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Trendy compliment with shady undertones / FRI 12-27-24 / Language family of the Pacific Northwest / Put a hex on à la Shakespeare / Drawer with knobs? / Accessory named for a British school / Sweet's counterpart / Emperor from 54 to 68 / Musical prefix with -core
Friday, December 27, 2024
Constructor: Jem Burch
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: SALISH (31D: Language family of the Pacific Northwest) —
The Salishan (also Salish /ˈseɪlɪʃ/) languages are a family of languages of the Pacific Northwest in North America (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). They are characterised by agglutinativity and syllabic consonants. For instance the Nuxalk word clhp’xwlhtlhplhhskwts’ (IPA: [xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ]), meaning "he had had [in his possession] a bunchberry plant", has twelve obstruent consonants in a row with no phonetic or phonemic vowels.The Salishan languages are a geographically contiguous block, with the exception of the Nuxalk (Bella Coola), in the Central Coast of British Columbia, and the extinct Tillamook language, to the south on the central coast of Oregon.
The terms Salish and Salishan are used interchangeably by linguists and anthropologists studying Salishan, but this is confusing in regular English usage. The name Salish or Selisch is the endonym of the Flathead Nation. Linguists later applied the name Salish to related languages in the Pacific Northwest. Many of the peoples do not have self-designations (autonyms) in their languages; they frequently have specific names for local dialects, as the local group was more important culturally than larger tribal relations. (wikipedia)
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This was a solid Friday offering that kind of fell apart in the SE put held up overall. VETOER, oof, "veto" is not a verb that wants to be nouned like that (49D: Nay sayer). And CURST, yuck, no, pass. You know you all had CURSE in there at first, don't lie (51D: Put a hex on à la Shakespeare). And as for ABLED ... I have heard it as part of the phrase "differently ABLED," sure (not a term all disabled people love, but I've heard it). I have heard "ableist" and "ableism" and "able-bodied" and "neurotypical/divergent" but ABLED just sitting there on its own somehow felt weird, especially with that clue, which is worded really awkwardly, like it's trying *real* hard to be blandly nonspecific so as not to offend anyone (53D: Possessing a full range of physical and mental abilities). "Full range of physical and mental faculties?" Come on, does anyone really have the "full range?" What even is that? If people are saying ABLED to refer to the category of "non-disabled," OK ... yes, that seems to be a relatively common usage. "ABLED people" ... "The ABLED" ... I looked it up just now, and it's a word, but it's almost always accompanied by a qualifier (e.g. "the less ABLED"). Most of the dictionary definitions of ABLED have "normal" in them, which seems problematic. Ableist, tbh. I dunno. I would've liked a better clue here. Something with more context. Maybe there's a reason we haven't seen ABLED in the grid since 1975 (when it was clued [Made possible, old-style] (!?)).
Beyond "I LOVE THAT FOR YOU," I can't say I loved the longer answers today, but I also didn't hate them, so that's something. LIGHT TIMER is original, at least, and GIVE OR TAKE has a nice casual colloquial swing to it. And at least two of the longer answers have really great clues on them, which I appreciate. That ETCH-A-SKETCH one is sneaky, using "Drawer" to mean "something that draws" rather than its more common "place to store clothes etc." definition. (This is like when clues use "tower" to mean "thing that tows" and "flower" to mean "thing that flows," usually a river) (34A: Drawer with knobs?). The clue on STONEHENGE is great in a different way (66A: Famous British rock group). Low-key. Subtle. Looks completely innocuous. No "?" or anything. But now that I think about it, it's basically doing the same thing as the ETCH-A-SKETCH clue. In fact, I'm not even sure why the ETCH-A-SKETCH clue has a "?" on it. The ETCH-A-SKETCH is in fact a "drawer" and does in fact have "knobs" so ... yeah, I don't see why you can't leave the "?" off there. Anyway, STONEHENGE gets its misdirection, obviously, from "rock group." Nice.
Trouble spots? Yes, a few. Had IMHO before OTOH (2D: Texter's hedge), though luckily all the other Down surrounding it were right, so I was able to turn FILK into FOLK pretty easily and then get both OTOH and the Grandma Moses answer from there (1A: Grandma Moses, for one = FOLK ARTIST). Had HARASS and later HECKLE before HECTOR (24D: Be a pest to). I needed a lot of crosses to remember SALISH (my family is from the Pacific Northwest originally, so a lot of associated names are rattling around in my head—I just find it hard to grasp them sometimes). STAIN before STAMP (50D: Distinctive mark). And I needed a lot of help to get FATS, who I assume is FATS Domino, and not Minnesota FATS? Yes ... the Domino version (27D: Antoine Caliste Domino Jr., familiarly).
Notes:
- 15A: Accessory named for a British school (ETON COLLAR) — I know way more than I should about ETON, solely because of crosswords. In addition to the collar, there's an Eton jacket, an Eton cap, Eton blue, and an Eton mess (an English dessert). Apologies to all the Eton crap I omitted.
- 19A: High kicks? (HEELS) — "kicks" here is slang for "shoes"
- 30A: Ones who might invade your space, for short? (ETS) — as in "extraterrestrials." Back when I had HARASS instead of HECTOR, I thought the answer to this clue was ADS.
- 45A: Resident of the Mojo Dojo Casa House (KEN) — A Barbie (The Movie) reference.
- 52A: Destination for the van that Kevin fails to board in "Home Alone" (OHARE) — still never seen this movie that half the world has seen (I didn't see It's a Wonderful Life until I was in my late 40s; see also Casablanca—I had a perverse aversion to "everyone's seen that one!" movies. Not having seen Home Alone didn't cause me too much trouble with the OHARE clue, though. Pretty inferrable.
Just said an early-morning goodbye to my kid, who is catching the bus for NYC before flying to ****ing Venice later today. For work. She's coordinating the building of theaters on new cruise ships. (She's also production manager at Great River Shakespeare Festival, but that's neither here nor there ...). Anyway, I could use some Holiday Pet Pics right now to fill the void, so let's go.
I hear you're mad about Brubeck. Me too. Here he is, hiding.
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| [Thanks, Jon] |
Dipper says, "Yes, just what I wanted, a bunch of discarded wrapping paper. You shouldn't have!"
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| [Thanks, Virginia & Dave] |
Here are Phoebe and Kai, enjoying an elegant Christmas somewhere near Lisbon. Phoebe believes she is a cat, just go along with it.
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| [Thanks, Charles] |
Paddy here is such an angel that he will allow you to put this angel contraption (i.e. halo) on his head and he won't even complain. He'll just stare wistfully out the window and wait for dinner.
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| [Thanks, Mary Grace] |
And finally today there's Meredith, who is clearly a supercat, in that she not only wears festive bow ties and solves crosswords, she also reads my blog. I LOVE THAT FOR YOU, Meredith!
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| [Thanks, Rebecca] |
Hope you all are enjoying this weird dead week between National Holidays. Is there still pie? There is here. And it goes great with coffee. So ... bye!
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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115 comments:
Easy-Medium for a Friday.
Overwrites:
At 2D, my Texter's hedge was @Rex imho before it was OTOH
HECkle before HECTOR at 24D (@Rex again, although I skipped Harass)
ScanT NOTICE before SHORT NOTICE at 42A
And yes, @Rex, CURSe before CURST at 51D.
Only one WOE, SALISH at 31D
Have never in my life heard HECTOR as a word meaning to pester someone. Is that like old slang or something?
I felt pretty smart finishing this one....first abley for abled.
I get the resistance to “everyone’s seen it” movies - I’ve made it 52 years without seeing The Sound of Music.
Pretty easy for a Friday. Back-to-back weeks with zero overwrites on Friday.
I did get lucky on some of the longer answers when my guesses turned out right, as with GLAM ROCKER and ADIOS AMIGO.
My resistance movie: An Officer and a Gentleman.
I won’t lie, I had CURSE also. I was originally thinking of a POX but that wasn’t enough letters. I was happy that I got STONEHENGE right away and didn’t fall for the rock group part. It would have been far too vague as there are a countless number of British musical groups
I actually held off on dropping in CURSE as the Billy S reference was enough of a red flag for me to suspect that something was up. Both ABLED and VETOER look ugly IRL, but obviously feel right at home in an NYT grid.
My two favorite clue/answer combos today were STONEHENGE and GLAM ROCKER. It’s no surprise that I never heard of Grandma Moses - it’s like I live in a cave or something.
Thought this was just-right crunchy for a Friday. Started with EGGS and went straight down, VETOER made sense to me, which led to CHESSBOARD, which led nowhere. Eventually got that fixed but hand up for CURSE forever and needed every other letter to see THUNDERGOD, which meant CURST, of course.
TIL SALISH and that there was a TSAR Paul as well as a Peter. Seems fair to me. Also didn't know MEGA as clued or Ms. ROTH. How do you do? Really wanted DETOX for "get clean" but that X wasn't going to be helpful.
Really enjoyed this one, JB, and not Just Because I finished it. Some nice misdirects and good fill. Thanks for all the fun.
Every missed movie mentioned here is worth seeing. Rex: Go watch Home Alone. Right now. —SoCal Craig
Challenging (for a Tuesday) . Zero resistance here, easiest Friday ever
…..maybe someday I’ll see Star Wars.
This one hit my pleasure zone again and again:
• Gorgeous single-word answers (LITHE, SAVORY, HECTOR).
• ANN Patchett, whose books melt my heart.
• Longs that roll off the tongue (GIVE OR TAKE, MORE TO COME, ADIOS AMIGO).
• That terrific ETCH-A-SKETCH clue – [Drawer with knobs?].
• The number 18 right next to MILA.
• BATHE and LATHE because – and I don’t know why – I love the feel of words that end in “the” (such as lithe, soothe, scythe, clothe, and breathe).
Filling this in was a bit like tubing down a river, repeatedly charmed by sights and sounds of nature.
This puzzle contains six NYT answer debuts. Debut answers are not necessarily special, but, IMO, all today are very worthy additions to the oeuvre: ETON COLLAR, GLAM ROCKER, FOLK ARTIST, LIGHT TIMER, ROYAL COURT, I LOVE THAT FOR YOU. And they add pop to the grid.
One of those sweet puzzles which, in addition to delighting my brain’s work ethic, allowed me to bathe in beauty throughout. Thank you so much for this, Jem!
Fun Friday - agree with the big guy on the obtuse SE quadrant - too much funk there but the remainder of the grid is solid. The spinner took me some time to parse as did LIGHT TIMER. LITHE, SAVORY, GLAM ROCKER all solid.
Hello Josephine
Other than a wonderful John Candy polka king scene - you’re not missing much with Home Alone Rex. Had CURSE and STONE roses initially - that entire corner should have been edited cleaner.
I’m a Loner Dottie
Enjoyable Friday morning solve.
TIM
I don’t know why “I love that for you” has shady undertones either. Maybe someone can elaborate on what Rex said? Could it be it implies the speaker wouldn’t love that on themselves?
P.S., I love the NYT debut grid design, which accommodates the lovely long debut answers as well as the roll-off-the-tongue ones. This puzzle design allows for 10 tens, plus an 11 and a 15!
Nice to see I wasn't the only person who tried chessboard. I could see that either that or stonehenge was wrong. But took a bit to figure out which.
Perhaps not so widely used these days but it’s a standard meaning of the word, e.g., “He was hectored mercilessly by his rude neighbor.”
Remembering HECTOR Lopez today, Solid left fielder for the Yanks, early 60's. First Black AAA manager. Died in 2022 at age 93. From Panama. Rest in peace, Hector.
Record or near-record Friday for me. Re Brubeck, I saw what you did there…(I like him, too).
"Medium" sounds about right for a Friday. Am I the only one who had CHESSBOARD instead of ROYALCOURT for a king and queen? I finally realized it couldn't be CHESSBOARD, but still had to cheat to get ROTH, which gave me ROYALCOURT. I don't think ABLED is really a word (except in crosswordese). Also needed an alphabet run to get MILA/EMO cross.
Yes, I think originally the phrase came from the gay community and was more of a sarcastic I'm being mean but I sound nice phrase. Like I hate that but I guess it works for you bc I don't like you either. But now it's changed and people mostly use it as a real xompliment
There's pie here, but not for long. Exactly one piece left of pecan bourbon pie. So. Good.
I disagree on CURST - the Shakespeare reference made it clear it couldn’t be plain old “curse” and the “t” instead of “ed” is common Elizabethan stuff
Wanted to LOVE it but just liked it - probably due to too- easy longs and head- scratching shorts like ABLED. Didn't know SALISH and now will try hard to forget it. (Although I was intrigued enough by the word agglutinativity to check it out - apparently its also a feature of Hungarian, Basque, and Turkish/Persian tongues)
I chuckled at ILOVETHATFORYOU, because the shade in the last two words reminds me of an old golfer's dis: after someone hits a good -but-not-great shot, his/her opponent comments, "Good for you" (voiced Good...for you)!
All in all a fun solve. References to multiple eras, eclectic feel.
Checking the pics today, my favorite has to be Paddy. The stoic resigned look of Ralphie in the pink bunny outfit...
Hey All !
SW corner was my undoing. LIGHT TIMER I see now, but yikes, what an odd answer/thing. Plus, wanted LYFT for the Uber clue, naturally, and Rex STAin for STAMP. For some reason, the ole brain just could not come up with DAM. Damn. Actually had to Goog for DAM. After slapping my head and entering it, saw AMID, which got me the rest.
HECTOR clued in a way I hadn't seen before. SALISH a new one here also. Just hoped the crossers I had were correct.
Had to Goog ROTH also, as plumb stuck in SW. Another SE hold-up, btw, was FRAy for FRAT. Nice misdirection there. Two nice misdirection clues also, for STONEHENGE and ETCHASKETCH.
Boy, having two days off during the week sure gets you to Friday quick. Can that be like that every week?
TGIF. Happy Friday.
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Barry: STONEHENGE dropped right in for me too, and I thought, “Huh, I didn’t know there’s a band named STONEHENGE . . . Oh, wait . . . Doh!”
Never heard of anyone dying from Panama before. Thanks for the factoid.
Confidently plopped down chessboard, imho, and lyft and was stuck for awhile.
You know whats funny. People from Germany barely know that movie. If you made a survey Im guessing 1 out of 10. I myself only learned about it through repeated inquiries by my American acquaintances :)
Yes! Loved that but had no idea it was a debut, so thanks for mentioning it.
same. Looked that one up after I was done like wtf???
Easiest Friday in a while. Well, one by Robin recently that I did sub 10 minutes but this was 16:58 and I was by no means hurrying. Pretty simple IMO. Maybe I got lucky.
Think lowercase “uber” for mega.
Easy-Medium. I started with IMHO for OTOH (@Rex) but LORE and HEELS were easy enough. The SW was the roughest section (and the last one I completed), mostly but not entirely due to my guess FLAV at 27D, from the F. I remember seeing FLAV as a music-related answer in crosswords, and I crossed it with [Letters of relief] ASMR. I fixed everything when I got NOTICE with the T in place, followed by SHORT, LIGHTsomething, TGIF, ADIOS AMIGO.
Is a FRAT rush a thing? I'm not from the US and would like to know what "rush" means in this context.
Does PROM count as a "place" if it's an event? I'm not entirely sure that the repeated king/queen clue works.
Some nice long answers: I LOVE THAT FOR YOU, MORE TO COME, GIVE OR TAKE. OTOH (!) I think RFS SALISH ABLED VETOER CURST is a bit too much gunk (all close together, even) for a 72-word grid.
Oh, what a terrific Friday! Easy enough to get some traction and really whoosh, but with a few tripping points to slow me down - I’m looking at you, CURST, ABLED and VETOER. Delightful clues like … High kicks? Drawer with knobs? and British rock group. Beautiful long stacks plus the outstanding grid-spanning I LOVE THAT FOR YOU which I feel certain has to be a debut answer. Just a wonderful windup to the week. Thank you Jem, I had a great time.
And thanks to RP for the interesting clip on SALISH which I was stunned to learn exists right here in the USA. I found it fascinating and after looking up “agglutination” and several other words in an effort to understand it, I also feel a little smarter now. But not smart enough to actually to learn it. Best of luck to Ella. (I do hope she took time to design your annual postcard before departing.) And yes Rex, you really should see Home Alone. In fact, it would be a great one to fill the void, and a good reason to have more pie.
Thanks so much for publishing my pet pic!
(Just for the record, she’s a girl cat, named after a boy Brubeck (Dave).) I’m not sure I get the bit about being mad, but thanks anyway!
Went with imho for 2D which led to oiL pAinter for Georgia O’Keefe which slowed me down for a bit.
I think “shady undertones” refers to the color of the outfit you’re complimenting them on.
Really, really wanted 62A to be ROYAL FLUSH.
Did @Rex just say “I hear you’re mad about Brubeck”? IS THAT A DONALD FAGEN REFERENCE? AS IN THE HIT SONG CALLED “New Frontier” BY DONALD FAGEN, IN WHICH THE CHARACTER OF THE SONG TAKES A GIRL WITH A TOUCH OF TUESDAY WELD INTO A FALLOUT SHELTER HIS DAD BUILT? WOW! I LOVE MUSIC AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
This was a great challenging Friday. My time was well into the Saturday range. The resistance was lurching stop and go. The NE was completely early week but my IMHO/OTOH write over slowed down the NW. That's a KEA/LOA that I'm amazed I've never seen before.
The center held out until last. I'm not familiar with the grid spanner or SALISH for that matter and HECKLE blocked HECTOR for a long time.
ADIOSAMIGO was obvious but I had trouble supporting it with crosses. FATS came very slowly I actually considered FONZ first.
I had the CURSE/CURST write over and I'm grateful ELDESTGOD didn't fit. ROTH and ANN were unknowns and I was slow on ABLED and VETOER. STONEHENGE was a complete surprise. I wondered if SUPERTRAMP was British. That SE was probably my favorite section. HUNG next to ERGO were the two short answers that gave it away.
The clue is "Put a hex on". Since "put" can be present or past tense, either CURSe or CURST works.
I don't have an aversion to movies that everyone's seen (though I get that), but I've never seen Home Alone or anything with that MacCulkin kid in it just because the advertising when it came out turned me off so thoroughly, being an angsty teen at the time. I have never seen Titanic because I feel the same about that song.
D'oh!
Medium, and a treat to solve. Getting nowhere in the NW, I made my way in through EMO x EGGS + MIRA + OVAL, leading to GIVE OR TAKE leading to ETCHASKETCH, and a clockwise solve from there. The ST from STONEHENGE and THUNDERGOD saved me from CURSe. Last in: FEM x FOLK. Loved HECTOR after yesterday's THRUM - what rare gem will Saturday bring?
I'm jealous of you who are eating pie. I made a steamed pudding, there's half left, and nobody will eat it but me.
I'd have to rate it easy by my finish time but had just the right amount of resistance all the way through. Wanted PRIMITIVIST for Grandma Moses but that was one letter too long. The TANK cross had me back out of ETCHASKETCH for just a minute because I didn't think TANK without TOP was a thing. Loved the clue on STONEHENGE, though I wish they could have worked a Spinal Tap reference in there somehow.
I for one am Not raising my hand for CURSE->CURST though. Shakespeare plus the old present-tense/past-tense PUT ploy told me it was one of those Britspeak "t" instead of "ed" clues (e.g. DREAMT) so that was really kind of an "I see what you're doing there" gimme. But I didn't get to that clue early enough, before several tries at trying to make 62A ("Place for a king and queen") end with BOARD (as in CHESS), so ran into a bit of resistance there. Also an instance of that double-clue thing Rex complains about as coming at the cost of one of the repeats being less apt, but in this case both seem perfectly smooth (and neither involved CHESS).
A very SAVORY solving experience over all for me.
Me encanta eso para ti.
Well, there ya go. The fact that I know where Ken lives should give me reason enough to jump off a bridge.
☠️ SALISH and HECTOR.
Propers: 10 (grr)
Places: 1
Products: 3
Partials: 10 (ease up)
Foreignisms: 2
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Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 26 of 72 (36%)
Funnyisms: 5 😄
Tee-Hee: HUNG.
Uniclues:
1 Where weird kids with bad haircuts come from.
2 Essential design flaw in every jogging track for a goal oriented lazy person like me.
3 Shake that thing ('cuz whatever you thought you were making looks ridic).
4 Wannabe territory.
5 Dancer with a gassy tummy.
1 FOLK ARTIST EGGS
2 MORE TO COME OVAL
3 AID ETCH-A-SKETCH
4 AMID ROYAL COURT
5 PROM THUNDER GOD
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Retail outlet for all things end-of-the-Earth-ish. ASTEROID, ETC.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Watched My Cousin Vinnie for the first time. Now I understand why everyone liked it. Fun!
Definitely down with the "movies everyone has seen" thing. Put me in mind of the "Humiliation" game academics play in that Kingsley Amis novel, in which each player tries to top the others with "The greatest work of literature I've never read." Like Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, whatever. Winner gets bragging rights but may lose tenure. Mine would be "Romeo and Juliet." *Seen* it, but never read it. Even though I taught Shakespeare at the college level. After a while it became a perverse point of pride thing where I just wanted to preserve my never-read-it status the same way some people are about Star Wars.
I guess you could say that if you've been offed by your brother, you've been ABLED?
I'm so disappointed that @Rex didn't include a pic of my dog "Etch". He's such a good dog. You can pet ETCHASKETCH to sit, even tell him to go get some members of the legume family from the garden by saying Etch, fetch vetch. Problem is, he's so huge and strong that he has to wear a onETONCOLLAR when we walk. Maybe next year he'll make the blog pics.
I guess the fact that we've got TIM crossing TIM (from LIGHTTIMER) means that today's constructor is a two-TIMer.
Really loved lots of today's cluing. Wonderful puzzle. Thanks, Jem Burch.
Me too with DETOX. Whole SE would have been easier if I'd come into it from the W, because CURST was my first guess when I saw the clue. Trying to work backwards from E also had me stuck for a bit trying to make "Place for a king and queen" end in BOARD (as in CHESS--) which also was a no-go.
CURSe before CURST - tick. The Beatles before STONEHENGE - tick. Despite those and a couple other goofs, managed to finish in Medium time.
ETCH-A-SKETCH went in right away. MORE TO COME reminded me of the bumpers on "The Tonight Show" in Johnny Carson days.
Thanks, Jem Burch.
Needed a Lyft to unpacking Uber—alternative so a MEGA long TIMe to close that corner. Enjoyed the STONEHENGE clue as rock solid grouping. Nay OTOH for VETOER. Thanks Jem for filling the morning spot until yet another Bowl Game enters stage left to bridge the post/pre holiday gap & glad to see your constructor’s note on the NYT blog.
I love that for you. Translation: I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing it but if you you like it, sure, do your thing.
I just watched Home Alone the other day, because one of the Christmas Movie Medleys I had to play in the pre-holiday concerts included music from it. It wasn't awful. The music wasn't awful either, but I can't remember how it went two weeks after performing it. I felt the same way about It's a Wonderful Life, though that one I had seen once or twice years ago.
Yesterday our engine went 'thrum,' today it's a PURR. Wish my engine sounded like that, but you can't have everything. And didn't we just have uber as an alternative to ultra, while today it's MEGA? Neither of those synonyms is exact, but I guess the variety is nice.
I did like all the short colloquial phrases: GIVE OR TAKE, MORE TO COME, SHORT NOTICE, ROYAL COURT... and then there's ETCH-A-SKETCH! That brings back fond memories of Mitt Romney's campaign to win the Republican presidential nomination, a campaign in which he took positions considerable to the right of what he had done as Governor of Massachusetts. When a reporter asked his aid how those positions would go over with the general electorate, the answer was that he would just erase them with an ETCHASKETCH and devise a new winning platform. It didn't work.
The hardest part for me was figuring out why a CURSe was "a la Shakespeare." It took the THUNDER GOD to correct me on that.
I too read SHADY as hue - "that color looks good on you."
I am an old timer. Maybe that is why I went straight to hector. Never thought oh heckle. This was the easiest Friday for me in forever. Thanks Rex for those pet pictures. They are calming after another night of RAIN in central coast CA.
Meant to say I've never seen either of The Godfathers, source of many xword answers. And yes, I know they're classics and I should and so on.
An enjoyable puzzle that I found mostly easier than most Fridays, but not everywhere. My big hangup is "chilled" = HUNG. Why???? I suppose in the sense of lounging around and taking it easy? But when you're "chilling" -- a verb I never use, btw, -- aren't you HANGing OUT? Or HANGing loose? I definitely did not like this clue/answer.
Other than that, the puzzle was fine. FEM led me right in at the outset and I never looked back.
Wasn't that David Lodge? Or maybe they both do it? Or maybe my memory isn't so good anymore!
When I saw Brubeck, I said aloud “what a great picture.” And those eyes! She’s a real beauty.
As I type this, I am in my living room looking out across the SALISH Sea, so at least one answer came easily. Like Rex, had CURSe before CURST--darn that little "put" that can be present or past tense.
The last space I entered came as a result of having to run the alphabet at the personal Natick intersection of EMO/MILA.
The next-to-the-last squares I entered were the ones numbered "1" & "2"; I'm looking at __ __ LKARTIST and cannot for the life of me remember the word FOLK, lol! ("Can it be miLK? Did she paint with miLK?" hah) I also blanked on OTOH! It finally dawned on me after waaaay too long.
Good puzzle--medium or harder for me.
Forrest Gump, which after many years I saw and liked.
I’m the same way about Star Wars. Never watched a single one. I do love Godfather I and II though.
Really had fun with this one! I got a kick out of every single long answer, all made me smile. Yesterday I remarked that the puzzle was solid but without much enjoyment, but if you asked me why I got joy out of this one and not yesterday's, I honestly don't think I could tell you. This one just pressed all the right buttons for me. I should complain about VETOER but I'll leave it alone because all the rest was more than fine.
I actually did have CURST down correctly on the first try only because I already had the T in THUNDERGOD.
The middle west was again sticky for me, I had ___RTNOTICE for 42A and rushed in with ALERTNOTICE (???) which made that whole neighborhood impossible for a while. Even when SHORTNOTICE fell, I could NOT get those relief letters - anyone else have the old Rolaids commercial running through their heads with that one? Finally got FRAT and it all fell into place from there.
Also had LYFT as an Uber alternative so the SW also got a bit wonky for me but only for a minute or so.
I'm discovering that HENS seems to illicit some very cute mis-directs, I think today's was my favorite. Also enjoyed the cluing for ETCHASKETCH, I thought the "?" was warranted.
I could list the long ones I liked best but I was crazy about all of them so I'll refrain.
Not too many propers, though it took several crosses for SALISH to fall and the only one real groaner was VETOER (oops, I said I wouldn't complain about that one!) Thank you Jem for the great Friday!
Reminds me of Rodney Dangerfield to Ted Knight in Caddyshack: "Looks great on you though"
Never saw Star Wars or ET. But I have read David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, so there's that. Enjoyable Friday - not too tough. Loved the STONEHENGE clue, showed the family that one.
FRAT is short for a college fraternity and “rush” refers to the period during which students interested in joining a fraternity may explore their options and find the right fit. This is often referred to as “rush week,” at the beginning of the school year in the fall.
I was in Panama a few years ago and you see a LOT of NY Yankee caps. I asked an old timer why he liked to wear it... because of Mariano Rivera? He said, 'Hector Lopez'. That took me back
Real hard to believe that this FriPuz got up to the 72-worder themeless boundary. There were so many excellent longball entries. And the weejects only chipped in 14 somewhat-savory entries, at the other end.
IMHO club-2D member, today. shady.
staff weeject pick: RFS. Primo plural abbreve meat.
some of the many faves included: GIVEORTAKE. MORETOCOME. "shady" ILOVETHATFORYOU. STONEHENGE & its clue. ETCHASKETCH & its clue.
Thanx, Mr. Burch dude. Not bad ATALL.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
MORETOCOMEFORYOU...
"Runtosaurus" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
This was a nice, easy Friday puzzle though it had its moments. My bad habit of not reading entire clues had me putting in SAmoan off the Pacific part of the clue for SALISH. I put in BATHE, then took it out when I couldn't think of a word for "chilled" that started with H but of course it went back in when everything else fell together.
Grandma Moses: I hope I can start some sort of creative activity when I turn 78 (more than a decade away). Though it sounds like she was drawing and painting well before that age. I have painting aspirations but no idea if there's any talent. (My Dad was an ABLE painter so I have hope.)
Thanks, Jem Burch!
The Sound of Music is in Austria.
This old timer says, see it. But only on a very big home screen or at a theater. The music you know already but the photography is lovely. As are the actors.
Easy. No erasures except for CURSe and SALISH was it for WOEs. I put in FOLK ARTIST and ETON COLLAR and just kept going.
Breezy with lots of sparkle, a fun solve. Liked it a bunch!
Tee. And furthermore, Hee! I bet that Prom Thunder God is in a FRAT.
Brubeck's so cute. He's an artist, a pioneer.
I loved this puzzle for me. It was extremely crunchy like the granola I had for breakfast. I munched through it clockwise, starting with the NW. Everything was pretty whoosh until I came back to the NW. Confidently put in THERESMORE to 17A. And then I had to gnaw on that corner for a long time to come to terms with THERESMORE being wrong. Pardon all the chewy references. My dog was chomping on his new bone while I was solving. Like Rex, I'm going to have some pie today. Thanks JB for the great puzzle. Fun solving experience.
This was a nice, easy, enjoyable Friday (kind of "Robynesque), although I had "I love that ON you" for the longest time. ABLED had me for a while & so did HUNG for chilled but now I get it - I think. Mention of "The Godfather I & II - my favorite movies of all time. And "Goodfellas" with a funny Joe Pesci in "My Cousin Vinny" for a change.
Thanks, Ella :)
I approve of this puzzle.
Loved the STONEHENGE clue and figured it out with only a couple of crosses - the G and an E somewhere. ETCHASKETCH had a great clue also and that went in with zero crosses.
Anyone else NOTICE the mini poultry theme - EGGS, HENS, ROOST. Happy 3 French HENS Day!
Didn’t “know” MILA and never heard of EMOcore so that M was a lucky guess.
No to falling for the IMHO/OTOH kealoa trap. I did almost put in AFAK.
Yes to CURSe before CURST.
Yes to resisting movies (or anything) “everyone” has seen. Just because millions of people like something doesn’t make it great, or even good. I watched Home Alone and it seemed well done but I didn’t like it.
Most YouTube videos I watch have fewer than 100 likes. This one has eleven. Get clean. Happy 75th Birthday to Thelonius Monk’s son, T. S. Monk.
I wish I hadn’t seen Godfather III
My first thought as well. And the U fit, but ERGO to the rescue.
From etymonline.com: hector (v.)
"to bluster, bully, domineer," 1650s, from slang hector (n.) "a blustering, turbulent, pervicacious, noisy fellow" [Johnson], 1650s, from Hector of the "Iliad," in reference to his encouragement of his fellow Trojans to keep up the fight. Earlier in English the name was used generically for "a valiant warrior" (late 14c.).
I live in the heart of SALISH territory so that was pretty much a gimme. There has been some renaming of various locations to their actual Salish names which is fine, except as mentioned in Rex's Wikipedia snippet, they can be very hard to remember and/or pronounce. Typically handled by saying "Haig Brown park... whatever it's called now" (Tsútswecw).
IMHO then IIRC before OTOH. SLC was impossible to guess... oh wait, Salt Lake City!! Plus the grid has SALTY and SAVORY!
OMG! I like pie just fine, but I would trade it for steamed pudding in a heartbeat. Was it plum? I haven't had plum pudding since I was a child. One of my great aunts made it every Christmas until she became too frail. Everybody loved it, but nobody else wanted to go to the trouble of making it, because pie is so much easier. Thanks for evoking that treasured holiday memory.
Double “Doh!” My reaction the same, had to laugh!
Goodfellas is right near the top of my list too. Such a remarkable cast of true-life characters and the actors who played them.
There are not "certain baseball positions" which can be called RFS. There is one position which is RF. You can have a number of players who play that position which you could refer to as RFS.
Correction on my above p.s.: The grid design allows for ten 10s, TWO 11's, and a 15. Even better than what I said before!
Thank you for Ella and Miss Otis Regrets My very favorite.
Evidently Rex expects us to care a FF about his pets !
Did it dead tree in pen (I bought the paper), quick scanned the clues and filled in the obvious ones. I rank it a solid medium
Thanks Jem!
The first thing I thought of was "I like that in you," which (I believe) is a Southern expression, especially in the Southern African-American community, and basically means "Good show -- I like that about you." But there's no "shady" implication, so I realized it couldn't be that.
Thanks for Ella and Miss Otis Regrets. All-time classic
Thank you - I think so too!
Ha! I also had aleRT NOTICE for a SHORT time.
I liked Rex's quick Donald Fagin "New Frontier" quote by the first animal photo:
I hear you're mad about Brubeck
I like your eyes I like him too
He's an artist, a pioneer
We've got to have some music on the new frontier
"Chilled" = HUNG. Huh?
@Jon, She’s adorable! She looks like the quasi-feral mom and her two young ones we’re feeding and letting into our basement to keep warm.
"I hear you're mad about Brubeck" is a quote from a song by Donald Fagen (of Steely Dan fame),
New Frontier.
This was my very first Friday I’ve gotten without needing any hints/cheats! Definitely had CURSE first, and have never heard HECTOR. Got ETCHASKETCH right away though, and felt like I anm starting to get the hang of some crossword tricks. I think that confidence is what kept me from giving up!
Movie I've never seen is Gone With the Wind. Had ST_N_____ and kept wanting Stone Roses to fit, but I knew they were too obscure (but they were great)
Hello, all. Bardfilm here to complain about the Shakespeare clue. I’m very happy with the answer, but the clue is completely wrong.
Shakespeare never uses “curst” as a verb. It’s always an adjective. He rarely uses “cursed” as a verb, though it occurs once in Romeo and Juliet and several times in Richard III, and once in Henry VI, Part 2.
It’s a great word, and I love to see a Shakespeare clue in a crossword. But it can’t be clued as a verb—not with that spelling. “Been hexed, à la Shakespeare” would be entirely appropriate.
Middlemarch for me. Tried several times, but DNF. Should be called Muddlemarch. Life is too short.
Yes, Donald Fagan, “New Frontier” lyric. ~RP
As in "hung out."
Said by actress who plays Eugene Levy’s daughter in Schitt’s Creek. Lots of shade.
Did you mean used or uses?
You should see both.
Anonymous 4:38 pm
Stones Roses was the first STONE I thought about.
David Lodge
Bob Mills
A LOT of commenters put chess bOaRd in first. So did I.
I look at it as a double reverse.
People assume it’s a misdirection since it’s Saturday. But it isn’t!
Anonymous 9:49 AM
About PROM
It is a high school senior or junior dance, which is in some building.
One definition of royal court is wherever the royals hold court. Royal court is actually an even more abstract term than prom because it is most often used as an abstraction. So the first definition is works with prom.
Loved all the pet pics so far
Unfortunately a troll had to put his two plug nickels (sic) in.
Oh well.
Loved the name Brubeck.
Anonymous 1:59 PM
Don’t get your point. This is a puzzle after in which the creator plays tricks with words . To reduce to absurdity are you saying there is only one right field position in the whole country?
Blue stater
In case it isn’t clear, hung can be used without the with
He hung with the guys on the corner and his mother didn’t like it.
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