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Downtempo electronica genre / SUN 10-15-23 / Kid often nicknamed Trey / Final opponent in many a video game / Two inside an ellipse / Hot sauce with a reduplicative name / Game popular in Brooklyn streets / Mazatlan moolah / Civil rights activist Sylvia who was a awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom
Sunday, October 15, 2023
Constructor: Jeff Chen and Juliana Tringali Golden
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- CAKE STAND (26A: "I declare this doughnut to be a truly tasty treat!")
- FROSTED TIP (45A: "Here's one way to eat a doughnut without getting icing on your nose...")
- CINNAMON TOAST (68A: "Let's raise a glass to this outstanding doughnut!")
- PLAIN TRUTH (91A: "It is an undeniable fact that this doughnut is awesome!")
- SUGAR BUZZ (108A: "This doughnut is the talk of the town!")
- OLD-FASHIONED IDEA (16D: "This doughnut would be great dipped in milk!")
- GLAZED EXPRESSION (40D: "I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts...")
Sylvia Mendez (born June 7, 1936) is an American civil rights activist and retired nurse. At age eight, she played an instrumental role in the Mendez v. Westminster case, the landmark desegregation case of 1946. The case successfully ended de jure segregation in California and paved the way for integration and the American civil rights movement.
Mendez grew up during a time when most southern and southwestern schools were segregated. In the case of California, Hispanics were not allowed to attend schools that were designated for "Whites" only and were sent to the so-called "Mexican schools." Mendez was denied enrollment to a "Whites" only school, an event which prompted her parents to take action and together organized various sectors of the Hispanic community who filed a lawsuit in the local federal court. The success of their action, of which Sylvia was the principal catalyst, would eventually bring to an end the era of segregated education.
She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, by President Obama in 2011. (wikipedia)
• • •
As for the picture-grid, shrug. Yes, that is a vaguely circular thing you've got going there. I guess you kind of needed the visual element, given that the actual content of the theme is pretty tepid. But the resulting super-segmented grid, where section after section is accessible to adjacent sections only by one-square-wide passageways, was not exactly pleasant to make my way through. Like a disappointing donut: nice to look at, less nice to experience. The whole conceit here, where the clues are all things one might say about doughnuts, felt very strained, and the results just weren't punchy at all. "I declare this doughnut to be truly tasty!" is a CAKE STAND? A "stand" you've taken about a "cake" doughnut? Saying that a donut is tasty does not qualify as a stand any more than saying the sky is blue does. A stand is an intervention in a controversy. "Donut tastes good" is not an intervention in anything. Further, there's nothing particularly CAKE-y about tasting good. Most donuts taste good. Most donuts would also taste good dipped in milk. "This doughnut would be great dipped in milk!" sounds at least as much like a PLAIN TRUTH as it does like an OLD-FASHIONED IDEA. It even sounds a bit like a FROSTED TIP. The answers just aren't well-differentiated from one another, and almost none of them really land with the force, surprise, and keen wordplay, to say nothing of humor, that one would like to see, ideally, in a wacky theme answer. The clue writing here just isn't strong, and it has to be strong, because the entire weight of the theme is resting on it. Besides the picture-grid, all thematic interest lies in those clues, and today, they're just too tepid, as are the theme answers themselves. I usually love donuts, but these donuts left me COLD (60A: One way to have something down).
There were two semi-toughish parts of the grid today. The first was in the NE, where I had MENDEZ / ZIPS BY as MENDER / RIPS BY (!?), and where STOOPBALL had me wondering "????" (I had STICKBALL) (17D: Game popular in Brooklyn streets). I'd never heard of Sylvia MENDEZ (despite her being associated with a landmark civil rights case (see "Word of the Day," above)), and when RIPS BY was the first the first thing that occurred to me at 43A: Blows past, I rationalized MENDER as a new name, thinking "well, yes, it's an odd name, but I've also never heard of this person, so why shouldn't it be a name I've never seen? This is probably the only famous MENDER." But no, she ended up having a much more ordinary last name. The other sticky part of the grid, for me, came in the western and southwestern parts of the do(ugh)nut. Could never tell my FOCI from my LOCI (55D: Two inside an ellipse), and even though I guessed FOCI at first, I also guessed FRET at first for 55A: Stew (FUME). Then there was UHH, which could easily have been UMM (79A: "Lemme think ..."), and then the very tough clue on HALT (80D: Pull up). "Pull up" could go a million ways, and I could've guessed all day and not gotten to HALT. Hurray for crosses! No other problems. Really hated NO-RUN, as that is not a thing anyone says re: baseball games (106A: Like a baseball shutout). Even the phrase "baseball shutout" sets my teeth on edge. NO-RUN is just bad fill, no way around it, no way to rescue it. Also bad, but apparently undying, is UNPC. Quit trying to rationalize your offensiveness by blaming the offended. "PC" was always right-wing racist / sexist / homophobic defensiveness and self-justification. You can keep telling yourself that you're (boldly!) "not PC," but deep down you must know that means you're probably mostly just a run-of-the-mill asshole, right? Right? Right. (note: "PC" discourse has largely been superseded by the equally stupid "Woke" discourse, so can we retire UNPC on the basis of its being dated!? Whatever it takes ...)
I love TRIPHOP, a truly original answer (98A: Downtempo electronica genre). I especially love it over SIREN, a cool musical 1-2. The clue on CANOPY BED is a bit of a groaner, but I have to admit that it works well (18D: What has good coverage for retirement?). Surface meaning is solid, and solidly misleading, with the double wordplay (on both "coverage" and "retirement"). ASTAIRE isn't that exciting on its own, but the clue is a fantastic bit of trivia (21A: About whom an early critic said "Can't act, can't sing. Balding. Can dance a little"). Especially appropriate, then, that ASTAIRE sits underneath STARDOM today. HORNS IN ON is colorful and interesting (75A: Interrupts when it's not one's place to do so). I like the symmetricality of PIRI PIRI (19A: Hot sauce with a reduplicative name) and OTTERPOP (122A: Frozen treat named for a playful animal)—do OTTERPOPs come in PIRI PIRI flavor? They should. I think they just come in "blue" and "green" and other color-based flavors. I honestly haven't had one since I was 10. But if they came in PIRI PIRI, I might consider it. They should also consider a TRIPHOP OTTERPOP. I don't know what flavor that would be. Just sounds cool. Time for bed. See you later. Enjoy your Sunday.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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104 comments:
Easy-medium although I had quite a few erasures, e.g. @Rex Fret>FUss>FUME. Cute and fun, liked it more than @Rex did. The puns worked OK for me.
Did not know PIRI PIRI, MENDEZ, STOOP BALL, and TRIP HOP.
Rex, agree the theme is a bit thin, but personally I kinda like the grid doughnut. I knew you would object to the bottlenecks, which were probably necessary to get that shape.
Memories: I worked a couple blocks from a Tim Hortons and went there every day, but pretty much never bought a doughnut. Bagels were my thing... "Everything bagel, double toasted with butter, please". Mmmmm. Maybe Jeff and co-author can do a bagel puzzle next.
Never heard of PIRI PIRI. Had SURE BETS before SIDE BETS. And did you know BIEN could also be a 'Response to "Comment ca va?"'... which is why I first entered BUEN cuz:
a) it sounded Spanish-- surely they don't have the exact same word as French-- and,
b) it also fit with SURE BETS and PIRU PIRU, whatever that is.
Loved TRIP HOP. I was a massive Massive Attack fan, and loved Portishead, Bjork, Morcheeba, Zero 7 etc. The good ol' days.
[Spelling Bee: Sat currently missing 2 6ers, argh.]
I didn't really understand how GLAZED EXPRESSION related to "I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts..." We were looking for something loosely gambling related.
Rex is right on all accounts, especially about the bottlenecks engendered by the grid, but on the plus side, the PPP ratio was refreshingly low, which probably explains why there were no naticks. So kudos to the constructor on this account... I say it is a net positive puzzle, and I am thankful for it.
On a side note, I've never heard of a donut type called OLDFASHIONED. Do they mix a little bourbon into the dough, or what? LOL...
I was at voodoo donuts today in Portland Oregon, I felt this was dedicated to that horrorshow.
APERCU was a WOE, in addition to PIRU PIRU and TRIPHOP. But all were fairly crossed. Liked it better than OFL did.
Thought STOOP BALL was STICKBALL, something I’ve heard of. I’m related to a certain Brooklyn stickball player.
Happy to see what was a new-to-me clue for STE, as that winery is local to me!! Not at all sure how well known it is outside of Washington though. If you ever go to Seattle and you like wine, the area is just 30-40 minutes east of the city, with wineries, distilleries, breweries, cideries (?) and even meaderies. Plus it’s very pretty.
obviously the triphop otterpop would be lean flavored. and enjoyed by children afflicted with a cough.
Growing up in Brooklyn in the 60s/70s, I can assure you that stoopball is a thing. You take a Spalding rubber ball, bounce it high off a stoop, and everyone pushes everyone out of the way to try to catch it.
Agree with Rex: this puzzle had no zip. Got the concept early and all the revealers left me shrugging.
But WTH is “apercu”?
Lots of stuff I didn’t know, so very reliant on crosses & guesses. I don’t ear doughnuts, so I don’t know their flavors. But I do know how to spell the word. Donuts is just ad-speak, like EZ or nite. It’s not pretentious, it’s just standard English.
I wonder if MISSING could have been clued differently than "Certain neighborhood poster" this week.
Themers: yawn. Fill: much weird but some nice ones as Rex notes. (EG NORUN, no, ASTAIRE, yes!). Not a fan of doughnuts. Or donuts. Or this puzzle.
What - no jelly? An outrage - this puzzle should have been dunked from the beginning.
Massive Attack
Gotta be a little tipsy to go all reverse-pedantic on spelling doughnut correctly :)
Sadly, since moving from the Bay Area to the east, I have been unable to find OLD FASHIONED donuts. Every donut shop in the Bay offers plain, glazed, maple and chocolate old fashioned. Out here they sometimes label cake donuts as old fashioned, but the real thing -- made with buttermilk, with a dense texture and higher on the outside rim -- is not made.
I had a dense sweet tooth throughout my childhood, but somewhere along the way, it left me. If I ate a Krispy Kreme donut, or maybe two, I’d probably start running uncontrollably from the buzz, and wake up in a strange locale three days later.
In small doses, however, I savor sweetness, and this lovely puzzle is dense with it, all the donuts plus a supporting cast of OTTER POP, MARS BARS, and TORTE, not to mention BOSC and PARSNIPS. My Libra sensibilities are grateful for the balancing PIRI PIRI hot sauce.
I like when a grid design is so catchy it, as today’s is, that it draws you in, heightens the anticipation. I also like when a puzzle has freshness from oodles of answers not seen in NYT puzzles before, and this one has 13 – 13! – my three favorites being GLAZED EXPRESSION, RAMEN SHOP, and SUGAR BUZZ.
STOOPBALL awakened a long-dormant and heart-warming memory of a period in my youth when my dad introduced me to a variation, where he threw a tennis ball down to where the curb met the street, and I would try to catch it as it flew back. If I caught it on a fly, it was an out; if I caught it on one bounce, it was a single, two bounces a double, and so on – a game of baseball. Sweet memories, these games with my dad.
Thus, this fun-to-fill-in puzzle was made very rich by its lovely overtones. Thank you, Juliana and Jeff!
That grid design of a zero inside of an aught – the perfect echo of yesterday’s puzzle.
An interesting idea, but I have to agree, not especially well-implemented. Quite a bit seemed forced. I did appreciate some of the fresh cluing. I like the puzzle visual but am more of a bagel person myself!
(@okakaganer: We've been to Montreal any number of times and of course saw Tim Horton's all over the place, but I appreciated the Montreal bagels avec la viande fumee so much more!)
- Naticked with MENDER/RIPSBY; should've considered MENDEZ/ZIPSBY, but the NE corner had my attention by then.
- Also Naticked on ADSPACE (I had ADSPAGE, and therefore was scratching my head at AGS... oh-h-h).
- I did manage to pull APERCU and RAIMENTS from some remote corner of my brain (after writing down GARMENTS but seeing this did not work).
- Also, still can't quite figure out how LOT is "great deal"...
- Whenever I hear Red Leader, I think of the final assault on the Death Star in the first Star Wars movie!
- Slight editing oversight: Left out a parenthesis for 24A.
Final thought: The visual could also represent yesterday's "ring of fire" eclipse!
There was enough that was “gettable” to allows us to discern the PIRIPIRIs, RAIMENTS and APERCUs in this grid, and it’s Jeff Chen so you know that technically it’s going to check all of the boxes. The problem for me with this grid was that it just wasn’t interesting. That’s a lot of real estate and a lot of crosses to ask the solving cohort to slog through to get to GLAZED EXPRESSION and OLD FASHIONED IDEA. Seriously, that is a lot of work for basically zero payoff.
I don’t know what the malaise is at the NYT, but this has been a real roller-coaster of a week. Possibility the worst puzzle of the year on Thursday - and today a pretty typical Chen offering (astute, tight and boring). Hopefully Robyn will be back in the rotation soon.
Had PERIPERI instead of PIRIPIRI, which I confidently typed in with no hesitation. I've only ever seen it spelled with an E before. That tripped me up for the longest time, as I couldn't think of a possible Megacelebrity spelled DE-A.
Also too many choices between UMs, ERs, UHs and the like.
I played stoopball growing up in the Bronx. All you needed was a Spaldeen and a set of steps. The key was hitting the ball on the point of the step which produced a high fly ball...giving you the chance to run the bases. We lived on the Grand Concourse, an eight-lane boulevard that runs the length of the Bronx. Second base was on the first median....which means we were running the bases across traffic. All our mothers cared about then was that we showed up in time for dinner. Given today's absurd overprotective parenting, I'm amazed that our parents was so laissez faire...a subway map and a 15-cent subway token and the city was our oyster. My mother had no clue where we were going, nor did we. But no cell phones. Just dinner.
Re the puzzle, obviously the fill was compromised by the "clever" donut design. I thought the themers were dull and the puzzle simple. Then again, I knew stoopball and the Astiare quote.
Donut/doughnut...ah, language changes, leaving our conservative selves in the dust. I had a friend, the late Walter Keller, a poet (he was the village of Liberty , New York's first poet laureate), craft-shop impresario and a world-class curmudgeon who would call me first thing in the morning to rue the latest gerund...he hated them... "Scrapbooking!" he'd bark and hang-up.
In the east, “old fashioned” are often called sour cream doughnuts
Thx, Jeff & Juliana, for this tasty creation ! 😋
Med (a few mins under avg, but again, felt much tougher).
Great workout; enjoyed the adventure! :)
___
Lars G. Doubleday's Sat. Stumper was very hard (6 x NYT Sat.). What a feel good ending, tho! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
@ZenMonkey, Ste Michelle winery is pretty big. I think it's known all over, at least to wine drinkers.
As for UNPC, I'd like to interject that the phrase "politically correct" did originate on the left (I believe I first heard it in '78 or '79, as an affirmation that someone was "on our side"), as did "woke." The right has co-opted and distorted it, but the left set it up for that with their (our) penchant for purity tests and the like.
Ugh. Just ... ugh.
My fastest Sunday solve ever. Not surprisingly, I enjoyed the puzzle. The only stumbling block was the NE, but OLDFASHIONEDIDEA finally worked out.
APERCU isn't seen often in puzzles, but it fit well in this one. The clue for Fred ASTAIRE was neat.
Left the NE for last, and was well on my way to a Sunday PR, then stared at the last 6 clues for 5 minutes. Nothing. Finally “remembered” the hot sauce as PERIPERI, at which point I was totally screwed. Eventually guessed at DIVA, which corrected my hot sauce misspelling, and I limped to the finish. Off to the cider mill for some pumpkin cinnamon donuts.
Total tedium - in every way, they put the UGH in DONUT…
Not everyone accused of being “UNPC” is an a-hole. Every generation uses words that, due to semantic slip, are suddenly “offensive” to people who think their feelings define them.
BTW, “Semantic Slip” would be a great crossword entry.
Where’s jelly? Possible the most iconic doughnut.
@SouthsideJohnny With you wholeheartedly. While the Sunday puzzle has been an integral part of my weekend for decades now, it's disheartening when I see the names of a few constructors (e.g., Jeff Chen) where I'm virtually certain the payoff will not be worth the slog.
I say this as someone who was simultaneously solving and working his way through a couple Curiosity Doughnuts. Believe me, the actual doughnuts were what made it worthwhile.
I first spelled the sauce "peri peri" as I remember eating peri-peri chicken in Portugal.
I do not understand 31 across - the final opponent in many a video game is a boss??
I, for one, welcome our new doUGHnut overlords.
Along with ASTAIRE, I really liked the clue for USSR (Former governor of Georgia?) - that tickled me. Only real sticking point was I had MENDEs and then of course had/have no clue what an APERCU is, so I had sI-SBY and was totally confounded. Sits by? Doesn’t make sense. But maybe it’s some archaic term (like APERCU??) that I’ve never heard? Got hung up there for a while but eventually left and when I came back that Z instead of the s on MENDEZ was staring back at me.
Completely agree. Theme answers were very weak IMO. Jeff’s cluing just not on my wavelength at all. Many subpar answers to work around grid design and long but weak theme answers. For me was one of the worst Sunday puzzles in a long time.
Hey All !
So, different types/styles/flavors of doughnuts (har, Rex rant on spelling it out) forming an everyday EXPRESSION. They make sense, except for CINNAMON TOAST. I get that it's a foodstuff, but the clue is what's irking me. How does one specifically nail down it's supposed to be a CINNAMON doughnut from the clue? Well, looking back just now, I see the other clues don't really have a direct correlation to their doughnuts. Maybe the FROSTED one. Oh well, never mind.
Liked the Torus design of the grid. Since there's an inner and outer ring, I guess it would be a TORI grid. But no TORI in the grid. 😁
NW troubles. Had to Goog for PIRIPIRI, as that was a wearyweary unknown.Was finally able to see MINTS, after the ole brain only wanting earnS there forever. One other Goog was for BRAS, as La Perla is not on my radar. I wouldn't know a La Perla BRA from a Hanes BRA. Har.
Now I'm hungry for donuts/doughnuts/pastries/whatever. Even bagels, which one could interpret the grid as.
I will bid you aFOO. 😁
Six F's (BIEN!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Sam, 9:54 AM:
One suspects Jeff and Juliana really wanted jelly in there but couldn't make it work!
JELLYROLLMORTON?
JELLYFISH?
JELLYBEANS?
Love to hear “boys of a certain age” recalling more youthful times growing up in Brooklyn. For me it was Midwood and a decade after the “Boys of Summer” had gone. But I didn’t know that, so it was all about the Amazin’ Mets. In Brooklyn, the Yankees were dead to us. The moniker for the ball was Pensie-Pinkie. True @HAL9000, it was a Spaulding but so was the taped-up football and the worn smooth basketball.
The way we played was the ball was bounced off the stoop. If caught, either as a grounder or on the fly, it was an out. A single got by you on the ground. Doubles and triples had varying definitions. Could be a landmark like the curb or a parked car, but could also be the mark made by dragging the front of your Chuck Taylor Cons on the asphalt. Of course, a homer landed in Jimmie Gilliland’s yard. No easy feat. Could be played by 2-4 kids but someone always had to be on the lookout and when necessary, scream for the whole world to hear . . . C A R!!!
I always buy my donuts at Hole Foods. They’re the best in the hole wide world. When I’m finished with my donuts, I use the leftovers to make the Hole Enchilada. Holey moley, enough of this!
There’s still a raging debate about whether Fitzgerald’s best work was Gatsby or Zipsby.
I wasn’t sure, given that I had B_AS at 49A, whether it would be BoAS or BRAS. I don’t know Jack about La Perla, but I liked picturing execs plotting to corner the market in BoAS. Even if successful, then what …….? In the end, it turned out to be LADY BRAS in reverse, a counterpart to man jocks.
Second time this week we’ve seen AEON. I hope this is the end of A ERA.
Do you think SIMON needed the “in song” part of the clue for 56D? I guess if it were just clued as “Garfunkel’s partner” it might have been ambiguously answered as ………….?
I thought that RAIMENT was vraiment too much. If you don’t speak French, well …truly sorry.
Really fun Sunday puzz, Jeff Chen and Juliana Tringali Golden.
Old Brooklyn (60’s) and can say to a certainty stoop ball was not considered a street game. It consisted of bouncing a ball off of, you guessed it, a stoop. There were two versions —one you played solo and competed for a high score and the other had a defensive team trying to catch the ball. We also played Johnny on a pony , skelzie, two types of stickball and ringsleaveio. (No idea of how to spell the last of the group. Anyway , it should not (at least in my old neighborhood) be called a street game.
I must have watched too much "Project Runway" back in the day. All the designers always referred to their various clothes as GARMENTS -- whether it was a ball gown or a tee shirt. So that's what I had instead of RAIMENTS, leading me to wonder what on earth a D-lister would want that begins with STAG?
I also briefly had MIXES before MELDS for "blends." Other than that, it was all very smooth sailing.
More music genres I've never heard of. Are TRIP HOP and FUNK MUSIC any relation to SCREAMO? And what about OTTER POP? Oh, wait -- that's a "frozen treat". But OTTER POP could be a music genre -- I hope you'll at least grant me that.
An easy, pleasantly diverting Sunday with some theme answers more in the language than others. My favorite themer was GLAZED EXPRESSION -- even though it's less in the language then, say, CINNAMON TOAST.
This puzzle had three strikes against it from the start. Jeff Chen and I don't speak the same English, not a doughnut fan, and loathe exclamation-pointed clues.
And yet, fun! Got the git at 26D when I thought, on crosses, that looks like it could be Cake Stand ... Ting! Aha! Not big on Cake either, yet there it was.
Nice to see Sugar Buzz amongst all those Doughnuts, and atop an Otter Pop with its, uhh, 21 grams of sugar.
Your best write up ever. Drink more before you blog.
Also, thanks for the GBV song I haven't heard before; I don't have all 127 of their albums.
Sf27 Shirley… check out “the Jelly Donut” at 24th and South Van Ness in the Mission. Cash only!
For me, the bright spots of the theme were first, FROSTED TIP, which I thought was an especially creative repurposing of the original (hairstyle) phrase and also best matched the clue - how to deal with a FROSTED doughnut; and second, CINNAMON TOAST, a treat that on its own deserves its pride of place right across the center. Otherwise, I felt I just didn't get the connection - e.g.,GLAZED for betting? I liked EMIRS x MECCAS.
Anonymous at 8:35am - I've seen the "sour cream doughnuts" a few times, but almost none of the many, many donut stores here in Hudson Valley and in NYC carry them. Also they don't have the variety of frostings. But then again, California doesn't have great cider donuts. And then again again, do i really need more donuts?? I do not!
What do you add to DONUT get DOUGHNUT? UGH, which pretty much sums up this puzzle.
"This doughnut is truly a work of art – it should be framed and hung up for posterity!"
NAIL JELLY TO THE WALL
Okay that doesn't quite follow the pattern, but how can you do a different-types-of-doughnut theme without JELLY? I kept waiting for it to show up.
Cat Stevens, without Cat Stevens
When I saw Jeff Chen's name I thought "uh oh I'm not gonna be able to do it." But I did (some stuff I didn't know but worked them out) & pretty quickly so I enjoyed it.
Thanks, Jeff & Juliana!
FUNK MUSIC?! No. Just -- no. It's FUNK. Always has been, always will be.
Isn't "funk music" just another example of green paint? And an "aperçu" is a pithy comment about anything not necessarily a review.
Worst slog ever! No joy at all. Do constructors actually think this through? Do they try and solve their own work? When doubled, a fly??? Really, you're not tethered to this world at all.
@Jazzmanchgo - that clue was similar to an earlier clue this week (Wednesday) & how I felt about "Output of the Rolling Stones, appropriately : ROCKMUSIC".
Can anyone tell what the heck APERCU is supposed to mean?
@jazzmanchgo is correct – it is FUNK, period. (Although one can order a white boy to "play that funkY music".)
M&A SunPuz APERCU: UHH.
Not real entertainin, for such a lengthy solvequest.
staff weeject picks: The 3 U-representatives BAU, UHH, UMS.
M&A is more of a CINNAMON *ROLL* fan. Also, more of a humor in a SunPuztheme fan.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Ms. Golden & Mr. Chen. Did like the CANOPYBED clue.
Masked & Anonymo10Us
some humor involved:
**gruntz**
@bocamp 8:49 - Congratulations on conquering the Stumper!
Decent puzzle.
Couldn’t make a dent in the NE corner, but got everything else.
Where I live an old fashioned donut is the same as a plain donut.
much prefer "doughnuts" to "donuts". don uts do nuts does not give you dough nuts.
I'm not sure I will ever see donuts the same way. Honestly, I may be done with them. This was a five mini-puzz slog, and the theme feels so forced it never captured my heart. Felt UHH UM-Y to me.
Oh, and take your APERCU back to France and stay there.
In an activity as overrun with privilege as crosswording you'd think every constructor would have deleted the judgy and outdated UNPC, but what'y'a bet not even one of them has.
I think the song is the lure, not the siren.
Tee-Hee: OILS UP LADY BRAS...
Uniclues:
1 Empty bowl at the ramen shop.
2 The envious moon gets his revenge.
3 "This is it?!" look on rowers face after crossing the Atlantic.
4 F, based on the lack of plankton over noodles.
5 Let's put paper everyone will throw away in boxes all across America.
1 "YES I CAN" UDON EVIDENCE (~)
2 EVE OVERRIDES MR. SUN
3 ERIK GLAZED EXPRESSION
4 ORCA'S RAMEN SHOP GRADE
5 USPS OLD FASHIONED IDEA (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: The guy who is forever saying, "meeyaw muryum." WHALE POD YES MAN.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Carola (1:27 PM)
Thx; I definitely felt like a 'conquerer' after that battle! lol
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
I'm headed out to buy some cider doughnuts. That's what we eat here in the Hudson River Valley this time of the year. Even eating a stale one would be better than this zero of a puzzle.
"Aperçu (pronounced "ah-pair-SOO") is a French word adopted into English, meaning an insightful or brief glimpse or summary of something, often suggesting an understanding or an observation. It's used to describe a concise but illuminating insight or preview.
Synonyms for "apercu" include:
1. Glimpse: A brief and incomplete look or understanding.
2. Insight: A deep or clear understanding of a complex issue.
3. Overview: A general summary or impression of a topic.
4. Clue: A piece of information that helps in understanding or solving a problem.
5. Impression: An idea, feeling, or understanding that you get about something.
Usage in Real Life:
• In everyday conversation: "She provided a valuable aperçu into the complexities of the financial market."
•In literature: "The author's work offers a profound aperçu into the human condition."
•In academic or professional writing: "The research paper's abstract provides a concise aperçu of the study's findings."
•In the arts: "The movie's trailer gives the audience an aperçu of the exciting action scenes."
Aperçu is often used when describing a brief yet meaningful understanding or snapshot of a larger subject. It implies that the insight or observation is valuable, providing a glimpse of something deeper or more complex."(ChatGPT)
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness, Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
PS... Spalding is pronounced SpalDeen. 🙂
Us Brooklyn kids called the ball a SpalDeen. 😁
And what would Rex make of 'doughnaught?'
It's a zero, not a nut!
I often pass by the Morris County School of Glass. So I wrote my punster friend Carl the following, just to see what it might shake loose from him:
Carl -- I signed up for a class in Pane Management, but I didn't like the professor -- you could see right through him.
Within 30 seconds, Carl wrote back: Do they serve glazed donuts there?
Did I know the Fred ASTAIRE quote? Why yes, yes I did. And though I have never heard of an OTTERPOP, I want one badly.
Chopped-up grid sucked a lot of the fun out of this one for me, but on Sunday I do the Sunday puzzle, and today is Sunday so I did what I do.
Late to the party as I spent a long time splitting firewood with my trusty maul at our summer camp. That was slightly more fun than I had doing this one.
I appreciate the effort and creativity that went into this one, JC and JTG, but JC on a bicycle I Just Thought it was a lot of work for the amusement derived. Thanks for giving me
a good excuse to sit down for a while, at least.
In one Honeymooners episode, Alice got a job.
Ralph referred to her as a "career girl," and she said, "Yeah, my career is taking the jelly out of the stale donuts at Krauschmeier's Bakery and putting it into fresh ones."
(I may have some details wrong, but the image stayed with me.)
Have to disagree with Rex in that a “NO RUN inning” is very standard baseball jargon and perfectly fine fill, if you ask me.
@Karlman, I only wish I could explain APERCU or A PER CU or A PERCU or however the heck this needs to be parsed. I still have no isea after way too much wheel spinning. Anybody else? Please?
I agree with Rex. The clued answers were weak…not “Aha” worthy.
I got a clean grid on this thing but I wouldn't call it a pleasant experience. At least it was good practice for whatever bad fill I might run into on a Friday or Saturday.
FOCI is an SB classic. Speaking of which...
yd -0
I liked doughnuts as much as the next person but stopped eating them three plus decades ago when I realized their refined, processed, high glycemic index carbohydrates were the epitome of empty calories and were almost completely devoid of nutrients, fiber and phytochemicals (uclahealth.org).. Yeah, SUGAR BUZZ indeed. As yall might imagine, this theme was not my cup of tea, so to speak.
Let's show some love for APERÇU people. I'm not a francophone and I hate to go up against ChatGPT but I do know it comes from the Latin a- (from ad-), meaning to or toward and precipere meaning to perceive. It's similar to apperception. In philosophy and psychology there is sensation, the immediate raw data, the perception, identifying what the sensation is, and apperception, integrating that perception into the wider knowledge base. Want to impress your family and friends? Try dropping APERÇU into a casual conversation and watch their GLAZED EXPRESSIONs.
I'm trying not to do Sunday puzzle, but was lured in by the unusual grid design.
No one else seems to have read the editor's note; he tells us that the puzzle was born when Jeff Chen showed Juliana Tringali Golden some sample grids. When she saw this one she declared that she had always wanted to do a puzzle about doughnuts, and away they went. But as a grid, I would agree, it is annoying.
@Carol and others -- you're only getting half the theme. A GLAZED EXPRESSION is a saying (i.e., expression) about a kind of doughnut, such as the one in the clue. As with many themes, you have to abstract away from the surface meaning.
Count me among those who wanted PeRI PeRI. More stupidly, I also wanted aMuLEt before EMBLEM. That led to the likelihood that La Perla might sell uRnS. At that point I gave up and looked up La Perla, which made my life a lot easier.
@Ken Freeland like anon, here (RI/MA), ordering an old fashioned donut or a plain donut will get you the same thing which is: a plain, unfrosted, unglazed, and this is the important part - CAKE donut. so it was a bit weird to see both "plain" and "old fashioned" in the grid today, however i can see how "plain" could also mean an unglazed yeasted donut, although i don't think i've ever encountered such a thing.
Doesn’t have to be a reference to gambling. What is quoted is a well known expression. Glazed is the type of doughnut, which added expression creates a well known term.
I agree. Donut most definitely started as ad speak, of which Dunkin is a perfect example.
Rex is a Gen-xer and apparently doesn’t realize there was a time Donut was exactly like Nite, used for commercial purposes only. Apparently, with Rex as evidence, it has become a variant spelling. It will probably win out. The origin of the spelling bothers me more than donut itself.
Must be a WNYer or friend from Canada? Love Tim Horton’s Doughnuts- not their bagels so much.
NORUNs, no hits, no errors
That’s a thing though.
Mender/rips by dnf for me. I did correct to ad space though.
I was too lazy to go through the alphabet to z!
But the answer in a crossword is not a definition, it’s a hint Your statement itself validates the clue and answer here. Nothing wrong with this clue
Can someone explain how “Host” returns MOB? What am I missing?
Before Donut chains were everywhere, independent bakeries, of which there were many, used to sell doughnuts. In my experience, after the Donut chains became ubiquitous (mostly Dunkin’ as I live only 35 miles from their headquarters) doughnuts disappeared from most independent bakeries (I’m not talking about an upscale specialty shop)
Dunkin’ has decent coffee and ironically terrible donuts. Apparently, they make more from coffee and sandwiches. That is why they dropped Donut. Even more ironic. I rarely eat doughnuts now because they are usually Donuts.
I never heard of old fashioned doughnuts. I guess not a term used in New England. I heard the term, but never have seen a cake doughnut.
Decent puzzle. A bit of a slog. Thought a lot of Rex’s nits were silly.
Both mean “a lot of people”
I don't see how ADSPACE is a Natick; by your own admission the crosses are enough to disambiguate the answer.
I'm also surprised by everyone guessing MENDER - a quick surname search shows that MENDEZ is about 500x more common. I know MENDEZes personally, and I've never even heard of a MENDER. I wouldn't consider this a Natick either given how guessable it is.
Puzzle was nothing to write home about, but the nitpicks were beyond silly. And irrelevant to the solve. Come on, Rex. The supposed king just sounds bitter.
You’ve never heard of funk music?!?
Do you not have access to a Google machine? You could, umm, look it up
I'm here for an explanation (to complain about) of Alternative to Betsy being LIZ. Betsy is a nickname for Elizabeth?? All the Betsy's I know are just Betsy. Seems like a dusty clue or maybe I'm too young.
thank you! I was flummoxed.
Well, as an even older Brooklynite, I'd say stoop ball is also a street game because we had to stand in the street, just after the curb to have the right distance from the stoop. Ringaleavio?!( or caught, caught rinaleavio...)
Yes. Definitely spaldeen!
SUGARBUZZ?!? Is that supposed to be like a sugar high? Never heard the term.
Likewise with SNOCAP and OTTERPOP. Seems like these folks like their sweets.
And is TRIPHOP really a thing?
Maybe getting too old for this...
Learned a few things saucy but remain stymied by "Glazed Expression" having anything to do with, "I'll bet you Dollars to Donuts", or vica versa rather. One a statement of certainty, the other an expression of vaguery. Could anyone out there be kind enough to fill me in with jelly or creme because I am truly mystified.
Haven't read all the comments yet… but I lived in Jamaica, not Brooklyn, and we played stoopball as well. I actually think I ran into someone who use the phrase a connection with playing off the steps in front of a brownstone in the city… But that's pretty much a stretch, right?
Totally agree on the birth/derivation: definitely had a liberal/left beginning. I can remember seeing/lamenting it slipping away…
Awful, awful, awful puzzle. Terrible theme and absurdly choppy grid making for a supremely irritating solve.
DNF: couldn't even get out of the %@*(% NW. DAMN that direction!!
"Pod cast" = ORCAS?? Some statement about doughnuts = CAKESTAND??? What is a [looks it up] OMG, there IS such a thing! A whole industry dedicated to putting cakes on little platforms. WHO KNEW?? Even so, how does the clue relate? You mean someone is "taking a stand" by saying it tastes good? Oh BROTHER, that stretches WAY past the breaking point.
Anyway, Wordle birdie.
I truly did complete most of this puzzle without peeking at the answers, but Jeff C. and I are not on the same wavelength. I know he's very famous in puzworld, but I just don't "get" his way of thinking. Oh well. Still fun. And at least this week we're back in 2023!
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
I also found this illness a head scratcher. I was thinking “master of…. ???”
ORCAS as a cross didn’t help. I get the “pod of whales” part, but how does “cast” connect to whales?
Screwed from the get go, that is the NW corner when I entered PERIPERI. A restaurant nearby is Nando’s PERIPERI. PERIPERI Is what the sauce bottles on the supermarket shelf say. Who knew?
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