.png)
Relative difficulty: Easy
 |
| [6D: Iconic role for Harrison Ford = HAN] |
Theme answers:
- DRAWING BOARD (22A: Lotto commission?) ("Lotto" = DRAWING, "commission" = BOARD)
- PEN NAMES (24A: Prison terms?) ("Prison" = PEN, "terms" = NAMES)
- RAIN DELAY (29A: Shower stall?) ("Shower" = RAIN, "stall" = DELAY)
- CARPALS (38A: Automates?) ("Auto" = CAR, "mates" = PALS)
- WARRANT (48A: Battle cry?) ("Battle" = WAR, "cry" = RANT)
- CHICKEN SANDWICH (65A: Yellow submarine?) ("Yellow" = CHICKEN, "submarine" = SANDWICH)
- HOT FOOT (87A: Stolen base?) ("Stolen" = HOT, "base" = FOOT)
- KINSHIP (94A: Blood vessel?) ("Blood" = KIN, "vessel" = SHIP)
- CAN OPENER (102A: Fire starter?) ("Fire" = CAN, "starter" = OPENER)
- MATTRESS (102A: Padlock?) ("Pad" = MAT, "lock" = TRESS)
- TRUST BUSTERS (116A: Confidence men?) ("Confidence" = TRUST, "men" = BUSTERS)
Gwyneth Evelyn "Gwen" Verdon (January 13, 1925 – October 18, 2000) was an American actress and dancer. She won four Tony Awards for her musical comedy performances, and she served as an uncredited choreographer's assistant and specialty dance coach for theater and film. Verdon was a critically acclaimed performer on Broadway in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, having originated many roles in musicals, including Lola in Damn Yankees, the title character in Sweet Charity, and Roxie Hart in Chicago.Her second husband was director-choreographer Bob Fosse, with whom she worked on a number of theater and film projects. After Fosse's death, she worked to preserve his legacy. (wikipedia)
• • •
And the fill, yeah, that got real bad in lots of places. So much so that I stopped early to take a screenshot (always a bad omen):
That NNE / TBONES / ASTI / THEUN / AHOLD run made me (quiet) shout "make it stop" ("it" = crosswordese barrage) and then RENI came hot on the heels of all that (37A: Guido ___, Baroque painter from Bologna). It was a lot to take. A lot of middling to bad, with no allaying good. The worst section, to my ear, was in the west, everything between WADE and ETON ... Let's see, there's TAY DERMO AVANT ... IN MAY!?!?! (superyeesh) ... and I'm pretty sure it's avocado ON TOAST, not OVER TOAST. It's really just called "avocado toast," but if you absolutely had to describe the relationship of the avocado to the toast, you would say "on." Horribly fitting that ERRANCY runs right through OVER TOAST. The thing is, though, that if the theme had been even halfway decent, or there had been sparkly longer fill, it's possible the bad short stuff would not have rankled as much. But when the theme gives you nothing and the long answers are ho-hum at best, now the rest of the fill is exposed. You can hear every creak and clank. I will not SPIT AT this puzzle (as spitting at anything is disgusting) and I won't even say "IT STINKS." My main reaction was a big "OK ... SO?"
Bullets:
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️:
Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)] =============================
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️
📘 My other blog 📘:
- 81A: "___ a stinker?" (Bugs Bunny line) ("AIN'T I") — one of the worst partials you're ever going to see. I suppose remembering Bugs Bunny takes some of the sting away, but yeesh. To make matters worse, this clue contains "stinker" when "stink" is already in the grid ("IT STINKS"). Your cluing options are pretty limited for "AIN'T I," so maybe ... maybe tear down that whole little section and rebuild it. What would you be losing ATF? AIN'T I? KITED? IN OIL!?!? The one good thing about this section is that "AIN'T I IN OIL?" is making me laugh. "AIN'T I IN OIL"? (Bugs Bunny line from "It's Sardine to Look a Lot Like Christmas")*.
- 59A: Upscale shirtmaker (ETON) — I knew ETON was a kind of collar, but I did not know they were a shirtmaker. I wanted POLO and IZOD before ETON.
- 53A: A good Wordle starting word, by the looks of it (STARE) — I think this is punning (?) on the idea that "STARE" means "look (intently)." But it really is a good starting word. Way better than ADIEU, what are you ADIEU people doing, why is that starter so popular!? It's not great.
- 78A: Surname for a family of fictional Kansans (GALE) — these are the Kansans from The Wizard of Oz. The most memorable member of said family is Dorothy Gale.
- 105A: Showy kind of push-up (ONE-ARM) — me: "some ... kind of bra."
- 119A: 1957 #1 hit for Debbie Reynolds ("TAMMY") — I love Debbie Reynolds the actress / dancer, but Debbie Reynolds the pop star, uh, no, I am not familiar with her work ... though "TAMMY" rings a faint bell, let's hear what it sounds like ... nope, no bells. False alarm. The song is from a movie called Tammy and the Bachelor (1957) (also not ringing a bell). Reynolds had already done Singin' in the Rain (1952) and (one of my favorites) The Tender Trap (1955) by this point. Hey, her co-star in Tammy and the Bachelor was Leslie Nielsen!?!? And it co-stars the ubiquitous Academy Award-winning character actor Walter Brennan? I might have to check it out soon.
- 5D: Colonial news source (CRIER) — always want this to be CRYER. Town CRIER, Jon CRYER. Is that a helpful mnemonic? It is not. But I'm gonna see if I can make it work.
- 75D: It's a wrap (STOLE) — dropped SARAN in there so fast. Whoops.
- 95D: Pollster Lou or singer Emmylou (HARRIS) — Why is "pollster Lou" even here? Just let Emmylou have her own clue. She's famous enough that she shouldn't have to share her clue with anyone. I know you're doing a rhyming "lou" thing here, but still. I'll take my Emmylou straight, thanks.
- 79D: Brian in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (ENO) — it was Brian ENO's 78th birthday on Friday. I'm sorry I failed to acknowledge it. His birthday really should be some kind of Crossword Holiday. 343 lifetime NYTXW appearances. OK, not all of those ENOs were Brian (before 1985 ENO was always [Wine: prefix] or [Wine: comb. form]), but most of them were. Happy birthday, big guy (with a little name)!
That's all for today. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*poetic license!
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
=============================
❤️ Support this blog ❤️:
✏️ Upcoming Crossword Tournaments ✏️
- Westwords (Berkeley, CA, Jun. 14, 2026)
📘 My other blog 📘:
- Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)
ReplyDeleteEasy. Super-easy once I got the gimmick. I didn't like that there were non-theme answers longer than adjacent themers. For two examples, 42A/48A and 67A/92A.
* * _ _ _
Overwrites:
I thought the 1945 int'l group at 19A might be seato. Nope, THE U.N.
At 29D: beam AT before GRIN.
DERMa before DERMI before DERMO for the 34D prefix (see WOEs).
Before I got the theme I had CARPool instead of CARPALS at 38A. That led to ...
... Osaka(?) instead of ASAHI for the 39D Japanese Beer.
NAh before NAW for the yep opposite at 46A.
It took a few crosses to get that SAGUARO is a symbol of the American West (60A), and then a couple of attempts to get it spelled correctly.
@Rex Saran before STOLE for the 75D wrap.
At 99A, my pugilist org. was the Wwe before it was WBA.
WOEs:
Baroque painter Guido RENI at 37A.
Upscale shirtmaker ETON at 59A (my shirts all come from Walmart).
My 60D inept sorts were SCHLepPS before they were SCHLUMPS. Not a Yiddish maven.
It took me until just now (the morning after solving yesterday evening) to get that the 52A clue refers to regular GAS.
I'm sorry, 67D, but the phrase is "Life's a Beach." There are plenty of other _____ IS A _____ ways to clue that.
My high school history class was interrupted when the teacher, talking about Teddy Roosevelt's administration, wanted to say TRUSTBUSTERS (116A) but instead it came out "BUST TRUSTERS." Come to think of it, it was mostly us guys who were laughing.
This was fine, but only fine. I got DRAWINGBOARD first and thought, "This is it?" OKSO, I knew immediately what Rex's reaction would be. INMAY and THEUN... oof.
ReplyDeleteOn a bright note, I actually knew TAMMY once I had TAM_ _, and even started singing the song to my wife (who did not know it).
I liked it a little more than the big guy but agree that the overall experience was a little flat. I can appreciate the multilayered nuance to theme and its sheer density but it does come at a price.
ReplyDeleteBjörk
The lack of a revealer is cool. Liked CHICKEN SANDWICH and PEN NAMES. This one obviously took some time and effort to build.
Full Force Gale
Rex highlights the generally crusty fill - it stems from the overwhelming theme density. SAGUARO, AURORA, SEA SALT and PECORINO are solid - although the salty dupe is glaring. ERRANCY didn’t belong 40 years ago. BALL PIT brings a side eye.
Sturgill
I’ll give it its props - but it wasn’t overly pleasant Sunday morning solve.
That’s All It Took
ERRANCY was used in a NYT puzzle in 1943, 1955, and most recently in 1959!! Four times in 83 years is too many!
DeleteThanks for the Björk. It's not one I heard before.
DeleteReally? Derrick took a common two-word phrase, and substituted a synonym for each word to make a brand spanking new common phrase? Like CAN OPENER to FIRE STARTER? Something like that seems very hard to come up with even once, a quirk find. But he did it how many times? Eleven? Eleven??? And he made them symmetrical? And even when you figured out what was going on, the theme answers were still hard – and fun – to guess at?
ReplyDeleteReally? Derrick has been making Times puzzles for 43 years? He's only made Sunday puzzles and is the longest running contributor to the Sunday puzzle?
Color me impressed. After getting a couple of theme answers I started wondering how long he could keep coming up with these stunning finds – surely not through the whole puzzle. And with each theme answer I went, “Dang! He did it again!”
Wordplay-lover me wordplay-loved this, Derrick. I found your creation to be quite amazing. Bravo, sir, and thank you!
INOIL (perhaps the worst overdone answer of all, along with THEUN) and INMAY, not to mention OVERTOAST.
ReplyDeleteSPITAT and GRINAT.
ONCE and ONETIME (and ONEARM).
LOMA and PISMO.
AINTI and ISAW, and ISA and AHOLD.
ASTO and REACTTO with parallel TOs, and the TO of NATO also being parallel.
All that combined with an easy, inconsistently-applied theme.
One star is too generous for this absolute stinker.
Liked it more than OFL.... I found the utter disconnection between 2 two-word or two-part phrases, one of which told you the other was interesting. I admit I was shaking my had at CARPALS.... and also that "BUSTERS" was being clued by "men". Those 2 were the weakest, though I did love seeing TRUSTBUSTERS in the grid. 28:55 for me, so medium. I got stuck in that STARE section in the east. LARAM was hard to see, and SWEDE evaded me for a while. I think of "SlAtE" as the standard Wordle starter word and didn't pause long enough to get the hint about STARE... But I'll never complain about HAN Solo in my grid : ) Thanks, Derrick, I was impressed with the CHICKEN SANDWICH, the KINSHP and the CANOPENER! Great puzzle.
ReplyDeleteThis is one where I concur with Rex. Very easy and (I do it on paper) when I saw "tress" in mattress, the gig was up. Boring, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI think you mean the "jig" was up, no?
DeleteIs that correction necessary? Don’t be that guy. Nobody likes that guy. You know what he meant.
DeleteIf the error had been mine, I would appreciate the correction.
DeleteMy starting word is "aster", same 5 letters, gives you "er" in final placement frequently.
ReplyDeleteMine is SHITE.
DeleteThe problem with always using a common starter word, you may never get it in one word. Also, think of a five letter word that may not have been used in the past. I doubt too many get repeated.
DeleteI believe salet is the optimum starter word.
DeleteI do the mini puzzle first, then take a five letter word —2vowels, no repeat letters—& that’s my starting word. Different word every day!
DeleteCan we talk about the famous (9D) fable, " the turtle and the rabbit"?
ReplyDeleteAgree. Knew it had to be tortoise, so spent some pointless minutes trying to fit a rebus square into it (figured that was going to be part of the double meaning theme. Disappointed Rex didn’t call it out.
DeleteYes!
DeleteOt… the world could do w more fraternal correction. Maybe then we wouldn’t hear hone in, begs tge question when raised the question is needed. This is blog which is fundamentally based on words. I don’t see much wrong with gently pointing out error. Especially when it’s as sonple as a single word.
DeleteMaybe proofread before you hit “Publish”? (just a “fraternal correction” you) [also online correction of others’ grammar / diction is 💯% a dick move]
DeleteNah
DeleteWell, I'll be the outlier as a thoroughly enjoyed the theme, and thought that trying to come up with the answers generally with only two or three crosses was fun.
ReplyDeleteI do definitely question the foreign language pile-up of UND/AMOUR/PECORINO/AIOLI/SCHLUMPS/DULCE. Each fine individually, but not all in the same area.
Kitshef
DeleteSometimes what is a foreign word is not simple. Und and amour clearly are But some aren’t so clear Pecorino is of course an Italian word but it is also a type of cheese for which Americans have no other word. It isn’t rare either. A very commonly used grated cheese is a pecorino cheese.
Many Yiddish words are now part of American English. .Not sure about schlump
I think it is American ethnic word used by people who don’t speak Yiddish.
I’d add that AIOLI is also common. Hey. It’s allowed in Spelling Bee!
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDelete11 Themers is a lot to put into the grid, henceforth thereof hitherto the resulting fill that Rex gripes about. As you're probably aware of, I'm a fan of Lots of Themers, so with that comes less than stellar fill. But, as I've also said many times, all puzs have dreck. It's just the nature of puzzledom. This one isn't the worst.
Had CARPool in, as betting close to 90% had at first. Is CAR PALS a thing? Or is it supposed to be the muscles that Rex mentioned?
FWE with DERMa/ETaN, UNe/eULCE, BATaK/aLIA (that one has ILIA in first, but took it out!) Close, but made me feel like a SCHLUMP (whatever that is).
Fun Double-Ford Harrison roles.
Nice SunPuz. Got the ole brain motivated this AM.
Hope y'all have a great Sunday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I liked this more than Rex but not much more. Not excited by the themers but I didn’t think the fill was so bad. I always love Bugs Bunny, but if you want an AIN’T I alternative, how about “A Woman”? (Sojourner Truth.) TRUST BUSTERS is very familiar to me but I’m older than Rex.
ReplyDeleteYes to Sojourner Truth! An elegant solution to the stink/stinker dupe!
DeleteSecond the motion for Sojourner Truth! The puzzle is rife with, let's say, oldies; she would have stood up well as a historical figure.
DeleteInstead of "Number of days without a Star Wars reference", let's have a "Number of days without an Eno reference". Or even "Acai reference"... sigh.
ReplyDeleteYes! Love ya Brian but seems like its every other day. Why not reference William Eno - he invented the stop sign, forcryinoutloud. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Phelps_Eno)
DeleteIn addition to the “less than stellar” aspects that Rex pointed out, there was one section that I found to be truly annoying - just SW of middle-center there is a cluster with UND, AMOUR, DULCE, SCHLUMPS and Dorothy’s last name from the Wizard of Oz. Way to amp up the witty wordplay, Will.
ReplyDeleteI guess the two stars from Rex would translate to a letter grade of D for this one, which seems about right. The theme was enough to hold some mild interest, but the fill to me seemed heavy on the gunk (and I already pointed out the one section that is pretty much all gunk).
Shortz loves his themes, but I really wish he would back off to a max of 3 or 4 theme entries and focus on publishing high-quality, low gunk puzzles. It can be done you know (hello Robyn, are you out there?). It’s an embarrassment to the NYT to publish a D-level puzzle on what should be a flagship Sunday.
Oof. Tell us how you really feel. I enjoyed it. A lovely companion to coffee and toast.
Delete@Southside, I’ve decided that I have to live long enough to see you like a puzzle that isn’t one of Robyn’s. ;)
DeleteI guess I’m too easily pleased but mostly I liked the punny wordplay, especially CHICKENSANDWICH and its clue that had multiple layers of reference. Some answers like CARPALS were kinda green paint but OK for theme fillers. No big laughs, but some chuckles this Sunday. Hey, we got both Star Wars and Bugs Bunny, a reminder of course that the rabbit beat the TURTLE. Or something like that…
ReplyDeleteWelcome to 1975 (plus a token Taylor Swift). I'm old so I got it but for anyone under 50? I can hear their groans from here.
ReplyDeleteTrying to find the longest possible word with only one vowel is a SCHLUMPS game. THRIFTS is but a GLITCH in comparison.
ReplyDeleteYou know what women said about Keaton ... Never TRUSTBUSTERS hands or intentions.
Kind of a missed opportunity to clue IRAN as [Strait of Hormuz controller causing massive U.S. inflation]
@Rex. You had me at "It's Sardine to Look a Lot Like Christmas".
I enjoyed the double guessing game involved in each themer. Thanks, Derrick Niederman.
Finding a loooong one vowel word really taxed my vocab STRENGTHS
DeleteA good term to use for the current administration: ERRANCY
ReplyDeleteSomeone with a TINEAR must have trouble getting through metal detectors.
Real estate ad in an earthquake zone: For sale: Bouncy house.
Sometimes a wave can serve ASAHI.
How an LARAM makes sure he wakes up in time for the game: ALARM
Old baseball joke: They can't serve beer at the Stadium this season. The Yanks lost the OPENER.
*******
Liked the puzzle MTR -- SCHLUMPS and the yellow submarine/CHICKEN SANDWICH combo was enough to float my boat.
A nuther old baseball joke: close game, bases loaded, bottom of the ninth, Milt Famey on the mound after having a few beers in the bull pen. Four pitches, walk off walk. Fans wanted to know "the beer that made Milt Famey walk us." Boo, hiss!
DeleteI liked this quite a lot, actually. I thought the themers were clever and the amount of PPP wasn't too bad.
ReplyDeleteI am honestly shocked that Eno has been in the puzzle only 343 times. I feel like it's about twice a week.
ReplyDeleteHated this. Too many obscure clues and no flow at all. Yuck.
ReplyDeleteEasy for a Sunday. Can someone explain why a BALLPIT is an alternative to a "bouncy house" ({whatever that is)? Needed an alphabet run to get the "T."
ReplyDeleteGoogle broken?
DeleteHey, Anon 10:51, chatting with each other is one of the joys of this blog. Cool your jets, please.
DeleteBob—those are both kids play attractions. Pit full of plastic balls; inflatable structure to bounce in.
Stillwell, thats not a chat that’s someone to lazy to look someging up. Stay in your lane.
DeleteAnonymous 11:59 gratuitous tsk-tsks are not chatting. So stay in your lane.
DeleteAfter yesterday’s monster, I needed this nice , enjoyable puzzle.One nit. A schlump isn’t necessarily inept. He’s (mostly a male) an unkempt slob wearing wrinkled and stained clothing with his shirt half inside and outside his pants.🎈🎈🎊🎊Lewis, it’s great to see you back!
ReplyDeleteI agree about SCHLUMP - it refers to appearance, not ept-ness.
Delete"Crazy Legs Hirsch" = LARAM?
ReplyDeleteThis has to be the fastest I've ever solved a Sunday puzzle. I kept looking at my answers & saying "This CAN'T BE RIGHT" but it was. I didn't like
THE UN so much but I DID like your picture with your dog :).
Thank you, Derrick.
I didn’t know that either but apparently he was a football player who (for some of his career) played for the LA Rams. Needed all the crosses and still scratched my head at the outcome.
DeleteI'm with @Lewis in finding this impressive in its construction and also with OFL in my "meh" reaction to most of the themers. Caught on instantly with DRAFTBOARD and then a lot of fill-in-the-blanks stuff, plus an abundance of gunk, which has been noted. I don't mind the foreign language clues as much as some folks, kind of my thing. Found out about SCHLUMPS, which is a good word to acquire.
ReplyDeleteOnly one real WTF today, RENI. Had PLENTY for score before TWENTY, that was about it for erasures. And ERRANCY can go back to wherever it was hiding out.
Kind of a Beginner Sunday, DN. I Did Not need to think twice, but it was all right. Thanks for some fun at least.
Thanks for a little Dylan, I needed that. Someone should do a Dylan themed grid--he certainly has enough songs and lyrics to work with : )
DeleteI liked it. Eleven theme answers a lot and I thought they were mostly successful; CARPALS was perhaps the weakest. I liked the Bugs Bunny quip, and I liked having Han and Indiana in there. I do agree that “the turtle and the hair“ is not a proverb remember!😅
ReplyDelete@Anonymous 7:28 AM YES!!! I'm surprised you're the only one that mentioned it. The fact that the clue stared with "Proverbial" 100% implies TORTOISE. No way that clue should have survived editing.
ReplyDeleteI will also complain about the SAGUARO. In a sense, the clue is correct, as it is a symbol the of the West; however it's a misplaced symbol in many cases. In the USA, the saguaro only lives in parts of Arizona and a very small section of California. As someone who lived in the Southwest for 16 years, it was annoying/hilarious to see pictures that were supposedly of New Mexico, Nevada, or Utah that featured saguaros.
Easy tiger. Filmmakers shoulf get a lot of latitude. If you’re a birder, for example, you’ll mote songs from species that would never be in the film’s setting show up all the time.
DeleteIt’s not a biology class— it’s a movie
Yes, as an MD watching medical shows…
DeleteI thought this puzzle was playful. Not all of the theme answers hit the mark - CARPALS, MATTRESS and TRUST BUSTERS were kind of ho-hum, but RAIN DELAY, CHICKEN SANDWICH and KINSHIP were, I thought, quite clever in their cluing.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, OVER TOAST gives me an image of an avocado hovering over the bread. It's actually on the toast. Yes, I realize "over" is used for many dishes - gravy over rice, for instance, but I can't help what OVER TOAST did for my mind.
My Dad could do clapping push-ups - push up high enough to clap your hands, do it again. Not something I've ever had the arm strength to do.
Derrick Niederman, thanks for an interesting Sunday puzzle!
Enjoying Emmylou's version of Pancho and Lefty with my morning coffee. A soulful contrast to Willy and Merle's original.
ReplyDeleteGlad you like it!
DeleteYes, listening to Emmylou this morning was a treat.
Delete“…out of kindness, I suppose.” A truly great line.
Harris great. But the line is greater stil, and the line belongs tomits suthor: Townes Van Zandt
DeleteLet me echo that Emmylou Harris is great, but I went and found the other version by Willy and Merle, and I definitely like it better. Grittier.
DeleteYou found a more famous version?
DeleteOk
Still partial to songwriter Townes Van Zandt's edge-of-emotional-collapse original (esp. when he performed it live).
DeleteThere’s an ENO River that goes through Durham, NC, with a really lovely eponymous state park. I’m sure that’s Natick territory, but I feel like that would be nicer to see.
ReplyDeleteAnnoyingly Easy. Now wait, hold on @Gary, before you add that, what I mean is that I agree with Rex that it should be rated Easy or Easy-Medium, and thus the time it actually took me was annoyingly longer than I feel it should have been. As I was filling in entries in the desultory way that overly familiar junk calls for, there was a second track running in my mind as I channeled what I judged would be Rex's likely reaction, and wound up writing a mock review in my head as I was going along. It seems I was along the right track (was it a DISS track?).
ReplyDeleteI didn't think the themers were as lame as Rex is making them out to be. Regarding TRUSTBUSTERS: Elaine Benes trots this word out when she meets Crazy Joe Davola for the first time and they're flirting around. Joe: "do I know you? Because you really look familiar." Elaine: "Oh, well maybe you've seen me. My face is on Mount Rushmore." Joe: "Oh yes, of course, that's it. I guess I'm just used to seeing it on a much larger scale." Elaine: "Oh yeah, right. I replaced Teddy Roosevelt. TRUST BUSTER. Bust this!"
I do think the fill does feel slightly awkward in places. Devotee of Bugs Bunny that I am, AIN'T I went in right away, but that's probably not the universal experience. IN OIL. THEUN. IN MAY. Not crazy about DERMO as a combining form. THRIFTS.
CARPALS: Rex the other day recalled the term "substantive adjective", and I suppose this is along those same lines. I've heard "tarsals" as well. And their meta- versions.
I wouldn't say IT STINKS, not at all. It was OK, SO there. I'd give it at least an extra half-star over Rex's rating. But enough of the puzzle. It's a beautiful day outside, and we just re-opened the pool, and the associated chores beckon. Take care, everyone!
Because Seinfeld’s syndication reach is so vast, I immediately rejected Rex’s claim that trustbuster isn’t a word you hear every day.
DeleteI’m guessing it’s not only heard everyday it’s heard multiple times a day.
tht
DeleteMaybe it’s generational. The THRIFTS. A very commonly used term for savings banks once. Have not seen it used in a while. It might be still used by the business press. It is a thing which I liked.
The second Sunday in a row with a DNF. After a Saturday with a DNF. I would worry that I'm slipping, but today it was a question of not knowing the terms BATIK (even though it looked familiar) and ILIA (again, familiar but not ingrained) which left me me with BATaK/aLIA.
ReplyDeleteBut even before that I was put off by the inconsistent theme answers as Rex described. CAR PALS being particularly bad. I had CAR Pool for a while, and couldn't believe when the crosses weren't working. So many other little annoyances but I've spent enough of my life on this puzzle. On to the next.
One of the few cases where I think Rex went too easy on a puzzle. That was rough. As noted, a thin theme with mountains of bad fill. And on top of that, it's not even skewing old, it's skewing elderly - as far as I can tell, the only things placing this puzzle later than 1989 are a Taylor Swift reference and ACAI BOWL.
ReplyDeleteI bet you think it skews "elderly" because you can't quote "The old hotie owl hootie-hoots from above" from TAMMY, unlike some of us.
DeleteOk, now I'm off to EAT A CHICKEN SANDWICH at THE UN IN MAY.
ReplyDeleteAnon, you beat me to the punch; was going to comments on so much fill had an "eat a (CHICKEN) SANDWICH" feel to it. And it's the center, and longest answer.
DeleteISA, OK SO(!), THE UN, IN OIL, IN MAY...
But ALSO...ASTI and AS TO; other phrases ending with prepositions AT, TO, another AT.
And so much foreignisms (do they hit on Gary's Gauge?)
I'm willing to assume that Rex awarded two stars for the emeritus status of the constructor (a veteran of submitting to Maleska), since 1983. I'm also willing to believe that 95% or so of this puzzle could have been solved in 1983 as clued.
I'm with @kitshef and the others who enjoyed the puzzle - I had fun trying to guess the double meanings, with some going right in (PEN NAMES) and others eluding me through many crosses (HOT FOOT, CAN OPENER). Overall I thought the theme was creative and witty, especially TRUST BUSTERS and CHICKEN SANDWICH.
ReplyDeleteEasy. No real problems with this one. Just kept whooshing.
ReplyDeleteClever, cute, and breezy, liked it a bit more than @Rex did.
As a 45 yr old, this was a musty, dusty puzzle that should have been left in the attic.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle is forty five years old? Womp womp.
DeleteWhen Dorothy Gale comes up it must be pointed out that Gale == wind == the thing that takes her to Oz.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Imperial Bedroom inclusion. Sort of made up for this puzzle?
ReplyDeleteA little surprised Rex didn't comment on this but I was extremely put off by the gratuitous Ayn Rand reference. I have zero constructing experience and even I can see that it's easy to change GALT to TILT and not have to shove utterly delusional billionaire propaganda in our faces.
ReplyDelete+1!
DeleteAlthough your suggested change would result in the equally odious ICE at 12D.
DeleteDerma- and dermi- are prefixes. DERMO is not. That letter string occurs only in the adjective "dermoid" where it is not a prefix ("derm" is the root, + "oid").
ReplyDeletehow about dermoplasty?
DeleteYou go Dr. Rick! ;)
DeleteAny puzzle that leaves me throwing darts at the natick board to find the right vowel for the "PECARINO/PISMO crossing is a failed puzzle in my view. Not fond of SCHLUMP/GALE either...so much PPP...fie!
ReplyDelete1.5 stars for me.
ReplyDeleteSo which was your favorite answer from each category?
A) ASTI or ASTO
B) INOIL or INMAY
C) GRINAT or SPITAT
D) ASTO or REACTTO
E) ONEARM or ONETIME
You got it, Rick K. Rough one.
DeleteClever, often mildly humorous SunPuztheme. Kinda liked it.
ReplyDeleteAnd yep, ten puzthemers crammed in there can lead to a little bit of desperate fill, here and there. Altho ... some of the Ow de Speration moments were kinda humorous, in their own right.
SCHLUMPS. har
staff weeject pick: HAN. Part of the Harrison Ford mini-theme, along with INDIANA.
some of the fave stuff: ERRANCY. OVERTOAST [My PuzeatinSpouse just yesterday mornin ordered the Avocado Toast breakfast meal, at our local eatery]. GLITCH. SPITAT. BABYISH. LION clue. ROLLTIDE [debut chant].
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Niederman dude. Twas nice HOBNOBbin with yah.
Masked & Anonymo9Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I don’t think I disliked this as much Rex did. I thought the theme was clever enough but I breezed through the grid aided by all the recycled crossword stuff. Not crosswordese, per se, but old, mostly dull, gluey stuff. And the title! What a giveaway.
ReplyDeleteThere were a couple of things that were nicely tricky. I have family in Queensland, Australia and I didn’t really notice the hyphen in the 15A clue, so I spent more than a few seconds trying unsuccessfully to remember a Brisbane airport code rather than a New York one.
Took me a while to get TWENTY for “Score” at 93D and I was having trouble coming up with synonyms for fire at 102A. Got the OPENER part and just stuck in CAN because, well, it just seemed like a reasonably common phrase. Then just sat there staring at it until the light went on. He got CANned. He got fired. Big aha!
So, some small epiphanies, but not enough to thrill me.
Haha! I really need to look at the “title” on the Sunday puzzles from now on. Or…perhaps not.
DeleteWell, this puzzle inspired me to look up Guido RENI, since I'm going to be in Bologna next month for a few days. The most interesting paragraph in the Wikipedia article was this : "Leaving Bologna briefly in 1618, Reni travelled to Naples to complete a commission to paint a ceiling in a chapel of the cathedral of San Gennaro. However, in Naples, other prominent local painters, including Corenzio, Caracciolo and Ribera, were vehemently resistant to competitors, and according to rumour, conspired to poison or otherwise harm Reni (as may have befallen Domenichino in Naples after him). Reni's assistant was so badly wounded that he returned to Rome. Reni, who had a great fear of being poisoned, chose not to outstay his welcome." I'm supposed to be spending 3 days in Naples after Bologna, having never been there before and figuring it's now or never. I guess I won't try to give any concerts in Naples....
ReplyDeleteHow does Fire = Can
ReplyDeleteif you are fired from a job, it can be said you were canned
DeleteNot a great puzzle for those under 60.
ReplyDeleteits funny how something simple can hold you up. 93 down was "A score" I had TW - - - - and I thought it was probably TWO - - -. like TWO ONE, TWO ALL, TWO NIL. I was sure the O was right though I had nothing to cross it. Then it dawned on me to take the O out, and it came to me that "a score" is TWENTY, remembering Lincoln's speech "four score and seven years ago..." once I corrected that the whole thing fell like a tree I was chopping at .
ReplyDeleteit is interesting how you pull answers from the dark recesses of your mind, 119 across is a pop culture clue from before my time "1957 Number 1 hit for Debbie Reynolds". I had T - M - - and I knew right away it was TAMMY and the only reason I know that song is from Animal House, when Flounder and Pinto attend the Omega House Rush party - a frat boy was playing that song on the grand piano. Thats how I know it, I probably only heard Debbie Reynolds' version a handful of times. But that's how crosswords and memory work
ReplyDeleteFinished in 74 percent of my statistical average, so slightly on the easier side, but not by much. (Times still coming down.)
ReplyDeleteI liked the theme ok, but I agree with our host that it's better where the two parts come together to make a single word (and the clue does too: "Automates" and "Padlock"). I ended up in the NE, where I couldn't figure out the LGA/GWEN crossing for a long time. I had a vague sense that Verdon was a woman, but OWEN was simply too appealing, so then I thought, is it BOA, and that's a drag reference? And BOMA Linda is a place, maybe? No.
Is the scattered reuse of clues also somehow a theme feature? I couldn't tell for sure. I always like a CYRANO appearance.
Errors: STELLA for AURORA. SKIM for LEAF. The aforementioned LGA/GWEN region. VAGRANT for SAGUARO. POLO for ETON.
shoutout to terence hill and bud spencer
ReplyDeleteTown Cryer is a banger on my favorite Elvis Costello album.
ReplyDeleteStarting singing “Tammy” as soon as poI read the clue. But it does worry me that lyrics from songs I haven’t heard in 50 years are occupying real estate in my brain when I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell's a "Queens-Lander" and what does LGA stand for? "Bouncy House"? BALLPIT? Huh??!!
ReplyDeleteUND/AMOUR/DULCE/SCHLUMPS -- Three foreign words and one fake-English/pseudo-Yiddish nonsense word, all crossed together.
UGH.
Airport in Queens NYC.
DeleteI found particularly poor clueing at 6 and 10 down. These characters were known as Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Not just by their first name. Why not Chinese dynasty and US state. Also it’s Asti Spumanti. Not just Asti.
ReplyDeleteQué asco.
ReplyDeleteI guess I enjoyed waiting for the jokes to appear. I wish they'd have added up to something. Credit for effort. The rest of the fill was an exercise in patience.
The northeast corner was a thicket for me.
I'm delighted to report an addition to our NYTXW German dictionary with the deep linguistic cut of UND.
In what universe is a BALL PIT an alternative to a BOUNCY HOUSE?
❤️ WHUP. SAGUARO. GADS. SCHLUMPS.
😫 THEUN. OVER TOAST. SPITAT STAT.
People: 16
Places: 4
Products: 9
Partials: 10
Foreignisms: 5
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 44 of 140 (31%)
Funny Factor: 4 😕
Tee-Hee: TOUCH. Showy kind of push-up.
Uniclues:
1 Those passionately shouting the wrong name.
1 MATTRESS TRUST BUSTERS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Mocked Betelgeuse. RED GIANT SLIMED.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well, the theme certainly took some time to create, and I actually enjoyed figuring out the answers. Kind of a similar idea as yesterday, but this was just straight forward Q&A, so I didn’t find much excitement anywhere, but neither did I dislike it. It was one of those Mondays that’s over before I had much time really to think about it.
ReplyDeleteIn my post-solve review though, I thought the theme was only connected to the reveal tangentially. The whole “start small” idea made no sense in terms of helping to glue the parts of the theme together in a way that actually helps the solver understand and “get” the theme. Problem was, I found nothing at all to “get.” The clues just asked for an answer and the answers were obvious. Again though, I didn’t dislike the puzzle; it was a decent Monday.
In fact, I truly hope the NYT had thousands of folks who, in celebration of finishing a NYTXW without any look-ups for the first time subscribed. I also hope those new solvers find their way here as well. It’s such a good source for understanding this puzzle genre, for learning lots of fun stuff, and for connecting with wonderful people who share all things crossword - and much more.
I’ve been having to skip posts some days lately, and will likely continue to do so. My sweet cat, Pip has been adjusting to pancreatitis and diabetes. As it happens, having to monitor feline glucose (even with a sensor affixed to her shoulder) and keep calories flowing in at the proper rate to avoid both hyper- and hypo-glycemic episodes has wrecked our comfy schedule. We are both exhausted and are sleeping and eating at odd hours hoping things level off soon.
She’s been so stoic about the daily insulin injections, but her dying pancreas isn’t cooperating and just won’t settle into a pattern, so we are up at very irregular times needing snacks or to complain about not getting to eat on demand like she’s been doing for almost 14 years.
So, if I don’t post, I’ll be reading and working with Pip to get a new schedule figured out. And I’ll be back daily as soon as possible.