.png)
Groundbreaking 1988 Japanese animated action film / TUE 12-16-25 / Genre for Genesis or Yes, informally / One in a box at the theater? / The IBM Simon Personal Communicator is considered the world's first one / Person in hot pants? / Show extreme fandom for, in slang
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Constructor: Jason Reich
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: AKIRA (40A: Groundbreaking 1988 Japanese animated action film) —
- COVER STORY (book cover, storybook) (18A: Reason to buy a magazine, perhaps)
- BAG CHECK (book bag, checkbook) (36A: Last stop before security, often)
- FAIR PLAY (book fair, playbook) (45A: Turnabout, they say)
- SMARTPHONE (book smart, phone book) (62A: The IBM Simon Personal Communicator is considered the world's first one)
Word of the Day: AKIRA (40A: Groundbreaking 1988 Japanese animated action film) —
Akira (Japanese: アキラ, pronounced [aꜜkiɾa]) is a 1988 Japanese animated cyberpunk action film directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, produced by Ryōhei Suzuki and Shunzō Katō, and written by Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, based on Otomo's 1982 manga Akira. Set in a dystopian 2019, it tells the story of Shōtarō Kaneda, the leader of a biker gang whose childhood friend, Tetsuo Shima, acquires powerful telekinetic abilities after colliding with a child esper in a motorcycle accident, eventually threatening an entire military complex in the sprawling futuristic metropolis of Neo-Tokyo. [...] Akira was released in Japan on July 16, 1988, by Toho; it was released the following year in the United States by Streamline Pictures. It garnered an international cult following after various theatrical and VHS releases, eventually earning over $80 million worldwide in home video sales. A landmark in Japanese animation, the film is widely cited as an influential work in the development of anime and Japanese cyberpunk. it is also considered a major film in the cyberpunk genre, particularly the Japanese cyberpunk subgenre, as well as adult animation. The film had a significant effect on popular culture worldwide, paving the way for the growth of anime and Japanese popular culture in the Western world, as well as influencing numerous works in animation, comics, film, music, television, and video games. (wikipedia)
.jpg)
• • •
So the theme itself seems fine. A bit on the dull side, a little clunky in the finish, but fine. The rest of the puzzle, however .... [heaves a very deep SIGH] ... I dunno. Or, rather, I do know: this is some of the weakest fill I've seen in a while, and that's saying something, since gunkiness is an ongoing concern. The NE and SW corners are abysmal. I have green ink angrily scribbled all over those portions of the grid. OK maybe not "angrily." "Frustratedly." That's better. USONE crossing EST INRE and NE-YO. That is a gunk density that only OOXTEPLERNON (the god of short bad fill) could love. And across the grid, things are somehow equally bad, with AUS ASOF UMHI (!?) and OHGEE making a big ugly dogpile. Why isn't the REF throwing a flag? He's right there! Between the extreme lows of the NE and SW lie other, lesser lows, a string of less densely packed but no more lovely answers like DEKES OTOH EFILE SSNS EWER ERS WECARE SEEYA ETA ASCII ASP. The puzzle really did peak with PROG ROCK. I guess GOOGLEABLE is supposed to be giving a star supporting performance, and it is original and showy, I'll give it that, but do I actually like seeing that "word"? No, not really (11D: Easily found on the internet, say). RAISINET would be great in the plural, but it's a little sad in the singular (41D: One in a box at the theater?). EGO MASSAGE is fine, but overall this one really, really punching up in the fill department. I'm looking at the "WE CARE" sign right now and thinking "Lies!"
OTOH ... I loved seeing AKIRA. Kurosawa is a great director (Ran was released in the U.S. 40 years ago this month), but it's nice to see this other important AKIRA get some attention. Both the film and the manga it's based on are genuinely groundbreaking and rightly legendary. And today, since the puzzle wasn't already drowning in pop culture trivia, I was happy to see the AKIRA clue go in that direction. I also loved the clue for LIAR because it has layers. It doesn't tell you the popular saying it's referring to directly (e.g. [One whose pants are on fire, proverbially]), but lets you suss it out yourself. "L ... I ... LIAR? How are a LIAR's pants hot? ... oh!" Always nice when the clue for short, ordinary fill shines like that. And I liked SKIFF (32D: Shallow boat with a square stern). Can't explain. Just really enjoy the way that word looks and sounds. I never really enjoy seeing NE-YO, but at least today I learned something about why he is called that (13D: Grammy-winning R&B artist whose stage name is said to have been inspired by "The Matrix").
Bullets:
- 19D: Golden Age studio known for many Astaire/Rogers films (RKO) — love the Astaire/Rogers films, not just for the dancing, but also for the frequent guest appearances by my favorite character actor of '30s/'40s cinema: Eric BLORE (I write his name all-caps because I wish he were famous enough to be a crossword answer). He co-starred with Fred Astaire in six movies. I think about him saying "Susquehanna" in Shall We Dance (1937) literally every time I see the word "Susquehanna" (and since I live on the Susquehanna River, it happens a lot).
[the video quality here is terrible, but that's not keeping me from literally laughing out loud as I watch this bit for the umpteenth time]
- 46D: Penalty in Monopoly (RENT) — never really thought about how Monopoly codes RENT negatively. As a "penalty." An onerous burden. A form of oppression. Is Monopoly sneakily anti-capitalist?
- 27D: Mike in "Breaking Bad," for example (EX-COP) — since he does ... let's say bad ... things, I misremembered him today as an EX-CON. But no, he's very much an EX-COP. That actor, Jonathan Banks (who received five Emmy nominations for playing Mike in both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul), can currently be seen in the Clare Danes/Matthew Rhys psychological crime thriller miniseries The Beast In Me as possible wife-murderer Matthew Rhys's awful father.
Time once again for 🌲🐈Holiday Pet Pics🐕🌲!
This is Woody, who has been featured in Holiday Pet Pics before (returning pets always welcome). Woody's five-year-old human likes to dress him in pink. Woody seems like the perfect dog to handle that kind of attention. Look at that sweet patient face. He seems to have destroyed part of the tree and strewn ornaments and wrapping paper around the floor, but good luck staying mad at that face.
 |
| [Thanks, Matthew!] |
Next up are Kala, Lux, and Knox. Nothing really holiday-ish about this picture, but let's just say they're celebrating the Festival of Lights (in that they're aggressively snuggling each trying to compete for the biggest patch of sunlight)
 |
| [Thanks, Iolande!] |
It's Emma's first Christmas, so don't be mad that she doesn't understand how to string the lights yet. She'll learn!
 |
| [Thanks, Beth!] |
Jed is thrilled with his dreidel menorah. Absolutely, completely thrilled. Can't eat it, can't play with it, but sure ... this is great. This is Jed's thrilled face.
 |
| [Thanks, Lisa!] |
And lastly, there's Riley, who'd just like to say "Guh....... Hi! Hey! What's up? Like my hat?" Actually, I'm told this photo was taken during the two seconds Riley allowed it to stay on his head. He just shook it right off. And can you blame him? "Santa wouldn't be caught dead in leopard print!" You tell 'em, Riley.
[Thanks, Sally]
See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️:
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️
- American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (Stamford, CT, Apr. 10-12, 2026) (registration opens January 8!)
📘 My other blog 📘:
- Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)
Save And Share :
84 comments:
Rex nailed this one pretty good - something missing in the overall delivery and content. Nothing overall fun or splashy - fill it in and walk away. Thankfully is was over quickly.
Bigod 20
BUSY BEE, CHICO, RAISINET, SKIFF I guess are pretty solid. The overall fill is weak - GEEKY, IN RE, OH GEE etc don’t help matters. WE really done CARE about most of this.
The Clash
Rough Tuesday morning solve.
Because of the Wind
This must be my lucky day. I needed three guesses to finish the puzzle, and each guess was a winner...BRAH/PROGROCK, GEO/NEYO, and ASCII/ASP. Otherwise I thought it was easy, but I agree with Rex that the revealer was too vague to confirm the theme.
The original Monopoly - The Landlord Game, designed by Lizzie Magee - was created to show the dangers and evils of capitalism. When it was stolen by Darrow and sold to Parker Bros. it was repositioned with a ‘tycoon’ fantasy.
I already roll my eyes at OHHI whenever I see it. But UMHI?! It's probably worse than ELHI in the realm of --HI answers.
I understood the clue “what can be placed around the halves…” as referring to “ends” (or at least “bookends”) not “books,” and was so confused. It still reads to me like the clue is worded wrong. What am I missing with how it’s phrased?
Monopoly is not sneakily anti capitalist. Monopoly (at least as intended by its designer) is overtly and intentionally anti-capitalist.
I agree, the same thing happened with me! I therefore didn’t get the theme at all until I read the write-up.
This seems wrong. You win by economically crushing others. It’s hardly socialist. At least in its modern incarnation.
Not very enjoyable because of stuff like NEYO, BRAH, etc. Also, does anybody really like RAISINETTEs? They’ve always been the last thing at the movie candy counter that I would consider buying.
RAISINETTEs have chocolate and therefore are not the worst thing at the candy counter. Chocolate can lift any candy above the level of, say, Necco wafers.
Elegant touch -- the word BOOK goes with no answer in the grid outside of theme answers.
@KMcCloskey. Is there a citation for that?
Insanely hard for a Tuesday. Would have been perfectly placed as a slightly-hard Wednesday.
It is definitely a clever theme – and the theme is also a better fit for Wednesday.
AKIRA and BRAH were the toughest, and I have no idea who one of those AMYS is (Ryan).
A total bore as a puzzle, but all was worthwhile to watch the Eric Blore clip. Laugh out loud addition to my morning
Yes but it was designed to be actively unfun and become unwinnable relatively early in the overly long playtime. The unexpected thing was people are so messed up they enjoyed it somehow
The theme of BOOK bookending the theme answers is not only clever, but very tight. Amazing that Jason found these theme answers, that they fit symmetry, and that he came up with this theme in the first place. Bravo, on all counts, sir!
I thought I caught on to the theme when I noticed that FAIRPLAY and COVERSTORY became other legitimate phrases when you removed the first letter. Turns out that that is just a remarkable coincidence.
I like that the puzzle ends with ENDS.
I had a big fight not to look down at [What shares a key with “9” on a keyboard]. And I won!
There were two had-to-think-about-it-before-getting-it-with-a-sweet-aha clues: [Person in hot pants?] for LIAR and [“Take it easy!”] for SEEYA. Plus, there was that lovely misdirecting clue for RASINET – [One in a box at the theater?] – which is also a debut.
Two answers especially delighted me – GOOGLEABLE, which rolls so sweetly off the tongue, and SKIFF which just looks and sounds so cool.
Much to like in the box today; a splendid outing. Thank you for creating this, Jason!
Chocolate covered raisins are delicious. But Raisinettes are pretty nasty, because the raisins they use seem to have been triple-dried
Many citations, here’s one. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-landlords-game/
Finished but didnt't get the jingle. Found I hadn't corrected UHHI to UMHI so inadvertently had SHARTPHONE
My last answer to fill was 62A. I already had 55D in as UHHI.
The first laugh I’ve had from the puzzle in a while.
Not that it comes up often in my life, but for nearly five decades I would have spelled them as RAISINETTES. Big Mandela Effect vibes here.
The Trump family has played (real-life) Monopoly since forever. Getting rich off rent hikes, using get-out-of-jail free cards, winning on the (Atlantic City) Boardwalk while everyone else lost, luxury Park Place hotel financed by drawing from a Community Chest while others had to take a Chance (card).
I found it quite slow-going. I couldn't even tell you why; I think maybe there was some inner resistance to some of the answers. Like the awkward plural AMYS. Like the awkward singular RAISINET. Then UM, HI crossing OH GEE (is it "aw" or "ah" or "oh"?) -- not pretty. The blatantly insincere-sounding WE CARE.
Plus, the grid felt very segmented, with those fussily tight corners in the NW and SE. Not that the corners were very difficult, but you break out of the NW say and instead of freedom and fresh air, there is little to no whooshiness because all those little black squares act like bumpers in pinball: across, down, across, down. So I just sort of threaded my way through the puzzle.
One point of pleasure was seeing Yes and Genesis twice along with one of my favorite music genres, PROG ROCK. I also found ESCHER a welcome addition to the grid. But those weren't much to hold on to. I might have found AKIRA zingy, if only I knew what it was referring to exactly (oh, I assume there's an implicit Kurosawa connection, but I don't know the animated film).
I too didn't really get the theme and wasn't interested enough to try to figure it out.
So not my cuppa. I hope others found it more entertaining than I did.
Hey All !
Pretty nice theme. Have to agree with Rex about that SW corner, even though it contains two F's! Plus, there is pieces of dreck strewn about the grid. But, hey, it happens.
Had BAthroom first for BAGCHECK. Har, like there is no place to go after security? What a dolthead (me).
REMISS a fun word. Up there with BEHOOVE.
Was big into Yes in my younger days. I have every one of their LPs (vinyl!) up until Big Generator. When I got the album Tales From Topographic Oceans, I thought I was King Shit!
TuesPuzs have been pretty good these past couple of weeks. Let's keep it going!
Have a great Tuesday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Changing Times by Darrin Vail
Awesome (😁) BOOK by yours truly available wherever you get books online.
I needed Rex to explain the reveal instructions to me, I kept trying to add “ends” in there somewhere. I also made a mess up north where SHEENS just wasn’t in my vocabulary today. It didn’t help that even though I grew up listening to Genesis, Yes (and Pink Floyd), I blanked on their “genre”. So I basically DNF’d on PROG, BRAH, NEYO and SHEENS. I’m not too concerned about that though, since only one of them even looks like a real word to me.
It’s a shame that the reveal crossed me up, since I missed whatever aha moment that may have led to. I believe someone characterized this as a “solve and go home” puzzle, and I can agree with that assessment.
In kind of an ironic plot twist, as soon as I finished, my NYT app started interrupting me to tell me that my version of the app is out of date and needs to be updated. So when I go to download the new version, it tells me that I need a new version of IOS. Then, when I go to update IOS, Apple tells me that my IPad does not support the new version, leading me into an infinite loop of absurdity and planned obsolescence. It’s tough braving the elements here in Crosslandia on some days, but it beats being out in the cold shoveling my driveway.
Sadly, that invention never quite took off.
Agree with JJK. I didn't get it until Rex's summary. And another thing: is OBOE the universal crossword word nowadays? It seems like it shows up three times a week.
They have plenty of company.
The world can be pretty neatly divided into those who are PROGROCK and those who are anti-grock. Personally, I love grock.
I think there's some kind of index that correlates three factors to predict your state of contentment at any point in life. The factors are how much you love yourself, your weight, and how long you've been alive. It's called the EGOMASSAGE Calculator.
God: Where is your brother?
Cain: I don't know. GOOGLEABel.
I won a snow sculpture contest by fashioning a shallow boat with a square stern. It was just a SKIFF of snow.
Took me a few readings of the revealer before I got it. Thanks for a crunchy Tuesday, Jason Reich.
Googleable? What? Here, it might help make sense of it if I use it in a sentence: "Can you say Googleable three times fast?"
"Liar, Liar" is one of those one hit wonders that, because the lyrics were somewhat indecipherable to our elementary school ears, we created slightly bawdy and naughty lyrics for to amuse ourselves. The Castaways did seem to bestow upon themselves a rather prescient name, it seems.
Such a joy to encounter that increasingly rare puzzle free of circles and shaded squares and other busy-ness.
I had the same experience. It's not explained well.
How is this puzzle a “joy”? Mere lack of circles and shaded squares does not make a puzzle “enjoyable.” Today’s comments seem to suggest a dearth of joy among the commentariat.
Even more so. It was designed to be played through with two different rulesets. One where people play for profit by grinding down other players through oppressive rent to show how unfair that system is, the other where players cooperate and rent isn't paid to an individual but into a collective pot. It's not just anti-capitalist, it's socialist.
Bad day for me. The mini was atrocious (RAWR is Not.A.Word); in the main event, RAISINET is perhaps the most vanishingly obscure clue-answer pair I've seen in 75 years of doing these. In any case, for me, at least, this was a Saturday-plus-plus-plus level of difficulty and no fun at all, very far from a Tuesday.
Funny, I’m not a fan of raisins on their own, but I do like them chocolate covered and yogurt covered, even better.
Good for you, winning the big fight! Mine was over before it started ‘cause I looked down as a reflex action.
Any puzzle that starts with BOOK and ____ with ENDS is OK in my ____.
yep
Sounds like you’re getting a new iPad for Christmas. I went through that same circle of hell with my desktop last year. The good news is the new one is remarkable. I’d gotten so used to the obstinate clunkiness of my old computer that I had forgotten how nice it is to have an up-to-date system.
Interesting that it's correctly spelled in the puzzle as RAISINETS, not -ettes.
The GOOGLEABLE explanation is that its diminutive name is similar to that of piglet, not piglettes.
So much junk to SIGH at. Rex and others covered most of it; but BRAH, really? I've seen/heard bro and (often in Ted Lasso) bruh; never brah.
Had JAIL before RENT; don't get how paying one's rent is a penalty.
Convinced that Rex would give it two stars, max. Maybe he gave it a slight upgrade after including the Shall We Dance clip; very entertaining.
@Anonymous. Before you critique or question a comment, it helps to read it accurately. I did not say the puzzle was a joy, either explicitly or implicitly; I clearly and only said that the experience of not encountering circles and shaded squares was a joy. That you infer that this in any way is calling the puzzle itself enjoyable speaks only to your less-than-careful reading of my carefully chosen words.
I figured out the theme only partially. First, I thought it meant that both BOOK and END could be placed around the halves of the theme answers, and second I thought that place around the halves meant what it said -- both BOOK COVER and COVER BOOK, as well as
I was typing merrily (or maybe grumpily) away when my comment disappeared, so it may have been posted in incomplete form. As I was saying, I got the theme wrong. For one thing, I thought when the clue said "what can be place 'around' the halves" of the answers, it meant just that, i.e., both BOOK COVER and COVER BOOK. Also, I thought that both BOOK and END could be placed around said ends. That worked for BAG END (a place in Lord of the Rings, for you non-fans), but nowhere else. Really, the clue could just have been 'or a hint to the answers of...' and we could probably have figured it out.
It took me longer than it did Rex to realize that my pants were hot because they were on fire, so that was neat.
As for RENT--it may be a penalty for the player who lands on your hotel, but it's income for you, the opposite of a penalty. Just like real life.
Yeah, what's with BRAH? I went with BRoH, which I've actually seen. Is this something like the own=>pwn transformation?
Like some others, I spent more time on the reveal clue than anywhere else trying first to make "END" work. Finally I understood it was BOOK that was bookending the theme phrases. Nice! My favorite was the outlier BOOK SMART, the only non-noun among the new phrases. I also liked the parallel GOOGLEABLE and EGOMASSAGE (the hoped-for result of EGO-surfing).
I didn't see it until I read Rex, but BOOK ENDS means that each half of a them answer can have BOOK at either END, in other words, it has BOOK ENDS.
@jberg, speak with any 11-year-old boy for more than 5 minutes, and you'll hear "bro," "bruh," and "brah."
Beautiful story late yesterday @CDilly52. Thank you!
Rex nailed it on why this puzzle ended on a "wha?" note. But once I finally figured out what the reveal clue was saying, I admired the end result, but it was too late to wipe away totally the confusion engendered by the reveal clue.
Is Genesis' genre really PROG ROCK? The band Yes, yes definitely, but I'm not sure about Genesis.
I had to look up ASCII to see if it was still relevant, an answer that was GOOGLEABLE; it appears that it is still widely used but it is hidden in layers below what we see.
Thanks, Jason Reich!
I went with BRuH, I think it's mostly a regional variation
Same. I was trying to make sense of END COVER END STORY END etc, which is the way the clue still reads to me
Great write up, Rex. Spot on. Way too much bad fill.
I thought the puzzle Ok but quite difficult for a Tuesday but I could not make anese of the revealer. Even now that I see what it wa meant to say, it still tells be to put "ends aarond the theme answers. Does Not Work.
Of course putting book at either end does make new words. good ones. But that is not what the clue says. Bah!
Hand up for liking RAISINETs. My last choice are Mike and Ike and Dots.
Thanks, Rex for posting the pic of my trio -- especially as Knox (the black cat) sadly passed away suddenly in August. So lovely that they get another day in the sun together.
Book Stan, Texan comic store.
@kitshef, same here on Amy Ryan, but I looked her up, and I DO “know” her, just not here name. Also thanks again for sending DVD puzzle! Quite a few clever clues. I did NOT know (or remember) the “middle one.” I checked the year and it might be the only one I hadn’t seen because I was 13 and probably thought I was too old.
@Southside, really liked seeing Yes in clues and I actually went to one of their concerts and dipped into my purse to buy Rick Wakeman’s Six Wives of Henry the VIII. What a fabulous keyboardist.
@Teedmn, I hear ya on Genesis but I think that the early consensus is that they were “prog” in early Peter Gabriel days and Phil Collins leaned in more “pop” ala Invisible Touch.
I solved as a themeless & came here for the theme. A pretty fast Tuesday for me except for NEYO, BRAH & PROG ROCK. Good thing too b/c I spent way too much time trying to get rid of the Toyota ad on the Mini & never succeeded. But it's only a Mini, right?
Thank you, Jason :)
I hate that s**t. I'd rather shovel snow :(
Finally figured out what was going on in spite of being totally flummoxed by the reveal. The "After 1-Across..." had me wondering "Do you mean 'With 1-Across'?" The picture was further muddled by "around the halves...". Had no idea exactly what the "around" was all about; in front of, above, below, at the ENDS of...not sure.
So my first guestimate was BOOK ENDS at the beginning and end of each "halves" of the themers. That made first half of 18A BOOK ENDS COVER BOOK ENDS. Um, no. Kept trying various combinations until seeing how it works with just BOOK, but at the beginnings of the first words and at the ENDS of the second words in each themer. Whew!
Enjoyed seeing 48D ESCHER. He was a master at portraying depth of field on a flat surface, often to produce amazing illusions and images like "impossible staircases", as clued. Here's one of his best, Ascending and Descending. Totally on fleek, right?
Harder than average TuesPuz, at our house. OK by m&e -- Bring it, Shortzmeister.
That there puztheme revealer was extra feisty to figure out ... twas like a puz within the puz.
staff weeject pick, of only 10 choices: RKO. King Kong [a PROG-ROK flick] studio.
honrable mention to: REF BOOK.
some fave stuff: GOOGLEABLE [debut]. BUSYBEE. EGOMASSAGE [debut]. BOOK & ENDS at start & finish of the puzgrid, as @RP mentioned.
About EGOMASSAGE: Submitted a real neat, different puzthemed puz to the NYTfolks. Got rejected. Hard to believe, when these start-with/end-with-connections puzthemes just keep rollin on thru. Oh well. Good for M&A to suffer, I reckon -- it'll make his future puzs stronger. Just sent another one in, also with a real different strong smell, so we'll see how that one goes...
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Reich dude. Good job, coverin both ends.
Masked & Anonymo2Us
... too early for Christmas puzs? Nah ... only 8 shoppin days left ...
"Dangerfield Punchlines #79" - 7x9 12 min. themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Easy-medium. I too needed more than few nanoseconds post-solve to figure out how the theme worked.
No costly erasures and AKIRA was it for WOEs.
Clever with some fine long downs, liked it more than @Rex did but he is right about some of the fill.
@Rex. Thanks for the Anita O'Day clip. She often appears in the grid clued as some kind of "bad girl" but this song was really kind of sweet and innocent. Love the cover photo, too.
As for the puzzle ... agree with the bunch of commenters that thought it was actually a nice concept fouled up by an awkward reveal.
My day was made after confidently plopping down UH HI, then a few seconds later noticing SHARTPHONE. That one’s going to stay with me for a while.
Real variety of easiness... I raced through the upper left, then plodded slowly through the upper right. The theme was okay, but the best part was, after a couple of horrible days, not too many names! Yay! The only sort-of Unknown was NEYO.
Only typeover I can remember: PIE before ABC for 5 down "Epitome of simplicity". I predict soon we will see "Epitome of busyness" for BEE.
Hey Rex great you dredged up The Castaways! Hadn't heard them in ages!
Maybe so, but the T.Rumps are the GOATs of grift, IMHO
Who's on the other end of the call? What's the actor's name? I don't know!
Uh...THANKFULLY
Found you today after finishing this so so puzzle. You transformed our day from frustrating to lol.
KMcKloskey
As was explained earlier. The ORIGINAL incarnation of Monopoly called the Landlord Game 30 years earlier, was very much anti- landlord. It invented by a woman. The man who essentially stole the game and sold it to Parker Brothers make changes to eliminate the anti landlord message
BRUH is the more common in my experience. It comes from Bay Area slang but has propagated nationwide at this point.
So my question of day is…if PROGROCK means “progressive” then is “rock” dead or is there NOW other PROGROCK?
Hard for me because I did not know PROGROCK and AKIRA. I also had Excon instead of EXCOP. Clever theme but I had to come here to understand it. . I really needed those wonderful holiday pics today
I really like Rex’s comments about the pet photos.!
I actually agreed with him that the revealer was poorly written but overall I liked the puzzle better than Rex.
We do have new one letter Kea/Loa
Bruh and Brah. Oh well. Apparently, they are both in use. Obviously, brother to. bro then to bruh or brah. Another set of slang words arising from the Black American vernacular.
Okay. Finally got it. The line "BOOK em, Dano" was always the last line at the END of Hawaii Five-0. Took me all day to figure this one out.
Revealer was horribly worded. Naturally enough, I took what came after the ellipsis ("...") to be independent of the initial "After 1-Across", so I was adding ENDS to either side of the theme answers, which made no sense at all. There must be some way to indicate that the initial clause governs the entire clue, but this wasn't it.
El lema de los procrastinadores: Tómalo con calma.
Gruesome reveal but still kinda fun to do the puzzle after the puzzle. Overall it Tuesdayed just fine.
The minute I saw BRAH was the minute I knew what we'd be talking about today.
Another highly gunky puzzle, but in a different way than recently. Maybe don't use Genesis and Yes as a product placement twice. It doesn't help your gunk score, and honestly, pretend PROG ROCK never happened and isn't a thing.
❤️ BUSY BEE. GO-OGLE-ABLE. EGO MASSAGE. OINK.
People: 6
Places: 3
Products: 10 {and yet we fail}
Partials: 9
Foreignisms: 0
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 28 of 78 (36%)
Funny Factor: 2 😕
Tee-Hee: [You might h(e)ave a big one].
Uniclues:
1 When reading like God intended using paper and ink glued together and bound into a brick you have to lug around like a pack mule comes to an end...
2 A giant sticker that says, "This contraption will absolutely make your life way less good."
3 Honey?
4 Hire a honey.
5 Me vis-a-vis crosswords on proper noun day.
1 BOOK APPS BEGIN
2 SMARTPHONE ITEM
3 BUSY BEE RENT
4 RENT BUSY BEE (~
5 GOOGLEABLE STAN
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: The moment you realize OHO is way funnier. AHA STOP SPOT.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My experience was somewhat similar to @Rex's but I liked the solve a whole lot more. I too was confused with what seemed like a long-worded revealer clue but after a minute or so of musing it all came together for me.
I also liked the cluing for LIAR the same way @Rex did.
The one hold up for me was the ASCII/ESCHER crossing. I'm not familiar with either and needed some crosses.
But I liked the theme a lot (despite my feelings about the revealer above), appropriate for a Tuesday and it was fun to go through each themer to check it all out.
Thanks for this Jason, it was fun.
Every concert that I’ve ever gone to, which is many the violin is the one who tuned up the orchestra not an oboe. Too much nonsense in this puzzle.
Definitely not my glass of eggnog today, theme wise. The puzzle just seemed as if it tried way too hard to disguise a theme that was so obvious. Perhaps it’s really the yellow highlights that scream “look at the theme stuff here,” or maybe I’ve just solved too many of this type themed puzzle? Dunno.
Part of it, as @Rex mentions is the confusion created by the actual reveal! I thought I had the theme nailed down quite a while before 71A. Then I thought “What the bloody heck did I miss,” and spent my post-solve review trying to figure out. And what do shelf accessories have to do with the puzzle? Turns out I didn’t misunderstand anything - until the irrelevant reveal.
Maybe I’m just exhausted from the hectic holidays already. Keeping up with my amazing, wonderful, energetic, beautiful granddaughter is challenging. We’ve made 5 pounds of cashew brittle, a gigantic “gifting batch” of my “requested by everyone who’s received some” snack mix (to avoid sounding like a cereal commercial). I need to quit letting my family give it to all their friends because I now have to spend an entire day making the necessary volume. And all the holiday-ing has me posting really late again (not as late as yesterday - but I didn’t want to miss my opportunity to tell my Ernest Tubb story) but I had to get cookies (the 6th kind) finished. And , Ok, I love it.
The puzzle didn’t do anything really exciting, and the top half was stronger than the bottom. In fact, I really got my whoosh on at 39A, and when I got to TESLA at warp speed, the sudden everything Monday-easy fill had me actually checking to see if the puzzle had more than one constructor! But no.
The pet pictures/stories are fabulous as always. My cat, Pip allowed me to email a couple this year and is hoping to make the cut because she does complain from time to time (like from the time I sit down to solve until I get up to deliver the daily post-solve treats) that “Puzzle Time” takes too long and she should receive recognition for being so patient. I think she remembers how restrictive the “Meeting Behavior Rules” were during the pandemic and fears their reinstatement.
Until tomorrow!
@Hugh 8:38PM. Right on; the clue for LIAR was my favorite part of the puzzle today.
Post a Comment