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Memorable ad-lib in "Midnight Cowboy" / WED 6-26-24 / Bog buildup / Emotionally volatile situation, metaphorically / Prefix with -gon / Jay relative / Old-fashioned basketball attempts / Poker variety in which each player is dealt four cards / Bygone carrier whose first hub was in Pittsburgh
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
OK so the only way I can imagine *not* liking this one is if you'd never heard of Midnight Cowboy or never heard the famous line in question. Weird that the clue says it's an "ad-lib"—I honestly didn't know that. So much of what appears to be ad-libs in movies is actually meticulously scripted and rehearsed, so I just assume everything in a movie was planned unless I hear otherwise. And now I'm hearing otherwise, I guess. Cool ... nope, wait. Maybe not cool. According to wikipedia, Dustin Hoffman says "it was an ad-lib," but producer says "nope":
- SEA OF GALILEE (20A: *Jesus)
- YELLOW BRICK ROAD (24A: *Dorothy Gale)
- TRANQUILITY BASE (45A: *Neil Armstrong)
Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 American drama film directed by John Schlesinger, adapted by Waldo Salt from the 1965 novel of the same title by James Leo Herlihy. The film stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, with supporting roles played by Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Salt and Barnard Hughes. Set in New York City, Midnight Cowboy depicts the unlikely friendship between two hustlers: naïve prostitute Joe Buck (Voight) and ailing con man Rico Rizzo (Hoffman), referred to as "Ratso".At the 42nd Academy Awards, the film won three awards: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated film (equivalent of the current NC-17 rating) to win Best Picture. It placed 36th on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films of all time, and 43rd on its 2007 updated version.
In 1994, Midnight Cowboy was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. (wikipedia)
• • •
The line, "I'm walkin' here!", which reached number 27 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, is often said to have been improvised, but producer Jerome Hellman disputes this account on the two-disc DVD set of Midnight Cowboy. The scene, which originally had Ratso pretend to be hit by a taxi to feign an injury, is written into the first draft of the original script. Hoffman explained it differently on an installment of Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio. He stated that there were many takes to hit the traffic light just right so they would not have to pause while walking. In that take, the timing was perfect, but a cab nearly hit them. Hoffman wanted to say, "We're filming a movie here!", but stayed in character, allowing the take to be used. (wikipedia)
These don't actually sound like contradictory accounts. Anyway, still weird to use "ad-lib" here and not just "line." Also weird (very weird) not to have a question mark at the end of the revealer clue, and for that same clue to use "would" instead of "might" ("... or what the starred clues would say about their answers"). You're being playful, fanciful, absurd in imagining these characters saying this line. To just say flatly that these characters "would" say the line is ... well it's preposterous on its face. You need some indication in the clue that you are being wacky. You need a "?" Or you at least need a "might" instead of a "would."
But back to the actual puzzle. Thematically, it's close to perfect. A 10. Simple and elegant, with three genuinely iconic walkers (no forced examples here), and a revealer that genuinely surprises and entertains. "How are these going to hang together, exactly?" I'm thinking as I descend the grid, and then bam, I get that iconic line—"I'M WALKIN' HERE!"—which would be a ton of fun to encounter under any circumstances, but is particularly fun here as the answer that makes it all make sense. Plus there's the added bonus of getting to imagine Jesus, Dorothy, and Neil actually saying this line. I just imagine Dorothy angrily shoving a Munchkin out of the way...
What was nice about this puzzle was that while I was making my way to the revealer, I didn't feel like I was just ho-humming along, waiting to get to the punchline. The trip, the journey, the walk itself was a great pleasure, with many highlights along the way. The theme answers themselves are solid to vibrant, but I particularly appreciated that the puzzle had other high-quality answers to offer, starting with "OK, YOU WIN" (my first indication that this wasn't just going to be a phoned-in grid), and then continuing on with the spooky juxtaposition of SHRIEK and CAULDRON (loved that modern clue on CAULDRON) (10D: Emotionally volatile situation, metaphorically). You also get the wild WENT WILD along with the quainter and more tame (but for me, no less enjoyable) SET SHOTS (39D: Old-fashioned basketball attempts) before BARHOPping your way to a SMOOSHING finale. There's a lot of ordinary, perhaps less-than-lovely short stuff along the way (AVI LIC ONME ISTO USB NSA) and some crosswordesey names (EIRE, LEONA, RIRI), but the longer, more colorful stuff makes me forget any of that. I also appreciate the low-key way that the puzzle populates the grid with women and (outside of the themers) only women. Plus BRA, and HERS. A subtle way of saying "see, it's really not that hard." When a puzzle effortlessly centers women like this, it reminds me of my years and years (and years) of solving puzzles where the default POV was male—male passing as neutral. Rebecca makes puzzles that feel like they're for everyone. It helps that those puzzles are also, typically, excellent.
Notes:
- 1D: "That's rough" ("OOF") — One of my favorite words, as you know. It comes in so handy when mere words won't do. I did not have much occasion to say "OOF" today, which was nice.
- 35A: Jay relative (CROW) — had the "R" and started to write in WREN (?!). Because they look so different, I forgot (briefly) that CROWs and jays are both corvids. CROWs and jays are also both assholes. I mean, I love them for it, but yeesh. I watched a CROW do horrifying things to a fledgling of another bird species the other day and then fly off with said fledgling in its beak while the fledgling's family took off after it. Just a horror show. And jays are notorious jerks. They are always fighting with robins (the eternal neighborhood war) and that SHRIEK of theirs, yikes. Other birds are like "listen to my pretty song" whereas jays are like "I'M SQUAWKIN' HERE!" Whatever, I love them both. Team Corvid, for sure.
- 57A: Bygone carrier whose first hub was in Pittsburgh (US AIR) — when I first moved here in 1999, I used to fly US AIR, Binghamton to Pittsburgh to ... wherever I was going back west (where my family lived / lives). Now I can't fly out of here at all—the airport has shriveled to a state of near uselessness and we do all our flying out of Syracuse (an hour+ away). The carrier's full name was US AIRWAYS, so I'm not sure what the story is behind the shorter US AIR. Don't know if it was just a "familiarly" situation or if US AIR had some more official name status at some point.
- 43D: Prefix with -gon (NONA-) — LOL unlikely. When's the last time you encountered a NONAgon? Whoa, here's a factoid for you: "Temples of the Baháʼí Faith, called Baháʼí Houses of Worship, are required to be nonagonal." (wikipedia). My feelings about the NONA clue: missed opportunity to include yet another woman's name in the grid:
- 38D: What may be left of center? (EPI-) — LOL yes that is one way to indicate a "prefix"—say that it's "left of" whatever word it's prefixing. In that sense, EPI- may indeed be "left of center"—specifically in the word "epicenter."
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82 comments:
It was originally All American Aviation (1939), then changed to All American Airways (1949), and then became Allegheny Airlines in 1953. In 1979, with expansion to a more national profile, allowed by deregulation of the industry, it renamed itself USAIR. Then in 1997, after several acquisitions and a period of tremendous growth both nationally and internationally, renamed itself US Airways.
The American Airlines ate it up.
Contrived theme and weirdly voiced fill. I’ve always hated Midnight Cowboy so that didn’t help - I guess the big guy gives it two thumbs up.
June TABOR covering Joy Division
Did like OK YOU WIN, SHRIEK and CAULDRON. SMOOSHING x GOT will make the worst cross list. The bird subtheme is cool.
Rough Wednesday morning solve.
Hüsker
These days, Rex says every puzzle is “easy.” For him, maybe.
Am I the only one who has never heard of a spectacled bear? I thought for sure it was going to be a character from kid lit.
Easy. No WOEs and my only overwrite -- which prevented the happy music on the first shot -- was a stupid typo. Liked it as much as OFL did.
Spectacled bears - do they look like raccoons ?
Can anyone else remember Rex ever providing a review of a puzzle that was exceedingly positive from top to bottom (and coast-to-coast)? Nice job Rebecca ! From now on, we will have to reward the constructor with an amazing GOLDSTEIN AWARD if they can get a similarly glowing five-star review from the big guy. I suspect that being a GOLDSTEIN winner will be even more rare than joining the EGOT club.
I'm with OFL on liking this one a lot, but instead of Dorothy pushing a munchkin I was trying to imagine Jesus on the SEAOFGALILEE saying IMWALKINGHERE in a Ratso voice. A little incongruous. Any reference to The Wizard of Oz is aces with me, an all-time favorite. Q: "How can you talk if you don't have a brain?" A: "I don't know." Simple and elegant.
Found out what HERS is as clued, met a LEONA who is not a Helmsley and a DIANE who is not an Arbus, but otherwise no no-knows. I was reminded of how many QUARTS are in a peck. Don't need that piece of information very often.
Well done you, RG. Really Good seems a little mild so I'll say I Reaped Ginormous fun from this one, for which thanks.
Complete agreement here: a total delight. Thanks for explaining the EPI clue.
I don’t think this was an “easy” puzzle, I would say medium. I didn’t remember the line from Midnight Cowboy although it became clear from crosses. Also didn’t remember Dorothy’s last name, so at first had no idea what she could have walked. Many clues not initially obvious, but coming clear from crosses - to me that’s both satisfying and creates a bit of challenge. I enjoyed it.
@dthaler, I’ve never heard of a spectacled bear either and was looking for the answer to be something like “ontv”, which of course didn’t fit.
This was pretty easy. My only mistake was TABla before TABOR. I think the tabla is usually smaller than the Tabor. In fact, I don't really think of tabors as small drums. Bongos, timbales, hi toms, yes. Tabors, no.
The theme was nice but I don't agree it was a 10, because the Neil Armstrong answer was a little bit forced. Who ever thinks of Armstrong walking on TRANQUILITY BASE? If you asked someone where did Armstrong famously walk, they'll say "the moon". No one is going to answer "Tranquility Base." Even when it was obvious "moon" wouldn't fit, I wanted Sea of Tranquility before TRANQUILITY BASE.
After seeing the revealer, I thought "Hah, that's great" for the first two, and "Meh, I guess that's technically correct" for the third.
I also envisioned Judy Garland doing her best Ratso Rizzo at some befuddled Oz creature. But I love the pivot to "Ease On Down."
I also just took my kids to Wicked last week, so now I'm just thinking of the line (I'm paraphrasing) "What kind of brat steals a dead woman's shoes?"
Rebecca Goldstein is rapidly moving up into Robyn Weintraub and Ross Trudeau territory in my list of favorite constructors. What a great puzzle. I got the theme immediately and then laughed my way through the themers--SEA OF GALILEE cracked me up as clued. As @SouthsideJohnny pointed out, the pure RexLove is rare--and well deserved in this case.
I’m one of the culturally deprived who hasn’t seen Midnight Cowboy and didn’t know Dorothy’s last name. So this was a learning opportunity. Started out with SonOFGALILEE, but once I got the SEA part filled in it was fun to figure out the other places. Not knowing the revealer from the movie it was also fun to reverse parse a fitting phrase. Loved SMOOSHING, totally silly.
Put me down in "didn't know the theme quote" column, which slowed me down quite a bit. "PC hookup spot" isn't a particularly accurate clue for "USB" as opposed to "PORT", say, or "WEB" (where lots of PCs "hook up" online), but other than that I enjoyed the clean clueing as much as OP did.
I liked this puzzle, but after reading Rex, I love it.
I vividly remember seeing Midnight Cowboy when it came out. What a movie. I also remember the ad jingle for Allegheny Airlines.
Partially correct. America West ate up US Airways, and kept the larger company's name. Then the merged US Airways ate up the larger bankrupt AA (recently rebranded as American) and... kept the larger company's name.
Seemed easy at first, but I had to cheat to get the SMOOSHING/SYKES cross (has anyone ever "smooshed? I also misread the clue as "flattering" instead of "flattening." I guess SMOOSHING would work with either clue.
I also thought the spectacled bears were fictitious, but ANDES came from the crosses. Has a bear with spectacles ever appeared at a zoo? I;d travel to see one.
Thinking the phrase is, "I'M TALKIN' HERE," put the brakes on WENT WILD and I spent an embarrassing amount of time fixing it. Cute theme. Did not know Dorothy has a last name. And I could've sworn it's TRANQUILITY BAY.
Lots to fix today. I also thought [Bupkis.] meant a hillbilly type, so learning it means NADA took awhile.
CAULDRON is on my favorite word list between ACOLYTE and EMBASSY.
Ug: ARE
Propers: 5
Places: 7
Products: 5
Partials: 9
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 27 (38%)
Funnyisms: 4 🙂
1 Class for entry-level wigglers.
2 Joining the Mile High club.
3 Go butter-beering with Potter and the gang.
1 FIRST YEAR RUMBA
2 US AIR SMOOSHING
3 CAULDRON-BAR HOP
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Little words, big men. HEMINGWAY NICHE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Son Volt: all themes are, by definition, contrived.
Hands up as someone who has no awareness of Midnight Cowboy so this one got a big shrug from me, themewise. Elsewhere, AVI and NONA made me go OOF.
They Might be Giants did a fun song called, Nonagon. https://youtu.be/z5m8BWk5LoQ?feature=shared
Agreeing with RP for a change. When I finished it I thought "Wow, great puzzle!" Which rarely happens.
Neil and Ratso talkin' in '69 -- boomer vibes for sure. Easy medium for me.
Wondering if Rebecca and Robyn are sisters?
Didn’t know the line, maybe saw the movie a long time ago, still liked the puzzle and agree with the fun aspect but not the difficulty rating. For a Wednesday I thought Medium. If Christopher Walken said it that would be even funnier!
“I’m squawkin’ here.”
:D
Hey All !
Another 42 Blockers puz. However, we get an F fest in the North, so it all balances out.
We all know Rebecca is a RexFriend, I do appreciate his slight nits to the puz, but you can tell it leaned more friendly than usual. Just sayin'. 😁
I did like the puz. Good Themers, good tie-it-up Revealer. A bunch of words starting with O. I'm sure if @Lewis was here, he'd point that out. OAHU, OOF, OFFS, OKYOUWIN, ONME, OMAHA, OMNI, ORSO.
Have a great Wednesday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
A cute puzzle.
"It has something to do with walking," I said to myself right before my eye accidentally hit the revealer clue. But as soon as I saw the words "Midnight Cowboy", I knew it was I'M WALKIN' HERE.
Is everyone here familiar with the movie? Or at least that clip? Well, even if you're not, you shouldn't have any problem with this quite easy puzzle.
I wanted to put Neil somewhere on the MOON. Then, as TRANQUILITY filled in, I'm thinking: "It's the SEA OF TRANQUILITY and you're not allowed to call it the TRANQUILITY SEA." Oh, I see. It's TRANQUILITY BASE. I didn't think of that.
A word about 33A. I've learned all the cringe-y and infantile pop singer nicknames from the NYTXW. Now we have RIRI to walk hand-in-hand with TAY-TAY into pop culture stardom.
I'm taking a straw poll. Would you rather be a RIRI or would you rather be a TAY-TAY? (I'm talking about the name, not the bank account.)
If memory serves, Rebecca usually offers up quite a bit more challenge, but this was a pleasant and breezy Wednesday nonetheless.
Great puzzle. Had to laugh picturing Jesus walking on water when a fishing boat nearly sideswipes him, and he yells out in a Brooklyn accent, “I’M WALKING HERE!” And the gag works just as well for Dorothy and Neil Armstrong. Lots of great fill too.
Allegheny Airlines was a local service carrier that operated out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1952 to 1979, with routes primarily located in the eastern U.S.[1] It was the forerunner of USAir that was subsequently renamed US Airways, which itself merged with American Airlines. In 1979 we went from "Agony" Airlines to US Scare.
In what obscure prep school in the Orkneys do the boys wear kilts as part of their uniforms? A kilt is male attire and making a girl’s skirt out of tartan cloth does not make it a kilt. In that case OH, YOU WIN sounded perfectly fine but I couldn’t imagine what a HILT was. DNF.
I sailed along having fun until the bottom.
I had inserted PANAM (wild guess, but it fit) and HERON (more of a marsh bird really, but it fit) and that gave me some problems.
Not familiar with STILTs, and the crosses didn’t help much until I got the revealer sorted.
Had to look up SYKES and AUNT LINDA to get the bottom finished. In our fractured culture era, SNL is assumed to be common ground, and probably is as good as it gets.
But the themers felt really fresh to me, and fun to figure out. Well done!
I’M SQUAWKIN’ HERE is worth the price of my donation to the blog! That beautiful blue isn’t fooling anyone, Mr Jerk Jay!
I didn’t recall the Tranquility Base part of the famous Eagle has landed quote. I probably heard it, didn’t understand it, and skipped right over. What else have I missed in life?
Nice Wednesday offering, Just enough resistance - someday I’ll remember the difference between EIRE and ERIN.
@Gary - You don’t know BUPKIS, the hillbilly is a Bumpkin;) BUPKIS is one of those terrific Yiddish words you pick up living in NYC.
I really didn't like this puzzle. I've never seen Midnight Cowboy or heard of the line I'm walkin' here. I figured out yellow brick road and sea of galilee pretty easily, but tranquility base killed me. I just couldn't get "the moon" out of my head when I saw neil Armstrong. If you ask people where did Neil Armstrong walk? They'll say the moon, not "tranquility base." come on.
And I didn't like some of the fill. "Ok you win"? I hate when the answer is some random phrase. Why would it be "ok you win" rather than "you win"? I figured it out pretty quickly, but I hated it.
I also HATE the clue for "I'm up." When I read "you woke me," I imagined the accusatory part of the clue had some point. But it doesn't. "I'm up" just means someone is up. When most people (I guess most adults) wake up, it's because they either woke up on their own or to an alarm, not because some other random person woke them up. If someone woke me up I wouldn't say "I'm up," I'd yell at them accusatorily, "you woke me up!!!"
Never heard of a "stilt" either. I put heron in there pretty confidently, and that messed up the SW corner for a while. Never heard of set shots. I don't know anything about basketball, so why on earth would I know some archaic basketball term? And there were a lot of names in this puzzle I didn't know and just had to guess after enough letters got filled in. Ugh, I hated this puzzle.
Another reminder for Diane Warren not winning an Oscar
I thought at first it was “I’m talkin’ here,” but that would’ve been the Sermon on the Mount…
I thought at first it was “I’m talkin’ here.” But that would have been the Sermon on the Mount…
Neil Armstrong’s quote is “Houston, Tranquility Base here; the Eagle has landed”.
So a minor point that NA wasn’t “walkin’ here” until he uttered “It’s one small step…”
But one the whole, agree with Rex re the puzzle’s enjoyment, including his and others’ vignettes about the various subjects’ fictional expression of “I’m walkin ‘ here”.
Nonagon Infinity Opens the Door.
I've always hated Midnight Cowboy too.
I expect a spectacled bear would be quite a spectacle. It shouldn't be confused with spectacled beer --- which is beer in glasses.
@Bob Mills 8:02 AM
has anyone ever smooshed?
by showering in Dijon I've douched
I've worn my Nikes so I've swooshed
In olden times I drove a barouche
on a minibike I don a tarboosh
I'm known for being louche
some say I'm quite farouche
but have I ever smooshed?
has anyone ever smooshed?
when fitting five into a booth
we feel the whoosh of smoosh
Brilliant. Loved the Jesus walking on water - on the SEA OF GALILEE. had me laughing, I grew up with nuns....
Wednesday cute it is. Quote was so far back in memory (as well as time?) OOF!
Cool puztheme. Like that all them folks would [theoretically] say "walkin'" instead of "walking".
Remember goin to the "Midnight Cowboy" flick at a campus theater, while I was in college. That's quite a while back, but I sure do recall Dustin Hoffman's line. Surprised that it's all that famous, tho.
Runner-up memorable "Midnight Cowboy" line: "I only get carsick on boats".
Nice, smoooth WedPuz solvequest. Don't recall any no-knows. RIRI and DIA came the closest.
staff weeject pick: EPI. Like @RP, enjoyed its "left of center" clue.
Thanx for the walk, Ms. Goldstein darlin. Nice job.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
Easy....except that I had no idea about the quote and wasn't sure for a bit if we were WALKIN' or tALKIN'. @Rex's explanation of the context and your (commenters') imaginings of the same line being used by Jesus, Dorothy, and Neil have made the puzzle much more enjoyable. Funny! even though I had to have the joke explained to me. Like others, I appreciated SHRIEK next to CAULDRON, also WENT WiLD crossing TRANQUILITY.
Help from previous puzzles: RIRI. Help from doing the Spelling Bee: NONAgon. No idea: LEONA, DIANE, OMAHA.
@Rachel 9:24 - I enjoyed your screed!
@Gary Jugert 9:55 - My high school boyfriend failed an English class vocab quiz on Robert and Elizabeth Browning by defining "barouche" as "the sound an elephant makes when it sneezes." That left the word indelibly etched in memory, with attendant feelings of affection....but one encounters it so seldom these days! Thanks for the treat.
Ad libbed line from best supporting actor in The Deer Hunter: I'm Walken here. (Christopher Walken won an academy award for this film).
I've been known to "participate in a crawl" after too much BARHOPping.
I had trouble with 11D, but that was ONME.
I did this puzzle at the walk-in clinic where I went for my walking pneumonia. Really liked it. Thanks, Rebecca Goldstein.
The theme doesn't quite click but it was an enjoyable solve. All of the sparkle was in the themers.
I just Googled best American film actors and found that Dustin Hoffman wasn't near the top. On my list he's way high, up there with De Niro, Pacino, Hanks. Like De Niro he could do comedy beautifully. They were both in the Focker movies. I laughed out loud.
I know it won the Oscar, but I don't think Midnight Cowboy is a great movie.
I haven't seen Gill lately. She takes breaks from time to time.
@Carola (10:50)
What's the difference between a tavern and an elephant farting?
One's a bar room, and one's a ba-ROOOOM!!
Right there with you! I was mentally clocking all the bears from my childhood books for that one.
A wee bit easier than medium for me. No erasures and I did not know AUNT (SNL is not on my watch list), ANDES, and HERS as clued.
Smooth grid with a delightful “Oh, that’s what’s going on!” reveal. Liked it a bunch or what @Rex said.
The Wanda SYKES special“I am an Entertainer” on Netflix is excellent. One of the best stand up specials I’ve seen.
Here in Israel the Sea of Galilee (actually a lake) is known as "Yam Kinneret" (Sea of Kinneret) from its name in the Hebrew Bible " although it is indeed situated in the Galilee (BTW in Hebrew the Galilee is the "Galil" – and "galil" simply means a "region" or a "province"). Thus in Numbers 34:11 demarcating the borders of the land of Israel, we read: "And the border shall go down and reach to the eastern side of the Sea of Kinneret" (they were right about "down" – the surface of lake is 700 feet below sea level). The ancient Egyptians too mention "Kinneret" in the their listing of the conquests of Pharaoh Thutmose III in the 15th century BCE). As to the derivation of the term "Kinneret" it is popularly but probably incorrectly attributed to the harp-like shape of the lake which is like a "kinor" ("Hebrew for a "harp" in ancient times; although it now means a "violin"). This is unlikely as the ancients didn't map their environs topographically, and the theory may derive from a misunderstanding of a statement in the Babylonian Talmud discussing the farmland in the area to the northwest of the lake: "Why is it called 'Kinneret'? Because its fruits are as sweet as a kinor [harp]." (Tractate Megillah, 6a). In other ancient Jewish sources the Kinneret is also known as "Lake Tiberias" and "Lake Ginnosar" referring to two ancient (and modern) towns on the western boast of the lake. To get back to Jesus, at the Yigal Allon Museum at modern Kibbutz Ginnosar you can see the reconstructed remains of an authentic 1st century CE boat salvaged from the peripheral seabed of Lake Kinneret during a period of drought, and often referred to somewhat unscientifically as the "Jesus Boat."
Not easy for me, but I did enjoy it (thank you Rebecca :)
.
I watched "Midnight Cowboy" again one late night on AMC. Looking back, It was pretty risqué for 1965 (which I just googled). Dustin should've won for Best Actor but no one asked me. I'm always thinking "I'm walking here" when someone crashes into my lane on the track when I'm 'power walking.'
Rebecca's puzzles are always a cut above, this one included :)
Rodri? I'm 69..how would I ever know that??
Jae - I have liked Wanda SYKES in the past, but after 20 minutes of graphic squatting over a toilet humor, I was out on “I Am An Entertainer”
Earlier this morning, as it happens, I was reading Garrison Keillor's post on Substack, which he ended with a couple of jokes, one of which was about a Unitarian who watched Jesus walk on water and muttered sneeringly, "Guy claims to be the son of God and he can't even swim!" So I was primed for that one.
Unfortunately, however, while I have seen the movie fairly recently, I didn't remember that line, and put in WorKIN. That messed up QUARTZ, but I never figured out the error and ended DNF.
I have seen bears, though, in zoos--but I put them in iNDia before the ANDES.
STILT was hard for me, both because I don't think of them as particularly elegant and because there actually is a species named "elegant tern." Terns are not shorebirdes, but if not for crosses I would probably have gone with terns for STILT. (I just checked out some images; I'd say their torsos are elegant, but not the disproportionate legs.)
To cap it all off, I confused stratus with stratum, so I put in STRATa.
EASY ? 1
Don't know if I have the courage to see if others agreed. This was the hardest Wednesday I can remember
NOt just because I have no memory of that sene or that line from Midnight cowboy. I also had no idea who Dorothy Gale was until some crosses hinted at yellow brick road. If the lie hd just said Dorothy, ugh easier.Looking back at clues I make to maybe look hip, I see most of them were Names : tiger Lewis, poker variety, etc.
Ultimately I could appreciate the theme, but didn't have much fun doing the puzzle after the top section, most of which wasn't so hard. Did hang myself up with one error: Having f and a in 7D led me to" fear" which had me gawking at sea of ralile for a while.
Actually, the complete answer to the question of talking without a brain is”I don’t know, but it seems like there are an awful lot of people with no brains that do an awful lot of talking!”
@ anonymous@8:55,
If a girl puts on her brother’s kilt, does it cease to be a kilt? Ues, they were originally exclusive to male wear but, you know, times change. A kilt is a kilt regardless of who is wearing it.
Sorry. Still don't “get” spectacled bears…just settled on it because of the rest of the fill.
Let me join the chorus of people who hated "Midnight Cowboy" -- though I did think it was well-acted. But such a glum, thoroughly distasteful movie. I agree with you, @Mathgent, that Dustin Hoffman is a great actor. I love his range. I don't agree with you on DeNiro, though. I don't see a heck of a lot of range there.
Like @Rachel, I'm disturbed by I'M UP as the equivalent of the highly accusatory "you woke me". It's a really bad clue. Some better clues:
"Yes, you can turn the clock alarm off now."
"Please, please stop shaking me under the covers."
"Go make breakfast -- I'll be along in a few secs."
And lastly -- so sorry you have walking pneumonia, @egs. Hope you recover quickly.
Couple of 4 letter Hidden Diagonal Words (HDW) today--SAME in the NE (9A), COAT in the W (35A).
Best HDW of the day is found in the NW where there is a confluence of three SEAs--The horizontal SEA in 20A (SEA OF GALILEE) is crossed by a vertical SEA in 4D (unSEAl), and the S in UNSEAL is the opening letter of a Hidden Diagonal SEA (moves to the NW). Three SEAs converging!
When I then Googled "confluence of three seas," I got this wonderful tidbit about Bharat, in India:
The name of the place in Bharat (India) where three seas join is known as "Kanyakumari." It is located at the southernmost tip of the Indian mainland and is the point where the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Ocean meet.
Can't wait for a Saturday constructor to put Bharat or Kanyakumari in a grid.
Really liked the theme and loved SMOOSHING.
I've been doing these about 18 months and this is the first time I've seen 'maybe' tagged onto an APES clue. With the tricky/questionable EPI clue, the center took a minute to untangle. Overall had a blast.
Raymond,
What’s unscientific about the name Jesus boat?
https://youtu.be/9p_Si21ig7c?si=snqz4HSIbiZksrjf
King Gizzard droppin some Nonagon science
I'M not one who cares all that much about "dupes," words used more than once in the same grid. But after now having read Rex and all the comments, I'M very, very surprised that not a soul mentioned the fact that I'M not only is the first word in the great revealer (I'M WALKIN' HERE), but that that same revealer is crossed by the I'M in I'M UP. It jumped out at me so much that I thought I must have had one of those answers wrong.
Funny the things we do or don't notice.
A Rare Rex Rave! I got SEA OF GALILEE then YELLOW something, then TRANQUILITY something, so the theme had to be Seas! But it was way better than that; the revealer is delightful.
(I wonder if there's a way to add words to Firefox's spell check? It would be nice to be able to use words like revealer, acrosses, etc, without seeing that ugly squiggly underline.)
Ah, bygone airlines. Here in Canada I fondly remember flying Canadian Pacific, Pacific Western, and Wardair. I'm pretty sure I flew US AIR at least once somewhere.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0; "streak" 3.]
@Anon 12:42- I do know the whole quote but prefer to stop at "I don't know", which is the most succinct and accurate answer imaginable. The rest of it is true too, of course, as proved by certain politicians on a daily basis.
@Nancy. Thanks for the concern. It was really just a failed attempt at humor by playing off of the WALKIN theme by using Walk-In clinic and walking pneumonia. Gotta run!
For Gary Jugert: Thanks for the creative reply to my question, "Has anyone ever smooched?" I won't attempt to match your turn of phrase, but I'd still like to know how "smooching" fits the clue "flattening, in a way."
The only definition I could find for "smooch" is "Cram into a tight space." Does that mean it was flattened? If so, that's a stretch.
I should note that I thoroughly enjoyed (and got) the spectacled bear clue because Paddington Bear is technically a spectacled bear from Peru...
Love!
@Burtonkd - My apologies for not adding the always helpful YMMV.
Absolutely execrable. Refer to gunk as index of 38%, above. Who cares about singers Wanda, Warren, and Riri? UNSEAL, what, in the 1900’s? STILT is a bird? And I know my birds. Forgettable line from a forgettable movie needs to be resolved before figuring out the themers. What the f is Reel big fish?
Literally the first time I heard Rex say so many positive things in an row about a puzzle! I normally read what he writes cuz it’s funny and cranky but these compliments also had me smiling throughout the review. I loved the theme answer too! ☺️
Although I knew Dorothy Gale, I agree that this puzzle was challenging for a Wednesday.
On landing, Armstrong said "Houston. Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." At that landing, there had been a lot of silence from the LEM during the last 30 seconds as mission control counted down the remaining fuel. Armstrong had to maneuver beyond a rock field. If you watch a video today, no one in mission control is breathing after they pass zero on the fuel and the radio is silent. Then Armstrong keys the mic and voices that timeless line.
Hard for me. Harder than 90% of Wednesdays. My Warren was ZEVON, which meant the Dorothy answer HAD to end in 'OZ, and stuff like that.
The line, "I'm walkin' here!", which reached number 27 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, is subject to differing accounts. Producer Jerome Hellman disputes the notion that it was an ad-lib on the two-disc DVD set of Midnight Cowboy. The scene, which originally had Ratso pretend to be hit by a taxi to feign an injury, is written into the first draft of the original script.[20] Hoffman, however, on an installment of Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio, stated that there were many takes to hit the traffic light just right so they would not have to pause while walking. In that take, the timing was perfect, but a cab nearly hit them. Hoffman wanted to say, "We're filming a movie here!", but stayed in character, allowing the take to be used.
Source: Wikipedia
I had a blast--and it wasn't even all that easy. The first gimme I came to was ABU. Got a foothold with SETSHOTS/SYKES/SKA, which soon led me to "the line." Leave it to Hoffman to stay in the role; thus it definitely IS an ad-lib. Test: was it in the script? Answer: no. QED.
Of course, after that, it was "Oh, sure, I GOT it now." Or, "I'M UP."
"Can be backless?" A BRA? Confusing clue, as were several. Didn't help that it crossed the ridiculous RIRI; that middle R was a guess.
A lot of fun fill along the way. Birdie.
Wordle birdie.
GOT SHOTS?
I’M OFF TO the YELLOWBRICKROAD,
goin’ TO BARHOP for the FIRSTYEAR,
TRANQUILITY OR WILD the mode,
MAIN thing IS YOU know I’MWALKIN’HERE.
--- AUNT LEONA BONDS
Since when is SMOOSHING a word? Absolute dreck!
I thought Rex's review was a little over the top nice, for Rex that is. It was a very easy WedPuz. But I found it very fun and clever. I do wish before complaining about an answer or word, that people would take a few seconds to see if their complaint is legitimate. The word smoosh has been around since 1825. The spectacled bear is a real bear, but someone mentioned a connection to the Paddington Bear. That would be cool, but my entire knowledge of it comes from xwords.
Also, I've heard that line from Midnight Cowboy very recently on TV, but I can't remember if was in a commercial or show.
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