I am koumpounophobic so this was a tough one for me.
Should have been a Wednesday, at least.
Bad editing.
1
Hardest Tuesday puzzle in ages — harder than most wednesdays more like a thursday — took me 30 min most tuesday’s are like 10 — or i skip them entirely
6
I got stuck on NW when I put BEEPED instead of TOOTED. I had to skim the comments for OTOS (really?), that fixed it, would have never guessed otherwise. Fun puzzle except for the NW corner.
Tough for a Tuesday. Just tough for a Tuesday.
:-/
13
Tuesday? really?
13
Had to stare at the theme and the entries (after completing the crossword) to find the connection. And then it hit me! Fun!
2
I'm new to solving crosswords and was stumped by 31D.
Having see the answer I still don't get it.
Can someone please help me understand what the clue means? Thanks.
1
@FredB Stick with it, Fred, they get easier as you learn some tricks. The Greek letter eta looks like our Roman letter H. Hence, H = eta.
4
HELGA was a gimme answer for me and brought back fond memories
As a young teenage boy, I really enjoyed Time Magazine’s cover story on Andrew Wyeth’s Helga portfolio.
The Wyeth’s NSFW portraits of Helga greatly increased my appreciation for fine art. :-)
4
Proceeded methodically through this but with many hiccups: acK before EEK, uTeS before OTOS, iDylIC (misspelled) before EDENIC, tone before BEEP, zIt befroe RIG :), rEal before ZERO (my first thought before actually thinking!), IPaDS before IPODS, dOE before ROE, and Ita before ISR.
I thought I was finally sliding into home until I encountered C?L, EL?A (guessed ELbA), and ??WEE -- a double-Natick for me. I tried a few random letters until finally guessing at PEWEE. (What's CPL, anyway? I doubt it's Clinical Pathology Laboratories, something around here. ;) ) For a Tuesday, pure evil, Mr Markey!
1
@Ron
CPL = Corporal
2
@Ron
I made several of the same errors you did (Roe, Utes, Elba), and several more of my own. Was feeling pretty dumb by the end. And I literally went through the keyboard letters to finish off with PEWEE.
1
@Deadline
Thanks. I misread the clue as asking for an N*G*O (non-governmental org.). :P
@FrankieHeck
Glad to hear I wan't the only one!
TIL that Jane Roe (of Roe v. Wade fame) was actually a pseudonym so the real plaintiff could remain anonymous! I had Jane DOE (as this is the standard "anonymous" plaintiff name) down until I'd basically solved everything else, and it wasn't until I googled "Jane Roe anonymous" that the answer became clear.
Couldn't get my head around the theme today...I had all the starred clues well before the revealer and didn't make the connection between them until I read Wordplay.
4
There was a second abortion rights case heard around the same time that used Mary Doe for the plaintiff. Sarah Weddington's book on the history of the Roe v Wade trial is a fascinating read.
3
What happened to my streak? I was at 80 when I completed Sunday's puzzle, but then on Monday I was at one, and today I was congratulated for a two-day streak. The archive still shows an unbroken series of gold boxes connected by gold bars, but the counter has reset. Any advice about how to get the counter corrected? In the scheme of things it's not that big a deal, but the streak has been a great incentive to persevere and improve my game.
(And come to think of it on Sunday I got congratulations for a one-day streak. Is that even a thing?)
@Margaret,
I think there may be some difficulties with different devices syncing their data on crossword statistics. When I solve on my smartphone app, it congratulates me for a streak that is not nearly as long as the one that is associated with my account when I'm on my PC and browser. I would suggest emailing the tech team.
Of all the clues, and all the answers, 33A was the most enjoyable. Orange tan and FAKE really made me laugh!
9
@Berle Driscoll
That was on of the constructor's favorites as well.
1
@Berle Driscoll
Considering how vain our President is about his hair, it amazes me he wears such orange makeup on his face.
2
To A Mouse
On Turning up in Her Nest with the Plough
Wee, SLEEKet, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
As Burns said, the best-laid schemes of Mice and Men gang aft a-gley. And some were a-gleying gangbusters.
A-gley #1 was LF Brain's citing John Doe, Jane Doe and Richard Roe, thus having RETDOFIT till puzzle's end, when it noted that sometimes RETDON'TFIT.
A-gley #2 was the reveal, which the LF Brain was positive had to be BUTTONED DOWN, how the LF Brain remembered The BUTTONED DOWN Mind of Bob Newhart. The LFB was sure enough of the BUTTONED end to consider BUTTONED UP when BUTTONED DOWN wouldn't fit. Fortunately, the LF Regulator checked the Interweb before starting an impassioned rant on this misconstrued construction, thus squeaking by without irredeemable redness of the LF Face. A humbling but useful reminder that at my most certain, I can be helplessly and blatantly wrong.
In UNGARB(L)ED territory, themers were either cute ASA BUTTON (SNOOZEFEST) or right on the button (BELLYUPTOTHEBAR, boys; LIKEYOUKNOW). 'Flop sweat' seemed a tiny bit off, as I associate it with abject fear rather than PANIC_ATTACKS. A nit unworthy of picking, so let's lose it in a denim bus cloud of dust. Cirri-ously, the Great One said it best: How SWEDE it is!!
Solve lost again after seizing and freezing, so that's it for now. Another Marquis effort.
10
@Leapfinger
For the past quarter century-plus, the term "FLOP SWEAT" has called up to me the visiton of James Stockdale, Ross Perot's running mate, during the 1992 vice presidential debate.
3
@Leapfinger
I believe 44A RETDOFIT should be RETROFIT. To explain, I had an out of date broken shower faucet and a great Replacement Part store had the modern equivalent. It saved us from paying an expensive plumbing bill. Webster dictionary: 2 : to install (new or modified parts or equipment) in something previously manufactured or constructed.
1
@Leapfinger
I would have left a reco for your post yesterday but . . . you guessed it, not enough TIME. Actually, I instinctively hit reco for almost all your posts, so I'm sorry for the oversight.
3
Really struggled over what the heck "butt on down" meant....foolish me
12
And what on earth is an UNGAR BED??
; )
2
Deb, one of these days we'll have the same definition of tricky clues... I'm sure of it.
Until then I'll get stumped on the things I'm sure every true crossword solver should already know. I'm not quite ready to learn that many bird/flower names yet.
Great puzzle but had me incredibly stumped for a Tuesday.
8
Hi @Jsav: Take heart. The best thing about our species (and others) is that we all think differently. If you show 10 people a puzzle and ask them what they thought was tricky, you would probably get almost 10 different answers.
And if you want to learn more about the birds and the flowers, Sam Ezersky has written some great stuff for Wordplay to help solvers. Click on the 'Words to Know' tab at the top and scroll down. You'll see words galore that other people missed, plus Sam's Crossword Aviary, Garden, Garage and more.
https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/words-to-know
3
@Deb Amlen Pul-ezze. Get over yourself, Deb.
Loved Bob Newhart since his first album and was delighted when he sometimes showed up doing his stand-up act on TV variety shows. Among my favorite bits were the telephone calls.
When it was announced that he would get his own TV show, fellow fans and I were a bit nervous about trying to cram his "Button-Down Mind" into a sitcom format. IIRC, the first few episodes of his first sitcom (perhaps the whole first season) tended to feature the Bob character engaged in a phone call crafted just as the ones on his albums had been.
In the Constructor Notes, we are told that Will thinks that "down" puzzles are being overdone. What? I doubt a "down" puzzle shows up every six months.
Jeff Chen goes further, citing editors who won't allow down entries of longer than eight letters so as not to "confuse" solvers, because "regular solvers have been trained to look for theme in the longest across answers."
If such confusion exists, there's an easy cure: Simply get rid of the "across-themers" constraint. Loosen up a bit, and allow some more variety. And some more challenge! We're here to think.
Like Deb and others, I'm guessing that the LIKE button is Facebook, a site I've never visited. Didn't know Zeno of ELEA.
Didn't even try to get that math thing without *all* of the crossings. I had to debate between I-PODS and I-PADS. The former seemed more likely though from the clue, and ZERO seemed more math-y than ZENA.
Thanks, Jeff, Well, et al. especially for the down themers.
8
I remember many years ago a math prof telling us that in math exams that it you don't know the answer it is most likely one or zero. Would have worked here for the Euler identity clue.
5
@Robert Danley
1 or zero "in the right units".. . . Mr Gill (our physics teacher) used to add.
1
trying to parse 16a TOOK A TOLL ON ME. Stared at the completed answer for 5 minutes before I got it.
3
I almost beat my Tuesday best but one clue I got with crossers defies my understanding. I'm sure it's blindingly obvious to the rest of you, but, H = ETA?
@Joel Brown
H is the greek capital letter for eta. It's a definite "known to NYT XWD solvers" frequently used clue.
4
@Robert Michael Panoff Thank you for not making "a scoffing remark to an ignoramus" or at least being subtle about it
15
@Joel Brown, Bob MP is a good fellow, and not one given to making scoffing-type remarks.
Fun puzzle. Took me longer to figure it the theme/revealer than it should have, but a pretty smooth solve overall. Only one I don't get is how NAG is ride in two senses. I get one but not the second.
@Thomas,
Think of an old horse.
4
Thomas,
In case that was one you did get, this is the other:
6a : OBSESS, OPPRESS
ridden by anxiety
b : to harass persistently : NAG
c : TEASE, RIB
1
@Barry Ancona
I knew nag in the sense of pestering someone. As a horse didn't come to mind but now that it's been pointed out it seems I've heard it before.
1
Calling it flop sweat does a disservice to a panic attack. Read the Bloggess: https://thebloggess.com/2019/03/11/i-suspect-my-body-is-trying-to-do-a-murder-on-me-and-i-dont-appreciate-it/
7
Loved Newhart. It made my day whenever a work friend, named Bob, would bring his daughter, Emily, to the office and I could put on my best Howard Borden imitation: "Hi Bob, hi Emily." Good puzzle today, got it but after an initial error warning. Would have hated to see a Tuesday end a solving streak.
3
Letter Boxed
Today's went rather quickly:
C-S (9) S-K (6)
HINT:
Trash collection.
@Andrew I got you by one with a 5-9. ;)
Today was almost what I call a "perfect solve"
LURKS - STANCHION
Only re-use (except for the link-letter) was the "N".
@Baltimark
Good work.
Since a lot of solvers come here before doing the Letter Boxed, we don't generally give any of today's solutions except with the notation that I used above. Just thought I should let you know.
1
I came up with L-S(9), S-K(5)
HINT:
One with big mouth who's good with words.
Well, drat! Now I'm going to have to abandon my "button up" puzzle that I've been slaving over for months!
I wonder if Jules ever considered ELEVATORSHOES for a themer? No matter, all of his theme answers are terrific!
BELLYUPTOTHEBAR was my favorite.
Exceptional Tuesday puzzle ... thank you, Jules Markey!
2
SPELLING BEE Grid
26/67, 1 Pangram
By 1st Letter:
Dx3, Hx5, Lx9, Mx5, Tx4
By Length:
4x20, 5x1, 6x2, 7x2, 9x1
∑ 4 5 6 7 8 9
D 3 3 - - - - -
H 5 3 - - 2 - -
L 9 7 1 - - - 1
M 5 4 - 1 - - -
O - - - - - - -
T 4 3 - 1 - - -
U - - - - - - -
∑ 26 20 1 2 2 - 1
15
HULLO! No MOULD? I guess I am just too British.
5
@Evan
There is a word related to number theory that I would consider fairly obscure. The rest of the 5L+ words are ones most people have heard of even if they don't often use them. Way too many 4s for my taste.
1
@Andrew
I think the Bee has consistently excluded British/Canadian OU words when the U has been dropped in US English.
2
Uh oh. There's an answer that's wrong and it wouldn't matter so much if it weren't the revealer. The correct phrase is BUTTONed DOWN, not BUTTON DOWN. I tried to put in BUTTONED UP (the BUTTON is "up", i.e. on top, get it?), but I was stopped by NIMBUS CLOUD. Thank you NIMBUS CLOUD. I also wrote in TingE instead of TRACE at 17D, but LADY and EDENIC had me correcting almost immediately. Thank you LADY and EDENIC.
Other than that there was some quite good cluing for a Tuesday. I liked ACE (25A); ACROSS (47A); CAST (44A); and NAG (27D). Simple words, but the clues make them shine.
Thought for the Day: If you BELLY UP TO THE BAR too often, you'll have one helluva BELLY to BELLY UP with.
1
@Nancy Button down is not wrong. Period. You could look it up.
6
Lorne,
Let's not get too hot under the collar...
5
@Nancy The two terms are interchangeable. From Merriam-Webster:
"button-down | adjective
..
2 (*or buttoned-down*) : conservatively traditional or conventional
especially : adhering to conventional norms in dress and behavior"
After yesterday's 3:30ish solve (unheard of), I was hoping I had superpowers. Alas, today's brought me down to earth - a tougher than average Tuesday, but a fun and satisfying solve.
Favorite thought provoking clue: YOLO really does mean "seize the day", doesn't it? I can't quite get over this. It's cracking me up thinking of some 14 year old Roman party with amphoras of wine and someone ditzily shouting "carpe diem" before chugging down a cup.
2
@Dan Oh, honey, I have definitely been to those parties.
1
@Diana -- With 14-year old Romans?
Caspita!
2
@Leapfinger Are Latin students close enough? Ha.
My HARP/CARP mix made me kvetch a little.
Slower than my usual Tuesday solve, but that may be due to the influence of cold meds. I did manage to solve it before the benadryl knocked me out, but it was close.
4
In honor of the PEWEE. A site some of you may know but I just found out about today from reading comments to an NYT article about a new board game involving birds called "Wingspan" -- a website devoted to birds with a "bird sounds" page. If you go on it, I recommend sorting by "Best Quality" (yes, they are user rated!). And, at least for me, once I listened to a particular bird's song, if I hit the tab back button it took me completely out of the site, but if I just X'ed out of the particular bird page that got me back to the main bird sound page:
https://search.macaulaylibrary.org/catalog?view=Grid&sort=rating_rank_desc
3
@Puzzlemucker
I just checked the site on my PC rather than my iPad and you have to click on the bird's name rather than its photo to get the "Listen" option.
1
@Puzzlemucker,
I also read the NYT article about the "Wingspan" game and thought I would link it here since there have been a few comments today about pewees, towhees, and hummingbirds, https://nyti.ms/2Uv2yXV.
The following passage in the article caught my eye, and I think it's relevant to crosswords:
* * *
(talking about Ms. Hargraves' attention to game-design theory)
But taped to the wall facing her is a list of the essential elements outlined by Marc LeBlanc, a designer and programmer, in his book “Eight Kinds of Fun”: sensation, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression and submission. Every so often, she said, she asks herself, “How many of these am I using?”
* * *
I'd say crosswords meet at least four of those metrics: challenge, fellowship, discovery, and submission (LeBlanc uses the last term to describe a game as a pastime; a kinky use of the term if you ask me).
1
@Henry Su
Wordplay adds expression, often narrative, definitely fantasy (opaque double entendre intended) and, with especially piquant puns, sensation.
(Btw fun to see the game is *flying* off the shelves)
3
LIKE, YOU KNOW nobody will ever solve this puzzle.
https://youtu.be/5anAHCvl0v0
1a,
Bru
2
I too am a big fan of Bob Newhart. I listened to his records and watched all of his TV shows. His Big Bang gig was just as hilarious as all of his other work. But what really hurt was his often expressed dislike of Albuquerque. I don't know if he got stung by one of the many gas station scams on Route 66 back in the fifties or had a really bad audience experience here during a performance. Or maybe he turned right instead of left once like Bugs Bunny.
1
And, BTW - Bob Newhart’s mind NEEDED to be “buttoned down”!! We couldn’t have a thing like that running around loose, now could we!?!?
The man was a TRUE comedian and, to the best of my recollection, never emphasized vulgarity in any form. Red Skelton (“Hi Kids” as Deb would say.) was the same. Watching him get tickled at himself and “lose it” was one of the funniest things I ever watched on television - or anywhere else for that matter.
Another funniest thing was when Johnny Carson and Dom Deloise got into a “fight” involving raw eggs. (I’d be tremendously grateful to have a reference to a clip of THAT bit of improv.)
3
Never mind. I found it myself - and learned that I mis-spelled Dom’s last name. That bit is still one of the funniest things on TV.
@PeterW
On the subject of mis-spelling celebrity names, I would respectfully point out that Jiminy Cricket takes only one M.
1
The cross of ELEA and PEWEE sent me to my electronic e-n-c-y-c-l-o-p-e-d-i-a.
I still hear Jimminy Cricket singing the word’s letters after ALL these years!! And s-u-p-e-r-c-a-l-i-f-r-a-g-i-l-i-s-t-i-c-e-x-p-i-a-l-i-d-o-c-i-o-u-s fairly trips off the fingertips. Why hasn’t anyone ever done the same for “diarrhea”?? ;-) (And why won’t this forum’s comments section support emojis??)
This puzzles revealer and “theme” answers completely escaped me until Deb’s explanation - even after completion and examination of the puzzle. I really HATE to admit it - - but I sort of agree with WILL FC on this topic. But ONLY this topic.
And, TIL that there is a football team called the Cardinals - and others called Texans, Jaguars, (who knew?) and TITANs (what a coincidence!)
1
Not only did I enjoy the puzzle, I've also been enjoying the audio clips of Bob Newhart's early stand-up routines that folks have been posting. I remember them from my tween-age years (though we didn't say "tween" back then).
I've also noticed some commenters wanting to turn "button-down" into "buttoned down," or to attribute the phrase to a type of jacket. Newhart's triple-Grammy-winning 1960 album is titled "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart," referring to the button-down shirt collar (not jacket) as described here by GQ:
https://www.gq.com/story/dropping-knowledge-the-button-down-collar
I didn't notice the "button-down" theme until I hit the revealer, but it seemed apt once I did. So no SNOOZE or PANIC here; I'll just BELLY up to the puzzle and click the LIKE button (which is a thing, by the way, since the question came up earlier):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_button
1
@Alan J
I still prefer button-down collars. I think I first discovered them in jr. high school. They had “locker loops” on the back. This was in the 60s - back in the second millennium. It was a thing for girls to collect locker loops and my Gant shirts came with spares to give away to avoid having them cut off.
4
The Newhart clip brought back memories of my college days when comedy albums were popular..Bob Newhart, Jonathan Winters, Shelley Berman... ...a sort of cardigan...
Anyway I found this one a bit tougher than the usual Tuesday. Got a few of the misdirections early on, ACE, ATE and CAST. I think it's the first time I've seen UNGARBED as a synonym for Naked. It's legit just unusual. Took me a while to get the theme.
2
Kind of an odd solve for me today. I surprised myself by guessing most of the theme answers with very few crosses, but this still ended up taking me a lot longer than a typical Tuesday. Early on, I thought I was doomed in the NE corner, but when I went back to it at the end, I took a guess at ZERO and it all filled in.
LIKEBUTTON felt like a bit of an outlier to me, but not that big a deal. Something about the puzzle felt awkward to me while I was solving, but I really can't explain why. Thought it was a very clever theme and well executed. I also thought that putting ACROSS across BUTTONDOWN was a nice touch.
Oh, and also thought of Bob Newhart; we had all those albums when I was a kid.
A song for myself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIkOVe0MF1k
..
2
[Warning - horrible pun ahead]
I work in a company that makes optical measurement instruments and when we design a new on, we always discuss the placement of the Russian Button on it. Russian Button being, of course, Poweronoff.
13
@Bojan
No need for a pun warning. Otherwise most posts would require them! I enjoyed yours!
3
Starting a puzzle with the clue "Clueless" made me laugh, but then I was more AT SEA than usual for a Tuesday. There weren't many entries I was sure of for quite a while, although it did get easier as I went south. I needed the reveal to get the theme which also made me laugh, so on the whole an enjoyable solve.
Now to look for some of those BOB NEWHART clips.
3
The theme very nicely adds a dimension to the goes-with-first-word genre, and it's fairly tight, as there are not many more two-word phrases (on button, off button, hot button, reset button) around. I love BELLY UP TO THE BAR and SEGUED, the clue for NAG, the contradictory cross of BUTTON DOWN (as in jacket) and UNGARBED, and there's a mini-theme of double E's (5). Lots of gimmes made for a solve with few hitches, but the theme and long downs made the solve worth the doing, IMO.
It's always a risk to put SNOOZEFEST in as a puzzle answer, because if the puzzle is colorless, that answer will show up in comments again and again. But not today. Too much appeal. Thanks for the ride, Jules!
2
@Lewis
Totally missed NAG and its clue because I had it from the crosses. That’s an even better clue than the one I thought I liked best, “Play mates?” for CAST. As always, I’m glad I read your post.
1
@Puzzlemucker
"Play mates?" was my downfall. After finding that PALS wasn't going to work, I thought, "Well, it might be a theatre reference." That could make it CATS. You can see why I had so much trouble with that area.
TIL that Zeno was from ELEA.
2
Hmm...I tend to want 'ButtonED Down,' and likewise BucktoothED (I'm looking at You, SamE of the WeeBee) but anything that evokes Bob Newhart cheers me up.
Let's all chip in and get Will FC a collegiate dictionary, eh?
Is a LIKE BUTTON a thing? The other themers were great. I may tap LIKE on FBk, but it's not a BUTTON.
NE corner was the last to fall as I want ART for the oils....
2
@Mean Old Lady i do laugh when people say that something is "before their time" as if i must have been at Gallipoli or Woodstock because I get those references. I never went to college myself but one does tend to pick things up along the way :)
4
@Patrick
Edenic was before my time!
8
@MOL - the collar, having been engaged as it was designed to be, is "buttoned down." But the collar itself, its design, is "button-down." It is a "button-down collar."
I'm very partial to button-down collars. If I wear a shirt that is neither button-down nor with collar stays, I spend the day self-conscious about the flippity floopy-ness of the tips of my collars.
4
I’ve got it! ;-)
Loved the revealer and overall a great tuesday. I was rather hoping for illumination on what "flop" sweat is in the blog,
2
Nicole,
If you have not already looked it up...
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flop%20sweat
1
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flopsweat
Let's see if manually taking out the %20 does it.
1
Ah. There we go!
Lynx. Whaddya gonna do?
2
Mea culpa. Sort of.
Last Thursday I believed I had no mistakes but couldn’t get the chimes to ring. I had never combed so thoroughly through my answers in a puzzle in my life. I finally went to Jeff Chen’s site and our answers were identical (and still are now, Monday night).
Deb suggested I email the NYT and I did. They were great, and I told them if I were wrong, I’d apologize in the comments section, so I’m very sorry. Buuuuuut...
You may recall 64A and 50D had identical clues and intersected at the final letter in each. The clues were, Like computer data, with “in”:
I entered TYPED at 64A and KEYED at 50D, meeting in a corner at the letter D. I would argue the past tense is more correct than the present because ‘computer data’ doesn’t exist until after it has been keyed or typed in.
Apparently the correct answers were TYPES and KEYES. So I guess I was “close but no cigar.” I don’t know Mr. Chen’s take on the subject, but he didn’t change his answers to the present tense. I know he’s not the NYT but I’ve seen his site referred to here as being pretty tight with those who are.
Like the lady who reached 365 today and the other who has 27 days to go, I too, have a 365 goal and if I can reach that, I’ll never again be stressed out by a streak.
Anyway, just curious if my past/present tense argument holds water with any other solvers and if anyone remembers a similar situation in which the letter in two crossing answers could be changed and still be “correct.”
2
@Muleshoe2,
I just went back and checked my completed "gold-star" grid from last Thursday and the entries are TYPED and KEYED. It couldn't be present tense because then it would be TYPES and KEYS (no second "e"). You should have been credited with the solve.
3
@Muleshoe2
I can’t imagine what kind of technological goblin is mucking with your puzzle—I can assure you that TYPED/KEYED are correct. I solved in the NYT iPhone app and received the customary signals of completion.
Besides, KEYES isn’t a thing.
4
@Muleshoe2. I also had TYPED and KEYED in my online solve and it sang for me. KEYES is a proper name and is gobblygook as it relates to inputting data into a computer. Your answers are correct as stands. You could have been talking to a user help desk, but I would hope that no self-respecting technician would ever be caught supporting ‘KEYES’ as any type of data processing/information technology term.
2
and Elke
HARK- a Tuesday puzzle with 15 and 11 and 10 letter answers and also a ZERO.
Spent time looking for an OUTie and Innie BELLY BUTTON, only found a FAKE one.
Keep parsing UNGARBED as an UNGAR in BED (=hUNGARian)...ready to SNOOZE ? See how I SEGUED ?
2
and Elke
Andrew- only thing Canajun I could come up with -besides ICE and -SEA- is that town south of Calgary and East of Crow's Nest, with a modified spelling of -CLOUD....While it is called Fort, don't know whether there was a SIEGE there, ever.
@Robert and Elke and @Andrew
Not a happy story obviously but here's one that's known to me; I don't know how much it's covered in your history classes:
23A - "_____ Perce (19th century asylum seekers in Canada)"
1
@Henry Su and Robert and Elke,
I didn't know the Nez Perce at all. I was most interested to read a bit about their history.
Not much I can find today so how about this:
49D: Vancouver Canucks' famous twins, for example.
1
The theme clue "very conventional" makes no sense to me at all, whereas the button explanation does, but is still rather opaque. Did not care for this puzzle. Who uses the word "ungarbed"? Really?
11
@Tamara
From Merriam-Webster:
button-down or buttoned-down\ˈbə-tᵊn(d)-ˌdau̇n\ : conservatively traditional or conventional; especially : adhering to conventional norms in dress and behavior button-down businessmen
1
A great many crossword answer words are not in common/current use.
That does NOT make them unsuitable for use in a puzzle.
In fact, they are *particularly* suitable since, without them, most puzzles could be solved with a CRAYON - - - if you get my drift.
4
@Tamara
Q. Who uses the word "ungarbed"?
A. Intoxicated duellers at a nudist colony.
8
Average Tues time. Nevertheless, I do wonder about the difficulty of some entries this early in the week. It's good to see how many here know the Helga portraits, but I'd have expected MONALISA, STARRYNIGHT, or something similar. ROE, not DOE. YOLO, Euler, two NativeAmerican tribes, (one with a variant spelling), Swedish language, and a possible Natick with ELEA/PEWEE. (Anybody else try TOWEE first?)
I await the comments from our less experienced members.
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@Al in Pittsburgh
Slower than my average Tuesday, this felt like it was taking me forever, and I even had a son helping me. Didn't get BUTTONDOWN for a while, and the southeast corner was slow to come together. I did try TOWEE though I knew there should be an H in there. I actually ended up going through the keyboard keys for the E in PEWEE, because I wasn't even sure the P was correct. We got the happy music and then had to look to see what the word had turned out to be. Doh. Not a proud night! Did enjoy the theme after I finally figured it out.
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@Al in Pittsburgh
I am a longtime fan of Wyeth, framed prints from art dealers on the wall, a collection of many Wyeth art books (including the Helga pictures) on my shelves. I scream with delight when Wyeth comes up in a Jeopardy round!
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@Al in Pittsburgh,
I was thinking TOWHEE as well but it's one letter too many. I didn't know about the PEWEE.
I liked the approachable long answers mixed in with a few clever “crossword-ese” standards.
The theme didn’t assist much in the revealer or vice versa, so it was slightly more problematic to jump between STL / ARI, ITA / ISR and DOE / ROE, as well as a couple of others.
Fun!
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Tuesday's puzzle offers a nice change of pace with down entries servers as the themers although I was one of those who initially thought that the theme was going to come out of the long across entries (i.e., 16A, 28A, 45A, and 60A). (Jeff identifies this possibility in his notes.)
I did experience a slight hitch at the end with the crossing of ELEA (I had it misspelled as ELIA) and PEWEE. TIL that the Eastern Wood-Pewee has a distinctive call, pee-a-weeee! You can listen to it here, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Wood-Pewee/overview.
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@Henry Su
Very unkind cross for a Tuesday. Themers and long across fill TOOK A TOLL ON the NW and SE corners. OTOS on top of NEZ is equally mean.
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@Henry Su Thank you for that link. I had not encountered that excellent website before. So nice to see one so well constructed.
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@Will From College
Thank you for reminding me: TOOK A TOLL ON ME immediately elicited in my reptilian brain the beat of one of ABBA's famous, so everyone please excuse the inEVITAble earworm. There are several clips but Agnetha's my favourite, and this one has several irresistable glances of hers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lzEG_vgato
@DavidC, Swiss setting here but without Alpenstick. The question you mentioned yester about what's meant by the beat... My answer would have been "Look at your feet, and what they are doing is the beat. If your feet aren't doing anything, no answer I give will suffice"
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This felt so clunky while solving, average time, but really just slogging through a strange mix of long downs and lots of extra glue-y gunk blegh. I will say I like the theme, the revealer was the last thing I put in the puzzle since the clue on 44-A tricked me into _UTsONDOWN and UNGARBED is weird. Is that a NWFM*? It doesn't feel like a word...checking...yeah Merriam Webster says no. Ugh, yeah I really hate that, so goopy. Anyways, finally got BUTTONDOWN which is great and was like "ohhhh buttons...nice, that's nice". And the themers are all well....very nice. Certainly in the language, like em' all. The problem is five long ones puts sooo much strain on the grid that this thing is dripping in Bad Fill. I can't say the end result was worth it since it felt so awkward while solving.
Good Fill: ZAP BEEP FAKE(clue hehe) YELP(fav app) YOLO ZERO(clue) TOOTED(lol again) RETROFIT ; these are good, just not enough
Bad Fill: AGA ARI ASA CPL IRE/IRS(bad cross) ISR NEZ PER EEKS ELEA OTOS ATSEA HELGA(clue) OCCAM(bc tuesday) PEWEE UNGARBED(still not a word) ; way too much, wasn't very picky either
Best Clues: 38-A Got chicken, say (meh word + great clue = fine by me) ; 44-A Play mates?
Worst Clue: 42-A Modern acronym for "seize the day" ; hahaha hello youths! I'm sorry but no, YOLO is used far more commonly in place of "f*** it, why not?" and not "let's get after it gang!"
tl;dr A very mixed bag, but ultimately a lot of glue ruined a solid theme ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
*New Word For Me
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Just reading xwordinfo, this thing had "Jeff Chen wants to reorganize this grid skeleton" written all over it in giant black Sharpie lol. Rex Parker will not be kind to this puzzle, that I can guarantee.
@Will From College
O/T* from your current post but O\T** with your post that included a link to a video explaining a Pusha T DISS TRACK, the NYT’s Sunday Mag featured “25 Songs That Matter Right Now”. The article about Ariana Grande’s “Thank u, next” noted that “Pusha T lobbed a literal baby into the middle of his rap war with Drake.” Thanks to watching the video you posted, I actually got the reference.
* Off Topic
** On Topic
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@Will From College
You can guarantee that most days. The guy needs a new “passion”.
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I grew up with The Buttoned Down Mind of Bob Newhart. I too would listen until the grooves wore out.
The Driving Instructor is a favorite
https://youtu.be/XaUYQZR-y7I
Followed closely by Sir Walter Raleigh’s call about Tobacco and coffee.
https://youtu.be/p1KbtLrBZ0k
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@Babs The tobacco bit is priceless.
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@Babs
One of my favorites is The Grace L. Ferguson Airline (and Storm Door Co.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ojgXwj40lo
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@Babs The Driving Instructor was the bit I performed in the competition, so I will always have a soft spot in my heart for that one.
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I was told there would be no math...
20
and Elke
TBone- so did you have a PANIC ATTACK ? :))
3
Well! (Jack Benny voice) Eve, Edenic, Lady Godiva, Ungarbed. I draw no conclusions...
My momma was in this show, so I remembered the song right away:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYhVEu_RGcQ
Anybody who wants a lovely day in a museum with Helga should visit here:
https://www.brandywine.org/museum
Others have pointed out Deb's lack of exponentiality. A math colleague of mine was hired on the spot when the tattoo on his wrist came into view:
e^iπ + 1 = 0
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@David Connell
Clever. I trust he was wearing a short sleeved shirt.
Ah, thanks for sharing the Bob Newhart call to Abe! Funny! (This is the bit Joel is stealing at the start of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel!”)
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Hate to be fussy about your column, Deb, but the i(pi) term is the exponent of the e in Euler’s identity.
Love the mathematics clues!
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@Tami Martin Thanks, Tami. We're having trouble with superscripts in our system right now, but I'm looking into how to fix it.
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as I work my way from this year's Monday puzzles to Tuesday ones, I finally finished this puzzle.
@Deb Amlen you might like to go down the rabbit hole on Euler's Identity. It is considered the most beautiful equation by the likes of Feynman for its simplicity & elegance e.g.
* Uses only 0 & 1 which can represent all the numbers in the binary form
* e and pi are the two most famous irrational & transcendental numbers
* has the most essential mathematical operations of addition, multiplication & exponent
* includes an imaginary number
So elegant!
My UTOPIA would have apples that you could eat
11
365 days solved in a row. Yay!
42
Woohoo!!!
27 more days ‘til I get there. (Hope I make it, too!)
4
Y’all go, girls!
2
I thought I was doing well to hit 100 today. Then I almost failed to grok the theme.
365 would be the next goal--too far to contemplate. Good going!
5
The Euler identity is one of the most amazing equations of all time. Why the base of natural logarithms, the square root of -1, and the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle are related at all let alone so neatly boggles the mind.
13
@David Meyers I agree. It isn't intuitively obvious, at least to me, why e and pi should be related, although the formula itself follows directly after several pages of material defining e, pi and i, and 1 and 0 for that matter. Richard Feynman was very fond of it (Lectures on Physics Vol. 1)
7
I liked 10D. But then, I'm a math prof.
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@Chris Lang
I'm a prof too. But when it comes to math, I'm a e^iπ+1.
2
...which also happens to be the number of reccos so far...
2
@Andrew, don't you fret. My disquisition on Time yesterday garnered no recos but clocked 11 replies, so interest can accumulate in a number of ways. And you know everyone is peering at your e^i[pi].
btw, @DavidC and @Al from ___, I've heard Peter Ustinov's rendering of 13 Clocks on Caedmon
Two of my all-Time favourite men = Delicious
2
CONSTRUCTOR'S NOTES from xwordinfo:
This crossword was accepted in July 2018, with the comment that these types of "down" puzzles are becoming overdone lately, but because I had chosen a snazzy theme set it got the nod. My two favorite clues which made the cut are 10-Down for the beauty of that equation, and 33-Across for … well, you know. Hope you liked the puzzle. -- Jules Markey
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@Henry Su
Thanks, Henry. If I didn’t know better, I would think that was your way of making a political comment without making a political comment, but I know that you often post the Constructor Notes when not included after Deb’s column. So hopefully any 45 + ers will not be too offended.
2
@Puzzlemucker,
Hey, that's all Jules.
Me, I'm just doing a public service and otherwise abiding by Deb's house rules.
4
Deb! No one ever told you about the sobriquet applied to Bob Newhart? For many years he was known as the man with "the button-down mind." Google that name and you'll get beaucoup hits.
2
I did know that, Hal, and that’s why I wrote about him. :)
4
@Deb Amlen ... Unfortunately, you did not mention that fact and that is why I wrote my comment.
1
@HALinNY
Reread the fourth paragraph carefully.
1
I remember seeing the HELGA pictures at the National Gallery of Art in Wasington DC in 1987. Sometimes she was indeed SLEEK and UNGARBED.
5
These downers felt good.
Euler was just featured just two days ago in an alternative “Math Hysteria” clue by @Morgan. As Al in Pittsburgh, PER Jung or The Police, would say: Synchronicity!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R8976fuIqCo
1
We're a well-euled machine here.
13
@Morgan
So glad you did this puzzle, Morgan. I felt like you deserved a credit for that clue. How many times has a commenter on Wordplay created an equation involving Euler before you did on Sunday? My guess, ZERO.
9