hm, What is this MITA big name in photocopiers? Am I missing something?
1
Mita was a Japanese photocopier manufacturer before Kyocera acquired them. That's it. They used to have TV commercials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMAzFo7O86I
Aha, thanks :)
Did the puzzle this morning and meant to come to Wordplay later on but forgot.
Now everything's been said by others.
But thought I'd come by and say Hey anyway.
4
"Hey" back atcha, Deadline!
And I'll have that with the au jus sauce.
1
Had BUBBA before DUBYA...
Third time trying to enter my comment: All these years I have been carrying around an extra *a* in my brain, as in what we got was *a* failure to communicate. Maybe that 'splains why I object so much to so many answers that look like fill with an *a* added to the front of some word.
3
pedantic I know, but the flag on the moon can't possibly fly without atmosphere
My recall is that the moon flag is rigid, so it can "fly" without a breeze.
(To the colors)
The flag itself is not rigid, but it is held unfurled by a horizontal bar at the top.
Thanks for the clarification, Steve.
(Does your app currently not let you reply in the string?)
Breezed right through this one despite never having seen "Cool Hand Luke." Almost best time ever on Monday. I guess it all just fell into place for me. I really appreciate the constructor's tribute to his Dad. Lovely.
2
My five favorite clues from last week:
“This and that” (4)
“Mariner’s org.” (4)
“Standard position” (8)
“Like home, on rare occasions” (6)
“Not related” (6)
BOTH
NASA
HALF MAST
STOLEN
UNTOLD
5
Add me to the list of those who misremembered today’s theme quote. In fact, I knew it was often quoted incorrectly, but couldn’t quite come up with it until I had enough crosses in place. Fortunately I didn’t rush into anything, so an error-free grid this Monday.
Aside to the Norwegian tourism bureau: string together 53D, 51A, and 8D, and you’ve new travel slogan: OH OH O SO OSLO!
The mighty Led Zeppelin professing their own FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE in this performance of “Communication Breakdown” from their debut album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eC8ASAnzhM
2
Kind of a newbie to the NYT Crossword so can someone explain FREEZERFUL as a clue for ICE? A freezer full OF ice I get, but not sure how these 2 words are the same part of speech (adj and noun). I got the theme pretty easily but sometimes these short words really trip me up. Thanks, pro's!
I'm not answering your question, Chris, just letting you know that I, too, solve the puzzle without knowing the answers to such questions, then I come here to get them answered like you just did. Deb and others do a great job of it.
re: your point about mismatching parts of speech - I think a freezerful could be a noun and not just an adjective. Like in "she gave him an earful".
Do you have any ice?
Yes, I've got a FREEZERFUL.
(See, you really did get it.)
1
Clues are flexible, they can define something but usually don’t. Do keep at it and welcome to the blog.
1
What a nice Monday puzzle! We enjoyed having a slight challenge here and there and seeing the nice triplet of authors (Daphne, Dahl, and Agee) in the far west.
New protocol here; I do the xword on my phone and print out one for DH. Too many finished crosswords around this house!
1
Ok, I was one of those who mistakenly tried to add the a in the Cool Hand Luke quote. BUT ... I will always say the quote from Neil Armstrong was definitely “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
1. I heard him say it on live tv at the time.
2. He later said he said it.
3. Without the word a, IT JUST DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!
My theory is that software used to condense speeches somehow later got involved in transcriptions and interpreted the word a as uh, as in hesitation, and deleted it.
2
I agree on the Armstrong quote. It’s easy for a speaker who is worked up to kind of swallow the article, so it comes out as, “forra.”
(I remember seeing/hearing that live, too, and later looking at the moon and being slightly freaked out that someone had walked on it.)
1
I know! And The Man in the Moon calling out "Hey, you Astronauts! Get outta NOSTRE MARE Tranquillitatis!!"
1
Me too, Doggy. Especially #3. (And yes, I did hear it live, but it was kinda staticky.)
Did we really need to see that film clip?
2
WHAT WE'VE GOT was all I needed to pop the quote into place (and correct my version, which included "a" FAILURE) along with the film title.
LUKE, not Dragline, said, "Sometimes nothing can be a real COOL HAND."
And what's up with OSLO for the Nobel Prize? Unless it's the OSLO Accords....
Not much time today so must hustle along....
1
"And what's up with OSLO for the Nobel Prize?"
You're rushing, MOL. The clue was Nobel *Peace* Prize City.
Except for the Peace Prize, the Nobel Prizes are presented in Stockholm, Sweden, at the annual Prize Award Ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death. The recipients' lectures are normally held in the days prior to the award ceremony. The Peace Prize and its recipients' lectures are presented at the annual Prize Award Ceremony in Oslo, Norway, usually on 10 December.
4
Slow for a Monday but quite rewarding. I never saw COOL HAND LUKE and I therefore didn't know the quote itself, but it is certainly a useful quote.
Mr. Collins, your crossword conversations with your father will warm your heart all your life.
2
Well, looks like I'm not the only one who misremembers the quote. In my head it's always, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." Thank you, Peter, for setting me straight. And for much more than that, thank you for your touching tribute to your father. Now, that's what I'll take away from your puzzle. I can't think of anything better than that. And that's what makes this a Monday I won't forget.
9
Nothing wrong with something a little different on a Monday. This one took me longer than usual, mostly because I was determined to figure out the quote from the first line. I got as much as WHATWEV and nothing was dawning on me, so I finally moved on. When I got COOL in the SW corner, that gave it all away and I filled in the rest fairly smoothly (I did remember the absence of the 'A' in that quote).
Sorry for your loss, Mr. Collins, but it sounds like you have many wonderful memories of your father. We really can't ask for much more than that.
1
This was my slowest Monday since I started with the app. The missing A in the quote fooled me for a few minutes, but that wasn't the only problem. Others?
MR Sulu appears again as a LT, btw.
"LT." Sulu is correct. Spock was "Mr." Kirk sometimes gave orders to "Mr. Sulu", but his rank was Lt.
1
Indeed, but he's not called that usually.
Also anyone else note that there are often re-used clues close to each other in time. We just had the LT a week or two ago.
WHAT WE"VE GOT HERE IS a very good puzzle and a sweet personal note from the constructor. So sorry for your loss, PAC. As has been noted, the line is very often misquoted, and no doubt will continue to be but not by Wordplayers. It came out when I was a freshman in college and of course some knucklehead tried to eat fifty eggs one night in the dorm. We should not forget great acting by the supporting cast, most notably George Kennedy (who won the Oscar) and Strother Martin who uttered the famous line.
On a personal note, the coincidence of the day is that I gave Mom a cup of tea this morning in the LUKE's cup my daughter recently gave me because of our shared obsession with Gilmore Girls.
4
Kudos to CS for being the only commenter I could find who mentioned the great Strother Martin. Everyone else is going to spend a night in the box.
2
Not bad to refresh the memory of how perfectly Strother Martin delivers one of the most chilling lines in movie history.
4
"On a personal note, this is my first New York Times puzzle without my biggest fan."
I'm sorry for your loss, Peter, but I hope you never lose the pleasure that your dad was there for your first one hundred New York Times puzzles.
10
Got the reveal right out of the gate but puzzling still TOOK 14 minutes. 3x my normal time sighed Tom sullenly.
US English as many have commented below, delights in an article know as the. For fun trying writing your emails, etc. without contractions and the.
Just watched Sidney Lumet's Murder on The Orient Express and now will add Cool Hand Luke to my winter film fest list.
Ah Peter, the loss of a dad who puzzles. I still recall Saturdays with dad solving the NYT. He would wait while I manged to get one or two words and then patiently explain the rest of the fill while I sat rapt with COCOA in hand.
Thanks for the puzzle and memories
5
16 plus minutes for me. Well over my average in the NYT app. Even so, I loved the additional challenge.
1
Anyone speaking untowardly toward this puzzle spends a night in the box.
9
My worst Monday time in living memory. As usual, not due to ignorance but to hubris. I "knew" the line immediately. Only I remembered it as "what we HAVE here" instead of "what we've got here" and "is A failure". I was so set on it that I wasted copious time trying to work out some meta joke; intentionally mis-communicating the "failure to communicate" line!
4
What I had here, until now, was my time tested amendment of the quote. I had to lean on crosses to rectify my paraphrase, setting me straight. On account of the aforementioned, my solve lacked the expected Monday EASE, but was well worth the effort; my thanks to all...Who can forget Paul Newman, after his evening prayer, solemnly strumming his banjo to "Plastic Jesus?" Gold Coast Singers George Cromarty and Ed Rush wrote the folk/satire 5 years before 65, 66, 67 across premiered.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0EP_TIU7kk
Say Hallelujah,
Bru
3
Hey Bru, I had no idea that song originated with someone before Don Imus. Just proves you can teach on old dog some new tricks. Thanks for the link.
Don Imus? Ugh. You must be joking.
This is the version you should hear/watch:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dG9tuuznL1Y
The actual home of the plastic Jesus -- the statuette, not the song -- is Walls, MS, where it was manufactured in many forms over the decades.
"Another famous resident of Walls is Sacred Heart League Inc. In 1947 the Catholic Church opened Sacred Heart School in Walls. 8 years later Father Gregory Berg created Sacred Heart Auto League. The Leagues mission was to encourage people across the nation to drive “prayerfully” and “carefully” to reduce road fatalities. The Auto League’s symbol was a plastic statue of Jesus that became nationally known as “Dashboard Jesus”.
1
I recognized the quote, but had no idea of the context, in fact thought it was a comical statement from a comedy. Deb's clip certainly put paid to that idea. I also struggled more that usual on a Monday, especially in the SW corner, but was really impressed with all the theme content.
I was also touched by Peter's tribute to his father, and am glad he shared it with us.
5
Maybe you are remembering a Saturday Night Live sketch with a language course teacher yelling "What we have here is a failure to communicate bilingually" I never say Cool Hand Luke, that is the context in which I know the line.
1
I had a regrettable FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE with this puzzle that made it more difficult for me than most Mondays or Tuesdays. I never saw the film. The chain gang picture engraved on my mind as an early teenager was “I am a fugitive from a chain gang”, starring an earlier Paul than Newman: Paul Muni.
The quote was unknown to me’, as were quite a few of the crossing proper nouns and abbreviations. Fortunately for me, the rest of the Down entries were appropriately Monday-ish, so I managed to fill the grid without assistance.
2
I solved this puzzle quickly - but, I had to come in through the back door. I've also never seen this movie, but a lot of years of listening to Guns N' Roses (Civil War) made it accessible to a whole other demographic. Inspired by the other comments - I think I will have to check out Cool Hand Luke, though :) Rock on!
6
Just thinking about the GnR song, Civil War, where the actual quote from the movie is mixed into the studio album version of the song, I realize I don't know why they referenced it. Is it that communication problems lead to lack of understanding and therefore a civil war? With things the way they seem to be going these days with the hyperpartisanship in politics, that may be becoming more possible (though I think still very far from likely except in the metaphorical sense) in this country.
and Elke
First of all, condolences to Peter C. on the passing of his father. What a gift that his mind was still actively processing. So sorry for your loss.
Not good at movies, so this was a tougher Monday than I expected. The phrase 'WHAT WE'VE GOT IS (a) FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE reminded me of another (a) that is inserted where it should not, and that is what Neil Armstrong said after he had STEERed that LEM to the MOON and then got off and TOOK the first step :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csO9VTtrg5A
I remember watching it live on TV with friends and celebrating with champagne, not PORT and not COCOA.
There's another movie anniversary around this time - clue : there are four 'A-s' in title.
3
(Off the main path - I remark now and then about writers importing foreign forms into English for whatever variety of reasons, and how the practice produces absurdities. Today's example is in the caption for the photo: "at the Karolinska Institutet." The Karolinska Institute is the English name for the institute called in Swedish Karolinska Institutet, with the suffix -et forming the definite article for the noun Institut. Thus, "the Karolinska Institutet" is "the the Karolinska Institute." The extra -t makes it look more Swedish, but looks aren't everything.)
3
English does that to perfectly well behaved foreign phrases. The La Brea Tar Pits are The The Tar Tar Pits.
5
And the hoi polloi is the the many.
1
And the Cerillos Hills are the Little Hills Hills.
Jeepers, it seems to be a grumpy crowd here tonight.
I liked the puzzle a lot, but even more I was touched by the constructor’s sweet memories of his late father. I’m glad you had that loving relationship to the end, Mr. Collins. That’s a gift.
“Cool Hand Luke” is one of my favorite films. I’ve probably watched it a dozen times. For anyone interested in the techniques of film making, it’s something to be studied — the camera angles and framing, the editing, the music, and pretty much everything. The director worked some heavy symbolism into the film, too. Did you ever notice that in the scene where Paul Newman is recovering from eating all those eggs, he’s stretched out on a table with his arms out and his legs crossed at the ankles...in the pose of a Jesus on the the cross? Really! Next time you watch the movie, you’ll notice it.
Anyway, I enjoyed this. A good theme makes a quickie Monday puzzle more fun.
1
Agree that some seem to be more aggressive than usual....
1
I read/heard/saw somewhere that 85% (or some such big number) of films ever made contained the line “Let’s get out of here.” Can this be so?
1
I found this item about it:
https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/lets-get-out-of-here/
1
If a scream can count as scripted dialogue, I’d nominate the Wilhelm Scream for the most used;
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio
(If you don’t know it, it’s worth a Wiki.)
3
Thanks.
Well, I guess I'm old enough that getting the movie and the quote was easy (even though I never saw the movie). And I liked having the title spread out across the bottom three Acrosses. Paul Newman, definitely very COOL.
With Monday puzzles I'm quite likely to just slap in anything that comes to mind first, without checking the crosses, so I tried DRIVE before STEER. But ANDII was obviously wrong, although I'm betting that there's somebody out there with that name who spells it that way. EDWIN Moses always impressed me as one of the most graceful, fluid hurdlers around--perhaps he was lucky to be running just when the camera technology became able to track runners smoothly--but he was always wonderful to watch.
3
“One poked through the eye?” is a reference to a shoelace, which is poked through the eyelet of a shoe.
Apparently, although it is an EYELET, not an eye:
eyelet
[ahy-lit]
noun
1. a small hole, usually round and finished along the edge, as in cloth or leather for the passage of a lace or cord or as in embroidery for ornamental effect.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/eyelet
1
Both etymologically and in current usage, an eyelet is a small eye (opening). All eyelets are eyes.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eye (def. 2, before enumeration of examples)
Hi David,
Yes, I know that all eyelets are eyes. I also know that the eye of a needle, through which you might pass a thread or try to pass a camel, is much smaller that the eyelet through which you might pass a shoelace. I also know that needles have eyes and shoes have eyelets.
2
Two random items:
1. I learned about aglets from watching Phineas and Ferb with the kids (ok, I liked the cartoon myself too). They wrote a song about it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evcsj1gx1CE. It is usually the aglet, not the LACE, of course, that is poked through the eyelet.
2. Reading about things that have eyes - when I was young, I played a computer baseball game on the Commodore 64 called Microleague Baseball. On the screen there would be text of the play-by-play announcers. When a ball is hit on the ground and gets by the infielders for a hit, one of the sayings was "that ball had eyes!"
1
From the AFI top 100 quotes (which is easily Googled), here are the beginnings to the top five:
1. Frankly,
2. I'm gonna make
3. You don't understand! I coulda had
4. Toto,
5. Here's
I feel a bit cheated because nowhere in the top 100 was the famous quote from Snakes On A Plane...
3
I was surprised to see number 2 placed that high (I had to look that one up). My favorite is number 9: “Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.” Bette Davis at her best.
3
I also went and looked at that list. Not surprised to see a lot of Casablanca, Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. I wonder if there are any two famous quotes that occur as close together within a film as #1 and #31 (After all, tomorrow is...).
I was surprised to see a couple of quotes that I didn't recognize at all. The On Golden Pond quote being notable (and I've seen that film more than once).
#13 (Love means...) ugh. I guess it's memorable but only because it's so bad.
I see at least 8 entries that are very commonly misquoted.
Couldn't help but note a couple of Al Pacino quotes that are memorable only because of the way he delivered them.
Someday I'm going to construct a puzzle and put BABY in a corner. Yes, I'm serious, but don't call me Shirley.
3
Hey Rich, RE #13: this clip from "What's Up Doc?" with Ryan O'Neal and Barbra Streisand should give you a chuckle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzWzPWwSnA8
1
I didn't like that over a quarter of all squares were related to the theme, an old movie. I haven't seen the movie but given 75% of the quote letters I was able to guess a grammatically correct sentence. Then to finish I had C__L H_ND LUKE and had to, again, guess letters that made a seemingly plausible movie title.
I'm fine with themes, but themes that expect a solver to know a lot about a specific old thing are not great. I rank this similar to the Beatles puzzle from late June/early July this year which was completely inaccessible to someone who hadn't listened to hundreds of hours of Beatles music in their life (i.e., me). Overall probably my least favorite puzzle of the year other than that Beatles one.
5
Agree - this puzzle was intractable, especially for a Monday, and took me twice my average time to solve, with lots of guessing. The theme problem was compounded by the weird fill that had too many personal names and specific culture references. I suppose it could be a generational thing (as always).
Hi Tyler,
I recall your objection to the "obscurity" of the Beatles songs earlier this year, and I wondered then how limited your exposure to popular music was, since my high school and college age children had no problem with the references. I know "We'll always have Paris" even though that film was released six years before I was born. "What we've got here..." is in today's culture, not just in a 50-year-old film. I did not see Cool Hand Luke first run, but I did see first run a film released a month later (during my senior year in college). "I have one word for you: Plastics."
4
I didn’t have much trouble with this puzzle, but as a general principle I agree. The assumption that The Simpsons and StarWars, for example, are some kind of cultural icons that everyone should be tuned into and can therefore be themed or dominate puzzle constructing is, IMHO, beyond irritating.
2
There was another Cool Hand Luke tribute puzzle published in the Chronicle of Higher Education on 10/27. Check it out if you love the movie.
1