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Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- MUTANTS / ANTHOLOGY (1A: The X-Men, e.g. / 4D: Collection of literary works)
- PEDANT / RAN TRACK (15A: Excellent sort of person to be a copy editor / 9D: Did laps, say)
- DECANT / PLANTS (19A: Transfer from one bottle to another / 13D: Some spies)
- AVANT GARDE / ANTLERS (26A: Testing the limits, say / 28D: Some hunting lodge décor)
- LANTERN / REDUNDANT (37A: Bit of Chinese New Year décor / 10D: Not adding any new information)
- "THIS CAN'T BE" / DEFIANT 48A: "There's no way!" / 31D: Untamable)
- ATLANTA / ANTENNA (50A: Award-winning Donald Glover TV series, or where it was filmed / 51D: Part of a bug)
- MEANT A LOT / SHANTIES (56A: Bore importance / 49D: Huts)
- INFANT / MANTRA (61A: Baby / 56D: "Location, location, location," to many real estate agents)
- ERRANT / "DEAR SANTA..." (64A: Out-of-bounds / 43D: Start of a wish-list letter)
McLaren Racing Limited (/məˈklærən/ mə-KLA-rən) is a British motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. The team is a subsidiary of the McLaren Group, which owns a majority of the team. McLaren is best known as a Formula One chassis constructor, the second-oldest active team and the second-most successful Formula One team after Ferrari, having won 199 races, 12 Drivers' Championships, and nine Constructors' Championships. McLaren also has a history in American open wheel racing as both an entrant and a chassis constructor, and has won the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (Can-Am) sports car racing championship. McLaren is one of only three constructors, and the only team, to complete the Triple Crown of Motorsport (wins at the Indianapolis 500, 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Monaco Grand Prix). (wikipedia)
• • •
I'm not one for Latin plurals but for some reason, maybe because it's such a fancy word, I always think LACUNA should be pluralized LACUNAE (not LACUNAS) (22A: Empty spaces). And I have less than no idea about Formula 1 as a sport. It may be the only major "sport" below golf on my "care about it" rankings, though cricket is probably down there too. But then we simply don't have cricket in the U.S., whereas I'm pretty sure Formula 1 is at least on TV. Anyway, MCLAREN = all crosses. The name rings a bell, but only faintly. Nothing else in the grid gave me a lick of trouble. Whoops, I forgot "Shred the GNAR!" What an embarrassing phrase. Never heard of that either. Still, not exactly tough to (snow) plow through.
Lots and lots of proper nouns (HANA Mandlikova, Rita ORA, VERA Farmiga—big day for women whose first and last names both end in "a"), but they were all well within my zone of familiarity. I think I had my first in-the-wild Rita ORA encounter this week. I started watching Too Much (Netflix) and the main character (an American living in London played by Megan Stalter) has a new job producing a holiday commercial of some sort that will feature Rita ORA. I laughed out loud when they dropped her name. "There she is!" The show, co-created by Lena Dunham, also features Richard E. Grant, Rita Wilson, Rhea Perlman, and Janicza Bravo, and the episode we watched last night had a featured performance by Naomi "Mulholland Drive" Watts. If you want a rom-comy sit-comy show that is also very sex-forward and, plot-wise, a bit of a runaway train, then you might like it. We're still on the fence about it, but it's got some very funny moments and it's like nothing I've ever seen, really, which (in the age of Algorithmic Mediocrity) is a huge plus.
OK, that's it. See you when I see you...
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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I also found it easy. Caught on to the rebus trick quickly with SH-ANT-IES, and the rest were fairly obvious. I especially liked PED-ANT as it was clued. More enjoyable than most Thursdays for me.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy the shape of the black squares in this puzzle- 8 lines on the sides, 8 dots in the middle.
ReplyDeleteThat's about all I enjoyed.
12 dots in my puzzle!
DeleteOh, hey, I can't count. That's what happens to an insomniac after doing a crossword puzzle at 6 in the morning...
Delete16 minutes for me, which means "medium". I agree that once the theme is grokked it becomes a pretty straightforward puzzle. I enjoyed seeing all the ways that ANT can become part of a word. I don't know anything about the X-men, so it wasn't until I got over to the clue about "some spies" and got the PL that I started to suspect a rebus... The revealer was pretty straightforward, tell-it-like-it-is. I liked the fact that the rebuses were pretty randomly scattered around so then it becomes a bit of a scavenger hunt. Thanks for a fun Rebus puzzle for our Thursday, Alexander! : )
ReplyDeleteEmbarrassingly easy. It felt like I was doing the ' Weekly Reader' puzzle from back in the third grade. Does that date me much haha?
ReplyDeleteWeekly Reader ceased publication in 2012 so I guess you're at least in your 20s.
Delete@Anonymous 6:41 AM
DeleteDon't be embarrassed. It means you are very good at puzzles and should be proud of your accomplishments.
Embarrassed? Just enjoy the puzzle & be proud of yourself! Tomorrow's another day...
DeleteOnce I changed rENterS to TENANTS it fell like a house of cards . Towards the end I even counted how many "ANTS" I had - I had ten so I knew I did not need any more. I had ThatCANTBE before THISCANTBE and MICs before MICE. - that clued seemed little off. You could tell there was a rebus/trick involved because there was a lot of white space first run through. Fun puzzle.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteEasy-Medium. Easy once I hit the second or third [ANT]. Not a fan of rebus puzzles.
Overwrites:
1D: My laptop accessories were MICs before they were MICE
10A: ROut before ROMP
45D: MCcAREN before MCLAREN (I almost) remembered.
WOEs:
VERA Farmiga at 54D
Shred the GNAR at 55A
Decent Thursday. Just the one WoE at VERA, and I always prefer my rebi to be asymmetrically placed.
ReplyDeleteNaomi Watts is a chameleon. I've seen a lot of her work, and I never recognize her. She is just so different in Mulholland Drive versus The Ring versus The Impossible versus King Kong, to name a few.
Yes, easy and lacking in trickiness, but I enjoyed it. Wasn’t sure what was going on until I got to DEARSANTA, shortly after which TENANTS made it obvious what we were doing here. After that the ANTs just fell into place.
ReplyDeleteI suspected we were in rebus territory when ANTLERS didn’t fit, although at that point I suspected that they would all be different. It was a letdown when I stumbled upon the reveal and realized that it just reduced to finding ten places to put ANT. It became kind of a snoozer after that.
ReplyDeleteThe fill held up reasonably well with the theme taking up so much real estate - although there is some unpleasant stuff in the far south, like GNAR, HANA, IRENE, EENIE and SNOTS.
Got the gist quickly. No fun to complete
ReplyDeleteAnts are captains of industry, they always seem to be on task. If you pick one up and place it down far from where you found it, it immediately goes right back to work. Ants get things done. They always seem to know what to do. They seem absolutely in tune with the universe.
ReplyDeleteWe can learn from these creatures.
And be amazed as well, as I was after a quick ant fact hunt. Ants are strong; they can lift objects 50 times their body weight. A super ant colony was found in South America that was nearly 4,000 miles wide.
Most of my experience with ants has occurred during three weeks in the spring, when they invite themselves into our house, and there is no keeping them out. They mean no harm; this is just part of their work, and when it’s done, they’re gone.
This puzzle was not only fun to fill in, it reminded me of a fantastic Barbara Kingsolver novel (“The LACUNA”). I also like how SARGE echoed the theme, because you can append ANT to it.
Your puzzle, Alexander, happified my exercise-loving brain as well as sent me galavanting into Ant World. What a blast – thank you!
Administrative note: I shall be away on vacay, back a week from Monday. If I can’t sneak in my clue list this coming Monday, there will be two lists when I return. It will make my heart happy to rejoin you all!
DeleteAnother thing I’ve noticed when observing ants is that they don’t let any obstacle stop them. They just back up and go around, under or over the top, but somehow they find a way to keep going. Enjoy your vacation.
Delete@Lewis -- Being in your house is "part of their work"? What work is that?
DeleteI'm sure glad that their "work" doesn't include being in my house.
Much the same reaction as OFL, but I found the ANTs in the NW with DECANT, and the rest were pretty much obvious. Met VERA and HANA and learned a new way to clue APSE. Otherwise mostly fill in the blanks.
ReplyDeleteThe clue for FAN reminded me of the deeply philosophical maxim "Life is like a FAN, you turn one way it sucks and you turn the other way it blows.".. Not that I agree with it.
@Lewis -- I read The Once and Future King a long time ago but I seem to remember young Arthur becoming an ANT, among other things, and describing their entire existence as "done" or "not done". Nothing deeper than that. This struck me as true, as did a lot of things in this wonderful book.
Fun and breezy rebus Thursday, AL. A Lot of ANTs, and I'll take your word for it that there are TEN. Thanks for all the fun.
Maybe it’s early yet but I’m still trying to see the connection between “Bore importance” and MEANTALOT. MEANT A LOT? MEAN TALOT (even a thing?)
ReplyDeleteNothing. *sigh*
Something bore importance: that means it carried importance, in other words it MEANT A LOT.
DeleteCute enough I guess, but overall this one bugged me.
ReplyDeleteHa.
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteFound all TEN ANTS pretty easily. Got it at ANTLERS. Was wondering if today was National Be Nice To Ants Day, but got the Revealer and realized it was just word play.
Nice grid, ALOT of ANTs scurrying around, good fill twixt them all. Grid even has two fewer Blockers than max of 38.
Dang, Rex, you should check out the MCLARENs that are out there, very nice, exotic cars, albeit quite expensive.
I have a REDUNDANT AVANT GARDE ANTHOLOGY of an ERRANT ATLANTA MANTRA, that MEANTALOT to PEDANT CIA PLANTS who RAN TRACK with ANTENNA sticking out. It details DEFIANT INFANT MUTANTS with ANTLERS living in SHANTIES who DECANT milk and write DEAR SANTA letters by LANTERN. THIS CANT BE, you might say. But it's all true.
Welp, have a great Thursday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Not sure if this was an intentional Easter egg, but I was tickled that LACUNA crossed with COILS because Lacuna Coil is a band. I was introduced to their song “Closer” by the Guitar Hero III video game
ReplyDeleteI got it when I got the revealer. Which was pretty early on. Still hate calling children SNOTS or BRATS. Big huge I dislike this puzzle flag. And yes LACUNAS is just wrong. Otherwise fine.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, the first definition of LACUNAS in the first online dictionary that I checked was “an unfilled space or interval; a gap”. I also noticed an anatomical (medical?) definition as well, but as far as I can tell, the clue is legitimate.
DeleteThis is one of those days when I'm glad I still solve on paper, as I got to draw little ants in each of those squares.
ReplyDelete[Like emoji]
DeleteI used to do that. It makes a very easy puzzle like this one seem much more interesting.
DeleteWhat we have here is a rebuspalooza! Imagine my joy when my Thursday puzzle uses my favorite Thursday trick, not just four or six but ten* times. And not an ERRANT ANT in sight either, all of them spot on, with a simple seven-letter revealer to cover them all. Nice!
ReplyDeleteIt did take a while though, for me to SEE the first one. I’ve never watched the X-Men so for all I knew, they were MUTES which is where I started with 1A. Then I had a lot of blank space in the top half - while beginning to think THIS CAN’T BE - until I finally journeyed all the way down to ATLANTA and found my first crawly theme creature hiding in its own ANTENNA.
* Would that make this what you’d call an AVANT-GARDE crossword? Innovative, cutting edge, progressive? It seems so to me. Thanks Alexander, I had loads of fun with this one.
This one really nails the landing. TEN ANTS is a terrific revealer!
ReplyDeleteI'm always a happy camper when there's a rebus -- and I especially applaud this one for its theme density. Ten is a large number of ANTS to embed. And the more ANTS you have, the more likely it will be that some of them will stymie the solver -- at least for a moment. Now ANTS does happen to be a letter combo that appears in many, many words -- but you try embedding them 10 times. Which of course means 20 times when you take both Across and Down into consideration. Impressive.
Although I know nothing about the X-Man, I nevertheless picked this up at 1A: MUTANTS. I owe it all to ANTHOLOGY, of course. And because this one was the first rebus, it was also the hardest for me.
Toughest answer for me: MCLAREN. Favorite clue: REGATTA. Biggest "Huh???": Shred the GNAR, whatever in the world that means.
Very enjoyable Thursday. Bring on the rebuses -- I can never get enough of them!
I was trying to make the equally cringey “Shred the pow” fit.
ReplyDeleteHad Sonoma crossing Oma. Never heard of Rita Ora and confused the California city with the Mexican state. Looked plausible so I never questioned it.
ReplyDeleteNo hay manera. Esto no puede ser.
ReplyDeleteA smooth grid and a delightful search for the ANTS. If someone was newer to puzzles, this would be a perfect introduction to rebii puzzles. My first ANT was PEDANT after abandoning the northwest and I immediately went to find the revealer, and sure enough, ten of them would be waiting for me. Now to go find them.
ROUT for ROMP was my only real slowdown.
I'm sure most gossiping on the hill is focused on the ERR ANT. 🐜 But at least he's more affable than the DEFI ANT. 🐜
🦖 says Shred the GNAR is an embarrassing phrase. I wonder to whom, and how, and why it's embarrassing. To PANINO people maybe? {I can't seem to let it go.}
Little brats need a better curriculum, not Kleenex.
REGATTA is on my favorite word list between TIARA and QUIXOTIC, but if I'm being honest, QUIXOTIC is probably better than REGATTA. I think it's time for a change. Okay there. REGATTA is still beating FLUFFY.
People: 8
Places: 3
Products: 6
Partials: 2
Foreignisms: 0
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 19 of 78 (24%)
Funnyisms: 3 😐
Uniclues:
1 Freaks fandango in France.
2 Purile nit picking potato picker.
3 ( ) { } [ ]
4 Youngsters shredding the gnar.
5 Radical reason for a recount.
6 Compendium of capitalism.
7 Vaporetto voucher.
8 The 🦖 blog.
9 Jay's hateful heater.
1 MUTANTS ROMP AFAR (~)
2 EVIL IDAHO PEDANT (~)
3 ENCLOSE LACUNAS
4 AVANT GARDE KIDDOS
5 ERRANT GNAR EENIE
6 DEAR SANTA ANTHOLOGY (~)
7 REGATTA FAN FEE (~)
8 THINE RANT RACK (~)
9 DEFIANT LENO OVEN (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: "I don't know how to fix your computer either, but I am way better at Google than you." NERD OPENS UP.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
AVANTGARDE was obvious because I had four crosses but the clue is off.
ReplyDeleteNeat rebus. Twenty words with embedded ANTs that synched. Most that I can remember.
Thank you, Alexander! You have the 'honor' of being the FIRST constructor to make me enjoy a Rebus :)
ReplyDelete(Still don't understand ENCLOSE (for Ring) though - anyone?
Enclose, as in put a ring around something.
Delete@jb129 9:52 AM
DeleteYou're riding across the prairie in a wagon train, like ya do, and the sun is low on the horizon, so you round up them wagons in a circle, let's call it "enringin' them" and y'all sit in the middle of the ring in case there's rattlers, or coyotes, or maraudin' bands of thugs, and you stay enclosed in this ring of solitude and safety until daybreak when ya fix some vittles, dis-en-ring and head out t'ward the Rockies where you'll be a cannibal or cannibalized this winter. The ring of enclosure won't protect you from your hungry peers.
Thank you, Gary :)
DeleteI'll try to remember that next time I'm riding in a wagon train 🤣
Each individual ant is kind of a one-track minded moron, but somehow with each ant given a simple set of instructions, they create an amazing society that has conquered the world. (Ant)hropomorphize and amortize this as you wish…
ReplyDeleteGiven the current zeitgeist, wouldn't it have been a good idea to feature the ANTichrist in this puzzle?
ReplyDeleteBoss to junior associate after a mediocre summary presentation at the end of the meeting: I'm going to overlook your overview since I OVERSEE you.
I had an AuNTENNA who MEANTALOT to me. But she railed at the Inquisition, so they put her on the RANTRACK and broke her.
I liked the puzzle, but I don't think I want to visit the constructor's home, what with MICE, TEN ANTS and a SNAKE with COILS! But thanks, Alexander Liebeskind.
I loook forward to Thursdays but didn't fiInd this one especially fun or sparkly. I wish the ants had made a hill, or built a colony, or something, but as far as I can tell they didn't. I caught on to the theme in the SW corner after getting all the crosses to make ERRANT...after that it was just a matter of going through and keeping ANT in mind as a possibility for every answer.GNAR was unknown to me, and LACUNAS was also tough; it was somewhere in the back of my mind, but it took a while to retrieve it. INCH crossing ET.CH was fun.Some nice cluing, for MICE and REDUNDANT, but "Orderly arrangements of wiring" didn't seem like the best clue for COILS.
ReplyDeleteTwenty ANT-words. This here puz contained a record amount of anty-matter!
ReplyDeleteAt our house, we caught onto the puztheme's rebus mcguffin pretty early, at MUT(ANT)S/(ANT)HOLOGY. Took a little longer, to verify that all the rebuses were ANT infestations.
staff weeject pick: [of a measly 6 choices]: ORA. Matches up good with her ORA-LB weight unit, a little later on.
some fave stuff: LACUNAS [kinda sounds Hawaiian]. REGATTA and its clue, sailin right thru the theme revealer. (ANT)ENNA [It's sorta the anty-penultimate themer].
Thanx for plantin all them bugs, Mr. Liebeskind dude. Nice job.
Masked & Anonymo2Us
... and now, not that M&A ever wears one, ...
"Matching Ties" - 7x7 12 min. themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
the rebus was fine--though I'll leave it to Rex to count if there are really just 10 ANTS, it seemed like more while solving. And it was nice to see DEAR SANTA next to his SLEIGH. It was a little tougher because I kept being surprised by the rebus squares, popping up when I hadn't expected them. When FERAL didn't work, I had a hard time seeing DEFIANT, for example--not least because some of those squares were already filled with the wrong letters--my fault, not the puzzle's.
ReplyDeleteI put in RO and waited to see whether it would be a ROut or a ROMP. Same thing with OLSoNS or OLSENS--is it THOSE OLSENS? No idea.
Monet painted a lot of water lilies, but I don't think those are actually lilies--but for all I know he may have done them as well. And I think of AVANT GARDE as breaking the limits, not "testing" them. As for ETCH, as clued, I'll spare you my R[ANT].
And I'll take it on faith that skiers say "shred the GNAR;" but do they really speak of conquering a mountain? That's something climbers do, skiers mostly conquer a particular ski run. Even those who ski down from the summit of Denali, for example, generally get a helicopter ride to the top. Not always, I know, some carry up their skis--but the phrase seems off.
I’m with those who found this easy and breezy. Learned something new with GNAR but I don’t see myself using it often in conversation. ANTs all over the sink are a typical start to our summers, but I guess just because they look disorganized doesn’t mean they are.
ReplyDeleteWow! That was quick, so either it was way simple or it was just right in my wheelhouse. Or both. Got the rebus at 1A MUTANTS, confirmed it at 15A PEDANT and only really stopped to relight my cigar which kept going out because I wasn’t paying enough attention to it.
ReplyDeleteReviewing this thing after the fact, I’m finding entries I don’t remember typing in and I’m a slow, deliberate typist. Biggest slowdown was at 33D where for some stupid reason I put in SNAil instead of SNAKE, fixed, appropriately enough, with 48A THISCANTBE.
I can imagine that some might have had trouble with 22A LACUNAS but, because its singular form figured prominently in the title of my comically AVANTGARDE (26A) MFA thesis way back in the 80s, I had no problem. I know, I know, a university thesis is not supposed to be comical but I was studying art, not microbiology, so I thought I’d give it a try. Surprise! It was pretty well received and I got out of there with an advanced degree.
65A GNAR would have held me up if I hadn’t got it completely from crosses. 50A ATLANTA was both a gimme and a fun show. Wasn’t 35A GIGI heartily criticized for its slant toward pedophilia? Remember Maurice Chevalier’s “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”? A bit creepy, no?
Thanks, Alexander Liebeskind, for a nice time.
Questions for @Les:
DeleteWas your Thesis written about Art or Microbiology? (I'm assuming Art, since you were getting an MFA.)
What was its title?
And, most important: In a few well-chosen words, if possible, what was the thesis of your Thesis?
@Nancy. Towards a Newer Lacuna was not exactly the most coherent piece of "academic" writing but, at its core was the idea that art movements fade and their ideas go into a state of hibernation, only to be revived, very often unconsciously, in later movements. I cited many movements and many artists but focused mainly on Edouard Manet, Marcel Duchamp and the American post-modernists David Salle and Eric Fischl. And, of course, my own work. (Do you know any artists who don't think their own work is interesting?) The document is quite boring, even though I tried to avoid writing it in standard thesis form and language. Even the title is non-standard; note lack of a colon and a twenty word explanation of its purpose.
DeleteAnd I used Lacuna to describe that hibernation, or withdrawal of certain ideas because, frankly, it's a nice word.
Hope that was short enough. It's certainly incomplete.
Thanks, @Les. I went to look at some of the work of Salle and Frischl, but I'm darned if I can see what previous movements they revived. I would not make a good Art History Major. Then, too, I'm always baffled by what seems to be the complete arbitrariness of who makes it to the top in the contemporary art scene and who gets absolutely nowhere. So much of the work that commands absurdly high prices seems bloody awful to me. Not nearly as good as my friend Joanne's, for example.
DeleteWondering what you think of her work?
@Les, as soon as I saw LACUNAS I thought of your thesis.
DeleteUpon further thought, I think GNAR must be short for gnarly, and shred is guitarist slang. But I'm still not buying "conquer."
ReplyDeleteI think it would have been overly meta if the revealer had been rebused itself. I think I may have seen it done once or twice, but only with much longer revealers where it was obvious what it would be. But maybe not.
ReplyDeleteTTYL
I spotted my first ANT in PEDANT, and had fun sussing out the rest; I especially enjoyed the surprises of DEFIANT and AVANT GARDE. An easy rebus but I enjoyed not knowing where the next ANT was going to crop up.
ReplyDeleteDo-over: SNAil before SNAKE. Help from previous puzzles: ORA, GNAR.
Yep, easy. Like @Rex I got the rebus immediately when MUTANTS wouldn’t fit and mostly whooshed through this one. No costly erasures and GNAR was it for WOEs.
ReplyDeleteCute and breezy, liked it.
Since I am a long-time race car nut, I was happy to see 45 down. Somehow knew Rex wouldn’t get that one. I also love golf, but in my defense, I have also taught Dante’s Inferno and Lysistrata, so I would say that I’m well-balanced. Enjoyed hunting for the ants, pretty transparent rebus puzzle. I don’t enjoy hunting them down when they invade my abode after the first rain of the season or when there’s a heat wave. Industrious little buggers.
ReplyDeleteI had to fill in most of the NW before I realized 1A would actually be MUTANTS with a rebus square. After the next few ANTs, I was expecting a picnic tie-in; the TEN ANTS revealer was perfect and made me smile.
ReplyDeleteRebus squares allow for more interesting fill, in my opinion. Today, AVANT GARDE, DEFIANT, REDUNDANT and DEAR SANTA all enhanced the grid but would normally not fit.
SHAcks as huts led to some head-scratching in the SE (Greek goddess of peace starting with cR? A counting rhyme kE___?) but soon I uncovered another ANT and all was well.
Thanks, Alexander Liebeskind, for a cute Thursday ROMP!
Cute with ants and a secondary real estate theme.
ReplyDeleteHA ! i just went back to re.read yesterday's blog. RP the seer !
ReplyDeleteAs someone whose favorite podcast is Who? Weekly that has a weekly segment titled "What's Rita Ora Up To?" I (un)fortunately am far too aware of the existence of Rita ORA and truly everything she's been up to, even if mostly as a punchline
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the write up. No egregious rants. and chuckled at "they just showed up...the way they might if they were soiling a picnic" and at "(snow) plow through"
ReplyDeleteAlso enjoyed Lewis' take on ants, th I"m with Nacy re not in my house.
Stupid easy. The puzzle has lost its spark.
ReplyDeleteI really hate this kind of puzzle. If the puzzle creator can’t fit it into the square then find a different word. That’s just me. I know some people love this kind of puzzle.
ReplyDeleteThis is a test to see if I can post a comment here ...
ReplyDeleteGood job. It worked!
DeleteJust back from a week at the cabin. I set a new record for the longest trip home: 18.5 hours (normally 3.5 to 4 hours). Due to the highways being closed by a wildfire started by a crashed truck. Always something!
ReplyDeleteYes this was easy. At 1 across I couldn't remember how many X-Men there were; I tried TRIO (too short) then OCTET (surely there aren't 8 of them?) before getting the ANT trick. Hey, ANT MAN would have been a good theme answer.
Like Rex I couldn't care less about auto racing, however MCLAREN was a gimme for me. Just seen it a lot, I guess.
Typeovers: COBS before EARS of corn, and since I initially had FERAL at 31 down (yes I know the clue isn't quite right for that) I had RAF watching the skies at 41 across.
Much better Thursday than yesterday's Thursday or Tuesday's Thursday.
ReplyDeleteGood thing ORTHO or TERRO weren't included in the fill. It wouldn't have been possible to complete the puzzle.
First of all, to @Les S from yesterday. Thanks for a taste of my own medicine. I admit to a serious aversion to Mickey D’s. I drove kids back and forth to music and dance events for about 20 years, and travel usually included a stop for food.
ReplyDeleteThe aromas in every McDonald’s I’ve ever entered or driven through was so off-putting to me that I just couldn’t do it. I’m 73 and have never tried anything from Mickey D’s. Grace will love the theatre of it all (even though she’s a real Cali girl and swears by In ‘n Out).
Pretty hypocritical of me since we raised our daughter and I now help with our granddaughter and have always said “if you haven’t tried it, don’t knock it.” I promise to take my medicine and report back.
Today’s puzzle was easy but fun. I think it would have been much harder if the theme intro answers not been gimmies. After reading the 1A clue. I thought MUTANTS before I even looked at the grid to see how much real estate was available for an answer. When I did, and looked at the down clues in the NW, I said to Self, “Ha! Methinks I smell a rebus!”
My only small slow down was thinking fEral at 31D for “untamable” rather than DEFIANT, and then thinking SEA SNAil at 33D rather than SNAKE. That was just a big ol’ short circuit in my aging brain matter. Doh!
I really enjoyed the reveal too. Obviously, we knew the theme, but after recent theme reveals that just didn’t land at all, today we got some sparkle. Sure, I would have appreciated some more crunch, but had lots of fun finding each of the TENANTS. Loved that the reveal word also could (and in my current apartment does) refer to each and every ANT freeloading relentlessly in my space. Fun Thursday solve.
Crashed. And. Burned. Too many ants means I couldn't get anything going. White space everywhere. DNF.
ReplyDeleteDidn’t know FAA and so came up with DEVIANT which I liked a lot.
ReplyDeleteThe F1 clue is one of the few sports related clues I care about. 3 of the 10 teams have seven letter names. McLaren was a slam dunk. Avalanche? Who knows…
ReplyDeleteWhile I sussed the theme fairly quickly (I think it clicked at DEARSANTA) this played a bit tougher for me than most of us here. I had one VERY silly and costly error which caused me to miss one themer entirely. I had THIS IS BS instead of the correct THISCANTBE!!! I kindal liked my answer better but it proved lethal for much of the east of my grid. I also held on to it for a VERY long time.
ReplyDeleteA few others just refused to fall for me, i.e. SONORA - I was being very US centric in my thinking and SONORA just didn't enter my mind - my bad! GNAR was also unknown to me.
But I was impressed with the construction - there really are TEN ANTS in this thing, and nothing to complain about with the fill. Maybe not the most exciting but good stuff nonetheless that gave me some Thursday resistance.
Thanks Alexander!
Am I the only one who had the clues for 5D and 14A swapped? I thought it was part of the puzzle gimmick at first.
ReplyDeleteI may be the only one who was delighted to see “shred the gnar” in a Times xword. It’s a bit of a stoner phrase heard on the slopes, and its shear ridiculousness always makes me chuckle.
ReplyDelete