Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (maybe the coded theme clues make it slightly harder than a typical Monday theme, but the rest of it felt easier than typical, actually)
THEME: take the punctuation (and symbols) literally — clues for theme answers are two-word phrases where the second word is clued normally but the first word is clued symbolically. So
Theme answers:
16A: Q.U.E.U.E.S. = a word meaning LINES that has been DOTTED, thusDOTTED LINES
27A: E+X+T+R+A+S = a word meaning BONUSES that has had "+" signs added to it, so I guess it's been "ADDED" (?), thus ADDED BONUSES
44A: W/H/E/E/L/S = a word meaning TIRES that has been SLASHED, thusSLASHED TIRES
58A: D-R-E-A-M-S = a word meaning HOPES that has been "DASHED", thusDASHED HOPES
Word of the Day: BHUTAN (42A: Himalayan country that's home to the world's highest unclimbed mountain) —
The subalpine Himalayan mountains in the north rise from the country's lush subtropical plains in the south. In the Bhutanese Himalayas, there are peaks higher than 7,000 meters (23,000 ft) above sea level. Gangkhar Puensum is Bhutan's highest peak and was until recently the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. The wildlife of Bhutan is notable for its diversity, including the Himalayan takin. The capital and largest city is Thimphu. (wikipedia)
• • •
This theme is very cute, although if you are forced to describe it concisely, you realized ... it's not so easy. Also, you realize that among the four themers, ADDED BONUSES is a real outlier. Add a dot, it's dotted; add a dash, it's dashed; add a slash, it's slashed; add a ... a ... plus sign? ... it's added. There's something so on-the-nose about dots and dashes and slashes, and thus so off about the "added" answer. You also can't say the clue word has been "added"—its letters appear to be "added" together, yes, but ... well, I guess you can say the letters in EXTRAS have been added ... I dunno. It just doesn't land like the others, even though the concept felt pretty transparent to me as I was solving. What bothered me about ADDED BONUSES had nothing to do with the theme concept and everything to do with the horridness of the phrase itself. Bonuses are, by definition, added, so ADDED BONUSES has an inherent redundancy that makes me wince as one might wince were one to hear fingernails scraped across a board of chalk (ask your parents). So ADDED BONUSES (ironically) had nothing to offer, but I still really like the core concept here. You don't usually see this kind of conceptual complexity in a Monday theme. And yet it still managed to be Monday-easy. Maybe more-than-Monday-easy. I see people already bragging like crazy on Twitter about their new Monday PRs (personal records). So, despite my balking at nearly everything about ADDED BONUSES, I found this one delightful and perfectly Monday-appropriate.
The grid is also mercifully clean and surprisingly colorful. Big thumbs up for BENTO BOX and SAD TO SAY ... I really want CUSS WORD to be CURSE WORD, so I'm not loving that one as much as maybe I should, but it's at least trying to be interesting. I redid the whole middle of the grid just so I wouldn't have to look at DLIST, which is an answer I don't like and a concept I don't really believe in (what happened to the CLIST? Where is it? No one talks about this!?). But my grid redo was mostly a lateral move, so without digging in for longer than I care to, I can't fault this DLIST version of the grid too much.
Can we talk for a second about "as" in crossword clues. When "as" follows a comma in a clue, it's most often introducing a qualifying phrase, and seems to be offering an example of an appropriate context for the pre-comma part of the clue—often an appropriate object for a verb. [Inflate, as a tire] could be PUMP UP, say. But in that case, it's at least possible to imagine that other things might also be "pumped up"—an ego, say. The "tire" is offered as a helpful, narrowing example, but not the only example. Cut to—22A: Share, as a Twitter post (RETWEET). There is literally no, none, zero other context in which "Share" = RETWEET. The "as" has a "for example" quality that is belied by the answer. There is only one context where [Share] = RETWEET—on Twitter. [Share on Twitter] is an honest clue. [Share, as a Twitter post] implies there is *any* other context in which [Share] can mean RETWEET. But there is no such context. Why does this bug me when there's no difficulty in getting the answer? I Don't Know, It Just Does. I hate the phoniness of the clue, kind of casually implying that "as a Twitter post" is just an offhand example when in fact it is the *only* example. Seems disingenuous and mildly fraudulent. Also, do you really think St. Nick calls his clothes a SANTA SUIT!? They're probably just ... clothes, to him. "OK, elves, Rudolph, just hang on, I gotta go get my Me Suit from the cleaners," what the hell? [Costume for a mall St. Nick], yes. But for St. Nick himself ... I just don't think that's what he'd call it. Good day.
Word of the Day: TOWER OF HANOI (7D: Mathematical puzzle with movable disks) —
The Tower of Hanoi (also called the Tower of Brahma or Lucas' Tower[1]and sometimes pluralized as Towers, or simply pyramid puzzle[2]) is a mathematical game or puzzle. It consists of three rods and a number of disks of different diameters, which can slide onto any rod. The puzzle starts with the disks stacked on one rod in order of decreasing size, the smallest at the top, thus approximating a conical shape.
The objective of the puzzle is to move the entire stack to last rod, obeying the following simple rules:
Only one disk may be moved at a time.
Each move consists of taking the upper disk from one of the stacks and placing it on top of another stack or on an empty rod.
No disk may be placed on top of a disk which is smaller than it.
With 3 disks, the puzzle can be solved in 7 moves. The minimal number of moves required to solve a Tower of Hanoi puzzle is 2n − 1, where n is the number of disks.
• • •
Annoyed to wake up this morning to find a text on my phone's lock screen from my daughter that read as follows:
Once the puzzle comes out (at 10pm the night before), I don't look at social media til I'm done solving, precisely so that I know Nothing about the puzzle when I sit down to solve it. I don't want even the tiniest bit of information or inference in my head. Nothing. Nada. I have learned that when it comes to "spoilers," I have only myself to blame. Don't blame social media—That's Where People Go To Spoil Things. It's the raison d'être of the entire Internet—ruining things you love, or might love, before you've even had a chance to enjoy them. So I stay off. But I don't block texts from my family. Who could foresee such betrayal!? Et tu, Ella!? Anyway, I'm proud of her Saturday accomplishment (I couldn't finish a Saturday puzzle at all until I'd been solving for years) (they were harder back then, but still). But I knew this puzzle was "Easy" before I even started, so then of course I'd get frustrated with myself when any answer gave me trouble. "I WAS TOLD THIS WAS EASY!" Well it was easy, but not ridiculously easy, so I think my daughter's just better at solving than she thinks. Also, the constructor appears to be a young woman, i.e. she looks much more like my daughter than she does me, so maybe, Maybe, generational similarity matters, and it's simply more likely that you'll groove on a puzzle made by someone your own age than by someone who isn't. I like puzzles by all kinds of people, but it's not terribly surprising that my favorite constructor of Friday puzzles, Robyn Weintraub, is approximately Rex years old. And yet ... I liked this puzzle too! A constructor's generational similarity isn't the only factor in puzzle groovability. But it just might help.
[The Young RASCALs!]
["You and me and Leslie..."]
I laughed when I looked up TOWER OF HANOI after I'd finished solving because I realized instantly that I have "never heard of this answer" at least once before. I definitely used it as Word of the Day before, because I remember the little puzzle-solving animation (above). Still, today, no idea, so I just got it all from crosses. It was the only thing in the grid that wasn't familiar to me. This includes FUNFETTI, which I know somehow, how? (1A: Colorful Pillsbury cake with a portmanteau name). Wait, what are the two words in the "portmanteau." I thought "fun" + "confetti" ... but it feels weird to call it that, since it's less a mash-up of two words than a pun on the first syllable of one word ("confetti"). Unless the "fun" comes from "funnel" or "fungible" or "fundament" (one of your less popular cakes, I imagine). Lots of good food stuff in this puzzle. Didn't know SAGE was a big deal in Italian cooking, but I do enjoy a SOFT CHEESE and an ICE CREAM CONE now and then and I have definitely been in a FOOD COMA.
Nothing really sizzled today in the long fill department, except (ironically?) FROZEN SOLID. I also like the SW corner overall; it's a nice little stack. Good clue on DRAG RACERS too (38A: Zoom participants?). I am tired of Zoom, since it's where I do all my teaching, but apparently I'm not tired of Zoom-based wordplay. Yet. Was not fond of all the fill-in-the-blank clues (truly the lowest form of cluing). Five (5) of these!?!? Blank Star (sadly, not "DEATH"), blank bike, blank blue, On the blank, and then the blank in the Dorothy Parker quote. Had me longing for more "?" clues, which never happens (actually, there were five "?" clues today, which seems like the Perfect amount for a Saturday). OK, I have to run to the hospital to get blood drawn (far less dire than it sounds). Can't eat until that's done. so, goodbye. Cheers. See you tomorrow.
THEME: SPRING FORWARD (Observe daylight saving time, in a way ... as in 17-, 29- and 54-Across?) — The three theme entries are phrases that include times, all of which have been "sprung forward" by one hour
Theme answers:
DARKNESS AT ONE PM (60A: 1940 Arthur Koestler novel set during the Moscow Trials)
SIX O'CLOCK SHADOW (29A: Short stubble)
BURN THE ONE AM OIL (54A: Work very late)
Word of the Day: PULSAR (45D: Dense, spinning celestial body) —
A pulsar (from pulse and -ar as in “quasar”)[1] is a highly magnetized rotating compact star (usually neutron stars but also white dwarfs) that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles.[2] This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Earth (similar to the way a lighthouse can be seen only when the light is pointed in the direction of an observer), and is responsible for the pulsed appearance of emission. Neutron stars are very dense and have short, regular rotational periods. This produces a very precise interval between pulses that ranges from milliseconds to seconds for an individual pulsar. Pulsars are one of the candidates for the source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. (See also centrifugal mechanism of acceleration.)
• • •
Hi all, Rachel Fabi in for Rex today. I enjoyed this one a lot! The theme is clever, the theme entries are funny and interesting, and the fill is, on the whole, pretty uniformly excellent, with just a couple exceptions.
The flow of the solve felt different for me, and it took me until JUST NOW, several minutes into working on this writeup, to figure out why. At first I thought maybe the grid was extra wide, but I've counted the squares *several* times and nope, it's not that. It's the symmetry! This grid has left/right (mirror) symmetry instead of traditional rotational symmetry, which resulted in me moving through the grid in really unusual ways. It's funny to realize that, when you've been doing the crossword for a long time, you get a feel for how to navigate a grid, and when something is different you can just *feel* it in the solve, like trying to put a shoe on the wrong foot. I get the same feeling solving puzzles with diagonal symmetry, and, as with today's puzzle, it always takes me longer than it should to realize why. L/R symmetry is neat and different and exceptionally useful when you're trying to build a grid around themers of asymmetrical lengths (in this case 15/15/15/13). And I'm sure I'm imagining it, but the grid kind of looks like a clock? Nah, I'm probably just projecting now.
Cool grid aside, I really enjoyed the theme today. I wasn't familiar with DARKNESS AT ONE PM (Noon), so it took me until the second theme entry to really get a foothold on the gimmick. SIX O'CLOCK SHADOW fell easily due to the X of SURTAXES, and backsolving to ONE PM followed pretty quickly after that. BURN THE ONE AM OIL was then immediately inferable, so although I struggled mightily at first, the puzzle clicked into place in short order after I cracked the theme (hence the medium-average rating for the puzzle's difficulty). The timing is perfect for this theme, given that we SPRING FORWARD this coming weekend, which makes me wonder how long the NYT editorial staff sat on this puzzle to make that timing work out! I hope this isn't constructor Leslie Rogers's debut, because having to wait for a specific date for publication sounds like torture. (Ok, yes, this is easily knowable, so I went and confirmed that it's not her debut.)
I also think it's worth noting that the fill today is super fresh / generally high quality, and some standard fill came with fresh clues. I'm especially glad to see DESI clued as [South Asian living abroad] instead of DESI Arnaz for what appears to be only the 5th time in NYT history. Also fun: SWOLE (although I can see this slang confusing some solvers), SINE (which had an actual π in the clue!), the repeated clue for HIP and ARM [In yoga, one side of a triangle formed in triangle pose]. In fact, the clues were definitely another highlight of this puzzle. I'll bulletpoint some favorites below. The one thing that irked me in this puzzle was the dang clue on NANCY [Woman's name that's also a city in France]. Oh, were there no NANCYs of note worthcluingthisentryabout? Really, none? I suspect this was an editorial rather than a constructor decision.
Bullets:
Favorite clues:
20A: Signs of something moving? for TEARS— Because this was in that top section, this took me forever to land, but I smiled when I got it
58A:Safari runner, at times for IOS— Because the built-in Apple browser is Safari. Clever!!!
46D: It gets you close to home for TRIPLE — I normally don't go in for the sports entries but this is a nice misdirect
A few other things:
Does the clue for USED [Like most books offered on AbeBooks.com] count as a dupe of ABE? I don't super care, personally, but I know some solvers do.
Not a fan of Jack DORSEY
Love that feeling when you get to 2D and it's [The Bulldogs of the N.C.A.A.] and you panic because there are so. many. [Bulldogs of the N.C.A.A.]
Overall, this puzzle is great and I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite solving while burning the 11pm oil (which is one hour later than I'd normally go to sleep...!). Thanks for letting me blog at you for a bit, and see you at the New Yorker crossword reviews over on Crossword Fiend, or back here on the 23rd of the month, when Rex and I will (hopefully) do our next video solve, or on crossword twitter.
Signed, Rachel Fabi, Queen-for-a-Day of CrossWorld
HELLO, READERS AND SOLVERS IN SYNDICATION (if it's the week of Jan. 12-19, 2020, that's you!). It's January and that means it's time for my annual pitch for financial contributions to the blog, during which I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly. It's kind of a melancholy January this year, what with the world in, let's say, turmoil. Also, on a personal note, 2019 was the year I lost Dutchess, who was officially The Best Dog, and who was with me well before I was "Rex Parker." Somehow the turning of the calendar to 2020 felt like ... I was leaving her behind. It's not a rational sentiment, but love's not rational, especially pet love. Speaking of love—I try hard to bring a passion and enthusiasm to our shared pastime every time I sit down to this here keyboard. I love what I do here, but it is a lot of work, put in at terrible hours—I'm either writing late at night, or very early in the morning, so that I can have the blog up and ready to go by the time your day starts (9am at the very latest, usually much earlier). I have no major expenses, just my time. Well, I do pay Annabel and Claire, respectively, to write for me once a month, but beyond that, it's just my time. This blog is a source of joy and genuine community to me (and I hope to you) but it is also work, and this is the time of year when I acknowledge that! All I want to do is write and make that writing available to everyone, for free, no restrictions. I have heard any number of suggestions over the years about how I might "monetize" (oof, that word) the blog, but honestly, the only one I want anything to do with is the one I already use—once a year, for one week, I just ask readers to contribute directly. And then I let 51 weeks go by before I bring up the subject again. No ads, no gimmicks. It's just me creating this thing and then people who enjoy the thing supporting the work that goes into creating the thing. It's simple. I like simple. Your support means a lot to me. Knowing that I have a loyal readership really is the gas in the tank, the thing that keeps me solving and writing and never missing a day for 13+ years. I will continue to post the solved grid every day, tell you my feelings about the puzzle every day, make you laugh or wince or furrow your brow or shout at your screen every day, bring you news from the Wider World of Crosswords (beyond the NYT) every day. The Word of the Day is: Quotidian. Occurring every day. Daily. Whether you choose to contribute or not, I'm all yours. Daily.
How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):
Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):
Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
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All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. This year's cards are illustrations from the covers of classic Puffin Books—Penguin's children's book imprint. Watership Down, Charlotte's Web, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, How to Play Cricket ... you know, the classics. There are a hundred different covers and they are truly gorgeous. Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just say NO CARD. As ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support.
Now on to the puzzle!
• • •
Despite containing things I find moderately to very repulsive (billionaires, VEAL), and despite starting off kind of weakly in that NW corner, I ended up coming around on this one and liking it just fine. It's not that the NW is soooo bad. There were just two things that made it less than pleasurable for me, one of them my problem and the other one very much the puzzle's problem. *My* problem was not knowing RASH GUARD at all. In retrospect, I'm quite sure I've heard the term, and since I've worn skintight protective swimwear at the beach before, it's possible I've even had the term on my body before. But the term itself somehow sank in, and so getting that answer was, let's say, an adventure. Here's where the puzzle's problem kicks in—the fill up there is less than great. If I emerge from a NW corner and I've already had to deal with ANIMA and UNSNAG and REECE and ATTILA and ALEPH and INGA, let's just say I don't have super high hopes for how the rest of the grid is going to go. So heading out of the NW I was leery, but then POLAR BEAR PLUNGE was great (best thing in the grid, no question) and the rest of the puzzle ended up being perfectly solid and mostly clean. Infinitely more enjoyable than yesterday's puzzle (which I had the great pleasure of not-blogging—thank you, Rachel)
There weren't many times when I needed to UNSNAG myself—the puzzle was definitely on the easy side, with gimmes aplenty. At 7D: Fifth-century military leader (ATTILA) I had the two Ts and started writing in OTTO something something (this was truly the low point of the solve). I was super-suspicious of BOCA because I didn't think snowbirding in Mexico was *that* common ... turns out I got my BOCAs and my CABOs confused (BOCA Raton is of course in Florida) (53A: Where many snowbirds winter, for short). I knew a SCRIM was an *object* in the theater but I did not know it was the name of the fabric (3D: Fabric in theater curtains). I struggled a bit to figure out the ambiguous 26D: Pages, e.g. (AIDES). I tried to read the Game of Thrones novels and gave up and tried to watch the show and gave up so GOT clues will forever remain a mystery to me. There's got to be better ways to clue ALLEN, but no matter, I figure it out quickly from crosses. I just learned that Alfie ALLEN is the younger brother of singer Lily ALLEN, who wrote a song about him. A song called "Alfie." It is ... well, here, see for yourself:
I knew very well what "eschatology" meant but still, cluing END as an "event" feels very very much like a stretch (40A: Event studied in eschatology, with "the"). "End times," "End of the world," "End days," etc. those are all correct. When you call The END an "event" ... that's just unhelpful. It's a term from theology, and ought to have been more clearly clued as such. But, again, good work overall, I think. Solid, easy, relatively breezy Friday.
Constructor: Leslie Rogers and Andrea Carla Michaels
Relative difficulty: Medium (3:01)
THEME: CAP AND GOWN (59A: Graduation garb ... or what the compound answers to 17-, 28- and 44-Across represent?) — first word can precede "CAP," second word can precede "GOWN," in familiar phrases:
Theme answers:
"NIGHT NIGHT!" (17A: "Sleep well!")
"WHITE WEDDING" (28A: Billy Idol hit that starts "Hey little sister, what have you done?"
MUSHROOM BALL (44A: Vegetarian spaghetti topper)
Word of the Day: ANNE Hathaway (19A: Actress Hathaway of "The Devil Wears Prada") —
I made every mistake I could make in this one—OHO for OOH, EPSON for EPSOM, EVADE for ELUDE, ALOT for ATON, probably other stuff too—so was mildly annoyed by the end of it all, but then I got to the revealer and proceeded to check it against the theme answers, starting from the bottom of the grid and moving up. First one, MUSHROOM BALL: "Oh, nice, first is a cap, second is a gown ... never heard of a MUSHROOM BALL in my life, and I eat heaps of vegetarian food, but OK, I'm sure it's real, I'll allow it, moving on ... WHITE WEDDING! Oh, nice. Much tighter phrase, and ... yep, "white cap," "wedding ball," totally checks out. Nice ... OK, and last on the list ..." At this point I literally laughed out loud. "NIGHT NIGHT" ... is both an answer that has totally given up ("Screw this two-different-words stuff, let's just use the same word for both answers!"), and the best answer in the grid. Somehow finishing with the revealer, then reading backward through the themers, and ending up at the first themer, seen in this totally new light ... it was the perfect way to experience this puzzle. The rest of the grid ... I don't know, it seems fine. But the theme is where the party's at. Loopy and dead-on—a good combo.
[there's a "WHITE WEDDING Pt. 2???]
Well, it turns out I don't have much else to say about this one. So ... NIGHT NIGHT, I guess!
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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