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Relative difficulty: Harder than usual (13:54)
THEME: Themeless
Word of the Day: GEMS (Baguettes, e.g.) —
The step cut's rectilinear form was popular in the Art Deco period. Antique jewelry of the period features step-cut stones prominently, and there is a market in producing new step-cut stones to repair antique jewelry or to reproduce it. The slender, rectangular baguette (from the French, resembling a loaf of bread) was and is the most common form of the step cut: today, it is most often used as an accent stone to flank a ring's larger central (and usually brilliant-cut) stone. [Wiki]
• • •
It is my belief that the NYT has decided the Friday puzzle should be an easy themeless puzzle, and the Saturday should be a hard themeless. No more of this "a little hard" and then "very hard." I absolutely breeze through these Fridays like they are Wednesdays. This is not a complaint, but rather to fend off complaints! Don't complain that Fridays are easy, because I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be!
 |
| "It's as easy as falling off A LOG!" said the Earl, falling off a log with a loud thump |
This is a pretty intense grid shape to fill! When I see three long answers vertically intersecting three long answers horizontally, it is usually in the form of six eleven-letter answers. (Like this one, from KAC.) Here, Ms. Cohen has used a fifteen, a thirteen, two elevens, and two nines. Something a little different!
The best entry by far in this grid was THE MUNCHIES and it's not even close. Fantastic addition to the puzzle. It does seem totally insane to clue this without referencing weed... I'm pretty sure that if you are just looking for a snack, you don't have the munchies. The term only applies when you're high, right? Chime in, fam.
A lot of the other long entries fell flat for me.... ERADICATES and SONOROUS and CAPABLE are all just regular words, and ARMADILLOS felt less exciting to me because of the plural. SPOILER ALERTS felt a little ruined by the plural, actually, it didn't feel grammatically valid to add an S there (same with APPLE TVS). LOCK AND LOAD sounded awkward, since I'm used to "locked and loaded" and BANK AUDIT is not what I would call fresh or interesting. I did like COLD TAKES, COUPLES ONLY, and MAKE BELIEVE, though all three got boring (or I suppose I should say, easy) clues.
Bullets:
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Bullets:
- ["WandaVision" co-star Elizabeth ___] for OLSEN — I just watched her in "Eternity," which I loved. Exactly the type of cute-but-still-interesting romcom I've been looking for.
- [Company whose name comes from a term in the board game Go] for ATARI — The term describes one of the board's potential states
- [Big name in petrol] for ESSO — I've seen this a thousand times in puzzles and I will simply never remember the final letter. Here I tried every vowel since I wasn't familiar with RKO either.
- [Dough in tamales] for MASA — I went to Mexico City over the weekend and took a class where we learned about nixtamalizing corn and made tamales. I've made tamales before, but this was the first time I used banana leaves as wrappers. (Usually I use corn husks.)
- [Home of Swansea and Wrexham] for WALES — I knew this because of the soccer club that Ryan Reynolds co-owns.
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Wow, this one felt a bit challenging as I was going through it… but 10:44 says pretty easy for a Friday. Enjoyed it! I feel like each corner of this puzzle has a story to tell! I was at the Tiki Bar with the MISSES—she’s so gorgeous, it was like FREEPR for the joint! MAITAIs were ATHAND… [yes, I know misses refers to more than 1 “Miss”… but I’m married, and I’d rather just misspell missus for my story]. Then up to the NE, combined with the NW… The new movie we watched on APPLETV made NOSENSE! It was supposed to be about a SLY CIAASSET hiding out in his LAIR, but then it turns out his COLLEGEROOMMATE breaks up the CELL, gets involved in a BANKAUDIT, discovers the missing cash, and in the end it becomes just another MAKEBELIEVE ROMCOM with the mushy happy-ever-after scene at the COUPLESONLY resort. Right? I really liked the puzzle—my college roomie is a great guy, so it brings back fond memories! Not too splashy, probably 3.5 stars from me, but lots of whoosh as I swept into the center, SW, SE, then back up to NE and finally back to the NW to finish up on LOCKANDLOAD. I know some of you SONOROUS PUNSTERS will chime in too! : ) Thanks for the great write -up, Malaika! I kinda agree with much of what you said, but I think I enjoyed it more than you did (whoosh whoosh). Thanks so much, Rena, for all the whoosh whoosh I could hope for! : )
ReplyDeleteWednesday easy for me too (hi @Malaika). I put in OARS, OCCAM and SCAN and just kept whooshing.
ReplyDeleteI did not know ARMADILLOS (easily infered), MILLET, NINA, and ACTIN.
Costly erasure, CIA Agent before ASSET.
All most no junk (DIRS sticks out) but just a wee bit of sparkle, liked it.
ReplyDeleteInsightful comment, @Malaika, about a Friday puzzles being an easy themeless and Saturday a harder themeless.
Easy-Medium. Pretty typical for a Friday nowadays. Solved without reading the clues for most of the longer answers.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
I thought the 5D actress might be Lena OweN. Nope; she's still OLIN. When will I learn?
I need to brush up on the periodic table. My 14A element was irON before it was NEON.
At 19A I had YAkS before YAPS for the frequent talker.
The thing at 22A that may be bitter was an end before it was an ALE.
I was pretty sure UNC was in the seC, not the ACC (44D).
WOEs:
Myosin's partner protein ACTIN at 53A.
48D judge NINA Garcia.
As easy and straightforward as Friday’s can get. It’s well filled - some splashy colloquial stuff and SAT words but I don’t think I hesitated once through the grid. The center tri-stack is the highlight - although the COLLEGE ROOMMATE spanner that crosses is flat.
ReplyDeleteThe Ballad of You, Me and Pooneil
Liked LOCK AND LOAD x COLD TAKES. I’ll second Malaika - TJE MUNCHIES stands proud. She highlights most of the MISSES. Our puzzle friend MAI TAI shows up again.
Zappa
I don’t mind SONOROUS and ERADICATES - straight out of the book but fine to keep the grid clean.
TOM DOOLEY
Pleasant enough but far too easy for a late week puzzle.
Social Distortion
Been waiting 3 hours to read Rex go off on “dirs”. Always good to see you, Malakai.
ReplyDeleteEasy way to remember the last letter is to bear in mind that the name itself is a nickname of Standard Oil.
ReplyDelete@Malaika, ESSO is the acronomatopoeia (?) for S.O., which stood for Standard Oil, which was the company that made John D. Rockefeller and his family wealthy. It's the sister brand of Exxon; I believe in Canada and Europe it's still primarily ESSO.
ReplyDeleteAlmost a record fast Friday at 9:01. I don't know whether it's intended or not but I preferred it when Friday's presented far more challenge.
ReplyDeleteEasier than usual. Like really easy for a Friday continuing this crappy trend. Hopefully tomorrow’s puzzle has some teeth.
ReplyDeleteNot a stumper but not a cakewalk either. Yes, the munchies are specific to smoking weed.
ReplyDeleteEasier than usual. Glad to see William of Occam recognized.
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect, Malaika, your opinion does not void mine (should mine differ), or invalidate my complaints (should I choose to complain). And vice versa.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your always enjoyable write-ups.
I thought the three longer answers across the center (and the grid spanner going down) were pretty good, while Malaika found them to be kind of pedestrian.
ReplyDeleteI can’t move this one all the way back to a Wednesday, difficulty-wise, but it is definitely easier than Fridays of even just a couple of years ago. That of course is nothing new, and it seems consistent with recent trends.
I don’t recall Rex posting a clip of Tom DOOLEY. Maybe a missed opportunity with him away today (I may try but I have had mixed success posting links here).
BTW, the bottom two answers of that three-stack of which you speak are NYT answer debuts.
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteStarted off tough, but was able to chip away steadily, and ended up with it coming in at Easy time. One-letter DNF, though, PaSSE/SONaROUS. Dang
Very nice fill, lots of long answers intersecting, never easy to make everything work. Hardly a whiff of junk.
Had COLDfActS first, as I'm betting at least 2/3 of solvers did. But MAKE had to be right, so erased fActS and relooked.
Finally got some F's. Last day with them was last Sunday. Sheesh.
Liked your puz, Rene.
Have a great Friday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
6:17. Laughably easy for a Friday. If I were a better typist, it would have been under 5:00. Do better, NYT.
ReplyDeleteRandom thoughts:
ReplyDelete• PUNSTERS crossing ART. There are puns that make you roll your eyes and want to run away, and there are others that make you shake your head at how good they are. To produce the latter is indeed an art.
• Amazing that THE MUNCHIES has never appeared before not only in the Times puzzle, but in all the major outlets.
• Impressive how junk-scarce this low 68-word, low 30 black square puzzle is. CAPABLE indeed. Truly – try making one of these sometimes.
• SONOROUS is gorgeous and ARMADILLO is sonorous.
• Don’t ask me why, but MILLET made Edna St. Vincent Millay pop into my head, prompted me to look her up, resulting in a terrific TIL, that she was the first woman to win a Pulitzer in poetry.
• ON A LOG was a lovely reminder of Monday’s ANTS ON A LOG.
• LOOFA crossing a backward TOOFA!
Your puzzle, Rena, was a box full of lovely. Thank you for making it!
I definitely grew up using THE MUNCHIES for feeling peckish way before modern weed culture could be the cause.
ReplyDeleteMy eyes and brain did a weird dance with the clue "Retinue" and I filled in my last box P_SSE as "passé" thinking the clue was "Routine". The cross SONaROUS sounded right enough to my ear.. until the music didn't play.
Easy puzzle, with an interesting grid and a lot of fun fill. DIRS is terrible, but nothing's perfect. I never heard of COLD TAKES, but gather from the comments that it's a thing. I do question BANK AUDIT, as the word BANK is completely superfluous. The FDIC comes around and tells the bank that it's time for its annual AUDIT. As clued, it's almost as bad as imagining your barber telling you that you need a face shave.
ReplyDeleteA number of answers are unknown to most but very easily inferable--5-letter Japanese company, Mexican animal ending with O--but that's part of the fun. In fact, it's fun in itself to clue a Spanish word by giving us the English meaning of the Aztec word for the same animal.
Nice writeup, Malaika!
I was literally nodding off while solving (thanks! jetlag) and still came in under 10, so I'm thinking this will be easy for many people.
ReplyDeleteI love the word SONOROUS, and along with THE MUNCHIES it was one of the highlights for me.
The lowlights were NO SENSE and ON A LOG -- partial phrases that don't really click as standalones. Oh, and of course DIRS.
Easy-Medium. Not blisteringly fast like some of youse, but it was generally smooth sailing. An example of a slow-down for me was having CIA AgenT before CIA ASSET. Also not quick in coming was AEROBE.
ReplyDeleteI think Friday puzzles used to be harder than Monday through Thursday puzzles, and judging by my averages, which is over a longish time span I grant you, that looks to be true in my case. (But wow, do those averages look terrible to me now! I think that has to be understood in light of the fact that the puzzles generally have gotten easier. For I don't really think I'm getting "smarter" as time passes, despite the fact that my averages are steadily going down.)
Amusing little snippets embedded in some of those clues, e.g., the one for ARMADILLOS. Also, it never occurred to me that BOER meant "farmer", but that makes sense -- the German cognate is Bauer.
Malaika, I think SPOILER ALERTS, with the S, is fine -- there are worse "plurals of convenience" out there. "Spoiler alerts ahead" looks completely natural to me -- surely people insert multiple spoilers in their write-ups all the time. On the other hand, I agree that THE in THE MUNCHIES is not out of convenience (as "the"s in puzzles so often are), but is a virtual necessity. BTW, I don't recall any context other than a stony one where I've heard it applied.
Thank you, Rena Cohen, for a pleasant and fairly clean Friday grid.
The puzzle reminded me of an easy Friday Robyn Weinstein puzzle. Enjoyed it a lot.🎈🎈🎊🎊
ReplyDeleteI thought this one was pretty easy. Almost record time for me at 6:56. BANKAUDIT, AMFM, FREEPR, and the (horrible) DIRS were the only ones I needed crosses to get.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think I’ve seen a “Misses” section in a dress shop for years.
ReplyDeleteHad a terrible day yesterday, so I'm a bit late with this. First, I tried to explain the sin/cos clue, but I kept going off on a tangent.
ReplyDeleteThen, at the deli, I found a hair in my chopped liver! Nobody needs that. So I called the waiter over and insisted on a bald PATE.
Math professor: How do you find a tangent?
Student: Go to the beach in England?
The Onion just published a funny crossword-related article: https://theonion.com/rita-oras-agent-scores-singer-another-prime-crossword-puzzle-placement/
ReplyDeleteI set a person record on this one and never truly felt lost so for me, it was an easier Friday. “Spoiler alert” was my favorite clue/answer combo
ReplyDeleteSPOILER ALERTS is definitely grammatically correct. You pluralize the noun not its modifier (SPOILER acts as a modifier in this case). Like, if you were ordering at the Burger King drive-up window, you wouldn’t say, “Two Whopper Juniors,” you’d say, “Two Whoppers Junior, please,” like a civilized person.
ReplyDelete@Alexscott68 8:42 AM
Delete🤣 The Burger King next to my office hires a surly looking character who stands next to the order post. Anyone who orders two Whoppers Junior gets a punch in the face through their driver's side window. I think they pay him five bucks per punch and he lives in a penthouse downtown.
Creative and fun, liked more than Malaika did. Wednesday time, but hey: never gonna complain about too easy on a Friday! Saturdays different - I would feel flat to see this one on a Saturday. This constructor always seems to satisfy- another Robyn!
ReplyDeleteOnly real hesitation was at the end. I just got my windshield replaced by Satellite (which has become an annual event lately). It took a few seconds to adjust my thinking to radio/TV world.
The man who holds a LOOFA up to the mirror sees a fool.
ReplyDeleteSpay a dog that YAPS. Then look again in the mirror.
If an applet were to fight some Apple Televisions, it would be APPLETVS APPLETVS.
@Malaika. It has been a few decades, but I believe I have experienced THEMUNCHIES as a result of hashish consumption, although it is certainly more associated with weed in what's left of my mind.
Whoosh, fun, then it's done. Thanks, Rena Cohen .
Loved seeing the Phantom Tollbooth callout in your post!
ReplyDeleteI'm with everyone who found this pretty easy but whooshy is fine with me. Liked it a good deal more than Malaika as I thought the longer answers were interesting and original.
ReplyDeleteOnly snags were the YAK/YAP choice, which I always guess wrong, never having heard COLDTAKES, and the ACTIN/NINA cross, where the N was the best possible choice. No happy music again on my print out though.
21 D made me wonder if anyone still sings Tom DOOLEY. It more or less started the great folk revolution and was wildly popular, maybe because it's so easy to sing and play on a guitar (two chords).I've performed it maybe twice in the last twenty years. Just not much to it.
I had a good time with your Fridecito, RC. Not Really Challenging but pleasant enough. Thanks for the breezy fun.
I liked this puzzle! It was also very easy (15 seconds less than my Tuesday average).
ReplyDeleteI agree with others that DIRS is not great, but the grid was so devoid of croswordese overall that what was in there can be forgiven.
“Lock and load” refers to the ammunition loading procedure for the M16 rifle (and its many variants). The bolt is only “locked” to the rear momentarily to allow a magazine to be loaded into the weapon, after which the bolt is released, chambering a round and making the weapon ready to fire. “Locked and loaded” makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteHah, I saw the movie "Eternity" at the theater and never realized the female lead was played by Elizabeth OLSEN.
ReplyDeleteI think Malaika is correct, that THE MUNCHIES are always associated with getting high. When I entered that answer, I was thinking that I had never really experienced such a craving and now I know why the concept seemed foreign to me.
This was a breezy Friday puzzle and I suppose I should just resign myself to these being easy, going forward. The SE did put up some resistance - athletic org's are not in my wheelhouse and I couldn't come up with MERCH off the ME. ERADICATES eradicated the logjam I found myself in, in that low, central section.
Rena Cohen, nice job, thanks!
Malaika, I'm currently working my way through your excellent list of romance books ("The Idea of You" WRECKED me in the best way) and having a blast, so I am trusting you implicitly about Eternity! Excited for a new romcom.
ReplyDeleteI apologize for this pedantry. But, working in the field, the FDIC does not have an annual bank audit requirement for all banks. It’s only for banks over a certain size.
ReplyDeleteMade it really hard to get that answer for me! Needed crosses to get it.
I tend to prefer themeless - and I LOVED this. It made me work but I enjoyed the effort (LOCK AND LOAD, CIA ASSET, COLD TAKES, didn't know Nina 48D).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great Friday, Rena :)
Too easy. 10:29
ReplyDelete