"Bajo" means "low" and "alto" means "high", so it is correct to consider them opposites.
@JulesDisch And that's all there is to that. Not necessary to get into vocal ranges. If it weren't for the fact that I stopped to make myself a bowl of ice cream before reading the column, I'd have scooped you on this one. (See what I did?) Second week in a row that the 'splainer needed 'splaining.
@JulesDisch Like Baja California and Alta California (which is what we think of as California). Bajo and Alto are just the masculine versions of the Spanish.
Bajo is spanish for short, alto is spanish for tall.
TIL that female llamas respond very much like the female humans I used to ask out in high school.
@Francis If I had been one of those female humans in high school with you, I would have gone out with you just for your sense of humor.
A really easy puzzle—after it was solved. Along the way, there was so much interplay of all kinds of clues, which looked impossible until the fills sort of strutted across the grid or slid down in unexpected ways. It all added up to a memorable Friday of pure enjoyment. Thank you, Adrian Johnson. Did I say I loved it?
This solve was punctuated by moments – Perception Pings, let’s say – where you are seriously flummoxed by a clue, with your forehead wrinkled, then through crosses the answer comes, and just for a precious tiny moment, you remain baffled, and then, with an inner laugh, comes the explosive ping, when the rightness of the answer hits you. And suddenly it feels like you’re at a lit party as you’re thinking “Hah! Cool! Clever!” and such. Just for a moment, though. Then you move on, leave it behind, but your mood has raised a notch. This happened again and again today, for instance, with [Something made just for show?] for SET, [Competitions with many missions] for SPACE RACE, and [Ready for a drive, perhaps?] for ON CD. I leave a puzzle like this awed and grateful, surging into the day ahead. That surge today was buttressed by beauty in the box. That center stack with not only gorgeous answers but ringing with freshness, with the middle answer used only once before in a Times puzzle, sandwiched by two debut answers. Plus, the lovely longs of SODA BREAD, RAW NERVES, UMPTEENTH, and TEEN VOGUE. And the loveliest of all: EPHEMERAL. All this goodness just from letters in a box – amazing! You hit it just right today Adrian. Thank you so much for this – this was a wow!
@Lewis EPHEMERAL is a great word, is it? I’m surprised that this is only the 12th time it’s appeared in a NYT puzzle. It’s got a lot of consonants m but they’re all pretty common.
The car salesman told me where to find his dealership. It meant a lot. (Posting this pun was auto-matic.)
Dear Ms. Amlen: Bajo is Spanish for “low.” Alto is Spanish for “high” That is how they are opposites. The opposite of a bass would be soprano. Oddly enough tubas and piccolos are the loudest instruments due to their depths and heights of sound.
@Red Carpet I figured this one by remembering Baja and Alta California.
If I walk less than 10 minutes in 3 different directions from my home, I can buy a pupusa from an El Salvador native, an arepa made by a woman from Panama and an empanada from an Argentinian family. Each operates from a food kiosk and only sells their specialty plus soda. Each kiosk is in a parking lot adjacent to a liquor store. (The proximity of 3 liquor stores is not the reason I bought my house)
@coloradoz That sounds a lot like where I was born and called home for my formative years, Pueblo, Colorado, from the mid-50s to the mid-70s.
@coloradoz That's great! I wish we had more South American bars and restaurants in Poland. Our proximity to Asia means we can enjoy authentic food from Syria, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, but we have very few options for meals from the Western hemisphere. There are a few Mexican restaurants, and some grill joints offer Argentinian beef but that's it 😔
Waiting for the thunderous applause from all the posters who hate rebuses and themes and tricks and proper nouns and just want a plain old crossword. (I'm not going to say it means a lot to me.) Nice one, Adrian.
the explanation given for 35D is making me giggle. it has nothing to do with music! [Bajo's opposite] is ALTO because bajo in Spanish means low and alto means high...
@cookie I know nothing about music and the Spanish connection was obvious to me, in fact the only one that came to mind. Are you saying something musical was what the constructor had in mind? Is bajo a musical term? The only one close to it I know is basso.
@Andrzej cookie is referring to the tricky clues section of today’s column where we get an explanation of the clue and the answer.
@cookie Also, Deb's take on 53D was a bit off. Not music CDs, but the CD drive on a computer, before thumb drives. I still have one on my laptop, but I go back as far as floppy disks.
Here's an encore Adrian’s heart-warming and wise constructor’s notes from January of last year, which are so worth repeating: “The day I received the review proof of this puzzle was also the day my grandfather died. “Normally I’d have a profound puzzle insight to share, but what’s on my mind today is gratitude — for the time I spent with him, but particularly for the friendship Alvin, a dear family friend, forged with him during his final years. “Alvin, who began as his landscaper, first came by as a casual friend after grandpa’s hip replacement, continuing to come over regularly during the 11 years that grandpa outlived my grandma. Alvin’s visits often took the shape of coffee and conversation after dropping his kids off at school. They discussed things including family, life, hobbies and current events. Some days grandpa would invite Alvin for steak dinners, but other days they’d barely speak and spend the morning watching the news. “The important thing was his presence: the conscious, routine decision to be involved and engaged, and to make the mundane life of an old man meaningful. Tonight, this morning, whenever you’re reading this, take a few minutes to say hello and check in with someone older whom you care about. Those hellos can make all the difference.”
@Deb, 35D is actually. Spanish. Bajo means low, and ALTO means high.
@KarenE Bajo also means bass in Spanish. “Bajo sexto” translates to sixth bass.
@Cyndie Yes, but have trouble with bass and alto voices being "opposites."
@KarenE I agree. They might could sorta be construed as “voice” opposites, but they’re more readily opposites as you say in “high” and “low” or also “tall” and “short”.
My whole life I thought PUCE was a shade of green. Confusing it with puke green, no doubt, so TI finally L. It's also a good thing I looked up the meaning of pupusa, me thinking that it was related to a stage of insect life. On the other hand, PORTRAIT ARTISTS and SKA BANDS went right into their slots. Chicken or mashed potato DANCE made me laugh. An easygoing Friday puzzle.
@Vaer - Puce is the French word for flea so I always this of the color of a flea.
@jp inframan I thought it was grey and originally wrote PLUM. Love and learn. A few fun misdirects and a few tough (for me) facts. All in all a fun puzzle.
Very rapid Friday for me which means nothing more than that the constructor and I were on the same wavelength for once. 2D Booster, perhaps I tried SEAT and SHOT and both led nowhere so I had to erase them. And I did have Emily's list confused with Angie's list for far too long. Shame on me.
Oh BABY!! Felt un-crackable. No *way* am I gonna get through this one. Then…one falls in, then another. Center opened up! Whaaa? And then, one by one NE, SE..they all just became clear! NW was last to fall, but by then, I was crucivibing. Felt like dancing! Friday bliss. POY candidate! Happy Friday all!
Easy puzzle. So let us discuss getting an option to turn off statistics as a preference. Not enjoying seeing it added to Connections. Don't care about streaks, I have a life and sometimes miss days and it can be annoying to feel like the site is criticizing me for it. I'm sure many love the statistics but an option to turn them off would be nice.
@Pogo Crafty probably can email this to the times. Doubt the Connections product team reads the comments of the crossword puzzle.
@Pogo Crafty Yep and that's exactly why I stopped playing Connections the moment they enabled stats. The mistake limits were always a bug, not a feature, and the stats make it much worse. No thanks, Wyna, you've broken an already deeply flawed but interesting game. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade
TIL that female llamas have something in common with female humans I asked out in high school!
Francis, I see the matrix* is glitching again. Or my horizontal hold is on the fritz. (*starring Keamu Reeves)
Bajo and alto are opposites in Spanish. They mean low and high respectively. I think that's what the puzzle creator was referring to.
Bajo is short in Spanish, and alto is tall in Spanish. That’s why it’s the opposite of bajo, not singing pitches
Funny, I just last night I used the word "ephemeral": around 9:30pm, as my partner and I were driving home from a lovely pool-side dinner party (where we were served delicious empanadas, beef sliders, and soda bread), I was on my phone, on the NYT crossword app: "So what are you reading on your phone?" "I'm doing one last late night check on the Wordplay comments. You know, one of the things I like about it is that it really is ephemeral--all those topics, all those disputes which so engrossed us today, by tomorrow are completely forgotten, replaced by new ones." <a href="https://tinyurl.com/34rpzjnx" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/34rpzjnx</a> See you tomorrow.
Nice stack in the middle. It looked harder than it ended up. Top was a little tough, worked my way thru once and then went bottom up.
@John H. I thought the middle stack was pretty easy. That's one of the things about the big stacks--they tend to either be easy or impossible (at least for me!). PORTRAIT came easily and PAINTERS was too long; the A in ALTO gave me ARTISTS. 39A and 40A crossed with very helpful down words, so they weren't too much slower. Up in the top third, I though SKA BANDS and PEACE DEAL (not PACT) were fairly tricky.
@John H. For another nice middle stack, check out Erik Agard's Tuesday New Yorker puzzle: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/crossword/2024/09/03" target="_blank">https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/crossword/2024/09/03</a>
This was a fun one! It made more sense once I realized 7D was not "Frankenfurter's cry" Rocky Horror anyone?
@minna Yep, Rocky Horror, some weird movie with animorphic hot dogs, possible sports mascots, Oscar Mayer and his car, and general confusion ran through my mind for a minute before the "duh" moment. :) ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade
It was nice to have a puzzle without gimmicks.
I quite liked this puzzle, even though I had to look up several trivia clues (Emily's List was a huge mystery to me, but now I looked it up and will gladly remember it) and unknown words (e.g. peke which I ask about below). I was stumped by the NE corner, but I asked my wife for help and together we dealt with it quickly. Is peke a pekingese? I am always amazed by how common it is in English, and especially American English, to shorten words. Of course we sometimes do it in Polish, too, but much, much more rarely. A pekingese is always just... a pekingese (pekińczyk).
@Andrzej You are correct. A Peke is a Pekinese. A Labrador Retriever is a Lab. An emu is (unprintable).
@Andrzej I’ve said this before, but don’t underestimate the laziness that is an essential part of the Usonian character. Why waste breath on two or three syllables when one will do? I’ll bet Poland doesn’t have drive-thrus the way the USA does.
Although the slang "T MEN" is somewhat old-fashioned, it's still very much in use, and thus not really Crosswordese: two acquaintances whom I have met at the gym I work out at, and who work for the Treasury--one of whom is in his early thirties, and rather hip--have both described themselves as "T-men." *** TIL that I have been mistaken about the color "puce." I connect it with the phrase "Pomegranate and Puce," the High School team colors of Frostbite Falls, MN, as stated by noted ALUM Bullwinkle J. Moose. Somehow I always imagined a fulvous yellow, as so many schools have Crimson and Gold (or the like) as colors. Now I realize that Frostbite Falls is, in fact, a rather monochrome place. Although I know that "puce" is the French word for flea, I never connected it with the color. There is a small community NW of Windsor, ON, along the south shore of Lake St. Clair, which is named Puce (the dinner party I was at last night is not far from it). My guess is that the original settlers were harassed by sand-flies, hence the name. My partner informs my that until a few decades ago it was predominantly francophone. But by what demonym should we call the inhabitants--Pucites? Putians? Pukers?
@Bill I guess if you name your town "flea" you're already reconciled to it remaining tiny forever. Probably tiny and horrible.
@Bill Plus, mauve is more of a pastel tint, whereas PUCE is (frankly) uattractively dark--a brownish purple tone. Along with chartreuse, it's a color to avoid IMHO. I'm very opinionated this morning.
@Bill My great-uncle Howard was an actual bootlegger, running Canadian whiskey down to NYC, and I heard a few stories about dodging "revenuers" but never T MEN. But if that's what they call themselves, then that's jake with me. Fun story: there was quite a kerfuffle when I discovered Uncle Howard's pistols in my grandmother's cold cellar. Thankfully, they were not loaded. (I still have them, displayed in a shadowbox with a picture of him.)
This was a great puzzle, to the UMPTEENTH degree. My one big "qvorsk" (Deb, please copyright that!) was having put in STuNK instead of STANK, leaving me with the senseless IT_EANSULO_T___. I stared and stared at this qvorsk until the penny dropped, and I changed that "u" to "a." The rest was a perfect balance of smooth as silk, but still needing a thinking cap. I've got nothing but love for this puzzle. Thank you, Mr. Johnson!
@sotto voce I've often thought of using the rebus feature to put in multiple characters when there's a choice like this. Often I'll leave it blank knowing it is one or the other.
I had nth degree instead of UMPTEENTH at 18A, which threw me for quite a while. I was trying to put BIG PHARMA into 3D, but the H was in the wrong place... maddening. Anyway, what with all this talk of chickens, mashed potatoes, AREPAs, and EMPANADAs, I am craving breakfast. So long!
epi means “upon”, “on top of” hemera means “day”, “the day” when epi is prefixed to a word beginning with “h” (hard breathing), it elides to “eph-“ So ephemeral literally means “upon the day” / “for the day”. A day lily opens on a day, and closes forever after. It is “epi-hemeral”: ephemeral. If I don’t go for a walk when the cherries are in bloom, I miss their beauty - because it is ephemeral.
@David Connell Or there is Emerson's brief reflection on 'EPHEMERA'--the little clouds of tiny insects that dance and swirl and then die after mating... HS jr year 'American Literature'.... I was 16, but I guess it made an impression.
Hi, @David Connell Did you, perchance, click on the tinyurl link on my post, below? "About the woodlands I will go/ To see the emus hung with snow."
Bajo / Baja mean low or lower, Alto / Alta mean high or upper. As in Baja California / Alta California, provinces of New Spain. Alta California is now known as California and Nevada.
This one gave me a good workout! Filled in three fourths of the puzzle quite fast (for me), and then was stuck for a long time with the NE. Having never heard the word slider used to refer to a food item sort of stopped me cold. But eventually, I figured that out through just trying various combinations and then when 17A fell - I should have got this earlier, but somehow it took time - it all came together. This puzzle also had very few names and references that I have little chance of packing away in my subconscious given where I live, and so, I felt good I could solve this one with no lookups and sheer persistence! Yay.
A thoroughly enjoyable crossword! Some gimmes, some tricky clues, some smart wordplay, and the triple 15-letter words through the middle - this is to me is what a Friday crossword should feel like.
@Dhiren I agree. Challenging but not so much that one gets terribly frustrated.
This was one of those puzzles where I couldn't fill in the grid fast enough. Every answer came to me almost immediately, even the long ones. Am I brilliant? No, of course not. I credit deft cluing that slyly pointed me in the right direction. This was maybe my fastest Friday ever, which ordinarily would be kind of a bummer, because I look forward to the challenge, but today it was just a joy. Thanks for the fun.
The first pass through the 'across' clues netted me only END and SAAB and I knew this would be trouble. But a few breakthroughs later and it began to fall into place. Cracked 39A by some miracle and then I was on a roll. Super fun, challenging and satisfying puzzle.
Haven’t had much spare time lately, but had to take a minute to compliment this puzzle. WOW 🤩, just WOW! And in doing so, I was lucky enough to read the constructor’s notes—lovely. The world definitely needs more Donias today… Hope all is well with the Wordplay gang 😊.
That was fun. A scary amount of white space at first that slowly filled. Alpacas, like llamas also SPIT. It’s the best test to see if the female is pregnant; taken to the ‘offending’ male, she leaves him in no doubt that he did her wrong. My little herd are arriving next Spring, but they’re all girls so minimal spitting. Got SKA BANDS straight away; as ska and punk have a lot of crossover music I was introduced in my teens at illicit Blues parties. Wild, but oh the beat. 27A a gimme of course, but oddly so was 1D. No idea where I dredged that up from.
Ready for a drive, perhaps. I was thinking like a duffer, and had teed.
@Charles I had “teed” for a time also.
Re: 35D The 35th person to post a correction to the explanation in the column will win an emu. I PROMISE
A great example of what can be so satisfying about a classic Friday offering. More smart than clever, sturdy, a few laughs you think you might be sharing with the author and the casual becoming elegant.
35D - Bajo = LOW, Alto = HIGH as in altitude Not a musical reference
Phew! Some of those clues (like 5A) were absolutely diabolical! I don't know how so many people found this easy. I certainly didn't. I did enjoy it though, once I corrected all my wrong answers and was able to appreciate the clever misdirections. It was definitely a brain workout!
@Janine I didn't find it easy, as I needed eight 'cheats'. But it was a very fun puzzle.
I must have been IN THE ZONE. Answers just kept coming to me. Hopefully, no RAW NERVES were hit, and everyone will be happy today. Now I'll grab some SKA albums that I have ON CD, get in my car, pop one in the drive, and go.
@Nancy J. Let's see, I have The Specials and English Beat ON CD. Will that do? Mighty Mighty Bosstones perhaps?
Two clues made me laugh: 7D [Frankfurter’s cry] - My first thought was, “How do you spell that?” thinking Adrian was asking for the sound it makes when you microwave it a bit too long! My German ancestors would say, ACH, Cherry! 11D [Chicken or mashed potato] DANCE? Of course! I have done the chicken dance at nearly every family wedding I’ve been to! That’s one of my favorite clues of the year!
I found this pretty easy for a Friday, with the exception of the SW corner where ON CD as the answer to "ready for a drive" really threw me. So misleading -- and not in a good way. Let me ask: the music was on an LP or on an IPod and you transferred it to a CD so that it would now be "ready" to pop into your car's CD player? You get your songs "ready for a drive". do you? I quite disliked this clue. But the names were minimal, I'm happy to say, and I actually knew KATHY and IRENE. And DIANA, too, but not in that context. I know her as the Goddess of the Hunt but not as the Goddess of Childbirth. How interesting. Take note, JD Vance: We women don't have to abandon our careers to stay home and have babies and cater to our men; we can have it all. Remember -- hunting was a major career at one time in history. So DIANA really did it all! Nice clues for BUGLE; ALIAS; DANCE and ANT. Remind me never to have a piece of SODA BREAD (36D) as long as I live.
@Nancy CD's are played on a CD drive maybe?
@Nancy What Suzanne said....except that CDs and their drives have been outdated for quite some time. (How long has this puzzle been in the queue?)
@Nancy Yeah, ON CD was a "yeah, OK, whatever" moment for me. I left it, I eventually got the music, and I forgot about it. Still not sure what was intended there.
I have always loved words that suggest a mysterious impermanence. Evanescent is similar to ephemeral, but with shimmer. Ephemera has substance and can be touched, but has importance that is not meant to last. Libraries have collections of ephemera, but evanescence is like the aurora or mirages and cannot be captured. Evanescence is enchanting, but someone else's scrapbook of ephemera can conjure glimpses of experience that disappear even before they are seen. On to the Saturday puzzle.
@dutchiris EPHEMERA reminded me of evanescence, too. They’re both great words for the short-lived phenomena that help make life interesting.
I had YAP instead of YIP. A promise still made sense to me. I promise.
@Tracy K That did me in. No gold star today. Oh well. At least I know enough to use check puzzle after flailing around for 10 minutes with the grid filled in.
Really fun puzzle with lots of cleverly constructed clues
Note to self: Fridays and Saturdays require full focus. Other days can be fun to do while watching a game, or a show, (or a game show), but you can’t play around with a Friday. Gotta be IN THE ZONE. I thought this puzzle was going to be another killer, while I was watching the NFL opener with one eye, but it turned out to be a perfect Friday once I switched off and tuned in. Still tough (for me), but manageable. Thanks, Adrian Johnson!
@Striker That’s why God made halftimes. (Looks like another season of Chiefs winning thrillers.) !!!!
I was very concerned about what those female llamas might be doing for a few minutes. I wonder if Emus do it too?
@Joe Right? If only Rembrandt and Sargent had gone into hortrait art.
Late to the party. Nice puzzle but couldn't quite get this one. Just got stuck in a couple of places and didn't want to cheat. Three day losing streak. I don't recall that ever happening before. Probably have a decent chance at extending that streak tomorrow. Interesting puzzle find in a reply. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: A Sunday from October 15, 1972 by David A. Murray with the title: "History Lesson." Don't recall seeing another quite like this before. Theme clues and answers: Who : EDWARDTHEEIGHTH What : RENOUNCEDTHETHRONE When : NINETEENTHIRTYSIX Where : THEHOUSEOFCOMMONS Why : FORTHEWOMANHELOVED How : ACTOFABDICATION That's... pretty amazing. Must have been a tough one to solve. ..
@Rich in Atlanta I'm rooting for you for tomorrow!!
A note to the constructor: I loved reading your notes celebrating your friend Donia! Just as you hope that we find the Donias in our lives, I hope that all the Donias out there find the Adrians in their lives, who so beautifully see, appreciate, and cherish them! Cheers to you both!
Started with bigBANDS for 5A. [horns] (saxophones to us) are almost a defining feature of them. A rather sneaky misdirection.