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Crispy plantain chips / MON 10-30-23 / Freshwater eel of Japanese culture / Colorful marine invertebrate /
Monday, October 30, 2023
Constructor: Kenneth Cortes
Relative difficulty: Easy (Downs-only, no trouble)
Theme answers:
- STUPID EASY (18A: Not difficult at all, in slang)
- GUIDE ANIMAL (26A: Seeing Eye dog, e.g.)
- HIDE-AND-SEEK (44A: Game in which one might shout, "Ready or not, here I come!")
Tostones (Spanish pronunciation: [tosˈtones], from the Spanish verb tostar which means "to toast") are twice-fried plantain slices commonly found in Latin American cuisine and Caribbean cuisine. Most commonly known as tostones in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba, Florida, Honduras and Venezuela, they are also known as tachinos or chatinos (Cuba), platano frito or frito verde (Dominican Republic), bannann peze (Haiti), patacones (in Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, and Ecuador) and, sometimes, patacón pisao in Colombia. (wikipedia)
• • •
Also thumbs-down to this ridiculous grid-dimming gimmick. Any theme that relies on making the grid look this terrible isn't worth it. Anyway, it's not that the IDEAS are BRIGHT so much as that the rest of the dang grid has been miserably benighted. I thought there was a glitch in my software. At least the puzzle was STUPID EASY, so I didn't have to spend too much time staring at this gray monstrosity. STUPID EASY was, in fact, the puzzle's one big highlight—a nice burst of colloquial freshness, and a very clever way of hiding your IDEA. Ironically, the theme answer with the word HIDE in it didn't "hide" the IDEA nearly so well. Always disappointed when "hidden" words don't touch every word in the themer, and the IDEA in HIDE AND SEEK can only wave at nearby SEEK, who sits there cold, lonely, and essentially uninvolved. A dark day, indeed, for SEEK.
My Downs-only solve was quite triumphant today. I flattened this one, with a big assist from the theme, which allowed me to go ahead and fill in all the "bright" areas with IDEA very early:
Other tiny issues ... As usual, didn't know if it was "F" or "V" in today's OLAF (1D: "Frozen" snowman). I lucked out with those sequential "A"s in SEA ANEMONE (11D: Colorful marine invertebrate)—they were both inferable from the crosses, and then ... well, the answer clearly had to have a word break between those "A"s, and knowing that, SEA ANEMONE came fast. I had some hesitation at BOGUS (48D: Not genuine). I'm not quite sure why. Once I got AFROS squared away (by inference) (50A: Jackson 5 hairstyles), I had the "O," and BOGUS went right in. Oh, and I had to work a bit to get HIP (8D: Cool-sounding body part?), since all I could think of was EYE(S) (because it ... kinda rhymes with "ice" ... which is ... cool???). Wrong kind of "cool," it seems. I continue to not believe that SALSA DIP is a thing (4D: Accompaniment for a tortilla chip). It's just called SALSA. Yes, you can "dip" your chip in it. Still, just SALSA. Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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54 comments:
I solved this "ylnO snwoD" where you do it downs only, but read the clue backwards. It was kinda tough from the get go, with D1 being "namwons 'nezorF'". I eventually figured it had to be FALO. But I didn't really find my footing until ABBA, who I knew did the song "yenoM, yenoM, yenoM".
29D took me back to my underage drinking days. "But IMAGE 21, just look at this fake ID that bears my IMAGE."
Personally, I don't think of BRIGHTIDEA as signaling a stroke of genius. It seems like it's used almost exclusively to signal a really terrible judgement. Like, "and whose BRIGHTIDEA was it to take a naked hike through a forest of poison oak?" Or "Whose BRIGHTIDEA was it to nominate Jim Jordan for speaker?" The puzzle certainly contains some BRIGHTIDEAs, but the revealer wasn't one of them.
Nonetheless, a pleasant Monday. Thanks, Kenneth Cortes.
Solving down clues only failed for me; just a few too many unknowns. My downfall... or down fail, get it?... was around LORDE (who with the terminal E I really wanted to be ADELE), exacerbated by never having heard of TOSTONES so a lotta blanks there. My best guess got no Happy Pencil, so I selected "Check all letters" which is a cheat but completed the grid.
In Across Lite, all the dark squares were circled, which was even uglier than all the darkness. It would be nice if it was the opposite -- circle only the "bright" squares -- but I guess a mere plugin can't possibly make that call. Maybe in the terrifying future of AI it will.
Typeover: Bon JOVI before IVER which I expected Rex to mention, but he probably wasn't fooled by it, being younger and hipper than me, plus I shoulda known better since the clue said "indie folk band".
[Spelling Bee: Sun 0; last word this impressive 9er. QB 10 of last 11 days!]
It was early APRIL and the SKYE in the town of UTERI was lit up with a LAVA LAMP hanging from a TEAK TREE. It was an IMAGE one SEES from the EAST and it's BRIGHT.
OTIS and OLAF were the SONS of Mr. UNAGI. Mr. UNAGI was known to LORDE over those two as if they were STUPID. Not only were they STUPID, but neither ever had a BRIGHT IDEA that could save their HIDE
He'd watch them like a HAWK because APRIL was PRANK month. OTIS would throw EGG YOLKS at Mr. BONDS little ELK eating in the OBIES. The ELK was a gentle ANIMAL who'd HIDE behind your KNEE if you gave him some TOSTONES with a SALSA DIP. EVEN so, OTIS would SEEK to SEA if ANEMONE would CMON and be as STUPID as he was.
ANNIE MOI had hot RODS coming out of her FRET. She was IRATE as hell because it was her BDAY. she had just read the OBIES about her BEAU, TIM, and his INMEMORIAM was till fresh on her mind. She LOVED TIM. He was the TOSTONES of the town. Alas, a TORO MOWS him down and SHISH, just like that, he's KIOSK.
OTIS and OLAF think that's a BOGUS story told by his HIP LORDE father. They know he thinks they're STUPID and they play PRANKS that ANGERS everyone in the town of UTERI....But CMON, was TIM such an EASY target for the TORO? EVEN so, not EVEN a TAXI with the AID of INERT RODS MOWS down the TOSTONES of UTERI!!!
Alas...ANNIE MOI did indeed lose her BEAU. The EDEN they wanted to HIDE in and SEEK LOVE in was now just an IMAGE she SEES from the EAST all lit up by a LAVA LAMP hanging from a TEAK TREE.
The PRANKS were finally over.
Mr. UNAGI would finally GUIDE his SONS like a gentle ANIMAL through a BRIGHT MANSE. He would sip his SALSA MOCHA and try to undo this CHAIN of ANGER between this STUPID CRUD. It worked.
ANNIE MOI found another BEAU. The SONS of Mr. UNAGI ran off with ABBA and the ELK eating in the OBIES became a GUIDE ANIMAL for the MASALA in AFRO.
And that's the truth!
Medium. Did not know TOSTONES and have never used a Mac so OPTION needed crosses. The gray grid in the app somehow made solving tougher. I think it sometimes took me slightly longer to find the cursor. Novel IDEA, liked it, but I’m with @Rex on the dim grid.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #854 was pretty easy for a Croce or about 1.5 X a Saturday NYT. The NE corner was the toughest section for me. Good luck!
My five favorite original clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Gave prompt attention? (4)
2. Bottoms out? (5)
3. Himalayan resting place (3)(3)
4. Stretchers go on top of them (4)
5. Big ask? (4)
CUED
MOONS
CAT BED
MATS
POLL
If this downs-only solve was STUPID EASY, then I am STUPID. I found it kinda challenging, but I never gave in and looked at an across clue, so I liked it. The west was pretty easy (once I remembered that it is IN MEMORIAM not IN MEMORIuM).
I had “wombs” for “fetal development sites” (as I’m sure many did). When the IDEA theme made that wrong, I erased everything but the S, figuring that must be right. That left me guessing between CHAsm or CHAse, which really messed me up on the colorful invertebrate. Then I saw UTERI, which after some puzzlement, got me to SEA ANEMONE.
But I thought I was cooked with the plantain chips, even though I’ve eaten them many times. Having only the first S and the second O, made TOSTONES hard to see, but I felt great when I did see it.
I didn’t mind the dark squares at all, but such an obvious theme did rob me of one of the pleasures of solving downs-only - trying to figure out the theme without having read any of the across clues.
As for Rex’s question of what creature besides a dog could be a GUIDE ANIMAL, C’MON man, the answer is right next to it. Have you never seen a guide ELK?
SALSA DIP is right up there with “ATM machine” and “lived experience.
oNAGI before UNAGI at 27D (and shame on me; I had sushi for dinner last night) and TOSTadaS before TOSTONES at 39D were my only overwrites.
The theme may have put a fair amount of stress on the grid today as we’ve drifted toward a lot of stuff like IVER, SKYE, UNAGI, LORDE and MASALA. That’s quite a bit of “gunk” for a Monday.
Agree with Rex that the grid looks pretty foolish with all of the gray squares, but I don’t think that using circles (or just leaving them hidden) would have worked with the reveal. Interesting attempt, probably a B+ for both the concept and the execution - which is about as well has it could have been handled with the unconventional looking grid design.
Interesting IDEA that was not worth the grid art it required.
I assumed SALSA DIP meant that you were dancing to salsa music while eating your chips, and showing off with a dance move.
Further vacation catchup: Croce 852 was medium, base on my time, but felt harder while solving. The stacks were really good.
Croce 854 was the hardest ever, a DNF for me with the NE corner a bust. Had 8D 11D and 20A, but nothing else in that corner. Now, I had just finished a 37-hour, 3-leg journey from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia to home, so possibly I was not at my solving best. In particular, I feel I should have gotten 13D, but there is no guarantee that would have unlocked the rest of the corner.
A dog is an animal, and some dogs do guide blind people. I don't see anything wrong with GUIDEANIMAL.I do agree that SALSADIP is redundant.
I finished it quickly, once I realized UNAGI was the Japanese word, not "unami."
NYTimes printed version had small "light bulbs" in the squares where I, D, E and A were added.
AFROS reminded me of an incident I still remember decades later. I was in my college years, working at a restaurant. One of my co-workers was Jewish with a natural afro. I was so taken by how cool it looked compared to my bland straight hair, that after weeks of mulling, I got an afro perm – the only perm I’ve ever gotten. That night, when I came into work and ran into the co-worker, it was a Twilight Zone moment. That very day he got his hair permed straight! “I always loved the way your hair looked,” he admitted. There’s a lesson in here somewhere…
Haven’t thought about that in forever, so thank you for reviving that memory in your de-light-ful debut, Kenneth, and how impressive to have a NYT puzzle under your belt after beginning to construct puzzle but a year ago.
I did like seeing two four-letter palindromes in the grid (SEES, ABBA), and seeing LAMP, which echoes the theme. I also love how the word ANEMONE rolls off the tongue.
All this on top of the splendid visual of those IDEAS brightly shining like Saturday’s full moon in our clear sky. Never seen that in a puzzle before, and to come up with something startlingly new in Crosslandia is a feat. Thank you for making this, Kenneth!
As @okanaganer said, it was even uglier in AcrossLite, where all the dim squares were circles. Impossibly hideous to look at, made it too distracting to do downs only, I started looking at across clues almost immediately so I could be done as soon as possible.
Agree with OFL about GUIDEANIMAL, and even had the same reaction of trying to imagine other ridiculous possibilities. I liked his "warthog".
The only slight slowdowns for me were MASALA and UNAGI. Almost everything else had some of the most straightforward cluing I have seen in a NYTxw in quite some time. I'll leave it to M&A to count the moo cows, but there was a herd of them.
Also caught onto the theme at STUPIDEASY, which made things even easier. That at least was a good themer, although I guess hiding IDEA in HIDEANDSEEK has some merit.
Pleasant enough Tuesdecito, KC. Beyond Kinda Cinchy, but thanks for a few minutes of fun.
On to the Croce and the Mon. NYer. Challenges await.
http://guide-horse.org/
Hey All !
Whenever there are shaded squares, the NYT puz app on my desktop computer (is that redundant btw? I can just say desktop, no?) have the shaded squares as a pleasing shade of green. Am I the only one? Green Paint, har.
So, is the whole puz the theme? As in, the IDEAS needed to be bright, so the entire puz has to play along? Couldn't you have made the IDEA squares yellow? These are the things that need answers! 😁
Neat IDEA for a puz. Fill pretty good. Only one iffy was BDAY, and that's still fairly common.
Easy, even though I solved hanging from the ceiling by my ankles, with the computer screen sitting sideways on the desk, and the keyboard upside down. Still finished in 4 minutes, which is good, as the blood was rushing to my head. 😜😂
Yet another Monday. Dang, Monday, take a day off, will ya?
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
In defense of SALSA DIP...
If you were just dipping your tortilla chip into a bowl of salsa, the term SALSA DIP is, of course, redundant.
But a SALSA DIP, in which salsa is the featured ingredient mixed among other ingredients such as cream cheese, shredded cheese, extra spices, sour cream, etc. and into which you dip your tortilla chip, is ubiquitous.
In the same way that he term clam dip (in which the featured, but not only, ingredient is clam) is not redundant, neither is SALSA DIP redundant.
On another note, while completing this puzzle, I kept pondering in my own mind this question; what do inciting insurrection, Covid denial, and using ketchup on a steak in at fancy steakhouse have in common?
All sorts of non-dog animals can be considered “service animals” including (and I am not making this up) monkeys, pigs, miniature horses and snakes. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, any and all could be considered an accommodation.
The only thing worse then tiny little circles in a crossword puzzle are tiny little circles that look like light bulbs. Because you already know they're to be filled in with IDEA.
Which makes a STUPID EASY puzzle even STUPID EASIER. Although actually it wasn't the grid itself that was the real yawn; the grid was OK. It was the crashingly uninteresting clues.
(Note to Constructors: It's good to avoid putting either STUPID EASY or SLOG in your grid -- in case one or the other happens to be true of your puzzle.)
So the revealer would have to be some sort of IDEA. But what sort? No way for me to know since the rest of my puzzle -- the dead tree version -- wasn't dimmed in the least. Meaning BRIGHT IDEA made no sense to me.
Observation of the Day: I thought that CRUD was an epithet. I didn't know it had the real meaning of "gunky residue." I'll have to be more discriminating in how I use it in the future.
somehow have never heard of the OBIES. So for a while I had OBITS, thinking this was some grim humor going over my head. (Ballet dancers do the PLITS, right?)
There is no defense of SALSADIP. It's redundant and cringeworthy. Anyway, on a completely different note, I believe that for lunch today I will have a hamburger sandwich.
Its 13° here this morning so winter has apparently started. May be a MOCHA day.
Never heard of a TOSTONE and honestly I'm not sure I know what a plantain is except it appears to be a little banana.
Agree with @tsafkaerbrofsge 12:52 AM
BRIGHT IDEAS are rarely bright ideas.
Uniclues:
1 What my Mercurochrome wielding mother rendered.
2 One hoping for the demise of Rudolph.
3 When it's made in New York city.
4 Feeling inside a clownfish.
1 IRATE FIRST AID (~)
2 ELK GUIDE ANIMAL (~)
3 BOGUS SALSA DIP (~)
4 SEA ANEMONE LOVE
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Wife tells husband to trash those 20-year-old undies. "INTIMATES DETERIORATE."
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@ SKYE is "gunk", @Southside Johnny (6:57)?? Oh, no -- it's a perfectly swell isle. You won't think of it as gunk anymore after you listen to this haunting song.
Thx, Kenneth; well done! 😊
Very hard (downs only).
Managed to miss the theme. Wouldn't have helped, tho. Nevertheless, a BRIGHT IDEA! :)
Had IN MEMORIAl and zeSTONES.
Otherwise, a good workout and a mostly satisfying effort.
Thx @jae; on it! :)
___
Daniel Raymon's NYT PandA was relatively easy; fun solve! :)
___
On to Croce's 854 🤞, with Will Nediger's Mon New Yorker in the wings for tm.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Light bulbs? Those tiny smudges in the IDEA squares were light bulbs? I'd need a magnifying glass, but since I've already written over them it would do no good now.
@Anonymous
According to ada.gov, service animals are dogs. They are dogs that support a specific task. Monkeys, pigs, snakes, and whatever might be "emotional support animals" but they are not covered by ADA guidelines and can be refused entry into businesses.
@DuckReconMajor: so you know for next time...it's worth remembering that the OBIE Awards are for shows that appear OFF BROADWAY (oh, bee), while the Tony Awards are for shows appearing ON Broadway.
When I saw the grayed-out grid in the app, I got suspicious - would the newspaper have the same? No, it had circles, or wait - actually light bulbs complete with the screw-in part and filament. I thought it was very cute - a perfect visualization of a BRIGHT IDEA and a joke on the grid-with-circles theme. Yes, very easy, but C'MON, it's Monday. I also liked MOCHA x MASALA and sneaking in TORO alongside UNAGI in the sushi menu. New to me: TOSTONES.
I reacted so strongly to Rex's first put downs that I didn't read the rest.
I loved the way the grid looked. just for this onetime. I wouldn't want it grey all the time. But I did find it visually attractive right from the start then caught the theme when the second idea appeared and thought "clever".
AND what on earth was his the complaint about GUIDE ANIMAL? " Seeing Eye dog eg". is a perfect clue for guide animal. What does it matter if other animals may or may not be guide animals?
For Bruce R: Is the phrase "hamburger sandwich" redundant? I'd say it depends on whether a serving of chopped beef on a plate is called a hamburger. If it is a hamburger, then "hamburger sandwich" is OK...because you've added two sides of bread or a roll.
Now, I think I'll open a bottle of carbonated soda.
Re Croce 854-NE tough as nails, gave up and googled the band name, and the whole thing was done posthaste.
Salsa DIP… no! Tostones…YES!
Two downs only Mondays in a row. Have to laugh at the countries listed in Rex’s write up regarding TOSTONES: all Bona fide Latin American countries…and Florida! I am from Miami and have in fact had tostones so there’s that.
Aside from TOSTONES this was very easy.
Congrats on your debut, Kenneth!
@D’Qwellner 12:01 - Puerto Rico is a US territory, rather than a Latin American country.
I agree!
Salsa is a condiment that can itself be a dip.
Salsa, the condiment, can also be an ingredient in a Salsa Dip. (Betty Crocker has a recipe: https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/so-simple-salsa-dip/fdacd856-8640-40aa-be97-c51a219229a1)
The closest analog I can think of is ranch dressing. It's a thing. You can put it on salads or even dip your vegetables in it. But you can also make a ranch dip out of it.
Hereabouts in Tex-Mex Land there is nothing STUPID about SALSA DIP. SALSA is something you spoon onto your taco or enchilada while a SALSA DIP would be SALSA in a bowl with tortilla chips nearby for DIPping. SALSA DIP is usually thicker than SALSA to make it easier to get a nice big dollop of it to remain on your tortilla chip. Now I'm getting hungry.
There is a car dealership in the area named Boggus Ford. When I first saw that I thought CMON man, that's got to be BOGUS. Is that some kind of PRANK?
I'm thinking of opening a training center for Seeing Eye Warthogs. BRIGHT IDEA, don't you think? The logo will be a LAVA LAMP in a TEAK TREE (©GILL I.).
I actually worked with a woman who had a guide horse: a miniature horse that worked like a guide dog for the blind. You can Google it. She had previously used a dog to help her navigate, but dogs have relatively shorter working lifespans, and a lot of it is spent training them. I haven't worked with her for ages, but I used to see her and her horse out and about in town and even at the mall, and think, "Yup, that horse is still at it!"
The gray little "filaments" in the ubiquitous little NYT circles looked to MOI like question marks. So there was, for me - and I'd guess other traditional print edition solvers - no IDEA. So just another EASY, STUPID, themeless. TORO SHISH.
Tostadas helped me get tostones because I didn’t know the word. I have a lot to learn about Mexican cuisine!
For those who don’t see the dead tree edition, there were no graying of the puzzle, just light bulbs where IDEA goes in. .
I usually ignore gimmicks at the beginning, so I looked briefly and saw circles. My aging eyes did not see filaments either. (Even though I just learned what to look for I can barely see them under the letters I wrote in).
I got the IDEA gimmick so for me, the theme helped fill in letters. Very easy, even for a Monday (I don’t do downs only). Until the above posts I didn’t know what bright was referring to though.
Never having mocha anything and not particularly liking cold chocolate drinks, I learned something at 5 across
Can’t even see what Rex is getting at in his criticism. Hide and seek is a fine answer.
Dogs aren’t the only animals used to assist people, so that answer is fine also
Somebody probably mentioned this already Monday!
There are other guide animals.
Exactly!
I knew the answer as have heard of Obies
BUT I never realized the name was from Off Broadway which I have also heard of.
Learn something new every day.
Under the ADA only dogs and miniature horses are considered service animals who are covered in terms of access when trained to assist someone with a disability.
Under other regulations in housing and transportation any type of animal can be considered an emotional support animal and allowed to live in housing otherwise unwelcome to animals and travel on some types of transit.
But I really don’t think GUIDE ANIMAL is in the language. It’s SERVICE ANIMAL. Like how the phrase is flight attendant. Flight human would be technically true but not a good crossword answer.
Did no one notice that the grid included the name of the band TORO y MOI? I thought that was pretty clever.
Wow, OFNP didn't even mention 3-down. Bon IVER?? Indie folk band??? On a MONDAY?????
Easy enough to do, via crosses (3, 27 & 39d), but these hardly belong kicking off the week. Ergo, a feeling of extreme unEVENness.
Not only are the IDEAs circled in my paper, they EVEN have little screw-ins at the bottom. You'd think, with such attention to detail, they could manage to show italicized clues.
This one's in need of some FIRSTAID. ogey.
Wordle par.
@Burma Shave has been away for a bit.
B’DAY IDEA
ANNIE: “Oh LORDE, C’MON, don’t FRET!”
ARLO: “It’s A NONO, EVEN sleazy.”
ANNIE: “Your FIRST LOVE is NEAT to get.”
ARLO: “For A BEAU BEAU STUPIDEASY.”
--- OTIS BONDS
From yesterday:
A LOTTA RENOWN
YES, CHOOSESIDES and then TALK,TURKEY,
ORE ELSE you’ll KICKTHECAN.
SAGEADVICE? ORE ENDINGIT murky?
TWA’S best, ORE PANAM?
--- “ZANY” ANI ANYA ENYA ALBA
From Saturday:
WAKEME UP
I’ll USE PAM ‘til she SAYSNO,
and NO, not BY THE SMARTPHONE,
PAM won’t MINCER words TO go,
YES, then I’ll STARTERHOME.
--- SAM ARTOIS
Yeah, light bulb looking circles; the BRIGHTIDEA(s) I guess.
We're far too familiar with Bon IVER in these parts; frequently heard on 89.3 The Current (a MN Public Radio station you can stream). Correct pronunciation = Bone Ee-vair, at an awards show a couple years ago the always well-spoken Iggy Azalea's introduction = Bahn Eye-vurr, so there's that.
Wordle par #200 in 496 times played. 145 birdies, 30 eagles, 1 ace. (83 bogeys, 27 phews.
Oh...I see. It's BRIGHT IDEA, thus the shaded squares. I guess it was worth the ink.
But CMON, you know I gotta love a Monday. Even with a GUIDEANIMAL on my lap, purring the answers to me.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Finished 8 tourneys (576 holes) two days ago with an ace, 30 eagles, 180 birds, 217 pars, 110 bogeys and 27 dubs. That leaves nine that I could not get in 6 tries. Counting the DNFs as +3, that's -52, or an average four-round score of -6.5. Not winning many, but cashing.
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