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Hip-hop's "Puba" and "Daddy I.U."? / SUN 5-18-25 / Maidenhair and others / Pauperism, so to speak / Hip-hop artist with the 2019 hit "My Type" / Apparel feature that a bandeau lacks / Author of the 2020 memoir "Cubed" / Lumberjacks' competition / Platform for Safari and FaceTime / Pinged online / Dad, in Korean / Queer identity, in brief
Sunday, May 18, 2025
Constructor: Garrett Chalfin
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
Not feeling this one at all. The concept is so-so and doesn't yield such great results. Sometimes simple ideas really work, but this one, as executed, too often felt forced. This problem started right away with a rap clue that made me laugh out loud (derogatory). I mean ... OK, look, I know most of you have no idea who Grand Puba is. Just admit it. I went through a Grand Puba phase in the early '90s because I had a girlfriend who was really into Brand Nubian (of which Grand Puba was a member), and then I was also really into the Brand New Heavies for a bit, and Grand Puba was featured on their Heavy Rhyme Experience, Volume 1 (was there a Volume 2? is this one of those Hall & Oates' Rock 'N Soul Part 1 situations?). And look, if it sounds like I'm just making up names, of course it does, this is my point. It's not 1993 anymore. I mean, I admire the bone-deep cut that is Grand Puba, but that cut is probably too deep for most solvers to hear, and as for Daddy I.U., LOL, that one lost me entirely. There's a Grand Daddy I.U.? I'm guessing I'm generationally locked out of this one, hang on, gonna look it up. Hoooooooly crap, no. Like Grand Puba, Grand Daddy I.U. is older than I am—or would be (he died in 2022). He was part of the hip-hop collective known as the Juice Crew. And like Grand Puba, he seems to have peaked, fame-wise, some time in the early '90s. Really going down memory lane / learning new things today. Annnnyway, that first theme clue is going to leave people baffled, mostly because they're going to have no idea that "Grand" is actually part of their names. "GRAND" is just going to seem like a word meaning "major" or "important." I kinda love the big swing here, but I guarantee you most solvers will have absolutely no idea what kind of wordplay is going on with this one. To go from this to something as banal as "TAKE OFF ICE" is jarring.
- GRAND RAP IDS (23A: Hip-hop's "Puba" and "Daddy I.U."?)
- TAKE OFF ICE (28A: Remove from the champagne bucket?)
- MAKING AN IMP ACT (42A: Casting a total brat in the school play?)
- GROUCHO MARX MUST ACHE (65A: "The co-star of 'Duck Soup' has to be sore after that!"?)
- WHAT'S THE DAM AGE? (87A: "How long have beavers blocked this river?"?)
- LOVE HOT ELS (103A: Be crazy about Chicago trains with broken A.C.s?)
- SALES PER SON (111A: Metric in a competitive family business?)
A bandeau (UK: /ˈbandəʊ/ US: /ˈbændəʊ/; pl. bandeaux; diminutive of the French word bande meaning 'strip') is a garment comprising, in appearance, a strip of cloth. Today, the term frequently refers to a garment that wraps around a woman's breasts. It is usually part of a bikini in sports or swimsuit. It is similar to a tube top, but narrower. It is usually strapless, sleeveless, and off the shoulder. Bandeaux are commonly made from elastic material to stop them from slipping down, or are tied or pinned at the back or front. In the first half of the 20th century, a "bandeau" was a narrow band worn by women to bind the hair, or as part of a headdress. (wikipedia)
• • •
MAKING AN IMP ACT irked me because it doesn't involve a repronunciation (all the other themers do). I've never heard of a GROUCHO MARX MUSTACHE. Maybe I've heard of a "Groucho mustache." I know he had a trademark mustache, of course, but I had no idea he gave his name to a mustache *type*. My fav of the themers was most definitely "WHAT IS THE DAM AGE?" I don't know, something about the beavers made me smile. The rest of them, whatever. The point is, not much life to this concept, and the quality and familiarity of the themers is highly, exceedingly uneven.
COFFEE O'CLOCK, not a thing. Not really. I am a committed and particular coffee drinker and I would never say and have never said COFFEE O'CLOCK, nor have I heard it said. I can see on the internet that it is said, or at least that kitschy gifts of various kinds say it, but oof, no. BEER O'CLOCK, yes, for sure, definitely a thing. COFFEE O'CLOCK is just ... morning? What are we doing here? HAP is not "chance" unless you add "jocularly" or "fancifully" or "poetically" or "in olden times" or something to indicate that no one says that, ever. SCARUM on its own just looks terrible in the grid. I am too nautically challenged to understand how a SCREW is a [Ship propeller]. If you're like me (in this regard, at least), then here you go, here's a visual aid—this propeller is apparently called a "screw":
Silly me, I'd've called it a "propeller." I never read (or saw) A Wrinkle in Time, so MRS. WHO = Mrs. who? As for SAWEETIE, no, no idea (34A: Hip-hop artist with the 2019 hit "My Type"). I mean, it sounds like a name I've heard, it rings a faint bell, I was able to put it together from crosses, but mostly it missed me. This is definitely a generational thing (unlike Grand Puba and me, SAWEETIE does not qualify for AARP membership yet) (hmmm, I take that back—looks like you can technically become a member of AARP at 18?! Why would you do that!?). Some of this puzzle was OK (SAYS ME), but too much of it was irksome or just off my wavelength. Way too heavy on the pop culture trivia today. I knew most of it, but that's not the issue—just because I can solve something easily doesn't make it good. Being too reliant on proper nouns, esp. from a narrowish segment of culture (today, actors/musicians) is never a good look.
Bullet points:
- 71A: Author of the 2020 memoir "Cubed" (RUBIK) — took me an embarrassingly long time (i.e. more than a second or two) to get this. I think I just assumed the inventor of Rubik's Cube was dead, and so I was looking for, like, Ice Cube, or maybe his real name (O'SHEA Jackson, Sr.).
- 13D: Son of Aphrodite (AENEAS) — irksome. AENEAS is most famous because of VIRGIL's Aeneid (missed crossreference opportunity right there) (57A: Dante's guide in the "Inferno"). VIRGIL was Roman. Wrote in Latin. Therefore, canonically, AENEAS's mom is Venus, not Aphrodite. Please don't "well actually" me with the fact that AENEAS makes sporadic appearances in the Iliad. Irrelevant. Overruled!
- 97D: Lumberjacks' competition (ROLEO) — don't believe these really exist. I feel like this is an elaborate prank perpetrated by some early crossword constructor, who convinced his editor that ROLEOs were real, and then other constructors just followed suit, and no one ever bothered to go see if they existed. For all I know, they only exist today (if they do) because crossword puzzles put the suggestion in someone's head. To be clear, I believe lumberjacks have competitions. I just don't believe they would call those competitions anything as stupid-sounding as ROLEO. "Uh, what if we just, like, changed one letter in RODEO?" "Which one?" "... Does it matter?" "No, I guess not."
- 103A: Be crazy about Chicago trains with broken A.C.s? (LOVE HOT ELS) — I thought this was just another term for "whorehouse" but wow was I wrong. They're short-stay hotels, of Japanese origin, designed specifically for sex. Prostitution may be involved, but mainly it's just a discreet place to do it, often in city districts (near train stations, and highways). There are hourly rates and interaction with staff is often kept to a minimum. Discretion! I'm learning way too much about LOVE HOTELS right now: "Rooms are often selected from a panel of buttons, and the bill may be settled by pneumatic tube, vending machine, or paying an unseen staff member behind a pane of frosted glass. Parking lots will often be concealed and windows will be few, so as to maximize privacy." "Although cheaper hotels are often simply furnished, higher-end hotels may feature fanciful rooms decorated with anime characters, be equipped with rotating beds, ceiling mirrors, karaoke machines, and unusual lighting. They may be styled similarly to dungeons or other fantasy scenes, sometimes including S&M gear." "Love hotel architecture is sometimes garish, with buildings shaped like castles, boats or UFOs and lit with neon lighting" (wikipedia). Ever dream of having sex by the hour in a UFO with a Naruto dungeon? Have I got the place for you—welcome ... to LOVE HOTELS!
- 119A: Little twerp (SNOT) — I had SNIT. I think I meant SNIP (?). I also think I just hate the word SNOT so much that I won't write it in unless forced to.
- 35D: Hit up on Instagram, informally (DMED) — DMED and IMED (75A: Pinged online) ... and DQED? (78D: Threw out of a contest, informally). This puzzle has ODED on this answer type.
- 56D: Platform for Safari and FaceTime (MACOS) — sounds like Apple's failed cereal campaign. "You've heard of OREO Os..." "No, I haven't. Not outside of crosswords, anyway" "Well ... imagine ... MAC O'S! The cereal shaped like boxy little computers! With marshmallow mice!" "Where's the 'O's?" "Uh ... I dunno, we can throw some O's in there too, doesn't matter, who cares?—point is: MAC O'S! It's a crossover branding coup. Kids will love it. Then IBM will try to imitate it and the kids'll be like "IBM O'S!? Gross!" From there, it's just a few short steps to world domination. Whaddya say!?" I'm just saying that I wish this cereal existed and if I found a 42-year old unopened box of this cereal today I would eat it immediately, enthusiastically, recklessly.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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121 comments:
Thank you, @Rex, for the scintillating essay on LOVE HOTELS. I would never have known that without this blog. Eww.
I found the puzzle Easy and liked it more than @Rex did. I didn’t know the “grand” rappers, but the answer was easy enough to get from crosses. I knew SAWEETIE (34A) because of a commercial she appeared in a few seasons back.
My only overwrite was Apollo before AENEAS at 13D, aside from the stupid typo that prevented the happy music when I thought I had finished. I had most of OFL’s ?WOEs, especially MRS. WHO at 67D.
Wow, this was the hardest Sunday for me in a LONG time. I had to hack away and partially fill in multiple sectors and then come back to them. The themers were tough for me to see/parse, even after I grokked the theme. And 6 Across was a double disaster for me. BIALY was a WOE??? for me, and the gnarly problem seems like it could have been lots of xEAR words... fear, gear, tear, rear.... sure BEAR was among the options. And then a Ulysses by Joyce clue... I had no idea. Never even thought of the Y until I was running the alphabet and had a real "d'oh" moment. Liked the theme better than OFL did... got a laugh out of "SALES PER SON" as clued, and "TAKE OFF ICE". But I had a LOT of struggles with this grid. : / took me about 36 minutes, which actually isn't that bad for me on a sunday, but I just felt like I partially filled every sector and had to go back. Anyway--a challenging Sunday!
Easy Sunday solve but oddly unsatisfying. Just kind of blah.
This was my experience exactly (except a longer finish time!)
I have the Sunday paper delivered, so I did the puzzle in pen. Got everything except the RADIOHEAD/CHAOS cross. The theme was fun, especially WHATSTHEDAM-AGE, LOVEHOT-ELS and MAKINGANIMP-ACT (although an imp isn't really as naughty as a brat).
Yes, the use of love hotels can be “eww,” but mostly not: when couples live in tiny apartments with parents and children (and paper walls!), love hotels offer an affordable and typically very clean setting for private intimacy - and what’s wrong with a little added fantasy?
I think the CAPE answer is referring to the fact that the Mayflower first landed at the tip of Cape Cod at what is now Provincetown, not at Plymouth.
Whether the idea was even worthy or not - there was definitely too much of it. Maybe pare it back to an early week grid? TAKE OFF ICE worked for me - most of the others including the redundant GROUCH MARX MUSTACHE fell flat.
New Order
Tend to agree with Rex on AENEAS - although no doubt his Trojan background gives the Greek slant more validity. He is featured prominently in LeGuin’s fantastic Lavinia.
Thought RUBIK had an X. Some obscuria - BRA STRAP, OLLAS etc but the crosses were fair enough. Nice to see AVOCETS.
SCREW that - forget about that
On the fence here - I think just too much of it turned me off.
JOHN DOE
Super easy Sunday - finished in record time (for me). And strangely never even realized 23A was a themer because I’d solved the entire NW with downs and never looked at the crosses.
These theme answers are not easy to come by.
• The last word of the answer must have an even number of letters.
• Each half of that word must be a word in its own right.
• That word must conclude an in-the-language phrase.
Whew! So, say, you come up with a word like HIPPIE that can break into HIP and PIE, and a hip pie can be a thing, maybe even a funny thing. But then you have to find a common phrase that ends with HIPPIE and can make sense with “hip pie”. And I, at least, haven’t. So, back to the drawing board.
Here, Garrett came up with seven – seven! Furthermore, they fit the letter-count requirements of symmetry. High props for that!
I got in a good mood right from the start, when BAIUL popped out, a figure-skating name lying dormant in my brain for some 30 years. The mood escalated when I uncovered MAKING AN IMP ACT – Hah! It continued to rise as some swaths filled in with a splash, while others made me do delicious work.
Garrett, your creation was clever, fun, and satisfying. Thank you for a splendid outing!
I liked this! OK, so some of the themers were a little forced, but it's still something to come up with these words/phrases, and I enjoyed the cluing. But agreed, probably one too many past tenses of abbreviations: IMED, DMED, DQED. I was staring at LOVEHOTEL this morning and wondering about that, so appreciated learning **all** the sordid details from Rex.
Fun one, although some of the themers weren't great. Didn't drag. If anyone else here does the STRANDS puzzle, did it seem grossly inappropriate today?
Neil Young has a super obscure song called Love Hotel ... never recorded in the studio, played live once.
Every room a hallway
Who can tell
Don't get stranded by the lift
Of the Love Hotel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLd0N1IBEZU
Agreed.
GRAND RAPIDS materialized from crossings, but didn’t tell me anything about the theme, even though the title spells out what the gimmick is. MAKING AN IMP ACT made it clear.
WHAT’S THE DAM AGE? was my favorite. MUST ACHE was easy, but I needed some crossings for GROUCHO MARX. I tried to recall the MUSTACHE puzzle (with circles in the shape of various mustache types) but GROUCHO MARX wasn’t even in it.
Is no one going to mention how SALES PER SON breaks the theme? You’re not really “halving the last word” if SALESPERSON is one word.
SAWEETIE made me think of that time we had SUHWEET two Thursdays in a row or something like that.
Hunting down wrong squares on Sunday is a nightmare (in my case, VeRGIL). One day I’ll remember that INXS is supposed to be “in excess”. At least I think that’s what the name means.
This isn’t the sparkliest Sunday we’ve ever had, but I thought it was amusing enough. @Rex is right: I didn’t have a clue about the first hip-hop-related themer. In fact, I wandered all over the grid and I think the first theme answer I got and fully understood was LOVE HOT ELS, which I thought was delightfully wacky – who could ever [Be crazy about Chicago trains with broken A.C.s?]. Sounds like torture on a steamy July afternoon. It was, in fact, the last three themers I particularly liked: the HOT ELS plus WHATS THE DAM AGE and SALES PER SON. BTW, I never knew that in the early days, GROUCHO’s MUSTACHE was applied with greasepaint, but yeah, when you study photographs, it does look impossibly rectangular.
114A. HEIR
I have a story about HEIRs. When my husband lived in Denmark, he knew a family with a grand old matriarch. She presided over a large number of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She lived in a large house that was stuffed with antique furniture and collections of glassware, silver, china, you name it. She had the sly habit of affixing a tag to each precious piece of furniture on which she would write the name of the family member to whom she had decided to will it. She would place these labels on the most inaccessible, hard-to-see surfaces and loved nothing better than to catch somebody – particularly her daughters-in-law – crawling around on all fours, trying to discover if they were to be the lucky inheritor of their favorite armoire.
@All you logophiles
I came upon this yesterday and it seems at least marginally relevant to today’s puzzle. Has anyone ever encountered it?
He rest opa nds penda soc ialho urinh
Armles smir thandf unl etf riends hipr
Eig nb ejusta ndk indan devils peako fnone.
(Man, I’ve just given autocorrupt a stroke.)
Whenever Rex sends out his annual appeal to contribute monetarily for this blog, I think of lines like “Ever dream of having sex by the hour in a UFO with a Naruto dungeon. Have I got the place for you—welcome to love hotels” and I’m like - yeah. Count me in and why is this blog still free?! 😀😀
Sailboats? Seems pretty innocuous
The LOVE HOTEL concept sound like a similar/adjacent concept to the No-Tell Motels we had in the states through the 50s-80s. A prototypical example here in the STL area was the Coral Court Motel on old Route 66. "The ability to rent a room for short periods of time in complete discretion, with motorcars hidden from the street by the individual enclosed indoor garages, enhanced the Coral Court's notoriety as a popular venue for adultery." - from it's wiki page.
I was almost going to comment on this puzzle on the NYT forum before remembering that I don't want to fill up my quota for being condescended to too early in the week... I didn't mind the theme, although I found that the cluing in the North was so easy robbed it of a bit of punch--I had RAPIDS (Without the GRAND) and parsed the theme from that within a minute of starting.
All smooth sailing until that SE corner, where I tripped over BEAUCOUP/DIDUP/IMAMORON/AVOCETS along with DOM (I know this only from the champagne originator) and oddly RIVALED. That last clue, I just did not love because I think it's a pretty narrow set of contexts in which we use "rival" to mean "is comparable to" without any other added layers of connotation or just plain different meaning.
Thank you, provided they have excellent cleaning services!
I was more enamored with the theme than OFL - unfortunately the theme entries seemed to be enclosed in a giant trivia test. Of course I don’t know who SAWEETIE is; ditto for MRS WHO, Mr. SNAPE, AENEAS, VIRGIL and on and on.
I also struggled with some of the more common (but not so much so for me) stuff like RECTO, BIALY and OLLAS which I’m sure I’ve seen in Crosswords from days gone by - it just “seems” like there is a lot of it today - do that many people really recognize stuff like MAC OS and APPA ? And yes, of course I have heard of INXS and RADIOHEAD - but do I know the titles of their songs (of course not).
This one seems like a missed opportunity - the theme was promising, but the wheelhouse effect did me in on the rest of it.
First themer no problem: didn’t know those names, but clearly had to be rappers.
S_WEETIE/AENE_S could have been I (Aeneis similar to Aeneid).
I was also done in by the IRAQ/IRAN kealoa. Guessed wrong and never went back to check on it until now happy music.
I liked it more than RP and thought the themes were pretty amusing as far as these types go. It took a while to get on the puzzle’s wavelength, but ultimately was satisfying.
I don’t particularly love phrases like COFFEEOCLOCK, but plenty of people do - totally a thing fair for a big Sunday puzzle.
It took me a while to get to AVOCET, picturing instead the much taller, longer-legged and more common xword EGRETS and HERONS, but they didn’t fit, nor FLAMINGO. AVOCET is a lovely word for a lovely bird.
Oh man, PPP everywhere and not a drop to drink…well, that makes no sense but there it is. Some of the PPP, like GRANDRAPIDS, just filled in logically from the crosses, but overall was a bit daunting. Thought the themers were imaginative and kinda funny. Tended to fill them from the endings—MUSTACHE was my clue to GROUCHO, and ELS led me to HOTELS, etc. Will probably never guess right on IRAn vs IRAQ. Has anyone ever been IMED, DMED, and DQED in the same day? Is there a vaccine for them?
Another NYT trivia proper noun quiz. Between URIAH, EHUD, MRSWHO, OLLAS, AVOCETS, INXS, MACOS (isn't it iOS?), and more, I was just buried in WOE.
Actually got the theme at GRANDRAPIDS without knowing either of the rappers or suspecting they might be GRAND. And soon after the mysterious SAWEETIE appears from crosses and I thought we were in for a rap festival, which did not materialize, gracias a Dios.
I thought the themers were fine and reasonably amusing, except for the beaver DAMAGE of which I have painful experience as the beach at our former summer resort is now under a foot of water, nor was there a legal remedy. Long story that I try not to think about.
Mostly very easy except for the unknown names, but stalled in the SE because my diamond was CUT for too long before it was SET. Also had ORSO for ASTO for "about", many nanoseconds lost in trying to remember AVOCETS and parse BEAUCOUP, but eventually worked that out. Last to fall was the MACOS (unknown) EHUD (forgot) EMIT area. I suppose EMIT means "release" but it took forever to occur to me. And CHAOS was the only five-letter word I could think of that ended in OS and made any sense, although its clue was less than helpful. (See also CAPE, hi Rex.)
I liked your Sunday just fine, GC. Good Choices for the themers, which are all the kind of wordplay that appeals to me. Thanks for all the fun.
This puzzle really gave me some negative vibes. The theme was so uninteresting, (sorry constructor, it was), I had no “fun” coming up with those answers. I detest calling children names like Brat or Snot or even Imp, it’s so derogatory. (Been one, married to one, have one, it’s usually a disorder of some kind), IMED and DMED in the same puzzle in addition to ending it with a JK Rowling clue, such a slog. Please give us an Agard or Weintraub puzzle next week NYT.
Hey All !
I see (read) Rex is feeling better. Snarky in a humorous way!
WHATS THE DAM AGE was the only one that elicited a chuckle.
Was mixing up Duck Soup with Duck Dynasty, and thinking, "Someone was named GROUCHO MARX on that show?" Har, good stuff.
A pretty decent SunPuz. Last fill was AVOCETS, which is funny, because I had that as an entry in one of my (many rejected) puzs, and thought it was a bit obscure. But, here it is!
It's COFFEE O'CLOCK somewhere. And judging by how busy Starbucks is throughout the day, it's not just for breakfast anymore.
Welp, have a great Sunday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
All that came to mind after finishing this was that maaaaaaybe there's an Entrance Exam for wanna-be NYTXW Assistant Editors, where the one and only question is "Here is a filled in 21x21 Sunday Puzzle that we don't want to run as a themeless. Come up with some sort of theme for this puzzle."
This Sunday was on my wavelength. Knew SAWEETIE (which was destined to trip up the less pop-culturey among us) and got lucky in a few spots that led to very few mistakes that needed to be rectified. This again is one of those themes that I figured out without really figuring it out - meaning I had no idea what GRAND RAP IDS was but thought GRAND RAPIDS looked right so in it went.
Plymouth is not on the Cape as somebody alluded to earlier. Pilgrims went to P-Town after being scared off by native Americans on another part of the Cape. Bound to be some head-scratching about that one given the Plymouth Rock thing.
Finished in 23:52 which is becoming an average Sunday for me.
Nice to see APPA today, just a day after we visited “Kim’s Convenience.”
Thanks, Rex, for all the details about LOVE HOTELS. Karaoke machines!
Hi! Long term reader. Can I jump in to defend the… honor?… concept? of Love Hotels. Please note that the culture of moving out once you’re an adult is not universal in the world. In Japan, the cultural norm is for adults to live with their parents until marriage, upon which they stake out on their own. Thus there is a need for spaces where young couples can be intimate before marriage. Yes, Love Hotels can be seedy and run-down and outlets for infidelity, but at the other range of the spectrum they can be quite nice, clean, and fun!
Anyways, thanks for this blog, which helped ignite and sustain my interest in crosswords.
Cheers!
Love hotels with individual garages are great if you happen to be travelling with expensive stuff in your vehicle (or uhaul). You can park without having to unload everything and don’t have to worry all night. Plus, it’s funny if you check in alone….
I'm at a bit of a loss about the negativity in today's commentary as this theme is a wonderful, witty exemplar of what I try (mostly unsuccessfully) to do in my comments every day. Basically, reread words or phrases to break/parse in humorous and/or absurd ways. I really enjoyed every one of the themers, and got a big kick out of guessing them with few or no crosses. As @Lewis observed, they're very hard to compose with familiar phrases and final words that "halve" well.
Girl seeing herself in the future after 20 years of eating ice cream with 5 kids? IAMYOURFATHER.
I can't touch what's been done here, so I'll just say thanks for a wonderful Sunday, Garrett Chalfin.
Plymouth MA is NOT on “the Cape” (as we locals say ie., Cape Cod). Plymouth is 15 MILES from the Sagamore Bridge (closest bridge over the Cape Cod Canal to “the Cape”). It’s called Google Maps, dummy. How many “Capes” does this college student know: Cape of Good Hope? Cape Ann? Cape Kiwanda? Cape Horn?
Just came here to say that you are missing out if you never read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. It’s only one of the best children’s books ever written. Loved the reference - makes me want to pick up the book again. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/remarkable-influence-wrinkle-in-time-180967509/
I’m Taiwanese-American and Love Hotels in Taiwan are pretty usual. The U.S. is very hung up.
I agree with Rex completely: IMED and DMED and DQED in the same puzzle are a bit...much. Even one of them is one too many for me.
And then there seemed to be even more singers and bands than usual. Why do so many constructors and editors think that this is endlessly interesting to people?
MACOS is ridiculous.
But I did like the theme. It hit the sweet spot of not being gettable without crosses, but of gradually becoming more and more gettable as crosses came in.
What keeps me going in long puzzles like this with a fair amount of fill I don't like? Curiosity. Always curiosity. And I was dying of curiosity to know "the score upon which reality is written." Huh? I had C- - OS and had no idea. MACOS was completely unknown and the first name of the Israeli P.M. I remember as being odd. ELUD? ERUD? They don't help me. Finally, I see in my C- - OS mishmash the answer. CHAOS!! The quote makes no damn sense to me, but EHUD comes back to me.
It was CHAOS that impelled me to go on. And the diverting, Cryptic-type clues for the theme answers made this mostly fun for me despite some really annoying fill.
And
A garbage puzzle that I sent to the garbage once it became clear to me that this was a PPP slog, a pop culture quiz focusing on such dreary subjects as hip hop and rap artist's names, which I know nothing of, and never will. Just don't have time for this, and have to ask myself why I'm paying good money for junky puzzles...
Next time you’re on the Cape be sure to visit the beautiful First Encounter beach in Eastham. The scope of that answer will become clearer.
@Rex, thank you for enlightening me on why the RAP IDS are GRAND and what LOVE HOTELS are (also thanks to commenters for elaborating on Japanese culture).
I liked the puzzle, enjoyed trying to guess the ends of the theme answers, managing to get only two with no crosses: HOT ELS and DAM AGE. Loved seeing GROUCHO MARX but wondered how widely known he and his MUSTACHE are any more. In the same vein, nods of fond crossword nostalgia to OLLAS and AVOCET. I liked the cross of VIRGIL and VERGE, which sounds like his nickname.
You didn't see all the people who died last night on a sailboat in NY Harbor?
If you haven't visited Plymouth Rock, don't waste your time. Very unimpressive, IMO. At least it's back together in one piece. In 1774 an attempt was made to move it to the town square in Plymouth. But they must have used the same movers my wife and I did when we moved from Brooklyn to Jersey, because it broke into two pieces. The pieces were reunited in 1880.
I like it better when the xword plays it straight and egsforbreakfast reparses the words. Suggesting APEX to get rid of a pesky primate problem yesterday was a gem!
Two?
Gotta agree - could've lived without learning about "LOVE HOTELS" - EWW is right
If you say it was uninteresting, you must be right. I don’t know what some of the rest of us were thinking.
As I replied & agreed with @Anonymous 5:35 am, I could've gone through life without knowing what LOVE HOTELS are. Interesting puzzle. A lot I didn't know, a lot I didn't "get" which I find frustrating in a Sunday-sized puzzle.
That's really all I have to say :(
Big YES on that!
Easy-medium if you don’t count chasing down a typo.
Mildly amusing…the wackiness mostly worked for me although the GRAND answer was a mystery. Cute idea, clever title, fun solve, liked it more than @Rex did.
I made the same assumption about RUBIK -- I thought, surely, Erno Rubik was a mathematician from the 1800s. One of those stories that's lodged in your mind even though you didn't realize it and have no idea where it came from.
Some of the themers were brilliant, like SALESPERSON and WHATSTHEDAMAGE but there were a couple of clunkers. Overall, not bad. Nice and crunchy too.
PS - The toughest part of the puzzle was the SE corner with BEAUCOUP not being clued in a manner that indicates the answer is in French crossing AVOCETS - a completely unknown thing to me. DOM only came to me via my remembrance of the DOM Perignon champagne label.
Agree 100% about Madeline L’Engle! Her books were formative for me and my children! We read my copies of “A Wrinkle in Time” and “A Wind in the Door” to pieces
Just. Awful.
Enjoyed it! Light and fun.
What does PPP mean in these comments? I tried looking it up - person, place, pronoun. Doesn’t seem likely.
MOTEL spelled backwards is LET'EM (Ok, slurred backwards)
The Mayflower landed on Cape Cod, what is now Provincetown to be precise, before realizing the weather and land conditions were too harsh. They then moved to Plymouth which is just off-cape.
He rest opa nds penda soc ialho urinh
Armles smir thandf unl etf riends hipr
Eig nb ejusta ndk indan devils peako fnone.
I posted this oddity earlier today and asked if anyone was familiar with it. No one has responded so maybe it’s unknown in the modern era. I found it yesterday in my mother’s handwriting among some of her papers. She’d obviously copied it from somewhere. One can find it on the internet, often as a sign in a diner. Anyway, it’s a parsing puzzle, which is why I thought it was vaguely related to today’s crossword. The solution is:
Here stop and spend a social hour
In harmless mirth and fun.
Let friendship reign. Be kind and just,
And evil speak of none.
Creep, just not performed by Radiohead
How well known is Groucho? There's a recent PBS telecast of a classic interview where Dick Cavett interviews the much older Groucho who had long been Cavett's hero and became Cavett's good friend. It's perhaps the best interview that Cavett ever conducted. It's certainly the most interesting interview that Groucho ever did. An enormously entertaining hour of TV history -- I highly recommend going to YouTube and tracking it down. It keeps coming back on PBS. Maybe I'll watch it again.
Basically a proper noun: I think it is Person, Product name, Place name??
The Pilgrims landed here in Provincetown (on Cape Cod) and decided not to stay here. Then they went to Plymouth.
I gotta say, I enjoy the moments when I see something in a puzzle and say to myself, “Wow, Rex Parker is gonna haaaaaate that.” It makes things like having IMED and DMED in the same puzzle much more entertaining.
I agree with you and Lewis, and truly appreciate your commentary. Sometimes it's the best laugh I have all day!
@Anonymous 12:25 PM:
For today, PPP stands for Pilgrims => Provincetown => Plymouth, for all the discussion! ;-)
(PPP usually applies to any proper name, pop culture, etc.)
My mother used to ask "Is it WINETHIRTY yet?" That's what the Chardonnay-drinking Virginia ladies ask to tell you it's not too early to start. I hope to see that in the puzzle some day. One other thing - the Pilgrims first landed at Provincetown, thus that huge Pilgrim Monument in the center of town. They couldn't find fresh water and headed toward Plymouth Rock.
Although the Japanese frown on any public display of affection, they don't have a puritanical view of sexual pleasure as being sinful or a violation of social mores. LOVE HOTELS are common and no one there says "Eww" about their use.
Foreign words are written in the Katakana alphabet and often have a comical aspect in how they get pronounced. Since there's no "L" Japanese, LOVE HOTEL is "ruh bu ho tay ru". (And in the year and a half I lived in Japan in the 80s, I never saw any place anywhere that wasn't immaculately clean.)
That's why Ptwon has that huge Pilgrim Memorial in the center of town.
{Turned an asteroid into a bad omen vibe?} = MADEITCOMETRUE.
Not great, but maybe better than that there LOVEHOTELS one?All them other themers were pretty neat, tho. Overalls, liked it.
Nice to see @RP gettin back to his old well & feisty self.
Highlight of the blog today: That BANDEAU pic. What do they call that hat she's wearin, btw?
staff weeject pick: ARO. Always have trouble rememberin that now frequent xword visitor. Won't forget BANDEAU, tho.
Thanx for the fun, Mr.Chalfin dude. Way to mince some words.
Masked & Anonymo11Us
... now, get high on runtz ...
"Get High and Be Pesky" - 7x7 12 min. themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I’ve pivoted to alternate news sources but days like today remind me that the crossword puzzle is still in the NY Times… two Israeli names during a genocide and JK Rowling IP. Free Palestine and trans women are women.
Nancy, thank you - I'll look for it.
Groucho's mustache in early appearances was black makeup... not scratchy.
To support Rex, *technically* the son of Aphrodite would be spelled in Greek transliteraton 'Aineias'
It's iOS for mobile devices and MAC OS for computers.
Haven't seen ALAI in a long time. Jai there!
Otherwise, a puddle of PPP SCREWed some otherwise nice fill.
DES means "of THE" as a contraction of the preposition DE and the plural definite article LES. As such. it defined as a form of the definite article, not as a preposition. (DES is also an indefinite article.) Amazed that no one has mentioned this yet!
She was wearing a hat?
Best Sunday puzz in forever. LOVED IT!
Name, name, name, brand name, brand name, name, brand name, name, name, name . . . Ugh.
Cape is Cape Cod! Provincetown / first landing for pilgrims!
So, my dear friend’s son often works in Tokyo and is there for several months at a time. He has become knowledgeable about the culture and food, and has fallen head over heels in love with the people and culture. I have enjoyed his experiences through his great stories on his trips home. Through him, LOVE HOTELS was a gimme. Still a tad creepy to me but people are people. And it seems to me that the Japanese are not only tolerant, but dedicated to using the latest technology in aid of just about any endeavor. Power to them. The small country is gorgeous, clean and the children well educated. Wish I could say the same about . . .
The remainder of the puzzle solved fairly easily until the SE corner. I think I had tired of the theme and kind of turned off my “rememberer” or something and it took me a while to pick up on the clues for SALES PERSON, ERUPT and TORSO (I had chest). I also dislike the use of the term MORON. Even in slang. Put it in the “ick” category with SNOT and omit both from the crossword word lists please.
The “parse words into different words” theme is an oldie and can be a goodie. Today just seemed like it had enough for a decent Monday or Tuesday, but for me the solve lacked enough spark to keep me engaged through a fat Sunday grid.
Onward!
Funny, @pabloinnh!!
Incidentally, I originally confused BANDEAU with bandanna -- hence first thought that it went around the forehead:) What a surprise that turned out to be!
My musical tastes stopped evolving circa 1994 and today that paid off big time.
@pabloinnh: har, bigtime.
M&A
Agree with Rex . Welcome back! Lots of work no aha theme and too many arcane or pop culture references . A slog. But very tired puzzle . Sorry constructor - I know you will improve! Keep trying!
Really disliked this puzzle. Relied on Google for some entries, and because I live on Cape Cod, wondered where the Cod went. I persevered on principal and it took me too long.
@Rex - your most recent columns are of the “kids, get off of my lawn” variety. Just saying.
Anonymous 9:50 AM
Better to Google before you criticize. It was a trick question, as they did stop at ( what is now) Ptown. ( see above) The did, oddly, leave out Cod.
Anonymous 8;47 AM
olla is not a proper noun. It is a Spanish word used in English for certain types of pots AND it has appeared in this puzzle quite often. Avocet is also not a proper name. Just a wading bird’s name.
Egsforbreakfast
I agree with you completely
I enjoyed all the themers
Rex seemed to go around corners to criticize.
dgd
Agreed! It was ATON of fun. As soon as I figured out the theme I was wondering if you had decided to submit a puzzle to the NYT! Apparently not yet, but I look for war to wit. (Sorry, I don't have the gift.)
We are talking about Japan, so yes- excellent cleaning is a cultural value. :)
I liked the puzzle, even though I dnf’d around CHAOS , EHUD , EMIT MACOS Forgot to go back fix the mess on paper. I couda woulda shoulda.
Liked all the themers. Clearly Rex had trouble with some parts of the puzzle He then proceeded to criticize where he had trouble.
To answer comments about the rappers, I had no clue being a Boomer , but GrandRapids began to appear so I filled in the rest. Figured that had to be the answer and got the theme later
dgd
Got here late but loved your 'oddity.' How interesting that your mother wrote it down and saved it. I solved it and then searched for its origin. Found the most fascinating article in the smithsonian magazine: The Ritz Grill Club
Rex. JFC. Standing O on today’s blog. Seriously laugh-out-loud hilarious in several places. Bravo!
Not sure I agree, but regardless, this one was very, very funny.
late to comment toady but I agree with the broad sentiment that this was a miss. As a 1990s hip-hop head, the Grand Puba clue was easy, but I found the "theme" lacking overall. I was also irked by the choice of including both DM'ED and IM'ED, which (mostly) mean the same and demonstrates lazy grid construction.
@egsforbreakfast 9:49 AM
This is my exact thought as I discovered them and laughed. This is exactly the kind of hilarious stuff you gift us with daily.
@Barbara S. 12:41 PM
Thanks for posting the solution. I was traveling today and my tired feeble brain wouldn't cooperate with trying to figure it out.
Where are you Gary Jugert? Donde está?
@beverly c 10:07 PM.
Laughing.
Look down!
Super late today.
No tienes que decírmelo, porque yo soy el jefe. (No) Soy un idiota.
Greetings from a LOVE HOTEL. After @Rex's advertisement this morning, I had to see for myself, so I jumped on a plane, and as many of you mentioned, it's very clean. Now if I could only find someone to love.
In late as I spent the day driving back to Albuquerque from a quick trip to Colorado Springs to see my goddaughter graduate from Colorado College. Seems like it was ten minutes ago I was bopping her on the head with an empty pizza box to prove how little kids have no brains. I told her to listen for a hollow thonk and then * wack *.
This was a super fun theme. The rest of the puzzle felt rather tough. It's way gunky.
Never heard of BIALY. Misread Oksana as Osaka and NAOMI ruined the northwest until the end. Love the Henry Miller quote.
Harry Potter is #1. HAP is brutal.
When the NYTXW editors clue something as "humorously," you know it's not gonna be humorous.
People: 21 {nope}
Places: 2
Products: 7
Partials: 10
Foreignisms: 8
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 48 of 138 (35%)
Funnyisms: 8 🙂
Tee-Hee: PEEK. DOPE. BRA STRAP. LOVE HOTELS.
Uniclues:
1 NOT ITCHY SAWEETIE
2 STAIRS? WHAT'S THE DAMAGE?
3 TUNING IN CONNOISSEURS
1 Rapper on Claritin.
2 Questions from a personal injury attorney.
3 Watching Food Channel (for who knows why).
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Get busy. LEAVE CELIBACY.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This took way too long and was just not fun at all. However, I was delighted to see RBG in the puzzle today. She is sorely missed.
This was easy to figure out. Harmless does not have a capital A as you indicated.
Solved it quite easily. ESL for me and as such not familiar with the meaning of this kind of writing. Also you have a capital A where it doesn’t belong in harmless.
I thought it was GREAT, with crunch all over the grid, lots of wordplay and an interesting concept. Medium here it felt like an accomplishment to get it completed.
Pesce is the singular form of 'fish' in Italian and pesci is the plural form. In English, of course, the plural of 'fish' is fish. Pesci, as in Joe Pesci, was my only hiccup in this puzzle.
I always have to wonder, why are fairly famous Hip Hop artists considered too deep of cuts, but we pretty often get (in my opinion) much more obscure names from broadway and classical music that IMO have had much less impact on modern pop culture than Grand Puba, but are considered normal crossword answers. I think anyone with a decent amount of Hip hop knowledge will at least recognize Puba. I know the audience of crosswords trends older than I, but still seems like the puzzle, and what is considered normal, should evolve with the times.
Awwww @GJ, todos te amamos❣️
Did this a day late, so maybe nobody will read this… but, nice touch with ERUPT on 5/18, the anniversary of Mt. St. Helens.
Awkward clue (“Where the Pilgrims first landed”). Cape is an adjective, not a place. It is more accurately known as The Cape or Cape Cod.
Not knowing the difference between IM and DM, I checked. IM is the general term for instant messaging, used on a wide range of platforms (file sharing, voice calls, video calls, etc.). DM refers specifically to messages sent on social media platforms. (Seems like an unnecessarily fine distinction.)
DQ = disqualified (unknown to this non-sports person).
Never heard of LOVE HOTELS, so that particular themer was a big fail for me. And yes, I had no idea on the names in the first themer so didn't understand what GRAND was doing in there.
Hard for a Sunday.
I loved this puzzle. I though the themers were clever and funny. But we stumbled on "Made nice," a very odd definition, and "Much in quantity" which just eluded us because we misspelled avocet with an S, (S for stupid.) And Mrs. Who is pretty easy from context, and gee, Rex, scarum is clued pretty easily with Harum, so what's to complain about.
Awful in every way. Forces theme bad fill. Answer ls either obvious or just not correct given the clue. So many lame two word answers. Got at. As to. Did up, with a clue just wrong. Let be. One after another after another. Worst puzzle in a long time and it’s not like the standard’s been high.
Very humorous puzzle. 6 out of 7 themers giggle or grin worthy. The last one was, at least for me, a little too spot on. But at least it was spot on(😁😁😁)!
Biggest hangup: TbOndS ➡️ TbillS ➡️ TNOTES
The glaring feature of this puzzle is how densely the PPPs are packed. It seemed, as I was going through it, that the next clue was---yet ANOTHER name! And here's ANOTHER! It never ended.
Nor did the few actual words save much. ASTO the theme, the word-splitting was at times clever, but at others strained. If I'm the editor, this one never makes it to print. Double-bogey.
Wordle par.
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