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Some roofing material / SUN 7-23-2023 / U.S. Davis Cup player for 10 years / Humorously exaggerated / Feed, as a pup might / Capital of Togo / Hallmarks of Scottish accents
Sunday, July 23, 2023
Constructor: Chandi Deitmer
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER — Theme answers are homophones break across a black block
Word of the Day: NARNIA (41D: Aslan's world) —
Narnia is a fantasy world created by C. S. Lewis as the primary location for his series of seven fantasy novels for children, The Chronicles of Narnia. The world is named after the country of Narnia, where much of the Chronicles takes place.
• • •
Theme answers:
- WHO + TOWEL = HOOT OWL (21A: Nocturnal bird known for its distinct calls, informally)
- LAUNCH + HEIRS = LAWN CHAIRS (30A: Some outdoor seats)
- HIGH + DOUBTS = HIDEOUTS (37A: Secret lairs)
- FORK + WARTS = FOUR QUARTS (49A: Equivalent of one gallon)
- NEIGH + MITT = NAME IT (67A: "Anything you want!")
- PLAGUE + EARL = PLAYGIRL (80A: Former magazine that featured male nudes)
- QUEUE + BRUTES = CUBE ROOTS (86A: 2 vis-à-vis 8, 3 vis-à-vis 27, etc.)
- SLOPE + OAK = SLOWPOKE (99A: Lollygagger)
- BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER (58A: Hit Mach I … or a hint to answering eight pairs of consecutive entries in this puzzle)
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| This is a vicuña |
Having said that, I thought the theme finds were all fun. All the meanings and spellings changed a lot, so it was satisfying to piece the sounds together to figure out the overall answer. There are 9 pairs of theme answers and the spanner revealer, so it's a pretty dense puzzle. Very little (if any!) iffy fill given these constraints.
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| This is Mount Shasta |
The longer non-theme stuff was great ... BOHO CHIC, I GOTTA GO, WHERE WERE WE, TRASH TALK, MIND BLOWN, etc., etc. Just great stuff all around that elevated the solve for me. Not a ton more to say about this one. There's really very little to nitpick. I just wish the revealer had landed a bit more strongly for me!
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| This is Sparky the Sun Devil |
Bullets:
- OTTESSA (25A: ___ Moshfegh, author of the 2015 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award-winning novel "Eileen") — I've read "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" and "Lapvona" by this author. I enjoyed both but the latter in particular is very ... weird? Please let me know what you thought if you've read this book!
- TAMALES (57D: Steamed food items eaten with the hands) -- I will come clean and say that I have never eaten a tamale before, though it looks delicious
- DUCTS (9A: Tear things)— Fun misdirect here ... "tear" in this clue rhymes with "fear" not "fare"
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97 comments:
I have eaten many tamales, but never with my hands without a fork in them. Nor have I seen them eaten thus. I have made tamales, rolled by hand - nearly 70 years ago.
Can someone explain 16D 411/deets?
CHEEKY is right! What a hilariously silly outing and I loved every minute of this.
As I read through the comments, I bet I can guess in advance who will hate this and who will love it. Homophones, word play, low trivia count, crackpot cluing, a few tee-hees is exactly what I love in a puzzle. People complaining it's not funny, too clever by half, "that's not how you pronounce that," clues should be synonyms, WS is the worst, and this is the most abysmal whatever in X decades of solving... well, that's why I read the comments. A great puzzle followed by the grimy commentariat makes for my kinda Sunday. I wish more people took time to read the knee-slapping comment section here. Sometimes there's wisdom in these words and sometimes a signal fire lights up for the end of intellect. Either way this place is a blast.
Here's what I appreciate from today's skirmish with the squares:
I roamed around this half a dozen times getting stuck moving on re-thinking and stabbing at guesses. I wrote in BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER with no crosses and was delighted it stuck. And then I knew it was homophones day. I kept plugging away and I've come to love the feeling of wearing my STEEL TOES rather than whooshing about on ballet slippers.
I nearly finished clean, but ADLER skunked me and the crosses weren't happening without her. I know Sherlock Holmes exists and that's all I know about the franchise. I think there's a Watson too, and they investigate crimes,right? OTTESSA is a bit rude, but seven crosses made short work of that.
Had no faith BURRS is a thing, but let it ride. Why can't LAURYNs stick with Es?
I do believe if you sat on a lawn chair in the middle of a highway, you'd LAUNCH HEIRS.
LOVED: Two dress ups in a row, HIGH DOUBTS, BUOYED is my 18th favorite word, PLAGUE EARL, BOHO CHIC, ARFED, MIND BLOWN, and FREE PASS.
UG: The AME Methodists are the anti-gay ones. QURAN spelling seems less than ideal.
Tee-Hees: A great day for juvenalia after a slow week. FORK WART, ASS, TEENIE, LUBE, SUCKLE, and LURID!
Uniclues:
1 Send in the perfumed thugs.
2 Central Africans hate on Western Africans.
3 Bernadette, get the map.
1 QUEUE BRUTES, ESTEE
2 BANTU TRASHTALK LOME
3 WHERE WERE WE PETERS?
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Mud pie: what and why. EAT DIRT. NO POINT.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And finally, our couplet catastrophe yesterday sent me ambling through heroic poetic forms and I tried two with themes from my day:
Heroic Couplets:
Walked among the NPR elitists.
Pushy-wushy privileged can't-defeatists.
First the farmer's market then the arts fest.
Portobello luncheon was the best test.
Elbows nearly touching in the Gardens.
Here my poverty is granted pardon.
Heroic Hexameter Rhymed-ish:
Cherries and melons and white girls with
pure breds awash in their privilege.
Old men with loud wives and credit buy
blurry bad paintings of sewage.
I gobble burgers of fake meat and
soy beans in curated gardens.
Poor as a church mouse I hobnob with
egos where I am the margins.
Man oh man, talk about being up my alley. A while back, Bruce Haight taught me the term oronym - a phrase that sounds like another phrase. Dairy air, stuff he nose, I scream… Oronyms can also spawn some of those terrific mondegreens that are so fun: for reverend blue jeans (Neil Diamond), ‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy (Hendrix). Since spoken language lacks the helpful spaces (pauses) between words that written language has, the occasional re-interpretation of the sound of a phrase just pleases the heck out of me.
Once I saw the trick with LAUNCH HEIRS, I had a swell time just seeking out the other phrases and trying to guess them without a lot of crosses. I’m with @Gary Jugert - fun, fun, fun. Delightful. (@Gary? Re the spelling of LAURYN? Can you feel my pain? Dad’s name was Oren, and they thought they made my name up. Sigh. A long life of having my name misspelled.)
I love that Chandi took this approach of placing the two words as separate entries, freeing her up to just put two random words together such that the two entries, as a phrase, don’t have to make sense. But actually now that I look back, the only ones that can’t work as a phrase are NEIGH MITT and WHO TOWEL. Hah. The rest could be pretty easily imagined:
LAUNCH HEIRS – catapult William and Harry over a wall
HIDE DOUBTS – I’m guilty of this all the time
PLAGUE EARL – that pesky rash. . .
QUEUE BRUTES – ever stood in line at an airport in a country that doesn’t observe basic line etiquette?
SLOPE OAK – the reason for ski helmets
FORK WARTS – hmm. Hard to imagine, but not impossible.
Rafa – I have to disagree about the reveal. I sort of see your point, but I think it beautifully describes the trick here. The SOUND BARRIER is “broken” in that the two words are “broken” up in an unexpected way to result in a new barrier, as it were.
I can imagine a scenario with my tooth salad (I described last week) where I show the waiter, the waiter tells the manager, and he says, Seize her salad! Now! Oh! I have another one – when Mom and I had to wait in line to be seated at a Vietnamese restaurant a couple of weekends ago. I had heard it was the best one in the area, which could explain the big pho queue we had to endure. (I imagine this one has already been thought of – hold on, I’ll google it. . . . . yep), but I totally want credit for thinking of it on my own, ok?)
I was today years old when I realized my pronunciation of PLAGUE rhymes with leg. And still, I’ve lived a perfectly normal life. And @SharonAk -hand up for not knowing you ate TAMALES with your hands. Damn.
“Tan” before LIE on the beach. I love the ambiguity of LIE on the beach. I LIE on the beach every time I’m there. Wanna know when? When anyone asks me if I want to go for a walk. No, in fact - just let me sit here like a lump on my launch heir and exert zero effort. I’m pretty honest here about admitting to liking things that are widely considered contemptible (Bravo TV, Big Macs, Rocky and Rambo). I’ll come clean now and admit that I do Not like long walks on the beach. All I think about the whole time is when will we turn around? How far, seriously, are we gonna walk? I have a book to get back to. But announcing that I don’t like long walks on the beach is akin to announcing that I enjoy kicking puppies.
Mostly easy. The difficult part was figuring out the — clues. This was delightful, clever and fun, liked it a bunch and Jeff gave it POW.
@Rafa - (a) the revealer worked for me (hi @lms). (b) OTESSA was a WOE so now I need to add to my “need to read list”. (c) TAMALES are indeed delicious.
...and @SharonAK - 411 is what you at some point in time dialed for information. DEETS is slang for details...information.
Did anyone notice the undersized 20x21 grid?
hObO CHIC slowed me up in the NW, as did the total WOE OTTESSA. I wasn't fooled by the misdirect in the "Tear things" clue at 9A, but my first answer was DropS. I knew the singer Ms. Hill at 40A, but @Gary, @LMS misspelled it LAUReN, which made CHEEKY hard to see.
Loved the clue for BEATLE at 73A. Needed every cross for LOME at 95D.
I agree on the tamales. Burn your fingers eating by hand. As far as 411, that was once the number to call information and deets is slang for details which is a type of information.
A good friend emailed an alert that I goofed:
stuff he knows / stuffy nose
Oops.
Hi @Rafa, I think the 'breaking' part of the theme is that the words are 'broken' in their pronunciation, e.g., 'who towel' = 'hoo-towl', not 'hoot owl' etc.
Wow nine homophones - how much more fun can we have? This kind of craziness should be limited to an early week sized grid or Highlights.
I did like SHAWARMA and CARTOONY. Go to Factory on Ludlow for the mole poblano TAMALES - it will be messy eating them with your hands but I have done it.
Shouldn’t the clue for 60d read “Scraping (out)”?
Flat puzzle and a flat surf this morning.
Peter TOSH
Dropped the reveal in no problem, but still didn’t discern the theme - so I wandered around the grid even more in the dark than usual. Makes for a near-impossible solve when about 18 of the clues made absolutely no sense to me - and I even noticed WHO TOWEL = HOOT OWL and it still sailed right over my head. Duh.
It’s good to see ASS back in the grid after its brief vacation in the Hamptons. Adding CHEEKY to up the juvy humor a notch was a nice touch as well.
I liked it a lot, too, except for my Natick at OTTESSA / TOSH. I thought Brits said “bosh” for nonsense. It still sounds right to me: “Oh, bosh!” Otbessa didn’t look great, though, and when I didn’t get happy music, I knew right where the error was. I had to try a few letters before settling on T.
I got BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER pretty quickly, but I didn’t grok what it meant until NEIGH MITT. I actually prefer it when it takes a long time to get the theme, because then I eagerly go back to the ones I skipped over and delight in figuring then out. Like @LMS, I thought the pairs could be reclued wacky-style, ala @Gary’s daily uniclues. Mine were a little different than yours, LAURYN … er, Lauren … er, Loren. I love the image of catapulting William and Harry over the wall to finally put an end to their FEUD. But I was thinking “ejaculate” for LAUNCH HEIRS. (Hope that gets by the mods - thank you so much for your great work!) Some others:
HIGH DOUBTS - wondering if you should have eaten that entire pot cookie.
FORK WARTS - strange bumps in your eating utensil. (BTW, I too eat TAMALES with a FORK - once you take the corn husk off, it’s messy to eat with your hands.)
PLAGUE EARL - lord who returns from the Crusades with an unpleasant gift for the shire.
WHO TOWEL - what Roger Daltrey uses to wipe off the sweat from a vigorous performance of Baba O’Reilly.
I was thinking the same thing as @LMS for QUEUE BRUTES, and didn’t have anything for SLOPE OAK - yours is perfect!
Three awesome clues (at least): “one crying “Help!” “ for BEATLE; “side by side, maybe” for AREA; and “things revealing basic truths” for PH TESTS.
I GOTTA GO…
Loved the theme, and thought the reveal was a nice added bonus. Agree with Rafa that there was not a lot of junk for such a dense theme.
@Conrad, it sounds silly that one less square across should make such a difference, but when I first opened the grid I had to double-check that it was indeed Sunday.
411 is internet request for details
I loved it. Each theme answer I solved gave me a little smile. The nits I found aren't really worth picking. Again it felt like there were a lot of fill-in-the-blanks, but on review, most are people's names, which is acceptable. The others were mostly fair ("All _____" by itself is pretty bad, but obvious from crosses).
The inclusion of two university names seems like a major flaw, particularly since one is an initialism and the other is an abbreviation despite having the same style of clue. But I suppose it's not really UMASS's fault it has a weird nickname. Still, though...one is one too many.
Count me as another who has never eaten tamales by hand. I can't imagine how that can even work. Seems like trying to eat meatloaf with you hands...
I love it when it takes a while to crack a theme, as it did today. My brain loves the quest – dangling in a sweet confusion, lifting every stone, grasping for connections – and it loves the ding that peals when the curtains part. Today it appropriately happened at WHO TOWEL, because, well, what a hoot!
This was wordplay using nonsense homophone phrases, with the accent on “play”. Kafka said, “Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” I’d like to add that anyone who keeps the ability to play never grows old either. Or at least me. Whenever I’m engaged in play, I feel like a kid. And this puzzle’s theme brought out the “Whee!” in me.
So, Chandi, your puzzle, for me, was highly engaging, exhilarating. Not only was I gripped by trying to crack the theme and thorny clues, I was filled with ebullience as I romped through this playground, this wordplayground, you created. Thus, one marvelous outing, one of those special Sundays. Thank you so much for this!
I firmly believed BOSH was right until I looked up Ms. Moshfegh and learned about her. Never heard of TOSH, though I have read the expression PISH-TUSH (probably in a P.G. Wodehouse story).
Deets, as in shorthand for 'details'. Give me the 411
While it's probably regularly used as an interjection, I've most often heard TOSH as a noun: "What a load of tosh!"
Cute and pretty simple, but I wish the answers had some more OOMPH to them, either in their intrinsic meaning (if any) or cluing. WHO-TOWEL... Townsend's wipe? LAUNCH-HEIRS... Reading of the will? SLOPE-OAK... Leaning tree? But NEIGH-MITT doesn't mean anything other than as pertains to the theme.
Enjoyed "One crying 'Help!'" Well-clued!
My aim was to finish this by (circa) 8 AM, so I could get on with the rest of the day! Done!
Although it is almost universally misspelled, the singular for tamales in Spanish is tamal, not tamale.
I love tamales. Once my country cousin and I were at a catered party with a lovely stack of tamales folded neatly into their corn husks. Charles went over to try them, commenting on how good they smelled, but the next thing I knew there he stood with a puzzled frown on his face. “They’re hard to chew…” He was chomping down on the tamal in the corn husk! (Yes, and tamal is the singular of tamales.)
Speaking of which, on Saturdays we often go to Doña Rosa’s taco stand at our neighborhood farmers’ market, where I get to practice my Duolingualized Spanish. Doña Rosa is from Oaxaca, is very patient with me, and does tacos and tamales right. My fluent wife likes some of Rosa’s more unusual taco fillings, especially chapulines and huitlacoche. Chapulines are grasshoppers flavored with chili peppers and lime. Huitlacoche is a delicious black fungal growth on corn, and taco makers sometimes have trouble translating it: corn fungus, corn growth, corn smut (my fave)… and finally seem to have settled on corn mushrooms, to which it bears zero resemblance. You should try it if you haven’t. Me, I usually pick the mole con pollo (chicken in that indescribable chocolate infused sauce)— which I invariably alter to pollo con mole, or worse, mollo con pole. A 900 day Duolingo streak and todavía estoy equivocándome…
Ugh. Definitely not for me. I'll place homophone themes next to my absolutely hated "change some letters and clue wackily!" themes. It always seems these awful (to me) themes are on Sunday where the oversized puzzle already feels like a slog. This grid made it worse because it was essentially a bunch of broken up small puzzles made of mostly short fill, with impenetrable unclued answers blocking you from getting any momentum.
All in all I absolutely hated this puzzle. Others will love it. I like rebus puzzles, and I know lots of solvers absolutely hate them.
Wanta a swift rebuke from my Mom? Eat your TAMALES as suggested in 57D. "No churros for you until you learn some manners."
Thx, Chandi; excellent Sun. puz! 😊
Hard.
Aside from not grokking the theme until near the end, I was not at all on the right wavelength, in general. That's fine with me, cos it means learning stuff.
Loved the theme, once I figured it out! :)
Terrific adventure! More like this one, pls.
___
Stella Zawistowski's Sat. Stumper was pretty tough; managed to come away with only a one cell dnf at the cross of 'City' / 'peace'. Great workout! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity ~ & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
1) Bring to a close
2) Transformed into
3) Gaunt
4) Advice for a cliffhanger?
5) Stop abruptly
Happy World Whale and Dolphin Day!
I absolutely loved the wordplay in this. And I found the puzzle as a whole pretty challenging. My solve time wasn’t bad, but I often had to stop and really think. But those theme answers! They were all my favorites, but I particularly liked LAUNCH HEIRS and QUEUE BRUTES. “Cue” BRUTES would have been funnier but was too short, alas. They were all great, though. And, like @LMS, I thought the revealer was just fine.
If all that wasn’t enough, [One crying “Help!”?] for BEATLE was an absolute gem. I also enjoyed ARFED as [Responded to “Speak!”]. I was a bit taken aback by the clue for PATENT [Easily recognizable]. But, of course, when I thought about it, it should have been PATENTLY obvious. BANTU is having a moment: it’s been in 3 puzzles since May 22. FLOP confused me initially as [Something that closes quickly] – ah, a play that bombs. And, hah!, I just can’t help loving that [Agog] means GAGA. (Maybe we could change the latter to GoGA for a little palindromic or emordnilapic action?)
And, ah, the joys of the Scottish BURR. My husband and I, who both have Scottish backgrounds, are forever breaking into fake Scottish accents. We’re pretty CARTOONY, and we egg each other on in the most unfortunate way. It’s absolutely fatal for us to watch a movie or TV program set in the auld country: we trill our Rs for days – or, at least, hours. BURR is the term for that R-trill in Scottish pronunciation. It’s a mighty odd plural (as seen here), but applying the term to the Scottish accent is quite standard. Here’s a how-to video for @Gary Jugert.
[SB: Fri -1, Sat 0. Friday’s result is extremely annoying because if I’d aced it (and it was a massive list), I’d have a nice 5-game streak going now. This little rascal is what I missed. Ah well, here’s hoping that yesterday was the start of more sustainable success. @okanaganer, I’m sorry about your crash.]
1) CONK LEWD
2) BEAK AIM
3) ROB OWNED
4) WHOLE DAWN
5) BRAY COUGH
Didn't know the Bullock movie, OTTESSA was a complete WTF, and I could see that some kind o owl was going to be required, but couldn't make it fit. In short, the NW was not my friend, so I went sideways and discovered the delightful LAUNCH HEIRS and the jig was up. The revealer was a gimme, as it was for many others, and figuring out the remaining themers was a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Wow and whew.
Many thanks to LMS for reminding me of "oronym", which I know she has mentioned before, but which of course I forgot. Have to say I just saw my favorite oldies band and they did a bang-up version of one of my favorite mondegreen songs, "Secret Asian Man".
Took me way too long to see BEATLE. Come on man.
Best Sunday in a long time. Well done indeed, CD. A Constant Delight, and thanks for all the fun.
I appear to the outlier today, but definitely not my cup of tea. I won’t say oral surgery would be preferable, but it’s a close thing.
Besides the poor themes, many of the long downs, which often add a lot of interest to the grid, range from meh (CARTOONY, TAMALES) to dull (BANK CHARGES, PH TESTS).
Also, bOSH is a perfect answer for 26D, so crossing that with a name that a significant number of solvers will not know or recognize was suboptimal.
What an entertaining and joyful experience. I'm sure I've never had more fun with a puzzle than I had with this one. Maybe as much fun, but never more.
HIGH was the first "what on earth?" thrown at me. I skipped down to the revealer to find out what was going on -- though I already had a pretty good idea the theme was sound-based, based on AURAL SURGERY. I confirmed it with BREAKING THE SOUND BARRIER and then wondered if gibberish would be included. You see, I thought it would be something like HIGH DAWAYS.
Nope. NEIGH MITT shows me there are only real words involved. (I'm really happy about that!) So back to HIGH. It takes a few crosses, but it's not "hideaways" at all; it's HIGH DOUBTS! As in "hideouts". Aha!!!!
And all those other wonderful puzzles-within-puzzles still await me. All those beyond clever sound-alike phrases still to be figured out. All my imagination and resourcefulness will be called upon, since the surrounding fill contains almost no easy answers and will be of limited help.
Biggest writeover: FREE RIDE before FREE PASS. But the wonderful SLOPE OAK straightened me out.
What a terrific puzzle!
Got everything except the NW, because I never heard of OTTESSA and couldn't come up with a reasonable guess for the crosses.
At least I got the theme, which was (forgive me) a PUNNISH MEANT for people who take language for granted.
i agree with kitshef. I had BOSH for TOSH and didn't know the author, so Otbessa seemed as reasonable as Ottessa. Well, almost as reasonable.
Great puzzle Chandi! -- I love these things -- can we call them Oreo-nyms when they are in crosswords?
My daughter's first serious boyfriend, from what turned out to be quite a basket of deplorables (until she got lucky), ate everything with his hands, even things like rice. He looked at silverware like when Ariel found a fork at the bottom of the sea in The Little Mermaid and had to ask her seagull friend what it was (a comb, he explained).
At his first meal with us, I shot Caity a look as if to say "What's with his eating?" and she shot me back a look that I was fairly certain meant "I don't know, but if you say anything I will kill you in your sleep and you know I'm not kidding." I let it go. (He actually turned out to be a decent guy.)
Another ruined Sunday where the secondary purpose -- the gimmick -- overwhelms the primary purpose -- testing linguistic and factual knowledge. If you don't get the gimmick, and I didn't, no matter how much knowledge you bring to the rest of the exercise, it doesn't work. Just *awful*.
Guess I’m in the minority on this one. I did not like it AT ALL.
ONE DRESS puzzle!
Wtf is a hoot owl?
Hey All !
Really curious to see what Rex thought of this. I figured he'd bash it, as the homophones either had nothing to do with the things they are standing in for, or something like "Why are they broken up?" Was actually looking forward to a RexRant, but realized it was Rafa today. (Amazingly enough, remembered from YesterComments that Rafa would be SubBlogging today.)
I kinda liked it. I did notice the 20 wide grid right away. Well, that's not entirely accurate. I saw 16 in the last top Across row, then counted the Blockers in that row. Hmm, says I, 20 wide. Got the Revealer immediately, with no crossers! That was pretty spectacular. Figured out the ruse at NEIGH MITT. Unsure why it didn't tickle my FunnyPuzBone like it should've...
Had an experience mirroring @Wanderlust 7:30, with thinking bOSH for TOSH, getting the Almost There, and trying a few letters before hitting on TOSH. OTTESSA is quite the unusual name. We had similar experiences with the Revealer and NEIGH MITT (Hi @Wanderlust! Great minds...)
Did like the Themers were symmetrical. I'm sure it was tough coming up with Themers. Well, then again, maybe it was fun! Someone who actually reads xwordinfo can let me know!
80 Blockers, high for a regular size SunPuz. Seemed to be a lot of B's today as I solved. Let me count ... Hmm, only 9 of them. Maybe I just got a lot of B answers in a row. Maybe I'm just silly. (Bet on that one!) At least the puz started with a bang! (An F, in case you aren't familiar with my crusade 😁)
Anyway, have a great Sunday!
Six F's (No FLOP, that!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Me either. In over 50 years of doing puzzles , this was the worst. It may be because I am hoh (mostly read lips) and as odd as that sounds may be accurate.
I’ve consumed many a tamale by hand…simply hold and peel back the corn husk wrapper. Delicioso.
Same issue as some others: 'T' or '?' for the TOSH / OTTESSA cross. Made the correct guess.
Fond memories of riding the SHASTA Daylight back in the early '50s
"The Shasta was a passenger train operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad in the United States. It was known for its scenic route and luxurious accommodations, making it a popular choice for travelers exploring the picturesque landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.
The Shasta Daylight, as it was officially named, began service on June 10, 1949. It ran between San Francisco, California, and Portland, Oregon. The train's name, "Shasta," was inspired by Mount Shasta, a prominent volcanic peak located in Northern California, which the train passed near on its route.
The Shasta Daylight was one of the many "Daylight" trains operated by the Southern Pacific, known for their colorful livery and luxurious amenities. These trains offered travelers large windows, comfortable seating, and exquisite dining options while journeying through some of the most beautiful landscapes in the Western United States.
The Shasta Daylight was discontinued in 1966, like many other passenger trains in the United States, as air travel and interstate highways became more popular modes of transportation. Today, Amtrak operates the Coast Starlight, a modern train service that follows a similar route through the stunning scenery of the Pacific Northwest, including Mount Shasta." (ChatGPT) Vetted via (Wikipedia)
@Loren Muse Smith (3:17 AM)
Thx for your Oronyms/mondegreens para!
@Anonymous (10:15 PM yd eve)
No question; ChatGPT, like all media, needs to be vetted. Imo, everything needs to be vetted, including our own thinking. Just now reading Adam Grant's ''Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know'.
"Think Again is a book about the benefit of doubt, and about how we can get better at embracing the unknown and the joy of being wrong. Evidence has shown that creative geniuses are not attached to one identity, but constantly willing to rethink their stances and that leaders who admit they don't know something and seek critical feedback lead more productive and innovative teams."
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity ~ & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
I have only ever eaten tamales with my hands because they are served wrapped in corn leaves, in which they were steamed. At least that’s how they’re prepared when I was in Peru, and how they’re occasionally offered at my Whole Foods.
You left out a ninth one- pocks slope (98 and 99 across).
Clearly, neither the constructer nor the editor seem to know the difference between a taco and a tamal.
If you read the revealer phrase as "break-the-sound barrier", it might make more sense. There are black squares acting as barriers in order to break the continuity of sound in HOOT, CHAIRS, HIDE, QUARTS, NAME, GIRL, CUBE, and POKE.
I didn't really love the theme. Once I had WHO TOWEL, I felt like: okay, it's basically just gonna be a bunch of homophones, let's get this over with.
It was amusing to see my next-door Brooklyn neighborhood reimagined as POCKS SLOPE though. That was my favorite thing in the puzzle.
We met. Or did we?
Rafa, I’ve read “Lapvona,” and weird is an understatement. I thought it was creepy and gross. Felt unclean after reading. I have also read “Eileen.” Liked that book quite a bit.
never have i ever eaten tamales with my hands. nor have i seen anyone eat tamales with their hands, and i live in a state with a large latino population.
did not like the theme of this puzzle at all.
Interestingly, I’ve never seen someone eat a tamale WITH a fork. But then again, the only time I’ve eaten tamales is from the tamale guy who would come around with a cooler to the late night bars in Chicago.
RAFA: I read Moshfegh’s Year of Rest and Relaxation, which I found pretty weird, and based on reviews of the later novel you cited, I knew I just couldn’t hack it, or not this decade anyway. She’s clearly an original and a fine stylist and narrator BUT, boy howdy, her journey is a deep dive into the dark.
@SharonAk, I’ve eaten tamales and enchiladas my entire life of many decades (I grew up in the Central Valley of California, near Rex’s hometown, and good Mexican food ruled) and everybody ate tamales with a fork, mainly because they were dripping with delicious chili-based sauces. Right now, I’d “kill” to have a good tamale, hard to find in central VA where I live now. There are, however, some decent enchiladas and tacos around.
Oh, the puzzle, yes it was fun, esp for a Sunday; the themer issue of breaking sound or not didn’t register for me.
An annoying solve. Too many little words. The gimmick was okay but there was no flow as a result of the many tiny words. There was a real shortage of long answers aside from the grid-spanningrevealer. Does anybody remember quality? Does anybody remember laughter?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O5DPFcI9yfQ
Patrick Berry's "Sound Check" puzzle on today's variety page has essentially the same gimmick as this. Shouldn't they have run them on separate Sundays?
I got naticked by OTTESSA too, only not with TOSH. I crossed it with BAHACHIC, which seemed perfectly plausible, making it ATTESSA, which seems more plausible as a name than OTTESSA, and also turned TOG into TAG, which did not seem outlandish for "Dress (up), quaintly", with the quaintly doing a lot of work.
I eat tamales by hand on the street all the time. They are sold from the cart and no fork is provided. Never have I burned my hands the corn husk wrappers don't seem to retain heat long.
Huh? That wasn’t one.
Loved loved loved the puzzle today and @Loren your avatar today is hilarious!
The city near ma has a large Hispanic population. At the food court the Chinese folks walked the queue with samples of bourbon chicken which the asian woman called Pollo bourbon when she offered it to a Latino family. Sometimes I truly love America
I'm in the "Loved it" camp, for the creativity and wit. I got an inkling of what was going on at LAUNCH-something...airs? errs? aha, HaIRS, no wait HEIRS!, and had a lot of fun figuring out the rest. FORK WARTS made laugh, PLAGUE EARL and SLOPE OAK caused the most consternation. Like others, I enjoyed going back over the phrases, with QUEUE BRUTES being the most evocative: I'm sure we've all been there at some time, beset by specialists in elbowing technique and kidney punches. The rest was a pleasure, too, from TRASH TALK to MIND BLOWN, PATENT to PETERS, BUOYED to BEATLE (great clue!).
I was disappointed there was no Acrostic puzzle in the NYT magazine today, but I just finished solving AES’s Chain Link and it was a pretty good fill in for it. Easy at the top, then quite challenging at the bottom. Not as great as Acrostic, but pretty good.
It' 99 & 100 across slope oak!
Liked this one. Easy enough and the themes were fun to uncover. Still don't understand clue on BEATLE....someone explain? Thx!
Nevermind. Got BEATLE now. Ugh.
re: TAMALES, You can eat'em with a fork, but you have to unwrap'em with your hands.
Could not agree more. Hated it. I’ve been doing the NYT puzzle almost every day for 50 years. I agree that cutesy themes are or should be secondary to linguistic and factual knowledge.
Just loved the puzzle theme today! Easy one but the clues were not relevant for me.
Overall I did not like this puzzle. More cheesy than cheeky. The homophones were generally not fun. The 2 words had no link to each other, so generally needed the crosses first. Plus some were a real stretch such as slope oak (ugh!). Being pretty bored by the puzzle because of the ill conceived homophones, I didn’t catch pocks & slope being next to each other which was interesting.
There was a place that sold hot tamales in park slope and yes, you do eat them with your hands so that clue was spot on.
The rest of the puzzle was pretty decent, too bad the homophones and theme were not well thought out.
Pretty funny video on how to eat a tamale: https://youtu.be/ahBKEjnDsiI
What a MAGNET PHEASANT SunPuz theme.
Caught onto it at WHO-TOWEL, and then got the neat revealer offa just a couple letters. Seems apt -- them themer sounds with sneaky word barriers sure do BREAK m&e up.
Did wonder why a FORK was equivalent to a gallon for a few nanoseconds -- kept forgettin to check for them trailin { - } clues. Focus, M&A brain.
staff weeject picks: IGOTTAGO with WHO & OAK. Them little pups got to participate in this HILLARY-YES theme mcguffin. [And I do get definite couthiness points for goin with YES, instead of 66-Across.]
Went lookin for un-recognized extra theme entries. Best ones I found woulda had these two clues:
1. {"Sorta like my work"} + { - } = ?*
2. {How to find extra themers} + { - } = ?*
3. (Actress Derek smiles mockingly} + { - } = ?*
There's no doubt more, but IGOTTAGO… (almost jumpin up and down, to hold it).
Luved the BEATLE clue.
Thanx for the fun, Ms. Deitmer darlin. Best SunPuz in quite a spell.
Masked & Anonymo14Us
p.s.
1. * = KIND + AME.
2. * = BUYS + EKING.
3. * = BOSN + EARS. [M&A fave of the 3]
**gruntz**
Why is 'high' the answer to 'secret lairs'?
Failed to completely get with the program and had hoO TOWEL, and since I have never heardcof either BOHO CHIC or Mr. Moshfegh, ended up with a DNF.... too bad, because I really enjoyed the whimsical theme on this one.
I second old actor's comment. Tamales are NOT eaten with your hands! Tacos are, but tamales fall apart or should.
Here's how ChatGPT eats their TAMALES:
"Yes, tamales can be eaten by hand! In fact, eating tamales by hand is a traditional and common way to enjoy them in many Latin American countries. The corn husk serves as a natural wrapper for the tamale, making it convenient to hold and eat without utensils.
Here's how you can eat a hand-held tamale:
Peel back the Corn Husk: Start by peeling back the corn husk from one end of the tamale to expose the filling. You can peel it all the way off or just fold it down like a banana peel, leaving the tamale partially wrapped.
Hold and Eat: Once the filling is exposed, hold the tamale by the folded-down husk or the exposed end and take small bites from the side. Some people prefer to remove the husk entirely before eating, while others keep it on as a makeshift handle.
Savor the Flavors: Eating tamales by hand allows you to fully experience the delicious flavors and textures of the filling and masa. The corn husk imparts a subtle earthy aroma to the tamale, enhancing the overall taste.
Eating tamales by hand is a delightful and social experience, especially when they are served at family gatherings, parties, or street food markets. It's a wonderful way to connect with the rich culinary traditions of Latin American cuisine. Just be mindful of the hot filling inside, and allow the tamale to cool slightly before eating. Enjoy! 😊🌽"
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity ~ & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Ugh DNF.
I had no idea how TAMALES were made. This awesome vid came to the rescue. (thx to: 'How To Make Tamales | Simply Mamá Cooks' ~ on YouTube) 😋
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity ~ & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Well I hated that.
Not the theme so much (though making you spell things "wrong" is always going to be a bit offputting), but just the sheer volume of "you know it or you don't" trivia, "so to speak" clues, and exclamations as clues.
I really despise exclamations as clues. They can basically be anything, and often are something nobody would actually say.
I even finished it in slightly better than average time, but just didn't enjoy a single minute of it.
BOSN/DESI cross did me in. only error. ugh
Can someone kindly explain 86A? What do those numbers have to do with queues?
One of the worst puzzles in the history of mankind. As was pointed out the spanning clue across the middle actually didn't help figure out the thing and the fill was consistently esoteric and difficult to figure out. My son and wife finally got it after I threw up my hands. Kudos to them, but I thought it was an awful puzzle.
Agree
As a fledgling solver, I enjoyed the theme and wordplayfulness. Still needed some "Help!" (what's a BOSN?) but I prefer this to a bunch of literary and geographical trivia questions. PLAGUE GIRL was enjoyable to uncover.
I guess it's cheating, but I read the first part of the crossword editor's commentary to understand the theme though. I was like... HYPHEN? DASH? COMPOUND?
I quickly identified 2 vs. 8, 3 vs. 27 as cube roots, sorted out QURAN for the Q... off to the races.
The revealer was the first fill I did. That was easy, fortunately.
Solver of syndicated puzzles. Today, 7/23/2023, I can't find puzzle anywhere back through 2018!
Title: Power-Ups. When did it originally appear?
Hated hated HATED this. Bizarre cluing, obscure proper names, the theme didn't work for me at all. Had to Google probably a third of the answers, first time in years for that. Hoping for better next Sunday.
@Brad (8:13 PM)
re: BOSN
"Boatswain's mates train, direct, and supervise personnel in ship's maintenance duties in all activities relating to marlinspike, deck, boat seamanship, painting, upkeep of ship's external structure, rigging, deck equipment, and boats.[3]
Various phonetic spellings (such as "bosun" and "Bos'n") have also been in use through the centuries.
The colloquial form of address for a boatswain's mate is "Boats"." (Wikipedia)
My first experience in the Navy, after boot camp, was aboard the USS Bryce Canyon AD36 serving on the 'deck force' under the supervision of a boatswain 3rd class petty officer. Tough job, but great experience. Soon moved into an office position due to typing skills (best course I ever took in high school) lol
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity ~ & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
The problem w Tamales is that they are their best as a homemade, frequently for the holidays, food. I've never had a really good commercial one. Trader Joe's, frozen tamales aren't terrible though. Not being from that part of the world, I don't get to partake in excellent tamales very often, but occasionally on walks in the mission district in San Francisco, there will be an elderly "Tamale Lady" selling her wares on the street. Tamales have become for me, as they are for so many Mexicans, and central Americans, a comfort food. The difference is that I never had one until I was in my 40s.
How is "Real so-and-so" a clue for ASS?
That one truly eludes me...
(Not a native speaker, but usually I get even slangy bits eventually...)
I had "Lifted, as spirits" as BOOZED for a long while. I like my answer much better.
Agree! I tried SOB first.
I eat TAMALES either way (gringo that I am). With a fork, with my hands, with delicious sauces... they're tasty, let's eat 'em.
My husband used to live in Israel and insists that shawarma ought to be wrapped in laffa -- but I knew NY would serve them in PITAS after all. Laffa is really good though, it's so big and flat and warm and perfect. Mmm.
This puzzle makes me hungry.
BOHO CHIC was also a slowdown for me, since BOHemian fit the spaces so nicely. I've never heard of OTTESSA or SHASTA, so I started wacky experiments (BOHemeIn? Haid DOUBT??), before ECO helped me out of it.
Similarly, I had LAUNCH HaIRS and LAUReN.
I'm not a super solver yet -- confidently mistaken words are still pretty tricky for me!
I totally agree .
No
CHEEKY CHIC
LAURYN gave me A FREEPASS,
MINDBLOWN, is IT A joke?!
SOAMI some KIND of an ASS?
WEMET for A SLOPE OAK.
--- PETER EARL ADLER
I hated it!
I must admit that it was fun to get the "trick" of this puz.
However, there were too many "huh?" moments for me, leading to the dreaded dnf.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Attempt to post #2
I did enjoy getting the "trick" in this puzzle.
Yet - had a DNF due to bits and pieces of unknowns...
Diana, LIW (sorry if this is a repeat)
DNF here too; once again the NW. Never heard of: BOHOCHIC, TOG as clued, FTW (WTF??) and, along with virtually EVERYBODY else, OTTESSA. A shame too, because I thought the rest of it was a good, fun puzzle.
Wordle bogey.
Fantastic Sunday puzzle. Best Sunday in quite some time. I see a couple of commenters said they have been doing Xword puzzles for over 50 years and hated it. I've been doing Xword puzzles for over 60 years and loved it!
Neener! Neener!
Or to quote Sheldon:
Well, then apparently, you hate fun!
I almost forgot, I wrote in broke the speed of sound for the central spanner almost immediately, and it fits, but it sure gummed up the mideastern area for a while.
In the olden times one could dial on a land line phone 411 for “Information”. The operator would answer to give the phone number you asked for and even an address if needed. The operator was a live person. Information has evolved into Details into Deets
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