-center and SW corner blank, or with guesses penciled in and erased. Key to the solve was hitting on the right answer to 31D, which confirmed some of those guesses.
ReplyDeletePerfect Monday to get a beginner OFF TO A GOOD START. It would illustrate how themed puzzles work and without requiring too much specialized knowledge or proper name trivia. Pretty straightforward from start to finish. My only complaint, the YOU/YOU duplication but that’s just me. I don’t like dupes any day of the week.
ReplyDeleteHappy day before the Fourth.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteNeat little puz. Simple theme, but nice. A few long Downs thrown in, to boot.
Have an E fest down in both South corners. O's in the Center.
Short on thoughts today, so an EENSY post. Sometimes that's not a bad thing. Har.
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Simple - but nuanced theme. The segmented center with 3s and 4s liked the overall joy but it was pleasant enough. Needed crosses for the kiddie lit entry - love BABKA.
ReplyDeleteARLO with Nanci
@Conrad - Pencils are sitting on the desk crosswise in a tray before starting a test, thus pencils up signals the start and pencils back down to their resting position to when time is up. At least, in my experience, and apparently the clue writer.
ReplyDelete@Bob Mills - JUSTYOUWAIT is not a plea for patience, lol. It is "you are going to regret what comes next"; just try me, I'm not messing around!
@kitshef - Kind of Blue is a real landmark. Listen at once. It's okay if your mind drifts on Side B.
@Southside - Doublebass, or contrabass are the lowest instruments in a classical orchestra. In jazz or pop usage, it is called "upright" as opposed to the electric bass, which is held like a guitar. Contrabass can also be any instrument that transposes down an octave.
When in Montreal, be sure to stop at Chesky's and pick up a BABKA, really obvious answer here in NYC with a large Jewish population.
ReplyDeleteLMS has been known to disappear from the blog for long periods that feel like EONS, then show up as if she'd never left without a mention of the reason for her long absence. Probably busy with her mom, or traveling with her to places w/o good internet access, or changes with the end of the school year.
@Lewis, interesting tidbit about Miles wearing shoes a size too small. Bill Parcels supposedly put gravel in his shoes to make himself extra ornery to exude authority over the NY Giants.
Good one! I skipped over the reveal clue and its row, to see if I'd be able to guess it. I'd seen nothing to link the first two theme entries, but maybe adding the other two would switch on the light bulb of comprehension. Nope. I had to give up. The reveal phrase went in quickly, but still there was a moment, of "Wait...?", then "Ohhhh!" What a great job of disguising the synonyms for "GOOD"!
ReplyDeleteThe BASS discussion got me thinking back to the Bass-o-Matic sold by Dan Akroyd on SNL. No need for scaling, cleaning or deboning your fish with the Bass-O-Matic, which was simply a blender.
ReplyDeleteShouldn’t all constructors delete PGA from their wordlists now that the tour is in league with the evil Saudis?
Key words you hope won’t appear in reviews of your puzzle: UGH, ARGH, BOO, LOUSY, DUMB, AWRY. Fortunately, none of them are in my review of this nice little Monday outing. Thanks, Sam Buchbinder.
29A -- You almost had me changing banks. Because while one can always find a GUIDE at any museum, I'm pretty sure there's no GUIDE at my bank. Your bank has one, does it? How thoughtful. Maybe I should do my banking there.
ReplyDeleteOh, of course. GUARD!!!! And believe it or not, it took MINECRAFT to straighten me out. I have no idea what it is or how you play it, but I've heard of it -- thanks to crosswords.
OTOH, ART EDITORS didn't straighten me out because having a D where the R should have been made me think that the answer would be some sort of AD executive.
My other writeover was reading 42A as "underground part of a plan[e]t and writing in cOre instead of ROOT.
I've never heard of an UPRIGHT BASS (aren't they all pretty UPRIGHT?) and was quite frustrated when PIANO wouldn't fit.
A clean and smooth puzzle Monday with no junk. The week is OFF TO A GOOD START.
Can tell there aren’t many listeners of jazz here - upright bass is a common term in the jazz world.
ReplyDeleteVery easy, flew by. And I liked it!
ReplyDeleteFun Monday puzzle. Theme clues left on the editing room floor:
ReplyDelete*Navy, sky, or midnight
*Advice to a server singing loudly off key
*Sound opposite a down left treble
*Result of bean consumption by the royal family
*KIND OF BLUE
*JUST YOU WAIT
*UP RIGHT BASS
*NOBLE GASES
I went to a sumo tournament in Osaka once; it was a revelatory experience, and I have paid attention to it off-and-on ever since. But I don't think I'd want to see it in the Olympics, as so much of it is religion and ritual, and I don't think that could be carried over to other countries with different religions.
ReplyDeleteLike @Nancy, I started to write in UPRIGHT piano, griping that while pianos have strings, they are nevertheless part of the rhythm section, when I noticed that it wouldn't fit. @burtonkd nailed it -- it's the same instrument with different names in different genres.
I don't know if I've ever had a BABKA, but I noticed that Wikipedia says they are a type of bread, not of coffeecake. Maybe it depends on whether they are classical or jazz.
Closing philosophical musing: Is NOBLE really clued as a different meaning? My first answer was no -- they are 'noble' in that they a) have complete electron shells, and b) are able to stand aloof from other elements--just as dukes, earls, and the like stand aloof from mere commoners. But of course, there is no sense in which feudal nobles were GOOD -- many of them were horrible human beings. So the modern sense, while derived from the old one, has truly changed the meaning.
Nice full-of-goodness MonPuz, with "medium" MonPuz lack of difficulty.
ReplyDelete@pabloinnh: Thanx for askin …
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: 9-D's {This clue's number minus eight} = ONE.
staff weeject pick: BAD. First weeject in the puz, so them weejects were off to a BAD start! har
Hardest stuff: ALBUS. MINECRAFT. BABKE.
fave stuff: ATLAS's moo-cow attempt at a ?-marker clue. DUMBWAITER. CANYOUSEE. Double-digit-U-count.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Buchbinder dude. Clearly a GOOD job.
Masked & Anonymo10Us
p.s. Well, yep … it is past time for @Muse darlin to check in with us. M&A is hopin she is havin too much fun to find the chance, but it would make us feel better to get a peep out of that amazon gal. [That's actually "amazin gal", but Otto Correct begged to differ in a funny way.] Anyhoo, hi, @LMS.
**gruntz**
Much slower, of course, but almost the exact same downs-only experience.
ReplyDelete@taylor slow
ReplyDeleteTry NGRAMing "art editor", then look at the Search in Google Books (2001-2019)
or try Googling - "art editor" career -- note the quotes
You posted a pic of "A Love Supreme" and a link to "Milestones" the other day. Not "Kind of Blue".
ReplyDeleteThis was a spot-on Monday puzzle. Good theme and revealer, some nice fill (AWRY and JUDO don't show up in the puzzle much). I was going to comment on "upright bass" vs. "double bass" and when those terms are normally used, but @burtonkd already did so quite succinctly. I'd note DUMBWAITER crossing JUST YOU WAIT at the W, but the editors doesn't seem to care about such things.
Speaking of which: @Acrostickers – did anyone notice in yesterday's that a certain word in the quotation also appears within an answer down below? It's a sequence of six letters, with the same basic meaning in both cases. I wouldn't think that was permissible. (Otherwise I liked it: not super-difficult, not a total breeze either.)
But so what?
ARGH and UGH so near each other? FEH.
ReplyDelete@Joe D
ReplyDeleteI found the Acrostic tough...didn't notice the dupe.
UPRIGHT BASS is a great example of a "retronym" - before the advent of the electric bass, you didn't call it that, because all basses were upright. But now they're not.
ReplyDeleteIf you determine that a UFO contains aliens, it doesn’t become an FO, it becomes an IFO.
ReplyDelete@Joe Dipinto (12:55 PM)
ReplyDeleteGood catch! hadn't noticed. 🤔
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude, Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Some poor fill aside, excellent for a Monday!
ReplyDelete@bocamp – not only that, but a letter in the answer word is matched to the square with same letter in the quote word. They should at least have avoided that.
ReplyDeleteWhat's up with EENSY (43A) and the occasional EENY meaning "small"? Never heard these in a sentence except maybe "EENSY weensy". Partial kiddie speak?
ReplyDeleteWe’re OFFTOAGOODSTART this week. Nice medium-challenge for a Monday.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff in the themers, but the fill SEEMS to want to offset that: LOUSY FOUL ARGH UGH and don't forget HANOI.
ReplyDeleteWAIT/WAITER crossing is in need of an ARTEDITOR.
U's kept popping up; yo @M&A.
On balance, I'd say the week is OFFTOAGOODSTART. Birdie.
Wordle bogey; no Y's. Weird.
DO I EVER!?
ReplyDeleteJUSTYOUWAIT and SEE, it's A KINDOFBLUE ART,
when BAMBI's BAD TO me, she's OFFTOAGOODSTART.
--- RAUL ASHE
Hand up for Bundt before BABKA, I've seen more Bundts than BABKAs in this neck of the woods. That was my only BOO BOO. This puz was not BAD nor FOUL nor LOUSY. No UGH nor ARGH. But JUSTYOUWAIT DUMBWAITER. GOOD 'nuf.
ReplyDeleteWordle par, near birdie.
JUSTYOUWAIT 'enry 'iggens, JUSTYOUWAIT.
ReplyDeleteNo problem with the teensy, teeny, eensy, eeny, weeney, wee words - just when to use which one.
A fine Monday Morning plaything.
Diana, LIW