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Oblong yellowish fruit / MON 10-21-24 / Unenjoyable, to put it mildly / Mushy food for babies / Disposable BBQ dish / European ___ (Anguilla anguilla) / Green eggs go-with / Doctor's office jarful
Monday, October 21, 2024
Constructor: Neil Padrick Wilson
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)
Theme answers:
- PAPER PLATE (17A: Disposable BBQ dish)
- COTTON BALLS (24A: Doctor's office jarful)
- MACARONI NOODLES (35A: Elbows in a grocery store)
- PIPE CLEANER (47A: Makeshift twist-tie)
Dana Thomas Carvey (born June 2, 1955) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, podcaster, screenwriter and producer.Carvey is best known for his seven seasons on Saturday Night Live, from 1986 to 1993, which earned him five consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
Carvey is also known for his film roles in comedies such as Tough Guys (1986), Opportunity Knocks (1990), Trapped in Paradise (1994), and The Master of Disguise (2002), as well as reprising his role of Garth Algar in the SNL spin-off film Wayne's World (1992) and its sequel Wayne's World 2 (1993). (wikipedia)
• • •
This puzzle started out very easy. Remarkably easy. I wrote in PAPAW like "I dunno ... not sure about that one" (1D: Oblong yellowish fruit). But then every other Down checked out and very quickly I was here:
The long Downs, while providing the only real points of interest today, also provided the only real resistance. ROPE TRICK was easy enough (got it with no crosses whatsoever), but NOT SO FUN, hoo-wee (hooey? hoo-whee?), that was NOT SO FUN to parse (8D: Unenjoyable, to put it mildly). I'm not sure the clue goes that well with the answer. The clue seems to suggest something very Very "unenjoyable," but NOT SO FUN does not convey very Very. Or even just very. If you are going for "deeply ironic understatement," OK, but NOT SO FUN does, in fact, seem mild. About the same mildness as "Unenjoyable." So the clue really threw me. Plus it's just hard to parse a three-word answer, especially since "Unenjoyable" is just one word. I was prepared for two words (maybe "NO something"), but three surprised me a little. When I finally tried NOT SO FUN and realized that all the crosses would work OK, I just had to cross my fingers and go with it. Was not at all certain I had it right, but it was the best I could do. A little less tough, but still a bit of a struggle, was NAKED LIE (37D: Obvious untruth). I basically got that one by trying out LIE at the end and then mentally testing "N" words in front of it. I had a teeny bit of trouble with PLOT HOLES, but only because I assumed (wrongly) that the only letter that the only thing VI-LA could be was VILLA. Also, once I got ELMER, I figured I'd be looking for some guy named ELMER. A Fudd or a Gantry, something like that. So I had to make GLUE appear via the Down crosses, which, thankfully, weren't that hard to turn up. The end.
Other things:
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
- 24D: Truck radio user (CBER) — that's an entry I'd tear my grid APART to get rid of, especially on a Monday. It's not hard so much as it is ugly. It reeks of olden crosswordese. Another answer I'd ditch is PAP. This is more a matter of personal taste. Nothing wrong with PAP, technically. I just find the answer repellent ... texturally. Pre-mushed food? Only in the case of a crossword emergency. Change YIP to GIN and everything's golden. GIN > PAP every time.
- 12D: Tired and predictable (BANAL) — really wanted this to be TRITE. Really really wanted it to be TRITE. And then I really wanted it to be STALE. Really really wanted it to be STALE.
- 32A: Family member who usually goes by one name (PET) — first of all, Santa's Little Helper. Second of all, does anyone in a family go by more than one name? What strangely formal family is this where they're all calling each other by their full names? I didn't look at Across clues while I was solving, but when I did look at this clue (just now), my first thought was "MOM?"
- 55A: Performer prone to theatrics (DIVA) — was wondering "when are we gonna see DIVA clued as [___ cup]?" (mainly because we're rewatching the first season of Hacks, which has a recurring DIVA cup joke in one episode). But then I went and looked it up and it turns out that while DIVA has not been clued this way before, DIVACUP has actually already appeared in the NYTXW, courtesy of none other than my First-Wednesday-of-Every-Month fill-in, Malaika Handa. Here's my write-up of that puzzle (Aug. 15, 2023). Did not expect to be dwelling on the menstrual potential of answers today, but I watch the TV shows I watch, and my brain goes where it goes.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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50 comments:
Medium. No erasures but the clue for EEL was not helpful.
A fine Monday “summer camp arts and crafts project” puzzle, liked it quite a bit more than @Rex did.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #952 was a medium Croce for me, although I’m still not sure about how a couple of answers in the SW relate to their clues and I did try googling post solve which only helped a little. Good luck!
Also solved down clues only, but had a much harder time than Rex. Just couldn't get a bunch of otherwise gimmes (maybe cuz I had a beer watching the Dodgers' game?) For instance ADAGE just took forever to pop into my brain... AXIOM? IDIOM? And Rex, a big hands up for STALE and TRITE and TIRED before BANAL. And grimaced at NOT SO FUN.
But it was satisfying, in that the themers, even without allowing myself to look at their clues, helped a whole lot in filling in my down blanks. ELMER'S GLUE was key in that it tied the other themers into... I guessed, a child's makeshift Halloween mask? Close enough! And this is one of the bonuses of trying a down clues only solve... if the theme can be guessed, you are blessed! (sorry)
Embarrassed that I spent quite a while trying to make PARROT work for 43 down "Prop for a pirate's costume". I just had this image of a pirate with a parrot on his shoulder. Why?? Because.
lol 🦜 that’s actually a reasonable guess. But yeah, blame the beer! 🍺 👍🏼😀 ⚾️
Nice comfortable Monday puzzle. I didn't understand the theme, either.
Bizarre theme. Came here figuring Rex would explain it to me, but he’s in the same boat as the rest of us today. Head scratcher of a clue for EEL. I might be tempted to clue it as “the OREO of fish” - but ORCA may have a claim on that one as well. Oops - I just remembered that whales are mammals, so EEL it is.
I was surprised to learn that they were still making IPODs in 2022. I would only have been off by a decade as I would have guessed 2012. And gluing MACARONI NOODLES definitely sounds like it is NOT SO FUN.
PAPAWs, or PAWPAWs as they are called everywhere other than the New York Times Crossword, are green. Yeah, it's a yellowish green, but green is the main color.
Easy puzzle, but once again the revealer doesn't really land for me. I could have lived with that just clued as another theme answer and no revealer. Increasingly often I feel like we get revealers that are forced just for the sake of having a revealer, even on puzzles where we don't need one.
Let's not overthink this, folks. Anyone who's tried to avoid screen time and keep a 4 yo entertained on a rainy day will recognize the theme ( and recall the mess to clean up!)
Perfect Monday- easy, light theme, few nice phrases and clues. Good start to week
Two later-in-the-week clues on a Monday, rare and wonderful to see:
• [European ___ (Anguilla Anguilla)] for EEL. This teaches newer solvers that the un-gettable is gettable, because EEL’s crosses are Monday-easy.
• [Unenjoyable, to put it mildly] for NOT SO FUN. “… to put it mildly” made me think that the answer would be a word that exaggerates the meaning of “unenjoyable”, but no – "... to put it mildly" is literal! A terrific misdirect, but still gettable because, once again, it’s Monday-easily crossed. This hints at the rewards that come as the puzzles move through the week, when not all clues are simply definitions of their answers.
Bravo on these, editors and Neil!
Neil is no stranger to indirect cluing. Two of his five puzzles are themeless, and here’s an example of his cluing acumen from one of them: [Hearing aids, in brief] * (three letters).
One thing I liked about today’s puzzle was that post-solve reverie where I was imagining all the masterpieces a kid could make with the four theme-answer items, from a paper-plate faces to lovely non-specific pastiches.
You pushed my happy-button with your puzzle, today, NPW. Thank you so much for that!
* PAS
My five favorite original clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Looks to sell (5)
2. It's often playing games (4)
3. Scrolls from right to left? (6)
4. Plant matter? (7)(3)
5. Having had a few bites, say (5)
SHOPS
ESPN
TORAHS
URANIUM ORE
ITCHY
Does there have to be a goal? When you add a child to Macaroni, cotton balls, glue and a paper plate, you get… free time! Anyhoo, COTTON BALLS in a jar in the doctor’s office? I am a doctor, I’m 55 years old and I have not seen that since I went to the pediatrician like 45 years ago! Now we have sterile gauze.
Since the Spanish word for EEL and the Latin terms are virtually identical, that was a gimme. Never know when that second language thing will come in handy.
These are the things I have ever seen glued to a PAPERPLATE for an art project: MACARONINOODLES. All the others, uh, no. And I think NOTSOFUN is missing its MUCH.
No other real problems, although I wouldn't know a PAPAW if I tripped over one and I hear enough NAKEDLIEs spouted by Orange Julius. Don't need reminders in my crosswords.
Nice enough Mondecito, NPW. I suspect Nobody Puts Weird stuff like this on their paper plates, but thanks for a fair amount of fun.
I grew up in an Italian American home and the clue for “eel” was a given for me. But I understand the difficulty of a clue such as this when I encounter certain German or French phrases in a crossword. I’m thankful for crosses then.
From the Constructor’s Notes in the NYT app:
It’s been a few years since I’ve had a puzzle published, and I’m very pleased to be back! The construction bug bit me out of nowhere late last year, and I found myself scouring over my old notepads of ideas for a good theme or seed entry. (And yes, I have several well-used, dog-eared notepads filled with theme lists, scratchings, and potentially interesting themeless crossword corners). During the process, I stumbled across this “art project” idea, which I always thought was super cute and a likely candidate for a Monday or Tuesday puzzle.
I originally submitted a version of this puzzle almost eight years ago, back in 2016/2017! It was rejected for two primary reasons. First, all of the individual components of the art project were more indirectly clued as part of a larger phrase, including the grid’s spanner, which was “Macaroni penguin” at the time. Unfortunately, Will Shortz and crew were not familiar with macaroni penguins, despite the movie “Surf’s Up” … or the niche movie my family owned when I was growing up, “The Adventures of Scamper the Penguin.” And second, my revealer, “crafty plan” or “crafty idea,” was felt to not be enough “in the language.”
I reworked and simplified the themed entries, and submitted a revised version in 2024, which included an upgrade of a theme entry into the revealer, which holds everything together: ELMER’S GLUE! But, the new version was also rejected. The team deemed some of the fill too difficult for a Monday puzzle. Fortunately, after some further reworking and polishing, I ended up having the puzzle you see here accepted. Sometimes, persistence pays off; don’t give up on your old ideas! Here’s hoping your solve brings a smile to your face … and memories of getting glitter everywhere. :)
Easy. Last minute science fair project made by mom the night before the science fair? Easy.
Hey All !
Agree on the strange Theme. Elementary School art project. When you first discover that if you smear ELMERS in your hands and let it dry, you can peel it off, and fake like you're peeling your skin. Remember that? Was it only boys? Or did the girls do the same thing?
Anyway, MACARONI art. Maybe it's supposed to be a clown face. Art where one OOZEs too much ELMERS, and you get WET COTTONBALLS (a @Gary Uniclue) matted on the PLATE.
Today was my 99th Correctly Solved MonPuz in a row, according to the Stats page. Next week, we hit the Century! Went through all this years puzs, not too shabby with DNFs. Granted, some were completed by lookups, but that's neither here nor there. 😁
Monday, I'm so OVER it. Har.
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
A fundamental question is is does a puzzle contort itself to a theme or does a theme fit within a puzzle? Given a decent size sample under their editorship it seems safe to say Joel Fagliano unfortunately believes in the former.
Croce 952 was smack dab in the middle of medium. @jae - my post-solve Google involved 46D, so if that is one you still don't get let me know.
What an odd theme. I don't get this at all.
Look Peg…cotton balls…a whole jar full of em…how many do ya think are in there?…id guess…thhhhirty. Yyyep…thhirty…
Cómo una niña lo mantiene unido.
I can see a bottle of REAL ELMER'S GLUE from here. I save broken ukuleles using the turbo charged Elmer's.
Cute puzzle.
😫 PAP.
Propers: 5
Places: 0
Products: 2
Partials: 7
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 16 of 78 (21%)
Funnyisms: 1 🤨
Tee-Hee: [Undress with one's eyes.] NAKED LIE. B-ANAL.
Uniclues:
1 When you hang a musical instrument above the sidewalk waiting for the bully to stroll past.
2 What prescriptivists have a tendency to do.
3 When you treat your belly like a video game with ice cream.
1 PIANO ROPE TRICK (~)
2 INVENT NOT SO FUN (~)
3 ABS OVER, SAY
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Do fewer hours on the La-Z-Boy. REIN IN BUTT ON IT.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not sure how people are expected to know who Orson Welles or his "Citizen" is especially on a Monday. Looked it up and the movie is over 80 years old!
I did like the theme.
Curious that a puzzle built around a very common craft project for kids is the subject of so much puzzlement…am wondering if there is some age or regional or other social element involved…anyway, brought back memories of more than one generation…
It’s been 25 years since I was hanging out in a nursery school (my son’s), but this was easily recognizable as a kid’s construction/art project. I was looking for white glue, not Elmer’s, but it all fell to place pretty quickly.
I thought the same thing about cotton balls. My first thought was lollipops before seeing how many spaces were needed.
Orange Julius still exists!? I haven’t seen one in decades in my neck of the woods….
I have a step daughter who is now in her 30s. She still loves to let glue dry on her skin and peel it off. I bought her a giant bottle of Elmer’s as a joke, kinda.
If you don't get this theme, you probably haven't spent much time caring for a four or five year old. I mean, there's a phase in their artistic development where they delight in things like just gluing COTTONBALLS, MACARONINOODLES and PIPICLEANERS to PAPERPLATES randomly. Soon they progress to making faces and some go on to become impressionists.
I had an advantage on this one, having just made my famous PAPAWs andBEETs on MACARONINOODLES last night for dinner.
It's actually customary in our family to use the word VIOLA when you mean voila! Cute.
I liked this just fine. Thanks, Neil Padrick Wilson.
Interesting to see the comments on this. I guess my take is that the only things missing are toothpicks, popsicle sticks, and match sticks. I agree that people don’t say MACARONINOODLES and I don’t think of macaroni as a “noodle” but there ARE swimming pool noodles that look a bit like macaroni. Was offline over the weekend so need to go back and do the Saturday and Sunday puzzle.
Had time to pick m'nose, I think.. staring at cell 34. Maybe sussing 33d threw me, I dunno, but I'd mortal in mind at 32a and at 34d, cultural or clerical.. a discalced monk, say. A clock with the hands whizzing round appeared.. c'mon chucklehead. Seemed minutes, in truth seconds.. no, no alphabet-run, the 'T' just gave itself up. That little fucker.
This felt more a Tues than a true Monday. Still, crushed my avg, for coupla reasons. 1, the number includes me launching from the womb of NYTXW-hood, crawlin', an' 2., Rip swapped the phone for a laptop (still supine, mind you) two weeks back, which has turbocharged the operation.. to a degree I'dn't anticipated.
Do not miss Sundays on the phone, a squinty affair t'b'sher.
1K+ over-phone on, Riprock is curious about any who may soljah on via phone, what his/her best times may be.. A two-thumb endeavor? Rip was never so gifted, one-finger jabbed throughout.
The puzzle. Rip tries to read ev'ry clue in the doing (you downs-only people, you do a postmortem tab-through of across clues? seems a bit sloppy seconds. whaddabout acrosses only? too easy? Rip starts this way, generally). But, early week, parsing the theme can be hitting the skids, so if not immediately grokked, skipped 'til curtains.
This was one such occasion, and the relaxer gave Rip space to channel little Rip, amongst his cohort. Bendy, twisty with the pipe cleaners, aye. Squirts of the Elmer's on this and that, the ubiquitous bottle and smiley bovine. Paper mache, def. yes. Even a vague vision of macaroni art... somewhere, maybe by an adult. But gluing paper plates, cotton balls and pipe cleaners... did not resonate.
What a ridiculous comment. I have spent plenty of time caring for 4 and 5 year olds. The fact that kids will make art out of any old thing doesn’t make this theme coherent.
The movie that was considered one of the best (if not *the* best) of all-time for decades? Yeah, people should know that.
@kitshef - Yep, googled 46d post solve and still don’t know what’s going on.
@Beezer I think @pabloinnh is referring to the former liar in chief, Trump. Naked lies was the hint..
Except for Plotholes, I found this ridiculously easy - even for a Monday - sometimes surprised that it was '
accepted - ??
Since the constructor was kind enough to mention Will in his constructors's notes, I read something posted here last week about Will's progress - anyone know if or when he'll be back?
Thanks, Neil :)
A nice pun (“prop”), but who in their right mind would want to trick-or-treat wearing a “peg leg” with their pirate costume?
i had a plate of macaroni noodle pasta last night ! yummm
Elbow macaroni is NOT noodles.
Noodles are flat and long. Elbow macaroni is tubular and rather short.
In fact, I've NEVER thought that macaroni was noodles.
Surprised to read Rex saying it is.
Agree with Rex and others re the project. Cannot imagine what a child would be attempting make with that combination.
I liked the theme concept, and that it applied to the whole theme answers, not just the first or last words. I thought MACARONI NOODLES was weak-- they're just MACARONI, full stop. Or elbows. But that would be too short, so I'll accept it.
I liked the line reading PEAK INEPT, timed for the last weeks of the presidential campaign when one of the candidates is coming more and more to fit that description. And you could apply RUBLE FEST to all the Russian money going into illegal attempts to influence the same election.
The hardest part for me was USA, for which I had UZO. I think my brain was thinking of Usain Bolt, and morphing him into the female actor UZa Aduba. But it was supposed to be the national team with the most gold medals. Oh well.
Second hardest part was the jar of COTTON swabS in my doctor's office. It didn't fit the theme, but I didn't have the revealer yet. Could been puffS, as well.
I solve in the printed paper, but I really hope that in the online version the puzzle remade itself into a big PAPER PLATE-based craft project.
But I missed the glitter!
@Beezer-I've seen Orange Julius used as a reference to a certain candidate for President of the United States, and that's what I was up to.
Rosebud...
Hey, M&A is just relieved they weren't makin a Thanksgivin meal, or some such.
staff weeject pick: RAD. cuz it's evidently "totally wicked".
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Rowboat movers} = OARS.
Pretty smoooth fillins. They glued together well, for an easy MonPuz solvequest, at our house.
Thanx, Mr. Wilson dude.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
**gruntz**
""Citizen Kane" was a classic, on a par with "Gone With the Wind," which was three years older. Hollywood insiders because Welles portrayed William Randolph Hearst as an SOB (accurately), but the public loved the film.
I envisioned this particular craft project as abstract expressionism, which could certainly use all those materials, along with the glitter I mentioned in my earlier post.
I can't tell you what a joy it was to discover that I was old enough to be able to wear my shoes through a TSA screening. I was already 78 at the time, so I lamented all the unnecessary shoe removals-- but I learned that there are other benefits; since they will put you through the old-fashioned metal detector, you don't have to take any of the non-metallic items out of your pockets. It was always embarrassing to stick as used pocket handkerchief in the tray for everyone to look at.
When you take up gardening you tend to learn the scientific (i.e., Latin) names of things, since one person's PAPAW may be another person's papaya. So I picked up anguilla somewhere. But in any case it's a three-letter fish, so it's either EEL, gar, or koi (and the latter wouldn't be European).
I have no more to say in defense of Orson Welles. Except he was 11 years younger than Cary Grant; would we ban him as well?
As a grandparent of 4 and 6 year olds this made a lot of sense to me.
Sweet Monday puzzle.
Pap - baby food ? Raised two children - never heard of it .or pawpaw
But the references to the craft projects not hard .
Also citizen Kane is one of the most famous American films ever made
Surprised someone doing ny times crosswords would not be familiar with it .
@Beezer 10:41 AM
In Colorado and New Mexico, Orange Julius is still around, often sharing space with Dairy Queens.
@Dr.A 7:58 AM
I am sitting in the veterinarian's office for yet another thousand dollar stomach ache in my twelve dollar dog and low and behold there's a jar of cotton balls on the counter.
@jae See definition #3 of 46d here https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/johnny, and think about what it exposes.
Al Green - I could listen to him anytime, anywhere.
I thought some people were over the top in criticizing the theme. Apparently from the constructor’s comments posted above, he thought it was a cute theme subject. It seemed okay to me.
BTW macaroni & noodles used in craft projects are uncooked and hard. Noodles come in various sizes, not all long. Also, I am sure some people do say macaroni noodles.
Unenjoyable, to put it mildly.
Lewis seems to be the only one to read this clue correctly. . Rex didn’t ( neither did I ).Great trick question. I think Rex should say never mind about his rant!
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