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Eponymous mineralogist Friedrich / SUN 9-3-23 / Hindu scripture on meditation / Ancient manuscripts discovered in the Qumran Caves / Medical attendants at boxing matches / Shiny balloon material / Soup stock in Japanese cuisine / Titular love object on old TV / TV personality often referring to himself in the third person
Sunday, September 3, 2023
Constructor: Dylan Schiff
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- HATE MAIL / EMAIL ATTACHMENT (22A: Derby, for one / 65A: What a paper clip may indicate online ... as represented in 22-Across) [A derby is a HAT … and then EMAIL is “attached” to HAT … to make (unclued) HATE MAIL]
- SURF THE NET / SPREADSHEET (29A: Wander around online / 92A: Excel offering ... as represented in 29-Across) [the word SHEET is “spread” throughout the phrase SURF THE NET]
- LINCOLN PARK / BROKEN LINK (35A: Chicago neighborhood with a namesake zoo / 100A: It may lead to a 404 error page ... as represented in 35-Across) [the word LINK is “broken” inside the name LINCOLN PARK]
- THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS / POP-UP ADS (59A: Ancient manuscripts discovered in the Qumran Caves / 109A: Browser annoyances ... as represented in 59-Across) [the word ADS literally “pops up” in the middle of DEAD SEA SCROLLS (as it’s represented in the grid]
Terrence Vaughan Mann (born July 1, 1951) is an American theatre, film and television actor and baritone singer. He is best known for his appearances on the Broadway stage, which include Chester Lyman in Barnum, The Rum Tum Tugger in Cats, Inspector Javert in Les Misérables, The Beast in Beauty and the Beast, Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel, Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, King Charlemagne in Pippin, Mal Beineke in The Addams Family, and The Man in the Yellow Suit in Tuck Everlasting. He has received three Tony Award nominations, an Emmy Award nomination, and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical.His film credits include the Critters series, A Chorus Line, Big Top Pee-wee and Solarbabies. He also starred as the villain Whispers in the Netflix series Sense8 from 2015 to 2018. He is a distinguished professor of musical theatre at Western Carolina University, and is an artistic director of the Carolina Arts Festival and the North Carolina Theatre. (wikipedia)
• • •
["Searching for my / Lost shaker of SALT" — RIP Jimmy]
Two proper nouns right in the middle of the grid—symmetrical sentinels—were the only things I didn't know today. TERRENCE Mann? TED ALLEN? (48D: Longtime host of Food Network's "Chopped"). I'll take the puzzle's word for it that these people are who the puzzle says they are. Most everyone else, from Ginger ROGERS to ADELE to Zora NEALE Hurston, was familiar to me. Had a bit of trouble with ISRAEL (25A: Biblical name that means "one who struggles with God") because I though ISMAEL might be the name in question, and IN REASON, yeesh, what? (14D: With good sense). I've heard the phrase "within reason," but just IN REASON? Nuh uh. Just 'cause your massive word list tells you something's good doesn't mean it is. Ooh, what's DASHI, I totally missed that when I was solving (13D: Soup stock in Japanese cuisine). Must've just filled it in entirely from crosses. Once again, no-looking an answer proves to be to my great advantage. I have heard of DASHI, but I definitely would not have remembered it. Along with IN REASON, I can't really imagine "CARES of the world" either (76A: ___ of the world). I haven't a care in the world, that's an imaginable phrase. I guess "far from the CARES of the world" is semi-familiar, but it feels quaint, and it did not come to me quickly at all. Speaking of quaint, ILL USAGE? I think I know ILL USE, but that also sounds quaint. This puzzle is scoring low on the freshness factor, is what I'm saying. Not a big fan of VERSE crossing AVERSE. Once Letter strings of longer than four letters generally shouldn't be duped at all, and certainly shouldn't be crossed, especially when (in this case) we're talking about one of those strings being a whole-ass word. I also don't really get the clue on VERSE (96D: Writer's block?). VERSE is no more a "block" (of text?) than any other bunch of text is. I do like the symmetrical pair of SHUTTERS and CURTAINS. Very windowy. Very nice.
Notes:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
- 67D: Ptolemy was one, famously (ASTROLOGER) — wow, really thought he was an astronomer. I mean, he was. But apparently also this other thing. According to wikipedia, Ptolemy (who lived during the second century AD), was a "mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist."
- 103A: Class speakers, for short (PAS) — oof. Not sure why you opt for this cluing of PAS instead of the plural slang of "fathers" or the French word for "not" (or "step," i.e. "Faux PAS"), but apparently someone thought "public address (systems)" would be a good idea, so here we are.
- 44A: "___ for Tinhorns" ("Guys and Dolls" number) ("FUGUE") — No idea. And I've seen (the movie version of) "Guys and Dolls." This must be some desperate attempt to make a very easy puzzle a little bit harder.
- 113A: Tours with? (AVEC) — "Tours" is a place in France, and AVEC is French ... for "with."
- 72D: Diamond theft (STOLEN BASE) — presumably by now you know that the "diamond" in question is a baseball diamond. I did not know that until after several crosses into BASE. Wanted STOLEN ICE or STOLEN GEMS or something like that.
I still haven't had time to review all the puzzles for July and August to figure out my favorites, so I'm deferring the "Best of..." for another week, I think. See you then (or whenever).
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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89 comments:
Pretty much agree with Rex's assessment, but he should have added MOHS to the mix of proper names that added difficulty to this puzzle... what is eponymous about this feller I guess I'll never know... talk about obscure! But because I was able to finish with all the correct answers I will not complain much about this puzzle, and I thought some of the filler clues were rather cute.
Derby is a hat.
But HatEmail?
Can anyone explain.
Thx
Easyish. I worked my way down the grid with out a lot of resistance. The theme emerged when I hit the bottom half and it became clear why DEAD SEA SCROLLS didn’t fit. Cute and fun, liked it.
Yes for ASTROnomer at first and for not knowing TERRENCE and FUGUE.
12D Neer ??????
Okay I get the theme, but just don't groove to it. HATE MAIL looked promising cuz it at least made two plausible answers, HAT and EMAIL, but none of the others did. I appreciate the idea, but no fun for me in the solving.
Not a fun Labor Day weekend for me either. Our cabin on Shuswap Lake is still out of bounds; the main road has been closed for 2 weeks due to wildfires and looks like at least another 2 weeks or more. And most of that area is still under fire evacuation order for the same time period. So we have lost half the summer there.
Plus!... the main highway north of Penticton was been closed due to a rock slide earlier this week (seriously: what next?) for a week and looks like another week or more. Alternative routes add an hour plus and involve narrow gravel forestry roads. My car is not a rugged one, and going via the paved roads add 2 or 3 hours to the trip.
So, can't visit my family; spending it alone. Happy Labor Day! What a fun summer this has been... not.
[Spelling Bee: Sat 0, last word this 5er. QB streak 3 days!]
A very light theme but to be honest I spent 10 minutes with "Dead C Scrolls" filled in and thought it was some kind of substitution thing of letters that sound like words. I always struggle with Sundays though!
My biggest mistake was BRAchIatES instead of BRANDISHES for the aggressive waving at 2D. I know the former usually means swinging from branch to branch, but I thought perhaps it could describe a similar waving motion. That was corrected by our good crossword friend Margaret CHO at 47A.
Other corrections: SURF THE wEb instead of NET at 29A stayed in far too long; OKokok before OK FINE for "you win" at 33D; tAS before PAS for the 103A classroom assistants, which made PIPERS (93D) a bit hard to see. ASTROnOmER before ASTROLOGER for Ptolemy at 67D, but with the realization that it could be the other.
WOEs: ACTION POSE (3D) was easily inferred, DASHI (13D) not so much. Also LEOS Janáček (36D).
Question: Is "'Big Blue' machines" a valid clue for IBMS (102D) when the M in IBM stands for Machines? Should it have been "'Big Blue' computers"
Yikes. 4:50 AM and no comments?
I found it slightly irritating that there were unique tricks.
If you have a pop-up word like ADS in DEAD SEA SCROLLS, shouldn't you have several? But no, there's only a single one.
And also, if you have trick answers like HAT EMAIL that only make sense if you look at another clue, ought there not to be multiple instances?
This all reminds me of the similarly mildly irritating puzzle months ago with just one single lonely rebus.
Villager
Different people like different things. I’m lost whenever they want me to name a rapper, but as someone who likes Broadway, FUGUE for Tinhorns and TERRENCE V Mann were write-ins. No clue who Zora NEALE Hurston is. Different strokes for different folks.
I’m in Sicily, 11:20!here, 5:20 there, and no comments yet! This was frustrating because solving on my phone, so it was really hard to change from across to down. I finished with a square wrong, and lacked the patience to figure it out. What Rex said, except “Fugue for Tinhorns” was a gimme.
That one from Sicily was me, @jberg
Mohs scale is used for the hardness of different minerals. Guess that's why it's eponymous.
Bc it’s attaching the word email to the word hat - so literally an email attachment.
I’m not justifying it just trying to explain 😁
12D —I’m guessing NEER is bardspeak for “never,” but I’m no Shakespeare scholar.
I guessed right. Romeo says “I ne’er saw beauty till this night.”
A contraction of never ("ne'er"). Romeo had never seen true beauty until he saw Juliet.
On the app, you can click on the area where the clue is and it'll switch from across to down, or vice versa.
Contraction of never = ne’er
@12:10AM and @5:20AM: MOHS in this case is definitely about the scale of mineral hardness, which was developed in 1812 by Frederich Mohs.
But just to confuse the issue (although NOT in this case, b/c the clue specifies "mineralogist"), there's ALSO a relatively common type of eponymous skin surgery called Mohs Surgery, which was developed in the 1930's by Dr. Frederic E. Mohs. This procedure (which many sun-lovers may be familiar with) is described thus: "Mohs surgery is a procedure used to remove skin cancers (most commonly basal and squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma) in a way that preserves a maximum amount of healthy tissue."
Mohs ... the name is Fred Mohs!
You’re a party pooper Rex. The puzzle was clever.
Our recent friend TMI came to mind during this one - just too much in a Sunday sized grid. The theme is cute - but should have been pared down to an early week puzzle. The layout forces so many 3s, 4s and 5s it’s overwhelming. Liked the DEAD SEA SCROLLS - but what about the U in FUGUE?
IZ
Nice to see Zora NEALE and the ILIAD. Side eye to USPS and USDA - also the MACHINE dupe in 102d. ILL USAGE was unfortunate but liked the misdirect for STOLEN BASE. We had LIVER and onions once a week growing up - my father loved the stuff - I stuffed it into my napkin.
Not a bad puzzle - but just a tedious solve.
Charlie don’t SURF
As in “ne’er”, a contraction of “never” that Shakespeare often used, including in the line they’re referring to here
Ugh - too much collateral damage in the rest of the grid in order to accommodate a so-so theme, especially in the northern half. Stuff like ILL USAGE, NEER, DASHI, FUGUE and even TANTRA and ISREAL as clued - just too much stuff that you rarely encounter IRL for such little pay off. I guess at the end of the day it is doable, it just didn’t seem like much fun.
The only thing that really bugged me (and caused a lot of consternation in solving) about this one was that both SURF THE NET and LINCOLN PARK are answers that work as clued, whereas HAT EMAIL and THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS require the “punchline” to make sense. I didn’t understand THE DEAEA SCROLLS until I read this blog, honestly. I just assumed “well I guess there’s some other obscure set of scrolls they’re referencing”. Just seems weird that two of the four theme answers require a trick while the others don’t. The H of HAT EMAIL was the last thing I filled in (never heard of MOHS). Oh and one of the few gimmes was FUGUE for Tinhorns (it’s the opening song of the show).
pedantic comment: no one who has read Works and Days and Theogony would call them 'epics'. Epic has a more specific meaning in ancient literature, and neither of those fit it.
I didn’t love this, but I appreciated the reference to “Guys and Dolls”, which was my late father’s favourite musical. It does amuse me sometimes what is an instantly solved clue for me versus for Rex. FUGUE was on the screen in half a second for me.
Ted Allen was the foodie in Queer Eye and is now all over the place on cooking shows. That one was a gimme.
Easy? Damn, I struggled with this one: took me about twice the normal time for a Sunday. The theme wasn't a problem, and several of the proper names were, for me, gimmes (FUGUE for Tinhorns, Zora NEALE Hurston, TERRENCE Mann). It's that the theme answers were just...odd.
Like others have mentioned, having only ONE pop-up add kinda trick, and ONE hat-email (HATE MAIL) totally threw me off. I kept looking for consistency that wasn't there; as a result, never found any flow: just a mildly unpleasant slog.
In retrospect, I can appreciate that it's a well-constructed puzzle; I just didn't love it.
Well, it took me forever to make sense of HATEMAIL, likewise for the upward motion of ADS in DEADSEASCROLLS, but the other themers made sense, eventually. In short, I had a great time solving a Sunday puzzle, but this wasn't it.
@Roo-We both got shut out today, but my friend DA-SHI showed up. His last name is Hu, and he's a doctor, so Dr. Hu. I'm claiming partial credit.
Finished your Sunday offering OK, DS, but Didn't Smile too often. Thanks for a medium amount of fun.
@okanaganer-Sounds like a mess up your way. Stay safe, and hope you all get back together soon. About the worst we get around here is an ice storm, but everything is still here when they're over.
“I got the horse right here, his name is Paul Revere . . . “
Iconic Broadway.
In ancient Greece there probably wasn’t much difference between astronomy and astrology. Or music theory, for that matter.
I also had "astronomer" for Ptolemy at first. This wasn't a hard puzzle, but it was annoying. Without casting aspersions toward the constructor, the theme seemed extraneous. I knew DEADSEASCROLLS had to be an answer, but then figuring out how the circled letters in the middle fit the blank squares was a separate trick from the other circled letters. Did POPUPADS mean that "ads" was to be read bottom-up, or did it mean they just "popped up" in the middle, as Rex suggested?
The puzzle contained some good fill, but the theme compromised it, I thought.
Thx, Dylan; thumb POPS UP for this one! 👍
Med.
Not particularly on D.S.'s wavelength, but managed a reasonable time per se. Spent an unreasonable amt of time trying to convince self that YES YES! was indeed the right answer for 51A. Didn't know either LEOS or TED ALLEN, so the 2nd YES was not a gimme. Finally popped it in, went back over the whole puz to check for fat-finger-folly (hey @Roo!), and 🤞, only to get the dreaded you know what. I had dropped ADS into a rebus cell (hoping to see it POP UP UPon completion) and obvi paying no attn to the 3 circled cells in USDA. Serves me right! When will I ever learn to 'pay attention' to the deets??
Nevertheless, did really enjoy the challenge, and hopefully will do better next time! :)
___
Stella's Sat. Stumper was a toughie (over 2 1/2 NYT Sat's), with the mid-East Coast down thru the SE being wicked hard.
___
On to Joel Fagliano's PandA variety puz on xwordinfo.com.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude ~ Serendipity & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
I will join the chorus of those pointing out the inexcusable inconsistencies in this puzzle. Theme answers LINCOLN PARK and SURF THE NET are legitimate answers to their respective clues. However, HATEMAIL and THEDEAEASCROLLS are anything but. They make no sense without their respective revealers. The former could have been clued as, say, "unwanted item in one’s inbox" and that would have made it consistent with the first two. The latter, on the other hand, is just dead in the water (horrible pun intended).
Am I the only one who was hoping the circles would include computer game titles? Sheesh, this theme was SO disappointing.
TERRENCE Mann is quite the Broadway standard and TED ALLEN is well known from the original “Queer Eye.”
I liked it! One off tricks are fine - thought Rex would be more upset about THE preceding DEADSEASCROLLS. And, of course, at the ubiquitous OREO.
Suggestion for RP - why not numerically rate puzzles on FRESHNESS, TECHNICAL and DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY?
FRESHNESS - originality of theme and cleverness of clues and answers.
TECHNICAL - lack of xword “glue” or obscure terms or usage, tolerable levels of PPP (People, Places, um, what’s the third?), no repeats, etc.
DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY (for the day of week) - the only thing Rex grades now, finding most EASY.
1-10 basis, with cumulative of 25-30 being a POW! (now that Jeff Chen has left the building). Kind of combines figure skating and diving scoring, but I forget exactly how. But would be easy to do and serve as an executive summary of the write-up.
Anyway, just my 50 CENT. Good job, Dylan and goodbye, Jeff! (signed up for mailing list so more like au revoir…)
Funny puzzle. A mixture of an excellent theme, executed with great skill, and some awful fill. Unlike Rex, I did get a big AHA when I god the first revealer, and then enjoyed each one.
Maybe one reason I got the AHA was I don't read puzzle titles. I wonder how other folks feel about titles.
As a solver, I hate them. Best case, they add nothing to solve and just sit there. Worst case, they act as a spoiler - giving away some element it would have been fun to figure out.
As a constructor, I hate them. You've done all the good work: come up with a theme, found symmetrical themers, figured out a grid that works with the themers, filled that grid with words that are pleasing, written all those clues, striving for originality and varying difficulty. And when you should be done, you have to come up with some punny - but never funny - title that serves no purpose.
At least the NYT only uses titles on Sundays. A lot of outlets have titles every day of the week.
Sunday is usually my least favorite day because most puzzles have too many PPP for my taste.
This one was extra un-fun because of the cluing (NEER and CARES) - why? I knew the names with the exception of Ted Allen and still this one was a slog.
Mondays/Tuesdays can be made fun by solving downs only. This was a slog.
But that fill:
BAE - unwelcome in any puzzle.
ASTROLOGER - I object only to the 'famously' part of the clue. He was famously an astronomer and map-maker (and also an astrologer).
TED ALLEN - who?
LEOS - who?
NESS - who?
SOO - who?
TERRENCE - who? How many ‘who’s can one puzzle have?
CARES - huh?
DASHI? – what?
IN REASON - not a pair of words ever seen together.
Hey All !
Struggled mightily in the NE corner. Rest of puz completed (albeit with a one-letter DNF, unbeknownst to me at the time, but beknownst once I finished) in a decent time. Had to turn to Goog for the Japanese soup. Had DISCS and TITLE up there, just couldn't wrap the ole brain around anything else. ILIAD clue pissed me off. 😁
I thought the EMAIL ATTACHMENT was kind of wonky. All the other Themers use the whole word, while that one was just clued as a HAT. Obvs, I know the EMAIL is "ATTACHed", but still...
My one-letter DNF, you ask? Had an A for an E at TORTe/BeLES. Knownst BeLES didn't sound like a thing, but TORTA, TORTE, unknownst. 😁
Had AttackmOdE for the Ninjas first, then AttackPOSE, finally changed my ENT for an ORC, and saw ACTIONPOSE. tUtUs-FUGUE, why not a song titled "Tutus for Tinhorns"? aisle-CABIN
Didn't notice the VERSE/AVERAE cross, but there's also TERSE there. We get crossing ASSes at HARASS/ASSISTS (HAR! ASS). Good band name, Crossing Asses. Maybe even Crossing Fugue Asses.
Maybe I need some SCOTCH. But no LIVER and onions! Yuck!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Per the question below, Derby is a HAT and “EMAIL” is just an attachment. I guess HATEMAIL makes it into a recognizable word. I thought it was pretty cute. I see the gripes IN REASON was my biggest gripe and then the VERSE crossing AVERSE. I didn’t notice CARES of the world probably due to the crosses but yeah, no.
Not much to love, not much to hate. It's Sunday.
Took forever. I needed to research the FUGUE, and Saxe-Coburg, because APEX predator was new to me, and frigging MRT because I couldn't accept the middle letter being anything but a vowel. I kept thinking there must've been a Mut on TV back in the 50s, but the what ___ of the world? And CCED was never happening off its clue. Alas.
Uniclues:
1 Fish with rifle skills flip through Instagram.
2 Alcoholic Sean returns to his version of manliness after operation.
3 Hero of the horoscope.
4 "🎵 It's made from ham and broccolini and a wedding cake and Cheetos. The losing dish tastes like three toes, the winner like mosquitos in your Speedos. 🎵"
1 SNIPER COD SURF THE NET
2 LIVER ASSISTS PENN
3 ACTION POSE ASTROLOGER
4 VERSE CAME TO TED ALLEN (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Wear flip-flops without gloves. EXPOSE MANI-PEDI.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This was a cute puzzle, medium-solve for me. The theme was OK, but the similarities between items like broken LINK and spread(out) SHEET made this somewhat less clever. I did like POPUPADS. INREASON was a bit off, agreed.
Sorry I haven't been around so much... Life and work getting in the way. Hope someone had fun at Lollapuzzoola!
@Pablo
DASHI Hu? Nice. "Paging Dr. DASHI Hu, Dr. DASHI Hu to the ER." How often did he get teased in college...
Was doing a puz from July 2022 (I went back through the months, doing puzs I inexplicably missed, finding quite a few Mondays along the way [and wondering how that happened, as I do the puz every day]), and found one (forget which Monday) that had both PABLO and ROO in it! Banner day, that.
@bocamp
Fat-finger folly. Nice. Fully fine fulfillment for functioning F foray.
Or somesuch...
RooMonster Might Change My Name To FooMonster Guy (Or FooFoo 😁)(FooRoo?)
@Rick 8:01 AM - Pedantic, but incorrect. Epic does have a specific meaning, at that specific meaning is a poem in dactylic hexameter, regardless of the narrative content. The meaning of epic to which you are referring is the meaning in modern literature, not ancient literature.
The CARES of the world are things that some people carry on their shoulders. It's a perfectly legit ("in the language") expression.
Astrology, astronomy, anatomy, biology, etc. were all considered to be philosophy until the ~350-500 years ago. Science as a completely separate domain from philosophy is a fairly new idea when you look at recorded human history.
Nasty, nasty puzzle, its difficulty artificially enhanced by the mistakes that OFL and other puzzlers have already pointed out. Absolutely unworthy of the NYTXW, particularly on Sunday.
I like your approach, but how on earth can you assign a numerical score to level of difficulty? Which rates the 10, "downright onerous" or "easy peasy?" You see the problem here, I hope, unless you are assigning a 10 to the golden ( Goldilocks) mean: not too hard, not too easy, just challenging enough...
I thought the theme was clever and that the puzzle was fun to solve. Unlike @Rex, I didn't foresee the "reveals" of the lower half, and so enjoyed unmasking the four games, especially the POP-UP ADS. So much else to like, too - BRANDISHES, MONIKERS, CANDOR, STOLEN BASE, ASTROLOGER, SHUTTERS. An entertaining Sunday outing for me.
A title of COMPUTER GAMES!!!! Lots of tiny little arbitrarily placed circles!!!! My heart sank and I knew I was in trouble. And I was right.
But I finished it, so there's that. I didn't "get" it mind you, but I finished it
And that's because the only place where the theme futzed up and confused my grid entry was the whole POP UP ADS thing. It took me forever to see that part of THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS was headed northward and that what was left in 59A was...not that. The rest of the time I had, say, the answer HATE MAIL, which I then came to see was actually HAT EMAIL, in which I then realized that HAT was the "Derby", but still had no idea why EMAIL was there.
Did I make the connection once EMAIL ATTACHMENT came in later on? No, Dear Reader, I did not. My vision always tends to be a bit tunnel-ly. Nor did I make the other connections either. I had to come to the blog to find out what, exactly, was going on.
It's all rather clever in fact. Alas, a lot more clever than moi.
You can’t really tap out in most wrestling. Probably should have said MMA or UFC. Maybe even “professional wrestling” but not collegiate (folkstyle) or international (freestyle or Greco-Roman) wrestling
@Okanoganer. It could be worse. You could be at Burning Man.
I love the music by Ms. Carlisle. That BRANDISHES a great talent.
You might get a Palme d’Or at Cannes, but it doesn’t mean you have a CANDOR, just ask the ASSISTS.
I can’t remember whether The BEAST in Revelation wore PRADA.
If you buy AKC registered dogs, you’ll know your PETSPAS and Ma’s.
The puzzles was easy, but I really enjoyed that the gimmick wasn’t consistent. You know what they say about the spice of life. Thanks for a fun outing, Dylan Schiff.
The gimmick just wasn’t worth it. Way too many tiny little words impeding the flow. Why can’t Sundays be better?
The clue for CCED (68D) was unfair. No indication the answer was an abbreviation.
FUGUE for Tinhorns was a nice surprise. I got the horse right here. The name is Paul Revere...
I got FUGUE immediately, this being one of the greatest comedy songs in the entire musical theater canon. So why should so many of the rest of you be deprived. Here it is: FUGUE FOR TINHORNS from Guys and Dolls. Listen up and enjoy!
Dashi is staple in all Japanese dishes (not just miso soup), as a base flavor foundation. Worth knowing!
Also, "HATE MAIL" is a thing... doesn't really work here as a double entendre though, imo
I sped (since I can't seem to get whether it's swoosh or whoosh) though this & enjoyed it a lot. Either I'm getting smarter or this was an easy & fast Sunday.
Thanks, Dylan.
What’s bae for darling?
If the circled letters “ads” that arise from 59a are read as part of the word “dead”, the answer “the Dead Sea scrolls” is spelled out perfectly, and the idea of popup ads (including the annoyance factor) is illustrated perfectly as well. Highlight of the puzzle for me.
Multiple mini-theme mcguffins from the past, with matchin revealers. Sorta different. M&A sorta likes sorta different. I guess.
staff weeject picks: HAT + its parasite. ADS a-poppin.
some fave fillins: STANDTRIAL. STOLENBASE. FUGUE. BATANEYE.
Thanx, Mr. Schiff dude. Almost seemed like an AI-created puz, in a weird way…
Masked & Anonymo9Us
**gruntz**
@Roo-Well, Da-Shi is a psychiatrist, so there's that. He was also the brains behind our doo-wop group, doing all the arrangements and teaching us parts because he's a top notch pianist.
We were always trying to get him to move to Weare, NH, not far away, and pronounced "where" so he could be Dr. Hu? From Weare? but he never did.
Missed the Pablo/Roo double but a Saturday once had my granddaughter's first and last names in the same puzzle. Way cool.
@anonymous 10:19. Andrew here - just tapping this by the pool and don’t remember what my blue mark check pw is so going anon.
The scoring idea was just something that I thought might be more useful than the current “relative difficulty” Rex leads with.
After struggling with a puzzle, it’s a bit disheartening to come here and get the Very Easy assessment. And just weird to breeze through a puzzle and see it rated Challenging. Sometimes only because RP did it with the self-imposed Downs Only handicap.
I highly enjoy Rex’ rants/raves/tirades even when (or especially) we disagree. He has made a crossword blog - of all things, a blog critiquing CROSSWORDS! - a daily must read.
But like with Rotten Tomatoes - where I read full reviews if I’ve watched the film - like to get the overview general rating first.
As you suggest, the Relative Difficulty rating may be the least meaningful. Especially as determined by the King of crosswords, who is never forced to Google or cheat off Chen (what will I do without Jeff?)
Maybe an overall letter grade that includes originality and execution along with ease of solving would be good? With Pros and Cons mentioned before the day’s essay.
Or leave well enough alone. Whatever. Time to cool off in the pool!
The theme left me cold. I kept waiting for the “aha” or “oh, that’s clever” but I ended up with “is that it?” This was a bit if a Sunday slog for me.
I'd be curious to know if real crossworders like yourselves consider it a plus or a minus to construct a neighborhood like TERSE/AVERSE/VERSE in the SW corner, or DENIAL/TRIAL over on the right side?
On another note, I take it that real crossworders do get tired of OREO & EPEE etc., but for casual puzzlers like me there's some amusement in seeing how many times ONO/ENO/ELO etc. appear. Probably there's a nickname for this kind of standard fill??
Pretty easy overall but the biggest pain for me was PAIN as I already had TAgOUT/gAIN (?) and lost a bit of time TEDALLEN/CUTMEN vs TEDALLAN/CUTMAN although I now see the plural 79A "Attendants".
When I saw the clue for 67D "Ptolemy was one, famously", I immediately started typing in GEOCENTRIS and was totally flummoxed when I ran out off squares for that final T. Isn't that what he is most "famous" for? Isn't that one of the first things we learn in basic science courses, the Ptolemaic geocentric model vs the Copernican heliocentric model? Couldn't believe it when ASTROLOGER finally filled in. Ugh.
Yeah, the diamond of 72D "Diamond theft" refers to a baseball infield so that's how it works for STOLEN BASE. But diamond is a misnomer. The baseball infield as outlined by the BASEs is actually a square. It has four equal sides with four equal 90° angles. A diamond has four equal sides but with only opposite angles being equal. And none of them are 90° angles. Just saying.
Trivia: "Fugue for Tinhorns" is not really a fugue, it's just a basic round like "Row Row Row Your Boat" or "Frère Jacques".
Curtains was the name of a tuxedo cat we had when I was growing up. He had two symmetrical black patches that looked like curtains partially covering his eyes.
I have no thoughts on this puzzle. It's just four things you might happen to see on a computer. Uh, okay. Oh wait, that was in yesterday's puzzle. I mean, okay fine.
I am guessing that it's some kind of trncation of "babe."
Did it. Got it. That's all.
Hate liver. Hate onions. Worst entree imaginable to me!
Didn’t understand your comment about fugue. Which u? The first one is for the diphthong and the second is for the hard g. Fairly standard spelling.
Ill usage is definitely a bit much.
The Dead Sea Scrolls would be a great answer but we got
The DeADSea Scrolls instead. I usually don’t get bothered by gimmicks but this isolated rebus annoyed me somehow.
On the other hand I otherwise ignored the theme and tried to figure it out afterwards. That way I wasn’t bored like Rex was. Made it harder but other than my two nits liked it.
Every one writes from their perspective but clearly the puzzle wasn’t that obscure for most of the bloggers. And this is the NEW YORK Times and Broadway is big there. So I think the Broadway clues are fair. Also Hamilton was a huge hit and much talked about ( I never saw it but knew the name Soo. Terrence I did need the crosses)
Cares of the world is awkward in that it is not a stand alone phrase but but it does exist in the language.
Rex pretty much nailed it for me, though maybe my response is a bit a more charitable. My favorite thing may have been FUGUE — anything related Frank Loesser or Guys and Dolls will perk up my day!
74A “Ways of doing things, in brief” is a poor clue for MOS.
MOS is your Method of Service while you are a member of the U.S. Armed Services.
e.g. combat engineer
e.g. company clerk
This term does not apply to “ways of doing things” outside of the U.S. Armed Services.
The Marines define MOS as your Military Occupational Specialty
Did anyone else notice that the title of the puzzle was “computer games” and there were many 3 letter answers that are also computer games, or game companies? For example, 27-Across, Fish-and-Chips fish, was cod, which could obviously also be Call of Duty which is very commonly referred to as just cod.
Dear Rex,
Fugue for Tin Horns is the opening song in Guys And Dolls ("I've got the horse right here.") Which isn't that obscure. I admit I just saw a production of the show this summer (excellent, by Sierra Stages), and listen to the album quite a bit. Liked the puzzle, but I agree the payoffs below were a letdown. Still fun.
59A wasn’t a rebus. It “popped up” at the A in dead to the two letters above it to give you the D and S.
MO = modus operandi
Dear Rex —Be kind to Shortz when he throws an easy Sunday puzzle out there for people like me! I agree AVEC most of your puzzle assessments most of the time, but I struggle with the tricksy puzzles and really enjoy the obscure knowledge clues. (I used to help my mother do the Sunday puzzle 60 (!) years ago when obscure knowledge was the name of the game.) So yes, I do know Fugue for Tinhorns and the actor Terrence Mann and the Mohs scale for the hardness of precious stones, and I do use « cares of the world » and « ill usage » (too much Victorian lit in my youth). I like my puzzles clever and just hard enough and frankly without all those tricksy up/down/and sideways fill.
Me, too. I sang it when Guys and Dolls was our high school musical 51 years ago.:-)
One clue really threw mw off: 22a. All the other themer clues were for the actual entry in toto, but this one was just for the HAT. Inconsistent, and it took me a long time to COMETO that realization. Very bad form. The clue definitely should've been for HATEMAIL.
FUGUE was a gimme, because I still think FFTH is the cleverest song TITLE I've ever seen. What a fun play on words! And BTW, it IS a FUGUE, not simply a round. They interrupt each other.
Even though my excitement for tech themes is severely limtied, I thought this was a fun solve, and not quite the slog most Sundays are. Birdie.
Wordle birdie as well.
MOUNT UP
LEO'S DENSE GAL, ADELE,
ISN'T THE ONE MEN will keep.
Her FINE SKILL she will SELL,
TO DOIT EASY ORE CHEAP.
--- MR. ROGERS
Mohs was an absolute gimme! I can't believe how many people had a HARD time with that answer. Oh, wait, I worked at a metallurgical laboratory for 45 years.
NEVERMIND!!!
Another one of those "oh rats, I'm never going to get this" puzzles. Until I got it. Without any help. (aka, no cheating!!!) Well, Lambo helped a little bit - he didn't know MOHS but he knew YESYES and LIVER.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
MOHS has been in xwords forever; only REASON to *not* know it is not paying ATTENTION. ANI is still a righteous GAL.
Wordle birdie.
I don't understand CURTAINS for "Game over, so to speak". Curtains close at the end of a play, but how is a play a game?
@Anonymous (4:59 p.m.) - it's an expression - apparently does come from the curtains (which used to come down vs. closing from the side) and means the end, like "you're dead." Game over = you're dead = the curtains have come down on your life - or are about to.
(That's not the most articulate explanation but hope it helps?)
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