Sunday, July 14, 2024

Harmful algal blooms / SUN 7-14-24 / Early invader of Britain / Traveling caller, perhaps / QVC alternative / Place with swinging doors, stereotypically

Constructor: Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME: "It Goes Both Ways" — palindromes ... that's it

Theme answers:
  • CD CASE DIVIDES AC/DC (22A: Rock group clashes over album art?)
  • PACER'S SELFLESS RECAP (36A: Humble postgame summary from an Indiana basketball player?)
  • "KLAUS, ACT CASUAL, K?" (Slangy request to a German to play it cool?)
  • NARC, IN A PANIC, RAN (74A: What happened when the bus went sideways?)
  • SEUSS IGNITING ISSUES (99A: Headline regarding a children's author's controversy?)
  • "IRISH SIDE DISH, SIRI" (118A: Voice-activated order for cabbage or soda bread?)
Word of the Day: FRED Hampton (10D: Activist Hampton of the Black Panthers) —

Fredrick Allen Hampton Sr. (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an American activist. He came to prominence in his late teens and very early 20s in Chicago as deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party and chair of the Illinois chapter. As a progressive African American, he founded the anti-racist, anti-classist Rainbow Coalition, a prominent multicultural political organization that initially included the Black Panthers, Young Patriots (which organized poor whites), and the Young Lords (which organized Hispanics), and an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them end infighting and work for social change. A Marxist–Leninist, Hampton considered fascism the greatest threat, saying "nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all."

In 1967, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified Hampton as a radical threat. It tried to subvert his activities in Chicago, sowing disinformation among black progressive groups and placing a counterintelligence operative in the local Panthers organization. In December 1969, Hampton was drugged, then shot and killed in his bed during a predawn raid at his Chicago apartment by a tactical unit of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, who received aid from the Chicago Police Department and the FBI leading up to the attack. Law enforcement sprayed more than 100 gunshots throughout the apartment; the occupants fired once. During the raid, Panther Mark Clark was also killed and several others were seriously wounded. In January 1970, the Cook County Coroner held an inquest; the coroner's jury concluded that Hampton's and Clark's deaths were justifiable homicides.

A civil lawsuit was later filed on behalf of the survivors and the relatives of Hampton and Clark. It was resolved in 1982 by a settlement of $1.85 million (equivalent to $5.84 million in 2023); the U.S. federal governmentCook County, and the City of Chicago each paid one-third to a group of nine plaintiffs. Given revelations about the illegal COINTELPRO program and documents associated with the killings, many scholars now consider Hampton's death, at age 21, a deliberate murder or an assassination at the FBI's initiative. (wikipedia)

• • •

Greetings from the north shore of Lake Crossword. Write-ups will be brief this week, as I am on vacation with my best friends and want to enjoy it. I have very able substitutes, obviously (thanks, Eli, for filling in yesterday), but I'm gonna be away a lot this summer and didn't want to disappear from the blog for Too long, so we're gonna experiment with Micro Write-Ups (which will probably end up being just as long as my regular write-ups by the end of the week, as muscle memory just takes over). As I type, right now, 7:27pm Saturday night (the Sunday puzzle comes out 6pm Saturday, for whoever didn't already know that), apparently there is a Big News Story unfolding, one of those Big News Stories that makes me happy I'm distracted by blogging so I'm not tempted to be constantly refreshing my news feed trying to figure out What The Hell Is Happening. I wish we could just have a normal one, just a day without political chaos, that would be nice. Anyway ... no comment at this point, as I "know" very little and know even less. About this puzzle, however, I do know something, and that's that it wasn't very good. Or ... there wasn't much there. Palindromes. That's it. Nothing to make the puzzle cohere beyond ... palindromes. You could do this sort of thing all day, but why would you? Are some of them funny? Maybe the one about KLAUS is funny, because outlandish (just imagining the context in which anyone might say, "KLAUS, ACT CASUAL, K?" is pretty amusing), but the rest are kinda meh, and again, there's just not enough here to make the theme cohere as a theme. If you had a bunch of palindromes that had something, anything, in common—a feature, a topic, anything—then maybe you'd have something. But you don't, so you don't. Have something, that is. And "It Goes Both Ways" is about as uninspired a title as you could imagine for a palindrome theme. The puzzle isn't really trying, is what I'm saying. Disappointing.


I'm already spending more time writing this than I'd planned to. So let's step on the gas here. As I say, the puzzle theme was not elevated enough to be interesting, and, because it involved palindromes, it also made the puzzle super duper easy. As I moved down the grid, I just kept filling in themers by writing in the squares that I knew would be doubled, before I even looked at the theme clues. If I got "-ALK" at the end of an answer, then I write "KLA-" in a the beginning because that's how palindromes work. So there were just freebie letters, all over the place. And even without this assist, the grid was really easy. Buncha names I didn't know (CORA TOM IAN) but they were all easy to get from crosses. Zero trouble spots otherwise. Hardest stuff for me was figuring out what followed OREO at 85D: Nabisco treat with ice cream and cookies (OREO CONE), and figuring out A-LISTER (1A: J.Lo or J-Law), a term I really don't care for or use. The clue on INFORM was also hard, because vague (8A: Brief). I had OOH before OOF (84A: "That's gotta hurt!") and, more disruptively, INNARDS before INSIDES (96D: Guts). I like my answer better. By a long shot. But whatever, none of these problems were real problems, none of these "difficulties" were very difficult, just as none of this puzzle was terribly interesting. I like the term FINAL CUT (14D: Version shown at the movie theater), and "STAY CALM" has a respectable amount of colloquial energy, but otherwise, look at the grid—there's just not a lot on offer. No real sparkle. Let's go to the lightning round...

Lightning round:
  • 44A: You might go for a spin in one (TUTU) — this clue was cute. I appreciate the misdirection effort here
  • 92A: Early invader of Britain (DANE) — this could've been a lot of things, Britain being an invasion magnet for centuries and centuries. The most consequential of those invasions was the Norman one (1066), but the Danes left their imprint all over Britain in the late first millennium, particularly the west coast ("Danelaw"). [Update: my east/west dyslexia strikes again—it’s EAST coast—thx to the commenter who pointed this out]
  • 82D: First name in soul (OTIS) — here you go, one of the most amazing and influential live performances of all time:

  • 45A: Doohickey (ITEM) — again, the puzzle tries to do that clue-doubling thing but it only really works for *one* of the clues. [Doohickey] is just fine, perfect even, for THINGY, but for plain old ITEM, it is way, Way less apt.
  • 106A: Player in a baseball stadium (ORGANIST) — took me way to long to figure out that the "player" wasn't playing baseball. Rookie mistake. Or "rookie slowness," I guess. I blame the massive fish & chips dinner I just ate. No, wait, I solved before I ate ... whatever, I blame something. The over air-conditioned basement of this Airbnb? Yes, that'll do.
  • 126A: Traveling caller, perhaps (REF) — "Traveling" is a violation in basketball, and the official who "calls" the violation is a referee (or "REF"). This has been Remedial Sports Talk with Rex Parker. Join us next week when I explain what RGS are in American football or what TREY means in basketball parlance or what a TATER is in baseball slang or something like that. 
  • 114D: Skinny pieces of clothing (TIES) — remember skinny ties?! If not, then you missed the early '80s. They were a fashion staple there, for a bit, insofar as men had fashion staples then. Hmm, according to "High Cotton Ties Dot Com" (yes, a real website), skinny TIES are still a thing, the way all things are still a thing in this eternally retro long-'90s internet-flattened era that we are all apparently doomed to live in forever and ever until the end of the world: "Skinny ties have been in and out of style for years, following the ebb and flow of fashion. They became a hit in the '50s and '60s, then resurged in the '80s with the synth-pop craze. Today, skinny ties remain cool, especially for younger and taller guys who dig that retro vibe." Dig that retro vibe, crossword hepcats. I'll see you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. still clearly have some work to do on this whole "micro write-up" concept.

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

98 comments:

  1. Easy. I started out with Actress at 1a and immediately erased it after RED TIDES was a gimme. After that it was pretty whooshy. I had a sense of repeating letters as I was solving but I was moving along so smoothly that I didn’t stop to think about it…so I got the theme post solve.

    The wacky long palindromes were impressive but I agree with @Rex on this one and I was glad it went fairly quickly. Didn’t hate it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:35 AM

    I was really hoping 96D [Guts] was gonna be OVARIES

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1:00 AM

    1. Maybe every future Sunday Times Crossword should have a palindrome theme. It would cut down on the inevitable poor themes that show up now!
    2. "Micro Write-Ups"? Jeez, why don't you just cut and paste XWord Fiend posts instead?

    ReplyDelete
  4. LMTR. In fact, I actually lived this puzzle. I guess I 'm just a sucker for palindromes. But since palindromes like "A man, a plan, a canal --Panama" don't grow on trees, considerable license must be given to the constructor who's going to deploy them, and I don't think Jeff abused the privilege (except maybe for the one Rex liked... I don't know anyone who is too lazy to say "ok“ and just says" k, " but ok then, I mean k then...)
    There was a frustrating amount of PPP in the puzzle but Jeff (or his editor?) took care that the crossings were fair... I didn't detect a single natick. So for my money, Jeff shows once again that he is puzzlemeister, so kudos and five ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. should read "loved this puzzle," not "lived this puzzle" … apologies for "fat fingers"

      Delete
    2. Ellen Comisar8:29 AM

      Per last Sunday's puzzle, you've got fat fingers syndrome!!!

      And, we say or text k or kk all the time

      Delete
    3. Anonymous9:54 PM

      hi Ken, what does LMTR mean? cannot figure it out. thanks! -sam

      Delete
  5. This looks like a puzzle made by AI. Just because your software can spit out a bunch of palindromes why should we have to suffer? Worst of all it was boringly easy to solve.

    yd -0. QB86

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous1:57 AM

    Dua Lipa Saturday and Sunday?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous2:26 AM

    A sub-7 time on a NYT Sunday, crazy. Normally only LAT and WaPo are easy enough for me to achieve that. I have a (not very sound, probably) way to roughly estimate how hard a Sunday was for me in terms of 15x15 puzzle weekdays, just dividing my time by 441 = 21x21 and multiplying by 225 = 15x15. Doing that with today's time tells me that the puzzle was just a jumbo-size Tuesday.

    I also had a rookie mistake, which was trying to fit in a single word at 125A. I wanted "guts" to be metaphorical, so INSIDES came as a bit of a surprise.

    I know that some r/crossword users have asked about TSAR vs CZAR and the general consensus is, if it's the Russian ruler, it's always TSAR. Well, not today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous3:36 PM

      or czar or tzar

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:11 PM

      You’ve got the association backwards. A general “person in authority” is always czar. The Russian ruler can be any of the spelling variations.

      Delete
  8. Anonymous2:44 AM

    Fastest Sunday solve in my life, with “innards” being my only misstep, too (and I also like it much more). I’m no wizard at this game, so my success means Rex needs a new category for this puzzle. I suggest “stupid easy”.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous2:51 AM

    Liked it better than OFL, which seems to happen on the regular.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Once I figured out the gimmick this was pretty easy.

    Hey I guess that shooter was a Buffalo Bills fan because he missed wide right.

    Thank you and God bless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:09 PM

      That is not funny, to put it mildly.

      Delete
  11. Methodically plodded from top to bottom. Didn’t see the title, so palindromes didn’t come into view until the last couple where I got to do the fill in the blanks thing. Pretty much what Rex said…

    Interesting article in the Atlantic about the cratering of the tie market, with the final nail in the coffin being the pandemic. They mention other ends of the line for fashion items, such as JFK’s not wearing a hat for his inaugural address.

    I really want to put a K somewhere in CURAÇAO, which makes a nice pairing with LUAU.

    ReplyDelete

  12. Easy here too. I liked it, but I figured out that the long acrosses were palindromes from the title and the first one at 22A. And that made it easy for the reason @Rex stated: every letter entered into a theme answer became two letters. That made things I didn't know (FRED Hampton at 10D, the TOM at 83A) easier to get. It also helped that those two names are very common.

    I wanted pict or celt at 92A, but by the time I read the clue I had too much of DANE to consider anything else.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous5:23 AM

    Just to be super pedantic (as a Northumbrian) it was the EAST coast of England that was under Danelaw, not the west (although there were some Viking settlements on west cost of Scotland)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Oliver5:39 AM

    Like the idea, hate the execution. The answers just aren’t good enough.

    Easy, though. Knocked 20 mins off my best Sunday time, so that’s nice.

    ReplyDelete
  15. This wasn’t that hard, and yet I found myself reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the middle of it.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Most stunt puzzles, this one included, wow me, take me to an “OMG, how did that constructor do that?” place. Today, the answer to that question is “hard work”, as Jeff’s notes reveal that there were “dozens of hours” of effort, including manual brain-only work and computer coding. Hard work and creative work.

    That, by the way, is Jeff Chen. A workhorse with a talented creative mind.

    But if the solve is unsatisfying, if the puzzle isn’t engaging, then the stunt puzzle falls flat, IMO. Not today. Yes, these theme answers were easier to fill in because each square was a bogo, but still I couldn’t figure out the full theme answers until I had many crosses.

    My brain positively loved that, loved the challenge of figuring them out with as many empty squares as possible. That’s a Puzzle. That’s a puzzle doing its job.

    I liked the theme echo in the palindromic answer ANA, and I liked the distant echo in the decent number of semordnilaps in the grid, including the rare sighting of a semordnilap pair (IRS and SRI).

    Today, a display of fresh, ridiculously long, and delicious palindromes such as we may never see again. Wow, Jeff, and thank you for this!

    ReplyDelete
  17. It was definitely nice to just breeze through a Sunday for a change - easily my fastest ever. I didn’t pick up the palindrome gimmick, so I had to parse together the actual phrases - and wow, that extra K at the end of the KLAUS one was really messing with my karma for a while. That was pretty much the only speed bump today.

    ReplyDelete
  18. EasyEd8:00 AM

    Wow, amazing palindromes. Actually I was too busy figuring out the punny theme answers to catch on to the theme before coming to the blog. Not so humorous or in-the-language today but a super effort at linguistic contortion. Jeff Chen always seems to provide fine entertainment.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Definitely on the easy side. To make it more challenging, I print the puzzle and spend a lot of time trying to read the tiny numbers. Works for me.

    Since the title gave away the game it was a matter of getting the first, or last parts of the palindrome and then transferring letters, as OFL points out. This made for a speedy solve except for other difficulties (see above).

    I like palindromes. My favorite is still the vaguely French Canadian "He goddam mad dog, eh?" I found today's wacky enough to be interesting.

    And although I am partial to river OTTERS, the appearance of a SEAOTTER makes me smile too. I always picture them floating on their backs and cracking shellfish on a rock balanced on their tummies. Yay for otters.

    OK Sunday, JC. Just Cause for me to say "stunt puzzle", which I always enjoy. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Refs basically don’t call traveling any more.

    Was briefly wondering whether Jude Law is truly an a-lister; decided yes, he is; then realized that’s not who the clue is talking about.

    If one had to write a one-word review there would be several good options:
    OOF
    DESIST
    TEDIUM
    REDO

    ReplyDelete
  21. I like palindromes (capicuas in spanish), and I even had a palindomic phone number for awhile. Loved it! But in puzzles, they make things way too easy. Otherwise, the puzzle had a few cute, fun answers, but overall, it wasn't my favorite.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous8:41 AM

    The only redeeming feature of this puzzle was that it was extremely easy. Talk about phoning it in, sheesh.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous8:55 AM

    Danelaw = east coast

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous8:56 AM

    I challenge the puzzle naysayers to come up with even ONE original palindrome clue. Do o God, do good!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous8:59 AM

    A shamrock has three leaves, not four.
    That is why St. Patrick used it to explain the Holy Trinity and it became a symbol of Ireland.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous1:24 AM

      Yes, that's why the clue is "Unlike a shamrock".

      Delete
  26. Anonymous9:02 AM

    Thanks for the Otis video. Nice Sunday morning treat.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Liked it! Palindromes helped with proper nouns. Thanks, Jeff!

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous9:15 AM

    Happy? That’s deranged and evil. A broken mind.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Anonymous9:16 AM

    Thank you for taking time from you vacation to comment on today's puzzle. Your fill-ins are great, but you cannot beat the original. Appreciated to abbreviated entry today.

    ReplyDelete
  30. First of all, the title gives away the whole shebang. If I were Jeff, I might have complained about that.

    Just to be absolutely sure, though, that we were going to be dealing with palindromes before I started recklessly writing in letters backwards, I took the gimme "C" of ARC and checked to see if there would be a "C" at the end of 22A. Yep. CZAR. So now I have a choice.

    I can mindlessly write in letters backwards -- or write backwards letters forward, if you see what I mean -- or I can try to guess at the tortured phrases with as few letters as I can manage. Will that be fun? Let's see. What do I have to look forward to?

    A phrase that rolls as trippingly off the tongue as CDCASEDIVIDESACDC? A sentence as exquisitely honed as KLAUSACTCASUALK? As Pooh might say, "Oh bother!"

    I opt for the backward-writing THINGY instead-y. Which makes this puzzle PANSA. And a bit of a bore, I'm afraid.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Anon 2:26am. Yes, Jeff flouted the czar/tsar convention. Is nothing tsacred?

    ReplyDelete
  32. Have you seen this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUQDzj6R3p4

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous5:36 PM

      I'd not seen that one before: thank you.

      Delete
  33. Hey All !
    Yes, saw the news. Yes, hopefully some sort of good will come out of this. No, I don't think it will, unfortunately.

    Took a minute to realize that we were dealing with palindromes. I got the KLAUS one first, and it took the ole brain a bit to parse CASUALK as "Casual, K?" I was saying to myself, "What in tarhooties is CASUALK?" (said as one word.) See also trying to figure out what a PANICRAN (pana-cran) was. OOF. Silly brain.

    This was a pretty good theme, I thought. Nice that the 'dromes where long. Some neat finds that I believe (without looking elsewhere) Jeff more than likely had computer help. If not, though, Huzzah! at the finds.

    Go watch Weird Al's video of his song "Bob". Palindromific. Would find it and paste it here, but too lazy.

    Anyway, hope y'all have a Happy Sunday! I'm OUTTA here.

    Five F's
    RooMonster
    DarrinV

    ReplyDelete
  34. Anonymous9:51 AM

    Impressively long palindromes, a few forced and a few clicked. Kept my interest

    Easy crosses but some nice clues. Medium time, attributed to distraction of breaking news last evening

    As far as CZAR- I guess that old saw "If you make the rules, you can break the rules" is applicable here, as well as to czars in general!

    ReplyDelete
  35. Fubar9:51 AM

    To OFL - It’s in your brief to brief us, whether you are brief or not makes no difference.

    Despite leaving the puzzle open while I got distracted, and picking up while nodding off last night, finished in near record time. No-looked some of the theme clues. Did have a weird Duaja Vu moment as I filled in today’s Dua, thinking I’d already used her, but yes, that was yesterday.

    For you Otis lovers, just finished the fantastic HBO documentary on Stax records - Soulsville USA. Powerful and poignant on the music and the times.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Anonymous9:53 AM

    Shouldn't the term for palindrome BE a palindrome? I offer: wordrow.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:12 PM

      yes ! and now it is. congratulations and thank you.

      Delete
  37. I liked this theme and puzzle but agree with Rex and others: It would've been more impressive if the palindromes had a theme to them, some connecting them all. Still, I *liked* the palindromes - kinda dad jokes all. Lots of PPP were balanced by the many short, easy answers. I had INNARDS for "guts" at first.

    ReplyDelete
  38. I, for one, welcome my new Sunday puzzle fastest time. And looking at the comments, I've got plenty of company.

    ReplyDelete
  39. My word of the day was TEDIUM (hi, @kitshef 8:06). At least the palindromes made it go faster.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Total groaner but still enjoyed IRISH SIDE DISHES, SIRI

    ReplyDelete
  41. This was fun & went pretty quickly for me. I was surprised since it was a Jeff Chen puzzle. I liked it but didn't have the patience to look for my typo so I lost my (not much of one anyway) "streak."
    Thank you, Jeff & good to see you :)

    ReplyDelete
  42. "KLAUSACTCASUAL,K"?! People Magazine wouldn't have let that fly....

    ReplyDelete
  43. Unusually stingy day for Hidden Diagonal Words (HDW), especially with the Sunday-sized grid--lots of blocker squares interfering with the diagonal flow and lots of diagonals with strings of consecutive vowels or consonants.

    But in keeping with the "Goes Both Ways" theme, I offer these HDW clues:

    1. "Help us!"

    2. "Eureka!"

    3. Gets it

    (Answers below)

    I knew without a doubt that @Lewis would have already noted the extra palindrome, that fifth theme answer ANA.

    Answers:

    1. SOS (O in 125A, SEA OTTER)

    2. AHA (A in 125A, SEA OTTER)

    3. SEES (first S in 24D, DESIST)

    SEUSSIGNITINGISSUES? OOF!

    ReplyDelete
  44. So impressed with finding same length palindromes and making them work - not silly, fun! Impressive.

    ReplyDelete
  45. My wake-up activities (which Diva allows me to unfettered) are NYTXW, Connections and Jeff’s I’mSqueezy. Nice to see a pretty fun offering from Mr. Chen!

    K is such a ridiculous shortcut for OK. Back in the aughts, when Cingular (remember them?) used to charge 10¢ for every text, had an intern who would text one word (or 1-2 letters) at a time , rather than a sentence or paragraph.

    Want
    Me 2
    Come
    in
    ?

    When I spent another dime saying that put his thoughts in one message to avoid these silly charges, he texted.

    K.
    So do
    U Want
    Me 2 come
    In
    ?
    ??

    Nope. At that point, went with a different intern. Felt like a cheapskate, but his DMs were costing me more than if I just hired a paid employee.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Do you really need to be a SMOKER to be a brisket cooker? What happens if you switch to vaping?

    Sorry, but I wanted a SARI from SRI Lanka, SIRI, not some cabbage and soda bread.

    If a sexist practices sexism, does an ORGANIST practice organism?

    I liked and admired this puzzle, even though it was pie-like in degree of solving difficulty. Constructing it would clearly be a bear. Thanks, Jeff Chen.

    ReplyDelete
  47. ChrisR11:32 AM

    That was my second fastest Sunday, a day after my second fastest Saturday. I'm a sucker for feats of construction, such as these long, quasi-sensical palindromes. The first is my favorite, and it reminded me of the video "How to make an AC/DC song in 30 seconds".

    ReplyDelete
  48. Randall11:46 AM

    I truly wonder why you continue to do the NYT Crossword, since it seems to very usually cause you to be annoyed and/or disappointed. I suppose the ceaseless negativity is just your schtick, but it gets tiring and quite boring. I look at your blog because I hold out hope that you will have something positive to say, but it rarely occurs. I can't take much more cynicism in the world. I, for one, wish there was more uplift from Rex Parker. Is it too much to ask?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @Randall 11:46 AM
      I'm fine with 🦖 giving his honest opinion each day. For a rosy-er assessment of the puzzle, the in-house blog at Wordplay may provide you with an uplift.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous3:05 PM

      @randall Similarly, why do you continue to come here to read? Makes no sense. That is an active pursuit. Wordplay is consistently sunny, if that’s your jam.

      Delete
  49. Since most people start at the top and solve down, it makes sense to have your best theme answers early on and that, in my opinion, is what happened here. I didn’t find theme answers all that interesting below 63D. Narcs, Seuss issues and Siri, okay.

    At one ACPT, there was a palindrome writing contest. An interesting concept but it was really boring to listen to someone read offa string of barely connected words; you had to take it on trust that they ran backwards and forwards because it was impossible to keep track. Impressive feats but not all that entertaining.

    Jeff Chen, I appreciate the work you put into this, thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Desperate palindromers. Kinda funny theme. Thought the CASUALK themer was especially harlarious. M&A had to work hard to top it, with this one:
    Clue: "Rats! Oompah-packed anger-filled interruption!" *

    staff weeject picks [of a mere 43 choices]: ALA & ANA seem appropriate, for some reason.

    fave thing: Extended Jaws of Sundayness.
    other faves included: STAYCALM. LAUREATE. FOURLEAF. SOCIETY. THINGY. LUAU & TUTU & their clues.

    1/2-gimme themers did, as many have suggested, help keep the solvequest nanoseconds shorter than usual.

    Thanx, Jeff Cdude. In a coupla ways.

    Masked & Anonymo15Us

    p.s.
    * = DAMN IT TUBAS A BUTT-IN MAD.

    **gruntz**

    ReplyDelete
  51. Sorry I’m new —- what’s OFL?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous2:48 PM

      Our Fearless Leader

      Delete
  52. I miss the days when Jeff Chen was part of the Xword Info blog. I also miss the days where it was free. Now I don’t go there any more.

    ReplyDelete
  53. To LewS 12:24…
    OFL = Ontario Football League.
    Just kidding! It means Our Fearless Leader aka Rex Parker aka David Sharpe.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Phew. I needed a super easy Sunday because, now don't judge me, I was out until 1 am this morning and my body feels like there's an emergency going on. I was raised to think you need to be in the house with the front door locked by 9 pm so you can see the weather at 9:20 and get a good night's sleep before the alarm (unironically) goes off at 5 am. When kids wanted to go out at 9:30 in college, I was pretty sure we'd get in big trouble.

    Last night our beloved 97 year old theater down the street that's being bulldozed by the end of the month showed the final cut of 2001: A Space Odyssey at the 10 pm showing on the big screen for the last time there, and three of my wild friends drove in from the burbs to go with me. If you recall, it's about a zillion hours long, and moves at the slowest pace of any movie ever, and it has the trippy colors and loud crazy sounds scene at the end where the main character becomes a space baby, and by the end you're like, "what the actual heck?!" Well, needless to say, boggled anew by the brilliance of Stanley Kubrick, I loved every minute of it with popcorn and peanut M&Ms.

    I walked home by myself through the steamy neon lit corridors of the mean streets of Capitol Hill in Denver. They're not really mean, nor neon lit, but it was kinda steamy as we're having record-breaking heat. Don's Tavern was still packed to the gills with scantily clad youngsters in heat (so to speak) taking no heed of the apocryphal warnings in Pinocchio and were playing pool and staying up way past bedtime.

    So you can understand my relief at a fill-in-the-blank puzzle where you only need to get half of the theme answers because the other half is the same only backward. After a wild and crazy night, a very uneventful puzzle was just what I needed before taking a multivitamin and a nap.

    So let's see, what was in this puzzle anyway?

    The theme answers are more interesting after the puzzle is over than during the solve. Except the nonsensical SIRI one. And you gotta know the gunk is going to flow when the theme gets cutesy.

    Propers: 18
    Places: 1
    Products: 6
    Partials: 19
    Foreignisms: 7
    --
    Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 51 (37%)
    Recipes: 2 (beta)

    Funnyisms: 6 😐

    Tee-Hee: As in life, when presented with skirt options in a puzzle, I prefer mini, but today we must again accept a MIDI. Also, I usually get the hook when I cobble words in the puzzle to manufacture a scandal, so today I will only say there is an [underdressed keyboardist] available for your amusement.

    Uniclues (Jeff already did them for me, didn't he?):

    1 Chafing around the waist from combining ballet and hula attire.
    2 Feral cat in the alley behind a watering hole.
    3 Pong themed skirt for end of the year dance.
    4 Nobel winning bird escorted to the podium (or catfished).

    1 LUAU TUTU SORES (~)
    2 OUTTA SALOON TOM
    3 PROM ATARI MIDI
    4 LAUREATE EGRET LED ON (~)

    My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Career goal for all teen girls. HEIRESS DESPOTS.

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:13 PM

      Cdilly52 here @Gary J and I loved this writeup!

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  55. The Good: SEUSS IGNITING ISSUES; CD CASE DIVIDES AC/DC; PACER'S SELFLESS RECAP
    The Bad: NARC, IN A PANIC, RAN
    The Ugly: "KLAUS, ACT CASUAL, K?" (that "k" is really just tacked on there); IRISH SIDE DISH, SIRI (the "Siri" needs to go first, not last)

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  56. I'm an anagram lover but I have to admit I'm kind of a Sunday hater, so mixed feelings here. And OMG there were So Many Names!!!! Seemed like at least half the answers had names in them. Gary J, what's your grid gunk gage today?

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    Replies
    1. yeah, Gary, where are you when we really need ya? lol

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  57. azzurro1:27 PM

    Major Natick at ROZ/CZAR. I you’re going to use an obscure name as your cross, that’s not a good time to use an irregular spelling. At least clue the down with “policy leader” or something that’s not ambiguous about S or Z. Jeff usually avoids those things, but this wasn’t his best work.

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  58. As soon as I saw the byline, I knew Rex wouldn’t like it. Has he ever liked a Jeff Chen puzzle?

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  59. Anonymous3:07 PM

    I love palindromes so i loved this puzzle even though it really was SO easy. The KLAUS one made me actually LOL. (Another palindrome.)

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  60. 4D and the clue for 5D complement today's headlines quite remarkably

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  61. Anonymous4:07 PM

    Dig that retro vibe, hepcats
    One if Rex’s all-time best lines, thank you, I needed to smile

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  62. Anonymous4:10 PM

    Crossword hepcats!
    How can I have omitted that?!

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  63. I love doing the NYT Acrostic. Today’s was terrific. But when I went to look up the online article and commentary about this week’s Acrostic it was nowhere to be found. Did the NYT cancel the Acrostic article and commentary? If so, that is terrible news for puzzlers.

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  64. I'm in the mixed feelings camp on this one. I don't care how they do it, I'm totally impressed that anyone could come up with eight palindromes that not only required four sets of them to be of equal letter counts but also that they must range from 15 to 19 letters in length. Wow!

    On the other hand when I figured out what was going on relatively early the game the theme entries began filling themselves 50% in and that took away some of the thunder from the puzzle's theme. And I thought they varied from kind of goofy to nigh on gobbledygook, so that put a damper on my solve buzz.

    I think Rex and the commentariat are in fine form today. Looks like the vacation is good for Rex. He seems to be more relaxed and lighthearted and funnier too, right?

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  65. Writing before reading today. Wow, Jeff really came up with some palindromes. Sadly it made the puzzle way too easy because you get two squares for every cross you solve. The puzzle solver is a victim of the constructor's ingenuity. Oh, well. My fave was PACERS SELFLESS RECAP because it is funny and sounds less forced than the others.

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  66. Do organists still play at baseball games? *Sigh* . . . Gone are the days . . .

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  67. Anonymous5:44 PM

    JOHN X - not funny at all

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  68. Not only is the Sunday puzzle available online at 6pm Eastern time/3pm Pacific time on Saturday, but the Monday puzzle is also available at 6pm/3pm on Sunday.
    The rest of the week the next day's puzzle is available at 10pm/7pm.
    I assume that the puzzles are available at the corresponding times for Central time and Mountain time - but I have never tried from those time zones.

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  69. Anonymous6:17 PM

    Cdilly52 agreeing that as for this one, there’s just not much “there” there. I got the anagram immediately and glancing down the grid, I knew there would be more. I kinda like anagrams so that’s the part that gVe me some joy. Otherwise, sooooooooo many names and Biblical pronouns and crossword “stuff.” So un-Chenlike. Disappointing.

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  70. Anonymous7:23 PM

    Super easy - but give the guy credit for coming up with all the palindromes - nothing easy about that !

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  71. Enjoy your vacation! You deserve it.

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  72. Anonymous12:33 AM

    Jeff, while you’re making a nice easy puzzle even a knit-wit like me can solve, how about just titling it “Palindromes”?!
    I didn’t figure out the themes were palindromes until Rex spelled it out, k?
    And I love palindromes…though I won’t be quoting these to anyone.

    I did smile at the clue for ORGANIST, got that easily. [106A: Player in a baseball stadium]

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  73. Anonymous8:06 AM

    Yes, thank you for the Otis link. The very definition of “soul”. I had forgotten how beautiful he was and how tragically young when we lost him.

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  74. @Randall

    I truly wonder why you continue to read RexParker (and comment) since it seems to very usually cause you to be annoyed and/or disappointed. I suppose the ceaseless negativity is just your schtick, but it gets tiring and quite boring.

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  75. Anonymous4:28 PM

    Nice Job Jeff Chen- i love palindromes. i'm not sure about yuan = chinese dollar though. do we call the japanese yen the japanese dollar?

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  76. Anonymous9:50 AM

    I gotta start reading the titles before doing the puzzles!! I normally just jump in, and between the lack of the prompt from the title and my focus on the individual clues, I didn't ever catch on that the theme answers were plaindromes--I thought they were just 'wacky phrases'! It would have cut several minutes off my time if I'd figured that out!

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  77. Anonymous @ 10:28 complains that Randall's complaints(@11:46) about Rex's complaints being tiring and boring... are tiring and boring.I'm sure Jeff Chen could fashion a palindrome out of this...

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  78. Once around back to the beginning: is that a semordni-LAP?

    Leave it to the Chenmeister to come up with wacko pallies. Pity: letter add-ons sprinkled liberally about. CD, TV, ID...and that's just in the NW corner. (Never mind ALISTER.)

    Easy enough to avoid the slog label, though; that's a plus. Let's say par.

    Wordle bogey. Again. Grr..

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  79. Anonymous3:40 PM

    Growing up there was only one spelling I ever saw, and it was CZAR, which was transliterated from the Cyrrilic into English. It was when I started taking Russian in highschool in 1966,and saw it spelled using the Russian alphabet, that I absolutely knew the correct pronunciation. I'm not sure when the phonetic spelling TSAR became the preferred one.

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  80. Anonymous5:52 PM

    I just noticed that I misspelled Cyrillic, and Otto Korrupt didn't correct me. He's just plain mean!

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  81. Burma Shave6:57 PM

    SOCIETY NORMS

    "I NOTICED that THY SIDEDISH
    ha FOURLEAFs ASIDE,
    so IS IT really IRISH?"
    "YES,MAN, EACH LEAF DIVIDEs."

    --- KLAUS RUBIK

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  82. rondo7:28 PM

    No write-overs, but not my cuppa . . . Always like seeing grandma's cousin Greta GARBO in a puz.
    Wordle par.

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  83. Diana, LIW8:17 PM

    Whatdya know. the back and forth trick actually helped. A much better Sunday than last week!

    Lady Di

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