Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Tuesday—themers took some thought, all else easy)
THEME: Clue + [number] = other clue — add a number to (the middle of) one answer to get the actual answer:
Theme answers:
BARTENDS (16A: Poets + 10 = Serves drinks)
NEWS EVENT (35A: Small amphibian + 7 = Story worth covering)
STONE AGE (58A: Phase + 1 = Ancient period)
BONINESS (18D: Supervisor + 9 = Quality that makes a fish hard to eat)
"IT WORKED!" (28D: Annoyed + 2 = "Success!")
Word of the Day: LICHENS (29A: Growths on rocks and bark) —
A lichen (/ˈlaɪkən/LY-kən, UK also /ˈlɪtʃən/LITCH-ən) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship. Lichens are important actors in nutrient cycling and act as producers which many higher trophic feeders feed on, such as reindeer, gastropods, nematodes, mites, and springtails. Lichens have properties different from those of their component organisms. They come in many colors, sizes, and forms and are sometimes plant-like, but are not plants. They may have tiny, leafless branches (fruticose); flat leaf-like structures (foliose); grow crust-like, adhering tightly to a surface (substrate) like a thick coat of paint (crustose); have a powder-like appearance (leprose); or other growth forms. (wikipedia)
• • •
I love cryptic crosswords, which may be why solving this particular puzzle was so deeply unsatisfying. It's like an awkward, remedial cryptic, phrased in mathematical terms. A normal cryptic clue for BARTENDS would be something like [Serves drinks for poets around 10], where you've got the literal part ("Serves drinks") and the figurative part ("poets around ten") combined into a plausible (if loopy-sounding) overall clue. [Big story: Gingrich swallows seven!] = NEWS EVENT. Something like that. The solver has to look at the clue and figure out which part is the literal and which part is the figurative and put the answer together from there. Here, though, you can clearly see that one side of the equation is the literal. There it is. You don't have to do any work at all if you don't want to. Just ignore half the equation. Or, you can "add" a number to a different answer, if you want, I guess, but who cares? I found the themer clues tricky only to the extent that I was distracted by the first half of the equations. There's nothing clever at all about the wording of the clues. All the delightful wordplay of a good cryptic clue has been swapped out for ... mathplay!? Solving this was actually like having a cryptic clue *explained* to me. And not even explained well, because the numbers are more engulfed than simply added. And what do the numbers even mean? I mean, what's the rationale? Do they ... add up to something? Why these numbers? I guess it's because these are the numbers you can do this trick with, i.e. good luck adding "SIX" to anything and getting a plausible final answer. But the whole thing feels pointless. All it did was make me wish I was doing a proper cryptic (my favorites are the American Values Club cryptic (eds. Stella Zawistowski, Francis Heaney and Claire Muscat) and Out of Left Field (by Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto).
I like the grid quite a bit, though. Chuck the math parts and make it a Tuesday themeless, and you're in business. The largish corners are (mostly) full of solid, colorful answers. I don't love LICHENS in the plural, and there's a reasonable amount of short overfamiliar gunk I could do without, but overall the grid has a lot of variety and bounce. ZIP, even. Got slowed down only a few times today. Parsing "IT WORKED" took my brain a few swings ("I ... TWERKED?"), and I couldn't remember how to spell NYONG'O (specifically, I couldn't remember the first letter). I also misspelled LICOLNS, thusly. I got UNTAKEN easily enough, but something about that "word" feels absurd. Frost wrote "The Road Not Taken," not "The Road UNTAKEN." You'd say "is this seat taken?" of course, but you wouldn't say "no, it is UNTAKEN," or "there are lots of UNTAKEN seats up front"—you'd say "open" or "empty" or something like that. The seat angle is somehow not working for me here. I hope that the last movie in the "Taken" series (so ... the 17th installment, made when Liam Neeson is 90) is called "UNTAKEN." That would be cool. And then you'd have a good clue for UNTAKEN.
I don't think any clues need explaining today, so I'm off to make coffee and bother my cats. See you tomorrow.
THEME: "Hurry up!" — idiomatic phrases meaning "hurry up!" clued punnily in relation to their imagined addressees:
Theme answers:
"ON THE DOUBLE!" (16A: "Hurry up!" to a batter?)
"SHAKE A LEG!" (24A: "Hurry up!" to a dancer?)
"LOOK ALIVE!" (50A: "Hurry up!" to a zombie?)
"GET CRACKING!" (62A: "Hurry up!" to an omelet chef?)
"HIT THE GAS!" (2D: "Hurry up!" to a nitrous oxide user?)
"I'M WAITING!" (35D: "Hurry up!" to a server?)
Word of the Day: LHASA (1A: Chinese provincial capital more than two miles above sea level) —
Lhasa (/ˈlɑːsə/; Lhasa dialect: /l̥ɛː˥˥.sa˥˥/; Standard Tibetan: ལྷ་ས, lit. 'Place of Gods') is the urban center of the prefecture-levelLhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet. The inner urban area of Lhasa City is equivalent to the administrative borders of Chengguan District (simplified Chinese: 城关区; traditional Chinese: 城關區; pinyin: Chéngguān Qū), which is part of the wider prefectural Lhasa City.
Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining and, at an altitude of 3,656 metres (11,990 ft), Lhasa is one of the highest cities in the world. The city has been the religious and administrative capital of Tibet since the mid-17th century. It contains many culturally significant Tibetan Buddhist sites such as the Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple and Norbulingka Palaces. (wikipedia)
• • •
Cluing LHASA as a "Chinese provincial capital" feels aggressively political and kind of hostile. I struggled with that clue so much up front, wondering what the hell this city could be, only to realize it's a city that's been in crosswords forever. It's just that this is the first time ever (literally ever, going back to 1944) that LHASA has been clued as part of China. The word "China" or "Chinese" had appeared in precisely zero LHASA clues before today. The preferred, and still accurate, term for the location of LHASA is "Tibet." I'm not going to go into a whole "Free Tibet!" thing here, but yeesh, there's a whole famous ongoing dispute about Tibet's political status, and it is bizarre beyond belief to see the NYTXW deciding, after 75+ years of neutrality on the issue, to formally recognize Chinese sovereignty. Yes, the Tibet Autonomous Region is in China, but lots of Tibetans and others consider the Chinese an occupying force. If you'd just stuck to cluing LHASA as Tibetan, you would've evoked none of this controversy. I just don't understand this clue at all (and at 1-Across, of all places). Here's a brief profile of Tibet from the BBC, just for historical context.
As for the theme, it worked until it didn't. Four of the themers make sense as clued, but ON THE DOUBLE has no meaning for a baseball player ("double," yes, ON THE DOUBLE, no), and I'M WAITING is a complete wash-out, since it reverses roles, i.e. you're supposed to be saying it *to* the "server*—the server is the one "waiting," not you. Beyond that, lots of crosswordese (CAEN, IRES (!!!?), AGUE ZEROG -INES OHARA on and on and on) and not a lot to like. No need to go to "Gone with the Wind" for O'HARA btw, unless you just enjoy romanticizing the antebellum South. Both my main struggles today were geographical, with LHASA confusing me up front and then KIGALI having seemingly disappeared from my brain completely. Not a world capital I ever put on permanent file in my memory stores. Had TIE CLIP before TIE TACK (48A: Tiny purchase at a haberdashery), and needed every cross to get CPA (64D: Figurehead?). Seriously, I had -PA and no idea ("hmmm, is it IPA? ... beer has a "head" on it ... nope, IPA's already in the grid ... hmmm" etc.).
Oof, "play HOB," what the hell is that? (22A: Play ___ with (make trouble for)). Got the HO- and then my brain somehow knew it was "B" but my shadow brain was like "that's absurd, how do you even know that?" Try using that phrase today. I guarantee no one will understand you. So in the end, 2/3 of the themers work, and the grid is filled in a not-so-great but passable way. I've had worse Wednesdays.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. I thought I'd share this email I received yesterday with you. It reminded me a little of why I love what I do (even if, on some days, like today, that might not be soooo evident :)
The largest gross consumption per capita is in Russia, with 15 kg (33 lb) per year followed by Ukraine, with 12 kg (26 lb) per year. The share of buckwheat in the total consumption of cereals in Russia is 20%.
This English-language usage probably originated with Jewish immigrants, as did the form קאַשי kashi(technically plural, literally translated as "porridges"). (wikipedia)
• • •
Not much time for this one tonight, both because I need to get to bed early (early-morning Zoom meeting) and because I have nothing much to say about this theme, which is as corny and dull a theme as I can remember seeing. It's old-fashioned. Who actually enjoys riddles? Children in the '50s? And "Riddle-de-dee"!?!?! What is that even a reference to? The second I read that first theme clue, I was out. Just, out. The same way I would be if anyone in any context said "Riddle-de-dee" to me in real life. "Riddle-de-d—" [sound of my footsteps, sound of door opening, sound of door slamming behind me]. It's like an eight-year-old's fun-time activity book decided to play dress-up. I'm sure there's a website somewhere w/ a bajillion of these kinds of riddles, all with answers about as exciting as, uh, TELEPHONE. Or YOUR BREATH (LOL, "YOUR," that one is at least amusingly bad, in that it stands on its own about as sturdily as YOUR HAT, i.e. not at all sturdily. I don't understand why this theme would provide anyone any amusement at all (unless, again, you are eight), and I superduper don't understand how it's an adequate basis for a crossword theme. "Riddle-de-dee" tries to bring it all together, but all it does (besides grate) is highlight the fact that there is no there there. Yeah, the riddles all offer apparent paradoxes. Riddles are like that.
The fill offers not a lot to allay the irksomeness of the theme. SHUT-EYE (43D: Sleep, informally) and HEAD SHOP (46A: Purveyor of drug paraphernalia) and KICKBALL (28A: Activity on a school playground) are nice entries, GAMESTER (?) and AITCH and PETERI are not. Everything else just sort of sits there. Your usual cast of 3-, 4-, and 5-letter characters. I was a little slow today because, well, ugh, riddles. They don't even have the virtue of being easily gettable! So I had to hack at crosses before I got most of them. And I forgot KASHA. Had the "K" but my brains just kept going "KAFIR!," which I think is a type of fermented milk product??? Whoops, nope, that's KEFIR. OK, moving on ... nope, not really moving on. Nothing left to say. That area in the west between (and including) KASHA and GAMESTER was definitely a trouble spot for me, but aside from the themers, nothing else gave me much pause.
Hey everyone, it's Jordan Siff, live from day (week?) 18 of coronavirus-induced quarantine. This is my second write-up for Rex, so nice to "meet" you if you didn't catch my first one on February 24th. Certainly feels like a long month since then.
My commute, once a subway ride from Brooklyn into Manhattan, has been reduced to a walk downstairs into the dining room at my mom's house in Connecticut. In the off hours, I've been playing a lot of Scrabble, trying to up my cooking game, and just started Ozark on Netflix. Latest kitchen endeavor was these peanut-butter-oatmeal-chocolate-chippers from last night:
While socially distanced life certainly has its challenges, I'm very lucky to still have my health and my job, and I feel for everyone out there who has been impacted every which way by our chaotic new world. Hopefully the NYT Crossword and this blog provide some semblance of routine as the days increasingly seem to blend together.
Anyway, onto the puzzle... Constructor:Lee Taylor
Relative difficulty:Medium (typical Monday)
THEME:PHRASES WITH NAMES— theme answers are all two-word terms or idiomatic expressions, where the second word is a common first name:
Theme answers:
BLOODY MARY (18A: Cocktail often served with a celery stick)
EVEN STEVEN (60A: All settled up)
SLOPPY JOE (4D: Sandwich that might spill onto your hands)
JOLLY ROGER (6D: Pirate flag)
SNEAKY PETE (31D: Very cheap wine, in slang)
LAZY SUSAN (37D: Revolving tray on a dinner table)
Word of the Day:AWNS(1D: Grain bristles)
awn
/ôn/
noun
BOTANY
a stiff bristle, especially one of those growing from the ear or flower of barley, rye, and many grasses.
• • •
For the most part, I enjoyed this one! It played pretty easy, as Mondays should, and while the theme was by no means groundbreaking or ingenious, it was still a well-rounded sampler of phrases that all share a common thread. It was refreshing to see the majority of the theme answers running down rather than across, and I'm glad there wasn't a revealer because they can come off super cheesy when forced. Noticing the pattern over the course of the solve was enough of a revealer for me.
My one little complaint is that EVEN STEVEN was the only themer that didn't get an adjective ending with "y," and also the only one that rhymed, which made it feel slightly inconsistent with the rest. I never knew that SNEAKY PETE meant cheap wine, but highly recommend the Amazon Prime crime drama series of the same name. (When I first saw that clue, my mind went straight to TWO BUCK CHUCK, though I knew that wasn't actually the answer.)
If there are any Curb Your Enthusiasm fans reading, you'll know that this past season had a funny bit exploring LAZY SUSAN etiquette as well as the potential offensiveness of the term itself (starts about 30 seconds in):
As for the rest of the puzzle, I thought it held up pretty well considering that there were six theme answers packed in. There wasn't too much overly objectionable fill, though ONE G made me groan. It also could have been clued like the blood type O NEG, but that string of letters ideally shouldn't be showing up period - pick your poison I guess. RAY GUNS almost felt like a bonus themer, though Ray of course was the first word in the phrase. For "Largest city in Switzerland" (25A), did anyone else put GENEVA first? Even if it's not as big, it might just be more top-of-mind for Americans than ZURICH. Finally, STRATA makes me think more about clouds than rocks, though I suppose it means "layers," so it could refer to a lot of things. Now I'm picturing Shrek saying "onions, they have strata..."
Four things:
REACT (9A: DO something) — Initially, I thought it was a typo that "DO" was spelled in all caps. It's still a weird clue because doing something is acting, and nothing here is really suggesting "do something in response to something else." Overall, it just makes me think of being yelled at: "Don't just stand there, DO something!"
SKYPE (20A: Alternative to FaceTime or Google Hangouts) — This clue feels very apropos for our current times, but Skype is so five-years-ago. It's all about ZOOM these days!
HADJ (33A: Pilgrimmage to Mecca) — I think this is usually spelled HAJJ, which threw me off solving for EDGIER at the cross. Also, mini-Muslim theme going since we get ALLAH at 16A.
RITA (66A: Actress Moreno or Hayworth) — Coincidentally, I saw Groundhog Day yesterday, and the female lead is Rita (played by Andie MacDowell). In other "Rita" news, Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks, who had both tested positive for COVID-19 and self-quarantined in Australia for a few weeks, recently returned to LA and apparently are feeling better.
Signed, Jordan Siff, Social Distancing Extraordinaire
THEME: "That's a Mouthful" — themers are phrases that (allegedly) are hard to say FIVE TIMES FAST (58D: Hard way to say the answers to the starred clues in this puzzle (good luck!)) Theme answers:
THREE FREE THROWS (22A: *Result of a foul on a long basketball shot)
REAL RARE WHALE (38A: *Albino orca, e.g.)
SHE SEES CHEESE (4D: *What a dairymaid does all day long)
SHOE SECTION (67A: *Part of a department store where people sit)
UNIQUE NEW YORK (93A: *Home of the world's only 14-lane suspension bridge) (?????????? what is this clue ????????)
IRISH WRISTWATCH (114A: *Timekeeper on the Emerald Isle)
Word of the Day: The BARNES Foundation (90A: Philadelphia art museum, with "the") —
TheBarnes Foundation is an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture. Originally in Merion, the art collection moved in 2012 to a new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The arboretum of the Barnes Foundation remains in Merion, where it has been proposed to be maintained under a long-term educational affiliation agreement with Saint Joseph's University.
• • •
Great to see a female constructor (2019 update—M: 36, W: 5); too bad the theme is so disappointing. Aside from the fact that I can say all of these just fine five times, there's the fact that these are just lifted from tongue-twister lists, of which there are tons on the Internet. Constructor just has to find a bunch that line up symmetrically. This involves no real thought or creativity. You're arranging pre-existing phrases in a grid, not doing anything particularly clever or new or interesting. The wordplay is out of a can, is what I'm saying, so the whole thing is a non-starter for me. And it's bizarre that nonsense phrases like IRISH WRISTWATCH are clued as if they are just normal things. No "?" or nothin'. There are some real issues with fill as well, like BALTO x/w ILENE, yikes. And then just an over-reliance on crosswordese and partials and gunk. There's not a single answer outside the themers that has any kind of real interest or spark. "Frequent collaborator with Adam Sandler"? Since ... since when is that a thing? A crossworthy thing? Dear god. I mean, I didn't know BARNES either, but I am more than willing to conceded that the BARNES is a thing. HERLIHY, hoooooo no, not really. BES. COZ. OEN. ADAR. EMS. RES. ROHE. TAJ. There just wasn't anything here to get excited about.
Gah, I wish I had something to say about this. It's somewhat nice to see Mrs. MAISEL here, which is at least fresh, as crossword fill goes. I had no idea RUFOUS was a word (57A: Reddish). I had RUBOUS in there for a while, as rubies are red and rubicund means reddish and rubious maybe also means that, not sure ... yep, it does. RUFOUS is a name to me, though I guess that's RUFUS.
Had real trouble also with CHICHI and OWLISH and ATTICA, which I had never heard of as clued (15D: Ancient Greek state with Athens). I know the adjective "Attic," but ATTICA to me is a prison. A prison where there was an inmate uprising and a brutal police response. A prison whose name was famously chanted by Pacino.
[106A: Ham it up]
I should probably say that [Leading characters in "Mad Max"] = EMS because the letter "M" (i.e. "em") is "leading" both words in the title "Mad Max." I should probably say this because there are always a smattering of people befuddled by tricksy letter-oriented clues like this. I can hear them all now, collectively groaning. They are right to groan. Good day.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld (Twitter @rexparker / #NYTXW)
P.S. OK I want to uncast whatever aspersions I seemed to cast on Tim HERLIHY above. I want to uncast them because this exchange on Twitter dot com made me do a literal spit-take*:
*note Tim MEADOWS is in fact a "frequent collaborator with Adam Sandler," and the name I was trying to come up with until crosses made it impossible
THEME:"Conflicting Advice" — adages that are clued via adages that say the opposite, i.e. ["this adage, but ..."] and then the answer is THIS OTHER ADAGE THAT CONTRADICTS THE ADAGE IN THE CLUE. Yes, I swear this is the theme.
Theme answers:
OPPOSITES ATTRACT (3D: "Birds of a feather flock together, but ...")
FOOLS SELDOM DIFFER (6D: "Great minds think alike, but ...")
TIME WAITS FOR NO MAN (34D: "Slow and steady wins the race, but ...")
IGNORANCE IS BLISS (38D: "Knowledge is power, but ...")
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP (24A: "He who hesitates is lost, but ...")
CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN (111A: "You can't judge a book by its cover, but ...")
Word of the Day: LOLO Soetoro, stepfather of Barack Obama (51A) —
Lolo Soetoro, also known as Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo or Mangundikardjo (EYD: Lolo Sutoro) (Javanese: [ˈlɒlɒ suːˈtɒrɒː]; January 2, 1935 − March 2, 1987), was the Indonesianstep-father of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States . // In his 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father, Obama described Soetoro as well-mannered, even-tempered, and easy with people; he wrote of the struggles he felt Soetoro had to deal with after his return to Indonesia from Hawaii. He described his stepfather as following "a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths." In a 2007 article, Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Kim Barker reported that Soetoro "was much more of a free spirit than a devout Muslim, according to former friends and neighbors." (wikipedia)
• • •
This just doesn't work. Not at the theme level, and definitely not at the fill level. It is mildly interesting that there exist this many adages that conflict one another, and that you can arrange them symmetrically in the grid, but I'm not sure the existence of such is a strong enough base on which to build and Entire Sunday Crossword Puzzle. They layout of the themers is probably the most interesting thing about this puzzle—highly unusual majority-Down set-up reverses the standard way of doing things, which I'm all for. Mix it up. But there's just nothing in the grid to overcome the dullness of the theme. No interest. No fun. No humor.
And this is a grid that has clearly been hand-filled without the apparent aid of any software—I am very supportive of the idea of novices hand-filling grids to get a sense of how they work, how they don't work, what the challenges are in filling them, etc., but that's for the learning stage. Not the prime-time stage. Grids *need* to be much, much more polished than this, and the cold truth is that the only people who can completely hand-fill grids to modern standards, with no digital assistance, are super-experienced pros. People who have 15+ years experience doing this stuff. People who learned to make puzzles in the pre-software era and then *upped their game* when the digital age forced their hands. (Most constructors I know work without computer assistance initially, but then rely on software to help them see the variety of what's possible, fill-wise, much faster and more completely than the human brain can; if you're at all confused about this process, I highly recommend Matt Gaffney's book Gridlock). This grid has been segmented like crazy in a way that increases drastically the amount of short stuff, and then the grid is loaded with "I've seen it before so it must be acceptable"-type fill. ADREM and ABO and ARA and SST and two -AE ending words and on and on. Only TOSHES is truly ridiculous, but the cumulative weight of uninteresting fill really causes this thing to drag. Here's the point at which I sighed because I realized I still had a long way to go and just didn't care any more:
Oooh, look, you can see the error that would eventually come back to haunt me. Had CHEF 44D: One on staff? because Barack Obama's stepfather was a giant ???? to me (and because, honestly, LOHO seemed like something that this puzzle would have in it ... I mean, it's got TOSHES, for &$%'s sake!). Also, there is a famous LOLO, which I figured would've been used if the answer was actually going to be LOLO:
But to be clear, I checked out on this puzzle Well before the end (when I realized I had an error). The DIPSO ARCED APORT because the AMAH would FAIN something something ADREM. It's brutal. My favorite part was right here, at 41A: Half-and-half, maybe—because I couldn't fathom any answer except one answer, which was the wrong answer, but it made me laugh anyway:
I mean ... a BUTT is kind of "Half-and-half," especially if you tack "maybe" on the end there. Like, there's one half ... and then there's the other half ... leading to the complete BUTT. Made sense to me. One last thing: If I check Yelp, I'm Yelping? Do I have that right? Just *checking* means I'm Yelping? That seems off. Yelp me out here. (40D: Checked online reviews of, modern-style => YELPED)
I'll be on the radio today (WMNF, Tampa), on the show "Life Elsewhere," talking about the late and also great Merl Reagle. You can catch it live at noon here, or in an archived version, which I'll post whenever it becomes available. (UPDATE: Here's an archived version—Listen Now) (my segment starts near top of the show, around 1:20 mark...)
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. the theme has been done before, and in the Shortz era. It was Jan. 3, 1999, too long ago for most solvers to notice (or care). Still ...
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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