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Relative difficulty: Easy (8:21)
THEME: HELLO NEW MAN — "Seinfeld" catchphrase... or, when parsed as three words, how a participant of the theme entries might be greeted?
Theme answers:
- VISION QUEST for [Native American rite of passage]
- BAR MITZVAH for [Jewish rite of passage]
- RUMSPRINGA for [Amish rite of passage]
Word of the Day: STIFF (Like some upper lips and drinks) —
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, published in the United States on 22 March 1963 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, and in the United Kingdom on 16 August 1963 by Herbert Jenkins, London. It is the ninth of eleven novels featuring Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves.Chronicling Bertie Wooster's return to Sir Watkyn Bassett's home, Totleigh Towers, the story involves a black amber statuette, an Alpine hat, and a dispute between the engaged Gussie Fink-Nottle and Madeline Bassett concerning vegetarianism.[I read a Jeeves book for the first time in December and haven't gotten over how hysterical it was. I've been trying to get some others from the library ever since. --Malaika]
• • •
This was an excellent theme, and I am filing this one away to reference the next time I'm teaching someone how to make puzzles. Often, people begin by brainstorming lists of words that are related to each other. But publications nowadays tend to want an "extra layer of wordplay." It can be tough to illustrate what that means, but this puzzle does so beautifully. It starts out like a list theme: VISION QUEST, BAR MITZVAH, RUMSPRINGA. I wondered what the final entry in the list would be.... "quinceanera" maybe, or "First Communion"?
But then-- we get the extra layer. Not only does the fourth entry break the list theme and reveal what's going on, it does so using wordplay. It's not just, for example, "rite of passage" as an entry (a straight definition), it's a familiar phrase that gets re-interpreted both in terms of spelling (splitting "Newman" into "new man") and in terms of meaning (greeting a specific person vs. greeting a type of person). I'm an avid "Seinfeld" watcher and it took me a second, I think because I didn't clock that entry as a "catchphrase" specifically. (I'd call it a running gag?) But I am very familiar with it being said throughout the show... which I guess is what a catchphrase is haha.
VISION QUEST was new-ish as an entry to me. I've read The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan in which a Native American girl undergoes a rite of passage that I think must have been a VISION QUEST but I wasn't able to pull that phrase while I was solving. It came together easily enough though.
This puzzle was easy, which to me means the entries were all clean and smooth. (Tough to do when the theme entries require multiple Us, multiple Vs, a Q, and a Z!) GIZMO, GIVE ME FIVE and BISCUIT were also fun to see. The toughest spot was in the bottom right, where EROICA / CATO / TROWEL / ALCOA tripped me up. (I had "alcoRa" crossing "troweR" for a bit.)
 |
| CATO will always be the upsettingly hot villain from The Hunger Games to me.... |
Bullets:
- [Text initialism that's the name of a 2010 Usher hit] for OMG — I cannot believe this was 2010, omg
- [Girl encouraged to wake up, in a 1957 #1 Everly Brothers hit] for SUSIE — This took me a second as I am more familiar with the Simon & Garfunkel version
- [What might help someone be loud and clear?] for MIC — Very cute
- [Unforced ___ (athlete's concern)] for ERROR — I adore the term "unforced error" and use it all the time, rarely about sports tbh. My friends and coworkers and I are frolicking and stumbling about making dozens of unforced errors. You hate to see it.
- [Ruler's length?] for REIGN — Fantastic clue. Would have loved this on a Saturday with no question mark!
P.S. Since I last posted, I have had a full-sized themeless puzzle published on Slate. Feel free to solve!
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Half my usual time, or as Rex said absurdly easy. VISION QUEST was a gimme but RUMSPRINGA? WOE to me. Never watched Seinfeld but HELLONEWMAN was inferable. I’ll try to catch ur puz Malaika and nice write up.
ReplyDeleteNot Rex today
DeleteI didn’t like the gendered nature of the reveal - yes bar mitzvah is specifically for a new MAN, but to my knowledge, both a vision quest and rumspringa apply equally to new WOMEN. I am not understanding why the “mic” clue was cute; just seems straightforward? I must be missing something. Otherwise enjoyed!
ReplyDeleteThey all apply to men.
DeleteWell, since the reparsed catchphrase is HELLO NEW MAN...
Delete(Somewhat relatedly, and I find myself saying this a lot here: I think it's good to get into the habit of seeing an entry as a possible answer to the clue, not as a necessity or as applying in all circumstances. Commenters (and even some blog writers, not naming names) seem to make this mistake all the time, e.g., "hey, a person embarking on a VISION QUEST doesn't have to be a man!" No one ever said that.)
This one didn’t sit right with me, either. For me it’s not that the clue implies the vision-quester or rumspringa’er ‘has to be a man,’ but rather that it implies a default assumption that it’s a man.
DeleteNot a huge deal, I enjoyed the puzzle—just surprised to see a male-default which would have been typical in the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s, but less so in this day and age.
Amish women go on RUMSPRINGA. The fender bias rankles a bit but the reveal is about the goofy MEWMAN. So be it.
DeleteEasy-medium.
ReplyDeleteIpAd before IMAC was my only costly erasure and LISA and OMG were it for WOEs.
Solid, smooth, clever, with a delightfully surprising reveal (or what @Malaika said), liked it.
ReplyDeleteNice writeup, @Malaika, but I'm curious how you managed to fit ALCOrA into five squares. Nice "Intro To Constructing!"
Easy, solved without reading the long answers' clues.
* * * _ _
One overwrite, mEter before REIGN for the ruler's length at 31D. No WOEs.
Ivy League schools aren't called that because of ivy. They are called that because there only used to be four of them. Four = IV. IV League.
ReplyDeleteThis is inaccurate.
DeleteNever heard that. Source?
DeleteWhen you make a joke that isn’t funny, you’re supposed to put LOL or something like that at the end.
DeleteSo I wound up looking this up. In the article on Ivy League, ikipedia refers to the IV explanation as a common folk etymology (thus indirectly casting doubt on its correctness), and gives this reference for some relevant details on why the IV explanation doesn't hold water.
Delete4 schools..not a very big league
DeleteAlso Rutgers was invited to be part of of the Ivy League but declined (and yes, I’m going with the IV/4 because so far nobody in my eyes has disproven the theory and if it’s not true…eh who really cares that much. Never let the facts get in the way of a great story)
DeleteUgh. That’s utter nonsense. As is the claim that Rutgers was invited to join.
DeleteThe Ivies have been plying each other in sports since the mid 19th century, but they didn’t formalize a union ( league) until a century later. 1954 to be exact.
The Ivies share a lot of culture, history, philosophy but in the end, it is. Sports conference.
And to show I hold no animus against Rutgers, I’ll note that they are one of only nine Colonial colleges—those that predate the US. William and Mary is the other non ivy. ( Dartmouth and Cornell are the ivies which are’t Colonial members)
Hurrah for The Red and Blue!
D’oh. Sorry Dartmouth. Of course you are a Colonial College. My apologies.
DeleteShit I went to Rutgers didn’t know they refused the Ivy invitation!
DeleteSports Columnist red Smith coined the term Ivy League
DeleteThis old timer knows that the Ivy League always had 8 members, as God intended. Less is ridiculous and more ends up being a disaster.
DeleteWith 8 you have seven league games and 2 or three against traditional or aspirational rivals like Notre Dame
Anonymous 10:53 AM
DeleteI agree.
I don’t know why exactly but invented etymologies annoy me. Being a “good story” doesn’t help at all. The IV thing has to be refuted over and over. The earliest written record of Ivy league ( small l ) is in the’30’s. Inspired by a reference to the “Ivy colleges” by a sports writer.in that era. The Ivy League (capital L) was not created till 1954. although the eight schools, not four, had played against each other starting in the 18th century.
19th century
DeleteCan anyone explain why 24D was cued with a plural (“sourceS”)?
ReplyDeleteNope, I think it's a typo
DeleteUnforced ERROR!
DeleteThank you.
DeletePalm readers operate in parallel universes, so that when they are reading a palm in one universe they are simultaneously reading the same palm in the parallel universe. Hence, "Sources" is not an error when referring to this single palm that exists in parallel universes read by a single reader.
DeleteAnd if you buy this story, then you'll certainly buy the totally and provably unhistorical and completely made-up-out-of-thin-air explanation for the origin of the term Ivy League, i.e., that that the league began with four teams - hence the name IV league.
Good friends have boy and girl twins and we got to go to their BNAI MITZVAH, which was lovely, and new words to me. Would have solved the gender parallelism challenge with Vision Quest and Rumspringa. But why is this an issue? New Man refers to men. (Also, I would have assumed that Vision Quests were a guy thing. But what do I know?
ReplyDelete"Bnei" is still a masculine form (plural of "Ben" and of "Bar"). The parallel feminine form would have been "Bnot" (plural of "Bat" - which is the feminine form for both "Ben" and "Bar").
DeleteSince all nouns in Hebrew have grammatical gender, the default plural is the masculine form, though in recent decades (for non-idiomatic purposes) the chosen form depends on the majority.
I’m assuming WS is setting us up for some kick ass end of the week stuff given the benign nature of the past three days. This was flat - tepid theme and awkward fill.
ReplyDeleteBarbed Wire Love
The revealer tried way too hard . The themers worked but really didn’t splash. Agree on BAR/Bat. The two long downs were the highlight.
I’m Not LISA
Yet another nondescript morning solve this week.
My love she's like some RAVEN
At my window with a broken wing.
Days in a row with MAV as an answer: 3
ReplyDeleteAgreed, very easy, which for me just means that the pleasure of solving is over too soon. A “problem” (may all your problems be so small) that I fixed by following the link to Malaika’s Slate puzzle. Now, that was something I could sink my teeth into! Tricky but fair, and I learned some interesting new things. And your constructor’s comment, M: hard to find something to complain about in “The Pitt,” but you succeeded. Kudos!
ReplyDeleteThe only difficulty for me was that I didn’t know RUMSPRINGA and needed every cross. Can someone explain 67A: Ball one or ball two? As EYE?
ReplyDeleteEYEBALL...left eye and right eye
DeleteEyeball
DeleteI liked the puzzle. VISIONQUEST and RUMSPRINGA were unfamiliar to this Anglo-Saxon, whose rite of passage was Cub Scouts. Never watched Seinfeld, but HELLO-NEW-MAN was well clued. Needed one cheat, in the SE (only remembered CATO as a friend of the Green Hornet, not as Caesar's enemy).
ReplyDeleteThere's also CATO Fong, Inspector Clouseau's sidekick.
DeleteThat’s exactly the character that went through my mind
DeleteYes!! +1. “There is a time and a place for everything, Cato! And this is it!”
DeleteThanks Malaika--for the write-up and a bonus puzzle to boot! I agree this was pretty straightforward for a Wednesday, not much to struggle with, until the SE corner there. I've never watched Seinfeld but somehow know NEWMAN might be a character... and I thought ALCOA was HQed in Tennessee, cuz there plants require a lot of electricity and they were run off of TVA dams/hydroelectric power. There's an "ALCOA highway" in East Tennessee... OK, looks like they just named Pittsburgh their HQ in 2017. Thank you, Hanh and Ted for a nice fun theme and puzzle! Rites of passage are great, and something we overlook too much these days.
ReplyDeleteYou never watched Seinfeld! Was that a conscious decision on your part? If not, you might give it a try. (But I wouldn't start from the beginning of the series.)
DeleteI grew up in Pittsburgh in the '60s and '70s. Alcoa was based there at the time, along with US Steel, Gulf Oil, Koppers and a bunch of other big companies based on natural resources. I see Alcoa split into two companies in late 2016, which I gather is where your reference to naming Pittsburgh their HQ in 2017 comes from, but I also see Alcoa was founded in Pittsburgh in the 1800s.
DeleteWe Yinzers tend to be jealous of our history. :)
Speaking of ON THE VERGE, world-class crossword constructor and speed-solver Paolo Pasco has taken a commanding lead in Jeopardy's Tournament of Champions.
ReplyDeleteHe is not only likable, funny, knowledgeable, and adept at playing the game, but in wordplay categories, his brain seems amazingly super-human.
He's being doing this pastime of ours proud. Go Paolo!
Thanks for the update, Lewis. I’ve been unable to watch (or do the puzzle) because my Wi-Fi/TV service has been out the last two days. SO frustrating! Hopefully today.
DeleteYes, Paolo has won the first 2 games in the Tournament of Champions; the first player to win 3 wins the tournament! So far he has won $57,784, and if he wins the whole thing he'll be awarded another $250,000. This is what puzzling can lead to! :-D Go, Paolo!
DeleteCongratulations, Malaika, on discovering the joys of PG Wodehouse. In addition to the Jeeves books, the Blandings Castle and Mr. Mulliner fare really shine.
ReplyDeleteRUMSPRINGA is completely new to me, and needed literally every cross. Give me any nine letters in that word, and the tenth is still a guess.
Absolutely on board with PG Wodehouse. The names alone crack me up. We read them together before turning out the light at bedtime and sometimes I laugh until I cry. Currently at Blandings.
DeleteYes, this was indeed quick and Easy for a Wednesday. Probably shaved off about 40% from my average time.
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy it. Some lively, colorful entries there, including all three of the theme entries. (I would not have come up with RUMSPRINGA unaided by crosses.) Also FORTE (pronounced "fort", not "fortay" -- the latter is correct for the musical direction), GHEE, GIZMO, BISCUIT (hey, if "biscuit" literally means twice-cooked or twice-baked, is a Triscuit thrice-cooked?), TROWEL, EROICA, ON THE VERGE. I even like GIVE ME FIVE, even though it's terribly dated -- in fact it was very dated thirty years ago or so when Puddy the grease monkey was going around high-fiving everybody.
Last night I discovered some Applejack in the hutch, so treated myself to a nice STIFF drink. I would have preferred a nice PEATY Lagavulin, but the Applejack did nicely in a pinch. (What, is everything nice with me this morning? Well, why not? These days you take your enjoyment wherever you can find it.)
Anyone else notice all the overlap with today's Spelling Bee?
yes
Delete@tht 7:35 am, re Spelling Bee, I see a couple of words crossing each other in the upper left; is that it?
Deletetht
DeleteI don’t use the word often but forte as in skill I always heard and said since my childhood as 2 syllables ( I am in my 70’s. ). I think it is actually what most people say despite attempts to impose a pronunciation distinction between the two meanings. Apparently there is a term for this type of situation A skunked word. If you use that word for skill there is a good chance you will annoy or confuse someone or give them an opportunity to give you a lecture whichever pronunciation you use. Now people are advised to avoid it entirely. If I happen to use it, unlikely,I will not change at this point in my life. (I seem to remember that the argument for one syllable for the skill is that meaning came from French versus Italian for the musical word.I don’t see the relevance if one is talking in English. Virtually every French word we ever use in English is changed.including the single syllable pronunciation of forte)
Yes, actually that is it. I think my eyes were playing tricks on me, where I created a few more by tracing along nonlinear but contiguous paths.
DeleteRUMSPRINGA. My brain tapped me on the shoulder and started singing “Goldfinger”, substituting this word.
ReplyDeleteYou left out "cute!" Bravo Paolo!
ReplyDeleteNot bad but the south/east was a quite a bowl of crosswordese stew; EROICA, ALCOA, AREPA, CATO, ANYA. I'm not a constructor but surely this could have been made a little smoother.
ReplyDeleteI strongly disagree: I would consider most if not all of those well-known outside of Crossworld. Maybe AREPA would qualify in my book.
DeleteMy kind of puzzle, wordplay-abounding in theme and clue.
ReplyDeleteI tried hard to guess the revealer, leaving it blank and not reading its clue, to no avail, and when I finally uncovered HELLO NEWMAN, well, that was a knock-me-over banger. Sure, the terrific wordplay, but also its iconic sardonic delivery. There is only one way to say it, and it’s funny.
That moment turned this puzzle from a simple fill-in to a worth-the-price-of-admission.
That’s on top of the clue wordplay scattered about. Such as [Ball one or ball two] for EYE – an answer that has appeared more than 500 times in the major crossword outlets, but never clued like this.
Kudos to the constructors for coming up with this theme set that fit symmetry and setting it in a cleanly filled grid.
Loved it. For me, this was Hanh and Ted’s great adventure. Thank you both, and congratulations on your debut, Ted!
I went through everything from “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”(too long), to “Master of my domain” (probably not 🤣), to “have you ever noticed”…., and then aha “NEWMAN!!!”
DeleteI agree thought this puzzle was fun - love the wordplay!
DeleteI cruised through this one pretty nicely but unfortunately failed miserably at the trivia test in the SE - I couldn’t come up with the Beethoven piece without any crosses, I never watched Seinfeld. I wouldn’t recognize a PEATY malt if it kicked me in the face. Heard of CATO but only from crosswords, no clue on the ANYA lady and never heard of a Gordita before. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. I hope no innocent bystanders were injured in the incident.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteNice to stir up some long lost words that have been slumbering in the ole brain. Although, VISION QUEST is in there as a movie, not a rite. And after ten minutes, RUMSPRINGA will crawl back into the safe space is came out of. 😁
With the Q and Z, figured we'd get a Pangram. But, the constructors resisted, puz is sans J and X.
Nice Theme, tied together by a different source Revealer, but corresponding to the rites. Pretty cool.
Another Gen Xer thing in TTOPS, do the Z's and Millennials even know what that was? Oh, and I heard Gen Beta has started, just to let you know.
GIVEMEFIVE sounds like something a Brit who eats BISCUITs would say. Over here in 'Murica we say GIMMIEFIVE.
Hope y'all have a great Wednesday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Never heard of RUMSPRINGA, so a TIL. At first I thought "could it be RUM SPRINGs?" and imagined one of the comics here making up a fun line about tropical drinks...Rum Springs Eternal.
ReplyDeleteThe A in RUMSPRINGA was needed for OATEN; but...OATEN?? OATY is sufficiently cringeworthy for me, thank you.
Really enjoyed this puzzle! CRATERS (43D) is a great colloquialism (completely collapses). Hey…a day without a Star Wars reference!
ReplyDeletePerfect dessert after Coq au vin rouge? Cornet ALASNO.
ReplyDeleteI know that Oprah lost a bunch of weight, but what's OSAGE? Hope this doesn't make me guilty of AGEISM.
The University of Pittsburgh has a wonderful truck driving school. It's located in a splendid classroom building named ALCOA Hall after the company that donated it. Being in that building comes to mean everything to the future drivers. And the lessons they learn there are not forgotten for a moment over the long careers of its alums. In fact, many are said to be continually driving under the influence of ALCOA Hall.
Certain areas of most hospitals are off-limits to obstetricians. They usually have signs that say NOOBS.
This puzzle made me feel like a new man. Thanks, Hanh Huynh and Ted Mayer. And congrats on the debut, Ted.
That was a long trip to ALCOA Hall but definitely worth it.
DeleteBravo, egs! The best groaners have a lengthy buildup. Love it.
DeleteA pleasant puzzle. Picturing Seinfeld saying ‘Hello Newman’ was really funny.🎈🎈🎊🎊
ReplyDeleteThere is a great series done for BBC I think called Jeeves and Wooster staring Hugh Lurie and Stephen Fry
ReplyDeleteThere was a well done TV series called Jeeves and Wooster starring Hugh Lurie and Stephen Fry. Really funny
ReplyDeleteReally strong set of themers I thought—I had heard of them all, but two of them didn’t come easily to mind, and for two of them I needed help with the spelling; all of them were fun to see on the grid. Malaika‘s question about what would have been the fourth was interesting to me because it made me realize that beyond QUINCEAÑERA and CONFIRMATION (I think that’d be the better answer than first communion, which often happens in childhood), they get a lot less familiar after that, so the set seemed both tight and interesting.
ReplyDeleteAfter VISIONQUEST and BAR(T?)MITZVAH I thought the theme waw going to be something like "rite of passage", then there was RUMPSRINGA. which is a fun-sounding word but until today meaningless, and then the revealer from Seinfeld, which was equally meaningless. I'm happy to discover that I'm not the only one around here who has never seen it, and thinking of how HELLOWNEWMAN could be used as a catchphrase is proving difficult. So it goes.
ReplyDeleteSome friends I play music with and I had an interesting about "Wake Up Little Susie" and where the falling asleep takes place. Worth pondering if you don't have anything to do today.
Hello OBI. Welcome back.
OK puzz, HH and TM. High Hopes for something a little more challenging, but This Made a nice enough morning, for which thanks.
An interesting discussion. Come on man.
Delete"Rite of passage" was in the clues, so it couldn't have been the revealer.
DeleteAlso, one stanza goes:
The movie wasn't so hot
It didn't have much of a plot
We fell asleep, our goose is cooked
Our reputation is shot
So I've always assumed they were in a theater, but I guess it could have been a drive-in.
Sure, but another part of the lyrics is "We fell asleep, it's four o'clock, and we're in trouble deep". You don't get in trouble in a theater or be in trouble at 4 PM, and if it's 4 AM, where are they exactly? Inquiring minds want to know.
DeleteThe puzzle was good to very good, except for oaten which is Not A Word. I also struggle with identifying Hello Newman as a catchphrase, how does it catch-on (seems like a requirement) in popular culture? "I'll be back" ,"eat my shorts", "if it weren't for you meddling kids" are catchphrase, hello Newman is a running non-funny gag.
DeleteTwo thoughts A) i’ve never known how to say or spell Rumspringa, i do know what it is so i’ve just tried to avoid using the word. B) wow so many people haven’t watched Seinfeld. To them I say “no soup for you “ (just kidding)
ReplyDeleteSeeing OATEN was like getting a leg cramp while running. I had to shake it off and just keep going. The EYE clue was unnecessarily awful. Teeth are numbered but not EYEs. A stand alone 'ball' is never used to mean EYE. Seriously, Will, you got nothing better for EYE?
ReplyDeleteLynn
DeleteYou didn’t mention the question mark after ball one or ball two. but a crossword PUZZLE is not a dictionary It involves clues and word play and tricks of various kinds Otherwise, crosswords would be boring The ? tells you there is a trick. Nothing unusual or wrong about this one.
Nada para ti.
ReplyDeleteAbsurdly medium? Insultingly Wednesday-ish? ALAS NO. Quite a fun puzzle. Full of gunk to toughen it up. Yesterday's drama leads to the tears of the weekend, so today we should celebrate with clichéd mixed metaphors (as I create with alarming ease) Shall we trade KEANU Reeves for Nicki Minaj? Rename the EROICA because your tyrant changed into an Italian gardener (...we should be so lucky...)? Well by golly I love me some Seinfeld even after all these decades so I suppose it was a right of passage itself.
Thanks to lots of you who reacted to my tirade yesterday. I had a long evil day at work and wasn't able to participate, but I had a good time reading the replies late last night.
My right of passage was to buy a motorcycle. It's a rite without a fancy name. Maybe it should have one. Enscooterenizmationishmensche?
Honestly, as an old man at a job meant for 20 year olds, my main concern isn't AGEISM. It's bad knees and falling asleep around 2 pm at the desk. And 10 squats at the gym isn't a SET, it's a reason to go to the hospital.
GIZMO is my fourth favorite word.
❤️ GOOF.
😂 I DONT.
😩 I ivy, you ivy, we ivy, they ivy, they ivied, they will ivy, they will have ivied, Harvard will be ivying next summer.
People: 10 {ugh}
Places: 3
Products: 10 {double ugh}
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 29 of 78 (37%)
Funny Factor: 3 😐
Tee-Hee: STIFF.
Uniclues:
1 Bangin' stuff to mess around with in the forest after a day of searching for your manhood.
2 Nickname for a nudist.
3 How mean tweets can affect a celebrity.
4 The cage match fought by one suggesting a know-it-all is wrong.
5 Sell the one who acted in The Matrix.
6 When you write "I will not touch other's things," 100 times in detention.
1 VISION QUEST TNT
2 T-TOP SUSIE
3 EAT AT STAR
4 DIVA ERRORDOME
5 EBAY EVIL KEANU (~)
6 HEISTS ESSAY
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Chemical sunsets. VAPE PEN EVES.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This solve was "A Festivus for the rest of us"
ReplyDeleteUse trowel with concrete or mortar, not so much with cement.
ReplyDeleteI put in VISION QUEST, which I always thought was traditionally male, then got to 30-A and put in BA_MITZVAH, figuring the constructors may have wanted to vary the gender. REIGN eventually sorted that, but I didn't see that without 3 crosses. I was stumped about the Amish rite--it wasn't until I had RUMS --INGA that I went, "Aha! RUMSPRINGA!" And then I was not positive that the second R was not an L. Also, I had seen the word but did not know what it meant, so I looked it up in Wikipedia--which said that it means "adolescence" and that the idea that it's a rite of passage is a myth in non-Amish culture. But close enough.
ReplyDeleteI thought the adversary of Caesar meant one of his assassins, but they all had longer names, and CATO was the only 4-letter Roman starting with C that I could think of, so that got me through.
I have seen a few Seinfeld episodes, like maybe 10 or 15, but HELLO NEWMAN is not something I remember. My fault there. And the only NFL team whose uniform colors I know is the Packers, so I needed lots of crosses there.
All of which leaves me with a question: if you have to be a Scotch enthusiast for Islay malts to taste PEATY how do they taste to non-enthusiasts?
"Bye, Bye, Love" is the name of the Everly Bros. song that Simon and Garfunkel covered.
ReplyDeleteActually, different generations might answer this differently, each scratching their heads at the other generation's answer.
DeleteSimon & Garfunkel recorded a live version of Bye Bye Love that was released on the mostly studio album Bridge Over Troubled Waters in 1970.
Fast forward to 1981 and the reunion concert in Central Park where they performed Wake Up Little Suzie - which live performance was included on the concert' album, and then issued as a single where it became very popular in its own right, charting at # 27 (which is pretty damn good).
If you listen to their 1982 Concert in Central Park, you'll hear them sing "Wake Up Little Susie."
DeleteInteresting solve period today as the small river behind our place has thawed enough for the mallards and Canada geese but THEN I got distracted by a mute swan husband and wife, watched how the mallards seemed to coexist with them and how the Canada geese FLOCK gave them wide purchase. (The geese bullies are afraid of the MUCH meaner and much larger swan bullies) Then to top it off, a bald eagle landed on the opposite shore. Well. So I won’t speak to easy, medium, or whatever…I just know that WHEN I got back to puzzle I enjoyed it!
ReplyDeleteI was familiar with all of the “rites of passage” so no problem there, and having watched Seinfeld, HELLONEWMAN dropped in pretty quickly. As for whether it’s a catchphrase…for sure it is within the show. I can even see myself THINKING of saying it (in my head) if I ran into a person I didn’t particularly like mimicking Jerry’s disdainful tone.
We have a few Old Amish communities within my state so I revisited RUMSPRINGA via search and found that 85-90% of Amish youth return to the Amish fold after the experience. So…I think it be described as NEW MAN or reNEWed MAN. :)
This rodeo had a coupla no-know puzthemers, at our house. But the revealer was great stuff, to us loyal Seinfeld viewers of olde.
ReplyDeletestaff weeject picks: NEW & MAN. primo weeject stacks, NE & SW, btw.
some faves: BISCUIT. GIVEMEFIVE. symmetric(al) TIMELY & ONESEC. REIGN clue. Wake Up, Little SUSIE [M&A's got that 45].
Thanx for gangin up on us, Mr. Huynh & Mayer dudes. And congratz to new puzman Ted M. on his half debut.
Masked & Anonymo3Us
I liked the representation of four cultures (if you can count sitcoms as a culture) and the theme entry words themselves, especially RUMSPRINGA with its joyful "springing." The reveal was a sort of anti-reveal for me: I've never watched Seinfeld, so HELLO NEWMAN had to come from crosses and the context of the clue. A clever repurposing!
ReplyDeleteJeeves 😍😍😍😍😍
ReplyDeleteWent and did Malaika's puzzle. Fascinating combination of Monday-easy stuff with utterly unguessable pop culture stuff. But very fair. All the unguessable stuff was crossed by normal stuff. I'd peg it about easy Friday level.
ReplyDeleteThe "new man" part is a fail: Bar Mitzvah (as opposed to the Bat Mitzvah) is only for males, but rumspringa absolutely does not apply only to males; many groups had/have vision quests, and while some did limit them to males, not all groups did.
ReplyDeleteOn the Jeeves & Wooster topic, I'm amazed how many Americans know Hugh Laurie only through "House" (and also by how many Americans think he's American!). Among other things (e.g., "Blackadder" and "A Bit of Fry & Laurie), his earlier work included the hilarious "Jeeves and Wooster" show (in which he plays Wooster and Stephen Fry plays Jeeves). While reading is great, the series is well worth watching as well!
Anonymous 12:12 pm
DeleteThe theme is a fail if no males are involved in a rumspringa But of course they are. Close enough for crosswords
I’m somewhat surprised that so many here are unacquainted with RUMSPRINGA. I’m also surprised that so many on RUMSPRINGA decide to turn away from the outside world when it's time to go home.
ReplyDeleteWhat I’m not acquainted with is Seinfeld, although of course I’ve seen a couple of episodes (or maybe just some scenes). But it's embedded enough in the culture that HELLO NEWMAN was easily filled in.
Thanks, Hanh and Ted!
Didn't know RUMSPRINGA. When the RUM part filed in, I was thinking "The Amish use RUM in a rite of passage!? Better recheck that. Maybe I have made an ERROR."
ReplyDeleteI've seen all the "Seinfeld" episodes, most of them at least twice. So the reveal was especially appreciated. Who is your favorite supporting character? I would go with Uncle Leo. Of the 262 times LEO has appeared in the NYTXW Modern Era, maybe a dozen or so times it has have been clued as Seinfeld's uncle.
I never use FORTE in conversation to mean strength or strong point. I know in that context it is pronounced "fort" and not the musically related "for-tay". But if I pronounced it correctly, I know I would at least get some quizzical looks if not a "Do you mean "for-tay?".
I was surprised to see 69A ALCOA clued as "Pittsburgh-based industrial giant". There's a big ALCOA plant in, yep, ALCOA, Tennessee, near the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.
Uncle Leo is fantastic. But I also think Puddy and J. Peterman were brilliantly and inventively executed.
DeletePretty quick Wednesday with only a couple of bumps. I typed in BA-MITZVAH cuz I knew it could be R or T. Soon REIGN sorted that out, so I didn't need the revealer to get the MAN theme. (And what a great clue for REIGN.) But the revealer was, as Malaika said, great! Although it took me a while to remember NEWMAN.
ReplyDeleteThat whole lower right corner was pretty nasty, with all the names: EROICA NEWMAN ALCOA AREPA IMAC CATO ANYA! Yikes. And yes, OATEN is awful. If the clue had just been "Like Quaker products" I could have put EATEN.
Typeovers: "Source(s) of lines for a reading": POEM before PALM. And at 43 down CRASHES before CRATERS for "completely collapses".
An arepa per se is nothing similar to a gordita. The latter is stuffed. An arepa is simply a flat corncake. You could stuff it with cheese. Then you have an arepa con queso.
ReplyDeleteFor 24D, wouldn’t it be “source of lines for a reading, maybe,” as opposed to “sources”? The answer is singular, PALM.
ReplyDeleteYep. The editors missed catching that typo.
DeleteThought so. Thanks.
DeleteCount me in as one of the non-Seinfelders. I liked it in its first season. I watched maybe a half dozen episodes and thought it “different” and wryly funny. But as it proceeded into the next season it became more of a normal network TV sitcom, dependent on tropes, catchphrases, and repeated bits of physical comedy (Kramer sliding into Jerry’s apartment, “Hello Newman”, etc.). Most of these shows should be killed after 2 or 3 seasons. So yes to Malika’s observation about the theme layering, but it’s a sitcom that I was too busy fall for. (I was dealing with a 7 year old and a 3 year old trying to take over my life when it premiered.)
ReplyDeleteLiked CRATERS a lot. Somehow knew the word RUMSPRINGA, except for the terminal A, which I was reluctant to enter because it would validate OATEN, a word that, for some unknown reason, I detest. And speaking of words I dislike, it always peeves me when people say cement when they are TROWELing concrete. Sorta like if I say I’m going to get out my spatula (Hello, kitshef) and sugar my cake when I’m actually going to frost or ice it.
So, kind of meh for me with 3 good themers and a reveal that was OK, except it was Seinfeld.
Malaika, you have so many treats in store for you with PG Wodehouse! His Jeeves and Wooster are the most famous, but the Mr Mulliner stories are also hysterical. Those with American characters less so, but I entirely agree with the Evelyn Waugh quote: “Mr. Wodehouse’s idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in.”
ReplyDeleteSolved in 17:07, a few minutes quicker than average.
ReplyDeleteBut man that bottom right corner was brutal. I burned half my time there, and ultimately had to check here. Three proper names overlapping is just mean, and I never watched Seinfeld.
Really enjoyed the theme though, I snagged the first two theme entries right on the first pass, and I totally knew the third one but couldn't remember its name. Fortunately it didn't take long to fill it in once I had a few more letters.
Liked the puzzle. Malaika, read Code of the Woosters, IMO the pinnacle of Wodehouse's Jeeves & Wooster oeuvre
ReplyDeleteHey, I was at the same performance of Ulysses (at the Public Theater, yes?). I thought it was a nice try but it did not really capture the exuberant spirit of the book or its humor. Molly's soliloquy at the end was utterly gripping however.
ReplyDeleteVery clever revealer - loved this puzzle. I agree the 24D clue should have been singular source. All the names were gettable and so was RUMSPRINGA which is new to me. Thanks Malaika for a great write up
ReplyDeleteLiked the puzzle. It was on the easy but that didn’t bother me. Never watched Seinfeld. (I have been going out with the same group of friends on Thursday nights for over forty years so through its entire run I never saw it and never tried to see it at other times). I know a few of the catch phrases through clips and the culture in general but not hello Newman. But the crosses weren’t hard.
ReplyDeleteSome people seemed extra nitpicky today. Liked Malaika’s review.
Thanks for the great write up Malaika! I always appreciate the insights you share on constructing.
ReplyDeleteI really loved this one. The theme was right in my wheelhouse and how very clever! I needed a bunch of crosses for RUMSPRINGA, but the other themers fell quickly.
VISIONQUEST brought me back to college days seeing the movie with the same name with Matthew Modine and a brief appearance by Madonna singing "Crazy For You" in a bar. First time I ever saw/heard her. Got into her for a couple of years after and then lost interest when I went to my first Dead show. Loved the movie at the time - sports (wrestling) and a 1985 Madonna - what could be bad??
While overall I thought the puzzle was smooth and easy, I had one inexplicable unforce ERROR at 31D - I put down Realm instead of the correct REIGN - it took me a while to escape that.
Overall, a very, very enjoyable solve.
Hanh and Ted, good stuff today! Thank you!
Malaika - I'm off to solve your puzzle now :o)
Another whooshy solve with lots of fun. Not as tight as yesterday but with plenty of fun. As a Seinfeld fan, I enjoyed remembering the hundreds (probably) of times, Jerry we’d see Kerry roll his eyes and say “Helllllo NEWMAN.” Wish the theme’s success weren’t so tied to the clues needing to be male, but it works.
ReplyDeleteI learned about RUMSPRINGA in college first hand. Three young women from the same community came to college to study music and education hoping to take a wider world view back to their community and teach. They were all vocalists and I sang in a mixed ensemble with two. Two retuned and were baptized. The third fell in love with a Methodist minister and became baptised in that church, and when we lost touch was teaching public school. All three such generous, funny, quiet women. And they all three baked pies as good as my Grans. I learned so much about so many things from the friendship.
Wonderful write up today M! And a very fun solve.
If an AREPA is a snack I guess a taco and a sandwich are snacks too.
ReplyDelete