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Ceremonial plates for the Eucharist / SAT 8-26-23 / Not online, to a texter / Model Boyd of London's "Swinging Sixties" era / Deceive so as to deflect / Woman with enfants / Language spoken in Middle-earth / Cast-iron cooking directive / Five-minute rock classic with an iconic organ intro
Saturday, August 26, 2023
Constructor: Adrian Johnson
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: none
Word of the Day: PATTIE Boyd (30A: Model Boyd of London's "Swinging Sixties" era) —
Patricia Anne Boyd (born 17 March 1944) is an English model and photographer. She was one of the leading international models during the 1960s and, with Jean Shrimpton, epitomised the British female look of the era. Boyd married George Harrison in 1966, experiencing the height of the Beatles' popularity and sharing in their embrace of Indian spirituality. She divorced Harrison in 1977 and married Harrison's friend Eric Clapton in 1979; they divorced in 1989. Boyd inspired Harrison's song "Something", and Clapton's songs "Layla", "Bell Bottom Blues" and "Wonderful Tonight".
In August 2007, Boyd published her autobiography Wonderful Today (titled Wonderful Tonight in the United States). Her photographs of Harrison and Clapton, titled Through the Eye of a Muse, have been widely exhibited. (wikipedia)
• • •
I loved the way that the NW corner opened up. I started out with a very good but also very bad guess at 1-Across, throwing down ACT ONE'S AGE for 1A: Behave in a way suitable to one's situation (ACT THE PART). I stared briefly and triumphantly at my impressive opening gambit ... only to notice that ONE'S was actually in the clue itself, so there was no way ACT ONE'S AGE could be right. Gah! So then I pulled it and did what I usually do first: work the short Downs. Very quickly I was here:
There were a couple of minor sticking points on the journey to my final destination (the eastern WEST). I had the elder relative as GRAN, not GRAM, so at 41A: First N.F.L. quarterback to pass for 50,000 yards, I wrote in the first six-letter quarterback I could think of whose name started with an "N"—Joe NAMATH. Then I had a repeat of my 1-Across experience: feeling Pret-ty good about myself for a half second before realizing "wait, that canNot be right ... that's way too many yards for NAMATH." Plus the "T" in NAMATH was where an "S" or "N" needed to be (36D: Mexico City-to-Cancún dir. => ENE), so I pulled NAMATH, changed GRAN to GRAM, considered MONTANA (wouldn't fit), and then immediately thought of MARINO. Football problem solved. I couldn't tell you a damn thing about contemporary football, but I've got '70s-'90 pretty much on lock. Once MARINO was sorted, the rest of the corner was easy. Side note: nice little Eucharistic crossing there in the SW with PATENS crossing PONTIFF. PATENS is probably the "obscurest" thing in the grid, but it's redeemed, saved, forgiven by the crossing of the Holy Father, amen. (My papal metaphors aren't any better than my cake metaphors, I realize) (Oh, and [See star?] because the PONTIFF is the "star" of the (Holy) See)
The hardest part of the grid for me was coming up with PATTIE Boyd, which is dumb, as I know very well (now that I looked her up) who PATTIE Boyd is, primarily because of her place in the musical love triangle with George Harrison and Eric Clapton. I think I wanted PATTY at one point, but was apparently unwilling to make her into an "-IE" PATTIE, and so remained stumped for a bit. I was also very stumped by the clue on SEAR (28D: Cast-iron cooking directive). I had the "S" and thought "... 'STIR'? ... surely that's not cast iron-specific enough." And it wasn't. Can't most pans SEAR? Whatever, I muddled through the PATTIE SEAR section, eventually. Everything else was pretty much whoosh-whoosh (but a somewhat more methodical and low-key whoosh-whoosh than the one I usually look for on Fridays. Saturday whoosh is a little more controlled, but no less satisfying).
Notes:
- 11A: This might change your mind (LSD) — had the "L" and "D" and just blinked, like "why would a LAD change my mind? A LID can't change my mind, can it?" Etc.
- 11D: Hot lines? (LOVE LETTER) — good clue/answer, sandwiched between TOMBSTONE and SPARE TIRES. I know I singled out the NW and SE corners, but this corner is worthy of attention as well. Hell, I even like the SW corner. HELLRAISER with a SOUSAPHONE GOES GAGA! That's quite a headline! If you don't like that, you don't like puzzles, what are you even doing here?
- 27A: Seeds may go down in them (UPSETS) — so, tournament seeds. If a seeded player plays an unseeded player and loses ... well, there's your answer.
- 23A: Deceive so as to deflect (SHINE ON) — the puzzle's one awkward moment. Something about the phrasing of the clue made the answer hard to see. It's not a phrase I'd ever use, I don't think, so I was unsure even as I (eventually) wrote it in.
- 45A: Three in Q3: e.g.: Abbr. (MOS.) — so many abbrs. in this dang clue/answer pairing. There are three months (MOS.) in *any* quarter, so the "Q3" bit here is just to make a little "three" echo in the clue. Could just as easily have been Q1.
- 44D: Dolphin's facility (SONAR) — I like the use of "Dolphin's" here, as this answer is adjacent to MARINO, who played for the Dolphins his entire career.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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150 comments:
Not easy for me! I think this took me more than twice as long as last Saturday's puzzle did. At least Rex fell into some of the same holes that I did, like GRAN/GRAN and thinking that Pattie Boyd's name had 5 letters. "Baba O' Riley" is one of my favorite Who songs, but that was one of the last pieces to fall; I kept thinking of every other classic rock song, from "Hey Jude" to "White Room."
Coincidence that OFL put the video of Something in his blog ? I was just playing that last night before doing the puzzle. After 50 years I finally learned that the rhythm guitar part is played with a capo. And, the clue on Baba O’Riley was a misdirect. The intro is not played on an organ but on a synthesizer.
Thx, Adrian; a FRESH & very EDIBlE serving! 😊
Easy-med (Fri. time).
ABCS to WEST, with no major holdUPs, other than a minor glitch at GRAn / namath, but ENE quickly dispelled that notion.
LOVEd the PONTIFF clue!
Fun romp; liked this one a lot! :)
___
On to Lester Ruff's Sat. Stumper. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Agree with OFL that the southern section (and particularly the SE) is where the real shine on this one was, and thanks to Rex for the PONTIFF clue elaboration, as that one definitely had me baffled.
I feel bad for the word ERITREA - it seems like it kind of got a raw deal because it’s the name of a country but it sounds like it could easily be the name of an STD. On the flip side, not much sympathy at all for GNOMISH and let’s just leave it at that.
Some interesting twists from the Spanish contingent today - I notice that we are conjugating verbs now, and I’m also wondering why OTRA was invited but TOPO got the boot and was treated like an outcast.
I wonder how long it has been since someone actually TYPED UP the findings of their lab studies (as opposed to “entered” or “keyed in”). Although I guess you can type on a computer keyboard - close enough for CrossWorld. That’s about as hip and modern as I can get (I have no clue what SHINE ON means for example).
Got Naticked in the NW corner: never heard of the five-minute rock classic or Hoag, so guessed Baboo and Tomi instead of Baba and Tami. Sigh. Otherwise a great puzzle and a fun solve.
Tripped over the sneakers in the southeast corner. Tried Nike in both spots, tried Acer in both spots, didn’t think of Fila till I figured out the beaver answer.
Didn’t seem easy at first - but once the true voice fell things came together. Each corner had one or two gimmes - SOUSAPHONE x MARINO, FRESH START x GNOMISH etc. that helped. Like Rex - loved CRAMPING UP and HELLRAISER is cool - made even cooler with his ZZ link.
GRAM
Wanted “sunglasses” before FAKE SMILES, don’t equate ENGINEER with rig up and thought the SPARE TIRES clue flat. Doubling down on the sneaker clues along with WEST didn’t help the SE.
ASLEEP with the Avett’s
I liked this puzzle - devious appearance with the quad stacks but a soft landing. Today’s Stumper with its oddball cheater squares was trickier for me.
Monkey and the ENGINEER
And oh, by the way, this is a 64-worder. Try making a puzzle with 78 words (typical for a Monday), and see how tough that is to pull off cleanly and with spark. To make a 64-worder with beauty and wit requires a very special degree of talent plus great perseverance.
Then to make it fresh with NYT answer debuts that are excellent additions to the oeuvre – CRAMPING UP, FAKE SMILES, HELLRAISER, I SEE IT NOW, and PINELOGS – adds even more impressiveness, plus, more importantly, a layer of icing for the solver. Not to mention the addition of clever cluing to brighten the swirling sea of Saturday vagueness. Wow!
In the southeast corner, I liked the clue [Inapt locale for this answer] for WEST, and thought it equally applied to FRESH START, the puzzle’s last answer.
The BABA ORILEY clue brought iconic organ solos to mind, and made me think of “Whiter Shade of Pale” and “Runaway”, both of which I can hear in my head as if they are coming out of speakers. Just remembering them again happified my day.
Adrian, you’ve made four NYT puzzles, all different days of the week, so you’re on your way to completing the cycle (a puzzle for each day) in seven days, which only one constructor has done (Andrew Ries). Go for it! And thank you for one terrific Saturday creation!
I may have missed it but I don't remember any gnomes in Middle Earth?
Since In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida didn’t fit (either length of answer or time of song), got this Who classic and was off to the races! Well, kinda. For pole position, had Startarace - happy to “start eras”ing and fill in the much better STRIPTEASE.
Some great cluing and fun answers - from ACTTHEPART to FRESHSTART, a great Saturday!
Crashed and burned on BABAORILEY. Where have I been? This is a Who song? Would I know it if I heard it? Didn't know the novelist either, so I came here instead of looking her up, which was faster and has the same effect.
Otherwise exactly the right difficulty for a Saturday. I had LOGS and was reluctant to enter PINE , because around here a fire means a wood stove or a fireplace and if you use PINELOGS the creosote accumulation will eventually lead to a chimney fire, so no one does that. I considered YULELOGS which may be aromatic, for all I know, but the P from PART meant PINE, which I entered, but I'm filing a protest.
One of our hootenanny members has long white hair, a long white beard, is short, and always wears a hat, so is definitely GNOMISH, which I think of more as an adjective than a noun.
Very nice Saturday indeed, AJ, And Just tough enough. Well done you, and thanks for all the fun.
eh, I wasn’t as pleased by this one as OFL
For one, there aren’t gnomes in Middle Earth. I haven’t read hardly any Tolkien and still I know this. Is there some accepted way to refer to “Middle Earth” outside of its Tolkien context/origins that I’m just unaware of? Serious question; this one feels practically like a “factually incorrect” situation.
No one else anywhere that I’ve seen so far has expressed this next sentiment of mine, so I’m quite embarrassed even admitting it, but I just don’t get the cluing for WEST. It’s clearly a simple thing that my brain has for whatever reason decided to wholly reject in any form, so just humor me, someone, and please enlighten me (you can laugh at me to yourself, of course, but it’d be swell if comments here could refrain and spare my ego further beating 🙏 ).
I enjoyed most of the debut content, and there were a few very clever clues that almost threw me until I finally caught on, but in general I’d give today’s puzzle 2.8 FAKE SMILES out of 5 PINE LOGS.
TFW you struggle through a particularly hard puzzle, only to see Rex call it easy. I couldn’t get a toehold on the NW (@Prefab: hand up for inexplicably blanking on BABAORILEY). Also hand up for Rex’s gran/Namath error, with the difference that I quickly run out of football players’ names. Thanks for a good Saturday challenge, Adrian!
I'm hardly a Tolkien scholar, but I'm pretty close. "Gnomish" does not appear in the Lord of the Rings. It was used in early drafts of the language and mythology but was ultimately replaced by other words. Definitely a misleading clue and answer.
Baba O’Riley starts with a synthesizer not an organ. Just saying.
Mostly, I liked this puzzle, but I didn't care for the MARINO/GRAM/ENE crossing. If football statistics and compass geography are not your thing, you're down to guessing. And as both Rex and other commenters have pointed out, GRAn > GRAM in popular usage. I wouldn't call the crossing completely unfair, since of the 4 possible combinations, MARINO is the most plausible, but still... yeesh. I would have at least clued GRAM as the unit of mass for avoidance of doubt.
Fun Saturday, but yeah, double sneaker clues in SE took some shine off the SE for me. “Great, run through all the 4 word sneaker brands, not once, but twice”.
WEST is all the way to the East in the puzzle grid. No need to be embarrassed!
Challenging in the NW, Easy-Medium the rest of the way for an overall Medium rating. Skipped to the NE and worked counterclockwise, ultimately getting the keys to the NW via ERITREA (6D) and PINELOG (7D).
Like @Rex apparently, we always called grandmother GRAn (29D). That led to naming nAmath as my 41A quarterback. The direction at 36D got me to retire Broadway Joe, but the erroneous N stayed behind until the rest of nARINO went in.
Brace yourselves. There's probably going to be an influx of fans here to complain that GNOMISH is not a language of Middle-earth.
It did exist in Tolkien's earliest outlines, but was changed, both in name and structure.
Correction. Baba O’Riley intro is on an organ, not a synthesizer.
West is on the East side of the grid
This is incorrect. Look it up.
OHIO STATE: Maybe everyone else in the world has seen this, but I hadn't, and it's worth the four minutes if you have not.
https://www.dispatch.com/videos/entertainment/2021/09/18/ohio-state-university-marching-band-performs-script-ohio-and-carmen-ohio-before-tulsa-game/8402069002/
What a terrific Saturday puzzle, for all the reasons Rex mentions. I found it more challenging than he did, which is much of the fun on Saturday. Twelve (!!) 10-letter words, two 9s, four 8s, eight 7s, six 6s -- that's half the puzzle's entries right there!
A couple of not-so-quick notes on BABAORILEY...
-- It's one of my all-time favorite songs, but so sure was I that the clue about the intro was incorrect, I was all set to come here, anonymize myself as "Pete Townshend", comment that A synthesizer is NOT an organ!, drop the mic and leave. A voice in my head -- one I usually ignore -- made me fact-check that assertion first, and to my great surprise I learned that while Townshend initially tried to use a synth for the intro, it didn't work, so he used an organ instead. I thus had the odd feeling of simultaneous relief that I didn't embarrass myself here and shame that I didn't know this fact about a song I love so much. I actually love the outro more than the intro, with its swelling volume and tempo that abruptly stops.
-- When iPods became big in the mid-aughts and my playlists became the constant soundtrack in the house, my youngest (8 at the time) declared BABAORILEY to be her favorite song. While none of her Hannah Montana-listening friends could relate, I sure could, and it started her on a journey of appreciation for popular music released long before she was born (I suppose this is similar to me discovering Cole Porter in my 40s). Today she's 24, still an old musical soul with a long Spotify playlist called "Turning Into Dad". A few weeks ago, we were at the wedding of a family friend, and when the bride and her father danced, she turned to me and said that our song would be "That's How Strong My Love Is" by Otis Redding. I feel I have succeeded as a parent. :)
Was racking my brain trying come up with the name of The Band’s classic “Chest Fever,” which actually has an iconic organ intro. “Baba O’Riley” (or “Teenage Wasteland,” for those still confused) has a synthesizer intro, as others have pointed out. It’s probably a good thing I couldn’t remember “Chest Fever” since it would’ve fit.
Struggled mightily in the Southeast, putting in “lapel mikes” at first instead of FAKE SMILES. Still finished well under my usual Saturday time. Overall an enjoyable puzzle.
Some dodgy cluing in this one. Jazzes up = ANIMATES? Really? Who speaks GNOMISH in Middle Earth? Not Hobbits, not Orcs, not humans, not even Ents. Apparently, Tolkien did have a GNOMISH early on, but talk about obscure, far more so than PATEN to my mind. Just I'll just keep my FAKE SMILES that I enjoyed this.
Overall this came in as medium for me. The NE was the one flat out easy section.
GNOMISH and INSEAMS did not open up the SE. With PONTIFF in place later on it fell readily but trying to guess the acrosses from those middle letters wasted some time.
BABAORILEY was a gimme as it was recently featured in another late week puzzle. However I had a spelling issue with the RILEY part. I tried to spell it like the auto parts store and had to come back and finish that section last.
SHINEON means nothing to me. I have no familiarity with that phrase. This led to my leapfrogging past it by way of ERITREA, GOESGAGA and ISEEITNOW. This opened up the SW and I back filled from there.
I had the GRAN/GRAM write over but NAMETH never went in as I'd already seen the directional clue.
A very impressive feat of construction. Too bad it couldn't generate a comparable level of resistance.
yd -0
Have my marching band days to thank for SOUSAPHONE. Got stuck in the SE for a while even after looking up PATENS.
45A: Three in Q3
The wording there did make me think it was clueing a specific month, especially since the puzzle appears in that month (AUG). So it's actually a pretty nice example (e.g.) of SHINE ON. The "e.g." was the tip-off that a more generic MOS was required.
Agreed, fun puzzle all the way, though I'd have to put it in the Medium difficulty column. Maybe because I bailed on the NW too soon and went gimme-hunting further S-SE with little luck. SE was the last to fall, thanks to the exquisitely clued PONTIFF and two (TWO!!) 4-letter sneaker brands, both with an "I" in the second letter, one of them completely unfamiliar to me.
Also in the SW, FAKESMILES deserves special mention as deliciously evocative and well-clued.
Hey All !
That SE corner, yikes! Did me in but good. Started to use Check Puzzle with wild abandon. Did have INSEAMS, wanted ANIMATES, but an odd clue on that. Wanted either AVIA or PUMA for Reebok rival (just could not come up with other four-letter sneaker names - facepalm when I finally got NIKE). PONTIFF was a WOE, thanks Rex for the explanation. I always forget about the Holy See as named!
Eventually finished with the help of Check, but unsatisfying, as uas the rest of the puz correct. Ah well.
Nice grid design, some nice clues, the ole brain lasting until that SE corner. 😁
At least we get some F's.
Happy Weekend!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Re Anonymous @ 6 "the clue on Baba O’Riley was a misdirect. The intro is not played on an organ but on a synthesizer."
I assumed so for a long time, but saw a video about the making of and noticed it's actually an electric organ,
a Lowrey TBO-1 to be precise.
For my part I really wanted the answer to be INAGADDADAVIDA, but no such luck. Maybe someday. Meanwhile I can watch the Simpson's episode featuring that cheesiest bit of High Psychedelia.
https://youtu.be/ulDC1w1ydLI?si=ZM4kuS78Oahe4R6R
@Anonymous 6:56 AM - I would not call "organ" as misdirect in the clue for 14A. You could call it a misnomer, if you want, but I think that's a quibble, a distinction without a difference. You're technically correct, it's a Moog synthesizer, but synthesizers are commonly referred to as electric organs. There are lots of misdirects in this puzzle—all the question mark clues, like 37D [See star?] for PONTIFF and others. I assume BABA O'REILY was a gimme for 90% of boomers in the audience.
As was noted repeatedly last time Baba O'Riley appeared in the puzzle, the intro is, as the clue notes, on an organ.
Very easy Saturday - could have run on a Wednesday and not been out of place. Only real hangups were ACT your Age, GRAn, what seems like a weird clue for DINNERS, PATENS(?), and SHINE ON (?????), the last of which was a grand mystery but the crosses were solid.
@Son Volt 7:34 AM and others - I mean, c'mon, aren't the only 4-letter sneaker options Nike, Puma, Fila, and Acer? I think that makes it not only perfectly fair, but a godsend.
It’s an organ: “ The repeating set of notes (known technically as ostinato) in "Baba O'Riley" that opens and underlies the song was derived from the Lifehouse concept, where Townshend wanted to input the vital signs and personality of Meher Baba into a synthesiser, which would then generate music based on that data. When this idea fell through, Townshend instead recorded a Lowrey Berkshire Deluxe TBO-1 organ using its marimba repeat feature to generate them.” (Wikipedia)
Not a misnomer. An actual organ.
Laugh out loud clue “takeoff in pole position” for STRIPTEASE. Also liked “this might change your mind” for LSD — initially thinking it had to be ESP, ready to complain because that is mind reading, not mind changing. And then four good good misdirects in the very challenging SE — for PONTIFF, SONAR, INITIATIVE and FAKE SMILES.
I agree with the complaints about GNOMISH. Someone said that Tolkien initially had that as a language but changed it — if so, then it isn’t a language of Middle Earth. No idea about SHINE ON — is that a colloquialism? And a bit of a side-eye to “course list” for DINNERS.
A challenging and fun Saturday.
Avia
@Lewis 7:45 AM - I feel like you have hereby thrown down a rock organ gauntlet! I'll add "Crocodile Rock" (Elton John). Thinking, "There MUST be MORE," I Googled and found a fabulous Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2uNN9hVs33VlYbTdip3pIL
There are no gnomes in Tolkien’s universe and Middle-earth is specifically Tolkien. Terrible clue. Could have had a blast with a clue about garden gnomes.
Why is a cheating marathon runner like what some people at a long public event do? One FAKESMILES and the others FAKESMILES. Speaking of marathon runners, did you know that throwingUP and CRAMPINGUP take the same amount of space?
Lady Gaga starts her new tour Thursday in the new Las Vegas Dolby Dome. Wonder what it took for her to get GOINGGAGA into Thursday’s puzzle and GOESGAGA into today's.
LSD, GRAM and EDIBLE. It’s nice to have the occasional reminder of our friend JohnX (although I seem to recall convincingly deducing at one point that he is actually SHININGON all of us in the guise of @Southside Johnny).
Beautiful puzzle today. Thanks, Adrian Johnson.
@LouB 8:46 AM - I say this with love in my heart—This debate over "organ" vs "synthesizer" on this blog today totally brings me back to being 12 years old and arguing with the other hormonally raging boys on my best friend's living room floor about, oh, I don't know, ANYTHING?! Beatles vs Stones; Yankees vs Mets; Hasbro vs Mattel; H.R. Pufnstuf vs Land of the Lost...I'm sure my fellow boomers can think of more.
Exactly! Thought there would be people up in arms over here .
Haha! Above I defended "synthesizer" vs "organ" as a distinction without a difference. Now, 30 minutes later, I am learning that, #1, "synthesizer" is actually correct on the merits, and, by contrast, it is my "distinction without a difference" comment that expresses the more controversial view. I am not savvy in this area, other than I know what boomer music I love, so I defer to all of y'all completely on this whole matter. To quote a classic that starts with a sax, trombone, and trumpet performance of the Marseillaise, "All you need is love."
Superb Saturday puzzle, the stacks are incredibly solid and the cluing had just the right level of difficulty and misdirection. It was a medium for me, and delightful start to finish. 'See star' was a tricky clue for opening up a section and I first tried 'Polaris´ off of the PO. I'm with Rex on this puzzle, it was excellent.
Loved the "Something" UTube video you posted - thank you, Rex. What a beautiful, heart-tugging way to start the day.
Now on to the puzzle.
There weren't any - they were considered and then cut/renamed before any publication included them. The Tolkien Wiki page for gnomes is short and basically explains why they were never actually in Middle Earth. Maybe I'm missing something, too, but this clue for GNOMISH just seems to be incorrect.
Can someone explain for me the connection between beavers and INITIATIVE? Do not understand that clueing at all.
Kudos to Anonymous on the organ correction. This wasn't an "organ is not a synthesizer"" debate I was just wrong, it is an organ (fooled Sir Hillary also).
I actually have a demo record by ARP which was a popular synthesizer at that time and one Pete Townshend used in other situations. They actually play the intro on that so all these years I assumed that was it because it made perfect sense. And when I went to check after being corrected it did say he tried to sequence it through the ARP 2600 but settled on the organ previously mentioned.
Hats off to you and thanks for correcting a 50+ years misconception!
Me neither. Maybe they're outside of the four popular books?
You may know it as "Teenage Wasteland"
Phew both puzzles this weekend lead me to believe the jig is up and I am now sliding into dementia. Basically couldn't do either.
I spent my entire very long solve time trying to grok ABCS. Gawd. And I've grown up tossing pine logs onto campfires and it never once occurred to me they're aromatic.
Ug: CRAMPING UP. DINNERS. MOS. INITIATIVE. ENE. TYPED UP. EVER.
Double Ug: A TOMB STONE might be grave matter in the same way anything with mass in the vicinity of a cemetery is matter. Lame.
Uh what? SHINE ON?
No Knows: BABAORILEY? OVAL football fields? PATENS? TAMI. GNOMISH.
Cute: EDIBLE. UPSETS. PONTIFF.
Tee-Hees: They said STRIP TEASE! So edgy including NAKED sex workers in the Saturday puzzle. Those NYTXW editors are HELL RAISERS.
Uniclues:
1 Why climate change will end us sooner rather than later.
2 This puzzle.
3 Any man who turned 50.
4 "Thanks to you, I can luxuriate in my La-Z-Boy knowing my feet are worth more than my first car."
1 ENGINEER ASLEEP (~)
2 SOSO INITIATIVE
3 KNEW FAKE SMILES
4 FILA LOVE LETTER (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Latest dance craze for all right wing nut jobs. NANOBOTS RECOIL.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Seems like a fair complaint. Lots of ways to clue GNOMISH that don't involve a reference that is, on the surface, incorrect, or with a scholarly level of digging, tenuous.
As a doctor I can certify that no one “types up” lab reports anymore. It’s all done electronically. Here’s a 3 letter crossword entry for constructors. “Modern doctor’s chart, for short” = EMR (Electronic Medical Record). Very widely used tern, and it might come in handy.
It’s apparently the original name of one of the Elven languages.
GNOMISH is correct, but super obscure. Apparently it’s the original name of one of the Elven languages. I spent more time not putting that in than solving the rest of the puzzle.
I'm with @Wanderlust 9:37: "A challenging and fun Saturday." Lots of struggles, and so many rewards, in the words themselves (SOUSAPHONE), in being able to see through some of the tricky clues ("See star"), in wonderful clue-answer pairs (the eager beaver's INITIATIVE), in juxtapositions that tell a story (LOVE LETTERS...SPARE TIRES: 1967-2023, my marriage).
Do-over: GRAn. Help from previous puzzles: BABA O'RILEY. No idea: TAMI.
Anon (9:10) As a rabid Wolverines fan since pouring five years worth of (out-of-state) tuition into UMich (worth every penny), I would have been happy not to see the OSU band, but thanks for stoking the fires as the season is about to begin.
BTW, the Michigan fight song, Hail to the Victors, was written by a UMich student, Louis Elbel. According to Wikipedia, Michigan alum and composer Charles D. Kountz said that John Philip Sousa told him that "The Victors" was "one of the nation's finest military marches and the best original college song" he had ever heard. Go Blue!
OMG. The sheer misery I could have saved myself if I'd cheated on TAMI at the very outset instead of waiting until I was about to go down in flames in the NW. Oh, the suffering today!!! Yes, it's still a DNF because of the cheat, but at least now I understand what was going on at 1A.
The choice for me was between ACT YOUR AGE and ACT ONES AGE. But it couldn't be ONES because ONES was in the clue. So I put in YOUR. But now I had a country beginning with U for where the skull was found and there wasn't one. I needed an E for ERITREA which was looking good except for the first letter, so I reluctantly went back to ACT ONES AGE, cursing the NYT for such an awful clue/answer.
Who on earth would have thought of ACT THE PART for 1A??? Certainly, not me. Only TAMI -- the unknown but cheated upon Hoag lady -- made 1A gettable. Certainly BABAORILEY wasn't any help! Is she any relation to BABA WAWA?
Everything about this puzzle was hard for me, but the NW was, in two words, Im Possible. Crunchy, yes -- but I suffered much too much to really enjoy this.
Mostly easy except for the SE which was sorta tough. My first thought was ACT THE PART so NW went quickly. One of the best Saturday’s in quite a while. Liked it a bunch! Terrific cluing!
@pablo 8:21 – I'm sure you've heard "Baba O'Riley". The lyric "teenage wasteland" is the memorable hook. Doesn't look like anyone posted a link, so here.
@Anon 8:30 – the cluing for WEST *is* ridiculous. The reason being that the clue "Inapt location for this answer" makes the locale and the answer the same thing. "East" as a locale is an inapt location for WEST as a grid answer; but since WEST is the grid answer "West" must be the locale the clue refers to, and "West" is an *apt* locale for WEST. Guess we can expect circular conundrum clues going forward.
Beautiful puzzle, more in the challenging category for me. Part of the slowdown was my conviction that I had nailed 1A with ACTyourAge. I also had StiR before SEAR (OTRi seemed ok for the Spanish term--OTRA--but eventually it was clear that PATTIt must be wrong.
Thanks to SiriusXM "Classic Vinyl" I have in the last couple of years come to recognize BABAORILEY as the name of that song I have known since my youth. Kinda like Norwegian Wood (Beatles) and Kathy's Song (Simon & Garfunkel), songs with good crossword misdirect titles.
Had to smile at myself for briefly misreading that @Rex declared that CRAMPING UP was "a good feeling." Tell my calves that in the middle of the night!
8 Down: Note that "alga" is NOT a plant, it is classified as a protist. Plants have adaptations for living on land which algae lack. Maybe clue as "plantlike".
TimG I’m right there with you.
@TimG eager beaver - initiative
@DrBB I also thought of that Simpsons scene when I put in GADADAVIDA. When the crosses weren't working, I changed it to the correct answer. Then I played IN A GADDA DA VIDA in the background -- fun ehe moment when I put in 11a LSD. Fun puzzle.
A note two days early -- because so many fewer people come to the blog on Sundays and Mondays.
In the physical newspaper on Monday my winning (among other contestants) entry will be printed in the NYT "Letters to the Editor" section. It's a fun contest and I'm expecting the entries of all the winners to be absolute dynamite. If you get the paper, please don't miss it. You should have a very good time. I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else did.
A longer version of my entry (I was asked to cut a bit to get it in the print edition) will appear online on Sunday (tomorrow).
It's always more impressive when it's in the actual paper so I urge you to look there first. Then, if you want the longer version, you can check it out online afterwards. There will be many more entries to be found there.
I'll put up a link on Monday and then again on Wed when there are many more Rexites reading the blog.
Apparently Tolkien had drafted gnomes who spoke gnomish but they didn’t make the Final Cut…
Baba O’Riley is named in tribute to composer/pianist Terry Riley whose organ playing inspired the song’s intro. https://youtu.be/hy3W-3HPMWg?si=WZHll7mNR75IicNB
Was no one else bothered by the "typed up" "cramping up" "upsets" thing? I started to wonder if there was a theme I was missing.
I was hoping to find an explanation for INITIATIVES but since only one other person has asked so far - it must have to do with football.
Other than that, I'm always delighted when I can solve a Saturday - and I don’t mind if Rex finds it easy. He's the King!
I started out wrong with ACT your AGE. I did get GOESGAGA because I've noticed that the NYTXW likes GAGA for some reason. It seems babytalk is going mainstream. I've forgotten most of what I once knew.
Liked SONAR, I SEE IT NOW, SPARE TIRES, SOUSAPHONE(!), HELLRAISER.
That was my main quibble as well, it really slowed me down in that bottom section because i refused to put GNOMISH in!
That said, I did think this puzzle was excellent. May have been my fastest Saturday ever, but I found that SSE section challenging; thought the cluing was quite stretched and am not up on my catholocism.
@Beverly C – An "eager beaver" is:
a person who is extremely zealous about performing duties and volunteering for more
(per M-W)
@bev
An eager BEAVER probably has INITIATIVE.
Kinda surprised that SHINEON is striking a blank for so many people. I associate with 50s/60s era primarily Black vernacular. Pretty sure that's the context I've encountered it in--think novels of Walter Mosley (superb!) or maybe just reading around in stuff about jazz in that period, which I'm professionally as well as avocationally interested in. I think it encompasses a pretty wide field of meaning, but basically pejorative, about trying to scam or reacting to someone trying to scam you, with (to my memory) overtones derived from behaviors adopted in the face of racism. If you're shining someone on, you maybe trying to fool them, or hiding your real thoughts as someone tries to shine YOU on with their bullshit. Wonderfully multivalent expression I think.
I guess I was the only one who put "litemyfire" for the classic organ intro. Yeah, it didn't work
yep. Thought @RP might go thUmbsUp for this one. 64-worder and really smoooth fillins. Heckuva themeless construction job.
staff weeject pick: IRL. Which evidently stands for In Real Life. M&A would probably be hopeless, decodin a text msg. with many such abbreves.
faves included just about everything, but especially liked the NAKED clue. Also kinda liked @RP's STRIPTEASE pic.
a few no-knows: BABAORILEY. IRL. GNOMISH. Hardly a nanosecond-mashin set, tho.
Thanx, Mr. Johnson dude. Great work. U RULE.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
p.s. M&A is kinda sad, cuz his [elderly] runtpuz-makin computer is no longer able to post runtpuzs over at the runtpuz website. Just says "Publishing", and hangs. Will hafta figure out what to do next, there. @Teedmn or @Kirk: U might want to let them test solvers know my problem, over there. Thanx.
**gruntz**
@Mike in Bed-Stuy 9:34 – Vans and Avia.
The new KEA/LOA has to be the 4 letter athletic shoe brands: HOKA, AVIA, PUMA and now FILA. No A in Nike at least.
Felt like a Friday puzzle: very clean and not filled with esoteric arcana (PATENS notwithstanding). I had a little trouble in the SE corner when I confidently wrote in BOREDFACES for 56 Across ("they're often worn at long public events) instead of FAKESMILES. I think of fake smiles as expressions that are put on quickly anytime someone's shoved in front of a camera, no matter how long or short an event may be. Bored faces is a much better answer, IMO 😂 The answer of fake smiles could've been clued better ("wedding photographer's conundrum," for example), but that still didn't take away from the joy of having a meaty puzzle with just enough juice to get through the tough parts.
I also think “busy as a beaver” lends itself to INITIATIVE too. Obtuse - but it is Saturday.
@Mike in Bed Stuy - the sneaker entries are definitely fair and as you say so commonplace they go right in but to have two of them along with the brutal WEST clue really gloms up that entire corner.
Liveprof 10:58 - Thank you for the note about Sousa and Michigan. As a native Wisconsinite, I'm a loyal Badger fan, but I think the Michigan fight song is terrific. I never go to football games, but the UW marching band practices in a field near where I live and so I hear every rehearsal - my ears always perk up when Michigan is coming to town. Apart from "On, Wisconsin" it's the only college tune I know.
I have read The Lord of the Rings over 20 times in my life and I have never, ever read of any gnomes in Middle Earth! Besides that, I enjoyed the puzzle even though I ran into some difficulties because I too had Gran and Namath to start with. At least, great minds thing alike!
Easy but well constructed. Agree with Rex. Wonderful execution.
Tuba player before sousaphone.
I traveled with The Who on a short tour, working backstage, and was a big fan. Never knew the name of BABA ORILEY, although I'm sure I heard it often. Add that to TAMI and the vague, cagy clues, the NE was a disaster.
Definitely a do-able Saturday. The only thing I got (but don't understand) is 13D - "On the ___ (dole?).
Wow - Patti Boyd with George Harrison AND Eric Clapton! She's gotta have a lot of great ""memories."
Excellent puzzle. But surprised neither Rex nor anyone else mentions the crampingUP / typedUP dupe...even crossing each other?!
Keds
Excellent puzzle. But surprised neither Rex nor anyone else mentioned the crampingUP / typedUP dupe..even crossing each other?!
Do you not call that “typing” on a keyboard? I would still refer to myself as typing a letter even if it’s a Word doc. “Write up” — I guess? I think there’s an actual “overtype” command in most word processing apps.
I still use the word “type” for my finger’s actions on a keyboard and we use a lot of other words for computerized actions that are no longer literal, don’t we? Filing, recycle bin, etc.
@JoeD-Thanks for the link, aha! and oho! Of course I've heard it but just never run into the actual title.
Years ago when our softball team had an infield of, um, veterans and an outfield of younger types, we were know as The Wall and the Teenage Wasteland, respectively. Good times.
Here's yet another music link: the T.A.M.I. Show, from 1964. T.A.M.I. stood for "Teenage (Wasteland?) Awards Music International".
There are no gnomes in Middle Earth, so that’s my one complaint about this puzzle. Otherwise, great !!
Great Saturday puzzle. Was medium all the way through until the southeast. Even after I got pontiff correct I still needed some more help. Once I got Nike and Fila everything became clear. Thank you for a great puzzle Adrian.
IIRC, Tolkien originally used the term “gnomes” for a specific group of the elves (what eventually became the “Noldor”), and therefore used “Gnomish” for their language (what eventually became “Sindarin”). But they were never little creatures like how we think of gnomes today or how they appear in other stories. It was Tolkien using an old folklore term to differentiate one subset of (human-sized) elves from another. I think the clue could use some tweaking to reflect that it doesn’t show up in the published works. Something like “Abandoned name of a language spoken in Middle-Earth” maybe?
Embarrassed that I confused BABA with Radar so put in OREILY. I also had GRAN and ESE which gave me NARISO for the quarterback; after Mr. APPLE the other day, it sounded plausible.
Re GRAM: when I was a kid I had four grandmothers and no grandfathers. (My parents both lost their first spouse, and men die young.) They were called GRAN, GRAM, NANA, and I don't remember (Mom's first hubby's mom wanted nothing to do with us after she re-married).
For 11 down, looking at -O-ELETTE- I knew it had to be TOWELETTES.
[Spelling Bee: Fri 0; last word a 5er.]
Carola 12:13. You're welcome! I've always been a sports fan but had no interest in college sports until my son went to UM. We tried to attend one game a year with him in The Big House back then, and I remember the first time their enormous band marched across the field before the game, playing their song. There's nothing like it. I didn't like Jim Harbaugh when he coached in the NFL. He seemed like a lunatic. He seems even more like a lunatic now, coaching Michigan, but he's our lunatic and I love him. I bought my son a Jim Harbaugh bobblehead doll.
I was out visiting Madison WI back in the 80's -- loved it. I remember attending a minor league baseball game: The Madison Muskies. They left town in 1993.
Had Chest Fever instead of Baba O'Riley, which made the NW impossible. Both have dramatic organ intros. Have The Band on my mind with the recent death of Robbie Robertson. Also was trying to fit Jason Momoa's name in where Pontiff ended up. Doesn't anyone else watch See?
It’s an organ
DOLE is a synonym for ‘welfare’. To be ON THE DOLE is to be on welfare (gov’t assistance program). I think it is more of a UK term.
SKA is not a product from Jamaica, it's a genre. I could buy "product of Jamaica" but unless there's a product I don't know about called "SKA," this clue does not work for me.
In today's Universal crossword, the clue for 58 down is "____ Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle."
SHINEON caused some trouble, I had no idea, but the only thing that I could think of was opINiON as I had ERITRiA for a while. Fell into the GRAn nAMath trap but also quickly saw that I needed a ENE or EsE in there, unfortunately I chose EsE, which left me staring blankly at our football star n_RIsO for a bit. Equally challenging was _OUS_PHONE, which I felt certain that somewhere in our universe (and in particular Ohio) there could be a legitimate use for a mOUSePHONE. When HELLRAISER fell into place, the _HINiON (now changed to _HINEON) and I had no choice but to give up my beloved mOUSePHONE. I knew the problem probably was with neRIsO and MARINO hit me and I finally figured out that this universe only had room for a SOUSAPHONE.
And here I thought most of the comments about the rock song would be about what a pointless non-clue it is to say "five-minute rock classic". Most rock classics are 4-5 minutes long. This is not notable, why is it in the clue?
What can I say that hasn’t been said already? Gnomish? What the…?
How soon we forget. We had a similar synthesizer vs. organ discussion about BABA O’RILEY on Friday July 14.
Very entertaining start to the day thanks to Adrian’s puzzle. Great INITIATIVE in clueing.
@Joe Dipinto and @ JC66. Thanks for the INITIATIVE explanation. Could you hear my forehead slap?
Spouse suggested clue for GNOMISH - Language spoken in some gardens?
@Sir Hillary 9:10 Loved “Turning into Dad” and the Otis choice. Music appreciation is a great gift.
I thought this was a top flight Saturday Puzzle that put up a fair amount of resistance but was ultimately doable. It gave me some satisfying solver's closure is what I'm saying.
I'm surprised at the falderal over the BABA ORILEY organ vs synthesize issue. Would that qualify as a tempest in a teapot? Ditto over the GNOMISH skirmish. Maybe a chance was missed there to cross reference the clues for TOMB STONE and GNOMISH.
Just recently read that the oldest known human remains have been found in Ethiopia and have been dated from around 220,000 to 230,000 years ago. So I did a double take at the clue for 6D "Country where the oldest human skull (circa 1,000,000 B.C) was found in 1997". I thought that should have read "human ancestor's skull" or maybe "hominid skull". ERITREA does share a border with Ethiopia.
A PINE LOG might produce an "Aromatic fire" but it should never be used in a fire place or wood burning stove. There's way too much PINE tar/resin in the wood that over time would build up in the chimney and could eventually lead to a chimney fire. Those are beastly hard to extinguish and its heat might even wind up setting the whole dang house on fire.
I always notice when some longer answers need a little plural of convenience (POC) help to fill their slots as happens today with PINE LOG, SPARE TIRE and FAKE SMILE, TO NAME A FEW. Nothing to GO GAGA over (that also got some help) but it does take a little SHINE OFF the overall grid quality in my book.
I wrote Chest Fever first……
FWIW, I found tomorrow's acrostic hard.
Love this!
Whiter Shade of Pale?
THERE ARE NO GNOMES IN MIDDLE EARTH
Busy as a beaver. Showing initiative.
@JC66 – really? I haven't filled anything in yet but I see five answers I know right off the bat, and a couple of others I'm reasonably sure of. Hmm. I was thinking it would be easy. We'll see...
Brutally hard. Literally LOLed when REx called it "easy".
Gnomish is not a thing in Middle Earth. Drafts don't count, or at least the clue should note the ephemerality of the language. All the published work is without Gnomish.
Baba O'Riley is also a misleading clue. All fans know that the intro was synthesized. That Pete eventually chose to use a fancy organ with synthesizing abilities is way, way, way too misleading, even for a Sat.
Color me unimpressed.
Brutally hard.
There are no Gnomes in published Middle Earth. If Tolkien played with Gnomish in drafts, then the clue needs to indicate ephemerality.
All fans know that Baba O'Riley's opening segment was synthesized. So Pete may have used a fancy organ to produce those loops, but the real point is synthesizing. To assert the 'organ-ness' is highly deceptive.
Color me unimpressed.
@Joe D.
Good luck. I',m sure you'll do better than me.
@JC – I'll let you know how it goes, I'm about to start it now.
@JC - update: well it didn't end up giving me any problems. But— I ran into a brick wall on the one two weeks ago, and I couldn't finish it. I meant to look at the answers last Sunday but I forgot, and then I tossed both papers.
@Rick — How shall we color you? 😊
Someone says this every time this clue comes up. It was played on a Lowrey organ. Come on, guys.
A Lowrey home organ is by no means a synthesizer. These are musical instruments with names, and this intro is commonly misunderstood. @Mike in Bed-Stuy you continue to be confidently incorrect. There is no splitting hairs to be had about it. It’s an organ. The clue is correct.
The clue says “organ”…it’s already correct.
At least you stopped to look it up! Can’t believe how many people confidently declare it not an organ every time this clue comes up. So weird.
@Joe D
5A was comnpletely new to ne,
The intro is played on a Lowrey organ, not a synthesizer.
It is a Lowrey organ, not a synthesizer. (Unless you consider all organs to be types of synthesizers.)
I should clarify: I completely agree. The answer is wrong and I was as annoyed about it as everyone else. What I meant by my comment was that it is egregious enough that a lot of people would notice and it would touch a nerve.
The bit about early drafts was just an interesting bit of side trivia, not a defense of the clue. Upon rereading I realize that wasn't completely clear.
That’s just wonderful! I’d like to think I’ve had the same effect on my 2 daughters (24 and 21)
Organs are not considered synthesizers by any musicians. They are different instruments and work differently.
@JC – Me too, it was one of the last words I got in the quote.
The letter at square 167 is in the same place in the same word (different forms of it) in both the quote and the title. I'd have thought that wasn't allowed. That square should have been assigned to a different answer down below.
What sits at the intersection of 37D and 43A? St. Natick's Catholic Church!
@M&A, I sent a heads-up to @BobK and @r.alph and am hoping @r.alph might have a solution?
GNOMISH should have been caught by an editor. That’s pretty egregious.
The organ/synth debate comes from the fact that the definition of "organ" and "synth" have changed over time. At one point, any fully electronic keyboard instrument was referred to as an organ. Now the term is generally reserved for Hammond organs and others with a similar sound. The clue was accurate for the time BABAORILEY was recorded, but not by today's standards. And now most people are lazy and just use the blanket term "keyboard". I spent a lot of time trying to find a Doors song that would fit.
aka what the song should be called
Way too easy for a Saturday. Tuesday level maybe.
FRESH ACT
I LOVE how PATTIE GOES NAKED
UP ON THE BAR TO sieze
THE INITIATIVE TO FAKE IT,
NOW START THE STRIPTEASE.
--- TAMI O'RILEY
No write-overs but I wouldn't call it easy. Saved the NW until the end. Noticed: at least not on the UP and UP, CRAMPINGUP crossing TYPEDUP. PATTIE Boyd more than SOSO.
Wordle birdies yesterday and today; 12 under in the last 10 days.
Eager beavers.
It's been around 50 years since I last read Tolkien's books, and I know there were no gnomes in them, but once I had that G, I knew the answer was gnomish. I don't remember where the word was used, but I do remember the word itself. The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, somewhere that word was used. I read all the books multiple times and that word has stuck.
To pile on to the instrument debate:
Organic synthesizer?
Synthetic organ?
Well...not easy, but doable, which might rank as easy vis-a-vis my limited skills. Total WOE: SHINEON as clued. That is a new one on me.
Gimme SOUSAPHONE helped a great deal getting under way. A very nice puzzle: solid birdie.
A very rare Wordle DNF--and I still don't know what the word was!
A proper Saturday puzzle.
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