I’m surprised no one’s mentioned Weezer yet!
https://youtu.be/ENXvZ9YRjbo
1
Anyone else notice an extra themer trying to sneak in the side door with SLAY [Miserables]?
Given the sad state of the comment "system", this might herald the winter of our discontent. TEN to UNO it's some joker's way to EMUNERATE us. With some commenters down to their last frazzled nerve, our theme song could be FRAY IT AGAIN, Sam.
Nemmind, AlanA. You done good, real good.
Why in the world would you include Kevin Spacey in a clue right now, considering what he's just been shown to have done??? In terrible, thoughtless taste.
4
I would think these puzzles are submitted well in advance, and probably before the recent news of him came out.
The comments are simply impossible to follow. Completely frustrating. When I have more enjoyment reading the ranting and negativity at Rex's site - simply because it follows an understandable (though not ideal) order (i.e., chronological only) - than trying to understand what-ever-the-heck is going on here at NYT - it's time to sack the folks who did this to us, hit UNDO about twenty-seven times and get us back to a good system.
The current system STINKS.
It. Stinks.
7
The comments not working sensibly do make it hard to think of this as a conversation. The worst part in inadvertently making the same comment over again hours after someone else made the same point, rather than reinforcing their point. Sigh.
2
For the first time ever, I began with the down clues. Whizzed through the puzzle with very few across clues left to fill. That was really kind of fun but somehow goes against all my unconscious left-to-right approach to words.
Anyway, it was all a huge relief from yesterday's incredibly complicated puzzle that was totally beyond me.
3
Alan Arbesfeld offers the WP party an appetizing plateful of Monday level bemusement and, for me, it resulted in a pair rare strike-overs; ranch/RANGE and juice/OSAGE. The resulting aggravation was held in check (no need for an IN DEPTH enumeration) by a smorgasbord of sublime criciverbial foodstuff. I ATE it up word for word...Rather than ordering a 5-course repast for the blog but I'll go light and cut right to the entree. From the '74 Doobies album, What Were Once Vices Are Now HABITS, is this delightful ballad, "Another Lonely Park Another Sunday."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phwjxh_H-BY
For desert, another ballad, replete with an array of lilting LOW NOTEs by the Eagles at the Nokia in 2007: "Take It To The Limit."
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1bpq1v
'Tis So,
Bru
2
if you teach/like/tolerate calculus, I have alternative lyrics for "Take it to the limit"
http://www.shodor.org/songs/limits.html
3
A delightful start to the week! I tried solving it using only the acrosses, but only made it about half way before deciding that that's not really fun, haha. I might try it again next Monday, though ;)
Thanks for a fun little break, Mr. Arbesfeld! :)
3
Easy breezy Monday. Noticed a theme emerging from the first two long entries. The proximity of 6A and 11D calls to mind the old line about "you can TUNE a piano, but you can't TUNA fish."
Deb got to Enya first, so here's Hall & Oates with the grammatically correct take on 17A, "SAY IT ISN'T SO," a Top 10 hit from 1983:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R5xIdXwNMk
3
A note to Mr. Ezersky: PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM.
CHE a revolutionary? A sociopath is what he really was. Castro's "revolution" was a convenient pretext allowing him to embark on his murderous rampage unabated, and to become an iconic hero in communist Cuba to this day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7kVQI5llFE
Kind of like that other revolutionary hero, János Kádár?
1
My five favorite clues of last week:
1. Walks or runs, for short (4)
2. Not let (8)
3. Grp. with lots of pointers (3)
4. Something read with a scroll (5)
5. Opposite of set (4)
STAT
UNRENTED
AKC
EMAIL
RISE
3
realized that I put RISE (as in stand up) as opposite of SET (as in set yo'self down) and not because of sunRISE and sunSET!
1
My brother is a piano technician and very highly trained. A technician and a tuner are not the same thing. Although piano technicians certainly know how to tune the instrument, they also know how to take a piano apart to do intricate repairs.
2
Registered Piano Technicians are, as DDD says, highly trained and equipped to take care of pianos inside out and upside down. The technician = tuner implication in the puzzle was a bit problematic for those who rely on RPTs for proper care of their pianos.
http://www.ptg.org/
And I have a college classmate who runs a piano tech school, but you'd be very unhappy if the RPT *didn't* tune the piano.
(There are plenty of reasons an RPT would be called in without involving a tuning. I wouldn't be unhappy if I didn't get a tuning I didn't request.)
Pleasant and absolutely common usage, although not to many folks have stuff to ENUMERATE. Ain't that a shame.
1
Nice smooth Monday - no need to explain the theme. RANCH before RANGE and misspelled RYDER ( I before Y) - all easily corrected. Have a good week everybody.
1
"Units of asparagus," Mr. Ezersky? How about 'cuttings,' or 'servings' or just about anything that sounds less robotic? I never come in from the daily harvest (during those 6 delightful weeks in the Spring) and say, "Look how many units I got this morning!" ....because it would get me funny looks and people might draw back in case The BodySnatchers had taken the Real Elaine.
Naturally, I thought that was one of the Total Gimme Clues, lacking all trickery until I saw you refer to 'spears' as 'units.'
Just a very satisfying puzzle, though--better than the average Monday and a reminder that, though Winter will soon be upon us, that Spring will come....and bring me ASPARAGUS!
4
O.K., that made me laugh out loud. I'm not letting Sam forget this one.
2
For quite a few years I would travel to Germany each spring to conduct math/science workshops for 'mer'can teachers in schools on 'mer'can military bases. The perk was it was SPARGEL season. (white asparagus). Many restaurants had a special "Spargel carte" menu, and almost any dish would come with "ein pfund spargel." with butter or hollandaise. I always chose butter. yum.
Where is the "units" come in? My puzzle says "spears at the dinner table." wait a sec. . . . let me check, yup, in the blog write up. I have GOT to start reading the blog, not just the comments.
This puzzle TEMPTS me to LAYITONTHICK, and to ENUMERATE all its strong points INDEPTH. Could it be any better? Only if country singer Travis TRITT had intersected with NASAL.
2
A quick hark back to yesterday, when an alert commenter raised the FLOPEAR bunny issue to SAY IT AINT SO, and suggested 50% as an accurate measure. I didn't pursue this IN DEPTH, but did discover
(a) that there's a LOP gene in the rabbit pool, and
(b) that one BABE took the 50% and showed how to PLAY IT BY EAR
https://usercontent2.hubstatic.com/3927615_f520.jpg
Had a happy Arbesfeld Monday
3
Leapy-- aawwwww- that's soooo cute. I'll have a smile on my face the rest of the dAY. Thanks.
1
Nice and easy puzzle for a Monday, good to start off the week. Never seen a sign saying TOLET, did the boarding house forget an I?
I didn't even notice the theme this time until after I read word play. I guess that's what's great about Wordplay.
Ha, I thought the same, theln realized it made more sense with a space: to let. :-)
YAY! The AYES have it - that was a perfect Monday. Plus a couple that just don't have IT! And a bunch of long A sounds: RCAS, FLAME, NASAL, ATE, AIDED, RAVEN, ACHE FOR, SALEM, BABE, AGE, OSAGE, and AVON.
Could not come up with any new theme letter combos, but did think of two already represented-- LAY IT on me and Rick's line in Casablanca PLAY IT, Sam.
Happy to see another NUT.
A secret cold war theme with IKE, HST. BRR, ICET found me looking for missile silos.
My dislike of contractions was amplified today but.... I let it go. April 7 Charles Portis festival in Oxford Miss.
Remembering the Maine was a problem soon corrected.
Thanks Alan.
1
Very nice - everything I could ask for on a Monday. Didn't get any of the themers on first pass, but then filled them all in smoothly from the crosses. Then had to look carefully after I was done to figure out exactly how the theme worked. Especially impressive to find four very much 'in the language' phrases with matching lengths (11 and 12), and three of them (all but SAYITAINTSO) making their debut in a Times puzzle. And some nice long bonus entries and generally clean fill. Masterful piece of construction.
Others have already mentioned the Black Sox connection, but I would just add that the full phrase SAYITAINTSOJOE did appear in a Monday puzzle in 2000.
1
Side note regarding one of the stories that get listed across the top of this page. I rarely see the Times change a headline, but they did today. I may not be remembering this precisely but the original headline on one of the stories was something like:
Trump to Reduce Bears Ears by up to 90 Percent.
Not knowing that the reference was to a national monument, I was more than a bit surprised when I first read it.
1
RiA, re your surprise about Bears Ears:
You must not be on as many conservation society emailing lists as some of us.
Very simple theme, with all theme answers nicely in the language, and I think Alan ran it dry. That is, I can't think of another good theme answer. Can you?
I flinched at seeing SPACEY, even in a clue. From deep inside, a voice shouted, "Really? Now?"
As your resident alphadoppeltotter, in which I inexplicably track the double letter count, I must report to you that this puzzle has an unusually low number (four, where anything under five is highly unusual). By the way, we've only had zero once in the Shortz era...
3
btw, Lewis, did you notice the shell in the upper left corner yesterday was the Lewis special?
1
Did not, but now I do -- thanks for pointing that out! (I take a double letter count sabbath on Sundays.)
This puzzle needed a circled F. Otherwise, it was pleasant, like a Danish road sweeper.
4
YAY! I’m a bit of a Newbee ... Made my best Monday time, which means my best time ever! 10:36! Yippee! Will ride off in the sunset now!!!
11
A fine Monday puzzle.
Like Mike Procter and – I imagine – others as well, I was delayed briefly by SAY IT isNT SO before SAY IT AINT SO.
My favorite clue was for AYES, which¬ – incidentally – resonates visually with the themed AYs
.The clue for BALI is (temporarily) inappropriate, though the constructor is blameless..
2
I didn’t spot the theme at all, but that didn’t trouble me. My problem was SAY IT AIN’T SO - where I come from we say ISN’T, and it took me a couple of minutes to uneducate myself.
3
"Say it ain't so" isn't just a random slang expression, but part of baseball history:
https://www.americanheritage.com/content/say-it-ain%E2%80%99t-so-joe
7
Hand up for "isn't" at first.
3
and Elke
This puzzle hit the spot- don't want to LAY IT ON too THICK. Started to think about the two-letter [AY] combo: it combines with nearly every consonant in the alphabet to make a three letter word , to wit : AY , BAY, CAY, , DAY , --,F*Y, G*Y, HAY, --, JAY, --,LAY, MAY, NAY,--,PAY, --, RAY, SAY, --,---,--,WAY, YAY. With an additional letter: OKAY, QUAY, TRAY, XRAY.
Oh well- yesterday's puzzle drove me NUTs- that's my excuse and I'm sticking with IT.
2
Elke. Where did KAY go?
and Elke
Amitai- I tried to stAY with things, not names. Did try O KAY.
After reading some front page articles in today's NYT, spec. by Billy Bush, am wondering why I bothered with asterisks in letters F and G. The emus must be awAY.
Shalom.
I did the puzzle earlier tonight, went off and did other things, and just came back to read Wordplay. When I opened up the puzzle just now, the time on it was measured in hundredths of a second--in the format n:nn:nn. I clicked on the Statistics link at the top to see what that looked like (normal) then came back to the puzzle, and now it reads n:nn, as it usually does. I've never noticed this before--and now, of course, I can't make it read in hundredths. Anyone else have this happen? It does seem over-specific to me.
Other than that weirdness, I enjoyed the puzzle, especially the long entries ASPARAGUS and TUNA SALAD. Maybe I'm just hungry today.
2
Maybe it's always done that timing thing and I've just never noticed?
Never noticed that before, but there are times when there are one second differences in solution times between statistics page and actual puzzle. Suspect anomalies with rounding in the xx:xx:xx format that lead to the delta.
1
Liz B, I have occasionally had the following happen:
1. Work on the puzzle and finish or pause.
2. Go about my business but leave the tab open on my browser.
3. Come back to finish the puzzle or read Wordplay.
4. Open my puzzle tab to find the clock reading some incredible length of time such as 8:15:32.
5. Realize the clock has been running the entire time and is now showing HOURS (HH:MM:SS).
6. Start to panic that my statistics will be ruined forever.
7. Have a childish fit that may involve yelling and/or glaring at the computer.
8. Reload the puzzle in an effort to DO SOMETHING.
9. See the clock reset to a normal MM:SS time.
10. Recover and try to remind myself that it is, after all, just a game.
I do the puzzle directly online from the NYT webpage, and the above has happened to me half a dozen times. Is it possible your clock was reading HH:MM:SS, not hundredths of seconds?
3
After decorating my tree for five hours; having my husband come downstairs after watching the Colts lose another game; "helping" me out and breaking two ornaments in three minutes; it was so nice to relax and do a fun and easy Monday crossword. Night, all.
8
For once, I stayed up late on Sunday night and finished the Monday puzzle by 7:30 pm. What a wonderful way to cool down my throbbing brain after struggling off and on all day to make some sense of this Sunday's nightmare. I finally got the PEA in the top circle but never changed the F to PEA in the bottom circle, assuming that there is usually only one pea in a shell game. I never noticed the shaded squares, and probably if I had, they would have driven me nuts.
So thank you, Mr. Arbesfeld, for sending me to bed with a satisfying solve and on a happy note.
5
I don’t remember much about the ALuMO, but I’m sure the NuTS are in Washington!
13
IT's everywhere, IT's everywhere.... some extra "it"s": pITas, sIT, trITt, habITs...stretching IT gives IndepTh and IceT.
(Remember the old joke: you walk up to your friend and say, "It's all around me, It's all around me!" "What is?!?" "My belt.")
1
Which reminds me, in a bit of a non sequitur, of the bumper sticker: What if the Hucklebuck IS what it’s all about?
2
In da sowf we called it the "hokey pokey" . . . is that the same as the Hucklebuck? You put your right foot in, you take your right foot out....
2
Zounds! I misremembered. It’s the Hokey Pokey, not the Hucklebuck.
2
25D -- The anagram of PEA -- is a continuation of yesterday's puzzle.
4
It's a Monday, it's easy PEAsy.
2
Easy Monday. Basically nothing held me up. Liked the “it” theme.
2
Well-designed puzzle. I raced through it, but managed to suss out the theme for a change.
Thank you for the entertainment provided by over 100 published puzzles.
11