“Right Now” does not mean ASAP (as soon as possible). It means “immediately”, “now”, “STAT”.
1
23 Across: Clue: Material that's spotted at a fashion show?
Answer: LEOPARD PRINT
Why is this clue a pun? Leopard print material, by definition, contains spots. IMO, no pun intended nor required.
Why on earth is “hair” in quotation marks for AFROS? Afros are most certainly hair, and this clue reads as racist and condescending.
2
@Katie Day
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_(musical)
Minor quibble. A “launching pad” is a stepping stone to something better. A “launchpad” sends rockets to space.
2
Hmm. Hopefully the hangover will have worn off one of these days, and we will be hearing again from our good friend WFC...
1
Andrew,
I'd guess with a long flight after a week of partying, he wasn't up for posting last night (if he was up at all). I'd look for comments tonight on the Tuesday puzzle.
I personally have never said “As do I” in real life yet it appears rather frequently in NYT puzzles.
2
@MP Nor have I.
1
@Rich in Atlanta
You said it ere I could.
2
Do I say "Do as I say, not as I do?"
3
Solid gold.
1
Fast solve, but not a record. Slowed down by PAP, YOWZA, RAMON (first thought was RAFAEL), LOWPOST, MAMMAS (wanted MAMAS), and ONEA (first thought was AONE).
When I filled in YOWZA, I was taken aback briefly. I have memories of that expression in the context of minstrel shows. I looked it up, and sure enough. I'm surprised that I seem to be the first to point this out!
@Ron - I was hoping we could steer clear of the controversy, but that is the primary use of it in my experience.
If one solves, first, across and, then, down - - - and the hint for the theme is fifth from last in the clue list, the hint turns out not to be terribly “revealing”.
Still - a nice Monday puzzle.
In a few hours I’ll be leaving the Palm Springs area for a return flight to Michigan. I’m gonna HATE that!!!
2
PeterW,
I cannot disagree with your first sentence, but I also cannot help but wonder if you have not noticed that placing the "revealer" near the bottom of the puzzle is a rather common practice.
2
@PeterW - agreed with Barry. It builds more suspense, and doesn't give it away too quickly, and therefore are often in the lower half.
Sometimes, though, the revealers are equatorially positioned, so you hit it midway through.
1
Once I finished the puzzle, I started thinking of other phrases to fit the theme. Came up with a couple:
A Monkee's mother invented it (Liquid Paper)
Michigan's "mitten" (Lower Peninsula)
Number 9 was celebrated in song (Love Potion)
Why you can't see stars in Times Square (Light Pollution)
1
I missed the theme revealer entirely as I solved that corner on the across clues and never even read the down revealer clue until after I read today’s Wordplay. I thought, what revealer, I don’t remember a clue about LPs. So I went back to the grid and there it was. I just thought it was a nice zippy straightforward Monday puzzle even if some of the long answers were a little odd. Silly me.
1
Well, this nice and fun puzzle brought me out of the Monday morning doldrums - thank you, Kevin Christian and Andrea Carla Michaels. I finally got the puzzle theme and used it to solve some of the clues. And I got the best time thus far, but I did get a bit crestfallen after seeing the posts with their best times - I dont think I can even type that fast even if I knew all the answers on first pass.
1
@Chat Cannelle
Suggest you ignore timing and just enjoy the solve. I'm a pen ink and paper solver myself. I do timing by counting cups of coffee. My fastest Monday was three cups.
9
@Chat Cannelle,
I would take Dr. W's advice. On this forum I always enjoy commenters who talk about how long their solve took in terms of the cups of coffee (or glasses of wine or pieces of chocolate) that were consumed. That's how crosswords should be enjoyed.
4
@Chat Cannelle
When I post and mention times, I try to make sure that the only person I'm comparing times with is myself. I use time as a measure of how I've improved over the few years I've been doing the puzzle, or how difficult I find a puzzle. There are many folks that solve faster than I, and some that are slower. The only thing that really matters is that you either solved a puzzle or gave it your best effort.
Looking at the photo accompanying Deb's blog, it's worth pointing out one can find vinyl and vinyl players at the Union Square Barnes & Noble store. No need to cross the pond.
1
Neat puzzle, and with a serious quibble all the same: I lived half f my life in that SF suburb (25D), and calling it a suburb of SF is pretty much equivalent to calling Poughkeepsie or West Point a suburb of NYC. There's a fair amount of real estate and a few serious hills lying between SF and 25D.
OTOH isn't 25A also a revealer?
1
Dr W,
Times change and metro areas expand. Places may remain distinct and have other functions while also being suburbs. I suspect quite a few people in 25D today commute to SF. Poughkeepsie is served by the Metro-North Commuter Railroad. One of my wife's colleagues lives near West Point. My letter carrier lives in the Poconos.
P.S. How's that 80th birthday coming?
1
@Barry Ancona
Shhhh! Very quietly I hope. TY for asking.
1
My five favorite clues from last week:
1. Letters at a filling station? (3)
2. Ten-year-old business, say (13)
3. What a recovering hospital patient may move to (9)
4. Ones supposedly eligible for, but never yet seen in, the Miss Universe pageant (6)
5. Falls for someone who's already married? (7)
DDS
LEMONADE STAND
SOLID FOOD
ALIENS
NIAGARA
14
I always get a bang out of your list, thank you for sharing.
4
Quick and smooooth solve. Nice
start to Monday. Only LP holdup for me was LOWPOST. I don’t follow basketball, got it w downs early on.
Now off to the big box store... YOWZA!
:-)
3
Haven’t had time to read 160 comments so don’t know if anybody else pointed out that there could be extra credit for “L” Paso 😁. Comes to mind in relation to the Sunday theme. Deb maybe you can post the YouTube link to the ACPT final.
@MsProf
You got an emoji to work! I haven't, but here's another attempt: 🤓
if you hear MAA ... MAA, can goat MAMMAS be far away?
I loved that this is a combination of easy Monday level words elevated by the fact that there are seven (!) theme answers. Seems like a perfect puzzle to give beginners a lot to discover and feel good about. It's that great feeling of accomplishment that will keep newbies coming back.
Thanks, Kevin and Andrea!
1
@Johanna
MAA MAAs, don't let your babies grow up to be goatherds.
10
When the "O" from ON SITE (10D) meant that the YIKES or YIPES answer I initially wanted at 9A wouldn't work, I made a mental note to myself: Thinking Required.
Likewise, when I had U-- for "Diamond head" and couldn't come up with the answer right off the bat. That was a pretty tricky Monday clue for UMP, actually.
That was pretty much the extent of my having to think in the course of solving this mostly very Mondayish and clued-on-the-nose puzzle. It wasn't nearly enough thinking to make me happy.
1
Greetings from Hattiesburg MS. I did not note the constructors names, but when I filled in COO I new my Dove (aka Andrea) had a hand in this one. Smooth and zippy solve. No visit from Snailly today. UMP gave me pause but still came 2 minutes or so ahead of whatever my usual time.
Thanks Andrea and Kevin
4
Hmm, LPS are "old records?" Then what are the single-side 78 rpm discs we have? (We are down to one Brunswick record player, because the head can be switched to allow us to play Pathe and Edison recordings as well as the side-to-side groove recordings; the former technology was actually superior, but the latter prevailed. Oh, we do have an Edison cylinder player and two portable Victor players. And a Regina music box that plays metal discs.) But I digress.
Solved using the PuzzAzz app on the iPad, then had to hunt for my typo...maybe I should wait and solve with my glasses on! Nice Monday puzzle! and a mercifully briefer Wee Bee!
5
@Mean Old Lady
78's are much faster spinning than the 33's, which is why the 33s are called LPs.
1
Going back to the question Deb posted a couple of weeks ago, this was a perfect example of how a theme revealer can help weak puzzle solvers like myself.
When i got LPS, I still didn't have any of the long answers solved, and the starting letter in only a few of them. The revealer enabled me to "ink" the L in all the remaining theme clues, as well as to recognize the length of each of the two words in the ones where I already had the P. This, in turn led me to solving the theme clues, which then opened up the puzzle for me and enabled me to get the rest done, despite all the weird noises that American animals make :-)
So, the revealer is often not only a little help, but a focal strategical point for me, and I assume a few other solvers with a somewhat limited vocabulary.
12
@Bojan - This becomes required viewing after your post!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0MTn8sP_9s
Shazoo!
4
Best Monday time! And out of curiosity, that time is 7:17. What is your best Monday time? How good can it get? Pondering the Limits of the speed of entry.....
2
@JoHarp Congrats! My best Monday is 3:38 but it's from a couple of years ago--I haven't improved any of my times more recently because I solve on my ipad with one finger which slows me down. Plus I'm older which also slows me down :)
3
JoHarp,
Rex Parker posts his solve times in his blog. For this puzzle, he reported: "Medium-Challenging (for a Monday) (because of the center) (3:24)"
"Limits of the speed of entry" may include keying ability. I solve on paper, but as a test, I've done archived puzzles twice, first to solve, then again to see how quickly I can re-enter a puzzle I just solved. I can't crack four minutes. Hunt and peck.
In the real world, with stone and chisel a water clock, my Mondays usually take about five or six minutes.
3
@JoHarp - I finally did better than 5 minutes on this one, first among all solves I'd done that's been tracked by NYT. But only barely so. This was because I was just rushing through without thinking much, just entering the first thing that came to mind after reading the clue. I could probably do a little faster, but the mechanics of reading the clues and then going to the next one, sometimes fixing fat-fingered letters just doesn't allow me to get faster.
I think the bulk of the time is spent reading and thinking about the clues. If I didn't really think that much on this one and it barely got me much faster than 5 minutes, then it's the reading part that's slow, for me. Maybe I need to pick up speed reading...
Clue 70A: is there any reason why hair is in quotation marks? Is it supposed to be a play on word with air? Are we using quotations for emphasis like the current president now? Or is it to indicate that Afros are somehow not made of real hair?
@Ac
I would guess it's a reference to the musical "Hair".
1
Bess (and Ac),
Our columnist suggested the same thing.
5
@Barry Ancona and Bess - thanks for the clarification!
Why does it seem like some answers appear many times right in a row? Like today, yesterday we had agar and elope/s, and even recently we had leopard print. Seems like agar and elope aren’t ones I see regularly and yet here I see them in consecutive days. Am I crazy?
Hi @Daniel Glover! The answer is that all of the puzzles are made separately by different people, so it becomes difficult to monitor which words are used and how often.
The upside of that is that frequency builds familiarity. Once you’ve seen it a few times, you learn it, and that’s good for your solving.
3
Yes but I never see agar and then I see it twice in two days. Seems odd. But maybe it is totally coincidental.
Daniel,
Puzzles may be constructed independently, but decisions about when to publish them are not. It may not be totally coincidental. Where there's a Will, there's a way.
2
Super quick for me today. Lots of possibilities.
I have W-E(7), E-S(8).
@Kevin Sparks
Mine today came rather quickly as well:
C-S (11), S-W (3)
2
@Kevin Sparks
C-S (9)
S-N (5)
repeated the E. Couldn't find a pristine solution in the time I worked on it.
@Kevin Sparks
A fast day too. W-E (7) E-N (9). I suspect I could pair my second word now to yours, but off to gardening and other annoying chores instead.
Impressed with the construction, given the down answers crossing the across themers... that's not an easy feat.
Am I the only one who consistently fills in ERI and leaves off the C or K until the crosses with ERIK SATIE? I just can't get him firmly planted in my noggin.
I always think of this Blood, Sweat and Tears track when I fill in his name:
https://youtu.be/GreaN1ljqGY
1
@Steve Faiella,
There are some names for which I am unsure of the spelling but Satie's isn't one of them. I was introduced to Les Gymnopédies in college and his unique name has been burned in my brain ever since.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_fuIMye31Gw
2
@Steve Faiella
Perhaps (but probably not) because his birth name was Éric Alfred Leslie Satie. While he was still in his teens, he decided he preferred the spelling ERIK, and that's how he became known.
2
Just a bit on the slow side for a Monday for me. None of the theme answers dawned on me without a number of crosses, but the slowest section was the very middle. Long time basketball player and fan but it took multiple crosses for LOWPOST to dawn on me. And then at 37d I went from METOO to SODOI before I got ASDOI. Just a lot of back and forth in that little section.
Interesting that 5 of the theme answers are making their debut, and only one of them - LEOPARDPRINT - had ever been in a Shortz era puzzle before.
In the late 60's, when I was living in a basement apartment in Chicago with my best old ex-friend, we had a record player but very few LPS. One of them was the soundtrack to HAIR, and we listened to that over and over and over (and over) again. I'm sitting here shaking my head about that.
MOOCH made me think of Cab Calloway, but I won't link that either.
Nice Monday puzzle and impressive feat of construction.
2
"...with my best old ex-friend..."
I saw that, Rich. The old days. I'm sure some of the younger solvers here have never spoken to one.
2
@Barry Ancona
Thanks. I knew that phrase was familiar:
Operator - Jim Croce
Operator,
well could you help me place this call?
You see the number on the matchbook
Is old and faded,
She's livin' in L. A
With my best old ex-friend Ray
A guy she said she knew well
And sometimes hated.
1
@Puzzlemucker and Barry,
For a long time I thought that line was just "livin' in L.A. with my best old ex-friend..." and was self-referential (I missed the "she's" at the beginning). I smiled the first time I heard it, because I could relate.
My roommate was my best friend from high-school, but it was the first experience for both of us sharing living quarters with anyone outside our family of origin and... it went downhill.
All I can say is that we got over it eventually and are still in touch. Of course he's living outside the lower 48 now.
I liked the Spanish undercurrent: PESO / LATIN PERCUSSION (thank you for your Tito Puente clip @David Connell!) / EL PASO / POR, even a backward PASA.
I think eL Paso is an eighth themed answer
1
SPELLING BEE
Cehlopt
36 words, 132 points, 1 pangram, bingo
C x 19, E x 5, H x 2, L x 5, O x 2, P x 2, T x 1
4L x 17, 5L x 11, 6L x 5, 7L x 2, 9L x 1
4 5 6 7 9 Tot
C 11 4 3 1 - 19
E 2 2 - 1 - 5
H - 1 1 - - 2
L 3 2 - - - 5
O - 1 1 - - 2
P - 1 - - 1 2
T 1 - - - - 1
Tot 17 11 5 2 1 36
17
Look for several variant spellings.
Only two words that I would consider somewhat obscure, but both have appeared in prior Bees.
3
@Ron O. - Thanks for the grid.
I'd never heard of the L5 that is the variant of the L4. I went back and saw that the L5 never had the opportunity to be accepted previously.
The H's we'd seen a few times so that came quickly.
The pangram - a compound word. At what point does a combination of multiple word is deemed to be made into a compound word? What is that process? It all seems very arbitrary.
4
@Wen
Not that I would ever claim to know what the Beekeepers are thinking- but I think if a word is commonly used as a compound single word, then it’s accepted. Like raincoat as opposed to rain pants, which are maybe more commonly written as two words.
2
Lovely Puzzle!
3
and Elke
Was thinking that a great LOTTO PRIZE for some Lucky Puzzler would be a COO and (S)MOOCH session with Gal GADOT. YOWZA !
And it would take real Chutzpah or NERVE to pull the Peanuts stunt where Lucy van Pelt pulls the football away just as Charlie Brown winds up to kick.
ACME and KC have a ONE A puzzle here.
Back to thinking about what to do with the hundreds of LPs we have accumulated...
2
Facing the same problem - i.e. “What to do with my LP collection” - I purchased a turntable the output of which is in MP3 format. Plugged into a laptop for saving the resulting file let me reduce the stack of LPs to “disk space”. The turntable was NOT expensive.
But - - - there were MANY of those old records that weren’t worth listening to six months after I wasted my money on them. So I suggest a wee bit of culling as a first step.
No real problems, but my time was closer to my average Monday than my fastest. I didn't piece the theme together until after I finished, so I was blanking on 41A -- all I could think of was key, lane, and paint. I was prepared to be annoyed by thePOST once I got some right-side crossings, but LOWPOST is perfectly legitimate and well-clued, not to mention themed.
1
Lights-out puzzle largely pondered lucidly. Priceless; let’s party! Lemon peel laced potables, libations provided loquaciously. Lute players lavishly picking lilting precocious lento pulsations. Libretto production labeled properly letter perfect. Living premise luminously protracted.
On L.P’s:
https://youtu.be/rPu7QppfEWk
Laconically Propertied,
Bru
8
@brutus
Lovely Post.
4
Oscar teaches Felix football:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-pKM4pcxc
2
Well, NEAP was a new one for me! I couldn't figure out how to fit both PAR and NEAR tide. I wasted time staring at that area.
1
@PK927
Remember that one! It's a crossword staple! :)
Love the Meh and Maa side by side.
3
With MAMMAS looking down from above.
Before I get to the Monday offering, I want to cheer the 23 replies for my post about the Sunday puzzle. I am not bragging, rather I am kind of proud that I was able to generate about 15% of the participation. I sincerely am most interested in interaction here because it adds a very important dimension to the solving experience and also a bit of camaraderie.
Today's LongPlaying (but quick solving) gem is ... a gem! We got Tito and spots and NASA and even the Supreme Court all in the same groove. And YOWZA ... yowza, there's a blast from the past. Well done!
2
Friendly, smooth, suave. I liked the resonances of STRIP and UNSHOD, SERBIA and RABID, ALGA and AGAR, MOOCH AND COO, POR AND PAR, IGOR and SERF.
1
This was a quick and smooth Monday puzzle but, alas, the solve was not quite fast enough to relegate my Monday best to the dustbin of "old records."
I appreciate the themers and the fact that Kevin and ACME were able to pack seven of them in here. But if I'm solving for speed, and the revealer is somewhere in the S or SE, then the theme becomes irrelevant to the process. Instead, it's something that I'll discover and enjoy afterwards.
I was going to say that "Monday puzzle" in French (Lundi) or Spanish (Lunes) fits the theme but "(crossword) puzzle" doesn't begin with a "P" in those languages. Too bad.
5
Since Puente is my middle name (thanks to grandparents from Asturias), I like to think that I'm related to Tito. It's a pretty common name, but what the heck. Uncle Tito?
3
@Wags - I happened to learn only this past Friday that Tito is the common nickname for the eldest son, kind of like "Junior." As a longtime fan of Tito Puente's music, it was nice for me to find him here today!
@Wags ... Jackson? Tito Jackson? (just kidding)
@Wags
Tito's Handmade Vodka (coincidentally crafted in Austin, Tx) goes down pretty easy(ily) ..... of course non-yowza retail of Little Persuasion.
2
A fast and fun Monday puzzle; only 4 seconds off my best Monday time.
Enjoyed the lively theme answers and the clean fill.
As always, I am thankful for all the hard work and long hours the constructors put in to give me a few minutes of solving pleasure. Thanks, Andrea and Kevin!
8
I blew through the first half and decided to go all out and see if I could set a new record for Monday.
Bad call. I had a couple of silly typos, which took minutes to find. And, in my haste, I never noticed nor relished the theme.
Ego, ego, ego.
6
Kevin,
I did the same thing. Tried for a new personal best, had a typo. Nice to go over afterwards, though. Still wouldn’t have set a record.
I was glad to spot a sort-of themer at 47D.
¡Tito!
¡Puente!
(who could ask for anything more?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbzAb6llIJ0
8
@David Connell
Thanks for this video, and all the others you have posted. I now know something about Tito Puente’s music as well as his name.
2
This puzzle was more fun than the conclusion of the Duke - UCF game. Just sayin'.
3
that was a good game. not a fan of the result, but it was one of the better ones this tournament.
3
@LeonJ
Um, there's a fair crowd from Durham here :)
3
@Robert Michael Panoff
I know. It's all in good fun! I'm married to a Hoo, otherwise I probably wouldn't care.
3
Good puzzle. Fun. Fast.
Thanks!
One concern with 1A:
Talc is not recommended after bath for babies.
Can cause breathing problems.
Hard to get out of the air.
Been reading of safety concerns for adults, as well.
Still, it works as an easy clue.
BLB ... I understand your concern and I know you are only repeating what you've read, but give me a break!
Anyone who is concerned about breathing talcum should simply wear a mask, or better yet, stretch a rubber glove over the face.
1
Ummm, Johnson and Johnson aren't paying millions because people are breathing talc....
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-21/j-j-s-tainted-talc-risk-expands-as-cancer-trials-triple-in-2019
4
@HALinNY
Or just not use it? :)
2
Minor cavil: 20A is an easy enough clue for an oldster, but don't we call that particular mass murderer Mr. Zedong these days?
@Slammy
Well, his name is actually spelled 毛泽东, but if you’re using Roman letters, you can indeed write it MAO ZEDONG. But for many years, when a previous style of transliteration was in favor, his name was written MAO TSE-TUNG. So if the clue is “China’s Mao ___-Tung,” the answer has to be TSE.
Of course, if you want to call him Mr. Something, that would have to be Mr. MAO, since that’s the surname. But most called him by his title, Chairman MAO.
11
@Steve L ... oh yeah? Well if he was so important, how come there is no food named after him, ala General Tso?
Oh, wait! I forgot! Hellman's Mayo! (other brands too). Never mind.
5
I remember when it was suggested that the best transliteration was Mousy Dung.
2
Not only do we have ERIK Satie in today's puzzle, we have IGOR Stravinsky (though not clued that way). These two composers seem linked in my mind, though there was a twenty year age difference between them, and their styles were rather different. But they each in their own way went against the prevailing current of music as was practiced in Paris at the time, Satie playfully nudging and prodding, and Stravinsky vigorously smashing and crushing.
I guess one thing that links them in my mind is a pair of portraits drawn by Picasso, who worked with each of them on stage works at various times. They even sat in the same chair, apparently:
Picasso's portrait of Satie
http://www.pablopicasso.net/portrait-of-erik-satie/
Picasso's portrait of Stravinsky
https://www.pablo-ruiz-picasso.net/work-117.php
Here are some selections for comparison, both of which are suites for piano duet. The poster's remarks for the Satie piece are worth reading for his playful use of movement titles.
ERIK Satie, Trois Morceaux on Forme de Poire
("Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear")
https://youtu.be/VQmuAr93OlI
IGOR Stravinsky, Trois Pièces Faciles
("Three Easy Pieces")
https://youtu.be/NoIokC7qJII
9
@Alan J
That’s quite a story with the Stravinsky portrait!
Tucked in 47D is a phonetic, eighth theme entry....
13
@BK
Good catch!
nice catch
And 23D and 24D, misparsed?
Weirdly, today, for the first time since THE INCIDENT, I was working the puzzle on the same iPad which I had put on airplane mode last Sunday after downloading the puzzle (because I’d just gotten on an airplane, of course). And after the flight, I forgot to take the iPad back off airplane mode and I lost my long streak.
Well, today, after completing the Monday puzzle, THE STREAK WAS BACK! And the Sunday puzzle shows as done (and in gold!j
Go figure!
9
The universe in on you side, really!
@Steve L ... you can't keep a good streak down. The next time you *streak* across the skies, make sure you save it as you might not be as fortunate.
Glad it worked out for you.
1
@Steve L, I had two similar instances in which a streak was lost, but in my case, the losses were inexplicable - except that in one of them I was staying at a motel using their WiFi, so maybe that was a problem. The other suddenly shortened my streak by a MONTH or two with no explanation.
Anyway, both times I appealed to the Emus and they came through gloriously, even sending me personal email replies. Give them credit, even if they didn’t come through for you - they get enough grief as it is.