.png)
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- GENETICALLY ENGINEERED (23A: LEGAL NICETY — an anagram of "genetically," i.e., the letters of "genetically" ... "engineered" (to be in a different order))
- CHANGE OF HEART (39A: EARTH — an anagram of "heart," i.e., a "change of" the letters in "heart")
- MIXED BLESSING (55A: GLIBNESS — an anagram of "blessing," i.e., the letters in "blessing," ... mixed (up))
- TWISTED SISTER (83A: RESIST — an anagram of "sister," i.e. the letters in "sister" ... twisted)
- SWITCHED GEARS (99A: RAGES — an anagram of "gears," i.e., the letters of "gears" ... switched (around))
- TEMPORARILY OUT OF ORDER (117A: ROYAL PERMIT — an anagram of "temporarily," i.e., "temporarily" ... out of order)
Adenine (/ˈædɪniːn/, /ˈædɪnɪn/) (symbol A or Ade) is a purine nucleotide base that is found in DNA, RNA, and ATP. Usually a white crystalline substance. The shape of adenine is complementary and pairs to either thymine in DNA or uracil in RNA. In cells adenine, as an independent molecule, is rare. It is almost always covalently bound to become a part of a larger biomolecule.Adenine has a central role in cellular respiration. It is part of adenosine triphosphate which provides the energy that drives and supports most activities in living cells, such as protein synthesis, chemical synthesis, muscle contraction, and nerve impulse propagation. In respiration it also participates as part of the cofactors nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, flavin adenine dinucleotide, and Coenzyme A. (wikipedia)
• • •
As for the non-thematic elements of this puzzle ... fine. No real complaints. I had an error, though, and I want everyone out there who made the same mistake to fess up, please, so I don't feel like such an idiot. I had no idea what ADENINE was, so I really Really needed those crosses to come through for me, and ... mostly, they did. Except ... I hesitated at TSA v. NSA (109A: Surveillance org.). In the end, NSA just seemed like the better guess, if only because the "N" seemed to work better in ADENINE. Only ... I didn't have it as ADENINE. I had it as ADININE. Why? Because I heard the Hawaiian song in my head, and that last word sounds like "OI," so that's what I wrote: "ALOHA OI" (104A: Hawaiian song of farewell). Aaaargh, I should've known better. I've seen "ALOHA OE" in puzzles before. But no. I went with the sound in my head. Oy! So, yeah, total fail there. Bummer. I actually think it's an objectively bad cross, one that any sane constructor would try like hell to avoid, but I'm still mad at myself for botching "ALOHA OE."
The only other part of this puzzle that gave me any kind of pushback was the NNE, mainly because of TENT PEG (11D: Aid-de-camp?) and ASIDE FROM (13D: Excluding), both of which I had trouble parsing. Oh, and I wrote in IVAN instead of SVEN, that wasn't good (10D: Nonspeaking character in "Frozen"). Still haven't seen Frozen and am not likely to. I know there's an ELSA and an OLAF. I forgot about SVEN. The cluing in that section also gets pretty vague. [Place] is a very hard clue for STEAD if you don't have any letters in place. See also [Bakery treat] for DANISH. There are so many bakery treats! Even if you limit yourself to six-letter bakery treats. CRONUT! MUFFIN! COOKIE! So I was slow through there. Tough stuff. Nothing lethal, just mildly thorny. Rest of the puzzle: a cinch.
Bullet points:
- 1A: Warm shade of brown (PECAN) — Look, I know that anything can be a color (go look at paint swatches some time), but PECAN? I've never seen PECAN used that way. Again, I do not doubt that that word has been attributed to some shade of brown at some time. I'm just saying it's a mildly ridiculous way to clue PECAN, foisted on us by somebody's idea of clever clue juxtaposition—the clue for IVORY (right beneath PECAN) has the same clue phrasing (19A: Warm shade of white). Works waaaaaay better for IVORY than for PECAN. Not sure why we need identiclues here. There's no real wit or cleverness, and one of the clues feels forced.
- 29A: Example of industry in Proverbs 6:6-9 (ANT) — I got this easily enough, but really thought the story of the ant as a hard worker came from Aesop ("The Ant and the Grasshopper"). Ah, looks like Proverbs might've influenced the moralizing that usually attended retellings of the Aesop story.
The story has been used to teach the virtues of hard work and the perils of improvidence. Some versions state a moral at the end along the lines of "An idle soul shall suffer hunger", "Work today to eat tomorrow", and "July is follow'd by December". In La Fontaine's Fables no final judgment is made, although it has been argued that the author is there making sly fun of his own notoriously improvident ways. But the point of view in most retellings of the fable is supportive of the ant, a point of view influenced by the commendation in the biblical Book of Proverbs, which mentions the ant twice. The first proverb admonishes, "Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, which having no captain, overseer or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest" (6.6–8). Later, in a parallel saying of Agur, the insects figure among the 'four things that are little upon the earth but they are exceeding wise. The ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer.' (30.24–25)
- 31A: Polish language (EDIT) — So not "from Poland"; put "Polish" at the beginning of a clue, where the first word is always capitalized, and bam: ambiguity!
- 88A: European capital through which the Akerselva flows (OSLO) — big weekend for Norway in the crossword. Yesterday we learned about how much coastline Norway has (depending on how you measure, a potentially ridiculous amount) and today ... well, I learned a river. How have I never heard of a river that flows through a major European city!? Realizing now that my knowledge of geography is exceedingly warped by crosswords. On my mental map of Europe, the EBRO and the ODER and the NEVA are massive (though I can't precisely place Any of them), whereas less grid-friendly rivers may as well not exist. And I doubt there are many rivers less grid-friendly than AKERSELVA.
- 1D: Unlikely fliers, in a saying (PIGS) — needed many crosses to get this one. The "saying" is "When pigs fly!" An expression meaning "that'll never happen." Do people still say this? I feel like "lipstick on a pig" has overtaken "When pigs fly!" on the Top Ten list of pig sayings. Not sure what the other sayings are. "Pig in a poke"? "In a pig's eye!" (what the hell did that ever mean?) (the same thing as "when pigs fly!," I know, but why its eye!?).
- 32D: Fantasy role-playing game, for short (D AND D) — so, D&D (i.e. Dungeons & Dragons), with the "&" written out. It's an ampersandwich! (other examples include BANDB, RANDR, etc.)
- 48D: Regional divisions in Russia (OBLASTS) — pretty sure I learned this word from crosswords, back in the day. I just realized that I associate / conflate this word with "exclave," for reasons I do not understand at all. They are not the same.
- 53D: Members of a priestly caste of ancient Persia (MAGI) — I did not know the meaning of MAGI was as formal as all that. I just thought they were ... three wise guys. Wise men, I mean. ("Wise guys" makes them sound like mobsters.)
- 63D: Two-version marketing experiments (AB TESTS) — ugh. Grim. I do not speak marketing-speak. This answer can go walk into the ocean. Please.
- 118D: Desirable formation for ducks (ROW) — "in a metaphor," sure. In real life ... how do you know? Did you ask the ducks? Did a duck write this clue? (did it!?). Seems like ducks might not always want to be in a row. Maybe there are more optimal formations, depending on context.
Happy June, everyone. See you next time.
P.S. a group of solvers are asking the NYTXW to knock off the references to the Harry Potter books, given their author's virulent and hateful attitudes toward trans people, as well as her active funding of anti-trans orgs. You can see and/or sign the petition here.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
Best Sunday puzzle in a long time, I'd say. Easy theme to grasp, but it still required fitting the rearranged letters into a familiar phrase. My one stumbling block was spelling ARUGULA correctly (I had "aragula" at first), so looking that up online became my only cheat. Very enjoyable hour.
ReplyDeleteI concur!
Delete
ReplyDeleteMedium. I don't do cryptics, mostly because I'm very bad at anagrams. That's just not the way my brain works. So when I couldn't relate LEGAL NICETY and EARTH to their answers, I solved without looking at the rest of the clues. I finally got it after I finished. The one answer that initially prevented the happy music was 93D, TILAPIA, which I misspelled as TaLAPIA.
Oi was my oy, too. Looked it up and saw how often it's been used and apparently I should have remembered that it's OE.
ReplyDeleteOnly eleven days since the last TWISTED SISTER appearance (in that cute Wednesday 5/21 with the forms of address)! Looks like the NYT Crossword is trying to subtly pressure me into catching up on the metal of my early childhood.
ReplyDeleteOFL recently wrote about solving without ever getting a handle on the theme EN VOILA.
ReplyDeleteTo follow up on Rex’s thoughts - I do traditional crosswords because I dislike cryptics and anagrammatic games. So - when I see themes like this I bristle and swallow hard and trudge through.
ReplyDeletePYLON
Densely themed - the grid layout results in a load of 4s and 5s that are rough. Just look at the four corner blocks and it’s a struggle - STDS indeed.
Festival Express
I did learn ALEXIA and liked SEEDCASE, NO BRAINER and SCARECROW. There are some engaging longs here.
Blue RODEO
It’s a beautiful Sunday morning and I’m on my way to run a 10k to benefit a young man with ALS. I didn’t love this solve but I guess it could have been worse.
The Prettiest Girl in CHURCH
Good on ya SV, for running for a worthy cause. Go get 'em, and don't forget to hydrate.
DeleteI had ETSY instead of EBAY, which led to OSS instead of NSA, and despite my thinking that ADEOINE (or ADAOINE) and TTU didn’t look right, I figured the error must have been elsewhere in the puzzle… A looong time later, the penny finally dropped. No fault of the puzzle constructor, though — just my own damn fault for taking so long to question ETSY.
ReplyDeleteHand up for ETSY instead of EBAY, though when I corrected it I realized how illogical that was—ESTY has so many clothing items, so it would be odd for it to lump them altogether.
DeleteExecutive summary:
ReplyDeleteMuch NECTAR, constructor has nothing to RECANT.
ReplyDeleteEasy Sunday. Bit of a one-trick pony. Once you get two themers you know what is happening and the rest are just more of the same.
I'm wondering if non-chemists will end up with SWITCHEs GEARS crossing AsENINE, ALOHA Oi crossing ASiNINE, tSA crossing ADEtINE, or some combintation of those. [Ah, I see Rex did just that]
It was even worse than that, @kitshef. I ended up with ASHNINE. Had SWITCHEs GEARS and ALOHAOh. And ADHNINE looked even worse.
DeleteOr even dumber me…I had switchinGears. Didn’t notice I needed another g to make it work. Doh!
DeleteI was tricked by the Yiddish version of the song: Aloha Oy, which led to ADYNINE.
ReplyDeleteY is not a letter in the Hawaiian alphabet, Lewis. Knowing that "convinced" me that it was an I.
DeleteIt was an E not an I.
DeleteThat's why I put convinced in quotes. I know it's not correct.
DeleteRandom thoughts:
ReplyDelete• Sweet backstory, where after the thirteenth NYT rejection, Sam doesn’t tuck his tail and slink away; rather, he grits his teeth, forges on, and three acceptances follow. Uber inspiring.
• Enjoyed the fauna (DUCK, PIGS, ANT, WOLF, WREN), not to mention the clues based on “Ducks in a row” and “When pigs fly”.
• Thoroughly charmed, and that’s saying something, because I don’t see anagrams easily. But the theme answers were so solidly in-the-language and fun to guess at I was wowed rather than cowed.
• Remarkable finds in GENETICALLY ENGINEERED and TEMPORARILY OUT OF ORDER. Furthermore, these are very worthy answer debuts not only in the Times, but in all the major crossword outlets.
• Terrific never-before-used clues: [Center of mass?] for CHURCH, and [Faux gardener, so to speak] for SCARECROW.
I, who adore language quirks, loved this theme. Bravo and thank you, Sam, and congratulations on your NYT debut!
Pecan as a color: look in the wood stain department of your local home improvement store.
ReplyDeleteNot really buying that as evidence of pecan as color. Is the color "pecan" the color of the wood, the nut or the nut shell? Obviously the stain tries to match the wood, but when I think pecan I think the nuts. By this reasoning maple is a color as are oak and pine. Other than this and the aloha oe crossing a good puzzle
DeleteAs a kid my parents had a Wurlitzer piano made of pecan… I don’t think they even use that wood anymore. It was beautiful,
DeleteYep, those are all colors of wood stains.
DeleteGreat puzzle today but I too, had difficulty with the ALOHAOE/ADENINE crossing.
ReplyDeleteUnlike OFL, I’m an American crosswords guy all the way. Cryptic puzzles give me a headache; that’s not the way my mind works. Except for anagrams, which I can handle. So this puzzle hit the sweet spot for me, with just enough trickery, and easy enough to avoid the dreaded Sunday slog, e.g., last week’s Sunday puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this, although yes, the anagrams were pretty straightforward. But wow! -- GENETICALLYENGINEERED and TEMPORARILYOUTOFORDER are tours de force. And if one takes the opposite perspective - the constructor's perspective - of "reverse engineering" this puzzle, one needs to have in hand a bunch of phrases that could mean a word in that phrase is jumbled. No mean feat, that.
ReplyDeleteI figured ADENINE would be hard for many but was a gimme for this part-time molecular biologist. (BTW, nice group: GENETICALLYENGINEERED, ADENINE, and CLONE.) A few PPP crosses detracted slightly from this puzzle but this was overall a fun Sunday. Congrats on your NYT debut, Sam!
This was fun. I don’t do enough puzzles to be bored with the occasional witty and not overwhelming obtuse cryptic. Got ALEXIA only because it parallels disLEXIA. Daughter-in-law was gourmet cook and introduced us to the charms of ARUGULA. Learned ADENINE—had to look that one up. Will probably forget by tomorrow…
ReplyDeleteI also got tripped up at ALOHOE/ADENINE and the NE corner was the last one I completed. Got the theme fairly quickly, some of the fill was a little tough today.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteFirst thought was that only the letters in the capitalized clues would be used. Messed me up a bit at SWITCHED GEARS, as had SWITCHEs GEARS (no nevermind that there is a W overtly sitting there ... Silly brain.) Was gonna make a joke about AsENINE ...
Nice puz. Anagrams as told by synonyms of jumbled. Wasn't a NO BRAINER puz. Needed some thought.
I want the "Worlds largest" REESES. 😁
Along with such, I like the MegaStuf Oreos. Basically a TripleStuf. They once had one out called the MostStuf, which was a double-DoubleStuf. That was awesome! Although, it may have caused cardiac arrest in some.
Anyway, good puz, I'll bid you all ALOHA.
Happy Sunday!
Six F's ... Nice
RooMonster
DarrinV
I like to twist off one Oreo cookie each from two DoubleStufs and then combine them generating a QuadrupleStuf. More Stuf.
DeleteJust last night I was enjoying a performance by a Chicago-based soul-blues singer who goes by the name Mzz Reese and calls her band Reese's Pieces.
DeleteFrom a duck solving this puzzle, "Uh, VEE?"
ReplyDeleteTop-ten pig saying: lipstick on a pig
ReplyDeleteGuilty of Oi.
ReplyDeletePECAN, name of a stain used on wood flooring. There you go Rex.
ReplyDeleteDid NOT get the theme, finished by filling in answers that looked like they fit, and do not do well with cryptic puzzles at all. I have tried, I want to like them but like Son Volt said, it’s just not how my brain works I guess! But it was still fine, I get that I won’t get all the themes!
ReplyDeleteThought this was a great Sunday, and thank you @Lewis, for always being on the positive side, smiles, used to think your glasses were a little too rosy, now always want to see what good things you have to say. Lots of you may be tired of cryptics,but I thought these were fun, and they worked. Got it at earth, that helped see the others. Went from changing to shifting and even to switchin those gears (not seeing the lost 'g') before I finally saw the problem with OLiO.
ReplyDeleteAlso lots of fun misdirects and fresh cluing. EDIT took awhile, as after getting this wasn't about Poland I tried to think of words I use when I polish something. Also couldn't get my mind off bras where REESES went. All fun.
On the petition to ban Potter, really? Count me on the side that disagrees with Rowling, but no, not going there. Think i've had enough of trying to ban stuff you disagree with.
Happy June everybody.
No one is trying to ban JK Rowling, lol as if that were possible. Trying standing up *to* bigots instead of *for* them. Extra true for billionaire bigots, which she is. An ethical requirement for billionaire bigots who use their money and fame to harm others. Which she is. She's literally trying to ban human beings, but your concern is some solvers are tired of seeing references to her work promoted by the NYT. SMDH
DeleteFun puzzle and I liked the ducks/pigs/pecan clues. I also had trouble with OI and ADENINE.
ReplyDeleteI learned yesterday that the coy answer to an ABTEST is YES.
ReplyDeleteI had AsENINE crossing SWITCHEsGEARS. Granted, the D makes more sense and when I went back to pronounce my wrong answer, well I felt just….apt.
Place in 4 letters is LIEU and in 5 letters STEAD. It’s reflexive by now.
I remember once struggling forever to get a 6 letter pastry - the pain made me remember the DANISH immediately today.
The correct formation for ducks is a VEE as in “flying VEE”. Didn’t the Mighty Ducks teach us anything? ROW, puhlease…
I agree that these were pretty easy for cryptic clues - you really have to do a lot to put yourself in the cryptic mindset to be able to solve them.
The puzzle was solid if a little stolid. Nothing really SPLASHY, but nothing terrible - didn’t love SSGT.
This was burtonkd - made anonymous in google’s infinite wisdom
Deleteburtonkd
DeleteIn fairness to the constructor, there is the expression, put all your ducks in a row. You could argue that a question mark would be appropriate.
ALOHA OI of me, as well....OY!
ReplyDeleteBrand with cup sizes from minis to world’s largest set off my “Gary’s tee hee alarm”.
ReplyDeleteExtremely pedantic complaint of the day: surely a FIRE DRILL doesn’t start with a false alarm. A drill is practice for the real deal. A false alarm is presumed to be a real emergency, making it a normal evacuation, not an evacuation drill. It’s fine I guess but I got hung up on it until the crosses forced me to fill it in.
ReplyDeleteOverall enjoyable, although there was an awful lot of ambiguity that slowed me down. “Bakery treat”? Automatic skip on the first pass — that could be eight different things — but it made me work the grid a bit more than usual which was kind of fun.
Actually, I was thinking the same thing.
DeleteDear Rex-If it makes you feel any better, I had exactly your experience with the "oy: sound of ALOHAOE and the dilemma of TSA vs. NSA. No help trying either on my print out, as I was not going to get the happy music anyway. Came here to get the answer and said, "oh".
ReplyDeleteKinda saw what was going on with GENETICALLYENGINEERED but was certain after HEART. Doing the SB every day gets you rearranging letters into words so that was helpful.
Only no-know for today was OBLASTS which I may have known at some point, not there today. Lots of in-the-language stuff today, I think my favorite was NOBRAINER, which was a NOBRAINER.
Nice job, SB. You found a Superb Bunch of anagrams and thanks for all the fun.
For me it was the ADENINE and ALOHAOE cross that was deadly. Just never heard of either of them. I’ve seen the word OBLASTS in print before, but was always too lazy to look it up - that was the other big trouble spot for me (I’m still not sure I know what it means, lol).
ReplyDeleteI had fun with this one - I picked up the theme construct early on, which was helpful and all of the theme answers were pretty polished. I’ve encountered this type of theme in the past, but not so much that I have anagram-fatigue like OFL.
I haven’t read the comments yet, but I suspect that there will be some grumbling about it being on the easy side - although personally I found it to have just the right degree of difficulty.
Rex mentioned how the brain gets into a different type of solving mode with this type of a grid - I think there is some merit to that. To me, dealing with the theme entries today felt a lot like solving the clues with the (?) question mark indicating that there is a play on words or rearranging the meanings involved (btw, do those types of clues have a name ? It seems like they should).
I love Cryptics, so I was a very happy camper today. This puzzle is accomplishing a lot of different things, all of them deftly. It's presenting some long and unusual anagrams for GENETICALLY and TEMPORARILY and even for BLESSING that are not immediately apparent. It's incorporating them into totally in-the-language phrases that have a meaning of being changed in some way. And then it's incorporating them into a 21x21 grid with symmetry. Loved this puzzle!
ReplyDeleteNow let's see. Sam Brady is, among other things, a software engineer. Of course he is! Could he have engineered a software program to do all of the above? Let's see what outside help an analog constructor like me could get without a computer program.
Well, if you first come up with the phrases you ideally want to use, you can feed them into a website that will anagram the word in question for you -- assuming it can be anagrammed. Not everything can be anagrammed, of course.
So if it were me, I would have to lie in bed and dream up the phrases and then go and see which ones worked, anagram-wise. If some didn't, I'd have to dream up more phrases.
But what if a software engineer can engineer a program that will find a plethora of phrases that involve "changing" something; then follow it with a program that will anagram those words that can be anagrammed; and then maybe even feed it into a grid in a symmetrical way? Did Sam do this? If you're a software engineer, why not do this? I'm going over to Wordplay now to look at the Constructor Notes.
You have to be really smart to be a software engineer. So I don't for a moment begrudge the advantage that software can give a software engineer over an analog constructor like me. I'll only squawk if one day soon AI is able to pull off the whole shebang with no human involvement at all.
But however it was accomplished, this puzzle was a real pleasure to solve.
I just saw your comment about having the same birthday. No wonder our takes on puzzles and life are virtually identical! Have a happy, happy birthday, Nancy. And thanks for all of your contributions to this community.
DeleteAn additional Happy Birthday to you too! And some people don't believe in synchronicity.
DeleteLove cryptics. Where do other cryptic solvers find theirs these days?
Delete¿Estamos completos?
ReplyDeleteAnagrams alert. Anything longer than 6 letters and I will assume you're right. I am way too lazy to rearrange those. The second appearance of Twisted Sister this month after decades of lying dormant in my formerly long-haired skull is making me suspicious somebody is up to something over at the good ole NYTXW. A new puzzle perhaps? One where you rearrange body parts to complete a person from a famous painting? Wondering how the public will receive those naked arrow shooting angel babies.
Took a long time again today to do this one. I'm not vibing the last three days. Having a smelly diaper right off the bat seems like a wonderful way to make a puzzle noticeably worse.
Unlikely flyers is funnnnnny. I also loved faux gardener. And a desirable formation for ducks.
People: 10
Places: 5
Products: 10
Partials: 15
Foreignisms: 6
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 46 of 140 (33%)
Funnyisms: 9 😄
Uniclues:
1 The kid might be horribly sick from an easily preventable problem, but at least he's horribly sick and chemical free per sectarian zealots.
2 Lines in the theater: And you think picking up after your dog is a lot.
3 Canine reminding you repeatedly consuming morning pastries (and people from Copenhagen) is not a good idea.
1 MEASLES MIXED BLESSING (~)
2 ASIDE FROM RODEO PLOWS
3 DANISH RELAPSE WOLF
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: What you wish you could do prior to becoming lunch. UNSEE POLAR BEAR.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“Ducks in a row” looks like it has nothing to do with duck behavior, but is a reference to either bowling pins, which used to be smaller and wider and were often called “ducks,” or carnival shooting games involving wooden ducks.
ReplyDeleteWhat, no complaint about TADAS?
ReplyDeleteI do my best at solving Cryptics and I need those anagram answers because some of the other types are too cryptic for me! So I enjoyed the theme today, especially how nice the end phrases are.
I've never seen Frozen (and don't plan on it) so I had Olaf in place at 10D, holding up that whole section. And I had a moment's hesitation at the ALOHA OE/ADENINE cross but I think I've seen ADENINE lately in a puzzle, whew!
Sam Brody, thanks for the fun Sunday puzzle!
I meant to say I TRY my best to solve Cryptics and often fail. I've been staring at one puzzle for a few weeks thinking that my brain will eventually turn sideways as is required for Cryptics. I'll take another look now and see if this crossword can help me SWITCH GEARS.
DeleteABTESTS sound like something that should be part of the Mr. Universe competition.
ReplyDeleteEgs: Whatever happened to that happy bachelor woodcutter?
Mrs. Egs: HEWED and cried.
Hawaiians with a lot of POISE don't say ALOHA Oy!
In the top ten pig sayings, don't forget the silk purse from a sows ear.
TIL that @Rex isn't really keen on US crosswords. Kinda like learning that Julia Child actually didn't care much for French food. Also, it seems very weird to brag that you could solve the themers without looking at the clues and just waiting for enough crosses to suggest a phrase that could be Cryptically anagramed. One can, of course, in theory do this sort of thing on every crossword. It is often referred to here as a "downs only" solve.
But, on a more positive note, today is my birthday and, as far as I can tell, 72 is the new 71. Also, I liked this puzzle a lot, so thanks and congrats to you, Sam Brody
Hey, happy birthday! Hope you have as many as you want, and want as many as you have.
Delete@egsforbreakfast 10:29 AM
DeleteHappy birthday my friend and hero.
Happy Birthday, egs. Keep 'em coming
DeleteHappy Birthday, egsforbreakfast!
DeleteOMG, @egs! We have the same birthday!!!!! It's my birthday, too. Happy birthday!
Delete@egs
DeleteHAPPY BIRTHDAY 🎁🎉🎈🎂🎊
Have a great day and an even better year.
Confirming what I have always suspected, that egs and Nancy are one and the same. Happy birthday to you both!
DeleteHoly Rigatoni! @egs And @Nancy's Birthday! Is there some sort of celestial event happening?
DeleteHappy Happy to both!
RooMonster Wisher Guy
Happy birthday to both @egs & @nancy!
DeleteOn Bigoted Fame: The challenge with hero worship and demonizing this or that famous person is how regularly great things are done by despicable people.
ReplyDeleteJK Rowling: Transphobic
Agatha Christie: Antisemitic
Céline: Antisemitic
“Coco” Chanel: Nazi sympathizer
Donald Trump: Racist
Dr. Seuss: Racist imagery
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Racist
Ezra Pound: Antisemitic
Frederic Chopin: Antisemitic
Henry Ford: Antisemitic
John Wayne: Racist
Kanye West: Antisemitic
Martin Luther: Antisemitic
Martin Luther King, Jr.: Antisemitic
Mel Gibson: Antisemitic
Roald Dahl: Antisemitic
Ronald Reagan: Racist
Stephen Foster: Racist
Thomas Jefferson: Racist
TS Eliot: Antisemitic
Walt Disney: Nazi sympathizer
Toscanini on Richard Strauss: "To
Strauss the composer I take off my hat. To Strauss the man I put it back on."
Single out Harry Potter because its author is the bigot of the month? I doubt it accomplishes the goal of solving hatred.
Just to be clear, the rumors about Walt Disney having been a Nazi sympathizer have been thoroughly debunked.
DeleteI don't understand why some feel the need to defend these well-heeled bigots who use their time and considerable fortunes specifically to hurt other people. Rowling could be doing literally anything she wants, but she chooses to spend her time hurting others. It's happening now, that's why it's an issue now. That's why it's a choice now for us all. Even if it's one of your favorites. All defending her accomplishes is letting everyone know that you're okay with her bigotry.
DeleteLet's add poet/playwright/actress/journalist Colette to the list -- glass ceiling-shattering feminist icon, brilliant wordsmith/storyteller, trailblazing avatar of the boho/hipster lifestyle -- and serial adulterer whose sexual conquests included her own 16-year-old-stepson.
Delete4:15 pm anonymous
DeleteReread what Gary wrote, not what you think he wrote. He did not praise the author. Especially reread his quote of Toscanini.
Thomas Jefferson was a virulent racist in his writings but if I praise the Declaration of Independence I am not contradicting that fact
About Walt Disney, never heard the Nazi accusation. But recently saw a documentary about Tyrus Wong (a China born California raised artist who was underrated until his later years) He was a major contributor to the Chinese inspired art work of Bambi but received no credit for his work. The doc made it clear Disney was unhappy Wong was Chinese American and let underlings engineer his firing and attempted to erase him from the company’s history.
OE! How can so many in this group of smart people not know the constituents of DNA? My brief confusion re ADENINE resulted from the fact that of the other 3 candidates, guaNINE shared its 4 terminal letters, and thymINE the last 3; easily resolved by crosses.
ReplyDeleteIn the mid 20th century British intellectual C. P. Snow (both a chemist and a novelist) wrote a very influential essay and book titled The Two Cultures, in which he lamented the lack of familiarity among most of society’s best educated members of very basic and important scientific knowledge. Sadly, the situation has not changed much since then, if anything made worse by the advent of search engines AI…
webwinger
Easy. No real problems with this one. Caught the theme about a quarter of the way in and just kept ambling.
ReplyDeleteSolid take on a familiar theme but not much sparkle, liked it.
Should also have mentioned that ADENINE is the base molecule of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the central compound in the energy economy of the entire biosphere!
ReplyDeletewebwinger
I filled in all the squares, but didn't get the happy sound - of course I spelled the Hawaiian song ALOHA OI, and adinine didn't seem wrong, so it took minutes to find the error. And I didn't remember which bakery treat I tried before getting DANISH from crosses.
ReplyDeleteA nod of appreciation to the constructor for creating an anagram-based puzzle that even an anagram-averse solver (me) could find engaging and fun to work out. Outstanding in-the-language theme phrases! And I enjoyed seeing the SCARECROW appear and racking my brain over the "center of mass."
ReplyDeleteThis was Carola. I forgot to make sure that Google hadn't signed me out again.
DeleteAdd me to the list of ALOHA Oh my!
ReplyDeleteOnly other problem was ETSY before EBAY, but that was readily displaced by crosses.
Another one of those where I end up solving the puzzle as a themeless because I do not get the theme. Solid puzzle overall though. And congrats to Sam for breaking through with his first NYT crossword!
ReplyDelete@Nancy
ReplyDeleteYou, too.
Good Sunday, even if I wasn’t quite as enamored by it as last Sunday’s.
ReplyDeleteI’m no anagram HATER (HEART/EARTH) so I enjoyed the scrambled wordplay. I could have used ATAD less short fill, even if some clever clueing made the most of runts like TIRE and PSI. There were some high points, like seeing both the SCARECROW and TOTO together, with their clever clues, “Faux gardener, so to speak” and “Revealer of ‘the man behind the curtain’.”
As an ASIDE, it was fun to see a couple of familiar but less-than- everyday words. ALEXIA I know from SB, and OBLASTS from my Russian novels class at USM’s Honors College in the 1980’s. Had some fantastic classes there while not finishing my Bachelor’s in Music.
My downfall was in the same ADENINE/NSA area that held up @Rex - I had also made a mistake but a different one. I spelled ALOHAOE right, but I thought we were SWITCHinGEARS and didn’t notice I was one G short or that OLiO should’ve been OLEO. So I had AnE_INE and thought AnENINE looked ridiculous. Finally gave up and let Rexword “clue me in.”
Whatever disappointment I felt was quickly replaced by many chuckles reading @Rex. Regarding un-grid-friendly rivers, Mississippi has a few, notably the Tchoutacabouffa. Tchoutacabouffa is the Biloxi tribe's word for "broken pot." Southern Mississippi art potter George E. Ohr, the “Mad Potter of Biloxi", dug much of the clay he used for his works from the Tchoutacabouffa River.
Happy birthday @egs and @Nancy!!!
ReplyDeleteAn Auntie Grammy winner ... sorta.
ReplyDeleteNot a challengin SunPuz. Also, not much puztheme humor to keep the long solvequest morale up. Well filled and clued, tho.
Did kinda enjoy the TEMPORARILYOUT OF ORDER Royal permit, tho.
staff weeject pick: BTU. Mixin but/tub.
some fave stuff: NOBRAINER. AREWEDONE. TENTPEG clue. Extra-sneaky DORM clue.
Thanx, Mr. Brody dude.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
... and now for some flicks in the mix ...
"Turner Classic Movies" - 7x8 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Enjoyed this one a lot. Particularly pigs, flying, and ducks in a row
ReplyDeleteYes, same! A lot of fun cluing and puzzling out. Don’t recall a fun Sunday like this in a long while.
DeleteIn my statistics class we were assigned the task of determining the odds of there being two of us (in a class of 30) with the same birthday. Amazingly, it turns out there's a 70% chance. We went up the rows announcing our birthdays to see if we could find a match and we did. Happy birthday to two of our favorite classmates. To 120 for you both!
ReplyDeletePerhaps you associate exclaves with oblasts because of Kaliningrad, which is an oblast that's a semi-exclave -- unconnected with Russia, surrounded by Poland and Lithuania.
ReplyDeleteI rarely solve an entire Sunday puzzle. I rate them by how far I get before I quit. Today I finished the whole thing so, ipso facto, I liked it.
ReplyDeleteThe theme tickled my fancy and there were only six of them so that left lots of room for quality fill. There's SPLASHY stuff all over the place. Yay! Balance twixt theme and fill!
@egs 10:29 beat me to it with the "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear". Another on the Top Ten List of Pig Sayings" and one of my favorites is "Like casting pearls before swine".
I have a shop on Etsy so I knew from the clue "Site with a 'Clothing, Shoes & Accessories' section" that 102 Down would be EBAY.
I wondered why you would want just one 81D LEG WARMER. Is that a singular of convenience (SOC)? ASIDE FROM that micro -nit, the puzzle was IDEAL.
For Liveprof: It isn't that amazing if you consider that in a group of 30 people, there are 30X29X28X27...etc. total combinations of birthdates possible.
ReplyDeleteYes. It still amazed me, though -- and I'd bet (a whole dollar) most folks would guess the chance of it is far less than 70%.
Delete“Oh no! A bloody anagram puzzle!” I thought and then I thought, “Oh well, would I rather suffer this or head out and dig up all the self-sown alders on the property before they get to big for me to manage. I elected to let them grow for another few hours. They’re lovely trees in their place but my definition of a weed is something growing where you don’t want it.
ReplyDeleteTo quote Son Volt at 6:27, “To follow up on Rex’s thoughts - I do traditional crosswords because I dislike cryptics and anagrammatic games. So - when I see themes like this I bristle and swallow hard and trudge through.” Inspiring words, those, and, besides, I needed an excuse to enjoy my coffee and morning cigar so I, too, trudged through. Thank you, SV.
Don’t even know where to start with all the silly names people give to colours. PECAN!? Really? And if I want a warm white in one of my paintings I reach for a tube of Zinc White as opposed to Titanium White, which is much brighter, crisper. I have about a hundred tubes of paint laid out not 6 feet from me and none of them are labeled IVORY. These colour clues could almost always be better. Maybe something about nuts or illegally traded tusks. Anything but colours, please.
Wanted PIGS immediately at 1D but was thwarted by my 1A ochre. (See above colours rant).
Failed my ABTESTS at 63D because I was trying to cross it with NOpRoblEm giving me ApTETSTS, which are a thing, right? Even if they have nothing to do with marketing, as far as I know. ADENINE 95D got me because I flat out did not know it and only had the fuzziest memory of the Hawaiian song, so I had ADaNINE.
In case you think I’m being totally negative, I must say that, contrary to my expectations, I did have some fun with this. Some nice clueing on some shorter stuff. I especially liked 11D TENTPEG for Aid-de-camp. More my kind of Xword clue.
I was apparently anonymous at 9:30 am. So now with my real xword blog name, I wish Nancy and egs a very happy birthday!!
ReplyDeleteI had a bad start at 1 across with BEIGE (soon fixed), then like Rex and many of you I finished with ADININE crossing OI. Why no happy Pencil?... had to click Reveal Incorrect Letters.
ReplyDeleteThe theme was pretty good for a Sunday... good old anagrams, but with a twist in the answer, not the clue!
I test drove a Nissan VERSA on Friday, so I guess 21 across is the universe telling me to buy it.
"Date that could also be a question" == MAY I.
Thanks for the kind words, Rex!
ReplyDeleteI wish I could remember who it was — I think maybe Will Nediger? — who wrote a clue with the definition "collection of anagram indicators" whose answer turned out to be DICTIONARY.
BTW, because people seem to announce this sort of thing here, and because I think it's pretty important, I would like to reveal to all who might actually be interested that my lovely wife and I celebrated our 50th anniversary last evening. And that's just counting the "legal" years. It was the 70s, cohabitation was frowned upon by many, but not my future mother-in-law who professed that you were a fool if you didn't check out the merchandise before you actually bought it. I must say I miss her.
ReplyDeleteWe stayed in and did what we do well together (no, not that). We cooked. Rack of lamb sourced from a neighbouring farm, some crispy roasted potatoes and onions and some grilled (bbqed) bok choy which didn't quite fit the dinner profile. So together we improvised a brilliant sauce from fresh tomatoes from the grocery store and canned roasted tomatoes from last year's garden, a bit of local garlic and some chicken stock and butter to adjust the fluidity, et voila!, the Bok Choy was now a pseudo-Italian dish. Lotsa fun. We work well together sometimes.
We actually do have a celebration dinner planned at a downtown Michelin starred restaurant later this week. I'm pretty sure it will make our kitchen adventure look weak, but we still had fun.
@Les, congratulations on 50. My sister's 60th is next month, on almost the same day her grandson is getting married!
DeleteHappy Anniversary to you & your wife! Don't know where you live but I don't eat lamb anyway :(. Enjoy!
DeleteCongrats on the 50th and have a great day. We celebrated ours in the middle of Covid and did, well, nothing.
DeleteI'm of 2 minds - I liked this except for TENT PEG, EDIT, ALOHA OE but never got the gimmick. Solved as a themeless & saw the theme when I came here.. No typos (no frustration) which I'll attribute to being well-rested, having gone back to sleep for 2 more hours after my walk on the track at dawn - all unnecessary info, except for me.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sam for a very pleasant Sunday :)
When same-sex marriage became legal, my husband and I got hitched wearing bow ties with flying pigs on them, because we always said we’d be able to marry when pigs fly. (We also wore other clothes, not just the bow ties.)
ReplyDeleteKarlman
DeleteI found the bow ties with pigs flying a great story. And an answer to Rex who wondered if the expression is used any more. )(I am old and the question didn’t occur to me).
Happy birthday, @Nancy!
ReplyDeleteSince having one's ducks in a ROW usually implies lining them up so they can be easily shot -- i.e., a metaphor for setting something up to be done efficiently -- I'm assuming that it's not a very "desirable" formation for the ducks themselves.
ReplyDeleteUtterly clueless about the gimmick -- but solved it anyway.
ReplyDeleteIs there an online petition for those of us who would rather encourage the NYTXW not to kowtow to all the snowflakes?
ReplyDeleteDagwood
DeleteI do resent these types of petitions but the use of the word snowflakes, I resent even more. Especially when we have a dictator president weaponizing his war against free speech with such words. These petitions are mere popguns compared to Trump’s executive orders and lawsuits which attempt to take over whole universities.
Unusual for me, I got the theme very quickly and in turn that made the puzzle easier. On the other hand there were a lot of tricky clues. One brilliant one was the clue for scarecrow. Surprised Rex was so annoyed by adenine aloha oe cross But I guess he never focused on the spelling because it has appeared in this puzzle before. The spelling happened to stick in my brain.
ReplyDeleteOf course he does the crossword in a small fraction of my time!
Noticed very few complaints about the phrases in the actual theme answers. Shows how good they are. Very smooth to use a Rex term.
Liked the puzzle
Happiest of B-days to y’all, @egs & @Nancy! Keep em comin, U good folks.
ReplyDeleteM&A
Happy Birthday @egs & @Nancy
ReplyDeleteVery happy to have an entertaining Sunday puzzle with a theme that was easy to see, yet made me think to solve the theme answers. And even better, anyone having difficulty with the theme for whatever reason could get the happy music without ever solving the anagrams. An excellent feat of construction and a fine Sunday, following a fine Saturday.
ReplyDeleteI was on my Grandma pink cloud all weekend. My granddaughter had her dance concerts this weekend. I enjoyed seeing her and about 200 other kids dance their hearts out.
This has been such a good year for our G. She feels truly safe and loved. She trusts that she is safe. We can tell because she has begun to take risks, to try making friends. And she discovered that she loves to dance, and that it makes her happy, and even better, that she can share this love with her mother, my daughter, who was literally born to dance. G radiated absolute joy each time she took the stage.
Our little family is proof that sometimes the system works. Over my 40 year legal career, I represented about 125 kids caught up in the system, victims of abuse and neglect, and deserving their chance at love and fulfillment.
Rarely do the stars align as perfectly as they have for us. We have 6th grade “promotion” this week. Next year is Middle School and the teen years begin. And we are all ready, especially our sweet girl. Seeing her actually look forward is absolutely proof that love and hard work can indeed heal. This was a perfect weekend.
Pretty easy solve. My question is does Jane Fonda only warm one leg? They are called leg warmers and cannot be separated. Also never heard of a scarecrow being referred to as a faux gardener. Please enlighten me. Thx
ReplyDeleteU.S. Army NCO here with a small nit to pick at 92A. The abbreviation for Staff Sergeant in the Army is SSG. The Air Force uses the abbreviation SSGT for their rank of Staff Sergeant.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I can’t speak to armies of other countries.
Pearls before swine!
ReplyDeleteA silk purse from a sow’s ear!
Rowling supports women and girls. Rex - like all deranged Lefties - gaslights. He is the hater., who supports biological males in girl's locker rooms and bathrooms and sports.
ReplyDelete