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One practicing mysteical form of Islam / MON 3-14-16 / Largest pelvic bones / Victim of bark beetle barrage / Rooster desined for dinner / Elijah press your clothes / Potato treat for Hanukkah / Chevy now called Sonic / Deviate erratically from course
Monday, March 14, 2016
Constructor: Lynn Lempel
Relative difficulty: On the Challenging side *For A Monday* (solving time: 3:38)
THEME: Exhortations to famous people — ordinary compound words are reimagined as imperative clauses shouted at famous people:
Theme answers:
- PLAY, WRIGHT! (18A: "Wilbur, get in the game!")
- IRON, WOOD! (20A: "Elijah, press your clothes!")
- SHARE, HOLDER! (33A: "Eric, give some to us!")
- BATTLE, FIELD! (42A: "Sally, keep up the fight!")
- FIRE, BIRD! (56A: "Larry, shoot!")
- GRIND, STONE! (60A: "Emma, do that sexy dance!")
• • •
Getting from the first names in the clues to the intended famous person was always easy, especially considering that the clue phrases oddly (counter-intuitively) put the name before the command. Seems more natural to me to say "Keep up the fight, Sally!", and that phrasing also parallels the phrasing of the answer: "BATTLE, FIELD!" ... Command, name! But the clues put the name first, perhaps just for the sake of variety. The bigger comprehension issue was figuring out who the first name in the clue was supposed to refer to. You say Wilbur, I think pig. Actually, I think:
I was lucky enough to have most of HOLDER in place before I saw that clue, because otherwise it would've taken some time to figure out which of the scores of famous "Eric"s were in play. But I liked the added challenge and the cleverness today. Other minor issues:
- IRONWOOD — I don't know what this is. I honestly got it confused with the William Kennedy novel "Ironweed."
- RUMP (58D: Posterior) — I went with "REAR"
- SISSY (27A: Wuss) — I had ... several things here, not all of them plausible answers. I'd much rather see this clued as Spacek than as a term of derision.
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59 comments:
Excellent offering. Messing around with famous people's names is always fun. The only one I didn't really understand was IRONWOOD. Six themers, though - my cup runneth over.
Every single one of these is one word, right? That had to have ruled out lots of possibilities (Leap Day, jump ball). And,as Rex said, they're all commands for the person to do, not commands to be done to the person (page turner, ground ball).
My only wobble was right out of the gate with Ginger PIE. Dumb.
I just had as my background picture on the smartboard, "No parking. Violators will be TOAD." Oops.
APHID, ALGAE, LARVA. Gotta clean out my fridge here real soon.
BLUE/RUMP. I had a very close call yesterday on a slippery rock. Very close.
Not surprisingly, a Monday puzzle right across the plate. Always a pleasure, Lynn.
Pretty much what Rex said. Sub 7:00 here, which is now a medium time.
Another Pop Culture theme, which makes a PPP analysis a little wonky. Three movie stars on the left, science, politics, and sports on the right. Balanced references and it is Monday easy. Hmmmmm.
Bless you, Lynn. I brighten when I see your name on top of puzzle, and you don't disappoint. Your puzzles have spark and bounce, and even on Monday there is intelligence behind your clues.
Excellent clue for DEBS, and I liked the answers CATTY, SUBTLETIES, and WOBBLY. Meanwhile, RITES are right and EAST is west, and there's a BUTTED in. And when I saw that ELUDE butted right up against BATTLEFIELD something told me that I would find a Boggle-style AWOL in the puzzle, and there it was, starting with the A in KANT.
Once again, an LL offering with joie de puzzle!
Agree with pretty much everything you said, Rex. Thanks.
As good as a Monday ever can be
Fun easy Monday. Of course loved all the food - feta cheese, latke,capon and for dessert...oreos
Typically solid Monday from Lynn Lempel -- crisp theme with pretty clean fill. I liked it ALLOT.
Among the themers:
-- IRONWOOD seems an outlier in terms of commonality, but maybe that just speaks to my own knowledge base.
-- I love that the clue for FIREBIRD has real context for the Larry in question -- no doubt a mantra for 1980s Celtics fans.
-- Pre-Obama administration, SHAREHOLDER wouldn't work or would have to be clued with Geoffrey.
-- Enjoying the GRINDSTONE visual, although I probably shouldn't be.
Among the rest:
-- Nice SCAT CAT[TY] across the top.
-- Symmetrical CHER RUMP, which she certainly SHAREd in those bizarre 1990s costumes. (Just realized that if she married Eric and took his name, she would be CHER HOLDER.)
-- Clue for ANGIE shortchanges Ms. Hicks. She didn't just lend her name, she cofounded the company.
-- I could add more, but don't want to get BOGGEDDOWN in SUBTLETIES.
For all you Easterners (and I've been one for 50 years now), IRONWOOD is what we from the Midwest call the hop hornbeam tree. The wood is too dense to cut with a regular saw, and if you throw a log into the water it will sink. There's a city in Michigan's UP named for it -- its motto is "live where you play."
I don't really know who ELIJAH Wood or EMMA Stone are, but aside from that, easy and fun.
Technical nit: in music, as in Italian, LARGO means 'broadly.' The word for slow is 'lento.' Which is not to say that LARGO passages are not played at a slow tempo -- it's a matter of how you feel about it while you are playing it.
Only 5 comments up -- and from some of our best solvers. And they all like this puzzle. Which baffles me, because you would think that every one of them could have done it in their sleep. As for me, I thought it was a complete yawn.
@'mericans in Paris (from yesterday) -- Thank you so much! I would be so, so honored. You have no idea!
Good one.
Lulled me into a Monday w/o: 69A, YAKS >> YAPS.
Hey All !
Neay little puz. Taking words and literizing them. Fav was FIREBIRD. Still found it MonPuz easy here, but I don't break puzzles down like OFL. Just by how I feel.
Good amount of double letters. Like seeing BOZO, LATKE, YIKES.
Better than average fare for a Monday, so nice job Lynn!
WOBBLY
Roomonster
DarrinV
And the Baby Bear said to the Mama Bear...."and this one is just right!" Puzzle perfection Ms. Lempl, and just what the puzzle world needed on this sleep deprived Monday morning.
Angie made the rounds today. Medium Monday for me.
ELUDE or EVADE; YAPS or YAKS
Yippy! Shortz worked in ERIE, OREOS, ALE, TBAR (a near dinosaur), ELM and even snuck in an Obama clue. What a POS puzzle.
"Will, handle it skillfully."
Fooled me. The tone of today's commentary led me to believe it was Annabelle
Glad to see this puzzle rated as challenging for a Monday. I approached this one with the idea of just going with the across clues and seeing if I could solve faster that way. Old habits die hard. I wound up filling the NW corner as usual and drew a blank on the second half of 20A. KANT and CAPON made that clear but I drew a blank for a C word meaning "snide". Thank God it was 5 letters. Luckily 18A was the one themer I got immediately from the first letter. The rest of the themes I had to work mostly east to west to get the rest of them. 56A even had a write over. That SE corner was confusing. YAK and REAR made me draw blanks on their alphabetical counterparts and I wasn't at all familiar with the 63A acronym.
This is the kind of theme I don't mind. It used actual words with themed clues that didn't insult your intelligence. BTW ironwood is just a very hard and dark variety of wood.
Want a challenge on Monday? Just fill in the long ones.
I miss last year's TT puzzle since it is Pi Day. At least LMS spotted a missed opprportunity to have included a little TT today. I thought this puzzle was as TT and the theme wasn't the least bit WOBBLY.
@ Bob Kerfuffle, for I moment I thought there might be one of thos changeable letter themes with K/P
YIKES <---> YIPES and YAKS <---> YAPS
Laser is an acronym, and "lase" is a back-formation, like "liaise" that you see so much in job descriptions. I guess we don't worry about such things anymore, so what the hell, why not?
Re 55D: At least in most boating applications one of the most important characteristics of a good KNOT is that it be easy to untie, contrary to the clue.
Bravo, I say. This was everything a Monday NYT puzzle should be- some easy answers and some to make you hesitate and think over. Ms. Lempel has emerged as one of the top constructors with solid underpinnings to her puzzles with a bit subtlety thrown in. Nice.
I finished this puzzle relatively early today and waited impatiently for you to post, Rex, hoping that you liked it as much as I did. I rarely have time to solve before you post even though we are 7 hours ahead of you,uh, well only six hours now. We only set our clocks up in 2 weeks, after Purim. A good theme for any day actuality: clever,SUBTLE,and dense. And it was nice to get a mai TAI, instead of hai alai on a Monday morning. THANKS you Lynn Lemple for a lovely early start of summer.
Like Rex I found this pretty tough for a Mon. because some of the first names did not immediately evoke the correct last name, so crosses were needed to get the theme answers.
Very smooth grid with a bit of crunch, liked it.
I thought I was doing well, and thought I would only have a longer-than-usual solve only because I was taking the time to grin at the theme answers. Then I hit the SE corner. Confidently wrote in "rear" for RUMP. Then "back" (crossing "yaks". Finally got FIRE BIRD and the correct response, but the grid down there is pretty ugly with so many writeovers in ink.
These days, BIRD is not the first thing you think of for "Larry". The man is 60 years old, or will be this year.
Another limpid Lempel to liven up Lundi with laughs. And Luscious LATKES to boot!
Always little SUBTLETIES tucked into Lempel grids, like the SCATTY_CAT up top, and ILIA-by-the-REAR BUTTED to the bottom. I can just see DOZE WOBBLY BOZO clowns. Sure HOPI won't be getting BOGGED_DOWN in a fight for APHID RITES. If you didn't already know that APHIDs have RITES too, well, now I TOAD you so.
Lovely trick to the theme, and couldn't have been easy to find 2 pairs of 8s, 10s and 11s that worked so well, and (as pointed out) are all a single word. A beguiling idea, and tempting to try, so here are some random products of beguilement (like @Rex, reverse order seemed more natural over here):
*Put it out of your mind, Edith!
-or- *It's Mary Jane, Edith!
*Have me called over the PA system, Nat!
*Accept only leading roles, Gary!
*It's wool made yarn, Honey!
*Darling infant you have there, Etta!
BLOCKHEAD
POTHEAD
PAGETURNER
STARPOWERS
SPUN SUGAR
SWEET BABY JAMES
So okay, they're less Lempel than Leapfinger liberties but (LaLaLa, I can't hear you!) a prELUDE KANT always PLAYWRIGHT by the rules.
Lempel Rules! (I TOAD you so)
hee hee
Agreed Rex. Today ran about two minutes longer than my usual Monday. Normally, I just rip through the down clues first. By the time I'm finished with the downs, the long across theme answers have mostly filled themselves in and are easily recognized. Today, not so much.
So Rex, has SISSY been officially added to the ever-growing compendium of words that have been designated Politically Incorrect? Does anybody under 50 even use the term anymore? If SISSY bothers you, wussy and pussy must really get your blood boiling, no? God forbid anyone offend the delicate sensibilities of all those special little snowflakes out there. Long live victimhood!
And speaking of God, does anyone under 50 actually say YIKES or OMIGOSH anymore? Of course not! They type OMG! or use its verbal equivalent. People used to say OMIGOSH, because OMG was considered socially incorrect. My, how times have changed. Being an agnostic, it makes no difference to me. I don't care what anyone says! ;>)
Last but not least, Thanks Rex, for providing what will most likely be my laugh of the day, easily beating out LMS and GINGER PIE. I'm referring to your video of "Sweet Boogie", who under the guise of instruction, is trying to convince people that the dance known as "The Grind" is perfectly innocent. There is absolutely nothing salacious or licentious about it. She wants us to believe that there is nothing suggestive about a dance that seems to simulate vertical anal copulation, because after all, "You don't have to get all up on each other!" ROTFLMAO! Right in my debauched wheelhouse!
Ho ho ho @lms, just saw your PEEKING. Not sure that Billie Jean would've taken that sitting down.
Did you know that Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner's first real job wasn't even as a waitperson (heh), just clearing tables?
Yeah, busted.
Not much to add about @Lynn Lempel's puzzle, and @Rex's review of it.
I do want to tell everyone about You Might Be Geeky If ... by my friend @Steve Bachman. Hope you like it!
I was uncomfortable solving this puzzle. All the commanding themers made me feel like a termagant. I guess I'm more of a SISSY than a bossy type (though don't ask my husband about that :-).)
THANKS, Lynn Lempl.
First, "Lynn Lempel, yay!" Then, "This is Monday?" Talk about being clueless: for Wilbur, yes, I thought it would be the pig; for Elijah, I thought of the Bible. But wait, there's more: when I got PLAYWRIGHT, I asked myself, "Wilbur Wright? A sports figure I haven't heard of?" Reader, I Googled him. Ohhhhh. Apparently, I only know who he is when he's accompanied by Orville. Signing off now to go institutionalize myself. On the way out the door - I did love this toothsome puzzle.
@jberg...I have a hophornbeam tree at the end of my driveway. It volunteered itself there. I love the beautiful fruit that give it that particular name, looking lots like hops. I am so grateful for the everything
Liked the puzzle fine. Liked Glutton's desire together with Chowed down. And liked noticing that BOGGEDDOWN and Mired, both meaning "involved in a difficult situation", both use a swamp metaphor.
@lms...happily, you didn't wind up BLUE BUTTED!
@Sir Hillary...CHERHOLDER!!!
Thanks, Ms. Lempel.
@Aketi - We were indeed fortunate that YIKES and YAPS did not cross at the Schroedinger letter! I can imagine clues which might distinguish YAPS from YAKS (without introducing shaggy animals) but not sure about YIPES vs. YIKES. It reminds me of a word puzzle of some sort (not a crossword) which ran in my local paper many years ago. The idea was to determine the correct letter in situations like this. Unfortunately, the only one I remember had to do with finding evil in "den of iniquity" or "men of iniquity." The answer was "men" because a location of itself could not be evil, if I recall correctly. (I don't remember how it was phrased to overcome the singular/plural incongruity.)
IRONWOOD refers to a type of wood that is very hard. But I know it because my dad was from Ironwood, Michigan.
Still didn't make the puzzle any easier, though!
Hmmm. It took me a pretty much joyless hour to complete. Too cold and rainy for golf today so I stuck with it. On to Tuesday.
Btw, what's a termagant again?
Surprised that nobody objects to the 33D clue. When you HEED advice, that means you accept it. Has nothing to do with how carefully you considered it; you might have done it on a whim.
@009--Know what U mean. Just got up. That DST is a bitch.
** [time lapse, for brushin teeth and other crucial acts ]**
Whoa, nice one, Lempelmeister. M&A's best counter-oofer of a themer: BULL, PENN. pitiful.
Knew IRONWOOD. Our fireplace wood supplier supplied us with a load of it, one winter. So, ok.
Mystical word of the day: SUFI. WOBBLY, for an upfront word on a MonPuz. But has a U. So, ok.
EDU + EDS. fave weeject couple. Makes U think one of em should go AVEO. But, admirably desperate, so … ok.
hands-down fave column shortstory: THY SUEDE BINGE. Good sub-plot to "Friendly Purse-suede-shun"? Didn't think so. ok.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
It's a looong story
**gruntz**
@Loren Muse Smith: any chance you were thinking of Ginger PYE as I did? Great Eleanor Estes book from my distant childhood although "The Hundred Dresses" was my favorite of hers.
Took me 12:35 today, 50 seconds slower than my Monday average. You sub-ten minute solvers are inspiring!
SUFI: Thankyou Doris Lessing's Golden Notebook, o/w remembered as largely unreadable, but what do I know?
@jberg - Elijah WOOD
Emma STONE
@Nancy - I fear you are mistaking being loquacious with being competent.
Horace S. Patoot - I rarely complain about a back formation.
@Chaos344 - "I'd much rather see this clued as Spacek than as a term of derision." How is this different than wanting "ass" clued as the animal? Simple rule of thumb, if the choice is to be insulting or not to be insulting most people prefer "not insulting."
Agree this was a fantastic puzzle to wake up to on a Monday.
I did expect, after the world exploded over termagent (well, our tiny little corner of the world), that CATTY would compel a repeat performance. I guess it's OK to be spiteful, just not overbearing, if you are a woman.
After 72 consecutive instances of filling in YIKES, only to have to change it to YIpES once I saw the cross, I finally got smart today and went with YIpES first. I then smiled wryly when I looked at the cross. Next word in was YAkS - had a good chuckle when I had to change that, too. I wonder if there are other synonyms formed by swapping P for K.
@Gene - HEED implies a careful consideration. I would not use it with an incidental connotation. If you told me that you heeded my advice on cluing SISSY I would think that you had considered my advice and found merit in it, not that you decided, "why not."
@Cassieopia -- Yo, 12:35 sounds pretty dern inspirational, to m&e. But then, I normally don't time myself, on these puppies. Compare self to other solvers by height. (Inspired by "Caddyshack".)
Today's Poster-reason M&A doesn't often time self: SUFI at 1-D. M&A runs into that right away in a MonPuz, and loses his grip. And then loses precious nanoseconds, cleanin up the spilt coffee on the puzpaper.
My hat's off, to those who can speed solve. It will serve y'all well, at that there upcomin ACPT. Woulda gone there myself this year to meet up with @muse, but PuzEatinSpouse wanted to go to Utah, and enter a contest. Long story. But, I digress.
Keep up the good work, @Cassieopia … See U at the ACPT, one fine day.
M&A
@Z: Referred to the following statement posted by Rex:
"I'd much rather see this clued as Spacek than as a term of derision."
Ridiculous! Who would not know _____ Spacek if clued that way?
Z questioned my contention that Rex played the PC card by suggesting that "Spacek" was the only acceptable clue for SISSY. It depends on how politically correct you want to be? "Ass" has appeared in dozens of puzzles, and not always as an animal!
It all depends on how your mind works, and how much you are willing to push the envelope. Lets take a look at Loren Muse Smith's post. She immediately admits that GINGER PIE was a "dumb" guess for 49A. Yet, I didn't see it that way. I immediately thought that,(after the possibility of rescue) all the men on Gilligan's Island fantasized about Ginger Pie? I know I did!
It is what it is! Some life experiences will flit in and out of our minds. Yet the older we get, the more precious those memories will become. And some of us will disprove mathematical certainties. Sometimes 68 will go into 32 multiple times!
@Chaos344 - Not "only," just a preferred alternative. "_____ Spacek" on Monday, "Carrie star" on Wednesday and "Loretta once" for Saturday. Or you could go even harder and use "Debra in Urban Cowboy." As for "ass", every time it is clued scatologically someone complains about it here. Makes no never mind to me, but it does to others.
I also have a new response for people who call me politically correct: "I know I am. Why aren't you?" (with apologies to PeeWee Herman)
Being from northern Wisconsin, I got IRONWOOD right away, since it is a common tree around there, not to mention the name of a town in the U.P. of Michigan. It is a very hard wood, and will dull a chainsaw blade quickly. I think the same species is also called Hornbeam in other regions.
No rappers, no trivia sports, no movie stars, no academy award also-rans, etc
NO TAMAGUCCI or whatever.
This was only slightly off my best.. Though I can't read clues and type in without a pause and come close to 4 minutes. Rex must be a speed reader and way faster understanding and typing.
Didn't need the theme but saw it near end with fire bird.
About medium for today, maybe the high end of medium. Didn't know half of the (so-called) "famous" people: WOOD, HOLDER, and for goodness' sake, Emma STONE. What's wrong with super yeah-baby Sharon? I'd purely love to see HER RUMP GRIND.
For a change, I didn't look at the byline, but grokked it was a female when I came to "Bat Mitzvahs." And with LATKE, I had a clue as to her ethnicity. IRONWOOD reminds me of Silkwood, in which the remarkable CHER, Damsel of the Day, played an Oscar-nominated role. She's just good at everything.
Aside from the overused TBAR and the good old RCD*, the only "uh-uh" I could find was...UHUH. Pretty clean. I also liked the long downs. I miss SUBTLETIES such as that boggled AWOL, but still enjoyed the solve. Never got BOGGEDDOWN. A-.
*random compass direction
Forgot to say, THANKS for the kind remark, @Rainy.
THANKS ALLOT
ANGIE KANT be MORE CATTY than any SLY siren could,
but she HEEDS me to PLAYWRIGHT many WAYS with my IRONWOOD.
--- BOZO LARGO
YIKES! A couple of write-overs on a Mon-puz. TrIm for THIN and YAkS on the bottom SE. But quite a decent puz on a Monday.
I don’t think anybody needed to tell Larry BIRD to shoot back in his day. He knew the SUBTLETIES of how to PLAYWRIGHT.
Two musical yeah babies in CHER and REBA today. I believe one of them is my age, YAW’ll have to guess. And nothing wrong with Emma STONE, but @spacey has the right IDEA about Sharon. Demographic swing again.
I’m sure I took ALLOT MORE time than OFL did, even though I never BOGGEDDOWN. Probably close to a usual Monday time, MORE or less. ALOHA.
Very nicely done Monday puzzle; good start to the week. Liked the theme and execution a lot.
A couple of pauses: almost wrote in a less acceptable synonym for SISSY, given the "Wuss" clue. I remembered LATKE, but only after crosses forced it out.
In the SE corner, RUMP was aptly the last to go.
Another excellent puzzle from the Queen of Monday (maybe ACME is the Princess of same). Cute theme, although I don't know who Eric HOLDER is.
Biology question of the day: is a tadpole really considered a larva? Don't larvae have to go into a cocoon or chrysalis in order to transform, while a tadpole just gradually morphs through the polliwog stage (as I once learned) to eventually become a TOAD?
I don't want to get into the SISSY discussion, but I will offer that in many crossword puzzles, words like ASS, BOZO, dunce, dodo, jerk, and others, have often appeared. I just fill them in...
Nice puz.
@rainy ditto on the THANKS. Unless I slip up, consecutive day 500 will be sometime around July 4. Verse 500 will be sometime around the Indy 500, since there have been days with multiples.
The paper arrived on time this morning. But instead of being on the porch (or really, the stoop) it was in the garden. Yeah - the rose garden. That one. The one with the sprinkler system that automatically comes on. You know, the kind that can drench a Monday-sized paper in a matter of minutes.
And finally, a quick, fun, clean solve - no Horse Shoes today. When is the last time anyone saw a TBAR in the wild?
Speaking of the wild, on to yesterday's (Sunday's) comments.
Towering Kathy - I have seen an etui in the wild. At a Dollar Store, of all places. They had these little cases for cell phones, and were called etuis. I said "Hey! Etui!" out loud. People backed away.
@Rainy - thanks for the Syndielander shout out!
@Leftcoast - I used to teach a class (to adult students) on how to learn like a 2-year-old. In other words, when we were still in love with learning. You know, before we knew what is was to ERR. Anyway, the more you know, the more you have the capacity to learn more. We learn by attaching new info to old info. Our brains are God's wonderful ever-expanding filing systems. So don't worry about too much trivia crowding out your brain.
If you google "ted Joshua Foer memory" you can see his 20-min TED talk about the memory palace. (If he sounds familiar, he wrote "Moonwalking with Einstein.")
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for proper paper delivery
@Diana,LIW:
Thank you for your thoughtful response.
Yes, I think the more you know, the more you want to know, and that usually is a very positive thing. But I don't think that attaching new information to old, especially in this indiscriminate digital era, is necessarily an enlightening process.
I don't at all assume that you would disagree.
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