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Heat center of the 2000s / WED 12-6-23 / Homemaker from Mayberry / Hoodless pullovers often worn with other layers
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Constructor: Peter A. Collins and Bruce Haight
Relative difficulty: It took me 25:17, but I kept stopping because I was bored
THEME: H — All of the clues start with the letter H
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: [Hagiography subjects: Abbr.] as a clue for STS —
- [Harsh rule, metaphorically] for HEAVY HAND
- [Hybrid genre of country and rap, pejoratively] for HICK HOP
- [Hopping mad sort] for HOT HEAD
- [Hypocrite's perch, perhaps] for HIGH HORSE
- [Hog part] for HAM HOCK
- [Helmet-wearer's potential embarrassment] for HAT HAIR
Word of the Day: [Hagiography subjects: Abbr.] as a clue for STS —
A hagiography is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions.
• • •
That makes this an easy themeless puzzle, with constrained (read: weirdly phrased) clues. Oh, and it's oversized! (16 rows instead of 15, to accommodate the central shape.) Assessing the technical stats of the grid as though it were a themeless.... it's kind of a bad one! The average word-length is less than 5 (for a themeless, it's good to hover around 5.3 or higher), there are only eight entries that are eight letters or longer (the two longest ones, SMARTY PANTS and THATS SO TRUE were great, for what it's worth), well over half of the entries (44 / 78) were three- or four-letter words, and the clues were stilted rather than fun or tricky.
When a puzzle has a good theme with bad execution, I fault the constructor, but when it has a bad or meh theme, I fault the editor. The constructor gets to pitch whatever idea enters their pretty little head, and then it's the editor's job to be like "Okay but... why.... is this fun? Will this be fun? No? Okay then, let's not publish it." This happened to me a little while ago-- I pitched a puzzle with a 16x16 grid, a 16 in the middle of it, and certain entries clued as decimal versions of their hexadecimal counterparts (I will not get into the details because I promise you it was very boring and not a good idea), and the editor rightfully rejected it with notable comments including "it doesn't excite me" and "I don't find it very appealing" and "I don't think this will work." Amazing work from him, well done!
 |
| btw, I'd be a terrible editor |
If the clues struck me as particularly effortlessly smooth, that would be one thing. But they're just weird! They're weird! If someone sent me five of these clues out of context ([Having been sloshed out] ???????? Sir?????), I would assume this was the first crossword they had ever made, and it was posted on a blog with no editing. If this puzzle had some deeper meta puzzle or hidden aspect, that would be one thing. But I "got" what was going on within .01 seconds of opening it. If I felt crossword puzzles were simply a mechanism for constructors to prove that they are able to accomplish Something Very Hard, that would be one thing. But I do not feel that way!
I am so grumpy today! Did any of you mistake me for Rex? I just watched "Scrooged" this evening and I am feeling immensely Scrooge-like. I hope I am not visited in a dream by three horrifying ghosts that warn me not to be grumpy on the internet.
Bullets:
- [Hercule Poirot, e.g.] for TEC — NO ONE SAYS THIS. NO ONE SAYS THIS!!!!! Constructors, if you are reading this post, STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW. AND DELETE THIS FROM YOUR WORD LIST. RIGHT NOW!!!!! RIGHT! NOW!
- Actually, I'm using up all my bullet point real estate to complain about the entry TEC
- It is not a thing! And if it was once, it is not anymore. LET'S ALL MOVE ON FROM TEC, OKAY??
- #DeleteTEC
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156 comments:
You think "tec" is bad ? How about "Beetaylor"? Worst fill of all time. What the hell is going on with the NYT crossword ?
I would also like to complain about ERMA Bombeck and BEE TAYLOR, please.
Also, I’ve never heard the term HICKHOP, but I’m pretty sure it’s insensitive.
I must be losing my mind. I did not even realize at all that all the clues started with an “H”. I just thought double Hs were the theme... HIGHHORSE, HEAVYHAND etc. I have to pay more attention. Finished in 7 minutes, maybe I should slow down and smell the roses.
Boo Tec
This was not as bad as the "story" clues puzzle from August 30, but that was the worst puzzle I've solved in 20+ years of solving the NYTXW. This was really really really bad though. Like, really bad.
I am very much in agreement with Malaika, particularly regarding TEC.
A fun fact you may have heard: the time between Cleopatra's life and now (<2050 years) is less than the time between the construction of the Giza Pyramids and Cleopatra's life (~2500 years). I wonder if we are closer to BEETAYLOR than she was to the age of TEC -- if indeed there ever was such a time.
And crossing BEETAYLOR with EVO? Whew! I imagine the Venn diagram of people who know both has a miniscule overlap. I would guess most solvers are like me, and know neither.
Anyway, this was not a fun solve.
Perhaps one of the worst Wednesdays (a day I rarely like to begin with) in a long while.
Way too many names, no fun clues, and so many 3-letters I thought there must be an actual theme I'm missing...H.
Also a small annoyance, although there was no other option, rose oil is not particularly expensive (or common) in terms of perfume costs. Sure it's $15 000 a Kilogram, but ambergris is 15x that much...
I hadn't noticed the double H in the center of the grid. Now I'm impressed.
I already quite liked the puzzle. It reminded me of years ago when I first started noticing what I called word games within the game that, as I remember it, did NOT have revealers.
Here I notice the pairs of words that started with H in 6 of th answer. I did not notice that the lues for them all started with an H, nor the "puzzle art" H's.
I Had never heard the term" hick hop", but I guessed it from the clue with just a couple of letters and chuckle.
The puzzle lost some interest for me toward the bottom when it got heavy on names.
Wait, "Having been sloshed out" clues SPILT, not SIR. (Agree overall, just not sure I understood that example).
It’s rare that I think a guest poster brings the right level of vitriol to assessing a bad puzzle (most of the guest posters are too nice; OFL is who I turn to when I want to see a puzzle get shanked), but Malaika seems to have done it. This puzzle is ham-handed: the clues are bad because of the stupid H constraint, and then the actual fill is all garbage too. How does this particular constructor keep getting published? Who finds joy in solving these puzzles?
Highly Hilarious. I never spotted the H thing.
Agree to all, no notes! And I didn’t even notice the clues all begin with H! I just thought they were awkward and bad (ham-handed and horrible).
This puzzle was hot garbage. I keep saying this, but I feel so much for all the constructors who have their SO MUCH BETTER puzzles get rejected when garbage like this gets accepted.
It's just eleventy million 3s and a few scattered themers and... Honestly it just feels like autofill, but with bad cluing.
Medium. The only place I got hung up was on the central east coast where HICK HOP was a WOE, SPECTRA and ROSE OIL took some crosses, SPILT did not leap to mind from the H clue, dEt before TEC, I either forgot or never knew what Hagiography meant, and THATS SO TRUE took a lot of crosses…in short, a section where nanoseconds amassed in significant numbers but not enough to completely kill the whoosh of the rest of the puzzle.
Fun theme answers plus a couple of sparkly long downs almost made up for STS, STE, EVO, INO and the forced H clueing, liked it a tad more than Malaki’s did.
Not only is TEC not a current thing, I’m guessing that a Belgian policeman would also not refer to himself using that “word.”
The clues are not weird, they are often wrong. In what regional dialect does "hell, yes" mean anything remotely like "that's so true"?
After scrolling past Google's top results for Bee Taylor, a Nashville-based singer, some buried Wikipedia paragraph has led me to conclude that the aunt on the Andy Griffith show must be the unmarried sister of the main character's father. Does anyone under the age of 70 know this? And the crosses!
We haven't seen a puzzle by Bruce Haight in a year, and I hope it'll be another before the next.
Horrible. (See what I did there??)
M is not saying sir is the answer, rather is expressing disbelief. "Sir???..." suggests a dumbfounded expression and politely leaves the rest of the question implied: "Sir, are you okay?" "Sir, are you quite mad?". That sort of thing.
Agree!!!
Big lol when I realized what a BEETAYLOR was: secondary character from a sitcom that ended fifty years ago, who does not even go by the name in the grid in the show, and is a housekeeper (with an H!) rather than a homemaker. Did I get that right? And as noted above, not even the most prominent BEETAYLOR measured by search ranks. If you google your trivia answer and the most prominent result is someone else you've never heard of, maybe take that as a sign.
@Malaika: Good writeup, but none of us would mistake you for @Rex today -- he would have spent much more time griping about the number of threes.
My Holy service (1A) was a rite before it was a MASS
Stacked kealoas: ShAM/SCAM at 5A and COlA/COCA at 15A
HAT Head before HAIR at 46D (forgetting that I'd already encountered HOTHEAD at 45A)
A bit of a gripe at 55A: the clue should have read "'Hurrah' at un estadio"
It’s Aunt BEA!!! BEA for Beatrice!
Finished it, but only after realizing I had put in "That is so true" instead of THATSSOTRUE. Didn't know SOO.
I expected complaints about the number of three-letter answers in the grid, but not about BEETAYLOR (Aunt Bee to Andy and Opie). It was one of the most popular TV shows ever.
My complaints are about SIR for "Herr" (it means "Mister") and STS for Hagiography subjects?). I suppose it refers to "Saints," but that's a real stretch. A more reasonable clue would have been "thoroughfare, for short."
I also failed to connect the H letters in the grid to the theme.
I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, and remembering the lovely and always funny Aunt Bee, who I saw on reruns (probably Nick at Nite) decades after it ran. Overall the puzzle is clever, and the only challenge I had was with Evo.
The original character is indeed Aunt BEE.
I didn't have strong feelings about this one, but didn't find it great. This is embarrassing, but I completely missed the "all clues started with h" thing. I noticed a few of the longer answers starting with H or maybe even 2 of them and thought it was a weird theme. Apparently I'm not up on my e sports, didn't know EVO and really think it's BEA which of course I was happy to spell as BAE. Took a while to clean that up but got there eventually. Maybe the H clues would have been more noticeable on paper?
Actually, if you Google it, it's Aunt BEE. Huh--I learned something new about the Andy Griffith Show, which hasn't been on the air in decades. I'll never get that time back; thank you very much.
I found the grid challenging because of the shape, and despite the (now obvious) Hs in the grid I also never noticed the HH them or that all the clues began with H. Apparently I'm not that observant. I found the puzzle tedious but not incredibly difficult, although it took me longer than my average Wednesday time. Wednesday is Wacky day; this was more just why?
Meh all around.
I commented yesterday about the unfortunate circumstances where a constructor tries to hard to be “brilliant“ resulting in a puzzle which is just insufferable, and lo and behold - the Times runs one the next day. Our guest blogger is spot on - how in the world does this stuff get published in the NYT ?
It also looks like we have scraped the bottom of the barrel with regard to the “genres” and now are resorting to making up genres to insult other genres. This whole situation at the NYT has really gone to pot over the last 90 days or so. It really, really is time for a change over there. The NYT is struggling to put out B-list material now. They need a pro in charge.
Thumbs up, Joel, spot on!
Spectra, A book of poetic experiments:
"If I were only dafter
I might be making hymns
To the liquor of your laughter
And the lacquer of your limbs."
Other than that, Malaika said it all
Second day in row where I finished the puzzle with no idea about the theme. Unlike yesterday’s, though, today’s theme became clear immediately post-solve.
“Holy cow” to BOY seems a real stretch, although I guess given the clue constraint it’s surprising there weren’t a bunch of those.
Hey! I suddenly have twenty-five ideas for puzzles.
Hated Haight’s horrible, ham-handed hellscape.
This took me forever, over 20 minutes. My longest Wednesday time in forever. It wasn’t very hard in retrospect, though the Hs in middle led to little isolated sections. My job is editing mystery novels and I have never heard TEC.
When I started doing puzzles, in the 90s and early aughts, ERMA Bombeck was a mainstay, though she was an old-fashioned clue even then.
I didn't notice the H clues OR the themers. Solved it as a themeless. I think you're OK.
My first impression: Why is the monogram of literature's most notorious hebephile (oh, look! that's another H-word), smack in the middle of a crossword?
Most of what I remember from the 30 or so pages I could stomach of Lolita was good ol' Humbert going on at length about H's.
Y'all covered everything else. Saying I Haighted it is too much praise.
I can hardly wait to see @Lewis’s praise for this horrible puzzle . . .
— Jim C. in Maine
Admired the Hs, and liked the feel of the solve - some easy long answers and some tough short ones. I seem to be much in the minority. Waiting for Lewis to get prop
Some Boomer answers that are appropriately grating to the youngsters
Conrad, what is COIA?
Waiting for some
Whelp. This was less fun. But HICKHOP. Hagiography? I had HaCKHOP, which seemed plausible enough. Crossing SPILT with the weird clue into STS? Having no idea what hagiography is - I'm sure I'm not the only one - meant getting to the finish line was tough.
I also missed that each clue started with H. Ha!
Obviously a construction feat here. There’s more layers to this than Malaika presents - yes all clues begin with H and the revealer is hidden in the grid art but other than the themed H entries - the letter doesn’t show up anywhere else in the oversized grid.
The cluing is hampered by the trick and does get a little obtuse in areas. TEC is the main culprit no doubt - a reach we haven’t seen the likes of in some time. If you don’t know who Aunt BEE is that’s on you - but admittedly she’s always Aunt BEE. SMARTY PANTS , KARACHI, HIGH HORSE are all solid.
Was it yesterday that Rex referred to Harvey?
I found the quirkiness pleasantly fun.
Book of Love
Yeah what the heck is a tec? Don’t understand that at all?
BOY for “holy cow” is one of the most cringeworthy clue/answer combos I’ve seen in a long time. Does not make any sense (you might exclaim “oh boy!” but only if you’re the Tall Man from Phantasm do you just say “Boy!”)
Malaika, I came here for Rex's snark about this dreadful puzzle, and appreciated yours very much! At one point I even exclaimed aloud (startling my sleeping dog), "Ugh, this is awful!"
Sweet to see two NYT puzzle giants back, Peter (118 NYT puzzles) after 2.5 years, and Bruce (63) after one.
Ever think about how many people have had the initials HH? Here are 40: https://playback.fm/people/initials/hh .
Lovely grid art today. These constructors have done it before, and one by Bruce is on my list of four favorite NYT grid art puzzles, all worth a look, IMO:
• The cutest duck ever ( https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/16/2022 }
• That’s a big IF ( https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=9/1/2021 }
• Cutest dog ever ( https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/17/2015 }
• Musical note, ( https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/10/2010 }
Today, my brain appreciated earning its way past a couple of stiicky areas, and my double-letter-obsession loved the triple-double bottom row.
Thank you, Peter and Bruce for a fun jaunt, and please, don’t be strangers!
Count me another who didn’t notice clues all began with H. Even though I did notice grid art!
Not Aunt Bea and had a last name, who knew?
Malaika, thanks, I think you nailed it.The double H diagram and cluing are fine in theory but this puzzle felt claustrophobic and old. TEC is awful of course.
Can't say I enjoyed this one much either, but I can certainly appreciate the construction of the grid and clues. Happy Holidays!
Like others, I didn't even realize all the clues started with H. I just get the clues one at a time at the top of the screen and I work from there.
All I knew was that they were awkward and frustrating.
What a mess.
I did see a lot of Hs but I was so disengaged from this that I didn’t even realize all the clues started with H. Har har.
A Child of the ‘60s (Generation TV), I got BEETAYLOR immediately. Hell, other minor Old Ladies of Mayberry (Clara Edwards, Emma Watson - the jaywalker, not the actress) would be gimmes for me as well..
I HAD forgotten how each Andy Griffith show episode had an ending commercial that tied into that week’s plot. With Andy HAMmily Hawking the Post Toasties or Sanka with a big grin and “I appreciate it and good night!” sign off. They filmed traditional ad-free episode closers that live on in Pluto reruns).
Here’s a sample of the spots (lots more on YT). I appreciate it and good morning!
BEETAYLOR and others sell cornflakes and Sanka
As someone who gets riled up not infrequently about puzzles I didn’t enjoy solving - I take no issue with this one. Solved it like an easy Wednesday themeless. Agree that BEE TAYLOR and TEC are bad fill, but certainly did not find the solving experience as unpleasant as other commenters.
I came here for validation and was not disappointed. This puzzle was atrocious. Bee Taylor?? TEC? Fops? EVO?? SO many names, and they aren't particularly famous. ERMA BOMBECK???? Was this puzzle created for 90 year olds? She died in 1996, how about something a bit more current? What a horrific way to start the day, which is already ruined thanks to this garbage puzzle.
I haven't developed the passion or expertise needed to get worked up about this one. Completely missed the 'all clues start with H' part, so clearly miss a lot, but got the two word answers and puzzle art part, and enjoyed completing it. Thought it was interesting that the down themes are part of the black Hs.
Some of the clues were a bit 'off', but now I get why. One I didn't like was Herr, here. Fine with SIR, but "here" felt presumptious. But I dont have this one anywhere near awful, LOL, only a better sense of why, perhaps, I should.
STE 64D. Please explain
I didn't even notice that I had entered TEC from the downs, and I have no idea what it means. Can someone enlighten me?
ShAM/SCAM also happens to cross hOARSE/COARSE, which totally caught me.
I'm relieved to see that I was not the only one who missed that all the clues start with H, although I did notice the HH in the middle of the grid after I randomly wondered if there was anything in the middle of the grid. I always forget to look for stuff like that. But there it was and I solved while looking for High Heat, which is a show on the MLB Network I'm watching while trying to find out about baseball trades, which are coming right up.
Otherwise this was pretty choppy due to the grid design so not much flow. Did not know SOO or EVO and I wanted Aunt Bee (or Bea, my Mom) which didn't fit but BEETAYLOR is fine for those of us of a certain age. Never heard the term HICKHOP and it's hard to imagine an example but I like it.
I bet you guys had more fun constructing this one than most of us had solving it, some Pretty Abysmal Clues looking for the Big H, PAC and BH, but thanks for a bit of fun and especially for HICKHOP.
Hey All !
How haughty Haight has happened here. He helps his hell huffs (from Rex) historically hither.
Nothing here to throw a hissy about. I thought it a pretty neat puz. I saw every clue started with H, and obviously saw the "Double-H" grid art, but then the puz went up a notch with the Double-H Themers. My only nit (gotta have one), is the longest Downs, 3D & 30D, weren't Double-H-ers.
Thanks @Malaika for pointing out the 16 long grid, I missed that.
No other H's in grid not in a Themer. Last Themer nets a Triple! If you squint, you can see a Horse with the Double-H grid art. A HIGH HORSE? Maybe...A Hobby Horse?
Alt clues -
What you get when your extremity below the wrist falls asleep? HEAVY HAND
Jump into a hay bale inside a barn? HICK HOP
Sunburn on your baldness? HOT HEAD
The tricky Trojans built one. HIGH HORSE
Trade ones pig? HAM HOCK
Those fake visors. HAT HAIR
I'm sure others could do better...
Anyway, Wednesday! Have fun.
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
A ho-hum, highly humdrum puzzle.
To make it even worse, there were those two huge black "H"s telling me, before I even picked up my pen, exactly what would be happening in this puzzle. Not even notoriously unobservant, visually oblivious me could miss them.
This took all the breathless suspense away.
Just kidding -- there isn't any breathless suspense to take away.
I tried to guess why the H thing was happening. No "two H" or "Double-H" phrase came to mind. That's because there isn't one -- just as there isn't any revealer to explain/justify the theme.
Bottom line: I was completely underwhelmed by every aspect of this puzzle.
Suite
I met Erma Bombeck in the 90s. She continued publishing until her death in 1996. I still enjoy reading her books. I don’t know why Aunt Bee isn’t ‚Bea‘, but it’s not. She was Andy‘s unmarried aunt and was very much a homemaker. Series is also notable for the character ‚Opie‘ which was the first acting role of Ron Howard.
Same here
Wow, this puzzle really got the hackles up. Ouch.
Hick Hop is well-clued, it's another term for country + rap, and Tan Legs on a Tailgate by J Rosevelt is a decent example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ondYzFjFPaE&list=PLUJK1aMDFXVktvtAIa3vE_4n7dtus76JV&index=2
Other double H terms include: Hobbyhorse; Hellhound; Hothand; Headhoncho; Hamhanded; Hagar the Horrible. Must be tons more. (Thanks for the great Humbert Humbert reference @Kid Phoneme (7:18).)
I was never clear on what hobbyhorse means, so I looked it up. It currently means a topic one keeps coming back to. "I mentioned the national debt, so, of course, Frank got on his hobbyhorse."
In the 1400s it referred to a smallish horse. By the mid-1500s it was a horse costume worn by a person participating in a Morris (costume) dance or other performance, and then a toy consisting of a stick with a toy horse's head at one end that a child pretends to ride. By the 1600s the actual horse was dropped from the meaning, and hobbyhorse could refer to a favorite pursuit or pastime: a hobby.
If you didn't do Connections yesterday and have a way to still do it, please skip this comment.
I was totally delighted with one of the quartets. WHOOPING, PAPER, CONSTRUCTION, and FRASIER. Totally different. A real animal, vegetable, and mineral plus a fictional character.
The two constructors are very talented. They've done some beautiful stuff in the past. We should cut them some slack.
I generally loathe puzzles that are all about the constructor patting themselves on the back for how clever they are. This was no exception. Also did not notice the H clues. Just slogged through.
Short for “suite.”
Short for “detective.”
I will join any protest march against TEC.
The only thing I’ll say for it is that, because I hate it so much, I always recognize it right away.
I knew BEETAYLOR right away, although I do realize she is completely obscure to anyone under the age of about 65. My only objection to having her name in the grid, however, is that no one ever called her anything but Aunt (always pronounced “aint”) BEE.
I'm with the rare few who liked the puzzle, with the grid's double Hs announcing the theme and the six lively HH phrases - I'm also among those who missed the clues all starting with H, despite a few of them having struck me as strangely worded. Favorite cross: HAT HAIR and HOT HEAD. Also liked the idea of a SMARTY PANTS on a HIGH HORSE. And the SHIP is next to the TIDE that will carry it off.
Do-overs: HeCK before HICK, man before SIR, SCAt before SCAM, catS before FOPS.
No idea: that Aunt BEE's last name was TAYLOR.
Surprised at: the ire at TEC - it seems to me it's appeared in NYT crosswords a fair amount.
Not surprised to see, and don't quite get: dislike of Bruce Haight's puzzles.
"Tec" haters: the only person to win a Nobel Prize in Literature AND an Oscar for Best Screenwriter was George Bernard Shaw. The opening scene in play "Pygmalion" contains this line: "There's A Tec taking her down. What him? Yes: Him over there." If it was a line good enough for Shaw, and good enough to be be used verbatim in "My Fair Lady"
it's good enough for both me AND the Times puzzle. Because your background and experience doesn't include Nobel Prize Winners, don't castigate those of us who DO
care about these people and there ideas important to our own lives.
I didn’t notice the theme until later in my solve as I’m often clueless early but I was delighted with the synchronicity since I love a drink with 13 down and will see a tribute show to 49 down tonight with my husband who is one of the all time 56 downs. But when I did see the theme and the odd size I liked it.
Monday's AM STEREO and Tuesday's SNORTY aren't looking so bad now are they? HHHHHAH HHHHHAH. Here's the result of having 180 previous puzzles worth of experience between two constructors. An H-Fest. This three-apalooza reminded me of grocery store puzzles, if the grocery store was on fire.
I wonder if my favorite lonely slush pile editor is on vacation because it feels like this week they've replaced juvenalia with horrendousanalia. We do have an ass in the east, but it might be an unironic ass.
In the app you don't typically see the list of clues, so I missed those initial H's. They gave me 78 chances to see it and I didn't.
Tee-Hee: SMARTY PANTS is funny. HICK HOP is funny. The double-stuffed uniclue stacked answer AKA BAM ELK ASS CNN EVO STS TEC is funny in a whole different way.
Uniclues:
1 The Republican party.
2 Smack Chris Rock ala Will Smith.
3 Run a comb through it.
4 When high school let's out.
5 Cutesy pejorative phrase for dead pig soup because murder is soo delicious.
1 MASS SCAM CHOIR
2 HEAVY HAND EMCEE
3 SAVE HAT HAIR
4 ACNE TIDE
5 HAM HOCK ROCK
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: "There were too many bikinis." SNARL AT STEAM UP.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I thought it was taboo to have the same word in a clue and in an answer. 33A: Heavy D's genre and 17A: HEAVYHAND.
When I saw the grid layout I thought, "Interesting, a tribute puzzle to Heinrich Himmler." Glad I was wrong about that and it turned out to be Herbie Hancock. Speaking of whom, I report with a heavy heart that he's now a heroin hawker selling to hash heads in a half horrid hippie house.
What beeth the difference 'twixt the man who breathes and that one who is asphyxiated? The former HATHAIR.
Those nearly ubiquitous chants of ITSATIE drive me nuts, particularly when it's a cravat.
This puzzle was a disorienting, boring mess in service of a conceit that probably can't be done a whole lot better than this. So, congratulations to Peter A. Collins and Bruce Haight for showing that this could be done. Raised eyebrow to WS for publishing it.
Didn't even notice the H's in the grid.
My goodness. I’m beginning to think that there is something more behind the legions of people who came out to absolutely excoriate the puzzle today…like, is Bruce Haight an insufferable egomaniac or a generally mean person? Hey, I’m old and did think the puzzle skewed old in places, and count me in as one who would be happy to never see TEC in a crossword again. As a side “nit” if you are looking for something like a Honda Civic (but cheaper) I think you’d be looking at a Kia Forte and not a SPECTRA. (Yeah, I checked it out). At any rate, I don’t understand what seems to be an unbridled personal hatred of the constructor.
*S*I*G*H* I have to agree with Malaika - who I thought did an excellent job of fairly critiquing a puzzle that most commenters seem to have found questionable. I don’t know that I disliked it so much as I just wondered why it would have been considered a good choice for publication. It struck me as one of those puzzles which was done to satisfy an egotistical IDEA: “Look, I can make every clue start with an H. And then I can design the grid so that it has two H’s in it.” But as a solver, where’s the reward? I didn’t hate it but it just came across as - to use someone else’s expression above - HAM handed.
Two things I didn’t know were (1) that Miss TAYLOR from Mayberry spells her name like a buzzing insect rather than BEA, short for her first name Beatrice; and (2) there’s a music genre called HICK HOP. Both sound atrocious.
The contrast between the language used in some of the clues, such as 3D Haughty, vs the child-like SMARTYPANTS put me in a frame of mind to enjoy this puzzle. HAT HAIR embarrassing to a Helmet wearer…
It was a bit easy on top, but that changed towards the east and southeast.
Also, I thought it was Aunt Bea. But I'm sure she was called Miz Taylor by Opie's friends. Or “Bea Taylor! Did you hear about…” by some gossipy acquaintance spotting her on the sidewalk.
I noticed the unusual blank grid design but didn’t consider that it might represent anything. Alas! Missed the theme entirely and still liked it.
Polio was (and is) so much more than a "health problem." Terrible clue.
bad fill + 3 letter niches * dull theme = painful solve. great write up from Malaika though!
@Malaika: I totally mistook you for Rex today given the pointed (and well-deserved) criticism and just sense of being over it with the NYTXW but you've started this blog.
Hagiography is such a neat word -- I came across it in reading before I knew what it meant, and assumed it had something to do with witches. Turns out it's just the opposite. It was probably that little surprise that made the word stick in my memory.
I saw the big Hs right away, and then got HEAVY HAND and saw where the puzzle was going--although I hesitated for a moment with HAM HOCK, just because it was only 7 letters. And the crossing themers were a nice touch. I didn't notice either that all the clues started with H, or that there were no non-themer Hs in the grid, two nice touches -- and they helped explain some of the awkward cluing. CHOIR is a stretch, since the libretto says "Chorus," but if you need an H clue, I guess that's one. And FOPS are anything but hip, for another. As for SPECTRA, why would you give a plural name to a car? But that one's Kia's fault, not the constructors'.
I'm fascinated by the BEE/BEa debate. She's a character in a TV series, so how do we know how she spells her name? Is there a scene where she gets a letter addressed to her, or we see a nameplate over her doorbell, or something? Anyway, we see OPIE in puzzles all the time, and I haven't heard any complaints about that (other than that it's ese).
Since some asked, TEC is short for deTECtive. Now you know.
@Lewis, you have such a kind way of indicating that you didn't much like the puzzle. As for me, I enjoyed the theme, but the grid art created all those columns of 3s, which just get extremely boring.
Same here! This took me way longer for a Wednesday, I was just trying to fill it in. It was excruciating. Never noticed any Hs, ha ha
Crossacronyms
Crossinitialisms
Crossnames
Crossletters
Crossautofills
Crosspropernouns
But, a dearth of CrossWORDs created from actual parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, etc.
What happened to the lovely well thought out CrossWORD puzzles that NYT used to publish?
Horrendous.
Saw the grid art, thought it looked like an animal.
EVO is extra virgin olive oil.
I wish we could banish all Leave it to Beaver clues.
Not a fan of TEC, but glad to know someone has seen it out in the wild.
Some day I will remember that it is Philippa SOO not wOO.
High horse implies arrogance, not hypocrisy. I heartily endorse all the other negative comments.
I noticed the big H's, but not the clues - what else am I missing in life that's right in front of me???
I blew right through this apparently and thought it was fine. Thank you Canon Chasuble for the TEC defense. Anyone who's done puzzles for a while can just throw it in as a freebie and move on. Every pursuit can have its own lingo, and I think it's part of the fun. Life's too short and challenging enough to spend any time getting worked up over that.
I knew we had a guest when a) the time was posted and b) when it was in the 20's.
Aunt Bee is an all time great character. Somehow it never occurred to me that she would have the same last name, duh.
I did wince at the number of 3 word answers.
Good gravy.....! Or as they say in my world AY DIOS MIO. Que mess.
I thought maybe I was rusty after being gone for a while. I wanted to come back to fun and sassy. Instead I get meh and more meh.
Hagiography sounds like something missing from a HAM HOCK. HICK HOP? Kia has a competitor named SPECTRA? And why, pray tell, isn't the homemaker from Mayberry Auntie Bea or some such.....Don't get me started with ROSE OIL. I preferred the expensive MUSK. Hercule Poirot is turning in his grave yelling "Don't Ever Call Me A TEC....Ever!".......
Ok, vent over. PS. I never even saw the H's. Oh Hell, I'm the ASS here.
BUT....I missed coming here and I missed all of you REX folks. That is my main reason for coming to the blog. The NYT puzzles need some HOT boosting; so stale and unfunny as of late. (Sigh).... My favorite Monday is what I look forward to. They, too are usually boring but I sure do have fun making up a silly story from the silly answers. There are alway PEAR POSEAS to make for all.....(Hi @Carola)....
My hopes for a nice solve buzz disappeared behind that dark cloud of 43 black squares and the storm of three and four letter entries that it forecasted.
The double H in the grid all but hit me over the head to holler out the theme. Not only did all the clues start with an H and six themers were double Hs, there was a bonus double H of sorts where 4 Down and 71 Across were both clued as "Hang on to".
46D HAT HAIR is not a "Helmet wearer's potential embarrassment", as clued. It is a HAT wearer's potential embarrassment. I've ridden with both a bicycle HELMET and a motorcycle HELMET (not at the same time!) and the potential embarrassment with those is HELMET HAIR.
The puzzles ALL have been awful for the past week. If you heard cursing, it was me!
All this needed was a Revealer clue: "How to respond to this puzzle?" And the answer: WHAT THE H
On the other hand, my dad's first and middle names were Henry Harding--so there's that.
@Anonymous (05:30) YEAH! THATS SO TRUE!
@Adam (6:41) Actually the Andy Griffith show never stopped being on the air. It’s been in syndication since 1964 when daytime reruns first began.
@Andrew (8:33) Thanks for the link. I enjoyed watching those old ads and could immediately connect each one with the episode it was attached to.
@mathgent (9:39) I thought the Crane grouping was a clever one too.
i think she using punctuation marks to indicate she is stomping her foot and screaming at the ridiculousness of two different crappy puzzle moments..the clue for spilt..and and the answer for the 'herr here' clue...sir
yes. but my quickly typed in 'auntiebee' slowed my roll for quite a bit. mid 50's
It is not a thing, but I assume it was deTECtive - unforgivable for a three letter word that begs for DET to be the answer, especially if you already had the central E. I even wasted some time searching my memory for French words/abbreviations that could fit before I accepted that TEC was the answer.
Short for deTEctive, one assumes. It’s emphatically not a thing.
Agreed. There are a couple of these just-off clues that smack of the constructor being tone deaf to equivalencies and mood.
lol yet again at egs' HATHAIR
Unlike JAY-Z i do not put my faith in the TEC. I don't care how many Nobel prizes it won. I assumed Poirot was part of an organization called TEC and it took like 3 google searches to find out otherwise.
I was convinced his name was Chris BOSCH and he was in his Heat jersey in the 2000s. But no, it's just Shaq again.
when i finished it i wondered how hard it would have been for the constructer to also make all downs have double 'i' answers that read bottom grid to top grid.
Ok, 3-Down.
I got 24A from the crosses and feel like I’m missing something super obvious, but can someone explain how EMS is the answer to ”Hummer’s interior?”
What the H, Malaika …? sooo … U didn't like it? Har
M&A observations:
* 15x16 puzgrid. More for yer moneybucks.
* Giant puzgrid H's are great weeject generators!
* Havin all H-clues can sometimes get a wee bit desperate.
* No non-themer entry begins with H.
* Best longball entry: SMARTYPANTS.
* Better answer to {Hardy's "before"} = RAW.
* This puz was real different. M&A likes different. [Assume it was Haight's idea originally, since he starts with an H.]
staff weeject pick: EVO. Apt, since M&A had no idea in H what EVO means.
H-onrable mention to SIR, for its raised-by-wolves {Herr, here} clue.
Thanx for gangin the H up on us, Collins & Haight dudes. Musta had to team up, to figure out all them H-clues, huh?
Hagiography, anyone?
Masked & Anonymo1U
**gruntz**
Thx, Peter & Bruce; enjoying the challenge, so far! 😊
Hi Malaika, good to see you again; will read your write-up after I finish the puz! 😊
Very hard so far (attempting a downs-only); last week's Wednes. was doable, but this one looks ominous.
Will work on it throughout the day. 🤞
___
Finally (almost) got Croce's 864 (over 7 hrs). One cell dnf at the 'Boomtown Rats' / 'dating shorthand' cross, but more than offset by getting the uMW right! :) On to Anna Shechtman's New Yorker Mon. 🤞
___
Trip Payne's New Yorker acrostic was fun and relatively easy.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
@Karl Grouch 7:04 AM
Downloaded and reading it now. I like it!
@12:16Anonymous: I had to look it up. From today's NYTXW column:
"we’re meant to interpret the “interior” as a reference to the word “Hummer’s” itself (as opposed to what it describes). The answer is two EMS."
I really hate these spelled out letter clues
With the exception of rap and hick hop, the answers could’ve been from a 1980’s puzzle. Blecch
@GILL: i’m glad you’re back, missed you. 😘
@Anomymous (12:16) At the risk of being the 10th person to answer you . . . the EMS in the Hummer are the letters “mm” in the middle of the word.
Oof. Thank you, for that @DuckReconMajor (12:25). Turns out Hummer interior=EMS was never going to be super obvious (at least not to me!)
Never noticed the "H" theme & I wanted Bea Taylor for Bee.
I was surprised when I saw who the constructors were.
Did no one get that it is hump day? Double boo.
Every clue seemed off, tonally. Unpleasant solve.
@tea73 11:12, I think the initialism for extra virgin olive oil is EVOO. I have no idea what the heck the 42A "High-tech gaming tournament, briefly" EVO is. Needed some 65D ESP ("Helpful skill for guessers?") for that one.
Pretty easy for me, as I've been solving for over 50 years. So ERMA, TEC, STEWART, STARR, YVES, ACNE, BEE TAYLOR, BEEGEE are no strangers to me. But more "modern" fill was also easy, e.g., SPECTRA, CNN, EVO, ONEAL, SOO, et al. And old NYTXW puzzles would've never included ASS, as so many do now. But still, it's nice to have some.
It didn't make me like today's puzzle, in any case.
Since a certain letter was so used today, I've managed to write my post using none.
It's impossible to overstate how joyless and stale a puzzle has to be for ME to think it's a complete dog.
I liked FISHY because it's a fun word to say, but what a charmless bowl of cold oatmeal this puzzle was.
I'm going to give points for the technical accomplishment. Too many grumps here.
Not to bee-labor the point - and I agree that BEETAYLOR is a pretty obscure reference limited to us AARP-agers - nut the kerfuffle about Beatrice Taylor’s nickname spelling is pretty Ludacris (sic, but I’m trying to be a Hip Hep cat.)
Why isn’t it Jay Zee (or Jay Zea? And why the HypHenation?)
Why not Cardi Bee (or Cardi Bea?)
Why don’t they have a spelling Bea? (How DARE they misspell THAT?)
Aunt Bee was how the name read in the ‘60s TV Guide listings, a series of cookbooks and (as I sadly rely on now), Closed Captions.
Why do some areas pronounce AUNT as a “rhymes with Haunt”, others as ANT? Who cares?
(The correct pronunciation, btw, is AIN’T, rhymes with SAINT, AKA REVERED Hagiography subject. At least in Mayberry…)
It's not a thing now. It used to be. Look it up.
Well, the only good thing about this puzzle was that it is so bad that I didn't have to be the first (or the only) reader to say this was the worst puzzle evah. Well, maybe not evah. But certainly in the bottom ten.
My mother always hoped I’d grow up to BEATAYLOR so she’d have some nice clothes.
BTW, that last comment was from EGS on a different device.
I was thinking the same thing haha and he did not disappoint
So l’m sensing that people would really like Bruce and me to do one of these puzzles for each letter of the alphabet. We’ll get right on it.
I can’t help myself. Joel’s comment “this puzzle is ham-handed” is perfect for this puzzle with the endless h’s and double h answers and of course the puzzle art!
For me, I actually missed the all H clues. I had wondered why the old friend clue Humorist Bombeck was used but it was inevitable with the theme.
Didn’t dislike it as much as Makaila and company but thought it blah. For me it was also hard, especially in the south. Did not time.
Ham-handed, independently arrived at, is the theme of the blog today
@Andrew - because there is a U in the word (aUnt).
While it is a word , having been used at one time fairly frequently in the past, I agree it is totally inappropriate for Poirot. The word is of course of American origin and closely associated with tough American ‘30’s to ‘50’s detective fiction and very alien to Agatha’s world. It is perhaps the first time in history that the word was ever applied to him!
Completely unnecessary.
I believe HERR also means sir or lord
I haven't done today's crossword and many not do it, for the first time in well over 40 years. HH? Really? The code term, also rendered as "88," for antisemitism, white supremacism, and neo-Nazism (it is generally taken to be an abbreviation for "Heil Hitler"). Once again, the NYT, notoriously slow to call out antisemitism and the murder done in its name (see its thoroughly dishonorable coverage of the Holocaust as it was actually unfolding back in the '30s and '40s, deliberately minimizing what was happening), through its clueless and despicable puzzles editor Will Shortz, publishes a puzzle that is a PAEAN to a movement already on the rise for years. What's the matter, NYT, not enough antisemitism in the nation for you already???
While I watched Andy Griffith as a child, I was unaware of the last name of Aunt Bee but eventually got the very common name, and also the spelling of Bee I was unsure of. So the whole answer was not a gimme for this older baby boomer. Tried auntie BEa first.
I thought the puzzle was difficult
Related to the answer SPECTRA, never heard of that Kia. I own what I thought is (was?) the equivalent of a Civic - it is called a Forte.
Interesting poem BTW
He was referring to cola of course.
Always like to learn something from the puzzle. I minored in college in German and I never saw or heard Herr used to mean sir.
The reaction to this puzzle borders on outrage. I enjoyed the H theme. It is one of the very few consonants that is a word without quote marks or a period and it means something other than itself.
[Just read @ghostoflectricity comment. I might add Heinrich Himmler and Helga G. No wonder there is an outrage! My comment is of course wrong. ]
What's with all the complaints about "tec"?? I agree it's bad and question it is, or ever was, a word outside of crosswords. But having seen it in numerous crosswords without a lot od complaints I'm surprised at the outpour of scorn today.
Interesting that HH and 88 is often used by white supremists as a way to identify each other as true believers.
Whenever I see Bruce Haight's name it's an automatic skip. If I were Malaika I'd have come up with an excuse. "Sorry, Rex. Jury duty calls. I'll make it up next Wednesday. Bye!"
I don’t know why TEC strikes some of us as so horribly annoying but it does.
(I don’t think anybody’s saying it’s unknown or hard to get for crossword folk—quite the contrary. Which is, I think, much to the point. Some of us have a particular distaste for alleged word-type substances that seem to only exist within the hothouse environment of crossword puzzles.)
As for dear Erma…I’m frankly aghast that there’s so much hooting about how unreasonable it is to be asked about a person who died way way back in…1996. Gosh, we can’t have that can we.
(As someone pointed out upthread, she remained a nationally prominent and beloved columnist right about to the end…this is not someone who passed away in the ‘90s after decades of retirement or anything.)
Anyway, I had the privilege of meeting her once. Lovely lady; in person she was exactly as I’d imaged she’d be from reading her columns and books.
Not a fan of this puzzle, but I’ll put in a word for Erma Bombeck. In a list of the most famous female American humorists, she’s near the top.
I have been solving these puzzles for years, and I have enjoyed every one of them. Including this one.
OMG, thanks so much for your analysis. I never clocked that all the clues started with H (tho you could be making that up, I'm not interested enough to check). Also, really interesting point about faulting the puzzle editor rather than the constructor! Thanks!
About Herr. It certainly does’t just mean Mister. It also means lord and of course the Lord. And finally, mein Herr is translated as sir.
ghostofelectricity posted the same point not long before you about those prominent letters in the grid.
Didn’t know that. Unfortunately, there have been way too many opportunities to learn about that evil movement of late.
Ok but ONE interesting thing - "Harvey star James (Stewart)" - had never heard of the movie "Harvey" until Rex mentioned it this past Sunday in reference to the answer "Oswald" (the rabbit)... almost as interesting as "mulcts" showing up in nyt and la times xwords on same day! :D
I may be one of the few here who knows what EVO (as clued) is... and I'm still frustrated with its appearance. Evo is the common nickname for the Evolution Championship Series, one of the largest (and oldest) fighting game tournaments in the USA. My issue is that it was clued as "42A: High-tech gaming tournament, briefly" and... oh my god, fighting games are probably the least high-tech genre of games. Evo consistently has community-run side tournaments featuring the original arcade versions (on original hardware) of games such as Vampire Saviors or STREET FIGHTER II TURBO. You remember Street Fighter II Turbo? That game turns 30 years old next year!!! And even only considering the 8 mainstage games, one of the games this year was Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, a game that's 12 years old! And they're always highlighting the genre's history by featuring legacy games on the main stage every year. The joys of Evo are that it actually isn't high-tech at all! But of course we needed that "H" in there, but geez...
Signed,
A very salty gamer of Crosslandia
Well it’s already Thursday here but I just finished and had to say hey to Malaika and agree 100% with her opinion today. The grid art did indeed make this a themeless Wednesday. I like themed puzzles. A lot. And I have been so crazy busy getting ready to move to Northern California to be close to my kids and granddaughter. The stress is making me crazy.
So when I kept solving after seeing the “sorta HH theme??” and it took me nowhere fun, I literally went on with all the things on my to do list and picked it back up at midnight to finish and keep my streak alive.
I adore clever word play and clever clues. And I can forgive a themeless on a traditionally themed day. But today I agree with you, Malaika, this was a bit of a slog. Like Malaika, I found the wording of many of the clues just so disconnected that even when I quickly got the answer, I kept saying “what?”
Possibly a few of you might recall that from time to time I, like Malaika have expressed some fairly strong opinions about laxity on the part of the editorial staff. I agree with Malaika’s opinion that this puzzle could have been polished up by the editor. I appreciate the idea, but due to lack of editorial assistance this one just lacked the interest it could have turned out as a clever themed Wednesday. It had good bones, but no real skeletal connection between the grid art HH and the clues all beginning with H and the two word answers with both words beginning with H. In fact at first with the HH staring at me in the blank grid, I thought Maybe a puzzle about Hubert Humphrey? Or Happy Holidays? Or even What the H? But nada. There’s a clever idea in there. Come on editors, our constructors had a good idea and just needed a little more.
Hump day. H. Now I get it.
There’s a humor-writers conference bearing her name. And she’s in the puzzle a fair amount. If you do the puzzle regularly, this can’t have been the first time you’d seen it.
TEC has also been used but it’s still awful lol.
We’ve had enough and we’re just not gonna take it any more
A conference dedicated to humor writers carries her name, and she frequently appears in the puzzle. If you're a regular puzzle solver, this couldn't be the first time you've come. https://www.kingkind.co
The best part of doing this puzzle was anticipating the commentary. I wasn’t disappointed!
How strange to see so many naysayers. Having double-H words in the theme positions, plus all the clues starting with H, is mind-bogglingly hard.
Here, too, is the love of my life, DOD (for the umpteenth time) SELA Ward. Here's to ya, sweetie.
Hate to go against the grain, but I liked it. How about a nice birdie?
Hopping back on track in Wordle, I shot a birdie.
Hoo cares.
Don't hate a Haight puzzle, but don't like them either. No exception here.
Too many unknown names for me.
Diana, LIW
OK - as I look back, two very badly placed unknown names. Got BEETAYLOR, STARR, STEWART and others.
Lady Di
Why does this one go to print when so many better ones were rejected? HH = Half Hearted effort.
HubertHoratioHumphrey would have been in HogHeaven. Otherwise, MEH. And what's the hoohaw over BEETAYLOR? A gimme except I always figured it was Bea, as in short for Beatrice. SELA Ward AND Amanda PEET; YEAH babies.
Wordle birdie.
HOT PANTS (NO CHOIR BOY SCHEME)
ERMA has A HEAVYHAND,
COARSE AS HORSE HAIR, SO IT'S said,
but she's REVERED IN ANY land,
you SEE, ERMA gives HOTHEAD.
--- SIR STEWART TAYLOR
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