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It might grad a bite mostly to eat / FRI 5-16-25 / Carnival treat / Radioactive element whose name is derived from the Greek for "unstable" / Like some stories and ships / One-stop shopping spot / Actress Thompson of "Selma" / ___ Walcott, 1992 Literature Nobelist from St. Lucia
Friday, May 16, 2025
Constructor: August Lee-Kovach
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: None
Word of the Day: PENDULUM (9D: Aid for a hypnotist) —
A pendulum is a device made of a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely.[1] When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position. When released, the restoring force acting on the pendulum's mass causes it to oscillate about the equilibrium position, swinging back and forth. The time for one complete cycle, a left swing and a right swing, is called the period. The period depends on the length of the pendulum and also to a slight degree on the amplitude, the width of the pendulum's swing.
• • •
It's Rafa again covering for Rex, who should be back tomorrow! Just one more day stuck with me. You guys are almost there. I am writing this post with my cat purring on my lap while eating deliciously crunchy and juicy grapes. It's the perfect blog-writing setup and I will have to replicate it every time I sub in the future. I hope you are reading this blog post in a similarly delightful set of circumstances. |
| My cat Georgia on my lap right now |
Friday is my favorite crossword day. It's the day of the whoosh-whoosh, wow I'm so smart, wow this is such a fun expression, wow this is such a clever clue, etc. The top-left corner got me in a weird solving funk because I desperately wanted the "shooting for the stars" misdirect to be something paparazzi-adjacent, and I had LOOS and then LAVS before CANS. But eventually we got there, and the rest of the grid provided a lot less resistance for me. Oh, I was very confused by how SHAG was [Chase, as some flies] (I had SWAT for a while) ... but Google tells me it's a baseball thing. Honestly, whenever I'm totally clueless, it's usually a baseball thing. I should know better by now.
(Aside: there are two things that I very canonically Know Nothing About: baseball and movies. That extremely famous movie that shaped an entire era? Never heard of it. That iconic actor? Never seen this face in my life. That baseball slang term? (how are there so many?!?!?!) -- nope, never heard of it! To be clear, I am not trying to "fix" this. I am very content, blissful even, in my ignorance of all things baseball and movie. There are other things I know a lot about that I'm sure would have the baseball and movie buffs stumped.)
 |
| The delicious and juicy grapes I am currently eating (I am almost done) |
Back to the puzzle. There's very little to nitpick here. I have always died on the hill that LINE A is not a thing. Yes, if you go on irs.gov and look at the instructions for Schedule C, they do refer to LINE A, line B, etc., but ... ugh ... it just feels really tortured to me. I have also heard that SI SI is not a thing that is actually ever said in Spanish, but I don't speak Spanish so that's not a hill I am qualified to die on. But (singular) yes, overall, clean short fill.
(Aside #2: *puts CPA hat on* (disclaimer: I am not a CPA), Schedule A and Schedule B both start with "Line 1" ... you have to go to Schedule C to see "Line A" ... ok I'm done.)
Some fun long entries too. DOOMSDAY MACHINE just didn't really do a ton for me to be honest. It has kind of an apocalyptic end-of-the-world vibe that is maybe a bit too close for comfort. The rest was all solid but I just wish it had felt a bit more fresh and exciting and whoosh-whoosh (a very scientific term, of course). The grid spanner is the only entry that is a debut. I don't normally care about debut entries but it was interesting to check to see if it would corroborate my feeling that the puzzle was missing a je ne sais quoi.
(Aside #3, a note about debuts: a puzzle can have many debuts and not be good! An entry can be debuted but be bad (see: STRAWY)! A puzzle can have zero debuts and still feel fun and fresh and fantastic! You get the idea.)
 |
| A very STRAWY photo |
Anyways, I'm just being annoying. It was a good puzzle! I liked it! Just the bar for a Friday is astronomically high for me. Let's say nice things now. I loved the fresh (to me) angle for FOR THE WIN (yes, I am praising a sports angle), and it was fun to see next to FREE AGENT (yes, I am praising a sports-vibes stack).
Alright, I'm done with my grapes and it's time to go rot on the couch (still with the cat, of course!). I feel like a lot of the blog today was me rambling in my three asides ... but that's just how the blog cookie crumbles sometimes. Hope you all are well and see you next time!
Bullets:
- 57A: CUBER [Superfast puzzle solver, of a sort] — I had a CUBER era in middle school but I never got good :(
- 19A: LOSS [The "1" of 3-1-4, say] — Took me forever to get this, but clever angle! (Yes, here I am praising *yet another* sports thing. Who am I even?!) (It's wins / losses / draws)
- 61A: NERD ALERT [Sarcastic reply when someone quotes "Star Trek"] — As a nerd who knows nothing about Star Trek (see aside #1, subsection "movies") I do not feel represented by this clue!
- 14D: YAK [Its milk is a source of chhurpi (Nepalese cheese)] — I don't want to claim what is Right or Wrong but it's interesting to see which "foreign" things warrant a parenthetical explainer and which don't. Editing crosswords is hard! You're always making assumptions about what "the average solver" should or should not know. This clue made me think about that!
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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101 comments:
Easy and easier than Wednesday’s for me. ASTATINE and DEREK were it for WOEs. No costly erasures but I did briefly consider paparazzi (hi @ Rafa) i for 1a until it didn’t fit.
No junk and quite a bit of sparkle, liked it.
Rafa, I actually tried PAPARAZZI at 1 across at first! Then TELESCOPE (closer).
But everything else filled in pretty quick, only to grind to a halt for a while in the lower right. It was those darn "grab a bite" clues, I tell ya... And then for the Star Trek related 61 across, looking at - - -DALERT, I *really* wanted a sarcastic O, RED ALERT! or something.
Mildly amusing typeover: my person getting a massage was "usually" ALONE (60 across).
Ridiculously obscure sports clue alert at 35 across: WES as a 1969 NBA player's first name (seriously?). And today I learned FUJI last erupted in 1708!
You are up late, Rafa. It’s early here in Europe. For 1 Down, Something said before a click, I quickly put in Slide. Couldn’t question it so the NW was my slog.
Solved with my 🐈 at my side.
Good puzzle. Good write-up. Good start to my Friday. Thanks, Rafa!
Easy.
Overwrites:
An astronaut was shooting for the stars before a SPACE SHIP was (1A)
My W.C.s were @Rafa looS before they were CANS (4D)
@Rafa again SwAt before SHAG for the flies at 25A
WOEs:
DEREK Walcott, 18A
CUBER at 57A, but easily inferred
I'm not sure why I remembered WES Unseld (35A). I had other things on my mind in 1969, like final exams.
Generally good write-up but I must take issue with the identification of Star Trek as movie-related. As a long-time Star Trek fan, I can gently point out that Star Trek is primarily a tv-show and, of course, cultural phenomenon (and entire universe). There are movies based on the series but ST is not specifically a movie reference.
Easy Friday for me except for the SW, where I wanted "exam" instead of TEST and took a while to get LOSEATURN and LEGOART. Never heard of ASTATINE, but got it from the crosses. Happy to solve a Friday without cheating.
One nit...a CPA ranks higher than a bookkeeper in business.
Easy Friday. Nice palate cleanser.
I liked seeing that SPACESHIP high up in LINE A.
"Looks good!" before FOR THE WIN threw me for a loop, but otherwise I found it a really easy Friday puzzle. Like @Bob Mills, never heard of ASTATINE but the crosses were fair. Nice end to the week.
I had PAPARAZZO as my first guess, and the use of "one," which to me usually implies a human, or at least an animate, being really threw me for a bit. I think it's fair to say that WES Unseld is obscure, but maybe not ridiculously so. As someone who hasn't followed basketball other than in the most casual way for a couple of decades, his name was lodged in my brain somewhere.
Hi Rafa-
I solved this with my twenty-year old cat sitting next to me so some correspondence there. Not sure how you never heard SHAG for flies, but it was the first thing I thought of. And Spanish speakers do in fact say SISI, but otherwise we're pretty much on the same page.
Hand up for LOOS and the mystery element ASTATINE. Also, CUBER? New to me. And found out that there is a GOOGLEBOT out there somewhere. One more thing to worry about.
We have the AGASP and AFIRE pair, but no ATILT or others I could mention. Thank goodness.
Didn't count but @Roo must be in F heaven today.
I liked your Friday very much, ALK. A Little Knowledge (I know it's "learning,". but I need the K) may be a dangerous thing, but very helpful today. Thanks for all the fun.
Easy for a Friday and no idea why when looking at the completed puzzle. Really enjoyed the write up this morning although I did miss OFL’s biting wit.
Rafa, kudos for owning up to the gaps in your knowledge that you’re not particularly eager to fill. Though I’m shocked—shocked!—by your ignorance of movies, I proudly share your lack of interest in baseball, which for me extends to all team sports. I’m a fairly active, outdoorsy guy; I just don’t care for organized fun that involves spherical objects. For me, those sports exist primarily to pose interesting crossword challenges.
Speaking of which, today’s puzzle was fun—almost too whoosh-whoosh, in that it was over too soon. CUBER (a new word for me) made me remember how JFK pronounced “Cuba.” And then, a moment later, there was JFK in the clue for BIDEN.
Those of us who are now retired but used to be self-employed may remember filing our taxes by hand, pre-software. We certainly recall that Schedule C begins with line A. What a pain that was! But what a delight was this puzzle, along with a lively writeup. Thanks, August L-K, and thanks, Rafa!
I liked most of this puzzle, with NW and SE being the most challenging part for me. I liked the MOLAR/TALON pair. I think SISI shows up in Spanish about as much as "yes, yes" does in English, so the clue felt legit (certainly better than having to know that "una corrida" earlier this week). I think the clue on "DOOMSDAY MACHINE" was a bit of a lost opportunity to have more fun. I don't think of mad scientists as particular prone to creating doomsday machines, with one notable exception--and if you wanted to take the clue in a Dr. Strangelove direction, why not do so a bit more directly?
Got a new ipad recently and it refuses to remember my “name”, so sometimes I’m anonymous against my will.
A fun Friday, lots of things not initially obvious but quickly becoming clear. A little trouble in the “they might grab a bite” section. I’m with you on sports trivia, Rafi! I almost never know these, but luckily my husband is usually nearby and often does know. Therefore, no problem with WES because he knew that one right away.
I also looked for something paparazzi-ish for 1A, and had loos before CANS (which in my opinion is a very crass term). And good old Mary-Kate and Ashley, I wonder how they’re doing?
agasp? really?
Memorable moment: As it looked at answers LEGOART and LETMEGO, my brain shouted, “Leggo my Eggo!”
Star of the puzzle: DOOMSDAY MACHINE. Looks gorgeous spanning the grid, is an answer debut not only for the Times, but has also never appeared in any of the major Crosslandia outlets. Had to be a seed entry.
Notable fact: August (the constructor) was 14 in 2021, when his first Times puzzle was published (today is his fifth).
Triumphant moment: Pulling KINTE out of a decades-long hibernation in my brain.
Solve snapshot: Some sticky spots, some splat fills, both of which happified my brain. Thumbs up, therefore, for a splendid outing. Thank you so much for this, August!
Should you be hankering for a bit more crosswording, I have a themed puzzle in today’s Washington Post / Los Angeles Times. It’s free, and you can solve it online or print it out. If you give it a shot, I hope you enjoy it!
Ditto for Paparazzi and Loos. The NW was the last part of my solve because of those.
My Friday average is 16+, this was 11 mins so either it was easy for a Friday or I'm getting quicker. Since reading, thinking and typing in the answers, with all the errors and retypes that entails, takes me nearly 7 mins on a Monday, I'd say the former is more likely. The puzzle offered virtually 0 ohms.
A very enjoyable Friday for me - probably the majority was Wednesday-level difficulty which allows me to keep making progress, and it’s Friday so of course I expect to bump into the items which amp up the difficulty a bit (SISI x ASTATINE, for example).
This is the type of grid that will keep intermediate-level solvers like me coming back and hoping to improve on the weekends - so I hope the hardcore solvers among us will indulge us a bit when we get a confidence builder like this every now and then.
Just finished your puzz and had a lot of fun Thanks!
Highly recommended.
My issue with 3-1-4 was that in no sport (that I’m aware of) is it likely to have more ties than combined wins+losses. 5-3-1 would have been better (thinking hockey) or maybe 11-6-1 for football.
@Lewis -- loved your puzzle! You had me at 1A, but my five favorite clues were: 19A, 21A, 25A, 25D, and 39D.
It's not even a question of rank. One is a certification, the other a function - and, more importantly, a function that one does not need the certification to do and do well.
I've been in organizational finance for 19 years, and I've never met a bookkeeper who is a CPA or vice versa. It's like having a clue "Orderlies" and the answer is MDS. Completely different (and both necessary!) functions in a similar setting.
Easy for me until the SE. Never heard of ASTATINE, and have never seen LAM used as a verb (although I see from the dictionary that supposedly it can be used as one). AFIRE is also pretty sus IMO. fun otherwise, though.
Nice puz! Never thought of a possible paparazzi angle at 1A, but wanted NASA-something. Couldn’t think of the something, so BAGged it and moved on. The NE corner was my true starting place. Didn’t get TAFFY at 10A at first, but AGORA, DEREK Walcott and SITE were gimmes, which unlocked all those downs. I did, however, make the SwAt/SHAG error, so that was unhelpful for a bit.
I more or less whooshed around the northern half and the SW corner, despite CUBER and GOOGLEBOT, which I didn’t know. But I eventually got to the point where the grid was completed except for the SE which was totally blank. Uh-oh. Part of the problem was that I had giST for MUST [Essential] at 45A. That precluded my getting MOLARS and UNTIDY. Tax forms are different in Canada, so I had no chance at LINE A and the radioactive element was beyond my ken. And just to compound the problem, I popped in “lean” for TILT, “run” for LAM and “drunk” in response to [Lit]. Oh dear.
But I did get something right, which was RELO. So how did I get out of this mess without looking anything up? I suddenly thought of RIFE for [Bursting (with)], so removed “drunk” and put in AFIRE. Then rethought giST and replaced it with MUST. I’d thought of LAM before “run,” so decided to try it. I could then see ALERT and MONEY shaping up at the ends of 61A and 63A respectively, and added EASY before MONEY. Took out “tilt” on the grounds that all my early answers in this corner had proven wrong, then saw that [Chaotic] started with U and ended with Y and was probably UNTIDY. And, well, you know how it goes, the rest followed from there. So, against all odds, I achieved a clean finish in a decent time – thanks, August Lee-Kovach!
Nerd alert, doomsday machine, spaceship, megastore, I nailed it…all the marquee answers are stale, old fashioned, stodgy, and tepid. I dunno. Just lies there and does nothing. Boring and out of date.
I tried PAPARAZZI too, even though I had very little hope for it.
Hey All !
Crunchy enough, especially the SW corner. Last section to fall. CUBER? New term here. I'm CUBER-adjacent. At least just on the NYT crosswords. Others types of puzs vary.
Anyway, also down there GOOGLEBOT and TREY as clued. Plus, next to the SW corner (SW adjacent [har, this coming from the Farmers Insurance commercial]) there's ASTATINE, which thankfully crossers helped.
IkilLEDIT first for INAILEDIT. Wanted Nixon for BIDEN off just the I. exam-TEST, lean-TILT, SwAt-SHoo-SHAG.
Good FriPuz. Most brain cells still intact.
Have a great Friday!
Six F's (See? It can be done! 😁)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Rafa, I’ve enjoyed your blogs and loved the photo of your beautiful Georgia. My delightful puzzle-solving scenario has at least one cat and occasionally a dog in close proximity. Space and positions are first come, first served, and I leave it to them to work that out. I prefer not to get involved unless claws or teeth start to emerge.
I thought this was an exceptionally pleasant Friday puzzle, but perhaps that was my expectation when I saw the August (“respected and dignified”) name on the byline. Not as difficult as some but certainly not EASY. Always grateful for a Friday or an occasional Saturday which allows this aspiring CUBER to declare I NAILED IT!
Speaking of TALON, if you haven’t been watching any of the Eagle Cams on Facebook and YouTube, you are missing out on a chance to GO SEE something incredible. I’ve been watching the family at “Friends of Big Bear Valley” in California since the mating season began. I cried tears of joy when their three precious little chicks hatched and wept with genuine sorrow when one was lost during a bad winter storm. The two remaining chicks, named Sunny and Gizmo, are now 10 weeks old and on the brink of fledging from the nest. Literally on the brink, as in standing at the edge while flapping their wings. So anticipation is building for the big breathless moment which should happen sometime in the next 2 to 4 weeks.
Richard Nixon was one of only two US presidents who were of the Quaker faith, with Herbert Hoover being the other. Just a little bit of useless trivia there for you to start your weekend.
Why pick PENDULUM -- a common enough word -- as your word of the day, when you have CUBER and ASTATINE?
I do puzzles all the time, though I'm far from "superfast" -- and I have no idea what a CUBER is. And as far as ASTATINE goes -- I was looking for one of the "iums", URANIUM or PLUTONIUM, but, alas, neither of them fit.
I was slowed down in the NW by writing in L??S at 4D for "WCs". It had to be LOOS or LAVS, right? Well, no, actually it didn't. And that "L" kept me from seeing SPACESHIPS.
Some easy cluing mixed with some tough cluing. So I suppose a medium puzzle. And not too many names. I was helped by STEFFI and WES. Even I know the OLSENS, even though I have no idea what they look like or what they do. I thought for the longest time I'd have to cheat on TESSA, but it turns out I didn't. Loved DOOMSDAY MACHINE. (The next one, I'm quite sure, will be brought to us by AI, maybe in the form of a GOOGLE BOT.) A nice Friday with entertaining fill, I thought.
Esp is extra, not second. Agasp is not really a word. Cpa's do not fancy thenselves as bookkeepers. And arbitrarily suggesting that 3-1-4 is spme sort of W-L record is absurd. Sloppy
Bravo, Lewis! You’re a gifted constructor who always considers the solver’s mindset. So many AHAs!!!
Last night saw a very interesting documentary on Brian ENO, at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, in celebration of his 77th birthday. No mention of his major presence in Crossworld!
Oh, the ignominy.. I didn't know ASTATINE, needed all the crosses. So much for my science cred. And I can't quote Star Trek either, except for "Beam me up, Scotty!"
So the puzzle has some nice stuff in it; I mean, who doesn't like a DDOMSDAY MACHINE? I CAN'T EVEN! But then there's CUBER, grabbing a bite with your MOLARS (try it!), SISI. And why does the announcer call FOR THE WIN before the shot? So it was an UNTIDY puzzle, I guess.
I really enjoyed your puzzle. It was quite hard until I, um, cracked the theme.
Knew you'd like the F's. Also TESSA is a granddaughter so 1/4 pt. there. Here I come.
Nixon was, famously and ironically, a Quaker.
Nancy, I think it must be someone who's good at solving Rubik's Cube--I'm just going on plausibility, though, never heard the term.
Bit of a disguised ego theme with FREUD and all the first person stuff going on: ICANTEVEN, INAILEDIT, IAM and LETMEGO.
If I were PRONE to being massaged, I'd probably lie down.
The SHETLANDISLANDS, as you may remember, are ANDY. But did you know that the local garb there is peasants pants, which are ANTSY?
For those who shake their heads about speed solvers doing crosswords faster than you could simply copy the answers from a solved puzzle, the record for solving Rubin's Cube (this is what CUBERS do) is 3.05 seconds!
Some tough cluing, especially in the SE, but kinda whooshy elsewhere. Thanks, August Lee-Kovach.
Do MOLARS grab? I think of them as chomping and crushing, but not grabbing. My very last letter was that L, and I was grumpy to find that it was right.
Enjoyed remembering Dr Strangelove with the DOOMSDAY MACHINE. Rafa’s comment that it was too close for comfort made me reflect about how odd it in fact was that we (humans…I wasn’t alive back then) laughed at things like that during the Cold War. I guess sometimes we need to release tension one way or another, whether by laughing or by crying.
And now that I’m remembering Dr Strangelove, I’m remembering James Earl Jones. RIP.
Speaking of movies, I'm assuming that "Peanuts" clue refers to one. Since Peanuts is a comic strip, it doesn't really have sound effects--or adults, for that matter--so that one stumped me for a while.
Personally, growing up on the Great Lakes, I never encountered TAFFY until I moved east and went to various beaches and boardwalks. Our carnival treat was cotton candy.
CUBER? ASTATINE? And I agree with @jhcohen99 re: CPA/BOOKKEEPER
Did I mention that I miss Robyn W. :(
Wesley Unseld passed away at the age of 74 in 2020. He's in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He is the only player other than Wilt Chamberlain to win the MVP and Rookie of the Year awards in the same year. In his 984-game career, he averaged a double-double in points and rebounds. I agree, though, his name is relatively obscure in general. Maybe he should be in the Hall of a little bit of Fame.
Medium for me, and I enjoyed the just-right Friday pace (steady progress, occasional pauses to stop and think, no moments of despair). I liked the cross of DOOMSDAY MACHINE and TICKS (though I'm not sure a timing device is involved).
Do-over: cameraman before SPACESHIP.
Help from having lived in Baltimore: WES. Help from previous puzzles: I CAN'T EVEN, TESSA, LAM. No idea: ASTATINE.
Entirely agree about TAFFY. My first thought was sno-cone.
Great puzzle, Lewis! Thanks for sharing here!
Could someone explain how the 1 of 3-1-4 means LOSS? Thanks.
Loved your write-up, Rafa. Your quirky personality shines through…and I laughed with delight a bunch of times!
Strangely enough, I put spaceship as my first answer, and it turned out to be correct
That was my issue with that clue also. I mean, the constructor (or editor) could have used any numbers they wanted there, and they chose something nonsensical, likely just to make it harder to discern what was going on. Not a good way to add difficulty to a puzzle IMO.
I think I've heard “For the win” on a TV game show. Not familiar enough with math, science, or trivia contests to know if the same phrase is used there.
Ah, 1969. That’s the year that the New York teams owned Baltimore - knocking all three out of the playoffs.
Every Oriole met his Met,
Every Baltimore Colt his Jet,
Every Bullet missed its Knick,
Every Baltimore fan was sick.
The original Star Trek had an episode titled “The Doomsday Machine” with guest star William Windom. Not sure if that clue was purposeful or not, but I thought it was a NERDALERT LOL
Lo he conseguido... y he ganado.
Nice. So many fun words. Is it TICKS or is it TOCKS, that is the question on how time passes. Still love the ADULT trombone on Peanuts.
GOOGLE BOT sounds risqué.
Last year I was in Pecos, New Mexico, standing in line at the most run-down gas station on Earth behind the oldest woman on Earth writing a check. So, yeah, I've spent some time in Pecos.
People: 9
Places: 3
Products: 2
Partials: 6
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 23 of 72 (32%)
Funnyisms: 3 😐
Uniclues:
1 Why the warp drive is gummed up.
2 IKEA in Athens.
3 Warning: You will swoon when you meet Gandalf.
4 One scrolling judgmentally through the dark web.
5 Tea on Graf.
6 Humorous keepsakes from the cannibal's gift shop.
7 [Make your own politically biased joke here.]
1 SPACESHIP TAFFY
2 MEGASTORE AGORA
3 PRONE NERD ALERT
4 AGASP GOOGLE BOT
5 STEFFI DIRT
6 PENDULUM MOLARS
7 BIDEN FOR THE WIN (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: "Yes Dear" deer. HART BEATEN DOWN.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
All of The Peanuts/Charlie Brown TV specials feature the trombone “voice” for adults. It’s a staple of those specials. And I would argue most people of a certain age-Gen Xers mainly-know The Peanuts more from those specials than as a comic strip.
I'm a relative newbie, and this was the first Friday puzzle I solved with no look-ups, cheats, or checks. Feeling good!!
Peanuts was on TV - first and foremost as a Christmas special with music by Vince Guaraldi
As a CPA I Thank you for pointing that out.
Arsenal's final standings in the English Premier League was 18 - 4 - 14, so a start of 3 - 1 - 4 is not too far fetched
I liked MEGASTORE and AGORA sharing a line. Rex might have bemoaned the relative ease of this but I'm with Rafa.
@Anon 8:04 Think soccer (real football)
Cuber means a person who does cube puzzles. The person may be superfast or superslow. Bad clue.
Three wins, one loss, four ties. That's usually the order stats are listed in in games where ties are possible. The problem with this clue, though, is that four ties is a REALLY unusual stat.
I found this puzzle unbelievably challenging. I had a nice start, and then I just hit a wall with some of the words/facts I had never seen/never knew (cuber... astatine... The Getty... shag...) and several clues (50a, e.g.). Embarrassing show for me. I did NOT nail it...
Boy, I misread what your cat was doing… I thought it was eating the grapes and said “Noooooooo! Grapes are poisonous to dogs and cats!” Reread and realized it was only purring, not munching on grapes - whew!
Most of the stuff I was going to comment on has already appeared (paparazzo, anyone?) so I'll edit my list. Most of my solving experience echoed that od @Barbara S. with numerous wrong guesses on the shorter fill. Most were easily corrected and I didn't mind them because I'm not a speed solver, but the one I hung onto the longest was 4D CANS. The clue, W.C.s, is, at least in my mind, very British. I've heard it from most of my Brit friends and relatives. Can't remember any of them saying CANS. So, British clue needs a British answer and loos was that answer, until it wasn't. By the way, I grew up saying CANS. Maybe a western Canadian thing?
My dumbest mistake was probably assuming that the unknown 38D, being an element, would end in "ium". Aaaargh! Stupid move. I don't even really know how many elements end that way. Plutonium, uranium ... that's all I got.
DOOMSDAYMACHINE, of course, reminded me of Dr. Strangelove, one of the great Stanley Kubrick's best.
Enjoyed ambling through this puzzle. Nice work, August. And a very entertaining write-up by Rafa. I wish my dog would join me when I'm doing the puzzle but i do it in my studio where I can smoke and Pablo gets a bit uppity about that.
Not necessarily. This would not be unusual in European football (soccer).
yep. I can verify it ... a themeless puz.
With primo DOOMSDAYMACHINE apt present-news seed entry.
staff weeject pick: SOY. Which just screams out for a foreign translation.
some faves, amongst many cool longball entries: SPACESHIP [which had one of them ultra-quite rare ?-marker clues]. ICANTEVEN. LOSEATURN. INAILEDIT. NERDALERT. PENDULUM.
Also liked the cryptic LOSS clue.
And that LE(TME)GO did indeed employ some LE-GO ART.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Lee-Kovach dude. Nice job.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
... They said it shouldn't be done ... one puz with two separate themes! ...
"And Another Theme ..." 7x7 12 min. double-themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Names/proper nouns I had no clue about -- TESSA, OLSENS (Still no idea who the hell "Mary-Kate and Ashley" even are), LEGO ART (there's really such a thing?! What's next -- BARBIE PORTRAITURE??!!) . . .
Great puzzle, Lewis - thank you so much :)
@Dominic 12:23 PM
Woo hoo! Congrats. A worthy milestone for every solver.
@Rafa
I'll give you $50 for Georgia. When can I pick her up?
@nancy et al -- @peamut, correct. Arsenal's record this year was 18 wins/4 losses/14 draws so could have been 3-1-4 early in the season
Easy for me, except where it wasn't - i.e., the SE. That's because I ended that unknown element with IUM. I had the AST and assumed correctly that "Bravo, me!" had to begin with I. So, IUM, of course. Um...
Not super uncommon in soccer
Astatine is a chemical element with symbol At and atomic number 85. It is the rarest naturally occurring element in the earth's crust, occurring only as the decay product of various heavier elements. A sample of the pure element has never been assembled, because any macroscopic specimen would be immediately vaporized by the heat of its own radioactivity.
That's copied from an app I have on my phone called ATOMIC, which is there for idle browsing when I have a minute or two to kill.
Fun puzzle, thanks!
I really wanted DAMN IT JIM for 61 across.
Nice to be reminded of one of my all-time favorite movies Dr. Strangelove at 36A DOOMSDAY MACHINE. Sooo many scenes are permanently etched in my memory. When, for example, President Merkin Muffley (Peter Seelers) asks the Russian Ambassador Alexi de Sadeski (Peter Bull) how he learned about a top secret U.S. program, Sadeski leans over and whispers "I read about it in the New York Times".
Another scene apropos of some recent political happenings is when General Jack D. Ripper tells Group Captain Lionel Mandrake about "Water and Commies". Here's a 2:41 YouTube video of that darkly hilarious scene. Looks like Ripper has grabbed a bite of his cigar with his MOLARS.
I've heard 50A BAG used to mean "Capture" but never for "abandon", as clued.
They say playing poker is a hard way to earn EASY MONEY. I can attest to that.
I always think of "Pendulum" as the sixth Creedence Clearwater Revival studio album, released late 1970, and the final one before Tom Fogerty, rhythm guitarist and elder brother of bandleader John Fogerty, quit the band to go solo, leaving Creedence a trio until its break up in 1972.
Obviously not soccer, or in Europe football, fans.
@ghostoflecteicity - wholly agree with you.
Cuber was clued erroneously. It means someone who solves cube puzzles, not someone who is fast at solving them.
I was going to do that, but I think I'll bag it, for example.
Hey Rafa, nice to hear from you today. Always very pleased to see you, Malaika and Clare. My start mostly mirrored yours. I thought MEGA mart and felt MEGA STORE was a stretch to satisfy the grid rather than something actually of use regularly. The remainder did in fact give me the whoosh I happily anticipate on Friday and once I broke in, I was on my way.
I usually dislike using the same clue for multiple answers but today’s worked better than usual and once you get one the other is obvious. Learned CUBER. Never heard or seen it before so as with all things “hip” (to revert to yesterday) or of internet ambit, I am usually lost. Although I do know GOOGLE BOT from XWs.
What I really enjoyed today was the mix of genres and old/new. CUBER against the OLSENS and LOSE A TURN (reminding me of kids’ games like Candy Land (that appeared recently).
SHAG would have needed help but the crosses: AGEISM (RIFE in the office of my former employer!), FOR THE WIN, and FREE AGENT did it for me. Why does a sports fanatic not get SHAG some flies? She misread the clue as
f-i-l-e-s. See, my prescription specs need a stronger bifocal and I’m too cheap to pay for whole new lenses so I have cheaters - and obviously need to get stronger ones!
Fun Friday. Appropriately whooshy, a little crunch and some clever word play. Only one side-eye (MEGA STORE). So nicely done from our newish constructor well on his way to becoming a regular.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Nice puzzle Lewis. Loved 34A and 39D and they are related. All the themers were good as well. Did not like 53&54D two foreign-isms next door.
Okanaganer
I am a Boomer who is not good at sports names but WES was almost a gimme even for me. Perhaps with younger people his name is obscure but definitely not for my age group. So it’s an age thing
It's probably a buzzer beater taken as time expires. If it goes in, that team wins. So "FOR THE WIN!" is said to tell the viewers how important the shot is as it's unfolding. It's to stir up excitement. I actually like it a lot when sports announcers do that.
Jberg
The first TV special in 1965, A Charlie Brown Christmas was very famous. It appeared every year on TV for almost six decades until Amazon bought the rights. There have more than a few others since. I never saw any of the others but I assume in all of them adults are represented by trombones. Hence the clue
@Lewis: Primo puztheme clues. Different theme idea. Liked. Congratz.
M&A
Just want to brag that astatine was a gimme for me. Worked in nuclear physics for many years.
@Les S More 2:19pm: astatine follows the naming pattern of its column in the periodic table: fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, astatine, and recently synthesized tennessine.
chaotic is well, chaotic untidy is a little well, untidy big difference
If there are not baseball and movies in heaven, I shall not go.
Wes
The Pearl
The Big E
Real basketball. All gimmes
Entire generations know Star Trek only through the movies. Fair clue you (and I) are just old 😊
Hard Friday, and an unpleasant one. The 48A/45A clue echo did not work at all. CUBER, GETTY, LINE A. Just not good cluing. SPACE SHIP, SISI, it just goes on and on.
Now THIS is a great Friday puzzle! Breezy, fun, no sloggy slowdowns…a gem! A good warmup for Saturday…bring it on! Four out of five YAKs
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