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Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: José MARTÍ (9A: Cuban poet/philosopher José) —
José Julián Martí Pérez (Spanish: [xoˈse maɾˈti]; 28 January 1853 – 19 May 1895) was a Cuban nationalist, poet, philosopher, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the liberation of his country from Spain. He was also an important figure in Latin American literature. He was a political activist and is considered an important philosopher and political theorist. Through his writings and political activity, he became a symbol of Cuba's bid for independence from the Spanish Empire in the 19th century and is referred to as the "Apostle of Cuban Independence". From adolescence on, he dedicated his life to the promotion of liberty, political independence for Cuba, and intellectual independence for all Spanish Americans; his death was used as a cry for Cuban independence from Spain by both the Cuban revolutionaries and those Cubans previously reluctant to start a revolt. [...] Martí was killed in battle against Spanish troops at the Battle of Dos Ríos, near the confluence of the rivers Contramaestre and Cauto, on 19 May 1895. [...] The death of Martí was a blow to the "aspirations of the Cuban rebels, inside and outside of the island, but the fighting continued with alternating successes and failures until the entry of the United States into the war in 1898". (wikipedia)
[statue of MARTÍ in Havana]
• • •
I realized as I was solving this how much I had missed *fun*. There was almost no point of this puzzle when I wasn't having *fun*. Not only were there many entertaining marquee answers, but the cluing was playful too—not terribly difficult, most of the time, but slyly misdirective or cheekily vague or otherwise humming. Two days ago we got a puzzle where all the clues seemed out of a box (a musty box) and here, most of them feel like care was put into them. You gotta have some straightforward stuff so people can get their toe- and/or footholds, but otherwise, yeah, liven things up a bit, it's nice! The second bank of marquee answers was almost as good as the first. A FEEL-GOOD MOVIE followed by TAROT READINGS does sound like a nice date night. Might even put you on CLOUD NINE. The marquees at the bottom were my least favorite of the bunch, and they were still like an 8/10. And the great thing about the puzzle is that it didn't short-change us on the shorter fill. First of all, you never feel like you're drowning in 3-4-5s. Second, what 3-4-5s there are are mercifully clean. FIT FILTH IDAHO TIRED DOOR ASS KITS ... I can live with these! I balked at the fill precisely once—EBOW over YOS. I guessed the former off the "W" but I can only kinda sorta picture what that is (besides one of your uglier E-words) ("oh now, they decapitated Tim TEBOW!"). As for YOS, plural exclamations, never welcome, but the clue actually made me laugh, and thus softened the experience (49A: Rocky openings?). "Yo, Adrian! ... I said 'Yo!' How many 'YOS' I gotta say, baby!?"
adjective
- Having characteristics of both sexes.
- Having characteristics traditionally ascribed to the other sex, especially as a male who is considered to be effeminate.
- Having no characteristics of either sex. (American Heritage Dictionary, 5th ed.)
Seems to be a somewhat antique word for describing gender ambiguity. Here's a colorful example of recent usage—from a 2011 WSJ review of the movie Puss in Boots (2011):
Puss teams up with Humpty Dumpty, a creepily epicene ovoid voiced with eerie plaintiveness by Zach Galifianakis, to repay an old debt by stealing some magic beans from Jack and Jill.
Bullets:
- 11D: Hot pockets? (RAVIOLI) — this is such a weird fake-out clue. "Hot pockets" makes me think of the frozen food product, which is just ... hot goop in a doughy pouch. But the clue has the "?" on it so I'm trying to think of something hot that comes in "pockets," something in nature, maybe? I get the "-AV-" and consider LAVA PIT, but it's not plural. Then I get a few more crosses and up ... right back at hot goop in a doughy pouch! I mean, I'll take RAVIOLI over Hot Pockets any day, but they basically belong to the same very general category of food. That clue took me on a journey. I liked it.
- 35D: Mideast salad, in one spelling (TABOULI) — spelled it "right" the first time. I'm guessing the other (more common?) spelling is TABOULEH. Checking wikipedia, and ... Whoa, lotsa spellings coming through. "Tabbouleh (Arabic: تبولة, romanized: tabbūla), also transcribed tabouleh, tabbouli, tabouli, or taboulah ..." Upload them all to your wordlists, mad constructors!
- 47D: Art movement proclaimed in a 1916 manifesto (DADA) — it was the "manifesto" part that made me opt for DADA over DECO.
- 9D: Flow down the neck (MANE) — this was the one part of the puzzle that got a little thorny for me. After considering and discarding LAVA (a real LAVA-on-the-brain morning), I had no idea what to do with this clue. Is "Flow" a verb or noun? Down the neck of what? I had -ANE and still no idea until I started to run the alphabet. That "M" was crucial in my remembering MARTÍ's name (I've seen it, but as with so many things I've seen, I forgot it). The MARTÍ/MANE stuff is in the same NE section as the RAVIOLI / TIE VOTE stuff I was also struggling with. Weirdly, it was HOOT that bailed me out. Got it off the "T"! (24A: Riot). That second "O" took out my (wrong) TIE GAME and gave me another much-needed letter in RAVIOLI, and I had things all sewn up in that corner shortly thereafter.
- 27D: Foe of Dr. Eggman, in video games (SONIC) — blah blah blah video games. That's what my brain heard. I had the "SO-" part and wrote in SONIC easily. I have never played that game or seen any of the movies (despite owning a Sega system in the '90s). I just know that SONIC is a hedgehog in a popular video game franchise of the same name, so ... in he went!
That's all for today. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. The Fourteenth Annual (!!) Finger Lakes Crossword Competition is tomorrow, Saturday, October 17! It's a nice, low-key way to spend an autumn afternoon. Original puzzles by Ithaca resident Adam Perl, who has made many puzzles for the NYT over the years. I'll be there! Judging you! Actually, judging (scoring) all the puzzles. Proceeds benefit Tompkins Learning Partners, an adult literacy organization. 1-4pm, Boynton Middle School, Ithaca, NY. If you're local, come on out and say hi and solve some puzzles and meet other people like yourself (they exist!). All the information you need is here.
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I've been doing the puzzle forever and reading Rex forever, and this is the first time we've ever 100% agreed. SO MUCH FUN!!
ReplyDeleteDecent - the big guy was effusive but I just don’t see it. The empty smiling grid was cute but not worth that center short garbage. I was able to guess a few of the longs without crosses - EPISTOLARY and TAROT.
ReplyDeleteThese are the TERMS
Overall fill was strained - I liked TABOULI, RAVIOLI and ATE CROW. If Rex doesn’t know a gender term it’s too obscure - that went in with crosses. FILTH, TOE VOTE, HAVE NOT, reality TV are ugly. Brittany is fun to see I guess.
The Mavericks
As a sophomore in HS we read Dracula and Flowers for Algernon - I knew they would help one day.
MARTI Jones
Definitely not a 4 star outing for me but a pleasant enough Friday morning solve.
EBOW The Letter
Love the Mavericks.
DeleteI'm up early because of an early appointment, and this puzzle is so easy that it took less time than usul--I mean, just consider the clued for BONE and SEPIA, among others. My biggest problems were clumsy typing, and needing crosses to decide between seTS and PUTS ON A PEDESTAL. EPISTOLARY NOVELS was fun, but a gimme. I did like learning what EPICENE meant.
ReplyDeleteI'll try to come back after the appointment to see what others have to say.
‘I said to myself, as I finished, “Rex is gonna like this one.” Me too. Smooth, just right for a Friday, no goopy fill, some good vocabulary boosters inferrable from crosses. Nice.
ReplyDeleteNot easy for me. Took forever to get a toehold. I didn’t know the crossing EPIs or TABOULI. I also was unpleasantly surprised with the dupes SOEASY and SOTHERE. Good workout, though.
ReplyDeleteThe online clue for KEYPAD is "Holder of all the digits, from 1 to 0." The ending is unnecessary, isn't it? And weird. No one counts that way. But it does eliminate "Pair of gloves."
ReplyDeleteOn a standard keyboard, such as the one I am using right now, the digits go left to right 'from 1 to 0'. So that part of the clue helped me get it.
DeleteTrue about the "keyboard". I hadn't thought of that. But not a computer keypad. I guess it works for a phone keypad, the only keypad that is built that way.
DeleteThis puzzle made for one astonishing outing. It brought downhill whoosh as well as uphill labor. It made me smile. It gave me fits. And when it was over, I mused, “Well now, here’s a new constructor that I can’t wait to see more from!”
ReplyDeleteLook at that gorgeous grid design – never done before in the Times.
There are only seven longs (answers of eight letters or more), but man, did Adam squeeze the most out of them. Then, the glory of FEEL GOOD MOVIE and CLOUD NINE abutting the grid's smiley face. Are you kidding me?
I was misdirected from KOS instead of YOS, to TIE GAME instead of TIE VOTE, to that most glorious [Small sounds] for INLETS. Happy pings at MAT at the floor of the puzzle and CELLOS on the stage-left of the grid. And the PuzzPair© of YENTA and [Serious dirt], the clue for another answer.
Bravo, Adam! I was inspired by your persistence (112 iterations before this final one!) and your talent. You made all the right decisions on this one. I loved it. Thank you!
Sure as heck not easy for me today. Very hard. As in, harder than any Saturday in months, let alone Friday. Almost a several-letter DNF in the SW, between EBOW, YOS, TABOULI and KEYPAD. In the end I got all those but failed on CLOUDlINE/DlA.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking at my keypad right now, and the numbers go from 7 to 0, or from 0 to 9, depending which end you start at. 0 and 1 are right next to each other.
I do agree, though, that this was a mostly very pleasant solve. Surprisingly little desparation glue. ACC, YOS and EBOW are the worst of it.
@kitshef. About the keyboard thing … I have 3 easily accessible devices here on my studio desk and they all arrange the numbers on their "keypads" differently. I put that in quotes because I don't really think of my MacBook as having a keypad but, rather, a keyboard with a row of numbers running left to right in a row near the top. They go from 1 to 0. My phone also goes from 1 to 0, top left to bottom centre. The only device I have near to hand that proceeds from 7 to 0 is my calculator. So kind of a mucky clue.
DeleteOh, wait, what about my TV remotes. The have keypads. That adds more muckiness. And that annoying keypad deadbolt lock on one of the house's exterior doors. Sheesh. I'll have to check them this evening.
Agree with you that it was pleasant solve.
Medium or medium challenging for me--18 minutes. That NE corner was tough. Took me way too long to see "HAVENOTS".... once I got that, things opened up. Yes, really nice marquee answers today all over. Not familiar with the song, so that took a while to parse (what starts with OO.... but then you see it!). Nice puzzle, good whoosh whoosh, thanks, Adam!!!
ReplyDeleteAs a guitar player, I do actually know what an EBow is, but I was staring at that one for a while, thinking, "...are they really asking for that? Isn't that too obscure?"
ReplyDeleteWhen our daughter was just learning how to talk, we taught her to say "ooo, baby, baby" from Britney's "Oops". Twenty-three years later, we still imitate her doing it.
ReplyDeleteOne of my most happy-making parental moments was teaching our then 4 and 2 year old kids to greet anyone coming to the house with "We are the knights who say "ni" and we demand a shrubbery." Hopefully the damage to their wallets for the subsequent childhood trauma counseling won't be too bad!
DeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteNeat looking grid, you got top/bottom symmetry, but also left/right symmetry. Pretty cool.
Liked this puz, although not quite as enthusiastically as Rex. Impressed at the Longs everywhere, without ending in a sea of short gunk. Tough to pull off.
RHODA a blast from the past. Not many under 55 will get that one. I had MAUDE in originally. Was that even a TV show? Same section, had rOOm for DOOR first
Saw this the other day, to reeeeallllllllly made you feel old:
2026-1972 is the same amount of years as 1972-1918.
Ouch, I aged more just thinking about that!
MARTI is also the last name of the guy who bought all of Ford's records for their cars. So if you have an older Ford, Lincoln, or Mercury you can get records for your car! Marti Reports, is what they're called.
Gotta go to work later today, as I am definitely a HAVE NOT. Har.
Hope y'all have a great Friday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
If the kids read Wednesday's write-up they were prepared for 23A: «I somehow wanted "RHODA," which is a TV show, not a "rock hit," but I think that what my brain was really searching for was the star of the show "RHODA" spun off from: Mary Tyler Moore ("Who can turn the world on with her smile...?")»
DeleteI can just barely remember my parents watching it. Apparently the divorce story arc was a big deal in TV history. Like Archie Bunker flushing the toilet, but sadder.
Right?! I’m under 55 got RHODA, as a gimmie and then stared at it for a bit thinking, “why did I know that???”
DeleteAs for the rest I got STEAK, SO EASY, TOPCHEF then OOPSIDIDITAGAIN then ASS then noticed the smile(s) in the grid then smiled through the rest of the solve :)
Roo, your comment about time spans and feeling old reminds me of the gym I go to, where they play a variety of music, leaning heavily on classic rock at the time of day that we retirees are there. But there’s a high school kid working there who consistently puts on a playlist of early 2000s emo bands like Fallout Boy—music I recognize from when my kids were in high school. I think he plays it because it’s the music he really likes. It got me thinking: when I was in high school circa 1972, the music that old was, what? Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Dinah Shore? No high schooler would have been caught dead listening to that stuff. That tells me something about how quickly and profoundly music changed in the 20th century compared to now. And reminds me that I am now a genuine antique.
Delete@Anon 8:25…maybe you know this due to the first years of Nick at Nite? My daughter is under 45 and knows a lot of old tv due to that…
DeleteMaude was indeed a show, a spin-off from All in the Family. In turn, Good Times was a spin-off from Maude.
DeleteI believe Maude was Edith Bunker's cousin. She (played by Bea Arthur of future Golden Girls fame) was as liberal as Archie was...not. Made a few appearances on All in the Family (a show that would not be made today) and always fought with Archie. One of several related Norman Lear spinoffs.
DeleteCRUSHED that Rhoda wasn't Rex's word of the day ;)
DeleteI attended a 2018 50th HS reunion and thinking how ancient we must seem to the current seniors working the event realized that for our class the 50th honorees would have been WWI vets.
DeleteYes! The wonderful Bea Arthur starred in Maude, a sitcom which ran from the early to late 1970’s. She was first introduced to All In The Family as Edith’s cousin who came to care for the Bunkers while they were all sick with the flu. She adored Edith and took every opportunity to let Archie know he wasn’t good enough for her. It was one of the funniest episodes ever of that landmark series.
DeleteUnder 10 minute solve on a Friday is never a good thing.
ReplyDeleteThe effusive write up of this puzzle means that the constructor is a friend of Rex.
As for me, I do not appreciate Tuesday level difficulty on a Friday.
You seem nice. As for me, I wouldn’t know Adam Shapiro from … well, Adam, frankly. But keep feeling your feelings and speculating your speculations. It is the internet, after all. ✌️
DeleteA Tuesday should take five minutes max.
DeleteFantastic puzzle! More from Mr. Shapiro, please.
Adam Shapiro is the one with a belly-button.
DeleteWell the constructor isn't a 'friend' of mine since I don't know him, although I'm sure he'd be an interesting and amusing friend. And I really enjoyed this puzzle, especially a debut. Why don't you post with your name, Anonymous if you hold your opinions in such high esteem?
Delete@kitshef that sounds like a joke they tell at the Navel Academy
DeleteNot to be pedantic, but, the correct spelling of tabouli is the one given in Arabic. The other "spellings" are transliterations.
ReplyDelete“Not to be pedantic” are you sure
DeleteLol
DeleteWho's arguing about the "correct" spelling of tabbouleh? Btw that's how I spell it, so everything after TAB was hard for me, had to wait for crosses. The final I was still hard!
Delete@Rex since you forced us to think about it: Humpty Dumpty has characteristics of both sexes. He is almost always described as a male character, I think, and voiced by men such as in your example. And yet he is an egg, the most female of reproductive mammalian pieces! We've solved it.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed this but 1) It was SO EASY! And 2) I was amazed that Mr. Parker didn't trash it for being so easy. I finished it in 9m 21s and A) I wasn't consciously trying for a fast solve plus b) It takes me about 6 minutes to finish a Monday, with almost all of that time required just to enter the characters into the grid,. Best clue was 'Small sounds' = IN:LETS.
ReplyDeleteAgree. SO easy…and “small sounds” rocked as a clue.
DeleteHad a great time with this one! Fridays are often way more of a struggle for me. The longs came after some letters fell into place. Got NOVEL, MOVIE, and HERO before the front ends but eventually got there.
ReplyDeleteYes MAUDE was a TV show. If my somewhat unreliable memory serves was a spin-off of ALL IN THE FAMILY, and for Bea Arthur pre-Golden Girls.
All in all a good workout without an oreo in sight and only one sports answer that was near-Greek to me.
Fantastic Friday all. Wonderful debut Mr. Shapiro. "More, please, sir."
Overall, really well done. I had to run the alphabet on the EPICENE/ACC crossing to finish.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone and Rex who found the puzzle to be easy and enjoyable. 🎈🎈🎊🎊
ReplyDeletePolynesians have a ceremony where they stomp on the taro before cooking it. They're called TAROTREADINGS.
ReplyDeleteFun (and true) fact: IDAHO has an advisory measure on the November ballot to help the legislature select the State Gun.
You can tell that an injury isn't too bad if the patient is ALLOW and no screaming
I didn't notice that I'd lost one of my back teeth until my dentist asked "Where's your MOLERAT?"
Radio MARTI is our Cuban equivalent to Radio Free Europe. I think it still broadcasts.
I periodically whooshed until slamming into a brick wall. I'd slowly dismantle the wall, then off to the races again! I agree with 4.5 stars, Thanks and congrats on a wonderful debut, Adam Shapiro.
I read your biting remarks on MOLERAT with a toothy grin. Good stuff! In Jersey the state gun is a water pistol.
DeleteA contemporary epistolary novel I just read about the resilience of a community during WWII: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
ReplyDeleteHow do I get better at crosswords? I'm almost never able to finish a Friday without checking the puzzle. Today, I got about 6/7 there, then got stuck. At that point I just start filling in total guesses until I know I hit a wall, then click "check puzzle" and delete the errors and go from there until I finish. I'd love to be able to more regularly complete Friday puzzles without ever checking the puzzle. Obviously I've slowly gotten better at crosswords over time by trying to remember new words and crosswordese, but are there any tips and tricks that I might be missing?
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is practice, practice! I’ve been doing the crossword on and off over the years, but it wasn’t until I started doing it consistently every day that I began to crack the harder days. There are a number of common crossword answers that you start to recognize once you do more puzzles, and you also get a better feel for how to think through the tricky questions. Looking back though the archive, I had a six-month period before I finally started gold-starring on a consistent basis (and now I’m on a nearly 2-year streak, no hints). So, keep at it!
Delete@Rachel 9:29 AM
DeleteHow I got better: I did the LATimes Sunday through Thursday for a few (happy) years. No blogs, no weekend themeless, just me and the grid. I read every clue because speed solving is a very different approach to crosswords I have no interest in doing. I like the literary approach. You get good at OREO and OBOE and all the crosswordese you'll be enduring forever. I don't ever hit reveal letter, or word, or puzzle. I open up a second window and Google the topic and read until I'm smarter. Then I put in the answer. Next time it comes up, I will be ready. The part that sucks about the New York Times is their obsession with pop culture trivia. Seriously I will never care about any video game ever. Sometimes you can figure it out from crosses, but you don't actually learn anything. When I'm stuck I'll be reading Wikipedia about who Tyler the Creator is and learning I haven't missed anything by not knowing him except this one goofy answer in the puzzle. Sometimes I learn about something or somebody important and then I can spring that knowledge on some poor fool out in the real world.
To Rex and anyone else who didn’t know EPICENE: I was solving the puzzle with a friend who is a professor of women and gender studies (shh…don’t let the federal government find out), and we needed every cross for it. He had never heard it before, and he literally teaches classes on the topic. So definitely no shame in not knowing that one!
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of crosswords from 30 years ago, in a very good way. I've been dutifully solving the puzzle every morning without particularly enjoying the experience, it's just part of my routine. If there's a theme that day I don't even pay attention. It's nice to be reminded why I started in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I miss doing Merl Reagle's puzzles in the NY Observer, that salmon-colored paper.
Solid medium just-right Friday for me. The top went in in a hurry, and I was pleased to remember EPITOLARYNOVEL since I haven't thought about that since my days as an English major. MARTI was a gimme, famous poet and an amazing man. He wrote the poem that is the basis for the song "Guantanamera", which I know much better than OOPSISIDITAGAIN, which is not at all.
ReplyDeleteToo major self-inflicted hold ups--had ADMIT for ALLOW, which blocked the middle for a while and Nancy's SPLAT for KAPOW which made the SW impossible. Fixed through crosses and the rest was pretty whooshy, with some great clues.
Wanted SYCOPHANT for 12D but it wouldn't fit. Also the number seemed low.
Glad some other learned types found out what EPICENE means today. A word I've seen but connect with the forerunners of horses, which is at least dumb enough to be funny.
Liked your Friday a lot, AS. A Stellar debut, for which congratulations and thanks for all the fun.
I am not a fast solver so taking a while to do a puzzle is fine with me and this one took some work. I took a break about halfway down and worked on the Bee while watching a Europa League replay. When I returned to the grid it was smoother, mostly thanks to the early week (no judgement) ease of the south central.
ReplyDeleteAgree with OFL that this was an easy and smooth Friday, with my only real hold-up being the EBOW/YOS section. Woulda gone better if I was more familiar with the Mideast salad, which I sort of recognized only after it was all filled in.
ReplyDeleteBut I will have to politely disagree with Son Volt on reality TV being ugly. Yes, a lot of reality shows are a blight on society, but like all aspects of culture, there is the deplorable and the enjoyable. Take for example TOP CHEF. Old Deb and I enjoy watching the contestants struggle to make an interesting and intricate dish within a time limit.
We also enjoy The Great British Baking Show (I refuse to call it by what Netflix has renamed it: “Bake Off”; so crass, so American.) The difference between our enjoyment of watching both shows is that the dishes prepared on TOP CHEF, while fascinating to look at, are mostly unappetizing to our tastes, while the cakes, pastries, and cookies (er, biscuits) made by the British bakers we would devour in a second.
I found this puzzle to be very easy, and I don't usually have particularly high regard for puzzles in that category, but this one was exceptional. Impressive spanning stacks of common phrases without relying on the boring "these are generic things people might say" trope so prevalent in recent Fridays and Saturdays. Very few oft-repeated short filler words. Interesting 7-letter Downs like TOPCHEF and EPICENE and SIDEARM and ATECROW.
ReplyDeleteThis might honestly be the best-constructed puzzle of the year. *Certainly* worthy of 4.5 stars. Adam Shapiro DIDITAGAIN.
I've had OUR Share of Night in my to-read list for about two years now. Maybe this puzzle is a sign that it's time.
ReplyDeleteWay too easy
ReplyDelete"Hot pockets?" - like Rex, I was drawn to LAVa but I'VE put the kabosh on that. I tried to make up a word for those hydrothermal vents in the ocean. cAVItae? HOOT and MOVIE helped nix that idea. I post-solve Googled "cavitae". It's some sort of electronic gadget or...Not real, in other words. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe T of EPISTOLARY helped me get rid of MRES at 5D (meals ready to eat).
I thought the EPICENE was a geological era - that one needed all of the crosses. Now I have to get that to sink into the brain for next time.
I'm Britney Spears-ignorant although I did know the song title. I tried to listen to the link Rex provided and couldn't handle the vocal fry, had to quit. Fingernails on the blackboard for me. The choreography was nice but...
Thanks, Adam Shapiro, for a nice Friday puzzle, albeit with a bunch of obscure-to-me names.
Pan comido.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read 🦖 all the way through yet but I do see his first sentence includes the phrase absolute killer Friday. This puzzle is a killer, but not in the good way. This is more of a suicidal Friday.
Intimidating grids always collapse with a few crosses as those long grid spanners are typically pretty easy to roust out. Crosses were almost always gimmes today so the scary grid meant nothing.
Seriously awkward production. Plenty of cringe-ification ... please don't be EBOW, please don't be a plural YO, please don't ask me how many DOORS are on some Wikipedia page you read, please don't put any cartoon foes into my morning, please don't clue SHE using some craptastic pop tune I might love or hate or never have heard ever, please don't be ALL AMERICAN anything especially HERO.
EPICENE are EPISTOLARY are nice dime store words you run into a lot. And there's nothing particularly vote-ish in 20-20, is there? And to the HAVES at the New York Times midtown Manhattan offices, maybe steer clear of trying to depict the HAVE NOTS.
My RAVIOLI story: I was just old enough to go to the bathroom by myself in a public restaurant. We were at Colacci's in Louisville, Colorado in the 70s. I was using the urinal, you know, like a man. Next to me it turned out was the owner of the restaurant Mr. Colacci. We struck up a bit of a conversation (which these days would send off warning alerts on all of our telephones), and he somehow became enamored enough of me to offer me all of the raviolis I wanted. I got to go up to the window on the kitchen where they dished out the pasta and they just added more onto my plate. It was pure magic. I remember eating three plates of ravioli and thinking it was the greatest restaurant in the history of the world. I am still a huge ravioli fan even though I'm not sure even one of them has ever tasted so sweet.
I know it's Friday and so we're looking for the third definition in Merriam for these words, but glitter's fame is earned by hard-working people named Felony and Concrete and Roxy in industrial parks all around the country. They're the All-American Heroes working to restore hope one bottle of glitter after another. School art project? Pfft.
Gunkometer--
People: 4
Places: 2
Products: 7
Partials: 3
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 17 of 68 (25%)
Funny Factor: 4 🙂
🔥 Ooh-la-la! 🔥 ERECT. ASS. {Where have you been ole friend?}
Uniclues:
1 Gossip that stings.
2 Simon(e) the Ambiguous.
3 To the potato / you are brown / and I'm sorry you have to spend so much time with crazy right wing wacko survivalists in so-called "militias."
4 Pasta with pop.
1 YENTA SALTS
2 EPICENE APOSTLE
3 IDAHO SEPIA ODE (~)
4 RAVIOLI GLITTER
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Obsessed with men in black. CRAVES GOTHS.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Gary, loved your wonderful RAVIOLI story. The homemade version was my (Italian, of course) family's holiday fare. My brothers and I would eat them until no more could fit inside us. To this day my answer to "What's your favorite food?" Alas, while I have the recipe, I could never make them as spectacularly as my aunt and Nonna.
DeleteSpeaking as someone who owns an E-Bow and uses it regularly in my spy-movie themesong cover band, the Spychotics, that was a delight as well as a "No, it can't be, really?" moment, cuz I mean, pretty deep cut in terms of guitar trivia. AND I normally hate hate hate "E-something" clues. But this is a legit thing (does any actual human ever say "e-mag"?). It's actually a very clever device. Hard to describe, but it essentially places the guitar string in a channel with a magnetic flux that causes the string to vibrate without end, much like a bow does on a violin. Can create an eery effect, similar to a theremin, very atmospheric, which is why it's handy for spy music.
ReplyDeleteGreat Friday with a special treat just for me. What a HOOT!
I love it when my feelings about a puzzle do a complete 180. I ended up loving this one as much as @Rex did. My first pass I think all I had was IVE at 20A and the YENT_ at 25A (is it "e", is it "a"?) When that happens and I see a spanner for a 2000 hit whose lyric I didn't recognize on top of a gaming clue, I start to wilt a little. But soon after, this was just *wow*. I don't even know where to start so I'll just say I loved *all* the great spanners and to be honest, every bit of fill was, in my book, a gem.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm not a Britney fan, but with just a few crosses which hit me on my second time around, even I recognized OOPSIDIDITAGAIN. From there this was just a joyous whoosh.
Some things I found interesting. I had first thought 6D (Serious dirt) was referring to some form of gossip, but realized we covered that subject matter at 25A for YENTA, so I realized we were looking for something a bit more straightforward there. I also thought having Rocky at 49A and then having him appear so quickly after as one of the Marquee answers was cute. I know it might bother some, but I Liked it today.
I didn't notice the interesting grid until it was mentioned here, that was a bit of a cherry on top.
Also learned some new stuff like EPICENE (thanks for the review on Puss 'n Boots, @REX, the take on Humpty Dumpty is priceless!). MARTI and EBOW are also new to me.
Quick note: *I urge anyone in the Ithaca area to stop by the Crossword Competition and meet, chat up and hang with @Rex (time permitting, of course). I promise you'll be glad you did! I'm still talking about my experience in Jersey City!!*
Adam - this was indeed a gem! Many more like this one please!!
My Dad always said, “Apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze “
ReplyDeleteOMG! Adam where have you been all these days, months (years?)? We have our new star :). This was a delight. Robyn W.'s male counterpart (along, of course, with Erik A.). Thank you for your badly-needed appearance in the NYT Xword lately.
ReplyDeleteCONGRATULATIONS on your debut & please come back again soon :)
I'm an electric guitarist and I knew EBOW immediately but I was surprised to see it the puzzlle!
ReplyDeleteI thought Rex wouldn't like this. I was wrong!
ReplyDeleteMostly this was an easy solve with the exception being that NW corner. The time I wasted bouncing off that thing brought the solve up to an average late week level. The difficulty came from TOPCHEF being sandwiched next to EPICENE. I'm so not a reality TV watcher I didnt recognize the show name even when I had the -EF ending. I expected it to be one of those "Judge Judy" type of shows. As for EPICENE it's one of those words that looks familiar once I have it in but I couldn't tell you why. It looks like the love child of "epoch"
ReplyDeleteand "eocene" but of course has nothing to do with either. ACC is an initialism I'm not familiar with so the I and the C of EPICENE were how I finished.
OOPSIDIDITAGAIN was a complete unknown. EPISTOLARY is obviously a form of epistle but it kind of looks like a Spanglish word for a gunfight.
The puzzle's best asset is the terrific grid design. It moderates the grid spanners and the crosswordese is kept to a minimum.
For me, a fast and FEEL GOOD puzzle. The biggest surprise was seeing a clue for OUR Share of Night, which I highly recommend.
ReplyDeleteIf I could overcome my distaste for the obnoxious term ALL-AMERICAN at all, I certainly wouldn't think of Rocky and Indiana Jones as being "heroes" befitting that adjective.
ReplyDeleteOur friend Nancy has kindly informed me that me comment about sycophants didn't make much sense, which it didn't, because I misread the number in the grid as 12 instead of 15. I was trying to make a cutting remark about there being more than 412 sycophants in the White House instead of DOORs. I still think this is mildly amusing but would have been more so if I got it right the first time.
ReplyDeleteShout out to Nancy for noticing.
I wondered about that but figured I was just too ignorant to get it. :-)
DeleteAs often happens, I had not found this puzzle as great as Rex did, but after reading his effusive praise, I was converted. But it was relatively easy, especially for a Friday.
ReplyDeleteNever knew what was an EPISTOLARY NOVEL, but it came together from crosses.
Expected @Lewis to comment that middle row answer CLOUD NINE, had nine letters, the only such answer in the puzzle.
YOS, as clued, may have gotten the biggest laugh and appreciation for any three-letter answer I can remember.
One of those wheelhouse solves, done in two-thirds of my normal "easy" solve time. So, I came here expecting Rex and all others to be in full attack mode for the editorial watering down of the NYT crosswords. But no, Rex loved it, and his glowing review changed my attitude from "too easy" to "delightful romp."
ReplyDeleteFor me, a fast and FEEL GOOD puzzle. The biggest surprise was the appearance of OUR Share of Night, which I highly recommend. I wondered if anyone else here had read it.
ReplyDeleteDo-over: Simple before SO EASY. Wish I'd seen at the time: the clue for INLETS. Appreciate learning: EPICENE.
Skirt STEAK? SOEASY? ... my ASS. And that just sums up the NW part.
ReplyDeleteLotsa playful clues. Six ?-marker clues, plus several others that probably rate one. Feisty, but fun, stuff. 68-worder, so lotsa longball answers, which lead to extra mini-ahar-moments.
staff weeject pick: ACC. Part of that nanosecond-guzzlin NW section.
Lotsa good fillins, but here's a few fave faves: OOPSIDIDITAGAIN. RAVIOLI & its clue. CLOUDNINE. MOLERAT [mainly cuz I had MUSKRAT at first, in "honor" of old Elon]. APOSTLE/YOS [even tho LOS woulda been more fittin]. E/W puzgrid symmetry. Central weeject run of five in a row!
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Shapiro dude. And congratz on a great debut puz. Do it again. But ... skirt STEAK?
Masked & Anonymo2Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Totally agree, a fun Friday and one which still gave me a good challenge. I have read the occasional EPISTOLARY NOVEL, but this puzzle has motivated me to look for a few of the ones I’ve missed. I had no idea The Color Purple was in that genre. One I would recommend is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And Nancy says The Correspondent should not be missed, so I’ll add that one to my list as well.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing Ms. Nancy pointed out was the fact that MID and TERMS are both in the grid which also features TIED VOTES. Goodness, let’s hope we don’t end up with any of those next month!
Just now realized this was a debut for the constructor. Nice going Adam! As I said in my earlier comment, a fun and satisfying Friday. Hope to see your name again soon.
ReplyDeleteEasy-medium. The NW put up some resistance so I mostly did this from the bottom up.
ReplyDeleteNo costly erasures and I did not know SHE, EBOW, SONIC, EPICENE, CELLOS, OUR, and IDAHO. I did know OOPS… and TOP CHEF but not from the clues.
Not much junk. a bit of sparkle, liked it but not quite as much as @Rex did.
Agree, a stellar puzzle.
ReplyDeleteWonderful puzzle!!!
ReplyDeleteOn first pass through the Acrosses I didn't get much, but once I started filling in the easy Downs in the SW corner, things began to flow. I did get smile when I got OOPS I DID IT AGAIN, and I appreciated EPISTOLARY NOVEL, CLOUD NINE,and MOLE RAT, but somehow the puzzle didn't sparkle for me the way it did for Rex. It seemed medium-easy to me, but certainly not Tuesday level.
ReplyDeleteI didn't think Dope was an especially apt clue for ASS. I think of a dope as more of a fool, or an idiot, and I think of an ASS as more of a jerk.
I bitch and moan to the high heavens regarding proper nouns and popular culture in the grids, so full disclosure - I dropped in TOP CHEF without even glancing at the crosses (I do miss Padma though).
ReplyDeleteMy favorite childhood RAVIOLI memory was when I was old enough to stay home with my Nona and make the homemade ravs on Easter Sunday while the rest of the family had to go to church. Fun times.
I’m a little closer to @Gary than to OFL regarding the “meh” versus “the greatest thing since canned beer” characterization of today’s grid, but still a reasonably enjoyable jaunt in the park this morning (speaking of the park, is Mickey Mantle’s Place still open circa 55th and 5th Avenue ? I can remember dropping my “touristy” friends, relatives and countrymen off there so they could do a horse and buggy thing through the park while I would scarf a couple of tall boys and hope the Knicks game would go to overtime).
Reminds me of a different era, when pretty much everyone knew who Archie, Mary, Rhoda, Maude, as well as George and Elizabeth Jefferson were. And of course there was 1969 -
Every Oriole Met his Met,
Every Baltimore Colt his Jet,
Every Bullet missed its Knick,
Every Baltimore fan is sick.