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Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- CHINC🟢HILLAS (16A: Sources of fur in some luxury clothing)
- CAPTAIN P🟦HILLIPS (44A: 2013 film whose titular character is captured by Somali pirates)
- BRITISH S♦HILLING (78A: Old coin worth 1/20 of a pound)
- BONE-C♦♦HILLING (105A: Eerie and then some)
Swaging (/ˈsweɪdʒɪŋ/) is a forging process in which the dimensions of an item are altered using dies into which the item is forced. Swaging is usually a cold working process, but also may be hot worked.
The term swage may apply to the process (verb) or to a die or tool (noun) used in that process.
 |
| ["Eccentric Swage Nipple" is my favorite '60s psychedelic rock band] |
The term "swage" comes from the Old French term souage, meaning "decorative groove" or "ornamental moulding". Swages were originally tools used by blacksmiths to form metal into various shapes too intricate to make with a hammer alone. These have handles for holding or pegs for attaching to an anvil, and often a flat head for striking with a hammer. Swage blocks are anvil-like dies with various shapes forged into them, which are also used for forming metal. Swages called "fullers" are specific to making grooves in swords and knives. (wikipedia)
• • •
[66D: "Fernando" group, 1976]
The hardest part for me today was the CLAMBER / SHARE A CAB / KEVIN JONAS stack. LO-extreme-L at the idea that I would know any of the first names of the Jonas brothers. Nick? Is one of them named Nick? Yes. How do I know that? I think maybe I also have heard of Joe Jonas. But KEVIN, oof, no. SHARE A CAB makes me want to EAT A SANDWICH ... although I suppose it's got a bit more standalone power than EAT A SANDWICH (18A: Carpool home from the bar, say). Still, I don't think of sharing a cab as "carpooling." And as for CLAMBER ... I kinda sorta wanted it, but I didn't trust myself there (9A: Move awkwardly (up)). Not a word I ever use. The more I look at it, the wronger it looks. Anyway, CLAMB over SHARE A over KEVIN was giving me issues for a bit, esp. since that whole stack was traversed by CHESS, which was very toughly clued (9D: It's all there in black and white). "There?" Where? Also, not all chess sets feature black and white men. In fact, if you do an image search (right now, go ahead) you'll find that very few of the results are black & white. There's always some form of dark and light, but the "white" pieces are often more of a light brown, made out of a light wood. Something like this:
The clue is still fair, just hard. Not much else about this puzzle was hard. Except SWAGE. LOL, SWAGE, what the hell? (102D: Metal-shaping tool). I needed every cross. Then I had to check and double-check every cross to make sure that I didn't have an error. Then I just stared at it for a second like "really?" Then I just left it there and hoped for the best. Seventeen years since the last appearance of SWAGE. That means I've seen it. I've even blogged about it. I wonder what I said about it in 2009, hang on ... ha, SWAGE didn't even make Word of the Day. The Word of the Day that day was WOLD ... whoa, WOLD and SWAGE crossed at the "W"! Yikes. Nothing so frightening in today's grid.
Made a few small mistakes here and there. CIA AGENT before CIA ASSET (3D: Mole, maybe). STEEL TOE before STEEL TIP (86D: Sturdy boot feature). ARIzona before ARKansas (does anyone abbr. "Arkansas" that way??) (6A: State home to the only public diamond mine in the U.S.: Abbr.). Unusual stuff like POULT (70D: Young turkey) and ILOILO (53A: Philippine seaport with a repetitive name) I know from years and years of solving. Historically, the constructor who used ILOILO the most (by far) was Eugene Maleska (who is best known as the editor who preceded Will Shortz). As a constructor (before he became editor), he used ILOILO six (6!) times, which is almost as many times as ILOILO appeared in all the puzzles he edited (7). My point is, if you didn't know ILOILO, don't feel too bad. It was way more common in days of yore. We haven't seen it for about six years. It's been a little over four for POULT, which disappeared for over twelve years there in the early part of this century, but generally appears once every handful of years. Uncommon, for sure. But worth knowing. Bound to come back ... some day.
Bullets:
- 30A: Like Buffalo, N.Y., about 167 days a year, typically (RAINY) — almost half the year? Really? I live only a handful of hours away from Buffalo, and I had no idea. We don't get nearly that much rain here. We do get ~150 days with precipitation, but much of that is snow. I knew about Buffalo's lake effect snow. The snowiness of Buffalo is legendary. Infamous. The rain, wow, real news to me. In fact, I'm not sure the clue is right. It's at least misleading. I'm looking at data that says Buffalo gets 166 days of precipitation, annually. That's rain or snow, not just rain. I submit to you that snowy days are not RAINY.
- 121A: Pertaining to conflict, in behavioral science (AGONISTIC) — I know this word from studying Greek literature. Agon is a Gr. deity who personified conflict, but it's also a term meaning "contest" or "struggle" (that's how I know it, anyway). Here's some good background information from our good friends at merriam-webster dot com:
Agonistic has its roots in ancient Greece—specifically in the agonistic (to use the oldest sense of the word) athletic contests called agons featured at public festivals. From physical conflict to verbal jousting, agonistic came to be used as a synonym for argumentative and later to mean "striving for effect" or "strained." Common current use, however, is biological, relating to confrontational interaction among animals of the same species and the responsive behaviors—such as aggression, flight, or submission—they exhibit. Agonistic is also sometimes used to describe an agonist muscle, a muscle that on contracting is automatically checked and controlled by an opposing muscle, that other muscle being an antagonist. For example, during a bicep curl in weight lifting, the (contracted) bicep is the agonistic muscle and the (relaxed) triceps muscle is the antagonist.
- 69D: Dark half of a famous duality (YIN) — so ... not TOM?
- 18D: Music that's a little offbeat? (SKA) — "Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat." (wikipedia)
- 44D: Bumpy ride? (CAMEL) — embarrassed by how long this took me. It's a very good "?" clue and I just blanked and blanked and blanked and even blanked some more after I'd gotten it down to CAME-. "CAMEO?" No, not CAMEO, dummy.
P.S. if you live in southern Michigan (as I used to) or anywhere near there, really, then guess what? You've got a regional crossword tournament coming up. Detroit! (well, Hamtramck, which is close). It's called the Grid Prix and it takes Thursday, Mar. 19 at Book Suey in Hamtramck, MI. Capacity is limited. I know I have a lot of Ann Arbor readers, specifically, so some of y'all should go check it out! Send me pictures. I miss Michigan. Go Tigers. Go Blue. Here's the info:
P.P.P.S. if you're looking for (yet another!) fun little word game to play on your phone, you might try Oroboro, where overlapping words form a circle and you use the clues to complete it. You can set the difficulty level to your liking. Check it out here.
P.P.P.P.S. if you want a cute word-related gift book, or maybe a book of wordplay you can share with your kids, check out AB@C ("a bee at sea") a new book of gramograms ("puzzles in which letters, numbers, and other symbols are spoken aloud to make words and sentences"). These puzzles were made famous by the great William Steig (I own both his CDB! and CDC?), and now author Rob Meyerson and New Yorker cartoonist Dan Misdea have teamed up for a new, modern collection. Pick it up at bookshop.com or wherever you buy books. You can pick up Steig's books while you're at it!
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ReplyDeleteEasy. Not much there there for a non-skier, and I don't like it when they try to increase the difficulty via obscurity (see WOEs).
Overwrites:
Like OFL, I thought it might be ARi(zona) with the 6A diamond mine, not ARK
Crossword staple Loo before crossword staple LAV at 10D
As soon as I'm done typing this I'll have to turn in my Pop Culture Maven card. I had KEVIN JONAh instead of JONAS at 22A.
WOEs:
Philippine city Iloilo at 53A
POULT (young turkey) at 70D. I guess it makes sense because of POULTry.
Didn't know composer HANS Zimmer (80A), but got it easily from crosses
The CONN Smythe hockey trophy at 85D
Singer ELLIE Goulding at 104D
Jurassic Park's Sam NEILL at 113A. I saw the movie 30+ years ago.
AGONISTIC at 121A
Metal tool SWAGE at 102D
Never heard of the skiing rating system but I really can’t stand seeing references to the sport, puts me in a foul mood. Thought SMURF was a video game verb, not some sort of cartoon. Otherwise thought it was fair. Liked PET SCANS, reminded me of my border collie Max ;))
ReplyDeleteWhat’s your beef with skiing?? Don’t like it? Don’t do it
DeleteOnce again the NYT offers cutesy graphics and poor cluing. GOING DOWN FAST appropriately describes the quality of NYT puzzles since the big changes of a couple of years ago. There are certainly other sources of better (and free) puzzles.
ReplyDeleteUnpopular opinion maybe; those symbols mean nothing to kids that didn't grow up affording a trip to ski. I only got it by hill and mid across. Were the symbols even necessary? Hill descending was enough for me!
ReplyDeleteAs a fellow non-skier, those symbols are very much in the general knowledge base. You don’t need to have done something to know about it.
DeleteWhile I don't really care about the socio-economic point you are trying to make I 100% don't see the point in these kinds of puzzles. Once I saw the first hill it all came together. I didn't know or honestly care about the symbols till rex explained them. If you don't need them to solve then why bother?
DeleteI ski and I enjoyed the graphics.
DeleteWell, rich people don’t know anything about sharing a cab. But I had no problem with including it in today’s puzzle.
DeleteJust FYI cross country skiing trails also use these markers and its a sport for everyone.
DeleteI don't ski, but I hike and the ski markings are really useful for picking out how arduous of a hike I want. I enjoyed the gimmick far more than I should have.
DeleteRichardf8
DeleteI did ski when younger and I remember the symbol sort of. But in the magazine the second square app
Those like me who solve and/or create puzzles on crosshare.org should be familiar with the circle-square-diamond-double diamond system.
ReplyDeleteI took a weird path through the grid, moving straight down to the double diamond HILL once I got the one up top. That made it easy to see PHILLY and confirmed that all the sets of circles had HILL. I moved back to the top after figuring out BONEC(HILL)ING.
SWAGE x WOLD is insane. That 2009 grid didn’t have STAGE or TOLD anywhere else and didn’t need the W for pangram shenanigans. That beast of a crossing was just there to make the grid a little more Saturdayish.
Extremely easy, number one. Number two, all these recent puzzles with circles would, I think, be more fun (and challenging) without them. In today's digital age, couldn't we select the degree of difficulty,? Three, I'm not a fan of hobby-themed puzzles. Did this puzzle need the flags? The last time I downhill skied was in the late 1960s on a very cold night at Greek Peak somewhere near Ithaca...I was in college... so that is the limit of my interest, the Olympics notwithstanding. I collect wristwatches and could imagine a puzzle called "Take Your Time" with themes being different escapements...Swiss, lever, co-axial, spring drive...but who else would enjoy that?
ReplyDeleteGiven that Messrs. Hall and Oates are suing one another, ‘former’ might have been apt for that clue.
ReplyDeleteLegal dispute was settled in August
DeleteAlso, in a losing battle fought with with the public all through their time working together, they rejected the term "Hall and Oates," insisting that they were not some single entity joined at the hip, but were distinct partners, Daryl Hall and John Oates, and wanted to be known as such.
DeleteI only snow skied one time. I was 20. I was waiting for a lesson and had on beginner skies – metal, thick, huge. I was several yards away from the lip of a bunny hill, and the ground I was waiting on ever so slightly tilted toward that hill, and I started slowly gliding toward its lip. Not knowing how to stop, I just kept going, and the next thing I knew, I plunged down, keeping my balance.
ReplyDeleteThe bottom was curved like the bottom of the letter U, and when I reached it, I kept going because, again, I didn’t know how to stop. I went up, then down (backwards!), and up and down, like the bottom of a pendulum, in ever decreasing arcs, like something out of a cartoon, until I finally stopped.
This was some time ago, and I don’t remember why I wasn’t immediately hooked on the sport, as the whoosh down that hill was quite thrilling. But my life moved elsewhere, and skiing never became part of it.
The memory of this experience, however, remains vivid as ever.
🩷
DeleteThis reminds me of MY first experiencing skiing. Later after I “graduated” from the bunny slope with my first experience on a chair lift I didn’t get off in time and I was one of those people that caused the lift to stop while I had one of those most embarrassing moments of my life. I was 20 and on a “first date.” I think my humiliation must have come off as charming because he asked me out again.
DeleteThanks for sharing your experience. I’m another one-time skier. I went skiing with a friend who was practically born on skis. We got separated and there were no difficulty signs so I started down what l thought was a pretty trail. Suddenly I was moving at a scary speed with trees whizzing by and no end of the hill in sight. I basically panicked and the only way I could think of to stop was to jump into one of the snow drifts on the side of the run. Luckily I landed in thick snow and not on a hidden boulder. An exhilarating memory that I have no urge to repeat. It turned out that the slope was one that the British Army Rangers used for training, another career opportunity missed…
DeleteHappily, in your cartoon, a giant mallet did not come out of the sky and pound you into the snow. Nobody needs that.
DeleteSpeaking of cartoons, I nearly blew my coffee out all over my computer when Rex, some while back, briefly mentioned a skiing escapade, linking to a Bugs Bunny clip to give an idea of his encounter with a tree. It's best if I link directly to that post.
DeleteOne-time skiing gang! I was terrible, did not enjoy. I also did not how to stop, so it was more "human bowling" than actual skiing. Enjoyed the puzzle, though. Clever construction.
DeleteJoining the chorus of one time skiers. Went with a friend when still in High School. He knew how to ski, me, no. He tried showing me techniques in how to stop, on the bunny slope. I never could get it. He was getting tired of just being on the bunny slope, so he convinced me to go to the top of a "not too steep" slope.
DeleteStarted out ok, the slope had a 90° curve, and by the time I navigated that, he was gone! The only way I could stop was to fall. A few moments later, I dropped a pole mid ski! So I fell, then was inching my way back up the hill with the skis sideways. Finally grabbed it, made my way down the slope. There was a landing of flatness at what I thought was the bottom. Got to it, fell to stop, then noticed it was merely a landing to get to a quite steep slope to get to the bottom!
I started "walking" sideways with skis town the slope, but it was taking forever. So, did the sign of the cross, and jumped into skiing position, and just flew down the hill!
Fell at the bottom to stop, didn't injure anything amazingly enough, and told my friend, "That's it got me!" He continued skiing whilst I sipped cocoa in the lodge.
Roo
My only ski experience - in my 20’s - Immediately after I was fitted with skis my friend showed me how to walk on the way to a lift. I kept my balance jumping off. Whew! Then we were at the lip of the hill, and set off. It was one fall after another for me all the way down. Friend had disappeared, so I got on the lift myself and tried it again. Start going waay too fast, crash in the snow, retrieve skis, repeat. About half way down the second time, while I was trying to reattach the ski, a tiny little kid whooshed up, stopped, and after ascertaining that I was okay, pointed out the location of the beginner slope. There's a beginner slope? Once I made it down the hill I went there and sailed down like a pro! I was so happy I tried it again, but was too tired to repeat my awesome run, and fell a couple of times. I turned in my skis and called it a day.
DeleteIt’s an odd theme no doubt - to tie-in the slope of the circles to the colors/symbols of the ski trail system is inventive but doesn’t really supplement the experience. The revealer is a swing and miss.
ReplyDeleteRay Peterson
The overall fill suffers from the theme build. Loaded with a TON of BLIPS and WOES. Tje highlight was CLAMBER. PET SCANS, FINGERNAILS, AIRPLANE etc take up a lot of real estate but bring nothing. Rex explains the awkwardness of FULL BEARD. My boots are always STEEL toe. LIPOS is perhaps the ugliest plural we’ve seen.
Peter CASE
Easy enough - but a chore.
Siouxsie
Thanks for the Peter Case link, haven't listened to him in years. Also never heard of steel tip boots. British Shilling seems wrong, monetary system is the pound and British modifier for shilling is superfluous. Haunt as an event seems off. Ad Fee still sucks even though it seems to used more often. Liked the theme fine, hills increasing steepness was cool
DeleteWell, this had to be a bear to construct, and props to the constructors for what they accomplished. When theme answers shoot off diagonally, even a little, as three-quarters of today’s do, it incredibly constricts the number of word possibilities that can go into the grid.
ReplyDeleteThat may explain the three words I’ve ever come across before – SWAGE, POULT, and AGONISTIC. I found these to be marvelous – SWAGE and POULT both look and sound cool to me. AGONISTIC makes me smile because my brain refuses to see it as anything but "agnostic".
It may also explain CLAMBER and PURGE, words I know and love.
I got a kick out of being misdirected by [Pool implements] for CUE STICKS, which had me cataloging the various tools I used when I lived in a house with a swimming pool. I also loved OAST, an anagram of “oats”, touching corners with OATES.
A lovely theme concept buttressed by a staccato of sweet pings – a formula that had me smiling from alpha to omega. Thank you, Matt and Jeffrey!
RAINY has the sense of something continuous and steady and widespread. Not fine mists in the morning, a few sprinkles in the afternoon, a quick shower in the evening, "lake effect" flurries almost any time of day, or very localized participation alongside clear skies just a few blocks away - much of which in Buffalo is the result of condensation from the lakes that gets "dropped" when the cloud moves over land. I'd hardly call that RAINY weather. The clue is misleading (and not in a clever or good way).
ReplyDeleteGot through this about 10% faster than my average time, though it seemed much longer than normal...
Condensation that gets dropped when the could moves over land is pretty much the definition of rain…
Delete"The hardest part for me today was the CLAMBER / SHARE A CAB / KEVIN JONAS stack." -- Yah, and that's because I had LOO for the British bathroom for the longest time, and was considering CHOSEACAB, which of course does not fit.
ReplyDeleteThe ski trail levels were familiar to me, although when I skied (more than half a lifetime ago!), I stuck with easy trails. We have friends who ski black diamond trails.... Perhaps the hardest ski trails should've been at the top of the puzzle, with the greatest drops??
I would think TSKS (64D) would be expressions of *shaming*, not "expressions of shame."
Easy-peasy, breezy Sunday fun! Off to work now.
Brilliant feat of construction, not much fun to solve.
ReplyDeleteNot much of a skier myself, even though I live in Vermont, where we definitely know the difference between rain and snow.
The opposing sides in chess are always referred to as black and white, I believe, even if the specific set colors are turquoise and tangerine.
Stravinsky wrote a pretty cool late ballet called AGON.
I daresay that it was the introduction of turquoise and tangerine chess pieces that put civilization on the slippery slope from which it will never recover...
DeleteAs soon as I got RD, I knew the Gandlalf answer woild be FULLBEARD, so I reject Rex's assertions that it's not a thing, at least for Gandalf (and I'm not an "LotR" fan at all).
ReplyDeleteI also wasn't a big fan of this puzzle. Extremely easy, and I didn't even know why the symbols were there until Rex's writeup.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteTook a bit to see the trick. Wondered how to implement the shapes into the answers, turns out they are just substitutes for the Blockers. A visual representation of the easiness of the HILLS, apparently. What tipped me off was having PHILLIPS in the grid, without any of the Downs working. Once I had enough letters in that Themer, saw it to be CAPTAINP, and then saw the circled HILL, which was already filled, followed by the IPS of BLIPS, and got my AHA. Tried making sense of CAPTAIN P(BLUESQUARE)HAUNT for a bit!
Nice idea. Good fill, considering all the rigamarole the constructors had to navigate through. Self inflicted, sure, but puzs don't make themselves.
Liked BONECHILLING as a description of the Double -Diamond HILL. A straight drop like that would be BONE CHILLING, or BONE BREAKING.
Good SunPuz. Nice RexWriteup. He suggests some good books, I suggest mine! Changing Times, by Darrin Vail, grab it wherever you get your books online!
Have a great Sunday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Pretty good puzzle overall. Although, I had to run the alphabet on the AGONISTIC/SWAGE crossing.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else bothered by the fact that the rest of the squares following each theme answer were meaningless? The theme answers dropped down the HILL, but the rest of the across squares just hung there. I kept wanting those to make sense. Unless I missed something?!
ReplyDeleteThey were clued separately (although it took me a couple of moments to realize it).
DeleteYeah. Struggled with this briefly until i realized each had its own number and was clued separately. So the ski symbol is the equivalent of a black square.
DeleteSolved it in the magazine. Got everything except the SWAGE/AGONISTIC cross, but an alphabet run online would have given me the "G." I had no idea about the difficulty rating system, but caught the theme, anyway, because CHINCHILLA and BRITISHSHILLING were obvious. Impressive feat of construction, for sure.
ReplyDeleteEven though I don’t ski, I got the theme right away. I’m surprised that a lot of people didn’t like the puzzle. I enjoyed solving it.🎈🎈🎊🎊
ReplyDeleteA fun one today - I found it very reasonable and was able to continue to make progress even in the trouble spots. I had pretty much the same bumpy sections as Rex, especially SWAGE and CLAMBER. I was glad to see SWAGE as the word of the day, so it appears as though it is in fact new to me.
ReplyDeleteI only made the mistake once of accidentally wandering onto a Double Diamond slope during my brief skiing phase and barely escaped with my life. If it wasn’t a cliff, it was pretty darn close. I ended up sitting down, removing my skis and basically crawled to the safety of the nearest wooded area. Safe to say, I learned my lesson.
One of the better Sunday themes in a while, imo. RE: “does anyone abbr. "Arkansas" that way??” AP Style for several years now has used full state names, but previously used abbreviations that were not the same as postal codes, i.e Ariz., Ark., Neb., etc.
ReplyDeleteAs to chess, although real life sets are often not black-and-white in color, chess writing refers to the two sides as black and white, and “white goes first” even if the colors are mahogany and buff or whatever.
Days without a Harry Potter clue: 0
ReplyDeleteRex, lake effect is lake effect: rain or snow. As a neighboring Rochestarian I plunked down “rainy” in a quick second. We Great Lake cities take the brunt for our southern (ahem, Binghamton) neighbors.
ReplyDeleteRain is not snow. Snowy days are not RAINY days.
DeleteI'm never here until much later in the day, after I take care of my daily business. But
ReplyDeleteI solved this yesterday. For some reason, the Saturday PressReader edition of the Times included Sunday's Magazine.
I started out with CACAO, naturally, but was quickly corrected by OH PLEASE.
Then I saw the HILL thing immediately and proceeded to fill in the other 3.
When I see one of these current W.S. era gimmick game puzzles, I try to ignore the bubbles, shaded squares, etc., but this time it wasn't possible, so whoosh. It was all downhill from there.
The New York Times greatly overestimates the number of solvers that have any knowledge of skiing. Video game universes, poker, and skiing- ugh.
ReplyDeleteI think this was quite solvable with zero knowledge of skiing. Except, maybe, that it has something to do with hills. What was the problem exactly?
DeleteIf you’ve ever gone hiking on a ski slope, you’d see that the double black isn’t that far off. I walked up some pretty steep hills only to see at the top that it was just a green. Approaching a double black, you can’t even see the hill until a quarter of your skis are over the lip.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed ILOILO and POULT. It only takes a couple of crosses and the “repetitive” clue to get the first. POULT is the first 5 letters of poultry, which is kind of an aha, even if you didn’t know the word. My French wanted Poule…
One complete unknown I’m happy to be acquainted with is SWAGE - probably seen the results of this tool most days of my life without ever knowing the name. antAGONISTIC made the “G” inferable.
Same trouble area as Rex with the Loo>LAV. In NY, it used to be pretty tough to wave down a yellow cab in the days before uber, so I had to scoreACAB.
The standard tournament chess set is black and white pieces on a green and cream/white board. While there can be other colors, this is so much the standard that the complaint makes me say OHPLEASE. Great clue!!!!
If you’ve ever gone hiking on a ski slope, you’d see that the double black isn’t that far off. I walked up some pretty steep hills only to see at the top that it was just a green. Approaching a double black, you can’t even see the hill until a quarter of your skis are over the lip.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed ILOILO and POULT. It only takes a couple of crosses and the “repetitive” clue to get the first. POULT is the first 5 letters of poultry, which is kind of an aha, even if you didn’t know the word. My French wanted Poule…
One complete unknown I’m happy to be acquainted with is SWAGE - probably seen the results of this tool most days of my life without ever knowing the name. antAGONISTIC made the “G” inferable.
Same trouble area as Rex with the Loo>LAV. In NY, it used to be pretty tough to wave down a yellow cab in the days before uber, so I had to scoreACAB.
The standard tournament chess set is black and white pieces on a green and cream/white board. While there can be other colors, this is so much the standard that the complaint makes me say OHPLEASE. Great clue!!!!
Easy. Trivially easy. Some of the cluing felt like so much hand-holding; for example, "Hairstyle that lasts only several months, despite its name" -- that last phrase just winking and nudging away to make sure we get it. All those HILLS in circles: see it once, fill in the blanks thereafter. The duplicative name of the Philippine seaport, reducing the solution to elementary pattern-matching. (I don't recall seeing ILOILO before.) Almost no resistance at all. Additionally: an awful lot of twisting and turning due to the grid shape, lots of short answers in the center of the puzzle. I just did not find it an enjoyable solve, except for the little scraps of information that one picks up naturally in the course of solving.
ReplyDeleteWhere SLING is, I originally had eLbow, which vaguely amuses me post-solve since it crosses ELBA.
I haven't yet read Rex's (longISH) review all the way through, but I do want to register an objection to one of his objections. Re CHESS: the two sides in chess are called "White" and "Black". That is the convention. "White has a forced mate in seven moves." "With that passed pawn, Black has gained a decisive positional advantage." It matters not a whit how the physical playing pieces are colored. Rex goes to some length over the "gotcha", including a color photograph to make his point in case we didn't already get it, but I sometimes wish he wouldn't cavil reflexively like that. Step back a moment to see whether there isn't another way to view things so that the alleged objection disappears. Personally, I thought that clue was one of the best of the whole puzzle, a nice morsel of badly needed crunchiness.
I enjoyed his commentary on AGONISTIC though. Nice word. Crossing SWAGE, destined to be the WOE of the day (that could be either What On Earth, or WOES made singular). Strange-looking word, absolutely guaranteed to grab my attention. Good choice for WOTD. I also really like CLAMBER.
Okay, that'll be it for now.
@tht 9:18 AM
DeleteTrivially easy. Nice. You've made the list. Congrats.
-LY EASY Hall of Fame
absurdly, childishly, definitely, insultingly, disappointingly, extremely, embarrassingly, fairly, frifly, painfully, preposterously, relatively, ridiculously, really, surprisingly, terribly, trivially, and unusually.
I'll accept your chastisement, Gary. Blushingly.
DeleteThe trampling of our, rights has gone too far. First this FBI jagoff took my computer, then this CIAASSET my phone. Jest plumb swallowed it!
ReplyDeleteDon't we often see Ms. de Armas clued ASANA?
LIPOS, an awkward plural at best, got me thinking that it could have been clued in reference to the Chinese poet Li Po, who lived in the eighth century and is very much still renowned. But don't try to look him up in Wikipedia. There is no LIPO section.
Egs: Bae, can you get me a. banana?
Mrs. Egs: Don't bother me, I'm playing a game, boo.
Egs: What game?
Mrs Egs; CHESS. We have no bananas.
I did this one in half my Sunday average, but then I'm a very fast skier. Thanks for the schuss, Matt Proulx and Jeffrey Martinovic.
I wondered why all the HILLs were cut off…it wasn’t until I read these comments looking for an explanation that I realized the last letters of the HILL words continued after the “hill” reached the bottom. It was confusing AF why the constructor would choose not to complete the word. Now that I see where the completion is, it feels like a construction failure.
ReplyDeleteBoo to this.
Days without a Star Wars clue: 7
ReplyDeleteIt made my day to see Kevin Jonas (the oft overlooked JoBro) make the Sunday Xword! Also loved the ski theme. Overall found this super enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteAnother Sunday puzzle printed out then tossed in the can after five minutes.
ReplyDeleteI met my wife in a New Jersey ski club that has a lodge in Vermont - an old farm house with bunk beds, a big kitchen and a wonderful living room with a big fireplace. Through the New Jersey Ski Council, we get discounts at the Vermont mountain areas, and cross-country skiing is as cheap as you could get. So, while skiing will never be a sport for people who live from paycheck to paycheck, it's not solely for people who arrive in their private jets, either.
ReplyDeleteI learned to ski in my late 30s. I have an atrophied leg from childhood polio, so the best skill level I ever reached was upper intermediate; blue square trails, with an occasional single black if conditions were nice and there weren't any big moguls. Once, I took myself to the edge of a double black run. I inched forward until my boots were at the very edge of the hill, and the fronts of my skis were cantilevered out over the abyss. I leaned forward as far as I dared - and I couldn't see the damn hill! Yes, Rex, from where I stood it looked like that cliff in the last themer. And no, I didn't go on. I allowed a gust of sanity to blow me over to a safer trail.
I used to have a 1911 Stanley, a steam-driven automobile. Metal tubes run from top to bottom through the boiler; they carry the fire from the burner below. The water in the boiler surrounds the fire tubes and turns to steam to drive the car. The tubes aren't soldered or welded to the top and bottom of the boiler; they're swaged. That is, they're flared by putting a tapered rod (the swage) into the end of the tube and banging on the rod to flare the tube. The pressure of the steam holds the contraption together, which - since the pressure can reach 600 psi, is a good thing! So I'm familiar with swaging.
My puzzle shows the last letter I dropped into the grid was the G of the SWAGE/AGONISTIC cross. With SWA_E in place, I asked my husband for a word for a metal-shaping tool starting with SWA and he couldn't come up with it. I finally tried SWAGE and heard the happy music. Later, I remembered that the company I used to work for would buy from SWAGElok, a MN company. I attribute my inspiration for the G to my subconscious remembering that.
ReplyDeleteI saw the skiing hill symbols right off the bat but then kind of ignored them. So I never realized I could fill in all of the circles with HILL and I never went back to see how the different HILLs represented the difficulties of each type. I'm pretty much a blue hill skier. I've done a few single black diamonds - in the Alps, a single black diamond can merely indicate steepness but here in the Midwest, a black diamond usually means moguls, mostly (I think) because around here, you just can't get a super long run that's also quite steep. I hate moguls, can't get the hang of them and avoid them whenever possible (which isn't always possible.)
Thanks, Matt and Jeffrey, for an interesting puzzle theme!
I enjoyed this. Theme was readily apparent to me (a rarity). I didn't see any comments about "Eerie and then some/BONEC" Anyone? What is that?
ReplyDeleteIf you've ever had a ski trip ruined by rain you'll never confuse it with snow.
It's part of the theme: BONECHILLING. You need to follow the "hill."
DeleteMoved easily through most of this one, but got stuck on “British bathroom” (loo vs. lav), “Wolf down” (scarf vs. snarf!!!) and humorously “What might support an arm” (elbow vs. sling). My typical position while puzzling is propping my head with one arm resting on the elbow. Lol
ReplyDeleteSkier here and enjoyed this one. I learned to ski on my mother's 1930 something wood skis with beartrap bindings. We were nowhere near a wealthy family and there were a couple of local areas that were affordable. Now I have great equipment but eyesight that limits my skiing to sunny days. I stick to the blue trails, my wife is an expert and both my sons have no fear of the double black diamonds, to which they are welcome. In a couple of years my wife and I will hit 80, which in NH means free skiing, a worthy goal.
ReplyDeleteToday's overwrites came right away--CACAO followed by COLANUT followed by LOO . No other real problems until the very end, where STEELTOE and the wrong spelling of NEILL made APIRLANE long in coming. Did the OFL thing of triple-checking SWAGE, even though I was pretty sure about AGONISTIC.
I don't mind the occasional easy Sunday and thought this one saved itself by its ingenious construction. Well done indeed, MP and JM. Sorry so Many People couldn't Join Me in appreciating you efforts, and thanks for all the fun.
PS-After reading yesterday's extensive discussion of hat types, I have decided to keep calling my Dad's hat a fedora, because that's what he called it.
Had to look for a long time at "CAPTAINPHILL" to convince myself it was correct. Never hoid of it! Otherwise a fun puzzle, but found the symbols more confusing than clarifying, since I do not know them.
ReplyDeleteI guess you saw that it continues on at the bottom of that intermediate slope to IPS (in BLIPS) to make CAPTAIN PHILLIPS? That blue square by the way denotes the intermediate slope, with a steeper angle of descent that the beginner slope marked by a green circle. Rex noted the absurdity of the sheer drop, where the double diamond slope is.
Deleteah! over my paygrade!
DeleteBONECHILLING
ReplyDeleteAn easy coda to an easy weekend. The theme was obvious and the WOEs were minimal…although SWAGE stands out (hi @Rex).
ReplyDeleteBreezy and fun, liked it.
I enjoyed the puzzle and the fill MUST have been easy overall because the time was 8 minutes less than my average (!) but essentially worked it as a themeless and looked at the overall theme with the circles etc later. But…haha! I saw the SLIPPERYSLOPEs I thought…what does this “green light”, “blue screen”, etc mean? D’oh! And I used to occasionally ski! Oh…and the last square to fall was the G for SWAGE/AGONISTIC…even though I thought AntaGONISTIC seemed more fitting, I finally surmised that there is inherent “agony” in conflict, so plopped in the G for the win. (And I realize my “agony” thing may not be right, just a happy coincidence).
ReplyDeleteYeah, skiing (at resorts) costs money and there are ATON of reasons why many people don’t ski. But, like Old Fudd said above…it CAN be done (depending on your location) that is SOMEWHAT inexpensive, and you may not ever be “good” at it (like me) but still fun. I got to where I loved doing long advanced green trails and easy blues. Once I got in a position of having no choice but to go down an advanced blue, held my breath and slowly zig-zagged to the bottom hoping I wouldn’t get in anyone’s way. The idea of a double black diamond is giving me the willies right NOW.
"Certain fallacy" for SLIPPERY SLOPE doesn't do it for me . I see slippery slope as an action that seems minor now that MAY lead to consequences that grow beyond control. Nothing certain, just risky. otherwise I enjoyed the puzzle alot, got the theme very early and dipped through it like a downhill racer.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, the clue is so short that it's a simplification, but certainly slippery slope arguments can be applied fallaciously. A more detailed discussion can be found here. It could be interesting to figure out how to clue it more satisfactorily, but in this case I'm more inclined to accept Joaquin's Dictum and call it a day.
DeleteI seem to be one of the few commenters with an awareness of pop culture, with KEVIN JONAS being the latest example. He's not as well-known as his brothers, but certainly familiar to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to such things. There's a fantastic South Park episode featuring a mafia boss-like Mickey Mouse abusing the Jonas Brothers. Biting and brilliant as always.
ReplyDeletePuzzle enjoyable but far too easy. 19:07
SWAGE was easy for me (only one other poster mentioned them so far, but I am familiar with Swagelok fittings), but I think it was crossed very fairly for those who didn't know it.
ReplyDeleteMy big hangup was my fault; I know jasmine rice is typically Thai/Lao/Vietnamese, and thus not a great match for Indian butter chicken, but for some reason, when my brain saw the _ASM_______, it just went to JASMINERICE, and completely blanked on basmati as a rice variety. That made a lot of the east tricky until I changed the JASMINE to BASMATI.
On LAV I disagree with OFL because we have a pretty well known Birmingham and Bristol (for ESPN viewers at least) here. Swindon, Scunthorpe, Crawley—seems like you need to dig a bit deeper to fit the bill.
ReplyDelete@Anon 10:43AM: It's BONECHILLING (one of the theme clues, so you need to add the HILL [in the circles, which in this case are going straight down after the double diamond symbol] and then read straight across from there to add the ING).
ReplyDeleteI've never been skiing, due to dislike of cold (which is why I live in Wisconsin?!?) and horror of careering out of control, so I enjoyed this trip to the SLOPEs from my comfortable armchair with a heating pad at my back and blankie over my front. As far as the four runs go, I appreciated the cushy CHINCHILLA of the easy slope and the BONE-CHILLING drop-off of the double black diamond. Fun to solve all around, from CLAMBER to BASMATI RICE to POULT to the two adjacent harbors of wisdom OWL and SWAMI.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone actually say SPAM EMAIL? Don’t we just say SPAM? Definitely a lot of extra grid real estate for such an unpleasant word.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I appreciated SLIPPERY SLOPE on the grid, clued as the fallacy that it indeed is.
I missed that the symbols were ski slope grades, so once again the blog increased my enjoyment of the puzzle—I experienced the 3-to-3.5 on the Rex scale in real time as I read. Thanks, Rex!
Ah skiing!
ReplyDeleteOn the faculty at Dartmouth for a while, naturally I had to try skiing if only on a bunny hill ( later I found out it was more of an adult rabbit hill as my associates thought it fun to see me terrified). I also discovered my used skis had a pronounced curve so that only the tips saw snow, the nether regions gracelessly sailed through the air.
No lasting “impression” but I supposed amusing as my descent looked as if I were magnetically attracted to trees. Spending money to do this still feels insane but at least I discovered what to avoid before killing myself.
Didn’t like the puzzle.
The complaints from the East Coast non skiers was a bit amusing to this Coloradoan. As others have noted though, you don't actually have to do a thing to know about that thing. Never seen a commercial for a ski resort? Or heard something described as double black diamond difficulty?
ReplyDeleteI have seen commercials for ski resorts. They always depict perfect sunny conditions, lots of powder, big smiles, and no line-ups. And I have never actually heard anyone, except on a ski hill, ever describe anything as "double black diamond difficult". Might just be a Rocky mountain thing.
DeleteA couple of thoughts on the theme: after solving last night I totally forgot about the little symbols (Across Lite didn't show them), then as soon as I saw Rex's screenshot I thought: oh, ski HILLs!
ReplyDeleteBut then I remembered why I haven't gone skiing in 30 years: my favorite person in the world died in a skiing accident. Fortunately I wasn't there, but her fiance was, which must have been the worst day ever.
Typeover with CUE STANDS before STICKS... we never say that, we just say "cues" or "pool cues".
Re the discussion on RAINY... as I have mentioned a couple of times, my region is pretty dry (for Canada) and getting drier every year. So far in 2026 we have had 4.1 mm (0.16") of rain and 4.8 cm (~2") of snow. And only one day with measurable snow since Dec. 4! And this is our wet season.
Thank you! I live in Buffalo and RAIN is certainly not the main precipitation issue here! I was kinda bewildered by that. Fun puzzle today
ReplyDeleteMe too! I thought for sure it was “snowy”
Delete@Pablo 10:51a - got a good laugh at your senior discount comment. I still remember how happy my Dad was to get his first freebie - at the time Stowe’s policy was 70+. He took advantage of it - I think his last year on skis was his 85th. He wasn’t skiing that steep front face there at that age but he found his way down some greens and blues with no problem - and had no hesitation taking a breather in the lodge after one or two runs which is something he refused to do when he paid full price.
ReplyDeleteI think most places have done away with the discount - maybe due to people generally living longer. As far as I know the NY areas - Belleayre, Gore and Whiteface don’t offer it anymore which is a shame. Hopefully we’re all still around here to read your post when you strap them on at 80.
Thanks for the encouragement. I have skied at Stowe but wouldn't dare go near the front face, also at Gore which was close to home and at the time, affordable. Hope NH keeps the discount for a couple more years.
DeleteA lot of these "first time skiing " stories are downright scary. We see this too often at our close-to-home area with people who think that putting on skis and going up a chairlift and then getting to the bottom safely can't be THAT hard. They're a menace to everyone else on the hill and courting serious injury. Please don't do that.
I have to say, I'm really surprised Rex didn't ping "bone-chilly," and in fact gave it as "bone-chilling" in the writeup. "Bone-chilly" is absolutely not a thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm supposing this was, because of the protocols dictated by the previous themers, BONECHILLING. You need to read the flat part at the end of the slope. Otherwise you're just digging a hole in the snow.
DeleteSo, the skiing thing … yeah … I come from a somewhat impoverished family - too many kids, not enough income - so skiing was not something we did. Rich people skied; we amused ourselves by sliding down hills at local parks on big sheets of cardboard. Then my junior high school announced a ski trip, at bargain prices, to Whistler, a brand new ski resort just a few hours away. Why not try it? So I begged and borrowed a bunch of gear from other students. Nobody had boots to loan me so I rented a pair at the shop at the mountain. The guy in the shop put a pair on me and had me walk across the shop floor and back and said, “Those’ll do”. Not really. They were excruciating.
ReplyDeleteAfter a half hour lesson on the bunny slope I was ushered over to the lift and sent up the mountain - a scary thing in itself. Unlike @Beezer, I did not stop the lift, but I made a spectacularly awkward exit from the chair and then just followed some people I knew to the top of the nearest run where they all just launched themselves downhill and left me standing there in terror. I can’t remember if it was a green or blue slope; it definitely wasn’t a black diamond, but it was way more than I, a reasonably good athlete at the time, could handle.
When I finally reached the bottom, having been “lapped” by my classmates a few times, I headed directly to the warmth of the lodge, rid myself of the torturous boots and started counting the minutes until the bus would leave and return me to a sane world.
So, yes, I was disinclined to like this puzzle.
In non-ski-related news, I especially disliked 86D STEEL TIP. I have worked in construction. My son is a builder. We wear STEEL Toed boots. STEEL Toe is also OK.
And SWAGE crossing AGONISTIC! You’ve gotta be kidding. I only got because I made some sort of association with antAGONISTIC.
It's been so many decades since I skied downhill (badly) that I didn't recognize the signs at first, but recalled them by the first black diamond. Eat Jackson Hole I saw skiers go down what were so nearly vertical cliffs that Rex's objection to the double diamond is piffle.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing Harry Potter clues because the books are wonderful.
And I loved seeing chinchilla and thinking of the lovely fur -softest, silkiest and lightest weight fur coat I ever tried on. Besides , it's a nice sounding word.
Loo before Lav but quickly corrected. Captain Phillips took all the crosses
Had English shilling before British but immediately realized it sounded So Wrong
Enjoyed this puzzle.
Re: 6A. What is a "public" diamond mine? Does that mean I can just go in with my pick and gather up my own sackful of gems?
ReplyDeleteWhy yes you can! Your haul might be worth all of $9.95
DeleteActually, yes
DeleteI agree with those who are saying that CHESS always refers to the two sides as black and white, regardless of the actual color of the pieces. There's nothing wrong with that clue.
ReplyDelete“The clue is still fair, just hard”—Rex Parker
DeleteARK is the abbreviation for Arkansas used in the GPO, AP, and Court styles.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been solving with my wife to help in her encroaching dementia. She’s remarkable in places with the words that she can come up with. I’m more of an oldish hand at the puzzles. We don’t rate anything as easy because we come from different wolds: my wife was a teacher of English and French and I was a professor of Math and Computer Science. We complement each other well, but my wife has forgotten a lot of what she used to know well. I appreciate reading others comments, which is mainly whay I come here. We guessed right on the ‘G’ intersection, mainly because my wife liked the sound of ‘agonistic.’
ReplyDeleteI really liked it. I thought the hill gimmick was cute and I enjoyed seeing unusual xwords like CLAMBER and SWAGE. XC skier here, only downhilled in my youth when I could work the lunch counter to earn my lift ticket. Anyway the symbols brought back happy memories and I had a ton of fun solving it.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of SNARF (down), only SCARF (down). Anyone??
ReplyDeleteAgreed. That was annoying.
DeleteNo thanks to Will Short for another print blurb spoiling the theme. Save just a little pleasure for us??
ReplyDeleteAmazingly I succeeded in solving this on my phone and even enjoyed it. But did so themelessly although I saw the slopes - just did not know ski symbols. I tried downhill skiing once and decided I preferred living. I’ve done a lot of cross country but my last experience in Lapland was scary enough I thought, let’s just walk up that hill. It was beautiful, and, yes, later there were northern lights. TIL SWAGE
ReplyDeleteDame un respiro.
ReplyDeleteIt takes me forever to count all the gunk on Sundays. This was fun. But it's OHO, not AHA. And Harry Potter is #1.
So 167 days of rain every year? I doubt I'll see that many days the rest of my life down here in the sticks.
I'm reading Nancy Drew #5 and she's on another CASE. I don't know if she'll be able to solve it. She almost dies pretty regularly in these books. I worry about her.
My CHESS set is green and white. SIP is having a good weekend.
Iloilo City looks like a great place to visit. Another NAPA before BAJA-er. And it's definitely STEEL TOE.
Equating godly-mindedness with being PURE is really weird.
❤️ SOANDSOS. CIAASSET.
😩 SWAGE / AGONISTIC. POULT.
People: 9
Places: 6
Products: 13
Partials: 20 {sigh ... worth it?}
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 52 of 142 (37%)
Funny Factor: 6 😐
Tee-Hee: BEGET.
Uniclues:
1 When a chocolate boat filled with chocolate animals sails up a river of molten chocolate to a chocolate mountain.
2 Results from a spy's prostate exam.
1 COCOA ARK CLAMBER
2 CIA ASSET DIGITAL DATA
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Desire for rubbers. GALOSHES YEN.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Am I the only one wondering what happened to the remaining letters after the “hill” boxes were filled in? What did I miss?
ReplyDeleteI was following Rex’s critique and enjoyed reading it when along came the comment about chess pieces. He knows better than that. The standard is black or white. As in white moves first. Also the crossword rule applies. The answer doesn’t have to fit all cases. I think he ignores that rule when a clue:answer slows him down.
ReplyDelete