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Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: MINA Kimes (4D: Sports analyst Kimes) —
Mina Mugil Kimes (born September 8, 1985) is an American journalist who specializes in business and sports reporting. She has written for Fortune, Bloomberg News, and ESPN. She is a senior writer at ESPN and an analyst on NFL Live. (wikipedia)
• • •
So even if you didn't know her, there's a good chance you've seen her ... ambiently. Ambient Kimes! She's also a crossword aficionado and an all-around charming human being, so this puzzle banked A Lot of goodwill with me right up front by including her. After that ... yeah, things were fine. Some highs, some lows, a pretty average Friday. Not a lot of whoosh for me today, as I couldn't get either of the long Across answers up top to go in, even with many many crosses already in place. Stared at -INBALLOTS for a bit, for sure (11A: Alternatives to booths, perhaps). And -CANTELEPHONE, too (14A: Device for an online conversation?). Oh, voting booths. Oh, tin cans. Connected by a string ("line"). I see, or saw, eventually. The front ends of those answers had impossible (for me) crosses. [Bar] for CANTINA was brutal (so many meanings of "bar"...), and MICRON, forget it, no idea (11D: One-millionth of a meter). If [Dots on a map] aren't ISLES then I don't know what they are, or at least am not confident enough to guess. That whole little NW bit was a mess. It ended up being the last thing I filled in. and man it felt dicey—was sure I was going to end up with some horrible-cross situation, but once I finally got SNAPPERS into place (I'd been reading the clue as [Some long-haired turtles] (???)), I could sorta squeeze that area from above and below and finally WRITE in the last answer, which I believe was WRITE. And right. The end. (Actually, it was TOWNS, but it's harder to pun on TOWNS ... something something Downs? Ah well, we'll never know...)
Those are good long answers up top, even though I struggled like hell with them. I also (aptly?) enjoyed FULL OF IT (34A: Talking nonsense) and the clue on MET GALA (45A: Big Apple fundraiser with a kind of apple in its name)—I love Met apples! Can't get enough of them! The long answers down below were the mirror opposite of their up-top cousins today, in that I solved both of them almost instantly, with very few crosses in place—and from the back end! They just seemed transparent. In fact, the only real difficulty down below came with the ambiguous clue at 37D: Perfect, e.g. (TENSE). I kept pronouncing and repronouncing "perfect" in my head, trying to figure out which it would be, per'-fect (adj.) or per-fect' (v.). But even knowing it's the adjective doesn't necessarily help too much. So that one crossed with DOS slowed me a tad (47A: They're OK) (i.e. DOS as opposed to DONTS). And then I wasn't sure of the vowel in PL-NKO (32D: "The Price is Right" game). If you'd told me it was PLUNKO I'd've believed you, so thank god RUDS is not a thing (41A: Purges => RIDS). Basically solved this one is clockwise fashion and so I ended where I started, with the difficulty of the NW. Was worried the SNAPPERS and the unheard of (by me) chess moves (PINS) were gonna absolutely wreck my big finish, but TOP DOGS got me through (20D: Big enchiladas).
Notes:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Notes:
- 16A: National Bullying Prevention mo. (OCT.) — a worthy ... month, I'm sure, but how in the world and why in the world would anyone know this? May as well just clue it as [It's one of the mos., just guess]
- 42A: ___ the Lucky, nickname of a noted explorer (LEIF) — I'm guessing this is LEIF Erikson. I was not aware of his nickname. Apparently he got it for rescuing a group of shipwrecked sailors (hurray!) and converting Norse Greenland to Christianity (hur ... ray?).
- 7D: One for the record books? (CLERK) — the person who keeps the records (in their books) is a CLERK
- 53A: Signs of friction (SPATS) — wanted these to be SCABS (or SCARS)
- 6D: Intellectual gatherings (SALONS) — bad case of Crossword Brain today, in that I really wanted SYNODS here
- 25A: Trail marking (BLAZE) — when you "blaze a trail," you don't light it on fire, you mark it out ... with blazes, i.e. marks on trees.
- 30D: Cool bits of trivia (FUN FACTS) — fun fact: FUN FACTS are rarely fun and never actually "cool." Unless SNAPPERS really do have long hair—that would be a cool fun fact.
See you tomorrow!
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
ReplyDeleteMedium-Challenging for me, with lots of obscure or unknown-to-me names. Tops among those was MINA Kimes (4D), since unlike OFL I don't belong to a gym. It didn't help that I misread the 38A clue as "Gauge earnings."
salsA before CREMA at 1A was my only official overwrite, although there were plenty of head-scratchings.
Needed @Rex's writeup to understand how DOS relates to the 47A clue.
PINS as chess tactics was (and remains) a WOE.
Like Rex I couldn't make much progress in the NW at the start. Didn't know MINA (that was my last answer). My first fill was TOWNS then OCT, then TELEPHONE at the start of 14A, thankfully I knew MICRON (I also knew RIC, but needed the C to remember his name). My onlly real whooshing moment (though I did finish in normal Friday time) was getting the long Acrosses in the southern half off of SKE- and OR-.
ReplyDeleteI finished the bottom half and moved up to the NE, where ALPS and DOH got me PHONE, and then TELEPHONE, and then... TINCupTELEPHONE crossing AMUSE where ELATE was supposed to go.
17A totally got me. The misdirection works if you know the mathematical concept of a "line of best fit", and I assumed most solvers wouldn't (maybe underestimating the percentage of solvers who, just like me, have a STEM-based education?). So I figured it was just a straight math clue.
Oh come on. Who doesn't know point-slope and least squares?
DeleteNot as enamored as the big guy - but fine. Plurals everywhere - look at the center diagonal and they all pop - makes for a dummied down grid. Liked TIN CAN TELEPHONE and ORIGN STORIES.
ReplyDeleteIf I could only fly
STOP GAP - SNOOZE was a nice pair. Backed into BENIN and PLINKO. Love a good CREMA.
Pleasant enough Friday morning solve.
BLAZE
Didn't like the clue for MAILINBALLOTS, as it indicated the *place* one votes, but not the actual voting instrument.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was fair misdirection. Mail-in ballots, as a solution, are an alternative to voting booths.
DeleteAnon 9:21am EDT, exactly. Crosswords allow for the most expansive possible understanding of just about anything. In the case of MAILINBALLOTS, it’s a means of voting as are booths. Booths aren’t limited to means or a place either, it’s also a device and collector.
DeleteAnd apparently if you can use a word like HANK to describe yarn, it can also be used to describe hair. That, I find a bit less convincing, but as always in xword land, I’ll simply assume that heretofore I’ve not been exposed or otherwise privy to that understanding, then do like The Beat and save it for later.
This old timer grew up on the song “Honeycomb” and its reference to a hank of hair so no problem there. Plus took my family to the TETONs twice, the second time to stay at the fancy hotel at Jackson Lake. My WOE was having RIC and MINA crossing CREMA, which is no condiment in my book.
DeleteFor all those who questioned "hank" see Kipling--"A rag and a bone and a hank of hair"r
DeleteAnyone who missed hank of hair please see Kipling--"a rag and a bone and a hank of hair..."
DeleteFWIW Greg Chavez
DeleteHank of hair is most definitely a thing. I actually didn’t know it was used for yarn. I only heard it applied to hair.
Sorry, I thought the clues were way too broad.
ReplyDeleteLots of great answers and clues today, with “Bare bones outfit” for SKELETON COSTUME my favorite. Another was “Cruise control features” for RUDDERS, but that section was brutal for me and took almost as long as the rest of the puzzle. I had spoONS hanging around my kitchen, no idea what gauge earrings are, no clue about the “Price Is Right” game. I did have RIDS, but I pulled it because I couldn’t come up with a S-R-S polite “…vous” phrase in French. Finally pulled the “spo” and saw APRONS and APRES.
ReplyDeleteI love having the image of a long-haired turtle in my head. She’s so pretty she can go to the MET GALA. She can go naked and still be wearing a SKELETON COSTUME.
Some very nice clues, especially on the long answers.
ReplyDeleteI did wonder during the solve how many people would know MINA Kimes. I knew her work well, but even some sportsball-engaged friends would not.
I’m not normally one to get upset about, or even notice, PoCs, but this is ridiculous. Ignoring the one-way plurals and just looking at places where the across and the down answer are both affected:
TAILORS/ALPS
HEYS/SALONS
SNAPPERS/BELAYS
APRONS/HENS
PLUGS/PINS
RIDS/TOP DOGS
ORIGIN STORIES/IDIOMS
SPANS/TETONS
SPATS/FONDUES
PoCs? P is for plural (?) but not sure of the remainder.
DeleteChrisS
DeletePOC= plural of convenience
Anoa Bob a regular here coined the term. It means making an answer plural just to take up space. Anoa Bob feels too many = lazy puzzle making.
Benin/Basra not a fair pair for geographically-challenged Americans like me ;)
ReplyDeleteBut surely you appreciate your growth?
DeleteAnd yet those of us who aren’t American appreciate that there are some clues that you can get without knowledge of US TV channels/shows/presenters & American turns of phrase!
DeleteChallenging! My solving experience: dunno, dunno, probably ends in -S [Repeat 30x]. After the first pass, the grid was largely empty except for an S-load of Ss. I thought the entire diagonal line would have an S, so I ended up getting reverse-trolled on the 2 non-Ss. BENIN and BASRA helped me work my way back up. Nice collab from 2 veteran constructors.
ReplyDeleteForgot MINA Kimes' name. Cool to know she solves crosswords and replies to Rex Parker. Highly intelligent. Also, Korean on her mother's side. Anyonghaseyo!
Sorry to all the HANKs who learned their name means a bunch of hair. Still not as bad as Peter, though. :(
I whooshed more than Rex. The gimmes RIC and MINA (love her!) gave me CREMA which gave me CANTINA and ELATE which made the long acrosses up there appear (although it took crosses to commit to TELEPHONE - I had TIN CAN and was picturing the right object but couldn’t think what it would have been called). Down below was similar but came at the long answers from the back end rather than the front. I really enjoyed this one.
ReplyDeleteEvery Friday is going to have its share of WoE’s, but fortunately they kept it to a tolerable level today - for me they included BENIN, PLINKO, and perhaps BASRA crossing the aforementioned BENIN. I wasn’t aware of the tertiary definition for SALON - but that one’s on me. Other than that, it was strap myself in and hope for the best.
ReplyDeleteI’ll give them an A for effort on the clue/answers for the grid spanners (TIN CAN TELEPHONE and SKELETON COSTUME) - both had cute clues that landed, even if they were not knockout-punch humorous. Good, solid clues that don’t try too hard - so good job there.
Probably one of the top five Fridays of the year so far.
Took me forever to see through the misdirect in the clue for TAILORS because, by remarkable coincidence, I lectured on linear regression analysis in my statistics class just yesterday -- which is all about finding the "line of best fit" for predicting one variable from another (according to the criterion of least squares, in case you're curious).
ReplyDeleteOh, gorgeous looking grid, with its photo album corners, sash, and lack of scattershot black squares. I grow calm and happy just looking at it.
ReplyDeleteChristina (28 NYT puzzles) and Matthew (26) are pros, and they love to collaborate (21 times for Christina and 17 for Matthew). It sounds like there was much sweet back-and-forth for them with this one, with not a single word in the first draft appearing in the final one.
Those stacked pairs of longs on the top and bottom really shine and add pop to the grid. Those two on top are NYT debut answers, and the pair at the bottom have appeared in the Times only once each before. And they have a terrific supporting cast – nothing feels stale here. If an answer is common, it’s given a sparky riddle or wordplay clue.
And so, everything in the grid adds to the experience; nothing drags it down. Ahh, I just love when a puzzle does this!
With all this going for it, what do I remember most? That ridiculously simple clue/answer combo [They’re OK] for DOS. I couldn’t get the answer from the clue, and when it filled in from the crosses I STILL didn’t get it, until with a combined “Hah!” and “Wow!”, I did. I love being gotten like that. What a skillfully written clue!
A splendid outing for me, Christina and Matthew, for which I’m exceedingly grateful. Oh, please, do it again!
Is a HANK of hair something all y’all are familiar with and I managed to skip out on knowing?
ReplyDeleteJimmie Rogers, country music, "Honeycomb"
DeletePretty good Friday but I'll agree that stuff like "bar" was overly broad.
ReplyDeleteTAILORS works fine without reference to / thinking about Taylor series: the "line" in "line of best fit" can be interpreted as a seam in a pair of pants, say. Though it would be a *really* mean, Saturday-level trick if TAYLORS (with a Y) shows up as a punny answer some day.
I spent a good 10 refusing to believe PLINKY is an actual thing until I googled.
No whoosh. Boring answers.
ReplyDeleteRecord Friday time for me- that's what happens when the long answers click in. Only stumble was FACTOIDS for FUNFACTS, but able to correct that swiftly. The crossword gods were smiling today
ReplyDeleteDOS contrast with NONO at opposite points in the puzzle- niiice!
2 good puzzles in a row!!!
ReplyDeleteShame that the streak will end Sunday...
Booths alternative needs to be MAILBOXES or DROPBOXES (which could have an Oreos misdirect - “things that come Double Stuffed?”)
ReplyDeleteCan we please abolish, "Still working on that?" At least for meals? If I am working on a meal, then my enjoyment of your restaurant is diminished. Also, "All done" could be an answer to that horrible question. OR it could be the EXACT OPPOSITE question. "Still working on that?" yes. "All done?" no, not yet.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Rick@7:05. That clue/answer was ungrammatical and illogical. The rest of the puzzle was fine.
ReplyDeleteMr Grumpy pants
DeleteAbout booth> mail in ballot
It is a crossword puzzle with clues. A type of hint Nothing wrong with a hint being not exactly logical. The Times clearly has clues like this often. Obviously, they have different rules than those who object.
Personally, they bother me not at all. I thought this one was clever.
Very nice puzzle. Mina/Crema was almost a Natick for me, but I did everything else first, and got the solved sound on my second guess for the crossing letter. The southeast was definitely easier than the northwest, but both were free flowing and the puzzle seemed on my wavelength. Congrats to the constructors for a nice Friday without a lot of crosswordese.
ReplyDeleteTough for me but very fair. No complaints. PINS? MICRON? MINA? Forget about it. Love the clue for SKELETONCOSTUME!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'll send in a MAIL-IN BALLOT this year. I think I'll "booth it" instead. Or maybe I'll "do a booth". Vote a booth? Fill out a booth?
ReplyDeleteHow on earth is a booth an alternative to a MAIL IN BALLOT? MY DESK might be an alternative to a MAIL IN BALLOT. Because MY DESK is where I fill out my MAIL IN BALLOT, just as a booth is where I fill out my vote-in-person ballot.
I had BALLOT, I didn't have MAIL-IN, and I really, really resisted writing in this absurd answer.
And, btw, the only way I got MAIL IN was by cheating on MINA.
Another impossible answer for me was 38A. A gauge wears earrings??
Another terrible clue at 22D. If I ask you if you're "still working on that?", it means I'm pretty sure you're not finished yet. If I say ALL DONE to you, it means that I think that you are finished. Not only are the two phrases not synonymous -- they're close to being antonyms.
A big "Huh?" for me was 38A. A gauge wears earrings??
OTOH, the clues for TIN CAN TELEPHONE, MET GALA and SKELETON COSTUME were great.
A challenging, interesting puzzle -- but with some real clunkers that could have been and should have been cleaned up
I am completely indebted to today's Rhymes with Orange for TIN CAN TELEPHONE. I knew it was a string phone (the hyphen in on-line gave that much away) but I needed the visual to get to tin can.
ReplyDeleteOn 16A - Sometimes I feel like the point of a clue/answer pair is that the constructor wants you to leave the puzzle knowing something that you might not have come in knowing. I now know that if a child is being bullied on a playground, and lets the teacher with playground duty know, if it's October, there might be a non-zero chance of that child hearing something other than "if you just ignore him, he'll leave you alone."
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteGood puz. Did have to resort running to Goog to keep things moving, however. Forgot about the TETONS range, for one. And looked up BENIN, because I haven't a clue where that is.But those unlocked everything I was stuck on in the South.
In the North, looked up MINA and MICRON. Ah, well. Angstiness and all that.
Got a chuckle out of Rex's liking MET apples! Good stuff.
Just the right amount of Friday in this puz. Nice one, Matt & Chris.
Happy Friday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Like 6:11 I thought of stats and entered Regress, with some doubts. Got the bottom lobgs quickly, an ELATing experience. Put in and took out versions of PHONE a few times. Stumbled over the SW and still a bit confused about how PLUGS connects to gauge. Loved the TAILORS clue. A food Friday for me.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of RIC or MINA and wanted my "one for the record books" to be a ChEcK (remember those? writing them in the checkbook?) so the whole top was a mess. But oddly, the rest seemed very wavelengthy. Surprisingly quick for a Friday.
ReplyDeleteTough one for me. Seriously great puzzle.
ReplyDelete❤️: TIN CAN TELEPHONE. SKELETON COSTUME. FUN FACTS.
❓: HANK. HEYS. BLAZE.
Propers: 4
Places: 4
Products: 0
Partials: 2
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 11 (16%)
Tee-Hee: TIT. Ohhh.
Uniclues:
1 One who says, "You tell 'em girl."
2 One saying, "World's Greatest Chef."
3 Protest sign meaning "Enough with these celebrity haircuts."
4 Guides on a Mexican riverboat bar.
5 We fired Sweeney Todd, and We say YES to Beehives, among others.
6 Emergency cheese and chocolate.
7 Figurative white noise.
1 SNAPPER'S HELPER
2 APRON'S FULL OF IT
3 END MET GALA DOS
4 CANTINA RUDDERS
5 SALON'S FUN FACTS
6 STOP GAP FONDUES
7 SNOOZE IDIOMS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Serenity now. ABSENT APOPLEXY.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This puzzle gave me my what I consider my best Friday/Saturday experience…starting out “oh no, too hard” but then turning into an enjoyable experience I actually solve! I will say…I usually don’t notice plurals too much and at one point I temporarily forgot Fridays are themeless and thought the theme might be plurals. Hand up for my reluctance to put in ALLDONE as equivalent to “Still working on that” but, on the other hand, I thought voting booths v. MAILINBALLOTS was clever and the “grammatical disagreement” didn’t occur to me until I read a few of the comments.
ReplyDeleteA funny thing happened to me on the way to the METGALA…at first I parsed the clue as “Big ‘Apple charity event’” instead of “Big Apple”…DOH!
Is it just me or is the 46 down strangely worded? Shouldn't it be in THE loop? I've never heard or read 'in loop' as an option for 'keep informed'
ReplyDeleteIt’s loop in, not in loop!
DeleteMe: Boss, I updated the KPI deck with the new EPS data. Boss: Make sure you loop in the CFO.
DeleteWeird puzzle.
ReplyDeleteAverage number of long answers (8 or longer) in a Friday puzzle in 2024: 14
Number of long answers in today's puzzle: 8
Average number of plurals in a Friday puzzle in 2024: 8.4
Number of plurals in today's puzzle: 20
How did this get accepted?!
--
On the plus side, MINA made her debut! Love her, and knew she was a big NYT crossword fan. Anybody interested in watching her solve a NYT puzzle with Sam Ezersky (NYT editor) should Google "Mina Kimes" and "Sam Ezersky." Fun watch from 2020!
Bottom half relatively easy, top half tricky (even knowing RIC and MINA cold - which gave me CREMA quickly) finished with the downs SALONS and CLERK. Both took too long, mainly due to HANK just not resonating at all, and brain not wanting to let go of loADS for SCADS when I had the ..ADS.
ReplyDeleteOverall, it was a decent Friday, finished a tad below avg time, thanks to a quick run through the bottom half.
definitions say HANK is yarn, not hair. puzzle gets a pass though for having my name on it
ReplyDeleteManchu Picchu means of on-line conversation? Incan TINCAN TELEPHONE.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I heard Proud Mary, I thought "Man, CANTINA sing".
Are obscenely informal greetings Purple HEYS?
It seems a bit strange that of all the possible ANTIHEROs to use in the 5D clue, an anti-heroine was chosen. I probably would have chosen a hoagie. It has a great ORIGINSTORy.
Ben's Mom: Ben's seeing the world, you know.
Friend: What country's Ben in?
Ben's Mom: BENIN
Friend: Seems kinda ECHOEY in here.
I whooshed a little here, a little there. Liked it a lot. Thanks, Matthew Stock and Christina Iverson.
It must be opposite day because my first two answers were proper names, RIC, who is the only RIC I've ever heard of, and MINA, who I see on ESPN all over the place. This left LEIF as the only name I had to guess at. Very unusual.
ReplyDeleteSolved top down, as I found the long answers easy enough to suss out, unlike OFL. The bottom took a little more work--METGALA? Whazzat? PLINKO? "Gauge earrings"? Enough total unknowns and vague clues to make me think it couldn't be done, so very satisfying when it was.
Wound up liking this a lot, MS and CI. Many Smiles and Completely Interesting all the way. Thanks for all the fun.
Plinko… really!?
DeleteAfter finishing thought it was a fun puzzle with great phrases, but was some struggle getting there. Had to Google the PPP in the NW to get started after wandering around the grid and not finding enough to get a foothold. TIN CAN TELEPHONE brought back many warm childhood memories of friends and siblings.
ReplyDeleteWell, I saw two of the best names in the business at the top of my printout today and just figured it’s my privilege to get to fill in the blanks. Had a little trouble with a couple of the names, but there weren’t very many of them so can’t really complain about that. Plus some of the clever clues and entries like TIN CAN TELEPHONE more than made up for it. Overall a very smooth solve. Thanks, Matthew and Christina.
ReplyDeleteStarted out really tough, but I raced to the end. I liked this one much better than yesterday's "holey" version. Kudos for the Bojack clip; what a terrific series.
ReplyDeleteAs usual these last few weeks, my time is super elevated.
ReplyDeleteNW was the worst. Wanted SALSA for “Mexican condiment” and when the crosses the names of two people I have never heard of (singer Ocasek? Sports analyst Kimes???) it was difficult to see this error, though I admit I had never heard of a “Santina” - maybe a miniature Santa? And I don’t really think of CREMA as a condiment, plus with the espresso connection, to me it’s Italian. So that whole thing was a disaster. Sorted it out eventually.
Fun! And medium-easy, once I found a way in. That was at BLAZE x SNOOZE, and from there I filled in the lower right triangle, followed SKELETON COSTUME over to the other side, and climbed back up via RUDDERS, TOP DOGS, and CANTINA. Last in: HANK x CLERK. It was one of those happy solves where each entry gave me j..u..s..t enough to get another cross. The four grid-spanning Acrosses were definitely a big help. So many pleasures! My favorites were STOPGAP, ALL DONE?, ORIGIN STORIES, TIN CAN TELEPHONE. Terrific Friday.
ReplyDeleteNo idea: RIC, MINA, PLINKO, PINS as clued.
Still wondering why PLUGS is the answer to the clue “Gauge earrings???”
ReplyDeleteCan anyone explain?
https://www.plugyourholes.com/collections/plugs-tunnels
DeleteSALSA before CREMA and LET ON before LET IN, and never heard of PLINKO or MINA. These briefly delayed me, but still an unusually fast Friday solve.
ReplyDeletePLINKO is my only gripe. I haven't watched The Price Is Right for decades. Why watch daytime TV? I'd rather ELATE RIC and MINA in the CANTINA with some CREMA.
PLINKO was the frustration of the day followed closely by PLUGS though the latter was at least retrievable via coffee shop visualization. Otherwise the solve was a delightful experience. Great clueing led to many actual giggles as the misdirection and pun times resolved themselves as several above have noted. Just the right balance for a themeless Friday!
ReplyDeleteWell, I think all Fridays should be like this. A chipping away experience that gave me a few gold nuggets hither and yon.
ReplyDeleteCREMA CANTINA. Where have you been my whole life? Was MICRON invited to the FONDUE party? MINA, do you like to WRITE about TOWNS? Chip away, chip away, chip away....I can't find my nuggets yet. Head for the middle. I did. Oh SNAPPERS...you were my first real entry. You gave me TOP DOG which eventually led to WRITE ELATE which led to NO NO which led to TOWNS which led to TIN CAN TELEPHONE and the sky opened up. I eventually got MAILING BALLOTS and that fell with a mighty thud. I guess BALLOTS are now booths? Does the State of Georgia have those? I cheated on MICRON. Not my type anyway.
I moved on to play some PLINKO. I won big. I was starting to BLAZE a trail of good fortune....Oh boy was I starting to really like the sneaky way you made me dig. Why was APRONS so hard for me? Why couldn't I remember BENIN and BASRA? FONDUES and IDIOMS saved my bacon. Put the crossword down, walk away, pour myself another Zin from Lodi, come back and finish up.
I didn't really want to finish the puzzle. I was having a lot of fun and enjoying a NODE here, a LOOP there maybe even wearing a SKELETON COSTUME, spelling LEIF correctly and staring for a very long time at DOS. Hopefully @Rex will explain......
Two cheats last night....MINA and MICRON....I don't know if you call looking up an answer to see if what you wrote was correct, cheating, because I did it often. I'd look at my answer and because some of the cluing was sneaky, I wasn't sure of my correct answers. Yes! Correct....Lousy sentence, sorry.
Bottom line...I really liked this puzzle. I hope tomorrow will bring me some smiles as well.....
I have been suffering from theme and construction marvel fatigue this week so today’s Themeless Friday was a welcome relief. I actually had one of my best Friday times, although I must confess to running the alphabet on BASRA/BENIN to finish.
ReplyDeleteI so miss Highly Questionable on ESPN and Popi La Batard. When MINA KIME first joined the panel as a substitute, I must confess my reaction was “whaa?” She did not look the part at all which made it all the more entertaining when she immediately fit right in with old boys. She is awesome! However, I concede that this entry would be a bit unfair to most solvers unless they are big sports fans…or live with one. But it made me smile that she made it to the big leagues in yet another way.
This was tough for me, but in a fun way. Like many, I had no idea what gauge earrings were, and I already had a U from RUDDERS, so of course I put in stUdS. Then I saw 31-D, which had to be APRES, so I knew studs was wrong, but not what it might be. That had to wait for TOP DOGS, where I had been thinking there must be some Spanish word for a ... big enchilada. (I've got to get out more.) Then I saw the one about the line of best fit, and wanted SMOOTHS, as in smoothing a curve. Fortunately I checked a few crosses, and that was clearly wrong, but I had to work my way down to the bottom and back up the right side before I got it. As for LEIF the Lucky, I assume it was because of my Norwegian ancestry that I knew it, but I'm damned if I know why I did.
ReplyDeleteMy only whoosh was ORIGIN STORIES (since 'capes' was too short). But I'm looking for resistance more than whoosh, so that was fine. I did like the SPANS-SPATS pairing down at the bottom of the grid.
In other news, I was listening to podcasts in the car as I ran an early-morning errand when suddenly the 4th episode of "On the Grid," which Rex made with Lena Webb, came on. They did a funny routine about good clues for bad fill, and then a segment where they tasted bad sparkling wine. I checked out the details when I got home, and saw that they had posted it in 2017! How CarPlay decided that was next up for me I have no idea, but it was fun to listen to.
Here's Jimmy Rodgers singing about a HANK of hair among other things. I guess it's an IDIOM.
This one played easy. Some combination of the grid, horses for courses, work time leading up to puzzle time being quiet.... Fridays usually present areas - heck, even the whole darn puzzle - that seem (to me) impenetrable. Not so today.
ReplyDeleteNot saying all answers went right in - 14A, for example. I figured right away it had to do with tin cans. But got TELEPHONE part before TIN CAN. Just that, unusually, no area was full of white space for long. Is that the whoosh?
Loved SKELETON COSTUME. Never heard of Mina Kimes. Robin Roberts used to be my Sunday morning ESPN fix (I think that's the right day). Linus Van Pelt - oops, Scott Van Pelt - is about the only ESPN person I could name now.
Thanks for the fun puzzle, Matthew Stock and Christina Iverson.
Pretty nice FriPuz. Liked the nicely frame puzgrid corners, too boot.
ReplyDeleteno-knows hit on m&e right away, at MINA/CREMA.
staff weeject pick: RIC. First thing I filled in. Only 8 weeject choices, btw. Sparse.
Tough but fair solvequest. Luved the MAILINBALLOTS & TINCANTELEPHONE entries and clues.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Mr. Stock dude & Ms. Iverson darlin. Seed entries? Bet they weren't CREMA/MINA -- unless y'all are slightly sadistic.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
**gruntz**
I'll simply write what I did the last time HANK of hair appeared in a NYT grid:
ReplyDelete"[He] took a HANK of hair and a piece of bone and made a walkin', talkin' honeycomb." Jimmie Rodgers, Honeycomb, 1957
Always a good feeling on a Friday to grind for nearly an hour and get the happy music on the first try!
MINA (Kimes) was the first answer to go in. She's great, and has often through the years appeared alongside her adorable dog Lenny. Maybe Lenny can get into a Saturday puzzle some day.
It’s interesting that Rex keyed in on Mina, because that was my only mistake. TINA was such an obvious first name that I didn’t run the alphabet, I just figured that CRETA was some obscure Mexican condiment. If I had thought of CREMA, a word that I’ve heard but didn’t realize was Mexican, I would have had a complete solve. Alas.
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed today's puzzle; I breezed right through it and loved the cluing. Given this, I thought that Rex would find it easy rather than medium.
ReplyDeleteConfidently put TIN CAN ON A STRING based on two crosses and promptly screwed myself for the entire top half of the puzzle. Not knowing CREMA (or MINA) didn’t help.
ReplyDeleteBottom half (cut diagonally) was breezy and fun. Too half killed me because of my dumb mistakes.
@Drphunkenstein - re 46D keep informed, with "in" - it's "loop in"
ReplyDelete@jberg and others on this…I suspect EVERYONE who has commented has seen them and maybe thought WoE? I dunno. The term “earring” really doesn’t seem to fit but then again…not all “earrings” are rings. As for me…If I try to think of the name “gauges” it doesn’t always come to me. I should Goog, but maybe they are called “gauges” it’s because, until you get to desired “plug” you start small then go to a larger gauge?
ReplyDeleteMedium. Immediately put in salsa and then read the downs and erased it because RIC. The rest went fairly smoothly except for the middle west where PLUGS and PLINKO were WOEs and it took a few nanoseconds to remember that APRES is after.
ReplyDeleteSolid with bit of sparkle, liked it.
I’m old enough to have made a TIN CAN TELEPHONE a when I was a kid.
Did not know MINA.
Challenging for a Friday, but not in a fun way. So much overly broad cluing. Having a lot less fun solving the puzzle since Joel is editing. I miss Will.
ReplyDeleteThe difficulty level must definitely be up this year. At 30 minutes this took what I used to think of as an average Saturday. Today's solve like a fun Friday so I must be expecting stiffer resistance.
ReplyDeleteThank Jah for RIC because who knows how much time I would have wasted on SALSA.
TOWNS supported by OCT and WRITE gave me my real start.
I liked CANTINA and TINCAN doing their little CAN-CAN dance.
The L of PLUG and PLINKO was my final letter for the congrats. I've never heard of PLINKO and "Gauge earrings" meant nothing to me. However I am familiar with the word PLUG and I've seen plenty of those earrings.
yd -0 QB12, @okanaganer, congrats on getting the element and maintaining your streak. That was a new one for me too.
A big yes to how great the clues for TIN CAN TELEPHONE and SKELETON COSTUME are. The latter, I had SKELETON and couldn't see an alternative to "crew" that would fit the clue but the crosses filled in and, bam, very nice.
ReplyDeleteI was proud of getting RUDDER from the last R and not being deked by the cruise control misdirection. I wondered how many people would be flummoxed by BLAZE as clued but no one has complained so I guess I'll have to stop congratulating myself on knowing that right off.
The photos of the MET GALA in the online NYT are always fascinating and I'm looking forward to seeing what attendees come up with regarding this year's theme “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” which seems rather vague to me.
Christina and Matthew, thanks, this was fun!
"May as well just clue it as [It's one of the mos., just guess]" - Ha! That was hilarious - I'd love to work a puzzle with snarky clues like that.
ReplyDeleteI started out very skeptical about today’s offering with those plurals piling up. At least they gave me something to WRITE in on my first pass. Once the whole grid was filled in (with zero cheats - I’m ELATEd!), I decided the sparkly answers and just-misleading-enough cluing were well worth the prices of admissions.
ReplyDeleteManaged to evade the salsa trap but elsewhere visualized “dots on a map” as a line of dots, so put in rOute instead of TOWNS. Thankfully that gave me OCT, without which I wouldn’t have seen MICRON.
My most entertaining WRITEover was mANe before HANK (which I did know from eons ago but it didn’t leap to mind). Pulled out a HANK of my mane trying to finish ANTImE—. Was Lisbeth antimeat? An antimeme? Opposed to taking notes? DOH. HANK also solved the CLERe mystery - Double DOH.
Loved TINCANTELEPHONE and its clue, although not knowing RIC or MINA held me up quite a while. Loved SKELETONCOSTUME even more. Somewhere I have a photo of my then tweenage niece (who now works at the MET) on her horse, both in skeleton costumes for a Halloween contest. My niece’s costume was bought, but my brother painted the skeleton on the horse. It was outstanding, and they won 1st prize.
Random grid FUN:
FUN FACTS crossing FULL OF IT.
Crossing clues uplift and set down.
HOLD crossing FOLD.
The makings of a symmetrical quartet with SCADS, SPANS, SPATS and ……CREMA?
My great aunt, who was of German descent, used to call me MINA in her letters instead of Mimi, my actual nickname. I found out much later that both names are diminutives for Wilhelmina. FUN FACT, Wilhelm means “resolute protector” so I guess MINA is a “little resolute protectress.”
Aha! Today is the birthday of one of my TOP favorite conductors I’ve ever played for, Gisèle Ben-Dor (née Buka), Uruguayan-Israeli-American conductor (Santa Barbara Symphony, 1994–2006; Boston Pro-Arte Chamber Orchestra, 1991–2000). Here she is conducting Piazzolla’s “Oblivion.”
I started with total white space in the upper left, then filled the lower right totally. This meant backing from right to left and bottom to top to get a foothold. ------TELEPHONE had to be STRING, but not a lot of other typeovers. Oh yeah... LID before LIP at 49 down. Finished with an error at CREMA / MINA where I put a T.
ReplyDeleteGALA apples were super popular when I was living in an apple orchard 20 years ago. The orchard owner ripped out tons of Delicious and Spartans to put in Ambrosia and Gala, which sold for about 3 times the price per weight. Personally, I still prefer Spartans.
[Spelling Bee: Thu 0; my last word was a classic crossword 4er. Streak at 18!... thanks puzzlehoarder.]
Surely a better way to clue OCT. it’s the editor. Just don’t allow pure guesses. How hard is that?
ReplyDeleteThere has been a lot of bashing on Joel here lately. This puzzle had great clues all the way around. FUN FACTS, misdirects, wordplay... best set of clues I've seen in awhile. Also the fill was so, so clean. A great Friday!
ReplyDeleteKimes was also the surname of the notorious murderer/con artist Sime Kimes and her son Kenneth Jr., who enabled many of her crimes.
ReplyDeleteThe year was 1957. I was six years old. My next door neighbor incessantly played the song “Honeycomb” by Jimmie Rogers. Scarred me for life. But I know about hank of hair.
ReplyDeleteInteresting puzzle. Enjoyed it. Voting booths and mail-in ballots both are alternative ways of casting ballots. The constructors should not be censured for that clue/answer.
Not really a big concern, but a cleanup question: with superheroes in the clue for 51A, is ANTIHERO as answer for 5D ok or questionable per conventional crossword "rules" regarding overlap?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 2:12 pm
DeleteAbout hero duplicated
Don’t remember if it was an issue years ago but in the current era it most definitely is not verboten. The editors allow stuff like that all the time! Personally, it doesn’t bother me.
BTW, while Rex is luke warm on FUN FACTS, I'll note that they don't have to be boring. One way to spice it up is to do "two truths and a lie." Have each person give two true FUN FACTS and one fabrication, then have the group guess which one is the lie. Much more fun and interactive.
ReplyDeleteOctober seemed likely for anti bullying month, since it will be the first or second full month of the school year. Surprised that you did not consider that,Rex, as a teacher.
ReplyDeleteMy fastest Friday ever, about half my average Friday time. Started browsing from the top, quickly jotted in salsA then saw nothing until the SW.
ReplyDeleteThen all at once I got PLUGS, RIDS, SKELETONCOSTUME with no crosses, checked by PLINKO and I was off and running. Somehow thought it was ORIGINalnamES before correcting, but at that point I was off to the races.
CREMA/TAILORS/HANK and their crosses were the only spot I got hung up at all, everything else whooshed in.
BENIN/BASRA was almost a problem too, the first thing my brain came up with was nASRi (not in any way a thing, I Googled).
I liked the juxtaposition of
ReplyDeleteMICROn - a millionth
MEGA - a million
AND
DINO under SNAPPERS - reptiles
Disagree on problem of the booth vs mailin. I saw it as means of voting via booth or alternatively mailin not a place.
ReplyDeleteDid not see any comments on problem with HANK. Clue should be ‘Bunch (of hair)’. The way clue as written, saying ‘hank of hair’ would translate ‘Bunch of hair of hair’
Bar clue wasn’t that broad with 7 letter answer. CANTINA was a given for me but took it out because I saw “19A. Set out” as past tense? Had to think a bit of the usage before I reinstated cantina.
Anon 3:09…plurals oF CONVENIENCE. Ask others why it’s bad…aka Anoa.
ReplyDeleteOops…I meant @Chris S for “plurals of convenience.”
ReplyDelete@Nancy ALL DONE can be a response to the question, but ALL DONE can be
ReplyDeletesynonymous with the question. As in "Are you ALL DONE?"
HOLY COW! I was in stunned disbelief after seeing all the POCs (plurals of convenience) in this one. You know there has to be a lot of them when other commenters besides me mention them. @Beezer 10:00 even thought that plurals might be today's theme.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a major demerit when marquee long Across entries need some convenient help doing their jobs as happens here when MAIL IN BALLOT was one letter and ORIGIN STORY was two letters short of their slots. Then some long Downs, TOP DOG, FUN FACT and FONDUE, join the POC party.
The type of POC that stood out the most, though, was the two for one POC where a Down and an Across share a letter count boosting, grid fill helping final S. I would list them but @kitshef 7:18 did that already. As @Son Volt 7:03 noted, most of them are along that upper right to lower left diagonal of black squares. There are also two two-fers where they are most likely to occur, in the lower rightmost squares.
All those two for one Ss are like cheater squares. They don't change the word count nor do they add anything of interest or value to the puzzle. They just make it easier, much easier here, to fill the grid.
The standard categories for puzzles that lean to heavily on plurals of convenience to fill the grid is POC Assisted or, when it's really heavy, POC Marked. This one needs a new category if you ask me. The POC Committee is leaning toward POC Swamped but is open to other suggestions.
Mexican condimento CREMA?? Wherr in the world is Cream a consument?? REALLY???
ReplyDeleteThese type of language liberties are going too far, let me tell you. Not to mention the fact that in Mexico CREMA is not used, like, nowhere (except for on flautas and maybe elote), and also, that is not a condiment! Oregano, cumin, salt, adobo, chile, pepper, these are condiments. What the f*** is CREMA??
I want my money back.
Quite possibly the toughest Friday ever for me — double my usual Friday time. That WSW area was a brutal slog. PLINKO was a TIL and can anyone explain PLUGS??? Gauge earrings??? I still don’t understand that one.
ReplyDeleteJust back to say that, since we dropped our MAILIN BALLOTS this morning at the convenient drop box on the way to the Y, I had no issue with "Alternative to booths" as a clue, because for us it is exactly that. We use mail in as an alternative to going to the voting booth. For which I am supremely grateful, since we seem to be away often on voting days.
ReplyDeleteI watch a *lot* of sports, and never heard of MINA . . . . .
ReplyDeleteAnd PLINKO??? I've heard of The Price is Right (though never watched it), so PLINKO was never going to land in my lap.
As a result, a tough Friday.
The entire puzzle was smooth sailing until I was left with the northwest quadrant, although I did enjoy many clues in that section.
ReplyDeleteDidn't know RIC Ocasek or MINA Kimes, so TI?A? TELEPHONE was almost my downfall. I completed the puzzle with TIN-EAR TELEPHONE, assuming that maybe it's some kind of telephone used on trains that I never heard of. Oh, trains! It must be TIN CAR TELEPHONE! ...no? Um, okay... Maybe RIB is someone's name and it's TIN BAR TELEPHONE... TIN CAT TELEPHONE... TIN CAN TELEPHONE, oh that's right! What the heck is a... *googles it*... ohhhh okay sure yeah I know what that is. You got me.
I found the puzzle very hard in the NW and W. The rest was average.
ReplyDeleteBut I liked it.
Knew Anoa Bob wouldn’t be happy!
Though they don’t bother me.
I particularly liked salons ( plurals cross!) and Met Gala as answers.
Liked the tricky clueing especially since I eventually figured everything out.
Thanks for the Scritti Politti! A perfect pop tune.
ReplyDeleteGauge earrings are used to gradually increase the size of the piercing. (Whatever floats your boat.).
ReplyDeleteThe NW part of the puzzle messed me up- had CURTAIL for 1D for the longest time.
I know I am way late to the party but thought this was a very fair and fun Friday even if some of the cluing was challenging. MINA was the first thing I put in. Unlike the NYT Crossword, at ESPN the women reporters and commentators have surpassed the men, in talent and maybe even in numbers. Women like MINA Kimes ( a Yale honors graduate), Elle Duncan, Malika Andrews, Doris Burke and the former on-air Katie Nolan of Jeopardy stardom and several others are the best thing ESPN has going for it.
ReplyDeleteYes, @JAK — It seemed obvious to me that the anti-bullying month would be either Sep or OCT, to send that message at the beginning of a new school year.
ReplyDeleteCream is not a condiment.
ReplyDeleteNot bad. Nice and crunchy. A few zingers here and there like the clues for 11A, 14A and 48A. BELAYS should have been tagged as archaic - or better yet replaced wtth a different word.
ReplyDeleteSCADS of problems with this one. I had no idea that tree markings were called BLAZEs (noun), so to me BLAZE (verb, to forge a trail or pathway) didn't seem to fit with marking (noun). [Not gerund, because the answer isn't BLAZING.] I call that out as a terrible clue.
ReplyDeleteAnother: "Still working on that?" for ALLDONE. I echo the sentiment that those two don't jive. If you're asking "ALLDONE?" you're expecting an affirmative. That doesn't sound like the clue at all. TC #2.
Natick at #4. I watch a lot of sports, but MINA was a total Who?? After running the alphabet, I finally settled on CREMA for the condiment. Me "the lucky."
But the killer is Intellectual gatherings = SALONS. Huh? Where Mensa members get their hair done?? Gimme a break.
Nothing to really pull this out of the bad-clue fire. Bogey.
Wordle par, with nary a green till the hole-out.
HEY, LEIF CAN HELPER
ReplyDeleteThere’ll BELAYS with MINA on TOP,
until DINO cries, “ALLDONE!”
When MINA and DINO STOP,
that’s the END OF the FUN.
--- HANK TOWNS-BELL
I forget who, but I did have to look up a name or two. Oh yes, MINA.
ReplyDeleteAnd SIMON, who gave me the "big clue" about the circles. So the rest was easyish for a Friday.
Diana, Lady
oops
ReplyDeleteMy statement referred to part of yesterday's puz. Where am I - who am I?
Lady Di
The A in BELAYS/HANK was the last letter in…never heard of either one. Not a lot of WOW factor but played like a Friday and I solved it so I’ll take it
ReplyDelete