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Relative difficulty: way too easy
THEME: "Written in the Stars" — clues and answers are both "stars" whose names are made up of letters drawn from the same letter bank; because the same letters occur in both names, they might be said to be RECURRING CHARACTERS (69A: Ones making periodic appearances ... or the link between the capitalized clues and their answers):
Theme answers:
I know it's tiresome when I complain about the puzzle's being too easy but boy oh boy this was a new low. I don't time myself any more but at a leisurely pace, I probably finished thing in under 8 minutes, which would be near an all-time record for me—again, without trying, without racing. NADIYA was the only thing in the whole puzzle that stumped me. All the other names were known to me, and none of the clues seemed to be trying too hard today at all. I guess POLO COATS took a few crosses to get, because ... what are those? (44D: Double-breasted pieces of menswear). But after I got POLO, the COATS part seemed obvious, so ... yeah, the easiest Sunday puzzle I've ever done? Ever? Maybe. Really disappointing. As for the theme, I guess there's probably some bit of code you can write that can tell you which "stars" (from whatever bank of "star" names you have) share the same building-block letters. It's hard to get excited about this particular phenomenon. With the themers, I basically just got a few crosses, looked at the clue, and the answer generally seemed obvious. Sometimes, looking at the clue wasn't even necessary. I had DONNA and the only famous DONNA I could think of (that fit) was SUMMER, so I just wrote her in. There was no resistance, nothing to really wrestle with or get. You just fill in pretty standard crossword answers with pretty straightforward clues and then ... watch names appear? The RECURRING CHARACTERS pun might've resonated a little more if all the "stars" had been actors (actors play "characters," after all). But of the twenty "stars" in play here, you've got five non-actors. And one of those you would never call a "star" (in the sense that all the others are "stars"). Yes, HENRI MATISSE is a "star" (as in "luminary") of the art world, but he's not a "star" in the modern "celebrity" sense, as Every Other One of these "stars" is. Just bizarre, his inclusion here. I don't understand the appeal of this one. I truly hoped you enjoyed it more than I did.
- HENRI MATISSE (22A: MARTIN SHEEN) (H, E, N, R, I, M, A, T, S)
- SAL MINEO (24A: LIAM NEESON) (S, A, L, M, I, N, E, O)
- DONNA SUMMER (33A: NORMAN REEDUS) (D, O, N, A, S, U, M, E, R)
- REGINA KING (37A: GREG KINNEAR) (R, E, G, I, N, A, K)
- GEORGE FOREMAN (48A: MORGAN FREEMAN) (G, E, O, R, F, M, A, N)
- ELAINE STRITCH (84A: CHRISTIAN SLATER) (E, L, A, I, N, S, T, R, C, H)
- BRIE LARSON (102A: ISABELLA ROSSELLINI) (B, R, I, E, L, A, S, O, N)
- EVEL KNIEVEL (104A: KEVIN KLINE) (E, V, L, K, N, I)
- BABE RUTH (114A: BEA ARTHUR) (B, A, E, R, U, T, H)
- ORLANDO BLOOM (118A: MARLON BRANDO) (M, A, R, L, O, N, B, D)
Nadiya Jamir Hussain (nÊe Begum; born 25 December 1984) is a British television chef, author and television personality. She rose to fame after winning the sixth series of BBC's The Great British Bake Off in 2015. Since winning, she has signed contracts with the BBC to host the documentary The Chronicles of Nadiya and TV cookery series Nadiya's British Food Adventure and Nadiya's Family Favourites; co-presented The Big Family Cooking Showdown; and has become a regular contributor on The One Show.Hussain is a columnist for The Times Magazine and has signed publishing deals with Penguin Random House, Hodder Children's Books and Harlequin. She has appeared as a guest panellist on ITV's Loose Women. She was invited to bake a cake for the 90th birthday celebrations of Elizabeth II.
In 2017, Hussain was named by Debrett's as one of the 500 most influential people in the UK and was on BBC News' 100 Women list. She was also shortlisted for Children's Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards for Bake Me A Story and was nominated for Breakthrough Star at the Royal Television Society Awards for The Chronicles of Nadiya. (wikipedia)
• • •
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| [Matisse, Icarus (@MoMA)] |
The fill also seemed subpar. Plain, common, somewhat stale: EDY'S IBET AMONRA ESL ELI RECTO ERRED ADES NAS EARP ARIA ENT MOUE SOLI SAABS ESSO EIEIO TSK SKORTS EUIE TMC HES EDIE LIRAS EDIE TBAR SOYA ... and that's just the stuff that stands out. FUNNY GIRL alongside ABRASIVE was probably the highlight of the grid for me (not that FUNNY GIRL is ABRASIVE, I just think that's a nice pair of answers) (3D: Musical comedy that was 1968's highest-grossing film / 4D: Caustic). And I definitely loved seeing ELAINE STRITCH, whom I know best from the D.A. Pennebaker documentary Original Cast Album: Company. Everything about her struggle to sing "The Ladies Who Lunch" (and her back-and-forth with Sondheim) is mesmerizing and inspiring.
Bullets:
- 14A: Heat setting, in brief (NBA) — the Miami Heat are an NBA team
- 26A: Discount Chinese e-tailer (TEMU) — famous for their mascot, the TEMU Emu. (srsly, tho, I somehow remembered TEMU today, so congratulations to my memory because I don't even know how I know TEMU) (this is only its second NYTXW appearance; the first was earlier this year)
- 33A: NORMAN REEDUS ...— it occurs to me that of all the names in the theme answers/clues, his is probably the least well known. I know him from the TV show The Walking Dead.
- 124A: Musician/actress Haim (ALANA) — love her. She and Cooper Hoffman in Licorice Pizza are one of my favorite on-screen couples—problematic, yes, adorable, also yes. I put that movie on when I just want to be happy. She's also great in ... well, everything she's in. One Battle After Another, The Mastermind, whatever. Charming, funny, good. She's also in a band with her sisters. Also good.
- 18D: Inuit watercraft (KAYAKS) — for not the first time, I pulled UMIAKS out of my Bag of Crosswordese, only to find that I was dealing with plain old ordinary KAYAKS. What good is this useless, highly specific Inuit watercraft terminology if I can't use it!!!?
- 71D: Along with "CODA" and "Argo," the only other four-letter Best Picture winner (GIGI) — I like this clue a lot. The movie title itself isn't that exciting, but I had some fun trying to think of candidates. JAWS? Nope. BABE? Nope. COMA? Weird guess, also no.
That's all. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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- Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)
ReplyDeleteEasy-Medium. A slog. I didn't get the theme, but I saw that it involved anagrams of famous names. I'm no good at anagrams, so I ignored the theme clues.
* _ _ _ _
Overwrites:
AMuN-RA before AMON at 16D.
My biggest mistake was confusing The World According to gARP (Dustin Hoffman 1928) with Wyatt EARP (Kevin Costner 1994, 57D). At 56A, PgA looked perfectly good to me, although it only fit the clue tangentially (PEA).
Tried a couple of vowels for the last letter of the 26A Chinese e-tailer before UNTAG at 27D dictated the "U" in TEMU.
My 85D unshared numbers were Ssns before they were SOLI.
For the 107A art style I had Dada before DECO.
I didn't like the 120D clue because the Latin word for "I" is unus, not ONE.
WOEs:
Bake-off Chef NADIYA Hussain at 25A.
Anagram victim REGINA KING at 37A.
BIENNIA (94D), but easily inferred.
Is a POLO COAT (44D) really a thing? Or is it just that the Polo Ralph Lauren brand includes coats? Green paint? Or green paint adjacent?
Not anagrams. They are just made of the same letters, but sometimes different numbers of those letters.
DeleteAlso, Regina King is a treasure and has been in some wonderful movies. Next time you have a free evening, take a look at her filmography.
Very likely way more than you wanted to know about polo coats:
Deletehttps://putthison.com/polo-coats-despite-what-people-say-it-doesnt-get/
PINS B4 SSNS B4 SOLI
DeleteA waste of my precious Sunday morning time. Fortunately a very little amount of that time.
ReplyDeleteThoughts after reading the constructor's notes:
ReplyDeleteSo, first came the inspiration – finding actors’ names whose letters were in other famous people’s names. That’s bringing letter-bank themes, which have been done before, to a new place. Excellent idea!
Then came the grind – inputting hundreds of actor’s names into a program that found pairs of names that worked, and hoping to find names with letter counts that would make the answers symmetrical in the grid.
After that, came more inspiration, coming up with a punny revealer that landed perfectly.
Finally, more work – making it all work in a Sunday-sized grid.
Oh, I’m grateful, Daniel, for a fun romp through this puzzle, and I love how the theme not only helped fill in the theme answers, but it caused me to think in a different and fun way to get from the clue name to the answer name.
But I’m also grateful for all you put into the making of this. It sure paid off for me. Thank you, sir!
Enjoyed this a bit more than @REX; found it medium overall, but couldn't finish.... the eponymous film character, to me, was clearly gARP and once I had that in, I thought a PGA green was a type of green.... the PGA play on greens, right??? But just couldn't see that EARP was also an option there. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteSame!! Even while saying to myself, “But I’m positive that was Robin Williams!” But PGA seemed unimpeachable.
DeleteA Sunday sized mess of trivia-based anagrams or anagrams adjace - what could possibly go wrong? Take me now Lord.
ReplyDeleteSatin summer nights
A girl I can't forget
Whoa you're the smile of the moon Bernadette
@Son Volt, I suspect that, if Rex had one of his periodic "short write-up today" intros, what you wrote would have fit the bill.
DeleteHaven't completed in under 20 minutes in a long time. It wasn't a record but it was a romp. Agree with Rex: way too easy, like a Monday - but what regular puzzler wants a Sunday with twice as many gimmes where the theme never needs to be unravelled to complete.
ReplyDeleteI finished about a third of this and decided to go do something fun instead.
ReplyDeleteCouldn’t agree more,put it aside even after getting half way.
DeleteNever caught the connection…ugh.
I'm guessing I'm not the only one who confidently slapped in SSNS for [Unshared numbers].
ReplyDeleteMe too. What is “soli”? I’m still confused.
DeleteSoli as in the plural of solo, aka a song/number you sing along.
DeletePlural of solo
DeleteCrossword-ese for “solos,” moments where one voice, not a chorus or choral section, gets to sing alone.
DeleteI had to look it up. It refers to musical pieces performed by a single musician or singer known as solos. The plural form is soli
DeletePlural of “solo” I guess.
DeleteGary, where is your rant about this? Since you hate it when people distinguish between singular/plural o/i endings for panino/panini, I assumed solo/soli would get you going as well!
DeleteRex is in a geberous mood today! This is one of the dumbest Sunday puzzles ever published. Do they just have a different editor for Sundays??
ReplyDeleteIt’s not necessarily that he’s being ‘geberous.’ It’s more likely he just has a different opinion from you.
DeleteI found the puzzle quite charming, if not also too easy.
As Ice Man exclaims when Maverick does not engage, "I knew it!!" -- That is, I knew Rex would be all over this one. Essentially a bunch o' anagrams, but I can see it was a bit of work to suss out all of these. OK, the stars didn't quite all align... but I have no issues with thinking of Matisse as a star.
ReplyDeleteEDYS, ERA, DECO, ESSO, TSK, BRA, EEL, ADES,... oof.
ILLFED... ugh. I'm a pediatrician, and no one has ever referred to a poorly nourished child as ILLFED.
I know Temu! -- Never shopped there, but my father does.
In the end, I thought this was fun and breezy, but agree the fill was a WEEBIT wanting.
Ill-fed makes a number of appearances in English literature. Think Dickens and his descriptions of the poor. And Forster, I think. Something about an ill-fed boy who doesn't stay for tea. There are probably more.
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteInteresting idea, would've been neater if the names were direct anagrams, as in, same number of letters each used once, but that's probably not too common enough.
On the easy side, not the easiest ever here. Did finish error free. Yay me!
A Name Theme, those who don't like a ton of names in puzs, well, sorry for this one. It seems the fill itself was restrained some from additional names. (Not name free, mind you, but doesn't seem as many as normally would be. [Unless I'm mistaken, which is a good possibility.])
My name anagrams to Randi Viral, sounds like either a wrestler, or porn star. Har.
Overall good puz.
Hope y'all have a great Sunday!
Six F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I agree with Rex but thought that the fill was slightly better than he did.No fun.(I’m not sure that prawns and giant shrimps are the same). No đfor me.
ReplyDeleteNot easy at all, due to a fact that Rex seems to overlook. The answers sometimes add letters not in the clue. Babe Ruth has two bs, but the clue (Bea Arthur) has one. Same with Elaine Stritch (two E's, while the clue has only one). I grokked that it was anagrams, but the answers seemed not to actually derive from the clue. Was there some other thing going on? apparently not - just names that were CLOSE to an anagram from the clue. WTF? I have never heard of Elaine Stritch as well - so once we're adding letters not in the clue, it might have been Ostritch for all I knew. Extremely unpleasant.
ReplyDeleteYes, I also thought there must be more to the theme, like "Use all of the letters except the double letters" or something like that. But then I realized it was just "Use some of the same letters and add more of some of them." Blah.
DeleteThe answer name uses the same letters but not the same number of each letter as the clue name.
DeleteI'm with you on this. Never heard of Elaine Stritch, nor Regina King. Names were not anagrams either, just letters in common. Big whoop. Found this puzzle way, WAY more difficult than usual, too much trivia, not enough fun.
Delete@Anon 11:59, I totally agree with "too much trivia, not enough fun".
DeleteGuessing that while that the intention here was that you would find known individuals in the names of real stars. But that left me a little flat as the answers just seemed kind of random, an artist, a boxer, a baseball player, a musician. Given the theme of recurring characters…well I don’t even know how to finish this thought. Too easy for a Sunday for sure. I did have a couple of wobbles - SSNs instead of SOLI and CROSSWALK instead of CROSSROAD. But other than that pretty quick.
ReplyDeleteI resumed solving today after a brief hiatus and would have done well to take another day off. I really don’t understand the point of this one - just taking someone’s name and rearranging the letters to get another person’s name (not even rearranging, really - more like just reusing them) ?
ReplyDeleteI’m really at a loss for words - so Marlon Brando and Orlando Bloom share the same letters - who cares ? Oh well, so I wasted a few minutes that could have been spent sleeping in late this morning. No big deal, but boy - it may seriously be time for Will to pass the torch. This is just sad.
Easy enough, glad I solved on line instead of printing this one because it made it faster. HENRIMATISSE, who showed up early, was not much help as all the other anagrams, well maybe not BABERUTH, but he was in some films, I think, are either tv or movie people although possibly not. I'm unfamiliar with the work of REGINAKING and BRIELARSON but that's just me. I think.
ReplyDeleteToday I met NADIIYA and ALANA, a pleasure I'm sure. I never know which version of AMONRA will be required and I refreshed my memory of how to spell KNIEVEL and REEBOK. Also, haven't seen a TBAR at a ski area in a long time. Maybe they're still out there somewhere.
OK if too easy Sunday. Mostly it dealt with people I don't really have an interest in but I'm sure some do. On to the next thing.
Thanks to everyone for the anniversary shout outs yesterday. I often refer to long ago crossword terms as old friends, but I also think of a lot of you who have been contributors for years as old friends too. I look forward to your comments every day, and thanks again.
Wow, that was a lot of names. I'm kind of lost, at sea, reeling. Wow.
ReplyDeleteVinos just ruined this puzzle for me. First 5 minutes of an introduction to Italian class would teach you that. Just replace CVS with CDs and give us Dino’s.
ReplyDeleteThe clue is similarly offensive with “e” as the conjunction. See also LIRAS, which is not something you’ll hear anyone say in Turkey.
DeleteBut then SOLI and BIENNIA. This puzzle just reeked of “get it over the line” sloppiness.
Any puzzle that includes Funny Girl gets a Greatest Star ranking from me.
ReplyDeleteWay too easy for sure. Love the shout out for the Pennebaker documentary on the “Company” cast album. An entertainment for the ages!
ReplyDeleteThat was very unpleasant. I kept going in hopes things would get better, but no such luck.
ReplyDeleteA puzzle where the clues and the answers are all proper names. Great. It's not even anagrams. Its just "two sort of famous people whose names use the same letters. Good luck if you don't know these people!".
ReplyDeleteGrumpy cow's pronouncement: MOUE.
ReplyDeleteMissed opportunity: Should have had "chicken" traversing CROSSROAD.
Pakistani double-breasted menswear: Yak polo coats
I combined 84A (ELAINE STRICH) with 122A (IN ON TIME) and came up with a Strich in time. But then I combined SAL MINEO with ELLA Fitzgerald and almost came down with salmonella.
What should I tell the ABRASIVE salesman from Sanyo? SAYNO.
Operatic song about Arizona and Iowa: ARIA ARIA.
Heading on God's memo to Adam: REEVE.
I took a turn for the worse when I put UEY down for UIE.
It's odd there aren't more famous Donnas, as RP noted. The only other one that came to mind for me was Donna Reed from her (very) old TV show.
How about Donna Karan?
DeleteOr Richie Valens massive hit Donna?
Donna Dixon, Donna Shalala ( for those of you who lean blue) Donna Mills for those of us who were red-blooded biys in the 80s.
Strange to me that people think Rex has expertise outside of literatute or the puzzle.
None of those fit, but keep going…
DeleteDonna Reed on tv? Sure, had her pwn show.
DeleteBut shid win an Academy Award and is of course the love interest in the most famous Christmas movie of all time.
They fit liveprof’s false claim .
DeleteAnon (10:26): According to the Dictionary of Silly Words, the preferred spelling is "literatoot." Also, Donna Shalala was the President of Hunter College (CUNY) when I started teaching there in 1986. I recall very fondly her welcoming us newcomers aboard. Thanks for the memory!
Delete@Liveprof, good stuff today. Way more entertaining than the puzzle, as many have observed.
DeleteLet's not forget Bella and Ma. My (false) claim rests on my subjective view that the other Donnas, as worthy as they all are, for sure, are a notch down, fame-wise, from DONNA SUMMER. But surely YMMV as we like to say.
DeleteSo many names. Even in the non-theme clues. If I wanted this type of puzzle I would have done People’s crossword. Not for me…
ReplyDeleteNames, names, names. Could not be bothered after a while.
Delete17:55 for me which may be near record time. Agreed it was too easy. I noticed all of the NYTimes puzzles were very easy today - perhaps a coordinated effort to bring in new subscribers?
ReplyDeleteI don't like "unscramble the letters" puzzles - as if we're going to painstakingly move letters around hoping to find somebody? If you're like me, you'll just get enough down answers to see if a recognizable name emerges and then fill it in. Not sure the fun in that.
This puzzle felt easy, so I was wondering why the on-line timer said 1:17; then I remembered that I took a break in the middle to go downstairs, get some coffee, and got a start on cleaning up the kitchen. So it was easy enough, even with a lot of problems in the cluing. It would be tedious to go through them all, but POLO COATS? They were all the rage in the 1920s, but not so much today. So not so much that my first web search hits were all Ralph Lauren. When I finally found them, I learned that they were camel-hair (or wool and camel hair) topcoats, NOT necessarily double-breasted--originally they were wrap coats, with a belt but no buttons. And the characteristic feature of SCALPing is not that it is illegal--it may not be--but that the price is raised by an outrageous amount.. I could go on, but won't.
ReplyDeleteOK, the theme. just not enough constraints to make it interesting. The theme answers are not anagrams, as has been pointed out. They are also not really letter banks (a type of cryptic clue allegedly invented by Will Shortz), as the clues for those should not have repeated letters. All that's OK--this isn't a cryptic, so does not have to follow those rules. But it does make it a little less interesting. The real problem is that the answer doesn't have any limits, other than that it is a name. I got HENRI MATISSEO first and thought, OK, movie stars becoming artists. But then DONNA SUMMER? OK, she's a musical star, I guess. But EVEL KNIEVEL? GEORGE FOREMAN? Now it was just "people I might or might not have heard of." That's just too lax a theme, IMO.
One more thing--as far as I can find out, JAFAR. is unique to the Disney version of Aladdin, a consolidation of two different characters in the tale: the vizier and the sorcerer. I think the clue needs some Disney indicator.
I just looked at yesterday's comments, and apparently I've forgotten how to post links. My apologies to everyone; I'll review the instructions before I try that again.
ReplyDeleteTemu is (sadly) massive. It’s also used as an insult for low quality, like “the USA Today xw is the Temu NYTXW.”
ReplyDeleteDid no one including Rex notice the error? The cinephile channel is TCM, not TMC!
ReplyDeleteOh he noticed, he’s just tired of talking about it every time it happens đ
DeleteThe Movie Channel. Turner Classic Movies. Both exist. Or existed.
DeleteThe other error is at 81A: Rite Aid liquidated all assets and sold their name to a company that uses the name, but only does online blood tests. As far as I know, CVS does not do online blood tests, so they don't compete with the current form of Rite Aid. I agree that Rite Aid used to be a rival of CVS, but that's not true today.
DeletePretty easy puzzle
ReplyDeleteBut if someone fed you all the answers it would take about 8 minutes just to fill in the squares so Rex saying he did this puzzle in under 8 minutes is a real load of crock.
Hi, I can see why that time would seem impossible to you but if you’ve ever known any top speed solvers, you know that a time in the 7s is pretty average for them. Maybe on the slow side.
DeleteI periodically see comments like this, and people just aren't doing the math. 21 x 21 grid = 441 total squares. However, 78 of those are black, thus no need to type in a letter. 441 - 78 = 363 spaces to fill. Because words have different lengths, typing 'WPM' (words per minute) speed is based on characters typed divided by five (every five characters = one word for WPM purposes). 363/5 = 72.6 typing 'words.'
DeleteA quick search shows that "average" typing speed is about 40 WPM, so even an 'average' typist would take less than two minutes to fill in the grid if they were given the answers, not eight minutes. At least one website that seems reputable says that "Skilled touch typists reach 60–80 WPM, professional typists 80–100+ WPM, and the fastest typing speed ever recorded is 216 WPM." Easy to believe; when I took typing and was in good practice, I was consistently around 80 WPM (even today being a bit slow, I often have people think I'm faking when I type because they don't think people can go that fast).
When I first started solving, there was no way I was typing anywhere near those speeds because I had to think too much, but with lots of practice (according to my stats page, over 3,800 NYT puzzles completed, and that doesn't count hundreds/thousands of New Yorker puzzles, and a few others mixed in) I've improved a lot. Some days still stump me, but my best ever NYT time is sub-two-minute Monday. It isn't small amount of crock, much less a real load of it!
Rex is beyond making (stuff) up to show off. This was so easy that our pen was in action as fast as we could read the clues. No guess as to our time, but I could see an expert and champion XW time solver completing this puzzle that quickly.
DeleteMinimal joy, but minimal investment in time; STASiS achieved.
Different genre, but have you ever seen someone solve a Rubik's cube in under 5 seconds? Then calculate the moves/second that are required.
DeleteThe best in the world are really at a whole other level than the rest of us.
I remember in college when the beautiful senior girl wouldn't go out with me, claiming "I AMONRA duty every night. Sorry."
ReplyDeleteI think that a magician who can't remember the "cadabra" part is ABRASIVE.
Nice to see PATIO back for a second straight day, even if it's without her furniture.
Wasn't GIGI the sequel to GI Jane? Where Jane hooks up with Private Benjamin?
Let's use OCCAMs Razor to select the simplest explanation that correctly accounts for all the known facts:
1. This was the best Sunday puzzle that Shortz and crew had on hand.
2. This was the only Sunday puzzle they had on hand.
3. Shortz' judgement is deteriorating and no one wants to tell him
4. This is a decent puzzle, well within the normal enjoyment range.
5. The constructor has some dirt on Shortz.
Not sure which one best explains the known facts, but thanks, Daniel Grinberg.
HA HA HA!!!
DeleteNowhere near a record for me, because of one small section. I have never heard of Elaine Stritch or MOUE, and couldn't infer TUDE. Couldn't get DEMON as a cross, either.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of too easy, I, for fun, printed a random Friday puzzle from the 2000 nyt archives. It kicked my ass. It was way harder than current Friday puzzles. So if you want some challenge, go there.
ReplyDeleteI've been printing out archived Friday/Saturday puzzles from the '90s. (They go back as far as 1993.) Eye-opening. Back then, Saturday was often a DNF for me. I figured I've just gotten better at crosswords, but the real reason is that those puzzles were killers!
DeleteI knew 5 of the names and knew how to spell 4 of them. Not so easy for me.
ReplyDeleteThis was cute. And very easy except for NADIYA. Could have run on a different day (Monday, Tuesday?) in a smaller (not a Sunday) grid. I'm guessing a lot of your bloggers will be up in arms about that today, Rex. I can take an easy Sunday so I'm not complaining - just surprised (NYT?).
ReplyDeleteThank you, Daniel :)
Pleasant enough way to linger over a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning, but short on fun I'd say. Bunch of famous people with letters rearranged to spell the names of other famous people. Most of them stars, some in movies, some unkown to me. Got the reveal way before all those names. But WEGOOD. All pleasant enough.
ReplyDeleteLearned Occam was a friar, not sure i knew that. And loved my SAABS. Learned to drive in my parents' 1963 3-cylinder with a lifetime guarantee on the engine. Had several through my own adulthood. Miss those.
And congratulations @pabloinnh. Somehow missed catching you yesterday.
Yeah, wondered about that (I kid, I kid) and thank you.
DeleteI’m with everyone who is saying that a Sunday-sized grid jam-packed with proper (theme clues and answers, in addition to the rest) was a bad idea to start with. And of course that means that there are no particularly long answers, so it’s a waste of the large grid. Not even @Lewis could cheer me up about this one.
ReplyDeleteThis one wasn't for me. Not the puzzle's fault - I just don't care for anagram-based (or, it turns out, letter-bank-based) crossword themes.
ReplyDeleteDe gustibus non disputandum est. Mixed reviews today, but I recognize I am giving a minority report...I thought this puzzle was STELLAR! It ticked all the boxes for me except hilarity, but I'll award it five stars anyway.
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost, no naticks. Se indly, while I too generally dislike themes that consist of PPP, the personalities involved in this one are famous enough that even I am familiar with most of them. The bonus was that the one word not in my vocabulary, MOUE, belongs there, so I learned something useful. Kudos!
As @Lewis notes this is quite a feat of construction. I agree but the solving was not that much fun. I was able to get all the names (some I never heard of) after making sense of some weird crosses, including the use of “ONE” for a Roman “I”. Wound up finishing in the middle trying to make sense of DEMON, MOUE, and TUDE. Sometimes it’s fun just wandering in the woods of the big Sunday grid, but this time not so much.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind an easy Sunday if it's sparkly and fun, but this not-really-anagrams puzzle with not-really-what you'd-call "stars" names fell flat for me. I was sure there must be more to the theme, but...no.
ReplyDeleteI ran into few problems; I thought double-breasted pieces of menswear should be peacoats, so my pea problem had to do with that rather than with the color green. But I changed it to POLOCOATS quickly enough. Otherwise, TEMU was a WOE for me but I got it easily from the crosses.
Rex, Genevieve Bujold is reason enough to watch any movie, so I'm watching "Coma" tonight. Thanks!
The only unknown for me was the extreme NW 'J'.
ReplyDeleteRex, why is there no Rant about "Soli"? Soli is not a word in any sense. The answer is "Solos". Has this been used before? I hope Crosswords aren't going down the path of Scrabble, with made up words.
ReplyDeleteProper nouns are bad, a puzzle based on them is worse. Anagrams are bad, not even anagrams is worse.
ReplyDeleteI don't like Sunday puzzles... Maybe NYT could just change the big ass Sunday into two Saturdayish puzzles? Now that would be fun...
ReplyDeleteGood and clever. Names were all familiar other than Norman Reedus. I know they call Hakeem Jeffries Temu Obama. Never bothered to check why. Now I know.
ReplyDeleteI’m with @Rex today over on the dark side. Sooo tedious, tooo easy, nooo clever theme or clues. The bright spot was remembering ELAINESTRITCH. Along with Hermione Gingold, those are CHARACTER actresses with talent and voices I’ll never forget.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that on the same day this was so easy, CONNECTIONS was also one of the easiest ever with an unheard of 97% solve rate. Guessing which obvious category would be purple was the hardest part...
ReplyDeleteLotsa interestin reactions to this puz. Well, hey -- I thought the puztheme revealer was pretty darn neat.
ReplyDeletePlus, no matter what, you gotta admit it has the followin goin for it:
1. A very different, hard to construct [without AI], puztheme.
2. It ain't too likely now, that another puz will ever unleash this particular theme upon ye.
staff weeject pick: JAH. Not a weeject that shows up often in the puz.
Some fave stuff: WEGOOD. SQUARE clue. RICH [cuz of its Uncle Scrooge reference]. OHREALLY. FUNNYGIRL. GIGI clue.
M&A's additional [runtpuz-sized] themers: OTTO & AMANDA*.
Thanx for that whole new take on aliases, Mr. Grinberg dude. Tho not a real grin-bringer for @RP, I reckon.
Masked & Anonymo8Us
p.s.
* OTTO = TOTO. AMANDA = M AND A.
p.p.s.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
I notice that some posts have been deleted. "Comments removed by author". How do you do that? Once I know, I'll remove this one.
ReplyDeleteI was more impressed at first when I thought they were acronyms, instead of simply related by a "letter bank" :-/
ReplyDeleteOops, anagrams :-D
ReplyDeleteApropos of nothing in particular to do with this puzzle, but has there been any talk about creators using AI assistance in building their puzzles? It’s a cynical idea I realize, but I wondered if it might explain inconsistencies that I’ve been noticing lately within individual puzzles, where the caliber and cleverness of clues run the gamut. As if there were different “authors” when only one is credited.
ReplyDeleteRe 28A, My problem: biologically, shrimp and prawn are two different species. A “jumbo shrimp is not a prawn”. I understand that the two terms are used interchangeably for culinary purposes and so have to shrug but it still irks.
ReplyDeleteWould it have hurt the clue to add culinary? I’ll go sulk.
How do you make Sunday even worse of a slog? Make the theme all names, clued by other names! Then, add a ton of other names for the non themers. Brutal! The Unknown Names for me here: NORMAN REEDUS, REGINA KING, ELAINE STRITCH, NADIYA, TEMU, ALANA. Just no joy in this at all.
ReplyDeleteWow. This was actually a tough one for me because of all the names I didn’t know. I finally had my first DNF in two years when I had to Google to correct the (for me) Natick of JAFAR JAH. I had rAFAR rAH. But so it goes …
ReplyDeletePretty easy but I stumbled on the 4-letter Oscar winner. I was sure it was ROMA, but that won Best *Foreign Language* picture in 2019.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who doesn't know many celebrities (current and older), this wasn't that easy for me.
ReplyDeleteSomehow convinced myself Kevin Costner played ‘Garp’ and the ‘PGA’ has anything to do with green.. added a couple extra minutes to my solve time tracking down the offending square
ReplyDelete