THEME: EMPTY WORDS — 50A: "Remarks void of meaning ... and a phonetic hint to the answers to the starred clues." Each of the theme answers is a two word phrase with words starting M and T (or "empty").
Word of the Day: HIGGS (17A - Peter ____, physicist with a field and a particle named for him) —
MOVIE THEATER (4D: *Where new features are released?)
MAGIC TOUCH (19A: *Knack for success)
MACHINE TOOLS (21D: *Metal lathes and drill presses)
MISTER TOAD (41A: *Reckless motorist in "The Wind in the Willows")
Hey, everyone, it's an Eli Tuesday! I know, you were expecting Claire. You were looking forward to Claire. I get it. I promise to do my best in substitution. Let's get going.
2D: Showgirl at the Copacabana, in song
It looks like today is a NYT debut for constructor John Liber, so congratulations! It's a clean puzzle, a nice simple theme for a Tuesday. It just wasn't that exciting for me. Two word phrases starting with M and T seems like it could pull some interesting answers, but the only one that stood out to me was MISTER TOAD. Even that would have been better with a reference to his Wild Ride. Where else at Disneyland can you be hit by a train and end your ride in Hell?
Don't get me wrong; I love MOVIE THEATERS and I hope everyone actually goes out to see movies. I'm not sure that clue required a question mark, but I get it. MACHINE TOOLS and MAGIC TOUCH didn't do much for me, especially as clued.
15A: Beatles compilation album with 27 chart-topping hits
The rest of the puzzle unfortunately didn't do much to redeem itself. I grimaced right out of the gate at ALE GLASS (3D: Vessel for a pub pint). I brew beer and I have an extensive collection of beer glasses. I'm not sure I'd call any of them an "ale glass." Can those glasses hold ale? Sure. I also have IPA-specific glasses. I just can't picture what a generic ale glass would be. I also always get bad vibes from MILADY (41D: Chivalrous address to a noblewoman). I feel like there was a specific brand of creepy dude that adopted that phrase and kinda ruined it for me. I also personally wince anytime I see AD IN or AD OUT (38A: Warning before your breaking point?). I know Wimbledon just started, but I admittedly only know these terms from puzzles. At least the clue was clever this time.
Speaking of clever clues, I thought the clue for POWER NAP was cute (35D: Get 40 winks in 20 minutes, say). But everything else felt pretty straightforward. It certainly wasn't a bad puzzle, it just got the job done. Sometimes that's all you can ask on a Tuesday.
49A: Dragon's den
Stray Thoughts:
5D: Nintendo Switch predecessor (WIIU) — This always makes me think of an ambulance siren: WiiU, WiiU, WiiU, WiiU.
58A: Like some martinis and jokes (DIRTY) — I like both!
61A: Workers in a colony (ANTS) — You didn't think you were getting out of an Eli blog without a Simpsons reference, did you?
That's all I've got for now! Enjoy your Tuesday; I'll be back with you later in the week.
Signed, Eli Selzer, False Dauphin of CrossWorld
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Similar experience as Eli - cute enough but lacking nuance and any real depth. I like the crossing themers with the revealer. Do I see an M and two Ts as grid art?
Overall fill is fine - smooth and clean for the most part. I’ll double down on ALE GLASS - I’ve been to countless bars and drank more than my share of beer over the years and have never heard the term. I believe this has come up in previous puzzles. POWER NAP is pretty neat and somehow HOG CALLS is fun.
Nice debut puzzle, even if Monday-level easy. Solved it as a themeless, only picking up the "M-T" gimmick after finishing. Now back to the Spelling Bee.
72-word grid with SIX interlocked theme answers (including the revealer), really? I'm honestly surprised the fill isn't straight up disastrous, and POWER NAP is a great bonus answer, but the grid is heavily constrained and it shows. ALE GLASS, MADS, WII U, LITHO, OSS, RESHOE, ADOUT crossing OUTSMART right in the middle of the OUTs.
The theme is fine and the EMPTY pun works great, but the puzzle as a whole is a perfect example of the "more themers = better" fallacy that we see way too often with basic early-week themes in the NYT.
I found this a little harder than the usual Tuesday, which I guess is good given the ccollectively bemoaned trend toward increased easy-ness in the NYTXW. But I didn’t really get the theme until I read Eli’s write-up, thanks, Eli!
I do not believe anyone has ever used MADS in the way it’s clued here. “He MADS me”, really? Even in the olden days? I’m willing to be corrected here.
Yes, nice serviceable Tuesday with a pair of initials and a revealer.... Somehow the whole MT = EMPTY thing doesn't quite work for me, cuz I'm one of those weirdos who actually pronounces that little p in there.... Favorite answers today? GODARK next to ONEDGE, and the pair of POWERNAP and OUTSMART. Also, had NO idea there was a beatles collection called "ONE". Thanks, John, and congrats on the debut! .... but c'mon, we could have extended the streak by using Stimpy and ___, right?
Easier than yesterday's puzzle, so probably should have been swapped. Nice use of the downs to get extra themers in.
In sharp contrast to yesterday, the themers are all common phrases, although MACHINETOOLS might be a little niche for some.
HIGGS’ first paper discussing the Higgs field was rejected as having no relevance to physics. Fifty years later, the search for and discovery of the Higgs boson it implied was the holy grail of physics.
Very nice puz. A lot of unexpected answers. Example: had Ghosts for GO DARK, needs to for the quaint (but cool!) OUGHT TO. Plus HOG CALLS, MILADY, ADOUT, IONIA. The clue for DIRTY I had thought could also have been DRY, albeit not long enough.
So a lot of neatness as I solved. Maybe the ole brain is just awake more this morning.
Six Themers, the Downs crossing two Acrosses each! Tough to get clean fill around that. Good job, John. And a debut, too. Congrats! As you probably know, I'm a fan of a lot of Themers.
Many Thanks for a Mildly Tough Tuespuz. Went Merrily Through this Masterful Theme and Made This guy smile. And those aren't EMPTY WORDS. 😁
I over thunk for a Tuesday at 55A and 58A I thought they'd be some version of FRAGILE and DRY, neither fit so I thought maybe there was a kind of wrap-around involved. And at ADOUT I had "ADOU - " and thought it was wrong, should be AbOUT? never did get the theme until I got here.
I liked this one. The constructor made me work a bit (for a Tuesday), but left enough crumbs here and there that I never lost the trail. I had the aha experience post-solve when I payed a little more attention to the reveal, so the somewhat pedestrian theme at least came through with a little chuckle for me.
The true enjoyment for me today was seeing Liza and a group of muppets trash the COPA. That’s a rather adult-oriented video for The Muppets’ target audience, no ?
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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11 comments:
Similar experience as Eli - cute enough but lacking nuance and any real depth. I like the crossing themers with the revealer. Do I see an M and two Ts as grid art?
You’ve Got The MAGIC TOUCH
Overall fill is fine - smooth and clean for the most part. I’ll double down on ALE GLASS - I’ve been to countless bars and drank more than my share of beer over the years and have never heard the term. I believe this has come up in previous puzzles. POWER NAP is pretty neat and somehow HOG CALLS is fun.
Modest Mouse
Very familiar with HIGGS. SLOTH, HIPPO, GO DARK are all solid. There’s limited glue here. Didn’t we do ANTS yesterday?
Mr. Incognito
Easy - but a pleasant Tuesday morning solve nonetheless.
Buzzcocks
Nice debut puzzle, even if Monday-level easy. Solved it as a themeless, only picking up the "M-T" gimmick after finishing. Now back to the Spelling Bee.
72-word grid with SIX interlocked theme answers (including the revealer), really? I'm honestly surprised the fill isn't straight up disastrous, and POWER NAP is a great bonus answer, but the grid is heavily constrained and it shows. ALE GLASS, MADS, WII U, LITHO, OSS, RESHOE, ADOUT crossing OUTSMART right in the middle of the OUTs.
The theme is fine and the EMPTY pun works great, but the puzzle as a whole is a perfect example of the "more themers = better" fallacy that we see way too often with basic early-week themes in the NYT.
I found this a little harder than the usual Tuesday, which I guess is good given the ccollectively bemoaned trend toward increased easy-ness in the NYTXW. But I didn’t really get the theme until I read Eli’s write-up, thanks, Eli!
I do not believe anyone has ever used MADS in the way it’s clued here. “He MADS me”, really? Even in the olden days? I’m willing to be corrected here.
Felt like a Monday.
Yes, nice serviceable Tuesday with a pair of initials and a revealer.... Somehow the whole MT = EMPTY thing doesn't quite work for me, cuz I'm one of those weirdos who actually pronounces that little p in there.... Favorite answers today? GODARK next to ONEDGE, and the pair of POWERNAP and OUTSMART. Also, had NO idea there was a beatles collection called "ONE". Thanks, John, and congrats on the debut! .... but c'mon, we could have extended the streak by using Stimpy and ___, right?
Easier than yesterday's puzzle, so probably should have been swapped. Nice use of the downs to get extra themers in.
In sharp contrast to yesterday, the themers are all common phrases, although MACHINETOOLS might be a little niche for some.
HIGGS’ first paper discussing the Higgs field was rejected as having no relevance to physics. Fifty years later, the search for and discovery of the Higgs boson it implied was the holy grail of physics.
27A MEAL TICKET is also a theme answer.
Hey All !
WHOA, spelled correctly!
Very nice puz. A lot of unexpected answers. Example: had Ghosts for GO DARK, needs to for the quaint (but cool!) OUGHT TO. Plus HOG CALLS, MILADY, ADOUT, IONIA. The clue for DIRTY I had thought could also have been DRY, albeit not long enough.
So a lot of neatness as I solved. Maybe the ole brain is just awake more this morning.
Six Themers, the Downs crossing two Acrosses each! Tough to get clean fill around that. Good job, John. And a debut, too. Congrats! As you probably know, I'm a fan of a lot of Themers.
Many Thanks for a Mildly Tough Tuespuz. Went Merrily Through this Masterful Theme and Made This guy smile. And those aren't EMPTY WORDS. 😁
Hope y'all have a great Tuesday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
I over thunk for a Tuesday at 55A and 58A I thought they'd be some version of FRAGILE and DRY, neither fit so I thought maybe there was a kind of wrap-around involved. And at ADOUT I had "ADOU - " and thought it was wrong, should be AbOUT? never did get the theme until I got here.
I liked this one. The constructor made me work a bit (for a Tuesday), but left enough crumbs here and there that I never lost the trail. I had the aha experience post-solve when I payed a little more attention to the reveal, so the somewhat pedestrian theme at least came through with a little chuckle for me.
The true enjoyment for me today was seeing Liza and a group of muppets trash the COPA. That’s a rather adult-oriented video for The Muppets’ target audience, no ?
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