OK, how many of you had POIROT before MARPLE? How about FOOTBALL players before BASEBALL players? How about GREEN elements and NIM BAP? How many of you thought that the Brontë sisters used the toilet more frequently than the brothers Grimm because they had DIURESIS? How many of you thought, "Nah, it's LA Mancha, like, it's not 'Man of Mancha' bruh." Dude. You rock (band) my world!
@john ezra "La" is in the MANCHA clue. As for the others, I had none of the missteps because I already had enough letters for each of them. I wouldn't have expected GREEN in the answer after it had been featured prominently in the previous theme clue.
@john ezra I had greeb before Green before Greek mainly because I love bibimbap and that’s where my brain went first. I had the le of Marple so didn’t get caught there. And had the s in baseball before getting the whole clue.
@john ezra, I had POIROT before MARPLE, and CUSPID before CANINE
@john ezra As ever, enjoy your observations. Too funny! Imagine the constant rustling of petticoats. (and there I was wuthering if I was the only one 😉)
@Mark Abe The only thing I can cop to is POIROT before MARPLE. I also had GOON for Grunt before PEON, AUTO before AMER and BRAH before BRUH. To be honest I found the bottom half to be somewhat crunchy for a Tuesday
@john ezra I only missed the Poirot/Marple issue because I do acrosses before downs (at least first pass) and so had _A__L_. I'd left 64A as A__, so didn't have the last letter, but that was enough. Otherwise I may have...
@john ezra I got KIM BAP immediately. There was a restaurant near my work that would serve bibim bap every Friday. There was always a huge line for it. But for some reason, they stopped serving it. There was almost a riot. People wanted that bibim bap. "You can still get KIM BAP every day!" they told us. It's not the same, dang it!
@john ezra Yes I had POIROT before MARPLE and GREEN before GREEK, which I got when I finally figured out “Lay” was SECULAR. Good fun for a Tuesday! Thanks, Alex. And @Sam: Yes to Weird Al. I loved his movie. I think saw it twice. My favorite is “Tacky(on the ‘Happy’ video by Pharrell Williams)” but there are so many good ones!
Nice Natick with IDINA crossing KIMBAP. Oh the possibilities between proper names and foreign words are amazingly endless.
@Kevin I had trouble with that section, too. I knew Idina, but not the food. I had "green elements" for "GREEK ELEMENTS". There's no way I would have gotten that without the Wordplay answer! Toughened Tuesday, indeed!
@Kevin came here to say this, happy I wasn’t the only one.
@Kevin That was a horribly natick-y section.
I got stuck in that area too. Initially also had GREEn, but then could not figure how fire could be a green anything (literally or metaphorically), so it had to be something else. BIG didn’t occur to me straight away as “massive” feels bigger than plain ol’ BIG. GAS UP is not in my idiolect as per my earlier comment (even though of course I know that you USians put “gas” in your cars)
@Kevin I think I can guess, but what is a “Natick”? And where does the word come from? And why is it capitalized? Been wondering…
@Kevin It’s funny because in theory I am all for making Monday-Wednesday harder. But then when I find myself running the alphabet on _imbap and di_resis it’s like someone stole my first born child. TODAY IS TUESDAY I think to myself. Am I really going to lose my close to a year streak on a Tuesday? Thankfully not this week.
Loved this puzzle! I didn't know what to expect when I saw Red Hot Chili Peppers and was nicely surprised. All the themers made me smile, but especially Earth, Wind & Fire, not just for the answer, but also for the memory it evoked. That was the first big arena concert I ever went to, aged 13. My oldest brother was kind enough to let me tag along, and persuasive enough to convince my parents that he would watch over me. Well, he almost had a heart attack when at one point he looked toward my seat and saw I was gone. I needed to use the restroom and simply got up and went to find one, without it ever crossing my mind that I should let him know. (Oh boy, did I get chewed out.) It was an outstanding get-up-and-dance kind of concert, and everyone was on their feet, especially for this: <a href="https://youtu.be/r58GQYFZeLE?si=-4cQYVLSL6nmeGYQ" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/r58GQYFZeLE?si=-4cQYVLSL6nmeGYQ</a> But i digress. Thank you, Mr. Eaton-Salners for a very fun and imaginative theme, and for fill that was interesting enough to make it a Terrific Tuesday!
@sotto voce A visually evocative digression! Thank you for linking a great auditory accompaniment!
For our foreign and non-sports solvers: The San Francisco Giants are a professional baseball team in the National League of Major League Baseball. The New York Giants are a professional football team in the NFL. That's why Sam said, "Go west, not east." (The baseball team originally played in New York as well.)
My favorite theme clue was [They Might Be Giants] because it was the least direct and it made me smile. It sent me on a lovely rabbit hole, as I wondered about how that band came up with the name. Turns out it came from a 1971 film with the same name and that the film got the name from a Don Quixote passage about how Quixote mistook windmills for evil giants. (Wikipedia). (Hi, @Bill!) Maybe the best part of the Wikipedia piece was that there is a book about how many famous bands got their names, and its title is “Rock Formations”! As for the puzzle, after I got two of the theme answers, there was great fun in guessing the remaining two. I also liked DIERESIS crossing GREEK as the former comes from the latter. It was poignant to see the lowly PEON in the bottom row. And every name in the puzzle was of someone who turns my thumb up. This puzzle, BTW, is brought to you by noun-or-verb clues: [Converse], [Fill at a station], [Grunt], [Anger]. Your puzzle, Alex, got me smiling and exploring in addition to solving. What a splendid outing! Thank you!
I didn't get the happy music when I finished, so I was sure I had messed up in the section with DIERESIS and KIMBAP, as those words looked so odd to me.... but nope, I had "mecular" instead of SECULAR, oops! A little trickier than I'm used to for a Tuesday, but surprisingly I was almost 5 min under my average Tues time. A speedy solve that actually challenged me at the same time? Perfection!
Smashing Punpkins: post-Halloween fun? My Chemical Romance: pheromones? Panic! at the Disco: fire alarm?
@Isabeau The first two especially are top drawer. I was trying to think of one for Rolling Stones and all I could come up with was...avalanche (meh!). I guess when the Red Hot Chile Peppers eat Carolina Reapers they get Flaming Lips, though...
@Isabeau The last of your pairs is a little too close to reality with all the tragic news stories over the years, including the recent Dominican concert.
@Isabeau Soundgarden? AMPHITHEATRE Oasis? RESORTHOTEL Loverboy? MARCANTONY
@Isabeau Jethro Tull AGRICULTRIST
John Travolta will have a hard time completing this puzzle (60A)
@Heidi What’s the statute of limitations on first degree name butchering?
@Heidi Aye-aye, Capt. Stubing! Gopher [saluting]
AMER, BRUH, BLAM, LGA, SAO, YUP, MARPLE... Too many pretend words and obscure proper nouns sapped the fun out of this puzzle.
@MFSTEVE The only one that I had trouble with was BLAM. I wanted whAM.
@MFSTEVE agreed. This was no doubt the most difficult corner
@MFSTEVE Obscure? Since when is Agatha Christie’s most well- known character obscure?
GASUP at an ESSO, TEXACO, SHELL, MOBIL . . . Brands, exciting and new! Come aboard, our QTIPS are new Brands, solver's sweetest reward. Let the Oatly flow, with Oreos for you. The Brand grid soon will be making another run the Brand grid irritates solvers from distant suns. Stow your ALFA ROMEO, slide into your hot DIESEL pants And Brands won't hurt anymore It's like SARALEE at an IKEA store! The Brand grid soon will be making another run The Brand grid promises FROYO for everyone Set a course with your GARMIN, Don't forget the MEOWMIX for your cats. Brands won't hurt anymore. An ORALB smile from a HILTON door. it's Brands! it's Brands! it's Brands! it's the Brand grid-ah! Welcome abiard it's Brands, Brands, Brands!
@Whoa Nellie Aye-aye, Capt. Stubing. Gopher [saluting] (Sigh. The emus displaced my reply to Heidi's note about John Travolta. I don't know why...)
@Whoa Nellie Madonna likes MOBIL-e, She drives her Chevrolet. She don't like AMOCO, She don't like TEXACO...
My Cubbies are down in the first, but inning isn't everything. (But you bat I'm still having a ball.)
@Mike Watch for baseless, indefence-able hits, which often lead to fanciful airers.
@Mike That's a swing and a miss. But don't worry... You'll master the bat son.
@Mike You seem to have dugout a niche for yourself. (I almost balked at saying that.)
@Mike Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical. -Yogi Berra Somebody had to.
Sam, AMER has been used as an answer 222 times, of which 58 have been in the Modern Era. Of those latter occurrences, every one has been as an abbreviation for America(n). Prior to that, it was only nearly all of of the time, with a very occasional clue referring to the French word for bitter or bitters. Hardly unusual.
@Eddie Just in case you missed this comment from Warren in Malta which appeared late in the Saturday comments: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/470684?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/470684?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a>
@Hardroch whoh this makes me want to challenge "Warren from Malta" to a cross-off! The gauntlet has been thrown!
Band names as clues? Now that was fun, and added another little spark to a Tuesday puzzle.
It's been over 60 years, and yet, whenever I hear the word "MINUET", my mind flashes to the theme song from "The Patty Duke Show": "...where Cathy adores the minuet, the Ballet Russe, and crêpes Suzette, our Patty loves her rock 'n' roll; a hot dog makes her lose control..." I suspect that it was in this lyric that I first heard about the Ballet Russe and crêpes Suzette, but it's the thought of Patty losing control over the hot dog that makes this line so memorable.
Years later, I wondered whether Dr. Freud would have something to say about our Patty's hot dog obsession.
What nearly derailed me was persisting in spelling DIARESIS/DIAERESIS/whatever with an A, and having eaten GIMBAP at lunch today, as my local Korean restaurant spells it. But I started out well by figuring out CAROLINA REAPERS immediately, so that made me feel better.
@Liz B DIAERESIS is one of many words that dropped half of a diphthong AE on its way across the Atlantic. Think hAEmorrhage, pAEdiatric, etc. Commonly found in fields with large chunks of vocabulary borrowed from classical Greek or Latin, such as grammar, medicine or the arts. PS Enjoying a rare opportunity to use diphthong. Diphthong, diphthong, diphthong!
@Liz B Yes! Toward the end when I had GRaEg ELEMENTS I knew something was wrong. It wasn't until I erased the A that the obvious GREEK emerged.
I'll also mention that I was surprised that for [Green Day], Alex went with SAINT PATRICKS and not an Earth Day answer (not Arbor Day, as his notes say). Happy Earth Day, all!
@Steve L Ha ha. It was another kind of green day today too. Our local dispensary celebrated with a 30% off sale.
@Steve L Green Day solving to St Partricks emphasizes the green, and was the revealer for me. Carolina reaper I had to get on crosses, as I am not familiar with it.
@Steve L That would have been nice, but it'd be hard to pull that off without duplicating DAY.
I implore anyone that found KIMBAP a difficult entry to try some: especially with some bulgogi, thinly sliced marinated beef. A great snack, and who knows, it might show up in a future puzzle :-)
@annalise I had BIMBAP for a while. Not "up on" Korean food, obviously.
@annalise my Korean sister-in-law introduced our family to kimbap. Yum!
Really, "dieresis" on a Tuesday? TIL a new word. by tomorrow, it will be forgotten, as it's never one I'll need. I got it from the crossings and then looked up what it meant.
@Cal Gal Should've been an umlaut. Constructor doesn't know the difference between dieresis and umlaut.
I spent too much time trying to understand why the two dots in Brontë are a dieresis and not an umlaut and why it is there, given that the family was of Irish roots. Here's what Wikipedia has to say: At some point, Patrick Brontë (born Brunty), the sisters' father, decided on the alternative spelling with the diaeresis over the terminal ⟨e⟩ to indicate that the name has two syllables.
Another good puzzle. A little more difficult for me than usual for a Tuesday. Enjoyed the them. Thanks!
Me, staring at GREaKELEMENTS (because "diaeresis" didn't fit so I guessed at diaresis) -- "something isn't right here. ACH." Then I had some FROYO, HUGged an ELECTEE, and GASsed UP my brain a bit. Well, no, none of that, just a bowl of ice cream and some glaring. Love having FROYO right above LOVER ... same here...
I did not love this one because of the entire bottom third--no single egregious moment, but just a lot of not-so-hot-ones hanging out together and throwing themselves a mediocrity bash. BRUH/BLAM almost requires crosses to resolve, as does AMER. MARPLE was obscure to me (the only Agatha Christie detective I could come up with was POIROT), although I am sure a gimme for many. Add in yet another "how do you spell IDINA?" moment. Why not? ADA seemed to me like crossword garbage compounded by a not great clue. KIMBAP is obscure. DIERESIS and SECULAR--okay, but not improved by the muddy crosses. Unless I am missing something, the worst offender here is GREEK ELEMENTS, though. Was WATER like the Stu Sutcliffe or Pete Best of EWF?
@Elon Miss Marple is hardly obscure but I agree with the rest of the muddiness!
@Elon Give me a Miss MARPLE any day over the silly Poirot. If you like Agatha Christie in plays and movies, your Public TV channel should have plenty of both detectives to explore. Also, Lucy Worsley, on the same channel does a lot of "behind the scenes" programs that include Agatha Christie, and they are marvelous.
Another breezy grid. This week is shaping up to be a good one, crossword wise at least. Let’s forget about everything else shall we? Ah the Brontës; scourge of a million forced school trips to nearby Haworth. Love the books, sick to death of the forced study. Also, I bizarrely wanted to write diacritic! Is it me or does anyone else shudder at the term BRUH? Such a horrible sound. YMMV.
@Helen Wright, I forbid my third grade students to use "bruh" or "bro" or any variant thereof, in my classroom. And text speak is roundly discouraged!
@Helen Wright My young adult sons say “bruh” and I swear half their utterances are intended specifically to trigger me.
@Susan E I’m afraid language is changing no matter how much we hate it…
@Helen Wright In my experience, BRUH, usually two syllabus buh-RUH, is used to express mild display - equivalent to "drat" in previous generations. It is not used (by my students at least; your regionalisms may vary) equivalently with BRO, a term of friendship among young men.
That SW corner... Abbreviation clued with a brand (just... No), a proper name, a Korean dish, a name of a diacricitc mark I've never seen before - all entangled. And why *GREEK* ELEMENTS specifically? I just Googled if the band wasn't from Greece - well, no. I'm obviously missing something here. I got out of this bind only by googling the actor. It's a pity how this area of the grid spoiled my enjoyment of the whole thing - the theme was nice, the fill easy (maybe a bit too easy even).
@Andrzej classic elements in philosophy apparently… Greek Fire I know of from alchemy references is film and games but yeah, weird one.
@Andrzej Look up "Classical elements" in Wikipedia.
This section flummoxed me as well. The thought of losing my streak to a Tuesday was pretty distressing. So after a night’s sleep I returned to the puzzle, found the one extra error on the grid (BRUH not BRAH. Dude!) and then ran the alphabet and brute forced my way to a gold star and glory.
Once again, it would be helpful to have this looked over by someone who is familiar with slang and modern vernacular BRUH for "Dude!" does not make any sense
@Matt It was a gimme. I've seen BRUH a zillion times in memes.
@Matt tell me you’re old without telling me you’re old ;-)
@Matt I knew it would be Brah or the like but didn’t think of Bruh. Missed opportunity in my mind for a longer answer of Excellent!
Sure it does. And this is coming from someone who most would consider old. What's your objection?
Yeah, seems like I can seamlessly substitute "bruh" and "dude" in most sentences I can think of. (??)
Fun theme. Am I the only one who hears a phrase and thinks, “that’d be a great name for a band”? Chickadees look like bandit birds. Ooh! The Bandit Birds! I want my pizza cheese to be almost liquid. Ooh! Liquid Cheese! They’re never *good* and I’ve long since grown way too old to be in a band, and have *never* had the talent, so… Just me? You guys wanna start a band? The Crucivibers? The Word Nerds? Anyone..? Nice one Alex! Happy Tuesday all!
@CCNY True story: I went to see Red Hot Chili Peppers when I was in college, and there were two opening acts that I had never heard of, and they had most unusual names. Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins.
@CCNY My son is a rock drummer. When he was in high school, we had fun at dinner coming up with names for heavy metal bands. Unfortunately, I can't remember any of them. I did mention to him my surprise at seeing a lengthy article in the Times Arts section recently about the 40th anniversary tour of Mayhem, who I knew for their suicide, murder, and church-burning days. I guess things have changed.
What a great puzzle! Full of geography I knew, actors I didn't, and short fill which could have been drawn from a text book on logic or computer programming--ORS, NOT, MUSTS. I'm all with you Sam--if you're going to be pretentious enough to use those two dots, you should at least spell is "diaeresis," if not "diæresis." (That's ALT R-Z, if you care.) Two puzzle pairs, by coïncidence (OR NOT): From the wikipedia article on MINUET: "The name may refer to the short steps, pas MENUs, taken in the dance" (Hey! I just used [CTRL-V]!) MANCHA crossing [They Might Be Giants]--the band took its name from that of a 1971 film starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward, itself a reference to the windmill scene in Don Quixote de la Mancha! With a history of over 500 years, the Minuet has one of the longest staying power of any musical form, and there are thousands to choose from--the "Minuetto al Roverso" form the Haydn Symphony #47? Those slurs in Ravel's, from *Le Tombeau de Couperin*? Here's an English one, with *pas de menus* performed by an old friend from Cleveland: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-yoJfuysCc" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-yoJfuysCc</a> Finally, here's a song by a fave band, [Barker, Odenkirk, and others], appropriate to the day: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ82EfFCyXg" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ82EfFCyXg</a> Happy Earth Day, everyone!
Any puzzle with a Kit KAT Bar in it is okay by me. I thought the themers were fun. Thanks for a nicely Toughened Up Tuesday, Alex.
The NYT Crossword keeps on using the wrong term for an “SNL segment”. The word is not SKIT, but rather SKETCH. Sheesh!
@Keith - they've been doing this forever. It bothers me too!!!
@Keith it’s clearly edited by someone’s grandpa from the 1950s…
Dieresis threw me off, but I got the themed entries very quickly. Nice Tuesday puzzle
Didn't know the Korean sushi rolls. I've never seen "Frozen," and probably never will. I saw "Giants" in the crossword of a New York newspaper and assumed football. FAT followed in the southwest corner. I thoght, somehow, that GREEnELEMENTS was correct (Earth day and all, I guess). I was about to be defeated by a Tursday puzzle. But...Crest ads were drilled into my long-term memory at an early age, so I can tell you, without looking it up, that "Crest has been shown to be an effective decay preventive dentifrice which can be of significant value when used in a conscientiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care," and that the quote came from some journal associated with the American Dental Association. So ADA went in, footBALL became BASEBALL, I had enough quotes to see DIERESIS, and the rest filled in immediately. The smell and taste of Crest toothpaste brings back vivid memories of a miserable childhood, though, and I never touch the stuff.
@Bruce I also have that Crest paragraph firmly embedded in my brain, along with the notice in NYC subway cars - in Spanish - from the '60s (and maybe still today, though I haven't been in NY or on the subway in decades). "La vía del tren subterráneo es peligrosa. Si el tren se para entre las estaciones, quédese adentro. No salga afuera. Siga las instrucciones de los operadores del tren o la policía."* Little did I know then that I'd end up being a Spanish teacher. *"The subway is dangerous. If the train stops between stations, stay inside. Do not go outside. Follow the instructions of the train operators or the police."
@Bruce I had enough crosses. Not "quotes." I have no idea how that happened. I hope it was an autocorrect mishap, because otherwise I have to blame my brain. I swear to you all, using phone keyboards makes me feel like a sixteen year old novice driver trying to master using a clutch, except it never gets any easier.
Nancy J, Barry, Eric Hougland, and Mean Old Lady: I wanted to just quickly thank you for your considerate responses to my post on Saturday about the language we use to refer to system-impacted people. It's important to me, and I appreciated your willingness to engage. I was traveling at the time (on vacation!) and didn't have a chance to check for responses until it was too late to write a reply that you might see.
@Josh You’re welcome. I used to work for the Texas Legislature. While I didn’t often deal with criminal justice issues, they were so often debated that it was impossible to not be aware of some of the many problems in our criminal justice system. As I think I said the other day, it bothers me to see jokey clues about prison in a crossword puzzle. I hope you had a nice vacation.
@Josh I really appreciated your post too! I've acknowledged your point with a number of other people groups and have changed my ways of speaking about them, but I hadn't really when it comes to people who were incarcerated, so I appreciated you making a note of that. People are more than the sum of their worst mistakes. Hope you had a great vacation!
It's not even a dieresis! A dieresis is to indicate the two vowels in a dipthong are pronounced separately. An umlaut is to change vowel sounds, as in bront-ay sisters versus bront-ee sisters. Since Brontë doesn't have a dipthong, it can't have a dieresis
@Brandon Perhaps note the dictionary definition of a dieresis, in which Brontë is actually used as an example! It cannot be an umlaut in that instance, being used over an e, which never takes an umlaut.
Both sound like valid arguments. I will just call them “dots”.
Was just doing a puzzle from the archives that had TANK UP as an answer (26 Mar 2017 for those playing along at home, clue [Get ready for a long drive]), and now GAS UP. Do people really say that? (Here we would say “I need to fill up” or simply “I need to get petrol/fuel” but not to my knowledge “I need to petrol up”. If someone said to me they needed to “fuel up”, I’d assume they meant they themselves needed to eat something before some exertion, not that their car had an empty tank)
@Alexis I would definitely say, "I need to GAS UP," but I'd never say, "I need to TANK UP." I wouldn't say "FUEL UP," either, but could envision it when speaking very generally, so as not to exclude diesel vehicles. As in, "with our loyalty card, you'll save every time you FUEL UP."
@Alexis Yes, I hear "gas up" a lot. Usually with an object (gas up the car) but also without. Leads sometimes to bean jokes, I'll admit...
@Alexis. Yup, I say it regularly.
@Alexis Younger people also “gas up” their friends with positive reinforcement.
Well there you go. Thanks for the responses folks
When I said, upon finishing that false but extremely trying seven-day streak on Sunday, that I wasn't going to try for any more streaks, it had slipped my mind that Monday and Tuesday were coming right up, so naturally I will extend that streak by two not-so-phony segments. One done. I will confess that it took me half an hour. (Fifty-nine seconds for the Mini.)
Fun Tuesday puzzle with the added treat of inspiring my playlist for the rest of the day. And yes, I do have music from each on my phone. Funnily though, I owned albums from each band in the day on the medium of the time: EW&F on vinyl and 8 track (look it up kids), TMBG and RHCP on cassette and GD on CD.
A clever theme and a good EARTH day vibe with “Green Day”, “Earth, Wind, and Fire” and the excellent "A fragile juxtaposition of land, oceans, and clouds," The motto this year….. "Our Power, Our Planet".
Great Tuesday puzzle. The wordplay was enjoyable without being contrived, a subtle but very important distinction for my personal enjoyment of the crossword. Thanks Alex!
Not a lot of people know that IDINA Menzel planned on becoming a nun, until I sang to her, "Secular! I know about secular!" Surprised nobody's linked to Weird Al's Cyndi Lauper inspired "Kimbap". Speaking of the Kit KAT Club, Larry David's in opinion today. I doubt the link would post.
Almost fell at the GREEKELEMENTS/KIMBAP hurdle. For Earth, Wind and Fire, all I kept thinking was Captain Planet! 🤦🏾♂️
@Sebastian That portion also tripped me up. I plugged in “green elements” thinking of ecologically friendly power. Fire=solar; wind=well, wind; I didn’t know what earth equaled but I thought there must be some form of power that fit!
Pretty tough for a Tuesday. I thought it was Catalina Reapers and that messed me up. Wasn’t a fan of the bottom third with Amer, Bruh and Blam, Sao giving me trouble.
@Chris JI had "Wham" which I thought was more responsive to the clue than "Blam." I was also very messed up in that part of the puzzle.
Sam, I feel there is a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram of Weird Al fans and They Might Be Guants fans. I saw Weird Al a couple of times when he played at our county fair in the 90s, and I'm looking forward to catching him again this summer, but I've yet to see TMBG live!
@Erma That's for sure. My husband has dragged me to more TMBG shows than I can count, and he's tried to drag me to Weird Al but that's where I draw the nerdiness line. (Wow. That sounds really violent. Getting an image of Mary McDonnell being dragged by her hair Dances with Wolves. It's not like that. Really.)
@Beth Al puts on a great show, and he and all of his band members are incredible musicians. And he's just a great guy. Highly recommend!
@Erma I saw Weird Al once at the now defunct Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillvillle, IN maybe in 1999? I took a friend’s 15-year-old daughter who wanted to see it. I became her best friend for a short time (she had recently moved to the area). LOL! It was a great show! If you haven’t seen “Weird: the Al Yankovic Story,” it’s worth a gander - but be sure to watch the credits as there’s a new hilarious Weird Al song in it! Did Weird Al ever do a song involving emus? I’m thinking that would have been a hit!
@Erma I wish county fairs had that kind of renown where I grew up! We just had a little fair in a park around the corner (and if Weird Al had showed up, I would have been utterly gobsmacked).
@Erma My son "became" Weird Al. Not so big, but not bad. Check out "Talk Nerdy to Me" and "DarkLord Funk" on KFACE TV on Youtube. He does have millions of views, so it is pretty fun.
What a terrific theme. Each one was a little puzzle, and it was fun figuring out how to interpret them. BASEBALL PLAYERS for [They Might be Giants] was the best!
Sam, I'd like you to know my daughter was the same with Weird Al. I took her to several concerts from county fairs to arenas.
Does a zeppelin GAS UP? Great name for a hot air balloon: Earth, Wind, and Fire.
This was easily solved despite my not "getting" what was meant by some of the entries...well, one entry, anyway: REAPERS. (See below, responding to others' explanations.) Very Tuesday-easy, but nothing harmless. All of the Modern-day cartoon-movies can sink in the ocean, never to be seen again, and I will rejoice. After "Snow White" it was all down-hill. See all y'all tomorrow!
@Mean Old Lady CAROLINA REAPERS are touted as the world's hottest chili peppers. Apparently grown quite near to me but never consumed by me!
@Mean Old Lady Um, I might have meant 'harmFUL" (not -less)... I started reading earlier Comments but didn't understand half of them, so I'm leaving. Even Mike's pun fell rather flat for me. Often persons over-complicate (over-think) and it kind of leaves nothing and no-one the better for it. See you tomorrow.
BRUH! You got me with DIERESIS!🤦♀️ 🤣 Knew the crosses, but was actually suprised by the gold star. Have a good Tuesday!
I thought a diaresis mark was only used with two adjacent vowels to ensure separate syllable pronunciation, like naïve or daïs. Did the Brontë family just use it incorrectly when they should have chosen an acute and spelled it Bronté?
@Tony Apparently the father changed the family name from Brunty, perhaps to mask humble origins: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bront" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bront</a>ë_family#Origin_of_the_name
@Tony I sort of thought the same as you, but when I looked up dieresis in M-W, it says: 1 : a mark .. placed over a vowel to indicate that the vowel is pronounced in a separate syllable (as in naïve or Brontë). There you have it!
AMER, BRUH, BLAM, LGA, SAO, YUP, MARPLE... 20 proper nouns... just an absolute slog. such a poor puzzle.
@Charles Are blam, bruh, or yup proper nouns?
@Charles, don't you voice this exact same complaint every time you don't know the proper nouns? Or do you just have a particular hatred for proper nouns? There's no rule against them being in a crossword; what exactly is your beef?