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Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: TILTED ARC (17A: Controversial Richard Serra sculpture once seen in N.Y.C.'s Foley Square) —
Tilted Arc was a controversial public art installation by Richard Serra, displayed in Foley Federal Plaza in Manhattan from 1981 to 1989. It consisted of a 120-foot-long (37 m), 12-foot-high (3.7 m) solid, unfinished plate of rust-covered COR-TEN steel. Advocates characterized it as an important work by a well-known artist that transformed the space and advanced the concept of sculpture, whereas critics focused on its perceived ugliness and saw it as ruining the site. Following an acrimonious public debate, the sculpture was removed in 1989 as the result of a federal lawsuit and has never been publicly displayed since, in accordance with the artist's wishes. [...] The post-minimalist artwork was designed and constructed in 1981. Exemplifying Serra's minimalist, conceptual style, Tilted Arc was a solid, unfinished plate of COR-TEN steel, 120 feet (37 m) long, 12 feet (3.7 m) tall, and 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) thick. As its name suggests, it was slightly tilted. The steel rusted over time.
Placed in the Federal Plaza, the work bisected the space, blocking views and paths of those who frequented the plaza. Serra said of the design, "The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer's movement. Step by step, the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes."
For Serra, an important part of the work's meaning was that it would interact with the commuter passing through the plaza, a location usually passed through quickly on the way to somewhere else. This would subsequently become important as the basis for Serra's designation of the work as site-specific. (wikipedia)
• • •
Bunch of initial errors today, but one in particular stands out because of how certain I was of its correctness and how proud I was of (I thought) seeing right through the wordplay. I'm talking of course (of course?) about 18A: Campus opening? I had the "H" and instantly and confidently thought "Ha, that's HARD C!" Because the "opening" (first letter) of "campus" is a HARD C (unlike the soft "C" of, say, "cell"). Nice try, puzzle! Can't fool me. Only you apparently can because the answer is HIPPO (as in HIPPOcampus, the brain component). If anyone else made the "HARD C" error, please know that my hand is up awaiting your high-five. Don't leave me hanging.
Other mistakes: I wrote in PERM before PEDI (23A: Salon service, for short) and EATEN before EAT IN (28D: Put away some groceries?)—my rationale on that last one was admittedly flimsy. "He has put away some groceries," "he has EATEN some groceries." That might have worked for [Put away, as some groceries?] but as written, EAT IN is the better answer, I admit. EATEN gave me -EE for the end of YUPPIE (i.e. YUPPEE!?) and I was like "that cannot be how you spell that" (38A: Materialistic type of the 1980s). True. Otherwise, no more outright errors except the predictable PREENS before PRIMPS and the far less predictable YELLEN before YELICH (whomst amongst us has not confused Fed Chairs and Baseball MVPS!?).
Never heard of ELISE Mertens, I don't think (2D: Mertens of tennis). Getting rid of cable television means that I'm a lot less sports-aware than I once was. I used to have ESPN on in my house by default much of the time, but no more, and so names, even in sports that I do pay attention to (like baseball—sorry Christian YELICH!) don't work their way into my brain as easily. One word that apparently worked its way out of my brain today was AGOUTIS, an animal I know (or knew) exclusively from crosswords (35A: Only mammals that can crack Brazil nut shells with their teeth). Seems like it's been a long time since I've seen it. I had that -TIS ending and thought "COATIS? COAATIS!?" But no, an agouti is a little mouse-like creature ... sorry, a biggish mouse-like creature (i.e. rodent) of South America. I think I've covered all the things I absolutely didn't know today. It's a solid handful, but not enough to bring me down. This is what's cool about crosswords. You can be ignorant as hell and still get to the finish line through the magical power of "crosses."
 |
| [AGOUTI(S)] |
What else?:
- 10A: Like some on-the-go purchases (IN-APP) — I get that apps are found on mobile devices, which are portable, but I don't really get the "on-the-go" part of this. I can make IN-APP purchases just sitting on my couch.
- 19A: "Read Me" readers (USERS) — at first I thought this was the Neal Stephenson novel Read Me, but that book is actually called REAMDE, which I really should've remembered (it is presumably a mash up of the phrase "Read Me"). When my sister and I first discovered the book (after I read its sequel, Fall) we couldn't stop saying it. REAMDE. REAMDE. It's fun to say.
- 9D: Greek goddess whose name becomes a Mexican beer if you change the first letter to T (HECATE) — thank god I knew the goddess (and the beer) because I could easily have ended up with a controversial sculpture called the TILTED ARM or TILTED ARK (ooh ... did anyone end up with TILTED ARK? That seems at least remotely plausible, since HEKATE is spelled that way sometimes.
- 52A: Speculative venture (FLIER) — I use the phrase "take a flier on ..." more than any person should. And every time I do, I feel like "am I making this up? Is this a thing people actually say?" Thanks to this puzzle for confirming that yes, someone uses FLIER in this way.
- 8D: Toyota models from 1978 to 1999 (TERCELS) — probably helps if you lived through (and drove through) that era. I can see how this answer crossing TILTED ARC might've caused some confusion for some (especially younger) people.
- 11D: "___ am your father (often-misquoted film line) ("NO, I") — I thought the misquote was "LUKE, I am your father." So I'm confused. Wait ... OK, now I'm realizing that I'm confused because the puzzle has given us the actual line and not the misquote (which is what I am familiar with). In my head, the clue was asking for the misquote, and I knew "LUKE, I am your father" was a misquote, so ... I got turned around. OK, it all makes sense now. Phew. (I'll admit—I didn't know what the real quote was—it's no fun to say "NO, I am your father!" in the Vader voice. You need the "LUKE" part for context, and for the fun of holding the "U" in LUKE for an extra-long time).
- 57D: Prez with a V.P. nicknamed "Cactus Jack" (FDR) — never saw this clue, and thank god. Cactus Jack!? No idea. It turns out FDR's veep, John Nance Garner, got his nickname because he fervently supported the prickly pear cactus as the Texas state flower when he was in the state legislature. Despondent over the fact that the cactus lost out to the bluebonnet, Garner went on to console himself with the vice presidency.
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| [winner] |
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| [loser] |
Happy November (the best month!). See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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High Five. Not only did I have Hardc, I took out PROXYWARS, because of it. And convinced myself of some type of PR contest?, campaign, etc. Anyway, made a challenging NE, really tough until finally reinserting PROXYWARS.
ReplyDeleteHand up for HARDC at first, too! I also had SATUP instead of GOTUP for the longest time, wondering if the cross was APPLETREE.
ReplyDeleteI found this to be well north of medium particularly backfilling the NW. ETD was all by its lonesome for a long time even with HECATE in place.
ReplyDeleteAGOUTIS are one of those exotic animals that's been pounded into my brain. Like it's cousin COATI it has its own picture in my 1989 Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. You can't open to any two pages of that book without seeing my notations in the margins. Anything I've seen in a puzzle that I'm not familiar with I underline it or write it in after solving. . A few decades of this is how I can work around complete unknowns like TILTEDARC or PEOPLESELBOW. This was a satisfying Saturday level tough and in places as resistant as those "Brazil nuts" those AGOUTIS have to crack.
Hard C for HIPPO! High 5!
ReplyDelete[Raises hand] Hard C here as well before HIPPO. But the first answer I put in the. grid as I went through the crosses was TILTED ARC; I lived in New York and worked downtown during the time it was up and I remember the controversy very well. Despite Serra's description of how the art (ARC) made people conscious of their position in space, etc., if it had a few teeth to let people (and light) through the plaza it might have been better received, but it as a huge PITA for those of us with places to go and people to see.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this a lot and found it easier than @Rex. I also worked in NY during the era of the Toyota TERCEL, and had little trouble with that one either. But yes, that puts me squarely in the over-the-hill crowd, and I can see how that NW could mess with anyone born after, say, 1975 +/-. Otherwise my experience was similar to OFL. Nice job.
Cactus Jack is a colorful character. He’s the one who described the vice-presidency as not being worth “a bucket of warm ”
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Doesn't appear he saw it as much of a consolation prize.
DeleteTo the point where he ran for the presidency against his boss, which didn’t pan out.
DeleteAnd he didn’t run for a third term…
DeleteAnonymous 1:13 pm
DeleteI think FDR also didn’t want Garner any more. Since he was moving to the right, he chose a left winger Wallace Garner was a conservative Southern Democrat. Garner was no longer needed to “ balance “ the ticket.
Another puzzle with the hiccUPs: GOT and PONIED
ReplyDeleteI thought l was so clever to write in HARD C. But even worse, me a doc, didn't think HIPPOCAMPUS when l had the HI. I bow my head in shame. Only when l got PROXYWAR did l see the error of my ways.
ReplyDeleteThe big guy covers all the fine points of this one - tough enough but accessible and an overall good time. The Desmond Dekker link is fantastic. The only long I didn’t know was PEOPLES ELBOW.
ReplyDeleteARClight
I was downtown nearly everyday in the mid and late 80s and lived the controversy that was the ARC. It did affect the pedestrian flow through the square and wasn’t overly attractive but as a rusted metal wall it did have nuance and depth. One day it was gone.
GEAR Daddies
Liked OLIVE TREE, MAYBE PILE, PONIED UP and others - there’s a lot of wonderful fill here. MOM FRIEND seems a little skeevy.
Enjoyable Saturday morning solve. Lester Ruff’s Stumper today is equally as pleasant - more trivia than Stan usually provides but a neat challenge.
Patty Griffin
The hardest puzzle I ever finished. phew
ReplyDeleteI had CASE before CAPO for the mandolin accessory. No self-respecting mandolin player would be caught dead using a capo. Those are for guitar players who are afraid to play up the neck.
ReplyDeleteSame here. I’ve never seen a mandolin player use a capo. Had to look it up to verify that such a thing exists. Apparently you can find a sort of all-purpose mandolin/banjo/tenor guitar capo. Ever seen a banjo player use a capo? Me neither.
DeleteOtherwise, a great puzzle and superb write-up from Rex. And I’ll second Son Volt: that Desmond Dekker track rocks!
So glad to see this comment. Have seen many a mandolin being played but couldn’t recall ever seeing a capo.
DeleteThank you! Tried to get too fancy with the clue. CAPOs are more used for guitarists with limited chord knowledge, or looking for specific voicings in different keys. Non-guitarists like me who know the “church camp” chords can take simple songs and play them in any key.
DeleteAnother non-CAPO voice here. My middle son played guitar and mandolin in a Band tribute band and I never once saw him clamp a CAPO on to his Les Paul or his mandolin.
DeletePete Seeger used a capo on his long neck banjo. You can google it and see pictures. I recall seeing others too.
DeleteI had to guess at the cross between YELICH and FLIER because both were fully unfamiliar to me. Luckily L seemed more likely than R. Thanks for linking to the explanation!
ReplyDeleteBeing very confident in MONIED UP, BEYOND SATIRE, and for some reason SECATE really had me blocked for an unreasonable amount of time.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDelete*Smack!* - That's me connecting to Rex's high-five hand for HARDC, even had the correct H. Oh, and you better believe i was aware of that awesome F filled puz. As an advocate of the paltry used F, it ranks high in the pantheon of F-ness. 😁
Had to check out Rex's completed puz, as I got the Almost There! prompt, and wasn't going to go back through to find my wrongness. So, a true DNF, as I cheated to finish. Turns out I had PRessWARS, which got me non-word HIPPe (my rationale was a shortened HIPPIE), HEs (hey, clue Malediction has male in it ...), eARs (had eLLE for MLLE, and whilst EARS is a valid word, it would be an odd first name.) Four letter fail. Ah, me.
Pretty good puz. I was stuck in various spots, but not for too long. Fun to see YUPPIES, haven't thought about that word for a minute. Remember what it stood for? Young Urban Professionals. Yup.
I had an OLIVE TREE in my front yard, which was only causing havoc, as the olives would fall off, every pidgeon in town would come over and eat them, leaving pits strewn everywhere. I finally cut that stupid tree down last year. Sorry, Athena.
Well, as much as this post is RIVETing, I gotta go. Have a great Saturday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Speaking of books (we were, right?), get mine! Changing Times by Darrin Vail, wherever you get your books online. 😁
So sad you cut the tree down. We have them on our property and they get sprayed every spring to avoid them from fruiting
DeleteDarrin, sometime you have to fill us in on why you track the Fs in the puzzle... I always appreciate your reactions : )
DeleteI wonder if “Luuuke. I am your FAAAHTher” is familiar because of “Tommy Boy”.
ReplyDeleteRe P Proliferation, "Watch me paste dis patetic palooka with a powerful paralyzing poifect pachydoimus percussion pitch!" might be my favorite Bugs quote of all time. "Baseball Bugs," 1946.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely must track this one down. Never heard it!
DeleteDNF for me. Never heard of AGOUTIS, but I was "confident" in "iguanas" crossing "cut'n'paste." I even confirmed online that iguanas have sharp teeth. I had HIPPO right away, so the right side wasn't a problem once I changed "sin" to HEX (enabling PROXYWARS) and changed "seven" to SIETE.
ReplyDeleteThe media politely misquoted Garner, claiming he said "a bucket of warm sPit."
Hand up for cutnpaste and iguanas.
DeleteIguanas aren’t mammals.
DeleteI almost went with iGuanaS too -- but at the last moment a tiny voice in my head muttered "but aren't they reptiles?"
DeleteI’m shocked that anyone thought an Iguana was a mammal
Delete@Anon 11:56AM: I doubt anyone thought that. More likely a result of going too fast and not thinking it through.
DeleteEtext. Yuck.
ReplyDeleteThis was a good one if you were in a mood to learn things. I hadn’t even left that tiny little NW corner and already I had learned that ELISE Mertens plays tennis, Athena gave away her OLIVE TREE, Toyota made TERCELLS, the goddess HECTATE was one letter away from becoming a beer, and the TILTED ARC was a controversial EYESORE. Wow, I feel so much smarter now.
ReplyDeleteBut wait, there’s more (said the PAID ACTOR, perhaps). Just drifting toward the equator, I also learned that whatever the PEOPLES ELBOW is, that it is noteworthy enough that the NYT gave it an honored place in the grid, just above ANOS and SALIVA.
I also learned something about AGOUTIS. I can only imagine the large scale study involving every mammal on the planet to discover that little tidbit about AGOUTIS and their Brazil Nuts. I would love to see the footage of the scientist who tried to convince an ORCA to try and crack a Brazil nut shell with its teeth.
For the record, it should be pointed out that a HIPPO campus is commonly known as a pod.
ReplyDeleteCouple of flinch-words in there, notably EAVED and ETEXT, but yeah, pretty decent Saturday otherwise. Didn't know the sculpture, so I had ARK rather than ARC for a minute because HEKATE is the Greek spelling and I was thinking the ship rather than the shape. PROXYWARS from the X of HEX got me off and running through the East, a little slower working my way clockwise up the West back to the top.
ReplyDeleteHydra instead of Insta. Cutnpas t e instead of copy paste. Iguanas instead of agoutis. I do the crossword on paper in pen so it came out a bit ugly
ReplyDeleteAnyone else have CutnPASTE and then feed their Brazil nuts to iGUanaS? Cause lemme tell ya, that took a while to let go of.
ReplyDeleteIf I had a pen, “Hard C” would have been in black ink!
ReplyDeleteI had HEKATE and it took me 10 min of hunting to find my error on the grid. Also had HARDC thinking I was so clever. HIGHFIVE!
ReplyDeleteUn montón de posibilidades.
ReplyDeleteZero trick or treaters, and a Dodger win, and RARA in this tragedy ... so it's a hat-trick of succotash. This is why @SouthsideJohnny convinced me to add foreign words into the gunkometer. RARA! Anybody love it? Random Latin-ness. RARE misspelled by some dead guys. Our editors thought the rest of the puzzle is so pristine and gripping we'd celebrate RARA as an important addition to our lexicon for its sweet illumination on the travails of our modern times? Let's go to the crosses: I seriously question how much riveting the typical airline mechanic does. Rosie apparently did. Are we talking about her? Then [Behind] should have been arse-related. They can't feed us a steady diet of the poison and then expect us to like a warmed up gas station burrito. PARODY shows up a day LATE after making me take SATIRE to lunch yesterday. (He slurps his soup). And wrap it up today with eight Popes praying next to the PIETA. Gah. RARA. When time machines are invented, Imma goin' back to Rome to whoop Antonius's asinus. That's a donkey. I really wouldn't hurt a Latin donkey, but I would use a Latin Sharpie to put an E on RARA and a mustache on any sleeping URBANS.
And that's not the worst of it. GEAR TEETH are often engaged in engineering? Ya know what? They're more often not engaged in engineering. And I often PONY UP exuberantly.
TILTED ARC was terrible "art." Put a guy on a horse and call it a day. Or fashion a sculpture of The Rock handing out a PEOPLE'S ELBOW and spitting SALIVA. Thanks for including spit in the puzzle.
You turn HIPPO into a partial when you could have a big cuddly whatever those are in your puzzle? And YUPPIE? They were Ga-ross in the '80s and they are Ga-ross now.
I do so love that Athena gave them the olive tree. Olives are great. AGOUTIS are cute too.
❤️ One of the LOTUS cars is named ELISE.
😩 NOI.
People: 7
Places: 0
Products: 6
Partials: 10 {on a themeless ... sheesk}
Foreignisms: 6
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 29 of 70 (41%) 🔔 {The city of Gunkopolis tolls the church bells celebrating the RARA 40+ achievement}
Funny Factor: 4 🙂
Tee-Hee: MOM FRIEND {if it's, ya know, friendly}.
Uniclues:
1 The user settings.
2 What happens if you don't brush your teeth in Crete.
3 Rodent repairer.
4 A leaflet handed out on campus warning, "The Iliad is boring."
5 The parent of the kindergartener you're stalking on the 'gram.
1 GEAR TEETH IN APP
2 MOLAR OLIVE TREE (~)
3 AGOUTI'S RIVETER
4 EPIC PSA FLIER (~)
5 INSTA MOM FRIEND
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Well, somebody hasta make 'em walk the plank. A JOB IS A JOB ASEA.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Wow, salty today! No, I won't say I love RARA, but I don't mind it; after all it's in the crossword hall of fame next to Avis. But I GUESS you got some spleenin' to do!
DeletePS: I've been paying much closer attention to your gunk breakdowns ever since people complained about a recent high rating of 45%, I think it was. I understand the rules and criteria, and commend this public service you do for us.
Speaking of poison, before I got much of the fill at all, I put in POISON for "Spit it out." Logical, but wrong.
Delete@tht 9:14 AM
Delete"Spleenin' to do!" I love that. /end saltiness.
The cutest thing I've learned about gunk is when people know the gunk they call the puzzle clean, but when they don't know the gunk they go bananas. RARA made me bananas.
Gary
Deletetht mentioned rara avis which once appeared in crosswords AND general English writing quite frequently. Maybe it has
disappeared from use? It simply means rare bird, which itself is an English expression still in use , a loan translation from the Latin. Today RARA a variation on old crosswordese and didn’t bother me at all. Each to his own
Interestingly, Southside Johnny has been less critical of foreignisms of late. Maybe because he figures the Times puzzle is what it is.
So, that's a no on the Bass-o-matic then....
ReplyDeleteYou were not alone. I had Basso filled in there too. Along with PLAY DATES (MOM FRIEND); ACROPOLIS (OLIVE TREE); and DEM TESTER (PAID ACTOR). Basically on the first go-round it was TILTED ARC (if you've live and work in Manhattan for decades, that saga is firmly etched in your brain) and IMHO--but even thought could have been "NSFW." Great puzzle.
DeleteI’m being told that both FOLEY and CACTUS JACK are both wrestling names (along with THE ROCK obviously).
ReplyDeleteHand down (sorry, Rex, can't help ya), and in fact I found this easy for a Saturday. Must be a wavelength thing, despite not knowing TILTED ARC (the last thing I put in), YELICH, and maybe a few others. Liked the puzzle fine, except for SALIVA and its cluing -- breakfast failure.
ReplyDeleteWill have to look up this mighty ELBOW exacting vengeance on the PEOPLE'S behalf (I'm just guessing here what it means).
"Cactus Jack" (FDR) reminds me of a Billy Joel song. Will he get me high tonight? I GUESS NOT, would be my guess.
Hurricane Melissa seems to have PASSed ON, and it looks to be a nice day today. Hope you enjoy yours.
I seem to be an outlier as I thought this was an easy Saturday - much easier than Friday's puzzle.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is despite some decidedly non-kitshef material, such as TERCELS, LOTUS, and whatever TILTED ARC and PEOPLES ELBOW are. Hard to find two subjects I know (and care) less about than cars and wrestling.
Found this way easier than Medium, even though it took me a minute to get going once I did I never really stopped, and finished a couple minutes faster than my average time.
ReplyDeleteHand up for both HARDC and YELLEN.
ReplyDeleteKnew HECATE from HS Latin class and enjoyment of mythology; and somehow knew PEOPLES ELBOW without crosses...just did.
Enjoyed the puzzle and the write-up, even if it left me thinking, after reading about the TILTED ARC, "really?".
This was in my wavelength - nearly broke 7 minutes. But if you can drop in People’s Elbow, all 3 of the long downs in the NE, and Olive Tree without crosses, that helps.
ReplyDeleteThe olive tree in today’s puzzle is in Athens, next to the Acropolis. So it’s not necessarily the oldest one (on Crete, 37D yesterday), but it’s in the area. Odd to get such similar clues on successive days. And glad I went to Greece a couple years ago and learned this!
I was feeling good about finishing this one until I came here and found that the basic stat was ERA rather than ERr. For some reason I never thought of the former; and not being familiar with the sculpture, I figured maybe it consisted of the actual letters RRC on a slanted base. I should have known better, that wasn't Serra's style, but I wasn't thinking clearly.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to be snide, the RV life does have an appeal -- but if you are driving around in one and stopping in campgrounds with hookups, you're not really in the great outdoors.
Being a bit older than Rex, I knew who Cactus Jack was -- though I do tend to confuse him with Truman's VP, Alban Barkley, as to who as in whose administration. So I went with the crosses.
I'm never sure what the rules are for duplicates. YUPPIE are Young Urban Professionals, named after their favorite eight Popes. Some claim they're Young Upwardly Mobile Professionals, but then they would be YUMPY, like Scandinavians in a tense situation.
I don't think 34-A, as clued, passes the breakfast test.
You are if you leave your RV and go for a hike. I mean, geez.
DeleteCongratulations, Mr. Lieberman on a gem of Saturday puzzle!
ReplyDelete16D is a brilliant clue. Did you down a lot of H/TECATE cervezas while constructing? You P’d 16 times! ;-). Alliterative genius.
I meant to mention the HARD C thing earlier -- weirdly, I knew right away it had to be HIPPO, but thought wrongly that it was a mythological animal.
ReplyDelete@Justin from yesterday, karma always gets me quickly - noticed the UP dupe today and tried to avoid PEDI (up) top.
ReplyDeletePEOPLESELBOW - apparently there can be populism in rasslin’ moves - thus was born a huge acting career…
I suppose it’s telling in some way that I knew HECATE, but not the beer (Modelo and Corona are at the tip of my tongue, but Tecate not remotely familiar somehow).
RP is somehow completely in my head on FLIER - really held off for way too long on that one, and really like that it worked.
They must have an AGOUTI at our local (Bronx) zoo, bc that one bubbled up quickly despite not knowing the fun fact.
Hey Nancy, do you know ELISE Mertens. What era? Oh, now. I confess that I watch men’s tennis more than women’s, tuning in to earlier rounds in Grand Slams and most 16, quarters, semis and finals. I get to know players ranked 50 and up as they occasionally make it through. Women, I pretty much tune in for semis and finals. I don’t watch doubles often. ELISE made one semifinal (2018 Australia(which I usually miss)), but is a many time doubles champion. That’s how she escaped my purview. I think she’s due now for a breakthrough!
It's an UP trip' with UPON. Then YUPPIE just rubbed it in your face.
DeleteGood catch, puzzle even more UPpity than I thought…
DeleteConfidently dropped in KNOWLEDGE as Athena's gift to Athens, and I was right darn it! The olive tree represents knowledge.
ReplyDeleteRex obviously was not alone with HARDC. Me too, and like Rex, I was proud of catching the ruse (which was not a ruse)!
ReplyDeleteI viewed Tilted Arc in 3? sections displayed in a Chelsea, NYC gallery about a month ago.
ReplyDeleteOne tough puzzle for me, but I did plop HIPPO right in. So there's that.
ReplyDeleteInitial mistakes: 16A: MOUTH; 34A: TELLME; 41A: EST for the last 3 letters. Glad Rex enjoyed this puzzle!
ReplyDelete41A clue was originally “Modern politics.”
ReplyDeletePeople’s elbow? WTF?
For Anonymous 8:25: See my earlier post.
ReplyDeleteWhen I had ___OI for 11D, I found myself chuckling about Darth declaring "mOI am your father." To which Luke replies, "OK, Dad, but why are you mixing an incorrectly used French pronoun into this revelation?" No wonder it's often misquoted.
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of the French, how about that shout-out to TILTE, sister of Jeanne D'ARC. Maybe it's a French/Star Wars mini-theme. Come over to the d'Arc side, Luke.
AGOUTIS, those loveable Brazil nuts, have MOLARS like GEARTEETH washed in SALIVA. Never look one in the mouth.
Antonius was always all RARA about anything atypical.
My Pa and all of my friends' Pas really loved their BarcaLoungers, so I grew up thinking that this was simply what PASSITON.
For today's puzzle, STARTHERE: If SIETE YUPPIEs get hit with the PEOPLESELBOW TENOR more times, how much PAPEROVER their ANOS will be required?
I agree with @Rex and others. Good crunchy puzzle with very little gunk (maybe EAVED, which sounds like Cockney for vomitted). But still, a really fun solve. Thanks, Michael Lieberman.
Mom friend highly sexist
ReplyDeleteI don't think it is. The clue says "perhaps," as in, this is one possibility.
DeletePretty thorny, this one but, fortunately for me a few things were in my wheelhouse and I managed to build on them. I’ve always been a big fan of Richard Serra’s work so TILTED ARC in the NW was a gimme and Athena’s gift of the OLIVE TREE right above it was pretty easy, too. As was PIETA at 24A. Who said art history was a waste of time? And let’s not ignore all that time I misspent with fast cars. I always wanted a LOTUS. In my mind it’s sort of the British version of the Alfa - smallish, beautiful and very highly strung. A mobile disaster waiting to happen but, also in my mind, a joyous mechanical creation, unlike the woeful TERCELS at 8D (a gimme).
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, 35A AGOUTIS crossing 28D EAT IN was really the toughest spot in the puzzle for me. Except maybe PEOPLE’S ELBOW. I really don’t need to be reminded that professional wrestling exists, thank you. EAT IN was actually pretty good but maybe should just watch the company it keeps in the future.
MARY Wollstonecraft was another one that just jumped out at me which was good because she helped me get PROXY WARS and that whole NE section.
Hated EAVED at 29D. The low point in an otherwise fine puzzle. 44A ESPN wasn’t much better. What doesn’t Disney own?
Difficult but fun and engaging. Thanks, Michael Lieberman.
I got my LOL of the day at Rex's YELICH vs YELLEN, funny stuff, that!
ReplyDeleteThis was a tough Saturday, mostly due to the NE which was impenetrable below HIPPO. I kept staring at ALP________ and trying to figure out why ALPo, dog food, would be sold as adventurous for the dog. Since when does a dog eat so as to have an adventure? And the Rock's signature move? I was expecting some alliteration. PEOPLE plower or some such. ELBOW? Too random.
BEYOND belief had to be taken out because BEYOND belief is more than just absurd. Plus I wanted Rex's PReenS for 42D. MOM got me to PRIMPS.
AGOUTIS - I spent a week on the Honduran island of Roatan (great snorkeling) and there were AGOUTIS wandering around our little cabin. They look like large squirrels but they move like rabbits.
Michael Lieberman, thanks for a Saturday with some TEETH!
I had HARDC too
ReplyDeleteHecuba was not a goddess (see the clue nine down) but the queen of Troy.
ReplyDeleteMight want to check your work, if you put in Hecuba. What do you have for 24 Across?
DeleteI thought this one was lots of fun. I didn't solve it especially quickly, but if I can solve a Saturday puzzle entirely from crosses (no skipping around), I give it an "easy." Today I started with TILTED ARC (I'm a Richard Serra fan) x GOT UP and went from there. I hit a bottleneck trying to get into the lower tier at LATE x "Certain smock," which I doubted could be a Leotard. Fortunately the ROD beneath LATE suggested PARODY, giving me LA...and there was LABCOAT. Such great phrases today: PROXY WARS, PASS IT ON, PAPER OVER, PONIED UP - what a trove! And we got AGOUTIS :)
ReplyDelete@Carola. I'm not sure where you're located but if you ever find yourself with a free few hours in Seattle, check out Serra's "Wake" in the Olympic Sculpture Park. A transcendent experience.
DeleteTilted arm here. Left the i blank in hippo never did see it till I read the write up. Had to cheat on rara to sort out the riveter, eaved, parody,urban yelich cluster****.
ReplyDeleteBit gnarly today but liked it 😎
Had to sort of guess at both CAPO/TERCELS and FLIER/YELICH, but the word CAPO was in my brain somewhere, exclusively from crosswords I’m sure, and the L in FLIER seemed obvious even though I have no idea what that word means as clued.
ReplyDeleteHigh five for HARDC
ReplyDeleteI didn't know several of the answers but was able to discern them via crosses, which also discouraged me from writing in HARDC. They also saved me from my initial ENTERHERE
ReplyDeleteI couldn't finish it before going to bed last night. This morning, I asked my wife for help. She got IPOS at 25D. That convinced us of PEOPLESELBOW, even though it doesn't make any sense. Then PONIEDUP. And I saw AGOUTIS (how do I know that word? From crosswords?) Done!
ReplyDeleteI'm not UP ON the wrestling legacy of The Rock, but the way I considered PEOPLE'S ELBOW, it might be like The People's Court, except that in this case it's The Rock's elbow delivering justice for the people, to the gut of some villain in the ring. (Maybe somebody knowledgeable can weigh in here.)
Delete@tht. It could be that the overlap between knowledgeable pro wrestling fans and dedicated NYTXW solvers is pretty small. In fact I think he is off-line today.
DeleteSt Louis also has a rusted Cor-Ten Serra sculpture in a downtown park. "Twain" was erected in 1982. It is triangular and early on gained a reputation as a pissoir for homeless men. It is still there.
ReplyDeleteIt took many leaps of faith to finish this one: I had trouble believing PEOPLESELBOW was right, but once RVTRIP went in, it had to be; same for TILTED ARC once ELISE was the only thing that worked for Mertens.
ReplyDeleteI had Seven before SIETE, so I wanted "Caregiver" to work, but once I got most of the crosses (except for YELICH), it had to be MOMFRIEND.
Wanted the BEYOND PARODY phrase to end in "odd," so that was the biggest hangup for me. But after getting PRIMPS, I saw it must be PARODY and the baseball guy must be YELICH. As others have said, I learned a lot today and am just pleased to have finished!
Yeah, I thought the answer to "superlatively absurd" was going to be an "ly" word plus the word odd.
DeleteP.S. Another hand up for HARD C on first pass.
ReplyDeleteMost suitably feisty SatPuz. Lotsa stuff I didn't know well.
ReplyDeleteBut my primary take-aways were these:
1. AGOUTIS was a real tough nut to crack. Had to get this unknown critter totally from its crossers, many of which were longballs.
2. STARTHERE had to be a slyly [and primo] placed seed entry, as the last entry in the puzgrid. Shoot, if the first entry had been somethin like TOTHATEND, you'da had a stupendously rare themed SatPuz. sorta. With some other clever theme entry(s) mid-puz, and no revealer, since it's a SatPuz. MAYBEPILE idea, I reckon.
staff weeject pick: NOI. Clue didn't help much, on this one, at our house. LUKE just don't sound like NOI, to m&e. If his name had been Noah, I'd buy into it.
Thanx for the RVTrip*, Mr. Lieberman dude. Sadistically satisfyin SatPuz sufferin.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
... Halloween bag leftovers ...
"Fave Haunts" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
p.s.
* RV = Randomly Voyagin'
Hard c for me too. Anyone out there wonder if GEAR TEETs were a thing because they confidently put an "s" at the end of the obvious plural and then thought that maybe sECATE was a Greek goddess they'd never heard of? Anyone? Took me a good 5 minutes of looking at that answer to finally get it. Enjoyable Saturday. 37:03
ReplyDeleteMedium except for tracking down a misread/typo (I hate when that happens).
ReplyDeleteNo costly erasures.
Me too for quite a few WOEs - MARY, YELICH, SIETE, PEOPLES ELBOW, AGOUTIS, FDR, ELISE, TILTED ARC…
…just the right amount of Saturday crunch, liked it!
Is WOE Write-over Entry?
DeleteWOE is What On Earth. Unknown/baffling clues and/or answers.
DeleteWhat On Earth, I think....
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFor the campus opening, I wanted INTRO, an intro course in college, before I got that H.
ReplyDeletePR for me by a minute. I crushed this one. Never seen a puzzle speak on my wavelength like this one. Holy cow.
ReplyDeleteI love learning stuff over morning coffee but I found no joy in the peoples elbow.
ReplyDeleteThis seemed not too challenging, but just challenging enough to be enjoyable. I like The Rock as an actor, but couldn't care less about wrestling. But PEOPLES ELBOW is an interesting phrase to learn. Also MAYBE PILE which is neat.
ReplyDeleteHad BEYOND BELIEF before PARODY, which I don't think I've ever heard. And of course hands up for HARDC!
I lived for a few years in Vancouver without a car -- walked, biked, bussed: no problem. But when I wanted to visit family and the cabin back home I would just rent a car. One time I rented a TERCEL automatic; the highway back to Kamloops is a 4 to 6 lane superhighway going over high mountains, so it was not a wise choice of model. Struggled up the hills, but I compensated by going as fast as possible down the hills. I got to about 180 km/h (110 mph) a few times; never got pulled over because it was late at night. It was fun!
I gave out about 230 candy bars last night; ran out about 7:45 pm so 300 would probably have been about right. Then I did the crossword, then I finished watching the ball game... huge disappointment the way that 9th inning ended. Oh well, try again tonight; go Jays!
Very enjoyable Saturday puzzle! Just the right amount of crunch.
ReplyDeletePERM before PEDI? Check. HARD C before HIPPO? Check. (But I knew the Star Wars misquote)
60A really wants to be EBOOK but it's not, because of the clue. ETEXT?! A whole bunch of either crosswordese-y or straight up weird "E" answers today: ETD ERA ESPN ESTD ETEXT (?!) EAVED (?!). Also there's EAT IN, from that clue I immediately wanted EAT or ATE, but they don't fit, so I was expecting a meta-trick where the "intended" answer to the clue is an EAT variant but the "?" changes the clue into meaning something else.
Nice long stuff: BEYOND PARODY, PONIED UP, PASS IT ON, ALPHABITS, I GUESS NOT, MAYBE PILE (never heard of it but I really like this answer). If you're a fan of Chess Simp's YouTube videos, then you know what came to mind when I got PAID ACTOR.
Insane crosswordese reflex moment: I had the initial U in 19A, and my immediate reaction to seeing "Readers" in the clue was to put in UTNES. Yeah.
I see at xwordinfo.com that HIPPO has appeared in the NYTXW 56 times. Today is the first time it got a "Campus opening" clue. The other 55 times it was clued as the animal.
ReplyDeleteOops, make that 54 times. It was once clued as "St. Augustine's city". Huh? That sent me to wiki where I learned that he once was the Bishop of HIPPO Regius (these days Annaba, Algeria) and was known as "Augustine of Hippo". So there.
I gave the side eye to the clue "Airline mechanic, at times" for 37A RIVETER. Mechanics work on functional components like engines, landing gear, and hydraulic systems. RIVETs are structural components so maybe "Airplane constructor, at times" would be more accurate for RIVETER, right?
Their Sheetmetal mechanics they only show up when someone or something run into an airplane and damages it
DeleteIt always amazes me the things supposedly educated people don’t know. I thought FDR was a gimme. Cactus Jack was John Nance Garner, FDR’s VP in his first two terms and the man who famously said that the vice presidency wasn’t worth “a bucket of warm spit” (or “piss,” in some tellings).
ReplyDeleteWhen the category is fun facts about vice presidents from 80 years ago, most educated people were not alive or politically cognizant at the time, nor is that something that would be taught in most history classes that survey important events and eras. FDR filled itself in, and glad to learn something in the process!
DeleteWell, I'm betting there are topics for which even a superior person like you wouldn't know the answer. Lose the attitude, dude.
Delete@RP: yep. high-5’s-ville, dude. HARDC way before HIPPO, at our house, also. Lost precious nanoseconds.
ReplyDeleteM&A
I guess I'm the only person who found this puzzle to be very, VERY easy? My average on a Saturday is around 15 minutes; I did this one in under 9, on my phone, mostly 1-handed while I brushed my teeth and whatnot.
ReplyDeleteI guess it hit my knowledge base very well- I knew ELISE and PEOPLESELBOW and YELICH immediately, I automatically guessed HIPPO and the W from the Rock clue confirmed PROXYWARS, I got TERCELS just from the C... absolutely nothing challenged me on this puzzle, which means I didn't particularly enjoy it because I want an end-of-week challenge. Heck, I didn't even know ESPN was an answer because I never had to read that clue, which shouldn't occur on a Saturday.
But hey, if I'm alone, so be it.
John Nance Gardner when asked what he thought of being the vice president, replied: "It ain't worth a bucket of warm spit." (Though some think he used a word similar to spit.)
ReplyDeleteAs a medical person first, HIPPO was a gimme, and was my entre into the NE corner.... If it had been Hardc I would have been sunk!!! : )
ReplyDeleteI’ve played mandolin for more than 30 years now and I’ve never used a capo. They make them, but a mandolin’s neck is so short that using a capo would be impractical and awkward.
ReplyDeleteI just clicked over to the Tennis Channel and who was playing doubles (and winning, in Riyadh) but ELISE Mertens!
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell is INAPP??!!
ReplyDeleteMeaning within an application. You make purchases while in an online app such as Amazon.
DeleteNot saying that mandolinist never use capos, but it's pretty rare. On the other hand, aside from "pick" (which wouldn't fit with any of the crosses), CAPO was pretty much the only option available, so it wasn't too flummoxing.
ReplyDeleteDRECK puzzle. No slogans, wrestlers and commercials for me.
ReplyDeleteI’ve gotten the past few Saturdays, but this one was tough, even with a bit o’ Googling. Anyone who completed this without help must certainly be in the top .01% of the populace in terms of intelligence
ReplyDeletePeople of NYC, last I looked, Tilted Arc on display in a Chelsea art gallery.
ReplyDeleteLots of hate the people's elbow! WWE is, in many ways and for at least a few of the performers (The Rock included), a type of populist performance art. The Rock also had "The People's Eyebrow" (which I'd rather have seen in the grid). He seemed hyper aware of the performance of what he was doing, and in that context, is amazing to watch.
ReplyDelete@Ari I don't know if anyone here has read Roland Barthes' essays collected in Mythologies (which form a kind of evidentiary basis for a theory of signs and semiotics he was setting out as a philosopher), but the very first essay is on wrestling as understood here. He must have attended a number of wrestling matches in France in the late 50s, and by his account, all the wrestlers were aware of the performance aspect, that they were creating sorts of 'moral dramas' in real time, rooted in the nature of the characters they play and their temperaments, in a manner that Barthes says recalls ancient Greek theater.
DeleteAlthough no words are spoken, the audience is spontaneously attuned to the narrative unfolding before them, by "reading" (presumably intuitively and unconsciously) a calculus of signs that the wrestlers deploy to exhibit their temperaments and emotions (treachery, indignation, righteousness, etc.). The People's Elbow, with its thunderclap of smacking flesh, might signify the final decisive administration of justice to the deserving "heel", a conclusion satisfying to the 'moral' sensibilities of the spectator.
The World of Wrestling
I wasn't even thinking of Barthes when writing this, but it was likely haunting the back of my head somewhere. Things have changed a bit in terms of the production value, but the mythic nature persists.
DeleteHad to be proxy wars. And that made Hard C impossible. Never heard “flier” used that way … perfect Saturday struggle
ReplyDeleteSo glad @Rex wasn’t left alone on the Hard C front. Had I not been looking over my granddaughter’s science homework while solving this morning, I’d have been right there with y’all. But, she was labeling a diagram of the brain and said “with a name like HIPPOcampus, I expected it to be the biggest part!”
ReplyDeleteAs for the rest of this very Saturday-esque offering, I found most of the same answers challenging as did OFL. I knew “Cactus Jack” was Veep to FDR and AGOUTIS is just there in my HIPPOcampus in the chapter labeled “crosswords.” They are with their cousins the coati.
In the mistakes category, I had E-rEad for E-TEXT, and Trend for TENOR (which I still think is a much better answer for that particular clue). Also would have had pick instead of CAPO for my mandolin, but by then I had my Toyota TERCELS parked in their reserved spot. I knew that one right off the bat because my bestie during law school had a beat to crap 1980 TERCEL that he’d bought used and he would sing to his young daughter to the tune of “Surry With the Fringe on Top, Let’s go out and start up the motah of our rusty red Toyota . . . “
Chuckled at “speculative venture” for FLIER because the admonition “you’re going to take a (or more often “another”) FLIER” was a favorite of Gran’s when she perceived that I was about to do something that would land me in a deep “pile” with some facet of The Establishment - parental or otherwise. She was right almost all the time, but was also there to pick up the pieces.
Slow going through the TITLED ARC (which I have seen and walked several times when it was installed in NYC, knew the ARC but couldn’t pull out the TITLED) and PEOPLES ELBOW sections. Hearty congratulations to Michael Lieberman on some crunchy but gettable real estate today. This was fun!
Anyone else familiar with the term FLIER as a sailboat racing term? (On the downwind leg of a race, a skipper might elect to leave the rest of the pack in hopes of better wind/tide.)
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the puzzle
ReplyDeleteI was gradually getting people’s elbow but I resisted it. Sounds like a weird name for a famous move in “entertainment “ wrestling. Interesting that the Rock got a lot of praise for the biopic the Smashing Machine he just appeared in. He was so wooden as a sports agent in an HBO show I was surprised by the reviews. He plays an MMA fighter, someone he knew irl.
Loved Rex’s post.
Easier than usual Saturday for me since People's Elbow went in immediately. My misspent childhood paid off for once!
ReplyDeletei usually don't walk all over a saturday but when i finished on L of flier i felt like i lost a piece of my soul. never heard of that rubbish
ReplyDeleteflier -- finished on L of flier on the throne. still don't get it.
ReplyDeleteConfidently entered “undecided” in 30 D as my first answer (“I’ll think about this” etc.) Obviously nothing else worked around it. That set the tone for the rest of my solving experience.
ReplyDelete“Took a flier” seems pretty common
Deletehigh five
ReplyDeleteI had twisted ARM & HEMATE and since I use a pen, I don’t get a ding and just assumed I had it right until I happened to look here. I didn’t know the sculpture or the goddess (I should’ve got the beer!) So for me, it was one of those…what’s that word you use for a cross letter when you don’t know either word?
ReplyDelete