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Bitter Italian digestif / SUN 8-24-25 / Key near Fn / King in a 1978 novelty hit / Like a column starting a row, perhaps / Jane ___, longtime writer for The New Yorker / Hit 1996 movie billed as a "homespun murder story" / 2015 Kendrick Lamar anthem that won two Grammys /
Sunday, August 24, 2025
Constructor: Michael Lieberman
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
After two very good days, we plummet. I checked out of this one early. The theme became obvious very quickly, and since it's a boring, one-note theme ... there was nothing to look forward to except some rather long anagrams. There was no cleverness in the cluing or anywhere. I'm sure finding the anagrams took some doing, but so what? That has nothing to do with how interesting the puzzle is going to be to solve, and this one wasn't interesting at all. The "products" of these hypothetical "mergers" were frequently ludicrous. What company sells FLOWER GARDENS? You don't sell FLOWER GARDENS. Just bizarre. Landscaping companies can plant gardens for you, but they don't "sell FLOWER GARDENS," that's a preposterous phrasing. And no one sells GLOVE COMPARTMENTS, either. They just ... come with your vehicle. This theme was never gonna be a winner, but those two alleged "products" took things from merely dull to aggressively absurd. Then there's the fill, which is also below average, right from the jump. This upper middle section, despite the presence of delicious FERNET, is deeply unpleasant to look at (almost as unpleasant as it was to wade through):
AROAR INPEN AER all crammed together, with only middling gunk like IFS REC ETS and SEERED to help out. Noted antisemite Roald DAHL, nonsensical plural TADAS, awkward past tense ASHED, all of these follow, just below this upper-middle section. The rest of the grid is somewhat better than these particularly bad patches, but "somewhat better" only puts it a little closer to average; it doesn't take it into positive territory. TAP SHOES and MONEY PIT and PITFALL are fine answers, but the last two cancel each other out because they dupe PIT (what an improbable word to dupe!). If you are super turned on by long anagrams, maybe this theme was enough for you. If you are super turned on by finishing a Sunday puzzle quickly, same. But this one left me ice cold. No, "ice cold" can be refreshing on a summer's day. It was like a room-temperature cocktail—looks OK, but the experience: deeply unpleasant.
There were no real sticking points, so I'm not sure what else to talk about. I had some trouble with the eastern part of the grid: the CARE part of SELFCARE, and Baker v. CARR (which I didn't know or forgot), and CLASS DAY (a thing which sounds thing-like but is not a thing I ever experienced). And then I had a moment of trouble figuring out why LIBELOUS wouldn't fit at 104A: Like a column starting a row, perhaps. It's LIBELLOUS with two "L"s because that's the British spelling (which "row" was supposed to clue you in to, "row" being British for "noisy disturbance; quarrel; heated argument"). The one thing this puzzle does have in common with the (superior) Fri. and Sat. puzzles is difficulty, i.e. there wasn't any. I don't need every puzzle to be a stumper, but at least one a week that's designed to test longtime solvers ... would be nice. Would be really nice.
More more more:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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- STETHOSCOPES (23A: If HOSTESS & PETCO merged and became a medical supply company, they would sell ___)
- CABERNET SAUVIGNON (31A: If NEUTROGENA, BIC & VANS merged and opened a winery, they would sell ___)
- CINNAMON BREAD (48A: If IBM, DANNON & ACER merged and started a bakery, they would sell ___)
- CHOPSTICKS (64A: If POST & SCHICK merged and became a kitchenware company, they would sell ___)
- PHONE CASES (67A: If EPSON & CHASE merged and became an electronics accessories company, they would sell ___)
- FLOWER GARDENS (81A: If FORD & WALGREENS merged and became a landscaping company, they would sell ___)
- GLOVE COMPARTMENTS (95A: If GMC, PETSMART & LENOVO merged and became an auto parts company, they would sell ___)
- MAGIC MARKERS (109A: If MERCK, MARS & AIG merged and became an art supplies company, they would sell ___)
Fernet (Italian: [ferˈnɛt]) is an Italian type of amaro, a bitter, aromatic spirit. Fernet is made from a number of herbs and spices which vary according to the brand, but usually include myrrh, rhubarb, chamomile, cardamom, aloe, and especially saffron, with a base of distilled grape spirits.Fernet is usually served as a digestif after a meal but may also be served with coffee and espresso or mixed into coffee and espresso drinks. It may be served at room temperature or with ice.
The Italian liqueur Fernet-Branca, developed in 1845, has a cult following in the international bartending community and is immensely popular in Argentina. Argentina consumes more than 75% of all fernet produced globally and, due to the product's popularity, also has Fratelli Branca's only distillery outside of Italy. As it is traditionally mixed with Coke, fernet has also contributed in making Argentina one of the biggest consumers of Coca-Cola in the world. Fernet and Coke (Spanish: fernet con coca) is so ubiquitous in Argentina that it has been described as "the country's unofficial drink". This combination is called fernandito. (wikipedia)
• • •
There were no real sticking points, so I'm not sure what else to talk about. I had some trouble with the eastern part of the grid: the CARE part of SELFCARE, and Baker v. CARR (which I didn't know or forgot), and CLASS DAY (a thing which sounds thing-like but is not a thing I ever experienced). And then I had a moment of trouble figuring out why LIBELOUS wouldn't fit at 104A: Like a column starting a row, perhaps. It's LIBELLOUS with two "L"s because that's the British spelling (which "row" was supposed to clue you in to, "row" being British for "noisy disturbance; quarrel; heated argument"). The one thing this puzzle does have in common with the (superior) Fri. and Sat. puzzles is difficulty, i.e. there wasn't any. I don't need every puzzle to be a stumper, but at least one a week that's designed to test longtime solvers ... would be nice. Would be really nice.
More more more:
- 35A: Jane ___, longtime writer for The New Yorker (MAYER) — not ringing any bells. The only unrecognizable answer in the grid for me today. She's been one of the top investigative political journalists, covering "abuses of power, threats to democracy, and corruption" for decades now, so I probably should know her name. My apologies.
- 41A: Sit tight (BIDE) — you can't see me, but I'm making a wincing "I dunno..." face. I would never substitute BIDE for "sit tight." The only way anyone uses BIDE at all is in the phrase "BIDE one's time," and you can't "sit tight your time," so ... this clue/answer equivalency feels awkward.
- 53A: King in a 1978 novelty hit (TUT) — in case you don't know, because you weren't alive, or for other reasons, Steve Martin had a big hit with a novelty song inspired by the 1970s touring exhibition of artifacts from King TUT's tomb called The Treasures of Tutankhamun. No, seriously. Here, look:
- 71A: Gent from Kent (BRIT) — also a lady from Leeds. Not sure why this clue is gendered. Is it the (sad) rhyme?
- 108A: Time-shares? (OVERLAPS) — I don't quite get this, unless it has to do with scheduling. I guess if you and I worked at a company for different periods of time, but some of that time overlapped ... that's what this clue is getting at.
- 14D: 2015 Kendrick Lamar anthem that won two Grammys ("ALRIGHT") — there's been so much Kendrick Lamar output (and drama!) in the past decade that I've completely forgotten this song, if I ever knew it. Gonna listen now and see if it sounds familiar. . . oh . . . yeah, when he gets to the "we gonna be ALRIGHT" part, now it's familiar.
- 46D: Fancy shopping mall (GALLERIA) — this seems like an oxymoron. Can any place with an Abercrombie & Fitch and a Hot Topic really be called "fancy." The Sherman Oaks GALLERIA is where they filmed parts of two classic teen movies of the '80s (both directed by women): Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Valley Girl (1983). Malls were great, but I dunno about "fancy." The name GALLERIA does sound fancy, though, I'll give you that.
- 51D: Ones making margin calls, for short? (EDS.) — because they write their editorial decisions (or "calls") in the "margins" of manuscripts. DELE! STET! etc.
- 64D: Key near Fn (CTRL) — got this from "Key," not really knowing what "Fn" was. It's the "Function" key. Strangely, I have one on my laptop keyboard (far lower left), but on my remote keyboard (the one I actually use) that same key just has a little globe-looking icon on it. I have never touched it. No idea what it does. Not about to find out.
- 102D: Hit 1996 movie billed as a "homespun murder story" (FARGO) — I've been chasing the high from this movie ever since it came out. One of the three best movies the Coen Bros. ever made (with No Country For Old Men and Blood Simple) (wait, I forgot Raising Arizona) (damn it, I forgot Miller's Crossing!). So, one of the five best. The Coen Bros. haven't worked together since 2018 and cinema is poorer for it (I saw Ethan Coen's new movie, Honey Don't, on Friday, so please trust me when I say "poorer") (and follow me on Letterboxd if that's something you do)
That's all. See you next time.
P.S. it was ten years ago this week that the great crossword constructor Merl Reagle died. In the age before software-assisted construction, he made impossibly witty and wacky puzzles. He was meticulous about his themes, never going to press until he'd found the perfect themer set. And no one made funnier puzzles. Even when his puzzles involved extremely groanworthy puns, you had to respect the cleverness. He was a friend and a confidante, and the fact that he would write me from time to time to commiserate about puzzle stuff made me, frankly, high as a kite. He gave me confidence. I miss him. And the puzzle world is poorer for his absence.
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| [me & Merl at the Brooklyn Marriott, sometime in the early 2010's (no, I don't know why I'm making that face)] |
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44 comments:
Easy. I don't do well with anagrams, but I didn't need the anagrams to get the theme answers. I didn't love it but I liked it a lot more than @Rex did.
Overwrites:
luxe before POSH for swanky at 1A
My corkscrews were tools before they were PASTA (1D)
My 2D #1 position was ahead before it was ON TOP
IN ink before INkEd before IN PEN for the 8D "wet" signature
I would SEEthe before I'd SEE RED (9D)
I thought ding-dong ditch was a prank before I realized it was an ANTIC (18A)
When I'm on the hunt I PRObe before I PROWL (67D)
Santa anita before CLara before CLAUS at 97D
WOEs:
Kendrick Lamar song ALRIGHT at 14D
The digestif FERNET at 20A
The Spanish province of LEON at 22A
New Yorker writer Jane MAYER at 35A
Legal case Baker v. CARR at 68D
Yeah, this was not Sunday-level. Monday-level, maybe. Not very creative, but I see how this puzzle would tickle ML's colleagues at work as they fight (corporate) mergers. I enjoyed it, as I do most Sundays, but I think Rex's write-up is pretty much spot-on.
I knew TUT, but the song was just on the very fringes on my brain. I thank Rex for providing the link. Steve Martin, comic genius!
egs - Prescient, y'day. But while NEPAL -> APNEAL, handmade, NEUTROGENA, BLAH BLAH -> CABERNET SAUVIGNON, Hal or Deep Blue?
This ep., no worse, no bettah than most other Sundays. And bush league rel. to the 2024-12-15. Anagrams ain't rly my thang, esp. ones a mile and a half long. Also, a GLOVE COMPARTMENT as an auto part? Whatevs.
Curtain of replies dropped evenly to beat of laggardly metronome, 'til OO_S_ at 98d: 108a beckoned OVERLAyS, precluding the OOPSY a half measure. And then, feet from the finish, that small cluster at the SE-ernmost, another extra measure, at which I wanted to kick the timer.
Finished w/a fault, the ferreting o'which ate a full 2 min, no idea where to begin the hunt. In my headlong dive to the bottom, GoT AN A at 15d, early on.
Invigorating Sat. p.m. amid horses, piggies and the like @ farm in the hinterlands for friends' nuptial festivity. Hearty convo, WX, good cheer all round aligned. The stuff of life. Minus alcohol - dry event, so mod.? T'day, another pahtee, out of doors.
- Riprock & fam, wishing you ppl a jolly one
Addendum: Recall well so many years ago flipping a rear page to topside of the local paper's Sunday magazine to make any dent in the Reagle game - I could rarely finish. Moving tribute.
Much easier than most Sundays, but a fun solve nonetheless. When I first realized it was an anagram trick, I thought it would take forever to rearrange everything. But the crosses were very obliging, and the cluing was mostly straightforward ("like a column starting a row" was a brilliant exception).
I'm usually pretty positive... but this one was pretty dull. Basically i just skipped over all the company names to the description of what the company made (that was the only real "clue") and used that, occasionally checking to make sure the letters I was typing were included. But they had nothing to do with the companies themselves--only with the letters. But... at least it was easy. The only thing worse than a dull, but easy, Sunday with its big grid is a dull but hard Sunday (Teeth pulling!). 22 minutes for me today, might a sunday record! : )
Everyone should read — or should have read— Jane Mayer’s “ Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,” published in 2016. She details an extraordinary, genuine conspiracy.
Was ready for a real challenge - and some clever - even devilish - answers connecting some aspect of each of these brands/companies into a wacko hybrid product.
And then the moment came. Anagrams? Seriously? That's it? All this build-up for that? Anagrams???
Couldn't wait to plow through and finish, with hardly any joy and a moment of utter revulsion at the thought of Mega-Stuff OREOS.
@rex if you like the Coens (and who doesn’t?), the Blank Check podcast is doing their films. The Fargo episode was a delight (albeit a long one)
I liked it. It went faster than a typical Sunday, but the long anagrams worked and were a help towards solving the puzzle. And there was some nice cluing, with none causing me to wonder what the clue's connection to the answer was.
I was just starting this, struggling a bit but enjoying it, and really looking forward to figuring out the clever puns or whatever was going on in those intriguing themers. When I realized it was just anagrams, it was a huge letdown, and I was tempted to abandon the puzzle entirely. I did finish it, but without much joy and I barely remember anything about it except my disappointment.
Anagrams do absolutely nothing for me. I'd rather have a quote puzzle.
I have yet to see a Coen Brothers movie that I enjoyed, but FARGO was probably the least terrible.
A trio of clues got my brain whirring:
• [Purchases that come with metal plates] got me thinking of dishes, nameplates, and little plaques, so when TAP SHOES emerged, I could only think, “You rascal, Michael Lieberman!”
• [Like a column starting a row, perhaps] had me thinking spreadsheets, and I was getting nowhere. When that answer finally emerged from crosses, it brought a big aha, with the play on “column” as well as “row”.
• [Corkscrews and such] had me going through a mental gallery of things that curled, things that open other things (like keys), and things one pulls. Never did PASTA enter my mind, but I enjoyed the mental slide show.
I liked the PuzzPair© of CLAUS and a backward NOEL.
I especially liked Michael’s constructor notes, seeing how he’s like a kid in a candy shop when it comes to anagrams.
So, many smile-makers today from your puzzle, Michael – thank you!
The Very Old Cat was out of food at 5
Sin sal.
This is the greatest puzzle ever and filled with funnyisms. It's swanky, it's POSH. It's filled with brain-damagingly long anagrams and those are the number one things in everyone's list of awesomeness. You can even buy FLOWER GARDENS and GLOVE COMPARTMENTS at a GALLERIA with them and you can't buy those things in real life.
Finished on FERNET as it's new to me, but I hope we see lots of cocktail recipes focused on the only correct way to make a FERNET martini.
Don't you wish we all could carry STETHOSCOPES around our necks and have a reason to use them? They're a legit fashion accessory. They'd make you look great eating TATER TOTS while watching a mind-blowing film with subtitles by TATI.
The [pain in the neck] clue for TONSIL is knee-slappingly amusing. Don't you relish every appearance of OREO or TADAS? Don't you want to have CINNAMON BREAD toasted with butter right now?
Steve Martin wrote the King Tut song and he's having a hell of a moment again with Murders in the Building and so many banjo things. Isn't banjo the best instrument especially if you're dancing to one in TAP SHOES?
I wrote IN INK, but IN PEN is way better. I think our beloved editors hoped to spare 🦖 from another Yale ELI and gave him a Big Pharma ELI. So they're trying really hard.
Last time Las Meninas appeared I read up on all the folks and symbolism in the painting so it was nice to have it handy.
I put DITCH DAY instead of CLASS DAY for the seniors, probably because saltiness is still creeping into my brain.
People: 17
Places: 2
Products: 20 (alas)
Partials: 14
Foreignisms: 5
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 58 of 140 (41%) {Another gunkapalooza, but think of how great it feels to fill in a proper noun.}
Funny Factor: 12 😅
Uniclues:
1 Whispers, "I love you."
2 Draws on the wall ... twice.
1 AIRS OUT EROS RHETORIC
2 OVERLAPS MAGIC MARKERS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Songs about tigers. CATTY CANTI.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
OOPSY. Anyway, the Very Old Cat was up at 5AM informing me of his empty food dish, short night, tried solving online again, which always has me groping around for the clue I want, and so on, all this to explain that it took me until CHOPSTICKS to realize we were doing anagrams. Duh. I normally enjoy these and am pretty good at them, glanced at the clue and wrote in GLOVECOMPARTMENTS, e. g., but geez did that take a while to land.
Otherwise not bad, FERNET was all crosses, didn't know ALRIGHT, or the CARR case. Kept reading "row" to rhyme with "cow" and changed CLAUS to CLARA and back as SYD (?) finally showed up. The other do-over was changing AERATES to AIRSOUT, which was slowing things down. Also, RIDABLE,. needs another E after the D, if you ask me. As is the word looks like something that rats might be.
Nice enough Sunday if you like anagrams (I do) and ML found some good ones, but it sure took a Mighty Long time to catch on. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
As Rex describes him, I totally agree that Merl was a most clever and super entertaining puzzle constructor. I miss him very much as well. Even after his death, I enjoyed many of his works under the Classic rubric in the Sunday Washington Post offerings. Sadly, they seem to have dropped the Classics when the new and hideous pink format was recently adopted. You can still find Merl's genius elsewhere, though. You are in for a treat, especially if you don’t already know his work.
I think I was on my third theme answer before I realized we were dealing with anagrams (Duh !) - my uncanny prowess at discerning themes shines through yet again.
This one kind of lost me at GLOVE COMPARTMENTS - almost a carbon copy of my feelings this past week. It’s hard to believe that these types of nonsensical themes are the best that the NYT can attract. We are inundated with this stuff - I’m really at a loss to understand it, never mind attempting to formulate a plausible explanation as to why this is the case.
I’ll have to keep an eye out for the “foreign word” in the clue indicates a foreign variation of the answer trick, but I’m not a fan, so I’ll try my best to just shut up and eat my peas the next time I encounter it.
To quote Conrad this morning: “I didn’t love it but I liked it a lot more than @Rex did.” Maybe something’s wrong with me, but I actually enjoy anagrams and found this puzzle at least mildly amusing.
And I gotta echo Anonymous 6:37’s recommendation to read Jane Meyer. One of the best.
@Rex: You call out Roald Dahl’s antisemitism (which I don’t question but don’t recall ever actually encountering in any of his books that I’ve read) but show us that jaw-dropping movie poster with no trigger warning?
As for the Coen brothers, when I first saw “Fargo” I hated it because it came off (to me) as a bunch of smug Hollywood types making fun of Midwesterners. Later I learned that the Coens are from Minnesota, and my reaction changed totally. It’s a solid rule that you can criticize any place you’re from but you better be careful saying anything bad about someone else’s home.
For the same reason, I was roped into watching the Coens’ “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” expecting to hate, hate, hate the way they would portray the South and Southerners. (And for the record, I’ve said lots of critical things about the South, where I was born and thankfully escaped in early adulthood.) But right at the beginning I saw that it wasn’t a movie about the South, it was a retelling of the Odyssey in a fantasy world full of Southern references. And that’s OK by me. I love that movie—one of my all-time favorites.
As Rex says in his Word of the Day Wikipedia quote, Fernet (especially con coca) is immensely popular in Argentina. Not to my liking, but I was delighted to see it in the puzzle and to garner WOTD honors.
Jane Mayer is a favorite of mine.
Hey All !
Someone makes GLOVE COMPARTMENTS, they don't just magically appear on a car. You need the box part, the door, the hardware to mount it. Unsure if there is a dedicated standalone GLOVE COMPARTMENT company, or if they're a product of a company that makes other stuff. If you've ever been in a auto parts store, you'd see the "Help!" products (which are little things that really do help). Maybe it's them?
Anyway, thought at first, before realizing they were anagrams, that the products each company made would be combined to form some wacky new thing. Like HOSTESS and PETCO, medical supply, Tasty Medicinal Treats for your dog? A little long to put into a grid ...
Was looking forward to try guessing what each product was, sorta let down when realized they were just anagrams. Now, I like anagrams as much as the next guy, and I know these took some effort, finding actual Companies to "merge", but still felt a tinge of a letdown.
DNF with aRoN instead of ERIN. The crosses worked well enough, CABARNET (sure, spelled wrong, and basically triple checked with the Company letters, but still), BoDE. BODE, BIDE, TO-MAY-TOE, TOM-MAH-TOE.
Santa CLAra before CLAUS, Odes-OILS (poet? painter? Not up on my arts), edy-BEN, raIN-SKIN, Aerates-AIRSOUT, think that might be it.
Overall nice puz. On the easy side, fill OK, you could say I was BEMUSED and amused.
Have a great Sunday!
Six F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
The GALLERIA is name-checked in the song Valley Girl, along with “all these cute little shoe stores” but then again that song actually is not in the movie, and Frank Zappa tried to stop production for trademark infringement. The eighties were fun, kids.
Wordle 1,527 X/6*
🟨⬜⬜🟨🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
I’m mad at Wordle this morning. I had everything but the second letter and of course there was at least seven possibilities. I may never recover my 99% success rate,,, Damn you Wordle!!!
I solved this entire puzzle and never even figured out they were anagrams. I thought I was too dumb to understand the obscure connection or meaning between the answers, but it turns out I was too dumb to figure out they were anagrams.
Poorer
What happened to Patrick Berry? I miss his excellent puzzles that used to appear in the NY Times Sunday magazine. Anyone know?
Like some others, I hoped that the company mergers would result in some delightfully wacky punny products, but no. But if there had to be anagrams, at least these were easy to get.
For the heck of it, I googled, "Can you buy a flower garden?" and got this AI-generated response: "Yes, you can buy a flower garden, typically in the form of plants, seeds, pre-planned garden kits, or even by hiring a professional to install a custom-designed flower bed for you." I did not google, "Can you buy a glove compartment?"
That key with the "globe-looking icon": if it's Apple hardware, that would be for changing keyboard layout (it's an international option, get it?). If you only ever use the US keyboard layout (or only ever UK, or only ever French, or … you get the idea), you won't use the key. I change regularly between four languages (sometimes more if I need to quote, say, Greek or Cyrillic or something else non–Latin script). Also, on iPadOS, the spell checker uses the keyboard layout as a cue for which dictionary to use, and in diacritical-heavy languages that aren't my first language it's a big help to have the spell checker to make sure the accents are right.
In short: if you only ever type in one language, you won't need it; but if you do need it, you use it a lot.
A stunt puzzle in which there was no need whatsoever for me, the solver, to participate in the stunt. A cursory glance would do the trick.
Example: I have CINNEMON followed by a 5-letter word. I glance at the clue. Nope -- no "L"s in the anagrams. Can't be ROLLS. Ah, but there's a B and a D. BREAD.
On to the next anagram that I won't have to do either.
Once again, a constructor has set himself a Monumental Task to amuse himself, but has forgotten to amuse the solver. I suspect computer programs make this sort of thing ridiculously easy to pull off, which is a shame. Too many constructors become entranced with the intricacies of their own creations and never think how -- or even if -- the solver will be involved.
Kinda salty again today, @Gary. Try to be a bit more upbeat tomorrow. Xanax could help.
Much appreciated Dahl "note".
Like Rex, I was expecting a clever twist. I assumed the answers would be a conceivably wacky product that would be a combination of a HOSTESS dessert and PETCO dog toy that sounded like a type of wine. Tall order I know but I was surprised when it was just a straight anagram. Raced through in almost record time. Barely a hesitation. 20:30
For BIDE, I thought it was legit cluing (if a little archaic) as in Danny Boy: "'tis you must go, and I must bide"
I thought the EDS making a margin call might need Viagra.
When I speed solve, I ERRATA high rate.
When you knowingly and falsely disparage Gehrig, Costello and Reed in writing, you libelously LIBELLOUS.
I felt exactly like Ralphie with his decoder ring when I realized that these were just anagrams.
I often enjoy anagrams, especially when one anagram is a clever commentary on the other, but some of these are Not Well Done, for reasons Rex points out. I do appreciate the effort it might have taken to anagram CABERNET SAUVIGNON.
Easy, yes. Fill in the blank easy. A rote exercise full of crossword crusty fill.
Misfires: pERNod before FERNET, and AeRates before AIRS OUT.
Agree with Rex about BIDE. And there's something about the "working" part of the clue for SELF CARE that puts me off. I can kind of see it if "working" is PARSED as a gerund, but that feels like a very awkward construction; otherwise the part-of-speech mismatch between clue and answer is pretty glaring, and it could have been avoided. Perhaps there's some other reading that I'm missing.
On Coen Bros. movies: I also like O Brother Where Art Thou?, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Hail Caesar!.
The expression on Sharp's face (seated next to Reagle): didn't there used to be another photo of him, apparently at a get-together, where it looks like there's Cheetos residue or some other orange gunk around his mouth and in his teeth? Assuming I didn't hallucinate that one, the overall expression was similar to this one.
Around here it’s skip day much simpler to do
Forgot to add:
BRAVO to "Like a column starting a row" clue
I’ve been to the Galleria in Milan Italy and the one here in Houston designed by the architect Gerald Hines who the University of Houston school of architecture is named after which my son graduated from who works for Gensler running computer systems
Easy and dull, as others have said. Just came here to second Rex’s REC on Blood Simple. It’s a really fun one.
For me, the bottom two thirds of the puzzle came together before the top third; I got very little traction in the top third Acrosses on first pass. But lower down I saw CINNAMON coming together and saw that the answer to the bakery clue would be an anagram. That made everything more swooshy. It was satisfying to solve the themers, though I'm not sure anyone actually sells a FLOWER GARDEN.
I like the clue for TATER TOT (Small Fry) . . . can't figure out if I like the clue for TONSIL or not; I mean, I guess your throat is in your neck, and your tonsil is in your throat, so . . .? I'm sure I wasn't the only one who had OSLO before ASIA for the Winter Olympics clue. Finally, the NYT is an American publication, so I wish we didn't have to have the British, double-L spelling of LIBELLOUS. I really hesitated over that one.
All in all, a satisfactory if not especially sparkly Sunday puzzle.
And the sound track from it is one of the best ever.
A bicycle or horse is Ridable? What if the horse is a bucking bronco or the bicycle has a flat? 😊
That’s how I felt. I wasn’t getting the clue answers because I was trying to combine products. Only after I filled in “Cabernet Sauvignon” and thought, “what the hell does that have to do with those companies?” Did I notice the anagram theme and then it was easy.
Thanks to @Gary Jugert for a great review...yes, another Sunday "gunkapalooza" which made it hard for pop cture nescients like me to get traction, but a clever theme, well executed, with fair enough crissings that no naticks were encountered. The clue for LIBELLOUS was beyond clever and deserves special mention...the one hilarious offering. Overall, a satisfying puzzle....if not five stars at least four and a half.
Thanks to Rex for the education on FERNET...as a fan of herbal liquers, I can't wait to experiment with it!
@egsforbreakfast 9:45 AM
Xanax anagrams to AnaXX and maybe she'd make me more upbeat? {I will grow up someday.}
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