I pronounced it orangey mint, which made no sense
4
I got all the answers (including "sounds like a plan"), but the combined answers sounded like "orange mint," which made absolutely NO sense. It's a pretty thin theme, and sounds almost like something someone came up with under duress.
4
Deb,
Oreos have "creme." That's to get around the picky law saying there has to be cream in something that's cream-filled.
"Crème" is French cream. None of that in an Oreo, either. Is this a Times style thing or were you just in a Continental mood?
With or without the accent, I'd buy a bucket of it too.
1
Nabisco describes Oreos as "creme-filled"
Martin,
Yep. In the U.S.A., no dairy, no "cream." Creme.
Or would you like Kreme?
Lauren,
You note correctly that there is no accent mark on Nabisco's creme; there *is* an accent mark on the Wordplay column's creme. (That was Martin's point.)
1
Australians put "y/ie" on the end of everything, i.e. veggie (vegetable), brekky (breakfast), so hammy was a no-brainer. But Google is invaluable for Dallas schools and Ohio governors. I'm learning all the Times!
4
Big natick at 17D -- didn't know both personae involved.
As for the kerfluffle in regard to 1A, there is always "Give me the moon over my hammy...." as an alternate..... :-)
Minor quibble: IVE is a better ending for 22D.
2
@Dr W
'Moon over my hammy' deserves a big ole GTYR, Dr W, and I want you to think about what you've done.
3
Dr W,
Regarding your big Natick at 17D, most critically, I gather you also did not know the Org.?
Fastest ever puzzle period for me by a minute. No idea why my best Tuesdays are faster than best Mondays.
I also thought the combination was Orange Mint but when I got to the revealer I had enough filled in to realize what it was so was able to figure out that arrangement :) .
3
Despite its a sharp popularity, especially in the wide world of sports, HAMMY has always felt like a cheesy reference. Second string players and owners of aged tendons are much more susceptible to an injury. Ghouda thunk it? This is solely my opinion; no grate stretch of the imagination.
4
I’m from NJ and saying out loud got orange mint not arrangement.
I’ve Heard and used expression “HAMMY hands” describing some guys. I’ve pulled a hamstring sprinting and it’s very painful and doesn’t warrant such a cute nickname.
3
@Bernie
"Ham" or "hams," yes, "hammy," no.
1
I don't know if I'm getting better at these or if I'm just more clued in since some of the clues had to do with food and drinks. Frybread and Oreos with chai sound really good, as a reward after spin and stretching out my hammy. And speaking of shandy, scrumpy is good too.
4
That's actually John Gallagher sharing a mint, not Jonathan Groff.
3
Couldn't get to the blog and comments yesterday, but no problem today. Like many others, I questioned HAMMY - Huh? And didn't know Mr AINGE and SIMONE. I also didn't know SMU, which might have helped.
Really liked READY WHEN YOU ARE and SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN.
2
Another one where I didn't notice the theme until I was done, though I do talk to myself a lot when solving crosswords, or puzzles in general.
As someone else commented, SHANDY was a gimme, because that was before my Dad introduced me to beer proper.
16A: Last words heard by Sergeant Pembry?
2
Fastest time for a Tuesday for me, and yet I finished with no idea what the theme was!
5
Cute. The revealer actually helped me out a lot on this one, by letting me figure out where the last name portion of 26 across begins. Actually the hardest part for me was 22 down, "like a gut feeling", which just looked really weird when partially complete.
1
It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to enter into today's conversation....
then, it hit me...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSVzr_cZc0A
sports to the right of me, New Yorkers to the left...
here I am...
3
David,
I'm on both sides, now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbn6a0AFfnM
3
@Barry Ancona - excellent selection, BA. Hat doffed.
Thank you, David.
Got hung up a bit on beer and lemonade since I drank a Radler or two in Germany
3
Unlike many others, SHANDY was a gimme. I will never forget visiting my English relatives at the age of 12, going to a pub with my parents, and being served a SHANDY. I believe that it was more like a mix of beer and 7-up rather than lemonade. At any rate, I came out feeling very grown-up!
Canadian clue of the day: 40A Halifax sch.
2
and Elke
Andrew-
how about JONI (Mitchell) of Ft. Macleod, Alberta ?
1
@Andrew,
38D - "Royals' Jackie"
@Henry Su
and Elke
Thanks for the great ideas!
1
The athletes and coaches I live with never refer to a HAMMY, but apparently some do:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hammy
1
Oh, please don't be HAMMY, I thought, as I saw the 1A clue. (Not that I wanted it to be HAMST or HAMBO either). I don't have cutesy nicknames for my hamstrings. Frankly, if everything's going well, I shouldn't have to think about them at all. If you have to think about your hamstrings, much less give them a nickname, they're probably causing you Trouble.
And why wouldn't you clue 1A something along the lines of "description of a bad actor"? This cutesiness was so unnecessary.
But once I got past 1A, nothing else bothered me. This was easy for an Agard puzzle, and it didn't have a lot of pop culture either. Which is a good thing. I never heard of a SHANDY, but the mixture sounds revolting. However all 4-letter teas are CHAI, however they're clued. Other than having to change INSTINCTive to INSTINCTUAL, I sailed through this. As far as the theme is concerned? Well, it's a theme.
1
@Nancy
To quote the greats, "John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, on a half a pint of shandy was particularly ill."
And now for something completely different. . . .
9
@Nancy You are becoming another Rex. Who has not heard hamstrings referred to as hammies? Such a little nit to pick.
1
Greetings from NOLA. HAMMY is a muscle, oinked Tom obscurely?
Off to French Truck for coffee then to Toast for breakfast. Life in New Orleans.
3
Thanks to the ishemic spinal cord injury, PhysicsDaughter had a lot of PT from an early age; we were on a first-name basis with a lot of leg/foot muscles and tendons--and NONE of them were named HAMMY.
Clever of Erik to point out that we too often assume sports teams and Senators are of the male persuasion; GEE I wonder why we got those ideas in our pretty little heads?
10
@Mean Old Lady
If the clue/entry pairs involving female senators and sports teams reminded you for male senators and sports teams, that's on you. Nothing in those clues pointed out anything about the male versions.
Steve,
I think I read MOL's comment in a different way. I thought she was pleased that JONI and WNBA were clued without reference to gender (and that the generic "we" are more likely to look for men/men's entries in politics and sports when there is no gender specified).
10
@Barry Ancona
Maybe that's what she meant, but it's not what she said. I got JONI without any effort because I know the name (if she has a famous male relative in politics, I'm not aware), and I got WNBA mostly because they have an affinity for singular team names (Seattle Storm, Minneapolis Lynx, NY Liberty, Phoenix Mercury, Chicago Sky, and CT Sun, who play in the Mohegan Sun Arena).
I've never had the pleasure of meeting Eric Agard but from what I hear he sounds like a one-of-a-kind guy. A true original. Just like today's puzzle.
Stellar Tuesday!
7
Deb - minor nit. The person sharing breath mints in the picture is John Gallagher Jr. Jon Groff is to his right, laughing.
I was pleased to see Simone Biles in this one, partly because I struggle with the celebrities and athlete's names but mostly because I really enjoyed watching her. It was fun to have 'creme' instead of 'oreo' appear, and I'm surprised the creme isn't already sold by the can ala cheese whiz. Is it really not?
1
This theme reveal came as a surprise and made me smile. And it seems to me that DANNY AINGE deserves far more respect than he gets: 2-sport major leaguer and successful general manager. Not too many others have ever done that.
7
@archaeoprof Great observation. Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson get most of the two-sport love, and it is mostly forgotten that Mr. Ainge had a successful stint with the Toronto Blue Jays as well as his star turn with the 80's Celtics.
1
@archaeoprof: Dave DeBusschere is the only other one I know.
1
@archaeoprof As a LA resident, and Laker fan, during the great Celtics-Lakers wars of the 80s, I detested Danny Ainge. And Kevin McHale and Larry Bird and Dennis Johnson and Casey Jones and Robert Parrish and the rest of them. But they were a magnificent team.
2
Ginger, Lavender, Lemon, Apple, Pepper, this ARE-AINGE-MINT lists just a few emmaniting from the mint family...FRY BREAD has a clumsy feel to it, perhaps why I have never used the term. ‘Tis much easier to just say Zeppole...Not unlike my mismashing of RPI & RIT, today I SCREWed U(N)p TCU and SMU. I’m making progress though as Ft. Worth is much closer to Dallas than Troy is to Rochester...Another LUBE job for my knee is on tap. I’m “READY WHEN YOU ARE, Doc.” The steroid LAUNCH is scheduled this AM(S). 2 weeks ago, copious amounts of fluid extraction PRECEDEd today’s procedure. I’d opt for a general, but am required to assist with flexes during the injections.Make mine a local...RIck Danko and The Steve Miller Band tender up a twofer with “When You AWAKE” and “Hot CHILI.”
https://youtu.be/-RJqb3h_hF4
https://youtu.be/K1xxbIOtkQg
4
@brutus
Hope the knee procedure went well! Good wishes for a speedy recovery.
3
@brutus
Just be careful with the dam kneebones, will you Bae?
3
Dear fellow apes,
“Recent molecular evidence including complete genome sequences has firmly grouped humans with the so-called “great apes”: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans.” Tool using chimps, inspirational bonobos, threatened gorillas, adorably maternal orangutans are our closest relatives, but we are apes too!
I like the puzzle but did not get the theme until Debs. I think that puns that depend on precise American pronunciation often passes me by. I did try but could not see how AREAINGEMENT could relate to it’s a plan...Still, wheelhouses etc and a small price to pay for the fun.
As for
3
Apologies the “As for” leftover !
1
@Laura Rodrigues in London
“Great apes” might be an exaggeration
for humans (present company excepted).
As for As for, some things are better left
2
@Laura Rodrigues in London
Your post deserved a more dignified response than mine. I thought that there would be several by now, but since there are not I will make an attempt:
Thank you for reminding us that we (humans) have the potential to be great. In the meantime, hopefully our fellow apes will forgive us our trespasses.
4
SPELLING BEE
Ablmnor
Words: 63
Score: 236 pts
Pangrams: 1
Bingo: yes
A x 10
B x 21
L x 7
M x 16
N x 4
O x 1
R x 4
4L x 28
5L x 19
6L x 10
7L x 3
8L x 2
9L x 1
4 5 6 7 8 9 Tot
A 3 4 2 - 1 - 10
B 11 2 4 2 1 1 21
L 4 3 - - - - 7
M 4 9 3 - - - 16
N 2 1 1 - - - 4
O 1 - - - - - 1
R 3 - - 1 - - 4
Tot 28 19 10 3 2 1 63
12
@Ron O.
Kudos on details of your chart and persistence.
I got to 230 on my own. Stopping 6 points shy. MOLAL isn’t good? Seriously? It or MOLALITY has been accepted before. What about BARM? Adding those points in and calling it Queen Bee without trying to read Beekeeper’s mind.
Hours more of yard clean up and garden work ahead. Anybody need Hellebores? Come dig.
2
@Liane
I found quite a few words that were not in the accepted list:
ALAR, ANNAL, ANOA, ARMBAR, BARM, BARMAN, BOMA, BOMBA, LABRA, LARB, LORAN, MALAR, MARL, NANNA, OLLA
plus several more obscure words...
Very hard to read the Beekeeper’s mind, that’s for sure!
4
@Ron O.
I also tried most if not all of those too (barman thrice), although they bothered me less. Cumulatively, the omissions become annoying although I do understand some limitations to more commonly familiar words. (Such a relativistic concept for readers of the NYT!) Words that were accepted then disappear are extra annoying. Wasn’t B**OO good recently?
Also annoying is that the XWD takes words the BEE does not. My brain gets confuzzed.
New strategy is self anointment a la Frank Longo and Variety Bee for other good words. Too much to do to play Karnak.
2
Combining sounds from three answers to make a word -- that's a fresh theme to me, and I like the literal meaning of "sounds like" in the reveal, not how those words in "That sounds like a plan" are normally used. No PANS on the theme here.
Plus many answers formed a paean to vowel-sounding endings:
NAE / LEI / MBA
HAMMY / BUNGEE / SHANDY / OUI
OSLO / YOYO / IMAC PRO
LIU / BLU / SMU
(Thanks to supporting players wnba, lga, only, joni, and unscrew. With a postscript that alas, save for "chai", there is no "i" in this team.)
9
@Lewis
Sounds like a high school cheer when shouted aloud.
Very clever!
5
I quite often find Tuesday's puzzles a leap up from Monday and as I said in a reply to Justin today was one of those days, a minority view it seems.
I'm not up on current American sports names any more, still pretty good with those much further back, like Satchel Paige for example, which could almost have worked for today's cute theme. I did like the long answers today which I was able to guess without very many crosses.
I wish I'd not looked up FRY BREAD to see if it was a thing. Now I'm really hungry.
2
@suejean, a leap up, eh?
I took the FRY BREAD as a personal affront, and the link to its recipe as rubbing salt in the insult to injury. I've just got to the point of deciding that carbs (which I consider the most delightful of foodstuffs) are probably something that haven't done well for me since this hip dust-up, so those inclusions just works as a sorry little Get-thee-behind-me-please.
3
Unusually smooth solve even for a Tuesday. A pass through the acrosses and downs and then just went back and tidied up in a few spots. I did have ARE AINGE MINT before I completely got the reveal, so I guess it did contribute to the solve. Didn't get AINGE immediately from the clue, but I knew who he is; wondered if that might be an issue for some.
Wasn't familiar with SHANDY as clued. 'Tristram _____' would have been my gimme. It has been clued that way once in the Shortz era - also on a Tuesday. The other instances of today's clue were on a Friday and Saturday.
Also went and looked up the clue history for YOYO, wondering how many times it had been clued to the cellist, and got more than I bargained for. It's appeared 66 times in the Shortz era. Clued to the cellist?: Once in the Shortz era ("Ma with a bow.").
Beyond that a lot of 'dum-dum,' 'ditz,' 'idiot,' 'numbskull' etc. Also a bunch of 'clever' (cough) mis-directions to the toy. e.g. "It has its ups and downs." "It can go round the world." "It's used to walk the dog." And there were more.
Then... a fad item of 1961 (twice). Then it was a fad of the 1930's, and later a fad item of 1962. I'm sure considerable research went into all that.
But the first two times it was clued in the Shortz era, it was in reference to Tom Smothers. I guess we could say it's had its ups and downs.
7
LETTER BOX
B-T(6) T-S(8) for me. For a while I thought the letter box was making a statement.
@Kevin Sparks
Ditto.
HINT WARNING:
Off to store. Running short of triple antibiotic.
@Liane
That was a germane hint.
@Kevin Sparks
Snd truly on my list!
I’m wondering how many times the word “oreo” has appeared in a clue vis à vis as an entry? Perhaps this is a debut?
@Andrew 16 times in a clue in the Shortz era.
..
2
I’m surprised it’s that few
@Patrick
Twenty if you count the plural as well. But the reason for the disparity between clue and entry is that as an entry, it's very useful with its three vowels, but it's not usually necessary to put it in the clue. Exceptions are when the entry is HYDROX (its competitor), NABISCO or STUF (the term Nabisco uses for the filling).
1
Too easy. When it takes more time to input the answers than to solve the clues--not so satisfying. More appropriate for Readers Digest or Modern Maturity.
4
Modern Marurity? Sound like an oxymoron. Speed solvers are a lovable lot but I like to take my sweet time. A Beatles cover gave this golden rocker. I heard Erik say their arrangements pop up with alarming regularity in puzzles. So, what with all the buzz currently in media about Freddie Mercury and his mates, you might want to lend a sympathetic EAR to Brian May’s take on this Larry Williams song from the 50’s, “Slow Down.”
https://youtu.be/vSbcCNYrywA
1
I had Scar before SEAM... again with the stitches. Also really wanted to go Up a Creek (or something like that) instead of UP AGAINST IT.
3
I don’t know if this is the place to discuss the Letter Boxed puzzle, but Sunday’s puzzle got me wondering. Was there going to be an alternative “official” answer if the Rams had won the Super Bowl, or was the Times that confident about PATRIOT - TRIUMPHANTLY?
2
@JB Lawton
Since the letters on top were RAM, it could have been read RAM over PATRIOT TRIUMPHANTLY. Alas, it was not so.
and Elke
A puzzle by Erik Agard : SOUNDS LIKE it needs A PLAN :
-start off with a SHANDY to PRECEDE the SOAR with the BUNGEE cord , maybe over LGA ? or Costa RICA ? or let the APE do it..without a NET .
Then,to take a LOAD off, I will SIT ON my HAMMYs and have some CHILI with FRY BREAD. All washed down with CHAI tea.
Dessert is an oreo stuffed with LOADs of CREME and served with a LEI and LOADs of BREATH MINTs. While listening to CHER or JONI Mitchell.
Now I'm READY to enjoy, without IRE or BORE, this puzzle.
Then will HOIST myself to bed , mumbling , while still AWAKE , NAE, it's an AREAINGEMINT.
4
I'm sure Danny AINGE is a household name in Natick.
17
@Wags even I know Danny Ainge.
@K Barrett
And I surely know Natick!
@Wags I see what you did there... ;)
I wanted QUADS for 1A, but didn't put it in because I got HAR and APE in checking the downs, and in an Agard puzzle it's better to check everything before entering an answer (although I'll admit to putting in instinctIVE before -UAL). I was wondering how "Juneteenth" was going to fit in at 4D until I figured out that 1A was HAMMY, and that gave me the correct phrase.
The themers all came with less than half of the letters entered, even D. A., who I managed to recall somehow.
I also thought "orange mint" before realizing it should be a hard "R" and figured out that it did "sound like" a plan.
1
@JayTee
I know what a hard C and a hard G are. What's a hard R?
1
@Steve L
Part owner of the Horn & Hard-R Automat chain.
3
I thought it was a truncated Dylan song title.
1
It was a quick fun puzzle. I liked the reveal - it did give me a chuckle.
1
Hah I thought I had managed to rapidly suss out the revealer but it turns out “NO ARGUMENTS HERE” just happens to have the same number of letters as SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN. Thankfully I wasn’t AT SEA for long. This was no BORE (HAR har). Now I want to see if I can fit that into a puzzle. Need to OBTAIN that software.
1
A fun Tuesday puzzle, Mr. Agard, but I had to say the three words a few times, out loud and quickly, to get the revealer. My first attempt to string them together gave me ORANGE MINT, and I thought to myself, "What do Tic Tacs have to do with a plan?" (Buzzer sound.)
A couple historical footnotes about two of the entries:
4D - MID-JUNE, while fine for the puzzle, is in fact an imprecise answer. The celebration is known as Juneteenth and it commemorates the arrival of U.S. Army Major General Gordon Granger into the port of Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, officially delivering General Order No. 3, carrying out President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation issued two and a half years earlier. In case anyone missed it, here is a link to a "Juneteenth Word Search" by Will and Adeel Hassan in June 2017, https://nyti.ms/2JVuDSZ.
8D - FRY BREAD is something you can have for lunch if you're visiting the National Museum of American Indian in my neck of the woods. Unlike other Smithsonian museums, NMAI's Mitsitam Cafe doesn't serve burgers and fries to tourists; it invites you to sample a range of traditional foods associated with the indigenous peoples of the Americas. But as this Atlantic article notes, FRY BREAD is a controversial menu item because it is traditionally fried in lard and thus blamed for a higher incidence of diabetes in Native Americans, and it emerged as a result of the federal rations handed out during the resettlement process, https://bit.ly/2SfDZS0.
15
@Henry Su
Thank you for this, Henry. I have not yet been to the NMAI or the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Two good reasons to visit Washington D.C. soon!
(I said it as “Orange Mint” at first, too).
3
@Henry Su
Me too for thinking ORANGE MINT for a second or two.
And of course, any mention of ORANGE unfortunately reminds me of the Orange-in-Chief who will be trying to sell his latest version of snake oil tonight.
5
@ Puzzlemucker
Agree! The National Museum of Africa’s American History and Culture in Washington left me awed, better informed, humbled, horrified, surprised, moved, awed and hopeful about the future. How glorious that this museum was created. What a privilege to visit it.
7
The way I naturally break up ARRANGEMENT into three words would be A-RANGE-MINT. But I guess there's no phrase the last word of which is the indefinite article.
1
@Steve L
Grade A?
2
@Laura Rodrigues in London
It has to be pronounced "uh". Unless you say "ay-range-ment." So, negatory on Grade A.
1
@Steve L
FRESH AIR -->
AIR RANGE MINT sounds reasonable to my untutored ear.
No law against overlapping, SEAMs to me
[A little needleworking WP there]
2
Record for a Tuesday. Probably because I know who DANNY AINGE is.
3
Already a few people have commented that they've never heard of DANNY AINGE.
It should be noted that Ainge, who is the general manager of the Boston Celtics (for the unsportsed, that's "Sell-tix", not "Kell-tix") and formerly one of their star players, played three years of Major League Baseball with the Toronto Blue Jays before switching to basketball.
Although he was playing at the highest level in the sport of baseball, it was a good career move for him to sign with the Celtics, where he became an All-Star. He was a good baseball player, but a better basketball player.
9
I have a BIG problem with 35A. It is a common misperception that pedants “pick nits.” In fact, pedant derives from the French (pédant) and Italian (pedante) for schoolmaster or teacher. English-speaking anti-intellectuals gave pedantry a bad name, pejoratively associating the act of teaching with “lice (nit) picking”. With 35A, Mr. Agard simply reinforces this historical bias. As we at the Proudly Pedant Society (PPS) like to say, “We don’t pick nits, we save lives, one minor correction at a time.”
Other than that, I enjoyed the puzzle.
25
@Puzzlemucker
Oops ... another PPS member just called to let me know I had left the “ic” out of our name. I wouldn’t be surprised if I hear from other PPS members tonight about other egregious errors (NOT NITS) with my post, and I will receive them with gratitude and humility.
7
@Puzzlemucker
I prefer to pic nics. Eh Boo-Boo?
13
@Liane
We do need clever members in the PPS, if you have any interest ...
3
Set my Tuesday record on this one after struggling more than normal on Monday. It is definitely subjective but this was wayyy easier than yesterdays to me. Enjoyable still!
3
@Justin,
A good example of how subjective the difficulty level is. Yesterday was perhaps my quickest solve ever and today I found much more difficult than I expect from a Tuesday.
3
Somewhat off-topic, I really enjoyed Joel’s shout-out to Samin in the mini!
5
@Irene
Samin Nosrat’s book (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat for those who didn’t get the reference) is a great gift for college age cooks— encouraging learning a few basics and not being overly recipe bound. My son has loved it and cooked a beautiful roast chicken from it.
4
@Liane
Thanks for providing that info. I had no idea what Irene was talking about. I thought maybe she meant Sam (Ezersky) and mistakenly put IN in twice, and I couldn't see a connection.
I still don't know whether having SALT, FAT and SPICE in the mini is a reference to Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat...only two out of four are the same and of course, it's one short.
1
@Steve
Fair enough. Only Sam knows!
A man (or woman) sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest. (S&G)
It’s hot pop culture (Netflix and book). It’s a reasonable segue to the topic, but yes, is it a shout out? Objection sustained. Assumes facts not in evidence.
3
HAMMY? DANNY AINGE? Really? Still, straightforward solve without using the revealer. And that's a pretty bad pun. I certainly don't pronounce MINT anything like ...ment.
BTW, that should be SIR Alec Douglas-Home. He renounced a peerage so he could become PM, but retained a knighthood.
1
Alec Douglas-Home, pronounced "Hume," was what we called him in polite company. Much worse than that among friends. A lot of people I know find it rather pretentious when people use the "sir," its just not that big a deal to have the title.
2
@Bruvver
I wonder if his remains have ever been exhomed.
2
To one NC Kathy from another
Anyone with a shred of Pogophilia in their personal history will have less than no problem with Our AINGE MINTs.
otoh, I must wonder whether, in LIU of Pogo, Constructor Agard may have sub-themed Doctor Frank N's Teen with a subtle ref to Frau BLU CHER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAYVIY1izho
NAE not so
3
I flew through it this easy breezy clue set with no hang ups, never gleaning the ultimate payoff. Sorry, I'm just not one for the post-construction revealer additive style of crossword. Not my kind of ARRANGEMENT!
3
Fun puzzle. Enjoyed!
1
What is the point of the clue for 59d other than the fact that three letters of an airport code appear in the words FUEL GAUGE? Surely I’m missing something.
1
@Geoff Offermann
Gee, don't mean to sound sarcastic, but what's the point of any clue? To lead you to the answer. Would you prefer the clue to simply be "N.Y.C. airport" (used verbatim 8 times)? JFK alternative? (5 times) That would be pretty anodyne.
The clue as written gives a little difficulty boost to it and makes it a little less ordinary.
7
Geoff,
Maybe I'm missing something. What is the point of any puzzle clue other than to give you a clue to the entry? The clue for 59D gave me a clue to the entry. Should I have wanted it to do something else?
3
Have you tried cryptic crosswords? This clue reminds me of one type of answer found in those puzzles.
1
Never heard of DANNY AINGE, but otherwise it was pretty straightforward. I thought the theme was kind of forced.
2
This was quite a lot of fun. I'm glad I knew DANNY AINGE from his playing days in Boston, but I think the crosses would have made him easy to fill in anyway.
I ate delicious FRYBREAD near Tucson a couple of years ago.
Also liked INSTINCTUAL and UP AGAINST IT, and the way READY WHEN YOU ARE complemented SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN.
@Liz B Ainge has become much more famous for his general stewardship of the Celtics as their long-time general manager than as a player, though he was a good one.
@Liz B
He also was a baseball player for a few years with the Toronto Blue Jays:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/aingeda01.shtml
Hand up for also knowing DANNY AINGE from his college days, since college hoops has been what I follow, mostly.
Waited to see if it would be INSTINCTive or INSTINCTUAL.
This is why I often dislike themed puzzles. Really, what was the payoff?
6
@Dave Rosenbaum I enjoyed it.
6
Some fresh and fun fill to balance out a really weak theme.
5
Dave Rosenbaum, there are plenty of great themed puzzles! (But I agree with you about the colossally lame payoff from this one.)