Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (***for a Tuesday***) (just a bit harder than your average Tuez)
THEME: FINISHING SCHOOL (61A: Where social graces were once taught ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme) — "SCH." (the abbr. for "SCHOOL") is added to the "finish" (i.e. end) of familiar phrases to create wacky phrases, clued wackily (i.e. "?"-style):
Theme answers:
GRUMPY OLD MENSCH (17A: Crotchety geezer with a heart of gold?)
The rows of Pascal's triangle are conventionally enumerated starting with row at the top (the 0th row). The entries in each row are numbered from the left beginning with and are usually staggered relative to the numbers in the adjacent rows. The triangle may be constructed in the following manner: In row 0 (the topmost row), there is a unique nonzero entry 1. Each entry of each subsequent row is constructed by adding the number above and to the left with the number above and to the right, treating blank entries as 0. For example, the initial number of row 1 (or any other row) is 1 (the sum of 0 and 1), whereas the numbers 1 and 3 in row 3 are added to produce the number 4 in row 4.
• • •
***ATTENTION: READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS IN SYNDICATION (if it's currently mid-January, that's you!)*** : Hello from the first properly wintry week of the season in Central New York! It's January, which means it's time once again for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. So ... 17 years ... not bad. At this time last year, I was recovering from COVID and still dealing with the very fresh grief brought on by the untimely death of my cat, Olive. I was very grateful for the blog at that point, since it grounded me in routine and gave me a place where I could lose myself in a pastime I love, and share that love with others. OK, yes, true, I don't always *love* crosswords. Sometimes it's more hate-love or love-hate or "Why are you being like this, you stupid puzzle!?" It ain't all positive vibes, as you know. But I realized last year that part of what makes this blog so fun for me, and what makes it a solace to many readers, is the sense of commiseration it provides. Sometimes the puzzle thrills you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't; and sometimes it infuriates you, and maybe I agree with you, and maybe I don't. But either way, the blog is here; it's *always* here. You get to have your feelings validated, or you get to shake your head at my errant judgment and often breathtaking ignorance, but either way, you get to share an experience that's an important part of your daily life, and maybe you learn something new. Above all, I hope you feel that there is a real person with a real life and real emotions and (very) real human flaws who's telling you what it was *really* like for him to solve the puzzle. I never wanted to be an expert, offering some kind of bloodless know-it-all advice and analysis. I wanted blood. Blood on the page. There will be blood! ... But also, music videos. And Words of the Day. And, if you hang around long enough, cat pictures. Like this one:
This is Ida (she put herself in the bin, I swear). Ida is the happy sequel to last year's grief. At the beginning of January, I was mourning. By the end of January, I was still mourning, but now I had a new companion (as did my other cat, Alfie, who *really* needed one). Why am I talking about my cats? Because they are constant, they give shape and rhythm to my day, and I love them even if they sometimes drive me crazy. Just like crossword puzzles! (See that! Segue! This is why you should pay me the big bucks!)
However much I love writing this blog (and I do, a lot), it is, in fact, a job. This blog has covered the NYTXW every day, without fail, for 17 years, and except for two days a month (when my regular stand-ins Mali and Clare write for me), and an occasional vacation or sick day (when I hire substitutes to write for me), it's me who's doing the writing. Every day. At very ... let's say, inconvenient hours (my alarm goes off most mornings at 3:45am). Over the years, I have received all kinds of advice about "monetizing" the blog, invitations to turn it into a subscription-type deal à la Substack or Patreon. But that sort of thing has never felt right for me. I like being out here on Main, on this super old-school blogging platform, just giving it away for free and relying on conscientious addicts like yourselves to pay me what you think the blog's worth. It's just nicer that way.
How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are three options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar on the homepage):
Second, a mailing address (checks can be made out to "Michael Sharp" or "Rex Parker"):
Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
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The third, increasingly popular option is Venmo; if that's your preferred way of moving money around, my handle is @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)
All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All Venmo contributions will get a little heart emoji, at a minimum :) All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. My daughter (Ella Egan) has once again designed my annual thank-you cards, and once again those cards feature (wait for it) cats! My cats: Alfie & Ida. This year, an elegant set of five!
These really capture the combination of beauty and goofiness that I love in cats (and puzzles, frankly). I'd say "Collect All Five!" but every snail-mail contributor will get just one and (hopefully) like it! Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD." Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Please know that your support means a lot to me and my family. Now on to today's puzzle...
• • •
Spent far too long after I'd finished wondering how the "-OOL" part of FINISHING SCHOOL figured into the theme. I could see the "SCH"s tacked on the ends there, but what the hell was the "-OOL" doing. Did "OOL" somehow stand for something? Was there some kind of pun going on? Was it a metacommentary on the puzzle itself: "Finishing's ... cool?" It was only after a minute or so of pu(t)sching around ideas that I realized "oh ... SCH. is the abbr. for "school" so ... that's it. SCH. actually represents the totality of the word 'school' ... OK, then." This was a somewhat deflating realization, as I don't think I have ever seen SCH. used as the abbr. for "school" outside of crossword puzzles, where it's used in that capacity all the time, both in clues (to signify an abbr. answer, e.g. [Big Apple sch.] for NYU), and in the grid (70 appearances of SCH. in the Shortz Era, plus an additional four appearances of SCHS., yikes). Hard for me to work up any love for that particular abbr. Weird that what's "finishing" the answers is just ... half of the word "SCHOOL." I know I'm supposed to understand that SCH. *means* "SCHOOL," but that "-OOL"' is still bugging me. Not cool. As for the wackiness level on these answers ... starts out good and kinda flags as the grid goes along, with STAYED PUTSCH being kinda clunky and grammatically awkward. Plus PUTSCH is by far the least common / familiar of these words. Haven't heard it in years. Feels like it belongs more to a bygone era (kinda like "FINISHING SCHOOL," which I imagine many younger solvers are hearing about for the first time today). STAYED PUTSCH does feel like the wackiest answer, and generally I prefer big wacky over small wacky, if you're gonna bother doing wacky, but STAYED PUTSCH was somehow the least enjoyable of the bunch. Maybe I just don't like thinking about the violent overthrow of the government these days. It's possible.
Between the "?" wackiness of the themers and the proper noun trivia today, this played a tad on the hard side. By which I mean I still solved it very quickly relative to, say, your average Thursday. Under five minutes, probably. It's hard for me to gauge "difficulty" on easy puzzles because the margins are so slim. 30 seconds is a *lot* of time, for me, on a Tuesday. Anyway, I don't time myself any more, but I could feel that this one was a little on the slow side. I know Bowen YANG but forgot him— took "Bowen" as a last name and got a bit tangled up. I also know Annie POTTS very well, but Young Sheldon, LOL, the idea that I would've watched one second of that is hilarious. I barely know it exists (existed? see, I don't know). But Annie POTTS is great in Designing Women, as well as in that other thing I saw her in ... probably Pretty in Pink:
Didn't know what a Pascal's triangle was, so ONES was just an educated guess based on crosses. Didn't know if the Greek goddess of peace was IRENE or IRENA (knew it was one of 'em) (29D: Greek goddess of peace), so I had to wait there. Absolutely did the NILLA / NECCO conflation again, where it comes out NECCA (12D: Longtime manufacturer of Sweethearts)—I told that no matter how hard I tried to distinguish them in my mind, I would confuse these brand names in perpetuity, and this puzzle has proved me correct. Normally I like being correct. Not so much in this case. Why must NILLA and NECCO both make disc-shaped edibles!!!!? This only heightens the confusion! Sigh. Had REEL (?) before ROLL at 7D: Tape dispenser insert. I think that does it for hiccups and slip-ups. The grid as a whole is actually a bit livelier and more interesting than most Tuesday grids. That NW corner is particularly lovely, with GRUNT WORK and LIP LINER making an intriguing Odd Couple. Gonna make coffee and sit in a dark room with my Christmas tree and my cats until the sun comes up. Here is Max the Cat and his tree (sent to me by reader Donna S.).
[grumpy old catsch]
I can tell you right now that if you send me pics of your animals in holiday settings, I will post them. All of them. Happy happy, see you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, Crotchety Geezer With A Heart of Gold
P.S. I love the idea of someone out there going "Who ... or What ... is Butt-head?" (35D: Rock band on Butt-head's T-shirt = AC/DC). Beavis & Butt-head were iconic when I was in my '20s but I have no idea how lasting their fame has been. Looks like the show has been recently revived on Paramount+, which also released the movie Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe in 2022, so Butt-head is a more current cultural reference than I thought.
@Rex ReeL before ROLL at 7D SCAr before SCAB at 26D. rAKU looked perfectly fine for the Azerbaijan capital. At 28D, Ken Kesey was a WOE so (before reading the clue) I had STAtED PUSCH. elatE before AMUSE at 66A
Can't imagine being upset by this delightful theme, and STAYEDPUTSCH was my favourite of the bunch--I particularly enjoy when wordplay changes parts of speech. Lively and almost flawless fill to boot.
Very enjoyable puzzle. Average difficulty for a Tuesday, I thought. The theme was amusing, and also helped the solve for me. STAYED PUTSCH was a gem. My only stumbling block was the sign of healing answer; I had "scar" instead of SCAB, which is obviously a better answer.
Rex Parker might be overthinking the theme. Whether "s-c-h" was intended aa an abbreviation for "school" or not, the letters themselves adequately reference the theme, because they finish each answer.
SCAR and RAKU, as I didn't know the capital of Azerbaijan, looked perfectly reasonable--I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I had something wrong. That square (the R) seemed a bit unfair--especially for a Tuesday. Grrr.....
I actually liked SEWING KITSCH and STAYED PUTSCH; GRUMPY OLD MENSCH didn't quite land as a mensch is more than someone with a heart of gold. But I enjoyed the theme more than @Rex. But that square. Ugh.
I don’t follow, Bob. Revealer works *only* if SCH is understood as an abbr. of “school.” Otherwise revealer is nonsense (with “OOL” unaccounted for) ~RP
I actually had to spar with this one a bit before finally puttering it away. The themers weren’t coming together for me - got to the reveal, picked up the gimmick and put it away. Nice to have a bit of a workout on a Tuesday. I’m not as pedantic as OFL about the theme holding perfectly together from a logic / general usage perspective - as long as it is not too cryptic and allows me to discern the gimmick I’m pretty much satisfied - so, SCH, School, whatever, is fine.
Count me among the SCAr / rAKU crew. Tough middle section with KESEY and IRENE - couldn’t ‘t come up with RESENTS for awhile and STAYED didn’t come to me until those downs were done.
I usually don’t resort to Google until later in the week, but like others, I Naticked at SCAr/rAKU and had to look it up the Azerbaijan capital. I also wondered where the theme’s OOL went.
I went through a similar thought process on the SCH and the OOL.
Anyway, the Radiators, a longtime band from New Orleans, have a song from their early days called Screw Loose that includes the line: "When you went to finishing school it finished you."
The same song has this great couplet: "Cause every time I phone you / You're deep in catatonia"
Nearly Naticked in two squares, but otherwise found this a breeze. Never heard of Bowen YANG and GRUMPYOLDMENSCH hadn’t yet gelled for me, so that Y was a struggle. And I was briefly stumped by the PEAS/SKOAL cross.
SCAR guy here. Also had exactly the same thought process as OFL on the superfluous OOL. I get the FINISHINGSCH, which is how the themers end, and where the revealer should end too. He dicho.
Some more unknown pop culture stuff today, including PETE,POTTS, and YANG. At least old friend and crossword stalwart ELIA Kazan showed up. He's been MIA for a while.
And of course Rocky Raccoon was a nice help in remembering GIDEON's Bible. Knowing lots of song lyrics is often helpful.
Nice Tuesday, PG. Pretty Groovy finding all those words ending in SCH, and thanks for a reasonable amount of fun.
For Anonymous (Rex): I think it could be argued either way, Rex. If "s-c-h" was intended to abbreviate "school," fine. Good for the contractor. But the clue for FINISHINGSCHOOL said that the letters were a HINT to the theme. When I saw MENSCH and PUTSCH and KITSCH, the common thread was the last three (finishing) letters. That was enough for me...I never thought of "s-c-h" as an abbreviation for "school." Is it?
The names messed me up and I threw in the towel on this one early. At least I knew BAKU. But YANG, EGAN, KESEY, IRENE, POTTS threw me off my game. Looking at the completed grid, it should have all been eventually inferrable, but I only had about ten-twelves minutes this morning and it wasn't coming together for me. Penning in RINSEOff for RINSEOUT also mired things up.
I adore the crackling type of mind that comes up with a theme like this – based not only on words that end with SCH, but words that end with SCH whose first three letters are very common words that can be played with.
This is an extraordinarily tight theme. How many other SCH-ending words are there in the first place, that are not proper or in-the-language English?
So, Peter amazingly found these, but then he had to come up with phrases that matched in letter count – a pair of 15s and a pair of 12s to make this theme work. Including the gorgeous FINISHING SCHOOL to tie it all together.
It takes a talented mind and great skill to produce and execute a puzzle like this.
Okay. Sure. Much more important, I believe, is how was the solve? To me, a stellar Tuesday, filled with brightness because of the humor in the theme itself, the trio of fun-to-look-at SCH-enders, lovely answers like GRUNTWORK, LIPLINER, and SKULLCAP, and the junk-free grid. Even some originality in cluing, i.e., ONES has appeared in the NYT 831 times, but never clued with a Pascal’s triangle angle.
To me, this was a brush with brilliance and a journey through spark. A treat. Thank you for making this, Peter!
I am getting really sick and tired of the proper noun trivia fest that the NYT puzzle has transformed into. I just don't care to memorize actors/directors/obscure capitals/obscure comics/etc etc etc. I will never be good at that, but it seems like that's the only thing in these puzzles anymore. I guess I need to watch more TV if I want to be better at the NYT puzzles. Sigh.
"I'm sorry I ever sent her to that finishing school, I think they finished her there." - Jessie Stevens (Jessie Royce Landis) about her daughter Francie (Grace Kelly) in "To Catch A Thief"
Clever idea for a theme. I don't think of GRUNT WORK as necessarily requiring brawn. It's an uninteresting or repetitive and time-consuming component of a project that has to get done by someone, typically an underling.
@DeeJay – you can send me your chocolate and licorice Necco wafers, those are my two favorite flavors.
You know that expression for actors: Break a leg? Maybe don't say it to Annie POTTS (no relation to Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast). As she put it: "I was hit by a drunk driver when I was 21 and broke every bone in my body below my waist but one."
She's 71 now. She's had over 20 surgeries in her lifetime as a result and suffers from chronic pain. She had an ankle replaced recently. Impressive that she can project so much sweetness and have such a successful career.
I was amused and delighted by every single theme answer and I chuckled over all of them. Nor could I predict any of them them in advance. You can't ask for more than that -- and certainly not on a Tuesday.
What makes them work so well is how deftly they're clued. There's a talent to that, and Peter has it. He must be a pretty old pro; he appears in all of my archival NYT puzzle collections from St. Martin's Press.
One of puzzledom's great kealoas? SCAB/SCAR. We rarely mention it, but we should.
The missing -OOL means that the landing wasn't quite nailed and the revealer isn't quite perfect. But who cares? It's close enough --and it fulfilled its purpose of giving rise to an absolutely delightful puzzle.
Nice puz. Took some time in the small Center section. Two PPPs holding me up, KESEY and IRENE. Still seems I should've figured it out. Ended up at Goog for KESEY. Ah, me.
Had RINSES Off, changing it to OUT made me GRUMPY. LAXLY is a cool word.
don’t mind the theme at all, but can’t believe there was no commentary on the middle of the grid - had LINE instead of GENE and eventually had to look up where I was wrong, because the downs in that section are three names in a row. At least for me as a younger solver, none of those names meant a thing to me (and I know the majority of the Greek mythology clues)
@Joe Dipinto 8:38 AM - I don't know how or why you choose your songs to link, but THANK YOU for DeBarge and "Who's Holding Donna Now?" today. Perfect for this gay late boomer.
Hey I was just happy that a Peter Gordon puzzle had only two pieces of sports trivia! I'd never heard of the Vare Trophy but LPGA is a frequent-enough answer, and even I know who Pete Rose is.
I thought quite hard not just a little. Middle of the grid had lots of erasures. If FINISHING SCHOOL will be new to younger solvers (and @Joe Dipinto’s apt movie line is 68 years old) I would think Gideon bibles won’t exactly ring any modern (school) bells. Fun puzzle. Clever wordplay.
@Bed-Stuy Mike – glad you liked it. I could have gone with Richie Valens's DONNA but I figured DeBarge was more off the beaten track. And I hadn't heard it in a long time.
I found this clever and entertaining but put me in @Rex’s camp because I had the same thought process at the end…trying to make the OOL fit in, even though I noted all the SCH endings. @Bob Mills, @Rex explained that SCH is used as an abbreviation for SCHOOL in CrossWorld.
I TOTALLY GET why SCAr/rAKU messed people up and this gives me a moment to air my beef on that in general. No doubt crossword constructors an editors will take this VERY seriously and change it. 🤣 Okay…to ME a sign of healing is a SCAB and to ME a sign of a wound that has already HEALED (possibly improperly) is a SCAr. At any rate, the two words HAVE been clued interchangeably to create a needless Kealoa.
I loved the themers and the Hanukah timing. The SCAr/SCAB keoloa didn't cause problems today because apparently I've done enough puzzles to know Azerbaijan's capital. After Jennifer EGAN appeared in one too many puzzles, I finally decided to read A Visit From the Goon Squad. (I remember a lot of hoopla about it because one of the chapters is a Powerpoint.) So far slow going because I dislike all of the characters.
Plenty challenging and plenty fun, well, except for a [raggedy] theme. Tacking SCH onto common phrases feels super lazy, but whateversch. Kept me on my Tuesday toes.
Uniclues:
1 Government-approved fishy photo. 2 Skinny stoolie. 3 Reach capacity on the Love Bus. 4 One Greek element holds a grudge against another shape shifting element. 5 Stock vodka bottles in the sauna. 6 Raggedy exercised with Shrek. 7 Shtreimel.
1 LEGAL TUNA X-RAY (~) 2 THIN PIGEON 3 CLOSE EROS TRAM 4 AIR RESENTS ICE 5 ADORN SKOAL SPA 6 ANDY TONED OGRE 7 EPIC SKULLCAP
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: "Ye shall be deluged with crass consumerism set to Mariah Carey on repeat." NOEL DECREE.
I guess that @Rex sent this one to the SCH. of hard knocks. Of course school is abbreviated all the time to SCH. Here is what writingexplained.org says:
"How do you abbreviate school? There is one common way to abbreviate school.
It is,
Sch. For example,
Sch. of Media Relations The plural abbreviation of school is schs."
I don't think that in a million years the constructor or the editor would have thought "Gee, I wonder if anyone in the educated readership of the New York Times will fail to grasp that SCH is an (nay THE) abbreviation for SCHOOL." Since BAK is current text speak for Back At Keyboard after a short absence, I guess BAKU would be where you go to SCH. to learn this bit of jargon.
One handy thing they teach at FINISHINGSCHOOL is FINISHING SKOAL:
1. Clearly enunciate SKOAL 2. Smile while you raise your glass 3. Attempt to make sincerely happy-seeming eye contact with each member of your group. 4. Drink you entire libation in one gulp
Funny how accurately the clue for STAYEDPUTSCH describes the current state of Orange Jesus' assault on our country.
Gotta point out that Ken KESEY is sitting there snuggled up to IRENE, who provided the title to his best novel:
Sometimes I live in the country Sometimes I live in town Sometimes I have a great notion To jump into the river and drown
Irene goodnight...
Really well crafted puzzle, built on a wonderful theme. Thanks, Peter Gordon
Oh…when I saw the clue for GIDEON, I wondered when (and if) the GIDEON Bible ceased to be in ALL hotels and motels. A young person might have to be a Beatle aficionado ala Rocky Raccoon to know the answer to that clue!
A fun one to solve. I loved the idea of a GRUMPY OLD MENSCH. Seeing what the SCH was doing there got me quickly to SEWING KITSCH and some kind of PUTSCH...STAYED! I thought that was great. Otherwise, the long Downs were an added pleasure, especially the parallel LIP LINER and RINSES OUT - but will it, if it gets on your clothes? Me, too, for writing in SCAr, but I did know BAKU from way back when, so was able to correct that. My unknowns were YANG and POTTS.
@Rex, thank you for hammering on how SCH works in the theme answers; I'd also been wondering what to do with the OOL. And thank you for including Donna's Max. I hope more pet owners will respond.
@tea73 - I know what you mean about A Visit from the Goon Squad, but I was glad I stayed with it. You might try Manhattan Beach - very different.
@Anonymous 8:11 AM I've been doing puzzles from 1993 in honor of Shortz' 30th anniversary and they're every bit as trivia laden, so nothing has transformed. Of course almost none of those "famous" things from the 90s are still famous, so I suppose constructors know their puzzle's expiration date is determined by trivia falling into obscurity. The nature of fame in the internet age means commentators here are in two groups: "who the hell is that" vs. "omg I can't believe you don't know them, they're so super fame-y." I remember doing puzzles in the olden times filled with opera, literature, and fine art and only an encyclopedia set to learn about such things. By the way, it's okay to look up things. The only crossword cops are in your own head. Lots of us learned about METACOMET yesterday, and a few anti-Googlers complained about it. Stay curious.
I get that English speakers greatly prefer the French term, and that has been the one used more often by far in both traditional and social media. But I genuinely find it impossible to believe that Rex has not come across the word "putsch" at least once over the past 1070 days or so.
Nilla Wafers are a vanilla—flavored cookie. They used to be called ´Vanilla Wafers until the feds pointed out the the cookies are not made with real vanilla.
Necco Wafers are candy. The same formula is used for the Valentine candy hearts with phrases written on them (eg, luv u). The hearts don’t have the chocolate or the licorice flavors.
When I finished, I had that “I don’t get it feeling,” but then I realized the only thing to get is that sch is an abbreviation of school which I got as did anyone who works the NYT xword. Neither -OOL or SCHOOL has anything else to do with the puzzle, does it?
Scab is a little better than scar but SCAr is certainly reasonable. Was lucky in thst I never heard of BAKU.
I've done a lot of work on the Pascal Triangle. It has many intriguing properties. The article Rex published doesn't make clear how the rows relate to the binomial coefficients.
a+b is a binomial. (a+b) to the first power is 1a + 1b. So 1 1 is the second row of the Pascal Triangle.
(a+b) to the second power is 1 a^2 + 2 ab + 1 b^2. So 1 2 1 is the third row.
(a+b) to the third power is 1 a^3 + 3 a^2 b + 3 a b^2 + 1 b^3. So 1 3 3 1 the fourth row.
You can get the fifth row by adding adjacent numbers in the fourth row. 1 4 6 4 1. These are the coefficients of (a+b) to the fourth power.
There's a difference between throwing in some proper nouns at a low density, and crossing multiple proper nouns or including at least one in most sections of a puzzle (especially last names, which are much less guessable from a couple letters).
The former can feel fun to solve and teach you something, or remind you of somebody you forgot. The latter just sucks the enjoyment right out of a puzzle for me, even an easy one like today. This puzzle has three side-by-side names in the center, and three of them cross a fourth; that's just bad design in my book.
Very clever theme but I agree with Rex on STAYED PUTSCH. Maybe I just didn’t get it but that seemed like a clunker. However I loved the others, especially GRUMPY OLD MENSCH which of course brought to mind the wonderful holiday classic movie. I always thought nobody but those old pros, Lemmon and Matthau, could have pulled that one off. I also always thought that SKOAL was spelled SKÖL and that XXX on the cartoon bottles meant poison.
@RP: Liked your signoff today but in your case, the answer should probably be “grumpy but lovable” old mensch. 😄
@Gary J (10:27) It’s okay to look up things. The only crossword cops are in your own head. THANK YOU! Thank you, thank you. That’s my philosophy exactly. If it’s a name or trivia that I have no hope of guessing, I give myself permission to Google. That - according to the crossword cops in my head - is not “cheating.”
@Donna S: Whoever you are . . . love your kitty picture.
@Lewis, it doesn’t take a crackling mind at all! You just put “Words that end in sch in your search engine and voila! There they are with common words that start with such. A well-known miracle of AI .
The out-of-the-loop performance problem (OOL) arises when an operator suffers from performance decrement as a consequence of automation.The potential loss of skills and of situation awareness caused by vigilance and complacency problems might make operators of automated systems unable to operate manually in case of system failure. Highly automated systems reduce the operator to monitoring role, which diminishes the chances for the operator to understand the system. It is related to mind wandering. (Wikipedia)
NECCO is New England Confectionary Company -- there was a plant on Mass Ave in Cambridge and you could smell their wafers being whatevered. So with that acronym -- never a reason to forget they're wafers with an o, not an a. I still don't understand what the OOL is in the theme.
Seeing the SCH's start to appear was the key to success.
Last to fall was the heretofore unknown XBOX.
I was FOND of this one. Very cOOL; enjoyed it a lot! :)
Also, enjoying all your kitty pics, @Rex! 😻 ___ Gorski's Mon. New Yorker was relatively easy (1+ NYT sat.) in spite of an inexcusable 2-cell dnf for 'Periodic'. Had better luck with Croce's 866 (easy-med). Only tricky part was 15A, but the crosses seemed good, so… 👍 ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
OOL la la....Que fun. Leaped with joy at seeing GRUMPY OLD MEN(SCH). Let's find some more SCH. I'll tell you that I was sure relieved that Peter didn't include SCHadenfreud because I don't know how to spell. He didn't...I STAYED PUTSCH for a while around the THIN LAXLY area. I wanted 23A to be Paper [DOLL]. It was THIN...the L gave me LIP SLICKS. 21A happened to become seXLY. Ah...GRUNT WORK changed everything and made me BONO once again. Are these all Yiddish words? Or are they considered German? MENSCH, KITSCH AND PUTSCH. That would be a good name for my bar. Or maybe @JD'S law firm. Why, pray tell, do I get confused with IRENE. I want a Serene and I want to misspell her name. I liked that there were very few threes and the names were very gettable. PETE and POTTS AMUSE me. Good job, Peter. I'll take seconds.
When I got to the reveal I suddenly heard that sound effect of a vinyl LP record playing along nicely when the needle suddenly goes sliding sideways across the grooves. Yeah, it was the dangling -OOL making that cringe-worthy ear piercing noise. The added -SCH themers made for some yuks but the gimmick would have worked better for me if there had just been a fourth themer. I think the reveal needed some FINISHING work.
@Rex, you might be crotchety and I'm sure you have a heart of gold but if Beavis & Butt-head were iconic when you were in your 20s, you have a long ways to go to get to Geezerhood, young fellow!
Now if you were around when the Beattles' "Rocky Racoon" was iconic, then you have earned entrance to Geezerville:
Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon And one day his woman ran off with another guy Hit young Rocky in the eye
Rocky didn't like that He said, "I'm gonna get that boy" So one day he walked into town Booked himself a room in the local saloon
Rocky Raccoon, checked into his room Only to find Gideon's Bible Rocky had come equipped with a gun To shoot off the legs of his rival
His rival, it seems, had broken his dreams By stealing the girl of his fancy Her name was Magill and she called herself Lil But everyone knew her as Nancy
Now she and her man, who called himself Dan Where in the next room at the hoedown Rocky burst in and grinning a grin He said, "Danny boy, this is a showdown" But Daniel was hot, he drew first and shot And Rocky collapsed in the corner
Now, the doctor came in stinking of gin And proceeded to lie on the table He said, "Rocky, you met your match" And Rocky said, "Doc, it's only a scratch And I'll be better, I'll be better, Doc, as soon as I am able"
And now Rocky Raccoon, he fell back in his room Only to find Gideon's Bible Gideon checked out and he left it no doubt To help with good Rocky's revival, oh, ooh, yeah, yeah
Like Rex, I overthought the theme. My reaction is that SCH is the start of SCHOOL, not the finish. I accepted it, but grudgingly. And it took me too long to see the theme -- I wanted grandads before OLD MENSCH, and was looking for a 'sampler' for that embroidered pillow. I toyed with the idea of SEWING sample, but resisted, fortunately. So when I finally caught on, it was a joy to go back and change things around. I thought they were all great answers, although sewing kits are not much of a thing.
BAKU got some press this year when Azerbaijan re-annexed the ethnically Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh, sparking a mass exodus of Armenian refugees. Anyway, I know the name well -- but I still had SCAr/rAKU until I decided to check the crosses after putting in USER ID.
There are still GIDEON Bibles in some hotels, just not as many as there used to be. I'm not sure if that's because there are more and more Hindu or Moslem hotel guests, or because the Bible is available online. Maybe both. I did stay in one place that had a note saying that if you wanted some religious literature you could ask at the front desk. I didn't try it.
@Gill, they're all German, but mostly Yiddish as well. The Ode to Joy in Beethoven's 9th symphony has a line 'alle menschen werden bruder" (missing umlaut there), all men will become brothers.
I often feel old here, but never so much as learning that many of you never heard of Ken KESEY, author of 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest,' leader of the Merry Pranksters, experimenter with LSD, and mentor of "The Grateful Dead." All things, fade, I know.
I used to look up answers all the time. That's how I found this blog -- it was often the first hit. Now I try to avoid doing so with the NYT, but I don't hesitate with The New Yorker, AVC, or Inkubator.
I get the point about the central downs, but they're pretty heavily constrained by the theme answers. Maybe crossing Greek gods is a little niche-y; could have used Leadbelly to clue IRENE.
staff weeject pick: SCH. Been used 70 times in NYTPuzs by itself, btw. About time it got its own puztheme mcguffin.
@RP: Them cats each have their own Christmas tree? Cool, how well U treat yer kitties. [Or how well the kitties have trained their master.]
Peter Gordon usually will dab in a few semi-obscure names. Today's included: BONO. BAKU. POTTS. NECCO. YANG. KESEY. EGAN. Pleased to meet y'all. My puz-buildin tendency is to avoid names as much as I can, but that can be a tough road to stay on all the time. But ... yer puz'll hold up much better a few hundred years from now, without at least most of them celeb's names in it. Taylor Swift might be an exception, of course. har
fave stuff included: GIDEON & PIGEON. GRUNTWORK. SKULLCAP. Anything to do with Pascal's triangle.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Gordon dude. U are off yer usual MonPuz beat, just a beat.
@tea73, I felt the same way about the characters in "A Visit From the Goon Squad" and didn't change my mind after finishing it though I felt bad about it because the book was so highly regarded by so many.
@Carola, thanks for the tip on "Manhattan Beach", maybe I'll give it a try.
@Gary J 10:27. "Crossword cops are in your own head." Yes!...I'll second @Whatsername. I remember when I first tried to tackle a Friday and a Saturday. Back then I had a crossword dictionary. It was very very thick and it had a ton of astrology, science, mathy, and you name it. Even with my dusty moldy OED I still couldn't always finish. Like @jberg 12:55, I, too, found @Rex through frustration. He got me hooked on the blog. His explanations and the why's of certain words helped me memorize answers to the clues. Then Google came along. I'm a user. A faithful user; especially with names. I'm still hoping for a really good crossword without any proper names and a boat load of terrible threes. I miss Liz Gorski @jberg...Gracias. I don't speak any German at all but I love all things yiddish. Is that an oxymoronic phrase?
Well - I liked how Gideon’s finish echoed Pigeon’s!
I guess I am a geezer.did not watch TV during the Simpson era. Don’t know anything about Beavis and Butthead but the name. Do know ACDC.. Kesey came easy to me. As a Catholic girl from New England, Necco also was a gimme (we used Necco wafers when we played church - Who does that? - and gave each other communion.
@Joe DiPinto…I tried to contact you off-blog but could not…if you get this, please contact ME and tell me Connections snafu. I managed to get through it, but THOUGHT it was “strange.”
Great Tuesday puzzle; a very smooth and enjoyable cruise.
Side note: I recently turned 69 and Beavis and Butt-Head remain a favorite not-so-guilty pleasure of mine. Mike Judge has updated the humor as the boys age into silly old geezers and now have a more experienced take on the follies and foibles of the younger generations. Still no sign of anything resembling maturity, but there's been a creative injection of jaundiced observational humor when the boys comment on various ridiculous behavior as they watch the kids on YouTube and TikTok clips. Butt-head in particular has become a bit of a card and Mike Judge vehicle for spoofing some of the sillier aspects of GenZ culture.
Didn't anyone learn (or more properly) hear of GIDEONs Bible from the first "Mission Impossible" movie, starring Tom Cruise?
A line (can't remember verbatim, but it'll be close enough) in the movie, is when Jon Voight's character says to Cruise's character (after Cruise found out Voight was the mole), "It was the Bible, wasn't it? Those damn GIDEONs."
And I had SCAB, because the clue was worded as "healing" (I think, I read that clue like, 8 hrs ago!)(and a memory like a steel @Nancy. Har.), not permanent mark or somesuch. YAY ME!
@anon 11:25 -- I agree with you completely that finding words that end with "sch" is a dry and easy task. But looking for these words in the first place as a result of coming up with a theme that has never been done before, then finding there are only three possibilities to work with, and coming up with phrases that have the right number of letters to fit a symmetrical grid -- IMO, that does take a crackling mind.
Feel old again. So the spelling of ELIA and KESEY are not automatic for younger generations? Oh well. Each is a gimme for most Boomers and older. Especially ELIA which not long ago was standard crosswordese He was also a famous director. On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando Ken KESEY was a well known author in the’60’s and ‘70’s) wrote the book on which One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was based and another movie) ) and was a subject of a Tom Wolf book Electric CoolAid Acid Test).
In short, the constructor and the editors wouldn’t expect them to be obscure.
Scar is reasonable but SCAB is a better answer though a scab is during the healing process and a scar is after. Anyway, it pays not to put a jealous in completely until you are sure of the cross. Maybe if you tried SCAB BAKU would have rung a bell. That worked for me. I didn’t think it was unfair, even for a Tuesday.
Bob Mills. Your point about “hint”. That is my reaction. I think Rex and others are being overly literal. I knew he wouldn’t like the gimmick for that reason. But I also thought it worked fine.
Maybe, because he was so well known by Boomers ( including me) the editors thought KESEY was a no- brainer. Perhaps they will have to rethink that, looking at all the comments here.
It is clear from the comments that Ken KESEY in fact fairly obscure for younger generations than Boomers and he is a gimme for us. When I made the post earlier I was guessing. The editors should be on notice!
I wanted to say my favorite Annie Potts role was in David Byrd’s True Stories. Alas, that was Swoosie Kurtz. Oh well, if haven’t seen the movie, you should. Byrd doing his Byrd best.
Oh, and the puzzle? Not a fan. Guess my Yiddish ain’t what it used to be.
Thank you! The plural of geezer is geezers, so following the logic it should have been Crotchety geezer(S) to be mensch. Might have gotten clue easier if not for the typo.
Coming late to comment that the only reference to PUTSCH that comes to my geezerly mind is the “Beer Hall Putsch” that was a significant step in Hitler’s rise to power. Don’t consider myself particularly squeamish about things in the puzzle that some might find disturbing, but this did not sit well with me, especially as a themer whose clueing was supposed to be “wacky”.
Does anyone remember that Flinstones episode where Fred and Barney go fishing? Fred lands a big one and Barney swings the GAFFE but instead of GAFFing the fish he jabs Fred in the @ss. Then Barney says:”I guess I goofed when I should have GAFFEd.”
For a Tuesday this one contained TONS of PPP. By the time we got to DONNA, I was AMUSEd that the clue was not PPP-oriented. He probably didn't dare.
I wish I could UNSEE the last third of this NFL season. It ended, mercifully, last night with another embarrassing beatdown at the hands of Tampa Bay. My Eagles are lining up their tee times, and it has turned me into a GRUMPYOLDMENSCH. In particular, the defense has to attend FINISHINGSCHOOL.
So forgive me if I issue a bogey on this one. A true kealoa natick at 43: SCA B/R--and then the cross is obscure. That dog won't hunt.
I'm from Minnesota so I automatically wrote "long" for "Like some farewells" before I woke up and reminded myself this was not a local crossword and changed it to "fond".
I've been to BAKU so a gimme there; longest day imaginable, out at Club Nostalji until wee hours, hotel a couple hours with my date, BAKU airport at 6am, flight to London, flight to New York, flight to Mpls (MSP), hour drive home, 30 plus hours long day. SELA SEAL ALES LEAS in the corners. Wordle bogey
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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106 comments:
@Rex ReeL before ROLL at 7D
SCAr before SCAB at 26D. rAKU looked perfectly fine for the Azerbaijan capital.
At 28D, Ken Kesey was a WOE so (before reading the clue) I had STAtED PUSCH.
elatE before AMUSE at 66A
Can't imagine being upset by this delightful theme, and STAYEDPUTSCH was my favourite of the bunch--I particularly enjoy when wordplay changes parts of speech. Lively and almost flawless fill to boot.
Very enjoyable puzzle. Average difficulty for a Tuesday, I thought. The theme was amusing, and also helped the solve for me. STAYED PUTSCH was a gem. My only stumbling block was the sign of healing answer; I had "scar" instead of SCAB, which is obviously a better answer.
Rex Parker might be overthinking the theme. Whether "s-c-h" was intended aa an abbreviation for "school" or not, the letters themselves adequately reference the theme, because they finish each answer.
SCAR and RAKU, as I didn't know the capital of Azerbaijan, looked perfectly reasonable--I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I had something wrong. That square (the R) seemed a bit unfair--especially for a Tuesday. Grrr.....
I actually liked SEWING KITSCH and STAYED PUTSCH; GRUMPY OLD MENSCH didn't quite land as a mensch is more than someone with a heart of gold. But I enjoyed the theme more than @Rex. But that square. Ugh.
I don’t follow, Bob. Revealer works *only* if SCH is understood as an abbr. of “school.” Otherwise revealer is nonsense (with “OOL” unaccounted for) ~RP
I actually had to spar with this one a bit before finally puttering it away. The themers weren’t coming together for me - got to the reveal, picked up the gimmick and put it away. Nice to have a bit of a workout on a Tuesday. I’m not as pedantic as OFL about the theme holding perfectly together from a logic / general usage perspective - as long as it is not too cryptic and allows me to discern the gimmick I’m pretty much satisfied - so, SCH, School, whatever, is fine.
Count me among the SCAr / rAKU crew. Tough middle section with KESEY and IRENE - couldn’t ‘t come up with RESENTS for awhile and STAYED didn’t come to me until those downs were done.
Parker rulesch Shortz droolsch!
I usually don’t resort to Google until later in the week, but like others, I Naticked at SCAr/rAKU and had to look it up the Azerbaijan capital. I also wondered where the theme’s OOL went.
Some non-Tuesday stuff in the downs: EGAN, YANG are names I know - barely - but don't think are common knowledge.
I'm 100% with Rex on the flawed revealer.
I went through a similar thought process on the SCH and the OOL.
Anyway, the Radiators, a longtime band from New Orleans, have a song from their early days called Screw Loose that includes the line: "When you went to finishing school it finished you."
The same song has this great couplet: "Cause every time I phone you / You're deep in catatonia"
I bought a roll of chocolate Necco wafers Sunday, during my second trip to the hardware store that day, having been tempted during the first trip.
Turns out chocolate are, next to licorice, my least favorite Necco wafer flavor.
My favorite is white (peppermint?).
Another hand up for SCAr / rAKU. Even wondered why the latter wasn’t clued as some kind of Japanese pottery.
Nearly Naticked in two squares, but otherwise found this a breeze. Never heard of Bowen YANG and GRUMPYOLDMENSCH hadn’t yet gelled for me, so that Y was a struggle. And I was briefly stumped by the PEAS/SKOAL cross.
Nice Tuesday, creative theme although a bit KITSCHy. Agree puzzle had a little edge, like that
SCAR guy here. Also had exactly the same thought process as OFL on the superfluous OOL. I get the FINISHINGSCH, which is how the themers end, and where the revealer should end too. He dicho.
Some more unknown pop culture stuff today, including PETE,POTTS, and YANG. At least old friend and crossword stalwart ELIA Kazan showed up. He's been MIA for a while.
And of course Rocky Raccoon was a nice help in remembering GIDEON's Bible. Knowing lots of song lyrics is often helpful.
Nice Tuesday, PG. Pretty Groovy finding all those words ending in SCH, and thanks for a reasonable amount of fun.
For Anonymous (Rex): I think it could be argued either way, Rex. If "s-c-h" was intended to abbreviate "school," fine. Good for the contractor. But the clue for FINISHINGSCHOOL said that the letters were a HINT to the theme. When I saw MENSCH and PUTSCH and KITSCH, the common thread was the last three (finishing) letters. That was enough for me...I never thought of "s-c-h" as an abbreviation for "school." Is it?
The names messed me up and I threw in the towel on this one early. At least I knew BAKU. But YANG, EGAN, KESEY, IRENE, POTTS threw me off my game. Looking at the completed grid, it should have all been eventually inferrable, but I only had about ten-twelves minutes this morning and it wasn't coming together for me. Penning in RINSEOff for RINSEOUT also mired things up.
Not a bad puzzle, though.
I adore the crackling type of mind that comes up with a theme like this – based not only on words that end with SCH, but words that end with SCH whose first three letters are very common words that can be played with.
This is an extraordinarily tight theme. How many other SCH-ending words are there in the first place, that are not proper or in-the-language English?
So, Peter amazingly found these, but then he had to come up with phrases that matched in letter count – a pair of 15s and a pair of 12s to make this theme work. Including the gorgeous FINISHING SCHOOL to tie it all together.
It takes a talented mind and great skill to produce and execute a puzzle like this.
Okay. Sure. Much more important, I believe, is how was the solve? To me, a stellar Tuesday, filled with brightness because of the humor in the theme itself, the trio of fun-to-look-at SCH-enders, lovely answers like GRUNTWORK, LIPLINER, and SKULLCAP, and the junk-free grid. Even some originality in cluing, i.e., ONES has appeared in the NYT 831 times, but never clued with a Pascal’s triangle angle.
To me, this was a brush with brilliance and a journey through spark. A treat. Thank you for making this, Peter!
I am getting really sick and tired of the proper noun trivia fest that the NYT puzzle has transformed into. I just don't care to memorize actors/directors/obscure capitals/obscure comics/etc etc etc. I will never be good at that, but it seems like that's the only thing in these puzzles anymore. I guess I need to watch more TV if I want to be better at the NYT puzzles. Sigh.
Can somebody please explain what "start of a serial" means? Parti? What? This puzzle was horrendous.
"I'm sorry I ever sent her to that finishing school, I think they finished her there."
- Jessie Stevens (Jessie Royce Landis) about her daughter Francie (Grace Kelly) in "To Catch A Thief"
Clever idea for a theme. I don't think of GRUNT WORK as necessarily requiring brawn. It's an uninteresting or repetitive and time-consuming component of a project that has to get done by someone, typically an underling.
@DeeJay – you can send me your chocolate and licorice Necco wafers, those are my two favorite flavors.
Who's Holding Donna Now?
I had SCAr as well for much the same reason
You know that expression for actors: Break a leg? Maybe don't say it to Annie POTTS (no relation to Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast). As she put it: "I was hit by a drunk driver when I was 21 and broke every bone in my body below my waist but one."
She's 71 now. She's had over 20 surgeries in her lifetime as a result and suffers from chronic pain. She had an ankle replaced recently. Impressive that she can project so much sweetness and have such a successful career.
I was amused and delighted by every single theme answer and I chuckled over all of them. Nor could I predict any of them them in advance. You can't ask for more than that -- and certainly not on a Tuesday.
What makes them work so well is how deftly they're clued. There's a talent to that, and Peter has it. He must be a pretty old pro; he appears in all of my archival NYT puzzle collections from St. Martin's Press.
One of puzzledom's great kealoas? SCAB/SCAR. We rarely mention it, but we should.
The missing -OOL means that the landing wasn't quite nailed and the revealer isn't quite perfect. But who cares? It's close enough --and it fulfilled its purpose of giving rise to an absolutely delightful puzzle.
Hey All !
Musch ado about nothing?
Weren't the BAKU a species on Star Trek?
Nice puz. Took some time in the small Center section. Two PPPs holding me up, KESEY and IRENE. Still seems I should've figured it out. Ended up at Goog for KESEY. Ah, me.
Had RINSES Off, changing it to OUT made me GRUMPY. LAXLY is a cool word.
Gotta ROLL.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
don’t mind the theme at all, but can’t believe there was no commentary on the middle of the grid - had LINE instead of GENE and eventually had to look up where I was wrong, because the downs in that section are three names in a row. At least for me as a younger solver, none of those names meant a thing to me (and I know the majority of the Greek mythology clues)
@Joe Dipinto 8:38 AM - I don't know how or why you choose your songs to link, but THANK YOU for DeBarge and "Who's Holding Donna Now?" today. Perfect for this gay late boomer.
Hey I was just happy that a Peter Gordon puzzle had only two pieces of sports trivia! I'd never heard of the Vare Trophy but LPGA is a frequent-enough answer, and even I know who Pete Rose is.
I mean, like, finishing's cool, isn't it?
Riffing off a Saturday clue and one of today’s answers…
CLUE: Pillar of the newspaper community
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-
-
-
-
-
-
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ANSWER: The Washington Post
@Anon 8:24, Part One (PART I) is the first part of a serial at a kids’ show at the local movie theater, say.
Nice Tuesday puzzle.
I thought quite hard not just a little. Middle of the grid had lots of erasures. If FINISHING SCHOOL will be new to younger solvers (and @Joe Dipinto’s apt movie line is 68 years old) I would think Gideon bibles won’t exactly ring any modern (school) bells. Fun puzzle. Clever wordplay.
@Bed-Stuy Mike – glad you liked it. I could have gone with Richie Valens's DONNA but I figured DeBarge was more off the beaten track. And I hadn't heard it in a long time.
I found this clever and entertaining but put me in @Rex’s camp because I had the same thought process at the end…trying to make the OOL fit in, even though I noted all the SCH endings. @Bob Mills, @Rex explained that SCH is used as an abbreviation for SCHOOL in CrossWorld.
I TOTALLY GET why SCAr/rAKU messed people up and this gives me a moment to air my beef on that in general. No doubt crossword constructors an editors will take this VERY seriously and change it. 🤣 Okay…to ME a sign of healing is a SCAB and to ME a sign of a wound that has already HEALED (possibly improperly) is a SCAr. At any rate, the two words HAVE been clued interchangeably to create a needless Kealoa.
Grumpy Old Mensch is a contradiction in terms. Makes no sense.
I loved the themers and the Hanukah timing. The SCAr/SCAB keoloa didn't cause problems today because apparently I've done enough puzzles to know Azerbaijan's capital. After Jennifer EGAN appeared in one too many puzzles, I finally decided to read A Visit From the Goon Squad. (I remember a lot of hoopla about it because one of the chapters is a Powerpoint.) So far slow going because I dislike all of the characters.
Way too many proper nouns for a Tuesday, particularly in the middle of the grid.
Plenty challenging and plenty fun, well, except for a [raggedy] theme. Tacking SCH onto common phrases feels super lazy, but whateversch. Kept me on my Tuesday toes.
Uniclues:
1 Government-approved fishy photo.
2 Skinny stoolie.
3 Reach capacity on the Love Bus.
4 One Greek element holds a grudge against another shape shifting element.
5 Stock vodka bottles in the sauna.
6 Raggedy exercised with Shrek.
7 Shtreimel.
1 LEGAL TUNA X-RAY (~)
2 THIN PIGEON
3 CLOSE EROS TRAM
4 AIR RESENTS ICE
5 ADORN SKOAL SPA
6 ANDY TONED OGRE
7 EPIC SKULLCAP
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: "Ye shall be deluged with crass consumerism set to Mariah Carey on repeat." NOEL DECREE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I guess that @Rex sent this one to the SCH. of hard knocks. Of course school is abbreviated all the time to SCH. Here is what writingexplained.org says:
"How do you abbreviate school? There is one common way to abbreviate school.
It is,
Sch.
For example,
Sch. of Media Relations
The plural abbreviation of school is schs."
I don't think that in a million years the constructor or the editor would have thought "Gee, I wonder if anyone in the educated readership of the New York Times will fail to grasp that SCH is an (nay THE) abbreviation for SCHOOL." Since BAK is current text speak for Back At Keyboard after a short absence, I guess BAKU would be where you go to SCH. to learn this bit of jargon.
One handy thing they teach at FINISHINGSCHOOL is FINISHING SKOAL:
1. Clearly enunciate SKOAL
2. Smile while you raise your glass
3. Attempt to make sincerely happy-seeming eye contact with each member of your group.
4. Drink you entire libation in one gulp
Funny how accurately the clue for STAYEDPUTSCH describes the current state of Orange Jesus' assault on our country.
Gotta point out that Ken KESEY is sitting there snuggled up to IRENE, who provided the title to his best novel:
Sometimes I live in the country
Sometimes I live in town
Sometimes I have a great notion
To jump into the river and drown
Irene goodnight...
Really well crafted puzzle, built on a wonderful theme. Thanks, Peter Gordon
@Anonymous 8:24 AM
Part ONE.
Oh…when I saw the clue for GIDEON, I wondered when (and if) the GIDEON Bible ceased to be in ALL hotels and motels. A young person might have to be a Beatle aficionado ala Rocky Raccoon to know the answer to that clue!
Happy Hanukkah to all. Gotta run, I'm soon late for shul.
A fun one to solve. I loved the idea of a GRUMPY OLD MENSCH. Seeing what the SCH was doing there got me quickly to SEWING KITSCH and some kind of PUTSCH...STAYED! I thought that was great. Otherwise, the long Downs were an added pleasure, especially the parallel LIP LINER and RINSES OUT - but will it, if it gets on your clothes? Me, too, for writing in SCAr, but I did know BAKU from way back when, so was able to correct that. My unknowns were YANG and POTTS.
@Rex, thank you for hammering on how SCH works in the theme answers; I'd also been wondering what to do with the OOL.
And thank you for including Donna's Max. I hope more pet owners will respond.
@tea73 - I know what you mean about A Visit from the Goon Squad, but I was glad I stayed with it. You might try Manhattan Beach - very different.
@Anonymous 8:11 AM
I've been doing puzzles from 1993 in honor of Shortz' 30th anniversary and they're every bit as trivia laden, so nothing has transformed. Of course almost none of those "famous" things from the 90s are still famous, so I suppose constructors know their puzzle's expiration date is determined by trivia falling into obscurity. The nature of fame in the internet age means commentators here are in two groups: "who the hell is that" vs. "omg I can't believe you don't know them, they're so super fame-y." I remember doing puzzles in the olden times filled with opera, literature, and fine art and only an encyclopedia set to learn about such things. By the way, it's okay to look up things. The only crossword cops are in your own head. Lots of us learned about METACOMET yesterday, and a few anti-Googlers complained about it. Stay curious.
I get that English speakers greatly prefer the French term, and that has been the one used more often by far in both traditional and social media. But I genuinely find it impossible to believe that Rex has not come across the word "putsch" at least once over the past 1070 days or so.
Nilla Wafers are a vanilla—flavored cookie. They used to be called ´Vanilla Wafers until the feds pointed out the the cookies are not made with real vanilla.
Necco Wafers are candy. The same formula is used for the Valentine candy hearts with phrases written on them (eg, luv u). The hearts don’t have the chocolate or the licorice flavors.
Hope that helps.
When I finished, I had that “I don’t get it feeling,” but then I realized the only thing to get is that sch is an abbreviation of school which I got as did anyone who works the NYT xword. Neither -OOL or SCHOOL has anything else to do with the puzzle, does it?
Scab is a little better than scar but SCAr is certainly reasonable. Was lucky in thst I never heard of BAKU.
I've done a lot of work on the Pascal Triangle. It has many intriguing properties. The article Rex published doesn't make clear how the rows relate to the binomial coefficients.
a+b is a binomial. (a+b) to the first power is 1a + 1b. So 1 1 is the second row of the Pascal Triangle.
(a+b) to the second power is 1 a^2 + 2 ab + 1 b^2. So 1 2 1 is the third row.
(a+b) to the third power is 1 a^3 + 3 a^2 b + 3 a b^2 + 1 b^3. So 1 3 3 1 the fourth row.
You can get the fifth row by adding adjacent numbers in the fourth row. 1 4 6 4 1. These are the coefficients of (a+b) to the fourth power.
There's a difference between throwing in some proper nouns at a low density, and crossing multiple proper nouns or including at least one in most sections of a puzzle (especially last names, which are much less guessable from a couple letters).
The former can feel fun to solve and teach you something, or remind you of somebody you forgot. The latter just sucks the enjoyment right out of a puzzle for me, even an easy one like today. This puzzle has three side-by-side names in the center, and three of them cross a fourth; that's just bad design in my book.
Very clever theme but I agree with Rex on STAYED PUTSCH. Maybe I just didn’t get it but that seemed like a clunker. However I loved the others, especially GRUMPY OLD MENSCH which of course brought to mind the wonderful holiday classic movie. I always thought nobody but those old pros, Lemmon and Matthau, could have pulled that one off. I also always thought that SKOAL was spelled SKÖL and that XXX on the cartoon bottles meant poison.
@RP: Liked your signoff today but in your case, the answer should probably be “grumpy but lovable” old mensch. 😄
Same — until the bitter end and several line by line re-scans
@Gary J (10:27) It’s okay to look up things. The only crossword cops are in your own head. THANK YOU! Thank you, thank you. That’s my philosophy exactly. If it’s a name or trivia that I have no hope of guessing, I give myself permission to Google. That - according to the crossword cops in my head - is not “cheating.”
@Donna S: Whoever you are . . . love your kitty picture.
Medium. Smooth, clever, and amusing….goofy works for me, liked it a bunch!
Did not know KANG as clued. A Simpson clue would have been more helpful.
Very cute! Made me smile a lot. Thanks, Peter :)
A pain in the Sitzfleisch
Looks like we all had SCAR for SCAB.
@Lewis, it doesn’t take a crackling mind at all! You just put “Words that end in sch in your search engine and voila! There they are with common words that start with such. A well-known miracle of AI .
@Rex,
here's why -OOL is part of the revealer:
The out-of-the-loop performance problem (OOL) arises when an operator suffers from performance decrement as a consequence of automation.The potential loss of skills and of situation awareness caused by vigilance and complacency problems might make operators of automated systems unable to operate manually in case of system failure. Highly automated systems reduce the operator to monitoring role, which diminishes the chances for the operator to understand the system. It is related to mind wandering.
(Wikipedia)
NECCO is New England Confectionary Company -- there was a plant on Mass Ave in Cambridge and you could smell their wafers being whatevered. So with that acronym -- never a reason to forget they're wafers with an o, not an a. I still don't understand what the OOL is in the theme.
OOPS, confectionEry. Caught that as I was declaring myself not a robot.
Thx, Peter; lovely FINISHING tuTSCH! 😊
Med (downs-only).
Seeing the SCH's start to appear was the key to success.
Last to fall was the heretofore unknown XBOX.
I was FOND of this one. Very cOOL; enjoyed it a lot! :)
Also, enjoying all your kitty pics, @Rex! 😻
___
Gorski's Mon. New Yorker was relatively easy (1+ NYT sat.) in spite of an inexcusable 2-cell dnf for 'Periodic'. Had better luck with Croce's 866 (easy-med). Only tricky part was 15A, but the crosses seemed good, so… 👍
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
OOL la la....Que fun. Leaped with joy at seeing GRUMPY OLD MEN(SCH). Let's find some more SCH.
I'll tell you that I was sure relieved that Peter didn't include SCHadenfreud because I don't know how to spell. He didn't...I STAYED PUTSCH for a while around the THIN LAXLY area. I wanted 23A to be Paper [DOLL]. It was THIN...the L gave me LIP SLICKS. 21A happened to become seXLY. Ah...GRUNT WORK changed everything and made me BONO once again.
Are these all Yiddish words? Or are they considered German?
MENSCH, KITSCH AND PUTSCH. That would be a good name for my bar. Or maybe @JD'S law firm.
Why, pray tell, do I get confused with IRENE. I want a Serene and I want to misspell her name.
I liked that there were very few threes and the names were very gettable. PETE and POTTS AMUSE me.
Good job, Peter. I'll take seconds.
Not to mention is it ELIA or ELIe and BAKU or BeKU?
Please ignore my KANG comment. I meant YANG who has nothing to do with the Simpsons.
When I got to the reveal I suddenly heard that sound effect of a vinyl LP record playing along nicely when the needle suddenly goes sliding sideways across the grooves. Yeah, it was the dangling -OOL making that cringe-worthy ear piercing noise. The added -SCH themers made for some yuks but the gimmick would have worked better for me if there had just been a fourth themer. I think the reveal needed some FINISHING work.
@Rex, you might be crotchety and I'm sure you have a heart of gold but if Beavis & Butt-head were iconic when you were in your 20s, you have a long ways to go to get to Geezerhood, young fellow!
Now if you were around when the Beattles' "Rocky Racoon" was iconic, then you have earned entrance to Geezerville:
Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota
There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon
And one day his woman ran off with another guy
Hit young Rocky in the eye
Rocky didn't like that
He said, "I'm gonna get that boy"
So one day he walked into town
Booked himself a room in the local saloon
Rocky Raccoon, checked into his room
Only to find Gideon's Bible
Rocky had come equipped with a gun
To shoot off the legs of his rival
His rival, it seems, had broken his dreams
By stealing the girl of his fancy
Her name was Magill and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy
Now she and her man, who called himself Dan
Where in the next room at the hoedown
Rocky burst in and grinning a grin
He said, "Danny boy, this is a showdown"
But Daniel was hot, he drew first and shot
And Rocky collapsed in the corner
Now, the doctor came in stinking of gin
And proceeded to lie on the table
He said, "Rocky, you met your match"
And Rocky said, "Doc, it's only a scratch
And I'll be better, I'll be better, Doc, as soon as I am able"
And now Rocky Raccoon, he fell back in his room
Only to find Gideon's Bible
Gideon checked out and he left it no doubt
To help with good Rocky's revival, oh, ooh, yeah, yeah
on top on SCAB/SCAR, Also had FOLET instead of KESEY. Thought it needed 2Ls but wasnt positive.
Like Rex, I overthought the theme. My reaction is that SCH is the start of SCHOOL, not the finish. I accepted it, but grudgingly. And it took me too long to see the theme -- I wanted grandads before OLD MENSCH, and was looking for a 'sampler' for that embroidered pillow. I toyed with the idea of SEWING sample, but resisted, fortunately. So when I finally caught on, it was a joy to go back and change things around. I thought they were all great answers, although sewing kits are not much of a thing.
BAKU got some press this year when Azerbaijan re-annexed the ethnically Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh, sparking a mass exodus of Armenian refugees. Anyway, I know the name well -- but I still had SCAr/rAKU until I decided to check the crosses after putting in USER ID.
There are still GIDEON Bibles in some hotels, just not as many as there used to be. I'm not sure if that's because there are more and more Hindu or Moslem hotel guests, or because the Bible is available online. Maybe both. I did stay in one place that had a note saying that if you wanted some religious literature you could ask at the front desk. I didn't try it.
@Gill, they're all German, but mostly Yiddish as well. The Ode to Joy in Beethoven's 9th symphony has a line 'alle menschen werden bruder" (missing umlaut there), all men will become brothers.
I often feel old here, but never so much as learning that many of you never heard of Ken KESEY, author of 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest,' leader of the Merry Pranksters, experimenter with LSD, and mentor of "The Grateful Dead." All things, fade, I know.
I used to look up answers all the time. That's how I found this blog -- it was often the first hit. Now I try to avoid doing so with the NYT, but I don't hesitate with The New Yorker, AVC, or Inkubator.
I get the point about the central downs, but they're pretty heavily constrained by the theme answers. Maybe crossing Greek gods is a little niche-y; could have used Leadbelly to clue IRENE.
staff weeject pick: SCH. Been used 70 times in NYTPuzs by itself, btw. About time it got its own puztheme mcguffin.
@RP: Them cats each have their own Christmas tree? Cool, how well U treat yer kitties. [Or how well the kitties have trained their master.]
Peter Gordon usually will dab in a few semi-obscure names. Today's included: BONO. BAKU. POTTS. NECCO. YANG. KESEY. EGAN. Pleased to meet y'all.
My puz-buildin tendency is to avoid names as much as I can, but that can be a tough road to stay on all the time. But ... yer puz'll hold up much better a few hundred years from now, without at least most of them celeb's names in it. Taylor Swift might be an exception, of course. har
fave stuff included: GIDEON & PIGEON. GRUNTWORK. SKULLCAP. Anything to do with Pascal's triangle.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Gordon dude. U are off yer usual MonPuz beat, just a beat.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
hard gruntzwork:
**gruntz**
FYI: If you don't know Bowen Yang, Google SNL Iceberg sketch. He plays the berg that sank the Titanic. You'll never forget him.
Bowen Yang is SNL's George Santos impersonator. Low-hanging fruit, but someone has to do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXfpbfXSG6I&t=2s
@egs: great catch on the IRENE/KESEY link. Flew right by me.
@mathgent, 10:48.
Got it!
:)
@Liveprof
I emailed you my Embedding Cheat Sheet.
Hope it helps.
@tea73, I felt the same way about the characters in "A Visit From the Goon Squad" and didn't change my mind after finishing it though I felt bad about it because the book was so highly regarded by so many.
@Carola, thanks for the tip on "Manhattan Beach", maybe I'll give it a try.
@Gary J 10:27. "Crossword cops are in your own head." Yes!...I'll second @Whatsername.
I remember when I first tried to tackle a Friday and a Saturday. Back then I had a crossword dictionary. It was very very thick and it had a ton of astrology, science, mathy, and you name it. Even with my dusty moldy OED I still couldn't always finish.
Like @jberg 12:55, I, too, found @Rex through frustration. He got me hooked on the blog. His explanations and the why's of certain words helped me memorize answers to the clues.
Then Google came along. I'm a user. A faithful user; especially with names. I'm still hoping for a really good crossword without any proper names and a boat load of terrible threes.
I miss Liz Gorski
@jberg...Gracias. I don't speak any German at all but I love all things yiddish. Is that an oxymoronic phrase?
For anyone who does the NY Times Connections "game", one of the words was replaced since this morning, since it was...well...wrong.
Well - I liked how Gideon’s finish echoed Pigeon’s!
I guess I am a geezer.did not watch TV during the Simpson era. Don’t know anything about Beavis and Butthead but the name. Do know ACDC.. Kesey came easy to me. As a Catholic girl from New England, Necco also was a gimme (we used Necco wafers when we played church - Who does that? - and gave each other communion.
1890 called and they want their puzzle back. Jeeeeeeezus what a moldy slog. Not fun
@Joe DiPinto…I tried to contact you off-blog but could not…if you get this, please contact ME and tell me Connections snafu. I managed to get through it, but THOUGHT it was “strange.”
Great Tuesday puzzle; a very smooth and enjoyable cruise.
Side note: I recently turned 69 and Beavis and Butt-Head remain a favorite not-so-guilty pleasure of mine. Mike Judge has updated the humor as the boys age into silly old geezers and now have a more experienced take on the follies and foibles of the younger generations. Still no sign of anything resembling maturity, but there's been a creative injection of jaundiced observational humor when the boys comment on various ridiculous behavior as they watch the kids on YouTube and TikTok clips. Butt-head in particular has become a bit of a card and Mike Judge vehicle for spoofing some of the sillier aspects of GenZ culture.
Yes -- @Joe Dipinto -- please share the Connections story.
@Beezer and @Liveprof – I emailed you both.
@Joe D
Please let me on it, too.
Yeah I did as well. It’s just about a Natick.
Didn't anyone learn (or more properly) hear of GIDEONs Bible from the first "Mission Impossible" movie, starring Tom Cruise?
A line (can't remember verbatim, but it'll be close enough) in the movie, is when Jon Voight's character says to Cruise's character (after Cruise found out Voight was the mole), "It was the Bible, wasn't it? Those damn GIDEONs."
And I had SCAB, because the clue was worded as "healing" (I think, I read that clue like, 8 hrs ago!)(and a memory like a steel @Nancy. Har.), not permanent mark or somesuch. YAY ME!
RooMonster What Was I Saying? Guy
@anon 11:25 -- I agree with you completely that finding words that end with "sch" is a dry and easy task. But looking for these words in the first place as a result of coming up with a theme that has never been done before, then finding there are only three possibilities to work with, and coming up with phrases that have the right number of letters to fit a symmetrical grid -- IMO, that does take a crackling mind.
Feel old again.
So the spelling of ELIA and KESEY are not automatic for younger generations? Oh well.
Each is a gimme for most Boomers and older. Especially ELIA which not long ago was standard crosswordese He was also a famous director. On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando Ken KESEY was a well known author in the’60’s and ‘70’s) wrote the book on which One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was based and another movie) ) and was a subject of a Tom Wolf book Electric CoolAid Acid Test).
In short, the constructor and the editors wouldn’t expect them to be obscure.
Scar is reasonable but SCAB is a better answer though a scab is during the healing process and a scar is after. Anyway, it pays not to put a jealous in completely until you are sure of the cross. Maybe if you tried SCAB BAKU would have rung a bell. That worked for me. I didn’t think it was unfair, even for a Tuesday.
Bob Mills. Your point about “hint”. That is my reaction. I think Rex and others are being overly literal. I knew he wouldn’t like the gimmick for that reason. But I also thought it worked fine.
Maybe, because he was so well known by Boomers ( including me) the editors thought KESEY was a no- brainer. Perhaps they will have to rethink that, looking at all the comments here.
Gary Jugert response to Anonymous. You said it perfectly. These puzzles have always used trivia. My stupid ego prevents me from googling though.
Not necessary for it to make complete sense . Did you notice the question mark?
Didn’t know the the title of Sometimes a Great Notion was inspired by that song.
Thanks for the info!
I was surprised to see a Gideon’s Bible in a hotel not long ago.
It is clear from the comments that Ken KESEY in fact fairly obscure for younger generations than Boomers and he is a gimme for us.
When I made the post earlier I was guessing.
The editors should be on notice!
Schmuck would have been an interesting sch word
I wanted to say my favorite Annie Potts role was in David Byrd’s True Stories. Alas, that was Swoosie Kurtz. Oh well, if haven’t seen the movie, you should. Byrd doing his Byrd best.
Oh, and the puzzle? Not a fan. Guess my Yiddish ain’t what it used to be.
Thank you! The plural of geezer is geezers, so following the logic it should have been Crotchety geezer(S) to be mensch. Might have gotten clue easier if not for the typo.
Coming late to comment that the only reference to PUTSCH that comes to my geezerly mind is the “Beer Hall Putsch” that was a significant step in Hitler’s rise to power. Don’t consider myself particularly squeamish about things in the puzzle that some might find disturbing, but this did not sit well with me, especially as a themer whose clueing was supposed to be “wacky”.
Does anyone remember that Flinstones episode where Fred and Barney go fishing? Fred lands a big one and Barney swings the GAFFE but instead of GAFFing the fish he jabs Fred in the @ss. Then Barney says:”I guess I goofed when I should have GAFFEd.”
For a Tuesday this one contained TONS of PPP. By the time we got to DONNA, I was AMUSEd that the clue was not PPP-oriented. He probably didn't dare.
I wish I could UNSEE the last third of this NFL season. It ended, mercifully, last night with another embarrassing beatdown at the hands of Tampa Bay. My Eagles are lining up their tee times, and it has turned me into a GRUMPYOLDMENSCH. In particular, the defense has to attend FINISHINGSCHOOL.
So forgive me if I issue a bogey on this one. A true kealoa natick at 43: SCA B/R--and then the cross is obscure. That dog won't hunt.
Wordle birdie.
Yiddish. Not tacked on.
So I sat there for a while, not being able to remember the name of a hotel in the Bible. There was an inn and a manger, but a hotel? Nope.
Oh - the name of the Bible that keeps getting left in hotels - that name.
From BONO to PETE and POTTS, not too many unknown names for me. "PUTSCH" was a new one, but live and learn. So BAKU to you too.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
I'm from Minnesota so I automatically wrote "long" for "Like some farewells" before I woke up and reminded myself this was not a local crossword and changed it to "fond".
EARN ONE ROLL (KNOT, LEGAL?)
With HIS GRUNTWORK CLOSE to done,
that GRUMPYOLDMENSCH, named GENE
said, "FINISHING A PIECE, IT'S fun,
AMUSE me TONIGHT, IRENE."
--- DONNA & PETE POTTS
I've been to BAKU so a gimme there; longest day imaginable, out at Club Nostalji until wee hours, hotel a couple hours with my date, BAKU airport at 6am, flight to London, flight to New York, flight to Mpls (MSP), hour drive home, 30 plus hours long day.
SELA SEAL ALES LEAS in the corners.
Wordle bogey
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