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Personal theory that isn't in the source material / SUN 3-24-24 / Chess move with a French name / Midas' downfall / Veg-O-Matic maker / Europeans who speak a non-Indo-European language / Render more youthful, as with CGI / He literally jumped the shark on "Happy Days"
Sunday, March 24, 2024
Constructor: John Kugelman
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- FUEL'S SPECULATION (23A: Oil futures?)
- HOLD'S WATER (35A: Castle moat?)
- FUDGE'S FACTS (55A: Sugar and cocoa content?)
- TAKE'S ORDERS (79A: "Lights! Camera! Action!"?)
- SET'S AT EASE (95A: "And ... cut!"?)
- EXCHANGE'S NUMBERS (110A: Stock prices?)
- POOL'S RESOURCES (15D: Noodles and floaties?)
- PLANT'S EVIDENCE (49D: Leaf fossils?)
Headcanon is a word used in film/television/comics/etc. fandom that refers to something a fan imagines about the characters (such as a scenario or relationship) but that doesn’t appear on screen/on the page. An example might be: “In my headcanon, Jar Jar Binks is the ultimate villain who orchestrated the downfall of the Jedi.” (merriam-webster.com)
• • •
The very title of this puzzle tells you that everyone involved in the production of this thing has just given up and phoned it in. "What's the idea?" "You imagine verb phrases as possessive phrases." "Huh ... OK, what's the revealer phrase? Something snappy? Something playful?" "No revealer." "Huh ... OK, whaddya got for a title? Something snappy? Something playful?" "Well, it's about possessives, so I was thinking: 'Feeling Possessive.' See, 'possessive' can mean 'overly attached' or 'clinging,' but here we're talking about 'possessive' in a grammatical sense.' Solvers won't know what hit 'em!" "[30-second 1,000-yard stare] ... I ... but ... you ... [sigh] OK, sure, why not? Good enough. If I leave now I can still make happy hour. 'Feeling Possessive' it is. Good night!" [end of phone call].
The bulk of the puzzle was fine. It was an ordinary grid filled ordinarily, except for the SW, which was on a completely different plane. Which is to say that the SW is the corner that contained HEADCANON, a "fandom" word I've never seen in my life. Needed every cross. I also had MESS room (is that a thing?) (76A: ___ room), so NEURAL NET took longer than it should have (78D: Machine learning model that mimics the human brain). I had SEU- as the first letters there and thought "What the hell machine did Dr. Seuss inspire!?" No other part of the grid offered much resistance. Wanted "No SIREE, Bob" but it wouldn't fit. Not familiar with the phrase "No PROB, Bob," but I managed to put it down anyway (!?). We've got the return of the AGA- fake word. AGAZE!? AGAPE!? No, today, it's AGASP (10A: Thunderstruck). I had the [Slangy greeting] as "YELLO!" and "HULLO!" before "HOLLA!," which I don't really think of as a greeting, but I don't really think about it at all, to be honest, and didn't know people still said this. Thought it died some time during the second Bush administration. Shows what I know.
No idea if it was gonna be MADD or SADD for 71D: Org. with the tagline "No More Victims," so I left that first letter blank, and then the cross was kinda tricky (70A: International date line?). I guess that in Spanish-speaking countries ("International"?), people might say TE AMO ("I love you") on a "date" (hopefully not the first one). I had GOLF SHOES before GOLF SHIRT. Exciting error, that (39D: Swinger's attire). I had PENCILS before PEN CAPS and was ... well, puzzled, to say the least (74A: They prevent accidental scribbles). I wanted WISEACRES but got WISEASSES (33A: People who might answer "What's up?" with "The sky"). That imagined scenario really sounds more -acre than -ass to me, but whatever you say. No idea re: EN PASSANT (16D: Chess move with a French name), but I know enough French that I could fudge that one (please accept this fudge's fact as my gift to you). ELO gives us yet another chess answer, grrreat, who doesn't love ... that? (41A: Kind of rating system in chess). And then there's IQ RANGE, which ... I'm just ... I'm begging you all to curate / cull your giant bought wordlists. Just. Begging. And the clue doesn't even know what it's doing. [85-115, typically]? Typically? Obviously the "range" goes lower/higher. What does "typical" mean? What percentage fall in that range? I mean, I don't care about this stupid, flawed, racially biased test, but I do care about clues meaning something, and "typically" is meaningless here. When I search [IQ RANGE] this "range" doesn't appear anywhere, on any page, in any hits. I'm seeing 70-130, 90-109 ... OK, I am really stopping now, because if I go on, I'm going to drive me and you nuts. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. This will be my last day plugging These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 in the write-up, though the collection will be available for many weeks to come. Thanks to so many of you, the collection shattered its initial fundraising goal ($30,000) and is on the verge of reaching its next goal ($40,000)! If this is the first you are hearing about all this, here is my description of the puzzles and how to get them (from last Sunday's write-up):
These Puzzles Fund Abortion 4 (four!) just dropped this past week—over 20 original puzzles from top constructors and editors—and you can get the collection now (right now) for a minimum donation of $20 (donations split evenly among five different abortion funds—details here). You can check out a detailed description of the collection and a list of all the talent involved here. I not only guest-edited a puzzle, I also test-solved puzzles. I have now seen the finished collection, and it's really lovely, across the board. General editors Rachel Fabi and Brooke Husic and C.L. Rimkus put in a tremendous amount of work ensuring that it would be. The attention to detail—test-solving, fact-checking, etc.—was really impressive. Anyway, donate generously (assuming you are able) and enjoy the puzzle bounty!
P.P.S. [Necessities for retiring?] are SPARES because that's what you need for re-tire-ing cars after they get flats.
P.P.P.S. 18D: Sweden has more than 200,000 of them ... I wrote in IKEAS so fast I didn't even bother to read the rest of the clue (... (of which only 1,000 are inhabited)). Love the idea that there are 199,000 abandoned IKEAS in Sweden (most of them on uninhabited ISLES) (good luck understanding that, future alien explorers!)
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122 comments:
I noticed that there has been a different editor for the past week or two…
Is this just a vacation for Will Shortz?
Feels like the puzzle quality has suffered during this span
I was annoyed by HOLLA. I hear people say Hola all the time, but HOLLA with a voiced H? not so much.
(I did enjoy retiring.)
I generally find Sundays a slog, and this was extra sloggy because I just seemed to be off the wavelength of most of the clues. Like "Preposterous" for RICH; yes it is a valid clue but it is wayyy down my list. Because I had so many missing answers, it took me ages to get the theme, and then like Rex said it wasn't that exciting.
I am really growing to dislike the consecutive similar clues. Here, it's Stranger Things cluing both EGGO and SEAN ASTIN (who?). If you're a fan of that show good for you, but for me, just ick.
For the 78 year old with the #1 dance hit, with only a couple of letters I thought it was gonna be MADONNA. Surely she's not that old? No, she isn't. But good for our old crossword friend YOKO.
I agree with Rex IQ RANGE is clued badly. Heck, I'm not overly bright but I'm in the 130s! And I've met people who didn't even graduate high school who I'm sure are higher than that.
[Spelling Bee: Sat 0; I was a bit surprised when my my last word was accepted. QB streak 9!]
This week's natick, for me anyway, (sigh) was GOLFSHIRT/GIL... my guess was wOLFSHIRT/wIL, reasoning that "wolf" is a plausible epithet for a "swinger" in the other sense of the word. Oh well...
An average Sunday. No sloppy mistakes today. I finished in the center and thought I might choke until I changed ILLEGIT to ILLICIT. The latter is an SB classic. The first doesn't actually exist so maybe it will be in the next Ezersky puzzle.
Sugar and cocoa are FUDGESFACTS only if Captain Kirk is reading the label. Did I just have a HEADCANON? That answer and it's clue meant absolutely nothing to me. I expected it to be something high brow like you'd see in a class on philosophy. It sounded esoteric. Nope it's just a fan term and I feel better not knowing it.
yd -0. QB15. @okanaganer keep that streak going.
I enjoyed the theme if not the puzzle.
I especially smiled at35a "Hold's water" 49d"Plants evidence"
and I chuckled at Rex's riff on 20,000Ikea.
But I found the puzzle so hard I just cheated for half a dozen answers.
And there were some I never understood.
Can someone please explain why Pool side = stripes?
Should I have heard of the Pina Colada Song?
Striped balls in pool, as opposed to solids
Mean IQ is 100 and the standard deviation is 15. So one standard deviation above and below gives us 85-115 and includes about 2/3 of the population. I assume that's what the clue means by typical.
Pool side = stripes in a game of pool (stripes and solids), not the thing you swim in.
Easy. No real problems with this one.
No idea what a HEAD CANNON is.
Liked it more than @Rex did, but then a kinda cute breezy Sunday works for me.
Agree that this was a slog. My biggest irritation was 95 across--SETS AT EASE. That is not a possessive! The set is at ease because the director yelled "Cut!" Come on editors...
Justifying in my head that swingers and wolf whistles go hand-in-hand, I also had "wolf shirt" (and pictured in my head a '70s disco shirt half-unbuttoned with a hairy chest in all its swingin' glory)... and not remembering Gil, Wil seemed just fine
The "pool" in this case is the table game played with either 9 or 15 colored balls - the balls are either solids or STRIPES
@SharonAK - In the game of eight ball, which is played on a pool table, there are two sides: STRIPES vs. solids which describe the ball color patterns…. also known as the “big ones vs. the little ones” which refer to the ball numbers.
“If you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain…”
@SharonAK: Half of pool balls are solid colors, while the other half have stripes. In the game of 8-Ball (played on a pool table), one side is Stripes and the other is Solids. One side tries to sink the solid-colored balls and the other side sinks the Stripes.
I didn't get theme until I came here, and I still don't really get it. I saw the clues as two words where each word was somehow related to the corresponding word in the answer. So Oil makes FUELS and Futures are SPECULATION. Castles are HOLDS and a Moat holds WATER. That sort of thing. I had never heard of HEAD CANON so I just went with it.
Had no idea about GIL (39A) and HOLLA (43A), so they made that section miserable. But my big problem was having (and insisting on for far too long) sEvEr for Cut at 35D. I couldn't make any sense of sOLDS WATER, but I couldn't make sense of some of the other theme clue/answer combos, so that didn't bother me. I couldn't figure out how rETAILS (54A) related to Scoop. But the worst of the worse was vIneS for WISPS at 48A.
Will has been having health issues. Joel has been the heir apparent for some time. No inside information here, but Will is of retirement age, it’s possible he doesn’t return. Or does so only to organize a proper transition. Or helms just the back catalog / book collections / otherwise reduces the demands on himself. Or maybe he comes back full strength, who knows.
Sean Astin, as in... Samwise Gamgee. Rudy. The Goonies. And yes, Stranger Things.
I was hoping for a Rex rant about how SETS AT EASE doesn't even fit the theme. "AT EASE" is not something that can be possessed.
I lost some time trying to figure out what the clue was getting at... it mostly seems egregious in light of the puzzle's title.
Set’s “at ease” — like season’s greetings.
I believe HOLLA is not directly related to “hola.” It’s related to “holler.”
Gratefully, it’s head CANON. I don’t want to imagine a head cannon.
I’m 36 - HOLLA is legit.
Sometimes I think Rex is a bit harsh on the NYT crossword, but not today. Completely agree with his write up. Why? No fun. Tedious.
Learned about and liked head canon, had silk shirt (much preferred) before golf shirt and wise acres (much preferred) before wises asses.
Oh Dear Gussie!
I think the idea is that "Cut!" is the equivalent of "At ease" on a set... so it is a set's "at ease." The possessive works; it's just clunky.
This is John’s third puzzle in seven months in the Times – not too many constructors can say that these days. Props on that, sir!
I love John’s persistence. Here, he finds a language quirk – how an apostrophe can morph a phrase’s meaning – likes the quirk, and GOES ALL IN on it. According to his notes on XwordInfo, he wrote a computer program, which spit out 70K theme answer possibilities, and read every single one of them, to cull the list down to the 162 he found interesting. That. Is. Dedication. Props on that, sir!
I’m embarrassed to say:
• I didn’t realize that JELL-O had a hyphen. Seen it all my life, but this never registered!
• I’ve heard/seen “mise en place” before, but never bothered to look it up. Today I did, and I will not forget the meaning because it so well describes my approach to cooking.
Two lovely clues that have never been used before in any of the major venues – [Pool side] for STRIPES, and [Can’t not] for HAVE TO.
I loved the fantastic dook of YOKOONO, and the gorgeous evocative phrase that was the clue for WISPS – “smoky tendrils”.
Plenty of treasure to be mined in your grid, John, not to mention sufficient bite to happify my brain. Thank you for all the effort you put into this!
The TE AMO clue is beyond a stretch - it’s a horrible way to clue a foreign phrase that some people might otherwise recognize. Definitely trying way too hard to be cute there.
Nice to see the full YOKO ONO today - we usually only get the first or last name.
I still maintain that ASSES has way overstayed its welcome. Time to move on guys.
I think Rex’s observations today could apply to almost any theme - it seems like every day there are four or five theme answers and usually at least three of them suck. Unfortunately, the exogenous editor-insisted theme constraints force the constructors to basically fit square pegs into round holes. I would submit that it would be a great idea to loosen up the theme requirements a bit and let the constructors have at it. They can’t do much worse than what the. NYT currently publishes 5 days a week.
@Anonymous #1
Will Shortz had a stroke at the beginning of February and is recovering. I suspect his bank of edited crosswords has run out.
Expectation level for Sunday is at an all time low - today follows right along. Cute enough theme for an early week sized grid - but just doesn’t hold up well with the extra real estate. Add in some questionable fill and here we are.
Not sure it was purposeful or not but I did like the RON RICO cross which happens to be a brand of rum.
Or to straighten out your life through the sincere testimony
In the songs of The Revelaires
A MUST!
For 39D "Swinger's attire" I originally had gold chain because I thought it meant the 1970's key party type of swinger. I was picturing a guy with a hairy chest and a shirt unbuttoned to his navel.
Why. Why would anyone want to spend time on a Sunday morning doing this puzzle. Yet another week where I solve enough to see the awful punny reveal, shake my head, and walk away.
Just cancel this Sunday series already. It's god awful. Replace it with a Saturday part 2. Or replace it with a crumby word search where the only words in it are synonyms for depression. Or a blank space in the paper and let people imagine a fun puzzle. Anything is better than this.
Pangram!
I actually liked this puzzle. Theme wasn't anything mind-blowing, but it was still fun. Everything was in my wheelhouse (chess, Stranger Things). You can be MADD about ENRON, but the rest of the fill was clean, nothing too obscure (didn't know RONCO, though.) Thanks, Mr. Kugelman.
Jersey minor!
Tip from a former speed solver: If you read all the words in the clues you might enjoy the puzzles more.
I found the hard parts of the puzzle difficult, while the easy parts were trouble-free. The rest of the puzzle was right in the middle. I liked this puzzle more than other puzzles that I didn't like so much, but less so than puzzles that I have liked more, But I did enjoy it to the same degree as the rest.
Also, I solved the puzzle in Euskara (Basque) using a reverse mirror image and diagonally from the bottom right employing non-gender specific possessives while eating Swedish meatballs from IKEA on a non-populated isle.
Actually the name of the song referenced in the puzzle Escape (The Piña Colada Song).
Seems like Rex has had a rough week with the puzzle. Which just goes to show, whatever you think of Will Shortz, you gotta consider the alternative.
Maybe you want to take up doing Patti Varol-edited puzzles in the LATimes/WaPo? You get a bonus Evan Birnholz puzzle in the Post on Sundays. Off to do those now before the family wakes up
Will Shortz has had a stroke and is trying to recover from it.
@okanaganer- 1:12 AM - Also the son of Patty Duke and John Astin (by adoption), which is reason enough to love him in my book; but he's also a really good and highly accomplished actor.
@Ken Freeland - 1:22 AM - I fear there may no longer a place for this aging boomer in a world where people know HEAD CANNON but not GIL Scott-Heron.
Fully in agreement with Rex here. It was a fast solve for me but I have to admit the apostrophe trick didn’t even occur to me until Rex explained it.
This whole puzzle felt like assembling a car with no understanding of how the parts go together, never mind how it works or what it does.
And it was a fast Sunday solve by my standards.
Just a joyless slog.
I've never heard "holla" used as a greeting. As a reply, yes. As a verb. You can holla AT someone. You can use "holla" like "word." But not in place of "hello."
Other than that, I liked today! Head canon, en passant, fudges facts, Tupac, and the Fonz. All good.
Can someone please explain today's Mini to me? I was able to solve it, but I don't get it. What do the circles mean? I assume there was some rebus that I missed?
I suppose I should have challenged my answer more, but naticked with the OvAL/ENvASSANT crossing. Don't know the French. Saw the word "shape" and instantly thought OvAL. Anyone else?
Found this whole puzzling challenging today. "Finished" in 50, 20 plus minutes longer than usual.
My two cents: it is FONZie or the FONZ. Not just FONZ without the definite article.
I put in SIRI for 1A - as in “No Siri, Bob” - thinking this would be one of a “Siri”s of puns with a revealer of “phrases you hear when offline”. But no. No PROB, Bob? WHAT, King Tut?
What’s your main GOAL, Joel? Need better FILL, GIL. Just doesn’t FLY, guy! Listen to me.
Less with the ZEN, Ken. No SRO, Bro. Drop all the ANTS, Lance. And set Sundays free.
#ThereMustBe
#50WaysToLoseSubscribers
Lovely to see Aussie band Crowded House here: vale Paul Hester.
Hey All !
Well, I thought it was a decent puz. Liked the reformulated phrases. Take POOL'S RESOURCES. They are RESOURCES for POOLS, but also the answer works on the non-possesive part of POOLS RESOURCES. Hey, easily amused here, I guess.
The timer says 40:00 exactly! If I was trying for that I couldn't have hit it.
Finished, but with one lookup. I'm not, however, taking that as a DNF, or adding an asterisk to my Streak, which is 9 days now. The lookup was the R for RICO/RON. Never would've gotten that. Didn't know the Spanish word for Rum, and RICO? Who or what is that? I'm sure when I read y'all, it's something I should know. A Fed. Statute. OK.
Who's putting out TUPAC albums? Seven after he died? Goodness.
Anyway, liked the puz. Not only got an ASS, but WISE ASSES. Har. Not even AGASP today.
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
This one felt tough, but I rather enjoyed slogging through it. The theme without a quippish reveal was a Nothing Burger, but fewer proper nouns per square inch than the travesties of Friday and Saturday made it a pleasant waste of time. Like 🦖, that southwest stopped me for a while. MGM finally extricated me from the log jam.
😫: Too many stale short answers. When a puzzle has all those little black squares floating around in the middle, you know EGGO, EDDY and PEDI aren't far behind.
If I were a Viking, sacking and pillaging would be separate activities.
Tee-Hee: I've been on the beat for over a year now. Some think these tee-hees are supposed to be funny, but it's mostly a roundup of the decisions our 5th-grader-in-charge makes in selecting puzzles to move on from the slush pile. 🦖 is mystified: "I cannot conceive why this was made, let alone why it was accepted." They get 50 puzzles a day down at the ole salt mill, and they only need one, so if WISE ASSES is staring prominently from a submission, you'll pass it along without caring two hoots what nonsense is in the theme. You get published in the Times with fart jokes and bar room elbows. Theme schmeme.
Uniclues:
1 What Car & Driver does.
2 Ink preservers among international lovers spelled in Times Frespanglish.
3 Henry Winkler being stupid at home.
4 Hire a hunky lifeguard.
1 DETAILS ISUZU GAPS (~)
2 TE AMO AMIS PEN CAPS
3 FONZ IQ RANGE ON LEAVE (~)
4 ENABLE POOL RESOURCES
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: My less-than-attentive approach to participating in a post-break-up conversation during our ice-cream shop journey with my teenage daughter. RAN "I BET" ON AUTO.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm with you, if this is where we're going in the post-Shortz era... Oof. I really hope they look at these critical comments and name some changes because the last couple months have probably been the worst I've ever experienced in puzzle quality at the NYT.
What a contrast in weekend difficulty. Yesterday's felt like one of the hardest puzzles that I've ever managed to finish, fighting me at almost every section and coming in over two-and-a-half times my usual Saturday time. Today, I was 16 seconds off my Sunday best.
I didn't really love either one, but at least today brought out the "Jeremy's Iron" reference.
32-year-old in agreement with RP - HOLLA isn’t really a greeting
You mean Kiwi
Crossword puzzles used to make me happy…
Andrew's comment at 9:40 ... ode to Paul Simon/diss to this puzzle ... made me happy, unlike this puzzle.
Shouldn't 48A be a themer clued as "Letter addendum by golfer Michelle?"
I really have faith in Bacardi. In fact my motto is "ENRON I trust".
Dorothy: Gosh, Scarecrow. When the Tin Woodsman got attacked by the flying monkeys, I hope he didn't suffer any cranial injuries.
Scarecrow: Don't worry, Dorothy. He had his HEADCANON.
I'm not sure that SINGIT is encouragement you would hear at Karaoke night. As opposed to talk it? Maybe it's a rap song. Anyway, I think "SING one" would be the more likely encouragement.
@Andrew. I love your "50 Ways to Lose Subscribers"!
I thought it was a worthy theme that played kinda dull.
Clueless in Cleveland: Hoping another contributor will help. 58A Scoop, so to speak = DETAILS. I don’t get it. Can someone explain, please and thank you in advance?
Hmmmm. Issues:
BELIE means “negate,” not “call into question”.
It’s “Fonzie” or “The Fonz,” NOT FONZ.
HOLLA??
SEANASTIN/AMIS??
@10:18 from Wikipedia: Crowded House are a rock band, formed in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia,Its founding members were New Zealander Neil Finn (vocalist, guitarist, primary songwriter) and Australians Paul Hester (drums) and Nick Seymour (bass). Previous anon was correct.
John Oliver is not a late night host. How do they let stuff like that in? Terrible puns today . . . again. That's two days in a row of rubbish.
@arrizabalaga jauna
Ieup! Good to see you! Good to see the good clueing that goes beyond jai alai. Your post is incontrovertible. I only wish I'd thought to solve it that way. Zorionak! Gora Korrika!
I've always heard WISE guy or Smart ASS but never WISE ASS. Maybe it works if there's a bunch of WISE ASSES.
Still not sure how 35A "Castle moat?" for HOLD'S WATER fits the pattern. What exactly is the HOLD that possesses the WATER. The moat? The castle? Never heard either of those referred to as a HOLD.
I'm off to find out more about 17D DEAGE. I could use some of that.
Agree with Rex. A slog without a fun payoff. Hated it.
Almost every answer I was shaking my head about -- because it was so bad and so wrong -- was on me, because I was so wrong.
It started off with alARmS instead of SPARES for "necessities for retiring." So now I have PERMa, which is NOT the plural of PERM. PERMS is the plural of PERM.
How do PENCilS prevent accidental scribbles? Beats me.
What on earth is LmI? Beats me.
I didn't know what to do about MiSALA. So I simply shrugged.
This is what happens when you are much too deeply into your own HEAD CANON* and can't escape. It's also why I wouldn't win any Puzzle Tournaments. I get idees fixes and I can't get out of them.
But at least I didn't make a fool of myself over DEAGE. I Googled and it actually is a word that's used in the movie biz. Just not in real life. Which is a shame. I don't want to be DEAGEd on the movie screen; I want to be DEAGEd in real life. Don't you?
*HEAD CANON is a term I didn't know. I wonder how long I'll remember it.
lol that band is nothing without Neil Finn, NZ legend. Calling them “Aussie” is absurd NZ erasure
A very unpleasant slog. I had more difficulty that @Rex, partly because I was giving it more credit than it deserved and looking for double meanings, etc. Really, really agree today.
Lewis cites the constructor:
"According to his notes on XwordInfo, he wrote a computer program, which spit out 70K theme answer possibilities, and read every single one of them, to cull the list down to the 162 he found interesting. That. Is. Dedication. Props on that, sir!"
Have to disagree with you today, Lewis. Speaking as a Luddite, a technophobe, and a completely analog theme constructor who can't even get the camera on my laptop to kick in for Zoom meetings, that is not "dedication that deserves props". That's an Unfair Advantage that puts me behind the 8-ball. John's program effortlessly coughs up 70,000 (!!!!) theme possibilities when I'm tossing and turning in bed trying to come up with 3 or 4? "Not fair," I cry. "Not fair at all!":)
I’ll admit Will Shortz gave the green light to a few clunkers. But since his absence, the NYT has printed the clunkiest clunkers that ever clunked.
Tough for me on two counts - I found it hard to wrap my head around some of the possessives (SET'S AT EASE, HOLD'S WATER - thanks to those here who elucidated) and it's still rough sledding to get eye-hand coordination going, post-concussion. So, yeah, filling the grid was kind of a double slog. But I did appreciate the theme idea and enjoyed FUDGE'S FACTS and PLANT'S EVIDENCE. HEAD CANON? That was a new one.
Theme is whatever. The puzzle is a pangram, but while solving I didn't notice any real fill problems near the Scrabbly letters except maybe the patch around the Q in the SE. Loved seeing NEURALNET and especially HEADCANON, great debut answer there.
Late to the party due to digging out. All the snow we didn't get all winter arrived yesterday en masse, we got 26". The good news is that it was the fluffy kind and the bad news is there was still a lot of it and it has to go somewhere. Our condo parking lot isn't even plowed yet. Guess they're busy, I wonder why.
Never heard of No PROB Bob and I'm an honorary Bob, as are three of my friends, so right away I thought there was going to be a wavelength problem and sure enough. Chipped away and managed to fill in the TEAMO MADD YOKOONO cross zt las twhen I came back in from shoveling. TEAMO is no kind of a date line and is an awful clue, so I forgive myself.
All the "Stranger Things" references are stranger things to me.
@Andrew-Nice one. Heard "Fifty Ways" on our oldies station yesterday, long-time fave.
Truly a masterpiece of a Sunday puzzle, JK. Outstanding. (Just Kidding. I finished it, but I was happy when it was over.) Thanks for some scattered fun.
Boring! It’s as if Colin Robinson from What We Do In The Shadows designed this puzzle.
What a rant, Rex.
I agree with your write-up & all the comments from @Anonymous (mostly, I'm assuming, from several different anonymous posters ) that the puzzles of late suffer from Will's absence 🙏 It's almost an effort to do them. This isn't the constructors' fault, but that of the NYT.
Although this started out promising for me, I solved it as a themeless. Never really got the theme :(
Giving someone a HOLLA is a slangy way of giving someone a greeting but it's not, in itself, a slangy greeting. Terrible clueing there. Nobody says "Holla!" They might say "gimme a holla later," or "I gave Jimmy a holla yesterday." As it was clued today, it'd be like saying SHOUT OUT is a slangy greeting.
And HEAD CANON? 😂😂😂😂
I agree that JOHN OLIVER is definitely not a late-night host. But I was still glad to see him in the puzzle, even though I hesitated to put him in from that clue.
However, I think the complaints about FONZ are definitely unwarranted. Arthur Fonzarelli, Fonzie, The Fonz were the most common references, but I was sure I could remember hearing Richie call him FONZ. "Hey Fonz, wanna go to Arnold's?" or something like that.
Sure enough, I did a google search and in the first random video from the show that I watched, Mr. C, Mrs. C, and Joanie all call him Fonzie. And then Richie pipes in with "Why don't you sit down, Fonz?"
If Richie can call him Fonz, I think the puzzle can, too.
Per Wikipedia:
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (often abridged as Last Week Tonight) is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by comedian John Oliver.“
He may not be a talk show host (and the clue doesn’t refer to talk shows), but he does host a show that airs late-night.
HEAD CANON, a new phrase to me and not obvious. Hmmph.
I thought FUDGE'S FACTS and HOLD'S WATER were the best of the theme answers. I never even got SET'S AT EASE because this is what the clue looked like for me: {""And 鈂u0080β燾ut!"?"} The solving platform I use didn't like the ellipse and I had to go to the NYTimes version post-solve to see the actual clue.
GOLF SHIRT was my main aha today. I was interpreting "swinger" as a lounge lizard and was waffling between a Gilt or GOLd shirt. (Shouldn't that have been lamé?) Har.
Thanks, John Kugelman.
I don't usually do Acrostic but someone here recommended it. Just did it. Great fun. Not very hard and I learned a couple of things.
(I couldn't find the recommender. Maybe yesterday.)
Seemed ok, to m&e. Not an epic forever-memorable classic NYTSunPuz, but certainly reasonable.
Caught on to the puztheme mcguffin early, thanx to FUELSSPECULATION … so this was then one of them ahar moments that didn't pack much punch, for the remainin themers. But, that's fine.
staff weeject pick: ELO. Didn't know that rockband played a lotta chess. Learned somethin.
Was downright sure of WISEACRES's decency, before it went for the ASS. Reminds me of a recent news headline I saw regardin Trump's approachin Monday come-to-judgment moment: Kick in the Assets. har
DEAGE? har 2
Some fave stuff: ENPASSANT in the ASS. GOLFSHIRT clue. STRIPES clue [M&A is a retired avid 8-ball player]. Pangrammer.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Kugelman dude. Good job. U build only SunPuzs? U clearly like to suffer.
Masked & Anonymo12Us
dessert?:
**gruntz**
@mathgent
It was me. I recommended it to @Joe D late yesterday.
Glad you enjoyed it.
"Clueless in Cleveland: Hoping another contributor will help. 58A Scoop, so to speak = DETAILS. I don’t get it. Can someone explain, please and thank you in advance?"
Scoop here is referring to a news story where the reporter who has the scoop then publishes all of the DETAILS about it.
Actually, it is more from "Give me the scoop" or "Here's the scoop" I think.
A streak of horrible Fagliano puzzles. Will Shortz to Rex: "Do you miss me now?"
Read Possession by Byatt instead. It's worth your time.
The only acceptable answers for "People who might answer 'What's up?' with 'The sky'" is NOBODY or A CHILD. If somebody actually said that to me I would turn around and walk away.
@Rex reviews almost every puzzle on seemingly a zero-sum scale (and I’m bound to get some math expert disagreement on that description). Either it’s a great puzzle or mostly a disaster with maybe a bright spot here or there. In one sense I can agree with him that perfection is hard to achieve and most puzzles fall short. I found today’s puzzle a slow-going solve but enjoyed uncovering the theme answers one by one, kinda slogging along not in a rush….I don’t think a puzzle has to be great or totally innovative to be enjoyed, but that’s a personal outlook. The NYT formula requiring themes does put a lot of pressure on constructors, and when you get a good puzzle it’s really good usually on a number of levels. I think that’s a target worth keeping despite the fact that it also means we get some clunkers…
Toward the end I got a little stuck on the NW; normally I just push through it and figure it out, but I was so tired of this puzzle I couldn’t be bothered today. This one just felt joyless.
Late to the comments today... Was having brunch/lunch in the city. We did the puzzle on our commute in and out.
This puzzle was OK. I agree the theme was a bit thin, but while not the most clever, it was acceptable. There did seem to be a lot of PPP, and I had a problem with "No PROB, Bob" - really? 113D ("Coltrane's instrument") reminded me I have to listen to "Kind of Blue" with Miles Davis, 'Trane, and Bill Evans.
I also noticed the editor was JF for the 2nd week running, but thought these puzzles were decided upon many weeks ahead of time. Sorry to hear Will Shortz had a stroke - Hope recovery is speedy and full.
I think this must be what was intended, & thank you. Happy to understand , but unhappy with this clue. I tend to think the scoop is a concise point,, “Nixon approved hush payments!” before anybody else knows. The scoop
is not the same as the details.
Agree that 85 - 115 typically is a terrible clue. Just for general info, that is one standard deviation on either side of the mean of 100, which includes about 68% of the population.
Mostly agree. His high horses are too frequent, often tedious, occasionally cringeworthy. But I don’t read Rex as an arbiter elegantiae. His tastes are not mine, nor are his pieties. Yes, he can be downright priggish. But I am always here for a vehement condemnation of a Natick. And I esteem his combination of practical knowledge and sense of crossword history.
Are you profiling golfers? lol
In the sense that I read your comment, I did.
I never thought I'd say that I'd miss Will Shortz.
or those like me who don't know either one...
Hi all, could someone explain 94 across for me??
Enby = NB = NON-binary
As a parodist, you really RATE, mate!
"Hold" can be used in place of "stronghold," capiche?
Pencils don't, but PENCAPS do (see correct solution above)
I'm so with Rex on this one. It was like sweeping the front porch. A tiny sense of tidy satisfaction when done but without any enjoyment in the process. At least it wasn't Saturday's hellscape of a puzzle.
It's not uncommon in the South, especially in the African-American community, for folks to say, "I'll holla at you" or "Holla at me" (meaning "I'll talk to you later" or "Get back to me"). I'm guessing that was the (clumsily expressed) intention of 43 Across.
Nothing wrong with the last century, at least with crossword puzzles. Plenty wrong with so much else.
There's so much to chose from. But why choose crossword puzzles? That's when most of you were introduced to them. Are you pleased that happened? I'm guessing Yes.
So why put down a crossword puzzle because of that?
Nice to see my old friend ENOLA today.
I did not enjoy this one at all. If “MADD” hadn’t just felt right I would never have gotten “Te Amo”. I had Hula Shirt because Hula dance or something. It made more sense when I had “hullo”, too. Never having heard of Novelist Cather made that central corner a nightmare.
“AT EASE” as in a command (like military) to relax or be done.
So the fill as written would be “a movie set’s expression for ‘at ease.’”
I disagree with OFL here, thought the puns were interesting and classic crossword fare, and enjoyed most of the fill. Went pretty quick for me but also definitely benefited from familiarity with more of the contemporary fill.
Yeah, this bugged me as well. Set's is being used as a shortened form of "set is." So it is a contraction and not a possessive.
@Roo, in case no one responded, RICO=Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
You go, Rex! This one really sucks.
I'm surprised to hear so many people don't know HEADCANON. It's a lively phrase and was the high point of the grid for me. But I can see how it would fall flat if you haven't been exposed to it before.
Absolutely horrible. Terrible clueing, obscure PPP, and stupid theme answers.
Sean Aston is extremely notable.
Astin. Grrr autocorrect
It’s CANON that you made up in your HEAD.
Anyone else have GOLDCHAINS before GOLFSHIRTS?
First comment here. Spent so much time on Saturday's puzzle that I didn't get to Sunday's until Monday! In fact, it was frustration with Saturday's puzzle that led me to discover Rex's marvelous blog.
POOL appears in both a clue and answer (with different meanings, but intent was to be confusing and be the same).
Nope nope nope.
HOLDSWATER? = Castle moat?
Ships have a “hold”. Castles may have a “keep” maybe.
AGAST? News to me, almost aghast.
HOLLA? Hola, I guess.
He said on NPR that he had had a stroke and is recovering
IQ range clue is correct. 85-115 is plus or minus 1 standard deviation where the typical score falls.
@Anonymous 7:54 and OP: it’s still being used as a possessive, not a contraction of “set is.” The “at ease” of a set is the command to “cut.” I’m not saying I liked it; just wanted to say that if you can manage to bend your brain around these puns - it is consistent.
WISEASSES DETAILS DON'T HOLD WATER
DORIS said RICO FUDGESFACTS,
GOESALLIN with SUSIE Q,
but SUE TAKESORDERS from WISE BASQUES -
IT's ILLICIT past BASETWO.
--- RON VONN
Another tiresome Sun-puz. It's been ages since a really good one. Noticed: ENRON RON RONCO (kinda liked those); SUSIE SUE. What was SUSIE's IQ?
Wordle par. I thought those words were supposed to be English.
Opal or gold nugget?
Yes, Rex was much too kind today. In addition to the drabness of the theme, one Stranger Things clue is one to many. Two is intolerable.
Holla. Really? Seems to me like a misspelling of the Spanish hola. My dictionary only has one meaning for hold as a noun and that’s the ship cargo place but then there’s stronghold so maybe sometime in English history…. And details for scoop? Thinking scoop is the headline not the details
I *loved* HEADCANON. I first encountered the word in maybe the late 1980s and having in a NYT grid was like seeing an old friend in a role in a major movie. Don't piss on words you don't know. They may be beloved of others.
I picked at this one a long time, not remembering my muses from the Maleska era, and straight up guessing various names nEAlAcTON? Angus? until they coincidentally helped with the crosses. I had to google the NBA commentator, and run the alphabet for RICO/ERATO, to finally get the finish.
I'm amused by how greetings seem to cycle through the vowels, so everything old s new again. "They saw Theseus and called to him, "Holla, tall stranger at the door, what is your will to-day?" I've seen "Ho!" and "Hallo!" in older literature, and I think people are moving from the once standard "Hi!" to "Hey!"
I'm also not skipping ahead to see if Will Shortz is going to be okay, just living six weeks in the past.
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