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Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- TRADEMARK SYMBOL (cymbal) (17A: Superscript by a brand name)
- AIR FORCE BASE (bass) (30A: Fighter jet's landing spot)
- GOLDMAN SACHS (sax) (45A: Investment banking giant)
Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital and most populous city. Tajikistan is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. It is separated from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. It has a population of approximately ten million. [...] The country has been led by Emomali Rahmon since 1994, who heads an authoritarian regime and whose human rights record has been criticised. // Tajikistan is a presidential republic consisting of four provinces. Tajiks form the ethnic majority in the country, and their national language is Tajik, a variety of Persian. Russian is used as the official inter-ethnic language. While the state is constitutionally secular, Islam is nominally adhered to by 97.5% of the population. (wikipedia)
• • •
The theme is cuteish. Pretty straightforward. Those last words are all words that "sound" like "music"al instruments. The theme answers themselves are kind of bland, but the theme is consistent, it works, there's a bit of an "aha" on the back end, no real complaints. Like the fill, it's pretty straightforward, but unlike the fill, we get some playfulness at least. The hardest part of the puzzle for me BY FAR (please clap for my callback to yesterday's puzzle) was TAJIK because LOL central Asian geography is among my top Jeopardy! / trivia / test-taking nightmares. I could easily be conned into believing in a fake -stan, and the fact that any of them are right next to China (which my brain has in a completely other part of the world) is disorienting. Today, I invented a -stan: TAZIKSTAN. My Uzbek neighbor was a TAZIK. This (obviously) is because of ... Khazakhstan? [Looks it up] Damn! So close. Almost spelled that right on the first try: it's actually Kazakhstan, which is (comparatively) enormous but someone doesn't even abut Tajikistan!? So I invented a neighbor for the Uzbek: the TAZIK. Good alien name, incorrect earthling name. Luckily there are no such things as ZELLYBEANS (are there?).
[this'll get you going in the morning!]
Lightning round:
- 43D: Iconic outfit for a noted chairman (MAO SUIT) — I had RED SUIT, confusing it (I assume) with Mao's Little Red Book. This is a pretty (bygone) communist puzzle. The MAO SUIT. The member of a former Soviet republic (TAJIK), the Letters on old Soviet rockets (CCCP). This may be part of what's making the puzzle feel a little bit "of YORE."
- 21A: Losing line in tic-tac-toe (OXO) — as I've said before, not a fan of the "tic-tac-toe" line of cluing when actual things (here, a kitchenware brand) are readily available. [Losing line in tic-tac-toe] is bottom of the barrel stuff. Why go there if you don't have to go there. Reserve it for XXO or OOX or whatever. Better, yet, never use losing tic-tac-toe lines in your grid. Ever.
- 37A: Longtime Heat coach Spoelstra (ERIK) — just as the puzzle is heavy on the bygone Communism, it's also heavy on the basketball. ERIK Spoelstra here, and then the NBA (61D: Org. associated with the John Tesh instrumental "Roundball Rock"). and then the March Madness clue on UVA (63D: 2019 March Madness champs, for short). Not sure why you go to the basketball well that third time when you absolutely don't have to. I guess it makes UVA harder for a significant non-sports-loving subset of solvers. I think it's better to vary your frame of reference.
- 51D: "Wonderwall" group (OASIS) — anyway, here's "Wonderwall"
See you next time.
Mostly easy, except for the TAJIK/TAIGA cross. Never heard of the Canadian forest, even though I'm usually good at geography. The only other stumbling block was misspelling ZENO as "xeno" at first. The theme did help the solve, because "sax" was only possible connection to music. Fun puzzle.
ReplyDeleteYup - cute theme - pedestrian fill. Didn’t know FRIEDA but filled TAIGA in without thinking. Have never heard the term CUBE FARMS. I guess JELLY BEAN is fun - but quickly gets overshadowed by MAO SUIT, BIOPSY, FELONS etc.
ReplyDeleteClean enough but definitely flat Tuesday morning solve.
Coleman Hawkins
I usually hear “cubicle farms,” but definitely a common phrase. Maybe a west coast thing? Tech companies often speak derisively about cubicle farms and praise their open floor offices in job listings.
DeleteTAJIK/TAIGA was a NATICK--that first letter could have been anything. Otherwise not too challenging, although I did enjoy the theme.
ReplyDeletePossibly a wavelength thing, but way more trivia than seemed appropriate this early in the week - from the band crossing the song (OASIS/ALA) to TMZ/ZENO, along with AJAX (as clued), the hoops coach, yet another ADELE reference and of course that horrid TAJIK/TAIGA cross. I struggled through it, but my energy level and enthusiasm were just kind of in phone it in mode. Even parsing together JELLY BEAN, which could have been cool, was just meh (I just wanted nothing to do with that TAJIK/TAIGA section).
ReplyDeleteClassic NATICK, the very definition of a NATICK, a dyed in the wool NATICK, the epitome of NATICK-ness, the essence of NATICK-Dom,and a NATICK non plus ultra
ReplyDeleteTaiga is a word, though, a type of forest, not a proper noun. A cold, sub-Arctic forest, as seen in Canada, Europe, and Asia. Seems a fair cross to me.
DeleteAgree with @ Adam on the natick potential at “T” crossing in TAJIK/TAIGA
ReplyDeleteI definitely have heard TAIGA, but for some reason the clue just kept my mind searching for named “forests” in Canada, not the biome that covers large portions of all the northern hemisphere, not just Canada. I also know Tajikistan, and I guess what else would you call someone from there, but again the clue just didn’t lead me there. Duh moment, when I put in the T. But point stands, that’s a pretty rough Tuesday cross.
Anyway, theme was nice (surprised we didn’t get mini rant from Rex on inclusion of full name of a big bad symbol of Wall St greed), and rest of puzzle was tame, but tilted boring.
Nicely said, Fun_CFO. I was worried that people would think there was a Taiga National Forest or something. It's my (possibly mistaken) understanding that it's also called Boreal forest.
DeleteTAJIK/TAIGA was a pretty brutal cross for a Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteHardish for a Tuesday, I thought, because of some of the proper names. I put ussr before CCCP, which I didn’t remember until it became clear from crosses. I’ve heard of the TAIGA, but TAJIK, no. I couldn’t remember TMZ and didn’t know ZENO, had to run the alphabet for the Z.
ReplyDeleteI did like the theme, and that was the easy part.
I happen t know someone living in Tajikistan at the moment, so that was helpful.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t NATICK, but do we have a name for when you have two answers that cross and are conceivable answers? For the cross at CLEF and LAYOFF I had CDEF and DAYOFF. While the correct answers are better, mine weren’t outlandish for NYT clues. It was hard to find when I got to the end and don’t get my “way to go” chimes on the app. I did think, “well a DAYOFF isn’t exactly an extended period, unless you’re a workaholic.” As well, “I suppose when one first learns music notation, middle C is where teachers begin.”
Very easy, and significantly easier than yesterday's. Part of that is that the musical bonus material (ADELE, OASIS, THE WHO), was all in my wheelhouse. And ditto for the other PPP. An example of a PPP-clotted grid that I didn’t mind, because it was all stuff I knew.
ReplyDeleteIs there a NATICK equivalent for a crossing that is possible? I had CDEF crossing DAYOFF instead of the correct CLEF LAYOFF. Hard one to find at the end when no celebratory music came.
ReplyDeleteTAJIK was one of the easy clues, I thought. Never heard of CUBEFARMS, didn’t know CCCP, or the setting of the movie in the top right, so that corner took me a while to figure out.
ReplyDeleteThis is a tight set. Yes, LIAR and LOOT are lovely instrument homophones, but I can’t come up with any common in-the-language phrases that end in either of them. And are there any other instruments whose names have English soundalikes? Maybe, but none that I can think of.
ReplyDeleteSo, bravo to Sam for coming up with this theme in the first place, for skillfully executing it, and for coming up with its lovely reveal.
Another highlight for me were the two long downs. JELLYBEAN is a word that makes my heart beam with happiness. Every time. And while I’ve never heard the term CUBE FARMS, it’s so right on the mark and colorful.
I also liked row seven, with three words, each containing a K. Plus, I liked the musical theme echoes in NOTE, CLEF, OCTET, ADELE, OASIS, and THE WHO.
This puzzle certainly satisfied my brain’s work ethic. Not only were there a couple of sticky areas – a treat for me, an experienced solver, on Tuesday – but when I tried to guess the revealer after leaving it blank, I was at a total loss. I tried everything – first words, last words, initials of the words, and more.
Just the kind of work to leave my brain spent and content.
Thus, a whirlwind of loveliness in the box today. Thank you so much for this, Sam!
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThe term is "hoof it," not "leg it." Never heard that one.
ReplyDeleteBoth are perfectly legitimate. They're even both in the Cambridge English Dictionary. I believe "leg it" has more of an implication of fleeing, whereas "hoof it" is more just going on foot.
Deletencmathsadist
DeleteThe comment.
Leg it. Never heard that one
is perfectly valid.
But
The term is hoof it
is not.
Just because you haven’t heard it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!
Pretty easy over all, and I cruised along until hitting the wall at the T intersection of TAJIK and TAIGA. Oof. C'mon. It's Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteThat clue on POPE threw me for a little loop. I knew the answer had to be POPE, but it took me a while to understand it. Nice, clever clue.
ReplyDeleteThere’s always Jacques Brel’s “Timid FRIEDA” but I guess that’s a little obscure for the masses. But no more than most sports or pop or Harry Potter-type clues for me.
Easy. MAO coaT at 43D was my only overwrite and TAIGA (34D) was my only WOE. With all the recent Canadian wildfires I hope we don't see TAIGA TAIGA burning bright ...
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of obscure references (for a Tuesday)…nicely done!
DeleteAs a Goldman Sachs alum, I especially enjoyed the irony of MAO SUIT/CCCP/TAJIK being included. Also, large parts of Siberia are also TAIGA - the Soviet theme is strong with this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteCAB IT was perhaps coined in 1979 when it was used in the song "Movin' Right Along" in the Muppet Movie. Fozzie uses the phrase in the song:
ReplyDelete[Fozzie] We'll hitchhike, bus, or Yellow Cab it
[Kermit, clearly confused] Cab it?
[Fozzie] Just forget it...
That might not be the first usage, but Kermit's bewilderment and the audience's chuckle at least indicated that it wasn't common at the time.
Rex, have a great semester!
ReplyDeleteI always hated assembling my syllabuses/-bi in time, knowing they would largely go unread. I actually started embedding incentives in them as a reward for those who did bother, such as "Leave a hello note under my office door and score 10 points added to your first test score." They never knew how many perks were included, so they actually did get through the whole thing! At last more than usual did.
Anyway, happy times to you.
3 nits: Didn't we all decide recently that MOORing is done away from a dock? CDEF sure seemed plausible for leading a staff--specifically, the treble CLEF--as did a dAY OFF for inactivity. (Um...how is clef a leader and not a follower?) Finally, The Everglades is a swamp, and the Florida Gators don't play at The Marsh.
ReplyDeleteThe clue is not referring to a phrase like "treble clef," but to the actual staff, where each line starts with a CLEF sign.
DeleteThe Everglades is absolutely a marsh. And the clef is the first thing on the staff, hence its “leader.”
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteHad EjeCT for EVICT in SE corner. No Happy Music, took a look around puz, saw the TAJIK/TAIGA cross, having an M in there, because MAJIK sounds like a group of people that would be neat to hang around with. Ran the alphabet there, settling at the T as the best option. But still no Happy Tune. Hmm...
Finally noticed the UJA, thinking, "That doesn't seem right." Revisited the clue Kick out, and saw it could be EVICT, put it in, then got the tune we all like hearing.
Not the most scintillating theme ever, but a good placeholder TuesPuz.
Isn't NeemanSachs something? Or is the ole brain playing tricks on me again? Had yoo for ANY holding me up in West-Center. Wacky place to go on clue for 1D OCTET. It's true, just seems (ala Rex) arbitrary.
Anyhoo (which has recently been added to the Scrabble dictionary, btw), hope y'all have a Great Tuesday!
Six F's ! (FOR that!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Last month the owner of Sak's bought rival Nieman Marcus. Could that be what you're thinking of?
Delete"Twistable treats" = OREOS? Huh?!? *You* try twisting an Oreo....
ReplyDelete@BlueStater you twist oreos to open them, aka divide into two cookies, one with creme and one without. you hold the bottom cookie with one hand, and twist the top with the other. it's a motion similar to opening a jar. i don't have oreos very often, but when i do i personally like to eat the creme covered one first, and then have the plain one dipped in milk.
Delete-stephanie.
Thank you, Stephanie. Another new life experience....
DeleteNice puzzle but...the same 'eschew the subway, say' clue was JUST used on Saturday, albeit with 'Uberit' as the answer.
ReplyDeleteMore of an editing glitch than a creator one.
As others have said, TAJIK/TAIGA was definitely a NATICK for me. But overall I enjoyed it. And as a big Frieda fan (those of us with natural curly hair have to stick together), that clue was a gimme!
ReplyDeleteBut I feel like Rex missed a great opportunity to include a Muppets video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OXf4Az-vY8&t=18s
A clever theme with a great revealer -- and MUCH harder than most Tuesdays, which in my book is a good thing. I solved it as a themeless -- especially since there were plenty of other things to think about other than trying to find a common thread. I wonder if I would have picked up on the homophones if I'd gone looking for a theme.
ReplyDeleteSo they call them CUBE FARMS now. They were merely cubicles in my day and we hated them. Of course people didn't work much of the week from home the way people do today; if you were in a cubicle, you were really IN it. I always felt that office productivity could easily be tripled just by putting everyone in an office with a door that could be closed. Rant over.
For "tissue sample test" I wanted something like PERSON WITH A BAD COLD BLOWING HIS NOSE AND SNEEZING. I never thought of that kind of tissue. Can you imagine?
Such a good puzzle. Sam -- but why do you have five (5!!!) pop music clues? Why would you cross two of them, OASIS and ALA when both entries can be clued in a zillion ways without using a musical reference? Yes, it's a musical-themed puzzle, I get it, but there are only so many pop music trivia clues I want to see in a puzzle.
When USSR doesn't work, I doubt there's anyone under the age of 65 who will get CCCP without all the crosses. Bur once I saw that USSR wouldn't work, CCCP came back to me in a rush.
An excellent Tuesday that would have been even better with less trivia.
Double Natick, TAIGA/TAJIK and I also fell for CDEF/DAY OFF.
ReplyDeletePlus, too many musical references that I didn’t know but was ultimately able to infer.
So for me, played more like a Wednesday.
Tina
DeleteWhile there is a good argument that Tajik Taiga is a natick, the second one is not.
Day off is not an extended period of time by any definition. Layoff is a common term in no way shape or form obscure. If you look at Rex’s definition both terms have to be obscure to most people. Anyway clef is not obscure either and the this clue for it has been used often in the Times puzzle.
We all make mistakes, but using the term natick is ( again see Rex’s definition) implicitly a criticism of the construction of the puzzle.
So it bothers me when it is used unfairly.
Fair enough but the person's name is Trina
DeleteA little behind this morning and was wondering how many folks would be complaining about the TAIGA/TAJIK cross. I expected lots and was not disappointed.
ReplyDeleteMostly easy. CUBEFARMS was new to me but I like it and I am no frequenter of TMZ but at least have heard of it. This was one day when I knew most of the names, except for ADELE, who is apparently indispensable to constructors.
I don't remember ever seeing BIOPSY in a puzzle. Maybe someone who knows how to track that down could find out. I think I would have remembered it as it has a significant ick factor.
Nice concept and cleverly done, SB. Some BTeam fill but very nice themers, and thanks for all the fun.
Quiet day in the Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) world. We do have a dupe--the MOOR, 18D (could it be Othello) has a HDW twin MOOR, beginning with the M in 10D, CAMP. That also gives us a Hidden Diagonal Word semordnilap (MOOR/ROOM), which is joined by DEER/REED (see the D in 43A, MOOD).
ReplyDeleteI was so sure that the philosopher was XENO and so flummoxed by the TAJIK/TAIGA cross that I dnf'ed a Tuesday. Oh, the shame! (HAHA)
How I prepare for a new semester: Pull up last semester's syllabus. Change the dates. Hit print. Go for coffee.
ReplyDeleteThe theme is a bowl full of weak sauce, since homophonic fun or not, instruments don't make the sound of music on their own. Still, I understand the joke, so thanks for trying. Pretty gunky puzzle, but a bit of humor helps overcome a dreary experience.
Not to poke the sleeping ogre, but is there a difference between MOORing to a cement thing out in the harbor and MOORing to the dock? I am learning to be a sailor via crosswords.
Boy did I stare at CABIT a long time before it dawned on me it's two words.
When people think you need to be smart to do the crossword, remind them the real challenge faced by a cruciverbalist is ANYHOO, BOOHOO, YAHOOS, and WOOHOO. Or is Horton hearing a HOO? Takes a genius, ya know?
❤️ [Major in mass communication], CUBE FARMS and JELLYBEAN.
😫 TAIGA/TAJIK
Propers: 9
Places: 3
Products: 7
Partials: 8
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 28 of 78 (36%)
Funnyisms: 6 😅
Uniclues:
1 Gobble it down.
2 Poems of praise written by life saver about his favorite cookies.
3 The front seat of your car where you openly weep about the results of your decisions.
1 ABATE JELLYBEAN
2 HERO'S OREOS ODES
3 CUBE FARMS OASIS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Pastor's surprising sermon suggesting Eve's pursuit of knowledge was a good thing. BAG ORIGINAL SIN SCARE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm not paid enough to change the dates. I admire your industriousness.
DeleteI have the same feelings as @kitshef…the PPP was in my wheelhouse so it was pretty easy for me. I did have to change USSR to CCCP, one of the few crossword answers where Cyrillic alphabet allowed…maybe the only one.
ReplyDeleteMy geography knowledge has gone up exponentially since I do the “Worldle” pretty much every day online. I basically see it as a fun exercise tool because I will often use it in conjunction with maps, but it is amazing how many countries I can recognize now by their shape…or even know the country to guess. The Pacific Island countries (and Caribbean) are brutal, but it still helps me understand where things are within the world and the oceans.
Also, I dug up my Bluetooth keyboard for my iPad today and it makes a huge difference on “commenting” because I can see what the heck I’m typing!
I respectfully disagree. Difficulty wise, this felt more like a Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteAgree with @Nancy, a clever theme and great revealer. Surrounded by a lot of obscure trivia that I felt was also a learning oportujnity.
ReplyDeleteMedium. TAJIK (fortunately I knew TAIGA), ERIK, NBA, OASIS, and UVA were WOEs and I had ADDed before ON, plus GOLDMANSACHS took some effort (see ADDed).
ReplyDeleteSome fine long downs and a clever/cute theme (which I needed the reveal to get), liked it.
a rare ALOL [actual LOL] at "anyway, here's wonderwall." thanks, rex :)
ReplyDeletepuzzle played kind of hard for me [for a tuesday] as there were a lot of unknown-to-me answers - octet [as clued], cccp, fay, frieda, erik, tajik, taiga...and those were just the ones that slowed me down. thankfully the rest were handled by crosses and i didn't really have to think about them. there were also a trio of overrwrites in the lower half - dish before MEAL, items before TASKS, boo before yoo before ANY - which added to a tuesday with more resistance than usual.
always like seeing MR SPOCK though, and OASIS for that matter. the theme was somehow simultaneously very dry and boring but also tight with a decent revealer.
-stephanie.
Superscript, AFB, Wall-Streeted themers,
ReplyDeleteCUBEFARMS and FELONS and MAOSUITed schemers,
Plus a good tune Liam Gallagher sings.
These were a few of my favorite things.
NBA's ERIK and UVA ballers,
The OMAHA Oracle counting his dollars,
OREOS, JELLYBEANs -- my sweet tooth rings.
These were a few of my favorite things
Pointy-eared Vulcans and AJAX the HERO,
ADELE's numbered albums, all well above zero,
THEWHO's greatest classic (Keith Moon's death still stings).
These were a few of my favorite things.
It's a thin theme
but it tries hard,
Like a puzzle should.
Not bad for a Tuesday -- no, better than that!
I actually think it's good.
Bravo, @Sir Hillary!
DeleteLove this!
DeleteI wanted boo for ___ hoo, wondering if they could possibly have that dupe from an earlier clue.
ReplyDeleteNow for the ever popular debunking of debunkers:
Technically, TAJIK/TAIGA is not a Natick since taiga is not a proper noun - just a name for a biome, ALA desert, swamp, etc.
CDEF, while being musical note names, doesn’t make any sense for the clue “staff leader”. Scale leader, perhaps.
I keep spelling ZENO with an X, probably thinking of Xenophobia. TMX looked familiar enough, even though I’m familiar with TMZ. I think TMX is a sound system standard, like Dolby.
TAIGA/TAJIK and TMZ/ZENO did me in and didn't feel like Tuesday material.
ReplyDeleteI was flying through this until TAJIK/TAIGA cross. Then I didn't know Jelly BEAN (of all things) & had lore for yore for some reason.
ReplyDeleteHarder than the usual Tuesday but enjoyable until I got tripped up.
I don't remember a Star Trek character named MRS POCK.
ReplyDeleteThe only other musical homophone that I could think of and come up with a clue for would be vile/viol.
Clue: A long prison sentence
Answer: Durance vile (it's obscure, but you can Google it and get many citations).
Nice theme. Liked the whole puzzle. Thanks, Sam Buchbinder.
Finished with an error. I had EjeCT instead of EVICT, and while I couldn't think of a school that might be abbreviated UJA, what do I know? There are so many colleges, maybe University of Jersey City at Abilene? In retrospect, even though I have no idea what "Wonderwall" is, the clue suggests a music group, and I did know that there was a group named OASIS.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it was a good puzzle, with a beautiful revealer, changing the meaning of the word SOUND to make it a homophone indicator. Another themer or two would have been nice, but there are a lot of constraints. I came up with BLEND RUM and TRUMP IT, but neither fits the pattern of having the last word sound like an instrument.
I guess 26-A, FTW, means For The Win, rather than doing something to The World; maybe it always means that and I've just been parsing it wrong.
I've previously made my views clear about MOOR, as clued -- but I will say that CCCP requires the clue so give some hint that we're talking Cyrillic letters here. In the Roman alphabet, which is generally assumed in the puzzle, those letters are SSSR. A fine point, but it IRKS me.
Stumbled with the cross of 10d & 22a . Never seen/heard of wet hot American summer & totally misdirected by major in mass communication.
ReplyDeleteTook forever to see the P.
Tajik a gimme & just as well, never heard of the Taiga always called it the Boreal.
Easy otherwise
Had “Day Off” / “CDEF” (as in the first four notes of a major scale… the leaders if you will…) I could not figure out what was wrong.
ReplyDeleteTHE WHO FOR FAY IRKS ERIK and TAJIK. Oh....TAIGA wasn't happy either. And so the Tuesday step-child went.
ReplyDeleteLet's see....SYMBOL, BASE and SACHS (sax?)....become sounds of music. Not sure this computes with moi. I guess you can say JELLY BEAN is the most adult entry here. Why? you may ask. Because I had to really sit down and try to iron out my syllabuses referencing the importance of guessing how many JELLY BEANS there are in a classic contest. Phew! At least this had some of the EF'S @ROO has a crush on.
As a side note: Joel Fagliano was on CBS Morning News this AM and talked about how to solve the Mini Puzzles. I didn't picture him so young...AND he's quite good looking. Gayle King seemed like she was flirting (just a tad) with him. I would've done lo mismo!.
Found this very difficult, and I knew all the trivia! TAJIK/TAIGA seemed pretty unfair.
ReplyDeletenow I'm an outlier--I'm now working on a book about climate change, and damage to the TAIGA (and its neighbor the tundra) comes up a lot; and I once took a one-week tour of Uzbekistan, which got me interested enough in the area to learn what the neighboring countries were. So that cross was easy for me. TAIGA is a Russian word, but I guess it has been adopted.
ReplyDeleteI guess the Taiga forest is a well-known canadian locale
ReplyDeleteDid not play easy for me---double my average Tuesday time. Pretty enjoyable though.
ReplyDelete@Amy Stake I also had DAYOFF and CDEF, and I still think those are perfectly acceptable answers.
ReplyDeletei don't understand why it's so often my comments don't appear. i never see any errors, and i'm not posting anything that would be objectionable. i used to have an account with a blue name & picture, but now it's just gone. can't log in anymore, and the only non greyed-out choice in the "comment as" pull down is anonymous. my reply to bluestater, posted after i first submitted this comment, appeared just fine. i'll give it one more go, and if it doesn't work, so be it. apologies if this ends up posting twice.
ReplyDeletea rare ALOL [actual LOL] at "anyway, here's wonderwall." thanks, rex :)
puzzle played kind of hard for me [for a tuesday] as there were a lot of unknown-to-me answers - octet [as clued], cccp, fay, frieda, erik, tajik, taiga...and those were just the ones that slowed me down. thankfully the rest were handled by crosses and i didn't really have to think about them. there were also a trio of overrwrites in the lower half - dish before MEAL, items before TASKS, boo before yoo before ANY - which added to a tuesday with more resistance than usual.
always like seeing MR SPOCK though, and OASIS for that matter. the theme was somehow simultaneously very dry and boring but also tight with a decent revealer.
-stephanie.
How about using capital letters appropriately? Not doing so is objectionable in a crowd of word fans.
DeleteI'm feeling brilliant after reading the first half dozen comments. Taiga and Tajik were easy for me. Actually I hesitateed on taiga because I already had 'boo inlace in 48A but knew it had to be taiga so boo changed to any.
ReplyDeleteOf course I was not so brilliant about zeno, and I have no idea about tmz , nor Wet, Hot..., nor the clue for 61D and I only remember Mao jacket, so suit took a minute, and even tho I'm a 60+ year Peanuts fan I cannot remember a Frieda.
So now that I remember all that , the litter has gone.
My first thought for 34A "Neighbor of an Uzbek" was BERSERKI but I misremembered Berserkistan abutting Uzbekistan. And it was three letters too long for that slot anyway.
ReplyDeleteWho is this "Star Trek" character MRS POCK?
OMAHA is also a variant of the poker game Texas Hold "Em. You get four down cards instead of two.
I know a lot of you landlubbers don't care what the FACTS are when it comes to things nautical but 18D "Tie at the dock" would be DOCKING. You tie up your boat at the dock. MOOR? No.
Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, even Kyrgyzstan I (sorta) knew, but not Tajikistan. And I've never considered guessing JELLYBEAN quantities to be worthy of the term "contest", so who cares.Don't know much about financial firms so with G__DM__SACH_ in place I opted for GOoDMANSACHS. That and ZErO at 67A (I solve D-O so ...) made the candy at 36D even tougher to guess. I finished, kinda liked the theme but TAJIK/JELLYBEAN was my near Natick. I say Boreal forest more often than TAIGA but it bubbled up from the murky depths of my memory.
ReplyDeleteWhy is jellybean the answer for 36D? I wanted Breadbox, as it was the first thing you asked in Twenty Questions. Showing my age?
ReplyDeleteI dnf’d at TAIGA / TAJIK
ReplyDeleteBoth these words have been lodged in my brain but the wires were crossed in their retrieval. Kazakh crossed with Tajik producing kAJIK.
kAIGA was close enough to the real word to cause me not to catch the error. Unnecessarily specifying Canadian in the clue for a word of Russian origin seemed intentionally tricky. It helped to trick me! Oh well.
Otherwise, the puzzle was very easy.
I liked the theme. Got the answer “symbol” but it took me a while to get the pun.
(I did the puzzle too late to comment yesterday but the tirade by one commenter against Spanish in the puzzle saddens me. Tens of millions of people in this country are Spanish speakers or descendants of Spanish speakers. And they were in the West and Southwest before English speakers were. Inevitably Spanish has had and will continue to have a huge impact on the US and the Times puzzle is just reflecting that. Spanish is part of the culture of the US.)
nice puzzle sam. i loved taiga! didn't know that was a thing.
ReplyDeleteI had CDEF/DAY OFF for 47D/50A
ReplyDeleteC, d, e, f are the first 4 notes of a c major scale so i'd argue it works both ways.
I really didn't enjoy "YESES" as the answer to 29 down ("Green lights"). I understood what the clue wanted, but I'm pretty sure the correct way to spell it as a transitive verb is "green-lights." I didn't know Fay Wray (King Kong is before my time) so I had to sit there guessing every possible first letter. I've heard of people "okaying" things, but has anybody heard of somebody yesing something? "He yesed (yessed?) your proposal"?
ReplyDeleteThe comments on FRIEDA prompted me listen to the song "Frieda (With the Naturally Curly Hair)" on the album A Boy Named Charlie Brown by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.
ReplyDeleteWhy is OXO a “losing line in tic tac toe”? The board
ReplyDeleteOXO
XXO
OXX
contains OXO but neither X nor O loses. I was sure it was either OOO or XXX since that guarantees a loss for either X or O.
Funny enough though. As far as I can tell, if OXO is in the middle, the game cannot be a draw. So maybe that’s what they meant lol.
DNF. Had TMn and nENO in the SW corner. A Natick for me.
ReplyDeleteDNF: #34. Absolutely brutal crossing. I had K. One other question: it took me all but two crossing letters to come up with JELLYBEAN. What on earth is the "classic guessing game" associated with that? Never heard of it.
ReplyDeleteWordle phew.
HERO JEER
ReplyDeleteTHESOUNDOF THE BOSS and THE MUSIC he wrote:
A SYMBOL OF loss as he WAILED ON ONE NOTE.
--- MR. ERIK IDLE
The item in the “classic guessing contest” is a JELLYBEAN in the game where there is a massive jar of JELLYBEANS and you are given a chance to guess how many JELLYBEANs are in the jar to win a prize or contest.
ReplyDeleteOne or two more instruments would have been nice, such as: big galloot (lute) or bald-faced liar (lyre).
ReplyDeleteBe serious! TAIGA / TAJIK crossing on a Tuesday? Have lived in Canada for over 70 years now and have never once heard the term TAIGA used in conjunction with our beautiful evergreen forests.
ReplyDeleteGuess how many JELLYBEANs in the (rather large) jar. Win a prize, and the JELLYBEANs.
ReplyDeleteI associate TAIGA more with Russia, per seemingly ancient Geography classes.
Sat next to a TAJIK on an airplane once, his name was not Stan.
Can't access Wordle from work, have to try later.
There was no way that I would remember all the stans that once were part of the Soviet Union, but thankfully I remembered taiga from grade school geography, that was reinforced by high school geology. I also studied Russian, and is why the first thing I think of when I see the word taiga is Russia.
ReplyDelete