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Relative difficulty: Medium (29mins while very distracted)
THEME: LOVE LETTERS — DESCRIPTION
Theme answers:
- ROMANCE in the shape of an L
- FONDNESS in the shape of an O
- PASSION in the shape of a V
- RESPECT in the shape of an E
Word of the Day: CJ CREGG (Allison Janney's role on "The West Wing") —
One of the great mysteries of Hollywood – nay, of life – is that Aaron Sorkin is a fairly condescending and certainly problematic writer of women. And yet so goes C.J. She's not immune to Sorkin's missteps. Her entire backstory as a Hollywood publicist who doesn't seem to know much about Hollywood or publicity never made one lick of sense. And in the early seasons, she was the White House staffer most prone to making mistakes on the job. But her capability and combination of strength and simple compassion represented the fantasy of the Bartlet White House better than anyone. And have you seen her pull off "The Jackal"?– Joe Reid, The Atlantic (2014)
• • •
I was surprised they didn't try to squeeze more Love Content into the clues. For example, TEENS could have been clued as the more romantic [Promposal participants, typically] rather than the more generic [High schoolers, typically].
Other fill comments-- STE should be banned from puzzles along with "tec," in my opinion. YES OR NO is a toughie, in that it is a very real phrase, but any clue is going to sound a little stilted. Meanwhile, TV ACTOR is absolutely not a phrase-- people simply say "actor." CJ CREGG was a huge blast from the past-- I had a cringey if not embarrassing obsession with "The West Wing" when I was in seventh grade and once a boy actually compared me to C.J. in order to flirt with me and it did actually work.
The spot I struggled most was the top-left, where proper nouns and trivia crossed: THE VA / VANCE / HORNETS / LEN. While filling it in, I tried Lance or Mance or Leo or Les or Lee, and it is soooo hard to parse "The VA." (Actually, I didn't realize what it was supposed to be until I wrote up this section.)
Bullets:
- [___ Cariou, Broadway's original Sweeney Todd] for LEN — Curious how many people knew this before crosses-- I am fairly Broadway-savvy but haven't heard of him. (I first thought of Ramin Karimloo, since I didn't know how to spell his last name.)
- [Sister channel of QVC] for HSN — This could have quite literally been any three letters in the alphabet. I haven't even heard of QVC!!
- [Popular Mexican beer] for CORONA — There are so many six-letter Mexican beers!! Well, Tecate and Modelo, at least.
- [___ training (requirement for H.S. graduation in most states)] for CPR — Really?? "Most"???? To me, "most" means more than half. Don't have time to research this now but you'd better believe I'll be checking in the morning. (The state that I grew up in absolutely did not have this requirement in the mid 2010s.)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
A couple tricky proper nouns crossed with plausible alternative answers:
ReplyDelete1. At 31A, "pat and "pet" both fit "Comforting touch" (though the former makes a better singular), allowing Eveda as a salon brand name.
2. Sorrento is relatively well-known, but "Sorrente" isn't not Italian, and ERs works as well as ORs for "Hosp. locale"
Also thought 'Respect' was an outlier in the LOVE quartet, but it still works. Agree with CPR, even though my HS days were way back in the 80s :) Had 'Sheaths' before 'Shields' and that slowed things down for a bit. All in all, a fairly enjoyable Wednesday!
ReplyDeleteMedium-tough. Very impressive feat of construction! Liked it.
ReplyDeleteKnowing C.J. CREGG was quite helpful, not knowing how to spell her name cost me a few nanoseconds as I know nothing about the game of Taboo.
OK @Malaika - I love that I’m still in love 57 years later.
ReplyDelete@Malaika: I agree about STE and TEC, as well as several other examples that are never ever seen outside of crosswords.
This puzzle was Medium for me, I think, with a Challenging NW and Easy-Medium the rest of the way. I don't know my airbases Italian beers or salon brands, and I wanted draINS for the sink parts at 6D. My other NW overwrite was TREE asp before TREE BOA. I remembered that Vespa (16A) means wasp, and Google Translate agrees. A HORNET is a different insect.
Conrad
DeleteHornets are wasps
I thought this was hard for a Wednesday
ReplyDeleteI think respect fits perfectly with my concept of romantic love. I’ve been with my wife since we were in HS and we have been together over 50 years. Respect for me is an essential part of romantic love—something amazingly sexy about a strong wife who says what she means and means what she says. Is impossible to love someone you don’t respect? As to the puzzle , the West Wing was a killer for me and I just could not see jawing. First DNF since October. It’s also Ash Wednesday for the Catholics out there. Something humbling and wonderful about this reminder of our mortality. Life is good.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s best to read RESPECT as R-E-S-P-E-C-T, as in the title of the Aretha Franklin song. Which works for me.
ReplyDeleteI never watched The West Wing, so that character’s name could have been anything. And pulling RAPANUI out of the memory banks was tricky this morning. Not exactly a Natick if they run side by side, but the pairing sure made that SW corner tough.
And @Malaika, today and every day I thank my lucky stars for Mrs. Freude, who proves that true love can come late in life as a complete revelation of just how happy a marriage can be. For many years I had no idea how good it could be.
Needed one cheat...looked up Easter Island to get RAPANUI. Didn't know CJCREGG, so trial-and-error gave me JAWED. A very nice puzzle overall with a complicated but appropriate theme for February 14.
ReplyDeleteUgh, not for me. Too much stuff like TREE BOAs, Vespas, foreign beers, limoncello, CJ CREGG, RAPANUI . . . It just quickly turns into a slog when most of the clues/answers relate to things I’ve never heard of and wouldn’t care about if I did.
ReplyDeleteThe theme had promise, but unfortunately the content was just too far out of my wheelhouse to muster up any enthusiasm today. I mean, AVEDA - seriously ?
Southside Johnny
DeleteAbout Aveda
Since you said seriously I had to respond. But this brand has appeared more than once in the Times puzzle and apparently is not an obscure product. at least to women. (Note the salon reference). Some trivia is much more known by women, other trivia by men. So I can see nothing wrong with AVEDA in the puzzle, seriously.
@Southside Johnny 6:49am :
DeleteI've been using Aveda Shampure shampoo for like 40 years, and I'm a man. I forget who turned me on to it, but I believe it was once only available from salons, until Estee Lauder bought it.
Love today’s and yesterday puzzles because both constructors were cleaver and know how to go deep with their construction.
ReplyDeleteCJCREGG? I needed all the crosses for that one. Yuck. On a Wednesday? Had pAcino before CAPONE for too long. Happy Valentines day to all you lovers out there
ReplyDeletePer American Heart Association 38 states and DC require CPR training.
ReplyDeleteGot Natick'd by SORRENTO/ORS in the Southeast (ERS and SORRENTE are completely plausible alternates); bizarrely, at one point the shaded word in that corner was SERPENT, which would have been a rather Biblically dark spin on Valentines Day.
ReplyDeleteBenbini
DeleteYou have a valid point the correct letter Sorrento or Sorrente is uninferable if you the name means nothing to you. But on the other hand, Natick , a small town that happens to be one of many on the Boston Marathon route, known mostly by residents of Southeastern New England, is a lot more obscure than the well known resort town on the Amalfi coast South of Naples ( It was also the location of a significant WWII battle) Just saying that Rex who invented the word because of the obscurity of Natick to most people, would say Sorrento is not obscure enough to qualify.
Medium for me. Proper-name heavy with names that are not in my wheelhouse. SORRENTO is a Kia model to me, never heard of it as a city. Never heard of VANCE AFB or PERONI beer, so that was a Natick. Never heard of a MASSE shot. The only one I should have gotten was CJ CREGG, and even that took a while. I could picture her but couldn't remember the name. I haven't seen the West Wing in about 20 years. Still no idea what DEM means aside from Department of Environmental Management.
ReplyDeleteIt also doesn't help that I put THE PX instead of THE VA and PLUMBED instead of EN SUITE.
I liked HORNETS because I know "Vespa" means "Wasp" and that's why the scooters have that name (due to the buzzing of the engine).
Overall not a good puzzle but one that was very slow going for me.
Sorry, I meant a GOOD puzzle but one that was very slow to me.
DeleteDem as in short for democrat (“the blue side”)
Delete"Dem" as in "Democrat"
DeleteI double-Naticked on JAW on crossing CAPONo and AVEnA. CAPONo certainly looked wrong but I thought Scarface was the movie gangster played by Al Pacino, and I actually cheated by looking up the character’s real name, which is Montana, which didn’t fit. Embarrassing to cheat to no effect. I didn’t know Capone was called Scarface. And then Avena looked perfectly fine for the skin-care brand. Ironic that I missed that because my partner actually works at Aveda. Anyway, I just never thought JAW on could be wrong.
ReplyDeleteI also struggled remembering CJ GREGG’s name. I never liked that show and I always find Aaron Sorkin’s writing preachy and unrealistic. I agree with the quote you posted about his usually condescending attitude towards women. But I thought it might be CJ gREGG, and wondered what gPR could be. Like you, Malaika, I had no idea CPR training was required for graduation in any high school, let alone most. Nowadays, they probably issue Narcan to every grad and train them how to use it - or they should.
Other than those problems, I liked the theme and some of the nice answers such as ANY NEWS and especially USE ME. Rex probably would have posted a clip of the wonderful Bill Withers song of that title (“just keep on using me … until you use me up.”), appropriate for Valentine’s Day.
Good to see ALI Wong since I just started watching the much- awarded “Beef” last night.
Thanks for the writeup, Malaika, done with great APLOMB.
I agree about COR training as a high school grad requirement - I’ve never heard of that and I worked in a high school for many years and dealt with a lot of other high schools. Also never watched West Wing, not for any particular reason, just because how much tv can one person watch? So I don’t know any of the characters and this name was pretty uninferable.
ReplyDeleteHappy Valentine’s Day to all, and Malaika, what I love is that my husband and I are still in love after close to 50 years, and he’s still a silly romantic who brings me flowers, not just on Valentine’s Day.
When I saw that RESPECT was one of the "Love Letters", I immediately checked the constructor's gender ... and yes ... my hunch was correct. Today's puzzle constructor is a woman. (Yay!!) While RESPECT is an essential (if often disregarded) aspect of romantic love, it is more top-of-mind for many women than it is for men. Imo, it should be more top-of-mind for all of us.
ReplyDeleteLots of unknown proper nouns today, and lots of difficult cluing for a Wednesday. Maybe my slowest Wednesday ever.
I googled EST, and found dozens of meanings and usages, none of them corresponding to today's clue!
Nice write-up today, Malaika!
cArom before MASSE, which I only got from the crosses. I found this medium-challenging, with the SW giving me the hardest time--I'm old enough to have watched the West Wing in its original run (so I knew LEN Cariou without any crosses), but it took me a while to remember CJ CREGG. TREE BOA? Okay, if you say so. ask ME before USE ME.
ReplyDelete@Malaika, I guess you don't watch Shark Tank either--HSN and QVC (Home Shopping Network and Quality Value Channel, I believe) are the two major players in that space, and they inevitably come up when Lori Grenier (sp?) is in the Tank. :)
And having been conditioned by @Rex, this would make 3 solo women constructors, I believe. :)
I love my family.
Tough for a Wednesday, imo. I had to look up the CPR fact too, and it’s true - 38 states plus the District of Columbia, according to the American Heart Association.
ReplyDeleteThis was a fireworks theme, exploding in the box. For starters, four gray letters – hard enough to produce in a grid. Harder still is creating an un-clunky grid, given the constrictions those four letters produce, but this grid is remarkably smooth overall. Well, you’d think that would be a sufficient load to wrangle, but then Ella added a revealer, and the perfect punny revealer at that.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, fabulous concept and construction.
But most importantly, how was the solve? For me, interesting and happifying. Interesting answers all over the place – TREE BOA, SEA FOAM, YES OR NO, CRONE, ANY NEWS, EN SUITE, CJ CREGG, RAPANUI, LOW RISES, LADY FERN, SORRENTO.
And happifying? Moments like remembering RAPANUI from I-don’t-know-where in my brain. Like remembering the can’t-wait excitement my wife and I had over the first few seasons of “The West Wing”, where we shut out the world, watched, then, laughing, and shouting “Yes!” back and forth, regaled our favorite moments.
Like being uber-vexed in the NW corner, then, in a huge flash, the theme itself cracks it open when I finally see ROMANCE. Yes, happifying.
Ella, wow! Put all this together and wrap it with a bow. This wasn’t simply a solve; it was an experience to, well, love. Thank you for this blast of bliss!
@malaika, I love that I can still pull things like CJ Cregg from the cobwebbed confines of my brain, and that things like Rapanui, something I didn't know I knew, pop up when I need them.
ReplyDeleteI love that seafoam reminded me of my favorite Crayola color in the big box that I got for Christmas in 1963, and that all the time I wasted watching HGTV resulted in En Suite. I love that the clue for Vance wasn't some politician.
Finally, I love when you sub for the CIC (Crab in Chief).
Little known fact, Yesorno is a town in Italy. It's true
Clever construction, cute crossword. CJ Cregg caused complications... can't complain. Cool!
ReplyDeleteWell hurrah for RAPANUI and hello to CJCREGG, who is a good example of either you know it instantly or it's unheard of. I would fall into the latter category, but the crosses were fair enough.
ReplyDeleteFor a while a wanted the "final watcher" to be some kind of DOCTOR involved in an end-of-life situation and was happy that wouldn't fit.
And someday I'll catch up with people like LEN and ALI but today is not that day.
Today is the 57th Valentine's Day we have celebrated as a couple. That's a lot of roses, even if my better half only gets one at a time.
Impressive construction, ED. Elegantly Done, nice theme, and thanks for all the fun.
There is absolutely nothing cringey or embarrassing about being obsessed with The West Wing. It was easily one of the best shows of its time, and it is definitely a great comfort watch when you’re sad about how the right wing is destroying our country.
ReplyDeleteI, too, balked at CPR, but it seems to be a fairly recent development. The American Heart Association has this map, and sure enough, that’s most: https://cpr.heart.org/en/training-programs/community-programs/cpr-in-schools/cpr-in-schools-legislation-map (I still don’t know how to make linked text work in comments here, it doesn’t like normal a href tags.)
Dnf - couldn't find error, had ASsUCH when equally didn't fit, altho in retrospect it's obviously wrong, and the pool move could as easily have been a sASSE for me as a MASSE.
ReplyDeletePool moves for me involve waiting for the sun to warm the little pool up and then swimming tiny laps, interspersed with reading. Never would have thought I’d enjoy that so much.
I almost fell into that trap too, but managed to see that AS SUCH should be AS MUCH. Also, not a West Wing watcher, so had to struggle with C_CREGG and _AWED to avoid getting Naticked. Not medium at all. One of the toughest Wednesdays ever for me — the first half was a total slog and it got a little better toward the end.
DeleteWow, 40 states require CPR training!
ReplyDeleteEasy at first then tough.
ReplyDeleteWhat do I love? The comments lodged here by LMS. Miss them.
Also, does anyone recall Rex's rant about ATADESK? I laughed because, while solving, I said to myself "I cannot wait to read Rex on this."
That happened on my 65th birthday so I interpreted my delight as some sort of sign from a higher power and as a type of love.
Somehow I missed the L O V E thing entirely, and just thought they were weird shapes. (Circles in Across Lite, not shaded, maybe that’s why?’)
ReplyDeleteI knew LEN (saw the original Sweeney five times), but never heard of CJ GREGG.
Nice to see SORRENTO, I was there last spring.
I love coming here regularly and not only know RP's proclivities, but a bit about the guests also! While PASSION and ROMANCE provide the spark, RESPECT is probably the love letter most responsible for a lasting relationship, respectable second to FONDNESS. 27 years for us:)
ReplyDeleteFunny that MASSE is causing problems. It is the pool shot favored by OTT and ORR.
Was not a West Wing watcher, so 2 initials and unusual spelling of last name may as well have been clued "random letter string, good luck with the crosses". RAPANUI not very helpful in that regard. JAWED doesn't seem to have the same connotation as yammered, jawed being more argumentative and yammering is just running on. cAWED was my one letter DNF.
THE VA is probably an obvious fill in for the older set. VANCE was helped by the themer - love when that happens, then was familiar once I saw it.
A HORNET is a type of wasp, so the Vespa clue works. I'll always remember it as the sound of the motor scooters. Italian sub-theme today adds to the Romance.
@David Grenier: DEM = Democrat. You must be thinking too hard...
This puzzle would have been fine if not for the obscurity in the SW corner. If you've never watched a TV show that ended 18 years ago, you're basically out of luck. I've also never played Taboo, didn't learn CPR in high school (what?), and had no idea Easter Island was also called something else in a language I don't speak. I don't live in metro NY or any other major city, so LOWRISES was just not going to happen for me. Very niche/wheelhousey for a Wednesday puzzle.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteThat SW corner did me in. Could not get JAWED/LOWRISES/CJCREGG/CPR. Stuck down there for a good 10 minutes before finally giving up and hitting Reveal Word for CPR. Had it in as GPA, and not getting anything from LO_aISES. Even without the A, I had LO__ISES, and just crickets. Never hear of CJ CREGG, so no help there. Once the CPR went in, I said, "Could it be LOW RISES? Dang, silly clue " Put it in, to finally see JAWED, and finished, but FWE.
Do know it was a tough puz to get clean fill, with all four corners basically one big Theme monster. The LOVE letters locked into place, plus large corners to fill regardless. I'm sure this puz took a bit to wrestle to the ground for the constructor.
Liked it until I hit that SW corner. 😁
Impressed by the construction, still. Nice l/r symmetry to get LOVE in there. Light dreck considering all the constraints.
Happy Valentine's Day for all those who care about such things. Har.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Read the clue about HS graduation training and thought “Please don’t be STD”
ReplyDeleteGave up on this one. Couldn't do a Wednesday? But I did know SORRENTO -- it's a lovely little city west of Milano where you can spend a day or two recovering from jet lag at an affordable hotel with great food, before dealing with things you need to be alert for in Italy. Also known for Amoretto.
ReplyDeleteI think you’re confusing Sorrento, which is south of Naples, with Saronno, which is indeed near Milan. And famous for the Amaretto di Saronno. Lemon trees, on the other hand, are not suited to that climate, while they thrive in Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi, and neighboring areas and give us delicious limoncello…
DeleteThere was no rhyme or reason to the tortured patterns of the LOVE LETTERS, and rather than assisting me in any way with my solving, the gray squares just annoyed me.
ReplyDeleteAlso annoying me were CJCREGG, whoever that is; two beer brands, one from a country I associate only with wine; and a puzzle that turned me into a hapless GUESSER by cluing GUESSER (why??? why???) with a game I've never heard of. I guessed GUESSER after first eliminating prESSER, drESSER and blESSER.
Also -- EST is the suffix for best. Nothing especially "playful" about it. ODD clue.
draINS before BASINS made the NW especially hard for me. I should have seen APLOMB much sooner than I did. Ditto for the well-clued MOTH. But THEVA was a DOOK; I never heard of a TREE BOA; didn't know PERONI and didn't know AROMAS as clued.
And finally -- why does a salon need to be vegan?
Bottom line: This puzzle is about as romantic as a visit to the dentist.
Thx Ella; having a LOVEly experience so far! 😊
ReplyDeleteDowns-o in progress.
Actually paid attn to the gray cells, seeing L O V E, which has already paid dividends.
Have managed to get the top 1/2, including enuf crosses to get LOVE LETTERS across the center.
Only questions are both 'beer' related: have PERONI & CORONA, with a couple of crosses for each leaving room for some doubt.
Anyhoo, LOVing the adventure so far, and 🤞ing that the bottom 1/2 goes as smoothly.
Onward!
___
Natan Last's New Yorker Mon was easy-med, except for a one-cell dnf at the cross of 'sloth' / 'Gurira'. Oh well… enjoyed the challenge and maybe learned a couple of things.
Sun.'s New Yorker cryptic by Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto was a unique experience and welcome challenge. LOVE their clueing! Btw, their book, 'Word Salad: a Guide to Cryptic Crosswords' has been a great map for my adventure into the land of cryptic xwords.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness ~ Freudenfreude & a dap to all 👊 🙏
Had no idea about CPR requirements either. It seems to have gone into place almost entirely in the mid-2010s.
ReplyDeleteSolved with a bit of difficulty and identified the words in the shaded squares, but totally missed the shapes of them and the resulting grid art. Well, duh. Like others, CJ CREGG gave me pause because even though I adore Allison Janney, never watched a single episode of the West Wing. A pleasant solve though, and I do appreciate the special occasion theme.
ReplyDeleteI’ll be visiting my BAE at the memory care center today, taking chocolate and his dog who he still recognizes. If your Valentine is healthy and happy and by your side today, well, show him/her all the LOVE you can and cherish the time you have together. Happy Valentine’s Day!
If you did not know C.J., it was a Saturday puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI agree though not because of CJCREGG. I didn’t know it either because I followed very few hour-long shows between the ages of 23 and 33, a span which completely swallows The West Wing’s run. But it was both popular and highly regarded by critics, plus Alison Janey was nominated for the best lead actress Emmy award for all but the first of TWW’s seven seasons and won four times. That is absurd. So fair play, we should have known it. Matthew Perry’s highly regarded guest role would have been Saturday material.
DeleteNah, what gave me a strong Fri/Sat vibe were many of the 5-8 letter crossing clues that could solved with any number of answers like APLOMB/BASINS, ATEINTO/TIMEGAPS, LOWRISES/JAWED and ASYLUM/YESORNO. Drive me right in the muck, despite nailing the revealer and most of the center.
@gfrpeace – That's Saronno, home of Amoretto. Sorrento is south, near Naples. Famously memorialized in this song.
ReplyDeleteLove @Nancy’s reaction. As good an @Rex reaction as we might ever encounter. I mean that as a compliment, not criticism, because it mirrors my own tribulations with this puzzle. I find it hard to get irritated by puzzles that are this far out of my wheelhouse, but I do feel frustrated when I run into so many things I just don’t know. Am envious of the folks who could take RAPANUI for granted…
ReplyDeleteTIMEGAPS and SENSORS are interesting answers; CJCREGG is utter crap. How about a moratorium on answers clued as names from The West Wing, Harry Potter, and Frozen? And just think of all those LOVELETTERS signed “I think of you with FONDNESS and RESPECT.” Nothing says Valentine’s Day more than that. Well, the number of letters fit, so … But really, It’s okay to expect more.
ReplyDeleteLooks like @jae and @pabloinnh have been their partners the same number of years. Self driving cars also have a lot of accidents!
ReplyDeleteLove the clue “answer the simple question“!!
I am sad for all these commenters who don’t know CJ Cregg - maybe one of my all time favorite television characters.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been married for 21 years and didn’t find “Respect” to be an outlier at all (I struggled with fondness).
I liked this puzzle, though it was fairly challenging for me. At least the top half was. The bottom half came together pretty easily. Didn’t love TV ACTOR crossing PROCTOR. I know it’s not a doubling, but it feels like one? VANCE was just an impossible Natick, and crossing it with PERONI was tough. In the NE, I’ve never heard of a MASSE and took embarrassingly long to get both EENIE and SEAFOAM (could not get clams to fit in there, no matter how hard I tried).
I think all four of the "lettered" components work together to make a good relationship, so RESPECT doesn't seem odd if you look at it that way.
ReplyDeleteHappy Valentine's Day I.
Happy Valentine's Day II.
I like the theme idea, but otherwise this puzzle was a real slog. Way too many obscure proper nouns, plurals and just some odd words. Look at that bottom row, for example. One of these occasionally is fine, but this row is not good:
ReplyDeleteGIS
HSN
SYS
ORS
Also never heard of:
TREEBOA
SEAFOAM
THEVA
RAPANUI
CJCREGG
Hoping for something better from the NYT crossword on Thursday!
Rick K
DeleteParsing issue?
The V.A.
Veterans Administration.
My first thought was that all the letters in the shaded L would be Ls, etc.--but that would have required a 5-letter word ending in 4 Ls at 23-A. You could get three Ls from "Shakespeare play, initially" but for 4 you have to go with something likr "____ RRRRIGHT" and that really wouldn't do. So components of love, instead.
ReplyDeleteNo idea what that AF base was called, and I wanted THE px at 13-D. I mean, technically THE VA is for FORMER service members, right? But I'm pretty sure no major religions originated in xSIA, so that fixed that.
No idea about CJCREGG either, and I didn't even know Taboo was a game--isn't it a perfume? Fortunately, I did know Rapa Nui--a guy I used to hang out at conferences studied it, went there often, and would make his presentations wearing a T shirt with a map of it printed on the front--so I had the U, and GUESSER was the only possibility.
I love many things, but one of them is the Amalfi Coast, anchored at one end by SORRENTO. I didn't have any limoncello there, but I did notice the gigantic olives they grow locally.
Like Nancy, I can't figure "playful" in 29D. What did the constructor or Shortz have in mind?
ReplyDelete"Bestest." Cutesy more than playful, I'd say, but I guess playful could work.
DeleteStellar construction, with the LOVE LETTERS and additional Valentine treats for the solver: APLOMB, SEA FOAM, RAPA NUI, LADY FERN. I found it easy up top but like others had trouble figuring out the SW, despite knowing Easter Island. I really like the four faces of LOVE in the grid and thought R-E-S-P-E-C-T was a great closer. I also liked the addition of a CRONE to the mix, possibly providing potions for PASSIONs.
ReplyDeleteDo-overs: px before VA, SHeathS. Help from previous puzzles: MASSE. Help from middle-school fascination with Thor Heyerdahl: RAPA NUI. No idea: CJ CLEGG.
@jae, @pabloinnh - I join you at 57 years. Must have been something lucky about 1967 :)
@burtonkd 9:10, re: MASSE - LOL!
TV actor is most certainly a thing. It's going the way of the dodo just like broadcast tv itself, but for most of TV history there was a sharp delineation made between those that played on the small screen players and those on the silver screen.
ReplyDeleteToo many Naticks. I never watched The West Wing, and CC Cregg crossing CAWED seemed to fit. I probably should have sussed out THE VA and VANCE, but I had to Google both of those. Cute theme, but the fill needed to be better.
ReplyDeleteAPLOMB.....Why were you so hard to get? THE VA...Why weren't you a PX? PERONI beer? Does it taste like CORONA? CJCREGG? Why, of all things, did you make me cheat on Valentine's Day/
ReplyDeleteI'm almost out of ink so my printer hardly shaded the grey areas. I had them.
Oh LOVE LETTERS! How appropriate. Today is my husband's and moi anniversary.... We met on a flight to London. It was a long flight. He talked a lot. We drank too much. He made me laugh and he was/is incredibly handsome. We finally met up on our first date in San Francisco on the 14th of February. We celebrated our similar birthdays, we drank martinis, we ate at Scott's, and felt we were pretty much made for each other. I wrote him a cheesy LOVE LETTER. It was on a card I made of watercolor flowers. He asked me if I wouldn't mind being with him the rest of our lives. I said yes. 40 plus years and still ticking.
I taught him how to dance at the GIS HSN SYS ORS bar. That fandango tango was unforgettable. "Unforgetable...la la la lah."
And that's the truth!
I struggled QUITE a bit for a Wendesday. I love… my wife, our dogs, reading this blog, laughing with my friends.
ReplyDeleteRe: BEST/EST, I think what the clue is referring to is the coinage "bestest", as in "my bestest friend". It's -est being attached to the already superlative best that makes it "playful".
ReplyDeleteMighty Challengin … to construct, I'd think. Cute VD [Valentine's Day] puztheme.
ReplyDeleteFirst, thanx to @Nancy, for her perfecto subbin for @RP's POV.
staff weeject picks: EST/STE pair.
fave stuff: Well, certainly nothin has hints of fondness & romance like SEAFOAMs & TREEBOAs. And neat MOTH clue. Also, got yer cool E/W puzgrid symmetry, again. Fun CJCREGG spellin challenge, too boot.
THE MORE in the NW area traces out a nice giant U, btw. Best
M&A could find. Kinda a "te amo" variation. Well, hey -- better than the LAD EMIT one, I reckon.
Thanx for the love, Ms. Dershowitz darlin. And xoxo back at yah, Malaika darlin.
Happy VD, all U great comment gallery folks.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
**gruntz**
@Nancy (9:55) As usual, my experience closely resembles yours. I joined you with DRAINS in the NW, accompanied by BLENDS (thinking teas) at 1D and that entire corner was otherwise blank until I finally gave in and looked up the beer name just to get a foothold. Agree, 100% about EST, and I had the same thought about EGOTS clued as colloquial. Since when?
ReplyDelete@GILL (11:29) Oh my dear girl - happy happy happy anniversary!! 🥂 And what a sweet Valentine story. May you and your handsome hubby have many more to celebrate.
@Nancy, @mathgent - On the "Playful suffix for 'best'," I think the clue might be getting at the playful super-superlative "the bestest."
ReplyDeleteHi Malaika!
ReplyDeleteI knew PAPA NUI but not CJ CREGG so I give myself points for that.
Happy Valentine's Day everyone!
No love lost on this one.
ReplyDeleteSolved the "L", "O", and "E" corners easily.
I was hardly PASSIONATE about the "V" corner, even after solving that theme letter. Never heard of AVEDA or CJ CREGG - and never will. And I've only ever remembered RAPA NUI in puzzles if the clue was "RAPA ___" or "____ NUI". This, even after being a successful GUESSER of the "W" in LOW RISES because none of the other 25 letters made any sense at all.
Joe DiPinto and Carola: Thanks! You're the bestest.
ReplyDeleteHow appropriate that most of the commentariat thought the drink was "Amoretto" instead of "amaretto", but maybe that was just because of the date.
ReplyDeleteLEN Cariou was a gimme for me. I first was exposed to him as Jessica’s spy flirtation on “Murder, She Wrote” but something told me that the two had more in common and Mr. Google led me to “Sweeney Todd.” Mr. Cariou now stars in “Blue Bloods” where he plays Tom Selleck’s father even though he’s only a few years older in real life.
ReplyDeleteI was ecstatic to see CJ Cregg make the puzzle. One of my all-time favorite TV characters (second only to Toby in my West Wing ranking, though sometimes they swap ranks).
ReplyDeleteMostly I didn't have too much trouble with this, though you wouldn't know it by my solve time, which was far worse than usual, for some reason.
I had to jump out of the NW and run down to the bottom for this solve - at 13D, I had THE __ and threw in GI thinking the gray squares might contain "bill" for the GI Bill as a service member's resource. THE VA, got it.
ReplyDeleteI really wanted the snake on a limb, 13A, (with the T in place) to be Tempter. It didn't work with LEN.
I've finally seen RAPA NUI enough times for it to fill in, yay!
Malaika mentions that the theme was obvious but I'm afraid I never saw the LOVE letters in the grid until post-solve, oops.
I left the kealoa _RS at 67A and then rolled my eyes and thought, "Oh, great", when I saw the crossing answer was an Italian city. While I can't think of any cities in Italy that end in E, that doesn't mean there aren't any. But SORRENTO
wasn't so hard to guess.
I've yet to see a single episode of The West Wing so 40D was a complete mystery. DNF at 46A because I couldn't come up with the correct letter to finish _AWED. Rats.
Thanks, Ella Dershowitz! Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.
@CLIFF - if you reread the clue for the answer EST, you’ll see that it refers to a “suffix” for BEST - “bestEST”.
ReplyDelete@WATSERNAME - thinking of you and your BAE (sweet that he remembers your pup)
Annoyingly tedious puzzle with way too many proper names for a Wednesday. SW is just bad and the theme words tortured nonsense. Bah
ReplyDeleteNot surprised VANCE wasn’t clued for the junior senator from Ohio and bestselling author JD Vance. The heckler’s veto works. Nice job team.
ReplyDeleteRan aground on the kealoa/natick combo of P*T/*VEDA, which really feels like an unholy tag team of bad construction.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thanks to @Easy Ed, @M&A and @Whatsername for their nice compliments.
ReplyDeleteTo @Teedmn: I didn't see the L-O-V-E letters either. Admittedly, spatial visualization isn't my strong point, but I don't think it was either my fault or yours. Here's what I wrote about that on the Wordplay blog:
The problem is that the V didn't look like a V to me (too curvy) and the E didn't look anything like an E to me. The O was iffy: Grid "art" circles always seem iffy to me. Only the L really looked like an L. And therefore, I didn't know where to start or finish in trying to spell out FONDNESS, PASSION and RESPECT. Only ROMANCE was easy for me to see.
I leave you with the immortal words of T.S. Eliot:
“Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow"
Hands up for C J CRAIG! I guess I probably never saw it spelled out. And to whomever complained about it, putting West Wing in the same dreadful category as Harry Potter: c'mon! Even if you don't like it, WW clues are NOT in the puzzle that often!
ReplyDeleteI tried to solve it downs only but it was taking too long so I looked at a couple of across clues and that sped things up a lot. For the "Feathery perennial" I had L--YFE-- and figured the crosses were GUESSES and HST which made LACY FEST. Never heard of LADY FERN.
Always nice to have a PERONI and a CORONA on the same evening.
[Spelling Bee: Tues 0; QB streak at 20! Woo hoo!]
Enjoyable, hardly romantic, romp, but I applaud the effort of the team to be lovey-dovey despite the well-documented challenges the editorial crew has faced finding romance in New York City.
ReplyDeleteThe northwest was mean. Having DRAINS instead of BASINS was super unhelpful. Didn't know LANCE, PERONI, or LEN so there was a long time staring at that area.
CJ CREGG... every. single. cross. Right next to RAPA NUI. Ugh. I made it through the thicket, but I am an enemy of The West Wing now.
I used the theme to fill in a few of the LOVE boxes. The fill is good despite a lot of pressure on the grid.
One of the first songs I ever wrote had APLOMB in it and I've loved the word ever since. I've been noticing the home remodeling shows now call the bathroom in the main bedroom an EN SUITE, even when it's a crummy house, as if having a bathroom is a luxurious accommodation bringing you up to par with the wealthy elites.
Never played TABOO, but I the older I get the more I play the role of GUESSER, and the more I realize nothing is taboo.
Tee-Hee: Faced a few LADY FERNS in my youth.
Uniclues:
1 Question during a game called, "Would You Like To Be Attacked By..."
2 Denver-based National Public Radio affiliate broadcasted random information.
3 Enjoyed a pizza slice on the bidet.
4 Literally crawling out of bed after a raucous night in Sorrento.
5 Stare down Supreme Court babe.
6 Moments you can't remember after the lobotomy.
7 What friends do for their famous buddy at the asylum after the intervention.
1 HORNETS? YES OR NO?
2 CPR RAN ANY NEWS
3 ATE INTO EN SUITE
4 PERONI LOW RISES
5 EYE ELENA
6 ASYLUM TIME GAPS
7 HAND IN TV ACTOR
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Affliction created by smoking too much weed and watching Rent over and over. MIMI THC EYE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Carola, @jae-Don't know about you folks but 1967 was the year we started dating. Didn't get married until 1970, so we'll be celebrating #54 in August.
ReplyDeleteThis is the most trouble I've had with a Thursday in a very long time. I had difficulty in a lot of places, but the SW was the worst. CJCREGG and RAPANUI were entries that needed every cross if you didn't already know them, and I've never heard the term LOWRISES, which might be a function of not living in an older city. I thought the clue involved some degree of misdirection. I fortunately knew RAPANUI, but when I got to C***EGG, I was sure my crosses were wrong. When I finally filled in the last letter, I was genuinely surprised that it was all correct.
ReplyDeleteGreat write-up - I too call foul on high schools requiring CPR. Never heard of it, but it is a good idea. Well-executed holiday-themed puzzle. Loved it - did not notice the shaded squares were letters until I had the L and O filled in and saw the ROMANCE and FONDNESS. Needed the PASSION to climb out of the brutal SW corner - Had C---EGG and no clear memory of The West Wing.
ReplyDeleteWhat do I love - walking with my dogs every morning and sitting by the fire at night in the winter reading a book or doing a puzzle.
Never watched West Wing, never played Taboo. Not helpful. If it wasn’t for the bottom left corner, it would have been fairly easy.
ReplyDelete@Nancy ?? " Bestest" not playful. " Est" is the end of "best" but certainly not the suffix.
ReplyDeleteI was glad to s ee several beside me had found this hard for a Wednesday. I certainly did.. But enjoyed the solve, discovering the words in the shaded squares, seeing how clever the revealer was. Liked that it was valentines day themed
Like "any news" and think it's sort of appropriate that it parallels "Love letters" above.
Had trouble with aromas for Chamomile and cedar wood. Right away tried aromatics, which did not fit. But aromas had to filled by crosses. still not quite happy with it.
Love "sea foam". Do not like "useme" Puts a dark twist on our puzzle of romance.
Pablo etc, we've got you beat - started dating 1959, married '61; still totally stuck on each other after 62 years (yes, I was child bride!) - and I get so much adoration year-round, who needs Valentine's Day? (Except the florists and chocolatiers.)
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised nobody has put up a link about the song "Come back to Sorrento" - there's a Youtube version with Pavarotti, check it out!
Hi Malaika; nice to see you again. Thx for your write-up! 😊
ReplyDeleteUpdate: all good except had pr agEnt for CJ CREGG and couldn't make the crosses work. Finally checked the cross clues, and Bob was my uncle. Also originally misspelled ELaNA.
Nevertheless, a fun trip down south. :)
@okanaganer (1:20 PM) 👍 for your run of 20 QBs 🌟
I also had HST and FEst or FEet were on the maybe list.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness & Freudenfreude to all 🙏
STE is perfectly fair game. That abbreviation appears in the place name for many French/formerly French colonized locales. Add SAINTE and the abbreviated STE it to your mental xword dictionary.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding construction! Have to confess I thought the revealer dull while solving-- duh, letters spell love-- and didn't get the words spelled out in gray till Malaika's fun review.
ReplyDeleteHave seen many relationships with Passion, Fondness, and Romance but little Respect, and they aren't the relationships that last like the ones reported above by our blog community
Hey it's a cute Valentines puzzle, let's not get cranky about it Few toughies that I think most got with crosses. I only got SORRENTO because I'm a Kia fan/owner, and I believe it may be (or was) a brand of Italian foods
Keep the women constructors coming!
Outstanding construction! Have to confess I thought the revealer dull while solving-- duh, letters spell love-- and didn't get the words spelled out in gray till Malaika's fun review.
ReplyDeleteHave seen many relationships with Passion, Fondness, and Romance but little Respect, and they aren't the relationships that last like the ones reported above by our blog community
Hey it's a cute Valentines puzzle, let's not get cranky about it Few toughies that I think most got with crosses. I only got SORRENTO because I'm a Kia fan/owner, and I believe it may be (or was) a brand of Italian foods
Keep the women constructors coming!
@Joe D, @Carola, @Trina, @Sharon AK: I parsed "playful suffix for 'best'" a bit differently -- and I guess I parsed it incorrectly.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking "the best of...[whatever]", as in an ordinary superlative, and therefore was thinking of things like FASTEST, KINDEST, STRONGEST, SMARTEST, CALMEST -- all of them "bests" in their own various categories. And all of them perfectly straightforward rather than "playful".
Now, if I'd ever -- even once -- heard the word BESTEST, I might not have made that mistake. But I do think that BESTEST -- especially as adroitly used here today by our very own @mathgent -- is quite an amusing coinage. In fact, I may well decide to add it to my vocabulary, whenever the bestest occasion presents itself.
I wish Rex were here to comment. He would call a spade a spade. And the spade in this case is trash. Absolute trash. The puzzle sucked from the start and continued to suck all the way to the miserable end. Really one of the worst puzzles Shortz has allowed to be published and he has set the bar quite low. Cheat squares. Proper names abutting other proper names. Abbreviations and short answers that make it all so painful. I guess what I am saying is that I hated this puzzle. It ruined my Valentine’s Day.
ReplyDeleteYou may want to consider whether puzzling is a healthy activity for you if this ruined your day.
Deletewas this puzzle the bestest at making a new whole in your kitchen wall ?
ReplyDeleteI wrote a lengthy comment earlier that was,naturally, at the apex of wit and erudition. It never appeared. So now I just have time to tell @Malaika that I love her guest write ups and l e,love love my 6 year old granddaughter, Gogo.
ReplyDeleteHey Malaika! Happy Wednesday (always on Malaika days) and Happy V Day to everyone here in the neighborhood. I love our First Amendment! I think of and appreciate it daily - all of it. It’s so precious. Keep thinking and speaking and of course sharing love throughout the world.
ReplyDeleteFor any who are following the saga of my chaotic move, I am so close to being settled here in NorCal (U’m already speaking Cali!) My incredibly complicated Sleep Number 360 bed got re-installed today and my poor kids can have their office-maker space-art studio-sewing department-and guest room back! They use every single centimeter od their teensy house and while they love me and appreciate all the things I help with, I am sure Kate and Jonathan would dearly love to have some privacy.
So the puzzle. Honestly, I just could not get started - even knowing we had a legit and very easy - and 100% predicted) theme. My first pass through the three top chunks, I had only HORNETS, YES OR NO, VANCE (my Oklahoma and USAF knowledge helped there), SHIELDS and ASIA. And I thought (especially seeing LOVE so prominently displayed in each quadrant.
Joke’s on me because even after using the crosses, I was not remotely vibing with the clever Ella Dershowitz. I did get HORNETS, NYU and USE ME before leaving for the south half of the puzzle.
And the bottom half was a tale of two difficulties for me. I sped through the entire remainder in leas than Monday dull puzzle time. L O V E: EN SUITE, JAWED (an Okieism if ever there was one) and ATE INTO and PROCTOR (this one just because I really lime the word).
Just so nobody is being left hanging wondering if I was well and truly stumped, I was not, but I finiahed in more Friday than Wednesday time and that’s great for me since the only stat I care about is my streak. It’s coming along after missing a couple days during the chaos of moving.
Not the strongest themed puzzle, but at least we had enough to allow me to finish.
Peace and love everyone - I mean it.
And lime Anonymous 4:10 PM, I love Malaika’s comments and I also love, love, L❣️O❣️V❣️E❣️ my granddaughter. Her initials (after joyfully changing her name upon her adoption) identify her perfectly: G.E.M.
Same SW struggles as many. Will I remember Rapanui for next time? Even Crone was new to me. And never watched West Wing so this was the toughest Wednesday in recent memory.
ReplyDelete@Eniale-Just saw your comment and can only say congratulations. Wishing you many more happy years, and well done you.
ReplyDelete@Whatsername 11:50. Thank you, amiga! We're working on it!
ReplyDeleteWhen am I going to remember egots? It just doesn't look like a plausible answer. Sigh
ReplyDeleteI just realized that in my comment I called this one of the most difficult Thursday's I've seen. I guess my brain couldn't wrap itself around the fact that it's only Wednesday. It took ashes on my forehead to remind me.
ReplyDeleteI thought LEN was one of the easiest answers to put in! But then I'm a huge Broadway fan and went through periods of being obsessed with Sweeney Todd (in which LEN starred) and A Little Night Music (in which LEN starred).
ReplyDeleteI had to learn CPR to graduate high school in 2004, for what it's worth.
Not hard, but a lot of non-Wednesday content and cluing. CJCREGG, AVEDA, PERONI, VANCE, ALI for five.
ReplyDeleteI'm perfectly fine with STE in my crosswords. But please, please ditch WE TRY (and I TRY).
Had a MOSH pit instead of a MOTH fanning the flames in my answers. sigh
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, the usual wonderful Wednesday experience. Even tho I'm obviously a GUESSER.
Diana, LIW
And oh yes. I didn't even notice the shapes of the shaded letters. Duh
ReplyDeleteLady Di
A LOVEly little puzzle.
ReplyDeleteEGOT NUS
ReplyDeleteELENA was INTO ROMANCE –
THE LOVE and PASSION are weighty –
with APLOMB and a HANDIN my pants,
and THE NERVE to be a MAN’S LADY.
--- VANCE SHIELDS
So tired of PPE like CJCREGG. That is always disappointing. The Oxford English Dictionary has definitions for 170,000 words, and we keep getting PPE fill. (FROWNY FACE HERE)
ReplyDeleteEasy until I got to the SW. So glad I happened to know RAPANUI or that section would've been totally impossible. I remember The West Wing, but sorry, the name CJCREGG just didn't stick with me. I was a GUESSER at several of the crosses there. For a while, I thought the last name was RIGG, as in Diana, buying INSUITE as a possibility. But whichever way I went, the top part almost surely had to be initials, so all bets were off. I finally settled on the actual answer, which seemed to make the least nonsense. WHEW!
ReplyDeleteAgree that RESPECT, while certainly a given for any successful relationship, does not really fit in with the rest of this puzzle's emotions. Par.
Wordle par.
This might not have been the bestest WedPuz ever, but I still had fun with it. Some parts were very easy like a soft squishy marshmallow, others were sticky and gooey like a s'more.
ReplyDeleteTo all the complainers here, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
PS: Making a s'more in the kitchen is not a good idea. Believe me I know. Thank Gof for fire extinguishers!