Quick confirmation of feasibility / MON 9-30-24 / Football player in upstate New York / Empire whose capital city was Tenochtitlán / Loud and unhappy sports fans, in slang / Stat of interest to a competitive crossword solver
Monday, September 30, 2024
Constructor: Alexander Liebeskind
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)
Theme answers:
- THESIS STATEMENT (16A: Sentence that often appears in the first paragraph of an essay)
- SANITY CHECK (22A: Quick confirmation of feasibility)
- ACID TAB (37A: Dose for an LSD trip)
- BUFFALO BILL (49A: Football player in upstate New York)
Tenochtitlan, also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was a large Mexican altepetl in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear, but the date 13 March 1325 was chosen in 1925 to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the city. The city was built on an island in what was then Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. The city was the capital of the expanding Aztec Empire in the 15th century until it was captured by the Tlaxcaltec and the Spanish in 1521.
At its peak, it was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas. It subsequently became a cabecera of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Today, the ruins of Tenochtitlan are in the historic center of the Mexican capital. The World Heritage Site of Xochimilco contains what remains of the geography (water, boats, floating gardens) of the Mexica capital.
Tenochtitlan was one of two Mexica āltepētl (city-states or polities) on the island, the other being Tlatelolco. (wikipedia)
The fill is surprisingly weak today. Cheater squares in the corners (NW, SE) and yet you've still got stuff like HAHAS and LIS and SOU and AONE and ANAL. That last one you could easily eliminate by changing TUNA to something like CORA or HORA or even TOGA—I'd take a partial like A GAL or A PAL or something like that over ANAL. It's not an offensive word, of course, it's just ... I dunno. I used it once in a puzzle and I've regretted it ever since. Don't make solvers think about anuses if you don't have to, that's my philosophy. One of them, anyway. Also, RETAIL SHOP kind of clanked. Feels like odd, formal, even dated phrasing. Ditto "mom-and-pop store." The clue did very little to help me get the answer. Needed lots of crosses. Otherwise, though, the Downs-only solve was pretty smooth. As usual, the longer Downs were the harder Downs, with MAIN IDEA and especially RETAIL SHOP taking a bit of work. But ELENA KAGAN (2D: Supreme Court justice appointed by Barack Obama) and BOOBIRDS (39D: Loud and unhappy sports fans, in slang) were gimmes, and nothing in the short stuff was too much of a problem either. As usual, I confused SERB and SLAV (31D: Balkan native), and I could not figure out the "word that can come before" clue (I'm truly bad at these). For 10D: Word before ended, handed or minded (OPEN), I originally wrote in EVEN. I know, "EVEN-ended" is not a thing. I see that now. What else? Oh, I tried every five-letter ancient American civilization I could think of (including OLMEC) before hitting on AZTEC. And I was slightly worried that PESKY might in fact be PESTY (is that a word?) (5D: Irksome).
64 comments:
Slightly easier than medium for me. Serb before SLAV (hi @Rex) and mayan before AZTEC killed any chance at easy. Fun theme/reveal with almost no junk and a couple of fine long downs, liked it a bunch!
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #946 was a medium Croce for me, although there were a couple of very tough spots in the middle. Good luck!
I agree fill didn't sparkle. And I agee "statement" seemed an outlier.
I had a terrible muddle with Bufualo Bill at 49A because I'd written pilau for pilaf. Actually googled to see if there were such strangely spelled critters before realizing the mistake. Had some hesitation on 37A because I'd misunderstood the clue as meaning a cure for an LSD trip. "Huh, why would you take an acid tab to cure It?" Reread the clue and moved on.
Okay puzzle but not a favorite.
Buffalo Ian is correct.
When actor Brynner's sister wanted to buy something,
she used
THE SIS STATEMENT:
YOULL, PAY FOR THIS
Cute - early week puzzle. Rex’s nit about STATEMENT is a slight reach - but he’s not entirely off. As someone who grew up upstate and has lived mostly in the City I think anything north of I-84 can be considered upstate - it’s all about the reference frame.
Prog rock at it’s finest
Isn’t the SUNY BUFFALO campus in AMHERST? Thought this was going to be an Obama love-fest tribute right off the bat. Liked BOOBIRDS, VANILLA and PILAF. Maybe another from PSA from the Anon poster regarding LSD today?
BUFFALO TOM
Pleasant enough Monday morning solve.
AZTEC Camera
I had YOULLREGRETTHIS before getting YOULLPAYFORTHIS. Otherwise a very comfortable Monday solve.
I expect the use of another LSD reference to bring about a chorus of BOOBIRDS.
Yep - solved downs only and had PESTY for 5D: Irksome, which gave me NITE, not NIKE. Took forever to find.
Once again did not rise to the challenge of solving downs only. One of these days, er weeks…Puzzles recently beginning to take form of instructions for how to use LSD, interesting development—maybe leading to a discovery of solving “ups” only. I’m currently about 100 miles directly north of NYC—halfway between the Hudson River and CT/MA—am I upstate or down? Must be something in the coffee this morning…
Couldn't tell if you were kidding but it's definitely Buffalonian, not Buffaloer. Spot on re: western vs. upstate NY. Also, Buffalo Tom is correct regarding the main campus of SUNY Buffalo being in Amherst. However, the original (and primary, until the late 70's/early 80's) campus is on Main Street in Buffalo .
This Central New Yorker votes for Buffalonian which is decidedly in Western New York. But I do know in my soul there is only one dipping sauce foe Buffalo wings and that's blue cheese.
It seems like there are quite a few proper names for a Monday. MALIA, EZRA, IRA, ROSA, ELENA, NIKE, AMHERST, ADA . . . And that is just north of the equator!
Been with the blog since as long as I can reminder although at this point in life I am not remembering as much as I used to back in the day. Things are so bad that when I read a highly technical book I wrote in the early 90s, I had no memory of the issues addressed. This is a very long winded way of saying I would like to request that the constructors on this blog consider a book of crosswords edited by OFL. I’ll buy the first 100 copies as holiday gifts.
49A: It would have been enough to say "Football Player in New York." No need for the superfluous "upstate" or (more accurate) "western."
SUNY Buffalo (aka The University at Buffalo) has campuses both in Buffalo (the original) and Amherst, NY (an expansion opened in 1970's and now considered the "main" campus) - the latter not to be confused with the home of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, and Hampshire College in Amherst, MA.
With OFL on EVEN before open and STATEMENT feeling off. Thought we were going for something bank-relatedafter STATEMENT and CHECK. Nope. Strongly agree with his concerns about "upstate". When we were first married we lived in Plattsburgh. Now that's "upstate"! We would heap scorn on anyone who said they were from upstate NY who wasn't at least north of Albany. Of course we were similarly disparaged by folks from Quebec for referring to ourselves as being from the "North Country". Fair enough.
Feeling slightly smart this AM for know Tenochtitlan instantly when it gave some others problems. Of course having taught that period of Mexican history for years was probably an advantage.
Knew AMEHERST right away and wrote it in at 27A instead of 37A. Not recommended for speed solvers.
OK Mondecito, AL. Themers felt A Little disconnected, but not bad. Thanks for a medium amount of fun.
a
Regarding the debate over Buffalo (upstate vs. Western). I was born in Binghamton, which I've always thought of as upstate. My definition is, "Any part of New York State outside the five boroughs and Long Island." You might add Westchester and Rockland counties.
Grew up in Rochester which at the time was considered Upstate NY. Western NY, I think, is a relatively new description. Back in the day, anything north of the border betw NY & PA was upstate, including Buffalo. Not sure when the current monikers were popularized, but this 1960 baby never even heard the phrase Western NY until I was in my 40s. I will always be from upstate NY
Hey All !
Good puz for a Monday. Easy, concise. Liked the solving flow I had.
Didn't BOOBIRDS originate with the Philadelphia Eagles? Remember, their fans even booed Santa.
Har moment, had THiS___ for the first Themer, thinking "how does THIS IS STATEMENT make sense?"
Another PESKY Monday. ALAS.
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
AND, Buffalo Tom was started by Bill Janovitz while he was at Umass AMHERST!
I must be getting dumber as a get older. This was a struggle for me, on a Monday too... Typically I burn through Mondays, getting 90% of the grid on first read. The last few weeks, not so much. Cognitive decline or have they been more difficult.
Enjoyable offering for a Monday and I agree with a lot of the nuances that @Rex pointed out, such as STATEMENT not quite equivalent to the rest but I’m a follower of Joaquin’s Dictum so that’s okay.
Reading the blog I saw a lot of energy in the “Upstate New York” business so I did a shallow search that revealed that people are all over the place on what this is. I get it, and will say…it would be rough to live in a fairly good sized state and have the “tail” of the NYC metropolitan area wagging the “dog” of the rest of the state, only to be called “upstate.” It made me think of my neighboring Illinois, and they don’t have everyone calling everything south of the Chicago area “downstate Illinois.” But. I’m afraid that many or most of us yahoos all over the rest of the US think of the rest of that big blob of New York State as “upstate” New York.
I live on 215th street, which we frequently refer to as “Upstate Manhattan”. I know people in Chautauqua, which is near xword fave Erie, PA, refer to their area as upstate. This always seemed more “over” than “up”.
They may have been trying to make the clue more Monday by including the “Upstate” part; NY football team immediately brings to mind the Giants and Jets (even though they play in NJ) and the Bills are frequently clued as a misdirect.
Now why in the world am I going to have to pay for a THESIS STATEMENT, SANITY CHECK and BUFFALO BILL? Let me ponder that provocative question for a moment.
Oh, right, it's Monday -- a day when, more often than not, only one word in a two-word theme answer gets to be involved or relevant. Sigh.
But, still, it's a graceful, grown-up grid with some very nice long Downs and nothing that's too VANILLA or STALE. And there's a lovely clue for SINK (11D). So as Mondays go, it's not half bad (pun intended).
Addendum to the AIR clue at 61D: Well, at least it was.
A tip to those not in the know: The thing I was told practically the first day I set foot on the Smith College campus is that you don't pronounce the "H" in AMHERST. It's pronounced AMerst. Say it right or get the side-eye from just about everybody.
I thought this had a bit more crunch than the average Monday and I appreciated the lack of names.
I am sitting on my porch, looking out on Lake Chautauqua. We have never referred to this spot as “upstate”. We are in western NY. It is probably all those Ohio folk that populate the Chautauqua Institute that mistakenly refer to this area as “upstate”.
Side note, we now spend winters in Charleston, SC. In SC, the SC upstate area is always referred to as “the upstate”. Which is weird.
I grew up in Rochester, which is definitely Upstate and always has been - I never could wrap my head around the use of 'upstate' to be anything above NYC. Buffalo, however, was never considered part of upstate - they were always Western NY and used to be called the Niagara Frontier when I was in HS in the early 70s
You might have a SANITYCHECK, but as Chico pointed out in Night at the Opera, "There ain't no SANITY Claus."
There are ACTS being introduced in Congress to address preserving some of our native species. There's the Eagle Bill, the Wolf Bill and the BUFFALOBILL, which would protect each and every CALF.
Thanks, Alexander Liebeskind.
Pagarás por esto.
The one thing you learn when moving: YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS. You hemorrhage of cash. The [mover's vehicle] runs on 30-year-old scotch apparently. So thanks for reminding me Mister Puzzle.
Kinda rude adding [as an NBA team] for TANKS. Any team in any sport can TANK. I tank every day. If I was wearing a TANK in a TANK with a fish TANK I'd TANK.
One of the retail shops in Aspen is owned by mom and pop Armani.
The street I'm living on is AMHERST. I like VANILLA ice cream. I'm PESKY. I like Hermione Granger played by EMMA Watson.
Propers: 10 (yeeshk)
Places: 1
Products: 7
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 26 of 76 (34%)
Funnyisms: 1 🤨
Tee-Hee: BOOB-IRDS. And, please, it's not funny, when the software cranks out your fill and the word ANAL shows up, go delete it from your word list and recompile the puzzle. It'll take you 10 seconds and the world will become a better place and you'll get a day pass into heaven.
Uniclues:
1 Button conservatives wish they could push.
2 What most of my writing consists of.
3 Artist task for the Hall of Haters.
4 First step on the road to bankruptcy.
1 ELENA KAGAN MUTE
2 MAIN IDEA LULL
3 ETCH BOOBIRDS
4 OPEN RETAIL SHOP
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Watcheth Prince Harry. SEEST NEPOBABY.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Someone please explain TORI, 48A
Easiest Monday ever. I solved it so fast I didn't even notice the theme. A fun Monday, thanks Alexander :)
BTW - based on my childhood a Mom & Pop business is a CANDY STORE not a RETAIL SHOP (but I know, that wouldn't of worked in the
puzzle - oh well.)
With all due respect to your moving expenses, there is no greater hemorrhage of cash than legal fees for the custody fight your daughter wages against her idiot ex-husband. I'm happy to shell out because my granddaughter is a precious jewel, but I've never seen anything like it.
In case anyone was wondering (as I was), Amherst NY is pronounced the same as Amherst MA -- pretend there's no H. (Hi Nancy.) I lived up in Rochester (NY) for a few years and some pronunciations around there are unusual. Charlotte, is shar-LOT, for example.
Well, yeah but...
Actually, you *can* pay for it, with a CHECK or $ BILLs or a STATEMENT of "I'll always be in your debt!"
staff weeject pick: FRI = {Sat. preceder}. moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue. sooo ... daily double winner.
fave stuff included: ELENAKAGAN crossin SANITYCHECK. Her hopelessly minority position on the court, these days.
TANKS on purpose, Mr. Liebeskind dude.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
**gruntz**
Sometimes you can know too much. Re. LSD, One Tab.
And Amherst NY is basically a largish suburb OF Buffalo. It’s not like a stand alone city. If NYU had a campus in Bronxville I think you would still think of it as NYU. As a ‘Buffalonian’ I feel qualified to comment on that. I appreciate the defense of WNY as a geographical description.
I’d love to. No idea.
Plural of torus
It's the plural of the geometric shape TORUS
The printed paper had a front-page photo of hurrican damage in Asheville. @Lewis, I seem to recall that you live there. I hope you are OK!
The theme seemed loose to me at first, because I was thinking of a bank STATEMENT and a dollar BILL, neither of which you pay for; but just I was getting eady to complain, realized that it could be a credit card statement and a bill from your doctor, so now I think better of it. RETAIL SHOP,, though, seemed both green-paintish and badly clued. There are plenty of chains of retail shops, and a mom-and-pop business might be very large, or not a shop at all. Also I thought the HELM was the steering wheel, not the place where the wheel was located; cf. the phrase "take the helm."
Pretty easy, anyway. My only difficulties were choosing between HELM and dEck, and going with Serb before SLAV.
OK, later.
plural of torus - doughnut/bagel shape
Pleural of torus.
Glad to see I wasn't the only one who did a double take on THE SIS STATEMENT!
ACID TAB had an ad hoc, theme needs that TAB at the end feel to it. The more natural sounding phrase to my ear is TAB of ACID. Kind of like the difference between COFFEE CUP and CUP of COFFEE.
TORI is the plural of torus, the shape of a donut, or a hula hoop, or a tire.
A cute Monday, in my opinion. The theme answers were somewhat ho-hum, but the revealer made it all worth. I didn't really notice most of Rex's nits. But his comment on ANAL gave me a chuckle.
Gary Jugart, your Uniclue Keepsake for yesterday made me laugh, again.
Nice job, Alexander Liebeskind!
Given that ANAL was clued as fastidious, It was interesting to see @Rex and other fastidious solvers object to its appearance.
I notice @Lewis has not commented; I hope it's nothing worse than a power failure.
Rex is great, but I feel like if Buffalo Bill had been clued as the guy, he would say he doesn't like having animal slaughterers in puzzles.
First time in 65 years I’ve heard of “sou.” Yet apparently I’m alone since no one else mentioned it!
My mother’s family lived in buffalo (elmwood) since my great grandfather came there from Scotland. I always heard it described as upstate New York.
September NYTXW Gunk Report
I was moving at the end of last month, so I never assembled the gunk report for August. If I have time later today I'll type it in and see what gems of the information age result. I know you can hardly wait.
As always a caveat: Gunk in and of itself is not necessarily bad. Sometimes you might learn something from it. You might learn how to text your grandson in the cool modern way. SMH. Or you might learn what university is down the street from a Dairy Queen. Or one beloved commenter might learn how to spell blue in Swahili. Most of the time, gunk runs in the upper 20% to lower 30% range, but we always have shocking outliers and that's where the fun begins.
Speaking of fun, I count up what I think was "meant" to be funny in puzzles. I am better at humor than a few of the arms-folded harumphers around here (and apparently way better at it than anybody with university level math or music in their past), so if I say it's funny, it's funny. If I say it's not, it might still be funny, but it doesn't get credit here.
Gunky Puzzle of the Month Award: Will and Casey on the 18th weighing in at a whopping 41% for those Spanish Steps.
Least gunky POM: Boaz's "Don't Answer That" themeless on Friday the 13th at a more MERER 16%. (We'll come back to this moment in history.)
What's coming out of your pocketbook for gunk:
-You answered 2562 clues this month. (Reminder to all geniuses, they're clues, not synonyms.)
-A total of 795 of those answers were gunk.
-Assuming your subscription is $55 a year, you paid 15¢ for each puzzle (and boy howdy we can get worked up over that kinda money) and 4.6¢ is going to gunk on average. By the way, this is down from July, and as I said, I haven't done August yet.
In the past Friday and Saturday were the biggest contributors to gunk (oddly) since those are themeless and have no constraints on the puzzle, Typically, unfortunately, we find that in order to toughen up the puzzles they dump a bunch of C-list actresses and writers into those days and boom up goes the gunk. But this month, in large part thanks to Boaz's puzzle, Fridays dropped below every other day.
We do need to give an honorable (dishonorable?) mention to Meghan for her Sunday the 8th. Everything is double on Sundays, so a 40% gunky puzzle is A Lot Of Gunk for one day with 19 propers and 19 partials. That was the puzzle that nearly caused Rex and aneurysm over CENTENNIAL STATE. (It's Colorado, by the way.)
I'm still being bugged by food references in the puzzles, but I'm trying to get over it.
Here's the scorecard for the month. No trend arrows as I neglected August:
Propers: Mostly people and groups: 235
Places: 70
Products: Including bands and songs: 160
Partial Words and Initialisms: 240
Foreignisms: 90
Average Monthly Gunkiness: 31%
Averages by Day:
M: 32%
T: 27%
W: 37%
R: 31%
F: 25%
S: 31%
U: 33%
Let's talk comedy: By far the funniest part of crosswording is reading the comments in the Rex Parker blog, followed by reading Rex Parker himself. However, you'd think constructors and editors of crossword puzzles would be humorous as they're in the business of messing with words all day. There were 131 funnyisms last month (we can still do better), or 18% on average. The least funny puzzle was written by new constructor Tim on the 9th (the "throw shade" puzzle) with 0% funniness, and the knee slapper of the month came from Jesse (also a new constructor) last Thursday at 42% with that crazy CRUELLA=CURE ALL thing.
That's what I know. Time for lunch.
TORI Amos is a singer/songwriter and pastry chef best known for her 1992 album “Little Earthquakes.”
I grew up in Rochester as well. The local Gannett Newspaper’s Sunday Magazine was called “Upstate.” That’s where we believed we lived.
Nice puzzle.
Lewis is OK!!!! Here's his email to me that he's asked me to share with you:
"Hi Nancy,
No damage, but for two days, no power, NO WATER!, no internet, no phone. Saturday night the power came back on, but all the other things are off. (I found a wifi place a good distance from home.) Anyway, I'll let you know when news happens and I'm able to report it. We're basically doing okay. The killer is being without water, and it sounds like we'll be without it for at least two weeks.
Anyway, would you be so kind as to let both blogs know that I am okay and anxious to return, and I will when we get wifi once again; don't know how long that will be; it is rightfully lower on the priority list of needs in the area.
Thinking of you with smiles in my heat and wishing you well --
Lewis
Anyone else tired of Gary’s indulgent, meandering word salads?
@Nancy
Looks like we got the same email from @Lewis. 😂
Lifelong NYC resident here. Everything north of the Bronx is upstate. EVERYTHING!
I wouldn’t be so upbeat without water for up to 2 weeks. But that’s Lewis. Good luck to him!
Long discussion about upstate New York. Agree with Dash RipRock
What 60% live in NYC metro area & Long Island. For out of staters, everything else is upstate.
Coming from a small state, when I was traveling once, asked where I was from I said Roh DEYE land as we tend to say and person clarified Long Island?
At least everyone has heard of New York.
Puzzle, okay. Statement didn’t bother me. But puzzle on the bland side
I’m with you.
Almost resistanceless, except for for the crossing propers of IRA and EZRA, along with that pesky PESKY in the top central. I've done enough puzzles to know it's either IRA or aRi, but not enough to know which. EZRA seems like a Friday/Saturday name, though.
SANITYCHECK just sounds off. To me it’s reality CHECK. I also prefer fleur-de-LyS to Fleur-de-LIS. But MALIA is MALIA so LIS it is…
@anon 2:20: SOU is an old French coin of very little worth. It has appeared several times in crosswords for obvious reasons. If this is the first time you've seen it, I guarantee it won't be the last.
I don't share OFNP's disparagement of this puzzle, though not being a New Yorker, I'm not nearly as provincial about "upstate." The fill is really not that bad. Perhaps a bit VANILLA in places, but OK. Agreed that the CHECK is more properly reality than SANITY, but that's an extra square for which there's no room, so whaddyagonnado? It's fine. It's a Monday. It's a par.
Wordle par.
@Burma Shave was incommunicado OER the weekend:
AONE TIME USE
ALAS, MALIA ACTS her AGE
when EZRA NEEDs A kiss;
A STATEMENT from the RETAIL sage:
“TANKS, now YOU’LLPAYFORTHIS!”
--- EMMA & IRA VAN KAGAN
From yesterday:
WISE SLEEPER
ON A MANHATTANHOOKUP with LENA,
UP ON ARRIVAL begin:
“YOU’RE NOT the BRUTAL TYPE like SERENA,
I’MREADY to go ALLIN.”
--- RAOUL KAFKA
From Saturday:
TRUE BLAU
AARON and AGATHA ON the RUN –
BOTH ACTNORMAL I RECKON.
Their ONLY REACTION TO PASS for FUN?
The ANSWER is SMITH and WESSON.
--- ANTHONY ASHE
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