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Coastal African desert / MON 8-26-24 / Athleisure lead-in to "lemon" / Popular dance fitness program
Monday, August 26, 2024
Constructor: Zachary David Levy
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only) (finished with an error, though)
Theme answers:
- "GIMME GIMME GIMME" (16A: Abba hit of 1979)
- "BYE BYE BYE" (21A: 'N Sync hit of 2000)
- "GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS" (34A: Mötley Crüe hit of 1987)
- "FUN FUN FUN" (51A: Beach Boys hit of 1964)
The Namib (/ˈnɑːmɪb/ NAH-mib; Portuguese: Namibe) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and northwest South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba River in Angola, through Namibia and to the Olifants River in Western Cape, South Africa. The Namib's northernmost portion, which extends 450 kilometres (280 mi) from the Angola-Namibia border, is known as Moçâmedes Desert, while its southern portion approaches the neighboring Kalahari Desert. From the Atlantic coast eastward, the Namib gradually ascends in elevation, reaching up to 200 kilometres (120 mi) inland to the foot of the Great Escarpment. Annual precipitation ranges from 2 millimetres (0.079 in) in the aridest regions to 200 millimetres (7.9 in) at the escarpment, making the Namib the only true desert in southern Africa. Having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for roughly 55–80 million years, the Namib may be the oldest desert in the world and contains some of the world's driest regions, with only western South America's Atacama Desert to challenge it for age and aridity benchmarks. (wikipedia)
• • •
The fill on this one seemed far far less good. I tripped all over myself trying to make sense of the NAMIB / IN-APP / GAEL / ALY part as I started the puzzle (and really winced at ALY, considering I'd *just* written in ALI). And oof, the partials. A LEAK!? Trying to make sense of that when I couldn't see the Across clues was painful. It would've been painful, if somewhat easier, even if I could've seen the clue—it's really a horrible partial, and then we get *another* very bad-feeling partial?!? ("I'M OF"). Why the hell does a supremely easy Monday puzzle have two egregious partials? The craftsmanship really should be better—the fill much smoother—on early-week puzzles. But I had to stumble through stale and bygone fill of all kinds. "I CAME"? Ugh, I'm calling that a "partial" too, that makes three, that's too many. LUV, PRE, SCI, GAR ... OLA!? OXO? There's way way too much subpar stuff. ORES and OARS, ABUT and ATOP, SSW and SFPD ... these are innocuous on their own, but today they're part of a tidal wave of gunk. When my Downs-only adventures left me with T-SHAPE (!?!?!?), I sincerely thought I had something wrong.
There was almost no part of the solve where I thought things looked polished, bright, and clean. And after suffering through all the unloveliness, I ended up with an error, ugh. I had RIP BY instead of ZIP BY because RUMBA looked so good (in a way that ZUMBA, which I haven't heard anyone refer to in well over a decade, absolutely does not). I guess ZIP BY is more of a real phrase than RIP BY, but RUMBA > ZUMBA (in my head). Also, the "quickly fly past" in the clue made it seem like the clue was referring to time, and the years really do RIP BY as you get older, so honestly, I didn't really blink at that "R." Bah and humbug.
Bullets:
- 14A: Popular dance fitness program (ZUMBA) — is it, though? Popular? It seems about as "popular" as TAE BO, which I *also* encounter exclusively in crosswords (and thrift stores that sell VHS tapes from the '90s). I get whatever "fitness" I have from going to the gym (2x/week) and running. I ran my first 10K yesterday. Very slowly (finished 9th out of 11 in my gender/age category), but I did it.
- 43A: Pennsylvania governor Josh (SHAPIRO) — it took a Vice Presidential sweepstakes for me to learn the name of the governor of the Giant State Located About Ten Miles South Of My House. Even though SHAPIRO wasn't Harris's ultimate choice, seems like his profile was raised quite a bit this summer. And yet not so much that he's the Top SHAPIRO in my brain. Since I solved Downs-only, I couldn't see the SHAPIRO clue, and so I assumed (given the NYTXW's eternal love for all things NPR) that the SHAPIRO in question would be Ari.
- 4D: Coastal African desert (NAMIB) — putting this together without Acrosses was rough. I just had a hard time convincing myself that NAMIB was a thing. I wrote it in and then stared at it like "er ... uh ... I dunno ... am I misremembering that? It looks ... bad." But nope, it's good. The trivia-retrieval part of my brain is still minimally operative. Good to know.
- 24D: Man's name that's a fruit spelled backward (EMIL) — All the MULPs out there are like "Damn! It's EMIL again. Some day ..."
- 39D: Athleisure lead-in to "lemon" (LULU) — If there's an uglier fashion word than "athleisure," I don't know what it is. It sounds like an affliction, not a clothing type. Like lesions you get from athletics, maybe. I know LULUlemon (one word? ... yes, one word) as a popular brand of yoga apparel. I guess they've branched out. The LULU really doesn't stand on its own. If you need a self-standing LULU, may I suggest ...
- 60D: Kitchen brand with a palindromic name (OXO) — at least we're spared the "Losing tic-tac-toe" line of cluing today. Small blessings.
See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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63 comments:
Nice Monday puzzle with a "give away" revealer (provided one plays Scrabble). Only tough spot for me was the NAMIB/INAPP cross which I managed using trial-and-error.
My five favorite original clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Premier couple's retreat? (4)
2. Small marching band? (4)(4)
3. Makeup ingredient? (3)
4. They often roll around in the snow (6)(5)
5. Shock proof? (4)
EDEN
ARMY ANTS
DNA
WINTER TIRES
GASP
The last time we were confronted with Ms. Raisman, I congratulated myself for remembering that she's ALY (27A) and not ALI (2D). This time I'd forgotten and was all set to put in ALi, but I realized the would-be dupe in time.
This puzzle was aimed more at experienced solvers than beginners in that it included a lot of common crosswordese. But it compensated for that because once you got a third of an answer you had it all. Overall I'd rate it as Easy, and with nice wordplay in the revealer.
I’ll chalk up the clunky fill to the strive for a pangram - perhaps a nod to the Scrabbly theme? The big guy nails it - the repetitive themers are there to support the revealer - so simplistic and contrived.
Gram
The partials are rough - mechanically placed out of necessity.
Sorry - I've never been a Scrabble guy.
She wore a lovely meatball on her finger
I finished my downs-only solve with an error, too - but a different one than Rex’s. Mine was the first letter. They check tAGS as well as BAGS at airport counters, and tARN is a thing, although maybe not a Monday thing. It didn’t ring any error bells.
Very easy downs-only, other than that because I quickly saw that the themers were three repeated words. I agree with Rex that the theme worked much better when I finally read the across clues and saw that SCORE worked two ways.
FUN FUN FUN!
“Ode” to joy is the widely used name of the melody and the section of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony that uses it — so the clue isn’t wrong . . . “But actually” (being that guy today) the “Ode to Joy” is Schiller’s and the “Hymn to Joy” is Beethoven’s (I think)
Medium for me, liked it more than OFL did. ZUMBA is definitely way more of a thing than Tae Bo--it has sort of flamed out, but 10 years ago it was very popular in my neck of the woods, you couldn't escape it. Great Monday morning warmup!
I’ve heard the Beethoven referred to as the Ode to Joy many times but never as the Hymn to Joy. I think both Schiller and Beethoven would have referred to the poem and its musical setting by the German title, “An die Freude.” Take it from me.
Easy (I’m not a downs-only person) but not particularly FUNFUNFUN. Also, I love Abba, but not this particular song, so it cast a bit of a pall on the puzzle. But it’s always great to get a TRIPLEWORDSCORE in Scrabble and I thought the theme was very clever.
I'm with @Bob Mills, same mistake. I have never made a smart phone purchase, probably because I don't have a smart phone. I have a dumb land line.
Once the theme is obvious, the answers pretty much fill themselves in. I had ALI twice but that could not be and wasn't. Also I'm in a hurry for an appointment this morning and didn't stop to think about the double meaning of SCORE, so shame on me.
My wife used to love ZUMBA but some medical issues have reduced her to doing the march of time, unfortunately.
OK Monday, ZDL. Anything with ZUMBA and the Delightful Lulu is OK with me, and thanks for a medium amount of fun.
Rex, when does an NYT grid not contain “. . . a tidal wave of gunk”? We get it pretty much every day. LULU, NAMIB, ESE, OLA, and the others you mentioned are particularly egregious today - but stick around, it will get worse as the week goes on.
One of these days I’m going to get up the nerve to try a downs only solve. Looking back, because of the construction of this puzzle, I actually did solve it mostly using downs, and filled in the theme answers based primarily on the patterns that emerged, not because I knew the clue references. Thought this was a clever scheme but did not catch the musical score meaning. The fill is well, fill, holding together an entertaining SCORE.
As I filled this out from top to bottom, I was thinking it would just be a listing of repeated-words song titles, but no – Zachary tied the whole theme up with the perfect revealer, in which SCORE emphasized the music aspect and TRIPLE WORD emphasized what the titles have in common.
Then, this puzzle is a pangram (using every letter of the alphabet) underscoring the Scrabble aspect.
A nailed-it theme, IMO, and triple props to Zachary for crafting it.
Glancing at the finished grid, things kept popping out at me:
• A strong geographical element, with CAPRI, MAINE, TEXAS, ROME, NAMIB, KENYA, STAN, not to mention ESE an SSW.
• Lovely PuzzPair© of WURST and I HATE IT.
• The presence of trochaic long-e-sounding enders: YURI, JUMPY, ALI, ALY, GIMME (3x). And in Italy, Capri is pronounced KOPree.
• TEXAS abutting ROME made me think, even knowing there’s a Rome in Georgia, “Isn’t Rome a city in Texas too?”, and a quick check revealed that it isn’t. However, I did learn that Rhome is (population about 1,800).
• A LEAK, A TOP, and A BET.
Sometimes I finish a Monday puzzle, smile, and move on. Sometimes there is something special about it that makes me linger, not want to leave, impressed and grateful. That surely described today’s puzzle for me. Thank you, Zachary!
Congrats on the 10K 🦖. It would take me 10 days to run (walk) a 10K one K at a time.
Not the joyous Monday puzzle I needed after a brutal day yesterday of packing up the last of our stuff. The van arrives today and I'm moving into a motel for a week. There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so, and boy am I thinking.
When you build a puzzle around any product, especially song titles, you're automatically going to create haters. Why set yourself up for [Zero stars from me?!]
This may be the gunkiest puzzle since I started counting. Monday seems like a poor day to dive into 43% trivia.
If IQS is in your word list, for the sake of humanity, please delete it. Use your [brainpower] to know when something is gonna be dumb.
And what in the world does hipsterism have to do with art-erism? Is the NYTXW editorial staff pay high enough for them to afford to go to an art museum once in a while? Maybe on a Tuesday? I think they have a couple decent museums there in New York, don't they? And hipsters? Maybe if we show them side-by-side it would help?
NOT ONE JOKE. Let's be straight: When you run GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS across the middle and you include the all-too-obvious Anglicized Caesar quote right under it, then this thing should be rolling with borderlihne bawdy humor. It should be FUN FUN FUN and it's not not not.
😫 TAMPON
My comment didn't appear yesterday apparently in a noble effort to save y'all from a [Dirty film], or more likely, my uniclue for UNDRESSES MAJOR SIN. I am a tiny bit concerned that our moderators may actually be obligated to read my uniclues. Imagine being the one person on Earth reading all of those each morning and needing to care if they step over some imaginary line of community decency. (They never do. I'm a professional.)
Propers: 7
Places: 7
Products: 10 (gad)
Partials: 8
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 33 of 76 (43%) (this is not how you should do it)
Funnyisms: 0 😫
Tee-Hee: [Spring] A LEAK.
Uniclues (written on the side of least offense):
1 How I met Bevo the longhorn.
2 When you take the day off of reading folks going on and on about how easy the puzzle is and how they did it downs only and there was something terrible they didn't like and act like any of it matters, but then scan through it the next day because you really like to read your favorite commenters.
1 I CAME TO UT
2 BAG BLOG SORT OF
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Any man who turned 50. KNEW FAKE SMILES.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
For Pabloinnh: Welcome to the "IDON'THAVEASMARTPHONEORACELLPHONE" Club. My daughter scolded me with "Dad, you don't have a cellphone?" That was in 2002.
Easier than most Mondays for me solving Down only, but I still had to look at a few Across clues in the end (upper central).
yes, zumba is still popular. both of my grandkids are doing it afterschool. maybe it turn into an afterschool class...
Flew through it because this 81 year old knew the oldies. Enjoyed seeing NAMIB and my initials SSW, but neither of my exes live in TEXAS
Same on RUMBA/ZUMBA. Also, isn’t it technically “WE came, WE saw, WE conquered”? The I at the ends of Veni Vidi Vici - I’m fairly certain - makes it “we” and not “I”
Worth reading in Wikipedia about the Namib Desert's "Skeleton Coast." so-called because of the skeletons of sailors from more than 1,000 shipwrecks who died from thirst and starvation on the barren seashore as they tried to make their way southwards to civilization. The ships were often wrecked because of an impenetrable fog caused by the meeting of the cold Atlantic Benguela current and the hot desert winds. The unbelievable story of the rescue of the 106 shipwrecked passengers and crew and the MV "Dunedin Star" in 1942 (at the cost of he lives of two South African pilots) was told in John Marsh's book "Skeleton Coast."
BTW I also thought that the "Ode to Joy" climaxing Beethoven's 9th was composed entirely by Schiller.
Took me 3 reads to get your EMIL bullet (I'm slow sometimes). Then..."Oh, haha! Good one!"
I filled in ABBA’s song “MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, “ which also fits perfectly if you haven’t completed the downs yet.
Hey All !
Pangram. Haven't had one in a while.
I understand the making of a crossword, and appreciate all the ones that see the light of publication ... But (always a but!), the Repeating thingies aren't high on my list. I know, nit nit nit (har).
Did like the Revealer tying the Theme together, with the added SCORE referring to the music.
Welp, another Monday has arrived. Joy.
😁
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Nah it’s first person singular
Saved by the triples!
I was fit to be tied when I saw the theme clues and had my arm already cocked in the "throw against wall" position when I realized that all those title words from pop songs I didn't know were going to be filled in not once, not twice, but THREE times! Yay! Even if I'd been living under a rock (pun intended) I would have been able to figure it out with just a few crosses.
Let it never be said that pop song titles are sophisticated. I mean where are your "Begin the Beguine"s, your "Some Enchanted Evening"s, your "Don't Rain On My Parade"s? But here, the simplemindedness of the titles was a godsend -- at least for me.
The revealer is terrific, though. And even though this isn't a Nancy puzzle, I can imagine the constructor having a true "Eureka moment" when he found that all three titles and the revealer had perfect puzzle symmetry. A nicely-executed theme, when all is said and done.
I'm not a STAN of (i.e., don't LUV) this one, but neither do IHEATEIT (i.e., ITS not the WURST).
Pretty much with @Rex: easy themers (perfectly fine; it's Monday), very nice revealer, dicey fill. Sorry, but you can't have ICAME, IMOF and ALEAK in the same grid -- you just can't. The short junk (OXO, LUV, ALI/ALY, OLA, WII, ESE, ITS, UMM, NAW, etc.) bothers me a bit less -- early-week puzzles almost always have that stuff, but there is a lot of it today.
And:
-- Enjoyed NAMIB next to same-continent KENYA.
-- 45D makes me realize that I don't have a firm concept of what ARTy and hipster actually mean. I feel like I know them when I see them but would be hard-pressed to define them.
-- The video for "Girls, Girls, Girls" is one of the greatest pieces of 1980s unintentional comedy. Those guys really were clowns.
Big fan of ALY Raisman. Great athlete obviously, but she (and many others) went through hell at the hands of that scumbag Michigan State doctor, and she's emerged as a vocal advocate for mental health awareness. I saw her and Michael Phelps speak on a panel about the topic a couple years ago -- very powerful.
It would have been nice if the clue for REM was about the band.
Fun little Monday romp with (IMO) the same amount of short fill that most Mondays have. I can see why some people would struggle with NAMIB, but I have the good fortune of having had a son who did a “project” on Namibia in grade school, and it’s that example of me learning something in my early 40s that I should have learned in grade school (or middle school).
I had to chuckle at the fact that @Rex suggested that little LULU from the old comics would be better fill than LULUlemon. I definitely looked at the comic book as a young child, but pretty, pretty sure that many people under (55?) would not know that.
I have to say I had a dirty mind today with respect to thinking that Caesar’s famous quote should change the order of operation. We will see if @egs does anything with THAT but I think my mind just fell into the gutter today!
Just want to say that score is exactly the right term. As a musician there’s no quibble there.
I forgot to mention that I got into Wikipedia to see what said about “hipster” because I didn’t necessarily thought of ARTY…there WAS a small reference to that word in article but I found this description more along the line of what I had always thought:
Hipsters are the friends who sneer when you cop to liking Coldplay. They're the people who wear t-shirts silk-screened with quotes from movies you've never heard of and the only ones in America who still think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good beer. They sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses. Everything about them is exactingly constructed to give off the vibe that they just don't care.
— Time, July 2009.
Actually used to do ZUMBA classes until 10-Down Tim, the Emperor Walz, had all gyms and health clubs shut down. For our protection, of course.
Think PA’s 43-Across would have been a much better choice. Or AZ’ Gabby Husband, ____ Green or Creator of Pogo.
Puzzle itself was easy, even for a Monday, for those of us who still solve horizontally as well as vertically.
If only there were a place to go and read your censored posts... Hoping your move doesn't sour your disposition! Good luck.
Tim Tampon? Too icky to spell out?
Don’t get mad — do crosses!
Medium but it would have been tougher for me without the theme GIMMEs, because…taebo before ZUMBA, Negev before NAMIB (which was a WOE), MITTENS did not LEAP to mind, A LEAK was painful for me too…So, I got off to a slow start in the North which filling in the rest of theme answers with no crosses compensated for.
Following the news was helpful with SHAPIRO and ALY.
Clever and FUN, liked it more than @Rex did but he’s right about some of the fill.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #936 was on the easy side of medium for a Croce. The east side was a tad easier than the west and the NW corner was pretty tough. Good luck!
yep. Themers seemed kinda bland/repetitivish, but the revealer was superb. Did really like the FUNFUNFUN themer, tho ... it gets my fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue award. Love that song. Got the 45 record.
Ahar! pangrammer. Primo bonus.
Too hard for a MonPuz crosser: NAMIB/INAPP. NONO-KNOW [M&A solvequest hit of 2024].
Thanx for the FUN x 3, Mr. Levy dude. And for a definite all-day ear-worm.
Masked & Anonymo9Us
**gruntz**
An easy Monday, even though I didn't know NAMIB, LULU & I also had RUMBA for ZUMBA, even though my aunt used to gush over the fact that she did it well into her 70's (definitely over a decade ago, more like 2) while I, being much younger, did high-impact aerobics.
Thanks for the fun, Zachary :)
p.s.
Just dawned on m&e … this pangrammer puz with clever revealer ergo does a double-Scrabble-twerk. Mighty cool.
M&Also
HDW Clues:
1. Finicky child is unlikely to ask for these, please
2. Crew cut hill?
Couldn't, as usual get enough toeholds for down's only solve.
Seemed like more Tuesday/Wednesday items than Monday (hello, NAMIB)
Answers:
1. PEAS (begins at the P in ZIP BY, 14D, moves to SW)
2. MESA (M in ZUMBA, 14A)
BYE BYE BYE
I came home yesterday to find Mrs. Egs packing down the dirt so we could lay bricks for our new patio, but also complaining about doing it during her period. "Well, TAMPON!" I said.
Did you ever wonder what would HAIRDO if it wasn't covering our heads? Me neither.
Little known fact: Joy Fischbein was Beethoven's first crush.
'N Sync is rumored to be working on a redo of their 2000 hit song to debut during next year's Pride Month. It's called Bi, Bi, Bi.
Like others on this "Outlet for an internet commentator", I didn't LUV this, but still thought it was FUNFUNFUN. Thanks, Zachary David Levy.
FUN FUN FUN should have mentioned that T-Bird that the GIRL's Daddy is going to be taking away.
Great easy Monday puzzle. I solved Downs first. Impossible for me to do Downs only when all those attractive long crosses become obvious, and the TRIPLE WORD SCORE became obvious pretty early.
Fun puzzle. Re: Rex’s comments about scores and sheet music. Just a quibble though I nderstand people have different associations with these terms. As a former classical musician, a score ( to me) always means the complete set of music as written by the composer with all the parts. This is used by the conductor or by anyone who wants to study the music. Although the individual parts on the music stands ARE sheet music, we always just called it “the music” or “ my part”. In the good old days, you could buy sheet music at music stores and it was usually single popular pieces with words, melody and a piano or guitar accompaniment. It was more often older pieces ( before the rock and roll era) of music for singing around the piano, but in the 60’s and 70’s you could still by sheet music for popular hit tunes and they always had the guitar chords illustrated.
Downs only was made so much easier with themer repetition but then made so much harder in the NW. A LEAK is cruel. And I had never heard of the NAMIB but a good etymologist would have seen the NAMIBIA root and figured it out.
I think this might be the easiest downs only solve I have ever done. Aided by the repetitive nature of the themers. Also possibly aided by solving at about 7 o'clock Sunday evening instead of 7 o'clock Monday morning. I may have to try this more often but then I might have to do something productive with all that morning time!
ALEAK/NAMIB cross was tough, as was TSHAPE at 20A. Otherwise, smooth sailing which means, of course, I liked it.
Didn't all gyms and health clubs close across the country for many months?
Lol! Did your parents know they were naming you "Ode to Joy"?
The above anon w/o mask comment was mine, btw. Still gettin used to the new GoogleMonster routine. Sorry.
M&A
Whenever my father complained about the lyrics of the rock 'n' roll music my sisters and I loved, my mother would remind him of "Cement Mixer, Putty Putty."
Yes a very smooth down clues only solve. I did get the theme before looking at any of the across clues, because the Abba song made it a GIMME!
Nice to see LULUlemon again. I was working in the Mosaic Books building in downtown Kelowna six years ago, and someone mentioned shopping at that store. I asked: "where is that?" She looked at me and said "across the street from where you work, dummy" (actually I added the "dummy" part). Well, in my defense, at that time the store only had the logo as signage and not the name, and I had no idea what those omega symbols meant. Here is a Google Streetview from 2017 to prove it, honest.
It's Monday. It's supposed to have easy fill. And easy fill tends to be SORT OF blah.
If the NYT wanted downs-only solving, it would have (i.e. sell) a DownsOnly Puzzle Game. Yes, I know, downs-only solving makes Monday more rigorous, therefore FUN FUN FUN. My Monday solution is to solve it in my head, or fill only the perimeter and diagonals.
"Cement Mixer", what????
Don't know that one, MJB. But there were certainly some perfectly dreadful pre-rock era lyrics and titles. The worst I ever heard was from my mother's era, not mine, I'm happy to say: "Mairzy Doats". (Sp.?)
You can Google it. You can even YouTube it and listen for yourself, I'm pretty sure. I could check it out for you, but I don't think I'd want to hear it again.
Right, Chip. I was going to say the same.
Lost in this sea of dreck is “tshape”, 20A. I’m struggling to use it in speech. “Tshaped” seems fine and unused is a word. But “unuse”? I’m not sure “tshape” is even crosswordese.
This puzzle? 18-Down. Multiple names, some obscure, both ALI and ALY, both SORTOF and IMOF among other repetitive and banal fill.
Nothing against Josh Shapiro or Rex, but the top Shapiro in my brain will always be Harry Shapiro (portrayed by Harvey Lembeck) the wise-cracking POW in Billy Wilder's masterful 1953 wartime comedy/drama "Stalag 17," and his partner in comedy Stanislaus "Animal" Kuzawa (Robert Strauss).
65A: Love the song, it's a classic; could've done without the reminder that they really did go with "ex's" in the title. (O tempora! O mores!)
Actually LOLed at "All the MULPs out there are like 'Damn! It's EMIL again. Some day ...'" 😂
And "LULU" definitely stands on its own—that's what most people call it, anyway.
Andrew
I miss references to your rescue dog.
If I take inferences from your frequent criticisms of popular Democrats ( I can’t remember you saying a word of criticism of of a certain major party) it would lead to an inescapable conclusion as to the candidates you are supporting. But I would rather not.
M & A
Knew it was you immediately!
Rex’s commentary brilliantly demonstrates the silliness of downs-only solving. Monty Python provides a parallel analysis in their “Pet Conversion” sketch.
Terrific , yes!
Themes usually seem (to me) disconnected to solving. For example, you finish the puzzle, then afterwords you notice the theme, and the theme has the “whoop” of a “dad joke”. But today the theme reduces the experience, as it butts in and hogs fifty-plus squares with shovel-fulls of repeated letters — squares that otherwise would have been used by another clue or two or three.
Very very hard. Hardest Monday since 8/22/22. For the ABBA song, debated between MONEYMONEYMONEY, IDOIDOIDOIDOIDO or GIMMEGIMMEGIMME. The right answer would have been my third choice. For Motley Crue wanted GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS but for some reason my brain said it wouldn't fit so I skipped it to comb back to.
Rex, there is a whole country in southern Africa named for the NAMIB.
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