LOVED this theme, took me a few clues but so clever once revealed :)
On my iPad Pro, the “revealer” was highlighted as soon as I opened the puzzle, (because the cursor was located at 1A and it was a theme entry). EXCELLENT change from yesterday when LPS didn’t enter the picture until the rest of the puzzle was nearly solved.
I hope whoever does the electronic “editing” for our NYT puzzles continues in this fashion - i.e. highlight the revealer as soon as one moves to a theme answer.
Puzzle was - as so many of us say - “smooth and easy”. Nicely done for any day of the week. (Pun intended - - - MOSDEF!!)
I cringe every time I see SATE as “fill to XS”. Sure it’s technically correct. But sate commonly means nothing more than SATISFY and not some act of gluttony.
Plus why didn’t 26D get an *? SUN(hat)day is a day of the week as well and a day they do play ball.
2
Sometimes I moon over things, e.g., puppies, walnut fudge, flowers, the moon... As a frequent STARER, I enjoyed seeing the clue/fill and OPENING DAY theme. Go Cubs!
:-)
2
The usual wonderful C.C. offering!
I had to piece togethere TU ES BELLE because I am (ashamed to say) monolingual. But a great save of a next-to-impossible challenge!
Thank you.
2
Always a pleasure to read over a day’s comments after dinner. Some chuckles (e.g., “It’s not that dark”; “If you’re talking about baseball’s Senators, I have some bad news for you”), some enlightenment (e.g., Howard Thurman, Nanaimo bars), and lots of community during difficult days (e.g., everything else).
3
Zhouqin Burnikel, thank you for a super fun puzzle! I enjoyed this immensely. You used real words (!) instead of so much “crossword-ese”. 🤩 Loved it.
4
I did not see if this was mentioned, but MONTE CARLO is only one section of the principality of Monaco. While it is true that the race course passes through Monte Carlo, it is called the Monaco Grand Prix. I know it's a small nit to pick, but still.
2
@Dan
Clues and definitions vary.
@brutus
They probably meant it to indicate the Full MONTE CARLO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LbHp1onxS4
1
@Dan
Or we could have clued it using this, just to drive WfC totally round the bend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx1SWS1MFbU
Re 68A: I was just reading the book "Strangers in Their Own Land" last night in which the author befriends a Cajun who refers to himself as a "coonass." He relates that his mother was a Cajun, but his father was a German, so some refer to him as a "half-ass." 😄
ENO again!? Is he getting royalties!?
Nice puzzle and excellent theme, Ms. Burnikel!
1
@Ron
Brian’s regular dividend has more zeroes on it than the stipend of most folk’s pension. I’d venture to say the p. r. alone that’s generated and distributed via the cruciverbia freeway is a diamond in the rough, ENOugh kickback to satisfy a bohemian of his stature.
1
Without a SATRAP in the ORIENT, the SUNHAT gives us cover with a bit of a weak end.
No biggie!! Ceci etait un TUESday BELLE, Cece!!
That was supposed to be 'weekend', of course.
I really enjoyed the theme clues; they were fitting and not forced at all. I once got a lecture from a barista that LATTE is milk and the proper order is cafe latte and why am I ordering a morning drink in the afternoon. Sheesh.
3
@Chat Cannelle
The barista was correct. LATTE means milk...in Italian. And a caffè LATTE means "coffee with milk" in Italian.
BUT WE SPEAK ENGLISH! And since we have a perfectly good word for milk already in English...MILK...we have repurposed the word LATTE to be short for caffè LATTE in the style of caffè cappuccino and the French café au lait (which also means "coffee with milk"). Since they're all coffee drinks, the coffee word seems superfluous, and of course, in Starbucks, a half-second saved is precious.
I wonder if that barista, put into service in a Mexican restaurant, would insist you order a TAMAL when you order a TAMALE.
Of course, with your name, you should be ordering coffee with cinnamon.
2
This puzzle really was a gem. From SUNG to SATE the days popped out. From OPIE to TU ES BELLE, to WE DID IT, and ANISES I loved it. Let's all enjoy a LATTE or better, an expresso machiatto to celebrate another wonderfully composed puzzle!
5
Enjoyed the puzzle.
Full disclosure, I know nothing about basebal( for the sake of fairness, I know nothing about cricket).
Sport clues in general are unfathomable unless son is home for a visit, or the gods of crosses are kind.
Ok. So i spotted the theme immediately (well, on TUESBELLE , having filled MONTECARLO. This was v helpfull for WEDIDIT, THURMAN and FRIARTUCK. Then i looked and looked for a long entry starting with SAT. Somehow I failled to recognize , SATE , maybe because it was shorter than I expected. After Deb and you all, I decided opening day, whatever that was, must be a moveable feast, like Easter, but never on SATurdays..... a view from an outsider!
A little off topic, i recommend a pair or documentaries now in Netflix by Deeyah Khan, JIHAD, A story of the other; and WHITE RIGHT, Meeting the enemy.
2
@Laura Rodrigues in London
I'll admit to halfway anticipating SATYRICON; might have been Fellini if Petronius was too far down the old Roman spectrum.
There is an article on the Mini in a different section of today's paper, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/reader-center/a-mini-history-of-our-mini-crossword.html.
7
@Henry Su
Thank you for pointing this to us. Well worth reading, and a good opportunity to ask issues one is curious about.
2
@Henry Su
Thanks Henry, I’m now checking it out, having missed it completely. Joel’s grids are an excellent way to start the day. For everyone, particularly the future linguists of the world, I find The Mini inspires to the max on a daily basis.
3
@Henry Su
Henry, thanks for the heads up!
2
Can anyone explain 54 down: Half of a 45 = Sidea ?
1
@Will,
A 45 rpm single record has two sides, A and B.
4
@Henry Su thank you that was going to bother me all day
2
Well, all records have two sides, but I guess making it 'half of a 33 and 1/3' would have been too leading, and choosing half of 45 rather than 78 is a little trickier, what with taking half of an odd rather than an even number.
Let me know if I'm over-thinking this.
Thursday is opening day.
All teams are on a winning streak!
2
@L.A. Sunshine ...except Oakland
@L.A. Sunshine
Even the Pad’s?
Vis-a-vis one of Deb's comments, I'm surprised that, given the puzzle's theme, the creators didn't opt to clue 39A as "Pinstriper Munson" instead of "Uma of 'Kill Bill'". All in all, a fun solve, and personal best for a Tuesday to boot.
@Jeanne My best guess is that he's too obscure of a person for a Tuesday puzzle. I don't know about baseball much, so have no context on whether this player, who died 40 years ago, would be known by today's puzzle solving audience.
Also possible the editors decided there was already enough baseball going on in the puzzle. I think we've all noticed that during baseball season there's (seemingly) at least one baseball themed puzzle a month, so maybe they're taking it easy now. :)
1
@Tyler D.
I definitely telegraphed my age, and the location of my upbringing, with my comment, Tyler! :) Good old Mel Ott sure gets plenty of appearances despite having died almost 61 years ago, but the brevity of his last name certainly contributes to that.
2
@Jeanne
There’s been a lot of chatter in prior posts echoing your take on 39A. I thought along those very same lines. Having played Thurm’s position, I no sooner filled in Uma’s last name when I remembered the venerable Yankee Captain.
140+ comments before noon? Yikes.
Re 29A, same three-letter word in clue and fill. Neat.
25D and 28D are related. And on a map east is usually to the right. So the 28D clue is semantically on target as well.
Question about 68A: what is a full one? (If there is such...)
Clever 30A clue: remove ONOM and look at what remains.
Quibble re 45A: can you really pluralize a spice? Never saw that done. Take, e.g. garlic. I see pieces of or cloves of garlic in print, but never "garlics". Cardamom plural is "--- seeds". Etc.
2
@Dr W - this question comes up often - the answer is, yes you can pluralize garlic.
I'm growing three garlics - elephant, purple stripe and turban - and three basils - cinnamon, royal and purple ruffles - in this year's herb garden. Along with a variety of oreganos (Italian, Greek, small-leaf), thymes (French, lemon, creeping), and rosemarys (upright and prostrate). Neither green-pod nor white-pod cardamom will do well here, I'm too far north to plant those cardamoms.
By the way - this is a true statement as well as a reply to the question.
Of course, one might say "varieties of ___," but the paraphrasis isn't required.
Ditto for fishes, sheeps, etc.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/garlics
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fishes
4
Thank you for the hint! I'm a Queen Bee! Until tomorrow, anyway. :0)
1
Another dependably enjoyable Burnikel. My only quibble was that if was over too fast, like a Monday.
4
@Liane
On the degree of difficulty, I concur Lianne; all I can say is all I can say; The Beatles offer a succinct suggestion.
https://youtu.be/EdI5B_MI9Vs
The line of demarcation separating MON. & TUE. is a thin one.
@brutus
I was expecting "Eight Days a Week".
I didn't think there was a Beatles song out there that I didn't know, but you managed to find one. "Slow down" is a nicer sentiment than "Run for your Life", although I think the latter is a better song.
1
AD Blitzes in NYT crossword, PR Blitz in LAT crossword - Is there a code for a Blitzkrieg in the offing that we are warned?
3
@msk
Code Word: Zeitgeist. Keep in under your SUN HAT. [-;}
1
.....
Timely theme today as the seemingly endless hot stove season winds up. No potholes whatsoever, my completed grid stands strike over free. Thanks C.C. et al...“(Love Is Like A) Baseball Game” and, today, a crossword puzzle. The Philadelphia R&B group The Intruders explain.
https://youtu.be/U7J69dPI62o
Marty Noble passed Sunday and I’m amiss as to why The Times hasn’t run the obit. I found this from The Sportswriters, it’s a round table of honorable Chicago scribes paying tribute to Comiskey Park.
https://youtu.be/QyVHWY9JfwI
Play Ball!,
Bru
1
C.C's ability to discover a fresh theme and flush it out is flawless. Today's puzzle is just another great example of her tremendous talent.
Today with TUTU just filled in I mistakenly wrote in FRIAR Tutu. Now that gave me a chuckle, FRIAR TUCK dancing through the forest in a pink TUTU!
Thank you, C.C.! I look forward to your next and your next and your ..
4
@Johanna
Everyone knows Desmond TUTU is an Anglican minister, not a friar.
1
@Steve L
And there is that old chestnut about a British monastery that decided to add a fish and chips booth to its fund-raising event. So of course the tasks for producing those comestibles were handled by a fish friar and a chip monk.
Once again, kudos to Ms. Burnikell! Always elegant and satisfying.
ROOTS crossing with RTES just a set away from KINTLE - that's just quality.
3
Letter Boxed Thread
B-S(7), S-G(9) is what I have.
Tried to find a shorter solution but sleep beckons.
@Kevin Sparks
B-S (7)
S-G (7)
(it's after 1, so think rodentia for the first word. Should be a snap after that)
I only doubled the "E". Can't find a way around it.
Has some good single-use words like shmearing, bearings, branching and harbingers but couldn't get v/b/m/c into anything complementary.
@Kevin Sparks
After jotting down twenty-five word ideas, I had to walk away for a while. It came quicker on the second round.
Not short, but functional: C-M (4) M-G (11)
Yesterday I have the given answer.
@Baltimark
I am stumped by your solution. I look forward to hearing about it tomorrow!
HIIIII I'm back from my eight day bender in Cancun and Nashville to harass you all here each night. How nice that the first puzzle back is my favorite constructor, CC! This is a good one from her too! I think a great theme for Tuesdays should not be immediately obvious, but once sussed out it should help a newish solver with some slightly harder fill/clues and this does exactly that. Theme came a minute or two after the revealer and quickly helped me fill in WE DID IT, FRIAR TUCK, and SATE. THURMAN was my fave themed since we see Uma a lot, but never her last name apparently. Also like the decision to keep SUNG and SATE short to prevent high theme density from forcing LOTSA Bad Fill. There was some glue, but nothing that distracted me which is nice. Flew through this and only got held up on a few BMTs* (OPIE, SIDEA clue, KINTE, CEL)
Good Fill: BAE ASS(as clued) OOZE LOTSA TRACT UPONE NAUSEA ORIENT SUNHAT ROCKETS ADBLITZES(!!) ; not a ton here, but there wasn't much space for fill with 8 theme slots
Bad Fill: CEL(?) ENO ESO EUR IRT(lets get rid of this) PAO SWF(and this) ESSO HAVE OPIE(this too) RTES SATE KINTE ANISES(bad plural) ; fairly clean, but some pretty classic glue here
Best Clues: 68-A Half-___ (do in a perfunctory way) - not a donkey clue! ; 48-D Coaching great Parseghian (S/O to my step-grandpa who played for him!)
Worst Clue: 51-D Alex Haley epic (Questlove band feels fresher imho)
tl;dr CC rocks still and this was a good timely theme, yay
*Before My Time
1
@Will From College
A CEL is an individual hand-drawn frame from a cartoon or animated film.
2
@David Meyers
If memory serves that was drawn on a clear substrate for projecting --CELlulose.
@Dr W @David
Oops, this was my first post that clearly got held back 7 hours because I spelled out ASS lol. See Steve’s interesting little bit on my earlier post about CELs.
WE DID IT (another Xword glue poem)
I was an ASS
Before I said I DO
As silly as a TYKE
Listening to ENO
Collecting CELs
Joking about RBIs
I barely had an SSN
But then WE DID IT
And that was ESO —
I now drink TEA
Plot out our RTES
Our future my GPS
I’m OPIE grown OLD
I even volunteer at the SPCA
All of it for you, my BAE.
14
@Puzzlemucker,
You did it -- got the poem through the filters, that is.
1
@Puzzlemucker
That was FAB!!!
1
@Puzzlemucker
Excellent, Sir!
1
Put me squarely (pun intended) in the Monday-easy, no thinking require camp. And the theme: days of the week? How truly THURilling.
But I did learn a new verb. I've heard of doing a half-assed job, but never of half-assing a job. I'll try to work it into polite conversation very soon. At which point, the conversation will no longer be all that polite and I'll probably be thrown out on my ass.
8
@Nancy
In only a half-related way, I learned a new plural today with ANISES.
Love THURilling! No better way to subtly express your feelings about the puzzle.
3
@Nancy
You could be half-assing a job if you're going to be cheeky about it. But -- the main thing (I s'pose) is not to leave a glutinous mess.
Wrote a glue poem earlier this a.m. which includes 68A. Once the emus awake from their electronic slumber (during which they are on emu auto-pilot) hopefully they will let it through.
1
@Puzzlemucker
"...which includes 68A"
That'll do it! Hopefully you didn't try to relate it to 45A.
1
@Andrew
I used it in the good old-fashioned donkey sense of the word. Unfortunately I didn’t save a copy and could not possibly try to reproduce my masterpiece using **s. Plus, like all the great Xword puzzle glue poets throughout history, I will not be censored by a mob of emus.
1
@Puzzlemucker - clearly you have done your homework, friend!
https://www.brainjet.com/random/2353920/13-animal-clusters-with-the-weirdest-names/
1
A tip of the Cap to CC for her perfect TUESday puzzle. I am ready for the BBS (baseballs) to fly. Enjoyed the references to ORIENT and EAST. As a Bronx girl, I hope you all don't mind if I DO take it as a sign of a good season for my favorite AL EAST team.
1
LETTER BOX
It seems like there should be more (and shorter) solutions, but that bottom row of BMV just keeps getting in the way. But the one solution I found is a fitting combo: M-G(11), G-H(6)
@Phil P
I got this one quickly:
R-M (6), M-G (11)
I guess our M-G word is the same, and mine is a fitting combo as well.
@Andrew
If our M-G's are the same, then you could have done it in 4, (C-M). (And I don't know why I didn't try putting a word in front, but I still like my combo).
@Phil P
You are quite right!
In case you are interested in my thought process: I originally had the last 8 letters of the 11-letter word. From there I discovered the 6-letter word ending in M. So I added the three letters to the 8 letter word so that it started with M, but then I didn't think to pare down my 6 letter word. Thanks for the much more elegant solution.
A fast and fun Tuesday puzzle. My best Tuesday time yet; 5 1/2 minutes under my Tuesday average.
My dad ran an ESSO station in New Jersey in the 1950s. Loved Uma THURMAN in the “Kill Bill” movies. Watching the MONTE CARLO Formula 1 race is always fun.
Only hang up was trying TU EST instead of TU ES; my high-school French teacher would not have been amused.
3
I really did not catch on until I hit the Reveal (toward the end of the solve, since I started at the top on PuzzAzz.) Then I appreciated the timeliness. OPENING DAY always makes me think of the time that The Cleveland Indians got *snowed* out on Opening Day. A bunch of parents had called in to say their child(ren) were sick....but suddenly these "sick" children were delivered to their schools, after all. LOL
Oh, the puzzle! Very nice, over too soon, and on with the show!
P.S. The Variety Puzzles are really fun; Fred Piscop has a Split Decisions this week--such fun!
6
@Mean Old Lady
This is old school, ca mid 50’s afore the god-almighty dollar insisted on playing World Series tilts during ‘prime time.’ Used to be student bodies (& minds) missed major portions of weekday Fall Classics. My 4th grade teacher, the merciful Sister Marie DiPazzi, must have been a fan. You see, each individual pedagogue had final say-so as to permitting such sporting airplay in the room. Neatness was only one thing that counted; the game’s audio was available strictly on a merit basis. If, and only if, the collective student conduct of my mates and I had earned the privilege, the Series was heard over the p. a. system. Stay home from school to watch the whole game? No! Nay! Never! On my best behaviour on game day? Natch!
1
@brutus
1961 Reds in the World Series, my Catholic parochial school 6th grade teacher managed to have an educational TV set wheeled into our classroom. (Don't remember her name, sadly.)
@brutus - ha ha ha! I had a Sr. Maria Dei Pazzi in grade school, too. We never listened to no baseball in class, though!
Here's a nit no one has picked so far (at least as far as I can see):
ESSO is not a Canadian brand. It's a global brand. If it has to be pinned down to a country of origin, it's an American brand.
ESSO is what the rest of the world calls EXXON. ESSO stands for Standard Oil (of New Jersey), one of the baby Standard Oil companies created when the original Standard Oil monopoly owned by John D. Rockefeller was broken up. Another such company was Socony-Mobil (i.e. Standard Oil Company of New York), which eventually re-merged with Exxon to become ExxonMobil, which it remains to this date.
The other companies spun off of Standard Oil protested the use of the name ESSO, claiming it gave the company an unfair advantage due to its phonetic equivalence to the original S.O. After years of selling their products under different names in different states, the company decided to rename all their products and stations within the US Exxon. Since the forced breakup didn't affect other countries, they retained the more familiar name ESSO everywhere else, including Canada, but also including many other countries as well.
14
Steve,
That was a fine Fact Boy post, but not a nit pick. ESSO most certainly *is* a "Canadian gas brand."
1
@Barry Ancona
Only in the sense that PERRIER is an American water brand because they sell it here, or that COCA COLA is a Zimbabwean soda brand because they sell it there.
Of course, an argument can be made for the idea that grammatically, the clue holds. We all know that. My point is something other than that, and I'm sure you realize that.
My mother-in-law relishes in contradicting everything anyone ever says. If at 7 pm, you say to her, it's getting dark out, she'll say "Well, it's not that dark yet..." The reply to my post is kind of like that.
4
@Steve L & Barry - whence rule number 1...
1
Ah, weekdays. I once got a certain paper every weekday. I once solved in pen without Snailly and H. Pencil waiting in the wings. Now I even have Captain Lightning awarding me gold stars. Let us just say my solo solving is a bit crowded these days.
Having had the pleasure of meeting our constructor I can assure you she exudes the same grace that we see in today’s grid.
Well done ZB.
3
Set Tuesday record but might have been because my son was watching me and I wanted to impress him.
9
In one of those odd coincidences, 32D is very close to the reveal in today LA Times crossword!
SPELLING BEE
Tacfluy
32 words, 177 points, 3 pangrams
A x 2, C x 3, F x 13, T x 14
4L x 9, 5L x 8, 6L x 5, 7L x 6, 8L x 1, 9L x 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 Tot
A - - 1 - 1 - 2
C 1 1 - 1 - - 3
F 2 4 3 3 - 1 13
T 6 3 1 2 - 2 14
Tot 9 8 5 6 1 3 32
21
@Ron O.,
Thanks for the grid. I was about to post as well. Another adjectival and adverbial adventure.
1
Call this one “Words and their extensions.” Try them all.
Also look for a tasty foreign dish.
Not accepted:
ACTA, ATLATL, TUFA, TUFF.
FAT CAT (two words), TA-TA (hyphenated).
1
@Ron O.
Yeah, tried those, too. And just for the heck of it I typed in FALLACY because it felt good.
I am at Genius but not likely to persist to QB, as we have to leave the house for showings.
3
Elegant theme and reveal. CC just churns them out; I see her puzzles in many publications, and wondrously, the quality of this output is first-rate. May I remind you that English is not her first language, in fact, she started constructing puzzles (in 2010) as an aid to bettering her English, having been raised in China, and coming to the U.S. in 2001. Her first NYT puzzle came out in 2013, and, IMO, her cluing steadily improved from basic to more sophisticated, and in 2016 she published her first NYT themeless.
Now -- speaking of today's puzzle -- she makes beauties every day of the week.
11
@Lewis
That background info. is very interesting. I wonder how she knew about ND coaching great Ara Parseghian, who was coaching in the 1960s-70s? (And his last name, unlike Uma Thurman's, will probably never make it into a crossword!)
1
I'm amused to see commenters greeting ARA Parseghian as a newcomer. He used to appear in puzzles all the time, along with other old favorites like etui and oast. So when he turned up today I was like hey, welcome back!
2
@retired, with cat
Sheprobably knows about ARA Parseghian the same way I do -- from XWPs.
1
What a great TUES puzzle! It must have been much harder to construct than solve. I loved TU ES BELLJE, very clever solution to that difficult day of the week. I must admit I could see no connection between the * clues until the reveal, and then it seemed so obvious.
Nice to see FRIAR TUCK as well as being reminded of OPIE ( love the description "moppet") and also that great book and series ROOTS.
CC is the best.
8
Beautiful puzzle, lovely theme, lots of friendly themes for me (baseball, foreign languages, world geography) and very few ones I normally struggle with (personal names, companies and organizations). Thank you, Zhouqin Burnikel!
What's to say - I solved it, despite my overseas friends' utter confusion over what the first day of the week is.
8
Play ball! ROOTS for LOTSA Giants RBI! WE DID IT in ‘10, ‘12 and ‘14! UNEVEN magic, this year?!
2
Ha, for some NAUSEA, try being a lifelong Orioles fan
5
@Ann
I can relate.
(Senators fan)
@Andrew
If you're talking about baseball's Senators, I have some bad news for you.
3
Hmm, so Ms. Burnikel says she has "struggled with the Tuesday answer?" No sympathy from me, as I have struggled mightily with her Friday and Saturday answers for years ;-).
8
I DO NAUSEA reminded of my pregnancy ...
3
I hope your I DO and NAUSEA didn’t happen at the same time.
5
@Laura Rodrigues in London
"I DO NAUSEA"
AS DO I.
1
I know next to nothing of baseball. So I decided that the revealer was OPENINGbAt (I know more about cricket and opening batsmen). The lead up entries containing the surnames of batters I didn’t know. This didn’t slow me down the SW corner. Where I tried to work out what half of a ‘colt 45’ would be? Got there in the end. Great puzzle.
6
and Elke
I DO GET it-Thursday is OPENING DAY for the Baseball season- but who/what decides which day of the week it should be ?
Really liked Moon STARER. Last week ,on March 21, was a Full Super Moon. As luck would HAVE it, we had three cloudless nights*.
Actually , on 3/21, as the sun was rising in the EAST, the moon was "setting" in the West (low on the horizon). Quite spectacular !
*event as rare as Super Moons-- it's raining tonight.
No STARing at the moon means more time to enjoy CC's clever puzzle.
6
@Robert
Opening Day was on Monday/Tuesday for a long time (during which Cincinnati was allowed to open before everyone else as an homage to the Reds' being the first professional baseball team, dating back to 1869); often an American League game was allowed on the first Monday, too, with other teams opening on Tuesday.
Most teams scheduled a day off for the next day, so in the event of a rainout, ticket holders could just come the next day, rather than have to exchange their tickets for a less prestigious game (as Opening Day is a big deal, with ceremonies and fanfare).
Recently, though, players and management negotiated more off days during the season; this precipitated moving Opening Day half a week earlier. The Cincinnati thing stopped being a thing, and occasionally a regular-season series held in a foreign country is played before the official Opening Day (this year, two games were played in Tokyo).
Opening Day is now Thursday, with most teams off on Friday in case Thursday is rained out.
Why not have Opening Day on the weekend? Because ball clubs can attract decent crowds on weekends without having special events, and Opening Day is sold out no matter which weekday it's held on.
10
To @Robert and Elke and @Andrew,
I've been quiet with the C.C. clues but here's a submission for today's puzzle:
51D: "Apparel brand with a beaver in its logo"
Credit to Will FC for planting the idea that 51D ought to be clued differently.
3
and Elke
Henry- nice catch. The logo being of a rodent that lives in lodges and whose tail is the model for a tasty pastry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeaverTails
It's also on our nickel.
1
@Robert and Elke,
Speaking of tasty treats, I wanted to make sure you saw the NYT recent article on Nanaimo bars, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/dining/nanaimo-bars.html. I sense that I will be hunting for a tin of custard powder ....
1
and Elke
Henry- I had seen the Nanaimo bar article, but I was reluctant to add to the sugary treats...
The article mentioned where the custard powder can be found, incl. Whole Foods.
1
I loved the OPENING DAY theme. Great job, CC.
Of all the themers, Tuesday is indeed the toughie; OED lists only one other English word that begins with TUE: an obscure mineral known as tuesite.
I therefore agree that TU ES BELLE offers a nice alternative. (As conversational French phrases go, it's certainly a much better one to learn and remember than TU ES BONNE.)
6
@Henry Su - well, we could do with both, according to Pierre Passereau:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-fm0Vzjr-4
2
@David Connell,
Thank you for the link. That was beautiful.
@Henry Su - in the end, there is a cultural idea that being good-looking and good-being are not connected (which is true), and another cultural idea that they _must_ be disconnected (which is not true). It is _possible_ to be both bel(le) et bon(ne) à la fois.
Though it is rare...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3MiaSG1SMQ
(in the style of Puzzlemucker)
This Tuesday puzzle made LOTSA noise.
AIRGUNS firing BBS
ROCKETS shooting into SPACE
ESSO-sponsored race cars roaring by at MONTE CARLO
CAR ALARMS going off in the streets
AD BLITZES blaring on cable TV
All RANG in my BRAIN, causing NAUSEA and leaving me disORIENTed
SIRI, where is my GPS?
I need a LATTE or TEA flavored with ANISES, preferably DOSED with something strong.
Oh, and please put on some ambient music by ENO or perhaps "Stairway to Heaven" by PLANT.
13
@Henry Su
Wow! You’re going to put me out of the poetry business. Those five lines (starting with “AIRGUNS firing BBS”) could be the opening to a propulsive Bruce Springsteen song.
Here’s a favorite PLANT song with the virtuosic Alison Kraus, who started out in the music biz when she was younger than WFC and hasn’t let up since. “Please Read The Letter” from their Raising Sand LP (CD/MP3/Download?):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Xi5gvZ7Kk
1
@Puzzlemucker,
Thanks for the music recommendation. I knew that Plant and Krauss had collaborated but sampled it. The statues outside the house in the video make me recall A FAREWELL TO ARMS.
1
Edit: "but never sampled it."
HIIIII I'm back from my eight day bender in Cancun and Nashville to harass you all here each night. How nice that the first puzzle back is my favorite constructor, CC! This is a good one from her too! I think a great theme for Tuesdays should not be immediately obvious, but once sussed out it should help a newish solver with some slightly harder fill/clues and this does exactly that. Theme came a minute or two after the revealer and quickly helped me fill in WE DID IT, FRIAR TUCK, and SATE. THURMAN was my fave themed since we see Uma a lot, but never her last name apparently. Also like the decision to keep SUNG and SATE short to prevent high theme density from forcing LOTSA Bad Fill. There was some glue, but nothing that distracted me which is nice. Flew through this and only got held up on a few BMTs* (OPIE, SIDEA clue, KINTE, CEL)
Good Fill: BAE AS%(as clued) OOZE LOTSA TRACT UPONE NAUSEA ORIENT SUNHAT ROCKETS ADBLITZES(!!) ; not a ton here, but there wasn't much space for fill with 8 theme slots
Bad Fill: CEL(?) ENO ESO EUR IRT(lets get rid of this) PAO SWF(and this) ESSO HAVE OPIE(this too) RTES SATE KINTE ANISES(bad plural) ; fairly clean, but some pretty classic glue here
Best Clues: 68-A Half-___ (do in a perfunctory way) - not a donkey clue! ; 48-D Coaching great Parseghian (S/O to my step-grandpa who played for him!)
Worst Clue: 51-D Alex Haley epic (Questlove band feels fresher imho)
tl;dr CC rocks still and this was a good timely theme, yay
*Before My Time
5
Oops, SATE is neither Fill nor Bad, just a typo
@Will From College,
Welcome back. We've missed your commentary.
1
@Will From College. Not as unhappy as you with 'bad fill', except for ANISES. No problem getting it right off the bat without crosses, so I guess if the constructor saw no where else to go in those squares, at least a sketchy answer is somewhat redeemed with an obvious clue. i.e. one is not driven to think "that can't be correct', even if it's not very pretty.
49A: Number 9, ___dy Ballgame
2
@Morgan
I wonder which TED is more beloved in Boston. Both had their controversies, but only one batted over .400 for an entire season. TED Williams aka The Kid, The Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame:
https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-28-1941-teddy-ballgame-finishes-406
1
Fast and fun Tuesday puzzle. A more fitting THURMAN clue for the theme could have been “Yankee who passed away in ‘79”.
5
@Mark
I wonder if that was a point of discussion between Will and CC. Obviously, cluing THURMAN in that way would have been perfect to fit the theme, but 1) Would it have thrown people off, thinking that the beginnings of the theme answers were baseball players? and 2) Uma is much more current than Mr. Munson, so better suited to a wide age range.
1
Tuesday personal best. Thanks for yet another fun puzzle, ZB!
5
Oh, and also for Deb,
I see your Thurman and raise you one (Howard):
https://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/howard_thurman.html
6
@David Connell
Howard would have been a clue for last month's Thurman.
2
@David Connell
Thank you! Two great quotes attributed to Howard Thurman:
Follow the grain in your own wood.
Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.
What two completely cute puzzles two days in a row!
Monday we had ACMe's and Kevin Christian's cooperative salute to long-playing records, and today Zhouqin Burnikel's nod to the days of the week - in order no less - exactly as displayed on wristwatches with day/date complications.
Confession: these are two of my favorite subjects (actually, objects), both of which I have collected a few over the years.
5
All of the recent talk about sub-5 minute times, sub-2 minute times (!), 3 LATTE times, etc., made me a bit jittery as I solved and, of course, led to flubs along the way. Most fittingly, after having corrected a handful of (SOME) other typos, I found my ORIENT was ORIINT. Clock consciousness made me disORIENTed.
I’m going outside for awhile to be a moon STARER and to contemplate what exactly 4.51 billion years means . . . and whether the NY Mets can ever win another title.
5
@Puzzlemucker
Yes ! Let's Go Mets . As a long time baseball fan I also thought of Thurman Munson when I saw THURMAN crop up in the puzzle - would have been a more fitting clue for this one .
1
@Cathy P
“NYY Frenemies: Reggie and ______”
1
@Puzzlemucker
Munson who was gone too soon
1
Within a few seconds of my Tuesday best. Here's hoping the Yankees' season goes as well.
2
Just for Deb...
Huge...tracts of land...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3YiPC91QUk
11
@David
I have to confess I had the same thought.
1
Thank you ! Very funny!
@David Connell
Okay if I view it, too?
1
liked it a lot! very clever and timely for OPENING DAY. Hope the Yanks have LOTSA RBIs.
2
When I got THURMAN and OPENING DAY, I was thinking baseball for the other themed clues. I like how this worked out.
5
Tom Boswell - why time begins on opening day. Glad baseball is back on Thursday.
2