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Relative difficulty: Hard (got stuck in the bottom left, 9:59)
THEME: HAUNTED MANSION — Spooky property that might include the theme answers
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: GABE ("Welcome Back, Kotter" role of 1970s TV) —
Hello friends, and happy Malaika MWednesday! I recognize Rebecca's name as someone who is excellent at coming up with themes, so I was excited to dive in. This was awesome! I'll take one paragraph to discuss the theme, and another paragraph to discuss the construction.
- BLOOD BATH-- Blowout victory, metaphorically
- DEADPOOL-- Marvel superhero portrayed by Ryan Reynolds
- ZOMBIE OFFICE-- Commercial property left mostly vacant by hybrid work arrangements
- GHOST KITCHEN-- Restaurant offering delivery and pickup only
Word of the Day: GABE ("Welcome Back, Kotter" role of 1970s TV) —
Welcome Back, Kotter is an American sitcom starring Gabe Kaplan as a high-school teacher in charge of a racially and ethnically diverse remedial education class nicknamed the Sweathogs. Recorded in front of a live studio audience, the series aired on ABC from September 9, 1975, through May 17, 1979.
• • •
The way the New York Times structured this puzzle, when you were entering a theme answer, it highlighted the revealer. Usually my instinct is to immediately jump down and read that clue, but this time I held out a little and hopped around avoiding that section, and I'm glad. I think it was more fun that way. In particular, I got DEADPOOL and BLOOD BATH first, and tried to think of their connection. I wondered if their shared letters (OOL / LOO) would have anything to do with the theme. It wasn't until I filled in GHOST KITCHEN that I saw the spooky vibes, but I still didn't clock the relationship between the features of a house until I did hit the revealer.
I don't often discuss the complexity of construction in order to praise it. A lot of my reviews actually criticize when a constructor is jamming theme answers into a tight grid because I rarely think it's worth it, but Rebecca did an excellent job here. If you haven't constructed puzzles before, a grid with mirror symmetry like this one is really hard to wrangle because it's easy to end up with columns of long entries along the center axis, which can be hard to fill cleanly. That's what happened here, with INBOUNDS / DEADPOOL / KOMBUCHA and (to a lesser extent) DOG RUNS / RAINS / WE GET IT, but all the entries are clean. It's also hard to have theme answers intersecting (like DEADPOOL with BLOODBATH) or to have them stacked (like HAUNTED and MANSION). And she could have broken up those long non-thematic down answers with an extra block at square 49, but she kept them intact.
All in all, a really cute theme with really good execution. A puzzle that reminds me why I love puzzles.
Bullets:
I'll see y'all later this week
;)
Bullets:
- [Sweet braided bread] for BABKA — I wanted "challah" here at first; I think of babka as twisted, not braided
- [Message meaning "I can't be reached right now"] for OOO — This means "out of office." At my job, this is a very common initialism that I probably see at least weekly, more around the holidays
- [Woman's name that becomes another woman's name when an "M" is added to the front] for ELISSA — It's always interesting to me when a name that's not particularly uncommon comes up in a grid and there's no famous person associated with it. Even more interesting when I personally have friends with this name! Can't put them in a clue though...
- [Speed Wagon and Flying Cloud of old autodom] for REOS — This and GTO are the crossword cars that I will simply never ever remember or get
;)
Is it Halloween already? Whew, no thankfully. A week or 2 ago I posted a video of my neighbor's wildly over the top front yard Halloween display. I need another 9 months to be ready for that again.
ReplyDeleteHi Malaika! I enjoyed your technical comments on the construction. What occurs to me that Rex might have added: it was weird that we had two 12 letter theme answers (downs!) glued to two 12 letter non-themers. I thought ZO----OFFICE might be ZOOMER OFFICE.
ROOSTER TAILS to me are a water skiing thing.
Fun enough (if a bit gory) and not an obnoxious number of names, thank Gof. I've never met an ELISSA (Melissa, sure). GABE is a fond memory from 50ish years ago: welcome back Kotter. However, the former Cat Stevens is an odd choice for the clue to ISLAM.
My first degree was in physics, but that was 44 years ago so I blanked on 24 down and the general relativity proof. You see, it's weird, "special relativity" (different velocities) is quite simple and logical and I learned it in high school. But "general relativity" (different accelerations/ gravities/ whatever) is a different story... I've read that only a handful of people in the world really understand it. I don't. And I think if it were brought before a jury of peers there may still be a few holdouts on whether it totally holds up.
I got the "T" and wanted "transit of mercury" but it wasn't gonna fit.
DeleteEinstein’s Theory of General Relativity explains gravity differently than Newton’s did. It said that light, although massless, should be bent by a massive object like the sun, where Newton said it wouldn’t. The light from a distant star should be bent a little if it came close to the sun. But the sun is too bright to see a star right next to it, so they waited for a total eclipse so they could see if a star would seem to be slightly in the wrong position due to its light being bent. It would be evidence that Einstein was right. Photographs taken during totality showed the star very slightly — by the amount Einstein predicted — out of position. Vindication!
DeleteThanks for that explanation, Slow Motion. I'm not a STEM guy (artist/farmer, actually) and sometimes these things baffle me. But due to your simple, no concise might be a better term, post I feel less baffled. Wish there were more like you.
Delete@drBB you were close: There was no transit of Mercury in 1919 but the precession of the perihelion of Mercury was an early triumph for the general theory of relativity. Newton’s laws predicted about half the observed value, whereas relativity got it right.
DeleteEasy-medium for me. Like @Malaika I resisted filling in the highlighted reveal until i had a sense of what was going on. That strategy work and I put in HAUNTED MANSION with no crosses.
ReplyDeleteROOSTER TAILS was a WOE but its symmetrical partner ZOMBIE OFFICE was familiar as my granddaughter worked in one in her first job after graduating college. i think she went in about twice a month and there was never anyone there. She’s now goes into an office daily in her new job in mid-town NYC.
Terrific puzzle and remarkably smooth given the theme constraints (or what @Malaika said). Liked it a bunch!
Solved it without cheating, thanks to guesswork on DEADPOOL and KOMBUCHA, neither of which I'd ever heard of (because ISLAM seemed the only possible answer for the adopted name). The four corners were easy enough, but the middle was tough. The happy music came as a surprise.
ReplyDeleteYou’ve never heard of Kombucha?
Delete@Anonymous: I never heard of it either.
DeleteI hadn’t either, but I’m glad to learn of it—sounds lovely!
DeleteMe too. Never heard of it.
DeleteI thought the upside-down crosses were a nice touch.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteWelcome Back, Malaika! I enjoyed this one, especially that the theme answers are all things that are HAUNTED and might be found in and around a MANSION. That said, it was Easy, with no WOEs.
Overwrites:
For the 26A Latin wolf, all I could think of was Lobo, but it didn't fit. So I tried Lobus before LUPUS (not a Latin scholar)
My 32A Biblical patriarch was Elija before he was ENOCH (not a biblical scholar either)
WHen ever before WHOM ever at 33A
My 53A "little cute" was Eensy before it was ELFIN
GiG before GAG for the 54A comedy bit
My red-bellied marsh mouse feared a gator before it feared an EGRET (53D)
Sometimes you really have to ask why. Oddball theme forcing a similarly weird grid layout. Overall fill was 50-50. Liked the long downs but given the construction constraints we get a lot of 3s and 4s that are rough. KOMBUCHA, ROOSTER RAILS, TOTAL ECLIPSE are all top notch. Never knew there were two S’s in ELISA.
ReplyDeletePleasant enough Wednesday morning solve.
PATTI
Found this one fairly easy. Clocked in at 5:18 on the solve.
ReplyDeleteA feat of construction, yes, but an unpleasant theme. OK for Halloween, maybe, but I usually come to the crossword to get away from the BLOODBATH of daily news. On top of that, we have an overly segmented grid with a plethora of three-letter fill. Look at that bottom row: TEE ONS TSA NSA. Like KOMBUCHA, this was not my cup of tea.
ReplyDeleteIt seemed like Rebecca needed to delve into some late-week stuff to get the grid filled. Things like LUPIS, ENOCH, ITZA and even ELFIN and PLATTE would not appear to be out of place on a weekend. The theme came together well, but I agree with Malaika that there appears to be a lot of stress on the grid.
ReplyDeleteI really, really hesitated before entering DOG RUNS - are those really a thing (I would imagine yes, despite the NYT’s nasty habit of just making stuff up). I’m having difficulty conceptualizing how it would work - are they fenced in? If not, how does the dog know where to run? The whole thing sounds bizarre to me.
Dog runs are real. When you want a safe area for your dog to go outside to do their business without fencing a whole yard you can build a dog run.
DeleteDOG RUN is a term I associate with boarding kennels. Many of them offer a combined space where the dog has an indoor bed but with access to its own fenced outdoor area which is called the run.
DeleteDog run is pretty standard terminology for the place that’s set aside for, wait for it…dogs to run. Most communities have these places where, interestingly, single dog owners happen to also mingle.
DeleteLoved 24 down, as it reminded me of last year’s total eclipse!
ReplyDeleteMy son gave me DEADPOOL... I never watch that genre, at all. Did not know ITZA or KOMBUCHA. Touch puzzle for a Wednesday made tougher as I felt nauseous after watching Trump's speech.
ReplyDeleteI couldn’t watch because I knew it would ruin my sleep. I do “better” when I don’t hear him talk and just read about it.
DeleteHear, hear! Just hoping blood pressure medicine isn’t the next item on the Musk-axe
DeleteI'm with @Beezer. Wild horses couldn't have dragged me in front of the screen. And, if I were in Congress, I would have been noticeably AWOL like Sheldon Whitehead and I forget who else.
DeletesOlArECLIPSE didn't help me. Ouch!
ReplyDeleteI had the same for way too long, convincing myself that ErISSA was a name, along with MErISSA. Ugh.
Deletealso had that, at first
DeleteAlso, me!
DeleteIf I have ever heard the terms ZOMBIE OFFICE and GHOST KITCHEN, I have forgotten it, so I have to ding this puzzle for IWKs (Insufficiently well-known themers).
ReplyDeleteAnd apparently don't know what a BABKA looks like. Like Malaika, I wanted some variant spelling of challah there (cAllA? chalA?).
Isn’t babka a cake?
DeleteBABKA was outside my vocab, so I needed every cross (I assume that’s my fault, and presumably it’s still Wednesday appropriate), some of which my brain farted on for a while. Eventually got there.
DeletePolish Babka is not braided, they're probably talking about some Jewish variant I've never seen. The Polish one I make every Christmas Eve and Holy Saturday. An old Polish recipe book I own says before you make the Easter Babka you have to send the men away, to plant potatoes perhaps, or else there will be much commotion and stamping of feet and the babka will flop. It's a magic yeast bread.
DeleteMy knowledge of BABKA is based entirely on that hilarious Seinfeld episode -- one of my faves. And the word BABKA itself is funny. Which comedian was it who explained that words with a hard-C or K sound were funny and that it was always good to end a joke with such words? Can't remember -- does anyone?
DeleteI liked the theme quite a lot and found the puzzle mostly easy/medium and enjoyable. It’s nice to have clues that are a bit misdirective but gettable. However, I had a Natick at DEADPOOL (this is the name of a character?? I do not know the Marvel universe at all) and ISLAM because I just couldn’t quite remember Cat Stevens’ new name, which is not so new but the exact spelling of which eluded me. This was made more difficult by the fact that MPH could have been rPH. Or maybe not since the clue said ‘speedometer’ but this is how my mind was working.
ReplyDeleteIn a case like that, the theme can be your friend. With "DEAD" representing the spooky part of the deadpool answer, the rest needs to represent something you might have at a mansion. POOL is the only good option there, if you have the POO_.
DeleteOh yes, so clever! Another layer to the theme, and now I see that all the theme answers have that element.
DeleteBro I was sitting on GHOSTKITCHEN and thought of this EXACT theme, HAUNTEDHOUSE instead of HAUNTED and MANSION, though. I guess I snooze I lose 🥲
ReplyDeleteI once worked in a ~20-person office with a Lissa, an Elissa and a Melissa. This answer came easily.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely enjoyed the spooky vibes, and the mostly clean (but in some cases outside my sphere of knowledge) answers. I ended up having a hard time in the ZOMBIE OFFICE section—I had the second word, and knew the first word was going to be something along the lines of “phantom” (“ghost” was already taken), and couldn’t come up with it. Part of my problem was that I didn’t know Chichén ITZA, which would have made it obvious, and had filled in sOlArECLIPSE. Got there eventually, but that section was a mess for a while. All told, a fun morning!
ReplyDeleteGotta like a puzzle that starts with AMIGO.
ReplyDeleteThis is one tight theme set – in-the-language phrases combining a Halloweeny term with a domicile area. It’s easy to understand the odyssey Rebecca went through to come up with it (as described in her notes at WordPlay.
Not only a tight theme, but the four theme answers shimmer with spark, with three of them never having appeared before in *any* of the major crossword venues, and the fourth (DEADPOOL) only a handful of times.
Rebecca needed an oversized grid to make it all work, but it worked beautifully. Look at the placement of the theme answers, truly, look at them! Even though the set is not symmetrical, it feels so balanced and grounding. Ahhh.
Those four longest downs are gorgeous: GHOST KITCHEN, ROOSTERTAILS, ZOMBIE OFFICE, and TOTAL ECLIPSE.
Sweet PuzzPair© of DEEP END and DEAD POOL.
Not only a fun solve, but an grid laced with all kinds of beauty. This is so lovely, Rebecca. Thank you!
I liked this comment better the FIRST time I read it on the NYT site. Do you just go around to all crossword sites pasting the same comment?? Wtf...pretty lame.
DeleteAnonymous 9:51 AM
Delete“WTF pretty lame” Why so nasty to Lewis. One of the nicest commentators here. He writes a cogent review almost every day, and you write the above. Easy choice as to what is lame.
@anon -- Only at @Rex and WordPlay, as both have commentariats that I love. Usually it's the same comment, but sometimes I make little adjustments, like the end of the second paragraph that I added here, that wasn't necessary at WordPlay. Sometimes I make a comment on one site that I don't make on the other, as circumstances call for.
Delete@anon What’s lame about that? Lewis writes a lovely, thoughtful, supportive review every day and wants different people to see it and appreciate it? Go be lame yourself and let us appreciate Lewis
DeleteThis was one of those TIL days, e.g. I have heard of KOMBUCHA, but never got a definition, same with BABKA. ZOMBIEOFFICE and GHOSTKITCHEN are both new and it didn't help that they were so important to the solve. Found out ENOCH's claim to fame and was reminded of Cat Stevens new name. A brave new morning, that has such things in it.
ReplyDeleteHard to get any flow going with the chopped-up nature of this grid. Of course my ignorance contributed to that quite a lot.
I met my first ELISSA when I was coaching fifth and sixth grade soccer. She told me her name and I said where's the M and she said there wasn't one and laughed and we went on to become good friends. Nice memory.
OK Wednesday here, RG, in spite of being Really Gruesome. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
Regarding ENOCH, he has a claim to fame of being (tradition has it—it’s unclear in the text) taken directly into heaven without dying, like Elijah. Probably not one that will show up in crossword since Enos is more grid-friendly, but the more ya know…
DeleteMy avid TV viewing of two primarily 90s comedies paid off today (as Chauncey Gardner says in Being There, “I like to watch”).
ReplyDeleteThree Seinfeld tie-ins: Chocolate BABKE (though not as memorable as the Marble Rye (“Give me the bread you old bag!”), LUPUS (George freaking out to doctor about his slight lip discoloration - “Is it LUPUS?”) and Trivia Pursuit’s MOOR (“no, so sorry, the answer is MOOPS”, Costanza tells the Bubble Boy in his best Trebekian voice).
MOE and D’OH from The Simpsons are almost a starting point for a modern version of Do Re Mi.
Fun puzzle!
First of all, I confused the BABKA episode with the Marble Rye episode. The latter is the one I loved -- and I'm not sure I even remember the BABKA episode.
DeleteSecond (and third) -- I remember the lip discoloration but not LUPUS. I remember the Bubble Boy episode but not MOOR. I do remember the word "moops" -- but not what it was exactly...or how it was used...or in what episode it appeared.
Meaning that one of us has a terrific memory and one of us doesn't.
Thought the REO/GTO cluing was cute. Always nice to see a little originality in handling those old xword warhorses. I only know Reo was a car maker because of crosswords. Doubt I'll ever get to see GTO's clued as "Girl band produced by Frank Zappa," but we live in hope.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeletePuz is 16 long, just in case no one mentions it.
I'm sure Rebecca tried for 15, but in a quick look at the grid, it seems being 16 long would be easier to fill, as strange as that sounds. Also, I'm sure she tried to get rid of the Blockers on either side of DOH, but having them made filling easier in that section.
Anyway, technical stuff aside, neat puz. HAUNTED type things, with parts of a MANSION. A double-working Themer puz.
Like Malaika said, it's tough to stack Themers.
Got stuck in West to Southwest area for a while. Basically flew through the rest of the puz, but the ole brain decided to say "Nyah-nyah-nyah" as I was trying to get answers there. Finally remembered ITZA (why that took forever to get is a mystery), allowing me to see ZOMBIEsomething, and managed to wrangle down that area.
Other toughie was spelling KOMBUCHA correctly. Had it as KuMBiCHA first.
Got the full ROOSTER today! Claiming 1 1/2 points, @pablo! 😁
Ghostly puz in March. Will we get a rainy puz in October? Oh wait, isn't that April showers? Oh well ...
Happy Wednesday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Now you're just showing off.
DeleteThose two black squares either side of DOH add to the word count AND form two upside down crosses :)
Deletei'm new here. when you are discussing a puzzle, what is a "WOE? "
ReplyDelete"What on Earth," aka something the commenter hasn't heard of.
DeleteWhat On Earth
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWhat On Earth
DeleteWhat on earth
DeleteWHAT ON EARTH?
DeleteNice construction, but I found the puzzle to be a slight downer, HAUNTED MANSION theme and all that. GHOSTKITCHENs are particularly depressing to me -- I hesitate to even call them "restaurants". This should have been run around Halloween -- haunting season.
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy 42-A. My wife is Elyssa, a less common spelling in our experience. When she introduces herself, she says "My name's Elyssa" or sometimes just "Elyssa", because if she says "I'm Elyssa" the invariable response is "Nice to meet you, Melissa".
Interesting! It's the sort of thing parents never think of when they're naming children.
DeleteEnjoyed solving this puzzle. Good fun. Some relatively easy shorts making up long lively downs. Solved almost like two or four separate puzzles with relatively limited crossover opportunites. Didn’t actually know BABKA or KOMBUCHA but somehow pronouncing them out loud to myself rang a bell deep in the gray matter. Started with ITsA but eventally ITZA was clear from the context. Once climbed those steps but don’t think I could make it today…
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle caused me to do something I don't think any crossword has ever done before (or if it has, it happened so long ago that it's since been forgotten) -- I literally laughed aloud when I got to the revealers. And not a polite, mirthful chuckle, but a loud "Ha!" from deep in my belly. Maybe I'm an easy mark, but something about four themers being plenty evocative on their own but all working beautifully when recontextualized by the theme.
ReplyDeleteAdding to the appeal for me was the placement of the themers being consistent with where they would actually appear in a HAUNTED / MANSION -- The DEAD POOL filling up the BLOOD BATH on an upper floor, and the ZOMBIE OFFICE and GHOST KITCHEN on a lower floor but opposite sides of the house. The fact that ZOMBIE OFFICE and GHOST KITCHEN feel cut from the same cloth -- both ordinarily bustling spaces left un-bustling by circumstance -- might merit a slight ding, but the complimentary nature of their monstrous monikers (a body lacking a soul, and a soul lacking a body) more than made up for it in my eyes.
Thanks for some much-needed joy this morning, Rebecca!
A little grisly to solve over breakfast, but it was certainly a nicely assembled theme structure and clever in its array of apt home features. I enjoyed learning ZOMBIE OFFICE and GHOST KITCHEN. Resisted writing in BABKA until I had to, as, like @Malaika, I know it as a two-part twist, not a braid.
ReplyDeleteI found this very hard for a Wednesday. But I think the theme idea and the way it's carried out is inspired. The impact for me was a bit dulled because I didn't know the superhero, DEADPOOL -- though the name did ring a bell when it came in -- and because I wasn't working in an office during Covid, and therefore never worked in a "hybrid work arrangement", I'd never heard the term ZOMBIE OFFICE. I also had a Senior Moment on the very familiar ITZA -- couldn't remember the darned place.
ReplyDeleteIDK how a TOTAL ECLIPSE proves the general theory of relativity -- but I'll take Rebecca's word for it.
A puzzle with colorful fill and a killer theme. Liked it a lot!
I haven’t researched this, so I’m going by memory. Einstein predicted that light waves would be impacted (I.e. “bent” ) by the gravitational pull of the sun. With the light from the sun obliterated, the scientists could “see” the light from stars known to be behind the sun at the time - this is because the light waves were bent toward the earth by the force of gravity as they passed by the sun. My apologies to any astrophysicists in the group if I butchered this one.
DeleteShort answer: General Relativity predicts that light rays should bend under the influence of gravity, but the effect is pretty small. One way to check would be to look at stars that appear near the sun (as seen from earth), but unfortunately the sun itself is so bright that we can't see those stars, except during an eclipse. Throughout the 1910s various expeditions were made to places with an eclipse to test the theory, but they kept running into equipment problems or cloudy skies until 1919, when measurements were made which supported the theory.
Delete@kitshef said the measurements made during the eclipse "supported the theory"... exactly! Supported, as opposed to "proved".
DeleteDarn! I knew it was Chichen ITZA, but wasn't confident of it -- so I put in sOLAr ECLIPSE and left it that way, first going with (M)arISSA for the names, and then settling for ErISSA. DOH!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the puzzle, but the very best part was reading the clue for TEE as "bottomless shirt," and asking "Aren't they all?"
I'm with @okanaganer -- my impression is that general relativity is accepted by almost everyone today, but as recently as the 1960s it was still being debated.
We're off later today for a 3+week trip to Florida, by car. I may be able to get a copy of the NYT once we get there, but that won't be until Saturday night -- so I'll see you all here on Monday, perhaps, or else on April 1.
Babka is wrong. Bad clue Will.
ReplyDeleteA good puzzle and a pleasant solve although it made me work a little harder than usual on a Wednesday. It did seem extremely odd though to be filling in a HAUNTED grid in March. I think this would’ve been a real crowd pleaser had it been published closer to Halloween.
ReplyDeleteIs it just me....or are Wednesday puzzles just the WORST? It's near impossible to straddle that middle line between Monday simplicity and Saturday difficult. Must make it harder to write about as well...but good on Malaika for keeping it short and sweet (though I would've turned the hate on!!) (For the puzzle, not Malaika!)
ReplyDeleteDon't know how we get from "you said it" to "and how" but we're vibing I guess
ReplyDeleteLike @Mike 4:43am, I liked the upside down crosses. But when I take off my glasses and stare at the puzzle, I see a frowny face with dead eyes. Apt. Anyone else?
ReplyDeleteI got bogged down with adding a letter to change a name because I immediately thought of Ariana and Mariana and then couldn't come up with anything else.
ReplyDeleteLo entendemos.
ReplyDeleteHi @Malaika!
Terrific puzzle. Smooth and well crafted. I was surprised to see what a gunkfest it is as I had so much fun filling in the long stuff. The yin-yang of puzzledom.
People: 9
Places: 6
Products: 4
Partials: 9
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 32 of 81 (40%) {In the "spirit" of the puzzle, BOOOO.}
Funnyisms: 4 🙂
Uniclues:
1 That je ne sais quoi evoked by pink chandeliers, disco balls and snarky judgmentalism.
2 Furry friend's forays onto football field.
3 Noodledrome.
1 GAY BAR ESPRIT
2 DOG RUNS IN BOUNDS (~)
3 PASTAS AND HOW (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Future prince of Salamanca needing a kiss. YO TE AMO FROG.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nice themeless Wednesday puzzle.
ReplyDeleteGee... on paper, no revealer lit up.
I agree, impressive construction, both visually and internally. We visited Chichen ITZA about 20 yrs ago, a fascinating spot. Nice to cross it with TOTAL ECLIPSE, given the Mayan expertise in astronomy.
ReplyDeleteI liked it. Elissa could have been clued as the junior senator from Michigan!
ReplyDeleteInteresting coincidence that ELISSA shows up just as ELISSA Slotkin, the freshman senator from Michigan, delivered a response to Trump's speech. That's the only ELISSA I've ever heard of.
ReplyDelete@Dennis 10:06 YES. Didn't even need to take off my glasses.
ReplyDeleteLooks like pat of the theme but I did not notice it while solving so thanks for the tip
I'm with Malaika darlin. Primo schlocky puztheme. Cool E/W symmetric(al) puzgrid. Nice HAUNTED MANSION stackin.
ReplyDeleteReally, the only possible thing missin was the WHINE CELLAR. [mwah-ha-har]
staff weeject pick [limited by only 28 choices]: OOO. Not familiar with that there message. Have heard tell of XXX's message, tho.
Thoroughly stocked weeject stacks in all 4 corners, btw. And another stack in the polar north region, too boot. Weeee!
no-knows that slightly crossed up M&A's solvequest: IDK/KOMBUCHA/ISLAM. Lost a few precious nanoseconds, thereabouts.
fave undaunted longballs: TOTALECLIPSE. ROOSTERTAILS. WEGETIT. ANDHOW.
Thanx for a spooky-great WedPuz, Ms. Goldstein darlin. Well done.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
... and now, for another kinda scary little thing ...
"Antegrams" - 7x7 12 min. themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I got REO thinking of the band REO Speedwagon.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely flew through it in record time. ZOMBIEOFFICE last to fall.
ReplyDeleteWoah this was a slog for me. 1.5mins over my average for a Wednesday. I did like the theme though it seemed out of place for early March.
ReplyDeleteThough I have been solving the NYT crossword daily for the past 5 years and have dabbled before that, unlike the rest of you I do not follow or recognize the constructors. Is this typical of the constructor?
For me this one had way too many, in my opinion, obscure popculture references for a Wednesday.
Of course I have heard of Cat Steven’s, even listened to him, but I was not aware of his adopted name. Never heard of the show “Welcome back, Kotter.” Not heard of the Eli Young Band, even as a country music fan. I get that The Simpsons and Deadpool are extremely mainstream but not my zone (solving for 5 years has me knowing the characters without seeing a single episode of the Simpsons) I didn’t know either without the fill around. Also have never heard of a Zombie Office or a Ghost Kitchen. Rooster tails also felt extremely niche.
All in all fun, but a total slog that had me saying, “are you really not going to be able to solve a Wednesday?!?” But fills helped and was able to guess Ghost and Zombie based on the theme.
This one was a pleasure to solve, not only because of the inventive themers/reveal and clever grid construction, but also because some of the fill brought on a cascade of pleasant memories and associations.
ReplyDeleteI was just talking about this with another veteran yesterday---I was a (14A) SONAR Technician in the Navy.
I've visited Chichén ITZA. Easily accessible if you're in the Cancún, Mexico area or anywhere else on the Yucatán Peninsula. Definite must see.
When my black German Shepherd was a puppy, he looked more like a wolf than a dog. So I named him LUPUS (26A), Latin for wolf. Then I found out that it is also an autoimmune disease. D'OH! His name suddenly became Loops.
I made sure he got at least one and oftentimes two tongue-hanging-out 47D DOG RUNS everyday, come rain or shine. Regular, vigorous activity is essential not only for a dog's physical health but also emotional wellbeing. People too!
I watched every episode of "Welcome Back, Kotter" (1975-1979) starring 37A GABE Kaplan. After "Kotter" he gave up acting and became a professional poker player and later a commentator on the American TV series High Stakes Poker. Many of those episodes are available on YouTube.
Anyone else try ELANIA before ELISSA at 42 Across?
KENYA believe a Halloween puzzle in March? It's like a ELFIN Mordor. Next thing you know we'll be buddying up to dictators who are out to destroy us! Crazy huh?
ReplyDeleteMy mom told me to avoid the DEEPEND of a BLOODBATH if I'd just eaten.
I think Jerry Garcia had a swimming facility known as the DEADPOOL. I could be mistaken.
Sorry my comment is so late, but it took longer than expected to get to the Isle of Capri and then back to Positano. The previous sentence, while actually true, is the most ass-holish think I've ever written (IMO). But I just couldn't resist. And while I'm being one, in the General Theory, light isn't bent, it is just following the curvature of space-time.
Anyway, loved the write up and the puzzle. Thanks Malaika and thanks, Rebecca Goldstein.
@Dennis Yeah, I see a vaguely skeletal face. If that was intentional, bravo. If not intentional, cool nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteMost of the grid was easy but I was locked on SOLARECLIPSE and ARISSA for a long time which caused a ton of problems. I finally figured out the alternates but it took some doing for sure.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm the only one who thinks HAUNTED MANSION reeks of green paint. In my mind, a "haunted house" is a thing. Never heard of a "haunted mansion" before. Sure, I can imagine someone thinking a certain mansion is haunted, but it doesn't sound right to me as a revealer. Sounds about as valid as a "haunted condo" or a "haunted DOG RUN." I otherwise liked the puz, but it feels like the revealer clunking to the floor should have sent it back to drawing board.
ReplyDeleteHaunted Mansion is an attraction at Disneyland and a pair of movies (2003 and 2023) movie very loosely based on it. If you have no kids and didn't know about the movies (the 2023 movie came out during the Barbie/Oppenheimer hurricane) I can understand not knowing the reference.
DeleteFor me this puzzle was harder than most Wednesdays. But I liked it. The Mayan site and zombie office caused problems.
ReplyDeleteI ignored the theme today but really liked it after reading Malaika, with the eerie terms ending with building parts.
Some people complained about too many niche answers. But they forgot that what say is obscure to me is NOT to many solvers. I would never say Kotter is niche even though I never watched it and had no clue as to the actor’s name. (I briefly thought of Gale). I know that on another day a puzzle will be in my wheelhouse.
Welcome back Malaika! I enjoyed this classic, clever, tongue in cheek Wednesday. Seems like forever since we have had a theme puzzle with such attention to construction. I agree with Malaika’s observations re construction and am a fan of Rebecca’s puzzles.
ReplyDeleteToday was such fun, made more fun by the tough spits. Since I have known two women named “Marissa” but no-one ever named ariSSA, several named mELISSA and none named ELISSA, I had to do some jockeying in that SW strip. My husband (a teacher in the days before he became an educational software designer) adored “Welcome Back Kotter.” We never missed an episode. GABE was my key to that entire chunk of the puzzle. Anyone remember Laugh-In? One skit that I remember was “Withering “Tights,” and I cannot think of that book and its desolate scenes on the MOOR without also thinking of our favorite ‘60s comedy show. Clues for ELFIN (a little cute) and ATM (device for taking notes) were both excellent and we hadn’t seen the NYTXW stock 3-letter RPI for what seems like ages, so welcome back Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. It’s been a good long while. It used to be such a regular. Gran made me learn how to spell Rensselaer (da*n that “aer” at the end)!
My one nit is the BABKA. My dear friend Lila from Skokie IL introduced me to Jewish food and family when we were assigned as roomies at Illinois. We became fast friends, and my visits to her family in Skokie remain highlights of my undergrad years. Her mom, Eleanor always got in a Burney Brothers Cream Cake if she knew I was coming and also gave me the traditional Jewish Mom hug, saying (loudly), “Carol, darling, come eat! So thin you are!” So much love and noise and hilarity - and clashing opinions in that home. It’s from Eleanor and Lila that I learned about Challah vs Babka.
Challah bread is in fact braided. Babka is a very complex twisted loaf. after splitting the long multi-layered (from being rolled like a nelly roll) loaf lengthwise and then twisting (not braiding) the two split pieces together, you twist once (or possibly twice) more to fold the loaf into the pan. I. Do. Bread. Accordingly, I resisted BABKA and then resented having to plop it in.
However, I freely admit that the desired answer was easily obtained since the downs in the NE corner were very easy. And I can be way too picky sometimes. And I also realize that many different bakers form their Babka differently in terms of number of slits before the initial twist and the man er of twisting/folding to get the loaf into the pan, but the consistent technique is twisting rather than braiding. I never miss going to Bread or Russ and Daughters in NYC when I am there. Apologies as necessary if (as Puck might say) my comments have offended, think but this, and all is mended — that you have but visited here while these opinions did appear. And this weak and idle stream can be no more yielding than a dream.
Cheers everyone and apologies to The Bard. I love you all.
I have a huge crush on Rebecca Goldstein. She is the best constructor out there today. I get excited every time I see her name on the credit and I am never disappointed!
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