Shaggy Scottish grazer / SAT 9-28-24 / Intercessor for the frequently forgetful / Military leader who helped capture Detroit in 1812 / Tucker who played drums for the Velvet Underground / Speckled steeds / Rustic respites / Pancake topper / Noncompetitive races / First name for the third second-in-command / Variable in Euler's polyhedron formula (V — E + F = 2) / Anonymous online handle, at times
Saturday, September 28, 2024
Constructor: Margaret Seikel
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: dark MODE (45A: Dark ___) —
A light-on-dark color scheme, better known as dark mode, dark theme or night mode, is a color scheme that uses light-colored text, icons, and graphical user interface elements on a dark background. It is often discussed in terms of computer user interface design and web design. Many modern websites and operating systems offer the user an optional light-on-dark display mode.
Some users find dark mode displays more visually appealing, and claim that it can reduce eye strain. Displaying white at full brightness uses roughly six times as much power as pure black on a 2016 Google Pixel, which has an OLED display. However, conventional LED displays cannot benefit from reduced power consumption. Most modern operating systems support an optional light-on-dark color scheme. (wikipedia)
So 2/3 of those middle Downs were reasonably pleasing, but all the other long stuff only really gets up to the level of "OK." There's nothing that really pops or surprises in any of the corners. The grid's not bad, or ugly, it's just a little blah, and the puzzle as a whole was very, very easy, so there wasn't even the joy of the struggle today. Clues were mostly transparent. I was shocked that AGATHA was right at 1A: First name in mysteries. It's the first thing I thought of, which, on a Saturday, I assume is going to be wrong-o! Not EXACTO! (Do people really say EXACTO, "informally" or otherwise? Fonzie says "Exactamundo!"—now that's informal. Baroque, elaborate, hypersyllabic, yes, but still informal. To me X-ACTO is a knife brand, and that's all it is.). Was surprised to just glide through this whole grid, from AGATHA on down, with very little resistance. I just fell down the puzzle like a stream down the hill, inexorably pulled by gravity rather than anything that felt like real effort on my part—corner to corner in no time at all:
Lightning round:
- 28D: First name for the third second-in-command (AARON) — ugh, presidential math, the worst. "OK, third president, so ... that's Jefferson, and then his veep was ... wait, was it really Burr? Huh, in all the Hamilton / "AARON Burr, sir" mania, I somehow forgot that very basic fact, LOL." Burr was VP during Jefferson's first term. For Jefferson's second term, it was George Clinton, who went on to be Madison's VP as well (?!), before ultimately abandoning the American political system altogether and joining Parliament:
- 11D: Intercessor for the frequently forgetful (ST. ANTHONY) — so he's the patron saint of people with memory problems. I did not know that. Kinda miffed that there's no abbr. indicator in the clue (as ST. is most def an abbr.), but on Saturdays especially I think they just throw basic decorum like that out the window.
- 37D: How some Hollywood relationships start (ON SCREEN) — really wanted this to be ON SET. We're talking about the actors, right? Not the fictional "relationships" in the movies themselves? I guess people who play lovers then become lovers, OK.
- 24A: Variable in Euler's polyhedron formula (V — E + F = 2) (EDGES) — no idea. None. "Polyhedron" was probably supposed to help me think of a shape with EDGES, but it did not. That's OK. I expect to have things baffle me, especially on Saturday. Way less bothered by EDGES (something I simply didn't know) than by the CAPITAL in SEED CAPITAL (a pretentious stand-in for a more basic term)—I know, I know: "Rex, it's a real term, I'm so tired of your etc.," relax, business guy; you have your reaction, I'll have mine.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
88 comments:
Had trouble sleeping, so I tackled the puzzle early. Struggled, but finished. Had no idea about HORCHATA or BACNE, so I was surprised to get everything right. Took me a while to remember TECUMSEH (by the way, the middle name for the Civil War General Sherman). Had REAR first instead of RUMP, bogging me down in the southeast.
Tony, Tony, look around, something’s lost and must be found
What a slog of a puzzle
I read the clue for 1A, immediately thought AGATHA (of course), but then thought "Wait -- it's Saturday. It can't possibly be AGATHA; that would be way too easy." Despite "confirming" the first letter with the wrong shaving brand, like Rex, I just refused to write it in. The entire puzzle was harder for me than it should have been because I wound up solving clockwise from the NE and finishing in the NW.
The things you learn from a crossword blog! I always thought I was a capitalist, but thanks to @Rex I now know I'm a moneyist.
I found it harder than OFL, probably about Medium for a Saturday.
Overwrites:
1D: @Rex AtrA before AFTA
2D: GUESs before GUEST, leading to sOT for the sticky-fingered 23A
17A: Wanted SHEEP before HIGHLAND COW
18A: AORTAs before AORTAE
45A: Dark AGES before MODE
WOEs:
21D: REACTION GIF
26A: HORCHATA
33A: MOE Tucker
39A: Didn't know (or remember) that TRINI Lopez was in The Dirty Dozen
47A: BACNE, new to me but inferable
Had REAR instead of RUMP at 53a which slowed me down a bit but easy otherwise. It led to Sarah (as in Lawrence) being a seven sister but also a BERET being a pop and that dog didn't bark.
Pretty straightforward - knowing HORCHATA helped, too. I had some of the same minor blocks as Rex (AtrA instead of AFTA, tUneUps instead of FUNRUNS).
The thing that REALLY threw me (as a non-Catholic) was STANTHONY. I kept looking at it and saying "What the heck is a Stanthony???" I knew it was right, because I got the happy music, but I had to stare at it for a good two minutes before I figured out how to parse it.... :D
I thought some of the clues were delightfully evil, such as for LETS DANCE and SEED CAPITAL (sorry Rex, I just don’t have the same aversion to terms originating from the world of finance as you do). I do reserve the right to bitch and moan about gunk that doesn’t even look like real words (HORCHATA, PEETS, BLAU, SILVICULTURE and the like).
I guess if I were going to advocate for a panning of a certain type of clue simply because I find the whole concept distasteful, it would be the constant rap “artists” we are bludgeoned with. Yes, for sure - I definitely find spewing n-words, advocating for misogyny and worshiping Glocks to be more distasteful than funding a start-up venture.
Fun puzzle - less strenuous than the normal Saturday- both cleanly filled and smooth. SEED is not great but didn’t kill the entire center stack for me. Handsome grid layout.
A FOREST
I thought the large stacks in the SW and NE were wonderful. BEE POLLEN, ST ANTHONY, LETS DANCE all top notch.
The name she gave - was Caroline
We get the fantastic PEETS - which I know a few of us now drink primarily due to @Gill’s recommendation. I can’t say I have the same affinity for HORCHATA. We get both SMITH and WESSON - not sure if that was intended or not. Couple of nice math references and gimmes made this a highly gettable grid.
It’s true it’s a chore to tame WISTERIA
Enjoyable Saturday morning solve - cheered up the rainy gloom that I woke up to. Stella provides a much more devious test with today’s Stumper.
She had RIBBONS, RIBBONS, RIBBONS in her long brown hair
A fine Saturday. TIL that, in OFL’s words, “AFTA exists.” That slowed me down a bit.
I had the EXACTO same problem as Rex in the NW - can AGATHA really be right on a Saturday? AtrA! TUNeupS! Wait, it’s gotta be TRUE THAT, but it doesn’t work with tUNeupS. Abandon ship, move on to the NE, which (unlike for Rex) was a breeze for me. Probably because I knew all the propers right away - CARIB, ST ANTHONY, MOE.
But I got really stuck in the SW, in part because of some devilish (but excellent) clues. “Current influencer” was a double misdirect - my first thought was Instagram star, second was electricity. Ocean currents (EL NIÑO) did not occur to me until it was obvious. I thought the DoorDash driver’s transport would be what she is carrying (like lunch), not what she carries it on (EBIKE). And I thought “directive to get down” was a misdirect - the answer would be something like “hit the deck” but it was what it seemed to be at first - an order to party (LET’S DANCE). And I am embarrassed that it took me so long to see the “draining work” was done by PLUMBERS.
Because it was more challenging for me than for Rex, I liked it better than he did. I agree with him on one more thing, though - I am not going to be reading any BACNE BLOGS (though my deepest sympathy to you). I will instead head for the WISTERIA FORESTS with some HORCHATA (which, by the way, is delicious).
Rex Parker must be right that this was easy, because I finished it without cheating. Guessed a lot, because i've ever heard of HORCHATA or BACNE. Is BACNE a breakout of acne?" I agree with Rex that STANTHONY needed a period. I don't agree that SEEDCAPITAL is badly clued, because the term "angel" has stood for start-up investors since I was a broker (25+ years ago.)
Exact same start as OFL with AGATHA>ATRA>ASHE>TUNEUPS. Did that corner last and finished everything properly. The ANSWER for "pick up" was a nice aha!.
Found out about STANTHONY and what a dark MODE might be, also that while a Shetland pony is a thing a SHETLANDCOW is not.
Huge props to my amiga GILLI today and her love of PEET's. The" Bay-Area" apparently does not include any bays in NH. Mil gracias.
Thought this was just about right for a medium Saturday. Not whooshy but steady progress and a satisfying solve. Nice one MS, Many Smiles along the way, and thanks for all the fun.
*** Quick PSA ***
Rex’s friend Rachel and her occasional collaborator Rebecca teamed up for today’s LAT / WaPo puzzle. Level-of-difficulty wise, it would probably feel right at home here on a weekend (personally I would peg it for Friday - but I’m not a very good one to judge because both Fridays and Saturdays here are quite capable of sailing right over my head).
Fell into the exacto same ATRA / TUNEUPS hole. Ugh! I also convinced myself that BIG BLACK COW was correct at one point :)
Rex, the only thing wrong with SEED MONEY is: it’s too short!!! First had ACT CASUAL for 10D; ON CAMERA for 37D.
I loved this puzzle! 17 minutes for me--on a Saturday. That's pretty good. Hard enough, but doable. Thanks! Favorite answers: TECUMSEH and WISTERIA. and BEEPOLLEN. HORCHATA was a complete woe for me. And interesting that ALCOA started in PA, I always think of them as being in East Tennessee--with the ALCOA highway and all that. Thanks, Margaret, GREAT PUZZLE!
Once again trolled by OFL.
Sometimes you just get lucky. Lots of stuff right in my wheelhouse today. Nice when it feels like the constructor and I are on the same wavelength.
Can someone please explain NINTHS to me (answer at 62A)? How is, e.g., “.3333” a ninth?
Oh my goodness, I could not get a lot of this puzzle. Had many more lookups than normal, which is one or none. I guess I”m just ignorant! I made all of the mistakes mentioned , TUNEUPS, ATRA, REAR, did not know HORCHATA, did not know ROTATION GIF, (( know about GIFs but the rotation part?), did not know TECUMSEH *hangs head in shame* or Euler’s polyhedron equation *hangs head even further since I live with two mathemeticians* and basically just humbled and thankful for @Rex and his answers to show me FUNRUNS because, talk about a mental block! And love all the comments, since I don’t feel as bad now.
The Vice President of the United States is not second in command. She has no command authority; the Constitution gives her no command authority. None. Zero. As Vice President, she is: first in line of succession to the presidency; and President of the Senate with authority to cast a deciding vote in case of a tie. That's it. There is nothing else. Any "authority" the president may personally and contingently give to her is political and not bound by any law and is not in anyway inherent in her office as Vice President.
I should know.
Had a very hard time with the trivia and names. HORCHATA and the math formula were complete mysteries. Calling TECUMSEH a military leader and WISTERIA a Japanese flower threw me. CARIB seemed forced. Tried hard to take ECHINACEA as the allergy supplement and snickered as I always do at the word “influencer.” But it’s Saturday and I learned a few things, so business as usual.
Hey All !
Had to "verify" (ok, ok, look up a couple answers) to keep the solve going. Got stuck in some spots. One was for CARIB, as a typical geographically challenged American, no idea where Suriname is, one was for FORESTS. When I was younger, wanted to go to College for Forestry, but that never happened. If so, I would've known that. 😁
I think there was a third look-up somewhere in there, but now I can't remember! Oh well, I hate being stuck without knowing anything. Id rather take the loss, as it were, to Goog something I don't know to keep the solve going. Oh, I remember now, it was HORCHATA. I had HOttoddy first. Is that how it's spelled?
So a good, typical tough (for me) SatPuz. Neat grid layout. Was wondering who or what a STANTHONY was. Har. St Anthony. Maybe he can help me with my memory. Har.
Happy Saturday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Easy for boomers that jog and vacation in Mexico
Anon 6:08–
The poem is Saint Anthony come around.
Something is lost and cannot be found.
Properly understood, it is a prayer for intercession, not a command performance.
Bacne is a common side effect of steroids and was referenced all the time in the Major League Baseball steroids scandal of the early 2000s.
If you haven’t heard of horchata before, do yourself the favor of trying it! Any restaurant with Taqueria in its name should serve it. If you like rice pudding with a little cinnamon on it, horchata’s like the cold, sweet drink version of that.
NOT easy for me!
He's got to stop it with these 'Easy' labels... even for at Saturday that was tough! And not very fun...
Seed *money* at least leaves open the original idea of "Angel" being a term from theater for those lovely people who put their cash behind a production even at the low probability of a high return, frequently featured in "let's put on a show" films, with the greatest spin on the trope being all those saps Max Bialystok soaks for Springtime for Hitler. Which is a much more enjoyable set of associations than "capital," which pretty much kicks any Broadway connotation to the curb in favor of the limos driving by full of vulture capitalists and bean counters. Pooh. On the upside: MOE, drummer for the Velvets and one of the rare women to play drums in that era. Big thumbs up for me, and shoulda been a gimme except I get brain farts on proper nouns, especially doing xwords, even when it's a name I've known well for a long time, and it kept wanting to come up MEL, which I knew was wrong so that sat empty longer than it should.
I woulda rated this more Medium than Easy relative to the Saturday standard. Lots of guesses that came true with a whoosh when I finally got enough cross-clue to take the plunge. Favorite of that kind: I SO wanted "Directive to get down" 31D to be LETS DANCE and was SO delighted when it worked. That's the kind of thing that keeps me coming back.
Yikes.
Easy for people who leave their house every once in a while (HORCHATA is common in the U.S. … it’s the title of a Vampire Weekend song from 15 years ago for gods sake)
With only .1111 seconds to spare as I got ready to put down the puzzle and come and comment about it, I belatedly thought to change ATRA, a shaving brand I've used often, to AFTA, a shaving brand I don't know at all. Thus saving myself the embarrassment of asking all of you "What are TUN RUNS?" and "Who was Recumseh?"
Whew! Saved by those last .1111 seconds!
Despite having the gimmes of AGATHA, my favorite author of all time, and SMITH, my alma mater, I found this puzzle exceedingly hard and had to simply "keep the faith" that I would actually finish the thing if I tried hard enough. I did, but boy am I not on this constructor's wavelength either in clues of answers.
"Pick up"= ANSWER did not make me smile. If you twist yourself into a pretzel, I suppose you can explain/justify it, but I really don't like it. Same with "Directive to get down" for LET'S DANCE. And I guess I go to all the wrong websites because while the "Anonymous" are everywhere, I've never seen a single GUEST. Also, the less said about EXACTO as a new way of saying "exactly", the better.
Is it my generation, where I live, or my diet preferences that make HORCHATA so unknown to me? I wanted HOTsomething-or-other.
But one answer here will live in my mind and my heart forever. Indeed, it was well worth the staggering cost of a year's-worth of home delivered New York Timeses. STANTHONY is the patron saint of the "frequently forgetful"!!!! How absolutely wonderful! Who knew? I shall leave y'all now and go to pray to him immediately!
Once again not easy here. My time was 6 minutes longer than yesterday and I had a single letter dnf with GUESS/GUEST and SOT/TOT. With as many times as the word "host" appears at this site (BLOGS is in the puzzle too) I obviously didn't put too much thought into that one. A very easy mistake to find but once that "so close" screen appears a clean finish is gone.
BACNE has to be the lamest portmanteau of all time not to mention that I've never heard of it.
HORCHATA is an SB classic.
yd -0. QB9
0.1111... = 1/9 (one ninth), 0.2222... = 2/9 (two ninths), etc.
Vamos a bailar.
It was fine. Scottish cows are definitely the cutest.
😫 REACTION GIF
Propers: 8
Places: 1
Products: 5
Partials: 4
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 20 of 66 (30%)
Funnyisms: 4 🙂
Tee-Hee: RUMP
Uniclues:
1 Blade used when threatening and chasing your fellow crafters (in jest of course).
2 The museum of arsery on Rex.
3 License to look ludicrous.
1 FUN RUN'S EXACTO
2 BLOG'S RUMP BLAB (~)
3 TOE SHOES PASS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Horrible hue or rude rhododendron. IMPOLITE VIOLET.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Coincidentally, I just finished re-reading Marx's Das Money!
I like to use my feet while gardening. I have numerous feet rakes and TOESHOES.
Shorthand for when OFL makes a good point: rEXACTO!
Pretty fun, pretty easy puzzle. Thanks, Margaret Seikel.
TRUE THAT Rex! EXACTO😉 one might opine? HAnd good luck with your eryv bsuy schedule, so double check that spelling in your tournament entry. BACNE seemed to be a random letter string until ST ANTHONY intervened today, but otherwise a fun Saturday. NINTHS was especially fitting as the last entry.
Mostly easy except for the NE which took some effort. ST ANTHONY as clued was a WOE as was RHO and MOE. Plus, I thought Suriname was is Asia not South America so CARIB did not leap to mind (Dutch Guiana I would have known) and I had tau beforehand RHO…so tough corner. Also I had no clue about the clue for AARON…thanks @Rex for clearing that up.
Did not know HORCHATA
Me too for AtRA before AFTA
Liked it but it was not as interesting as yesterday’s….or what @ Rex said.
Thanks. I’ll try it.
Medium for me, beginning with "challenging" in the NW, as I made the same mistakes as @Rex (AtrA + tUNeUpS) with the added incorrect "Sponsorship" (for SEED CAPITAL), and I resisted erasing until it just had to be TECUMSEH. After that, smoother sailing. Enjoyed it. I especially liked the lovely image of WISTERIA FORESTS.
Do-overs: those noted above plus LET'S party. Help from previous puzzles: the phrase ACT NORMAL. Help from reading food BLOGS: HORCHATA. Help from attending the Iowa State Fair: HIGHLAND COW (also in attendance there).
An impatient dnf. Started out really well and in what seemed like personal record time burned through the entire Western half of the grid.
But just bogged down on the Eastern front, especially in the SE, where I had "ON the sEt" instead of ON SCREEN; and BURST (a correct answer) led to bUtt for behind, then tUsh. At any rate, train wreck, so I started "ChecK Word-ing" and wrapped up an unsuccessful solve.
I hope I can remember ST. ANTHONY when he next appears. lol
Mostly agreed with OFL here. The only thing I'd quibble with is Rex's distaste for the term SEED CAPITAL (beyond his usual dislike of finance terms). I'm in the venture industry, and "seed capital" is used far more frequently than "seed money", to the point that I had the opposite reaction reading the writeup today - "seed money" is the version that sounds strange to my ear and out-of-the-language.
I'll admit that I got Naticked at GUEST and TOTS. GUESs seemed reasonable enough for an anonymous online handle. sOTS could be sticky-fingered, yeah? Yeah? Oh well.
I am a Catholic. And until I read your comment , I had no under what stanthony meant. I just assumed it was one off this Saturday words I solve with crosses and went on from there. Sisters Christian (sixth grade teacher ) would have been so disappointed in me.
AGATHA ANCHO HORCHATA....Bam, bam, bam! I make HORCHATA all the time and it's quite tasty - just like my PEET'S- You should try them.
After my bams I did quite a starefest. Boy did I have trouble with that Amen clue. It starts with the T from AGATHA. So what! I had absolutely no idea about that military leader who captured Detroit. Leave that section and come back to TECUMSEH after I finish my Peet's and maybe eat a couple of gently fried eggs with toast.
I did. On to others. I did. So I get to HIGHLAND and then being me, I finished up with a EWE. WISTERIA saved my bacon. Oh, it's a cow! back upstairs to a RECAST here, an EXACTO there and some fun TOE SHOES. I'm on a roll now. Back to the West Coast...LET'S DANCE. I did. Finish up with a WISTERIA and a RUMP (I had rear)...Back to the beginning....[sigh].
Like all of us brilliant people here, I, too, had ATRA for the shaving brand. My husband uses Barbasol and that didn't fit. Oh, wait! FUN RUNS and TRUE THAT....Amen! Now I know its AFTA....! So that military leader is a TECU something or other. It ends in an H. Think. You've seen his name before. How do I spell you...Cheat. Damn, I was doing so well. Go back down to the basement and finish with SNEERS and NINTHS. Damn, I'm good.
A Saturday puzzle with my favorite PEETS (Hi @Son Volt...Hi @pablito) and some HORCHATA makes me smile. I wouldn't rate it as easy - even though I only had one cheat - because this took me over an hour to do. It was a fun hour, and I had many doovers like some of @Conrad's but I give it 5 stars at the INN.
Got AGATHA but then downhill.
Peeves -
Greek letter not deducible - RHO.
Relies on cross or specific knowledge.
MOE - unnecessarily distant- stooge, tv sidekick better but too simple? Eh.
Yes, be careful about generalizing. This not what all rap is about.
Settle down, my guy. Just because a word comes from a language other than English does not make it 'gunk'.
Also, way to throw some casual racism in there.. there's a whole world of rap and hip hop that is thoughtful, intellectual, political and stimulating.
Big thumbs down to you, Johnny.
😬
Nice pickup on the SMITH & WESSON.
This one really gave me a run for my money. But I liked it & plowed on Didn't know HIGHLAND COW, ST ANTHONY, SEED CAPITAL, BACNE & would never have guessed TRINI Lopez was in "The Dirty Dozen." And I was I was surprised to see LET twice in a cross.
But it was fun trying until I lost my 'streak' to, of all
things TOT (I had Sot - go figure - I guess I was frustrated by that time :(
Thanks for the 'fun", Margaret :)
LETSDANCE is a directive? Sounds more like a suggestion.
I wouldn’t call this an EASY Saturday like Rex but it did piece together for me in the end, unlike yesterday when I had to “cheat.” Still a DNF because (like someone above said) I stared at STANTHaNY (because I had MaE) and when I checked puzzle I saw it was actually MOE…but STILL the answer was a DOOK for me.
TIL about HORCHATA, and figure I might try it sometime. I tend to not pay attention to beverage choices anymore…usually when out, it’s water, maybe a glass of wine, or coffee (plain old coffee).
I did give PAT on top of a pancake a little bit of a side-eye (or eyeroll)…
Did anyone, ANYONE think of STARTUPMONEY first like me? No, it doesn’t fit, but I still thought it was “startup [something]” until I knew it couldn’t be.
just recognizing and appreciating the jump from vp to clinton to parliament
yep. As easy to finish as ANCHO with HORCHATA, except for numerous hard spots. ATRA/TUNEUPS got things rollin, downhill.
66-worder with The Jaws. EXACTO SatPuziness.
staff weeject pick: TOT. Loved its clue. Trump's now officially a tot.
Thanx, Ms. Seikel darlin. Yer primo AARON clue registered at least .1111 on the sadistic scale. Lost at least .7777 solvequest nanoseconds.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
I solved the puzzle late, so I'm just posting once, after reading everyone. I started off extra cautious--I thought AGATHA, but had to check the crosses -- aha, AtrA! But just as I was about to fill her in, "wait! What if it's Arthur Conan Doyle, the only even more famous mystery writer?" But 3-D had to be ANCHO, so AGATHA it was, and I was off and running. If I hadn't read you all first, I'd be too embarrassed to admit that I had tUNeUpS before FUN RUNS. I used to run 10Ks, and never heard of a tune-up run. Warm up, maybe. But now I know it was a common mistake. Whew!'
The Divine Nine got a lot of press when Kamala Harris launched her campaign, but that doesn't mean I knew Sigma Gamma RHO. But TOESHOES, with its clever non-ballet clue, gave me the O, and I'm pretty sure all the other three-letter Greek letters end in a, i, or u.
I've never had a HORCHATA, which sounds too sweet for my taste, and I tried to remember the VPs in order but couldn't get past Jefferson. (Truly embarrassed about that, AARON Burr's attempt to winkle TJ out of the top job is the reason electors now vote separately for President and Vice President). I finally saw ALCOA, so it had to be AARON-- and I decided Moses must have had two other deputies before him. Well, at least it got me there.
I've only ever heard angel used that way in connection with theater, so it didn't bother me -- though now that I think about it financing a show involves more than SEED CAPITAL. But hey, it's a clue!
Did not play Easy for me, a whole bunch of unknowns (TECUMSEH HORCHATA TRINI WESSON) made the central stack hard to complete. I started with AGATHA ATRA ASHE like Rex and also had TUNEUPS once I got a few more letters. I actually knew the Euler answer but I got kealoa’d until after I got WEIRD from -RD and saw ANSWER with the W. You see, the variables are (V)ertices, (E)dges and (F)aces, and both EDGES and FACES fit.
Most ridiculous wrong answer of the day: I guessed TRACI off of -R—I, later “confirmed” by OUSTS (which was tough to see, I was thinking bounces as in leaves, intransitive verb). And that wrong C led to… BIG BLACK COW, which also works with ALCOA.
In my head, BACNE is a quintessential Quigleyism. I think this is my first time seeing it outside of a Brendan Emmett Quigley crossword.
For those of us familiar with Euler’s formula, 24A was a kealoa since the F is facES which ends in ES like EDGES. (The V is vertices.)
The clue for 62-across is simply wrong.
.1111 = 1111/10000 which is NOT equal to .1111… = 1/9.
I think they really need to have a mathy review any mathy clues.
How about “Innings of a baseball game, for example”?
No love from Rex for Tecumseh. I’m disappointed.
Hey Riprock, you’re funny! I’ve just become aware of your cleverness in the last two days. Are you new to this here blog??
Chalk another up for the AGATHA AtrA tUNeUpS snag. A few initial wrong answers today that slowed me down. shetLAND COW (sounded Scottishy), tBS before CBS, bUtt before RUMP. Mostly though just couldn't figure things out. Was wondering who STANTHONY could be (did not get the ST. part) but knew it couldn't be anything else. Typical Saturday slog (an enjoyable one) for me. Finished in 30.
Did anyone else have Hebrides Cow before being proved wrong, wrong, wrong?
And there I was trying to figure out who Stan Thony is.
Even with Agatha, horchata, and several other insta-fills, this was a minor struggle for me -- in part because I really REALLY wanted to make POOL BOYS happen for "Their work might be draining"
Thought you died in office, HW. Glad to see you're ok!
I love GUESS for an anonymous online handle!! If I ever post anonymously, I'm going to steal it.
@Anonymous 1:27 PM
1/9=.1111, 2/9=.2222, 3/9=.3333, etc. NINTHS.
Coo would have been sooooo much better than cow. And not inaccurate.
Blanked on HORCHATA for a second, even though I live in Spain - horchata here is made from tiger nuts (chufa), not rice, although the end result tastes quite similar.
Got nicked by the ATRA blade.
Loved it! On my wavelength, Stanthony, shaggy cows and all.
good one
I thought crossword rules were that if the answer was an abbreviation,the clue needed to contain anabbreviation too.
There are a number of conventions you can count on fairly consistently in the New York Times crossword.
One is that abbreviated answers are "signaled" somehow - an answer that is an acronym/initialism, or a shortened form of a longer word, has something to indicate it in the clue.
Why was this allowed?
No. Your response is exactly why they need some with a math background reviewing the math-related clues! .1111 is NOT equal 1/9 but like 3.14 is NOT equal to pi just like .3 is NOT 1/4.
Now, it feels like I’m being mathsplained by an English major.
Really, really hard. Harder than half the Croce's lately. Not an easy answer in the grid.
Rex’s wit and alacrity on full display!
DNF. TRINI Lopez was unknown to me.
Could somebody pick up the phone!
Could somebody answer the phone!
Clue and answer are exacto correct.
My biggest problem, especially with late week puzzles, is that I positively, absolutely know the answer to a clue, but cannot dredge it up. Years ago, it would only take me a hoe to dig it up. As I got older, I needed more of a shovel to unearth it. Now, I need a backhoe since the answer is buried so deep. Perhaps I'll buy myself a Bobcat.
EASY??????? ANCHO? HORCHATA??? HIGHLANDCOW? You cannot be serious. There is no possible way you can call this easy. It's IMPOSSIBLE!
Needless to say, DNF.
Wordle birdie.
,,, I struggled through so much of this. Lots of gunk.... Tecumseh horchata Blau, Tribiand the term REACTION GIF, something no one has ever said and the ridiculous SITDOWNS. WTF, this was garbage.
To Anon just abouve - If you’ve ever watched an episode of the Sopranos you would be familiar with the mob’s use of SITDOWNS to settle differences.
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