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Catchphrase of a classic MTV show / TUE 8-19-25 / Residents of the Realm of the Four Parts / Color whose name comes from the Greek word for "cuttlefish" / Dance performed in Smetana's "The Bartered Bride" / Country that produces surprisingly little Muscat wine
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Constructor: Eric Rollfing
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- BLANKET POLICIES (16A: Catchalls of the insurance industry)
- RAILING AT (24A: Really giving an earful)
- MONITOR LIZARD (36A: Reptile that can reach up to 10 feet in length)
- MOBILE APP (48A: Play Store purchase)
MTV Cribs (also known as Cribs) is an American documentary television show that originated on MTV and features tours of the private homes of celebrities. It originally aired from 2000 to 2010. In 2017, MTV produced short-form episodes of the program and distributed it through Snapchat Discover.
MTV revived the show for new full length episodes in 2021.
 |
| [Why wasn't XZIBIT in the crossword more often? (just two appearances: 2007, 2014)] |
The first show aired in September 2000. By 2005, Cribs had featured tours of the homes of over 185 celebrities including musicians, actors, and athletes over the course of 13 seasons. The show was originally narrated by Ananda Lewis, then narrated by SuChin Pak (originally of MTV News). [...] On January 24, 2009, Cribs created a separate version specific to CMT (a sister network of MTV), dedicating itself to country music artists, stock car drivers and professional bullriders, and other southeastern U.S. culture figures. New episodes were taped to air on CMT with the CMT Cribs title. Also in 2009, the MTV format switched to Teen Cribs, which featured the homes of regular teenagers living in large and otherwise notable homes, straying away from the celebrity element. [...] Producers decided not to include a host to make the show feel more intimate. Each 30-minute; documentary-style episodes begins with the celebrity opening the front door, introducing themselves, and saying, "welcome to my crib." (wikipedia) (my emph.)
• • •
The NW quadrant had a bunch of fill that made me kind of sigh and sag in my desk chair—the kind of stuff that can be a harbinger of weak fill to come (SETI, ESO, SRO, ROI), but once you get out of there, it's clear skies, pretty much. I never had that "oof" feeling again (except maybe with ÉTÉ, which I would be happy never to see again). There's not much sizzle to this one, but the fill is, for the most part, quite solid.
Difficulty? Not really. As usual, the hardest part was getting started, and it wasn't that hard. Oh, I got a little over-confident and made this mistake, that was fun:
More more more:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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- 15A: Job perk that might accumulate (LEAVE) — interesting clue on this one. I think of things that accumulate as (likely) plurals, but not here. I wonder how much LEAVE I've accumulated over my (too many) years at this job? I've been lucky enough not to have to think about it.
- 21A: Country that produces surprisingly little Muscat wine (OMAN) — grapes do grow in Oman, but it's not entirely clear that the capital city (Muscat) is the origin of the name of this particular varietal. Per wikipedia:
Because the exact origins of the Muscat family cannot be pinpointed, theories as to the origin of the name "Muscat" are numerous. The most commonly cited is that it is derived from the Persian word muchk. Similar etymology follows the Greek moskos, Latin muscus and French musc. In Italy, the Italian word mosca for fly could also be one possibility with the sweet aroma and high sugar levels of Muscat grapes attracting insects such as fruit flies.Other theories suggest that the grape family originated in the West Asian country of Oman and was named after the city of Muscat located on the coast of the Gulf of Oman. Another city that is sometimes suggested as a potential birthplace/namesake is the Greek city of Moschato, located southwest of Athens in Attica, with Moschato being a common synonym in Greece for Muscat varieties.
- 7D: Color whose name comes from the Greek word for "cuttlefish" (SEPIA) — I had no idea. It's funny to think of cuttlefish being associated with a single color, considering they can be virtually any color (and texture, and shape) they want to be. Just amazing creatures:
- 33D: Dance performed in Smetana's "The Bartered Bride" (POLKA) — the POLKA is a dance from Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic). Smetana is a Czech composer. Smetana is also (I just learned) "the English-language name for the different types of sour cream traditionally prevalent in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, and Central Asia. It is a dairy product produced by souring heavy cream. It is similar to crème fraîche, but nowadays mainly sold with 9% to 42% milkfat content depending on the country." (wikipedia)
- 34D: Apt name for a financial adviser? (IRA) — an oldie but ... actually, just an oldie. We had a version of it earlier this year. And about once a year, every year, on average, going back to the Stone Age. I.R.A. stands for Individual Retirement Account, which a financial adviser might advise you to have. Financially.
- 49D: Residents of the Realm of the Four Parts (INCAS) — "Realm of the Four Parts" (Tawantinsuyu in Quechua) was simply the name of the Inca Empire.
- 50D: Barbecue setting, often (PATIO) — for some reason I was thinking "setting" = level of heat. Wanted SPICY.
That's all. See you next time.
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75 comments:
Nice puzzle, on the easy side of medium for me. Solved it as a themeless, because I didn't see the CRIB/BLANKET, etc. connection until I was finished.
I feel like blankets are famously not supposed to be put in cribs, at least not for the first year.
Fun story, our 16-month old recently climbed out of her crib, so we had to convert it to a toddler bed.
Not a bad puzzle, and I always enjoy reading your blog.
Medium for a Tuesday.
Overwrites:
DIs before DIG at 1A
I'm set before I PASS at 4A
Rei before ROI at 20A
No WOEs
@Rex: "But 'umbrellas' ... you don't 'wear' those, do you? (do you??)"
Depends on how strong the wind is blowing.
DIs before DIG, which I couldn't figure out once I finished the grid and didn't get the happy music--I haven't seen or thought about the term "netminder" in, well, ever. This played much harder for me than a normal Tuesday; I got very few answers on the first pass through the clues. Not bad, I just didn't find it as easy as @Rex. WELCOME TO MY CRIB was not something I ever watched but I was aware of its existence and it wasn't hard, and it made me smile when I went back and saw the other theme answers. So it's got that going for it. Which is nice.
Cute set of themers with a slightly funky - retro revealer. Thought the overall fill was a little trickier than Rex did - gave some nice early week pushback at times.
The The
Handsome grid - liked the corner to corner diagonals. ODDBALLS, FANATIC, RAIN GEAR, NEPTUNE all top notch. A nice REBUS shout out for @Anoa Bob to discuss. Learned SEPIA.
Afternoons in UTOPIA
Enjoyable Tuesday morning solve. With yesterday - a nice start to the week.
Pet Shop Boys
I realized that NEPTUNE and JUPITER not only have the same number of letters, but the same third letter.
I originally tried an Umbrella (which is more liability coverage) instead of the P&C related BLANKET POLICY up north. Easy enough to fix.
For some reason, I lumbered around a little more than usual on this one - it seemed to me like a more middle-of-the road Tuesday - I may have been expecting one of the “tough Monday” grids that we have been getting on a lot of recent Tuesdays.
I vaguely remembered the title of the MTV show - I doubt I ever watched a single episode, but all I needed was the CRIBS part to lock in the theme and pulled together the rest of it from the crosses.
As an aside - I solve on the NYT app on an IPad and apparently the NYT is debuting a new game today, which in and of itself is no big deal. Unfortunately, they have this gross, pepto-bismol like background color for it - I really, really hope that whatever that disease is that infected the crew over at the Washington Post has not metastasized and spread to the NYT or this could be the beginning of the CrossWorld equivalent of the Zombie Apocalypse.
Cuttlefish are incredible!
I’m no language expert, but I have the impression from reading 18th- and 19th-century stuff that lots of terms over time follow the progression (1) two words, (2) hyphenated word, (3) single word. Example: arm chair, arm-chair, armchair. The hyphenated form is a bit of a pain and doesn’t seem to last long. (Remember e-mail?) Maybe RAIN GEAR, RAINGEAR is following a similar progression.
Bienvenidos a mi cuna.
This grid fought me the whole way through in a fun way and it's such a weird theme I laughed when I finally figured out the reveal. A surprisingly entertaining early week tussle. And I could hear the REBUS haters wincing when the "eye for an I" thing got up in their grills in their phat cribs.
By BLANKET POLICY is "yes please."
Isn't every writer telling a TALE? Why is Edgar being singled out for special credit?
We have lizards all over the place here in the southwest, and they're very nice, but they're not ten feet long so it's a bit disappointing. We had to catch one at work last week who snuck in the back door and it was five minutes of excitement for my staff. They're very fast ... the lizards not my staff.
It's OHO, not AHA. I do most of my crabbing in the living room. Cuttlefish aren't in a hurry to win any beauty pageants are they? I didn't know the SEPIA connection and I'm delighted to learn about it.
Starbucks will have PECAN syrup this fall and I plan on saying it "PEE-can" to drive the "pe-CAHN" people into a dither.
Are we sure EVE wore a fig leaf? My barbecue setting is #11.
People: 4
Places: 5
Products: 5
Partials: 4
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 22 of 76 (29%)
Funny Factor: 3 😐
Uniclues:
1 Tell the future walking book of clip art she can't start until she moves out and gets a job.
2 Where Eve bought a funnel cake to go with the apple.
3 What the rude priest did when he was tired of walking.
4 What my knees would download if they could avoid hiking the treads.
5 Nut nut.
1 DETER TAT ERA
2 UTOPIA FAIR
3 RODE LAYMAN
4 MOBILE APP STAIR
5 PECAN FANATIC
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Moist assonant deluge of cookies for indigenous New Zealanders. MAORI OREO WATER SLIDE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I imagine this constructor in, say, 2005, submitting this puzzle and thinking what a perfect, timely revealer he had found. Then the puzzle sits in the queue for a couple of decades and here in 2025, it just doesn't land.
INK and TAT could have both used the TAT clue.
noir before TALE was my only erasure.
Indeed. But Jupiter, massively bigger than earth, is often the brightest object in the sky.
Yup, started right out with BLANKETcoverage…but the thing that held me up in the end was the final “Y” in PREY. So obvious but even running through the alphabet mentally gave up before I got to “Y”. Interesting to learn the derivation of SEPIA. Thought the clung was fun for a Tuesday.
In response to Rex’s question, I’m an ancient New Yorker and had absolutely no knowledge of the CRIB reference. Got it all from crosses.
when Cribs was at the height of its popularity, someone (can’t remember who) spilled the beans about the houses usually being rentals, or someone else’s entirely. they’d have interior decorators move in furniture, artwork, even the contents of the fridge. dunno if that contributed to its loss in popularity, but on second viewings, it became clear that at least a few people were wandering around in an unfamiliar space. robbie williams comes to mind - his episode actually featured jane seymour’s mansion.
Often on Tuesdays, my crossword-veteran brain goes into IDLE, settles into recall mode, takes a breather, knowing it will be barking out answers to very-little-effort-to-get direct clues. Swaths splat in, the puzzle finishes, and while my brain enjoyed keeping in practice, it never got excited.
My brain likes to riddle-crack, to be thrust into a problems that force it to devise possibilities, to unearth connections, to gather different meanings for words, to suddenly see the blanks between crosses. This is what galvanizes my brain.
And today, right from the start, my brain perked up, and before long, it was yessing. There were vague clues, no-knows, wordplay clues, a theme to crack, clues with humor.
I left the revealer blank, didn't even look at its clue, and tried to guess it, knowing at that point that it would include CRIB. And even though I didn’t get it – I never heard of the show – the effort was more balm for my brain.
Then there was the bonus of a rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap (SNIPS).
Thank you, Eric, for this, for taking my brain from lethargy to happy dance. More please!
You’re in rare form today !
Never heard of STAIR before. Stairs, stairway, staircase, yes but STAIR?
"Sir could you please direct me to the stair, my room is on the second floor?"
"Sure. But don't you want all of 'em?"
Robbie Williams telling stories on Graham Norton’s show is quality entertainment.
Pretty easy. Cute theme. Sorry to say people who get fifteen weeks vacation a year don’t accumulate LEAVE.
Sepia the color comes from the cuttlefish's defensive ink ;-)
Some obscure lizard, an unfamiliar MTV catch phrase, confusing clues about "Net worth negatives" and a printing option I never heard of, plus the worst clue ever: "Edgar Allan Poe writing"...Huh? What? SETI and Kinks and Smetana...Ugh. And then trying to connect all that to something as warm and inviting as a baby's nursery? I'm clearly in the minority, but this puzzle was not for me.. Didn't feel like a Tuesday at all and nothing joyful about it.
As lovely a Tuesday grid as I can remember. Completely junkless -- or in Gary J's terminology, gunkless. I love the phrase WELCOME TO MY CRIB, even though I have no idea from whence it came. I also liked the fact that all the crib-related words appear in a different sense of that word. Very enjoyable.
I got a little confused about different TV shows and tried to squeeze in WELCOMETOMYsocalledCRIB. It didn't work out well.
Me: I'd like to return this bed cover.
Clerk: I'm sorry, but no exchanges on bedding. It's one of our BLANKETPOLICIES.
Me: But it's exuding toxic fumes. Where am I going to LAYMAN?
Clerk: OMAN, you should be NICER. And BTW, it's lie not lay.
What did the nurse say when she spotted the patient who was hiding because he didn't want to go into intensive care? ICU.
Kinda fun. Thanks, Eric Rollfing.
Your discussion of Czech sour cream brought back a memory for me, Rex. My best friend’s mom, from what was then Czechoslovakia, once prepared a summer snack for us of cucumbers and sour cream. As a child I thought it was unappetizing but I wish I could relive that day now. It sounds very refreshing!
I liked the puzzle too as it was slightly harder to solve than on a usual Tuesday. I wonder why we like to see other people’s homes even if they’re way out of our means. I was watching some low brow reality show where a British homeowner was appalled that Americans always expect a tour of their house when coming over for the first time. Is that decidedly American?
I was humming along and filling in answers without bothering to think what their connection might be, and the revealer (last, where it belongs, down to the last word being the actual revealer) showed up and all was made clear. Of course I'd never seen the show but what had to be had to be
Trying to do this without reading glasses and I glanced a "Smetana", and having seen "dance" somehow made the name into "Salome", which made this morning's highlight trying to imagine Salome doing the POLKA.
There's another one of those APP references. I thought we had talked about this. Ahem.
Nice to see the Prado and MADRID get a shout out. Spent my Junior Year Abroad there back when Franco was in power and there were lots of demonstrations at the university. Exciting times.
Nice Tuesday indeed, ER. The revealer was certainly an Enjoyable Result, and thanks for all the fun.
Never watched "Welcome To My Crib" but before I knew it this puzzle was solved so I thank you, Eric :)
Agree
I have no idea what classic MTV show uses WELCOME TO MY CRIB-- I didn't really know that there WERE classic MTV shows; back in the day I just turned to MTV when I wanted to see some music videos, but I guess they did have more structure than that. So there was no way I was guessing that revealer, and I didn't spend the time I should have to work out the theme. Also, when I had babies MONITORS were a luxury item for over-nervous parents. We raised ours by Dr. Spock's advice: to paraphrase, if your baby won't stop crying, hold ... each other..
The puzzle was fun anyway. I think BLANKET POLICIES was my first entry; that is, I thought of it first, and it had to start with either BLANKET or umbrella (which was too long), but I did check the crosses to make sure it was POLICIES and not coverage -- so SEPIA was my actual first entry.
Being a wine-lover, I spent a pleasurable (post-solve) exploring the history of the MUSCAT grape. Apparently, some do think it is named for the city in Oman, while others favor the city of Moschato in Greece, and still others think it's because its sweetness attracts mosca (i.e., flies). It is the oldest wine-grape, and its origins are lost in the cloudy past.
My tomatoes attract fruit flies long before they begin to ROT, alas.
I see Rex beat me to it with a deep dive into Muscat. That's the disadvantage of my method (which I learned from @Nancy) of commenting before I read what anyone else said about the puzzle. Ah well. Also, I neglected to point out (as Rex has already) all the beauties of this theme.
I guess we have all accepted by now that dwarf planets are not planets; I still don't think it makes sense. Are teacup dogs not dogs?
Constructor states the “Cribs” tagline became such a part of the language that “even younger solvers who never saw the show” will have heard it. And the older solvers who never saw the show? Most certainly have never heard of it. Didn’t really have any impact on the solve however, which as RP said, was pretty standard fare.
I quit watching MTV after they moved away from showing music videos and got into reality TV. So add me to the "never heard of it" group for the revealer. On the other hand, the theme answers vis-a-vis the revealer are kind of cute.
I found this rather hard for a Tuesday. A pier is a spot for crabbing? Myst is set on an island? (With the IS in place, I thought of but was unwilling to guess it was ISrael.)
Thanks, Eric Rollfing, for an interesting Tuesday puzzle.
What @Johnny said. “I do most of my crabbing in the living room.“
🤣🤣🤣
A very serviceable Tuesday grid and I had a good time solving it (downs-only) but, as usual, I have a few comments, both negative and positive.
Working downs-only meant I didn’t have to concern myself with the theme until I was finished. Seemed consistent enough but I can’t say nursery gear gets me excited. I watched maybe two episodes of the TV show way back in its first incarnation. That was two too many. I don’t need to watch rich celebs showing off their possessions, thanks.
Not too surprised that a Muslim country, 21A OMAN, doesn’t produce a lot of wine but can’t resist pointing out that crossword fave Asti Spumante is mainly made from Moscato (aka Muscat) grapes. It gets complicated out there in wine world.
Is a 52A STAIR really a series of steps or is that a staircase, which is actually a series of stairs or steps? Isn’t a STAIR just one unit in a staircase in the same way that a step is? Sounded off to me. I mean if I’m going from the first floor to the second, I’m probably taking the STAIRs, not the STAIR.
•Wanted RAINwEAR at 10D until I realized how difficult it would be to wear an umbrella.
•Your fruit doesn’t have to 29D ROT to attract those little pests; they arrive as soon as it starts to ripen.
•Don’t know anything about F3 - F5 but do know that bassos, baritones , tenors, and sopranos wouldn’t fit at 43D.
•53D, Hah! It’s a REBUS puzzle on a Tuesday!
Ah, MADRID (46A). I have a photograph in a box somewhere of my wife and three sons (aged between 18 and 28 at the time) exiting the Prado on a late December or early January evening. My wife is kind of shrugging and rolling her eyes and all three boys have their hands raised over their heads, thumbs raised toward the sleety night sky, shouting “Last f***ing museum! Let’s eat.” I treat them to 2 weeks of Spanish culture and this is how they repay me. Heathens! Yea, Philistines!
Funny you should mention TALE. For some reason I associate Poe with TALEs…ya know, Like stories in the old show “Tales from the Crypt.” Anyhoo, to further waste my time this day and looked up definition, which includes “short stories” in a narrative form. At least two of his most famous TALEs were first person narratives, like The Tell-TALE Heart, and The Cask of Amontillado. I think of ghost stories around a campfire as TALEs. But I guess the “misdirect” for Poe was whether you chose “poem” instead of TALE. So yeah, another indication of how I can deep-dive into the most mundane topics…🤣
Interesting since the cuttlefish also looks SEPIA colored. I guess then the ink is the perfect camouflage
Happy to be reminded of the expression "Many moons." Colorful and fun to say.
@jberg 10:47 AM
Looks like we're up to nine or ten dwarf planets, so making a model of the solar system these days would exceed the science budget at the elementary school. Better to let teacups be teacups and dogs be dogs and Pluto is the lamest anyway.
Haha…well, I don’t know if it’s decidedly American, but I’m pretty sure it’s decidedly rude to expect your host to give a “grand tour” of anywhere that you’re not “hanging out” in, other than the bathroom…if you need it.
Loved your bit about pronouncing PECAN. I have a Texas-born friend who used to chide me for saying pee-can instead of pe-cahn. Now he has tired of lifting up the ignorant and he just gives me the death stare.
Hey All !
Late (for me). Had to go into work early today, so did puz earlier, and came to the RexBlog with it not being written yet.
Also had to do the puz on my phone this morning, as my Internet would not connect n the house. Dang. Also did SB, Wordle, and Connections on the phone. Works in a pinch.
Rex, they do have umbrella hats. So technically ... 😁
Enjoyed today's offering.
Have a great Tuesday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
I found hard for a Tuesday. Had to find revealer to get blanket, and revealer was foreign to me. NW was the final sticking point.
Your comment on Madrid trip cracked me up! It reminded me of meeting my 20 year old daughter who spent a year in Logroño (studying) who I met with my sister and sister-in-law in Madrid. She was fluent in “Spanish” Spanish yet REALLY had a thing with “communicating” ANY Spaniard to ask for directions. I drove us all from Madrid to Toledo, Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada, and back. Things were pretty good but at either Sevilla or Cordoba we could not find the Cathedral (you’d think I could draw up which in my mind). At any rate…I got SO frustrated with her refusal to ask someone for directions….I lost MY cool, and I’m pretty sure the f bomb came out. And yes, she burst into tears. Well, it all came out fine in the end, and of course I apologized, and…we both chuckle about it now.
Ah, yes, the classic RAIN_EAR kealoa.
What the constructor said is true, though. I’m 25 and have never, to my knowledge, seen a single episode of an MTV show, and yet am highly familiar with the ‘crib’ tagline.
I thought this was a very smooth and fun puzzle. In answer to Rex hand up as certified (ooh…I think now I’m a “super”) senior who HAD heard of WELCOMETOMYCRIB, but like others, quit watching MTV when it ceased to be music videos. I’m not saying I never “stooped” to watch a reality show, but I think I got my fill (and feeling of “ugh”) with my foray into the first “Real Housewives” offering.
How things have changed with bringing up baby. I feel quite sure I did so many things that are now verboten, it’s resulted in “repression” of what they all were. Let’s just say that having a blankie in the crib might be low on my list of repression items. I DID have childproof “thingies” for low cabinets and plug covers. Oh…carseat etc. Things evolve, and sometimes they even change back.
Tough one for me, more like a Wednesday. I did not know the MTV show, MOBILE APPS, DAS, SEPIA, ITALY, POLKA, and INCA…tough Tuesday.
Costly erasures - ODD duckS before BALLS, cove before PIER, and RAIN wEAR before GEAR.
Solid theme and a reasonably smooth grid with a hint of sparkle, liked it.
Your question about STAIR reminded me of this:
"Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away!"
- From "Antigonish," by William Hughes Mearns
Would Salome’s POLKA be the Dance of the Seven Drndls?
@Carola, I've heard that, or a similar version of it, in the past and just assumed it was a bit of Ogden Nash whimsy.
My cousin as a child asked for "peeping" pie, his folks said it "PEEK-in"
This old timer spent a week in Andalucia in February 1966 and will never forget seeing the Cordoba cathedral for the first time. It is the former mosque, mezquita in Spanish and is one of the most beautiful buildings on Earth.
I don’t remember a thing about the Sevilla cathedral. What I remember is the courting couples on the Sierpes, forbidden to touch esch other or even talk to each other, exchanging meaningful glances as they passed. And renting a rowboat as a new way to view a city. Garcia Lorca was much in my mind as I pulled my oars.
If BLANKET, RAILING, MONITOR and MOBILE were to be a solution in NYT Connections I would be "railing" for hours! Kudos for making the connection!
I'm in the never seen nor even heard of crowd for the CRIB show. CRIB has been, however, slang for a home since at least the 1960s so the reveal wasn't a complete unknown.
Big demerit in my book when a POC (plural of convenience) shortcut is needed to boost the letter count of BLANKET POLICY to match WELCOME TO MY CRIB . As @EasyEd 7:32 notes, BLANKET COVERAGE would work.
I wasn't going to say anything but on the suggestion of @Son Volt 7:11, REBUS (53D) has appeared 98 times in the NYTXW, the first time in 1942 when it was clued as "Picture puzzle". That clue or some variant has always been used. That is consistent with the Latin meaning of REBUS "With or by way of things", with how it has been used in scads of puzzles over the years and, especially, how it is used by language scholars to explain how ancient hieroglyphs and pictographs became modern abstract alphabets. More on that at The REBUS Principle.
I'm in the never seen nor even heard of crowd for the CRIB show. CRIB has been, however, slang for a home since at least the 1960s so the reveal wasn't a complete unknown.
Big demerit in my book when a POC (plural of convenience) shortcut is needed to boost the letter count of BLANKET POLICY to match WELCOME TO MY CRIB . As @EasyEd 7:32 notes, BLANKET COVERAGE would work.
I wasn't going to say anything but on the suggestion of @Son Volt 7:11, REBUS (53D) has appeared 98 times in the NYTXW, the first time in 1942 when it was clued as "Picture puzzle". That clue or some variant has always been used. That is consistent with the Latin meaning of REBUS "With or by way of things", with how it has been used in scads of puzzles over the years and, especially, how it is used by language scholars to explain how ancient hieroglyphs and pictographs became modern abstract alphabets. More on that at The REBUS Principle.
This was harder for me than it needed to be. It took me too long to question DIs, a mistake that did a surprisingly good job of closing me out of the left side, and I couldn't come up with BLANKET (BucKET? BasKET?). RAnting rather than RAILING also slowed me down. Only after MONITOR LIZARD did things open up for me. MOBILE clinched the CRIB connection, but I was surprised that the reveal took me not to a nursery but to MTV.
I liked the crossing of two kinds of coverage, insurance POLICIES and RAINGEAR; EVE clued with a fig leaf x LEAVE; the difficulty of finding UTOPIA in an ATLAS.
Wow! How does this happen? In mid-comment the "Publishing" comment comes up and my post disappears. Fumble fingers at work again.
To finish (I think) the The REBUS Principle comment, never has REBUS been clued as a puzzle with multiple letters in a single square. Seems to be a disconnect between how the NYTXW clues it and how it actually gets used.
I groaned at the first themer, BLANKET POLICIES. What a dull phrase to start off with! In the end the theme was fine and it's fun to visualize a CRIB surrounded by a railing, monitor, and mobile.
I suppose if you know exactly where it is, you could probably find NEPTUNE with a decent pair of binoculars. I own a telescope but I've never bothered. So much more interesting stuff up there... the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn (wow), star clusters. Venus looks like a miniature version of the crescent moon most of the time. Mars... nice color, but I can never see very much detail.
Re the STAIR debate... in the US Google Ngrams has it roughly tied with "stairway", but well behind "stairs" and then "staircase". In British, it's staircase, then STAIR, then stairway!
Gmail has IMs? News to me.
Wow! You and (maybe) jberg have both had problems lately! I have zero clue as to why my iPad is currently simpatico. I have gotten into Blogger and found (or not noticed) I’m not “signed in.” All I can say is…Blogger has “issues”!
Giving guests a requested "tour" of your Manhattan apartment is really no biggie, both figuratively and literally speaking. Unless you're a one-percenter who's living in a palatial Park or Fifth Avenue co-op or in some five-floor townhouse, the "tour" is likely to be over even before it begins. Everyone asks if they can see the other rooms when they visit for the first time and I am always happy to oblige. Frankly, I'd be insulted if they didn't ask. I've never considered it rude in the least.
Occasionally, though, because I'm not the world's neatest person, I'll keep the bedroom door closed because I've used the BR as a temporary depository for all the newspapers I should have thrown away but haven't. Also some of the mail and other items that were clogging up LR desk. "I'll show you the BR next time," I'll promise. "It's a mess right now." Then I make a mental note to be able to do that the next time they're over.
New Yorkers are intensely curious about real estate. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of any subject that New Yorkers are more curious about than real estate. I don't think there are any exceptions to this generalization. If there are, I've never met them.
Cribbage Puz. Didn't peg the mcguffin, until the revealer got revealed.
staff weeject pick: IRA. Had one of the few ?-marker clues. But nuthin new there, as far as clue-trickiness goes. Fresher clue possibility: {Apt autobiography title for an Egyptian sun god??}.
Good POLICY to have a MONITOR, if there'll be a LIZARD in the CRIB. Baby will also demand a MOBILE RAILING, for an escape option. Especially for them 10-footer crib-pets.
fave stuff included: UTOPIA. FANATIC. NEPTUNE. ODDBALLS. REBUS clue.
Thanx, Mr. Rollfing dude. Nice, welcomin job.
... REBUS?! ... Well, since they brought it up, this ain't gonna be totally M&A's fault ...
"Car Tunes" - 7x7 12 min. illustrated/themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
p.s Kinda recommend the "Down Home" option, for solvin illustrated runtpuzs.
Loved seeing all the different ways we thought about and remembered CRIBs - both the iconic MTV show (and if this septuagenarian is familiar with the show, it must be iconic). I think I actually remember all of the references to the show more than actually watching it.
What I most recall about a CRIB is that we couldn’t keep our daughter in one unless she was sound asleep. From birth, she loved to “work her toes.” As soon as you put her up to your shoulder, she would use her toes just like fingers and grab onto anything she could, shirt front, towel, burp cloth, you name it, she’d grab onto anything and push to try to climb. Long before she could even crawl, we’d put her down to sleep and an hour or so later, we’d hear the crib knocking against the wall as she grabbed the fitted crib sheet with her toes (on her back, as recommended for babies) and pushed herself up to the top where her head would bang up against the slats. From there, it was way before she was “supposed” to be able to roll over that she could, and from there it wasn’t long before she could wrap her very prehensile toes around the slats and climb out only to fall and scare the bejesus out of us. We even took movies to show our pediatrician, thinking that we needed to do something before she hurt herself.
Dr. Fox was a veteran and she was always calm. Her comment? “You've got yourself a climber. Put her mattress on the floor for now.” So we did. We rolled up blankets to make some boundaries, and thankfully all was well until she actually could crawl. We are pretty sure that the first word she actually understood was “STOP!” She still wads up the bedding with her toes in her sleep. At 45.
Fun puzzle for a Tuesday. As @Rex described, a very well executed theme. Third one in a relatively short time. Things are looking hopeful in the NYT neighborhood of Crossworld.
Agree!
p.p.s.s.
Almost forgot: U-count was 2, today.
Important vowel public awareness coverage — cuz for a 1-point vowel letter, U gets very poor respect, in xwords. Write to yer Congressperson.
Today’s comparative tallies, for example:
A’s 25.
E’s 19.
I’s 19.
O’s 13.
U’s 2.
QED.
M&A
I started with UMBRELLA POLICY. Took a hot minute to get to BLANKET.
I agree as well. My thought after getting only one word of the NW corner (ESOS) was, “ I’m either losing it, or this is a hard puzzle for a Tuesday, or it’s just not in my wheelhouse.” Things got better, but the revealer was a mystery until almost every cross was in.
Really enjoyed your post, Nancy. The fact that New Yorkers are "intensely curious" about real estate doesn't surprise me. Out here in Canada's la-la land, people are obsessed. It's like some sort of mental disorder. At one point I started making excuses to avoid group gatherings - dinners, cocktail parties, etc. - because i just couldn't take it anymore. If I did attend I might have to excuse myself at some point, step out the front door, pull a cigar from my coat pocket and go for a walk until I hoped it was over. Maybe over coffe we could talk about something else.
On the other hand, I like buildings. I like to see how people inhabit them, how they change them to make them work. If you were a fist-time visitor to our place, I'd be happy to show you around, mess be damned. (I would apologize.) But I don't want to discuss market trends and price per square foot, etc. It's a home and I like it in the same way, I sense, that you like yours.
I hope that last sentence didn't seem too presumptuous but I get the feeling from your many posts that you appreciate and fully inhabit that space.
Finally a reference to cribbage. Hey constructors out there— how about doing a puzzle w the same revealer but with theses entries? FIVECARDFLUSH. ROYALPAIRS. FIFTEENTWO. DOUBLERUN. NIBS and NOBS. That would b fun for us who regularly invite cards to a crib.
@Beezer, You may know thia already, but just in case ... kids are weird.
And they do grow up.
Very slow Tuesday time. Hate to admit that I was an MTV kid in the '90s. Surprised to see a seemingly outdated revealer, but I assume Mr. Eric Rollfing got the inspiration during the 2021-23 reboot.
Today I Learned: Redman (a rapper) revealed in a later interview that MTV gave him 3 possible places to rent for his episode. (As mentioned earlier by others, the show was fake, with rental houses/Ferraris/etc.) Redman declined, saying he wanted to be filmed in his modest 2-bedroom apartment. Ironing his clothes straight on the floor, showing his fridge of frozen fish fillets and his George Foreman grill... I love the juxtaposition to all the other episodes full of conspicuous consumption.
Nice puzzle, nice review. Enjoyed it!
Pabloinnh
I spent my Junior Year in Normandy but took a trip to Spain ( a friend drove his 2 Chevaux from Caen to Madrid max speed 50 mph! Early 70’s. Didn’t see protests but found Lenten religious parades unsettling with their cone hats and bare feet Zaragoza. Military parade Madrid.
I liked Madrid but couldn’t get past the fascist state. Liked learning a little Castilian Spanish Definitely an educational experience!
Pre Tourist explosion Barcelona was also an education. Fascinating to learn about Catalan
But didn’t know how vicious Franco was to that city
Looking back Franco’s Spain made a very strong impression on me.
CDilly
Great story about your daughter.
My brother was born 17 months before me but I am told that my cousin age 13 ( she is the source of the story) or so taught him to climb out of the crib My mother was not pleased!
Puzzle grew on me after I finished it. Seemed fairly hard for a Tuesday.
As other people have pointed out, you could know about Cribs without ever seeing the show. Very heavily publicized.
Interesting that much of it was fake.
Thanks @dgd! I’m always amazed at the capabilities of the human brain. Young ones seem insatiable - like vacuums!
Yeah, netminder killed me. Is that from Britain? Sounds British. Had DIS as well. Also, I always appreciate that particular Bill Murray/Caddyshack reference.
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