Young disciple of an old Titian / SUN 11-10-24 / Blended hair coloring effect / Nickname for Francisco / Musical nickname since the 1980s / East Coast convenience store chain / Broadway gossip / Turner backed by the Ikettes / Daytime annoyance while watching TV / Above the strike zone, to a baseball announcer / ___ de Lesseps of the "Real Housewives" franchise / Yellow-green soft drink per the stylization on its packaging
Sunday, November 10, 2024
Constructor: Sam Ezersky
Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
- STANDARD SUB (23A: Six-inch or footlong?)
- PENSIVE EX (25A: Who might tearfully wonder "Were we just not meant to be ..."?)
- MANAGED MICRO (27A: Made it through Econ 101?)
- PENULTIMATE ANTE (42A: Buy-in the round before going all in?)
- AFRICAN PAN (68A: Vessel for cooking jollof rice or injera bread?)
- SOLVING DIS (70A: "Next time try reading the clue!" or "Stick to sudoku!"?)
- APOCALYPTIC POST (87A: Something in a doomscroller's feed?)
- COMPLETE AUTO (109A: The engine, the steering wheel, the catalytic converter, all of it?)
- VISION PRO (112A: Eye doctor?)
- HEATED SUPER (114A: Someone shouting that maybe YOU should try fixing your apartment?)
Edgar Lee Masters (August 23, 1868 – March 5, 1950) was an American attorney, poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author of Spoon River Anthology, The New Star Chamber and Other Essays, Songs and Satires, The Great Valley, The Serpent in the Wilderness, An Obscure Tale, The Spleen, Mark Twain: A Portrait, Lincoln: The Man, and Illinois Poems. In all, Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry, six novels and six biographies, including those of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Vachel Lindsay, and Walt Whitman.
• • •
As for the (non-theme) fill and clues, they weren't helping make the experience any more entertaining. "YES, BABE"? (101A: "Sure thing, dear"). That doesn't seem like a very coherent, standalone expression, any more than "SURE, BABE" or "OK, BABE" or "LET'S GO TO ARBY'S, BABE" does. You just wrote a clue with a synonym for "YES" and a synonym for "BABE" and then tried to pass it off as a standalone thing. "YES, DEAR" and "YES, MAAM" and "YES, SIR" and "YES I DO" and "YES WE CAN" and "YES, PLEASE," these are all coherent. "YES, BABE" is something one might say, but it does not have standalone status. Boo.
And GET A TIP!?!?!? (2D: What servers and sleuths each hope to do). I want to say this is a real "EAT A SANDWICH"-type answer, but it's actually worse than EAT A SANDWICH, which itself was supposed to be hyperbolically bad in the first place. ONE MONTH is a horrible standalone answer, especially with ONE TON already in the grid. The I LOSE / I WIN thing is bad enough when just one of them appears in the grid (it's never clear whether it'll be "I LOST!" / "I WON!" or "I LOSE!" / "I WIN!"). Cross-referencing just doubled the annoyance. "WAS I?" and "CAN'T I?" feels like going to the interrogative "I?" well one too many times. And who says "CAN'T I?" The equivalent of "Pretty please?" is "CAN I?" not "CAN'T I?" The kids I've known are not this linguistically fancy or formal. On and on these little annoyances kept coming, with very little in the way of fun fill to lighten things up. I really enjoyed "I'M DYING!" and (as clued) UPSTAIRS (82D: Above the strike zone, to a baseball announcer) and GLARE (76A: Daytime annoyance while watching TV). I don't think there was a single other thing in the grid that made me smile. Oh, ALT TEXT is pretty good. Not smile good, but original for sure (Just looked and it is, in fact, a debut).
Do people know how EDGAR LEE Masters is? I'm really torn on that answer, as I love Masters's Spoon River Anthology, a moving and haunting group of elegies, but I hate EDGAR LEE as an answer, in that it's a very long name fragment. It's like having ARTHUR CONAN as an answer. Bah. But again, can't recommend Spoon River Anthology enough. As for the other names in this grid ... LUANN (57A: ___ de Lesseps of the "Real Housewives" franchise) and COLMAN (69D: ___ Domingo, Best Actor nominee for 2023's "Rustin") were complete unknowns, but nothing else gave me much trouble, that I can remember. It's so weird to me that not only do I not know COLMAN Domingo, I also have absolutely no recollection of the (very recent!) movie he got an Academy Award nomination for. Rustin? How did that get by me? Embarrassing (for me). I really thought I was paying close attention to movies these past few years, but I guess the film universe is just too big for my brain to take in everything. Oh, wait, it was a Netflix movie. There's the problem. If it lives exclusively in streaming land, I tend to miss it. Oh, and now I remember that I didn't know who BAYARD RUSTIN was when his complete name appeared in the puzzle earlier this year (just last month), and some people shouted at me "how is that possible, did you not see the movie?" and I was like "what?" and now here we are. Let's see if any of this sticks the next time BAYARD or RUSTIN (or COLMAN or DOMINGO) appears in the grid. I did know TINA Turner (4D: Turner backed by the Ikettes) and Kenneth BRANAGH (3D: Kenneth of "Oppenheimer") and Punxsutawney PHIL (40A: Groundhog of renown) and EL GRECO (59D: Young disciple of an old Titian) and Jacques CHIRAC (78D: Former French president Jacques) and Stanley "Stella!" KOWALSKI (83D: Brando's role in "A Streetcar Named Desire"), which was probably the name I most enjoyed seeing today, if only for the fact that it started Brando playing on a loop in my head:
Here are some more clues and answers of note, arranged in "bullet" list form:
- 38A: Stirrup's place (EAR) — lots of ear puns in crossword clues. The stirrup is a tiny bone in your EAR that helps transmit sound vibrations. You've got a hammer and anvil in there too. And a drum, of course. And a canal. You can do ear-based clue humor all day long, and the NYTXW definitely has. I saw right through this clue, immediately.
- 52A: Rum, in Spanish (RON) — I thought "rum" here was going to have its slangy adjectival meaning ("strange, odd, unusual"—chiefly British), but no, it's just the drink. Very straightforward English-to-Spanish translation.
- 74A: Yellow-green soft drink per the stylization on its packaging (MTN DEW) — so ugly. Definitely a Fagliano-era word (debuted in August, and here it is again). Are we better off with MTN DEW in the grid? Especially given that the clue is going to always have to add the qualification that the answer involves "stylized" spelling? We are not. Pour the MTN DEW into the harbor.
- 84A: N.Y.C.-based sports channel (MSG) — stands for Madison Square Garden. Knicks, Rangers, Islanders, Sabres, Devils. Lotta hockey, basically. The puzzle really leaned into regionality today with this one and WAWA (50D: East Coast convenience store chain), which is a Philly phenomenon that has made its way along the eastern seaboard but hasn't gone west of Pennsylvania at all, as far as I can tell. "The WAWA business began in 1803 as an iron foundry." There's your useless fact for the day. Thanks, wikipedia!
- 100A: Asia's so-called "___ countries" (STAN) — the phrasing on this clue absolutely killed me. I know the countries in question, but they're just "the STANs" (you know, AfghaniSTAN, PakiSTAN, TurkmeniSTAN, etc.). I've never heard this so-called quote unquote "STAN countries" so I was sure there was some Asian country group I simply hadn't heard of. The "STAR countries," maybe (countries with stars on their flags??).
- 33D: Not supporting, maybe (MAIN) — another tough one. "Not supporting" looks like it means "not in favor of," "not backing," "against," something like that. But here it refers to roles in a theatrical or TV or movie production. There are supporting roles and there are MAIN roles. I think LEAD is a better counterpart for "supporting" than MAIN is, but MAIN still works.
- 67D: Thunder shower? (ESPN) — oof. Hyper-specific clue for a very general answer. How much of ESPN's programming involves showing The OKC Thunder basketball team, specifically? <1%? You are more than forgiven if you found this clue inscrutable.
- 101D: Broadway gossip (YENTE) — thought maybe there was a word for gossip about Broadway, but no, it's just a "gossip" made famous by a Broadway musical, namely Fiddler on the Roof. YENTE is the "matchmaker."
Since the holiday season is coming up, and since I've been getting a lot of "what other high-quality puzzles are out there besides the NYTX?" questions lately, I want to take this opportunity to plug The American Values Club Crossword (AVCX), which expanded in recent years from its brilliantly inventive and modern "classic" crossword and now includes two regular-sized crosswords (15x15), two smaller crosswords, a cryptic crossword (yesssss!), and a trivia quiz. A whole team of great constructors and editors put these things together, including Francis Heaney, Wyna Liu, Paolo Pasco, Quiara Vasquez, Ada Nicolle, Rafael Musa, Stella Zawistowski ("Stella!"), Nate Cardin, Aimee Lucido, and many more, all under the leadership of one of my favorite crossword editors, Ben Tausig. That's six puzzles a week from the best puzzlemakers in the business. Standard subscription rate right now is $44/year, but there are various rates based on your ability to pay. They're doing things right over there. AVCX is one of only a handful of non-NYTXW puzzles that I solve regularly. Expand your puzzle horizons! Get yourself a subscription, or get one for someone you love. Very much worth it! (Hey, look, there's even a free trial subscription if you want)
I'm going to start plugging crossword-related gift ideas in the coming weeks, so if you've got puzzle-related things to sell, or you have any crossword books or subscriptions or throw pillows or whatever that you'd recommend, shoot me an email and let me know about them.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. all discussion of EMEET was omitted from this write-up for your protection.
***
Important Note:
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 recently, 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 Facebook]
108 comments:
I agree with all the gripes, and in fact, I didn't even know what the theme was until I was (literally) a dozen squares away from completing the puzzle. Once it clicked, I just thought, "Oh, that was pointless." Anniying clues with annoying answers.
The "ONE"s and the linked "I"s were two things I noticed very early, and they immediately taunted puzzle for me. I can't believe Rex didn't mention EMEET, which sucks so bad. The ESPN clue is awful, and I say that despite getting it after just the P. I hated the clue for SPINE. I hated the clue for HAR. I hated... a lot of this grid.
My brain protected me from the traumatic memory of EMEET. Not mentioning EMEET was a glaring but self- protective oversight on my part. ~RP
It took me a little longer to finish this puzzle, and yes... I see all of Rex's points, all of them. I was amused by the theme a little more than Rex was, though. Held up in the south (had PHMETER in there for a while) and east (had IWON, ILOST, and LUCY [Liu] in there for a while). WASI (7D) was... baffling.
I wish WAWA (50D) were truly an "East Coast convenience store chain" -- more like a Philadelphia-area chain. We like Wawa's coffee (better than Dunkin'), and I used to eat their turkey hoagies by the truckload in school. I'm thinking maybe Sam Ezersky has one near him in Buffalo, NY? Nope! - The nearest one is 205 miles away... in the greater Philly area.
I found this pretty tough for a Sunday--thankfully the South and SouthEast parts were pretty easy; finished in the NW, had uIe instead of ZIG and that fouled me up pretty bad. 37 minutes for me, but felt like longer. I agree that some of the clue/answer pairs just didn't quite land. I loved STANDARDSUB and MANAGEMICRO and their clues--that was a nice stack!
So much bad PHIL in this one.
Add ONETON + ONEMONTH + THREEPM to the list.
WONTDO also echoed CANTI and WASI unpleasantly for me.
What a delightful Word Quirk theme, never done before, best as I can tell. Sam’s notes say that it took months to come up with this theme answer set, and I love hearing about perseverance like that.
Of course, it’s an impressive build, as Sam is a puzzle polisher. Here we have a remarkably dense theme – ten theme answers taking up just shy of a third of the white squares! – smoothly filled, for the most part. Wow! As an elegant touch, he made sure that the only question-mark clues in the across answers were theme answer clues.
It’s also, IMO, a capital-P Puzzle, issuing the challenge: “Crack me!” So many vague clues, clues that could yield several answers, and misdirects. Also, those theme answers weren’t easy to come by. I had a few I’M DYING moments, and overcoming them, as always, was supremely satisfying.
My favorite clue was the misdirect [It’s attached to covers and sheets] for SPINE, which had me retrieving bed instead of book terms. I also liked the fauna references: ROO, PHIL, BABE, a backward BATS, WORM, ASS, and BEES.
Sam, I come into your end-of-the-week puzzles with trepidation and determination, and always leave them with appreciation. This was a beaut, and thank you so much for it!
Overly dense - ten themers for a basic idea just doesn’t carry the day. Probably should have been pared down to an early week grid. I liked PENSIVE EX and PENULTIMATE ANTE best.
Catch a cannonball
The overall fill suffered - too many entries felt strained and contrived - the big guy highlights most of them. ONE MONTH, THREE PM , AAAS etc all seem to be there just to fit. I did like WILD ASS, EL GRECO and ELLIPSE. We get a HARD TOP and a SPORTY convertible.
UPSTAIRS At Eric’s
Not a terrible puzzle - I enjoyed the solve initially but lost interest somewhere in the middle.
Laura Cantrell
Fairly tough for a Sunday, mostly due to the cluing not being quite on my wavelength. Like, why "Young disciple of an old Titian", rather than simply "disciple of Titian". Why the convoluted clue for STAN? (So-called by whom? no one, that's who.)
And COLMAN, LUANN and EDGAR LEE were all unknowns for me, too. As was ICE RUN.
Wow I really disagree with OFL, I thought this theme was quite good. Funniest one was SOLVINGDIS, how do you not laugh at that
Solving this one was kind of like sleepwalking through the grid. Very little of interest and the theme contributed zilch - I think Rex used the term “flat” which I think is an appropriate description.
Unfortunately, even the most creative clue of the year for ASS couldn’t save this one from mediocrity .
Horrible puzzle. Not fun. Full of obscure trivia. I did not know Edgar Lee Masters, and though, I have enjoyed seeing Colman Domingo interviewed, that was a while ago and I forgot who he was. I was Naticked left and right and when I finally figured something out, it was a let down. I dread seeing Sam's name. His editing of Spelling Bee is similary idiosyncratic. What he considers common knowledge is often absolutely absurd.
Great Sunday solve, well clued with acceptable fill and clever theme. A nice workout with morning coffee -- medium-challenging for me even after getting the theme early on. Impressive even for this constructor
I would have liked a few less theme answers and a snappy revealer, but liked it more than Rex. I found it a little tougher than usual, maybe because the first themer I got was PENULTIMATE ANTE, and although surely I’ve heard the original prefixed word, it was unfamiliar enough it didn’t ring any bells. Sam’s typical quirky clueing didn’t help either.
The repeated ONE____ is bad enough, but then throw in THREE PM… (Has any school ever dismissed at the top of the hour like that? Feels like most of them in my life would dismiss at 2:55 or 3:10 or some other oddball time.)
My favorite was “One might jump out of a window” for POP-UP AD.
Disliked this puzzle. Bad clueing, nonidiomatic answers. Joyless gimmick.
Exact same reaction…
Same!
Didn’t check the byline until post-solve. Won’t make that mistake again. Yes, i will, and my luck it will likely be another Ezersky, and like today, about 25% through solve, my brain will be who like “ooph! who made this?”, click the little blue “i” in the app…”oh, of course”
Rex’s write-up today pretty much covers it. Except I would have appreciated the evisceration of EMEET. ADULTING’s got nothing on the eye-roll quotient of an EMEET salutation. “Hi Fun_CFO, nice to EMEET you…”, haha, not when I hit delete and block sender.
Thanks for the word of the day, Rex. Spoon River Anthology is a classic (though I still needed a moment to solve that tricky clue). What amazes me is learning that E.L. Masters wrote so many other books, all of them pretty much forgotten now. A literary one-hit wonder, and a wonderful hit it is. Still, I think about all the effort that must have gone into those other books . . .
I didn't dislike it as much as Rex, but it certainly wasn't one of my favorites. I actually LIKED the theme answers (for the most part), but the fill was painful.
And @Rex, PLEASE don't pour the MTNDEW into the harbor. The last thing we need is overcaffeinated, hyperglycemic fish...
Naticked on Msg x colMan :(
I don't do Sundays. Reading about this one reminds me why.
So used to seeing the "Q" that I hesitated before putting in LGBT. Needed crosses. As a G myself not sure what that says about the clue. Or me.
Didn't know OMBRE, EDGAR LEE, MARC, BOHRS
Wasn't sure on TOSH (bOSH?), or PACO (PiCO?)
Never heard of ANTEPENULTIMATE which made the theme harder to suss out. Wasn't until I got three others that I figured it must be a word.
A grind for me today. A little less than double my usual solving time. 43:42
First time ever I have just stopped doing a puzzle. I got about halfway through and thought solving this is so joyless my time would be better spent raking the leaves.
I am so glad I knew most of the Proper nouns, including COLMAN Domingo this time. Sometimes I know none of them. I want to echo Rex on the AVCX subscription. It’s absolutely wonderful. The puzzles are great, I love the trivia puzzles just to learn things (they also have a theme which is fun) and you can go back in their archives and access years of old puzzles. Worth every penny, and found out about it through Rex a couple of years back. The clues from those often appear in these puzzles which always seems odd to me.
Hey All!
ARGH! Had to stomach a one-letter DNF because of a mis-typed in letter. Ay dios mio! Got the AFRICANPAN, but I had a G in for the C! Stupid. And that was after the struggle of ferreting out the whole puz with no cheats. Dang.
Got a chuckle out of Rex's little piece at the end of his post about EMEET. If that was ever uttered by anyone over 12 online, it'd be amazing. Rex could've spent two paragraphs tearing that one apart.
Took a minute to figure out what in tarhooties the Theme was doing. Finally grokked it at PENSIVEEX. Reread puz Title, looked at the EX, and it slowly dawned on me to move that to the beginning of the first word. "Aha!", exclaimed I, " EXPENSIVE!" Still, ANTEPENULTIMATE is odd looking.
Bold move stacking Themers. Nice slash of Blockers through the Center. Fill not overly horrible considering all the constraints.
Surprised Sam has time to make puzs, what with his Editorialship of the Minis.
Always thought RUM was universal. Who is this RON? Har
@pablo
Sorry, another ROO. But, there is OLD ME in the grid for you! 😜🤣
Hope y'all have a Happy Sunday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Thank you, Rex. 100% agree with you on this one.
Similar reaction to Rex except I didn't know *any* of the pop culture today, so this played very hard. Insipid theme plus awful cluing plus alienating PPP yields one of the least enjoyable puzzles I've ever solved. Keep up the good work on Sundays, NYT!
Small observations: E.L. Masters, meet El Greco. STAN crossing KOWALSKI
Enjoyed the STAN / KOWALSKI cross
Elaine's Brando (Kowalksi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMQdtZx43D4&t=66s
Oh, forgot to mention WILDASS. That gets the Har-Of-The-Day award. Clued as an animal. Would've been funnier as something to do with a party, or somesuch.
Speaking of Edgar Lee Masters and his books, why not check out the book I wrote? That's right, I have a book out called Changing Times. Look for it on Amazon or barnesandnoble.com. 😁 Search for Darrin Vail, it'll pop right up!
RooMonster Well La-di-dah Mr Book Writer Guy
Can someone explain why 122A is ADDY? I see address but what is Y?
Amen to this essay in the NYT on the value of crossword puzzles in ttoubling times:: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/10/opinion/crosswords-comfort-crisis.html
Very tedious. Only theme entry I liked was STANDARDSUB.
OFL is right on!
122A the only context anyone would ever use ADDY for address would be in an EMEET. I pray neither will ever happen in real life.
I found this quite hard and sloggish because I was unable to get the puzzle to load in my usual Sunday random-solve program. Bah!
There were several places I was almost convinced a rebus was needed - M[ountain] DEW and WILD[ebee]ST were two of them. Never did go back to see that it was MTN DEW but I did see that WILD ASS was a more likely equus than a wildebeest, HAR.
It took me a long time to get the theme, perhaps at HEATED SUPER? After that, the theme helped in a couple places, like fixing my SOLVING DoS and giving me what kind of PAN 68A was talking about.
Sam Ezersky, thanks!
Least fun Sunday puzzle in years...and there have been some really bad ones.
Could they possibly squeeze more obscure names into this terrible puzzle? No fun at all when it's just a trivia fest slog with an incomprehensible theme.
Tough Sunday for me. I took me a while to figure out what was going on but it helped when I did. A few WOEs (@Rex COLMAN, LUANN), quite a few erasures, and a fair amount of staring…tough Sunday.
I mostly agree with @Rex on this one, more slog than fun.
MTN DEW is now a thing of the past, too. They recently rebranded back to the actual words.
So, please let it die.
I was so slow in picking up the theme, failing to see it at STANDARD SUB and MANAGED MICRO. I was also slow to get MICRO, since, as a Government Major, I think I was taught some Economics and that some of it had to do with contrasting "micro" and "macro", but I never really got it straight. Economics is my second least favorite and least absorbed subject -- right after Geography.
I didn't yet have PENSIVE EX (which I love!), but I picked up the theme at PENULTIMATE ANTE. Knowing the theme helped me see APOCALYPTIC POST early.
But the most delightfully clued theme answer of all was SOLVING DIS -- aimed so deliciously right between the eyebrows of all of us solvers.
This gave me everything I want in a Sunday puzzle: humor; cluing that's often playful and can be quite oblique too. My last answer in was KEN MARE (I had had KENWARE which seemed right to me) after belatedly figuring out that MAIN was the answer to "Not supporting, perhaps" -- which certainly wouldn't come to mind immediately.
A really enjoyable Sunday. Sam, of course, is a pro.
All these years and I thought Vespa was a model and Piaggio was the brand.
Wow ..I didn't get the theme AT ALL until I was 3/4 done reading Rex's explanation....what a waste
I liked the theme just fine but some of the clueing, as noted by previous commenters, seemed unnecessarily specific or obscure. FOUR FOR A TI-84 assumes a lot of prior knowledge, IMO, for triple-A batteries. And ARTE, RON, GRAS, EST seemed like a lot of not-common-knowledge foreign language clues for one puzzle.
Really bad puzzle in many ways including but not limited to Rex's comments. I dare to say that if this was submitted by a guy named Sam Anybody instead of Sam Ezersky it would have been summarily dismissed.
Maigre = skinny
Gras = fat (as in the substance - think grease)
Gros = overweight
I totally agree with your assessment. I have come to shudder whenever I see the name Sam Ezersky associated with a puzzle. His Spelling Bees nearly always include some obscure word almost no one has ever heard, but when I sent in a list of fairly common words that his puzzle does not accept (cavitate, tappet and heddle immediately spring to mind) I was admonished that they were too technically specific for most people. Anyone that has ever worked on a car engine
knows what a tappet is. To me, Ezersky's approach can be exemplified by a couple of words: superficially sophomoric.
I have no idea who is currently editing the hot mess that the NYTXW has become, but this puzzle may be a new low..
Roo. As in KANGA.
Attn: Rex and Puzzlers who wish to honor strike, try Quordle and Octordle run by Miriam- Webster or Waffle. No need to suffer during strike!
KENMORE—the Sears brand
There’s a few in Virginia.
Re: tappet: or listened to Click and Clack. I miss them!
What’s Sears?! 😁
You are technically correct, but Vespa has kind of gone the way of Band Aid and Sheetrock.
I have such respect for puzzle architects, especially Sunday, but I found this just annoying. Tedious in that I worked too hard for minimal reward.
I’m boycotting everything except Wordle. I need some win these days…
Took a very long time to finish, more work than fun. Sunday slogs continue.
One bright spot was 16D/ONEMONTH (Length of William Henry Harrison’s Presidency). Let’s hope the same fate for #47.
Hardest Sunday in a long time. DNF because I had ILOSt instead of ILOSE at 64A. I guess that means ILOSE :-)
I just sent you an email urging you to do this puzzle. I know about the wisdom of crowds, but in this case I so have to question the crowd's wisdom. And anyway, there were quite a number of us who really liked this puzzle. It's amusing; it's crunchy -- what's not to like? Other than the awful 122A -- which is so easily fixable.
It's a cutesy way of saying "address." Like 'send me your addy or give me your deets' kind of thing
There are a few.
Just awful!! I'm the CROSSEST today, but I see I'm hardly alone.
From the made-up words and phrases like ADDY, EMEET & YES BABE to the "for short"-less abbreviations like STENOgrapher. And then the regional WAWA and WEST ELM.
I penned "EAT A SANDWICH" in my printout pointing to 2D, and now see that Rex had the same complaint.
@Rex, I laughed out loud at your riff on COLMAN/Rustin! That was the best thing about having done today's puzzle, by far!
Also, ADDY? Do people actually say that?
Agreed. Total slog.
@JT: Oops! Thanks.
Actually, I was also corrected earlier on the Wordplay Blog about KENMaRE.
Haven't you learned after all this time that when an answer can be either "I LOST" or "I LOSE", the ONLY intelligent thing to do is write in "I LOS"...and wait!!!! What you did was dumber than dumb!!!!!
Hahaha. I'm just teasing you @thefogman. Please don't take me seriously. But I ask you: Is that a SOLVING DIS or is that a SOLVING DIS? In fact, isn't that the very best SOLVING DIS on the entire Rexblog today?
Agree totally. Found it challenging, but loved the workout.
Agree with posters about the worst Sunday in ages; had never heard of WESTELM, and KENMORE is now a very small name. WAWA has had stores in Florida & Virginia for several years, and markets only in eastern Pennsylvania.
2 pm & I just finished (not without cheats :)
Not for me either. I expected more from Mr. Ezersky but then again, this is the constructor who puts "ANAL" in 8 out of 10 his Spelling Bee's
I just hate clues about actor’s names. Never seen desperate housewives and never even heard of Rustin.
Hm, I see I liked it a lot better than many here. I thought the theme was inventive, and I enjoyed figuring out the reversed phrases. Working down the left side, I caught on at [PAN]AFRICAN, and found the theme helpful in finishing (especially DIS and AUTO). I thought PENSIVE EX was very clever, and APOCALYPTIC POST the one that worked best in both forward and reverse. Admittedly, the others were more or less forced. Maybe unfortunate that the answer that introduced the theme was [SUB]STANDARD, which seems to be the assessment by lots of solvers today.
I have been on real-life work email threads where someone unironically says “nice to EMEET you”, and I hate it.
day-um. 10 themers. Crowded puzthemes. Should produce stuff to please some but, in this case, not pleasedis everyone.
M&A kinda liked the theme, since...
1. Figured it out pronto, in the STANDARDSUB region.
2. Twas somewhat humorous, especially for the likes of PENSIVEEX.
3. U don't get to see stacked themers too often. Different. Like.
4. Some outstandin Ow de Operation moments, like: EMEET. MTNDEW. YESBABE. ADDY. har
staff weeject pick: HAR. With a nice, shifty clue, too boot.
Thanx for the WILDASS ride, Mr. Ezersky dude. Self-edited?
Masked & Anonymo8Us
100% spamless. not 100% shameless runtpuz stuff, as usual:
**gruntz**
I saw Colman Domingo in “Passing Strange” on Broadway and didn’t get the answer quickly. All in all, a slog.
Difficult, but enjoyable puzzle. I figured out "emeet" from context. "Yente" is more than a character, "yente" means a gossip in Yiddish. "Streetcar Named Desire" is one of my favorite movies, and "Kowalski" fit right in, providing valuable crosses. "Auk" rhyming with "hawk" was amusing.
Exactly right... the bar is now even lower than it sadly already was.... yechhh...
Most constructors appear to spend the rest of their time watchung TV and memorizing weird actor names...
HMTR, much, much more. First DNF for me that I can recall. A PPP slog from start to finish, so thick in some areas that you can't get any traction without knowing some of it. A new low for the NYT Sunday xwd.
Same. I don’t consider Madison square garden a “channel”
@ROO this morning
Saw you in there 2x, HAR!
😉
@Anon 11:44
Thank you! I had GRoS but it clearly wanted GRAS, but that's the wrong kind of "fat", in French, anyway...
Late to the puzzle today. Had to buy AAAS on way home from church (for an ancient Brookstone clock-temp-timer thing).
Found it more easy than medium. STANDARD SUB and MANAGED MICRO came at the end as I went down the east side and therefore got most of the themers' second halves first... then over to the west side and back up. No idea on COLMAN or LUANN but crosses got 'em done.
Didn't hare it as much as OFL; didn't love it as much as Nancy.
Kinda EH.
*hate, not hare. HAR!
Can you tell us what app you use to solve puzzles? I know you’ve mentioned it before but I can’t find the name. Thanks!
Willa
Gras is not that obscure. Mardi Gras is well known after all.
I thought there would be complaints about the clue.
Ron has been in the puzzle more than once before. That’s how I knew it
So have the directions usually in Spanish, sometimes in French like here. So for many solvers they’re gimmes
Why is ARTE hard or obscure?
The AAA’s I had no clue about. B
Ditto here.
Anonymous 1:08 pm
The Times routinely leaves out for short dealing with STENO
STENO has long since become a word of its own. Steno for the office, stenographer for courts.
That’s why no one else complained
Regional brands also appear all the time. A lot of people live in those regions! The puzzle would be too bland otherwise
Addy and emeet I agree are annoying but apparently they exist so they repeat I will have to get used to them.
But Yes Babe sounds odd to me.too Yeah baby sounds more in the language
Steve Washburn
Kenmore
Have no idea how big it is now but it was huge once. When you get the K the answer is obvious.
I think the answer is fair
But the constructor does like to go to the edge.
Home late after a night away to go to a 60's dance party sponsored by our local public radio station. It was a ton of fun, and ended at 10 PM, which was pretty late for most of us attendees who love this kind of music. Also our cat required many pats when we got home before I could start on this one.
Took way too long to see the theme, and I did some major jumping around anyway as I couldn't get a flow going. The light finally came on at APOCALYPTICPOST and that was about when I started liking this one.
I truly detest both UPSTAIRS and downstairs as descriptors of pitches. Announcers who use these terms invariably overuse them, and most umpires are using "up" and "down", which have replaced "high" and "low", and that's OK. The other thing, no.
Hey @Roo-of course I noticed yet another ROO. More congratulations of course, and also on your book, and for my personal shout out as OLD ME, which I will start using to describe myself. We are all blessed by your commentary. (This is an example of a graceful concession speech. You will notice I made no notice of a fix or constructors rigging the totals.)
I liked hour Sunday just fine, SE. A Shining Example of the old switcheroo, and thanks for all the fun.
I don't want my payoffs going public...
HAR!
Roo
i liked the puzzle. took me a while to get the them though. glad to learn about edgar lee masters
STAN could've been clued as "83D to his drinking buddies" i.e. Stan Kowalski"
Hated this. Cluing Kenneth BRANAUGH based on his small role in Oppenheimer was just an obvious effort to increase the difficulty. So many other annoyances. It was one of those puzzles where you didn’t need to know much except how the constructer thinks.
I love this. I do the puzzle every week. I don't know what the highlighted answer means.
Why is one answer always highlighted?
It’s just a cursor in the software. It’s usually on the very last answer I entered ~RP
The fact that the theme answers had nothing to do with the original word just blew it for me.
It IS a channel, though. Saying you don’t consider it one is like saying you don’t consider ESPN a channel. It exists, for better or worse (worse in this case because it’s in the same puzzle as ESPN.)
I thought there would be more chatter here about SOLVING DIS. I liked that one. EMEET drove me crazy.
The Colman clue was the highlight for me. I also saw him in Passing Strange and have been a fan ever since. He's recently been in films Sing Sing and The Color Purple. I just happened to see him in The God Committee the other day, a 2021 film. He was in Zola too. Some people know him from Euphoria, a 'tv' show.
With all due respect to Rex, I was more challenged by and had more fun with this one than with many recent months of the Sunday NYT. The thematic trick was clever and the fill was difficult. I try to do these in with a pen and had to be exceptionally cautious to avoid making a mess. Well done Sam Ezersky!
Not my favorite.
A couple of bad clues: 1. While a litmus test can be performed with an aqueous solution, I'd say >95% of litmus tests are performed using litmus paper (i.e., a pH strip!). So, NO, a pH strip is NOT an 'alternative to litmus paper,' it IS litmus paper! [I had PHMETER as my answer, which is a truly correct answer to the clue, but was wrong in the grid—that held me up in the SW for a long time] 2. My uncle had a 1972 Lincoln Continental convertible that I got to drive a few times in the late 1980s. Was it a cool car? Yes. Was it SPORTY? NO, it was a giant rectangular box!!!
I'd heard of Colman Domingo, but not Edgar Lee Masters, so needed every cross for that one. CANTI, ADDY, and EMEET were not my favorites.
To end on a positive note, pre-solve, I knew who Niels Bohr was, but didn't know that he had a son who was also an atomic physicist (and also won a Nobel Prize), so I did learn something new!
There's one opening in Wilkes-Barre next week!
ILOSE TO A BABE
IN LUANN's APOCALYPTICPOST
she STATEs what WII WON'TDO:
she WROTE what I CAN'T DO THE most,
and YES, she STOPS EX, TOO.
--- STAN KOWALSKI
From yesterday:
THAT'S A BEAUT
Should I MAKE ADEAL, ORE what?
Both ANDRA and ADA are CLASSACTS.
ANDRA REPORTS I like HER, BUTT
IAM all ABOUT my SWEETIE SASS.
--- REP. RICK PEABODY
Not much fun nor very interesting here. When I used to have cars that needed repair, there's a local-ish garage called COMPLETEAUTO, so that one was semi-interesting. A quirk that STAN crosses KOWALSKI? Never saw any version of Housewives, but LUANN de Lesseps - YESBABE.
Wordle par.
There are WAWAs in Maryland and Florida too.
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