Depictions of Arcadia / SAT 6-28-25 / State for "The Shawshank Redemption" / Wedding presider of Greek mythology / Hungarian has 18 of them (yikes!)
Constructor: Jesse Guzman
Relative difficulty: Pretty Easy, I think? (I sliced my thumb cooking dinner two nights ago, and thanks to the bandage, I'm basically solving one-handed on my phone)
THEME: NONE
Word of the Day: ANGELICA (45A:Sweet wine of California) —
Some varieties consist of the unfermented grape juice fortified with brandy or clear spirit immediately after pressing. Others are made like port, where the only partially fermented wine, still retaining a large amount of sugar, is infused with brandy. The relatively high alcohol of the brandy arrests the fermentation, leaving a fortified wine high in alcohol and high in residual sugar (usually about 10 to 15%). It is typically made from 50% Mission wine and 50% Mission brandy.[2]
Angelica dates to the Mission period in California and its name is thought to be taken from the city of Los Angeles.[3] It was produced by the Franciscan missionaries and is one of the first wines made in the state. Several California producers continue to produce Mission-based Angelica.
The wine is sometimes made in a simple style and is inexpensive. Some is made with great care from ancient vines and can be quite expensive. Bottles of Angelica as old as 1870 can still be found and show great distinction.
• • •
Hey everyone, it's Eli filling in for the next couple of days. You'll have to excuse me if I'm a little distracted today, since my wife and I adopted this 130 pound sweetheart today:
Meet Huckleberry!
But enough about me, on to the puzzle!
This played fast and pretty fun for me. I'm still learning to construct, but this seems like a pretty small word count. Nothing held me up too much, and I'm not seeing much I wasn't familiar with. I imagine solvers of the pre-Nintendo era may have trouble with the mini theme between BOWSER (1A: Fire-breathing antagonist of Mario in the Mario universe) and KOOPA TROOPA (16D: Turtle-shelled flunky of 1-Across), but anyone my age or younger probably dropped those in without thinking. My head also went Nintendo on OCARINA (2D: Light Winds) thanks to Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one.
The only thing that stood out to me as unknown, was ANGELICA (45A: Sweet wine of California). I live in California, I enjoy wine, and in fact I live in the city that is apparently the namesake of this wine. But I can confidently say I've never heard of it. I've almost certainly never had it. In this house, we only recognize one Angelica:
The crossing triple stacks are impressive. Of the acrosses, SANTA TRACKER (26A: Deer stalking aid?) is probably my favorite, even though it took me waaaaayyyyyy too long to realize the clue was referring to reindeer. SEALED THE DEAL (29A: Shook hands, say) went in instantly without any crosses and CAMERA LENSES (32A: They focus on subjects of interest) bores me a bit for some reason. On the downs, surrounding KOOPA TROOPA with DAISY CHAINS (14D: Midsummer head decorations) and TOUR DE FORCE (18D: Receiver of a four-star review) worked amazingly well. That's not the first definition of DAISY CHAIN I think of, and TOUR DE FORCE made me excited for the Tour de France (which starts next week), but both of those things just made it feel fresh for me.
31-Down
Other Thoughts:
16A: Shot (KABLOOEY) — My first thought was Don Martin from MAD, but I couldn't find any images that actually used the word "kablooey." You can see where I would assume one would exist, though:
13A: Colorful treat on a stick (ICE POP) — Is an ice pop always colorful? Isn't ice just... clear? Popsicles are colorful, sure, but even a lemon ice pop can be a tepid yellow. Maybe this is just a regionalism.
7A: Exercise with Yang and Wu styles (TAI CHI) — Bringing this up because I have a brand to keep.
I think that's all I've got for today. I didn't even call out KAREN Gillan (22D), but what is there to say except that I think she's great? Nice puzzle today; I had fun!
I did have the pleasure last weekend to take part in the Westwords tournament in Berkeley, and as is always the case at crosswords events, I spent a lot of time hanging out with absolutely fantastic people in addition to solving some amazing puzzles. It was an absolute blast, and I encourage everyone to go to a tournament, no matter what your solving level. I'll see you all back here tomorrow!
Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld
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Pretty easy for me too even though BOWSER and KOOPA… were major WOEs (I may be a skosh older than @Eli). I also did not know ANGELICA, KAREN, and HERON (as clued). Having no costly erasures was helpful as was putting in SEAL THE DEAL and LEAN ON ME with almost no crosses.
@Eli, Huckleberry looks amazing! Best of luck to all of you!
Uber challenging at first. I couldn't get a toehold. This pre-Nintendo solver needed Sergey and Larry for 16D, although I was somehow able to dredge 1A BOWSER out of my synapses. With KOOPA TROOPA in place the puzzle became Easy-Medium for a Saturday.
Overwrites: 4D: oPinE before SPOKE 21D: GOT ya before EM 25A: I thought that Hungarian might have 18 yeSES (words meaning yes) instead of CASES
WOES: The aforementioned KOOPA TROOPA at 16D. KAREN Gillan at 22D. I'm not a resident of Whoville. @Eli ANGELICA as a wine (45A)
AMA before EPA kept me from getting the SW for far too long. Otherwise I agree with @Eli--BOWSER and KOOPATROOPA were gimmes. Interestingly, I got CAMERA LENSES with no crosses but needed a few for both SEALED THE DEAL and SANTA TRACKER. Not as easy as yesterday but not as hard as some Saturdays.
BOWSER went right in, and I’m the right age for knowing old-school Nintendo references, but unfortunately I was the little sister who mostly just watched my brother playing games, so KOOPA TROOPA—I could see him in my head, but never knew his name. Of the triple stacks, for some reason the acrosses all went in early for me, and the downs only eked in at the very end. The last O in KOOPA TROOPA was my last entry, which I guessed on sound alone, and I still don’t understand the crossing with MOONY. Perhaps someone might kindly explain it? But all told, an impressively clean puzzle, almost entirely junk-free. DAISY CHAIN and ASTERISK were my favorites, but there was a lot to like.
That second O (crossing a video game character I never heard of) was my last letter in, after mentally running the alphabet. Even after I got the happy music, I had to think about it for a while.
Think moonstruck - crushing so much on someone that you begin to act abnormally. It's a term that has been around since at least the 17th century and is grounded in the superstition that the moon could exert control over one's mind. In modern days, think of the movie Moonstruck, a comedy romcom that riffed on this these (for which Cher won the best actress Oscar) and the old standard popularized by Dean Martin That's Amore ("when the moon hits your eye like a big piece of pie, that's amore").
So, no, the constructor is not the only person who has ever uttered it.
The other day Lewis wrote eloquently about that feeling where your first pass through a puzzle leaves lots of white space that looks insurmountable, but you chip away at it and soon everything is falling into place. That was today’s puzzle for me: frustration, then elation. A fun Saturday challenge, Jesse Guzman. Followed by a nice write-up by Eli. Thanks to you both!
Well, Jesse, you had me at DAWDLED over KABLOOEY. At that point, you didn’t have to pad the goodies. But you did:
• Crossing triple stacks with no ugly crosses, and with five of the six answers pulsing with verve. Wow! • Saturday-worthy clues taking a set of mostly commonly-known words, and hiding them in mystery. • A grid design free of scattershot black squares, lovely to look at, and first time ever in the Times. • The high-level skill to make an uber-low 66-worder – look at all those chunks o’ white! – so clean.
And, Jesse, you have a chance to make crossword history. Only one constructor (Andrew Ries) has hit the cycle (a puzzle for every day of the week) in their first seven NYT puzzles, but none has done it with the seven days in order. Your first three puzzles are TH, FR, SA – Go for it!
In any case, in just three puzzles you’ve shown you have The Knack, that ability to craft first class crosswords. Please don’t be a stranger, and thank you for a splendid outing today!
This was on the harder side for me.... probably just on the challenging side of medium. 27 minutes. Kablooey was tough as clued. I had no idea SARONGs were unisex. And I needed lots of crosses for BOWSER and the turtle to come into view... not being much of a video gamer. At least I'm aware of BOWSER. Bottom was way easier for me--PRONTO, ATLAST, APHID, STEPONE, TODATE all going in pretty quick. ANGELICA was a WOE. Had RuCKus before RACKET, and couldn't think of HERON till I got some of those crosses. Loved the triple stack in the middle--very nice. Thanks Jesse for a great puzzle! : )
Right? I feel like I’ve seen one or two men wearing sarongs ever in my life — notably, Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty — but he’s such an eccentric you might just think he’s wearing a typically feminine accessory
I got a good chuckle out of what I consider the big four of today (OCARINAS, KOOPA TROOPA, KABLOOEY and MOONY) - individually, they each look and sound goofy in their own right - as a foursome they are definitely formidable. They definitely elicited a hearty HEE HEE from this solver.
Pleasant workout for a themeless. Except for MOONY.
I did look up the turtle's name because life is too short to give a tinker's damn about video games. And there are so many funny ways to clue KAREN, but you go with Dr. Who. Lamé.
How have I never heard of Arcadia? It sounds lovely. Well, lovelier than here in the last hours of a Republic voted out by cult members and supported by a court voting itself out of existence.
GO TEM is what you shout after you give the cheerleaders an A and they don't give it back.
Looking at TAI CHI as an outsider, I would argue it only has one style -- old people being weird in the park style. They compete for space with the white ladies in the park yoga.
I tried to learn "good morning" from a Hungarian hostess in Budapest, but stuck with English on subsequent mornings as my face wasn't prepared to cooperate with that language.
By the logic of the puzzle, a SANTA TRACKER also stalks his accoutrements, so it's also a fat belly tracker obviously.
CAMERA LENSES don't focus on areas of interest, people focus on areas of interest, and the government will have to pry my camera lenses out of my cold dead hands. I bought a lens last week. They're unpleasantly expensive especially when my phone has half a dozen free ones on it.
Four-star review (out of how any possible stars)? Star reviews are not a standardized system of measurement.
Girls don't sing power ballads. Boys with long hair sing power ballads. These days you hafta look close to tell the difference, partly because everybody (?) is wearing SARONGS.
1 Valises filled with ramen for Yoko. 2 Bug ate the flowers on the way. 3 Phrase shouted during Zelda-nerd gatherings. 4 Copy-Pastes a star.
1 ONO SOUPY CASES 2 APHID FOILS TAO 3 OCARINAS! PRONTO! 4 CLONES ASTERISK
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: After decades of fruitless searching, the likely feeling among SETI staff when Zaphod Beeblebrox arrives with his fleet. UFOS! WHAT A TREAT!.
Hard for me, an octogenarian out of touch with popular culture. Cheated to get KAREN, LEANONME and BOWSER. Made a lucky guess to get CELINE. Never heard of KOOPATROOPA, and hope I never hear of it again. Not an enjoyable Friday, but a well constructed grid nonetheless.
Men wear SARONGs? You could have fooled me. Wonder how many others were completely KABLOOEYed by the "unisex" clue? Nor do I know what an RPG is; I had written in "aPp".
I was also KABLOOEYed by the two Mario Universe clues -- and I'm afraid I never forgave you for these, Jesse. It's long been my feeling that 1A and 1D set the tone for a puzzle, so I was off to a really disgruntled start with Mario's antagonist. Who the bleep cares? But who knew how much worse it was going to get with KOOPATROOPA? That's when I almost said WE'RE DONE and almost hurled the puzzle into the wall, where it would have gone KERBLOOEY, btw.
Because I do like puzzles with a lot of white space, I hung around -- and was rewarded by TOUR DE FORCE, where I had wanted TOp something-or-other. all my errors seem to have been extraneous "P"s.
This turned out to be a nice, crunchy puzzle with some awful stuff that set my teeth on edge. This may be some of the pop culture stuff you like, Jesse, but always keep in mind that there may be solvers who like it not at all.
I am a man and I've owned a sarong for 20+ years. I know a few other men (and women) who also wear them. They're definitely unisex.
To help you in the future: RPG = Role Playing Game. In a less lighthearted context, it can also mean Rocket Propelled Grenade. That caused a bit of confusion for some of us during the W. era.
Hey All ! Another impossible-to-30-minute solve here. Amazing how that happens. Going from "Dang, this is a toughie! It's gonna take over an hour, probably with cheats!" to slowly filling answers in, not getting frazzled, to finishing correctly and cheat free in 31:37. I'm the man. 😁
Liked the different stagger step on the Central Acrosses. Normally, you get @M&A's Jaws in there (as in the Blockers providing the Long Downs), but it's neat to see just L-shaped Blockers providing the edges of the Long Acrosses.
A couple of cross reference clues. They're OK by me. A few writeovers, had OF IT at first for RIDE, 20A, with clue Word after full or free. Full OF IT, free OF IT. In my defense, I read the clue as WordS, not word. RuCKus-RACKET, hARPS-CARPS, diceup for clue Chop-chop before PRONTO, odedon(ODed on)-HOGGED.
SARONG seems like it should be a portmanteau of Sorry, wrong. Like on a gameshow, "Oh, SARONG. You lose a turn."
That's all the RACKET from me. Have a great Saturday!
Friend 1: Hey, have you found any interesting girls on eharmony? Friend 2: None TODATE. But, say, do we have enough beer for the party? Friend 1: We've got more CASES than the Hungarian language! Friend 2: 19?
I remember when my dad was getting on in years but still liked to offer me a drink. "You look like you're not enjoying your G & T son, did I forget something?" "ICEPOP".
My 7 year old granddaughter has kept me in touch with a lot of crossword-helpful pop phenomena, like all the characters from Frozen, which I've watched 6244 times by my rough count. Today her love of Nintendo was the gift that kept on giving. OTOH, who knew that D & D involved Rocket Propelled Grenades?
Give Huckleberry a hug for me, Eli. And thanks for a wonderful puzzle, Jesse Guzman.
@egsforbreakfast 9:25 AM Recent studies at Cambridge and Oxford have determined watching Frozen only three times feels like 6,244 times. They attribute the disphoria to granddaughters singing the theme song on repeat for six years afterward.
TIL two . , there's a dragon and a turtle in the Mario games and they have names. Talk about needing every cross. Also, BOWSER for me is the bass in Sha-Na-Na, and that's how this should be clued. Says me, that's who.
Also met KAREN today, how do you do? And hello to ANGELICA, another one of those solved-by-crosses things. Some faith solving needed for KABLOOEY and SANTATRACKER but they worked out. In short, this was pick-and-shovel work but with some inspired, if logical, guesswork involved, but got'er done, as they say.
Nice crunchy Saturday here, JG. Just Got enough stuff to make this one doable, and thanks for some hard-earned fun.
In other news I got to QB yesterday for the second time in a week. Usually this happens maybe once a month, so that's why it was in all the papers.
Definitely a challenge for me — 18 minutes over my average. May be one of those where some click with the constructor’s clueing style and some don’t. Put me in the second group. My dim knowledge of Mario lore didn’t help. Enjoyed the challenge though.
I’d bet you and I are the same age. 42. Plopped down both Nintendo answers. Ocarina took me a bit because I still don’t understand how that clue (plural) points to the singular instrument. Unless ocarina is its own plural…
Also, any time I see or hear taichi I think of that Lisa Simpson line.
What a surprise. I started out not liking it but ended up liking it a lot - pretty doable for Saturday with the exception of KOOPA TROOPA, KABLOOEY, KAREN (never heard of her), BOWSER. Yoko's been making a lot of appearances lately (ONO). I really liked TOUR DE FORCE. And of course, the pic of Huckleberry - best of luck, Eli :) And thank you, Jesse :)
Just chipping in from the sidelines—had to look up BOWSER and the turtle to get started. Another out-of-touch octogenarian here. However, it was still fun to work out the wordplay—it was a kind of guessing game wherein when you guessed right you found that the clue fit, rather than work forward from the clue itself. Does that make any sense at all? KABLOOEY!!
Puzzle seemed like a fairly average Saturday to me. I had to google the turtle name and the wine and like others, did not understand the clue for MOONY. Everything else was pretty smooth.
@Eli, congratulations on your new best friend! I can tell by his picture he’s gonna be a good one. Best wishes to you all.
For me, this would have been a 4-star TOUR DE FORCE, if it hadn't been for BOWSER and KOOPA TROOPA. I loved KABLOOEY and the long DAISY CHAINS, and enjoyed the misleading clues for the light winds and crushing. But not knowing anything about Mario's cohort made things very tough for me. I ended with a DNF,, guessing that the California wine was called ANGEL ICe. I'm happy for those who whooshed through with delight; for me, this one was in the TOILS category.
The OCARINA has nothing to do with Nintendo (!!) -- it's a well- known wind instrument, today usually considered a toy, based on a model known as a "vessel flute" that dates back thousands of years. Not sure when it was introduced into Europe, but I believe the current design was popularized in Italy sometime in the 19th Century.
We’re well aware that it’s a historic instrument, but there’s a very significant percentage of the population that will always think of a Nintendo game if you mention an ocarina
There is a famous video game called The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I had DaisyCrowns for too long, making the lower middle unsolvable. I live in "out of five stars" world so Tour De Force came through crosses. Overall good puzzle (except soonest?) and good writeup.
I had a DNF because of the NW corner, and it took me an hour and a half to get the rest of the puzzle. In the NW I had SARAPE and SPAKE; just couldn't come up with SARONG and SPOKE, and didn't get RPG. Oh well...I'm feeling proud of myself just for getting so much of this puzzle, which wasn't in my wheelhouse at all.
Finally managed to login. @Nancy, when you see old movies set in the South Seas men often wear a sarong wrapped around their wastes, with their chests bare.
Thanks for the reference to MAD Magazine. As for today's puzzle, Celine Dion isn't someone I would ever associate with power ballads, at least not as I would define them.
66-worder with The Jaws. Clearly destined to be a tricky themeless rodeo. But ... conquered the NW pronto, despite the Mario universe invasion. And then ... was totally doomed to start a whole new solvequest, to make any further progress. Headed next for the KABLOOEYfest corner.
Pretty easy SatPuz solvequest, tho. Once M&A had "done due research" on KOOPATROOPA, things fell into place pretty smoothly.
p.s. Real sorry about yer thumb stabbin, Eli dude. Thumbs up on yer dog pick, tho. Beginner's tip: Huckleberry's look means either: 1. Do you give belly rubs? 2. Got treats? 3. Can we go for a walk outside, already?
I don't understand how SEALEDTHEDEAL can go in without crosses... I had agreEDToaDEAL after I had the T and DEAL, then "proved" it with the E, sigh. Obviously I know the phrase but I just didn't think of it. Eventually I took it out giving up on W------g (couldn't think of an -ing ending) for WEREDONE but still.
I never know if this kind of thing is luck or skill. And if it's skill, what is the skill, exactly? I got the DEAL part off D--L but my solving of phrases like this often solves part but not all of the answer.
The puzzle is definitely for those who know Ninentendo. BOWSER, RPG, KOOPER TROOPER (I thought it must be SOOPA TROOPER)--yuck. And Dr. Who trivia (who watches that? No one I know.) But also, some of the cluing..."Most likely to succeed" for SOONEST? And"? Just not fun at all. Made me feel old instead of smart.
Yikes, so many Unknowns here: BOWSER KOOPTROOPA ANGELICA. KABLOOEY was impossible to get without crosses but is a fun word. OCARINAS baffled me; I was thinking: "Light winds" = SANTA ANAS?
Other typeovers: TEEHEE before HEEHEE, and SPEAK before SPOKE because that tricky verb "put" can be either present or past tense.
Never heard of Gillian KAREN, but just to the left is KELLY and I knew a Karen Kelly in high school!
Just trying to think if there’s anything I really like about this puzzle and … let’s not be hasty … but … no.
Knew I was in trouble at 1A. I’ve never been a real gamer but I did play some Mario games with my kids so, with the W in place, I got BOWSER but 16D KOOPATROOPA was beyond my recollective abilities. Until I sweated it out from crosses. And then were was just a lot of stuff I just didn’t know or just didn’t understand. I can be pretty thick sometimes.
For instance, how is a receiver of a four star review a TOURDEFORCE? Wouldn’t they be getting 5 stars? Who’s rating system are we using here? And even though I’ve watched some Dr. Who, am I supposed to remember KAREN Gillan? Oh yeah (googling her name post solve) she played Amy Pond. How could I ever have forgotten! And what am I missing here? Why is the SOONEST most likely to succeed? And why are PRISMS clued as having many faces. I thought they had 3. Does 3 mean many?
Ah, ANGELICA. Who has ever drank ANGELICA on purpose?
And, lastly, the noble HERON. I did not know they were related to bitterns. I do know that they are majestic creatures that frequent the 2 very slow moving creeks that cross our property. There have been a lot of them around this spring (the Great Blue variety) and I love them. I just wish they could get their timing right. If the herons arrive too early they eat all the frogs before the frogs can eat all the mosquito larvae which is why I’m typing this with one hand while swatting mosquitoes with the other.
TAO is not a "philosophy associated with" TAI CHI any more than absurdity is a philosophy associated with existentialism. TAO is a concept, like salvation, absurdity and freedom. TAO is associated with TAI CHI, but it is not a philosophy.
Editor: Replace "philosophy" with "concept" and you have a proper clue.
This took me a long time to get on plane. Never played Nintendo. All I had was ONO and KAREN and spent 30 scratching out the rest. ASTERISK was good, SOONEST was sis.
@RooMonster 2:10 PM Oddly, my wife signed us up to go see some Stephen King movie today, Life of Chuck, and it turns out Karen Gillan is in it. I am normally good at thinking up excuses not to go to movies -- Is it longer than 90 minutes for any reason except self-indulgent directorial editing? Are movies and popcorn still $50 when it'll be free on Netflix in two months? -- but this one got past me, so I'll report back on her cuteness. She might end up being the slasher for all I know, or worse, a Broadway show tunes aficionado.
Like others of us in the, uh, very mature demographic, I had no idea about BOWSER or KOOPAwhachacallit. Off to a rough start.
Then some good stuff like DAWDLED, SEAL THE DEAL and TOUR DE FORCE came along to flip the script.
With the 31D "Offer of support in a #1 Bill Withers hit" clue for LEAN ON ME in place, I think a nice clue for 34D would have been "1961 hit by Etta James" AT LAST.
My definition of a DAISY CHAIN would have nothing to do with "Midsummer head decorations", as clued. It would be much closer to the urbandictionary.com definition.
I also noticed that one DAISY CHAIN was a letter short of its slot, as was 43A CARP. Problem solved by just adding an S to their shared final square for the oh so useful two for one POC (plural of convenience).
There are four more of that type of POC, three of them in the upper section alone. None of those total of five two for one Ss add much of value or interest to the puzzle. They just take up space and make it easier to fill the grid.
Throw in some CAMERA LENSES and the POC Committee was split on whether to give this grid a "POC Assisted" or a "POC Marked" rating.
Easy... with BOWSER and KOOPA TROOPA being total gimmes. Rex would've FLIPPED. We've seen him get mad at KOOPA once or twice, so the combo BOWSER at 1A + KOOPA TROOPA in a marquee position would've made him snap, I'm sure.
I don't get the TOUR DE FORCE clue. Is there a reference/pun I'm missing? Nice clues on CPR, GOOSE, HOGGED (makes you think overdosing). I wanted 32A to be banking-related, so CAMERA came as a surprise, and LENSES was a bit anticlimactic.
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Pretty easy for me too even though BOWSER and KOOPA… were major WOEs (I may be a skosh older than @Eli). I also did not know ANGELICA, KAREN, and HERON (as clued). Having no costly erasures was helpful as was putting in SEAL THE DEAL and LEAN ON ME with almost no crosses.
ReplyDeleteSolid and with a bit of sparkle, liked it.
@Eli, Huckleberry looks amazing! Best of luck to all of you!
ReplyDeleteUber challenging at first. I couldn't get a toehold. This pre-Nintendo solver needed Sergey and Larry for 16D, although I was somehow able to dredge 1A BOWSER out of my synapses. With KOOPA TROOPA in place the puzzle became Easy-Medium for a Saturday.
Overwrites:
4D: oPinE before SPOKE
21D: GOT ya before EM
25A: I thought that Hungarian might have 18 yeSES (words meaning yes) instead of CASES
WOES:
The aforementioned KOOPA TROOPA at 16D.
KAREN Gillan at 22D. I'm not a resident of Whoville.
@Eli ANGELICA as a wine (45A)
AMA before EPA kept me from getting the SW for far too long. Otherwise I agree with @Eli--BOWSER and KOOPATROOPA were gimmes. Interestingly, I got CAMERA LENSES with no crosses but needed a few for both SEALED THE DEAL and SANTA TRACKER. Not as easy as yesterday but not as hard as some Saturdays.
ReplyDeleteBOWSER went right in, and I’m the right age for knowing old-school Nintendo references, but unfortunately I was the little sister who mostly just watched my brother playing games, so KOOPA TROOPA—I could see him in my head, but never knew his name. Of the triple stacks, for some reason the acrosses all went in early for me, and the downs only eked in at the very end. The last O in KOOPA TROOPA was my last entry, which I guessed on sound alone, and I still don’t understand the crossing with MOONY. Perhaps someone might kindly explain it? But all told, an impressively clean puzzle, almost entirely junk-free. DAISY CHAIN and ASTERISK were my favorites, but there was a lot to like.
ReplyDeleteIf you're crushing on someone, you might say you're mooning over them... or acting MOONY. It's kinda old-fashioned slang.
DeleteIn a word, forgettable. I just finished the puzzle and barely remember anything about it.
ReplyDeleteCan someone help me understand MOONY as clued?
ReplyDeleteMOONY as in "mooning over" or "crushing on" someone.
DeleteThat second O (crossing a video game character I never heard of) was my last letter in, after mentally running the alphabet. Even after I got the happy music, I had to think about it for a while.
DeleteI believe our constructor is the only person who’s ever uttered it.
DeleteThink moonstruck - crushing so much on someone that you begin to act abnormally. It's a term that has been around since at least the 17th century and is grounded in the superstition that the moon could exert control over one's mind. In modern days, think of the movie Moonstruck, a comedy romcom that riffed on this these (for which Cher won the best actress Oscar) and the old standard popularized by Dean Martin That's Amore ("when the moon hits your eye like a big piece of pie, that's amore").
DeleteSo, no, the constructor is not the only person who has ever uttered it.
"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore."
DeleteThe other day Lewis wrote eloquently about that feeling where your first pass through a puzzle leaves lots of white space that looks insurmountable, but you chip away at it and soon everything is falling into place. That was today’s puzzle for me: frustration, then elation. A fun Saturday challenge, Jesse Guzman. Followed by a nice write-up by Eli. Thanks to you both!
ReplyDeleteexactly! Me too
DeleteAlso my experience!
DeleteWell, Jesse, you had me at DAWDLED over KABLOOEY. At that point, you didn’t have to pad the goodies. But you did:
ReplyDelete• Crossing triple stacks with no ugly crosses, and with five of the six answers pulsing with verve. Wow!
• Saturday-worthy clues taking a set of mostly commonly-known words, and hiding them in mystery.
• A grid design free of scattershot black squares, lovely to look at, and first time ever in the Times.
• The high-level skill to make an uber-low 66-worder – look at all those chunks o’ white! – so clean.
And, Jesse, you have a chance to make crossword history. Only one constructor (Andrew Ries) has hit the cycle (a puzzle for every day of the week) in their first seven NYT puzzles, but none has done it with the seven days in order. Your first three puzzles are TH, FR, SA – Go for it!
In any case, in just three puzzles you’ve shown you have The Knack, that ability to craft first class crosswords. Please don’t be a stranger, and thank you for a splendid outing today!
This was on the harder side for me.... probably just on the challenging side of medium. 27 minutes. Kablooey was tough as clued. I had no idea SARONGs were unisex. And I needed lots of crosses for BOWSER and the turtle to come into view... not being much of a video gamer. At least I'm aware of BOWSER. Bottom was way easier for me--PRONTO, ATLAST, APHID, STEPONE, TODATE all going in pretty quick. ANGELICA was a WOE. Had RuCKus before RACKET, and couldn't think of HERON till I got some of those crosses. Loved the triple stack in the middle--very nice. Thanks Jesse for a great puzzle! : )
ReplyDeleteRight? I feel like I’ve seen one or two men wearing sarongs ever in my life — notably, Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty — but he’s such an eccentric you might just think he’s wearing a typically feminine accessory
DeleteTruly a fun puzzle albeit more Friday than Saturday difficulty. Hope to see more by this constructor soon.
ReplyDeleteRidiculously easy. Finished in a Tuesday timeframe, despite the pile of terrible clues. Pass.
ReplyDeleteWho knew the dragon and turtle had names?
ReplyDeleteI got a good chuckle out of what I consider the big four of today (OCARINAS, KOOPA TROOPA, KABLOOEY and MOONY) - individually, they each look and sound goofy in their own right - as a foursome they are definitely formidable. They definitely elicited a hearty HEE HEE from this solver.
ReplyDeleteGood write up Eli. Thankfully this puzzle didn’t have any financial terms to disturb you
ReplyDeleteRidiculously challenging. Extremely obtuse cluing. SHOT? still no way to infer Kablooey from that. Plenty of other examples.
ReplyDelete@jberg here. It’s a stretch. “That engine is KABLOOEY” But idk say “went KABLOOEY.”
DeleteSame here.
DeleteI completely agree with you.
DeleteFun puzzle. Didn't get much fill on the first pass, but then it all came together. Glad I was a Mario player! MOONY was new to me too.
ReplyDeleteUgh. Too much trivia.
ReplyDeleteNosotras hemos terminado
ReplyDeletePleasant workout for a themeless. Except for MOONY.
I did look up the turtle's name because life is too short to give a tinker's damn about video games. And there are so many funny ways to clue KAREN, but you go with Dr. Who. Lamé.
How have I never heard of Arcadia? It sounds lovely. Well, lovelier than here in the last hours of a Republic voted out by cult members and supported by a court voting itself out of existence.
GO TEM is what you shout after you give the cheerleaders an A and they don't give it back.
Looking at TAI CHI as an outsider, I would argue it only has one style -- old people being weird in the park style. They compete for space with the white ladies in the park yoga.
I tried to learn "good morning" from a Hungarian hostess in Budapest, but stuck with English on subsequent mornings as my face wasn't prepared to cooperate with that language.
By the logic of the puzzle, a SANTA TRACKER also stalks his accoutrements, so it's also a fat belly tracker obviously.
CAMERA LENSES don't focus on areas of interest, people focus on areas of interest, and the government will have to pry my camera lenses out of my cold dead hands. I bought a lens last week. They're unpleasantly expensive especially when my phone has half a dozen free ones on it.
Four-star review (out of how any possible stars)? Star reviews are not a standardized system of measurement.
Girls don't sing power ballads. Boys with long hair sing power ballads. These days you hafta look close to tell the difference, partly because everybody (?) is wearing SARONGS.
❤️ DAWDLED. KABLOOEY. OCARINAS. DAISY CHAINS. HOGGED.
😩 ANGELICA.
People: 4
Places: 2
Products: 3
Partials: 4
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 14 of 66 (21%)
Funnyisms: 4 🙂
Tee-Hee: HEE-HEE.
Uniclues:
1 Valises filled with ramen for Yoko.
2 Bug ate the flowers on the way.
3 Phrase shouted during Zelda-nerd gatherings.
4 Copy-Pastes a star.
1 ONO SOUPY CASES
2 APHID FOILS TAO
3 OCARINAS! PRONTO!
4 CLONES ASTERISK
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: After decades of fruitless searching, the likely feeling among SETI staff when Zaphod Beeblebrox arrives with his fleet. UFOS! WHAT A TREAT!.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Lotsa good stuff today @Gary Jugert. I particularly chortled at your "GO TEM" item.
DeleteYes! What @egs said.
DeleteHard for me, an octogenarian out of touch with popular culture. Cheated to get KAREN, LEANONME and BOWSER. Made a lucky guess to get CELINE. Never heard of KOOPATROOPA, and hope I never hear of it again. Not an enjoyable Friday, but a well constructed grid nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteLean on Me is over 50 years old. Celine Dion has been a star for 30 years. Being an octogenarian shouldn’t stop you from having heard of these.
DeleteAgree! And I'm "only" 60....
DeletePuzzle plays totally differently depending on whether you're pre- or post-Nintendo. That's a big flaw imo.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree, but then I'm sure younger solvers feel that when my my favorite uzzles appear: the ones with old song titles and old movie titles!
DeleteChallenging because I don't know any Mario-verse stuff and I wasn't thinking about Santa.
ReplyDeleteCan someone help me though? How is SOONEST "most likely to succeed"? Thanks.
Succeed as in “be next.” Like “succession.”
DeleteSucceed as “immediately come after” not succeed as “triumph”
Delete"Succeed" as in coming next in order of succession.
DeletePrince (now King) Charles was always the most likely to succeed, but it sure didn't happen SOON for him (though technically the soonest).
DeleteYuck. If the Nintendo stuff is now passing for general knowledge, count me out. Surprised this isn't controversial in these comments...
ReplyDeleteI’m too old for Mario clues….
ReplyDeleteWithout knowing Mario at all, it was average difficulty for a Friday puzzle, but DAISY CHAINS was the TOUR DE FORCE!
ReplyDeleteMen wear SARONGs? You could have fooled me. Wonder how many others were completely KABLOOEYed by the "unisex" clue? Nor do I know what an RPG is; I had written in "aPp".
ReplyDeleteI was also KABLOOEYed by the two Mario Universe clues -- and I'm afraid I never forgave you for these, Jesse. It's long been my feeling that 1A and 1D set the tone for a puzzle, so I was off to a really disgruntled start with Mario's antagonist. Who the bleep cares? But who knew how much worse it was going to get with KOOPATROOPA? That's when I almost said WE'RE DONE and almost hurled the puzzle into the wall, where it would have gone KERBLOOEY, btw.
Because I do like puzzles with a lot of white space, I hung around -- and was rewarded by TOUR DE FORCE, where I had wanted TOp something-or-other. all my errors seem to have been extraneous "P"s.
This turned out to be a nice, crunchy puzzle with some awful stuff that set my teeth on edge. This may be some of the pop culture stuff you like, Jesse, but always keep in mind that there may be solvers who like it not at all.
I am a man and I've owned a sarong for 20+ years. I know a few other men (and women) who also wear them. They're definitely unisex.
DeleteTo help you in the future: RPG = Role Playing Game. In a less lighthearted context, it can also mean Rocket Propelled Grenade. That caused a bit of confusion for some of us during the W. era.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteAnother impossible-to-30-minute solve here. Amazing how that happens. Going from "Dang, this is a toughie! It's gonna take over an hour, probably with cheats!" to slowly filling answers in, not getting frazzled, to finishing correctly and cheat free in 31:37. I'm the man. 😁
Liked the different stagger step on the Central Acrosses. Normally, you get @M&A's Jaws in there (as in the Blockers providing the Long Downs), but it's neat to see just L-shaped Blockers providing the edges of the Long Acrosses.
A couple of cross reference clues. They're OK by me. A few writeovers, had OF IT at first for RIDE, 20A, with clue Word after full or free. Full OF IT, free OF IT. In my defense, I read the clue as WordS, not word. RuCKus-RACKET, hARPS-CARPS, diceup for clue Chop-chop before PRONTO, odedon(ODed on)-HOGGED.
SARONG seems like it should be a portmanteau of Sorry, wrong. Like on a gameshow, "Oh, SARONG. You lose a turn."
That's all the RACKET from me. Have a great Saturday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Friend 1: Hey, have you found any interesting girls on eharmony?
ReplyDeleteFriend 2: None TODATE. But, say, do we have enough beer for the party?
Friend 1: We've got more CASES than the Hungarian language!
Friend 2: 19?
I remember when my dad was getting on in years but still liked to offer me a drink. "You look like you're not enjoying your G & T son, did I forget something?" "ICEPOP".
My 7 year old granddaughter has kept me in touch with a lot of crossword-helpful pop phenomena, like all the characters from Frozen, which I've watched 6244 times by my rough count. Today her love of Nintendo was the gift that kept on giving. OTOH, who knew that D & D involved Rocket Propelled Grenades?
Give Huckleberry a hug for me, Eli. And thanks for a wonderful puzzle, Jesse Guzman.
@egsforbreakfast 9:25 AM
DeleteRecent studies at Cambridge and Oxford have determined watching Frozen only three times feels like 6,244 times. They attribute the disphoria to granddaughters singing the theme song on repeat for six years afterward.
The local press here in San Francisco covers the wine scene pretty thoroughly, but (like Eli) I've never heard of ANGELICA.
ReplyDeleteThanks for explaining MOONY. "Teenage crush" used to be a common expression.
I don't get the clue for SOONEST.
It was crunchy for me (never played Mario) but very dim sparkle.
Yeah, for SOONEST the only thing I can think of is “the early bird gets the worm.”
DeleteSucceed as in come next, i.e. succession. Took me a while too!
DeleteShot =broken, or finished. “This television is shot !” KABLOOEY
ReplyDeleteBut I thought it should be “kerfLOOEY”
TIL two . , there's a dragon and a turtle in the Mario games and they have names. Talk about needing every cross. Also, BOWSER for me is the bass in Sha-Na-Na, and that's how this should be clued. Says me, that's who.
ReplyDeleteAlso met KAREN today, how do you do? And hello to ANGELICA, another one of those solved-by-crosses things. Some faith solving needed for KABLOOEY and SANTATRACKER but they worked out. In short, this was pick-and-shovel work but with some inspired, if logical, guesswork involved, but got'er done, as they say.
Nice crunchy Saturday here, JG. Just Got enough stuff to make this one doable, and thanks for some hard-earned fun.
In other news I got to QB yesterday for the second time in a week. Usually this happens maybe once a month, so that's why it was in all the papers.
I don't know Sha-Na-Na any more than I know Mario. I would have clued BOWSER as "Littermate, perhaps, of Fido and Spot."
DeleteDefinitely a challenge for me — 18 minutes over my average. May be one of those where some click with the constructor’s clueing style and some don’t. Put me in the second group. My dim knowledge of Mario lore didn’t help. Enjoyed the challenge though.
ReplyDeleteI’d bet you and I are the same age. 42. Plopped down both Nintendo answers. Ocarina took me a bit because I still don’t understand how that clue (plural) points to the singular instrument. Unless ocarina is its own plural…
ReplyDeleteAlso, any time I see or hear taichi I think of that Lisa Simpson line.
What a surprise. I started out not liking it but ended up liking it a lot - pretty doable for Saturday with the exception of KOOPA TROOPA, KABLOOEY, KAREN (never heard of her), BOWSER. Yoko's been making a lot of appearances lately (ONO). I really liked TOUR DE FORCE. And of course, the pic of Huckleberry - best of luck, Eli :)
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you, Jesse :)
Just chipping in from the sidelines—had to look up BOWSER and the turtle to get started. Another out-of-touch octogenarian here. However, it was still fun to work out the wordplay—it was a kind of guessing game wherein when you guessed right you found that the clue fit, rather than work forward from the clue itself. Does that make any sense at all? KABLOOEY!!
ReplyDelete"Easy"? BOWSER crossed by both RPG (?) and a clue given in French (!!)? KOOPA-TROOPA?! A KAREN I never heard of, and a CELINE who is not a novelist?
ReplyDeletePuzzle seemed like a fairly average Saturday to me. I had to google the turtle name and the wine and like others, did not understand the clue for MOONY. Everything else was pretty smooth.
ReplyDelete@Eli, congratulations on your new best friend! I can tell by his picture he’s gonna be a good one. Best wishes to you all.
For me, this would have been a 4-star TOUR DE FORCE, if it hadn't been for BOWSER and KOOPA TROOPA. I loved KABLOOEY and the long DAISY CHAINS, and enjoyed the misleading clues for the light winds and crushing. But not knowing anything about Mario's cohort made things very tough for me. I ended with a DNF,, guessing that the California wine was called ANGEL ICe. I'm happy for those who whooshed through with delight; for me, this one was in the TOILS category.
ReplyDeleteThe OCARINA has nothing to do with Nintendo (!!) -- it's a well- known wind instrument, today usually considered a toy, based on a model known as a "vessel flute" that dates back thousands of years. Not sure when it was introduced into Europe, but I believe the current design was popularized in Italy sometime in the 19th Century.
ReplyDeleteWe’re well aware that it’s a historic instrument, but there’s a very significant percentage of the population that will always think of a Nintendo game if you mention an ocarina
DeleteThere is a famous video game called The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I had DaisyCrowns for too long, making the lower middle unsolvable. I live in "out of five stars" world so Tour De Force came through crosses. Overall good puzzle (except soonest?) and good writeup.
DeleteI've certainly heard of "mooning" over someone, but I've never heard of being "moony." Is that really a common usage?
ReplyDeleteI had a DNF because of the NW corner, and it took me an hour and a half to get the rest of the puzzle. In the NW I had SARAPE and SPAKE; just couldn't come up with SARONG and SPOKE, and didn't get RPG. Oh well...I'm feeling proud of myself just for getting so much of this puzzle, which wasn't in my wheelhouse at all.
ReplyDelete@jberg again—gotta run, but just want to say that EONS as clued is hyperbole, not a metaphor.
ReplyDelete@jberg 11:52 AM
DeleteI definitely think hyperbole is mo' bettah, but I'm not sure metaphor is wrong.
Finally managed to login. @Nancy, when you see old movies set in the South Seas men often wear a sarong wrapped around their wastes, with their chests bare.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reference to MAD Magazine. As for today's puzzle, Celine Dion isn't someone I would ever associate with power ballads, at least not as I would define them.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever heard My Heart Will Go On?
DeleteBOWSER, KOOPA TROOPA, ANGELIC, OCARINA and more, all a big Nope to me. I get its a nice puzzle, but way outside my solving wheelhouse.
ReplyDelete66-worder with The Jaws. Clearly destined to be a tricky themeless rodeo.
ReplyDeleteBut ... conquered the NW pronto, despite the Mario universe invasion. And then ... was totally doomed to start a whole new solvequest, to make any further progress. Headed next for the KABLOOEYfest corner.
Pretty easy SatPuz solvequest, tho. Once M&A had "done due research" on KOOPATROOPA, things fell into place pretty smoothly.
staff weeject pick [of only 8 choices]: RPG. Rocket-propelled Grenade? Probably not.
Some faves: KABLOOEY. DAWDLED. SANTATRACKER & its clue. ASTERISK clue. TOURDEFORCE [Has inspired a "Tour de Farce" runtpuz, btw].
Thanx for the brainpan workout, Mr. Guzzman dude. Nice job of avoidin a puztheme. Need to work on that there U-count, tho.
Masked & Anonymo1U [...s]
... and now, as many have repeatedly called for ...
"Runtpuz Shapes Up" - 7x7 12 min. themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
p.s. Real sorry about yer thumb stabbin, Eli dude. Thumbs up on yer dog pick, tho. Beginner's tip: Huckleberry's look means either: 1. Do you give belly rubs? 2. Got treats? 3. Can we go for a walk outside, already?
Hi Huckleberry! Congrats on adopting a family!
ReplyDeleteI don't understand how SEALEDTHEDEAL can go in without crosses... I had agreEDToaDEAL after I had the T and DEAL, then "proved" it with the E, sigh. Obviously I know the phrase but I just didn't think of it. Eventually I took it out giving up on W------g (couldn't think of an -ing ending) for WEREDONE but still.
ReplyDeleteI never know if this kind of thing is luck or skill. And if it's skill, what is the skill, exactly? I got the DEAL part off D--L but my solving of phrases like this often solves part but not all of the answer.
Nice to meet you Huckleberry. Love seeing Don Martin reference.
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle is definitely for those who know Ninentendo. BOWSER, RPG, KOOPER TROOPER (I thought it must be SOOPA TROOPER)--yuck. And Dr. Who trivia (who watches that? No one I know.) But also, some of the cluing..."Most likely to succeed" for SOONEST? And"? Just not fun at all. Made me feel old instead of smart.
ReplyDeleteYikes, so many Unknowns here: BOWSER KOOPTROOPA ANGELICA. KABLOOEY was impossible to get without crosses but is a fun word. OCARINAS baffled me; I was thinking: "Light winds" = SANTA ANAS?
ReplyDeleteOther typeovers: TEEHEE before HEEHEE, and SPEAK before SPOKE because that tricky verb "put" can be either present or past tense.
Never heard of Gillian KAREN, but just to the left is KELLY and I knew a Karen Kelly in high school!
Just trying to think if there’s anything I really like about this puzzle and …
ReplyDeletelet’s not be hasty … but … no.
Knew I was in trouble at 1A. I’ve never been a real gamer but I did play some Mario games with my kids so, with the W in place, I got BOWSER but 16D KOOPATROOPA was beyond my recollective abilities. Until I sweated it out from crosses. And then were was just a lot of stuff I just didn’t know or just didn’t understand. I can be pretty thick sometimes.
For instance, how is a receiver of a four star review a TOURDEFORCE? Wouldn’t they be getting 5 stars? Who’s rating system are we using here? And even though I’ve watched some Dr. Who, am I supposed to remember KAREN Gillan? Oh yeah (googling her name post solve) she played Amy Pond. How could I ever have forgotten! And what am I missing here? Why is the SOONEST most likely to succeed? And why are PRISMS clued as having many faces. I thought they had 3. Does 3 mean many?
Ah, ANGELICA. Who has ever drank ANGELICA on purpose?
And, lastly, the noble HERON. I did not know they were related to bitterns. I do know that they are majestic creatures that frequent the 2 very slow moving creeks that cross our property. There have been a lot of them around this spring (the Great Blue variety) and I love them. I just wish they could get their timing right. If the herons arrive too early they eat all the frogs before the frogs can eat all the mosquito larvae which is why I’m typing this with one hand while swatting mosquitoes with the other.
AWLS well that ends well.
ReplyDeleteOne SARONG may be a bit of unisex attire, but two SARONGs don't make a saright.
TAO is not a "philosophy associated with" TAI CHI any more than absurdity is a philosophy associated with existentialism. TAO is a concept, like salvation, absurdity and freedom. TAO is associated with TAI CHI, but it is not a philosophy.
ReplyDeleteEditor: Replace "philosophy" with "concept" and you have a proper clue.
This took me a long time to get on plane. Never played Nintendo. All I had was ONO and KAREN and spent 30 scratching out the rest. ASTERISK was good, SOONEST was sis.
ReplyDeleteY'all should get to know KAREN Gillan. She's quite cute, a great actress, a red head, and did I mention she's cute?
ReplyDeleteRooMonster Not Creepy Guy 😁
@RooMonster 2:10 PM
DeleteOddly, my wife signed us up to go see some Stephen King movie today, Life of Chuck, and it turns out Karen Gillan is in it. I am normally good at thinking up excuses not to go to movies -- Is it longer than 90 minutes for any reason except self-indulgent directorial editing? Are movies and popcorn still $50 when it'll be free on Netflix in two months? -- but this one got past me, so I'll report back on her cuteness. She might end up being the slasher for all I know, or worse, a Broadway show tunes aficionado.
Gary Definitely Creepy Guy
Forgot to mention that my first stab at [Bit of unisex attire] was StRiNG. Whatever floats your boat, I figured.
ReplyDeleteLike others of us in the, uh, very mature demographic, I had no idea about BOWSER or KOOPAwhachacallit. Off to a rough start.
ReplyDeleteThen some good stuff like DAWDLED, SEAL THE DEAL and TOUR DE FORCE came along to flip the script.
With the 31D "Offer of support in a #1 Bill Withers hit" clue for LEAN ON ME in place, I think a nice clue for 34D would have been "1961 hit by Etta James" AT LAST.
My definition of a DAISY CHAIN would have nothing to do with "Midsummer head decorations", as clued. It would be much closer to the urbandictionary.com definition.
I also noticed that one DAISY CHAIN was a letter short of its slot, as was 43A CARP. Problem solved by just adding an S to their shared final square for the oh so useful two for one POC (plural of convenience).
There are four more of that type of POC, three of them in the upper section alone. None of those total of five two for one Ss add much of value or interest to the puzzle. They just take up space and make it easier to fill the grid.
Throw in some CAMERA LENSES and the POC Committee was split on whether to give this grid a "POC Assisted" or a "POC Marked" rating.
Easy... with BOWSER and KOOPA TROOPA being total gimmes. Rex would've FLIPPED. We've seen him get mad at KOOPA once or twice, so the combo BOWSER at 1A + KOOPA TROOPA in a marquee position would've made him snap, I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteI don't get the TOUR DE FORCE clue. Is there a reference/pun I'm missing? Nice clues on CPR, GOOSE, HOGGED (makes you think overdosing). I wanted 32A to be banking-related, so CAMERA came as a surprise, and LENSES was a bit anticlimactic.