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Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: ANIMISTS (10D: Shamans, typically) —
Animism (from Latin: anima meaning 'breath, spirit, life') is the belief that places, objects, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and in some cases words—as being animated, having agency and free will. Animism is used in anthropology of religion as a term for the belief system of many indigenous peoples in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organized religions. Animism is a metaphysical belief which focuses on the supernatural universe: specifically, on the concept of the immaterial soul.Although each culture has its own mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples that they often do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to "animism" (or even "religion"). The term "animism" is an anthropological construct.
Largely due to such ethnolinguistic and cultural discrepancies, opinions differ on whether animism refers to an ancestral mode of experience common to indigenous peoples around the world or to a full-fledged religion in its own right. The currently accepted definition of animism was developed only in the late 19th century (1871) by Edward Tylor. It is "one of anthropology's earliest concepts, if not the first". (wikipedia)
• • •
Because of my comprehension failure, STILL MOOING was about the only answer that gave me any trouble today. I had to think for a few seconds about what "bills" meant at 16D: Bills first introduced in 1861 (FIVES). Considered legislative bills and hat bills (!) before finally getting around to cash. Never considered bird bills because how would you "introduce" those. Unless you discovered a bird no one had seen before, one with a brand new kind of bill. But even then, you'd be introducing the bird, not the bill per se. But that was it for "what? huh?" reactions today: STILL MOOING and FIVES. I'm looking over the whole grid now and I don't see anything that I didn't get pretty much on first look. I mean, I misspelled KEENEN (as KEENAN) on my first pass, but that's hardly a significant snag. I haven't seen the term "dogsbody" in a while, and the last time I saw it was (shocker) in a crossword. But I apparently misremembered the word as applying to nurses, specifically combat nurses. Where is my brain getting this from? The word "dogsbody" just means "drudge," in the sense of "one who is obliged to do menial work," or work that is routine and boring. No idea how "combat nurse" got tangled up in my mental picture of the word. Hmm, did a little poking around and it looks like the last time I dealt with "dogsbody" in a puzzle context was almost 19 years ago, in early 2007 (!!), when "dogsbody" was in the clue for ... [drum roll] ... NURSE'S AID. Hurray, I'm not insane! There was ... some ... medical angle to the word as I learned it. The full clue was [Hospital dogsbody]. So there's nothing inherently medical about "dogsbody." It's just a word I see so rarely ("chiefly British," Merriam-Webster tells me), that I haven't processed its full meaning before. Those days are over! I'm now a dogsbody expert. And a steak expert to boot. Been a real educational morning on the blog, I tell you what.
Bullets:
- 15A: Frustrated and making poor decisions, informally (ON TILT) — a poker term. A poker term I learned from crosswords. Poker, like golf, is not a thing I care at all about. I know most of what I know from crosswords. Or from accidentally "watching" poker coverage on ESPN back when I had television ("watching" = briefly stopping at while flipping channels).
- 16A: #1 on Wired magazine's list of the 10 most influential video games of the 2010s (FORTNITE) — transparent and dull. Straight trivia, and not even tough trivia. I care zip about video games but FORTNITE (like MINECRAFT) seems ubiquitous.
- 20A: First name in hog riding (EVEL) — at some point Mr. Knievel got bored of jumping motorcycles over trucks and canyons and decided to move on to competitive swine racing. (I look forward to your corrections)
- 30A: Higher power? (SOLAR) — power that comes from the heavens, i.e. the sun
- 12D: Mardi Gras parading societies (KREWES) — I've been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans precisely once, in 1994. I remember the KREWES, but I only know that's what they're called, and that that's how they're spelled, because of crosswords. Beginning to suspect that half of all the things I know, I know from crosswords. I'm like 95% crossword lore at this point. One more year of doing this (the big "2" "0" next year!) and I will have achieved full crosswordness. Crossword singularity. I will be one with the Crossword Universe, indistinguishable from grid discourse, a walking blog. Can't wait.
- 44A: Org. that's gone to the dogs? (AKC) — more dogsbodies now, only this time they are dogs' bodies, and the bodies in question are the purview of the American Kennel Club.
Speaking of going to the dogs, let's do that now. It's time once again for 🌲🐈Holiday Pet Pics🐕🌲! Note: PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME ANY MORE PET PICS, I'M ALL FULL UP FOR THIS YEAR, thank you.
We'll start with the three wise men. I'm speaking, of course, about Harry, Joey, and Mittens:
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| [Thanks, Jane!] |
Here's Mae holding Connie, high above the streets of NYC. It's always a white Christmas when Connie's around. Look at that sweet snowball!
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| [Thanks, Laurie!] |
Silent Night, Pumpkin Night ...
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| [Thanks, Barbara] |
Here's wee Alex. I love this genre of photo—the dutiful-posing-in-hopes-of-treat-remuneration photo. "Just take the shot already. Great, that'll be six treats, please."
.jpeg) |
| [Thanks, Danny!] |
Here's Taschi, whose hiding skills aren't very advanced yet.
Garf, on the other hand, has perfected the art of hiding. Knows just how to blend into a crowd. Master of disguise. Here, look, just a pile of toys, the kind you might expect to find under any Christmas tree, nothing to see here ... right? ... wrong!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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 |
| [Where's Taschi!?] |
 |
| [There's Taschi!] [Thanks, Nick & Dagna!] |
Garf, on the other hand, has perfected the art of hiding. Knows just how to blend into a crowd. Master of disguise. Here, look, just a pile of toys, the kind you might expect to find under any Christmas tree, nothing to see here ... right? ... wrong!
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| [Garf! That's the sound you make when your cat scares the hell out of you] [Thanks, Kathryn!] |
That's all. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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If 'Well La Di Dah' doesn't make you think of the late, great, Diane Keaton, I don't wanna know ya.
ReplyDeleteWell, golly, sorry this didn't register, although I've seen Annie Hall and more than once. As penance, here's a clip where she says it. Isn't she a cutie though?
Delete
ReplyDeleteWednesday-Easy. Not a bad puzzle, just over too soon. No WOEs.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
I got my tennis time line confused and briefly had connor before AGASSI at 1A
Io/Luna was a MOon before it was a MOTH (8D)
FreE before FIRE at 22A
About 4D: I like rare burgers. I used to say "STILL MOOING" but now I say, "Just bring me a cow and a meat grinder."
Do you really say that?
Delete“HOG” is a Harley Davidson
ReplyDeleteFell for it, didn’t you?
DeleteFrom Harley Owners Group
DeleteThis was one of the more enjoyable Saturdays for me, probably for all of the reasons that Rex didn’t care for it. The longer answers were pretty straightforward and mostly “in the language”. Additionally, I was able to muster up enough of the toeholds that I mentioned recently which allowed me to get some momentum going, thus amping up the enjoyment level on a weekend.
ReplyDeleteI had not heard of KREWES before, but I welcome it because I love Cajun and Creole food, and NOLA is one of my favorite places to visit - especially for a food crawl on a long weekend (btw, in addition to gumbo, jambalaya and etouffee, I make a pretty mean blueberry beignet).
If you happen to have a favorite restaurant in the Big Easy, by all means feel free to let me know your favorite dish that they serve.
Lil Dizzy's in the Treme serves up legendary fried catfish and just about everything else good in the world. Sometimes on Sundays they do brunch buffet.
DeleteMore white tablecloth, but Herbsaint on St Charles has a take on spaghetti carbonara with a deep fried poached egg that is a wonder of culinary science and also the most delicious thing ever. But our go-to for special occasions is usually Coquette on Magazine. They don't have a weak dish on the menu.
DeleteWhen I was a girl on my ‘semester abroad’ in London in 1978 there was an ad on the tube that asked ‘tired of being the office dogsbody?’ It represented everything to me about the difference between American and British English. (That and the man who asked me ‘am I on right for the British Museum?’)
ReplyDeleteLove it. When I lived in London, I made a mental note at the time of this somewhat prosaic utterance once heard on a news broadcast, "The price of petrol will rise a tuppence over the weekEND" -- because to me it couldn't have sounded more British if it tried.
DeleteGood stuff. My favorite was being on a city bus with an obviously over-served, loud and rude passenger who was told "You're out of sorts, mate.".
DeleteAnonymous 6:45 AM
Deletetht pabloinnh
Thanks for the memories. I was in France for Junior year in the early seventies but I became friends with a group of British students at the French school. . I learned French but also learned why it is said that Britain & the US are divided by the same language (G.B. Shaw?). One of my favorites was when one of my British friends said he went by a female student’s place to knock her up ( i.e. knock on her door and maybe wake her up). On the other hand, the word fanny had a distinctly different meaning from ours.
I feel guilty setting my fastest time for a Saturday because it didn't play like a Saturday puzzle. The clueing was obvious enough that even the "?"s I got on first guess. Oh well.. C'mon, Challenging Sunday Puzzle! 🤞 🤞
ReplyDeleteNah! Take the win.
DeleteA leap of faith here and there but I’m down with Rex’s take - this was closer to a Wednesday +. The longs lacked splashiness - I liked SAD TROMBONE x FEEL THE BURN.
ReplyDeleteI’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus
I have a friend who uses the STILL MOOING line all the time - a gimme. NERD FEST, ERRAND BOY, CHIN STRAP are all pedestrian - lots of real estate on flat fill. Knew FORTNITE but never played it.
Shonen Knife
Pleasant enough I guess - but not a real Saturday morning test. David Williams Stumper brings a little more heat today but it too is doable.
My Morning Jacket
How a puzzle with answers like ANIMISTS, KREWES, and KEENEN can be rated "easy" is a mystery to me. Not to mention that WELLLADIDAH is misspelled, FIRE means "let go," not "let go of," and a SUNTAN is not a shade ("tan" is). I must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
ReplyDelete"Not to mention that WELLLADIDAH is misspelled" <-- It is? Maybe you're used to seeing a variant?
DeleteHaha Bob…yes wrong side of bed! The puzzle today spelled LAHDIDAH the way I tend to think of it. Also…just sayin’ that back in the day that women wore “hose”, SUNTAN was often amongst the shades offered.
Delete@Bob…take it back on LADIDAH. I do tend to put TWO Hs. But…I’ve gotten used to all the variants I guess…
DeleteEither the "h" on lah and dah, or no "h" in both places, right?
DeleteI read the SUNTAN clue differently, as in an umbrella term for the shade your skin turns because you've been sitting on the bench. Not a designated/specific hue you'd find in a color book. Perhaps a small distinction with a little difference?
Delete"I think it's time to fire Marcy". "I think it's time to let go of Marcy".
DeleteAlso here to say Wednesday-Easy. I had a 7 minute time that could have been 5 if I hadn't gotten lightly tripped up in the SW. Almost no resistance.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm with @Rex on the STILLMOOING clue, I had the other definition of "rare" fixed firmly in my brain until the last moment when MOOING became unavoidable from crosses... I had STILLM__ING for a minute and just kind of stared at it. The only Saturday level part of the puzzle for me, a clever clue misdirect!
Rex, have you considered that instead of puzzles getting easier, you're getting better at them? :D
ReplyDeleteI am not getting better, puzzles get easier!
DeleteEasy Saturday. I really like the fill today, but like Rex I long for a toughening-up of the weekend puzzles.
ReplyDeleteTurns out 'blue jay' has the same number of letters as TORONTO.
Has the time for DORIS Day pun clues passed? It's been more than fifty years since her heyday.
Hand up for MOon before MOTH, and for KREWES being a WoE.
Oh, a gorgeously filled 64-worder, a joy to uncover Look at those 11s: FEEL THE BURN, SAD TROMBONE, STILL MOOING, and WELL LA DI DAH. Each colorful, and each appearing in the Times puzzle for the first time. And hardly a whiff of junk anywhere.
ReplyDeleteIt takes talent and sweat to fiil a grid like this.
Enough riddles and return-to areas to satisfy my brain’s work ethic, some “Whee!” splats, some deep burrows for words I know I’ve known but are hiding, and some feelgood pat-on-the-back moments where a clue that could’ve fooled me didn’t.
And [Dogsbody]. Now there’s a word that can mean anything, simply anything, if you don't know it, and I didn't. That answer mightily fought me, and oh what a sweet feeling to finally win that battle.
I loved the [Bills first introduced in 1861] misdirect, learned CHINSTRAP beard, and the Van Gogh clue prompted a momentary blissful mental revisit of his “The Starry Night”.
Simply a rich and splendid outing, Robert. Thank you so much for making this!
I know I've seen WELL LA DI DAH before. Was it a clue/answer combo? Or spelled with LAH instead of LA?
DeleteRoo
LAHDIDAH -- Eight times, but no WELL.
DeleteI was surprised to finish a Saturday in under 20 minutes; actually to finish at all -- they are often at the edge of or beyond my knowledge /CW skill. Came here to find out if more robust solvers thought it an unusually easy Saturday, and that seems to be the consensus so far. Still, I'll take it.
ReplyDeleteWell, it is quite fun to scroll through Rex's comments and come across your own beloved pets! The "three wise men" are mine, except that I must point out that Mittens (c. 1957) was very much a lady, rather than one of the boys. ;-)
ReplyDeleteFor most of this puzzle I was thinking, "This is so easy it could be a Wednesday," but then I came to the NW corner, and, not knowing FORT NITE or KREWES, and having Free instead of FIRE (for "Let go of") had to struggle. But that was the only spot where I met any resistance.
Nice! Mittens is gorgeous, and yes, no doubt a cut above.
DeleteHarry is all like, "I'd like to have a word with you." :-)
I’m very familiar with STILL MOOING, but Dogsbody was a totally new term for me. When Rex complains about puzzles being too easy lately, I often wonder if that’s partly a factor of immense experience with them or if they really are “objectively” easier in some way that could be empirically confirmed.
ReplyDeleteWhy “dah” and not “lah”? Seems like it should be “la-di-da” or “lah-di-dah”, no?
ReplyDeleteExactly right. There's no third spelling, except here.
DeleteI spent a few minutes on it, and it does appear that those appear more frequently, but (Bob) to say LA-DI-DAH never occurs except for here is simply incorrect. Here.
DeleteI submit that not all spellings of all words and phrases are completely standardized, even in this day and age.
Easy for a Saturday and a lot of fun, but I was too hasty filling in the NW corner (I'm a tennis fan and got Agassi right away) and overlooked the foreign spelling in the 2-Down clue, which had me thinking that DARMA must be some weird body layer. Alas. Otherwise, a pleasure.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteWell, @Rex, I had almost exactly the same experience you did. So nothing to add, except 👋👋 for more challenging Saturdays!
(sorry if this is a dupe; first attempt got a "sorry, something went wrong")
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteNot as easy for me as for Rex, stuck in various areas, but trudged on and finished. Feeling a little THICK this morning.
I got a chuckle out of STILL MOOING. I'm not a rare steak guy, it's gotta be cooked. I know the argument, but I don't want to taste bloodiness with my steak. Cook it well and give me steak sauce!
There was a funny cartoon with Garfield (this is from memory, so I'm sure I have the wording incorrect.) One time, Jon went on a date with some woman, brought Garfield along, they are at a restaurant, ordered steak, the waiter asks "How would you like it?" She says "Rare". Waiter asks "How rare?" She says "Just run the cow by and I'll take a bite!"
Anyway, good SatPuz. Time to BEETS feet and get out of here.
Have a great Saturday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Roo. It's not "bloodiness". That liquid that you're trying to cook out is mostly water combined with myoglobin, a protein that somehow moves oxygen from cell to cell in the animal. (Please don't ask me to be more specific on that. I"m not a biologist. I am a cook.) The blood that you and many others fear is all drained out at the abattoir.
DeleteI think ON TILT comes from pinball, not poker.
ReplyDeleteYes. Many a tilts in my day
DeleteAnonymous 8:13 AM & 10:33 AM
DeleteNote the word “on”. Not commonly used with pinball. References all say poker is the immediate source of the two word expression. First in print in the 1930’s.
EASY? NOT! ....never heard of FORTNITE (really)
ReplyDeleteSheesh, way too easy. The only section that slowed me up was the SW (which includes the ending of STILL MOOING which -- whoosh -- went right over my head before I came here). And the only reason for the slow-up was putting in AKa instead of AKC (instead of "club", I was thinking "association").
ReplyDeleteI too misspelled KEENEN.
KREWES was news to me.
ON TILT: perhaps it is a poker term, but you also hear it a lot outside of poker (I've heard it in chess). I thought it harked back to tilting in pinball. The basic idea being that you flip out in rage at your poor play and defeat, like shaking the pinball machine in anger and it goes ON TILT.
Really not a lot else to say about the puzzle. STILL MOOING was the standout; otherwise it really lacked luster. It was a SAD TROMBONE among Saturday puzzles. You guys at the NYTXW really need to kick it up a notch or three. (Why three stars, Rex? I'm genuinely "puzzled".)
Oh, and et tu, Rex? I mean, what the "fleek"? It's only been a few days and I've already forgotten what that meant, and yet it still REPELs me. (My daughter just came downstairs and I asked her and she knew, because she knows everything, and so maybe now I'll remember after all, but I'll still hate it probably. We'll see, because I sense this could become a word du jour, even though it's well past its sell-by date.)
Later, y'all.
“Half of all the things I know, I learned from crossword puzzles.” Dang it, Rex, now I have to find a new title for my memoir.
ReplyDeleteStill trying to imagine what would make a Sudoku puzzle a holiday Sudoku.
If Saturday is going to be this easy, they need to add a New York Times Super Challenging Bonus Puzzle for Expert Solvers. Maybe release it on Tuesdays.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Sleater Kinney!
ReplyDeleteRe pet pix: we stopped hanging tinsel after we saw our cat with a shiny butt iykwim
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Luckily Mittens didn't get into it. She lived to be 21!
DeleteNot as easy for me as for everyone else here, but without pressing still finished well ahead of any prior Friday or Saturday time. On first pass had only AGASSI, CROONERS, and MOW and thought it a usual Saturday. Then things just started filling in. WELLLADIDAH took only a couple of crosses to get because it was a running tag line between my wife and a favorite niece. KREWES was new to me, and had CREE before ERIE, so learned something.
ReplyDeleteRex, you gotta try harder -- only one hit on your swine-racing joke so far.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle and its comments really bring home the truth that in the age of the Internet, everything is niche. The most influential video game of the 2010s? Many have never heard of it. Same goes for fleek, Agassi, and still mooing.
I guess MOon and MOTH are a kealoa. Are there any other insects named for moons?
It was fun putting in LA DI DAH from the L, and fun seeing the arguments about how to spell it. I think that's an HOC (H of convenience) at the end.
Rex, I will say...I truly appreciate when you make a mistake and then own it (e.g. STILLMOOING from today). No snark here. All us crossword solvers go through the same thing, and it's pleasant to see that humility in you. I thank you. Good job.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
DeleteAnother embarrassingly easy Saturday.
ReplyDeleteI say again…
What is wrong with Shortz?
Shrinkflation on the quality of the NYT puzzles
This was a Tale of Two Puzzles for me…that being that the entire West side seemed easy and the majority of the entire East side had me stymied with clues like “dogs body” and answers like ANIMIST. Well, as I think back the Southeast NOT so hard.
ReplyDeleteEnough crunch today to keep me happy on a Saturday what with some still unpurchased Christmas items to select…out in real life…ugh.
Similar experience. Had everything but the northeast filled in quickly but had to work harder to wrap up that section.
DeleteDental Assistant: Now laddie, the dentist will be walking in soon. When he says "Say ah" you'd best be openin' yer trap.
ReplyDeletePatient: And if I don't?
Assistant: WELLLADIDAH or sure you'll regret it.
Patient: What if I say it wrong?
Assistant: Are ya THICK, lad? ERRANDBOY you'll FEELTHEBURN.
Good puzzle. Too easy. Thanks, Robert S. Gard.
Probably seeing a lot of personal records today, this was closer to my Monday time than my normal Saturday time. A lot closer, in fact. That just... shouldn't happen. I didn't think the puzzle was bad by any means, but that's far too easy for a Saturday.
ReplyDeleteAs a Jays fan, the clue for 50 across was unnecessarily cruel.
ReplyDeleteI feel for you, strommy. My team (hockey) almost always stub their toes at the gates of immortality. Your team has won 2 World Series championships and put on a great show this year. I live on the west coast and haven't watched baseball in years but some friends talked me into it and I'm so glad they did. That was good baseball.
DeleteSomething amazing has happened the past few weeks! I’ve become demonstrably smarter!
ReplyDeleteIf recent NYTXW are to be believed, in any case…
Bueno, ¿no somos todas tontas?
ReplyDeleteFun puzzle with a minimum of yuck. The northeast took as long as the rest of the puzzle combined. KREWES felt like six random letters so I researched after the solve and it is definitely something I didn't need to know. Add dogsbody and a video game ranking and the "don't know and will never care succotash" built up a nice pile of grumpy juju and I held a POUTY PARTY for myself.
I guess we're part of a NERDFEST every day here. Some days we reek of inner geek turning into outer geek. Some days it's a lotta [womp, womp].
STILL MOOING is just gross. The worst kind of hacky humor fragile masculinity has to offer. 🦖 needs to spend more time around rednecks and he'd hear it every damn meal.
I like the way CAPER sounds. I finished listening to Nancy Drew #2 yesterday and those novels are terribly cringe-inducing in the most ghost written corporate schmaltz kinda way, and poor Nancy is always in the midst of a CAPER. Word on the streets is she's going to be gifted a boyfriend soon and I am looking forward to the shenanigans. In the meantime, while I wait for #3 from the library, it's back to Don Quixote who redefines the entire concept of a CAPER.
People: 6
Places: 2
Products: 5
Partials: 1
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 15 of 64 (23%)
Funny Factor: 4 🙂
Tee-Hee: SHAKE ON.
Uniclues:
1 Songster with in-skull slats.
2 Acne conventions.
3 When you find out there are no mutts in Westminister.
4 Paints corn beef.
5 Result of running around naked in your backyard.
6 A video game?
7 All of my good sweaters.
8 "No movie needs to be longer than 90 minutes," and "It's just fine on a TV."
1 VENTED CROONER
2 DERMA NERD FESTS
3 AKC SAD TROMBONE
4 FEATURES REUBEN
5 SNEAKY SUNTAN
6 CODER CAPER
7 MOTH FEAST MENU
8 CINEMA RETORTS (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Acreage for sleepy espionagers. SPIES-INN LAND.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nice gunk gauge rating today, which definitely contributed to my elevated level of enjoyment.
DeleteIs NERDFEST a dual edged sword - i.e.is arguing over the plural of LEGO, and the proper spelling of la-di-da consistent with the spirit of a NERDFEST, or closer to GOOBERFEST territory? Maybe a referendum by the citizens of Gunkistan would be appropriate.
I agree that STILL MOOING is just gross. I didn’t understand the clue either (I think maybe my subconscious refused to understand it) and had to look it up after the puzzle was finished. The resulting aha moment was the only surprise in a Wednesday-level puzzle.
DeleteLove, love, love the pet pictures and all the different Christmas trees and dwellings!
@Southside. What about 33A? I SAYST la-di-da but I SAYEsT LAH-DI-DAH.
Delete@Les…gotta say…you reminded me of how I didn’t like SAYST. Good one on THAT and the LADIDAH flap.
DeleteCould be that I grew up in household that served meat "Pittsburgh" - which means seared on the outside and raw in the middle - that STILL MOOING was well known to me, and I assumed everyone else - until today.
ReplyDeletePlayed like an easy Friday for me. Entered last letter to no happy music, and tried IN ROMa instead of IN ROME and GENEVa instead of GENEVE to see if that did the trick, which were the only two clues that I thought could go either way (funny symmetry that). But still nothing until EMBARc looked off (although I swear I've seen it spelled that way - maybe only in French?) and decided that cREWES could be spelled with a "K" and voila. Whatever. Long story too long. 17:50
"Pittsburgh". Never heard that one. In the early to mid-70s I worked in a high volume steakhouse where we cooked a particularly thick sirloin that way and called it "blue rare", maybe because it was still cold in the middle.
DeleteI grew up in a household where meat was routinely overcooked. I would politely complain and eventually, every time we had grilled meat I would be asked if I wanted it STILL MOOING. I would answer, "Yes, please", and still get it medium. One of the many reasons I had to move out.
Les S. More
DeleteWhen I Was younger, I ate red meat fairly often. Never liked rare. When I was in France Junior year abroad, at the restaurant universitaire I came upon some hamburger, seared black on the outside and bright red on the inside. I hated it.
Loved still mooing. A friend loves rare steak. He tells the waiter “just knock the horns off and put it on the plate!”
ReplyDeleteThe heading on the law professor's note said: RE: TORTS
ReplyDeleteAn alternate clue for 31D (CAPER) could be "Unusual pizza topping."
And here's a joke that was shared with the membership of the Dull Men's Club (UK Chapter) recently. It was billed "the world's best anchovy joke," admittedly a fairly narrow genre.
Three lads go for a meal at a new pizza restaurant, whose pitch is that you can totally personalise your pizza: you just have to choose any three ingredients from a huge list, and voila: made to measure pizza.
So the first guy who is a total carnivore opts for a venison, kangaroo, and biltong pizza. The second guy who is an out-and-out veggie opts for an artichoke heart, salsify, and banana blossom pizza. The third guy, who just loves anchovies, doesn't want anything outlandish to distract from the anchovial loveliness, so he opts for anchovy, onion, and tomato.
Appetites duly whetted, they sit back to await events. After a bit, three pizzas get delivered, and the first two guys are raving about their pizzas and how generous all the portions are of their chosen toppings. Meanwhile, the third guy is looking at his pizza and wondering what went wrong. He calls the waiter back. "My two mates are raving about their pizzas, no complaints there. And mine ... well, no complaints about tomato and onion, but they were just supposed to be a foil for the anchovies. Where are they all? There seem to be only three of them!"
And the waiter, looking a bit dumbfounded, replies "But sir, most people don't like anchovies."
I didn't know the term "dogsbody" but used to be married to a Brit and often used the term "a dog's breakfast," which means something like "mess," and I couldn't shake that as the meaning of dogsbody.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe this didn't have as much punch as a Saturday should but I loved this puzzle. All of the long fill made me smile, even STILLMOOING, kinda gross but I've heard it and it fills the grid nicely. I thought all the others were stellar.
ReplyDeleteI happened to love the cluing for DORIS, SUNTAN, IDTAG and SOLAR (also STILLMOOING honestly, no matter how unappetizing the whole thought is).
Got held up a bit as I insisted on bADTROMBONE at 45A as BUNK for Costs seemed as plausible to me as anything, I'm not sure what finally tipped me off to the correct S in that one but SADTROMBONE makes sense...
Also learned some cool stuff - did not know KREWES or what a Dogsbody is. Dogsbody was especially satisfying as ERRANDBOY fits beautifully into the grid. I'll probably never say the word KREWES again in my life, but fun to know.
For me, this was a solve filled with fun, some learning, and still enough resistance that I was proud of myself at the finish. For the goof, I went back in the archives and tried to tackle a Saturday from 1994 - talk about "Exercise almost to the point of pain"! I really FELTTHEBURN there - and it was not as much fun as I would have liked! It was nice to return to the present and play this one. I totally get that we all want a proper Saturday workout, but for me, all the fun fill today made up for whatever may have been lacking in difficulty.
Thank you Robert for a great weekend start!
Yep, Wednesday easy for me too. Like @Rex I put in AGASSI with no crosses and just kept whooshing with no costly erasures and no WOEs.
ReplyDeleteNo junk and a fair bit of sparkle, liked it but not on a Saturday.
I didn't like the term "dogsbody" but on to the puzzle. Is today Saturday?
ReplyDeleteSo easy that when I did get tripped up
KREWES & of all things - DORIS! I got
p***ed. Not complaining - just surprised - what's going on at the NYT?
Can someone help me out with TOA T? I’m sure it’s something clever that I’m just missing.
ReplyDeleteto a T
Deleteinformal exactly; to perfection: I baked it to a T, and of course it was delicious.
I was also confused by TOA T, & I can’t imagine what else it would be, other than ‘to a T’ now you say this. But I feel like the clue implies it’s one word, & I don’t understand how the answer is inferred from it.
DeleteI'm in the "way too easy" crowd, but at least there was some fun stuff. I heard STILLMOOING when I was a kid, didn't think it was funny then, and still don't. Not familiar with ONTILT or CHINSTRAP, but the crosses were obvious. And I tried tow or three archaic spellings before coming up with SAYST, the Y of which led me to remembering ERRANDBOY.
ReplyDeleteFavorite answer today was KREWES, which I knew, and reminded me of maybe being the only kid in class who knew the answer when the teacher asked "What do we call a Mardi Gras parading society" and I could raise my hand and say KREWE and know how to spell i and all the other kids would look at me in awe and wonder. Or maybe they would think I just got back from a NERDFEST. Yeah, probably that one.
I wish OFL all the best in his quest for crossword nirvana, and I hope he achieves ARHAT status, as that's the only place I've ever seen ARHAT, except for the novel The Overstory, which is amazing.
A Really Solid, Good job, but a Wednesday. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.
The Overstory IS amazing @ Pablo…I think many people forgo due to its length. My remedy for tackling long books is to do an audiobook. I listen to them every time I’m out in car doing my errands. For whatever reason, this makes the length seem less overwhelming.
DeleteHard to rate this RODEO's difficulty...
ReplyDelete1. The NW was mighty easy-goin; in fact, it's STILL MOOING.
2. The NE was harder than dogs body snot. Lotsa mysterious stuff, at our house: FORTNITE game. ANI MISTS. Dogsbodys. NERDFESTS. KREWES. RETORTS clue with the claps.
3. SW & SE were kinda medium, with a few semi-feisty womp-wompin level clues.
4. Only 4 weejects to get yer toe-holds at.
staff weeject pick [of them mere 4 choices]: TOA. Nice {___ T} clue. Says it all, without sayin much.
fave stuff included: STILLMOOING. WELLLADIDAH. RODEO. FEELTHEBURN/FIRE. IROBOT. IDTAG clue. The QUAD Jaws of Themelessness.
Thanx for the SatPuz MOOFEST/FEAST, Mr. Gard dude. I thought yer fillins were fun.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
... if U R cravin some extra-hardness ... my test solvers all had trouble with this puppy ...
"A Tariffic Christmas" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Once again somebody ( a "Dogsbody"?) dropped the list and Friday and Saturday got switched and it's a flat out " fun Friday " at that. Starting with AGASSI was bad enough but then I came across DERMA crossed with ARLES. Didn't we just recently have both entries clued the same way? Luckily xwordinfo is back up and running so after finishing I checked the clue lists and sure enough they were both on Fridays in the last month.
ReplyDeleteThe cluing in this puzzle didn't even try to be late week. The R of ARLES gave me ORCAS (xword stars of the "marine" world). I know very little of Serbia but a 5 letter " Currency" clue with an A in the 4th slot is reflexively DINAR. Does NERDFESTS fit at 25A? Yep. How about a 5 letter entry for.a ""Tech job" ending in R. Could it be CODER because "Perry Como" and "Bing Crosby" are sure as hell CROONERs.
Maybe the editor is using the same kind of software to come up with his clues that constructors are using for their fill. For all its debut entries and low word count this puzzle seemed dialed in. The solving certainly was.
Did not know Animists nor Krewes, wrote in PART (22A) for "Let go of." leaving me with Animasts and Krewts (plausible to me). But that gave me "Peel the Heat." Changing the P to an F resulted in "Let go of" becoming FART, yet no happy pencil! I still think I am right.
ReplyDeleteIt was over faster than I'd like on a Saturday, but, still, there were some slow spots. I was tricked by the SNEAKY plural in the clue for spa treatments and wrote in an incorrect S in the bottom row; I didn't know what a dogsbody was and momentarily got the word confused with Shakespeare's Dogberry, who is a constable; and I didn't understand why rare items would be STILL MOOING. Also, Mittens's mittens are just too cute.
ReplyDeleteNo 1A should ever, EVER be that easy on a Saturday.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, this had some exceptional long answers. SADTROMBONE rules. STILLMOOING is a sufficiently common phrase that you don't question it, but not trivial to solve. FEELTHEBURN is a solid answer.
The only exception is WELLLADIDAH. You can't spell LA without an H but DAH with an H. Either both or neither! Check dictionaries and generally Google different variations- not a single reliable source uses one H.
16:44 for me, so definitely on the easy side for SATURDAY.... STILLMOvING before MOOING held me up for a while. Also SUNhAt before SUNTAN prevented me from hearing the happy music at the end, had to hunt around for my mistake. Liked that the REUBEN was on the MENU, that the FEAST was cooked on COALS. Not too impressed with DERMA, and apparently ancient version of DERMIS, but at least we saw it recently so that didn't hold me up at all today. Took me a while to ee 50A cuz I wanted to fit BLUEJAY in there. Also listening to an audiobook about native American history, so the ERIEs and the Iroquois were fresh in my mind. Great puzzle, liked it, Robert!!! Definitely one that includes some learning opportunities : )
ReplyDeleteWas this very easy? Yes. This would have been a better Friday puzzle, methinks (though it’s closer to my average Tuesday time - yikes!) but I still liked it quite a bit. Not a lot of short gunk, and the long stuff definitely felt sparkly - Well Lah Di Dah came early in the puzzle, and predisposed me to like it. I also enjoyed Chin Strap, Feel the Burn, and Sad Trombone, and as a Dodger’s fan, the reminder that Toronto lost the World Series.
ReplyDeleteYes a fast Saturday at just 13.5 minutes. Hands up for STILL MOVING which totally made sense until SOLAR fixed it. And of course MOON before MOTH due to the sneaky clue. Also hands up for KEENAN crossing ROMA which actually delayed my getting the Happy Pencil for a minute or so.
ReplyDeleteUntil I moved to Winnipeg, I didn't know you could make sugar from BEETS. I lived near the refinery so there was a steady parade of sugar beet trucks going by. My, those things are ugly.
This made me laugh because maybe 5-6 years ago my husband and I traveled to Grand Forks, ND to visit a couple (long story how we know them) that live there. We went to a very nice restaurant that had large windows looking out from second floor onto the Main Street of downtown Grand Forks. An open truck full of sugar beets had stopped at a stoplight. “What are THOSE!?” I “exclaim.” Yes…sugar beets are UGLY!
Delete@Beezer... that makes sense they would grow sugar beets there too. Winnipeg and Grand Forks are only about 100 miles apart on the same river. (Although I never did make it to North Dakota in the 4 years I lived there!)
DeleteVery nice puzzle. Not too easy. Some good stuff like STILLMOOING and INROME.
ReplyDeleteI learned about being ON TILT playing pinball machines. A long, long time ago I spent/wasted nearly all my summer job wages playing one. It was a Bally machine like this one where extra games could be won by getting the pinballs to fall into numbered holes to match patterns displayed on the upright screen.
ReplyDeleteThere were no flippers, just posts that the pinballs would bounce off of on their way down to the return hole. The path of the pinballs could be influenced slightly by timing bumps to the side or front of the machine as the ball bounced off the posts to try to get it to drop into a particular number.
If these attempts to influence the path became too forceful or exuberant, the machine would go ON TILT [womp, womp] and the game was over. If you look at the images in the above blue link, you can see the word TILT in the upper left of the upright screen just below a cloud and in between two seagulls. I saw it light up way too often!
WELL LA DI DAH, second day in a row with an S fest, especially with the two for one POC. There are five of them. One of them even involves a FIVE! There's a tale-tell cascade of Ss in the NE.
This puzzle was all big corners and no bite. My slowest solve this week was on Wednesday. However, the long fill is on point. Loved STILL MOOING, SAD TROMBONE and FEEL THE BURN.
ReplyDeleteI thought “still mooing” was funny once I got it. “Why this steak is so rare it’s still mooing!”
ReplyDeleteI always wondered what they meant when they say “no dog’s body” in Anarchy In The U.K. Today I learned something.
ReplyDeleteCan anyone explain why POLED means “punted”? Seems like this has to be a meaning of one or both of those words with which I am unfamiliar.
ReplyDeletePunting is guiding a small boat by sticking a pole in the water until it hits the river bed, hence the "POLED". People refer to "punting on the Cam" which is the river near Cambridge University.
DeleteVery nice puzzle - did SW first then NW and SE. Had to look up KREWES and FORTNITE so not easy. STILLMOOING is disgusting for a vegetarian or vegan! The day of the week is not the constructor’s decision - it seems unfair to the constructor who worked to create a good puzzle to complain about the day of the week.
ReplyDeleteLoved all the pics, especially Garf!
It's a themeless so I'm sure the constructor knew it would appear on a Fri or Sat. The consensus of the commentariat seems to be that the grid had lots of nice entries, including the longer ones, but that the clues were too easy. That's most likely the result of editorial input.
DeleteThey're synonyms for how you get around on a gondola.
ReplyDeleteKenny - think of the boats called punts. And think of how gondola sailors use their poles to push their boats. Poled. Punted.
ReplyDeleteA rare occurrence for me, I agree with Rex.
ReplyDeleteThe puzzles are definitely getting easier
I started doing the all the dailys only a few years ago. So I am currently working my way backwards. 2019 Saturday puzzles are most definitely more difficult.