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Maori ceremonial dance / WED 11-27-24 / Singer known as the "Queen of Tejano Music" / Good-looking couple? / Possesses a certain je ne sais quoi
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Hi, everyone, it’s Clare (again)! You thought you were rid of me for a month, but I’m actually back to cover the last Wednesday of November, too. Let’s all collectively wish Rex a happy (now belated) birthday! And let’s also just forget I signed off yesterday by saying I’d see everyone in December and already wished people a happy Thanksgiving. We’ll just apply that all to this write-up, instead. The peril of doing these posts back-to-back is that I don’t have anything exciting to tell you about my sports teams, and I know how much you all look forward to that.
Anywho, on to the puzzle…
Relative difficulty: Medium-challenging (for a Wednesday)
THEME: THE THREE SISTERS — (39A: Corn, beans and squash, in Mesoamerican tradition ... or a hint to six answers in this puzzle) — the theme answers are two groups of three famous sisters
Theme answers:
- ANNE (5A: Member of an 1800s literary family)
- CHARLOTTE (17A: Member of an 1800s literary family)
- EMILY (18A: Member of an 1800s literary family)
- KOURTNEY (45A: Member of a 2000s showbiz family)
- KIM (50A: Member of a 2000s showbiz family)
- KHLOE (61A: Member of a 2000s showbiz family)
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir is a 2021 memoir by Michelle Zauner, singer and guitarist of the musical project Japanese Breakfast. It is her debut book, published on April 20, 2021, by Alfred A. Knopf. It is an expansion of Zauner's essay of the same name which was published in The New Yorker on August 20, 2018. The title mentions H Mart, a North American supermarket chain that specializes in Korean and other Asian products. After Zauner's mother Chongmi died of pancreatic cancer in October 2014, Zauner frequently made trips to H Mart, an experience she chronicled in her New Yorker essay and in "Real Life: Love, Loss and Kimchi" which won Glamour Magazine's 11th essay contest. (Wiki)
• • •
The idea of THE THREE SISTERS (39A) is clever — as long as you’re OK with the Bronte and Kardashian sisters being put on the same level. (I’m not.) Basically, I like how the groupings are structured and that the puzzle focuses on women. And it’s executed well. But… the Kardashian sisters in the puzzle? Really? I get that the idea was to have an older reference juxtaposed with a more modern one — and there are fewer famous trios of sisters than you might imagine — but it just felt wrong to have these two families together. As much as I hate “Wuthering Heights,” I was more than happy to see EMILY Bronte (18A) in the puzzle but groaned when I realized the puzzle was going to make me put in each Kardashian sister. One family had talent! Contributed to society! Wrote some of the best books in literary history! The other… If you can get past the Kardashian thing, there were a number of points to like about the puzzle. In particular, I enjoyed ROOT WORDS (63A: Linguistic "stems"), ERSATZ (30D: Fake), and GATEAU (25D: Patisserie purchase). I loved TORTOISES (37A: Symbols of longevity in Chinese iconography) and how the answer was clued. Having ICU (31A: Hospital dept. that sounds like a sentence), indicating the sentence “I see you,” crossing I SEE (31D: “Understood”) was clever. There was a thread in the puzzle of words in different languages, which I rather enjoyed — BEL ESPRIT (66A) (French), ERSATZ (30D) (German), GATEAU (25D) (French), NOEL (58D) (French), EIRE (4D) (Gaelic), SAN (48A) (Spanish), OLE (64D) (Spanish), and HAKA (40D) (Maori). The foreign words did make things slightly more challenging in spots. I’m glad Anthony DOERR (29D: Pulitzer-winning novelist) is in the puzzle — he’s the author of “All the Light We Cannot See,” which is a fantastic book, and “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” which pales only in comparison with the perfection of the former.
This puzzle was so very heavy on proper nouns. I mentioned the proper nouns yesterday because there seemed to be a fair number. But today? Wow! I counted 26 in this puzzle. I mean you have to have the six names of the sisters, but even just starting the puzzle (going with the downs), you have five proper nouns in a row (ACCRA, COHEN, H MART, EIRE, and CLARA). CLARA Schumann (15D) was one I didn’t know (even though she’s *so* close to having the perfect name). She was a German pianist and composer and was apparently one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era (at least according to Wikipedia).
My struggle in the puzzle mainly came with BEL ESPRIT (66A: Clever person), which is a term I’ve just never heard before, and the literal translation, “pretty spirit,” doesn’t really suggest a clever person. That was atop SLED (68A: Flexible Flyer, for one), which was another challenging one for me because I’d never heard of a Flexible Flyer (though in hindsight the clue makes sense). Combine those difficulties with 46D: Fit together, where I tried to put “nestle” instead of NESTED, and I spent some precious time working that section out. I wish we didn’t need to have THE SAHARA (42A: Home to horned vipers and deathstalker scorpions), which looks especially clunky right on top of THE THREE SISTERS (39A) (even if the construction may have been deliberate). My last little gripe is with the clue for TYPE O (67A: Universal donor's classification) because O-negative is the universal donor. O-positive is not.
Misc.:
Signed, Clare Carroll, who really won’t be back now until December (probably)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Misc.:
- The lyrics of “Over the Rainbow” (21D) made me think about the movie “Wicked” and its press tour. So here’s your daily reminder to really hold space for the lyrics to “Defying Gravity” today. (And if you don’t know what I mean, congrats on not being chronically online. You can see what I’m talking about here, which has been all over my social media feeds and is too iconic not to share. Holding hands is out — holding pointer fingers is in.)
- I tried to close my window by only hitting ESC (20A: Key to close a window), but it didn’t work. I suppose that, these days, it needs to be used in combination with another key.
- I’ve always been partial to TORTOISEs and turtles — did you know there’s a tortoise named Jonathan who hatched in 1832 who’s still alive?! And there are several mythologies that feature the idea of a turtle carrying the world on their back (either supporting or containing it), which is an idea I love.
- If you somehow managed to miss the HAKA (40D: Maori ceremonial dance) being performed in the New Zealand Parliament by MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke to protest and halt a bill being introduced, you must watch this powerful video.
- My worlds collided a bit with "Crying in H MART" and BTS. The author was really excited when a BTS member, Jungkook, held up the book during a livestream, and she’s also said she’d love to cast another BTS member, RM, in the film adaptation!
And that’s all from me!
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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113 comments:
Tough! I said last Friday’s was Wednesday easy. Today’s was Friday tough for me with the bottom half tougher than the top.
In the SW I wanted O NEG (Hi @ Clare) which wouldn’t fit, and EGO and FLIP did not spring to mind from the clues.
In the SE BEL ESPRIT was a major WOE.
The revealer was also a WOE along with CLARA, HAKA, HMART, TORTOISES…tough.
Not that fond of this one. First, equating the Brontes with the Kardashians borders on criminal and second calling the Kardashians “Showbiz” implies they have talent (Hi again @Clare) which is just wrong!
My immediate thought was Chekhov had to be turning in his grave to have this revealer but not his Three Sisters. So just for fun, I worked out how to add his sisters to the grid. Put OLGA at 57D, IRINA at 51D, and MARIA at 16A.
Change 9A to ALTAR and 22A to BOSS (giving AME, LAMBS, TRIO, AILS, and RAYS for the downs in that section).
At the bottom, change 49A to SON, 59A to TORERO, 63A to LETITSLIP, 66A to GRAPEVINE, 68A to ADDS, and 69A to PSAS (giving NERD, TAD, NOTIPS, ENOTE, RSVP, KELIS, and MOPES for the non-Chekhov downs).
Obviously, the middle would need to be regridded to account for the Z changing to S at the start of 49A. And with more than 10 minutes, I'm sure I could have found smoother downs in the south. But since the sisters never got to Moscow, it seems only fair to get them into the NYTXW!
After brief hesitation, hiccup-free play throughout. Wednesday appropriate, fancied it, two big thumbs up.
Slight misdirects at 2d and 15d, as Cohen is firstly recalled as a composer, singer, and Wieck as a pianist. I paused dropping the first but banged in CLARA on recalling a 30 or 40-pg section about Robert from an old collective biography I'd plucked off shelf at my univ. lib. after attending a performance of the Rhenish. I'd an exam the next day but was transfixed by the description of Schumann's demise, going mad, presumably from the mercury prescribed for syphilis, and then, still composing, admitted after attempting to take his life.. where he later met his end. And, by the salacious speculation that the young Brahms, who moved in with CLARA, sired her eighth, as Robert came apart.
Well, that bit, apocryphal or no, ties in well with the Kardashian saga, over which Rip is anticipating much excoriation from The Rex [UPDATE: Hey! Enough with the pissing around. Knock it off. Get back to work.]. Yeah, so I'd no issue with their entrée - easy, rapid fill, for one, and two, the ready imagery of BEL ESPRIT, GATEAU, HAKA, even MASTS (racing sailboats), and TAOS (standout visit two seasons back), more than made up for the booby inclusion.
Uh huh, def. liked it. Riprock approves. Dayum.
Wednesday Medium for me.
How sad, @Clare, that you're too young to have enjoyed the wonders of a Flexible Flyer sled racing down a ... well, not mountain exactly but a neighborhood hill.
Overwrites:
Erin before EIRE at 4D
At 41D I left the middle square open because I wasn't sure if it was RHiNE or RHONE
mEShED before NESTED at 46D
(before reading the clue) fOOThOlDS before ROOT WORDS at 63A
WOEs:
BEL ESPRIT at 66A
I was going to say Anthony DOERR at 29D, but thanks to @Claire I realized that I've read Cloud Cuckoo Land without recognizing the author
HAKA, the Maori dance at 40D
Nifty piece of trivia about ACCRA at 1D
Hi Clare,
Your comment about "Flexible Flyer" implies that you thought it was a description. in fact it is a famous, venerable brand name and everyone over 50 years old had one as a kid!
Yeah. Debasing the Brontës by this gratuitous grouping with the Kardashians and causing revulsion in solvers by the very inclusion of the Kardashians does not make for a good puzzle.
Finished it without cheating, but it was a slog. Couldn't imagine that the show biz family was the Kardashians...I agree that comparing them to the Bronte family is an insult to the latter. I guessed at BELESPRIT and the music sounded. Hard puzzle, but with a clever theme that would have been better if the show biz family were legit.
I hate that I know this but there is at least one more famous sister named Kylie even if she has a different baby daddy it makes the answer messy IMHO. I would have preferred to see Magda, Eva and ZaaZsa (Gabor)... And makes me wish Mathew and Tina Knowles had tried for a third. According to Wikipedia, Solange and Beyonce are the first sisters to have both had number one solo albums
I was pretty lost for a Wednesday. The puzzle leaned a little heavy on the proper nouns for my taste. In addition to the five downs in the NW mentioned by Clare, there’s the two across themers in that section, so I was well and truly stumped out of the gate.
I’m glad Clare likes the foreign language entries, but I’m not a fan. Neither GATEAU nor BEL ESPRIT are familiar enough for a mid-week puzzle in my opinion. Those spots were also challenging.
Not for me - in fact I hated it. I saw Emily in there and suspected the Brontë babes would be involved somehow (don’t know anything about them). I also suspected the Kardashians were abetting this disaster - the only thing I know about them is that they are to be avoided at all costs.
And to add insult to injury, the rest of the grid is strewn with two of my absolute favorite things in all of CrossLandia - Proper names and foreign names and phrases. Hard pass for me - too much of it was wheelhouse stuff and I’m more of a word play guy. Hopefully they will come up with something that is more Southside-friendly for Turkey Day.
Your Chekov solution is brilliant, @Adam S. I toyed with swapping out the sisters K with the three Gabor sisters, but stalled after Eva and Zsa Zsa. Had to look up the third name (Magda, too tough for a Wednesday).
A minor point, but one that bugged me: isn’t the river with the largest inflow into the Mediterranean the Nile, not the Rhône?
The Brontë "babes?" Wow.
It’s Claire Tuesday, come on a Wednesday! (Ancient Pogo allusion there.) As a kid, I used to drool over those pictures of Flexible Flyers in the Sears Roebuck catalog and was disappointed every Christmas when Santa would fail to bring me one. Looking back, it might have been because I grew up and Texas, far from either snow or hills…
All of us O negs had trouble at that TYPEO, I’m guessing.
If I knew how to include a link, I’d put one here to Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio, which is absolutely beautiful. Several good performances on YouTube.
Yes to TYPE O rankling as it's incomplete without the 'negative'.
Played hard for a Wednesday, in part due to the number of proper names. Clare says there are 26. My count came in slightly higher, at 6.4 billion, but same ballpark. I always feel that if your theme is based on proper names, you should limit them as much as you can in the rest of the puzzle. But what I feel and what the NYTXW staff feel are clearly two different things, and I don't know why I keep expecting that to change.
The Escape key is so labeled because it sends the ASCII escape character (Decimal 27). The intent was to give an alternative meaning to the characters that followed. At the time of his invention, there were no such things as graphic displays with windows.
Glad to have another Clare day. A nice surprise. I, too, had the "Oh no, please no!" response to the K's appearance. It reminded me of Charo*, who, like the K's, was famous for being famous. Later it amused me because the contrast is so outrageous.
*Those of a certain age will remember her. She's now 73.
I suspect there’s a bit of Gallic hubris to assert that the Rhône, fine river that it is, would have a larger discharge than the world’s longest, i.e., the Nile. Wikipedia says the average Nile flow is almost 2x that of the Rhône although I suspect much more seasonal. And both are less than the Danube, which dumps into the Med via the Black Sea and the Bosporus.
Couldn't get past the Kardashian thing. This puzzle sucked.
I went to hear Matti Friedman speak in NYC two years ago about his book on Leonard COHEN's visit to Israel during the 1973 war. It's Who By Fire and is excellent IMO. I bought a copy and stood in line to have Friedman sign it. When I reached him, I mentioned that I heard Cohen perform in 1971 at Brandeis. He signed it "To an old Leonard Cohen fan." (Ouch.)
The side trips made this solve especially rich:
• COHEN – Hearing him sing in my head, that rich, heart-moving voice of his.
• Learning HAKA, especially viewing the video that Clare posted.
• Thinking that ICU must have been clued with the “sentence” angle many times before in all the crossword venues, then finding out that no it hasn’t, not even once. In fact, after seeing how dull all the ICU clues have been, giving CLAPS for originality and spark.
• GATEAU got me thinking about its lovely rhymes (CHATEAU, PLATEAU, BATEAU), which to me thinking about EAU-ending words I love: nouveau, bureau, chapeau, Juneau, portmanteau, trousseau, flambeau … and the images of Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.
Other likes include the lovely word ERSATZ, the schwa-de-vivre of eight answers ending in that sound, the cutest-ever clue for ANT – [A little buggy?] – and learning BEL ESPRIT.
Yes, a rich and very pleasing start to the day. Thank you so much for this, Jill!
The C in COHEN is from the crossing ACHE (1A). In "Tower of Song," he sings: Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey. I ACHE in the places where I used to play.
Simply not fun. A proper noun, trivia and foreign language bonanza.
The NW corner made this impossible for me. Just one proper noun after the next. ACCRA, COHEN, HMART all next to each other is just absurd, especially on a Wednesday. If you've never heard of HMART, just forget it. Ditto for ACCRA. Had FLY instead of ANT but it wouldn't have mattered at all. Why is the NYT so obsessed with cramming trivial PPP into every puzzle these days?? Horrible puzzle, especially with the sickening Kardashian family shoehorned in there.
i, too, could have done without the kardashians. surely there are other "three sisters" out there.
Similar issues with the Southeast. My Kardashians lore failed me, and blanked even on "KIM" (my brain settled firmly on PAM for whatever reason, which caused many problems indeed); having failed this rather basic test of cultural awareness should probably surrender myself to The Authorities as an "illegal".
Hey All !
Was really looking forward to a RexScreed on the Kardashians. Dang.
Odd puz. Two groups of THREE SISTERS, not symmetrically placed in the grid, yet the grid is symmetrical. Only 36 Blockers, but placed in a way to get cut-off sections of the puz. NE/SW only accessable by one letter, and that letter is an ender in the NE, a Starter in the SW.
Hadn't heard of those vegetables referenced as such, but easily grokkable from crossers.
Was thinking of the Marquette family first, Rosanna, Patricia, Alexis, not the surgically enhanced, famous for being "socialites" Kardashians. For you youngsters out there, their father was one of the lawyers defending OJ Simpson from his murder charge, and then they became "famous".
Anyway, gotta go to THE work after taking THE shower. I drive past a street named THE SAHARA to get there. 😁
Happy Wednesday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
I knew so many of these references today it was almost eerie. The “Stuff you Missed in History Class” discussed the Haka in the NZ Parliament, which was the first time I heard that term and didn’t know the spelling but that worked out to be pretty much phonetic. I speak a bit of French so the French clues are pretty easy, no German thankfully. The two books you mentioned by Doerr are two of my favorites as well so that was easy, and I just felt like the only thing I never heard of was “The Three Sisters” as a Mexican dish but easy enough to figure out. Literally my lucky day. Now I’m curious, why do you hate ‘Wuthering Heights?” Happy Thanksgiving!!!!
Thank you CLARE - this one had me so irate that I had to comment for the first (ever) thanks for calling out the offense of putting that trio of public parasites on the same page as the Brontes. It felt so sad to finish the puzzle - shame on Jill Singer. Shame! And thanks again for calling that out. And a happy Thanksgiving to you!
Any rugby union fan will be intimately familiar with the Haka as performed by the formidable All Blacks before every international rugby match with the purpose of intimidating the opposition.
Basically a hard People Magazine puzzle.
2 THE’s (one of which is the revealer, so, yeah, don’t repeat that in THE puzzle)
2 ridiculously segmented corners. Whole thing felt like Mini’s tenuously stitched together….by names
Speaking of which. Just names, names, names. Everywhere names. Definitely a November to remember on names.
The ITSY/SEAR crossing is poor editing when ITTY/TEAR work as clued.
Haha…”everyone” had one who lived in areas that got enough snow to sled AND isn’t flat as a pancake. The area where I grew up would always get “dustings” and accumulations that didn’t cover the tips of the grass. I had only ONE winter where I could actually make a snowman, and it was pretty puny.
Loved it!
My point exactly as to my previous post on sleds!
I didn’t even get halfway through attempting the puzzle before I said, “this is REALLY hard for a Wednesday.” Once I got a few answers and figured out who the groups of sisters were I got it pretty easily but still the app said it was 19 minutes slower than my average.
I honestly don’t think putting the two families in the same puzzle is comparing them to each other, so that didn’t phase me at all. They’re just names that fit. I didn’t know Anne Brontë. (I knew they had a third sister but didn’t remember the name).
Charo was actually (as I understand it) a very talented classical guitarist who leveraged her looks and personality into a level of fame she could never reach just by playing the guitar. As such, I say, Good for her!
Was there perhaps an implied “highbrow” and “lowbrow” in the placement of the two different trios in the grid?
Oddly, no. Here is what I found:
Ranked according to annual discharge, the ten largest rivers contributing to the Mediterranean Sea are the Rhone, Po, Drin-Bojana, Nile, Neretva, Ebro, Tiber, Adige, Seyhan, and Ceyhan. These rivers account for half of the mean annual discharge, with the Rhone and the Po alone accounting for already one-third of it (Ludwig et al. 2009). Of the three continents that discharge into the Mediterranean Sea, Europe dominates, with a climatological mean annual discharge that accounts for half of the total.
Those wonderful Brontes, so sober and serious:
Wrote them all in with a great deal of ease.
Those stupid Kardashians? Much more mysterious!
Which are the "K" names and which are the "C"s?
SKIT enabled me to change cHLOE to KHLOE. Is it HACA or HAKA for the dance and is it, therefore, COURTNEY or KOURTNEY. Such a silly dilemma -- but I'll go and take a peek now. I didn't know about the corn, beans and squash thing, but this is a cute puzzle with an impressively dense theme.
Michelle Zauner and Leonard Cohen next to each other? Hallelujah to that Japanese Breakfast!
Other than that? Wow, what a mess.
-- Tying together a centuries-old literary trio and a current famous-for-being-famous trio with a Mesoamerican food tradition? Uh, sure, OK.
-- Calling the K-clan a "showbiz family" rather than a "famebiz family"? Uh, sure, OK.
-- HMART, ISEE, TYPEO and ENEWS. OHMY and OHHI. THETHREESISTERS on top of THESAHARA. All in the same grid? Uh, sure, OK.
-- Not one, but two rows that veer into OOPLEXTERNON territory: ANTREGATS and SANZENKIM? Uh, sure, OK.
-- BELESPRIT on a Wednesday? Uh, sure, OK.
I lost track of how may times I said "God is this stupid" out loud.
We don't get snow here, but I had a Flexible Flyer. They made one with wheels. We called them flexies. We didn't use them on hills in the city because they didn't have good brakes. They were still fun to scoot around on.
I agree. Everything I read says that the Nile surpasses the RHONE in volume drained into the Mediterranean. Looks like a major clueing error. It should have probably read “River that provides the largest inflow into the Mediterranean from Europe.” It would be interesting to hear the NYT’s explanation of why they clued it that way.
I'll agree with Clare on "Wuthering Heights". I didn't like that book at all because the love relationship was as dysfunctional as it gets. I did like "Jane Eyre" and I've never read anything by Anne (sorry Anne). But I disagree with Clare on "All the Light We Cannot See" which I found highly overrated. It didn't do anything for me.
As for the Kardashians, funnily enough, I've never read any books by them.
The puzzle was very hard for a Wednesday. It wasn't until I saw COMIC that I was able to get HMART though I have heard of the book. And GATEAU was a long time coming because of that annoying clue for REG. _ATEA_ had me wondering if there was a cAT EAr pastry (similar to an elephant's ear but pointy?)
Am I the only one for whom RHINE/RHONE is a kealoa? I just leave the center blank and wait for the cross. Geography is not my specialty. (See ACCRA.)
Thanks, Jill Singer. I won't soon forget the pairing of the Brontë sisters with the Kardashians.
Having grown up in Oregon, THETHREESISTERS will always first bring to mind the beautiful volcanic Cascade peaks of the same name. Unfortunately, they would be a poor choice to substitute for the much reviled Kardashians, as their individual names are South Sister, Middle Sister and ...... (wait for it)......North Sister!
I'm not down on TYPEO as an answer. But then, my blood type is my motto: B Positive.
If your medical needs are not extreme, they just put you in the Care Unit. Now that I'm started on this line of thought, I'm imagining Rodney Dangerfield saying, " I tell ya, I don't get no respect. The other day I checked into the hospital and they put me in the I Don't Care Unit."
Anywho (hi, @Clare), a fun visit to the sorority today. Thanks, Jill Singer.
I don't share the clutched pearls over the inclusion of the Kardashian sisters. They are three super famous sisters. There was no "equally talented" descriptor, just three well-known sisters in different time periods. This is the time that we live in, for better or worse, and the 1800s were worse in almost every way. As a progressive person who has just watched as the country has fallen prey to a conman pitching happier times when inequality was the norm, I fear that this constant virtue signaling (yes, I know it's a controversial term but it's not without some truth) is turning people off in droves. Let's lighten up a little, for the sake of the republic if nothing else.
Also found this challenging. Had ITtY instead of ITSY which made it hard to see SEAR because until I reread the clues (tEAR being a perfectly reasonable word that would have appeared in a Wednesday puzzle.) 16:22
Unlike the Kardashians, Charro is actually very talented!
Fine with the Kardashians. C’mon. At least ego and Enews are there with them. Having THE atop THE though, as Clare pointed out, is clunky especially with NOT next to NOT at 7 & 8 D. I can’t support that. Itsy was tricky. Had itty. As sear and tear both work at 43A. Would’ve like knee instead of sled for flexible flyer?
Hard for a Wednesday only because of the K's from this vapid reality show.
Medium-Challenging. I fumbled around getting next to nothing for longer than I'd expect on a Wednesday. The NW was rough right away with 1A (I knew that "long" was in the "yearn" sense but ACHE/PINE is a classic kealoa, and there's also ITCH) plus the clues for CHARLOTTE and ANNE which don't help at all when you've got no letters. I got CHARLOTTE instantly after I saw ANNE, but I initially thought the puzzle was asking for literary characters. The rest of the puzzle was way off my wavelength, and the onslaught of unknown names didn't help.
Im with you, S.J.
@Clare, thank you for the lovely write-up!
Easy here, thanks to luck of the draw on the proper names. I'll give the puzzle credit for pulling the rug out from under me with that Bronte-Kardashian juxtaposition. I was sailing along happily with ANNE, CHARLOTTE, and EMILY, fully expecting them to be joined by three Chekov SISTERS: (hi, @Adam S et.al.). Well, NOT, as they say. Still, I did know all their K names. Otherwise...I found the puzzle fun to solve and thank @Clare for her second paragraph which says so well why. I took REREAD under CHARLOTTE as a gentle nudge.
Me, too: For "showbiz" thinking first of the Gabors. Help from previous puzzles: CERA. Help from. doing the Spelling Bee: HAKA.
Yes, agree!
The Kardashians would be the current-day equivalent of the Gabors, except Eva Gabor was a successful TV actress. Zsa Zsa was famous for being famous, and Magda was famous for being Zsa Zsa's sister.
Agree that the Kardashians brought this puzzle down a notch or two. What stuck out to me was the OHMY of 54 down right under the OHHI of 35 down right under the COHEN of 2 down. OH OH OH!!!
THE THREE SISTERS right above THE SAHARA - yuck. That THE dupe alone would be bad enough, but the inclusion of THE for SAHARA is a puzzle-killer.
@Clare: A better translation for BEL ESPRIT would be BEAUTIFUL MIND, although my New Oxford American Dictionary says it means "witty person". As for those who thought of the Gabor sisters and Charo, does anyone remember PIA ZADORA?
Agree with Clare’s write up word for word. From “Ugh Khloe” to “WTF is a Bel Esprit?” and “THE Sahara? Really?”
When I was doing the puzzle and found the Kardashians (which I got instantly. You have to give them credit for ubiquity, if not quality contributions) I was thinking how absolutely apoplectic this would make Rex (the NYT was like “Happy Birthday. We got you the Brontes AND the Kardashians!”) At least they weren’t clued as literary sisters though I’m sure all of them have “written” books. Also, isn’t this Jenner erasure?) so it’s probably good Clare did the write up today.
Duplicates!!! Oh hi and oh my. The and the. Names and names.
Upon reflection, I would have gone with the Olsen Sisters - Mary-Kate, Ashley, and Elizabeth. Not as ubiquitous, but famous enough for Wednesday, and at least more talented.
Easy-medium here. I knew the Bronte sisters and in fact knew THETHREESISTERS as clued right away, but it took some deep thought to remember that all those Kardashians started with a K, just like Roger Clemens's sons. Not facts I am proud of knowing.
The hill right behind my house was the neighborhood place for SLEDs so I've seen many a Flexible Flyer. There was even a smallish jump where you could get some air, and I vividly remember a, well, very heavy boy getting some big air and squashing his Flexible Flyer flat as a pancake on landing. He was not amused, but the rest of us surely were.
BELESPRIT took almost every cross. I knew it was French but have always thought that the masculine form of ''belle" was "beau", so BEL was a surprise. Live and learn.
I really enjoyed both the DOERR books but can never remember his last name. Maybe after today.
I enjoyed your Wednesday offering JS, but putting the B Sisters and the K Sisters together wasn't great. Just Sayin'. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
Well, shoot --- ANNE*, SELENA, & JILL ... THE THREE SINGERS are also in the puz. Almost 3 of any name U can think of, actually.
* = Anne Murray, say. (There were probably also some singin CLARAs, too boot.)
staff weeject pick: KIM. honored as a themer, in the low-tier sister themerset.
some fave stuff: COMICBOOK. TORTOISES. HMART & ENEWS. OHHI & OHMY.
The 3 super-no-knows: HAKA. BELESPRIT. HMART.
The 3 C-dudes: CHE. CERA. COHEN.
The 3 spots: PASADENA. THESAHARA. ACCRA.
The 3 other spots: EIRE. TAOS. ASIA.
The 3 abbrevers: HTTP. USSR. ICU.
The 3 blank-fillers: SAN. NOEL. NOT.
etc.
Thanx, Ms. Singer darlin.
Masked & Anonymo2Us [Near miss, for THE THREE U'S.]
p.s. Happy T-Day again, Ms. Clare darlin. [CLARA = a near-miss Clare.] Are we gonna have THE THREE CLARESUBS, as of tomorrow?
no spam was used in dreamin up this here runtpuz:
**gruntz**
I agree. Thank you very much for your brilliant suggestion.
Clara (Klara?) Wieck married famed composer Robert Schumann and had to see him suffer mental health issues. Indeed she was a wonderful composer and pianist in her own right.
Two THEs on top of each other is an unforgivable sin. Blech.
Thank you Clare. It's always great having you fill in.
I came here to say the same. I had ITSY/SEAR and took a while to figure out what the puzzle wanted there.
I typed that wrong. I meant I had ITTY/TEAR at first. They could have tightened up the clues there. Either mention the spider in 38D or be more specific in 43A.
Good Wednesday puzzle, though.
Two THE answers on top of each other? What's going on with the NYT Crossword?!
Give a listen to her flamenco guitar playing and you will have a new found respect.
Even as a (long ago) French major, BEL ESPRIT is a pretty deep cut. @Clare, it may help to know that while "esprit" can be translated directly as "spirit," it can also mean "mind" or "wit."
Busy this morning with a plumber at my house, which is not something you want the day before Thanksgiving. But I am thankful to have gotten someone to respond promptly and not charge an arm and a turkey leg.
The puzzle. Solid overall but I don’t enjoy any grid that starts out with three proper names in the first three down clues, then crosses them with a proper name and another proper title referenced in a clue. That entire NW corner was like pulling teeth. And a clever theme idea, but it fell with a huge thud because if you ask me what a mixture of corn, beans and squash is called, I’m going to say “succotash.” Never heard of any dish, American or otherwise, called THREE SISTERS. And who/what on earth is BELESPRIT? Those two mysteries combined with all the names did not make much fun. Add to that the ickiness of equating the accomplished and eternally classic Brontë sisters with a trio of vapid, materialistic consumers. Bah, humbug!
Clare, that was a terrific writeup, covering your like and dislikes, with astute observations, and throwing in topics from all over the place, all of them, to me, interesting.
I hadn't heard of "Crying in H Mart". I wondered whether it might be a companion piece to "Billy Broke My Heart in Walgreens (then I Cried All the Way to Sears)" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8Urt7SKLI0
Aha! Here's how to deal with theme entries that don't have matching letter counts. Just ignore the need to put them in symmetrically opposite locations in the grid. Only one of the THREE SISTERS pairs, EMILY and CHLOE are symmetrically placed in the grid. For ANNE, it's SLED and for CHARLOTTE, it's ROOT WORDS.
Given the unusual asymmetrical placement of some of the themers, the stacked, repetitive arbitrary definite article THE over THE (THREE SISTERS and SAHARA could stand alone) and the crazy "@@@" for ATS*, I can't help but wonder if this puzzle got some editorial special dispensation because it redresses the often lamented tendency for puzzles to have more male than female names in the grid. (Bonus: We also get SELENA.)
When I saw 20A "Key to close a window", rather than spell it out I actually just hit the ESC key! D'oh!
*Haven't seen M&A's post yet but I'm betting 26A ATS is his weeject of the day.
Pleased to see I wasn't the only one wondering how the Kardashians fit I don't think of the sort of show they were in as
"show business" which suggests talent and entertainment.
@ Anon6:46 am. "Gateau" is actually used enough in English that I don't consider it a foreign word..
Thanks, Clare, for the link to the Haka in Parliament. I did find that powerful.
I hated this from the very beginning, due to the five (!!) down names in a row that Clare mentions. And it didn't get any better; the theme was not a bad idea but the Kardashians really spoiled it for me. Worst puzzle in a loooooong time.
This puzzle was thematically disappointing. Started out well with the Bronte sisters. Joined by Clara Schumann in the top half of the puzzle, it seemed that the theme might be unconventional, highly accomplished women. Solving the theme mid-puzzle didn't diminish that hope. But pairing the Brontes with the Kardashians??An outright insult to women everywhere (spoken as a male with three highly accomplished sisters). For shame Joel Fagliano!
First of all, the incongruity. TBH. I have never once watched or listened to anything involving the Kardashians, but from what I have heard they are unlikely to be remembered 200 years from now -- unlike the Brontes. I new that they were sisters, and that their names all started with K, but not that there were three of them, and I'd never heard of KOURTNEY. Nevertheless, it was all easy, once I'd reconciled myself to the reality of THE over THE. As Rex probably pointed out, the definite article is generally omitted in crosswords, so that I confidently wrote in THREE SISTERS without bothering to count the letters--but I fixed that quickly enough. The need for THE also accounts for the constructor's choice to go with Native American agronomy rather than Chekhov.
Aside from that, the hardest part was the ITTy/ITSY kealoa. I never did figure out what was "long-term" about Guevara's second-in-command position--I think the clue was overly precise there--but at 3 letters it had to be CHE.
But the incongruity--I can't decide whether to love it or hate it. I'll go see what the rest of you thought.
This puzzle was thematically disappointing. Started out well with the Bronte sisters. Joined by Clara Schumann in the top half of the puzzle, I thought the theme might be unconventional, highly accomplished women. Held onto that hope even after solving theme mid-puzzle. But to pair the Brontes with the Kardashians is an insult to women everywhere (said as a male with three accomplished sisters). For shame, Joel Fagliano!
Another great write-up, Clare. Thank you :)
Got a late start (again). I didn't know HAKA, HMART, DOERR but they all worked themselves out.
Trying hard not to be a snob - but - the Kardashians, really? They belong in a TV Guide (does that still exist) crossword - not the NYT. I can barely type their names without wanting to - well, you know what...
Nice puzzle, Jill (except for the above). Thanks :)
I wondered about the "Mesoamerican" descriptor too. Those three crops were all domesticated in that area, but THE THREE SISTERS concept was much broader, extending to New England, for example. As you probably know, the plants complement each other--the squash are not shaded out by the corn, and the beans can twine up the cornstalks. And since beans are nitrogen-fixing, they help keep the soil fertile.
I think it's BEL before a vowel, beau otherwise, just for ease of pronunciation.
To be polite, I think the word I was looking for to describe the Kardashian clue was ... GAG.
After reading everyone's comments, I have decided that I like the incongruity. These Kardashians seem to incur more solver-hate than even rappers-- lighten up folks, they're well known, and do not make the puzzle any harder.
Clare, thanks for posting that video--I'd read about the action (the only way I knew HAKA), but did not really know what the dance looked like.
People should get to know CLARA Schumann, generally thought these days to have been a better composer than her more famous husband. She and Brahms were definitely in love--they had a long correspondence--but the scholarly consensus seems to be that she remained faithful to Robert. But what do I know?
Thanks again, Clare--hope to see you tomorrow!
This old timer had a Flexie with wheels, the better to endanger his life with as a small child on Denslow Avenue in Westwood, Los Angeles.
It does snow there, once in 50 years. My mother woke me up to see it falling outside our windows in 1948 when I was 3.
When will society progress past the self-important outrage of reality television being a thing that millions of people enjoy? You don't have to like the Kardashians or watch their show or buy their products or whatever else they do. But to pretend they aren't culturally relevant enough to be in your precious crossword is extremely silly.
Your shoes were your brakes.
I'm going to try to be charitable (not in the sense of donating money, perish the thought) -- perhaps the constructor was going after the humorous effect of juxtaposing the more refined trio of sisters with the far less refined ones. Like the NYer cartoon in the fancy dining room of the ocean liner. Seated at the table are all the diners dressed to the nines and one fellow shirtless, sweaty, and covered in soot. He's saying: "The captain couldn't make it this evening. I'm the stoker."
I think you mean she has a different daddy. “Baby daddy” means the father of her child(ren), which she also does, but they all have different fathers of their children, which is to be expected.
I have a sister-in-law who has a vacation home in Bend OR so I've seen those "sisters" out there -- beautiful. (Also -- love your IDC Unit.)
I, mercifully, forget the Kardashians are a thing, so I was prepared to enter MARYKATE, ASHLEY, & ELIZABETH.
@Anoa dude: yep. It was indeed a close weeject call. ATS should get an honrable mention, for THE THREE ATSIGNERS.
M&A
Hoy volé de regreso a Nuevo México.
I spent the weekend in Denver playing in a couple of orchestra things and now I'm joining in the pre-Thanksgiving travel madness, so I will probably have covid by Friday. Our gate attendant today had a heavy French accent and I will now forever pronounce Albuquerque the way she did: Al-bu-cyook-cue. When she scanned my boarding pass I said, "merci," and she seemed visibly delighted and said, "de rien." French 101 killin' it.
{Ascends soap box.}
I've glanced at comments prior to writing my comment today fully expecting a fawning reverence for the Brontë family and uninformed contemptuousness for the Kardashians and of course I wasn't disappointed.
So let's look at the scorecard:
The Brontës wrote books and poems and two of those books are a big deal. Anne was dead by 29, Emily at 30, and Charlotte tossed Emily's second novel into the fireplace after her death. Thanks to university English professors, we read the Brontës and place them on a pedestal of 19th century women writers doing more interesting work than many of their male peers. Of course there were plenty of women breaking the glass ceiling of the literary world then, and Charles Dickens was doing reasonably well holding up the male writers' end of the bargain. Still, the three sisters were important women by a long-elapsed standard of excellence.
On the flipside, many of you dislike the Kardashians even though you wouldn't know them if you were in line behind them at the grocery store. (They probably have people to go to grocery stores for them now.) They've written and starred in TV shows, built fashion empires, written the book on how to use social media for fun and profit, contributed millions to charity, and Kim is now worth nearly two Billion dollars. They've broken modern glass ceilings just like our Brontë-babes (gasp, Johnny, fer shame). I love Wuthering Heights, but c'mon folks, we live in a world where we voted for "that guy" to be president, so don't be surprised when the modern way of being powerful sisters seems a little irksome. They'll never be taught by English professors, but I'll bet they're being studied in business schools (at least they should be).
Oh, and Selena and Leonard Cohen are both great too. And I bet they could beat Clara Schumann in corn hole.
{Steps off soap box.}
As for the rest of this gunk-o-rama, if I was picking three foods to immortalize with a slogan, squash would absolutely positively not be one of those. Nasty stringy bits of gloppy goo. I'd go with ice ceam, pizza, and potato chips.
I've never heard of bel esprit, so French 202 for the fail.
TYPEO vs TYPO: The power of silent E. There's a crossword theme in there somewhere. I put in ADOBES for ABODES and I think there's a theme wanting to happen there too.
OH HI, OH MY, I was sad to see GARY was not the answer to [Party pooper].
Propers: 12 {alas}
Places: 9
Products: 3
Partials: 6
Foreignisms: 6
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 36 of 78 (46%) {Swoon. We already had one world record this month and now we've beat that one!}
Funnyisms: 4 🙂
Tee-Hee: Pooper.
Uniclues:
1 One place to find tortured plots, thinly drawn protagonists, questionable artistry, and flocks of geeky admirers.
2 Where Twitter's market value is kept.
3 One of a hundred of those babies makes it.
1 COMIC BOOK HAS IT
2 PASADENA ICU
3 TORTOISE'S HOPE (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: A Realtor's color palette. BEIGE MASHUP.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
not sure how capitalizing the words Flexible Flyer and prefacing them with "a" in the writeup implies she thought it was a description...
i had never heard of it either and i thought it was another brand name for frisbee and had a hard time letting go of DISC.
looking it up it seems to be what i envision as a traditional wooden sled. i think i had one of these when i was very little [born in '83] but of all the wooden sleds and plastic boats and inflatable tube things and whatever else, the best thing i ever had was a cheap, thin, lightweight, fluorescent orange circle with a little rope loop on either side known as a flying saucer. that thing could really fly! there was one really good hill with another very tiny hill/speedbump at the bottom so you'd come racing down the hill, then over the bump and catch some serious air. hours of fun. sadly, those kind of winters where we got enough snow to sled seem to be a thing of the past.
-stephanie.
The "river that provides the largest inflow into the Mediterranean" is, indeed, the Danube, which contributes an annual volume of water approximately 4X that of the Rhone (although indirectly via the Black Sea). To be technically correct, the clue would have need to specify "directly provides". This is a great example of the perils of trying to reduce a complicated subject (like Mediterranean-Black Sea hydrology) to a one-line crossword clue.
River flow measurements on the Nile are not thought to be very good estimates of its actual discharge to the Mediterranean. Losses to evaporation and aquifer recharge downstream of gauge stations are probably larger than past estimates, and the Aswan Dam diverts a dramatic proportion of the river's volume to agricultural use and evaporative loss. The Rhone is currently thought to have the highest volume of discharge directly into the Mediterranean Sea.
See: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222296818_River_discharges_of_water_and_nutrients_to_the_Mediterranean_and_Black_Sea_Major_drivers_for_ecosystem_changes_during_past_and_future_decades
Hard Pass
I was finding the theme unappealing. Too many cutesy clues beyond my liking and tolerance yielding, for example: CLAPS, ANT. Others on the other side of my line for obscurity and things I don't feel a need to put on the table of my brain, possibly pushing something valuable off, like HMART, DOERR. No offense to the puzzle creator intended, and I am a little cranky today after a pair of cortisone shots in my knees, but still... yuk.
Yet I endured and trudged on until... I filled in Kourtney, changing the C to a K. That's when I closed the window and threw the puzzle out. There should have been a WARNING: KARDASHIAN(S) INSIDE.
PS - You could have referenced the HAIM sisters instead: Danielle, Este and Alana, and I would have been very happy today.
I think you may be right! Along with (as Anon 10:41 pointed out) EGO and ENEWS being right there with the lower names.
Well said, thanks. I completely agree. Today's puzzle was excellent and fun.
I have no idea who any of your suggested sisters are - never head of any of them, nor their surname (except the late actor, Corey Haim). Thoroughly enjoyed today's puzzle. Thank you Jill Singer!
Anonymous 6:14 AM
You have a point about Bel esprit. I happened to have studied French so it was not too hard for me But while it has been used in English I haven’t seen it used that much. I note that Claire mistranslated the expression which shows how obscure it is.
Bel is equivalent to beaux in the expression Beaux arts, meaning fine arts. Beau, belle et al have many meanings in French. Beautiful is one of them but so is fine.
On the other hand I would guess gateau is used in English enough for a Wednesday. A lot less obscure anyway.
Rick
About dupes
The Times puzzle under Shortz frequently had dupes; commenters have been complaining for years, usually as if it’s a new thing. It is not, though the present editor may have increased them a bit.
So what’s going on, is business as usual!
Very clever!
Whatsername
I think the Three Sisters refers to the three most important crops before Europeans came. It is not a recipe. In many cultures it also had a religious connotation. I did happen to read about the term in the Times so I have heard of it. Whether it is appropriate for a Wednesday is another story.
I also agree that French term seems very obscure for a Wednesday.
dgd
Wow. A lot of anger.
But I laughed reading Gary’s soap box comments.
I do get the feeling as has been noted that the placing of the 2 trios , one up, one down, was intentional.
I suppose it would be more exact to say 3 personalities. The theme was “three sisters “ famous” understood. Accurate enough. I just can’t understand how that can “destroy “ the puzzle. I paid no attention to them or tried to but I have heard the k names. It was actually an aha when I got the gimmick!
dgd
Wikipedia has the Rhone average discharge at its mouth at about 60,000 cubic feet per second and the Nile at 55,000. A lot of the Nile is used for irrigation and industry before reaching its delta.
I so agree with you as to “All the light we cannot see”
Well thank God we women have you as a man to speak for us.
broke my streak of many years refusing to write in the k**********
I enjoyed this one and found it breezy for a Wednesday. But wow, these comments are ridiculous! I can’t stand the Kardashians either, but it’s just a cheeky clue in a crossword puzzle. It won’t kill ya to write their names.
All this talk of the Flexible Flyer - I had a.vintage one on the wall as a decoration - and not one mention of the indie rock classic by Hüsker Dü? Nobody from Minneapolis on here? It should be a holiday classic by now...
https://youtu.be/6puVWzBmquE?si=CZL2sm7qurUvTdZf
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