Backless stool / SUN 4-7-24 / Angle-measuring instrument / Belgian Surrealist painter James / Former TLC reality show set in a Florida tattoo parlor / Apple variety whose name sounds like part of a flower / Tympanostomy performer, for short / Cheesy appetizer with chips / Surfboard/kayak hybrid

Sunday, April 7, 2024

Constructor: Tracy Gray

Relative difficulty: EE-E


THEME: "Double Duty" — double letters stand in for words in the theme answers (the letters are just letters in the Downs):

Theme answers:
  • "[EE] ON DOWN THE ROAD" / "I'VE EATEN" (23A: Song performed three times in "The Wiz" / 1D: "No food for me, thank")
  • BLACK-EYED [PP] / TEACUP POODLE (39A: Group with the 2009 hit "I Gotta Feeling" / 16D: Variety of tiny dog)
  • [UU] IT OR LOSE IT / "ARE YOU UP?"63A: Fitness enthusiast's mantra / 32D: "Still awake?")
  • A WORD TO THE [YY] / NY YANKEE (74A: Start of some cautionary advice / 72D: Aaron Judge, e.g., in brief)
  • [CC] THE MOMENT / ARCTIC CIRCLE (100A: Take advantage of an opportunity / 68D: Where to see the midnight sun)
  • A SIGHT FOR SORE [II] / "MIAMI, INK" (118A: You love to see it / 99D: Former TLC reality show set in a Florida tattoo parlor)
Word of the Day: TABOURET (35A: Backless stool) —
taboret (also spelled tabouret or tabourette) refers to two different pieces of furniture: a cabinet or a stool. // As a stool, it refers to a short stool without a back or arms. The name is derived from its resemblance to a drum (diminutive of Old French tabour). // The tabouret acquired a more specialized meaning in 17th-century France at the court of Louis XIV in Versailles. Sitting in the presence of the royal family was a much coveted honor, and the tabouret was the way to do it. The court tabouret was an elaborate, upholstered stool with curved wooden legs and tassels, carried by a liveried and wigged servant. Duchesses were automatically granted the honor of sitting in front of the queen. This stool became such a symbol of privilege that when Louis XIV's mother, the Regent Anne of Austria, granted the tabouret to two non-duchesses, such a storm of protest was raised that she had to revoke the order. // In the context of the Arts and Crafts Movement, a taboret is a narrow and tall stand for a plant, lamp, ashtray, or a beverage. It may also be a mission oak book stand shelf, or side table, or end table. (wikipedia)
• • •
A very basic concept of the kind I've seen before. Sometimes plural letters sound like words ("Y"s = WISE etc.), and this puzzle just exploits that fact, with the punny version in the Across and the literal double-letter version in the Downs. It's not a revelation, not a big surprise. Once you've got it, you've got it, and I got it very early—couldn't make 1D: "No food for me, thanks" work, but "EATEN" seemed like it must be involved ... and that's when the double-letter rebus concept occurred to me. Checked the Across and bingo: "[EASE] ON DOWN THE ROAD." After that, no surprises. You know what's coming, and it comes, and there it is. Knowing the theme made getting the themers (the Acrosses, anyway) even easier than they would've been (and they were pretty easy even without the gimmick to help you). There's nothing wrong with this theme. It's simple and neatly executed. It just doesn't offer much resistance and has very little humor to it (there's the "aha" moment up front, but nothing else is gonna move the "aha" meter again after that). Fine, but dull—that's how this one played for me, themewise.


Fillwise, things were a little more ... interesting. I mean that mainly in a negative way, though there were some nice answers, and the double-letter Downs were handled particularly well, I thought. TEACUP POODLE and "ARE YOU UP?" and "MIAMI, INK" were clever solutions to the challenge posed by the theme (double vowels that aren't "E" or "O," never easy to come by). But there were some words, and especially some crosses, today that seemed dicey. First cross that seemed potentially problematic was IPS / PUENTE. I know the term as "IP addresses" and at first I had IMS in that slot (14D: Computer addresses, for short); I reasoned that the messages were ways of "addressing" another person. Luckily, I not only knew who Tito PUENTE was (thank you, "Simpsons"), I actually saw him perform in Ann Arbor in the '90s, so no issues for me, but maybe issues for somebody (22A: Tito who wrote "Oye Como Va"). Worse, though, was TABOURET, which seems like a highly unusual word (I needed virtually every cross) and which has a number of not necessarily universally known crosses, like James ENSOR (17D: Belgian Surrealist painter James). QUESO DIP seems well known (15D: Cheesy appetizer with chips) but I can definitely see someone misremembering it as QUESA (inferring from "quesadilla"). And if you somehow didn't know crossword aficionado Joy BEHAR (36D: "The View" co-host Joy), then TABOURET must've been a real adventure. The worst cross didn't involve TABOURET; it involved ALY, whose name is notoriously hard to remember (ALI v. ALY); I've never heard of STAYMAN (I mean, never) so if you'd told me it was STAIMAN (like CAIMAN?), I'd've nodded politely like I knew what you were talking about but [shrug] (43A: Apple variety whose name sounds like part of a flower). Luckily, I remembered that ALY used a "Y" so I got it, but that's at least four different squares that made me go "uh oh," and it seems pretty likely that one or more of those squares might've undone a few solvers today. Looks like STAYMAN last appeared in the puzzle on my birthday, in the first year of this blog's existence (2006). 

[Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889, by James ENSOR]

Beyond the treacherous, there's the ugly. Stuff like REE, which ... if I were constructing, I'd do anything to get REE out of my grid. "Riddle-me-REE" has almost zero currency. "WE THE" is an almost inexcusable partial. GTE is now painfully bygone. ON TWO is strained (76D: When a football may be snapped). Speaking of two, there are two TOOs, which is TOO many (and today they are TOO close to each other) (“TOO CUTE!” / “AM TOO!”). PAREN made my wife so angry I had to talk her down (124A: Emoticon’s mouth, for short). I think that on the whole the fill holds up pretty well today, but those answers (in addition to the problematic crosses noted above) really stood out. I have no idea what a SINEBAR is (3D: Angle-measuring instrument)—it's a debut today; seems like a word only a bloated, uncurated wordlist could love, but there you go. I had TOILE before VOILE, which made getting that initial theme answer harder than it otherwise might've been (20A: Lightweight curtain fabric). I think TUILE is also a fabric?? Oh, no, it's a baked wafer! TULLE is the fabric, gah! VOILE TOILE TULLE TUILE I'd believe any of them was a fabric or a French pastry or both. No idea what a WAVESKI is, either. Is it like a JETSKI? No, not motorized. There's a wikipedia page, but it's flagged: "This article contains content that is written like an advertisement." Basically it's a sit-down surfboard that you can also paddle. My worst "didn't know it" was EMILIO (122: Fashion designer Pucci). I was coasting to the end and then all of a sudden, with my very last word (117D: Nursery item), I had a blank. Blanks, actually, across the board. I assumed the end of TOMCA- was "T," though I have no idea what fighter jets are called. And I assumed, despite its sounding very stupid, that CIDER- was CIDERY (125A: Apple processing plant) (I thought the term was "cider mill," but that may just be because there's a Cider Mill here in town (great autumn weekend destination for cider and donuts), as well as a Cider Mill Playhouse). Anyway, that gave me T-Y but when I looked at EMILI- the only letters I could imagine going there were "E" and "A"! I thought the designer was a woman. And TEY or TAY didn't seem like they belonged in either kind of nursery I could think of (the plant kind or the child kind). Eventually I somehow managed to see TOY and then recognized that yes, EMILIO is a name. But that little three-letter snafu was probably the hardest I worked all puzzle. Aside from the potential pitfalls represented by some of those crosses, there really was no resistance today.

[Do not, under any circumstances, "stare directly at the sun" tomorrow without proper eyewear]

Final thoughts:
  • 80A: POTUS's military title (C-IN-C) — i.e. Commander-in-Chief
  • 88D: Bad spot to leave food unattended (CAMPSITE) — I had CAMPFIRE. Seemed ... reasonable.
  • 96A: Casey of classic radio (KASEM) — hey, speak of the devil (in that I spoke of him in Saturday's write-up and ... here he is!)
  • 97D: Iraqi city on the Tigris (SAMARRA) — I know this place only from the John O'Hara novel.
That's all from me today. I hope those of you who struggled yesterday found this softball more to your liking. I'll take Saturday-style torture any day, but to each his own! See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

98 comments:

Ken Freeland 12:13 AM  

Had to throw in the towel on this one....both lower corners were just packed with PPP that I had no clue about and I couldn't get any traction there... turns out there was also a natick in the upper right, TABOURET/ENSOR. This is yet another puzzle that would be better suited to People Magazine than the (supposedly) literate NYT. These constructors must spend half their time watching TV and the other half listening to rap music. If they ever read a book, it's either Harry Potter or the Tolkien Reader... sigh...

jae 12:15 AM  

Easy-medium. I too caught the theme early and breezed through this one.

WOEs: TABOURET, SINEBAR, and STAYMAN
Erasure: SErenE before SEDATE

Solid take on a familiar theme, liked it, but I agree with @Rex about some of the fill.

Anonymous 12:28 AM  

Breezed through everything except for the top right corner, the crossing ENSOR/PUENTE is awful. Especially with TABOURET floating around.

Anonymous 12:46 AM  

Wasn’t my favorite Sunday, but wasn’t my worst. I will second Rex on the tabouret/ensor cross. That one needed more polishing. And I also struggled with the stayman apple clue with the potential for ram/rat. Other than that, about an average Sunday. Glad to have a break upcoming with a Monday.

egsforbreakfast 1:07 AM  

If you don't like the MTA you may be opposed to the subway, but it doesn't mean you're ANTIHERO.

I don't mean to be a buttinski, but that guy's drinking a brewski while riding a WAVESKI.

GG Louise. I thought this was some unique fun. I don't mean to be a TT, but what LL could I even compare it to? I think @Lewis OO us some research on this. You can rest assured that he won't be an RR about it (as they say in London, Ontario). Anyway, alls well that NN well, and to HH own.



puzzlehoarder 1:28 AM  

The first theme I got was the double P. I had no problem with that because I'm very familiar with the band's name. I know nothing of "The Wiz" so in the NE I put in the double E based solely on making IVEEATEN fit. I did not read it as EASE and wondered what the hell was going on. That's exceptionally myopic even for me. However when I got the double U themer the light bulb went off and all was well after that.

In the SE I did have a KASUM/KASEM write over. I remembered our host mentioning it in Saturday's comments and I'd have sworn that was how he spelled it. Nope, my brain just likes to swap out vowels based on their sound.

Another coincidence was seeing CABOOSE again. It must be the SEASON.

yd -0. QB29

okanaganer 1:34 AM  

This was no "softball" for me. I generally find Sundays a slog, but this was extra sloggy. Hands up for the Naticks: ALY - STAYMAN and QUESODIP - TABOURET. Complicated further by having SERENE for "Calm" at 13 down. So I had SERENE and QUESA DIP crossing NABAURET!

Again the cluing seemed a bit too devious, e.g. "Sow and hoe for dough, say" = FARM. That landed with a thud for me.

And some really obscure answers... I live in apple country -- western Canadian version -- and actually lived for 4 years in a picker's cabin in an orchard. I have never heard of STAYMAN. Of course I put in SPARTAN which has 4 correct letters, and is the best apple ever. Googling STAYMAN gives about 50 non-apple results, with a single link buried in the middle leading to a very minimal Wikipedia article about the supposed apple. Obviously it was in the constructor's word list, so here we are.

Extra dreadful is PAREN. Also, cluing regular phrases as names: TOM CAT and ANTI-HERO. There are more than enough names in here without going to great lengths to add more.

[Spelling Bee: Sat 0, streak 4 days.]

walrus 2:48 AM  

too easy and less enjoyable than yesterday. somewhere closer to yesterday but with more joy please

Tom F 5:02 AM  

Top 40 and CABOOSES echos

Conrad 5:11 AM  


Easy for me, but that wasn't reflected in my time, because as I was solving I was watching the Mets blow a three-run lead.

Same problem as @Rex at 20A: tuILE before toILE before VOILE
Tried several incorrect spellings before BEHR at 8D
Wanted gUac(something) for QUESO DIP at 15D
AYE aye before AYE SIR at 49A
Big sur before Big tEN before Big BEN at 62A (I think I've made this same error with the same progression several times before)
LIRa before LIRE for the Italian currency at 86A

SINEBAR (3D) was a WTF
TABOURET (35A) and ENSOR (17D) were both WOEs, so I marked the R where they crossed in pencil and was surprised at the end when I got the happy music.
AMNESIC (70A) is an "If You Say So" word, as is CIDERY (125A)
Never heard of a WAVESKI (Way to signal goodbye in Russia?) at 93A, nor SAMARRA (97D)

Hooray for 105A! ANTIHERO is one of only two Taylor Swift song titles that I know (the other is Red)

Liked having BEHR (8D), BARER (39D) and BEHAR (36D) in close proximity

Anonymous 6:09 AM  

Bro you just confessed to not knowing James Ensor and you wanna lord your cultural literacy over people? Visit a museum sometime.

Son Volt 6:23 AM  

Cute enough trick - definitely only a slight variation on similar previous themes. Liked ARE YOU UP - USE IT OR LOSE IT. Overall well filled but a lot of trivia throughout.

A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES

Played right through with little pushback. Didn’t know MIAMI INC, the Tay Tay song or ENSOR but the crosses were clear enough. Like @Conrad - the BEHR - BEHAR - BARER trio jumped - not in a good way though. BARER and NEARISH are unfortunate. Liked APOGEE x SENECA and STOCK CAR.

Sunday is a tough sell for me - I would have liked this trick in a smaller grid but it was enjoyable enough.

Calexico

David Grenier 6:39 AM  

I liked the theme. When dealing with rebus themes it's nice when there's one that has a proper name or title. If you know its BLACK EYED PEAS and there aren't enough letters you know you're dealing with some kind of trickery. Hardcore solvers may disagree.

Got NATICKed a couple times today. ENSOR/TABOURET abd SLUR/UDO. There were some other tough crosses but I just guessed that STAYMAN sounded more like a real thing than STAIMAN. Plus whileI don't follow the Olympics or most sports, I recognize current Olympians as fair game. Olympians from the 30s whose names just happen to have the right letters, not so much. Same goes for Belgian surrealist painters.

Finally, if no one has said it, I assume Rex has heard of Samarra in the tale of The Good Samaritan. At least I assume that's what Samaritan means.

mmorgan 6:46 AM  

Themers were easy but fun and cute. Some good fill but lots of hoo boy never heard of this stuff.

Lewis 7:23 AM  

A just-right chaser to yesterday’s deep dive. Coursing through Tracey’s puzzle was like tubing down the river, engaged, relaxed, and happy.

There were lovely answers that surprisingly, to me, have never shown up in the 80 years of NYT crosswords – ARE YOU UP, A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES, BLACK EYED PEAS, USE IT OR LOSE IT. Other new answers (there were 11 in total) included NY YANKEE, QUESO DIP, and SEIZE THE MOMENT.

New answers mean new clues, all sparking the grid, keeping things interesting.

I liked seeing CLAM up, and my ear worm for the day is “Life is a TABOURET, old chum”. WETHE is a lovely dook. Plus, there were some areas of resistance that satisfied my brain’s work ethic.

Ahhh. Thank you, Tracy. This was the BBs knEE for me today.

Wanderlust 7:29 AM  

I guessed the theme wrong right off the bat in the NW. I remembered the Wiz song as “Move ON DOWN THE ROAD” and thought there would be some kind of trickery about the word DOWN moving downward or something. Confirmed that (sort of) with ARE YOU UP.

I got the first real themer with A SIGHT FOR SORE II, then started finding the others and went back to my totally messed-up NW to finish. I also had vERVE there for NERVE, so even when I saw the EE, I still wasn’t quite there. And I’ve never heard of a SINE BAR - I thought a compass measured angles. Same number of letters, but I didn’t put it in because crosses were obviously wrong. Who else among us remembers the metal doohickey that you stick a pencil stub into? You kids with your calculator apps - back in my day we did geometry with these things that looked like implements of medieval torture! Am i being AGEIST?

I feel for those who naticked on TABOURET. I knew BEHAR and QUESO DIP, but never heard of ENSOR. I almost put in an L because TABOULET sounded plausible but ENSOL didn’t sound as good as ENSOR.

Loved the clue “hip place for a drink” for FLASK.

Anonymous 7:33 AM  

Actually know exactly what a SINEBAR is, and moreover know that machinists use them not for measuring angles but for creating them (using the sine rule). Admittedly the kind of person who might attempt to use a SINEBAR for a measurement could well need to save time elsewhere in their life by shortening PARENtheses.

SouthsideJohnny 7:45 AM  

Pretty much everything that Rex pointed out was way, way out of my wheelhouse. So when you end up trying to get IPS to cross PUENTE to cross ENSOR to cross TABOURET and so on, well you basically have a cure for insomnia. That’s exactly what this felt like - there’s just no energy, excitement or enthusiasm in slogging one’s way through stuff like ENCANTO crossing CINC while still trying to stumble upon where the double-letters go. Sorry, but one big bore for me today.

Anonymous 7:47 AM  

Rex, you missed my misspelling, TOULE. Put this away last night with a completed but incorrect grid, so hunted for typos and found a couple. Still no happy music, so started checking crosses and sure enough, TABOURET/ENSOR got me. I had no clue on the painter, but thought I remembered TABOULET, and ENSOL seemed at least possible.

I had more fun with the theme than Rex did, and it deserves a lot of credit for being coherent and well executed. I saw the Wiz song pretty early, but I was misremembering the first word as “move,” and couldn’t figure out the cross. Once I remembered “ease” (without Google’s help this time), I could see the trick.

andrew 8:00 AM  

Well, grumpy Anonymous is up early today with his/her/their unprovoked/unfair/unkind attacks.

“Anonymous said...
Bro you just confessed to not knowing James Ensor and you wanna lord your cultural literacy over people? Visit a museum sometime.

6:09 AM”

After telling someone to go back to high school (and various other slams), this particular Anon should just go by BADTHING.

A GOODTHING? Egs’ 1:07 am (!) clever groaner “to HH own”.

Andy Freude 8:05 AM  

DNF. ALi / STAiMAN.

andrew 8:31 AM  

Rewatched the great Napoleon Dynamite last night.

The bowling scene reminded me of solving with autocheck on. Which is a great time/frustration saver but seems a little cheaty (though not as bad as using gutter blockers).

Kip almost bowls a strike!

Had forgotten about Rex Kwan Do (D’oh?), where the first rule is “I shall respect Rex”.

Also features Kip - who looks how I imagine like Rex looked in his younger years - WAVESKIing on some sweet blades behind Napoleon’s two-wheeler.

Rex Kwan Do!

Anonymous 8:35 AM  

The ridiculous thing is LIRE instead of LIRA for old Italian currency when Americans don't get panino or cappuccini. It took me a while to catch that and fix SENECA, but we talk about the lira. That is just poor editing. Never heard of a SINE BAR or a TABOURET or ENSOR. Pretty obscure stuff to me. I thought having to type in the second letter was kind of ridiculous too. Otherwise, better than yesterday and Friday.

Nancy 8:39 AM  

Liked this one a lot! If I had gone to see "The Wiz" even once like everyone else has, I would have been able to make I'VE EATEN fit at 1D from the get-go. But I never could stand all that shrill caterwauling from the woman with the green face. So I didn't know EE ON DOWN THE ROAD.

What made it even harder to see was that I had "THE ROAr", not "THE ROAD". SErenE instead of SEDATE for "Calm" -- and I wouldn't give it up.

I had less trouble not knowing ANTIHERO -- which came in on its own. I don't listen to Taylor Swift either -- can't stand all that endless caterwauling about her relationships-gone-bad.

And even though I've never heard of, much less listened to the BLACKEYED PP, I have heard of a TEACUP POODLE. I'm pretty sure that's where I picked up the theme. By then ??ITORLOSEIT was already filled in and everything fell into place.

Very enjoyable -- with wonderfully well-chosen theme answers at both the Acrosses and the Downs. I always love it when the Acrosses and Downs play differently in a rebus puzzle. Gives it a special je ne said quoi. Great job, Tracy!

Anonymous 8:45 AM  

+1 on the ENSOl/TABOUlET guess. Changed the L to R and still no luck. I had a couple others I wasn’t sure on (aly vs Ali). Thought I’d tried every iteration. Finally had to give due to too many little “not sure” squares that didn’t end up solving.

As it turns out, I had BEHeR crossing ePOGEE and didn’t notice. Disappointing streak buster!

Nancy 9:00 AM  

Did most of it yesterday -- so I forgot that I inadvertently cheated on the backless stool. I had SERENE, remember, for "Calm" -- giving me nABOURET for the stool. NABOURET???Really??? I fed NABOURET into Google. Google sniffed dismissively and sent me back TABOURET. I looked up TABOURET and it was...wait for it!...a stool!

This enabled me to change SERENE to SEDATE. So, I'm not sure I would have been able to finish this without the help from Google. But as God is my witness, I didn't intend to cheat!

Anonymous 9:06 AM  

Hey RP, loved the EE E rating! More medium for me with stumbles in NE and SW but a decent Sunday outing .

@Lewis, seems incredible that NYYANKEE has never been used!

@Anonymous 733 -- clever!

Rain and snow finally gone- time to start outdoor spring work...

Anonymous 9:07 AM  

Kinda snippy there, dude.

burtonkd 9:08 AM  

My local farmer’s market collaborates with Cornell University to grow experimental varieties of apples. The NY452 is delicious;)
STAYMAN Winesap is my favorite, but wasn’t sure it is widely known enough for xword fame.

TABOURET, we’ve met: glad to finally learn your name.

UDO/SOTO: I didn’t see SO TO as 2 words. Was wondering if it was some kind of sotto voce variation.

I didn’t see the gimmick as quickly as Rex. NYANKEES was the one where I got YY to the puzzle.

Anonymous 9:10 AM  

Meh, look at the grumpiness/condescension said Anon was responding to. “This is yet another puzzle that would be better suited to People Magazine than the (supposedly) literate NYT” is a pretty odd complaint when your one example is TABOURET/ENSOR. Signed, a grumpy Anon, but not THAT grumpy Anon.

PH 9:11 AM  

Medium. Challenging if you didn't know BEHAR/ENSOR, or KASEM for SAMARRA (thanks Rex!) Had ALI for ALY; STAIMAN looks more like a name than STAYMAN, surname of the apple's developer.

Impressive construction. 6 themers + 6 crossing themers, all in symmetry. I imagine this constrained the fill options quite a bit, so the potential Naticks are understandable. Can't wait to impress people at the local biker bar with TABOURET, while ordering a martini.

Cheers, Tracy!

Anonymous 9:24 AM  

How did you just complain that the puzzle was both too obscure and too lowbrow in the same paragraph?

Also, at this point, Harry Potter and Tolkien are ubiquitous. If you don’t know them, that’s on you.

Anonymous 9:25 AM  

With Rex’s wife on PAREN. That’s just awful

Anonymous 9:33 AM  

What about slur/udo?!? I mean, c’mon. Natick city amirite?

Anonymous 9:35 AM  

Loved this…made for a perfect Sunday ! Thank you Tracy well done !

RooMonster 9:35 AM  

Hey All !
Fell into the traps mentioned by Rex. Got the Almost There! message, hit Check Puzzle, and it crossed out my I at ALI/STAIMAN, the N at TABOUnET/ENSOn (was debating L as well), and the E I had at BEHeR/ePOGEE. That last one started out as BaHeR, because I will always have the vowels in that way. Never changed the incorrect E to an A after changing the incorrect A to an E.

Got the theme trick fairly early in the solve. Didn't write in double letters, however, but the App did it for me upon completion. So either a single letter or a Rebussed double letter is fine. Puz solved either way.

Only 68 Blockers, a good 10 short of normal for a SunPuz, 78 being normalish. Nice, more open space for ya. Tougher to fill for the constructor. Fill came out decent, considering.

My Nit if the Day: A lot of THEs in here, EESONDOWNTHEROAD, AWORDTOTHEYY, CCTHEMOMENT, WETHE, INTHEAIR. But, minor.

Very nice and FunSunPuz, Tracy!

Five F's (AYEaye!)
RooMonster
DarrinV

Dan A 9:36 AM  

Bad Natick at ALi/STAiMAN

Joe R. 9:44 AM  

I have to thank They Might Be Giants for their song “Meet James ENSOR”, made that one easy for me, saved me from any TABOURET woes. But I got zapped by the ALi/STAiMAN crossing, and took forever to find my error when I didn’t get the happy music.

A 9:45 AM  

“I’ll take Saturday-style torture any day…” Me TOO! There’s just TOO much room for the suboptimal on Sundays. On the other had, I found a wonderful Food and Wine article on 85 apple varieties that answered the age-old question “Does stamen rhyme with STAiMAN or STAYMAN?”

My DNF was in the SW, where I was TOO TIreD either “to make the first move” or to question TOrCAT and EMeLIO.

The TSAR is back.

I like the clues for FLASK and SEASON.

I also like the word CIDERY. Weird that I just read it yesterday for the first time.

OO AND EE double the fun in the symmetry department today: TOO CUTE and ENTREES, AM TOO and NO FEE, with runners-up CABOOSES and STEEPLES. DOE and REE don’t quite qualify but they’re a good start. Off to find mi, fa, sol, la and si….

Glen Laker 9:46 AM  

Also not a fan of crossing a jewelry store with an Iraqi city. Had sUmarra/Uni, before switching to the A. Admittedly, Ani is a better name guess than Uni, but I was (wrongly) confident about Sumarra.

JonnyZ 9:51 AM  
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lewis 9:53 AM  

@egs -- Hah! Great post!

Anonymous 9:55 AM  

Can someone explain to me what PAREN is?

Colin 9:59 AM  

@egsforbreakfast, 1:07 AM beat me to GG Louise, and @Lewis, 7:23 AM, beat me to BB knees...
I enjoyed this but figured RXX criticisms would NNue - agree especially about TABOURET and ENSOR (although I shoulda been suspicious about writing ENSOL with TABOULET).

Anonymous 10:11 AM  

Nope, the Good Samaritan is from Samaria, which was on the West Bank. Just a coincidence.

57Stratocaster 10:22 AM  

I thought Stayman might be an Apple product like a Walkman was a Sony product.

Anders 10:30 AM  

Odd to rate this EE E, I see an awful lot of WTFs for a Sunday: TABOULET, SINE BAR, STAYMAN, VOILE, UDO? I’m lucky to recognize James ENSOR, Tito PUENTE, and EMILIO Pucci, but can imagine those names giving trouble as well.

Anonymous 10:46 AM  

PUENTE crossing ENSOR and TABOURET made the NE corner an impossibility for me without lookups. Ditto for SLUR/UDO, but at least those aren't proper nouns, I guess. I think PAREN wins the award for laziest fill. That is just pure trash.

Victoria 10:53 AM  

Stayman/Aly . . . alas!!!

Anonymous 10:54 AM  

On my first pass through the acrosses I knew there was some extra letter trickery and really wanted AMNESIaC at 70A. Thank Radiohead for that. So it took me some extra time to hone in on the actual theme.

Eventually puzzled through that but still DNF on the common complaints. SErenE. ENSOR/TABOURET. KASEM/SAMARRA. SINEBAR. Trouble in every corner except the SW. The new editing has not been friendly to me.

johnk 11:38 AM  

If I spent all my time watching TV talk and reality shows, I could likely plunk my RR down on my TABOURET and solve NYTXWs like DD without google. But what's the UU of being that unYY?

Anonymous 11:52 AM  

Not easy for me at all! My first answer I got was [EASE] ON DOWN THE ROAD (big musical theatre nerd), so when I did the down and saw IVE EATEN I figured “oh okay, so in the acrosses it’s the full word, in the downs it’s only the first letter.” This was confirmed by BLACK EYED [PEAS], because the down was TEA CUP POODLE. Same rule, across is the full word, down uses just the first letter in two ways. Sometime later I was at a standstill and checked the puzzle, and it confirmed all by rebuses (ie EASE and PEAS) as true. So when I got down to SIGHT FOR SORE [EYES], but the down was M-A-M [EYES] - K (and since I know nothing of reality TV, I was looking for two E’s. The whole “Eyes sounds like I’s” never occurred to me. This is why I hate the tricky puzzles. Just give me trivia! That’s what I’m good at! Ugh. Not fun.

Anonymous 12:03 PM  

Parenthesis

Liveprof 12:04 PM  

@Son Volt. Thanks, as always, for the great music. Have you heard this version of SENOR? -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrDr7wKp-Ss

Anonymous 12:07 PM  

ANOINTS had clever cluing (Rubs the rite way?)

Absolutely with Rex’s wife on PAREN.

QUESO DIP is still cringy if you’re from the southwest. It’s either chile con queso or just queso. The only advantage of calling it queso dip is that it makes it easier to identify substandard Tex-Mex restaurants.

RickO 12:08 PM  

It may just be me, but if your gimmick for the puzzle is a double-letter rebus theme, then you should do all you can to avoid double letters in the rest of the puzzle. CABOOSES, OMELETTE, REE, APOGEE, ESCAPEE, HOTTIE, LITTERED, STEEPLES - and those are just the acrosses. Plenty more in the downs.

jb129 12:14 PM  

I loved this - & I'm not a fan of rebuses (rebi?). A couple of things tripped me up - TONK, STAYMAN & Caboose & Tivo 2x in one week, but that's not her fault.

A really fun solve from a pro. I could tell as soon as I began the difference from recent puzzles.

Thank you, Tracy for a fun Sunday :)


Joe 12:23 PM  

Couldn’t get it: Puente, Ensor, Tabouret, just to name a few.

Kate Esq 12:29 PM  

Surprised RP didn’t comment on the second Caboose we’ve seen this week, which just strikes me as sloppy editing. Very similarly clued, too. The first caboose felt fresh. This one felt … less so.

Overall, I liked this puzzle, though. The theme was just tricky enough (I love a rebus, and i picked it up with the Black Eyed Peas) there wasn’t too much junk in the fill. Some of the trivia was a bit obscure but IMO gettable, but that may be because Tito Puente somehow lives in the recesses of my brain and so do Tabouret stools (I couldn’t have conjured them from scratch, but once I got most of the crosses (except for Ensor) I could fill it in. Ease on Down the Road is the beginning and ending of my trivia knowledge about the Wiz, but it’s enough, and I’m not familiar with the names of the finger lakes but again that was inferrable from crosses.
Didn’t love the partials, didn’t love “paren”, didn’t love “amnesic” (surely that deserves an extra a?) but overall an enjoyable puzzle.

Liveprof 12:32 PM  

This (North) Jersey boy is very familiar with STAYMAN apples. Wikipedia tells us they were developed in Kansas back in 1866 by Joseph Stayman.

Liveprof 12:49 PM  

Can someone explain why the person who escapes is an ESCAPEE and not an escaper? I've seen signs calling people who stand on buses "standees." But aren't they "standers?" (I'm not kidding (for once) -- this has always puzzled me.)

Carola 12:50 PM  

Medium for me, and fun to solve. Early on, I got the idea of the doubled letters when "ease" wouldn't fit...but I couldn't make any sense of the 1 Down cross (partly because of that curtain fabric, which I guessed was tOILE [hi, @Conrad]). BLACK-EYED [PP] x TEACU[PP]OODLE showed me how the crosses worked, and then the rest came more quickly. My favorites were figuring out how "ARE YOU UP?" was going to come out and what would cross A WORD TO THE YY.

Re: TABOURET - **Spoiler alert for Friday's puzzle**: On Friday I wondered, "Is a BANC really a "Chaise alternative"? (Hi, @Nancy). I went to the French version of Wikipedia and looked up "chaise," where I read, "Une chaise est un type de siège....Un siège pour une personne sans dossier ni repose-bras est un tabouret ; pour plus d'une personne c'est un sofa ou un banc." Et voilà.

Do-overs: tOILE, cUp (of popcorn!, when I myself eat it by the boatload), nachO DIP. Help from previous puzzles: PUENTE, KASEM.

Anonymous 1:25 PM  


Absolutely no chance for any old people like me

jae 1:37 PM  

I only know ENSOR from Xwords, but I’m slightly surprised that so many solvers had trouble with him as he shows up with some regularity in NYT puzzles. Maybe it’s been a while since his last appearance? @Lewis, is it possible to find out how recently he’s been an answer?

thefogman 1:42 PM  

Pretty easy after I figured out the gimmick. SINEBAR was an unknown to me. And so was CINC. Never heard of WAVESKI either. BRIS made me BRIStle. Not bad for a debut puzzle.

Son Volt 1:46 PM  

@Liveprof 12:04p - that’s a fantastic version and one I’ve read Dylan really likes. I love the mariachi inspired Willie take but my favorite remains when I saw the JGB do it live - ‘91 in Providence.

Anonymous 1:52 PM  

I was combing through the comments just to see if anyone else knew James Ensor from They Might Be Giants.

MetroGnome 2:06 PM  

Bailed. Cute gimmick (which I actually figured out pretty early on), but I was utterly unable to slog through the morass of names, brand names, proper nouns, and obscure trivia along the way.

Ben 2:20 PM  

I usually find Sundays a chore, but this one I liked! One thing Rex didn't point out about the theme -- going down, the double letters all split across words, which is always nice for this kind of puzzle.

I ended up with one blank square at the ENSOR/TABOURET crossing and ran the alphabet to no avail, then went back through the grid until I realized that ALi/STAiMAN could instead be ALY/STAYMAN, then ran the alphabet again at the first crossing and got my happy jingle.

Masked and Anonymous 2:32 PM  

Well-crafted SunPuz, with a mini-rebus theme.

EEONDOWNTHEROAD gave m&e the necessary puztheme mcguffin knowledge, early-on. Cool themer, btw.

staff weeject pick: REE. Mother Goose's fault, I reckon.

A few pesky no-knows: TEACUPPOODLE/TABOURET. SINEBAR. WAVESKI. SAMARRA. MIAMIINK. ENCANTO.

some fave stuff: QUESODIP. STOCKCAR. ANTIHERO a la Swifties. ANOINTS clue.

Thanx for the fun, Ms. Gray darlin. Good job.

Masked & Anonymo5Us


**gruntz**

Anonymous 2:44 PM  

Tidepods was fun

Anonymous 2:45 PM  

Can someone please explain the FARM answer (115 across)?

okanaganer 2:57 PM  

@jae, here is the history of ENSOR on xwordinfo.com. Last use June 2023; used about once a year.

Anonymous 3:18 PM  

Hoping @Rex listens to this TMBG song!

Anonymous 3:19 PM  

Agree totally about Spartan apples ... definitely the Goldilocks apple ... crisp, not hard... a beautiful blend of sweet and tart ... shiny and superb!!! Is it only in BC? I have a hard time finding anywhere else.

PH 3:28 PM  

WSJ and LAT have also had ENSOR at least once a year from 2020-2023. (Source: crosswordtracker.com) Friendly xword letters, and almost always clued as the Belgian painter.

xwordinfo.com also shows that this is Tracy's 36th NYT, not a debut. She also has a Sunday-Saturday cycle. Certainly not an amateur constructor :)

Liveprof 3:30 PM  

@Son Volt. It's a hell of a song. I'll catch what I can on Youtube for JGB, thanks. Must have been something live.

Sam 3:42 PM  

Few minutes over average Sunday time. Finished by correcting ALI to ALY.

Anonymous 3:44 PM  

@Anon 2:45 PM They mean to farm, as a verb. To sow and hoe for dough = to plant and tend your fields for a living, i.e., to farm.

Anonymous 3:50 PM  

I’ve known it for years ~RP

jae 5:39 PM  

@okankganer & PH - Thanks for confirming my somewhat fuzzy Xword memory.

Smith 6:13 PM  

Agree with the EE-E rating, got the trick at The Wiz. 115A really held me up trying to think of a 4 letter word for homophone... eventually had F_RM from crosses and started plugging in vowels with A, and got the AHA, so that was fun.
I thought 59A was bizarre, where else would the Gospels be? With a capital letter? Oh, you mean those *other* Gospels? The ones in the Declaration of Independence? Or Colm Toibin?
Also, AMNESIC?
But overall pretty good.

okanaganer 6:56 PM  

@anonymous 3:19 pm.. I looked up Spartan apples and they were created about 15 minutes north of here in Summerland! I thought they were more widespread, but it seems they're grown in a few northern climes like the U.K. I think they're not quite as popular these days because other sweeter varieties seem to sell better. As you said, their crispy tartness is the best.

Anonymous 8:26 PM  

Tabouret crossing Ensor is arguably a natick as Rex said. ( Natick crossing NC Wyeth in the original puzzle) Interesting that both involve artists. On the other hand, I knew Ensor from previous puzzles, so maybe not as obscure as old NC?
But Ken Freeland did confuse me because he criticized the Times for being like People magazine while mentioning Ensor surrealist precursor born in 1860 and tabouret a piece of furniture from the court of Louis XIV!
Perhaps he confused answers
But is it fair to trash the Times for what they didn’t do?

dgd 8:48 PM  

Liveprof
You asked about escapee etc.
Z who used to comment here would say
Because English.

There is no logical explanation because language isn’t logical!

Justin 9:07 PM  

I enjoyed the theme, but the ENSOR/TABOURET crossing is disqualifying. I ended the puzzle by plugging various letters in until it went through. Never fun.

Anonymous 1:30 AM  

I’m both mad and amused that the clue “mean” is filled as “intend” today when “mean” is originally what I had filled in as the answer for Saturday’s clue of “intend” (the correct fill being “hope”).

CDilly52 4:50 AM  

This seemed as if maybe the editor ran out of time, or interest? Or just isn’t quite ready for prime time? For once, I agree with @Rex on the really weak areas. They could have used some good old Will S. Overall though, it was a very Sunday Sunday.

The theme is “of a type” well known to regular Sunday solvers (or early week for that matter), and the theme answers, fairly easily sussed out also give the solver quite a bit of fill to help with the tougher parts. I had the trick immediately when I began to EE ON DOWN THE ROAD. Looking for and quickly solving the other theme clues helped give me a jump start that allowed me to dispatch the puzzle more quickly than usual on a Sunday.

Along with many, the ENSOR/TABOURET cross was toughish although the downs for ENSO_ were pretty easy and the final R inferrable.

Overall, pretty easy but enjoyable. I’ve been solving for a long time and admitnthat I frg

Anonymous 6:05 AM  

Down here in Central Jersey they’re sold as Stayman Winesap, and we love them. Didn’t realize they were so obscure.

Anonymous 7:11 AM  

such good phil.

Anonymous 10:03 AM  

Yeah, hopefully this NYT gig will be the big break the Johns have been waiting for! I feel sorry for the people who have been wasting their lives NOT listening to TMBG.

Clif10 6:53 AM  

Tabouret is the French word for a bar stool, so it wasn't a challenge for me, but I don't think I've ever heard the word used in English. Hey, dude, you're sitting on my tabouret!

kitshef 7:13 PM  

Very, very easy, right up until the Natick at SAMARRA/ANI/MTA. I guessed right on ANI, but wrong on MTA.

Anonymous 5:33 PM  

Exactly!

spacecraft 11:35 AM  

LOT of problems with this one. The NE was absolutely brutal, including a very bad cross at 17d/35a. Nor was SEASON immediately gettable via "Give a kick, say." That one eventually dawned, and it was fair, but miles away from easy. BTW, my Scrabble dictionary does not recognize TABOURET as a word--nor CIDERY.

More ridiculousness: PAREN. And then CINC. It's CIC, no "N." You say we have a new editor? The man should, maybe, uh, EDIT.

SErenE fits where SEDATE belongs, a glitch that cost a ton of time. We have yet another kealoa. Likewise, LITafire fits the clue as well as the space for LITTERED. Here's another weird one: NYYANKEE. I mean, if you're gonna abbreviate, then do it! NYY. Or else New York Yankee. Don't mix! This is my beef with the ampersandwich!

And finally, please, how close is NEARISH? Bogey--and that's generous.

Wordle DNF. Really? they're now TRIPLING letters? Talk about unfair! And it's a kid's word, short for lollipop. LOLLY LOLLY get your adverbs here. Gimme a break.

Burma Shave 3:01 PM  

YOU BRIS

SO YOU (UU)ITORLOSEIT,
IT'S AWORDTOTHE(YY),
A WIFE with A KNIFE may (UU)it,
IT'S NO SIGHTFORSORE(II).

--- SENOR EMILIO PUENTE

rondo 3:27 PM  

Oh boy, a rebus on Sunday. As if they weren't tiresome enough. ALY Raisman is becoming semi-regular; memorable appearance in The Body Issue.
I have been using two opening words for Wordle at a 95% to 5% rate; the first makes me irate, and the second is lousy. Today I felt lousy, and by folly and by golly got a par, but still feel more like irate.

Diana, LIW 5:51 PM  

This did not double my pleasure, nor did it double my fun. Oh - come - on!!

Diana, LIW

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