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Common but often counterproductive response to a recurring problem / SAT 2-8-25 / Celebrity chef with a role in the 1995 film "Casino" / "Days of Grace" memoirist, 1993 / Niche product of Coca-Cola and 7Up / Inexperienced gamers, in slang / 2010s satirical reality series starring comedian Fielder / ___ Jin-won, Oscar-winning screenwriter for "Parasite" / Cookie brand whose name is stylized with an exclamation point / Toni Morrison character who lives in the Bottom
Saturday, February 8, 2025
Constructor: Alina Abidi
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: ANTIPATTERN (10D: Common but often counterproductive response to a recurring problem) —
An anti-pattern in software engineering, project management, and business processes is a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive. The term, coined in 1995 by computer programmer Andrew Koenig, was inspired by the book Design Patterns (which highlights a number of design patterns in software development that its authors considered to be highly reliable and effective) and first published in his article in the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming. A further paper in 1996 presented by Michael Ackroyd at the Object World West Conference also documented anti-patterns.It was, however, the 1998 book AntiPatterns that both popularized the idea and extended its scope beyond the field of software design to include software architecture and project management. Other authors have extended it further since to encompass environmental, organizational, and cultural anti-patterns. (wikipedia) (emph. mine)
• • •
[Underrated deep cut]
CACAO NIBS! CHIPS AHOY!! CHERRY SODA! Throw on some ABBA, and you've got yourself a party. Could've done without the double "celebrity chefs of yore" thing. I remember PEPIN OK (40D: Chef Jacques ___, holder of 16 James Beard awards), but NOBU clean left my head (16A: Celebrity chef with a role in the 1995 film "Casino"). Plus, I'd already seen a famous chef, so ... give it a rest. Spread your love around! To other arenas! I'm feeling very exclamation pointy today, I'll see if I can tone it down! Other things that felt like repeats: NELLA Larson (wasn't she in a puzzle, like, two or three days ago?); and HAN (not HAN himself, but the use of Parasite as a frame of reference — really, the screenwriter I gotta know now?!?) (don't get me wrong, it's a Great movie, but ... I dunno, I feel like next you're going to be asking me who was Key Grip or Best Boy, and ???) (33A: ___ Jin-won, Oscar-winning screenwriter for "Parasite"). There were a few sticking points, but they were only a little sticky. I could see the (guitar) "capo" in my head, but couldn't come up with the category of thing that it was (CLAMP). In that same section, I had a bit of trouble parsing the beginning of NO ACCIDENT ("nothing begins 'NOAC' ... oh, wait"). I wanted CHERRY COLA because apparently my brain refused to deal with the fact that 7Up was in the clue (49A: Niche product of Coca-Cola and 7Up) (I thought 7Up *was* a "product of Coca-Cola, but nope, that's Sprite) (I haven't had soda since the 20th century) (just coffee, water, GIN MARTINIS). I hesitated for a bit trying to decide if it was EVERT or AVERT (39D: Turn away). EVERT is also a "turn," but more of a "turn inside-out." I had -R-- at 18A: Prune and went for CROP instead of TRIM. Between that and NOBU and the ANTI- part of ANTI-PATTERN, that is the one part of the grid where things could've gone sideways. But nope—other answers gettable, crisis everted.
Bullets:
- 19A: Sedaris of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" (AMY) — what a bizarre way to clue her. I completely forgot that Kimmy Schmidt existed or that AMY Sedaris was on it. Meanwhile, AMY Sedaris has received Emmy nominations for her show At Home With AMY Sedaris, which has her name in the damn title. She also had a major role in Bojack Horseman (Princess Caroline), and, I mean, not that I want any more damn Star Wars clues, but she was in The Mandalorian for god's sake (2019-23). She also wrote a best-selling guide to entertaining: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. This is all to say that Kimmy Schmidt is not the AMY Sedaris touchstone for me, a person who has been a fan of hers since Strangers With Candy (1999-2000). Also, I never actually saw this clue because it got filled in automatically by those easy initial Downs.
- 21A: Gas-infused coffee order (NITRO) — I think I had one of these once. I forget why. Maybe it tasted ... creamier? Really seems like a marketing gimmick aimed at making fancy coffee more appealing to Men™
- 51A: Teacup (MINI) — pretty sure the context here is dogs
- 7D: "Days of Grace" memoirist, 1993 (ASHE) — pretty hard, as ASHE clues go. Nothing in that title is giving anything away.
- 9D: Term of ___ (ART) — LOL never heard of this. I wanted ENDEARMENT and then ... nothing. "Term of ART" is just a wordy way of saying "jargon" or "lingo" (a term known to specialists in a given field, but not outsiders so much).
- 25D: Title Toni Morrison character who lives in the Bottom (SULA) — Gimme! I feel like knowing Morrison's bibliography has come in handy a bunch of times lately. If it's four letters and Morrison, it's probably SULA. (Unless it's JAZZ!) (or LOVE!) (or HOME!)
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- 15D: Inexperienced gamers, in slang (NOOBS) — glad to see this spelled correctly. Really not a fan of that "newb" spelling.
- 24D: Abbott and Costello in the film "Arrival," informally (ETS) — laughed when I went back over this puzzle, because my brain initially misread this clue. Badly. I thought it was referring to an Abbott and Costello movie where maybe space travel was involved (?) and so *they* were the aliens (or ETS). But no. "Abbott & Costello" are just what AMY Adams calls the aliens she's trying to communicate with in the very famous 21st-century movie Arrival.
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91 comments:
Easy-Medium. A lot of stuff I didn't know but it was spread through the puzzle so I didn't have a lot of hard sticking points.
Overwrites:
Misspelled 5D as ONOMoTOPOEIA
6D: BiNDS before BONDS
17A: BALLOON art before HAT
45A: day before PIT (thinking of the mm/dd/yyyy type of date)
WOEs:
ANTIPATTERN at 10D
NATHAN FOR YOU at 21D
SULA at 25D
HAN Jin-won at 33A
CACAO NIBS at 35A (thought ChocO NIBS but "chocolaty" was in the clue)
NELLA Larsen at 37A. If she was in the puzzle recently, she didn't stick in my synapses
Fastest, easiest Saturday in a long, long time. Rocketed through it. Much smooth, if you will.
ANTIPATTERN seems to be giving people some trouble, but I had it from AN-. Don’t overthink it, it’s just a way (of doing something) that we (as a society or an industry) have concluded doesn’t work particularly well.
This has got to be the strangest Saturday that I’ve ever tried to solve - about 75% of it seemed like Monday/Tuesday level plug and chug. I suspect that I will have a fair amount of company today with similar trouble spots:
ANTIPATTERN
NATHAN FOR YOU
CACAO NIBS (hopefully that’s a brand name, because it sounds ridiculous)
I also thought the clue for NO ACCIDENT was too much of a stretch, even for a Saturday, but Will overruled me there. I would definitely welcome more grids like this one on the weekend - and I was glad to see that Rex didn’t pan it (I thought he might tear into it for being too easy - like I said, a bizarre Saturday - at least for me).
Had some fun with this - Rex nailed it. Plays more Friday-like but no issues. CACAO NIBS, CRASH TEST and NOTE TO SELF are all solid. Limited trivia - although needed the crosses for NOBU, HAN and AMY.
ART Lover
SSNs are temporal. A few midweek level entries here ease the difficulty but also the elegance.
Enjoyable Saturday morning solve. Frank Longo’s Stumper provides more pushback this morning with a central spanner and proper corner stacks. Not looking forward to shoveling later.
But you grow up and you calm down - and you're working for the CLAMPdown
ridiculously easy. got my saturday PR today! love to see NATHAN FOR YOU in the crossword!
Loved this puzzle! I got stuck for a full minute at BALLOONHAT crossing ASHE and ART. Stared until I took a blind guess at ASHE and then HAT clicked into place.
Did they mistakenly publish the Saturday puzzle on Friday and then have to run the Friday puzzle on Saturday??
Random thoughts:
• Saturday-level clues: [Calculated] for NO ACCIDENT and [Teacup] for MINI. Did anyone get these answers just off the clue? On a related note, my TIL: That a teacup dog is one that is smaller than a typical dog of its breed.
• I find it astonishing that PORTOBELLO has never appeared in a NYT puzzle before.
• Many smiles in this outing – i.e., flashing on the taste of CACAO NIBS, the lovely misdirecting [Middle of a date], mental pictures of balloon hats, and the thought of Amy Sedaris.
• I like the grid design because it accommodates a hefty 14 bigs (answers of eight letters or more), including the lovely NOTE TO SELF, ONOMATOPOEIA, and PORTBELLO.
• Sweet sing-song cross of NELLA and BELLO. Say that five times rapidly!
Alina, thank you for mixing workout with pleasure in the box today. You must know that only one constructor (Andrew Ries) has hit the cycle (a puzzle for every day of the week) in their first seven NYT puzzles, and you are just two puzzles short of joining him. Go for it!
Seemed easy at first in the NW, but after that I found it very hard. Had to cheat several times in the NE, to get PORTOBELLO and ANTIPATTERN (I was sure "I never learn" was the lament after a frequent mistake). Had no clue about the celebrity chef, and NATHANFORYOU was a non-starter because I don't watch TV.
Very likeable solve. Tougher for me than most Saturdays due to my weakness in pop culture areas and difficulty spelling onomatopoeia. Learned about CACAONIBS, which sound yummy. I filled in MINI for "Teacup" because it made sense in a way, but still don't understand it. Cluing was generally thoughtful and not too difficult
I felt sluggish all the way around the puzzle, I do believe another caffeinated drink is in order!
Couple of guesses today. BUONA crossing SULA. I thought buona was probably OK, but if had would up as boono/sola or beona/sela I would not have been shocked.
The other one was at NOBU/ANTIPATTERN. Never heard of either of those, and again the actual answer seemed most likely, but if it turned out to be lobu/altipattern or cobu/actipattern I would not have been shocked.
Overall, this felt like an early Agard puzzle - determined to throw a bunch of names that they think we shold know into the puzzle. There's nothing wrong with introducing us to NOBU, or HAN or NELLA, or SULA, or PEPIN, or Fareed Zakaria, or Nathan Fielder, but all of them at once pretty much enusres none of thme will stick.
Rex lists four TV shows and a book for Amy Sedaris, none of which I've seen and two of which I've never heard of. Kimmy Schmidt, on the other hand, I've seen and enjoyed. So for me, that was the perfect choice of vehicles.
Remember when Saturday puzzles were challenging? Sigh.
This was not a saturday, nor a friday. It was Tuesday easy.
Gah! I waited for the crosses to see if it was CHERRY cOlA or CHERRY cOke, so TAFT confirmed the former --- I thought. SODA never occurred to me. This left me with IlLE for what the orange dot might mean (not on my phone) and cSN for the phishing target. When will I learn that if an answer doesn't make sense it's probably wrong? Never, probably; perhaps that's my ANTIPATTERN.
Aside from that, I loved the puzzle. Except maybe GIN MARTINI, which wrongly implies the existence of non-gin martinis.
Aside from the actual failure, the toughest part was remembering that BUeNO is Spanish, not Italian. And deciding to to with MINI for teacup, which I still don't understand.
I don't know how to look up old clues for answers, but the "Days of Grace" clue was definitely used previously. I've been doing old NYT puzzles and came across ASHE clued that way in the past week, so that was oddly a gimme for me despite never otherwise having heard of the book.
A Wednesday at worst. Only holdup was newbs for noob and puck before nobu. Otherwise no resistance at all. Kind of a bummer. I wish they hadn’t gone to three a week because The New Yorker crosswords are what the NYT should be. Though still thankful for the three they do publish! They have wit, are contemporary, and their difficult puzzles are actually Saturday worthy levels of challenging.
Saturday is always my favorite of the week and WOW was this in my wheelhouse. I’m not a speed demon and I still cut my average time in half on this gem of a puzzle. Others than ANTIPATTERN, lots of whooshing and zero grinding.
So happy to see AMY Sedaris in the grid, especially knowing her amazing brother David is a NYT Xword nut. If you want read David’s hilarious essay, look for “Solution to Saturday’s Puzzle”.
Very cool shout out to NATHAN FIELDER. Go see his brilliant limited series, “The Curse”, if you haven’t already. Genius on a few levels.
Go Eagles!
People/things I never heard of.....frown
Hey All !
SULA/CLAMP L was my DNF today. Glad you knew it automatically, Rex. Not me. Had an H there. Far reaching clue for CLAMP (Capo, e.g.), no? How about "Vise"?
Fairly smooth otherwise, with a Goog or two to verify stuff. Confess to having to look up how to spell ONOMATOPOEIA, was thinking ONOMONOPOEIA. Is that also a thing? Or is that the Mandela Effect?
Had NewBS first for NOOBS. Should know by now to write in N__BS and wait. Wanted pregO for BUONO, turns out PREGO is akin to De Nada, or You're Welcome.
CACAO NIBS, ok, if you say so. Never seen that name at a build-your-own Yogurt place. Really only know of CACAO from the Spelling Bee. Still, not too difficult to suss out
Overall easy side SatPuz, albeit with a couple of look-ups and a DNF. 😁
Gonna take my CHERRY SODA and BALLOON HAT and go home. PITIES me. Har.
Happy Saturday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Cacao nibs are not a brand name, it's crumbled cacao beans, they look like shaved chocolate pieces but cacao is a rawer form of chocolate
Totally agree with the unevenness of the difficulty here. I had the NW corner filled in so fast I wondered if it was secretly Monday. I also got APTS, NOBU and TRIM very quickly in the NE but then bogged down for a bit. But I was never stuck, kept filling in answers here and there, and pretty soon it was all complete. And then…nothing. Uh-oh, something’s amiss. I thought at first it might be ANTIPATTERN, which I’d never heard of, but the crosses looked solid. But, wait, it turned out to be CHERRYcOlA in the far SE. That resulted in two nonsensical downs which took a minute to see. But, all in all, a fun solve with some very nice long answers in BALLOON HAT, NOTE TO SELF and ONOMATOPOEIA.
PITIES: The word pity is an interesting conundrum. The clue reads [Feels for] and that seems to be right as far as most dictionary definitions go, but I always think pity contains a distancing element, perhaps even an edge of contempt. It seems to me that when you pity someone, you acknowledge their misfortune, sure, but you also view it as from a height – they’re suffering down there while you’re up here feeling somehow superior. Pity seems to me very different from compassion, which puts you on the same level as the person you’re feeling for, and emphasizes your fellowship and equality in this difficult world.
AVERT: @Rex taught me there is such a verb as eVERT – I never knew. eVERT to me will always be Chris Evert, that wonderful (former) tennis player who burst on the scene in the early 1970s, one of the G.O.A.T.s of the sport.
Never heard of: NITRO coffee (read about it, sounds good), teacup dogs (love the term!), CACAO NIBS (what?), Abbott and Costello in this context (although have always intended but never gotten around to seeing Arrival), NATHAN FOR YOU, ANTIPATTERN. That number of unknowns, including several long ones, kept the puzzle challenging despite its easy areas.
@Lewis: 18 double letters in the answers today. I thought that might have tripped your sensor, but maybe it wasn’t quite enough.
Just FYI cacao is the name of the bean that chocolate comes from, and nibs is just a term for a tiny bit of something. Cocoa is what you get once you process the cacao bean. I agree it’s weird and confusing. Had cocoa there forever until I figured out the mistake.
I had to laugh at having the same reaction to ETS, wondering how that Amy Adam’s film might have been a remake of some Abbott and Costello genre film I was unaware of.
Funny about spellings: NOOBS praised as correct, even though NEWBS is short for Newbie, so it should be correct, but somehow isn’t.
Easy for a Saturday, but took more time than yesterday’s puzzle, so proportionally this week seems to be in the correct order.
I’ll add her appearance as the secretary in ELF as a good place to see Amy Sedaris, along with her frequent mentions in the writings of her brother David. That must have been some family to grow up in! Just now got the connection between her in ELF and his famous Santaland Diaries memoir.
I’ll second that recommendation for Nathan For You. I enjoy his work, though his later series have gone way deep into the cringe/awkward/cerebral arena.
Anyone else have BALLOONego as something getting inflated and going straight to your head.
Had to guess N for NATHAN and for the one chef, but luckily it worked. Also never heard of ANTIPATTERN and am with Rex — still don’t know what it is after reading the explanation!
Note to English teacher: "I haven’t drUNk" soda … Sorry, but it was jarring to me. Must have been a typo, I’m sure. :-)
Yeah that teacup/MINI thing is weird, though I guess the dog explanation *kinda* makes sense? Still a weird way to clue that. Other trouble spots were CoCoA NIBS before CACAO NIBS, which felt like a trap. Also never heard of ANTI-PATTERN. Also never heard of “Term of ART.” Aside from that, this was easier than Wednesday’s puzzle for me. But still fun!
Kudos to all of you who found this so easy. I sure didn't. ANTIPATTERN? NATHANFORYOU? HAN? NELLA? NOBU? Who ARE those guys?
Took several tries to spell ONONMATOPOOEIA, and although I ordered a new capo for myself yesterday, I could only think of it in terms of a crime boss. I mean, really.
NOTETOSELF--a tiny dog is a "teacup". MINI I knew, but not for dogs. Mice maybe.
OK Saturday, AA, but wasn't sure I was done, as my print copy still does not have the happy music feature, Turned out I made some good guesses. Another Advantage of having done so many crosswords. Thanks for a medium amount of fun.
Agree with those who found the NW easy but then stalled out a bit Still loved it. Never heard of ANTIPATTERN or NATHAN FOR YOU, but now I have a show to look for.
I was shocked at how fast the NW filled in. This was Saturday? But that was the extent of the easiness. The rest of the grid, east of NOOBS (which I treated as a kealoa and left the vowels open) and south of BALLO, was much harder due to what seemed like a lot of names. Looking back at the grid, it doesn’t seem so bad but they were things I didn’t know, like PEPIN, NOBU, NATHAN, NELLA, HAN.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that ONOMATOPOEIA was the seed entry for this puzzle. I had the ON, but it wasn’t until OEIA showed up that I connected the clue to it. Nice!
I'm with @Bob Mills on the “I never leaRN” thought for 10D. I had the RN and actually put in the leaRN for a while, which worked for my relay rocket for 34A. The dummies got me out of there with the CRASH TEST, which was a cute answer for the 29A clue.
What's up with JFK, initials, in the clue for TAFT? I was trying to think whether Teddy Roosevelt had four initials, like GHWB, since I had the T of PIT in place.
Over all, this was a Saturday worthy workout. Thanks, Alina Abidi!
One of those late week puzzles in which I had two or three squares that left me uncertain, which makes it hard to run the alphabet on any one of them (the SULA crossing CACAONIBS crossing BUONO crossing "how do you spell ONOMATOPOEIA" area, plus the ANTIPATTERN crossing NOBU crossing NELLA crossing both NATHAN and SALS). In the end, my pleasure at "remembering" that the diner was called SAmS was the source of my dnf.
Similar to others, I found it mostly easy and fun, from ABBA x ACHOO around counterclockwise to CRASH TEST. Then it got hard, as I had no idea about NATHAN FOR YOU or ANTIPATTERN. A guess at SUMO reminded me of NOBU and "Isn't there something called a NITRO?" and that was enough to get me the rest. I especially enjoyed BROWNNOSER, NO ACCIDENT, NOTE TO SELF and wondered if ANGER was clued with "red" as it appears right over CHERRY.
Add me to those who thought, "Abbott and Costello were also in a movie called 'Arrival'??" So thank you to @Rex for clearing that up!
Imagine knowing ONOMOTOPOEIA right off the bat, but not being able to write it in because you have no idea how to spell it. I checked the last A to make sure I was right, wrote in ONO at the beginning, and waited to find out how it was spelled.
I assume the cross is NATHAN FOR YOU/NELLA? I forgot to look just now.
I didn't know that button mushrooms grew up to be PORTOBELLOs. I thought they were entirely different mushrooms.
ANTIPATTERN was a great big "Huh?" to me. So was GOBS for "kibitzes". Never heard of it.
Yay for CHIPS AHOY! Finally a cookie that's not an OREO.
I don't know what a BALLOON HAT is. I thought the answer was going to be some sort of balloon idea over a character's head in a comic strip.
But everything else seemed very easy for a Saturday. I was hoping for more of a workout.
If you suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome, then you can definitely relate to experiencing CACA ON IBS.
Big Al the elephant is so sophisticated that he has a BA and MA after his name. (Note to Alabamians: BA and MA are abbreviations for two types of college degrees. By coincidence, the letters can also be combined to form BAMA, which is a slangy way to refer to the University of Alabama and also to its football team, which is not noted for having players who complete their degree requirements. The comment is, therefore, tongue-in-cheek. Roll Tide!)
I'm starting to grasp that the arrival of Korean filmdom into the mainstream of American movie distribution and awards has legitimized a whole lot of new letter combos, or allowed for old combos to be clued anew, and that crossword constructors are all over this phenomenon. Any solver would do well to keep up with who is writing, directing and acting in these movies.
I liked PIT clued as "Middle of a date." Most of my dates were the PITs by the middle. Of course Mr T PITIES the fool who would even go out with me.
Why did the obstetrician/ inexperienced gamer feel unwelcome at the clinic for beginners? There was a sign that said "NOOBS".
I'm surprised that commenters aren't jumping all over the quasi-dupe of POEM and ONOMATOPOEIA which both arise from the Greek poiein (to make or create). I'll be cancelling my subscription over that one.
Thanks, Alina Abidi. I agree that it was easy for a Saturday, but you didn't specify the day. I enjoyed it a ton.
NOTETOSELF: if you don't actually cancel your subscription, try to make better comments.
For jBerg: Vodka martinis are very popular.
Same ANTIPATTERN response here as others….just never seen. No excuse on the other hand for taking almost forever to sail off Alina’s grid with TBIRD. As a couple previously noted todays solve was a weird mix of whoosh and WOE; fun nonetheless.
I actually knew about CACAONIBS (not that I got the answer till the end, but anyhow) because I bought a bag of them from Nuts.com thinking they'd be a good healthier snack. Healthier than, say, M&M's, yes. But good, no. They sat around for several months till I forgot and left the top off the jar and the mice ate them.
Hah I had day for 45a also. And away for 46d. I was so confused why nothing else was working there.
I don’t time my puzzles, but yesterday and today finished quickly. I’m not getting smarter, so the puzzles are getting easier?
A MARTINI is made with GIN, vermouth and bitters. These are stirred together in ice, then poured into a cocktail glass and garnished with an (unstuffed) green olive. A similar cocktail made with a different spirit--such as vodka--is a misnomer notably perpetuated by a fictional spy.
Cheers!
I don't really understand complaining about a lesser touchstone role for AMY in a Saturday puzzle. When complaining about how the ACHOO "misdirect" is too easy in the previous breath.
ANTIPATTERN is a very, very common phrase in computing. I'm sure it's just as common as all the music terms I have to get from crosses.
A term of art is neither jargon nor lingo, Rex. A term of art is a word that has a precise, specialized meaning in a particular context. For example, in computer science, a "word", is a unit of memory for numeric computation, and a "string" is a sequence of bytes representing text. Outside CS, those are normal English words with dictionary meaning. Inside CS, they are terms of art.
This was super easy for me, but I agree with OFL that ANTI-PATTERN is super obscure. I was actually working as a SW Engineer when Design Patterns were all the rage in the industry, and I don't remember ever seeing or hearing this term. I had a couple of bumps along the way: I read the "Capo, e.g." clue as kah-po instead of kay-po, so tried CHAMP(?) instead of CLAMP; it took a while to spell PORTOBELLO and ONOMATOPOEIA correctly; HAN Jin-won was completely unknown to me.
The only word I liked was PORTOBELLO & yes, 2nd time (this week?) for NELLA.
And for the love of god, the trope that a thought of Italy while making a martini is the right amount of vermouth is annoying. It actually needs a bit of it!
You’re in rare form today. Just that BAMA observation has me wondering how much acid you actually dropped while you were in college.
Saw ANTIPATTERN as a possible answer but had no experience with the term and resisted entering it until it became impossible to ignore. Puzzle had too many unfamiliar names and terms like CACAONIBS for me to get quickly, but overall liked it. Thought CRASHTEST was most humorous answer.
Saw ANTIPATTERN as a possible answer but had no experience with the term and resisted entering it until it became impossible to ignore. Puzzle had too many unfamiliar names and terms like CACAONIBS for me to get quickly, but overall liked it. Thought CRASHTEST was most humorous answer.
Unlike most people, I found this NOT as easy as yesterday. Simply because so many Unknown Names: NOBU, HAN, SULA, NELLA, PEPIN. Also ASHE, CNN, BAMA as clued. And NATHAN FOR YOU sounds only vaguely familiar; never watched it; probably only read it in the TV listings all those years ago. CACAO NIBS also new to me; inferrable though.
I finished with a couple of errors at SUHA crossing CHAMP (a "capo" might be a champ?) and NATHAD crossing DELLA.
Never heard of "Term of ART"; thanks for the info @James K. Lowden. Lots of terms in programming that have very precise uses, like "scope".
Sometimes I sprinkle a little in brownies when I want some extra crunch.
To: @jberg and one of the Anons -- re GIN MARTINI:
Oh you are both such purists. I admit that the (GIN) MARTINI came first and therefore deserves the honor of having no modifier. I respect your absolute right to walk into a bar and ask for a MARTINI and get one made with gin, without having to specify. But a VODKA MARTINI, which always needs to be specified, fulfills a need and thus has rights too.
The need it fulfills is for those of us to whom GIN tastes like a cross between lighter fluid and nail polish. Now, you can disguise that nicely when you mix the gin with two or three times as much tonic, which has a very strong taste of its own. A gin and tonic is a much better-tasting drink than vodka and tonic. With a V&T, all you taste is the tonic. But you cannot disguise the taste of gin with a drop or two of dry vermouth -- your GIN MARTINI will still taste like a cross between lighter fluid and nail polish. And thus was the VODKA MARTINI born. It serves a noble purpose. Please don't try to banish it. I am perfectly content that the gin MARTINI needs only to be referred to as a MARTINI because it came first.
By that argument, btw, there's no such thing as a "landline". There is only a "phone." Anything that's not a "phone" is a cellphone. Likewise, there's no such thing as an "acoustic guitar." It's a "guitar". That other thing is an electric guitar. Show some respect. Show some deference.
(As you can see, I'm not a fan of retronyms.)
Yep, easy. Pretty whooshy weekend so far. That said, I did not know ART, BAMA, HAN, NELLA, NATHAN FOR YOU, ANTI PATTERN, and IDLE (I don’t chat). Having no erasures was helpful.
Solid and smooth with a smattering of sparkle, liked it.
CAPO is the title for our bocce team captain.
No, "Term of Art" is not a fancy phrase for "jargon" or "lingo." The phrase refers to precision in meaning within a particular field - that it means precisely one thing and not another. It has come into use because such terms often are picked up more generally in the culture and are mis-used to mean something that they don't mean at all. For example, "begging the question" is a term of art in logic - it has a very precise meaning as a particular kind of logical flaw. And recognizing that flaw is foundational to logical argument. However, in recent years, we have seen the phrase enter more general discourse, and used now commonly in a way that totally misunderstands its meaning, and, therefore, totally misuses it. To remind people that the phrase is a "term of art" is an effort is to note this misuse and to preserve its very precise and critically important meaning in logic. To call the phrase "jargon or "lingo," then, is to dismiss it glibly and in a most uninformed way.
Less than a minute longer than yesterday's solve. Like many I thought this would be a complete pushover based on the NW. The push back started when I gave up trying to spell ONOMATOPOEIA at the second O. No idea on CLAMP but I spelled BUONO right and I know SULA.
The main resistance was in the east. Both ANTIPATTERN and NATHANFORYOU were complete unknowns. I've never seen "Arrival" so ETS was from the crosses as well as HAN. On the plus side I'm familiar with NOBU as a restaurant and we just had NELLA.
Just an average Saturday but after the NW it was lively.
Sorry to say, @Nancy, it is GABS rather than GoBS, and ONOMATOPOEIA rather than ONOMoTOPOEIA. I do think that clue for GABS, while not wrong, should have been better given that cross.
Agreed. My chosen profession has many of these. The first which comes to mind is “holdout” which in everyday English means “someone blocking a unanimous vote” or “the last person who needs to be persuaded” or similar. But in film editing and visual effects (or “opticals” in the pre-computer days) a holdout is a carefully cut matte used to composite two images into one. Come to think of it, “optical” is itself another - we use it as a noun now to mean a single instance of basic dissolve or blowup (two more terms of art?) that used to be achieved with optical and photochemical reproduction. Back in the day, if you wanted a dissolve between two shots, you had to send the two “sides” (A & B) to an “optical house” and they would run the negative through a printer which would create the transition on a new interpositive piece. This extra duplicative step introduced one more “generation” of loss than was usual. The resultant step down in quality (marked by heavier grain than expected) meant that eagle eyed viewers could often tell that a dissolve was coming because as soon as the film cut to the “A side” shot, it would look worse (fuzzier) than the other shots which preceded it. A few seconds later, the dissolve would appear. Note: this is also why in order movies the main title sequence would have lots of shots that looked a little “stepped on” - if the “plate” (original footage) went out to a titling company to have text composited onto it, then the shot was one extra qualitative generation removed from the OCN (original camera negative.) Come to think of it, this whole process of “duping” footage to create “dupes” that are easily identified by sharp audiences as having been “duped” is really packed with terms of art. Every movie you’ve ever seen is “duped” - but that doesn’t mean you’ve been duped by them!
A CAPO is the "clamp" that a guitarist tightens onto the fretboard of the instrument to raise the pitch of the strings. Some guitarists, in fact, actually call it a "clamp."
I figured this would be more popular with the whoosh crowd than yesterday's. I suspect that for those looking for more interesting, vivid and evocative words and phrases, it was more of an ANTIPATTERN, a bit of a fluff party, complete with MEAL PLANS featuring a single PEA POD, CACAO NIBS, CHIPS AHOY and a CHERRY SODA with a BALLON HAT for each attendee.
It was, however, a banner day for POC (plural of convenience) hunters. There are several of the especially helpful two for one POCs where a Down and an Across both get a letter count, grid filling boost by sharing a final S.
BOND/GAB, NOOB/SNIT, ARAB/CREEP and SAL/AFRO all get boosted. Then some longs join the POC fest at MEAL PLAN/CACAO NIB and GIN MARTINI/ANT.
Each two for one S is like a cheater square in that it mostly just takes up space and makes it easier to fill the grid without adding much of interest or value.
The POC Committee was divided on whether to give this grid a POC Assisted or a POC Marked rating.
Re "proportionally this week seems to be in the correct order", my week in order of difficulty was: Monday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday. So Saturday was the hardest, but only took a little longer than a typical Wednesday. A very strange week with a lot of very easy puzzles, it seemed to me. But as always, YMMV.
Solid-as-a-peapod-clamp themeless work. Slightly easy-ish, for a SatPuz, at our house. did lose some precious nanoseconds in the ANTIPATTERN-NATHANFORYOU canal, tho.
staff weeject pick: BCC. Thought its clue was extra-covert.
fave stuff: ONOMATOPOEIA spellin challenge. CRASHTEST clue [thought the puz was referin to Musk's DOGE-pryin, for far too long -- M&A blames BROWNNOSER for settin such a suspicious mood].
BALLOONHAT and its clue.
Thanx for a good one, Ms. Abidi darlin.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
... and speakin of SatPuz feist ...
"Double Jeopardy Clues" - 7x7 12 min. sorta themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Very happy to see the reference to “Arrival” here in that particular way. Aside from its possible commentary on society and its reactions to the arrival, the movie does one thing that I particularly complain about any movies in that genre. That is, it does not assume that aliens think like us, look like us, feel like us and have the same motivations as us. And that bridging the gap between us and them, as well as bridging the gap among ourselves, brings benefit to all and is worthy of the effort.
Clamp is the answer for capo? I don’t get it. That was my Waterloo.
Ugh, there is no such thing as a good (or crossword-worthy) reality show.
I have never heard kibitiz to mean talk, it always means giving unsolicited advice especially at a card table. I also hate seeing newbs/noobs in a puzzle cause who knows which will be correct.
Definitely vague cluing on that one. A capo is a clamp you place on the fret of a guitar to alter the tuning
Kibitz is a Yiddish term for talking a lot (basically), so it’s actually GABS and not GoBS. Just FYI
Nancy I also do not like martinis made with dry gin (main flavor juniper), nowadays there are many excellent botanical gins that make martinis a delight. Never liked vodka martinis as vodka has no "flavor" I can discern. If I want to taste vermouth, which I enjoy, I'll have a vermouth spritzer.
It came close. I start "unusually high" at 20. But today's was the highest in quite a while.
Thanks, @kitshef. I told everyone I couldn't spell it!!:) But OTOH, I've always heard "kibbitz" used EXACTLY as Chris says. To offer unsolicited advice, especially at the card table. Never to mean just gabbing. So I agree -- a terrible clue.
NATHANFORYOU is probably the best comedy show of the 2000s. So happy to see it in the grid.
NATHANFORYOU and How To with John Wilson (produced by Nathan Fielder) would have me in hard disagreement here.
NOOBS is the OG. NEWB is the cutsie version. It is known.
Just caught a typo I made - “in order movies” should have read “in oLder movies.”
Here's how to think about it: ANTIPATTERN is a computing/Internet-world neologism that landed sometime in the late aughts and took off in the twenteens. It has the general meaning of "crummy way to do something", but its power derives from its richly layered inferences, that either put down or lift up, depending on how its used.
In many cases, it's just another smug, self-satisfied way for computer nerds to insult each others' ideas without the burden of developing a persuasive argument to make a positive case for change. So yeah, it's a mortal lock that Musk and his McNamarian boy wonders have used it, I'd say... conservatively... at least 10.5 million times each in the past 3 weeks.
The other way to use it is within the bound of a blameless troubleshooting culture that seeks to debug and fix systems, not people. In that instance, an anti-pattern describes an inefficient or even harmful process that survives by dint of organizational inertia not because somebody stinks. But then you need to show why that's the case. It's an mic opener, not a mic dropper.
And it's too nerdy for this crowd. Needed more pop culture appearances to warrant inclusion here. My guess is someone on the NYT games team got to the board editors via some glorified anti-pattern. What a bunch of *losers*, right folks? Praise me.
Dire Straits song is better
The name is Bond, James Bond
"A capo is a clamp you place on the fret of a guitar to alter the tuning"
not quite. it allows you to play chord that's hard to finger by playing an easy to finger chord (generally C or G), but at a higher "tone". you don't re-tune your guitar, generally.
He's real!! I tell you, he's real!!!
I must be in Opposite World because today was much harder than yesterday. Still not super-frustrating hard, just no wavelength at all between me and our clever constructor. I guess yesterday was an anomaly.
Some really good clues today. My faves were the ones with clues that can have multiple pronunciations or same pronunciation different meaning. . Those also tend to be ones that I am slow to suss out. I get my mind stuck in one spit and take what seems like forever to shift gears. Prune and Capo are two great ones. ANTIPATTERN being a new concept for me made the criss with TRIM my last fill. I was stuck thinking somehow the dryness of a “prune” somehow made the answer a - r - I - d which confirmed TBIRD for Thelma and Louise and that had me thinking jUdO instead of SUMO (‘cause I knew NOBU was right - loved the movie “Casino”) HooBOY what a mess! That NE corner was a mess from the jump so I just went on and had to come back to it at the end.
Another place I stalled was at the “middle of a date.” Fortunately, that section fell easily except for the date’s PIT. Thankfully, I knew that TAFT lies in Arlington and “Elegy” immediately gave me POEM.
One little nit. When I hear “kibitzes” I only think of someone using improper table talk that leads to cheating at cards rather than just GABS. Since it was an easy entry, no big deal, just me being my über picky self.
Not a tough Saturday, but not yesterday’s super smooth Friday. Again, my experience seems to be a tad atypical. This may lead to scary opinions about how my brain works - or sometimes doesn’t?
I finally stopped raining here in NorCal. We all wish Mother Nature had sent a couple weeks of rain to the LA area. The devastation is shocking. Although both fires are now contained, the need for assistance continues Not just neighborhoods but infrastructure was lost. The students at Palisades High (my son-in-law’s alma mater) are back to COVID-style remote learning, many of them without homes. The Red Cross website is an easy way to help if you can. Thanks for reading this last paragraph.
and, for those of a certain age, re: martini:
Now if it were gin, you'd be wrong to say yes
The evil gin does would be hard to assess..
Besides it's inclined to affect me prowess
Have some madeira, m'dear
here: https://genius.com/The-limeliters-have-some-madeira-mdear-lyrics
I've been a professional computer programmer for over 3 decades and I'd never heard the term "anti-pattern" before.
I agree with you 100% on the landline and phone/cell phone and glad to know I’m not the only one who thinks that way.
Roo
a capo for guitar looks much more like a clamp than a vise does, at least to me.
Don’t understand the other comments criticizing the clue. Many here are already complaining the puzzle is too easy. What’s wrong with a Saturday level clue on a Saturday?
Also, I can’t see how the clue is in any way vague. (See my comment to Roo).
Nancy
Kibitzer is a common bridge term. True. But as pointed out it is a Yiddish word which has entered the English language with the original meaning of talking a lot. Also in bridge clubs ( I have been playing for almost half a century) bystanders are supposed to keep their mouths shut. So if they are talking, they are talking too much!
I don’t think it is a terrible clue at all.
My dad, Horace Tern, had a sister named Patricia. She was always our favorite and wonderful Auntie Pat Tern, until she tragically died of mushroom poisoning after ingesting a bad portobello. RIP
Looks like now , after mid afternoon there are few comments. But I never finish before then. Oh well.
Found this easyish Made some good guesses. Like had NA and guessed it was a name and tried NATHAN and it worked ! The rest I had to get from crosses (Seeing the completed answer did ring a very, very faint bell).
Term of art is formal language
Lingo is a colloquial term sometimes used to put down terms of art. So I can see why many were offended by Rex’s equating the 2. But they are not that far off in base meaning. I like that format phrase so I was happy to see it in the puzzle. I was very surprised how many here hadn’t heard of it.
Don’t think I seen any of AMY’s TV shows etc but I have read a lot about David, so she was a gimme.
Liked the puzzle
This was a super easy solve. I took a minute and a half off my best time, which was already like six minutes faster than average. Almost half the answers came immediately.
haven't done crossword regularly in a while but a friend got into it recently and tipped me off to this easy Saturday. Got it in a bit over half an hour, my first Saturday done within a single day lol. Also kimmy schmidt is one of my favorite shows, loved seeing it here
Bitters? No.
As a software developer, the term ANTI-PATTERN is very common and widely used for me. That didn't help me answer the clue, because the description is in no way related to what an anti-pattern is or how it's used. It's clear that the author also had no clue what it is, and just googled the word and grabbed random words from the response without even trying to understand the context.
I didn't know ANTIPATTERN, NATHANFORYOU or SULA, and was confident with ChAMP for capo. Turns out that I also didn't know about guitar clamps, as I finally googled to confirm SUhA, and cheated to correct that last letter. Laughing that people are complaining about ANTIPATTERN when ERATO is sitting right there getting a free ride when no one outside of crosswords has given her the time of day since the fall of Pompeii.
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