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Mark of literary distinction / MON 7-1-24 / Onetime rival of Volvo / Title in Italian nobility / Letter-shaped opening for a bolt / Comedian ___ Von / Like wetsuits and leotards / Othello's treacherous "friend"
Monday, July 1, 2024
Constructor: Margi Stevenson
Relative difficulty: Challenging (as a Downs-only solve)
Theme answers:
- GHOSTWRITE (15A: Author on behalf of someone else)
- RELIGIOUS RITE (21A: Bat mitzvah, for example)
- ORVILLE WRIGHT (45A: One half of a noted aviation team)
- FORTH (4TH!) RIGHT
Theodor Capitani von Kurnatowski III (born March 19, 1980), known professionally as Theo Von, is an American stand-up comedian, podcaster, actor, and former reality television personality. He is the host of the This Past Weekend podcast and former co-host of The King and the Sting podcast with former UFC fighter Brendan Schaub. [...] Von appeared on MTV's Road Rules: Maximum Velocity Tour in 2000 at age nineteen. He was recruited to the show while studying at Louisiana State University. // Von was on four seasons of MTV's reality game show The Challenge (formerly known as Real World/Road Rules Challenge), a combined spinoff of MTV's The Real World and Road Rules. He was a part of the cast of Battle of the Seasons (2002), The Gauntlet (2003–2004), Battle of the Sexes II (2004–2005), and Fresh Meat (2006). Von was runner-up in 2002, and was the winner of the following two seasons [...] In 2006, Von competed on season 4 of Last Comic Standing, winning the online competition. // In mid-2008, Von was a member of the Comedy Central sketch/competition show Reality Bites Back. He won the show, beating fellow comedians, including Amy Schumer, Bert Kreischer, and Tiffany Haddish. [...] He has been a recurring guest on many comedians' podcasts, including The Joe Rogan Experience, Joey Diaz's The Church of What's Happening Now, The Fighter and the Kid, and Bobby Lee's TigerBelly, and Adam Carolla show. (wikipedia)
• • •
I have this rated as "Challenging" (from a Downs-only perspective) because I just couldn't get any traction for the longest time. I count thirteen (13!) Downs that I couldn't come up with at first pass, and I couldn't get enough Downs in any one section to infer even a single Across answer for what seemed like forever. TSLOT TWAIN GARAGE and TOT (all adjacent) were busts for me at first pass. TOT occurred to me (7D: Youngster), but so did BOY, and LAD, and even TAD; the others ... just didn't occur to me at all. I think I had T-HOLE or some kind of HOLE where TSLOT was supposed to go (16D: Letter-shaped opening for a bolt), and I wanted CAR LOT instead of GARAGE. The TWAIN clue was a very tricky clue (with the capital-M of "Mark" masked by its first-letter position in the clue, making you think it just meant "mark" and not "Mark TWAIN"), so I don't feel bad about not knowing that (13D: Mark of literary distinction). But when you can't put any Acrosses together, things start to feel kinda desperate. EMERGE and UMAMI were also not showing up for me at first pass. [Savory flavor] just wasn't enough to get me to UMAMI. I was looking for a specific flavor, not the general flavor of savoriness. Sigh. My first breakthrough came late, when I took a look at "OR--LLE---GH-" and thought "that's ORVILLE WRIGHT!" And I was right. And the "rights" kept coming. First FORTH- and then on back up the grid, slowly but surely. So weird to feel like I was absolutely dying out there, and then to get that one themer and from there be able to crawl my way back to ultimate victory. Really thought I was gonna end up a Downs-only bust today. But I made it all the way back up to FLOORMATS and bam, the end.
Made one guess today. A lucky guess, but also a semi-informed guess. The problem was that I forgot how R.L. STINE spelled his name (11D: "Goosebumps" author R.L. ___). Was not 100% convinced it wasn't STYNE (which would've given me MANY in the cross—totally plausible). But I think the only STYNE I know ("know") is a composer (Jule STYNE? Is that somebody?), and the more I thought about it, the more STINE just seemed right. MANI- is not as good an entry as MANY, but it's definitely one I've seen before (in conjunction with "pedi," as it is here today) (17A: ___-pedi (spa treatment)). So I had some confidence in the "I." Just not total confidence. But my "guess" paid off. What else? Nothing else? Pretty straightforward Monday: familiar old theme type, slightly elevated by a clever revealer, and then ... fill. Standard-issue stuff. Not bad, not good, just there. It'll do. See you later.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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64 comments:
Medium. No erasures and THEO was it for WOEs (thanks @Rex for explaining why, as I was too lazy to look him up). Pretty smooth and @Rex the delightful reveal bumps this one up a notch, liked it.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #921 was very easy for a Croce or just a tad tougher than a tough NYT Saturday. Good luck!
Also solving down clues only, I wasn't as skilled (and perhaps as patient) as Rex, so annoyed by some dreaded Unknown Names I ended up with a couple of errors. STONE instead of STINE (MANO seemed okay), and OH BOY not OH JOY (BIGS seemed... sorta okay; think "the bigs" for "the big leagues"). I got the theme answers just fine, though.
For typeovers, I'll add KID to Rex's list of alternates for TOT ("Youngster"). Also insist POURS is way better than RAINS for "Comes down in buckets". NOBEL before TWAIN. And FTW is really tough if you don't know it and you think SWEET and REDS are plausible crosses... FSR?? Not the best day for downs only!
Today I also decided to try a downs-only solve. I got the top half without much trouble, with CAR LOT instead of GARAGE giving me -IOIOU- at 21A. Which is what you sing when Old McDonald is in the red.
My biggest snag came when I mistakenly thought 45A would be the RIGHT answer, and 55A the WRIGHT answer ("is FORT WRIGHT a place?") Then -ILLE got me ORVILLE WRIGHT simultaneously correcting POURS to RAINS. It took me a while to come up with the JOY part of 45D, then YSL became apparent and I finished on VIGIL.
My downs-only time was in the medium Friday range, I wonder if that's true for Rex as well.
My five favorite original clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. No small part (8)(4)
2. Down during difficult times? (6)(3)
3. Red plant? (7)(3)
4. Rulers used to make many crosswords? (5)
5. "Human beef" and "Chicken pox pie" on a menu, one hopes (5)
SPEAKING ROLE
STRESS EAT
RUSSIAN SPY
TSARS
TYPOS
Tough early week puzzle - I liked it. The homophone theme has been done plenty - this one had a little extra nuance and a cool revealer.
Joe's GARAGE
Liked the CONTESSA x SKIN TIGHT cross. LEMON, OH JOY, RIGOR, THIRST are all neat. The IRA x RHEA x THEO cross was backed into - not your typical Monday fill.
Enjoyable Monday morning solve.
AGES of You
can someone please clue me in in the "downs only solve?" i didn't get the memo on that one...
I also had bIGS and figured it was clued as slang for Parents or Adults. :) And OH bOY seemed to work, but when I completed the grid and didn't get the happy song I went back and changed it--finally looked at the across clue and realized it had to be JIGS. Otherwise not too much trouble--RHEA was in Saturday's cryptic in the WSJ and was therefore top of mind, and while THEO Von was a WOE for me as well it was easily inferable from the crosses. I enjoyed the theme and overall puzzle more than @Rex did--this kind of thing has been done but like a few of the theme clues last week I thought it hit it out of the park--spot on, and really brought it together. Nice way to start the week.
Enjoyed the theme - the reveal tied it together nicely. I had vIGOR instead of RIGOR, which made a total mess of the German river for a while. And FTW was new to me. Hopefully it’s not the beginning of a text-speak fetish over there at the NYT. I hope they don’t fall into one of those “if a little is good, a lot must be great” traps on this.
THEO today; THEOS yesterday. A trend?
I enjoyed this XW as much as any recent Monday. And anything is better than yesterday’s monstrosity.
Didn't catch the theme until reading Rex Parker's column, even though I sensed that RIGHT had something to do with it.
Not as easy as some Mondays, but my only sticking point was the UMAMI/MANI cross. I was expecting the author's surname to be "Stone" instead of STINE.
Jule Styne was a mid-20th composer, whose works include Gypsy and Funny Girl. I’ve seen his first and last names used in puzzles because of their unusual spelling.
I had RITEOFPASSAGE in place of RELIGIOUSRITE. Kind of funny that it fit, though I entered it before I had sussed out that the homophones were on the end of the answers.
Not solving downs-only, this was a normal Monday for difficulty. I liked the theme, especially the revealer.
But, not one but two texting shorthand clues? Ugh. I wish we could ban those from all puzzles. I got them from crosses, don’t know what the letters stand for, and don’t care! I won’t use them and I won’t remember them!
I got stuck on Opposite of WSW and had to put the puzzle down for a while. These Monday puzzles are getting more difficult. _______ Miserables?
My downs-only was challenging, as well, with a final guess on the last two letters of FTW. -WEET could have been a T or an S, and -EDS could have been many letters. Somehow “for the win” came into my head, though I don’t think I’ve seen it in a text. Lucky guess.
The first themer I got was RELIGIOUS RITE, and then I saw that the previous long across also ended in RITE. That made it easier to get the third and FORTH RIGHTs. I thought the theme was super weak until I read the clue for FORTHRIGHT, which gave me a nice aha.
Like others, I wanted pourS for RAINS, which didn’t seem forceful enough for the clue.
Mondays, for me, an experienced solver, are often autofill fests, where I go from “On your mark, get set…” to “Gone!” in an eyeblink.
What I liked today was that yes, the puzzle filled in, in short order, but no, it wasn’t autofill. A good number of times the clues were genuine riddles, where I had to stop and think, and in many instances, I was stymied until the crosses came.
And, well edited as this puzzle was, each time this happened, the crosses were very easy – this is Monday after all.
But those stymie-ing riddles – short lasting though they were – what a Monday treat! More like this, please!
Then there were the other plusses. The clever way to make a theme out of four homophones. Lovely non-theme answers (TALON, CONTESSA, RIGOR), even abutting palindromes (ENE and TOT). All capped by a heartwarming constructor note (in the NYT's WordPlay).
Margi, going from never having made a puzzle to NYT publication in a year-and-a-half is most impressive, and your method – practice, persistence, linking with mentors – shows how smart you are. Your puzzle shows how inherently smart you are as well.
Congratulations on your debut, may your arc continue to soar, and thank you for a splendid outing today!
Yes, THEO a complete unknown.
TWEET doesn't really say young bird to me. Peep or cheep, yes; tweet, no.
Croce freestyle 921 was pretty easy. Remembering the spelling on 11D was the hardest bit.
OFL left out a significant THEO, viz. THEO Epstein, GM of the 2004 Red Sox who finally broke The Curse. It was soon after the World Series win that we got two kittens and named them Fenway and THEO. We lost Fenway a little over a year ago, but THEO abides. bless his heart.
Welcome back @Lewis! Bet I'm not the only one who missed you. I agree with your take on some thought being necessary for numerous answers, always a good thing.
I was awarded a FTW by old friend Joaquin after one comment on this board years ago. Did I remember FTW? Well, I do now.
@Roo-Got a Paolo in a clue, at least. Worth maybe a quarter of a point.
Homophones have been done before? So what? I liked these just fine, and the revealer was brilliant. Nicely done indeed, MS. More Stuff like this would be most welcome, and thanks for all the fun.
acrosses = easy.
made few typos so not a personal best. had it almost filled in one pass.
A right-handed fellow named Wright,
In writing “write” always wrote “rite”
Where he meant to write right.
If he’d written “write” right,
Wright would not have wrought rot writing “rite”.
The 70-year-olds at 32D near SKINTIGHT at 30D reminded me of Leonard Cohen's lyrics from "Closing Time."
And my very close companion
Gets me fumbling gets me laughing
She's a hundred but she's wearing
Something tight
Old joke: So 90-year-old Abe is marrying very sexy Lenore who is only 20. Abe's doc says: I must warn you that intense sexual activity places a strain on the heart and in some cases can lead to death.
Abe leans back on the examining table and says, "Doc, I've had a long and wonderful life. No complaints. If she dies, she dies."
Re: The O's from yesterday. I was at a ballgame in Baltimore recently and almost dropped my beer during the national anthem. When it comes to the part near the end: "O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave . . . ," the entire stadium erupts with that "O." Bit of a shock the first time you hear it.
I don't know how pen and paper solvers can solve Downs only. The eye sees what the eye sees -- or at least mine does -- and trying to avoid seeing Across clues would be more trouble than it's worth and probably unsuccessful.
So a show of hands, please. How many of you Downs-only solvers solve on an app? Are there any of you who solve on the printed page?
For the non-Downs-only solver, this puzzle was easy to the point of mindlessness. When that happens, I sometimes try to make life interesting by guessing what the words will be that will work together in a small section without reading any of the clues. If I'm really bored I'll fill them in in dark ink, still not reading any of the clues. I did that today with AXLE/EXALT/ALT/MATS and with SENT/AGES/KEG. I then take it one step further: I try to guess what the clue will be -- the exact words, mind you--and the more uninteresting the cluing, the more likely I am to be RIGHT.
With less on-the-nose cluing, this might have been a passable Monday. With the cluing it had, it was a real snooze.
I do not understand why Rex criticizes a puzzle when it is HIS choice to try to solve it down only and he thus entirely misses the point. This was a truly delightful Monday puzzle when solved the "normal" way. A nice mix of homophones and an amusing revealer.
I know even less about Theo Von than Rex does.
Downs only, I figured out the right homophone thing, but having pours instead of RAINS made it impossible to get ORVILLE. On the other hand TWAIN, EMERGE, and UMAMI went right in. But I couldn’t finish it downs only so I looked at some across clues. Overall, I thought this was a nice crispy Monday with a lot of fun stuff.
Hey All !
Nice concept for the Revealer FORTHRIGHT. Was slightly more crunchy than a normal MonPuz. Favorite answer was the sarcastic OH JOY. I say that a lot, especially at work. Har.
Kept seeing for the SKINTIGHT clue, leopards instead of leotards. Couldn't for the life of me figure out the answer. Finally got SKINTIGHT, pondering how a leopard fits the clue. Good stuff.
Can UPS be clued as (Stairs?)? We get plenty of dubious plurals, why not?
Another Monday, OH JOY. NAME ONE good thing about it. 😁
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I'm not a great crossworder but I started with downs and was pleasantly filled out before going to crosses. I got the theme pattern after the second theme answer and had most of the downs for the last one and I had a full minute of staring in horror thinking the answer was "fourth Reich." My only excuse was that it is early morning and it's not like Nazi mistakes haven't been made on the crossword before.
Overall it felt really easy. I usually have to try for 20 minutes, ask my family, read the blog, then visit Tex, then still sometimes use the answer key, especially on weekends, but today I only had to use the key to find the one typo where I accidentally tapped in Baab for Saab lol. Feel kind of proud of myself for finishing under 10 minutes without any help at all. Felt like a stupid easy Monday, so perfect for dumdum like me lol.
He didn’t do this
Literally the first THEO he mentions
@Anon 9:08-Right you are, missed it entirely somehow, major oops!
For a brief moment, I thought TWAIN must be a literary award I hadn’t heard of!
Also, @MyName at 8:17 - great bit!
This played wright with me. I hope its utter and complete humorlessness helps those of you recover from the stinging tragedy of enduring a few puns yesterday. Puns, by God, that warn't even spelt good.
Kinda wondering if the dude who quit over the pizza puzzle is back yet. Emotional week.
❤️: NAME ONE and GHOSTWRITE. I really really really wanted ghostwriteR as I may or may not post anonymous horror stories online from time to time and I like the idea of being a ghostwriter in two senses. Three if you count not needing to take responsibility when the tale is terrible. Four if you have a flexible definition of horror.
Umm: AXLES don't rotate wheels.
Propers: 5
Places: 4
Products: 4
Partials: 10 (gah)
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 24 (32%)
Recipes (beta): 1
Funnyisms: 0 😫
Tee-Hee: Why I "shop" online. THIRST for SKIN TIGHT wetsuits and leotards. {Scene 1: 🦖 poised over THE HOOK button. Reads "tee-hee" and finger starts twitching.}
Uniclues:
1 Belaud barefoot baker.
2 Dam.
3 Delighted squeal at finding Othello villain attending Halloween party as beloved Addams family member.
4 Serious six-eights.
5 Me eating cheetos on the floor of the yoga studio in the name of our lord having given up on the whole asana thing.
1 EXALT CONTESSA
2 RESTRAIN RHINE
3 IT'S HAIRY IAGO! (~)
4 FORTHRIGHT JIGS (~)
5 FLOOR MATS VIGIL
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Root on the cheese. CHEER ROMANO.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"out-of-touch old man" sounds RIGHT
Yup, an easy one. Only trick was reading “author” (#15A) as verb and not noun. Otherwise an easy one with a neat revealer.
I don't usually pay much attention to my toenails, but when I do, MANI pedi.
Every major championship that Wilander won would always FLOORMATS. (And, full disclosure, I know this because he's a friend of mine).
Yesterday we had THEOS clued as "Baltimore squad, casually." Today we have THEO. It must be a "Baltimore player, casually."
Congrats and right on, Margi Stevenson.
My downs only solve went pretty smoothly until OHGOD made valid acrosses. ☹️
Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) clue of the day:
A comedy that becomes a combo when its last letter becomes its first
(4 letters, answer below--and yes, it is very lengthy as a clue)
Good Monday puzzle. I didn't make the "FORTH" connection until I read Rex; I suppose the "FORTH was not with me."
Frisco's famous GATE (5A) shares the grid with a Hidden Diagonal GATE nearby (begins with the G in 23A RELIGIOUS RITE and moves to the NW. And that diagonal GATE shares its diagonal line with the cheese in a Greek salad--FETA (start with the F in 3D, FLOORMATS)
Answer to the HDW clue:
RIOT (begins with the R in 43D, CRATES, and becomes TRIO by moving the T)
That's all for today's Tom "T-SLOT." Enjoy your day.
For a Monday, quite enjoyable. Audible chuckle at forthright.
Do you do downs only because it's so easy? Perhaps try long answers only for a little more challenge.
I don't do Downs Only so I didn't find it challenging. It was a little more difficult than most Mondays (a good thing) & I enjoyed it. Hated THEO though.
Nice debut, Margi & thank you. Hope to see you again soon :)
And BTW, I enjoyed your constructor's notes, Margi :)
THEO was also the name of the sole male child on the Cosby show. Yes, Cosby cancel blah blah blah but it was a very popular show at the time.
Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, Everything’s Coming up Roses, I Fall in Love Too Easily, Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry —all by Jule Styne.
@Adam You thought Bigs after reading the clue 'Irish dances?"
@Lewis Welcome back! I hope you had a wonderful vacation!
Okanaganer
True that comes down in buckets works as a much better definition for pours than rains. But even a Monday puzzle has to have SOME resistance. It is a clue , not a definition after all. Close enough for crosswords, even a Monday one!
That's when you start with only the Downs clues and solve the puzzle using only those
Congrats on breaking 10!
Jack Stephanie
Les for ____ Miiserables and the directional abbreviations are both VERY common in all crosswords and frequently on a Monday in the Times. They will be in a puzzle near you very soon
Out of touch is irrelevant to age. As many younger folks are out of touch too. It is all about what we choose to be in touch. (Hope this comment makes sense.) On Theo Ratliff , one of the most decent people ever to play pro ball. Glad off remembered him.
Nifty revealer. Lifts it up a little, as this "right" homonyms puztheme got served up originally way back on 5 July 2000 by Alan Arbesfeld. No revealer, on the 2000 version. And same set of right brothers, but they were all splatzed at the front-end of the themers.
staff weeject pick: FTW. At first glance, looks like a WTF [Whuck The Fat] cousin.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {___ noir (wine)} = PINOT. M&A'll drink to that.
some other faves: SKINTIGHT. NAMEONE. CONTESSA. THIRST. GARAGE clue. TWAIN clue.
Thanx, Ms. Stevenson darlin. And congratz on yer Right as Rest Rain debut.
Masked & Anonymo2Us
p.s.
@Nancy: In theory, pure "Downs only" solvers would not be able to even peek at the Across *answers* for verification, right? Now, there would be a real challenge.
Oooo -- or, or … so, how'bout a Downs only puz, where the Across clues and answers are all encoded, somehow? Yeah … yeah … like ...
**gruntz**
Generally a mild reaction to the puzzle I see
The revealer was definitely the best answer. (Mark of literary distinction was also very good.) Like Nancy , I don’t do downs only and I do it in the dead tree edition. But I liked it anyway.
Yes Theo Huxtable as Rex already said
Crosses helped solve all the tricky ones, but I still had to come to the comments to find out what FTW was.
Fun fact (SPOILER ALERT if your daily solve, like mine, includes the puzzles from 10, 20, and 30 years ago): Ten years ago today, THEO was clued as “Kojak's first name” (26D, July 1, 2014).
Big disappointment when LMAO didn't work for 1-D, but then we got FTW. Yeah, sure, it means "For The Win," they say, but @M&A got it right. Also YSL and UPS to round out the acronyms.
The revealer was truly great, and made the whole thing worthwhile. It could have been clued a bit more enigmatically as "what this answer is, thematically," but it's a Monday, after all.
Slight cavil over the clue for 56-A, though -- who writes it "i.o.u?" IOU every time.
On to Tuesday!
@Nancy 8:31 I started doing downs only about 5 or 6 years ago on paper. To avoid seeing the across clues, I would take the printout from printer to desk, remove my glasses, pick up a pad of post-it notes and use them to cover the across clues. You might think I was reading the clues while doing that but without my bifocals all I could see was fuzzy blocks of letters. I knew they were Acrosses because I knew how the puzzle was laid out, but I could not read them. Then I would put my specs back on and go. Worked for me.
Recently my printer started refusing to print the puzzle so I started doing them on the app. Actually much easier because, with just a little discipline, you can ignore the clue list on the right snd just read the single clue above the grid. Also works for me.
Your explanation of solving small sections without the clues borders on downs only. Watch out. Next thing you know you’ll be purchasing pads of Post-its.
My downs only solve went much like Rex’’s. Unable to get a lot of the downs on first pass but returned to the top and just started dropping in anything that might work. Lot of corrections on the third pass and the theme became obvious. Well, sort of. The revealer tripped me up for as bit because I wasn’t thinking “homophonically”. But then I was and… nice. Very nice.
Celebrating Canada Day today. Wearing a red Molson's Canadian t-shirt that my son gave me (came in a box of beer). How Canadian, eh? To all the other Canucks out there, have a nice long weekend.
@Les S. More, I have been solving exclusively on Across Lite from the beginning. Because I have a nice widescreen monitor, I have the AL window set to "tiled" mode with Across clues on the left, the grid in the middle, and Down clues on the right. To solve down clues only, I block the left side of the screen with my hand, open the file, then quickly shrink the Across box by dragging its border until none of the clues are visible. After completing, I just drag the edge back to where it belongs. Easy!
I guess I should no longer be surprised that Rex views anything to do with the American theatre as beneath consideration...but asking about Jule Styne, Is that somebody?, is like asking if Roberto Clemente or Sandy Koufax is somebody. Just because he's before your time, in a discipline you don't care about, doesn't render him a non-person.
All the songs from Peter Pan and Gypsy, and many from Funny Girl, are hugely famous...in addition to all the ones Anonymous listed above. Show a little respect for a theatre legend.
great for me until oh joy oh boy natick on the downs only
@Nancy. Downs-only here for several years and use printed puzzle No app. Ever.
me too! i had the r from floor mats and just went with it before realizing my mistake when iel (eel) looked wrong
I solve Mondays NYT and LAT in a spiral, working from the edges to the center. I print the puzzles every day and solve in ink.
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