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Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (**for a Tuesday**—just a bit harder than normal)
Theme answers:
- CRIB NOTES (17A: Cheat sheets)
- BOTTLE GOURD (27A: Fruit also known as calabash)
- CARRIAGE HOUSE (38A: Outbuilding for many a historic home)
- MOBILE PHONE (52A: Counterpart to a landline)
Calabash (/ˈkæləbæʃ/; Lagenaria siceraria), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, New Guinea butter bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed as a vegetable, or harvested mature to be dried and used as a utensil, container, or a musical instrument. When it is fresh, the fruit has a light green smooth skin and white flesh.Calabash fruits have a variety of shapes: they can be huge and rounded, small and bottle-shaped, or slim and serpentine, and they can grow to be over a metre long. Rounder varieties are typically called calabash gourds. The gourd was one of the world's first cultivated plants grown not primarily for food, but for use as containers. The bottle gourd may have been carried from Asia to Africa, Europe, and the Americas in the course of human migration, or by seeds floating across the oceans inside the gourd. It has been proven to have been globally domesticated (and existed in the New World) during the Pre-Columbian era.
There is sometimes confusion when discussing "calabash" because the name is shared with the unrelated calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), whose hard, hollow fruits are also used to make utensils, containers, and musical instruments. (wikipedia)
• • •
I ughed at the UGH/UGG thing even more than I ughed at GENZER, one of the worst-looking things ever committed to grid (43A: Millennial's successor, informally). OMERTA and RAJAS and EDSEL gave this one a real old-school crosswordese feel, though to be fair most of the rest of the grid stays reasonably familiar and clean. Never a fan of Scrabble-f***ing and this puzzle was doing it like krazy (no "K,” oddly, but every other damn letter, many of the rarer ones crammed into corners with obvious but incomprehensible intent). I'd rather have a PANDA than a QANDA any day (and kindly never ever show me the "word" "sesh") (19A: Post-panel sesh). That Alec Baldwin middle name business had me doubting the name Carly RAE Jepsen. Alec RAE Baldwin, you say? That's the trivia of the day for me. Fun fact and hot take: the best Alec RAE Baldwin movie is Miami Blues.
Additional notes:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Additional notes:
- 49A: Fashion house whose logo features Medusa (VERSACE) — Since I'm only vaguely aware of fashion houses, generally, I did not know this. This immediately makes VERSACE my favorite fashion house, unless there's one with a cyclops or Cerberus in the logo, then that one wins.
- 4D: Red scare? (DEBT) — because DEBT is conventionally marked in red in financial ledgers, and DEBT can be scary, I suppose. This clue was another reason my solve felt slowish, right from the jump.
- 13D: Array at a farmer's market (STANDS) — clue really has you imagining farmery, produce-y things (APPLES! GREENS! GOURDS!!), but then all you get is ... STANDS? Bah.
- 30D: Nonalcoholic beer brand (O'DOULS) — no idea how I remembered this. Haven't thought about O'DOULS in forever. Never had a nonalcoholic beer in my life, to my knowledge. If I'm not drinking drinking, I'll stick to water, thanks.
- 32D: Composer Rachmaninoff (SERGEI) — this made me laugh because my mother-in-law was here this weekend from NZ and so I switched the cocktail hour music to classical because I thought she'd like it better and sure enough at some point her ears perk up. "What's this? No, let me guess ... well it's a piano concerto, obviously ... I can often tell the nationalities of the composers ... might be Russian." If I'd let it play longer, or if it hadn't been somewhat faint (it was playing in the next room), I'm certain she could've ID'd it. It was Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. "Ah, Rach II," she sighed, as if remembering a friend.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Not a fan of this one, for most of the reasons Rex me mentioned. Too much sluggishness for a basically nonexistent theme. Hated QANDA, GATO, GENZER, the stupid middle name, the video game, calabash, NOBS, PROMOS (as clued), yada, yada, yada . . .
ReplyDeleteWe’ve had a pretty good run of decent themes lately, so it was pretty much inevitable that we would revert back to the mean at some point. So it was passable - not awful, but not one that sparkled either.
Is it supposed to be pronounced Gen Z-er or pronounced all together like Genzer? Just asking as a Gen X-er or as they pronounce it Geezer...and the Ithaca Farmers Market definitely has stalls not stands so that took some time to suss out
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteNob is Brit slang for head.
Is it though? Pretty sure if you said "use your nob" anywhere in the UK it would be taken a different way. Terrible clue. Mediocre puzzle overall.
DeleteThe area around crib notes was rough for me. Cur was an odd word and promos like you mentioned had an ill-fitting clue. Plus, Pew and Edsel are both proper nouns which makes it tricky if you don’t know them off the top of your head.
ReplyDeleteThis was just not fun.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, there's been a major uptick in nonalcoholic beer production recently, with a number of smaller brewers producing NA styles that are actually really good. The knock on O'Doul's (if I remember) was that it tasted awful, but that's not the case for a lot of the new ones.
ReplyDeleteIf you're a beer drinker for the taste and want something that won't slow you down, you have a lot of choices out there now.
Husband and son-in-law swear by Athletic. Say it tastes just like real beer.
DeleteWife drank it during pregnancy and it fooled me a few times
DeleteW in Welsh
ReplyDeleteI had Gen Zee and, for all I know, the robot motor was a Seevo. That r was a Natick for me.
ReplyDeleteSame here. I never heard of servo and seevo seemed plausible.
Delete100% same for me
DeleteSame.
DeleteAccidentally switched UGG and UGH which threw me off for a while. Ugh!
ReplyDeleteJust recently played Rach 2 in the orchestra, then, coincidentally, heard it in the audience at a Cleveland Orchestra concert. Nice choice, Rex!
ReplyDeleteAnother horribly edited puzzle. GEN ZER is unforgivable and was just the worst of the many horrors, with PROMOS identified as "sneak previews." Heads need to roll.
ReplyDeleteFinished it with one cheat...I had "ragas' instead of RAJAS crossing "nbagam" instead of NBAJAM. It was frustrating, because I got the theme right away and thought my stocking point was in the NW. But when "nbagam" didn't work, I guessed at NBAJAM.
ReplyDeleteI agree the puzzle was on the hard side for a Tuesday, but not unfair.
ReplyDeleteMedium for a Tuesday.
I agree with @Areawoman. I had STAllS before STANDS at 13D
Briefly renamed Mr. Rachmaninoff SERGEy at 32D
arr at 56A, figuring that schedules usually use Lv. and Arr. rather than ETd and ETA
Glow before GRIN at 59D
Yes, hard for a Tuesday. Hand up for STAllS before STANDS. Revealer was a bit of a damp squib. W can be a vowel in English, too. Although the only examples I can think of are words that came from WELSH.
ReplyDeleteGEN ZER is no worse than any other generational label, all of which I dislike as they are another attempt to ignore that people are individuals and to treat them as monolithic blocs who think/act/talk the same.
BABY Boomer here, or just plain Boomer, as the youngs would have it. Solving this puzzle made me reflect that someday every GENZER will be a just plain Geezer.
ReplyDeleteI live in an old colonial era city that takes historic preservation pretty seriously, so CARRIAGE HOUSE is a familiar term to me. BOTTLE GOURD was not familiar but easy enough with the theme and a few crosses.
ReplyDeleteThis type of simple theme (first or second words all have something in common) is what I expect on a Monday or Tuesday. Plays like a themeless and the revealer adds a dimension I hadn’t noticed. Sometimes the revealer helps if one of the theme answers is mostly blank, as was the case with BOTTLE GOURD for me today.
Needed all the crosses but done in average time (for me). Was proud of myself for getting DEBT right away from Red scare?—am so easily pleased! ODOULS primary merit is that it is a non-sweet non-alcoholic cold alternative on hot days. Wanted Gaelic before WELSH but of course that didn’t fly. Some odd answers but thought relatively junk free…
ReplyDeleteHarmless - early week offering. Theme felt contrived and didn’t exactly play into the experience much. Liked BOTTLE GOURD and CARRIAGE HOUSE. PEW and VERSACE could be considered obscure trivia.
ReplyDeleteIt's SINFUL - it’s tragic
The PROMOS nit is a little off GEN Z-ER and Q AND A spot on. Boatload of ugly 3s - UGH. I’ll take the PBR - keep the other stuff.
Finished quickly - time to move on.
Ultravox
Oh, this puzzle brought memories of having a baby in the house, how a tiny, tiny being can transform a house, the blissful feel of holding a baby, how life routines completely transform, and all the stuff you get and keep getting to serve that tiny, tiny being.
ReplyDeleteIt also brought, with [Counterpart to a land line], memories of the pre-cell days, when phones would ring, when you had to go to where the phone was, when you had an answering machine. And then, how junk calls started creeping in, then dominating, finally forcing the death of the landline, at least in our case.
And it brought little serendipitous touches I liked. The abutting EDSEL and INEPT. ACED near CRIB NOTES. The funny-looking QUANDA, GENZER, and triple-S GUESSSO. Plus, an EASES up, and a middle AGE. Speaking of which, that AGE nicely balanced off all the baby stuff.
So, your puzzle did some nice poking, Zachary, of memories and fun things, for which I’m most grateful. Thank you, sir!
I bet this was a panagram but the editors made him change something that eliminated the K.
ReplyDeleteGENZER ? No. They are known as Gen Z or Zoomers. If you Google genzer the first thing that pops up is Richard Genzer, a Czech actor , dancer and singer. The genzer generation is nowhere to be seen.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this one. It put up more resistance than a normal Tuesday (especially in the NW corner), but that just meant I didn’t feel like dying from complete boredom.
ReplyDeleteHearing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto 2 will for me always conjure up the image of Tom Ewell and Marilyn Monroe at the piano.
ReplyDeleteIniquitous? On a Tuesday???
ReplyDeleteGENZER ? GEN Z-ER ? No. They’re Zoomers.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU. I thought I was going crazy with Rex and everyone else eliding this. I have never heard “Gen Z-Er” in my life.
DeleteI live on planet Earth too, but call them MOBILE PHONES because I live in Britain. Was surprised to see it in the good old NYT though as I did think everyone in America called them cellphones and wouldn't recognise it.
ReplyDeleteGENZER is truly awful - I half-read the clue and put in GENZEE making me wonder what a SEEVO was...
Saw the BABY angle coming after two themers but BABYPROOF=PROOF there's a BABY didn't really land for me.
ReplyDeleteI did find something I dislike about as much as NEATO. Looking at you, OHNEAT.
My son's lease on his apartment in England expired and they spent their last year there living upstairs over a CARRIAGEHOUSE which was owned by some (apparently) wealthy friends who lived in the adjacent actual house. Made for a cool address, at least for ads while.
Nice enough Tuesdecito, ZDL. Zipped, Didn't Linger, and done I was. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
And now off to work on getting our camp opened up before the mid-May heat wave settles into New England. What next?
A beer brand, a candy brand and a video game. An UGH and an UGG and a GENZER. And the made-up phrase OH NEAT. But we haven't even gotten to my least favorite clue/answer yet.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of "appreciative text" is THX? I don't know what sort of favor I did for you, but whatever it was, THX doesn't even begin to cut it. If you can't manage to type out six measly letters, then I say: No more favors from me.
Textspeak may be ruining more than just the English language in general and the NYTXW in particular. Who knows what it's doing to friendships?
This grid features a lot of the "gunk" so devastatingly skewered by Gary J. yesterday. I did think the cluing was better than the grid. I see some effort here.
Sam Adams makes a terrific non-alcohol IPA.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteWell, dang. You go through all the trouble of making a puz, cramming in letters to get a Pangram, then not get a K in? C'mon, man! Could've maybe in NW corner of
KIND
FREE
CRIB
1D - KFC, 2D - IRR, 3D - NEI, granted, not the best fill, but by far not the worst. Just sayin'.
Anyway, with my silly brain, just realized how the Revealer completes the theme. If you see someone with CRIB, BOTTLE, CARRIAGE or MOBILE, it's PROOF of a BABY. I was scratching the head wondering how the PROOF fit. Sometimes I even amaze myself at my incomprehensibleness. (Which should absolutely be a word!)
Nice TuesPuz. Gotta see if I can get my NOB going this morning.
Happy Tuesday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
"Everyone here (as in planet Earth) uses the term 'cellphone'"
ReplyDeleteNope. Where I live, it's always 'mobile phone' or just 'mobile' and the second syllable is pronounced with a long 'I'.
Debt should not be "scary". How else would we ever buy a house without it? How would businesses grow without it?
ReplyDeleteAlice Pollard
DeleteThe clue for DEBT does have a question mark. Also debt can be very scary. Say owing on six credit cards and being told to pay up. Clues don’t have to apply to every possibility, just some
Yay me! I’ve been doing nyt crossword for @ a year, solving w/various levels of help. Today I did it with no ‘reveals’ for the fist time.
ReplyDeleteSure, it took 28 mins but still, it’s a milestone.
If you EVER meet an attorney who has ESQ on his business card do NOT hire them as they do not have the sense to know that ESQ is ONLY used as a respectful designation TO another attorney, NOT self-referentially. In other words, MY signature line does not contain ESQ. If I refer to another attorney in a letter or pleading, I would put ESQ next to their name (not always). At any rate, thank goodness the term “Esquire” is going the way of the dinosaurs.
ReplyDeleteBeezer
DeleteDoesn’t surprise me that ESQ. is going the way of the dinosaur but I am a very retired lawyer and when I was starting out, in my state at least, Esq. was very much a thing on stationary etc. I have not checked, but I would bet that in my slow to change state, at least some lawyers still do.
Close enough for crosswords!
What if the attorney is Bill S. Preston?
DeleteThat would be most excellent!
DeleteAnother tough for Tuesday here. Another hand up for STAlls before STANDS, and for wanting CRIB sheet before CRIB NOTES, though I had some crosses which, if correct, ruled out sheet.
ReplyDeleteNo mention of Jimmy Durante by Rex or those here, as I write this. Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.
We lived in a carriage house in Evanston when I was a young child, behind what was then a manse or rectory. Learned to ride bicycle in the long driveway.
Good workout for a Tuesday. Thanks, Zachary David Levy.
Chuckled when I read your Jimmie Durante quote. Great memory. Thx.
DeleteMy mom grew up in Evanston, but not above a carriage house. However, my aunt and uncle bought a house in Oak Park, IL that had a house built onto the carriage house and my cousin had the honor of sleeping above what was now a garage.
Had some zip. Nine red plus signs written in the margins. But too many threes-- 23.
ReplyDeleteRE: Mobile is what cell phones are called inn India, among other places.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost 80 and I wondered, too, how "ladles" was spelled! Plus, I have never heard "nobs" used in conversations. I also have no idea what a "bottle gourd" is. Is it sweet, like a fruit? I have a landline and a "mobile phone". Most places ask you for your mobile phone number, more than your cell phone no. So I knew that.
ReplyDeleteUsually when you state that a crossword is easy, it is hard for me, and vice versa.
I believe that the law in Texas now says that if you were once pregnant and can't now offer BABYPROOF, you're doing hard time in the State Penitentiary. That's what SEX will get ya.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd give a PASSTO the ODOULS and take a PABST instead.
If your HEATH Bar was eaten by a junkyard dog, was it inCURred?
I can't believe the venom this very easy, harmless, somewhat bland puzzle is generating. I'd say it was a respectable Tuesday and give a thank you to Zachary David Levy.
Easy-medium. I did have any of the problems that @Rex had. BOTTLE GOURD WAS my only WOE and Seed before STEM was it for erasures.
ReplyDeleteSmooth grid, meh theme, didn’t hate it.
Very easy for me, but do not understand what any of these answers have to do with baby proofing. They are all simply objects that you might use with your baby.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 11:00
DeleteAbout baby proof
Someone above suggested it is a bit of a trick. Hinting at proof of a baby. Works for me
William Baldwin is married to Chynna Phillps, the daughter of (Mama and Papa) Michelle and John Phillips.
ReplyDeleteOn the letter W
Two kids are arguing over whether the correct pronunciation of the 50th state is Ha-wa-ii or Ha-va-ii. A little old man is walking by so they ask him if he can help resolve their dispute.
He says, Sure, it's pronounced Ha-va-ii. They say Thank you. He says, You're velcome.
Ha!
DeleteNog, short for noggin, held me up a bit. The rest was a breeze, knowing Versace and having stocked O'Douls for sober friends before Coors, Heineken and others came up with an "NA" beer.
ReplyDeleteLike they said in the old days, one man's Mede is another man's Persian. In this case, I enjoyed the aplomb of the UGH/UGG crossing, and I love the term GENZER, pronounced as it looks, and hope that it catches on.
ReplyDeleteI agree with @Roo about the proof. Imagine a young couple who don't want their nosy and intrusive neighbors to know they are expecting a baby, so they deny it -- but their neighbors keep an eye on the Amazon deliveries to their house, and when they spot a CTIB, a BOTTLE, a CARRIAGE, and a MOBILE, they feel they've go the PROOF.
When our first baby was born my mother gave us a book called something like "First Child vs. Fifth Child," I think by the Berenstains. It was full of examples such as carefully washing and sterilizing a bottle every time you used it for the first child, vs. dumping out the orange juice and pouring in the milk for the fifth. Funny, and pretty accurate. We never got past three, but by the time she was born we did not BABY PROOF anything. We had acquired the tone of unquestionable authority that let us just say, "Oh, don't do that."
What did bother me was 1-A, ACED, clued as a transitive verb. I've heard/seen it used as a noun, but do you ACE your opponent, as the clue suggests? @Nancy, what's your experience here?
I didn't know video games even had catch phrases, let alone what they were -- and I carefully put in only ET at 56-A, waiting for the cross to give me A or D. So that caused a moment of panic; but the other crosses proved sufficient.
Harder than the typical Tuesday. Never heard of a bottle gourd.
ReplyDeleteDon't feel bad Rex. 57 year old here and also started with LADEL rather than LADLE. If you can find it, Ray Romano has a really funny routine about his child saying the word ladle repeatedly. No I do too everytime I see the word. Try it out. Ladle,ladle,ladle...
ReplyDeleteI got SERVO because of Tom Servo, a robot made from a gumball machine, in Mystery Science Theater. Never know where you can pick up knowledge.
ReplyDeletejust here to complain about bottle gourd
ReplyDeleteBabies, UGH. I do so love the idea of HOT AIR coming from wind bags. I feel confident I have been that guy most of my life, and yet I seem to pale next to everyone I know.
ReplyDeleteI stand firmly opposed to the GENZERificationizing of these puzzles. Can't we just call them youngsters, or TOTS, or WEE LADS?
Propers: 3
Places: 0
Products: 9
Partials: 7
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 23 (29%)
Tee-Hee: When you're having FUN crossing SINFUL above, I suppose it's only [Down-to-earth] you'd be having SEX crossing THX down below. PEW.
Uniclues:
1 The meeting in the principal's office with your mom.
2 How rich brains think.
3 Sleeves?
4 Stupid people realizing they are.
5 Bemusement similar to one serving decaf on the sly.
6 O dear lap / why dost thou feel so lonely / are you missing Lolita / and her friend so homely
1 CRIB NOTES Q AND A
2 OH NEAT, VERSACE
3 ARMED-THEE NEED
4 NOBS REAL SAD
5 AAA O'DOULS GRIN
6 SINFUL SEAT ODE
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Conservative opinion of gender re-norming advocates arguments. SEX PEST SASS ASKEW.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This was an insane Tuesday for me. CUR? ODOULS?? OMERTA?!? Please be serious
ReplyDeleteTwo beer brand names with no connection was weird, especially w/ the duplicate discarded fruit clues working so well.
Never heard NOBS & SERVO in the contexts they're used here. I'm also a GEN Z-ER, so I've never heard of NBA JAM either :|
On a positive note though, "Middle name for Alec Baldwin and Carly Jepsen" might be one of the funniest clues I've ever seen LOL
I also have trouble remembering how too spell ladle, young man. Medusa still beats out cyclops and Cerberus. Maybe not one of the wide varieties oh nymphs
ReplyDeletebut that may be too spot on. Possibly a satyr.
@jberg -- Sure, you can ace your opponent. It's an extremely common phrase, used all the time.
ReplyDeleteThis wasn't your normal Tuesday - a bit harder, but I liked it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, David
Extremely easy, but somewhat infantile. It wasn't the PITS, though - although those are often discarded.
ReplyDeleteI tried to do this down clues only, but wasn't able to guess enough of the theme acrosses. Looking at --TLE G--RD could only think of CATTLE GUARD, and looking at CARRIAGE -O--- all I had was CARRIAGE BOLTS. Just too many blanks for the downs (what on earth is HEATH?) so I gave up and read the across clues.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of CARRIAGE HOUSE, in our town they are trying to raise the density so most residential streets with rear alleys (mine included) are zoned to allow them. A benefit of an older neighborhood! Great rental income potential ($30 to $60,000 per year) but not cheap to build, including the utility fees and the permit.
In Canada we couldn't pronounce GEN ZER as "genser"; we would need to say GEN ZEDDER.
Fun fact: Germans call a MOBILE PHONE a "handy". It's nothing to do with English; the German word for hand is simply "hand".
[No Spelling Bee since Thurs (long weekend vacation from internet) which was 0; streak at 9. Trying Tues right now!]
"Mobile phone" is definitely used across Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore's Malaysia, at least, from my experiences)
ReplyDeleteEasy overall but oddly tough for a Tuesday
ReplyDeleteA couple of things: I say mobile as often as I say cell, but mostly I just call it my phone.
ReplyDeleteAs a few commenters above have mentioned, we've come a long way from O'DOULS. One of my strategies for reducing alcohol intake is to move over to non-alcoholic beer. There are a lot of really tasty NA bears from the local craft breweries but recommending them to you would be kind of pointless. Very regional. But, on the international scale, I would steer you to German and Dutch brands like Beck's and Grolsch. My favourite is the often hard to find German brew Clausthaler. Now that summer's on its way why not pick up some to throw in the cooler for your first big barbecue bash.
This might be the 1000th "like the starts of other themers" puztheme, by now. OK, but nuthin too great, novelty-wise.
ReplyDeleteThe fillins, on the other hand, were pretty interestin, and within a K of a pang rammer. [Otto Correct re-generated the last two words, which was kinda cute.]
some faves: QANDA. GUESSSO. GENZER [har]. NBAJAM. ENZYME. Weird DEBT clue.
staff weeject picks: A tie between 2 crossin pairs: UGH/UGG & THX/SEX.
Primo weeject stacks in NW & SE, btw.
We had some TuesPuz no-knows, at least as clued, at our house: ELI. RAE. HEPA. VELSH. SERGEI.
But no biggie, as got em all from crosses.
Thx, Mr. Levy dude.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
There's a fishing town in NC called Calabash, known as the "Seafood Capital of the World". Calabash also refers to a style of seafood (light batter + deep fried). It's a common word seen in restaurant names, even in SC. TIL: The town was named after the Calabash River, and the river was given its name because of its gourd-like shape. (There were drinking gourds that were hung around wells in the area.)
ReplyDeleteHa, I also thought of Tom SERVO from MST3K. I didn't get most of the references, but I still appreciated the show.
Also appreciated seeing Fedorova's Rach 2 in the blog, which I've watched a few times before.
Yunchan Lim's Rach 3 performance at the 2022 Van Cliburn Piano Competition. I was in tears at the end. Absolute perfection. If you don't want to listen to the whole thing, you can just listen to the intro and the last few minutes (or from 37:50). Also 28:25 -- I LOLed when he shot the orchestra that look (after the passage). Probably the sportsball equivalent of "Let's go!" to one's teammates.
Anyway. Fine puzzle. :)
I used to call a MOBILE/cell PHONE a hand held electronic communication device. With the advent of the science-fiction-becomes-fact Dick Tracy wrist two-way radio, maybe "personal electronic communication device"" would be better.
ReplyDeleteGiven the choice, I'm going with a PABST over an ODULS every time. I like a little buzz with my beer.
GATO is Spanish for "cat" but hereabouts it also means "jack" as in a mechanical device for lifting, say, a car. Go figure.
I think Rex's comment "The whole "proof" angle needed to be more tightly wed to the theme concept for it to really work" was a succinct critique of today's puzzle. I would substitute "threat" for "proof" for yesterday's puzzle.
I associate the Rach II with David Lean’s fine Brief Encounter.
ReplyDeleteTEL instead of ESQ was my only problem.
The revealer makes no sense at all. Baby-proofing something typically means, for example, adding something like foam or cushioning so the baby doesn’t get hurt when bumping its head. Or raising the mobile out of the baby’s reach so it doesn’t choke on it. Even if the revealer did apply, how does a mobile make the baby safe? Or a bottle for that matter. It doesn’t add up either way.
ReplyDeleteScott P
Oh, yeah. I'm supposed to say something about the puzzle. Please forgive me, that's my first ever post above.
ReplyDeleteDid this downs only and it came in at a normal seeming pace (I don't run a clock.) Only things that really held me up were GENZER and QANDA. For the firstI had GEN_ER and dropped in a "d".TOPAZ fixed that but I winced whenI dropped that "z" in there.For the second I had QA___ and immediately thought QAtar.Downs proved me wrong, but it took a few minutes. Otherwise pretty smooth and I like the theme. So, good puzzle for a very rainy Tuesday morning when I don't want to go out and work.
SESH?....Sheese! NOBS and GENZER walked into a bar. OH NEAT, they have ODOULS and we can eat some NBA JAM with GUAC. TOM PEW was the bartended and did the SERVO. LETS have FUN. QANDA, the bouncer said "UGG... I'd rather ENDURE a HEPA GOURD with a STEM of SINFUL HOT AIR than have SEX with THEE....." THX... No NEED to GRIN...IT IS Tuesday, after all!
ReplyDeleteWell, I was finally accepting that in order to post here I had to sign into Blogger every day and then come back to this. Today I had to go through a whole “verify it’s you” trip to GMail - twice!. I understand - intellectually - but there must be another way. Is this just me being a cranky old lady? Some of y’all tech savvy folks - HELP, please?
ReplyDeleteAs for the puzzle, I was very nearly Naticked at the GENZER/SERVO cross because : a) GEN ZEE-ER cannot possibly be spelled GENZER (jen’-zur) and make it pronounced in the constructor’s desired manner, and b) I had no idea about a SERVO motor. I freely admit that the SERVO is 100% on me but not the misspelling. Editors???
Speaking of misspelling, I always start LADLES LADelS and have to correct it (Hi @Rex!). UGH (or UGG?) Kinda liked the “discarded parts” clues, because they made me work a bit. Overall quite a nice Tuesday. More grit than usual and a clever theme.
I wanted childPROOF, mainly because it is not really necessary to “PROOF” the house for a “BABY” since babies are not able to get into things by themselves. Once they’re mobile though, kids are into everything they can reach; curiosity motivates! But since we had a CARRIAGE, I accepted BABY PROOF without a full-on gritch.
But . . . MOBILE doesn’t work - assuming it is a MOBILE specifically designed for a BABY CRIB. Those have to pass all the US Safety Regs as they are designed to be within reach over the CRIB . . . eventually anyway.
I give this one bhigh marks for a Tuesday. The whole overkill on accessing this site though not so much. OK, on, I’m a cranky old lady. And I approve of security (I worked in law enforcement for 40+ years after all. But the whole Blogger sign-in AND verify just seems excessive and if there’s another way, I’d appreciate learning about it. After all, I do crosswords in large part to learn and I’d love to learn how to bypass the sign-in gremlins.
@CDilly52 - I logged into blogger via gmail many years ago and have not had to log in since. YMMV
ReplyDeleteThank you Rex for the " Rach 2" video. Great listening while I read the comments. Had to go to Youtube to find out what concert hall it was in. Had seen partially behind the orchestra seating in San Francisco, and I think the relatively new LA Phil harmonic hall, but knew it wasn't those.
ReplyDeleteWas in the Boston Philharmonic's hall for Boston Pops about 60 years ago and did not notice that seating. But they may have a new hall by now.
Ilm with the few who thought this a fine puzzle, tho I agree genzer is just weird and the reveal was bit obscure.
So nobs are noggins. Easily confused with knobs, as in top of the male member.
ReplyDeleteREAL FUN
ReplyDeleteI GUESS the MOBILEPHONEs ARE out,
SO LET'S ENDURE the effects,
no NEED TO IDLE 'round the HOUSE,
this CRIB will RULE with HOT SEX!
--- SERGEI GENZER, ESQ.
Worst puzzle, certainly of the month, and maybe even the year. Apt words reside within: UGH, INEPT, and SINFUL that ironically crosses SAINT--but also the ampersandwich at 19a. Think of it: where have you EVER seen "QANDA" written out like that? Never, outside of these crossword walls. It's Q&A, period. Oh, don't get me started.
ReplyDeleteHe bends over backward to get the 8- and 10-pointers in there--then misses the pangram for a K. What was the point? THX but no THX. Other (worse than double-bogey).
Wordle bogey.
Meh!
ReplyDeleteRex, they were called mobile phones long before they were called cell phones here in America, which, by the way is on planet earth. And they were big honking devices back then. The first person that I knew that had a mobile phone was a friend of mine who was a teacher, but had a side hustle as a real estate salesman. It came in very handy for getting in touch with the office, and/or clients.
ReplyDeleteI still hear the term MOBILEPHONE often on NPR.
ReplyDeleteThis was just right for a Tuesday level puzzle IMO. So no complaints here.
Diana, LIW