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Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (9:35)
Theme answers:
- OZONE (HOLE) / (HOLE) CARD (56A: Climate issue addressed in the Montreal Protocol / 57D: It's facedown on a poker table)
- GO W(HOLE) HOG / PIN(HOLE) (58A: Approach something with gusto / 43D: Primitive camera feature)
- (MOLE)CULES / (MOLE)SKIN (60A: What's the matter? / 60D: Cotton fabric used in bandages)
- BLACK (HOLE) / FOX(HOLE) (92A: Point of no return? / 76D: Military hiding spot)
- (HOLE)-IN-ONE / RAT(HOLE) (95A: Ace / 77D: Place that's cramped and squalid)
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. [...] The terms stop, occlusive, and plosive are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow that is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant. (wikipedia)
• • •
I laughed out loud at ATTABOY (6D: "Nice work, little fella!"), because the puzzle is just trolling me now. What is that, the sixteenth ATTA iteration this month? Boy-girl-way-flour-princess. All the ATTAs have been released and have yet to be corralled and led gently back to the ATTA preserve whence they came. The grid seemed mostly clean and tolerable, except for HEROIZE, what the hell is that? (29D: Put on a pedestal, say). LIONIZE, IDOLIZE, these are ... words. HEROIZE just hurts. Lyin' Eyes, yes, Hungry Eyes, yes, HEROIZE, no. Is that when you put an undercoat on your hero so he doesn't rust? Or polish your hero with wax? It's like the "N" in HEROINE just fell over and didn't get back up again. At least HEROIZE was inferrable, unlike SIDESLIP, which sounds like a scifi concept rather than the aviation term that it apparently is (104A: Aviator's maneuver in a crosswind landing). Other than those two answers, nothing seemed particularly strange or irksome. Gotta say that in terms of theme originality and grid cleanness, this one is probably above average for a Sunday. Not thrilling, but not bad.
Notes:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
- 28D: Insertion mark (CARET) — OK I need some kind of (SILENT M!) mnemonic for CARET v. CARAT (which reminds me, I also need a (SILENT M!) mnemonic for CARAT v. KARAT)
- 93D: Capital in the Himalayas (LHASA) — I always (always!) want to spell this LLASA. I blame LLAMA and LLANO, which is to say I blame crosswords in general.
- 119A: Fifth-century pope dubbed "the Great" (ST. LEO) — ugh, this guy. Patron saint of crosswordese. He comes in LEOI form as well. He is best known for ... looking wasted, apparently:
- 76A: Fracas (FUROR) — this was one of the tougher answers. The clue/answer equivalency just didn't seem quite right to me. "Fracas" suggests a fight, whereas "FUROR" suggests a general uproar.
- 37A: Lowercase letter that resembles an "n" (ETA) — Crosswords have taught me that ETA looks like "H" but apparently they haven't taught me the lowercase version ... until now:
- 105D: Cotton fabric often used in hosiery (LISLE) — as a Medieval Studies student in grad school, I learned about the 12c. theologian Alain de Lille. That is how I know the town of Lille, from which the fabric LISLE gets its name. If you asked me for any specifics about the town, the fabric, or the philosopher, I would mumble something and politely excuse myself from the room, never to return.
I learned yesterday that this year's Merl Reagle MEmoRiaL Award (for lifetime achievement in crossword construction) will go to Andrea Carla Michaels! The award will be presented at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament this coming April. Congratulations to Andrea, a worthy winner.
See you next time.
In the print edition, there is also a MALLET spelled out crossing diagonally in shaded letters "whacking" the mole near 60. (Hard to describe -- look for the letters M-A-L-L-E-T near the mole at 60.)
ReplyDelete@Liveprof
DeleteThe mallet shows up in the online version when you finish, with a picture of a MOLE popping out of one of the HOLEs, and HOLEs in the other, um, HOLE spaces!
HMTR. I found lots more about this puzzle "irksome" than Rex did. Natick review: PLOSIVE/SAMSA, MOLLOLO/MILNE, SIDESLIP/LISLE, WHACAMOLE/DUCAT, and quasi-natick COSMO/ANISTON. I got lucky on most of these, but thought it more likely that "dukat" was a variant spelling of "ducat," than that whack-a-mole was spelled with a "c" rather than a "k." So, so, so sick of naticks and the editor who gives them a pass.
ReplyDeleteHow is Cosmo/Aniston possibly a Natick? Sometimes it’s not the editor…
DeleteMILNE/MOLLOLO??!!
DeleteI didn't say natick, I said quasi-natick, meaning that while both answers were something I 'd never heard of, only the "s" had any real plausibility in the cross-space. I' m guessing that "cosmo" is short for "cosmopolitan" which I've also never heard of, but sounds like a good name for a drink...
DeleteEveryone's got different Naticks, and I would never in a million years be able to fill out YENTL crossing LYON and ALOU
DeleteDo you live in the USA? If so, how have you managed to avoid hearing about Jennifer Aniston this long?? I must know, so I can employ this technique come election season.
DeleteI assure you MOLLOLO is not in this puzzle.
DeleteJennifer who?
DeleteYeah, this is what crosswords are like. You do have to have a general awareness of things that are very famous. Ludwig Van who?? I’m expected to know that? I’m expected to know what baseball is?
DeleteDoesn't, strictly speaking, a Natick have to be a proper noun? SIDESLIP seems the least naticky, given that it matches the visual description of the clue. And while I didn't get LISLE, it seems fair to have some level of domain-specific words.
DeleteRex - next time you are in an arcade that has a Whac-A-Mole do yourself a favor and give it a go. It may be the most satisfying and stress-relieving arcade game ever invented. And since the moles pop up and down quite fast and often with multiple moles popping up at the same time, you'll probably be humbled by how far you are off the high score even if you are completely sober.
ReplyDeleteThe reaction of my 16-year old daughter to the completed grid, who is age appropriately a tough critic of almost everything, was "That's really good. That's REALLY good."
This seems a good time to recommend the Musee Mechanique to any visitors to San Francisco. Among the 150 years of arcade games in there are two Whac-A-Mole machines right next to each other. We play several games every time we go in.
I’m old enough to remember when those games were at Playland at the Beach
DeleteOn the app little holes and a little mole & hammer pop up when you solve
ReplyDeleteThere’s also a ‘mallet’ shaded in above the mole that’s doing the whac’ing (yeesh) above the mole … hole in the app - maybe in print as well? Oh and there’s little graphics of holes and a mole I just noticed.
ReplyDeleteWell, there also was the theme element MALLET, sorta taking the shape of a hammer and aimed right at that mole. A nontrivial bit of theme material impacting that part of the grid.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on 76A Furor… I was sure it was melee until the crosses showed otherwise. A fracas is a melee. One additional visual representation you seem to have missed… the circles going northeasterly from the MOLE and then southeasterly from the circled A spell out the MALLET used in the Whacamole game, and the mallet is in fact whacking the mole!
ReplyDeleteEarly on, the 20 across clue led me to read the revealer clue. So I looked at the grid and instantly knew the "game" in question: CENTIPEDE! Umm, not even close.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw ATTABOY I knew Rex would comment on the recent ATTA plague. And yesterday's PAR FIVE was an example of today's [HOLE] IN ONE! Surely Will plans these things?
Rex's comment about ETA reminds me of being so bored in the early years of my science degree that I actually wrote my notes in Greek letters -- which we used a lot in Physics, a la 89 across TAU. (I didn't write the actual Greek words, of which I know almost none; I just wrote the English words using Greek letters; all in uppercase.) Recently reading the book Cloud Cuckoo Land, there was a fair bit of Greek in it, which really took me back. But a lot of it was in lowercase which is just weird... they're so different!
[Spelling Bee: Sat 0; there were a lot of SB specials: words I've only ever seen in SB.]
What about spelling MALLET in the gray squares? Please explain.
ReplyDeleteThis was probably more fun than the actual game of whacking said mole. I believe I misspelled WHACAMOLE in every single possible wrong way clear up to the end. What kind of a psycho gaming company uses a C instead of a K in that name?
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle was pretty easy overall and super fun. The area west of the mole was pure torture for me. The mallet should've been T shaped. Great time all the way around.
HEROIZE ... wow.
Remember when we had Evel Knievel jumping? I wish the mole graphic would be hopping around in the various holes.
Uniclues:
1 Threats against revisionist historian specializing in elite collegiate scandals caused her to flee.
2 Bumpkins with one M-80.
3 A magnetic smile and gravitational beauty wrapped up in a nice package.
4 The timeless conundrum.
5 Next-day headline for unsuccessful Venetian fundraiser in 1437.
6 Row crew.
7 "Written this day in my little brown booklet I bought at the art shop / I used all the road on my way to the market and caused some to flat stop / Some raged and some hopped and complained I'm a flop and were begging for you / To bring them the strop."
1 RE-WROTE IVIES -- RAN AWAY
2 HAS A BLAST MEATHEADS
3 BLACKHOLE (SQUARED) IN ONE
4 REM SLEEP OR S-SCREWS
5 EVENT SPEWS OUT DUCAT
6 PRACTICE OAR UNITED
7 LANE HOG MOLESKIN ODE
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Teen brides and grooms. THE WEE WEDS.
¯\_(γ)_/¯
The print edition has a gray diagonal T-shaped formation spelling out MALLET, which is hitting the MOLE at square 55. The online solution has those boxes colorized but I don't think they were colorized during the solve. At least I didn't notice them.
ReplyDeleteI liked the theme even if it's a bit scanty.
It's the way that you do it.
The puzzle acquires colors and emojis once you finish. The mole looks like a little brown mouse and the holes are brown.
DeleteEasy. Cute, fun, and extremely whooshy. Liked it.
ReplyDeleteMinor hiccups - Trying to spell DELILLO (and I’ve read the book) and not knowing PIA as clued (where is Zadora when you need her).
@Nancy - In case you missed it I responded late yesterday.
I was sure there would be a comment on the dupes: SLOTCAR and ZIPCARS; LANE HOG and GO WHOLE HOG. Seems to me like these should have been reworked...
ReplyDeleteAnd SIDE B and SIDE SLIP!
DeleteTo Qosmonaut
DeleteDon’t think Shortz has cared for a long time, if ever, about dupes like these (sideslip/sideb etc) They have been quite frequent in the past few years. Despite what people say here, there is NO rule against them. Rex only comments when he sees something “egregious “ as he says. You will have to tolerate them if you want to do this puzzle.
Personally, I often don’t even notice, like sideslip and sideb, not next to each other and very different concepts
The MALLET squares were 'colorized' a bit - they were a light shade of gray during the solve
ReplyDeleteAlso, everyone should do today's Acrostic.
ReplyDeleteI did the acrostic yesterday and regretfully agree after I procrastinated with the Saturday crossword.
Delete@Joe Dipinto: How does one access the Acrostic?
ReplyDeleteNotice MILNE in there?
ReplyDeleteMissing my Sunday paper (we're in Tenerife where it is warm but suffering from a Calima - Saharan dust filling the air), had to solve in the app, very tiny on Sunday. I liked it! Especially because I went and filled in all the HOLEs (see what I did there?) and then was seriously confused by hOLESKIN for a hot sec.
@JoeD I really dislike doing the acrostic in the app, because it fills in the letters for you and somehow the doing of that on paper is what makes my brain put it together... but given your reco, I will try it.
Gave up three quarters of the way through. Just generally not on my wavelength at all, and I know nothing about whacamole. I quit when I realized that had to be a c instead of a k. Slammed the laptop shut--then reopened it to come here and complain lol
ReplyDeleterightly so! π
DeleteThere was a Whac-a-Mole at the dreaded Chuck E. Cheese when the kids were little. The web said, "It has the potential to get a bit chaotic, but if used prudently it can be beneficial for developing auditory processing, executive function, and attention." Gee, I don't wanna Heroize it, but still.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the finished grid, it took me way longer than it should've to finish, obtuse as I was over spotting the theme.
Happiest moment was Palpitate. At some point today, I'll work that word into a conversation. Plosive will be a little harder to throw around.
Finally, the church has just named St. Leo the patron saint of crosswords.
The grid is also stylized as a jumping mole, complete with a face in the top of the grid, outstretched arms in the NW and NE, and legs at the base of the grid. What a pleasure!
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing that out! Very cute
DeleteToo easy.
ReplyDeletetc
This one SPEWS OUT far too much inane fill to be enjoyable. The theme is cute enough - but not fully developed and not overly interesting. Liked the MOLE square with the MALLET graphic.
ReplyDeleteHEM
HEROIZE is rough so is PLOSIVE - no way around it. The trick requires segmenting the grid resulting in far too many 3s and 4s. The ZEE, IFS, PIA stack is example enough. The ATTA usage just this week is weird.
No flow - no rhythm to this solve - felt like work.
We’ll toast to the old days and DiMaggio too
Rebuses, shaded squares, left/right grid symmetry – a grab bag – yet nothing out of whac.
ReplyDeleteFun to fill in, to discover which rebus was unlike the others, to smile at the play on “knuckle” in the NOOGIE clue and the play on “spot” in the TEATIME clue, to nod with respect at the exemplary misdirect [Make perfect, maybe] for PRACTICE, and to say hello to PLOSIVE and PALPITATE – a couple of old friends I haven’t visited in many an age.
And yet, what I’m walking away most with comes from Nathan’s notes, where he reveals he worked on perfecting this puzzle for more than two years, including many iterations. The persistence, drive for excellence, and patience, not to mention working to bring the best experience possible to the solver – I’m wowing and bowing at that; I find it deeply inspiring.
Thank you for your example, Nathan, and for bringing the fun of the arcade into the pleasure of filling in the box. All you put into this, IMO, handsomely paid off!
Maybe I didn’t GO WHOLE HOG, but I did actually try to muster up some gusto for this theme - especially in the north, which was really well done. I just treated that trivia section on the middle of the east side (with GAIUS, MILNE, and the DELILLO dude) like it is the storage room in my house that I never want to clean up so I always leave the door closed.
ReplyDeleteHEROIZE is typical NYT nonsense (along with its cousin PLOSIVE today). Good to see that they are still on their game over there - gotta have the trademark foolishness or it wouldn’t be the Old Gray Lady.
I know we are in CrossWorld, but the clue for BLACK HOLE (“Point of no return?”) is really, really bad in my view. The point of no return is the EVENT HORIZON. You would be spaghettified (yes, I get to make up words too) in a fraction of a nanosecond as soon as you cross it. Now, since time slows down has you speed up, I don’t know if you would be conscious and realize what is happening to you - but it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. Are there any theoretical astrophysicists in the crowd that could opine on that one ?
Southside Johnny
DeleteDon’t see how heroize and plosive are both nonsense. Plosive is pretty obscure but it is a standard word of longstanding. Heroize is something very different.Matter of definition maybe, but some words have to be obscure to make the puzzle challenging. Can’t see that as nonsense.
Now heroize is ugly! And I don’t like ugly.
Wow, Rex was on a roll today (on a roll with a mole in a hole). The puzzle was okay but the write-up was a gem!
ReplyDeleteAnd congrats ACME, yahoo for you!!!
My first DNF in months. Heroize and some of the other clues were just too far off base. But I loved the theme. My wife and I (in our mid sixties) spend our Saturdays in the summer going to church feasts and state fairs. We eat the junk food like fried dough in any style , nachos and any other thing that requires a week of penance and just have fun. She always wins at least one of the large prizes before we leave and I truly suck at these games. The feast version of the game has a lot more than five holes and so I did not see it in the puzzle. But this morning my wife and I had a fun conversation about this and other feast games and we just could not see it in the grid. If you have never gone to a feast , I urge you to try it. State Fairs are the best and largest of them outside of Disney. Newton Shows has a web site as does the Long Island press which lists the feast dates My first DNF in months. Heroize and some of the other clues were just too far off base.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how many people have actually played WHAC-A-MOLE, but as a metaphor for day to day life, we have all had to play it more often than we care to.
ReplyDeleteBehold the beautiful grid graphics! It was for this transcendent and transformative aesthetic experience (or so the NYTimes claims) that the entire crossword puzzle archive was made inaccessible to Across Lite and other crossword software programs except for the NYTimes proprietary brand. Don't we all just want to give a big fat collective THANK YOU to NYTimes for bringing us this gift and weaning us off those other nasty pedestrian programs?
Is LANE HOG a thing? I wrote in road hog, which slowed the NE. Also misremembered DELILLO as DELussO, so that section was tough, especially with the MOLE instead of HOLE rebus. But those were blips - overall, pretty easy Sunday. The theme was well done, but HEROIZE and the repetition of HOG and CAR weakened the fill. (I don’t usually care about a couple of repetitions, but probably should be avoided when your wHOLE theme is repetitive.)
ReplyDeleteIt's been worth reading through a LOT of Rex's grumpiness to get to his envisioning of HEROIZE as the process of putting an undercoat or overcoat on your hero. I couldn't stop laughing.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, it also reminds me of Peter Schickele once referring to Schubert's Winterreise as a song cycle about antifreeze.
Villager
Winter reise is a winter trip. Winter eis is winter ice. So the comment about antifreeze is incorrect.
DeleteHand up for confusing CARET and CARaT. And aCG looked plausible for a medical procedure. Finished up by going back and fixing that — after finally figuring out how to spell WACAwhatever.
ReplyDeleteRex is tired of ATTA, and I get it. I'm ready for SIDEB to be retired. I know vinyl is still used by DJs and audiophiles, but does anyone still buy new singles with "Side B" songs that have potential to be hits? It's very 1960s. "Casey Kasem says your song is neato, boffo, a smash!" Yeesh.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness, I still received cassette tape singles with a side b as late as 1998.
DeleteCARET is from the Latin verb careΕ, carΔre, meaning 'to be lacking, not be present.' It's the 3d p sing form, caret, 'it is missing.'
ReplyDeleteCan't help you with CARAT v. KARAT.
MaxxPuzz
DeleteAbout origin of caret
Thanks for the info!
Didn’t know that!
After all the discussion yesterday around the extremely unlikely "double albatross" in golf (a hole in one on a par 5), professional golfer Shane Lowry scored a very rare albatross (a 2 on a par 5) yesterday afternoon at the PGA tournament in La Jolla, CA. Life imitating x-words!
ReplyDeleteLoved Rex's take on the N in HEROINE falling over to create HEROIZE. Classic R. Parker!!
Joe D – I literally would like nothing more than to do today's Acrostic but the Times in its wisdom stopped making this available to digital subscribers a while back. For a bit it was available on xwordinfo but then that stopped, too.
ReplyDeleteThought Rex would complain about 'in scale's. No one says that. It's 'to scale'
ReplyDeleteI had a bog instead of FEN, which led to 2 better answers beginning with H (not ETA):
ReplyDelete"Hoistup", then realizing it could be past tense "Honored". Never before has a COSMO been the element straightening things out.
BRILLIANT write-up today RP!!! worth the price of admission:) sideways N that forgot to get up. roadkill guacamole, indeed.
Easy except where dumb — not just heroize but “in scale.” The term is “to scale.” I don’t play any video games but the holes weren’t hard to spot & then the mole popped up, solving the game name which was otherwise looking weird. Sunday should be harder & more elegant than this.
ReplyDeleteFH
ReplyDeleteMoles are not rodents.
Puzzle fairly easy.
The puzzle played me beautifully. Once I had the revealer, I confidently put in HOLE in the rest of the circled squares. Held me up on the clues for Molecules and Moleskin even though I had most of the letters. LOL to see there was a MOLE in one of the holes!
ReplyDeleteNever played this game, never saw this game. I’ve heard the word but that’s it. So I was mildly in the dark on this theme and found it harder than @Rex but your write up makes it all worth it! So funny. I finished so I could read the blog post because I won’t look at it until I’m done!
ReplyDeleteAlas once again it was all about the theme which was an ok theme. Never like made up stuff like HEROIZE. Didn’t realize that Cinemax and The Movie Channel were still a thing. But if puzzle did have to be given up to a theme, Whac-A-Mole at least put a smile on my face. A lot of boardwalk memories and while not a drinking game it could be even more fun with a little buzz. Kids love it and there is joy in that too.
ReplyDeleteThx Nathan; this one's shaping up to be a fine Sun. challenge! π
ReplyDeleteDowns-o will likely join Sat.'s for a 'rest of the week' battle.
So far, got the bottom 1/2 and the upper NW/MW.
Got HOLEs in So-Ore/NoCal, the lower Midwest & the NE down thru Maryland.
Pretty much got main idea of the theme, but not fully grokked yet.
___
Lester Ruff's Sat. Stumper was pretty tough, but in the end, doable. The NE was last to fall.
David Balton & Jane Stewart's NYT acrostic is up next.
___
Peace π πΊπ¦ ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all π π
For the record, I’m really good at Whac-a-Mole. If the earth is about to be destroyed, and the choice of who is to go on the rocket ship to a new home is based on Whac-a-Mole, I like my chances.
ReplyDeleteThat first stage of the first Tour de France – the one that went to LYON – was 290 miles and was the second-longest leg that year. The winner took more than 17 hours to finish. Nowadays, the weaklings who compete in the tour almost never ride more than five hours on a single leg.
I rarely notice dupes, but I noted SLOT CAR and ZIP CARS because I have no idea what either of them is, so they both served as drags on an otherwise easy solve.
@Joe DiPinto 5:11 - either I have gotten an order of magnitude dumber, or the acrostics have gotten an order of magnitude harder. Up until two weeks ago, I had never failed to finish. Two weeks ago, I had to cry 'uncle' with less than half complete. This week, I never got started. I filled in G, R and T, and that's it. And I really dislike the way the acrostic has started cross-referencing clues.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous 6:28 - to get the acrostic, go to xwordinfo.com and in the top section, look for "NEW Jan 28 acrostic by David Balton and Jane Stewart" and click on Solve to solve online or Print to print it out.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteAlmost ... Almost hit Reveal Puzzle, as I got the Almost There message. There were a few spots I wasn't sure of, the S of PLOSIVE/SAMSA, the P of ZIPCARS/PIA, and was tempted to stop my Streak* today. But! I scanned a few other areas, and hit on me having WHAkAMOLE in. Saw DUkAT, and something in the ole brain stirred, nudging me into thinking, "wait a sec, isn't that DUCAT with a C, not a K?", so changed the K to a C, and Holy WHACAMOLEy, I got the Happy Music! First pumps abounded. Streak* at 43 Days.
Pretty neat representation of the game in a crossword grid. The NYT $50/yr App on my desktop shows flat black discs, ala HOLEs in the "HOLE" Rebus squares, and a little MOLE popping up out of the MOLE HOLE. Also the mallet shaped MALLET gets a red MAL(head), and a gray LET(handle).
Liked this SunPuz. It was different. Still a Rebus, but a different kind. Most fill sussable, with a few trouble crossings. Nice Left/Right symmetry to accommodate the HOLEs. I HAd A BLAST.
Neat way to start the day.
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Not the whooshist whoosh that ever wooshed, but still pretty whooshy. Got the HOLE early, though also wondered about hOLESKIN and hCULES for a sec before I realized there'd have to be a MOLE somewhere. Then said: "Whac-a-mole. Huh. Ok."
ReplyDeleteNot okay with "laneHOG" sharing a puzzle with "gowholeHOG"
ReplyDeleteWe used to play Whac-A-Mole all the time on the boardwalk at Rehoboth Beach, DE. It's fun and challenging! Rex, you really ought to try it. I got the HOLE concept quickly, so MOLE held me up for a short spell. And, I thought the gray squares might be HAMMER... until they weren't.
ReplyDeletePLOSIVE crossed with SAMSA was annoying. PLOSIVE and phonetics reminded of a word I learned long ago: labiodentalslitfricative. At least, I think that's how you spell it (I didn't look it up).
104A (SIDESLIP) reminded me of the maneuver used by Air Canada 143 to make an emergency landing(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider).
Will shortz retire. This year has pretty much been a slog. Very few fun puzzles. Time for some new blood. There are great crosswords published daily and the NYT just consistently has the most dull, unexciting, stuck in the past puzzles around. They desperately need some fresh perspective.
ReplyDeleteTo help you out Rex, I think WHAC A MOLE is really fun for the wee little kids - 5 to 7 or thereabouts.
ReplyDeleteHad to run the alphabet for PLOSIVE/SAMSA but otherwise a fairly easy, if uninspiring, solve.
ReplyDeleteThe theme and grid were Greek to me,
ReplyDeleteBut I am not to blame.
I do not know this game at all.
I do not know this game.
But lo! The "Aha Moment" -- Wow!
"Aha, Aha!!!" I cry.
The rebus "HOLE" gets changed to "MOLE"!!!!
And I can't tell you why.
I feel so smart! I stand apart!
I drifted blithely o'er
That blasted game I cannot name,
But didn't hurt my score!
I saw the hitch; I made the switch
From HOLE to MOLE in time.
The theme's obscure, and yet I'm sure
This puzzle was sublime!
Bravo, Nancy! I may disagree with what you say, but I 'll defend to my death your right to say it so exquisitely poetically!
DeleteThanks so much, @jae. I did see it, I appreciate your suggestion a lot and I'll pursue it. I also found your email address from a number of years ago, so I'll be able to contact you in the future without boring everyone else here with my tech incompetence.
ReplyDeleteThis was horrible. Endless naticks. Endless proper noun trivia. All in service to a really dumb theme. The NYT puzzle has just been awful in 2024 thusfar. Really subpar crap.
ReplyDeleteπ
DeleteYes, this is the definition of a good puzzle, in my book: "The revealer did, in fact, do its job and reveal the theme to me." And I love the idea of an "ATTA" preserve, where occasional recessive gene combo's might produce "TATA"'s.
ReplyDeleteFor the last week I have been having a great deal of trouble getting this blog on my phone. I have to use a variety of id’s to get o. For years all I had to do was to type “Rex”. Is anyone else having this problem?
ReplyDelete@kitschef – Thanks for the heads-up on xwordinfo posting the acrostics again!
ReplyDeleteThought a fun puzzle. Got badly hung up on the rebuses because entered downCARD instead of HOLECARD the first time around and took a long time to get them all right—have never played the game…some twisty clues/words but think the NYT is having some fun and pioneering in blending puzzles with tech in the graphics…going to grate a bit on puzzle classisists…
ReplyDeleteWell, I thought this was adorable. Fresh and fun theme, and some interesting words in the fill. Thanks to Mr. Hasegawa and I will happily look forward to his name on a puzzle in the future!
ReplyDeleteOh, yes. Does anyone know if the MILNE quote is real? it reads like one of those things attributed to AA Milne, but that he had nothing to do with.
ReplyDeleteIt’s not real! Lots of google hits attributing it to him, but it doesn’t seem to be in any of his published work (and sounds nothing like what he would have written).
DeleteBrutal game, whacamole...like refusing to come to a border deal so you can blame the incumbents!!
ReplyDeleteEasy, and very cute. I've never encountered the game itself but am familiar with it through comparisons likening some frustrating process to "playing WHAC-A-MOLE." I did get off to a bad start HOLE-wise, though: at the squares with the circles, I envisioned a hammer pounding down the end of an entry, causing it to make a 90-degree turn, like OZONEl[turn the corner to go Down]ayer (ozone layer). But once I got the HOLEs elsewhere I saw what I needed to correct. I liked the variety of HOLEs, PALPITATE, CLUB SCENE.
ReplyDeleteI had a lot of trouble, self-inflicted, with this puzzle and played WHAC-A-MOLE until the first HOLE turned up at GO W[HOLE] HOG. Up until then, I had answers in that made me certain that the circles weren't rebused. At the end, I forgot, having never played the game, that the MOLE would have to show up at some point. That certainly cleared up the mystery of [hOLECULES], duh.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was fun and clever and medium hard. I'm glad my solving software didn't show me a mallet - I don't think that would have added to the solve.
Thanks, Nathan Hasegawa!
DNF. Went with DUkAT thinking it looked better for the cutesy-spelled WAcAMOLE. Gimmick was not worth the trouble.
ReplyDeleteYup, and I'm sure we're not the only two...
DeleteI was appalled by "heroize"
ReplyDelete@C. Cole, I really liked Puzzazz. In fact, I stopped doing the crossword (and hence stopped coming here to the blog) when the NYTimes locked them out. Then a few months ago I started doing the Wordle, and the other free games and finally resubscribed. I liked the puzzle okay, but the solving experience was no fun on my iPad mini; it was really hard, esp with the Sunday puz, to tap on the right squares to enter my answers; my fingers are small but I’d need a stylus. And I can’t really read the teensy numbers to even see which square I’d like to type into. And Puzzazz beautifully rendered all the fancy colors, rebuses, animations and stuff, often better than the app.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it’s nice to see some familiar usernames still posting here, still clever. And @ACME, congrats on your award. Meeting you in SF and having lunch with you and @Gill remains a highlight of my crossword-solving!
Rex's write up had me laughing. Way more fun to read than to solve. Should I put DELILO on my reading list? DNF in the West
ReplyDeleteUsed to fly single engine planes as a hobby. Thought sideslip immediately but it felt pretty specialized so didn't fill it in until I had a few crosses! Cluing was obvious if you've ever landed a plane though.
ReplyDeleteThanks, @Kitshef 9:45, for posting about the online Acrostic at Xword Info. I always do it in the Magazine. Note that it says to solve online you must use a physical keyboard; a pho=ne won't work.
ReplyDeleteI haven't found them to be particularly harder since Balton/Stewart took over, but there was one recently that I couldn't get anywhere on. Today G and T were gimmes; also P. A few others I was 90% sure of and they turned out to be correct. Also I was able to fill in the first section of the quote pretty quickly.
Yentl was the female character played by Barbra Streisand. The "Yeshiva boy" played by Barbra Streisand was Anshel.
ReplyDeleteHuh?! Anonymous 12:49 PM
DeleteThe character played by Streisand was called Yentl, hence the movie’s name. To get an education, she dressed as and pretended to be a boy, using a fake name to get into school
The character is named Yentl.
Nothing wrong with the clue/ answer.
If you haven't tried WHAC-A-MOLE, don't knock it! I can ATTEST that the high speed whacking of those rapidly, randomly popping up MOLEs is a portal into pure here-and-now, in-the-moment, unreflected consciousness. Definitely a delightful respite from dwelling on the past and worrying about the future. And no MOLEs are actually harmed in the process.
ReplyDeleteWell I thought this was a terrific Sunday puzzle. First nice aha! was discovering the HOLE rebus and thought that a HOLE in an empty space was ingenious. I had all the HOLE answers done and that had to go to church and play music so I left a part undone, including the section containing the hidden MOLE, where I was stuck. When I picked the puzzle up again I saw the MOLE trick almost immediately and since I had the revealer already it made perfect sense, and the most satisfying aha! in quite a while.
ReplyDeletePLOSIVE I knew from a graduate course in phonetics many years ago. Haven't thought of it for some time and I miss the more complete "bilabial PLOSIVE, but that would eliminate the K. I'm also fond of "voiced fricative" but I haven't ever seen that one in a puzz either.
The one answer I wrote down as icky was HEROIZE and I see that I'm not alone.
Wicked good Sunday NH. Cool concept and more than Nicely Handled. Thanks for all the fun.
When I read the W.S. blurb about the constructer and saw the circles and shaded squares, I thought, "Oh no. Another puzzle for the kids." But I stand corrected. This was easy and enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteI first looked at the 57 circle and immediately saw HOLE. Then I just started whacking away.
Yes, there were holes in the execution, such as the MILNE misattribution.
Thank you, @kitshef !
ReplyDelete@Joe DiPinto, thanks for the Acrostic tip, it was fun.
ReplyDelete@Rex. LOVE your riff on "heroize" LOL from undercoat to the end.
ReplyDelete@AnoaBob just read your comment, cute end.
Mostly fun puzzle, but how many of you knew Delilo and Samsa?
I'm sure I should have known Aniston, but didn't, evenwih has a blast and aria in place.. Goingnow to google "titer'
Got to the revealer early, before getting any “hole” squares or the “mole” square. Thought the grid might have resembled ASTEROIDS at first (actually, looks more like Space Invaders), with that mirror symmetry
ReplyDelete@Rex LOVED your riff on "Heroize . LOL, literally, from under coat to the end. Actually the whole write up waslikethe fun write ups I remember from my first few years reading he blog. "roadkill guacamole" et al.
ReplyDeleteOverall fun puzzle, butI had to cheat for Delillo and Aniston tho I should have remembered that with Has a blast and aria and rend in place. But should I have known Delillo"
Gig now to google titer.
Hey NH-Forgot to say that my state thinks you have cool initials.
ReplyDelete@Anon at 12:49, "Yeshiva Boy" in quotes is a reference to Isaac Bashevis Singer's short story "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy", the story the movie was based on. In that story, too, Yentl adopts the male name Anshel, but the title makes it clear that she is still Yentl, even while posing as Anshel.
ReplyDelete"It's like the "N" in HEROINE just fell over and didn't get back up again." ... lmao brilliant! It's the occasional lines like that that keep me reading this blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks to all who commented that the quote is not from MILNE. Despite my avatar, I'm no expert, but it sounds way more saccharine than I'd expect from him.
ReplyDeleteHoley Moley! The Circles, rebuses, gray areas, and E/W symmetry.
ReplyDeleteNot a real humorous theme [M&A's fave], but any puz about games is ok by m&e.
Did have a couple near-Gnat-Ticks:
* SASMA/PLOSIVE. Both were no-knows, altho PLOSIVE kinda has some known cousins, like implosive, explosive, and maybe displosive. Would also accept pewitplosive.
* ZIPCARS/PIA. M&A don't travel enough, I reckon. Did go to Utah national parks lately, tho…
Guessed right on both of the above tense crossins, after wringin out many precious units of sweat and nanoseconds.
Pretty easy-ish SunPuz solvequest, for the most parts, tho. Not a w(hole) lotta ?-marker clues, for this big of a puz.
staff weeject pick: Symmetric(al) ZEE & DEE weejects. Brought a wee little order, to M&A's "universe".
Is PANHOLE a real thing? Couldn't find it in the Official Help Desk Dictionary (™). Actually, it is … if U don't misspell PALPATATE like M&A did. [doh-oh moment]
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Hasegawa dude. Nice and whaccy.
Masked & Anonymo8Us
**gruntz**
A friend from Lahore referred to PIA as “Passengers In Agony,” so that one was ok for me. Samsa/Plosive was my personal Waterloo.
ReplyDeleteAllegheny = Air Agony
DeleteTrying to access the Acrostic online apparently requires a $20 subscription to XWORD INFO. Am I wrong?
ReplyDeletehow could anyone in the US not heard of Jennifer Aniston? I am 64 and she is in my wheelhouse and my kids wheelhouse.
ReplyDeleteI yearn for the days of Eugene Maleska again.
ReplyDeleteDowns-o mostly SUCCESSful, but not SMASHINGly.
ReplyDeleteOne do'h! moment at PaN / PALPaTATE. Not knowing cameras WACked me good. PaN HOLE seemed as good as PIN HOLE, altho at least a PIN HOLE is a thing; thus the DO'H! Just looked up PIN HOLE camera; vaguely recall visiting it in some context many years ago.
This heart PALPITATING moment of defeat was somewhat redeemed by a lucky guess on the first (I) of DELILLO.
PLOSIVE was also interesting; thot maybe the clue was 'ex___', or some such.
Toughest area by far was NoCal, and finally arriving at HEROIZE.
I assumed that '11,111' was the square root of '123, 454, 321', so tried sq root, but it just would play nice with its neighbors; plus, there was no indication of an abbr. in the clue. Had ANISTON, eMEND & ORE to work with, and finally twigged on OZONE; after trying a couple of 'IZE' words, e.g., lionIZE, idolIZE, etc., finally focused on the 'H' I had in place, and voila: HEROIZE came [groan]. This gave me COSMO & AMEND, then along came FACTOR, and Bob was my uncle.
Had caias before GAIUS, but that gave me some useful letters in that area, and GAIUS finally came to be. Seeing the grayed out cells, and intuiting MALLET, led to changing hOLE to MOLE, providing the SKIN, and MOLECULES, which finished off that area.
The two HOGs were a bit disconcerting, but…
Fun coincidence: after ending up with the unknown SAMSA in the NW, shortly thereafter I received my daily 'Chirp' audiobooks email, which included Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis' for $.99, tho my library has it for free.
All-in-all, an excellent journey, and battle fairly well fought! No more PALPITATions for me! :)
@Anonymous (4:51 PM)
Pretty sure you're right; I do recall resubscribing not too long ago. Money well spent, tho. Lots of variety puzzes: acrostics, cryptics, PandAs, etc..
___
Congrats to ACME; well deserved! :)
___
On to David Balton & Jane Stewart's NYT acrostic.
___
Peace π πΊπ¦ ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a DAP to all π π
I liked it, especially with the one mole rebus (sorry AnoaBob)
ReplyDeleteSome people are distorting the meaning of natick , which was invented by Rex and on his site, he is entitled to his meaning!
Origin: Natick, MA an obscure ( to most of the country) suburban town on the Boston Marathon route, crossing at the N with N.C. Wyeth, a much less known illustrator father of painter Andrew. Plus since the N is an abbreviation and the town is a proper noun, letter N is, per Rex, non inferable. So to be a natick, both names have to be obscure AND crossing at to most solvers a random letter.
The only name that comes close is DELILLO and the only cross that raises an issue is MILNE. Not exactly an obscure name! MI-NE does not a not a natick create. I am not saying it is easy. I could easily have screwed it up if I approached it the wrong way or on the wrong day. But that it and others complained about are not unreasonable.
The others mentioned are even less naticky.
Samsa is the most well known character of a famous story by that obscure author. Get one or two letters and many here can recall it. Not naticky. And same for the others mentioned
Um…you wouldn’t do a side slip in a crosswind. You would do a forward slip. Just saying. Details matter.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Rex! I’m surprised you didn’t demand a recount! ;) I’ll never EVER forget that you were the first person to pick up the phone and call when we lost our dear friend Merl. No one will EVER fill his shoes/grids but I’m thrilled to help carry on in his memory, which has been a blessing… and has yet to dim even slightly.
ReplyDeletethe reason the puzzle has the blue eyes on each square is because Rex CHEATED and couldn't solve this one
ReplyDeleteThis was a self-concious puzzle, trying too hard, reaching too far, too many clues that the constructor appears to have Googled
ReplyDeleteI inferred the BAE answer for 67D but had no idea what it is. The only BAE that I know is BAE Systems. I looked up the meaning and it's a term of endearment, short for Before Anyone Else. Who woulda thunk?
ReplyDeleteAnd here all this time I thought BAE was just "babe," with the speaker just being too damn lazy to pronounce the second B. "Before Anyone Else," eh? Who'da thunk?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if the black square configuration is supposed to look like a mole's face; if so, it's a stretch. The hardest part was trying to fit HAMMER into the shaded squares...but of course, the instrument in the game really is much more of a MALLET.
Clever theme & execution, though WHACAMOLE to me is little more than a test of reaction time. And perhaps an outlet for aggression.
Writeover: to SCALE, which is more in-the-language than INSCALE. The ugly SIDEB helped me with that. The even uglier SILENTM was not a pleasant start.
Noticed: LANEHOG/GOW[hole]HOG, SIDEB/SIDESLIP. The rest of it was easyish, but for that whole shaded area: DELILLO was a STUNNER, I can ATTEST. Birdie.
Happy Big Game Day, fellow Syndilanders! Me? I don't care who wins (my Eagles aren't in it), I'm not leaving the house, and I don't have a farthing bet on it. But: enjoy!
wordle par.
As one who has drawn and seen countless engineering details, and as mentioned above, it is toSCALE, not INSCALE. And as one who has driven over 1.25 million miles, it is roadHOG, not LANEHOG (nor WHOLEHOG). Those were my write-overs. HEROIZE?
ReplyDelete20-some years ago I had a HOLEINONE, still trying for another.
Why is PIA not clued __ Zadora? But we do get Jen ANISTON.
Wordle bogey, never saw it coming.
UNITED STATE?
ReplyDeleteELENA and LEO were A SMASHINGSUCCESS,
THE SORT of DOPES that REWROTE FOX News:
IN A STUNNER ATTHE SENATE they ATTEST,
"It's NO ISSUE where ONE SLEEPs ORE SCREWS."
--- DENIS VAN DELILLO SR.
I have never seen or heard of the word HEROIZE before, that I can recall. It both sounds and looks ugly to me, as others have also said. So I ran to the OED, and found out that it actually dates back to the late 1600's. Who knew???
ReplyDelete