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First Eurodance hit in the U.S. / SUN 11-30-25 / Gay rights activist Marsha P. Johnson, for one / Noodling in a jazz tune / Anti-mob law acronym / John who painted “Backyards, Greenwich Village" / Mantou or bao, in Chinese cuisine / Noodling in a jazz tune / Diamonds can sometimes be found in them / 2022 sequel to "Knives Out" / Former Portuguese colony on the Malabar Coast / Historical Dutch settler / Ancient drinker of the fermented beverage chicha / 1999 Ron Howard film about a reality show
Sunday, November 30, 2025
Constructor: Natan Last
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers ("pearls" are in BLUE, "swine" are in PINK):
- "PUMP UP THE JAM" / PORKY (12D: First Eurodance hit in the U.S. (1989) / 83D: "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!" speaker)
- GLASS ONION / HAMM (28D: 2022 sequel to "Knives Out" / 91D: Pink character in the "Toy Story" movies)
- PASS THE BUCK / WILBUR (6D: Skirt responsibility / 77D: Literary runt of the litter)
- SAFE HARBOR / BABE (31D: Refuge / 94D: Farmer Hoggett's entrant in a sheepherding contest)
Paramore is an American rock band formed in Franklin, Tennessee, in 2004. Since 2017, the band's lineup includes lead vocalist Hayley Williams, lead guitarist Taylor York, and drummer Zac Farro. Williams and Farro are founding members of the group, while York, a high school friend of the original lineup, joined in 2007. [...] The band's second album, Riot! (2007) became a mainstream success thanks to the success of the singles "Misery Business", "Crushcrushcrush", and "That's What You Get". The album was certified Platinum in the US and the band received a Best New Artist nomination at the 2008 Grammy Awards. Their 2009 follow-up, Brand New Eyes, reached number two on the Billboard 200 and became the band's second-highest-charting album to date. It produced the top-forty single "The Only Exception" and went platinum in Ireland and the UK. // Following the departure of Zac and Josh Farro in 2010, the band released their self-titled fourth album in 2013. Paramore gave the band their first number one album on the US Billboard 200 and was also the number one album in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. It included the singles "Still Into You" and "Ain't It Fun", with the latter winning the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song for Williams and York as songwriters, making it Paramore's first Grammy win.
• • •
First things first. Today's constructor, Natan Last, has a brand new book out about—you guessed it—the mating habits of the white-breasted cormorant. JK, it's about the history of the crossword puzzle! It's called Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle. I've read it and I love it and you should buy it. But don't just take my word for it ... actually, you should just take my word for it, but if somehow that's not enough, read a review. Like this one in the L.A. Times. It really is a wonderful tour through this world, our world, CrossWorld. Lots of familiar names, lots of charming anecdotes. Nice timing on this puzzle, Natan. Promotional synergy! Sell those books! (if I sound cynical, I'm not—it really is a good book that deserves to be read). Now on to the puzzle!
***
The puzzle stands out physically as well, as it has an absolutely bonkers grid layout. Is it supposed to resemble a pig's face? Again, I think if you call the lawyers in, they could argue at least semi-convincingly that I'm supposed to see a pig's face. That highly unusual middle section, with its colonnade of 11s drilling 7 rows down into a black void from which there is no escape, has something vaguely snouty about it. And the upside-down black "L"s at the top are kind of ear-y. I could be convinced, is all I'm saying.
I didn't always love the fill. AN APPLE A DAY is creative, but a bit sad on its own. Partial adages, are we doing that now? Also, AN APPLE A DAY keeps the doctor away, which seems like a far more MODEST claim than "cure-all." Apples are good for you, they are part of a healthy diet, but they don't, as yet, make you immortal. How have I been a baseball fan for nigh on a half century and never heard the term LOUD OUTS (4D: Baseballs that are hard-hit but then caught, in lingo)? It's possible (probable?) that I have heard it and just didn't process what I was hearing, or that I have not heard it nearly enough for it to register as a familiar baseball phrase. I could've inferred the meaning from the phrase itself, but I needed a bunch of crosses to get it in there today.
There are two long song titles that are likely to throw older solvers (or, in the case of "PUMP UP THE JAM," possibly younger solvers as well)—one of them threw me. I am very much in the demo for "PUMP UP THE JAM" and very much not in the demo for Paramore, a band whose name I hear way more often than I ever hear their music. If a band blew up between the year I finished my dissertation (1999) and the first Obama administration, there is a good chance I missed the boat entirely. Job / marriage / daughter / dogs / crossword blog / etc. had me far far less focused on pop culture than I had been in my teens and 20s. The '00s is also my biggest blind spot movie-wise. Paramore becomes popular at the tail end of this pop culture blackout period for me, but despite paying reasonably close attention to contemporary music in the intervening years, I still know only their name, not a one of their songs. But they are absolutely massive for a certain section of Millennials in particular, so they're certainly crossworthy. Still, it's weird that one of their song titles made it into the grid before they did. PARAMORE seems like it would be pretty useful as 8-letter answers go—so many common letters. And yet, to date, nothing. Except "AIN'T IT FUN." It did win a Grammy. But it's decidedly less famous than most songs you're apt to see in a puzzle.
If there are rough patches in the grid here and there, I think most of them are probably side effects of a structurally demanding grid. EDTV LORI "PUMP UP THE JAM" BACON (!) HANS is quite a name wad to choke down, esp. since it's conceivable that a solver wouldn't know any of the first three of those names. No one calls stadiums STADIA, so cluing it as if it were part of ordinary baseball usage feels ridiculous (20D: Diamonds can sometimes be found in them). Staying over there for a second (with our crossword friends ARAL and SIA), what is a John SLOAN!? (26D: John who painted 'Backyards, Greenwich Village"). Besides an answer designed to make me feel like an uncultured BOER (I mean "boor" ... possibly "bore")? Aha, the Ashcan school, yes [nods sagely] I've heard of that (I have heard of it, but like many things I've heard of—say, Paramore—know almost nothing about it). Here's the painting in question:
Bullets:
OK, that's all. Now go buy Natan's book, or order it as a holiday gift for the aspiring cruciverbalist in your life. It's very good, and not just 'cause I'm (very briefly) in it.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
- 81A: Lethargy (SOPOR) — pfffffffft OK I associate SOPOR (when I'm forced to think about it at all, which is only when I'm solving crosswords) with "sleep." If something's "SOPORific," it is sleep-inducing. Every definition of SOPOR I'm seeing has the word "sleep" in it. "Lethargy," on the other hand, I associate with SOPOR's cousin, TORPOR, which literally means "lethargy."
- 21A: Actress Zosia ___ of "Girls" (MAMET) — briefly but strongly wanted this answer to be RONAN. But that's not Zosia. That Saoirse. Zosia is a different actress entirely. Daughter of the playwright MAMET.
- 52A: College voter? (ELECTOR) — as in "the Electoral College."
- 74A: Mantou or bao, in Chinese cuisine (BUN) — "bao" is very familiar to me. "Mantou," that's new. Steamed BUN, no filling, popular in northern China.
- 100A: Noodling in a jazz tune (VAMPING) — not sure why "noodling" seems far too informal a substitute for VAMPING, but it does. Yes—here we go. From good ol' M-W herself (yeah, the dictionary's a "she," no, I will not be accepting questions): ": to improvise on an instrument in an informal or desultory manner." It's the "in an informal or desultory manner" part that makes it inapt to my ear.
- 28D: 2022 sequel to "Knives Out" (GLASS ONION) — going to see the sequel to this sequel today, up in Ithaca. Very excited. I could wait two weeks for it to come out on Netflix, but screw that. Big screen, baby!
- 54D: Anti-mob law acronym (RICO) — LOL I always thought it was named for some guy named RICO. But no, the RICO of "RICO Act" stands for "Racketeer Influenced (?) and Corrupt Organizations." Is "Racketeer Influenced" a compound adjective? If so, shouldn't it be hyphenated? So awkward, no wonder they just say "RICO."
- 78D: L'___ du Nord" (Minnesota motto) (ÉTOILE) — started rereading Simenon's first Maigret mystery, Pietr-le-Letton (Pietr the Latvian) yesterday (en français), and the whole first part of the story involves tracking the movement of a trans-European train called ... L'ÉTOILE-du-Nord!
OK, that's all. Now go buy Natan's book, or order it as a holiday gift for the aspiring cruciverbalist in your life. It's very good, and not just 'cause I'm (very briefly) in it.
P. S. this Tuesday, Dec. 2, Eli Selzer (who fills in for me here on the blog occasionally) will be on Jeopardy! Tune in to see how it goes!
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113 comments:
Easy, except for the SW, which I found very Challenging, in large part due to my overconfidence in two bad guesses: SAfER for "More prudent" at 88D and ANtsY for "About to explode" at 89D. In addition, I'd never having heard of an AB TONER (104A) belt and I wasn't able to make the connection between "Noodling" and VAMPING (104A).
Got me thinking about Miss Piggy, whose signature accessory is a pearl necklace.
Got the theme. Enjoyed the theme. Tried to see the Pig in the grid... not so sure. But way, WAY, *WAY* too much PPP (+crosses). I'm usually one of the more positive people about any puzzle, but the PPP made this puzzle more of a slog than usual.
I think Rex was swayed by Natan Last's book, which of course now I'll have to read.
Pretty fun Sunday. Almost DNF'd in the SW corner but multiple guesses all worked (HAMM, SCRIM, OHARA, RARITAN, SOPOR). In a puzzle with six WoEs, all but one were in that little section.
Not sure why this wasn’t rotated 90 degrees to make the pearls more obviously ‘before’ the swine.
The NAUTILUS has fifty or more tentacles. I always wonder how you would control so many appendages. Imagine typing with your hands while playing piano with your toes. That only gets you to twenty.
Boo TARIFFS. Hurray ODEs.
Many of the cultural references were after my time so it took me a bit longer then usual. Some nice cluing. I don't see the face though I guess those are ears...
Dorothy Parker was at a formal event. Clare Boothe Luce held the door open for her saying "Age before beauty" to which Dottie replied, not missing a beat, " Pearls before swine".
And my preorder of Natan's book arrived yesterday. Can't wait .
Whenever I think of pigs, I imagine them with the contented smiles that often show up on their faces, and my whole being calms and feels happy.
That warm fuzzy feeling also accompanied my solve. There were sticky areas that I couldn’t crack, but I somehow knew I eventually would. Throughout the fill-in I felt engaged and interested, never frustrated. It’s actually my favorite part of this puzzle – how I felt while solving it.
There’s an art to creating that sweet spot.
That’s on top of the science. Look at how tight this theme is, due to the PEARL element. Aside from “barley”, “Bailey”, and “diver”, what other possibilities are there for the circled words? Despite this, Natan found theme answers to fit symmetry, all the while fitting them in a sorta image of a pig made out of the black squares. Wow!
Anyway, this puzzle was made by a pro. Natan, I loved this – thank you!
Fine work from Natan Last, as always. I really enjoy his work and look forward to reading the book. That said, I don’t get the point of the weird grid art. Like Rex, I struggled to see a pig’s face, or in fact anything, with no success. But I can’t think of any other explanation for that “absolutely bonkers grid layout,” which pumped up, not the JAM, but the amount of short fill. Thankfully, the longer stuff was so good that it all pretty much balanced out. But that grid design was an unforced error. (Hey, that’s a sports term, isn’t it? From a guy with so little sports knowledge that I assumed LOUDOUTS must be familiar to everyone but me.)
Rex, your pop-culture intermission in the ‘00s is like my (non)memory of the ‘90s. I suspect a lot of people have a pop-culture gap corresponding to those job-marriage-kids years. Someday I should put together a 1990s film festival and find out what I missed.
BTW, speaking of pearls before swine, the former showed up on earth about half a billion years prior to the latter.
I assumed Pearl Harbor referred to the actual location in Hawaii, not a movie. My husband's only uncle was killed there when it was bombed.
I don’t share Rex’s enthusiasm for this one. I tried to groke the theme, but no luck - which is a shame because in retrospect it’s actually pretty tight. It also seems like the plague of proper names continues, with actors and actresses, bands, essayists, artists, playwrights, even TRANS ICONs fairly represented.
Probably a missed opportunity for me, theme-wise, in conjunction with being done in yet again by the wheelhouse effect and my lack of expertise regarding popular culture.
If it were rotated the pig's face in the design would be sideways. I see nothing wrong with the use of before here. Should have finished much more quickly but cANit for mANup really messed me up. Only realized when I thought tITBOSS was an unlikely answer. Way too many names but agree with Rex, THATLLDO in a puzzle featuring pigs was an act of genius.
"AIN'T IT FUN" is one of my five favorite songs, period; seeing it in the puzzle made me irrationally happy. And as a huge Philomena Cunk fan, "PUMP UP THE JAM" also sent some good chemicals to my brain. Just for those two songs, Natan gets an A+ in my mind.
And FWIW, as a guy who works in sports, I got HARD OUTS from just the first U, but my experience isn't that of most others.
I finished this puzzle quickly and easily and never even saw the theme. I saw four pig-related answers on the bottom but there was no indication they had anything to do with anything. (I learned later that their clues were italicized — they weren’t on Across Lite.) I couldn’t figure out the theme for ages after I “finished.” But if I didn’t figure out the theme, did I really “finish”? Is it my fault or the puzzle’s? I want to blame Across Lite but it’s still my favorite solving medium.
Rex clearly didn’t watch Mad Men!
I like that each day Rex lists and describes the theme, the theme answers, and the word of the day before his puzzle critique.
Or are these above his puzzle critique?
Now I am confused.
Another Sunday full of cheats. I'm going to stick to the other six days from now on, I think. I knew Porky was a pig, but didn't know WILBUR or BABE, so the theme was an abstraction. I've also never heard of a Eurodance.
It seems I have spent the last 70 years of my life with a different concept of the word "idiom" than much of the rest of the world. I though "casting pearls before swine" was a metaphor rather than an idiom because it's a very understandable phrase. You toss pearls on the ground in front of pigs, and of course they are not at all impressed. I though idioms had to be things like "piece of cake" that don't really make sense - eating (or having in front of you) a piece of cake doesn't really imply an easy task. Or, even better, pulling someone's leg - that doesn't at all directly imply you're trying to get them to believe some piece of nonsense.
But, Googling some idioms, I see things the definition of idiom is way broader than I thought, including what I would just call metaphors like "hit the nail on the head" (a very effective approach to the task of getting the nail into the wood), "cost an arm and a leg" (a really, really high price to pay for some adventure), "cry over spilled milk" (yep, that's pointless, the milk is useless now), and "burn the midnight oil (duh, doesn't anyone know that there was a time before electricity when that's what you had to do to complete a task that took a really long time).
Villager
Hey All !
Puz today is 21x19. What happened to those last two rows? That takes a big chunk of puzzle away. 21x21 nets 441 Squares. Todays nets 399. That's nearly 10% less. I guess the TARIFFS are really affecting everything ...
Neat puz. Thought after getting PORKY that the three letter circled area above it would be PIG. That was before getting the Revealer. Was wondering what kind of Eurodance PUMP UP THE PIG was. Sounds salacious.
Like Rex, inferred HAMM, as that seemed like an apropos cartoon pig name. Funny having BACON one column over from PORKY, and close to HAMM.
Did Nathan put some cutesy self-referential answers in here? SO SWEET, AINT IT FUN. Har.
Uniclues: Bothering grown up exerciser - IRKSOME ADULT ABTONER
One more: "My goodness, this Kings Hawaiian is awesome!" - BUN, SO SWEET! RAD!
After getting Natan's book, get mine! A fiction book to even out Natan's non-fiction one. Changing Times by Darrin Vail. Get it wherever you get your books online! 😁
Have a great Sunday!
Five F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
In addition to being the name of a movie, I've heard that PEARL HARBOR was an actual place where some sh*t went down.
I’m sure his book is good (I’ll order for the holidays) but have to disagree with OFL about this puzzle. Cute theme but the PPPs and foreign words made it a slog and set up several Naticks for me especially in the south with NUBIA, PERES and ETOILE = brutal.
80% fun, 20% didn’t care.
The answer was LOUD OUTS
Pet peeve: the Incans shouldn’t really be called “ancient”
Darn it, you beat me to the Philomena Cunk cut-away reference. While on art, her take on Van Gogh is hilarious.
Clue wasn’t about the actor, it is the character in Toy Story, voice by the Cliff Claven actor
Forgot to mention: I’m surprised OFL didn’t get upset by “MAN UP” - I was sure he would mention it but was disappointed. Seems like something that could cause a rant.
I was excited to try this puzzle, from the title alone: if you asked me as a kid what my favorite animal was, I think I would have said "pig" without hesitation, and I still do think they're pretty wonderful (and wish they generally came in for better treatment). And the puzzle lived up to expectations admirably. Rex, ever observant as always, enhanced my appreciation even more (I agree, Rex: THAT'LL DO was a nice touch). I too am a little sad that Piglet, my favorite pig of all time, was not part of the celebration -- an omission that should be rectified one day.
Easy-Medium sounds about right. It was a pretty smooth solve.
I am going to push back against RP's opening remarks a bit, because the "above/before" business seemed like nitpicking for its own sake. If you read Down answers in the direction top-down, as one does, then it's tautological that "PEARLS" comes BEFORE "SWINE", either temporally or spatially, no lawyering required. RP seems to arrive at the same conclusion, but with a lot more resistance along the way for some reason. But now I'm nitpicking the nitpicker, so I'll get off this now.
I do agree with his criticism over VAMPING. This feels like an outright error. "Noodling" is improvisational in nature (and to me also carries a connotation of having something desultory or half-assed about it, but that's beside the point). VAMPING is decidedly not improvisational. The piano player might vamp a few bars while someone else improvises.
RARITAN brings back memories of being a grad student at Rutgers, and the friendly competition between the math department there and the Princeton math department, a marathon (or so) along the banks of the RARITAN. The word NAUTILUS also reminds me of math, as its chambers form the shape of a logarithmic spiral -- see here for instance. Or see certain works by M.C. Escher.
For better or for worse, I'm the sort that might utter STADIA if it were somehow appropriate to the topic (which would be RARe). Speaking of Latin plurals, I fear I might also be prone to use "data" as a plural form on occasion, as in a sentence that begins "The data indicate", thereby rankling one of the commenters here, to whom I would offer a quick apology if I saw his nose wrinkle in reaction. (But not an apology card.) "Sorry, you'll have to excuse me, I say these things without even thinking."
However, I would not be prone to using the word SOPOR. (Another good catch by OFL, where "torpor" is a more precise match.)
My eyes completely passed over the year 2025 (J-LO). I was trying to fit the clue in with the principals of the 1985 movie, and coming up badly short. That was a good movie. Is the 2025 movie any good? (Hm, Wikipedia says it was a box-office bomb.)
Okay, have a pleasant Sunday, y'all. Sad to see my kids depart today, but they'll be back again in a few weeks.
More complicated than typical theme, didnt click for me. Solving it more or less themelessly, the long downs we're pretty good especially in the middle. Feel the same as RP, nice puzzle but coulda been better
As for using BEFORE instead of ABOVE: maybe Natan is a downs-only guy , in which case BEFORE would equal ABOVE!?!
Voice of dissent here. I think it is possible to over-engineer a.puzzle. That’s how I found this one. I got that it had a porcine theme, and got the revealer but the structure didn’t make sense to me until I read Michael’s explanation. And if the graphic layout was intentional, it was very difficult to see. Notwithstanding, I look forward to more of Natan’s puzzles, and I would very much like to read his book. Crossword puzzles reflect their times.
That’s a valid point. Machu Picchu was still around after Billy Shakespeare finished writing all of his plays, and I don’t think we would refer to him, as an ancient playwright or author.
Here’s an apt anecdote: Clare Booth Luce and Dorothy Parker approached a doorway at the same time. Luce, motioning to Parker, said, “Age before beauty.” Parker replied, “Pearls before swing ,” as she swept across the threshold.
Oh, I missed the BACON connection -- well-spotted. But I also missed what the "Har" is about.
Did anyone else immediately get the Belgian techno-anthem PUMPUPTHEJAM because of Philomena Cunk? “
“ SOPORific” always reminds me of the play/film “Wit.” Emma Thompson gives one of her best performances in the film version. Highly recommend. Be prepared to cry.
Liked that the homonym "boer" was fit in!
I had NIR and TRANSICAN crossing RAISIN. Also SCHIM crossing HARITAN. I’ve heard of scrim and NIH, of course. After I read it I understood trans icon, but Hoisin and Raritan are new for me.
I'm really (happily) surprised that I solved this at all (as a themeless) & came here to see what was going on. A LOT I didn't know but plodded on & now I'm smiling :) And a Sunday grid with no typos! Thank you, Natan :)
A hard hit baseball that’s caught is an ATEM BALL.
Vamping in no way involves improvising/noodling. It’s just repeating an intro until the soloist is ready to start.
My immediate take on HAMM was Mia HAMM, an extremely famous soccer star—the animated piggy bank in Toy Story is a lot less famous but much more in the animal kingdom. Struggled with some of the PPP, but overall the crossings were useful. Went through lineOUTS and harDOUTS before getting to LOUDOUTS, which was a common description in game radio broadcasts back in the day. Totally missed the significance of the italicized clues as I was doing the puzzle, dummy me.Totally happy with “above” inferring “before”.
PUMP UP THE JAM helped me get rid of pep at 70A, which held up that whole section.
And why, after seeing it a dozen times in puzzles and also in real life, is RICO not a gimme?
Squint as I may, I'm not seeing the pig face in the grid art.
Thanks, Natan Last, this was neither INANE nor TRITE!
It's good that you pause to look stuff up. I wish more commenters would make a habit of that.
I often find etymologies helpful to gain a better appreciation of the sense of a word. I enjoyed reading this here: "This is from Greek idiōma "peculiarity, peculiar phraseology" (Fowler writes that "A manifestation of the peculiar" is "the closest possible translation of the Greek word"), from idioumai "to appropriate to oneself," from idios "personal, private" (as opposed to dēmosios "public); properly "particular to oneself, one's own" (as opposed to allotrios)." It never occurred to me to pair and contrast those words, referring to the private vs. the public. See also "idiosyncrasy".
(The word "idiot" is only tenuously connected with all this. You can read about the connection here.)
Perseverance allowed me to fill in most of the unfamiliar names and terms and titles, of which there were many. The theme was fun, though, and I was happy to see HAMM, BABE, PORKY, and, especially, WILBUR, in the puzzle. It's too bad Natan couldn't work "Some Pig" into the puzzle (the phrase Charlotte spins into her web in "Charlotte's Web").
It's nice to see Frank O'Hara in a puzzle. Frank O'Hara and E.B. White were friends. Everyone should read O'Hara's "Lunch Poems."
You got the Ebert quote from a recent New Yorker crossword, right?
Thought the reply was “Beauty was a horse”
May need to call in the top-tier lawyers for this, but the pig I see in the grid layout is “Pig” from Stephan Pastis’ comic strip Pearls Before Swine. Straight eyes, floppy ears, I can’t unsee it now.
https://pearlsbeforeswine.fandom.com/wiki/Pig
Played a party game to get phrases we use related to things we no longer use, going off half cocked, flash in the pan, in like flint all refer to early rifles. Powder room has to do with powdered wigs. Broken record is more current yet out of date. I still hear "dial" a phone. Stumped the gathering with the Q, why do we say speed UP, slow DOWN rather than in/out or over/under? Anybody?
Lucky for you it wasn’t about compass directions. That’s the SE.
Agreed that VAMPING is mis-clued. As a musician, vamping is when the band plays a repeated chord progression or section, almost always without a melody or solo. NOODLING is someone playing a solo, usually aimless or when the rest of the band is waiting to count off a song. (A band director will always yell, STOP NOODLING. They would never say, STOP VAMPING.)
Those of us who watch the original 1945 Christmas in Connecticut every year immediately thought of the obnoxious John Sloan, the eminent architect, who makes believe he's Barbara Stanwyck's husband in order to fool her boss. Fun movie with a great cast.
The gimmick is a waste of time.
Swell puzzle, and swell write-up. 🙆
I usually don’t mind a fair amount of PPP in a crossword puzzle if it is fairly clued and crossed. However, I frequently find that Mr. Last’s puzzles in the New Yorker contain too many obscure PPP clues/answers for my taste. Because this is a Sunday sized puzzle, this is even more the case today. This is especially true in the south-central part of the grid where 4 out the bottom 5 across entries are a song title, an actress, a geographic region, and a Nobelist with 4 out the 5 crossing down entries being a Saint, a literary character, a foreign word and a series of typographic symbols. Similarly, the middle west’s 4 adjacent downs are a movie title, and actress, a song title and an essayist. This kind of overkill of PPP makes me say “no” to 84 across.
The full theme, although clearly porcine in nature beginning with the puzzle title, eluded me even after finishing, and I had to slow down and re-read today's blog post to absorb it.
The South Central segment was almost exclusively filled with lucky guesses, and I was shocked when the Games app audibly declared me a winner after finally filling those in.
Parallel adjacent downs: STJUDE, WILBUR, ETOILE... all guesses.
Although I don't remember the sequence of crosses and downs that finished me off, the crosses didn't help at all either: JLO (guess), NUBIA (guess) PERES (guess).
That section sucked all the air out of the room, and there was almost none left by the time I penciled those in.
The whole thing felt like work. Dreadful Sunday.
Names -- TV shows, trendy dances from decades ago, pop celebrities / TV movie characters (who the hell is "LOOIE"??!!) . . . was this puzzle appropriated from a TV Guide?
I'm with those c commenters who found this a slog or etc. Too many names/things I'd never heard of. Especially. 12D and 30A.
I didn't get the theme at all until I came here. Now I think it's clever and cute. But I still don't know who Hamm is. Wilbur I had forgotten, although I think Charlotte's Web a wonderful book
DNF. Died at the GO_/O_ST cross.
VAMPING isn't exactly "noodling" (which usually implies a kind of aimless, mindless improvisation in search of an idea). It's usually the playing of a repeated riff or pattern that serves as an introduction to a theme, or a backing while someone else is soloing.
Easy breezy Sunday. Finished without incident, which surprised me given that it felt like there could be trouble with words/phrases I hadn't heard before or didn't know well. SOPOR, RARITAN, SCRIM, GOA, NUBIA, LOUDOUTS, ETOILE as well as a few names I didn't know - SLOAN, OHARA, HANS. But to the constructor's and editor's credit, the crosses were known or inferable. So happy day. 20:05
Mostly easy for me, but I needed a few nanoseconds of staring post-solve to fathom what was going on.
Very clever and delightful , gave me chuckle when the “aha” hit, liked it a bunch!
….Oh and I’m a big fan of the comic strip.
Untypically, for me, I find myself disagreeing totally with OFL's assessment. I thought this one was the worst Sunday puzzle in years, totally taken over by gimmicks. Will this never end?
As someone who gets (…or, got, before the government lost its mind) funding from NIH to do mental health research, I think “cancer research agcy.” is a bit misleading. A better answer would be NCI, the National Cancer Institute, which is one (of many) entities within NIH.
Among my top films of all time (it shocked me when I learned it was made for TV—the quality is stunning), and I likewise thought of that scene when I saw that word! I occasionally find an excuse to show it to my students—most recently when I was teaching John Donne since her character’s role as a scholar of the Holy Sonnets is thematically significant.
Surprised Rex didn’t know “Loud Outs.” It’s the name of a daily talk program on Major League Baseball Radio Network.
@tht 9:34 am... I think my nose is wrinkling.
@GAR 11:55 am: agree exactly.
I actually did some genuine LOL at the discussion of the SLOAN painting—thanks for that, Rex. I came to the blog to make sure Rex pointed out the BABE connection to the phrase THAT’LL DO, and I was not disappointed. The phrase (with “pig” attached) has become idiomatic in my family over the years, the best understated complement of all filmdom. Anyway, fun puzzle and fun write-up for a lovely Sunday morning!
The onslaught of names totally ruined this for me. I have nothing good to say about it because all I can remember from last night is how many Unknown Names there were, all bunched together and crossing each other. The whole lower left region is horrible. From square 52, we have 4 downs in a row that are names: a 1990s film, an actress, a 1980s tune, and Francis BACON who at least I've heard of. And the names keep coming: OHARA PORKY RARITAN HAMM AINT IT FUN WILBUR NUBIA JLO PERES ST JUDE. I really expected better from Mr. Last.
LOOIE here means "lieutenant", parallel to how "Sarge" means "sergeant". Not a TV movie character.
I guess you didn't see the recent NYTXW where the theme centered on Ebert quotes? (Or were you kidding?)
I like to (try to) solve Sunday puzzles by proceeding only from my first cross - no skipping around. That's obviously harder with a grid like this one, that's so segmented. I started with MAIL x MODEST, and proceeded down the left side --and got stymied at the crucial bridge of 22 Across, for which I had only the O of OAST. That meant that the revealing PEARLS BEFORE SWINE column was a l-o-o-ng way away, and I didn't get over there until I'd circled the lower tier via SO SWEET. Anyway - my "method" meant that I missed some of the fun and appreciation for what Natan Last had done here until after the puzzle was finished. Lesson for me: if there's grid art, forget your routine and just go with it.
They circled the pearls, but not the swine ... kinda a slight, to all them piggies?
Cool black box, near the center of the primo E/W symmetric(al) puzgrid.
M&A was 50-50, on his necessary piggy knowledge. Runt of the litter WILBUR and pink HAMM character were no-knows.
staff weeject pick [from 28 choices]: RSS - feeder that was news to m&e.
some great faves: APPLEADAY. THATLLDO [, pig]. TRITE/TARIFFS pairin. The black box.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Last dude. Way to hang in there and construct up this fine Sunday-sized porcinepuz.
Masked & Anonymo10Us
... and the answer, my friends ...
"Answer Songs 2" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I hated this. WAY too many names and obscurity.
Rex was kidding
He was kidding
Lucky you, getting to discover delicious hoisin sauce!
@okanaganer: Sorry! :-)
I’m so glad that you mentioned that because I love that comic strip. I have to say that I personally still can’t see Pig (I’ll keep trying) but I am notoriously crossword grid art challenged.
I usually see it while playing musical theater parts - “vamp until cue” is given over a repeated phrase or chord progression until some stage business is finished and we move on after basically keeping time. I thought of riffing as more of an equivalent to “noodling” (which is a little insulting).
I'm with Colin. Had this pegged at two stars, but agree the forthcoming book was a plus-star+1/2 inducement.
Similarly, I'm ordering the book; thanks, Rex!
Welp, this is the first crossword in more than a week that I’ve been able to work AND comment on, so I’m just excited for that. All nuclear family met in San Diego area Thanksgiving week and my EST brain was somewhat hobbled by PST, but also…just was having big fun with everyone. Our daughter/SIL live in Anchorage, so…they were not bothered by the one hour time difference and were delighted by the Eden-like weather and sunshine.
I enjoyed the puzzle in spite of some names I did not know…I hung in and was able to get many crosses from “perseverance” and using PEARLSBEFORESWINE to figure out the swine stars. (And I was familiar with them all).
@egs…@tht told me about your recent medical scare. You are a beloved contributor to this blog. I wish you a speedy recovery and just kind of sense you will be back to YOUR beloved pickleball soon. Well. And of course we ALL need your “corny” but brilliant wordplay.
I really enjoy learning things like VAMPING. All the comments should help it to stick in my memory.
A topical clue/answer for one of the "swine" could be: "Bloomberg reporter Catherine [blank], per 47." Answer: LUCEY.
Yes, this puzzle was unworkable for me because of the PPP chunking in the lower NW. Puzzles like this belong in PEOPLE magazine, not the NYT.
Loved this one. When I see Natan Last’s byline I think, “Oh, boy, this is gonna be good but I wonder how much pain he will inflict today?” Fortunately, the answer to that question for this Sunday solve was, “Not much.” Yes, I had to work hard, exercise my brain, but that’s what he does and I appreciate it. He does it pretty elegantly, too.
Agree with @Rex and others that SOPOR doesn’t really work.
Yes CHEF was a gimme. Could have been clued as a partial (Yes _____ , with no reference to a TV show) and I would have got it and it’s got little or nothing to do with The Bear. It’s the appropriate reply in the great majority of chef-run restaurants;* like saying “Aye, cap’n” aboard a ship.
At 98A I tried ASWAN because that’s as close as I’ve ever gotten to NUBIA in my travels. Corrected by a few crosses: NAB and ATS and even ETOILE at 78D. Anybody but me remember the Minnesota North Stars of the NHL? Loved seeing CLOBBERED in the grid. “Didja win?” “Yeah, we CLOBBERED ‘em”.
Well, Natan, you didn’t CLOBBER me, you entertained me, on a Sunday, my least favourite puzzle day, no less. Thank you.
* You’re probably not going to to hear it in Mickey D’s or IHOP, except sarcastically.
The above was me. Apparently I was not logged in.
Just wanted to add something about 74A BUN. Back in the early 70s I used to meet up with a Chinese-Canadian friend at a modest diner-style restaurant (long and narrow, booths down one side, counter with stools on the other) in Vancouver’s Chinatown for Bao. He claimed this little place, the BC Royal (how’s that for a Chinese name!) served the best in town. I couldn’t argue with him about that. (About anything else, yes, but not that.) Often we would be joined by a few other friends, sometimes having to request a chair to place at the end of the booth. Plates of bao would keep arriving and, when we would finish our obligatory cups of green tea, someone would reach under the table and extract a bottle of cheap white wine in a brown paper bag and start filling the tiny ceramic vessels.
The restaurant had no license to serve liquor, so this was common practice. The staff just looked the other way and we just ordered more bao, mostly pork with, if memory serves me, HOISIN. Delightfully light but still doughy steamed buns filed with deliciousness at a price a group of poor students could afford. And yes, Richard, I did notice that you didn’t always ante up, but that’s OK. Your main contribution was conversational. You’re forgiven.
@Coprophagist. The only problem with "the use of before here" is that is that, in the phrase PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, it does not mean preceding; it means strewn on the ground before (in front of) them. But that's okay. If it's good enough for Dorothy Parker (mentioned in some comments, see Matthew B at 7:32 and Anon 9:57), it's good enough for me.
Les, your comment on YES CHEF made me go down a bit of a rabbit hole. The general tenor of my comment is that while I realize CHEFs are artists, the YESCHEF evokes (to me) the image of an “artiste harridan.” The rabbit hole was…I kinda knew, but wasn’t sure, that “harridan” refers to females. Then I found out there is no male equivalent! Um…maybe “turmagent”…a word I hadn’t seen. So. Whether it’s male or female…(I didn’t check), I really HATE that sous chefs etc are barking out YESCHEF because it seems like the chef must be a “prima donna.” This makes me very curious about chef culture.
PS. I get that maybe it might be more “military preciseness” inspired, but geez…how about just YES I WILL/DID when CHEF asks/tells something. The other just seems a bit egotistical.
I liked this one well enough because I either knew most of the propers or got thme fairly easily from crosses. I thought the SWINE did follow all the PEARL references, as I read those top down, like most people, so no complaint there.Had TRANSICON entirely filled in and have to say it's the first time I've seen it.
We used to raise three pigs every summer and feed them the slops from our restaurant kitchen. They lived in a pen up on the hill just past our clay tennis courts, which I can tell you take a lot of daily maintenance. One fine day all three pigs escaped and decided that the best place to go rooting around was in the slightly soft clay of my courts. This is probably the only time in my life that I wished I owned some kind of major firearm.
Oh, and hello OAST. How have you been?
Always enjoy you work, NL. You Nearly Lost me with some of your propers,
but no harm done. The best part of this one is that no one told a piggy to be quiet. Thanks for all the fun.
@Ken, except that these are not the people you’d find in PEOPLE
I loved this one simply because the likely well known to many of us here in the neighborhood (I’d easily call him famous) Natan Last fit in both BABE and “THAT’LL DO” in today’s grid. If you haven’t seen the film, and just need a well told and superbly acted story, check it out. There must be millions of folks today who use the phrase “That’ll do, Pig,” to tell someone (or a pet) “good job.” Also, the theme was so well done and a touch more sophisticated than the usual Sunday silliness.
I’d love to know whether the germ of Mr. Last’s theme concept was PEARLS BEFORE SWINE or BABE and THAT’LL DO. Possibly both almost simultaneously? Any of you who are part of the CrossWorld inner circle and could ask, I’d love to know. I’m going to agree wholeheartedly with OFL today and recommend Mr. Last’s new book.
Something went very wrong just now with my technology and my screen froze and wouldn’t let me finish my comment. I guess it’s just desserts for me since I am often more long winded here than I ought to be.
So, buy the book. Maybe it resonates with me because I share Mr. Last’s views of crosswords and their history and position in our culture. I’m certain that anyone who solves crosswords regularly will enjoy it.
My one teensy little nit today (and only because I was a student of Jazz History and Composition in my musician life), is that VAMPING is technically not something one does in a jazz composition. Rather, VAMPING is more a short musical phrase repeated and repeated while the listener is waiting for the composition to move forward. Often, it’s waiting for a performer to continue with the piece, for a singer to begin the next verse or a wait for what’s happening on stage to move on.
In jazz though, the unwritten interludes - usually solos - give the individual musicians exciting opportunities to improvise new “licks.” It’s the art of improvisation that sets jazz apart as its own musical form. The best jazz artists have highly honed musical understanding and can move through the keys and modes in these interludes leaving behind memories of aural festivals created on the fly. Pure magic to the jazz fan, and very far from VAMPING. When I couldn’t fit any form of improvise or improvisation into 100A, I was disappointed.
However, my minuscule disappointment did not dampen my enthusiasm for this puzzle at all. And I learned some new names and had to figure out the theme post-solve. Such fun!
And now I really am done.
100% agree. Dreadful. For the first time in years, I couldn’t even be bothered to finish it. Personally, I don’t look things up until after the yellow flower (or not).
The word sounds like "desserts," but it is spelled "deserts" in the phrase "just deserts." A lot of people get it wrong.
Joe
I knew RARITAN : it is SW of NYC in the market area of the old Times dead tree edition. In my case I had relatives who used to live not far from there so a gimme for me though I am a New Englander. The Times puzzle still has a lot of N YC area references that people in the rest of the country may not know.
What I didn’t know was that the river was named after an Indian tribe.
Jazz musician here. I’d accept RIFFING or BLOWING as an answer, but not VAMPING. Vamping refers to a repeated motif that the whole band plays, similar to an ostinato. Usually you’ll hear them as intros and outros to a tune. A chart or bandleader may instruct a musician to solo over a vamp, but it’s not itself an instruction to improvise.
GAR and others
Definitely not a People list of people. BTW don’t see @@@ as ppp at all. ; it is a common Times puzzle gimmick been in puzzle more than once.
I see the point about bottom central. As it happens, Peres ( he was once a very well known Israeli PM ) so maybe an age thing. Nubia a gimme for me but I assume not well known unless you are into Ancient Egypt.
Anonymous 12:05 AM
LOOIE as tht said it is a parallel Sergeant - Sarge
Lieutenant LOOIE (second LOOIE usually).
But maybe it’s an age thing and LOOIE is much less well known among young people.When I was young the amount of veterans and active service people were huge compared to now. So Army expressions were much more part of the culture.
Valid non ppp answer because older people are still doing crosswords!
Tim Carey
FWIW
OAST has been in the Times puzzle a lot. It is old crosswordese
For most long time solvers, it’s a gimme. That’s why pabloinnh calls crosswordese old friends. Less seen now but it will show up again!
(GOA has not appeared in a long time but it used to be common).
Anonymous 12:40 PM
People with expertise raise points like yours all the time.(When I first started doing crosswords as a practicing lawyer a half century ago, I got annoyed by equivalent “errors” like this. But remember we are talking about a puzzle, not a reference work, a puzzle using popular language with hints called clues where you may have to guess at the answer Answers like this are perfectly standard and and acceptable in crosswords If Since NCI is part of. a whole NIH referencing NIH , (the much more known answer among most crossworders) is not considered an error but actually common practice. Here it makes the answer easier.
pabloinnh
I knew you would mention oast.
Someone above dnf’d because of e GOA OAST cross. BTW.
I do the term old friends.
@Beezer. While there's no doubt some ego tripping going on in professional kitchens there is also little doubt that chefs are, in their way, artists. And though I grit my teeth a bit when I say that, because everyone who has a bright thought considers themselves an artist, I am willing to concede that chefs can claim that coveted title. This because a). I have worked in some of those kitchens with some of those people and b). one of my sons is a professional chef and he works very hard to create dishes that will transport you to another realm. In order to do that he needs order and precision in the kitchen. If it seems harsh, just remember that it is really for you, the diner as well as for his ego. He wants to make great food for you and he needs a codified system, military or otherwise, to see it through. One stupid sous or line cook who thinks he can take a shortcut can abort the whole mission. Military precision is actually necessary. When I go to his restaurant and order the house-made ravioli stuffed with ramps and ricotta and served with brown butter and sage, I want it perfect, and he's the guy that's gotta deliver it - on cue with the help of his crew. Yes chef! They're not just f**kin' around back there. This is military precision.
This why I choose to work alone in my studio.
Late again
But I liked the puzzle. Interesting reactions. Okanaganer hated it, on one extreme, Les S. More really liked it, on the other.
I don’t mind “puzzling” out the names I don’t know. So the ppp didn’t bother me here. So I had forgotten the names of the stars of the movie. But three letter nickname (usually female btw) who else but JLO. especially after you get a letter. Older names I usually knew, like PERES, very well known when he was PM of Israel, which led to the Peace Prize. Nubia was a gimme as it is a significant part of an r Egypt history so a gimme for me St. Jude Patron saint is an expression so the clue was hunting at a saint ( the word couldn’t appear in the clue of course) St . Jude not exactly obscure. I thought that some people were a little hard on these names.
Anyway, I didn’t get the theme at all. Missed the whole point of the words pearl and swine. Wrote out harbor jam onion buck Couldn’t see a connection.! Very big doh! after reading Rex.
This is true, but understandable since the pronunciation is just like that of "desserts". The sense of "desert" here is closely connected with that of "deserve" (and not of arid patches of land or of a verb meaning to abandon).
(Then, too, it's altogether too easy to misspell even when the writer is aware of all the relevant distinctions. There are a lot of different levels of attention in writing that can slip right by.)
That was my first thought, also -- but ATEM BALLS didn't fit.
One of my favorite Christmas movies!
As a sometime baseball fan - LOUDOUTS is definitely a phrase
Perlas ante los cerdos.
Fun and impressive puzzle, but so many crosses were being BRATS. I was done in by the ALOT/ATON kealoa resulting in POTLO guisado and Zosia MAMEN. One is foreign food and the other a name, so spelling rules aren't always sane. POLLO of course makes a lot more sense, so I should've seen it. SCRIM, a word I don't know, crossing SOPOR with a weird clue and RARITAN, a river I don't know, was trouble too. And HOISIN was pure guesswork.
Despite growing up in a wacko right wing Bible thumping Christian sect, I'd never encountered PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, so there was a bit of an adventure waiting for me. The final result of the theme entries was quite satisfying and fun.
Noodling and vamping are very different activities.
❤️ [Chop house?] CLOBBERED.
😩 GOA. TORO.
People: 21 {been a rough week}
Places: 4
Products: 9
Partials: 9
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 45 of 125 (36%)
Funny Factor: 5 😐
Uniclues:
1 Dude with his shirt off.
2 Ham hamming.
3 Point a microphone at the orange one.
1 IRKSOME ADULT AB TONER
2 PUMP UP THE JAM PORKY
3 REVEAL TRITE DESPOT
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Two Years Ago: Pepperoni potentates and cannibal kings. MEAT LOVER CZARS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sorry for the rant, @ Beezer. Rough day.
Rest in power, Marsha 🙏
Cursed by the auto-typing again!
Amen! I was hoping someone would chime in!
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