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Freedom, per Janis Joplin / THU 11-7-24 / Claymation character of old "S.N.L." / Gaming console that preceded the Switch / Place for a Lady chapel / Stylish Miami neighborhood, in brief / Debut character for Zadie Smith / Mario Kart character with a pink outfit and a mushroom cap / Pink-colored Euro banknote
Thursday, November 7, 2024
Constructor: Joe Deeney
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: Off TO the side... — familiar phrases containing "TO" must be written in the grid with "TO" moved (one column or row to the side) in the direction indicated by the word that precedes it in the phrase—up, down, left or right. (Shaded squares indicate the position of the "TO"s):
Theme answers:
- BRINGS [UP TO] SPEED (18A: Fills in with the latest)
- NOTHING [LEFT TO] LOSE (3D: Freedom, per Janis Joplin)
- COME [DOWN TO] THE WIRE (61A: Result in a photo finish)
- GET RIGHT [TO] THE POINT (27D: Not beat around the bush)
 |
| [Wells Cathedral, Somerset, UK] |
A Lady chapel or lady chapel is a traditional British term for a chapel dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus, particularly those inside a cathedral or other large church. The chapels are also known as a Mary chapel or a Marian chapel, and they were traditionally the largest side chapel of a cathedral, placed eastward from the high altar and forming a projection from the main building, as in Winchester Cathedral. Most Roman Catholic and many Anglican cathedrals still have such chapels, while mid-sized churches have smaller side-altars dedicated to the Virgin. (wikipedia)
• • •
And while I thought the concept was clever, I think it's missing something. Like ... a point. Why are you moving "TO"s. If there were some revealer or some spelled-out phrase or something that made the specific practice of moving "TO"s meaningful, if the moved "TO"s were expressing (in some visually punny way) a familiar phrase or something like that, then this theme might be impressive. But as it is, you just move the "TO"s ... just to move them. If there's no real reason, no revealer, why not make the moved words different? Not just "TO," but "FOR" or "IN" or whatever. "I'LL BE [RIGHT WITH] YOU!" Something like that. I guess it's simpler this way. I mean, it definitely is simpler—once you grasp the theme, you can just write "TO" in all those shaded squares, and you know that "TO" is going to be involved in the larger phrase, so the repetitiveness of the theme smooths the road for the solver. I would've appreciated more variety and more challenge (in the theme). And more coherence in the context. There's a good core architectural concept here, but no clear main idea to hang it on. I enjoyed working it all out, but there was something hollow and anticlimactic about it. I kept waiting for the revealer that never arrived.
["The Joy of SECT"]
While the theme seemed promising but underdeveloped, the fill, yeeeeesh. I made a lot of faces today. There's the usual culprits, like short gunk that's maybe a little gunkier than it needs to be today. You know, your ALII WIIU, your ING NNE, stuff like that. In smallish doses, that's harmless, but unfortunately it was gunkily complemented by a bunch of longer answers that clanked and sputtered throughout the grid. SEISMO is perhaps the stupidest thing I've ever seen in the grid (69A: Shaky start?). I exaggerate, but not by much. Certainly the stupidest-looking standalone prefix. SEISMO sounds like the name of the mascot at a seismology convention. Imagine someone running around in a furry cartoonish Richter scale costume, trying to get the seismologists hyped about their jobs—that's SEISMO! "Oh, SEISMO, you lovable scamp! You make my knees shake and my heart tremble!" And what is this ridiculous fully-spelled-out "OKAY" in "NOT OKAY"? NOT OK has made twelve NYTXW appearances because that is how you spell NOT OK when you have to spell NOTOK. "NOT OKAY," on the other hand ... surprise, this is a debut. NOT OKAY ... it's not OK. Unwelcome debuts seem to be happening more and more. Debuts are not good for their own sake! Some answers should never see the light of day!
 |
| [I don't know what this is, but it's SEISMO!] |
BAD EYE threw me off with its informality (41D: One might require a higher prescription). It looks weird as a standalone phrase. And again, it's a debut. Overstuffed wordlists are going to be the death of us all, I swear. As for OSBORNE, holy cow that was hard (40A: Given name of baseball's Ozzie Smith). I know very well who Ozzie Smith is, as his career was at its peak during my peak baseball card-collecting years. But I thought maybe he was an OSCAR or an OSWALD or something, I dunno. And speaking of "popular when I was a kid," this puzzle skews verrry old in its pop culture references today. Ozzie Smith and Will GEER and Janice Joplin and MR. BILL and Gloria GAYNOR (19D: "I Will Survive" Grammy winner). Real "half a century ago" vibe to this group. Spelling GAYNOR could cause issues, especially if you aren't sure about AYER, TOADETTE, or OSBORNE. I definitely left that "O" space in GAYNOR blank til the end. GAYNOR crossing TOADETTE and OSBORNE crossing NOT OKAY and BAD EYE ... that felt like a real rough patch. And obviously, the less said about BROSPEAK, the better (43A: Greek language?). (note: frat boys ("Greeks") talk like everyone else in college, honestly ... a techbro angle on this clue might be more appropriate)
[Janis Joplin, "Me and Bobby McGee," written by the late great Kris Kristofferson: "Freedom is just another word for NOTHING [LEFT TO] LOSE"]
- 4D: Stylish Miami neighborhood, in brief (SOBE) — assuming this stands for "South Beach." SOBE has appeared in the NYTXW 21 times in the Modern Era, but this is its first appearance as a neighborhood. Before that, it was the beverage co. (e.g. [Beverage brand with a lizard logo]), or else a partial (from the phrase "SO BE it").
- 13D: Debut character for Zadie Smith (ZED) — a "letteral" clue, and a British one at that. Zadie Smith is a British writer, and ZED is the British term for the letter "ZEE," so ... there you go.
- 57D: Subject of the obsolete "plum pudding model" (ATOM) — well I'm glad it's "obsolete" because I never heard of it. "The first scientific model of the atom to describe an internal structure." Proposed in 1904 and then rendered obsolete in 1911 by the discovery of the atomic nucleus. A seven-year run? That's it? "Cats" ran for longer.
- 64D: 2020 #1 hit for Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion ("WAP") — the "W" stands for "Wet" and the "A" stands for "ASS," and if you're someone who thinks "WET-ASS" is inappropriately vulgar for the crossword, well, I have some bad news for you about what the "P" stands for ...
***
Important Note:
As of Monday, 11/4/24, the NYT Tech Guild is on strike.
From The Guardian:
The Guild is asking that readers honor their picket line by boycotting the Times’ selection of games, including Wordle and the daily digital crossword, and to avoid other digital extensions such as the Cooking app.
Annie Shields, a campaign lead for the News Guild of New York, encouraged people to sacrifice their streaks in the wildly popular Wordle and Connections games in order to support the strike.
You can read more about the strike here (nyguild.org).
There were some anti-union talking points being credulously repeated in the comments yesterday, so just to be clear (per Vanity Fair): "The union said Tech Guild workers' main concerns that remain unresolved are: remote/hybrid work protections; “just cause” job protections, which “the newsroom union has had for decades”; limits on subcontracting; and pay equity/fair pay."
Since the picket line is "digital," it would appear to apply only to Games solved in the NYT digital environment—basically anything you solve on your phone or on the NYT website per se. If you get the puzzle in an actual dead-tree newspaper, or if you solve it outside the NYT's proprietary environment (via a third-party app, as I do), then technically you're not crossing the picket line by solving. You can honor the digital picket line by not using the Games app (or the Cooking app) at all until the strike is resolved. No Spelling Bee, no Connections ... none of it. My morning Wordle ritual is was very important to me, but ... I'll survive, I assume.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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86 comments:
Loved this puzzle - it’s been a different vibe solving on paper so maybe that adds to the enjoyment? It went down pretty quickly once the trick fell.
EBTG
ERSATZ is pretty cool and MR BILL is neat to recall. Agree with Rex on some of the more obscure fill - SEISMO threw me as did OSBORNE.
Enjoyable Thursday morning solve.
Clarence White
Can someone please explain to me what "Bad Eye" is? I'm stumped.
It’s just the one of your two eyes that is worse (in some way) than the other
Easy-Medium for a Thursday. Like OFL, I got the theme at 3D, NOTHING [left TO] LOSE, and then the rest of the shaded squares.
Overwrites:
At 1D, my "Capital of Route 66" was omahA before it was TULSA
Had the initial Z at 13D and guessed Zoe
I misremembered 19D as GAYNeR. That made TOADETTE (38A) hard to see
DArn before DANG at 33D
My 44D grid components were STRipeS (as in a football field) before they were STREETS
I misspelled 50A as GEre
Scat before SHOO for "Beat it" at 58D
WOEs:
WII I know. WIIU (21D), not so much
TOADETTE at 38A
Had no idea that Ozzie Smith's midde name was OSBORNE (40A)
ENJOYED!
Rex's negativity is unwarranted. This was great fun and indeed, the theme was accurately portrayed.
I was expecting a reveal to tie it all together - then thought Rex may have something, but if there is more to it than that, it has escaped him as well.
As is often the case, the generational divide was pretty binary for me today - I was at ease with Janis, Gloria, MR BILL (a classic), et c and struck out on the video games, video characters and the rap stuff.
The plum pudding clue is too bizarre to be sincere - I wonder if someone snuck it in there on a dare.
I lost my streak but at least there are so many wordle like games on line I’m able to scratch that itch. I used to be GC of a very wealthy player’s union and I know that the one real weapon workers have at the end of the day is to strike. Hopefully the so called NYT does not lock them out and permanently replace them. At least the NLRB ‘s rules are supportive of unions right now—something which will likely change dramatically when the new President comes in. Thanks for letting us know. Streaks dead. To the puzzle , I stuck myself for a long while when I entered left instead of nothing lose. I was sure I was right with the letter L and so it took far more time than it should have to realize I was wrong. Kind of sad since I listen to Janice daily when I workout.
Agree with the difficulty rating but I liked it more than OFL.
SEISMO to me sounded like some character from an MCU movie: show some respect to Lord Seismo!
I thought this was really neat, and a revealer is completely unnecessary.
My nit is that GET TO THE POINT fits the clue perfectly, with the 'RIGHT' not needed. But that's a small complaint about a worthy puzzle.
Oh, and of course it would have been better if there were no other TOs in the puzzle (see TOADETTE, TOW, ATOM).
Especially since he died recently, the puzzle should have credited the great Kris Kristofferson with the phrase “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” He wrote “Me and Bobbie McGee.”
When I cracked the theme maybe two-thirds the way through, it brought a big smile, a big “Hah!”, and a big “Great idea!” That’s a very good theme, in my book.
But the good didn’t stop there:
• Every theme answer was solid, packed a punch.
• Loveliness showed up in the fill: ERSATZ, TROPE, CONDIMENT, and even the mood-lifting TOADETTE.
• Double-E fest, with eight. SUHWEET!
• Lovely not-thought-about-in-ages memories jogged: MR BILL (do you remember the names of his two nemeses?*), and the lyric from “Me and Bobby McGee”, which has always stuck with me. That lyric also triggered other lying-dormant-in-my-memory Kris Kristofferson songs that I’ve loved.
• A pair of sweet serendipities: EDGES touching two borders, and a Boggle-style ROSS next to SUPREME.
Your clever puzzles always light me up, Joe, and once again, you delivered. Thank you so much for this!
*Mr. Hands and Sluggo
I'm familiar with this kind of trick and thought it was well executed. Caught on with GETRIGHTTOTHEPOINT and enjoyed sussing out the others, the D in SPEED not appearing until last because I had ZEE for too long.
Hello to TOADETTE, WIIU, and WAP. And took way too long to see BADEYE, as I often have to explain why I'm wearing glasses with an opaque lens and how interference with my GOODEYE makes that necessary. I am often reminded of MRBILL when I go to get an eyeball injection and want to tell my doc "You're going to do something mean to me". Definitely worth it though.
I liked your Thursday offering very much, JD. Just Did enough to lighten my mood somewhat, and I always like it when stand
I
what's going on in a tricky puzzle. Thanks for all the fun.
It's not related to the Evil Eye which must be respected and feared.
Sorry, I see that Rex already pointed that out.
This was OKAY and straightforward and fun enough, But if you're relying on a phrase, you have to get it right. Leaving out "left" (NOTHINGTOLOSE) is just wrong. And so is omitting "down". It's not COMETOTHEWIRE. I'm surprised Rex didn't call BS on this.
Never mind!
Thank you for letting us know about the strike. I will not cross picket line and will sacrifice a very long streak of completed crossword puzzles. Go union!
The "plum pudding model" became obsolete when someone stuck his thumb into it...
As for the puzzle, this answer should have been put in a corner.
Thought that would happen. The "I" should be moved over (almost) to the end of the margin.
@pabloinnh Very clever response at the end in the spirit of this puzzle!
The lyrics to WAP are vile and this clue does not belong in the NYT.
Thanks for letting us know about the strike. I didn’t realize until today because I had not had time to see the blog. Fortunately, I have not had time to do the Wordle or the Connections but the Spelling Bee has been my election distraction. I’ll have to print some AVCX or New Yorker puzzles. Is it only NYT?
Thanks for explaining WAP. Though I just can’t grasp what the P stands for…
One of those puzzles that was more fun for the constructor than the solver. Way to many non-gotcha proper names for me. And South Beach, which I do know, becoming Sobe? Like Soho? And "suhweet" as a real word? I did it but disliked it.
Nice 👍👍
It’s “nothin” without the g in Janis Joplin version
Thought this was a fun puzzle and that Rex was a bit hard on the theme. Would have been relatively easy if not for the obscure/generationally divided PPP, but I guess that’s the name of the game…”I will survive” is now an earworm…
Crossnerd note…
This was a skilled build.
The four theme entries had to be inserted so the down answer pairs and the across answer pairs each had an equal letter count (to fulfill symmetry requirements). And by the way, those four answers – NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE, COME TO THE WIRE, BRINGS UP TO SPEED, AND GET TO THE POINT – are all NYT debut answers, and worthy ones.
Also, the areas around where the gray-lettered TO’s abutted the theme answers were greatly constricted, that is, they severely limited the number of words that could work in those areas. Yet they were, for the most part, smoothly filled.
So, deft work here, from an ace constructor!
Alternatives to crossing the picket line: https://nytimesguild.org/tech/guild-builds/index.html
i’ve always used OK to mean “affirmative” and OKAY as “allowed,” so that answer was perfectly cromulent to me
This was so clever with just the right challenge for a Tricky Thursday.
I got the theme -- or at least all but the last answer. I couldn't make sense of COME under TO THE [blank]. Or COME TO under THE [blank].
DOWN, not UNDER, you idiot!!! I think I would have gotten WIRE if I'd thought of DOWN. But I would not have finished the puzzle.
The pop culture clues, clumped all together -- or at least it felt that way -- were, in a word, dispiriting. I am dispirited enough right now, thank you very much, and felt no compunction to look any of the answers up. When I fail for this reason, I plain don't care. I really don't.
So this is the second day in a row where I really liked the theme and where I really, REALLY disliked the surrounding fill.
I, too, looked up the lyric. Vile is the word. But I learned something.
Completely agree. Just imagine how many teenagers are listening to this utter garbage. So sad.
Who will think of the children!?
Seismo the scamp gave me my first laugh in two days. Thank you, Rex!
If you have astigmatism, one eye is weaker than the other. My left eye is my “bad”eye.
I loved this puzzle! The theme was a big aha about half way through and continued to entertain me until the end. Bravo.
I liked this and had fun with it. Clever concept and well executed IMHO. A revealer could’ve been something like HOP TO IT bounced across the grid maybe - but it was fine as is. Agree SEISMO is awful, but I’m totally OK with NOT OK. Overall the most enjoyable Thursday I’ve done in a while.
I agree. It is utter filth, and has no place in the NYT crossword.
I think that perhaps Rex gets up too early; he was (to my mind) needlessly nit-picky on this puzzle. I got the theme right away with the "Bobby McGee" clue and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the puzzle. One little nit-pick of my own: gochujang paste and hoisin sauce are cooking sauces, not condiments, at least in my kitchen.
It could have been worse for you Gen Zers. GAYNOR could have been "South Pacific actress Mitzi."
I too read the lyrics to WAP. I was somewhat amused. The surprising thing to me is that the song is credited to 6 writers, five of whom I think are men.
What does the Bordeaux purist say when offered a Hungarian wine? NOTOKAY.
King: I bid ye to come with me.
Queen: And why would ye expect me to?
King: Because I BADEYE to come!
You know you're in for an all-night party if someone BRINGSSPEED.
This was a really fun puzzle. As @Lewis points out, a difficult construction feat. Often those words can signal a so-so solve, but not today. Thanks a bunch, Joe Deeney.
YES! Bad clue.
Medium for me, too, the difficulty coming more from the names I didn't know than from the theme. I had both BRINGS... and NOTHING...and in one of those happy synapse flashes (or something) saw how the TO's would work for both. Neat! And then the other two fell into place quickly. Throwing obstacles in my path: TOADETTE, MR. BILL, OSBORNE, WIIU, and AYER. I liked SUPREME x EGOS.
Had ADDICT before BADEYE. OOF!!
maybe 'apse' was originally clued as a revealer ? off to the side ?
Hated this puzzle. Too many cultural references and WAP does not belong in a NY Times puzzle. I’m not a prude, far from it…but there’s a time and a place for everything and this wasn’t it. I’m the first to swear and use profanity but i don’t walk down the street yelling about lubricants.
Medium. I too caught the theme early with the Joplin clue, but it was still a bit of a struggle to correctly parse the theme answers. It didn’t help that I had rOI before MOI for 63d. What did help was the lack of WOEs.
Clever and fun, liked it. I was fine with no reveal, it didn’t seem necessary to me.
Easy, I got it done quicker than yesterday's (granted, the Wednesday grid was oversized). I didn't know the Janis Joplin answer and got the theme from COME (DOWN TO) THE WIRE, and after that, the rest of the puzzle fell very smoothly.
I'm non-American and I've learned that in crosswords "frat letters" are Greek letters. But I didn't know that frat boys are called "Greeks" until today.
I'm a big Mario and Nintendo fan so TOADETTE was a gimme. The TOAD part comes from toadstool; Toads are a race of mushroom-headed characters in Mario games.
SUHWEET has 5 NYT appearances, including today's, 3 of which are on Thursday (today and twice in March 2023). It felt like a Thursdayish answer when I filled it in, now I know why.
That Janis Joplin song was written by Kris Kristofferson. Properly, the clue should have been "Freedom, per Kris Kristofferson."
This was great, but wow, I went straight to ANOTHERWORD, marveling at both my genius and the clue, and then took a long time untangling that mess, complete with some annoyance around the whole 'what happened to LEFTTO?' issue when NOTHINGLOSE was clear. Then had the same DOWN/UNDER issue that @Nancy did trying to make sense of photo finishes and coming under the wire. Perfect Thursday, with or without a reveal.
Also had ITGeek for too long. Definitely a challenge for me (not EASY). Loved MR. BILL. And learned something, like @mathgent: DANG those WAP lyrics are, well, eye opening. That was a #1 song in 2020?
You missed part of the fun! You had to move LEFT to get to the "to" in "nothing left to lose." You had to go DOWN to get to the "to" in "down to the wire." And so on. See?
REALLY? So soon after Kris Kristofferson's death, the line is attributed to Janis Joplin??? I love Janis and mourn her, but Kris wrote the damn song! She did the definitive cover, but she didn't write it; she didn't even do the first cover (several others before her, including Kenny Rogers and the First Edition).
Second day in a row when I didn't get the theme...
am I losing my knack???
NOT OKAY was a real 'Stretch', didn't know WAP, ALII crossing WIIU?, TOADETTE, BROSPEAK.
I guess like you guys say 'this wasn't in my wheelhouse.' The only thing I liked was the reference to Janis Joplin but agree with Anonymous @ 7:40 that mention should've been made of Kris Kristofferson.
I usually appreciate Rex's high standards, but I don't think Rex is being fair with his kvetch that the puzzle have moved different words. If the puzzle had had, say, a "to," an "on," a "for," and an "of", Rex would predictably have complained that the theme wasn't tight enough.
And I agree that this is not a puzzle that needs a revealer. Any revealer that isn't absolutely spot on would have distracted from it.
Nice set of up & down themers. No revealer was OK by m&e ... the whole idea was to figure out what the puz was up to, on your own.
Really liked the "Me and Bobby McGee" -based themer, btw.
staff weeject picks: CIS & MOI. Together with SEISMO and a tricky themer, they made that SW corner the high-feist place to be.
Primo weeject stacks, in all 4 corners.
faves included: SUHWEET. SUPREME pizza. CRITIC clue.
Thanx, Mr. Deeney dude. Clever stuff.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
no spam; no NYT-puzsponsorship; just the usual runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
Should've been "Freedom, per Kristofferson." Those were his words; Janis just sang them.
This theme is complicated, so much so that even after I'd figured it out I kept making mistakes. NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE and BRINGS UP TO SPEED were my first reactions to their respective clues, but it did not occur to me what was going on until I actually had TO sitting there in the shaded squares. After that it got easier, though I still had trouble remembering that it was not only TO but the directional word (LEFT, UP, RIGHT, DOWN) that had to be included in the answer. This was especially hard because DOWN TO THE WIRE could stand alone.
Even then, how did the shaded squares work in the opposite direction? I wanted my ballerinas to be ON tipTOE, even though ON TOE is what they actually say.
heron before EGRET didn't help (and without TINY it would have been gator). And I still don't know what a WIIU is, or how I'm supposed to know TOADETTE, let alone what kind of hat she wears.
And despite years of watching the TV shows and listening to the theme song, I realized that I had little idea of the actual route of Rte. 66--my first guess was "Omaha," but I waited for crosses. Anyway, San Antonio and Dallas are definitely not part of it.
I was never sure what a lady chapel was, either, though I guess it should have been obvious.
Made do? for TOUPEE is brilliant -- and it clued me in that the theme is locally unidirectional, so that helped.
OK, it's late (I've been sick, and not only because of the election); I'll go read Rex and the rest of you.
SEISMO? I took many mos looking at that, checking the crosses again and once again and...I still don't get it. Or is it the start to SEISMOlogy? That makes sense but makes the clue horrible. Ah, well.
I got the theme early with 3D although I had to notice the shaded squares before I got it. At first, with NOT in place in 3D, I tried to write JUST A outside the grid to meld into JUST A NOTHer word, but that meant et ALIA was wrong and....it didn't fit. I really like the theme, thought it was clever, didn't see the need for an explanation of "why TO?".
Reflex entry for a 3-letter animal in Africa, gnu was replaced by APE today, har.
Thanks, Joe Deeney, nice Thursday puzzle!
Plum pudding model was a gimme for me. Should be for anyone who's ever taken a chemistry class.
Great theme enabled by garbage fill.
I appreciate people's; desire to honor Kris Kristofferson, but really, most of us don't know who wrote the words to most songs, especially these days when the performer seems to count for everything. And there's a limit to how much weight a clue can carry.
I realized while reading Rex that I got some of the answers only by misappropriating something -- GAYNOR, thinking of Mitzi, and TOADETTE by analogy to Smurfette.
Another thing I tend not to remember is the names of characters in books. I spent many nanoseconds trying to remember the names of the two main guys in White Teeth, thinking may the Indian one was Ari or Apu (nope); finally, ERSATZ gave the game away.
I did know WAP, though. Once you learn it, you probably won't forget it.
A very fun Thursday with a clever trick. It's my favorite day of the week, done right. Great clue for TOUPEE. SIESMO is a valid prefix, clued well. Loved seeing WAP and imagining the pearl clutching that would ensue. I was surprised to hear that TULSA is in the Midwest, but Google confirms this is sometimes considered the case. Who knew?
I'd like to add crooner Mel TORME to Rex's list of names from my youth. And yet the constructor doesn't look that old... twenty something? I haven't thought of MR BILL for decades.
I thought this was quite a satisfying Thursday puzzle. Like others I sometimes tried to fit the wrong preposition into the phrase, eg "COME [TO below] THE WIRE"?... what the heck does that mean?
Typeover: I T GIRL before I T GURU. I.T. girls and I.T. guys!
@jberg I think we're all sick over the election results - at least most of us here in NYC. Haven't been able to think straight ...
Yes! Let's blame my not getting the theme 2 days in a row on the election! Hope you're feeling better :)
Wasn't SEISMO the long lost cousin who visited Cosmo Kramer on an episode of "Seinfeld"?
Agree with Rex on fill (and "seismo," lol). Tormé crossing Geer is a Natick if I ever saw one, particularly for anyone under the age of 60.
Many artists have recorded the song, but Joplin's rendition is widely considered the definitive version. She didn't "just" sing it. She belted it. That performance, recorded just days before her death, has been called the perfect match of performer and material."
Very easy, even given the totally unknowns or the hideous: SUHWEET (not), BROSPEAK, WIIU, WAP, SEISMO, TOADETTE.
Rex's writeup is much better than the puzzle.
ALII?? I'm an attorney and use both et al and et alia. Never heard of et alii.
Am I the only one who wanted "Make do?" to be POOPED?
I liked the theme and enjoyed trying to figure it out. I agree the fill was pretty terrible, especially WIIU (are you kidding me?), ALII and SUHWEET, which I hate as an answer in a crossword puzzle. One of those random “spellings” that could be anything.
Yep, alii got me too!
Enjoyed your puzzle, Joe. Well done!
Anonymous 2:22 pm
Disagree about Torme.
The very fact that he is well known to my generation and older by definition ( see Rex’s definition) means he is too well known to be a natick. QED
Not uncommon. Thought Rex went overboard with his criticism. It did have critic as an answer I see.
Other than agree that the theme was very easy for a Thursday, I thought it was well done.
Don’t understand all the criticism about SEISMO.
What is odd about seismology or seismologist?
I agree that the names were used to toughen up the puzzle. But they did very in age. Some didn’t like TORME. Old crosswordese btw. Then there’s TOADETTE.
Thought the puzzle was fair
FWIW the Waltons is an old show . I am old but I had no clue about GEER. Needed all the crosses.
WAP
Well snafu a common crossword answer hides in reality an obscene word Don’t see the difference here.
🙄
Both exist. I never fill in the final letter without checking the cross
@Anon 2:30 exactly! She absolutely OWNED that song.
I think it's not been remarked that the theme has an additional tightness: the TOs are moved in the directions indicated by their position in the grid. Excellent construction there but made the theme even easier.
Wrote in OSBORNE immediately having never heard of the person and could not believe they'd give such an easy clue on a Thursday. Surely this Ozzie was actually a Charles or something. They put (a form of) the answer in the clue, a no-no. Like clueing JAMES with 'Jimmy Hoffa's full first name' or IDLY with 'In an idle manner'.
Oh great the boomers have arrived. Let the pearl clutchers have at it. Can't handle a song about a woman's genitalia?
I’m not a consummate logophile or an ardent sesquipedalian, but I secretly aspire to these sobriquets, therefore, whenever I spell “okay,” I spell it out as I do with other words even when texting. It irks me when my 58-year-old brother texts “obvi.” (Or maybe I admire it, I’m ambivalent.) However, as to Greeks verbalizing in brospeak, I defer to the New Yorker article where in passing, it remarks, “Élite brospeak, like the fraternity-and-surfing-derived lexicon of bros more largely, is intensely, problematically male, but it is something more specific, too. It is ambitious.” Here one should infer that normal brospeak belongs both to surfers and fraternities including, or maybe even specifically, college fraternities, i.e. Greeks.
Just wanted to say that I loved “the Plum Pudding Model” reference, but then I’ve added tremendously to the Wikipedia articles on the atom and Quantum Mechanics since 2004 even writing a book on the subject. It’s quite a recurring topic for popular science shows by Neil DeGrasse Tyson et al, as well as most Physics classes introducing atomic theory.
Sadly, no. Guilty as charged.
My turn to be nitpicky: Mr. Bill may have been clay, but he was not claymation, which would indicate that his shorts were painstakingly manipulated frame by frame, creating the illusion of motion. In the shorts, Mr. Hand and Mr. Sluggo meted out their physical abuse of the poor puppet in real time and the only special effect was editing.
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