.png)
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easy in general, but parsing a couple of those theme answers was tricky)
Theme answers:
- "OH NO, EW, HE IS MY EX" (16A: *"Yuck! I've dated him before. Swipe left!")
- "SO, IS IT / UP TO ME?" (23A: *With 42-Across, "Well, do I decide or not?")
- "DO AS WE DO" (32A: *"Follow our lead!")
- "HI, MA. I'M UP" (37A: *"Morning, mother!")
- "OK IF WE GO IN ON IT?" (52A: *"Can this be a gift from all of us?")
The third-generation Chevrolet Camaro is an American pony car which was introduced for the 1982 model year by Chevrolet. It continued to use General Motors' F-body platform and produced a "20th Anniversary Commemorative Edition" for 1987 and "25th Anniversary Heritage Edition" for 1992. These were also the first Camaros with factory fuel injection, four-speed automatic transmissions, five-speed manual transmissions, four-cylinder engines, 16-inch wheels, and hatchback bodies. For 1987 a convertible Camaro was reintroduced, converted by ASC in relatively small numbers. The third-generation Camaro continued through the 1992 model year. [...] For 1985, Chevrolet introduced the IROC-Z version that was named after the International Race of Champions. Offered as an option package on the Z28, the Camaro IROC-Z featured an upgraded suspension, lowered ride height, specially valved Delco-Bilstein shocks, larger diameter sway bars, a steering/frame brace known as the "wonder bar", a special decal package, and an optional Tuned Port Injection system taken from the Chevrolet Corvette. It also shared the Corvette's Goodyear "Gatorback" unidirectional tires in a 245/50/VR16 size vs. the Corvette's 255/50/VR16 size, and received unique new aluminum 5-spoke 16-by-8-inch wheels. The new wheels were designed with different offsets front and rear, resulting in the words "Front" or "Rear" cast into the wheels to distinguish which wheel went where. // The Camaro IROC-Z was on Car and Driver magazine's Ten Best list for 1985. (wikipedia)
• • •
As for the theme, I don't know. Hate to use the word "preposterous" two times so close together, but some of these imagined TWO-word statements do seem that way. I almost like them better when they *are* that way, which is why "DO AS WE DO" kinda ruins things—that's nowhere near the wacky weight class of the other themers. The least a theme like this can do is be consistently, ridiculously wacky, because let me tell you, as revealers go, TWO ... TWO? ... is not really cutting it. I wrote that answer in about halfway through my solve and just stared at it. Then stared into middle distance for a few seconds while I contemplated the nothingness of being that is TWO, summoning the courage to continue. I can't go on. I'll go on. The theme answers are frequently forced. Would you be as informal as "EW" but then use the formal "HE IS" instead of "HE'S"? Unlikely. And there's nothing in the "HI MA, I'M UP" clue suggesting that mom is rousing anyone—"morning" doesn't equate to "I'M UP" very well, or only tenuously. And the initial "words" in a few themers ("OH," "SO," "OK") seem arbitrary. But as I said up front, I can see finding the theme wacky and charming. I didn't, particularly, but I can see how one could. I cannot see how anyone could enjoy how poorly filled this grid is. It tops out at ordinary and frequently sinks far, far lower.
On the plus side, very easy! It's an undersized (14x) grid, so that'll help your solving time for sure, but that's not the only reason this was a speedy experience. Lots of short answers (as we've established), most of them very easy to get (esp. if you are familiar with the full panoply of crosswordese). I had one wrong answer while solving: FOLD for WILT (33D: Crumble under pressure). "Crumble" and WILT couldn't be more dissimilar at a literal level, but figuratively, yeah, the clue works. Time for coffee now. "HI MA, I'M UP!" (just saying hi to my mom in Longmont, CO, who maybe still reads me every morning—I haven't checked recently, but it seems likely. She's pretty ... let's say, loyal, lol. Love you, mom! Did you get my letter? The owl card? Let me know... and say hi to Amy [my sister] when you see her. XO)
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Happy Shakespeare's birthday (observed)
Oh no ew it is no go.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteEasy-Medium solving "Downs Only Lite" (not reading the clues for the long acrosses). Struggled a bit with the "EW" in 16A, primarily because I always render it as "Eww!"
I agree with everything Rex said. I would also like to take this opportunity to apologize to Will Shortz since he is multiple times better than this horrible editor. Crossword puzzles should be fun!
ReplyDeleteThanks for agreeing with me but I would encourage people to stop attacking Joel directly. I delete most comments that get unnecessarily & unfairly personal, no matter who they’re directed at. —RP
DeleteI’m trying to treat this as ojt in some ways for our new editor. There have been flashes of brilliance and based on some of his gluing, it is clear that he is reading OFL’s blog and trying to adjust to meet comments by some of the super stars who leave comments . I still recall the first year of practice as a lawyer , and 40 years later I still cringe at what I thought was quality work. Advice I received which helped from my mentor which may be appropriate for our new editor “ Young lawyers must learn by doing. Once a young lawyer acknowledges that they have a lot to learn and see learning as part of the process, it gets easier.” -Cyndee Todgham Cherniak”
DeleteI heard Will on NPR last Sunday, for the first time in a while, so perhaps he will be back soon.
DeleteThanks for the young lawyer analogy, CTC. I remember my early lawyering years similarly.
DeleteHere’s hoping we give Joel some time for more “doing,” and that the exercise proves as educational for him as it did for me.
The middle south held me up for forever! Like several minutes!
ReplyDelete1. Misread “conservation” as “conversation” and was totally baffled. “A prefix meaning conversation???”
2. I refuse to believe that “screenAGER” is a thing. Never heard it before in my life and this clue makes it seem like a ubiquitous term.
3. ICERS - also, not a thing.
4. I seem incapable of parsing out those “word with x or y” clues. Couldn’t see SPORT for forever. Also since it follows both bad and blood, why not clue it “word following”? Normally when they say word *with* x or y, that means it’s before one and after the other, no?
4. With all of those missing, absolutely flummoxed by the missing EGO in the themer was impossible for me to see. Clue felt vague and the weirdness of the whole two letter thing just prevented me from feeling any kind of flow.
Felt like a Tuesday, kind of, but a very stop-and-start staccato Tuesday without much of a payoff. And ICERS?!? Come on…
Anonymous 6:40 AM
DeleteIcers
In cross world it is most definitely a thing Icer appears often in the Times. To be fair, it is one of those awkward words with er added, but it a word and it is used occasionally “in real life “. I think it is a valid answer
As you probably would acknowledge, one person not ever seeing or hearing a word doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and doesn’t mean it is obscure.
My now go to example is padiddle
Absolutely never heard or seen the word yet half the commenters here did.
Followup on yesterday's ladder PPP (Post-puzzle puzzler)...
ReplyDeleteWell, that was fun!
I didn't set out any rules; perhaps I should have. And if I did, I would have said that any word is in play if it has appeared a good number of times in the NYT puzzle, and I would have set that number at ten.
Looking at the replies, Gary, Okanaganer, and Kitchen all got the ladder in four words, for a three way co-champion tie! (Inset trumpet salute here.)
Way to go, you three!
I’ll be a little more generous than Rex this morning. The theme was kind of cute (and more importantly, harmless) even if some of the answers felt kind of forced. The grid was light on PPP which I’ll take from the NYT anytime I can get it. So the fill contains a lot of crosswordese - I’d much rather work my way through that stuff than cobble together feasible guesses at answers to arcane trivia questions. I just prefer this approach and would welcome more like it.
ReplyDeleteFun twist - enjoyed!
ReplyDeleteAs your resident alphadoppeltotter, a role I’ve inexplicably taken in the past seven years, it is my duty to inform you that this puzzle has an unusually low number of double letters, at three, where unusual is any number less than five. This is the second time this year that this has happened.
ReplyDeleteI remain your humble servant, ever on the alert.
When I saw A PAIN, I thought Rex might object. When I saw SAYS PRESTO, I thought his head might explode.
ReplyDeleteI actually thought this was fairly hard for a Tuesday. Times will probably be good today due to the undersized grid, but there were fair number of difficult(ish) across clues including all the themers.
Super easy. I solved downs-only and found it much easier than yesterday. Admittedly, the themers were difficult to parse until I reached the revealer, and then it made more sense.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mind the theme. It was a little bit clunky, but I forgave that for trying something different and goofy.
SAYS PRESTO isn't nearly as bad as EAT A SANDWICH. It makes sense and has a very specific use. Hardly random.
Easy puzzle but, ugh. The fill (and clues) was horrible in places.
ReplyDeleteUPRISE doesn’t mean what the constructor thinks it means.
A PAIN is a terrible partial. How did that pass the editor’s sniff test?
VID?
ABE *and* FIN clued as slang for $5 bills? The last time anyone used either of those in that sense was…never?
TOFU clued as a "protein"? I mean, what? Myosin is a protein; albumin is a protein; lactose dehydrogenase is a protein. TOFU is coagulated soy milk. It’s a *source of protein*, not a protein, itself.
SAYS PRESTO??? Say what?
And the two longest theme answers, oh my: OHNOEWHEISMYEX and OKIFWEGOINONIT. Oh no, Ew!
Disappointing.
Colloquially, “protein” is used to mean “source of protein.” E.g. on a build-your-own bowl type of menu where chicken, tofu, etc might be listed under “Proteins”
DeleteMerriam Webster gives as the third definition of protein:
Delete“a food (such as meat or tofu) that is rich in protein”
which itself references the first definition, the one you are focused on.
Slow Tuesday by time. Slow brain today. Forgot about SALA. RIP certain-word-game streak.
ReplyDeleteCute. Nice debut by Judy Bowers. I read in her notes that she's been solving for over 40 years. I've seen a few Maleska era puzzles... OOF! It's almost a different language, with a different set of crosswordese. I can't imagine the crossword knowledge that Judy has. *bow*
Fill seemed clean to me, and PPP-free. I'm sure we'll see Judy again in the future. :)
Nice of you to note our constructor’s solving “career,” @ PH 7:30 AM. Your observation is correct. We older consistent solvers (I’ve solved for about 60) do indeed have lots of stuff stored up in the grey matter that would be useless were it not for crosswords!
DeleteWill is a legend but Joel has breathed a different sort of life into these puzzles lately.
ReplyDeleteSurprised no mention of the awful double clue ABE/FIN.
ReplyDeleteNot going to get into the editing again, but I forgot to ever really express when the editing byline changed, how surprisingly short the stockpile was (given that we found out the timing from Will’s NPR interview) and also how flip the switch linear it’s been. Like it’s hard to believe “welp that’s all of Will’s puzzles gone, get cracking Joe”. Or like, really, there’s not a Shortz-edited puzzle or TWO or a hundred lying around. You read all the time from constructors in their notes about long delays from accepted/edited to the run day. Not suggesting anything really, it just seemed odd to me at the time. Guess it still does actually.
"OH NO, EW, HE IS MY EX"
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like dialogue from an episode of Grey's Anatomy written by chatGPT.
It's just... not *quite* how people actually talk.
I could not parse this. The crosses all worked, so I thought that maybe there was some Thursday-level trickery going on. When the other theme answers made sense, I was looking forward to the revealer to make it all clear and provide the aha moment. Sure, it's clear now, but no aha. Just a super lame answer that, yes, sounds like AI nonsense.
DeleteProbably my worst Tuesday time in years, maybe ever. It wasn’t smooth or fun. Says Presto killed me. Since none of these answers are how people talk, I couldn’t get a rhythm. NW corner was easy but them it was just clumsy.
ReplyDeleteSane guy
DeleteAbout the theme answers
I am not sure that crossword puzzles must only have answers which replicate how “people “ talk
Especially when they are part of a gimmick As Lewis said, this a bit of a joke about not having 2 letter answers in puzzles So naturally the answers were a bit different. Like pun answers are so often. But I thought the constructor did a great job considering the restraints of the gimmick.
Also a woman made the puzzle and the first theme answer sounded like what maybe a young woman might think to herself.
Don’t understand the hate for say presto. Maybe an age thing but when I was little a long time ago we used presto when pretending to be magicians. Like abra cadabra
I love the concept. I don’t remember ever seeing this theme before – answers consisting of two-letter words. I also see a wink in this theme, as two-letter words are generally verboten as crossword answers. Original and a bit rebellious – my kind of theme!
ReplyDeleteFirst thing I did, crossnerd that I am, was look for other answers in the grid that could be broken into two-letter-word sentences, and couldn’t find a one. So, more points here for elegance.
OH NO EW HE IS MY EX is classic, worth the price of admission.
The constructor says in her notes that she’s been avidly solving crosswords for more than 40 years, started making puzzles in 2020, and went through a number of rejections before this puzzle caught the editors’ eyes.
That is a lovely story, and may this day be as marvelous as you envisioned, Judy. I loved your theme and am eager to see what you come up with next. Thank you for making this!
Agree with Rex that the puzzle was easy but parsing some theme answers was tricky. Overall (as usual) I liked it more than Rex but I loved his writeup. I’ve been reading this blog for a very long time, and I really think this was one of his best. I guess the right dose of snark puts me in a better mood, thanks!
ReplyDeleteWeak theme, but at least the first grid spanner is funny. EW! Another bad puzzle, but I had fun doing it. OOF is right.
ReplyDeleteAs an elder Gen-Xer I don't see my life vis-Ã -vis the Me Generation as their "heirs," but more as their victims.
You mean to say I live just down the road from the 🦖 mom?! Very exciting. It's like Britney Spears dad just moved into the next trailer to mine.
Propers: 4
Places: 1
Products: 2
Partials: 4
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 13
Tee-Hee: SEXY / TASTY crossing at the Y.
Uniclues:
1 Andes residents swing by McDonald's.
2 Place for a massages and cement galoshes.
3 Helsinki hockey players dominated.
4 Metaphor about the feelings engendered in people my age about putting dad in the home.
5 Cry upon seeing celebrity leaving the building in Venezuela.
6 Contest to distribute free rhymes.
1 INCAS DO AS WE DO
2 CONS SPA
3 FIN ICERS SLEW
4 GEN X ICE MACHINE
5 ELVIS! I KNEW IT!
6 POEM COMP SPORT
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: The Rex Parker blog. PUZZLES OVER DARK HUMOR.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This took me back to my childhood when I used to say HIMAIMUP every morning to my mother.
ReplyDeleteOK, I didn't but neither did anyone else. Sheesh.
Made a couple of notes to myself re ABE and SAYSPRESTO and agree with the others that found these painful. I actually used to hear FIN once in a while but ABE? Got two ABES for a ten? Just no.
Parsing OHNOEW was mildly entertaining.
Congrats on the debut, JB. I'll give you a pass because you share my wife's initials. I guess a stunt puzzle debut is unusual, and thanks because I had some fun, but Just Barely.
Anonymous@5:39 said it better than I could have. But I will add "ridiculously stupid puzzle" anyway.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was clever enough. And am very happy to see a female constructor published.
ReplyDeleteCleverness seems to be the thing the editorial team is seeking these days, rather than fun.
But I am confident they will find their way, finding the balance of both.
No doubt the widespread availability of constructing software has affected fill quality, for both good and ill. I’m a beginning constructor, and it would have taken me a very long time indeed to come up with even one puzzle manually. So I suspect they are inundated with applications, a systemic problem unlikely to change. (Just as Waze now brings heavy traffic through my one block side street)
Enjoyed your analysis, @Rex, it’s my morning smile.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteDifferent. Tuesday.
Not a terrible puz. It does what it does, and fairly well.
Congrats to Judy on finally getting a puz published. I have all but given up. I did have one accepted once, but couldn't meet the criteria of acceptable fill on the revisions. AH ME.
Fill decent, lots of TWO letter Themers to navigate through. Did notice the 14 wide grid. Puz actually took slightly longer than average, even though it was smaller. So, brain functioning when noticing smaller grid, but not when filling puz. Silly brain.
Happy Tuesday.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Side note: Anyone know what's going on with Wordle? It won't keep my days solved going, as in, twice now, it just starts as if I have never solved any previous ones. Also, today I couldn't even get to the Check the Solve thingies.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the deal?
Thanks
RooMonster Word Guy
Missing a day counts as a loss
DeleteI had the same experience and contacted the Times. They acknowledged there was an error at their end and restored my streak. They also advised me to make sure Wordle was linked to my account.
DeleteNice puzzle with a clever theme. My only complaint is that EW isn't a word. I've seen "eew" and "eww" as expressions of distaste.
ReplyDeleteHow many days has it been since the last stunt puzzle in which a constructor put constraints on himself that absolutely no one in the world asked him to -- thereby subjecting us, the solvers, to a perfectly awful experience?
ReplyDelete(That was the one with no "I"s allowed in the clues.)
Could this one be even worse? Ya. Ew, ya! It no ok to me.
Some of it does work. There's nothing wrong with SO IS IT UP TO ME or OK IF WE GO IN ON IT. But if you have to resort to HI MA I'M UP and the cringe-making OH NO EW HE IS MY EX, it's time to jettison your theme idea as much too limiting.
I just know there will be people here who found the subliterate phrases amusing, even ADORBS. My mileage varied a lot.
I enjoyed the puzzle. I didn’t mind the double $5 bill clue. It brought back a happy memory. My parents were always prompt regarding dinner. Once we had to wait to get in a restaurant and my mom furtively turned to my husband and said regarding the host at the front, “Just slip him a fin!”. How I miss the folks of that generation and their fun expressions, among many other wonderful qualities they possessed!
ReplyDeletewhat was with all the cake references?
ReplyDelete@Nancy 9:20 AM
ReplyDeleteHand up as one "who found the subliterate phrases amusing." 🤘
Literally the only good thing about this puzzle was imagining Rex's reaction to some of those answers.
ReplyDeleteI almost jumped over here mid-puzzle just to check out what the reaction to SAYS PRESTO would be.
Atrocious
ReplyDelete@Roo (9:01)
ReplyDeleteRepeat after me:
"The day I let some soulless, creepy, error-prone bot determine for me how smart I am or how long my streak is -- hah! -- that will be the day! I know how smart I am and I know how long my streak is and even if I don't know how long my streak is, I wouldn't even care about my streak if you didn't insist on calling my attention to it every day. So just bug off, bot!"
When the bot tells me, Roo, that I have a 1-day or 2-day "streak" going, I always think that I forgot to do the Wordle at some point. This is more than likely: Wordle is not my thing; Phrazle is my thing. 100 times more interesting and challenging than Wordle, Phrazle is almost completely a matter of skill and not of luck. I highly recommend it to everyone.
Well, it was fun filling in the theme answers, and I was looking forward to a long struggle to figure out how they constituted a theme. Maybe words hidden inside words? No. Or strings of letters you could parse different ways, like HI MAIM UP? (Which sounds like one of those things to remember in a dementia screening) No again. But then I fill in an innocent looking 3-letter down and find it's the revealer. What a letdown.
ReplyDeleteI did admire the understatement of the clue for KUWAIT. Oh yes, it does border Iraq--now, why did I know that? Hmmm... But that was was back in the GHWB Era, so I guess it's no longer meaningful.
Stage magicians sometimes actually do SAY PRESTO as they reveal that the woman they sawed in half is now whole again, so I thought that was all right. And I think the IROC probably has a large fan group outside of puzzledom who will be happy to see it here. (I'm not in that group -- I don't even know what a "pony car" is.)
Rex is right that a puzzle needs to do all or nothing on wackiness; but actually the outlier is OHNOEWHEISMYEX. All the others are things people actually say.
But why is a GAEL a "certain" Scotsman? Are there non-Gaelic Scots? Not as far as I know.
Shakespeare shares this birthday with my elder son, who was "due" to be born on April 20--Hitler's birthday! We've always been glad he had the good sense to wait three days before making his debut!
ReplyDeleteA couple of non-theme-related two letter words that should have been avoided: UP (in 14A, UP ONE) and, especially, IT (in 38D, I KNEW IT), since IT also appears in the themer OKIFWEGOINONIT--there's a 14 letter word worthy of a double take!
What a coincidence. Just the other day I overheard this conversation while visiting the local Insane Asylum:
ReplyDeleteYo Yo Ma is on TV. So? Is he hi? No, he is lo. So is an ox in an ad on an el. Ha! Go on! OK, so be it.
If you're going to do this two letter word theme, you've got to eliminate non-theme answers that are also made up of two letter words. But what is a two letter word? Well, in the words of William Jefferson Clinton, "It depends on what your definition of ISIS." (See 36A).
I think that doing something new and interesting is always good, even if it turns out not to lead to a wonderful solving experience. I'm sensing that Joel F is more of an experimenter than Will. His choices are not better or worse, but I'm getting a different vibe and, on the whole, I'm liking it. So let's not UPRISE. Let's just down cool and see how things develop.
And congrats on the debut, Judy Bowers.
This was actually slower than my usual time. I struggled to parse out the themers and got stuck in the middle for a bit. I was a little frustrated when solving because of this. And I was annoyed by the theme.
ReplyDeleteThat said, having thought about it more, I actually like the theme. The first themer is great. The rest are decent (although hi ma i'm up drags this down a bit). I like the wink at including two word answers and rebelling against puzzle conformity.
What detracts from the theme is the fill. Tyro. Fin. Acer. Isis (side note - if we shouldn't have NRA, we shouldn't have ISIS). Icers. Une. This needed more polish. There were some good moments - Kaput, Posse. I feel like this could have been better with more focus on the detail. So I've gone full circle on it - annoyed at first, appreciative for a while, and backed to annoyed, mostly that the fill detracted from a theme that I liked.
har. Well, as Tarzan would say… OO HA ME BE SO IN TO IT.
ReplyDeleteSam Morse would say … di di di da da da di di di.
M&A would say … UH YO IT BE SO SO GO HO OK TO DO EV PT OF EM IN 2S.
Different. M&A likes different. And some of these themers were so bad, they were good -- soooo … gotta go with thUmbsUp.
Pretty easy themers to decode, except maybe for that much-admired EW word in 16-A. And that was a primo dab of well-splatzed Ow de Speration, IM&AO.
staff weeject picks: Every single one of them runty puztheme words, of course.
some fave stuff: APRICOT. EXCLAIM. IKNEWIT [aka ME NU IT]. SAYSPRESTO [aka AN EW NO NO TO RP]. KAPUT/KUWAIT. 14-wide puzgrid [viva le smallish stuff].
Judy Judy Judy. Thanx for all them funny two-fers, Ms. Bowers darlin. And congratz on yer unique debut.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
p.s. And now, back to the peppy Pecker-packed proceedins…
**gruntz**
UM...is it me or is it, um, do do....? No...it is so so.
ReplyDeleteQue interesting but yikes! SAYS PRESTO, I'd never want to sit down at a bar with a drink in my hand and have someone come up to me and SAYS PRESTO. Two more ICE cubes, please.
I thought this idea was clever. I'm also betting it wasn't all that easy to make. Do you know the hardest answer for me was ELVIS? I forgot about "Priscilla" and [gasp] I never much liked Elvis.
I mixed up my ABE and my FIN. Was this @ACME's malapop? ...Other than a few little blips here and there I finished. I looked at the puzzle. I looked at little bitty TWO and went on to think about cake.
Really?
ReplyDeleteI found myself resenting this puzzle for putting me through it. And even pondering isn't it "EEW" ? Absurd.
But congrats on your debut, Judy :)
This was the first time I came to the blog hoping Rex would be appalled, because I was (and I'm rarely as incensed as he is at a given puzzle). Astonishingly bizarre fill.
ReplyDeleteI found the theme answers charming when I saw what was happening, but what made my day was
ReplyDeleteLEAVES MODESTO
I laughed for 5 minutes. And then resumed reading and got to Waiting for Godot.
Oh my.
I need to lie down.
Who says “Hi” to their mom from inside their room (or from upstairs, or wherever) when announcing that they are awake? “Mom, I’m up,” sorta makes sense as an answer, but why the “Hi”? Totally bizarre.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I laughed out loud at “SAYS PRESTO is about as solid an answer as EATS PESTO or LEAVES MODESTO.” Agreed - comically bad.
Surely it can’t be this easy. It’s Tuesday. So I overthought it, second-guessed everything, and made it hard.
ReplyDeleteMedium-tough for me and I’m not sure why other than the top center took some effort, plus parsing the theme answers wasn’t a piece of TORTE.
ReplyDeleteNo WOEs and debt before COST was it for erasures.
Underwhelming.
OK, I’M dancing with @Gill today, kind of SO SO. We’re doing the DO si DO or something like that. And by the way, I agree on the ELVIS thing. There’s no doubt he is legendary and his music will live ON forever, but he never did a thing for me.
ReplyDeleteThis is a puzzle which is going to have some detractors but I found it to be a pleasant enough solve. The theme is something different and I try to appreciate the effort to change things UP a bit – speaking of which, did we really need three of those in the grid? But in any case, congratulations to Judy on the debut.
https://foursquare.com/top-places/modesto/best-places-pesto
ReplyDeleteRe: "subliterate phrases"
ReplyDeleteThe first paper I wrote in college was on The Iliad and the professor's comment on my effort was "an utterly illiterate work." Ouch. That was back in 1967. It's been a long trudge uphill from there.
Naturally, as I filled Downs across the top row, I wrote EFF as the "Beginning to form". But that hardly rendered my solve KAPUT.
ReplyDeleteSO IT IS OK BY ME.
16A sounds like it came right out of a "Resident Alien" script.
ReplyDeleteAm I losing it if looking at __RI___ took me a while to think of APRICOT for the small peach resembler? I KNEW IT!
Thanks, Judy Bowers, this was odd enough to be fun.
Interesting that IROC is criticized as bad fill, but also elevated as word of the day. It's almost iro(ni)c!
ReplyDeleteI balked at the clue for wilt, which has nothing to to with crumbling or pressure, and everything to do with drooping from lack of (water) pressure.
I thought the 2-letter-word theme answers had a certain ridiculous goofy charm.
Word of the Day has nothing to do w/ “elevation”
Deletesmall-town doc seems too be overly grouchy today.
ReplyDeleteI see no problem with APAIN,ABE and FIN - Have heard or read them many times as slang for a$5 ( maybe last century)- TOFU clued as a protein, VID as clued, nor SAYS PRESTO.
UPRISE on the other hand.
I thought it unusual, as I've only heard the noun form UPRISING related to rebel. Looked it up after seeing SMD's comment and yer right Doc. Not even the last listing gave a meaning of rebel.
Took me forever to parse the 16A theme. Did not like it when I finally did. But the rest were fun.
Here’s a challenge for a constructor - do a puzzle where ALL the answers are made up of two-letter words!
ReplyDeleteI give the theme a thumbs UP just for being different. At first I tried downs only, in which case I shrink the Across clue area so I can't see those clues. When I hit the clue to 54 down I thought oh no, can't tell where the stars are! I guessed 16 and 52 across were starred, so I counted the width which at 14 is only divisible by SEVEN or TWO. So TWO it was. Math!
ReplyDeleteFor "Rebel", at first I had RISE UP of course. But even as UPRISE, it duplicates a word in a themer! Bad.
[Spelling Bee: Mon 0; streak 15.]
seems 'obvious' the 2 word long theme answers could have just been written more like people speak these days 'omg he is my ex wtf' and so on... the way it stands is just not how anyone speaks ever...
ReplyDeleteso they say..
I just came here today because I knew Rex was going to rant about today's "Terrible Twos." And he did not disappoint.
ReplyDeleteI won't say that the puzzle dazzled me, and there were quite a few three-letter answers, but at the same time the puzzle didn't bother me nearly as much as it did Mr. Rex. It's a Tuesday puzzle. It's not the end of the world.
If the mere existence of SAYS PRESTO as an answer weren't bad enough, I also take issue with the clue's suggested usage. Stereotypically speaking, a magician SAYS PRESTO before doing something, and then SAYS TADA to announce the reveal.
ReplyDeleteConfused by the many who align with Rex in shading “presto”. I’ve heard and seen numerous magical shows where the reveal was preceded precisely by “presto.” All in all, I liked this puzzle though it came across as more challenging than the normal quirky Tuesday offering
ReplyDeleteNo one has a problem with PRESTO
DeleteCongrats to Judy Bowers on this debut! My admiration abounds. As a daily solver for just over 60 years, you I continue to admire all the constructors. Some puzzles engage me more than others, but I admire perseverance. The process of actually creating a puzzle and offering it to the editors, accepting that there will be rejections and continuing to create and submit must be exhausting at times.
ReplyDeleteThe theme fascinated me. An excellent and novel idea. As @Rex mentioned, some of the clues were tough to parse and I felt a tad let down at the end. Sort of like the old (as in my era) Peggy Lee song “Is That All There Is?”
1A was tough. I kept trying to figure out who came to Bethlehem immediately after the MAGI got there? That made me disbelieve all the easy NW downs. I finally got it after getting EXCLAIM, which made me go back and decide she really did mean MAGI.
Anyway, keep creating Judy. This idea has legs. Maybe a stronger connection than just the number of letters in the theme answers would have given this a bit more cohesiveness and power? This from the lifelong (almost) solver who can’t seem to come up with a decent puzzle to create so take it for what it’s worth. And again, congrats!
@Rex, "Leaves Modesto" made me LOL. Sometimes the blog makes slogging through the puzzle worthwhile.
ReplyDeletethanks for the recommendation @Nancy 10:30.
ReplyDeletePHRAZLE!
And congrats on your debut, Judy!
But Jim Horne - is there any reason why your graph of constructor appearances goes back to 1940? 1990 or 2000 or Shortz “Modern” Era may be a more appropriate cutoff, if you want to include this USAToday-type graphic at all (you list their dates, and we appreciate your blog, but this makes new puzzle-makers look like slackers!)
only ONE puzzle created in 84 YEARS?
Had to try to fill the grid myself. The northwest corner can be drastically improved in about 4 seconds, using software. Then tried to get rid of SAYSPRESTO. That was more difficult. In fact the only entry in my wordlist that can span those themers, in that grid, is PAYSHEEDTO, and that forces some really bad fill like ADER. Hmmm... so the constructor did the same and then thought "If I change the P to an S, and the H to a P..." Origin story revealed!
ReplyDeleteHere for the Pedro The Lion / David Bazan plug.
ReplyDeleteOh no.
ReplyDeleteWhy do people try to make "gadget" puzzles? Awkward, not-in-the-language speech patterns for the sake of the TWO-ness. Ew.
Not much to pull this out of double-bogey territory.
Wordle birdie.
Well what can you say. It’s a debut so the editors lowered their standards a bit. Maybe a bit too much. Maybe if they would do their jobs and do some editing it the results wouldn’t be as bad.
ReplyDeleteIt might have gotten a passing grade if not for the inclusion of the non-word EW. EW always has a double W as in EWw. If you’re going to construct a puzzle based an a two-letter word gimmick you’ve got to make sure every single two-letter word actually exists.
ReplyDeleteBest two words puzzle ever.
ReplyDeleteHahahahahahaha!!
So I was wondering what it would be like if one were to spend the day speaking in 2-letter words. How long would it take for others to catch on, or would they?
ReplyDeleteMr W goes in for foot surgery on Thursday (at 5:30 am)) so this was just what I needed to remove my mind from reality. I shall, of course, bring a x-word book with me to the waiting room. An easy one and a tuffy! And a mystery novel, of course.
Diana, Waiting Lady for Crosswords