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Iraklion is its capital / SAT 7-13-24 / Indie rock's Tame ___ / Org. whose members work to get tips? / Prince Harry's real first name
Saturday, July 13, 2024
Constructor: ELI COTHAM
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (though I imagine your familiarity with 27A will have a pretty large bearing on whether you agree)
THEME: None - Saturday Night's All Right for Themeless
Word of the Day: NOLITA (20A: N.Y.C. neighborhood in which the first pizzeria in the United States was opened (1905)) —
Nolita, sometimes written as NoLIta and deriving from "North of Little Italy",[1][2][3] is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Nolita is situated in Lower Manhattan, bounded on the north by Houston Street, on the east by the Bowery, on the south roughly by Broome Street, and on the west by Lafayette Street.[4] It lies east of SoHo, south of NoHo, west of the Lower East Side, and north of Little Italy and Chinatown.
• • •
Hello, it's Eli filling in again! And I'm blogging about a puzzle from another Eli. Fun! I just got back from a 70mm screening of North By Northwest at the American Cinematheque and got a reminder on my phone that today's puzzle was mine, so here we are.I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this puzzle. That triple stack in the middle sparkles. It's always good to see MAHERSHALA ALI (27A: First Muslim actor to win an Academy Award), and the fact I dropped it in instantly goes a long way toward my not struggling on this puzzle. SEVEN TEN SPLIT (35A: Alley oops?) is probably the weakest of the three, and it was still a solid answer with a fun attempt at a misdirect clue. But I loved, Loved, LOVED LIKE HELL I WILL (33A: "Fat chance!"). I've been reading Raymond Chandler's Marlowe novels (on Rex's recommendation, actually) and this took me straight back into that world. It was the first thing I wanted to write in based on the clue, and when it both fit and the crosses made sense, I got huge smile. In fact, I'm toasting it with a scotch and soda as I type.
 |
| Proof |
Unfortunately, I worry that those stacks strained the rest of the grid. I had a hard time getting going in the northwest corner. TOTO isn't the worst way to start a puzzle, but the clue felt a million years old (1A: In ___ (completely). COE (21A: Olympian Sebastian), OATEN (6D: Like some cereal), and PLUS (7D: Good thing) weren't helping. When ANTZ (24A: Debut feature for Dreamworks Animation) is the newest thing in your corner, it's going to feel dusty. WPA MURALS (14A: Some Depression-era public art) is nice, but not exactly pulling the puzzle into this century. COPA could have been clued as the Copa America soccer tournament that ends tomorrow, but they went with the Barry Manilow song. But I do love that song, so it gets a pass.
The rest of the puzzle improves a bit, but it's not without issues. Do people outside of New York know NOLITA? I knew it, but I don't know why, and I don't know how many people do. Also, according to the Wikipedia article that name was coined in 1996, so giving it credit for opening the first pizzeria in 1905 is a bit of a stretch. Kudos for bringing us pizza, though.
I feel like being LITERATE is kind of the bare minimum for being (34D) "Learned, perhaps." ECLAT (16A: Fanfare) is a word that always rubs me the wrong way. I don't think I've ever heard anyone use it in the real world, and it always stands out as less than ideal. And look, Latin! OMNIA probably doesn't bother me most days, but it was just another blast from the past today.
But I don't want to dwell on the negative. There was a lot I liked in here, in addition to the central answers. HAIR METAL (51A: Twisted Sister's genre) is fun. And I loved the clue on SPANX (41D: Company with a "Bra-llelujah!" line). Hooray for sexy portmanteau! The kind of thing you might see in house of ILL REPUTE.
Quick Hits:
- 43D: Sam of "Jurassic Park" (NEILL) — Jurassic Park is legendary in my house, and Sam is a huge reason why. His delivery of "It's a bird cage" in Jurassic Park 3 has become an odd favorite amongst our friend group. Also, if you haven't seen Taika Waititi's Hunt for the Wilderpeople, it's amazing and he's fantastic in it.
- 48D: Home of the Peabody Museum of Natural History (YALE)— Do you think the constructor used this because he's an Eli? I know I would.
- 20D: Desire for a picnic (NO RAIN)— I imagine this is not a desire for Blind Melon, since they start to complain about it.
In the end, a bit of a mixed bag, but I had fun. OK, that's enough for now. I'LL SHUT UP (32D: "Sorry, that's enough out of me").
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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84 comments:
I agree with @Eli's Easy-Medium rating, probably a bit toward the Medium end of that.
Overwrites:
45D: Alas before AH ME, leading to ...
48A: wEll SURE before YEAH SURE
WOEs:
Needed every cross for 27A, MAHERSHALA ALI.
43D, Sam NEILL. Next time I watch Jurassic Park I'll have to stay for the credits
The rock group TAME IMPALA (47A)
51A, HAIR METAL. Yeah, I'm not very rock-conscious.
Couple false starts held me up today but overall I enjoyed the experience. When I saw the Olympian clue, I remember Sebastian Anton ONO and put it in immediately. Doh! Unfortunately, it’s Ohno. I was sure Twisted Sister would be glamMETAL, so that led to some delays as well. Couldn’t think of a 5 letter underwear company other than hanes, then removed that when I got nudGE instead of TINGE so some more slow downs in that section for awhile. Surprisingly, I spelled ALIs name correctly - minor question about an E or A in the “shal” portion, but went with an “A”.
I’m no Latin scholar, but isn’t 40D usually written as “amor vincit omnia”?
I came out of the NW with only TOTO, ASP and ANTZ, and I thought I was in for a proper Saturday challenge. Not a good sign when you get 1A but the initials of the crossing downs don't help. And I also have this uncanny ability to look at every single clue in a section except the one that's pretty much a gimme (NITRATES). I was looking for something ending in TRAP at 17A.
I filled in the NE quickly, leaving only the first square in _OLITA blank, and then put in LIPA (gimme), LEMONLAWS, and... TOILE. It's also a kind of fabric, and I've got that word etched into my brain since this puzzle: https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/2023/03/response-to-thumb-biting-in-romeo-and.html
At least the E gave me SEVEN-TEN SPLIT (I've seen the clue "alley oops" before) followed by HALTS, TULLE, MAHERSHALA ALI, and HURL. No way I would've gotten 27A from just the clue but I know my standard ALI clues. It's Saturday, so for [Fling] I was reading it in the "casual fling" sense. After filling in the middle stack, SW and SE were easy, and also the NW with more letters to help. Overall, my time was on the easier side of Friday. My slowest solve this week was actually the Thursday puzzle.
Handsome grid and wonderfully filled - I liked it. I’m with Eli - the center stack was fantastic - ALI went right in especially since my wife and I watched The Green Book yet again 4th of July weekend. REVEILLES and HAIR METAL are really solid as is WPA MURALS.
The original NO RAIN chant
Last to go in was SPANX but I had crossed the entire corner so no issues. Eli - NoLita is not a thing to a lot NYers. It was always Little Italy until the northern section was gentrified with young, white wealth. The epitome of affluent elitism.
Enjoyable Saturday morning solve. We get a real nice center spanner cross in Anna Stiga’s Sumper today too - another solid puzzle.
New Riders
NOLITA is not a thing to a native New Yorker. Like NoHo, North Chelsea and FiDi (and DUMBO in Brooklyn) they are coined by realtors to jack up a neighborhood’s prices.
A bounce-around start ending in the SE, which was the first quadrant to fall, although HAIRMETAL is a new term for me and of all the ways to spell NEILL, the correct one took a while to show up. Totally unfamiliar with MAHERSHALAALI. Where have I been? Fun to see SEVENTENSPLIT, as ours was a bowling family. I think my favorite bowling term is for a "widely scattered group of pins"--"grandma's teeth".
Wanted TWO something for the engine type but at least the W led to the WPA. Still have never seen The Wire, so no OMAR from that. Very vaguely familiar with IPALA and NOLITA as clued, but in both cases don't know how. And how did I miss the AA initials that would have made MILNE so obvious? Sheesh.
All in all a Saturday that went faster than I thought it would. Well done you, EC. Not Extra Challenging but lots of good stuff, and thanks for all the fun.
If you do enough Xwords, you get tired of WPA and it’s assorted FDR-era cousins - so at least the WPA MURALS were discernible from the crosses.
A couple of decent head scratchers on the cluing - Jet pack for USAF for example, and personally I think the flirtation with tip-ins on the NBA clue misses the mark. I would add “Take-out order” for DELE to the list as well - just too much editorial license there for my taste, even conceding that you have to have some stretch clues to amp up the difficulty level on a Saturday.
Speaking of Saturday, it’s always nice when they keep the trivia like NOLITA and the Latin crap like OMNIA to a minimum, which I think they were able to do today (as our host pointed out, if you know the actor with the long name, it’s going to be a tone setter for probably the entire grid today). Anyway, we have had much, much worse Saturdays, so enjoy it.
I love LIKE H3LL I WILL crossing I’LL SHUT UP, the latter maybe timidly coming after blasting out the former.
Both answers are NYT answer debuts, by the way, as are two other colloquial answers IT’S A SETUP and TASTE THIS. There are eight answer debuts overall, giving this puzzle serious pop, especially that scintillating center stack, with the top two being debuts, and the third having appeared but once in the Times puzzle.
I love that stack.
I also love:
• HAIR METAL, which triggers in me the electric feel of the teen-and-just-beyond years – remember that feel?
• ILL REPUTE, which, despite being old fashioned, doesn’t feel musty to me. I don’t hear it often, but when I do, it just sounds perfect; admirably does its job.
• The crossing wannabe names: TONY NOD and NORA IN.
• Being stuck in an area of the puzzle, leaving it, then later returning and in a whoosh filling that sucker in. That happened several times today.
So, much to love on top of completing a satisfying Saturday. Two puzzles into the NYT, Eli, your name has become one I hope to see much more of. Thank you for a splendid outing today!
Great write up Eli. Being old and musty myself, i was only slightly turned off by the creaky answers. Love Raymond Chandler, I would have toasted with a gin gimlet!
As usual on Saturdays, the proper nouns were the puzzle. Everything else was pleasant enough, but I was boxed out on most of the people.
MILNE, COE, ALI, IMPALA, OMAR, ZEKE, HENRY, LIPA, NEILL ... oddly I dropped MAHERSHALAALI straight in, but all the others, sheesk.
NOLITA feels unfair if you don't live in NYC. It's still Little Italy to the rest of us. Every city is making up fake neighborhood elisions. The alphabet soup they've dreamed up here in Denver is annoying because it's real estate development marketing firms thinking them up. They want to lease apartments and so we're all expected to play along with RiNo, SoBo, LoHi, and of course LoDo.
Boy I wanted IT'S A TRAP (from Star Wars).
Propers: 9
Places: 4
Products: 4
Partials: 6
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 26 (39%) (sigh)
Recipes: 0 (beta)
Funnyisms: 5 😄
Tee-Hee: HE-double toothpicks right there in the middle of the show. Gosh.
Uniclues:
1 Warning for AA about Disney's proposal.
2 Common name for trashing VHS tapes.
3 Unexcited phrase at the Hertz rent-a-car counter when the Corvette you reserved is unavailable.
4 Turn it down from 11.
5 A wee-bit of bad juju.
6 Romantic command from one whose got it all squished together.
7 Pilot alarms.
1 IT'S A SETUP MILNE
2 ANTZ HURL
3 IMPALA? YEAH SURE.
4 SNARL HAIR METAL
5 ILL REPUTE TINGE (~)
6 TASTE THIS SPANX
7 USAF REVEILLES
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Mister Magoo crew zoos. TOON FANFESTS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I can't believe I was somehow able to correctly spell MAHERSHALAALI only to be thwarted by ANTZ.
As a non-New Yorker, I saw the Little Italy wouldn’t fit and went with NOLITA as a guess.
This was a fun whoosh-whoosh puzzle. As Pogo would say, Friday the thirteenth come on a Saturday.
Amen!
Tough for an Old Person, but that's what you want on a Saturday. Loved the clue for NBA.
Another big thumbs up for The Hunt For the Wilderpeople. I always (shame on me, I guess) have trouble spelling Mahershalaali.
@Adam12 7:18 AM - As a fellow native New Yorker, I have to disagree about Nolita vel sim not being "a thing." I hear you, I've heard that all my life, and I don't disagree that realtors rechristen neighborhoods to lend them cachet. A good example is how they absorbed part of Bushwick into East Williamsburg at a time when Williamsburg was trendy but Bushwick was not (yet). Neighborhood monikers like Tribeca, Nolita, and Dumbo certainly began life as realtor-speak, but they were ultimately embraced by residents, and not just New Yorker-come-latelies. Before about 1960, the East Village was part of the Lower East Side, but nobody now disputes that the East Village is the East Village. Especially once a neighborhood establishes a distinctive identity and reputation—be it for fashion or food or nightlife or heroin addicts—the name tends to stick and to become, as it were, naturalized.
Sailed through until the NE.
PIPA or LIPA or KIPA or ZIPA?
All I can say is I don't give a RIPA.
Wasn't the actor guy with the long unspellable name used before as a seed entry in a puzzle overflowing with pop culture names? I think it was. But I didn't remember it and promise not to again -- even though I'm sure said actor guy is a lovely man and a very fine actor.
But said actor's name does not a good puzzle make. Take the awful MAHERSHALAALI/LIPA cross and then cross it again with ZEKE for good measure and then add to that the unnecessary cluing of IMPALA as a proper noun when there's no reason to do so. And, oh yes, throw in HAIR METAL while you're at it.
Other hiccups: ALAS before AH ME. TURBINE before TWINCAM. I must say that I loved the clues for OPTIONAL and especially for GOSSIPY.
But oh those names! The only thing I hate more than puzzles that choose this particular method of frustrating the solver is SPANX. After all, I can always get out of finishing this puzzle, but I can't always get out of SPANX.
Except for that pesky "L", I actually did finish the puzzle. I chose not to enter any letter at all there as a tiny squeak of protest. (A lot of good that will do me in the future.)
Semi-malapop when I had ‘NO ants’ for the picnic wish, then later found ANTZ. Hoped to see the NO RAIN bee girl in Rex’s writeup. Turns out no Rex, but still got the bee girl.
Easy Saturday. Only WoEs were OMAR and NOLITA.
I’ll second Eli’s plug for Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Finished it, but only after cheating to get LIPA, NEILL, and ZEKE. I guessed right on the spelling of REVEILLE(S), but I question whether this is a legitimate plural form. I've never seen it pluralized.
Average Saturday difficulty, I thought. Well constructed, considering the wide-open grid.
I liked all the things Eli did. I did not know 27A so it was difficult for me. It was a tale of four corners - the Northwest and Southeast went in fairly easily, but the Northeast and Southwest were tough. Resorted to Google a few times, the last time to confirm NOLITA was a thing, but when I put in the final A no happy music. I knew where the problem was - 13D, where I couldn’t work out how “Place” would be STEAM. Then I realized a TONY NOm was also a NOD, and all was well.
@Stuart 6:04. You often hear amor vincit omnia, but the original Latin phrase (from Virgil) is omnia vincit amor.
Hey All !
DNF at ANTs/saKE/MAHaRSHALA. Why did I not know ANTZ with that Z? Silly brain. And I figured that ALI person already had seventy three A's in their name, so another A it was. AH ME.
A good SatPuz that had me perplexed in every area, but was ultimately sussoutable.
Haven't heard of the Tame IMPALA group, not much into Indie Music. WPA MURALS are new here, too. Non art knowing strikes again!
Had TASTETest for a bit, wanting to turn SEVENTENSPLIT into TENSEVENSPLIT, but thankfully cooler heads prevailed, and I was able to erase the incorrect TEST. Had SNARL in, took it out and put CRASH in. Turned out to be SNARL, naturally. GISTS for Kernels clue is a deep cut.
Couple writeovers, Perk-PLUS, Alas-AHME, emmYNOD (all those EGOT awards blend into one 😁), stopS-HALTS.
So, YEAH, SURE, a good SatPuz.
If you turn at the second L of 33A and follow it down, you get LIKE HELL I WILL SHUT UP. Har.
Happy Saturday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Right you are.
I know (or knew) nothing about MAHERSHALA ALI, but this puzzle is my second-fastest Saturday out of 237. I liked SEVEN-TEN SPLIT, had not heard of NOLITA, worked out OMNIA from "Love conquers all", and had questions similar to those from our host on LITERATE.
I thought the NW would be a struggle but hit 19A, which is a gimme for someone who lives in (frequent crossword answer) Ames, IA and studies (among other things) the effects of agriculture on water quality. A recent spill of fertilizer in Iowa affected 50 miles of a stream and killed 750,000 fish.
Anyone interested in learning more about water quality in Iowa might google "Jones manure map" and look at the first image, a map that represents the manure produced by hogs, cattle, turkey, and hens in Iowa watersheds by equivalent human population. For example, I live in a watershed with a manure load equivalent to the fecal production of people in Los Angeles.
Great review of very good puzzle.
Easy side of easy medium for me, probably because I'm still rooted in the twentieth century! Seemed like every time I had a gap, an easy and fun answer would fill in. More like the Friday "whoosh" feeling that RP loved
Never heard of HAIRMETAL, and now will do my best to forget it exists
Yup.
Loved this puzzle, but hit a major “can’t finish this puzzle” at the crossing of WPA MURALS (never heard of them) with TWIN CAM (never heard of it) with COE (never heard of it). Engine-speak might as well be Aramaic to me, and I don’t know how you’d ever know about the murals without knowing it cold. And I consider myself a decent history buff - I guess not enough of one! Otherwise a fine, wooshy puzzle.
Updated Wizard of Oz talk:
Bad witch: Give me the Ruby slippers PLUS you little dog!
Dorothy: LIKEHELLIWILL,
Good Witch: Dorothy, ITSASETUP. Let's make like a cruddy bowler and do the SEVENTENSPLIT..
Dorothy: TOTO too?
Good Witch: YEAHSURE.
Is a house of ILLREPUTE where they keep the ILLSHUTUP?
I enjoyed both the puzzle and the write-up. My thanks to both Eli and Eli.
Very nice! Sparkly (13 red plus signs in the margins), smart cluing, only six threes (close to the record).
I don't know that the realtors are responsible, but we have some district names that have caught on here in San Francisco. SOMA (south of Market), NOPA(north of The Panhandle). We're a small city so we probably don't need them. The old names include Richmond, Noe Valley, The Mission. Sunset, Financial, The Marina, Bernal Heights, ...
Never heard of NOLITA all the times I was in NYC, even when I was in Little Italy. I guess they made it up later. Same with HAIRMETAL; when bands like Twisted Sister and Def Leppard were big, nobody referred to them as hair metal. That moniker was invented only after their flame had dimmed. Fairly easy for a Saturday but I still don't get the DELE answer; is "dele" editorial shorthand for "take this out?"
A good Saturday puzzle with slow but steady progress.
Unfortunately I needed almost every crosser to get 27A.
I loved the alley oops clue. It would also be a good clue for gutter ball.
I didn't know that Isiah Thomas was called Zeke, but I was fairly young when he played.
I'll need to add TULLE to my bag of tricks. I was able to guess the first L once I had the other four letters filled in.
It’s also Apolo Anton Ohno.
Dua Lipa has been in the NYTXW a number of times in the past.
Everyone here who hasn’t heard of Mahershala Ali really needs to go out and watch Moonlight. And probably experience some other art and culture from the past decade.
Not being able to spell the actor's name made an otherwise easy Saturday a little north of medium for me. The cross I struggled with the most was TASTETHIS. I had everything but the H and I was stumped. I had to knock off the bottom corners and come back to that cross last before the light bulb went off.
Random blindness to basic words happens in the SB too. The other day I really struggled to come up with ROAM as my final word.
yd -0. QB85
Yikes this puzzle was NOT in my wheelhouse at all. I KNOW what movies MAHERSHALAALI has been in and could picture him in my mind’s eye but simply could not remember his name. Oddly, I did know Isiah Thomas was called ZEKE. I managed to guess IMPALA through crosses. Still, in the end, I needed some cheats to finish/DNF the puzzle. Oh. And I didn’t know that SPANX is now in the business of bras.
I was able to get NOLITA eventually and it seems like I’ve seen it/heard it in the past but like @Gary J I think Little Italy. Maybe that’s an attempt to distinguish it from OTHER cities that have a Little Italy, ie Chicago.
There were many things to enjoy in this puzzle and, as usual, it doesn’t really upset me to TRY to solve a puzzle and can’t without a cheat.
I'll go with easy-medium, too. The "easy" was the NW, where TOTO, COE, and MAHER... gave me plenty to work with. But I had trouble breaking in to the right side: I couldn't remember what came between MAHER- and ALI, had no idea what to do with SEVEN, and drew a blank on the kind of LAWS. So I went South instead : REVEILLES (wonderful entry), SHERPA, and HENRY got me into the SW, and the incorrect fBi at least got me BARRE, which with TPED was enough to unlock that corner. Back to chip away at the NE, TONY NOD led to ALL in and then the rest, ending with MILNE x STEAD. Lots to keep me entertained along the way - I loved the "jet pack" clue, and the idea of HAIR METAL made me laugh, especially parked next to SNARL!
Do-over: fBi before NBA. Help from previous puzzles: OMAR, LIPA. Help from being fascinated with NYC real estate: NOLITA
A proper Saturday filled with my angst agita dyspepsia pill of no return. First: I love @Gary J's Grid Gunk Gauge - especially telling me how many propers there were. Oh, good gravy... how, just how, do I spell (remember) the first name of ALI.....I needed every single damn letter to get MAHERSHALA. AND...who is ZEKE and how do you get a nickname out of Isiah? Then for the life of me I thought Harry's real first name was Harry. ALLEY OOPS? Fat chance I'LL get that one. I felt ILL.
The downs for all the mishmash of words in the central across answers helped me. It took a Loooong time, and a cheat on ZEKE and HENRY to finally see the light and sip my Peet's coffee. It felt good. and I even got LIPA.
Try to finish up the bottom portion and I'LL be damned if that area was also going to kill me with a few names that I needed. I'm looking at you, IMPALA. Good gravy....Do I cheat again or do I try to be a good citizen? I chose to cheat on IMPALA. Then I get to that god-awful YALE NEILL HAIR stop light. Should I cheat again? Sure...I'm already filled with some ILL REPUTE. Finished with TPED.
Sometimes I don't mind sweating for a puzzle. This was one of them. I think the clue for GOSSIPY got me in a good mood and I was so proud of myself for getting TOTO COPA LIARS at the git go. I think I'LL name My Monday walk-in bar the TOTO COPA LIARS and they can sit along side ALI IMPALA ZEKE HENRY and NEIL. ECLAT is the bar tender. AH ME...Does that sound like fun?
The Western half of this puzzle just destroyed me today. I finally gave up with 14 (fourteen!) blank spaces left. I hit "Check Puzzle" and didn't have any errors in the spaces I had filled. And I still couldn't figure out most of the missing blanks--IMPALA, OMNIA, SHERPA, that Muslim actor. And I just couldn't grok the THIS of TASTETHIS or REVEILLES or GISTS or GOSSIPY--out of the wheel house this morning.
But there is a lovely diagonal string of letters that contains a mother lode of Hidden Diagonal "ore." From the L in the clever SEVEN TEN SPLIT (35A) to the S in 19A NITRATES, one finds the letters L I A R T S. Moving from SE toward NW, we have LIAR & ARTS. That's cool. But not as cool as that same string of letters when viewed in the opposite direction (NW to SE):
S T R A I L
Notice that we have the 3-letter AIL, the 4-letter RAIL, and the 5-letter TRAIL--a Hidden Diagonal delight.
But wait. On a lark, I checked out STRAIL and discovered that it is a Middle English term for a cloth used for covering a bed. It is now obsolete, but given my experience with this Saturday puzzle, STRAIL would have fit right in! (In my mind, I've added to the puzzle as 57A, Blanket.)
That's the DELE for today.
This one was really hard for me and I really wanted other things to fit in including TRIAL SIZE for two down. I don’t know what DELE is can someone please tell me. Many words I did not know in this one but that is the most baffling.
Totally with you on Hunt for the Wilderpeople…such a great movie, wonderfully quirky characters. One of my top 10 movies of all time.
Easy. I whooshed through this one. It might be a wheelhouse thing. Toughest part was spelling MAHERSHALA which I mostly relied on downs for. I know the actor and have seen the movie…didn’t help. Could be my life long difficulties with spelling or it could just be a tough name to spell?
Did not know: ZEKE, CRETE, IMPALA
Did know: OMAR, LIPA, NEILL
Smooth with more than a bit of sparkle, liked it.
If LITERATE only meant "able to read and write", then indeed it would be the bare minimum for learned-ness. But literate also means demonstrating knowledge in a given discipline, as in "literate in the sciences", or "historically literate".
@ ncarterette, DELE is shorthand for delete, and might be used by a proofreader as a suggestion to delete a word or phrase, a "take-out order".
It's true that the first (or at least most common) meaning of LITERATE is "Able to read and write," in which case yes, it's perhaps the minimum requirement for being considered "learned".
But of course, words often have more than one meaning (which, besides being probably the main thing that makes crosswords interesting and worth doing, is also the basis of most misunderstanding, many errors in logic, and much sophistry and deception).
So, another meaning of LITERATE is "Knowledgeable in literature, writing; literary; well-read," in which case it fits the clue perfectly. (Source: Wiktionary)
Late today due to dealing with an incontinent senior dog I am babysitting for the weekend. It involves diapers. Don’t ask.
Started off great with TOTO and confidently entered TURBINE for the engine, but soon had to HURL that idea. Otherwise had a wonderful time except for the occasional impossible proper name. I did not even bother with trying to figure out the marquee Mr. MAHERSHALA. I just said okay Google, let’s see what you tell me, as I did with NOLITA which I should have known, and HAIR METAL which I don’t even want to know what that’s about. And a SPANX bra? Talk about your SNARL. YEAH SURE, I’m gonna wear one of those. LIKE HELL I WILL.
I saw HENRY a/k/a Prince Harry on the ESPY Awards Thursday evening. He was given the Pat Tillman Award for his support of veterans in founding the Invictus Games. Unfortunately, Tillman‘s mother wasn’t happy about it and made some rather unkind remarks about him being honored. In contrast, Prince Harry was the epitome of class and grace in his acceptance and his speech was remarkable. Sometimes I think he’s been unfairly maligned by the ILL REPUTE that seems to follow him.
Additional Updated Wizard of OZ Talk:
Lion: I'm hungry!
Dorothy: I had some sandwiches in my basked a
minute ago. What happened to them?
Tin Man: Look at the dog! He's licking his
chops!
Scarecrow: Uh-oh -- that food has been consumed
IN TOTO!!
I keep trying to think of a mental trick to remember how to spell Mahershala Ali. How about this: First you tell Bill Maher to shut up (MAHER SH!) then when he doesn't you deliver a knockout blow (A La Ali). But only metaphorically, I am not telling anyone to do too much physical harm to Bill Maher.
So much chat today about NOLITA, which is easily solved with the crosses.
I initially took a TASTE TEST in the NW, which greatly slowed down the triple stack.
Plopping SEEDS for Kernels did nothing for me in the SW, along with the unknown SPANX and IMPALA. *SNARL*
Terrible drink suggestions from the crew today (why dilute scotch?) -- but each to their own.
SatPuz-level challengin 66-word themeless, with the twin-cam Jaws of Themelessness to decorate the puzgrid.
staff weeject pick [from only 5 choices]: NBA. Liked its "tips" clue.
best SUSword: no-know NOLITA.
M&A misstep moment: TASTETEST, instead of TASTETHIS, for far too long. Ate up many precious nanoseconds.
some faves: USAF clue. LIKEHELLIWILL & ILLSHUTUP & ILLREPUTE & REVEILLES [ILL mini-theme?]
Thanx, Mr. Cotham dude. It was a good workout.
Thanx for the sub job, Eli dude. And put m&e in that there 27-Across no-know camp.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
**gruntz**
MAHERSHALA & HAIR METAL were, as they say here, WOES for me :(
Yes. In fact, that’s how Virgil wrote it. In theory the word order in Latin allows for free shuffling without affecting meaning but I’m not sure I buy that.
Pop quiz: what was SoHo called before the 1960s? What was the Flatiron District called before the Flatiron Building?
You only care what something is called if you can remember when it was called something else. All the bluster about “native New Yorker” and “jacking up rent” is flimsy projection over the irrational despair that the world today is not the same as the one you grew up in.
Man, anytime I finish a Saturday in 30 minutes, I just assume everyone else considers it to be a Monday.
I couldn’t get anywhere near this homage to obscurity. Hats off to you Easy-Medium types.
Jet pack is the worst of the cute clues in this puzzle. No one has ever referred to a branch of the military as a “pack.”
NBA players work to get tip[-off]s and take-out order barely needs the “?”—DELE is an order to take something out.
Gee, thanks. I’ll run right out.
Like many, hands up for having heard of the guy but being lost about the spelling... how many As? and Ls? (Didn't help having TASTE TEST at first.) And throw in COE ANTZ and ZEKE.. I forgot ANTZ was spelt with a Z and guessed at the nickname being SAKE. "Hey, Sake, whassup?" Sounds plausible. Finally I remembered the Z which saved the day.
Tried UYGHRS before SHERPA which was ugly because there's also a million ways to spell UIGYR UHGIR etc.
In all, just tough enough to be Saturday!
Trying too hard dept. 15D USAF (Jet pack, for short) and 22A FEN (Mire). I have never heard fen and mire used used as equivalents.
23A TONYNOD as in Oscar nod? If you say so. It’s probably a thing. I guess. And I guess that what all those NYers have been telling me all these years - that living on the west coast is a big disadvantage - is true because I just never know who got the TONYNOD.
Toughest section for me was SW because I couldn’t dredge up OMNIA, didn’t know IMPALA, think SNARL is what my dog Pablo does when I try to cut out the matted hair in his … wait, do dogs have armpits? And many jazz combos feature SAXES. Many don’t. It’s kind of like saying many cars run on gasoline: simultaneously vague and obvious.
MAHERSHALAALI 27A. Knew it immediately but it took most of the crosses to spell it.
Enjoyable.
Who cares about the puzzle??? It got us a Liza Minnelli/Muppets clip!! SLAY 😍
I'm OK with NOLITA as a neighborhood, but I think it should be disqualified for not existing in 1905.
Villager
Yeah, that first pizzaria opened in The Bowery back in 1905. I imagine it was long gone by the mid 1990s, when the Real Estate Industry created "NoLita" for the wealthy. Seems a lot of folks here today never heard the sayin, "Love conquers all" eh?
Hello Eli! This is cdilly52. Very nice analysis today and I agree with your take on the center stack, although the humorous clue (Alley oops?) was for me the highlight of the entire puzzle. It got an out-loud chuckle. MAHERSHALA ALI is a favorite of mine and the LIKE HELL I WILL made the stack shine.
Probably due to the ease with which the center stack fell, I found this an easy Saturday. That said, I also found it wince-free, no-groan and full of interesting and clever clues that required me to stay tuned to our constructor’s wavelength.
My favorite answer is the one that my “better angel’s” speech bubble would have shown thousands of times while I was in court over the years. As is every skilled litigator I know, I am passionate, focused and intense in court. Also like many similarly passionate, focused and intense litigants “in battle,” I often wanted the last word, or to add just that little something to give me the feeling that I had convinced the court or jury.
Fortunately, I had a superb mentor and friend who - very early on introduced me to my two “selves” (I named them Hoppy and Bob) to whom I should pay more attention. Hoppy was always jumping up from her chair trying to give me good advice about things like overkill and she would have to metaphorically pull my hair or scream in my ear to get my attention. Bob, on the other hand, had an ego that just had trouble fitting inside any courtroom and loved to hear his own voice. He encouraged me - often despite Hoppy’s warning me that the judge was scowling and the jury was checking to see how soon lunch would be called - to keep arguing or get the last word.
My mentor, Jim helped me listen to Hoppy - especially when her speech bubble would tell me “Enough already!” Early on she had to yell, but fairly quickly I learned that when she told me I had done all I could, she was right. As I gained experience, and became adept at reading jurors, her shorthand advice quickly became my unspoken mantra “I’LL SHUT UP now.”
Fun Saturday!
Easy Friday, er, Saturday puzzle. I did misspell MAHaRSHALA so I had the hoops great ZaKE but everything else fell in to place steadily.
Even while I was entertaining the bowling alley meaning at 35A, I was also picturing a garbage can upset as an alley oops. Go the wrong way on a one-way oops? I'll agree with SEVEN-TEN SPLIT as an oops. I have yet to successfully get a spare from that pin set-up.
Thanks for the Saturday puzzle and the interesting grid shape, Eli Cotham!
I’m on Team DELE (as in I think that it was terrible). DEL is shorthand for deletion in biology, but DELE is absolutely nothing I have ever heard of.
No such term as nolita in 1905.
"Dele" is the standard usage in proofreading.
Native Floridian here, and I knew Nolita only because it was the name of the restaurant in the Bradley Cooper comedy TV show Kitchen Confidential (based on Bourdains book). Once I got a few crosses it fit and I went with it. All in all I liked this puzzle.
If you did not know DELE you are likely relatively new to crosswords. As mentioned above DELE is used by proofreaders to indicate matter to be removed. STET is used to override a DELE or some other change. STET means “let it stand”. Both DELE and STET appear frequently in crosswords and should be committed to memory if you plan on solving future puzzles.
The puzzle has it right. Amor vincit omnia would not fit the meter.
I didn’t recall the long name in the center. But found the puzzle easy anyway. (I did have to use all the crosses for it though). Eli the blogger was a bit upset by the old stuff and pleased by brand names. And I was saying to myself what’s wrong with OMNIA. He also didn’t like ECLAT. Is he saying a word which is rarely spoken but appears in writing fairly frequently should be avoided? Anyway it’s crosswordese so why grouse about this one? I think he overreacted. Like a younger version of a Boomer complaining about rap names.
Pizza parlor 1905. Nolita real estate name circa 1996 I didn’t like it but I guess close enough for crosswords.
I actually .
Wtf
@anon 9:38am i had the same exact DNF issue. i ended up googling to get the C in COE and then i guessed the W for the happy music. but yet dropped in MAHERSHALA ALI with no crosses lol. loved him in true detective. go figure.
-stephanie.
Not xword related, but to my ear, sounds like today's a day where a liberal girl might have prayed for reality to shift another couple of inches to the right.
Written Latin has never had a set word order, but it is traditionally verb last. So yes.
Dua Lipa is in the crossword all the time, she has three Grammys and her song “Levitating” was the Billboard #1 song of 2021 (and in the Billboard all time Top 40). Mahershala Ali has two Oscars and his name is spelled fairly phonetically.
Cute gimmick, but too much brand name/proper noun/acronym trivia. And some of those theme answers were pretty labored -- I had to come here to figure out what the hell CASUALK meant.
We went away for a weekend in the non-flooded part of Vermont, but were too late to halt Saturday delivery of the Times--so I just solved this puzzle Monday afternoon. Maybe syndicated solvers will appreciate this.
I figured out MAHERSHALAALI from the AA near the end, but didn't remember his exact name. That's on me, he's famous. TASTE Test was getting in the way.
Getting in the way even now was the Ay ME/okAy SURE crossing down there in the SE. That one took a long time to sort out.
To the best of my knowledge, giving neighborhoods distinctive names was invented by the University of Chicago Sociology Department near the beginning of the 20th Century, the theory being that people would identify with the place once it had a name, and therefore would take better care of it. Of course, some places had names earlier -- but the new idea was to give names to those that did not. It works, sometimes. But the recent innovation is to make those names catchy combinations of acronyms. It can get pretty weird.
If you know your Shakespeare, you'll learn that English kings named HENRY are almost often "Harry" more familiarly (or, of course, Hal).
OK, I'LL SHUT UP.
The anachronism of NOLITA hung me up for far too long!
Things like WPAMURALS, TPED and DELE are not acceptable. Too bad. It would have been a good puzzle with something else in their place. Is HAIRMETAL really a thing?
A day filled with inferred guesses. 27a was unknown in TOTO; it needed every single cross. And then there was 20a: yet another "New York only--the rest of you can go suck an egg" entry. Are we to expect one of these now in EVERY PUZZLE?
Seeing 20d reminded me of Woodstock, when 400,000 voices chanted NORAIN! NORAIN! It didn't work.
Never heard of HAIRMETAL, that was one of those inferences.
Noticed: reveILLes, likehelliwILL, ILLrepute, ILLshutup.
Some fun entries, but oh that name! Par.
Wordle birdie.
This was WAY out on the difficult scale for me! Biggest trouble was having to parse 27A. WPA? Zeke? Tulle?
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