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Roman guardian spirit / FRI 4-4-25 / Anti-jaywalking directive / One getting in online debates, colloquially / Greek goddess who is the equivalent of the Roman Pax / Its flag was solid red with a white elephant / Hair color blending technique / Pinched pasta shape
Friday, April 4, 2025
Constructor: Karen Steinberg
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: LAR (6D: Roman guardian spirit) —
Lares (/ˈlɛəriːz, ˈleɪriːz/ LAIR-eez, LAY-reez, Latin: [ˈlareːs]; archaic lasēs, singular lar) were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgam of these.Lares were believed to observe, protect, and influence all that happened within the boundaries of their location or function. The statues of domestic Lares were placed at the table during family meals; their presence, cult, and blessing seem to have been required at all important family events. [...]
Because of these associations, Lares are sometimes categorised as household gods, but some had much broader domains. Roadways, seaways, agriculture, livestock, towns, cities, the state, and its military were all under the protection of their particular Lar or Lares. Those who protected local neighbourhoods (vici) were housed in the crossroad shrines (Compitalia), which served as a focus for the religious, social, and political lives of their local, overwhelmingly plebeian communities. Their cult officials included freedmen and slaves, otherwise excluded by status or property qualifications from most administrative and religious offices.
Compared to Rome's major deities, Lares had limited scope and potency, but archaeological and literary evidence attests to their central role in Roman identity and religious life. By analogy, a homeward-bound Roman could be described as returning ad Larem (to the Lar). (wikipedia)
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And yet, LAR ... not dead enough, apparently. Man, 1951. Fourteen LARs! What a time to be alive. At least it's not LER, I guess (a Norse sea god? Maybe? Hang on ... gah, Celtic! Celtic sea god! So close... LER has been M.I.A. since 2013, but somewhere out there, the Cult of LER awaits his return...). Reading about LAR was actually interesting to me, and yet I still think it's a "better to tear your grid down and try again" kind of answer. I'll eat all of my hats if it's not the least familiar thing in the grid, on average, for most solvers, by far. It could so easily be OAR, except ... you've got OARS sitting right there, practically adjacent to it. Still, I think you tear the non-15 stuff out, down to NSF and up to the far NW if you have to, just to get rid of LAR. If you put LAR in your grid, expect that to be one of the things, if not the primary thing, that solvers remember.
(We now join our LAR-less portion of the program, already in progress.) ... latticework of 15s! A sparkling, solid foundation for an extremely whooshy grid. True, I have never heard the phrase CROSS AT THE GREEN (55A: Anti-jaywalking directive). I mean, I have crossed when the light turned green, of course, so I have crossed on green, and I have crossed at the corner, where the light is, but CROSS AT THE GREEN must be some kind of city-specific directive that just missed me. My most memorable street-crossing moment happened in Edinburgh in 1989, when one of my friends (Sarah?) stepped off the curb too soon, or didn't look the right way, or something, and had to jump back to the curb to avoid getting hit by traffic, which prompted the tiniest old man to walk up to her, point to the "Don't Walk" sign, and say (in the most Scottish accent possible): "Ye 'ave to wait for the wee man!" (you know, the little green walking guy that signifies "walk"). I hear that guy's voice in my head every time I'm waiting to cross the street now.
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Anyway, CROSS AT THE GREEN did nothing for me, but the rest of the 15s were wonderful, running the gamut from the quaintly colloquial (USING THE OLD BEAN) (11D: Thinking hard, informally) to the currently colloquial (KEYBOARD WARRIOR) (17A: One getting in online debates, colloquially) and making stops at all points in between. Those answers really propelled me through the grid, getting me into all corners of the grid with relative ease. Look at this opening:
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| ["Map of China"] |
Had three different single-letter hesitations today, the "M" (not "T") in ISM, the terminal "E" (not "A") in IRENE (30D: Greek goddess who is the equivalent of the Roman Pax), and the "D" (not "E") in USING THE OLD BEAN ("OLE" seemed very plausible). Unless proper nouns gave you trouble, I don't see any other real trouble spots today.
More more more:
- 1A: It may lead to a second opinion ("ALSO ...") — hard, and fun(ny).
- 27A: Boorish sorts (SWINE) — good misdirection here. Thought "boorish" would be figurative. Maybe it still is, actually. We call people "SWINE," sure, why not? Point is, I penciled in a terminal "S" for this plural, and then eventually had to retract it.
- 39A: Turndown? (DOGEAR) — when you "turn down" the corner of a page in a book (in LIEU of a bookmark), you DOGEAR the page.
- 33A: Grad. student fellowship funder (NSF) — hard to know from day to day if any of these federal agencies are still functioning any more. Looks like there've been massive cuts to both the National Science Foundation and the NIH (National Institutes of Health). This is great news for, you know, haters of scientific progress and high-mortality enthusiasts.
- 34D: High ___ (JINKS) — weird. I thought this was one word. Also, I wanted to spell this JINX. But no: though it's sometimes (apparently) spelled "hi-jinks," it really is two words, spelled just as it appears in the puzzle.
- 49D: "___ Doone," R.D. Blackmore romance (LORNA) — LAR's favorite novel! Classic crosswordese (both LORNA and DOONE). The way the clue is laid out in my paper print-out of the puzzle, the first line of this clue reads "___ Doone," R.D." and my first thought was "There's a sequel ... where LORNA gets a degree? What's an 'R.D.'? Registered Dietician?" Lorna Doone, Registered Dietician sounds thrilling, in a perversely boring kind of way. Would read. Would LORNA Doone, R.D. recommend LORNA Doone cookies? You'll have to read to find out!
I'm off to Stamford today for the Crossword Tournament. Eli's got tomorrow and Sunday covered. See you Monday.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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128 comments:
I found it a lot more Challenging than OFL did, mainly because of the cluing. Although to my credit, I (vaguely) remembered LAR (6D) from the pre-Shortz era.
Overwrites:
At 1A, an op-ed led to a second opinion before "ALSO" did.
my first responder (22A) was my mama, not a HERO
I ran before I ATE at 25A
Snots and Snobs before SWINE for the boors at 27A
@Rex ISt before ISM at 28D
WOEs:
OMBRE (4D)
I know Jethro Tull the musician but not Jethro Tull the agriculturist (34A)
AI WEIWEI as clued (50A)
Fun puzzle - loved the grid with all the crossing spanners. CROSS AT THE GREEN - not in between was a popular PSA in the 70s used to teach kids not to run out between parked cars. Loved DOGEAR, JETHRO and MAGIC WORD.
Tammy
Some obscuria for sure but the crosses were fair. I wouldn’t say easy like Rex but definitely leaning that way. Learned OMBRÉ.
Enjoyable Friday morning solve.
VAN the Man
For what it’s worth, I remember an old New York City PSA: “Cross at the green, not in between.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5tG2KD6OAM
"Cross at the green, not in between" was the phrase they used to try to convince people not to jaywalk. I think it was from the '70s, maybe the late '60s, and I can't remember if I heard it on the radio or it was a PSA on television (back when there were only channels 2, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and UHF). I had "GREEN" and threw in the rest immediately. I had thought that was a national campaign. <¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Two examples in today’s puzzle of things-named-for-other-things about which I was, prior to now, completely unaware: JETHRO Tull and LORNA Doone!
“If you put LAR in your grid, expect that to be one of the things, if not the primary thing, that solvers remember.”
LOL. I had to go looking to find LAR after you mentioned it because I couldn’t remember seeing it in the puzzle while solving. “Thanks” for pointing it out. :-P
Jethro Tull was not a musician, it was a band fronted by Ian Anderson and his flute named after the agriculturist.
The highlights of today’s puzzle were the excellent grid-spanners, and of course, Rex’s two paragraph tirade regarding the word LAR. It’s hard for me to sympathize with him for being upset about a word THAT HE IS FAMILIAR WITH, simply because it is obscure. There is something in the grid every day that I don’t recognize (we can add OMBRÉ to the list today) and I have no choice but to try to remember them, or possibly add them to my relic of eras gone by (it was once called an Index Card - tip of the hat to Gary). I would rather take my chances parsing something like LAR together with reasonable crosses rather than run the alphabet trying to figure out two proper nouns crossing each other - which is why I beg the editors not to cross PPP with other PPP, which can lead to NATICK-CITY (or is it NATICK-TOWN ? I haven’t had the pleasure of visiting yet).
Tougher for me than for OFL. I never heard the phrase KEYBOARD WARRIOR, and I had a heck of a time seeing the magic word answer, so my whoosh-whoosh failed to materialize. I worked my way around the grid clockwise, starting and finishing in the NW, so that when I got to 35A I backfilled from the end. Saw that string EEE and thought something must be wrong.
I’m glad I wasn’t solving puzzles in the 1950s. LAR was a complete WOE for me. I read Rex’s word-of-the-day post and thought, “Wait, that sounds like a genius loci.” So I had to look that up. Pretty much the same thing, but a genius loci is not exactly a guardian. Just a spirit you have to pay off to use the damn bridge or whatever.
Today I learned the difference between MARINAdE and MARINATE. Alas, I learned it by submitting my puzzle with the former, and finidng I had an error.
I thought JEdHRO seemed odd, but names can be odd. Had it been clued with the band, I would not have had that problem.
I really look forward to the day when someone can work YEAVETOWAITFORTHEWEEMAN into a grid. I guess it would have to be the annual megapuzzle.
My issue with LAR is the crossing with BLOBS, which, like MUSH, had a weak clue.
ICALLTHEMASISEETHEM is a fine example of an in-the-language phrase clued with a non-in-the-language phrase, and one that does not seem equivalent.
I’ve always remembered the phrase as, “What’s the magic word?”
And WNEW 5. Sure WWOR 9 had the Mets sponsored by Reingold and WPIX 11 had the stinkin’ Yankees sponsored by last week’s bad fill, PBR, but how else could you watch Wonderama with Bob McAllister? “Kids are People Too” (wackadoo, wackadoo).
This felt like a medium Saturday to me. I had several instances of perfectly acceptable answers that were not the actual answer, the most notable of which was ICANNOTTELLALIE (Lemme be straight with you) that fit perfectly where ICALLEMASISEEEM fits. I guess the lesson here is to always note the tone/voice of the clue.
Reminds me of the apocryphal debate between two umpires on how they practice their craft. Back and forth they went between "I call em as I see em" vs "I call em as they are."
Until a third umpire, tiring of their endless debate, steps in and says (correctly): "They ain't nothin' until I call em."
In a mild defense of LAR: obscure is OK on Friday and Saturday, and It’s good when crosswords teach you things.
The Green Bay Packers are a publicly held, not for profit organization. Technically that organization “owns” the team but not in the traditional sense as the other 31 teams. Not the best clue I’ve ever seen.
Personally, I didn't like "One of 32 in the NFL" as "owner". Several teams are owned by family members that have equal shares and the Packers are a publicly traded company (I guess the "public" COULD be considered one owner, but that is clearly not the intent of the clue).
The message was, "Cross at the green and not in between." It was a PSA against that creation of the auto industry, jaywalking. Kinda rings hollow if crosswalks are half a mile apart.
OMBRÉ is known by millions of women. LAR is known by like six people. Also it’s ugly and unnecessary. Nothing in recent memory has been as genuinely obscure as LAR.
And on the flip side, many franchises have multiple owners. The Washington Commanders have at least five.
Well now, LAR. I had trouble remembering it as such, because LARES was the much more common answer for "Roman household gods", plural. Once I had it it brought back happy memories of my early crossword days many years ago. See also EFT from yesterday. (Hi @Carola from yesterday. I suspect my early solving days predate yours by, ahem, a few years).
Far worse, IMHO, is the execrable OARS. "Oar, oar, oar your boat, gently down the stream"? OARS exist as a noun and should be clued as such. I mean, really.
OFL may have made a puzzle which makes AIWEIWEI a gimme for him. I haven't, and for me it looks like a bad Scrabble rack.
Off to a bad start when the U of SUTRA gave me SITU. Slowed things down on KEYBOARDWARRIOR, which was only vaguely familiar. We use WHATSTHEMAGICWORD so that one took some extra nanoseconds. The other spanners were way more far whooshier.
I liked your Friday just fine, KS. Finding crosswordese in a crossword puzzle does not enrage or particularly surprise me, and I hope you Keep Submitting more of these. Thanks for all the fun, and some nice memories.
I also found it much harder than OFL. my time was a full 9 minutes longer than my friday average!!
never heard of "cross at the green." but based on the comments here, it pre-dates me.
i took offense with 4D... I believe balayage is the "technique" and OMBRE is the "visual effect." though I'm sure they're used interchangeably in some circles ...
I resisted NOBLE at 52A because I was mixing up blue blood with blue collar. 😅
until I read the blog I couldn't for the life of me understand what DO GEAR was at 39A.
and I thought 35A, I CALL EM AS I SEE EM, was horrendous. I was sure about 10, 11 and 30D, but aghast at seeing 3 Es in a row.
I'm old enough to remember Wonderama with Sonny Fox.
Yes! Either “what’s the magic word” or “say please” sound good, but “say the magic word” does not hit my ear right.
Hey All !
Funny how Rex can always seem to knock out the NW corner and continue solving on his merry way. That section was my toughest today. I had the whole puz done, with the NW still almost completely blank. Tried useTHEMAGICWORD, really wanting whatsTHEMAGICWORD, obvs too long. Finally thought of SAY, next hit on LIEU, and managed to finish puz 1)quickly (for me 24:45), 2)error free! WooHoo!
I had in ICALLitASISEEit, and ODDS ON I'm not the only one. Worked with ISt, even IRiNE, as God's go, could be spelled any type of way. But my NOtAD was bugging me. Finally succumbed to 23D having to be OWNER, giving me the E, and saw that ISt could be ISM, saw the EM, said "Aha! EM! Ya got me!", changing the ending IT to EM, which got NOMAD, and all was kosher again. If that sentence was comprehensible.
Puz is actually Diagonal Symmetry, in case you didn't notice. It's a sneaky Diagonal Symmetry, looks like it could be regular, but the "L" Blockers don't line up either Top/Bottom or Left/Right. Neat. Nice puz, Karen.
Made it to Friday. These weeks seem to be whizzing by. Seemed like yesterday was Monday. Is it just me? (Probably)
Anyway, Happy Friday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
That struck me as odd too.
This. A very catchy little rhyming rule that burrowed into my head for all time.
"CROSS AT THE GREEN, not in between."
Omg @Rex, 😲 I can still see the PSA. My parents resisted TV successfully until 1968! When my mother discovered, at my brothers' bus stop, that they were unable to participate in discussions with the other kids. No kids at my bus stop since it was my driveway and the school was far away. Anyway they finally got a TV and, probably due to the novelty, I can remember *a lot* from fall 1968, when I didn't know the difference between a program, a commercial, a PSA (like: "Teach him to dial 0 and he'll always have a friend", featuring a tearful Black toddler, and something with the jingle "Happy Days are here again, let us sing a song of cheer again"). But on one level the parents were correct, as their youngest struggled to learn to read (the rest of us were already competent readers) and Dad in particular blamed it on "the idiot box." But, last laugh department, that kid was the first of us to get an advanced degree.
The puzzle otherwise... took a hot sec to get going, then super fast. Whoosh for sure. And I knew LAR! Because that far away school taught French, Latin, and Greek. For which I'm eternally grateful.
Happy weekend to those who celebrate!
Bob McAllister!!!
That brings me back
I really enjoyed this in spite of starting very slowly and then getting hung up at the end. LAR didn’t phase me at all, except that it took several precious nanoseconds to think of it. I don’t remember it from pre-Shortz crossword puzzles, but from high school Latin class (which I loved), and I had a mini-brain-wrack trying to come up with it. But all that was at the end…
At the beginning, I got nowhere for a long time. Started by plunking in “oped” for ALSO at 1A [It may lead to a second opinion]. Welp, that was helpful. Couldn’t, of course, get any of those downs, so deleted “oped” and moved on. Reading through the acrosses, I was unproductive until two-thirds down, all the way to 42A [Endorse virtually] with ESIGN. Then got a bunch of acrosses in sequence: SOCKS, LED, CRATER, SOLD, and AI WEI WEI. (Any contemporary artist who seems to be Chinese or who is clued as having some link to China and whose name has 8 letters is going to be AI WEI WEI – count on it.) That was enough of a foothold to start getting a bunch of the southern downs, which resulted in my filling up the grid from bottom to top, ending back in the desert of the NW.
I had SUTRA and ODDS-ON FAVORITES, but very little to the north or west of those answers. I’d originally thought [Training ___] was “day,” and I’d left it in when I took out “oped” and abandoned the area. What ultimately brought me to successful completion was removing “day” and then immediately getting BLOBS [Shape-shifters?] and RADON [Home health risk]. That gave me BRA and LAR (finally), which allowed me to see that the online debater was a (something)BOARD WARRIOR, and that ultimately led me to all the rest of the answers.
I’ve never read LORNA Doone but feel I have a connection to it. I was once visiting Hampton Court Palace and, to my astonishment, came across a gallows in one of the courtyards. What!? They didn’t carry out executions here!! Turned out the BBC was filming a TV mini-series of LORNA Doone, and the gallows was going to appear in one of the scenes. The Palace wasn’t appearing as itself, but as a general architectural backdrop of more-or-less the right period. OK, whew, I was glad to get an explanation that didn’t negate the history I thought I knew.
Thanks for a good workout, Karen Steinberg!
OMBRE and LAR both stood out for me since they're early in the puzzle and the kind of entry I know I've seen before and will recall as soon as I get a letter.
LAR was a bit harder as I'm more familiar with it's longer version. I first heard it in that Siousie and the Banshees song "Cities in Dust ". For years I wondered why she was singing about a "lorries strke" in a song about Pompeii. There was no internet back then and I hadn't started puzzles. Now I know it was "lares' shrine."
I've never heard of this PSA about crossing streets so maybe it was regional. That grid spanner was slow for me. So was the word KEY in the first one. It never ceases to amaze me what I can be slow on. More of a Saturday time for me today but an enjoyable one.
Here to say that when you get rid of LAR you can toss “training bra” too. What a relic! (And what were they in training for exactly?)
KEYBOARDWARRIOR rings false to me. I don't disbelieve that it's a term, but surely ARMCHAIRWARRIOR is far more common. And is also (inconveniently, today) 15 letters long.
CROSS AT THE GREEN. Reminds me of the shock I had when I went to my first job in downtown Denver and intersections had CROSS ALL WAYS lights. I have never seen that anywhere else.
Lively, colloquial puzzle that feels like a conversation with an interesting person. Some of it was hard and some of it was whooshy. I wrote in I CALL EM AS I SEE EM quite quickly from a few crosses -- knowing that it might also be the less colorful I CALL IT AS I SEE IT. I'm glad it wasn't. I expected the anti-jaywalking directive to be CROSS AT THE CORNER, but when I looked at the grid, it turned out to be CROSS AT THE GREEN.
Because I had written in USE THE MAGIC WORD, I couldn't initially come up with KEYBOARD WARRIOR, a term I didn't know. KEY finally forced me to change USE to SAY. Perhaps it was USING THE OLD BEAN at 11D that made USE stick in my mind so long at 3D.
SOCKS!!! I remember you!!!
LAR and OMBRE were completely unknown to me -- and the NW was by far the hardest section. But much of the puzzle was whooshy, and all of it was fun.
LAR, being fairly crossed, was welcome in my puzzle. Rex taught me all kinds of terrific stuff I wondered about it (I didn’t even have to ASK), then went on to declare that the puzzle should be completely torn up, lol. An appearance once every 4 years, like certain relatives, is welcome enough. Granted, if the puzzle was full of LARES protecting every quadrant from being solved, I might not be so gracious.
Like @Roo, the NW was my last section to be completed. Mostly wooshy enough otherwise.
He named his flute after an agriculturalist?
Wishing OMBRE was the word of the day and LAR was a footnote
Always heard " I calls 'em..." at least in NYC.
First, I just need to say, LAR is most definitely not the thing I took away from this puzzle. In fact, I barely noticed it.
What will I take? Well, the incredible design for starters, the elegant symmetry of the three grid spanners as they CROSS the three long downs. The funny clue for TACOS. Who among us has never spilled cheese and lettuce in our lap while trying to eat one in the car? Then there’s the artist whose name I’ll hopefully recall the next time it appears, but which I won’t remember how to spell. But mostly just what a smooth and enjoyable solve it was. Thanks Karen Steinberg, your debut themeless was a joy.
RP: Wishing you safe travels and good luck in the tournament.
"Don't cross the street in the middle in the middle in the middle of the block.
Use your eyes to look up, use your ears to hear.
Walk up to the corner where the coast is clear.
And wait... and wait...and wait until the coast is clear."
The melody cab be heard in the backgound of this NYC Polyglot PSA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5tG2KD6OAM
LAR would have worked better as “one of the 32, on the scoreboard” for LA Rams.
For many years, sprawling LA had no NFL teams while relatively tiny Green Bay was fielding it’s city-owned team. What an anom-L.A. that was! And because of NFL revenue sharing and salary caps, typically one of the better teams. (Meanwhile, in baseball, free-spending LAD will likely be head to another World Series. Put Elon in charge of MLB and see what the LA DOGErs can do cost-efficiently).
Along with Tull, JETHRO could work for the Beverly Hillbillies’ perennial fifth grader, Jethro Bodine (also the source of a pop group name, the Bodeans). USETHEOLDBEAN, JETHRO Bodine!
Enjoyable Friday outing…
Sure, I remember that slogan. But here's the little ditty they had us singing way back in my earliest days at P.S.6. Anyone remember that?
Still in my head too!
The beer most associated with the Yankees was Ballantine. Mel Allen would call a Yankee home run a Ballantine Blast.
I once judged a contest to pick the oddest male offspring among thousands of entrants. It wasn't easy, as people entered some really weird boys they had produced. But, to narrow the field I had to pick my2 ODDSONFAVORITES. The eventual winner was submitted by a Mr. Fred Trump of Queens, NY. And speaking of you know who, he never blames himself for missing a putt. He just gets CROSSATTHEGREEN.
Besides the street crossing, we've got a cat crossing at SOCKS and JINKS. Throw in ANTS NESTS, DOGEAR, SWINE and a HERD of alpacas and it's a minor menagerie.
Caesar (after judging a gladiatorial bout): Well, that was exciting.
Brutus: You seem calm.
Caesar: I'm not as calm as I seem but ICALLEMASISEEEM at the Coliseum.
Brutus: Watch your back.
You probably didn't know that the artist who produced "Map of China" had a day job reading the truck scales for a collective that sold the leftover liquid remaining from their cheese production. When people asked what he did, he replied "I weigh whey."
Nice puzzle with some real whoosh. I'd give it an "A" on behalf of the blog if I were the Legally Authorized Representative. Thanks, Karen Steinberg.
I wonder if Rex would have been happier with LDR (“long distance relationship”) instead of LAR. Could have then gone with ADDON instead of RADON, and BAA instead of BRA. BAA is sad but common fill.
Re: LAR and how to get rid of it:
Okay, so we can't change it to OAR/BOOBS, because we already have OARS in the grid. But we can change it to BYOBS ("bring your own bottle" plural -- a plural of convenience that @Anoa Bob will hate, but, hey, it's better than LAR) and YAR. If you don't know YAR from "The Philadelphia Story," here's your chance.
I learned about the LARes and Penates in Latin class in high school. The Lares got you home, the Penates guarded the storeroom so you had something to eat. I'm guessing a pretty high percentage of NYTimes readers over the age of 60, or maybe 65, had Latin in high school. Then taking Latin stopped pretty precipitously. Probably Maleska took it, Shortz didn't.
Actually I went to something called 'Grammar School'. Run by nuns, but I don't think they all were. They vanished pretty quickly too I think. So it bothers me that the clue on 17A says 'One getting IN online debates' rather than INTO. I edit that in my brain every time I see it. I did exercises on those things.
Rex's CROSS AT THE GREEN story reminded me of trying to train my brain to look the opposite way I would naturally look when in Ireland. That left side of the road thing takes some getting used to.
I didn’t find this whooshy at all. This was the hardest Friday to get a foothold in recent memory. While I wanted 3D to contain MAGIC WORD, my thoughts went to “what's the” instead of SAY THE so I ran down to the SW to start. I had CROSS AT THE light but the obvious SONG, 44D, nixed that.
JETHRO Tull was a gimme, one of my favorite bands of all time. So much going on, musically, and the interesting subjects Ian Anderson wrote about, though I like the earlier stuff best. After the “Heavy Horses” album, they took a different turn.
Finished at the first B of BLOBS. Wondered briefly if “training eRA” was a thing.
Thanks, Karen Steinberg, nice Friday puzzle. And good luck to all going to the ACPT; have some wine and cheese for me tonight!
Guerrero del teclado.
Way too hard for me. Crankiest puzzle in a long time. I think I looked up ten different things. Oh well.
People: 8 (one's a cat and one's a monkey)
Places: 3
Products: 4
Partials: 2
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 18 of 70 (26%)
Funnyisms: 6 😅
Tee-Hee: BRA.
Uniclues:
1 Cats meow, dogs bark, and...
2 Buddhist who's had a bit too much Buddhism.
3 What goes on in the back room at a bodybuilding competition.
4 Goal of Realtors on the moon.
5 Statement from a doctor using a stethoscope after you swallowed a tiny shopping center.
6 Either a cross-dressing author, or your, um, you know.
7 Ones who make you happy.
8 What one does in the pub after enough ale.
1 ALSO BLOBS MUSH
2 SUTRA STRAINED
3 HERO OILING
4 CRATER SOLD
5 I HEAR NANO-MART (~)
6 BRA OWNER TWAIN
7 SNARL JINKSERS
8 RAISES SONG
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Mexican priest known for hitting sour notes. SEMITONE PADRE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The "boorish" clue IS figurative, no? "Boarish" would be literal for swine, right?
LANAIS was a WOE for me, and where it crossed with an unknown artist (with 6 vowels!) was a Natick. I had to run the alphabet for that 'I' in order to get the happy music. Thanks, Karen, for a fun challenge!!
OILING a sliding door? CROSSing AT THE GREEN, not on the green? Two 15s crossing 3 15s is a neat trick, but it led to some STRAINED entries.
But who woulda thunk there were two four-letter words meaning in place that ended in U? I went with sItU, which caused me no end of grief. ISt before ISM, IRAq before IRAN, but those were easily fixed. But I spent a long time stuck over that initial Kt at 17-A, before I finally got WARRIOR and worked backward from there.
“Lemme be straight with you” is certainly in the language, but I do see what you mean about them not being totally equivalent. It feels more like the introduction to a thought, whereas, “I call em…” seems like it should come after the (perhaps provocative or offending) opinion or observation.
Yes, simply an inaccurate clue
Yes, that sounds better to my ear too
Same here. I had to revisit grid once Rex mentioned it. Such a big impact…
In eight years as a competitive oarsman at all levels and a lifetime follower of the sport, I never once heard, said, or read the word “oar” as a verb, except in Crosslandia where it is common garbage fill.
Yes! I had plugged in THEMAGICWORD at the beginning of my solve, thought of “it’s” but didn’t realize SAY until the end of my solve.
Yep, I had situ first and it was ONE of the things I clung to for too long that had me struggling at the end in the NW.
Yes, no one ever says LAR, only LARes--note that the Wikipedia article Rex reproduces is headed Lares, and all the examples in it are in the plural. Actually, in Latin class we learned of the "lares and penates," and never got as far as learning which was which.
My word of the day is also LAR, because it's how I got into the grid: totally striking out in the NW corner, I moved to the next section, where my one "for sure" was LAR - which got me BLOB, BRA, RADON, BOWTIE, and SNARL, and a good start for the rest. That was really my only whooshy section - the rest was a very fun voyage of discovery, whether uncovering the meaning of tricky clues or seeing those terrific long phrases come into view. A solid medium-sometimes-hard for me and a very satisfying Friday.
OMG--I hadn't notice the THREE long downs, thought there were only two.
I LOVED JETHROTULL, and I agree…at some point not the later albums. I was lucky enough to see them in a small venue and Ian Anderson was still prancing and going “en pointe” whilst playing. Several several years ago I searched Anderson and I think he invested in/did well in the fishing industry.
As one of thousands of Packer owners, I took offense to this clue
These STRAINED me in the W: SITU, O-LINE, PEAK and SEE RED.
Mostly easy except for the NW. SIAM and KEYBOARD were WOEs, OMBRÉ took some crosses to recognize, and ASKS and ALSO did not come easily…tough corner for me.
I too did not know LAR.
Very smooth with delightful 15s, liked it a bunch.
I replied with respect to many observations above, so my recap is…I really liked this puzzle and thought it was fun to figure out. I spent more time in the NW because of sITu (hi jberg and others) and “it’s” in LIEU of SAY. Like @burtonkd, I didn’t even notice LAR, and it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I guess some folks here feel strongly about it. In closing, I always knew the band Uriah Heep got its name from a Dickens’ character but did not know that JETHROTULL name from a historical figure. D’oh!
Thoroughly enjoyed - great puzzle, Ms. Steinberg! More please!
Like others, a slow, slow start that began to get traction in the south, then built from the bottom up, gaining momentum and ending in that pesky NW.
My memory was "CROSS AT THE light," which was my only serious speed bump in the south.
Slightly over average Friday time--call it medium/easy.
if you want to keep up on the death of Science, mostly bio-pharma, at the hands of the Orange Julius, read up Derek Lowe.
I grew up (in NY) with “cross at the green-not in between” as a ubiquitous PSA. Also had no idea what do-gear meant.
"by Ian Anderson and his flute "
by Ian Anderson and his flute, named
say the magic word and win $500 (?). Groucho
You never can tell what people will find obscure. I am one of millions of women who do not know ombre. On the other hand, as a child I read Edith Hamilton's Mythology like fairy tales and the household gods Lares and Penates came to mind immediately. LAR went in without crosses.
I also struggled with the NE corner. I associate SUTRA with Hinduism as in the Kama Sutra, OTOH is for a second opinion. ALSO is more about the first opinion. Didn't know the flag of Siam.
Will I ever remember AI WEIWEI? (no). I always thought it was Cross ON the Green, but no biggie. LAR was a woe. A pleasant Friday, Karen & thank you :)
@Beezer, I didn't know Ian Anderson was in the fishing business. I thought I had read he got into sheep farming in Scotland but can't confirm that.
Now, this is M&A's kind of themeless FriPuz. 6 inter-woven grid-spanners. Almost like solvin a puztheme, to get them 6 puppies.
staff weeject pick: LAR. In honor of @RP, who really ripped that lil Roman spirit a new one today. har
fave thing: ICALLEMASISEEEM.
LARst favorite thing: AIWEIWEI. A noi-knowi.
That LAR area of the puz was part some very minor probs, for this here rodeo:
* LAR. Front and center.
* No P's in the whole puzgrid. Made it more of an uzgrid.
* Only 2 U's in the whole uzzle ... a slightly anemic count.
* Also, someone objected to Training BRA. Altho I imagine their problem was with the clue, rather than with the answer. After all, BRA does have Patrick Berry [PB1] Usage Immunity (TM).
* BLOBS seems like overkill, since U already have MUSH on the top puz row. Messy crossword row.
M&A, usin the really old bean, considered these fixes ...
Acrossers:
5. Dictionary and Thesaurus and Atlas and such
15. "Funeral Blues" poet [with total PB1 Immunity]
21. Injured, in a way
Downers:
5. Shearing shed sound [with total PB1 Immunity, again]
6. Lord's Prayer starter [ " ]
8. Kind of doll
Thanx for the fun, Ms. Steinberg darlin. Great job -- and I didn't really mind LAR all that much, btw.
Masked & Anonymo2Us
... a little sandwich, anyone? ...
"Runtpuz Deli" - 7x7 12 min. themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I don’t know… EBT seemed to be very obscure to a lot of people yesterday.
Interesting to see all the CROSSATTHEGREEN or light) remembrances. Where I grew up, we had to go twenty miles south to come to a traffic light, Going north, you could drive for three hours, which I did to get to college, and not see a single one. The PSA was therefore lost on me.
Best driving lesson my mother gave me: stop the car if you see a ball rolling; a child is running after it.
I have a mystical feeling about crosswords: the creator is either on my wavelength (or I'm on theirs) and thus the solving is relatively easy; half on- half off my wavelength so medium hard, medium easy; or not at all, in which case a torturous solve. Today's puzzle was totally on my wavelength and I loved it.
p.s.
Anybody out there goin to the great ACPT shindig, this weekend?
If so, recommended trainin for the tourney's dreaded puz #5 is provided, below:
"Close Quarters" - 3x3x3x3x3x3x3x3 challenging runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A Help Desk
Another pretty classic "are you at least 45?" puzzle. I'm sure easy if any of these phrases existed in your lifetime but oh boy other than for 'keyboard warrior," which is still two-decades old at this point, it was a struggle to get almost every fill first.
LAR landed with a thud for me, and I was expecting exactly what we got from Rex. If this were earlier in the week, I'd agree with @Andrew and prefer the LA Rams angle in the clue. But on Fri and Sat this is fine, welcome even, if the crosses are fair, as they are here. I enjoyed learning about LAR/lares post-solve. Growing up Catholic, I was aware that Christmas and Easter, etc., piggyback on existing feasts/celebrations, but it wasn't until much later that I came to learn about how Christianity's reverence of saints is basically a cut and paste from polytheism. They are essentially minor gods who you can pray to directly. Lost something? Pray to St Anthony. Are you a sailor? Pray to St Elmo. Are you a sailor with abdominal pain? St Elmo is 2x your guy!
Exactly! Audible boo when I guessed that answer.
But "cross at the light" fit so nicely.
Well put on the 'before versus after' distinction.
Vaudeville joke: Doctor gives a man a dire diagnosis. Man says "I want a second opinion!" Doctor shrugs and says "OK. And you're ugly, too."
I stumbled here, too, wanting "What's the magic word?" but, you know, space constraints and all that. SAYTHEMAGICWORD works just fine.
I solved last evening and the main thing I highlighted to remember for this morning's comment was LAR. And I, like many of you, am getting pretty sick of OARS as a verb.
But otherwise a good puzzle with nice long 15s. The names weren't too bad, mainly cuz I knew most of them. AI WEI WEI is the only "China artist" I know, and nice to see you again JETHRO even if not clued as that great band.
Typeovers: IST before ISM and GYPSY before NOMAD.
Re crosswalk perils: in London I was saved from serious injury when I looked left and, seeing no traffic, started across, only to be suddenly yanked backward to safety by a well dressed young man. "Take care!", he said. There were warnings written everywhere on the asphalt saying LOOK RIGHT but it's a hard habit to break.
Also known as a “scramble”
I don't even know much about NFL football but I balked at this clue thinking, "I bet there's many teams with multiple owners. There are in other sports.
Knew ombrè from the Food Channel cake decorating competitions. Had no idea it was a hair coloring technique … but made the connection.
Haha! Maybe I misremembered or got bad info! Sheep farming sounds right. I just know I thought it seemed like a very homey or low key life style choice. So I’m gonna say the fishing industry…is not low key!
I feel like I'm of a minority opinion here, buttttttt... this puzzle brought me zero joy. It felt like an annual self-review, for anyone who's ever worked in the corporate world. Usually I'll have at least one little snicker or "I see you, constructor" moment, but not today. I mean, Jethro came close to a little head nod, but overall, just a box checker for my streak. Bring it, Saturday.
I was not exactly "aghast" at seeing those 3 Es in a row. I was more like pleasantly flummoxed. I had about a quarter of the answer from crosses and couldn't parse it and then 3 Es! But it was fun figuring it out. Friday fun.
We all have our grammar peccadillos don’t we? I’d try to think of one of mine, but I’m too lazy to think about it. Although, “I knows ‘em when I sees ‘em.”
Re: "trying to train my brain to look the opposite way I would naturally look when in Ireland." You should try driving there. My wife was in London for the Chelsea Flower Show a few years back and I called her and suggested we extend her holiday and tour Ireland, something I had always wanted to do but never seemed to work into the schedule. We met in Dublin and, after a few days set of on our motor tour. I had pre-ordered a VW Polo with a standard transmission (I've always driven stick) but when we got to the car rental place they could only offer us an automatic. I was upset but my endearingly practical soulmate was so happy. "Look," she said, "You're going to have so much trouble navigating on the wrong side of the road, you don't really need any distractions". She was so right. I'm surprised we actually got back, a week later, to the airport alive. Blazing down narrow country roads, barely wider than the hallway that leads to the bedroom or den in your house at 70 to 80 km/h on the wrong side of the road while trying to figure out where the GPS is sending you, is a real adventure. Stepping off the curb seems elementary after that.
Lovely puzzle with great grid spanners. I didn't find it easy but I did find it fun. Not much junk. A few things that baffled and/or annoyed me: I cross ON the green (well mostly, depends on traffic) and I was so sure a cat with white feet would be called Boots. Oops. LAR and NSF were mysteries, but the worst mysteries clogged up the NW. Couldn't see LIEU (I had site for too long even though I often use the term "in lieu of"). OMBRE looked familiar after the fact. Never heard the term KEYBOARDWARRIOR, but I like it. And I always associate SUTRA with Hinduism, not Buddhism, for some reason. (Go ahead, make your best guess.)
Change LAR to OAR, which changes BLOBS to BOOBS. Change OARS to OAFS, HERO to HEFT, OWNER to TENET, SWINE to SEINE, then finally DOGEAR to DOG EAT. DOG EAT might be tough to clue, and isn’t as good as DOGEAR, but that’s the best I can do on short notice.
My first order of business upon opening the comments was to search for BOOBS for a rarely legitimate purpose, to wit: determining whether someone else keyed on the same solution to LAR as I did. And you did! Except you remembered that OAR was already there, while I did not. So well done, Nancy, BYOBS/YAR solution wins, at least AFAIC.
(Another possible clue for YAR is:
6D. Atari shooter, ____'s Revenge
Buy while this was one the most notable games for the Atari 2600, it's still rather arcane unless you were between the ages of 5 and 25 circa 1981-2.)
--------------------
I found this to be extremely hard because I had "logear" -- which makes more sense to me -- instead of DOGEAR which, to my mind, requires the addition of the verb's object "paper" if not the page of a book. However, while I feel letDOWN by the editors as Rex does re: LAR, feelings about crossword puzzles, at least of this kind, are silly. And I'm with everybody, I feel it too! But it's still silly; this is a puzzle, not the SATs.
But yeah, I CALL EM LIKE I SEE EM, and this one was definitely challenging for me. Given that I was able to pull AIWEIWEI for the first time ever on just my second pass and with only three scattered crosses, I thought I was cruising and headed for an average time. Nope.
First off, @Nancy, I laughed while I sang 🎶 Let the ball roll . . . 🎶. Great memory (of making dun of the Disney-esque guy singing, and of our imitation of him on the playground during 4-square battles when a hard smack sent the ball out of bounds across the blacktop.
Thank the crossword gods for the long answers because this puzzle nearly won! The odd clues and some of the fill made this a tough one for me. Haven’t been this far outside a constructor’s frame of reference for ages - and I loved the fight!! LAR included. I actually said “Hello, LAR, long time no see.”
At 1A, my lawyer brain really wanted the answer to be an abbreviation of “appeal” (may lead to a second opinion) only because it’s a clue I have been hoping to see and is on my personal list of “things I think would make good crossword clues if ever I were to construct, which I am lot likely to do.” Anyway, without the ‘abbr’ instruction, my brain just wouldn’t find ALSO, or anything other than SIAM which made me think of Yul Brynner saying “Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera” in “The King and I.”
I have never heard CROSS AT THE GREEN, only CROSS AT THE light, the general safety rule and one printed on signs around high pedestrian areas here. But, forever, I shall now call what my daughter’s generation learned to call “walking man,” “the wee man.” Thank you @Rex. Great story.
Once I got started (in the NE) and worked my way down the east side, I had enough to pick up the long answers (after crossing on GREEN instead of AT THE light) I was able to suss out all the hard stuff. This played the way I like my Fridays, just tough enough. And the cooler long answers balanced the problems they inevitably cause in terms of short fill throughout the rest of the puzzle.
And now LAR can take another long vacation.
Happy weekend everybody, I have three HANDS OFF! demonstrations to attend tomorrow. I spent 40 years working well every day with all kinds of folks to ensure fair and reasonably efficient local government. Surely taking away our kids’ education and throwing millions of seniors into poverty can’t really be what anyone actually voted for.
I had LA_ for quite awhile, then keyboard finally got entered and I thought "LAR, what is that, a roman spirit I guess?
Where was Soupy Sales?
The letters EBT have been in front of every single one of your faces, probably frequently, but because you’re all affluent, you don’t have to think about them. That’s on you. The letters LAR, however, have been in front of no one’s face. Please be serious with your comparisons.
Les S. More, I agree on the driving. The first time I was in Ireland, I was on a bicycle tour through the SW corner. A year later my friend and I rented a car and pretty much drove the perimeter of the country. I could only shake my head that no one on a bicycle had been killed after seeing what driving was like.
My bet: constructor had BOOBS and OAR and didn't notice the dupe until after clues were done. Then she was unwilling to start over.
Many, many years ago my (new) wife and I rente/d a car in England while we were otherwise doing the Eurail/camping tour of Europe. We got a four-on-the-floor stick which I was shifting left-handed. Now that was interesting.
Crashed in the NW corner as well. OMBRÉ not known to me (a dude), ditto SUTRA. Didn’t help myself by having AREA for place instead of LIEU. Wipeout.
Pluck your magic twanger groggy Andy Devine circa 1955
Just reclue LAR as “NFC West team.”
As soon as I put in LAR I was hoping for a Siouxsie Sioux vid from Rex, but alas
me too for sitU before LIEU. - Hi @lotsa folks
Now I'm waiting to see LER clued as Primus guitar virtuoso LaLonde : )
it's late but i only just got a chance to read today's blog and comments, and i'm still confused about crossing at the green. what does it mean? it didn't slow me down in the puzzle but i'm curious. here [MA/RI] the walking man signal is white. and you wouldn't want to cross [legally speaking] when cars have a green, unless you want to potentially be run over. does the original slogan/PSA refer to the color of the traffic light or the crossing light? or neither? inquiring minds and all that. :)
enjoyable puzzle today. i had cAr before VAN which held me up for a bit, and also AmSO before ALSO. [the second opinion following "am so" of course being, "are not!" ;)] i only know JETHRO tull the band and LORNA doone the cookie, but it turns out those wild guesses worked just as well.
-stephanie.
I can't find anywhere the Greek goddess of piece spelled Irene, only Eirene which is they way I learned it in College...
NYT publishing an article about how Dems need to appeal to high-mortality enthusiasts in 3, 2, 1,...
I suggest changing BLOBS to BOOBS, SUTRA to SUTRO (Baths in San Francisco), OARS to OORT (cloud proposed to be at the edge of the solar system), and SWINE to TWINE.
I was able to put lar in immediately, only because there are lares in the Roman part of the Percy Jackson universe, so it might be familiar to younger solvers who get their Roman knowledge from Rick Riordan books
There are not 32 NFL owners. There are 31 owners and then the Green Bay packers are owned by over 500,000 shareholders.
Me too!
Ahem. I think you mean “LAR didn’t FAZE me at all. (“You’re welcome,” said the insufferable pedant.)
Solved it Saturday morning because the NYT wouldn't let me access the puzzle on Friday. Why? They (suddenly) didn't like the browser I was using (Safari). I called them and gave them a password (they had never needed one before), and I had to use Chrome. There was no apology for my inconvenience. Don't you just love technology wizards?
It's actually very common, generally used disparagingly
My inner 12-year-old was amused when I circled back to the top and for 5A: "Shape-Shifters" I had B_OBS. Thankfully, my outer adult intervened, and I put in LAR for 6D, but it was fun while it lasted.
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