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Relative difficulty: EASY
THEME: COMICAL MUTATION — Words and phrases have have the sound "ICKLE" added to them to make new wacky phrases (for example, the title adds "ICAL" COMMUTATION).
Word of the Day: RED EARTH (40D - Iron-rich variety of fertile soul) —There is no Wikipedia entry for Red Earth, so this is from Red Soil:
Red soil is a type of soil that typically develops in warm, temperate, and humid climates and comprises approximately 13% of Earth's soil and[1] it contains thin organic and organic-mineral layers of highly leached soil resting on a red layer of alluvium. Red soils contain large amounts of clay and are generally derived from the weathering of ancient crystalline and metamorphic rock. They are named after their rich red color, varying from reddish brown to reddish yellow due to their high iron content.[2] Red soil can be good or poor growing soil depending on how it is managed. It is usually low in nutrients and humus and can be difficult to cultivate due to its low water holding capacity; however, the fertility of these soils can be optimized with liming and other farming techniques.
• • •
Hey everyone, it's your third or fourth favorite Jeopardy runner up, Eli!* Excited to be bringing you this first Sunday puzzle in February, marking the turning of the page from the January That Would Never End. Let's jump right in!*Speaking of Jeopardy and crosswords, retroactive good luck to Paolo Pasco! I hope you keep crushing the Tournament of Champions!
Theme answers:
This theme is pretty simple, which means it has to execute at a high level to be successful. Thankfully, I think this one largely pulls it off! There's 7 theme answers, most of which take up a lot of real estate, and both the original phrases and the ensuing silliness are pretty sparkly. I especially liked TWO PARTICLE HARMONY (as a barbershop singer, I'm required to highlight any mention of harmony), FOLLICLES ON ONE'S FACE, and WE'RE NAUTICAL WORTHY. BOSTON POPSICLE got a giggle, as well. I do have to say, I'm glad my DOG is not TOPICAL. His sweet, goofy face is a nice respite from the news of the day. I guess it might have been nice to stick with either "ICAL" or "ICKLE," but the sound is identical and the puzzle splits the two options as evenly as possible. Truly an enjoyable set of themers for me.
Stray Thoughts:
Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
Theme answers:
- CLASSICAL CLOWN (23A: Canio in "Pagliacci," e.g.?) (From "class clown")
- TOPICAL DOG (37A: News hound?) (From "top dog")
- TWO PARTICLE HARMONY (40A: Atomic bond, essentially) (From "two part harmony")
- FOLLICLES ON ONE'S FACE (65A: Some electrolysis targets?) (From "Falls on one's face")
- WE'RE NAUTICAL WORTHY (88A: "Mainsail hoisted, check! Hatches battened, check!"?) (From "we're not worthy")
- LYRICAL JET (94A: Shark's singing rival in "West Side Story"?) (From "Lear jet")
- BOSTON POPSICLE (113A: Frozen trerat for Bruins fans?) (From "Boston Pops")
Classical Clown (23A)
Two Part(icle) Harmony (40A, at 55 seconds). One of my favorites from The Muppet Show
If the puzzle has a downside, I suppose it's that the fill doesn't really stand out in many places. To be fair, nothing stood out egregiously bad, either, but the standouts were a little sparse. The clue at 35A - "Grab the chips and dip?" (CASH IN) - made me pause the puzzle and make a big star in my notebook. Really fantastic clue with modern-ish phrasing for a less-than-interesting answer ("dip" in this sense is slang for "leave," if you didn't get it). Conversely, the clue for AMNESIA (105A - Never mind?) doesn't really make sense to me. Amnesia is memory loss, right? How does that translate to "never mind"? It feels obtuse, at best. As a musical theater major, it took me waaaaaay too long to get SIAM (60D - Rodgers and Hammerstein musical setting), but The King and I isn't one of my favorites, so I'm going to forgive myself. For the record, I had no problem getting SIR (54A - "Aaron Burr, ___" ("Hamilton" show tune)).
I suppose it could be considered a dupe to have both ONO (114D: Co-producer of the documentary "The Beatles: Get Back") and IN MONO (18D - Not stereo) in the same puzzle, but it didn't bother me. Maybe I like the thought of ONO IN MONO enough to assume that it was intentional. The pairing of WILD FIRE (41D - Metaphor for a runaway success) and OK BOOMER (42D - Gen Z put-dwon of an elder) is probably the strongest block of fill, even if Ok, Boomer is already feeling a little dated. I also don't like to think about the physical reaction that got OLESTRA (20A) "named one of Time's 50 Worst Inventions," but I liked that trivia in the clue. Seeing BLACK ART (48D - Arcane technique) in the singular feels weird, and being next to the bland and possibly-not-a-thing RED EARTH (see word of the day above) isn't doing either any favors. I wasn't familiar with the concept of a NASTYGRAM (100A - Very rude e-mail, informally), but it helped liven up the grid. All things considered, I liked this one a lot more than I didn't, which feels like a win on a Sunday, lately.
 |
| We're Nautical worthy |
- 40D: Mother of Helios, in myth (THEA) — I'm reading Madeline Miller's Circe right now, so the Titans are very much on my mind.
- 122A: Embarrassing items to have revealed on an airport X-ray (SEX TOYS) — Only embarrassing if you let it be! How about a little sex positivity, puzzle?
- 95D: Crack open? (YO MAMA) — A nice misdirect clue here, but I'm highlighting it for a today's real lesson. This is Yo Mama: This is Yo-Yo Ma:
Thank you for your time.
That'll do it for today. If any of you are attending the Boswords Winter Wondersolve this afternoon (link below), be sure to say "hi" in the chat!
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
[Follow Eli Selzer on BlueSky]
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I liked this theme as well, and thought that COMICAL MUTATION deriving from COMMUTATION was clever.
ReplyDeleteWhere I was hung up:
- 16D: Had (Arctic) CHAR at first, when faced with __HA__. Quickly saw the error.
- 42D: With a nod to Samuel Shem's "The House of God", I wrote in OLDGOMER at first.
- 28A: I kept thinking, "Isn't there a Drew BREES" (there is!), but of course this didn't fit. I knew of BLEDSOE too but BREES caused a mental block.
- 118A: Had TIRADE first.
Nitpicky point: If the clue for 18D is "Not stereo", shouldn't the answer be MONO? Now, if the clue were "Not in stereo", then INMONO?
Lance's bio: Will Shortz feels this being Lance's third NYT crossword, Lance is very successful (i.e., "not teaching failure very well!"), and we would all wholeheartedly agree! What's missing is the number of rejections, or the number of submissions before his first published puzzle.
Yes! (IN)MONO bugged me. Along with...
Delete- "Grab the chips and dip?" sounds like you are leaving the game, so you are not CASHing IN, you are cashing out!
- I've always heard the joke category called "YO MAMA so.." but apparently The Internet doesn't agree with me. π€·π»♂️
Failing at failing is ironically still failing…but the answer is approximately 10 rejections before the first acceptance. So plenty of opportunities to teach lessons to the kids; and even the “successes” come with enough room for improvement that the children can still witness the struggle of trying to improve.
Delete28A also could have been clued “former NFL QB with a famous Cabernet”
DeleteDang, Lance, only 10? I'm way higher than that. Apparently, I'm not a good puzzlemaker. Har.
DeleteRoo
Don’t judge your puzzle makings skills by whether or not the NYT accepted one of your puzzles. They reject many excellent puzzles, and they also sometimes accept some average puzzles. You very well may be an excellent puzzle maker that just happened to catch them with the wrong theme at the wrong time.
DeleteJust keep working to make sure you are submitting your best efforts, and it really does help a lot to either collaborate or get feedback from experienced constructors when possible.
Boswords 2026 Winter Wondersolve this afternoon! Hope to see some of you there.
ReplyDeleteO No! Will we never run out of ways do clue Yoko. Is there no attribute that cannot be ascribed to her?
ReplyDeleteWell, I’m a fan of silly, when it's good.
ReplyDeleteAnd today, to me, it was. First of all, “ickle” is funny sounding. That helps. Then, when you add it to a word and substitute it for the original word in a common phrase, that’s prime wordplay, and today it hit my happy button.
The two constructors, per their notes, brainstormed hundreds of possibilities before landing on today’s seven. That not only shows remarkable perseverance, but also that they worked hard on making this puzzle the best it can be.
So, add inspiration and respect to my smiles. Extra points for the lovely shorts GRIST and MIASMA.
Regular NYT solvers will know John well from his seven puzzles last year alone. Lance, with three puzzles in four years, maybe not so readily, but let me remind you of his wit from two of his past clues: [Competition that begins and ends with a tie], and [Material for a lighter wheel]. (Answers in a reply).
Thank you, John and Lance. This was splendid!
1. THREE-LEGGED RACE
Delete2. FLINT
Just seeing OLESTRA in the puzzle gives me the willies. I am one who was particularly sensitive to that additive, as I am to sucralose. In the US, avoiding sucralose is easy. But in South America (Chile and Ecuador that I know of), they put it in everything. Cookies, juice boxes, even Coke (Diet Coke and regular Coke). I basically have to read the label on everything I eat or drink. Or rather, my wife does, as I have poor close vision and they print the ingredients in tiny, tiny letters. I will know she has stopped loving me if she sees things have sucralose and gives them to me anyway.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm going to look into Circe, as it looks to be right up my alley.
Oh, the puzzle? Pretty slow for me for a Sunday, because I kept slowing down to try and guess the themers from the clues. That's a sign that the theme really caught my interest.
I think you'll like Circe. And Son of Achilles is just as good. Happy reading!
DeleteAgree on Circe…very good! And @Jnlzbeth…you’ve prompted me to download Son of Achilles.
Delete[Where one of the world's most popular toys was invented]
ReplyDeleteRUBIK'S CUBICLE
ππ
DeleteExcellent!
DeleteAgreed, top notch!!!
DeleteI hit that Natick with two commercial names, ESSIE and OLESTRA, right up top, and I knew this one wasn’t going to be for me. And it wasn’t. Oh, well.
ReplyDeleteDitto... took one look at this PPP slog and chunked it. Good riddance!
DeleteMe three, had to come here to get straightened out, because NE was last to fall for me
Deletethat was tough, but I must have heard OLESTRA somewhere along the way and ESSIE seemed reasonable.
DeleteA huge Sunday-sized chore. CLASS CLOWN - BOSTON POPS? For a replacement theme like this it’s either go big or go home.
ReplyDeleteWILDFIRE
The theme is dense - so there’s that. Overall fill suffers but as Eli highlights it’s generally clean enough. Not much pushback in the grid. The SW corner with YO MAMA was the highlight for me.
PEARL of the Quarter
The center section is highly segmented and loaded with shorts. AWS, BFA, VPS etc don’t atone for the tepid theme. I got a kick out of the puzzle title but nothing really materialized from it.
Sambadrome
Not a terrible puzzle - but just too much of it. Maybe pared down in a midweek grid would have been more suitable.
CAL
This one was a slog for me because I didn't understand the theme at all until I read the blog. So yeah, kinda hated it, but that's more on my inability to parse the theme than on the puzzle itself, I guess
ReplyDeleteI also loved the clue for 47A: Messing up on stage, which I thought was terrific misdirection and took me a few of the crosses to have that "Aha!" moment. I enjoyed this puzzle a lot, once I got the theme. One of the best Sundays in recent memory.
ReplyDeleteThanks for explaining 47A-I was all worked up about how awful a clue this was for someone unable to de-bra during a romantic moment in a movie! π π€ͺ
DeleteIt’s messing up on the big screen. Not the stage. It refers to Debra Messing. Better known for her small screen work.
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteNicely "comical" puz. I noticed today (wasn't sure if it's been previously) that the puz Title is now under the big, bold "The Crossword", when before it itself was the big, bold wording. What happened?
Caught the theme at the last Themer, as conversely got that one first. Saw it was going to be BOSTON POPSICLE, looked at the (small) Title, and said, "Aha, add ICLE to a common thing!" Thought they'd all be ICLEs, but ended up more ICALs than ICLEs. 4 ICALs, 3 ICLEs for those keeping score.
Liked puz overall, I think Rex would've liked the puz also, although he isn't the biggest fan of puns, but as he says, Go big or go home, these are funny/groan worthy enough to pass muster.
@pablo
Point! ROOSTER. Nice! Let me know if you've got one in here somehow. Right now it Me-2, You-1, Rex-1.
Hope y'all have a great Sunday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
In Eli's discussion of ical vs. ickle, he said their sound is identical. A use of ical right there. Quite magical!
ReplyDeletein a casino, poker players usual "cash out" their chips after leaving the table (also known as "going south" or "coloring up"), with luck with more than their "buy-in." The idiom "Cash in [one's] chips" is just a metaphor for giving up (usually after lack of success).
ReplyDeleteGoing south is removing a PORTION of your chips to reduce risk. Coloring up is trading in low-value chips for the equivalent in higher-value chips. These things aren't the same as cashing out.
DeleteGet ICE (55D) Out of my puzzle, pls
ReplyDeleteSpare us from snowflakes please :)
DeleteAnonymous 11:59 AM
DeleteWhen will Trump supporters GI yup on anti woke anti snowflake issue. We are dealing with a dictator wannabe whose thugs are killing people. The left got too moralistic and they can be annoying but how can you compare annoying wirds with murder.
Mi casa, mis reglas.
ReplyDeleteYike. I found this to be a discombobulated mess. Normally that's my jam. This one though, yeeshk. Cringefest from top to bottom. And an ocean of crummy short fill.
You probably would prefer four-part harmony. Just sayin'.
Aren't most driveways cement?
❤️ MIASMA. NASTYGRAM.
π© LIFE BAR. MYOPE. IN MONO. OK BOOMER (holy criminey). AWS. FEC.
People: 17
Places: 4
Products: 12
Partials: 10
Foreignisms: 6
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 49 of 136 (36%)
Funny Factor: 3 π
Tee-Hee: Listen, this section of my regular posts, it's supposed to be where I channel my inner 12-year-old. It is not for when a construction team aided by a gawd knows what kind of editor writes the stupidest thing I've seen in a crossword ever, I mean, like seriously, who is taking sex toys through the airport that would be embarrassed about it?? If I owned one and felt it would be important to bring it from Albuquerque to Tuscaloosa, I'd put that thing on a chain and hang it off my backpack along with my Bikini So Teeny nail polish. Life is way too short to be embarrassed about anything except maybe writing really dumb things in the New York Times.
Uniclues:
1 How you might describe the experience of interacting with this puzzle.
1 CLASSICAL CLOWN MIASMA
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Study partner named Poppy. OPIUM CLASSMATE.
¯\_(γ)_/¯
Here in upstate New York most driveways are asphalt, not cement.
DeleteCringefest says it all! Bottom of the barrel!
DeleteA female border guard found a bottle of lube on me in Europe and shot me a knowing smirk. It was great.
DeleteYeah, I don't know about most driveways. The driveway I have now is an asphalt surface, and come to think of it, we'll need to TAR it again soon. The driveway we had when I was a boy was a carpet of pine tree needles.
DeleteI think you raise a good point about the cluing for SEX TOYS. By the way, I think the law against distribution of SEX TOYS is still on the books in Alabama, so if anyone questions you in Tuscaloosa, be prepared. For example, you should know they are referred to down there as "educational aides". ;-) Who says they don't take education seriously in Alabama?
@Gary. Like Anon 10:41, I drive into my property on an asphalt roadway. Concrete (not cement) drives are not that common. I actually have 2 driveways; the main one is asphalt and the secondary one is gravel. I love the gravel one because it crunches when someone drives up. Even those stealthy electric vehicles can't sneak up on me.
Delete@Gary…I figure you don’t need (or want) an asphalt driveway in Albuquerque. They would possibly get a little “gummy” when very hot. In climates that get very icy, they are generally less expensive to maintain and definitely less expensive to replace.
DeleteAsphalt is cheaper so most new houses get asphalt with cement available for an upcharge. At least in Michigan. There was just a NY Times article about someone loving their mini vibrator on a necklace.
DeleteI was waiting for RP to rant on the inconsistency of -ICLE and -ICAL, which of course didn’t bother me:)
ReplyDeleteNice write-up Eli! Your choice of visual-aids is right up my alley, but I have to shield the screen with my left hand while reading to avoid the GIFs, which feel like they should be played out by now, like OKBOOMER. While in the old man corner, I’ll repeat that GIF should be pronounced with a hard G since the first letter stands for “graphic” and there’s already a peanut butter brand that has claimed JIF as a pronunciation.
I remember the ads for OLESTRA with the disclaimers about all the horrible possible side effects. A ad came on the other day with side effects that included BLINDNESS, which made me wonder what symptoms could be worth that risk????
…and I liked the puzzle - good, wooshy (Saturday night) fun
@burtonkd…I could be wrong but methinks you are thinking of a pharmaceutical ad…and I don’t think that Olestra was used as anything other than a fat substitute in food.
Delete@beezer - you are right. I’m remembering Jay Leno making jokes about olestra chips causing “anal leakage”. The current one is an ad for some kind of medication - I can never tell what these medical ads are for, but again whatever it is curing better be worse than blindness:(
DeleteI know what you mean about the side effects AND the fact that sometimes it’s hard to know what the pharmaceutical is targeted at. So…I wouldn’t want to risk going blind to lose weight with Ozempic, BUT some of the pharmaceuticals are targeted at very serious diseases where it would possibly prompt you to weigh the risk with the benefit. All I know is that heaven help me if I have to actually ASK my doctor about a certain drug!
DeleteEasy except for the NW, where I needed to cheat to get ESSIE and OLESTRA. The punny theme was erratic, I thought. BOSTONPOPSICLE made sense, but WERENAUTICALWORTHY was an overreach.
ReplyDeleteI would vote for Lewis’s RUBIK'S CUBICLE up above as the best of the theme answers today (with the POPSICLE from BOSTON a close second).
ReplyDeleteThis is one of those rare occasions where I disagree with @Gary - I got a kick out of SEX TOYS. The NYT needs to lighten up a bit. You see that kind of stuff all of the time in the New Yorker, and it is fertile ground for some really creative cluing (note: I was also hoping that MIASMA would make an appearance on the favorite word list).
There was some questionable clues like the ones for SAIL ON and AMNESIA. I wonder if that was Shortz and crew interfering again. I think they took a credibility hit after they messed with @kitshef so much. Now we can blame them for all of the bad stuff (recall what they did to NETS).
I wonder what Rex would have thought of today’s theme. Probably somewhere between nitpick and fully lambasting it, which is his usual comfort zone. He’s rarely as complimentary as today’s guest host.
When I taught computer science at NCSSM, I referred to compiler and runtime error messages as nastygrams.
ReplyDeleteWondering what years you were there. I attended not long after its inception.
DeleteI got off to a very slow start but got some traction in the middle east section and went from there. Once I got the theme with LYRICAL JET, I could guess some of the other themers without much help.
ReplyDeleteINMONO should just have been MONO, given the clue "Not stereo." And I've never heard anyone refer to Pilsner as PILS. But all in all, a fine theme with pretty good fill, a MIASMA of SEXTOYS and BLACKART and...AMORAL LLAMAS?
Same here on PILS, but then again I don’t hit the bar scene these days. :)
DeleteAll llamas are amoral.
Delete@Jnlzbth 9:57 am & Beezer; just Google images for "pils"... it's everywhere!
Delete@okanager…just to be clear…I wasn’t dissing the clue/answer, I was actually kinda joking about my age. I can totally get on board that it is a “thing.” :)
DeletePils is an especially common term in Deutsch.
DeleteI actually did attend an ICE Out rally yesterday, so it was kinda ok by me to see that clue/answer combo in the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteAfter seeing AND pop up I was resigned to seeing LESSORS in the grid.
I wish the NBA's Thunder would rename themselves the OKBOOMERs.
Bad news from the Iditarod: Musher LOSESTEAM
I kept thinking that there had to be AMORAL to this puzzle and then I got to 117A.
Really clever and enjoyable romp for me. Thanks, LANCE ENFINGER and JOHN KUGELMAN.
"Gone With the Wind": Rhett Butler to Scarlett: "You get your strength from this RED EARTH of Tara." https://yarn.co/yarn-clip/eb3bdf82-c512-4dc7-b1f4-75db2e5ed7f7
ReplyDeleteWhere did you find the K as in icKle?
ReplyDelete@burtonkd. I'm with you on the GIF thing. The home page for NYT e-edition does it a lot. Drives me nuts!
The puzzle was fun enough but it really bothered me that some of the themes were straight up, like CLASSICALCLOWN/CLASS CLOWN, while others relied on homophones, like LYRICALJET?LYR(Lear)JET. And worse, FOLL and FaLL, NAUT and NoT have different vowel sounds. It strikes me as something that I hope Rex would have noted.
What's a SEXTOY?
When the Jewish lady says "Oy, why is this shlemiel sending me sexts"
DeleteI got the theme early but the puzzle was too choppy for whoosh for me.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping for a Rex write up because this was terrible in all the ways I’d imagine him pointing out. Is the theme ICLE or ICAL? Pick one, guy. Is it “add these letters and get a new phrase”? Or “add this sound and the sound of the original word changes such that the original word is no longer a word”?
ReplyDeleteAlso, PIMLICO? SHAD? ESSIE? And the alphabet soup of NLMVPS?
THANK YOU I scrolled so far for the griping about NLMVPS. Instant ruiner for me
DeleteTWO PARTICLE HARMONY, BOSTON POPSICLE and WE'RE NAUTICAL WORTHY are the best of the themers, in my opinion. This turned out to be fun but there were definitely moments (PIMLICO, LIFE BAR, BLEDSOE were all WoEs for me) where I was at sea.
ReplyDeleteNL MVPS needs an award for "Fewest vowels in a crossword answer". (Not to ignore the GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGs row earlier this week.)
Lance and John, nice work, thanks!
I liked it a lot - because the theme kept me mystified for a long time. On Sundays, my self-imposed rule is to solve only from words I already have, and today that meant starting from OPIE x IPHONE in the NE and working my way down the right side of the grid. I wrote in TOPICAL DOG without understanding it and couldn't guess what might proceed HARMONY and WORTHY. Thank goodness for BOSTON POPSICLE, which turned on the light bulb. After that - lots of fun in figuring out the rest, with WE'RE NAUTICALWORTHY providing the bridge to the left side, and up I climbed to CLASSICAL CLOWN. I thought the theme was creative and witty - for me, a top-notch Sunday puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI’m an amateur and do Sunday only. This was very difficult for me, yet Rex found it easy?!?!
ReplyDeleteRex is a bit egotistical! He likes everyone to think that what most puzzlers would find medium or difficult he considers to be easy!
DeleteI started out pretty slow today with this one but gathered steam and somehow finished faster than my average time. I enjoyed the puzzle but really didn’t fully appreciate all the themers until post-solve…quite clever, and I also thought much of the fill was above average.
ReplyDeleteMy crazy mind got stuck on MACY. Oh, I got it immediately, but it got me thinking about (and being sad about) the demise of most local/regional department stores and the MACYfication of department stores across the country. My local Macy’s is simply awful and is arranged to presume I want some designer logo on all my clothing not to mention the fact that the clothing isn’t even particularly well-made.
Online shopping is hurting the retailers, big time.
DeleteMostly easy for me except for the NW where I got off to a very slow start with nothing except BTS. I had to come at it from the center and the NE which were a tad friendlier. I was surprised to finish slightly faster than my typICAL Sunday time.
ReplyDeleteToo many WOEs to list especially in the NW.
No costly erasures, just a lot of Blank Space (hi @Tay Tay) in the NW.
Mildly amusing with a bit of crunch, liked it.
I’m the only one that tought today’s puzzle / theme was complete b*llshit?
ReplyDeleteNot at all, Jason... count me in!
DeleteI can’t answer for others, but I really enjoyed it. And it seemed most of the commentators did as well
DeleteSo many overwrites today! ESSIE after ESTEE; RHEA to THEA; NORWAY to NORDIC; CUSPIDS to CANINES; and the topper, GRAIN to GROAT to GRIST. Good Lord it was hard to get to the end….
ReplyDeleteClose to Medium difficulty, maybe a shade harder. It's a standard 21 by 21 size, but somehow it felt a little bigger, maybe because of the long themers, or maybe because so much of it seems comment-worthy. I liked the wacky vibe. TOPICAL DOG and LYRICAL JET and BOSTON POPSICLE are wacky as all get-out (in particular, "News hound?" is inspired cluing). And there are lots of interesting entries, so how to choose which to discuss? Anyway, I thought it was a good puzzle, and I don't have many nits to pick.
ReplyDeleteI see no problem with ONO and IN MONO in the same grid. There is no semantic connection between the three-letter strings in question. You might as well be complaining about the occurrence of OPS in the answers to 121A and 113A. (Didn't notice that one, did you? Thus proving my point.)
It's not that I needed help distinguishing between Yo-yo Ma and YO MAMA; it's the misdirection, where the word "open" in "Crack open?" is a noun where one could substitute "opener" with no change in meaning, that I needed time to discover. Plus, the phrase "step on a crack, break YO MAMA's back" kept getting in the way of my getting it.
EYE SOCKET as the answer to the straight-faced "Orbit" -- I approve.
I did not have my thinking cap on -- it was more a dunce cap -- when reading the clue "Like the Eid al-Fitr festival". It was such a surface level reading, where the word "Eid" looked sort of Gaelic [which didn't fit], and this poor MYOPE's eyes didn't process the very Arabic-looking "al-Fitr" following it. Sigh. Eid has appeared many times in the NYTXW in an ISLAMIC context, as I well know.
AGASP. What would Sam Ezersky think, I wonder. There's a goofball entry in today's Spelling Bee that's part of the case study on which A- words he'll accept (like "Abed") and which he won't (like "Aroar").
I had rHEA before THEA. Isn't Rhea a figure from mythology, like a mother of giants or titans or some such? (You don't have to answer; I'll look it up.) Seemed reasonable at the time.
We've seen TAU = 2pi before, and we've even had nerdy commentary on whether TAU should take more priority over pi as a mathematical constant. I'm sure someone will be tempted to link to a Vi Hart video that delves into said matter. That someone will not be me however.
I'm okay with the vowel-less entry NLMVPS (and also RSVP). Wonder what others think.
A part of me really wanted "eWS" (not AWS) to be the answer to "Exclamations in nurseries". There's a Seinfeld where they're guests at a beach house in the Hamptons; the hosts have a new-born, and all the guests are expected to coo and say their AWS! and ADORBS! at the sleeping baby in their nursery, but Jerry and Elaine are AGASP at the apparently and unexpectedly hideous sight, and have to leave the room to catch their breaths.
Okay, that's enough for now. Thanks for some fun, Lance and John.
As always, Seinfeld provides the answer. And to your post, it’s breathtaking.
DeleteMy confession is that when I saw the clue “crack open” I tried to tie it to the whole “thing” about plumbers showing their butt crack. Why just plumbers? Beats me. All I know is that I was willing to go beyond plumbers, but still thought “butt-crack.”
DeleteLately, the puzzles are becoming good again, including today’s.ππππ
ReplyDeleteI needed something warm & comforting on yet another frigid day. This wasn't it :(
ReplyDeleteThe big Sunday grid often provides more opportunities for 4 or more letter Hidden Diagonal Words (HDW), and this morning is no exception.
ReplyDeleteHere are clues for two of them:
1. Second of seven, alphabetically (4 letters)
2. Very deep South?
In addition to those two, other HDWs include SOME, GOSH, FRAT, and SEAS. And @Lewis will be happy to know that there are three Hidden Diagonal Semordnilap pairings in the grid:
PALS/SLAP (off the P in 8A, IMPALA, moving to the SW)
STEM/METS (off the S in 32A, SARI, also toward the SW)
TOPS/SPOT (off the T in 122A, SEXTOYS--"Hi," Gary J)
Fairly standard Sunday fare. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. Until I finished and looked back, I thought we were just dropping the CAL instead of the ICAL/ICLE. Probably because I read the first theme answer as CLASSICalCLOWN, not CLASSicalCLOWN. My bad.
Answers to HDW clues:
1. ASIA (off the A in 31D, TARS)
2. PLUM (as in "We're PLUM tickled to meet y'all"--off the P in 36D, NLMVPS--an "eyechart" answer if there ever was one!)
Re the clue"never mind" for "amnesia". I get the complaints, but I thought of it as the "never mind" I've said (all too often) in recent years when I forgot the words for what I was saying, or perhaps lost track of what I was saying, so "amnesia" worked in an amusing way.
ReplyDeleteFun puzzle and yes, Lewis 'icle was great
Nastygram far predates email. I heard it in the Navy in the 1970s, referring to a disapproving message (I don't remember the format) from someone higher up the chain of command.
ReplyDeleteIf you have any qualms about sex toys my advice is don’t work in the E R at any
ReplyDeleteHospital anywhere in the world
Sam doesn't accept AROAR, along with some others (don't remember which ones) that surprise me. He IS particularly fond of ANAL though.
ReplyDeleteGreat fun with wordplay and homonyms—some a little stretched but what the heck! Got off to a slow start having to bypass the NE with its cross of OLESTRA and ARI and ESSIE, and work from the SE up, but eventually got there—not as easy for me as for others.
ReplyDeleteNeat theme; too bad they couldn't work an ICKLE into it. I guess there's no good longer words that end that way. Anyone?
ReplyDeleteOkay so the official weather stats are in for Penticton for January:
Deletesnow: 0.0 cm
rain: 2.5 mm (0.1") ... less than Death Valley's average.
How about "Inexpensive dinner when you're out of money?"
DeletePICKLE AND ROLL
ok - I love the weather reports from your beautiful home area. I have fond memories of spending a night or two in Kamloops during a brutal January storm in the mid 80s on my way to Calgary. Surprised you’re not knee deep in it by now.
Delete@Roo... not terrible!
Delete@Son Volt... I grew up in Kamloops! Yes we had some cold and snowy winters when I was growing up; often -20s C (below zero F) with a couple of feet of snow for 2+ months. Then in the mid 1980s I was at grad school in Winnipeg where it is often REALLY cold... mid minus 30s Celsius. Penticton is noticeably warmer and less snowy than Kamloops, but this winter is crazy.
I thought of PICKLING FIGHTS but in my opinion, like NAUTICAL WORTHY, doesn’t stick the landing.
DeleteWell, duty called, so another sing in church day, so late again, but good for my karma. I hope.
ReplyDeleteLike some others the NW was going nowhere. Video game stuff? Nail polish? Unknown director? I went elsewhere and things took off, but it took a beat or two to drop the ICAL/ICKLE thing to have the clue make sense. And I'm with @Lynn in thinking some of the pronunciations had to be tortured a little. My wife and I have had this conversation more than a few times, as I'm from Upstate NY and she's from NH. "Not" was probably or first sticking point, as I say it properly and she says "NAUT". I'm learning though.
Eventually remembered DEBRA but knew not of CORA. How do you do.
@Roo--no pablos or pabloosters. My 21-year old cat is almost a THEA, except he's a guy, so Theo. I don't expect points for that, i just like to point out how old he is.
Thought this was above-average for a Sunday, LE and JK, Like Everything, Just Kinda depends on your knowledge base, but for me it was more of a quizzical than a testicle. Thanks for all the fun.
Well. Now you have me curious on “naut” v. not v. knot pronunciations! My son-in-law is from New Hampshire and, so far, the ONLY “disconnect” (not really) is that HE pronounces “aunt” as “awnt” or “ahnt” in lieu of “ant.” I GET that…but I’m from the Midwest…
Delete;For us it's definitely an 'o" thing. One time she was in another room saying "clock" and I thought she was saying "cloth". Stuff like that.
Deletefun puzzle as far as theme answers - the fill on the other hand is NOT comical in the least wish guest reviewers would lay it all on the line and rate the puzzle like Rex - this puzzle caters to meaningless trivia not wordplay miss the days where puzzles didn't rely on trivia!
ReplyDelete“We’re nautical worthy” was a terrible answer. Ruined the theme.
ReplyDeleteI will probably get grief for being a snowflake but I was a few minutes in and hit OKBOOMER and had to put the puzzle down and walk away for a while. When will the NYT stop normalizing the wholesale dissing of an entire generation? Is it the national assumption that all boomers deserve ridicule? I've had elders in my family worthy of love and respect, even admiration, and others who have struggled. The same in my own generation, and in the ones that follow. But only boomers come in for wide-spread general condemnation. Is it financial jealousy? Believe me, not all boomers are rolling in money. Many boomers have also been active supporters of environmental causes and civil rights issues for decades. Please give it a rest.
ReplyDeleteMissed opportunity to clue "city where LeBron James and Steph Curry were born"
ReplyDeleteSolving this puzzle as a Bostonian, I loved seeing references to the Bruins, Red Sox, and Patriots! The answer for Is Fueld By (RUNSON) also had me thinking of Dunkin’ π
ReplyDeleteWelcome Eli! Congrats on your appearance on Jeopardy. What a stress-fest. I’m rooting for Pablo, and am a couple days behind watching the tournament but am hoping he continues to do well. He certainly seems calm and confident. My 40 years of jury trials were stressful enough for me. Love to watch and play along, though
ReplyDeleteFor me, the puzzle just was what it was. Our very able duo, clearly focused their energy on the theme and then filled the remaining white space. For me (and likely Sam E) the only true clunker in the fill was AGASP. ‘Nuff said - that horse along with its sister AGAPE is long dead.
I’ve enjoyed each of our collaborators’ individual puzzles more than I did this joint venture. I had no trouble understanding the theme; it’s a common style. The fact that our constructors could come up with enough “ickles” that at least mostly or kind of work impressed me, but many had some issues. CLASSICAL CLOWN worked but is factually incorrect. “Pagliacci” is a Romantic, or more precisely Verismo era opera, but ok. It worked - and for me gave away the theme. My musician life paid off once again - or maybe just made me too picky.
Two just didn’t hit the bullseye though. FOLLICLES ON ONE’S FACE doesn’t really parse, although Ingive it humor points galore. WE’RE NAUTICAL WORTHY is just not a common enough adage or catchy phrase to be, well, . . . WORTHY. Doesn’t stick the landing.
The ringer though, was TWO PARTICLE HARMONY. That’s the winner. Works perfectly. It’s certainly a scientific “thing” with the ICLE and is most definitely a very common musical phrase without it. Perfect 10! I’m guessing that it is the idea from which sprang the theme.
Some good fun, and a lot of fill to fill.
This one was rough for me
ReplyDeleteWhen we filled in 46 Across (MYOPE), I commented that was how Sheriff Andy Taylor referred to his son. Seconds later, we encountered OPIE himself at 15 Down.
ReplyDeleteBoooooo for including legendary steroid user Barry Bonds as the other NL MVP. Ohtani is a modern day Babe Ruth; Bonds was primarily a singles hitter and base stealer before his body transformation.
LOL @DAVinHOP!!
Delete