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Nonmedical childbirth assistant / WED 9-23-26 / Jay's reticent partner of filmdom / Carnival diversion requiring precision / Music genre named for its voluminous dos / Instrument also called the "sprightly companion" / Brand acquired by Hasbro / Super Mario character with a mushroom for a head
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Constructor: Dana Edwards
Relative difficulty: Easy
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| [3D: "Star Wars" series starring Diego Luna] |
Theme answers:
I don't mind a simple pun theme on a weekday, but the punniness here feels like a stretch most of the time. "THAT'S FAIR GAME" works pretty well for BALLOON POP, which is, in fact, a game one might find at a fair, but you wouldn't say "THAT'S FAIR GAME" about OPEN SEASON, exactly. It's like one word is missing each time: "that's a fair game" for BALLOON POP; "that means fair game" for OPEN SEASON (which I believe is where the phrase "fair game" comes from in the first place). SPORTSMANSHIP has maybe the wonkiest relationship to the revealer of all. "Those people played a fair game"? Is that the idea? Also, playing fairly and displaying SPORTSMANSHIP feel like two different things to me. I have to mentally torture the revealer phrase a bit to make it apply properly to the themers, and ... I guess I don't really like mentally torturing things. I also had no idea that the fair game in question was called a BALLOON POP. I guess it makes sense. That's literally what you do—make a balloon pop ... by shooting water in a clown's mouth? Am I thinking of the right game? No, wait, is it by throwing darts at a wall of balloons? Yeah, it looks like the latter is correct. What am I thinking of, with the freaky clown mouths? AH, YES, here we go—absolute nightmare fuel:
- SPORTSMANSHIP (20A: Honorable conduct on the field)
- OPEN SEASON (34A: When hunting restrictions are lifted)
- BALLOON POP (41A: Carnival diversion requiring precision)
Jay and Silent Bob are fictional characters portrayed by American actors Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, respectively. They appear in the View Askewniverse, a fictional universe used in most of the films, comics, and television programs written and produced by Smith. [...]The characters are shown spending most of their time selling marijuana in front of the convenience store in the Clerks films. In Clerks: The Animated Series, they were also shown selling illegal fireworks. [...]Silent Bob, portrayed by Kevin Smith, has a reticent nature, communicating mostly through gestures and facial expressions rather than speech. When he does speak, his comments are often poignant and insightful, providing critical reflections that influence the course of the narratives. Silent Bob is characterized by his long dark hair, beard, and a backwards baseball cap, and typically wears a long coat resembling a Jedi robe. Originally a smoker, the character has been shown to have quit in later films.
• • •
There's also apparently a ball-in-the-mouth variation, which is somehow worse:
 |
| ["Feed us, Billy!!!!"] |
No balloons in the ball-in-the-mouth version. No wonder clowns want to kill humans in so many horror movies. Look at the weird gagging-torture rituals we subject them to!
The fill on this one buckles and sags under the weight of very tired 3-4-5s, including two awkward -ED's (CCED, OKED), a counting partial (EENIE), and a classic kealoa* (ATAD) (not ABIT) (19A: Slightly), which (fittingly?) sits right underneath an answer whose clue contains an actual Loa (16A: Mauna Loa output). There's also a Charybdis-like vortex of awful, ambiguous two-letter hesitation syllables in the central SW, with the "OH" from "OH, IT'S ON" running smack into the "UH" from "UH, NO," which is itself adjacent to the "AH" in "AH, YES." You should really only be allowed one of those per grid. I think that "H" where "UH" meets "OH" took me longer to work out than anything else in the grid. I kept leaving it and coming back to it until I finally parsed "OH, IT'S ON." "UM, NO" seemed just as valid as "UH, NO," but "OM, IT'S ON" would really only work at an improbably violent meditation retreat.
Bullets:
- 14A: Covid-19, colloquially ('RONA) — this cutesy name for the disease makes my skin crawl every time it comes up. I never thought I'd say this, but just bring back '70s gossip columnist RONA Barrett.
- 4D: Music genre named for its voluminous dos (HAIR METAL) — best answer in the grid. Most entertaining, anyway. I definitely got the double-disc Monster Ballads compilation when it came out in the late '90s. It hadn't even been ten years since HAIR METAL "died" (I guess Grunge killed it?), but the nostalgia was already in full effect.
- 31D: Meshed (with) (JIBED) —GIBED, JIVED, JIBED ... I'm truly hopeless in this arena.
- 24A: On-schedule (TIMELY) — this doesn't work. "TIMELY" is far looser and more abstract than "on-schedule." Trains can be on time, but they're not "TIMELY."
- 62A: Instrument also called the "sprightly companion" (OBOE) — ok, what? By whom? I dare you to call it that in regular conversation (you know, all the regular conversations you have about OBOEs).
- 11D: One preferring purrs to pooches (CAT PERSON) — OK, first of all, that clue is terrible. Where's the parallel construction!? "Purrs" are an animal sound, whereas "pooches" are the animal itself. Really … ruff. Your alliteration is not worth it! Second, I am very much a CAT PERSON (in that I own and love cats) but this has absolutely no relationship to my feelings about dogs, whom I also generally adore. I talk to every dog I see, even if I only see it out the car window. But then again I pretty much talk to every animal I see, even if it's on the television. "Buddy!" "Hey, buddy." "Look at that buddy!" I'll say. Anyway, I do not get these "preference" people. No need to make the denigration of other species part of your identity. Justice for all buddies! ("buddy" and "missy" are just the most common of the 1,001 things I call Alfie and Ida, respectively). Here's a little visual short story to give you some indication of what I'm dealing with here every day:
That's all. See you next time.
*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] => ATON or ALOT, ["Git!"] => "SHOO" or "SCAT," etc.
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87 comments:
Easy-Medium. @Rex described very well what I didn't like about this puzzle.
* * _ _ _
Overwrites:
At 1A, so-so before BLeH before BLAH x 3D Star Wars movie eNDOR before ANDOR.
HI rEs before HI DEF for the 22D resolution.
For kid around at 31A I had Josh before JEST.
WOEs:
I've never heard of the Star Wars movie ANDOR (3D). I know that eNDOR is part of the Star Wars universe.
Music genre HAIR METAL at 4D.
SILENT BOB at 33D, but I had it filled in from crosses before I read the clue.
ENBY as a short form of Non-Binary. (58A).
A midweek pun needs to go big - this one doesn’t. It works and fits fine but it’s just not chuckle worthy. I like the revealer.
I’m Your Puppet
Rex summarizes the overall fill nicely - up and down but smooth enough. HAIR METAL and ARE WE GOOD are the highlights. SILENT BOB was a fill in and SIESTAS was neat. MAESTRO is a Seinfeld classic. SILO back to back. LOUPE is crosswardese royalty.
A Woman Left Lonely
Lacking but pleasant enough Wednesday morning solve.
Dark End Of The Street
I expected Rex to rail against hunting being a FAIRGAME. The deer aren't armed.
Football season is back and so are the commentators talking about "those kinds of plays."
Seeing MAESTRO reminds me of that Seinfeld episode.
A little light on crunch and sparkle, but pleasant enough. Good puzzle.
Semi-fun and non-offensive (to me) Wednesday-appropriate puzzle.
Thanks for the cat pics, enjoyed the progression. Agree with Rex, the AH, OH, UM conundrums were a pain. Was also unfamiliar with HAIRMETAL and ENBY and SILENTBOB, and had to figure out BALOONPOP, so the entire SE was a tricky to deal with. Worked it out but not with a high degree of confidence.
Rex really nailed this one. From none of those things eliciting a comment of THAT'S FAIR GAME, to the weakness of CCED and OKED, to the awfulness of AH OH UH, to RONA.
Some nice long downs, but that's poor compensation for a wonky theme and fill.
My best moment was the “Hah!” that spontaneously flew out when I saw the “fair game” meaning for BALLOON POP.
And there were more sweet puzzle offshoots. With [Greek salad morsel], as I was cataloguing the possibilities, when I landed on OLIVE, I actually tasted one even though I wasn’t eating one, tasted that one-of-a-kind marvelous flavor.
With HERMITS, my brain shot back to that forever-ago group, Herman’s Hermits, and I remembered their catchy song, one II haven’t thought about in decades, “I’m Henry VIII, I Am”. I believe that song will be with me all day.
But listen to this from crossnerd me. Dana, the constructor, has a chance to make crossword history. This is his third Times puzzle, and they’ve come in order – Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Only one constructor (Andrew Ries) has hit the cycle (a puzzle for every day of the week) in their first seven puzzles, but no one has done it IN ORDER.
Go for it, Dana, and thank you for those sweet moments today!
Hey All !
DOoLA/oHNO my DNF today. OH NO!
Theme works in the ole brain.
SPORTSMANSHIP- THATS FAIR in a GAME.
OPEN SEASON - THATS FAIR GAME time
BALLOONPOP - THATS a FAIR GAME
OK, I can see Rex's point now, but still viable.
Anyway, enjoyable WedsPuz. 34 Blockers, more white areas than usual. Came in as easy.
shutInS- HERMITS, lgBt-ENBY, ova(!)-ROE, think that's it.
Time for this LOONY to skedaddle.
Hope y'all have a great Wednesday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
.
.
@rex -- That was one terrific review today. Entertaining, engagingly written, and with spot-on observations. This was top drawer.
The review was so much better than the puzzle, which was preposterously easy and rife with bad fill.
RONA? UH/OH? Er, um, ah NO, thanks.
Thanks, man 🙏
I’m looking askance at BALLOON POP as fair game and thinking I must be missing something. First, aren’t carnival games notorious for being unfair (adjusted sights, weighted throwing implements, misshapen hoops/clown mouths)? Second, if the only connection here is that Ballon Pop is a game, this seems like a very loose connection. There’ are easily dozens of possible games that would fit; why this one? What am I missing?
This fell a little short for me today, maybe not BLAH, but not terribly exciting. Any time I have to struggle between, umNO and OHNO, or HIres and HIDEF, the fun BALLOONPOPs a bit. The crosses didn't help much for either as DOULA is not front of Hugh's brain and neither was TOAD as clued (Mario who?? 😊). AHYES, while immediately gettable, added to my meh feeling.
While it fell a bit short, it was not without some high moments. The themers are all good words/phrases and fill the grid in nicely.
I loved seeing SILENTBOB. I'm a Kevin Smith fan and, while several of his movies still feel like an undergraduate film student's final project, the dialogue wows me every time I have occasion sneak a peak on whatever streaming platform happens to carry it.
I like CATPERSON as crossword fill very much, but very much agree with @Rex's take on the cluing and appreciate his angle on it. I never considered myself a CATPERSON, but I like cats just fine, and I like dogs, and bearded dragons, and ferrets... but reading @Rex's take on it, I *am* a cat person simply because I like animals, as he said, it has no relationship to how I feel about dogs or any other cool living beings that aren't human. I'll start my own little campaign to change the connotation of CATPERSON...
HAIRMETAL, while I'm a little tepid on the genre, is also good fill. AREWEGOOD is nice in-the-language stuff.
Thanks @Rex for the pet pics! But man, those clown shots are indeed what nightmares are made of (at least my nightmares). That's twice today I'm reminded of Seinfeld; the Maestro episode and the circus story where Kramer is afraid of clowns, I'll take that as a bit of a win.
Thank you for this Dana! While some of it wasn't my cuppa, there was a lot to like here!
“Improbably violent meditation retreat“ made me guffaw. Wish Nicole Kidman in Nine Perfect Strangers had used “OM it’s on” 🤣
Great review of an easy if unremarkable puzzle. Enjoyed the cat progression pics too.
@Conrad, AH YES to all of the above.
Totally agreed and thank you for the cat pictures, my two do this often as well 😂
Hey, the football isn't armed either!
Of all the crosswordese that is beginning to annoy me every time I see it, Atari is at the top of that list. I'm not sure the last time they've gone 3 days in a row without including it.
I would've sworn it was called eNDOR, BLeH, BLAH, eh. The OH... UH... AH... section annoyed me, not remembering the word DOULA didn't help there, which is which...
Fair is a noun here
I think the connection is that balloon pop is a game at a fair.
That’s bold to admit you owned the hair metal collection. But wear that retro mullet proudly…
Great write-up, Rex! I laughed aloud at least three times. I'm completely with you on the theme--you would not say those exact words about any of the theme answers. You might say it IN, rather than about, OPEN SEASON, as in "Is that a deer or a cow?" "A deer -- THAT'S FAIR GAME."
But I did admire the row of O words at OBOE OLIVE OKED. And I had great fun imagining bikini season in Bordeaux, which must be what they wear to pick the grapes -- or maybe to crush them under their feet in the old-fashioned way. I bet that would draw the tourists!
Rex, you should add a Mario counter to the Star Wars one.
Naticked on Andor - went with Endor (isn't that where the Ewoks were from?) and Bleh seemed as likely as Blah
Kitties made my day! Thank you!
Excellent review today Rex. You nailed my slight irritations with the puzzle very well.without “excoriation.”
Likewise, I’m also a bit stymied about the cat person v dog person label. I’ve had both and right now I have neither which makes me think I need to do something about that soon.
Good one today Mathgent! The deer aren’t armed….
ANDOR is a TV series - quite well written and produced, (but still Star Wars...)
AH YES, Football season - when grown, and highly paid, “announcers” get to spend 3-4 hours making absolute fools of themselves talking about players running “uphill” or “downhill” on a football field in order to result in a “positive” or “negative” play, which, btw, used to be called a gain or a loss. They also provide expert analysis regarding how players can “extend the play with their legs”, or throw a football into “a window” “with velocity” (when they mean speed). And of course, I don’t want to leave out one of my favorites, when they characterize a player as “giving a 110% effort”, which of course is a physical impossibility that most people are aware of by the age of 11. I realize that stupidity is pervasive in society, but none so more prevalent than for those 3 and 4 hour timeframes every NFL weekend.
I was about to go down that same rabbit hole myself - “fair game” would mean that your expected return is zero. For an even money bet, this would imply that you would win about as often as you would lose . . . If you play 10 games at a carnival, how many would you usually win, etc”. Rex made the point in his write up that these are simply games that appear frequently at state fairs and the like. Score one for OFL today.
EENIE meenie................is not a counting rhyme.
IMO, Rex was too generous with his rating, maybe by a full (not half) star.
BLAH at 1A was prescient. UH...AH...OH...all nearly contiguous. Pretty sure today will be OPEN SEASON for critics of this puzzle, with Rex leading the way.
My only enhancement to the write-up is to pile on and wonder what could possibly get someone to clue a disease that killed millions and inflicted worldwide financial hardship in a colloquial way, like it's a familiar nickname. Rex sarcastically called it cutesy; I call it just plain hideous.
Agree with @Lewis about one thing...a terrific write-up. It was without doubt the best thing about today's experience, and the best part of it was the kitty bookshelf photo shoot.
I think that if you are really, really bad you come back as a balloon pop clown.
I rather enjoyed different kinds of FAIR GAME in the three themers, the way both words changed meanings, but Rex’s observation about the awkwardness is still also…fair. And yes, today was quite a kealoa fest (assuming the various UM/OH/UH conundrums count). Not to mention that I spent some time wondering if [720+ pixel resolution, informally] was going to be HI RES or HI REZ, only to discover later that it was HI DEF. Now that I write it, I suppose it doesn’t count because I should have noticed that “resolution” was in the clue, so that one was on me.
It changes the meaning of “fair” to a synonym for “carnival” (just like OPEN SEASON changes the meaning of “game”). I didn’t see that at first, but liked it when I did.
That whole SW section was the highlight for me - you’ve got that SILENT BOB dude bifurcating the section and making things difficult to begin with. Cross it with another proper (DENALI) and we are starting to accumulate a nice stash of dark matter there. Toss AH YES, one of those “it could be one of a dozen colloquialisms” and we are off to the races. We can then really pile on with ETE, which is becoming crosswordese, and AH YES’s cousin UH NO - and then, for the cherry on top of it all, let’s just come up with the most ridiculous clue that we can for the simple four letter crossword mainstay OBOE and we are out of there. A completely harmless little corner completely laid to waste. Well done gentlemen.
I did take comfort when I was reminded that there are some mushroom heads out there named TOAD though.
ANDOR was in the puzzle in June. Both it and ENBY have been in the puzzle multiple times over the past few years.
CAT PERSON could also have been clued as the pretty good short story/bad movie that came out of it. Weirdly, I went on a date with the person who wrote/stole the CAT PERSON story, though thankfully it's not about me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Person
Also cringed so hard at RONA, ugh, and struggled at 31D because I had the J and decided JELED was...anything? Clearly not. That was literally my only moment of pause in the whole puzzle, which was otherwise Monday-easy for me and gave me a new PR for Wednesday solve time.
Lol to Rex’s cat progression pics. Classic.
Jeweler: These gems are so tiny!
Assistant: Canta LOUPE help?
Jeweler: Not that one -- it's an endless LOUPE.
DENALI + UH NO = Denial
The genderqueer individual was so jealous of the one-named singer that a therapist had to be engaged for the ENBY ENYA envy.
Payment for birthing services: Dollars for DOULAs; DOULA moolah.
Luciano, where can I put these pies to cool?
SILLS, Beverly.
*******
(Unrelated to the puzzle.) After Monday's dreadful loss and the injury to their QB, the Giant's head coach can't HARBAUGH any illusions about the rest of the season.
I agree with kitshef. No “ 🎈” for me.
Your star rating was too generous. I’d give it 1 1/2.
ENBY? A bit fringe for me
To pile on (football term), I find it interesting that we need panels of five people on three networks talking for two hours to explain what we are about to see, then further explaining it at halftime, then analyzing all we have just seen for an hour after the fact. How are we poor laymen ever expected to enjoy such a complicated spectacle?
I like cats ANDOR dogs. We've often had multiples of each simultaneously, although currently just two pooches.
Little known fact: The VAPEPEN is so-named because it first became widely used in the VirginiA Physical Education in the PENitentiary program.
I was at a pro wrestling match recently where The Credible Hulk (a very believable guy) knocked out Stony Balboa with a wok. They awarded him a PANKO.
Talk about a bad partial. What comes after HAIRM ET AL?
Pretty much with @Rex on this one. And thanks for the cat photos. I hate it when my dogs do the same thing in my bookshelves, but cats have license. FAIR-to-middlin' puzzle today. Thanks, Dana Edwards.
I've never seen "Clerks" but I have run into Jay and SILENT BOB so that went in easily. I had Rex's Om, IT'S ON at first and I love his image of a violent meditation retreat.
I was at a weird play this week where one character constantly VAPEd. I spent some time wondering if they VAPEd outside of this play and if there was a way to fake vaping during a performance or if you had to be actually vaping on stage.
Dana Edwards, I found your theme fun - it worked for me.
My wife is, per JD Vance (pejoratively), a "childless cat lady" thank gawd!! Does that mean I'm a "childless dog daddy"?
I was going to disagree with OFL's characterization of the revealer as a "stretch", but he got to "tortured" eventually, which is what I was thinking. I liked seeing SPORTSMANSHIP as both my boys got awards for that when playing high school sports. The BALLOONPOP themer reminded me that this is not a fair game, even though it happens at a fair, because the darts they give you are those flimsy plastic things that won't go where you throw them, which is maddening, and I should know because I even have a darts trophy, so there.
ENBY? No Bell rung there, and still haven't played any Mario. OH, AH? UMNO. I did like seeing the TIAS taking SIESTAS.
Good effort, DE, but Didn't Exactly land for me. Thanks for a medium amount of fun.
In CATPERSON news, our new rescue girl made the half-hour trip to meet her vet today. Not a peep either way, surprising, as she complained all the way home from the animal shelter. She settled in immediately, is a real love bug, and it seems like she has lived here a very long time. Also a sad day at the vet's as we brought home the ashes of Theo, our 22 year old.. Still miss him a lot.
Not so long ago ... September 18-19-20. But it is remarkable that we have had it three days in a row since. I wonder what the most obscure word appearing in the puzzle three consecutive days is? ATARI has to be a candidate.
Easy-medium.
No WOEs and UmNO before UHNO was it for costly erasures.
I’m with @kitshef on this one…the fine long downs don’t make up for the problems that @Rex covered. That said, I mostly liked it.
Rex: It’s always a treat to see pictures of Alfie & Ida. Thanks.
Nope nope. Didn't get it. Had to have @RP 'splain things to m&e. And even then, SILENTBOB remains a silent mystery. [Googled it just now. Some 2001 flick character, I reckon.]
Better HAIRMETAL clue, to give totally lost M&A a solvequest chance: {Curlers?} = HAIRMETAL. Act now! Save the precious nanoseconds! har
staff weeject picks: ETE TIA. Summer aunt, in other lands. Anagrams to EAT TIE.
fave stuff: All the creepy clown pics. The CATDRAMA series of pics.
The puz itself ... just didn't make my BALLOON POP. Hope a lotta folks still enjoyed it, tho. I do wanna be FAIR.
But, but -- DENALI was a neat hi-lite, since we were just cruisin Denali Park, a coupla weeks ago. Plus, did kinda like AREWEGOOD, too boot. [Yeah, we're still good, @Shortzmeister.]
Thanx for the game fare, Mr. Edwards dude. Sorry it weren't quite on my wavelength. Good for m&e to suffer occasionally, tho...
Masked & Anonymo2Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle that, actually, might not be any less weird:
**gruntz**
M&A
Fastest ever Weds solve for me. Played it like a themeless with zero resistance.
Re: Southside Johnny's first comment: Wasn't it George Will who said "Football combines two of the worst attributes of American life: violence, and committee meetings."
Love the cats on a bookshelf picture series! The last pic is just the most perfect thing. Also this line from the review: "No need to make the denigration of other species part of your identity."
So true! Why do we do that?
I really hate when I whoosh through a puzzle that I enjoyed only to have to find my typo (as usual).
Easy, but I liked it. Only WOE was SILENT BOB.
Great pics of the cats, Rex - thanks for sharing :)
Good call @Lynn. I've never understood why it gets clued that way.
Like others, undone by the fact that I know just enough about Star Wars to get me in trouble. I knew those Ewoks had something to do with a place called eNDOR, but I was totally unaware of eNDOR's kealoa companion ANDOR. And, has been mentioned earlier, BLeH seemed to work for me, perhaps a derivative of the classic Snoopy sound of disgust, BLeAH.
DAVinHOP. I, too, find it grating when someone someone says "rona" when referring to the corona virus but when was the last time you, or I, called another killer virus influenza rather than just "the flu"?
In crosswords: “…musical instrument …” + 4 letters = OBOE. e v e r y t I m e (unless for some strange reason a cross negates it but I don’t remember that happening).
This was easy-medium for me. I liked Hair metal and Silent Bob. I ignored the theme altogether.
Not a cat person at all but loved your pics (much more than the puzzle).
RP: I feel exactly the same way about never opting to choose which Pet I prefer. That said, from one CAT PERSON to another, I loved the feline pictorial this morning.
The puzzle? Not bad at all but kind of a Tuesday-ish Wednesday
Last night I finished the puzzle, read the revealer, and could not for the life of me figure out what the theme was doing. I guess it was too late in the evening; sometimes I should leave it until morning.
RONA... is the name of the biggest hardware chain store in Canada. They should expand to the US just so we can have a different clue for it.
Oh and 58 across was accepted in Monday's Spelling Bee.
I'm sure that doing yesterday's lovely Stevie Wonder puzzle earlier this morning, and llistening to Songs in the Key of Life while doing this one, contributed to it feeling very meh. To me, there was just no sparkle, and certain answers, like OH IT'S ON (who has ever said that?), fell flat.I haven't heard the term RONA in years, haven't heard of HAIR METAL, have no idea who SILENT BOB is, don't know ENBY. Just not in my wheelhouse, I guess.
What is ENBY ?
@lodsf: We get LYRE and LUTE all the time.
I agree OBOE should be the first guess, but there's also the occasional horn, tuba, lute, lyre and drum.
Never have I been so closely aligned with Rex. I originally thought BALLOON POP involved throwing darts at a wall of balloons. But then I saw those pictures Rex posted and thought, what the hell?, that’s something from a horror film. I’ve never seen that before and I’m no stranger to amusement parks. Then I re-read his comments and realized I might have been right in the first place. But those clowns! Yuck!
I found that the clue/answer relationship didn’t always land and the OH, UH, AH thing was annoying.
As for the dog vs cat person dichotomy, it’s just dumb. Maybe someday - when cats have taken over the world, it will be historically and taxonomically important but, for now, it’s not; they’re both great. I’ve had dogs all my life, and a few cats, too. Even had them at the same time. Loved them all.
Presently, we are dog people because a) I have developed some sort of allergy to cat dander and b) on our small farm, nightly prowled by coyotes, a cat is just prey. I suppose I could just keep one in the house, never letting it out , like a prisoner denied nature, but that seems sad to me. For all you people who have, for practical reasons, indoor felines, I think I understand.
But then there’s litter boxes.
Despite my long career as a professional orchestral musician (not an OBOE player) I had never heard it referred to this way. Turns out the Sprightly Companion was a collection of marches and the first method book published for the oboe. (John Banister, 1695)
And The Sprightly Companions is the name of a fine double reed trio with two Baroque oboes and a bassoon.
Thanks @Rex, your visual short story reminded me of of my last two - Lizzie the Calico was the stalker and Eudora the Tuxedo cat the long-suffering stalkee. Thankfully Eudora outlived Lizzie and was able to enjoy her last year or so ruling the roost and playing with Kaya the malamute.
I understand the objections to the OHUHAH pileup (loved OFL’s description and his winding path to the “improbably violent meditation retreat!”), but for me, AH, YES was a highlight because it brought to mind Maurice Chevalier singing “I Remember It Well.”
I know many posters here solve via an app other than the NYT app (and some are paper solvers), but am I the only one to notice the major change to the NYT app today (active square highlighted in yellow, and the border of the active cell is much thicker than 'normal'; the word you're working on is highlighted in blue [aside from the active cell, of course, which I just described])??? Major change, I'll probably get used to it, but it was a bit disorienting today.
ENBY = NB (kind of like spelling out GEE TEE instead of GT); NB = non-binary
Despite not knowing SILENT BOB, ENBY, or TOAD, or what kind of team Thunder is, or even BALLOON POP - and despite the abundance of hesitation letter combos - which are not words - this puzzle was my all-time fastest Wednesday.
Thanks for the cat photos.
I think everyone is missing the Balloon Pop thing. Reading the actual clue it says “free to criticize…” I took that as meaning to “pop” someone’s balloon as a mistaken idea or opinion. The carnival fair take just doesn’t make sense to me.
The last time RONA came up it got a big negative reaction. So I expected Rex’s comment . Cutesy? Inappropriate for such a serious issue? From corona An exact parallel to flu which is of course from influenza. Which killed millions of people around 1918 and tens of thousands every year. So essentially what’s the real difference? RONA hasn’t really caught on So RONA is more an only in crossworld thing (Maybe RONA is an online thing? I wouldn’t have a clue).
@ Hugh. It’s so nice to know there are a few other Silent Bob fans out there. I have been a Kevin Smith fan for a long time. We need people willing to make “an undergraduate film student's final project”, every once in a while. Why not? They can be funny, witty, even quite brilliant. Like Kevin Smith’s movies.
I keep a constantly fluctuating top ten movie list somewhere in the back of my mind. Movies come and go, change positions, but Dogma seems to hold steady between #3 and #5. Love that movie. So unusual. So “off the rails”. So likely to piss off people - it basically takes a satirical pick axe to religion - that it was weirdly ever able to get made.
Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Salma Hayek, the wonderful Linda Fiorentino, the late, great Alan Rickman, and, yes, Alanis Morissette as God. And, of course, Jason Mewes as Jay and Kevin Smith as Silent Bob. This film will never slide out of my top ten.
(I'm still trying to deal with Last Tango in Paris. Bertolucci: great director. Brando: great actor. Paris: best setting ever. And that scene when Brando and Schneider pass each other on the bridge is so good. But how do I process the way they "f**ked over" Maria Schneider. I like art to be free of encumbances, but it should be doing damage to ideas, not real people. So I guess I'm moving that out of my top ten.)
I think the "Sprightly Companion" is more of a historical reference. It's the title of an early instructional book on how to play the hautboy (the early version of the oboe). Nahum Tate's "Sound the Trumpet", which may be best known for its setting by Purcell around the same time, contains the line "on the sprightly hautboy play".
Hugh. About HI -res
In FAIRness to the puzzle resolution was in the clue so had to be HIDEF.
Anonymous 8:24 AM
That’s it! I couldn’t remember what made me really laugh His Om joke. Hysterical. In the middle of one of his best rants.
Also the cat photo sequence was fascinating.
DENALi
Is not just geographical trivia
Trump who like all dictators (in his case wannabe) politicizes everything, has issued an executive order calling it Mt McKinley
I believe Alaska doesn’t agree. So it has been in the news. And it is the highest American peak.
It's harder than you might think to POP a BALLOON with a dart, especially at a carnival/FAIR GAME where the point of the dart is apt to be dull and the BALLOON made with extra thick rubber.
Because the BALLOON is so light weight, you have to hit it dead center or it will simply deflect away and the dart will stick harmlessly in the back board. That's where the "precision" in the clue comes into play.
I'm a decent dart player and tried the BALLOON POP GAME several times at our yearly county FAIR. I don't recall ever getting one to POP. When I complained to the guy that the dart tips were dull, he said it was to comply with safety regulations, I thought
AH YES, UH...NO.
I did like the puzzle better than many. I had no problems with the theme. But I would have to agree that Rex’s review was the highlight. He was in top form.
I don’t see how someone just saying I am a dog person or I am a CATPERSON denigrates the other animal. That’s definitely reading too much into the terms.
Sock it to ‘im (top drawer :)
I *AM* an oboist and I can assure you that we do not say that.
came here looking specifically to see if it was driving anyone else bonkers! I did NOT enjoy this and I'm hoping people riot enough that they change it back? The box being thicker cuts off the letters above/below the one that's highlighted, and it really threw my timing off when I couldn't always suss right away what the letter before my empty square was. Hated it. Thank you for also noticing - thought I was going a bit nuts.
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