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"Because freedom can't protect itself" org. / WED 11-22-23 /Constellation whose mane and shoulders are known as "the Sickle" / 13th or 15th days, on the Roman calendar / Dance with a series of spins
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
Constructor: WILL PFADENHAUER
Relative difficulty: EASY-MEDIUM (the fill felt a little hard here, but my time says it wasn't. YMMV)
THEME: ODD BALL (53A - Eccentric sort ... or a "sport" where one might make the plays at 19-, 27-, and 44-Across?) — First words of theme answers are verbs that you might use when talking about a sport, such as the made up "Odd Ball".
Theme answers:
- RUN WILD (19A - Behave uncontrollably)
- CATCH OFF BALANCE (27A - Stagger with unexpected news, maybe)
- THROW OUT OF WHACK (44A - Cause to malfunction)
 |
| Now that's an odd ball. |
Word of the Day: XENOMORPH (This was the clue for 16A - ALIEN) —
The Xenomorph (also known as a Xenomorph XX121 or Internecivus raptus, and simply the creature[a])[1][2][3][4] is a fictional endoparasitoid extraterrestrial species that serves as the title antagonist of the Alien and Alien vs. Predator franchises.
I feel like this clue needed something to indicate that it's asking for a specific alien. Xenomorph is not a generic term, as far as I know.
 |
| Did I choose this just to highlight the iconic HR Giger design? Maybe. |
• • •
Previously on Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword:
Plot twist! You get Eli today! Hi everyone, good to be back and blogging today's puzzle, a Wednesday and an NYT debut for constructor Will Pfadenhauer.
As for the theme... fine? I mean, these are all words that are things you might do in a sport. I appreciate that all of the theme answers use their word in a non-literal sense, but the verbs are still referencing the sports actions. I was also ready to rant about the phrase "catch off balance" not being nearly as common as "throw off balance," but a quick Google tells me that's more of a "me" problem and "catch" is very much in the language.
Also, with only three theme answers and a revealer, the theme content is pretty light, and I'd like to see more sparkly fill as a result. The side-by-side of DUOLINGO (36D - Learning app with an owl mascot) and INUIT ART (37D - Walrus ivory is one traditional medium for it) is very nice, but most of the rest is just kinda there. I did find a lot of the cluing fun, but I'd like to see some of that humor carry over into the answers.
Highlights:
- 60A - John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, for one (NAME) — That's my name, too! Just kidding, my name is ELI (49A - Manning of ESPN's "Manningcast"). One day I'll do something notable enough to justify being a clue here...
- 39A - "Parks and ___" (NBC Sitcom, to fans) (REC) — One of my very favorites. My wife says Adam Scott's character Ben Wyatt is the closest any character has come to being a representation of me on television. I do love a calzone...
- 25A - Kind of bikes for stunt riders (BMX) — RiffTrax's live show this year was riffing the 80s BMX movie RAD, which features a BMX stunt prom set to the music of Sparks!
- 9A - Rifle filler (AMMO) & 41A - Toy shooters (BB GUNS) — No thanks.
- 29D - Team with a sausage race at every home game (THE BREWERS) — That "THE" feels a little arbitrary. Also, as a life-long Cubs fan, THE Brewers aren't my favorite team to see in a puzzle (even though I, myself, am a home beer brewer). The sausage race is a fun tradition, though.
 |
| "The sun, the track, the |
I think that's all I have for today. Rafa will be here for you tomorrow, then I'm back on Friday. Have a great Thanksgiving in the meantime!
****
One quick note before I go. Last time I was here, I asked for donations for Children's Hospital Los Angeles as part of the Malibu Triathlon. Several of you were generous enough to give, and while I really slacked off with Thank Yous this year, I was truly touched by the kindness of the crossword community. In total, the event raised over $1.25 million this year, and I had a blast racing. Thank you all so much for your support!
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49 comments:
Medium. No real problems with this one except for fumbling around in a couple of places on the west side. I knew ISLA from recently rewatching “Arrested Development”. ODD puzzle with some interesting long downs, liked it. Nice debut.
@Eli - enjoyed the write up.
A Tuesday-and-a-half Wednesday. Overwrites:
REel before REIN at 3D
HIrEs before HIDEF at 14D
SAmbA before SALSA at 65A
Happy Thanksgiving, @Eli, @Rex and everyone!
ODD BALL is right - another contrived theme for me. Like THROW OUT OF WHACK as a stand-alone phrase but it’s forced here.
Overall fill is mostly fine - with some exceptions. THE BREWERS, AD LIBBED etc slant this in the wrong direction. Did like FROST, the letter string of INUIT ART and ICE IT.
Pleasant enough rainy Wednesday solve.
Let him RUN WILD
The revealer felt a little flat to me - ODDBALL just doesn’t seem to register as a sport in any coherent way - but no big deal as the theme answers themselves were all common enough phrases. It felt like the rest of it was just about the right amount of resistance for a Wednesday.
I wonder how many people remember Chuck Wepner - that was back in the days when they were 15 rounders - and he and Ali had a pretty good one if memory serves.
Finished it quickly without cheating, thanks to a lucky guess at the SALSA/ALLA cross. Never heard os that dance. I was never aware of a theme until reading the column. An ODDBALL puzzle, I thought.
I wonder how Archie Manning feels, seeing his sons making more money off the field than on it. For my money Archie was the best quarterback in the family, but he played on bad teams and never became as famous as Peyton and Eli.
I especially like this out-there theme – the imaginary game of ODDBALL. As I see it, it would have no rules (otherwise it would cease to become odd) (Hi, @CLM!)), and as every game would be so different from every other, it would become a creative performance that people want to see. ODDBALL games could be presented on YouTube and the games with the most views would become the winners. But I digress…
Other things I liked about this puzzle:
• Learning little new things about FROST, POE, INUIT ART, and the constellation LEO.
• Presence of hot (FIRE, MOLTEN LAVA, SALSA, ASH) and cold (FROST, ICE IT).
• Fauna-related answers: LARVA, EEL, BEE, CAT, ARK, LEO.
• CAT crossing CAT.
• ALLAH and ALLA.
I was also inspired by the constructor’s tenacity, that this is a debut following a long string of rejections.
Will, the out-of-the-boxness of your theme has me itching to see what you come up with next. Congratulations, and thank you for a splendid outing!
I couldn't guess what the revealer was going to be in this one at all and thought ODDBALL was just great. Just goofy enough. I especially like the idea of RUNWILD. No boundaries, just take off. Whee!
New to me was ISLA, as I had previously thought that no woman is an ISLA.
Otherwise solid fill and smooth as a smelt. Congratulations of the debut, WP. Well Played, way to hang in there, and thanks for all the fun.
Talk about phoning it in…
A promising debut, Will. Looking forward to seeing more.
I recently started watching Wolf like Me starring ISLA Fisher, so that is no longer a crossword-only name for me.
I had to wonder if I understood this theme correctly, as it seemed so terrible. It turns out yes, I understood it, and yes, it is terrible. I was looking forward to a good Rexrant today.
Oddball, maybe. Dodgeball, more like it.
I think Eli has the explanation a bit off ... it's not just the first word but the whole phrase that serves as a play in "odd ball."
Hey All !
Ah. Took me a sec to realize you need the full Themers to make sense of the ODDBALL/"ODD"BALL. If you are playing said ODDBALL, you might RUN WILD, you might CATCH OFF BALANCE, you might THROW OUT OF WHACK. Not just the general RUN, CATCH, THROW. Because it's ODD.
Nice 15's. Fun clues, MOLTEN LAVA, for one.
Sorta ODD grid in the fact the Themers are rather close (top two, bottom two). Usually they're a few rows apart. But, works here. Gives you some freedom in filling in the corners.
I liked it, Congrats on the debut! Nice to sneak an F in your last name. Har.
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I would go hard for a Calvin Ball themed puzzle--ODDBALL though, doesn't quite land--though I guess not landing would be an odd thing for a ball to do--"Hang in the sky in much the same way bricks don't."*
The clue feels off to me. I've always understood something CATCH's you OFF BALANCE as meaning hitting you at a bad, or awkward time. That maybe seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting.
*Maybe it's time to reread Hitchhiker's Guide
It was an enjoyable solve, which is all that I ask. So that if I noticed some theme weaknesses, I didn't really care that much. I do think that if RUN were something you did with the BALL itself, like CATCH and THROW, the theme would have been stronger. And even if it were BALL-related, RUN WILD is a pretty tepid themer compared with the others.
Let's see -- what else can you do with a ball?
HIT
SERVE
DRIBBLE
SPIKE
KICK
Aha!!!! KICK!!!! That's a good one. KICK UP A FUSS, maybe? But then how do you get ODDBALL to be 11 letters? REAL ODDBALL? Nah. Green paint.
Oh, well. For the purposes of being lighthearted, breezy and enjoyable, this slightly flawed puzzle worked just fine.
You’re just jealous because your brother is in the puzzle (often) and you aren’t.
Love these easy Wednesdays I can solve without help and feel smart! hahaha
I took "catch off balance" as a variant of "catch off guard". I'm not sure if i've really heard that out in the wild or if I've convinced myself i have
Fairly new to reading the blog but I would've had no suspicions this wasn't Rex if you hadn't said so Eli. Not sure if that's a compliment or not lol
This puzzle has ALLA, ALLAH, and ALI.
Re: ARK. There was a NYer cartoon a while back on the ark. A lion is saying to Noah: "We need more gazelles."
Happy Holiday everyone. The NYT invited readers to share their tips on how they survive time with their families. Maureen of Palm Desert, CA, wrote: "When spending time with family over the holidays, I bring a few mementos -- my business cards, photos with friends, and my house keys -- all to remind me that I have a fulfilling life elsewhere."
Yup.
Not a bad puzzle for a Wednesday! I learned a few things and I can’t think of a race more “oddball” or fun than a sausage race.
Anyway I’d like to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving! Keep puzzling crossword bloggers!
Some Wednesday wit - coming up with the idea of ODD BALL as a game and then three ways chaos can ensue...goofy and fun.
Do-overs: save before HIDE, HI-res, Gah. No idea: ISLA. Gold star: a new way to clue EEL.
@Lewis, thank you for pointing out the extra pleasures in the grid.
@Eli, thank you for the smiles in your write-up.
I’ve been to a few Brewers games over the years and always enjoyed the sausage race. It doesn’t really matter who comes in first, everyone’s a wiener.
John Jacob jingleheimer schmidt: today’s earworm 😳!
The theme didn't really work for me, in that the theme answers are all things that might happen in an actual baseball or football game: catching the ball while falling over backwards, getting a quick throw off from an awkward position, or just running like crazy. I actually did an internet search for "oddball" to see if there was some new game I'd never heard of (like pickle ball before my sister-in-law took it up). But OK, it was still fun to fill them in.
I did hesitate at ROD, since that's the name for a specific auto part, at least if the auto has a piston engine. And NIT to pick seems naked without "an." But those are, in fact, NITs, so a good time was had by me.
Anyway, I was delighted to learn about the sausage race! I grew up in Wisconsin, when the Milwaukee Brewers were a minor league team, displaced when the Braves moved in from Boston, so I'm pretty unfamiliar with the Major League Brewers. Now I want to see a home game!
Attention wine lovers. We have MALBEC ONSALE in the NE corner.
From the sound of it, BDAY might be more of an ass-cleaning than a candle lighting occasion.
Good way to drive @Roo crazy? HIDEF
I guess the hoity toity must say "the poor bugger has had a XENOMORPH placed on his abode" when they really mean "there's ALIEN on his house."
If you injure your back playing the game where you try to hit a mole with a hammer, is it THROWnOUTOFWHACK?
Enjoyable and cute. Congrats on the debut, WILL PFADENHAUER.
The theme doesn't work. Evidence? How hard some of us tried to make sense of it.
Nothing here to like. Will's crew couldn't sharpen up the cluing. No sparkle. 22 threes.
Any other old-timer reminded of this must-have toy from Xmas ‘62?
Odd Ogg, Odd Ogg,
Half turtle and half frog!
Oddball with Odd Ogg!
As a progressive rock fan, I enjoyed the MOLTEN LAVA reveal… wonder if Yes ever wrote a song about that…
I’ve been to a few Brewers games over the years and always enjoyed the sausage race. It doesn’t matter who comes in first, everyone’s a wiener!
Thx, Will; you're definitely on the BALL today! 😊
Hi Eli, good to see you again; thx for your write-up! 😊
Med.
Fairly smooth solve, except needing all crosses for INUIT ART & THROW OUT OF WHACK.
Understand that the themers can represent various 'BALL' sports, but not quite grokking how 'odd' comes into it. 🤔
Enjoying my daily DUOLINGO Spanish course. 🦉
Fun puz; liked it muchly! :)
___
Anna Shechtman's New Yorker Mon was med dif (2x NYT Sat.)
On to Neville Fogarty's New Yorker cryptic.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
"Catch off balance" is totally a thing. To me it's subtly different. If you catch someone off guard, they're completely unsuspecting of what just you just sprung on them. If you catch them off balance, they may be totally aware that a situation was possible, or even likely, but it presented itself while they were in the middle of something else and unable to respond gracefully.
Very pleasant blog writeup today, Eli and thank you for taking the time. I agree on the one themer and thought that CATCH OFF GUARD or THROW OFF BALANCE seemed more familiar to me. But still a well-balanced Wednesday and nothing OUT OF WHACK about this puzzle. Very nice debut for Will.
I join with Eli re his comment on AMMO and BB GUNS. Additionally, the clue for AMMO requires ", in brief" or something similar. And BB GUNS are not toys.
And the theme ain't got game.
Otherwise, another episode of NYTXW's Toop Easy Week.
This took me awhile to get into but once I did, I liked it. Nice debut, Will!
Happy Thanksgiving to you Eli - see you on Friday (& of course, everyone else a day early).
This puztheme kinda THROWS yah OFF, with its ODDness. Might be one of the most raised-by-wolves themes of the year. soooo … in this game of ODDBALL, does one …
* SCORE PEWITS?
* KICK FOURTH-DOWN PANTS?
* HOLD SAUCE EDGE RACES?
* BE EATIN THE COMPETITION?
* PLAY IN THE TOILET BOWL, and ...
* WIN THE BOWEL GAME?
har
Sure liked MOLTENLAVA and its clue, tho.
staff weeject pick: BMX. Sportin event named by Musk?
Thanx, Mr. Pfadenhauer dude. And congratz on yer most oddball debut. Can't wait for the next one.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
**gruntz**
If you're gonna tangle with that maggot, be careful -- LARVA HAS AMMO!
I knew something else had to be involved in the theme other than just RUN, CATCH and THROW a BALL, especially since it's hard to RUN a BALL. So I tried to figure out how ODD in the reveal worked with WILD, OFF BALANCE and OUT OF WHACK. No luck. Read the blog and the comments, some of them twice, and still no luck. So it remains an ODDBALL puzzle for me. Hmmm, maybe that was the point.
Hah!
And now, for a game of HAIRBALL.
Clue #1: "Pay what you owe!"
Clue #2: Spill things, get everything dirty, etc.
Clue #3: Where you'll see dancers at a nightclub
Answer #1: COUGH IT UP
Answer #2: MAKE A MESS
Answer #3: ON THE FLOOR
Not a fan of this one, but it was good enough to keep me busy during the holiday planning session (that won't be followed). Too many little short answers in this puzzle for a Wednesday.
I tried to research Oddball, and I think it's a fake game made up by P.E. teachers maybe.
Tee-Hee: I did not know about the Brewers and their sausages, but it's very ... ehem ... racy.
@Anoa Bob 1:52 PM (yesterday)
I know the crossword venues publish "rules," but every one of them is routinely violated, so they're not rules, they're guidelines. Almost everything in life and art is a guideline masquerading as a rule. This is understandably challenging for rule followers to accept.
Uniclues:
1 Armed grub.
2 Shocked at bicycle riding shocker.
3 Erotica.
4 Fourth grader who swears the government will pry them from his cold dead hands.
5 Salivate over the big socket wrench collection.
6 Murdered walruses apparently.
7 Copy of "The Road Not Taken" used for cleaning shoes.
8 Reeds rawked rogue.
9 Congressman or jailbird.
10 Saab rod.
1 LARVA HAS AMMO
2 GEE, BMX EEL
3 AS-HOT RETELL
4 BB GUNS SAVER
5 VIEW COMBO SET
6 HI-DEF INUIT ART
7 HIS FROST MAT
8 OBOES ADLIBBED (~)
9 FED SEAT MATE (~)
10 SWEDISH AXLE (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Curry emulating Jackson. MOONDANCE STEPH.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Still working on grokking 'ODD'.
This idea (likely, a far stretch) did come to mind however, related to Ohio State football in the Woody Hayes era, where he was credited with coining the phrase, "three yards, and a cloud of dust!" He begrudgingly called for the 'ODD' passing play, just to keep the defense OFF BALANCE.
I guess his offensive strategy could've been classified as an ODDBALL style, being at ODDs with much of the rest of the country. 🤔
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
FWIW salsa from the Spanish word for sauce as in salsa used for a dip. This was applied to a very popular music and dance called salsa. I think they are of Puerto Rican origin.
Its popularization in the US started among the large Puerto Rican community in the NYC.
Ammo is so commonly used now that it has almost replaced ammunition. Anyway, Wednesday is borderline between early week and late week when th brief etc are often omitted. I think the clue is fine. Unfortunately for many people, a BB gun was considered a toy , and maybe some still do. I definitely remember a time when it was. Both ammo and BB gun are a bit ugly with their clues, but they are technically valid.
@Nancy - Football players RUN the BALL quite frequently.
SPARKS!!
This one misses the mark. Simply not ODDBALL enough for the theme to work.
Third reference to DUOLINGO in my little world this week. Coincidence? You decide.
Nothing too ODDBALL about the puzzle - fairly easy Wednesday fare. Yeah - that's fair.
Diana the Fair, LIW
THRIFT TEST (COMBO SAVER)
ATNIGHT LARA's ON call,
she HAS THEM MATE AT retail,
GEE, THE DAY's an ODDBALL
when THE HOE BEE ONSALE.
--- GWEN HYATT
Not bad; nothing to THROW me OUTOFWHACK. A little ODDBALL shakes things up. Birdie.
Wordle par; putter went cold, another GGGBG miscue.
Many younger commenters on here will probably be agasp and aghast, but when I was a kid BB guns were definitely a toy and most boys had one. And one of the things we did for fun was have BB gun wars. You heard me correctly, we shot at each other. From a distance of course. And this was not the most dangerous thing we did as kids for fun. Boggles the mind does it not.
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