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Deity from whose hair flows the river Ganga / THU 12-28-23 / 1960s-70s archetype / Thai hot-and-sour soup / Cereal with a Mega Stuf version / Early employer of Steve Jobs / Boy's name in a #1 Beatles hit / Collection of traits necessary for "The achievement of great things," as theorized by Machiavelli / Biblical figure who is compared to a hairy garment
Thursday, December 28, 2023
Constructor: Kiran Pandey
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (mostly Easy, but a couple of these movie titles might be elusive for many solvers...)
Theme answers:
Really like this theme concept. It's ... tight. Generally. There are a couple of ways in which you could say the puzzle wobbles. The first is that the last "review" ("CRAZY!") is an outlier, in that all the other one-word assessments are uniformly and unambiguously positive. They are all one-word slang terms for "excellent." "Lit" runs more to "exciting," but if you call a movie "lit," that's always going to be a rave. Whereas "Crazy," yeah, maybe, but maybe not. Seems like it's in a fundamentally different category than the other one-word "reviews." The clue tries to force the issue by saying "Insanely good," but I just don't think "CRAZY!" means "good" the way the others mean "good." The bigger wobble today has to do with the relative fame of the movies, specifically the relative fame of MOON, which ... had critical success, and is known to scifi aficionados, but is not in the same solar system, not in the same universe, famewise, as the other movies involved in this theme. OK, maybe it's in the same *universe* as DRIVE, but FROZEN, UP, and GREASE are all iconic. Huge hits, enduring fame. DRIVE's fame is somewhat more modest than those Big Three, but DRIVE is a modern noir classic and it stars Ryan Gosling, so it has legs. I don't know that MOON has legs. I hadn't even heard of it when it got chosen as the movie for my Pandemic Movie Club (now just Movie Club) a few years back. It's good, but that's not the point. Famewise, it's a giant outlier today. I think it's famous enough to pass, but we're talking about wobbles, and it makes the theme wobble. A little. But for me, a movie fan who knew all the movies involved, this theme was enjoyable. (Still never seen FROZEN—my daughter's princess phase was in the rearview by 2013)
- GREASE FIRE (17A: "That 1978 musical? Amazing movie!") (Grease? Fire!)
- UPTIGHT (25A: "That 2009 Pixar film? Incredibly well made!") (Up? Tight!)
- FROZEN SOLID (36A: "That 2013 Disney movie? Pretty decent!") (Frozen? Solid!)
- MOONLIT (51A: "That 2009 science fiction flick? Freaking epic!") (Moon? Lit!)
- DRIVE CRAZY (61A: "That 2011 neo-noir? Insanely good!") (Drive? Crazy!)
Moon is a 2009 science fiction film directed by Duncan Jones (in his directorial debut) and written by Nathan Parker from a story by Jones. The film follows Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), a man who experiences a personal crisis as he nears the end of a three-year solitary stint mining helium-3 on the far side of the Moon. Kevin Spacey voices Sam's robot companion, GERTY. Moon premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and was released in selected cinemas in New York and Los Angeles on 12 June 2009. The release was expanded to additional theatres in the United States on 10 July and to the United Kingdom on 17 July. A follow-up film containing an epilogue to the film's events, Mute, was released in 2018. A third installment, a graphic novel called Madi: Once Upon A Time in the Future, was released in 2020.Moon was modestly budgeted and grossed just under $10 million worldwide, but was well received by critics. Rockwell's performance found praise. The movie won numerous film critic and film festival awards and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Film, and won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 2010. (wikipedia)
• • •
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| [Air? Cool!] |
The fill on this one is mostly ... solid. Not a fan of company names, especially the names of exploitive dystopian behemoths like DOORDASH (see "Controversies, lawsuits, and criticisms" here, for starters), but you can't say DOORDASH / KWANZAA isn't a fresh and original pair of long answers. I also liked TOM YUM—yum, indeed (23A: Thai hot-and-sour soup) OREOOS is the worst of the crosswordese cereals (bring back KIX!), and every time I see it, I think "wow, the constructor must've been desperate." Luckily it's the worst thing in sight in that NE corner. Bad fill can be tolerable as long as it's supporting a lot of good fill. My main criticism of the fill today involves STAY UP— (50D: What many children are told not to do on Christmas Eve, but encouraged to do on New Year's Eve) [sidenote: who the hell is *encouraging* their kids to STAY UP, ever?]. I'd normally say that duping "UP" is not that big a deal, as long as the "UP"s are in different parts of the grid, but today, with "UP" being a theme element, I really think the rest of the grid should've had a "no extra UPs" policy. Duping is always an iffy practice. Duping some short words, some of the time, is excusable. But you really shouldn't dupe theme elements. Today, STAY UP becomes STAY IN no problem. You dupe the "IN" from "I'M IN," but that's better than duping a theme element. And you could still get a New Year's Eve clue out of it, e.g. [What I have done for every New Year's Eve as far back as I can remember] ...
[Is this ... MOON?]
The puzzle seemed generally easy today, but I struggled mightily in one place because of a particularly painful trap I fell into. I was flying along and off the "N" in TAINT I wrote in C'MON at 7D: "Let's do this thing!" and then confirmed it (ughhh) with TIMID (15A: Like a mouse). So C'MON was locked in tight, and seemed indisputably correct. It fit perfectly, both sense-wise and grid-wise. And then I hit the "Deity" (5A: Deity from whose hair flows the river Ganga) and was staring down SHC- ... and my first instinct was to doubt not C'MON but HIFI! (6D: Preference for an audiophile). Gah! I got ADE easy, but the whole area up there was made much, much worse by VIRTU (!?!?!), what? (8D: Collection of traits necessary for "The achievement of great things," as theorized by Machiavelli). You can tell by that paragraph-long and overly detailed clue that you've got an obscure answer on your hands there. I thought the theme would fix it, but GREASE ... what? I had GREASEFO-E. Looking back now, I really should've seen the problem. But I truly did not. "GREASE... DOPE!" Nope. I had to back in there after getting the terminal "U" in VIRTU from "UP." Then the "V" gave me SHIVA (d'oh! of course...) and finally "I'M IN!" showed up. I assume the "I'M IN" clue was written specifically to elicit C'MON as a guess. Or I'm just a weirdo who fell in his own self-made trap. Both possible.
That's all. More Holiday Pet Pics now. Actually, today, just one, and the letter that came with it. RIP, Kairos, you beautiful shepherd baby.
Hi Rex,
Thanks as ever for your wonderful, illuminating, and so often vindicating blog!
My family had to put down our beloved dog today [Dec. 14], just shy of his ninth Christmas. Although he couldn’t do the NYT crossword, he loved sitting at our feet while we did :) Here’s him last year waiting to unwrap his frisbees:
Save And Share :
84 comments:
Fairly Easy, except for the due north. My audiophile's preference was bose instead of HIFI, VIRTU without the terminal E was a WOE and I blanked on SHIVA and IMIN. If I'd thought of @Rex c'MoN I'd have DNFed.
For the food delivery company at 39D, I had DO------ and wondered how DOmino's could possibly fit.
Also had cMoN before IMIN, which slowed me down a bunch.
Flew through it. Thursday was easier than Wednesday, this week.
This felt like a typical Sunday theme compressed into a weekday grid. I like it better as a weekday than a Sunday. The small grid makes the theme much tighter feeling. But I very rarely do Sunday puzzles so maybe I remember them incorrectly.
I didn't like it at all. Almost totally without sparkle, "One in a black suit" the only star. Wobbly theme. I follow movies pretty closely but I hadn't heard of Moon. And a good review would say it's lit? No.
Was sailing until the NE where I had Whoa before HALT, and thought the cereal was spelled Oreohs, not OREOOS.
Very, very hard Thursday for me. Surprised by how many words I needed to get entirely by crosses: VIRTU, TOMYUM, YEA, AHA, BINGE. And among the movies, never heard of MOON or DRIVE.
The only movie I recognized was "Grease!" but I finished it more quickly than on most Thursday mornings. The SHIVA/VIRTUE cross was a brief stumbling block, so was ISAW (I wanted "I see.").
Thanks to the constructor for a pleasant Thursday. I didn't utter a single naughty word.
Watch "Frozen!" So clever throughout then an awesome ending that you, RP, will love and respect..
Rex, you may be a weirdo, but not for falling for the CMON trap. I did too, and probably many others as well. In fact, I thought I would DNF because I wasn’t seeing what I obviously had wrong. Found my way out more or less the same way you did and similarly said WTF is VIRTU?
I also thought MOONLIT was a bit weak because I’d never heard of the movie. But sounds worth watching. I am guessing a lot of commenters will not get any of these adjectives as meaning “amazing” or “freaking epic” but I am around a lot of young people at home and work so I can hear them saying these things.
UbeReats before DOORDASH. Is there any of these food delivery services that isn’t so exploitive?
Two LIT! FIRE! TIGHT! clues: “Experience four seasons in one day” for BINGE and “What you might say when the coast is clear” for LAND HO. I had Lets gO for the latter and I was so happy I was wrong.
It appears as if the NYT team has forgotten the day of the week. Where’s the trick - where’s the ruse? Not a terrible puzzle- but a complete vanilla let down.
Puppy prayers for Kairos.
My Brother ESAU
Not so hot on the cluing for 32A: NOUN
Just an early note to remind everyone that Will Nediger and I have a puzzle in today's (Thursday) Universal Puzzle.
In a few hours, after breakfast, I'll post a comment on today's NYT puzzle.
No chance on the theme entries for me - if OFL thinks a film is too obscure, there’s a good chance that I never heard of it.
MANGA sounds like something you would do to a pizza.
As for VIRTU - guys, if you need a magnifying glass to read the clue, get another clue, or another answer. It’s a plain and simple rule of thumb. This really shouldn’t look like it’s rocket science to the editors.
Never heard of DRIVE or MOON but they caused no trouble. I use CRAZY to mean “really good” quite often, or maybe “really good but decidedly unusual.” “Poor Things” is definitely CRAZY. I also got tricked into CMON but not for long — it just smelled like a trick.
Gonna stand up for VIRTU here. Finally the week of lectures on this topic in my classical political philosophy class 25 years ago has paid off!
This was a rough go for me; for a while there was blank space almost like a Saturday. Could be I'm just rusty from a week of absence but it presented quite a challenge. Figuring out the theme helped but since I only knew FROZEN and GREASE, it was still an uphill battle.
@Tess: I'm so very sorry for the loss of your sweet Kairos. He was an exceptionally handsome boy.
I don't think it's possible to binge 4 seasons in one day. Even with modern television shows that might have 6 episodes to a season. (Maybe some BBC series' that have 3 episodes to a season - but even then, the Brits call each season a "series", not season. i.e., series 1, series 2, etc...)
MOONLIT was my first themer and no help at all, as I hadn't heard of the movie and never describe anything as "LIT". No problem with the Middle North though as my go-to Hindu deity is SHIVA (Hindu, right?). Also I've been listening to Christmas music and "There is no rose of such VIRTUe, pronounced vir-too, so that seemed familiar.
Didn't know Steve Jobs worked at ATARI. Huh.
Was hoping for some Thursday tricksiness, but this one had the saving grace of including Mt. ARARAT. Hello old friend, and welcome back.
Nice enough Thursdecito, KP. Knew Pretty much all of these, and was done too soon. Thanks for a fair helping of fun.
@Roo-Hey, a PAOLO! Close enough. And no, you don't get credit for oReOOs.
Well done @Nancy - elegant, nuanced theme that’s nicely revealed. Not sure it was you or Will - but love the Schoenberg clue.
Hey All !
OREO OS has a Mega Stuf variety?? Where have I been? Under a rock? Gotta get some.
Pretty good theme. Why on a Thursday is the question here. Perfect WedsPuz material...
Liked the brevity of a one word movie review (well, two words technically). There should be a movie critic out there with this schtick.
Is there a movie titled "Tom"? If so, TOM YUM could be a Themer.
@pablo
We got a PAULO, close enough?
Have a good day, y'all.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Favorite clue of the day and one of my favorite soups - TOMYUM! A little disappointed in the relatively obscure movies to finish UP the bottom. Only got MOON as a function of LIT - same with DRIVE. ASIAGO was obvious but never knew it was an Alpine cheese.
Growing up - huge family parties on NYE. Grown ups telling us we had to stay up to watch the ball come down. It seemed like a thing when I was 8. Not sure why watching the ball come down was so appealing. Now I do it because it reminds me of when I was 8. Go figure.
As an Oreo snob if I were king of the world there would only be 2 kings of Oreos. Original. Double Stuffed. No cereal, no Funafuti, not mint, no pumpkin - none of it. But especially no cereal.
You’ve never heard of Frozen?
The most important observation for me , all dogs go to heaven.
This was fun. My only complaint is the final themer felt a bit off. The first four are real words or phrases that are commonly used: GREASE FIRE, UPTIGHT, FROZEN SOLID, and MOONLIT. No one ever says "DRIVE CRAZY" ... maybe "you drive me/you/one crazy" but it just doesn't stand up as it's own phrase. I thought for sure Rex would nail this in his review. I still never quite know exactly what to expect!
I got a little confused about the theme because Moonlight was a great movie, and so I thought the movie titles were being put into past tense or something. That said, I recommend Moon to all those who don't know it. Don't read summaries; just watch it. It's got Sam Rockwell, always a bonus. Also, STOP and WAIT before finally hitting HALT messed up that corner for a while. The dog photo made me sad; we said goodbye to our pooch three months earlier to the day referenced in that note and it still hurts.
Well, your slang for excellence isn't MY slang for excellence. Just saying.
For me...
LIT = 1) illuminated; and 2) fairly drunk
FIRE = 1) Something hot and smoky; and 2) To shoot a gun
TIGHT = 1) [Too] close-fitting, as in Spandex; and 2) very friendly
CRAZY = 1) Not quite sane/completely nuts; and 2) Unpredictable
I will grant you SOLID as a word meaning excellence. But that's about it.
A few write-overs today. LORD before LADY; I DIG before I SAW (hated that clue); and UBER DASH before DOOR DASH. (I'm not familiar with my online delivery options; I eliminate the middleman by calling a restaurant in my neighborhood directly.)
Thought for the Day: What right does Machievelli, famous for saying that the Prince should prefer being feared to being loved, have to talk about VIRTU? Or even about VIRTUE. When I read "The Prince" as part of my studies as a Government major, Machievelli was taught as an advocate of realpolitik, not as a promoter of virtue.
@Tess - If you had a good German Shepherd, you had the best dog in the world. Sorry for your loss.
I spent half my time in the NE, as I filled in STOP @10A and ACHE @19A off the clues and gave those two guesses more credence than my (partially) confirmed SPADES/UPTIGHT/OREOOS. Giving more credence to hunches than to options with proven credibility is never a good path in life.
Many years ago I had a music performance teacher, who told me in a late night conversation that when one of his students gave a so-so performance he would say “crazy!” rather than say something explicitly negative. A few weeks later, I attended a master class with him. After one performance, he said “crazy, man!” I cringed.
Anonymous @ 9:36 Yes, all dogs go to heaven, but there's a very special place for them called "The Rainbow Bridge" where my Cinnamon is and Rex's Olive & now Kairos & so many others 💔 I'm very sorry for your loss, Tess.
On to the puzzle.
Younger people who use words like FIRE and LIT to describe something really good often use CRAZY the same way these days, as an unambiguous/very enthusiastic positive. “That song/movie/experience goes CRAZY! Straight FIRE!” It’s an accurate reflection of contemporary slang in this puzzle. Good one.
In the Jewish version of this puzzle, the clue for SHIVA is "Something you sit." It's the Hebrew word for "seven," representing the seven days of mourning, but it usually ends up being less than seven for some reason or other. Life goes on.
Dreary.
Although at first glance virtù seems like a direct translation of the English word “virtue”, it is a very distinct set of characteristics that all leaders must have in order to rule effectively.
Virtù includes pride, bravery, skill, forcefulness, and an amount of ruthlessness coupled with the willingness to do evil when necessary.
Virtù is drive, talent, or ability directed toward the achievement of certain goals, and it is the most vital quality for a prince. Even criminals like Agathocles or extremely cruel rulers like Severus can possess virtù. Virtù could defeat fortuna if it is properly applied.
Not my Thursday: none of the theme adjectives are in my rave-review repertoire, so I had to work through a long period of "What's going on here?" before I got the idea. Rough start, too, with mistakes and blank stares in the top section. The one positive was the opportunity to recall Moon - haunting, has stayed with me.
Do-overs: Lord before LADY; Erin before EIRE, UPrIGHT, KWaanza. Help from previous puzzles: OREOOS. No idea: VIRTU, DRIVE.
Nice thing about the themes is that you don't have to know the movies since they are all in the language phrases. All the review parts can mean something else.
I see now that I could have intuited the Portuguese spelling of Paulo from the last name with the "h" in Coelho.
@Nancy, fun theme. Who came up with the Schoenberg clue? Almost seems like that answer could be turned into an interesting theme somehow.
I had a real bonehead mistake on the Alphabet run thinking of TRU as a shortened name. Made a mess for awhile including taking out IMIN to try CMON for a brief sec.
You really can't complain about modern slang if you're over, say, 50 years old and ever in your life said, cool, neat, neato, rad, groovy, etc., hip, hep, etc. So there it is, next time you'll remember it. Unless you're like me and have the short term memory these days of a guppy. Work it into a conversation with a youngster and watch them grin.
@Nancy: Aha! No surprise to see another winner from you and Will. You guys are a pair to draw to. I’ll email you with my particulars, but I found your Thursday to be a very pleasurable solve - not too hard, not too easy. And thank you for proving once and for all that excellence (to use the word of the day) can be attained in a crossword puzzle with almost no proper names or trivia.
@Nancy. Your response to my @Kitshef comment late yesterday missed my lame attempt at humor. I was playing on the reading of the sentence which would result in @Kitshef saying ".... alas the dinosaurs is gone." If you take my comments as serious, you'll generally be wrong. BTW, liked you LAT puzz today.
Finally, a fiction genre that I can really get behind, that lets me get to the bottom of things: MOONLIT! Too STEAMY for some perhaps.
I've collected so many NOBELS that now I just Chuck them out in my field of ALOES.
This puzzle was no AIRPLANECRASH. Thanks for the witty theme, Kiran Pandey
Crazy-jazz musician and beatnik use meaning good or great.
In an amazing coincidence, I had prepared a dish of baked ziti and put it in the oven last night right before sitting down to solve this. I have to say, I enjoyed my dinner much more than the puzzle.
I did like Nancy's puzzle today, though.
TOMYUM.....! Where have you been all my life?
Ok, so I'm back from many days of eating, eating and eating some more. I love Christmas!
When you don't do puzzles for a lot of days, you become fat and complacent. All the wrappings are gone, the dishes all done and now time to tackle what I love with my morning Peet's......My angst, agita dyspepsia Thursday. BUT...maybe it might've been all the jolly inside of me that made this the easiest Thursday I have done.
I started with a tad of angst at 8D. I had VIRT and added a UE to it. Is this going to be a UE rebus? No....25A is something TIGHT. Oh....It's the movie UP and its TIGHT. Que fun. FROZEN SOLID....I know you well. On to the rest.
MOON LIT....I never danced with you but I had no option. DOODAD led me to you. He wasn't much of a dancer either. I finally got the fandango tango I was looking for.
I had write-overs at the git go. I stared at 2D and wanted to misspell vuvuzela. I stared at Lord before LADY and, well, it was messy. TOM YUM came to my rescue and I was able to fix the LADY and the AIR HORN. That was my only snafu.
Just. my two cents: I want to scream whenever I hear an AIR HORN. Vuvuzela, you DRIVE me CRAZY...So glad you weren't my dance partner.
This was a fun puzzle to do for my return. I love all the fur baby pictures @Rex posted. So sad when we lose them. Kairos looks just like one of the best dogs I owned. He was a Sheppard named RENO and letting him go to Dog Heaven had me in tears forever. So sorry for your loss, Tess.
Pro tip -- SHIVA is the right length, unlike Krishna, Ganesh, Kali, or any other Hindu gods I know of. It helped that I'm a political scientist and got my PhD back in the days when you had to include either ancient or modern political theory in your preliminary exams. VIRTU (no e, but an accent over the u) is big in his work. Being feared, not loved, and justifying the means by the ends are also big, but they are political tactics, not personal qualities. It's not what we would call 'virtue,' more the ability to act decisively.
Even so, I didn't put it in until I confirmed it by SHIVA.
I haven't seen any of these movies, but had heard of all but two, and they were pretty easy to infer.
I liked the YUM/YOM downward stairstep, but really wished he could have got YAM in there as well.
I am wondering about POLO shirts, though. I always assumed people wore them to play polo; but then a brand was endorsed by Lacoste, a tennis player. But golf? I'm not much on the game, but aren't there special shirts that make it easier to swing your arms freely? Or am I thinking of bowling? If you know the answer, please fill me in!
I think the Shortz philosophy is that if you always run your trick puzzles on Thursday then people will stop being surprised by them.
Easy-medium. No real problems with this one. Spelling KWANZAA is always iffy and VIRTU didn’t look right but it worked. PAULO was it for WOEs.
I liked the puzzle but for me it should have been switched with yesterday’s which took me longer.
Moon was a great film. The puzzle creator took the opportunity to highlight one lesser-known but deserving film among the other famous titles.
@Hal9000 said it. Not read Machiavelli since Sophomore World Lit, so I enjoyed the prompt to revisit the VIRTU vs virtuè complexity at least.
This one played "Medium plus" for me, partly because my first answer entered was C'MON.
C'MON, man!
This was a perfectly good (& I'm sure, enjoyable) puzzle for those who finished it & one that, for some reason, I just couldn't wrap my head around. Lots of stuff I didn't know, but that's not a first (!). Dunno why.....
Did NOT miss Rebus Thursday!
For everyone who has asked me/complimented me either here or off-blog about "the Schoenberg clue" -- and I'm thinking to myself "What Schoenberg clue?" -- I went back to look at the puzzle again. You all should know:
It's the only answer in the puzzle I didn't clue.
And that's because the answer is a word I never heard of. Whenever that happens -- and it doesn't happen often -- I'll say to Will: "Could you please clue it." When an answer is outside your own sphere of knowledge, you can't possibly know if the clue you're providing is too hard/too easy/inaccurate/unfair.
Other than that, all the original clues in this puzzle were mine. While it's logistically and technically too difficult for Luddite me to check my original clues against the ones that appear here, my impression was when David sent me the completed puzzle in a PDF, that not all that many had been changed.
@Nancy, nice one! Thank you. for alerting us.
@Nancy - VIRTU is a word in and of itself, and definition #1 would likely be how Machiavelli used. I assume (yes, I know) that definition #2 can be attributable to people who don't know definition #1.
I was just listening to Four Seasons in One Day (Crowded House) before doing this puzzle! I couldn't think of a 5 letter word for "listen to music". Maybe CHILL?
MOON was a good movie but I really cringed at the ping-pong scene (I think he played with himself?) Think about it: ping pong in one-sixth gravity????
Like Rex, I've seen all the movies but FROZEN.
[Spelling Bee: Wed 0; 5 day streak though I missed the 25th and 26th.]
@Nancy....Ay chihuahua, amiga. Good one...Yes indeed1. You and Will certainly make a good team!
Patiently waited for a rebus or some other puzzling chicanery to appear. Never happened. (I really wanted the audiophile's preference to be analog early on).
I'm probably picking nits, but Sysco must be larger/deliver more food than DOORDASH.
Decided that VIces would be the necessary traits Machiavelli listed, but naturally, he wouldn't see it that way.
The History of Rock n' Roll in 500 songs just dropped a 3 hour episode looking at Hey JUDE.
GREASEFIRE was definitely my fave puzthemer. I knew both the flick and the slang term for amazin.
Puz kinda put up a fight, off and on, at our house. Several no-knows contributed to the nanosecond drain: TOMYUM. PAULO. DMS [staff weeject pick]. RIC. MANGA. VIRTU.
some fave stuff: OREOOS. LANDHO & its clue. KWANZAA spellin challenge. ASIAGO. The Jaws of Thursdayness, which are a bit long in the tooth.
The 13-Down answer for {Responsibility for a social media manager} coulda maybe justa been left blank, and still been currently apt.
Thanx for the solid crazy fun, Mr. Pandey dude. Only a Q & an X short of a Pan-dey-gram.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
That was an EXCELLENT clue!
@A Moderator
Two days in a row I can't post (much to the relief of all I'm sure) ... Am I:
per·so·na non gra·ta
/pərˌsōnə ˌnän ˈɡrädə/
an unacceptable or unwelcome person?
I blame it on the stress of the holidays, what with having to spend time with my family and all, but with _ _ T I at 37D (Baked ____ ) I typed in YETI and though to myself 'well, that's kind of dark'. And, unlike Joe D, I hadn't put a YETI in the oven earlier in the day.
I am also confused about why the themers are all common expressions or words except for "DRIVE CRAZY".
So FIRE is a synonym for “good”? I missed that memo and it left me confused early in the puzzle. The rest of the theme answers were understandable so I didn’t hate this. Funny how one word can kind of taint one's perception of a solve.
I wrinkled my brow at 60A's clue - the Beatles had a boy's name in a title? Then I thought of Maxwell's Hammer (didn’t fit) and JUDE, of course.
YOM and YUM, fun.
Thanks, Kiran Pandey!
And thanks, @Nancy, for the heads-up about your Universal puzzle, co-constructed with Will Nediger. Very nice, and I recommend all here to check it out.
Going to your Universal puzzle now @ Nancy :)
Breezed through this one in 12 minutes. DRIVECRAZY didn't hit for me at all, so a little slow down there. Surprised Rex didn't complain about that one. Didn't fall into the c'mon trap - waited for the other answers. Nailed everything else. Go me.
Aha! VIRTU. So that's what it's called, the Machiavellian ruthlessness necessary to achieve great things. Political, war-mongering VIRTU drove a lot of people into a 10D "1960s-'70s archetype" as an alternative path to main stream gung-ho culture by tuning in, turning on and dropping out and becoming a HIPPIE. VIRTU vs HIPPIE, kind of at the opposite ends of that spectrum, right?
When I was in Japan in the '80s a common sight on trains and subways was a school girl---they all wore identical uniforms---hunched over in her seat with her long black hair hanging down to form a curtain around her head and face to visually block out the surrounding environment. On her lap would be a 30D MANGA no hon, a comic book the thickness of a big city phone book (do they still make those?) and she would be in her own little world to follow the antics of the anime style MANGA characters.
Haven't seen any of the movies and only heard of two but the themers were all interesting phrases and there was enough other nice stuff to make my solve a pleasant STROLL through the grid.
Nancy's puzzle is really good, and I'll put in plug for Universal Crossword in general. David Steinberg is the editor there and the puzzles are LIT.
Funny about all the Schoenberg comments; my one complaint to Nancy was that answer seemed too obscure for a Universal (which are generally Wednesday-hard at most).
Also funny that the one modifier @Nancy agrees with in the NYT puz is SOLID, which to me means adequate, workmanlike. But not necessarily -or normally - a rave.
@egs - I assumed your tongue was in a cheek. If that were a serious comment, it would be a huge change in tone from your usual goofery.
Thx Kiran; so far so good! 😊
Downs-o in progress.
If I'm correct with my downs, I've got DRIVE CRAZY & FROZEN SOLID, likely as part of a theme (but still no idea what it is); haven't got enuf to come up with 17A (maybe GREAS____. The NE and SW are WOEs so far. Not sure if I'm looking for some kind of rebus. 🤔
On with the battle! 🤞
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Last Sunday's NYT downs-o (9 1/2 hrs) finally ended successfully; a most gratifying experience!
Stan Newman's Mon. Stumper was med (4x NYT Sat.); one very tricky answer (for 'Private property'), but the cross seemed solid. Found this site, Crossword Freshers Live, which provides answers for a ton of xword sites, including Stan Newman's Newsday puzzes.
On to Patrick Berry's New Yorker cryptic. 🤞
Found 'Connections' tough yd; it's been a long time since I've had two incorrect guesses. 😔 Td's was much easier. :)
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
@Nancy
Good one!
Hm. Well the note to the mods went through. Last try:
What happened to the Thursday puzzle? Nice Tuesday. SHIVA and PAULO were beyond me, but otherwise an unchallenging solve with a silly theme.
My post never appeared yesterday. Maybe riffed too hard on SMUT? CUE mod SNEERS.
Uniclues:
1 Loud.
2 Hopes for thingamajig.
3 Erotic private pasta tweets.
1 AIR HORN VOLUME
2 DREAMS OF DOODAD
3 STEAMY ZITI DMS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Actress Janelle demands her brew. "ALE!" ROARED MONAE.
Off to try @Nancy's puzzle.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Nancy darlin: Congratz to U and Will on creatin a most enjoyable Universal solvequest. Fillins were smoother than snot [that's a good thing].
Thanx,
M&A
The clue for 9D makes me feel heard, as I complained a week or two ago about ADE being garbage fill when clued as a “summertime quaff” or other beverage, given that ADE is a suffix and not a noun. Now if ADE can just stopping showing up 3-4 times a week.
Mathgent about LIT. It has shown up before and it is contemporary slang. In this context it means exciting (I think). So that answer does make sense.
Kitshef. About Moon you are not the only one!
@Nancy (and Will too) Congrats on the fun puzz. Couldn't figure out a way to print it, is my only nit. Knew you'd understand that small complaint.
Banya
You are forgetting about half hour shows on streaming services which usually have about 6 episodes per season The Times use’s American English, unless otherwise specified, so what the British call a series is irrelevant.
So there is nothing wrong with using season in reference to a British shows. When talking about our shows , the British don’t use American terminology as a rule.
@Nancy - Fun puzzle. No idea about the Schoenberg clue.
I can't find it What's the Schoenberg clue?
@JC66 – the Schoenberg clue is 44a: "Building block for much Arnold Schoenberg music". Are you seeing something different?
@Joe D
Thanks, I never could find it.
The film Moon was directed and cowritten by Duncan Jones, the son (once known as "Zowie") of David Bowie and his first wife, Angela. I am surprised to be the first person to mention that. Critically and popularly acclaimed.
Only commenting on the holiday pet pics…. Kairos…. Nine is way too young Tess. Never easy to lose a good shepherd.
DNF: came a cropper in the NE. 12d was a giant misdirect; I couldn't get LANDHO from the coast is clear. Just couldn't get it. Didn't know the cheese, 13d was tech stuff. Had ISEE but failed to put it in the past...it was just a hot mess.
Wordle par.
Bad. Bad. Not good!
OPEN FIRE
That HIPPIE gal seems SO UPTIGHT,
YOUR FROZENSOLID type OF LADY,
yet she DREAMSOF STEAMY MOONLIT nights
when I STAYUP to DRIVE her CRAZY.
--- PAOLO POLO-LEGATO
A last minute change from "CMON" to IMIN made it all come out right. I knew GREASEF*** had to be something that made sense, and "GREASEFO*E" just wasn't doing it.
And it's Thursday. No rebus. Makes my week!
Hubbie is from IOWA, (went to school in Ames), so I always show him IA stuff in the grids. More pigs than people - and more corn. Really corny.
Diana, LIW
Wasn't getting anything at GREASE___ so continued down to FROZENSOLID and then got the idea. D MAJOR letter in D bottom half seems to be D. Far better than a rebus.
Wordle eagle!!
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