Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Fragrant neckwear / TUES 4-30-24 / Pixar film set in Mexico / Three-word Last Supper question / Why Pinocchio's nose grows

Hi, everyone! It’s Clare for the last Tuesday — and last day — of April. Hope everyone stays cool as the heat ratchets up. We already had a high of 90 degrees here in D.C. today. I tried to enjoy the fair weather over the weekend and went for a nice long bike ride. But I had to contend with the fact that, well, everyone else also decided that being outside was a great idea. In other news, I’ve been crying over the Premier League and my Reds. But I’ve been celebrating how the Steelers did in the draft this year! It seems like quite the good class, led by Troy Fautanu, an offensive tackle we took in the first round, who seems to be just about the loveliest (and most talented) person around. 

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Michèle Govier

Relative difficulty: Easy-medium

THEME: WIGGLE ROOM (62A: Space to maneuver, or a hint to five sets of circled letters in this puzzle) — The circled letters zig zag going down and form five names of rooms one might find in a home

Theme answers:
  • PARLOR 
  • PANTRY 
  • LOUNGE 
  • STUDY 
  • ATTIC
Word of the Day: BREADFRUIT (16A: Crop named for its doughy texture when cooked) —
Breadfruit is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry and jackfruit family believed to be a domesticated descendant of the breadnut originating in New Guinea, the Maluku Islands, and the Philippines. It was initially spread to Oceania via the Austronesian expansion. Its name is derived from the texture of the moderately ripe fruit when cooked, similar to freshly baked bread and having a potato-like flavor.The trees have been widely planted in tropical regions, including lowland Central America, northern South America, and the Caribbean. In addition to the fruit serving as a staple food in many cultures, the light, sturdy timber of breadfruit has been used for outriggers, ships, and houses in the tropics. (Wiki)
• • •
Well, that was a cute theme. I initially saw LOUNGE and STUDY and thought we were in for a Clue-themed puzzle. But WIGGLE ROOM (62A) is clever, and it’s an impressive bit of constructing to get five theme answers to work like that in the puzzle. I was initially quite confused about where the circles started and stopped for whatever they were going to spell out, so I mostly just focused on the fill rather than the theme. But looking back, I appreciated the theme’s ingenuity. The only thing is that LOUNGE there in the top-middle of the puzzle looked a bit lonely without another room at the bottom, but that would’ve been very tricky for the constructor. 

The thing about a clever, complicated theme, though, is that it often leads to a lot of crosswordese and meh fill. And this puzzle, I’m sad to say, was no exception. SPRIER (19A: More agile) and APER (3D: One doing impersonations) are just ugly. IRR (6D: Nonstandard: Abbr.) and HGT (38D: Fig. on a driver's license) and YTD (31A: Since Jan. 1, on pay stubs) are abbreviations that aren’t particularly exciting. Then you’ve got ERA (45A), EONS (54D), ESAU (10D), LEI (44D), TRE (47A), ENYA (65A), and ESS (68A) (among others), which you’ve seen a million times in crosswords. Side note: ESS (68A: This + vertical line = dollar sign) was clued in maybe the weirdest way I’ve ever seen. 

I got stuck in a couple spots in the puzzle, which slowed me down. I unfortunately didn’t know DEY (17A: Susan of "L.A. Law"), and I struggled with SPRIER (19A) and BREADFRUIT (16A) (not something I’ve ever eaten). That speed bump was compounded by the fact that I knew the Romanian currency began with “le” but took a while to come up with LEU (7D). And in the SW corner, KETOSIS (53A: Metabolic state on a low-carb, high-fat diet) threw me. 

Then there were some oddities in the puzzle. I think it’s generally sophomores who are taking the PSAT (15A) (while juniors start taking the SAT). A sourdough starter begins with flour and water exposed to the air, where there’s natural yeast, but it seems off to refer to YEAST (31D) as an ingredient. My biggest issue in the puzzle was with TEASES (21D: "Still ahead ..." and "Coming up next ...," in broadcasting lingo)! Those phrases are teasers, not TEASES, in TV terminology. 

But then there was NATTER (23D: Talk idly), which is objectively a fun word. Some others I liked were NO FRILLS (5D: Without bells and whistles), GIBRALTAR (34A: British territory visible from Africa), OREGANO (40A: Contents of a pizzeria shaker), and ELDEST SON (43A: Usual heir in patrilineal systems), none of which you usually see in a crossword. I liked NILLA (5A: Nabisco wafer brand) on top of OREOS (14: Ingredients in some black-and-white cheesecakes). My favorite clue was for LEI (44D: Fragrant neckwear). Having COCO (58D: Pixar film set in Mexico) (which is a fantastic movie) in the puzzle was fun. And I really liked STREET (46A: Auto setting), even though the constructor definitely tricked me on that one.

Misc.:
  • I have this very distinct memory of NILLA (5A) wafers, where I was at a dance recital in Lake Tahoe when I was maybe seven years old. I was a grasshopper in a ballet performance (complete with a head-to-toe green outfit and a green hat with antennae). When I was backstage watching all these older, cooler people get ready, I saw a box of Nilla wafers. I didn’t know who they were meant for, but I tried a couple and thought they were the best things ever. And since then… I’ve barely ever eaten any. 
  • With YTD (31A), I’m reminded of work and the number of paystubs, W-2s, 1099s, and tax returns I look at for my clients. I often have to calculate yearly income or create financial charts detailing the financial hardship they face. At this point, I probably know more about my clients’ financial situation than my own. 
  • I read historical romance books, and they talk about ELDEST SONs (43A) a lot
  • My dad, like everyone else, began a sourdough starter (31D) during the pandemic, and his is still going strong! He’s become a pro at making whole wheat bread. I only wish I could enjoy it, but, sadly, I’m intolerant to gluten:( 
  • I hope the basic list of theme answers worked for everybody at the top. I wasn’t sure how to clue them or otherwise describe them…. If I’d written out each answer that had a circled letter in it, I’d have basically been rewriting the whole puzzle.
And that’s all from me! See you in May. 

Signed, Clare Carroll, writing this from the F 
                                                                
                                                             
                                                                 
                                                                
                                                                   
                                                                      room

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77 comments:


  1. Thanks as always for a terrific writeup, Clare! I found it Easy-Medium as well.

    Overwrites:
    SNAke before SNAIL at 4D
    SPRyER before SPRIER at 19A
    TEASEr before TEASES at 21D (discounting the "and" in the clue)
    TAhiti before TAIWAN for the 47D Pacific island, leading to
    items before NOUNS at 69A

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous5:47 AM

    Having never heard the word NATTER before in my life, it took me a while at the end to figure out my one mistake: I had oLDEST SON instead of ELDEST, and NATTOR looked as much of a reasonable archaic weird word for talking than NATTER. Eventually figured it out but that was my one frustration in an otherwise fine puzzle.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous5:04 PM

      Anonymous 5:47 AM
      As it happens
      NATTER is in no way archaic.
      It used in English today.
      It is part of American history when a precursor of Trump and Nixon VP Spiro Agnew attacked the press by calling it nattering nabobs of negativism. In the early 1970’s.
      We can’t know everything. Just because it is unknown to some solvers, doesn’t mean it is obscure, or archaic.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:30 PM

      Today, as in fifty years ago…

      Delete
  3. Hi, Clare! You might also have mentioned TEMPI (ick) and TINCTS (the last thing I filled in), not to mention the partial "A TO" z. I solved this one very much as a themeless--I didn't notice that the circled letters spelled out rooms until I was mostly done with the puzzle, and while I had a little, "Oh, look what she did" moment--and like you I was impressed with the feat--it was mostly a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ moment for me. It did, however, help me get the C for TINCTS, which is an obsolete term for slight colorings--I had wanted "tints" and couldn't figure out why with TIN--- there were three letters left, since it should have been TINts.

    Meh indeed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adam
      About tincts.
      Understand your complaint
      But it is useful to crossword constructors and it has appeared fairly often in the Times puzzle. Because of that I got it immediately. You will probably run across it again.

      Delete
  4. Alice Pollard6:37 AM

    theme did nothing for me. didnt even suss it out, found out when I got here. TINCTS? Got it from the crosses and intuition. I had to go A to Z on the KETOSIS/SINO cross.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The good: the lovely and talented duo of Miss NORA Ephron and Miss Teri GARR in the same grid! Awesome.

    The questionable: sourdough uses the naturally occurring yeast that’s present in the flower or the local environment - so that’s technically true, but it’s not an “ingredient” that’s added in separately - definitely close enough, but for me it was a bit of a side-eye.

    The not so good: the usual over-reliance on PPP - although at least most of the stuff is pretty popular (see just the southern coast for example with NOOR, ENYA, ANNIE, COCO. . . . ). Big difference from yesterday, so it could be one of those weeks where we get more and more arcane as the week goes on (actually the NYT grids are like that pretty much every week).

    ReplyDelete
  6. Emily B.6:53 AM

    Nice write-up! While sophomores may take the PSAT for practice, juniors take it in the fall, as that is who is eligible for the National Merit Scholarship!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous7:06 AM

    Another in a series of “Oh, there was a theme?” NYTPs.

    ReplyDelete
  8. INREM and ANISES were particularly bad, I thought.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Andy Freude7:32 AM

    Finished by correcting TINgeS.
    After seeing BREADFRUIT, I really wanted that island to be TAhiti. Thought there might be a “Mutiny on the Bounty” theme.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Second day in a row with a revealer that surprised and delighted me, after yesterday’s HUE AND CRY. I tried to guess the revealer before uncovering it, and was thinking it had something to do with the game Clue, so when I finally admitted defeat and filled it in, it made me smile all over at how much better it was than that. Clever clever clever.

    Plus, the plusses. The passel of long-O-enders (EGO, TARO, OREGANO, COCO, SINO). The lovely misdirect in [Auto setting] for STREET. The five foods in the first three rows of across answers, not to mention the CAPN wannabe there, short a “Crunch”. LEU and GNU in the same column. LEU and LEI in the same column. LEI making me think “hula”, echoing the WIGGLE of the theme.

    But the best serendipity to me was ISITI, for here we have the question reading forward, and the answer reading backward.

    So, much to relish. A gift that brightened my day. Thank you, Michèle, for making this!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Liked the theme and the revealer!
    But I do agree that there were a few clunkers in there as fill: APER; TEMPI.
    I do disagree with Clare; even though it has been many years, I beleive I took my PSAT as a junior in the Fall. That is the test that determines if you are a National Merit Award winner.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Bob Mills8:00 AM

    Very easy. The hardest part was figuring out the theme after I finished.

    ReplyDelete
  13. David Grenier8:03 AM

    I don’t follow college ball enough to know anything about our draft class, but Gerry Dulac seems excited and that’s good enough for me. As a Steelers fan I think I picked the right time to go to grad school (and this miss football for a few years). Happy to be getting my masters AND get to watch a hopefully improved Steelers team this fall!

    Also todays puzzle was fun.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous8:06 AM

    FH
    Isn't it 'Anyhoo'?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous8:06 AM

    Was not familiar with Natter and filled as ‘Nattor’ which, unfortunately worked with 'Oldest son'. it took me a bit to figure that one out.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Found this one very easy and only have a side eye for SPRYER, which I have never heard in the wild. "Hey, you're looking SPRIYER than ever!" Uh, no.

    Today's "yep, I'm doing a crossword" clue--"Romanian currency". Stuff like this always makes me smile, and now I know LEU.

    Tried to make something out of the circles before I saw the rest of the connection, which did not work well. PARL and LOUN were mysterious, but of course became clear.

    Nice Tuesdecito, MG. A Marvelous Gimmick, and thanks for all the fun.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Clare: "Hope everyone stays cool as the heat ratchets up. We already had a high of 90 degrees here in D.C. today."

    It's snowing like hell right now here in Calgary.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous8:21 AM

    The fill here is unimaginably bad. LEU and INREM are the worst of it, but it’s bad all over. Objectively. But NATTER is a regular word, I am surprised people are having trouble with it.

    ReplyDelete


  19. My heart always sinks when I open up a puzzle and see a bunch of arbitrarily placed tiny little circles -- circles that are not even especially close to each other. I know that they will be totally irrelevant to my solving experience and that, once I am through with my solving experience, it will be incumbent on me to go back and thread them together.

    Yawn. BLEHHH.

    I have never once gone back and threaded the annoying tiny little circles together. No, I say to the constructor, YOU go back and thread them together.

    If I were granted one magical wish and could make one -- and only one -- category of puzzle completely disappear forever, this would be the category of puzzle I would choose. Abracadabra. POOF! Gone forever! RIP!

    I will die on this hill.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ChrisS2:21 PM

      I 99.99% agree, with the only exception the "holey cow" puzzle from a few days ago. But with that one no extra work was required.

      Delete
  20. Anonymous8:41 AM

    Will someone please explain the clue/answer for 46 across: “Auto setting”
    “Street”?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:03 AM

      Streets are where you find autos

      Delete
    2. Anonymous8:57 PM

      I think it's a setting for fuel performance. STREET versus PERFORMANCE or TURBO. Basically you're telling your car there will be lots of starts and stops.

      Delete
  21. Hey All !
    Pretty cool TuesPuz. I initially thought the circled answers would only be the squares above and below the Blockers, but quickly figured out they continued through them. Like Clare, thought it'd be a Clue theme.

    Got the Revealer, and let out a chuckle. Clever!

    Fill not terrible, factoring in that a bunch of Downs had to navigate twixt two immovable letters. That NE corner is just full of Theme. Well, pretty much every section is theme-packed, looking at puz further.

    Good start to a Tuesday. Nice one Michèle.

    One F
    RooMonster
    DarrinV

    ReplyDelete
  22. A lot of really bad fill

    ReplyDelete
  23. HunterS8:52 AM

    ''Nattering Nabobs of Negativism''
    Spiro Agnew 1970

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous9:07 PM

      Written for him by the brilliant William Safire. Seldom agreed with his politics, but loved his writing.

      Delete
  24. My mother used NATTER; she would be 94 if alive today. "Goodness, she does NATTER on..." Haven't really heard anyone else use it but it was familiar enough.

    Had BREADFRUIT as a child on Water Island off St. Thomas where my grandmother had a home. Mostly what I remember about that place was that the wiring was bad and you'd get a shock if you touched the walls in the shower, and my father let my younger brother when he was about 9 drive the "Moke" which was a little vehicle like a golf cart.

    I didn't get the circled letters business at all and didn't need them for the solve, which I thought was mostly ok as I did it mostly downs only.

    TINgeS before TINCTS. Going west to east, fixed it when I got to those CT downs.

    Fun for an early ish morning today! Awaiting the plumber...



    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous9:13 AM

    Nice theme but rest of puzzle drab. There were a few highlights like KETOSIS, BREADFRUIT, and OREGANO. Best part of today's puzzle was the writeup- thanks Clare!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Anonymous9:15 AM

    I hope this is not read as sarcasm. But I am older than most rocks and have never heard the word natter used by anyone and I don’t recall ever reading it. So is it really a regular word ? Thanks so much. I hope you see this and respond.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous5:23 PM

      Anonymous 9:15
      Some here didn’t know the word NATTER but if you read the whole blog you will see that many -like me- knew it well.
      As Hunter S a little above you said
      Nattering nabobs of negativism was a famous speech by Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s first VP.
      You might have heard it and just forgot about it.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:52 AM

      Nattering nabobs…..

      Delete
  27. Anonymous9:39 AM

    As I was doing the puzzle, I was annoyed by the bad fill and a less-than-thrilling theme. Then I finished in record time for a Tuesday, and now believe it to be a brilliantly constructed puzzle with wit and verve.

    ReplyDelete
  28. EasyEd9:47 AM

    Easy and fun if a little standard in fill. Hand up for filling in TEASEr, and thinking ELDERSON was fine without even looking. Dratted extra “T”! Another extra was the “C” in TINCTS. Don’t think I’ve seen NATTER since the days of Spiro—simpler times…

    ReplyDelete
  29. Re: egs's case of BLACKBALL from yesterday. (Glad you're okay!)

    I heard Jay Leno tell this joke during the pandemic about how masking can make it hard to understand speech.

    A nurse comes in to a patient's room. Of course, the patient is wearing a mask. He says to her, "Nurse, can you please check to see if my testicles are black." She says, "I'm sorry, I'm not assigned to this floor, let me call another nurse for you."

    He says: "Please, it shouldn't take long -- I just want to know if my testicles are black." She says, "That's not my area -- let me call someone else for you."

    And he says, "Please, I'm really nervous about this -- can't you just take a second and see if my testicles are black?"

    Finally, she relents and says okay. She reaches under his robe and gown, peers in, and says: "They look fine." And he takes off his mask and says: "No, I'm trying to find out if my test results are back."

    ReplyDelete
  30. Nice writeup, Clare. Cute and clever theme. Lots of crosswordese, but that's perfectly cromulent. Congrats to constructor Michèle Govier!

    ReplyDelete
  31. I like the row at 53A: KETOSIS TINCTS. Walk around saying that fast and you'll get a rep as a real anti-carber.

    Jesus vs. Judas, the grudge match:
    JI: ISITI, Lord?
    JC: I and TENOR so others are NOTSURE.
    JI: I says it is not I.
    JC: ANISES it is.
    JI: ENYA gonna leave me some WIGGLEROOM?
    JC: Me and thECRU are AGAINST it.

    I'm surprised @Lewis didn't mention the side-by-side anagrams (EARP and APER).

    I guess I can consider myself a "local" here when the first thing I think on looking at the circle-stuffed grid is "@Nancy is going to hate this."

    I thought it was cute. Thanks, Michèle Govier.



    ReplyDelete
  32. I heard of breadfruit in Mutiny on the Bounty. Its mission was to bring that plant back to England. I've just read that it is nutritious and flavorful. But it's not in our markets out here. Anywhere?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Carribean markets and highfalutin delis

      Delete
    2. @Mathgent. Try Rainbow Grocery 13th & Folsom, SF. They have breadfruit in cans (& may have it fresh when in season whenever that us).

      Delete
  33. Nancy, I’ll go with you if there’s room on that hill. …otherwise, puzzle was in my wheelhouse and for me a fine themeless Tuesday. I knew I’d enjoy learning about the circles when I came here and knew that would be more fun than sussing it out myself. Thank you all.

    ReplyDelete
  34. That NE corner featured some of the most dense crossword-ese I've ever noticed, with EGO, GARR, OTOE, ESAU, PSAT, and TARO hanging out together. Ouch.

    Forgot to look at the circles when I finished. WIGGLE ROOM(s)--cute.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Hey Clare! Aaaand... the Denver Nuggets ousted LeBron James and the LA Lakers from the playoffs last night.

    These are indeed wiggly rooms. My pants have less and less wiggle room these days. Sadly, capitalism's rich get richer and poor get poorer scheme doesn't give me the wiggle room to sit and do crosswords all day. This makes me wiggle with rage. Back in the 80s, I think it was my dance floor wiggle that contributed most directly to ladies being unwilling to spend wiggle time with me. Forty-five years on, only mebelly still wiggles. Sometimes I waggle my tongue prior to others wiggling their "shut up" finger and you can't wriggle out of something like that without wrangling yer brain from its waggery. This is my WIGGLE NATTER.

    Super fast puzzle for me so it must've been in my wheelhouse.

    😫 SPRIER. What's with the SNAIL bashing?

    A really bad term paper is a LAME SA.

    Propers: 12
    Places: 4
    Products: 4
    Partials: 9
    Foreignisms: 2
    --
    Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 31 (40%) (eek)

    Tee-Hee: SMUT isn't the [raunchiest] part of this puzzle, is it?

    Uniclues:

    1 Test results for a 15-year-old cookie crusader super hero.
    2 Irish friend of the Orange Charlatan.
    3 For my last meal prior to my execution I will ask for a giant cheese pizza and rub my face against all its sprinkled toppings and refuse a napkin so I may die...
    4 Trip that only includes a round trip flight to eat at Cinn-a-bon in the Taipei airport.
    5 Aha, here is the high altitude videos of feet I've been craving.

    1 CAP'N OREOS PSAT
    2 LYING RED
    3 AGAINST OREGANO
    4 NO FRILLS TAIWAN
    5 O! TOE DRONE SMUT!

    @Lewis wrote last year's puzzle and it included SINBINS, SNOT, GROINS, and an EARGASM. What a HEAD TRIP. My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Angler couldn't angle. FLYFISHERMAN STANK.

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    ReplyDelete
  36. Anonymous10:46 AM

    Another crossword-solving, Steeler-lover in DC? Hi friend!

    ReplyDelete
  37. Two things right off the bat: I saw circles....lots of them and I thought of our @Nancy. She's going to hate this...I was right!
    @Liverprof 9:55. I'm still laughing. A morning (really funny) joke to start this Tuesday....HAH!

    Puzzle: It was the red-haired orphan child day. Let's see: Fill was pretty easy, but what should I do with PLUST RLG OER? Or maybe I'm reading this wrong. Fill in the rest of the circles. Hmmmm. Maybe it's one of those hard games I've never heard of?

    Come to the end: Oh...WIGGLE ROOM. Go back to the start. Look! There's LOUNGE floating down. And so..I penned in the rest of the rooms. Cute...sorta. IS IT I or are there others? Must've been hard to make so many rooms go down and leaving LOUNGE hanging up there all by itself.

    Favorite? COCO. A must see film. All ages, sizes and TINCTS will enjoy. At least I did.

    ReplyDelete
  38. I saw PARLOR, and was then able to figure out LOUNGE, and later PANTRY, so I sis make use of the theme. But then I got to the revealer, thought those bends might be 'elbow's --but too short, and "elbows room" might be slang for a bar, but didn't fit the clue. I actually needed WI to think of WIGGLE.

    I liked the neckwear minitheme with TIE and LEI--but, like Clare, I think TEASES has to be clued as a verb.

    In addition to the famous Agnew quote (actually written by William Safire, I've heard) they're a Dorothy Sayers novel in which Wimsey suddenly realizes that his conversation partner is suffering emotional pain, and apologizes by saying "and here go I, NATTERing on!' Or something to that effect.

    To whoever asked: the STREET is a 'setting' where you are likely to find an auto(mobile). That one fooled me, too.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Cool theme idea & revealer. And the short fillins were pretty wiggly, too boot.

    staff weeject pick: Hard to pick just one, but LEU in a TeusPuz seems to headline the Ow de Speration list.

    Lotsa no-knows, at our house, for a Tuesday solvequest: BREADFRUIT. LAMESA. KETOSIS [debut word]. LEU. COCO. DEY [faintly recall this one, tho].
    But, hey -- at least the abbreve meat was limited to just: CAPN. PSAT. YTD. NEA. PCBS. IRR. PTSD. GMA. HGT. INREM.

    fave fillins: OREGANO. NOFRILLS. GIBRALTAR. NOTSURE. NATTER. TINCTS.

    Thanx, Ms. Govier darlin. Them wiggly circles can make yer fill a bit extra wiggly, huh? Liked it, anyways.
    And thanx, Clare darlin for the primo sub job.

    Gotta C^L^O^S^E^T up, now … [^ = a wiggle]

    Masked & Anonymo4Us


    has pictures, so "Down Home" solve option recommended:
    **gruntz**

    ReplyDelete
  40. Easy-medium for me too. Strategy = ignore the circles and full speed ahead which mostly worked.

    No WOEs and Necco before NILLA and LEk before LEU were it for erasures.

    The grid wasn’t as awful as it could have been given the constraints, so I’m with @Clare on this one.

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  41. @egs -- Great anagram catch!

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  42. People have been pointing out iffy answers, but please realize that when things happen in diagonals in theme answers, as they do with today's zig-zaggers – man, that makes a grid very tough to fill in.

    So, the question is, is the theme worth it? Does the joy that comes from the theme outweigh the compromises that were necessary to make it happen?

    My opinion? In this puzzle, absolutely! The “Oh, sweet!” that I felt when I uncovered the revealer easily (previous president)-ed an HGT here and an ATO there.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Hi Clare!
    Pretty easy. I don't usually like puzzles with 'circles' so I solved as a themeless & then I came here.
    Flew through this until I got stuck on NATTER but not for long. I really liked 10A EGO for Self-Care.
    A fun puzzle, thank you Michele :)

    ReplyDelete
  44. Anonymous12:20 PM

    @mathgent 10:28: Minor correction. The Bounty was to bring breadfruit back to the British-controlled islands in the Caribbean, not to England. It was thought that it would be a good cheap food for slaves.

    ReplyDelete
  45. @LiveProf - funny joke - thanks for telling it :)

    ReplyDelete
  46. "Something wicked this way comes," I thought, when I saw those annoying little circles. "Bubbles, bubbles, boil and trouble."
    But it was no trouble at all, solving as a themeless. Monday easy. So fast I was barely troubled by ANISES and IN REM.
    I still don't know or care what the theme was.
    My NY State driver license says Height 6'-2". But the figure is 6'-2", not Height or Hgt. Go figure.

    ReplyDelete
  47. REALLY ENJOYED THE PUZZLE TODAY!

    ReplyDelete
  48. Cute little Tuesday theme, with some rough spots like TINCTS and IN REM. I knew REM would be in there but all I could think of was REM SLEEP which would mean a rebus or something.

    I solved down clues only and had to cheat once, at 1 across of all places. Guessing the theme answers without looking at their clues is tough... when there really aren't any theme answers except for the revealer! I had BIGGER ROOM instead of WIGGLE ROOM right til the end. (The E in BIGGER came from having RELABELS for 41 down.)

    [Spelling Bee: Mon 0; streak 22!]

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  49. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term 'NATTER', it rose in popularity after Spiro Agnew described Nixon's critics as nattering nabobs of negativism. While I didn't like his politics, show me a politician today who could turn that phrase.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous3:37 PM

      The phrase was actually crafted by wordsmith extraordinaire and longtime NYT columnist William Safire, then a speechwriter for Agnew.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:58 AM

      Kudos to you on Safire!!!!! Agnew was always too busy collecting his graft money to turn such a memorable phrase

      Delete
  50. Why the KNEEjerk circle-hate? On early weekdays, why not hide a puzzle within a puzzle? I love a good mystery, so when I saw the oddly placed circles I fired up my pattern-seeking brain. Why those places? Are they pairs? Trios? Both? Aha, there are five that all connect diagonally. Are they all the same length? No, three are six letters and two are five. Stumped, I resorted to actually working the puzzle to crack the case.

    PARLOR filled in easily. Sliding down the west side, I got the first two letters of the the next one, PA. Briefly wondered if it would be PARLOR again, but then how to explain the five-letter words? So it was a relief to see the full PANTRY. Okay, parts of a house? Looked up and saw —U-G- and thought it might be LOUNGE. And so forth and so on. So in spite of some of the “suboptimal” fill, this turned out to be enjoyable along the way. (Thanks, @Lewis for explaining the difficulty of filling around diagonal themes.) Tried to guess the revealer after getting all the ROOMS but had to resort again to working the puzzle to get the WIGGLE part. The final T of STREET was my last move, and it took a sec after I put it in to get the drift. Foiled again by that unassuming but devious clue. A satisfying Tuesday - congrats to Ms. Govier.

    Today is composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's birthday. If I have time I'll return with a clip.

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  51. I first heard of BREADFRUIT in 4th grade geography. My memory is of some old books that were published who knows when and thus I am suspicious of whatever we might have been taught as possibly based more on myth than fact. I only remember the section on the Pacific Islands, where I learned about the breadfruit, and a section on the gauchos in Argentina. There must have been more but it's lost to those late '60s memories that weren't all that life-changing in the first place.

    Like Clare, I wasn't sure where the circle answers ended so I saw STUD made a word but PARL and LOUN weren't giving me anything. Only post-solve, when I re-read the revealer, did I tack on the OR, GE and Y. It was a cute aha moment.

    Thanks, Michèle Govier!

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  52. @lodsf: Is it good?

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  53. sharonak4:14 PM

    @Clare Cute sign off

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  54. sharonak4:20 PM

    Anon 9:39
    Tasks for the chuckle

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  55. Liked the puzzle
    But I made one attempt to figure out the theme and gave up. Fixated on the first 4 letters. PARL LOUN and STUD. Then came here. I was a bit dense I guess.

    Was reminded of Spiro Agnew and Nixon who were both forced out with help from some Republicans. Inconceivable now.
    Surprised how many people didn’t know natter.

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  56. This felt like a compilation of bland crosswordese. APER, ENYA, ERA, EONS, OTOE, ESAU. All the greatest hits of "words that occur staggeringly more in crosswords than anywhere else".

    In fact, I think I would have respected it more if it went all in and got us some UTES, and ETA, and maybe an OLE or ARIA to go along.

    (Also, I get why TEMPI is TEMPI, but c'mon...really?)

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  57. Changed my profile pic, goodbye A.A. Milne. This is a soldier from the Revolutionary War. He's part of the Third NJ Regiment, nicknamed The Jersey Blues. My father (a naturalized citizen) hung this on the wall by my bed when I was too small to understand. I think he would be pleased that BLUE has come to stand for sane and rational and that I'm passing his message on.

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  58. Natalie2:18 PM

    In regards to 52 down- INREM, humans have been shown to dream throughout their sleep, not just in REM. The Science vs. Podcast discusses this in their episode on sleep.

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  59. Anonymous8:59 AM

    I just started this puzzle and one of the first crosses I encounter is LSAT-LTSD. That is just unacceptable. I think I am done with this puzzle now. When is Will Shortz coming back?

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  60. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  61. Anonymous10:02 AM

    Way too much junk fill. Should have been rejected. YEAST is not an ingredient in sourdough bread. SPRIER? As in: “That old guy is much SPRIER than the other old guy.” That’s really bad.

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  62. I hate to be a NATTERing nabob, but this one suffered from a lot of fill that needed too much WIGGLEROOM. Add to that the oddity of a ground-floor ATTIC, and you've got troubles. Even the longer stuff is flat, although BREADFRUIT + YEAST perhaps start another theme (?). Gotta go with double-bogey.

    Wordle par.

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  63. Diana, LIW4:00 PM

    Well this April puzzle went out like a lamb, filling in with little or no troubles.

    I agree that I did hesitate at SPRIER - for the cap I.

    Anyway, it beats watching TV news, eh?

    Diana, LIW

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  64. Burma Shave4:32 PM

    ROOM TO STUDY IT

    The ASTORS IN their PARLOR NATTER,
    “ISIT your EGO? Did IT happen?”
    “I am NOTSURE what IS the matter,
    so, NO.”, DRONEd ON the LYING CAP’N.

    --- ANNIE DEY


    From yesterday:

    GREW SOME

    From BLACK to WHITE turned RAUL’s hair,
    AND it ITCHES ON his head.
    YOU blame the DYE, I’m KEENLY a WARE,
    but I BET he’s BALD IN BED.

    --- IRIS INGE LLOYD

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