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Events akin to streaks / FRI 8-8-25 / Freudian drive to survive / Hybrid feline whose coat may feature rosettes / Their tracks diffract light into rainbows / Competition conducted in rounds over rounds / Synthetic fabric sometimes called "elastane" / Caregiver known as a "nutrix" in ancient Rome / Bouts held in a dohyo / Way to the left?
Friday, August 8, 2025
Constructor: Rafael Musa and Matthew Stock
Relative difficulty: Medium (I think ... I'm out of practice)
Word of the Day: UNDIE RUNS (55A: Events akin to streaks) —
An Undie Run is an event where a large number of people disrobe until they are only wearing underwear, and then run. The site of Undie Runs are typically college campuses, but they may occur on other sites such as streets. Undie Runs may be purely for entertainment, a form of protest, or as with the ASU Undie Run, fund-raising for charitable purposes. It is reported that the Guinness Book of World Records considers the Undie Run that took place on September 24, 2011, in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States to have had a record number of participants. There were 2,270 participants in that Undie Run, which was held to protest Utah's conservative laws. COED Magazine, a magazine in the United States marketed to college students, has reported that Undie Runs are the "number one university sanctioned event". (wikipedia)
• • •
 |
| [34A: Reassuring words when help is needed] |
Besides UNDIE RUNS, there were no other tough spots, no other mysteries ... except for Iris CHANG, who wrote a couple of very well regarded books about Chinese history before dying very young in 2004. I struggled some with BENGAL CAT, which is a "hybrid" of ... what? (15D: Hybrid feline whose coat may feature rosettes). Hmm ... looks like Asian leopard cat (not a cat I knew existed) and domestic cats, primarily the Egyptian Mau (which I also didn't know existed). If it starts BENGAL and the next word isn't TIGER, I don't know it. But the CAT part was easy (why are they saying "feline" in the clue if not to avoid saying "CAT"?) and the rest was eventually inferable.
- 1A: Who wrote in an 1852 novel "Any mind that is capable of a real sorrow is capable of good" (STOWE) — as in Harriet Beecher, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin (the 1852 novel in question—a tremendously popular book).
- 6A: Stick around camp? (TENT POLE) — me: "Oh, I know, it's the ... thing ... you toast marshmallows with ... for S'mores?" Sadly no.
- 36A: Means of defense for an elephant (TUSK) — also apparently a means of defense for a Cape buffalo ... (OK, TUSKs aren't the same as "horns," but ... close enough for my purposes here):
 |
| [FAFO, I guess 😢] |
- 43A: Their tracks diffract light into rainbows (CDS) — this was cute. I guess CDs (which contain music "tracks") do diffract light that way.
- 4D: Follow to the letter? (WRITE BACK) — the phrasing here feels a little forced, even for a "?" clue, but the idea is that someone writes you a "letter" and then you "follow" suit and WRITE BACK
- 7D: Freudian drive to survive (EROS) — huh. Did not know that. "Libido," that's a Freudian drive I know. Also ... "death drive," is that something? Yes! Two Freudian drives that I know. But EROS, missed that one.
- 23A: Way to the left? (WEST) — looks like a political clue ... but isn't. On a map, conventionally, "left" is WEST.
- 33D: Table tennis or beach volleyball (COED SPORTS) — neither of these seems definitively "co-ed" to me. The times I've seen these sports on TV, they've been single-sex. I know CO-ED versions exist, but ... they exist in regular tennis, too? Odd.
- 45D: Animal that's mostly white, helping it hide in its natural habitat (PANDA) — gonna go to sleep now and try not to think about what color PANDAs "mostly" are. I think I'd've said "black." Pictures are deceptive. Apparent black/white-ness really depends on the angle. But their heads and torsos are white, and that's a lot of surface area, so I'm inclined to believe the puzzle. OK, that's all, good night from me and this PANDA:
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93 comments:
A fairly easy Friday with a significant number of oddities. First up, clue for 9D Part of a masonry kit. I have a bucket with a few trowels, various chisels and hammers but I would never call it a masonry kit. It’s just a bucket of tools for repairing flagstone walks, retaining walls, etc. Also useful for other tasks. No need to formalize it.
I know 16A BARTRIVIA is a thing but it’s always pub trivia for me. And there’s probably some things called ECOHOTELS (17A) out there but it just sounds made up. And 55A UNDIERUNS - really? Is this something people do for fun or because they lost a bet? Admittedly funny, though.
Clue for 4D WRITEBACK was just trying too hard and that whole corner was a mess anyway because I had skue at 5D as in, Hey, Jerry, I can’t scan this. Can you grab me the skue?” All while 8 people are in line behind me waiting to pay for their properly labeled goods. I hate holding up the line. People glaring at me. Hey, buddy, back off. I didn’t mislabel the damned thing.
On a more positive note - a very positive one, in fact - I loved seeing 15D BENGALCAT in the grid. I’m a dog guy but that doesn’t mean I don’t like cats and I loved it when I used to live in a house on a fenced city lot near Vancouver and I would look up from my puzzle and morning coffee to see one of these these fabulously elegant, large house cats sitting in my back yard staring at me. Tall*, lean, absolutely gorgeous. If I would get up to approach him (and I’m using “him” as a convenience), he would bolt; up and over the 5 foot high gate in a flash and not return for a couple of days. Eventually we settled into a routine where we would just sit and stare at each other. I like to think he was fascinated by the curl of my cigar smoke. I was just fascinated by everything about him. Then he stopped coming and I don’t even want to entertain thoughts of why.
Enjoyed the puzzle, Rafael and Matthew. Thanks.
* I’m 5 foot 9 inches tall and, though I never got close enough to him to verify this, I think if he had rubbed up against my legs, he would have been brushing my knees.
Easy and quite a bit easier than yesterday’s for me.
No costly erasures and CHANG, EROS, and BENGAL CAT were it for WOEs.
Solid with not much junk and more than a modicum of sparkle, i.e. not WARTY, liked it.
UNDIE RUNS was a gimme for me because my grandson participated in the UCLA Undie Run every quarter he was a student there….
Per Google - “The UCLA Undie Run is a popular, informal student tradition that takes place at midnight on the Wednesday of finals week, where students run through the campus in their underwear.The run begins at the intersection of Strathmore and Gayley, near the university's Southern entrance, and ends at Dickson Court. The tradition is a way for students to blow off steam and de-stress during the intense finals period.”
Medium. A proper Friday.
Overwrites:
11D prior to reading the clue: OVERTUReS before OVERTURNS
The pleasing cadence at 12D was a Lope before it was a LILT
My 22A fridges were geS before they were LGS
WOES:
The quote in the clue for 1A and therefore its author.
Iris CHANG at 43D
@Rex UNDIE RUNS at 55A
Very easy for a Friday, but fun nonetheless. Learned a couple of things: EROS and UNDIE RUNS, for example. Wanted TENT PEG for 6A, but obvs that isn’t plural, so the E in 13D gave me TENT POLE.
Thanks, Rafael and Matt! YOU CAN COUNT ON ME to enjoy your next puzzle. 😁
Medium difficulty seems about right. Finished it with one look-up (to verify Iris CHANG). Some devilish cluing (I assume Pluto was excluded as a planet in 2006, leaving only an OCTET), and especially "follow to the letter" for WRITEBACK. Should have finished it sooner, but I foolishly had "earth star" instead of the obvious NORTHSTAR.
Easy for me today, 12:38. Enjoyed it, especially "YOUCANCOUNTONME", such a nice grid spanner, along with GEETHANKS and BESTRONG. Sounds like some nice people, Rafael and Matthew! There's a good story hiding in here, right? UNDIERUNning is a COED SPORT that we engage in getting from the local game of BARTRIVIA to our ECOHOTEL where we're spending the night. When we get turned around and lost on the way, we definitely utter a few CUSSWORDS as our streaking turns into a SLOG. Thanks, Rafael and Matthew, for a fun Friday morning! : )
You’re thinking of SKU, which is short for Stock Keeping Unit.
It seems like we are reverting back to the mean for a Friday, difficulty-wise today. I was glad I got the COUNT ON ME grid-spanner, along with CUSS WORDS and COED SPORT.
I parsed together ECOHOTEL and UNDIE RUNS which I initially interpreted as something completely inappropriate for an NYT crossword.
The clue for CDS threw me - I can only imagine a bored teenager with a cd and a flashlight making an interesting discovery. During my teenage “era” we amused ourselves by trying to play Beatles song backwards, so to each their own.
I had no idea on LYCRA, but on a positive note, I do know what ENTROPY is.
Found it tougher than Rex did - I think this last week or so of puzzles have been more typically difficult for the NYT than what we’ve seen recently.
I also meant to give a shout out to Rex for his fine effort staying up until like 2 am after a long trip home to do his sovereign duty and post his write'-up so that those of us who were sound asleep wouldn’t be disappointed waking up expecting to her from OFL after a bit of a layoff - welcome back !
UNDIE RUNS is a new one on me. Medical mini-theme with DRS, WET NURSE, AMA.
Some long overwrites today:
ECOlodges - ECOHOTELS
YOU CAN trust iN ME - YOU CAN COUNT ON ME
nuDIE RUNS - UNDIE RUNS
OVERrUles - OVERTURNS
Clue for OCTET is wrong. I don't know the exact number, but by 2006 there were dozens of planets outside our solar system already known.
Hey All !
Nice FriPuz. Didn't tax the ole brain much. NW corner toughest, as had eighT for OCTET and refused to let it go. Throw in freud for STOWE, and corner needed to be erased completely to be able to finish puz. Thankfully GEE was quite inferrable.
UNDIE RUNS, thanks Rex for the meaning, as I was for sure it wasn't passing the Breakfast Test had it been what I initially thought! These crazy kids ... (Akin answer could've been SHEET PANS, Har!)
BESTRONG sounds like you make something muscular.
With _ETN___Y in, thought PET NANNY at first for WET NURSE. I thought, "They had Pet Nannies in ancient Rome?"
Well, that's about it for me out WEST here. Have a great Friday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Nice Friday puzzle. Thanks to our very own sometime-blogger Rafa and Matthew Stock.
I was shut out of the NW so moved to the NE corner where I immediately got TENTPOLE and then most of the downs dangling from it. This started me off solving diagonally from NE to SW, which worked rather well. I had no idea about UNDIE RUNS, but it filled itself in from crosses.
The SE corner was pretty easy to complete after the main diagonal sweep was done. Never heard the term SHEET PANS – I’d call them cookie SHEETS, but that’s too long and anyway would duplicate “cookie.” Temporarily forgot that Timothée Chalamet had been Willy WONKA. I hope someone’s done their Film Studies Ph. D. on a comparative analysis of the portrayals of Willy WONKA by Wilder, Depp and Chalamet.
I then had to go back and tackle the still-blank NW. I had the THANKS part of GEE THANKS, so the GEE wasn’t hard to infer. I also had the BACK part of WRITE BACK with the T from THANKS in place for WRITE, so I decided that had to be the answer for that rather tortuous clue. All of this gave me enough of a toehold to get the rest. My Anglophilia was a brief hindrance in that I thought the author of the 1852 novel was going to be English. (Sorry, Harriet Beecher.) Wanted “spandex” for LYCRA but it was too long; however, found out that elastane, LYCRA and spandex are all the same thing—LYCRA is a brand name.
SCAMALERT across much of the central part of the grid is looking like a parody of Scamalot. That would make it a second- or even third-generation parody through the Arthur legend, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Scamalot and now SCAMALERT.
Finally, I’ll leave you with a pretty BENGAL CAT with rosettes.
Super easy for a Friday, except that NW corner which I spent a significant amount of time stuck in. I confidently went immediately with EIGHT for 3-down and stuck with it way too long. In the end, hit my Friday average almost to the second.
Those are dwarf planets. The clue references the demotion of Pluto to dwarf status.
I did not have too tough time with this one, for which I was thankful. I also have never seen (or even heard of) an UNDIE RUN, for which I am even more grateful. My biggest challenge was the IRS clue because of my determined efforts to make it some sort of an AUDIT.
Welcome home RP! It’s nice we can always COUNT ON you to be back on the job, even despite the jet lag. I love the Times TUSK illustration. The creep was probably at one of those places where you pay to hunt, and the animals are inside a fenced enclosure. Which should be illegal no matter what corner of the world it’s in.
Isn’t the OCTET reference to Pluto’s “demotion”? I guess I just implied it was within our solar system, but that’s a good point…the clue didn’t say that.
I’m surprised there haven’t been any comments regarding all of the quotation clues and positive statements clues. The answers all contain a letter (or two) of the alphabet when said aloud. I don’t know if was purposeful or not?
“Easy” — E/Z
“Gee thanks” — G
“I assume so” — I
“You can count on me” — U
“Be strong” — B
Played pretty easy for me but has a odd error early. Talk shows instead of ecohotels for places with green rooms.
When Orpheus descended into Hades to bring Eurydice back from the dead, it was considered the first of the UN-DIERUNS.
Today marks the first time that CUSSWORDS have appeared in the New York Times crossword. Cancel my subscription!
Alphabetically, it is a very short journey from an STOAT.
I don't wanna call them worthless, but three TYPEAs together make a SUMO.
Never hire an aged canine to breastfeed your child. You can't teach an old dog nutrix.
Nice cluing, some whooshing. A Friday worthy of the name. Thanks, Rafael Musa and Matthew Stock.
I've never heard of an UNDIE RUN. But I definitely knew what streaking is, so I wrote down NUDIE RUN without a moment's hesitation. Hey, people, that's what streaking is.
This left me with SNNB for slight and TOUE for what's hard to read in a text -- a baffling dilemma I couldn't solve. So I came here. Once again, the Rexblog comes to the rescue.
If I had thought of TONE. But I don't, won't text*, so I have no idea what you can't read in a text. Based on what my aging eyesight does to my ability to read the tiny print in the NYT and to do the puzzle on paper, I would guess that what I can't read in a text is: Everything.
*I don't understand the whole texting thing, btw. Just imagine that if texting had been invented prior to the phone, and then the phone came along and people said: "OMG!!! You can hear actually someone's voice!!! You can hear the sound of their laughter!!! Why it's almost as good as being in the same room with them!!! It's like a miracle!!!"
To struggle trying to read teensy tiny type on a teensy tiny screen. To try to type with big clumsy fingers on teensy tiny keys. This saves time? This is fun? I don't understand it and I refuse to do it.
Other than UNDIE RUNS, I thought the puzzle was extremely easy.
I think many of us had "NUDIE RUN" as the seemingly correct (but bizarre) synonym of streak. And thank for posting that "trophy hunt" screenshot -- I remember that story and had the same reaction then as now. Sentient beings dying for sport. Yes, that is deliberately ambiguous.
boogity, boogity
(There he goes) boogity, boogity
(And he ain't wearin' no clothes)
Oh yes, they call him the Streak
(Boogity, boogity)
Fastest thing on two feet
(Boogity, boogity)
He's just as proud as he can be of his anatomy
He gon' give us a peek
Oh yes, they call him the Streak
(Boogity, boogity)
He likes to show off his physique
(Boogity, boogity)
If there's an audience to be found, he'll be streakin' around
Invitin' public critique
A fun positive puzzle ruined by the grossest clue and answer I've ever witnessed.
What a great Friday puzzle - by two pros - I almost didn't want it to end. Thank you, Matthew & Rafa :)
Welcome back, Rex!
My brain can’t comprehend how CEL is a frameable frame… help!
Liked that WEAN and WETNURSE are in the same grid.
PSA: The words "streak" and "undies" should never be proximate unless you are 8 years old.
A little trouble getting started today but eventually turned into a nice smooth Friday with appropriate difficulty, at least for me.
Two parsing problems today--had SCAMA and was trying to think of a word that started with SCAMA, and couldn't, and then the famous UNDIERUNS. I had RUNS from "streaks" but even after filling in all the letters correctly, my brain wanted to say UN DIE. Had to be right, but made no sense. Many thanks to @egs for inventing a situation where this could happen.
CHANG the only other WOE today but having __C__HOTELS made be think of ICEHOTELS. We stayed in the Ice Hotel in Quebec one winter, but the rooms were definitely not green. Cold though.
Very nice Friday indeed, RM and MS. Really Made Me Smile, and thanks for all the fun.
LOL, Nancy re: "the texting thing" - a spot on & funny comment - thanks for the laugh :)
The benefit of texting is that it does not require ones immediate attention. If someone is too occupied to answer a phone call they can still receive the communication. Rafa and Matthew very nice puzzle
You're right. Thanks.
Yeah, much appreciated, Rex.
A cel is a frame of a piece of animation. You often see individual cels from cartoons framed on collectors’ walls.
CEL refers to a transparent sheet on which animators/artists would hand paint scenes for cartoons. They have been largely replaced by more modern techniques and thus have become collectors items. Some old Disney CELS go for hundreds of thousands of dollars
Why in a puzzle with the quote “Any mind that is capable of a real sorrow is capable of good” do I find myself cheering for the Cape Buffalo?
An ultra-fast Friday for me. STOWE and TENT POLE went right in, and the grid unfurled from there, with one snag at SpAM before SCAM. CRUSADERS and CUSS WORDS kept things interesting, and I liked the exchange "YOU CAN COUNT ON ME" + "I ASSUME SO." UNDIE RUNS was fun to learn; must check to see if it's a COED SPORT. Hoping to be annihilated by a difficult puzzle tomorrow.
@Anonymous 8:33 - none of the extrasolar planets (dozens in 2006, over 5,000 of them now) are dwarf planets.
I measure the difficulty of a puzzle in terms of how many mysteries it has. (A mystery is an entry which is not in my data base or, if it is, where the clue doesn't steer me in the right direction.) A Monday/Tuesday has one or two mysteries, a Saturday has fifteen or so. Today's had eleven, about average for a Friday. I have to work hard for an average Friday as I did today. Almost gave up on the NW.
I didn’t get much traction at all on my first pass through, and then it was the east side that fell into place first. The west side was trickier; the only thing I could get for a while in the NW was OCTET; then I changed CRAM to SATE (for “Stuff”) and made some progress. I had HOSPITALS before ECO HOTELS and thought I was smart, getting away from the expected “theater” answer—! Had CRY before FAT (“Blubber”), SCAM before SPOT (“Tricky situation”). The spoken-phrase answers were very natural, I thought (GEE THANKS, I ASSUME SO, BE STRONG). Excellent cluing included “Follow to the letter?” (WRITE BACK), “Stick around camp?” (TENT POLE),”Disaccustom” (WEAN), and “Their tracks diffract light into rainbows” (CDS). All in all, an excellent Friday puzzle!
Another benefit of texting is you have it in writing, and you can go back and look at it later ("Did we say 6:00 or 6:30 for dinner? Oh, it's in the text ... 7:00).
UNDIE RUNS is a new term to me but I saw one portrayed in a TV series or movie, can’t remember. The main character is standing in the rain talking to her love interest and then whips off her clothes down to her undies and races off into the rain with most of her fellow students. At the time, watching this strange behavior, I was taken aback but now I know it's a thing. Thanks, Rafa and Matthew!
As for texting, @Nancy has a point about hearing someone's voice. But the beauty of texting is that you can send something off to a whole group. I have four friends who text back and forth with me all the time. And the other day, I sent a photo to five of my first cousins and they were all able to comment back to me and each other. You can’t do that with a phone.
Thanks for that link—beautiful cat!
Thanks, Barbara S. I’ve never seen one; quite striking.
Good puzzle, with some nice ambiguous cluing--I wanted 'nurseries' before ECOHOTELS, for example. I was held up by 'eighT' befoe OCTET, and COED games before SPORT (I'd overlooked the singularity of the clue there). In other cases, I thought the clues were too loose. You can call a microscope an OPTIC (at least, you can call a pair of binoculars that, and I assume the same rule applies), but an OPTIC is not a component of it, is it? And the fact that toads do not have warts was pounded into my young brain throughout childhood. And do people really say BAR TRIVIA, as opposed to pub quiz, bar quiz, or trivia quiz? I mean the trivia are same whether they are in a bar or not.
Not the fault of the puzzle or its constructors, but did we really need a remake of Willy Wonka? What's next, an updated Fantasia? I have not seen it, I admit, so maybe I'm missing something.
Oops! I just looked it up--apparently it's a prequel, explaining how Willie got to be who he is. I take it all back, and will try to see the movie. I hope there are vernicious knids in it.
Texting is an easy way to send a bit of information ("I checked, and the author of that book was xyz"), say a quick hello without getting into a long conversation ("We're back from Hawaii, had a great time—I'll call you tomorrow!"), send a link to an article, share a photo, etc. etc. You cna refuse to do it, but it's your loss, especially if you expect to maintain contact with any young people in your life.
OMG - I REMEMBER THAT! I wasn't a teenager yet, but I remember obsessively replaying a Beatle song over & over to hear if as rumored PAUL WAS DEAD!
UNDIERUNS....just NOI
What the hell are "LGs"?!
I had an easy guess with STOWE. A direct ancestor of mine, Lynde Lord, lived next door to Rev. Lyman Beecher in Litchfield, CT circa 1800. He died in 1801, and state law mandated that his slave became free upon his death. So the slave, Candace, moved next door and worked for the Beechers as a paid domestic, where she helped raise Harriet Beecher (Stowe) and her kid brother, Rev, Henry Ward Beecher (the Billy Graham of the 19th Century).
SHEET PANS have raised edges on all four sides, cookie sheets only on one (so you can slide the cookies off the edge to cool). Otherwise, they're very similar.
And I think the show is "Spamalot." I've never seen it, but walked by the theater where it's playing (still? Not sure.) many times. (Looked it up-- it's had 3 West End runs, but none currently. Now I want to see it, though!)
Finally got UNDIE RUNS but assumed it was some kind of slang/shorthand for UNDYING RUNS, which is what "streaks" might be considered. Maybe the clue should have been "A competition featuring jocks."
Pretty EASY. My only lag was entering BEER at furst instead of BAR.
I agree with Rex that ECOHOTELS seem to appear a lot more in crosswords than in real life. I don't think I've ever seen a mention of one in the US. From Wikipedia, it sounds like they may be more known in other regions, where there is a body that certifies them.
It has reached the point where many people (not me!) consider it rude to call someone on the phone unless you have first scheduled the call by text message.
Medium, I agree. Slight hiccups where first I had OVERrUleS and not OVERTURNS, which made 23A end in Sr, which made me think "usSr" for "way to the left" instead of WEST. Also wanted "curse word" or "curse words" instead of CUSS WORDS. Like Rex, I've been blissfully unaware of UNDIE RUNS.
The science nerd in me objects to ORDER as "opposite to entropy". Entropy is (roughly speaking) a *measure* of disorder, not disorder itself. The mistake is analogous to saying "coldness is opposite to temperature" -- it's just off, conceptually. If the clue read "state of low entropy", I wouldn't have said anything.
LG is a Korean appliance company. Some of their early US ads repurposed the initials as meaning Life is Good, but I think that was just one campaign.
Let today be known as the first (and likely last) time that I solved a puzzle faster than Rex. Thank you, extenuating circumstances, I owe you one! —Andy
The "tracks" of the CD are not referring to the music stored on them but rather to the physical tracks etched into the CD for data storage. The ridges and dips of the surface are what diffract light shining on them to make the rainbow pattern.
WRITEBACK clue was super-weird cool.
Also, lost precious nanoseconds on TENTPOLE, as I immediately splatzed in CANOEOAR. Woulda beat @RP's time otherwise, I'm sure.
Not.
staff weeject pick: AMA, which is 1 of the 9 out of 13 weejects today that is abbreve meat.
some fave stuff: YOUCANCOUNTONME. IASSUMESO. CUSSWORDS [it was 1 out of 7 of 14 9-long entries that were plural (yo, @AnoaBob)]. WEST clue.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Mr. Musa & Stock dudes. Themelessly fun.
Masked & Anonymo8Us
... and for all U boomers out there ...
"Explosive Subject" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Lg Electronics. Large South Korean appliance manufaturer. Very well distributed where I live.
For @anonymous 5:56 yesterday. I read every post nearly every day, even if I don’t post. Because I am in California and typically post late anyway, I read everything after I post and then catch those later than my post first thing before I read the blog for current day.
My apologies for misreading your comment, though the part about Pluto stands. If you asked someone how many planets there are, most will assume you mean our solar system, so the answer was nine and is now eight. Seems like this may be another example of where having some amount of expertise in an area can make clues about that area harder because they feel… imprecise?? I’ve definitely experienced that!
I agree with Rex that trying to solve a crossword on the phone is frustrating. I sometimes do it when I'm standing in line or something, but I don't do the NYT ones on the phone because I don't want my solving averages to get completely skewed by phone solving!
I own (or am owned by) an Egyptian Mau, one of two I acquired in 2010. The male died in 2022, sadly. A rare and beautiful breed.
Where is Lewis? I miss him.
Rex, you have my sympathy and appreciation for your effort. I have never tried solving on a phone and hope I never do. I streaked through this puzzle in 8.5 minutes!
Sometimes answers that fill themselves in from crosses look very strange. What on earth does BEST RONG mean down there at 57 across?
ALBANIAN reminds me of when my friend moved there to teach English for a couple of years around 2010. I tried to talk her out of it, as when I visited Yugoslavia in 1987, I had heard many bad things about it. (Yugoslavia wasn't any picnic either.) No one I met in my week long stay had ever been there, even right next door. She ignored me and of course had a great time.
I always like when something in a puzzle sends me off on a pleasant sidetrack as happened when 52A NORTH STAR
brought to mind John Masefield's "Sea Fever"
"I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by."
And the Bard's Sonnet 116
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken"
Since it is directly over the Earth's north pole, the NORTH STAR never changes position during the night---"an ever-fixed mark"---while all the other stars go whirling around.
I've said before that the NYTXW seems to be one of the last bastions of the Freudian Fantasy. There are lots of ways to clue 7D EROS. Why go with someone whose cocaine-fueled delusions have been discredited and jettisoned by mainstream psychiatry and psychology since long ago in the previous century?
Rex posted the poster for the 2000 Ken Lonergan film, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME. Loved it. Oscar noms for Original Screenplay and Laura Linney for Best Actress. Early and wonderful Mark Ruffalo. Matthew Broderick was very funny as an overbearing boss.
Heh me too. And if I convince myself that Rex wasn't really out of practice, and since I usually solve on the phone, maybe I'm closer than I think...
I found this easy-medium everywhere except the NW, which was a SLOG and finally had to look up for STOWE. LYCRA seemed like a gimme but then I couldn’t fathom the other answers. I don’t think either SLOGS or SATE were good answers for their clues, had CASH for the grocery term, although EACH clearly makes more sense. Anyway, exceot for that corner I enjoyed it.
UNDIERUNS is new to me. Sounds like a real cop-out - if you’re going to run across a field (or stage, or wherever) without clothes on, just do it, go all the way!
Having trouble seeing how table tennis and beach volleyball are
coed sports? I had "sports" for quite some time and got the coed from crosses. I suppose they could both be played by as mixed doubles, but so could tennis, or pickleball, or padel, or any number of other sports I could think of. . .
Rick Sacra
Thanks for the story.
jb129
I remember that Paul is dead thing. One of the alleged “clues” was the fact his eyes are closed on the Abbey Road cover. Sadly of course two the Beatles died relatively young. Now Ringo and Paul are doing (apparently) well in their eighties.
Anonymous 1:29 pm
Knowing a lot about a subject can be a disadvantage. That is so true. There was a long time commenter who no longer posts, Z , wh said that regularly
As a retired lawyer, I have occasionally run into that problem
So Kitshef most people automatically interpret the clue as referring to the solar system. Like I did. So nothing wrong with the clue.
Barbara S.
I had the same experience with undierun. Crosses filled it in
Tricky about Chalamet who is very much in demand so he is doing a movie a year. Of course wrong year but I was thinking Dylan!
Me too, but seeing I also couldn't get Ooh THANKS out of my head I DNF'ed.
@Nancy, my iPhone allows me to dictate my texts and my natural laziness dictates I do so.
By the way, I seem to remember CD is an abbreviation for Compact Disc - clue didn't hint at an abbreviation though, so it took a while to get there.
@Tom
"Uh-oh, here he comes again! Who's that with him?
Ethel? Is that you Ethel?! You get yer clothes on!"
I have also been wondering about him ...
Teedman et al
I agree that texting can be very useful at times. But like any helpful invention it can be overused. A friend of mine, both of us in our’70’s , drives me nuts when he uses texts when calling is much more efficient.
I also find the keyboard annoying. And I don’t use much text speak other than BTW and FWIW.
Anonymous 1:39 pm
Lewis is on vacation
This is one of my favorite sonnets from the early days of ocean navigation. The elevation (height) of the ever-fixed north star gives you your latitude. But to find your position on the globe via longitude (worth), you need to know time... the variable which proves true love.
Liked the puzzle. Found it easy for me ( I am a very slow solver).
A bit dense today as it took me a while to see why some were offended by UNDIERUN. I am still not offended but I can see why can’t unthink of of other meanings.
I think the Times phone app is poorly designed and much prefer doing the puzzle on paper. However, due to health reasons I have been lying down more and also waiting in doctors’s offices more so I have found the app unfortunately unavoidable.i am quicker on paper
I’m surprised not to see comments about the cluing of GEE THANKS, which I’ve almost only ever heard or seen used sarcastically upon being on the receiving end of a potentially unsavory or offensive comment. Does anyone actually say “gee thanks” unironically and genuinely?? Or am I off the pulse here…
For that matter where is LMS? Miss her wit.
There's something about the word GEE (as in "gee willikers, mister" or "golly gee") that's so old-timey that it would naturally invite an ironic reading in this day and age. So without having studied the matter, I'd guess that it's mostly ironic now, but that you can still find some oldsters who might say it to mean something like, "aw, shucks". (I could see myself doing that.)
Played easy-medium for me. Got a rather slow start as the NW and I were just not on the same wave length. Had the incorrect EIGHT for 3D instead of the correct OCTET and that held me up for way longer than it should have. This resulted in OOHTHANKS which seemed just as plausible as anything else. I'm not sure what finally clicked there (probably something small like SATE) but when it did, it all fell fairly easily.
No other real hold ups. Learned something new about CDS - how cool is that? And appreciated the cluing for TENTPOLE.
I share @Rex's opinion of UNDIERUNS - WOE for me but the crosses made it work. I thought the other long runs look pretty in the grid, especially NORTHSTAR.
Thank you @Rex for your diligence and commitment - solving on a phone after midnight - above and beyond!
Question - Are there any other solvers like me who, rather than start their day with the puzzle on weekdays, prefer to end their day with them? Who are the other weekday late solvers out there?? Weekends I'm usually earlier.
Thanks for the pleasant Friday Rafael and Matthew!
If you played Revolution 9 on The White Album backwards (I did it as a kid on vinyl on my turntable in the '70s) you hear something like "Paul is a dead man, miss him, miss him..."
Several clues on Abbey Road - Paul is bare foot and walking out of step with the others and is holding a cigarette. There is also a car in the picture with the license plate 28IF - alluding to the fact the Paul would have been 29 if he had lived... It was enough to keep a very young Beatles fan engaged...
Very, very releaved to read about undie runs. The only possible explanation I could think of was much less entertaining.
A streak can be fecal matter in undies, and the runs... Let's just say I was very unhappy with the only explanation I could come up with.
Hugh
I am a late solver.
Often very late. You are not the only one.
Another late solver and late reader.
Aw, eso es muy amable de tu parte.
UNDIE RUNS made me laugh out loud after needing every single cross. I've never heard of such a thing and can only imagine the scenario leading up to participating in an event.
A lovely spicy rather sticky puzzle, and I had fun with it even if it's a Friday themeless. The Freudian thing and the author were problematic, but otherwise things ticked along at a nice pace. And so nice to see some humor in a puzzle.
@🦖 I've been solving only on my phone for the last five or six years. And I'm not fast. Before that it was paper and pen. One of those four color ball points. I think I've solved maybe three puzzles online and I didn't like it.
When are we going to start judging toads by the content of their character instead of the quality of their dermatology?
I like the colloquial phrases in this one. Pleasantly chatty.
😩 ECOHOTELS. COED SPORT.
People: 5
Places: 2
Products: 2
Partials: 6
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 16 of 70 (23%)
Funny Factor: 7 😂
Tee-Hee: CUSS WORDS
Uniclues:
1 Do you think the one in the yoga pants likes me?
2 Don't click on links in emails. Period.
3 Okay, the girls will go first, and then, that's it. Everyone else go home.
4 Off key note in the phrase, "Did you get my email?"
5 Lovers of love, fighters for over nighters, gallants gaga for a Greek goddess.
6 Rolls a bear down the hill.
1 LYCRA BAR TRIVIA
2 SCAM ALERT CRUX
3 UNDIE RUN'S ORDER
4 TYPE-A SOUR TONE
5 EROS CRUSADERS
6 OVER TURNS PANDA
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: What makes an opera scream. CHANDELIER GOES BAD.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Dgd- good to know you!
I used OPTICAL microscopes for forty five years and I never thought of the eyepiece or the objective lens or any other component in the singular as an OPTIC. An OPTICAL microscope has OPTICS (plural,) each part thereof has its own specific name. When you mangle a word without understanding it you produce CROSSWORDESE. UGH!
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