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Egyptian god with the head of a falcon / MON 11-4-24 / Noggin, in slang / Dónde está la library?," for example / Make a loud exploding noise / Marlboro offering, informally / British punk rocker with the hit "Rebel Yell"
Monday, November 4, 2024
Constructor: Colin Adams
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)
Theme answers:
- WATCH CAREFULLY (16A: Keep a close eye on)
- BELT OUT A SONG (26A: Perform karaoke with passion, say)
- "SUIT YOURSELF!" (42A: "Fine, ignore my advice!")
William Michael Albert Broad (born 30 November 1955), known professionally as Billy Idol, is an English and American singer, songwriter, musician and actor. He first achieved fame in the 1970s emerging from the London punk rock scene as the lead singer of the group Generation X. Subsequently, he embarked on a solo career which led to international recognition and made Idol a lead artist during the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" in the US. The name "Billy Idol" was inspired by a schoolteacher's description of him as "idle".Idol began his music career in late 1976 as a guitarist in the punk rock band Chelsea. However, he soon left the group. With his former bandmate Tony James, Idol formed Generation X. With Idol as lead singer, the band achieved success in the United Kingdom and released three studio albums on Chrysalis Records, then disbanded. In 1981, Idol moved to New York City to pursue his solo career in collaboration with guitarist Steve Stevens. His debut studio album, Billy Idol (1982), was a commercial success. With music videos for singles "Dancing with Myself" and "White Wedding" Idol soon became a staple of the newly established MTV.
Idol's second studio album, Rebel Yell (1983), was a major commercial success, featuring hit singles "Rebel Yell" and "Eyes Without a Face". The album was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipment of two million copies in the US. (wikipedia)
• • •
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| [My Sunday] |
My only comment on the theme is that it's offering a pretty ragtag set of "fashion" items. Two of them are accessories, one of them a full SUIT, but they don't ... add up to anything. They don't seem to go together as a set, beyond being parts of the very very very general category of "fashion." Where's SKIRT THE ISSUE, SCARF DOWN, CAP OFF, TIE THE KNOT, HEELS ... OF BREAD? SOCKS ON THE JAW? Seems like a lot of "fashion items with homonyms" were left on the table. The WATCH, BELT, SUIT set seems arbitrary, is what I'm saying. Yes, you could definitely wear all those together, but you'd still be only partially dressed. I like the revealer, I like the concept, but themer set felt thin and insufficiently coherent. Still, this was fun to solve. The long Downs in the NW and SE really elevate the fun factor, and the grid is generally clean overall, so no groans or winces or disappointed head-shakes today.
It took me several readings of 2D: Dónde está la library?," for example for me to realize that the question switched languages. I kept trying to think of the Spanish word for "question," which I was pretty sure was just "question," or some near equivalent (cuestión?). Real "d'oh" (as opposed to "OHO!") moment when I finally actually saw "library" sitting there, all out of place. "Library" got me SPANGLISH immediately. And then it was like falling dominoes. I could see the first word of the first long Across was gonna be WATCH, and WATCH not only got me the (much-needed) "H" for HORUS (17D: Egyptian god with the head of a falcon), but it also helped me infer BELT once I had the "-ELT" (WATCH and BELT seemed like potential theme elements, and they were), and inferring that "B" was vital in getting "GO BOOM," which I hadn't been able to get at first pass (19D: Make a loud exploding noise). Having WATCH and BELT in place definitely helped me get SUIT later on, as well as FASHION, and the back ends of almost all of the themers were easy to infer from their fronts. Well, WATCH wasn't terribly helpful on its own, but getting the first few letters in CAREFULLY was a cinch. My post-NW screw-ups were minor. I stupidly misspelled SUNNI (as SUNII) (?) (38D: Largest branch of Islam), which left me with ALIGI at 49A, which made me think "that's gotta be ALIBI..." So dumb. I also kinda wanted ODDITY (rather than ODD ONE) at 43D: Strange case. And I'm less familiar with TRUE NORTH than I am with DUE NORTH, so there was some slight puzzlement and hesitation there, but TRUE really wouldn't be denied, and that was that.
[50A: Shakespeare's "Much ___ About Nothing"]
- 30A: Ferret-like mammal with prized fur (MINK) — it's just a ferret-like mammal. No need to turn it into fur. I know it's a "fashion"-themed puzzle, but there's no reason to lean into animal cruelty if you don't have to. I know it's Monday, and you wanna make it real easy, but still, boo to fur.
- 15A: ___ Bunny, Bugs's love interest in "Space Jam" (LOLA) — some Mondays I'm really happy I didn't have to read the Across clues. I was too old for Space Jam and LOLA Bunny means absolutely nothing to me. I did, however, hear "LOLA" in the car ride on the way home from Rochester yesterday, that was cool. Here's another musical LOLA:
- 54D: Noggin, in slang (NOB) — "Noggin" in slang is ... "Noggin." The clue should just be [Noggin]. Also, who (still) says "Noggin"? Or NOB, for that matter? Is that British? (looks like yes, it is, but in a different context: NOB (n.) "one in a superior position in life" (merriam-webster dot com). There are a million (give/take) ways you could've filled that tiny portion of the grid (true south). I'd've scrubbed it free of NOB. Something about the word ... just don't like the look of it.
A note for classical music fans in the KC and NYC areas: Yunchan Lim's performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations at the Eastman School in Rochester yesterday was really beautiful. I'm so glad we made the hike up to see him. After winning the Van Cliburn Competition at age 18 two years ago (the youngest person ever to win), Lim has become something of a rock star. The audience was so much younger than I'm used to seeing at classical concerts. There's a music school there, so maybe the youthfulness of the crowd isn't that surprising, but still, it was refreshing and inspiring to see a multi-generational turnout. Anyway, he's got three dates in KC and four in NYC at the end of this month, so if you live in or near those cities, treat yourself. I don't know what the program for those shows is going to be, but it hardly matters. Whatever he's playing, you're gonna want to hear it.
See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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54 comments:
My five favorite original clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Khan tract? (6)(6)
2. Its cups aren't supposed to runneth over (3)
3. Golden retriever who ends up with a chocolate lab? (7)(6)
4. Small scale business? (4)
5. Outspoken parenting critic, maybe (8)
MONGOL EMPIRE
BRA
CHARLIE BUCKET
DELI
TEENAGER
Harmless puzzle - theme is slightly flat as the big guy highlights but fine early week. BELT OUT A SONG has the most going for it.
MINK Deville
Liked ODD ONE, and the TRUE NORTH - BILLY IDOL pair. Not sure OHO works - don’t see CIG around much anymore.
Pleasant Monday morning solve.
Little Feat
“Nob”, in my 50 years of being British, is not an equivalence of “noggin”. It pretty much refers to an obnoxious individual, e.g. “please don’t be such a nob”
@Rex, I believe the Spanish word you were looking for is “pregunta”. And it’s awesome that you went up to see Yunchan Lim. His performance of Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Piano Concerto in the Van Cliburn competition was an instant, star-making turn — let’s hope he draws some younger fans to get interested in music!
Easy-Medium (downs only) for me as well. I blanked on ROCKET (only the MLB's ASTROS were coming to mind) and while I knew the name BILLY IDOL, the clue wasn't helpful, so I fumbled a bit there by parsing it as BILL + a 5-letter word for a while.
Today's LAT is unsolvable downs-only without guessing, it has [Spanish "those"] ES_S crossing C_N, and neither CAN nor CON causes a dupe, so both are reasonable answers if you can't see the clue. I wonder how common this kind of downs-only ambiguity is.
I was a little stumped by the clue for TRUE NORTH. I feel like if I were standing at the equator and pointing “up” I would be pointing at outer space (or the moon). It seems like, well I would have to point NORTH to get to TRUE NORTH. Close enough, put it didn’t seem right while solving.
Btw, did anyone else get beat up by SB yesterday ? I had like 59 words, 250+ points, genius level . . . and no PG.
“Due north” is a direction, while TRUE NORTH is a point represented by 90 north latitude. Compass users will be directed to magnetic north, which lies around 86 to 87 degrees (moves around quite a bit).
But like Southside Johnny said, point up from the equator will have you looking at the sky. As an aerospace engineer, I often use the ENU coordinate frame, which stands for East/North/Up. Up being skyward.
Maybe don’t solve downs only…? I mean it must be fun but it’s definitely not intended.
This is Colin’s third NYT puzzle, but his first two, both Fridays, showed that he has a talent for clever and original cluing, and an ear for lively answers.
Even on this Monday puzzle, those talents came through:
• Every theme answer, including the revealer, had spark, IMO, and lovely answers showed up elsewhere: SPANGLISH, AMITY, FUROR, GO BOOM.
• As for cluing, while Monday puzzles are often for me, an experienced solver, automatically filled in from top to bottom, today there were sweet hesitations, which my brain appreciated. Clues like [Make a loud exploding noise], [Friendship], [Hullabaloo], and [Stand at the side of].
I also liked a pair of serendipities -- Row two, with its three four-letter answers that contain O, A, and L; and the fact that ODD ONE is answer #43.
My brain got its hard-day workout in trying to guess the revealer after uncovering the theme answers. Oh, it failed miserably, but the effort felt sublime.
Colin, I have adored your puzzles and can’t wait for the next. Thank you for today’s perfect springboard to the day and week ahead!
The second verse of “Jack and Jill went up a hill”:
Up Jack got and off did trot
As fast as he could caper
To old Dame Dob, who patched his NOB
With vinegar and brown paper.
The last line refers to a common headache remedy in the 18th century.
As usual, I got about 70-80% downs-only but then had to peek at some across clues. Couldn’t see the theme downs -only and barely saw it when I finished the puzzle. But this things had some very nice clues and answers, a solid Monday.
actually in my 50+ years of being British, "nob" does mean head...its just that it refers to the head of another part of the male anatomy as in "don't be such a DH"
Hey All !
Got stuck in SW, having doITYOURSELF in, even though DO wasn't jiving with the Theme. Silly. Finally, the ole brain saw VISIT (having _I_IT, and drawing a blank for some reason), which led to me erasing GO and seeing SUNNI. Then said, "Oh, SUIT! What a dummy!"
Where's the SUSPENDERS entry? 😁
Nice MonPuz. Easy, if you don't DO. Har.
Hope y'all turned your clocks back Saturday night/Sunday morning! It's now 5:34 PST, 8:34 EST for you NYers and other Easterners.
If possible, Happy Monday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
October NYTXW Gunk Report
A few days late, and I know you were chomping at the bit for this, but we're all a little busy preparing for the end of the world tomorrow and for my birthday TODAY! I'm 60. We're going to Santa Fe for lunch at The Shed.
Here's the scorecard for the month. Trend arrows are compared to last month:
Total answers this month: 2555 ↓ (there was an extra day, so ... weird)
Total gunky answers 801 ↑
Assuming your subscription is $55 a year, you paid 15¢ for each puzzle 4.7¢ is going to gunk.
Propers: Mostly people and groups: 257 ↑
Places: 69 ↓
Products: Including companies, bands and songs: 159 ↓
Partial Words and Most Initialisms: 225 ↓
Foreignisms: 91 ↑
Average Monthly Gunkiness: 31% (same as September)
Averages by Day:
M: 27% ↓
T: 30% ↑
W: 35% ↓
R: 31% (same)
F: 25% (same)
S: 31% ↓
U: 33% ↓
Most gunky weighing in at a whopping 44% was the Oct. 30 Beetlejuice puzzle.
Least gunky at 19% was the Oct. 10 puzzle on the W or D puzzle.
Least gunky day of the week was Friday again. Nice work NYTXW.
Most gunky day of the week was Saturday. Hope you enjoyed the C-list celebrities.
As for comedy:
Three puzzles had no discernable humor whatsoever.
The Oct. 25 puzzle with the CONE OF SHAME was so funny I rated it in the zillions.
I did find I messed up the math on one of the days, so I'm still working on learning arithmetic. Adding is kicking my butt. Off to work on today's puzzle.
When I saw WATCH and BELT, I thought the revealer would have something to do with stuff you have to take off and put through an airport scanner. But as soon as I had FASHION, I did write in FASHION FORWARD. By then I had SUIT -- so at least there was one item I thought of as being related to fashion.
Look, don't expect me to notice your accessories. I won't notice your WATCH even if you paid $50,000 for it and I won't notice your BELT even if it's the finest alligator or even made of solid gold. I might notice a drop-dead red-carpet gown or a dramatic full-length coat. Then again, I might not. I think you'd call me FASHION BACKWARD.
High point of this puzzle for me: the amusing clue for SPANGLISH.
HORUS on a Monday seems out of bounds. Easy if you’re using the crosses but tough if you’re showing off by using down clues only.
It’s champing at the bit
I'm sure our Canadian friends will enjoy seeing TRUENORTH, may it remain strong and free. A much better anthem than ours, but that's true of almost every other country. As for songs, I know the name BILLYIDOL but don't ask me to name any of his hits
Fun to see SPANGLISH (Hola @GILL I) and there is a Spanish word "cuestion" but it means "matter" as in "it's a cuestion of money".
A WATCH as a fashion statement reminds me that I just saw an article in Esquire, which I read for its political commentary, about how to buy the right kind of WATCH for less than $15, 000. I tend to not read this kind of article. Also I don't wear a WATCH.
Thought this was a nice Monday with a little more crunch than usual. My only side eye was to OODONE for "strange case", but that's a nit.
Nice one, CA. A Creative Assortment of FASHION thingies, and thanks for all the fun.
Thought this a lively fun puzzle. The across themes were almost secondary to a series of excellent downs. Was held up by “word blindness” not being able to fill in SUNNI and BRIE even though I’m very familiar with both and in the case of BRIE could actually picture it in my mind. Have stood over the line marking the equator in Ecuador, so a fun memory, and interesting to learn that NOB has acquired a second inference in England.
This is one where the acrosses caused me my only real trouble: confidently entering sItIN for 21A, which stayed there until the very end when I received no happy music. I think I assumed (not knowing my golf terms) that 10D was some specialized term for something I didn’t know about, so HOLtS could have been it. It was only when I saw FsANKS when I knew my error must be in that corner, but sItIN still seemed so right that it took me a while to find it.
NYT Tech Guild on strike as of midnight Monday. “ The striking employees will picket in front of the newspaper’s Times Square office from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily and are asking readers to honor the Tech Guild’s digital picket line by not accessing Times games or cooking apps.” (From WaPo story)
OK, if this was about my clothes, 'FASJION wouldn't apply, but I do get the concept. So it'll do.
A couople of quick reactionsZOn one hand, the pairing of OPAN/ORAL is kinda neat; otoh, cluing ORAL by a room of naked people is, um, a little cringe?
We seem to be gettin a lot of WADs lately; I certainly prefer today's cash to the more common gum.
But straight up from the equator? Wouldn't that be "skyward," or azimuth?
Gotta run, I have an online lesson in 7 minutes, time to sign in.
Me desperté con niebla el día antes de que la democracia fuera DERROCADA. (OUSTED for the pro-Spanglishizers.)
I aged out of being visible to society about 15 years ago and the pressure to be a fashion icon melted away. A friend of mine still does drag in his 60s and it must be exhausting keeping up his closet. I could wear the same thing every day and nobody would notice.
Not much of a puzzle today, but I do love SPANGLISH. In high school, I regularly ate dinner at my buddy's house. His parents escaped Cuba during Castro's rise. They were professional people and left everything behind to take a "vacation" in the United States, and never went back. Outside of the house, they all spoke English, but at home it was a charming SPANGLISH often using Spanish root words with English endings.
ODIOUS is on my favorite word list between YOKEL and EMBASSY.
❤️ GO BOOM. ODD ONE. And my beloved OHO arrives to save the day.
Propers: 5
Places: 1
Products: 1
Partials: 11 (grumble)
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 20 of 76 (26%)
Funnyisms: 1 🤨
Tee-Hee: I would make a big deal out of NOB, however it was pointed out I missed the brilliant entry yesterday [Turning heads] = SCREWING. In my defense, it was overcast all day yesterday and I'm used to 360 days of sunshine each year, and the Broncos got dismantled, and I was paying bills related to moving, and it was daylight savings, so you can see the discombobulated nature of my tee-hee-ery hunting. So let's celebrate it today since this puzzle needs some levity anyway.
Uniclues:
1 Gemstone bedazzling queer dentistry.
2 Wilder approves Fib Fest.
3 Use the ADA handlebars in the loo.
4 Added D-batteries to Texas cemetery.
5 Ire over Festival of Rahs.
6 King's house of crossword construction.
1 LOLA ORAL OPAL (~)
2 GENE OKS LIE-IN
3 GO BOOM SAFER
4 POWERED UP ALAMO
5 OLÉ-CON FUROR
6 BB'S CLUING CASA (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: I hate thinking about those holidays when he said he was coming and never showed. UGH, GODOT NOELS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@SouthsideJohnny re:SB yes, definitely one of the harder PGs, went in at about fifth to the last (of 73 for QB) and only after looking up the first two letters. It‘s not very arcane so I thought it was just me :-)
Medium. Cute theme, almost no junk, some fine long downs, liked it.
Erasures: eats before CHOW and GOBang before BOOM.
Croce Solvers. - Croce’s Freestyle #957 was mostly an easier Croce for me with a couple exceptions. (1) The NE corner was tough and I still don’t know what 10a means. (2) A cross in the center west was Natick for me (and I believe it fits the @Rex definition) and fortunately I guessed right. Good luck!
Enhorabuena! Have a swell day. I always think of birthdays ending in a 0 as resetting the odometer, so you could try that. My first Spanish professor ( I started studying Spanish in college) was also from a family that fled Castro. When he met my folks during a Parents' Weekend I was amazed to find out that he spoke English.
Happy 6-O @Gary Jugert. I've eaten at the Shed several times during my four years at St. John's College in Santa Fe. But my really great memory from the Shed was when four of us, for reasons I no longer remember, dressed up like gangsters (SUITs and Fedoras) and burst into the restaurant to soak our friends, who were dining there, with squirt guns that looked like machine guns. This was in 1975 or 76, and people were startled, but the only real reaction we got was that the owner told our friends to tell us that we were excellent gangsters. Try this today, and you'd have the SWAT team on you in no time.
Senator who believed that OLLIE, the key Iran-Contra witness, was lying: "That's not TRUENORTH. Your ODIOUS testimony is full of HOLES."
Clark Griswold to his son in Christmas Vacation: "Ho ho HORUS."
Fun enough for a Monday. Thanks, Colin Adams.
The NYT Tech Guild is currently on strike and is asking people to avoid using the games app during the strike
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-york-tech-union-goes-strike-one-day-election-rcna178639
@Gary J
HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🎁🎉🎈🎂🎊
Have a great day and an even better year.
Happy birthday!
Thanks for the info on Yunchan Lim, RP. We heard Inon Barnatan play Moe Zart's 17th with the NJ Symphony in Newark yesterday. Your note on the audience's age is apt. We're in our mid-70's and brought the average age down to about 95. Barnatan was great and would have gotten a standing ovation if the audience had been able to get up. Instead, the entire concert hall was going "Oy, Yetta, help!"
Well-crafted puzgrid fillins. The starts-with theme is kinda dime-a-dozen-ish, and M&A is definitely no fashion-hound. Sweatshirt & jeans & Timex & well-worn set of Rockports. M&A = FASHIONBACKWARD / FASHIONSTUBBORN.
staff weeject pick: BIT. Mainly cuz the BIT/AMITY central crossin is a kinda "Jaws" mini-theme. [Amity was the name of the flick's town.]
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: Actually a tie between two in the NW:
* {18 on a golf course} = HOLES.
* {Bruce ___, alter ego in Gotham City} = WAYNE. Holy gimmes, Batman.
some other extra-shiny spots: GOBOOM. ICANSEE. SPANGLISH & its clue.
Thanx, Mr. Adams dude.
Masked & Anonym007Us
Totally non-spammy runt crossword offerin:
**gruntz**
Happy 60th GJ. Here's a joke about old men.
So old Abe Goldstein is 96 and he's marrying young, curvaceous Cindy Markowitz who is 23. Abe's at the doc for a checkup and the doc says, Mazel Tov on the marriage, Abe. Cindy seems like a wonderful girl. But, as your doctor, I must warn you that intense sexual activity places a heavy strain on the heart and in some cases can even cause death.
Abe leans back on the examining table, sighs, and says "Doc. I've lived a wonderful happy life. If she dies, she dies."
p.s.
Congratz to young Gay Jugert dude, on now goin 60. (M&A raced past that age/speed postin, many years ago.)
Happy happy … [times sixty] … B-Day!
M&Also
Happy Birthday, Gary! & many more (at least I hope so depending on the outcome of the election .....
I started out really speeding through this one, but then found myself getting hung up (didn't make a note of the hang-ups) which was surprising for a Monday. I also spent WAAAAY too much time reading the NYT upcoming election coverage & was distracted (dismayed?). Once I got it & saw where it was going, it was fun, so I'd have to agree with Easy/Medium.
Thanks, Colin :)
I had a similar experience yesterday. In these situations my best response has been to scramble the letters, look blankly at the result, then close it down and do something else. After an hour or so, come back and look at the letters. Don’t think, just look. I usually get the pangram and a few other words that I missed. When I try to reason it out I just get frustrated. It worked again! It was an interesting word.
An addition to Rex's list of other possible theme answers today: BOXER REBELLION.
Happy day, @GaryJ: 60! What a kid!
This was a lot like Sunday's. Enjoyable enough but with an uninspired theme that was easy to ignore.
Yes. Yesterday's SB really tormented me. I was Amazing but not a Genius. I almost always take another shot the following day before summoning the answer list. The only thing amazing was how I failed to see so many "obvious" words.
I wonder how Nob Hill (San Francisco) got its name.
Solving down clues only it started out tough but I got it done without "cheating" by looking at across clues. And yes you doubters, it is WAY more fun that way, especially when you succeed. It was challenging guessing the theme because for 52 across I had guessed FALLING FORWARD at first. As soon as I changed it to FASHION I said: oh a fashion theme. (The theme was a bit weak though.)
The only other typeover I can remember was SAY BAM before GO BOOM. Go boom is much better.
@SouthsideJohnny, you are right on about TRUE NORTH. I was trying to imagine a term for "straight up from the center of the earth"... something like TERRA RADI? And as for Spelling Bee, yes yd was a challenge; I got to QB last evening and the pangram was the very last word!
@pabloinnh, the Canadian anthem is actually quite different and colorful in the original French. It starts something like: "O, Canada! Land of our ancestors, You wear a garland of glorious flowers..."
When I was a kid (1960's; western Canada) we used the term "you knob" a lot, which meant basically the same as "dink" (ie "you penis"). I always assumed it started with a K but I can't remember if we ever wrote it out.
A few commenters have mentioned this, but I thought I'd add visibility: The NYT Tech Guild, including the Games crew, is on strike as of this morning. They have asked users not to interact with the Games in solidarity. Here's hoping they are able to negotiate a fair contract soon!
The clue for TRUENORTH is not really wrong, it's just very badly worded. What was ment there is the direction perpendicular to the equator but parallel to the idealized Earth surface. In the single point on the equator it will indeed point along the meridian which is a direction to the true north on the sphere. But spelling all this out in a clue is impossible and contracting it made it unclear and controversial. They should have used something like "the direction along the meridian".
I forgot to go back and find the fashion items in the theme answers. Without knowing the theme yet, I tried qUIT YOURSELF at 42A and really needed that 42D cross to get out of that HOLE.
Once again, my Duolingo Spanish studying helped with 2D because I knew library was "biblioteca". So glad we're more likely to find Spanish or French in the crossward rather than German or, for instance, Czech, which was totally incomprehensible when I was there last month. You couldn't even rely on the letters to help with the pronunciation so when on the bus, you had to watch the scrolling of the stops to know when you arrived - the ORAL announcement was no help. Prague has the most amazing public transportation and is a beautiful, friendly city, but incredibly crowded with tourists!
Thanks Colin Adams. And happy birthday, Gary Jugart!
I actually know quite a lot of the French version as we lived an hour south of Montreal for a few years and I've been to various sporting events (Les Habs! Les Expos!) where it was performed in French and English. Something about your history being a tale of glorious exploits sticks with me.
"Direction pointing straight up from the Equator on a map" would have been more easily understandable and still concise, although on a world map that is oriented in the usual way, the point of origin of doesn't really matter - anything pointing straight up is directed north. The clue as published does really beg to be answered with a nine-letter synonym for "skyward" (if such a word or phrase exists)!
We regularly get clues in SPANGLISH like "It ends in diciembre" for ANO [sic].
Lots of locals hereabouts in TexMex Land (about 280 miles south of the ALAMO) are bilingual and use SPANGLISH regularly, often for comedic effect like "El roofo esta leakiando".
To say that FASHION FORWARD is above my pay grade would be an understatement. My uniform of the day ten to eleven months out of the year is tee shirt, shorts and flip flops.
Happy Birthday! Love the daily relocation reports.
False. I am 1/1 at successfully solving today’s puzzle downs only.
Happy birthday, Gary. I fully expect you to celebrate it in Armani. Or at the very least Ralph Lauren. Sheesh -- you talk like you're 90!
@pabloinnh: I've always thought that you were from a Spanish background -- not only because of your frequent use of Spanish in your comments, but because of your many back-and-forth comments over the years with @GILL. I'm really surprised that you didn't start studying Spanish until college.
@Lifeprof -- I cracked up at your hilarious description of concerts attended by a particular demographic. It reminded me a lot of the concerts at the 92Y in NYC. I've been going to the Lyrics and Lyricists series since the 1960s, and the audience just keeps getting older and older and older...:)
Anonymous 8:56 AM
It sounds like you think the puzzle should be designed Monday easy for down only solvers (someone raised my point earlier). But they are crosswords and they are designed to be solved doing across also. So I agree the crosses made it easy. There is nothing to complain about.
Teedman
I went to Prague last year. Agree completely that the people are very nice. The city is so beautiful. Went in May. Crowded yes but maybe a little less so than when you went.
I thought the puzzle was decent for a Monday.
I liked that this crossword underlined the fact that clues are hints ( 9D). Understood, not definitions.
Direction pointing straight up from the Equator. I really didn’t think at all about going into the sky when I read it. “Direction” I associate with N S E W
Looking at it again, it can be ambiguous.
But I don’t think the clue ( see above!) was wrong. Close enough for crosswords.
Would LOLA from the Kinks be more obscure than the movie clue?
Didn’t bother me but surprised no complaints about savings and safer starting at the s. They are related words, after all
Hi Rex, I believe you are a union supporter, do with this what you deem appropriate: https://nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-walks-off-the-job
Another very weak theme, which is becoming the signature of the Fagliano era. At first, it seemed it was going to be a return to difficult puzzles on Friday and Saturday. But now it's clear - weak themes.
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