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Architectural projection / SUN 3-30-25 / Feature of a safe landing / Fraudster Sorokin profiled in Netflix's "Inventing ___" / Weasel family member / Baguette in Vietnamese cuisine / Proteins hypothetically responsible for mad cow disease / Group in "a pension fund" / Fix, as a logbook entry / Canadian dollar, informally
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Constructor: Simeon Seigel
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT (27A: . [Not this])
- PREHISTORIC PERIODS (35A: ... Ancient)
- BUYS BY THE POUND (52A: # Believes)
- WRITTEN IN THE STARS (62A: * Composed *) (more like "written in the asterisks," but OK)
- DINES AND DASHES (70A: Feasts - - -)
- POST-GRADUATE DEGREE (87A: Alumnus º)
- READ BETWEEN THE LINES (99A: — Peruse —)
Pamana Island (Dana, Dona, Ndana) is a small island off Rote Island in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province of Lesser Sunda Islands, and the southernmost point of Indonesia and of Asia. It lies exactly on latitude 11°S. Administratively this island is part of Rote Ndao Regency. It borders the Ashmore and Cartier Islands to the south.
The island is inhabited by some deer, various bird species and is visited annually by turtles who come to lay their eggs. (wikipedia)
• • •
As usual, the NW was the place I was slowest—both because it's where I started, and when you've got nothing in the grid yet ... that's when you're likely to be slowest; and because the clues on those short answers were just hard for me. PASS should've been easy, but nope, I couldn't think of anything there (1A: Choose not to take part). I knew the Medicare section was a PART, but which PART, ??? (1D: Medicare section (PART B)). I had ALTA instead of ALTO (18A: High in the Andes), which wasn't that bad, but I crossed that "T" with OTTER instead of STOAT (3D: Weasel family member), which was (that bad, that is). Also, the only thing my brain wanted for 23A: Hit the ___ (ROOF) was ROAD. I was so turned around at first that I actually wrote in BATCAPES (!?!?) instead of BATSUITS for 31A: Film attire for George Clooney and Christian Bale. Next door wasn't too much better. I think the first thing I put in the grid with any real certainty was AGASSI (7D: Eight-time Grand Slam tournament winner from 1992 to 2003), and yet, in that same section ... I assumed the stiletto in question was a shoe, so BLADE wasn't coming anytime soon (24A: Stiletto feature). Still can't seem to differentiate AUGUR (portend) from AUGER (the hole-boring tool), so I left that vowel blank. Garfield is plump and orange (not to mention fictional) whereas my own tabby cat is lean and gray (mostly) and very much real (esp. at 3:45am when he's hungry), so it was hard to think of them in the same category of cat, though technically, yes, both TABBIES (5D: Garfield and others). I got RULETH but there's no way you can be That confident in RULETH because ... well, look at it. Also, REDATE, shme-date. So as you can see, just getting initial traction was an adventure. And Yet—once I got out of the N/NW, everything seemed to go Monday-easy, and the theme itself was maybe like a 3 out of 10 on the difficulty scale, and there's nowhere that seems likely to make anybody really Stuck-stuck, so ... yeah, Easy.
 |
| [TABBIES! Turns out you can't spell "Garfield" without ALFIE (+ "G" "R" and "D")] |
Bullet points:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
- 21A: Feature of a safe landing (RAIL) — the answer that baffled me the most. I knew it was right, and I wanted to leave it behind, but it was bugging me that I couldn't figure out how the hell it was correct. Eventually it dawned on me that we were talking about a staircase (specifically the level part, or "landing"). I think of the landing as the one part of a staircase that *doesn't* have a (hand) RAIL, but I guess for extra safety, they might.
- 25A: Fraudster Sorokin profiled in Netflix's "Inventing ___" ("ANNA") — a random and near-meaningless string of words to me ... and yet "ANNA" floated right to the top of my brain. Must've just seen the title a bunch, perhaps while scrolling through the mind-numbing content farm that is Netflix. I'm about to pare down all my media subscriptions, and Netflix is at the top of the "to go" list. A few good things and a Whoooooooooole lotta nothin. A whole lot of "just OK" stuff, actually, which is somehow worse, or at least the same.
- 45A: Sch. whose student newspaper in The Reveille (LSU) — my wife used to teach there, in the History Department, but that was before I knew her. I went to LSU once myself, for a conference, when I was in graduate school. None of these biographical tidbits made any difference here—no idea what "Sch." this was supposed to be. "Reveille" had me thinking military, so I wrote in VMI at first.
- 106A: Group in "a pension fund" (AEIOU) — the vowels AEIOU appear in that phrase ("a pension fund") in that order.
- 78A: Modern love? (BAE) — the term "BAE" has been around long enough that it doesn't feel particularly "modern" to me anymore. Huh, looks like it only really took off in 2013-14, somewhere around there, so yeah, pretty modern. Anyway, you (not me, but you) might call someone you love "BAE" (the way you might use "babe" or "baby"). A romantic partner, most likely.
- 83A: Something searched for in vein? (ORE) — a decent pun, and an easy answer to get, but thumbs-down on the clue for duping "vein" (see 97D: Like a bodybuilder's arms = VEINY).
- 107A: Mark one's words? (EDIT) — this was kind of cute—the way the clue echoed the title of the puzzle, I mean ("Mark My Words").
- 22A: Architectural projection (ORIEL) — is this the bay window-type dealie? Yes: "A bay window projecting from an upper floor, supported from below with corbels or brackets." (wordnik)
- 10D: Baguette in Vietnamese cuisine (BANH MI) — Of course it's BANH, but my brain wanted BAHN, like "autobahn" or Kathryn Hahn or Steve Zahn.
- 85D: Author who originally intended his pen name to rhyme with "voice," though Americans pronounced it differently (SEUSS) — wait, do non-Americans say "zoice!?" LOL that's some real "Frankenstein" / "Frankenstein" stuff. I love the idea that there's a Dr. Seuss ("Soyce!") out there, a kind of doppelgänger or evil twin of Dr. Seuss ("Sooce!"), writing books that make kids hate reading. Bad poetry that doesn't rhyme or scan, with horrific illustrations that give you nightmares. "One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish As Far As The Eye Can See Because Of An Oil Spill!" Sleep tight, kids
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| [80A: Translation of "fin" (END)] |
P.S. I will be away next Sunday because I will be attending the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, CT, for the first time in nearly a decade. Hope to see some of you there. Whoever is subbing for me next weekend, you'll be in good hands, as usual, I promise.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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77 comments:
I agree with OFL's Easy rating.
Overwrites:
OBVi before OBVS at 9A. I wish constructors/editors would make up their mind.
daub before SLAP for the 12D haphazard application
At 31A, I thought Clooney and Bale might have been in Cats and therefore wore cAT SUITS instead of BAT SUITS. That also fit the cross at 1D, which could have been PART a, B, c or d.
ADrate before SALE at 34D
My 84D music player button was REPlay before it was REPEAT
No WOEs.
Good Luck in Stamford
most difficult sunday in a while. I'm not on this constructor's wavelength at all.
I had a lt of trouble getting started with this one - things like TRAP (or is it T-RAP?) for hip-hop, OBVS, which I don’t think I’ll ever get used to, ORIEL, PETRA, RULETH et c made it really difficult to get any traction. It didn’t help that all I could do was giggle at the thought of George Clooney in a BAT SUIT - hopefully they paid him a small fortune.
Fortunately, the thing that bailed me out in this grid was the theme (what a difference four weeks makes). Once I got the first theme entry, the rest dropped in pretty easily, which provided plenty of toeholds to latch onto and make progress.
I’ll give a big Bronx Cheer to PRIONS, not because there is anything inherently wrong or bad about it, but simply because at best one out of a thousand of us will even recognize it. To the rest of us it’s just like a mosquito that landed in the grid and needs to be swatted away or otherwise dispensed with. It’s never good to have mosquitoes in your grid.
Had fun with the themers at least - BESIDES THE POINT was pretty cool. Agree with the big guy on the flat overall fill - I’ll chalk it up to the trick density and grid constraints.
The great Steve Howe provides a wonderful full C SIDE
THE NSA is truly unfortunate - needs to be edited out. Rex highlights most of the other clunkers. If I recall - SUESS was his mother’s maiden name? Sad we had it crossed with the obtuse DEES.
An even better C SIDE
Enjoyable enough Sunday morning solve. Nearly 80 yesterday and 34 this morning. Time to move on - the cherry blossoms on the Bridal Path are waiting.
You could argue Bitches Brew or Blonde on Blonde but here’s the greatest of C SIDES
I felt a shiver of excitement upon seeing Simeon’s name atop the puzzle. Simeon, purveyor of devilish wit, surprise, and how-did-he-do-that?
The devilish element today, IMO, was in the cluing. Oh, I enjoyed the theme, especially the brilliant PRE- and POST- theme answers, given their clues. But the puzzle’s cluing – this I savored. Wordplay was effusive, and wordplay-lover I was in my happy place.
My sense is that Simeon takes time and care with every clue; that he hangs out with every answer until a clue passes his bar.
So many of his clues have never been seen before in the major crossword outlets. Examples: [Feature of a safe landing, perhaps] for RAIL, [Average killers] for DEES, [Reproductive systems?] for COPIERS, and the marvelous misdirect [Not partial] for ENTIRE. Terrific wordplay in all of these.
This was a splendid outing, and once again, I am so grateful for what you bring to the box, Simeon. Thank you!
BTW, you are cheating yourself out of experiencing crossword gold if you’ve passed Simeon’s other Sunday puzzle (3/17/24) by.
Difficult for mee too, but admit that it was objectively easy.
[ ? Superb ]
OUTSTANDING BEYOND QUESTION
(My assessment of Simeon's puzzle)
I got tripped up in the middle with Rusk (?), prions, ankh, and to my embarrassment, I couldn't remember if it was written IN the stars or written ON the stars
ORIEL? Oh yeah, that thing supported by corbels, as everyone knows. Why don’t we see CORBELS in the grid more often?
Very slow start but then it revved up. But wait… don’t people say *THE* NSA (like The FBI, The CIA, etc.)? I’m not getting Rex’s objection to THE.
IMHO, I am always amazed that solvers dislike things that they are not in their wheelhouse. Prions (misfolded proteins) are the subjects of two Nobel Prizes Gajdusek 1976 and Prusiner 1997. I think they are more than hypothetical at this point. I enjoy learning about obscure rap artists and seventh century poets. Let us not focus only on those things we already know.
We say SOOSE not ZUICE...
Hey All !
Funky Theme idea, with some nice ways of interpreting the phrases as "marks" and words. If you know what I'm trying to say. Shoot, often times I don't even know what I'm trying to say!
Seemed a bunch of non-things in here. REDATE - Maybe a real thing, if you find someone misdated an entry, but seems odd. USTIME - Me time, sure, but do couples actually say this? CSIDE - Technically yes, haven't seen a Double-Album in a bit, and yes, the second one is often marked C-D, but still seemed off.
And my biggest gripe was going to be SaFTSPOT. I was thinking that there was a Country-wide Safe Place I never heard of that was a WOE. That ended up being my one-letter DNF spot, as I didn't get the Happy Music, but even after scanning puz, could not see that ALTA should be ALTO. Hit Check Puzzle, it crossed out the A, and then I saw SOFT SPOTS. Gave myself a proper head slap at that. Dang.
Could've gotten rid of the Cheater Squares after TRAP/before DEES. The North could've been TRAPP/PREDATE, whereas the South would need a do over with REPEATS leading the way. Just sayin'. 😁
Anyway, nice puz, on the easy side, not too easy, though. Got to remember altO! Spanish, isn't ALTO=STOP, ALTA=HIGH? *Looks up Language Spoken In The Andes* Google Search brings back
"The most direct answer is that the primary languages of the Andes are Quechua and Aymara, alongside smaller languages like Jaqaru and Kawki. These indigenous languages have deep roots in the Andean world, predating the arrival of Spanish."
Of course, now I understand. 😁
Have a great Sunday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Gimme for me and I’d say at least 20% of f the audience.
An easy unremarkable solve with the exception of the BANHMI section. I had to hold my nose while entering 9A. Apparently if you've ORBED the correct answer you've made it OBVS.....ick.
I needed the P to remember PETRA.
My OHMY/AHME write over made WRITTEN difficult to recognize. Having " ___ITTY___" on that line messed with the parsing. A welcome speed bump in an overall dull solve.
I’ve only ever heard Dr. Seuss pronounced with an S sound. What is this “zoice”?
I thought this was old-timey in a good way. Fun puns without groaners. Even liked the throwback, as I consider AHME an old AMI.
Some days, the persnickety complaints of Rex remind me of the great Phil Hartman’s SNL Anal Retentive Chef sketch (this time with another late great, Jan Hooka). Whose picking of nits (and neatly packaging them for the refuse bin) always seems to stop him from enjoying actual cooking.
[Much like in the current With Love, Meghan, where the Duchess of Sausage shows a whole lot of cheerful bags with calligraphy on labels as she repackages store-bought peanut butter pretzels to make her guest feel special But that ASIDE is BSIDETHEPOINT.]
Anal Retentive Chef - Mother’s Day ends up at the Airport Ramada
Highly enjoyable Sunday!
Lea entre líneas.
Slogged my way for a looooong time not being able to make heads or tails of the theme until I finally grokked the bottom entry and the light went on like clouds parting in the heaven and I sprinted to the end with We are the Champions playing in my head. A really fun puzzle in the end.
OBVS strikes me as the funniest answer in the whole puzzle. How would you even pronounce it? You'd have to go pretty hard on the V and your lip wrinkles up all weird.
I didn't understand RAIL and didn't know ORIEL and rushed to OTTER before STOAT, so those caused a fuss up top. The RUSK/PRIONS cross was rough. Not knowing either, I ran the alphabet and R seemed to be the most likely solution in both directions.
BAE and HON together at last. OBESE is a classification in my spaghetti loving belly, not some chart. DEES only kill your average if you're a high achiever, but if you're a chronic failure like me, they're a welcome relief. Delighted to see AHME after the OHME kerfuffle last week.
I bet most pet owners have LINT ROLLERS scattered throughout the house. My old bundle of fluff mostly blops her fur, so it's a vacuum cleaner situation for us.
People: 11
Places: 5
Products: 3
Partials: 9
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 32 of 134 (24%)
Funnyisms: 7 🙂
Tee-Hee: VEINY.
Uniclues:
1 Mom makes good use of the Oxford comma to make it to the church on time.
2 Political appointees from current clown car wander encryption headquarters.
3 Abominable Snowman's target for his lint roller.
4 Racist imagery in children's classics celebrated by right wing wackos left unsupervised with the internet.
1 SERVES, DINES, AND DASHES
2 SOFTSPOTS ROVE THE NSA
3 YETI'S TABBIES CRUD (~)
4 OPED NOTED DR. SEUSS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Iron hanky. RE-PRESS NOSE RAG.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
By my reckoning, we had four really decent, workable puzzles in a row, and now with this one three unworkable ones. My problems here were these two little chunks up at the top...the first because it never occurred to me that ownETH might be wrong, and my ignorance of all things hip-hop gave me no counter. In the second, be ause I have nerver heard or seen the word "OBVS" before...how would you even pronounce that? RAIL, even though I came up with it, has no connection for me with "landing." Hopefully someone will explain this for me...
Prion is one of my favorite second words with Wordle.
Prions were discovered in the early 80’s by Stanley Prusiner (the term stands for proteinaceous infectious particle) for which he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1997. It was truly an amazing discovery because prions can “replicate” without the presence of DNA—a heretical finding at the time but now well-accepted.
The solving platform I use doesn't deal well with certain symbols so the clues for 87A and 99A weren't exactly clear but with enough crosses the phrases became clear.
I love PREHISTORIC PERIODS! In fact, I like all of this puzzle. I learned a few things (DR SEUSS is supposed to be DR SOICE?) and loved the clues for COPIERS (Reproductive systems?) and RULETH (Hath dominion o'er). I smiled at BAT SUITS and the diamond jubilee WORLD SERIES and the bartender turning off the lights and saying GO HOME. DRENCH is a fun word.
Simeon Seigel, this is the best Sunday puzzle for me in a long time, thanks!
* Jan Hooks, not Hooka. OBVS!
I guess it was - as Rex said - EASY since I solved it in record time. No stumbles, no typos, no hesitating. A whoosh - on a Sunday? What a treat! I did have DIET for STEP & questioned could it be REAM (which appeared 2x this week). I'm sure some (if not most) will say it was too easy but for me, a fun Sunday & I thank you, Simeon :)
To recognize PRIONS, two traits would suffice: 1. You pay attention to current events news; 2. Your memory retains important facts for more than a few months. I'm thinking that possibly more than 1 in 1000 of us meet the qualifications.
Detective = police officer (public)
PI = private
No? Too anally retentive?
In order to get theme answers like this with very few crosses, the theme clues have to be both clear and fair. These were. I got two of the themers without even looking at the grid: WRITTEN IN THE STARS and READ BETWEEN THE LINES. THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT went in based on two letters. Ditto POSTGRADUATE DEGREE. The one that took the most crosses was BUYS BY THE POUND. Probably because I was looking for the word HASH.
Once I had finished the fun part, I started to fill in the rest of the grid to make sure I was right. But the rest of the grid wasn't the fun part. It wasn't at all challenging and it didn't sparkle. It was just sort of blah. So I stopped.
Zipped through this one and had a fine old time. The trick was obvious (OBVS, which I was happy to know right away, from crosswords) and figuring out the themers required enough thought to be interesting.
The first thing I thought of for "hath dominion over" was RULETH, from singing a choral piece called "The Last Words of Kind David", which begins "He that RULETH over men must be just", That was well over fifty years ago. Funny how lyrics stick in the brain when lots of things don't.
PRIONS I know from reading Charlie Pierce's indispensable political commentary in Esquire. He uses it metaphorically to describe the right-wing mindset that started with Reagan and has continued to spread with such disastrous results. Nor do we have any antidotes, it would seem.
Only a few names but mostly unknown--TAYE, ANNA, OHARA. Easy crosses, hooray.
My heart leapt up when I beheld ORIEL, a classic and a long-lost friend. Being of a certain age and having done so many crosswords does have its rewards. Nice to see you, ORIEL, and welcome back.
I enjoyed your Sunday offering very much, SS. For me it was a Super Sunday, and thanks for all the fun.
Can anyone explain to me what DEES are and how they’re average killers? That crossing NEED had me baffled. I’m guessing the “need” is that someone needs a scholarship? Still don’t understand DEES though. No idea what that word is.
Easy. No real problems with this one, I caught the theme about half way through and which made the bottom half whooshier than the top.
Cute, liked it more than @Rex did.
Well, the clue was "high in the Andes" and ALTO does mean stop, but it also means high or tall, so the answer could have been ALTO (masc.) or ALTA (fem.) or even ALTOS (m. plural) or ALTAS ( f, plural) if we were talking about two things, which we clearly weren't, because there were not enough spaces for that so never mind either of those, and we're back to ALTO because of SOFTSPOTS, which is something my Mom used to say all the time and was a gimme for me.
Hope this is helpful.
I have always been under the impression that an A-SIDE and B-SIDE were the *songs* that appear on SIDE A and SIDE B of a 45... Meaning that the third part of a double album would have to be SIDEC. Is that just me?
1. / Incinerate
2. = = = Premier = = =
3. **** Bands
(answers below)
I had George Clooney and Christian Bale in fATSUITS to the very end. I mean, there is a Medicare Part F.
Egs: BAE, I want some USTIME.
MRS. Egs: But, HON. We're in the South of France on a very romantic vacation alone together.
Egs: Yeah, this is Nice. But I can't get over my jet lag. I wanna GOHOME because I really miss U.S. time.
It's a bit of mystery to me why stop signs in many Spanish-speaking countries say ALTO, since it means "high". I've concluded that placing it on a red octagonal sign makes it mean "Stop if you're High". My ex-fiancee's father, who was fluent in 5 or 6 languages, used to warn aspiring Spanish speakers that ropa doesn't mean rope, and sopa doesn't mean soap and butter is meant ta kill ya.
What'd the craftsman say when he learned that his expensive drill could tell the future? That augurs well.
I guess you could say that "ENORB with rubber" means ENTIRE. Maybe not.
Thank you so much Simeon ! I just loved this ! Super fun !!!
Amen!
I usually try to give a constructor some grace on a theme (if it's cute enough), but PREHISTORIC PERIODS really bugs me. "Ancient" is not a prehistoric, it's a prehistoric period. So the periods are prehistoric period periods.
Sorry that I posted before I was finished. I wanted to thank Simeon Seigel for a wonderful puzzle. I liked the theme and its execution a ton.
(answers)
1. Slash and burn
2. First among equals
3. Stars and Stripes
Very enjoyable Sunday. Needed one cheat (to get BANHMI) because I didn't know OBVS (obvious in geek language?). I had "Apluses" before AGRADES, and would argue that it's more accurate than AGRADES. Liked the theme.
First off, a PRION isn't a protein, it's a peptide. Secondly, not "hypothetically," just possibly. Just bad clueing.
I'd venture more like 10% of us have a clue.
@Steve W: "A prion is a misfolded protein that induces misfolding in normal variants of the same protein, leading to cellular death." (Wikipedia).
"A prion is a type of protein that can trigger normal proteins in the brain to fold abnormally." (John Hopkins Medicine)
For Anonymous: DEES is the letter "D" in plural form.
Overall I found this one pretty easy— finished it over breakfast and 2 cups of coffee. At least it didn’t have made-up never-before-seen words like “teentsy.” (I’m still sore about yesterday’s unforgivable cheat).
The rope/soap/butter observation is a classic with Spanish teachers. Haven't seen it since I retired, so gracias.
@Anonymous 10:49AM "DEES" (Ds) kill one's average grade.
If you get a "D" in, say, Economics, it will kill your college average.
A "D" grade can kill your GPA.
Ancient is meant to be synonymous with "historic". Thus the periods (...), occurring before "ancient" in the clue, are pre-historic.
As I skimmed through the comments I was glad to see a number of commenters enjoyed this. I did. Thought the theme answers were amusing as I uncovered them - couldn't get any without number of crosses.
I did put a ? beside 70 A because, altho I loved the phrase "dines and dashes" I have never heard or read it. Typically "eat and run"
Definitely jettison Netflix. I haven’t had them in years and never missed them. Plus: they are actively working to destroy the theatrical experience so boo to them!
Thanks @Pablo. All these decades I thought he was so clever and it turns out he was parroting a well-worn trope.
Chronic wasting disease, a cousin of mad cow disease, is endemic among Wisconsin's deer population, so we hear a lot about PRIONS around here.
Easy and entertaining, with the clever repurposing of "marks" as the closers of common phrases. I enjoyed unlocking each little semi-rebus theme puzzle, with difficulty at first (i.e., needing lots of crosses) but in the end needing no crosses for READ BETWEEN THE LINES. Favorite: BUYS BY THE POUND!
M&A got the . early, re: this SunPuztheme mcguffin. Not overly humorous theme, which I prefer, but sorta wacky, sooo ... ok.
btw: We decided to do "silly but with some redeemin quality" schlock flicks, for last Friday nite's schlockfest -- so I can sure identify with this SunPuz. [My bro-in-law-in-chief went with the Beatles' "Help!", while M&A dove lower, with the classic "Monsturd" horror flick. Monstrurd scored on silliest, but the Beatles scored higher on redeemin qualities.] But, I digress ...
staff weeject pick: GOV. Has a .gov puztheme flavor to it. Even tho dot-gov has recently been changed over to dotty-gov.
One great plus for the puz: M&A has always had SOFTSPOTS for them LINTROLLERS.
CSIDE? har
Thanx for bein so punctual with yer puztheme, Mr. Seigel dude. And with that > average U-count, too boot.
Masked & Anonymo10Us
... and now for a 24 ^ extra ...
"Dangerfield Punchlines #77" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
@Gary LOL, Literally at your DEES comment.
@Egs. Thanks for the fun Chuckled alltheway thru andlikedyour clues/answers.
Welp. When I did a search of “prehistoric periods” I got this:
The prehistoric periods, in chronological order, are the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Iron Age
Okay, as a former architect let me clear up 21 across RAIL for everyone. A "handrail" is something you grasp to support yourself. A "railing" (or "guard rail" as most codes call it) is something that keeps you from falling off the edge of, say, a stairway landing. Sometimes, like say on the flight part of a stairway, they can be combined so that the top of the railing serves as the handrail.
And as a former architect, I was embarrassed to have to get ORIEL from crosses because it just didn't occur to me when I read the clue. There are so many projections on buildings... brackets, corbels, beams...
Like Rex I got a slow start at the top because too many wrong guesses. SKIP before PASS, "Hit the" ROAD before ROOF, etc.
My guess for 92 down "Order after closing time" with the G in place was the even ruder GET OUT!
Evidently ALTO means "high" and "stop" in Spanish, but stop signs in Brazil say PARE.
Remarkable that CHER has hit singles in seven decades.
In case it hasn’t been mentioned yet: the EU diphthong in German is pronounced as the English OY, like in the name of the country, Deutschland = DOYCH-lahnt, or Die Leute (the people) = LOY-teh, or football goalie Manuel NEUER = NOY-er. So SEUSS in German would be pronounced SOYSS, or more probably ZOYSS (thus rhyming with voice).
Ooohhhh thank you. I always have trouble when they spell out letters. Appreciate the help!
In addition to “Written in the asterisks,” I was hung up on “Prehistoric ellipses” and “Dines and hyphens.”
kj (Bardfilm)
My experience was sort of similar to yours, Nancy. I couldn't get the first themer because of a bunch of erroneous down entries but PREHISTORIC PERIODS came pretty easily and I was off and running. Glueing all the themers together was a drag. Unlike you, I chose not to stop because ... well, I guess I'm a bit of a masochist.
To me "eat and run" and "dines and dashes" are separate things. If I'm enjoying lunch with some friends and I realize I have an appointment looming I might say, "Sorry, folks, I've gotta eat and run", and they might graciously excuse me. Dine and dash, though, is a different thing. It refers to the act of eating a restaurant meal and sneaking out without paying. As the front-of-house manager for a very busy steak house in the mid-70s, I had to deal with a fair number of those.
Ahhhh, youse guys are right. I got caught up in my annoyance and forgot to think things through. Glad it was my mistake and not the constructor's!
not that tough of a puzzle, but for some reason took me a while to get going. Toeholds early were ETNA and TAYE. I agree with the comments about CSIDE, we typically had A Sides and B sides for 45 singles. Albums were Side ONE, Side two... REDATE? kinda clunky for me. Was thinking Garfield the president before that "cat". Great Sunday puzzle, just tough enough
Thank you. That hadn’t occurred to me (I didn’t take German). For some reason, I “know” that “oe” is often pronounced like a long a (in English), but the Seuss/voice stymied me. Then I read things above that focused on moose/voice that concentrated on the s and soft c…which seemed VERY nit-picky! (Especially since I don’t detect the difference in those!)
I know I have done the SAME thing!
Hard to say Gwinns. You are confining A and B to 45 rpm records, which is interesting (not saying it’s wrong), but why put C at the end just because it’s a 33 rpm album? In reality, we could switch it everything to Side A, B, and C (and if it’s a double album…must be a D).
Busy day with intermittent replies on my part, but I just wanted to weigh in and say I thought this was a very smooth and elegant Sunday offering. I very much enjoyed figuring out the theme, and I thought there was enough wordplay elsewhere to keep some of the supporting fill interesting. Keep up the good work Simeon!
I think Southside Johnny underestimated how many are aware of the term PRION. It is has been periodically in the news over the last decade or two.( On the front pages of newspapers when that was a thing). Maybe he doesn’t pay attention to health news
Whether it is a protein or not, I haven’t a clue , but whoever questioned the word should double-check because more often than not, digs at a puzzle like that are wrong
Finally, we are not talking about a medical journal article here. We are talking about a puzzle which had CLUES not definitions. Whether it is hypothetical or possible, Close enough for a HINT to the answer. Nothing wrong with that clue.
Anonymous 7:57 AM
Rusk (?)
Probably a question of age I am a Boomer and that was a gimme for me. He was a prominent person in Washington during the Viet Nam War. He was Secretary of State for quite a while. For my generation, not obscure at all.
For the theme answers were easy to get. But I didn’t make an effort to understand the mark part of it. I just got the phrases and went on. So the puzzle was a little duller for me while doing it. Maybe the theme answers were made a little too easy? On the other hand, the clam (singular!) LSU no help area took me a while. I stuck with Rex’s VMI for too long. I consider that a hard misdirection.
I LINT and AD but the rest wasn’t coming, except the s. Cher saved me because I vaguely remembered that about her. I rarely criticize a clue, but I thought the one for LSU was a little unfair in context.
Simple theme, decent puzzle overall though.
Granted the mad cow scare was in 1986 but any one of age in the ‘80s should have dropped that in. Unlike the frequently obscure names and foreign food. And why is an Emmy statuette holding an atom???
A landing connects two parts of a staircase. It’s safer if that area has a rail(ing) to protect one from falling. I also had to get it from the crosses and didn’t understand until later. Totally thinking aircraft…
Overall pretty easy indeed, though I got thoroughly stuck on the NE cluster of CLAMS, ORIEL and PENNY. Had never heard of ORIEL before, and I’m still not entirely sure how MEN describes chess pieces. Is that a common way to refer to men in battle or something?
A theme where the entire point to the puzzle is the theme, and the fun is in figuring out the theme expressions with minimal help. When that works, as it did today, it can be a lot of fun.
Dines and dashes happens when people eat out at a restaurant and dash out without paying.
If you pronounce Dr Seuss in German it does indeed rhyme with voice.
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