Monday, April 15, 2024

Signature hats for Indiana Jones / MON 4-15-24 / Yellow fruits that, despite their name, look more like apples / Taiwanese tech company / Soybean paste in Japanese cuisine / Poster holder-upper

Constructor: Amanda Winters

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Monday) (solved Downs-only)


THEME: AS ABOVE / SO BELOW (39A: with 41-Across, philosophical principle in which Earth mirrors heaven ... or a hint to the shaded squares) — bunch of ASSO squares (top two letters "AS," bottom two letters "SO")

Word of the Day: ASIAN PEARS (3D: Yellow fruits that, despite their name, look more like apples) —
Pyrus pyrifolia
 is a species of pear tree native to southern China and northern Indochina that has been introduced to KoreaJapan and other parts of the world. The tree's edible fruit is known by many names, including Asian pear, Persian pearJapanese pear, Chinese pear Korean pear, Taiwanese pearapple pear zodiac pearthree-halves pearpapplenaspati and sand pear. Along with cultivars of P. × bretschneideri and P. ussuriensis, the fruit is also called the nashi pear. Cultivars derived from Pyrus pyrifolia are grown throughout East Asia, and in other countries such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Traditionally in East Asia the tree's flowers are a popular symbol of early spring, and it is a common sight in gardens and the countryside. // The fruits are not generally baked in pies or made into jams because they have a high water content and a crisp, grainy texture, very different from the European varieties. They are commonly served raw and peeled. The fruit tends to be quite large and fragrant, and when carefully wrapped (it has a tendency to bruise because of its juiciness), it can last for several weeks (or more) in a cold, dry place. (wikipedia)
• • •

Hard to get excited about a bunch of ASSOs floating around your grid. Solved this one Downs-only and kept trying to make the ASSOs mean something, anything. Never saw the revealer, and so ended up very stuck at my very last answer: 27D: Thumbs-up equivalent. I had ... nothing. -IP, -SE, and -URL could've been many things. Then there was -SABOVE, and I figured it was probably AS ABOVE (some kind of footnote phrase?), but could not eliminate IS ABOVE as a possible answer (yes, it's terrible, but this grid isn't exactly brimming with great fill, so IS ABOVE seemed at least possible). Somehow my brain was eventually able to get from [Thumbs-up equivalent] to YEAH (a long journey), and I got the "Congratulations" message from my software, but yeesh, AS ABOVE? That seemed bad. Only then did I go back and try to make sense of all the ASSOs, and only then did I see SO BELOW (totally missed that while I was solving, somehow). I'm vaguely familiar with the phrase AS ABOVE, SO BELOW, and the puzzle seems only vaguely aware as well ("philosophical principle" isn't very evocative). I wish that phrase meant more to me, but what I really wish is that scattered ASSOs had anything pleasing about them whatsoever, from a solving standpoint. I kept trying to spell things ("is this ... a Sammy SOSA puzzle?"), but got nowhere. The problem with the concept isn't just that it isn't inherently compelling, it's that it also puts a Lot of pressure on the grid, and the fill ... buckles. Predictably. And that's *with* the two cheater squares (four, actually, because of symmetry—these are black squares that don't increase word count, added solely to make the grid easier to fill (today, above 62D: MAD and below 27D: YEAH)). But even with the cheaters: ESOS IPSO ESE OSSO ASUS (!?), ATAD ASEA ADOS AESOP SQIN CPL ... that's a lot to take. And the longer answers don't add nearly enough color to offset the short-fill unpleasantness.


That last answer (YEAH) was the only one that put up any kind of fight. I had some trouble with CLEAVE (21D: Split, as with an axe), largely because I couldn't infer the first letter ("C") because I couldn't think of *any* letter that could acceptably fill the blank at -PL (21A). I know that NPL is the National Puzzlers' League, but that seemed way too niche, even for the puzzle-happy NYTXW. I ran the alphabet and got nothing. Which means I didn't run it carefully enough—CPL is a standard military abbr. ("corporal"), and the only -PL possibility there is. I thought maybe PPL stood for "people" ... does it? Looks like it does. Also "parts per liter" and "participle." Good to know! Where else did I get slowed down on the Downs-only journey? Honestly, nowhere. ASIAN PEARS went in once I inferred the "AS," SOLAR PANELS went in once I inferred the "SO." I had a few moments of scrambling around 52D: Fix, as a printer, assuming the first two letters were going to be "RE-". Oh, and ASUS, yikes, haven't seen that in a while. Whoa, I haven't seen it *ever* in a NYTXW—it's a debut! That's a debut that's hard to celebrate, and an unfortunate corporate name, generally. After ACER, I'm all out of four-letter A-starting tech companies. I don't really get why "sign" was added to the clue at 36D: "Credit cards only" sign ("NO CASH"). "Credit cards only" is the equivalent of "NO CASH." What's "sign" got to do with it. One phrase could be a "sign" as well as the other. "Sign" is just muddling things, and ruining the equivalency. Bizarre cluing choice. Also, a very tiny matter. Gonna sign off before I get even further into minutiae and subminutiae. See you tomorrow. Oh, and go see La Chimera, it is the best film I've seen in a while. 


OK, bye!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

56 comments:


  1. Tough for me. I’m not at all familiar with the theme “principle” so I floundered a bit and ended up in Tuesday territory.

    I tried erase before EFFACE which didn’t fit. Also dAme before MAAM
    ASUS was a WOE (Hi @Rex).

    Not that fond of this one or pretty much what @Rex said.


    Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #902 was on the tough side for a Croce with the center stack being the primary sticking point. Good luck!

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  2. AESOP SORTA took an ASIAN cooking CLASS in BALI. MASON SQIN was his teacher.

    There was a MAD SPAT going on WITH those two...The MANE ISSUE was the MISO SOUP WITH SQUID UMAMI that AESOP made. It was A TAD BELOW SQUIN's liking...he liked more BOOM and SASS in the SOUP and AESOP wasn't his ALI.

    ABOVE in the DAIRY section, AESOP would find his FETA and HURL it into a JAR full of YIP BLOSSOMS. He'd CLEAVE some SPAM into FOLDS of URDU PESTO and EFFACE the BLOSSOMS of PEARS so that a SATEEN would be OOH SO HO full of SASS. He knew he could NAIL the IPSO SOUP as well.

    MASON SQIN would SIT down with AESOP and SORTA LEAP into a MEAN, MAD DISS about his SUB standard MANE course. He brought in an ASSO with CASH and asked him to PROD the SOUP. He also asked his MUM, whom he called MAAM, about the SOUP. MAAM could NAIL a MISO SOUP with SQUID UMAMI that could make a WASP LEAP into A SEA of ASIAN PEARS in JARS of BLOSSOMS like no other.

    YEAH, MUM had SASS and CLASS. AWL those around her would listen for her SONIC BOOM. To see her HURL the FOLDS of FETA into those JARS of PEARS....The ways she GOES AT the PESTO SPAM that she'd CLEAVE into a DISS of URDU...AWL thought she was like SANTA with a LEASE of ADOS. They threw A BESO at her...

    The ASSO with CASH did PROD the SOUP. MUM threw him a BESO and some SPAM and they felt the BOOM. MASON SQIN, ALAS, was SHOWN the A GATE because he was also an ASSO. AESOP was SO HO at ESE. He took a LEAP of joy and made BALI his BASIN. A WASP could EFFACE him and the OWLS could YIP at HIM, but he was finally ABOVE all of that thanks to MUM!

    And that's the truth...Just ask @Gary J.






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  3. If they had just made the two squares gray at the top of the 5D column, we'd have been dealing with ASS ABOVE, SOP BELOW, which sounds like a description from the Steele Dossier of Trump in Moscow.

    There coulda been a whole nother theme built around my favorite foods: FETA, SQUID, SPAM, ASIANPEARS, PESTO and MISO. Add ATAD of UMAMI, ISOLATE it in MASONJARS for a few months.....SOUP's on!

    OhYEAH, dog-breath?
    That's right, EFFACE.

    Even doing it downs only, I realized by halfway through that the shaded areas were identical, enabling me to fill in lots of additional squares without reference to clues. Had no idea, of course, what the AS/SO was doing until I finished and looked at the across clues. That lead to a tepid "oh."

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    Replies
    1. Wanderlust8:14 AM

      Your first paragraph made me guffaw!

      Delete
    2. Wanderlust8:38 AM

      I knew AS ABOVE, SO BELOW - maybe from the Tom Tom Club song, which I was sure Rex would post since it seems like he would know it (early 80s). I definitely noticed the ASSOs and being able to fill them in helped me in the downs-only, as did getting the revealer. I found it difficult for a D-O, and I don’t think I’d have gotten it without the theme help.

      @kitshef, I was in China late last year, and it wasn’t just NO CASH there, it was also no credit cards. Everyone pays for everything with an app - without exception, as far as I could see. Until I was able to get the right app (not as easy as just downloading it), I was helpless, totally dependent on other people. I couldn’t even buy a cup of tea if I was alone. I think the Chinese government really doesn’t care post-pandemic whether foreign tourists or business people ever come back.

      I had to cheat on the Taiwanese tech company. I had the AS, and I figured AL-M could inly be ALUM. But DI-S could have been so many things. ASUS seems totally inappropriate for a Monday. When I looked up “Taiwanese tech companies,” it wasn’t even on the first screen. And I sort of inadvertently cheated on YEAH, my last answer. When I filled in ASUS, the app took me to the next across clue, which I accidentally saw - “Puppy’s bark.” That made it YIP, and then … YEAH, you know the rest.

      Aside from the ASUnine ASUS, this was an enjoyably challenging D-O.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:21 AM

      I miss Will Shortz!

      Delete
  4. Often, solving down clues only makes for a much more fun experience. But sometimes it gets in the way, and that was the case here. Never ever heard of AS ABOVE SO BELOW, so trying to figure out what the heck was going on with 39 and 41 across was beyond me. IS ABOVE maybe?; and obviously GO BELOW. Because the AS and SO were the parts I didn't have, the circled squares didn't help clue me in that they were a revealer. And there were no other "theme" answers anyway! Oh, well; an atypical Monday that I might have enjoyed more by solving the "regular" way.

    Oh, and my best guess for the "Thumbs-up equivalent" was OKAY.

    [Spelling Bee: Sun 0, also Sat 0 but finished it Sun afternoon in overtime. puzzlehoarder, sorry your streak ended at.. what was it, 36? But hey: I'm at 7! I'm sure it won't last.]

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  5. I enjoyed the puzzle more than Rex, kind of a regular Monday I thought (I don’t solve downs-only). I haven’t heard of the ASABOVE-SOBELOW philosophy I don’t think, so the ASSO squares didn’t mean anything until the revealer became clear. I wanted tape, then tack, before NAIL, which seems like overkill for hanging a poster. So, brief kerfuffle with ASIANPEARS, another thing I wasn’t familiar with.

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  6. My five favorite original clues from last week
    (in order of appearance):

    1. Ritual performed to break a spell (4)(5)
    2. Butt to bum (3)
    3. Fit for a queen? (4)
    4. It's sharp near the bottom (6)(3)
    5. Results of an iron deficiency? (7)


    RAIN DANCE
    CIG
    DRAG
    DIAPER PIN
    CREASES

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  7. I have never in my memory seen a sign specifically saying "Credit Cards Only". The places near me that are credit cards only instead word their sign..."NO CASH".



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  8. AS ABOVE, SO BELOW was a WOE (AS ABOVE, SO BEWOE?), So the whole puzzle, while Monday-easy, meant nothing to me. Maybe I shouldda studied philosophy instead of engineering.

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  9. The puzzle technically qualifies as “having a theme” which, unfortunately, the NYT requires - but it contributes nothing of positive consequence to the solving experience, and the rest of the fill really suffers for it. Witness ESOS, BESO and ASUS for example. Why they require a theme when it precludes you from including real WORDS in your crossWORD puzzle continues to escape me. Even on a Monday they just publish a grid full of junk. I wish they would rethink that whole premise and focus on the quality of the solving experience.

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  10. I’ve never heard AS ABOVE, SO BELOW. Monday themers and revealers ought IMO to be very familiar to everyone. I also thought this puzzle was overall a bit tough for a Monday, although it would have been very easy for a Tuesday.

    In Kenya, I was surprised at how many places were not NO CASH but “no credit cards”. Everyone either uses cash or pays with their phones.

    Fun fact: The 1968 movie Krakatoa, East of Java had it wrong. Krakatoa is west of Java.

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  11. My introductory philosophy course did not include ASABOVE SOBELOW, so that was news to me. Hand up for trying to make ASSO into a word that could be scrambled. Gave up on that one in a hurry.

    No real problems. Forgot all about the famous SQUID game phenomenon which made SQIN virtually impossible to see so that went in last. Never heard of ASUS, if there actually is such a thing, and doing this without my reading glasses meant that the TILDE could have been anything. Kind of interesting to read a clue that says "This accent mark" and trying to fill in the answer based on the number of letters instead of the unseeable representation.

    Thought this had a little more crunch than our usual Mondays which is aces with me. Nice one, AW. A Worthy Monday for me, and thanks for all the fun.

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  12. Inventive theme. Fill was perfectly cromulent, and I appreciate the time and effort it took to make that happen. Hard to be excited by any short-fill, so I don't distinguish acceptable fill from good fill. Fill is fill. Bad fill is when a cat walks on your keyboard, and you try to guess what those letters mean.

    Liked seeing SONICBOOM (NYT debut, Guile's phrase/attack on Street Fighter 2). I wonder how many people have had ASIANPEARS. Sweet and tasty, but more expensive than other pears and apples, around $3/each in my area. Also, spicy dried SQUID. MI-SO hungry....

    Congrats on the debut, Amanda Winters!

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  13. Sweetest moment for me was uncovering the reveal, then seeing it reflected in the gray squares. Simultaneously, two happy-pings rang out. One, because the AS above, SO below in the gray squares is so elegant. And two, because I was vexed as to what the letters in the gray squares could mean, and this beautifully solved the riddle.

    The best I could come up with, to that point, was that this was a tribute puzzle to Sammy SOSA (Hi, @Rex!), but my brain kept saying, “Nah”.

    There were plenty of serendipities to buoy my mood:
    • Given than Amanda is a data scientist, lovely to see a backward DATA in the grid.
    • Two M-sandwiched palindromes (MUM, MAAM), to accompany OSSO and ESE.
    • Seeing that SONIC BOOM is a NYT puzzle debut. How could this not have been in the puzzle for more than 80 years?
    • Some lovely rhymes among the answers: SPAM/MAAM, CLASS/SASS/ALAS, and the terrific BASIN abutting MASON.

    Much to enjoy in this, your NYT debut, Amanda. Congratulations and thank you so much!

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  14. David Grenier7:56 AM

    Kept expecting the ASSOs to rotate or change one letter or do something from one iteration to the next. Then I realized I was way overthinking it, this is a Monday and just went with the flow. I must have heard the phrase AS ABOVE SO BELOW somewhere before because it sounds familiar… but I’ll be damned if I can tell you what it means or where I know it from.

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  15. I got the first ASSO at top left and decided it spelled SOSA; I then deduced that the gray squares would all have four-letter names of great hitters, with the revealer “Batter’s Box.” I like mine better.

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  16. Freestyle 902 was medium, with the NW being the toughest section. I did have a two-letter DNF at 25A, 36A and 28D.

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  17. Anonymous8:21 AM

    Ended on Asus...and was surprised I even finished the puzzle (asus?)...also whatever asso is didn't really care enough to read the clue. These puzzles are getting lamer by the minute/day....to the point I gave up a 300+ day streak...just don't care...I get very little joy out of the NYT puzzles anymore. Anyone have other puzzle suggestions? I'm into more indie puzzles...or puzzles that are clever...(GenXer here)

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  18. RUTH, COBB, FOXX, MAYS, ROSE, RICE? FISK?

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  19. Anonymous8:43 AM

    Harder than a typical Monday, played like a Tuesday...

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  20. Hey All !
    "You're once, twice, three times an ASSO."
    Har.

    Way to amp up the ASS-ness the NYT puz seems so enamored of.

    I'll agree it's tough to cram 6 ASSOs in a daily puz grid, so Amanda gets a little break there. It's not easy to have to have them in correct order, stacked, and come up with any type of literate fill. Turns out to be 24 Themers, really. The ASSO in 12 Acrosses, 12 Downs,. Plus the 2 part Revealer.

    Iffy fill in pretty much every puz, this one (to me) not as bad as it seems. I think SQIN is an awesome find in a sticky spot! Every section has Theme in it. The Center Revealer is connected to 6 of the 24 Themers, so navigation to get something, anything to work was quite difficult, I'm sure. Brava, Amanda!

    Nother Monday. Splut!

    Four F's
    RooMonster
    DarrinV

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  21. SQIN and ASUS were nearly my undoing. The southwest took as long as the rest of the puzzle. In my church growing up, we talked very little about AS ABOVE and very very very much about SO BELOW.

    STETSON and FEDORAS have the same number of letters to my dismay today.

    My main post never found its way to publication yesterday. I suspect my tee-hee topic might have been too edgy. So I will eschew a deep dive into ASSO today. Tee-Hees have been harder to come by lately, and it feels like we're seeing a down tick in ARSE-ERY now that Joel is at the big desk. One can't help but wonder if maybe he was our 5th-grader-in-slush.

    Uniclues:

    1 Hawaiian cooking seminar.
    2 Sound made as I shovel in ice cream at my usual pace.
    3 Keep a cow.
    4 Bowl full of murder.
    5 Nickname for prolific peach preserver.
    6 Gets a bit better.
    7 Cage cowboys.
    8 Encourage starlight catcher.

    1 CLASS WITH SPAM
    2 DAIRY SONIC BOOM
    3 NAIL A GATE
    4 SQUID SOUP
    5 MASON JARS SANTA
    6 SORTA BLOSSOMS
    7 ISOLATE FEDORAS
    8 PROD SOLAR PANEL

    My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Request famous vocalist shut it. DO YOU MIND ADELE?

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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  22. Anonymous9:13 AM

    A bit harder than most Mondays, for me. The SW required some rethinking, because I never heard of the SQUID game, and SQIN didn't seem right (oh, square inch!).

    The theme seemed abstract at first, but the repeating letters were a help, especially in the SW. Good puzzle.

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  23. Oh, and got QB Yesterday!! I was able to go back to the Bee periodically throughout the day, hence why I eventually found everything! Streak at 1! ,(And over, I'm sure...)

    RooMonster Bee Guy

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  24. I guess I'm the only one that was unfamiliar with HAIFA and wondered what it was doing in a Monday puzzle.

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  25. AS ABOVE, SO BELOW. Hmmm. Is that the same as "on earth as it is in heaven"? I can't say that I've ever heard the phrase.

    While I didn't need the gray gimmes to solve, once I saw they would all be the same, I filled them all in. Why not? Made the puzzle even easier.

    But I applaud this puzzle for its almost complete lack of proper names. I only see the very easy AESOP and ALI -- am I missing anyone? Very clean, with nothing to DISS here.

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  26. who uses a nail to hold up a poster?

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  27. Anonymous9:32 AM

    Not a good theme for a Monday. It's too esoteric. I'd never heard of it and I have 2 MA and am a librarian so I know a lot of useless and useful information.

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  28. EasyEd10:03 AM

    Cute word game but unlike @Nancy never paid attention to the theme. Only mild hiccup was in the SE getting stuck mentally on BAja instead of BALI, and slow recognition of ASUS vs ACer. Once got to pick my own ASIANPEARS in Korea, but that predated the days of Taiwan tech growth. As a DIYer also got a chuckle out of using a nail for a poster, unless of course it was framed.

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  29. @Nancy - you missed the a fairly well known (especially to you) name at 30D and one arguably at 64A. 64A certainly was a title originally, but I think it has morphed into a name.

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  30. I hesitate to post on Mondays because my ordinary solving seems boring in comparison to everyone’s downs-only adventures. However it’s worth the time just to see what Madame @GILL has to say, AS she seldom disappoints. This certainly turned out to be an extremely appealing Monday puzzle with some interesting clues and a minimal amount of names, always SO appreciated. Congratulations Amanda on a most excellent debut!

    @Nancy from Chicago (from yesterday): I’d love to meet your Princess Puffypants. I’m sure she’s beautiful. Besides my Sassy, I also have a princess - Princess Fiona of Shrek. 😸

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  31. Nancy from Chicago11:28 AM

    @Whatsername, your Princess Fiona is so pretty and looks properly pampered (as a princess should be). :)

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  32. Any puzzle that dares to put SQIN in the grid can't be all bad.

    Karl Marx uses AS ABOVE, SO BELOW somewhere, but I can't remember either where or what the context was -- just that it was heavily ironic, in such a striking way that I have remembered the phrase. But I started out even more esoteric than @Rex and @Lewis, thinking the theme might be the Greek mountain Ossa, made famous by the story (not by AESOP) about "piling Pelion upon Ossa" in a vain attempt to reach Olympus. The central revealer was a bit satisfying, in that it made sense, but also took some of the fun out of the bottom half of the puzzle--though it did have the theme-adjacent OSSO.

    I came upon the greenhouse components from the bottom, noted that the L was in the wrong place for glass panes, but filled in PANEs anyway. Only then did I notice the question mark and realize it was SOLAR PANELS.

    I own an ASUS netbook, which helped.

    I've used more than one parking garage/lot that has a sign reading "Credit cards only" at the entrance, though the signs usually go on to specify "NO CASH."

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  33. Best AS above: ASUS. Best SO below: OSSO.
    But what's it all mean … AS ABOVE, SO BELOW?

    Could it mean…
    1. Whatever @RP says, we comment gallery folks will always agree. [yeah, right]
    2. Food-eatin adage: Hot goin in, hot comin out. [My old doc used to say that]
    3. We screw up the atmosphere, the earth will screw us.
    4. U think we're a screwed-up mess here on earth? U wouldn't believe how screwed up the rest of the universe is.
    5. If a poster is posted with a nail up top, there can't be much of a poster down below.
    … or somesuch?

    staff weeject pick: ESE. Always neat when they need to give us directions, on a MonPuz.
    fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Does a step in origami} = FOLDS. Gimme, since TAPDANCE couldn't fit.

    M&A immediately went lookin, outta curiosity, post-solvequest, for solo AS's and SO's. Only found one SO without an AS above, at ESOS. sooo … so so.

    Thanx, Ms. Winters darlin. And congratz on yer philosophically sound debut.

    Masked & Anonymo6Us


    **gruntz**

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  34. I was initially incredulous at Rex's assertion that ASUS had never appeared before, and then I realized I was confusing it with ACER, the other 4-letter Taiwanese PC manufacturer. It's odd that ACER should make so many appearances and ASUS none over the years -- I guess ACER has more cruciverbal utility?

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  35. Got a late start today - I didn't find this to be Medium at all, in fact, it was very easy.
    Congrats on your debut, Amanda :)

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  36. Anonymous1:00 PM

    ASUS is apparently the world's 5th-largest personal computer vendor (by unit sales at least) -- I know quite a few people with them, actually. And I read that they named their company after the mythological Pegasus, which is sort of interesting. Seems as valid as ACER or DELL or whatever.

    And to whomever asked in the comments about other crossword options -- have you checked out AVCX? They're super fun!

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  37. Hi Rex and all...

    I'm just here to wail into the void about the loss of variety puzzles online, not only from the NYT, but the New Yorker also just axed their delightful cryptic. I know this is a bottom line thing, but are we a vanishing breed?

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  38. Anonymous1:17 PM

    Soon as I got as above - 39 A— I remembered “on earth as it is in heaven “—as above so below “. Pray on! M.Dumbrill

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  39. @Kate - The NYer is also introducing their version of the Mini & small sized puzzles - looks like they think we're a vanishing breed & if they continue with their minis, we will be (over there anyway).

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  40. Today, back from an away-from-it-all couple of days, I worked yesterday and today side by side. Another bunch of little circles, followed by another bunch of gray squares. Easy and ho hum.
    We need an Endangered Crossword Act.
    Maybe tomorrow.

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  41. Anonymous3:25 PM

    The way the rest of the week has been going, I'm happy for the occasional easy puzzle. And I loved the revealer "as above, so below" which I immediately recognized as a religious reference: on Earth as in Heaven!

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  42. And here I thought I would be the only completely ignorant soul who had no idea who the ASSO was that allowed so rude a puzzle to be printed (hi @Roo!). Sure that wasn’t really the idea, my die hard Cubs fan mind went immediately to the great Sammy Sosa! I remained confused even solving the regular way so I simply carried on - quickly I might add.

    Upon finishing, I perused the whole grid and was truly rather glad I just barreled through since I’ve never heard of the AS SO principle. Nothing lost. On to Tuesday.

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  43. FWIW, I have an ASUS laptop, so that wasn't a problem for me. But you're not allowed to DISS it; only I am allowed to DISS it.

    Good pickup, @kitshef. I did forget STEFFI. But it's hard for me to think of SANTA as a proper name.

    @Mark (8:05) -- I think yours is better too. Much better! I like it!!

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  44. Etcetera8:59 AM

    honestly kind of lovely, and felt very full of personality to me- "as above, so below" is a phrase that kind of floats around the pagan/wiccan/whatever space, and so that combined with the SW corner - mason jars crossed with jam crossed with blossom- felt very thematic to me, and the symmetry of the revealer straight through the middle felt more on-point than usual to me. Not a community that I'm part of, but felt like a nice nod to something outside of the usual Crossword milieu.

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  45. Anonymous2:25 PM

    The glass windows of a green house are generally NOT solar panel (which generate power)

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  46. Most watched? SQUID Game?? Ne. Ver. Heardofit.

    ASUS? AS ABOVE, SO BELOW.

    And these come on a Monday? Wow. Plus, to use SQUID, we have to endure SQIN. Unlovely.

    Rudimentary theme, WITH shaded boxes all over the place. I too wondered for a moment if this was a salute to Slammin' Sammy, but it was even simpler than that. Small payoff for putting up WITH that fill. (BTW, @M&A, you missed another stray SO, IPSO.) Bogey.

    Wordle par.

    P.S. Congrats to Xander (use THAT in yer Xword, somebody!) Schauffle, who finally broke into the winner's circle at the PGA WITH a very deserving final round of 6-BELOW 65.

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  47. Ah, puzzle commentary and movie recommendation today!

    I will have to add "La Chimera" to my watch list - I enjoyed Alice Rohrwacher's previous film "Happy as Lazzaro" on Netflix a few years ago. Very calming, and great counter-programming to all the frantic American action flicks I'd been watching.

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  48. Burma Shave4:59 PM

    SHOWN MISO

    The DAIRY princess, ALAS,
    SORTA BLOSSOMS WITH NO CLASS,
    she’ll DISS you MA’AM,
    put us AWL IN A JAM,
    IMEAN, the ISSUE is SASS.

    --- STEFFI MASON, RN

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  49. rondo5:22 PM


    ESOS BESO MISO OSSO PESTO SOHO ASUS URDU, IMEAN OOH! Xword ESE?
    A local sportswriter called STEFFI Graf 'The Homely Hun', not SO in ESPN's Body ISSUE. OOH!
    Wordle birdie.

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  50. Anonymous5:25 PM

    I was a little surprised at how many people on here were unfamiliar with the Asus computer name. I've seen the computers in every Best Buy and any store with a good selection of computers. I don't currently own one, and my first thought for a four letter computer brand beginning with a is Acer, since they are the common go to brand in xword puzzles, but in the real world Asus are everywhere also.

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  51. Diana, LIW6:28 PM

    OK I get it.

    Did you know that "Stetson" will fit in the same space as FEDORAS? It does

    Lady Di - Happy Monday All!

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  52. Anonymous12:28 PM

    Reveal should have been: I’m just an @sshole from El P—— (ASSO)

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  53. Anonymous12:32 PM

    PS - Way too much junk fill. SQIN is a piece of excrement which should have DQ’s this puzzle.

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