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Layer that a hovercraft floats on / TUE 6-3-25 / Cheery goodbyes / Where most songs use their titular lyrics / Disappointing awards season outcome for a critically successful movie / Pixar film that revived the song "Life is a Highway" / Site of an apocalyptic final battle in the Bible / Modern filmmaking tech, for short / Grp. sending radio signals into space
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Constructor: Boaz Moser
Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Tues.)
Theme answers:
I confess I don't really understand how this theme works. Specifically, I don't get what the "light" part of the revealer (LIGHT SLEEPER) is supposed to signify. My best guess is that the additional (non-bed) words in the theme answers are things that are famously "light." I know the phrases "light as AIR" and "light as a CLOUD," but PAPER? "Light as paper?" Is PAPER known for its "light"-ness. Maybe in relation to ROCK or SCISSORS, but ... in general? "Thin"-ness, yes. Something can be "PAPER thin." But SHEET OF PAPER just seems like a bizarre outlier to me ... and that's assuming I'm right about what the theme is even supposed to be, which I'm not entirely sure of. SHEET OF PAPER is also an outlier in terms of its structure (bed part comes first instead of last), but that bothers me less than the fact that PAPER just doesn't seem to work (or that the theme itself isn't crystal clear). The themers were just about the only thing I struggled with in this puzzle. Don't you load a bunch of paper at once into a fax machine? Or do you really just put in one sheet at a time? And AIR CUSHION? I guess I don't really know what that means at all, or what a "hovercraft" ... is. Looks like it's mostly watercraft: "Hovercraft use blowers to produce a large volume of air below the hull, or air cushion, that is slightly above atmospheric pressure. The pressure difference between the higher-pressure air below the hull and lower pressure ambient air above it produces lift, which causes the hull to float above the running surface. For stability reasons, the air is typically blown through slots or holes around the outside of a disk- or oval-shaped platform, giving most hovercraft a characteristic rounded-rectangle shape." "Hovercraft" are also known as "AIR CUSHION vehicles" (or ACVs), so the clue certainly fits. I just have no familiarity with that particular ... vehicle. "Hovercraft" sounds fictional to me—like a near-future sci-fi vehicle of some kind. Homer knows what I'm talking about ...
- SHEET OF PAPER (20A: Input for a fax machine)
- AIR CUSHION (31A: Layer that a hovercraft floats on)
- CLOUD COVER (41A: Measure of how much sky is visible)
Cecil Blount DeMille (/ˈsɛsəl dəˈmɪl/; August 12, 1881 – January 21, 1959) was an American filmmaker and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history, with many films dominating the box office three or four at a time. His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship. His silent films included social dramas, comedies, Westerns, farces, morality plays, and historical pageants. He was an active Freemason and member of Prince of Orange Lodge #16 in New York City. [...] DeMille's first film, The Squaw Man (1914), was the first full-length feature film shot in Hollywood. Its interracial love story was commercially successful, and the film marked Hollywood as the new home of the U.S. film industry. It had previously been based in New York and New Jersey. Based on continued film successes, DeMille founded Famous Players Lasky which was later reverse merged into Paramount Pictures with Lasky and Adolph Zukor. His first biblical epic, The Ten Commandments (1923), was both a critical and commercial success; it held the Paramount revenue record for 25 years. // DeMille directed The King of Kings (1927), a biography of Jesus, which gained approval for its sensitivity and reached more than 800 million viewers. The Sign of the Cross (1932) is said to be the first sound film to integrate all aspects of cinematic technique. Cleopatra (1934) was his first film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. // After more than 30 years in film production, DeMille reached a pinnacle in his career with Samson and Delilah (1949), a biblical epic that became the highest-grossing film of 1950. Along with biblical and historical narratives, he also directed films oriented toward "neo-naturalism", which tried to portray the laws of man fighting the forces of nature.
• • •
Outside the theme, the puzzle played pretty typically for a Tuesday. The worst mistake I made came at 28D: Zorro, Superman or Indiana Jones, where I had A-TI- to start with. My brain just inferred an ANTI- beginning and so I wrote in ANTIHEROES ... even as I thought to myself "Really? Superman? Seems off." I also could not understand what the clue on CHORUS was trying to do (18D: Where most songs use their titular lyrics). What does it mean for a song to "use" lyrics, I wondered. It's not like a songwriter sits around with a pile of lyrics and thinks "hmm, where should I put these lyrics, which are also the title of the song?" [Where a song's titular lyrics are frequently found]?? [Part of song that often contains titular lyrics]?? Something about "use" just made the clue incomprehensible to me, in the moment. I also didn't like the clue on OSCAR SNUB (55A: Disappointing awards season outcome for a critically successful movie). The outcome of the season would not be a single SNUB. In fact, even the outcome of the Oscars alone wouldn't be a single SNUB, if we're talking about an entire film. An OSCAR SNUB relates to a single category. It's a "snub" to be omitted from one of those categories. A film might get shut out entirely, but that would involve multiple snubs. Precise wording on clues is important, and those clues both felt at least slightly tin-eared.
Other mistakes? Yes, minor ones. MULES before ASSES (12D: Stubborn animals).ORC before ELF (38A: Pointy-eared inhabitant of Middle-earth). ORCs have pointy ears, don't they? Yeah, pretty pointy, I'd say:
My brain glitched at 41D: Pixar film that revived the song "Life is a Highway" (CARS). I had the "C" in place, took one look at the first words of the clue, went into my big bag of animated movies one might find in crosswords, and came out with ... COCO. That's got music in it, right? Probably not "Life is a Highway," though. Man, why anyone would want to "revive" that song is beyond me. It was so hard to kill the first time! (if you were alive in the early '90s, you know).
What else?
Bullets:
- 9A: Cheery goodbyes (TATAS) — we had TADAS the other day and I just let it slide, but I can't be so generous every time. Like TADA, TATA should never be pluralized. Tear that corner out and start over.
- 10D: Site of an apocalyptic final battle in the Bible (ARMAGEDDON) — I definitely forgot this. I only know ARMAGEDDON as a generic term for "a world-ending conflict," or as a mildly regrettable Ben Affleck vehicle.
["I was surprised when I heard Criterion was doing ARMAGEDDON..."]
- 32D: "___ if I know!" ("HELL") — Really wanted "DAMNED" so went with "DAMN" ... might've been confusing the clue phrase with "DAMNED if I do, DAMNED if I don't," but then again, maybe not.
[they sound pretty good for a hovercraft]
See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. Happy 80th anniversary to the best HITLER clue. On June 3, 1945, the NYTXW clued HITLER as [Man with glowing future.]. When I first saw the clue, I thought it was predicting that the U.S. would nuke Germany, but no, better: it was (I think) predicting that HITLER, who had died just two months earlier, would spend the rest of eternity in hell. Amazing. I think we're probably better off without HITLER in the grid (last seen Oct. 12, 1984), but if the NYTXW wants to go hard against tyrants, I'm not gonna stand in their way.
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101 comments:
Easy, solved without reading the clues for the long answers. One overwrite, lORdS before PORTS at 36D (all I saw on a quick glance at the clue was Baltimore). No WOEs. I had/have the same problem as @Rex reconciling the "Light" part of the revealer clue with the theme answers.
Easy-peasy Tuesday, except I had "roams" instead of ROVES at first. Didn't consider the theme, which seemed vague.
One of the reasons I never miss Rex -- that factagraph about that amazing Hitler clue, something I had never heard before.
A nice, fun Tuesday - the reveal gave me a little bit of an aha nudge (I don’t parse the theme details to the same extent has OFL - I get what the constructor was trying to do, which to me is close enough for CrossWorld).
Speaking of CrossWorld - good to see a couple of old buddies that I rarely see in the wild - AGLET and SETI. Someday I’ll remember how to spell you guys.
When I dropped in Cecil B. DeMille, I wondered where the line of demarcation is that would differentiate his name from common knowledge (me) to a complete unknown (under age 50?). Then I saw that Rex pegged him as word of the day - I must be getting even older than I realize.
I’m not feeling the love for ASSES and HELL today - it was fun for a while, but I’m definitely suffering from ASS-fatigue.
You load a printer with a ream of paper, but in my experience, you generally only fax one or two pieces of paper at a time, maybe with a cover letter. I agree otherwise though, that you still don't talk about "light as paper"
OHNEAT...................JUSTBAD
A songwriter, like a crossword constructor, usually begins with a "theme", which then becomes the "chorus", which then becomes the "title", or name of the song.
(don't go into a 5 minute rant about how orcs and elves are related in Tolkien's world....deep breath....grits teeth) Yes, I can see how you can conflate ORC and ELF. Good point.
Back in the pre-chunnel days, you could take a hovercraft from Dover to Calais. Arriving in Dover by train late one night, I spent the night in the hovercraft terminal to catch the first trip to Calais the next morning. There was a group of rowdy youths partying and making a lot of noise in the station. Around 3am, police burst in and started forcing them all out. I was worried they would do the same to me (it was cold outside), but they basically ignored me.
I think I don't get the revealer. It seems like a SHEET OF PAPER would be a huge negative for a light sleeper, so am I missing something? [After reading Rex - yes, I missed something but I still don't get that themer.]
Cute and breezy for early week. Don’t overthink it Rex. I liked the revealer and the themers were harmless.
Richard HELL
I like TATAS - just not as clued. I don’t think we need to ban them from anything. Agree on the SNUB awkwardness. It appears as if Ukraine is headed for ARMAGEDDON.
Never saw CARS - but Pixar and Disney and the kiddie lit world must have made their product placement donations this month already. The SETI string will be odd for some but I like how it sits below SKATS.
MINOR Threat
Enjoyable Tuesday morning solve.
That’s NEAT That’s Nice
¡Diablos si lo supiera!
A real yawner with an "OK, sure" theme.
Last night I was teaching a ukulele class for our local university's continuing ed, and a guy with a gun was in the building. Our classroom became a PANIC ROOM, then a "follow the directions of the police" room, followed by me realizing I could've been on the news today.
I wonder what they call the mean STREETS in a rough rural area. Mean dirt roads? Mean over yonders?
I missed the HOA discussion yesterday and Rex's galumphing ramble, but as a guy who served as an HOA president for a decade in an aging 12-story downtown high rise, I can assure you HOAs are important and lots of good people are doing lots of thankless work. It's the only volunteer job I know where you get yelled at for doing it.
People: 5
Places: 3
Products: 3
Partials: 7
Foreignisms: 0
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 18 of 74 (24%)
Funnyisms: 2 😕
Tee-Hee: Folks, if you're wondering how to get a boring puzzle purchased by the NYTXW, may I suggest you cross TATAS with ASSES. And HELL, it wouldn't hurt to throw in [titular].
Uniclues:
1 Yell and yell.
2 Mikaela Shiffrin.
3 What happened during the diva's aria.
4 "Dear End of Times: Regrettably, I won't be able to make it as we're already living in your house."
1 ERASE MEEK TONE (~)
2 SKIS ACTION HERO
3 CHORUS ROTTED
4 ARMEGEDDON RSVP
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Wrapper in the slammer. HARD TIME TAMALE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As usual, a great day to ignore the theme, which today elicited a post-solve “huh?”
Loved the clue for CHORUS. Prominently featuring the song’s title in the lyrics is a characteristic of popular songs not shared by most folk songs or art songs. Why? Because drilling the song’s title into your brain makes it easier for the consumer to find, and thus buy, in a record store (in olden days) or on a streaming service. And the purpose of a pop song is to make money by selling it to as many people as can be reached. The commercial nature of the enterprise is hardwired into the creative product.
This was more than a fill-in. I pictured clouds, dogs scrambling in a dogpark, a teapot; I took in the aroma and sizzle of a tofu stir fry; I heard the sound a sheet of paper makes when you wave it in the air; and I realized how much I like VOICE being used as a verb. POP ART made me wonder if there was ever a well-known artwork featuring a lollipop, and there is – by Picasso!
The theme, IMO, is clever, finding phrases that conjure a bed so light that sleeping on it would be like floating, all mixed with the gentle pun on the word “light”. There is a lovely complexity beneath the seeming simplicity of this puzzle.
Boaz sparked the puzzle with five very worthy answer debuts: CLOUD COVER, PANIC ROOM, LIGHT SLEEPER, OSCAR SNUB, and SHEET OF PAPER. Also, did you notice how junk-lite this grid is?
A quality puzzle and a splendid outing. Thank you so much for this, Boaz!
The most basic format and execution. Solving this puzzle was akin to taking a well-trained dog on a 4 minute walk.
I took the hovercraft from Dover to Calais in 1972, but I don’t think I was one of the rowdy youth @kitshef mentioned (though it’s possible!).
I also fell for mules and antiheroes.
I always think of two places where you commonly see a HOVERCRAFT. One is the Everglades. Wasn’t there a TV show called Everglades? [Looks it up.] Yup, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that one. It turns out I’m actually thinking of Gentle Ben.
Also, there used to be a giant HOVERCRAFT ferry across the English Channel.
Easy for a Tuesday. My only glitch was OHYEAH instead of OHNEAT. But I should have no better with the retro clue of a fax machine. I thought I was the last person in America to finally toss mine years ago.
Gary, I would add volunteering to umpire youth athletics, especially Little League baseball. Some parents are absolutely bonkers delusional, which is a real shame because kids that age are a joy to be around when they are allowed to just have fun.
This theme just seemed weird to me -- and I suspect it won't work for many people. Yes, PAPER is lighter than cotton or silk or muslin or any other SHEET material, but the thought of a paper sheet is ludicrous. Maybe at Guantanamo?
And I suppose a CLOUD is lighter than wool or satin or any other COVER material, but it's another ludicrous image. I'd add that a bed -- a bed bed, that is, and not a sofabed in its sofa stage -- doesn't have CUSHIONs, whether made of AIR or anything else. It has pillows.
Add to the weird theme the fact that the cluing -- with the exception of DOG PARK -- is flat and dreary throughout, and you have a puzzle that I found totally forgettable.
Fun Tuesday. Agree the theme wasn't perfect but just left it at bed and sleep related. Appreciated the Hitler cluing history. Thought VISA, USA, and BAN stacked up in the SE was apt. Really wanted 'what' more than HELL, but what if I know. Enjoyed the boxer being a dog, after eating my shorts yesterday. So many boxers to consider. Good fun Tuesday.
Hey All !
Time faster than YesterPuz. As much as I "berated" Rex YesterComments, I have to agree with him today! That SHEET OF PAelsPER does seem like an outlier. I'm sure other more creative types here than me will come up with alternative Themers.
Fill good. I noticed four OO's floating about.
Uniclue: Tarot reader ousted from the dock?
SEER PORTS BAN
(That gets a @Gary ~)
Not much else to say.
TATAS
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I also got weirdly creative with the Zorro/Superman/Indiana Jones answer: ACTING JOB (??) before ACTION FILM before ACTION HERO finally fell in.
“Life is a Highway” - title of the song - sung in the chorus, not the verses
Hey, just wondering if anyone's SB reset itself today. I do the SB first, until I get stuck, then do the Mini, crossword, Wordle, Connections, then come back to the Bee to see how far I can get. But today, after I came back, it was a different set of letters! *Insert Twilight Zone music here*
Did I just trip into an alternate reality?
RooMonster Stumped Guy
We took the hovercraft from Calais to Dover in 1971, no rowdies. It happened to be the Fourth of July but I refrained from celebrating casting off the yoke of British oppression because of the other passengers.
Agree about TATAS. The clue should always start with "bodacious".
Did this in the waiting room for outpatient surgery, I won't go into the details of what for. Found it very easy even for a Tuesday which is good because it led to fewer problems when doing the on line version. I thought the theme was close enough for a crossword, as all the themers are more or less LIGHT, but it's a stretch. If the themers appeared in Connections I wouldn't connect them.
ESAI and SETI the only real no-knows. Lots of moo-cows for M&A today.
Back to waiting.
A heads-up and warning to all Wordlers among us:
FWIW, Wordle is not my passion. Phrazle is my passion. But I do do Wordle as a bit of an afterthought and I was furious at the "word" choice today. It is not a word at all. It is lazy, sloppy textspeak.
I gave the Wordlebot a piece of my mind on the NYT website, but it hasn't printed it yet. Will it? Will it dare? We shall see.
Yes, I checked after reading your post. I stopped at genius about an hour ago, just went back in and have all new letters and zero words. Looks like it’s a two-fer Tuesday (and hopefully not a recurring bug that wreaks havoc with everyone’s karma).
Huh? Seems like a perfectly fine word to me
the theme? poor. dont really get it. Quick Tuesday
With nothing to go on other than pointy ears, could be either.
If Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo had had kids, the younguns surely would have enjoyed the Mom and POPART.
To put weapons in the hands of our doddering old president is to ARMAGEDDON.
Do you think that Felix ever saw OSCARSNUB? And speaking of Oscars, Mr. Cruise might not get one after it was revealed that he lives in a cage full of legumes. No one's going to vote for a PEA PEN Tom?
I mostly agree with @Rex today. Kind of meh. But then I'm a heavy sleeper, so I use a SHEETload of covers. Anyway, thanks, Boaz Moser.
Just amazing, the clue on HITLER. Would have never in my life found that out on my own. Note to myself - send donation.
I think RP improved the CHORUS clue, but I would hardly consider it “incomprehensible” as written. I think a singular SNUB is perfectly in the language as is, or could be “used” per category.
I would have liked to see “feather” worked into the theme set as it is idiomatically “light” and bed related. I’m not sure light as a cloud is a regular idiom, so paper doesn’t bother me - it is certainly light and weight is one of the qualities you can use to select which to buy.
Is TAUPE lighter than PECAN? - asking for a friend.
ARMAGEDDON destroyed in 1150BC and never came back. Now Tel Megiddo, with a kibbutz settlement in northern Israel. The power of story to keep something alive for 3175 years is humbling.
It helps to remember 5 letter Mexican sauce ADOBO, 4 letter MOLE
WOOED is fun to look at with 3 vowels between 2 consonants, esp with W making the sound of a vowel even if placed as a consonant.
I have looked at the theme answers and the revealer and am still confused as to whether it works. There must be some element I'm missing - a sheet, cushion and cover may be on a bed (in a PANIC ROOM?) but I'm not seeing the LIGHT, the LIGHT of the 50A answer. Clouds are "light" and air is light but paper isn't necessarily light. I see Rex agrees.
So if I ignore the theme, the puzzle is fine. A Tuesday outing that is at an appropriate level of difficulty and a nice clue for DOG PARK and CHORUS.
TAUPE is a very difficult color tone to nail down, in my opinion. My friends owned a Jeep that was said to be TAUPE but it was some sort of green. I would say TAUPE is the color of a cooked mushroom, so as the clue says, a brownish shade.
Thanks, Boaz Moser!
Easy-medium. No WOEs but a couple of costly erasures: elatE before AMUSE and Taro before TOFU.
My thoughts on the theme mirror what @Rex said.
yep. This rodeo's puztheme is slightly more mysterious than yer average TuesPuz. These themers are bed features? I don't think we'd go for a bedsheet made of paper, for our sleep-nest. Just sayin.
Also, sleepin in the open air outside under the clouds ain't real good, for m&e ... mosquitos extra-luv to chew on the M&A.
staff weeject pick: SMS. Textspeak stuff. Better, non-textual, clue: {Odd samosa ingredients??} = SMS.
Did like PANICROOM, ARMAGEDDON, and OSCARSNUB. And them DOGPARK & CHORUS clues were fun to decode.
Also liked that I got instant puz-entrance today, with APPS/AMP, right outta the chute.
Thanx, Mr. Moser dude. Yer overnight guests must have some real entertainin bedtime stories. har
Masked & Anonymo4Us
... @pabloinnh: Funny U should mention M&A moo-cows, today ...
"Moo Cow Challenging" - 7x7 12 min. themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Right now I'm eating a sandwich while I put green paint on this SHEET OF PAPER in my hand.
I guess the non-bedding words in the theme answers each represent something LIGHT, PAPER, AIR, and CLOUD. That was hard for me to grasp, but now that I see it I guess you could make a case for it.
I've read Lord of the Rings at least 15 times, and I am pretty sure that Tolkien does not at any point indicate that the clues of an ELF are pointed. What various movie makers have done with them is their own concern. Also, SETI, as far as I know, searches for extraterrestrial intelligence not by sending radio signals into space (how would that work? If you got an answer, it would be hundreds of years later) but by analyzing radiation coming to earth from elsewhere and captured by radio telescopes. Their theory is that any intelligent species would choose to send given patterns as a sign of their presence. I was never convinced, although I did run their program on my home and office computers for several years.
TIL that adobo is a marinade. Penzey's sells a spice blend under that name, and I've been using it as a rub, with good results. I'll have to look into the marinade thing.
In an emergency I'd look for a cyclone shelter or something like that; not sure what a PANIC ROOM is, but I imagine I'm about to learn.
It's nice to see our old friend AGLET, though, that alleviates any PANIC I might have felt otherwise.
Drat, I just posted a comment right before noticing that I was not signed in. Scroll up, and the first mention of AGLET you come to is probably me.
Response from my wife, a song writer, to “ It's not like a songwriter sits around with a pile of lyrics and thinks "hmm, where should I put these lyrics, which are also the title of the song?" … THATS EXACTLY WHAT THEY DO!
I enjoyed this whimsical theme, even though it might not stand up to deeper examination (won't the PAPER crinkle and keep you awake? or be so stiff and unyielding that it slides off?). Anyway, I thought the idea was really clever, and the images have kept me smiling. A winner of a Tuesday for me.
Some other clues used for HITLER in the NYTXW:
-Exophthalmic painter.
-Author of a best seller.
-THE Intuition.
I guess that last one made sense at the time, but it's a mystery to me.
I took it once Dover to Calais, with my ex and two of our kids. I got really queasy because of the way it rocked back and forth.
Lewis, thanks for the tip about the Picasso--neat painting!
The dictionary would disagree. Informal? Sure. Maybe even an abbreviation. (That’s how it started, anyway.) But text speak? I heard the word spoken many times well before texting existed.
I remember taking the Hovercraft from Calais to Ramsgate. The feeling as the whole thing suddenly lifted up was magical.
I've seen, though not ridden on, those Everglades air boats. I don't think they actually hover; they hydroplane. But they are propelled by a big fan, since a propeller would get tangled up in the sawgrass almost instantly. But there may be actual hovercraft used there, as well.
To confuse Taupe some more ...
Taupe Shades
Doing my best to confuse y'all.
Roo
Couldn't agree with you more, Nancy. I only tried it because I figured Wordle would reject it as a non-word, giving me a free guess.
Looks like my anonymous comment did not post at all. It shared Rex's puzzlement over the light part of the theme. Also, to me, SHEET OF PAPER is in the same bin as GREEN PAINT or EAT A SANDWICH.
Tolkien says nothing about pointed ears on elves, as far as I can remember; and SETI does not send radio signals into space, it looks for patterns in radiation arriving at earth FROM space.
This one was wide of the mark for me. I gave the side-eye to SHEET OF PAPER as the "Input for a fax machine", thinking the answer would be something data-related, maybe like "audio tones" or some such. And like Rex and others, I'm not convinced that the Venn diagram circles for "light" and "PAPER" would overlap at all.
I agree with @Nancy 8:26. I don' think a CUSHION is part of a bed. A couch, chair, car seat, etc., yes, but something "a bed may feature", no.
I would say CLOUD COVER is a measure of how much sky is blocked or occluded by, um, CLOUDS, not how much sky is visible, as clued, right?
All was not lost though. TATAS crossing ASSES did AMUSE me. And whenever I see I BAR clued as a kind of letter-shaped construction piece (237 times per xwordinfo.com), I mentally yell "No, no, no !" So it was nice to see the real McCoy I BEAM construction piece at 35 Down today.
The initial puzzle was a glitch, as the hints featured letters that went in the puzz.
Anyone else mind that CLOUD COVER measures the portion of the sky that is obscured, not the portion that is visible?
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
ad·min
/ˈadˌmin/
nouninformal•British
the administration of a business, organization, etc.
"day-to-day admin"
Good luck. I hope it went well :)
That you could even concentrate!
I did this so fast I must've missed the clue on Hitler - which BTW I'm glad I did.
Yes, good luck!!
You remind me of my time 12 years ago waiting for prostate surgery. The surgeon could tell I was a little nervous, so he sat down next to my bed and said, "Look, I've done hundreds of these. You're going to wake up in a few hours and feel like a bus hit you, but then you'll regain your strength and live a long and healthy life." I said, "Doc, will I live long enough to see the Jets win another Super Bowl?, and he said 'No. Not even close.'"
My exact same reaction, Nancy. I put it in on as last ditch effort and couldn't believe it was the answer.
Double-themed entries, not easy to come up with. SHEETOFPAPER is good enough, I'd say.
TIL: a fluffy cumulus cloud weighs 1 mil pounds. The atmosphere weighs 5.5 quadrillion tons. The reason why we aren't crushed under the weight is because the pressure inside our bodies is pushing outward. Thanks God and/or evolution! Also, great write-up today.
Same here, jberg. Couldn’t believe it when I saw those green letters.
Didn’t try rush this one and was surprised at how quickly I finished it. Hand up for riding on the Dover-Calais hovercraft in the early 70’s. We didn’t see any teenagers aboard but our pre-teen boys were ecstatic to find the “fruit machines” and kept bugging us for coins to make them work. We were a bit slow on the uptake.….and had a great laugh after we discovered what they were.
Also, I beat the Wordlebot today—a rarity—which suggests that the Wordlebot also doubts it’s a real word.
Thanks for the good luck wishes, but I really was waiting (for my wife) in the waiting room. Minor procedure, waiting now for test results.
Agree about TATAS. I work downs-only on Tuesdays so didn't see the clue but wondered if they'd go there. I mean it crosses ASSES. Missed opportunity, I'd say.
The sheet goes on the bed, and the paper is light (weight)
@SouthsideJohnny 8:25 AM
Ha! Good point. I've seen teenage umpires treated savagely by parents in those videos. I sure would love to believe those are rare, but maybe not.
I'm really surprised that Rex has not seen or heard of a hovercraft! It's amazing the little gaps we all have in our experience. I guess their unique advantage is that they can run up onto a beach or boat ramp.
It's worth noting that "ARMAGEDDON" is Greek for the Hebrew "Har Megiddo" ("Mount Megiddo"), an unprepossessing hill (only 70 feet in height) situated 20 miles SW of Haifa; but strategically important as it commands the entrance to the mountainous pass ("wadi Ara") that connects the low-lying east-west Jezreel Valley to the coastal Mediterranean plain and which therefore for thousands of years has been the pathway that (to name just a few) both the armies of the west (Pharonic Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Ottomans and the British) and those of the east (Assyriand, Babylonians . Persians, Mongols and Arabs , both had to traverse to conquer each other. Today a fascinating archeological accessible site known (possibly ahistorically) as "Solomon's stables ."
That should be "SE of Haifa"
@SouthsideJohnny, My oldest son played some pretty competitive baseball in his teens (team mate Justin Morneau went on to play for the Twins, appearing in a bunch of all-star games and once being named league MVP) and decided to "give back" to the local association by volunteering to umpire games for the younger leagues. At one game he was constantly being heckled by a particularly abusive parent. I was considering going over to talk to the guy when Ian, then about 16 years old, called time, turned and walked to the backstop, took off his mask and chest protector and offered them to the massive adult heckler. "Here," he said, "You wanna do this?" The buffoon declined and - proud dad moment here - most of the other fans stood up and clapped. Game continued without anymore abuse of officials. Sometimes the young 'uns can deal with shit just fine.
Pretty sure OFL misunderstood the SHEET OF PAPER answer. It’s a SHEET that is the “light” part of what’s usually on a bed (at least my bed). The theme was a tad ”loose” to me, but the clues made up for my teensy bit of theme negativity.
I blew through this one. Never had to stop for anything and bounced around between the downs and the acrosses, just double checking as I went along. AGLET was the only other raised eyebrow, but everything needs a name, right? Why not just “tip?” Too generic. And let’s face it, the AGLET serves an important purpose so O guess it deserves a unique name. It’s the savior of the playground - assuming it’s there.
oOe of the most annoying things as a kid is when the ancient shoelace in my ancient sneakers would break - always on the playground during recess! I’d have to pull the thing out to tie the pieces together. Both ends are frayed, and it takes a miracle to get the knot in the right place so I can actually tighten the laces and then there’s the absolute maddening agony of trying to get the AGLETless lace through the eyelets. Every tome I’d end up with one shoe too loose. Worst of all, by the tome the emergency repair was done, I’d spent my whole recess fixing the dang shoe and missed my turn to rule the 4-square game! AGLETs.
Fun Tuesday for sure.
Yup.
Easy. I started in the SE and finished in the NW, practically without lifting my pen from the paper.
Then I looked to see what the theme might be. Hmmm.
Please turn off the light before you go to bed.
Mushrooms come in various shades. I cooked a mushroom risotto last night with shiitakes. They are a different shade than portabellos, oysters, chanterelles, white buttons, or creminis. The true colour of TAUPE is BLAH.
Yeah, the theme was kind of loose today, but that didn’t really bother me because I was solving downs-only.
Re: 32D HELL if I know. My father used to always say “Damned if I know”, and I always wondered what that meant. Would he be condemned to a life of misery if he actually could answer my question? Considering my fraught relationship with my father, that almost seemed like a pleasant outcome.
I’ve mentioned 9A TATAS in a previous reply to another post. It seems a weird and somewhat titillating entry.
I have never taken a hovercraft trip (31A AIRCUSHION) but I have seen them rev up and rise above the water. Quite impressive! They were used here for marine search and rescue. May still be.
And 26A LOGES. When I was a young teenager I would hitchhike from my home in suburban (mostly rural) Surrey, BC to the city across the river, New Westminster, a distance of about 6 or 7 miles, though it seemed so much longer if I had to give up and walk, where there were 2 ancient and grand movie theatres in one block. Both theatres, the Columbia and the Paramount, offered loge seating and my buddies and I, as kid poor as we were, would pay the extra fee for them. Why? Because you were allowed to smoke there. Though the movies were more than likely awful (remember Elvis Presley musicals?) you felt so grown-up watching them through a haze of tobacco smoke.
Strangely, I have owned an apartment (condo unit; a pied a terre while we worked on our new home on the farm) for the last 4 or so years right across the street from the Columbia, now a comedy club, and just up the street from the Paramount, now a lap dancing establishment. Oh, Ineluctable modality!
Kitshef et al
Interesting that Rex didn’t really know what a hovercraft is. If I remember correctly they went from experimental to general use but found to be hard to maintain. They have faded out to a certain extent. That may be why Rex and younger confuse them with ufos!
Perhaps more used in England?
I just took ferries across the Channel, also pre Chunnel
Didn’t notice much rowdiness.
Gary Jugert
I have been on the Condo Board (as we call it ) of my low rise urban condo association for over a decade. I have been retired so I have the time. I have found it a good experience overall. I think we try to be reasonable, and avoid pettiness. Also we try to play pay a lot of attention to safety and upkeep concerns (see FLA disaster). . There is anything but a long line of people willing to do it Repeatedly we have had to beg owners to join. From what I heard more problems come from HOA’s made up of single family homes in a development.
Aw, Rex, Life is a Highway is actually a great song. The car in the Tom Cochrane video is a a mid-sixties Impala but I have a similar vehicle, a 1970 Olds Cutlass Supreme Convertible. GM calls the colour Bamboo but it's more like Banana Cream Pie Yellow. Plug in your Tom Cochrane tape (yeah, I said tape) and get out on the road. But don't let your wife stand up in the passenger seat. You'll probably get pulled over.
@Les - great story, great outcome. Score one for the good guys for a change.
@RooMonster 8:42 AM
Love it. I stared at that thinking, "Is this something?" But I couldn't see it. Nice work.
I think many agree that Rex overthought some of the words. Elf as in Santa’s helpers always pointed ears So no problem with Lord of the Rings. Elf. Didn’t even think of orcs I read the trilogy twice, over 50 years ago. Loved the books, bored by the first of the movies, never saw the others. Okay puzzle v
Monday easy. Set a personal best for Tuesdays today.
@Les, it is a great song, plus it mentions Vancouver!
Agree! And can we say good bye forever to tata? Who says that?
I noticed that when I started singing along. Yay, Vancity!
Amen on your HOA comment. My neighborhood association actively enforces covenants, largely the reason for our excellent resale values. I served on the board for several years though, and it was no picnic.
Loren Smith would probably say it is a legitimate word which has involved in the language, but I didn’t like it either.
@Nancy, I agree with you totally about Wordle today. My former co-worker and I used to compare Wordle solves before I retired and we still email about them every day. Today we were both annoyed by the word.
True about the color - I should have specified button mushrooms. My brother-in-law sent me home with some chicken of the woods mushrooms. I haven’t cooked them yet so I don't know what color they'll turn out to be but raw, they are orange on one side and yellow on the other, very pretty.
No complaints here. Easy Tuesday and the theme worked fine for me. Some nice long ones along with the themers - ACTIONHERO, ARMAGEDDON (well, maybe I shouldn't consider that one "nice", but you know what I mean), OSCARSNUB (which did not bother me at all).
Cute cluing for DOGPARK and the grid was pretty much 100% gunk-free. What's not to like??
I don't think I've ever had them but I just googled them and they are apparently common in my area. I'll have to try to track some down. Thanks, Teedmn.
I'm pretty sure we have covered this ground before in the comments, so SILOS clued as places to store grain seemed off. Google is happy to include grain storage in the definitions it finds, but just a little more looking yielded some excellent info on the difference between SILOS and "grain bins" (which is what are actually used to store grain). In short, SILOS store "silage" which is animal feed and not typically grain. They are tall and narrow. Grain bins store grain (duh) and are shorter and wider. There are others differences that are equally clear. Check this out for the quick rundown, courtesy of the Illinois Farm Bureau (it seems they should know): The Difference Between Grain Bins and Silos. So while I think the clue was off, I appreciate it motivating me to learn something new!
@Les S. HELL yes it’s a good song!
@Les S,
I also had a fraught relationship with my father. I am sincerely sorry to hear that. In my situation, I must admit that I also had many occasions when finding out that my sire had been damned for all eternity while not an unpleasant thought, might have been my wish only if the eternal damnation came with sufficient painful suffering. Fortunately, years of therapy and being fortunate to have found a life partner and best friend who spent 46 years showing me that a man is in fact capable of unconditional love opened up a bright and beautiful world and gave me a wonderful family.
Sorry about all my typos.
Coming here to post this. To paraphrase George Carlin, the reason why it's a secondary definition is because it's not the first. SILAGE in Silos, grain in GRANARIES. Take a drive through America, people.
Hospitals still use fax machines I believe.
Another vote for, "You don't know Jefferson Airplane?" Jorma is only 84, and Grace is only 85. This is why i can't finish puzzles anymore. I have become my father who said that the Beatles were "The end of popular music as we know it." Rap, hip-hop, and whatever passes for popular music now, and appears in the puzzle is Greek to me! I'll stick with White Rabbit, Somebody to Love, and Embryonic Journey.
Parts of a sleeper: sheet, cushion, cover..sleeper couch. Things that are light: paper, air, cloud .
On the issue of paper and lightness I offer the following: ln boxing there is (or was) a category denominated “Paperweight “ which was the lightest weight classification.
CGI crossing CECIL was a nice touch.
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