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1781 Mozart opera seria / SAT 10-21-23 / 1998 rap hit by Big Pun (feat. Joe) / Cocktail fruta / Astronaut Cooper informally / Magazine that originated the words "payola" and "striptease" / Bandmate of Keith and Brian / Haka dance performers
Saturday, October 21, 2023
Constructor: Kelly Morenus
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: "IDOMENEO" (5D: 1781 Mozart opera seria) —
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante (Italian for Idomeneus, King of Crete, or, Ilia and Idamante; usually referred to simply as Idomeneo, K. 366) is an Italian-language opera seria by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, based on a 1705 play by Crébillion père, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712. Mozart and Varesco were commissioned in 1780 by Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria for a court carnival. He probably chose the subject, though it may have been Mozart. The work premiered on 29 January 1781 at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich, Germany. (wikipedia) /// King Idomeneo is returning from his victory in the Trojan war when a great storm destroys his ship. Desperate to save his own life, he begs the god Neptune to spare him, and Neptune asks him for a sacrifice in return: the first living person that Idomeneo sees when he reaches the shore. // Back in Crete, reports of the wreckage of his father’s ship have brought Idamante to the sea’s edge to see if his father is alive. A fatal reunion on the shore seals Idamante’s fate. His own father must sacrifice him to appease the god of the sea. // Nothing can prevent this destiny. Sending Idamante away will not work, as he would have to travel by sea. Impatient for his sacrifice, Neptune sends a great monster to attack the people of Crete and force Idomeneo to fulfil his oath. Only the pure heart of Princess Ilia can prevent the fatal blow from striking Idamante, as love and innocent triumph over all. (stageagent dot com)
• • •
A: [Points to pink box on top shelf] "I want that!"B: [Looks disapproving, removes monocle] "Hmm, perhaps you should use some discretion when considering how y—"A: [Turns to cashier] "TAKE MY MONEY!"B: [Sputters] "Now see here, DON'T INTERRUPT ME. We've been having some budgetary shortfalls of late and I just—"A: [Holds pink box aloft] "Too late, Diamond-Eyes Barbie is mine, Mine, hahahahahaha" [runs wildly through Tiffany's] [end scene]
As for the rest of the puzzle, it was solid enough, but a little on the wan side (!), and a little too reliant on proper nouns for its difficulty. The only obstacles in my way today were names, which made them stand out. Astronauts aren't nearly the names they used to be when I was a child, so I honestly didn't know GORDO (39A: Astronaut Cooper, informally). Wikipedia says he was the "youngest of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury," which covered 1958-63. I was born in 1969, so I missed him. It's the 1969 astronauts I know. The only ones I ever heard about for the longest time. So GORDO was tough. Then there was "STILL NOT A PLAYER," which a. I can't believe I don't know—I was actually paying attention to music in 1998, how embarrassing—and b. I can't believe spells "PLAYER" with an "-ER" (14A: 1998 rap hit by big Pun (feat. Joe)). Feels very un-rappy. I resisted PLAYER for a few beats because the spelling seemed too ... let's say, standard. But that title was inferable, ultimately. I've seen that How to Be an Antiracist guy's name in bookstores all over hell and gone, and I could've told you IBRAM, his exact last name seems to have eluded me (24D: Ibram X. ___, author of "How to Be an Antiracist" => KENDI). This led to the most unfortunate possible puzzle finale today, as the last thing I entered was the second "N" in WANNEST, which has to be the WANNEST word I've ever seen (30A: Least robust-looking). Oof. Who is doing Comparative Wan Studies, such that this word would ever be uttered? Somehow, that second "N" is a tolerable phenomenon in a word like TANNEST, but with the vowel sound in WAN ... the whole superlative adjectival enterprise just seems absurd
[This is fantastic, how did I miss it!? Stupid grad school...]
But so far these are just a few names, the kind you'd find in any Saturday. Where's the problem? Well, there's the fact that the names keep coming—so many of them from one narrow cultural arena: music. In addition to the Big Pun (feat. Joe) song, there's Chick COREA, MICK Jagger, Brooks & DUNN, FATS Domino, and then the one musical answer that seemed truly unfair. Like, intentionally cruel to all non-opera lovers (and non-opera knower-abouters). That answer is, of course, "IDOMENEO" (5D: 1781 Mozart opera seria). If you don't know the opera, those letters are totally uninferable, and while most of the crosses are fair, there is one that is not only not fair, but that seems designed to send you to Natick* City without passing Go (a horrible fate). Attics are, famously, conventionally, paradigmatically, DUSTY. If there's one thing I know about attics, it's that they might have a WEB or two in them ... and then there's the dust. Now, "IDOMENEO" just sounds more plausible to my ears than "IDODENEO," but there's absolutely no definitive way for someone not familiar with that Mozart title (i.e. many, many solvers) to make that M/D decision without guessing. That's just ... bad. This is the clue's fault, not the answer's. There are mustier ways to clue MUSTY, and in the interest of fairness, that's the direction they should've gone. I wonder if people are going to get "IDODENEO"'d today in anything like the way they got KATNAK'd earlier this week.
So the proper nouns are overly plentiful, they run in too narrow a category (overwhelmingly music), and at least one of them is trying to murder you. Outside of that, the grid is solid (with the bottom section being the highlight), and solving it provided a proper Saturday workout.
Some notes:
- 26A: World Trade ___ (fixture of Hong Kong or Toronto) (CENTRE) — bizarre clue. Why would you want to evoke the (actually famous, destroyed by terrorists) WTC this way? I guess it's ... interesting? ... that there are others, but this clue clanked for me.
- 40A: Cocktail fruta (PIÑA) — who doesn't love "strained pineapple"!?
- 28D: Tech support? (MONOPOD) — no idea what this is. I assume it is a relative of the bi- and tripod. And it holds ... tech? Of some sort? "A one-legged support for a camera or fishing rod" (!). Now I have the "Andy Griffith" theme in my head for some reason.
- 42D: Bandmate of Keith and Brian (MICK) — I wrote in PETE. As in Townshend. Of The Who. "Oh, Keith Moon, got it!" Nope.
- 46D: Joey of children's literature (ROO) — Thus concludes ROO Week at the NYTXW... (when was that, yesterday? The day before? They blur together ... (it was Thursday))
- 35D: Bleak (WINTRY) — so weird to me (still) that we lose the "E" when adjectivizing that season. It's not SUMMRY! (oh god, is it SUMMRY? ... so, phew, definitely SUMMERY ... thank you for enduring my SUMMRY v. SUMMERY summary).
*For a definition of "Natick,” see sidebar of this blog
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127 comments:
Had dUSTY before MUSTY, but otherwise a smooth solve. Enjoyable puzzle.
I definitely got IDODENEOd.
My 4D Gothic fiction pioneer was Amy before she was ANN. My 17A attic was (@Rex, @Anon 6:13, @DavidP and likely others) dUSTY before it was MUSTY, and the 5D Mozart opera was a total WOE, so IDOdENEO looked fine to me. fOIl before VOIDS for "Cancels" at 32A.
Not defending it, but I think the point of the CENTRE clue is that it's not CENTER - it was the World Trade Center (American spelling) that was destroyed on 9/11. That clue definitely "gotcha'd" me .
Another dUSTY here. Had library instead of ROTUNDA for 6D, but shelved that when it didn't work with the crosses.
Had NEopEtS for 13D - seemed apt at first. Later, not so much. Overall, an easy-medium. Liked REPAIR SHOPS and DISCRETIONARY.
Happen to be near Staunton, about 40 miles from Charlottesville, on weekend trip. Not riding the Reading, but ex-CSX behind ex-N&W steamer.
Like @Rex, thought the bottom stack was an argument about money. But I'd add, "Button It! Don't Interrupt Me." An angry little puzzle this.
Yes Dusty. Also, Terns before Kites. I'd guess that the Wannest would be iller than the other Wan people nearby, if not the Wannest this person had ever been for the person who's keeping track.
Loved the way this played out, You See, the easier crosses providing just enough letters for sussing out those grid spanners. Liked it a lot.
GORDO has become current again to anyone who has watched For All Mankind.
Wonderful puzzle - tough enough but fair for crosses. Attractive grid layout gives us those huge stacks too and bottom but a lot of mid length stuff in the center. Loved ROTUNDA, RUSSET and WOOD TRIM.
Read The Right Stuff or watch the movie - they’re both great - for more on GORDO. I don’t like tying WINTRY to bleak. SORER and WANNEST were the ugly ones here.
Pleasant Saturday morning solve. Warning - Stella’s Stumper ramps it up a little.
BEN Folds
I got IDODENO’d in Natick.
VARIETY describes my outing to a tee. It led me through a swath of fields, through varying levels of difficulty, and from the everyday to the niche.
The grid design hit my sweet spot, with those photo album corners, lovely double sash down the middle, and no scattershot black squares. Gazing at the empty grid gave me a feeling of balance and peace.
I loved:
• TAKE MY MONEY abutting DISCRETIONARY (Hi, @Rex!).
• The huge distance between the phrase STILL NOT A PLAYER and the ultimate player MICK.
• The lovely answers MUSTY, ECLAT, VERGE, ROTUNDA, and RUSSET.
• The BASE not at the base and the CENTRE not at the center.
• The CAIRO / VENMO / GORDO bi-syllabic troika.
• The BUTTONIT dook.
This being a debut – wow! Veteran-like Saturday freshness, with seven NYT answer debuts, my favorites being each DON’T INTERRUPT ME, SECOND OPINION, and TAKE MY MONEY. Veteran-like VOID of junky answers. All this from one who started solving – solving! – the daily puzzle at the beginning of the pandemic.
You’ve obviously got the knack, Kelly. This is a most auspicious beginning, and augers well for solving pleasure ahead. Thank you for finding and latching onto crosswords, and for a splendid outing!
Idodeneo’d. Basements are musty!
Idodeneo’d for sure. Second visit to Natick this week.
That clue really slights Ron Wood (and Charlie Watts, too) in that Mick hasn't been a bandmate of Brian Jones in over 50 years.
Proud KATNAK/IDODENEO member.
Agree too much music, too many names and attics are dusty, basements are musty.
i was IDODENDO’d as well!
Opera and rap “music” - talk about going from the sublime to the ridiculous (and it’s not like more than 1% of the solvers care about either of them). It’s kind of unfortunate that the constructor went in that direction up there in the north because some parts of this grid really sparkled.
Saw the question mark on the “Tech support?” clue and just don’t get the pun - is Rex’s explanation really all that there is to it - that someone might mount an IPhone on a MONOPOD to take a selfie or something? Please don’t tell me it’s referring to a photographer at a baseball game or something like that - please - if there is a CrossWorld God, there has got to be more to it than that. I’m on my knees praying for enlightenment on that one.
I also had a hard time with ALIT - took a bit of post-solve consultation with my cousin Google - but there does seem to be a tenuous connection there - though I would be hard pressed to describe it with any degree of coherence.
Agree with Rex - a touch less PPP density and this one could have been stellar - as it is, it was pretty darn good for a Saturday though.
Basements are musty, attics are dusty.
Musty requires a source of contained moisture. Even if one has a leaky roof it will dry out before becoming musty in most locations. "... many attics" is quite a stretch.
Ahh, "Button it"! That was the last one I got, and I couldn't make sense of "Butt On It". (?) Thank you.
I was pretty irritated with "Butt on it" butthen realized my parsing was the problem
IDOMENEO dropped right in for this opera lover. I think it was the first answer I got. But at the time, I thought about all the playas who would be irked by it. And when I got to MUSTY, I thought, “No, basements are musty, attics are dusty.” (Hi, Anonymous 7:58)
Nice Saturday AM workout. Liked all of it. DNFed tho on M/DUSTY! Assumed the problem was in the SW because MONOPOD and BUTTONIT just didn't look right ; I was looking at BUTT ON IT Kept changing that around and finally gave up to head out for morning coffee at Fresh Grounds and errands...
FH
Didn't think it was easy as I did it; few total gimmes. But I finished in 9 minutes which is pretty fast for me. Everything just seemed to fall after a few frustrating seconds.
Incidentally, AQABA yesterday should have been a gimme for anyone who ever watched Lawrence of Arabia. Or had an atlas.....
@Rex: 1998 was solidly in the middle of my formative, music-following days, and I've never heard that "hit" either. So your rhetorical "How did I miss this?" can be answered the same way as for everyone else: "Um... because it wasn't a hit." I'll go out on a exaggerated limb and say if I was to ask any of my friends (who are rap fans) if they've ever heard of Mr. I've -already-forgotten-his-name or "Joe" (lol), not one of them would have.
Once again, I was Baader-Meinhof'd. The puzzle I was working on just before this one was from Sept. 2007, and it had "Chick on piano?". I had never heard of this person before, and suddenly he appears twice in the same day. That certainly helped me in that section.
Overall, I rate this easy for me, despite the obscure names; I absolutely burned through and finished way below my Saturday average. Like, close to my Tuesday average.
Thx, Kelly; a perfect Sat. offering! 😊
Med (bang on Sat. avg).
This was an all over the place fill; a bit here and a bit there effort.
In the end, correct guesses at COREA & MUSTY (altho, would have preferred dUSTY) crossing the totally unknown IDOMENEO got the job done.
Ibram X. KENDI's 'How to Be an Antiracist' is a highly recommended read. 📚
Very enjoyable solve! :)
___
Finding 'The Globe And Mail' cryptics to be somewhat different vis a vis the clueing, and am STILL NOT A PLAYER, i.e., experiencing technical difficulties galore; truly challenging!
___
On to Stella's Sat. Stumper. 🤞, with Balton & Stewart's NYT acrostic at xwordinfo.com on tap for tm.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Dusty/Musty here, too. Feels like they intentionally want people to fail.
That was my thought too. Part of the 27 club.
I texted my crossword playing buddy last night after having figured out to replace DUSTY with MUSTY:
17 across is a bad clue..just wrong.
Ok I’m forewarned
Basement, yes. Attic, no
Dnf at MUSTY/IDOMENEO because I had DUSTY instead. Otherwise a very easy Saturday.
Definitely had DUSTY and did not know IDOMENEO. Which is inexcusable since I’ve seen the Magic Flute, Don Giovanni and Cosí Fan Tutte. Oops, missed that one. Will remedy that situation.
I did not get BUTT ON IT. I just don’t understand it and it took me longer to figure out that area because of it. But EMBARGO came in and basically it just eventually had to be BUTT. Oh well. Don’t think I’ll be using that expression
Had the same issue with PLAYER. Who spells it like that? Also enjoyed the MICK, COREA and even ANN Radcliffe who happened to be the subject of a “Stuff you Missed in History Class” Podcast this month. Never heard of her before that .
I just wanted to say I am a *huge* opera fan and I still needed a minute before remembering IDOMENEO existed. So my deepest sympathies to the 99% percent of solvers who don't care about opera.
Finished it by cheating. The IDEOMENEO/COREA cross was impossible. I also went back and forth between DUSTY and MUSTY, because either answer is valid.
I thought of WANNEST right away, but rejected it until forced to use it from the crosses. And I had PAYANYTHING and PAYANYPRICE until PostMORTEM forced the final change at the bottom.
All in all, a typically hard Saturday, not unfair but requiring very specialized knowledge of Mozart. IDEOMENEO looks horrible to the naked eye.
The top tier was a train wreck. I had a REELIN/REININ write over that compounded the issue of the unknown rap song and opera. This made me change ANN to ANA for a rap song about STELLA who is or isn't some kind of PLAYER. Naturally I didn't get the congrats and was forced to figure it out by putting in REIN but this doesn't qualify for the "dub" column.
I blame the editor for the MUSTY/DUSTY trick. It's the kind of game he likes to play. Attics are no more MUSTY than a a REPAIRSHOP is a store but that's Shotz style cluing at its worst.
HAKA is an SB classic....
yd -0
Rex, you MUST rewatch the movie, “The Right Stuff” where you will have embedded forever the names of the early astronauts and enjoy one of the greatest classic movies!
Yeah, I found the puzzle DUSTY. But enjoyed the south.
@Anonymous from 5:02 yesterday: Sharon Gless is older yes, but really not all that obscure. She won several Emmy awards and numerous nominations for her groundbreaking female roles in television. You might be of a different generation, but I knew the answer instantly.
Same. Basements are musty, attics are dusty, I will die on this hill.
It was MUSTY????
Hey All !
Add me to the IDODENEO'd list. However, actually had a two-letter DNF in that one word! Just couldn't get the ole brain to remember COREA with that E, so I had an I. CORiA. Which got me IDOdENiA. Sounds opera-y to me. Got the Almost There But You're A Moron message, hit Check Puzzle, saw my letters crossed out, and accepted the wrong I, but the dUSTY/MUSTY thing irked me a bit. I agree with Rex, what a purposeful way to trick someone!
I wouldn't call this a "ROO week" ala Rex (it was only twice!), but nice to be acknowledged/recognized! 😁
Puz started as a typical tough Saturday, only having about four answers in after first pass through. Thought, "Hoo boy, here we go for a long solve." But, started getting some things in SW corner, amazingly got the long Acrosses on the bottom, zoomed over to the SE corner, and stair-solved up the grid on both the East and West sides. Boom, 14 minutes in, half the puz done. Amazing.
Top half definitely tougher than bottom half. Managed to get NE corner on my own, but NW/Center was my downfall. Did manage to eventually grok stuff there, after a Goog to confirm ANN. If I have to Goog, I usually like to do the small fill, just to trick myself into believing it's not that big a cheat! Finally got everything, except my DNF. Shoot, close enough for me!
Time to BUTTON IT.
Happy Saturday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Bob Mills yes, either answer is valid, but dusty is the “better” answer since attics are typically dry. I think that distinction is obvious enough to mean this could only be an intentional misdirect, which would be lovely if its cross didn’t require you to be familiar with IDOMENEO. As it is there’s no YOU SEE it now? moment, the trick is wasted, and we’re all just SORER from it
Easy solve, except I had to come here to figure out why the app said I wasn't done. Stupid, stupid Musty clue.
Opera arias used to be standard fare and required knowledge to complete the NYTXword. Is it too much to ask to know the titles of the entire operas? Maybe so - in fairness, this is not the most common Mozart opera. I just had to remember the vowels at the beginning, and change dUSTY to MUSTY - I agree that the clue for musty could have been mustier, like "smell backstage during performances of 18th century operas".
Hands up for changing CENTer to CENTRE, Toronto being the d'oh giveaway.
I suppose terns or gulls could have been flying at the beach, but KITES came to mind first.
I'm embarrassed to say that my magazine coining striptease and payola was "Playboy", but can you blame me. Any other hands up for this at least crossing your mind??
MONOPOD was so simple, it was deceptive. A camera is a piece of technology, and a monopod provides enough stability to give a much clearer picture in many situations where setting up a full tripod would be impractical. Nice misdirect.
I was just listening to Hi Heel Sneakers played by Blue Mitchell yesterday. On hearing the piano solo, my friend looked it up to see who was playing: none other than the Chick himself! Other than the rap person (clue could have been - random sentence implying involvement in the entertainment industry) the musicians were pretty well known. I didn't know DUNN, but am guessing like much country music, it is way more famous than us in coastal elite areas would know, however many Mozart operas we can spell.
Is a CANAL a short cut because it cuts through the land between two bodies of water and isn't long? Crossword staple ERIE would like to have a word...
you would clue the WTC answer with Hong Kong or Tokyo because of the -re not -er ending . . .
Attic could also be, along with DUSTY and MUSTY:
BUSTY (filled with sculptures of a person's head, shoulders, and chests, or BUSTS)
FUSTY (smelling stale, damp, or stuffy)
GUSTY (if the cracks in the walls were wide enough)
LUSTY (if filled with old Playboys and Penthouses, featuring BUSTY women)
RUSTY (if made of iron with rain coming through the GUSTY cracks)
MICK could have been “After Brian, before Ronnie” (Stones guitarists Jones, Taylor and Wood in chronological order)
OHO - I think doing the new CONNECTIONS* puzzle has rewired my brain! AH ME!
* also the name of a great Stones song
A very fast one foe me. First in: BEN, confirming REIN IN. Seamless solve from there. Fun puzzle to fill in.
Do-over: post-MOdern. Help from being an opera lover: IDOMENEO. Help from my years of watching American Bandstand: FATS. Luck of the draw: COREA, KENDI. No idea: STILL NOT A PLAYER, DUNN.
Hand up for another IDOMENEO. I also looked at BUTTONIT for a long time, trying to find the error because BUTT ON IT made no sense. Oof.
It's not that I'm an opera buff or anything, but I did think that I at least knew the titles of all the Mozart operas.
I didn't.
When I got to the place where IDODEN?O crossed with Grammy-winning Chick, I tried to make the dilemma thrilling for myself. I imagined that I was in a puzzle tournament playing for the $100,000 first prize and it all depended on whether Grammy-guy was CORDA, CORGA, CORKA or CORZA. Those seemed like the most likely opera letters -- the Grammy-guy's likely letters being totally out of my knowledge base.
I wasn't even close. It's an E. COREA/IDODENEO. And no, I didn't make the dilemma thrilling for myself. Mildly intriguing, at best. And, as is my custom in these sorts of situations, I am pronouncing the puzzle "Solved!!"
This was enjoyable, with clever and interesting cluing -- EMBARGO being the exception. You have to twist the syntax of the clue practically into a pretzel to make it work. But overall, a good puzzle.
Also fell on the DUSTY clue.
Surprised no one has mentioned the great misdirect DOMINO. I read it as Domini and was stuck with anno for, well, ages
I agree with I think everyone else in the world that DUSTY is the more accurate term for an attic. I've sung more than a little Mozart (not opera), but this one was totally new to me.
Knew COREA. Makes me wonder if there's another jazz or other musician named "Chick". Maybe @Joe D. knows one. Didn't know Mr. KENDI or Ms. Radcliffe, but the crosses were fair. Haven't been to either of the World Trade CENTRES mentioned, but I have been to the Bell CENTRE in Montreal a few times.
Very nice Saturday indeed, KM. Knew More than I thought I would when I started, so on the easyish side but a good time. Thanks for all the fun.
@Roo. I know, there's another ROO. I saw it, I saw it.
YES
This is so wierd. Yesterday while running errands, I used the scan button on the radio ( which I almost always never do ) and found a catchy tune on a station that I locked into a preset. Once at the supermarket, I pulled up the station's playlist and took a screenshot of it. And once home, pulled up the screenshot, looked up the song, and saved it. Today, that very song, STILL NOT A PLAYER, presents itself to me yet again, and in the NYT crossword no less. What are the odds?
Wow. I played collegiate quizbowl for years and I've never heard of IDOMENEO. That crossing is sadistic.
If GORDO was tough you need need need to check out the 1983 Classic movie "The Right Stuff", about the Air Force (and Navy) pilots who manned up the Mercury space program. All star cast, with a young Dennis Quaid as Gordon "Gordo" Cooper. Tom Wolfe's novel from which the movie was adapted is also an excellent read.
DUSTY here. Some wonderful clues and some great answers, but I agree that the puzzle got too much of its difficulty from (to me) obscure names and proper nouns.
I think it's meant in the sense of Panama or Suez --- literally a shortcut.
@Rex You have to watch The Right Stuff if you haven’t seen it. Fantastic movie, acting humor, history, cinematography. You’ll definitely remember Gordo then.
The Mozart work along with "corea" left me with one letter off. I recall corea from older puzzles, but haven't seen it in so long. Ended up resorting to autocheck for the last letter which was silly since I still had to enter half the alphabet to get that one letter!
Some chop here and there but overall a solid puzzle, in my opinion. I got Gordo right away, which I know from The Right Stuff. I got Mick almost as quickly – no Brian in The Who, Rex – but I had to think about that one for a few seconds. Brian Jones was the leader of the band in the Stones’ early years, until drugs really took over his life. (Seriously, Brian Jones answered the question “How much drug abuse does it take to get thrown out of The Rolling Stones?”)
It's Saturday so as usual it's fun until it's god awful. I will never understand how you can have no pressure on a grid and still elect to load it with PPP: Big Pun, LSU, COREA, GORDO, MICK, ANN, VARIETY, KENDI, DUNN, and foreignisms: BEN, Haka, IDOMENEO, PIA,
Good:
Love the cluing and answers for: REPAIR SHOPS, EMBARGO, WEB, DON'T INTERRUPT ME, TAKE MY MONEY, EYE LID, MONOPOD, BUTTON IT, Post-MORTEM, SPASMS.
God Awful:
Rap songs by third rate performers from the previous century spanning the grid.
MUSTY attics. Laughing. Can you tell our New York editors all live in apartments.
WANNEST. Sheesk. You have a themeless grid. Take out the garbage.
Of all the concerns for linguists, you pick CASES? Of all the ways to clue it, that's sad.
IDOMENEO is a random string of letters requiring every cross including the famous MUSTY attic.
Nobody's been HIP TO anything since 1973.
Uniclues:
1 Jerry's friend ships sailing ships.
2 Chick's abs in Europe.
3 What happens when the crossword is too difficult.
4 Go to New Zealand.
5 Do fewer hours on the La-Z-Boy.
6 The children's graduation.
1 BEN SENDS KITES
2 COREA CENTRE
3 YOU SEE VOIDS
4 ENTER MAORI WEB
5 REIN IN BUTT ON IT
6 NESTERS ENEMY
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Neigh neigh neigh neigh neigh. COLT CONCERTOS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thanks Kelly for bringing new stuff. I’m in the dUSTY attic camp today and care less about opera than even rap, so my enjoyment of the puzzle was muted. Not the WANNEST ever, but pale in comparison to yesterday’s GLEESE. Did drop in SECOND OPINION & ROTUNDA as first two entries then flayed around the grid in desperation as slowly the VOID sucked all the enthusiasm generated by the flash and fizzle opening. I DO ME NEOboy shrug and lurch towards more coffee and a whack at the Saturday Stumper,
That works. Sit down and shut up! [See the chair?] Butt on it!
A typical Saturday for me. Hard work and very tough time on the names. But I got er done with a little help from my friend Google.
I join those recommending The Right Stuff if you haven’t seen it. Lengthy but informative, definitely worth a bowl of popcorn on a chilly fall evening. Another one I highly recommend is Hidden Figures, a fact-based account of those NASA employees working behind the scenes to get the astronauts into space and back.
I know IDOMENEO, although I needed the ID to bring it to mind. My problem was that I thought I was writing it in, but failed to notice that I already had a D where the M should be, so I did finish with IDOdENEO, even though I knew it was wrong if I'd only noticed. My basement is MUSTY, which to mean includes an element of dampness; my attic is dUSTY.
I put in CENTer crossing FINNS, but then I saw 30A which had to be puNiEST, right? So I changed FINNS to samiS, the people who actually live in Lapland. That really messed things up. But I finally saw WANNEST, which let me know that paneling should be, maybe, Wainscot? No, WOOD TRIM. I don't know that I'd call that a "feature" of the craftsman style; every house around me has wood trim and they're mostly Victorian. But OK, I got there in the end.
At least I was DISCRETIONARY enough to resist putting in VAnity Fair with a rebus of the last 4 letters, as I was tempted to do.
Existential question for the day: Is a REPAIR SHOP a "store?"
Timely homage to the Stones on the occasion of their 1st album release in 20-years.
Flew through the puzzle having great fun and plopped in my last square…hmmm. I got the “almost/not quite” signal. Well, I care not about “streaks” and whatnot so I hit “check” puzzle to see a red slash at the intersection of IDOdENEO and dUSTY. Ah me, alas, and durn it. So big hand up for attics being dusty and basements more likely to be MUSTY. I think I’ll live with this crushing blow to my ego.
Had the same feeling as @Rex with Ibram X. I’ve listened to the book on Audible but restrained myself from scrolling thru my library.
Same thing with Big Pun’s rap hit. Fairly inferable through crosses but initially thought it might be PLAYa or PLAYah.
All in all a very enjoyable Saturday puzzle!
Agree wholeheartedly, don't clue WINTRY as bleak. In my mind wintry is quite different, makes me think of evergreens dusted with a beautiful covering of snow.
Anyone doing the Gray Lady's crossword puzzles who isn't familiar with Mozart's operas should be banished to USA Today. (Sniff)
It tells you all you need to know about Rex that he thinks people should know a 25-year-old “hit” by a (to me) obscure rapper, but not a Mozart opera. I didn’t know either one, and I too had dUSTY, but except for the Natick I don’t see why one is worse than the other.
Most of this was pretty easy. The SW was not. It took me a while to see EMBARGO and to parse BUTTON IT correctly. Plus MONO POD did not make sense (I had naNO POD for a while which also didn’t make sense). My only other problem was IDOMENEO crossing the attic clue...guessed right (Hi @Rex).
Solid and reasonably smooth with a touch of sparkle, but not as much fun as yesterday’s. Liked it.
I object to attics being "musty" That is a failed attempt at "clever" misdirection.
Basements are musty. Attics are dusty.
Basements are MUSTY, attics are DUSTY
FATS, ANNO or - OHO! - OHOH DOMINO?
Van Morrison answer to 21 across
Put in dusty as one of my earlier answers and thought to myself this could be Musty. Then completed the rest of the grid to no avail and finally switched that D to M. Should have gone with my gut initially! Might have been a record Saturday actually.
Could be that BUTT ON IT for "Shut your piehole" means you've got your head up your ass. Just sayin...
One of our greatest presidents was also the least robust looking. WANNEST Abe.
Old MacDonald had a farm IDOMENEO.
A MUSTY attic might have ROTUNDA the floorboards.
K-pop has become so cool that companies are now offering Chic Korea tours. And speaking of The Right Stuff, "chic" evokes a slightly lesser known Tom Wolfe opus, Radical Chic and MauMauing the Flack Catchers. A very fun read in its time, but would likely feel dated today.
When my parents divorced, Pa said I could choose which one to live with; MAORI. I never cared for my mother, and I couldn't stand that Dad didn't know how to correctly use "I" and "me", so I chose Grammar.
Congrats on the very fun and impressive debut, Kelly Morenus.
Bottom was easy, threw down discretionary just off the center ET & off to the races.
Totally stumped on the opera, attic, corea thing (brain wanted Norma for some reason). Enjoyable nonetheless
GORDO: I was alive and very interested in the Mercury program but had no idea about Cooper’s nickname until I read Tom Wolff’s wonderful 1979 “The Right Stuff.” It was turned into a wonderful movie, too!
I must have been on the creators wavelength because this was very easy for me - close to my best Saturday time. I don’t consider music to be a particularly strong area of mine, and yet Chick COREA, MICK Jagger, Brooks and DUNN and IDOMENEO weren’t buried that deeply in my mind. (Could not tell you a single Chick COREA or Brooks and Dunn song, but the names rang a bell). I do like Mozart though.
The crosses were in mostly in easy reach, which made the stacks gettable. Easy, but not unsatisfying.
Puzgrid design by Zorro? Liked. Also, nice photo album corner trims.
No big probs, considerin it was a SatPuz solvequest. Did prefer dusty attics to MUSTY ones. And there were the usual SatPuz no-knows, such as: STILLNOTAPLAYER/IDOMENEO. MONOPOD. KENDI.
staff weeject pick, of only 8 candidates: WEB. Liked its clue.
fave thing: That the puz opened up with an 11-letter answer, clued up with a ?-marker. feisty and funny.
Thanx for the fun, Ms. Morenus darlin. And congratz on a feisty debut.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
**gruntz**
p.s. M&A will be outta town for a spell. SEEYOU, eventually.
Big Pun was a huge - and memorable - star. And “Still not a player” was a big hit with tons of MTV and radio play.
Not to sound corny .... but this was a ray of sunshine on this dismal, rainy Saturday in NY.
It was a pleasant change from most Saturdays & I loved it!
Thank you, Kelly. Hope to see you again soon!
There's Chick Webb ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_Webb
Ditto
This was enjoyable, largely because I came very close to solving unassisted. The SE came easily (ENEMY, WEB, BASE) which made the three phrases at bottom easier to see. As predicted, I got screwed up by the opera and a few words I've never seen in my life.
I've never heard of a repair shop, but I'm a millennial so that checks out.
Had post PARTEM, good psych. My favorite part about this puzzle is the lack of much trivia. Or at least it doesn't seem all that obscure for a Saturday. That helped me a great deal.
Top 5 Causes of a Musty Attic Smell & How to Get Rid of Them:
"Improper ventilation is often the root cause of a musty smell in the attic which leads to more serious problems like increased moisture. This, in turn, results in the growth of mold and mildew as well as wet insulation which will cause a damp, musty smell. Thus, improving attic ventilation and fixing moisture issues are the most effective solutions in solving the issue." (RPF Environmental)
ChatGPT's take:
"Crossword puzzles, especially those later in the week like Saturday puzzles, often aim to provide a challenging and unique solving experience. Clues that might be seen as somewhat indirect or creative are part of the appeal for many crossword enthusiasts.
In this case, the clue "Like many attics" for "MUSTY" introduced an element of wordplay and misdirection, which can be a hallmark of crossword puzzles, while still providing a fair challenge for solvers. While it's understandable that the clue might not precisely match all attics in reality, it aligns with the puzzle's difficulty level and the need for a specific answer in the grid.
It's all part of the enjoyment of crossword puzzles — the clever wordplay, the unique cluing, and the "aha" moments when you crack a particularly challenging clue. Different solvers may have different opinions on what makes a clue "too easy" or "too hard," but that diversity of perspectives is part of what makes crossword solving both fun and engaging."
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
As a classical music guy - Idomoneo was a complete gimme - one of the easiest music clues ever (yes, yes I know I"m an outlier). Certainly infinitely easier than yet another obscure (to me) hop hop song/artis/singer and for that matter much more in my wheelhouse than the Country duo. But I generally have this problem with the Times' puzzles - and for that matter with Rex's to me obscure knowledge base of rap and so on. I never know those. Idomoneo - great piece, super hard tenor aria and worth a listen if you care about this kind of thing.
Wow! Straight up cheated by coming here today. I actually got WImTRY/DUmES-d today. I ended in that KENDI/WANNEST section which was light-years harder than the rest of the puzzle for me. However, when I didn't get the happy screen, I knew immediately to go back to ridiculous IDOdENEO. I switched to MUSTY and still no dice! 😞
So much back and forth between D and M and trying to rework that center WANNEST section, all the while my eyes must of glazed over my wimtry typo a hundred times and I was dumed. Finally came here beyond frustrated and only when going through one by one did I finally see the stupid M/N switch. What a sinking feeling, I'm sure I would have found it if I wasn't so unsure on the idiotic, should-be-dUSTY crossing.
Anyway rest of the puzzle was nice. A little on the easy side (or at least I was fast), but it seemed to still provide enough challenge. Agree that the proper nouns were a bit too much and pigeonholed at times, but minus that terrible cross and that WANNEST of sections, pretty good puzzle overall.
MUSTY Crusty DUSTY
I saw the empty grid and thought: ohh, this could be gnarly. But it was just a nice Saturday level of difficulty and a satisfying solve. Hands up for DUSTY, and Jefferson's LIBRARY before ROTUNDA (I was there 30 years ago this month...beautiful!) Also for Post MODERN before MORTEM.
Re The Right Stuff... yes it was a good book and a great movie, but be warned! In the words of Neil Armstrong -- my hero -- "It may be good art, but it's lousy history." For one thing, Chuck Yeager was a real egotist and glory hound who single handedly destroyed an entire airplane program by crashing a plane he was not permitted or qualified to fly. Sam Shepard's Yeager was totally the opposite. And the Gus Grissom portrayal was unfairly unsympathetic; I mean the guy did his best but had terrible luck and died a horrible fiery death in a launch test.
[Spelling Bee: Fri 0, last word this 4er for about the zillionth time. You'd think by now I would be on guard for that tricky little guy.]
Today I get to stand in the corner with the rest of you all who thought this was a solid Saturday offering. There is even a theme-ish feel to it, what with the musical GENRE examples sprinkled here and there.
I knew Chick COREA (25A) right away and it brought a smile to my face remembering a mockingbird that serenaded our neighborhood a few years ago. After doing one of its iconic impromptu stretches of song, it would go into a bridge and clearly, unmistakably sing "Chick COREA" three times before returning to another improvisational run. It did that two seasons in a row. The mockingbird is the state bird of both Texas, where I live now, and Tennessee, where I grew up.
And speaking of iconic, I think it would be hard to find another country music song more iconic of that GENRE than Brooks & DUNN's "Neon Moon".
When the sun goes down on my side of town
That lonesome feelin' comes to my door
The whole world turns blue
There's a rundown bar 'cross the railroad tracks
I've got a table for two-way in the back
Where I sit alone, and think of losing you
I spend most every night beneath the light
Of a neon moon
Now If you lose your one and only
There's always room here for the lonely
To watch your broken dreams dance in and out of the beams
Of a neon moon
I think of two young lovers a-running wild and free
I close my eyes, and sometimes see
You in the shadows of this smoke-filled room
No telling how many tears I've sat here and cried
Or how many lies that I've lied
Telling my poor heart she'll come back someday
Oh, but I'll be alright as long as there's light
From a neon moon
Oh, if you lose your one and only
There's always room here for the lonely
So watch your broken dreams dance in and out of the beams
Of a neon moon
Jukebox plays on, drink by drink
And the words of every sad song seem to say what I think
And the hurt inside of me, ain't never gonna end
Oh, but I'll be alright
As long as there's light from a neon moon
Oh, if you lose your one and only
There's always room here for the lonely
To watch your broken dreams dance in and out of the beams
Of a neon moon
To watch your broken dreams dance in and out of the beams
Of a neon moon
Oh, watch your broken dreams dance in and out of the beams
Of a neon moon
Okay, FATS Domino is a major figure in the history of rock & roll, so he's not too obscure. But to just have "__ Domino" as the clue, without even a hint that we're talking about a musician, seems pretty unfair -- almost akin to having something like "Little _____" (i.e., RICHARD), "____ Berry" (CHUCK), or "_____ Waters" (MUDDY). At least a hint of a word's context should be indicated.
@jberg, Yes! Thank you. It's either a shop or store.
Don’t be ridiculous— yes , your friends have heard of Big Pun. They’ve also heard of Chick Corea. Good grief.
Color me rainbow level brilliance impressed with this debut! All my experience as an older solver, a Friendship 7/NASA and opera super fan as well as a veteran of the opera pit gave me a leg up. In addition, I was both hip enough and current enough on my pop stuff that most of what stalled me was frighteningly easy or gettable.
And then came the bottom starting with EMBARGO and WANNEST, really? WANNEST?!?! Oh well, it’s crosswords. This, though is where being old helped out. There’s a movie (possibly “The Right Stuff”) where one of the astronauts unkindly makes a crack about “By God Gordo Cooper.” It stuck with me. And up through all of the Apollo missions, if they occurred during school hours we saw the launch and spacecraft recovery in school. So GORDO was a gimme. I am still a superfan of space exploration.
One of my best familial gifts has been getting to know my son-in-law’s family. His sister is just a delight. She is now married to the kind, clever and very funny Dean, a Kiwi. He is a Jack of all trades and I swear can fix anything! The first tome I met him was at the rehearsal dinner for my kids’ wedding. It was held at the family cabin up in on The Peninsula outside Traverse City MI. Just when the photographer started her work, at dusk on a lively evening, the electricity went out at the cabin. While my in-laws were pondering a solution, Dean with his heavily accented quiet voice said “Don’t do that until I take a look.” He fixed it in just a few minutes, but admonished us to call the electrician tomorrow.
They live in New Zealand and have shared so much of the art and culture of the Maori people with us.
With all the various help, I had just enough knowledge to pick my way through the bottom but it took me twice as long as the top. It was very “Saturday,” and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire solve. I am looking forward to more from Kelly Morenus. Congests on a super debut.
Anyone else catch the Spanish pun-fun of having FATS and GORDO in the same puzzle?
The whole dusty/musty thing through me at first. If I have trouble with a cross word I just let it go for a while or overnight and things become clearer. One can stare at a problem for too long and get a sort of tunnel vision. The astronaut fell right into line for me (but I've read books about the American space programs), the kite thing gave me a little trouble (I initially was putting birds in), contractions I was thinking grammar at first, the musty thing had me going since I first put dusty, I have little opera knowledge so that got me, and I've this impression I might have heard the name Chick Corea but I don't really know who he is so that gave me difficulty. Musty one would more think of basements, but nonetheless these little curveball challenges are part of what make crosswords fun. If they were too simple they'd be boring.
Genre threw me at first. I was thinking of synonyms for mystery and none of them fit, eventually I thought, well, that's a type of story.
I like situations where there are two “right” answers depending on one letter. DUSTY/MUSTY is not that situation. Dusty is only answer. Shame on constructor and editor if there is one. WANNEST cost me lots of time. Puzzle was sorta thrown together. Wasn’t a good Saturday.
Stumperfolk-
Thought Stella Z.'s offering was tough but fair. Some trouble in the SE but kept calm and carried on to completion.
Record Saturday for me by several minutes, no sticking points at all. However, like one or two others, although it was obviously correct given the crosses, I couldn’t understand for the life of me how “Butt on it” constituted an answer to the clue LOL.
“Boricua…Morena…Boricua…Morena”
Oof a la Oof. A perfect hard Saturday like god intended.
SCAB...You opened a door...but just a little. Do I know anything in that MUSTY attic area? Not really. Check out that opera clue. Oh, it ends in ENEO. Think. Go back to your tween years and remember your dad and your brother. My first opera story: Dad was always playing opera (and loudly)....He took me to my first opera in Buenos Aires to hear and see "La Boheme." All I remember is that I wanted to jump down and help Mimi die. She took forever...She had high notes to sing perhaps hoping they would somehow save her imminent death. She didn't die (yet)...Good lord, when it finally ended I stood up and clapped like everybody else in the opera house. They clapped because they thought it was marvelous. I clapped because she finally stopped singing.
Dad continued to play his opera music and I still didn't enjoy it much...Until....Turandot and Luciano Pavarotti and "Nessun dogma." I got hooked.
Anyway, he loved Mozart and I'd ask who was what. This is a long way to say that I actually remembered IDOMENEO. The ENEO jogged a long time ago member. Yay me.
I remember COREA from puzzles. I didn't like the pile up of names, though. They seemed to sit in these important areas that made it even more difficult. I had a MAORI/GORDO cheat. I peaked to see if POLL and ANN were correct guesses. Yes. And REPAIR SHOPS was born. That MUSTY attic was pretty hard for me to unweave the WEB floating around my mind; I took my time. I started last night and finished today. Those breaks somehow make a Saturday more doable.
Oh...I also cheated on MONOPAD. Actually, I just looked to see if a word I never heard of before was correct. It was.
An enjoyable Saturday.....
I feel. smart.
i love big pun and that song (90s rap sort-of-one-hit-wonders are my jam) but when i tried "not a playa" "still not a playa" etc and couldn't make it work i thought gee, maybe he did have another song? that was as big? that i missed? but no. so that one frustrated me because i know the song like the back of my hand but apparently not the title.
anyway, i eventually "finished", with one square i had no idea on, and i figured hey, it's saturday (and i finished the rest in under 30 minutes which is a really good saturday time for me, and not one google which is also good for me on saturdays), i solve online, i'll just take the cheat and run the alphabet there until i get the happy music. but i didn't. and i couldn't find any other errors. turns out i had two errors in IDOMENEO (never heard of it, doesn't interest me to learn about it) - the E where it crossed COREA was the square i was running the alphabet on. but yes, i also had dUSTY instead of MUSTY. sorry, but attics are DUSTY, and basements are MUSTY. overall i really enjoyed this particular puzzle, just a shame it had to end on such a poor natick.
i guessed playboy first too!
Not only did I have DUSTY instead of MUSTY, but I haven't heard of Chick Corea, so that cross Naticked me, too.
I posted earlier without time to read the comments, so I didn't realize I was the 237th person to point out that basements were MUSTY. Ah well.
I just looked it up -- Mozart wrote 22 operas, but only 3 were opera seria (as clued), the other two being "Mithridate re di Ponto" and "La Clemenza di Tito." Of course that didn't help much if one couldn't remember them, but at least it saved one from the trouble of trying to make any of those funny ones fit in.
I agree that MONOPOD is a fine answer for "tech support," and with a nice misdirect.
DUSTY here too. Should have been clued not just as a basement instead of an attic, but as "Wet basement" or "Water-damaged carpet" or something way clearer to point you to MUSTY.
I agree that the clue was a trick to get you to put in center. A extra level of difficulty is that most Americans are oblivious to Canadian spelling rules Barbara S. and Okanaganer should have had no problem. Fortunately, I already had nesters and knew about re.
World Trade Center or Centre is among the most common names in the world for large office complexes. I see nothing wrong with the answer.
While many might have a positive image of a wintry day, traditionally, wintry has a bleak connotation.
While I don’t remember the exact words but Simon & Garfunkel in I am a Rock spoke of winter as the epitome of bleak, though they didn’t use the word wintry.
I thought wintry a perfectly clue for bleak.
But Canada also spells it centre!
The point Rex was making about Idomeneo is that it VERY hard to guess the unknown letter if you have no idea of the answer. ( An Italianized name from some Balkan language ?) He guessed m only because it seemed much more likely to him.
Ironically , the rap song is a standard English sentence with standard spelling. That makes it much easier to guess letters.
He knew neither as it happens, and he is not making a value or popularity judgment here.
Not on a Saturday!
Dusty WINS for attic!
Musty is damp. attics are dusty, not musty. so yes, i got idodeneo too :-(
@dgd
A winter's day
In a deep and dark December
34A and 24D did me in. Don’t see how you could put PETE for band mate of Keith and Brian.
Late post today.
I put in DUSTY off the attic clue before I saw the opera clue, but I have a recording of IDOMENEO, so the required correction was obvious. I do think attics can be MUSTY, but DUSTY is really a better answer, and IDOMENEO is not well-known, so the MUSTY clue should have been changed.
I generally liked the puzzle. I noticed we got two words from Rupert Holmes's most famous song, one atop the other:
If you like PIÑA coladas, and gettin' caught in the rain...
If you like makin' love at midnight in the DUNES on the cape
The Rusty Dusty Blues
Amen!! I mean EVERYWHERE!! I’m not sure how one missed it. It’s still kind of a big song at bars and clubs. It’s so fun.
I'm going to defend Idomeneo as an answer because this IS the NEW YORK Times crossword puzzle, and Idomeneo actually had a nice run of performances at the MET OPERA in NEW YORK one year ago (Sept./Oct. 2022) - and prior to that, it had a run at the Met Opera in 2017. Even if you don't go to the opera, you might have seen ads for it ... including in the NY Times, and on the side of NYC buses.
Not sure why it’s so hard to understand the difference between an ANSWER being bad and a CROSSING being bad. You can just look around this comments section and see that with the Mozart opera, it was the *crossing* that was the problem.
From Syndiland...My puzzle today is "Maple Leaf," by Stephen McCarthy. However, I could not go to that blog, because I CAN'T FIND IT! So I'm here, out of place, to comment.
First of all, and to point: the system for linking to the syndicated puzzle is fraught with bugs. Inconsistency is the watchword. Something really does need to be done in this regard.
To the puzzle itself, its maple leaf design is fine, but it severely cuts off the SW and SE corners, making it hard to get around there. The theme is remarkably dense; points to the constructor for that; and the fill is not harmed that much. There is one entry that seems woefully out of place: QUINCEANERA. Not exactly Canadian. Still, for what was accomplished, a birdie.
It was absolutely a hit and I remember it well
"dUSTY" was my entry today. So, the first letter I wrote in was that 'd'. And that stayed there until the very end, resulting in the today's common DNF.
As a rule the comment section is bristling with righteous indignation whenever a conservative's name shows up in a puzzle. Solvers rush to burnish their woke bona fides by expressing their indignation that - for example - an Ed Meese, a Spiro Agnew, or - Heaven's Forfend! - a Trump despoil their sacred sanctum.
Hence I was not surprised that - other than a laudatory mention by Bocamp - the inclusion of noted race hustler and charlatan Ibram X. Kendi, drew no mention.
I am old enough to remember Gordo Cooper, and to remember when the world looked to the U.S. for leadership, a beacon of freedom for all.
Sadly the 'shining city on the hill' has been replaced by the cess pool that San Fransisco - for only one example - has become, and Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln and Reagan have been replaced by the likes of Kendi.
If you look on in disbelief as thousands of college students trumpet support for the barbarism of Hamas on the streets of America, look no further than the celebration of Kendi in today's America.
TAKE SECOND BASE
BUTTONIT up, DON'T make CASES TO lay her,
DON'TINTERRUPT, YOU're STILLNOTAPLAYER.
--- "NOT" BEN DUNN
A good, solid Saturday.
Have not looked at the other comments yet, but did anyone else bring their WANNEST self to this puz? WANNEST? Any SECONDOPINION? Sure
The rest was a fun trip down letter-by-letter until you finish lane. And a couple of groans wordplay thingies like CANAL and, to a lesser extent, KITES.
Now I'm DUNN. What can I say - my grandparents were FINNS, and I still have the Lapland slippers Grandpa brought me back from a trip.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
We have a doozy of a natick at sq. 17. Is my attic supposed to be dUSTY or MUSTY? I finally decided that IDOMENEO was slightly less awkward to say than IDOdENIO. whew.
The two V-intersections saved my bacon on this one. Going with VENMO/VERGE and VOIDS/VARIETY really helped things along. NW was still a problem, but all eventually went well. Medium, nothing too STALE. Birdie.
Wordle par.
@spacecraft Sadly, the syndi-link is only intermittently updated. The trick to finding today's puzzle is that weekdays and Saturdays are six weeks back, while Sundays are two weeks back. Usually.
As for the puzzle, I'd settle for a musty attic if I could have a dusty basement. Dreadful clue notwithstanding, it's the other way around.
@strayling is right, basements are MUSTY, attics are dUSTY. So a one square DNF; got KAtNAK'd.
Wordle par
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