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Pioneer in the field of exobiology / FRI 12-8-23 / Middle of Middlesex / Famous bridge site / Question suggesting "What odd behavior!" / Jazz sobriquet / 1977 best-selling novel set in a hospital
Friday, December 8, 2023
Constructor: Robert Logan
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (closer to Easy for me, but these clues were *trying*, so maybe they managed to hold people up for a bit)
Word of the Day: RIALTO Bridge (41A: Famous bridge site) —
The Rialto Bridge (Italian: Ponte di Rialto; Venetian: Ponte de Rialto) is the oldest of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. Connecting the sestieri (districts) of San Marco and San Polo, it has been rebuilt several times since its first construction as a pontoon bridge in 1173, and is now a significant tourist attraction in the city. [...] The present stone bridge, a single span designed by Antonio da Ponte, began to be constructed in 1588 and was completed in 1591. It is similar to the wooden bridge it succeeded. Two ramps lead up to a central portico. On either side of the portico, the covered ramps carry rows of shops. The engineering of the bridge was considered so audacious that architect Vincenzo Scamozzi predicted future ruin. The bridge has defied its critics to become one of the architectural icons, and top tourist attractions, in Venice. (wikipedia)
• • •
As for those long answers around the perimeter, I had two really strong negative reactions. The first to "NO APOLOGIES," which does not (at all) sound like anything I can imagine anyone saying, as clued (12D: "Stop complaining. I didn't do anything wrong"). "Stop complaining" is in the imperative (command) voice, and there is nothing about the answer that is a command. It seems to be a shortening of "(I make) NO APOLOGIES," which, yes, is roughly equivalent to "I didn't do anything wrong," but the way the clue was elongated really muffed things up. I think people these days are more like to say / write "NOT SORRY" or even more likely "SORRY NOT SORRY." The cluing here today just clanked. And oof, do I hate the whole concept of SENIOR MOMENTS. There's something so cloying and cutesy and euphemistic and condescending about it. I've hated it from the first time I heard it, and I only hate it more as I age. Most of what gets called SENIOR MOMENTS is actually dumb forgetful stuff *everybody* does, it's just that when you're 30 you don't ascribe the "moment" to encroaching brain fall-apart. I mean, here's the National Institute on Aging:
As people grow older, changes occur in all parts of the body, including the brain. As a result, some people notice that they don't remember information as well as they once did and aren't able to recall it as quickly. They may also occasionally misplace things or forget to pay a bill.
"Occasionally misplace things or forget to pay a bill"!!?!?! Apparently I have had age-related memory problems my whole life! Sigh. Anyway, the clue on SENIOR MOMENTS is total garbage today. How in the world are they *caused* by "old memories" (50A: What old memories often cause)? Am I having a senior moment, because ... that makes no sense. I thought SENIOR MOMENTS were episodes of forgetfulness (Yes, "temporary mental lapse," acc. to one online dictionary). But "old memories" are the ones that come most easily to older people. (I guess your memory itself, ie your capacity to remember, could be what is old, but that is grammatically tortured—truly awful). So aside from just hating SENIOR MOMENTS as a term, I hated its clue today. Way off the mark. I do kinda like SENIOR MOMENTS in a golf-themed puzzle, though. Lots of seniors spend their moments on golf courses, for sure. (If you want to hear a delightful senior talk about all the great moments of her life, including her current crossword and Wordle routine, please listen to the truly inspiring interview that Julia Louis-Dreyfus did with Carol Burnett earlier this year on her "Wiser Than Me" podcast; I promise you won't be sorry) (oh, look, here's the whole thing on YouTube!)
But there were definitely "moments" that I liked in this one, starting with "WHO DOES THAT!?" (10A: Question suggesting "What odd behavior!") which was actually the answer that opened things up for me. It's the first long Across I was able to infer from the measly number of short Downs I had in place. I had MESA ESTD NTH ... but also VOW at 3D: Utterance with one's hand on a Bible, maybe ("I DO"). I didn't know people were "sworn in" to marriage like that [jk I know it’s the “whole truth and nothing but the truth” bit]. Interesting. Anyway, "WHO DOES THAT!?" helped me blow VOW away and replace it with "I DO," and I was pretty much off to the races after that. Ironically, the races were impeded by HORSEY (again with the cloying cutesiness, bah). But then the races were back on with The BRICKYARD. Zoom zoom. Loved TURNED HEADS and SEED BANKS down below, NARROWS THE GAP above, and most everything else in the grid seems at least solid. I wanna like "WANNA MAKE A BET?," but the truth is anyone who is apt to say "wanna" is also apt to shorten this phrase to "WANNA BET?" I don't mind the version we get here, but it felt a little unnaturally elongated.
Perhaps because the puzzle is built in a way that makes quick solving more likely, the clues felt *very* amped up today, in terms of how hard they seemed to be trying to misdirect you. "Driving skills" are for golf, not cars. [Middle of Middlesex] is not a location (or letters in the "middle" of the word "Middlesex"), but a synonym for "Middle," as it would be spelled in Middlesex (CENTRE). [Broke] means not "caused not to work" or "lacking money" but TAMED. [Words that guide] does not lead to multiple words, but just one word: CREED. "Drawers" and "chests" both get the misdirection treatment at 11D: Drawers on chests, maybe (TATTOO ARTISTS). Then you've got the pair of clothing-related misdirections at 38D: What's going on? (ATTIRE) and 39D: Barely run (STREAK). Clothes on, clothes off, misdirection everywhere. I don't think any of this misdirection is likely to flummox a solver for too long, which will likely make it more enjoyable than annoying. The only proper noun in this thing that's likely to make some solvers draw a blank is KLAY Thompson (31A: Five-time N.B.A. All-Star Thompson), or maybe (if you're younger) COMA (27A: 1977 best-selling novel set in a hospital). Strangely, those two answers sit one on top of the other, but still, with fair crosses all around, I doubt they're gonna wreck any perfect grids today. Only the unusual "K" spelling of KLAY is going to be hard to infer, and BRICKYARD should get that "K" for you no problem. Oh, wait, SATCHMO! (19D: Jazz sobriquet). It's possible that that "sobriquet" (for Louis Armstrong) was unfamiliar to some solvers, esp. younger ones. If so, you should fix that unfamiliarity right now.
All in all, more enjoyable than not today. See you tomorrow.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. please enjoy this picture of a cat judging me
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91 comments:
@Rex: I think the 3D clue for I DO refers to the utterance one would make after being asked, "Do you swear to tell the truth ..."
HORSie before HORSEY at 2D
bams before POWS at 4D
siEgES before THESES at 8D
KLAY Thompson (31A) was a WOE
CREdo before CREED at 32A
Should the 47D clue have noted "(abbr.)" since it stands for Internet Movie DataBase?
I agree with OFL about 50A: SENIOR MOMENTS doesn't fit the clue.
Old memories in the clue means the capacity of old people to remember; not what they are remembering, IMO.
And, in case you weren't kidding on I DO, any witness in court says that when being sworn in. It's not the marriage I DO.
When a person is being sworn in for testimony, they put their hand on the Bible and say "I do."
I love the picture of your judging cat. I like “wanna make a bet?” as much or more as “wanna bet?” because of the former’s pleasing trochaic trimeter.
Finished it in 40 minutes, which might be my best time ever on a Friday. The top area seemed very easy, and things flowed from there.
I was briefly stuck by the "What's going on?" clue for ATTIRE. Otherwise I thought the cluing was straightforward for a Friday.
I puzzled a long time over senior moments clue. I *think* it must use “memory” in the sense of “faculty of memory”. As your car can have an old transmission, a senior has an old brain and, so, an old memory, one which no longer functions as well as it used to, causing lapses. At least the only sense I can make of it.
I was glad to see Rex said the puzzle verged on medium difficulty because I sped through it..a first for a Friday and didn't want to hear it should have been a Monday!!
Seems like maybe I was wrong and this was just flat out easy for everyone 🤷🏻 ~RP
"...who knows, you folks are weird."
Hey! I resemble that remark!
Awesome cat photo!
The puzzle looked like a button to me
“Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” I DO
A little flat. Handsome looking grid but restrictive - other than NARROWS THE GAP and NO APOLOGIES the outer longs were off. Agree with the big guy on SENIOR MOMENTS. Learned an interesting tidbit with SATAN. Rest of this pretty much filled itself in.
SATCHMO
Pleasant enough Friday morning solve.
MARIA
Ok, I was totally stumped by the SEED BANKS and biodiversity pairing - mostly because I didn’t realize what SEED BANKS are - apparently they are both “bomb proof” and “radiation proof”. I have to admit that I don’t really get it - but I do think it is kind of cool that people are actually building bomb shelters for seeds so that we will have sufficient varieties of lettuce after the upcoming global thermonuclear war.
A couple of the clues were bordering on trying way too hard, but the misdirection was so obvious that it just seemed a little uncomfortable rather than groan worthy - CENTRE v.v. Middlesex or RINDS for “containing fruit” would be in that category - that’s about as far as you can push those without getting into cringe territory.
So, a bit of a respite from the increasingly more frequent nonsense today. Hopefully this is a sign that they have bottomed out and maybe things will get better going into the holiday season.
I miss Loren
Thought this was a fantastic puzzle with a ton of interesting entries.
The clue on SENIOR MOMENTS is intended to soften up the bad connotations of that phrase.
SATCHMO crossing RIALTO was an issue for me today. I blanked on the former and did not know the latter, so I blindly put an A in the crossing. Oh well.
Random observations:
• I liked those SEED BANKS planted at the bottom.
• Gorgeous grid, with its photo album corners and super symmetry, a design that allows for the long answers to frame the grid, and for a bonus mini-puzzle in the middle.
• Getting a long answer with few crosses is one of the great moments in solving, IMO, and that happened a good number of times today.
• Robert can flat-out make a puzzle. Clean short crosses in all four stacks, tough to pull off, and ten NYT debut answers – nine of them long! – for sparkle.
• TURNED HEADS was apt for me, as I’m in the middle of reading “What An Owl Knows” by Jennifer Ackerman, an entertaining look at what I’m learning is a fascinating animal.
• Very lovely answers in WHO DOES THAT and BRICKYARD.
Beauty in appearance and execution, a profusion of happy pings during my fill-in – a sterling Friday in my book. Thank you, Robert, and more please!
Beat my Friday average by nearly two minutes (11:30 finish), so I guess it played easy for me. Had a little trouble with the bottom of the puzzle but once I guessed DOHA it worked itself out. Only beef is the cluing for STREAK: I can't figure out how "Barely run" fits.
Oh, wait. "Bare" like naked. Thought of it as I wrote this. Beef withdrawn.
I’m happy for everyone who found this easy. For me, it was Saturday a day early. Fun but tough. Not sure why, but I don’t think I was having a SENIOR MOMENT.
Yeah I had the same issues with NO APOLOGIES. And SENIOR MOMENT. My mom lives wtih me and whenever she is concerned she’s getting Alzheimers I say “I do that all the time, should I be concerned about Alzheimer’s? Maybe!” So yes it’s scary when you are over a certain age to forget things but people do it all the time Thanks for raising that issue. It’s very discriminatory against older people
Particularly liked the clues for STREAK and CENTRE. Not sure how this will play for those who don't remember SAGAN, COMA, but I liked it.
Another puzzle that tries to be a bit too cute with the cluing. But I liked it anyway. I like any Friday puzzle I can waltz through.
I went a bit more from center out to the edges, or at least, met in the middle. Fun puzzle.
wrong wrong wrong on senior moments!
merriam webster definition of "senior moment":
momentary forgetfulness or confusion
: an instance of momentary forgetfulness or confusion that is attributed to the aging process.
a more apt answer would have been "sentimental journey", which, of course, does not fit.
This felt Friday tough to me, but I broke half an hour so sure, easy. RP's itemized all the misdirects that misdirected me, but thought they were all fun. And I really enjoyed going all the way around and then having to unpack the middle, which took me quite awhile. Everything I hope for from a Friday - some fun answers, some cluing with multiple possible takes, and some work to complete it.
Lots of folks have cleared up the IDO issue so I won't bother.
Solid toehold with BRICKYARD and smooth sailing all around after that. Those of us who are into the Stumper are used to the kind of misdirects found in today's clues, I would think. Seems like I always have to think of a secondary or tertiary meaning for some words.
Nice to see GOYA and I have a YAMAHA piano, so that took longer than it should have. Also the letter string NOAPOLO was not much help in leading to a phrase.
My wife and I tend to use the term SENIORMOMENT in a light-hearted manner and more as a synonym for "oops" than anything else. We're both now closer to eighty than seventy, as are many of our friends who use the term the same way, but maybe we're just not properly offended.
Very nice Friday indeed, RL. Really Liked lots of your clues and answers and it was over too soon. Thanks for all the fun.
That was me. Then was wondering whether the book name was COHA? And what the heck yove might mean.
OTw crossing NEwASSETS is pretty darn ugly, since both are perfectly reasonable answers to the clue given...
My heart skipped a beat when I saw the terrifyingly open grid, but it didn't end up being all that bad fill-wise, apart from SENIOR MOMENTS which was imprecise at best; "old memories often have these" or something along those lines would have been more accurate, while still suitably vague.
Hey All !
Friday hath come... All Hail Friday (unless you have different work schedules...)
Pretty neat puz. Chuckled at Rex's "has all the symmetries" line. Was thinking how to describe this grid, and that pretty much nails it. Having the four "jaws" (Hi @M&A) gets you to 44 Blockers, a high number, especially for a Themeless, but contained how they are (bunched in the corners), doesn't distract from the fill.
Turned out kinda easy, though it played kinda difficult. If that makes sense. I did have to Goog for the meaning of "sobriquet", as I've heard the word, but the ole brain wouldn't let me realize what it meant. I don't consider that a cheat, as it's just checking a meaning of an unfamiliar word, not actually looking up the answer. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!
With that said, completed puz and got the Happy Music.
Fell into the vow-IDO trick like Rex did. Also IMbd-IMDB, because I do that every time. HanDS-HEEDS, STRoll-STREAK. Great clue on that one!
@Anoa Bob will have a HORSEY with the four S's in a row in SE. WANNA MAKE A BET?
Har.
No F's (Can I at least get ONE?)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Genius puzzle. Up and down, left and right, round and round. One of the best ever. All those long answers sparkled for me. Sparkling word play. Toe hold at Tattoo Artist but had to cheat to finish.
Here's a Senior Moment. Reading this blog and something felt was off. Brain fog? No, I just realized I didn't have my glasses on. Hate that phrase, but hey, there it is. Still, I pulled Doha out of the ol' mental attic and eventually thought oooh yeah, Brickyard.
No Apologies very much in the language, captured so perfectly by Eminem:
No apologies! Nah, suckers, I'm not sorry
You can all sue me, y'all could be the cause of me
No apologies! Y'all feelin' the force of me
No remorse for me, like there was no recourse for me
Nah, no apologies! Not even acknowledging you at all
'Til I get a call that God's coming
There’s nothing to “clear up”—it was never misunderstood, as you can see from the blog post
Your comments about whooshing around the perimeter of the puzzle made me think more of a racetrack than a golf ball.
Ah, yes, those old memories. I was thinking they'd cause some kind of NOSTALGIA and, I imagine many of you were too. SENIOR MOMENTS just blew me away. What a great clue. What an unexpected answer.
SENIOR MOMENTS, btw, is one of the English language's great euphemisms. If it didn't already exist, it would be necessary to invent it. I use it all the time.
How nicely that goes with Jeanne Moreau's lovely (and oh-so-French) definition of AGE. I love this kind of clue: one that provokes enormous curiosity the minute you read it.
SENIOR MOMENTS pairing with this wonderful definition of AGE. Is this, then, a puzzle for old people? Yes, sort of. It tells us we can still fall in love -- provided we remember to:)
Another golf reference in the puzzle? There's a golf course in the middle of the Brickyard.
Wow. I just loved this puzzle with the exception of NOAPOLOGIES. When I first looked at the grid, my first thought was “yikes” and my internal monologue said “you’re not gonna finish this”…but I DID, and faster than most Fridays (@Nancy…the app just tells me stuff, I don’t look it up). So many clever clues. Kind of timely since I was on a phone call with a friend yesterday who was telling me she observed a weird situation with a post office customer, then said…”I mean, WHODOESTHAT”?
In April, my husband had a “thing” in LA and I tagged along. I met up with him after his meetings at an event…my UBER driver was from Svalbard, Norway, home of THE global SEEDBANK (actually they call it a vault). I know there are other SEEDBANKS and I have to say, the fact that we have these facilities makes me think there is some hope for mankind (sans huge asteroids, etc). (Oh, and the Uber driver and his US wife were both finishing high level bio-technology PhDs)
GREAT kitty pic!
Totally agree about that SENIOR MOMENT clue. Utter trash. Feh!
Get off my lawn!
An average Friday solve. I hesitated to put in the D of DOHA to finish simply because of KLAY. All the crosses were solid but that K just made it look wrong. Shades of last weekend's kARL/CARL snafu.
yd pg -1, Su-We -0
Wondering if others saw Brendan Emmett Quigley featured in a story on the CBS Evening News yesterday about an impromptu “orchestra” he performs with that produces “music” using a variety of typewriters to make all of the sounds. (I am not making this up!) I was surprised he did not look older—age is in fact “48-49” per Wikipedia.
Now in mid-70s I am very familiar with SENIOR MOMENTS. Like many of my peers I value the NYT xwords in part for their perceived memory juicing ability, but also because when I beat my average time I feel a great sense of satisfaction. Another self challenge: recalling today’s theme from last night before I come here in the morning.
webwinger
Link to the BEQ NBC news segment.
On the easy side for a weekend puzz, but I liked it.
To me, NO APOLOGIES... sounds like a shortening of "no apologies necessary"— i.e. you'd say it to soothe someone who's trying to apologize.
The YAMAHAS clue struck me as awkward— yeah, Yamaha puts out Yamahas, just as Ford puts out Fords, Frigidaire puts out Frigidaires, etc. I guess it was the only way to accommodate the pluralization. (I still have my Yamaha DX-7 from the 1980's.)
—burp— Maria
+ a bonus selection
Rex’ “Way off the mark“ reminded me again (like an acid flashback in my senior mind) of Norm MacDonald:
“Way out of line! WAY out of line! I have a good mind to go to the warden about this!”
Norm in prison - the lack of respect hurts the most…well, the second most!
As for the enjoyable puzzle, surprised to have gotten it with only one Google cheat. He spells his name KLAY? To quote Norm again, Ridiculous!
Golf??? Nah, it's a picture in an album held by photo corners, as @Lewis said. Maybe Rex is too young to remember them.
Not easy for me, at least to start. I didn't know BRICKYARD, and all the other long answers were clued ambiguously -- well I guess SEED BANKS was straightforward, but that was way down there at the bottom. So I had to work my way around the edges, filling in YOKE, IMDB, DOHA, GOYA, GEE and ERRS--which was enough to give me TATTOO ARTIST, and the solving took off. yumA for MESA was blocking things up top, and I was hesitating over the NTH/phd kealoa, but I had GAP from crosses, and since closes was too short, it had to be NARROWS. I did choose wrong on the CREED/CREdo thing, but HEEDS fixed that.
Now I'm wondering what the first and second most spoken languages are. I'm guessing Mandarin and Cantonese, but I'm not confident of that.
And a new clue for OTT!
So this guy goes to the doc and the doc says, "I have two pieces of bad news for you." "Oh, my," he says -- "what?" "Well, first of all, you have cancer." "Oh, no -- what else?" "You also have Alzheimer's disease." "Oh, no," the poor guy moans -- "well, at least it's not cancer."
Oy. Best line I've heard on aging is by Philip Roth. He said, Old age is not a battle -- it's a massacre.
I went to the doc myself last week. He said, "Okay -- take off all your clothes and go stand by the window." I said "What for?" He said: "I'm mad at my neighbor."
Liked some of the long answers (WHO DOES THAT and SEED BANK and PARTY TRICKS) but I struggled with some of the trivia today (being neither a senior nor a NASCAR aficionado, Brickyard and Coma were completely Opaque to me, as well as Klay. I am really not that young, but I have never heard of Coma). I still beat my time, but it felt hard.
Easy. I put in SHRUG and mostly just kept going. KLAY was a WOE and I needed to change ONTario to OTTawa but that was about it for hiccups.
Lotsa sparkle in those stacks, liked it.
Rex's "clothes on, clothes off" comment should have added 30A: GOYA's Naked and Clothed Mayas.
@Rex - I love the cat photo. LOL!
I enjoyed solving this one. Having used up all my energy last night helping to power the Badger women's volleyball team past Penn State in the Sweet Sixteen, I went for a leisurely stroll through the puzzle. First, I read through all of the across clues and started filling things in with TURNING HEADS and SEED BANKS. From there I climbed up the right side, with TATTOO ARTISTS and PARTY TRICKS giving me the -AP for NARROWS GAP. Yay for HORSEY, whose Y suggested YAMAHA and the key to the center. SATCHMO's O reminded me of the RIALTO, my bridge into the last section, where I ended with BRICKYARD x KLAY. Favorite fake-out - Middle of Middlesex. A just-right Friday for me.
Best NYT puzzle in quite a while.
NO APOLOGIES necessary today, this was a great Friday puzzle. I found it challenging and yet very doable. Almost hated to mess up the beautiful pristine grid but also could hardly wait to get started on those tempting long stacks and down entries. Knowing BRICKYARD helped a lot in the west, and lucky guesses at SENIOR MOMENTS and TATTOO ARTISTS got me going in the east. Not too many names either. Enjoyed this, thanks Mar. Logan!
Aaaah....just what the doctor ordered.
My favorite day of the week didn't disappoint. While beastly in certain areas and because I had several SENIOR MOMENTS, this took me longer (yum) than normal
Now back to SENIOR MOMENTS. Yes, we all have them. It's gotten to the point that I now have to say to myself why I need to go get somewhere and why. My mind is always jumping all over the place. So...I'm standing by the patio window, something tells me I need to get something. That something is forgotten the minute I go wandering looking for the something I've forgotten. I have to go back to the patio door and start over. It usually comes to me then. Then the forget me always: SATCHMO (sigh) and how to spell things like TATTOO. Cluing was the beastly part and some of the answers like MEN and BID didn't make sense. The hardest part was the ending.
I have to run now (no STREAK) but I'll read Rex and the rest of everyone upon my return.
I hope you miss me.
Eh, she made some pretty transphobic remarks once upon a time. No great loss.
Agreed about poor cluing on both NO APOLOGIES and SENIOR MOMENTS. They bugged me while solving.
Haven't read Rex or comments yet. Hope I'm not stepping on anyone.
For Christmas dinner I'll be preparing my famous sweet potato surprises - - YAMAHAS! I hope a lot of AMENS will follow.
The group of elderly women who are mothers to Treebeard and his ilk are the SENIORMOMENTS.
AMENS crossing AMASSES right in the ASS makes me think someone is a little hung up on men's asses. But then I look over at EATS crossing NETASSETS right in the ASS, and I know that it's more than a little hung up. And later on, down at 52D, you've got MEN crossing HEAD. Combine all of this with HIND sitting smack on top of ASS and you've got a pretty fair orgy going.
I wonder if today's HORSEY is SNORTY. If so, someone should lead him by DEBIT until he's TAMED.
I have a recording of the time that I did a Virginia folk dance on a famous Venetian bridge. It's a RIALTO Reel Tape.
I have a sense that some of the clues today were pretty clever misdirects, but it was over so fast it made my head spin. This was a Monday level themeless, but an enjoyable one. Thanks, Robert Logan.
ha! Prime example of a senior moment since this was broadcast on NBC, not CBS. (Unless they both had the same story on the same day.)
Thx, Robert, fine Fri. fare; well done! 🌟
Easy-med.
Smooth going all the way.
Was somewhat hesitant to put in SENIOR MOMENTS, but… 🤔
Fun adventure; enjoyed every minute of it! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all 👊 🙏
I'm really tired of NTH being clued as the "highest" degree, or some such. It's not the highest. It's just the nth. You can also have the (n + 1)th degree, the (n + 2)th degree, etc.
Ok, this is just weird in more ways than one! First, I have never encountered a Friday puzzle that easy for me. At 15:55, it was a) my fastest Friday ever; b) faster than my average time for Thursdays, Wednesdays, AND Tuesdays; and c) only 40 seconds longer than my Thursday personal best. But here's the weird thing: it went so fat that I had a feeling it might be my best time and glanced at the timer above the puzzle--it said 15:55. I exited the puzzle to look at my NYT statistics, which reported my previous best time on a Friday was 17 minutes plus--and that my new personal best Friday solve time is 6:08.
6:08???? 6:08!!!! What the .... ! I will labor over these daily puzzles for years to come (hopefully) and never actually solve one on any day of the week in 6 minutes and 8 seconds. I guess it may be time to reset my stats.
Wow, this was fun, if over a little too quick... 12 minutes, and I am not a fast solver. @Dale Gribble said it looks like a button and he is right on.
Yes several clues were odd... the one for SENIOR MOMENTS is just wrong. The one for YAMAHAS is bizarre: the "output" of Yamaha is YAMAHAS?... it was the first thing I thought of but refused to type it in cuz so odd.
Right away I thought of SEED VAULT(s) and needed many crosses to see BANKS. Google Ngrams says BANK is 10x more used, but "vault" is gaining steadily.
[Spelling Bee: Thu 0, 5 day streak!]
Neat themeless N/S/E/W puzgrid symmetry, with 4 Jaws of Themelessness. 62-worder. Lotsa cool longball answers. Superb constructioneerin effort.
staff weeject pick: OTT. As it went with the abbreve cluin approach, instead of the usual baseball route.
a few faves: WHODOESTHAT. WANNAMAKEABET. PARTYTRICKS. TURNEDHEADS. SATCHMO. HORSEY clue.
Thanx, Mr. Logan dude. Speakin of SEEDBANKS ...Still kinda scratchin my head on what the seed entries were. [Anything but CENTRE and KLAY would pretty much be ok by m&e, tho.]
Masked & Anonymo2Us
**gruntz**
I didn't care for the SENIOR MOMENTS answer/clue, but otherwise I really liked this puzzle. The longer answers aren't immediately gettable, but the solver can slowly figure them out by using the acrosses from the shorter answers.
I second that emotion.
When people are going to testify in court, they place their hand on a Bible and are asked, "Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" They answer, "I do."
Officials who've been elected to office (from POTUS on down) undergo a similar ritual.
Delightful. PARTY SKILLS and CABBIES sure messed me up for awhile. Solid four-sided frame of greatness. I did not know HINDI was number three.
Tee-Hee: Barely run. Gosh I love those lascivious minds at the NYTXW.
Uniclues:
1 Extra torture (on those rare occasions when evil doesn't seem to be fulfilling his needs).
2 Francisco sidelined by unconsciousness.
3 The front half and the back half.
4 Doctors' scant celebration.
1 SAD SATAN BONUS (~)
2 COMA TAMED GOYA
3 HORSEY ATTIRE
4 THESES STREAK
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Under-the-breath comment from eponymous super-villain battling comic book hero driving his "mobile" home after a long day of crime fighting and being cut off by a disrespectful road hog. "ASS," THE BAT SAID.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Roo 9:11 you win that BET. After finishing this very fine puzzle I got on my POC (plural of convenience) HORSEY and went for ride around the grid. Didn't take long since to spot one when 1A SHIPMENT needed a convenient letter count boost to fill its slot. Then it was off to the RANGES.
There is a stealth POC up top when NARROW THE GAP needed help. And who takes the demonstrative pronoun 6D THESE and pluralizes it? (OK, OFL is right, I'm just being weird there.)
There are a couple of the less often seen two-letter count boosts when 12D NON APOLOGY and 20D CADDY both get POCified and there are two POC enablers, words that are POCs themselves and also set up POCs for crosses at 17D NET ASSETS and 38A AMASSES. (The champion POC enabler would be ASSESSES. It has appeared nine time during the Shortz era.)
And as @Roo noted, the real star of the POC show is that diagonal STREAK of four Ss in the lower right. Can I get any AMENS to that?
That made me LOL, just like 39D…barely run
Merriam Webster definition of memory:
1. the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms
“began to lose his memory as he grew older”
@egs (12:16) – your YAM AHAS reminded me of one of my favorite Philip Roth lines. It’s from The Great American Novel, which is a baseball story.
One of the teams has a slugger named YAMM and he comes up to bat at a crucial moment. The crowd is going wild, screaming “YAMM! YAMM! YAMM! YAMM!” And Roth writes something like “Starving savages invoking their potato god could not have made a louder sound.”
Not easy for me until I cheated BRICKYARD in. My life is full of SENIOR MOMENTS, but I question the clue. Old memories don't cause them. On the contrary, they arise from the lack of memory.
"Uh, what did I come into the kitchen for?", characterizes a senior moment. What "old memory" caused that?
An enjoyable, engaging puzzle, regardless of that clue.
Re senior moments. Agree with Rex. We are not forgetful - we always finally remember - but we have an enormous database and a poor search engine. A 12 year old has had maybe 15 teachers; a72 year old has has hundreds! Takes us longer to search for the right name. Also enjoyed brickyard and it set me up.
Hi folks! Moving day is now January 4 and I am trying to keep my solving streak alive while I lose my mind over the need to work with the agent doing my estate sale and the movers and most of all missing my cat, Pip who moved to Santa Rosa California at Thanksgiving.
She had to ride in a tiny carrier which she liked (she thinks any and all box-shaped things are for her) with the carrier stuffed under the seat in front of us to which she objected-loudly during takeoffs (of which we had three). My suitcase was stuffed with all her things. I had a little room for me. Pip is staying with my kids and granddaughter, Grace who had her eleventh birthday the day after Thanksgiving. She volunteered to be in charge of Pip and is earning some money for caring for my feline sidekick in the manner to which she has become accustomed. And doing a wonderful job. I get pictures and reports several times a week.
@Rex’s “displeased cat” picture gave me a good chuckle. I call that cat face “giving me the eyebrows.” It’s absolutely an unmistakable expression of feline displeasure. Something I did not have much of with today’s puzzle, at least not as much as @Rex.
In fact I rather enjoyed it. The grid shape concerned me at first. I thought we were headed into a themes puzzle - not my Saturday cuppa.
As it happened, the outside rim was a lively whoosh around with some fine answers. I especially liked the clues for SHIPMENTS, NARROWS THE GAP, TURNED HEADS and SEED BANKS. And very likely as designed by our constructor the center block was tougher for me. Much tougher, but mercifully small. Good news was that as a former music teacher (flute and voice), I was very familiar with makers of musical instruments, especially the brands favored for newer players. YAMAHA helped me get into the center and SATCHMO (an educated guess) helped me with HINDI. Took me too long to suss out AMASSES and TAMED. I was stuck on thinking “broke” meant financially without, so TAMED was my last entry.
Overall a straight up themeless Saturday. I enjoyed it. Back to moving woes and missing my cat.
I took the SENIOR MOMENTS to be a high school yearbook thing. You know, that "Stay cooler than than that dry ice you dropped in fifth period chem lab!" because I couldn't let myself imagine they'd use it as cognitive decline.
Agree. Easy
But I was in the mood for an easy one. Liked it.
About Rex
Horsey wasn’t too cutesy for me Thought it had a good though not hard clue.
I am in my early’70’s. The answer “senior moments” didn’t bother me at all. Agree the clue was weirdly phrased, though. That might be the editors.
????!
DeeJay @7:36
I am sure the clue for senior moments was so worded to make no offense but it ended up making no sense! And Rex was offended anyway.
“Occasions when you forget” would have at least less convoluted.
Net assets on a balance sheet. Have heard and seen that countless times. New assets not so much. Never watch and rarely read about hockey, but OTTawa is spelled thusly so OTT would seem the logical choice. I see nothing wrong with the answer
IMDB has been here often enough, but just could not find it in my mind today. Left me with buy instead of bid, and Yoha...Very sloppy solving! Fine puzzle.
I quite agree. Not that I track them, but this is a candidate for POY in my book.
Speaking of SENIOR MOMENTS, it was a Friday…
@CDilly 4:30
Har! SENIOR MOMENT?
Today is Friday.
😜🤣👀
RooMonster WiseAcre Guy
I remember saying/hearing "wanna make a bet" a lot as a youngster growing up in the 70s in New England. Don't know if it was a regionalism or a phrase of that decade amongst the younger set. In any case, it worked for me and brought back "old memories."
At an auction a person can indicate a BID by a slight nod of the head.
The other clue/ answer you mention is, I think, a small homage to Nancy Pelosi who was elected as House Speaker in 2007 and was the first woman to serve in that position — every Speaker before her was a MAN. (Well, I don’t know if the clue was merely a fact or if it was referring to Ms. Pelosi but I interpreted it as the latter.)
Thank you, Tony Kornheiser, for trying to steal the Satchmo moniker (in a tongue-in-cheek way) and thereby teaching me that it was Louis Armstrong's nickname.
As my friend who researches aging brains says, Alzheimers is confusion, not forgetfulness. That said, she says the brain definitely gets more forgetful as we age—it’s a thing!
A nice solid Friday themeless. Who could ask for anything more?
As we get senior-er, more moments trigger memories. Thus I don't mind the clue for 50a at all. Curmudgeons approaching middle- or old-AGE resent the fact, and so are liable to lash out. I understand: NOAPOLOGIES.
This one was hard to start peripherally, so I tackled the CENTRE. That was tough because of the "broke" clue, but once that was done I was able to branch out and get some of the longer entries going. Pretty quickly, the outside was done. Slight glitch with PARlortrick instead of PARTYTRICKS, a result of writing too fast. I'd call it, for a Friday, easy.
I also depart from OFNP on the subject of golf. That, for me, can only enhance the puzzle's NETASSETS. (Again, I'm talking STRICTly memory here.)
MARIA was my entrance gimme, and both Julie Andrews and Natalie Wood make for good DODs. Birdie.
Wordle par.
One of those Fridays. For me, at least. At first I think I'll never get it. Then a corner fills up. Those long across answers have enough letters emerge so a good guess can be had - followed by another.
One. By. One. Bits fill in, and suddenly - it's done.
LOVE that!
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
AGE RANGES
MARIA offered NOAPOLOGIES,
so WANNAMAKEABET THAT sticks?
THE SENIOR CENTRE will charge DEBIT fees,
THAT's where MARIA TURNED her TRICKS.
--- LINUS SAGAN
BRICKYARD really got the momentum going. I hear the strains from Ave MARIA every day on the hours between 6am and 10pm; might have to change the chime or just turn it off.
Wordle birdie.
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