Today’s puzzle was the 42nd Tuesday one I’ve completed (in a row). My streaks aren’t what they used to be.
This was a nicely melded theme with the abstract line art the answers alone created. The imagination could fill in a GRAY AREA, a RED SQUARE, a BLACK BOX, a TAN LINE, and a GOLD RING to finish the CANVAS.
Very enjoyable and quick solve.
:-D
2
If today's crossword puzzle wasn't a repeat, i must have developed a strong bit of ESP! Please tell me then I truly have seen this puzzle before!
@Iris
No, it wasn't a repeat.
But, what's funny is that so many of the first clues I solved seemed like repeats. Initially, I thought it was some sort of "best of" or an odd theme of previous clues. However, as I got a bit deeper into the puzzle, the thought left my mind.
Overall, a decent enough puzzle.
This was fun! Loved the story of the crossword art in Germany where the 91 y-o woman just followed directions.
2
Not the easiest Tuesday for me -- a number of premature entries -- but the worst part was finding my error(s) upon completion. Turns out I got hung up on two of Deb's "TIL's": ELISA and TEARTAPE. I had ELISe for the former, which gave me TeSTE at 43A. Maybe British spelling??
I wrestled with alternatives to TEARTAPE, but came up empty. After at least 10 mins. searching for alternative errors, I finally focussed on ELISe. ELIS*A*, T*A*STE! Duh!
I really like the theme. Very well done, Mr. Cheng!
3
From now on I'm calling Freddie Cheng the "Kandinsky of Crosswords." What a lovely, fresh coat of creativity he brought to us today! My only complaint was that it needs a splash of orange up in the upper right corner.
Just as an oil painting should be a true original so should each crossword puzzle. Today's wins my admiration and I'll offer a starting bid of $1,000,000.
Thank you, Mr. Cheng!
4
@Johanna - this is not a comment on the value of today's crossword - simply the tangent your post threw me onto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEv7cVW8hBA
2
@David Connell
Great movie, great scene.
1
Why use epithets when other definitions are clearly available? “Low IQ” as a hint for DIM is thoughtless, cruel, and extremely out of touch with expectations for respecting all human life. I was surprised and dismayed by your lazy and hateful choice of clue in this puzzle.
My only thought for a Canadian clue today:
40A Something rarely seen in Prince Rupert.
2
and Elke
Andrew-
so you think the 100 days of sunshine annually * that Prince Rupert gets may not be enough to TAN a BLANK CANVAS ? ;))
*it is the lowest amount of sunshine in Canada.
-and some people complain in Vancouver...
2
Elke,
There is not much one can tease West coasters about. I've been to Prince Rupert and it is a very beautiful place, but it does seem to have an unfortunate lack of sunshine.
3
My first sweep put “cougar” in 5a. An article in today’s NYT would use this to positively locate me in the Northwest. Also recent review of the installation of Abstract art exhibit at The MET makes this themed crossword timely.
2
@Ducks - I couldn't find the article online - could you put a link to it or give the title? I'm interested enough to spend one of my nickels on it.
The old-time word here is "catamount" - we still have a little road named that, though most current residents don't know the word anymore.
2
@David Connell Aren't the Univ of Vermont's teams called the Catamounts? There might be some alums, students, parents, or just college sports fans in your area. (Maybe not most of the target population, though.)
1
Monday I lost power a few seconds after I received the joyous sound of having successfully finished the 50th puzzle in 11.57 seconds !! Now I found I'm back to '0' ..aaaarrrgghhhh!!
1
@JOANR Now my Tuesday puzzle is no. ONE instead of 51 !!!!!!!!!
1
@JOANR
11.57 seconds? Now that's impressive!
2
@JoanR - if you contact the help team they might restore your streak to you. The link is on the main Wordplay page, reached by clicking where it says Tuesday Puzzle on the blog page.
2
Entered ocelot, fuselage and golfed on first pass but those were quickly corrected with the crosses. The rest flowed in without missteps in record time.
Was feeling a little disappointed in how easy it was for a Tuesday until I stood back to take in the theme, which is completely charming, and now I love it. Like abstract art, sometimes you need to observe something from a distance to truly appreciate it.
7
@Hildy Johnson
"Like abstract art, sometimes you need to observe something from a distance to truly appreciate it."
Like the next room? :)
(Sorry, couldn't resist...)
3
How could I forget RED SQUARE? Our paintings don't have a prayer of hanging in the Met without a RED SQUARE!!!! So sorry, painters!
2
Wow - my avatar is back. It's my Maltese, Polly. Sadly, she died last summer.
I enjoyed the puzzle, tho I had to look at "incorrect letters" (quite a few) to finish it. Liked finding all the colors.
Years ago I bought a book called Art about Nothing. I was/am not into ABSTRACTART. I still haven't read the book, but today's puzzle and comments made me want to pull out the book.
2
@Nina Rulon-Miller I'm sorry for the loss of your Polly. Maltese are the sweetest little things; I'm sure she was well-loved.
3
@Nina Rulon-Miller
Nina, I am so sorry for your loss. My avatar is my Havanese, Kramer, who died 12/10/17. I couldn't bear to remove him from my profile so I didn't, but during the NoAvatar Period, I considered making the change. Still couldn't do it. I guess I never will.
3
@CS Losing a pet is a grief like no other. Other losses and pains may be greater or have more far-reaching effects, but missing your dog is like a dagger in the heart. I'm sorry.
4
Let's have a painting contest, everyone. Comprised of the real artists, the not-especially talented "I've always wanted to paint but never got the chance" people, and the people who think they can't draw a straight line. We'll all take a BLANK CANVAS, and somewhere upon it, we'll paint a BLACK BOX, a TAN LINE and a GOLD RING. The rest will consist of GRAY AREAS. Will we get any ABSTRACT ART? Will we get any ART at all? ART is in the eye of the beholder anyway, right?
I solved this as a themeless, thinking like others that it would be some sort of boring word progression. But I smiled broadly when I got the revealer and then envisioned the painting. I just love a crossword with a sense of humor.
I even forgive the constructor the Hobbit, Force Awakens, Avatar, Batman and Luftballons pop culture stuff. I always hate these clues, they always stymie me, but the droll qualities of the rest of the puzzle made up for it. Plus it was crunchy for a Tuesday. Very enjoyable.
3
The 'Modern Quilt movement' is well underway out in QuiltWorld... I enjoy seeing them, but my designs have a mind of their own, so I'm not sure that many of my works fit the genre.
I did wonder where we were going with all of the colors, but I must say the palette was limited!
More, please!
4
@Mean Old Lady
Been wondering about that ... can you do Mondrians?
Not too hard, but the theme that certainly is more sophisticated than most Monday puzzles. I like it! But then again, a framed print of Kandinsky's "Autumn Landscape with Boats" hangs on the wall above my desk at home.
2
@archaeoprof
I'm sure you are just kidding about Monday, but these last few weeks have tested my sense of days of the week, so now I am confused anew!
@archaeoprof
Tuesday is the new Monday. Monday is the new Tuesday. Tomorrow is another day. We'll have to wait to see which one it is! Frankly, Scarlett . . .
5
Just relax, put your feet up and smoke an ELROPO. You'll be fine.
2
All we needed was EMO Phillips to complete the trifecta.
4
Do you not have proofreaders? And how does a crossword constructor miss a misspelling? "This lead to..." in Mr. Cheng's comments LED me to cringe, as it is getting so frequent that Webster's is likely to list it as legitimate. Puh-LEAZE.
2
First, I’ll point out that, while seeing easy to correct mistakes can irritate me, too, it is how language evolves. It is how we who speak English have gotten from an amalgamation of German speaking tribes mixed with Romans mixed with Celts mixed with Vikings mixed with...the list goes on, to speaking a coherent language we call English.
And secondly I’d point out that your post has what I can only assume is an intentional misspelling of the word ‘please’ which is hugely ironic considering your topic. Should this also be considered up for adoption in the next addition of Webster?
2
@Michael Dover
I agree. Distinguishing the spellings of the verb provides useful information and is easier to read (not red).
I'd recommend calling the metal LED except that most of our lighting is now LED. So I suggest we go with plumbum, which is so much fun to say that I'm surprised it hasn't already caught on. Not to be confused with the bum exposed by a plumber when they bend under the sink.
5
"Do you not have proofreaders?"
Michael Dover,
For the column, no. Literate people can make mistakes. Copy editors, when available, can catch those mistakes. Enjoy the rest of you day.
3
Low IQ? Dim...
Why do these puzzles continue to be so cruel towards people with disabilities?
So many other ways to clue Dim
10
L.A. Sunshine,
Serious question: Does this mean we should no longer refer to "High-I.Q." as BRIGHT?
4
@Barry Ancona
Hmm....well, calling someone BRIGHT is not meant to be condescending, superior, snotty, hurtful, or rude, so there's that.
And, as LA Sunshine suggests, there are other ways to clue this. We need not be unkind about traits that cannot be helped; good manners and sensitivity, on the other hand, are a choice.
17
Just FYI, DIM was actually originally clued as “Lacking lumens”, but I guess it was deemed too difficult for a non-technical Tuesday audience.
15
The fact that Mr. Cheng was inspired by a Kandinsky painting makes this puzzle more interesting to me. My wife and I attended an exhibit of the artist's work at the Guggenheim some years back and I gained a new appreciation of an art form I had previously shunned. Two stumbling blocks for me were 17A, thought it would start with a color, and 61A, had TART in my mind for some time until I realized it was ART. Too bad Green Arrow had to come out. He was always one of my favorite B team DC heroes.
It seems that every once in a blue moon ENO is clued to the river in NC, not to the composer Brian. Have all 228 ENO's been Brian, or have some maybe been the waterway in NC's Piedmont?
(The Eno River is almost in my backyard. I'm also a hop skip and a jump from ELON University.)
A nice Tuesday puzzle. As the theme gathered momentum from top to bottom I wondered what it was going to be. I wasn't disappointed.
I was very surprised to learn how long the pipeline can be for Times crosswords! Thanks for the enlightening notes, Mr Cheng. 15 months from submission to publication. Wow!
3
@Floyd
See for yourself:
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Finder?word=ENO
@Steve L - Being ever the nerd, I perused the entire list - can you understand 2/1/91, 8D:
Em followers = ENO
There are multiple occurences of this in Maleska puzzles. But still, whaa?
@David Connell - Actually, I kept reading the whole list and found
Duo after Em = ENO which clarified it: (En, O)
Sigh.
This exercise added to my list of why Shortz is my editor of choice.
Farrar, Weng, Maleska: "Wine prefix" (for oeno-)
Maleska: En, O (when you spell the letter Oh if you are spelling it)
Shortz: an actual name of a person (or sometimes a river) that is a thing...ENO
I thought it was Tear Strip, but TAPE will do.
3
I think they should just label the strip with the words BREAK THUMBNAIL HERE, or something similar....
16
@Mean Old Lady - How about
Free Paper Cut?
5
Playing in the shallow end of the pool - this one was on the tough side for me (for a Tuesday). A number of factual things I should have known but couldn't remember, though at least I had ENO and ONO and even NENA with a bit of thought. Things like KEATON and ALROKER took a couple of crosses. Toss in TEARTAPE, TREA and TANLINE and some others and I did a lot of re-considering in both directions in multiple places before I finally put it all together. Oh, and I did an incredibly dumb thing with 9d to which I will not fully confess.
Wasn't real thrilled with the theme when I finished, but after a bit of thought (and reading other comments) I've come around. Quite clever.
Random thoughts: Is the puzzle suggesting that Brian ENO is above Everage?
Re the clue for 1a - for all you math geeks out there: What's another term for 169?
And I had one more and now I've forgotten it.
1
A square of bakers?
2
"Wasn't real thrilled with the theme when I finished, but after a bit of thought (and reading other comments) I've come around."
I haven't. Sorry. Seemed like a lot of GREEN PAINT.
1
@Niall H
Maybe Canada doesn't doesn't have the "Baker's Square" chain. Or my irony-meter is on the fritz.
My joke:
A computer programmer (P) and their spouse (S) are discussing a trip to the grocery.
P: I’m heading to the store. Any requests?
S: Pick up a loaf a bread. If they have eggs, get a dozen.
P: OK.
An hour later, the programmer returns home with a dozen loaves of bread.
S: Why’d you buy a dozen loaves of bread?
P: They had eggs!
19
Hi puzzle fans- were the winners from PuzzleMania posted somewhere ? I have looked but must have missed it.
Did enjoy today's work of art :)
I enjoyed this more in RETROspect than while solving. Perhaps, if one might generalize, like with ABSTRACT ART, I had to stand back and see it from a new perspective. It gave me the opportunity to find ART in another entry - TEARTAPE, in which APE is also found.
On the issue of crying TADA while taking a bow, I think the clue fits. The bow need not be a bend-at-the-waist bow, but rather a flourish of the arm accompanied by a slight dip of the upper body. Like so ... TADA!
2
Nice puzzle, no junky fill, clever theme; got held up a little in the north (isolated area).
Kandinsky always reminds me of Bruce Willis in "Color of Night" -- remember that one? I always like actors in incongruous roles.
1
What is BANDB?
@Skeptical1 B & B, bed & breakfast. Usually staying in an actual house with a nice comfy bed and a breakfast served for you, as opposed to a hotel.
2
@Chris Finlay
You mean it's not a baby deer with a speech impediment?
8
@Steve L, bucking the odds again, are you?
5
Couple of lookups for me today, but only to confirm that MARIE CLAIRE is indeed a magazine, and that the weatherman is AL ROKER. I'd put them in, but wasn't 100% sure. As a Northern Irishman, I'm more used to seeing Michael Fish - or as Tribe of Toffs would like to remind us, John Kettley is also a weatherman.
And so is Billy Giles
and so is Ian McGaskill
so is Wincy Willis
(Yes, there was a song about British weathermen.)
I did have a DIM moment when I typo'd "OPINES" to "OPUNES" on my phone and didn't catch it initially, resulting in "DUM" for 60A. I didn't think that was right but still somehow didn't twig on my typo until the end when the puzzle told me I had a mistake somewhere.
(Also, I'm very happy to see the return of my cheeky tongue-out hummingbird friend in my avatar.)
2
@Chris Finlay
Here in the US, we don't appear to have weathermen anymore (which is convenient, since half of them are women, and weatherwomen is a mouthful).
We have METEOROLIGISTS.
1
@Steve L I'm not sure if we officially refer to them as weathermen these days either really.
We have METEOROLIGISTS.
Also, the Weather Underground.
2
Deb (and Kipling), If there is a God I am sure he or she does not use contractions. Furthermore the issue may be art with a small or capital A, argued Tom anally.
Resisted TESTCASE as I am not certain that term is proper. Precedence is often set in a lower court, blah, blah, blah.
Happy to see "my precious" in the grid.
Pleasant Tuesday.
Thanks Freddie
3
@dk,
Legal precedent can result from a TEST CASE, which presents issues of first impression, working its way through the judicial system and giving a higher court (e.g., the U.S. Supreme Court) an opportunity to render a decision that lower courts are bound to follow in the future.
1
I liked this kooky and unpredictable theme, which inspired me to try to picture the work of art it described. How many themes evoke the imagination?
I also liked that starting with EDNA's N, there's a Boggle-style NUDE to go with the cross of BARE and GAL, and to further the art theme. Mostly, though, I was charmed by this theme's out-of-the-boxness. That made this puzzle special.
4
@Lewis.
See https://photos.app.goo.gl/C5BP7pqs7XywneMv7
courtesy of Alan J. Does it resemble your mind’s eye’s creation? (If you can’t open this link scroll down to Alan J’s and try it - I could open using Safari for Wordplay as opposed to the app on my iPad)
1
@Puzzlemucker
Not really. For instance, my gray areas looked more like clouds...
@Lewis
Very nice. I enjoyed the "This is not art" Magritteism (?) in Alan's abstract creation, which if painted on canvas would likely hold up pretty well.
1
SPELLING BEE!
36 words - 136 points - 1 pangram - no bingo
Cx4 Ex4 Fx22 Ix1 Lx4 Tx1
4L 5L 6L 7L 8L
C 1 2 1 - - (4)
E - - 2 1 1 (4)
F 11 5 4 1 1 (22)
I 1 - - - - (1)
L 3 1 - - - (4)
T 1 (1)
(17) (8) (7) (2) (2) (36)
Nothing obscure - lots and lots of 4-letter words, and lots and lots of F-words. Chuckle.
16
@David Connell I can't believe that lifecycle isn't even in the word list - and it's a pangram longer than 8 letter one they recognize. Increasingly we seem to be playing "guess what I'm thinking." I wonder if they would ever publish a comprehensive word list.
9
@Margaret Campbell - they are fairly conservative on words like that, which are normally either two words or hyphenated. Here's the ngram chart for life cycle, life-cycle, and lifecycle:
https://tinyurl.com/ybywwms3
It seems that the one word version has only kicked in over the past twenty years and is still the least used.
@David Connell
Except a little while back I lost my mind looking for the last word only to find it was air ball which I refuse to enter as one word. I think it’s utterly arbitrary.
9
Cute idea. I didn't have much in the NW corner at first and after I got BLACK BOX & TAN LINE, I thought 17A was going to start with a color, so that slowed me down a bit, and was the last theme answer I got, after the great reveal.
Quite a few unknown names for me today, mostly gettable from the crosses but finally had to look up the weatherman.
I'm glad Freddie persisted; this was worth the trouble.
2
Deb,
Thank you for the great quotation, new to me, from Kipling.
12
and Elke
This inveterate c(K)OOK/baker was partially solving some clues and after I got --TART and EGGS and LEMON and TSP , I was sure that the remaining answers were the rest of the ingredients to make a LEMON ---TART. Imagine my disappointment to find it's ABSTRACT ART after all.- I could already TASTE the meringue...
Interesting that nostalgia is evoked by RETRO fashion. Carbon Copies are commemorated in email's BCC.
GAL Gadot is a another piece of ART to look at (so says BOB-).
TADA (no bow). GOTTA go.
3
Seems fair to say that both ENO and ONO have a pretty abstract approach to their musical arts. A collaboration could be... interesting?
2
@Amy G
Now that it's a new AÑO, maybe ENO and ONO can meet in INO (Wisconsin) for a game of UNO.
22
In INO, they’re prone to say “Donch Y’NO”.
8
Brilliant theme, and a fun puzzle!
6
A quick and painless Tuesday. I liked the placement of SENATOR and ENACTED at opposing positions on the grid. TREO brought back fond memories of my first smartphone.
Oh, and Mr. Cheng's story about the 91-year old woman who unknowingly defaced a museum piece thinking it was a crossword waiting to be completed? The story didn't end with her apology. She and her lawyer subsequently claimed copyright over the defaced version as a derivative work, https://hyperallergic.com/311615/woman-fills-in-crossword-puzzle-artwork-and-claims-copyright/. The linked article closes with the following observation: "But all of this overlooks the pensioner’s more serious crime to begin with: Filling out a crossword puzzle in pen."
8
@Henry Su
Well, at one point I owned a Palm, but never a TREO, and it crossing TEAR TAPE was almost a Natick for me. Also very briefly had ocelot instead of BOBCAT, but the crossings solved both of those problems.
Overall, I'll agree it was pretty painless and quick—only 8 seconds longer than yesterday's.
@JayTee, OCELOT was my first entry too but quickly erased. As others have noted, this puzzle is distinctly directed to different wheelhouses than Monday's. KEATON, AL ROKER, and NENA could be another Natick depending on how much the solver knows about the "Batman" movies (multiple actors have played the lead), U.S.-based weathermen, and 1980s one-hit wonders (at least in the U.S.; there are other songs on the 99 Luftballons album that I liked).
@Henry Su: What chutzpah!
1
Re 38D, I thought detergents were distinctly different from soaps, albeit with a similar function.
3
@Backup
Although the term "detergent" usually refers to substances other than soap, i.e. the compound of an alkali -- usually sodium -- with a fatty acid, soap is a detergent, because it is a substance used for cleaning surfaces.
However, I am not too happy with the definition: "Detergents, e.g.", which can be read (correctly) as soap being an example of detergents or (incorrectly) as detergents being examples of soap.
3
@Amitai Halevi Can the clue really be read both ways? I thought it could only mean the second (incorrect) way. To indicate that SOAPS are an example of detergents, the clue should say "Some detergents". I know people have discussed this before but I can't remember what the official crossword stance is or where to find the discussion. I'm sure I will be corrected if wrong!
"I am not too happy with the definition"
Amitai,
I am very happy to see you posting!
5
Dozen eggs...
When I first began making ice cream, I followed the recipes that came with the ice cream machine - vanilla ice cream called for 1 whole egg; chocolate called for 2 whole eggs. The ice cream turned out...okay.
Then I found an old French ice cream recipe book. Lavender ice cream: step one, whip 12 egg yolks... !
So I tried making vanilla ice cream with 6 yolks instead of just 1 whole egg. Night and day. The difference between night and day. OTOH, I've yet to dare a dozen egg yolks in a quart of ice cream.
Last year, bobcats made a lair in the wild space right here where I live - the town came and cleared away a whole area to try to control them. Took away a lot of good habitat for the other animals, but the family of wildcats was eating them all anyway, maybe some pets, too. Nature's precarious balance.
5
and Elke
David C. -seems we both thought and posted about food
at the same time.
With your EGG yolks you could make Wine sauce (''bormartas'' +2 diacriticals):Beat yolks with sugar until lemon coloured. Transfer to double boiler, add wine and LEMON juice and continue beating until thickened. Serve with cake or fruit . Ignore cholesterol.
1
@Robert - Or Zabaglione, made with Marsala instead of wine and no lemon. Delicious....
2
@Kathy & Elke - what a rabbit hole you've led me on. Bormártás googles me onto pages and pages of recipes, all in Hungarian. Even my tried-and-true "bormártás wiktionary" search didn't produce a wiktionary page for it. But it did produce a German translation: "das Chaudeau" - which, when googled, led me to French recipes - and Zabaglione led to Italian recipes. It seems to be a "translation-resistant" confection.
At least zabaglione recipes are easy to find in English.
1
Does this link work? It's a .png image of a quick "stick in the mould" effort:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/C5BP7pqs7XywneMv7
Fun puzzle. Neat idea.
22
It works! I will start the bidding at $10,000.
Works ! Kandinsky would be proud....
@Alan J, very nice. I'm trading in my Magritte.
1
That was pretty quick - nice fill for the BLANKCANVAS.
Was very glad to see TAO finally clued as Eastern rather than Confucian. Not so pleased to be reminded I once owned a LEMON. Made by Buick, replaced by a lovely Mazda MX6 turbo.
3
The abbreviation "Ltd." is used in the U.K. to denote a company whose investors' liability is limited to the value of their shares; the U.S. "Inc." denotes a corporate entity which has the legal status of a person. The U.S. equivalent of "Ltd." is LLC.
14
@Fact Boy Which I had before LTD.
4
I used to work for a cigarette company, so “tear tape” was an easy answer for me. I quickly sensed that the theme answers started with colors, and as quickly that they were shapes - so ABSTRACTART jumped out at me with only the second R filled in. Finished in well under my Tuesday average.
Zippy Tuesday puzzle- new best time. Nice visual pattern in the theme.
2
I wonder, given 33 and 34D, who Mr. Cheng is rooting for in the game tonight.
6
@Steve L Dang, was that tonight?? Oh well. Nice puzzle. Pretty neat!
1
@Steve L Great catch. He didn't root hard enough.
1
@Steve L Good spot!
1
much easier than Monday due to the relative lack of references to cigars, obscure sports figures, etc. the theme reminded me of the book To the Lighthouse in which abstract art is such a central focus.
1
@Jamie
You may not be into sports, but ELSTON Howard and PAT RILEY are hardly obscure sports figures.
13
Howard broke the color barrier for the Yankees. A class act all around.
7
@Steve L If you're not particularly clued in to sport, they're obscure. Elston Howard was before my time as a baseball fan, and I don't follow basketball at all, so I had to get the crossings to have a chance at them.
3
Cool theme. Wish Rothko or Johns had made an appearance. Just 297 to go to catch Nicole in MN ...
1
I noticed the colors filling in, and wondered what the theme was going to be (I forgot about BLANK CANVAS, but then I didn't have that one immediately). I wonder what kind of swimsuit would create one TAN LINE? It's interesting that the photo heading the column shows a painting that includes a RED SQUARE and the making of a TAN LINE.
I like anything that feeds my artistic soul, and the painting in this puzzle does--even if the resulting work of art might be on the bland side, with so much GRAY and TAN and BLACK in it. I hope the RED SQUARE and GOLD RING are big and bright!
3