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Metaphor for a bad goalie / TUE 11-4-25 / Eponym of a popular puzzle / Fast-food chain with the slogan "The Crave is a powerful thing" / Folk-rock pair featured in the documentary "Wordplay" / 2010 best-selling Emma Donoghue novel / Name seen in cursive on a cap in Berkeley / Empathetic response to an apology / The half with the hit song, typically / City situated between the split halves of Saguaro National Park
Tuesday, November 4, 2025
Constructor: Patrick Hayden
Relative difficulty: Very Easy
Theme answers:
- INDIGO GIRLS (17A: Folk-rock pair featured in the documentary "Wordplay")
- BLACK SUITS (24A: Half of a standard deck of cards)
- GREENHOUSE (48A: Place for plants to flourish)
- WHITE CASTLE (60A: Fast-food chain with the slogan "The Crave is a powerful thing")
Room is a 2010 novel by Irish-Canadian author Emma Donoghue. The story is told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who is being held captive in a small room along with his mother. Donoghue conceived the story after hearing about five-year-old Felix in the Fritzl case.The novel was longlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize and won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize regional prize (Caribbean and Canada). It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2010, and was shortlisted for the 2010 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the 2010 Governor General's Awards.
The film adaptation, also titled Room, was released in October 2015, starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay. The film was a critical and commercial success; it received four nominations at the 88th Academy Awards including for Best Picture, and won Best Actress for Larson. (wikipedia)
• • •
[Yeah, this helps a little]
I hated DEEP STATE answer even more because it looked like a damn themer. I despise when there are long Across answers that aren't themers (unless the actual theme answers are running Down). ABOLISHED and DEEP STATE are aesthetically off-putting because they are just one letter shorter than two nearby themers, and longer than the center revealer, but they just ... aren't themers. Long Downs when the theme runs across, long Acrosses when the theme runs Down—those scenarios are OK. But these phantom themers that run in the same direction as the real themers—not a fan. I got DEEP STATE and then INDIGO GIRLS and assumed that the theme was "blue." Then later discovered that not only was "blue" not the theme, but DEEP STATE wasn't a themer at all. Ugliness all around. And the short fill never really got much better either. So I tip my hat to the theme, which, again, I think is clever, but the rest ... I'd probably tear it down and start over.
As for difficulty, there was none. I hesitated on the SUITS part of BLACK SUITS, but that's it. I enjoyed MODERNIZE and HANG IT UP, so good job with the long Downs. But the rest was somehow both too easy and a CHORE.
["We got to move these / Refrigerators / We got to move these COLOR TVvvvvvvvvs"]
- 17A: Folk-rock pair featured in the documentary "Wordplay" (INDIGO GIRLS) — never a huge fan of the puzzle getting all winky and self-referential, but I like this duo and I like this documentary so I'll allow it. INDIGO GIRLS are coming here (to the place where I live) to play with the University Symphony Orchestra in 2026, and I might go. I've seen INDIGO GIRLS twice before, once when they opened for 10,000 Maniacs in Edinburgh (1989), and then again when they headlined at the Pantages in L.A. in 1990. The latter time, I was actually dating the sister of one of the INDIGO GIRLS. Sorry, I should've said, "Fun fact!" It's a pretty fun fact. Not that fun, but a little fun. (Apologies if I've shared this fun fact before—I've been writing for so long I can't keep track of the stories I've told or the "fun facts" I've divulged)
- 22A: Spun platters for a party, informally (DJED) — this past tense form always looks terrible written out. I totally misread this clue at first and thought "Spun" was an adjective. Who does that? (A: me).
- 9D: Name seen in cursive on a cap in Berkeley (CAL) — this is the kind of clue an alumnus would write. But it's also just a good clue. Kinda niche but also perfectly apt.
- 10D: Singers Green and Jardine (ALS) — Green is a legend, but who is Jardine? Let's find out. Oh, he was a Beach Boy?? I can't believe I'm learning this only now. You probably all knew that (well, those of you older than I am, anyway).
- 49D: Eponym of a popular puzzle (RUBIK) — had the "R" and thought, "REBUS? Mr. REBUS? Jean-Claude REBUS. Is he someone?" He is not. Erno RUBIK, however, is. Inventor of the RUBIK's Cube.
- 52D: Metaphor for a bad goalie (SIEVE) — smiled at this one. Great, inventive clue.
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74 comments:
KELSO x POM? POM x STEAM really should've been POD x STEAD. I knew neither and tried PaM first.
I think the weakness of the puzzle is the theme itself.
Two (half ) of the answers are BLACK and WHITE, not really colors at all. We already had BLACK and WHITE TV. And I don't know what TV show titles have to do with the innovation of COLOR TV in the 50's. The idea is ok but it wasn't developed well.
Finished it quickly with no cheats, but with one lucky guess (ARABICA/BRITA cross). Never considered the theme.
Easy Tuesday, clever theme. Solved without reading the theme clues.
Overwrites:
I'm not familiar with Jimmy Eat World so ska before EMO at 11A
WOEs:
The Emma Donoghue novel ROOM at 46A
RUMP Shaker at 56A
I never watched That 70's Show, so I didn't know KELSO at 54D.
Cute theme - well filled. How can you hate on the INDIGO GIRLS and WHITE CASTLE. Heavy on trivia in some areas but in my wheelhouse so no issues. The 1950s descriptor for the revealer is apt for this grid.
The Music Never Stopped
The DEEP STATE is alive and well on both sides - clearly evident in the cover up at the end of the last term and partially responsible for the current disaster. MODERNIZE, YELLERS, HANGS IT UP are all top notch. Needed the crosses for ROOM.
Looks Like Rain
Enjoyable Tuesday morning solve. Let’s hope good things happen today.
Rest in power Donna Jean.
Singing Dolly with Jerry
On the 13th amendment, while it was significant and a great step, there remains a loophole around prisoners that has been used in terrible ways since it was passed.
Rex having dated a sister of an Indigo Girl was NOT on my Bingo card ... but oh-so cool!! MY sister saw them perform recently & reported that Emily Saliers's voice is no longer what it used to be
I wonder if a similar theme has been done with actual tv show titles containing colors: GOLDEN GIRLS, NYPD BLUE, BLACKISH, BLUE THUNDER, etc.
I don’t think you know what the Deep State allegedly is
Hey All !
One Themer is GREEN. Maybe pick another AL for your clue instead of Green? There seems to be many. Roker, Bundy, Capone, Abaster (Har!). They didn't need to be singers, just ALS.
Nice puz, wasn't an auto-fill here. Put up just enough resistance to quantify being a TuesPuz instead of a MonPuz. Liked the both-words-being-used gimmick. One word TV shows. Nice.
CASTLE was a good show. About a writer who is friends with the city's mayor, and asks if he could go to the precinct and hang out with the detectives to get ideas for his new book series. Of course, the lead detective is a sexy women, and the "will they, won't they" tension is there, but good stories, well written, and (spoiler alert!) even when they get together, it doesn't ruin the show. And Nathan Fillion is good in anything he does.
KELSO could also be clued via "Scrubs", as the Chief of Medicine on that show is Dr. Bob KELSO. Do I watch too much TV? Nah ...
I could reread my book (you knew this plug was coming!), Changing Times by Darrin Vail. Get it online! 😁
Have a great Tuesday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
I thought it was a good puzzle today, certainly easy but it’s Tuesday it’s supposed to be. As for the election in NYC today, I’m reminded of the 1991 LA gubernatorial election which featured former Grand Wizard of KKK v fraudster Edwin Edwards. There was a famous bumper sticker “VOTE FOR THE CROOK IT’S IMPORTANT.” In New York today, it’s “VOTE FOR THE GRANDMA KILLING SEXUAL ASSAULTER IT’S IMPORTANT.”
9D was made easy for me because earlier on TV I had watched Cal get beat by my great-niece's basketball team Vanderbilt at the Oui-Play tournament in Paris! (Clever word play.) It was enhanced by seeing her mom and grandmother often because they were sitting right behind the officials' table.
The SEIVE at 52D reminded me of the poor minor league hockey goalie who gave up eleven goals as his team lost an important playoff game. He was so despondent that on his way home from the arena he threw himself in front of a bus. Luckily, it went through his legs.
I was stumped by the second part of the theme. The colors were obvious, but since I rarely watch TV I wasn’t familiar with any of the shows. No real impact on the solve though, but it was a minor distraction as I’m trying to get better at discerning the themes.
My nit today is what is, in my opinion, the bad form in the way they ended it by crossing a brand name with a television character (POM x KELSO).Less egregious is the crossing of the (Latin?) NOTA with another brand name (ROOMBA). That one gets a bit of a pass because NOTA has pretty much made its way into standard Crosswordese by now.
I enjoyed the way they clued “i” as a NONREAL number. I always get a kick out of the nomenclature there as “i” is no more or less REAL than any other number. To further complicate matters, “i” is also referred to as an “imaginary” number when, again, it is no more or less “imaginary” than any other number.
Sadly true although they’re still awesome and I’d forgotten they were such crossword fans that they were in that movie.
Just as a "what the hey", I tried doing this Downs Only, but eventually had to HANG IT UP. Then found it was indeed easy. One thing that DOing did is mess me up from the get-go with Side A, not ASIDE.
Re DEEP STATE: I will gently remind Rex that this is the NYT, which routinely trucks in euphemisms like "in an unusual departure from previous norms" to describe the recent bat-shit crazy thing that guy did, or "Mr. Trump's success in harnessing the investigative powers of the federal government" to describe how he persecutes his political opponents. No way the NYTXW would insert the words "right wing" in that clue. I absolutely despise this tiptoeing around, this watering down, this purse-lipped refusal to call a spade a spade, when it is our very democracy at stake and our collective hair should be on fire, but that's how it is there and at other legacy media.
I did enjoy the fun fact from the write-up. Maybe he told us that one before; I don't remember. Hell, I think I'd trot that one out more than once if it happened to me. (But which INDIGO GIRL was the sister?)
YELLER looks mini-thematic. "What are ya, yeller or something?"
And then there's "Old Yeller", that tale about a dog, that was made into a movie before COLOR TV was widely available. But YELLER as clued had zip to do with color. Something about that usage annoys me. As if there is some essentialist division between people who are yellers and people who aren't, when in fact nobody is a yeller all the time. Was Hitler a yeller? Well, he yelled a lot, but I would find it weird and inapt to call him, or really anyone, a "YELLER". It's a usage that can only be applied to local occasions.
Off to vote. Like @Son Volt, I hope "good things happen today" (although it's quite possible we have very different ideas about what would constitute "good things"). Let freedom and democracy ring.
CAL crossing ARABICA was a natick for me.
American brands, yawn.
Quite easy, but I don't understand the theme (specifically "both halves").
And if I ever associated HIHO with Kermit, I have long forgotten that.
After reading the writeup - yeah, I was never going to understand the second theme element. Never heard of GIRLS; SUITS rings a vague bell; thought HOUSE was called HOUSE, M.D. (apparently, it is, but HOUSE is common shorthand); and know of but have never seen CASTLE.
So, flag for insufficiently famous themers, but hand up for liking INDIGO GIRLS.
Or maybe he does...
Hey, proud of you for saying that about the number i! Of course those are technical terms, real and NONREAL, and they are terms used by mathematicians, but I think you'd be very hard-pressed to find a mathematician who assigned a higher ontological priority to real numbers than to (nonreal) complex numbers.
A more subtle sort of misconception can arise when people speak of "the" square root of -1. There are two square roots of -1, notated as i and -i, but it would be a severe error to think that one is the "positive" square root of -1 and the other the "negative" square root. There is no property or characteristic of i that cannot be equally asserted of -i. (This recognition is a point of entry for what is known as Galois theory.) So you could say that i and -i are distinct but indiscernable. Metaphorically, if one of them walked into a room, you would never be able to identify which one of them it was by the way they look or act.
I just proceeded through this puzzle in workmanlike fashion and didn't even notice or need the theme. I'd have liked some sparklier answers, but it was fun to see my home city, Tucson, in the puzzle. Saguaro National Park used to be called Saguaro National Monument but was elevated to national park status in 1994, thus ensuring greater protection for those iconic saguaros.
I almost got a bit teary-eyed sitting here and thinking about Old YELLERS death scene. And I'm not even kidding. Did anyone ever not cry at the end of that book or movie? I heard that even Mr. Spock was bawling like a Vulcan baby.
I think that the Orange Moron needs to change burger brands. He's building a WHITECASTLE (with our money), so he might as eat them instead of Big Macs. And a kind theme-adjacentish observation: Orange is the New Black.
Hey @Roo! If you go to business school you should emerge with a ROOMBA. Then you can really clean up.
I once DJED but people were beside themselves because I always set ASIDE the ASIDE. The EMCEE hammered my performance.
Does the square root of -1 exist? i imagine.
Thanks for the colorful escapism, Patrick Hayden.
Good thing I completely ignored the theme in solving this one or I’d still be pulling out what little hair I have left trying to integrate DEEPSTATE. Did get hung up in the SE over KELSO crossing POM and no other way to get USA from The DreamTeam. Otherwise seemed a quick and easy Tuesday puzzle.
A donde vamos no necesitamos carreteras.
As part of my as-yet unsuccessful search for a decent Chinese restaurant in this dystopian heck scape, I did this puzzle at 2:30 in the morning with my brain floating in a sea of salt and MSG and Tums, the chemical concoction of the real heroes, after an ill-advised plate of Sesame Chicken. As a result, I'm sure you can imagine, I didn't enjoy this one.
I haven't seen any of the TV shows, and I've never heard of Girls or Suits, so the TV thing took a bit to make sense.
I'm sure right wing wackadoodles are pleased to teach America you can ABOLISH the DEEP STATE by electing a CLOWN CAR. Clown car isn't in the puzzle, but if it had been I'd have rejoiced. Somebody hopefully put it into a puzzle at some point.
In fun facts you don't need to know, robusta is the other commonly cultivated coffee variety and is easier and cheaper to grow, tastes like licking a sweatshirt, and is blended into lots of the cheap stuff you might have convinced yourself is good coffee.
Last week they clued YOU off a novel and today ROOM gets similar genius-level cluing. For the clue [What you eat] I wrote in DIRT. I like that answer better than DIET, but it was out of character for a mostly unfunny puzzle.
I checked Jimmy Eat World out on YouTube and I had heard the first song on the list, but more importantly, the video tells the sad tale of a lonely guy at an underwear party. His sadness stems from wearing a plaid shirt. But he finally meets a girl who is also fully dressed and they go off happily together. So kids, keep your pants on even when it feels wrong.
❤️ Fiddle DEE DEE. Épéeists.
People: 9
Places: 1
Products: 15 {ugh... only two are themers}
Partials: 3
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 29 of 78 (37%)
Funny Factor: 1 🤨
Tee-Hee: HEE. RUMP Shaker. That's a synonym for NYTXW slush pile editor.
Uniclues:
1 Consequence of the Deep State declaring 17 non-real.
2 Hollywood elite who eats Muppets.
3 Have SIRI host the Oscars.
4 One stabbing boys wearing skirts out west.
5 Eggplant decides to just be an eggplant.
1 HAIKU ABOLISHED
2 DEEP STATE ERNIE
3 MODERNIZE EMCEE
4 CAL KILT FENCER
5 EMOJI HANGS IT UP
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Use the ADA handlebars in the loo. GO BOOM SAFER.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Like Southside Johnny, I didn't know any of those TV shows, and had to come here to understand the second words thing. I don't think I've watched network TV for five years or so. We did watch a few seasons of Gray's Anatomy, but that would not have worked because of the 's.
I didn't know KELSO as clued (see above about TV), but it would have been better clued as "4th best racehorse of the 20th Century" (at least according to Wikipedia).
As I was writing in ABC, I grumbled "how come it's never pie?" Imagine my surprise as I got to the word below it. Nice.
TIL that ARABICA is now the most-grown coffee bean. When I was getting into coffee, all you could find in the supermarkets were canned, ground coffee by Hills Bros., Maxwell House, and the like -- which in those days were made from robusta beans. Some things do get better. Between 1-D and 22-A I thought we might be getting a 'retro recording technology' theme; but this was better.
Rats I forgot to make sure I was signed in before posting. The post that mentions KELSO the racehorse was by me.
I agree. Cannot have black and white in there totally ruins the theme
Is there an unelected segment of the federal government that has power over the direction our country takes? That is comprised partly of people that do things at home and abroad that many people would never support? Some people call it the DEEP STATE. You can call it whatever you like, but it is there. Is it a dark cabal? Doesn't need to be. It's just the powers that are there, for good or bad, that outlast any president.
I love every bit of this comment, tht!
An easy Tuesday except I didn't know 56A RUMP.
I had to laugh at Rex's comment
"Gonna have to watch Mamdani's victory speech tonight to get the taste of DEEP STATE out of my mouth."
So it's a foregone conclusion, huh?!
Congrats on your debut, Patrick :)
So this was an absolute bear for me. And not in a fun way. Perhaps because I said that Monday was an inconsequential breeze and I “hope Tuesday puts up more of a fight”, but it got ugly. I solve Tuesdays downs-only so I know you’re all going to exclaim, “self inflicted injury!” And, of course, you’re partially right. But I can’t accept a puzzle based on colours and TV shows as good if only half those TV shows were worth watching.
I enjoyed a few seasons of Girls. It was quirky and weird and I tuned it in because I had really enjoyed Ms Dunham’s film “Tiny Furniture”. But even then it got televisionized and I had to quit it. Same with House. Hugh Laurie is pretty funny, but after a few seasons he starts to dim. No, the material he is fed starts to dim and becomes standardized TV dreck. Yes, I’m happy he reaped a slew of cash after all those lean years of great comedy on British TV, but I just couldn’t hang in for more than a couple of seasons.
As for Castle, never even heard of it.
And Suits. The only reason I ever tuned it in was to find out who this Meghan Markle woman was. I’m sorry I did. It was one of the most cliched American Network Style TV shows I have ever seen. No thank you.
So you wouldn’t be wrong if you thought I really disliked this puzzle. I was going to say “really hated this puzzle” but how could you actually hate something that someone works hard to offer up for your entertainment? I appreciate the effort.
It just didn’t click.
Filled in ARABICA immediately even though I didn't know what it is. "Most commonly cultivated" according to the clue. Read a little about it. Originally from Ethiopia, the bean is now grown in many countries with the right climate. Dunkin' uses it almost exclusively.
Easy-medium. No erasures and GRAPE, RUMP, and ROOM were it for WOEs.
It took some post-solve staring to realize that the second halves of the theme answers were TV shows. The fact that I’m not familiar with CASTLE didn’t help.
Clever/fun theme, some COLORful non theme answers, liked it.
also known as the five hole.
Can someone please explain 28 A. Part of n.b. NOTA?
ARABACA is the standard for any "gourmet" coffee. Robusta is the main alternative; it is more eco-friendly, has higher caffeine content, and is commercially used for instant coffee. Its flavor is not thought to be as palate-friendly, but there is a movement to make it more viable. I think Vietnam is the main producer.
Thanks for calling out the use of DEEP STATE. If only the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, etc., not to mention major broadcast news sources, would call things out like this, we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re now in. Appalling.
I was wondering where to send the flowers...:)
Sorry -- SIEVE.
Presumably their parents always dress them distinctively.
Thanks! No need to identify yourself, but there's a John Stillwell who has written a bunch of math(s) books, with careful attention to historical matters; I'm a big fan of his writing, both the books and his many posts at MathOverflow. If you are he, it's a very pleasant surprise finding you in this neck of the woods!
Anyone who spouts "both sides" crap is dumb and/or fascist.
The abbreviation n.b. stands for nota bene ("note well").
Castle is a terrific show. Now of my all time favorites and I enjoy it as much in reruns which it is on still. Plus it spawned books often displayed in the mystery section of the bookstore..
I tried to watch The Simpsons, once. How did it become such a staple of crosswords - something about the spelling of the names I suppose.
Colors. Kinda basic puztheme angle, like the MonPuz's startin letters one. It's kinda like a xwords 101 class, so far this week.
But that's ok by m&e -- they were both pretty well-made puzs.
Had some doubts at first, at what the last part of the themers had to do with COLORTV. Decided SUITS [we watched that one] and maybe HOUSE [think we maybe saw a coupla episodes, sometime or another] were TV shows, eventually. That left GIRLS & CASTLE, which were no-know shows, at our house.
But, again, that's OK ... there's a ton of TV shows out there that M&A has no clue about. Don't have the time to burn.
staff weeject picks: A nice, healthy list of 27 choices, today. But there's somethin about ADS & ADZ that appeal to my right ear. [while POM appealed to my wrong ear].
Primo weeject stacks in four puzgrid-places, btw.
some of the fave stuffins: NONREAL numbers. M&A took a graduate math course all about imaginary numbers. It was downright fascinatin, how much real math got generated by them i's. I was doin ok in the class, but got drafted and had to report to the then-current "deep state", in mid-semester. Then it was "welcome to yer new, imaginary life in forts and Vietnam", for a spell. Alas, M&A didn't have the necessary bone spurs, to keep him with them more-entertainin imaginary numbers.
anyhoo...
Also real partial to YELLERS and its clue. MODERNIZE & HANGSITUP were also noteworthy. RUMP had a nice runt-roll GRUMP potential.
Thanx, Mr. Hayden dude. Colorful. And congratz on yer well-done debut.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
... and now, for somethin a tad odder ...
"What Are the Odds??" - 7x7 themed:
**gruntz**
M&A
I started to wonder if the puzzle now has product placement while doing this one. White Castle, Pom Wonderful, Roomba, Brita, Alamo, and Jolly Ranchers all featured as brands in the clues and answers.
Wizard, David Duke was defeated
When I read the revealer's clue, I went back over the theme answers and thought: boy I am out of touch, I've never seen any of those shows. (There was a show called Greenhouse?) Then I come here, and Rex explains that the second word alone is the name of the show! Doh, I feel better. I've watched House and Girls, and I've heard of both the others.
Like Les and some others, I tried to solve down clues only but gave up, as I often do on Tuesday. Too many blanks. However, a lot of the across clues were useless to me anyway. Why oh why clue RUMP as part of the name of a 30 year old song I've never heard of by a performer I've never hear of? Ditto for POM! Also: EMO SNO ROOM HIHO MET GRAPE. Nameification at its worst.
Here's some 1950's entertainment innovation from today's BAT, currently bid to a mil seven https://youtu.be/FDAcYsLKuik?si=tONxxESuy3xzQLKJ
@okanagener. To me, a POM is a Brit because I have family in Australia and that's what they called their foreign overlords.
As a liberal lefty, I am not perturbed by the term deep state. My conception of the deep state is it is the civil servants working in the trenches faithfully carrying out the laws of the nation without regard to the current administration. So I can see why the batshit orange-man supporters hate it and claim it is a "conspiracy". Enjoyed your disquisition on i above (can't get i italicized).
Maybe these brands paid the Times for the advertisement value of appearing in the crossword!
Solved this on my way home from voting in city council elections, so the political aside felt timely.
Two mistakes held me up: DRY for WRY (that’s gotta count as a kealoa as clued, yes?), and HANDS IT UP for HANGS IT UP—the latter I admit sounds bad, but it was derived first from HANDS IT IN and later HANDS OVER, which are at least okay. Anyway, thanks for the post-voting break!
To get geeky (what this blog is for) robusta is also used in many espresso specific blends, especially Italian espresso blends.
Interesting comments today. For those of you who have commented that black and white are not colours, i would like to to know how you can defend that in real life. Yes, theoretically, black and white indicate the lack of colour, but ask me what colour the walls in my house are and the answer is white. What colour is my roof? It's black. And if home decor answers don't satisfy you, how about this: When I splatz down some cerulean blue (remember that from a few days ago?) on my painting table and think, maybe, I might have to modify it, I might reach for a tube of Talens Amsterdam Zinc White Oil Colour or Titanium White Oil Colour (yes, that's what it says on the tube) or even some Mars or Ivory Black (though I'm pretty sure they no longer use real Ivory). These are colours. They exist in real life. Step outside on Xmas eve and tell me the colour of the snow is not white. Abandon theory for a bit and enjoy colour. And life.
And don't get me started on NONREAL numbers.
@tht. With all due respect - because I think you're a pretty smart person - I must say that I don't actually know any people who "speak of the square root of -1". If I'm at a social gathering and I have a choice of the guy on the patio strumming his guitar and badly mangling "This Land is Your Land" and the guy in the kitchen trying to explain math concepts, I'm going to quickly grab a glass of something red and go out and sit in the driveway for a smoke.
Oh gawd, that's lovely. And only one seat. No one to tell you you missed the turn. We need more car porn on this site. ;-)
Just asking questions, eh? Or do you have more specific allegations or evidence of these exercises of furtive power from within? I'd be interested, because all this "some people" talk of DEEP STATE, which largely comes from a specific person and his loyalists, is to me almost always nebulous and non-specific. But I may be missing something.
So, I may be a simple man, but my understanding is that the collective of government employees who have traditionally carried out government functions do so under the strictures of the federal laws and statutes spelled out in the US Code, and there are (or there were) many traditional guardrails in place meant to ensure compliance. If there are unelected rogue actors deep within who have stepped over their bounds and asserted powers to chart the direction the country takes, according to some partisan scheme, then presumably specific charges could be brought to that effect to hold them in check, and those could be examined either in oversight committees or in courts of law. But I rarely hear anything very specific. We do hear a lot of dark insinuations from a man who finds laws and the US Code inconvenient to his purposes, and who fires thousands and thousands of career government employees without demonstrating any specific evidence of wrongdoing.
The term DEEP STATE is in practice essentially a vague rubric, a verbal wand, a placeholder for lazy conspiracy theories. My counter-suggestion here to those who bandy about the term would be to point to specifics, nitty-gritty details of alleged abuses from within, and not rest satisfied with handwaving.
Interesting, I just posted a comment (under a comment of "floatingboy") with a similar message pointing to civil servants working in the trenches according to the US Code. But the term "deep state" has been commandeered by those on the right to allege dark and nefarious (and unspecified) goings-on, and it would be a grievous error to ignore this connotation, of suggestions that have been insidiously planted in people's minds by you-know-who and his gang. (Cf. "woke".)
Thanks tht
@Les What a buzzkill. Southside Johnny said something that resonated with me, and so I responded. Pretty normal, I think.
I've seen you write this type of comment before. But why write it? On any given topic, there will be people who are interested and others who are not. For those who are not, the comment was evidently not for them. And those people should probably just move to a different conversation -- they have that freedom.
I don't suppose you tell people at a party that you don't find interesting the topic they are discussing? Or do you think we constrain ourselves to conversing on topics we are sure will be interesting to everybody? (I'm pretty sure that would backfire.) Is it only certain topics that prompt this reaction from you?
For those of us who do the daily Spelling Bee, today's edition omitted a key word...FLATULATE. That means "...(to) fart" in everyday language. We may conclude either that 1) the editors screwed up, or 2) they're hopelessly prudish, or 3) that they've never farted...at least not flatulently.
Excellent theme idea, @David Grenier.
Well said in your reply, @ tht. Math not having even the merest adjacency to any of my strong, or even intermediate “suits,” I really enjoyed your comment. Learn so much from this neighborhood!
As a career civil servant who was “politically retired” before I was ready (but thankfully not before vesting) I also say don’t sugar coat pure evil.
@Gary J- hand up for likening the robusta to licking the (inside - my addition) of a sweatshirt. Read tour labels; as much as we pay for all groceries these says, producers are cutting corners everywhere!!
You are talking about reflected COLORs. TVs use radiant energy to illuminate the screen. BLACK would be the complete absence of any radiant energy in the visible spectrum. White would be the radiation of all the wave lengths in the visible spectrum.
I think the main issue is If BLACK and WHITE are colors, then there really was no "1950s entertainment innovation..."; there was COLOR TV from the beginning! Using BLACK and WHITE as COLORs seems to me to muddy the thematic waters.
@tht. I am so sorry I offended you. You may have noticed from my previous post that I respect your intelligence. What I can't respect is your lack of a sense of humour. Excuse me, I think I'll just head out for that smoke now.
@tht. When I return from my calming smoke, maybe we can discuss the importance of Samuel Beckett's trilogy. Or Joseph Kosuth's impact on modern art. I think everyone soild know that shit.
Good news is that I have done so many crosswords that this was easy. Except the AIM/A SIDE, which I saw as ASIDE and therefore rejected. I almost gave up. I wanted 1A to be ArM in my addled Tuesday brain. Clearly the answer was really was AIM. Ahhhh, the feeling of INNER peace. I just didn’t think of AIM as a skill, but don’t know what else you’d call it. Just such a weird Tuesday start. About half a nanosecond before I gave up on A_IDE and cheated, my “Librarian” back there in the grey matter “stacks,” started yelling at me, “Yo, Granny! Think about all those DJED platters over yonder at 22A!” Doh! Not ASIDE, A SIDE; sheesh. The word “half” in the clue made me think the answer wanted one of a notable singing duo or musical theatre creating team. Y’know, Simon and Garfunkle, Rodgers and Hammerstein. Oof.
Other than that, I solved quickly and really didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the theme. I was super excited to see my one and only fast food craving in my entire life: WHITE CASTLE. Heard all the nasty stories, ugly nicknames. Do. Not. Care. Period. The crave is indeed real if one is a fan. And the frozen ones in the grocery do not work. At all. I still crave; especially in November.
Every year, we would drive from Oklahoma to Chicago for Thanksgiving, and every year I would start salivating and smelling the grilled onions about an hour out of St. Louis. It’s just outside Eureka, but as soon as I saw the huge (closed for the season) theme park in Pacific, I would be hungry. Because we left at about 4AM, it wasn’t even lunchtime but WHITE CASTLE is thankfully open 24/7. FYI, they used to have superb doughnuts and coffee too but not so much these days which is sad. Growing up in Columbus, OH (Go Bucks!) we had a WHITE CASTLE within walking distance from high school. For one hour of daytime babysitting remuneration (50 cents!) I could get 5 of the tiny burgers (at $.05 each) and a Frosty Malt - kind of like a Wendy’s Frosty but not really. It’s gone now. Broke my heart when I did my last quick visit to Columbus for some depositions - about 10 years ago.
WHITE CASTLE and other Columbus memories derailed me from paying any attention to the theme. I’d already gotten the colors and the COLOR TV, though, “Oh, ok” and went back to my musings.
And that’s it for me. Other than to say that the nearest WHITE CASTLE to me is back in Columbus, Ohio.
I apologize for accidentally posting my comment as a reply to the esteemed @Gary Jugert. I was interrupted just as I started, and got back to it over two hours later to finish and didn’t see the mess I had made until I went back just now to read more of the comments.
@Anoa Bob. I quite understand what you are saying but I was talking about "in real life".
A theme that works with a solid revealer and perfectly good themers. Some ho-hum short stuff but not enough to annoy me. I had a good time with this one. Off to watch the election results and hoping for good things in New York and New Jersey...
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