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Athlete tackling El Capitan, e.g. / THU 9-4-25 / Designation for some audio connectors / Jungian archetype / Lion keeper? / Locale for a couples cruise? / When ties get untied, for short / World capital in central Anatolia
Thursday, September 4, 2025
Constructor: Colin Ernst
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
This one started somewhat disappointing, and then got promising, and then went back to disappointing again with the revealer. I understand the phrase "DOES IT SCALE?" but I care so little about "investors" and start-ups and businessspeak in general that the phrase just leaves me flat. Worse, it's kind of off-putting. If the phrase were truly colorful or involved great wordplay or were particularly apt, my aversion would not have mattered so much, but something about "scaling" as the core concept was such a letdown that even if I *had* been a venture capitalism admirer and fervent Shark Tank watcher, "DOES IT SCALE?" would have landed with a bit of a thud. I really thought the theme was going to be about hanging. I think of a rock climber hanging from a rappelling rope
- ROCK CLIMBER (upside-down) (3D: Athlete tackling El Capitan, e.g.)
- SPIDER-MAN (upside-down) (35D: Who popularized the proverb "with great power comes great responsibility")
- WINDOW / WASHER (upside-down) (49D: With 7-Down, worker who likely knows the ropes)
- GRAPEVINE (upside-down) (8D: A bunch of fruit may grow on it)
The Flying Wallendas is a circus act and group of daredevil stunt performers who perform highwire acts without a safety net. They were first known as The Great Wallendas, but the current name was coined by the press in the 1940s and has stayed since. [...] In 1944, while the Wallendas were performing in Hartford, Connecticut, a circus fire broke out, killing over 168 people. None of the Wallendas were hurt. // In the following years, Karl developed some of their most impressive acts, such as the seven-person chair pyramid. They continued performing those acts until January 30, 1962, when, while performing at the Shrine Circus at Detroit's State Fair Coliseum, the front man on the wire, Dieter Schepp, faltered, and the pyramid collapsed. Three men fell to the ground, killing Richard Faughnan, Wallenda's son-in-law; and nephew Dieter Schepp. Karl injured his pelvis, and his adopted son, Mario, was paralyzed from the waist down. Dieter's sister, Jana Schepp, let go of the wire to fall into the quickly-raised safety net, but bounced off and suffered a head injury. // Other tragedies include when Wallenda's sister-in-law, Yetta, fell 50 feet to her death in 1963, after fainting during her act. Wallenda's son-in-law, Richard ("Chico") Guzman, was killed in 1972 after touching a live electric wire while holding part of the metal rigging. Nonetheless, Karl decided to go on. [...] On March 22, 1978, during a promotional walk in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Karl fell from the wire and died. It was between the towers of Condado Plaza Hotel, one hundred feet high. He was 73. (wikipedia)
• • •
Also also, the fill was kinda weak in places. God spare me from any more "playground retorts," particularly long and contrived ones like "I CAN SO" (pretty formal for a playground—you'd think "CAN SO!" would do). Crossing SAO and 'TIS, blargh. Things are also a little blarghy in the ANIMA / "I'M ON" / KARO region. KARO is one of those crosswordese brand names that is well worth avoiding. Everyone knows OREO, but KARO ... bah. Looking over the rest of the grid, there's nothing particularly bad going on. An MSG here, and ESP there, a TBAR, an INOT. Once again I plead with editors and constructors not to clue TMC (The Movie Channel) as having anything to do with "cinephiles" (43A: Inits. for cinephiles). "Cinephiles" watch TCM (Turner Classic Movies). Whereas TMC is just a channel you get with your basic cable package that you probably don't even watch unless you're bored. I don't remember ever watching it. If I search [TMC] I get the weirdest assortment of hits and I don't get The Movie Channel at all, which should tell you the kind of clout that channel has with cinephiles, or anyone.
Bullets:
- 23A: Genre for "Sunset Boulevard" (NOIR) — directed and co-written by the great Billy Wilder. They play this movie a lot on TCM. Again, I have no idea what they play on TMC.
- 63A: Locale for a couples cruise? (NOAH'S ARK) — if you've done crosswords for any length of time, you've heard this one. A lot. A lot a lot. The phrase "couples' cruise" (or "couples' retreat") has been used multiple times, just in the past few years, in clues for ARK (also "couples' getaway," "ship that was double-booked," etc.). The ship that spawned a thousand puns (all of them basically the same)!
- 49D: With 7-Down, worker who likely knows the ropes (WINDOW / WASHER (backwards)) — coming back to this one because the clue really cries out for a "?" The specific play on words ("knows the ropes"), and the fact that it's not a phrase anyone would use to describe the specific professional abilities of a WINDOW / WASHER, means a "?" is called for. Wouldn't have made the answer any easier to get, necessarily, but that's not the point. The point is, if the clue doesn't really literally make great sense, if the literal meaning is being severely bent to accommodate some kind of wordplay, you should have a "?" on there.
- 62D: Lion keeper? (MGM) — what is the wordplay here? I've heard of "lion tamer," but "lion keeper," not so much. I know that MGM's logo contains Leo the Lion, that's obvious. What I'm asking is: why is the clue phrased this way? What's the "ha ha, good one" angle? (if you google "lion keeper" right now, the *only* hits you'll get are (cheap, ugly, borderline illiterate, severely ad-laden) automated crossword answer sites. MGM movies are seen frequently on TCM. Whereas what's playing on TMC, nobody actually knows.
- 64D: Start to count? (ONE) — uh ... I guess. Again, what is the wordplay involved? What makes this clever? I see the misdirection (I wanted to write in CEE, i.e. the letter that literally starts the word "count"), but I'm clearly failing to appreciate whatever is supposed to be clever about the clue phrasing. I cannot deny, however, that if (for some reason?) you "start to count" (to 10, say), you would likely start with ONE.
That's all. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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22 comments:
Easy. It took me a bit to get that the theme clues "scaled" the grid.
Overwrites:
My 13D Cape Verde island was SAn Tiago before it was SAO
At 14A I tapped a keg before ALE
My 43A cinephile inits. were TCM before they were TMC
No WOEs
I had never heard of BATIK or KARO, so that was a pretty gnarly natick for me. Ran the alphabet to get the music
uncle ben popularized the phrase, not spiderman. if they wanted spiderman it should have been clued as "what movie", not "who"
The rice guy?
Agree completely re: TMC. I had TCM written for nearly the whole time and then shook my head when I realized I had to change it. And though I thought of MATE IN THREE, I also thought “that can’t be it”. Why not mate in two? Or four? What’s so special about three that it becomes a well-known phrase?
i came here to say literally this. (although i would say the comic books popularized it, but the underlying point stands)
Easy except for the SW, where I couldn't convert "circus" into BIGTOP for the longest time. I had no clue about SPIDERMAN, and kept trying to remember which statesman had made the pronouncement (was it somebody named Sherman?). The trick became clear with the upside-down GRAPEVINE.
I don’t ever remember being so bored doing a crossword puzzle - it felt like sitting through a class in high school that I had no interest in (and knowing that I was skipping class with a pretty girl the next period). Really, reading and writing words and phrases upside down? I would have thought that was too juvenile back in the boring high school class I just had unpleasant flashbacks about.
Hopefully a chess player among us can provide some insight regarding MATE in three. I believe there is a common three step mate involving a bishop and the queen on opposite flanks - something like that, perhaps. I don’t know if it is possible to MATE in two steps.
I was disappointed that I had already forgotten BATIK - I just looked it up when we had it recently, like what, two or three days ago. I have a mind like a steel trap - once something gets in, it’s never getting out again.
the bottom up theme answers are such a tired gimmick at this point. not really worthy of a thursday puzzle.
TCM = Turner Classic Movies
Pretty fun. One of my recent NYTXW submissions was rejected because I had three themers running backwards, and the comment was that people solve on the app now and entering things backwards is difficult for them.
I wanted Stan Lee there. But he doesn't scale.
I guess I’m easier to please. I loved this one. The themes all being things that go up, the answers going up, and the answer to the revealer clues using the less obvious word scale,instead, of climb or up
Well, I kinda agree with all of Rex’s comments but still liked the puzzle more than he did. Good catch by @Anon identifying Uncle Ben as the source of the good advice, but at least we realized it wasn’t Shakespeare or Plato. SCALE was decent as a revealer but maybe it went better with NOTATE. OK, maybe not so much…
Hey All !
Was wondering why my Themer Downs were starting off as gibberish. Took a minute to see that they would be in the puz backward. First thought after having 3D start REBMIL was that the Themers would be made up of abbreviations. But then the ole brain grokked what in tarhooties was happening.
If Noah had a pet Mako on board, would it be NOAHS SHARK on NOAHS ARK? Is Noah where these crazy kids these days want to change WHOA to WOAH?
Decent puz. Liked the concept.
Props to Joel F for representing the F's in the Mini. *Pounds chest* Respect.
Have a great Thursday !
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Best moment for me was seeing the first long backward word. I have no idea why, but there is a tender place in my heart for backward words
Even post-solve, when my eyes fell on DOOR, my brain called out “Rood!” I knew it was something but forgot what, then found that it’s an old term for a quarter of an acre. That there is a term for a quarter of an acre just seemed so random to me that once again – and I don’t know how many times a day this happens – I fell in love with humanity.
I liked the echoes of the climbing theme:
• TBAR.
• NOAH’S ARK, which rose as the downpour continued.
• CABIN as part of an airplane.
I liked that moment when I looked at NOTATE and saw it as two words, as in, “That’s a very nice modern art museum, but it’s NO TATE!”
I liked seeing BIG TOP, because the constructor said in his notes to a previous puzzle that he worked as a circus juggler for ten years.
So, smiles on top of the fun of filling in. Thank you for a lovely start to the day, Colin!
I feel your pain, Johnny. Ever find yourself solving a puzzle and thinking, “This is taking forever,” only to get the notification at the end that you finished under your average time? Filling in answers backward is tiresome enough on paper, but on the app it’s even more annoying. I’m not sure why I didn’t bail when I sussed the gimmick. I suppose it was so I could come here and moan about it. Oh well, tomorrow’s Friday, so there’s something to look forward to.
Caught on right away with the ROCKCLIMBER going up, as all the crosses except ANKARA were absolute gimmes. Kind of fun to uncover the other bottoms up answers although it took a while to parse SPIDERMAN, I don't think he ever said that in the comic books, which is how I know him best. only real WOE was ELLE, another one of those classics I have never seen. Oh well.
Biggest downer for me today was the reveaaler, as I may be even less interested in business and finance than OFL, and I have never, ever heard the expression DOESITSCALE. Also in agreement that it doesn't really fit the themers without some contortions. At least KARO syrup was a staple in the kitchen when I was a kid, so that doesn't bother me. Ditto for TCM vs. TNC, don't really watch either of them.
OK Thursday, CE, with the Clear Exception of the mystery revealer. I'm curious to see how many folks are familiar with that one. Anyway, thanks for a medium amount of fun.
Naticked on BATIK/KARO.
There is a way to MATE in four moves if you are the White pieces. If you're experienced at all, you'll see it coming and can block it easily. But if you're playing someone casually, it gets quite the "Huh" response! (And anger)
RooMonster Not A Chess Ace By A Long Shot Guy
I solve on the app. It was pretty grim, but I gritted my teeth and soldiered on.
100% should be Uncle Ben or clued differently
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