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Like the ending of a typical rom-com / FRI 2-7-25 / Oil, slangily / "Parasite" actor ___ Woo-shik / Tree with red berrylike fruit / Popular mode of transport in Dhaka / Some sources of typhus? / Bunton, a.k.a. Baby Spice / First English football club to win the European Cup, informally
Friday, February 7, 2025
Constructor: Kelly Morenus
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
Word of the Day: BURSAR (46A: Campus figure) —
A bursar (derived from bursa, Latin for 'purse') is a professional administrator in a school or university often with a predominantly financial role. In the United States, bursars usually hold office only at the level of higher education (two-year and four-year colleges and universities) or at private secondary schools. In Australia, the United Kingdom and other countries, bursars are common at other levels of education. (wikipedia)
• • •
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| [PREDICTABLE!] |
And, like, did a very embittered editor write this puzzle? Rom-coms are PREDICTABLE, other plots are unoriginal or FORMULAIC. And then ... [Murder she wrote?], question mark? As if the clue's not sure. Like, really? She calls herself a CRIME NOVELIST? (rolls eyes, exclaims "posh!"). The "?" makes the voice sound dubious. That clue was awfully confusing (12A: Murder she wrote?), since it seems like the answer should refer to "Murder" (i.e. the CRIME) not the "she" (i.e. the NOVELIST) who "wrote" the "murder." (Note: that clue/answer was actually one of the highlights of the solve, but it's still a little wobbly/messy—I just like remembering Angela Lansbury).
The middle and bottom parts weren't nearly as tough for me, probably because the top gave me good momentum that I never really lost, but there were still tougher-than-usual moments. 22D: Some sources of typhus? Some sources of typhus? How many are there? How much of my day do you think I spend going "hey, what are the sources of typhus? I wonder if I can name all the sources of typhus? Or maybe just a quick half dozen." It's like the world's worst party game: name the typhus sources. I barely know what typhus is, and can name literally zero sources. So LICE was a complete surprise. I'm sure it's correct, but "Some sources," LOL, like I have a vast store to pick from. I Have No Store. Make your clue more LICE-like, more LICE-specific, please. Had to reach back for a Spice Girl EMMA (35A: ___ Bunton, a.k.a. Baby Spice), why, there are so many EMMAs! PERK could easily have been PLUS (23D: Benefit). And oof, RESULTS, why was that so hard? (34D: They may be guaranteed ... "or your money back") Probably because I had REBATES and REFUNDS in there (the latter of which really killed me since it had the "U," which was "confirmed" by MAN. U. (i.e. Manchester United) (45A: First English football club to win the European Cup, informally). REFUNDS also had me staring down "Wild -EFT" (38A: Wild ___). Brain tried really hard to justify "Wild LEFT," and then gave up. Ended up with an error because BURSAR is spelled so ridiculously (I had BURSOR, which still looks right, and anyway, I've been on campuses for decades and never once though of the BURSAR). The bottom of this grid was flowier than the top. ON A REGULAR BASIS is nice, and I like FREEHAND as well, but otherwise, this grid didn't have enough highs, enough real marquee answers, for a late-week themeless. It was also locked up with Saturday cluing that was also kind of boring cluing. I don't mind the challenge (puzzles have been running way too easy, of late), but I wish the cluing had been more on point, and the overall experience had been more exciting.
[Yes, every time I watch this perfect movie ending, I think, "meh, PREDICTABLE"]
- 21A: Site where a previously unidentified species of sea urchin was discovered in 2004 (EBAY) — this paragraph-long clue made my eyes glaze over. Why waste so much real estate on this when there are so many other dull short clues you could be punching up? It's a long way to go for [yet more crosswordese].
- 13D: Oil, slangily (TEXAS TEA) — sigh, "slangily" is trying to convince you that the phrase TEXAS TEA was ever uttered by anyone anywhere (since the early '60s) outside the context of the theme song from The Beverly Hillbillies.
- 51A: Sets off mayhem (CAUSES A RIOT) — we're in borderline EAT A SANDWICH territory here, but I like this phrase, mainly because it reminds me of Book VII of the Aeneid, which I taught earlier in the week. See, in Book VII, after Virgil turns once again to the Muses to give him assistance with his work, which has now entered its second half (Nunc age, qui reges, ERATO [...]") (40D: Muse with a lyre)., we watch as Aeneas tries to offer himself as groom for King Latinus's daughter, Lavinia, which Latinus assents to, but then Juno, who hates Aeneas and wants him to fail at everything, decides to blow **** up, and so sends the Fury Allecto down to ensure that both Amata (Lavinia's mom, the queen) and Turnus (Lavinia's would-be husband) are sufficiently furious at this "foreigner" Aeneas trying to sneak in here and take their girl (Lavinia). Long story short, Allecto shoots a snake into the breast of Amata, which makes her blaze with passionate anger, which she takes out into the streets ... her anguished public protest effectively CAUSES A RIOT, as all the mothers of Latium come out to join her in a Bacchic frenzy of "Hell no! Down with Trojans! No foreigners for our daughters!" Not very welcoming of outsiders, these Latins. Anyway, ERATO x/w CAUSES A RIOT was a real highlight for me, specifically, and perhaps exclusively.
- 43D: Campus figs. (SRS) — ugh, three "Campus figure(s)" clues, all in one tiny section of the grid. Awful, unpleasant. This one was the worst: SRS are a quarter of the damned campus, they hardly rise to the status of "figures."
- 9D: Down (BLUE) — did you know GLUM fits there too? Very well, actually. :(
- 34A: Popular mode of transport in Dhaka (RICKSHAW) — Never been to Dhaka, so I wouldn't know, but hard to think of any other "mode of transport" that ends in -SHAW (which is what I had in place before I ever saw the clue).
See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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111 comments:
I found it easier than a usual Friday. But dug into the bottom and worked my way up. I am also a little shocked at Rex's borderline deranged defense of rom-coms.
As a woman personally I can't stand romcoms because they are formulaic. Wait, the person I hate is actually the person I love? Who would have guessed? Everybody. The movie I want to watch is these couples five years later...
I found it easier than Rex. Not always enjoyable, but a fun puzzle nonetheless.
Seemed easy. I don't normally finish a Friday in 26 minutes, but the cluing was mostly straightforward. I had "hours" instead of WAGES at first, but once I fixed that everything flowed.
I had totally opposite experience. It played Monday easy for me. Never once got stuck - everything flowed, and each of the long answers was immediately self-evident. Kelly Morenus and I must be in the same wave-length. Sometimes things just fall your way, I guess.
Huh. I found this one easy, once I got to the bottom and filled in EMMA, DEANS, WEST, and off I went. I started with "boy gets girl" in 1A, which fits nicely and works for the clue, but the only thing I knew on the top was Maya LIN, so I ripped that out--and the rest of the top 2/3 of the puzzle was a sea of white. But once I got a foothold in the south it mostly whooshed for me. I didn't even see the actor's name, which got filled in with crosses. I enjoyed this one more that @Rex--a nice Friday.
I first had "RAISES-A-RIOT" before "CAUSES-A-RIOT" (I think more linguistically correct); but as an MD, LICE was easy although I had RATS for a short while. Both LICE and RATS are biologically correct, although they spread different types of typhus: murine typhus is spread to humans by LICE; whereas epidemic typhus is transfered from RATS to humans by FLEAS (who of course wouldn't fit in. Sorry, FLEAS; maybe you'll have your chance in some future NYT crossword).
That's two days in a row that I've had a completely opposite solve to Rex! Yesterday was a slog - didn't clock the theme at all - and today was a very fast Friday. Nothing earth-shattering, but it was a clean puzzle.
Enjoyed this one. Took a while and had to cross into EMMA. Had STARTS a riot at first
Entered BOYGETSGIRL for 1A and thought “whoosh”. Went downhill from there.
I’m a struggling late-week solver. This one flowed surprisingly well once I struck some “texas tea” on the right side of the grid. Rom-coms are “predictable”. So is the Death Star exploding. Not offended. But I’m a guy so not surprising.
It’s very, very rare that I feel like a puzzle is easier than a typical Friday and OFL finds it more difficult than usual. Things like CHANCE ENCOUNTER and ON A REGULAR BASIS just dropped right in for me for a nice change of pace.
Rex is in fine form this morning, btw. Sorry, but I beg to disagree - ROM-COMs (and many other genres - Sci-fi comes quickly to mind) are FORMULAIC! That is an objective truth, whether it is stated by a person of male or female gender. That was a classic Rex rant though - even if he may have invented a new category (REX’s Nit-Rants).
Rex, you complain constantly about easy end-of-week puzzles. Now you get one and complain that the cluing was too hard. That is what makes a puzzle hard. I enjoyed the challenge.
Rex went through a long period of pushing female constructors - not good enough now because the assumed broey take on rom-coms. Classic stuff - our side wonders why Cheeto head rolled in November.
Fun puzzle - agree with the big guy that the tri-stacks had more of a Saturday feel. The short stuff is rough in areas - he highlights most of it. Really liked CHANCE ENCOUNTER and DINNER THEATRE.
The Jayhawks
Didn’t love the cute campus repetition. Learned CHOI and LIN.
Enjoyable Friday morning solve.
Bromberg
Got lost, by myself, on a rickshaw in Dhaka once, pre-cell phone days. Didn't have the address or even name of the hostel I was staying. So I just went to the nicest hotel in the city and sat in the lobby pretending I belonged there, hoping not to get kicked out. It took all night for my friends to find me. Made that clue a gimmie for me...
It played way easier for me than for Rex. Highlight for me was trying “Condom” for 36 Down on my first pass. Completely wrong but I still liked my answer better.
“Happyending” fit for the romcom clue…so I was off to a bad start. And “starts” a riot…
“Meeting by chance”. I had trouble today!
Like Rex I had almost nothing on the first pass, but the lower two-thirds were easier and I had almost no erasures. Like yesterday’s NIHAO, the only real sticking point was a foreign word, REY, which I can never remember and thought might be REs. EBAs didn’t exactly look right, but the tricky clue didn’t scream EBAY either, so I left it uncorrected until I got to the end without the happy music.
In defense of 1A, the endings of romcoms are more reliably PREDICTABLE than most other FORMULAIC genres, imo, and I say that as someone who loves a good romcom, so I don’t see that as particularly sneering. Even if one assumes it’s dismissive, one could argue that Rex’s surprise that a woman would express such an attitude is as problematic as the attitude itself.
A solve delayer… [Material that goes on a foundation] misdirected me for AEONS. Long ago, I worked summers for a builder and witnessed many foundations poured. I kept thinking, after seeing this clue, “What was the next step? What went over the foundation?” Of course, there was no next step, but that didn’t stop me from trying to remember one. I love getting got good like that!
A solve quickener... The thrill of throwing in the correct answer at C _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ER (14A), after seeing its clue.
Gorgeous solve answers… ON A REGULAR BASIS, FREEHAND, FORMULAIC, TEXAS TEA, and yes, CHANCE ENCOUNTER.
Something I loved but can’t figure out why … Those three-black-square photo-album corners in the grid design. Maybe because it made me feel like I was filling in a work of art.
Something I loved and do know why … Difficult areas I had to chip away at, balanced by swaths of divine splat fill. That balance brought pleasure to my Libra sensibilities.
I was fully involved in and enamored by your puzzle, Kelly. Thank you so much for making this!
I was worried at first that I was going to be completely shut out of this puzzle – read through a bunch of across clues and got nothing until PEPS, which I then crossed with PEAT, and finally had a toehold. LEAS came immediately after – good, old, reliable crosswordese – and I was off. Finished in good time and concluded the puzzle wasn’t very hard, so was amazed at @Rex’s struggles.
I think @Rex’s lively recounting of the ins, outs, ups and downs of Book VII of The Aeneid might end up being one of my all-time highlights of this blog. I adored The Aeneid when we translated large parts of it in 12th-grade Latin class, and to see someone wax so enthusiastic about any ancient literature, and this work in particular, made my heart glow. The anti-rom-com storyline was also just too, too perfect for today’s puzzle.
I can’t get excited about rom-com endings being called PREDICTABLE – many are. There did seem to be a bit of a “meh” mini-theme here, though, with PREDICTABLE, FORMULAIC, ON A REGULAR BASIS and even OFFICIAL.
I chuckled at @Rex’s criticism of a too-long clue for the banal EBAY. I thought the noteworthy aspect of that clue was not its length but the fact that a new species of anything could be discovered on…EBAY?? Turns out:
Sea urchin shells and spines are popular collectors’ items on eBay, but buyers began to get confused when the shells they received didn’t look like anything else in their collections. “Every week I’d get collectors contacting me and asking me to identify the species,” says Simon Coppard at the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature in London. When he and colleague Heinke Schultze, an independent researcher, compared similar unidentified specimens from New Caledonia in the South Pacific with species records, they found nothing matched. (From New Scientist)
Loved the way the puzzle started with PREDICTABLE and ended with CAUSES A RIOT. Hah, that’s going from zero to 60 in 15 rows!
Was really hoping Rex would help explain POWDER as something that goes on a foundation. Can anyone help me with this? Is it like a dessert thing? Still can’t figure it out.
Embarrassed to say it took me way too long to figure out what CAUSE SARIOT was. I kept thinking “what the hell is a SARIOT??” It’s early.
Yes, particularly scathing review. Angry at punctuation, parasites and plots. Must be a “P” thing. I liked this puzzle. Medium.
C’mon, I can’t bear a world where Harry doesn’t still love Sally.
I had the same WTF experience scanning the top but after RINSE, everything fell into place. This was the easiest Friday for me in a long time. Good thing, too, because I've had a tough time lately with a few objectively easier puzzles. I also wondered about the "?" after "Murder she wrote;" it had me expecting a wackier answer.
Makeup
I had a rough time with the top half, but the bottom half started me off. Then I could move back to the top but had some of the same issues. INE is a common chemical suffix? hmmm, ok. ANE or ENE was definitely more likely to me. And I think Super hero movies are more PREDICTABLE than most others, you certainly know the hero is not going to die at least. Agree for the most part, medium but harder on the top.
Both foundation and powder are referring to makeup.
It's about applying makeup, and the various layers involved.
I flew through this one! Lovely little Friday.
Thought I was headed for a really easy solve but bogged down in the bottom section
I saw all the 'campus' clues as a bug, not a feature.
As one who quite enjoys rom-coms, I can freely admit that they are formulaic. This means that the acting and direction are crucial to making them work.
I believe it's related to makeup -- one starts with a layer of foundation before applying powder. Not a regular makeup user myself though so I can't say for sure.
To me the most memorable part of the puzzle was learning that a new species was discovered on EBAY.
A fine puzzle, one that I enjoyed while solving, and enjoyed reviewing after.
Hey All !
Had the Friday Whooshies in the West Center to NE to NW today. Pretty neat, the ole Whoosh Whoosh. Mostly never happens, so that was a joy. Rest of puz solved as a typical a bit here, a bit there, ah, I see it now pattern recognition type solve.
Biggest hold up for me was having TIS for THO. Had me looking at SNAREGU for the start of 46A, leading to a lot of head scratching. Finally figured DUBAI had to be right, which got me to 47A ending in BASIS, which got me to see REGULAR, and then seeing it had to start with ON, thereby getting me to erase TIS and put in THO. Did ya catch all that? Har.
MANU/MENU cross neat. "Picture corner" Blockers. For you youngsters, they look like what holds pictures (physical ones, like from an old camera, not digital ones) in a Photo Album so they don't slide out. Ask your parents. 😁 (Or grandparents...)
Nice FriPuz. Enough resistance, but not hair tearingly impossible.
Neet for NAIR first. Stop naming similar things ... similarly!
Happy Friday.
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Some people get salty when they struggle with a puzzle. I found this one much easier than the average Friday. I love romcoms, but I wouldn’t have thought anyone could argue that the typical romcom has a predictable ending. If you think Harold & Maude (an all-time great movie) is a typical romcom, then sure, but . . . it’s not. What a strange rant.
Los resultados están garantizados o le devolvemos su dinero.
Took awhile but I whooped it. A rare Friday when I actually knew a few of the random people they seem to need to tack a grid together. Nice looking grid by the way.
I can only make sense of [Murder she wrote] if I pronounce the "she" like a valley girl. Thankfully I am one on the inside.
Uh, 🦖, in rom-coms they end up together. Predictable. Not so sure it's sneering or sexist to point it out. In Shakespeare tragedies, everyone dies in the end. Predictable. Is that sneering and English-major-ist to say so?
Public service announcement: OHO is always better than AHA.
@okanaganer Epic loops today tell two groovy stories. PREDICTABLE CRIME NOVELIST CHANCE ENCOUNTER & ON A REGULAR BASIS DINNER THEATER CAUSES A RIOT.
People: 8
Places: 1
Products: 3
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 18 of 68 (26%)
Funnyisms: 3 😐
Uniclues:
1 Cop in a copter.
2 One in a park going nowhere.
3 Conventional crustacean.
1 OFFICIAL LEVITY
2 SERENE RICKSHAW
3 FORMULAIC PRAWN (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: One about to jump. GONER ... IN A FEW.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Easy 10-minute solve. Threw down CHANCEENCOUNTER and never looked back :-)
Like others, I solved this one bottoms-up, and found it medium-ish. I had the end of DINNERTHEATER and thought it was some kind of EATER, so I tried FINNICKYEATER, someone playing with one's food, which was not only wrong but didn't really fit the clue, although I don't think CRIMENOVELIST really fits its clue either, See Parker, R.
Someday I'll memorize the cast of "Parasite" (not today) and someday I'll know the names of all the Spice Girls (ditto). Should have known EMMA sooner as we just had her here for an overnight and ferried her off to school, the granddaughter, not the Spice Girl.
Had the C for Cone but made it into CART, and as CARTS do a better job of holding up desserts than CONES, I like my answer better. I've never waited for a dessert CONE.TIS for THO slowed things down too. Thank goodness for Shakespeare (and The Beverly Hillbillies, while I'm at it).
I liked your Friday a lot, KM. Kept Me guessing. Thanks for all the fun.
Enjoyed this one. For me it was probably the easiest Friday ever, mainly due to the relative lack of proper names and places. Had almost nothing on the first pass but little by little things fell into place. An adventure of discovery. One example: CAUSESARIOT started out as rAiSESxxxxx, maybe akin to “raises Cain” —didn’t fit in more ways than one but was a start in the right direction.
My biggest problem came with 34-A: RICKSHAW or RICKSHAh? So I left the last letter blank and checked the crosses. AHA! Three-letter tree with red berrylike fruit? Gotta be "ash." As a lad, I loved to pick those berries and throw them at people. I got so far as to wonder if LEVITa was an obscure word for the opposite of gravitas-- but then I saw FORESEs, and realized my error. That was quite a mess,, although only 3 actual writeover squares. In retrospect, the word "berrylike" should have tipped me off -- the fruit of the ash are actually berries, while those of the YES are not.
More generally, this puzzle started off feeling impossible; the first entry I got was rEvS (up) for 20-A, and that was wrong. It did give me AEONS, though, and I spotted Maya LIN over there to the side, and all of a sudden it all fell into place. That happened a few more times, the patented Friday "whoosh!" experience.
I did like the triple "campus figure(s)" clues in the SE, although ideally one of them would have been a figure in the numerical sense, such as GPA. But that would have ruled out their being so close to and crossing each other.
Anyone else notice another campus protection with the same number of letters as TENURE? Starts with C, but we didn't really send $50 million worth of them to Gaza.
Great puzzle, in my opinion. Also a personal best time for a Friday, so that helps a bit too (although in the past I’ve barreled through some not-so-good puzzles in record time). I hope to see more from this constructor. A good weekend to all.
Jumping on the "easier than normal" and "ROM-COMs are PREDICTABLE" bandwagon. I also got very little at first pass but was able to piece things together. Tried to fit Agatha Christie into the CRIME NOVELIST spot and thought for a hot second that I wasn't spelling her name correctly. Never got stuck for too long. Hardest spot for me was the SE that broke open when I remembered BURSAR. All in all a whooshy Friday. 13:38
@Todd 6:23 AM
LOL. "... borderline deranged defense of rom-coms." He is a bit unhinged this morning. Calling Harold and Maude a rom-com is like calling Breaking Bad an Albuquerque tourism advertisement.
I appreciate the ardent defense of rom-coms. Every time I’m on an airplane I watch rom-coms because they’re perfectly enjoyable, funny, and not too emotional that they’ll leave me sobbing while sandwiched between strangers. The late 90s to early 2010s was truly the golden era: Miss Congeniality (twist ending when you find out who the real villain is), Legally Blonde (girl does NOT end up with the guy she was originally pursuing), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (unique premise where both parties of the relationship have ulterior motives), Uptown Girls (more about girlhood and emotional support than anything; the relationship is more of a side plot), etc. etc. etc.
Not predictable!
I call Natick at EMMA/CENA but other than that this was just the right mix of smooth and tough for me. About average time for a Friday--15min. And unlike Rex I Loved PREDICTABLE for Rom Com endings because that's a feature not a bug. I think Rex is working the male-feminist angle a little hard there. My wife *hates* suspense and can't stand watching any kind of thriller, but rom-coms are just fine for that reason. Same same with the pretzel-twisting gripe about "Murder she wrote?" I mean, if you're gender-sensitivity knob goes to eleven... And anyway, the answer was solid. And then not just one but *three* of those identical-clue thingies that normally irritate me in the SE, which anyone who follows Rex just knew was going to blow him up, and I have a sneaking suspicion that was the point. I find those annoying too most of the time but this felt like a sly wink. And the usual gripe is that constructor has to stretch the answers past the breaking point to get them to fit, which I guess is the knock against SRS but to me that seemed fair enough. Also "figures" "figure" and "figs." was kind of a fun spin on the trick. Felt more like a shared wink than a clunker.
Other delights: I **so** wanted the unknown species of sea urchin to have turned up on EBAY and was happy my guess was borne out in the crosses.
A beautiful, smooth-as-silk grid -- with colorful long answers and extremely fair and accurate cluing.
This is a first for me, though. Rex calls it "Medium to Challenging" and I call it "Easy for a Friday." That doesn't mean it didn't compel my interest; it just means that every answer came in in a pretty whooshy way. Occasionally I saw the long answers early, like DINNER THEATER -- but usually they filled right in from a few crosses and word pattern recognition. Very enjoyable, but not especially difficult.
OK, @vtspeedy, you saw it too! Too bad it wasn't right.
We read the Aeneid in 12th grade, too, but I don't think we got anywhere near the end. There were only 3 of us taking it, so we didn't get a room, but sat in the back of a Latin II class and worked on translating. Slow.
But it did give me a good grounding in grammar, enough to know that "Tis" is not a conjunction. Neither is Til, my first thought.
I thought the EMMA/CENA crossing was pretty Naticky. Never heard of him, and she could have been EMMy as far as I knew. I did guess right, thank God.
What is it with the Spice Girls? Why are we supposed to remember their names as opposed the the names of other singing group members? It's not as though they are so exotic. Or contemporary. Please explain.
I thought it was daring of the constructor to start a puzzle with PREDICTABLE, and to include FORMULAIC. But this puzzle wasn’t either of those. Unlike for Rex, for me this was nothing but woosh. DUBAI slowed me down a bit, but it was about half my usual time… Give me something to mull over.
Generally I agree that the dismissal of films with romance themes is part of the devaluation of the full range of emotions in our culture, and the “chick-flick” sneer really ticks me off. I see it in music too. Is there a media taboo against strong men with tender hearts?
I saw a Lubitsch rom-com last night where I really wanted to see them part ways. Bluebeard's Eighth Wife. Gary Cooper was the tycoon Claudette Colbert was punishing - this sounds good, right? But he was too nice a guy… (this is fiction). It made me wonder if all seven previous wives just set out to get the payoff?
Almost forgot: Anyone else use the expression "getting a Kojak" for finding a parking spot immediately in front of the place you're going? After the miraculous parking luck whereby Lt Kojak ALWAYS manages to get that spot right in front of the door *in downtown Manhattan." I know it's dated and obscure but that's why I love it and refuse to let it go even though my passengers have no idea what I'm talking about.
Yeah, not really a fan of this one. Some of the clues were ridiculous in an unfun way. Like that EBAY clue; even searching for it after the fact led to like one article halfway down the page, what a crazy obscure way to clue. Didn't really enjoy this.
Cheer up RP, it’s Friday.
Yes, indeed it is and I found this very pleasant puzzle to be the perfect way to start my weekend. Not too hard and not too easy and a fairly decent showing on Gary J’s gunk gauge I see. Had a little trouble with the wrestler, the actor, and of course, Spice Girls are always a mystery for me. But the rom-coms endings? No doubt in my mind. With only the P, D, and the ABL, I could see PREDICTABLE a mile away because the answer is so obvious. It’s obvious because they are. As a feminine person, I don’t find that offensive because it’s just a fact. I also call them chick flicks and refer to the books that some of them are based on as chick lit. While there is occasionally one which turns out to be a hit with everybody, like Sleepless In Seattle or When Harry Met Sally, the ends of them still usually turn out to be pretty darn … predictable.
Opposite of @Rex's experience. I found the top half easy-ish and the bottom part more challenging. Overall Medium for a Friday.
Overwrites:
rEvS before PEPS at 20A
RetUrnS(?) before RESULTS at 34D
Neet before NAIR at 42D
startS A RIOT before CAUSES at 51A
inA before AHA at 49D
WOEs:
CHOI Woo-shik at 12D
EMMA Bunton at 35A
I found this a wooshy easier-than-usual Friday puzzle, perhaps a wavelength thing.
I didn’t take this to be particularly dismissive of ROM-COMs for being PREDICTABLE, especially with CHANCEENCOUNTER (known as “meet cute”) in the same stack. The characters will hate each other, have likely three challenges keeping them apart - themselves, circumstances, and society before finally getting together at the end. The trick is all in the charisma of the actors and the quality of the writing; timeliness helps also. DINNERTHEATER and LEVITY add to the romcominess of the puzzle.
TVCOPS and other genres are FORMULAIC as well. @Dr. A, I like the phrase “plot armor” for knowing the super hero won’t die, Avengers Infinity War excepted.
Must be nice to be around a college and not have to deal with a BURSAR, who collects all the money that pays salaries, etc.
And why did the mothers of Latium dislike Trojans for their daughters so much that they had to riot? Was this an extreme right-to-life thing? Or did they prefer the rhythm method?
The only clue that I found annoying was 34 down. If anything, it should be "satisfaction" guaranteed, not results. Never did an infomercial every guarantee results in the same way that satisfaction was.
I almost never know the names of actors, writers, or athletes and appreciate it when the gunk guage is low. I dropped predictable and formulaic right in making the solve quick (for me, i.e. one cup of coffee) and enjoyable.
Watch “Forget Paris,” Areawoman. Very good
New to me, but love it. Thx!
I *still* don't understand how "Murder she wrote" gets us to CRIME NOVELIST -- help??? I could see "crime novel" working here, as in "she wrote a murder" but...help???
Surprised no mention of Aaron Burr's eyebrow raise when he learned that Alexander Hamilton had punched the bursar.
Wow. I was sure Rex would be thrilled with the whoosh-whoosh herein. Either that or complain that it was a Wednesday puzzle and why aren't Fridays tough any more. I am an okay solver. But very very far from Rex-level. This one played surprisingly easy for me.
And as a person of the female persuasion, I found 1A spot on. Rom-coms ARE predictable, which is the exact reason some people (males and females) love them and others hate them. Can't imagine many females were offended by the clue or the answer.
My toughest spot: At 47A, Every other day, I had ONA from the downs and threw down ONAGAINOFFAGAIN, which slowed me down a bit.
Love, love, loved the clue/answer for 50A.
Here's to a Saturday that makes Rex happier.
Almost never get 1A right off the bat, but confidently plunked down "boygetsgirl" only to be disappointed by PREDICTABLE when nothing but "ene" worked for 6D. Also wanted "womannovelist" for 12A.
Seems like MENU could be textspeak:
Wanna grab a bite?
Who's going?
Just MENU
No one else around?
If you've been musing about muses much, you know that 40D had to be ERATO, as she is the only 5 letter one of the nonet. I've retained their names because the "girls" dorms (yes, there were such things back in ye olde prehistoric days) at my college were named after muses. The "boys" dorms were named after letters of the alphabet.
I'm with @Rex on my knowledge of sources of Typhus, or even what Typhus is. With only LI_ _ filled in, I figured it might be LIps. Seemed a little creepy. On the other hand, surely he's seen that guy on campus who's always BURSARing.
I FORESEE being ruled by FIAT (and Tesla!) ONAREGULARBASIS until it CAUSESARIOT, which will likely be soon.
Decent amount of whooshing today. Really liked the puzzle. Thanks, Kelly Morenus.
I am usually in solid agreement with OFL, but today? Wrong side of the bed Rex?
Me, too, for a bottom-up solve. At the top, my incorrect LA COP almost sank me. Not that I knew where Kojak worked, but for Joe Friday, "This is the city. Los Angeles, California..." Those two wrong letters were amazingly effective at CONCEALING PREDICTABLE and NOVELIST. A fun puzzle to solve.
It's not a *satisfying* explanation, but I'd guess the reason is that MELB and MELC are occasionally useful as ways to get constructors out of jams in tight corners. Those answers can only be clued in reference to the Spice Girls. Plus, GERI Halliwell is less obscure than other available Geris, so it is the go-to clue when a constructor is forced into that not-great piece of fill.
This keeps the Spice Girls in the crossworld consciousness enough that sometimes you get Spice Girls clues for things that don't need them, like EMMA, POSH, SPORTY, BABY, GINGER, etc.
p.s. Pre-Shortz, GERI was exclusively clued as "One of Odin's wolves." As someone who until a few minutes ago couldn't have named any of Odin's wolves to save my life, even the Spice Girls feel like an improvement!
Southeast corner fell easy then able to work out entire south Texas tea began the rest
Easy for me too. No real problems with this one. No erasures and EMMA and CHOI were it for WOEs. I put in RINSE, CPR , and EMCEE and just kept going, although the bottom half was a tad easier than the top.
Solid, smooth, and very light on junk, liked it, or the opposite of what @Rex said.
Well, apparently you can get lost pretty much anywhere. What confuses me is, what were you doing running around Dhaka, pulling an empty rickshaw? Most rickshaw related stories I've heard, and yes they are legion, involved people being the rider on the rickshaw, being pulled by someone. Never before has the story teller been the guy pulling an empty rickshaw.
I had a genuine chuckle when I finally saw DINNER THEATER [Play with one’s food]. Definitely my favorite clue.
Was fully intending to use 3 “loves” for DINNERTHEATER, until MarthaC beat me to it.
Enjoyed this one a lot and surprised RP didn’t. Hallmark movies aren’t getting hurt , financially anyway, by their predictability.
This was average Saturday time for me. Mostly due to the top tier. The downs that were gimmies were few enough that I lost time trying to make incorrect guesses on the across answers work.
CPR, RINSES and EMCEE had me thinking COINCIDENTAL something for 14A. I even typed in the OIN thinking it would open up that west end. It didn't.
When TVCOPS and AEONS dropped in I thought 12A might be DEATHINVENICE. That just goes to show that the title is my sum total knowledge of that book. DEATHONTHENILE (other than length) would have been perfect.
Eventually the north filled in but I had to work for it. A fun late week solve.
Classic Simpsons bit, after Homer gets the crayon removed from his brain:
[at a Julia Roberts movie parody]
Homer : That wasn't funny.
Patty Bouvier : Wait a minute! Somebody's not laughing! It's him!
Homer : Hey, don't blame me! This movie is tired and predictable! You know she's gonna wind up marrying Richard Gere!
[all gasp]
Dr. Hibbert : I thought she'd wind up with that rich snob.
Sea Captain : Ably played by Bill Paxton.
Homer : It's Bill Pullman, you fool!
[gets thrown out]
Movie Usher : Go point out your plot holes elsewhere!
Tough at first in the NW, but the SW cracked it open and steady from there. Rom-coms are predictable. Doesn't mean that other movies are not but, with some exceptions I suppose, the ending of a rom-com is definitional, isn't it? I mean if the two principals don't end up together in some fashion, it's a drama or some other genre, isn't it?
Anyway, thought thus was gonna be really tough but it was semi-tough and not tediuus.
A classic kealoa. I tried INE first and got lucky, thinking "chlorine" and "iodine". That definitely helped with the top half, which I also found a bit harder than the bottom, although "on the easy side for a Friday" overall.
I do enjoy that "On a regular basis, dinner theater causes a riot"
I normally think Friday is the hardest day of the week, but this time it seems Wednesday was, and maybe tomorrow will be too. As for Rom Coms, I love the best ones, like When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. And really there isn't much occasion to see any of the more FORMULAIC rom-coms. Our local movie theater closed years ago, the one I could walk to, so seeing a good movie (or a bad one) requires a drive of five to fifteen miles.
CRIME NOVELIST I liked. A fair description for all the ladies (and occasional gentlemen) who write murder mysteries.
Hands up for putting LA COP before TV COP. When I was a kid, Dragnet was must-see TV, right up there with Perry Mason (also set in LA) and my favorite Westerns, which were mostly filmed in LA or the hills west of the San Fernando Valley.
Tough for me. I drew a total blank on EBAY (??). Agree it was a particularly harsh review. I could have lived without another 'Spice Girl' EMMA. 'But then I agree & love "The Apartment" with its "perfect movie ending & I'm glad it was PREDICTABLE' - & brought to mind another one of my favorites, though not in any way a rom-com "Love with the Proper Stranger."
Amazing. Rex thinks it somewhat difficult, while I find it perhaps the easiest Friday I can remember. And Rex somehow conflates the words used in the puzzle with the inclinations of the constructor. Does Rex not realize that the words in the puzzle are intended to be used to challenge the solver, not as part of a memoir?
I have always thought of rom-com as a putdown term. Boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl. And not much "there" there otherwise.
The truly great romantic comedies have those elements, sure, but they have other ones as well. They're, well, a lot richer. Would you call "The Philadelphia Story" a romcom? "Roman Holiday"? "Annie Hall"? "Sabrina"? "Manhattan"? "Woman of the Year"? "Tootsie"? "Big"? They're all romantic comedies, but I wouldn't insult any of them by calling them a romcom.
The great Nora Ephron was, I think, the best practitioner of the genre in the modern era -- but even her romantic comedy films varied greatly in depth. I'd call "You've Got Mail" a romcom, but I think "When Harry Met Sally" is just plain too good.
This was great fun. I had pedicab before rickshaw, aren't they a thing? I rode in one of those in NYC from the theater to Sardi's one night.
Speaking of rom-coms, last night I watched "A Little Pregnant" on Netflix. I can't remember laughing out loud so much in a movie. Amy Schumer is Fantastic! And yes, the ending was predictable.
One of those days where the clueing is right up my alley. Whooshed through this in just over 11 minutes but it seemed even faster. The only typeover I can remember (solved last evening) was at 51 across RAISES A ----... raises a FUSS? Oh, it's CAUSES!
@Gary Jugert... yes epic loops today! ON A REGULAR BASIS, DINNER THEATER CAUSES A RIOT is hall of fame stuff.
TEXAS TEA of course conjures the Beverly Hillbillies theme. Years ago, our library got a couple of seasons of the show on DVD and I checked one out. Very disappointed that it featured different theme music... some banjo tune with no lyrics at all! I guess someone was saving money by not sending Flatt & Scruggs any royalties.
I'm never looking for whoosh in a puzzle. I enjoy ones that make me pause and reflect and maybe even relive some old memories in my mind's eye. Today's offering hit the nail on the head in that regard with essay-worthy entries all over the place.
Where to start? I was living in Knoxville, TN during the World's Fair there in '82. The theme was "energy" so someone thought it would be cool to have pedal type RICKSHAWs for transportation downtown. Much LEVITY ensued when it was realized they work okay on flat ground but Knoxville is hilly and after a few days they couldn't find anyone to pedal the damn things anymore!
I was on a train from Seoul to Busan watching the countryside go by outside when a local lady in a seat behind me asked in perfect English "Does it remind you of home?" That CHANCE ENCOUNTER led to a romance that was anything but PREDICTABLE or FORMULAIC.
The happy parade continued with the likes of TEXAS TEA, DINNER THEATER, and TENURE, among others. I agree ON A REGULAR BASIS with @Lewis' take on a puzzle if not always not quite as enthusiastically. Today I don't think he was effusive enough in his praise!
Yeah, that was one awkwardly structured clue. I agree that it doesn't make sense as it stands. Editing fail. It really needs the missing comma that was in the title of the TV show, which would make "she" the subject.
Hand up for "easier than a usual Friday" and "worked my way up" from the bottom. Took a minute to get a toehold, then all whoosh from there. Smooth, fun, and just challenging enough to qualify as a Friday puzzle in my book.
Thanks so much for the brief deep dive into the Aeneid. "Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis" is still one of my favorite lines ever. Didn't work out well for Laocoon, though.
I loved the paragraph-long clue at 21A because... Ebay? really? fascinating factoid.
The movie I recommend is "Smiles of a Summer's Night", 1955, by Ingmar Bergman. It is a comedy, yes, a comedy, by Ingmar Bergman, deep, of course, but funny.
First thing I thought of for 1. Across was the Hallmark Channel. Hence, the answer made perfect sense to me. As would have FORMULAIC had nine letters worked. Fun, relatively easy puzzle. I hope Rex has recovered.
(apologies if this posts multiple times - got errors the first time or 2)
I’m the right age for Beverly Hillbillies - started typing “black gold” first… when it didn’t fit, quickly switched it to TEXASTEA.
Clue: __ Allen (world-renowned pianist/composer)
Answer: GERI
See how easy that would be? (With or without the patronizing -- but probably inevitable -- qualifier "jazz" to further clarify the late Ms. Allen's preferred genre)
Clue: ___ Allen (Internationally renowned pianist/composer)
Answer: GERI
See how easy it is? (With or without the obligatory qualifier "jazz," to specify more clearly the late Ms. Allen's preferred genre)
Ay Dios mío...Why, pray tell, didn't you agree with me that NOTTING HILL fits your 1A romcom. I guess because I knew [P}RAWN. So it starts with a P and there there's an [I]NE hither and some [A]EONS yon. Some letters in place so I got a PREDICTABLE ending....
Don't get me started on FORMULAIC. A word I've never heard spoken in the wild. I didn't even know what that means. I managed to get FORMULA down there and then a little AHA with the DINNER THEATER [favorite answer] and the [ugh] CAUSES A RIOT to give me the IC I needed.
I didn't feel BLUE with this one since my measly two cheats were CENA and EMMA. Why not clue CENA as a Spanish DINNER under the EAVES of a casa. ...The smell of a YEW... munching with your PALS and then getting into the RICKSHAW waiting to give you a tour of Dhaka....
BURSAR. Guessed right thanks to BRER rabbit. THUS and THO, Why did those two answers take forever? I forgot about remembering HAL. AHA moment? Really. A CONE holds up dessert? My dessert is usually held up by a chocolate wafer.
I'd rate this as AOK for a Friday. I didn't whoosh but I did some swooping.
DEALS x LAIR is infinitely better than putting a crosswordese brand in the grid just for a forced cluster of three near-identical clues.
Agree about the rom-coms lol. As a girl I love them BECAUSE they are predictable. It’s not a negative thing. They’re like mini vacations for the brain. (And I WISH bursar wasn’t familiar to me lol).
I was one of the sneering men who thought he disliked rom-coms (though I never call them "chick flicks") until my wife pointed out that Wedding Crashers and Meet The Parents are both rom-coms. Both are longtime favorites of mine, and I always considered them to just be "comedy". But they are definitely rom-com. Anywho...
This puzzle was absurdly difficult and I still cannot believe I finished it without cheating. It took me several passes to get any sort of foothold and walking away 4-5 times before some of the cluing started to work for me. Satisfying for sure, but exhausting!
Personally, I prefer to see GERI in linGERIe
Rex is entitled to his rant, it's his blog. IMO 95% of Hollywood movies are predictable and formulaic, with rom-coms it is slightly higher. There was a great Dutch film, The Vanishing, that was dark and had a gritty sad ending and was remade by Hollywood with a tacked on formulaic predictable terrible ending.
I came here just for the Beverly Hillbillies comments that I knew were coming. Thanks for not disappointing
fave stuff:
1. Apparently havin a lot easier time gettin initial answers in the puz than @RP did. CPR/RINSE/PRAWN & EMCEE were nice immediate solvequest buildin blocks. (Still think @RP could way out-puzsolve m&e under the table mosta the time, tho.)
2. Use of looong black square structures: The two real unusual 5-long rows of black squares. And the long middle-diagonal line of em. And also the cool album picture-mounts, in all 4 corners.
3. RICKSHAW. Early 70's, I used to ride to work every day in a motorized rickshaw. Only cost about 10-20 piasters, as I recall.
staff weeject pick: SRS. Plural abbreve meat. Also liked that columns 1 & 15 were all-weeject, btw. IN-E thing else...?
Thanx, Ms. Morenus darlin. Nice job.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
I enjoyed the difficulty of this puzzle. It was the kind that I ran through all the clues and could only put in confidently one three-letter answer (RNA). After that, I slowly managed to get the bottom third done, but then was stuck. I had to come back to the puzzle this afternoon and then things started flowing again. 19A made me laugh because I kept thinking of the answer having to be the sound that was made when you step on (with your foot) a shampoo bottle. Silly how the mind works, right?
Dr BB
Agreed with everything you said except in the first sentence.
If Emma was some unusual name, you would at least have an argument but the every day name Emma?
BTW
Rex definitels natick as the crossing of 2 NON inferable obscure names. And unfortunately Cena is not obscure enough.
Thought the bottom was easy but I had trouble at the top so easy medium to medium for me.
Surprised by Rex’s complaints. Especially about predictable. Made no sense to me at all.
Decent puzzle.
I literally asked Siri (I was stuck, don’t judge) “ what are the sources of typhus?” LICE was third. Who knew?
How weird! Friday is often my most challenging day of the week. I love looking forward to a tussle with a themeless Friday and was denied! I even made a big pit of coffee in PREDICTABLE fashion. But ‘twas not to be. I blew through this like it was Wednesday or even Tuesday. Thank you Kelly Morenus for a view from your POV or maybe just a Vulcan mind meld?
I started off with my usual feeling of trepidation upon seeing the empty grid either all those looooong acrosses. Then I guessed at 1A and immediately got 1-6 down! The rest of the solve mirrored my start. I loved the Play with one’s food” clue for DINNER THEATER and stumbled by slamming in starts A RIOT, but that was quickly corrected with the fair downs. Another great clue was the one for TENURE. As a faculty brat, I recall only too well when my father was going through that process with a brand new dean. Ugh.
Lots of years left to struggle with Fridays, but I really enjoyed this one. Makes me finally feel like I am all the way “back.”
Watching a rom-com (DOWN WITH LOVE), no idea what’s going to happen 💕 ~RP
Out of 310 recorded Friday times, that was my best by 12%.
Filling piEcHArt as a way to illustrate, 25D, kept me from solving the west side and from turning the corner into the SE. It didn’t help having the word “food” in the clue of 50A, making the EATER at the end the perfect misdirection. But I got it all sorted out in the end.
Thanks, Kelly Morenus!
At 6 thirty in the pee em? That's an outrage. Those come with a 'don't watch before 10 in the pm restriction,' you Fearless, irreverent dog.
But all of the scandalized reactions to the 'PREDICTABLE'.. what's that all about. Imagine a column, the "WOES," the "ERASURES,".. bulleted. Who's dialing in. ZZzz(midget z's). Nobody, what's who. The people, they crave the spirited observations. (Also, the peppery, that wasn't entirely about rom-com epithets to Rip's eye.)
Plus another also, I read there was a gamer here, 100 and eight or eleven y.o. First, congrats, buddy, on living longer than I will in three lifetimes. Two, I bet he's already had ten of these.. and many of you geezers are fast closing in, but spring chicken that Riprock is, I just had my first C-scopy. That's right, up the bum. OOwww*&^&*#$!?!?!?!!! That's the thought. The reality, not that bad. Wee thing in there, leveled the Star Trek phaser crosshairs.. blammo! blasted it outta there. Whistle clean, baby.
So, I bet there are one or two of you who have stalled - this is a little PSA to the AARP set to get 'er done. And that includes you, Fearless. Rip, invoking the Katie Couric. Totes covered by your insurance.
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