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Texter's "I can't believe this" / TUE 3-11-25 / Grasp a central idea / Compliment on the green / The Blenheim in England, for one / Frenchman who developed an anthrax vaccine / First-person shooter video game franchise / Believer in Jah, familiarly / Spooky-sounding lake / They're mined, all mined!
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Constructor: Jared Cappel
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- GET THE POINT (3D: Grasp a central idea)
- MOVE THE NEEDLE (9D: Make noticeable progress)
- STAB IN THE BACK (18D: Betray)
Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Order of the South. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her house in Jackson, Mississippi has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public as a house museum. [...] Throughout the 1970s, Welty carried on a lengthy correspondence with novelist Ross Macdonald, creator of the Lew Archer series of detective novels. (wikipedia)
• • •
["It's getting to the point / Where I'm no fun any more / I am sorry ..." 😊]
And speaking of imo (well, SMH, and OMG, for sure), the fill on this puzzle was in desperate need of resuscitation. Revamping. Overhaul. I kept wincing, not because any particular entry was terrible, but because of the cumulative effect of tired, overfamiliar answers. Solving this was like being gently but annoying hit with a thirty-year-old wet noodle. The grid is just choked with short clammy fill from the jump: LPGA ASEA ORES PROAM EATAT IDEST RASTA OSKAR ARTIE IOWAN ADHOC OPINE HOPESO EST CEE HESSE LOTSA ASTIN ERIE OPED ... those last four were all in a cluster, surrounding the worst longer answer in the grid: "NICE PUTT!" Ooof, what? (62A: Compliment on the green). I mean ... I guess someone might, indeed, say that. But they also might say "NICE CAR!" "NICE DRESS!" "NICE SHOES!" "NICE BRIEFCASE!" but none of those are great standalone answers either. Worse, "NICE SHOT!" does make a nice standalone answer, and it fit the clue here, but ... it wasn't right. PUTT just made that whole miserable corner hurt a little more. "NICE PUTT" had me once again tapping the "Not All Debuts Are Good!" sign. The theme answers are fine on their own, but they don't cohere enough today, and the grid on the whole needs a near-complete teardown. But again, as I say, Daylight Saving might have me somewhat less well disposed to this puzzle than I would've been if I'd encountered it last week (or might've been had I encountered it next week). 4:00AM is always early, but following DST following a vacation with one's best friends, it's particularly, affrontingly early.
Not a lot else to say about this one. It's fairly bland. The only real trouble I had was the SHOT/PUTT miscue. Oh, and I had an odd lot of trouble getting the POINT part of GET THE POINT. Because the clue had "central idea" in it, the only thing I wanted was GIST ... GET THE GIST. But of course that wouldn't fit. POINT is perfectly fine, but GIST is ... I dunno, somehow pointier than POINT. And I see it (on its own) in crosswords a lot, so my brain just threw it at me and then looked at me BEMUSEDly when I said it wouldn't work and needed something else. I also am not fluent in Kia, and so I had to hack my way to SORENTO (43D: Kia S.U.V.). SOLERRO? SOLENTA? SORRANO? Please don't tell me those guesses are silly and then point at SORENTO, which is literally meaningless. There's a two-R SORRENTO on the Bay of Naples. But the only place you're gonna find a one-R SORENTO is on a Kia SUV. (Don't ask me about the three-R SORRRENTO, Ogden Nash never wrote about that.)
Bullets:
- 64A: The Blenheim in England, for one (PALACE) — whoa, should've made "The Blenheim" the Word of the Day today, as I've never heard of it. I actually never saw this clue while solving.
Blenheim Palace (/ˈblɛnɪm/ BLEN-im) is a country house in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough. Originally called Blenheim Castle, it has been known as Blenheim Palace since the 19th century. One of England's largest houses, it was built between 1705 and 1722, and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. (wikipedia)
- 7D: Frenchman who developed an anthrax vaccine (PASTEUR) — ah, vaccines, one of humankind's greatest scientific achievements. Enjoy them while they last!
- 14A: They're mined, all mined! (ORES) — this clue's at least trying. Respect.
- 15A: Kissing on a park bench, e.g., for short (PDA) — definitely read the first part of this clue with Extreme Jethro Tull voice:
- 37A: Signs of spring (ROSEBUDS) — I suppose. Around here, it's baseball and birdsong and (especially) daffodils, bright yellow sentinels of springtime, which suddenly appeared around our house and all over town while we were gone this weekend. Daylight Saving is the price you pay for spring, I guess. The president says he wants to get rid of Daylight Saving, which would make that the only thing I agree with him on. Sadly, I think he probably means he wants to get rid of Standard Time and make Daylight Saving permanent, which, if you need to be awake and functioning (i.e. going to school or work) in the morning, will make winters an even bleaker disaster than they already are. I'm just gonna assume he means the worse option. That seems the safest bet.
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78 comments:
First time in a while that I successfully completed a puzzle solving downs only. So I liked it.
Welcome back, @Rex! I trust you are well-rested even though your time off didn't seem to leave you in a generous state of mind :)
Easy, solved "downs only lite," without reading the theme clues.
No WOEs, two overwrites:
My 18D STAB was IN THE darK before it was IN THE BACK
USeful before USABLE at 33D
Down with Rex’s mood on this one. The four vertical themers were the highlight - I’m assuming the grid layout contributed to all the other short flat stuff. Nice to see WELTY.
Uninspiring Tuesday morning solve.
PALACE Brothers
Birthplace of Winston Churchill ...
The cluing just seemed off today - nothing really egregious, just disjointed. I disagree with Rex - NICE PUTT is commonly heard around the greens, and I actually thought it was one of the few clue/answer combinations that shined today. I got tripped up in the east, where I spelled SKITTLES with a C and OScAR didn’t seem at all out of place.
I agree with Rex on this one, it seemed pretty meh. I had NICEshot before NICEPUTT, which just sounds kind of silly (but I don’t play golf so what do I know). I also had castle before PALACE but apparently I’m a couple of centuries out of date with that one.
Absolutely. Nice putt is definitely heard on the greens.
I wonder why the construtor chose to have the themers in the down answers today. Normally, that's something they do only when there is a theme component that requires it - like a 'false bottom' theme where the theme entries end in 'lie'.
I absolutely interepreted GET THE POINT as the acupuncturist retrieving their implements.
Monday-easy.
In my experience, people say good PUTT, rather than NICE PUTT.
Found it mostly easy, but still had a Natick on the SMH/GETTHEPOINT cross. I had "get to a point" and "smo" with "(Idris) Alba" instead of ELBA.
Can someone explain SMH?
Liked the puzzle more than Rex but in complete agreement re DST. Last week I was getting up at first light. This week it’s pitch black and midwintry again. Sigh. But spring is on its way, even in Vermont, where ROSEBUDS are still a long ways off.
I play golf. If a player on your foursome sinks a difficult or very long putt, the comments usually are : great, good or nice putt. It is more often "nice" sometimes without saying "putt."
Thank you for making Eudora Welty the word of the day. She’s been my favorite writer all of my adult life. I know she’s is categorized as a “southern writer” and I can’t disagree with that. But, she also is the absolute best of all short story writers, southern or otherwise. IMO
The constructor said he made those answers vertical to represent how the needles are inserted.
I like that the theme answers are step-by-step in proper order. First the acupuncturist gets the needle, then places it in, then may move it. So, they tell a little story. Nice touch, Jared.
Those theme answers are zingy too, and are bolstered by a supporting cast of lovelies – ROPE IN, CANAPES, SKITTLES, BEMUSE. All these lovelies occupy the middle three rows, making that area sing.
Uncovering the reveal ACUPUNCTURE brought a huge “Hah!” and “Good one!”.
That delight, as well as the fact that the puzzle-maker is an upper-level Scrabble competitor, brings the promise of a new and special voice in Crosslandia. Not only is Jared a wonk adept at manipulating words and letters, but also an entertainer.
So, I was not only charmed by your puzzle, Jared, but also touched by hope for the future. What a gift! Thank you, Jared, and please, keep ‘em coming!
Welcome back, Grouchy Rex! Hope you had fun away. I liked this puzzle a lot more than Rex, but I found it super-easy — and I thought GET THE POINT fit the theme better than the other two. Golfers also say NICE PUTT all the time.
Featured a KEALOA in the flesh, always a thrill when you get to meet your heroes.
“Shaking My Head”
Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace.
The themers are not exactly of “parallel construction” in the sense of one has IN THE while the other two have no IN and only THE. I cannot explain why that bothered me but it did. Otherwise, it was not bad for a Tuesday!
Hey All !
Welcome back (grumpy) Rex! 😂
Downs Theme today. Low Blocker count, too, at only 33. Large patches of whiteness in the center areas. Tends to lead to Rex's "short clammy fill", although those areas are fairly clean.
Huh, BEMUSE means Perplex? I always thought it was a neater was to say amuse, like twixt for between. The stuff one learns from Crosswords.
Har on Mauna ___ clue. OG. Wrote in the A and waited.
Have a Law Firm today, WELYT, HESSE,and SORENTO. Call us if you're in an accident. We win!
Have a NICE PUTT, I mean, Tuesday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Welcome back, RP, glad to have your curmudgeonly take on a nice theme and easy puzzle.
As an acupuncture practitioner of 20 years, I'd defend the constructor's first themer: the acupuncturist is looking/feeling in a certain area for the right point, until s/he GETS it, just at the right spot.
Also, going across the puzzle, the second themer is STABINTHEBACK, then MOVETHENEEDLE; that would agree with the progression of the treatment.
Embarrassed to say that I didn't get the theme until the revealer, which was a great AHA moment.
Agree fill was not ideal, but OK for an early week themer
Enjoy the spring weather, all!
Well, as usual, I liked this more than @Rex did. I found the themers much more acceptable, and definitely pictured retrieving rather than receiving in relation to GET THE POINT. STAB IN THE BACK I thought was funny and MOVE THE NEEDLE quite accurate. The three answers are in sequence across the grid: you grab your NEEDLEs, place them in a cluster on the patient’s BACK, then rotate them for maximum effect. I have to confess that I’m an ACUPUNCTURE dropout. I tried it once for a stubborn medical problem I was having, went into it with high hopes and was disappointed that it didn’t work. But I know a number of people who have been helped tremendously by ACUPUNCTURE, so the luck of the draw, I guess.
I thought at first I was back in high school with ID EST from Latin class crossing STAMEN from Biology. I don’t know if ROSEBUDS are truly a sign of spring anywhere, but I loved seeing the word with its promise of color and softness and fragrance in our still-very-wintery landscape. I had the USeful/USABLE error (hi @Conrad), which messed up that area for a while. The mistaken F caused me to try fuddlE for BEMUSE. I’ve visited Blenheim PALACE. It’s an enormous pile and I found its muscular Baroque architecture a bit oppressive so I spent most of my time in the gorgeous gardens. Alternate clue for ASOFNOW: “Hcouc immediately!” (sorry, @egs).
Musings on Eudora WELTY:
I’m sure I’ve quoted this before but bear with me: it’s my favorite passage from The Optimist’s Daughter:
When Laurel was a child, in this room and in this bed where she lay now, she closed her eyes like this and the rhythmic, nighttime sound of the two beloved reading voices came rising in turn up the stairs every night to reach her. She could hardly fall asleep, she tried to keep awake, for pleasure. She cared for her own books, but she cared more for theirs, which meant their voices. In the lateness of the night, their two voices reading to each other where she could hear them, never letting a silence divide or interrupt them, combined into one unceasing voice and wrapped her around as she listened, as still as if she were asleep. She was sent to sleep under a velvety cloak of words, richly patterned and stitched with gold, straight out of a fairy tale, while they went reading on into her dreams.
Another passage from that book, which describes my life at the moment, goes like this:
To have the past, and to have loved it, to know it exists in the present, not in the haunting shadows, not in memory, but alive beside me in this room.
I’m currently in receipt of an enormous number of photographs taken over many years by my sister, who was an excellent photographer. She has Alzheimer’s disease and is in a care home, no longer able to appreciate her own wonderful visual legacy. Many of these photographs are in good order and well-organized, but I’m in the process of systematizing the rest, which has required me to take a deep dive into memory. Truly, studying these photographs is like travelling backward in time: the past reality they present is so real and so vivid, the dead they resurrect are so very much alive, that when I stop looking at them, I actually have to reorient myself to the present – metaphorically shake my head and slap my cheek. “Wake up, wake up, it's 2025!”
I could see the progression in the puzzle as Lewis pointed out.
Same for Rex, going from groggy grouchy to the Brilliant Bullets.
I love the extended daylight of DST, but that would be rough to never see the sun before work. Just go to bed earlier than usual one or two days a week in the spring and the adjustment isn’t so bad. People travel across time zones all the time and do just fine, although I have heard that it puts stress on pilots over the course of their lives.
I had OMG in the SMH spot, D’OH LMAO. It hurts just writing this…
I first had SEETHEPOINT, which the acupuncturist definitely does!
I didn’t care for the duplicate EST in the grid. Other than that, a serviceable Tuesday…
Missed opportunity to see a NICE BUTT in the grid today. D'oh! So close.
My late brother performed EMGs for a living -- electromyography. It involved sticking very fine needles into the patient, giving a slight electrical jolt, and analyzing how the nerves responded. When a member of the NY Jets needed the test done, they used him. He was always amused to see a 350-lb lineman scared of the little needles. They would ask "Will this hurt, doc?" and his answer was invariably "I don't feel a thing."
Age old question about finger foods: CANAPES eat them? I mean, opposable thumbs can take you only so far. It's a jungle out there.
Aren't ROSEBUDS what Citizen Kane and others sledded on?
OMG I'm SMH over all the text-speak today.
I don't hear too much about anyone wanting to KIA Sorento, but definitely a Tesla.
In order to develop an anthrax vaccine, a lot of horses were put out to PASTEUR.
BTW, @Rex, if you ever said "nice shot" after someone made a putt, people would think you had a bit of a screw loose. Not quite as bad as if you said "nice putt" after someone stuck a 4 iron to 10 feet from 190 yards, but kinda like that.
This theme was a lot better than what came through in @Rex's disCircadian rant. Congrats on a nice debut, Jared Cappel.
Don't solve downs-only but felt like today I could have. Or across-only. Nothing too tricky and ASTIN was the only unfamiliar name as clued, except for HALO, which could have been clued in several other ways that would have made more sense to me.
Had POINT and STAB and NEEEDLE early and felt like I was playing connections, and when ACUPUNCTURE showed up as a revealer the feeling was complete.
@Andy Freude- ROSEBUDS are a long way off here in NH too. I had RO__and was thinking ROBINS. Didn't fit.
OK Tuesday, JC. Nice theme, but Jimminy 'Crickets, some worn out fill. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
NICE debut, Jared. I had no difficulty getting the POINT and loved the theme. I can see that you have clearly figured out the WAY of putting together a good crossword puzzle and HOPE you’re already working on your next ONE.
I thought it was a nice touch that PASTEUR was included in the grid, considering the profound significance of all THE NEEDLES which ultimately resulted from his works. Then, considering the other end of that remarkable history, I found a way to BEMUSE myself by wondering if THE JAB would also make an entry. I mean, right or wrong, LOTSA people call it that. But in a way, I think it kinda STINKS TOO.
After GET THE POINT and STAB IN THE BACK, I thought we might be having an early Ides of March puzzle, but the NEEDLE nixed that idea and led to ACUPUNCTURE rather than assassination. Mostly easy except for my initial "see" THE POINT fouling up the NW for a good while.
@Rex, I join you in DST hangover, but your wit is functioning a lot better than mine - loved the OGDEN NASH reference!
Thanks for sharing those Welty passages ... lovely. I’m so sorry your sister is ill. I know what a long and painful journey it is, as I lost a loved one to AD about a year ago. But despite the reason for the task, what a priceless gift she has given you to go back and revisit those precious memories.
I should mention that this puzzle is a NYT debut.
Welcome back Rex. Props to Rafa and Eli too. Rex, seems to me that sometimes, your disdain/dismissal/disregard for golf colors your lens. "Nice Putt" is commonly said on the golfing green. "Nice shot" is reserved for most non-putting green efforts. That's all.
Headline: Opposable Thumbs Erupt In Thumb War
I had ACUPUNCTURE once. Everyone in the place was Chinese and very nice. I went to treat a leg problem that traditional medicine had not been able to diagnose, much less cure. I signed up for a treatment that was supposed to be 2x a week for 8 weeks.
They put most of the needles in my hands, not my leg. The next morning my leg was the same and my hands hurt like hell -- so much that I couldn't make my bed. I called back and said: "Sorry. You were all very nice, but I just can't do this again." And I never have.
Cute idea for a puzzle, if not for a medical regimen.
Ventanas al alma.
Love a vertical theme and all the stabbing and poking helped make for a fun solve. Overly name heavy, but I knew most of them.
People: 11 {too many}
Places: 3
Products: 3
Partials: 7
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 26 of 74 (35%)
Funnyisms: 3 😐
Uniclues:
1 McMansion at the bottom of a lake.
2 Abandoned Captain Kirk in a dinghy.
1 PALACE TOO ERIE
2 LEFT IOWAN ASEA
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: You put yer weed in there. HERB CURE CASE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
For a long time, I would get *so* annoyed when the Lost-Cause-adjacent would try to tell me that NAT Turner was a baby killer. CODSWALLOP, I'd say, I think I'd know if Turner was anything less than OG Batman! For I am a bona fide Student of History! Look upon my works ye slack-jawed deplorable-istas and despair!
Then, one fine day, I went to the DC African-American History Museum, checked out the very informative Nat Turner exhibit, and got taken to school. Hrm. Says here.... eh?... Ack! But I am a bona fide Student of... History...? Ugh. I called him OG Batman, didn't I? Despair...
Nat Turner was a murderous gonzo maniac who led an uprising that saw the deaths of many bad adults and innocent children. And he's in this puzzle. HE'S IN THIS PUZZLE! What does that mean! For is it not so that the NYT xword is an extension of my mortal moral soul?
No. It is not so.Turner was also enslaved, mentally ill and traumatized out the wazoo. Evildoers tend to be complex; they sometimes do confounding things like drive a stake in the heart of Big Plantation on behalf of 2 million plus Americans Chained. Rarely does history draw clear, neat lines around its subjects, so... it's fine.
It's also fine that COCO CHANEL was in a puzzle a few years ago, despite the kvetching that caused. Phyoo... You'd think she designed the 1939 SS Spring Collection to read some of those comments back then. Can't be upset about that *and* be cool with Turner, can you? Solution is easy though: be okay with either.
Or with Elon Musk. Or Charlie Rose. Or Dick Cheney. Or Ed Kemper, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, The Weather Underground, Thanatos, George Pickett, Pope Urban #6, Vlad the Impaler, Thrushcross Grange Heathcliff, Iago, Tamerlane, Caligula, Judas Iscariot, Yeezy, Evil Bender or Gargamel. Wouldn't any of them be better than AHME?
You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your !@#$% khakis OR this crossword puzzle. You're just you. That's it. And this is still the best xword blog ever. Let's learn to stop worrying and love the solve.Cheers!
Little surprised to see both OP-ED and OPINE in there. I thought BLENHEIM was familiar to me from Wolf Hall but no, apparently it’s Churchill’s ancestral estate.
Got stuck stupidly because I didn't recall Sean ASTIN's name and I'm more likely to say LOTTA than LOTSA.
This played a slight bit harder than the usual Tuesday for me, and I agree that the theme and fill had some issues, but I have to admire a constructor who can include a clue (53D) Actor Sean of Stranger Things (ASTIN) and then work into the grid a Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) that could be clued Actor ASTIN of Stranger Things (SEAN, begins with one of the S's in 29D, HESSE). I look forward to other constructors displaying such diagonal deftness in the future.
I graduated with Eudora WELTY in 1979! (Mine was a PhD in Theatre, hers an honorary doctorate from the Univ. of Illinois.)
An especially long or difficult putt that drops in has been known to get a resounding chorus of "Hubba-hubba" at course I play.
@Barbara S. 8:32 AM
This is a wonderful post. Thank you.
For GOT fans, this brings to mind “stick ‘em with the pointy end!” Great rant open Rex’s return, but c’mon, how many cars do you see on a green? NICEshot might work but it’s more for bball. Thank you @barbara s for the beautiful treatment of memories—share your melancholy.
@egsforbreakfast 9:18 AM
Headline: DisCircadian Rants in Topless Bar.
dream on, gregmark, people are not going to relinquish their Us vs Them addiction,..
Wowzers ... Such a wide-open puzgrid, for a TuesPuz. Average word length of 5.19, which surpasses the usual ThursPuz score.
Puztheme mcguffin was a bit hard to grok, early on at our house. Maybe partly because U had to dive a bit into the grid, to get each themer and also the revealer. Due to them all bein long Down answers, I reckon.
staff weeject pick: SMH. Shut My Hummushole, or somesuch.
the masked-faves included: NICEPUTT. ASOFNOW. BEMUSE. PASTEUR [slight] spellin challenge. UHUH. Overall hint of feistiness.
Thanx for PUTT-in up a NICE fight, Mr. Cappel. And congratz on yer debut ... sorry about that there @RP stabbin' review.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
... next up, in the acu-runtzer arena ...
"Etymology-Shy" 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I must be in the minority as Welty and Halo were a natick for me. How is a shooter game a halo?
Lite before lean. Oops.
I think the vertical was essential to mimic the position of the needles
Pretty easy & enjoyable - this could've run yesterday. Nice to see CSNY, Rex. I sometimes find myself singing that in my head about myself "It's getting to the point / Where I'm no fun any more" (oh well).
A very nice debut, Jared & thank you.
The SMH/PROAM cross was a natick for me. Hoping this is the last appearance of SMH, but expect to be disappointed going forward.
p.s.
For those that just didn’t relate to NICEPUTT, alt-NYTPuz offers OBEY as an alternative to OPED… etc.
M&Also
I thought the ORES clue was clever because it sounds like “ours” kinda in a way that “mined” sounds like “mine”. Otherwise I got stymied by the SE corner with a name crossing an ambiguous: LOTtA across AtTIN instead of LOTSA and ASTIN. I got NICE PUTT right from the get go (since they specified the green specifically) thanks to playing a lot of Switch Sports golf. So I guess not all Nintendoization is bad ;)
Easy-medium. The NW ate the most nanoseconds. I needed some crosses for LPGA and 2d did not help that quest. That said, HALO and PALACE were it for WOEs (I knew LPGA once I got some crosses), and no costly erasures.
I played golf yesterday (a 9 hole course and we don’t keep score) and I must have said NICE PUTT a dozen times.
Delightful theme answers, liked it quite a bit more than @Rex did.
Why the repetition in 13D? "A deer, a female deer".
I had a NICE BUTT in my grid, but then I read the clue.
I tried solving this down clues only and was *this* close to abandoning it, but eventually got there. (Congrats @Anonymous 6 am on your success!) I think when the themers are downs like today, it makes it harder because: themers are easier to guess without their clues since they are long phrases *and* are related by the theme.
I liked the theme... I'm not as much of a stickler (get it?) as Rex about "the rules". But yet again, all the bloody names were annoying. Especially the downs from 35 to 49... they were ALL names... six in a row! RASTA OSKAR BAMA WELTY SORENTO IOWAN. Yuck.
@Barbara S, enjoyed your story about the photos. My dad took a LOT of slides back in the day, and after he died I bought a slide/negative scanner and set about scanning all the family ones. I did an hour's worth every night after work; it took months because slides scan s-l-o-w-l-y! But it was satisfying. I uploaded them to my web site so all my siblings (6) and nephew/nieces (dozens) could download them; only a couple were interested which was a little disappointing. I put some on Facebook which was more successful; that was back in the 2000s when Facebook was much nicer.
@Barbara S. 8:32 AM Thank you for sharing these beautiful book excerpts. I especially love the "past… alive beside me" one. As for what is going on in the present, I wish for you and your sister serenity and strength as well as shared joyful moments. - Spacey Stacey
@Rex "three r...Ogden Nash"LOL
I smiled at reading two clues 14. "They're mined.... and13 D A Deer...
Agree with Rex that the first theme doesn't work very well. But I didn't think about it that much. Just thought oh they all have to do with acupuncture
I thought it was a fun puzzle very appropriate for a Wednesday.
And I thought I liked it partly because there were almost no names. Going back through it I see there were actually nine. The initialized name in 1A, the candy and the video game were the only ones besides 53D Astin and36 D Oskar that had to have crosses. The others just popped right in so didn't register.
Here's another kealoa - IS ABLE / USABLE
G'day MATES. So in ACUPUNCTURE you get a STAB IN THE BACK and then they MOVE THE NEEDLE around? That sounds painful. No thanks!
I had HALA crossing SARENTO. Giving HALO a video game clue and crossing that with an SUV that didn't even make the top 25 in sales in 2024? That STINKS if you ask me.
Timely appearance of Luis PASTEUR, right? Until his discovery of the principles of vaccination in the late 19th century, about half of all children born in the U.S. died before the age of twelve, most from infectious diseases. The development of vaccines (and antibiotics) changed that statistic dramatically. Now it's unusual for any child to die before the age of twelve. GET THE POINT?
Might we see a reversal of that trend in the near future?
❤️
I'm with you again today, Lewis. I thought this puzzle was clever, amusing, and well-constructed. I wasn't even bothered by the abundance of names, which all seemed sufficiently famous (or just well known to me?) for a Tuesday puzzle.
I'm BEMUSEd by the RexRant, as I had pretty much the opposite reaction, except that I agree that "They're mined, all mined!" was the best clue. It made the inclusion of the uber-crosswordese ORES seem worth it.
I did mean to type Tuesday not Wednesday. Don't think I can blame that on autocorrect or jumpy keyboard so ...jumpy brain?
Nobody is upset about “Gear tooth”? Isn’t a cog a gear wheel, not a tooth on said wheel? Or am I the confused one? Seems just incorrect to me…
M/W:
cog
1 of 5
noun (1)
ˈkäg
1
: a tooth on the rim of a wheel or gear
2
: a subordinate but integral person or part
Yay my first comment! So I loved the theme, but then I'm a big fan of Chinese Medicine. The spots on the surface of your body where the needles (or fingers for acupressure) go are called points. So an acupuncturist most certainly does "get the point" if they're doing a good job. It means you put the needle in the correct spot.
@SharonAK: "almost no names" made me shout "what?" at my computer. Gary Jugert counted: 11 people, 3 places, and 3 products. And as I commented, there are six downs in a row: RASTA OSKAR BAMA WELTY SORENTO IOWAN... not all are people, but all proper nouns.
Anonymous 6:19 AM Unfortunately for Curchill, the owners of Blenheim were much richer cousins. Primogeniture etc. But he was of course fascinated by the original Duke of Marlborough who who was victorious at the Battle of Blenheim (Germany). and wrote a book about him.
Stumptown Steve
Halo is a game brand named.
Anonymous 10:38 AM
It’s a common error
Oped is NOT from opinion
It’s short for OPposite the EDitorial page. So no dupe. Not that Shortz cares about dupes.
Re: DST, I would hate to get rid of the semi-annual change - I love the early morning sunrises of spring and summer. But I sure wish they'd go back to the pre-2007 schedule, when fall fell back in late October and spring fell forward in early April. I was enjoying the morning sun on my drive to work the last few weeks and now it's back to being in the dark! Hmmph.
Anonymous 1:24 pm
Easy answer
The famous song Do Re Mi from the Sound of Music (Broadway Musical and movie) Julie Andrews.
Late to the game today…thanks to those that posted birthday wishes yesterday…yes, I’m in good company here at 70 years young. I even transmogrified Blue Oyster Cult’s (Don’t Fear) The Reaper into Don’t Fear the Seven.
I thought this was a good Tuesday offering and when I read Rex, I was stunned at the amount of time he spent on dissing NICEPUTT…which…is absolutely what you would say rather than “shot.” I dunno. MAYBE the hatred of golf comes from its reputation as a “country club” sport, but these days…not so much. Tennis was also a country club sport at one time. In my Midwest metropolitan area there are tons of public golf courses. They aren’t free, but fairly affordable if you walk the course. My husband is a golfer…who would say he isn’t very good…but he always says your “short game” (NICEPUTT!!) can make up for any “long game” BAD “shots.”
@stumptown 11:38 - Halo (capitalized) is a military type video game that's been quite popular for the last 25 years.
From the hyper famous Sound of Music song that goes, "Doe, a deer, a female deer. Re, a drop of golden sun. Mi, a name I call myself, ...."
“Nice putt” is what golfers say. Watch a golf broadcast and you will notice the announcers straining to avoid saying it because they probably have been told to avoid it because it is dead common.
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