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Apt name for a rock climber / TUE 9-12-23 / Torts students typically / Aquatic denizen / Mathematical grouping that contains no elements
Tuesday, September 12, 2023
Constructor: Ella Dershowitz
Relative difficulty: Extremely easy
The "C" creatures (clockwise from upper left):
- SPONGE
- URCHIN
- TURTLE
- MONKEY
Naruto is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. It tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, a young ninja who seeks recognition from his peers and dreams of becoming the Hokage, the leader of his village. The story is told in two parts—the first set in Naruto's pre-teen years, and the second in his teens. The series is based on two one-shot manga by Kishimoto: Karakuri (1995), which earned Kishimoto an honorable mention in Shueisha's monthly Hop Step Award the following year, and Naruto (1997). [...] Naruto is one of the best-selling manga series in history having 250 million copies in circulation worldwide in 47 countries and regions, with 153 million copies in Japan alone and remaining 97 million copies elsewhere. It has become one of Viz Media's best-selling manga series; their English translations of the volumes have appeared on USA Today and The New York Times bestseller list several times, and the seventh volume won a Quill Award in 2006. Reviewers praised the manga's character development, strong storylines, and well-executed action sequences, though some felt the latter slowed the story down. Critics noted that the manga, which has a coming-of-age theme, makes use of cultural references from Japanese mythology and Confucianism. (wikipedia)
• • •
Here are some proper nouns that might have caused minor hiccups: SOBE (haven't thought about this brand in over 20 years); NARUTO (it's a massive worldwide success, but not necessarily among the crossword-solving crowd); KELSO ("That '70s Show" has been off the air for 17 years, and it started 25 years ago ... farther from us than the '70s were from it); Rita ORA (come on, she should be a reflex answer by now even if you couldn't tell your Rita ORA from your Pia Zadora); ALI Wong (again, this should be a reflex answer); and JON Batiste (he's won a ton of awards lately, and he was Colbert's bandleader for seven years, but it's still possible to imagine you don't know his name). What else is there to trip on, or even briefly hesitate over? (And please don't say Patti LUPONE, how dare you.) Also, what is there to ooh and ahh or even chuckle over? Nothing. This puzzle is all theme. It's a good theme, but it has no connection to actually solving the puzzle. In a harder puzzle, knowing the theme might have been useful in figuring out tough answers. But there are no tough answers here. Just a collection of "C" creatures. Tuesdays are supposed to be easy, but they're not just supposed to lie there and let you walk all over them. At the very least this should've run on Monday, not Tuesday. Yesterday's was certainly a plausible Tuesday. Not sure what happened with the scheduling there.
The short fill (of which there is a lot) is rough in places. I have "oof" written in the margin next to TINED, and then I've drawn an arrow from that "oof" over to ONELS, which, sigh, are things (ONE "L"'s), but crosswordesey things that smell musty and look truly bad in the plural. With ONIT and ERE and ORE and OPEDS and NESS and NTH in that same corner, you haven't wonder if there weren't better options. Maybe constructing the grid around that particular "C" was just torture and this was just ... good enough. These are the in-the-weeds details I think about when the grid doesn't give me much to think about. ORTS! Haven't seen ORTS for a while. AER Lingus. ORCAS and ETNA ... this puzzle's really playing the hits! I had one slip-up: wrote in the Bells of St. MARK'S (!?) instead of St. MARY'S (51D: "The Bells of St. ___"). Oh, and I hesitated strongly at the last letter in "NARUTO"—I always want it to be (maybe) and "A". I think I'm confusing "NARUTO" with Pablo NERUDA ... now "NERUDA!," there is a manga I would read all 27 volumes of, without hesitation.
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70 comments:
Easy Tuesday. Only overwrite was Necco wafers instead of NILLA at 20D, figuring that Nabisco could own that brand too (it doesn't). Oh, and NEWS LEAd before reading the clue at 66A.
Too easy. C U Next Tuesday, I guess.
Oy, yes, pretty dang easy. I’m usually pretty tolerant of crosswordese/short fill but I feel like inclusion of ORA, ORE, *and* ERE is a sign that a constructor might need to open up the grid a bit.
Also, agreed on the staleness of That 70’s Show. And, given that Kutcher’s co-star Danny Masterson was convicted in two rape cases earlier this year, and that Kutcher wrote a gaslighting and sweeping letter of support for Masterson’s sentencing last week, we can add the schmuck to the list of names I’d prefer to never see in my crossword. (Honestly I already felt that way about him given his ill-advised “philanthropy.”) Spoiled the whole puzzle for me, unfortunately.
The only one I didn’t understand was “Torts students”? Never heard that word before. What is that and why are they “one L’s?”
Easy breezy. The only hard part was me continually second guessing myself thinking this is too easy.
Brine shrimp are also called sea monkeys, colloquially, especially when sold in goofy aquaria for little kids.
More circles.
C for “sea”, using circles in the shape of the actual letter – a lovely theme idea I don’t ever remember seeing before. I wish Jeff Chen was still commenting on XwordInfo because he surely would have confirmed if this was indeed a first for this theme. If it is, props to Ella for coming up with it, picking it out of the theme-osphere.
Props also to Ella for quite smoothly building a grid around answers that curve, a difficult task.
I like the mini-alphabet theme echoing the main one, with ONE L, ORAL B, and maybe even EAU. I liked the liquid-y theme echoes as well: ICEPOP, NESS, LEAK, SOBE, EAU, SAKE, and IPA.
As your resident alphadoppeltotter, a position I’ve inexplicably inhabited for seven years, I must report that this puzzle has an unusually low number of double letters (which, by my scale, is anything less than five).
Today’s moment of serendipity. C represents 100 in Roman Numerals, and 100 in the Celsius scale is the boiling point of water at … C-level!
I had much fun with this, Ella – thank you for making it!
Way too easy but that might be a good thing for a beginner. Better on a Monday, probably. Burned through it, barely noticing the theme. A compendium of classic crosswordese. Not criticisms, just observations.
I really detest random circles. But when there is a reason for the placement, that I like. So I like this puzzle. Some proper names that gave me a little difficulty, including Ali Wong, which is certainly not automatic for me, but otherwise as Rexsays extraordinarily easy. (Kitshef)
Had NoCHT/NoRUTO at first but not for long. Still no idea what an ORT is.
ONE L’s are first year law students. Don’t know how frequently it appears in the wild, but it’s a staple in CrossWorld.
I found the SW extremely tough for a Tuesday. The entrance was blocked by KELSO and St. MARY, and ANKARA, BOYLEAN, JB, and the awful clue for I DO NOT turned that whole section into alphabet soup. The rest of it was pretty smooth sailing.
Did anyone else notice that today's mini puzzle also had a "C" theme, with a giant C in the grid and sea/see?
Days like this are always disconcerting. Yesterday’s puzzle was the easiet Monday in memory for men. Today I almost dnf.
@Anonymous 7:03: a tort is a civil wrong and a ONE-L is a first year student of law
Def should have flipped Mon/Tues this week.
Same as Rex, liked theme, easy, routine fill.
Easy puzzle that I almost didn't finish, because I stupidly had "nicht' instead of NACHT for a long time. I hate to admit that I took two years of German in high school. But I finally remembered "Stille nacht, heilige nacht" (German for "Silent Night.")
Didn't understand the theme until Rex Parker explained it.
ONEL’s are first year law students and “torts” is a beginning/ class on legal wrongs leading to civil liability.
Anon 7:03: One L is first year law school. A tort is a civil wrong -- like negligence -- e.g., failing to shovel snow off your walk and someone falls, or fiddling with your car radio while driving and crashing into someone (hopefully, not that guy who slipped on the sidewalk). It's taught in the first year.
Do ONELS use ORALBs ORA different brush on their ENAMEL?
Not sure about using the archaic ADORABLE for ADORBS - what’s next, they spell TOTALLY for TOTES? PROLLY, LOL! OTOH, IDK…
A rare day when I knew what the reveal was going to be after the second C CREATURE was in place in the NE, so that raised the puzzle's delight factor for me...and it went up another notch with the joke of the sea MONKEY. Another smile at the very end for ORTS, which brought me back to learning about solving the New York Times crossword at my dad's knee (figuratively). In addition to ORT, sward and swale were also on the the list of must-knows.
Help from previous puzzles: ORA. No idea: NARUTO, KELSO. Bug or feature?: ORCAS crossing SEA CREATURE (they do have a C)...
NAR_TO crossing L_PINE got me. It took me five guesses: A,E,I,O,U--Bingo!
Totally a yawner until the retro ORTS roused me. Got me thinking of other long retired clues and answers. Like, say, the once wildly overused Assam silkworm. I sorta missed those. Kinda. Fir novelty.
The circles did nothing for me until the puzz was done. Downs only so did not see the revealer clue, either, and even though with S_ACR___ put in SEACREATURE did not recognize it as the revealer.
Too easy for Tues, what @Rex said about crosswordese.
Why so many Anons these days?
@Weezie - agreed. I saw the clue involving Ashton Kutcher and immediately got mad. How tone deaf is Will Shortz to run this clue this week? Well, actually, I’m not at all surprised that he would. *sigh*
First year law students study tort law extensively. One L is a common way to refer to a first year law student
Hey All !
The Mini lines up with this puz.
Neat theme. Big C's with creatures in them, making them SEA (C) CREATURES. You need to say the "SEA" in front of the flora/fauna, otherwise it doesn't work. 😁
@Anoa Bob must be worming his way into my brain, as I noticed quite a few POCs. Or would it be PsOC?
Fill was decent, considering the constraints. A bit -ese-y, but hey, real things, at least.
ORTS, ok. I call them scraps. 😁
Nice TuesPuz. Have a great day.
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Conk job is a hairdo so one across could also be mops.
This was really cute. I'll excuse weak fill for a good theme, and I'm happy with this balance. Finished in about my average Monday time, so definitely on the easy side, and yes, I'll agree that usually I want to figure out the theme and then use that to solve the puzzle rather than just filling everything in and then finding the theme afterwards. Still, can't complain. Been listening to a lot of legal podcasts recently, so ONEL didn't actually bother me as much as it has in the past. Sad that I no longer get contemporary Broadway clues automatically, but always nice to see a Patti LUPONE shout-out. Speaking of shout-outs, nice job by Joey Fagliano in making today's mini-xword pay tribute to the big one! Just ADORABLE in every way.
Torts are legally redressable damages. It's a foundational subject that would likely be studied by One-Ls (first year law students).
Thx, Ella; nicely done! 😊
Easy-med.
Smooth sailing all the way.
Loved the SEA CREATUREs theme!
Fun cruise. :)
___
Tim Croce's #841 was med+ (5 x NYT Sat). Same as @jae for the SW. For @kitshef, just in case: 6A. My take.
___
On to Natan Last's Mon. New Yorker. 🤞
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Saw SIX on a ”girls’” nyc trip last week - fun.
Harvard law uses ONEL. I don’t think most other law schools do. Mine didn’t ….
Oh ok. Thank you!
I was going to point out that you need "sea" in front of all these CREATURES as represented by the C, but @Roo beat me to it.
Didn't find this one "extremely easy", as I've never seen That 70's Show, am unfamiliar with NARUTO, was semi-guessing on Ms. LUPONE, which sounded right, and know ORA as the "___pro nobis" answer. Couldn't believe OFL didn't mention it.
But the highlight of the day was seeing the long-lost ORTS, which is quintessential crosswordese. I'm still waiting for its cousins ADIT (mine entrance) and ATLE (salt tree). Maybe they have been banished to the island of four-letter crossword answers beginning with A.
Great to see JON Baptiste. I miss him. I miss Colbert too.
Very nice Tuesday, ED. What an Elegant Design, and thanks for all the fun.
Lessee, 25 more puzzles after C Creatures ==>
A Abominable Snowmen
B Beasts
C Creatures
D Dragons
E Elves
F Frankensteins
G Gargoyles
H Hippogriffs
I Incubus
J Jackalopes
K Krakens
L Leprechauns
M Monsters
N Nymphs
O Ogres
P Poltergeists
Q Quetzalcoatls
R Reptiles
S Satyrs
T Trolls
U Unicorns
V Vampires
W Werewolves
X ummm... Xmen?
Y Yoga Teachers
Z Zombies
All those beloved circles that don't show up if you're in dark mode and enrage a specific subset of solvers and yet such a rich opportunity for a terrifying alphabet book of puzzles ready to give to your nerdy friend at Christmas time. Leave your sponge behind.
Tee-Hee: They said TINKLE in (on) the New York Times those DIRTY DANES.
Uniclues:
1 Frozen treat shaped like a you know what.
2 Usually blood immediately below.
3 The pearly whites of those intoxicating hula dancers.
4 Non-thanksgiving turkey-centrics.
5 I'm freaking innocent you bitches.
6 The first on that tree.
7 One who finished the box of wafers.
1 ADORABLE ICE POP
2 CLIFF MARKER (~)
3 LUAU'S ENAMEL
4 ANKARA EGOTISTS
5 BOLEYN NEWS LEAK
6 PIONEER'S TINKLE
7 NILLA BADGER
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: He who shot for the middle and hit it. HONDA ACCORD DAD.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mindless. No thinking required. An insult to the intelligence of solvers of every level. I dropped it before finishing -- but not nearly as quickly as I should have.
Are EGOTISTS people who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony? Prolly.
I think a ONEL is Superman’s (KALEL) brother.
Patti LUPONE’s role models were Cindy Lou Who and Mary Lou Retton. Who knew?
Moniker in the middle of Chicago’s transit system? ENAMEL
I don’t know about a BADGER rubbing shoulders with IOWA. Sounds like trouble brewing in the Big 28 Conference.
If you’re going to have SEACREATURES as your revealer, shouldn’t you avoid having things like ORCAS in the grid, particularly crossing the revealer? But I do agree that it was a fun theme. Thanks, Ella Dershowitz.
As it turns out, Sea Monkeys:
"... are a hybrid breed of brine shrimp called Artemia NYOS produced in 1957 by Harold von Braunhut, according to the journal American Entomologist. Initially marketed as "Instant Life," Sea-Monkeys are sold in hatching kits as novelty aquarium pets."
From another source, alas:
"They are found reliably in the Great Salt Lake in Utah and Mono Lake in California, but they appear in salt ponds across the globe."
@Roo, @Pablo -- I was thinking the opposite, viz., that MONKEY, URCHIN, and TURTLE all need SEA in front of them, but SPONGE does not -- there are no non-sea sponges, and I've never heard them called anything but "sponge." I might say "real sponge" as opposed to the artificial ones, but not "sea."
Anyway, fitting those four big Cs into the relatively small corners of the puzzle must have posed quite a constraint, which probably explains the awkward fill in the NE< particularly.
Dua Lipa called, wanting to know why the puzzle SNUBS her when ENO and ORA made the cut.
I suppose cluing Ann BOLEYN as a character on Broadway was an attempt to raise the difficulty level, but I think it failed.
On our recent trip to Sicily, we did not see ETNA, but I did get to try spaghetti with sea URCHIN roe. Delicious -- it tastes kind of like abalone, but is not nearly as chewy.
Looking forward to a day without circles, detours, arrows or shaded squares. Like a crossword puzzle.
Editor swapped Monday/Tuesday. I guess they look too much alike, what with all the little circles.
Sorry @RP -- I gotta go with nat-tick, at NARUTO/LUPONE. But, two things saved the M&A, on that crossin of mystery:
1. C URCHIN.
2. When in doubt, guess U.
staff weeject pick: FUN. First xword word ever.
a couple of items stood out, along with the excellent theme: EMPTYSET. LUAUS. CLIFF clue.
Thanx for the FUN, in multiple ways, Ms. Dershowitz darlin. More than C-worthy, for sure.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
Annoying little circles. Second day I solved as a themeless, then I came here.
Utterly Easier for me than for utterly anybody else because I'm utterly smarter than utterly anybody else, but not smart enough not to utter utter nonsense here.
Here was a case of the construction outshining the solve. Very clever to have put those theme answers in the C shaped circles but it really added nothing to the solve, at least not to me. I saw circles but did not connect them to the revealer. In fact I didn’t even notice until I came here and read comments. That’s a failure on my part I suppose but I agree with Rex the whole thing was pretty NILLA.
Unfortunate timing on the Ashton Kutcher clue. I always wondered why Demi Moore found him so ADORABLE.
Huh. This was easy until the NE. I naticked this one and was the first Tuesday in forever I couldn’t finish. Didn’t know ONELS, LUPONE, NARUTO. Oh well.
I think I counted about 9 or so proper names because I was a tad bored. I would say that was 8 too many.
I almost did a @Nancy but it was either finish this or clean the bathroom.
Well at least I thought the SEA CREATURES were interesting. You can see all of them at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. My favorites (of course) are watching the sea otters. Many of the pups were found stranded and brought to the aquarium to eventually become surrogate mommies.
At least I found something to smile about.
But I digress....
Oh, wait....50A made me think about a past life I had...While attending University in Madrid, I had to find some sort of income to pay for my lavish and very poor life style. I lucked out and became a translator. I had the gift of the gab and it seemed that all these "Americano" movies were made in Spain and no one knew what they were supposed to do or how. My girlfriend was a wannabe actress and she recommended me. I had no formal training at all but I was good at winging it. Or so I thought. You see, Your brain is jumbling for words or phrases from one language to the other. Some of these phrases don't have exact translations. An idiomatic expression is very difficult to translate. My first Spanish was Cuban and no one understands them. I never formally learned the "correct" grammar so I would just wing it. You get into the Argentine "pero che, que boludo" (which translates - sorta - to "hey buddy, you're an A-hole").... to my favorite Cuban "Oye me chiquita, cierra la window porque eta reinando." which means....sorta...There's a hurricane heading our way.
The pups need walking so I'll take my head to the park.
@egsnfor breakfast: The Big 28 Conference 🤣
This would have been easy for a Monday.
Did not know NARUTO but I never saw it.
ONme before ONIT was it for erasures only because I wasn’t checking the across clues in the NE (see NARUTO comment).
Clever, liked it.
BTW I emailed Jeff Chen & wished him good luck & all the best. That was before I said that "xwordinfo was S__T without him". 😲 He responded with "Thank you for the kind words."
@Andrew, Do you wonder if Celebs Collab?
@Andrew
Thanks for the chuckles, esp "archaic adorable"
I thought this was easy for the first half. Then there was an accumulation of names I don't know crossing words I SHOULD know but couldn't remember (hijab) and titles I couldn't quite remember( "Bells of St Marys") an I had to cheat to get on with my day.
There may have been a surfeit of short crosswords as Rex calmed. I did n't notice it. Found a lot of quite likable longer answers "flips out"" adorable" "Egotists"" idiom" (I like its sound)
Somehow "sea creature" landed flat for me at first as an answer o its clue. But by the end, and after realizing the creatures were all inside Cs, I like it.
I took a ridiculously longtime to get 32a "marker". With "mar" in place the word just would not come. I thought "I've got a whole drawer full of them", so opened it to look.
They all said "Sharpie".
But looking in the drawer worked because then I remembered.
Nancy you poor dear, if two aspirin and a good lie down don't cure it, best call your doctor.
Egsforbreakfast, Thanks for the fun.
Yes this was a cute theme, but holy hannah, the names! Just way too many names. There are four brand names on top: NIKES crossing SOBE with ORAL B crossing NILLA right next door.
Hands up for MOPS crossing MFA and NARITO crossing LIPONE.
[Spelling Bee: Mon 0, but hoo boy ended up typing random letters to get the last word. It's not too surprising that I've never heard of it, nor that Google Ngrams says no one ever uses it any more. But it is a big deal that Merriam-Webster says it's not a word. Sam, Sam!]
There was a movie many years ago set at Harvard Law School that was quite successful but I forgot the name. That is the source of this fairly frequent answer. I went to law school in the’70’s and my school did not use the term. I actually never heard of it till I saw it in crosswords. I don’t know if some schools started using the term because of the popularity of the movie ( things like that do happen at times ) but I wouldn’t be surprised it is not all that common outside of Harvard. I would really consider it a hidden p p p clue/answer. I don’t like it. But the clue was original!
Agree the puzzle was easy.
About nacht/niche same mistake.
@dgd
The movie you're thinking of is "Paper Chase."
Thanks! As I said, never saw it but it was a hit so I read a lot about it and saw numerous clips.
Someone else agreed with me about one L.
Obviously to all crossword constructors one L equals first year law student not first year Harvard law student. Oh well.
"One L" was the title of Scott Turow's 1977 memoir of his first year at Harvard Law. This was a few years after the movie Paper Chase that @JC66 mentions, which was also about first year at Harvard Law.
That and it's subsequent TV show was 'The Paper Chase."
Yep, a little bit of a snoozer but I soldiered on. Bad timing for sure on the Kutcher clue. If Masterson had pleaded guilty and expressed remorse, it’s not so shocking to the senses for friends to convey SOME words of support, but from what I read, this was not the case.
Like @Rex I thought of Neruda but (due to both my kids taking Japanese in high school) thought…hmmm…I don’t think Romanji includes D. Whether that is correct or not, I left the square blank until I got STORES in the cross. Funny how things you kind of know - but really don’t know - can help in a solve.
Yeah, the term ONEL didn’t exist for me when I went to my Midwest law school (83-87…hey…yeah, 4 years, I had a bambino during time). I’ve noticed the ONEL designation has crept out into our neck of the woods. Seems a little pretentious to me, and I’m not sure why. I mean, people SAY it, they don’t WRITE it, so why not just SAY…”I’m a first-year law student”? Just sayin’…for most non-lawyers it (improper use) begs the question…”what is ONEL”?
@Gill. Omg. You should write a book about your life! Hah! I THINK you are give/take around MY age, but geez Louise, your life is/has been amazing!!
@Beezer -- I agree that @GILL's life has been exceptionally colorful and might even be turned into an absolutely wonderful memoir. And I'm not even sure that you were on the Rexblog at an earlier time when she talked about her various acting roles in some now-forgotten Hollywood clunkers where she, among other things, performed horse-riding stunts that looked exceedingly dangerous. And then, if memory serves, I think there were also drinks on set with the then gorgeous Vincent Price...
I realize now that I made a huge mistake in my youth -- one that I regret I studied French in school, not Spanish, meaning that I speak not a single word of Spanish and therefore miss much of the humor of @GILL's "translations" -- both the ones that are right on the money and the ones that are hilariously off-target. There were a lot of them today, none of which I got, of course, and there is always at least a soupcon of Spanish spattered throughout @GILL's best anecdotes.
If I'd known that I would meet you on the Rexblog, @GILL, I'm sure I would have taken Spanish, not French in school. I mean how many French-speaking people do I meet these days either in cyberspace or IRL?
Cute theme but it looks like getting it to fit into the grid extracted a price in the fill quality. One cost was needing 40 black squares (6 of which are cheater/helper squares) and that resulted in lots of shorter entries. Those are rarely much FUN.
Another price was foreshadowed in the top row when the plural of convenience (POC) was needed to help BOP and ONE L fill their slots. That continued in the upper section with FLIP OUT, NIKE, STORE and OP ED all needing Ss to do their job. Hard to miss all those in one area, even for solvers not usually attuned to noticing POCs (hi Roo @9:07).
And there are three of the two-for-one POCs where a Down and an Across both get boosted by sharing an S. BITE/SNUB and RUNG/AD share a final S and there's a stealth two-fer when LACE UP and LUAU also get an S bump.
Overall there's quite a bit of grid real estate taken up with the low value, low interest, "non-nutritive" S filler. The POC Committee gives this grid a POC Assisted rating.
Oh, wow. Thank you @Beezer 3:23 and @Nancy 4:06. I don't know about writing anything but yes, I guess you could say I've had quite a colorful and interesting life (and still plan for more)....
I can thank my adventurous parents for that. We lived in many places and both Mom and Dad made sure all of us kids got to "feel" each culture and take advantage of each one. We did!
@Nancy....Never regret being able to speak French or any other language. Even understanding bits is better than just reading your alphabet soup. You know...it's never too late and I can teach you all the colorful cuss words.
@Beezer. I'm not sure how old I am. Sometime I feel like a ten year old and other times I feel 100.
the only place i really hesitated was ICE POP because, if you want a "summer snack on a stick" it's popsicle. an ice pop, also known as flavor ice, is famous for having no stick at all. but when i googled it after, it showed both a popsicle and flavor ice so, i'll accept it albeit a tad begrudgingly.
now for the real embarrassment - i flew through this puzzle, but when i finished there was no happy music. one square was amiss somewhere. i thought for sure it had to be ONELS since even though i grokked that it had to be "ONE L" in plural, i still didn't understand what it meant. (thanks to those in the comments as always for the explanation!) but no, my error was putting MFA instead of BFA. i recalled not liking "MOPS" for the head bonk but it seemed plausible in the world of the NYT crossword. but...you see, the reason this is so embarrassing is that i myself have...yes, you guessed it, a BFA.
This one should have been a Monday.
Hand up for Necco; when I see "wafers" I think Necco. Okay, ya got me.
Extremely dense theme, needing all four corners for the C's plus the center for the revealer. This means that the fill FLIPSOUT. So while we admire the theme construction, the puzzle itself is a joyless solve. Must give a thumb up, though, for working Anne BOLEYN into it.
One of those "Look what I can do!" puzzles. At least it offers a UTILE starter word for tomorrow's Wordle. Par.
Wordle birdie. Rounding back to form.
I think I just set a new world land speed record for a TUEZ!!!
Although I will admit that nobody calls sponges, sea sponges, there are 150 species of freshwater sponges that do exist.
TERSE NEWS
"IDONOT", said DIRTY MARY,
"I'm too ADORABLE, you SEA,
if one BITES ONIT, IT's scary,
no LYE, what FUN would ORALB?"
--- CLIFF KELSO
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