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Activity at a company retreat / FRI 7-5-2024 / Accessory for a snowman / Chapter and verse separators / To an annoying degree / Poor mark / Bell-shaped lily / They're a snap to get / Ocasek of the Cars / Dark shade of brown
Friday, July 5, 2024
Constructor: Trent H. Evans
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: None
Word of the Day: ASPIC (Savory jelly) —
Aspic or meat jelly (/ˈæspɪk/)[1] is a savory gelatin made with a meat stock or broth, set in a mold to encase other ingredients. These often include pieces of meat, seafood, vegetable, or eggs. Aspic is also sometimes referred to as aspic gelée or aspic jelly. In its simplest form, aspic is essentially a gelatinous version of conventional soup.
• • •
Hi friends! It's Rafa here for the write-up today (and tomorrow) (and the day after tomorrow) (get comfortable with me)! Hope those who celebrate had a wonderful holiday, but the puzzling never stops. I am in San Francisco where we are having a "heat wave" (the high today was 74; it is currently 59 at 10pm) so I got to spend some restful time outside. |
| The ELMO clue was Muppet erasure so I'm here righting that wrong |
I absolutely smashed my Friday PR with this puzzle (4:46, down from something like 5:15 I think) so I am obligated to like it. Barely any time to appreciate this one as I was just so busy swooshing, whizzing, etc., around the grid feeling so smart that I was solving a Friday this fast. Ok, I'm done with the bragging. There was lots to love here, though. It felt like a classic 72-word themeless to me. Not trying to do too much, but every single 8+ length answer was fun, and there was (mostly) nothing to gluey holding it all together. Let's get into it.
 |
| ASPIC! |
Long stuff ... yes, lots to love here. TRUST FALL is great but I absolutely cannot imagine doing that at a company retreat with my coworkers. Do people actually do that in a corporate setting? Interesting choice to clue PRIDE FLAGS as symbols of solidarity rather than from the perspective of the community. NO BRAINERS, SOCIAL CUE, ALL ABOARD, LET'S PARTY, SMASH HIT, AD NAUSEAM, etc., all very fun! Ok, you get the picture.
Short stuff ... pretty solid overall, too. SISAL is something I've only ever seen in crosswords, but it's absolutely A Thing. Bill MAHER has definitely said some things I found shocking so the clue referencing his "What This Comedian Said Will Shock You" book felt ... apt! HAL March was new to me (way before my time). HEH HEH was kinda fun to uncover.
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| ACAI! |
Only other note on this is that the top-left and bottom-right corners are pretty closed off from the rest of the grid. I didn't have much issue with that (since as we know I was famously whooshing my way around the puzzle) but that relative lack of interconnectedness (wow, that's a long word!) can make it easier to get stuck in a section. Is that something you notice or care about in themeless puzzles? Let me know in the comments!
That's all I have! As I said at the beginning, you always remember the ones where you smash your PRs, so this will be a memorable one for me. Hope you all enjoyed it too.
Bullets:
- A LITTLE HELP HERE [Request for assistance] — This is one of those things that are absolutely real but I would never actually say out loud myself
- REN FAIRE [Festival with a throwback theme, briefly] — I've never been to a REN FAIRE but it sounds like it would be pretty fun tbh
- SIA [Australian-born pop singer] — I had a phase a while ago where I listened to a lot of SIA. Her 1000 Forms Of Fear takes me right back to 2018
- TABBY CAT [Tom sporting a striped coat, say] — Cat content is always welcome in crosswords. When I solve crosswords, seeing cat content makes me happy. When I construct crosswords, including cat content makes me happy. More cats, please!
P. S. Rex here, I’m in MN for the weekend, at the Great River Shakespeare Festival, where my daughter is production manager. HAMLET tonight, MUCH ADO tomorrow, back home Sunday. Should be back to blogging Monday or Tuesday. xo
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81 comments:
[The last 3 times I tried commenting under my user name it never showed up... here's hoping.]
Hi Rafa; hands up for a quick solve. I don't keep track of my times but at a few seconds over 10 minutes it was pretty fast for me.
The term TRUSTFALL has been totally hijacked by Pink. I was watching the Graham Norton show and she came on, in a live performance, and I thought: oh, Pink, she's all right. The song, which I had not heard, was pretty good, but then the man she was singing to started doing some really impressive trampoline moves; like he had the laws of physics in his hands. Here is the video.
I NEED TO RUN... has anyone actually said that? I gotta run, I gotta go, I'm off. If you hear "I need to run" you think they're overdue for their daily exercise.
And as a former programmer, the clue for ONE seemed backward to me. ! (== "Not") is an operator, so it should precede what it operates on. "Not" false = true; "Not" zero = 1.
This was mostly easy for me too @Rafa except for the closed off NW which I had to come back to. I wanted Team…something for 1a which I needed to let go of. Once I got ALL ABOARD it was done.
I did not know MYA but I did know SIA.
HEe HEe before HE HE HE.
Smooth, solid, sparkly, liked it…an excellent Friday!
I had BUTTON for MITTEN on the snowman, and the crosses weren't helping me. Also, UMBER instead of AMBER for brown?? Otherwise whoosh whoosh.
Nowhere as fast as Rafa - nice to see you again, btw! This was a 2 part woosh for me. West side came in quickly, but stuck in the Wast and had to walk away. Came back and everything was clear.
SIA, MYA and HAL an unknown trifecta. Seen SIA before, but don’t her work. RIC tried to join the party, but I know him, and a recent puzzle reminded me not to end in “K”.
My TRUSTFALL in middle school gym class went about as well as you would imagine…HEHHEH
ERAT, EMMY, EGOT decided LETSPARTY, fellow four letter E-wordsin the SE, and left poor ELMO and ENOS off the invitations. They probably missed a SOCIALCUE.
I guess I’ll seriously have to remember SRSLY for next time.
Daytime so hot and humid where I am and sun so overbearing, I pretty much have to stay indoors and use an umbrella on sunny days.
Easy after a couple of stumbles in the NW.
Overwrites:
1A: When "Team building" didn't fit I still wanted Team{something} before TRUST FALL
2D: My billing matter was a RatE before it was a ROLE
6D: Guessed wrong on the FaunA/FLORA toss-up
35A: Wanted A LITTLE HELP PLEASE but it didn't fit
WOEs:
Never heard of MYA (22A) or the song in the clue, nor RIC Ocasek of the Cars
For me SISAL fell under "Cat Content always welcome in crosswords". It's what kitty's scratching post is covered in.
Zero factorial
Heh heh
0! Is zero factorial, a mathematical expression
I think the exclamation point in this case refers to the math function factorial, where 0! = 1.
okanaganer @2:20 The "!" in the clue for ONE is the factorial symbol, not the Boolean "not". What it means is this:
1! = 1
2! = 1x2 = 2
3! = 1x2x3 = 6
4! = 1x2x3x4 = 24
...
Note that to go from 4! to 3!, you divide by 4, and to go from 3! to 2! you divide by 3, etc. So it makes sense to define 0! = 1!/1 = 1.
The only spot that gave me Friday-tier trouble was the NW where I only had TSAR and REA at first. Then it opened up when I guessed UCLA. The SE was the exact opposite, I didn't even need to see the clues for HAL MADE AINT TSA DOER. Overall I got it done in normal Tuesday time, which means faster than this week's Tuesday.
It was factorial notation, and zero factorial is one.
I rarely do much “whooshing” on Fridays, but I was able to work my way around this grid pretty competently, so definitely on the easy side today. The RENFAIRE crossing STEWIE section took some work to parse, as I’m unfamiliar with either.
I’m another who didn’t recognize any of the SIA, MYA and HAL trio today. Enjoyed “LITTLE HELP”, which a friend of mine used to say quite a bit on the tennis court.
Definitely getting concerned that the NYT is developing a Jones for text-speak, which does not bode well. I wonder what the over/under is for the number of zero factorial explanations we get today - maybe two dozen ?
Yes, an easy Friday, although I can imagine the short propers will vex some (MIA, RIC, SADE, SIA, HAL). None of those troubled me, although I've never heard of HAL but all good crosses.
I suppose I'm the opposite of Rafa. I never remember the puzzles that went very fast, but remember the ones that really put up a fight.
ONE abutting MATH was cute.
I found the NW and the NE both very tough. Even with a few crosses in place, SOCIALCUES wouldn’t come, and I don’t understand the word ROLE as an answer for billing question. Can someone explain?
Random thoughts:
• This is a lovely grid design, sporting 15 bigs (answers of eight letters or more), which can bring such color to the answer set, and they do today, my favorites being A LITTLE HELP HERE, I NEED TO RUN, TABBY CAT, and TRUST FALL. This grid design, BTW, has never been used in a Times puzzle before.
• Also bringing color are eight NYT puzzle debuts, all of which are bigs, including the ones I just mentioned, all worthy additions to the oeuvre.
• I like the symmetrical mini-story of TRUST FALL / A LITTLE HELP HERE / LET’S PARTY!
• Sweet PuzzPair© of SHRUG abutting YESNO.
• TSA has shown up in the major crossword venues more than 500 times, but never with the clue or anything like the clue [Air force?]. Bravo!
• A very-rare-in-crosswords six letter palindrome (HEHHEH)!
All wrapped in beautifully-expressed constructor notes stressing the need to focus on our commonalities over our differences. It sounds like a platitude, but OMG, if only, if only – what a different world we’d live in!
Thank you for this critical reminder, Trent, and for a fun and satisfying trip through the box today. I loved this!
I, too, smashed my Friday PB from about 30 mins down to 18 mins. This whole week has been easy, for the most part, which means tomorrow will either be ridiculous or yet another gimme.
Some of the short answers stumped me for a bit, but everything else fell into place pretty nicely.
Role as in acting. Bill as in playbill.
No traction in the NW and started with ASPIC, which led to a fair amount of whooshing. The C from ASP{C meant the "tom" was a cat, so in went TIGERCAT, which waw no help, and is where I ended, eventually remembering the TRUSTFALL thing. Also my R from TIGERCAT had me wondering if NRT recorded any songs. I have yet to see an ACAI bowl on any local menu, wo that wasn't much help either.
I think I have mentioned before that ALITTLEHELPHERE was the common request in our softball league for (another) cold one from the cooler. A lot of very good players and a lot of fun. Good times.
So SIA and MYA and RIC today, also REA. Interesting. I FONDLY remember SISAL too. Nice to see you again, and welcome back.
Really enjoyed this one, THE. Tipped "Hard Enough" on the crossword scale, and thanks for all the fun.
PS-Thanks for the ADNAUSEAM answer, which taught me the correct spelling. Duh.
Fastest Friday in a long time. About one-third my normal Friday time. More like my average Tuesday. But I enjoyed the whooshes!
@JJK - contemplate which ROLE (or which actor) is going to get top billing.
Not easy for me, albeit I did finish it with a couple of cheats in the NW. I don't know why yawning is a social cue (maybe I'm just tired..am I sending a cue?). I didn't like LURE as a clue for "draw" ("draw in" would be better). Never heard of TRUSTFALL, but I haven't been on a corporate outing for many years.
I wanted ALITTLEHELPPLEASE, but it obviously didn't fit. ALITTLEHELPHERE is a demand for help, not a request.
Hey All !
Pretty good FriPuz. Was stuck in various areas, but wasn't too difficult to suss out. Finished in under 20 minutes, which is quick for me. I don't like being stuck stuck, but a little stuck, then sussing stuff out works for me.
NE corner toughest spot. I'm apprehensive about putting answers in I'm unsure of, the thinking is that I won't be able to grok a crossing answer if the answer I have in is incorrect. That's silly, as after I filled in my maybes in the NE, I was able to finish that corner. PSA, don't be silly like me. Har.
Nice puz, enthusiastic write up by Rafa.
I'm amazed at how much money my neighbors have to buy the 10,000 fireworks they shot off last night. My back yard connected neighbor went from like 8:39 to after midnight. Geez, I should ask him for a donation for something. That's a lot of fireworks. Now my yard is covered in spent blown up things. Thanks for that.
Made it to another Friday.
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Interestingly(?) Hal March's grandson is Hunter March, host of Sugar Rush and the most recent season of Blown Away on Netflix.
Speaking of Hal March...does anyone remember that If Tuesday Weld had married his son, Hal March the 2nd, she'd have been Tuesday March the 2nd?
Did anyone else only know the word “aspic” from the King Crimson album “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic”?
The NW was exceedingly hard for me, so I went elsewhere and came back. But because the grid is so segmented, I almost couldn't finish it anyway. I had TigerCAT instead of TABBYCAT; RatE instead of ROLE for the "billing matter"; and I didn't know TRUST FALL.
I guess that's where you deliberately fall and trust that someone will catch you? We didn't have such activities at the companies I worked for (they didn't invite us to "retreats" either) and thank heavens they didn't. Lots of luck getting ME to fall deliberately!!! I don't trust you or you or you or anyone in such an absurd endeavor. I have spent my entire life trying really, really hard NOT to fall and that pursuit has become even more all-consuming at the advanced age that I have now reached.
Will your company fire you if you refuse to TRUST FALL?
Minor rant coming about two very rude clue/answers:
1) I would clue 35A (A LITTLE HELP HERE) thusly: "Rude demand for assistance that's likely to be ignored." Has anyone ever heard of asking CAN YOU PLEASE HELP ME?
2) I would have the answer at 15A changed from SOCIAL CUE to SOCIAL NO-NO. If they're SOCIAL CUEs, then they're CUEs from very rude people.
End of minor rant.
I had a very enjoyable Friday struggle with the NW corner of this puzzle. The rest of it was much easier for me and the cluing was lively everywhere.
Nausea is a normal first declension noun, and ad takes the accusative case, thus nauseam. (Hard to believe I learned that in tenth grade and it’s still in there almost 60 years later). Hmm, 0! Was probably also that year…
A couple of early week level clues for Hidden Diagonal Words (HDW) in today's grid (both 4 letters, answers below):
1. Williams' Camino _____
2. Word after body or grand
Those closed-off corners (Hi, Rafa), specifically the NW, kept this from being an "Easy" Friday for me. I had to chuckle and briefly consider taking a screenshot when I saw that I had every answer in place in the NE, SE, and SW, and was staring at a NW with REA and an educated guess of UCLA. I felt sure 1D ended in AR, but did it begin TS or CS or TZ or CZ?! I took a stab at making that CAT a TABBY, threw in a total guess for BRIE and finished MYA. Then ALL ABOARD occurred to me (nice answer) and that section finally fell.
I've said that my late week puzzles are either "easy for me" (25-30 minutes) or "hard" (55 minutes-infinity); this was a rare "medium" at 37 minutes plus.
That REA at 19A has a Hidden Diagonal duplication beginning with the R in 18A, UMBER. It happens at least once in almost every puzzle that an answer (almost always a 3 letter short fill answer) has a diagonal echo somewhere in the grid.
Answers (not that you need them, giving the easy clues):
1. REAL (start with the R in 23A, RIC)
2. SLAM (off the S in the lovely 15A, SOCIAL CUE)
TGIF -- LET'S PARTY!!
TA-TA
Oh man, played myself so many ways this morning. HADER for MAHER. RIK for RIC (I was so sure on this, too). TONY for EMMY. ROYAL for REGAL. All of these wrong answers went in pretty early and made this solve brutal for me. The NW and West went quickly and then I hit a wall of my own wrong answers.
Doesn't help that I ran out of coffee, but sheesh.
I was going to say that if RP can call for a ban on mathematicians with five-letter names, then I would propose limiting the number of pop singers to one per puzzle (knew RIC, needed crosses on SIA, MYA, and SADE). However, I didn't even read the clue on ONE, which would have been in my wheelhouse, so despite floundering in the NW, as many did, I guess I didn't have too much trouble.
Started with UMBER and ELMO finished with RENFAIRE and RATEDE. No real hangups anywhere.
Three three letter singers was a trip.
yd -0. skipped a couple lately but otherwise QB77
This is a Tuesday puzzle .....
No personal best for me, although I don’t bother timing myself anyway. The proper names and trivia slowed me down from start to finish. The French historical district, the … Wo singer, the Nigerian singer, the Australian singer, the Car person, the Madden video. My snowman had a button, but a MITTEN never occurred to me since most snow people don’t have arms. But with a little help from Google on the singers, I enjoyed it. A fine Friday outing.
I appreciate Rafa's enthusiasm for this one since he's trying to put a positive spin on this as we all should try (although he does says it's not too gluey when it very much is). I think it's fine. The propers beat me up a bit (as they do on C-listers Fridays) and the northwest felt awkward (but was trying to be funny), but the whoosh of long answers dropping in doesn't give me the buzz it seems to give themeless enthusiasts, so for me this was pleasant and fine, like a date that has you back home by 8:30.
If we do a TRUST FALL at my company retreat, I am working for a different company next week. Honestly, if we have a company retreat, I am sick that day.
CLOSED ARMS, bah, it's elbows folded.
0! = 1 = yeeshk! (= no, just no). Boo math.
Beethoven reduced to the only German word allowed in the NYTXW. ACH.
Yes, wrong Elmo, and isn't this one a saint? STELMO?
As a lifelong cat person, this modern business of knowing cat breeds is weird to me. Is a TABBY CAT special enough for its own name? Growing up, there were Siamese cats (which I am now thinking was racist) and ALL other cats. They're all miniature terrorists you willingly bring into your life and the breed doesn't appear to me to matter. They're messy, mean, and precious all at once. Maybe breed matters, but my next cat will probably be yet another stray, and he'll be wonderful, tabby or not.
In all my years in the mob, the only thing we ever MADE was pasta primavera.
Propers: 11 (boo)
Places: 2
Products: 4
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 25 (35%)
Recipes: 2 (beta)
Funnyisms: 3 😐
Tee-Hee: COLONS
Uniclues:
1 What Gallagher did to become less watermelony.
2 Negotiator offers poor alternative to jumping off a roof.
3 Purpose of the organization behind the Tonys.
4 Response to, "I say dear boy, shall we be scandalous and allow our Instagram to fritter away unattended whilst we indulge ourselves in a wee bit of frivolity?"
5 Uses Van Halen backing track to countdown.
1 SMASH HIT ASPIC (~)
2 REN FAIRE? YES? NO?
3 AWARD HAIL STORM
4 SRSLY, LET'S PARTY
5 PSYCHES UP LAUNCH
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: My substitute for working out. I DO GREEK YOGURT.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Waiter: Tonight's pasta specials are Penne Alla Vodka, Fusilli Alla Caprese and Spaghetti ALLABOARD. I must warn you though that if you order the third one, your COLONS may need an ASPIC.
Gather round children while I tell you the twisted tale of Rose White and SNORED.
I much prefer a good Stimpy Faire to any RENFAIRE.
It's going to be a long, hot summer, but I TRUSTFALL will be better.
Thanks for the whooshy factorial tutorial, Trent H. Evans.
It would have been easy had I not been so sure of Tiger CAT. At least I was in good company (Hi @Pablo, @Nancy!) I thought TABBY was more splotchy, but apparently it can be striped as well. I could see that it was probably BRIE, but not how to get there. Having RatE didn't help, because it made 15 and 17 across gibberish.
I don't know if people really doing them at company retreats but not wanting to do them with Bob from accounting is the stereotype of what's wrong with such events.
"A LITTLE HELP HERE" sometimes followed by "please" is what you say when the ball has gone over a fence and someone is walking by on the other side of said fence. At least it was back in the 1950s, when HAL March was on. That quiz show was a big hit until it was discovered that they were feeding answers to come of the contestants to make the whole thing more dramatic. But it was nice to see a non-computer HAL.
Some saints do get their titles dropped in conversation, but St. ELMO isn't one of them. A very minor fault.
@Roo (8:50) By 9:30 last night, my neighborhood sounded like a war zone, LED by the people next-door whose house is PARTY central for their large family. Blessedly, it started to rain about 10 o’clock so at least we didn’t have to continue hearing that incessant popping until late into the night. I haven’t gone out yet to check for the detritus but I know there will be plenty of it. And while I try to be neighborly, occasionally some of it finds its way back into their yard.
@Gary (10:44) Agree about 11D . . . that’s Saint ELMO to you, NYT. Quite sure he earned that title. And same for your theory on CAT breeds. All the animals in my care were strays, with the exception of a dog which I’m fostering. He was rescued from a breeder who would have destroyed him because he committed the unforgivable sin of being the runt of the litter.
This Friday offering was pretty “whooshy” for me except for (like @Nancy) the NW. I mean, even when I finally when put in SOCIALCUES and, somewhat reluctantly ALLABOARD…the “training” did not immediately click. That’s ok.
@Nancy…your SOCIALCUES comment made me chuckle! I agree that yawning is rude but I also confess that (as a non-rude person) I have had to work very hard in some instances to stifle yawns when faced with a complete bore who goes on and on (and on). As for “crossed arms” I don’t necessarily see that as rude, BUT I’ve read that people often assume that position when they feel they are being verbally attacked.
The singers/song were in my wheelhouse EXCEPT for MYA. I HOPE @Gary J doesn’t consider RIC Ocasek a C-lister. He wrote The Cars songs and sang the majority of them. One notable exception was their SMASHHIT ballad Drive when he smartly had his bassist sing. He passed away in 2019 at the age of 75. I found this little snippet about Drive:
“The music video was directed by actor Timothy Hutton and features then-19-year-old model and actress Paulina Porizkova, who would later become Ric Ocasek's third wife.”
I will say that, even though I got it through crosses, the population of peeps who would remember or know HAL March is dwindling. I’m 69 and was 3 years old when that show ended! And, I mean c’mon…the show was only on from 1956-1958. I think there was a movie made about the scandal around it so maybe THAT made it fair game.
Did this one in 1:45, a full minute faster than my Friday average. SRSLY, though, 33:44, 7 minutes faster than my Friday average, slowed only by the NW corner. Rafa must be the Will Hunting of crosswords!
ALL ABOARD...LET'S PARTY! I loved the puzzle's invitation, but I spent most of the time struggling to get into the fun. No whooshing for me, more like wading through molasses. As for others here, an early RatE instead of ROLE messed up the NW, and LENIN offered no HELP in unlocking the long Downs in the NE. Then, just when I'd get a little traction, somebody like MYA or SIA or SADE or RIC or MAHER or STEWIE would body check me out the way. Was happy to limp to the finish line. A proper tough Friday for me with some nicely sneaky clues.
I only know ASPIC from “the flamingo kid” with Matt Dillon and Janet Gretzky
On vacation an hour south of Cancun … near the eye of the hurricane that came through last night. Lots of palm trees down and part of the roof of the complex blew off but luckily seems like everyone is safe. Hope the locals houses are fairing ok. Agree with the whoosh whoosh and high quality of this puzzle.
@Gary, I was on a similar wave length to yours for AWARD HAILSTORM: Meryl Streep's career.
A FriPuz RATED0!, at our house.
staff weeject picks: MYA & SIA. Just don't keep up with pop singers anymore.
best SUSword: RATEDE.
Fought thru solvin the NW, but the only exit was thru no-know MYA. Figured out TABBYCAT eventually, but the precious nanoseconds were definitely gushin forth. And only way over to the NE was via 35-A's 15-long answer. So, kept inchin down the W side of the puzgrid, til I finally had enough little-help-there crossers to nail down that pesky grid spanner.
some faves: ALLABOARD & its clue ["training"? har]. SOLARPOWER [a relative gimme, despite the ?-marker clue]. PSYCHSUP. ADNAUSEAM. SMASHHIT. ONE clue.
Thanx for the feisty fun, Mr. Evans dude. Nice job.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
**gruntz**
Fastest & most fun Friday in a while - kinda Robynesque (a good thing for me). Didn't know TRUSTFALL, SIA or MYA (did know RIC though) but they worked themselves out & I enjoyed it a lot. Thank you, Trent :)
@Whatsername 11:01 AM
Bless you for fostering. My wife follows a woman on Instagram who owns a funny dog named Simon and also fosters one dog after another and currently has a big hippo-like lug called Poutine. I've learned all about the emotional rollercoaster and huge service foster families provide to the community. When you hear the tragic way too many animals are treated, it can be easy to lose faith in humanity. I hope there's a special place in HE-double toothpick for some of these breeders. But then there's so many wonderful people like you doing the challenging work of rescuing, healing, and fostering critters back to health and happiness and then finding them permanent homes. Thank you for making the world a better place.
Matick Nation. No idea what the hell a TRUST FALL is, never heard of SIA, MYA, RIC, STEWIE, or [the television] ENOS; don't know what a FIFA or Madden Video is, so have no idea how it can be RATED E (for that matter, no idea what an "E" rating means, either) -- Fortunately, I do know who SADE is, but one out of a PPP plethora is pretty small beer.
Okay I feel pretty stupid. I had totally forgotten about factorials. Even though math was my best subject in high school!
Also, technically: !0 ("Not zero") = TRUE rather than 1. Senior moment.
buTToN before MITTEN, IhaveTORUN before INEEDTORUN, tEeHEe before HEHHEH…those snags held me up for a while, but still a personal best!
Indeed, 27 down should have had the caveat, "Unless you're Jewish."
Or, this year, "unless you're CISHET", as well.
There go my decades of marching along in solidarity.
My listers list for today:
LENIN: A-List, pretty famous mass murderer.
MYA: D-List, one Grammy, one #1 hit (collab with much more famous peeps) and a Wikipedia page written by her publicist that comes up 8th when searching Mya.
RIC: C-List, no #1 hit, and the reason you think he's more famous was a song in 1982 (42 years ago).
ENOS: Crosswordese, we are unable to rank this person based on his shamelessly popular appearances in every crossword ever.
SADE: C-List, super famous in 1984 (40 years ago)
BEETHOVEN: A-List, despite only using one word, "ACH." (I listed him under Foreignisms today.) There's a dead dog named after him.
WILL HUNTING: B-List, that movie was 27 years ago. Where were you 27 years ago. I saw the fourth Despicable Me (Minions) two days ago. Don't go see it, it's terrible, but Gru is way more famous than Matt Damon among the six to ten age group.
SIA: A-List, okay, admittedly I have a crush on her after one haircut in 2014. Let's compromise on B-list.
ELMO: D minus-List, They left a fuzzy A-Lister on the bench and slaughtered a Catholic famous for curing stomach aches since 303 AD instead. He's not even as famous as Rolaids.
STEWIE: F-List, that's a stupid show.
MAHER: D-List, I think he was kinda famous if you love or hate lefty comedians. I haven't seen a clip of him in at least a decade. He's probably doing a podcast or streaming or on cable in the four-digit numbered stations.
HAL: F-List, a super not famous Hal. Just open the pod bay door and move on to find a better non-mathlete clue for ONE.
@Gary (12:47) Thank you for your extremely kind words. Things like that and of course, the incredible love and devotion you get in return, make it all worthwhile.
What is mens “rea”?
TRUSTFALL is a term I have never seen before today. I would have appreciated an explanation.
Easy. Top tier themeless IMO. All the long entries hit - or tickled, in a non-torturous way. Really liked this one. Well done, Trent!
I watched this last week, and it's hilarious: Jiminy Glick (Martin Short) interview with Bill Maher
@Gary Jugert Siamese cats racist??? Why. I raise Nigerian goats. Is that racist? Siam was a country from which these cats came. No? To say it’s racist is to say Thai food is racist or Japanese cars is racist. C’mon.
What makes Brie an historical region?
ALITTLEHELPHERE is what I say when, due to my back injury and related neuropathy issues, I can’t extricate myself from a fast current in the river when we are fishing together. Whichever of my three sons is nearest will wade in, take my arm, and guide me to shore. Chances are I’m paying for the trip and they don’t want me to drown.
Re: holiday fireworks. At our last house one neighbour set another neighbour’s house on fire with his Hallowe’en pyrotechnics. A lot of sirens and flashing lights. More fun than the fireworks, really.
@Beezer. I like your take on SOCIALCUES. I’ve used both those things but that’s because I am basically anti-social. I try to be nice but sometimes I just have to get the f**k out of there.
And like @Carola, I was “wading through molasses”. I knew RIC, MAHER, STEWIE. and SADE but I’m just too old for MYA or SIA. Thankful for crosses.
TRUSTFALL. I’m with @Nancy and (possibly, I’m not scrolling back that far to find out) @pabloinnh. I worked in a large com many for just over 20 years and if they had announced a retreat, I would have announced a sick day.
Oh, I forgot to say that the 2D clue/answer combo was really good. And MITTEN was pretty bad because who puts arms on a snowman?
RIC ADS TATA ONE ACH DEE DOER HEHHEH AAAS TSA (clue was stupid-tough but it's still TSA)
And HAL March, Really?
HehHeh
@Gary J…touché! (“The reason you think he’s famous…”) okay. RIC was just in my personal wheelhouse, I guess.
SIA, MYA, and SADE? SRSLY!
@Rex Just saw Hamlet at Bard on the Beach in Vancouver a few nights ago. I was as bit antsy about it because the poster showed everyone in modern dress and I thought, Oh no, another avant-garde adaptation, but it turned out OK. Pretty good, in fact. Have tickets for a September performance of Measure for Measure, which I swear I've never seen, even though my wife tells me we saw it at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival a few years back. Whatever, if I can't remember it, they can't screw it up for me, can they?
I don't know if production people from different venues talk to each other but Bard's production of Goblin MacBeth was absolutely horrible. Please warn your daughter about this kind of thing.
Bob Mills
Draw (in) and LURE (in)
Close enough for crosswords.
The answer doesn’t have to work in all cases, just some
A little help here
Also close enough for crosswords to me. Clues are not necessarily definitions, they are often hints.
Don’t think Ric Ocasek was a pop singer. He was the head of a quite famous rock group starting in the seventies. I would think pop singers become famous at least partly from their voice. Also pop and rock are not the same.
I liked the puzzle.
Thought it was on the easy side.
Interesting, Gary Jugert REALLY REALLY hated the names. To be fair about RIC his name has been in the Times puzzle quite often. The unusual spelling is convenient for crosswords.
He was as noted above the head of and lead singer of the Cars, a major rock. Group (They were big for at least a decade starting in the late’70’s).
For me, his name was first fixed in my mind by crosswords.
I don’t think it was unfair for a Friday.
The heart has 4 CHAMBERS NOT VALVES. The aorta connects to a chamber not a valve. Terrible mistake that has yet to be corrected.
Curious @Metro Gnome, how do you spend your free time? You've never heard of a wide swath of things. Just The Arts, maybe?
And am surprised how many never heard of TRUSTFALL. It was a popular thing in youth, also seen on many TV shows and movies. It's when you face away from a friend, fold your arms across your chest, and fall backwards while the other person catches you. Hence TRUSTFALL, because you don't know whether or not the person will catch you. A true friend will, but others will let you plop to the ground.
Very easy until I got to the NW corner and stumbled.
I know it from the movie Psycho. The detective says, if it doesn't gel, it isn't aspic.
I am a corporate trainer/coach/retreat leader/team builder, whatever.
We stopped doing TRUST FALLs in the early 90’s. Mostly for safety reasons, but also because they’re dumb. You are asking a lot of your coworkers and for what? Trusting someone to catch you has nothing to do with trusting them to be a good colleague. Asking people to do something in which one or both participants can get hurt - maybe seriously - is never a good idea.
Hi Rex, my wife and I saw Hamlet in Winona on Thursday night 4th of July. Great show, kudos to your daughter and to all of the crew!
As a child of the ‘80s, the moment I deduced that 10-letter 26 down “Green Juice?” was SOLARPOWER and not ECTOCOOLER, I nearly forfeited this puzzle out of principle.
I'm commenting late, but I just got back from the Great River Shakespeare Festival, and I'm eager to hear what you thoughts of the plays!
Thanks!
kj (Bardfilm)
SRSLY? Ugh. Words, not gibberish, please and thank you.
My immediate reaction. Can see the white album cover in my head.
NO ONE ALONE
“LET’SPARTY” is A SOCIALCUE,
A NOBRAINER LURE TO fun,
so ALLABOARD, AIN’T hard TO DO,
HEH,HEH, INEEDTORUN.
--- STEWIE MAHER
SRSLY, a great Friday puzzle - other than SRSLY!
Must be my age but any references to ASPIC always remind me of the excellent 1968 Cold War thriller "A Dandy in Aspic" starring Laurence Harvey, Tom Courtney and Mia Farrow. Age also a factor in having no idea about MYA and RIC but easily remembering HAL March and "The $64,000 question".
DNF: the #&@*! NW again! TSAR/RES...and nothing else. Culprit: "Tom" in the CAT clue. Everyone knows TABBY means female. Abetting: "Train-ing." Oh puhlease! Corn like that should rot on the ear. And none of the downs helped at all. Bah.
Wordle birdie.
NW corner almost killed me. I knew 6D began with F and ended in A. I wrote in ACAI for the 7D bowl, and finally I remembered the TRUSTFALL thingie. That let me finally finish the puzzle. But now when I think of a trustfall, this commercial comes to mind:
https://youtu.be/8VfsciIdJrs?si=eXxtRQQsfClCrIFu
@ spacecraft 2:32pm :
Most tabby cats are male! Tabby does not mean female!
No write-overs here. Found it an easy-ish and fun Fri-puz. Also found a new kea-loa in F___A; is it FLORA or FAUNA? Fill in the middle later.
Mishandled wordle into a bogey.
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