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Relative difficulty: Medium-ish, when solved Downs-only (though I ultimately failed in this endeavor)
Theme answers:
- LAKE TROUT (17A: Fish commonly caught in the Upper Midwest)
- LEFT TACKLE (24A: Player protecting a QB's blind side, often)
- LAUNDRY (38A: Household chore traditionally done on Mondays)
- COLD CALLER (50A: Salesperson making unsolicited phone contact)
Performance-enhancing substances (PESs), also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans.Many substances, such as anabolic steroids, can be used to improve athletic performance and build muscle, which in most cases is considered cheating by organized athletic organizations. This usage is often referred to as doping. Athletic performance-enhancing substances are sometimes referred to as ergogenic aids. Cognitive performance-enhancing drugs, commonly called nootropics, are sometimes used by students to improve academic performance. Performance-enhancing substances are also used by military personnel to enhance combat performance. (wikipedia)
• • •
But let's leave my failed Downs-only experiment aside [side note: my wife just walked into my office with the identical Downs-only problem I had, only she also had trouble putting together SPARE TIRE—again, not exactly Monday cluing on that one (34D: Fifth wheel)]. What about the theme? Well, it's not great. Which is to say it's super basic, very loose, and kind of ... arbitrary. LAKE TROUT? Of all the fish in the world that one might catch with a "line," we get LAKE TROUT? Not just trout, but LAKE TROUT? So weird. Especially weird when the second themer is also a two-word "L.T." phrase (LEFT TACKLE). I spent half the puzzle thinking there was some kind of L.T. theme. LEFT TACKLE is not quite as arbitrary as LAKE TROUT, but still, lots of positions on the offensive (and defensive) lines in football. COLD CALLER is yet another awkward, contrived phrase. You get a cold call, or you cold-call someone, but a COLD CALLER ... that is not a phrase I've ever used or heard used. I can imagine what (who) it is, but blargh, pretty ugly. The rest of the grid was fairly ordinary. Mostly 3-4-5s, ho hum
Aside from the POKER TELL fiasco, the Downs-only experience was close to average—mostly easy, with a few patches I had to work through somewhat slowly. As I said, SPARE TIRE took some thought—I was staring at a whole bunch of empty squares in that one, none of which were easy to infer. Pretty sure I got it, finally, because I inferred the "T" in ATOM, and that "T" helped me see TIRE. Before that, I blanked on what the Ohio University mascot was (again, not exactly Monday fare, Ohio University not being a terribly prominent D1 sports team) (BOBCAT). I had STAGE before STAIR (22D: Part of a flight). INDIA and NEPAL have the same number of letters, so that made 46D: Country holding one side of Mount Everest briefly challenging ... oh, damn, the other country isn't INDIA, it's CHINA! Also five letters! OK, well, glad NEPAL worked out then, didn't have to struggle through the hypothetical scenario of neither NEPAL nor INDIA's working.
My favorite coincidence of the evening was that I was watching the movie While You Were Sleeping (1996) (for my Movie Club) just before solving. During the movie, my wife was wondering aloud what movies Sandra Bullock had won her Oscars for. I could only remember one: The Blind Side (2009). Turns out, she only won the one (she does have two nominations, though, the second being for Gravity (2013)). Anyway, "blind side" ended up being in the puzzle: 24A: Player protecting a QB's blind side, often. I admit, it's not a very eerie or even interesting coincidence. But now maybe you know a little more about Sandra Bullock's career, so that's something. Oh, there was one other coincidence I liked: the fact that IDAHO was adjacent to POKER TELL ... Oh, I've been to Boise, and Sun Valley, and Coeur d'Alene, but I've never been to POKER-TELL-O. I hear it's nice.
That's all. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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My five favorite original clues from last week
ReplyDelete(in order of appearance):
1. Just saying? (5)
2. Needing more salt, perhaps (5)
3. Musical appreciation? (4)(5)
4. Purchases that come with metal plates (3)(5)
5. Like a column starting a row, perhaps (9)
ADAGE
ICIER
TONY AWARD
TAP SHOES
LIBELLOUS
My favorite encore clues from last week:
ReplyDelete[Fictional character with a famous opening line] (3)(4)
[Where many gather to form a line?] (5)(6)
ALI BABA
BINGO PARLOR
Nice comfortable Monday with an easy theme to grasp. I'm groaning at Rex' (Pocatello) IDAHO pun, and eager for Mr. Egs' reaction. I hope he isn't too Boise to respond.
ReplyDeleteGlad it wasn’t just me! I tried Downs only solving because I learned about it from reading your blog. And I’ve been having success. But poker face led me to all kinds of difficulties today
ReplyDeleteAnother hand up for POKERface, even though I knew it didn’t fit the clue. That slowed me down only a little, since I solve Mondays downs mostly (i.e., with occasional peeking at across clues, i.e., cheating).
DeleteIf you smiled all the time that would work as a poker face-- or so I reasoned, but then I got TRAY, so I knew it was TELL (though I didn't want it to be).
Delete
ReplyDeleteEasy, breezy Monday with no overwrites or WOEs. For the second day in a row I liked it a lot more than OFL did.
Fairly easy and fun. Initially missed POKERTELL because I had entered Hot for HIP and didn’t look back, but otherwise smooth sailing. Agree with Rex that POKERTELL is kinda redundant, but then our language is full of them, tho only one other comes immediately to mind: taxicab. LAKETROUT is a variety of fish well known to the fishing community.
ReplyDeleteWhile I suppose taxicab is a sort of redundancy now, its two parts have completely different etymological bases: it's a shortening of taximetred cabriolet.
DeleteTrue what you say about LAKE TROUT but only in a general sense. The are actually of the genus salvelinus, which makes them char, like Arctic Char. Same with Brook Trout.
Delete"Brook trout and three other extant species of North American trout, despite the names, are actually char (or charr), which are salmonids also closely related to trout and salmon." Wikipedia.
One of those other species is Brook Trout.
I meant to say Bull Trout, which were once known as Dolly Varden Trout.
DeleteEasyEd et al
DeleteRex was definitely annoyed at the puzzle. (Perhaps the failed downs only was a factor). I know little about trout but the clue and answer made sense to me. Thanks for confirming I was right!
I have never heard of Monday as laundry day. At an inn or B&B, that probably makes sense as you get more guests on the weekends. At home I would think it is generally on the weekend, rather than trying to squeeze it in in the morning or evening before/after work.
ReplyDeleteSome research later ... apparently it is comes from the days when laundry was a multi-day event and you had to be sure everything is dry by Sunday, when you are not allowed to work. I can only imagine people lived in very humid areas, as even the most relucatant items take no more than 72 hours to air dry here.
There's an old nursery rhyme, written before the time of modern conveniences...Wash on Monday / Iron on Tuesday / Mend on Wednesday / Churn on Thursday / Clean on Friday / Bake on Saturday / Rest on Sunday.
DeleteRegarding 38 across I just thought of my grandmother. Every Monday she would do the laundry and hang it outside on the line to drive. Problem is I put washing instead of laundry.
DeleteI remember reading once that Monday was the day the Pilgrims landed and did their washing. Made sense to me, but that was a long time ago.
DeleteMy coïncidence of the day was thinking "who does laundry on a Monday?!" just before the laundry machine I myself had filled forty-five minutes before beeped.
DeleteKitshef.
DeleteTraditionally hints at a time before washing machines. So washing by hand , rinsing by hand wringing out maybe with a hand operated wringer. Then hanging them up to dry. Almost always by women who didn’t or couldn’t work outside the home. The material in clothes then took longer to dry. We are not talking about a few hours here. Monday, the start of the week after the religious day makes perfect sense.
I have seen references to Monday as wash day so it was a gimme for me
Got my brain workout in trying to guess the revealer without reading its clue. Went through the theme answer initials – no luck – then wrenched my brain trying to figure out what the theme answers had in common. Nada.
ReplyDeleteMy first concession followed: looked at the revealer’s clue. Scoured my mind for phrases that meant “at stake”. Crickets.
Finally started uncovering the revealer’s letters one at a time and after “ON THE”, the answer came, but not just as a simple realization, but more like an eruption, simultaneously getting LINE and seeing its connection with the theme answers. An awesome “Aha!”
Lovely serendipities followed as I scanned the grid:
• Parts of the body – HIP, EAR, TOE, TRI, and sure, SPARE TIRE.
• Rare-in-crosswords five letter semordnilap (EVIAN).
• Things people ingest (TROUT, PIE, BEER, EVIAN, OLIVE).
• That EAR to the ground.
Came to the box in everyday mode and left alive and kicking. A sterling outing. Thank you for this, Ryan!
Also on the line:
ReplyDeleteTightrope walker
Wrinkle makeup
A fair tennis ball
Certain staff notes in music
A train
A word in a poem
One in a row of people
One in a row of cars
Feel free to add to the list!
Your job . . . A telephone caller . . . A bird on a wire . . .
DeleteJohn Hancock (or signature)
DeleteJohnny Cash walking
DeleteLineman for power company
DeleteI’ve been doing laundry for about 43 of my 50 years and have never heard of this supposed tradition it is done on Mondays.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 7:48 AM
DeleteWell laundry has been done for a little longer than 50 years, say thousands. Note the word traditionally. The clue was referring to a time before washing machines became ubiquitous And most definitely the traditional day was Monday.
Anonymous 7:43 AM
DeleteNote the word traditionally in the clue. A hint at the pre washing machine times when doing laundry was an all day affair.So way before my times and mostly before my mothers era (born in 1912).
I didn’t have the same visceral reaction to POKER TELL as OFL did (I know very little about the specifics of poker, but have heard the term used in that context before).
ReplyDeleteI also thought we had an LT-centric theme and dropped in LEAD where COLD belonged, which led to some hijinks down in the SW while I parsed that all out. It was kind of nice to extricate myself from that mini-mess on a Monday, even if the foul-up was totally on me.
I suspected SPARE TIRE from just the leading S, but waited for a cross or two to confirm it - ironically, if I had exercised the same due diligence in the SW, I could have saved myself some effort - but my tribulations there actually spiced up my Monday morning solve a bit.
Hmmm. I dunno about 50A. I've found many of them to be rather warm and friendly.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteNice MonPuz. Different meanings of (something) ON THE LINE. We get fishing, football, chore, telephone. Missing the pick-up LINE.
Got an extra Blocker in today. 40 as opposed to regular 38. The two aren't chester squares, but almost act the same. They are the Blockers twixt THEN-ERR and OXO-ATOM. If you took them out, you'd have to basically rework the whole puz to get workable answers. I'm sure it was tried, but I hold no animosity toward the constructor for adding them in. Easier to fill is a blessing.
Funny enough, I like to look at every clue, regardless if it auto-fills from crossers. Today, I wanted RARitY at first, but quickly realized it would be RARELY, but never changed the I to an E, as seeing IRR as a real possible answer. I forgot to look at it's clue, and of course got the Almost There when I finished puz. Went to the clue immediately and saw that the one clue I didn't read was the culprit. Amazing.
Y'all have a BEER later for me. 😁
Have a great Monday.
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
POKER TELL made a lot of sense to me. Yeah it’s not as common a phrase as poker face, but I certainly wouldn’t consider it as outlandish or weird as Rex did. Agree that it’s not exactly Monday cluing, but it’s not so crazy I’d rant about it.
ReplyDeleteInsofar as TELL as a concept occurs outside the game of poker, for example in real life where you can tell someone is secretly annoyed by a certain pattern of behavior they always do, I think POKER TELL is not as redundant as Rex thinks it is. For example, you could have an article or video that describes particular poker tells and what to look out for.
DeleteI fell into the LT trap too, confirmed by the L of ASL but then LAUNDRY ended that assumption. BTW, I have always thought of Monday as LAUNDRY day, and assumed it was common knowledge. Guess not. Didn't guess the revealer but I like that the LINES were all different.
ReplyDeleteNo real problems with this one, although I never remember NALA. Learned something interesting about EVIAN, was unbothered by POKERTELL, and got SPARETIRE off the S, yay me.
Today's nit is TRIS, which I guess go with BIS in the -ceps department. Clue should have read "Hall of Famer Speaker".
Nice enough Mondecito, RM. Reasonable Model of a beginner-friendly Monday, and thanks for all the fun.
easy. nice entry level puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI didn't breeze through this Monday puzzle quite as easily as some, even though I wasn't trying to solve Downs-only. Had LOSES instead of BUSTS for the poker clue, and didn't know the football clue without crosses. Didn't know PEDS; tried PCPS first.
ReplyDeleteHave never heard of a POKER TELL and doubted it was right, so did some doublechecking that cost me a little time. Oh well, an okay Monday if not very sparkly.
The clue for 3-A specified blackjack not poker, where BUSTS is more specific.
DeleteDowns-only has made Mondays a highly anticipated weekly tussle for me and today’s puzzle did not disappoint. POKER TELL and LAKE TROUT were nothing compared to the difficulty I had in recalling the Ohio U mascot! How many times I must have seen or heard it over the years and yet it was nowhere to be found in my memory banks. “The Buckeyes and the…”? Nope, just wasn’t there. Combined with the tricky for me UNLACES, the NW quadrant was my Waterloo.
ReplyDeleteOverall, a fun Monday!
P.S. I remember that a few puzzles ago we had the singular STAIR that wasn't well clued. This one was (" Part of a flight").
ReplyDeleteI've always wanted to have massages, mud baths, hot tubs and cold plunge pools around me at all times, so when my working days came to a close I decided to SPARETIRE.
ReplyDeleteMAGA mini-theme today with BUSTS, SCARES, BRAGS and HATE. Which serves to amplify the error in the clue for RNA, component of former alleged vaccines.
No doubt @Lewis will have embraced the proximity of ORB and BRO with a hug.
True fact: Mrs. Egs was born in POKER-TELL-O. Ergo, she's a lousy gambler.
Before cell phones, people without home phones had to use a phone booth. So in winter, there were a lot of COLDCALLERS. Note to Gen Z and later: There are a lot of now-obscure objects and phenomena wrapped up in understanding this (alleged) joke. Ask your grandparents to talk to you about the days before cell phones. They might get a kick out of it.
I had the exact same problem with my D.O. solve as @Rex did. Thanks for putting it all on the line, Ryan Mathiason.
Similar to @Lewis’ weekly top five list, we should start a weekly “best observations” from our resident EGSistentialist - I nominate today’s SPA RETIRE, which may be one of the top five of the month as well.
DeleteHah! Missed ORB/BRO -- lovely catch!
DeleteReally? I thought Poker Tell was quite self-evident. And a lake trout might be caught on a line. You don't need a specific fish to justify the "line" angle. I think you are having a grumpy day.
ReplyDeleteNo Thinking Required. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
ReplyDeleteNone of the themers were all that long, so I didn't really think about them until the revealer suddenly hit me. Even then I had to go back and look at them all, after which it did dawn on me that they were all on the line.
ReplyDeleteLAUNDRY is not so often on the line these days, at least in the US--but then, Monday is not usually washday, either, so we can take that as an archaism indicator, fair enough.
Hardest part for me was trying to think of a 4-letter abbreviation for steroids. What on earth are PEDS? Dictionary.com says "a variety of footlet." That wore out my patience for research.
PEDs are Performance Enhancing Drugs (including steroids) - if you take too many of them, it makes you look like your head is going to pop off (I don’t speak from personal experience - but I saw what happened to Barry Bonds - he went from a skinny speedster who could steal 50 bases in a season to something resembling the Pillsbury Doughboy).
DeleteMajor leaguers these days often get suspended for using PED's, Performance Enhancing Drugs, so that was familiar to me. Also familiar was the Monday/washday connection, and now I'm feeling archaic.
DeleteI didn’t succeed on the downs-only today, but that happens quite often for me. HOWEVER - Lake Trout is what they are called. Not just trout. And, sadly for them, they are delicious. Also no trouble with Poker Tell, but lots of downs-only hiccups elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteHad to chuckle, when Rex told his story about Sandra Bullock and the Blindside, after calling the Left Tackle answer somewhat arbitrary because of multiple positions on the offensive line. The clue for that couldn’t have been more precise/accurate. And you had an Oscar winner tell you that exactly.
ReplyDeleteThe Faces OOH-LA-LA should have made the write-up. And OOH did blow my downs only.
I knew Monday was wash day because my Mom would sing the song, Today is Monday which tells you what day of the week you will be doing certain activities, at least in a pre-1970s household.
ReplyDeleteIt always gives me a small jolt, as if perhaps Rex was solving a different puzzle from the one I solved, when Rex or someone in the comments mentions a word in the grid that I didn't see. Today that was STAIR, which filled in so completely from crosses that I never even read the clue. That SCARES me a little.
Super simple puzzle today, but I liked the theme which made me smile once I went back to the theme answers and saw how they worked. LAKE TROUT is something you would be glad to have ON THE LINE if you were fishing in one of the Great Lakes. I've only fished Lake Michigan but my husband and his brothers caught those trout on Superior also.
Thanks, Ryan Mathiason!
I've got to defend the LAKE TROUT, which is indeed a species of fish. When I was growing up on the shores of Lake Michigan, it was the dominant commercial fish of the great lakes. The local dish was the fish boil, where you would cook a whole lot of lake trout in a huge pot and people would line up to get their portion, along with an ear of corn and probably some potatoes. Much more delicious than it sounds. Talented boil-masters made a living at it. They were a big business (they had other uses, as well). Then the St. Lawrence Seaway was opened, some lampreys came in from the ocean on the hulls of ships, bred like mad, and pretty soon there were very few lake trout. The problem was finally solved by poisoning all the fish, including both the lampreys and the trout. Then the lakes were restocked, but to create a sport-fishing industry they were stocked with coho and sockeye salmon, and steelhead trout along with the lake trout. So there are not so many of them. There are even more fish boils than there used to be, but the fish are often imported from the great lakes of northern Canada. They are still a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteContinuing in my blast-from-the-past mode, at least one of the summer camps I attended had a campfire song that ran through the days, including "Monday wash day..."
Small quibble re: taking your shoes off. You just need to untie them and loosen up the laces, not take the laces out, which is what UNLACE means.
My sister-in-law just got back from a trip to Door County, WI. She and her friends went to a fish boil where they were told that the fish being served were not caught in Lake Michigan, probably for the reason you cite. I can't imagine salmon working well in a fish boil.
DeleteJberg
DeleteSince we a nitting here, I shave heard unlace used for untie. Distinctions like that don’t last in spoken language
Sonidos de objetos pesados golpeando el suelo.
ReplyDeleteWho does laundry on Monday? Who? I want names.
Having spent most of my life over the line, it'll be nice to have this handy guide for what's ON THE LINE.
You are staring at SPARE TIRE in your computer generated grid. You think, "Sweet." And then you go with [Fifth wheel] instead of [Beer blastin' belly], or [Lush home for an innie], or [Headrest for your honey], or [Kitty launch pad], or [Public pool eyesore], or [Six pack concealer]? Scandalous.
❤️ THUDS.
People: 6
Places: 4
Products: 4
Partials: 8
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 24 of 78 (31%)
Funny Factor: 2 😕
Tee-Hee: Yee-haw! BUSTS.
Uniclues:
1 One eschewing the right wing.
2 Foodie's feeling after an extended hospital stay.
3 Activity for a traveling Asian corset remover.
1 LEFT TACKLE SORT (~)
2 TRAY HATE
3 UNLACES NEPAL
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: HOHOHO, gawd this sucks, I should've tried harder in 10th grade. MALL SANTA'S BRAIN DUMP.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hilarious keepsake!
DeleteI happen to own Pepys’s diary. Bought the volumes in Berkeley as they came out. Monday was definitely wash day in the Pepys household. And a major hassle for all concerned. No washing machines then. Just servants working hard. And wet clothes drying all over the place.
DeletePepys probably chose Mondays as a good day to visit one of his mistresses
jberg! Great story about fish boils.
ReplyDeleteWe have the best LEFTTACKLE in football, Trent Williams. If he can avoid serious injury this season, the Niners have a chance. Christian McCaffrey can burst through the big holes he makes.
I am LOLing quietly to myself over the complaints on this one. A first-time reader might conclude that our host does not realize that all of the answers have to fit into a symmetrical grid, thereby sometimes necessitating extraneous modifiers like "LAKETROUT," instead of "justanyoldTROUT." I found this to be an unexpected amount of fun for a Monday!
ReplyDeleteAlso failed downs-only
ReplyDeleteI only managed to solve "downs-only" because I accidentally looked at the 1A clue when I opened the puzzle. POKER TELL? Also, that's a Saturday clue. It wouldn't even feel out of place in a Stumper, IMO.
ReplyDeleteWhat's weird is that the only theme letter in 3D is the K. How do you start with --K------ in a corner full of 3s and 4s and 5s, and end up with POKER TELL?
Like Rex, I noticed the L- T- connection that wasn't theme-relevant at all.
Downs only timeline:
ReplyDelete1. Assume ON THE LINE is the revealer with all but NW and W done. What kinds of TROUT are there? With -A-E, maybe LAKE?
2. Okay if 20A is -H-N, that's probably a T... what about HALTS for 1D?
3. So HI- (could be many things), AD-, LAKE,
TH-N, SO-T, -> POKERface!!
---
4. tra + ___ + POKERface
So crosses are fRAY, t-eYS, r-c, a-eA.
Maybe res is a science class? (traYS, rec, aseA) okay no fanfare. Try all combos of r + vowel + r or s (areA or aseA)
5. Check the rest of the puzzle for errors... yeah 30D is the only thing I hate
6. Okay, what if I just try to force BIO instead (the thing I wanted before I realized tra + BIO doesn't work), and take out face too...
6. -B-YS -> OBEYS --> OOH --> OIL --> HOLA --> POKERTELL 🎉
But yeah obviously I can see why this is a wipeout for many! Lucked out a little for sure
Easy. No costly erasures and BOBCAT was it for WOEs.
ReplyDeleteSmooth with a cute/fun theme, liked it a lot more than @Rex did.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #1039 was very easy for a Croce. I had no real problems anywhere. Good luck
Croce Freestyle 1039 was what traditionally I would have called medium but I'm thinking it may be time to adjust my scale and call it hard. No major difficulties, but just generally slow going compared to recent puzzles. About double an average NYT Saturday.
DeleteTough NW for me with the unknown actress and a rarely used phrase.
Delete@pabloinnh - knowing the actress was quite helpful. The phrase OTOH took some crosses.
DeleteEasy. No typos :)
ReplyDeleteNW to SE diagonal: HDKN-YMNSB-AINR. SW to NE: DVDRCLRNUAAAOOS. As us my Monday practice, that's all I wrote besides the peripherals HIP ERASE BUSTS SENSE et alia.
ReplyDeleteTut-tut, @Rex, for POKER-TELL-O IDAHO!
For GPO and others: "Lake Trout" is a recognized classification, just like "Grizzly Bear" or "Sperm Whale." The word "Lake" is not extraneous.
ReplyDeleteSurely there is a mistake in the Midi today? A word clued as the word clued?? Anyone here doing the Midi?
ReplyDeleteHOLA MonPuz, Batman! ... A "What's My Line" theme mcguffin! [I see @RP also thought of that angle.]
ReplyDeletePOKERTELL sounded a little fishy, but I got it, no problemo. Not talkin downs-only, tho.
staff weeject pick: HIP. Started my solvequest adventure here [after first gettin ADO] with HOT ... which lasted a nanosecond or two, until 2-Down was askin m&e for a state that starts with OD-.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {San ___ Fault} = ANDREAS. Fill-in-the-blanks gimmes are always welcome.
other faves: SPARETIRE. BROHUG. SMURF.
Thanx for the puzfix, Mr. Mathiason dude. Always refreshin, to do a few lines.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
... and now, this one should at least be easier to grok the puztheme on ...
"Spooneruntisms II" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
A TV show for coke heads: Where's My Line?
DeleteSame problem on POKERTELL but the inferred K eventually helped a lot, along with a conviction that BIO is the only three letter science likely on a Monday. On the other hand, got SPARETIRE cold after taking a moment to remember that there's fifth business and third wheels but fifth wheel would be a misdirect. Seldom for RARELY, ceded for CAVED, and really (albeit briefly) wanting it to be "'sup bro" made for a challenging Monday.
ReplyDeleteThe tradition of Monday as wash day comes from a time before one threw things in an automatic washing machine, switched them to the automatic dryer 45 minutes later, and then, when dry, folded them or hung them, while in between you were off doing other things. Doing a family's laundry was a full day of labor and was an equipment intensive task that was all done by hand, - so one really did need to plan and devote a full single day to complete it. Mondays made the most sense because you had a week's worth of work clothes as well as your Sunday best to replenish after a day of rest. Just because people born after the middle of the 20th century were spared this when machines made doing laundry something you could do while doing other things and at any time of day or night, doesn't mean Monday wash day wasn't a thing - .it was a big thing. To think otherwise is your myopia kicking in,
ReplyDeleteA nice array of LINEs! After the surprise of the reveal, I found it satisfying to read back through the theme entries and enjoy the variety and aptness. Overall, a slower than usual Monday for me, which is fine - I liked having to figure out POKER TELL and SPARE TIRE and the others that didn't come to me right away, like BUSTS x BOBCAT.
ReplyDeleteDepartment of Redundancy: I'll pile on and as another Upper Midwesterner defend LAKE TROUT, which we are sometimes lucky to be able to get and are much different, flesh-wise from the trout-stream trout that are locally available. As to fish boils, the fish, corn, and potatoes are okay, but what I'm really there for is the PIE, hopefully made with Door County cherries. And yes, to me, old as I am, Monday is LAUNDRY day.
I've heard it as the Department of Redundancy Department.
Delete@Liveprof, LOL!
DeleteNice little downs-only Monday. Winced at POKER TELL when a few inferred crosses led to it, but it wasn't that bad. It was unlikely to be POKER face as some commenters have reported trying, because a poker face implies no evident emotion - not even a smile. And LAKE TROUT was just fine, even though it's a misnomer. It's actually a char.
ReplyDeleteRe: Monday as laundry day. The story in New Orleans goes that Monday was both wash day and the day to cook red beans and rice.
ReplyDeleteThey'd use the ham bone from Sunday dinner and didn't have to stand over the stove while they did the laundry, I believe.
Just as Rex said, the risk of downs only is that some puzzles are just not friendly to that method, and I had the same experience as him. I don't know college team names at all so 9 down was hopeless; 3 down was impossible; SPARE TIRE was devious. And then the typeovers: SELDOM before RARELY, TRA before OOH, and TREAD before STAIR (see below). It was such a mess that I soon gave up and looked at some across clues; then it was fine.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of STAIR: "Part of a flight" seems so wrong. A STEP is part of a flight; a STAIR *is* a flight. Oh, well, I only had 4 years of architecture school so what do I know.
And the theme... yes a bit thin, but fine for a Monday. Not as good as Acme's from last week.
My dictionaries say that one meaning of STAIR can be "a single step in a stairway."
Delete@JT yes I looked it up and sometimes it is defined that way. I've just never heard or used STAIR to mean a single step in real life. 99% of the time it means a flight or several flights of stairs. Dunno why they seem to like to clue it otherwise.
DeleteI also think of STAIR as a flight and would use this well-known limerick as evidence:
DeleteThere was a man from Adair
Who was pleasuring himself on the STAIR
The banister broke
He doubled his stroke
And finished it off in mid-air
Courtesy of Martin at "Diary of a Crossword Fiend" : Some "people seem to think “lake trout” are just trout that live in lakes. Actually, Salvelinus namaycush is a huge species that can exceed 100 pounds.
ReplyDeleteWe’ve learned a lot about trout in the last couple of decades. The lake trout is a “char,” like the arctic char. We now know that the brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) and a couple of others are also chars. The brown trout (Salmo trutta) is closely related to the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Most surprisingly, we now know that the venerable little rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is closely related to the various Pacific salmons, like the Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha)."
Cold call or
ReplyDeletecold caller are both familiar phrases and concepts to me and have been or over 30 years Amazed that they we unfamiliar to Rex. And poker tell was a good answer for that clue.
A smile isn't a very good POKER TELL. In fact, facial expressions in general aren't reliable POKER TELLs. They can be too easily manipulated and experienced players can use them to their advantage to send misleading signals.
ReplyDeleteThe best kind of POKER TELL involves...Oh, wait. Maybe it's
best that I not reveal that at this time.
Whether or not you know that Monday used to be LAUNDRY day is a generational TELL. Before electricity LAUNDRY was done completely by hand often using a washboard and tub/bucket. It was a long, laborious operation that would take the better part of a day each week. By tradition, that day was Monday.
I’m late…sheesh. Worked puzzle at 8 am…so busy didn’t read comments until now. @Anoa…I think I qualify as old, and had never heard of Monday as laundry day. My mother was a “stay at home” and seems like she did laundry or ironed EVERY day except Sat/Sun.
DeleteI wondered if there were a theme while workin thru this puzzle. The reveal was a delight - four different kinds of (or meanings of ) "line".
ReplyDelete@ Lewis. I liked the two repeat favorite clues a bit more than any of the new ones, except maybe the one for libelous.
@Egs "spa retire" was cute, but it was your 2nd paragraph that had me laughing (in a bleak dark way)
I spent a year in Poker-tell-o Idaho ages ago - back in the day when you'd have to drive three hours to Boise just to get a latte and talk to a liberal. Among other things, I learned that Judy Garland sang about Pocatello - "I was born in a trunk in the Princess Theater in Pocatello, Idaho." Not making this up; here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlbqFVPS99A
ReplyDeleteI have to figure out how to quit being anonymous. In the meantime, I mostly lurk, and love the places this blog takes me. Thanks, Rex, for reminding me about James McMurtry. He wrote one of the best songs of this century so far imho - "We Can't Make it Here Anymore." Worth a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8h5VdIe33o