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Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: CHIN (50D: Gossip, informally) —
slang : to talk idly (merriam-webster.com)
• • •
[TONI!]
With the exception of the very beginning, there weren't many places in this grid where I wasn't flying. Frequently felt like I was solving a Tuesday-level puzzle. By far the hardest part, the stickiest area, was the "GOD" part of "GOD, YES," ugh (42D: "Abso-freakin'-lutely!"). As with the "UH" in "UH, OK" (12D: "Fine, I guess"), I had no idea what the puzzle was going to do with the first half of the answer. Seemed completely arbitrary. I had "-O-, YES" and was kind of alternating between "WOW, YES!" and "BOY, YES!" (kinda like "BOY, BYE"* but more positive). Now, I could've wiggled my way out of this impasse if I'd only remembered that the rightmost column on the periodic table was GASES, but the only thing my brain could remember was INERT ... because that's what those GASES are. More commonly called the Noble GASES now, they were def known as "inert GASES" when I took chemistry in high school ("historically," wikipedia tells me—thanks for that, wikipedia). Remembered the INERT part but forgot the GASES part, that is just so typically me. So anyway, GOD/GASES was my hang-up. Didn't help that those answers were right on top of MEDIA SHY, which was also tough for me to get from the clue (51A: Avoiding coverage, in a way). But that was it for me, difficulty-wise. Everything else was slam-bang fast.
Had a couple of weird moments where it felt like this puzzle had been hanging out with me for the past few days, as it was throwing me stuff I had just been thinking or talking about. I remarked the other day to my wife, out of the blue (mostly), that I thought my favorite living actress, and one that didn't get nearly enough credit for her greatness as she should, was TONI Collette. And that was just one week after my best friend asked me (during our lake vacation) if I'd ever seen Muriel's Wedding, to which I replied as if she'd insulted me: "Of course I did. I think I saw it with you!" Yes, 1994, Abba, I'm almost certain we saw it together during grad school when I put way more energy into movies and my friends than I did into my ostensible reason for being in grad school. Good times! Anyway, TONI has been freshly on my mind. And only yesterday I was listening to Conan O'Brien's recent interview with Martin Short, in which they talk a bunch about Short's being inducted into the "Five Timers Club" on SNL (8D: Show with an illustrious "Five-Timers Club," in brief) (a made-up "club" for people who have hosted the show at least five times). And speaking of watching movies in grad school with my friends (as I was, just ... above [points with finger] right there), last week at the lake we rewatched our most-watched (by far) movie of the '90s, Dazed & Confused, which opens with Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" playing over a slo-mo shot of a MUSCLE CAR (a GTO) cruising into the high school parking lot. So even if ELLE and NAS did nothing for me up front, the puzzle eventually got around to things that have been on my mind, and for that, I was grateful.
[I know I posted this opening scene very recently but it's classic so I don't care]
- 16A: Hurly-burly (HOO-HA) — crossword puzzle really loves this one. Me, not so much. As Google's A.I. will tell you (correctly, it turns out) if you search [hoo ha], HOO-HA is commonly used as slang for "vagina." This meaning has really taken off, so much so that I'd say it's the dominant meaning for many, if they know the term at all. I'm not big on cringey euphemisms for genitalia. Duluth Trading Co. has an underwear line called "Bullpen" (you know ... for your balls?) and a line of jeans called "Ballroom" and I won't come anywhere near either (though I love their products in general). As for HOO-HA, a cursory image search yields prodigious evidence of what I'm talking about:
- 60A: To pieces? (ODES) — "pieces" of poetry that are frequently titled "To [something]"
- 6D: Put a pilot back into action? (REAIR) — since aviator-type pilots fly through the air, it seems like it might be worth noting, just in case there's some confusion, that the "pilot" in question here is a television pilot.
- 7D: Healthful smoothie ingredient (KALE) — a couple years back, my daughter designed Rex Parker thank-you cards with pictures of my cat Alfie on them. She did five versions. One was of Alfie standing on his hind legs to get at some KALE:
 |
| [original photo] |
That's all. Well, not all. In honor of our country's birthday ... here's one more thing from Dazed & Confused:
["Okay guys, one more thing, this summer when you're being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth Of July brouhaha, don't forget what you're celebrating, and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males didn't want to pay their taxes."]
Happy 4th, everyone!
See you next time.
*[from "16 Slang Terms You Should Know To Stay Hip With Your Kids"]: "Yes, “girl, bye” is a slang term. Yes, you can use “boy, bye” as well. And yes, they do in fact mean goodbye. Sort of. Similar to “bye, Felicia,” these slang terms are meant to express disbelief, disagreement, or disapproval towards someone or something. They’re often used in a sassy or assertive manner to express that the speaker is uninterested, fed up, or annoyed with the person they are addressing. Basically, it means the speaker is done with the interaction and wants to move on."
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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- Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)
Aaron Judge on line one to set you straight Rex - All RISE. Nice themeless - although was more midweek difficulty. I liked the OHTANI entry also but will always rail against using so much real estate on a full proper name. THIS OLD THING. and I’LL CATCH UP are top notch.
ReplyDeleteMemory Lane
We’ve had the MUSCLE CAR debate here before - the first generation Mustangs were relatively underpowered pony cars - subsequent versions did fit the description. Have never been a COACH K guy but love GYROS.
ATMOSPHERE
Enjoyable Friday morning solve. Love the Dazed and Confused stuff.
New SPEEDWAY Boogie
Nice writeup, but the final movie clip was obnoxious and unnecessary. Happy Independence Day!
ReplyDeleteNot sure that OHTANI clue works with any read the way it's written. It's either wrong by being too specific or wrong by being technically incorrect.
ReplyDeleteAssuming we agree that the clue means 50 HRs and 50 SBs in the same season, what’s wrong with the clue? Ohtani had 54 HRs and 59 SBs in 2024, and he’s the only MLB player to have achieved both those levels in the same season. If you’re being incredibly pedantic, and think the clue should have said “at least” 50&50, let me be equally pedantic and point out that the clue didn’t say he FINISHED the season with 50&50.
DeleteI'm confused by the word "only"...
DeleteEasy except for the NE. Even after remembering Ohtani's first name, I needed two cheats for the rest there.
ReplyDeleteI don't think PLEASERISE is a valid court request, unless the judge went to charm school.
Exactly. The bailiff says "All rise."
DeleteIt is a request that's made in court, so I think the clue is fine.
DeleteThat got me too
DeleteThis old timer loved going to the Old Bailey in London. One ritual always made me grin. Just before the judge enters, the bailiff cries, “Be upstanding!”
DeleteIf Rex's comment about the founding of our country is a joke, it's in extremely bad taste. If not, it's disgusting.
ReplyDeleteUh...didn't the richie-rich 1% just steal bread from the mouths of children? 'Twas ever thus.
DeleteAlso true
DeleteThe USA is itself in bad taste today. For the 4th, I'm wearing black in lieu of my usual red, white and blue.
DeleteWhat an odd thing to clutch your pearls over.
Deleteyou’re looking for something that isn’t there, but if you want to talk about how we’re cooked then pull up a chair.
DeleteI mean the Mayflower was really the original refugee ship…
DeleteFancypants. Ah I see MAGA language. Such an original insult.
DeleteAnd people dying for lack of food and medicine in the US and around the world (USAiD destruction) is such trivial matter.
Oh, I adored “THIS OLD THING?”. I can’t put my finger on why, but I just imagine someone saying it after getting a compliment about an article of clothing, and it just touches my heart.
ReplyDeleteI adore word quirks as well, and here we had two palindromes, ELLE and ATTA, each consisting of two twice-used letters in the same vowel-consonant pattern.
The adorathon continued with [Start to rally, maybe] a fresh clue for SERVE, and special props to an original clue for an answer that has appeared more than 500 times in the Times – the stellar [To pieces?] for ODES.
A good omen for this puzzle was the grid design, which has been used only twice before in the NYT, by the Queen of Fridays, Robyn Weintraub.
Anyway, for me, this was an adorable puzzle, and a lovely balance for what will be a long evening of reassuring our stressed-out dog during an evening of nearby fireworks shows and neighborhood pops and bangs. Thank you for this splendid outing, Colin!
Lewis
DeleteMy reaction to ATTA
Used to be very common crosswordese. What Pedroinnhnh calls an old friend. Also a kea/loa
Atta or it’s a
This one had a “Death by a thousand cuts” vibe for me - a bunch of little things that were enough to keep me way off balance (some of which was self-inflicted - it took me forever, for example to see the PLEASE in 3D because I was convinced that the first word would be PLEA or PLEAS).
ReplyDeleteOther little things would include the colloquialisms that could be almost anything, like GOD YES, HOOHA and UH OK. Further complicating my struggles with 3D, I have no clue what the adjacent PENCE is getting at - I’m guessing that Paddington Station is a famous landmark and maybe PENCE is a type of currency? That’s just a WAG though, it could all be referring to a fictional cartoon character for all I know.
You got it -- PENCE is the plural of penny in London, where Paddington Station is located. as a misdirect, it's a little too good.
Deletecan you explain HOOHA as an answer for Hurly-burly? I don’t get it at all
DeleteAnon 1:26 - they can both refer to a commotion or boisterous activity.
DeleteBut is “p” slang for penny. I’ve never heard that reference before
DeletePence. Common abbr
DeleteAbout pence.
DeleteP was introduced as the abbreviation for pence ( then became slang for it) when the British government got rid of the very old pounds shillings and pence system, around 1970 and introduced 100 pence to the pound.
Under the old system the abbreviation was d, which confusingly enough was from the Latin word denarius.
£ s d
Libra, solidus and denarius
The elements in the rightmost column of the periodic table are there because they are inert, not because they are gases. Gaseous elements are scattered throughout the table. So that was a poor clue.
ReplyDeleteOk but, inert gases. 16 a was much worse especially crossing two names and a partial!
DeleteMovie clip, check out who’s shooting craps in school? Really?
ReplyDeleteHelp me out here. I've never seen the movie but, after viewing a number of clips, I know I've gotta track it down one evening when my wife is out (she'd hate it, I'm sure). Meanwhile, I've tried unsuccessfully to identify the actors in Rex's clip. Which actor are you referring to?
DeleteBoy, did it take me a while to track down my ENa/SHOHaIOHTANI error. Seems like that cross could have been avoided.
ReplyDeleteI had the same error.
DeleteMe too.
DeleteAstoundingly, it's actually ENE/SHOHEI. I'm not sure how one pronounces ENE.
DeleteAbout the ENE and baseball player cross, I had no idea about his given name though I vaguely remembered his family name I didn’t know the Spanish pronunciation and guessed a so dnf.
DeleteJberg. Both e’s in ene are pronounced somewhat like our letter A,
I'm with OFL on booing ELLE and NAS in the NW, but for me you can add TONI in the NE, which slowed things down there. Should have thought of RODS long before I did as I have had a retina problem for years now. HOOHA is cringey but it takes me all the way back to the early years of Mad Magazine, when it was in fact used to mean hurly-burly.
ReplyDeleteHad my own MUSCLECAR back in the day, a '68 Camaro that would, as we used to say, get rubber in all four. My days of such irresponsible driving are long gone, but boy was that a lot of fun.
Had the U from OWNUP and wanted my flying fox to be a squirrel for too long. Oops.
Overall really enjoyed this one. Sportsy is right up my alley, CA, I Couldn't Ask for more, and thanks for all the fun.
I heartily agree with Rex and Pablo about the crossing of pop culture names. The NYT puzzle used to be fun for me until Will Shortz or the powers behind him decided to broaden the appeal by strewing the puzzle with pop culture and this month’s neologisms and texting shortcuts. More than ever I need a nice classical puzzle as a refuge from the horrific news.
DeleteI would like the NYT to impose a "No Baseball clues" day of the week.
ReplyDeleteCan we add RAP to that?
DeletePlease issue a list of subjects you will allow…
DeleteSports and rap are areas of non-white excellence. Is that so upsetting?
DeleteI think the clue for “reair” could work for either the pilot of an airplane or the television show. It was used often back in the day before streaming took hold. I liked your snarky movie quote closing today. It’s certainly the vibe I’m getting this Fourth of July. But it’s a beautiful day here in my part of the Northeast and I intend to enjoy splashing about with my grandsons in the pool, eating grilled food and watching the fireworks. Luckily my daughter’s dog, sweet girlie that she is, has never been bothered by the fireworks as long as her humans are nearby.
ReplyDeleteAnother puzzle with ARO. Seriously?
ReplyDeleteI'm confused as to what ARO means. Please 'splain.
DeleteAromantic. It’s in the puzzle A Lot
DeleteI'm not convinced Colin Adams and Will Shortz know what "illustrious" means.
ReplyDeleteVery easy Friday. Too easy.
On yesterday’s exchanges on modern pop culture. One big issue is the fragmentation of the market.
In 1972, most people had four TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS). You couldn’t watch every show, but you’d see commercials for other shows, so any TV watcher could be aware of everything out there.
Now, we have hundreds of networks, dozens of which are producing new content. Even if you watch TV all the time, there are scores of shows you’ve never seen or even heard of.
There has been a similar explosion in the number of movies produced, including many that never appear in theatres so unless you have that particular streaming service you are out of luck.
It is much more likely that a modern pop culture name that is really well known to some people would be completely unknown to many others than was the case fifty years ago.
Well said. Yesterday, Nancy posted a constructor’s perspective - and she happens to be somewhere between “less is better” and “necessary evil”. We have some other experienced constructors here - is there really a pro-PPP contingent of solvers ?
DeleteRex mentioned that he is “pro” popular culture in the grids, although I suspect that even he has his limits (he wasn’t too thrilled with ELLE and NAS coming out of the gate today). Why include so much PPP - it seems like somebody must enjoy it. Otherwise, why include it when so many people loathe it? On most days, fully 1/3 of the grid is some form of trivia.
As a constructor, albeit never published, it is sometimes impossible to not include PPP. You put in what you can to have real words. Often times, you need initials or prefix/suffixes, Random Roman Numerals, foreign words, compass directions. It's the nature of trying to get clean fill. You don't set out to purposely fill your puz with PPP. Granted, a lot of times you can use a clue that changes it from a PPP.
DeleteRooMonster Still Struggling To Get A Puz In Guy
Excellent point Kitshef 8:14 am, perfectly summed up by your last sentence.
DeleteSaxx underwear: "BallPark pouch"
ReplyDeleteThis one was Saturday hard for me, but I am not firing on all cylinders. Absolutely NO CLUE about Ohtani. I couldn't even parse the name. Plus, who uses the term "hurly-burly?" Though I don't find it surprising that Will Shortz, a 72 year old gay man, isn't really thinking much about HOOHAs. He probably goes with Oprah's preferred term "vajayjay." Also, OXES? Gross. Come on.
ReplyDeleteWho says "hurly-burly?" The second witch in Macbeth, that's who.
Delete"When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won."
I RElIt my pilot at first, thinking as I did so that it's probably no longer possible to do, although after Sandy it was the *only* way we had anything warm... but BALLOON DOG took care of it.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely no clue on the baseball guy and no idea if any of those letters were correct, so just crosses and guesses. He's probably famous but it's kinda unfair to the rest of us.
FRUIT BAT was a gimme due to one of my kids 30 years ago being obsessed. And happy to say that MUSCLE CAR went right in with no crosses.
So easy, except for constantly wondering about whoever he is (sorry @baseballfans).
BATTER S--P? BATTER'S --P? I wrote in apES for "oafs" and now I have an impossible answer to "place to swing from". What do I want there? I want either BATTER'S CAGE (doesn't fit) or BATTER'S BOX. Can I get there? Yes. If I change apES to OXES, it will work. And now I've finished.
ReplyDeleteOnly I haven't finished because I never wrote in the crossing letter of the MLB player and the Spanish letter. Would I have written ENA, ENE, ENO or something that ended in a consonant? I have no idea. Nor do I care. And if I don't care, neither should you.
Happy Fourth of July.
Nancy, same here…finished the puzzle with ENA and (the MLB guy who I guess I should know).
DeleteWell, Spanish exists, and Shohei is, as Rex says (with only slight exaggeration) the greatest player in baseball history. But celebrate your ignorance if that’s what Freedom means to you! Happy Fourth, indeed!
ReplyDeleteA bunch of slaveholding aristocrats didn't want to pay taxes TO A KING ACROSS THE OCEAN is a better way to put it, Rex.
ReplyDeletePeople don't seem to have noticed that Rex was transcribing the words of the teacher as she dismissed her students at year-end, as a service to us readers since it was hard to hear her in the clip.
DeleteYes, of course he did NOT endorse this message (or joke, or sentiment)
DeleteNope. Not at all.
(It’s a very funny line)
Finished 38 minutes less than average! (So not exactly slick)
ReplyDeleteStumped by Ohtani but (face slap) I haven’t watched a game in years but he’s been all over the news. (He’s almost Messi famous)?
Pet peeve, people who “had” to google the answer and post at 8.45 am. Take your time, do the crosses, often takes me a couple of days. Personal rule; can’t google the answer but I can ask anyone in the room (eg for Mario clues if my children are home).
Fun puzzle. Happy Independence Day to the greatest country in the history of the world !
ReplyDeleteYou might want to check the infant mortality rate, among many other things in this coming dictatorship
DeleteI appreciate your patriotism but you are clearly not a historian.
DeleteOne of the best signs on No Kings march: This is history speaking, don't make me repeat myself!
DeleteAdd TAGS to the sports-y clues. That clue mystified me (what meaning of "put out", "runners" and TAGS is used here?) but the Wordplay column tells me it's apparently a baseball term. No clue.
ReplyDeleteI remembered the name SHOHEI once I had the last name OHTANI, but COACH K was another sports mystery. -HK looked very wrong.
This was the easiest Friday I think I have ever done. What a waste.
ReplyDeleteWhy would it be a "waste?"
DeleteSo it wasn't hard enough for you - so what? You exercised your brain & readied it for another 'harder' puzzle, possibly tomorrow for you IMHO
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteARGH! Hit the Home button accidentally after completing my entire post (actually the second time!)(first one, hit something that erased it) and lost it. Since I know you hang on my every word, I'll rewrite it. 😁
And who put these silly buttons where they are anyway?
Happy Fourth! Of July! (Have to differentiate twixt today and May the Fourth.) Har.
Got a Fourth Theme in the mini, but not to be in the regular puz. Granted today is a Themeless day (although there are Themed FriPuzs once in a while.) But would've been neat. Could've changed some clues to reflect the Holiday. Like for BALLOON DOG, change "at a children's party" to "at a Fourth of July party." And have the I CANT LIE be George Washington related. Can y'all find any others?
Got a Uniclue potential in ELLE MEAN HOOHA, but I'll let @Gary handle that one!
Welp, hopefully y'all keep all 10 fingers after today! I'll be spending the next few days cleaning fireworks detritus from my house and yard. Thanks neighbors.
Happy Friday and Fourth of July!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
No puedo mentir.
ReplyDeleteMeh. Themeless.
❤️ THIS OLD THING.
😩 RE-AIR. That 50/50 dude.
People: 5
Places: 3
Products: 4
Partials: 3
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 17 of 72 (24%)
Funnyisms: 2 😕
Tee-Hee: MEAN HOOHA. Hey @Roo! I can't seem to write out the uniclue without using the phrase ferocious fur baby so we'll just have to agree ELLE needs to calm down.
Uniclues:
1 Popped plastic pooch.
2 Dracula wannabe that just wants to be.
3 Nitros.
4 Foreign teddy bears went window shopping.
5 Those times you feel like eating bad lettuce.
6 Morrison maneuvers Malibu.
7 Tepid fruit bat review of uninspiring cave.
8 Instagrams middle schooler's wraps.
1 SLEW BALLOON DOG
2 TEPID FRUIT BAT
3 SPEEDWAY GASES
4 EWOKS AMBLED (~)
5 KALE FORAY MOOD
6 TONI TRIES AUTO
7 UH... OK ATMOSPHERE
8 TAGS TEEN GYROS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Hit on a homophonic donkey. CHAT UP BOROUGH.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Happy Big Beautiful Birthday to all the Eeyores and EWOKS (anagram) on this blog!
ReplyDeleteSHOHEI OHTANI. Like a big ugly vowel-spew acting as a barrier to the whole East side and needed every single cross, finally stymied by ENA instead of ENE at 25A because Spanish and could be anything afaic. The triumph of the Meh, least satisfying kind of clue. PPP were ever thus, sigh.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, nice shout-out video to Richard Thompson, one of the great originals in the history of rock, whose summer guitar-songwriting camp I've been attending off and on since its inception. Turns out he's not just an amazing player, an amazing lyricist, and a walking encyclopedia of popular music (including opera), he's also a superb lecturer (something I know about, professionally) and a fascinating guy to hang with, once you get past the pretty formidable (and well earned) reserve. He's currently suffering from a bad fall that's preventing him attending in person this year (actually this WEEK, so another reason it's an apt video). So send him some healing [vibe]s if you can spare a few.
I also am a big Richard Thompson fan. One of the greatest rock guitarists of all time.
DeleteA Mustang driven by a bi-valve mollusk would be a MUSselCAR.
ReplyDeleteAt the FRUITBAT baseball game is there a FRUITBATTERSBOX?
The NW may have been a bit slow for some, but once you got to the NE you could really STRUT your HOOHA. And of course the SE demonstrates that the best way to make GYROS is with TORO and OXES.
Didn't MacBeth say to Banquo's ghost "Thou ARTHISTORY"?
If a RINO is a Republican in Name Only, I guess a RHINO is a Republican Hypocrite in New Orleans.
Fun Friday, but mighty quick. Thanks, Colin Adams.
Got RPG and confidently put in treebRanch for "spot to swing from". That slowed me down quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteRex can add TAGS to the sports trivia today. That makes three baseball clues in the NE ish part of the grid.
Very easy except for SHOHEIO…. who was a major WOE. Many nanoseconds were consumed checking the crosses for that entry. Fortunately, I sorta know my Spanish alphabet.
ReplyDeleteCostly erasures - RElIt before REAIR and Um OK before UH OK
Reasonably smooth with some fine long downs, liked it.
ARO is getting on my nerves.
ReplyDeleteI started this & I thought this is easy although I would never have gotten SHOHEI OTANI. Then I got distracted & thought WTF?
So aside from liking ODES ... don't get distracted. Thank you, Colin (I think :)
Medium, only because I didn't know Ohtani (and admittedly, even after finishing the puzzles still had trouble parsing his first and last name), so having to get every other across was a little difficult. Overall an easy time but a nice Thursday.
ReplyDeleteHappy Fourth of July! despite the irony this year of celebrating freedom from a king's rule.
Lots of pleasures, but like some others I tanked at ENa, losing in the Choose-a-Vowel game. I liked MUSCLE CAR over SPEEDWAY.
ReplyDeleteI'm shaken. A four letter contemporary singer has always been ENYA; a French-named magazine has always been ELLE. Now I don't know what I can count on. The world was already frighteningly unstable, but I thought it was safe here in Crosslandia. I may have to move to Iceland.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, the clue for 6-D was spectacular. "Put a pilot back into action? My inner dialogue: "Well, that means sending him back up in the sky; it starts with R (from ARKS), so..REAIR? But that's not what you would say -- you REAIR a TV sho.....Oh." A lovely revelatory experience.
OXES just jarred, however. It's even worse because I guess it's correct; I wouldn't say "you lot are a bunch of OXEn." But it just feels wrong.
Believe me, if you praise a woman's outfit and she replies, 'THIS OLD THING?' she is NOT being modest.
And it may vary by state, but I've spent way too much time in Massachusetts courts -- as a spectator, a prospective or actual juror, or back in the 1960s and 70s as a defendant--and the order is "All RISE." They don't say "P:EASE" because they aren't giving you a choice.
It took me a long time to remember Mr. OHTANI's first name; I gather that the Spanish spelling-out of N is ENE?
“This old thing? Why I only wear it when I don’t care how I look.” ~ Violet Bick ~ “It’s a Wonderful Life”
ReplyDeleteCrossing a Spanish word (ENE) with a foreign name (SHOHEI OTANI) is really ugly. I guessed ENA for the Spanish letter, and SHOHAI sure looks like a possible spelling for the guy's name. If ever there was a time for a "Direction from ______ to _______" clue, it was here for ENE).
ReplyDeleteI too had a problem with OHTANI. I watch baseball games when I get the chance. (Just last night I was able to watch my Cleveland Guardians lose still another game.) But I had no idea of his first name.
ReplyDeleteNice to see Mustang in the puzzle today. Just Wednesday night, we re-watched Bullit. Steve McQueen muscling his Mustang over the hilly streets of San Francisco.
Reasonably decent FriPuz.
ReplyDeleteLikes:
1. RIPS. M&A's PuzEatinSpouse does not tolerate him wearin any jeans with a hole/rip in em. M&A argues that them such jeans are considered extra-cool, in the hip world of virtual reality games, açaí & kale drinks, and rap music. She don't buy it.
2. FRUITBAT/BATTERSBOX. Extra batty intersections always appreciated.
3. UHOK debut. About day-um time. har
4. ATMOSPHERE. ILLCATCHUP. THISOLDTHING. Nice longballs.
staff weeject pick: ENE. A no-know, with or without any tilde action. honrable mentions to: TOO & TWO.
thorny spot: ENE/SHOHEIOHTANI/FRUITBAT. Good for some extra precious nanosecond carnage.
Thanx for the UHOK fun, Mr. Adams dude. Also nice weird debut: BALLOONDOG. Had some bite, crossin that no-know baseball dude. Wanted BALLOONTOY, at first guess time.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
... and, Happy 4th of July, y'all! ... [Neighbors: Will put our little flags out, once the sprinkler quits sprayin] ...
"Fireworks" - 7x7 12 min. themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
p.s. @RP: KALECAT ... even cooler than BALLOONDOG!
Too reinforce @kitshef's point--so many people never heard of SHOHEI OHTANI! Even our national pastime no longer gets most people's attention. That's just the way it is.
ReplyDeleteBetter clue for 3D, "Request at a ball game before the anthem" IMO.
ReplyDeleteAlways been "All rise, the honorable so and so presiding..." in my experience.
This was a good Friday workout. I had trouble settling on STRUT/UH OK / BALLOON DOG but finally got them. Don't know SHOHEI OHTANI, so I had SHOHAI, with ENA instead of ENE. Liked the clue for MEDIA SHY ("Avoiding coverage, in a way"). Still want WOVE (for "Intermeshed") to more logically be WOVEN. Had to get rid of WILD HORSE for MUSCLE CAR—just a matter of choosing to go one way or the other to start with. All in all, a satisfactory puzzle.
ReplyDeleteThe Ford Mustang is a “Ponycar” not a muscle car. Small coupes that followed such as the Camaro, Firebird, etc became part of the Ponycar pack. Musclecars were the sedans that had larger engines and poor handling such as the Pontiac GTO and Olds 442
ReplyDeleteWell this is interesting. All the comments are showing up in my gmail inbox as addressed to Rex Parker. 65 so far and counting. Nice to hear from everyone, but if anyone knows what's happening, please advise.
ReplyDeleteI mean, really.
When you submitted your own comment, you must have checked the box "Notify Me."
DeleteBingo! I just unclicked it, which should do the trick.
DeleteThank you!
De nada. ;-)
DeleteThe column of elements that don't combine with other elements have been called both "inert" and "noble" since before any of us were born.
ReplyDeleteVillager
Just got back from a week off (eg no internet) at the cabin last night. Getting to and from there has become a bit of a nightmare in recent years for various reasons (usually wildfires, accidents, or landslides) but the last time my car died halfway home. I was supposed to come home Wednesday but postponed because of dizziness and nausea; however it turned out to be a lucky break as a wildfire started on part of my route home that day and I would have been trapped in the middle of nowhere for hours!
ReplyDeletePuzzle wise, Rex is right on about the names. I was cursing "too many names" the whole way through, and at the end I counted them and was shocked that there weren't actually very many. As Rex said, they were just concentrated at the beginning. I've certainly heard of OHTANI (although I probably would have put OTANI) but blanked on his first name. As for ELLE, NAS, COACHK, no idea.
Also, I've never heard CHIN used that way.
Hope gastric upset was very minor! Do you suppose CHIN may have come from "chinwag" - i.e. sit around chatting, i.e. gossiping?
Delete@Eniale, thanks, the dizziness lasted 3 days so I think it was a virus. The nausea was only on the last day but was quite bad... the worst of my life, actually. Fortunately yesterday I was back to 100% healthy!
DeleteYes, CHIN could be short for chinwag, which I have heard often!
My first thought for 16A "Hurly-burly" was DANCE. Not sure how I came up with that. Maybe some song from the 1960s? No matter. Was able to correct that with crosses.
ReplyDeleteThe one I couldn't correct was 28A "A flying fox is actually a type of this". 19D OWN UP gave me the third letter and without hesitation I typed in SQUIRREL. I was so proud of myself. Nailed it! Even the I of SHOEI whatshisname confirmed it.
Wrong, buffalo breath. I was so confident that I crashed and burned on that hill. I finally gave up and resorted to "Autocheck to find that ERROR. Oh, the shame.
I did smile at MUSCLE CAR on the SPEEDWAY, so all was not lost.
Wow! This was a stunning drop off the lofty peak established by yesterday’s puzzle. Feel sorry for the constructor. Sorta like being slotted into the order right behind OHTANI (who knows his first name - he’s just OHTANI).
ReplyDeleteLook, I’ve had a tough week, so maybe this is not the best time (midnight Thursday ) to be offering my comments.Maybe I’ll just park this thing until tomorrow when I’ve had a chance to read some more positive takes (Rex, maybe?).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
OK, Friday morning. Happy Independence Day.
The comments from @Rex and the commentariat have been much more forgiving than the ones I jotted down on my note pad while solving last night. While I liked AMBLED at 5D, because it’s what I do when I’m solving (and saunter is a great word), and thought “to pieces” was a great clue for ODES, there were a lot of things that put me off. As noted by many, a court “order” is very unlikely to include the word “PLEASE”. 50D CHIN might have meant gossip in the 1920s or 30s, but I can’t imagine it being used today. Moldy. As was the Hurly-burly HOOHA disaster in the NE. The clue for 27D was awkwardly worded. Yes, you might have to fork over an extra 10p for something at Paddington, but why “the” p?
A couple of real “duh!” kind of entries with 53A ARTHISTORY, a shining example. And 58A El TORO clued as a carnival ride with horns. Really? And I’m in no way a Star Wars fan but I plunked in EWOKS at 39D without batting an eyelash.
Ah, well … I suppose it could have been worse.
Enjoy tonight’s fireworks.
Theme: Baseball
ReplyDeleteRegarding Shohei Ohtani: He's a great slugger, a first-rate starting pitcher, and he steals bases. No major league player in history has ever been that versatile. His inclusion in a crossword puzzle is entirely appropriate, the comments here notwithstanding.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 3:42 pm
ReplyDeletePersonally, I am not criticizing the editor or the constructor for putting in the baseball player, though including his given name really upped the difficulty level. It is very easy to make a mistake ob the spelling But then crossing the given name with the Spanish pronunciation of the letter N goes on to an even more difficult level. Most commenters who did not finish did so because of a wrong guess, a or e. Also, ei and ai are both very common letter combinations in Japanese. So ileven some knowledge of Japanese transliteration patterns doesn’t help.