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Metal ring that holds a pencil's eraser / SUN 5-12-24 / Digital "container" associated with Bitcoin / Formula 1 tour stop since 2023, informally / Lady Gaga vis-à-vis Billie Eilish, e.g. / Polemology is the study of them / Dystopian classic whose title comes from "The Tempest" / 1995 blockbuster with numerous historical inaccuracies / Title Disney character of 1998 / Fruits exchanged on Chinese New Year / Spiritual hermitage / Suspense-building words
Sunday, May 12, 2024
Constructor: Avery Gee Katz
Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
I'm trying to think of that Finnish runner I used to have to know for crosswords, back when 20th-century Olympians with crossword-convenient names were a much bigger deal ... ah, there it is: PAAVO NURMI ("The Flying Finn"). I bring this up because I cannot remember the last time I had to remember Al OERTER. Feels like 2008, but it's probably something like 2022 and I just forgot. Let's see ... ooh, no, I was pretty close: 2010! Fourteen years OERTER-free. He's only appeared in the NYTXW three times total (!?!?) ('03, '10, today), which doesn't feel like enough times for me to become familiar with his name, but familiar I am, and (I assure you) solely because of crosswords. I was not alive when he was an Olympian, and I am not a discus aficionado, so there's no other way I'm learning OERTER except for crosswords. Last time he appeared, I nearly Naticked on OERTER / BARKCLOTH (!?!?!). Man, fill was rougher back then. My Word of the Day that day was someone named Lin PIAO. Needless to say, that name hasn't stuck (that 2010 appearance remains of PIAO's sole NYTXW appearance). I think all the crosses on OERTER are fair today, so hopefully you survived that trip down Olympian Lane. [My cat has decided to get on my desk and threaten to walk across my keyboard so pardon me while I evict her] [Well now she appears to be evicting herself, so back to business]. The only name I truly didn't know was whoever that JEN person is. I try desperately not to know anything, not a thing, no thing, about the "Biden White House" (or any White House, I'm done—and what does it even mean to be "of the Biden White House"? Like, say the job title or don't say the job title, come on). Wasn't there a JEN Psaki "of the Biden White House"? How many JENs does he plan on employing? Voters need to know. Looks like today's JEN, JEN O'Malley Dillon, is the first female campaign manager of a winning presidential campaign (Biden '20). Seems noteworthy. Like ... the kind of thing you might put in a clue, even.
- CARS—25A: Original host of MTV's "Total Request Live" (CARSON DALY) / 11D: Prominent figure at the Academy Awards (OSCAR STATUE)
- LUCA—35A: Tourist destination in Baja California Sur (CABO SAN LUCAS) / 27D: Certain streaming library (HULU CATALOG)
- UP—61A: Cloud nine, so to speak (EUPHORIA) / 57D: Two-family dwelling (DUPLEX)
- SOUL—85A: Fried chicken, cornbread, collard greens, etc. (SOUL FOOD) / 62D: Home to the University of Montana (MISSOULA)
- WALL-E—96A: Digital "container" associated with Bitcoin (CRYPTO WALLET) / 67D: Refused to answer questions (STONEWALLED)
- BRAVE—98A: Dystopian classic whose title comes from "The Tempest" (BRAVE NEW WORLD) / 98D: 1995 blockbuster with numerous historical inaccuracies (BRAVEHEART)
- COCO—117A: Palm tree product used in skin care (COCONUT OIL) / 100D: Drink often served with marshmallows (HOT COCOA)
Alfred Oerter Jr. (/ˈɔːrtər/; September 19, 1936 – October 1, 2007) was an American athlete and a four-time Olympic Champion in the discus throw. He was the first athlete to win a gold medal in the same individual event in four consecutive Olympic Games. Oerter is an inductee of the IAAF Hall of Fame. In 1973, he starred in the short-lived ABC legal sitcom Oerter in the Court! (wikipedia) (OK I made that last part up)
• • •
[the "Jennifer" of this song was one of my dearest childhood friends, true story]
As for today's theme, shrug, not really my thing. I have heard of all these movies, so that's something, but I have no idea which movies are Pixar and which aren't. Apparently MULAN isn't (kinda bugged me to see a non-Pixar animated film in this grid, for some reason—like, enough animated films, already; mix it up). The other movies are indeed movies. Some are famous, some slightly less so. Some are truly hidden in their respective answers (EUPHORIA, CRYPTO WALLET), some are definitely not (BRAVE NEW WORLD, SOUL FOOD). It's a straightforward rebus puzzle that's basically a short movie title Easter egg hunt or Whac-a-mole or whatever. Some of the "hiding" solutions are pretty clever (HULU CATALOG being the most desperate / inventive / interesting). The theme was just OK, but the rest of the puzzle was maybe slightly better than normal. Maybe. Anyway, I didn't hate the solving experience as much as I (frequently) have on previous Sundays. This was fine.
But FERRULE! (31A: Metal ring that holds a pencil's eraser). FERRULE is the OERTER of pencil parts, in that it's pretty obscure and I also wouldn't know it at all if it weren't for crosswords. Actually, I may be confusing it with a different FERULE (is there a one-R FERULE? Can there possibly be multiple FER(R)ULEs?!). I thought it was a rod for beating children with or something like that. No, seriously. Hang on ... Ha! One-R FERULE is "an instrument (such as a flat piece of wood like a ruler) used to punish children" (merriam-webster.com). Told ya! Wow, a one-R and a two-R FER(R)ULE. What wonders and horrors the English language has lurking in its heart. This is two-R FERRULE's fourth ever appearance. One-R FERULE, on the other hand, has appeared a whopping 23 times, though only seven times in the Modern (i.e. Shortz/Fagliano) Era.
Ironically ... or strangely, anyway ... the toughest part of the puzzle for me today was nowhere near a rebus square. It was LABELMATE and everything around it. Well, not everything. I knew LENTILS, obviously (56A: Dal ingredients), and that Homer quote re: ALCOHOL is Hall-of-Fame, put-it-on-a-T-shirt level famous (51D: "The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems," per Homer Simpson). But somehow I thought 42A: Beam at a bar (JIM) had to do with sushi (probably thinking "bream"??) and as we've established I didn't know JEN, and MUMMIES eluded me (32D: They're kept under wraps), and also BELABOR (49A: Go on and on about). But mostly it was just the word LABELMATE (49A: Lady Gaga vis-à-vis Billie Eilish, e.g.). I have no idea what label anyone is on anymore. Not that I ever did, but I used to have at least a vague sense of whether someone was on Island or Sire or Electra or I.R.S. or whatever. Now? Zero idea, none, even if I know the artist reasonably well. So LABELMATE slowed my forward momentum more than anything else today.
Notes:
- 108A: Picture book with characters like Odlaw, Wizard Whitebeard and Woof (WHERE'S WALDO?) — Pretty sure I've asked this before, but ... characters? Don't you just find the stupid stripe-shirt / ski-hat guy in a crowd? Is there really drama? A narrative arc? "Characters" implies such things. I had no idea.
- 59D: Frequent antagonist of Winnie-the-Pooh (BEE) — "Antagonist" seems kind of ... dramatic. Hyperbolic. Also, just one?? I don't remember my Pooh, but it seems more likely that there were many BEEs. Hmm, the Disney Fandom wiki (an august authority, to be sure) says the BEEs are "recurring antagonists" to W the P, so alrighty then. Nevermind.
- 22A: "My only request ..." ("ALL I ASK...") — my favorite answer in the grid, along with "WAIT FOR IT ..." (4D: Suspense-building words)
- 66A: Formula 1 tour stop since 2023, informally (VEGAS) — Hey Siri, write a crossword clue that has nothing to do with me whatsoever. Like, combine the things I'm least interested in in one perfectly un-me clue/answer pairing. Thanks.
- 108D: Polemology is the study of them (WARS) — absolutely positively had TARS here at first. Luckily my brain refused to accept the existence of a THERE'S WALDO! (hell of a sequel title, though, you've gotta admit).
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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94 comments:
Medium-tough for me, maybe because putting in rebuses takes time, plus I’ve only seen one of the Pixar films (WALL·E) so they weren’t on the tip of my tongue.
Major WOE OERTER and one of my last fills.
Solid and reasonably smooth just not UP my alley. Didn’t hate it.
Although I live in a monoplex, rather than a DUPLEX, I've recently seen all of these Pixar movies at a multiplex. So now I'm XEDOUT.
Do you all remember what Felix said on the Odd Couple when his roommate came home late? Hey OSCARSTATUE?
32D (They're kept under wraps) had taMalES written all over it, considering that a friend dropped off a dozen hot pork tamales as I was working on the puzzle. Alas, MUMMIES the word.
I guess if you want a little more skin tone, you'd use a tonator. Want a little less? Use a DETONATOR.
Pretty challenging puzzle since, like @Rex, I don't have a clue as to which movies Pixar has made. So even when I figured out where one rebus went, it didn't point me to others. No whooshing today. But a really good job by Avery Gee Katz. Congrats on a swell debut, Avery.
I think a Sunday rebus needs a revealer...I got it fairly easily thanks to the title of the puzzle, but this is the first time I felt a title was a necessary component to a puzzle. I hadn't heard of the film "Luca" and it's crossed with "ferrule" "Cabo San Lucas" and the clunky answers "label mate" and "Hulu catalog". Still not super thrilled with the crossword puzzles of late, but I do think they have improved from a month ago.
Too many names is one of my pet peeves. This theme is interesting, but it suffers from this: either the clue is one or more names, or the answer containing the rebus is a name, or the rebus itself is the name of a movie named after its character! (or all three... see LUCA!). Really dragged it down for me. Names, names names.
Plus all the other names: ELLA CVS RKO ERNST MULAN JIM RUTH VEGAS BTS PEDRO AYN EGAN WALDO GRETA CHOI JEN EGGO IRENE URAL RIO IRE OSSA yeesh.
On the other hand, at least they tried reeeeal hard not to clue LABELMATE as a name... cuz that's what Google thinks it is.
I cannot see the word DETONATOR without hearing Hans (Alan Rickman) in Die Hard: "Where are the detonators!"
[Spelling Bee: Sat 0, streak 4 days.]
I must have read the puzzles title before I started solving. If I did I paid so little attention to it that I'd completely forgotten it by the time I ran into the confusion around the LUCA rebus. Initially I had CABOSANTO until further solving made this plainly wrong and I just had to leave that square blank for awhile.
SOUL was the first rebus I filled correctly and since it rings no bells for me as any kind of animated movie I was still in the dark as to the actual theme.
WALLE was where the light bulb started going off. Maybe it would have helped if I'd tried to look up the puzzles title again but I just couldn't work up the interest.
I finished by completing the word ERROR. I was surprised to get the congrats as I was convinced that OERTER had to be wrong.
The editor's note at xwordinfo says that this is the 16th of 19 different versions of this puzzle. Wouldn't it be great if they published all the others WAITFORIT.....NOT.
yd -0. QB28
I for one will always welcome a Pixar movie theme. I’ve watched them all since I was pregnant with my first child and went alone to the theater to watch Toy Story. Later on, that same child and me sobbed inconsolably while watching Toy Story 3 as him and Andy were off to college. Such great, soulful, human stories, and excellently crafted.
Thanks for the very enjoyable solve, Avery!
I am 64 years old, Al OERTER came to me immediately for some reason. I think I only had one cross. Got the trick at SOUL food, only hassled wasI do not remember the film LUCA. Fun puzzle.
I didn't like this puzzle at all, because ... I hate rebuses (sorry, @LMS, if you're out there -- I know you prefer "rebodes"). I had MULAN before I got the rebus thing and since like OFL I have no idea what movies are Pixar vs. non-Pixar, I figured the theme was animated movie titles, non-rebused.
I finally got the idea at 61A, which absolutely had to be E[UP]HORIA and from then on the only hangup was that I didn't know the movie LUCA (35Ax27D). I also thought it odd that the Pixar movie BRAVE would be part of a non-Pixar, non-animated movie [BRAVE]HEART.
A Sunday-sized product placement puzzle? I appreciate the effort to build a large rebus grid but have no interest in Pixar or Disney or kid lit etc. The theme kills the entire vibe.
Eric B and Rakim
Some nice fill actually - FERRULE is not specific to pencil erasers - your cable connector and our crossword darling aglet are other examples. Knew OERTER but understand the puzzlement from younger solvers. Love dal and the Homer quote. I equate KERNAL with linear algebra.
Take this boy away
Hard pass on this one.
ELLA and Louis
Is the Finnish runner is Lasse Viren https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasse_Vir%C3%A9n I remember him only because his resting heart rate (even while running ) was supposed to be around 28!
As a Brit I thought the Where’s Waldo question was meant to be a subtle hint to the theme, nudging my brain to think “Wally” and then “Wall-E” but no it was just a weird coincidence
Being neither from California nor familiar with Pixar, I found CABO SAN LUCAS / BANA / HULU CATALOG to be a very difficult intersection; but the rest of the puzzle made for a very pleasant solve on a quiet Sunday morning.
I was trying to connect the theme to Mother’s Day. Oh right, watching movies with your young kids. Really?
The months of effort that Avery put into this puzzle – 19 iterations before settling on the best! – shows, IMO. This is a smooth answer set overall, with polished clues. This is finely honed.
And capital-P Puzzle this is, as well. Hidden rebuses, all different, in unpredictable locations, and of unpredictable lengths. (Finding them had a WHERE’S WALDO feel.) Obscure answers. Vague clues. Two corners, the NE and SW, that are like mini-puzzles.
In my scheme of things, cracking a puzzle comes first, and the rest – theme, answer set, clues – follow; they are gravy. Today’s puzzle not only gave me a satisfying nut to crack, it gave me the rest as well. It smartly did its job, gave me a terrific experience.
Thank you, Avery, for all you put into this, for your high standards, for this high-quality grid. Congratulations on your debut!
Much more enjoyable for me than most of the recent, and not-so-recent, Sundays. I love rebuses and, though I've only seen one of the movies, I had heard of most of them. It was a bit of a challenge... Thanks Avery.
Anyone else fail on AURAs / FERRULs? I didn’t get happy music and spent a while tracking that one down.
Solving on the ap, I don’t see the puzzle title unless I go looking for it. I did this time after going through the whole puzzle, recognizing that there had to be rebuses, and seeing no revealer. After seeing the title, I thought the rebuses might be Toy Story characters. I went to the first place I had noticed a likely rebus spot, saw OSCAR STATUE hiding CARS, then had fun wandering around looking for others. I, too, have no idea what is Pixar and what is some other studio, but I recognized all of these except LUCA. Enjoyable.
Do we know where LMS is?
This was just a disaster for me - never heard of the movies, so I had no idea what was going on. Without groking the gimmick, and not having a clue what MISSOULA is for example, left me with pretty much an unsolvable grid. I guess when you go with a PPP-based theme and combine it with (what appear to the uninformed to be) random rebus squares, some group of solvers are basically left out of the party, and I’m in that group today.
Just a brutal slog - probably the least enjoyable NYT puzzle I have ever stuck with to the gory end. Hopefully there are whole battalions of Disney/Pixar fans out there that really enjoy this one - it must have been a monster to construct.
Rex, I share your lack of interest in Formula 1 and Las Vegas. Also, I’m not a fan of Pixar, and as for rebodes, I’m definitely a HATER. Also, I’m not exactly proud to say that I know the word FERRULE from the construction of the bass recorder. I thought, “Oh, yeah, pencils have ‘em too!” To each his own wheelhouse.
As someone who was a big Track and Field fan while in High School in the 60s, OERTER was the first answer I filled in. Can certainly understand why someone in a different demographic would be at a loss, though.
TIL that if you compress [CARS]ONDALY, you have two letters in common with keNnedY. (25A)
I also realized that I am old, and that I must have stopped watching MTV a long time ago.
I know ferrules from painting too - if water stays in the ferrule it can ruin ur bristles. Waldo sort of does have a story, the wizard sent him on his journey, woof is his dog and odlaw is is nemesis - but mostly they are just other characters to search for
Thought I would really struggle with this as I don't know much about children's movies, but somehow all of these penetrated my consciousness (successful advertising).
Madagascar is the fourth largest island. #5 is Baffin Island, and the only primates there are humans.
OERTER and FERRULE were gimmes, and not due to crosswords. Knowing FERRULE allowed me to quickly cleanse my AURAs.
Came to the blog to see what Sunday had in store (Rex's rating).
It's a cold, it's rainy - it's dark in NYC. I could've used a puzzle that I would enjoy getting into. I don't like rebus puzzles & I haven't a clue about Pixar movies. So I may not be back.
Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there :)
A rebus on a Sunday is the emotional equivalent of having a snap quiz in math class. Okay, I’ll do it, but…ugh…
What does it mean that LEMUR "exists only on the world's fifth largest island"? I'm certain I've seen them (in zoos) in both England and America. "Native to", might be better?
I'd only heard of 2 or 3 of these films (and the only one I saw was UP), but somehow all the themers came easily. Rex knows nothing about the Biden White House, I know (next to) nothing about Pixar. Much of the fill was challenging to me, but along with Rex, I didn't hate this. More of a workout than I'm used to on a Sunday and that's not a bad thing.
Yes to AURAs/FERRULs - missed that the pencil part was singular.
Can someone please explain the "What can symbolize 50"/CAPITALL thing? I don't get that one.
Ooof, this was a good puzzle but far harder for me than it should have been.
I solve on my phone so I don't see the puzzle title. None of the rebus answers were ones that has a "it absolutely must be this answer that doesn't fit so we must be dealing with a rebus puzzle" feel to me. So with no revealer, no title showing, and not getting the rebus it took me a long time to get the theme. For a while I thought it was just a tough Sunday themeless.
Also, I am 50 and do not have kids so am not familiar with the last decade and a half or so of Pixar movies. The ones I do know (Toy Story, Monsters Inc, A bugs Life) mostly did not appear in the puzzle.
Finally, almost all of the proper names or cultural references that usually give me a foothold to start tackling the puzzle were just out of my wheelhouse.
All of these factors combined made this a tough puzzle for me. I went through several passes making minimal progress. At some point I figured out what was happening and started to get some flow going and it was really fun.
Once I figured out CABOSAN(LUCA)S/HU(LUCA)TALOG and (CARS)SONDALY (plus FERRULE/AURAE, which was indicative), I realized this was not going to be the puzzle for me. I love a good rebus, but rebus nouns hidden in trivial nouns is a bit too many nouns.
I got the gist, the theme is cute, but I happily packed it in with just the top half filled in, which is about the limit of my good will. (Checking the grid, I’m glad I checked out before “CRYPTO(WALLE)T”).
Your discussion of the one or two R fer(r)le called to mind the Ogden Nash quip:
The one-l lama,
He's a priest.
The two-l llama,
He's a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn't any
Three-l lllama.
Nice debut from Avery Gee Katz. Can't imagine the numbers of hours spent creating 19 iterations, but congrats on the publish!
COCO was the last Pixar movie I saw, and it was great. UP has the saddest movie intro, ever. WALL-E is my fav. Might as well catch up on the newer Pixar films since I enjoyed the ones I've seen.
As a former (69D) CATOWNER, I'm happy to be cat-sitting two cats. One of them is named COCO, ehe.
Thanks for the puz, Mx. KATZ!
L is roman numeral 50.
Also it's not 100% but I have started putting only the first letter in for Rebuses and it worked fine this time, again, on Across Lite.
Hey All !
Haven't heard of the Pixar movie LUCA, so that one was hard to get. But it really couldn't be anything else, right? Is there another famous CABO SAN besides LUCAS?
Had everything in, stuck in the section with the good ole discus dude. After 50 minutes, I said WHAT THE HEY and went to good ole Goog to get his name. Was able to get the ole brain to see the rest after that, although the last movie I got was a Hmm and a blank square for a few more minutes. CRYPTO_T/STONE_D. I was like, "CRYPTO what? STONE who?" Finally cottoned to WALL-E, which was a fun moment. Put that in, and Happy Music wafted out of the speakers.
That Grand Prix did a number on getting around on the Strip. A good portion of said Strip was closed for days. Along with various connecting streets. Thankfully, not a limo driver anymore, so didn't have to deal with that nonsense.
Speaking of silliness, the town is tearing down the Tropicana Hotel and Casino to put up a baseball stadium for the moving-to-VEGAS Oakland A's. Nothing against MLB coming to town, but there are several other properties in the same general vicinity that are empty lots, and would benefit from something being there, ala a stadium. But who am I? Just a taxpayer going along for the ride.
Anyway, I did like the puz. Fun to figure out where the Rebi was going to be. Only 71 Blockers, a lower count for a SunPuz. The CAPITAL L got me for a bit. Had cOcoA where HOT(COCO)A went, sure I'm not the only one on that.
@pablo
Got a PEDRO, close! Har.
Happy Sunday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Ant from Texas - CAPITAL L - it’s 50 in Roman numerals.
@Anthony in TX 9:18 - A capital L can represent the number 50 in Roman numerals.
Found this one tougher than a typical Sunday. Maybe 40 percent more time than Sunday average. liked it quite a bit, even though I'd never heard of most of the movies. Thanks, Avery Gee Katz.
I was flailing around - figured 35A had to be CABO SAN LUCAS, but couldn't get it to fit. Finally grokked to the rebus at SOUL FOOD/MISSOULA cross.
Didn't remember ferrule from pencils, but once a few crosses were in, the word came to me. From bicycles. A ferrule where the cable goes into the brake or derailleur. Though got it confused with a spoke nipple at first.
Tried to make COCOa butter work at 117A before realizing COCONUT OIL.
Keep up the F1 clues. Lando Norris picked up his first win at Miami last weekend.
Agreed. No mom anywhere wanted to solve this
I sat there for multiple minutes trying to find that exact mistake!
Roman numeral for 50 is a capital L.
@Anthony in Texas
Capital “L” = Roman numeral fifty
This puzzle was challenging and while I had little knowledge of Pixar movies (and never look at the title), got all but the LUCA rebus. And found out that chihuahua ears can brush UP against an ipad and add letters, skip spaces and change direction. And Diva was trying to be so good lying on my chest!
Now a word about Al OERTER, who was handled pretty glibly by Rex due to OFL’s lack of familiarity and Al’s lack of NYTXW appearances.
He had torn a ribcage in the ‘64 Tokyo games and was wrapped like a MUMMIE - gave it his all in what he decided would have to be his last throw (or THROE, he was in so much pain) and won.
Four years before, when underperforming in Rome, Al’s teammate Rink Babka - heading to a gold of his own - generously gave him some coaching that Oerter credited for his success.
Considered something of a has-been at age 32 year old in ‘68, he was the CINDERELLA (wait, that’s not PIXAR?) story of 1968 in Mexico City. 4 times Gold over 16 years. He was a true Olympic hero in an ancient competition (as opposed to SKEET!)
Al died with dignity at age 71 when refusing a heart transplant. "I've had an interesting life," he said, "and I'm going out with what I have.”
More than just a crossword answer, this guy was a legend!
let’s Discus Al OERTER
Capital L is the roman numeral for fifty.
There were, indeed, more than one Finnish, metal-winning, runners.
Just..NO!
Phew! Loved it as it took all my brainpower and a whole buncha guessing and hoping. I love having secret rebipodes in random spots and each one different. Slower than usual, and I wish I could have more of the same.
We'll probably hear some grousing about Disney and Pixar, but of the movies I've seen in this list, they're all good.
Wonderful sense of humor in the cluing. There's a WET TOAD on our BRAVE NEW WORLD. And the MUMMIES in a HOT TUB with ALCOHOL sounds like a good Thursday night to me.
Propers: 18
Places: 8
Products: 8
Partials: 9
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 46 (33%)
Uniclues:
1 Waves of new ink flowing out of air conditioned parlors lined around the equator.
2 Why I like to travel.
3 What my K-POP friends and I say about you, probably.
4 Left operatically inclined pan in the cupboard.
5 America annexed the Sea of Tranquility.
6 Gods wearing tasty fried crowns.
7 "Oh, by the way, you're not the boss."
8 Scammer with poor grammar isn't fooling anyone.
1 BEAT THE HEAT TAT TIDES
2 CABO SAN LUCAS TUBE TOPS
3 I'D AGREE... BTS HATER
4 SINGIN' COOK POT XED OUT
5 HILL MIRED THE MOON
6 TEMPURA TIARA DIETIES
7 ALERTS CAT OWNER
8 PHISH REP AIN'T WOWING (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: My 401K and my IRA are for a rainy day, mm'kay? NEST EGGS RHYMED.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ski-jumper, not a runner
Save these gimmick puzzles for Thursday, so I can avoid them. I hate trying to fit words like brave in a single square. What a mess
Medium for me, and, to my surprise, it won me over and kept me interested all the way to the end. Surprise, because my knowledge of Pixar titles is hazy at best, and like @Son Volt, I'm not crazy about product-placement puzzles. But once I got a foothold, figuring out LUCA (which I'd never heard of), I found the theme engaging to grapple with, and I thought the tougher cluing and wealth of fresh entries made this a cut above most Sundays. I especially liked how UP was embedded in EUPHORIA.
Help from previous puzzles: BTS. Help from being old: Al OERTER. Mystery item in brain's junk drawer: FERRULE - how I knew it I have no idea, but it went right into the grid.
@Andrew, thank you for making Al OERTER more than just a crossword entry.
Like yesterday, this fell into the "medium-challenging" category for me (for a Sunday) which is my sweet spot. I'm used to flying through Sundays. I don't know if it's because there's a new crossword editor, but whatever it is, please let it continue. I have never watched a Pixar movie (as far as I know) so I needed to infer what some of the less well-known movies might be (LUCA, SOUL, COCO) which was a pleasant chore. Great feeling of accomplishment when done because I wasn't certain I would get all the way there. Big help knowing the answer was CARSON DALY and that neither his full name, nor his partial name, fit - so I was looking for the rebus from the get go. So many wrong answers before the right ones.
SlurS before SKEWS, ribbit(?) before LALALA, Moana before MULAN, EoE before EEO, TbondS before TNOTES, AURAs before AURAE, idle before BANA, leanS before TILTS, CAT lovER before CAT OWNER, Slalom (thought rebus) before SKEET, for before PRO, one SET before TWO SET, COCOA before HOT COCOA, IlENE before IRENE.
And then just a bunch of words I didn't know, but could eventually figure out. 47:14 of my Sunday morning well spent.
This puzzle is in a class by itself. My readers will know which class I mean....
I seem to remember Mr. OERTER from TV commercials when I was a kid.
He was the first person to win gold in four consecutive games. Pretty noteworthy, I’d say!
No fun for me
Challenging for me since I don’t know Pixar movies. Well-executed theme. CABOSANLUCAS and HULUCATALOG were the last to fall. Pretty good.
Had “ILENE” and “OLEAD.” Who knew “IRENE?” Who knew “OREAD?” What’s it called when you have a cross of two relatively obscure answers like that,? A Natick?
Thanks to the editor for not indicating the rebus squares. I realized what was going on fairly early, and am familiar with most, but not all of the films, so it provided more pushback than any recent Sunday. Yay!
Enjoyable puzzle, in spite of all the non-theme-related names.
I erred on the AURAE/FERULE cross. I saw it as a potential problem but moved on, forgot and…. Grr! 🙃
Thank you to everyone who explained CAPITALL. I can't believe I didn't get that. Feeling a little dumb right about now...
COBOL / BEE 😖
Aha!! It's a rebus!! Oh, goody!! Pure EUPHORIA (which doesn't fit. btw.)
But I'm flying blind because I don't know zilch about a "Pixar Box". Is it some sort of video game? (No, I'm not being coy; those were actually my thoughts upon opening up the puzzle.)
Anyway, what are my rebuses so far? CARS. UP. LUCA. WALL-E (That was a film I remember because I saw it.) SOUL. COCO. Aha!!! WAIT FOR IT!!! Four I recognize as films, so they must all be films! Pixar films! Not so hard, after all.
Well, hard enough that I needed a few cheats and semi-cheats to finish. I looked up LALALA and BANA. I typed in CABO SAN and CABO SAN LUCAS came in -- giving me the LUCA rebus.
I did want COCOA instead of HOT COCOA (didn't you?) at 100D. This was the trickiest clue in the puzzle. But I knew that the U.S. Congress is known as the HILL and that therefore 100D had to begin with an "H".
Missed one. Damn! I had written in A NEW WORLD/A HEART before I knew the trick. I never thought to go back and clean that up. If I had, I'm sure I would have seen BRAVE NEW WORLD/BRAVEHEART.
But I didn't. A double DNF (the cheating and the wrong answer) on a very clever rebus puzzle -- and one that was a lot fairer and more accessible than I expected it to be at the outset.
The bees don't like Pooh because he's always trying to steal their honey.
Very easy for me except NE. LUCA caused many problems with FERRULE, CABO SAN LUCAS and Eric BANA. Without those all clumped together it would have been a breeze.
First & worst puzzle I ever didn't care to finish :(
I was as happy to finally get CAT OWNER while Kitty was sitting on my lap, learn about brown M&Ms and to read Rex’s comment: “What wonders and horror the English language has lurking in its heart.” I had to puzzle out ALCOHOL which reveals my limited grasp of U.S. culture. Most of what I know about recent animated movies came from crossword exposure but I did see “Up” and “Wall-E”. All and all a good Sunday experience.
Thank you for paying tribute to Al Oerter. He was a childhood hero of mine. I taped to my bedroom wall the Sports Illustrated covers he graced. Offended by the somewhat ignorant snipes in today’s blogspot.
Today Andrew says he "found out that chihuahua ears can brush UP against an Ipad and add letters, skip spaces and change direction."
Guess what, Andrew. My laptop keyboard can -- and does -- do ALL of the things you mention every bleeping time I type even one sentence. And it does it all by itself -- with absolutely no help at all from the ears of a chihuahua or any other outside force. It's truly diabolical.
But this does give me an opportunity to commend you on your beautiful and moving post yesterday about the work of the Rescue Crew and about the sweet dog you just adopted and are acclimating with such tenderness. I do believe that there's a special place in heaven reserved for people like you, Andrew. You, too, @Whatsername.
“Offended” 🙄
Well, I reckon I've got some mixed feelins about this SunPuz …
+1: Nice token Jaws in the puzgrid, at top and bottom.
-1: Theme seems like a plug for a company's animated flicks.
+2: Rebuses are kinda neat … oodles of little ahar moments, when U smoke out the rebus squares.
-2: M&A ain't really into animated flicks much. [One exception: "Despicable Me".]
+3: The fillins were really smooothly on my wavelength. Very few no-knows, and half of em were Pixar flicks.
-3: Not a very humorous puztheme, which M&A always prefers.
extra plus: Wordled in 2, today.
staff weeject pick: BTS. Yes! Yes! Old fart M&A finally remembered this band's name. There is hope for my [hopefully wormless] brainpan.
First grokked the puztheme at 11-Down's {Prominent figure at the Academy Awards].
M&A had this partly-filled answer entry: OS?T????.
It just **had** to be somethin startin with OSCAR … ergo, rebus meat. ahar!
fave thing: COOKPOT centered above CORNERLOT. Callin COOT-stack, there.
Thanx, Ms. Katz darlin. And congratz on yer very animated debut.
Masked & Anonymo9Us
**gruntz**
Not only a great amateur Olympic competitor (training for 4 years to compete in one event, when amateur actually meant unpaid), he was humble and funny.
“I don’t think the discus will ever attract any interest until they let us start throwing them at one another.”
— Al Oerter
I know, right? We have missed her.
this one as well as IRENE / OREAD. i didn’t know either of the answers, and IlENE / OlEAD (that’s a lowercase L) seemed equally possible to me.
so i finished. i kind of wish the editor would have indicated the rebus squares, clues. i do understand that some people don't want that but i do.
Pixar had me at Monsters Inc. Incredibly clever, better appreciated by adults.
If you do the Sunday Cryptic, there's one of the best cryptic clues I've ever seen at 4A. It flummoxed me enough for two full days that I couldn't get 7D. (I had it wrong even though I was sure it was right.) I finally got both answers today.
Speaking of good clues -- I really like the "Beam at a bar" clue at 42A. It took me forever to figure it out. Is it new, Lewis? If so, I think it's a possibility for your current best clues list.
Late to the party after a really nice Mom's Day brunch put on by our two sons, who rose to the occasion, and just in time, as their mom was pretty sure they'd forgotten her. Turned out very nicely and they sent us home full of smiles and waffles.
Was looking for Pixar films because the title was "Pixar Box Set", which I took as a possible hint to the theme, and so it was. Knew CABOSANLUCAS but not LUCA the movie. See also BRAVENEWWORLD but not BRAVE the movie.
Al OERTER was a gimme. So was FERULE, as I also know as a joint in a fishing rod.
@Roo-Glad you were not a "frequent antagonist" of Pooh, even though you and BEE are three letters. My brother is PEDRO in the same way that I am PABLO, and no, there's no MARIA.
Nice Sunday with a little more pushback than usual, which is fine by me. Well done you, AGK. A rebus is A Good Kind of Sunday, sez me, and thanks for all the fun.
In the 1960 Olympics, Al Oerter out-threw his teammate who had perhaps the greatest name in Olympics history: Rink Babka.
I miss her too, hope she is okay.
I know Disney/Pixar movies really well, so this wasn't too difficult for me, but I was a bit surprised that they used "Soul" and "Luca" as both of those were pandemic-era movies that debuted on Disney+ instead of in theaters. Both movies actually did get theatrical reissues this year, so maybe the puzzle creator thought they would be familiar enough, although those reissues were not well advertised and barely registered at the box-office.
Yes, found that “e” to be an absurd cross
I like reading movie reviews even though I see very few movies. That habit helped me with here. Only saw COCO and WALL·E. Both very good movies BTW.
I liked the puzzle even though it is a fair criticism to say the puzzle had too many names in the clues as well the answers. But the ones I didn’t know at all (LALALA eg) were balanced by gimmes ( to me) like Al Oerter and Where’s Waldo.
Thanks Andrew for reminding us all why he was so famous. I gather from the responses, a lot less famous now, sadly.
Some were bothered by the IRENE and OREAD cross. OREAD Dryad and Neriad have all appeared in the Times puzzle before and are crosswordese. So I knew that nymph = ———AD. They will probably show up again. But I can see how it would annoy people
But daughter of Marie Curie , the latter probably the most famous woman scientist of the first third of the 20th century She married a French scientist and her daughter Irene was a scientist. So I-ENE plus French woman’s name + early 20 th century. I don’t think that is unfair at all. Ilene is an English name after all. Not easy but not a natick.
@Nancy -- Oh, it is a great clue, but alas, it has been used before!
I’ve gotten to be a big Formula 1 fan in recent years. Went to last year’s Miami race weekend and had a terrific time.
Which is why that clue clanged a bit for me. Because unlike, say, professional golf circuits, I’ve never heard anyone refer to F1 as a “tour”, much less any of the races as a “tour stop”. (Even though the teams do travel the world, racing on five different continents.)
And now, back to trying to figure out why my grid—not just completed, but fully double-checked once now—hasn’t triggered the happy music yet.
Well, this just felt like a hideous grind to me today, FERRULES notwithstanding.
Very difficult to figure out where the Rebus squares would be, even once i knew more or less what I was seeking. Never heard of SOUL or LUCA, and I see from @JeffG that perhaps that is not a major fail on my part.
I hung in to the bitter end, and found it … WAITFORIT… less than EUPHORIA.
Thankfully my daughter has watched a lot of these movies. She has not watched Mulan but all the rest have been seen in my home. So I knew they existed! Otherwise… I don’t know how i would have managed. I didn’t realize Mulan was in 1998. That seems older than I would have imagined.
Witf is going on? Have teeny boopers tahen over... Aka gen z....
Time to quit this farce... These sre not xwords...
You nailed it. Another puzzle unworkable because of too much PPP. I'm so,so sick of it...
[Monday] 2nd puzz solved after returning from weekend trip. I really hated this one, teeming with ugly, total unknowns. Naticks are justifiable. These are NADIRS of IRE.
And they're thrown in with so many gimmies, for me (yes, like FERRULE and COBOL), which were likely Naticks or worse for others. I've seen some Pixar films, I'm pretty sure. None of these. None. Now I'm sure I never will, and it will be the fault of Avery Gee Katz and the ed.
DNF. After stumbling across two totally (to my knowledge) unrelated rebus words: SOUL and COCO, I gave up. No earthly idea these were both Pixar titles. Never heard of either. I did manage to get the WALL-E one, but then...just too much I didn't know, even in the fill. COOKPOT, really? WTF would you do with a "pot" except cook in it? That's like saying "Borscht soup" or "Spaghetti noodles." Lots of tech crap, movie titles with a year attached (I'm the world's worst timeline scholar; I'd flunk the simplest test), and white house staffers. My anti-wheelhouse.
Wordle bogey.
WALDO & OSCAR WAITFORIT
"I'D SAY GRETA will ASK FOR a LOT."
"I'DAGREE, but ISN'T she HOT?"
"Well AIN'T she a PRO?"
"I'D have TO SAYSO,
you want COCONUTOIL or NOT?"
--- JEN EGAN
Haven't seen any of those films. FERRULE is like aglet; you either know it or NOT. NOT one ERROR today. Noticed: HOTTUB HOTCOCOA. Any other JEN more well known.
Wordle bogey.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear. And groan groan groan. We're cut from the same cloth. We should meet some AM and have eggs for breakfast.
Forget it!
Rebus? Nope!
DLIW
Another Anonymous wrote, concerning the Where's Waldo? clue: "odlaw is his nemesis". Aha! I happened to notice, while solving, that "Odlaw" is "Waldo" spelled backwards. That planted the Waldo character in my head and suddenly I solved that clue. For the two of them to be nemeses makes even more sense. :)
Wow, so many people need to go watch Luca right now, it's delightful. Soul is pretty good as well. And I had a Natick with OLEAD/ILENE, or rather OREAD/IRENE. I will never remember the right ones, now, I'm sure. From now on, whenever I am asked about the Curie daughter, I will confidently say "It's Irene! Or Ilene? Crap." Hard puzzle, but I didn't hate it. "Jet setting" stumped me for a while, and for some reason I had blocked the movie "Cars" from my memory, but it all came out all right.
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