Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Billionaire philanthropist Broad / WED 12-11-24 / Field for a Fortnite pro / Keto diet no-no / Actor who narrates "The Big Lebowski" / Detergent in a red bottle / Villainous animal in "The Lion King" / Car stolen by Jerry's mechanic on an episode of "Seinfeld"

Billionaire philanthropist Broad / WED 12-11-24 / Field for a Fortnite pro / Keto diet no-no / Actor who narrates "The Big Lebowski" / Detergent in a red bottle / Villainous animal in "The Lion King" / Car stolen by Jerry's mechanic on an episode of "Seinfeld"

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Constructor: Kathy Bloomer and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: IN ONE SENSE (28D: Description of this puzzle's circled letters, and a clue to what they spell) — circled letters spell "SORTA," and each of those letters can be found (literally) IN ONE SENSE (i.e. embedded inside one of the five senses, which are found in shaded squares inside longer answers):

Theme answers:

REHEARSING (5D: Doing a musical read-through)
TOASTER OVEN (23D: Appliance with a door and a crumb tray)
FREELOADERS (24D: Moochers)
HANGS TIGHT (10D: Waits patiently)
SAM ELLIOTT (30D: Actor who narrates "The Big Lebowski")

Word of the Day: SAM ELLIOTT (30D) —

Samuel Pack Elliott (born August 9, 1944) is an American actor. With a career spanning over five decades of film and television, he is recognized for his deep sonorous voice. Elliott has received various accolades, including a Screen Actors Guild Award and a National Board of Review Award, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. [...] He achieved commercial success with his role in the biopic Mask (1985) and received Golden Globe nominations for starring in Louis L'Amour's adaptation of Conagher (1991) and the miniseries Buffalo Girls (1995), the latter of which also earned him his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination. Throughout the 1990s, he portrayed John Buford in the historical drama Gettysburg (1993), Virgil Earp in the western Tombstone (1993), and the Stranger in the crime comedy The Big Lebowski (1998). [...] In the 2010s, he had guest starring roles in the FX neo-western series Justified (2015) and the Netflix comedy series Grace and Frankie (2016) and subsequently starred in the Netflix sitcom The Ranch (2016–2020). He went on to headline the comedy drama film The Hero (2017) and star opposite Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in Cooper's 2018 adaptation of A Star Is Born, for which he received critical acclaim and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His role in the Paramount+ western miniseries 1883 (2021–2022) earned him further praise and a SAG Award. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well this puzzle was certainly more elaborate than Monday's or Tuesday's, but more elaborate (in this case, in many cases) does not mean more entertaining. I found this one fussy and clunky—a puzzle built entirely around a complicated visual "joke" that doesn't really land. The revealer has no zing and comes too early—it's positioning is weirdly, and ineffectively, all the way over on the left, so I got it before I got any of the themers except REHEARSING, and then from there was able to write in "SORTA," see the "sense" in REHEARSING (i.e. "hearing"), and figure out the rest of the themers really easily. I never even saw the clue for SAM ELLIOTT (which would've been no help at all)—I just looked up and saw most of his name already written in, and since I know who he is, and I knew what the theme was, the clue was superfluous. Getting an answer without looking at a clue isn't so unusual, but the revealer placement here just made everything about the theme execution somewhat anticlimactic. Real cart-before-the-horse energy. Further, the revealer is IN ONE SENSE, but we are clearly dealing with All Five Senses, so there's an inherent disconnect between the revealer (which, again, is such a tepid, unpunchy phrase...) and the themers. ONE SENSE in the revealer, five senses in the grid. The revealer only works if you take SORTA letter by letter, i.e. it only SORTA works. Lastly, that fourth sense should be "touch," not FEEL. You have a sense of taste, a sense of smell, and a sense of touch, not a sense of FEEL. This puzzle has great thematic ambition and a lot of moving parts, but as a finished product, it's pretty wobbly and not terribly exciting.

The theme answers themselves, as standalone answers (regardless of the theme) are very nice. Well, REHEARSING is kinda neutral, but the others have real zing, and would be more than welcome in any themeless grid, or anywhere. Outside the themers, though, there's not much of interest, despite there being a hell of a lot of real estate given over to seven-letter words (ten of them!). The most exciting part of the grid was probably the part where the VEHICLE CRASHER RAN PAST the GOOSE, but the rest of those corners (where all the 7s are found) just kinda lie there, as does most of the fill overall. Not offensively bad or rough, just ... there. There is one answer, however, that was so jarring it derailed my solve, not in the sense that I got stuck, but in the sense that I found it so disruptive that I literally stopped my forward momentum to stare at the damage. What slammed into me hard enough to make me stop and make sure everything was OK? The answer: A LOAD OF. Doesn't look that menacing, I know, and it's not ... except with the LOAD part literally crosses *another LOAD* part (at FREELOADERS). So it's not just that the grid has "LOAD" in it twice (not great, but forgivable), it's that the LOADs literally crash into each other. Awkward, ugly, bad (like OWED TO running into PRIOR TO, but worse). A secondarily bad part of A LOAD OF is that it doesn't really mean what the clue says it means. A LOT OF, yes; A LOAD OF, er, eh ... SORTA? But A LOAD OF is much more common as a phrase meaning "a look at," as in the phrase "get A LOAD OF this," used when you are directing someone's attention to ... something. Someone. Whatever. It's A LOT OF for "many" (today, the weirdly French [Beaucoup]), and A LOAD OF for "an eyeful of." So A LOAD OF is doubly bad today—triply bad if you think (as I do) that the slangy / Frenchy [Beaucoup] doesn't really match its much plainer answer.

Bullets:

35A: Billionaire philanthropist Broad (ELI) — can we not? There are so many fine ELIs in the world, why are you foregrounding a so-called "billionaire philanthropist?" It's easy to give some of your money away when you're a ****ing billionaire. The idea that anyone is famous for this is nauseating. Hey, why don't you become famous for Giving It All Away? You are never going to sell me on the virtuous aspects of *any* billionaire, whatever their politics. Billionaire. Philanthropy. Is. A. Scam. I have never actively wished to see ELI Manning in the grid before, but here we are.
39A: Fresno-to-San Diego dir. (SSE) — I am never going to love seeing a three-letter direction in the grid, but I love this clue for two reasons. First, I grew up in Fresno, so I got a little pang of nostalgia, and second, the clue is somewhat counterintuitive—you really have to know CA geography to get the "E" part, because Fresno is inland and SD is coastal, so it seems like SD should be "W," not "E." But California juts eastward as it approaches Mexico along the coast, so SD ends up being east of Fresno, not west. This is somewhat like Detroit being east of Atlanta (a fact that my brain still can't quite accept).
51A: Keto diet no-no (BREAD) — [Keto no-no] is a much, much better clue. Just sounds better. The "diet" part is superfluous. Everyone knows "Keto" is a diet. You gotta have a good ear to write good clues. This one clanks.

23D: Appliance with a door and a crumb tray (TOASTER OVEN) — this one made me smile because I use mine every day despite the fact that it's kinda old and banged up. But we hang onto it because of its backstory: one year we went to Colorado for Christmas and our daughter (age 10? 11?) decided to get us a TOASTER OVEN for Christmas (?!) and so somehow acquired one and ... packed it in her luggage (!?!) and gave it to us in Colorado. I do not recommend packing a TOASTER OVEN in your suitcase. It got dented in transit. And then, of course, we had to ship it back home. The shipping probably ended up costing more than the oven itself (it's not a "nice" oven). But the sheer bizarre ambition of the girl's whole gift-giving scheme endeared the oven to us, so until it conks out or explodes, we're keeping it. Good memories.
50D: Epic work that begins "Sing, goddess, of the anger of Achilles" (ILIAD) — I always heard it translated as "wrath," which is ... somewhat stronger, more evocative of Achilles's destructive power, than mere "anger." If you've seen Achilles go ham on the Trojans after Patroclus is killed, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Alright, time for more Holiday Pet Pics!

Pi Pi has never seen A Christmas Story, so he doesn't know why wearing Ralphie's bunny ears is funny, but his human insists that it is, so here we are:

[Thanks, Max]

Freya is concerned this sweater makes her butt look big. (How do you people even get your cats into these get-ups? When I imagine trying to put a sweater on either of my cats, I can already feel claws slashing my arms and (probably) face)

[Thanks, Jan]

Dogs love to show off their tongues, but cats ... you gotta time it right. Here we get some subtle cat tongue action from Lydia...

[Thanks, Joan]

... and some loopier and more manic tongue action from Sugar

[Thanks, Emma]

Oliver's owner insists that her fur spells out the word "HOPE"—Oliver just "hopes" that you leave her in peace so she can continue maniacally shredding her spectacular quadruple-wide scratchpost platform, thank you very much...

[Thanks, Emma]

Finally, here's a cat willing to fight back against all these tyrannical holiday impositions on catdom. Kill, Remy, Kill! Fight the power, Remy!

[Thanks, Max]

And lastly, there's Woody, who's just glad to be here. He thinks his left side is his good side. All your sides are good, Woody!

[Thanks, Matt]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

68 comments:

Bob Millx 6:18 AM: Finished it quickly without considering the theme. My only sticking point was PRIORTO, because I foolishly assumed it was one word with "pre" as a prefix, and because I had "pome" for the apple instead of ROME. Nice puzzle, but closer to Monday in difficulty.
Anonymous 6:19 AM: Tried to use ‘touch’ in freeloaders. Still trying to.
Conrad 6:47 AM: Easy-Medium. A proper Wednesday. Liked it better than OFL did.

Overwrites:
It took three tries to get the spelling of Elaine CHAO at 12D
I had the first E and guessed Edo sauce as the condiment at 25D. It was corrected before I got to the real EDO at 47A
rind before PEEL at 26D
27D: The tomato is a ROMa, the apple is a ROME
32D: Stan Lee before SARA
39A: Fell into the SSw/SSE trap that @Rex pointed out

WOE:
Philanthropist ELI Broad at 35A
Anonymous 6:55 AM: Had to grin when OFL wrote he often fills in answers without reading the clues. It is the difference between the king of crosswords and me, the serf farming the land.
SouthsideJohnny 6:56 AM: I had a litlle trouble with SAM ELLIOTT. If you need to include unpopular (at least to Rex and me) popular culture entries to get your theme to work, at least make the crosses fair, which was the case here. So, kind of a neat theme and a perfectly acceptable Wednesday.

Jeff Chen can ebb and flow a bit for me - it seems almost binary, like either I am zoned in on his wavelength or I feel like I am totally out in left field. Fortunately, today was one of the former for me.
Anonymous 6:59 AM: For me, a Monday-easy quick solve, which required no attention to the circles and shading - which I looked at only in retrospect. The theme seems more like a clever add-on rather than something integral to the puzzle.
Anonymous 7:05 AM: I know very well who SAM ELLIOTT is, to be clear. ~RP
dash riprock 7:11 AM: The family showcased these past few days and the man whose platform has hosted the exhibition, top marks, all. No end to the warm and the fuzzy, full stop.

But people. Riprock has communicated with several of the gallery subjects.. and - he won't name names - they are embarrassed. Embarrassed over the ways in which they were captured. Poor lighting, poor angles, poor framing.. "my fat thighs!" lamented one.

They're not expecting Leibovitz or Anne Geddes, much less Suze Randall coaxing the sexy from your pussycat.

But people.. the flagship game, in the flagship masthead, of all mastheads everywhere, reviewed by the most popular, respected game writer on the planet, millions of daily eyeballs, probably billions, center stage, and, well.. don't take it from me, listen to one of your family, a pizzed-off pooch, "if she submitted that sorry snap of me as part of a reviewed game, it would be ripped to shreds !! when her daughter was married, they hired two professional photographers !! ..and nobody even looks at those!"

You can do this, people, WITH YOUR iPHONES, while bending over your tennis-balled walkers.. Get to know: light, composition, subject. And the exposure triangle. Big dividends.

Peasy tips: Get down to the ground, on their level, shoot up from below vs. looking down on your little monstah. Get close up in their bidness, pick a foreground limb to distort and try wide angle. Mind your background and the light! You can hold a small headlamp in one hand, phone in the other. Rule of thirds, mind the framing. Mix it up. Learn it, then it becomes second nature. Secondary dividend - you'll appreciate the artistry in the great paintings all the more. Thank me later.

Come on, people, show some effort. Do better.

The game was fine. Subject matter, more seductive y'day. But the vertical device worked better t'day. Exception - sense of HEARING, sense of TASTE, sense of FEEL.. ?? Not parallel. O'course it shud be 'touch,' but whatevs. Boy Scout demerit. The gymnastics SORTA upped, by the addition, transporting the overall together with the small fry to beyond the yesterday. So, thumb up. What else, em.. a breath, a skosh from breaking my Wednes mark. But realized after curtains that all the circles and shading can serve as slowing distraction (could it be.. another off-day rebus.. tick-tock tick-tock), and I s'pect that's what happened here. Rubbernecking. Elsewise, new record. So next time, blinders.. figure out what's what at the après-ski.

UPDATE: Snaps today were a wee bit mo' bettah, espesh the third - well done, Joan. (Screed banged out post game last night) Still.. see above.
Anonymous 7:19 AM: I’ve only heard it as IN A SENSE. Does anyone else agree? I’m also confused why it’s FEEL and not FEELING, or TOUCH. Good idea, but kinda clunky.
kitshef 7:19 AM: Oughta be 'touch', not FEEL. [Ah, I see Rex said that.]

A theme that puts a lot of stress on the rest of the grid, with a tepid revealer, and the aforementioned FEEL issue. Not really worth it for me.

I also think picking two California locales for your direction clue is a bit unfair. At least give us, say, Boise to Carson City, where we can guess at one of the directions with confidence. Still could be ESE, SSE, WSE, or SSW, but at least can eliminate all the 'N' options.
Druid 7:23 AM: I do think “beaucoup” and its answer-“a load of”-are correct here. Beaucoup crap easily translates to a load of crap. At least where I come from.
Anonymous 7:29 AM: Liked it a lot more than Rex. Most of his objections are A LOAD OF crap. :) My only nit to pick with the theme is that it was over too early, which is largely unavoidable when the theme answers and revealer all are longer down answers. But I think the revealer works well - maybe it would have been slightly more precise and overcome Rex’s objection if it had read it applies to “each” circled letter, which indeed are IN ONE (and only one) SENSE.
The Dude 7:43 AM: I can abide Sam Elliott.
Whatsername 8:10 AM: SORTA agree with Rex. I could see early on that each themer was going to be a SENSE, which made the remaining ones very easy, with the only question being what the circles were going to reveal. I liked it but could’ve done without the circles/SORTA part and it would’ve still been okay. Not a lot of drama or challenge but a perfectly serviceable Wednesday.
Dr.A 8:11 AM: I love the pet pics, especially that first kitty, PiPi in the bunny ears, hilarious. In addition, I felt inexplicably annoyed about BEAUCOUP’s clue and now I feel justified so thank you for that. Easy for me, Idk, 🤷‍♀️
Dr.A 8:12 AM: Same, I was like, Oh there’s a theme?
Dr.A 8:13 AM: I feel like you say In One Sense when you are trying to see both sides of something. Like “In one sense, I get what Joe is saying but in another sense, I can see Molly’s side too”? Maybe
Rich Glauber 8:18 AM: Real nice description of why the theme didn't land. I admire Rex for taking the time and explaining it so thoughtfully, as opposed to my theme evaluation 'kinda sucks'.
Fun_CFO 8:22 AM: Agree, and it’s a better descriptor of SORTA, and somewhat mitigates Rex’s mismatched themer/revealer plaint.

Also agree on touch over FEEL
David Grenier 8:32 AM: Confidently put VOWS instead of I DOS and CARBS instead of BREAD and both those mistakes hurt me way more than they should have 😆😆

Also, love the holiday pet pics!
RooMonster 8:50 AM: Hey All!
Ambitious Theme, nicely executed. The FEEL for TOUCH doesn't bother me, although it seems like it should.

Had a silly one-letter DNF, had MESS for MUSS, giving me ICE for 59A, and not rereading clue once it auto-filled. So when I went through grid to find a typo or something, nothing jumped out. I always reread the clues on answers that auto-fill. Dang, missed it today. Frustratingly hit Check Puzzle, it crossed out the E, reread clue, now I'm mad at myself.

38 Blockers, regular count, left/right symmetry. Six 10-letter Downs as Themers, plus the LOAD OF 7's Rex mentioned. Not easy to get clean fill with those open corners. Good job, Kathy and Jeff.

Got the SORTA, where's the KINDA? Har.

Happy Wednesday.

Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Anonymous 8:59 AM: A tighter theme could have been achieved by limiting the choices to the special senses [vision, hearing, smell, taste, balance (equilibrium)] instead of also including a general sense (touch). General senses are distributed throughout the body, whereas special senses are found in distinct locations such as eyes, ears, taste buds, etc.
Fun_CFO 9:19 AM: Leeway Wednesday. The day with the least predilections on what the puzzle should be. Puzzle has to be really out of bounds to garner ALOADOF hate on a Wednesday. This one isn’t. Some inelegant aspects for sure, but overall works.
pabloinnh 9:24 AM: Started in the NW, got HEARING, continued S, ran into INONESENSE, and the jig was up and it was just a matter of finding the other SENSEs, which was not hard. Didn't remember SAMELLIOT's role in TBL, ELI as clued was a WOE, and CHAO took all the crosses, but that was it for potholes.

Today's "where have you been" is EDO, an oldie but goodie. How've you been?

REHEARSING is timely for me as our new doo-wop group has its first big gig coming up and we've been doing a lot of that on top of more REHEARSING with other choirs for various Christmas performances . Busy busy. Also nice to see "Annie's Song" featured .Good old John Denver is my go-to when I'm singing out with my friend.

Nice enough Wednesdecito, KB and JC. SORTA worked. Kudos But some Jazzier Clues could have spiced things up. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
H.J. Osment 9:33 AM: A perfect opportunity for New York Times Games to use its new proprietary graphics technology to really make this puzzle sizzle. That is, upon completion of the puzzle, the puzzle is tells its secret: the embedded image of a dead person emerges from and is highlighted on the grid to reveal a Sixth Sense, a sense that allows one to truly say: "I see dead people."
Nancy 9:39 AM: I didn't look to see what was happening with the grid design because 1) I didn't remotely need to know in order to solve this creampuff and 1) I really, really didn't care. I almost never do.

I want to pay Jeff Chen the utmost respect both in having created one of the most important and informative crossword blogs in all puzzledom and 2) being one of the most prolific puzzle creators that there is in our community-- and not just of crosswords either. So why does my heart always sink when I see Jeff's byline atop a puzzle? Because I know that 9 times out of 10 the puzzle will be about grid design* and that Jeff will have had a nifty time in figuring out how to accomplish whatever it is he's accomplishing. But that there will be nothing for me the solver to do but dutifully fill in the squares and admire his work when it's over.

Jeff's ideas of what makes a puzzle fun and interesting isn't necessarily wrong. But it's definitely not mine.

*Unless he's collaborating with Lewis.
Gary Jugert 10:01 AM: Cariño, hace frío afuera.

The yard art deer herd arrived yesterday in an dangerously small package, and I assembled them in the garage, set them in place out front, and plugged them into the spaghetti ball of extension cords waiting to trip the Amazon peeps. Kinda proud at how handy I am, but I learned (again) the ground here is like cement and the little hooks used to hold the deer down in the wind will not go into the soil. We're living on god-made cement apparently and I FEEL like that's wrong. I also FEEL like it should be warmer here, and I FEEL like FEEL feels weird as one of the senses because I learned it as TOUCH. I'm not sure it sounds any better, but I don't like FEELing.

Suspiciously easy puzzle for me today. They forgot our crossword favorite sixth sense ESP.

Propers: 9
Places: 0 {shoulda been ROME}
Products: 7
Partials: 9
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 27 of 74 (36%)

Funnyisms: 0 😫

Uniclues:

1 Stetcher used to take your once beloved money player to the hospital and causing you to replace them mid-season with some scrub.
2 The title of the saga of my romantic adventures in college.
3 The restaurant I could afford inside my college apartment.
4 What my mother called my in-home theater system during my gap year.

1 ESPORTS VEHICLE
2 MINI SUV ENAMORS
3 STY TOASTER OVEN
4 FREELOADER'S VCR (~)

My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Licorice flavored flying contraptions. ANISETTE BLIMPS.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Whatsername 10:03 AM: Well said, and my sentiments exactly. A brilliant mind whose puzzles often cause me to FEEL puzzled.
jberg 10:08 AM: Today we get a twofer, with both shaded squares AND circles. If you have to do this sort of thing, I S'POSE this is a pretty good way to do it. After I got REHEARSING I could see what was going on, and thought the circled letters would spell "sense," but the revealer makes it better. Intricate, and SORTA satisfying.

I also liked getting EEL and ELI in (and crossing!) with innovative clues. I've spent a lot of time in Japan, and I'm sure I've had EEL sauce but never knew it was called that.

One side of a cassette could be either A or B, and the direction to San Diego could have been either SSw or SSE (you can tell that I don't know where Fresno is). So that little area was kealoasville; but the crosses were fine.

Saying your back forty is made up of ACRES is a stretch, but maybe "Back forty units" woul have been too easy for a Wednesday. And when I mean 'seemingly forever' I say EONs, but I guess the singular works.

Today I learned that there is a Salt Lake Valley--usually lakes have basins, but the Jordan River does run part way through it, and it's definitely a thing.

Something to muse on: tires ROTATE whenever the car is moving, so why do we use the word to mean moving them to different wheels?
Carola 10:47 AM: I agree with @Rex and others about the theme: interesting construction but unfortunate with the SENSE of "FEEL," and, I think, a near miss with IN ONE SENSE instead of "in a sense" for SORTA. Fun to write in: HANGS TIGHT and FREELOADERS, fun to see the mundane but so essential TOASTER OVEN get so much grid real estate. No idea: ESPORTS, SAM ELLIOTT.

I was surprised to see @Rex's DISS of ELI Broad, who, with his wife Edythe, financed The Broad museum in Los Angeles and filled it with their impressive contemporary art collection. Unlike most major museums, it charges no admission fee.
Anonymous 10:55 AM: How in the world does RANPAST have any connection with TOLERATE?
Dan 11:07 AM: Well, I liked it.

I, too, solved the puzzle first before looking at the thematic elements. Loved seeing Sam Elliott. (If you don't remember seeing him in The Big Lebowski, it just might be time for you to watch it again.) Then, when the puzzle was done, I enjoyed sussing out the theme. A nice little coda.
egsforbreakfast 11:10 AM: Teacher: What do you do when you are naked in front of a life drawing class?
Student: ISPOSE the right answer?

I don't like to be a moocher, so I guess I'm a payingLOADER.

Emcee: We're here tonight to honor the cooking device that produced so many of Julia Child's masterpieces. So, although Julia has received countless accolades, tonight I'd like to TOASTEROVEN.

A coffin just slid out of a mortician's vehicle, so now they're REHEARSING it.

Thanks, Kathy Bloomer and Jeff Chen.
Suellen 11:10 AM: This was the easiest Wed for me Ever!
Thanks, Rex , for the John Denver song. I think I will have to dig out my JD collection and binge!
Joe from Lethbridge 11:12 AM: Where I come from, beaucoup translates to much/many-"beaucoup de" translates to much/many of...big difference. However, i just breezed through this easy puzzle seamlessly.
Anonymous 11:19 AM: @David Grenier - There is no I DOS in my completed grid. ??
Anonymous 11:24 AM: I don't normally do Wednesdays, I'm a Friday Saturday Sunday person but had some extra time today. And then seriously had to deal with MAN as the answer for "Homo sapiens".... Constructors and Editor: it is 2024, please be aware and respectful.
Anonymous 11:26 AM: Thank you @egs 😂
pabloinnh 11:26 AM: It doesn't. You're confusing an 18 with a 19, happens to me all the time.
Anonymous 11:34 AM: 28D Description of this puzzle's circled letters, and a clue to what they spell. Did anyone else pick up that "INONESENSE" amd "SORTA" are equivalent expressions?
That makes me happy, sorta.
That makes me happy, in one sense.
Liveprof 11:38 AM: My mechanic suggested I have him ROTATE my tires, but I said "Don't they rotate when I drive?"

I heard he had become addicted to brake fluid. I said "Marvin, that's dangerous." He said "Don't worry. I can stop whenever I want to."
Shaaron AK 11:38 AM: Surprised at Rex's bashing the theme. Thought it very well done and clever .
Anonymous 11:40 AM: The five senses in this puzzle are a much more natural grouping for 99% of the population than your suggestion would be.
Anonymous 11:43 AM: Samuel Butler’s prose Iliad translation uses “anger”, maybe that was the source.
Nancy 11:51 AM: To me too.
M and A 11:57 AM: Nice E/W puzgrid symmetry. From the grid design, my initial reaction was it was gonna be a celebration of Notre Dame reopenin, or somesuch.
Pretty easy WedPuz solvequest, due to:
* The gray squares highlightin the sense names. Shoulda not grayed out those squares. Let us folks figure them out.
* No ?-marker clues at all. Even tho STY has one.
* Lotsa near-gimme answers. Except for ESPORTS & GAMER, of course.
Clever puztheme idea, tho. Liked.

staff weeject pick: SEA. Clued as a NHL abbreve, for some reason.

fave filler thing: MAEWEST, ISPOSE.

Thanx for gangin up on us, Ms.Bloomer darlin & Chenmeister dude. Somewhat sensible constructioneerin feat.

Masked & Anonymo3Us
M and A 12:02 PM: EMOJI was also SORTA neat fill, I reckon. Always nice to have a token scrabble-twerk. har
Anyhoo...

"Third Stringers" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:

**gruntz**

M&A
jb129 12:22 PM: Pretty easy for a Wednesday. Solved as a themeless. Came here for the theme.
I know SAM ELLIOTT from being married to Katherine Ross ("ELAINE!" in "The Graduate") & now doing commercials (for something I can't remember what) on TV.
I was surprised to see Jeff's name collaborating on the puzzle. Not your usual Wednesday but I'm sure we'll get something interesting on "Rebus" Thursday :(
jae 12:30 PM: A tad easier than medium. I figured out the shaded and circled squares post solve, they SORTA got in the way during the solve.

Most costly erasure: ENdear before ENAMOR.

I did not know GAMER.

Cute and clever, liked it more than @Rex did.
Anonymous 12:43 PM: I solve on an interface that can't show both circles and shaded squares, so I only saw the circles. I got the theme from the revealer and RE[HEAR](S)[ING], no problem. But then, from SSE and TIL, I noticed that S_MELL was the only sense that could fit at 24A, since I didn't know that there were just 4 shaded squares. So that was extra confusing for me.
okanaganer 12:52 PM: Well, I completely missed the "sense" part of the theme and here's why: Across Lite does not show the shaded squares, only the circles. So I parsed the revealer and thought: this is the lamest theme in history. Normally, the NYT editors / tech guys put a note to the effect of "some features of the puzzle may not appear properly in your viewing software" in which case I look at the web page version and take a screenshot if necessary; no biggie. I really don't mind seeing that note, as it helps me not miss things!

Typeover: STAN Lee before SARA Lee. And like Rex, had SSW before SSE for the Fresno to San Diego direction, cuz dammit, isn't Fresno way inland??! (There are other surprising compass direction trivias, eg: Greenland extends farther North, South, West, and East than Iceland.)
Anonymous 1:04 PM: Also Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard
Anonymous 1:22 PM: Also the Broad (pron. “brode”) Institute of MIT & Harvard!
Anonymous 1:33 PM: Haha—well played, Dude
Anonymous 1:34 PM: Love the toaster oven tale!!
Anoa Bob 1:46 PM: I was also a big fan of Jeff Chen's work on xwordinfo.com and was sorry to see him go but he was not the one created the site. That was Jim Horne in 2007. He still is running the show there.
Eniale 1:47 PM: I'm quite happy treating shades and circles as themeless; must learn to read clues more carefully in that a write-over was required for REHEARSals until that gave me EMOJa and LENI -l and EGs.

And what's with these MINISUVs that used to be called hatchbacks?

Today's accomplishments: Crossword, Wordle and SB all accomplished by 10:20 am. Yay me.
Anoa Bob 2:29 PM: My first thought upon seeing the grid was that way too much was going on for all this to come together smoothly. There was a bunch of squares that were shaded gray, five circled squares in two rows and then for some reason the five squares in 41 Across were shaded a canary yellow. (Turns out that the five yellow squares were just indicators of its cross cluing with 1 Across. Distracting, that.)

I do admire the ambition of the theme but my first impression was right. The themers seemed a bit hodgepodge. There was the gerundized REHEARSE, POCs for FREELOADER and HANG TIGHT and then [clang!] somebody's name. Not a TAUT set if you ask me.

As an aside, there are more than five senses. For example there's proprioception, a sense of body position, the vestibular sense of gravity and acceleration/deceleration and the haptic sense, the ability to identify familiar objects by touch only.
Sailor 2:58 PM: There are several different approaches to organizing the various senses that are now recognized, but the one highlighted in this puzzle is still a common and valid one.

Vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch are the principal conduits for sensory information about the external environment. This information is gathered by the five principle exteroceptory organs: the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin.

The problem with the puzzle's theme, as already noted, is that the sense using the skin as a receptor is almost universally named the "sense of touch" (in English). "Sense of feel" sounds odd because it is not a term anyone uses.
Anonymous 3:43 PM: I almost stopped half way through. It was too easy and therefore boring. There's a reason I don't do the Monday and Tuesday puzzles
Anonymous 4:06 PM: !!!
Anonymous 4:25 PM: Joe from Lethbridge
French is actually irrelevant as we have borrowed the word into English slang and inevitably changed it somewhat.
In any event, French speakers frequently use beaucoup without de. Merci beaucoup an example
dgd 4:39 PM: Jberg
About rotating tires
When a car is on a lift and they are “rotating the tires “ you can see them moving the tires around. L front to R front to R rear etc. that’s how I understood it
Lisa 5:12 PM: A Plus on the Pet Pics and Descriptions! Hope! Also Annie's Song is the song I associate with My dog Andy that died, Andy's Song I call it. The song makes me sad, I played it over and over when he died. Thanks Rex for a great blog
dgd 5:19 PM: I didn’t get the “sense imbedded in the downs” theme , and I didn’t see the revealer till towards the end. So it played a little harder for me than for most.
But otherwise it was pretty easy.
It is funny that earlier Rex went on a rant about certain names having too many variables and hear comes ELLIOTT! I have never seen TBL but the name was vaguely familiar and the crosses weren’t hard.
Do not understand Rex’s rant about the theme. Each circle is in one sense. Makes perfect sense to me! Depends on how you read it I guess.
I have always been fascinated by geography since I was a child. So I did remember the trick in Fresno to SD
Rex was saying he knew the answer because he grew up in Fresno but he realized it would trip many up.
Feel is not quite right but that’s crossworld!
Rex complained but there were few complaints in the comments about them. Odd. Since I noticed them they are pretty glaring. As I always say, they don’t bother me.
Finally, dash riprock
There was a Thai restaurant a half block from my apartment. I went to it about once a month. I do like Thai food. The restaurant sadly didn’t survive Covid. Since then I very occasionally go to Thai restaurants. I am sure I have had contact with coconut milk and liked it. but it didn’t register. My mind does weird things like that
Tom F 5:34 PM: Rage! Sing, goddess…

Lombardo’s is the best Iliad.
haari 5:56 PM: yes, touch vs feel, perhaps problematic... but listen to this sensory song by Jesse Winchester... he prefers "feel"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBwYExUZw8o
Joe 6:17 PM: I had never heard of Eli Broad. But now that I know that he was rich, I loathe him. To make matters worse, he gave away some of his wealth but not all of it. I am glad he is dead… Don’t be bitter.