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Louis who wrote "Holes" / SUN 8-18-24 / Part of an omakase meal / Jazz pianist Garner / Fruity Italian wine / Prominent feature of Tom Selleck or David Hasselhoff / Participate in a Lakota smudging ceremony / Indigenous people with a First Moccasin ceremony / A gilded one is seen on King Tut's crown
Sunday, August 18, 2024
Constructor: Rebecca Goldstein and Will Nediger
Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
- DROP TOWER (4D: Amusement park attraction depicted to the right of this answer)
- BUMPER CARS (25A: Amusement park attraction depicted above and below this answer)
- ROLLER COASTER (65A: Amusement park attraction depicted weaving through this answer)
- WATER SLIDE (111A: Amusement park attraction depicted above this answer)
- WHAC-A-MOLE (79D: Amusement park attraction depicted in and around this answer)
Louis Sachar (/ˈsækər/ SAK-ər; born March 20, 1954) is an American young-adult mystery-comedy author. He is best known for the Wayside School series and the novel Holes.Holes won the 1998 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 1999 Newbery Medal for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children". In 2013, it was ranked sixth among all children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal. [...] Holes is a 1998 young adult novel written by Louis Sachar and first published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book centers on Stanley Yelnats, who is sent to Camp Green Lake, a correctional boot camp in a desert in Texas, after being falsely accused of theft. The plot explores the history of the area and how the actions of several characters in the past have affected Stanley's life in the present. These interconnecting stories touch on themes such as labor, boyhood and masculinity, friendship, meaning of names, illiteracy, and elements of fairy tales.
The book was both a critical and commercial success. Much of the praise for the book has centered around its complex plot, interesting characters, and representation of people of color and incarcerated youth. [...] Holes was adapted by Walt Disney Pictures as a feature film of the same name released in 2003. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, was commercially successful, and was released in conjunction with the book companion Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake. (wikipedia)
is easily the highlight of the puzzle for me (85A: Prominent feature of Tom Selleck or David Hasselhoff / 89A: Sour grapes drink?). Just imagining a bunch of dudes in the early-80s watching "Magnum P.I." and trying to convince themselves Tom Selleck isn't that sexy. Maybe mocking his short shorts, or his prodigious 'stache, or the Farrah-style pin-up posters on their sisters' bedroom walls ... just drinking the CHEST HAIR HATERADE ...
 |
| [for comparison] |
- 15A: Quick second? (ASST.) — "Quick" = abbrev. indicator, and "second" = (per merriam webster dot com, noun (1) def. 2) "one that assists or supports another, especially the assistant of a duelist or boxer." So "quick second" = "abbreviated assistant" = ASST.
- 36A: N.Y.C. home of "Christina's World" (MoMA) — extremely famous and oft-parodied Wyeth painting, in case you forgot or somehow didn't know ...
 |
| [Andrew, *not* N.C.] |
- 51A: "Her Kind" poet Sexton (ANNE) —
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
- 114A: People who call New Zealand "Aotearoa" (MAORI) — pretty sure everyone calls it that now. "Beginning in the late 20th century, Aotearoa has become widespread in the bilingual naming of national organisations and institutions" (wikipedia). But yeah, it's a MAORI-language term.
- 117A: Nickname for the Los Angeles Angels (HALOS) — I got this easily, but semi-balked at the spelling, as I want most pluralized "O"-ending words to be spelled -OES. Don't I? HEROES, yes. But then ZEROS. And LASSOS and SOLOS. But definitely POTATOES. Man, English is insane.
- 5D: Participate in a Lakota smudging ceremony (BURN SAGE) — don't love this. That is, I do love it, or would, if SMUDGE or SMUDGING were the *answer* ... that feels like a coherent thing. BURN SAGE feels like an arbitrary verb phrase, like "paint walls" or "eat food" or whatever. Feels like a clue, not an answer.
- 10D: A gilded one is seen on King Tut's crown (COBRA) — had the -RA in place, so the word "crown" in the clue triggered an automatic TIARA response.
- 37D: Jazz pianist Garner (ERROLL) — A one-L ERROL, he's a drinker / A two-L ERROLL, he's a ... plinker?
- 36D: Fruity Italian wine (MOSCATO) — never had MOSCATO, to my knowledge, but I have had (German, or maybe French) Muscat, which helped here.
- 97D: Part of an omakase meal (SUSHI) — got this off the "I," but can't remember what "omakase" means ... I must've seen the term in Kamogawa Food Detectives, or heard it in Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011), but I just ... forgot. Here we go:
The phrase omakase, literally 'I leave it up to you', is most commonly used when dining at Japanese restaurants where the customer leaves it up to the chef to select and serve seasonal specialties. The Japanese antonym for omakase is okonomi (from 好み konomi, "preference, what one likes"), which means choosing what to order. In American English, the expression is used by patrons at sushi restaurants to leave the selection to the chef, as opposed to ordering à la carte. The chef will present a series of plates, beginning with the lightest fare and proceeding to the heaviest dishes. The phrase is not exclusive to raw fish with rice and can incorporate grilling, simmering and other cooking techniques. (wikipedia)
- 71D: Consequently (THENCE) — ugh you wouldn't think a word like this could flummox me, esp. with the "TH-" in place, but yeesh. THUSLY? THERETO? Whatever quaint and / or legalistic word was being asked of me, my brain just could not.
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100 comments:
Had never heard “haterade” (didn’t realize it was an actual portmanteau out there and not a NYTX pun until reading Rex) or “ennead” (what’s the need
for that word?), and know Holes, of course, but couldn’t remember the last vowel in Sachar’s name, so got totally stuck there. Even on finishing none of that delivered an “aha” mental click into place. Also didn’t know orrery, so felt similarly uncertain over there. Agree with Rex on “roller coaster” and visual tepidness. Meh.
Easy and tepid, but amusing enough. I don’t pick a nit on ROLLER COASTER versus COASTER COASTER. Never saw the MOLE connection before reading Rex’s blog, but it didn’t matter.
Bottom line: it’s a fine Sunday puzzle for the occasional solver.
All this light-hearted theme stuff, then RESETTLEMENT— seems off-mood
I think the big guy nailed it. I too typically look forward to each of these constructors - especially Will with Nancy - but this theme was not fully realized and leaves you with a big why after solving.
The circles don’t show up when using dark mode in the app - I’ve made the point before to the NYT but whatever - the entire graphic gets lost. The overall fill is pedestrian - BISMOL, NITRATES and ENNEADS don’t cheer up this gloomy morning.
OSCAR
I did like the BURN SAGE - probably the highlight of the grid. DOWAGERS went in cleanly thanks to Downton Abbey. My kids read Holes 20 years ago but SACHAR took some crosses. SCRANTON will always be tied to Biden.
Maybe an homage to wistful summer fun trips? I love a good roller coaster and thrill ride - this puzzle not so much.
John DOE and The Sadies
Had a DNF at first because of the tricky cluing at 64A. Trip seemed to be talking about LSD, so I said "gET" off. I had no idea what the yogurt drink was.... then had to scour the puzzle to change gET to SET at the end. Overall a cute puzzle, liked it more than Rex did. My app is telling me it took me 9 hours to do it, cuz I fell asleep doing it last night (!). -Rick
After experiencing a lightning-fast move-in-all-directions ride at age seven, I lost my desire to ever tackle another ride in an amusement park.
But I still loved going. Here was a place where everyone was happy, having fun, escaping from the routine of life. Here was a place with its own sounds, smells, bright colors, not to mention the great snacks and carnival games.
This puzzle whisked me right back to that fun feeling, like I was there. That alone drew my thumbs up.
It's made by two pros. I call them that because I’ve solved enough by them to see their skill, wit, and agility in creating puzzles. Look at today's:
• Circles all over the place, including four diagonal lines. It is SO HARD to cleanly fill restraints like this, and this grid has hardly a whiff of junk.
• Their first grid was rejected. Mind you, it’s a 21 x 21 Sunday, which requires tremendous effort to fill and clue. Yet they made two more iterations, just to get it right.
High skill, persistence, and drive for excellence. Rebecca and Will, pros like you make crosswords not only fun and brain-satisfying, but also bring beauty and quality into the equation. Thank you for this splendid collaboration!
Love any puzzle by Goldstein. But then, I loved ORRERY, too, so what do I know?
Interesting idea for a theme, which I think the experienced constructor team pulled off nicely - I’m nowhere as picky as Rex when it comes to the theme specifics.
As is usually the case, I would have enjoyed the solving experience more if they had dialed back the PPP and other real or borderline arcane stuff. There is plenty to go around today - BURN SAGE means nothing to me. Ditto for PARSEC, SACHAR, ORRERY, DELTORO, the piano dude and so on - it just makes it tough to keep any momentum going when so many of the answers don’t even appear to be real words (see ENNEADS, for example).
I don’t know if it is a good thing or a bad thing to say about a grid that the highlight of the day was the kick ASS new (to me at least) clue for ASS.
Feels like the one who sets the SCREEN (47D) in a Pick & Roll in basketball is the one who scores the basket, not the one who notches an assist (as a game stat).
I understand that “assist” might just mean “participate” or something here, but the clue (Assist in a pick-and-roll) didn’t quite sit right with me.
I will never understand why puzzle constructors stick in these irrelevant visual gimmicks. They have nothing to do with solving and almost never add sparkle.
Also had pins before MICS and never heard of HATERADE. Overall, I agree with Rex. Except for the cute WHAC-A-MOLE (a game I never especially enjoyed), we are not amused.
I cared enough and felt engaged enough to finish this one, which is more than I can say about most Sundays. I’ll put that down as a win in my book.
Showing my age, but I was unfamiliar with drop tower. Now that I’ve looked it up and seen the Six Flags Version, I know the only time I will ever get virtually involved in this eviscerating ride is in this puzzle.
Funny, I thought the outlier was WHACAMOLE, because the other themers all have your body going somewhere and not just standing there. That SE corner was a little sticky because of the PINS / MICS thing and not thinking of OLEO in any way "crumbly". Crossword fave ENOS to the rescue.
I have a YAMAHA piano and have been singing DOOWOP for 30 + years so easy ones there.
Today's highlight was of course ORRERY, something I have never seen outside a crossword and then only infrequently and not for a long time. Hello old friend. Nice to see you come out of hiding.
@Roo, yeah, I know. Now you're just showing off.
Pretty breezy Sunday, RG and WN. Rarely Grated With Not much gunk, and liked the overall amusement idea. Of course I'm easily amused, so there's that. Thanks for all the fun.
Everyone knows septet and octet, but it drops way off for ennead, which could be used for baseball. I liked seeing it and orrery, both interesting words. Enjoyed learning about omakase.
Also enjoyed the ANNE Sexton poem -- thanks RP! Wasn't troubled by (didn't notice) the ROLLER issue. Also thought the bumper cars and whac-a-mole were very nicely done. Solid and engaging puzzle by two old pros.
*********
Peter Marshall died, at 98. Host of Hollywood Squares.
Question asked of Paul Lynde: When is it a good idea to put your panty hose in the microwave for two minutes? Lynde's answer: When your house is surrounded by the police.
Question: What was your grandfather trying to do when he put oatmeal on his forehead?
Answer: Get it in his mouth.
Mantle and Aaron were guest celebs. The only person to be both a contestant and, later, a celeb was OJ Simpson. Ouch.
Rest in peace, Marshall.
To my simple mind, ROLLERCOASTER was the centerpiece and the rest of the visuals were casual paint daubed here and there. But @Rex and others have a point that the daubs are the more creative/suggestive. In any event, a lot of thought went into this grid. Some arcane references made this tough, such as THENCE, which I entered only after failing to get THUSLY to work. Thought this was evidence of a trade-off by which the constructors avoided crossword junk by going with more exotic references.
This was my second best time of all my Sundays. Wondering if some of the clueing skews younger (this is usually the case when I find a puzzle easy and Rex says it’s more complicated).
Rebecca pulled off quite the exacta today - she constructed today’s LAT puzzle as well as co-constructing today’s NYT offering. They both have kind of neat themes as well. Nice job Rebecca !
Hey All !
A two answer cheat puz. Couldn't get a foothold in that Proper Noun Central/mid/west area. (Area just below NW corner). MOSCATO eventually entering the ole brain, ERROLL an unknown (my first look-up), DELTORO, ACCRA (my other look-up), LASSi as clued, EASEL and ASTUTE trickily clued. Goodness. Did have YAMAHA, MOMA, SKA, SET, but angstness and reading the same clues multiple times, hoping something would pop up in the brain, but never coming, prompted the look-ups.
Ah, me. You can say I LOSE HEART when I can't get a part of a chunk of answers. HOWL. 😁
Knew the Albuquerque Isotopes, as they play the Las Vegas Aviators quite a bit in AAA baseball. Haven't been to a game, but hear it advertised on the radio quite a bit. They say the stadium is very nice.
We get quite a different ASS clue today. Fill surprisingly good, considering all the wackily placed Themers. 86 Blockers, high, regular 78 max.
Echoing the other days DOGG ROOMER, if I was jointly living with you, I'd be a ROO ROOMY. Har.
That little section has three OO's, ROO, TOO, DOO.WooHoo. 😁
Got a chuckle out of Rex's ERROLL quip. Good stuff.
Happy Sunday!
No F's ! (See @Tom T? On a SunSize grid, this is my battle.) 😁
RooMonster
DarrinV
Note that the caption under the image of "Christina's World" is [Andrew, *not* N.C.] Sly reference to the origin of 1A NATICK crossing 1D NCWYETH back in 2008.
Hand up for loving ORRERY.
1. Why are we still doing ENNEADS?!?
2. Agree that RESETTLEMENT seems out of place - feels more Erik Agard/ New Yorker.
Re: An improved Drop Tower visual, the four black squares could be people sitting in their chairs with the legs hanging in space.
Can someone help me understand how OAR is a (56D) shell tool?
Came here to make this point as well - I found it jarring.
Surprised there's no mention of the CLANG/GRETA cross. I had CLANK to start, but KRETA was not obviously wrong as an unusual surname, especially given my complete lack of knowledge of "Past Lives". Changed it only after ensuring everything else seemed certain. Nevertheless, this was pleasant enough, but definitely well short of the standard Prof. Goldstein is known for.
Once I got it through my thick skull that there was absolutely nothing for me to do in regard to those annoying tiny little circles other than to meekly fill them in, I lost interest entirely. I wanted a rebus in those circles...or a palindrome...or a reversal...or SOMETHING that, I, the solver, would have to figure out and that would keep me engaged and curious. Baffled, even.
But, no. Just fill in all the answers, ignoring the circles, and then sit back and admire the intricacy of the grid design and applaud the constructors. And as you know, I NEVER do that -- not even when one of the constructors is my very own collaborator.
Two very talented constructors involved in a project that I suspect gave them a lot more pleasure and satisfaction than it gave me. Sorry, Will, but I dropped this one early.
Totally agree on ROLLER COASTER. Doesn't follow the convention set by the other themes and a big fail for me.
WHAC-A-MOLE isn’t much of an amusement park attraction, is it? More of a kids’ arcade game.
I thought this was a pretty easy Sunday and I didn't notice notice the ROLLER COASTER issue. I thought it was a downright enjoyable puzzle. My only nit to pick was the NAE/ENNEADS crossing. I didn't have the N in NAE and took a lucky guess about him being Scottish or something. Never heard of ENNEADS. Otherwise I thought it was fair and fun.
I found the same answers gunky as Southside Johnny, and stumbled over the same natick as Rick Sacra.... "Get off" is a perfectly acceptable answer for "trip," unless of course you can get a correction from the crossing word. LASSI... really? I've heard of kefir, but there is no LASSI in my part of the world (except as alternative to Rin-Tin-Tin, lol). When is this new edito going to do his job and free us from these weekly naticks?
Crew uses oars to row its shell.
Crew uses oars to row its shell
I never go to amusement parks, so I thought at first that the names were going to be things like whirlybirds or dippididos or some horror that I had never heard of, so was at least glad that they were easily inferable. Never a huge fan of puzzles that repeat an answer as it just means filling in letters without having to struggle. Agree with the point about the COASTER COASTER which would have made more sense. No real pain points for me today. Had no idea on ENNEADS (wanted some alternative spelling of nonet). Overall a pleasant way to spend 28:35 of my Sunday morning.
A shell is that skinny boat used in racing. Stroke!
A shell is a narrow racing boat propelled by oars.
Crew uses oars to row its shell.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_shell
Shell is a type of boat.
I think every Sunday Rex should find some rationale for including the Farrah poster in his review. It’ll be a fun “how will he do it this week?” type thing, like how on Laverne & Shirley they’d have to find a setup line for Lenny and Squiggy to burst through the door (kids, ask your parents).
I admired the construction feat and especially got a kick out of the MOLEs peeking up out of the bottom.
I learned what an ORRERY is on a long-ago January-day visit to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich outside of London, which was followed by a restorative warm-up stop at an EEL and Pie Shop that served cherry pie in big cereal bowls flooded with hot custard and was the highlight of the trip.
Fairly easy, with a fast solve time. You know, the fact the bio just HAD to include the line "They... went through countless iterations to achieve the cleanest fill" raised my suspicions immediately. One does not make such a statement unless there will be concerns that public opinion feels the fill is not clean! Why go on the defensive up front?
Of the themers, I actually liked Whac-A-Mole the best. We played that all the time when we were in Rehoboth Beach, DE. (And no, we never saw the President or his motorcade...) In looking over the comments, I think Mr. Benson (10:08 AM) has a point that Whac-A-Mole is not truly an amusement park "attraction" like the others, though. And I agree ROLLERCOASTER is note quite in line with the others, no consistent.
ORRERY was new to me, and I'm a space nut (obviously not nuts enough!). ENNEAD, too.
Has anyone tracked how many times EEL has made its appearance as an answer? Such a diversity of clues! My husband doesn’t do the puzzle but he loves it when I call out that it’s back again.
It’s OREO, not OLEO (and thus ERIN, not ELIN)
@RooMonster that is so WHAC-ky!
Easy-medium. I had the most trouble around SACHER/ACE/HATERADE/CHEST HAIR. The C in ACE was my last entry. SACHER was a WOE plus I had Hot???before HATER and Cleft before CHEST. The rest went pretty smoothly.
Cute/clever idea, not much junk, fun Sunday, liked it more than @Rex did but he’s right about ROLLER COASTER.
Haven't read the comments yet, but I really liked this :) A lot I didn't know
SACHAR, DROP TOWER, BURNSAGE but I had fun figuring it out.
An enjoyable change (for me) after the last 2 days - & on a Sunday!
Thanks to you both.
(BTW - how can I leave my comment & return to it in the new format?)
Even back in Robert BURNSAGE there were Lakota smudging ceremonies.
I don't want to say commenters are being overly picky, but at these NITRATES we could cure meat. I'd bet on it, buti don't DOWAGERS.
We've all heard an ASS bray, but have you heard an ASTUTE?
Not my favorite Sunday, but I always appreciate a new theme approach. Thanks, Rebecca Goldstein and Will Nediger.
HATERADE ENNEAD ORRERY BURNSAGE did not really know, but I finished no errors in a reasonable time. Loved the WhacAMole thing. very good. thanks for an enjoyable puzzle.
With a Sunday-sized grid, I would have expected more Hidden Diagonal Words (HDW), but the large number of blocker squares (noted by @RooMonster) interrupted the flow of diagonals. Oddly, though, this grid offers a nice assortment of longer (5-letters or more) HDWs. SEERS, off the first S in 120A; and ARABS, off the A in 37A, are just 4-letter words plus the plural of convenience (POC). And EASER (one who eases?), off the E in 78D, is an awkward word at best.
But here are clues for two other 5-letter HDWs today:
1. What one does to the grid to find each HDW
2. Organic chemistry compound
I was put off by the fact that the circled words (outside of the MOLE from WHACAMOLE) were all simply dupes of words that appeared in the answers to the theme clues: TOWER/TOWER, CAR/CAR, WATER/WATER, and especially ROLLERCOASTER/ROLLERCOASTER. That feature made it too easy/obvious to fill in the circles.
And ORRERY was totally unknown to me--very odd word.
Answers:
1. SCOUR (begins with the S in 72A, RESPAWN, moves to NW)
2. ESTER (the E in HERA, 39D, followed by the last 4 circled letters in COASTER)
Of course, there is a 6-letter diagonal word today, WATERS, but it doesn't qualify as an HDW, because the first 5 letters are not hidden.
Ok, I gotta ... ER ... ROLL
For all of you who've never tried your hand at a Diagramless puzzle, the one in today's magazine might be a good one to start with. While it would be an oxymoron to call it an easy one -- there is no such thing as an easy Diagramless -- it is somewhat easiER than many. My own stats on these are underwhelming: I'd guess that I finish maybe 40 to 60 percent of them. But take a stab at this one if you've always had a hankering to try one. If I can do it, anyone can. Remember that I'm the person who is challenged by all things "spatial relations"-related and never have the faintest idea which is the same cube with a missing section that's been rotated 90 degrees.
(I figure that this variety of puzzle is stimulating the part of my brain that most needs it.)
Can you please explain the pantyhose joke, @Liveprof? I may be very dense, but I plain don't get it.
As a coaster and amusement park aficionado, I loved it. Big effing whoop that coaster doesn’t roll. There was an accurate depiction of a rollercoaster in the puzzle. And WHAC-A-MOLE!
Ooh, thanks for the tip. Must check it out when I get home this afternoon. Don't run into diagramless puzzles very often.
Here I was thinking there was no wordplay in this puzzle but HATERADE indeed does satisfy that nicely. And I laughed about 85A because, with ___S_HAIR in place, I threw in falSeHAIR and thought, "Really, Tom Selleck?" Never mind.
Looking at the grid, post solve, I couldn't figure out what the circles in the SE were doing. I had to go searching for the theme answer before realizing they were moles being whacked. That is cute, along with the BUMPER CARS smashed together in the NE.
Thanks, Rebecca and Will, nice puzzle!
Hi: I’ve seen mentions of constructor notes. Where can these be found? TIA
According to XWordInfo, since 1942 EEL has appeared in the NYTXW. 449 times making it the 20th most common word. ERA leads the list at 717.
Actually depending how it is defended, the person who sets the screen can cut and receive a pass and score (assist from person screened for)or set such a good screen that allows the ball handler to get an open shot (no assist.)
The participant analysis is the best.
@Kathy. Eel has appeared 883 in NYT crossword puzzles, according to xwordinfo.com. Glancing at the list there appears to be several hundred different clues for the word.
it's a shame that whac-a-mole had the best visual representation, because otherwise, to me, it doesn't fit. everything else is an amusement park ride, while W-A-M is (again, to me) an arcade game.
surprised to see rex rated this medium, i usually spend an hour on sundays, i blew through this in under twenty minutes with some zoning out to a podcast i had on. kind of a bummer putting in rollercoaster as the answer and then looking at the circled squares and realizing oh...i just have to...fill in rollercoaster? again? okay...
the puzzle in general was kind of a let down tbh. i liked the bumper car arrangement, chest hair was kind of funny i guess...but a lot of musty and/or "if you say so" [aka, unknown to me but not interesting to learn or uncover] fill. i know sundays have long been hated on around these parts, but i usually enjoy them. this one unfortunately was a dud on multiple levels. i guess though, on that note, i did get a second "heh" out of "for your amusement." mmmmhm.
-stephanie.
Found this really, really easy, a personal best and close to half my average time! CHESTHAIR and HATERADE were the highlights.
Felt so bad for Nancy while I was solving this.
ROLLER COASTER was my favorite theme answer, just cuz it looks neat going down and up like that, and I didn't notice the inconsistency.
I had one pretty funny typeover: CLEFT CHIN before CHEST HAIR. The word "cleft" worked with all the crosses except maybe FEMOLINA.
Well yesterday I had major problems trying to submit a comment; it kept responding "There was an error". Then it finally accepted it but it never appeared. And today it's happening again so I'm trying the anonymous option. Anyone else?
-- okanaganer
Wow, does "everyone" really call New Zealand Aotearoa now? That's news to me, and I used to teach International Relations. Or am I missing sarcasm?
Really enjoyed this, but had the funniest "miss-read" clue I've ever had in a puzzle. I read titled widows as tilted windows and was completely stumped.
NYT Wordplay column
I ended on that word and still thought maybe DOWAGERS was a kind of window I just wasn't familiar with.
I didn’t like it. There shouldn’t be any duplicates allowed. The worst offender was ROLLERCOASTER appearing twice. Once at 65A and again in the circled letters.
Did anyone do the diagramless? Now that’s a challenge!
Why do you feel bad for me, Ben? Will Nediger and I have a puzzle coming up in the LAT, probably in Sept, and one coming up in the WSJ -- I'm not sure when it will be scheduled. Will has never once turned me down over the years when I've pitched him with an idea because he's "too busy"; only if he doesn't think that particular idea of mine will work. He works very fast, is a great collaborator, and shouldn't have to sit twiddling his thumbs while I try to come up with new ideas (not always so easy, btw.) I've worked with other people too when Will's not interested in a given idea. See the "YOUR LOSS" puzzle I did with Lewis Rothlein in the LAT. Will didn't see a way to make my original idea work; Lewis OTOH came up with a brilliant tweak that made it sing and helped get it published.
Nor would I have been the right collaborator for Will on today's puzzle. I'm just not interested in or excited by grid design and grid art. But he and Rebecca were on the same page.
I may have mentioned this before but I'm not a big fan of Sunday puzzles. 21 x 21. All that real estate! And if it's not done well it's such tedium. But I'm on vacation and I flipped open the puzzle app last night and saw Nediger and Goldstein and thought, "This could be good", and it was. Didn't even mind the ROLLERCOASTER thing that bothered Rex and many commenters. It was worth it for WHACAMOLE which I used to play while my kids were riding various torturous things at PNE Playland near my childhood home in East Vancouver.
Can't say it was a personal best time because I don't clock myself but it seemed kind of breezy. Thanks for the fun, Rebecca and Will.
Oh, forgot to mention BURNSAGE. You can hardly see a government press conference out here these days without someone in full regalia smudging off to the side or in the background. I prefer to drop my freshly picked sage in hot oil for a few seconds and then crumble it on top of my pasta.
Part of every theme answer is duplicated. That’s the entire conceit of the puzzle. Three CARS are bumping against one another. WATER slides downward. Etc. The issue with roller coaster isn’t the dupe. It’s that if the puzzle were consistent, only COASTER would be duplicated, and would roll in some way.
And speaking of DOWAGER(s) -- I can't resist. It's the 4th album down.
Gosh, thanks for the interesting reply! I was just making a joke about all the circles :D
44A: kept reading it as Tilted Windows. Couldn't figure out how I couldn't fathom the answer even with D-WA-ERS in place. What an idiot!!
ORRERY & SAARINEN... whatevs...
I don’t think “everyone” calls it that, and I don’t think you missed any sarcasm.
Ten minutes looking for my mistake and it was OLEO for OREO. Engaging puzzle. Had an EENY amount of fun doing it. Any puzzle with other men's CHEST HAIR is gonna reel me in big time.
ORRERY! amirite? HERR is one of the words found in the German dictionary for crosswords that fits on a postage stamp. I think we're up to four words.
BURN SAGE. Our condo building was going through a series of unfortunate events so a woman here who practices wholistic medicine (you know, eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog) she decided to sage the building one night and people thought there was a fire. But, we did have fewer tragedies afterward. I wish I could sage my soul, and my attitude, and my laziness, and every now and then it wouldn't hurt to sage this blog.
😫 That clue for HERA, er, HER A.
Propers: 18
Places: 2
Products: 10
Partials: 10
Foreignisms: 5
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 45 of 142 (32%)
Funnyisms: 6 😐
Tee-Hee: How my personality test came out: [Risqué] ASS. There's also a [Set of pipes] next to an adjective that could be read in a most scurrilous manner.
Uniclues:
1 Spacious electric vehicles meant for wrestling with ... and in?
2 Woman with a dead husband lighting up the night.
3 Botanist's angst against bush.
4 Fish toupees flushed.
5 Moist assonant deluge of cookies for indigenous New Zealanders.
1 ROOMY SUMO BUMPER CARS (~)
2 DOWAGER'S NEON YESES (~)
3 PEONY HATERADE PAIN
4 SEA RUGS RESETTLEMENT
5 MAORI OREO WATER SLIDE (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Mayan comedian's closing gag ... literally. INANE INCA FART.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Really enjoyed this. Found it an easy solve, with almost everything I didn't know being workoutable with a few crosses, a few nice clues, and the theme park attractions dotted around entertainingly. Rather like a real theme park! I had fade instead of wane which encouraged me to fill in flume where water would eventually be. Water makes more sense of the clue of course (you don't call it a flume slide) but out of interest I also wonder whether flume is a particularly British term, which is why it sprang to mind for me.
Thought the same as OFL about ROLLER but I love ROLLER COASTERs so gave it a pass. Liked the puzzle overall, especially for a Sunday.
I briefly thought unibrow might be the Selleck feature.
@Carola, thanks for the ORRERY link! I was feeling ornery about my -RRERY/DELT-RO Natick. Now I really want my own ORRERY. But it has to include Pluto.
Inquiring minds are clamoring, “Why is called an ORRERY?” Etymonline.com says it was “invented c. 1704 by English clockmaker George Graham (1673-1751) and constructed by instrument maker John Rowley. Graham gave a copy to his patron, Charles Boyle (1674-1731), 4th Earl of Orrery (Cork) and named it in his honor.”
I"lm with anonymous @ 1:01
Loved the rollercoaster going up and down and have a hard time following Rex's reason for rejecting it. Since either roller or coaster could be going up down and around - that is they are not as different in meaning as bumper and cars, water and slide, etc., it was perfect just as it was.
Plus I thought it rather cute the way three cars bumped heads.......
Someone in the earlier comments has missed a treat if he's never had a mango lassi. ( feel like we just had lassi in a puzzle)
PaulyD
I suppose I was at an advantage in that I guessed CLANG early. But why not try a fairly common name that has been in the Times often before a “plausible “ name you never saw. I think that is why it hasn’t come up.
Nancy
I noticed the circles and remembered that you are not a fan
But while they didn’t bother me, I just did the puzzle and almost totally ignored the circles. Ironically, I did notice the roller coaster shape -the only one I grasped. But mostly it was a themeless to me
I didn’t lose interest like you though. Thought it was a very easy puzzle.
The inconsistency Rex et al. are complaining about I of course didn’t notice.
Orrery got complaints. Knew it from HBO series called Lovecraft
Close enough for crosswords, but surprised I haven’t yet seen complaints about THENCE from the literalists because it often doesn’t mean consequently.
Ken Freeland
I feel you unfairly criticized the editors about a natick.
Get off might be perfectly acceptable, but SET OFF is equally acceptable if not more so. Just because a common in the language answer didn’t happen to occur to the solver does not a natick make. A natick requires two obscure words crossing.
The editors didn’t do anything wrong here.
BASS
FWIW
Saarinen is one of those answers that long time solvers have seen over and over. His name has dropped out of the “rotation “ of late. But it was a gimme for a lot of people.
Extremely easy, but not much amusement.
I wore a TIARA for the first of my 2 overwrites, which occured in the BUMPER CAR floor, where I completed my solve. It went CLANK before it CLANGed.
At least the theme earned a little more of my respect after WHAC-A-MOLE clued me into the fact that the circles were the ride representations; not the boxes. Since my first solve was BUMPER CARS, I thought they were honestly trying to sell us on the idea that the chunked off white box areas symbolized the rides themselves. In which case, I can imagine both Mr. & Mrs. Parker being even more annoyed at this coaster-coaster of nonsense. Also, spying my error in — literally — the first square of the first clue (C)ASH sooner, would’ve DOCKED about an hour from my finish time. I had an H there as my perplexed placeholder, and as I reviewed my answers every which way — north, south, and even ENE — it blended into the scenery just a bit *too* well for me to pick up on it quickly. Just one of those Sundays!
Anon 12:30 - finding constructor notes - when you look at the NYT Games page, directly under that day’s crossword is a link: “READ ABOUT TODAY’S PUZZLE ON WORDPLAY”. (Sorry about the all caps, but that’s how it appears on the page.)
Anon 4:26 My favorite attraction at Six Flags in Atlanta was the Log Flume.
Re: resettlement in the midst of a light puzzle? Canadians love to poop their own parties.
A solid puzzle overall, but yeah ROLLER COASTER just jumps off the page with wrongness. Unless there is something called a rolling roller coaster that I'm unfamiliar with.
I never knew David Hasselhoff has/had a hairy chest, so he was not much help there.
In case anyone is curious about the discrepancy in these two answers, the 449 is since Will Shortz became editor; the 883 is all-time.
I first read it as tiled windows. I was thinking stained glass.
Thanks, Gary... I expected this would vet a pretty high gunk rating... about a third of the answers PPP... YUCK!
Paul Lynde was clearly gay. And this would be back at a time when that could get you in trouble with the police.
If I told you Paul Lynde was gay would that help?
i liked the puzzle- good job Goldstein/Nediger. So the whole Yentl/Yente/Yenta thing continues to confuse me.
wikipedia has this to say https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yenta "There is a mistaken belief that the word for a Jewish matchmaker is yenta or yente. In reality a Jewish matchmaker is called a shadchan (שדכן). The origin of this error is the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, in which a character named Yente serves as the matchmaker for the village of Anatevka."
@Ken - I live in a very white state but even here - anyone who has ever eaten in an Indian restaurant has had LASSI (it is delicious) - I encourage you to go try one!
I really enjoyed the puzzle and did not parse the theme answer the same way as Rex and some others - each theme answer *created* the image of the ride or game - to me it didn’t matter which part of the word was represented bc I saw them as a whole. Like sort of a rebus. What other image would a water slide be other than a diagonal? A slide IS a diagonal shape. And the cars bump and the rollercoaster is up and down and the whac-a-mole amused me greatly.
This one was considerably less thrilling than any of the rides it depicts. Okay, the BUMPERCARS bit was really well done, and made me laugh...but it was all a downhill SLIDE from there.
To me the ROLLERCOASTER entry looked like a gigantic dupe. You have it going straight across--and you have it again doing its rollercoaster thing. One of them should be enough!
A few saving points for the MOLE parts popping up, just like they do, but the fill to achieve all this is crammed with PPPs. Bogey.
Just another Wordle par--but for the first time ever, I began with TWO totally blank guesses: BBBBB BBBBB BGYBG GGGGG.
Burma is a little behind:
Today’s:
BANGUP EVENT
TERESA would SAY, “NEVER ENOUGH,
it IS NOT A LITTLE game,
to PREEN for LITTLE CREEPS IS tough,
but I’m NOTSORRY ICAME.”
--- SARAH ASHE
Saturday’s:
TOO TOO SMART
BARBIE and NORA AGREEd,
I GOFOR their FEMININESIDE,
they LET me KNOW what INEED,
now LOOKAT them GOFOR ARIDE!
--- HANK FELIX
Friday’s:
YEOH! YOLO, OH OH
OH, SWEET ANGIE you LIE there,
do you BEHAVE ORNOT?
I SEA from HEAD to DERRIERE –
no CONTEST – hot to TROT.
--- THOMAS BARTLEBY
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