Interesting theme today wherein four Down answers are TRIMMED versions of Across answers that they intersect with. So, for example, STURDY (Durable) is SATURDAY (Popular date night) with the As removed. And TREBLE (Knob on an amplifier) is TRUEBLUE (Staunchly loyal) without the Us. Very nice.
This puzzle is mostly theme, and it's a good one.
- Horace
I've just about had it with this trolling! Here I am in the middle of a difficult bathroom renovation, and what's 1-Across? "What a leaky faucet has" (DRIP). Harrumph!
In good fill we include IMPROMPTU (Spur-of-the-moment) (also brings to mind Chopin, which is never a bad thing) and HAYDN (Nice letter combination. Also, music). And "Midnight's opposite" (NOON) was fun, and it reminded me of the quote from Mary-Kate Olsen talking about her sister: "To me, the difference between us is pretty obvious. She thinks the opposite of fire is water, and I think the opposite of fire is no fire."
I had never really thought about TON being a "Suffix in the names of many U.S. cities," even though the nearest major city to me - Boston - uses it.
Fun Tuesday. Keep 'em coming. :)
- Horace
.... To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, THERESTHERUB; ...
- Hamlet, Act III, Scene I
Ay, indeed! For in that Monday grid what themes will come? Today we get three items that are rubbed: a MASSAGETABLE, SPARERIBS, and a MAGICLAMP. Hah! Pretty nice trio - all so different, yet connected.
So the theme is solid, and we've got some fun answers in the fill, too. COWHAND, REPLETE, DIRNDL, and CROSSLEGGED are all nice to see. The photographer in me likes seeing the now-nearly-obsolete FSTOP. I therefore LEAPTO the decision that this is a solid Monday puzzle! The only reservation I have is that once again, the puzzle is trolling me - never more will I "Luxuriate in a bathtub" (SOAK) at home. I helped smash up our old tub myself with a sledgehammer. Was it the right decision? That still remains to be seen.
Stay tuned!
- Horace
10-4
I like to learn something new from a crossword, and today I learned that October fourth is TRUCKERDAY. And why should that be? Because of the famous sign off on a CB radio - "10-4 Good Buddy," of course. Ahh... the Seventies. Good times.
To commemorate this momentous day, Ms. Bale has created a puzzle using only ten and four-letter answers. It's a remarkable achieveMENT, and it has made for a very pleasing grid. So symmetrical! And believe it or not, it's remarkably clean. So let's get into it.
The clue for the first ten-letter answer is, appropriately, "10-4" (UNDERSTOOD), and it sits symmetrically opposite the revealer. The other Acrosses in that top section are all good: CREAMPUFFS (Profiteroles, by another name), SUITTOATEE (Fit perfectly), and REDUCEDFAT. INDISPOSED (Busy with something else) is solid, TOETHELINE is good. Sure, ABUDHABIAN (Resident of a Mideast capital) is a little unexpected, but I'll allow it.
Elsewhere, ADAPTORDIE (Maxim about surviving in a rapidly changing world) reminds me of a different approach, "Let go or be dragged." Hah!
OLDERPIPES (Drawback to a brownstone) is entirely too soon. I believe Colum referenced a certain bathroom renovation, and let's just say older pipes were just one of the problems encountered. I would CUSS but this is a family blog.
TRUCKERDAY itself may be little known and little celebrated, but if this review can do anything to promote and praise this puzzle, then I will be happy.
10-7 Y'all.
- Horace
Steady does it, was my feeling on finishing today's puzzle. No great bursts of solving, but a even-keeled pace of figuring things out, leading to a solve time just slightly slower than my typical for a themeless. I really enjoyed the easy-going nature of many of the answers today, leading to a grid filled with colloquialisms.
The seeds for this puzzle must have been the two grid-spanning answers, WHENCANYOUSTART and LETMESAYMYPIECE. Two great 15-letter entries, with somewhat opposing tones of voice! Other fun answers in the same style include IFEELGREAT and 14A: Sugar substitute? (SWEETIEPIE). That's a great QMC.
3D: Written posts? (EPILOGUES) evaded me until I had almost all the crosses. The clue is nicely misleading, I wasn't certain where I was being asked to go.
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| SOFIA |
Epictetus is, as is typical, pithy when he says that WEALTH comes from needing little. Hah!
Overall, I found this puzzle to be entertaining and smooth, with good entry into the areas that are more cut off (like the NW and SE sections).
- Colum
Rabbit, rabbit!
Happy October all. And yes, I've managed to do it - solve the puzzle the night before and have the review ready to go first thing. I'm so proud of myself.
Well, you know we all enjoy a good rebus puzzle here at HAFDTNYTCPFCAAPTF (that's getting a little unwieldy even in acronym form). I particularly like it when the squares are unpredictable, adding a little flair to the solving process. Today I figured out only one of the three squares prior to being forced by crosses to get it.
Our revealer comes at 55A: Obstacles ... or a hint to three squares in this puzzle (STUMBLINGBLOCKS). And indeed, in three squares we have a synonym for stumbling! Thus PLEDGEO[FALL]EGIANCE, PAY[SLIP]SERVICE, and MAGNETICS[TRIP]E. I like the first two better than the last one, because the hidden word crosses multiple words from the original phrase. But they're all excellent entries, and you wouldn't get the first one in a standard 15 x 15 grid without the rebus!
A fun Thursday, if a touch too easy.
- Colum
My apologies for the late review today. I mean every day to get in the habit of solving the night before and having the review ready to go, and then forget! Habits can be hard to form, it turns out.
Today's theme is a winner in my book! We start with noting that each of the theme answers (written in italics) ends with an exclamation point. In standard clue parlance, this means that the clue is instructing the solver to imagine doing the clue to the answer. Thus, the clue "Beat it!" might lead to the answer "drum."
But none of the clues have "it" in them. But actually they do! The "it" is hidden inside of the clue word. For example:
17A: Market! (EXAMPAPER) - should be reinterpreted as "Mark it!"
24A: Ticket! (CHECKBOX) - should be reinterpreted as "Tick it!"
Very nicely done. I especially like SURPRISEPARTY in the middle of the grid.
Any puzzle that finds room for GIBBOUS is impressive, if you ask me. And the symmetric answer has PANACHE. What flair! And then to have 24D: Collection of dishes? (CUISINE) cross over FOODIE is well done.
Also, we often have SULU, but how often do we get
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| SCOTTY |
- Colum
This sort of theme used to be quite common - common phrases which can then be split into two other common phrases by the addition of a shared word across the puzzle. I had heard that the NYT Crossword team had tried to move away from these themes, unless there was a great revealer. Well, I think this puzzle has one.
58A: Wedding officiant's directive ... or what both halves of 17-, 25-, 35- and 50-Across do? (JOINHANDS). Thus, if we add "hand" to the front and back of the theme answers, we get new common phrases. 17A: Where some monster home runs land (UPPERDECK) gives us "upper hand" and "deckhand." Nice call back to yesterday's puzzle, by the way!
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| Explaining 5D |
It's not that remarkable that GREENDAY's American Idiot has gone platinum six times over. Do albums do that any more? Has streaming removed the meaning of the term? A quick Google search tells me that it's still in use, but now refers to a combination of downloads, physical album purchases, and streaming. A sogn/video has to be streamed 1,500 times in order to match a purchase of an LP/CD. The most recent album to go platinum was Cardi B's "Am I the Drama?"
- Colum
Take me out to the ballgame ...
Ms. Chen is inviting us to enjoy the upcoming playoffs, with a LEADOFF / HOMERUN. The theme has us reinterpreting the first word in four common phrases as slang for a dinger. Thus, BOMBSHELL, TATERTOTS, BLASTZONE, and JACKFRUIT. It's a fun idea, and it's supplemented by non-theme entries such as 43D: Like the score going into extra innings (ALLTIED), 63A: San Francisco ballplayer (GIANT), and 17A: Solid baseball hit (LINER).
I note that my interpretation of 37D: Complete series (BOXSET) was biased by all the baseball lingo. I couldn't fit "three/five/seven games" into the space allotted, however.
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| Greta GARBO |
I've always been amused by the saying "Time flies like an ARROW; fruit flies like a BANANA." The play on different meanings of the word "flies" is great. I am reminded of the great Groucho Marx saying: "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Otherwise, it's a smooth and enjoyable Monday puzzle. I realized as I was solving that I was moving down the West side of the grid, which is unusual. When I solve quickly, I tend to move from NW to SE. But this grid has the diagonal line of black squares blocking that flow.
- Colum
THE FULL 12 ROUNDS
Hey, everyone! Fun to be back on such an interesting Sunday puzzle. I've been solving and not reading the blog much, which means I've got a lot to catch up on. Philbo's biking, Horace and Frannie are redoing their bathroom, and the world's only getting more and more crazy. There's a Nor'Easter hitting NYC even as I'm solving and typing. But the crossword is always a nice escape!
Today, we have six oval shapes, each with 12 letters in them, with helpful arrows and start and stop points placed within. I suppose that the "12" in the puzzle title refers to the number of letters in each encircled answer? Also, nicely, each of the circles has at least one answer which is bounded by the circle, so that it's six letters long. This the answer that gets the clue for the circle.
That made a lot of sense.
But if you look at 28A: ... outdoor festivals)(Bathrooms at ... - you'll see what I mean. The answer to this particular clue is PORTAPOTTIES, only it comes as ES|PORT over ITTOPA.
I see this is not helping.
Anyhoo, clever that all across answers still make sense as acceptable crossword entries, whether they are words on their own as in SORTER and PECT|IN, or parts of larger answers, like DRAGRACES.
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| SAMIN Nosrat |
To finish out the theme, there are two revealers, one at 49A (CORIOLIS effect - note that the three answers in the Northern "Hemisphere" of the puzzle go clockwise, while the three answers in the Southern "hemisphere" go counter-clockwise), and the other at 85A (LOOPBACK).
That's a lot of explanation for a Sunday theme. There are a couple of clues which are clever, including 92D: Shaders of gray? (AGEISTS), and 39A: Baby who's up all night? (OWLET).
See you all tomorrow!
0:21:48
Today Horace and Frances are doing a joint review and they found a GENDERGAP in their solving approach. (And in their approach to writing the review!) You might think think Frannie's approach was more SHAPELY, but Horace has more TALON. (Frannie's joke!) When Frannie complained about SIDEBANGS and WEREGOOD, Horace said, GETAGRIP! (TEEHEEHEE.)
Frannie enjoyed the QMCs "Watch party?" (SENTINEL) "Gag reflexes?" (HAHAS), and "A bit corrupt, perhaps? (DATAROT), and the non-QMC "Camp distribution" (RATIONS). Horace's favorites were "Critical response concerning a piece of fiction?" (YOULIEDTOME), "Real page-turner?" (SPEEDREADER) (even though he's not one), and "It's in the eye of the beholder" (RETINA). Hah!
We wouldn't say this puzzle went to ELEVEN, but it wasn't PHONED in either.
- Horace (and Frances)
0:15:05
Those NW and SE corners were a struggle, IKIDYOUNOT. The clue "Olympic slalom equipment" is tricky in two ways - wrong sport and wrong season! I though Winter Olympics and skiing, but it's Summer Olympics and CANOE! And because I skipped around so much while solving, "U2 producer Brian" was the absolute last clue I saw, probably about ten minutes in. I didn't know he produced U2, but "producer" plus "Brian" plus "music" plus "three-letters" can only be one answer. Say it with me, ENO. That kind of clue is an easy way to GAMETHESYSTEM in crosswords.
In the opposite corner, I spent an eternity thinking about Hell before TAROT was finally made clear by crosses (The Devil's domain). And "Ptolemaic royal, familiarly" is not how I usually think of CLEOpatra. Likewise, "Poke alternative" was nicely misleading, as I thought only of food until, again, crosses forced my pen.
This has been a bit of a crazy week, but Frannie should BERIGHTBACK with you again tomorrow.
- Horace
0:06:11
The theme today is three things about which one might say THATSFAIRGAME: SPORTSMANSHIP, OPENSEASON, and BALLOONPOP. Weird. SPORTSMANSHIP sort of works. OPENSEASON is a little off. I mean, when it's OPENSEASON the game that you shoot is fair game, or it's fair to shoot game... and BALLOONPOP is fine, I guess. I haven't been to a fair recently, so I can't be sure that's the name for it, but it certainly is what you need to do. So I guess a comment I might make about the theme is, UHNO.
What about the rest of the grid? I noticed the other day that ENBY had made it into the accepted word list in the Spelling Bee, so it was fun to see it in the puzzle again. And I liked that AHYES ran Down right next to the UHNO I used above. That was a nice touch.
The most interesting clue for me today was "Rural structure seen in a Grant Wood lithograph." If you've heard of Grant Wood, you know "American Gothic," but in that painting there is only a house. But still, you know that it depicts a farmer holding a hay fork, and you think "midwest" and that gets you to SILO, even though you've never seen a lithograph by the artist in your life. That's cool, isn't it?
The Turn starts tomorrow. I'll see you again then.
- Horace
0:05:20
Today's puzzle comes to us from the reigning champion of the A.C.P.T., Erik Agard. I was in attendance when he won this year's final by more than a minute and a half over the second place finisher. His time in that puzzle, incidentally, was more than a minute faster than my time on his puzzle today, and that final was not a Tuesday-level grid.
In other news, how have I missed that TUESDAYS are "popular times for tacos?" Is it simply the alliteration? I suppose I might have paid more attention if I ate tacos with any regularity. Me, I'm more prone to eating foods flipped with a SPATULA. You know, galettes, ployes ... those sorts of things. Also, "Vase with a base" seemed odd for URN. "Vase with a cover" might have been more appropriate, no?
And speaking of ARENAS, you can still get a ticket to see the 50th anniversary tour for this album at Madison Square Garden. The cheapest seat I found on StubHub was $1,089.00 - Oy VEY!, but it might just be worth it.
- Horace
0:04:05
An ODE to the FORTIES, or, more to the point, "the four Ts." Four theme answers are strings of four words each, and all the words start with the letter T. In cases like these, Colum often likes to rank the entries, so today I will do the same.
TOOTIREDTOTHINK (Mentally pooped) - This is my favorite because it is where I am right now.
TOTELLTHETRUTH (If I'm being honest ...) - Even though the TV show of the same name debuted in the decade after the forties, this one is still very much alive.
TEACHTOTHETEST (Deliberately give instruction in a way that targets an exam) - This one needed too much of a clue, and who wants to think about taking a test?
TAKESTWOTOTANGO ("A fight requires more than one person") - Again, the clue is a bit forced, and the expression often includes a fifth word, "it."
- Horace
RISE TO THE POWER
This puzzle answers the question "How can math be entered into the crossword solving experience?" Five answers include a BASE and an associated EXPONENT that must be put together to make the proper answer. For example, SWEETTWO works with FOUR to make "sweet sixteen" (March Madness tournament round), and WHENIMFOUR and THREE working out to "When I'm Sixty-Four" (Beatles classic with the lyric "Will you still need me / Will you still feed me"). My favorite of the theme answers was the unexpected NINEARMEDBANDIT and ZERO adding up to "One-armed bandit."
I liked learning about TONETAGS (Online forum qualifiers such as /j ("joking") or /s ("sarcastic")), and RICOCHET (It's off the wall!) was nice. I don't use the term TOPFLIGHT nor its clue "A-one" very much. TAKEARAINCHECK (Reschedule, so to speak) was good, and I like the expression ITSFORTHEBIRDS, but is "Don't pay any mind to this" the right clue for it? "Tables," on the other hand, was perfect for PUTSASIDE.
Tricky clues included "Things that drivers sometimes leave behind?" (TEES), and "Sped or bled ... or led" (RAN).
I liked this one.
- Horace
0:20:53
You know it's a Saturday because you have learned there's something called a GUITALELE (Instrument also known as a ukitar), and that Siva SAMOA is a (traditional dance named for its country of origin). And speaking of learning things, who knew that a sawtooth shark is actually just called a SAWSHARK? Or that there's a narrative device called RETCON? It's short for "retroactive continuity," and I'm guessing it comes from tweaks to the timelines of franchises like Star Wars or X-Men.
I'm either an EMPTYSUIT or a PEON full of HOTAIR, but I hope you get the GIST.
- Horace
D.N.F.
The NW was my undoing today. I stared at it for five minutes and then decided that I had to get on with my life. I like it, though, with its IQS (Brightness measures, in brief), ITSHOT (Server's warning at a restaurant), and TREERING (Element of a dating profile?). Cute. I don't think HORDE is just right for "Mass," and I was never going to get TED (Sci-fi writer Chiang) or TRAE (Four-time N.B.A. All-Star Young), but that's the way it goes sometimes.
