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Merry Christmas, everyone! It's Clare for the last Tuesday of December, which is coincidentally the day after Christmas. Hope everyone had a lovely holiday and has a great New Year. I solved this with a margarita in one hand while typing with the other, so take things I say with a grain of salt. My family and I did a lot of cooking and watching football, and ... drinking :) I've got next week off of work, so that'll be great. But I have a hearing at 8:30 a.m. on January 2, so that'll be fun!
Anywho, on to the puzzle...
Constructor: Neil Shook
Relative difficulty: Medium (depending on number of margaritas)
THEME: TOY BOXES (62A: Places for playthings, with a hint to this puzzle's shaded squares) — Each of the four gray squares form the name of a toy/object
Relative difficulty: Medium (depending on number of margaritas)
Theme answers:
- KITE
- BIKE
- DRUM
- BALL
- DOLL
- YOYO
Norma Kamali is an American fashion designer. She is best known for the "sleeping bag" coat, garments made from silk parachutes, and versatile multiuse pieces. She reached a peak of fame during the early 1980s with her 1980 "Sweats" collection, a variety of casual garments done in sweatshirt fabric, most famously flounced, hip-yoked miniskirts called rah-rah skirts in the UK, a style she had first presented in other fabrics in 1979. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Wiki)
• • •
The puzzle — a debut for the constructor — was pretty fun! I didn’t use the theme at all, but looking back, it was nice to see the different types of toys/gifts one might give or receive on Christmas. TOY BOXES worked as a revealer. There weren’t a ton of long answers for this puzzle, and it felt like there was a lot of crosswordese — DONS, APOP, DADA, END, ING, TOP, CUE, SOD, etc… There just weren’t a lot of other memorable words in this puzzle. LIKE LIKE (10D: Have a crush on, cutesily) was one of the longest answers, and I really didn’t like like it. And I strongly disliked OPTIMUMS (41A: Best-case scenarios). That’s not a plural you ever see. Hated BUB (1A: Fella), though maybe that’s just me.
But having BUGLES (1D: Some military brass?) near BEAGLES (3D: Long-eared hound) and then PALES (8A: Lightens up?) above ALBINO (15A: Lacking pigment) seemed deliberate, which I liked. Also, having DODOS (56A: Extinct birds of Mauritius) (who were doomed) above MT DOOM (60A: Volcanic peak ruled by Sauron in "The Lord of the Rings") and GRANDKID (16A: Frequent object of doting attention) above LEGO SET (19A: Gift for a budding architect, maybe) were nice. I enjoyed the little legal answers in the puzzle, with PLEAS (8D: "Not guilty," e.g.), ABETTOR (9D: Partner in crime), and DAS (35A: Govt. prosecutors). And I liked the clues for some of the typical words. Like TEN (62D: What's rolled to get from Free Parking to Go to Jail, in Monopoly). SAG (31A: Union of Hollywood performers, for short), and SAD (7D: Disconsolate).
It’s still Christmas, so that’s about all I have to say. Off to continue watching the 49ers lose to the stupid Ravens and to watch the Doctor Who Christmas episode! Happy holidays, everyone.
Misc.:
Signed, Clare Carroll, the ghost of Christmas future
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Misc.:
- My dad kinda babysat my friend’s kid and now says he wants a GRANDKID. My sister and I will get right on that, Dad!
- I think this Christmas break calls for a re-watch of all the Lord of the Rings movies (extended editions, of course) to see all about MT DOOM and how it was destroyed.
- I still remember dressing up as minions to go see “Despicable Me 2,” where GRU (32D: "Despicable Me" protagonist) tries to give up his life of crime. My sister, friend, and I wore overalls, yellow shirts, and black round glasses. We looked pretty epic, if I do say so myself.
- YOU’RE IT (58A: Words that start a game of tag) and GRANDKID worked well with the theme of TOY BOXES.
See you in the new year!
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
I confidently dropped in Basset for long-eared hound, which gummed up the works for a bit. It's always the kealoas you don't see coming...
ReplyDelete"Beagle"?? "Beagle"??????
DeleteBasset hounds have long ears. Beagles don't. Full stop .
Baskets also have 168 percent more character than a Beagle but I digress
I hope whoever put that clue in gets more coal than Joe Manchin.
"Beagle"???? What an embarrassment.
Like Clare, I didn't like LIKE LIKE.
ReplyDeleteHow come COME and DOME don't rhyme?
Shouldn't the plural of OPTIMUM be OPTIMA.
I believe that REEKED, DECAY, I'M SO OLD and NO EXIT were all existential essays by Jean Paul Sartre, right?
@ Anoa Bob. The same reason Comb and Bomb do not.
DeleteEnglish being English ( Anoa Bob’s rhetorical question about come and dome not rhyming ) Anyway language in general is not rational.
DeleteI didn’t like like LIKE LIKE, but I did like LIKE LIKE.
DeleteThis last reply made me laugh, thanks :)
DeleteOn the tough side for me. Started out with gUy before BUB and then Basset before BEAGLE, spelled ABETTOR wrong on the first try, did not know NORMA (thanks for the WOTD @Clare), Deet before DCON…a bit tough.
ReplyDeleteReasonably smooth grid given the constraints, cute theme, liked it. Nice debut.
Just finished watching Love Actually again, terrific music. Now i’m going to see if the other Alan Richman Christmas movie is on somewhere tonight.
Die hard?
DeleteRicKman
Delete
ReplyDeleteThat's odd, @Clare and @Anoa Bob. I like LIKE LIKE like crazy.
@jae gUy before BUB at 1A was my only overwrite.
In my early morning brain fog I conflated PADMe (Amidala from Star Wars) and PADMA (Lakshmi), but I knew something was up so I left the last square of 28D empty pending 45A. I didn't know Ms. Kamali, but I figured NORMA was more likely than NORMe.
Basset and Deet for me as well, but luckily I knew NORMA Kamali (one of my wife's favored designers in the '80s). I got the theme answer before any of the TOY BOXES were filled in, and then just solved like a regular themeless without using that knowledge. I thought it was a tough Tuesday but my time was right around average, so maybe it was the hoopla from yesterday. Merry Christmas and happy Boxing Day!
ReplyDeleteI had "unroll" instead of UNREEL, together with "logoset" busted of LEGOSET. I wasn't sure UNREEL was a word (I'm still not sure0.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise a normal Tuesday with some nice fill.
Unreel is very much a work.
DeletePleasant Tuesday, only really thrown by having never heard of DCON and having REDO for tear up and EMBARKED (despite the wrong tense) going across. I also misremembered PADME. Like like is cute !
ReplyDeleteThis is a "Boxing Day" puzzle...No?
ReplyDeleteYes, seems worth mentioning.
DeleteTheme played no part in the solve. Themes like this are better when the puzzle is a bit harder, and you can use the theme to help solve.
ReplyDeletePADMA crossing NORMA definitely not good. Neither of those is exactly a household name, and that cross could be any of several vowels. Also wondering of GRU/SAG will cause some DNFs today, although I think those are a bit more well known.
About the theme, once I got Eeyore, I immediately put in yo-yo so for me the theme speeded things up for. So I and others did use the theme. at least a little!
DeleteWow. I struggled mightily with this one. Played like a tough Thursday for me —double my average Tuesday time. Really was out of sync with the cluing and LOTS of trivia and names I didn’t know.
ReplyDeletePoints for me as I knew what the revealer was going to be after seeing all those TOYS in squares and thinking "bet we're going for TOYBOXES" and voila. Also dredged up PADMA from the memory bank somewhere. Nothing like feeling smart on a Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteBEAGLE took too long as that was my dog when I was a kid. Good old Snuffy. We were discussing DODO(s) at Christmas dinner yesterday as a son has friends with a daughter named Dorothy, and guess what her nickname is? Given to her by her parents too. Unfortunate.
Congrats on the debut, NS. Nice Start. I'll forgive you the IMSOOLD because you included a GRANDKID, and thanks for all the fun.
SB-I'm finishing the SB a little later today, but under protest, as I have already had both HOOPOE and PHAETON, a pangram!, rejected. I mean, really.
I immediately thought of beagle because I too had one as a child. Ours was called Willie. I think the rising popularity of Peanuts and Snoopy in the late fifties and sixties caused an uptick of people getting beagles. We lived in a fairly large city and those beautiful and affectionate dogs deserve to be in the country. I learned that their howls and neighbors don’t mix too well. But to this day- I haven’t had another dog since- they still get to me
DeleteHappy (Toy-)Boxing Day and first day of Kwanzaa! Also, it’s St. Stephen’s Day and if you’re moved to break into song, you can do no better than “Good King Wenceslas looked out/On the Feast of Stephen…”
ReplyDeleteI’m with Clare in liking this toy-themed Christmas Week puzzle. I noticed the squared-off toys emerging as I solved, but I think the only one I used to help get an answer was DOLL – I saw the DO in MT. DOOM and it gave me the LL in the middle of CALL ME. I briefly contemplated objecting that BIKEs would not generally be found in TOY BOXES as all these other toys might, but decided nah.
I’m yet another Basset person. And right beside it, I went through the tedious progression of Unwind/UNRolL/UNREEL. Also, on the other coast, stuck in metE for DOLE. Almost had a malapop with TEN. Wanted tenS for ONES at 4A but did a wait-and-see and didn’t fill it in, then found TEN as the actual answer for the Monopoly clue in the deep south.
In the category of picky-picky-picky, shouldn’t the clue for REEKED be Stank? Past tense (stank) vs. past participle (stunk). And, hey, don’t NOSES inhabit the middle of everyone’s face? Mine, yours, Mr. Potato Head’s, everyone’s? Did love the military brass clue for BUGLES. And the reference to PADMA Lakshmi’s wonderfully titled Love, Loss, and What We Ate. Also liked LIKE LIKE and enjoyed remembering “What’s all the hubbub, BUB?”
I always shudder when I come across DHL, as I once fell for the simplest email scam there is. I got a message saying I had to pay some minute sum to get my package from DHL and, as I was waiting for a delivery that I thought was coming from DHL, I paid it without a second thought. Only to then discover that 37 unknown charges had appeared on my credit card. Whaa…?! The aggravating rigmarole of having to get the charges dismissed, cancel the card and get a new one then ensued. As did an extended period of self-recrimination. Sigh.
However, despite that memory, I can’t help but be in good spirits because I just watched Alistair Sim’s Scrooge dance around his bedroom with the joy of Christmas morning, and also an extended tribute to Dick Van Dyke that featured a performance by…wait for it…Rita Ora! The friend of crosswords everywhere!
[Spelling Bee: Still working on the last two days: Sun. stands at -2 (missing a 5er and a 6er) and Mon. at -1 (missing a 6er). Honestly this newish PAST PUZZLES feature is killing me. It was so much kinder when all previous puzzles vanished when you clicked on today’s.]
One of the unfortunate aspects of my reappearance after a long absence is that I’m just bursting with…
ReplyDeleteUNICLUES!
1. Yeah, well, bath-time.
2. Denmark.
3. Hunters’ final words to the last group of flightless birds on Mauritius.
4. Christmas gifts for Sauron’s children.
5. First line of Melville’s original idea for a whale tale narrated by an Asian crime writer.
6. Two-year-old’s prep for riding Snoopy.
7. Sad donkey’s Latina sposa.
8. Really get off on Sartre’s “Hell is other people” play.
9. Grass up, rip up, gives up.
1. GRANDKID REEKED
2. LEGOSET STATE
3. “DODOS, YOU’RE IT.”
4. MT. DOOM TOY BOXES
5. CALL ME ERLE ING
6. BEAGLE STRADDLE
7. SALMA EEYORE
8. LIKE LIKE NO EXIT
9. SOD, REND, LETS GO
@Barbara S. 8:33 AM
Delete"... unfortunate aspect..."???
I think it's a brilliant aspect.
And #3 wins.
Good to see you made it through the holiday.
Nailed it, IMO. I liked and disliked the same things. Cute, not too simplistic but also definitely a Tuesday. Merry everything.
ReplyDeleteWhen I become Supreme Ruler of what Lewis likes to call Crosslandia, there will be no Internet or textspeak initialisms. None. Nada. Zippo. Let me say that again. THERE WILL BE NO INTERNET OR TEXTSPEAK INITIALISMS!
ReplyDeleteI don't know what TLDR stands for/means. I thought I'd have a Natick when it crossed the pest control, but I ran the alphabet and somehow pulled the D of DCON out of my you-know-where.
The rest of the puzzle was fine. The theme was cute. It made the puzzle easier, and it would have been SO useful right in the vicinity of TLDR. Unfortunately when I really needed the theme, it wasn't there for me.
But not a bad Tuesday anyway.
From yesterday: I posted a pop quiz for Hitchcock buffs very late on yesterday's blog. Answers to come much later today.
ReplyDeleteAlso -- Will Nediger and I have a puzzle coming up this Thursday 12/28 on Universal. I'll give you another heads-up on Thursday.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteHappy Boxing Day to all our Canadian folk. Happy Back To Work Day for me. Har.
Neat little theme. We even get a Themer in the Revealer. That's rather RARES. And all the BOXES are symmetrical. Long answers going through all the BOXES, too, so that gives the -ese a pass.
Hope y'all had a great holiday!
No F's (UNREaL)
RooMonster
DarrinV
END, TOP, CUE, and SOD are crosswordese? In my mind those are words that are most definitely used outside of crossworld, and are very solid short entries.
ReplyDeleteEnd top cue and sod. They are not crossword only or almost only words, but I think what Rex meant in listing them is that there are too many boring overused 3 letter words in this puzzle He does have a point but they don’t bother me much on Tuesday
DeleteI was going to say that deet wasn't a brand name, but apparently it is -- though I think it started out as just a quicker way to say diethyltoluamide (yes, of course I had to look that up!)
ReplyDeleteI got to the revealer before I noticed the boxes, but it helped with a couple of them. I had to get DRUM from the crosses, though, it just didn't occur to me from the DR.
Crossing the creator of Perry Mason with the creator of Sherlock Holmes was another nice touch.
And that's it for me -- we've already run three dishwasher loads since Christmas dinner last night, and there's at least one more to go!
@Nancy, the answer to your question to me at 10:49 pm yesterday is “Yes.” I read the lines and I think I got most of the answers but was stumped on one and guessed on another. I look forward to more quizzes like this! Thanks!
ReplyDelete@pabloinnh (8:00)-- I think if Charles Schultz had heard of "Snuffy" the BEAGLE before he began writing his strip, he might have even chosen it over Snoopy. What an inspired name for a BEAGLE!
ReplyDeleteHappy Boxing Day, everyone!
ReplyDelete@Nancy: I'll have to look at your Hitchcock quiz!
Okay Clare..where are the pet pics? Nevermind Grandkids!! Happy New Year. Lol jim
ReplyDeleteHow does a bike fit in a toy box? How does the editor miss that?
ReplyDeleteAbout the bike in a box complaint, well a tot’s bike may come in a box. Close enough for crosswords ( and me).
DeleteThis puzzle could have been good if it weren't for the horrendous NW corner. "BUB" is making my blood boil. How are you going to start your debut puzzle off with a piece of trash fill like BUB? And UNE right below it? Just go away.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 9:36
DeleteBUB is a word, spoken by most English speaking people and is not obscene or at all obscure
Nothing wrong with it. I gather informal word s in crosswords drive some people crazy but the Times has been doing this for decades so obviously most aren’t bothered by it. So if you do the Times puzzle you will continue to see a lot of them. Hopefully, you will get used to it.
Rex, you may want to rephrase this one. It sounds like...well:
ReplyDelete"My dad kinda babysat my friend’s kid and now says he wants a GRANDKID. My sister and I will get right on that, Dad!"
Not an easy Tuesday by any stretch....
ReplyDeleteExcellent puzzle: challenging, no errors of language or fact (that I could see, anyway), interesting gimmick. Let's have more like this!
ReplyDeleteOh my, one of those days…I committed/ran into every mis-start mentioned above, and had to look up PADMA. Despite that, think this a fun puzzle, and like @JNKMD’s “Boxing Day” reference. Also like Clare’s laid-back review…
ReplyDeleteWith gUy in at 1A, I was wondering mightily if 3D was going to be Ol' YELLER, but no, whew; that would have ruined my faith in crossword clues.
ReplyDeleteTOYBOXES is a great theme revealer - I just assumed the toy were going to be a Christmas gift tie-in so the actual reveal was revealing.
Thanks, Neil Shook.
Lovely little puzzle. I'm one who likes LIKE LIKE. Love I AM SO OLD.
ReplyDeleteTee-Hee: NAKED GRU.
Uniclues:
1 Youngster existed in its normal odiferousness.
2 In a cardboard box in the attic for decades.
3 Shirt for British eye doctor with children.
4 Where Sauron kept his LEGO SETS.
5 Performing monkey's plan to ride in style.
6 Adore play with the all-too-true phrase, "L'enfer, c'est les autres."
1 GRAND KID REEKED
2 LEGO SET STATE
3 OPTI-MUM'S TOP
4 MT. DOOM TOY BOXES
5 STRADDLE BEAGLE (~)
6 LIKE LIKE NO EXIT
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: After dragging way too many friends to way too many horrendous ones, what I will be attending and with whom. Or, after my most recent outing, a revision: Six solo. ROCK OPERA. ALONE.
¯\_(γ)_/¯
Not a fan of MTDOOM, being clued without abbreviation! In all his writings, Tolkien never abbreviated Mount to Mt. except in a letter to Eileen Elgar in September of 1963. Even if LOTR was TLDR, and you never got to EMBARKON that journey with Frodo, or you don’t know your VALOR from your Valar, I still feel like the Crossworld rules should apply!
ReplyDelete1. Lockshmi who wrote the memoir ...
ReplyDelete2. Fashion designer Kamali
3. Volcanic peak ruled by Sauron ...
Okay, I'm a nearly 80 y.o. geezer and never all that "with it" even when younger, but are those things I can be reasonably expected to know - and, on a Tuesday? Sometimes, I just need to gauge exactly how far out of it I actually am.
Norma I didn’t know her at all.She is fairly obscure but the name itself has been around a long time so it was easy to guess once I got 2 letters. You are NOT expected to know all the trivia. PADMA is a bit less obscure but I didn’t know the name right off either. But it is a common name from India so after a few letters I also got the answer.
DeleteI was born in 1952. Lord of the Rings was first published in the late’30’s I believe. And it has been popular ever since.
It's Boxing Day in Great Britain.
ReplyDeleteBoxing Day right across our northern border also
ReplyDeleteNice inside-the-box thinkin exercise, for a TuesPuz.
ReplyDeleteThere were a few no-know names/mountains, but nuthin serious.
staff weeject pick: TSO, generally speakin.
some fave stuff: GRU [M&A = big minion fan]. LEGOSET [need a box for that]. CHEWSUP [actually witnessed a dog-in-law chewin up a Christmas dogtoy lamb, on Christmas mornin]. GRANDKID.
LIKELIKE … har
TLDR = Totally Luvable Desperation Rendition. or somesuch.
Thanx for toyin with us, Mr. Shook dude. And congratz on yer fine debut.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
p.s. Thanx for doin the work on Christmas day for us, Ms. Clare ghost darlin.
**gruntz**
@Barbara @0827 Stank would be correct if REEKED is meant to be the simple past of reek but REEKED is also the past participle of reek. Since stunk is the past participle of stink we have congruence.
ReplyDeleteXword info used to be free. Are others now paying for access to this website?
ReplyDeleteBoxing Day in Virginia, as well.
ReplyDeleteKitshef
DeleteBoxing Day is a legal holiday in England. How big a deal is it in Virginia? Just wondering.
( I read somewhere that the name came from the fact that the upper classes would box up gifts that day for their servants ).
ReplyDeleteI didn't like "LIKE LIKE" either & solved as a themeless. Nice to see PADMA. I never heard of MT DOOM but it all fell into place. Came here to see the TOY theme.
Merry Christmas to you, Clare :)
Congrats on your debut, Neil!
I am baffled by "une" as in Avignon. Is it supposed to be "one" letter? Is it supposed to be "une" as in an indefinite French article? Yet Avignon is not "an Avignon." Is it supposed to be the first letter of Avignon, in which case should it be "premiere"?
ReplyDeleteJe n'en ai juste aucune idΓ©e.
Canon Chasuble The clue is
DeleteA in Avignon not a as in Avignon.
This is standard crossword convention to ask for the equivalent of the English article “a” in French. It could be either un or UNE but since no 2 letter answers it must be the feminine version.
A cute post-Christmas puzzle, with TOYs galore for the KIDs, strewn throughout the grid as perhaps over some living room floors. I noticed the accumulation early, and the theme helped me get a couple of the later items more quickly. The reveal left me with ???, though: as yesterday's cherry jam was for @Rex (does it exist?), so TOY BOXES are for me - around here toys go in a toy chest. I thought the other KID references were a nice touch: DADA, LEGOS, the seesaw you STRADDLE, the YOU'RE IT of tag, EEYORE.
ReplyDelete@JNKMD - Nice catch on Boxing Day!
@Barbara S. - re: "Past tense (stank) vs. past participle (stunk)" - I'm with you 100%, but I think we may be on the losing side for some of these similarly conjugated verbs. I keep reading things like "In the gale-force winds the ship foundered and sunk."
Thx Neil; a TOYful puz, and just right for us BOXing Day adherents! π
ReplyDeleteHi Clare, good to see you again; thx for your take, and good luck on your Jan 2 early morn hearing! :)
Downs-o; all good except my dog CHEWS 'on' CHEWy TOYS. I guess COE College wouldn't make the grade for a Mon puz, but CAnED seemed reasonable.
GRU seemed familiar, but 'protagonist' vs 'antagonist' caused some doubt there. Thot possibly dRU or tRU, but went ahead with GRU, anyways.
Hands up for Basset.
Was most pleased to finally get TLDR down pat.
I LIKED LIKE LIKE. Is that LIKE a Valley Girl thing to say?
My coincidence for the day: just finished watching 'The making of a LEGO masterpiece: Artist Ekow Nimako creates dazzling sculptures inspired by Black mythology and Afrofuturism solely out of black LEGO pieces'
Another fun downs-o journey; LIKEd it a lot! :)
@Roo π for QB yd! :)
@Barbara S.
Good to see you again, and in fine fettle, too! :)
___
Croce's 870 was med-hard (2 1/2 NYT Sat.), but a nice respite from the Sunday downs-o (6 hrs in), with holes galore [update: the theme finally took hold; looking forward to making some real progress td]. π€ Stan Newman's Sat. Stumper, Paolo Pasco's Mon. New Yorker, Michael Lieberman's NYT PandA, and Patrick Berry's New Yorker cryptic on tap for the rest of the week.
___
Peace π πΊπ¦ ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all π π
You misspelled OPTIMUMS.
ReplyDeleteHad a couple nits:
ReplyDelete1) A BIKE is not really a toy
2) The clue for MTDOOM should have indicated an abbreviation.
The clue for EEYORE also seemed unnecessarily misdirective for a Tuesday -- If I hadn't already had the E from CAPED, I would have confidently plopped RABBIT in there
Some bikes are toys. Close enough for crosswords.
Delete@kitshef: I think the crossing for NORMA and PADMA is fair -- the clues make it clear these are names, and A is the only letter that results in two common names.
ReplyDelete@Canon Chasuble: Yes, it is referring to the indefinite article "a," and there's an elision of something like "they say" or "it is" between the "as" and the "in" -- I parsed the clue as "A as [it would be said] in Avignon."
I think Rex might say something about DRYWALL being the centerpiece of this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteFor me, gray squares stand like MT DOOM on the horizon of an early week puzzle's horizon. (Anyone else write in Mordor first?)
Anyway, came here to say, I enjoy LIKE LIKE. Reminds me of High School, maybe even college. But as silly as it is to say, the clue seems off to me. If you like someone, that's a crush. If you like like them that's serious. I should have prefaced this TL;DR.
@Nancy-Glad you found Snuffy's name so apt. I never really thought about it, we got him when he was a puppy and so was I, so that was always just his name.
ReplyDeleteTLDR-is one of the few internet abbreviations that appeals to me (and one of the few I know)-Too Long Didn't Read. In fact, I'm too busy to write more than TLDR. I find this somewhat elegant.
@Canon Chasuble - Here in America, we would say "I'd like a croissant, please". Were we in Avignon we would say "Une croissant, si vous plait" Or not, because we're filthy Americans who can't even speak French, we would just ask for a croissant and hope they don't spit on it before they give it to us.
ReplyDelete@Natick @Norma x Padma folk: What could the final letter be of NORM_ be, other than A? NormQ? NormU? And yes, PADMA Lakshmi is famous on a dozen different levels.
What @Clare said, but more succinctly: Tuesdays gotta Tuez.
Yes, except one actually would say “Un croissant…”
DeleteNorma Kamali designed the one-piece red swimsuit worn by Farah Fawcett in her iconic 1976 poster. The suit's in the Smithsonian. The poster is thought to be the highest selling poster in history (12 million).
ReplyDeleteI didn't like LIKE LIKE either ... I loved it. That is definitely a thing in the language ... and one that until you see it in a crossword you almost do not realize it is a thing.
ReplyDeleteA beagle does NOT have long ears!!!!
ReplyDeleteUnless perhaps it is half basset.
Best advice ever!! Solve with a margarita in one hand! Thank you Claire!
ReplyDelete@Anon 11:08 What used to be free in XwordInfo is still free, it's just that it's a shadow of its former self. Several months ago Jeff Chen stopped his posting efforts (apparently thanks to hate mail), and now Jim Horne just posts the solution without comment, and maintains the data - that's the stuff you have to pay for, but you've always had to pay for that.
ReplyDelete@Clare – you left out the constructor's name (Neil Shook) and instead described the theme twice. No more margaritas.
ReplyDeleteI don't really consider a KITE a "toy", and I certainly don't consider a BIKE one. I already had GRANDKID in place before I got to the hound clue so I figured it wanted BEAGLE, though I don't think beagles' ears are particularly long.
This puzzle seemed hellbent on being depressing — Disconsolate: SAD; Over-the-hill lament: I'M SO OLD; Pooh's friend EEYORE; a "Not guilty" PLEA before going to Monopoly Jail; dental DECAY; MT.DOOM...
ODDS, and ENDs
+ two versions of CALL ME:
Petula
Astrud
Naticked twice; SAG/PADMA cross and TLDR/DCON.
ReplyDeleteRe Hitchcock quiz --
ReplyDelete@Joe D, who nailed all the answers in an email to me, let me know that my #6 clue is wrong. What's written should instead be: "They're onto YOU. I'm in your room."
Of course, that's what's written. How stupid of me.
I'll post the answers around 5 p.m.
Answers to Hitchcock quiz:
ReplyDelete1) STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
2) DIAL M FOR MURDER
3) THE 39 STEPS
4) NOTORIOUS
5) THE LADY VANISHES
6) NORTH BY NORTHWEST
@Nancy: Thanks for puzzle. That was fun!
ReplyDeleteFor a cute little breezy puzzle about toys and doting grandparents, it was sad to see "over the hill." I put it in, but it hurt.
ReplyDeleteReply to anonymous @ 7.17 p.m.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the clue printed in the NYT Newspaper is "A, as in Avignon" NOT "A in Avignon"
Long time fan, first time ever leaving a comment. And it will probably never be seen. I enjoyed this puzzle for the most part as I’m a big fan of the friendly, cuddly reptiles that roamed the Mesozoic. I don’t have any problems with the theme and the “addition” of the asteroid didn’t bother me. Some of the fill did, though. Specifically SCYTALE, SEISM, OTTO I, TROU, and NITER. Man, that NE corner was really forced. Seism is an atrocious word without -IC. TROU is in keeping with the new, prurient NYTXW style I suppose, but it’s not even clever. Otto looks like “OTTOI” and as you mentioned there are so many Greats that it’s grating as a clue (and fatuous, which is a good word if kinda ugly). I’ll confess I didn’t know the amazing Naica cave crystals were made of NITER, or saltpeter. I’m not a chemist but I’ve seen shows about them and read a few articles and they’re always described as being made of selenite (a type of gypsum). Maybe niter is the same thing, but it’s not even mentioned in this description from the American Chemical Society:
ReplyDelete“It was in these waters that the giant crystals of Naica were born. The cave was filled with calcium sulfate–rich water. Calcium sulfate can form several minerals, but it turned out that gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O), specifically a transparent, colorless variety known as selenite, came to be the dominant mineral in the caves.”
Live and learn. I had a decent niter for once so I’m going to take down the Christmas decorations this dayer.
Was this good? Who knows? I was distracted the entire time by “carrying the one” being clued as something that is done in long division, when it is most definitely something that is done in addition. How does this get past the editors? Any six-year-old would have clued this correctly.
ReplyDeleteEasy-peasy. Wanted gUy at 1a but no go. BUB is really archaic, but OK. This now allows BEAGLE, and we're off. Single letter writeover at ABETTeR.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of IMSOOLD, we had a visit from good ol' ERLE. LIKE, LIKE Maleska era. Enjoyed: the non-Sartre clue for NOEXIT. A LEGOSET for the GRANDKID. The YO-OY. PALES to ALBINO. DOD SALMA Hayek. Birdie.
Wordle bogey. In my defense, they're giving us tougher words.
When's the last time you heard, "Hey Bub!"? I'm gonna keep my ears out for sightings, to mix a coupla bodily metaphors.
ReplyDeleteGotta love a BEAGLE. And ERLE has shown up in several grids I've solved in the last week. He comes and goes.
Did this puzzle toy around with you, too?
Diana, LIW
SOD it! Double Natick on a Tuesday: SAG/GRU and TLDR/DCON crosses.
ReplyDeleteMini-Word Ladder: TAU, TAG (from 58A clue), SAG, SAD, SOD
I realize it’s a debut puzzle but has the editor completely stopped editing? This one badly needed to be EDITED.
ReplyDeleteSAD STATE
ReplyDeleteYOU'RE UNREEL and OPTIMUM,
CALLME, we'll SLEEP NAKED,
STRADDLE ME, ODDS are YOU'll COME,
I'MSOOLD I'll fake IT.
--- NORMA DOYLE