This is the 110th crossword i've done on here and the first one i've ever done without any help! It may not be much but it has made my day☺️
@Lorenz No doubt the first of many. Aren't they fun?!
@Lorenz Congratulations! It’s a great feeling, isn’t it?
"Yeah, I'm going back to sleep." "That's snooze to me!" (This pun is bedder than nothing.)
@Mike In the wintertime, dreaming by a still smoldering fireplace, those remarks are are often referred to as rem embers.
Mike, A nap sounds tempting… Shut eye, or shuttn’t eye?
@Mike I wasn't going to send this, but I couldn't decide whether to cover it over or blanket out, so here it is. I hope it will be a comforter to you.
AGLET is one of my favorite “wait, there’s a word for that?” words. I also like: Philtrum (the indentation between the nose and lip) Tittle (the dot over a lower case i or j) Petrichor (the smell of rain hitting dry earth) Lunule (the crescent shape at the base of a fingernail) I’m not sure I’ve encountered any of these outside of a crossword puzzle, but they’re still fun to know.
@Heidi It's also interesting how different languages handle these things. In Polish an aglet is named descriptively: końcówka sznurowadła (shoelace end, literally). I remember my shoes in the 1980s came with steel aglets. Plastic ones arrived with market economy...
@Heidi I've been doing crosswords so long that I have no idea whether I've learned a specific word from solving puzzles or from something else. But your list seems about right to me.
@Heidi Petrichor is a good one. You may already know rhis: It sounds like a word straight from classical Greece but it was actually coined by a couple of Australian researchers maybe 50 years ago. There’s chemistry behind it. The smell comes from a compound called geosmin, a bicyclic alcohol made by soil-dwelling microbes and blue-green algae. Humans are freakishly good at detecting it, down to about 5 parts per trillion. Evolution hardwired us to sniff out water like bloodhounds. If you’ve been to Australia, it makes a lot of sense.
@Heidi My favourite is 'pandiculation' - that stretch everyone's familiar with when they first wake up. Seems like a word that we don't *need*, but I love that it exists.
@Heidi Thanks for sharing Heidi, excellent finds!
@clue by four Thanks! It's always been one of my favorite smells but I guess I never explored the cause. And now this will be the soundtrack to the rest of my afternoon. <a href="https://youtu.be/Tm5XyRyi6ns?si=rhhg7ftV4N3pjB23" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/Tm5XyRyi6ns?si=rhhg7ftV4N3pjB23</a>
@Heidi, What a great list!! Thank you for this, I’m saving it!
Remembering AGLET instantly from a previous crossword makes me feel like my vocabulary really is improving
@Brian. I first met AGLET in a similar way in cryptic crosswords somewhere between 60 and 70 years ago. But for some reason I remembered it as AiGLET.
@Brian Same! 🤩 When I first saw it I was I was puzzled. Today it was a gimme.
@Patrick and Andrzej AIGLET is a variant of AGLET. I was thinking AIGLET, too.
@Brian Way to go Brian! I love to hear the progress!
This was more than a fill-in. I pictured clouds, dogs scrambling in a dogpark, a teapot; I took in the aroma and sizzle of a tofu stir fry; I heard the sound a sheet of paper makes when you wave it in the air; and I realized how much I like VOICE being used as a verb. POP ART made me wonder if there was ever a well-known artwork featuring a lollipop, and there is – by Picasso! The theme, IMO, is clever, finding phrases that conjure a bed so light that sleeping on it would be like floating, all mixed with the gentle pun on the word “light”. There is a lovely complexity beneath the seeming simplicity of this puzzle. Boaz sparked the puzzle with five very worthy answer debuts: CLOUD COVER, PANIC ROOM, LIGHT SLEEPER, OSCAR SNUB, and SHEET OF PAPER. Also, did you notice how junk-lite this grid is? A quality puzzle and a splendid outing. Thank you so much for this, Boaz!
@Lewis Forget about lollipops. Take a look at this POP ART. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/marilyn-monroe-welsh-marmite-andy-warhol-cardiff-b2635032.html" target="_blank">https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/marilyn-monroe-welsh-marmite-andy-warhol-cardiff-b2635032.html</a>
@Lewis Made me look! Picasso's lollipop guy <a href="https://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/saltz/pablo-picasso5-10-10_detail.asp?picnum=7" target="_blank">https://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/saltz/pablo-picasso5-10-10_detail.asp?picnum=7</a>
@Lewis Would this Warhol be considered POP POP ART? <a href="https://whitney.org/collection/works/3253" target="_blank">https://whitney.org/collection/works/3253</a>
__RCUS_ION I am very much a light sleeper, must be that circus lion roaming around.
@TTJ Also tough to sleep through peRCUSsION.
@TTJ Very funny and very fitting comment— I live real close to the Pittsburgh zoo and my roommate says he can sometimes hear the lions roar at night. I however am not a LIGHT SLEEPER and have never noticed them myself.
@Boaz Moser I can hear them all the way from NY!! 😀
My literal mind did not get half of the theme. I could not make a connection between a LIGHT SLEEPER and literally light bed paraphernalia, especially having read a lot about weighted blankets and how they supposedly help people sleep better. Btw, I woke up again at an ungodly hour (3 AM this time, 1 hour before the puzzle is released in my CET time zone). LIGHT SLEEPER indeed... Hopefully I will manage to get a few more hours of shut-eye once I put the phone away. The only stumper for me in the grid was Jack SPRAT. As you can imagine, I know no English language nursery rhymes (actually, I'm only familiar with two Polish ones), so the clue meant nothing to me. When the answer revealed itself via crosses I was surprised. Why? Well, I do know the name Jack SPRAT, but only as a restaurant in Treasure Beach, Jamaica, where my wife and I feasted on crab in 2011. There was also a record shop there. We still have their t-shirts. I needed to Google the clue to understand what was going on after the grid was done. This made me wonder about nursery rhymes in general. Maybe they are much less of a thing in Poland than in the US? I googled Polish examples of commonly known "rymowanki dziecinne" (literally: children's little rhymes), and only got the two I remembered from my own childhood, and another one I haven't heard about before (probably because it's from the Kraków region). Also, my parents read to me and encouraged me to read more serious stuff from an early age already.
@Andrzej Most of the common nursery rhymes originated in the UK in the 17-and 1800s, with a few passed down from other countries. They eventually came to North America in the early 1900s. Wikipedia has a good page about them and about the validity of possible stories behind them. "Mary had a little lamb" is one of the few truly American nursery rhymes and was inspired by a girl who brought a lamb to school. It was written in 1830.
@Andrzej in case you haven't googled it yet, Jack Sprat could eat no fat; his wife could eat no lean. / So, between the both of them, they licked the platter clean!
@JayTee I thought about this some more as I went back to sleep. I think in Polish culture the line between a nursery rhyme and a poem is blurred. If it's old and of unknown authorship, it's more likely to be called a rymowanka ([nursery] rhyme). If it's more recent and penned by a known author, it will generally be called a wiersz (poem; if you see a hint of the word "verse" in "wiersz", you're right: the etymology is the same, from the Latin versus). Thus, "Wlazł kotek na płotek", which originated as a folk song 300 years ago, is a rymowanka, and "Lokomotywa" by the famous Julian Tuwim is a wiersz, even though kids are its only intended audience.
@Andrzej I think there’s a similar distinction between nursery rhymes and children’s poetry in English as well. But also, nursery rhymes are for babies and perhaps toddlers: children’s poetry is aimed at kids older than that.
Really? Nobody else calling out SETI or DRIP? The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) doesn't send signals *to space, they analyze signals *from space! And DRIP is not a sound, its a thing that makes a sound. BTW - I'm old enough to remember when AGLETs were usually made of metal. (As long as I'm complaining, I'm not a fan of HELL either. It's not wrong, but I still don't like it).
@Grumpy Right? I had a similar observation about SETI as I was solving. I wonder if anybody will correct us. Maybe the project does involve sending some signals, too? Dunno about DRIP in English, but its Polish counterpart, "kapanie", may definitely refer both to the fact of water dripping and the sound make then. I'm ultra sensitive to dripping sounds, so I'm a bit of an expert 🤣.
@Grumpy You're about to be informed some dictionary says one definition of DRIP is a sound.
@Grumpy So, if a drip isn't a sound, what does one call the sound a drip makes?
@Grumpy Webster's II New College Dictionary: 3. The sound made by dripping liquid.
@Mr Dave What Nancy J said. Here it is: 3 : the sound made by or as if by falling drops heard a drip He said to the housing man … 'The floor goes creak, the tap goes drip drip …' —Chris Smith <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drip" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drip</a> Inconvenient how facts get in the way of our preconceived notions. Maybe you should do a little checking before you make incorrect statements with such confidence. This "research" took me less time than it would to post a new comment after a previous one--that is to say, under 30 seconds. As for SETI (from the other threads), I won't categorically state that the clue is fine, because I'm not sure it is. But I'm confident that there was fact checking involved, and maybe there's something I don't know. Maybe it is an error. But there's a greater-than zero possibility that there's a good explanation, so I will see if anyone else--someone more into looking for aliens--can say what that is.
@Grumpy The thing that makes the sound is a drop. The sound is a drip.
@Grumpy Re DRIP: The OED has no definition for DRIP as a sound. It seems the meaning of the word has since changed to also mean the sound of dripping water, but I haven't been able to find when that happened. Certainly I didn't grow up using it in that sense (See my aside about metal AGLETs). But regardless, as Humpty Dumpty famously said, "when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less". So when a tap in my house DRIPs, it isn't making a sound - it's slowly and silently releasing drops of water. When those drops hit the basin below the tap, the DRIP makes a "plop", "plunk", "plink" or "splat" sound.
@Steve L @Nancy J. Wow. Go reread my comment. I was just making a little prediction. (I *did* look it up.) Lighten up and have a nice day.
@Grumpy “And DRIP is not a sound, its a thing that makes a sound.” Maybe in Canada, eh?
@redweather Everybody look what's going down.... :D
@Grumpy I need to raise my hand for the error with SETI, another commenter pointed it out and you're absolutely right they don't engage in active SETI. As far as DRIP, I did look that up in Wiktionary (my go-to) and they don't have the sound listed as a meaning. I'd quibble that it's still close enough, but point taken.
@NYC Traveler Thanks. I guess with the crazy problems with the comments nobody can tell who's being talked to.
I am overworked. (And I am retired, so what does that tell you?) I knew I was, but it came home to me when I couldn't find the error keeping me from the happy music... and then it hit. I had ADOBe instead of ADOBO. Happy to say we are off on a cruise to continue the year-long celebration of our 50th next week. All of my puzzles will reset to 0 streaks, and my brain will reset to retirement mode. Volunteer activities will resume on my return. I suspect the organizations will carry on without us. (Not that I'm counting, but 5 days to go...)
This was fun. Nice Tuesday! Thanks.
SETI refers broadly to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a general scientific field focused on detecting signs of intelligent life beyond Earth. It’s not a [grp.]. The SETI Institute, meanwhile—definitely a [grp.]—is a specific organization within that broader effort. The problem with today’s clue is that SETI the [grp.] has explicitly and repeatedly stated that it does not send signals. It only listens. You can verify this directly on their website, where they categorically reject any involvement in active signal transmission. Other research groups explore signal-sending, but they are not collectively known as SETI. They *engage* in active SETI; they are not a [grp.] that sends signals. I don’t get it: This is such an easy (bone-headed) editing error *not* to make.
@Sam Lyons And so the search continues. Funnier when conducted by Jane Wagner.
@Sam Lyons I don't like the clue either. Back in 2016 there was a much better clue, "Subj. for a radio astronomer". I'm pretty sure you're about to be told it has been clued as a group or organization many times in earlier puzzles, and that it's good enough for crossword purposes. Let's see if I'm right. :)
@Sam Lyons I wrote METI; its president has written op-eds for NYT at least twice (as recently as last November: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/opinion/alien-extraterrestrial-arecibo-seti.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/opinion/alien-extraterrestrial-arecibo-seti.html</a>). That said, I understand that SETI is far better known and clearly there is some public confusion on this issue.
@Sam Lyons Good point! thanks! ....but it dawned on me that SETI possibly exists because so many have given up the search for terrestrial intelligence....
@Sam Lyons I'll fess up on this one— my error! I looked up and you're absolutely right, the SETI Institute doesn't do active signal sending. I'll make sure I don't clue that way again! I will quibble that I'm used to hearing "SETI" as shorthand for specifically the "SETI Institue" growing up, but that's probably not the industry standard.
Boaz, Constructors are entitled to make mistakes. Sam called it an editing error. I agree.
"Places for boxers to exercise" is my favorite clue in a while. Great puzzle, Boaz!
@Parker Thank you! Always thrilled to get praise from another yinzer.
"Looks like the world is ending." "Apocalypse? Now?" ("Armageddon over it.")
stunning puzzle debut from Boaz Moser! this was a fun solve, even if i'll never stop filling browns as OCHRE fun fact: Boaz gifted me my first NYT games subscription for Easter three years ago, and he's the reason I'm still doing the crossword today. he's a great person to know and it seems just as phenomenal of a constructor. grateful that OSCARSNUB is now in the crossword lexicon!
@Nicole Thanks Nicole! Hope to see you featured in Wordplay one day :)
Enjoyed the reference to Indiana Jones. My archeology professor gave extra credit to whoever watched the movies and wrote a paper on all the academic inaccuracies. Maybe to give a reality check and make sure we didn’t go into the field believing we’d be action heroes. But you never know, it could happen!
@Sara I'm fascinated by archeology, and it's one of the main subjects I read about for fun. I have always loved Indiana Jones, but ever since I picked up this hobby I wince every time he interacts with anything older than himself 🤣. As a lawyer, I can't watch most shows about lawyers, especially Polish ones - they get almost everything wrong, most of the time! That being said, I was quite surprised how well Better Call Saul captured the personality types of legal practicioners. I've known many people much like those portrayed there - just not like Saul himself 🤪. PS. As always when archeology comes up, I recommend any book by Eric H. Cline.
@Sara Indiana Jones seemed to be a response to "why should the private detectives and international spies get more love than archeology professors"? I wished they'd pushed on to make all the professions-- accountants, bank tellers, pharmacists, etc.--exciting and glamourous. @Andrzej I loved Better Call Saul. And I loved Saul/Jimmy in Breaking Bad. Those were the good old days.
@Francis Indiana Jones has nothing to do with archeology professors though, does it. Not really, anyway. I've never seen Breaking Bad, and nothing I know about it indicates I would like it. Better Call Saul was brilliant though. Rhea Seehorn made the show, IMO, more so than Bob Odenkirk (but he was great too. She was better though).
@Sara Have you read the books by Elly Griffith? They are about a forensic archeologist named Ruth Galloway, and I loved them all. Ruth keeps a poster of Indiana Jones in her office.
Here for the puzzle, stayed for the column. Sam’s first paragraph is a gem worth rereading until you, too, leave a comment about how much we love her. Not to take away from Boaz Moser’s excellent puzzle and whose name is fun to say no matter how you pronounce it.
@M. Biggen Yeah, Sam's first paragraph hits home with me, because I am one of those on the opposite side from her: I cherish the late, late nights because it feels like my time with everyone else having gone to sleep. Since my retirement, it's become something of an issue because there's really not a whole lot to anchor my day to. Nor do I really want to.
@sotto voce In other words... Bring on the night, I couldn't stand another hour of daylight.
When I first ditched flatmates and went to live by myself in my early twenties, I became a LIGHT SLEEPER. Every little sound would wake me up, sending me into fight-or-flight mode. Lest I spend the rest of my waking hours exhausted, I turned to foam ear plugs and never looked back. Now my bedroom is no longer a PANIC ROOM. I enjoyed your puzzle, Mr. Moser. Thank you for making the theme appropriately light for a Tuesday, and the fill far from being a sleeper. Seeing VISA reminded me of this joke: If you had to choose between finding your soulmate or having a credit card with unlimited funds that you never had to pay back, which would you choose? –VISA or Mastercard? [ducking and running. But well, okay, not before posting Tasmin Archer with "SLEEPing Satellites"] <a href="https://youtu.be/yGL2lcaRYqk?si=-eNRc7S70bbfriqT" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/yGL2lcaRYqk?si=-eNRc7S70bbfriqT</a>
@sotto voce Thanks. I'd never really heard the words to that song. Have we got what it takes to advance? Have we peaked too soon? If the world is so great Then why does it scream under a blue moon?
@sotto voce Oh that was super cool. Loved it. I can finally get back to right where I was the comments after clicking on a link so that’s an improvement!
@sotto voce Wow! Despite having that song delightfully ingrained in my memory, I unexplicably never knew the artist. I even checked to see if there was a more familiar cover, but nothing jumped out. Thank you so much for sharing!
I love that the quintessential fable about a light sleeper, the Princess and the Pea, is referenced in the upper left :)
@Lila, I was hoping the revealer might reference the princess! Loved the puzzle!
Thought I was going to get skunked on a Tuesday. Took me two minutes to remember the difference between CSI and CGI. DOsPARK didn't make too much sense, but DO is a combat related term (think Judo, Taekwondo, etc) and maybe a Do Spark was a thing? Or maybe it a Do Spar and the K was wrong? Was completely lost on the idea that a boxer was a dog, not a fighter until I changed the S to a G. Fun times...
This puzzle was no sham. Well done!
What a fun Tuesday puzzle! "Place for boxers to exercise" made me laugh out loud. Some nice misdirections. I was sure that "alternative to essays" would be either tests or exams -- it turned out to be ORALS. The theme was very silly, which is all to the good. Bravo, Boaz Moser!
@Natdegu Thank you so much! I was glad the editors kept the boxers clue, it was one of my favs from the submission.
Typical smooth Tuesday workout for me, but must confess that I wasn't entirely catching on to the theme until I was finished and went back and pondered. No big deal - that's just me. And of course my puzzle find today. A Tuesday from May 9, 2006 by Patrick Blindauer. The 'reveal' in that one was: "Phrases like 18-, 24-, 53-, 59-Across and 4-Down" PALINDROMES And those clues and answers were: "Slogan for a party animal" REVELEVER "Say "An apple a day gets the worm," say" MIXAMAXIM "Southern recipe direction" STIRGRITS "New Haven event with a baton" YALERELAY "Start of an audiophile's wish" IFIHADAHIFI Thought that was pretty clever. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/9/2006&g=4&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/9/2006&g=4&d=D</a> I'm done. ...
“Chess club” didn’t fit for [Place for boxers to exercise], so instead I put in MEANSTREETS. (Gonna fly now.)
@JohnWM There's a DOG PARK just down Ben Franklin Parkway from the Philly Art Museum. Surely Rocky ran through it one or twice chasing chickens and/or chihuahuas.
"Color" and "aluminum" have co-equal status in the OED with "colour" and "aluminium." The first attestation of "aluminum," incidentally, is from British scientist Humphry Davy (1812). Another example from 1812 states that "aluminium" should be preferred to "aluminum" because it has a more classical ring to it. But the oxide "alumina" (attested in 1790) stands alone — no "aluminia" to sound more classical.
Finished 2 minutes faster than my previous PB. Zipped through so fast, I had to go back afterwards and look at the crossing entries I missed the first time through. It's probably the first time completing a puzzle without having to change any of my entries. Oops. I lied. I did have mulES before ASSES. "It may be left holding the bag" tickled me. I remember my mom helping me make FLAN for an 8th grade Spanish class potluck. Neither of us had heard of it before. Not sure where we got the recipe. Joy of Cooking? Anyway, when we were finished making it, we weren't even sure we had done it right, having no idea what it was supposed to look or taste like. My teacher confirmed it was correct. Now, of course, we can get it in any Mexican restaurant in the U.S. (So many cuisines that we now consider to be ordinary were pretty exotic to our family, living in the DC suburbs in the 70s. Thai or Vietnamese food, anyone?)
@Beth I grew up in a town near Cleveland that wouldn't really qualify as a suburb because of the distance to CLE and the amount of heavy manufacturing in the town. Our most exotic food choices in my town (I can't speak for CLE in the 70's since I rarely went there) were Cap'n Taco and A1 Kitchen (Chinese). Both not bad, especially 29 cent taco Tuesday. Then off to Kent, OH, now filled with tons of great international food offerings but at the time, still fairly limited unless we count Buddy's Bagels and Beer as exotic 🤣 I remember getting sushi for the first time with a friend when I was 29. She taught me how to eat maki, which was a lovely experience. Fast forward to my life in Boston with so many fabulous food choices; how lucky are we?
@Beth There was a fabulous Vietnamese restaurant in Alexandria in the late 70s. Vietnamese but retaining the influence of French cuisine. My favorite dish there was Cinnamon Beef. I've never found it again at any Vietnamese restaurant since.
As a lifelong tea drinker I find the idea of a bag even being in a TEAPOT, let alone left in, quite unacceptable.
@Patrick J. Genuinely curious, how do you make your tea?
@Patrick J. I've been drinking tea all my life, but apparently I'm a tea rube - I usually don't bother taking the bag out of my mug, and I've been known to brew bagged tea in a pot, also leaving the bags in 🤪. I love strong and even bitter tea though, which may explain things.
@Patrick J. How do you like the idea of a K-cup?
@Andrzej I consider myself mostly a coffee drinker, but I recently realized I drink more tea than coffee. This is because my main post-breakfast drink is iced tea. But like a rube, as you put it, I buy the powdered stuff and make a pitcher of it. It comes in flavors, like lemon and peach mango green tea. It's artificially sweetened, so no sugar and no calories. I don't have to schlep heavy bottles of soda home from the store. And it's cheaper than carbonated beverages. Yes, I mostly drink a powdered drink. And strangely enough, it tastes good. A couple of regular visitors to my home also have some when they're here, so I know I'm not the only one. (Of course I'm not the only one, or else the supermarket wouldn't carry it.) As for hot tea, I use my Keurig coffeemaker for the two or three times I want hot tea per annum. It brews tea the same way it brews coffee. (Guests have hot tea more than I do, and even that's not that much.)
@Steve L Those powdered tea-like drinks were all the rage in Poland when they arrived with market economy in the early 90s. On holiday with my parents in 1991 or 1992 we drank almost exclusively that. But we always had it hot. These days my wife and I use a Jura automatic coffee machine for our hits of caffeine. I love that brilliant piece of Swiss engineering - unlike all other automatic machines it doesn't require manual cleaning outside its yearly service at the shop. We prefer our tea hot and in tea bags, since they are most convenient. We don't drink soda, at all. Our water comes from the tap, and we are also partial to non-alcoholic beer: several Polish breweries make the best 0% beer I have ever had anywhere in the world. Miłosław Non-alcoholic IPA is my favorite. Judging by the label, it's sold in the US, too.
@Steve L I see you. I drank a LOT of Crystal Light peach iced tea in my day and snuck spoonfuls of (full sugar) lemon Lipton from the canister when I was a kid. I switched to unsweetened made from tea bags, but I can taste that delicious combination of sugar and citric acid right now.
there is so much to love about this puzzle, and its easy, breezy feel perfectly matches today's beautiful and sunny day in nyc. two things stand out for me: 1) i'm old enough to remember they MIGHT be giants dial-a-song phone number. what a novelty that was, back in the 80s when i called every day from my college dorm room landline phone! and years later, when my oldest (and current crossword companion) was a toddler, "john and john" was one of his favorite bands. (their kids' albums are just as clever!) 🙃 <a href="https://youtu.be/qoGHk5_Kvvw?si=Vma5qIF4_QD14K4p" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/qoGHk5_Kvvw?si=Vma5qIF4_QD14K4p</a> 2) for some diaspora jews, today is the second day of the harvest holiday called shavuot--lit. weeks, so named because it comes at the end of a seven-week counting cycle. the story of ruth is read on this holiday, and one of the key characters is named boaz! thanks, boaz moser, for a great start to my morning.
@Hope Levav Thank you Hope! I always love seeing people pick up on the origins of my name.
Loved this one for its interesting, solvable clues. My favourite was 25A, and I had one lookup for 9D, which was annoying because the answer is part of my daily life!
The first They MIGHT be Giants song I heard: <a href="https://youtu.be/pAmFTmCs3IY?si=gKsfJd6nC0kLm_Mx" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/pAmFTmCs3IY?si=gKsfJd6nC0kLm_Mx</a> Love at first listen.
@Nancy J. They're in the ruin of the New York State pavilion from the 1964 World's Fair, and they're dancing in what's left of a colossal ceramic map of the state. I would never have thought to try to slot them into some genre, but they will always have a place in a certain little birdhouse.
@Nancy J. So you know how my husband replies when I say, "don't even start." Then we usually put on music. 🤣
They Might Be Giants used to have a phone number that anyone could call (from their landline ofc :) to hear a prerecorded song! Dial-A-Song
@CLN I used to call every day from my office. "Free When You Call From Work." <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/tmbgareok/159977839897/free-when-you-call-from-work-the-story-of" target="_blank">https://www.tumblr.com/tmbgareok/159977839897/free-when-you-call-from-work-the-story-of</a>
Funny thing--most beds have at least one SHEET, a pillow (CUSHIONS don't have much "give"--probably why you're waking up so often with that stiff neck), and a COVER (though really NICE beds have QUILTS! Just sayin') Would a small quibble be an ARG-let? How clever of Boaz Moser to sneak in 9A and 12D...right under the nose of The Gray Lady. Ho Ho Ho (And okay, I saw the HOE last night...but I still say if you are given a trowel but use a hoe, you might be invited to be the one who wheels the barrow to the spoil pile.)
@Mean Old Lady AIR CUSHIONS threw me off the theme completely. Nope, not unless I've fallen asleep on the sofa, under my Afghan.
Smooth, my first with no lookups. As a MINOR quibble for the editors, bodybuilders are *never* after TONE, which is just a level of activation of a muscle if it means anything at all; bodybuilders are explicitly seeking hypertrophy (or the lack thereof). If they weren't trying to change the shape of their body, they wouldn't be bodybuilding! TONE is, however, something classically sought after by aerobics class devotees who are "trying not to bulk up".
In case the mods are monitoring these comments but not the Spelling Bee comments: there is a bug over there. The puzzle changed mid-morning. (Today's crossword was breezy fun with no hitches!)
@Justin And I have a bone to pick about the Wordle solution today. Glad we have this opportunity to vent. LOL
@Justin then I guess I won't play SB today. The only streak I care about is xwp and wordle. Wow! I've just freed up some time, lol!
@Justin I rebooted my phone, and the spelling bee glitch is still present. I’m looking at a brand new puzzle, not the one I did this morning.
@Ettagale And without revealing too much, what the new puzzle’s pangram is, is priceless.
@Justin I’m still getting the new puzzle, not the one I did this morning. That one has now disappeared entirely so I can’t add to it or check it or do anything else. Am I the only one with this ongoing problem?
@Ettagale I had a browser tab open with the old puzzle, and I can still work it. I opened the new one on the app and can work that one, too. I wonder what would happen if I refresh the browser tab.
I had muLes crossing with smiLe rather than asSes crossing amuSe and stumped myself for an extra minute today. Good puzzle!
@Rick I did the exact same thing, somehow thinking MULES would be more likely.
It's just not a Tuesday without a poet from the Tang dynasty.
One more late puzzle find - a pretty amazing one and don't recall seeing another one like this. Some elements similar to dad jokes, which would put it right in my wheelhouse. Anyway - a Sunday from April 6, 2008 by Daniel C. Bryant with the title "Could you reword that please?" Some clue/answer examples: "Tax break for Gumby?" CLAYMANEXEMPTION "Blessing for a shipboard romance?" SEALOVEAPPROVAL "Sketch sewing-kit stores?" DRAWPINCENTERS "Clown's parade memoir?" MYLAUGHTERMILE "End-game maneuvers?" KEYPAWNMOVING And.. the one that led me there - an old joke that I had made some years ago: "Excavate in the white cliffs?" MINEDOVERMATTER And there were more. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/6/2008&g=92&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/6/2008&g=92&d=A</a> I might re=post this tomorrow. ...
Very enjoyable Tuesday. There’s a young adult book series by Ellen Emerson White about a family in the White House (fictional). Taught me aglet and it stuck
@Megan Isn't it fascinating how we learn things, and how we tend to remember how exactly we learned them? The strangest things, too. For example, I learned about the now-long-defunct German automaker DKW from a young adult book we studied in school when I was 14 or so (Ten Obcy, or The Stranger, by Irena Jurgielewiczowa, published in 1961. How about that for a Polish name, eh? 🤣). I didn't like the book much (even though it's a classic of Polish young adult lit), but I was intrigued what exactly a "dekawka" was: the only car or motorcycle in the village where the book was set. I asked my mom and she explained "DeKaWka" referred to the DKW brand of cars and motorbikes, sold in Poland before 1939. Some of those ancient machines survived WW2 and were still running at the turn of the 50s and 60s, at least in the book's "universe". AGLET I learned from NYT puzzles. I remember all this over 30 years later...
I don't know exactly how much time I lost today on the SETI x SPRAT crossing, but it was a lot. Loved the theme today!
My usual late puzzle find. This one TRULY amazing. A Sunday from August 28, 1977 by the great Maura B. Jacobson with the title: "City Additions." A couple of theme clue and answer examples: "Indian fuel-company ad" BLACKCOALOFCALCUTTA "Italian deodorant ad" ARRIVEDERCIAROMA "Greek neckwear ad" RHODESCOLLAR And some other theme answers: TAIWANONTODAY ROTOMANDALAY LEARNTOPARKDAKAR GETYOURBERINGSTRAIT TOKYOROES And there were more. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=8/28/1977&g=28&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=8/28/1977&g=28&d=A</a> ....
To Boaz Moser, thanks for a good Tuesday! I don’t see why “Light sleeper” couldn’t clue to AIR MATTRESS :)
Reading the clue to 32D. brought this oldie back: What do you get when you cross an elephant with a rhino?
This one fell into place easily for me. Finished in 2/3 my average Tuesday time. Some nice non-thematic entries here: PANICROOM, OSCARSNUB, ACTIONHERO, DOGPARK, ARMAGEDDON. Despite having boxers as a boy, I was still caught by "Place for boxers to exercise". Had the initial DO, and my brain first insisted on digging for some obscure variant of DOJO. Fortunately, it failed to uncover anything along those lines. Found the theme rather minimal, but on the whole I liked this puzzle.
Someone (not me) described They Might Be Giants as Wordplay's official house band. I'm not so sure about that--but there have been plenty of times the puzzle has given me TMBG earworms. Here's one that's a little self-referential: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cZ0JSubwzE&list=PLW1c4UK-iy_bSKOlaNAcf1WCwFf43jFEV&index=18" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cZ0JSubwzE&list=PLW1c4UK-iy_bSKOlaNAcf1WCwFf43jFEV&index=18</a> (Free if you use the internet at work.)
@Bill ♬"Crossword footprints in your ear"♯♩
Fast and fun. Thanks Boaz 😊🙌🏻
Quick and fun. Couple of entries Came on crosses, but no problems encountered. Thanks, Boaz!
Congratulations on a mighty fine puzzle! 🥳 Had a few giggles with this one … 9D TEAPOT was a favorite and feel like we are currently in a bit of 10D these past few months 🤦♀️. Fun clues and few misdirects which keeps me on my toes. So if there were OSCARS for puzzles Mr. Moser would not be SNUBBED 👏👏🎉.
@Dawn on the road There may be a reprise of the Wordplay readers Puzzle of the Year contest. If there is, anyone will be able to nominate a puzzle in one of four categories (Early Week, Thursday, Themeless or Sunday). Also, Diary of a Crossword Fiend (for whom I review puzzles) runs the ORCAS, which is open to puzzles from many venues and which has more specialized categories like Best Clue and Best Midi Crossword. (They have our POYs beat in the “awards show” category, as they actually do a livestream with the results and with celebrity presenters.) <a href="https://crosswordfiend.com/?s=Orcas" target="_blank">https://crosswordfiend.com/?s=Orcas</a>
Fun Tuesday solve. Question, Mount Megiddo is the site of the final battle. The answer is what the battle is called. Right?
@Andy G Armageddon is Greek(ish) for "the hill of Megiddo". Maybe some English bibles fully translate it?
@Justin that's probably right. Thanks.
@Andy G It's Har Megiddo in Hebrew, which would have been a bit tough for a Tuesday. I don't know much Hebrew, apart from historical/archaeological references.
@Andy G I'm familiar with the place through Revelation 16:16, which in the ESV reads "And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon." It looks like most English translations use that transliteration, though NASB and some others use "Har Magedon" which is probably more true to the original.
@Andy G also Thutmose III and General Allenby fought at tel Meggido