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She played Serena on "Gossip Girl" / MON 3-17-25 / Chile de ___ (very spicy pepper) / Rapper ___ Cat / "S.N.L." regular who played Gemma and Cathy Anne / Chaney who played Quasimodo
Monday, March 17, 2025
Constructor: Kathy Lowden
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)
Theme answers:
- JEAN SMART (17A: Emmy-winning actress for "Hacks")
- TAYLOR SWIFT (24A: Only person in the arts ever to be named Time's Person of the Year)
- CECILY / STRONG (40A: With 41-Across, former "S.N.L." regular who played Gemma and Cathy Anne)
- BLAKE LIVELY (49A: She played Serena on "Gossip Girl")
Leonidas Frank "Lon" Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930) was an American actor and makeup artist. He is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of cinema, renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and afflicted, characters and for his groundbreaking artistry with makeup. Chaney was known for his starring roles in such silent horror films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925). His ability to transform himself using makeup techniques that he developed earned him the nickname "The Man of a Thousand Faces". (wikipedia)
• • •
Also, don't love when there are non-theme Acrosses that are as long or longer than the theme Answers (when those also run Across), so THOUSANDS and BITES INTO are a distraction, in a way they wouldn't be if they were Downs. They create visual interference. They're not breaking any law, I just don't like them, aesthetically. Long non-theme answers are better off running perpendicular to theme answers. There are only a handful of Downs longer than five letters today. Four, in fact. And those provided the only real drama in my Downs-only solve. Up top, no problem, but down below, I couldn't get either 7-letter Down to drop at first, largely because I couldn't / wouldn't guess what --TESINTO was supposed to be (43A: Reduces, as profits). I guess BITES is the only good guess there, but I needed confirmation and wasn't getting it. And since I don't know the Greek alphabet's order, I didn't know RHO (64D: Letter after pi), which means I didn't have the first three letters of the revealer. I also had YES instead of YUP at 53D: "Uh-huh", which made seeing GIRL POWER even harder. I had LODE at 57D: Vein of ore, but then retracted it and put in SEAM when I couldn't make anything out of that SE corner. Finally, I put LODE back in and tried YUP instead of YES, which allowed me to see POWER, which (after I'd looked back at the theme answers and what they had in common) helped me get to infer GIRL POWER. That "G" and "I," coupled with my finally committing to BITES INTO, helped me get INVOICE and BRING ON, and that was that.
Bullets:
- 19A: Chile de ___ (very spicy pepper) (ARBOL) — and here I thought BLAKE LIVELY was maybe a little unfamiliar for a Monday. By comparison, ARBOL is a rank obscurity. Never heard of it. It appears to have appeared twice before, on a Sunday and Saturday, respectively, both times back in 2012. And now it reemerges ... on a Monday? If you know you're making a Monday-level puzzle, you kind of have an obligation to make your fill not only smooth, but also familiar. More familiar than this. No excuse for ARBOL here. That corner can be quickly and cleanly filled a bunch of ways. Much more user-friendly and familiar ways.
- 1D: Rapper ___ Cat (DOJA) — only her second appearance, but she already feels like a crossword regular to me. I must be seeing her in other, non-NYTXW puzzles. Four letters, half vowels, oddly-placed "J" ... you can see how this name might, occasionally, come in handy when you're filling a grid, specifically when you're filling your way around a (fixed) "J." If DÉJÀ is reasonably prevalent (37 appearances in the Shortz Era), then you can see how DOJA might proliferate. If you "don't like rappers" in your crossword, oh well, too bad. Just learn DOJA Cat now and spare yourself a lot of pain later. (sidenote: DÉJÀ is a rare bit of crosswordese—a four-letter foreign partial (!?)—that somehow increased in prevalence under Shortz, though we're really just talking about a couple of strangely anomalous years. What the hell were constructors doing in 2019? Seven DÉJÀs? We won't see the likes of that again ... or we will ... in which case ... it'll be like ...)
 |
| [xwordinfo] |
- 49D: Sired (BEGOT) — someone besides me must've written in BEGAT here, right? What the heck is the difference??? Oh here, let's see, this first hit on my [begat v begot] search will surely be helpful. OK, first sentence: "As verbs the difference between begat and begot is that begat is simple past of beget while begot is simple past of beget." I do love a clear explanation. Clean, succinct. Mwah! Chef's kiss! Thank you ... [squints] ... Wikidiff.com. Your definitional skills are unrivaled. God bless you and the A.I. that powers you. Truly, the future of our informational ecosystem looks bright with you leading the way.
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84 comments:
Quick solve. I appreciated the relative absence of popular culture references. I had "begat" before BEGOT...I'd be interested in hearing comments about which of the two is correct grammatically.
Only thing worse than celebrity culture is a celebrity puzzle.
My five favorite clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Close-up shots, of a sort (3)(3)
2. Question to one's best friend, maybe (4)(1)(4)(3)
3. Prez in the '60s (3)
4. Bum wrap? (6)
5. Old-fashioned garnishes (6)(5)
TIP-INS
WHO'S A GOOD BOY?
ABE
DIAPER
ORANGE PEELS
NOTE – Normally, all five are clues that have never appeared before in the major crossword outlets; last week, for the first time in a long time, there was a paucity of list-worthy original clues – only two, IMO, the first two on this list. The other three are from this week and are wonderful, but have appeared before.
Well at least I recognized TAY TAY, and relied on crosses for the rest of the girls’ (ladys’) names. I remembered TARSI from previous puzzles, so the ARBOL section didn’t put up much resistance. So, now please skip the PPP-based themes for say, the rest of 2025.
TV Guide material. Maybe they should have pivoted from LIVELY given her recent drama.
Real GIRL POWER
Most enjoyable puzzle ever, says this father of two daughters
When I got to the revealer I confidently put in “you go girl”. I think GIRLPOWER is a much more tepid phrase. Couldn’t get the names at first pass, although they became obvious with crosses. I have not heard of JEANSMART or CECILYSTRONG. Just never watched any of their shows.
Yes on BEGaT before BEGOT. Love the Wikipedia definitions Rex cited 😄 Also, ‘ancho’, which I’ve heard of a lot, before ARBOL, which I haven’t.
A very, very hard Monday if you have no idea who JEAN SMART, CECILY STRONG or BLAKE LIVELY are. Or don't think LIVELY is a 'power'.
Wonder Woman's super-powers. She's STRONG! She's SWIFT! She's SMART! She's LIVELY??
Reminder: today’s LA Times puzzle is one of mine and can be found here.
I might argue that Chile de ARBOL is one of the most famous peppers, made more popular by the prevalence of cooking shows and the extremely popular show Hot Ones where celebrities eat spicy wings. So we may be seeing a lot more spice in the grid.
This is a splendid follow-up to yesterday’s puzzle by Paul Coulter. Kathy and Paul have fine-tuned radar for quirks that come up in our language, and showcase them in their puzzles. Paul’s semordnilaps yesterday and Kathy’s name finds today both made me go “Huh!”, and “Cool!”
Some lovely serendipities today. A down ARROW, ENDS as the last word, BIT echoing BITES INTO. And beauty as well, with GARBLED, KERNEL, SPOOF, and SLAKE. I also liked the abutting ARBOL/OBOE – try saying that five times fast.
This is a tight theme, I believe. When I couldn’t come up with names to add to the list, I tried looking online, to no avail. Thus, it’s a terrific theme find, capped by a hits-the-mark wordplay revealer that ties it together.
Lots of lovely in the box today. Thank you so much for making this, Kathy!
Easy-medium downs-only... EXCEPT 9D, which is an acronym I didn't remember and took me half my solve time to sort out, because I thought FARSI was the only option at 9A.
TARSI and ARBOL crossing TWA is not Monday-friendly in the slightest. Especially mystifying because the NE corner is completely cut off from the rest of the grid and SWIFT is the only constraint.
It took me one re-run of the Crosshare autofiller to get: 9A TAMPA, 16A BLURS, 19A ALLOY, 23A OTOE, 9D TBA, 10D ALLOW, 11D MULTI, 12D PROOF, 13D ASYET. Not the best option, surely, but still better than what we got.
Very enjoyable Monday, no bad fill here at all. As a 65-year-old guy, I had no trouble at all with any of the pop culture references, Blake Lively should be pretty much of a household name for almost everybody who pays attention to the general culture. And chile de arbol, that should be a gimme, shouldn't it? Get the quibble with the long across, they felt like little interruptions. But again no bad fill at all, like "Aahsat"
Poder femenino.
Now I was under the impression girl power came from that lightening bolt capturing contraption used to animate Mrs. Frankenstein. Or, according to recent 7-11 commercials with cool girls on low-rider bicycles, girl power comes from Big Gulp cups filled with sugary caffeinated bubbly beverages. Or, perhaps, according to the clown car of anti-culturalists many of your fellow citizens voted into power recently, girl power comes from dutiful wifery and the begotment of niños. Pretty sure it's the Big Gulps.
A fun Monday romp as usual. Thank goodness puzzles feature crosses as I might've struggled with WIENIE vs WEENIE vs WEANIE vs WEANEE vs WEENEE. A twerp from Vienna is a WEINER WIENIE. Wow wee.
People: 8
Places: 1
Products: 4
Partials: 6
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 22 of 78 (28%)
Funnyisms: 2 😕
Tee-Hee: Twerp = WIENIE.
Uniclues:
1 All utterances by right-wing wackos, it seems.
2 First alternate to the Corn Queen.
3 How I've been sounding with this cold (or is it allergies to this toxic hell hole?).
1 WIENIE-ISMS (~)
2 MISS KERNAL (~)
3 GARBLED IN VOICE
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Cool girl who grew up in Roswell before getting married. NEE AREA FIFTY ONE SISTA.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nice work @kitshef. Really liked the central spanner.
Typical downs only Monday for me, in that I got about 70-80% and then was totally stuck until I gave in and looked at some across clues. Even with the across clues, the (unknown to me) pop culture references made it tricky, but fully gettable. I’m grateful there were no green cars in it.
Trying to solve Downs only, made it pretty far, the SE corner was tough, had to peek at a couple of ACrosses but that was the furthest I’ve gotten. I joined a sorority in college which I do not totally regret but was not really my cup of tea, however, being forced to learn the Greek alphabet in a catchy tune has come in VERY handy with crosswords.
You started my day with a laugh with the begat/begot thing. But it's hard to be critical of clues that are Millenium friendly and also (at other times) be critical of clues that seem geared for Boomers. Everyone has their sweet spot.
Hey All !
Another puz by a woman, featuring women, which Rex says are not that common, and that we need more of, and then lambastes it. And has the WOD as a man. Rex, I respect you and admire your daily blog here, but can't you just be like - "Hey, cool. A theme of women, with their last names as synonym-like words for POWER. Nice to see." or something. Sorry if I've upset either Rex or y'all reading, but I felt it needed to be said.
That hissy fit aside, I thought this puz was good. GIRL POWER! "We're SMART! We're SWIFT! We're STRONG! We're LIVELY!" "So don't mess with us!" Women empowerment is not a bad thing.
Maybe I'm salty or being a WIENIE because today is Monday, after a super short weekend (aren't they all?)
Anyway, good puz, good fill, a couple of extra Women answers in DOJA and MISS.
Enjoy your Monday. Don't mind my GARBLED post. 😁
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
@SouthsideJohnny 6:55 AM
And TAYTAY loves you right back big guy. I knew you'd come around.
A very pleasant solve, Kit. Kudos!
@kitshef 7:31 AM
Smooth as silk with plenty of crunch for me and an avalanche of thematic material. I won't say more as to not spoil it for others, but it's a wonderful puzzle. Nice work.
OFL summed my problems with this one up pretty nicely. No on JEANSMART (Hacks?) , no on CECILY SMART (haven't watched SNL in years), no on BLAKELIVELY (Gossip Girl?) although her last name is unforgettable, yes on TAYLORSWIFT, of course. DOJA Cat has a memorable name too, so knew that one.
A TSE sighting, which is always fun. YEP before YUP. And I would have clued ARBOL as "Spanish for tree". News to me that it's a part of a chile's name.
Thought the revealer was a stretch and the names were not my bag, as we used to say, but enough good stuff to make for a good time. Know Lots more now about female celebs, KL, so thanks for that, and thanks for a medium amount of fun.
Definitely had BEGaT for BEGOT, and not only Yes for YUP but changed it to YeP at first when I saw my error. eLTRA of course made no sense, of course, but all told more write-overs than I’m accustomed to for Mondays. The bit with ISMS and CECILY (whom I don’t know) and SHEA (which I assume is another I should learn, but certainly didn’t know) and MOCS (my brain would only give me crOCS, which didn’t fit) was the worst for me. BNAI wasn’t great either, and since it crossed a name I had originally guessed as JEnNSMART that didn’t help. Not the smoothest Monday by any stretch.
Hah! Great fun to try to guess the reveal after leaving it blank (and I failed but had a great time trying) -- and that reveal was spot-on perfect. Clean and Monday perfect. Brava!
More of a medium Monday for me, as I didn't know JEAN SMART or CECILY STRONG and needed plenty of crosses to see BLAKE LIVELY, whose name I recognized because of her recent lawsuit. I'm not sure how well all four last names represent POWER, but I appreciate the idea.
Help from previous puzzles: DOJA. Favorite row: THOUSANDS AGREE. Memorable disappointment: On the occasion of a long-awaited celebratory restaurant dinner, I told the server I was allergic to chilis and heard her say, "All of our entrees are made with ARBOL chili broth."
Also had BEGAT, which is the form I’m used to… I’m additionally a bit grumpy about WIENIE, which I’ve only ever seen spelled WEENIE before.
I’ll echo the other comments - very pleasant solving experience. I even enjoyed the theme ! Congrats on a job well done.
*Looks at the state of the world*
I can think of a few worse things.
Nifty puzzle! I especially like how the central grid-spanner works as a theme entry. Well done.
I feel like people would be upset if Rex only gave glowing reviews to puzzles created by women. This at least seems like he’s judging on the strength of the puzzle and not the identity of the constructors.
Easy solve although i also had Begat. Knew all the women except Jean Smart, which was still easy to get, and I’m a young boomer. Blake Lively has been very much in the news over her lawsuits with the this ends here guy.
I’m all for girl power, but BNAI crossing DOJA crossing JEANSMART (who I somewhat recognize but could not name a single thing she acted in, let alone tell you her name) was pretty rough.
I also had YeP, which gave me exTRA and I could not figure out what the heck xODE meant
I did like the LA Times puzzle though. Well done!
Very few thrills in this one, so I had to look for them where I could find them. Because I knew none of the ladies other than TAYLOR SWIFT, I got a chance to guess at their qualities. Would BLAKE be LIVELY or LOVELY? Would the ST???? CECILY be STRONG? Yes! There was a pattern here -- one that I figured out once I knew that the JEAN SM??? was JEAN SMART and not JEAN SMALL.
What thrill was left for me? Guessing the revealer, of course. Let's see: YOU GO, GIRL! ATTA GIRL! I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR! Nope, it's GIRL POWER. Which is fine.
It's good I was able to amuse myself thusly. Because there was really no other thinking required of me.
According to Google AI, begat and begot mean the same thing, with begat being the more archaic version and begot being the currently preferred one. Also, Blake Lively’s fame right now is not just for her acting career but also for a series of very ugly and contentious legal matters as well as for her friendship with Taylor Swift.
I liked this considering that I (unusually) started it on my phone @ 1 am with my eyes half shut & blurred. Came back, after going back to sleep, & solved at a decent time. I liked it a lot.
Thank you, Kathy :)
Just here to complain about the spelling of WIENIE
@Lewis may be right that there aren't many names to add to the theme list. But you've gotta admit that Chappell Roan has horse POWER.
If yesterday's BLUE/DENIM corner-turner had you wondering where to get a pair of those, go to the JEANSMART (sounds cheaper than the Gap).
I own a small island that I occasionally rent out. When I do, I put up a sign that says ISLET.
@kitshef. I liked your puzzle. Couldn't guess the revealer. Congrats!
And thank you, Kathy Lowden for a POWERfully fun Monday puzzle.
@Kitshef - Congrats! And thank you for a fun puzzle :)
Thank you! Fun to solve, especially as I had to do some brain-racking over the reveal. Terrific center Across!
@kitshef Great Puzzle! Infinitely better than the NYT offering.
BLAKELIVELY??? Way out of the wheelhouse. Actually, even though I wasn’t trying, I basically had to solve this puzzle using downs only. TAYLORSWIFT was quickly recognizable, but the others, no chance until confirmed by the theme. From memory of things Bibical in my youth, I’d say BEGaT was the winner, but that’s pure hearsay, so to speak. Thought exTRA at first, but downs to the rescue. Overall, a fun puzzle to complete and fun blog to read.
Nice one. Thought yer puztheme had sufficient bite, for a MonPuz.
Primo U count.
staff weeject pick: 34-Down.
Wow … total lack of no-knows, at our house.
Thanx!
M&A
On the tough side for a Monday for me. I did not know CECILY STRONG and ARBOL but I did know DOJA and BLAKE LIVELY. Part of my problem was having to go back and change WeENIE to WIENIE after finally reading the clue for YIN.
Costly erasure - Yes before YUP.
Reasonably smooth grid but just more of a Tuesday for me. Liked it.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #993 was a tale of two puzzles. The top half was pretty tough for me while the opposite was true for the bottom half. As always YMMV, good luck!
Even though all the names were familiar, TAYLOR was the only one I knew immediately based on the clue. A good puzzle but I cringed at the revealer. I suppose some women don’t object to being referred to as girls, but it’s something that has always set my teeth on edge. That probably dates back to the day when it was commonplace - and considered acceptable - for a man to refer to his secretary as his girl. Grrr.
Fun stuff! Like others, had to think twice (at least) to grok the revealer.
I'll forgive the ROO inclusion because of the OTTERS.
Congrats!
Cute puztheme idea. Might stretch the "power" definition just a tad, but what the hey -- still enjoyed it. And, shoot -- there ain't too many gals with last names FLIGHT or XRAYVISION.
Only PowerGirl I didn't know well was the LIVELY one.
staff weeject pick: YUP. Has it all.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Numbers with four digits} = THOUSANDS. Accurate, at least until U get to TENTHOUSAND.
other fave stuff included: WIENIE. GARBLED. KERNEL. ITCH clue.
Thanx, Ms. Lowden darlin. Pretty powerful stuff.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
... about to rain cats & dogs ...
"Doggie Uppers - Kitty Downers" 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
This is an absurd proposition. Are puzzles from women supposed to be above criticism now?
If it was a theme full of men's names it would be equally dull. I don't quite share Rex's qualms with the imprecision of the themer but I do agree that this puzzle was thoroughly meh.
Actually, BEGAT was my only Downs Only mistake. Even though I didn't know what AVALS could be. 😟
Croce 993 was on the easy side of medium. Took a LOOOOOONG time to get anything going. All the way down at 41A/48A/43D before I got anything I could build off of.
Just finished…I’m adding to the kudos!
Depending on your past network tv proclivities, JEANSMART was one of the Designing Women, CECILYSTRONG is the longest female cast member on SNL, and BLAKELIVELY is in the news these days because she filed a sexual harassment suit against her (I think most recent) movie’s co-star/director (plus she is married to Ryan Reynolds). Oh…and Hacks is pretty good!
Fun solve! Thank you and congrats!
Pretty nice Monday offering with a clever theme. As Nancy alludes to, not much thinking required, but is there usually much thinking required for “us” old pros on Monday?
I guess I’m surprised that many here didn’t know JEANSMART, and maybe clueing her with Hacks rather than Designing Women (for many of us) is why. I have to say…only having to keep up with network television choices and a few cable premium choices info was a bit of a blessing in terms of brain cell commitment “back in the day”!
I replied above, Kitshef, but excellent Monday offering!
Nice Monday puzzle. BUT I cannot understand how the revealer fits with Bolt from the blue. Will someone please explain?
Re today's puzzle. LOL Rex's last paragraph riff on begat, begot def. in wiki
Solving down clues only, I had no real problem but finished with a wrong square at... you guessed it, BEGAT. Actually I checked out 66 across and saw AVALS which looked unlikely, so I changed it to EVALS (which could have been short for "evaluations") crossing BEGET (which sounded like the wrong archaic tense but whadda I know). Still wrong.
Several unknown names for me: DOJA, JEAN SMART, CECILY STRONG, and finally BLAKE LIVELY who I got from crosses and I thought: I've heard that name, but no idea who he is... probably a country music star.
The J at DOJA crossing JEAN SMART was a bit nasty, but fortunately it was my first guess... D, R, S would have been the others, I think.
Spelling Bee accepts multiple spellings for WIENIE... WEINIE and WEENIE?... but I'm not sure if it likes all three.
Off to try kitshef's puzzle...
Thanks for filling in some of my cultural gaps. Never saw Designing Women and my last memorable female character on SNL was Jane Curtin. Generally don't follow the celeb news so I missed that one too. Ask me about the Red Sox, I'm OK.
CECILY STRONG is the longest-running female cast-member on SNL? Please say it ain't so. I'm one of the people who stopped watching SNL years ago, decades ago in fact. So I'd never seen CECILY and went back to find a clip. Good grief -- she is SO over the top! Judge for yourself. And in Weekend Update, yet -- which used to be my favorite part of the show. Now go back and look up Jane Curtin on Weekend Update with Dan Ackroyd. So much more wit. So much more subtlety. Is it any wonder I don't watch SNL anymore?
The longest running female performer? I wish it were Jane. Or Tina. Or Amy. (I confess I was never a big fan of Gilda, btw, since I thought she was often over the top too.)
Begat is archaic: used in the King James Bible, e.g. Matthew chapter 1, so it would be familiar to many.
Congrats! Always great to see one of our own in print, plus it was good fun 😁. Thanks, Kit!
(we were supposed to be in that CA town, but the fires made it not the right time, so sorry for the Angelenos this year).
I am glad so many enjoyed it. @M&A - I agonized over 34D but to get rid of it I'd have had to go to three themers + reveal and lose the grid-spanner. But I figured you'd forgive me 'coz of the U.
chile de arbol was a gimme for me, but then, i have lots of different chile[s] on hand at any given time between my pantry, spice drawer, fridge, and freezer. i can see how it would be unknown to a not-unsizable amount of folx tho.
also had STAT before ASAP - when i worked in publishing, i was in the design department and sometimes also filled in for editors. all departments had to submit jobs [i.e. work they wanted us to do for them] with a jobsheet on top, including a "need by" date. it was a rule that any jobsheet with a need by date of "ASAP" was put to the bottom of the pile indefinitely. ASAP means "as soon as possible" which is often not synonymous with "now." ;)
-stephanie.
@Anonymous Replying to Anonymous: It is celebrity culture that created and put in place the current most powerful man in the world who is each day making the state the world worse.
Great shout on the AI difference between BEGAT and BEGOT.
This puzzle made me feel like the NYTxw was trying to mess with Rex’s downs-only solve.
Pop culture illiterate of the highest/lowest order here so this one was waaaay out of my wheelhouse. I would have been equally lost at sea had the theme been BOY POWER, so at least my pop culture ignorance scores well on diversity, equity and inclusion.
I also was wondering how the longer Acrosses THOUSAND and BITE INTO fit into the theme. Oh, they don't. Also they are each one letter short of their slots but there's a quick and easy fix for that and hardly anyone will even notice.
One of the benefits of a Times xword subscription is having access to the puzzle archives all the way back to 1993. Last night I was doing one from 2006 and came across a clue/answer that reminded me of yesterday's spirited discussions in the blog and comments. The clue was "'Any man who wants to be president is either an ___ or crazy': Dwight Eisenhower". The answer was 9 letters and from crosses I had M and C for the fourth and ninth letters. (Hint: CAINAMOGE)
Apropos of nothing, the grid also had ZYZZYVA!
My internet says both are acceptable but begat is archaic. Liked this one a lot or maybe a ton. Had YEP before YUP and nugget before kernel. Also someone below said Hacks was pretty good, I disagree it's VERY good.
On the easy side of medium for a downs-only Monday. Got TAYLORSWIFT from just the initial T and the FT at the end and then looked up at my partially filled 17A and said, Oh, JEANSMART, and was away to the races. Women whose last names are synonyms for intelligent! Well, sort of. Enough to get going.
I Don't know why I am such a big fan of Jean Smart. I never watched Designing Women. I keep thinking I might have seen her on stage and, as she has, per Wikipedia, performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland and I have been a semi-regular attendee for eons, it might have been there. Alas, I will not be attending anytime soon because Tariffs, Trade Wars, and 51st state bullshit are keeping me on this side of the border.
Not sure LIVELY fits the theme very well but a fun puzzle nevertheless. On to do Kitshef's offering now.
Nice puzzle, Great revealer, a nice aha moment when I figured it out.
Help with the MINI: Why is "addams" the answer for It comes after Wednesday?
I got it!!!!!!! I've never heard the quote and I didn't see your two letters, and I certainly didn't see it written backwards, but when I saw the word "an", I knew the word began with a vowel. I immediately blurted out EGOMANIAC!!!
Maybe that's because Ike's view of the kind of person who would want to be president is exactly the same as mine.
BNAI crossing JEANSMART? WTF?
As in The Addams Family. Think Gomez, Morticia, Pugsley, Uncle Fester, Lurch, and Cousin Itt.
Kitshef
Thanks for the link
First time I did the LA puzzle.
Liked it
@Sharonak - Google "Harald Gormsson".
Anonymous 8:06 AM
Don’t know how well known Arbil is I didn’t know it.
But TARSI is crosswordese. Had been in the puzzle quite often. And I have seen it elsewhere. I think it is okay for Monday.
Very nice puzzle with a nicely dense theme. Thanks Kit!
Well, I am known for my absurdity ...
RooMonster Preposterous Guy
@Nancy (and others)…I RARELY watch SNL these days myself, but I do occasionally and was shocked when I searched CICELYSTRONG. (That she is longest female on it). Why do I know about BLAKELIVELY? Who knows? I confess. I’ve bought a few People magazines in the last few months to read when I was traveling…
Anonymous 10:01
Another commenter did not know
BNAI BRITH.
It was a gimme for me
I am not Jewish but have been aware of the organization, which means Sons of the Faithful, since I was young.
I haven’t seen it in a while but it has appeared here before. Also NYC city & region has a large Jewish population. Don’t think the answer was misplaced for the Times Monday
I understand Whatsername’s complaint about the use of the word GIRL. Rex really did not understand the choice of word at all My mother graduated from our state’s college in 1935 and for most of life thereafter she met regularly with friends who were fellow graduates (mostly teachers) She always referred to them as the girls, into old age. This imbalance in usage between boy and girl has always puzzled me ( I am an elderly male) but it still exists ( but thankfully referring to a secretary as my girl has - mostly?- disappeared ). Because grown women are still much more likely to be referred to as GIRLS than men as boys, even by other women, I think the theme works.
I had read about Lively’s litigation, ( her male opponent is acting much nastier than she is BTW) but promptly forgot her name. The others I didn’t know at
all. So the puzzle was a little harder for me but I liked it
Best thing I ever did for maximizing my crossword solving was memorize the Greek alphabet at a young age. It has stuck with me all these years, unlike my attempts to learn the months of the Jewish calendar. Those just won't stick.
Why are those chilles called “de arbol”? Of the tree? They don’t look like trees and I doubt they grow on trees, so…? Okay, Google says it's because of their woody caps and stems.
Super easy puzzle even though I don't think I've ever seen either Jean Smart or Blake Lively on a screen. I did know Taylor and Cicely.
Thanks, Kathy Lowden!
I had fun with this Monday. Nice theme, well executed. I was familiar with all the names but needed the crosses for pretty much all of them. Like others, had BEGAT first but fixed it quickly. My one real hold up was first putting in YES for 53D and when GIRLPOWER became the obvious revealer, I changed it to YEP for the P. I was not sure about LODE (53D Vein of ore) so I only had TRA as the last three letters for 56A - Very, very. It took way too long to realize YUP was the way to go so ULTRA took an ultra long time to fall.
If you've not seen Hacks yet with Jean Smart - highly recommend.
Anyone else confused with the way WIENIE is spelled here??
All in all good stuff today, thanks Kathy!
@Kitshef - Lovely puzzle, really enjoyed it. Congrats! Always great to see someone from our community up there in the big lights! Thank you!
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