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Bull rings? / SUN 7-12-26 / 2020 Christopher Nolan sci-fi movie / Mesoamerican staple cooked in a cornhusk / Spot treatment provider? / Dude in Jamaica / Noted example of oligopoly, in brief / Professional responsibilities, colloquially / Dress for a job you probably don't want? / The Big Crunch, theoretically, for our universe / What fighter pilots fight, for short / Gridiron unit that includes the nose tackle, informally / Video game setting for noobs / Obsessive supporters, in modern lingo
Sunday, July 12, 2026
Constructor: Collin Drown
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- BITING REMARK (23A: "I vant to suck your blood!") (a remark about wanting to bite ... you)
- GROUNDLESS ACCUSATION (33A: "I know you're the one who used up the last of my artisanal coffee!") (an accusation about missing coffee, which I guess has already been ground, though usually "grounds" refers to the post-brewing remnants ...)
- THINLY VEILED THREAT (55A: "If you don't find the rings this instant, I'm calling off the wedding!") (a threat from one who is, or will be, thinly veiled, i.e. a bride)
- PATRONIZING REMARK (66A: "I love your paintings so much, I'd like to finance your next exhibition!") (a remark about patronizing an artist)
- BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT (87A: "Wow! With form like that, you're headed to Wimbledon!") (a compliment that is literally (possibly) about someone's tennis backhand)
- BALD-FACED LIE (107A: "I'm so glad you shaved! I hated when you looked like a sexy lumberjack!") (a lie that is literally about someone's bald face)
Eoin Colfer (/ˈoʊ.ɪn/; born 14 May 1965) is an Irish writer of children's literature. He is best known for being the author of the Artemis Fowl series, a set of eleven fantasy books. As of 2013, the novels had sold more than 21 million copies worldwide and had been translated into 44 languages, making them one of the best-selling series of all time. In a 2010 public poll, readers also voted Artemis Fowl as their favorite Puffin Books title of all time.Colfer worked as a primary school teacher before he became a full-time writer. In September 2008, Colfer was commissioned to write the sixth installment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, titled And Another Thing ..., which was published in October 2009. In October 2016, in a contract with Marvel Comics, he released Iron Man: The Gauntlet. He served as Laureate na nÓg (Ireland's Children's Laureate) between 2014 and 2016. (wikipedia)
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| [you can get this on a t-shirt] |
The theme clues also get a bit wonky in places. If you're mad that someone took the last of your artisanal coffee, you aren't mad about missing "grounds," since the grounds are what you're left with after you make the coffee. I just signed up for a coffee club last week—it's a weekly dealie where you can opt to buy whatever special coffee they are featuring. They text you telling you what the weekly coffee is, you text back if you want some. So it's not really a subscription since you never have to buy. It's kind of cool if you are into coffee and want to experiment with fanciness every once in a while. I ordered my first batch just this week—something co-fermented with peaches (!?). I made my first cup just this morning. It was ... a little too peachy for me. But fun to try. Anyway, if you stole my grounds, I wouldn't care since that would mean I'd already enjoyed the coffee. Weird clue. Also, is the bride threatening the groom literally at the altar!? That's the only way THINLY-VEILED THREAT makes sense. But ... why does the groom have both the rings? Isn't she supposed to have one? I got married so long ago (23 years this September), I forgot how it all works. And there's nothing particularly "backhand"-y about that BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT clue. Just something about "form," which refers to the entire way you play, not just your backhand. So the clues not only don't rise to LOL levels, they're also a bit clunky around the edges.
As for the fill ... what was there? GODSPEED got my attention (in a good way), and HAZMAT SUIT is nice, even if I never did see the clue (14D: Dress for a job you probably don't want?). Otherwise, it's pretty smooth, but also very forgettable. I think the most remarkable thing is the way they decided to clue MON (71D: Dude in Jamaica). I wrote in "MAN" since I thought the pronunciation was just a matter of accent, not spelling, but then I realized "no, no way they're specifying Jamaica if they're not changing the spelling." And sure enough! I like it, I think. Better than just an abbrev. for Monday. Or a French possessive. Oh, I forgot: I really liked the clue on PRANK CALLS (66D: Bull rings?). Took me a while to get, and when I did, I was like "Hey hey hey, look who decided to show up ... finally." Wish the puzzle had exhibited more of that kind of cleverness.
Not much struggle today. No idea who David YATES is. Peter YATES, yes. Dude directed Bullitt, ffs (1968). Classic. David? Shrug, never seen a Harry Potter movie, never gonna. There's also Richard YATES, a novelist who wrote Revolutionary Road (which I remember really liking). "His daughter Monica dated comedian Larry David and was the inspiration for Elaine Benes on David's sitcom Seinfeld" (!?!?!) (wikipedia). What else gave me trouble. Oh, HATS, yeesh (88D: Professional responsibilities, colloquially). I think of HATS as roles, not "responsibilities," so that was rough. I've never heard of ABBA Arena, and resent the exclusion of one of the greatest pop bands of all time. If you're gonna use ABBA in your puzzle (yet again!) you may as well let me have fun by putting a catchy song in my head! Lastly, where struggles are concerned, I took one look at 73A: What fighter pilots fight, for short, saw that it ended with "-CES," and wrote in AIR ACES! Woo hoo! So smart! [fiery crash]
Bullets:
- 11A: You might need to lose a few to get them (ABS) — "lose a few (pounds)"
- 32A: Turkey part (ANKARA) — weird to call a city a "part," though it technically is. I guess the clue wanted me to think of the bird. Mission not accomplished.
- 114A: The Big Crunch, theoretically, for our universe (END) — first: bleak. Why? Second, I thought the universe was expanding. What's this "crunch" business? The Big Crunch sounds like a Cap 'n' Crunch variant. Or a movie about some dude who's really into his ABS. "The Big Crunch is a hypothetical scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the expansion of the universe eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately causing the cosmic scale factor to reach absolute zero, an event potentially followed by a reformation of the universe starting with another Big Bang. The vast majority of valid evidence, however, indicates that this hypothesis is not correct" (wikipedia). Extreme LOL.
- 15D: Apt name for a tuxedo cat (OREO) — so not TUXY? Or ORCA? Or MR. FANCYPANTS? Okay, it's your cat ...
That's all for today. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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109 comments:
“Your service was Clouseau-ian, and my tip is Scrooge-ian.”
GRATUITOUS INSULT
Easy. Solved without reading the theme clues*.
* * _ _ _
Overwrites:
Fab before FLY for 31D "Groovy".
sis before DAD for the palindromic family member at 35D, before encountering SIS with the same clue at 63A.
Ent DOC for the 94D pupil looker-afterer before EYE DOC.
WOEs:
The dark comedy In BRUGES at 50A, although inferable due to the "Belgium" part of the clue.
Director David YATES at 56D (not a Harry Potter fan).
Author EOIN Colfer at 62A.
ABBA as clued at 101D, or clued in any way other than as the rock group.
@Lewis: LOL!
* A few days ago, someone posted here asking, "Where's the fun in that?" Most of the time, it makes an easy puzzle a bit more challenging, a phenomenon I call "Downs-Only Lite." Other times, it makes the solve easier by removing the distractions of the theme clues; this was the case today. And sometimes it's simply impossible (for me) and I revert to reading the theme clues.
More on the Medium side for me because I had so many missteps for a Sunday. PROPIC for AVATAR. AIRACES like Rex. REP for BRA. PARS for ["Holesome" figures] because by the time I got to that corner, I had already forgotten that PARS was an answer up top. And so on. (Also, HOLE is in the grid)
The clue on HAZMAT SUIT is tortured. The clue on PRANK CALLS might as well be clue of the year. Ah, the duality of "?" clues.
Well, after going clue by clue not finding my mistake, I finally gave up. Where did I err? For 84D, baking recipe instruction, I had KNEADIT. For 114A, the Big Crunch, I concluded the constructor was being cute in clueing ETD (estimated time of departure).
Chalking this one up to confirmation bias. And yes, I now realize that the 114A clue did not indicate an acronym.
Well, now, there’s an original theme, with the answers being types of negative things people say, and the clues punning on them. It’s a left-field, one-of-a-kind theme.
And why not even make it more novel by having five of the six theme answers be debuts, never seen before in the 80+ years of the Times puzzle? And that sixth answer – BALD FACED LIE – is a once-before.
Standing-O to Colin for coming up with this.
Kudos also for lacing the box with wordplay in theme and non-theme clues. I especially liked [Bull rings?], which brought a big “Hah!”, and [You might need to lose a few to get them] a riddle my brain loved trying to crack, even though it eventually needed crosses.
And then there was [Turkey part], for which I confidently slapped down WATTLE – “Hah!” again.
Your puzzle, Colin, was something different and something enjoyable, for which I’m most grateful. Congratulations on a very promising NYT debut puzzle!
A Sunday-sized grid full of puns - what could go wrong? Go big or go home - this one never arrived. The slight connection is slight no doubt - there’s just nothing behind the curtain.
Moke NESS
PATRONIZING COMMENT seems to be the highlight. The themers just don’t hit as wacky as they need to. I always thought it was Bold FACED LIE.
ALIEN Ant Farm
Overall fill was flat - Rex summarizes nicely. Liked AKIMBO, PRANK CALLS and SEITAN. The POOLSIDE x GODSPEED cross is neat. Those who wear HAZMAT SUITs know what they are getting into and appreciate the gear - the clue doesn’t work. REPASS should have been edited better.
Take Me To Church
Big grid - lifeless puns = a Sunday morning slog.
Steely Dan
Just like last week, but even more so, I was able to fill in the themers without almost any crosses I start from the SE (on paper) so got bald-faced lie quickly. The rest quickly followed. So most of the solving was just filling in perfunctory clues. Nothing wrong with that but because the themes were so easy to suss, there were no aha moments. But I did like the punning....
No-one else bothered by having BFA in the same puzzle as FINE ART?
Sometimes I get through the Sunday puzzle just so I can come here and see what Rex has to say about it. The best thing this morning is learning the factoid that connects Richard Yates and Seinfeld. Who knew?
It was easy, but also very fresh and fun. No clunky crosswordese like some Sundays.
Hey All !
Rex, I'm interpreting the coffee grounds as the before-brewing in-the-can grounds, because before you throw them in your Mr. Coffee, they are still grounds. So someone stole that person's whole can of artisanal coffee.
Neat idea for a puz. Puz title apt, although playing with words, as I thought if was Sleight, as in offend. Just Googed it, it is Slight, sans the E. At least as a verb, the noun means small, thin, frail. Also Sleight as a noun means deceitful, like sleight of hand. OK, now I'm more confused than I was before!
Liked puz. Gave myself a chuckle at White Claws, having ___TZE_S, and writing in PRETZELS. "I never knew there were pretzels called White Claws", I sillily said to myself. What a moron.
EOIN is a name that absolutely looks like it's not a name. Haven't seen Idris ELBA in a minute. Do get our required OREO and ASS, no ONO or OTT. Got SIS and DAD, MOM gets left out. (BRO, too, but that's not palindromic.)
Overall nice SunPuz. It was FLY.
Hope y'all have a great Sunday!
Five F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
It’s been Türkiye, not Turkey, for several years now.
I thought groundless makes sense, because given your coffee was stolen, you, personally, are now groundless; you have no grounds because you didn't get to make the coffee.
Also, Yates's daughter did not inspire Elaine writ large; she inspired the episode where Elaine's intimidating writer father scares Jerry and George.
Missed the whole slight thing but thought this was cute and breezy. Don't quite get how FLY is "groovy". I haven't seen AKIMBO in a while, if ever. Quite a lot of PPP crosses, which detracted from the construction.
Big congrats to Collin on his debut!
Where a buttinsky trains: MEDDLE school
Asimov's failed precursor to "I, Robot:" EYEDOC.
Henri, Hans, are you both on board? OUI, JA.
Your dog's or cat's DAD: PETSPA.
On Japanese beef, KOBE or not KOBE. That is the question.
Sigourney Weaver horror film about a woman unable to pay her mortgage: ALIEN.
The feeling you get after reading these jokes: Indijestion.
I ended there too, had to click reveal puzzle, then: "oh of course, KNEAD IN is much better, and END, not EtD, duh"
I enjoyed this puzzle a lot. When silly puns put me in a good mood, what’s wrong with that?🎈🎈🎊🎊
I welcome an easy Sunday and this one had the potential to be the most enjoyable Sunday of the year so far for me. Unfortunately, it was done in by a tragic flaw of Shakespearean magnitude - the treaded Trivia Tunnel. Right there Center-East in what could have been a pristine grid we have interlocking nonsense: BRUGES / BUENO / EOIN (!) / and TENET. It’s a shame. I guess the BRUGES / BUENO cross is somewhat discernible, but no way I’m going to sit there and run the alphabet to attempt to decipher EOIN v.v. TENET.
It’s too bad. If the constructor could have eliminated that interlocking sewer system of useless trivial, we could have had a 4 1/2 to 5 star puzzle at hand. At least I can appreciate the effort, and the rest of it was a pleasure to work my way through. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to witness / experience greatness though. It’s sort of like watching a pitcher that you are rooting for miss out on a perfect game in the ninth inning.
Very, very easy Sunday puzzle.
I did enjoy figuring out the themers, and don't know enough about coffee to question the 'groundless' clue, so I was entertained albeit briefly.
Artesian coffee should be sold as whole beans.
Days without a Star Wars clue: 0. “IT’S A TRAP!”
The thing that bothered me the most was the answer for "If you don't find the rings this instant, I'm calling off the wedding!". That is an *outright* threat, there is zero 'veiling' involved (I know the bride is assumed to be wearing a veil, I'm talking about the threat itself). Change the end to 'or you'll be sorry' or something similar instead of "I'm calling off the wedding" and the clue would be correct.
This one took me a long time to get momentum but ended up being easy-medium at 29 mins. Had cRANKCALLS before PRANK and so that messed up that lower-middle themer for me. Also really struggled with EOIN !!!! What sort of name is that. I didn't really know the TENET movie, but it is a word, so that saved me there. Liked it more than @Rex did.... are we on day 3 now? Thanks, Collin, for all those nice long whooshy spanners, the themers really made the puzzle for me. : )
It's always been Türkiye, just not in English.
Same. Actually needed to take a break and come back to figure it out. Being a small answer at the bottom didn’t help.
Not a world class solver by any means but my Sunday record fell from 29 to 22. I did this on my phone waiting in the airport. All of the long clues fell with no friction. So, easy does not begin to describe it.
LOL
Enjoyed this more than most Sunday puzzles!
I really enjoyed this. Solved pretty quickly too (as usual, going back to find my typo :(
WOES = HAZMAT, SEITAN, EOIN, BRUDGES. ABBA was clued differently for a change, not as the rock group which threw me. Loved PRANK CALLS (Bull Rings)..
Thank you, Colin for an enjoyable Sunday & I hope to see you again :)
If coffee grounds are only what”s left after brewing, what do you call coffee beams that have been ground, but not yet brewed?
no
@RooMonster 7:38 AM
I know a thing or two about coffee and concur with your deep dive into the subject. At every moment after they've gone through the grinder, they're grounds. Interestingly, there are no satisfying ways to say the past tense of grind. I grinded it is ugly. I ground it, is right, but even uglier. I pretty regularly hear the phrase I grounded it for a French press, which is really really wrong and ugly, but super common. When you put the grinds and or grounds into your coffee maker and then into your compost and then into your garden, the grounds become ground. And you become a slug murderer.
Can we talk about the clever innuendo with ORAL? That, slangily, is two types of contraceptive.
You are missing out by not watching the Harry Potter films. They are quite good. With many fine past and current actors.
Easiest part for me was the themers--I wrote most of them in after reading the clues. My tee-hee meter must have been off because I had REP for a push-up forever and the game setting ending in ONE, as in level one or something, finally made that MODE which led to the obvious EASY and that corner finally fell, but it felt like I spent half my time there.
Didn't know the movie but it had to be TENET, which led to the thoroughly unlikely EOIN, a name I have never encountered and I've been around a while. My other only-through-crosses was SEITAN ,which I think I have seen before in a crossword but promptly forgot. Maybe next time. Probably not.
I have given up on the singular of TAMALE as TAMAL and the next time I hear a Spanish speaker say "No BUENO" will be the first. Sounds like Tarzan trying to speak Spanish to me.
I liked your themers and at least some of your cluing, CD. A Charming Debut, for which congrats, and thanks for a fair amount of fun.
You brought me back Southside! Do you remember when Harvey Haddix lost a perfect game in the 13th? I found this puzzle enjoyable and challenging. I packed it in at about ninety percent..
I had a Boston Spaniel who was all black except for a white patch under her neck. Her name was Tuxi.
I thought that "slight" had two meanings. The phrases were all slights, but also the phrases themselves represented real phrases that fit with the clues if you adjust them slightly by taking out gerunds or prefixes. Like "patronizing remark" is "patron remark" because it's a remark the patron would make. And "thinly veiled threat" is "thin veil threat" because it's a threat made by someone in a thin veil. Maybe I'm thinking too much??
Maybe but way more disturbed by your alias
Is coffee a slug deterrent? Or does it make them just a bit less sluggish
I liked the theme, and I think Rex is being too picky about the coffee grounds.
It was the top right corner that killed me. I had no idea what White Claws were, and once I got the Z in HAZMAT, I tried to put Pretzel in there instead of SELTZER. I was also working with Level One instead of EASY MODE, and I couldn't come up with LARD, so that corner was just...hard.
Anyone else try to make Grounds for Accusation work before GROUNDLESS ACCUSATION?
All in all, a decent Sunday experience, if not especially zingy or whooshy.
Yep, easy. No real problems with this one, a pretty whooshy solve for me.
Smooth grid with a genuinely chuckle worthy theme, liked it quite a bit more than @Rex did.
Yes, NYT seems disinclined to give up this pun by using their preferred name
What I think of most of you fellas here ;-)
https://youtu.be/QtTR-_Klcq8?is=ct-LsTPls4jhC-yI
Hey TrevorTheFosterDad - Haven't seen your comments in a while and really like your way with words.
TrevorTheFosterDad had a fine description for this kind of puzzle (my experience of it), that someone else of you all astutely called Dickensian:
>By the end one felt not triumphant exactly, but companionably entertained—as after an unexpectedly charming dinner guest who departs before becoming tiresome and leaves behind the agreeable suspicion that the world, for a brief hour, had resolved to be easier company than usual.
- TrevorTheFosterDad
I'm fine with it too
@linda 9:58 AM
You are quite right of course. The first film is a little wobbly, the second one is actually borderline bad, but then three through eight are magnificent and get better and better. The problem with bringing it up on this forum is we have a rather healthy number of judgmental souls (which makes them cuddly fun) and I think this is their major list of reasons for not seeing the movies:
1 It's popular and popular means stupid people like it.
2 It's for kids and we're too mature for that even though our grandkids are eating the stuff up right in front of us.
3 That unparalleled list of the who's who of British acting isn't compelling unless they're in ball gowns and mansions having too much pride or too much prejudice.
4 The author, it turns out, ended up being a piece of garbage billionaire, as happens, and we can't support that, especially when there's black and white movies by [insert name of director you'll only know if you took a college class] or book prize winning poetry anthologies to be read written by authors from Osettia.
5 Seeing the movies would eliminate the need to grouse about the trivia showing up in the puzzles. [See adjacent grumbles over The Simpsons, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Barbie, and Game of Thrones.]
The Hittites, Phrygians, Lydians, Greeks and Byzantine Empire beg to disagree that Turkey — however yiu spell it— has always been the name of Anatolia.
This was the hardest Sunday for me in a long time, over 30 minutes solving randomly. cRANK CALLS, hard to see PATRONIZING with that in place. Level One before EASY MODE. I loved the HAZMAT SUIT clue but it wasn't guessable. The clue that I found most obscure was "You might have to lose a few to get them". Confusing because you aren't losing ABS; the missing "pounds" was quite a misdirection.
I find FLEA a bit below the BITING REMARK to be cute. I think my favorite theme clue/answer combos were for THINLY VEILED THREAT and BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT.
Collin Drown, I thought this was fun, thanks!
Forehead slap
Harry Potter movies are for children. That they are well made doesn’t make them a good film for someone over age 11.
ABBA Arena was built to house a hologram concert experience by the band ABBA, and named after them for this reason, so I wouldn't really say that the clue is excluding the band. That's like saying a clue about the Lincoln Memorial is excluding Abe Lincoln. Otherwise, agree - decent puzzle but nothing special.
This was a clever theme and I had fun trying to guess the answers with minimal crosses. Thanks, Collin and congrats!
Overwrites: my pushup was a pop before a BRA. Hah before LOL. Sea before CAY. CRANK before PRANK.
Oh, that Turkey.
I paused at KNEELED since KNElt is wheelhouse-ier for me. Also, I’ve heard leftHANDED COMPLIMENT as often as BACKHANDED. Drives left-handed Mr. A crazy when he hears it.
Likes: GALOOT OCELOT ANIMALS MANES MEDDLE GODSPEED FINEART AVATAR POOLSIDE AKIMBO SNAFU OUIJA HANGTEN. STANS and FANS. Clue for IAGO. Ditto IGLOO. CARESS/KNEADIN cross.
Could’ve done without the TENET/EOIN adventure, especially not ever in my life having seen the word REPASS and only knowing a handful of the most famous directors.
Woes were the aforementioned REPASS, YATES, EOIN, TENET, RIAN, LARD as clued.
That thing that happens when you use a word or phrase and then it shows up in the next days puzzle: IN JEST. I posted late yesterday asking about @egsforbreakfast, who hasn’t posted since Wednesday. Changed IN JEST to “in service of a pun” before posting so you have to take my word for it. Anyway, re @egs, not trying to MEDDLE - it just seems unusual.
Mimi L
I thought that would be one of the first comments!
Before brewing, ground coffee. After brewing, coffee grounds.
Another one letter DNF for me. Had KNEAD It/EtD. Somehow thought the Big Crunch could be the "Estimated Time of Departure" for the universe at the beginning of its expansion. Color me creative, if also wrong.
Also “Tamale” doesn’t exist. You can have. A single “Tamale” or multiple “tamales” but there is no such thing as a single “tamale”.
Also, “Tamale” doesn’t exist not exist. You can have one “tamal” or multiple “tamales” but never one “tamale”. Try harder NYT.
Had HAMMER SUIT for 14D. On the theory that if you want to get fired from your job, showing up in a Hammer Suit is probably a good way.
Hoo boy, those theme clues are so convoluted. They're at least twice as long as the answers, which are pretty long themselves. Surely they could have been snappier!
On the bright side, not too many Unknown Names. YATES, EOIN, and RIAN are the only ones for me. I remember watching In BRUGES years ago and I think I liked it.
I got my four letter US government org.s mixed up, having OSHA before FEMA. Hard to keep track.
Loathe ABBA - Bubblegum music.
Late to the party after Sunday morning tennis and softball. Glad I come because I thought the innuendo-driven clues/answers were fun. OK to pick on them for factual accuracy, but more satisfying to sit back and enjoy with a sense of the ridiculous. Some entries though, like BRUGES, EOIN, SEITAN, and the like, were a bit over the top, so not a “easy” one for me.
I disagree (nothing new) with Rex's contention that coffee grounds are what is left after brewing. It is also the only thing I could find to call coffee bean that have been ground before or after brewing.
Also, what let a nit like that spoil the fun?
I greatly enjoyed the clues and answers
Not so much of the rest of the puzzle which I found medium to difficult.
Had never heard of a number things. "nose tackle" and White Claws. are two. And no idea about the director of Harry Potter films (love the books, think the films are pretty good but could be better) and a couple of others ames.
"Slightily" cool puztheme. With humor in the jugular vein, right outta the chute at themer 23-A.
Tough solvequest, but only mainly in the NW corner region. That HAZMATSUIT clue was awesomely perplexin, at our house. SELTZERS & EASYMODE were no help at all.
staff weeject picks: DAD & SIS. From the family of "pals" [along with uncredited MOM, of course].
Thanx for the amusin slights of hand, Mr. Drown dud. And congratz on comin out with a SunPuz, as yer debut. Extra sufferin was afoot, for the newborn constructioneer.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
p.s.
Ultra- sneaky runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I'm a little late getting on here today, so I hope some of the regulars see this, but what is ATODDS? I don't see that addressed anywhere.
I really liked the theme - it was fun to guess the phrases with as few crosses as possible. Who'd have thought there were so many stock phrases that could be clued as punny slights...besides the constructor? And then also fit into a crossword grid. Impressive! I thought GROUNDLESS and PATRONIZING were the most creative transformations of meaning, but I also liked the vampire's BITING REMARK. LIke others, I give an extra tip of the hat to "Bull rings" and the ABS clue.
i was surprised such an overly easy puzzle got 2 1/2 stars. no zip to anything and the abundance of 3- & 4-letter crosswordese.
the always questionable LARD as "embellish"?. 2 palindromic family members (what happened to "mom?). "holesome figures" and HOLE. oh well, at least tomorrow's another puzzle.
Dang @Andy
That actually makes sense.
Roo
Gary, you forgot the author is a bigot
I expected blow back from 66A referring to fine art ("your paintings").
p.s.
That u in dud is long, btw. No intent whatsoever to slight Mr. Drown.
M & Also
@JoePop: AT ODDS.
¡Exactamente mi punto!
On the easier side for me today, at about 65 percent of my average. Still headed downward!
I saw what they were doing there, as it were, but it was sort of secondary to whatever help it provided. I did not know that ABBA had an arena!
Is IT'S A TRAP ("Don't fall for that!") a VEILED Star Trek reference? Narrowly escaped a counter reset! I like "Apple consumer" for EVE, and I'm also keen on LARD as an answer for "Embellish as with unnecessary words." PRANK CALLS for "Bull rings?" also gets a thumbs up from me.
Is "No es bueno" a put-down, or just a criticism? Maybe I'm splitting hairs.
As often as the crossword uses KNELT for the past tense of "kneel," I'm not super-fond of KNEELED. I feel like a pact has been broken! REPASS is too contrived for my tastes. I also think "United" should be AS ONE, rather than just ONE. And is a DEMO(graphic, I assume) an audience stat, or a cohort? To me, a stat(istic) is some measure of the audience, but maybe I'm being too critical again!
Errors: O-LINE for D-LINE, by not reading carefully enough. HEADS for DOMES. MAROON for GALOOT. Not quite an error, but I gave up on ABSENCES after ABSENTEES didn't fit (?!). I put an E speculatively toward the end of SALSAS, if that counts as a mistake. Not too bad...
Re Rowling (as in "bowling," not as in "fouling" (or "ceiling")): I guess I feel that the films are the products of a lot more people than just JKR, including some young-ish actors who have rather bravely taken on her (poorly informed, I think) opinions. So although I wouldn't stop anyone from boycotting something they can't countenance, as a protest it seems to have pretty blunt aim. The books seem like a more focused target.
I certainly don't think Rex boycotting the films or criticizing their reference in the puzzle makes him a bigot per se. Maybe I'm missing something obvious here.
Anyway: Thanks, that'll be all for now, except to say hi to AJD if she's reading.
Unusual, but a blessing.
I consider the Big Crunch (in which the universe can be reborn in a new Big Bang) to be far less bleak than the currently supported alternative, i.e. endless expansion until the heat death of the universe. Unless Sir Roger Penrose is right about his conformal cyclic cosmology theory.
And yet you capitalize the genre.
It's two words: AT ODDS
How is Rex a bigot at all? Not consuming work by someone you find contemptible is in no way “bigotry.” You can feel any kind of way you like about it, but bigotry it isn’t.
I’ll defend the ABBA clue because it prompted me to look up ABBA arena, and now I want to go there the next time I’m in London!
@Gabe and both Anons--I've been fighting this battle for a very long time but am forced to designate it a lost cause. Usage has won the day. See also "panini" as a singular.
Right.
Also “no bueno” is not a put down, since we’re getting into Spanish here.
Plural of Spanish nouns ending in L is ES: tamal, tamales
I just know the constructor so wanted to work in the vowel-smash name EOIN.
@Melle: [coffee spit 🤣🤣🤣]
But the point is that the descriptors such as “thinly veiled,” “backhanded,” “patronizing” etc. no longer describe the subsequent statement in the same way at all but instead refer more literally to the scenario at hand. So it IS a direct threat, not a thinly veiled one, only made “thinly veiled” by virtue of the speaker wearing a veil. Similarly, telling someone their form is good enough to get them to Wimbledon is not a backhanded compliment at all. It’s a straightforward compliment, only made backhanded by virtue of the comment being about the recipient’s “backhand” form. And telling someone their artwork is so good that you’ll fund their next show isn’t “patronizing” in the usual sense but refers literally to the speaker being a patron of the arts, and so on. If that clue contained an actual “veiled” threat then it wouldn’t fit with the rest because veiled would take on a double meaning rather than an alternate meaning.
@Gary Jugert 11:43: The HP movies are kind of like the Star Trek movies — the only watchable ones are the odd-numbered ones 1, 3, 5, and 7.
@Brian Tung & Anonymous I think the “author is a bigot comment” meant that JK Rowling is a bigot, not Rex.
The clue for ABS was ABSolutely ridiculous.
Tamal (singular) and tamale (plural) may be correct proper Spanish, but it appears that in the English language, tamale has become the way it’s used as a singular item. Call it bastardized if you like.
In the end I agree with designating this one easy, as I finished in sub-20. But I struggled for awhile with the top middle part of it. Had PETVET instead of PETSPA for awhile (knowing something was off, I even changed it to PETDOC briefly and then later was amused to find EYEDOC in the puzzle elsewhere). I also just could not reconcile my absolute *certainty* that both ATSIGN (for icon beside an username) and TAMALE must be correct, even though they crossed at the second A in TAMALE so it was impossible. And to top it all off, I had ACTS instead of ASKS for “doesn’t wait to find out, say.” I could tell I had that block all wrong and eventually gave up and moved on before coming back to it with fresh eyes (and also with BITING REMARK and GROUNDLESS ACCUSATIONS filled out to confirm TAMALE). Once I realized my many, many mistakes there, the rest of the puzzle fell easily. I liked the theme a lot and found it delightful even if easy. My only real groan of the day was the clue for REPASS. Felt tortured and like the constructor originally wanted REPAST there but couldn’t make it work with the rest of that section. To add my 2 cents to the debate about “grounds,” I’ve always thought ground coffee could be called “coffee grounds” before or after brewing, and you could say “used coffee grounds” to specify the post-brewing kind. But perhaps I’ve been living in a world of unnecessary redundancies.
Thank you, and thanks to Vernal too. I figured it out later. As they say:”My bad!”
It doesn't have to be correct in the metaphorical sense. None of the others are. ("With form like that, you're headed to Wimbledon" is not a backhanded compliment.) It needs to be correct only in the literal sense. That's the point.
Well then what about beans that haven't been ground or brewed yet? "Bean coffee?" That doesn't work, because it hasn't been coffee [yet].
Reminds me of my favorite lines from Me and My Girl-- the first musical I ever saw, at the tender age of 12:
"What's that?"
"It's bean soup."
"I don't care what it's been; what is it now?"
Anything that reminds me of In Bruges is ok by me. If you didn’t smile when you read that clue, you’ve missed out on an enjoyable hours.
Que tengas un buen viaje. Es una trampa.
I was amused by this offering. Lots of humor -- at least it was meant to be funny, so I laughed.
Two sticking points for me: TENET/EOIN (and by the way, who names a kid EOIN?) and also ABBA/BROLIN (since the Brits could've named an arena after a band, you know, maybe from England since one or two pretty decent bands are from there).
I've added OUIJA to my favorite words list between YOINKED and ZHUZH. It's so weird looking, and how can you beat a product that gets you in touch with grandma?
I read an article recently suggesting the far outer reaches of our detectable universe appear to be accelerating and gravity is too weak to ever bring it all back together, so it's more likely we're in the midst of a permanent scattering rather than a Big Crunch, so probably we're just going to be floating around out here like a bunch of hippies and nobody's coming to visit.
Hands on hips is AKIMBO? I thought it was more like hanging ten on a surfboard while eating a singular TAMAL.
LARD had a good week.
❤️ Twisted balloons. GALOOT. HAZMAT SUIT. Bull rings?
People: 10
Places: 5
Products: 9
Partials: 12
Foreignisms: 2
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 38 of 138 (28%)
Funny Factor: 10 😄
Tee-Hee: BRA. ASS. Stroke gently.
Uniclues:
1 You look great in that Speedo.
2 President Lincoln's undocumented girlfriend.
1 POOL SIDE BALD FACED LIE
2 ABE'S ALIEN TAMALE
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: This is me sleeping under a bridge, this is me begging on a freeway off ramp, here I am bathing in the Starbucks bathroom, and this is the view from the emergency room when I didn't assess the barbed wire fencing in the railyard properly. HOBO TRAVELOGUE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Anonymous (7:17 pm): Ahh, you're probably right. The problem is that there's no good way to tell what a lot of the comments are responding to.
This made me laugh so hard!
Roasted coffee beans. Coffee is the plant and coffee beans the fruit. You can actually make a nice jam out of coffee bean flesh when you prep it to be dried (and eventually roasted)!
Raised on too much Bugs Bunny. I can still hear him saying it in his Brooklynese , "What a maroon".
I still say it..
You must have been raised on a steady diet of Bugs Bunny. I can still hear him saying, " What a maroon.". And honestly, I occasionally use it myself.
As a longtime fan of the pun, I was very excited for this one. Was able to finish all the pun-filled theme clues first. Thumbs way up. Screeeeech. Then it was a slog, slowly, very slowly, going through the rest of the puzzle. But I have to admit, overall, I did enjoy the creative punnery.
@Anonymous 11:52 PM: Try using your phone if you aren't already. I read/post on my computer (PC), and although I see an option to reply to a specific post, replies all just show up in time order, they are not 'threaded' with replies appearing after posts. That's why I just post and say it's @username time instead of 'replying.'
However, when I view on my iPhone, the posts are threaded, and it's quite clear which posts are replies to earlier posts (and to which specific post they are replying).
Late to the party, but same here; had to raise the white flag and hit Reveal. Funny but we thought KNEAD IN was a better answer early on, but changed In to It and gave up on whatever is The Big Crunch; not our finest hour. Combed up and down and never saw the error. Misery loves company!!
@Anon7:41, we held out for a long time thinking that the clue referred to the bird/food; my souvenir hat (bought in Istanbul) says Türkiye, not Turkey. It even autocorrected here with an umlaut.
And "part"? Is Annapolis a "US part"? IMO, two fouls on one clue.
@Anon 8:37, After seeing both ASS and OREO, I scoured the (almost) finished puzzle to see whether it had a Star Wars reference. No trifecta.
Please can someone explain the ABS clue?
Alright @Rex, Mr Tux’s new nickname is Mr Fancy Pants. https://share.icloud.com/photos/015YUNVhxdlECNPTshRiR3JXA
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