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Fizzled out completely / TUES 12-30-25 / Fun word to shout into a canyon / Oblong tomato type / "Absolument!" / Climactic fight in a video game
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Hi, everyone, it’s Clare for the last Tuesday of December — and the last Tuesday of 2025! Hope that everyone has had a happy holiday season and that everyone has a great start to their new year. I’ve been lounging around and baking a lot, watching sports a lot, working (a little), and reading as much as I can. Goodreads gave me a year-end review, and I’ve apparently read (or listened to) 127 books this year — so I guess I know what I’ve been doing in my free time! The books have certainly helped take my mind off the fact that my sports teams have been a bit dismal lately. Even if my Steelers squeak into the playoffs, they’d probably lose in the first game (again).
Anywho, on to the puzzle…
Relative difficulty: Medium (for a Tuesday)
THEME: BUY A VOWEL (60A: Spend money on "Wheel of Fortune" ... which won't help much for solving 17-, 21-, 36-, 41- and 53-Across!) — The circled letter in each theme answer is the only vowel present… and they appear in sequential order
Theme answers:
- LGBTQ FLAG (17A: Something to wave with pride?)
- WENT PFFT (21A: Fizzled out completely)
- BMX TRICKS (36A: Flashy cycling maneuvers)
- NBC SPORTS (41A: "Sunday Night Football" producer)
- PR STUNTS (53A: They're pulled to garner media attention, informally)
François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 1840 – 17 November 1917) was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a unique ability to model a complex, turbulent, and deeply pocketed surface in clay. He is known for such sculptures as The Thinker, Monument to Balzac, The Kiss, The Burghers of Calais, and The Gates of Hell… The Thinker is a bronze sculpture depicting a nude male figure of heroic size, seated on a large rock, leaning forward, his right elbow placed upon his left thigh, with the back of his right hand supporting his chin in a posture evocative of deep thought and contemplation. This universally recognized expression of "deep thought" has made the sculpture one of the most widely known artworks in the world. (Wiki)
• • •
And now… I’d like to solve the puzzle. This was a nicely executed theme with a cute revealer. I liked being able to look back at the puzzle and see the progression of the vowels, and I can appreciate the effort that went into finding so many theme answers that only had one vowel. That said, answers with only one vowel can look pretty strange. WENT PFFT (21A) is a seriously ugly answer. BMX TRICKS (36A) looks odd, too. And the other theme answers didn’t inspire me much. I also initially wondered why they chose not to make it the LGBTQIA flag (17A), then realized that would’ve had too many vowels.
There was some nice longer fill. I liked AUSPICIOUS (9D: Like good omens) and SQUALL (13D: Sudden, powerful gust of wind). The clue for SEA BED (44A: Wet floor?) was really clever (once I finally got it). I found DROOL (33A: [That looks delicious …]) for some reason to be a fun clue/answer combo. And the world needs more GLITTER (8D: Hard-to-clean-up sparkly stuff). I got BOSS BATTLE (27D: Climactic fight in a video game) because I listened to the audiobook for “Dungeon Crawler Carl,” whose narrator does amazing voices and which made me laugh, so that was a fun callback.
I didn’t know EDWIN (50D: Scientist Hubble with a telescope named after him) but was able to get the “w” from VOWEL (60A) and figured the rest out from there. I hadn’t heard the expression “And SO TO bed” (4D), so that looked very strange to me. ISOLA (19A: Sardinia, e.g., to Sardinians) made me pause. “Isle” and “isla” are common enough, but I didn’t know the Italian word for “island.” And I’ve never heard of the KARA Sea (46D: arm of the Arctic Ocean) before. I looked it up, and if my sources are accurate, KARA has only appeared in the Will Shortz era of the puzzles 12 times, including today. Only three of those appearances clued it as the KARA Sea — once in a Friday, once in a Sunday, and now once in a Tuesday puzzle. All that to say, I needed the crosses to get the word (which luckily weren’t too hard).
Some of the rest of the fill was a letdown. Like having 40A and 45A both as "That’s not good!" — as OH NO and YIKES, respectively. As Rex says, if you have bad fill, don’t draw attention to it by doing things like doubling up on clues. And, as I’ve often said, I hate clues that are so ambiguous they could have a bunch of answers. XES IN (37D: Marks, as a ballot square) also looked particularly bad (though I understand the need for the X there). And the clue for SMILE (62A: Upside-down frown) really had me frowning.
Misc.:
- One of the gifts I got for Christmas from my parents was PJS (53D: Nightwear, informally) — or, rather, a PJ top. My mom didn’t realize the pieces were sold separately, so I will get the bottoms later.
- I was talking with my dad and sister about the puzzle, and ELIDE (64A: Skip over, in speech) produced a funny family moment. While we were all sitting on the couch,, my sister said the word correctly, and my dad insisted she was wrong — e-LEED, he said. She told him he was often wrong about pronunciation, so he pulled up the internet to prove her wrong, and… she was right.
- In the spirit of a year-end review, here are my top five books of the year, if you’re curious (in no particular order except the first one) — “The Everlasting” by Alix E. Harrow, “The Raven Scholar” by Antonia Hodgson, “Malice” by Keigo Higashino, “Hungerstone” by Kat Dunn, and “Blood Over Bright Haven” by M. L. Wang. Maybe you could find something to enjoy in there in 2026!
- And finally, shoutout to Cooper’s owner, whom I met at a dog park in D.C. and who recognized Red from the crossword and asked me, “Is your name by chance ‘Clare’?” Cooper is a very cute doggo! And because I can’t end the year without another picture of my puppy, here’s Red at the beach on Christmas Eve.
I look forward to seeing you all in the new year!
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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87 comments:
Hi Clare! Rare that I get to post the same evening that I do the puzzle; thanks for that. I'm pretty sure I read Keigo Hagashino's "Malice" a decade ago and enjoyed it, but don't quote me. I definitely remember "The Devotion of Suspect X"... highly recommended.
I solved down clues only, which often doesn't work on Tuesdays, but here it went pretty well. Not quickly, which is kinda the point. Lots of blanks until I realized the themer probably was BUY A VOWEL... and it made sense! Five circled squares, five vowels. A fine theme.
No wonder it was tricky, with WENT PFFT and BMX TRICKS (which I thought for ages must be BMX TRACKS since AUSPICIOUS wasn't obvIOUS). Another typeover: for 55 down "Lose traction", SKID before SLIP for quite a while. Oh, another one: 50 down ERWIN Hubble sounded plausible.
Thanks from okngnr.
Easy-medium. gROwL before DROOL was it for costly erasures and I did not know KARA (Hi @Clare) and RAP DUO.
I did know EWDIN.
Unusual/clever/amusing theme that I never would have gotten without the revealer. Fun solve, liked it.
Great theme for a Tuesday puzzle, well executed, fun revealer. Kinda got Naticked there at KARA crossing YIKES.... it could have been YIpES after all. But figured I'd try the K first and that worked. Enjoyed all the same answers that Clare did--AUSPICIOUS signs for a new year, hopefully without too many SQUALLS ahead. ISOLA was a WOE. 7:46 for me this morning without rushing, so I think that's easy. Enjoyed seeing my PROFessional SELF in the grid too. Thanks, Geoffrey and Will! Great puzzle : )
If you never heard of KARA, it could be PARA crorssing YIPES. Waited til the last letter to find out which.
We’ve seen these VOWEL string themes before - cute enough but not a lot of depth. One or two and I’m done. Apt revealer - I liked WENT PFFT best.
Leonard Cohen
Overall fill was fine - had some edge to it for early week. AUSPICIOUS, PERUSED, DROOL are all fun. The grid is disjoint enough to make things uncomfortable. Yet another OREO clue.
Cattle Call
Red sure looks like a good boy who’s ready for his beach run.
My Favorite Picture of You
Enjoyable Tuesday morning solve.
Mishka
Monday Easy. I didn't read the clues for any of the long answers and it was still easy. With the A, E, and I circles filled in I was able to add the O, the U and VOWEL as the last part of 60A. Nice touch with the circled letter being the only vowel in the word, but that led to some ugly consonant sequences.
* * * _ _
Two overwrites: Wanted BaSeBAll-something instead of BOSS BATTLE at 27D and RAPper before RAP DUO at 57A
One WOE: the KARA sea at 46D
[*****]
Liked it more than Clare did. Tristan and ISOLA is a very famous opera about a shipwrecked tenor, so no problems there.
Did it (slightly) bother anyone else that WENTPFFT was “reversed” in relation to the other themers in that the collection of consonants was on the backend and the actual word was in front whereas all the others had the collection of consonants up front? That seemed like an annoying inconsistency to me.
Easy, but I didn’t enjoy it much. But I always love your write-up, Clare!
I’ll join the group that didn’t know the KARA Sea, or Hubble’s first name. Or the rap duos, for that matter. But all were easy to get from crosses.
Mostly easy, but I also had trouble deciding between "yipes" and YIKES, because I didn't know KARA (Sea). Not sure what the circled letters meant, unless to emphasize the "no vowels" aspect. Nice theme idea.
I thought is was okay until I got to the whole KARA, crossing YIKES (which easily could have been yipes) and EDWIN (which could have been Erwin or Elwin) because I don't know any RAPDUOs.
Really struggling to understand the Eyes of an Emoticon answer. Can someone help enlighten me?
@Clare - You might want to add the diary of Samuel Pepys to your reading list. Well, probably not, but that's how "and so to bed" became famous.
To make this a proper theme, there really should be no other vowels in the grid other than the ones in the themers.
More seriously, crossing YIKES with NAH and KARA was a bad idea. Could just as easily have been the Para Sea, or the Pura Sea if you don't know KARA.
Also, though I immediately knew what they wanted, I've never actually heard it called an LGBTQ flag. Pride flag, yes. Rainbow flag, yes. Gay pride flag, yes. LGBTQ flag, no.
I did the same. Took a punt at K and got the happy music
And so to bed is how Pepys ended his diary entries. A clue for us older folks.
This is a tight theme. It’s hard enough to come up with phrases of eight letters or more that contain but one vowel. Then to find A-E-I-O-U answers, and to find letter counts to fit symmetry (four nines and two eights today) – well, high props on that!
And then to sprinkle beauty throughout the grid, with PERUSED, GLITTER, SQUALL, AUSPICIOUS on top of that – wow!
The reveal is clever; the whole idea is clever. This puzzle is so well made and well-conceived.
Serendipity watch. Lovely theme echoes of longer words with just one vowel (NESTS, JOLTS, EMPTY). And then there's the vowel-only answer (OUIOUI) to bring balance to the vowel-shy theme.
And I loved the PuzzPair© of EMPTY/NESTS.
Geoffrey and Will, what a shiny jewel you made. Thank you for brightening my day!
It’s not a STRETCH to say that the constructors went to great LENGTHS, the puzzle had many STRENGTHS, with nary a SPLOTCH. They earned their SCRATCH and should celebrate, perhaps with SCHNAPPS, no STRINGS attached.
Hey All !
Nice to have a bunch of consonants in a row with just one vowel in them. Neat to see. Fun Revealer to tie it together. Nice AEIOU progression.
Unusual to see OUIOUI instead of SISI. See also: ISOLA. Attack of the French today.
Fill pretty good, with all that Theme all over the place. Nice easy TuesPuz.
Have a great Tuesday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
A role memorably sung by Robinson Caruso.
Was that Samuel Pepys, the inventor of Easter candy?
:)
I had more trouble than I normally do on this day of the week. A lot of start, stop, start, stop - but not much rhythm or flow.
Trouble spots included the section with DKNY, ESOS, and OHNO (that looks even uglier post solve than it was in real time), the KARA Sea, and of course ISOLA was a total “take it on faith” answer for me.
An interesting take on the theme, I wish I could blame it for my choppiness and lack of momentum, but others have seemed to have handled it just fine, so probably a wheelhouse/stylistic thing going on for me today.
A nice write-up as usual by Clare.
Yes I can : )
A week or so ago I complained (well not really complained, just commented) that OBOE seems to be an entry every other day. How about ORCA? Doesn't ORCA appear about 3 times a week?
Samuel Pepys was on a ship that sank. His final words were "and so to SEABED."
I wonder if there has ever been an answer with more than 7 consecutive consonants. By the time I was done with these themers I was so sick of consonants that I wanted to start a vowel movement. But each of the themers was a somewhat legit clue/answer combo. Really nice work, Geoffrey Schorkopf and Will Eisenberg.
Probably someone will have beat me to it, but this :-) is an emoticon. You're supposed to look at it sideways and see a smiley face, where the eyes are given by a colon. People use this emoticon in texts or online, to signal that the thing they just wrote is meant to be taken with a sense of humor.
Wonderful comment (as always). However, in EMPTY, is Y not functioning as a vowel? . . . and sometimes Y.
You type a colon to represent the two eyes when making an emoticon.
Liked it, started from the top and worked down the grid, stopping to laugh at WENTPFFT, and feeling satisfied when I got to BUYAVOWEL. Unusual to see ISOLA instead of “isle” but I guess it’s all in the romantic family. The only total unknown was KARA. Thanks @Kitshef for the reference to Pepys—I filled in SOTO as a reflex action without a second thought as to where I learned it….
Easy Tuesday except for BOSSBATTLE and the K/P conundrum. I figured that PARA would have had a different clue, so KARA, which turned out to be right. Interesting to see all the jammed up consonants and I noticed the VOWEL progression in the circles but didn't see the BUYA coming, nice surprise.
Nice Tuesday, GS and WE. Good Stuff, Well-Executed, and thanks for all the fun. And SOTO run errands.
Old-fashioned emoticons are sideways faces whose eyes are made using a colon, e.g. :)
4 down is the most famous catchphrase in the Diary of Samuel Pepys
It’s colon as in : So, for example, a smiley face is colon dash close paren :-)
:)
Well, Clare, your holiday activities sound very similar to mine except that I’m done with baking. Other than that, same - resting, reading, watching teams other than my Chiefs move toward the playoffs, plus binge viewing Mad Men, the best TV series ever made. Thanks for the book recommendations; I’ll take a look at those later.
It’s been a while since I did a Tuesday puzzle, but I was a little bored with reading/TV and decided to give it a whirl last night. Didn’t realize until I just now looked back at it that the circled letters were in order. A clever theme resulting in a VOWEL STUNT of sorts, and I loved the revealer. Not much of a challenge but perfect for a Tuesday. Well done gentlemen.
Surprised only one mention of Oui Oui. And even that did not seem to recognize it as being the answer where Buy a Vowel would be really valuable
Quick Tuesday. I'm a little divided on how much I liked it. The most vibrant themer for me was WENT PFFT, although this has to be just one variation where another is "went poof", which makes it less than perfect. So it becomes a question of how contrived some of these are. @kitshef pointed out that he'd never seen LGBTQ FLAG and I'm not sure I have either. For now let's give it the benefit of the doubt. The one I liked least was BMX TRICKS. I'm a fan of power Scrabble tiles in my grids, but this answer sounds awfully commercial, too tied to the brand name BMX. The same applies to NBC SPORTS. Actually, that's the one I like least. These networks have been doing a lot of knee-bending lately, if you know what I mean, and I think many of you do. The one themer that is unquestionably without fault is PR STUNTS. But that could also be the most boring one.
Some of the fill was nice. I liked AUSPICIOUS, and also SQUALL whose raw score is 15. BOSS BATTLE is new to me, but evocative.
Some of the fill was not. XES IN would have been commented on by Rex as well, for SURE. The YIKES + KARA Natick has been touched upon, and that one indeed rankles. DKNY is pretty gunky (it fits into more than one gunk bucket); always has been. That's not a mortal sin, but neither is it great.
So, I'm a little sad to say, this one was slightly to the BOGEY side of a pleasurable puzzle.
I liked Clare's stories, these three in particular: (1) Dad who has a habit of mispronouncing words ["eleed", really Dad?], (2) Mom who didn't know about the PJS -- normally that would be a total Dad move, so being a dad, I was heartened by the switch-up there, and (3) the encounter with the dogs, which has all the markings of a movie meet-cute moment, even if that's not what it was. You're famous, Clare! Thanks for the review.
Enjoyed this, even though the revealer (as Clare notes) was the best of the theme answers, and I had slight problems where some of those ugly answers conglomerate—XESIN and KARA next to each other, and it didn’t help that I initially had BE GOOD instead of BEHAVE, and NAH could have been NAW, and I’m not up on my RAP DUOs. But it all worked out. The puzzle probably mostly endeared itself to me because I happen to be on vacation with my eight-year-old niece whose name is ARIA, so I called her over when I saw that her name would be an answer, so we filled in the rest together, and the easiness was much appreciated in that context. So arbitrarily this happened to be the puzzle where I introduced a clever eight-year-old to crosswords: very appropriate for a Tuesday!
Yipes for YIKES crossing with [P]ARA, and could not see the fail. 😡 Grrr
We used to make our own emoticons, back in the dark ages, :-) for a smiley face, sideways. If it's a winking smiley, you use a semicolon first. ;-)
Very funny suggestion to exclude vowels from the non-theme portion of the grid. The NYT does run a vowel-less puzzle on Sunday now and then but that's totally vowel-less.
Also, just learned that PEPYS is pronounced PEEPS.
:)
LOL at the Pepys joke.
Nothing like a good VM to start the day.
Hope you're feeling a whole lot better these days, @egs, after the weird fluid aspiration event. May 2026 be free of such episodes!
Did anyone else put in propitious before auspicious?
This was cute & very easy. So easy that I swooshed through it only to look for my typo (as usual). Thank you both. Clare - gotta love that RED ❤️
Better late than never. I learned the hard way by once mispronouncing it in front of my mom, whose rhetorical manner of correction ensured that I wouldn't make that mistake again.
I laughed hard at Robinson Caruso. I laughed even harder at this. I have high expectations as I scroll through the rest of the comments! 😆
BMX isn’t a brand. It’s an abbreviation for Bicycle Moto Cross.
Nice! And, for me, another example of crossword savvy combined with crossword blindness: I saw the VOWEL progression early but didn't notice that those were the only vowels in the phrases, until the reveal. Like others, I got a kick out of WENT PFFT and enjoyed writing in AUSPICIOUS.
Do-overs: rats before CADS, round before COLON, skid before SLIP, Erwin before EDWIN. Help from previous puzzles: BOSS BATTLE. No idea: KARA.
Oh, yes, I'm sure it is. I was just -- and it would have been better had I mentioned it -- keeping in the context of the puzzle's circled letters. Good catch!
Yep, America is with you!! Sunday Night Football on NBC is only averaging 25.2 million viewers a week. It's only the highest-rated show on TV if you what I mean.
Very much enjoyed this one, OUIOUI. How many times have we seen a six-letter answer that's all vowels? If you ever find yourself in Stresa, Italy -- a noteworthy Hemingway hangout -- ISOLA Bella is worth a visit.
Did everyone get PJs for Christmas? I did, nice silky ones. Easy breezy puzzle, nice write up Clare
Caution: the following joke may be in violation of the "Breakfast Test."
Pharmacist says to his young assistant: "I'm stepping out to lunch. Don't recommend anything too wild in my absence. Be conservative." Upon his return, he asks the assistant how it went. He replied: "Fine. There was just one customer. A woman with a bad cough. I had her take this strong laxative." The pharmacist said: What?? Are you nuts?? She came in with a cough and you gave her a strong laxative?? What the hell is wrong with you??" And the assistant replied: "Not at all. Look. There she is now -- holding on to that pole. She's not going to cough."
Too bad the revealer wasn't a first person statement "I buy a vowel" which has 'em all, though not in order, yipes!
When I had a goatee I would use a bracket to end an emoticon but there isn't one on my phone keyboard. Yikes.
@egs: 4/1/2019 had three fifteen-letter entries with no vowels. Also in that same grid was an unrelated five-letter entry with no consonants.
"JUSTICE" Alito's "lovely" wife whined about having to look at PRIDE flags and declared she was going to make a VERGONA flag, i.e. "shame", like I said: LOVELY!
Solved downs-only, as I usually do on Tuesdays. I know, I know, I’ll do appropriate penance.
I finished with few real problems and got the congrats and then tried to figure out the theme. Wheel of Fortune? BUY A VOWEL? How will that not help here? And why are the vowels circled? I’ve seen a handful of WoF shows in my lifetime and have heard the phrase, “Can I buy a vowel?” or something similar but I’m not seeing how this works here. Admittedly, I’m not a game show guy. I’m just confused. Could it be that this puzzle is too? Is the fact that the circled vowels are in order (A,E,I,O,U) somehow significant? Where does the purchasing of said vowels come in?
A perfectly charming puzzle as a D-O solve but YIKES, the theme.
GLITTER - I once made the mistake of buying gift wrap covered in glitter. I wrapped exactly one gift with it and then gingerly carried it to the garbage bin outside. I also had to warn the gift recipient of the glitter bomb potential. Nasty stuff!
I had a DNF at the cross of KARA/YIKES. I had YIKES in place but at the last minute, I second-guessed myself and decided the Arctic Ocean arm could be pARA. I don't like YIpES and YIKES is my choice for exclamations of dismay but I know the NYT crossword likes YIpES so... Sort of like choosing scarf or snarf.
OUI OUI, I liked this puzzle, thanks Geoffrey and Will!
Couldn't help but notice the two answers that might like to buy a vowel when it's their turn to spin the wheel: DKNY and PJS. Are these two sneaky theme tie-ins?
Not much in the Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) arena today. BAILS (off the B in 27A) is the star of the show.
No PJs for me this year, but I did get a pair of sweatpant jeans, almost as good.
Couldn’t quite finish solving downs only, but it was very enjoyable.
Delighted to throw in “perused” immediately due to learning its exact meaning from a recent crossword.
Very witty commenters today!
When a puz entry has a string of lotsa consonants in it, it can be real hard to fill the area around that entry. sooo ... OUIOUI, pretty good job, gettin the constructioneerin job done in this here rodeo.
staff weeject pick: PJS. Only weeject that didn't buy a vowel.
Only a Z short of a U-no-what, today.
some fave stuff: SQUALL. AUSPICIOUS. EMPTY. SECEDE and SEABED [symmetric(allies)] .
luved the WENTPFFT puzthemer, btw.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Mr. Schorkopf & Eisenberg dudes. It was a boss-battle-solvequest, at our house.
And thanx for droppin by for the nice visit, Clare darlin & Red.
Masked & Anonymo8Us
... PRSTUNTS? ... well, hey -- the same can sorta be said for the followin ...
"Harboring Some Runts" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
@Whatsername" (Hello Connie) Enjoy binging on "Mad Men."
I worked at Advertising Agencies for most of my 'career,' one being one of the most renown & largest ad agencies in the world. There were a lot of Don Drapers & Peggy's. It was exactly like that in the 70's (although I think Mad Men takes place in the 60'?). It was a great time to be in Advertising.
The theme is marvelous.
I've seen many SISIs, but this was the first OUIOUI I can remember.
Anyone remember the old tv show THE MANY LIVES OF DOBIE GILLIS? He always started it next to a copy of Rodin's THINKER.
Are there other less famous ones? Perhaps "Time to get up." "Rise and shine!" or "Ready for lunch?"
This one got off to an inAUSPICIOUS beginning when the plural of convenience (POC) was needed when CAD, GAP, OREO and LURE were each short of the mark. The ultra convenient two for one POC, where a Down and an Across both get a letter count boost by sharing a final S also showed up to save the day for NEST/ROPE, ESO/BUOY and POLE/ONE.
But when two of the themers(!), BMX TRICK and PR STUNT, needed POC help to do their jobs, the grid went from a POC Assisted to a POC Marked rating.
I enjoyed the puzzle, but if I marked my ballot square with an X instead of filling it in completely, the computer would probably reject my vote!
Clare - cute story about being recognized through your pup! I guess you have a fan base!
@kitshef. Thanks for pointing out the 4/1/19 puzzle. I remembered it as soon as I saw it. Interesting that 8D is actually LGBTFLAG, which is unrelated to the theme that day, but appears, with a "Q" for good measure, in today's puzzle.
Clever sign off CLR
Was glad to read al the comments from others who had never head of the Kara Sea. Living as ssclose to the arctic as I do, I tend to look for arms of the Arctic Ocean on the Pacific side. Took me forever to find on my globe to be sure the K was right.
I found this puzzle very difficult for a Tuesday, mostly because Of my first entry - which I was somehow confident of and so wrong about. I put in COMMA instead of COLON for the emoticon. The left me floundering on 17A and a couple of the downs. When I finally realized it had to be LGBTQFLAG all became clear.
Lewis, thanks for noticing how the all vowel answer balanced things out. A fun touch.
That answer had slowed me down also as I kept wanting it to be MAIS OUI, which would not fit.
I just love it when I feel it necessary to reply to my own comment ...
I can see how one (actually many) might be predisposed to like this puzzle if they were fans of Wheel of Fortune. I'm not. I cannot see how anybody's "buying" a vowel here. I can see the one-vowel words. I can see the selected vowels, all in order, but where's the purchase. They're just there, part of the answer. That's it for this non game show fan. I'm just not buying it.
Mad Men got lots of critical acclaim, I never got into it. I should try again. My all time fave is The Wire!
Hi friends, it really is a post from me during daylight! I had a series of medical events that got cancelled today - no worries for me, just more of the endless checking on all my “stuff,” and all can easily be put off a month or two - and it’s so exciting that it’s not almost the middle of the night!
Clare, I was thinking of you when Aston Villa fans were going nuts over the 11 game win streak. I am recording today just to see what happens. I am not an AV fan, but have to applaud the FC. As a lifelong Chicago Cubs baseball fan, I am very accustomed to being excited about things looking up, but always ready for the wheels to fall off the cart, often in spectacular manner! Not gonna lie, one of the best things about retirement is being able to watch all the sports I want mostly guilt free thanks to technology. I exercise, take walks, cook and clean while listening or watching sports.
Oh, the puzzle. The reveal saved it for me. When I see a single circle (or I guess they are technically called “bubbles” in the trade) I immediately think either they spell a single word, or they highlight a single letter for some reason. By E, I was pretty sure the theme had to do with vowels, and I actually groaned. However, with an obvious theme, it’s all about the reveal and I forced myself to complete the puzzle without looking ahead to find the reveal and evaluate the theme. I think that’s very unfair and unless I am stumped and have to jump around the grid, I try to avoid seeing the reveal until I get there.
Today’s theme made me think of how many television game shows have contributed to our culture and language. “Buy a vowel” is iconic. In fact, I recall watching a Twins/Yankees game early in Kent Hrbek’s career (had to be ‘80s because he wasn’t yet called “Herbie”) and the announcer joked “he needs a nickname or needs to buy a vowel.” There’s “behind door number whatever” from Let’s Make a Deal, “Come on Down!” from Price is Right and I don’t know anybody who can't hum the “Jeopardy” theme - especially when waiting for what seems a long time. As I said, today was all about the reveal.
Along with some really good words, AUSPICIOUS, SQUALL and PERUSED being my favorites, and some very decent clues this was a very good Tuesday collaboration. The good definitely made the usual forgettable early week easily fade into the background.
The cherry on top? KARA Sea. Learned something very new. In fact, post solve I looked at a detailed North Pole area map to see where it is, and was very surprised to see bow many little named bodies of water are up there. Until today, I assumed all the water was just the Arctic Ocean. I love learning!!
And I love how much I enjoy all of your contributions. Really wanted to post yesterday only to say that Mr. Sharp’s difficulty was the perfect example of how differently our brains work and how our vastly varying frames of reference contribute to the ease or difficulty of any puzzle. Yesterday was one of the fastest for me in my memory, just a hair over 2 minutes. An AUSPICIOUS start to the end of 2025.
So just as background, WoF is similar to Hangman if you know that game. Here, each player, when it's their turn, guesses the word or phrase at the end of their turn; before the end, either they guess at a consonant and get to guess again if that letter appears (or pass to the next player if not), or they can opt to "buy a vowel" i.e. pay some money to be able to guess at a vowel. (The idea here is that vowels are often more valuable than consonants since only five of them make up close to half the phonological sounds; therefore you pay an extra fee from your earnings to get that information.) In that case the player says e.g. "Ryan, I'd like to buy an E".
Anyway, what the clue was saying is that for these phrases, if they were WoF phrases and your action is to buy a vowel like E, then it's not gonna help you much.
@janine: Wow! I had no idea. You really do have an insider’s viewpoint, then. I was also a working girl in the 70’s (albeit on a much smaller scale) so I know firsthand that things then were not all that much different than they were depicted on the show during the 60’s. And that’s what I love the most about the series, how precisely accurate it is, particularly the way things were for women.
No one has mentioned that ISOLA is the fictional name for Manhattan in the 87th Precinct crime procedurals written by Ed McBain, pen name of Evan Hunter. I'm starting to suspect that I'm the only fan of this series, which I thought was very entertaining.
I've noticed the folks rating the difficulty level of the puzzles often feel the need to add the qualifier (for a Mon/Tues/Wednesday) if they rate a Mon-Wed anything other than "easy." Isn't that part implied by the "relative" in a relative difficulty rating?
Eso no es bueno.
A funny reveal. WENT PFFT is also perfect. Sparkly li'l puzzle.
I'd entered BMW TRICKS (which would be way less interesting than BMX TRICKS) and I stared at WESIN trying to develop a story how it was related to voting for quite some time. XESIN is much mo'bettah despite being pretty horrible.
We're a year out from the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump World Heritage Site puzzle. I miss that day.
People: 2
Places: 1
Products: 7
Partials: 3
Foreignisms: 3
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 16 of 76 (21%) {Solid.}
Funny Factor: 2 😕
Tee-Hee: And SOTO bed.
Uniclues:
1 Unfortunate thought on the Titanic.
2 When punctuation gets tiresome.
3 Instructions from a pole dancer.
4 Winning entry in the game "Ironical Clothing Choice for a Car Salesman."
1 SEABED ... YIKES
2 COLON DONS PJS
3 GLITTER BEHAVE
4 AUSPICIOUS POLO
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Neptune kissing Uranus. ORBS ON A DATE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@pablo, I was really into the 87th Precinct... about 40 to 50 years ago?
Much, much respect to the constructors for this creation for all the reasons everyone has mentioned. I came here too quickly after I got the happy music and only learned from Clare about the circled letters, I didn't bother to take my usual sit back and look minute. What another brilliant layer to all this!!
Learned some things I didn't know and while there is some full that is not terribly pretty - this theme gets a pass as it is such an incredible feat.
Thanks Geoffrey and Will for giving us this and thanks Clare for the write-ip.
Thanks for the info, @Anon 10:17AM. So okay, I rescind what I said there.
Is your dog picture on a Southampton beach?
Let's be honest. Does anyone REALLY know that many URLs that end with .net anymore?
I didn't notice the constructors' names until I had finished solving -- but one of them has a 9-letter name with only two vowels (both O), so I wonder if that gave him the idea.
to: anonymous @ 11:00 A.M. "When I had a goatee I would use a bracket to end an emoticon but there isn't one on my phone keyboard. Yikes." on my phone, I click on the 1,2,3 bottom left to bring up numbers and symbols. Then I click on the =/< on the lower left. That brings up a different symbols keypad including the brackets and %. Loved this puzzle, loved Clare's write up! And Loved all these comments. Robinson Caruso... etc.
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