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Dutch Golden Age painter / SAT 12-2-23 / Stuff in microdots / Boastful Eminem title with the Guinness world record for "most words in a hit single" (1,560) / Loudly lachrymates / Air pollution portmanteau / Constantly posting pictures and news about one's kids on social media
Saturday, December 2, 2023
Constructor: Royce Ferguson
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Word of the Day: Frans HALS (6A: Dutch Golden Age painter) —
Frans Hals the Elder (UK: /hæls/, US: /hɑːls, hælz, hɑːlz/, Dutch: [frɑns ˈɦɑls]; c. 1582 – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem.
Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group portraiture. He is known for his loose painterly brushwork. [...] Hals is best known for his portraits, mainly of wealthy citizens such as Pieter van den Broecke and Isaac Massa, whom he painted three times. He also painted large group portraits for local civic guards and for the regents of local hospitals. He was a Dutch Golden Age painter who practiced an intimate realism with a radically free approach. His pictures illustrate the various strata of society: banquets or meetings of officers, guildsmen, local councilmen from mayors to clerks, itinerant players and singers, gentlemen, fishwives, and tavern heroes. In his group portraits, such as The Banquet of the Officers of the St Adrian Militia Company in 1627, Hals captures each character in a different manner. The faces are not idealized and are clearly distinguishable, with their personalities revealed in a variety of poses and facial expressions.Hals was fond of daylight and silvery sheen, while Rembrandt used golden glow effects based upon artificial contrasts of low light in immeasurable gloom. Hals seized a moment in the life of his subjects with rare intuition. What nature displayed in that moment he reproduced thoroughly in a delicate scale of color and with mastery over every form of expression. He became so clever that exact tone, light and shade, and modeling were obtained with a few marked and fluid strokes of the brush. He became a popular portrait painter and painted the wealthy of Haarlem on special occasions. He won many commissions for wedding portraits (the husband is traditionally situated on the left, and the wife situated on the right). His double portrait of the newly married Olycans hang side by side in the Mauritshuis, but many of his wedding portrait pairs have since been split up and are rarely seen together.
• • •
This one played pretty hard for me—a proper Saturday, in that respect. Not a fan of the modern coinages at all. I can't recall hearing or seeing anyone actually use ECOSHAMING or SHARENTING before, though the former seems more probable, and less cutesy, and therefore superior. But give the grid credit for originality. It might be trying a little too hard, but at least it's trying. "WHAT A BEAST!" falls under the "modern coinage" rubric too. I feel like it's mostly sports-related. I've definitely heard it. But that didn't keep me from going "WHAT A BEAUT!" like some earnest citizen in a Norman Rockwell painting.
 |
| ["There's too much LUD in our microdots! It ain't good for the children!"] |
One of the more grievous, not-terribly-enjoyable features of this puzzle was the sheer volume of kealoas*—so many short things that could've been one of several things. Is it YEP or YUP? TONS or LOTS or (ugh) GOBS? AS DO IT or SO DO I? BEBES or NENES? HEH or HAH? So over and over and over, you can't just write in the answer, you gotta go and fetch the crosses, which is, yes, part of the deal with crosswords, but this *kind* of "checking the crosses" becomes tedious. When you're doing it for YUP and GOBS and SO DO I—tedium. For some reason, all the green ink (I'm using a green pen now for puzzle mark-ups) is on the left side of my grid. Middle and left. The east is practically clean, so I must not have had too much trouble over there. I don't remember too much serious trouble, outside The LUD Incident—just a methodical plodding through the thorns and mire of Saturday cluing. Oh, A MUST, that made me struggle, then made me mad (25D: Something critical to have). That "A"—ugh. And right over A BIT. Bah. But otherwise, no particularly brutal spots; just normal Saturday resistance.
Additional comments and explanations:
- 1A: Like the Galactic Empire and Rebel Alliance, in science fiction (AT WAR) — really wanted a single adjective here. Looking back, I shouldn't have abandoned this corner so readily. I had AWRY and YUP and kinda wanted WASP (3D: The fairyfly (the smallest known insect in the world) is one of them). Even wrote in ATE. But I couldn't make the Acrosses work, so I bailed, only to find out that all my initial guesses were in fact correct. Just couldn't make anything out of A-WA- here. ASWAN? Seriously, that's all I could see.
- 5D: Boastful Eminem title with the Guinness world record for "most words in a hit single" (1,560) ("RAP GOD") — Forgot this song, so at first I went with what seemed like a truly "Boastful" title: "I AM GOD"!
- 18A: "Freak on a Leash" band (KORN) — Yesterday I learned that "KORN" is also the title of a Gerhard Richter painting in the Guggenheim (this is what happens when you follow a Guggenheim bot on Bluesky):
 |
| ["Korn," 1982] |
- 23A: Loudly lachrymates (SOBS) — first thing I *confidently* put in the grid. Hurray for high school vocabulary tests!
- 45A: Reason to run in circles? (MEET) — so ... a track MEET, I assume. Tracks aren't actually "circles," but horseshoes / hand grenades / "?" clues.
- 55A: Beyond regulation, for short (IN OT) — "Regulation" is just the normally allotted amount of time to play a game. "OT" is, of course, "overtime."
- 59A: Takes orders (WAITS) — as in "WAITS tables."
- 4D: Took something with a grain of salt, maybe (ATE) — not hard, but come on. No one eats just one grain of salt. A very stupid misdirection attempt.
- 28D: Tackling group (D LINE) — Defensive line. The blocking group is the O LINE (Offensive line), which you also sometimes see in xwords.
- 9D: Squash or smoosh, maybe (STEP ON) — I had SHRINK. Not for long, but I had it.
- 15D: "The Little Prince" trees (BAOBABS) — it's been a while since I read this so ... yikes. I barely know this tree type. Super-Saturday flora, for sure.
- 22D: They get down and dirty (ROOTS) — more tree stuff! (this clue is actually clever)
- 26D: Two-ingredient cocktail usually served with an olive or lemon twist (GIN MARTINI) — GIN MARTINI is redundant. Vodka, really? What are you doing?
P.S. [Grand] = THOU because “a grand” is slang for “a THOUsand” 🤓
*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] ATON/ALOT, ["Git!"] "SHOO"/"SCAT," etc.
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102 comments:
Count me as one of the LUDdites today.
What Rex says -ABSOLUTELY!
Had the LUB issue, also thought of Drippin Dots and LCD or LED or whatever makes pixels before microdosing came to mind. Guessed IAMGOD from the boastful clue. Never heard of but successfully grokked the questionable SHARENTING and ECOSHAMING.
Had uninterESTS for the much better SNOOZEFESTS. Alternated between BEBES and NINOS. Had to Google KORN, RAPGOD and BAOBABS but considering how hard this puzzle played, considered it a win (even with 3 asterisks).
Did this one at 4:30 am to hopefully lull me back to my fitful sleep. I need a SNOOZEFEST or at least a good MICRODOZE.
Good groggy eye challenge to start my crack of dawn (well, that won’t be for a couple hours yet) morning. And now, while it’s still dark and sleep MAY yet be possible before all the college football championships, will quote John Fetterman’s OPENING debate words: Good night, everybody!
@Rex: The link for OOXTEPLERNON's Origin Story leads to the same page as the recent BEAUT example.
I lost my (modest) streak to BEAUT. I knew lud had to be wrong at 8D, but I couldn't come up with LSD as an alternative. I need to do more drugs :(
edgY before AWRY at 1D
HAaS before HALS at 6A
gnat before WASP at 3D
BAOBoBS before BAOBABS at 15D
lOtS before GOBS at 20A
SerenE before SedatE before SOOTHE at 24A
oLINE before DLINE at 28D
BoLD before BALD at 31A
NiNoS before bEbEs before NENES at 35D
meRe before NARY at 47A
emo before SKA at 48A
idoS before BIOS at 51A (my favorite error of the day)
amOk before INOT at 55A
If you didn't know what MICRODOT was, we clearly didn't go to the same kinds of high schools (70s kid, here).
This one played hard for me, too; in fact, it was a DNF, since I needed help in the SW. As a native Spanish speaker, I confidently put in NINOS, which gave me all kinds of trouble, since I didn't want to challenge my own Spanish! I had "ESCAPE..." but my brain couldn't get ROOM. And it took me the longest time to understand INOT. Just a slog, though I agree with Rex: a proper Saturday workout.
And I still don't understand how the clue "Grand" means THOU.
Noticed the bad link and fixed it just before your post! Thanks. ~RP
Grand = a thousand… hence THOU
It’s interesting that I’ve been doing the NYT for long enough now that I can frequently sense when one of their “trying too hard to be modern and hip” clues is lurking around the grid - today we got two of them (ECOSHAMING and SHARENTING). Not that either one is terrible - I just hold my nose, enter them in and move on.
I’d like to pick the constructor’s brain a little bit re 6D - I’m wondering if the clue is referring to Americans saying HERBS (with the H) and Brits occasionally saying “ERBS” without the H sound, almost like “orbs”. Alternatively, one could dig down a layer deeper and contemplate the fact that many across the pond say Bah-Sil where we tend to say BAY-Sil and we say ORE-EGGANO where they say OR-A-GON-O.
I dropped in LSD without a second thought, on a clue that Rex struggled with, which happens about once every two years or so.
Nice touch crossing ARTSET and ATREST.
SW took forever because I was so confident in annS instead of TIMS and NiNoS before NENES.
I’ve relished the last handful of Saturdays – tough but fair – IMO, the best stretch of Saturdays in quite a while, and I was hoping today’s offering would continue this trend. It did.
There were sweet joys:
• Lovely answers: WHAT A BEAST, UNCONSCIOUS BIAS, TAPENADE, EASY DOES IT, BAOBABS, HEY NOW, TAKE THE BAIT. Four of these are NYT answer debuts, adding the sheen of freshness to their beauty. Meanwhile, junk be gone!
• Wordplay throughout in the cluing. To borrow from the clue for HINT, it felt to me like the entire puzzle was made with a wink.
And sweet resistance to work through:
• Riddles to be cracked, i.e., [What to do?], [Work in progress?], [It’s there by default}.
• Vagueness to teach patience, i.e. [Still], [Calm].
And thus, this was a Return-To solve for much of the time, where I would get stuck in an area, go elsewhere, then come back later and with a magnificent ping, see an answer, fill in more, then get stuck again, rinse and repeat. All the while being enriched by the lovely entries and wordplay.
Another proper Saturday, bringing smiles and satisfaction, and, Royce, gratitude for your talent and skill. WHAT A BEAST, sir. Thank you for a splendid outing!
Doing this on my phone last night was a complete disaster. I put in THAI to "finish" and then I had to mop up several dnfs. The first two were NiNos/ NENES. Those were more of a sloppy oversight. I was so distracted by SMAZi (a fascist who ECOSHAMes?) that I didn't notice the dead give away of REFoRS. That was easy to fix. What I really had to hunt for was LuD. It was only when I couldn't find anything else that looked like a mistake that the drug connection dawned on me. On paper this would have definitely wound up as a single letter dnf.
If getting the right answer for the wrong reason counted as a dnf then you could throw THAI in there too. I thought it was the name of a person simply because of the "a.k.a." in the clue. That's how blind to the obvious I can be. Mind you I do the SB every day and galangal has appeared at least three times. I have yet to really learn it but you'd think the lack of capitalization on that and ginger would have made it obvious that these were just words.
I did much better on the SB.
yd -0
I had WHAT A BE—T and thought that BEAST couldn’t possibly be right. It still sounds weird to me. And are AAA cells batteries? I guess they’re thin (thinner than AA or C or D, to be sure), but something about the clue connotes flatness to me. Is there some other kind of cell designated AAA? Agree with Rex on things like SHARENTING and the Kealoas, but overall this was a nice Saturday.
Weird puzzle for me. I liked that center spanner - but the forced portmanteaus were tough to stomach and just too sugary cute. As Rex highlights - SHARENTING , ECO SHAMING etc may be things but they are not common lingo.
WAITS
SNOOZEFESTS and TAKE THE BAIT were cool. Microdots were so common in high school - that section became a gimme. The grid forces the ugly shorts - SI SI, AGTS, YUP etc. I thought the GOBS - SOBS pair was neat. We do hear BEAST a lot in this context with sports - after a goal or catch.
Not a terrible Saturday solve - just relied on too many flat longs. We do get a true, wonderful Stan Stumper today which makes up for the glitches here.
Cash singing Lowe
I finished it without cheating, but only because I gave up on "bold" and settled for BALD. In my opinion. the clue for BALD was awful. Also, WHATABEAST is a ridiculous way to compliment someone ("What a blast" would be OK).
The puzzle itself was impressive, but the cluing was unimpressive (sort of a BEAST?).
WHAT A BEAST sounds negative to me, not positive (WHAT A BEAuT seems much better for that clue [I see I'm not alone in thinking that]).
I remember seeing a picture once of a fairyfly next to an amoeba. The single-celled amoeba was larger than the fairfyfly.
My saving grace this morning was that BAOBAB was the name of a South African BBQ restaurant that I discussed last night with the South African teacher currently staying with us from a teacher exchange program. Otherwise I wouldn't have made it through this one. Very hard for me.
The German word for simultaneous pride and shame at writing in ECOSHAMING without any crosses. SHARENTING, on the other hand…
At first I thought "Really, MUST with the indefinite article?" But then I realized that "A MUST" is a thing quite distinct from "MUST". The only way MUST answers to this clue is with the article. The article is "A MUST!"
Opposite of Rex in top center: dropped in LSD without a thought, no clue on HALS. Well, obviously, there was a clue, right there on my screen. But it did me no good. I completely agree about GIN MARTINI being redundant, though. As if the idea of alternative martinis weren't bad enough, I have a friend who babbles on about making manhattans with tequila.
I found the puzzle quite challenging but got it eventually. I found Rex’s review spot-on, and like him I don’t know most of these new sayings like “sharenting” and have to infer them after getting some crosses. I also made wrong entries that didn’t help. It never occurred to me that you have to specify gin in a martini; gin is what a martini is about. So I started with “dry martini”, a phrase that seemed much more normal to me. Then I figured 11 down was ecoblaming not eco shaming and since I never heard of either term, how was I to know? It didn’t help that that mistake suggested settle instead of Soothe for 24 across. That mess took me a long time to figure out and held me up from finishing .
Usually the NYT go to is just stick an "e" before a word to make it sound techie, so I had EPARENTING forever.
“The hardest drug I ever did was LSD. I was told to be careful because in 20 years I can have a flashback. I thought that sounded like a good deal.… But 20 years have passed with no flashback. What a gyp that turned out to be!”
- Norm MacDonald
What is the SB?
Agree with Rex: Martini is always gin. All the other stuff is just (spirit of choice) "up"...and please, don't forget the vermouth. It really makes for an elegant and perfectly concocted classic.
Brits say the word herbs with the “h” sound (like the name Herb). Americans say it without the “h” sound as “erbs.”
Yeah, language is descriptive and not prescriptive and all that, but *technically* AAA, AA, C, D etc are cells, not batteries. (The term battery means multiple cells wired together). But I agree that calling them thin is confusing; they’re the same proportions as an AA! I guess they are compared to a C or a D, so but those aren’t used nearly as much as they were in the past.
@Hal9000 Grand means THOU as “grand” is slang for thousand, and “thou “is short for thousand. Sneaky
Fun, challenging but “suss-able,” puzzle! Love the long ones.
I’m pretty sure your herbs logic is backwards. Tradition English pronunciation is with the H. American is without ( as in the herbs and spices at KFC)
I'm in with the LUD crowd, I go where the LUD crowd goes... A double technical DNF today as the vaguely British sounding PAH seemed OK, so I left SPARENTING as it was. Fortunately I'm not in the streak business so I just say, huh, learned something, and that's that.
Otherwise this wasn't super-challenging for a Saturday. I only know one four-letter Dutch painter so that was a gimme. BALD gave me the final B for a kind of tree, and BAOBABS is a good SB word so in that went. ECOSHAMING is clearly in the ___SHAMING family that I'm familiar with because of "fatshaming", SMAZE appeared not that long ago, in short, fewer WTF's than I sometimes find on a Saturday. Pretty smooth from start to finish.
Nice enough Saturdecito RF. Rarely Fouled off one of your pitches, and we Spanish-speakers applaud your clue for NENES for not referring to those Hawaiian birds. Thanks for all the fun.
Hey All !
Add me to the BEAUT list. Had to hit Check Puzzle to find my wrongness. Yay to Rex for knowing the painter, but unsophisticated me... Not so much. Ended up with SUD for LSD (because never would've thought to change BEAUT), deciding in the ole brain that a SUD could be a bath microdot. Har. And isn't HASS some sort of painter?
Otherwise, a good solid SatPuz that played with just the right amount of resistance for me. YesterPuz was tougher than this one.
Troubles in NE, having UNCONSCIOUSness and SerenE in, not allowing me to move further. Had a suspicion that the NESS part was wrong, thinking ANTE was correct, and seeing TAKETHEBAIT would fit nicely, so erased those two entries, put in my maybes, and found they meshed with everything, allowing me to conquer that corner.
Thanks to SB for BAOBAB (a word Sam actually accepts). Thanks to iCarly (another of those teen-tween shows I guiltily watched years ago!) for TAPENADE. Years of experience, folks. 😁
Good SatMorning puz, Royce. WHAT A BEAUT. 😁
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
I put in HALS right away, and thought of LSD; but the microdots I've heard about are ultra-miniatured photos used by spies to send secret messages. So I held off, and ended up with LuD. Only then did I see the BEAST possibility.
Like others, I cannot accept GIN MARTINI as a real term. I have come, grudgingly, to acknowledge the existence of vodka martinis, but that's what they're called. But I already had AGENDA, so in it went.
Never heard SHARENTING, but I know someone who does it. Once a week she sends out a link to a photo-sharing website with the 40 or so pictures she took of her kids that week. I love her, and they are cute kids, but it's way too many pictures to look at.
The highlight of my solving experience was getting SKA at 48-A--an unknown genre by an unknown band. But it's three letters, which probably means either ska or emo, end emo-punk seemed paradoxical. I'm probably wrong about that, so it worked this time.
But SMAZE? I suppose that's smog + haze, but smog is already smoke + fog, so further portmanteauing seems redundant.
If I'd been smart like Nancy a few weeks ago I would have closed my computer and gone for a walk..what a beast, not a beaut!!!
lOtS before GOBS
mOoS before SOBS
mAriNADE before TAPENADE
emo before SKA
AnnS before TIMS (until I realized Anne Rice is spelled with an 'e')
NiNoS before NENES (like everyone else apparently)
crew before NASA
Sure before SISI
and the biggest hiccup of all...nap before TEA, which I was certain was correct
Finished in just under 37 without help. The perfect level of challenge for a Saturday. Enjoyed it.
WHATABEAST is a good place to start for me, but got through it which always makes for a better start to the day. Did think GIN was so redundant I went with 'dry' for too long. Also refused to let go of NiNoS. BAOBABS was one of the gimmes, from both the book and years in Africa.
Usually I need some of the longs to leap out at me to finish, but loved how today's just came slowly together, bit by bit by bit.
I'm probably the only EYCK before HALS, I'm guessing? Any one else TAKETHEBAIT for the HALSEYCKealoa?
LSD popped right in, just like in the '70s. Hard to believe something so small can have such a huge effect.
I think today's examples deserve more credit. So hard to find zingy words that are current but don't look like they're trying too hard:
- BEAST is definitely an a-list compliment these days.
- ECOSHAMING and SHARENTING both have multiple sites discussing them on google, including a lot on the front page that explain the terms for people just hearing them.
I agree with Rex on the vagueness of the 3's:
- 3 letter musical prefix is usually EMO, so had to sort that out to SKA.
- Also took an afternoon NAP when I should have had some TEA to perk me up.
Lewis right on the money describing my experience.
One of the hardest puzzles I've ever done, requiring one cheat on RAP GOD, and leaving me thinking I'd need a lot more. And speaking of that...
Who knew that putting in LOTS instead of GOBS (20A) for "a whole bunch" would leave me sobbing with so many SOBS? LOTS made everything in the NW go AWRY -- especially because HERBS, so easy once you have the H and the B, was now ungettable with an H and a T.
HALS and SOBS were the only things I had in the whole NW-ish. I wouldn't cheat on RAP GOD until much later. (You all know how much I hate to cheat.)
This was a complete "keep the faith" puzzle, as I didn't think I'd ever solve anything in the NW. Or the SW, for that matter. My entry point was DLINE to DO NO HARM -- the latter being quite an interesting clue.
But my favorite clue/answer -- one of the best of all time, I'd argue -- was "covert influencer". I was expecting some snotty know-nothing teenager on TikTok with 106,000 completely undeserved "followers". Instead I got UNCONSCIOUS BIAS. How true, how true -- and I never saw it coming.
Today's questions. What on earth is a LUD? And what on earth is SPARENTING?
I'm not fond of either A MUST or A BIT. While I know that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", puzzle answers almost never include the indefinite article and so this is quite unfair to the solver in what already is a bear of a puzzle.
Nevertheless, a really enjoyable morning -- especially if you're heavily into suffering.
pAH can be a taunting cry also, right? Sure, SHARENTING fits the clue perfectly but as an unknown to me, I went with the SpARENTING and shrugged at pAH.
My friend, for her birthday, wants us to try out an ESCAPE ROOM. I'm feeling A BIT of trepidation - I'm not known for thinking outside the box. Will I be able to think while inside the box?
WHAT A BEAST reminds me of another friend who was running a 5K race; she asked us to yell "WHAT An animal" as she ran by. That seems related to the 14A meaning.
Thanks, Royce Ferguson, I found this a good Saturday challenge.
Nope. DNF - destroyed by "obit" instead of BIOS and an inability to take the mental baby step from SNore- to SNOOZE FESTS. Once I had cheated by checking the grid, BIOS was enough to unlock the rest. Other than the impossible SW, a "medium" for me and fun to figure out.
@Nancy, I enjoyed the struggle today also. LUD and SPARENTING are both wrong answers, which you'll see when you read Rex and the comments. I'm really surprised that DLINE was an entry point for you, almost as much so as if it were a car model:)
Very happy to successfully complete this one. The last bits for me were SHARENTING where I had pah as the Taunting cry. Sparenting? And the BEAST, HALS, HERBS tangle.
Unlike Rex, I wrote in AT WAR and LSD without a pause, but not HALS. What a blast didn’t quite match the clue as a statement of admiration, but I don’t use BEAST as a compliment either.
Besides that, I learned SMAZE. I associate TAPENADE with Italian food (oops!) so I dragged my feet there, even putting in marinade, and my MARTINI started out dry.
UNCONSCIOUS BIAS!! ESCAPE ROOM! I would celebrate SNOOZEFEST, but as a plural?
This was the first time I ever flew through a puzzle that Rex rated as Med-Challenging. Usually the other way around. Maybe it was the extra 3 hrs of sleep.
Well, that's over. I should re-re-post my SMAZE poem, but it's such a dumb word it doesn't deserve more than an annual remembrance. Of course it's a great word compared to ECOSHAMING or SHARENTING. Is this the overblown fake word list dreck that keeps a puzzle from feeling musty?
AWRY, AMUST, ABIT, AT WAR, AT REST. Hope y'all have a wonderful Saturday.
Uniclues:
1 Keep punching until the opponent goes unconscious.
2 The Republican platform. (Kidding of course.)
3 Where I keep my baby weight.
4 Server delivering 007 his drink in 1656.
5 That yellow plastic thing (with a low success rate for competitors).
6 Backroom name for a Denver Brown Palace scheme to raise $75 per person for a tray of mini-sandwiches.
1 SOOTHE SOBS (~)
2 DO NO HARM AGENDA (~)
3 TAPENADE THIGHS
4 "THOU GIN MARTINI"
5 WASP ESCAPE ROOM
6 TAKE THE BAIT TEA
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Brits frenching for fame. ON-SET SNOGS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Tough, really tough, but in a good way. I liked the little misdirects like the clues for BIO, AT REST, IN OT. The pedantic in me wanted a SUBconscious BIAS but will concede that the entry is correct. Very proper Saturday workout.
Never heard of 52A before but sure recognize it when I see it. Of course at my age it’s more like grand SHARENTING. Whatever you call it, a little bit goes a long way.
@burtonkd (10:48)-- Here's the Apologia I just posted on Wordplay:
"I figured that S-PARENTING was some kind of PARENTING that involved S-howing off your kids and, and not being on any social media platform, I'd never heard the term SHARENTING.
And when I'm praising someone, I'd say WHAT A BEAuT. WHAT A BEAST never even crossed my mind.
So -- a DNF. But since I had one cheat, it was already a DNF anyway."
As far as knowing DLINE, @burtonkd -- I'm quite proud of my football knowledge, actually. It's not at all like my ignorance of cars. While I can't discuss team personnel and positions with you, I'm quite strong on plays and strategy. Ask me if a quarterback sneak is the right play on the 1 1/2-yard line; what a "slant" or an "out" route is; what a safety blitz is; and what a draw play is -- and I'll be able to tell you :)
Hands up as a LuDdite, as well as WHATABEAuT (despite my son having had the sports nickname being BEAST until he got all teenager on everyone about using it - doh!) and iamGOD.
Despite these struggles in the NW, I had big problems in the SE, not helped by starting with nap instead of TEA and then trying emo-punk and pop-punk before eventually backing into SKA-punk.
Weirdly, having totally blanked on my first pass at the short downs at the top of the grid the first thing I wrote into the grid (with little confidence at first) was ECOSHAMING
“I’ve started marking up my puzzle with green paint.”
Just sayin’.
Medium. Add me to those who went with bEbES and annS at first. Those were costly erasures and made the SW A BIT tough. The rest was easy-medium partly because I didn’t put in BEauT after remembering LSD. This was a fun Saturday challenge with more than a few sparkly long downs, liked it.
Undone by BAOBABS and SHARENTING.
Thought RAP GOD might be RAPtOr. Wanted NiNoS or NiNaS.
Good struggle.
Seems like quite a few of you are dropping (in) LSD this morning!
RP is correct that tracks aren’t circles but they’re not horseshoes either. If they were you couldn’t run around them. They are ovals. As for herb,in the King’s English , the h is not drooped, as in Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire.
The Rockwell picture and cut line were hilarious. Rex, you are a hoot!
I agree with Jim mcdougall @ 10:13 about closing my laptop & going for a walk. I also agree with @SouthsideJohnny “trying too hard to be modern and hip” clues lurking around the grid (ECOSHAMING and SHARENTING).
I usually do my laps first thing in the am so I guess I'm off to do some more.
I was chatting with a bartender a few years back, along with several other fans if this excellent mixologist. A guy stepped up to the bar and confidently ordered a "vodka martini".
The barman, looking at him quizzically, asked "What?", and when the poor guy repeated his request, told him that a martini is made with gin. "Would you like me to make you a vodka and vermouth cocktail?"
The group around him exploded into laughter and applause. I patted the guy on the back and said, "Don't feel bad, friend, Tony makes a great vodka and vermouth. Enjoy!"
After he took a sip or two of his drink, he said, "Thanks everybody. I not only learned something here, but I'm enjoying the best vodka vermouth I've ever had!"
and if said quarterback muscled through 3 o-linemen to make it into the end zone you would assuredly then shout, "what a beast!"
Luddite and a morning tea drinker, so SW corner did me in.
In high school a group of us put together a short musical version of "The Little Prince" during one summer vacation. I wrote most of the music and a friend did the lyrics. We had a song called BAOBABS, a catchy little samba. But we were pronouncing it "bay-oh-babs", which it turns out is the way the British pronounce it, but not Americans, who say "bough-babs". So this little story also ties in with the HERBS clue.
Microdots made me think of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.", particularly an episode where Barbara Feldon played a bored U.N.C.L.E. Portuguese translator who wanted to see some action. Napoleon sends her on a secret "mission", which is in reality just taking Mr. Waverly's humidor to be refilled with his favorite pipe tobacco, but there's a mixup and she inadvertently ends up in possession of a microdot with a list of THRUSH agents on it. Cesar Romero plays the suave THRUSH bigwig who tries to cajole her into giving up the info. Probably my favorite episode.
"Beaut" never occurred to me since I assumed the statement would be about the person performing the feat. But neither word really suits that clue, imo. Isn't "WHAT A BEAST!" from a "Honeymooners" episode, where Alice's sister gets married and then says her husband's personality completely changed (thanks to some "advice" from Ralph)?
Obviously I watched too much TV growing up. Anyway, this puzzle felt just about right for a Saturday difficulty level.
People to steer clear of:
She's A MUST to avoid
He's gonna STEP ON you again
Ann Curry and Ann Rice kept me from seeing gin martini for a very long time. I should thank them though, for making that terrible redundancy the last thing I filled.
It was nice to see SASHA OBAMA in the grid yesterday. It's been a while. She's 22 (ouch!), and out of college (USC).
In looking her up, I learned that in February of 2017, her sister Malia started an internship for Harvey Weinstein at The Weinstein Company film studio in NYC!! Sheesh. She apparently emerged unscathed and graduated from Harvard in 2021.
My mom and dad were always threatening scary things, like putting us in an orphanage or feeding us to the wolves. We called it scarenting.
I think JohnX used to take macrodots, among other ACIDS.
You'll likely burn in hell if you RAPGOD. It's like if you slam Jesus.
Question that always haunted my working life: Am I on a CAREEnPATH or a CAREERPATH? Or is there a difference?
Sound of batteries relaxing at a spa? AAAS
I wonder what Catherine of Aragon was thinking when she decided to name her daughter MARYI?
WHATABEAST, Royce Ferguson. Thanks.
Nice combo of no-knows and sneaky clues. Forced M&A to do research, on a few of the no-knows, such as RAPGOD and KORN. TWAS A BEAST of a SatPuz.
staff weeject pick [of a mere 6 choices]: YUP. M&A took the bait and went with YEP, first off.
Got most of the NW pretty fast, leavin a few holes where RAPGOD/WHATABEAST were. Things got kinder for the nanoseconds, in the NE, especially after shuckin the KORN entry [thanx, Google].
Lower part weren't too bad, but did do some above-average pauses around TAPENADE and SHARENTING.
fave POC longball: SNOOZEFESTS.
Thanx for the heckuva challenge, Mr. Ferguson dude. It was darn near a micro-dot trip, with a grain of salt.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
**gruntz**
GIN MARTINI does sound redundant, but a cocktail of vodka and vermouth is called a VODKA MARTINI, so it's forgivable as a way to distinguish between the two.
Mr. Freedom of Speech is clearly not protesting the LUDs, he's "hypmotized".
A struggle on this one - lots of white space after the first pass or two. Did drop LSD in, which allowed me to see HALS. Northeast was tough. Keyboard man in rock'n ___ band would have been greater help on SKA.
Also wanted e something at first for 52A. Then had ART kiT for a while at 41D. Eventually, figured out various erroneous entries and made it to happy music.
Spoiler alert for Friday LA Times crossword/"Jeopardy!" combo - answer in LAT crossword was one of the correct "Jeopardy!" Crossword Clues "H" responses Friday.
Thx, Royce; just right for a crunchy Sat. workout! 😊
Med+.
BoLD before BALD hid ACIDS for a while (hi @Bob Mills (8:43 AM), and the kealoa, 'me tOo / SO DO I' caused probs in that area. Also, had meRe before NARY, fell into the AnnS before TIMS trap (hi @Druid (12:38 PM), and had to look at MARYI for a while before parsing it correctly.
Speaking of ACID, dropped LSD right in (unfortunately, knew this all too well) :(
This one wasn't A BEAST, but was a fun challenge! :
A most enjoyable trip; liked it a lot! :)
___
On to Stanley Newman's Sat. Stumper🤞, with Balton & Stewart's NYT acrostic on deck for tm.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
Anne Rice, not Ann.
Bough-babs: is that bough as in bow (to an audience), bow as in bow and arrow, buff as in rough, or boo as in through. Shades of Ricky Ricardo. Love the Englush language!
From a tech dictionary: Microdots are text or images reduced to a very small size (about 1 mm in diameter) to prevent detection by unintended recipients.
Sigh. What a beaut of a LUD that was.
I thought “microdots” might mean something related to digital imagery, so I had pSD there all the way through my ultimate DNF. HApS felt like as reasonable a name for an obscure painter as any, and I too couldn’t begin to conjure what the heck a microdot was aside from something tech related. My only mistake!
“What a beast” is a term I’ve heard since high school and I’m 41 so I wouldn’t call it ultra modern. I do almost exclusively hear it in the context of sports though fwiw
@Stumper fans - I'm with @Sun Volt 8:41. After being unable to finish today's NYT, it was nice to get the Stumper done in one session. Now on to napping.
BAOBAB is very familiar to those of us who do Spelling Bee! It appears very frequently.
Also, I'm totally with Rex on GINMARTINIS -- it's like saying tequila margarita: redundant and reduplicative.
I think microdots for LSD is a modern term relating to the practice of "microdosing", using very small doses of LSD or other hallucinogens as part of psychotherapy, for example treatment for PTSD. I was around in the heyday of LSD and there was nothing micro about the doses. Once when I confided to a friend that I taken LSD several times in 1975, she ask if I ever had flashbacks. I said, yes, if I'm lucky! (Thanks @andrew 9:16 for the Norm MacDonald joke.)
I recently watched a PBS "Islands of Wonder" Nature episode on Madagascar. One segment featured the BAOBAB tree which is sacred to the local people. Here's a blurb from the show: "In the village of Ampotaka, the dry season can last several months. In order to survive, its residents rely on the neighboring baobab trees passed on by their ancestors. When hollowed out, their trunks act as tanks to store water collected from the brief rains and can naturally hold over 20,000 gallons of water within their structures."
The Committee gave the grid a "POC Assisted" rating due to the five two for one POCs, where a Down and an Across both get a letter count boost by sharing a final S at the ends of HERB/SOB, AAA/GOB, ACID/REFER, SNOOZEFEST/TIM and AGT/WAIT. Those five Ss are equivalent to cheater squares. They don't change the word count or add anything of value or interest to the puzzle; they just take up space and make it easier to fill the grid.
NIÑOS instead of NENES really messed me up.
ORSO instead of ABIT.
UNCONCSCIOUSMIND instead of UNCONSCIOUSBIAS.
SERENE instead of SOOTHE.
ASAMI instead of SODOI.
ugh
There is a pattern of French loan words (herb and valet are all that I recall right now) which Americans pronounce the French way while Brits pronounce more English-phonetically.
Before I had any cross clues, I had “moralizing” in place of ecoshaming. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Nancy - no apologia necessary, I would point out that ads in football game are very good places to pick up car names:)
Where I come from (NYC), "vodka martini" is a perfectly acceptable term. What's more, if you order a martini at a bar in NYC, the bartender will generally ask you, "Gin or vodka?" or possibly just "Gin?" for economy's sake. The GIN in 26D is not redundant because the only kind of martini is a GIN MARTINI, but rather because you can put an olive or a twist in either a gin martini or a vodka martini.
To Rex and Eater of Soul, "gin martini" is no longer redundant; more people drink martinis with vodka than with gin. I believe he term is retronym, a phrase where a modifier is used where one used to be uneeded.
A taunting cry should clearly have been WAH and not HAH. The W made me think it was a clumsy portmanteau built off Twitter like TWARENTING. Still a portmanteau and still clumsy but admittedly better with a SH than a TW. In any case, SHARENTING is most definitely NOT a thing.
Agree @rex vodka really?
If you have HALS on top of something that could be WHAT A BEAuT, please put in a more familiar clue for LSD, especially since microdots has another meaning. Whether or not you knew that microdots refers to LSD should not be the difference between a frustrating and enjoyable puzzle.
Do I hafta do the Sunday puzzle? I don't wanna, it's a themeless. And the clues look really boring.
It’s true about the pattern of British speakers pronouncing some borrowed French words in the English manner while we do it half French half English. Also they put the stress on the first syllable. As in valet, with the T pronounced of course. Based on a Kinks song, they pronounce the word palais as pally. There are others
As Son Volt and others said above , what a beast “ as a compliment is a relatively new expression used in sports. Comment on the culture maybe but it is a valid answer. I really didn’t know it but I knew beaut made no sense as an answer. That is never used as a compliment! (Ironic no?) Don’t know why Rex even considered it.
About the comments that gin martini is redundant, I was going to say that by the very fact of acknowledging that some people do have vodka instead means that gin martini can’t be redundant. But then I realized it was your way of saying you can’t stand the thought of such a drink!
Don’t particularly like either but I do like the gin martini better (see that wasn’t redundant!).
@Anon 1:11 – also bawf as in cough.
Andrew R 5:22 pm
Exactly!. Gin martini is a retronym.
It does drive the purists nuts though.
Sorry Aaron Spacemuseum.
Hah is definitely taunting. Nothing wrong with the clue
These online portmanteau words are often annoying so I can’t see how one is better than another. Anyway, I am sure someone somewhere used sharenting.
Kudos to Rex for pointing out the redundancy that is GIN MARTINI.
Hals is not at all obscure. Only slightly less well known than Rembrandt. It is a tough Saturday section but doable.
So sorry about the microdots @Rex! You’re not old enough. They could also be tiny dots of microfilm no bigger than a printed period at the end of a sentence. A favorite spy trick in things like “Man from UNCLE back in the day, but “film” didn’t fit.
Two days in a row with some great clues. Liked it a lot, except for the goody portmanteau and name calling words, ECO SHAMING and SHARENTING. I’m just not a fan. My maternal grandfather lectured my brother and me regularly when he heard slang or poor sentence structure UTTERED in his presence. Highly placed in the Ohio AG’s office, he was one of the “go to” writers for documents and speeches during one very contentious election that I recall the grownups discussing.
I agree with OFL today, a very good Saturday, following a superb Friday.
Anon 9:09 Your second sentence is laughably untrue.
Can someone explain to my why “beyond regulation” solves to “INOT?”
Ugh I was so confident that TAPENADE was PYRENEES. It just fits so well.
Someone did. Read the blog post.
Worst Saturday time ever; almost quit it several times but glad I stuck with it. Can’t really blame the puzzle, it’s solid but for a few kealoas; I just couldn’t think out of the box as well as usual. Numerous groans elicited when things fell into place (notably, THOU at the very end). Keeping ORANGEBOWL confidently in place for the annual NYD event hindered progress in the NW considerably. Good, humbling fun.
I saw the title and the layout of the puzzle and decided not to do it. I agree with your comments, doing a themeless on a Sunday is giving up. Shame on Will.
Indeed, there are "martinis" (which, of course, have gin in them), and "vodka martinis". No need for the retronym "gin martini", IMO.
This tempest in a teapot reminds me of a limerick:
A martini that doesn't have gin?!
It's anathema, wrong—just a sin!
When I order, don't query,
"Gin or vodka?" please, dearie.
In their graves, our poor forebears must spin.
WHAT THIGHS
After A GINMARTINI, MARY can't WAIT,
EASYDOESIT, but SI,SI, she'll TAKETHEBAIT.
--- ART HALS
HALS was a gimme here. Used his 'The Cavalier' on the cover sheet of one of my college papers. My calm was SerenE before SOOTHE. Noticed: WHATABEAST AMUST ABIT; ATREST ATWAR; EASYDOESIT INIT INOT. HATS in the corners.
Wordle bogey, coulda gone many ways.
A martini by definition is made with gin. If you ask me to make you a martini, I will use gin 100% of the time. If you prefer to have it made with a different spirit, then that said spirit must precede the word martini.
Re: microdot. It has nothing to do with 'microdosing' nor is it particularly 'modern'. Certain LSD was called microdot 50 years ago, sometimes purple, sometimes other. Gotta know your ACIDS before you UTTER what you 'think'.
There were some moments of fun, and a lot more of meh. But, then again, I truly did have a dnf.
One person's treasure...something like that.
Lady Di
Couple of lookups...like, I had a chance in hell of coming up with RAPGOD on my own. Rivers & rappers: SNOOZEFEST. So I guess, technically, a DNF.
Wordle par.
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