To this big fan of the genre, the more common term MAGICAL REALISM feels more poetic and accurate. I’d never heard or seen it without the AL, but a search tells me it is out there. I get that it had to be the shorter version for the theme, but my eyes and inner ear don’t like it. It’s close, but…
@Amy G I felt the same way about TRAGIC COMIC as well - I’ve always heard that as a TRAGIC COMEDY
@Amy G I was going to make this comment too! I understand why they did it... They needed the R to be near the C to make the CIGAR letters, but I don't love it either. The author of this article says that MAGIC REALISM is better used to describe "paintings with fantasy or dream-like elements" rather than literature. <a href="https://www.liminalpages.com/what-is-magical-realism" target="_blank">https://www.liminalpages.com/what-is-magical-realism</a> But as you found, the use of "magic realism" is commonly used that way, so the clue isn't wrong. It just sounds clunky.
Another clue that might have fit: George Burns’ comedic partner: GRACIEALLEN
@Strudel Dad And, come to think of it, George Burns’ classic prop in his routines was a CIGAR!
Are 32A & 34D still true? Just asking...
@Lige EPA 😢😢😢 But Lincoln Center... is there something going on with that one I'm unaware of? You're not thinking of a Kennedy Center?
@Lige I was wondering the same thing…
@Lige Hanging by a thread, the EPA. Lincoln Center is still going strong (I’m assuming more privately supported but I could be wrong).
Congratulations on a solid NYT debut, Mr. Bykodorov! CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR is a phrase that has always amused me, and the theme answers you chose to incorporate the rearranged cigars are all interesting and well-known. I hope we’ll see you back soon!
Fitting to see Gabriel Garcia Marquez here, not only because Garcia is "A Cigar" but because Mario Vargas Llosa, the last of the great Boom epoch in Latin American literature that gave us magic realism, died a few days ago. Llosa, one of the great leaders of Peru (now under unstable corrupt leadership) and a great novelist, essayist, wrote his dissertation on 100 Years of Solitude. But in 1976, as Marquez was leaning more leftwards and Llosa more rightwards, a misunderstanding led to Llosa sucker-punching Marquez in the eye, which ended their friendship forever. Llosa, a womanizer, had fallen in love with a woman while on a cruise with his wife, and she had left to go back home, pack up their house and move out. Marquez (called Gabo by his friends) and his wife had helped her out. Guillermo Angulo recalled: "Look, Mario does like gorgeous women and he’s a very good-looking man. Women die for Mario. So Mario, on a trip he made by ship from Barcelona to El Callao, met a very beautiful woman. They fell in love. He left his wife & went off with her. And the marriage was over and all that. His wife went back to pack up the house, but of course Llosa returns, they make up, his wife says, “Don’t think I’m not attractive. Friends of yours like Gabo were after me … ” One day they met in a theater in Mexico City, and Gabo went toward him with open arms. Vargas Llosa made a fist and said, “For what you tried to do to my wife,” and knocked him to the ground."
@john ezra - maybe it’s just because of how much I love García Marquez’s writing and shrug over Llosa’s, let alone his absolutely messed-up politics, but this story is so awful. Llosa gets to ditch one woman he’s made vows with for a fling and expect the world to conform to his position. It’s obscene. Celebrating his punching out a friend for what exactly? I will never understand straight people.
@john ezra More real than magical?
Tough Tuesday. Never read any crime novels, but watched a bunch of film noir and was not familiar with the SLANG word TEC for detective
@Steven M. TEC is one of those answers they use a lot in these puzzles. Not as common as IRK or ADO, but still somewhat frequent.
@Steven M. That one hung me up, too, and I read a ton of Chandler-era detective novels in my youth. I’ve seen PI, gumshoe, sleuth, d*ck (modified in case of emu censors), but never TEC.
@Steven M. Coming from someone who's read every Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald book, I've never seen that term either 🤷
@Steven M. I also got stuck on TEC. Still don’t even know what it means…
@Steven M. TEC was a gimme for me, but not sure where I first ran across the word, many decades ago. Perhaps a crossword nerd could construct us a puzzle where ASTA is clued as a tec support dog.
@Steven M. D*ck, shamus, gumshoe, PI, bloodhound, Op, sleuth, Sherlock, flatfoot are all words I've heard of to refer to a private detective. TEC is a word that I've only seen in crossword puzzles, but I've seen it often enough that it's almost a gimme. It reminds me of the word ONER (clued as "something unique) that was popular in the NYT crossword a while back. Again, a word I've never seen anywhere else. I'm glad that the editors axed that one.
@Steven M. I'm familiar with TEC as an abbreviation of Detective Comics, so that one was a gimme. It pays to be a nerd. Let that be a lesson to you all.
@Steven M. It's the infrequency of such an odd, crossword-only abbreviation that has caused it to be stec in my mind. Like aglet et.al. Rare, but useful.
This is a sweet theme. CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR has been used as a theme several times before in the major crossword outlets, but never like this. Furthermore, the theme brought three NYT answer debuts, lovely additions to the oeuvre – CHERRY GARCIA, MAGIC REALISM, and TRAGICOMIC. Spark and originality … Per-fect! Serendipitously, many answers fell into a trio of baskets: • Long O enders: BOHO, NARCO, YESNO, GATO, MIRACLE GRO. • Schwa starters: AKIN, ALIKE, APPEAR, ASEA, ALARM. • IC enders: TRAGICOMIC, MAGIC, BASIC, PHOTOGENIC I struggle with the skill of leaving the revealer out and trying to guess it – not even reading its clue – from the theme answers. Thus, in an effort to improve, I try to do it as often as I can, even though usually falling short. But today I got it! I got it! So, I leave this puzzle with a breath of hope, and thank you for that, Per. Thank you also for your terrific entertaining theme. And congratulations on your NYT debut puzzle!
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar ...
@RichardZ Reminds me of the Groucho Marx quip from his quiz show, You Bet Your Life, which somehow got past the censors. A contestant was telling Groucho about his extremely large family, and Groucho asked him something along the lines of how that came to be, and the man said, "I love my wife." To which Groucho replied, "I love my CIGAR, but sometimes I take it out of my mouth."
@RichardZ And a murse is really a purse.
@Sam -- Loved your visual pun photo to go with the title. You have made the column's photo an art form, and I look forward to it every day.
@Lewis @Sam Me, too, love Sam's approach.
@Linda Jo @Lewis aw thank you !! Love knowing that part of the column has an audience, heh heh 🤓
Fun trivia: UTC doesn't stand for anything. In English, it'd be CUT: coordinated universal time. In French, it'd be TUC: temps universel coordonné. The "compromise" between English and French speakers on the groups that formed it was no one wins and we use an acronym that isn't short for anything.
@BenHead Except...that its based on 0 longitude in Greenwich England....I mean...someone won.
I tried a different letter than an R at the crossing of MIRACLE G_O AND LIT C_IT. MIRACLE GLO looked plausible 🤪 I learned the phrase CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR at the time when the Clinton/Lewinsky affair was on the news daily, which - combined with the cigar theme of the grid - may explain why my subconscious went for that L there. The theme was great and I enjoyed the puzzle. I had to work hard on some of the more American entries but in the end I found them all doable 🙂. BTW, I learned the origins of the theme phrase very late - only two or three years ago in fact. Before I just sort of assumed it was an adult reference 🤣
@Andrzej LIT CRIT, as you probably know by now, is short for "literary criticism". If you do a search in which you replace the R in CRIT with an L, I'm afraid to know what you might find.
The translation for feline is felino, gato would be cat. All gatos are felinos but not all felinos are gatos.
@AT I don't speak Spanish but I'm sure you're right. Then again, I've seen feline very often used in English as a sort of reverse-cutesy term for just a cat, so I think the clue works - as a clue, not dictionary entry. Interestingly (or not), Polish does not have the noun equivalent of feline. For us a cat is "kot", be it a lion or housecat. The catty adjective is "koci", which derives from "kot."
@AT And that's how crossword clues work. As long as the clue points you in the direction of the answer, there does not have to be 100% overlap. In fact, if a cat is a feline, which of course it is, cluing CAT with [Feline] is fine.
I liked it. I found it easy, even for a Tuesday, but it was well put together with an excellent theme. One can pick some nits with the accuracy of some clues but the overall package was very well worked.
@Jon Mark When solving, I didn't see anything worth picking a nit over, so when you say that some of the clues had an issue with accuracy, I'm wondering, which ones didn't you like, and why? In other words, it would be better if, when you make a statement like that, you offered some examples of what you thought was amiss.
The good week continues with this fun Tuesday puzzle.
Am I the only one confused by the inclusion of "razor" for a murse? What?? Who carries a razor around with them lol? I think they're confusing it with a dop kit. Anyway. Good puzzle.
@Sean I'd guess that "razor" is meant to indicate (somehow) that the owner is a man. Not sure I know any men who'd carry around a razor in their bag (presumably for shaving on to go?).
For some reason "dum-dum" made me think of the Law and Order sound effect so it stumped me for a bit. Sometimes I'm kind of a dum-dum myself lol
ALEPH and ENOCH is a tough crossing for a Tuesday.
Really? Even if you didn't know either word, what other last letter did you consider for the crossing?
I’m a big fan of puzzles I can complete in 2/3 my average time, not get stumped once, yet keep me entertained, plus a clever theme. I always thought the theme answer originated with Groucho Marx. I swear I can picture him saying it, with bouncing eyebrows and the cigar in his mouth. But the old time carnival idea makes sense. Anyway, very nice debut Mr. Bykodorov- congrats!
Give that man a CIGAR. A thoroughly enjoyable Tuesday grid that gave me a couple of nostalgia moments (cue wavy picture). AJAX powder. One of my jobs as a kid was to clean my Gran’s scullery once a week, that product was her preferred agent. I hated the smell, plus it ruined my hands. I wasn’t allowed anything as namby-pamby as rubber gloves. A better memory; Bjorn BORG at Wimbledon. Be still my beating teenage heart. More used to seeing TRAGICOMIC, but the phrase worked well for the theme, so no grouch here. TIL LUNK, a new one on me.
@Helen Wright “Lunk” was new for me, too. We have a rather large contingent of them tanking our country right now…
@Helen Wright I remember AJAX well, and VIM powder. We used it to clean the bath, sinks etc. Available 'vintage' tins on eBay!
Fantastic debut! Little old-people partying last night. This was a fresh, painless aspirin to help my eyes open and start the day! I’m too old for this… Thank you Per! Happy Tuesday all!
What a fun puzzle. Clever, misleading clues and a nice theme -- just the right level for a Tuesday. (I managed to solve it while half-asleep.) More like this, please! And yes, give that constructor a CIGAR!
I have a confession to make. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" have something in common for me. I tried to read both of them, *and didn't get past the first paragraph*. I don't know what it is. I have been a voracious reader, but something about the word density in those two paragraphs were just jungles too thick for me. Anyway, I always get a little sheepish whenever those masterpieces come up.
@Francis So what? I haven't read most masterpieces. Do I look like I care? You're great and don't let any snob tell you otherwise.
I trust you'll see yourself out, Francis! Har! But seriously, folks, I completely second the opinions of Andrzej. Based on his hand shown in his profile picture, he definitely doesn't look like he cares. 😉 Anyhow, life is way too short—and there are way too many great books—to persist in ones that are that immediately unlikeable, even if they're supposed to be great!
@Francis, I'm also a voracious reader, and I think all readers meet their Waterloo with certain books. I LOVE Ian McEwan, but could not read past the first page of Atonement when I first picked it up. Years passed, and my book group selected it, so I gave I another go. I couldn't put it down. Go figure! I prefer Love in the Time of Cholera to Solitude, but I do love both, as well as his short stories. As for Heart of Darkness, I'm a huge fan. No accounting for what speaks to us in literature; I'm sure some of your favorites are on my "enemies" list! I'm currently reading the newest Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dream Count. You?
Hey! Where'd the othe GIJOE go? Congatulations Per. Fun debut.
@Whoa Nellie Egad - phone update knocked out spell-checking hamster, requiring manual reset. Apologies.
My first task as a budding Behavior Scientist was to track the expansion of LA street gangs. It was then I learned NARCOs sold drugs and narcs were DEA agents. The term of art, for narcs, at that time was 5-0. I feel it is important that those of use with arcane and specific knowledge shame constructors. Thank you Per. A pleasant Tuesday.... and rebus free
@dk I think that use of 5-0 came from the TV show Hawaii 5-0, and it has been used as slang to refer to law enforcement in general.
@dk I don't know about LA, but NARCOterrorists is a term applied to the drug cartels, hence NARCOS for short. Also, it was a Netflix show about Pablo Escobar and his ilk. When I was younger, a "narc" was someone who told a teacher you had cigarettes in your locker.
I could tell you what I think of this puzzle, but MUM's the word. Okay, okay you got it out of me... I found it a fun and enjoyable one with a solid theme. SGTS crossing GIJOE is fun. I don't remember the marketing for GI Joe dolls, but it is kind of funny to market them as America's movable fighting man... As if there are some fighting men who aren't movable. Guess it sounded better than America's movable fighting doll.🤔 Anyhow, the main thing I wanted to put out here is a plea for those wiser and more experienced in the ways of crosswords than I am to 'splain me this: I just finished a puzzle from November 23, 1993 and 25A "Tak's opposite" solved to GIE. I got it through crosses but have no idea what it means.
@HeathieJ Give and take, in Scottish dialect.
Not sure if I didn’t get the theme (and some of the clues) because I’m Gen Z, or because I’m not American … maybe both? Though I can understand why those who were already familiar with the phrase CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR would be pleasantly amused by it! Loved SITE for sore eyes… haha :)
Delightful debut! It’s lovely when an early week puzzle can combine such diverse entries into such an engaging and cohesive theme. But then, I never could resist Cherry Garcia!
CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR was something we used to say all the time back in high school some years ago. I never paused to think about the origin of the phrase. Thanks, Sam, for your amusing (yet reasonable) explanation. It's nice to think that, once upon a time, the prizes at a carnival's midway were for the (unsavory) pleasures of the player.
DHubby is a fan of certain Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavors--especially CHERRY GARCIA. I myself am a devotee of Chunky Monkey (banana and dark chocolate) but only indulge if I feel up to the "cost" (and I don't mean money.) I recently gave up the tablespoon of cream in my coffee because even that was "intolerable." Phooey! However, Per Bykodorov has cheered me up slightly with this interesting debut. I was happy to see FOUR themers plus Reveal--a saying I use quite often. (Scene: anywhere--waitinng room, park bench, auditorium... Geezer hoping to strike up an acquaintance: "Is that there some of that crow-shayin'?" MOL: "CBNC...this is called 'needle tatting.' Repeat endlessly. I really don't want to go back to knitting or crochet....) DHubster disagrees with "Goddess of Pop" for CHER. I don't see how "The Night they drove Ole Dixie down" is Pop, either.
@Mean Old Lady Another vote for Cherry Garcia.
Unsolicited opinion: MAGIC REALISM is to fantasy as "graphic novel" is to comic books. It's fantasy for people who are too afraid to admit they read fantasy. It puts on airs. It's simply too intelligent to read genre fiction, but admits that sometimes a talking mongoose makes a good plot device. I am on a one-person crusade to eliminate the term MAGIC REALISM and brand everything fantastical as fantasy. Join me. Be the change.
@Katie I'm afraid we have more serious issues to address just now...but good luck with that. I'm more of a non-fiction person (as a reader and also as a writer.)
@Katie Is not all fiction fantasy? Some non-fiction is, too. Also, most of what is billed as sci-fi is actually fantasy. Discuss.
@Andrzej If someone can’t decide whether to read Fantasy or SciFi, the Onion News satirical newspaper recommends, ’Space Wizards’.
Isn’t the usual usage “magicAL realism”?
@Katherine Powell Cohen That is the most common term, although “magic realism” is still sometimes used.
On TEC: First citation in my old OED is from 1879. A search of the complete works of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler turns up no examples of "'tec". It does appear several times in Dorothy L. Sayers's oeuvre, however, usually in reported speech from less well-educated characters.
The term is magicAL realism. I got it right off except it didn't fit. Using magicrealism bothers me.
I hope you will scroll down and read the comments. Perhaps you will be less bothered after doing so. Perhaps not.
@Matt Silberstein There's a whole book about this! "Magic(al) Realism" by Maggie Ann Bowers. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/791134.Magic_al_Realism" target="_blank">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/791134.Magic_al_Realism</a>
My usual late puzzle find - quite amazing: A Sunday from August 9, 2009 by Patrick Blindauer and Andrea Carla Michaels with the title: "Made for tv-movies." Five 23 letter grid-spanning theme answers all appearing for the first and only time: "Dirt-dishing lass who's been cut off?" GOSSIPGIRLINTERRUPTED "Dad is familiar with top Broadway star?" FATHERKNOWSBESTINSHOW "Actor Joel's crime scene analysis?" GREYSANATOMYOFAMURDER "One-quarter of a mourning lacrosse team?" TWOANDAHALFMENINBLACK "Hollywood hanky-panky?" SEXANDTHECITYOFANGELS That's just amazing to come up with all of those as grid-spanning entries. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/9/2009" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/9/2009</a> ...
Clever debut. We use that phrase CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR so often. The most recent example of MAGIC REALISM I recall was the tv show Jane the Virgin. One of the leads, Justin Baldoni has been in the news for trying to bring down Blake Lively. I will never understand that mind set of trying to bring others down to lift up oneself.
beautiful puzzle solid debut too congrats!
Tough Tuesday for me. Worked out the reveal from the crosses fairly early but was still baffled for a while. Finally figured out what was going on and managed to work it all out. Pretty clever theme. Very unusual puzzle finds today. I'll put that in a reply. ...
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened. Never seen this before. Two puzzles - One a Thursday from July 6, 2000 by Patrick Berry. And the other one a Tuesday from July 19, 2005 by Trip Payne. Four theme answers in both of them and exactly the same theme answers, and in the same order top to bottom in both puzzles. Doesn't seem like that could be a coincidence. Somewhat surprised that editors didn't notice that. Anyway - those theme answers: WINSOMELOSESOME GOODCOPBADCOP HESAIDSHESAID ONAGAINOFFAGAIN Here are the Xword Info links: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/19/2005&g=20&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/19/2005&g=20&d=A</a> <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/6/2000&g=17&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/6/2000&g=17&d=A</a> I'm done. ....
A Tuesday appropriate level of difficulty with a theme I never got. But fun nonetheless. One Down was great with the clue seemingly referring to the month, but instead close order drill. It brought a smile to my face thinking of those days so many years ago that our platoon sergeants/squad leaders called out cadence as we marched. Maybe not the most enjoyable part of my life, but formative.
@Ken S So that what it means! I assumed an obscure baseball term.
@redweather I know! I've also heard male nurses referred to as murses, which is even more sickening. A purse is a purse, and a nurse is a nurse.
Good lord, that was hard for a Tuesday. SE corner was brutal.
Thanks to the comments section for the idea of only looking at the down clues. I didn't quite manage it on my first try (the fertilizer did for me until I looked at some across clues) but it makes the easy Mon or Tue solve a lot more interesting
Fun puzzle, though 9D threw me for a loop. I’ve never seen a private eye referred to as a TEC before.
A smokin' Tuesday! Theme made me chuckle. Grazie Per!
Great theme and very well done besides 37 down (it’s just another painful reminder), but overall I enjoyed how the letters were mixed up. It gave me a great reminder of Pink Floyd with having a cigar! Hopefully my fellow NYTers are having a Terrific Tuesday and hope you all have a happy holiday if you participate as well, Namaste!!
A FRATernity is an organization, not a location. That would be a house, and yes, I played beer pong in one, when I wasn't solving crossword puzzles. I'm guessing our constructor was not a brother.
@Grant - I think it is totally reasonable to use FRAT in this instance. It’s a common usage to refer to the building as a “frat” and leave off the “house”. It is also common to find current and former fraternity brothers complaining about the ubiquity of the term “frat” and how they might like the term to be used differently.
@Grant Currently I have two fratty boys in college although neither is an actual brother (yet). They definitely refer to both the organization and location as FRATs.
On MAGIC REALISM: I've never knowingly registered "magicAL realism" until I dropped into the Comments today---it has always been "magic realism" for me. Google Ngram shows both phrases as equally common, in both British and American English, until about 2000---then "magical realism" takes off, and "magic realism" slumps. I wonder what caused the sudden divergence?
@Oikofuge Oh that’s so interesting!! I’d only ever heard “magical realism.” I wonder if it’s now the favored form because it has a more natural cadence (both three syllables and dactylic)…? I can’t think of any formal reason why, though, so much as language change doing its thing 💁♀️
@Oikofuge I'm not an expert in English grammar. How can it be that both version work? Because they do, don't they? I wonder because in Polish the only way to say magic(al) realism is "realizm magiczny" - "magiczny" is the only adjective deriving from the noun "magia" (magic), and nothing other than an adjective, and this particular adjective at that, would work. Are both magic and magical adjectives? Or is magic here a noun but it still works as a pair for realism? I would appreciate a grammatically-informed explanation. Just for lulz though, so no worries - I'll be fine if this gets ignored :D
This was a fun puzzle or me. I liked the theme and it even helped me enter a letter or two. My time was just under 15m, so about par for a Tuesday for me. I, like some others here, found "magic" rather than "magical" to be a bit much, but not only is this the crosswords, but it appears that that use has some history.