Court figure, in old slang / FRI 5-17-24 / Modern TV attachment / Last thing left in Pandora's box / Long rows? / Dessert skipper's explanation / Hill's partner in publishing / Food item that's fittingly shaped like a mouse cursor
Constructor: Hemant Mehta
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: none
Word of the Day: TANGRAMS (40A: Seven-piece puzzles) —
The tangram (Chinese: 七巧板; pinyin: qīqiǎobǎn; lit. 'seven boards of skill') is a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat polygons, called tans, which are put together to form shapes. The objective is to replicate a pattern (given only an outline) generally found in a puzzle book using all seven pieces without overlap. Alternatively the tans can be used to create original minimalist designs that are either appreciated for their inherent aesthetic merits or as the basis for challenging others to replicate its outline. It is reputed to have been invented in China sometime around the late 18th century and then carried over to America and Europe by trading ships shortly after. It became very popular in Europe for a time, and then again during World War I. It is one of the most widely recognized dissection puzzles in the world and has been used for various purposes including amusement, art, and education. (wikipedia)
• • •
[What I pictured when I read "Dessert skipper" (37D)]
Can you wavelength a constructor just by following them on X (née Twitter)? Is "wavelength" a verb now just because I want it to be? Whatever the answers to these provocative questions, I absolutely destroyed this puzzle. I don't time myself anymore, but it feels like I would've been somewhere near a record Friday time today. Hit the ground running in my NIKES (1A: Jordans, e.g.) and Did Not Stop. OK, I paused, slightly, in a couple of places, but virtually every clue just seemed transparent, even the ones that seemed to want to get tricky or vague or trickily vague on me. So there was lots and lots of whoosh today. Almost too much whoosh (not usually a problem!). The marquee answers could maybe have used a little more spice, but they're all rock solid and occasionally lovely. Except "I'M ON A DIET"—it's solid enough, but ugh, "dieting," the practice and especially the industry, boo. Much better were FELL IN LOVE (yay) and LOSING SLEEP (boo in life, yay in grid) and CHEESE WEDGE (mmm) and CTRL-ALT-DEL (esp. as clued—makes it sound hilariously profane) (53A: "Three-finger salute," to help reboot) (and it's a little poem, too; like "Be kind, Rewind," only ... longer). Laughed professionally at 56A: Outpaces the syllabus (READS AHEAD) since some small but significant portion of my students seem never even to have read the syllabus itself. "It's In The Syllabus" is maybe the longest running professor joke. Evergreen response 1/2 of all student questions. Put it on a T-shirt (pretty sure someone already has). LOL, there's an entire Etsy store dedicated to this phrase!
So it was easy. This is not to say that I didn't make a few wrong moves along the way, starting with SNIDE COMMENT at 5D: Cutting lines (SNIDE REMARKS). "Lines" did not necessarily mean the answer was going to be plural, since a bunch of "lines" can be understood cumulatively as a single "comment," so COMMENT in the singular didn't faze me. But then I checked the COMMENT crosses, starting (as always) with the shortest cross, and, well, I know my Scottish islands reasonably well, especially the four-letter ones, and I don't know of one with "T" in the second position, but I do know SKYE, so in went SKYE, out went comment, and in went REMARKS ("K" is a high-value letter in both Scrabble and crosswords). Wasn't sure about the Navy answer—thought it might be NAVY or NAVAL something or other, but I wanted CADET and NAVAL CADET didn't fit so I tried NAVY CADET and whaddya know? Perfect. Eventually had the PLAN part of FALLBACK PLAN and couldn't think of anything but BACK-UP PLAN, which I guess is the same thing as a FALLBACK PLAN, just with BACK in a different place. Took a little hacking at the crosses to make the FALLBACK part come into view, but just a little hacking. Not strenuous hacking. Had the CAB- part of 28A: 1873 invention first used in San Francisco and ironically couldn't do anything with it. I say "ironically" because I was born in San Francisco and so books about the place, usually featuring CABLE CARs on the cover, figured large in my childhood.
BEDIM before GO DIM (34A: Fade out) and LEGAL before LEGIT (25D: Not sketchy) and STOP before DROP (57A: Not keep hanging on). Wow, that last one is pretty literal, and potentially painful! (note: I misread the clue: It's [Not keep harping on] ... that's better, and less grim]
Was prepared to be mad at the clue for CMAS for including the word "Award," which I thought was what the "A" stood for (23A: Awards won by George Strait in three separate decades, familiarly). But no, the "A" stands for "Association," as in "Country Music Association," so having "Award" in the clue doesn't violate any cluing rules (namely, the rule where you can't clue an initialism using any of the words represented by the initials in question). Not much to explain today. ROKU is a popular streaming service with set-top boxes that attach to your TV (11D: Modern TV attachment). The "rows" in 21A: Long rows? are "arguments," "fights," i.e. FEUDS. We don't really say "row" (rhymes with "cow") on this side of the pond, but that's OK, it's not exactly obscure. CAGER is holy-cow-old slang for a basketball player. Like, it was old when I was young. I am no longer young. It was one of the first bits of crossword slang I learned back when I started solving in the early '90s. Me: "Wait ... how is this basketball slang? I've been following basketball for most of my life and I have never, never ever, heard anyone use this term?" Crossword: "Welcome to crosswords, buddy! We've got all kinds of stupid words! You're gonna love it!"
[I learned about this (great) song from Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) when she played it on one of the episodes of her Apple Radio program "St. Vincent's Mixtape Delivery Service"]
I had a lot of whoosh except I got stuck for a while since instead of Nikes I started with kicks—and I am a Boomer. Puzzles have to a certainty impacted my way of thinking. Fun puzzle in what had to be near record time for me.
Very simple and a record for me - must have been right up my alley. Certainly not bragging because I’m far from a fast solver, but not sure how to cleanly say “my finish time was faster than the blah in my ‘you beat your avg time by blah’ time”. Finished in 13:18 beating my avg by 14:52, or so the app tells me. Solved counter-clockwise - at one point the entire East was done, top to bottom, with just a handful of answers in the NW filled in.
No complaints from me - I do the puzzles late night and Fri/Sat tend to be so challenging my tired mind can’t handle them. Nice break to get a straightforward one.
Yeah….my Fri times are normally 12-15min and this was done in just over 5. Everything was just immediately obvious once I had a foothold in the NW (originally wanted “shoes” for 1a, but then 1d blew that away).
Probably not as quick as the big guy but I sailed through this one. SNIDE REMARKS, TIDAL WAVE etc are all wonderful longs. Some short trivia but easy enough.
Easy for me too, but not quite record-level Friday. I had N-V-C—— for the aspiring mariner, so I saw “novice” something. What’s a three letter word for mariner? Tar! Novice tar! Not right but fun to say. So that slowed me a bit.
I don’t think of a CHEESE WEDGE as being remotely shaped like a computer mouse. A cheese wedge comes to a point. I google image searched both of them to be sure.
Looking at the left side of the grid, I see GOD I’M ON A DIET. I can imagine many uses of that phrase. “Look at that coconut cream pie Mary Ann baked!” “God, I’m on a diet.” “Oh, sorry, Skipper.”
Following on Rex’s comments about “It’s in the syllabus.”, I believe crossword solvers should learn “It’s in the clue.” or better yet “Reread the clue.” before going all righteous to prove the clue to be incorrect.
Faster than Wed average. I don't mind an easy puzzle, but the last 3 weeks have all been on the Easy side. Almost makes me want to solve a BEQ puzzle.
Puzzle was nice and clean. AVILA I've seen a few times, clued as a walled city in Spain. Also LAHORE. Looks like the presidential debates will be on CNN at the end of June, moderated by Jake Tapper and DANA Bash. Sorry, DANA Carvey.
Well, I finally got to join the party and “whoosh” a bit on a Friday as well. I figured Rex would blast it with both barrels for being too easy, but he was pretty complimentary - and so far the commentariat has been overwhelmingly positive as well - good to see such strong support for a clean, junk-free puzzle.
In fact, in terms of clean and junk-free grids, this is easily the best week we have had for at least the last year and a half. It would be great if they could keep the streak going and give us another one tomorrow to close out the week strong.
My favorite clue for today was “Very clear, as a stream” for IN HD. Keep them coming guys and gals!
@SouthsideJohnny 7:20 AM This is anything but a "junk-free puzzle." In fact it's on the junkier side, and the rest of the week has been very typical for junk in our puzzles. Your enthusiasm is likely caused by knowing this week's junk. It doesn't feel like "trivia" as you often describe knowledge. Wheelhouse solves can deceive us as to overall quality as it has today.
Finished it in half the time it usually takes on Friday. Guessing right on SKYE and LAHORE was a big help. The clue for CTRLALTDEL was unfamiliar, but the crosses in that area made up for the fact that the letters didn't form a real word.
Lots of “Whee!” today, with a dominos-falling feel, and yet there were plenty of roses to stop and smell: • Lovely wordplay clues, such as [Arm raisers] for DELTS and [Comes out on top?] for BALDS. My favorite was the fabulous [Very clear, as a stream] for INHD, an answer almost always clued prosaically. • For spark, lovely longs – 14 – seven of which were NYT debuts, my favorites being FALLBACK PLAN, SNIDE REMARKS, and CTRL ALT DEL. • The shorter lovelies DOTTY and SCAMP. • Sweet to see IDO twice in the twelfth row, and DROP down.
On top this is a magnificent serendipity, IMO, but to appreciate it you need to know that Hemant is a well-known atheism activist through his books, blog, and appearances at atheist-centered events. Thus, knowing how Hemant has cut theism out of his life, I smiled when I looked at the filled-in grid and saw GOD abutting I’M ON A DIET.
Hemant, after having just seven puzzles in the Times, you are one of those rare and special constructors whose name atop a puzzle spontaneously makes my heart light up. Thank you for a breezy, sparky, splendid outing today!
Did anyone else find it weird that the clue for OLDS didn’t include any reference to it being “informal” or something? The company that Ford feuded with is OLDSmobile. Took me forever to figure out we were supposed to use a slang term. Thought that was a xword no-no?
The cage - basketball connection for me was made fifty years ago when I went to UMASS Minuteman games in Curry Hicks Cage. Cage? Why is this ancient gym called a cage? I came to understand that in the early days of basketball they had a wire mesh fence around the court.
I'll just chime in as well, this was whooshy-whooooosh from start to finish. Half the time of a normal Friday, but it was a fun one so that makes it ok.
And he gets you on his wavelength And his clues lead to the answers And you set an all-time record...
Apologies to Leonard Cohen.
Yep, super-whooshy and lots of good solid longer answers. I didn't learn CTRLALTDEL until late in my computer career and boy is it handy. See also CTRLZ. And learned about TANGRAMS, so a good day there.
Many years ago when I was in high school basketball was the big thing in my small town, and the local paper had extensive coverage of games, and somewhere in their accounts the word CAGER would always appear. You bet I was a CAGER, and am famous for making the game-winning basket in our championship game, that didn't count, because time had expired. I coulda been a hero.
Really enjoyed this one. HM, even if it was wicked easy for a Friday. Had Me hooked at NIKES X NSFW, and stayed consistently entertaining. Thanks for all the fun.
This was such a fun Friday for me. Only had some real challenges in the midwest because I confidently inserted I’M DIETing early on, and somehow thought SNIpERsnARKS were the CUTTING REMARKS. Thought the longs were delightful. Also, for future reference, CAGER is also a slang word used by motorbike riders (Rode a Vespa for 14 years) for people in cars.
Very well crafted and enjoyable puzzle! Thanks Hemant Mehta!
Hey All ! Easy peasy FriPuz. Only ifness was having SNIpER EMAilS, wondering what they were. But it sounded like something, so stuck with it. Got the Almost There!, decided to erase the letters I wasn't 100% on, which got me to see TANGRAMS' R, then was able to get the ole brain to see SNIDE REMARKS Happy Music ensued.
Seems like a lot of initials/abbrvs in here today. Let's see, we have CNAS, RTE, CTRLALTDEL, NSFW, I HAD, MBA. Hmm, seemed like more... Maybe add CNOTE? I think because the CTRLALTDEL is a longie. Silly brain.
Oh, I had gotten QB on the 14th. Forgot to brag about it. Har. YesterBee was a disaster. Holy cow, I don't even want to talk about it. 😁
Probably the easiest Friday puzzle I’ve ever solved. I don’t time myself but I’m sure it’s my fastest solve. This felt like a Wednesday. Only place I got tripped up was the clue for 44 Down.
My FALLBACKPLAN is the semiannual opposite of my Spring Forward Plan, although I've reached a stage where I could opt, with a Strait face (after all those CMA's), to just feign ignorance. What? You mean I was supposed to reset the clock last night? GODIM sorry. It seemed to always work out ok for my employees way back when. It'd probably work for me now.
Mini theme of an ABE and a CNOTE made me remember that my dear old dad used to say that you get what you URNS.
I think the legacy of CAGERS lives on after the UMASS story above on NYC playgrounds with courts surrounded by chain link fences. Thinking especially of those small courts on West 4th street.
Lewis' description of the puzzle as WHEE was my wrong answer for LETS
I had to wait for the NIKEKICKSaloa - guessed kicks first since we saw it recently, and the tendency for words and clues to appear in bunches.
Pretty whoosh-whoosh for me, with just the right amount of resistance to make me feel smart. SE was my only real hangup, thanks to 44D and "stream" in the clue. Crosses seemed to make sense but something had to be wrong because too many consonants... oh, THAT "stream." Maybe ROKU should have planted the suggestion, but it was gone by the time I'd progressed from the NE corner all the way down to the SE, which was the last bit to fall. All very pleasurable!
BTW, I'm old enough to remember when I had to explain what a ROKU was. Wife an uber-technerd and we were desperate to drop cable, so we were pretty early adopters.
Wow, this was a great puzzle to finally work “in real time” after returning from France. Yep, I pretty much agree with everything @Rex said with the exception of: I wanted FoLLowupPLAN for FALLBACKPLAN and IMtoofull instead of IMONADIET. As for the latter, that is the ONLY time I refuse a dessert. I did have a DOH moment with CHEESEWEDGE because I was thinking of the shape of the mouse and NOT the cursor….repeat DOH feeling now.
Have you seen the Olympic mascot? Yikes. It is a comical rendition of the Phrygian cap worn in the French Revolution. I’m sure there have been silly looking mascots in the past but the thing looks almost like red bird.
Great overall puzzle- long answers easy but interesting , flowed well Have to echo @Michael 718 : finished up in NE after a crosswordese-free puzzle and had to wince at EKED. Perfection will have to wait till next time!
Any Friday puzzle completed in under 10 minutes is an easy one for me, and this was well under that mark.
I first learned of CAGER not from crosswords, but from reading the newspaper as a young child. I don't know if it was a widespread practice, but the headline writers in 2 of the 3 papers my parents took used CAGER often. They also used another old crossword chestnut, solon, quite a bit. You rarely see it these days, but whether that's a result of changes in the language, the decline of print newspapers or the lack of wise, skillful lawmakers is up for interpretation and discussion.
I FELL IN LOVE with this puzzle as I wrote in the longer phrases - not exactly a TIDAL WAVE of them, but a steady stream, and all so good, from the student in the SCIENCE LAB who READS AHEAD to LOSING SLEEP over a CHEESE WEDGE. @Lewis, I, too, loved DOTTY and SCAMP, and they're parallel, too. This one was fun all the way.
@pabloinnh, I remember my dad, in the early 1960s, explaining to me a newspaper headline in the sports section that featured "Local Cagers."
I happened to be watching the CMAs when I entered CMAS into the grid. I had the same feeling I had when I heard Arnold Palmer died and I was drinking an Arnold Palmer.
I didn’t exactly whoosh but certainly didn’t encounter too much difficulty. A very workable Friday, which I kept at until I finished without a single Google. That’s a rare event for me on Friday so I much appreciate the construction effort – not because it was easy, but based on it being a well designed grid and nicely clued. Very Weintraubesque.
I learned “three-fingered salute” and what a TANGRAM is and a WET burrito. Turns out I’ve loved them for years, but have always called them enchiritos. What makes them wet is the enchilada sauce, then I up the ante with ranch dressing. Well unless IM ON A DIET anyway.
Very easy -- until I got to the consonant-riddled three-finger salute answer and couldn't DEL a single consonant that I had at the beginning. Boy, was I happy to see CTRLALTDEL come in. It's my nominee for the DOOKiest answer of all time.
CTRLALTDEL. It's one of those things that, once you know it, is something a 3-year-old child could do. But you'll need an IT expert in your apartment if you DON'T know it, because you'd never be able to guess such an arbitrary maneuver in a million trillion years.
This is the problem with computer procedures. They're all arbitrary and they're all different.
Now, if only I could remember what CTRLALTDEL is actually used for. I know it's not just used to delete stuff.
A pleasant and enjoyable puzzle that I found easier than most Fridays.
Yep, me too. Only pOTTY before DOTTY kept me from a perfect Whooshing. Thanks to OFL and @Lewis for sparkling reviews that added frosting on this delicious treat!
Yeah, wanting to lose some weight to improve the length and quality of your life is the WORST! VERY offensive.
I’m still up a stone (much easier to use the British term rather than say I’ve gained 17 pounds) since my health club was forced to close to “flatten the curve”. Ironic, that just enhanced my curves (in all the wrong places).
So yeah, add IMONADIET to phrases NYT should permanently ban! TRIGGERING!
Weirdly easy except for the moments of deep trivia crossing other deep trivia. I can't believe how many no-cross write-ins were right and yet bad gunk stopped me again and again. Very unflowy. Let's go to the tape and some SNIDE REMARKS.
DANA/ABE cross. Ouch.
LAHORE is how you turn a Tuesday puzzle into a Friday puzzle. Put it at the top and TANGRAMS at the bottom and suddenly five gimme crosses are no longer gimmes.
That's how you clue CHEESE WEDGE? Hm. Maybe cheese is different in New York City.
I toss and turn while I'm asleep.
Tragicomedy about two people trying to find the light switch: Waiting for GODIM.
The idea of a themeless is you don't need to fight self-imposed structural problems in the grid so you shouldn't still need 8 partials. To toughen it up, the editors allow people, products, and places (rather than writing better clues on less divisive topics), but the end result is a junky puzzle for no reason.
Uniclues:
1 The class bully blows his face off while screwing around. 2 Release a tape of the so-called "moral majority's candidate" bragging about groping women. Oh wait. 3 Smoke weed in Uig. 4 That iffy stuff clogging up your "1987 Taxes" folder on your computer. 5 How you get into 7-11. 6 My dinner plans since my wife is out of town. 7 Gramma and grampa visit the pharmacy.
Just did a quick search to confirm my suspicion that originally basketball courts used to be surrounded by a cage-like enclosure to "speed up the game", which of course led to CAGER. I'm assuming that the ball went into the crowd a little more frequently than it does today.
Pabloinnh I think someone above alluded to a story I heard about the origin of cager. It is a little different from what you read. The term refers to OUTDOOR courts In the early days, basketball was what we would now call an inner city game, with limited outdoor space for recreation. Many courts were close to sidewalks and neighboring property, usually with little or no seating for spectators. Cages were to prevent the ball from going, say, into the street. The cage most certainly sped up the game! As stated above some caged outdoor courts still exist in NYC. Interesting if I am wrong and indoor courts had cages too.
Like @anon 6:21 I balked at 8D NAVY CADET for "Aspiring mariner" thinking that should be midshipman. A quick check shows that there is something called Sea CADETs for young people age 10-18 although they are not actually in the NAVY.
Yeah, way too easy, like an early week themeless. Left me with time on my hands so I go POC (plural of convenience) hunting. Didn't have to go far, there's one right out of the gate with some CAGER's shoes, NIKES, to start things off.
The POC that stands out the most for me, and not in a good way, is the two for one POC where a Down and an Across both get a letter count, grid fill boost by sharing a single S. Each of those Ss is the equivalent of a cheater square. It could be changed to a black square, the clue slightly tweaked and the word count would not change. Nothing much of interest or value would be lost. It's like non-nutritional filler, so to speak.
Today we get a parade of two fers, seven (!) of them. Six are the usual shared S at the ends with SNIDE REMARK/IDOL, DELT/LET, MED/FEUD, CITE/TANGRAM, BALD/URN and OLD/NEAR all getting a letter count leg up from a shared terminal S. These are elementary and any POC CADET should be able to easily spot them. The one that requires a more discerning eye, though, is when 41D MAMA and 56A READ AHEAD both get a letter count boost by sharing an internal S. Advanced POCifying there.
Seven two fers is unusually high, especially for a themeless where theme constraints can't be used as a justification. The POC Committee was split on whether to give the grid a POC Assisted or PC Marked rating.
Extremely easy. No write-overs. I never heard of DANA Bash or TANGRAMS. Don't recognize any ADELE songs. CMAS? Oh, right--them awards. Never watched more than 10 minutes of Survivor. The world will barely survive "Reality" shows, which have spawned ugly actual realities like a certain former US President.
I love those Sasek books! My parents got me a bunch when I was a kid -- for their pleasure and my own -- and they still have a revered spot on their bookshelf. (I think we have London, Venice, Paris, and Rome)
@Gary 11:20 - I noticed after I posted that your “gunk gauge” (which I really appreciate, btw) was on the high side, which came as a surprise. I’m guessing that because I am so terrible at trivia (and my “Wheelhouse” is minuscule, lol) that I just assumed that there was no way that I could “whoosh” through a gunk-laden grid, especially on a Friday.
It probably also didn’t hurt that a lot of the rest of it was circa Wednesday level difficult. Still I held my own on a Friday even if it wasn’t as clean as I thought while solving - which is a big plus in my book - so maybe there is hope for me yet (and yes, I’m still hoping we don’t get a cryptic stunt puzzle from outer space tomorrow).
The only time I have heard EKE outside of a crossword (or a mouse control ad) is in this Randy Newman song.
So I don’t mind this used and abused word. Gets me playing the Newman songbook. Just like APE gets me listening to Apeman Ray Davies and the Kinks.
When they’re BOTH in it (crossing each other, no less), well I don’t know who to listen to, GODIM it!
“All of these people are much brighter than I In any fair system they would flourish and thrive But they barely survive They eke out a living, they barely survive“
It is harped, not hanged. Stop harping on that, drop it! Thanks, Rex, for the George Strait video, "Amarillo By Morning". Pleasant, easy for Friday puzzle, with interesting clues. Got the answers to stuff that is not in my wheelhouse by the crosses.
Has anybody mentioned that this was on the easy side for a Friday? Oh yeah, it seems a few folks have. If you haven't yet, please jump in, the water's fine!
I found this unusually easy for a Friday, but will maintain a grudge over Skye, as even if an entire island is considered a "point" (I would argue it should not be), Skye isn't the northernmost isle at all. There's so many accurate ways to clue Skye; I just can't imagine not even looking at a map to be sure you're doing it correctly.
Back in my teens I loved to read the Mathematical Games column (by Martin Gardner) in Scientific American, which frequently mentioned TANGRAMS. That gave me a leg up on this puzzle, adding to the whoosh effect. (Re: Rex, he usually complains that Fridays are too hard, which interferes with their whooshiness, so I wasn't surprised by his reaction today.)
I'm not really up on my military academies. I knew the kids at Annapolis were midshipmen, but thought they might be CADETS as well. But the clue fits the US Navy Sea Cadets, anyway.
@DJ--well, the clue says northernmost "in the Inner Hebrides," which appears to be correct from my map, although there may be some islands to small to make said map.
I know the word "CAGER(S)" but it had never occurred to me to wonder about the origin; now that I know I have more questions, i.e. why was it necessary to have a wire cage around the court? Was an errant basketball straying into the spectator area really deemed to be that dangerous, especially back then? Would plucky young fans of limited means, deprived of sporting goods, abscond with the ball? Were the rivalries such that overzealous fans would attack players from the opposing teams?
A. Appears to have been mainly #1 (or rather, a player chasing an errant ball) and #3. Learn something new every day....
I looked up what a tangram was when I was done with the puzzle, and lo and behold, I had one when I was a kid! It was a Christmas or birthday present 60 years or more ago. I don't recall what it was called on the box it came in, but it wasn't tangram. The booklet showing the different shapes you could make might have used the word. But dang!!! What a flashback!!!
.png)
I had a lot of whoosh except I got stuck for a while since instead of Nikes I started with kicks—and I am a Boomer. Puzzles have to a certainty impacted my way of thinking. Fun puzzle in what had to be near record time for me.
ReplyDeleteVery simple and a record for me - must have been right up my alley. Certainly not bragging because I’m far from a fast solver, but not sure how to cleanly say “my finish time was faster than the blah in my ‘you beat your avg time by blah’ time”. Finished in 13:18 beating my avg by 14:52, or so the app tells me. Solved counter-clockwise - at one point the entire East was done, top to bottom, with just a handful of answers in the NW filled in.
ReplyDeleteNo complaints from me - I do the puzzles late night and Fri/Sat tend to be so challenging my tired mind can’t handle them. Nice break to get a straightforward one.
Yeah….my Fri times are normally 12-15min and this was done in just over 5. Everything was just immediately obvious once I had a foothold in the NW (originally wanted “shoes” for 1a, but then 1d blew that away).
ReplyDeleteProbably not as quick as the big guy but I sailed through this one. SNIDE REMARKS, TIDAL WAVE etc are all wonderful longs. Some short trivia but easy enough.
ReplyDeleteFooled around
CHEESE WEDGE was a little awkward and didn’t love the CTRL-ALT-DEL + READS AHEAD stack. I thought young naval candidates were plebes?
Enjoyable Friday morning solve.
I’m A Loner
Easy for me too, but not quite record-level Friday. I had N-V-C—— for the aspiring mariner, so I saw “novice” something. What’s a three letter word for mariner? Tar! Novice tar! Not right but fun to say. So that slowed me a bit.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think of a CHEESE WEDGE as being remotely shaped like a computer mouse. A cheese wedge comes to a point. I google image searched both of them to be sure.
Looking at the left side of the grid, I see GOD I’M ON A DIET. I can imagine many uses of that phrase. “Look at that coconut cream pie Mary Ann baked!” “God, I’m on a diet.” “Oh, sorry, Skipper.”
The CHEESE WEDGE is shaped like a mouse cursor, not the mouse itself.
DeleteIt's the shape of a mouse cursor
DeleteFollowing on Rex’s comments about “It’s in the syllabus.”, I believe crossword solvers should learn “It’s in the clue.” or better yet “Reread the clue.” before going all righteous to prove the clue to be incorrect.
DeleteThought it was pretty solid, if a tad too easy. However, there is one glaring error. The navy has midshipmen, not cadets
ReplyDeleteHow is outpaces/outreads not a clueing no-no?
ReplyDeleteI don’t see “outreads” in any of the clues or answers — just “outpaces” and READSAHEAD
DeleteIs it Monday already?
ReplyDeleteEasiest Friday, quickest solve ever. Can't complain.
ReplyDeleteFaster than Wed average. I don't mind an easy puzzle, but the last 3 weeks have all been on the Easy side. Almost makes me want to solve a BEQ puzzle.
ReplyDeletePuzzle was nice and clean. AVILA I've seen a few times, clued as a walled city in Spain. Also LAHORE. Looks like the presidential debates will be on CNN at the end of June, moderated by Jake Tapper and DANA Bash. Sorry, DANA Carvey.
Yep, record for me, too. That was like a semi-challenging Monday or Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteFine, but not really a Friday. Especially dismayed to see the ubiquitous "eked" on a Friday.
ReplyDeleteYes! And "aped."
DeleteWell, I finally got to join the party and “whoosh” a bit on a Friday as well. I figured Rex would blast it with both barrels for being too easy, but he was pretty complimentary - and so far the commentariat has been overwhelmingly positive as well - good to see such strong support for a clean, junk-free puzzle.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, in terms of clean and junk-free grids, this is easily the best week we have had for at least the last year and a half. It would be great if they could keep the streak going and give us another one tomorrow to close out the week strong.
My favorite clue for today was “Very clear, as a stream” for IN HD. Keep them coming guys and gals!
@SouthsideJohnny 7:20 AM
DeleteThis is anything but a "junk-free puzzle." In fact it's on the junkier side, and the rest of the week has been very typical for junk in our puzzles. Your enthusiasm is likely caused by knowing this week's junk. It doesn't feel like "trivia" as you often describe knowledge. Wheelhouse solves can deceive us as to overall quality as it has today.
Like everybody else, I finished insanely fast. I don't know what my record is, but I finished in 8:55, 12:33 faster than my average.
ReplyDeleteAnd that included hunting to change WAKE (get a rise out of) to BAKE. I like my answer better, just not sure what WALDS are.
Agreed on easy. Probably half the time I usually spend on a Friday.
ReplyDeletePOSSSIBLE DUPE
ReplyDeleteFinished it in half the time it usually takes on Friday. Guessing right on SKYE and LAHORE was a big help. The clue for CTRLALTDEL was unfamiliar, but the crosses in that area made up for the fact that the letters didn't form a real word.
Easiest Friday in years!
ReplyDeleteLots of “Whee!” today, with a dominos-falling feel, and yet there were plenty of roses to stop and smell:
ReplyDelete• Lovely wordplay clues, such as [Arm raisers] for DELTS and [Comes out on top?] for BALDS. My favorite was the fabulous [Very clear, as a stream] for INHD, an answer almost always clued prosaically.
• For spark, lovely longs – 14 – seven of which were NYT debuts, my favorites being FALLBACK PLAN, SNIDE REMARKS, and CTRL ALT DEL.
• The shorter lovelies DOTTY and SCAMP.
• Sweet to see IDO twice in the twelfth row, and DROP down.
On top this is a magnificent serendipity, IMO, but to appreciate it you need to know that Hemant is a well-known atheism activist through his books, blog, and appearances at atheist-centered events. Thus, knowing how Hemant has cut theism out of his life, I smiled when I looked at the filled-in grid and saw GOD abutting I’M ON A DIET.
Hemant, after having just seven puzzles in the Times, you are one of those rare and special constructors whose name atop a puzzle spontaneously makes my heart light up. Thank you for a breezy, sparky, splendid outing today!
Mondays are Fridays at Carvell and at the NYTXW apparently. Yep smoked it.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone else find it weird that the clue for OLDS didn’t include any reference to it being “informal” or something? The company that Ford feuded with is OLDSmobile. Took me forever to figure out we were supposed to use a slang term. Thought that was a xword no-no?
ReplyDeleteThe founder of Oldsmobile was Random E Olds, so the clue and answer work perfectly
DeleteRansom Olds and Henry Ford were rivals
DeleteOh wow, did not know that’s where the OLDS in Oldsmobile came from! Learn something new every day. Thanks!
DeleteThe cage - basketball connection for me was made fifty years ago when I went to UMASS Minuteman games in Curry Hicks Cage. Cage? Why is this ancient gym called a cage? I came to understand that in the early days of basketball they had a wire mesh fence around the court.
ReplyDeleteI'll just chime in as well, this was whooshy-whooooosh from start to finish. Half the time of a normal Friday, but it was a fun one so that makes it ok.
ReplyDelete13:11, which is like Rex doing it in thirty seconds. No resistance whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteAgree. Easiest Friday in a while. More like a reasonable Wednesday. Enjoyable though as it made me feel smart.....
ReplyDeleteFH
Total Mandela Effect today as I also read and reread that clue as “not keep HARPING on”.
ReplyDeleteAlso, “junk” = “crap”. But I couldn’t parse “peds”
And he gets you on his wavelength
ReplyDeleteAnd his clues lead to the answers
And you set an all-time record...
Apologies to Leonard Cohen.
Yep, super-whooshy and lots of good solid longer answers. I didn't learn CTRLALTDEL until late in my computer career and boy is it handy. See also CTRLZ. And learned about TANGRAMS, so a good day there.
Many years ago when I was in high school basketball was the big thing in my small town, and the local paper had extensive coverage of games, and somewhere in their accounts the word CAGER would always appear. You bet I was a CAGER, and am famous for making the game-winning basket in our championship game, that didn't count, because time had expired. I coulda been a hero.
Really enjoyed this one. HM, even if it was wicked easy for a Friday. Had Me hooked at NIKES X NSFW, and stayed consistently entertaining. Thanks for all the fun.
This was such a fun Friday for me. Only had some real challenges in the midwest because I confidently inserted I’M DIETing early on, and somehow thought SNIpERsnARKS were the CUTTING REMARKS.
ReplyDeleteThought the longs were delightful.
Also, for future reference, CAGER is also a slang word used by motorbike riders (Rode a Vespa for 14 years) for people in cars.
Very well crafted and enjoyable puzzle! Thanks Hemant Mehta!
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteEasy peasy FriPuz. Only ifness was having SNIpER EMAilS, wondering what they were. But it sounded like something, so stuck with it. Got the Almost There!, decided to erase the letters I wasn't 100% on, which got me to see TANGRAMS' R, then was able to get the ole brain to see SNIDE REMARKS
Happy Music ensued.
Seems like a lot of initials/abbrvs in here today. Let's see, we have CNAS, RTE, CTRLALTDEL, NSFW, I HAD, MBA. Hmm, seemed like more... Maybe add CNOTE?
I think because the CTRLALTDEL is a longie. Silly brain.
Oh, I had gotten QB on the 14th. Forgot to brag about it. Har. YesterBee was a disaster. Holy cow, I don't even want to talk about it. 😁
Well, hop y'all have a great day! Happy Friday.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Probably the easiest Friday puzzle I’ve ever solved. I don’t time myself but I’m sure it’s my fastest solve. This felt like a Wednesday. Only place I got tripped up was the clue for 44 Down.
ReplyDeleteMy FALLBACKPLAN is the semiannual opposite of my Spring Forward Plan, although I've reached a stage where I could opt, with a Strait face (after all those CMA's), to just feign ignorance. What? You mean I was supposed to reset the clock last night? GODIM sorry. It seemed to always work out ok for my employees way back when. It'd probably work for me now.
ReplyDeleteMini theme of an ABE and a CNOTE made me remember that my dear old dad used to say that you get what you URNS.
Pretty sweet puzzle, Hemant Mehta. Thanks.
I think the legacy of CAGERS lives on after the UMASS story above on NYC playgrounds with courts surrounded by chain link fences. Thinking especially of those small courts on West 4th street.
ReplyDeleteLewis' description of the puzzle as WHEE was my wrong answer for LETS
I had to wait for the NIKEKICKSaloa - guessed kicks first since we saw it recently, and the tendency for words and clues to appear in bunches.
Pretty whoosh-whoosh for me, with just the right amount of resistance to make me feel smart. SE was my only real hangup, thanks to 44D and "stream" in the clue. Crosses seemed to make sense but something had to be wrong because too many consonants... oh, THAT "stream." Maybe ROKU should have planted the suggestion, but it was gone by the time I'd progressed from the NE corner all the way down to the SE, which was the last bit to fall. All very pleasurable!
ReplyDeleteBTW, I'm old enough to remember when I had to explain what a ROKU was. Wife an uber-technerd and we were desperate to drop cable, so we were pretty early adopters.
Wow, this was a great puzzle to finally work “in real time” after returning from France. Yep, I pretty much agree with everything @Rex said with the exception of: I wanted FoLLowupPLAN for FALLBACKPLAN and IMtoofull instead of IMONADIET. As for the latter, that is the ONLY time I refuse a dessert. I did have a DOH moment with CHEESEWEDGE because I was thinking of the shape of the mouse and NOT the cursor….repeat DOH feeling now.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the Olympic mascot? Yikes. It is a comical rendition of the Phrygian cap worn in the French Revolution. I’m sure there have been silly looking mascots in the past but the thing looks almost like red bird.
Personal best for a Friday puzzle
ReplyDeleteGreat overall puzzle- long answers easy but interesting , flowed well
ReplyDeleteHave to echo @Michael 718 : finished up in NE after a crosswordese-free puzzle and had to wince at EKED. Perfection will have to wait till next time!
Any Friday puzzle completed in under 10 minutes is an easy one for me, and this was well under that mark.
ReplyDeleteI first learned of CAGER not from crosswords, but from reading the newspaper as a young child. I don't know if it was a widespread practice, but the headline writers in 2 of the 3 papers my parents took used CAGER often. They also used another old crossword chestnut, solon, quite a bit. You rarely see it these days, but whether that's a result of changes in the language, the decline of print newspapers or the lack of wise, skillful lawmakers is up for interpretation and discussion.
I FELL IN LOVE with this puzzle as I wrote in the longer phrases - not exactly a TIDAL WAVE of them, but a steady stream, and all so good, from the student in the SCIENCE LAB who READS AHEAD to LOSING SLEEP over a CHEESE WEDGE. @Lewis, I, too, loved DOTTY and SCAMP, and they're parallel, too. This one was fun all the way.
ReplyDelete@pabloinnh, I remember my dad, in the early 1960s, explaining to me a newspaper headline in the sports section that featured "Local Cagers."
I happened to be watching the CMAs when I entered CMAS into the grid. I had the same feeling I had when I heard Arnold Palmer died and I was drinking an Arnold Palmer.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t exactly whoosh but certainly didn’t encounter too much difficulty. A very workable Friday, which I kept at until I finished without a single Google. That’s a rare event for me on Friday so I much appreciate the construction effort – not because it was easy, but based on it being a well designed grid and nicely clued. Very Weintraubesque.
ReplyDeleteI learned “three-fingered salute” and what a TANGRAM is and a WET burrito. Turns out I’ve loved them for years, but have always called them enchiritos. What makes them wet is the enchilada sauce, then I up the ante with ranch dressing. Well unless IM ON A DIET anyway.
Who are you, and what have you done with Rex Parker? This was a waaay too easy Friday, and Rex liked it! I found nothing remarkable.
ReplyDeleteVery easy -- until I got to the consonant-riddled three-finger salute answer and couldn't DEL a single consonant that I had at the beginning. Boy, was I happy to see CTRLALTDEL come in. It's my nominee for the DOOKiest answer of all time.
ReplyDeleteCTRLALTDEL. It's one of those things that, once you know it, is something a 3-year-old child could do. But you'll need an IT expert in your apartment if you DON'T know it, because you'd never be able to guess such an arbitrary maneuver in a million trillion years.
This is the problem with computer procedures. They're all arbitrary and they're all different.
Now, if only I could remember what CTRLALTDEL is actually used for. I know it's not just used to delete stuff.
A pleasant and enjoyable puzzle that I found easier than most Fridays.
A boringly easy and extremely forgettable puzzle. I recall changing WAKE to BAKE and little else.
ReplyDeleteyd. -0. QB33
Yep, me too. Only pOTTY before DOTTY kept me from a perfect Whooshing. Thanks to OFL and @Lewis for sparkling reviews that added frosting on this delicious treat!
ReplyDelete“Uggh - dieting, the practice…”
ReplyDeleteYeah, wanting to lose some weight to improve the length and quality of your life is the WORST! VERY offensive.
I’m still up a stone (much easier to use the British term rather than say I’ve gained 17 pounds) since my health club was forced to close to “flatten the curve”. Ironic, that just enhanced my curves (in all the wrong places).
So yeah, add IMONADIET to phrases NYT should permanently ban! TRIGGERING!
Andrew
DeletePerhaps a typo
A stone is 14 pounds. Not quite so bad as 17!
Rex does go off for odd reasons at times, doesn’t he?
a mouse cursor has a little tail on it. a cheese wedge does not.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous 10:35 AM
DeleteNot all mouse cursors have tails.
CHEESE WEDGE went in first, followed quickly by CRAM, HOPE, EKED, ROKU… whoosh!
ReplyDeleteWeirdly easy except for the moments of deep trivia crossing other deep trivia. I can't believe how many no-cross write-ins were right and yet bad gunk stopped me again and again. Very unflowy. Let's go to the tape and some SNIDE REMARKS.
ReplyDeleteDANA/ABE cross. Ouch.
LAHORE is how you turn a Tuesday puzzle into a Friday puzzle. Put it at the top and TANGRAMS at the bottom and suddenly five gimme crosses are no longer gimmes.
That's how you clue CHEESE WEDGE? Hm. Maybe cheese is different in New York City.
I toss and turn while I'm asleep.
Tragicomedy about two people trying to find the light switch: Waiting for GODIM.
Propers: 5
Places: 4
Products: 7
Partials: 8
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 25 (35%) Ug.
The idea of a themeless is you don't need to fight self-imposed structural problems in the grid so you shouldn't still need 8 partials. To toughen it up, the editors allow people, products, and places (rather than writing better clues on less divisive topics), but the end result is a junky puzzle for no reason.
Uniclues:
1 The class bully blows his face off while screwing around.
2 Release a tape of the so-called "moral majority's candidate" bragging about groping women. Oh wait.
3 Smoke weed in Uig.
4 That iffy stuff clogging up your "1987 Taxes" folder on your computer.
5 How you get into 7-11.
6 My dinner plans since my wife is out of town.
7 Gramma and grampa visit the pharmacy.
1 SCIENCE LAB HOPE
2 ERASE TIDAL WAVE
3 SKYE BAKE
4 LEGIT NSFW INHD (~)
5 ICEE AROMA DOOR
6 THE CHEESE WEDGE (~)
7 OLDS RENEW MEDS (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: La-Z-Boys. SIESTA EDIFICES.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just did a quick search to confirm my suspicion that originally basketball courts used to be surrounded by a cage-like enclosure to "speed up the game", which of course led to CAGER. I'm assuming that the ball went into the crowd a little more frequently than it does today.
ReplyDeletePabloinnh
DeleteI think someone above alluded to a story I heard about the origin of cager. It is a little different from what you read.
The term refers to OUTDOOR courts
In the early days, basketball was what we would now call an inner city game, with limited outdoor space for recreation. Many courts were close to sidewalks and neighboring property, usually with little or no seating for spectators. Cages were to prevent the ball from going, say, into the street. The cage most certainly sped up the game! As stated above some caged outdoor courts still exist in NYC.
Interesting if I am wrong and indoor courts had cages too.
I didn't whoosh but I really enjoyed it a lot.
ReplyDeleteKinda like the 'old days.'
Thank you for a great Friday Hermant :)
Count me in for another PB for Friday.
ReplyDeleteFinished faster than Wed and Thurs this week.
Easy and whooshy. LEGal before LEGIT, Eft before EEL, and rEst before MEDS were it for erasures. TANGRAMS was a WOE.
ReplyDeleteSolid and smooth with some cute/clever clueing and more than a modicum of sparkle. Liked it.
Like @anon 6:21 I balked at 8D NAVY CADET for "Aspiring mariner" thinking that should be midshipman. A quick check shows that there is something called Sea CADETs for young people age 10-18 although they are not actually in the NAVY.
ReplyDeleteYeah, way too easy, like an early week themeless. Left me with time on my hands so I go POC (plural of convenience) hunting. Didn't have to go far, there's one right out of the gate with some CAGER's shoes, NIKES, to start things off.
The POC that stands out the most for me, and not in a good way, is the two for one POC where a Down and an Across both get a letter count, grid fill boost by sharing a single S. Each of those Ss is the equivalent of a cheater square. It could be changed to a black square, the clue slightly tweaked and the word count would not change. Nothing much of interest or value would be lost. It's like non-nutritional filler, so to speak.
Today we get a parade of two fers, seven (!) of them. Six are the usual shared S at the ends with SNIDE REMARK/IDOL, DELT/LET, MED/FEUD, CITE/TANGRAM, BALD/URN and OLD/NEAR all getting a letter count leg up from a shared terminal S. These are elementary and any POC CADET should be able to easily spot them. The one that requires a more discerning eye, though, is when 41D MAMA and 56A READ AHEAD both get a letter count boost by sharing an internal S. Advanced POCifying there.
Seven two fers is unusually high, especially for a themeless where theme constraints can't be used as a justification. The POC Committee was split on whether to give the grid a POC Assisted or PC Marked rating.
Extremely easy. No write-overs. I never heard of DANA Bash or TANGRAMS. Don't recognize any ADELE songs. CMAS? Oh, right--them awards. Never watched more than 10 minutes of Survivor. The world will barely survive "Reality" shows, which have spawned ugly actual realities like a certain former US President.
ReplyDeleteI love those Sasek books! My parents got me a bunch when I was a kid -- for their pleasure and my own -- and they still have a revered spot on their bookshelf. (I think we have London, Venice, Paris, and Rome)
ReplyDelete@Gary 11:20 - I noticed after I posted that your “gunk gauge” (which I really appreciate, btw) was on the high side, which came as a surprise. I’m guessing that because I am so terrible at trivia (and my “Wheelhouse” is minuscule, lol) that I just assumed that there was no way that I could “whoosh” through a gunk-laden grid, especially on a Friday.
ReplyDeleteIt probably also didn’t hurt that a lot of the rest of it was circa Wednesday level difficult. Still I held my own on a Friday even if it wasn’t as clean as I thought while solving - which is a big plus in my book - so maybe there is hope for me yet (and yes, I’m still hoping we don’t get a cryptic stunt puzzle from outer space tomorrow).
Tuesday time on this one. Felt like it. It helps to know crosswordese like APED.
ReplyDeleteThe only time I have heard EKE outside of a crossword (or a mouse control ad) is in this Randy Newman song.
ReplyDeleteSo I don’t mind this used and abused word. Gets me playing the Newman songbook. Just like APE gets me listening to Apeman Ray Davies and the Kinks.
When they’re BOTH in it (crossing each other, no less), well I don’t know who to listen to, GODIM it!
“All of these people are much brighter than I
In any fair system they would flourish and thrive
But they barely survive
They eke out a living, they barely survive“
It’s Money that Matters
LAHORE reminds me of Sean Connery on SNL Jeopardy!
ReplyDeleteLET IT SNOW, AN ALBUM COVER and more!
It is harped, not hanged. Stop harping on that, drop it! Thanks, Rex, for the George Strait video, "Amarillo By Morning". Pleasant, easy for Friday puzzle, with interesting clues. Got the answers to stuff that is not in my wheelhouse by the crosses.
ReplyDeleteHas anybody mentioned that this was on the easy side for a Friday? Oh yeah, it seems a few folks have. If you haven't yet, please jump in, the water's fine!
ReplyDeleteI found this unusually easy for a Friday, but will maintain a grudge over Skye, as even if an entire island is considered a "point" (I would argue it should not be), Skye isn't the northernmost isle at all. There's so many accurate ways to clue Skye; I just can't imagine not even looking at a map to be sure you're doing it correctly.
ReplyDeleteAt Navy the midshipmen are called "plebes." Cadets attend the USMC. I know a boatload of Naval Officers that this gaff made seasick.
ReplyDeleteBack in my teens I loved to read the Mathematical Games column (by Martin Gardner) in Scientific American, which frequently mentioned TANGRAMS. That gave me a leg up on this puzzle, adding to the whoosh effect. (Re: Rex, he usually complains that Fridays are too hard, which interferes with their whooshiness, so I wasn't surprised by his reaction today.)
ReplyDeleteI'm not really up on my military academies. I knew the kids at Annapolis were midshipmen, but thought they might be CADETS as well. But the clue fits the US Navy Sea Cadets, anyway.
@DJ--well, the clue says northernmost "in the Inner Hebrides," which appears to be correct from my map, although there may be some islands to small to make said map.
What is GODIM? I cannot find that word anywhere on the interwebs.
ReplyDelete@Markydeee-It's go dim, as a lot of people are going to tell you.
ReplyDelete@Marky
ReplyDeleteTwo words...GO DIM.
@jberg: It's not - there is a presently-uninhabited isle (Trodday) that is north of Skye and is the northernmost isle in the Inner Hebrides.
ReplyDelete@Markydeee: It's two words rather than one - "Go dim" (I had a similar issue yesterday with "to a t")
But for the unfortunate DANA - ABE cross (I had DANI - IBE), this was a little gem.
ReplyDelete@Nancy -- "Now, if only I could remember what CTRLALTDEL is actually used for." It's right there in the clue, REBOOT
ReplyDeleteI know the word "CAGER(S)" but it had never occurred to me to wonder about the origin; now that I know I have more questions, i.e. why was it necessary to have a wire cage around the court? Was an errant basketball straying into the spectator area really deemed to be that dangerous, especially back then? Would plucky young fans of limited means, deprived of sporting goods, abscond with the ball? Were the rivalries such that overzealous fans would attack players from the opposing teams?
ReplyDeleteA. Appears to have been mainly #1 (or rather, a player chasing an errant ball) and #3. Learn something new every day....
Too bad they put Dana Bash in - a genocide denier, but in fairness to her, she’d fit in with the NYT’s bigoted coverage.
ReplyDeleteVery easy Friday. The fun days of hard weekend puzzles when Joel first took over seem to be gone.
ReplyDeleteWell done, but kind of boring.
ReplyDeleteBreeziest Friday in a long time…played like a Wednesday! No friction and no complaints…bravo!
ReplyDeleteI looked up what a tangram was when I was done with the puzzle, and lo and behold, I had one when I was a kid! It was a Christmas or birthday present 60 years or more ago. I don't recall what it was called on the box it came in, but it wasn't tangram. The booklet showing the different shapes you could make might have used the word. But dang!!! What a flashback!!!
ReplyDelete