Insectoid moon dwellers in H.G. Wells's "The First Men in the Moon" / SAT 10-12-24 / Brother of Lech and Czech in Slavic lore / Texter's "off-line" / Online home services marketplace / ___ Thai (Vietnamese fruit cocktail) / Like Mount Terror and Mount Terra Nova / Lubricants used in oil drilling / Anna ___ first Italian to win an acting Oscar / First name in classic horror / Invite qualifier, for short / Zest for life: Abbr. /

Saturday, October 12, 2024

Constructor: Katie Hoody

Relative difficulty: Medium to Medium-Challenging 


THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Anna MAGNANI (39D: Anna ___, first Italian to win an acting Oscar) —

Anna Maria Magnani (Italian: [ˈanna maɲˈɲaːni]; 7 March 1908 – 26 September 1973) was an Italian actress. She was known for her explosive acting and earthy, realistic portrayals of characters.

Born in Rome, she worked her way through Rome's Academy of Dramatic Art by singing at night clubs. During her career, her only child was stricken by polio when he was 18 months old and remained disabled. She was referred to as "La Lupa", the "perennial toast of Rome" and a "living she-wolf symbol" of the cinema. Time described her personality as "fiery", and drama critic Harold Clurman said her acting was "volcanic". In the realm of Italian cinema, she was "passionate, fearless, and exciting", an actress whom film historian Barry Monush calls "the volcanic earth mother of all Italian cinema." Director Roberto Rossellini called her "the greatest acting genius since Eleonora Duse". Playwright Tennessee Williams became an admirer of her acting and wrote The Rose Tattoo (1955) specifically for her to star in, a role for which she received an Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first Italian – and first non-native English speaking woman – to win an Oscar.

After meeting director Goffredo Alessandrini, she received her first screen role in The Blind Woman of Sorrento (La cieca di Sorrento, 1934) and later achieved international attention in Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945), which is seen as launching the Italian neorealism movement in cinema. As an actress, she became recognized for her dynamic and forceful portrayals of "earthy lower-class women" in such films as L'Amore (1948), Bellissima (1951), The Rose Tattoo (1955), The Fugitive Kind (1960) and Mamma Roma (1962). As early as 1950, Life had already stated that Magnani was "one of the most impressive actresses since Garbo". (wikipedia)

• • •

A real up-and-down, high-and-low experience, this one. Those stacks are really nice—clean, crisp, clear, colloquial. Often, with stacks of long answers like that, the short answers holding them in place can get pretty dicey, but generally, I thought those (mostly) short answers held up. There's nothing that made me go "absolutely not!," at any rate. So just in terms of filling the grid, the top and bottom seem very nice. The middle of the grid is less flashy, less interesting, choppier, but it generally holds up. I could be very happy not seeing the word DECOCT ever again in my life, but we all have our burdens to bear, and I can bear that one. The middle does have the great "AM I NUTS?," so ... you take the good, you take the bad, as they say (in the theme song for The Facts of Life, among other places, probably). My problem today wasn't with the fill so much as the absurdly (at one point, literally laughably) trivial and technical cluing on some of these answers. Just arcane stuff from all these different areas about which my knowledge is not exactly deep. Areas like "Mountain biking moves" (they have "moves"?) and oil drilling (MUDS!?) and Slavic lore—that's the one that really got me. I have "RIDIC" written in the margin next to RUS (21A: Brother of Lech and Czech in Slavic lore). RUS is already bad fill, the kind you want solvers to just ignore, so your only good option there is some clue for the actual country of RUSsia. "Slavic lore," LOL. Sure, Jan. I watch so many (So Many) movies (~1/day since COVID made a cinephile out of me), but all my viewing did not prepare me for a character played by an actor I've never heard of (Kieron Moore?) in a movie I've never heard of (David and Bathsheba?). URIAH filled itself in easily from crosses, but yeeeeesh. ANTARCTIC mountains (3D: Like Mount Terror and Mount Terra Nova) ... non-Guevara CHEs (22A: ___ Thai (Vietnamese fruit cocktail)) ... Insectoid Moon Dwellers (!?!?) (11D: Insectoid moon dwellers in H.G. Wells's "The First Men in the Moon"). Trivia trivia trivia ... it was really really really leaning on trivia for the "difficulty." There's still a healthy dose of tricky wordplay, but this puzzle felt slightly old-fashioned in the amount of arcana it wanted you to come up with. RUS, LOL. It's like when you used to have to know three-letter European rivers of no note. Lots of love for the stacks today, but a handful of UGHS for some of these clues.


This puzzle felt very hard at first. With stacks like this, I generally make a pass at all the (mostly) short Downs before I ever look at the Acrosses, and that strategy paid off today. I had what felt like almost nothing after my pass at the Downs up top. In fact, I had just five, most of them non-adjacent, and only one of which (HOTH) I was dead certain of. And yet from just those five answers ... bam!

[forever doomed to misspell BIALY!]

I left out a sixth answer there, actually, because it was wrong: I had OOO ("out of office") tentatively (and erroneously) written in at 12D: Texter's "off-line" (IRL) (short for "in real life"). But even with that wrong-o in there, I was able to see "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE"—my highly ironic gateway answer! Totally blocked trying to come out of the NW. For all I knew those mountains at 3D: Like Mount Terror and Mount Terra Nova were ANT...ILLEAN? ANTIPODEAN? ANT-RIDDEN? Maybe they're the mountains where the SELENITES live, I dunno. Couldn't see SHAMED or TEAM UP (me: "TEAM...ER? A TEAMER? That's not a thing!"). So I abandoned that area, and, as you can see (from where the cursor ended up in the screenshot of my finished grid), didn't return to that area until the very end. There's no other part of the grid that really stopped me in my tracks, but I definitely had to work for it today. There's only one square that looks like it could end up in Natick territory. I had -UDS at 39A: Lubricants used in oil drilling and was fully prepared to believe ... well, anything. SUDS. Those seem ... lubricantish. Just lucky that I knew who Anna MAGNANI was (39D: Anna ___ first Italian to win an acting Oscar). I don't know that I've seen her in anything (the '50s in general and non-crime / non-Giallo Italian cinema in particular being a couple of major holes in my cinema experience), but hers is a name I've heard a lot. MUDS / MAGNANI seems like it has wipe-out potential (MUDS MAGNANI, also a great potential gangster nickname). I don't see any other wipe-out squares, but with this much trivia, this many names, it's always possible I'm missing something. 


Explainers / Complainers:
  • 15D: Blissful patch (EDEN) — is it just a "patch"? I always imagined EDEN as somewhat more ... extensive. Maybe it's being used metaphorically. Not the EDEN, but an EDEN, i.e. any idyllic place.
  • 18A: Put down (SHAMED) — in pretty typical Saturday fashion, the cluing really leans into word ambiguity today. Easy to read "Put down" in the sense of "put down your gun!" or "put down an uprising" etc. The "Lofty" passages at 41A: Lofty passages are literally lofty, and not metaphorically "lofty," like poetic passages, as the phrase implies. The "Set" in 23A: Set against? (NAYS) are a "set" of people who are "against" something, i.e. a noun, not a verb. The "flashers" aren't perverts in the park, but the things on your car that WARN other drivers that there's a car stopped in an unexpected place. The "drafted" in 34D: No longer drafted, say (SENT), is not a professional sports "drafted" but a correspondence "drafted" (i.e. "drafted" as in "written"). The "Lead" in 56D: Lead follower: Abbr. (DET.) is not an element, or or even just the word "Lead," but a thing a detective might follow in order to solve a case. The "figures" in 14D: Corporate figures (LOGOS) could've been anything: people? financial figures? This ... is Saturday.
  • 20A: First name in classic horror (LON) — more old movies. In a bizarre coincidence, I watched LON Chaney earlier this week in Tod Browning's The Unknown (1927), where he plays an (apparently) armless knife thrower in the circus who falls in love with a woman (young Joan Crawford!) who can't stand being touched by men. To tell you any more would be to give away crucial surprises. It's only about an hour long, on the Criterion Channel. Bizarre as hell, and worth it!
  • 40A: Zest for life: Abbr. (SYN) — "Zest" and "life" are (in some contexts) SYNonyms.
  • 22D: Pair of accessories? (CEES) — as in, there are a "pair" of CEES in "accessories"—they're really bringing out every clue trick in the book today!
  • 47A: Invite qualifier, for short (BYO) — Bring Your Own (usually Beer, but can refer to any alcohol, really)
  • 50D: Online home services marketplace (ANGI) — née "Angie's List"; I saw ads for this once and thought "Oh, god, we're gonna see ANGI in the grid at some point, aren't we?" So ... no problems for me, but maybe problems for thee.
  • 43D: Melodramatic cry of appreciation ("MY IDOL!") — man this really Really wants to be "MY HERO!" That is the cry, specifically from melodrama—save the girl tied to the train tracks, and the first thing she exclaims is "MY HERO!" Absolutely standard melodrama stuff! I just don't think "MY IDOL!" gets "cried" nearly as much, and certainly not in "melodramatic" situations.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. Selene is the ancient Greek goddess of the moon, which was how you were supposed to be able to infer SELENITES, if you didn't know it outright. I knew the goddess, so the SELEN- part was OK, but I had them as SELENIANS ... a much cooler, more sci-fi-worthy name, imho

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

88 comments:

Anonymous 6:16 AM  

Definitely more hard than medium for me but never got stuck. Funny how we all have our gimmees for me muds was right in the wheelhouse of this old mud boat skipper. The drilling mud is circulated down the well to lubricate the bit and analyzed by the mud engineers on its return trip to know what material is being drilled through. Great cluing all the way and a fine Saturday morning challenge.

Conrad 6:25 AM  


Solidly Medium-Challenging, although I only needed Sergey and Larry once, for the character in the Biblical movie.

Overwrites:
2D: Misremembered the ice planet HOTH's name as tOTH
22A: I eat in Vietnamese restaurants occasionally but the only three-letter dish I remembered was pHo. Didn't know CHE Thai.
44A: My disgruntled grunts were baHS before they were UGHS

WOEs:
21A: I'm just not familiar with Slavic lore, ...
44D: ... movies dating from when I was three, ...
52D: ... and mountain biking

Son Volt 6:31 AM  

Nice puzzle - the tri-stacks were the easiest sections for me. As Rex highlights - the rough patches here are all trivia based. Needed every cross for SELENITES and nearly every one for MAGNANI.

SKYWAY

Kept trying variations of “stuck in second gear” for 54a. ANTARCTIC, GETTY etc. were gimmes that helped. Nice to see an alternate CHE clue. Didn’t love the THIS - DESE pair or GOTTA. The top stack is as solid a block of fill as we’ve seen all year.

IMPOSSIBLE

Highly enjoyable Saturday morning solve. Add Anna Stiga’s lovely X grid Stumper - some fresh Major Dickason’s and we have a wonderful start to the day.

URIAH Heep

Adam 6:36 AM  

Yup, never having heard of Anna MAGNANI and knowing nothing about oil drilling, the MUDS/MAGNANI cross was a WTF for me--it was my last square and I just ran the alphabet until I got the success music. Otherwise, though, I agree with @Rex. Abandoned DECOCT and let that fill in from crosses. Took me a while to get the groove but after I got IT TAKES A VILLAGE (my first long answer in either stack) it went more easily. A nice Saturday diversion.

REV 6:41 AM  

A serious work out but way too much trivia for me.

Hands up for MUD / MAGNANI. Grrr.

Big day for the Eastern Bloc what with the Slavic folklore, kopecks and Polish rolls.

Fun_CFO 6:57 AM  

Just too much stuff I didn’t know. So, it’s a hard for me. And like Rex, ended up finishing in the NW. The West from DECOCT up was just difficult in real time. Looking back, it shouldn’t have been so hard, but it was. Put too much time in convincing myself that NuSH and ANTARCTId were valid. And RUS, ooph!

MOS was another one of those tricky wordplay clues Rex mentioned. Had to go back and think about that one post solve - which isn’t normally my Em Oh!

Anyway, agree the long stacks were legit (HONEYMOONPERIOD, the shakiest, imo. Yea, it’s a thing, but I feel most HONEYMOON phrases don’t include a redundant time reference) and I was ultimately able to finish, but nothing came easy. Even one of my faves, Wanda SYKES, was clued in about the only way I wouldn’t guess her in an instant.

Adam S 7:19 AM  

Ooof. Hardest puzzle of the year for me. I didn't know a bunch of the trivia, but I also had huge problems arising from writing in bEan at 30A off the E and then being reluctant to take it out as it seemed so obviously right. That totally gummed up the middle of the grid.

Also, it didn't help that my first pass at the downs at the top only had one right out of five or six. My most off-base guess was that the mountains were "fictional" (which, thankfully, CCCP proved wrong pretty quickly).

Anonymous 7:40 AM  

Armless knife thrower??

Rick Sacra 7:40 AM  

Somehow got through this pretty tough saturday.... Finished at that potential Natick spot--sUDS and sAGNANI was my first try--sUDS seem like they would lubricate better than MUDS... but fixed it quickly and got the happy music. 17 minutes today, which was actually faster than yesterday. This was one of those puzzles where the 1st pass left me with almost nothing, but those first couple answers... HOTH like @rex, then really got started in the Southwest.... URIAH was actually my foothold down there, the only 5 letter character in the story besides David. PHEW, GOTTA, then started parsing the long answers. Of course hate to see "ONES" in the middle of those long answers, but it's a Saturday X-word, right? Just glad to complete without googling! : )

Anonymous 7:55 AM  

Just above average time, but KEA/LOA'd on MUDS/MAGNANI , felt medium to me. As Rex noted, great non- answers clues made this a nice solve. Also, a puzzle for all ages with minimal era-related fill.

Thanks ,Katie, for a nice Saturday morning puzzle, keep em coming

Andy Freude 8:02 AM  

@kitshef, yesterday you predicted that today’s puzzle would be easier than yesterday’s. Are you sticking to that today? As for me, PHEW!

kitshef 8:11 AM  

Quite a bit easier than yesterday, despite it being hard to find an entry as I went through all the across clues and had only LON.

Had I gone straight to the short downs I would have saved a bunch more time. Also, misremembering SELENIanS for SELENITES hurt a bit.

Other overwrites:
bRb before IRL
HEarS before HEEDS
DECanT before DECOCT
isIAH before URIAH

Loved Rex's Muds Magnani.

kitshef 8:15 AM  

HONEYMOON PERIOD doesn't refer to a literal honeymoon, but a metaphorical one. For example, when you start a new job no one expects you to know everything or be up to speed right away. After a couple of months, they expect you to be a full contributor. Those first two months are the honeymoon period.

ChrisR 8:20 AM  

I started by taking stabs all over the place, with few initial attempts actually correct (BIALY, LON, ENYA, CEES, NOSH, AMINUTS, IRL). Acceptance of a DNF set in, but I kept battling and eventually saw IT TAKES A VILLAGE, which allowed me to clean up some incorrect guesses and see 1A and 16A. With the north done, I regained hope and continued entering and deleting attempts till I saw the rest.

I wanted 5D clued as "She said she could break Hannity with a middle seat in coach."

Anonymous 8:31 AM  

MUDS/MAGNANI got me.

Fun_CFO 8:33 AM  

Right, that’s why I said it’s a thing. It’s a fine answer. Just the shakiest of the longs. The honeymoon’s over. The honeymoon period is over - wordy. And adding period, or phase, etc is redundant. By itself, metaphorically, the word implies a short, early time period.

Anders 8:36 AM  

Interesting thing about this puzzle is that for all the cited WTFery you had no way of knowing, it wasn't that hard; my time was fairly routine. Everything inferable. The M in MUDS was my last letter, though MAGNANI was one welcome item for me.

SouthsideJohnny 8:37 AM  

Tough one with Saturday level cluing everywhere and a trivia lover’s delight to boot! Way above my pay grade in terms of having any chance at finishing unassisted, but I found enough to keep me interested.

I enjoyed the row in the center - I cook all the time and have never heard the term DECOCT - maybe it’s a standard term for a PHD Chemist in the lab (if it applies to liquids). In the kitchen I’m familiar with deglaze and reduce.

Then we have MUD oils - what an awesome concept, and a brilliant strategy to cross it with a foreign actress from the ‘50’s that Rex and a handful of others will recognize - evil, but in a schadenfreude-like way (I wonder where Nancy will check in on that one, but if I were her wall, I’d be a tad bit nervous this morning).

Closing out that row is the little gem SYN - which I guessed stood for synonym or synergy. I never got the clue, and even after Rex explained it, the connection seems very weak; but hey, it’s Saturday and they can’t all be winners (see also RUS - which should get the editor suspended for a week).

Speaking of the editor - is Will still making his weekend appearances on NPR? Does he ever mention if he is planning on returning to the editor’s desk any time soon ?

Anonymous 8:41 AM  

Horrible mishmash of trivia.

Dr.A 8:56 AM  

Fun but hard. Top part was “Impossible” lol, so I had to look up a few things, like SELENITES, RUS, SYKES and ANTARCTIC. I do love Wanda Sykes though, so I’m happy to hear of the Upshaws which I will now start watching. Also though I got MOS that was my least favorite answer/clue combo.

Anonymous 9:19 AM  

Ah yes, “medium to medium-challenging” for Rex, “COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY HAIR-PULLINGLY IMPOSSIBLE” for me. So about the norm. Completing this puzzle was a sysephean effort. No total naticks for me (thank you brain for somehow remembering Mt Terror is in Antarctica).

But can someone explain “MOS” for “approaches” please? Still don’t understand that one. Is it short for “months”? Totally stumped on that answer

Anonymous 9:21 AM  

Easy for me other than the Natick in M for MUDS/MAGNANI (I had S for sUDS). Long answers went right in and everything else I could suss. Enjoyable.

RooMonster 9:33 AM  

Hey All !
We'll, SPIT. Lost my streak at Rex's M of MUDS/MAGNANI. Instead of alphabet running, I just hit Check Puzzle. Crossed out the S I had there. Phooey. I agree with the trivia, everywhere I was stuck, was trivia. Ran to good ole Goog for the SELENITES (couldn't get the ole brain to see that N of NAYS! Silly brain), ETUDES, and to get the M for the Happy Music.

Oh well, I was happy just to be able to progress through the puz as easily as I did. First run-through got me like four answers. I was like, "Yeesh, this ones gonna be a toughie!" But, got one or two of the 15's, and progressed from there.

Accessories has two CEES and two ESSES. We'll, just thinking about it right now, I guess technically it has three ESSES ...

Thought I would SUCKS WIND on this one, but didn't find it THAT(S) IMPOSSIBLE. (I had THATSIncredIBLE there first.)

Have a Happy Saturday!

No F's (But a Z! WHAT DID I TELL YOU?) 😁
RooMonster
DarrinV

Anonymous 10:06 AM  

Seemed challenging but I finished 4 minutes faster than normal, so I guess not so much.

Anonymous 10:09 AM  

MO, as in modus operandi.

Adam S 10:13 AM  

M.O.s - as in the shortened form of modus operandi

Teedmn 10:35 AM  

Much more challenging than the average stacks solve. I loved it. I circled the clues for 4D and 7D as particularly tricky for me. Ally as a verb and approaches not meaning nearing made me work for it. Didn’t help that I was convinced 1A was THAT'S IncredIBLE so 7D would be nrS? (“nears” briefly. UGH!)

Thanks, Katie Hoody!

Teedmn 10:40 AM  

Oh, and I saw the music selection in Rex's write-up, “Mudlark” by ….not Roxy Music. I was misled by the album cover. Roxy Music has one very similar which I'm sure was the inspiration for Proxy Music. I certainly got the joke when I hit the listen button and lovely music that had no resemblance to Roxy Music's work poured out of my iPad. Hah!

BobL 10:40 AM  

nifty debut

Sam 10:41 AM  

Agree that this was intimidating to start. Couldn’t get any of the long spanners to begin. After my first pass of acrosses and downs, was looking at a LOT of white space. Finally managed to get a toehold in the SW with UGHS/NOSH/GOTTA, and then the stack at the bottom began to make sense. Worked my way back up and finished in below average Saturday time.

egsforbreakfast 10:49 AM  

My latest music DISCOVERY is that I like DISCOVERY much.

I was going to suggest that RUS could be clued with reference to the Rodents of Unusual Size from The Princess Bride. However, it appears that ROUS was how they were referenced in that gem of a movie.

AMINUTS looks like a kids cereal that combines the goodness of amino acids with the flavor of coconuts. It also tastes great with our new processed Gruyere Spread -- GEEWHIZ.

For those old enough to remember the national sensation involving John and Lorena Babbitt, you know that there is another way to clue DECOCT.

Like many, it took a while to get anywhere at all, but once I got a few answers in, it was Katie bar the door! Ended up faster than yesterday. Real fun, too. Thanks, Katie Hoody.

Whatsername 10:54 AM  

The long grid spanners were nice but the trivia and names … oof! No joy.

Nancy 10:54 AM  

GEE WHIZ, THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE, UGH, UGH, I say.
I'm HITTING A DEAD END of pop clues today.
Please TEAM UP to help me; A VILLAGE IT TAKES
To DECOCT the planets, the insects, the lakes,
The convo, the singer, the Upshaws, the school --
But WHAT DID I TELL YOU? -- I'm nobody's fool!
I'M EATING my WORDS and I GOTTA opine:
The Downs they were ugly; Acrosses were fine.

Greater Fall River Committee for Peace & Justice 11:06 AM  

Hey, I know my Slavic folklore. RUS is one of the first things I dropped in, with ETUDES and MAGNANI. But it took way too long. Sheesh, it's 11 and my day hasn't started....

Carola 11:09 AM  

Thanks to the starting line-up of HOTH, ANTARCTIC, IRL, BIALY, and EDEN, THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE jumped out at me, and from there the top half filled itself so quickly that I thought I might be making a BEELINE to the bottom. Not so, thankfully. I got my hoped-for Saturday struggle beneath the SKYWAYS, going wrong on wHEW, herod, and MY hero; not knowing ANGI; and having the wrong idea of what a donnybrook is (I thought it was a rout). Finally remembering URIAH did the trick. I liked the tricky clues, especially those that could be verbs or nouns, like "Sets" or "Approaches" - what I think of as classic Saturday.

EasyEd 11:10 AM  

Liked this puzzle in spite of being trashed by the trivia. Got THATSIMPOSSIBLE early by sheer guesswork, and had no trouble with THIS/DESE/GOTTA ‘cause I’m from Da Bronx. And worked for an oil company so MUD was a gimme. But am still a little lost on SYM…loved the cluing for MOS.

Tom T 11:16 AM  

Too many (WAYYYYY too many) places that baffled me in this one, even after I caved in and hit "Reveal Word" for HONEYMOONPERIOD. RUS, MUDS, AGS, ONVIEW ... major dnf.

egsforbreakfast 11:17 AM  

Sorry, that was supposed to be John and Lorena Bobbitt.

SirPaul 11:23 AM  

Excellent Saturday. Difficult but not impossible. I don't recognize the constructor's name, but hopefully she churns out more of the same.

jae 11:26 AM  

Very tough for me. I’ve done easier Croce’s.

Costly erasures: bean because SEED, MY hero before IDOL, GOnnA before GOTTA. bARe before WARN.

WOEs : MAGNANI, SELENITES, RUS, URIAH, ANTARCTIC

Excellent three stacks, liked it.

Gate 11:29 AM  

For the slavic lore question, I got RUS just because Lech and Czech are slavic ethnicities. Since I could only think of Poles and Rus, I got it.

Otherwise the puzzle’s trivia was inscrutable.

Anonymous 11:32 AM  

@Fun_CFO You make an interesting point, that the “period” or “phrase” often appended to “honeymoon” in metaphorical usage is redundant, but I don’t think that diminishes HONEYMOONPERIOD as a crossword answer because, redundant though it is, that phrase is very much in the language. It feels especially apt in a phrase like “We’re still in the honeymoon phase” — it would sound strange to just say “honeymoon” there. Saying “the honeymoon’s over” as a metaphor feels totally natural, though!

JT 11:37 AM  

A very challenging Saturday for me and I'm feeling good about finishing it, though it wasn't quick! There was so much I didn't know—I filled in very few answers on first pass—but I just perseveraed and things began to come together. In the end what hung me up was that I thought BIALY was BIALI and so for the cross all I could come up with was DAIS ("Set against"), which I knew was a real stretch. When I changed that I to a Y, I finally came up with NAYS. But really, since I didn't know HOTH, RUS, CCP, IRL, or SELENITES, it's kind of amazing that I finally got it.

Anonymous 11:40 AM  

what is "dese this"?

Gary Jugert 12:09 PM  

¿Qué te dije?

That's a tight phrase in Spanish, eh?

As I worked on this, I thought I must be exhausted or losing my mind, but on review, it's an awkward, clanky, C-list heavy gunk-o-rama. Six delightful grid spanners followed by a horror show. DESE?!

Propers: 8
Places: 3
Products: 3
Partials: 11 (see, boo)
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 28 of 70 (40%) (Was it worth it?)

Funnyisms: 0 😫

Tee-Hee: [Exhausted little bird.] TIT SUCKS WIND.

Uniclues:

1 Seems like what a banjoist would compose.
2 Visit the Blizzard south pole tourist agency slogan.
3 Bug people battle on a big blue cheese wheel. (Say it fast five times.)

1 HAT SEED ETUDES
2 GOTTA ANTARCTIC
3 SELENITES BRAWL

My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: The taint on your soul as you eat "the meats." ARBY'S MOO SCARS.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Spouse has MS 12:31 PM  

Any of you wondering about Will Shortz's recovery from his stroke can read the cover story of Brain & Life magazine.

Paul F 12:50 PM  

That Simpsons clip is a top 5 Simpsons joke imo

jb129 1:06 PM  

Very impressive debut, Katie.
However, even though it's Saturday, I do the NYT puzzle to be entertained not destroyed :(

Shanda Dykman 1:08 PM  

Great write up. I was so so hoping you’d include a vid link to this epic fail (or epic win, depending on your POV) from late-20th century public access television. 😂
https://youtu.be/XjbtnMz6eQw?si=iqsAqsXmZNL0G4dj

camilof 1:22 PM  

Anna Magnani is a very good choice for the intro, but I think Mount Terror would have been great too– the story of HMS Terror, after which the mountain is named, is incredible. Fought in War of 1812, sailed the Northwest Passage, explored Antarctica... and wreck was found in near perfect condition in 2016!

Anonymous 1:25 PM  

Hoo boy

Rex Modem 1:28 PM  

These is the plural of THIS and DESE is these informally.

Anoa Bob 1:28 PM  

Thought the 15 Across stacks were nice conCOCTions but also had a few UGHS trying to piece together stuff like SELENITES and MAGNANI.

I did notice that the puzzle relied a bit on what I think of as letter count manipulation (LCI) to get the grid filled.

The most common LCI is the plural of convenience (POC) and there were several of these, including some uber helpful two for one POCs where a Down and an Across both get a letter count, grid filling boost by sharing a final S. Examples today can be found at the ends of LOGO/NAY, SELENITE/MUD, HEED/SKYWAY, and BUY/AG. A stealth two fer POC also pops up when SUCK WIND and UGH both get an S boost.

Another LCI took some of the shine off of the lower 15 Across stacks for me. The base phrases HIT A DEAD END and EAT ONES WORDS are 4 and 3 letters short, respectively, of their slots and got boosted by switching from the present tense verbs HIT and EAT to present participles HITTING and EATING.

All these LCIs take up extra space and make it easier to fill the grid but add little if anything of interest or value to the puzzle. I think a lower degree of difficulty in filling the grid translates to a lower overall puzzle score.

jb129 1:39 PM  

Maybe I overreacted - I meant "tortured"

M and A 1:39 PM  

15-stacks, top & bottom. Verrry Manny Nosowsky-esque.
Liked it, but it was kinda a nanosecond-burner.

staff weeject pick: RUS. Better clue: {Unending rush??}.

fave stack-members: THATSIMPOSSIBLE. WHATDIDITELLYOU. Seed entries, along with 30-Across?

Thanx for the challenge, Ms. Hoody darlin. And congratz on a primo debut.

Masked & Anonymo6Us

at long last ... a complete guide to understandin the universe:
**gruntz**

Eniale 1:43 PM  

Got totally hung up in the NW because I had Incredible instead of impossible and couldn't see my way out of it. We have a great-niece at SDSU so that wasn't hard.

Eniale 1:47 PM  

Yes, Will is there every week, sounding perfectly okay; never offers a word about the crossword - but is still introduced as the editor.

Anonymous 1:51 PM  

Got it done in Friday time (though it would be medium to medium-challenging Friday time judging by the difficulty of the latest puzzles).

I knew MAGNANI, but MUDS? MUD is pretty much the exact opposite of what I think when I picture “lubricants”.

Best wrong answer: ZLOTY before BIALY. I didn’t remember BIALY and I had the Y, so I figured “roll” was just one of the bajillions of terms for money that the NYT can throw at you. I guess I was picturing a “roll” of banknotes.

Georgia 1:54 PM  

Thank you! A great story!

jb129 2:03 PM  

Horrific story. I'm glad he's making progress 🙏

Anonymous 2:11 PM  

IMO, "CEES" is rubbish. If anyone can explain why that is the answer to a "pair of accessories" please do enlighten me, b/c all I see in the word "accessories" is a pair of C's and a pair of S's. Yes, there are 2 E's but they are NOT paired! And maybe the S part is false, b/c there are actually THREE S's in that word. Terrible clue, bogus answer, IMO.

Anonymous 2:17 PM  

Rex explains it. Pair of Cs (CEES). That’s it. The other letters are irrelevant.

pabloinnh 2:24 PM  

Somewhat late today as we lost power for a couple of hours this windy morning. Made me think of all the hurricane victims who are going to be without for who knows how long. Good luck to all of them. My dad was a lineman who sometimes had to travel a good distance to help in disaster situations like this so I'll put in a good word for all those guys too. Long hours and often dangerous. Big thanks to all of them.

I found this one surprisingly whooshy after I got going with ITTAKESAVILLAGE which I wrote in hopefully after reading the clue, and so it was. Same thing happened with WHATDIDITELLYOU. Toeholds like that are pure gold.

I'm old enough to remember Ana MAGNANI and I have heard of MUD as an oil drilling term. This may be the only way you can get a plural MUD, which is what was needed.

No clue on RUS and the clue made it beyond trivia.

In short I liked this one a lot. Well done you, KH. I always Keep Hoping for Saturdays like this and there it was. Thanks for all the fun.

DigitalDan 2:57 PM  

I also came a cropper on this one. Missed the meta and went with TEES, which don't really come in pairs, but they don't not either, get me? The cross was a Vietnamese NATICK.

Anonymous 3:06 PM  

An altogether unpleasant experience. Rex did a nice job pointing out the many flaws, and to the puzzle’s credit, most of the fifteen-letter answers were "gettable". But the esoteric level of so many of the answers, as well as the cluing… just horrible. I’ve been doing crosswords regularly for more than fifteen years; 40A — the ZEST/LIFE — is the single worst clue I’ve ever encountered.

JT 3:30 PM  

Thank you so much for sharing this. It's been hard to find information about his recovery.

Ukulele Ike 3:31 PM  

If you enjoyed H.G. Wells’ THE TIME MACHINE, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, and THE INVISIBLE MAN, your next read should be THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. I read it as a kid and still remember the Selenites (who end up murdering poor old Cavor when they realize he was the one responsible for the moon flight).

All the Tod Browning/Lon Chaney collaborations are great, but THE UNKNOWN is by far the wildest and best. It was considered a “lost film” for decades until a copy turned up in a warehouse in Paris along with hundreds of other film cans marked “unknown.” Kinda like the playwright who wrote a melodrama titled CLOSED FOR THE SEASON and nobody could figure out why no one was coming to the theater.

Anonymous 3:41 PM  

Zest for life yeesh

Neville 3:41 PM  

Super challenging puzzle for me; that MUDS / MAGNANI crossing was my last square, and I felt blessed to get it right. Extremely here for *The Facts of Life* and "Sure, Jan" in the commentary, Rex.

jb129 3:55 PM  

LOVED Manny's puzzles - mostly ran on Fridays in the 90's :)

Anonymous 3:56 PM  

Everyone should do themselves a huge favour and see the movie Open City, directed by Roberto Rossellini, and starring Anna Magnani. It was an absolutely perfect movie.
Filmed just after the nazis left Rome in 1945. It really is a great movie.

Wick 4:13 PM  

Agree with Rex -- The stacks were a delight. The middle was meh. MAGNANI was tricky with both -UDS and and A-S giving me trouble. I had AdS first instead of AGS (a bit of dyslexia). Never seen DECOCT. Never want to see it again.

A 5:25 PM  

I've been going back in the archives to get more of a bite from puzzles - thought for second I had printed the wrong year. Holy Cow THAT was nearly IMPOSSIBLE - I finished without help but definitely got my fill of bite. If more of the current offerings were like this I wouldn't need the archives!

Anonymous 6:04 PM  

Hahaha was wondering the same thing.

Anonymous 7:54 PM  

“Sucks wind”? I guess because I don’t exercise a lot, that one eluded me, even when I had all the letters except the first.

John Hoffman 8:34 PM  

Hardest puzzle of the year for me! I had to cheat quite a bit. But still fun!

Anonymous 9:40 PM  

‘A pair IN accessories’ would have been a better clue for CEES. That may have been too easy but the clue as it is now is just not good. I respected the rest of the puzzle, esp the long answers.

Anonymous 10:01 PM  

I assume it’s a typo but Pabloinnh but she was Italian not Spanish, Anna Magnani. not Ana.
I knew the answer immediately. It helped make the puzzle a bit easier. Most people people 70 or older would know the name, I think. Not really a natick, a lot less obscure than NC Wyeth! (Natick crossing NC Wyeth is the original natick).
Tough clue for Uriah Know little about the movie, just the Biblical subject matter. So got the U. Uriah was the only Biblical u I know.
Some were annoyed by what Rex called a letteral clue for CEES. Also SYN answer for Zest for life abbr.
These types of clues are VERY common in late week puzzles. Surprised how many people get so riled up. Should be used to them.

Anonymous 12:54 AM  

Tinctures and teas are decocted.

Anonymous 12:56 AM  

Pretty sure it was used in dialogue at least once in each episode of Hawaii Five-O…

Anonymous 1:40 AM  

YES to "Six delightful grid spanners followed by a horror show."

Anonymous 7:12 AM  

This was pure trivia, and as such, a god awful and not fun puzzle.

Anonymous 8:55 AM  

When I first looked at the grid, I thought “that’s impossible” But then I looked at 17 across and “ It takes a village” Miraculously appeared in my brain. It was pretty steady progress from there

Anonymous 8:56 AM  

This was Tough but tasty.

Anonymous 10:01 AM  

Why is there HONEY(MOON)PERIOD and then the clue for SELENITES which says “moon” twice… and they cross?!

Anonymous 7:05 PM  

For the sake of our feathered friends - Warblers should be warblers, and Tits are Tits. (I found on the web that there are a couple of birds that classify as both, but unless you're in Northwest China, you're unlikely to find them). And the smallest warblers are the same size as the smallest tits... So "Little Warbler"? hmmm. Might as well have been "Little Crow" if the clue was just using the Order Passeriformes/Perching Birds as the relationship.

Anonymous 5:29 PM  

this puzzle annoyed me. i did not finish because i put suds instead of muds. i did not know that obscure italian actress. and i refuse to belief that life is a synonym for zest.

Mason Brown 9:10 AM  

Yet again I knew an answer from reading Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Selenites!

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