.png)
Icelandic poet Sturluson / WED 9-25-24 / Senokot alternative / Dance counterpart of the Whip / County in northeastern Nevada / Pioneer in show recording / Word after double or day / AIDS researcher who was Time's 1996 Man of the Year / Tool with a bubble / Haitian unit of currency
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
Constructor: Peter Gordon
Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging (names names names)
Theme answers:
- FULL SCALE (30A: Life-size ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme)
- RINGTONES (36A: Phone numbers? ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme)
- SIDE NOTES (45A: Marginalia ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme)
The wall (clockwise from the NW corner):
Rare that I wipe out right out of the box on a *Wednesday* puzzle, but that is what happened today, and though no other section gave me quite that much trouble, I did feel like I was working somewhat harder than usual to put the answers together today. Not hard hard. Just harder. There was at least some resistance all over, which I don't mind, but things have been so easy of late, across the board, that today's difficulty felt oddly elevated. Certainly, where the trivia / proper nouns were concerned, it felt more Thursday / Friday / Saturday than Wednesday. DAVID HO seems eminently worth knowing, but know him I did not, and encountering him first thing, in a section where I was already having some trouble (no idea what "show recording" meant, exactly in 16A: Pioneer in show recording—I wanted a person's name; hard (baseball) clue on RETIRE (1D: Strike out, perhaps), that slowed me down. I couldn't even get out of that section smoothly because the primary connecting word (that is, the word that was going to get me out of the NW and connect me to the rest of the grid) was *also* some trivia I didn't know or had forgotten (namely, GOURDE) (24D: Haitian unit of currency). Also didn't know GUTE (at least not the spelling ... GUTT?) and would not have remembered EDUARDO, probably, if I hadn't had a few of those last letters in place before I looked at the clue. I knew SNORRI, but then I'm a medievalist. I'm guessing most of you ... aren't? Twenty-six years since SNORRI's made an appearance in the NYTXW. He is a 12th/13th-century Icelandic poet and scholar who is believed to have written or compiled most of the Prose EDDA (or just EDDA), a very important source of Norse mythology (as well as a stock piece of crosswordese). "He was assassinated in 1241 by men claiming to be agents of the King of Norway." Fun fact!
- RE DO
- SO FA
- FA LA
- MI RE
- LA RE DO
- DO DO
- MI SO
- SO RE
- SO SO
- RE TI RE
David Da-i Ho (Chinese: 何大一; born November 3, 1952) is a Taiwanese American AIDS researcher, physician and virologist who has made a number of scientific contributions to the understanding and treatment of HIV infection. He championed for combination anti-retroviral therapy instead of single therapy, which turned HIV from an absolute terminal disease into a chronic disease.David Ho was born in Taiwan in 1952 and immigrated to the United States in 1965, where he was educated at California Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School (through the Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology) before getting his clinical training at UCLA School of Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital.
He is the founding scientific director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, both housed at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. (wikipedia)
• • •
As for the theme, it's actually quite elegantly done. The words one can make out of the scale aren't exactly scintillating, but the visual created by the *arrangement* of those words is at least interesting, and the triple revealer (!) more than makes up for any dullness in the note-answers themselves. Also, no all-note answer in the grid anywhere *except* the outer edge ... it's a nice touch. Maybe that was intentional, or particularly hard to do, but I like when the constructor keeps the theme entirely inside the theme ... no stray or accidental themers roaming around. And the revalers are pretty good, with clever wordplay all around. There are "notes" on the "side" of the grid, there are "tones" forming a "ring" around the grid, there's a "scale" ... hmm ... that answer doesn't work quite as well; that is, "full" doesn't really express the structure formed by the notes, the way "ring" and "side" do. But you do (eventually) get a "full" scale, i.e. every note from "do" on up and back to "do" again. Side note: I've been so indoctrinated by crosswords to believe that the note is spelled "SOL" that "SO" now looks weird and wrong to me. The fact that the three revealers all fit symmetrically, and that two of them drill directly into the outer wall, makes this puzzle architecturally elegant. Architecturally complicated puzzles can often feel fussy, with theme and non-theme answers alike feeling forced and awkward. Not so today. There's maybe more crosswordese-leaning stuff than I'd like (an ICI, an ESSO, a NAENAE in the ORRIN ODEA, etc.), but on the whole the grid holds up well, with lots of varied and even colorful answers (ANY OLD AVOCADO! ONE-OFF BISTROS!)
Bullet points:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
- 21A: Stock quote? (MOO) — that's what the cow says. The cow says MOO. If you quote a cow, that is likely the quote you're going to get. If you got a different quote, I'd be a little surprised. ("Stock" here means "livestock," of course)
- 48A: Tool with a bubble (LEVEL) — Gotta get the bubble in the little liquid tube to sit inside the little marked area. That's how you know you're level. I think most levels are electronic now, but since I don't use levels on a regular (or even irregular) basis, I'm not a reliable authority.
- 55A: :"Toy Story" dinosaur voiced by Wallace Shawn (REX) — I of course knew that REX was the dinosaur in Toy Story, but I'd completely forgotten he was voiced by the great Wallace Shawn. What a career. From Manhattan to My Dinner with Andre to The Princess Bride to Clueless, an absolute delight, that guy.
- 9D: Fan fare? (FRANKS) — fans (of baseball) might eat FRANKS (i.e. hot dogs), which are common ballpark fare.
- 39A: Word after double or day (BED) — Peter really will sneak baseball references in wherever he can.
- 54D: Bowl feature (TIER) — think "bowl" as in "arena." The Hollywood Bowl, that kind of bowl. There are different levels (or TIERs) of seating. This clue actually gave me slight trouble. I had the "R" and ... nope, no help.
- 38D: Senokot alternative (EX-LAX) — eight appearances now for EX-LAX. Still no ENEMA, though. "ENEMA ... talk about great letters!" RIP, Merl Reagle.
P.S. this blog is now legally an adult. As you know, it takes a village, so thank you, villagers.
Save And Share :
118 comments:
Happy birthday!
Nice shout-out to @Rex at 55A on the blog's anniversary. Congrats!!
I didn't have a lot of trouble with this despite not knowing a lot of the answers, particularly SNORRI (22A) and EDUARDO Saverin
(40D), but all were crossed fairly.
I didn't get the theme until I got here. Maybe someone with more knowledge of music than me can tell us if the notes play a recognizable song? That would be true elegance!
Dear ~RP, all this may be true, but when I have to read You to get the theme after I've finished a puzzle, I tend to give the said puzzle an F Maj. mark.
I enjoyed this and was particularly impressed by the theme, but boy did I have trouble with SNORRI and DAVID HO (although the crosses ultimately were fair) and GOURDE and a few others. But I finished in under my Wednesday average time and had one of those "aha!" moments when I got FULL SCALE and realized that all the answers around the grid were notes--which helped with RING TONES and SIDE NOTES. One of the best puzzles from the NYT in a long time!
And a huge thanks, Rex for your beautiful 18y old baby!
Never caught on to the theme, but finished the puzzle with some experimentation in the NE. The Icelandic poet was beyond my imagination. I'll be interested to see if anyone else knew him (her?).
Unfortunately, all of the arcane trivia just flat out ruined this one for me. No joy to be had parsing together stuff like FALA, SNORRI, DAVIDHO, GOURDE, ELKO, EDUARDO, NAENAE, yada yada yada. Absolutely no interest in fighting my way through that kind of nonsense to attempt to discern yet another cryptic theme.
Gimmick Thursdays are having a bad influence on its Wednesday neighbor lately. Not my cuppa, but I know there are many who relish this type of approach, so have at it and enjoy.
@Conrad, that would be awesome, but no. Still, whenever I see LAREDO, that little snippet of tune pops in my head (A, D, C). But then it quickly turns into “Streets of Laredo,” a much better tune.
Rex, it’s not just crosswords that insist that the correct term for the fifth note of the scale is SOL, not SO. The word is SOL, and it has been since SNORRI was alive. I think we have Oscar Hammerstein II to blame for the misspelling, with his damn needle pulling thread.
Googled David Ho and the Haitian currency, Hard for a Wednesday . PS These notes do NOT comprise any song, they are random.
FRANKS was my last answer in the grid. I thought that might be the answer but as I had not a clue about either FALA or SNORRI, both of which could have been any number of things, I stared blankly for a while. Eventually I figured out the theme and decided it had to start with an F. Happy music from there.
FRANKS required some crosses and inference; "fan fare?" seemed pretty tortured as far as clueing goes. In the same corner, AUTO seems to be a rather thud-dy answer for "Lambo, e.g.": glad to know Lambos are in the same class as my oh-so-sick Nissan Rogue.
I had RENO for 1-Across (since that's the much-more-common phrase for any RENOvations one has done in one's home), which left 3-Down as a mystery until the very end. The answer for 5-Down (Yokozuna's sport) is incorrect, as the word is Sumou (相撲), not Sumo, but I figured the puzzle was using the Americanized version. Never did figure out the theme until I came here and read today's write-up. There were more than a few esoteric names I'd never heard of (Ho, Snorri), but the crosses helped. Pretty good puzzle!
This one was tough both because of the proper names and the choppiness of the grid. And I didn't catch the theme until I came here.
That said, I quite enjoyed the solve, although I DID have to guess on SNORRI. FRANKS felt a little off, but I could see it, so that was my guess. And the fact that there were THREE revealers was pretty impressive. And of course, now I have Sound of Music tunes in my head...
If I had gotten the theme maybe would not have finished the NE with pRANKS, pApA, and pEERSAT…otherwise finished this one in record time for me. Thank goodness Rex has stuck around for 18 years to bail me out on this one…and congratulations to him not just for the longevity but for the energy he continues to bring to the table.
The Wall of Sound was the signature of Phil Spector who incorporated full orchestral backing to music by the Crystal and Ronettes among others. Spector died in prison in disgrace after murdering a woman in his Hollywood home know as the Castle.
Same! I had no idea what was going on even after the whole thing was finished! And congrats on turning 18.
Peter Gordon churns them out, with 129 NYT puzzles, plus many elsewhere – that's more than impressive to begin with. But then you see that 123 of his Times puzzles are themed. I talk with constructors, and so often hear how many months it’s been since they came up with even one fresh and worthy theme.
But Peter dashes them out and they sparkle! Furthermore, his puzzles abound with fresh clues and answers. That is, his remarkable output is matched by top-tier quality. To me, he is one of the glowing treasures of Crosslandia. What a talent!
Look at what he did today. He came up with the unusual idea of combining two theme stalwarts – having theme answers fill the grid’s perimeter, and having the theme involve the do-re-mi’s. On top of that, he came up with three – three! – revealers, all scintillating. Is that not sparkling?
Also, I don’t know about you, but when I finally saw what was going on, it brought a ringing “Aha!”. It delivered. Oh, and wordnerd I loved seeing the rare-in-crosswords five-letter palindrome LEVEL.
I shake my head in wonder at what you do, Peter, wonder and respect. Thank you for a sterling outing today!
Congratulations!
I’ve been to the Rose Bowl, the Yale Bowl and the Big House. No tiers.
Ditto on the obscure names.
Rex Parker, happy birthday to you, and thank you for 18 years of wit, humor, honesty and insight. You are can’t-miss. Please, sir, play on for many more!
Happy birthday! Hope you get a chance to vote!
I did the puzzle last night and it wasn’t until I looked at it again this morning that I realized the border answers were all notes of the scale. Last night, I had no clue what the theme was. Duh!
Until I read Rex, I don’t think I saw either the clue or the answer for DAVID HO — thank you, crosses! Snorri was a new one for me, coulda been a new dwarf to join Sleepy, Sneezy, etc.
Happy Birthday Blog!! I’ve been here for quite a bit of it, for what that’s worth.
Can't agree more
Only by figuring out the theme was I able to complete the puzzle. No clue on FALA or SNORRI. Happy 18th, Rex! Old enough to vote
Saw what was going on early after getting FULLSCALE and the topmost acrosses (agree that it should be SOL though). That was helpful in getting some of the border answers and certainly in ingenious feat of construction.
That said, any puzzle that needs DAVIDHO, EDUARDO someone, an Icelandic poet, a clue referencing Senokol, both TEVO and UNIX answers, and the oddly spelled ORRIN to work seems to me to be more than a little tortured. And then you have GOURDE, which was at least a nod to crosswords past with a foreign currency clue.
In short, not my favorite ever. If you like stunt puzzles, this is your cuppa.
Nice trick PG, but for me somewhere between Pretty Good and Perfectly Ghastly. Thanks for a little fun.
Happy Birthday/Anniversary to OFL. Keep 'em coming.
Fun solve! But a cherry on top would have been to have the solfage spell out a famous tune named in the puzzle.
I have only ever seen the fifth note in solfege written as SOL, not SO. Upon Googling it seems either could be correct, but for a musician that was a little irksome to me.
I enjoyed this one. Normally I struggle past Tuesday and angrily resist attempts to google. But somehow the puzzle was synced to my meager storehouse of knowledge. I did not understand the theme after completion. But music is not my thing. Now that I know: clever!
To 120, RP! Wonderful!
Hey All !
Dang, REX, 18 years of blogging! Time flies... Amazing Blogger survives in the digital age of newer stuff always coming out.
Before figuring out the SCALE, I did notice the Edge Themers I had in already all ended in vowels, so was leaning towards that for a second. Then I got the Revealers and saw the light (or heard the music, which would be apropos in this sense).
Agree NW was a "Holy Moly, look at all these crossing names that I don't know!" section. Finished up there, primarily by chipping away, and pattern recognition.
Neat puz idea. Extra layer of no other SCALE word elsewhere in the puz, that REX mentioned. Personally, I wouldn't have looked for that, seems tedious! So thanks REX, for that info. Adds a layer of toughness-to-fill.
Hump Day already. Time flies when you're ... alive. Har.
Happy Wednesday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
¡ ʎ ɐ p ɥ ʇ ɹ ı q ʎ d d ɐ ɥ 🎈
I thought for sure one of the revealers was going to be "LINER NOTES."
Happy 18th!
The revealers did their job for me (MI?), thank you. When I got to FULL SCALE I had REDO, SOFA, _ALA, M_RE so knew it was SNORRI, who seems vaguely familiar. At 33D wanted ANYone, thinking no fair dupe with ONEOFF, but quickly became ALERT to the error, which was mine.
FALA news to me but with _RANKS going down it clearly wasn't lALA (isn't she a Teletubby?).
Definitely humming Wheels of Laredo rest of the day ("On the north bank of the mighty Rio Grande").
Definitely Medium-Challenging, bordering on Challenging for a Wednesday.
Sure, yeah, I finished it... but SNORRI? OMG. All the names and trivia highlighted by Rex is right: this was a tough solve for midweek. Some of it was Friday/Saturday hard.
Doing this daily (almost) for 18 years! Congrats! Quality of your efforts is amazing!
I can't let the Wallace Shawn shout-out stand without including his regular appearances as Zek, Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance, on Deep Space 9, the best of all the ST spinoffs by far, not least for his contributions.
"The life of an actor can be very enviable, if the phone rings and somebody says, 'I see you as the leader of a group of aliens with enormous heads', I think that's fantastic."
Happy birthday blog. My favorite early morning read by a factor. I have been reading it and commenting on rare occasion for more years than I can remember. Thanks to Rex and all of the regular contributors. Life is good.
What a terrific bit of puzzle construction! Making words out of all those notes and fitting them around the perimeter of the puzzle -- and then working all those other words to fit in the grid! It can't have been easy.
And, to my (devious) way of thinking: what a waste of a fabulous idea -- an idea that I might have been tempted to pay you cash money for. Because what I would have wanted to do with it would have been absolutely delicious, if perhaps a bit nasty...
You see, Peter, the brilliance of your construction left me, the solver, with nothing to do but fill in the puzzle. No muss, no fuss, no bother. Nothing to "puzzle out". But what if all those RINGTONES had gone, unclued, in black squares ringing the puzzle? Or, alternatively, if they were to be written outside the perimeter of the puzzle? Plenty for the solver to have to figure out!
And instead of an easy Wednesday, you'd have a really, really hard Thursday. Or even a worthy-of-the-day Saturday.
Thus does my mind work, Peter. OTOH, you may be a kinder, gentler soul. But I'm always thinking of ways to bring solvers into the thinking process and make them "suffer", if not too much.
Kudos on the great construction, though.
I guess that technically every row of seating is a TIER in a “bowl shape” arena. But, I know what you mean.
I know it is sophomoric, but I feel I need to note even if not published that Rex crossed with exlax, stress and Esso, a type of gas. Coincidence ? I think not.
Be nice if the solfège sequence actually worked as a recognizable tune, though that's a pretty steep ask. I couldn't make it out as anything recognizable, but here it is translated to scale degrees if anyone else wants to have a go (starting at top left):
2 1 5 4 4 6 3 2 6 2 1 1 1 3 5 5 2 5 5 2 7 3
RE DO SO FA FA LA MI RE LA RE DO DO DO MI SO SO RE SO SO RE TI RE
So the pharmacist said to his assistant: "I'm going out for lunch -- if anyone comes in for advice, be conservative."
"OK, boss!"
He gets back and asks how it went. The assistant says, "Fine. There was just one woman who came in. She was complaining of a cough. I suggested she take five doses of EX-LAX"
The pharmacist says -- "You gave her EX-LAX for a cough?? Are you nuts??
And the assistant said: "No. Look. There she is now, holding on to that post. --- She's not going to cough."
Actually I did know SNORRI. The 'history' textbook I used in Catholic Grammar School in I think 3rd grade taught me the 'important' fact that someone named 'SNORRI' was the first Catholic baby born in the new world. No, her (?) last name was not given as Sturleson but when I did once see that name it stuck with me from resonance with the unwanted fact I was stuck with. You remember everything you learn when you are eight. They should teach you important things then,
TIL I share my birthday with the blog! Also, if you're interested, both members of celebrity couple Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who turn 80 and 55 respectively today.
SO...HBD to RPDTNYTXW, CZ-D, MD and ME.
This puzzle was unsolvable (insoluble?) by me. Fala, franks, Snorri trifecta killed me. I had *TRACKS* like a fan of music might have. That gave me Tala and Scorri, which seemed perfectly possible. There shouldn't have been two obscure names crossing a pun clue on a *Wednesday.* Bad editing for difficulty.
Thank you RP for this blog! Otherwise it’d be another great puzzle solved but I would’ve missed the theme! I went to see the magnificent Tedeschi Trucks band last night at the Beacon so music was on my mind but I still didn’t get the theme until I came here. The band did not disappoint and neither did this puzzle nor this blog. Happy times!
Nicely done! It took both SCALE and TONES to open my eyes to the DO RE MIs around me; after that the theme was a help - e.g., in getting SOSO and in seeing that I needed to change El Paso to LAREDO. And in understanding why FDR's dog made it into to puzzle - serendipity there.
Do-over: El Paso before LAREDO. Help from previous crosswords: NAE NAE. Help from being a medievalist way back when: SNORRI. No idea: DAVID HO, GOURDE, EDUARDO.
Hear, hear! Thank you, Rex.
I studied with Boulanger where TI is SI; but SOL is universal.
next time i'm jamming with my band i'm going to yell out chord changes like "switch it over to FA, and then back to RE"
I can’t believe I didn’t know the Icelandic poet
I didn't sleep well last night as Mrs. Egs was a bit SNORRI.
I love the clue for 11D (Eyeballs like a scuzzball). I initially read it as a descriptor. Like "Officer, I was just standing there when this guy pulled a gun. He had eyeballs like a scuzzball and hair like Beetlejuice. Plus he had a bad AROMA."
BTW, why do we go blaming Oscar Hammerstein in the SO vs. SOL face off? If he was the problem, wouldn't we be talking about doe, ray, me, far, sew, la, tea?
Congrats on the 18th birthday, @Rex. And thanks, Peter Gordon.
Nosotras encontramos un restaurante turco.
Turns out you can't eat New Mexican for every meal outside the house or you'll turn into a burrito as many of my neighbors at the grocery store appear to have done. We were spoiled with international choices in the big city, so imagine my delight at discovering a Turkish grocery store and restaurant here in the sticks. I will never understand why people fear immigrants.
I do fear my brain slipping into DODOness as I needed to read the reveals several times today and stare at the gray ring of gaiety for too long before finally seeing the notes. I blame the baklava. And the EXLAX.
Delightfully engaging puzzle. Increasing our German vocab to four to accommodate GUTE.
Welcome back @Cdilly52 and happy blog birthday to 🦖 who's in today's puzzle.
😫 Thanks to crosswording for turning ELKO county into an instant fill-in.
For my Bachelor's degree thesis, inspired by my reading of Beowulf, I studied early medieval Norse family structure and read everything attributed to SNORRI, translated into English. So I love SNORRI showing up instead of just EDDA.
Propers: 12 (sour note)
Places: 3
Products: 6
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 30 of 76 (39%) (all for a song?)
Funnyisms: 2 😕
Tee-Hee: Feels like [Tool with a bubble] should be an insult. I need to switch from my favorite insult to [scuzzball].
Uniclues:
1 It was Lauren Boebert.
2 Start using, "meh."
3 Generic fat Japanese grampa.
4 How Igor keeps the monster regular.
5 Envies the toast topping.
6 Result of me seeing the dessert menus.
7 Way too many cowboy hats.
1 ODEA HISS IDED
2 RETIRE SOSO
3 ANY OLD SUMO
4 FRANK'S EXLAX
5 LEERS AT AVOCADO
6 TEMPTED AS A RULE (~)
7 LAREDO MIRE (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Step 1 Grow beard. Step 2 Become leader of the free world. Step 3 End slavery. Step 4 Go to the theater. ABE GOAL SETTING.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh, an atonal piece. LOL. Also, in response to others who didn't get the theme. I think it is hard to criticize a theme for being too difficult to understand when it gives you three reveilers. Happy Birthday RP!
Happy Birthday to RPDTNYT and thanks for the blog!
I thought the puzzle was great fun for a Wednesday with clever construction. I actually had to use the fact that I figured out the scale theme to finish the puzzle at the corner of FALA and FRANKS.
Speaking of FALA, I’m not against proper names and love to learn, BUT I wonder how long presidential pet fame should last? I was born in the mid 50s and old enough that once I plunked in the F, I kind of sort of remembered that name but yikes for younger people.
I get somewhat amused at the SO v. SOL scale “war on spelling propriety” so I did a search on the origin of this scale and found out it was Italian and that originally DO was UT. No info on whether there was an UT v. DO scuffle back then but apparently DO won!
Congrats on the 18 years, Rex!
Three Hidden Diagonal Word clues for today:
1. Paul, pre-Damascus
2. Point of view
3. August personalities
It will always be SOL for me, which took some of the joy out of this one. I figured out the theme earlier than usual and knowing it did help make the solve a bit easier.
Wanted hotdog before FRANKS, ogleSAT before LEERSAT.
Did anybody else notice that if you start with LAREDO and move clockwise, the notes actually play "I Did It My Way?" (Not really, but that would have been nice.)
Answers:
1. SAUL (off the S in 22A)
2. SLANT (a nice 5-letter HDW, off the S in 34A)
3. LEOS (the L in 38D)
I like trivia. I’m good at trivia! But this was too much trivia for me. Or maybe it’s just that the constructor and I do not have overlapping areas of knowledge. Got tripped up by DAVID HO (and honestly, had NAVID HO until the very end because that seemed like a reasonable, if slightly oddly multicultural, name, and Reno was a perfectly reasonable, maybe even better, answer to 1A), SNORRI, SOUSA (though I should have known that, and once I let go the idea that Haitians use a dollar it was gettable), AUTO (never even heard of a Lambo. Oh wait, is it a Lamborghini?), MESSI (obv have heard of Messi, don’t know what the Golden Ball is) , GOURDE, ELKO, GUTE, and EXLAX (Senokot? I thought it was a language group).
So puzzle felt like a slog even though I figured out the theme fairly early and also knew or guessed correctly at some of the other trivia (YUL, OSU, UNIX, REX, ORRIN, SUMO, CASPER, EDUARDO, NAENAE, LAREDO).
I liked the theme but I thought the balance of cluing was off.
OK, let's get the big problem out of the way: there is no such note as SO, it is SOL. It would be hard to work that in, but just leave it out, there's no rule you have to use all of the note names.
But with that out of the way, this is neat. It's sort of a reversal -- the three longer answers are clued as revealers, but they could just as well be themers, with the whole rim being the revealer. I liked that part of it. I don't think you even need the shading, since the clues refer to the SIDE and RING; make that a little more explicit maybe.
I've never heard of Senokot, but once I had EXL it became obvious. Aside from that, the fill is really, really easy.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that musicians refer to any instrument as their AXE, not just the guitar. And the clue for BISTROS felt off; bistros are not always small; they are more defined by serving organ meats, having banquettes and white tablecloths, and originally by having you pay the cashier at the front door. But it's true that a lot of places are misappropriating the name. OK, I'll get off my hobby horse now.
We heard a lot about SNORRI during our recent trip to Iceland, so that one was easy.
Later.
Wallace Shawn's dad was longtime New Yorker editor William Shawn.
First off, Happy Birthday Rex!!
While I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, I have to admit I was dismayed originally to see the empty grid indicating that this was another "puzzle within the puzzle" puzzle. It seems now 2 sometimes 3 times a week these are the offering. I much prefer that Thursday predominantly continue to hold that spot, with maybe a second one showing up only occasionally. Is this just me??
Hi @Beezer! Actually UT still prevails in many countries. This puzzle would have been much harder to construct if we still used it. I used to play in an ensemble with an Israeli woman, who always said UT.
Hey Rex Happy Birthday 🎈🎈
I've been doing the NYT xword since they used to have a puzzle-solving (as in cheating) site - I think it was called "NY Times In Gothic" (it may not have been called that - memory may fail me) but yours is much better & where would we be without you??? :)
And "GO ME" - although I solved as a themeless, I didn't find it Medium to Challenging at all.
Go figure ....
Just googled it - "NY Times Crossword in Gothic" 2015
Couldn't get on board with the theme given the misspelled "sol."
Happy Birthday, REX Parker!!!
Here’s a 3 minute clip of Julie Andrews teaching the children their musical ABCs. If you listen closely you can hear MISO and SOSO, and at the end there's a visual demonstration of the SCALE on the stairs. Lovely scenery as well.
Neat theme, helpful to the solve in a couple spots. Half-remembered SNORRI from looking up EDDA, in a previous puzzle. If ANYone could do the same theme with a real melody that would be quite an accomplishment. Just be careful what you wish for - imagine the torturous fill!
I realize now that my suggestion of just not using SO would not work with FULL SCALE as a revealer. I guess I'll accept the compromised spelling for the sake of the nifty puzzle.
And I'm apparently wrong that the shaded squares were not needed; I guess the theme was not as obvious as it had seemed to me.
FALA used to be running neck-and-neck with ASTA as the crossworld's favorite dog, But I guess he has faded.
SNORRI has a bit part -- actually his murder -- in The Ice-Shirt, by William Vollman, one of my (many) favorite novels.
This extremely easy puzzle has no SOL.
In the 6th century, a Benedictine monk named Guido d’Arezzo assigned each note of the scale a syllable: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do. Yes, it actually is sol: it’s traditionally written that way when the tonic notes are spelled out, and often referred to colloquially as the Solfa or Solfège scale. That final L is hard to hear because of the la that follows.
Those weren’t just random sounds he chose. They came from “Ut Queant Laxis,” a well-known hymn in the Middle Ages that was chanted for vespers. Each succeeding line of the song started one note higher than the previous one, so Guido used the first letters of each word of each line: Ut queant laxis, Resonare fibris: Mire gestorum , Famuli tuorum: Solve, and so on. Ut was eventually deemed too difficult pronounce and was changed to do.
This bothered me also, I didn’t know SO was an acceptable alternative to SOL. So that spoiled the puzzle a little for me.
Congratulations and thank you, Rex!
I didn’t find the puzzle hard and got the theme pretty fast. I really enjoyed it too. But the NE was a little bit of Saturday mixed into the rest. AUTO as clued, SNORRI (yikes) and the White House dog from the 40’s. Argh.
I enjoyed ding the puzzle Especially smiled at some clues like Stock quote. But couldn't make sense of the theme . So thanks for the explanation.
Mostly easy for me, although the NW had some crunch. No erasures and DAVID HO and GUTE were it for WOEs. I followed my standard solve pattern for these types of puzzles.
(1) Download puzzle, see shaded squares, mumble mild profanity.
(2) Solve puzzle ignoring what’s going on with the shaded squares and theme related answers.
(3) Stare at the completed puzzle for a couple of minutes and say “A HA.”
(4) Write comments.
That said, this was an impressive feat of construction with a reasonably smooth grid, liked it.
@CDilly52 - so nice to have you back and so sorry to hear you went through all that. As a fellow CA resident I will be scheduling our fall COVID shot immediately!
@Blog - Happy Birthday
I had to catch myself a few times that I wasn't having a stroke with these Boomer proper nouns!
Happy birthday!
Many years ago this blog helped foster my love of crosswords. It also validated my occasional frustrations and guided me to wonderful indie constructors and non-NYT outlets.
Thank you Rex. I’m grateful for all your work and dedication.
A noteworthy NYTPuz #129 for PG1. And haven't seen an ELAN for several months.
It was a typical PG1 puz, with clever puztheme, feisty/humorous clues, and a liberal dose of potential no-know names. Kinda like.
As I recall, PG1 luvs to have movie-related clues/answers in the mix, too boot.
staff weeject pick: REX. Has a note in it. And while we're on REX, happy 18th b-day to @RP's blog.
honrable mention to MI-A-er SOL.
other fave stuff: MOO clue. BED clue. AVOCADO. ANYOLD. RUSTLER.
I notice there's a coupla black 1x2 bricks splatzed into the NE & SW corners. Maybe not enough good 6-letter noteworthy stuff that would fit in with the rest?
Oh, yeah ... duh ... without the bricks, you'd wind up with 5-letter margin answers where FALA & SORE are. sooo ... never mind.
btw: Really second the @Nancy motion to not highlight the margin squares, and let the solver do a little extra sufferin. The puztheme mcguffin seemed kinda obvious, as is, what with them 3 theme revealers!
Thanx for the fullscale fun, Mr. Gordon dude. Big winner: RE; trailin the rest of the field: TI.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!! 🎁🎉🎈🎂🎊
Thanks for your continuous, terrific blogging.
Did anyone else want those notes to play out a particular melody?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO “ONE OF A KIND” REX PARKER.png
(I'm not sure this will happen, but I tried - ???
Yay, I got the theme all on my lonesome. I was shaking my head, stumped, and then one of the revealers broke through my brain fog. Nice idea. I really needed the grayed out squares to aid my aha moment.
I loved the MOO clue. Very cute.
Big write-over at 45D when the final O lead me to put in expO. Should have looked at the crosses first since no colleges I know of start with X.
Peter Gordon, thanks for the nice Wednesday.
DNF as I had to Google David Ho.
First, I didn’t get the theme and had REnO (like renovation) then had no clue on the vowels for ici and elan. So I had N_V_DHO. Was expecting a Portuguese last name or something. I was so lost!
I got through the whole puzzle, Unknown Names and all, every now and then wondering "what the heck are all those circles doing?" Finished correctly, re-read the 3 revealers (!) and still didn't know. A minute later: "Aha!... cute theme!"
I kinda knew SNORRI just because of the spelling and it sounds funny. Love those Icelandic names!
Speaking of names, had SCOTT before SOUSA because I confused "Stars and Stripes Forever" and "Star Spangled Banner".
Fun fact: BISTRO is Russian for "quick". Supposedly its use to describe cafes originated with Napoleon's troops when occupying Russia.
[Spelling Bee: yd 0; new QB streak up to 6.]
Totally agree with Katie re the stinky clueing for FRANKS. I made the exact same mistake trying TRACKS instead. We call Natick on this corner! Lazy editing.
🎶👏👏👏👏
Happy B-day REX! \o/ Early on I viewed you on a CRT display. Time flys.
Wow, 18 years?! Rex, thy name is perseverance!
I enjoyed the Merl Reagle clip. I doubt it was intentional but after Merl's video was complete, the next YouTube video in the queue was "Farmers GASP As Trump THREATENS John Deere At UNHINGED Event".
Okay, I'll be the nit and say that the 45A reveal SIDE NOTES didn't work for me; yeah, 10 of the NOTES were on the left and right SIDE whereas 12 were on the top and bottom. Maybe EDGE NOTES would have worked better.
Been out of the loop( or is it loup?). for a while which makes things rusty for me which makes me a little annoyed that I had so much trouble on a Wed. @pablito said it all for me, so gracias.....
A fun laugh for my day with @Liveprof 9:40 and his joke....Everytime I cough now, I will think of EXLAX.....!
18 years already!!!!!! I remember being so delighted when I first discovered you. I think you had been on the blog for about month or so when I found your blog. I was so mad about not being able to figure out an answer to a puzzle, and there you were....!!!! and you entertained me to boot. I read you for quite some time until I finally decided to join the group. Daunting at first for me because everyone seemed so smart and well written and Aplus Mensans and and and. Anyway, I took the plunge and I was very warmly welcomed. I really encourage lurkers to join our everyday conversations. Give yourself a little avatar and stop posting as anonymous !!!....Thank you @Rex!
Quick geometry refresh: a square has how many sides?
In the ACC and SEC (college football conferences), bowl games are broken down into Tier 1 and Tier 2.
Saw several gripes about "Fan Fare" /"Franks" so want to give it some applause. Definitely took a couple of crosses for me to get "Franks" but then it got a big smile.. Clever clue.
I agree!
Needed google to complete the NW. First time for a Wednesday in years if not decades.
Was a fun reveal and puzzle though.
Photomatte
About SUMO
The answer is not incorrect in my opinion. . Of course in a Wednesday puzzle the Times would use the American English version. This is an English language puzzle after all. Sumo is an attempt at transliteration which is not an exact science in any event. If someone tried to use sumou without some reference to a different transliteration even on a Saturday this blog would have exploded
dgd
Mark
Liner notes would have been better!
CDilly 52 says: Espero que el restaurante turco hay sido comidas excelentes!
And thanks for the kind words yesterday!
No one is going to see this at this late point (I just got home from work, so I only now got to this puzzle), but there WAS dance called "The Whip." No idea how to create an actual link, but cut-and-paste this into your friendly neighborhood search engine, and you'll have it. Cool song!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ru0gsCWXyk&t=36s
CDilly 52 again. Even my 11 year old genius granddaughter can’t seem to figure out why my iphone will not let my Blogger avatar appear, but whatever.
First off, thank you all for the kind wishes yesterday. This is such a wonderfully kind village. I’m fully on the mend and walked almost a quarter mile yesterday-no walker or cane!
Two days in a row-puzzles in my wheelhouse. What a treat; I was certain coming back with my brain still squishy I’d have to cheat for a while. I even developed my own “CPD cheat goals” so I wouldn’t beat myself up as I start a new streak with my brain still feeling like watery oatmeal. I’m betting tomorrow will likely be my first application of said rules.
Laughed at “stock quote?” and “Fan Fare.” Hated the fact that I knew FDR’s dog was a black Scottie but couldn’t recall the name even when I had _ALA! Thankfully, my favorite ballpark snacks saved the day (although I have never called a “dog” a frank).
This puzzle had a super CQ - cleverness quotient. I never complain about an easyish offering with clever design, clever clues, and a clever, well executed theme. Today check, check, check!
After my solve, I went to the title page to see what our constructor had to say about the genesis of his puzzle concept and grid design. While I was disappointed not to get more insight, I had so much fin solving. The former professional musician in me tried singing the edge going both clockwise and counterclockwise hoping for a repeatable “song.” Singable but not very memorable. No worries, it dod not in any way diminish my enjoyment!
Happy Hump Day neighbors❣️
Happy birthday to you on the 18th year of your reign as King of the Crossworlds!
"Give yourself a little avatar and stop posting as anonymous !!!"
--Anonymous 2:48
Well what about YOU, Anonymous 2:48?
Happy Birthday! I had more trouble with this puzzle than any in recent memory. Including Fridays and Saturdays. I guess this was just completely off my wavelength?
re: Wallace Shawn - can't leave out Young Sheldon!
horrible
@Nancy...Ay Dios mío. THAT WAS ME! My avatar disappeared !!!!! You can't tell who I am by my horrible grammar? Moi
You’re the greatest, Rex! Happy Anniversary and many more.
Last I heard it was called "solfeggio." SOL-feggio. SO what.
Late to the party but HAPPY 18TH to the blog. And many many thanks to Rex for his dedication to ‘splaining the puz day in and day out (with appreciation to the subs on the ‘days out’).
Nice that today’s puzzle called out “REX”!
(Re the puzzle - I found the PPP difficult &, like others, had to come here for the theme.)
I used Uber in both Denmark and Hungary two weeks ago. Didn’t seem to be banned…
What is the thought process on this theme? Do, re, me, etc. I view this type of crosswordese as the worst part of crossword puzzles. So, we have an admittedly tight, well executed theme that is based on: bad crosswordese. The tight theme also results in pretty mediocre fill. For me, I’m not sure the juice is worth the squeeze in this case. Maybe this is just my problem! I don’t mean to be too critical.
As a first guess, I did get a different "stock quote": BAA
Great theme, well executed. One worrisome column (david ho, eduardo) but well worth it.
Congrats (albeit a few weeks late) from this longtime syndilurker and sometimes contributor to @Rex on achieving this milestone!
ODEA! This was one of the toughest Wednesday's ever. No idea of the theme despite completing the puzzle until I got here though, in retrospect, it, and the revealers are very clever. Knew SNORRI due to frequent references to him in many Icelandic Noir novels but ignorance of DAVIDHO, EDUARDO, ELKO and GOURDE forced a reliance on Dr. Google.
Perish forbid, I may finally be losing it. This puppy was HARD! Several PPPs I did not know, culminating in that well-known (???) Icelandic poet. Plus: Saturday-LEVEL cluing!
This despite easily figuring out the theme, and triple revealer. Maybe I should RETIRE from puzzling. A mid-week challenger, but a bit unfair: bogey.
Maybe I should also retire from Wordle. Another DNF. Went through every _A_EL there was...except the right one.
You are incorrect. I'm in my 70's, and was taught by the Sisters of Providence that the fifth note was SO. And nuns don't lie! The first time I saw SOL as the fifth note was in a crossword puzzle. But then again, I didn't have any formal music training. However, we all got a flageolet from the Sisters in the first grade.
Personally, I find the answer SOL to be SOuLsucking! SO there!!!
BED SIDENOTES
AS ATEAM WII have STATED,
ANYOLD STRESS, U go soft.
YUL be TEMPTED, EX-RATEd
ASARULE gets ONEOFF.
--- SUR SNORRI SOUSA
From yesterday:
OVER HIT
TRAVISKELCE fell ASLEEP
after SEVERAL DAYS HELLA doin’ it,
Taylor REVEREs A NINER deep,
but can’t FORGE ARISE from his UNIT.
--- ALICE SESAME
Very hard, very fun puzzle. I thought the guy's name was SNURRI so that sent me off on a wild goose chase with what a Lambo was supposed to be, but I got there eventually. Also, as a professional musician who learned numbers for sight singing instead of Solfege, I don't care which spelling is used for SO(L), they're both stupid. Oh, and there is only one right answer as to what song you should start to sing when you see LAREDO, and that is the Smothers Brothers version of Streets of Laredo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fYCvA-G9Iw
Sounds like a you problem, great puzzle
Orange Bowl
Cotton Bowl
Sugar Bowl
Fiesta Bowl
Hula Bowl
Citrus Bowl
Pretty much every Bowl game not played in an archaic one-tier venue
Post a Comment