Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Rhyming destinations for yummies / TUE 7-18-23 / Harvest goddess with a daughter in the underworld / Pal you might take fishing? / Chilly-sounding pod in a stir-fry / Muslim land with a monarch / Nonvegan fat in a pie crust

Constructor: Karen and Paul Steinberg

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME: GRECO-ROMAN (36A: Kind of wrestling ... or a hint to four pairs of crossing answers in this puzzle) — Greek gods cross their Roman counterparts four times:

Theme answers:
  • POSEIDON / NEPTUNE (18A and 1D: Trident-wielding god of the sea)
  • ARTEMIS / DIANA (19A and 8D: Apollo's twin who rules over the hunt)
  • DEMETER / CERES (60A and 52D: Harvest goddess with a daughter in the underworld)
  • DIONYSUS / BACCHUS (65A and 45D: God celebrated with wine, feasts and dancing)
Word of the Day: CHUM (4A: Pal you might take fishing?) —
Chumming (American English from Powhatan) is the blue water fishing practice of throwing meat-based groundbait called "chum" into the water in order to lure various marine animals (usually large game fish) to a designated fishing ground, so the target animals are more easily caught by hooking or spearing. Chums typically consist of fresh chunks of fish meat with bone and blood, the scent of which attracts predatory fish, particularly sharksbillfishestunas and groupers. In the past, the chum contents have also been made from "offal", the otherwise rejected or unwanted parts of slaughtered animals such as internal organs. [...] Chumming is illegal in some parts of the world (such as in the U.S. state of Alabama) because of the danger it can pose by conditioning sharks to associate feeding with human presence. (wikipedia)
• • •

Was humming along and not really thinking much about the theme at first. I noticed that gods were crossing, but I know my gods pretty well, so I was writing them easily as I went along, without even noticing that the crossing gods were clued identically, or that they were Greek / Roman counterparts. Early in the week, this is pretty typical for me—burn through the grid, vaguely notice that there *is* a theme, wait for that theme to jump out and loudly announce itself. So I'm enjoying myself pretty well, doo doo doo, and then I hit the reveal and have a very genuine aha! Actually, it was more like an "Oh!" but an excited "oh!" with an exclamation point, not a meh "oh" ["Meh oh! ... Meh-eh-eh oh ..."—Harry Belafonte encountering a so-so revealer]. The revealer did what it was supposed to do: grabbed my attention and got me to see the pattern at work. Now, if I'd been going slower and had cared to suss out the pattern on my own, I definitely could have, but that's just not how I solve a Tuesday, so ... great. The revealer was like a tour guide pointing out the side of the bus telling me to notice some building I could see in my peripheral vision but wasn't really paying attention to. Thanks, revealer. GRECO-ROMAN isn't the most ... acrobatic wordplay you're ever going to see. Yes, it is a play on a wrestling term, but it's also straightforward, literal description of the theme. But the fact that GRECO-ROMAN *only* evokes wrestling (that's the only time I'd ever use that term, or have ever heard that term) makes it wordplayish enough, I think. Structurally, it's pretty remarkable that the theme works out so nicely within the confines of a rotationally symmetrical grid. In fact, two of the crossings are perfectly symmetrical (ARTEMIS / DIANA, DEMETER / CERES). The other crossings find the gods shifted one column (and row) out of symmetry, but first of all, you probably didn't notice, and second of all, names cross where they cross ... they have the letter(s) in common that they have in common, so threading the needle can be very challenging. It's genuinely remarkable that the theme was doable at all in the confines of a regular Tuesday grid. That fact that the symmetrical counterparts of every Greek and Roman god are all the same length, and that it's always Greek in the Across and Roman in the Down, these features simply add to the elegance of the theme's execution.


The grid is 16-wide in order to accommodate GRECO-ROMAN in the center of the grid (an even-number-length central answer requiring an even-numbered grid width in order to sit true in the center), but the extra column didn't seem to add any time to the solve. Anyway, if the puzzle felt easy but your time was normal, the extra column is probably why. I was strong out of the gate on this one—unsure which org. was involved at 1A: U.S. intelligence org. (I wrote in CIA), but then getting NSA easily once I took one look at the clue for NEPTUNE. After that, very few hiccups. I smiled a few times as I was solving, and probably smiled most broadly at the clue for CHUM (4A: Pal you might take fishing?). Something about the idea of bloody chunks of flesh being your "pal" was funny to me. Same thing happened with the clue on TUMMIES—probably too easy, but something about the phrasing "Rhyming destinations"—and the term "yummies"—was bizarre enough to make me laugh (12D: Rhyming destinations for yummies). There's some pretty decent longer fill in here today, which is mildly surprising given how theme-dense the puzzle is. Loved "I'M SO DEAD" and MEDIA SHY, and UNBURDEN and "I'D SAY SO" are solid as well. I made one mistake today, but even that made me laugh: I had the "RE-" at the beginning of 24A: Capital of Saskatchewan and thought "ooh, ooh, I know this ... it's ... uh ... oh, it's RED HAT!" Uh, no. I think I was thinking of Medicine Hat (which is in Alberta). RED HAT is the software company where friends of mine work. REGINA is, of course, the capital of Saskatchewan. 


Had to fight through two little kealoas* today, at ATAD (not ABIT) (56D: Somewhat) and MDS (not DRS, which is what I wrote in at first) (62D: OB/GYNs, e.g.). I found the tide clue on RECEDES odd (66A: Goes out like the tide), since ... well, if you're gonna go tide-specific, I'd say the verb is (always?) EBBS. If you're gonna go hairline-specific, then RECEDES is definitely your guy. [Goes out] = "Ooh, that's pretty vague, I don't know." [Goes out like the tide] = "Oh, EBBS!" But no. Any other minor gripes? Not really. I do grow weary of DLISTER, and DLIST in general, as a term (8A: Very minor celeb). I feel like the term got currency a decade or so ago with the Kathy Griffin show "My Life on the D-List" and then constructors were like "cool" and just ran with it. Well, I discovered just now that the letter scale for celebrity status has a very specific origin. And a name! It's called the Ulmer Scale:
The A-list is part of a larger guide called The Hot List, which ranks the bankability of 1,400 movie actors worldwide, and has become an industry-standard guide in Hollywood. American entertainment journalist James Ulmer, the guide's creator, has also developed a version including directors, the Hot List of Directors. The Ulmer scale categorizes the lists into A+, A, B+, B, C, and D listings. Similarly, in India, there is three-tier strategy, tier-1, tier-2 and tier-3, which are based on the saleability and box office collection capability of a star. (wikipedia)
So I now know two Ulmers, the other being Edgar G. Ulmer, the director of the beautifully grim low-budget film noir classic, Detour (1945). It will surprise probably no one that ULMER has never appeared in a New York Times crossword puzzle. Adding him to the list of legendary directors that the puzzle continues to snub Justice for the OZU-VARDA-ULMER triumvirate! 


See you tomorrow.

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. 


[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

78 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:58 AM

    I would've crushed it if not for a typo that took me a few precious seconds to find, and I still got a normal Monday time (and it's oversized, even). I got the gimmick at POSEIDON x NEPTUNE, GRECOROMAN went in right after I saw the first part of the clue, and for the other pairs of gods it was just a matter of finding one and then spotting where the counterpart could cross.

    IMSODEAD, MEDIASHY - great. I also liked ENSHRINE, and it reminded me of a LAT themeless that had the ridiculous-looking ENSHRINEE. Apparently that's a word.

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  2. Bob Mills6:28 AM

    I know very little about Greek and Roman gods, so the theme wasn't clear until after I finished. But the fill was easy enough (no misdirects) for me to solve the puzzle in short order.

    DLISTER was a problem briefly, and SEADOO is foreign to me. Otherwise it was smooth sailing.

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  3. I know there are a lot of mythology buffs and others who are interested in varying degrees, so this one will have an audience for sure. Personally, one Greek or Roman mythology figure is one too many, so obviously not for me. Add in the brand names and the other usual PPP suspects and it quickly devolved into a rare Tuesday slog for me.

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  4. I was surprised post-solve to see that this puzzle was by a family team-up. Generally, such puzzles are big dull dead weights.

    Today’s puzzle, though, was entirely pleasant. The more Greek and Roman mythology and Canadian provincial capitals the better, I say.

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  5. I don't "know my gods pretty well," but I'm currently reading Mythos by Stephen Fry. It's a breezy walk through Greek mythology, so that helped.

    My 52A lakeside rentals were CAbinS before they were CANOES.

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  6. Anonymous7:26 AM

    my favorite Ulmer is James Blood Ulmer. Check him out.

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  7. Anonymous7:35 AM

    Picked up on the theme on my first pass, when I just go through all acrosses and downs and only fill out the ones where I am 100% sure there is one and only one possible answer. I specifically did not fill out “god of the sea” because I thought “it could either be POSEIDON or NEPTUNE, I’ll come back on second pass and see if I got any crosses.” Then when I started on downs and saw the same clue I thought “aha, I see what’s going on here.”

    I was super into Greek mythology when I was a kid. Whenever we went to the library that’s what I would check out. However, that was 40+ years ago and some of that knowledge has left me. Definitely the memory of how to spell some of these names is long gone. So I struggled a bit more than I should have.

    My only quibble with this puzzle is MEDIA SHY, which is a phrase I have never heard. CAMERA SHY, sure. But not MEDIA SHY.

    Anyway, good fun puzzle with a nice theme.

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  8. You know, I don't think I ever had a teacher point out the there's an Apollo in both Greek and Roman mythology. I was sort of vaguely, unconsciously aware of it in a "here's a list of Greek gods," and "here's a list of Roman gods" way, but never really stopped and thought about it.
    Then again, it's religious mumbo-jumbo from ancient civilizations, so why would I have cared?

    More interesting to me is learning that CHUM has Powhatan origins. That's fun to know. I'd assumed it was some kind of gross onomatopoeia.

    No hangups here; I didn't know BIBI, but it caused no problems. Overall nice puzzle. Easy but fun.

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  9. Tom F7:37 AM

    Beautifully constructed yes!

    But these early week puzzles are getting too easy. I feel patronized…

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  10. Oh, lovely. Lovely construction. Smoothly-filled grid despite the uber-high 64 theme squares – very tough to pull off despite the extra column. Karen and Paul even wedged in some lovely answers: ENSHRINE, MEDIA SHY, EMINENT, IMPASSE, I’M SO DEAD (a NYT puzzle debut answer), SPARE ME, and SNOW PEA. And how elegant, to have all the Greek gods go one direction (horizontal) and the Roman gods go the other.

    But the best moment for me was uncovering GRECO-ROMAN. My face, which you would, if you saw it, describe as “engaged in solving”, burst into what you would call “beaming”. Perfect revealer. I would love to have witnessed what must have been a huge light bulb moment when Karen or Paul saw “Greco-Roman wrestling” and made the sudden leap to today’s theme. Constructor’s nirvana.

    Oh, I saw EVA backwards, recalling ancient Rome (where “Ave!” meant “Hail!”), and hunted for an ancillary ancient Greek reference in the grid, and there it was – also involving a twisting of letters: If you start with the S of SPEEDO, you can make a Boggle-style SPARTA.

    I’m not terribly ancient-god conversant, but there’s Apollo in the clues for ARTEMIS *and* DIANA, and I did find after solving that Apollo is the only god to share the same name in in both ancient Rome and Greece (Hi, @Mack!). Huh! I’ll remember that.

    A trove of lovely, Karen and Paul, to enrich and beautify my Tuesday. Thank you for this!

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  11. Never been a mythology fan, so this played a little harder for me, but I appreciated the cleverness and construction, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of junk fill despite the density of the theme. The revealer was a nice bonus.

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  12. BritSolvesNYT8:09 AM

    Enjoyed this one! Nice and easy and a fun solve with a couple of really nice clues too.

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  13. I'm surprised it took OFL so long to see the theme, which I thought was obvious after the NEPTUNE and POSEIDON cross. One of my granddaughter's preferred bedtime books is all about the Greek gods and their interrelationships and it gets way too complicated for me to follow. I think she likes the full-color illustrations. Me too.

    Just saw IMSODEAD somewhere, but as @Lewis says it's a debut, it must have been in the NYer. Speaking of which, yesterday's NYer was a beauty and had a better rhyming answer than "yummies" and TUMMIES, and one I have never seen in all my decades of solving.

    I liked this OK but too many of the clues seemed overly explanatory. Not just "preserve", but "as a sacred relic" Not just "fat", but "nonvegan fat". Not just "swimwear brand", but "form-fitting swimwear brand". And so on. I did have a fun moment when I read "mooring" as "mooning" and imagined a PIER as kind of a fun spot for such an activity.

    OK Tuesday, K and PS, but Kindly Put Some more bite into your clues. Thank you, and thanks for a fair amount of fun.

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    1. Nolaist9:34 AM

      I thought the same thing about IMSODEAD but we saw WERESODEAD on July 7th

      Delete
  14. The grid design grabbed my attention straight up - I like it. Wonderful little puzzle - loved the crossing themers.

    My real name is Mr. Earl

    A few unfortunate 3s and 4s but agree with Rex that this was well filled. Chuckled at the LARD x ASS semi cross. Tides do RECEDE.

    Enjoyable Tuesday solve.

    Richard Shindell

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  15. Air conditioning repaired, but still no elevator, so I can finally wear more than just my SPEEDO and was hoping for a tiny bit more entertainment than this puzzle, ya know, since I am going nowhere. 🦖 loved it, so I will love it too. It's a fine effort, but nothing wacko and no reason to rant. Where's the BORESOME when you need it.

    Basic theme from an educational system of yore. CERES took an extra second, but the other names were fill in the blanks from 9th grade. These are the B-LISTER (blister, har) deities, but still reasonably famous. I suspect we'll hear some grumbles about not knowing the gods, but you might ask, what else did your high school English teacher keep from you....

    Congrats @PETE for making the grid.

    By the way, yesterday was the one year anniversary of the famous poker crosswords puzzle with the insane rebus entries that so many hated/loved and led to 229 comments. An epic 🦖 day.

    Uniclues:

    1 One crazy over trouser snakes.
    2 Exhausted outburst from sleepless princess.
    3 Regional reporter really rocked.
    4 Those of Davy Jones's locker.
    5 Reason for all those January commercials.

    1 SPEEDO EELS MAD
    2 "SNOW PEA! SPARE ME!"
    3 CRIER RAD A TAD
    4 "I'M SO DEAD" MEN (~)
    5 TUMMIES IMPASSE

    My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Strip clubs in Boston. TATA BAAS

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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  16. Anonymous8:35 AM

    I am imagining a tag team GRECO-ROMAN wrestling match featuring Poseidon and Artemis vs. Demeter and Dionysus (or their Roman counterparts, if you prefer). The first two would win in a romp. Poseidon is a beast, and Artemis a relentless huntress. Demeter is a peaceful farmer lady and Dionysus a drunkard. Both useless in a wrestling match.

    I like mythology so this was for me. Interesting to think about whether any other combos could have worked if this were a Sunday. Zeus and Jupiter, Ares and Mars, Athena and Minerva, Aphrodite and Venus, Hestia and Vesta, Hephaestus and Vulcan - all those combos share at least one letter. But Hades/Pluto would be stuck in the underworld, and Hera/Juno would be left out and jealous, as always. And Apollo would be fuming over why the Romans were too lazy to come up with a new name for him.

    Rex, like you, I laughed thinking of taking my CHUM fishing and then cutting him into bloody chunks for shark bait. But I groaned at yummies in TUMMIES.

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    Replies
    1. Wanderlust9:28 AM

      That was Wanderlust, BTW.

      Delete
  17. Thx, Karen & Paul; what a beaut! 😊

    Med; overall avg, but the gods of 'wine, feasts and dancing' took me twice as long as the entirety of the rest of the puz to coax out their crossing vowel. Just couldn't get anything that looked good going both ways. Finally tossed in the 'U', and Bob was my uncle.

    Aside from that adventure, this puz was full of crunch; just like my daily intake of SNOW PEAs and sugar SNap PEAs. 😋

    A wonderful workout; loved it! :)
    ___
    Croce's 826 was easy-med (3x NYT' Sat.), with correct guesses at the 'rapper' / 'gumbo' cross and the 'Gru' / 'Chill-out' cross. Another fine production by Tim. :)
    ___
    Will Nediger's Mon. New Yorker cued up for later td.
    ___
    Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity ~ & a DAP to all 👊 🙏

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  18. Hey All !
    He likes it! Hey Mikey!
    (Har, those of us of a certain age will remember that.)

    Are these David's parents? You know, David Steinberg. I'm guessing yes.

    Neat idea for a theme. Almost got them symmetrical, to boot. No nit in the NW/SE being off A TAD. As Rex said, when you cross Names, they cross where they cross, at a common letter. Close enough for me.

    Neat zigzaggy Blockers in the center. All four corners big, which is tough to fill, cleanly or otherwise, when you have crossing Themers. Plus two Long Downs in the center.

    I nominate this as Best TuesPuz. Usually, the worst PuzDay. Bravo you two!

    No F's (OK, not Bravo on that!)
    RooMonster
    DarrinV

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  19. Diane Joan9:25 AM

    Echoing others on this blog I found this puzzle to be delightful! From the theme to the long downs that were aptly clued, the puzzle was a nice start to my day. Thank you to the constructors, Rex and fellow bloggers! You all put a smile on my face today!

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  20. Cool puztheme. Gonna need all the cool stuff we can get, today.
    And 16x15 puzgrid, too boot … more for yer moneybucks.
    Noticed the NEPTUNE/POSEIDON clue replication, but just chalked it up to a fun coincidence, at first. The Shortzmeister (and constructioneers) kinda like to duplicate clues, sometimes.

    DIANA/ARTEMIS made m&e more suspicious that I was gettin some themers served up, especially since there weren't any real longball-ish Across themer candidates. Immediately consulted the clues list, to locate the revealer. Yep -- crossin answers. [Took longer to actually solve the primo revealer answer, tho.]

    Very few no-knows: SEADOO & DIONYSUS were about all.

    staff weeject pick: MNO. Phone keypad sprite.
    some fave stuff: SNOWPEA. TUMMIES and its clue. UNBURDEN. IMSODEAD. MEDIASHY.

    Thanx for gangin up on us, god & goddess of Steinberg. Superb job.

    Masked & Anonym007Us


    **gruntz**

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  21. @Anon 7:26 – I thought of James Blood Ulmer too. I never really got into his music but I remember when he started getting acclaim back in the late 70's.

    I felt like I was in a watercentric theme park doing this puzzle – NEPTUNE/POSEIDON, CHUM, SPEEDO, SEA-DOO, CANOES, AVAST, PIER, NET, EELS, EGRET, "goes out like the tide". It started to overshadow the actual theme (which was very well done).

    Did the goddess DEMETER wear the essential oil VETIVER, I wonder? I get those two words mixed up.

    the video for 12d

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  22. Anonymous9:52 AM

    Director detours to this list (5)

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  23. My kealoa today was a cabinoe

    We just saw a little girl in the park playing with a stick as a spear and commented that she looked like a little hunter - her dad proudly informed us her name was Artemis:)

    Our kids were the correct age for the Percy Jackson books, so the book on CD we listened to on a road trip was a decent refresher for GrecoRoman gods. Plus some make appearances in the inescapable (except to Nancy:) superhero films of late.

    Funny that the clue had to specify "nonvegan" for a pie crust since the default standard is LARD, or Crisco. Since it says "fat", that implies an animal product, as opposed to "shortening". That phrasing through me off trying to think of vegan fat substitutes before reading more carefully.

    To work in @Z 2 days in a row, this puzzle didn't Tuezz...(if I spelled that right)

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  24. Joseph Michael10:21 AM

    So Biana isn’t a Roman god? I guess I had her confused with Beyoncé.

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  25. The Greek myths came before the Roman myths, so it makes sense that Apollo should be in both. But how about the others? For example, are DIANA and ARTEMIS the same beings with different names? Or are they different with overlapping domains?

    I liked the puzzle. Quite a bit of sparkle for one with a themer in each corner. David helped his parents with it. I'm a little surprised that he approved of the 21 Terrible Threes.

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  26. Oh wow! A marvel of construction and technically one of the best themes I’ve ever seen. Still, for those of us who have only crossword knowledge of GRECO ROMAN gods and zero knowledge of wrestling, it was certainly a challenge. The entire puzzle seemed trivia laden by definition, but the SE in particular was a struggle for me. Besides the two trivia+proper name theme answers, we had an Israeli nickname, a brand name, a German term, a Spanish word and a British slang! The town square of Natick City right there.

    @Loren from yesterday: I second what Beezer said about the knockout roses. There are beautiful when in full bloom but beastly to maintain. I still have scars inflicted by their vicious tentacles that reached out and attacked me while I was mowing.

    @Beezer: My experience with those evil growths of vegetation was exactly the same as yours. I planted eight of them along the south side of my house with visions of how gorgeous they were going to look. And they did. But then they grew. And they grew. And they grew. I put up a valiant battle for several years but then had rotator cuff surgery, didn’t get them cut back when I should have and they got completely out of control. The next spring I hired someone to rip them out. Never again.



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  27. Tuesdays don't get much better than this!

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  28. Incredible puzzle today. I had a very similar journey through the top half of the puzzle as Rex.

    The theme worked perfectly. And the solving experience was delightful.

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  29. A flawlessly executed grid with an absolutely perfect revealer that I didn't see coming. Kudos. Every time you think there can't be any new ideas for puzzles anymore, someone comes up with a new idea.

    Did I myself know/remember all the crisscrossing gods? No -- but they were all fairly crisscrossed. And, yes, I realize I talk about this a lot, but it's so refreshing to be given a puzzle where the knowledge being tested is what the educated person should know, even if they don't, rather than a lot of ephemeral pop culture trivia.

    Of course I knew NEPTUNE=POSEIDON and so did you. Did I know that DEMETER=CERES? No, but I learned it just now. Will I remember it? Of course not -- but you might. Anyway, that's not the point. Terrific puzzle, Steinbergs!

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    Replies
    1. Might not help others the next time but I vaguely remembered that cereal comes from Ceres. Demeter was also in my memory somewhere.
      Liked the puzzle. Had some difficulty till I got the gimmick. So I didn’t find it too easy like some did.

      Delete
  30. Breezy and fun Tuesday puzzle and like @kitshef the more mythology the better! I also tripped up for a moment with CAbinS instead of CANOES (@burtonkd…cabinoes…hah!) and…for SOME reason I always think Ski DOOS (like water skiing) instead of SEA DOOS um, because they are often used on lakes? And yes, I ALWAYS mentally have a d’oh moment because I DO know ski doos are little snowmobiles. (My daughter says in Alaska they are called “snow machines” even though that term evokes Scatman Crothers going up the mountain to the Overlook in his Sno Cat.

    @Roo…I swear you have echoed my thoughts now two days in a row! Today after reading @Rex my first thought was Mikey and “He likes it”! Well, you know…great minds and all that…

    Does anyone other than me think of the clue for “RESORT” being ATAD off? I dunno. The word “tourist” implies that one is or will “tour” and I think of RESORTs as being THE destination for many people. Well, you can probably tell I’m NOT a fan of RESORTs.

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  31. Anonymous10:52 AM

    @jberg here, commenting on my phone while my wife gets radiation treatments. (She’s fine, btw). The hardest part of this puzzle was remembering GRECO/ROMAN wrestling.

    More later, wife finished early.

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  32. A fun puzzle that I swooshed through. Thank you!

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  33. Allow me to introduce you to another Ulmer. James Blood Ulmer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Blood_Ulmer

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  34. Nicely done! After the top two crossing pairs, I wondered how the constructors were going to crowd a twosome into the center row. I hadn't anticipated a reveal and enjoyed the surprise of the perfect join of GRECO-ROMAN. Other crosses I liked: NEPTUNE and the fishing NET, SPEEDO x SPARE ME, I'M SO DEAD x NUMB.

    Things I learned from the comments: 1) that APOLLO is APOLLO, whether Greek or Roman (thanks, @Mack); 2) that the Greeks all go Across and the Romans Down (thanks, @Lewis); and 3) that the clue for LARD was "Nonvegan" instead of what I read, which was "Norwegian" (I grew up in a town of Andersons, Gjertsons, Johnsons, Knudsons, Olsons, Swensons, etc., and everybody made their pie crusts with LARD.)

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  35. Liveprof11:35 AM

    @jberg. I hope this brings your wife a smile. When I was undergoing radiation treatments, I was sometimes met at the door by a big Black guy, one of the technicians, and he'd break into a smile and ask me: Table for one?

    I glad to hear she's fine.

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  36. @whatsername…omg…I can’t EVEN imagine dealing with EIGHT of those bad boys! I only had TWO since my garden space is more limited in our current condo/town home and being the cheapskate that I am, hacked them down as far as I could with a long-handled pruner then dug up the rest…suffice it say that if I’d have had EIGHT my pocketbook would’ve opened up immediately! I AM serious about the tetanus shot @LMS…ya know these days it’s gardening pricks and cuts that carry tetanus…not so much the old “rusty nails” thing that I heard as a kid! So. My estimate is a about 5 years before they get “crazy hard” and unfortunately you need chain mail opera length garden gloves to avoid thorn incidents…I know…bummer man!

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  37. Medium except for the NE. It took quite a few nanoseconds for DIANA to rise to the surface and spelling ARTEMIS took some staring. Very clever and fun, liked it.

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  38. Nice puzzle - even though my knowledge of “Greco-Roman” is limited to the knuckle lock - I grew up watching Verne Gagne’s AWA, after all - was able to find Gods in this!

    Remembering David’s health concerns for his father, hope Paul is doing well…

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous5:07 PM

      @andrew 11:40 am:
      Verne Gagne, now that's a trip down memory lane, which made me think of the old Roller Derby with Joanie Weston, The Blonde Bomber. I remember watching both programs on the weekend.

      Delete
  39. @jberg, I also echo @liveprof’s sentiments and it is a blessing that radiation is much more “targeted” than it was in the late 20th century. Not a walk in the park still…

    Regarding late last night…@Gary J and Mack…you prove that people can be kindly educated and I applaud you. None of us can really know what @Sarah “really meant” with her comment and sometimes people use “unfortunate” choices in their wording. Bravo to you both!

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  40. Ah...a Tuesday full of immortal gods...except the Olympic god DIONYSUS because his mother was mortal.
    I used to love mythology...actually I still do. I just can't always remember how to spell their names. My favorite?....Hephaestus. He was the Greek god of blacksmiths. They had gods for everything and we should be thankful for their hard work.
    NEPTUNE/POSEIDON to start my puzzle off. Joy.
    DIANA/ARTEMIS to follow. LARD keeping them together.
    CHUM...So what is it? Your pal or that stuff you throw overboard to catch a shark?
    Then I thought about HIDDEN assets and agendas and I pondered.
    My dad had a Swiss bank account that he never talked about. Mom said is was to put assets he needed to UNBURDEN and put them in a safe place. I think there was a wink wink involved.
    Anyway...I really liked this puzzle. It was full of fun.

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  41. Sorry Rex, doesn't seem like you represent many people here. Like most people here, I don't know as much as you do about Greek and Roman gods, making this a difficult Tuesday puzzle.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous4:30 PM

      @Jeff B. 11:54am:
      I don't know what blog you're reading, but most so far have found this fairly easy, and even if Greek and Roman gods aren't your thing, they're everywhere. They are used as logos and in branding all the time. Shoes, colognes and perfumes, cars, clothing, companies. There are statues in parks and on buildings. And that's not even counting the fact that they are in xword puzzles every single week .

      Delete
  42. @Beezer writes: "Omg…I can’t EVEN imagine dealing with EIGHT of those bad boys! I only had TWO since my garden space is more limited in our current condo/town home..."

    OMG, @Beezer, I thought you were talking about the Greek and Roman GODS!!!!! Which shows that a Rexite had better not miss a single comment in a single thread on this blog -- not if she knows what's good for her!:)

    @Carola -- I also misread Nonvegan as Norwegian.

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  43. @jberg (10:52 AM)

    🙏s for your wife! :)
    ___
    Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity ~ & a DAP to all 👊 🙏

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  44. Upon seeing that a certain answer was about to come in, but not having yet read the clue, this was the clue I imagined/hoped it might be:

    My time has come and gone, alas!

    Quick, everyone. Which answer was it???

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  45. Thanks for the kind comments for my wife. The radiation oncology staff are wonderful; all happy and supportive, and when someone finishes their treatment they ring a bell and applaud as they leave.

    The thing about classical mythology is that you see references to it all over the place, it's one of our great sources of metaphor, with Neptune's realm, calling a woman a Venus, etc. And we eat CEREal! (Well, I don't but still).

    Anybody else wonder about TWINED? Normally I would think of it as meaning 'interlocking,' i.e., 'their arms were TWINED together.' Here it seems to mean "tied up with twine," but I have never, ever seen a bale of hay that was not tied up with wire. Maybe bales of hay are no longer such a common experience..

    Also, you dock your boat at a PIER; you moor it to a buoy. Not al all the same thing, although it was easy enough to see what they had in mind there.

    Anyway, I join in the praise for this puzzle. See you all tomorrow!

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  46. So glad your wife is doing well, @jberg, and even able to garner applause and a rung bell. Please give her my very best wishes.

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  47. Tom T1:09 PM

    Not sure how many people know that, like deer, SEADOO serves as both the singular and plural for those juiced up aquatic vehicles. I had a friend who rented them out and had almost 2 dozen of them! That's correct. He had ...

    (wait for it ...)

    23 SEADOO!


    I'll show myself out.

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  48. SharonAK1:14 PM

    @Nancy. Ditto your comment re knowledge being tested on.

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  49. @Carola 11:06....and any other pie crust makers.
    I don't EVER use LARD...I don't like how difficult it is to roll out and it's not flaky like I like.
    My go to crust is all butter (good Irish butter) with about 2 tbs of apple cider vinegar. Sounds crazy, huh? Want another crazy? Instead of the vinegar add a couple of drops of water and Vodka. That's right, Vodka! It makes the crust easy to work with .
    I toss everything into my Cuisinart and give it a few pulses. By the way, you don't taste the Vodka.
    My go to favorite, though....is butter and cream cheese.
    Don't use LARD!...Vegan's know. Do they drink Vodka?

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  50. Melrose1:20 PM

    Beautiful puzzle! Thanks!

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  51. @Nancy…you prompted me to comment over the “soft limit” of 3 comments today! I cracked up at BOTH of your (second) comments, but especially NONVEGAN vs NORWEGIAN!! Oh…I have been there/done that too!

    That reminds me, and I apologize to who commented on “LARD/Crisco” but butter is often used for pie crusts. THAT is “vegetarian” but NOT a vegan choice. This leads me to ask…do vegans only go for Crisco or margarine crust? I’m NOT trying to be cute, I really am just curious. Hmmm. As @Z would say…there is a little search engine named [choice of search engine]…

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  52. @jberg, There are still wire balers out there, obviously, but when twine balers became available they quickly became more popular due to the much lower cost and much greater ease of handling twine. There's a reason "to go haywire" means to get all fouled up.

    In my region, only very small farms still use the square bales that a human can handle. Most bales are now round "marshmallows" wrapped in plastic, so big that they can only be moved with a tractor lift.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:20 PM

      Thanks for the origin of go haywire and the reason why TWINE is correct.

      Delete
  53. Anonymous2:02 PM

    This was my favorite puzzle in a really long time. It didn’t feel like I was doing a daily chore to keep my streak going, and I haven’t felt that very often for a few years

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  54. @Nancy

    Until reading your comment, I thought the clue said NORWEGIAN.

    @jberg

    I think it's intertwined, like interlaced.

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  55. @Nancy (12:10) “Eight Roman gods.” I’d use a “rolling on the floor laughing” emoji here but I know how you hate them.

    @jberg (12:59) I think in this part of the midwest, baling TWINE is used pretty much exclusively for hay and straw bales, even the small square ones. You can’t beat baling wire though for an all purpose fix-it material.

    @GILL (1:16) Love your alternate ingredients for pie crust. I’ve made it with butter and vinegar but not vodka or cream cheese. Although I seldom make it from scratch these days, I’m making a note to remember both of those.

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  56. Anonymous3:26 PM

    @Sailor - Yeah, twine not metal. You mean rectangular, not square (really, the prism form of these two) There's no such thing as a cubic bale - you can't stack them safely.

    Big / small bales are determined by their ultimate use, or scale of use. Horse farms, sheep, goats, all get small bales, as when you're feeding just a couple of dozen critters you only probably need fewer than 4 or 5 each feeding. Large round bales get put out for larger herds of cattle to eat. One or two 1000lb bale(s) will last a small herd of cattle for a week. You can even unroll it to feed dozens at a time. Big square bales are usually for the mushroom farmers. If they bales is entirely encased in plastic, it's usually baleage, sileage in a bale. It's packed slightly wet, and allowed to ferment anaerobically. You lose a small percentage in the fermentation process, but you gain a ton in baling almost immediately after, if not in the same step as, cutting.

    Oh, TWINED is BORESOME.

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  57. Triple Kealoa land today: NSA/CIA, A BIT/A TAD, and MDS/DRS. Sure, we
    Can quibble about what a “true” Kealoa is, but these three I had to check the downs, and. fortunately they were very helpful.

    I really enjoyed this one. Lots of theme answers and such a quiet almost sneaky theme. Like OFL, I was breezing along actually enjoying all the theme answers and I never really focused on the GRECO-ROMAN aspect of the pairs. Very clever and a mice “aha” at the end.

    I retired from serving as legal counsel to three counties and their elected officials, two of which counties are rural. As a “city mouse” my entire life, I learned so much about farming, specifically, hogs and hay, so I have enjoyed the “twine vs wire discussion.

    Such a good Tuesday!

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  58. A long, long time ago I was a distance swimmer and to minimize swimsuit drag I always wore a SPEEDO. Now that I'M PASSE I wouldn't dare for fear of hearing some CRIER shouting "SPARE ME, LARD ass!"

    Yesterday I was reading about the Ukraine's suspected use of an Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV)---essentially a drone---to attack the Rooskies' Crimean bridge. The propulsion system is composed of parts from the Canadian SEA-DOO jet ski company.

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  59. @jberg....Sending best wishes to you wife.
    Whatsername 2:41. One stick of butter....One pack of cream cheese...One fresh egg. Cuisinart....Pulse pulse till it looks like parmesan. Kneed and form a ball. Cut in half...form into two balls. Refrigerate for up to a weeks....Make EMPANADAS! .... Make a pie....! Simple and tasty and easy to work with....
    @Nancy...Eight Roman gods! Indeed ....

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  60. Breakfast Tester9:34 PM


    How is DRS and MDS a kealoa??? The only shared letter (in the same position) is the terminal S. By that logic, CATS and DOGS would be a kealoa pair as answers for the clue "House pets".

    Also, CIA couldn't be the answer for "1A: U.S. intelligence org." because the I in CIA stands for "intelligence".

    🙃

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  61. @Breakfast Tester – I agree, DRS/MDS isn't a kealoa. When the only common letter is a pluralizing "s", it doesn't count.

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  62. Burma Shave12:45 PM

    TWINED SNOG

    I'DSAY DIANA wasn't SHY,
    SO asked BACCHUS TO get CHUMmy,
    "IASSUME an EMINENT guy
    will RESORT TO rubbing TUMMIES?"

    --- EVA PIER

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  63. Nice one. Slight hesitation on DIONYSUS because I wasn't sure of that final vowel. Good, tight theme and perfect revealer. Rest of week: you've got two tough acts to follow! Tiny gig for the desperate MNO. Birdie.

    Wordle par.

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  64. rondo1:10 PM

    BTW noticed: IDSAYSO IMSODEAD

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  65. rondo3:06 PM

    Ye gods! Literally. Or actually. @DIANA tells us to know our gods. And the periodic table.
    Wordle par.

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  66. Anonymous4:41 PM

    Since several bloggites have commented on lard, the best and flakiest pie crust I ever had was made with lard. A friend of mine's mother got some as a gift that was straight from the farm, and she knew she would have to use it right away, so she made pies. That was around 50 years ago and I remember that pie crust til this day.

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  67. Anonymous5:20 PM

    One last comment. Several people have mentioned how radiation treatment is more targeted than before. It is much, much, much more targeted than before. When I was a kid my great uncle, who also was my godfather, had to have radiation treatment and it was fairly new and experimental, and in order to have it done, he had to go to Argonne National Laboratory, because hospitals didn't have the machines yet. The things this blog can trigger in one's mind.

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  68. I like how the Roman gods were all D and the Greek ones were all A. Excellent collaboration!

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  69. Anonymous5:59 PM

    I see you've taken the verb form of "chum" for your word of the day.

    As a noun, which arguably fits the cluing a little better, "chum" is a variety of pacific salmon.

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  70. rondo9:25 PM

    @anon - double yes to Vern and Joanie. AWA and SF Bombers. You must hail from MN. There's gonna be fines and suspensions . . . Wally Karbo

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