Best puzzle I've encountered in months. A real tour de force,
3
this was the hardest Wednesday puzzle I've ever come across
6
Streak breaker, but happy cuz comment threading now fixed!
Finally able to get to a puzzle the same day it’s released. And what a puzzle! Such brilliance to come up with the theme, cluing, and fill.
Just wow!!!
:-D
4
Regardless of anything else - - KUDOS to whoever is responsible for the clues at 17, 23, 50 & 57 Across. VERY inventive and imaginative!!
5
Today's puzzle was outstanding, thanks Times team! And Caitlin, what a beautiful STILL at the top.
ISIS is one of my favorite Dylan songs, so I knew that one as soon as I knew it didn't start with S. Have always loved the verse:
"The wind it was howlin’ and the snow was outrageous
We chopped through the night and we chopped through the dawn
When he died I was hopin’ that it wasn’t contagious
But I made up my mind that I had to go on"
Before IRA I had NED Glass. Could only find one good clip of him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6DUQi6ryEE He was in every TV show you ever saw in the '60s and '70s, at least once, and had a good role in a couple of great movies, e.g., "Charade."
Last, in Caitlin's eland clip, I was sort of nervous about the gnarly growths on that one guy's horns. I found a cache of photos of strange horn formations, but nothing like those. Unhappily, it seems nonstandard horn shape can be a plus for trophy hunters.
1
Does anyone share my concern about 18D? I do not think that "Hogwarts courses are like" OCCULT. Further, I was slow to get the theme but love to scan this daily conversation.
4
@Mary Ellen For OCCULT, Webster's New World dictionary has, as the fourth definition, "designating or of certain arts, studies, or practices, as magic, alchemy, or astrology...." Seems good to me. What's your concern?
2
@kelpurnia I don't typically go to the fourth definition in my thinking, but it's likely a reaction to the earliest days of HP. Muggles galore were concerned about the satanic nature of the books and that's just not the real nature of JK's brilliant work.
2
brilliant, funny, challenging!
1
More like this, please. Great fun! Thanks.
3
I second the opinions of many that this was tough but fun. Got the top two themers but didn't get the countries thing till the revealer. Still, forgot it when getting the last two themers! Nevertheless, I effected the solution in slower-than-average time. ;)
Had some trouble in the NE with WAHOO, AHA, and the spelling of DYAD. (For fun, look at the Wikipedia definition of "diad." For real??) Also, a semi-Natick at BILLET/CLEO. (Appologies to Deadline.)
Almost a Thursday puzzle. I hope tomorrow's won't be a Friday's!
2
@Ron
I went to Wikipedia and looked.
So now I know.
1
Just about 30% slower than my Wednesday average. I got the revealer long before I completed any of the themed entries because I had a really hard time with the crosses. It took me a long time to figure out all the countries, and even then I had to struggle to tie them back to the clues.
I got stuck on Issei for ISUZU, not knowing ELIZA. But once I saw PERU I was able to clear the southwest corner.
My brain hurts. In a good way.
2
@LarryB
Hand up for ISSEI.
1
Late, late, LATE! at least I'm here.
This was a hard puzzle! I caught on quickly with IRAN and OMAN, but wow, the crosses were uncooperative and most of my guesses were wrong. I did get a few themers just from the letters but even that did not help all that much.
And I was cross-eyed from all the parsing that was necessary. (I kept thinking, "I should put on my glasses," but that would have required too much effort, and the heat hadn't come on yet, so I was huddled under the quilt with my iPad and the cat.
5
One of my faves of late. Great puzzle!
4
Now those are truly funny! Love the theme Mr Arbesfeld. And yes it was a mean midweek.
4
Despite having traveled extensively, for business and for pleasure, I have only been to four of the countries in the puzzle. A diverse mix. Only North America is not represented. Fun puzzle; just chewy enough for a Wednesday. IST instead of ISM slowed me down up top and OVOID instead of ORBED slowed me down at the bottom. But it was fun all they way around the globe.
3
And Australia and Antarctica, of course.
2
@Dag Ryen
Ummm -- you mean continents, right?
Wednesday Report Card:
This puzzle works and plays well with others (and with me).
9
Hi! I am a newbie! I was born and raised in India so have to look up a lot of athletes, shows, musicians, authors, pop culture, etc. I am getting better (not faster) everyday. Today's puzzle there were only two answers that I got right away - MEGA and KONA. One of these days (sometime in the near future) - I aspire to be like all the crossword solvers who post here everyday. Thanks you to all the commenters for inspiring me to keep going and not give up!
36
@Hema
Welcome to the party. As the "How to Solve the NYT Crossword" article says, looking things up is a way to become a better solver.
4
@Hema
Welcome! So glad to hear that you are continuing to do the puzzles and not giving up. Pretty soon you'll be racing through the Monday and Tuesday puzzles and making huge inroads in the later ones.
Please come back and comment, and/or ask questions.
1
In the same boat i.e. expat from India, and early on would feel ‘challenged’ by pop culture clues. Over time, leveraging the crosses and increased familiarity with the staples in this genre led to being able to solve these puzzles - and really look forward to Saturdays.
Stick with it and you will enjoy the ride!
1
I was sailing along at what felt like better than usual pace. The names of the nations were happily hopping to mind. Then I reached the SW corner. I was so confident in the interlocking ABS/SAYSO/LETSGO I resorted to making up words (ISEIS?) that fit. Finally cleared the whole area and ELIZA on the ice kicked in from some blocked memory pathway. That led to ISUZU and the rest followed. 50% over average. Ugh. Funny how we get committed to some of our mistaken choices.
4
Brilliant. Enjoyed this.
4
@Mr. Mark
Is your cognomen the reference for "quarks"?
Bravo! Real wordplay!
NW filled in quickly, with only UGANDA less than a gimme, and the crosses fixed that quickly. Proceeded around a bit and up until I had all the letters in IRANOMANICELAND. I saw the ELAND at the end, so tied that to the clue. Then I saw ICELAND and IRAN at the other end. Put on hold.
Started 23A (knew the CUBs!) but didn't follow through. Went down further and saw the themer. Got the entry from the ITED and the clue, and Aha! Another look at 17A confirmed and let me fill in the rest of 23A. From then on it was just a joyful frolic to the bottom.
A lot of people's names today, but most of them were gimmes to me: LANI, SAM, KOCH, CLEO. I've never read "Uncle Tom's Cabin," but decades of exposure to "The King and I" and its "Small House of Uncle Tomas" made ELIZA a gimme. Got the ALAN before the KING, probably because I am seriously a non-fan of his.
Favorite themer: PERUSER BIAS PAIN. Don't know why, probably just because it's so silly.
Don't know if ISUZU cars are still around, but I know Joe ISUZU is gone.
ORBED is a bit of a stretch.
Nice to be reminded of CLEO Laine. Favorite cabaret singers two days in a row, each spurring me to a listening orgy. Nice.
Thanks for a buncha fun!
6
@Deadline Another hand up for knowing Eliza well, but only from her appearance in "The King and I."
I believe 58D is incorrectly applied. An ELL is a bend in a configuration, like a hallway or a bar of metal. The "turn"part applies to a gee or haw -- the left or right turns, e.g..
1
@Dr W
If a pipe has a 90 degree turn, is that not an ELL?
Google ELL PIPE images and see what comes up. (Without PIPE, you get mostly things about English language learners.)
BTW, ELL is short for elbow; it's not a representation of the letter L's shape. Thus, there are also 45 degree and 22.5 degree ELLs, but that doesn't make the clue wrong. OAK is a perfectly good clue for TREE.
Dr W,
A good plumber is always handy:
https://www.circoinnovations.com/90-ell
@Barry Ancona
I like that link -- thank you!
Harriet Beecher Stowe's story was not in my lexicon so I had to look up 61A - and then realized I could have gotten it from the filling alone. Oh well. :-)
5d is an interesting doppelganger: *both* ISM and IST are accurate fits -- and in both cases 17A does indeed make complete sense.
Alternatively -- this makes it a double Schroedinger fill.
1
@Dr W
Er, what exactly does *tanic* mean? And *otan* is not a country, although it IS a collection of (mostly) united nations (in French).
4
@NICE CUPPA
You're absolutely correct. It took your comment and a bit of a while for the full import of the 35A clue to sink in. I had become entranced by the realization there were two or three ways to parse the sesquipedalian 17A, and of course the Schroedinger aspect came up, so I lost track of the nationality issue.
That's one of the reasons I'm a NYT xwp addict.
3
@NICE CUPPA You're right about OTAN not being a country, but 17a does make a reasonable phrase with the T substituted for the M (though it doesn't match the clue):
IRA NOT A NICE LAND.
2
Wonderfully clever puzzle. An enjoyable challenge for me.
4
This puzzle's theme and humor was cringe-worthy at best.
2
Though they have their place, I am personally not a big fan of the ultramodern puzzles that almost feel like they’re trying too hard to be fresh…
This, on the other hand, had a timeless quality and was just a whole lot of fun all the way around. What a great puzzle!
15
I confidently filled in SHUL for 1A right off the bat. When things weren't working in that corner, I deleted 1A and got on with the rest of the puzzle. Oddly enough SHUL became my very last fill. The circle of life, I suppose...
6
@Andrew
As my parents used to tell me, "that's what you get for staying away from shul".
9
Thank you, Mr. Arbesfeld, for this masterful puzzle. It touched all of the bases for me: lots of country names to play around with; a very clever unifying theme; and a cameo appearance by Dame CLEO Laine, whom I idolized in the '70s and '80s. (I encourage those unfamiliar with her work to check her out.)
2
That was just right, as Goldilocks might say.
5
Really well done! Felt more like an easy Thursday. IRIS before LENS held me out for a while. I got 17A from the crosses, but didn't understand the phrase unit Caitlin explained it. Far slower time than my average for a Wednesday. Enjoyed it.
2
@David Lundy
Agree! Thursday thinking with Wednesday cluing. nice challenge on a chilly morn!
3
@David Lundy
Interesting! I had IRIS before ISIS.
1
Imagination + wacky sense of humor + skill = today's amazingly creative, off-the-wall, out-of-this world parsing in a puzzle! (Actually in-this-world, literally.)
Talk about entertaining and more over, a true tour de farce, uh, force.
Thank you, Alan Arbesfeld!
13
You think it's easy to repurpose all these countries? It's not, and if you try, the result is going to be some really wacky clues. So, as a solver, you have two choices: you can embrace the wack or you can rail against the wack. I chose to embrace the wack and have fun. No matter how absurd the clue or how twisted the syntax of the "answer", I was bound and determined to have fun. It's wordplay, after all, and I love wordplay -- even when it's completely silly. This puzzle will split the blog right down the middle, I think: some will love the puzzle and some will despise it. Going back now to see who is which and which is who.
22
@Nancy I love your phrase "embrace the whack" (though I don't embrace your spelling of Whack) I think it is a good general guide to life.
Do I need to credit you when I use it? :-)
3
@David Rintoul - Wacky; embrace the wack. Not 'whack' as in strike. Nancy had it right
1
@Hildy Johnson -- Right you are, Hildy!
@David Rintoul -- As long as you agree to spell it "wack" as in wacky, you are welcome to use the phrase without attribution :)
1
Nice challenging Wednesday! If this is a sign of things to come, it's going to be a rough weekend! You've got to admire this theme. Given the number of countries to choose from, and the painstaking task of putting them together and trying to parse a decent sentence from the result is no simple task! The fill was also very chewy, with entries like LANI, DYADS, BILLET, ULEE, ENSIGN (as clued), ISUZU (are those still around?) and SHUL (for us Gentiles, anyway) felt more like a Friday/Saturday. Favorite theme entries were MALIESTONIA and CUBALEBANON, but they were all great IMO. Thank you Mr. Arbesfeld and Mr. Shortz!
8
DEFT AND WITTY. NOT TOO HARD, NOT TOO EASY EITHER
5
@Skeptical1
Here’s a boisterous recco for ya. Thanks for the shout-out Skeppy. {;-)
4
@Skeptical1
I guess I've really lost it now. Your short, all caps comment had me searching for country names in each sentence. Anybody else so afflicted?
13
@Andrew
Think caps lock on.
1
The northeast corner seemed a little weak, but everything is totally forgiven due to high amusement factor.
1
Loved this puzzle. It took me a while to figure it out, even after the revealer, but each one brought a new smile on my face. Thank you!
3
Leapy's gonna love this one, and I can't wait to read her comments.
Was this harder than a typical Wednesday? Yep. Do I care? Nope. I'll be chuckling over the theme answers all day. Had the right crosses to get UNITEDNATIONS very early and guessed the general way this was going to work, but still had to work at a couple of them.
The big pause was with 17a, combined with a couple of the down crosses. I had IST before ISM at 5d and was parsing what I had filled in as something like "IRA! (that's) NOT A NICE..." what. Deer? Didn't quite make sense and DEER wasn't going to work with my guesses in the NE, but still stuck with that for a while. The other contributing issue was with the clue for 10d. When I saw "Big (number) conference" I was thinking sports, and obviously not really thinking that through. Finally dawned on me that there is no 'Big three' sports conference and remembered YALTA and that all led me to the rest of that corner and finally a correction to IST, after extensive parsing of 17a. Great 'aha' moment when I finally saw the MANIC possibility.
A ton of fun working all that out.
Really enjoyed this from start to finish.
10
@Rich in Atlanta
Ah, yes, the Big Three conference, where every team has a bye week every third week.
5
The folks at Goose Island will have non of 23a.
https://youtu.be/2QSxK9GZLp4
Replete with a baseball clue, the puzzle had it all; even the now famous quote, “It depends on what the meaning of IS IS.” The jabberwokyish theme, replete with an ample helping of mumbo jumbo required a keen parsing ability in order that one might achieve a complete grade. NAILed it!...Stevie Wonder & friends went all gospel a few years ago at a 35a performance of “Heaven Help Us All.” The relevance of the ballad commands as much CLOUT today than it did yesterday.
https://youtu.be/kDabPQl2PsA
Accomodatingly,
Bru
3
I suppose that if one must boycott Wrigley Field's beer for the sake of crossword amenity, so be it. But personally I would rather see a BAN ON BAN(n)ON, who seems to have worked his way back into the news recently.
I love wordplay as much as the next person, but today things felt a little bit laboured. In all fairness though, my feeble attempt to come up with another thematic entry was a complete disaster. I'll let you be the judges.
Put a Scandinavian friend in a delivery package:
CANADA NEPAL TOGO
15
@Andrew
Clever clue! I can't decide whether the image created in my mind is amusing or horrific.
1
@Andrew
Or to fire the said Scandanavian friend to get rid of him.
1
@Andrew I always prefer crisp clues and snazzy answers as opposed to (in my opinion) contrived themes that lead to awkward clues and fill. But I understand that reasonable people enjoy different things, so I will eschew the bellyaching.
Like others, my first toning target was "abs." Nowadays it seems as if the only way to tone my abs would be to STARVE myself.
1
is 50A the worst fill ever or is it 57A? Time will tell, Tom taunted, thoughtlessly.
What is it about ELIZA and the rise from humble beginnings? My research topic for the day.
Thank you Alan, although I prefer my Wednesdays to be stunt free.
Tom taunted, tiresomely
Tom taunted, tediously
Tom taunted, testily
Like other commenters I found this a bit tougher than the normal Wednesday but cleverly conceived. I got CUBALEBANON then the theme answer. Then two of the other theme answers combined three countries which had me for a while.
Started with ABS for 57D which didn't help. I didn't know the slave's name in 61A but I had gotten ISUZU and the B and Z didn't look right so I backed out of that and went with PEC which made more sense.
A bit tougher but I enjoyed the solve.
Spelling Bee:
This is definitely the day to randomly enter combinations of words as compound words. The pangram (if there's only one) is a combination of two common words that together do not constitute a word in my lexicon. But apparently it exists, given that it has dictionary support.
Again, I got to Genius with the center letter in the final position of every word I found. That center letter, of course, is Y, which is about the only letter to which this is likely to happen (well, maybe S, but S has never appeared in the Bee). It took me only about 15 minutes to find enough words to get to Genius, and as I've stated, I don't usually continue to QB, but today I might take a look for a few minutes.
6
@Steve L
Today's not the day where the center letter ends every word either. Still hasn't happened yet.
@Wen - I took it to mean that of all the words Steve got to get to genius, all ended in Y, not that all possible words did.
@Hildy Johnson
Yep, that was @Steve L's point a couple of weeks ago as well. I was just confirming that it doesn't last to QB. Today's was tantalizingly close, with only one word not ending in Y.
I’m very impressed by the construction of this puzzle.
I assume a computer program was used to identify various groupings of two or three countries that yield a phrase that makes sense, such as CUBA LEBANON yielding CUB ALE BAN ON.
Or is this somehow done without the aid of a computer?
3
@Rod D - I suspect it's entirely due to the ingenuity of the constructor.
7
Spelling Bee!
21 words - 92 points - no bingo - 1 pangram
Ax4 Cx6 Kx1 Rx2 Tx5 Wx3
4L 5L 6L 7L 8L
A 3 1 - - - (4)
C 1 2 1 2 - (6)
K - 1 - - - (1)
R 1 1 - - - (2)
T 1 3 - - 1 (5)
W 1 2 - - - (3)
(7) (10) (1) (2) (1) (21)
13
@David Connell
Thanks for the grid - it got me to 20 words and 85 points. Missing the 7 letter C word that is not a delicious seed on rye bread. Hints greatly appreciated, as always...
1
@Chungclan. It’s a smushie day. Just
like the pangram.
Has either of these words been used since the 19th century? I may have to go re-read Adam Bede, but the first time was too painful.
3
@Chungclan
Your 7-Letter C word - nevermind the actual definition of it. What it brings to mind, to me anyway, is the airplane aisle after it takes off and the captain has turned off the seatbelt sign and people are anxious for something to eat or drink.
5
The wordplay was a ton of fun for me, and I got a kick out of trying to get the remaining theme answers after getting the first. So it was a grand old solve, helped by ALI over MALI (and that wannabe ULEE nearby) and the DON crossing HO in the NE. Alan, I can guess what kind of work went into devising this puzzle, and it sure paid off in the entertainment I got from it -- thank you greatly!
5
A little tough, a fun theme, and I'm a Queen Bee. Top o' the morning to me!
5
Difficult Wednesday for me. A little too heavy on proper name crossings, in increasing order of difficulty for me: TERI/GLENN, ALANKING/STMARK, RIO/ELIZA, and finally ESME/LES. Also some junky stuff like NAH/AHA/WAHOO.
I understand that this puzzle must have been difficult to construct, and I liked getting the theme, but the clueing seemed to make it more Thursday-ish overall.
How do they think of these things, and then make them work out so well? I got the reveal fairly quickly, and then noticed CUBA as my first country. I'd already noticed ALE, so managed to get the rest and parse it correctly, CUB ALE BAN ON. Whilst knowing the theme helped with the rest, there was still lots to figure out, so a perfect Wednesday workout IMO. But I must admit I was so pleased to finally get IRAN OMAN ICELAND, my last one, I forgot to parse the jokey bit.
I love this kind of wordplay! Thanks Alan.
14
@suejean Me too.
2
@Paul
Me too. Took me awhile, tho, to switch from IRELAND to ICELAND.
this is one of the sweatiest themes I can remember seeing in a long time, and on a wednesday no less. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out what was going on, perhaps because as usual I was making it way more complicated than it was. The fill was all relatively straightforward, but just for the weirdness of the theme alone, this felt more like a thursday than a wednesday.
1
A Wednesday that gave me a run for my money. Four minutes over my average, but a few miscues may have contributed to that. Had a bit of difficulty remembering ISUZU, and PERU was my last country to fall into place. Had to use crossings to come up with some of the answers, but after a couple of the countries were in place the revealer was a quick entry.
A good workout, and I appreciated the puns.
1
and Elke
Would like to think that having represented two countries in Model United Nations Assembly in the 50's helped, but half of these countries were not yet in the UN then.
I hope that Alan A. had as much fun constructing this puzzle as I had solving it. Really liked it.
Small nit : Would say that 'Sabbath' services are in a 'synagogue', while we go to SHUL for 'Shabbat' or 'Shabbos' services.
Having polished off this eve a bunch of latkes (with sourcream) and a few (who's counting ?) sufganiyot (filled with raspberry jam), I can say that my appearance is becoming ORBED.
Chanukah sameach.
13
This puzzle was one of my all-time favorites. Thanks!
10
Except for a momentary puzzlement in the SW corner I breezed through this puzzle, though some might argue that I didn't finish it at all. When I saw the theme clues, I instantly put them out of my mind, as I have no liking for brain-teasing zaniness. Thanks to crosses, I quickly saw that the theme answers were names of nations jammed together, and they were pretty easy to suss out. I didn't give the theme another thought till I read the blog and saw the joke. Still, I enjoyed solving the puzzle on my terms.
What a great puzzle we have today - a crackling theme with top-shelf wordplay and lively fill throughout!
I had originally entered 5d as ISt. That left me with 17a: IRA NOt A NICE LAND, which makes a sentence but doesn't quite fit the clue. Eventually, I espied an ELAND in ICELAND. IRA, NOt A NIC ELAND?.... Then the answer shouted itself out, this time IN [ALL] CAPS: IRA, NO MANIC ELAND!!! OK, I got it, I got it.
A shout-out to Alan Arbsfeld for his globetrotting research to find just the right countries to jam into this party of a puzzle. And a shout out to the UNITED NATIONS for lending its member nations to today's theme. Just another way people of different cultures can get together for a great time.
Why is the US not a part of the party today? Might have something to do with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's questioning of the UN's "relevancy":
https://nyti.ms/2E43Xj5
What a buzz kill!
6
@Mike R
Why is the US not a part of the party today?
Because it's kinda hard to hide UNITED STATES inside another word.
“Whoa there cow poke! Ya’ll crossing boundaries without papers!”
Geez this was not simple ... even at the finish I was gamboling along with words I only trusted from their crossing letters. YALTA is a place?
I went with U of ALTA hoping I had forgotten about an illustrious ski academy in Utah.
That was my last clue and it was well past my average; good feeling of accomplishment watching it fall into place.
Awesome.
1
Yalta (Crimea). WW2: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin; the big three
4
@Patrick Jordan
And a pretty major conference with enormous historic effect. (Yes, effect.)
2
...all of which has the possible effect of conflating Yalta with Malta, awa conflating a place-name in Utah with an abbrev for a Canadian province aka Alberta.
Isere a discipline other than Geography so rife with slippery slopes?
No I'm wondering whether it's a New South Welsh thing to write WW2 in place of WWII?
3
Já, það er miðvikudagur.
1
@Morgan
Ooh, I see "mid-week" in there!
1
@Morgan
Clever. Amazing what Google can explain!
:)
Gah, that was rough. I would normally just put the puzzle down and back away for a bit. But I was so mad at how hard the theme entries were for me to parse and how few of the trivia bits I knew that I just kept at it. I’m super grumpy now, but done. :)
4
Today's offering took me a little over half a minute more than my Wed. average. These days, I almost always solve faster than my average, since my skills have improved since the record-keeping began, so this means that the puzzle was unusually hard for me.
The reason, I think, is that the wacky phrases (i.e. the countries re-parsed) didn't flow easily for me. So I had to strategize: Should I try to answer the clue, or just look for countries containing the letters I already had. Neither strategy was particularly fast; but one way or another, I figured them all out.
Again, I don't solve for time; I just use the time afterwards to analyze how the solve went. Of course, Barry probably hit 2:37 again...
2
@Steve L ... when did you start doing the puzzle, Steve? When did you attend JHS234? I was there in 59-61. Let me know, OK? Thanks.
@HALinNY
I probably started doing the puzzle in the late 70s. Not sure of the exact year.
I went to 234 from 1967 to 1970. The first time the Mets won the World Series, the only time Jets won the Super Bowl, and the first time the Knicks won the NBA championship. It was a great time to be a yute in Brooklyn (with apologies to Joe Pesci).
Were you the one who mentioned Rose Weisel?
1
"Of course, Barry probably hit 2:37 again..."
Steve,
Can't let it go? Isn't calling me out because you didn't get the joke akin to bashing the constructor because you didn't get the puzzle?
(1) You've known for years that I solve offline, I don't time my solves, and I don't post solve times. Newer board readers may not know that, but you do.
(2) "(Is there an echo in here?)" was a Tuesday-level clue that my comment was ... echoing something. I assume people who reco'd my comment got that I was tipping my hat to Caitlin's dig in the column about people posting times here (rather than congratulating me for a fast solve).
(3) I'm quite sure I *did* hit 2:37 today, and 2:38, on my way to my usual unhurried and untimed solve.
8
That was a lot of fun!
3
HEROIC PAIR: ALI and Jackie Robinson. AHA theme.
3
Pretty difficult for a Wednesday, I thought.
3
Like @Caitlin, I labored a bit more than usual on this one. I got the theme pretty quickly but repeatedly had trouble making out the individual countries while at the same time solving for the bad puns. For example, I spotted ELAND right away but that somehow kept me from also recognizing ICELAND in the answer. Not being familiar with CLEO Laine didn't help either. My favorite witty clue for the day: 45D - Eschew rather than chew?
3
@Henry Su
Time for you to become acquainted with the wonderful CLEO Laine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsSsKMAJbHs
From Grammarly:
Effect as a verb.
Effect as a verb means to bring about. It usually shows up with nouns like “change” or “solutions.”
"The protesters wanted to effect change in the corrupt government."
In other words, they wanted to bring about the effect of change.
4
@Matt Thanks for pointing this out! I was sure the use of “effect” rather than “affect” was part of the clue. Something like “effect change” as in a disguise or special effect. I had CLOAK in there for a while and was trying to convince myself that might work. When I saw the actual answer (CLOUT) I was definitely confused, but I never assume Will wouldn’t catch something like that. Learned something new today!
1
I liked this theme. I got the revealer on a second pass through, after I had some crossing downs...
Once I had the theme, trying to find the country name from partial fill and synonym clues was good.
3
Turns out the birds (oxpeckers) on that eland video are not just eating bugs, but blood too. Ain’t nature grand?
@Liane, now you understand why the ELAND might be a bit MANIC.
6
@Liane I think there were two elands in that video. One had pristine antlers; the other had some sort of barnacle-like growth on his.
1
Remora wannabes, effective clout without remorse.
Clever and funny theme. Liked all of the theme entries, though CUBA LEBANON is probably the least favorite. I was Naticked by 1A/4D. Interesting there was TONIC, TONIA, and IONIA in the puzzle.
Aside from the theme entries, there were plenty of foreign place names - UGANDA, IONIA, YALTA, RIO, ONT(ario). Foreign brand names ISUZU and OPEL. CLEO and ISIS evokes Egypt.
"I was Naticked by 1A/4D."
I'm surprised, Wen. I would have thought a college attending New York city public school student of any era would have to have run into at least *one* of those entries.
(SHUL, LANI)
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I know, I know, Barry. As much as exposure there was to Jewish culture in NYC, it was very spotty for me.
Despite having solved 3 other puzzles since 2015 that had SHUL as the answer, it never stuck. I even vaguely recall commenting it at one point maybe in the summer.
LANI Guinier, on the other hand, I'd never heard of - another glaring gap in my education. Will have to fill it in.
@Wen
Please do fill it in, Wen.
LANI Guinier is a very important advocate and thought leader in the area of civil rights and racial equalilty. As such, of course, she has been wildly attacked on various occasions, most notably when they denied the country the benefit of having her serve as an assistant attorney general.
4
64 Across - "affect" instead of "effect"? Find it hard to believe that Shortz would miss this one but I could just be misinterpreting the clue...
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My clue says “effect”.
@Franklin
Nothing for Will to miss. "Effect" is correct.
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@Franklin
Effect (v) in this case meaning to accomplish, so clue is correct.
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I enjoyed the whole puzzle, and IRA NO MANIC ELAND made me laugh.
3
Holy geez the ads are so annoying
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@Rich Jones
Contrary to the relentless NYT plea, install an ad blocker.
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Agree, especially since I am already paying for subscription. I expect to be harangued when I’m a free rider.
@Rich Jones
AdBlock Plus is good.
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Lots of fun—really good midweek puzzle!
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Loved it. Fun construct.
At first, I had Ira Not An Iceland, but after figuring United Nations, I filled in CubaLebanon pretty easily and could fix Ira up better. (As if he needs my help.) Nice diversity of answers from Shul to Alan King to Eliza. Not too much boring fill.
Great Wednesday. Right on average for time -- which just means it was a good editorial pick for a Wednesday in my mind -- and nothing more.
2
Clever theme to uncover the UNITED NATIONS. Didn't like the puns much, but enjoyed the solving.
Eek. 64 across. Like chalk on a blackboard.
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@Brian
Why? What's wrong with 64A?
1
@Wen
I believe he thinks "effect" is wrong in the clue; he probably thinks it should be "affect."
If so, he is wrong.
1
@Steve L
Indeed, if it is as you believe.
But...what's wrong with chalk on blackboard? That's...normal, right?
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