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Meaty dog treats "in a blanket" / FRI 10-17-25 / Customizable Nintendo avatars / Arizona tribe with matrilineal clans / Max ___, boxer nicknamed "Madcap Maxie" / Plant often confused with algae / Portmanteau for evidence based solely on personal accounts / Brand of rum mentioned in Hemingway novels / Drinking game with projectiles
Friday, October 17, 2025
Constructor: Karen Steinberg
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: Max BAER (36A: Max ___, boxer nicknamed "Madcap Maxie") —
Maximilian Adelbert Baer Sr. (February 11, 1909 – November 21, 1959) was an American professional boxer and the world heavyweight champion from June 14, 1934, to June 13, 1935. He was known in his time as the Livermore Larupper and Madcap Maxie. Two of his fights (a 1933 win over Max Schmeling and a 1935 loss to James J. Braddock) were rated Fight of the Year by The Ring magazine. Baer was also a boxing referee, and had occasional roles in film and television. He was the brother of heavyweight boxing contender Buddy Baer and father of actor Max Baer Jr. Baer is rated #22 on The Ring magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time. (wikipedia)
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This was easy and delightful. Crossing CHARLI XCX with SNAUSAGES (3D: Meaty dog treats "in a blanket") ... I don't know where a crossword can even go from there. That's peak Friday fun. The long answers are consistently interesting and the glue (the short stuff) is perfectly tolerable and the whole thing felt very whoosh whoosh so I'm happy. You've got portmanteaus and superheroes and Whoopi and WICCA. The puzzle really gets around. It's also a very, very drinky puzzle. A drunk puzzle, even. What's your preference? Pick your poison. We can start with some ICE WATER, if you insist, but then ... You want some RICE WINE? No? How about a game of BEER DARTS? Or maybe just sip BACARDI? Speaking of BACARDI, as I was googling trying to remember the song lyrics I want that are floating somewhere in the back of my head ("... something something sipping BACARDI ..."), I discovered there are hundreds of songs that mention BACARDI, and approximately half of them are by Lana Del Rey.
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- "Bartender" ("Crosby, Stills and Nash is playing / Wine is flowing with BACARDI")
- "Off to the Races" ("I'm off to the races, cases of BACARDI chase / Chasing me all over town")
- "Noir" ("I'm Miss Parlor Tricks, sips of the BACARDI")
- "Girl That Got Away" ("Come back, sugey, come back to me / Fix me up a mixed drink, BACARDI")
Either that's all of them or there are dozens more, I don't have time to wade through the (non-ANEC)DATA. The phrase "sipping BACARDI" alone is found in more rap songs than you can shake a stick at. I'm just scrolling and scrolling and the songs keep coming. There's just something musical about the way BACARDI sounds and flows. Also, it rhymes with "party," that probably helps.
Normally I start in the NW, but when I couldn't get 1A: What a comment might be made in (JEST) (me: "the comments ... section?"), I hopped over one section, to the due north section, and so my first word in the grid was ... MIIS. I can't believe I've lived long enough and solved long enough for neo-crosswordese like MIIS to become a gimme. MIIS is the new BAER. Of course the old BAER is BAER, Max BAER, who has been around long enough, and then disappeared long enough, that I'm actually kind of happy to see him. I imagine him in a Crossword Retirement Village, occasionally getting the old gang back together for drinks (some RICE WINE for Bert LAHR, BACARDI for ZASU Pitts, maybe just ICE WATER for ASTA). Like yesterday's Charles READE, Max BAER used to appear much more often than he does these days. Check out the BAER chart:
 |
| [from xwordinfo dot com] |
Shortz didn't exactly cut BAER out entirely, but there's a definite drop off, and then it's almost like you can see him, some time around 2010, deciding to turn the BAER tap down to a trickle. Of course, there's also just time ... which tends to take even famous people down, eventually. So the chart probably represents a combination of editorial decision-making (less overcommon short stuff!) and just natural fame diminishment. Still, I think of BAER as very much the boxer of CrossWorld in the olden days (well, the boxer of CrossWorld is ALI, for all eternity, but among mortals, it was BAER). I'm too young ever to have seen him box, but I have seen him in movies, most recently as the winner of this very brutal boxing match in Humphrey Bogart's last movie, The Harder They Fall (1956).
Last bits:
- 5A: Plant often confused with algae (MOSS) — had the "MO-," wrote in MOLD :(
- 17A: British singer with the top 10 albums "Crash" and "Brat" (CHARLI XCX) — if you're not up on your pop stars, you should probably get up on this one. She's gonna be used in BRAT clues for a long time to come. Wouldn't be surprised to see XCX show up occasionally on its own. She is a megastar whose album BRAT was all over the news last year, turning the term BRAT into an entire cultural phenomenon (BRAT was Collins Dictionary's Word of the Year last year) (Here's a Times article from last summer entitled "It's the Summer of 'Brats'"). Charli is feud-with-Taylor-Swift famous, and though she's never going to be as crossword-common as other pop stars with more grid-friendly names, like ADELE or RITA ORA (26D: British singer with the hits "R.I.P." and "Radioactive"), you should expect to see her name in clues and in the grid for some time to come.
[You: "Hey, you know that song 'Radioactive'?" Me: "Oh hell yeah" [starts singing this song]]
- 46A: Portmanteau for evidence based solely on personal accounts (ANECDATA) — portmanteaus (portmanteaux?) are not always pleasing to my eye/ear (see SKORT, for instance), but I love ANECDATA. It somehow both sounds good and is a perfect expression of what it is.
- 41D: "Stop the presses!" ("HOLD IT!") — wanted something more press-specific here at first, but the "presses" part is just metaphorical. The clue could just as easily have been ["Stop!"], but ... every other clue in that SE section is trying to throw you off, why not this one!?
That's all. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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124 comments:
I loved this puzzle too, and finished in 15 minutes which is easy/medium for me on a Friday. But that's where the similarities between my solve and @Rex's ended.... JEST went right in, and I've been listening to a book that includes the Dreyfus affair, so JACCUSE was surprisingly easy for me. MIIS and CHARLIXCX were WOES for me so that crossing was completely inscrutable. And I never mistake moss for Algae so that was hard. I had kelp at first. But RICEWINE got me into the NE and ICEWATER and WEBEDITOR lead to CHORES and then SUPERMAN entering MENOPAUSE was pretty fun! I'm a science guy so I should have heard of ANECDATA by now but I hadn't... but I could infer it. The I in CHARLI was my last square. Loved this puzzle, Karen, thanks for a fun friday!
I agree with OFL — fun and smooth, and I don’t say that in JEST (which came to mind immediately). Thank you, Karen Steinberg!
Since Amazon is still a good ways off from bringing and integrating AI to its Echo product line and across the platform, only tentatively and slowly introducing some features to a couple of its "Show" products, one can hardly call these speakers "smart" by today's standards. Too often you get a response from Echo that simply reads verbatim something from Wikipedia or "an Alexa user" in response to a question you never asked.
Whooshy Friday. Mostly smooth fill with great long answers all around but CHARLI XCX crossing MIIS and OSX? I knew CHARLI XCX and MIIS, but those are two potentially deadly crossings next to each other.
I needed crosses to remember J'ACCUSE and thus figure out JEST. I wanted BOLD or CAPS there.
I cheated several times and still couldn't finish it.
Easy, like a themeless Wednesday.
Overwrites:
My insufferable sorts were boorS before they were ASSES (13D)
CAP'n before CAPT for Mr. America's 33D title
WOEs:
ANNE Applebaum at 14A
ANECDATA at 46A
It's been a while since we saw ISAO Aoki (53A); I totally blanked on the name
I love a puzzle that, as Rex observes, bounces around a wide range of areas of knowledge. A puzzle that expects me not only to remember Max BAER (which I’m old enough to do) but also know how to spell CHARLI XCX (which I managed to do, after a couple of tries) is my idea of a good time. My only HOLDup was (HOLD on . . .) HOLD IT.
Thanks, Ms. Steinberg, for a fun Friday!
Easy but with enough slightly sticky spots to make it fun.JEST came to me right away and was confirmed by the J in JACCUSE, which I was 90% sure of. Then there was CHARLICXC, totally new to me but it sounds like I should know about her. The rest was definitely whoosh, whoosh, so nice after the last two days’ puzzles, both of which were hard and not enjoyable for me.
Never heard of CHARLI XCX or MIIS, so I finished by lucky guessing.
DNF on pop star crossing video game. I guess I’m over the hill.
This one meshed perfectly with my brain this morning. JEST was the first thing that came to mind from the clue, and then I reached waaaay back into the wrinkly grey, remembered that Zola was French, and JACCUSE went in, and the whooshing started. Very fun solve. Also loved ANECDATA, which I will begin using. Bravo, Karen!
Other than the MIIS/XCX area, this was, as we say in New Orleans, "TOEASYLOL." (Wonder if we'll see that in a puzzle anytime soon.)
I was hoping that Rex would include an explanation for WICCA - a word I don’t recall hearing before with a clue that sounded kind of bizarre. The fact that it only received a passing mention had me thinking it must be common knowledge. It actually took me a little digging on line to unearth it. Apparently it’s some kind of pagan or witchcraft related concept which is frequently referred to as “The craft”. All new to me though.
I also had a lot of fun up north stumbling and bumbling my way through MIIS next to OSX crossing CHARLIXCX. That’s as messy a section as we’ve seen in a while.
On a positive note, I CRUSHED the SE. I actually saw VOLARE right away, no problem with BRAIN DUMP and I didn’t fall for either misdirection on MENOPAUSE or SUPERMAN. I’m satisfied with small victories on the weekend, and this one had enough to keep be going.
Agree completely. NFI on the second I in MIiS (never heard of it) crossing with the I in charlixcx (never heard of them). Consider that the biggest Natick of the year, and was really bummed Rex didn’t call it out
Welcome back, ISAO. Feels like it's been a while.
Yet another much-too-easy Friday. Now, maybe if I hadn't known JACCUSE, BAR and CHARLI XCX things would have been different.
I hear (and use) BRAIN DUMP fairly often, but never in the sense used in the puzzle (or listed in Merriam-Webster). For me, it's when you are handing off a task to your replacement, and you want to make sure they know everything they need to know.
That literally never happens to me.
Jacques Cousteau’s great grandfather invented gunpowder.
Hottest item in our living room is the new pet bed, sometimes a CAT BED for Wiley, and sometimes a dog bed for Teddy. They each respect the right of the other to occupy it, but when one leaves it, the other scrambles in and hunkers down, squatter’s rights. The drama is tangible.
Today is not only the first appearance of MENOPAUSE in the Times, but in any of the major crossword outlets. Huh!
Loved seeing side-by-side BAER NUT as well as the contradictory cross of SECRECY and I SEE, not to mention the crossing WICCA CHAIR.
A terrific TIL – the sing-song nails-the-meaning ANECDATA, which I thought would be among the DEBUTS, but it actually showed up for the first time in 2023. And a sweet brain ping: Hearing “Volare” in my brain exactly as I heard it from the radio all those many years ago.
Lovely mix of old and new in the box. Thank you, Karen, for a splendid outing!
I'm intrigued by the number of solvers who found this easy. If someone chooses to call herself "CHARLIXCX." that's her business. But is someone is unacquainted with British singers, how in the world could one intuit such a name? Even knowing all the crosses, would anyone assume that's correct?
TIL how out of date I am. SNAUSAGES, e. g. had to be right, but was a complete WOE. See also BRAINDUMP, ANECDATA, and BEERDARTS, which sounds thoroughly dangerous. The worst though was CHARLIXCX crossing MIIS and OSX. You can't run the alphabet when solving on paper, and any guesses would have been totally random, so a DNF, but not the kind where you say "Nuts, I knew that!" Live and learn.
Also found out today that MODERATOR and WEBMASTER have an equal number of letters. Same problems as OFL with the DC connection and thinking males only before MENOPAUSE. At least JEST and JACCUSE went right in, leaving me a little something to be proud of.
Interesting Friday, KS. If I Keep Solving your puzzles maybe I'll learn some more modern lingo, and thanks for a fair amount of fun.
Too much esoterica. WTF is Charlixcx? And I only know Rita Ora because of her NYTXW appearances. I have no idea what songs she does. Also, lots of gettable ANNEs. And Max Baer? And what is a Jaccuse?
Complete slog.
“Mii” is a play on the very popular Nintendo Wii, so there was a way into deducing that.
Why not have a puzzle crossing the names of Elon Musk's kids? GRRRRR.
Loved the puzzle and knew 100% it was made by a woman, even before MENOPAUSE. Love love love.
RP used to give stats on how few women constructors were being published. Seems like there has been a significant uptick. Wonder what those stats are like now.
The N in SNAUSAGES is a random letter when you've never heard of ANNE Applebaum, which by itself wouldn't be a problem if JACCUSE didn't ring any bells except maybe a misspelled jetted tub. Throw in CHARLIXCX, which looks only like a burnt Roman numeral to me, and you're really fkd in the NW.
This corner sucked 209% of the fun out of the puzzle.
Just dreadful.
I live in the UK and I've never heard of Charli XCX (but I am totally out of the loop with current pop music), so that whole area of the puzzle was painful!
Hey All !
NW corner a doozie. Had to Goog for CHARLIXCX. Was getting nothing up there, and was getting antsy. Had JACCUSE spelt JACoUSE further messing me up, and that was after the cheat. Dang.
Did get RITA ORA by pattern recognition and proliferation in the NYT Puz.
modEraTOR before WEBEDITOR
sImS before MIIS
SCAb - SCAR (sneaky clue)
tapWATER - ICE WATER
Spelled ISAO as ISoa at first.
Crunchy FriPuz, the ole brain feels like it needs an EEG. 😁
Have a great Friday!
No F's (Aw NUTs)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Feeling melancholy. Still miss LMS… (sigh)
Easy and fun. As someone who spends a fair amount of time thinking about Jewish history, JACCUSE was my first answer, which opened up JEST and the rest of that corner. Loved SUPERMAN. Had no problem with MENOPAUSE and was glad to lean that it’s a crossword DEBUT. Only trouble spot was VOLARE crossing CON; Romance languages aren’t my strong suit. But CON did fortunately come to mind, and before I knew it, the puzzle was solved. Will Saturday go as smoothly? I doubt it.
Well, I whooshed till I didn’t, which was a lot of whooshing but I, too, got hung up on the whole MIIS/OSX/CHARLI XCX interlace. I didn’t know SNAUSAGES either, but I did know ANNE Applebaum, so that pulled me through – thanks, ANNE. Her tome, Gulag: A History, which won the Pulitzer, was a steady seller when I was in the book trade in the 2000-aughts. Also knew WICCA and J’ACCUSE, which helped a lot up top.
BEER DARTS sounds downright dangerous (hi @pablo). I thought the puzzle laid out an unfortunate story involving BEER DARTS and most of its crosses: ASSES playing BEER DARTS lost COUNT of the score, and one of them falls over, CRUSHES a CHAIR and has to be revived with ICE WATER to the face. It takes several BENS to invoke SECRECY and hush the whole thing up, and the moral of the story is that everyone on this earth is SEXIER than a blotto BEER DARTS player.
I’ve never heard the term BRAIN DUMP, but the clue [Act of writing down whatever comes to mind in order to clear mental clutter] sounds like automatic writing, a creative technique much beloved by the Dadaists and Surrealists. They didn’t view the product as mental clutter, however, but as the written manifestation of the unconscious mind, something they were always trying to access in order to bypass the learned, the rational and the socially normative. A passage that’s often quoted is from André Breton and Philippe Soupault’s The Magnetic Fields, 1919:
These grocery stores beautiful as our random successes compete with each other from floor to floor in the labyrinth. A guilty thought lays siege to salesmen's foreheads. On a strip of whistling sky treacherous flies return to the seeds of sun.
Passages of automatic writing are always head-scratchers, but their lack of conventional sense reflects the attempt to tap into the deepest recesses of the human psyche where dreams and nightmares and irrational impulses come from. And sometimes the imagery is quite arresting, such as the final sentence here. The appearance of these movements during and immediately after WWI is no accident: supposed rationality got us to the biggest and most destructive conflict in human history – let’s scrap all that and try a new way of thinking and being.
NW natickfest sucked 100% of enjoyment out of this
Puzzles such as this one (which I enjoyed, they had me too at snausages), always bring out the comments from people who declare they never heard of X, so why is X in their puzzle??? Harrumph!
To which I say, it's there for you to learn of the existence of something new? Or old? I don't know things across a broad range of topics, but sometimes (as OFL notes), I learn about them through crosswords. For me that's part of the fun. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Side note, I don't have to be interested in or enjoy all sorts of things to know that they exist! Didn't see that movie or show, don't play that video game, have never seen that actor, never listened to one of that musical artist's songs... but I have heard of their existence. And generally, that's good enough for crosswords.
I knew about CHARLI XCX because at one point during the last presidential campaign she declared that Kamala Harris was "Brat!" and Harris laid claim to it (didn't help her much, sadly). So I knew about her, but not enough to remember those last 3 letters. Then in a memory failure, I thought it couldn't be OSX because I was thinking OS/2 was actually OSX, so IBM would have owned that name. I finally cheated a bit to finish.
OTOH, my early morning run through my favorite comic strips on UComics had included "Raising Duncan," where the guy shouted "J'ACCUSE" at his dog, so I got that one from the J.
Aside from Charli, this was a great puzzle -- lots of things I didn't know at first (SNAUSAGES, ANECDATA, BRAIN DUMP) but all of which could be deduced from some crosses. And I really should have known that singer. Listening to Brat on Spotify right now.
You should’ve stopped before J’ACCUSE which is a gimme. Historically famous. Not knowing that is definitely a you problem.
Easy? Not so much, and the northwest corner was downright painful. JACCUSE, MIIS, OSX - three terms I never heard of crossing two people I never heard of. Plus I needed crosses for UNSET as clued. I always thought the jeweler term for an unfixed stone was “loose.”
SNAUSAGES may have cute commercials, but they also contain propylene glycol, a common preservative used in certain semi-moist treats and foods. While it’s considered safe in small quantities, too much of it can make a dog violently ill.
Got all of the puzzle fairly easily except for the NW. There, JACCUSE / CHARLIXCX / MIIS did me in. I should have gotten UNSET, which would have given me JACCUSE, but I wouldn't have gotten the others. Oh well.
Yes, I agree it was easy. But it was only easy if you've heard of the right things. CHARLI XCX I am aware of, through lots of exposure on the XM dial when my kids were around the tweenage years, and also I saw her recently on SNL. And we did a certain amount of creating MIIS when my kids were younger. And I know Max BAER through his son who played Jethro on The Beverly Hillbillies. And I know VOLARE because during the ad breaks on Fantasy Island, Ricardo Montalban would sing praises to the Chrysler VOLARE, with its rich Corinthian leather. Etc. That I went at a decent clip ("whoosh" would be a slight exaggeration) is due only to my being a certain age, and having kids at a certain age, and so on. I imagine it could be annoying being an octogenerian solver without such a confluence of life events and conditions, and then being told repeatedly how easy the thing was.
I'm also aware of Lana Del Rey, but I didn't know she sang a great deal about BACARDI. I always thought of Bacardi as a standard, mid-priced, and not particularly distinguished brand of rum, so why are all the rappers rapping about sipping Bacardi? Oh, I guess it's for its rhyming potential, not so much for its prestige?
One question I will carefully make sure not to ask Rex, i.e., Michael Sharp, if I should ever happen to meet him, is "Hey, you know that song 'Radioactive'?" I want to assure him, "just kidding", but actually I'm not.
Boxing choreography has come a long way since The Harder They Fall. Twice I was told that scene was brutal, once by RP, once by YouTube. I'm afraid that for me, it was unintentionally funny. Sorry. BAER's rival looked old and out of shape, and still somehow beat the snot out of that much larger man, the human punching bag. "Here, let me provide an unobstructed path to my face. It'd be my pleasure."
Okay, that's it for now. Happy Friday, everyone!
Like a lot of us, I'm guessing, myself included!
CHARLIXCX x OSX = DNF.
A true sign of how puzzles which are heavy on names/trivia can play differently for different folks. Pretty much had all this info, Zola/contemporary music stars, up in the noggin so dropped jaccuse in and pretty much didn’t pause from there. Played like a Tuesday/Wednesday here.
Agree, and having it cross MIIS was a real Natick.
Thought ANECDATA and SNAUSAGES were pure fun, tho the latter little less so after hearing from whatsername. SUPERMAN and MENOPAUSE were also a great pair, and drinks everywhere. Prefer whiskies, neat or otherwise, to saki and rum, but all good. Was sure any rum in a Hemingway novel would have to be Barbancourt but nevermind, guess BACARDI will do. Wonder if Cardi B sips that. SEXIER and SECRECY, another nice pair, gave away CHARLIXCX. I never have a Friday that went whoosh, but this one did. Happy being entertained rather than frustrated.
For some reason, Rex's discussion of why BAER may have disappeared from recent grids had me considering the knowledge base of today's younger solvers compared to my experience. When I was born, TVs were only about 10 years old so learning the historical figures on TV or the shows, I didn't have much to catch up on. Compare that to today where TV has been around for over 70 years - that's a lot of content to try to keep track of. I didn't watch much commercial TV in the 80's so I luckily missed the SNAUSAGES commercial, oof. On the other hand, I always think of Jethro on the Beverly Hillbillies when I see Max Baer's name since Jethro was played by Max Baer Jr.
This was an easy Friday, with J'ACCUSE going in first and branching out from there. I had a few missteps - SCAb before SCAR because the clue implied the healing was ongoing whereas scars seem to indicate the healing has reached its peak. And my 27A mental image was briefly Esp. All fixable.
Knowing RITA ORA and CHARLI XCX helped quite a bit. For some reason, the clue for 9A brought to mind espionage rather than WICCA, but crosses cleared that up. Is spying ever referred to as "The Craft" or am I making that up?
I like most portmanteaux - they're usually clever and I always wish my brain worked that way, to think such things up.
Nice Friday, thanks Karen Steinberg!
We’re on exactly the same wavelength today.
And Nancy hasn’t even commented yet…love you Nancy, I just know this isn’t your puzzle;)
How Emile Zola relaxed: J'ACCUSi.
I had some wine the other day that was a Grand Cru, but it was so bad that I think they should RECRUIT. OTOH, I had some RICEWINE recently that was so delicious, I drank 12 bottles. BESTCASE I ever had. I should stop drinking, but every time I try, a BEERDARTS right out in front of me.
The Women's, Children's and Infants nutrition program in California is WICCA.
The guys led by Speaker Mike Johnson who have put Congress on hold to avoid an Epstein files release are the MENO'PAUSE.
@Barabara. I always like your comments, but today you had a great combo of funny and interesting. Wish you were here more.
I was JEST crazy about this puzzle in much the same way that @Rex was. Thanks, Karen Steinberg.
Seems everyone but me got JEST immediately. I got “blog” immediately and you can guess what kind of trouble that caused! That and a lot of PPP throughout the puzzle kept me from any danger of over-whooshing, but otherwise there was much to enjoy. VOLARE is in itself a kind of happy music.
What do you call it when you have a technical DNF, hit check puzzle, then immediately know the correct answers you should have put in the first time?
My America was a ConT.inent and CHARLIeCX was my misspelling even knowing who she was. I knew JACCUSE, but not where it came from.
I love BRAINDUMP. My wife sometimes recites a “here iseverydetailofmyworkdayDUMP”. I consider it my service to half listen politely, then she’ll throw in some question or something that I actually need to know.
I hadn’t heard ANECDATA, but it was discernible. What an apt word! Perfect shorthand for the number of people that make broad sweeping generalizations based on their limited experience.
Exactly!
@Barbara, a hearty second for appreciating the art lesson.
I guess BEERDARTS wasn’t dangerous enough, so bars have now added drunk axe throwing - what could go wrong?
Charlixcx should be used only with discernible crosses. Miis and Osx do not qualify. I had no shot.
Times Home Delivery sent me the Wall Street Journal today. I've ordered a re-delivery of the NYT and I hope I'll eventually get to do the puzzle. Meanwhile, I did the WSJ puzzle, which was by Mike Shenk himself, and it was a snoozer.
I prefer themeless puzzles so Friday is my day & this one whooshed for me. I will admit that I have to remember CHARLIE XCX since, as Rex said, she's bound to show up again (& again & ...)
I never heard of BRAIN DUMP but it makes perfect sense. And the only Max BAER I know is the one that I watched on the Beverly Hillbillies as a kid. A fun Friday, Karen, thank you :)
(And my dog, Cinnamon, thanks you for the SNAUSAGES, if she were still here. RIP my baby) 💔🌈
Much too easy for a Friday. But mostly fun. Maybe a wheelhouse thing … I don’t know. But there were still some nits I’d like to pick. (Of course.)
How could anyone mistake moss for algae? One is a plant, the other definitely not. Granted, they are both usually green and can often be found on tree trunks or rocks in wet climates but still, it’s like confusing croquet with polo. Sure mallets and balls, right, but look at all the differences. That’s how we tell things apart.
I’m not going to say too much about 3D SNAUSAGES. I can’t feed my little friend the big brand, industrially produced and packaged dog foods and treats because, frankly, I hate cleaning up dog puke (and worse) off the kitchen floor. So I’ve never seen SNAUSAGES. Interesting name, though.
Never heard of BEER DARTS (wanted BEER pong at first - are ping pong balls projectiles?) but it’s a drinking game and probably involves young “adults” on their best behaviour and so BEER is likely involved.
I have to assume that BENS reference Mr. Franklin. Does anyone actually say, “I’ve got a wallet full of BENS?” I thought not. And, oh how I wrung my hands over the great SCAR/SCAb dilemma, even though SCAb is the better answer as clued.
On the upside … I loved 47A BRAIN DUMP and 46A ANECDATA, both new to me.
Probably would have been better placed on a Wednesday.
Surprised there wasn’tany comment on “beer darts”. I’m pretty sure that’s just darts. The beer is generally assumed to be part of the equation.
Missed the fun of this puzzle by misreading clue 14A historian and journalist stopped there did not see Applebaum, how dumb
You've never heard of wiccans?
Everything went swimmingly except for the music and sports people and operating system and avatars and correctly spelling French etc. I did not have the right life experiences to solve the top of this puzzle successfully.
(Thanks @tht)
I'm also unfamiliar with SNOCAPS and fell for the CAPT America misdirect. WICCA, VOLARE, MENOPAUSE , BRAINDUMP get thumbs up.
Kudos to you Rex for your comment about MENOPAUSE.
I guess the answers I got easily were easy and the ones I couldn’t weren’t.
Her name was everywhere last year, including as part of the Kamala Harris campaign and a feud with Taylor Swift who I *hope* you've heard of. But I recall you not knowing what Magic 8 Balls were, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I love the "I've never heard of this" -> "It's been a pop culture staple since the '90s" -> "Why am I expected to know a 30-year-old reference?" dance. Thinking of Simpsons references or turn-of-the-century rap artists, specifically.
Nah. The rich Corinthian leather bit was to hawk the Chrysler Cordoba. Corinthian leather is of course imaginary, the product of an adman’s imagination to accentuate the faux sophistication of a model named after a town in Spain.
5:14 for me. Friday record. Of course, when J'accuse, CharliXCX, Mii, and OSX are all automatic write-ins, that helps.
Me three. Time to move to NYT for seniors. (Grump sigh.)
Easy except for the NE which took a bit of staring. No idea about “The Craft”, I had WATER but blanked on ICE, WEB EDITOR was also a WOE…fortunately, I finally remembered ECHOS which got me to the finish.
I also never heard of BEER DARTS and wondered why pong wouldn’t fit.
Costly erasure - peTBED before CAT.
I did know CHARLI and RITA.
Not much junk, more than a bit of sparkle, liked it.
I do the puzzle to learn about what's new (to me) in the culture. Today I learned CHARLIXCX, ANECDATA, SNAUSAGE, and BRAINDUMP. Good crop.
for whatever reason I am familiar with Yoni Appelbaum but not ANNE Applebaum so the NW corner took me a long time to untangle since I knew I had CHARLIXCX right (as someone who dislikes her I'm selfishly pleased to see so many people struggling with that answer lol). I even googled to ensure that Yoni was a historian and journalist, which he is 😅 (he doesn't have a Pulitzer though). Eventually I noticed the spelling difference.
CHARLIXCX? MIIS? OSX? ECHOS (as clued)? RITAORA? NUT (as clued)? SNAUSAGE? And this mishmosh of names, brand names, and nonsensical abbreviations is considered "easy"??
Got one across right away, but could not ,for the life of me ,remember the silly commercial for the dog treats snausages until about 10 minutes into the puzzle. It was a fun one today.
I am British but had to cheat on both British singers, not the ones I used to listen to I'm afraid. Still a bit of a struggle, disheartening to see it described as easy
WICCA CHAIR!
I only know Corinthian leather from Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks.
Do watch it if you haven't
Nope. Not until today. I found a couple of articles online describing their rituals. Still not sure if they have an overriding philosophy, a central belief system similar to an organized religion, or what they are hoping to accomplish.
Same for me. Knew CharliXCX from the Brat reference in the presidential campaign. Loved the rest of the puzzle, wide breadth of the answers. No trouble with northwest thanks to Charli. File her away, cause you’re gonna see that XCX again in the future. To tempting for Constructors to not enjoy the glee of reading the rants of those not in the know!
As Rex says, get used to spelling her name. You might think she's obscure but she's not and provides some interesting letters.
I wonder too. I'm sure it's more than it used to be, but that's a low bar. I happily clocked this was a woman constructor as well! Most days, I play an awful little game in my head where I guess if the NYT constructor is a man or a woman based on cluing and answers. Sadly, I can guess pretty quicky and I'm rarely wrong.
This 68-worder rodeo had lotsa neat stuff -- and many a no-know, at our house. M&A entry point: ISEE/OSX. Then I moved on, to the right edge's ASSES, where all the esses are more likely to dwell [yo, @Anoa Bob dude].
staff weeject pick: XCX. Much fresher stuff than OSX [or any of the other 5 weejects]. XCX will be most suitable, for future runtpuzs.
fave stuff included: SUPERMAN. BRAINDUMP. BESTCASE. SNAUSAGES [debut word in the NYTPuz and in the M&A brainpan]. Learnin about CHARLI XCX. Clues for BENS, CAPT, and ICEWATER. The always-lovely Jaws of Themelessness.
Thanx for the themer-less fun, Ms. Steinberg darlin. Good job. Seed entry = CHARLIXCX?
Masked & Anonymo8Us
... the followin ain't Halloween-oriented, but it still might be kinda scary ...
"Desperate 2-Word Square #2" - 7x7 15 min. double-desperate:
**gruntz**
M&A
For Anonymous 10:52: Yes, I've heard of Taylor Swift. And I follow politics closely...but I don't recall Charli-whatzername in any political context (or any other context). My point in registering the complaint was this: If you don't know her, then the puzzle is virtually impossible, because nobody ever had a name that started with "Char..." and ended with "...xcx." Any cross involving "xcx" would seem ridiculous.
ICEWATER, RICEWINE, or BACARDI? Me: Yes. Add BEERDARTS and beer NUTs, and it's a party.
I see that Karen Steinberg is the mother of David (my overall favorite constructor). Had fun with this one - a nice smorgasbord of answers. Thanks!
Finished quickly for a Friday, just a bit over 20 minutes, but DNF w/pop culture refs @ CHAnsIXCX crossing TEnSER & sET, both seemed reasonable guesses (and, Chan Six CX? why not?) *AND* RITAORo crossing ANECDoTA, though in hindsight -DATA suffix meets the portmanteau part of the clue, while -DOTA doesn't. I suck at trivia, I know this about myself, the more popular the culture refs, or more into the weeds about anything sports related, the less likely I am to know it. I do remember the BRAT thing happening, but I never bothered to find out what it was about. Didn't even try to track down my mistakes, just hit the Check Puzzle button.
@Barbara S I loved your entire posting, especially the 2nd paragraph and the quote and discussion of The Magnetic Fields.
Not sure my first reply came through. In case it didn't, let me just say (again) that I loved your entire posting, especially the 2nd paragraph and the quote from and discussion of The Magnetic Fields.
Liars gonna lie
I thought the same thing, and had a similar experience. Everything I didn't know for sure, I had at least encountered in a puzzle before, and that allowed me to zip right through this. My fastest puzzle since Tuesday.
The Steinbergs! First family of crossword authors. Genetics.
I'm not a Wiccan but I believe they are a response to the the patriarchal nature of most religions oppressing women. Think Salem witch trials and turning witch into a positive, healing, knowledgeable concept
That's not what she calls herself, it is her stage name. The fact that she is British is mostly irrelevant, that fact that her last album was a huge pop sensation (3.5 million albums sold, 2 billion streams on Spotify) is more relevant.
Inexplicable to me that Rex Parker is so habitually cranky and anhedonic but then cites as his favorite part of this puzzle an inexcusable natick that reduces you to glumly plugging in random letters or just saying screw it and hitting “reveal square” if you still care enough to finish it.
@Barbara S, interesting info about a historical type of brain dump. I always look forward to your comments.
Only in Boston,
The internet says "Beer Darts involves two players or teams standing about 10 feet apart, each with a beer can stabilized between their feet, taking turns to throw darts at their opponent's can." Wear steel toed boots
I'm surprised so many people found this difficult. I guess I was a bit lucky, in that I have certainly seen the name CHARLIXCX although I couldn't hum one of her songs to save my life. Almost all the names and terms (WICCA VOLARE JACCUSE OSX etc) were somewhat familiar.
Typeover: WEBMASTER before WEB EDITOR which I have never heard. I used to be a web programmer, and I also managed online content as well as designing instant price quote pages and stuff.
@Egs, Thanks again for the laughs
Liked ANECDATA. Did not like SNAUSAGES - is that really a product?
Was glad to see how many, like me, were foiled, frustrated, etc by the Charlixcx crossing miis and osx. ( And gratified to see two posts from England who had never heard of her)
I loved seeing MENOPAUSE and I also appreciated Rex's comment about it.
@Anon 10:56 AM I stand corrected! Somehow or other my mind melded the Plymouth VOLARE with the Chrysler Cordoba. I think maybe the two had a similar audience in mind. And yes, "rich Corinthian leather" is of course hilarious and highly memeable, and highly memorable.
@Hack: Thanks for the tip!
RE Max Baer, Flann O'Brien (who, if you haven't read you should) had a column where a cheese magnate went to see Max Baer in a fight and bet heavily on him. Close to the ring, the aforesaid cheese magnate cheered Baer on, saying "Cam am, Baer, Cam am, Baer."
Well, no. Chrysler was a luxury brand, hence the make believe luxurious Corinthian leather. Plymouth was a down market segment.
Interesting! I’ve always thought of BRAIN DUMP as a form of therapy.
Very enjoyable crossword - I knew ANNE, and CHARLIXCX but spelt her with a Y. Did not know BAER. Loved the gradual emergence of WICCA.
I did not care for this puzzle. It was very straightforward with a lot of names and I do not think there was a single clue with wordplay and not a single answer that involved a phrase.
J’accusi joke is so good, thank you <3
Well said in your reply @ChrisS!
LOL! Gimme a lobstah!
This kind of crap trivia is why I quit this puzzle a couple of years ago. I got all but 3 squares, but pure pain, no fun.
Exactly
Good one, @Frank Lynch. I’m a Flann O’Brien fan.
@BarbaraS - rare form today, girl! Thanks for the laughs.
Yeah, "steel toed boots" and greaves and maybe dunce caps.
Glen Laker
I disagree even though t had an error in the next box. The cross is not even a natick. Mii has been in the puzzle before. Of course Wii has appeared more but as Anonymous said Mii is Nintendo extending its well known brand with a play on words. Charlixcx is almost as famous as Swift. Rex’s definition ( in case you didn’t know Rex invented the word)of a natick is two obscure ( for most solvers) names crossing at an uninferable letter. Just because I didn’t know how to spell her full name, and never use Apple computers so dnf at the first x - I guessed e, which does not a natick make . She is just too well known. And OSX and Mii are not all that obscure
Putting it another way, the fact I knew neither word in my DNF cross is irrelevant because Rex uses an objective standard.
Anonymous 9:49 AM
My dnf was the next box over. Never used Apple and knew of her but not the correct spelling. Agree errors like this remind me I am old. I don’t think I will forget it the next time!
CDilly52
And I do say lobster and wicker that way, ending in a schwa sound. I am from Rhode Island.
Anonymous 1:42 pm
Before criticizing Rex maybe you should read Rex’s definition of the word natick. Rex invented the word after all The cross doesn’t meet Rex’s definition. It is impossible for an end of week crossword not to have crosses where some solvers won’t know either proper noun But that singer can’t be part of a natick. She is way too well known. I say this even though I dnf’d because of the spelling of her name.
OldCarFudd
Don’t see your point. Musk’s kids’ names are vastly less known than that singer.
Barbara S.
Andre Breton was trapped in Vichy France under threat of arrest. He sought refuge in a villa outside Marseille. While there, awaiting his chance to escape, he had everyone in the villa ( who were also waiting their chance to escape) play his game Exquisite Corpse which involved people picking phrases written on pieces of paper from a container with the resulting nonsense and interesting juxtapositions. He was a fascinating person, difficult to get along with, but highly principled. Everyone in the villa was under huge emotional pressure, including him, but the game was an intellectual pursuit, he wasn’t going to give up on intellectual pursuits. As a student of French over fifty years ago ,I wasn’t particularly impressed with him, but reading about this period in his life changed my opinion.
Surprised by how few comments about menopause there are. That seems like a major coming out of the closet to me. Liberate the whole getting your period, am I, aren't I pregnant, pads, tampons, birth control drama that women go through for years!! And then menopause and whoosh, it's over!
I liked the puzzle but was of those who was screwed up by Charli in my case the cross with OSX - never had an Apple computer. Even though I dnf’d I thought the cross was fair. Someone guessed that Nancy would not like this puzzle and a name like that and Snausage make me agree. BTW I hate the look of Snausage.
If you know the spelling of Charli’s stage name, this is an easy puzzle. But if you don’t, not so easy!
J’accuse caused some complaints. Surprised. I mean I am not criticizing people who never heard of it or couldn’t remember; but at least find out what it’s about before you complain.
Ii think I will remember Charlj’s full name the next time.
Max BAER was a boxer? He will always be Jethro Bodine of the Beverly Hillbillies to me, yet no mention of that here?
CHARLIXCX??? OSX??? MIIS??? All crossing each other???
I got everything in this puzzle that was gettable and fair. As to what I didn't get, as to what I could have stared at until the cows came home and still not gotten, sorry, Karen, and sorry, blog. I'm calling this a "Solve!" Don't anyone try and stop me.
Max Baer *Junior* was the actor, as alluded to in the post. This clue references Senior
The line stuck in your head is likely from ‘In da Club’ by 50 Cent, a rapper whose cadence is extremely memorable and sticky; even if you’re not a fan it rises above the noise when you hear it in a CVS or on the radio
¡Detengan las prensas!
Laughable Friday offering and 🦖 turning on his "King of the Nerd's Table" swagger. Heelarious.
This a Tuesday puzzle with a thicket of names and products to ramp up the difficulty. It's exactly how NOT to write a good puzzle -- unless you're writing for the NYTXW and they love this sadness.
There's plenty to like here assuming it's Tuesday and assuming it's not in the northwest corner of this puzzle. ANNE is one of hundreds (maybe thousands?) of pulitzer winners. They give 'em out like they're Tony awards. I think I have one in my garage. I'd never heard of CHARLI and after listening to a few of her tunes on YouTube, I think there's a solid reason to keep it that way. Never encountered J'accuse before so that was alphabet soup. I just studied up on it and turns out it's a newspaper editorial. Hard to keep track of all of those. SNAUSAGES is a super fun entry, but in the knot of proper nouns in that one corner things became nearly hopeless.
JEST was one of my last entries because I'd gotten HASTE into my brain and it blocked out all other thoughts on the subject. DOG BED vs. CAT BED ... how can you know?
I'm not sure who is confusing MOSS and algae, as one is on rocks and the other on water, but maybe the Venn diagram is more robust than I know. Calling WICCA "the Craft" is a little like calling hamburgers "McDonald's," or Christianity "Bible thumpers," but close enough for crosswords.
Love 1934 boxing trivia. That's how you know it's a great Friday. 😵💫 Toss on an ISAO and you're cooking with oil.
Somebody commented above that Amazon Echo speakers aren't that smart and that made me laugh. We're not to the point where we think smart actually means smart are we?
In the just plain ugly department: UNSET. ANECDATA. [Bills worth 100 buckaroos]. CAPT. TERSER.
❤️ [Fun size]. BRAIN DUMP. LUNAR MONTH. MENOPAUSE.
People: 5
Places: 2
Products: 11 (just stop it)
Partials: 2
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 23 of 68 (34%)
Funny Factor: 3 😐
Tee-Hee: SEXIER ASSES.
Uniclues:
1 Yell at the noob.
2 When mom decides she's not doing everything anymore and hands out the list.
3 When the man in the moon gives you a piece of his cheese.
4 Runs a pickup truck through the back yard.
5 The hot (flash) seat.
6 Kal-El from Romania.
1 SCAR RECRUIT
2 DEBUTS CHORES
3 LUNAR BRAIN DUMP
4 CRUSHES VINE
5 MENOPAUSE CHAIR (~)
6 COUNT SUPERMAN
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Meeting of anachronists. PERIOD DRAMA-CON.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I enjoy your snark, but your positive writing is even more fun. Nice post
Ditto
Max BAER sr was also an actor
Same! But there has definitely been an uptick in the ladies column!!
“Rice wine” is incorrect? Sake, (fermented from Rice, a grain) is classified as a non-carbonated beer. Only if it was fermented from a fruit would it be a wine
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