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Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: Lee ISAAC Chung (46D: Director Lee ___ Chung) —
Lee Isaac Chung (born October 19, 1978) is an American filmmaker. His debut feature Munyurangabo (2007) was an official selection at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and the first narrative feature film in the Kinyarwanda language.
Chung gained fame for directing the semi-autobiographical film Minari (2020), for which he received numerous major awards and nominations, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the 93rd Academy Awards. In 2023, he directed an episode in the third season of the Star Wars series The Mandalorian, and in 2024, he directed the disaster film Twisters. (wikipedia)
• • •
About today's trivia ... or, rather, about yesterday's trivia. It's generally true, I think, that if you, personally, don't know something, some celebrity or movie title or game or whatever, then it's going to seem "trivial," at least initially. But I do think some trivia is less trivial than other(s?). Yesterday there were people in the comments saying they didn't know RAVEL and/or LUMET. This ... startled me. No, actually, people not knowing LUMET didn't startle me. Despite his legendary (and long) resumé, his (very famous) movies were all in the 20th century, so if you're younger, or if you're not particularly into CINEMA, not knowing LUMET seems normal. But RAVEL? The word "trivia" really doesn't belong anywhere near his name. Solving today's puzzle, though, I found myself having compassion for the RAVEL and LUMET non-knowers, as I ran into a bunch of names I just didn't know, most notably (and puzzle-blockingly) Jay SEAN. He seems to have gotten famous right at the time of my peak not-paying-attention-to-popular-culture (late '00s-early '10s). He seems to have had reasonably big success ... back then. Since 2013, no albums (just "mixtapes") and no charting hits since 2012. SEAN really messed with my flow today. Just gummed up that whole SEAN / LIGER / AGUA section (the clue on AGUA is quite awful, actually, since nothing about it suggests the answer will be in Spanish, and no, please do not say "habanero" is the cue, that's what we call the pepper in *English*, so no dice) (28A: Request after eating a habanero, perhaps) (I wrote in MILK, of course, because that's what you drink to mitigate pepper heat, not water, everyone knows that).
Bullets:
- 13A: Funky-smelling (RIPE) — RANK, I had RANK. The NW was a washout for me to start. Had to leave it and come back.
- 26A: Member of a noble family (SCION) — really a member of any "prominent" family. Not sure why "noble" is being used here, except to get me to think I was dealing with some kind of noble gas ("XENON?").
- 29A: What comes from needing little, per Epictetus (WEALTH) — Epictetus was a Stoic, which I know because Instagram keeps showing me the Stoic Podcast guy, who loves to talk about Epictetus.
- 45A: Highly controlling? (PILOTING) — because you are "controlling" a plane while it is "high" up in the sky, not because you are flying while under the influence. I hope.
- 57A: Figure with three faces, in Dante (SATAN) — I said that the trivia in today's puzzle didn't really resonate with me, and that's mostly true, but I forgot about this clue. Can confirm: three faces, chewing on the three sinniest of sinners: Brutus, Cassius, Judas.
- 8D: Before ('TIL) — yes I wrote in ERE of course I wrote in ERE. Hate this clue the way I hate AGUA—that clue should've indicated the answer was in Spanish; this clue should've indicated the answer was an abbreviation / elision (there are detailed and slightly dizzying usage notes here). [Before] has been used only seven times as a clue for 'TIL in the Shortz Era (out of 168 total 'TIL appearances), and every time ('TIL today, that is), the clue has had a qualifier added to it: "briefly," "informally," "in brief," something like that.
- 14A: Sugar substitute? (SWEETIE PIE) — SWEETHEART also fits (I found out!)
- 24D: Sounds from fans (OOHS) — these are sounds from fireworks watchers. Fans say 'rah.' Or they make whirring sounds. I've been in crowds of fans—at ballgames, at concerts—and I've never once heard the crowd say "ooh"
- 54D: ___ City (SIM) — cheap baloney. They want you to write in SIN. Which I did. Dutifully. But gotcha, it's SIM! Great, you gave me a much worse three-letter word, just for the sake of a "trick?" Bah. True story: when I realized that there's no way that the answer to 59A: They're stretched out before some workouts (MATS) could be NATS, my sincere next guess was ... LATS. "SIL City? Where the hell is SIL City?" SIL City! They're famous for their LIGERs, I hear.
That's all for today. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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- Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)
Medium for me, too. Had the same sequence as Rex: SIN > SIL > (finally) SIM. Didn't like the LIEGE clue - 'Does the lord's work?' - since the liege is the lord. I guess the clue is saying the lord is working? Do lords work? Obtuse ...
ReplyDeleteOne of the meanings of LIEGE is "a loyal vassal who owes service to a lord or king"
DeleteDid the exact same thing. A bitter way to end the puzzle. Bah
DeleteThat clue for mats sucked. Mats you use for workouts are not stretchy enough to stretch out, they roll out. Spent too long looking for that error as I put in sin and nats filled in off crosses. As Rex says agua is terrible choice to alleviate the pain of a habanero as capsaicin is oil soluble (hence milk) not water soluble and one would think a Spanish speaker would be more likely to know that.
DeleteLiege
DeleteSome people got very vehement about it but as Old Ned posted, liege is another one of those words with opposite meanings. The same thing happened earlier this week I just feel it pays to look things up before you criticize the puzzle.
Stretch out
Doesn’t just mean literally stretching something. A person stretching out on a couch. Or stretch out a top sheet on a bed. To me it’s close enough for crosswords.
Medium for me too, loved all the long stuff, good challenges all around, had to work away at it. Going back to yesterday, It's interesting that you featured RAVEL's piano oeuvre, since I know him mainly as the guy who orchestrated Mussorgsky's piano piece, Pictures at an Exhibition. Thanks for the beautiful piano piece. Did Mussorgsky and Ravel know each other? (no, apparently not, Ravel was commissioned to transcribe the piece for orchestra in 2022, 48 years after it was written). Anyhoo, back to today.... I really enjoyed this puzzle. I especially like the little central stack--the WEALTHy SCION PRIMPing while eating CANDY.... : ) SATAN awaits down below for the afterlife recompence..... Thanks, Joe!!! : )
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that "2022" is a typo--Ravel died in 1937, and I had an LP of that orchestration in the 1950s.
DeleteYou mean 1922, of course. Ravel died in 1937. Also, I'm sure you know his Bolero.
DeleteRight, 1922.
DeleteJust over half my average Friday time, but it didn’t FEEL easy. Justin Verlander pitched his last game a week or so ago. Kate Upton and their daughter ran to the mound and hugged him after his last pitch. It was a very sweet (and emotional) moment.
ReplyDeleteBrought tears to my eyes (Tigers fan). Thanks for mentioning, guys!
DeleteWorth pointing out that the clue on SIM (___City) pointedly does NOT have a space between the blank and "City," which helped me jump right to SIM.
ReplyDelete+1 to this. The lack of space tipped me off.
DeleteI was coming to make the same comment.
DeleteAlso, would City have been capitalized had the answer been SIn?
DeleteOf course City is capitalized in Sin City. It’s a name. For Vegas. You wouldn’t write “The Big apple”
DeleteLiked this more than the big guy. The intersecting spanners are fantastic. The vertical corner tri-stacks are also top notch.
ReplyDeleteLIMELIGHT
I do agree that it was trivia laden - some were slightly obscure but the crosses were all fair. I knew ASSISI and the oddball MORMON x TINNITUS pair. Is MADE IN missing a “THE”?
Miracle Legion
My wife goes to PILATES three times a week - not sure if it’s HOT or not - we’ll have to discuss that later. Don’t love LIGER but CINEMA is not an issue. STARGAZES is wonderful.
SEAN
Enjoyable Friday morning solve.
I’ve got a crush on you SWEETIE PIE
Son Volt
DeleteI think it’s Made in U.S.A. on products.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteI always thought it was LET ME SAY MY PEACE, as in, LET ME get out what I need to say to keep my sanity, not PIECE, as a statement. So much for said sanity
Good FriPuz, had me stuck in spots, but still ended up solving it quickly.
My comments from YesterPuz never made it in. My phone decided to freeze after I hit "publish". Silly phone.
Anyway, good Themeless, and I hope y'all have a great Friday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
OLES before OOHS. And absolutely, MILK before AGUA.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the objection to AGUA would have carried over to OLES?
DeleteI'd argue this alone justifies LIGER's place -- it's what comes to mind every time:
ReplyDeleteNapoleon Dynamite Liger
Thanks for the Napoleon Dynamite clip. I agree, makes LIGER 100% legit
DeleteYes! You beat me to it.
DeleteYes; I'm also too late.
DeleteRandom thoughts:
ReplyDelete• Semordnilap pair in the box! SHOO and OOHS.
• The loveliest spot in the grid, IMO, is the abutting beauties of WHEN CAN YOU START and PRIMPS.
• I like the cross of SWEAT and I FEEL GREAT sharing the grid with HOT PILATES.
• For the best answer review and an edifying brush with wit, go to the comments at WordPlay and read John Ezra's post.
• NOONES is a dook, following the same answer in the singular on Tuesday.
• TIL – LIGERS are the world’s largest cat, commonly weighing over 900 pounds, and can be a dozen feet long. They are not found in the wild (bred in captivity), enjoy swimming, and can roar like a lion and make the chuffing sound of a tiger.
Joe, you gave me a tough corner (the NW), some fun whooshes, plus all these bonuses – a very sweet start to the day. Thank you for making this!
I suppose anatomically crabs do have claws, but in terms of cuisine, I only really hear of lobster claws and crab legs. CRABCLAWS felt a little off to me.
ReplyDeleteStone Crab claws are delicious.
DeleteCrab claws are very much a thing in cusine.
DeleteWhen we go to the gulf coast in winter the blue crab claws is a dish I always have.
DeleteLike @Anon above, I finished this in half my average Friday time. Agree with Rex that the NE was tricky, but there is plenty of literature on LIGERs. My big problem was immediately dropping in “beer” instead of AGUA, because that was part of my actual introduction to habeneros in a Mexican restaurant. Milk??? Not even on the menu…For some reason I had little trouble wth the trivia largely thanks to the in-the-language long answers that provided helpful crosses for a very gradual build. .
ReplyDeleteSame here—I tore through this, having started below and finishing in NW with a hiccup! 15 mns is a Friday best, I think :)
DeleteI think I woke up in an alternate universe today because my timer indicated 5 minutes faster than an average Friday and…for a Friday…I thought it was easier than most are. I had pretty much the same wrong initial entries as Rex (including a lonely Rank instead of RIPE at first but then things started to whoosh.
ReplyDeleteI will say that it took me a while to come up with SIAMESECAT even though as a kid I watched the yearly presentation of the movie on tv. (Times have changed!) a “Flying Monkey” was stuck in my mind. In fact, I’m still not sure but think it must be what caused Dorothy to go chasing off after Toto and to be by herself when the cyclone hit. Yeah…the book was nothing like the movie…but I still liked it.
@Beezer, so you're saying the SIAMESE CAT chased Toto in the book, not the movie?
DeleteWe resisted the cat for quite a while; cuz it was the flying monkeys, right? And they are the reason my wife (and certain family members) won't watch WofO...ever again.
Surprised that Rex made no mention of a cat family answer. I had an outdoor cat growing up that always got into scraps with a Siamese (it's awful blood-curdling faux "meow" would awaken me) and next morning, my cat Tiger (not LIGER) would come home with a chewed ear, or worse.
No flying monkeys in Kansas
DeleteI remember Toto chasing the Cowardly Lion, not a SIAMESE CAT. And that would have been in the black and white part of the movie when the type of cat would have been harder to distinguish even if someone was paying attention to that trivia.
DeleteFound this super easy - I guess the trivia was in my wheelhouse and I got the 2 full spanners right off the bat. So I loved it!
ReplyDeleteHabanero with a tilde over the n would have made it Spanish. Trivia (and slang) is often very generational. You’re too old or too young to know it.
ReplyDeleteSorry Mr Anon! Habanero comes from Havana, Cuba, which is La Habana. No tilde.
Delete"Habanero" is not spelled using a tilde in either language. It refers to the city of Havana, which is also spelled with "n" rather than "ñ" (they are different letters in Spanish).
DeleteI stand corrected on the SIAMESECAT. It’s why Toto jumped out of the hot air balloon in Oz and the Wizard took off without them. Glinda the Good then conveniently shows up to tell Dorothy she can just knock the ruby slippers together chanting “There’s no place like home.”
ReplyDeleteAnd…this is NOT how the book ended because Dorothy returned to Oz later.
I remembered that it was a cat, but I had no idea it was a Siamese.
DeleteFinally a breezy Friday again.
ReplyDeleteWhat's all the buzz about TINNITUS?
ReplyDeleteDon't chase me away -- I'm working on a palindrome with OOHS.
SHOO! (Hi @Lewis!)
Frugal ape cares about his appearance: Chimp PRIMPS and scrimps.
Stay away from Pontius today. He got up on the wrong side of the bed and is pretty cross.
Too late. I already incurred HOT PILATE'S wrath.
Is something AMISS?
Alas, yes.
Wait -- a lass is AMISS?
Yes, a lass is A MISS.
What?
Loaded with laughs!
DeleteFor future, Rex. argON and radON are more grid-friendly than xenON for your noble gases.
ReplyDeletePedantic, but not nearly as funny.
DeleteC'mon, Anon -- argon's pretty funny -- it's a gas!
DeleteI grew up in Salt Lake City and our local zoo had a liger. So while I haven’t seen them outside of crosswords since childhood, I can confirm that they do exist in the real world.
ReplyDeleteA small, and unimportant comment regarding WHEW for CLOSE ONE. When you do Wordle and you don't get it until the last guess, the comment comes up PHEW!. So is it WHEW or PHEW? Or are they pretty much interchangeable?
ReplyDeleteI associate Phew! with something strenuous and or/tiring; Whew! with general relief. Maybe if the Wordle took a lot of thinking Phew! could work, but it looks odd to me, too
DeleteSome hew to phew; some hew to whew. It's up to yew.
DeleteThe only little guys that bug me are the Terrible Threes. Crosswordese clues and they clog up the grid, But there were only twelve of them today.
ReplyDeleteThe NE defeated me. UPTON, HOTPILATES, LIEGE (another name for a serf?), ROGE.
Smart and professional.
The only PILATE I know is Pontius, and I have no idea whether he was "hot" or not.
DeleteHe’s in some place hot, I suspect.
DeleteHaha…yes, I didn’t know there was hot Pilates either. I haven’t done Pilates, but from what I know of it, I think I’d not want to be hot when doing it.
DeleteEasy Friday puzzle.(Didn’t realize the M error in 59 across until I read Rex).🎈🎈🎊🎊
ReplyDeleteI thought that I'd seen Joe Marquez before. He's made eight puzzles for the NYT, half of them Thursdays.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteEasy-Medium. Decent Friday with not a lot of junk. Liked it.
* * * * _
Overwrites:
no lie for "For real" at 8A before TRULY.
At 37A, Waze sent me on rTS before STS.
Guessed wrong at 38A: PReenS before PRIMPS.
cUba before SUEZ for the 54A conflict before I realized that the date was wrong.
WOEs:
Suffragist Harriet Taylor UPTON (10D).
"Down" singer Jay SEAN at 22D.
I had no idea where the Basilica of St. Clare is, but I had most of ASSISI in place at 42A before I saw the clue.
Did not know Lee ISAAC Chung (46D), nor LEN Wiseman (53D).
SIn City before SIM at 54D. That led to ...
... nATS(?) being stretched out at 59A prevented the happy music until I figured out it had to be SIM/MATS.
Natick'd on UPTON/DOGE -- Still have no idea what a SIM City is, and wasn't familiar with Jay SEAN, but those were the only answers that fit the crosses (SIN City didn't fit), so I guess I got 'em right "in spite of."
ReplyDeleteIt’s a computer game. SIM stands for SIMulated. It was around when desktops were still measured in megabytes.
DeleteWho is or is not an ASSISIn the eye of the beholder.
ReplyDeleteI'm kinda of two minds about my health. I mean, every morning I make a smoothie with spinach, kale and celery. But then I add a couple of jiggers of vodka. I call it my GREENBELT.
@Rex didn't mention that the evil one was late to his demo of eating Cassius, Brutus and Judas so Dante just SATAN waited.
HOTPILATES sounds like an old- timey expression. "HOTPILATES, I've never seen anyone sweat so much", said the geezer.
I love to go to a B and B, put on some R and B and eat CANDY.
My apologies for these quips. I just couldn't find anything funny today. But I did like the puzzle. Thanks, Joe Marquez.
No apology necessary! -- the worse they are, the better, IMO. It's like a car crash -- just walk away.
DeleteMostly easy, though it didn't seem like it as I was trudging through it. What was un familiar I was able to infer or came from crosses. Overall, it held my interest.
ReplyDeleteSUEZ (54A) -- Ahh, those were the days, when Mid East crises were .... uh, manageable.
I’m glad to see that Rex focused a good deal of his attention today on trivia and pop culture (i.e. the lazy crutch of modern crosswords).
ReplyDeleteTry as I might, I’ve just never been able to understand why crossword constructors and editors are so utterly obsessed with trivia and pop culture.
Historically, the joy of solving a great puzzle lay in the elegant dance of witty wordplay—the clever double entendres, the misdirections, and the satisfying "aha!" moments when a cryptic clue finally clicked. Historically, a great grid was meant to be unraveled through vocabulary and logic, not an index of proper nouns.
Under the current regime, navigating a grid feels less like a game of wits and more like studying for a quiz on obscure celebrities, streaming television shows, and hyper-specific trivia. If solvers consistently give these trivia-heavy puzzles a lukewarm response at best, why do the powers-that-be continue to force-feed them to us?
It seems constructors have swapped the art of clever language for the cheap thrill of a Google search. When a grid relies on who played what role in a short-lived '90s sitcom rather than an ingenious anagram or a brilliant pun, the puzzle ceases to be an intellectual challenge. Instead, it becomes a boundary line—either you know the random fact, or you don't. And when a puzzle shifts from a battle of linguistics to an exercise in rote memorization, it completely loses its soul.
When Rex — whose yearly crossword solve count is deep into the thousands—flags the trivia as too obscure, you know the editors are truly scraping the bottom of the barrel. In fact, we’ve reached a point where Will’s editorial desk seems perfectly content to violate a cardinal rule of fair construction, littering grids with exactly the kind of obscure, unguessable proper-noun intersections that inspired Rex to coin the term "Natick" in the first place.
I just don’t understand the target constituency for "popular culture" in crosswords anymore. It has become a term used so loosely that it is pretty much devoid of any real meaning. If you read the blog comments day after day, the feedback is overwhelmingly clear: nobody is getting a warm, fuzzy feeling from guessing a random indie pop singer's middle name to fill a difficult corner. Solvers want to feel clever, not tested on the zeitgeist.
Although I believe the chances of this happening are slim to none, it seems to me that if editors want to save the crossword from becoming a dated, alienating trivia board, they need to put down the pop culture crutch, bring back the wit, reward the linguistic hustle, and leave the encyclopedia entries where they belong.
Hi, Southside Johnny,
DeleteI'd email this to you, but I think the email address I have for you is either incorrect or moribund. As you know, I agree passionately with your very well-expressed anti-pop-culture screed -- it's a soapbox I've been on for years -- and suggest that you post today's comment on the Wordplay Blog, if you have access. That way, people in the NYT puzzle dept may actually read it and it might have some vague effect. Though, alas, I sort of doubt it.
If you don't have access, I can copy it and post it there for you -- giving you credit via your Rex nom de blog.
Of course, the line between "pop culture" and "culture" can be vague. At varoius points in the 20th Century, artists like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, and Frank Sinatra were having hits on the "pop" charts; I'm pretty sure that most folks would designate them genuine "cultural" figures, as well. (And that' of course, is just a short list.)
DeleteA thorniier problem, though, is that there is really no single identifiable "pop culture" in the U.S. Arguably,. there never was -- pop culture has always been a mosaic of diverse "subcultures" (racial, regional, age-related, etc.) that may or may not have shared audiences (or "markets") to any significant degree. Nonetheless, we could be pretty certain that most folks were at least aware of many of the same songs, TV shows, movies, books, etc., even if they didn't all share the same tastes. Today, as several recent articles have pointed out (sorry, no idea how to put a link here), there is no overriding "monoculture" shared by any kind of identifiable majority. A song, a show, or a performing artist can be wildly popular among a certain demographic, and literally unknown by those who aren't part of that particular "in-group." In many ways that's a recent phenomenon, and it probably eplains at least somewhat why so many crosssword followers end up stranded in Natick a lot more than they used to.
@Nancy - I like your suggestion regarding cross-posting to Wordplay. It’s probably too late for much back and forth here - I’ll send you an email.
DeleteI liked this one more than Rex did--nice long conversational entries, and I didn't care that much whether the Spanish was indicated accurately. Once you have the G, it has to be AGUA (and I agree, you don't want water in those circumstances; I opt for rice, myself, or bread).
ReplyDeleteI had trouble believing that the DOGEcoin was a major cryptocurrency, so I looked it up -- and was amazed to learn that it has nothing to do with Elon Musk; it was created by a couple of engineers as a spoof on Bitcoin, but apparently caught on. Go figure.
Ravel yesterday, Debussy today, a nice run for musical impressionism.
I couldn’t decide whether to put in LIGER or tigon. I guess that’s another kea loa.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSticky here mostly due to the NE, where I wanted some form of SWEETANDLOW for the sugar substitute, not paying attention to the quotation marks around "sugar", had REDO and then RELO before REPO which finally led to PILATES, thought the clue for TIL was just wrong, and didn't know UPTON crossing DOGE (boo!) but eventually got it right after some Saturday-stumper type cogitation. WHEW.
ReplyDeleteNo clue on SEAN, changed my TINNITUS spelling twice, even though I have it, PREENS before PRIMPS, and finished with a technical DNF because I left SIN in place and never bothered to change it. Oh well, life goes on.
Nice enough Friday, JM. I Just Made it harder on myself than I should have. Thanks for all the fun.
RANK before RIPE, MILK before AGUA, and I vacillated between PIECE and PEACE. My order for 54D was SIL > SIN > SIM. Then I cycled them again because I really did not want it to be SIM.. Now I’m wondering how often I allow myself to be deluded rather than face a hard truth. I appreciate when a crossword inspires contemplation, as this one has, or broadens me. Yesterday I did a deep dive into the life of Ravel, whose music I listen to, but about whom I otherwise knew bubkis. He was an inspirational man who demonstrated unusual courage. Quite interesting reads.
ReplyDeleteI found today's grid a bit of a mixed bag — the long spanners like HOT PILATES and SIMCITY were genuinely fun to uncover, even if the trivia felt a touch heavy for a Friday. I laughed at the LIGER clue too; sometimes the silly answers are the ones that stick with you. Agree with the comments about UPTON — that crossing nearly did me in. I usually warm up with a quick word game before tackling the crossword, and today's Blossom puzzle had me in a similar frame of mind for spotting odd letter combos. All in all, a satisfying solve, even if it took me longer than I'd care to admit!
ReplyDeleteAs a millennial, I will say Hot Pilates was one of the more obvious answers on this grid and I’m happy it was included because a lot of these old timey references are hard for me! We millennials need a win sometimes!
ReplyDeleteAs a millennial, *you* are middle-aged, most constructors are in your age range, and most puzzles are aimed directly at you.
DeleteI thought Sin crossing Nats was right. Nats as the baseball players stretching.
ReplyDeleteAll in all a decent puzzle, but quite a lot of familiar and uninteresting short fill. Could do nicely without DOGE referring to either Tech bro currency or the evil monster whose short stint in government resulted in a million (and counting) lives lost by cutting "wasteful" USAID. Envisioning him someday, and eternally, being chewed by a fourth SATAN's head, even if fictional. Better as the Doge (chief magistrate) of Venice.
ReplyDeletePuzzle rating three 👍, but write-up gets 4-1/2; the most entertaining part of today's solve.
I did enjoy seeing both Epictetus and Dante in the puzzle today; just gave students a reading of the former yesterday and just referenced the three-headed SATAN in the latter the previous week.
ReplyDeleteI do occasionally comment about the things I don’t know (I believe I’m one of those who mentioned RIVEL and LUMET yesterday), though not as a complaint—I think yesterday it was just to identify a trouble spot for me in a puzzle that others found easy. I expect late week puzzles to have material I don’t know. And I’m fine with that—I often tell my students that we’re not born knowing things.
Hey Rex, early in your commentary you mention "PIECE of PEACE".
ReplyDeleteAlthough we all want a big helping, I think you meant something different.
Wish I knew how to post a link to a video of the late 1960s/early '70s-era Chicago soul/funk band Pieces of Peace.
DeleteCups are trophies for world football (soccer) as well.
ReplyDeleteMisspelled tinnitus tinnitis which caused a bit of confusion around the spanner at 34a & in the center of the grid . Pretty easy otherwise which is good since it's really too beautiful a
ReplyDeletemorning to sit around
I liked this a lot. I prefer a themeless anyway & the abundance of gimmicky puzzles gets on my nerves. But today is Friday (TGIF as they say). Only WOE was LIGER.
ReplyDeleteThank you for an enjoyable Friday,
Joe :).
Nice puzzle, could have been a Wednesday. Unusual for me to go straight through a late-week puzzle top to bottom without jumping around.
ReplyDeleteThe long downs were good and helped speed things up
Agree with review, although didn't find any slowdown with LIGER, since I already had CLOSEONE and L was going to fit in below the C better than T (for TIGON) would have.
On the plus side of decent, thanks Joe
Old Ned at 9.43: If you read beyond the AI definition, a "liege" is a lord and a vassal who owes him service is a "liegeman". AI elides excessively!
ReplyDelete@SouthsideJohnny; what a great post! I am with you 100%.
ReplyDeleteI also found this on the easy side of medium.
ReplyDeleteNo costly erasures and I did not know SEAN, WEALTH, NBA, UPTON, and ISAAC and how to spell TINNITUS.
Mildly cringy - YESES
Reasonably smooth grid with a fair amount of sparkle, liked it.
PICTURES is commonly used by people in the movie business (like my sister-in-law), a fact my brother once explained to me rather condescendingly.
ReplyDeleteHONEYBUNCH also fits. Like Rex, I had no idea if it was PIECE or PEACE, and I had to leave those squares blank for a bit.
May I ask how long ago that encounter with your brother in law?
DeleteI ask because I believe I can recall every time someone was condescending to me. And many of thise experiences were several decades ago.
Pretty standard FriPuz themeless experience, at our house. Not hard, and not easy. Just ... Fridayish.
ReplyDeletestaff weeject pick: SLR. Seems like a kinda misleadin clue, unless there's a photographer named Sally Lens Reflex, or somesuch.
Had PREENS before PRIMPS. Sorta thing that gobbles extra precious nanoseconds, but no permanent damage.
lotsa cool fillins, includin: MADEINUSA. IFEELGREAT. SIAMESECAT. LIMELIGHT. WHENCANYOUSTART & its clue. CLOSEONE & its clue. EPILOGUES clue. SWEETIEPIE & its clue.
Thanx for fillin in our FriPuz, Mr. Marquez dude. Nice job. Except could 86 20-A, maybe.
Masked & Anonymo4Us?
[Had to hand-count my U's, as havin security issues accessin xwordinfo, just lately.]
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
With yesterday's puzzle everyone was calling it easy, but I found it hard. Today is totally the opposite... this may be my easiest Friday in years! (Just over 9 minutes.) Maybe because I waited until this morning to solve it?
ReplyDeleteI just flew through it... read the clue, type in the answer. Pretty much my only typeovers were TRUTH before TRULY, and OLES before OOHS; both were pretty minor and easy to fix. Even the dreaded Unknown Names -- SEAN, UPTON, LEN, ISAAC -- got filled in quickly by the crosses. (Boy that ISAAC was a surprise... I was expecting a Chinese name!)
TINNITUS has been a new scourge for me since mid August: screeching, whining, droning, and humming noises that never stop. I don't much like this senior citizen stuff.
Cat dupe in clue and answer
ReplyDeleteYay I finally did a Friday with no look ups despite the names! I guessed Rex would find it very easy, but no, Medium! Double yay! Needless to say I really enjoyed this puzzle and the way it gradually yielded from the southwest up. Fun clues. My one nit is LIEGE which I think is lord rather than his worker, but maybe that’s a clever misdirect as I think about it.
ReplyDeleteThere’s a storefront down the road from me called Glow where they combine HOT PILATES with hot yoga - definitely a thing! Everyone looks super fit.
Did nobody else have bikram yoga for 17A??
ReplyDeleteSuspected REPO for 7D so that opened the door for 17A HOT PILATES. They not only strengthen core muscles, they also cause you to SWEAT and this improves blood flow to the skin and helps keep it (and you) healthy. I liked seeing I FEEL GREAT after that workout routine.
ReplyDeleteI have TINNITUS. I always thought it was an inner ear issue and I was surprised and a little skeptical that it could be an earwax problem, as clued.
I found this puzzle on the easy side. Some words. filled in from crosses like LEN abd NBA about which I had no clue otherwise Rare for me in Friday.
ReplyDeleteWhen rex falls for the same traps as me, it makes me feel good. Actually finished with only 2 look ups which is a huge win for me on a Friday. Southside Johny - echoed and amplified.
ReplyDeleteI polled a bunch of fellow thirty year olds, and no one knew Ravel. Debussy, yes. Ravel, no. We all, of course, know Jay Sean.
ReplyDeleteThe NBA Cup is indeed fun! A nice bit of enthusiasm added midseason.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a new Kealoa - sim/sin
ReplyDeleteLate to the party today. I enjoyed this and found it to have the right amount of Friday crunch. I had many of the same overwrites as others.
ReplyDeleteI'm a sucker for a nice spanner and LETMESAYMYPIECE was lovely. WHENCANYOUSTART was also kinda neat.
There was also some very nice longish fill like LIMELIGHT, STARGAZE, SWEETIEPIE AND HOPT PILATES,. Those all brought a smile to my face and the workout to get them to fall was fun.
There were a couple of propers I didn't know and like @Rex I was thinking, "Why oh why would you put DOGE in a puzzle?" Lucky today the good work involved in parsing the long ones was a distraction from the cryptocurrency crapola.
Thanks @Rex for your insightful take on trivia. Personally, I don't think I've ever considered anything in a puzzle trivial. Other than Star Wars, LOTR, HP, and gaming stuff, when I come across something I neve heard of in a solve, my first and only reaction is, "Well I *should* have known that!" (maybe it's my low self esteem...) But more often than not, I'm happy I learned it. I'll reiterate that I don't think Star Wars, etc... is "trivial", it's I just that I have no interest in learning about it. I also never remember anything about the subject matter and it tends to mess with my solve. But one person's "trivial" is another person's...um, whatever the opposite of that is...
Nice one today, Joe! Thanks for this!
Harriet Taylor Upton isn’t even the most famous Harriet Taylor____ suffragist. Harriett Taylor Mill is! (Who also happened to be married to John Stuart Mill, who was particularly ill).
ReplyDelete¿Cuándo puede empezar?
ReplyDeleteFriday. Buncha words. No theme. Seemed fine. Amusing even.
CRAB CLAWS are only delicacies if you kill the crab. Their actual function is to help a crab live a meaningful existence until your ravenous appetite entered the picture.
I was in SOFIA after the wall came down. Cute little town. The people my age had lived through the Russian occupation and were leery of us, but the 20-somethings in the internet cafés were quite welcoming. At one point we were trapped in a café while a political protest march of some sort passed by. Then we went over and visited the central cathedral. I'm sure the town has all changed now, but it's a nice memory.
❤️ Funky-smelling. Skedaddle.
Gunkometer--
People: 7
Places: 5
Products: 4
Partials: 6
Foreignisms: 1
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 23 of 70 (33%)
Funny Factor: 5 😄
Uniclues:
1 Why I don't love my girlfriend's obsession with the gym.
2 Result of offering Skittles to an Almond Joy-er.
3 Very loud vacation destination.
4 What you'd likely say if a crustacean decided your legs were a delicacy.
5 The serious work of wrapping it up.
6 What I give to Fox News patrons.
1 RIPE SWEETIE PIE
2 CANDY SNEER
3 SIAMESE CAT ISLE
4 CRAB CLAWS AMISS
5 EPILOGUES SWEAT
6 SHOO WARNINGS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Why my belly looks like it does. BEARCLAW GONE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Similar to others, I found this easy, and I had none of the problems Rex did because I came at the answers from different directions (already had two letters of AGUA before I got there, for example). Tuesday time for me. A fun romp!
ReplyDelete