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Abnormally deep sleep / WED 5-8-24 / Waterproof overshoes / Bassist Meyer / City on Florida's Space Coast / Rapper with the hit 1990 album "To the Extreme" / Having a baby bump, slangily / Fiddlehead producer
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Constructor: Michael Schlossberg
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (very easy but for the NW corner, which is more medium)
Theme answers:
- MILKSOP (17A: Coward)
- COCOA BEACH (20A: City on Florida's Space Coast)
- BUTTERFINGERS (32A: Nickname for a clumsy person)
- SUGAR SNAP PEAS (42A: Some stir-fry vegetables)
- VANILLA ICE (54A: Rapper with the hit 1990 album "To the Extreme")
Cocoa Beach is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. The population was 11,539 at the 2018 United States Census. (wikipedia)
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| [Caspar Milquetoast] |
There's also the rest of the grid, which is full of short, unappealing, frequently subPAR fill. From the grimness of ODS (19A: Some poison control center cases, in brief) and doomsday preppers stockpiling AMMO (yeesh), to all that ARCTICS SOPOR COCOA BEACH nonsense I just went over, to the avalanche of crosswordese: CELS TSK INS UPS ISTO INON TSARINA GTOS TEEPEE TEHEE SHO SOLI FUM UTE. You may as well consider OOF a kind of second revealer. It sits atop "OH FUDGE" like a commentary. While I did not "cry" "OH FUDGE," I definitely did cry OOF. Several times.
Notes:
- 25A: Bassist Meyer (EDGAR) — the one thing outside of SOPOR Junction that I didn't know. I thought briefly "oh, I've heard of him," but I think I'm thinking of EDGAR Winter. Meyer is an incredibly accomplished classical, bluegrass, and jazz bassist, as well as a composer, and he's not that much older than I am, so I'm surprised his name doesn't ring a bell. Gonna check him out. Thanks, puzzle.
- 23D: Having a baby bump, slangily (PREGGO) — leaving aside how cringe this term is, the clue is bad. It's redundant. "Baby bump" is slang, so "slangily" is completely unnecessary. [With child, slangily], [Expecting, slangily], those make sense. But here, no, you can (should) ditch it. Or rewrite the clue entirely. Or tear up your grid and get rid of PREGGO altogether. For some reason PREGGO is worse even than PREGGERS, and I can't put my finger on why. Maybe because PREGGO feels like a slangy degradation of a perfectly good Italian word.
- 34D: Fiddlehead producer (FERN) — one of the symbols of New Zealand. Speaking of which, I gotta get my wife to the bus station by quarter to 7 this morning so she can get down to the city to visit her mother, who flew in from NZ two days ago. So that's all, folks.
See you tomorrow.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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107 comments:
Cocoa Bench is where Major Nelson and Jeannie lived in I Dream of Jeannie.
Easy-Medium, and like OFL I encountered most of the (mild) resistance in the NW.
Puzzle: 1A: Waterproof overshoes
Me (confidently): G-A-L-O-S-H-E-rats-doesn't-fit! ARCTICS in that context was a WOE, but fairly crossed. Except maybe for 1D, where my doomsday preppers stockpiled food before they stockpiled AMMO.
No other overwrites, and EDGAR Meyer (25A) was my only other WOE.
Cute theme - seems to work. I really dislike the shaded squares - I can’t see them solving on iOS in dark mode. Down with the big guy on how easy this was for midweek. MILKSOP is the outlier here - SOPOR is fine crosswardese. COCOA Beach is the home of Major Tony Nelson and actually a pretty nice place.
One less set of footsteps
Side eye to the “PREPpers” - PREP duo. I’m not a FUDGE eater but I would assume most will fall in line with this one. Liked NEMESES and we get a SB darling with TEEPEE.
Pleasant Wednesday morning solve.
URIAH Heep
Found it to be an easy Wednesday, with a theme that didn't help the solve. Even though I live in Florida, it took me a while to get COCOABEACH. The NW was the only sticky wicket for me; getting MILKSOP was the finishing touch.
Precisely, @Todd. "You know you're old when...." Total gimme. (Plus it doesn't hurt when me and the pooch went there on Monday.)
Clearly, @Rex, you never watched I Dream of Jeannie as a kid. I had a crush on Barbara Eden for a couple years there in my youth. But COCOA BEACH was a giveaway as a result, and while SOPOR was tough, ARCTICS was tougher--had "rubbers" since galoshes wouldn't fit; those are the only two terms I know of for overshoes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ EjeCT before EVICT, but that was soon fixed when I realized the other ingredient wasn't going to be "flour" and that it was a FUDGE recipe. OH. I also never heard of EDGAR Mayer, but I filled in his name from the crosses without a blink. Otherwise this played quite easy for me. I enjoyed it more than @Rex.
Have never heard of arctics. Tried to verify y googling and it took me a very longtime and several tries to come up with Arctic rubber shoes or boots or something.. Never did find them called Arctics alone.
Otherwise fairly easy and kind of fun.
@Rex. What makes Tsarina crosswordese?
@Dshrirock
They are definitely sugar snap peas on seed packets (which I never buy)
And just yesterday i dug up and potted several "fiddleheads" that had strayed from their parent ferns into parts of the garden where they were unwanted.
OK, I’m old and I’ve never heard of overshoes called ARCTICS. Also, SOPOR (come on!) and MILKSOP, ridiculous.
Otherwise, an easy Wednesday, not very interesting.
This makes at least a couple of times this week that I actually enjoyed the theme. I hope I’m not coming down with something.
Unfortunately, the completely ungettable ARCTICS and the associated SOPOR kind of was a buzz-kill coming right out of the gate. Don’t know the name of the affliction - maybe it’s not an affliction. It’s just in their DNA over there at the Times - they have to find a way to screw up or otherwise kill the energy and degrade the solving experience on a daily basis. At least they are consistent if nothing else. Now even Rex, who does puzzles by the thousands and has seen pretty much everything, has been bemoaning the arcana and crappy cluing more frequently than in the past - at least it seems that way too me.
I knew cocoa beach from the early days of NASA
All the Mercury and Apollo astronauts had homes in Cocoa Beach.
I’m 64 also knew from I Dream of Jeannie. Wrote it right in no crosses
Cocoa Beach is legitimate I think. "Space Coast" highlights what is notable about the town. Many astronauts lived and, famously, played there.
I liked the theme but that NW was bad for me. Never heard of ARCTICS, MILKSOP or SOPOR. I’ve heard the word SOPORIFIC but I thought it meant stupid or naive, not tired. Got the whole puzzle filled out and got Naticked at that SOPOR/MILKSOP cross. I even thought “there’s no way it can be a P. MILK SOP can’t be a word”
Filled in AMMO and ODS and knew we were in for trouble. Despite that ugly, unpromising start, it was a quick, easy puzzle, especially for anyone who grew up on 1960s TV. But I’m with @SharonAK: I live in Vermont, know my appropriate footwear for all kinds of weather, and have never heard of ARCTICS.
And Rex, you definitely should check out EDGAR Meyer, an incredible musician.
COCOA BEACH is near Cape Canaveral and hence was big in the days of the Apollo program, presumably before Rex's time. Also, Carrot Top is from Cocoa Beach.
Never heard of ARCTICS, so that was always going to be difficult. Wanted rubbers there. Also never heard of EDGAR or EMIL. Three WoEs on a Wednesday is unusually high, and all in the across clues were quite a bit tougher than the downs.
Bonus foods in the grid, but not in the fudge: UGLIer, PEAS, OAT, prEGGo, aCORN.
OH FUDGE that was awful.
And FUDGE all these recipe-based Weekly Reader level fill in the blanks! Too SUGARSNAPPEASY!!
I peaced out on 1D. Not the kind of imagery I need to start my puzzle or my morning. Thanks for the fish, see you on Thursday, NYT.
Fudge is made with cream, not milk.
If you are that upset about and obsessed with the inclusion of Cocoa Beach in the puzzle, I would suggest that meeting with Col. Dr. Alfred Bellows for several sessions could help you work through these issues.
In the Jewish version of this puzzle, the doomsday stockpile is brisket.
PREGGO sounds like a combination spaghetti sauce/fertility drug.
My wife and I are going to Sellersville PA tomorrow night to hear the great Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser perform. It will be our sixth time seeing him. I guess we're just a pair of fiddleheads.
BTW, Fiddlehead IPA is a terrific brew, from up in Vermont.
Thanks @Rex for the Vanilla Fudge video. I've met Vinnie Martell, VF guitarist, a few times. A really nice guy.
The northwest stack of obsolete term, ? clue, obsolete term really wasn’t worth it just to make this MILKSOP theme work.
I do disagree re: COCOA BEACH, though. It’s among the more well known of Florida’s
beaches, so named for its dark brown sand.
As people have already said, Cocoa Beach became well-known back in NASA's heyday - - the 1960s and early 70s - - during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. If nothing else, it featured in several scenes of the excellent movie 'The Right Stuff'.
Fred
In addition to its role in the space program, if you’re spending a week in Orlando and need a break from the parks, Cocoa Beach is the closest place to touch ocean. It ended up being our grandkids favorite part of that trip.
Puzzle was fine but for me it was way too easy.
And it’s where everyone goes to watch a rocket launch since the 50s! Very famous!
@dash riprock— I buy sugar snap peas at Trader Joe’s all the time. They’re different from sweet peas, green peas, English peas, and snow peas. But thanks for reminding me of quahogs, my favorites!
i knew cocoa beach from i dream of jeannie.
I remembered it from “The Right Stuff”
I’m very old, and I knew “arctics” because my grandmother used to refer to them as such. However, she frequently called them.”ARTICS.”
Hey All !
Nice little puz. Fudge is delicious. Haven't had any in quite some time, however.
Who decides if the Theme squares should be circles or shaded? Constructor? Editor? Curious... I always get nice light green shaded squares, not drab gray ones. Yay me!
A lot of Theme to maneuver around, so fill works well. I hadn't heard of a MILKSOP before, so that took a minute to figure out. Potential trouble at the P there. Also, a Natick possiblity at the M of EMIL/MASON. That was a guess here, seemed the most logical letter.
A TEHEE TEEPEE. But, no ASS. Har.
Happy Wednesday.
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
This was Monday level easy. And though the NW looks tough when you look at the acrosses, MAESTRO was a gimme, as were all of the downs except SOPOR. Also, anyone who watched I Dream of Genie or was interested in the early space program has heard of COCOA BEACH. The fact that you haven’t heard of something doesn’t make it obscure. ARCTICS (instead of the more obvious answer “rubbers”) was the only answer keeping this an average Monday level vs. an unusually easy Monday.
Tuesday- or even Monday-easy. Only MILKSOP/SOPOR gave me pause.
Re: Edgar Myers. Listen to Appalachian Journey with Myers, Yoyo Ma and fiddler Mark O'Connor. Gorgeous.
COCOA BEACH was a famous hangout of the original Mercury 7 astronauts (hence the "space coast" part of the clue) and many others in the early days of NASA. It was very well known - indeed, famous - during that time frame. Not every clue need be aimed at millennials.
Came in praise of COCOABEACH, as another I Dream of Jeannie fan.
Also, any puzzle that reminds me that fiddleheads will soon be available for a few short weeks of delicious eating passes muster with me.
But as a Canadian who has lived in some cold places, and even wore the hated galoshes for a while, I would love to know who ever called them ARCTICS.
Thought it was going to be Brownie! but still liked the theme. But after seeing years of crosswordese, I can see why it rankles OFL, and I’m here for your rants!
Cocoa Beach is the one theme answer I just knew and wrote right in with no downs. I'm from Florida and have driven through Cocoa Beach a couple times. It's actually pretty nice, in a quiet and quaint way. I also love the name, it sounds like it could be a MarioKart level or something.
The NW was definitely the hardest, as I didn't know what arctics were, or milksop, or sorpor. I first tried Milkson/sonor, which was wrong.
lived in cocoa beach as a child. we would get to go outside during class to watch the launches.
rex is right about the NW sopor and arctics are quite shite. just typing that, chrome wants to autocorrect arctics.
Ha! That was my reference too! Cause Im old! But ‘arctics’ and ‘sopor’ almost did me in, and the only reason I got ‘milksop’ was because I know how to make fudge. Terrible corner!
Easy, boring, and ugliest cross of year candidate.
Easy indeed. I wanted "Toscanini" for the super conductor, but he wouldn't fit. I'd have put in Dudamel if I'd thought of him (about to become music director of the NY Philharmonica, and reputedly the inspiration for the great series "Mozart in the Jungle," but fortunately I didn't, and the more generic MAESTRO eventually emerged from the crosses.
I don't know how I knew COCOA BEACH, but I did. Or rather, I didn't know until I read these comments. I think it was the NASA connection, although I did dream of Jeannie, as well.
ARCTICS, though? Galoshes is obviously the right answer--so I looked up Arctics boots, and found Arctic boots. Only, if you look at the pictures, they are not overshoes, just regular boots that you wear over socks. Maybe there's a regional variation, but so far no one has mentioned it.
OK, it's Wednesday, and the OH FUDGE ingredients are all complete words, and the first words in each of the theme answers. So WHY do we get the shaded squares? I say BOO to that.
Less important -- I think your NEMESES are things that always defeat you, every single time -- or else things that are destined to destroy you in the end. An archrival, OTOH, is someone you have a fair chance of defeating.
I enjoyed hitting 'ding ding ding' just after getting the revealer
arctics was a total WTF. my grandmother called them "rubbers" but she didn't know that word had another meaning.
Re NW corner-knew SOPOR and MILKSOP, at least faintly, but ARTICS looks like the only way to make ARCTIC into a dreaded POC. EDGAR was the only other WTF in this one and agree with some that there are too many of M&A's moo-cows wandering around. Fee, fi, fo __? I mean, really.
It's fiddlehead season around here and restauranteurs send out scouts to find them. If you've never had them they really are delicious, especially with lots of hollandaise, but that goes for almost anything. And agree with @liveprof that Fiddlehead IPA is good stuff. They've come out with a variation which is called, guess what, Second Fiddle.
I did find out that a Japanese oni is a variety of OGRE, so there's that.
I think my reaction to the revealer was more OH, FUDGE. OK. than the OHFUDGE! variety.
Nice little Wedneddecito, MS. Recipes are My Shortcoming so I didn't see where this was headed, but thanks for a fair amount of fun.
Despite being yet another I Dream of Jeannie fan, like @Rex I struggled mightily with the NW. Still, one of my fastest ever Wednesdays. Part of problem was I don’t associate MILKSOP particularly with cowardice—more like a generally weak and timid person. And for some reason kept thinking StuPOR instead of SOPOR, and of course that was one letter too many. Also could not find enough room for PREGGERS, AND THE golashas of my youth would not fit either!
Constructor can't seem to keep his recipe straight. Right below BUTTER we find GEE. Oh, ghee, I guess you can use either. And what about ACORN and OAT? My Nana's recipe definitely said "add ACORN or two, along with an OAT.....". Needless to say, her fudge was awful.
Anyone remember the ancient prank where you'd call a store and ask if they had Sir Walter Raleigh in a can? It was nowhere near as good as the "is your refrigerator running ?" howler. Anyway, I was reminded of it as I contemplated TSARINA. Maybe it was asked of the Bolsheviks. Do you have TSARINA cell? GODNO, we STAB him before filling him with AMMO.
I was kinda pleased to see TEEPEE spelled out in all its glory. No TIPI, no TEPEE. And then I got to TEHEE. I'd say more about how much this bugs me but I've got a 9:00 Te Time so I've gotta split for the course.
If you're experiencing SOPOR, can you still Dream of Jeannie?
All in all, you cooked up a tasty morsel today, Michael Schlossberg.
Learned ARCTICS from the puzzle. We don't have snow out here. I welcome learning (legitimate) words from the puzzles. One of the big reasons I do them.
I, as with others, have to cry foul on ARCTICS. A google search for that turns up nothing shoe or boot related. A search for ‘arctic shoes’ comes up with plenty of examples of boots commonly called mukluks or ‘muks’ and sometimes referred to as ‘arctic boots’. Nowhere is ‘arctic’ or ‘arctics’ used as a stand-alone noun. BOO!
Monday on a Wednesday. I've never been a fan of FUDGE. I prefer spaghetti. I don't do much cooking, so it's unlikely this recipe will be a keeper for me.
I've never heard of ARCTICS, EDGAR, EMIL, or SPAHN, but crosses to the rescue, so next time they're in the puzzle, I will say, "Never heard of...." I also didn't know FERN fiddlehead, so I might try some on FUDGE.
Propers: 12
Places: 3
Products: 3
Partials: 10
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 30 (39%)
Uniclues:
1 Lamentation by many a student athlete.
2 What my ears say on hearing bum bumadum a bum bum.
3 The duty of every white man over 65.
4 🎶 I see Sydney, I see Perth, I see someone's undersherth. 🎶 and 🎵 Some cover your fanny, some cover your granny, and daddy likes the nanny's, but up above the French just love what covers up their hootenannies. 🎵
5 Heep hates horrible haiku in the high court.
1 EASY A? GOD NO! (~)
2 VANILLA ICE ... OOF
3 CORRECT REUTERS
4 CAMI SOLI
5 URIAH SUES ODES
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Assistant orders decaf for boss. AIDE RAISES HELL.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Easy for all folks my age, probably not so much for the younger solvers. I Dream of Jeanie , Jim Croce and the nieces and nephews (who are in their 50s) vanilla ice. Kind of like the first dozen times I saw Dre and said who or what.
ARCTICS? Oh, like super thick waterproof boots those wacky penguin scientists wear? Must be name brand like Croc... Nope. Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, s.v. “arctic.” First known use is 1868.
MILKSOP is not archaic. Admittedly, I needed two crosses and the theme to get the MILK part, but that's on me because I've heard it plenty. Sure, MILKSOP (plus MW's definitional synonym for it, "mollycoddle") is one of those old-timey terms that has survived largely on the good graces of bemused writers who stumble upon it in a thesaurus, but is has survived nonetheless.
Torpor, stupor... where have I heard OPOR in relation to sleep.. SOPORific! As in sleep-inducing.
Jim _R_CE... Oh, bells, bells! Um... like snoatch or boatch or groatch or noches or Croats... Crotes... croatoan... CROCE, ring-a-ding! No idea who he is or maybe just can't recall, but I've heard his name before by golly. Just like COCOA BEACH, baby.
Got those in reverse order. Slowed me down too, but there was nothing unfair about it.
One last thing. If you were poor Ralphie Parker, sure, you'd say "OH, FUDGE" in a flat, lazy moan, PREGGO with inured resignation, after you'd spilled the lug nuts in the snow. But if you were Judy Blume's 4th grade nothing Peter Hatcher -- and for sure his mother -- you'd suffer countless occasions crying helplessly, "OH, FUDGE!"
Think of the children, every once an while, Rex.
For crossword purposes, PAR is a fine answer for "Something a scratch golfer expects to shoot." But it's not technically correct, which, as we all know, is the best kind of correct.
In case anyone cares, and I know you don't, here's why: A scratch golfer is someone whose handicap index is calculated to be zero or better. That might sound like they "expect" to shoot par. But a handicap index is not an average score, and it certainly is not an "expected" score. Instead, it is a gauge of one's potential as a golfer.
It's a bit complicated to calculate, but basically it's a sort of average of the best eight of a golfer's last 20 rounds. What it ultimately comes to is that a golfer should only "expect" to shoot a score that corresponds to their handicap index about 20-ish percent of the time.
I was sure the NYT was starting this puzzle off with a TEHEE--that those overshoes were going to be RUBBERS (a British-ism for galoshes, a la lift/elevator). But CELS ruled that out very quickly.
COCOA BEACH is also the home of the "famous" flagship store of the Ron Jon Surf Shops, a magnificent ... uh ... tourist trap.
Most of this puzzle was Tuesday easy. But SOPOR and MILKSOP were a mystery to me. Weird that VANILLAICE remains as part of our culture, at least as a name.
COCOABEACH was inferable after getting a few letters, and it's not obscure in popular culture. In addition to 'I Dream of Jeanie', it was a baseball spring training location at one point and is near the Kennedy Space Center (and I'm not a Florida man).
NW corner made more difficult for me by my assumption that the missing ingredient in my nearly-complete fudge recipe was yoLK, not MILK.
Oh....FUDGE! You want the best and easiest fudge to make at Christmas and have everyone ask for the recipe? MY FUDGE....Here goes
Three 12 oz bags of semis sweet (good) chocolate
2 cans of Eagles condensed milk
A cup or so of chopped walnuts.
Melt chocolate slowly in a large pot. Add the condensed milk - stir a lot - add walnuts. Place fudge in a buttered 15x10 inch pan. smooth it out and cover the top with Saran and let cool. Like @dash riprock says: Easy Peasy. Try it!
I'm not sure how I really feel about today's puzzle. It seemed to have a lot of names. At least I remembered VANILLA ICE (sorta).... ARCTICS? Why no rubbers? SAT PREP and SPAHN sounds like a fine name for a little pub on COCOA BEACH. @mmorgan is right about SUGAR SNAP PEAS. TJ'S has really good ones. Be sure to take the little strings out.
I just now noticed BOO GEE ORE URN. So I immediately think about the "Antique Road Show."
TEHEE needs to maybe borrow the TEEPEE E. And so it went....
This would have been much more interesting (by which I mean: somewhat interesting) if the ingredients were hidden in (ingredients of) other words rather than half of a compound word.
Oof
Easy week continues. Did not know ARCTICS and EDGAR, and had a small problem spelling PREGGO, but otherwise a pretty whooshy Wednesday. Hard not to like a dessert/snack puzzle.
Monday difficulty on a Wednesday, especially once I realized the shaded letters created a list of baking ingredients. Set a Wednesday record of 4:22.
I wouldn't mind some crushed Butterfingers in my next piece of fudge.
Us old-timers remember it well as it was the place where Gemini 7 astronauts and subsequent space travelers stayed before missions. It seemed to always be in the news
“Emil and the Detectives” was the first foreign language (German) film I saw and loved. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_and_the_Detectives) it helped launch the child detective genre in books and film.
This was even easier than yesterday's. I'm not complaining! It definitely feels like we have turned the corner on puzzles (thank you JF).
And thank you, Michael :)
Lordeeee. Vanilla Fudge was such a big act that they played in the basement of our student union, circa 1970!
M&A no-knows: ARCTICS. EMIL. MASON. EDGAR. Fiddlehead production.
Knew COCOABEACH, for some distant reason. Got it offa the CO openin.
Fairly easy solvequest at our house. Was able to work around the no-knows pretty smoothly.
Cute revealer. OHFUDGE recipe woulda been 100% complete, if there'da been a POT ingredient.
Trickiest thing about makin fudge is how long to beat up the stuff; gotta keep beatin until it starts to lose it shine.
staff weeject pick: BOO. Admired its ghostly clue. honrable mention goes to FUM -- It just looks so funny, sittin by itself in the puzgrid.
Also kinda enjoyed: PREGGO. ISEEYOU. MAESTRO & clue. EASYA clue.
Thanx, Mr. Schlossberg dude. Sweeeet.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
Getting back into the swing of things after a protracted absence, and... yeah, pretty much aligned with Fearless Leader's reaction. Theme was cute enough, and I'll accept some crud because of it, but SOPOR was just a flat out "No." Far as I can tell, the word has never appeared in a NYT article other than as a brand name for a sleep medication.
Second the "check out Edgar Meyer" crowd. The Goat Rodeo Sessions group that you linked to appeared on Colbert a bunch of years back to play "Attaboy," and I damn near lost my mind over them. A group of technical and creative virtuosos, playing together and collaborating to produce something completely unique. Can't recommend enough...
I know it's already been mentioned numerous times above but I too remember Major Anthony Nelson, a NASA astronaut who resided in Cocoa Beach, FL. As a little girl I remember thinking that the inside of Jeannie's bottle was absolutely magical!
ARCTICS was completely unheard of, then MILKSOP and SOPOR offered a tiny bit of resistance in that corner. Otherwise this was like an extremely easy Monday. Not a bad puzzle, but glaringly poor placement as far as day of the week.
Why TEEPEE but then TEHEE? I do love FUDGE, especially the kind made with COCOA. ITS what we always had WHEN I was a kid because we couldn’t afford chocolate chips.
Somebody wasn't an "I Dream of Jrannie' fan....lol
Yo-yo Ma shows up with Goat Rodeo and nobody notices? Tsk.
@Pamela (7:19) I do have a one or two which use cream but seems like most fudge recipes call for canned milk.
@Havana Man (9:30) My grandmother called them rubbers too. I remember as a teenager being painfully embarrassed every time she said that.
I remembered Cocoa Beach as a place that the original NASA astronauts went for recreation, but hadn't recalled that Major Nelson and Jeannie lived there. (It's possible that my linking of Cocoa Beach and astronauts is solely from I Dream of Jeannie.) And I am very familiar with Edgar Meyer. Otherwise I agree about all of the obscure words in the grid
Easiest Wednesday in recent memory, a fill-in. Theme actually helped, unlike the rash of who-cares themes of late that you see after the fact if you even bother. Didn't know Arctics, didn't need to. Learned a new word.
Well, what are the odds? We are in Germany now, and just before we left I wanted to order some Leicht zu Lesen (easy to read) books for adults, and the *only* one I could find in the US was 48A. And after 3 weeks it never showed up. Is this a book that English speaking readers should be aware of? New to me.
Anyway. Even in my currently exhausted state I handily cut my avg time in half (per the app), but not a PR since the app says that was 1:38 for Wednesday, huh. I guess baking has something to do with it, plus EMIL my friend.
Just learned that this was my fastest ever Wednesday solve
Anybody who has driven on I-95 anywhere between Miami and North Carolina would know Cocoa Beach from the ubiquitous RonJon Surf Shop billboards. And failing that their cool friends in college all had RonJon swag: tee shirts, sweatshirts etc. Finally any younger cool surf peeps would know that is where Kelly Slater is from.
BOO! Stock up on your AMMO so you don't have to STAB your NEMESES WHEN they RAID your bomb shelter. OH -- and have plenty of FUDGE on hand.
LYE is LYE. There are no different kinds or types of LYE. It's not like water, which is used in multiple ways. It's just LYE. There's a bottle of LYE over here. There's a bottle of LYE over there. They are LYE.
On the plus side, NASA fits nicely in COCOA BEACH.
Wonder when CAMISOLI will appear as the plural of a sleeveless undergarment.
Besides it's connection with NASA and the nearby Space Center, Cocoa Beach is also the location of Port Canaveral, which is Central Florida's cruise port. It doesn't strike me as an especially obscure place.
Sorry Rex, COCOA BEACH is very familiar to me too. I think you are really in the outfield on this one.
I finished with TOPOR for 7 down; of course I was thinking of "torpor". I assumed ARCTIC T was a brand name. And I agree ARCTICS is terrible; the clue is desperately trying to rescue a hopeless invalid plural.
I'm not sure why the NYT is so tone deaf when it comes to TEEPEE. I believe the preferred spelling these days is TIPI, but that has rarely appeared here, and is completely rejected in Spelling Bee. Here is Google Ngram's two cents on its recent use.
Can someone explain UGLIER in the context?
I love Alasdair Fraser. Saw him (and his ‘anarchist’ - I think that’s what he calls them or used to call them - band of fiddlers) at the SF Opera House once where he never really ‘ended’ the concert. Just continued playing as he & his band walked off the stage, up the aisles, and out onto the sidewalk where they continued to play for another half hour or so.
For the “elders” here in the neighborhood, COCOA BEACH may have reminded some of you of the old tv show that made Barbara Eden a household name: “I Dream of Jeannie.” That’s where Jeannie’s “master” and as I recall USAF astronaut, Tony Nelson lived. Close to then Cape Canaveral, COCOA BEACH was a quiet little place back in the late ‘60s. So, @Rex, just because you are not readily familiar with something does not indicate that it’s a “bad answer.”
This was fun - a simple but well constructed theme but a tad easy. I expected something recipe-centric as theme answer and was not disappointed. Yes, I wouldn’t have “cried,” OH FUDGE, and in fact when the letters revealed their sweet answer, I said “Oh, fuuudge; excellent.”
Call me easy to please or not critical enough, or whatever, but this played possibly too easy for Wednesday, but lacked any real clunkers and I learned a nee word for “waterproof overshoes,” ARCTICS. Is this regional? I have always just called all waterproof weather-related footwear “boots” (taller than one’s shoe) or “overshoes” for the thin rollable total shoe covers that back in the dark ages were called and marketed as “rubbers.”
Peace out all. Have a good day.
Yep, spot on. A breeze until I had to return to the NW corner and slog my way through two words i didn't know - milksop and sopor (the latter is so obscure that this comment form assumes it's a typo). I don't know "arctics" either but the downs filled that in.
Yup, this one was a real stinker. OFL was absolutely right: tear it up the next day or, better, the next second. In any event, don't publish it in what was once the premier word puz in the English-speaking world. No longer.
I actually grew up in Cocoa Beach, my dad was a NASA engineer who worked on the Apollo program. They also filmed some episodes of Bionic Man there. Home of the famous Ron Jon Surf Shop.
If it’s TeePee it should be “teehee” not “tehee”.
@Anonymous 2:17, many business offices have an Ugly Sweater contest as part of their Xmas parties.
I've heard Edgar Meyer perform at Zankel Hall in New York, and he is both deeply entertaining and talented.
If I remember correctly, they spun off "I Dream of Jeannie" from "Death of a Salesman", wherein Willy Loman used to go door-to-door in Cocoa Beach selling ornamental genie bottles.
SOPOR/COWSOP eat me. that is all
I did watch I Dream of Jeannie as a kid but had no memory of that connection. However, the Florida Atlantic Coast is just a huge tourist and Snowbird destination, that I have heard names like Cocoa Beach many times. So the name came to me fairly quickly.
I think maybe Rex grew up in the West and the name never registered with him.
Adding the fact that it is near Cape Canaveral, for many people on this blog, it is not anywhere near obscure as Rex thinks it is. Attics on the other hand was clear desperation. But inferable.
Surprised Rex made such a deal of SOPOR. It has been in this puzzle mode than once. It is really crosswordese not obscure.
A little bored by all the crosswordese but the puzzle was okay
Yes me too! Olds unite!
Nick M.
Milksop, while not a common word. It is still used on occasion. It is definitely not archaic.
Some people don’t know Cocoa Beach but know milksop Some people don’t know milksop but know Cocoa Beach. Some people don’t know either. But that doesn’t mean either is obscure and unfair. It’s a wheelhouse thing.
Cocoa Beach has Heidi's - one of the best jazz clubs in Florida and a lovely German restaurant! Oh, and I Dream of Jeannie.
Easy. And I love fudge. Better with cream than milk, but milk will work. So a fun, too easy Wednesday puzzle. Should have been Monday or Tuesday.
I feel like the recipe is incomplete without salt
Or at least it won’t be a very tasty fudge
Fudge was the only thing I ever saw my Dad make. Once.
I made it myself a few times. The first time I made it by myself, I over-beat it. As M&A mentions, you wait until it looks dull and then put it in the pan 'cause it's done. I just stirred it a couple of times past when the shininess went away and you've never seen such a dry, crumbly mess. It sat in a bowl on the counter for days before we threw it away because it was like eating chocolate sand.
It’s referring to the new-ish holiday tradition of ironically wearing ugly Christmas sweaters
Edgar Meyer is amazing. Bass player for the Newgrass supergroup Strength in Numbers, and did a variety of brilliant trio albums. Try “Skip, Hop, and Wobble.”
So glad others had the same issues. Today was the rare puzzle that was pretty far out of OFL’s wheelhouse in spots.
Thanks @Anonymous 5:06PM! I used to complain constantly about both teehee” and “teepee.” In fact, long before the internet, email and mobile phones, each time one of those “misspellings” appeared in our daily puzzle, Gran and I would write a joint letter with cites to dictionary spellings. After I was solving on my own, I kept writing. Eventually, I just gave up, but your post has re-energized me!
Very easy. This one should have run yesterday and yesterday’s should have run today. Cute theme. Well done.
The various spellings of TE[E]HE[E] are for constructor convenience. Therefore I don't like any of them. Establish a standard, and shitcan the rest.
ARCTICS as a noun was unknown to me--and apparently to everyone else too. Call it "constructic license" or something.
OK theme (my personal favorite FUDGE is penuche), but uninspiring theme ingredients; no bridging between words or anything. A definite MEH. Then there's the fill. Very rough. Needs more stirring. Bogey.
Wordle birdie.
A shout out to Jon Rahm, who was forced to withdraw from the Open at the last minute. Get well soon, dude, and get 'em next year.
@SharonAK 6:30 AM:
I didn't know that term for overshoes either, but when I looked up arctics, the second definition of the very first dictionary entry was the overshoes.
Growing up, we called them boots or galoshes if they were the tall ones; rubbers if they only covered your shoes. However, I don't know what the looking up complaining is all about. When I typed in arctics exactly as you see here, the very first dictionary entry Google showed me, had boots as the second definition. Maybe my Google AI likes me more than it likes you.
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