The famed pickle vendor is a really big dill. (I relish these puns.)
@Mike You're just gherkin our chains. It's your bread and butter.
Mike, I'll ketchup with you later.
@Mike He started bottling them at home and is making a fortune. Now he lives in a condo mint.
@Mike Folks are beginning to sour on those posts....
@Mike These puns are really becoming your bread and butter. You're getting a real cornichon the market.
Can fruits and vegetables in the olden days were in mason or ball glass jars in clear or blue color. Thus canned pickles is correct. They are canned. Not literally in a can. A group of us, one time canned over 200 quart jars of green beans in 2 days. A produce truck heading yo the factory overturned. My dad happened to go by and the driver told anyone who stopped yo take all they wanted. So my dad and uncle shoveled 2 trunk full of green beans. We had an assembly line going with washing, cutting, and canning green beans. Every restaurant you went to had green beans for a week. All the stores were oit of canning goods.
@Janis Thanks for sharing your story. It's left me with the amusing image of people shoveling beans into the trunks of their cars, and the heart-warming image of neighbors gathering to can their bounty. Unsurprisingly, canning goes back further than the mass production of glass jars. The containers were called "canisters", hence "canning".
@Janis In Iowa winters in the 1930's, we depended on jars of vegetables my mother canned during harvest time. My uncle brought them in bushel baskets from his farm and my mother went through the whole process of sterilizing the mason jars and vacuum sealing them with rubber rings and screw on lids before storing them in the basement. Even so, on a cold winter night we sometimes heard a blast of breaking glass as a jar of green beans exploded. Nothing else she canned ever exploded. There was just something about green beans.
My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Water wheel? (4) 2. Silent marching band position (6)(4) 3. Request by those under 21 (3)(2) 4. Training facilities? (8)(8) 5. Flight of fancy? (7)(3) HELM PARADE REST HIT ME RAILROAD STATIONS PRIVATE JET
@Lewis YAY! I was too late to make the comment, but I specifically wanted to ask you if either 4 or 5 was a new enough clue to make your list--I thought they were great, and so close to one another.
I, too, have never seen a pickle in anything other than a jar (excepting perhaps individually in a plastic bag at the gas station). Google informs me that there are indeed pickles available in metal cans. But the process of putting those cucumbers into glass jars, Mason or other brands, is referred to as canning. So I have no complaint with that clue.
@Kevin Looks like you and I cross posted (see below)—thanks for confirming
@Kevin I think the challenge is the verb “to can”. Canning…preserving of fruit and vegetables by people who du such things is often done in jars. So yes, the end product is in a mason jar but you canned the pickles.
Kevin and SP, I thought Sam was word-playing. I'm guessing she is aware that "canning" is about preserving food in any sealed container. <a href="https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can" target="_blank">https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can</a>
I used to work at a pickle factory. Until I got canned.
@ad absurdum I don't get puns. What's the big dill?
@ad absurdum Just wanted to get into the spear it here. What was the old ad? A Groucho Marx impersonating stork? (Why a stork, I wonder).
@ad absurdum - so, canning pickles was truly your bread and butter, eh?
I wasn't sure I was going to make it through the Sunday puzzle today, let alone getting around to the Monday one. My 90-year-old mother-in-law arrived today and we are preparing to take her down to the Bay Islands of Honduras on Wednesday, where she and my husband and his siblings are from. She has advanced dementia, so it complicates this kind of trip but it's the only place in her heart and mind, even if the details get jumbled up a bit these days. I'll refrain from commenting about this further than to say what a blessing it is to have people from all over the world come to this country and add to it. Of course, I'm partial to my husband as the main blessing but I do mean it across the board. Anywho, the puzzle! First, I just want to say that I really enjoyed Sunday's. I think it would have been more fun if I could have done it in one sitting like I normally do, but I did it in fits and spurts and then finished up tonight. I really enjoyed it the super cute theme. Some of them were quite funny! I also learned a new word, ONER. It was the last square to complete and I was amazed that it was correct. Now for Monday's puzzle, fast, fun, chipper --just like Monday should be! I know AC shows up a lot in the puzzle, but particularly apt these days. It's literally hotter here in Minnesota then it will likely be where we are in Honduras in a few days. Crazy!! Cheers!
@HeathieJ Well I'm not going to refrain from posting that I hope all of you will get back into the US with no problems. An 80+ grandmother was detained here at Logan Airport a month or so ago. Fortunately a happy ending.
@HeathieJ A couple of days ago, I saw your comment to me about how you were almost named Elizabeth and called Beth for the character in Little Women, but the comments had been closed so I couldn't respond. I wanted to say that I'm glad you weren't named Elizabeth because HeathieJ is the cutest nickname ever. And I can understand your mom's concern because I hated it when I'd eventually be called Lizard by kids at school. Have a great trip. We're leaving in a week to visit my mother-in-law who just had an emotionally difficult move to an assisted living facility. There's no way she can live alone without 24-hour care, which we can't afford, and it's been very hard for her to accept giving up a certain amount of independence in exchange for the level of care she needs.
In response to Sam: first, there are canned pickles although we don’t see them as often in the US—but more to the point, I think the process of making pickles from scratch is called “canning” even if they end up in jars—can any pickle aficionados confirm?
@SP I blame today's pickle discourse for the impromptu canning-in-a-jar I did this afternoon. On Thursday, I hope to have the half-sours to show for it.
It took me way too long to realize that the RDA for the One-a-Day gummies is actually two gummies per day. So yes, one is supposed to take two gummies each day that are named “One-a-Day”.
@DQ They should be compelled to change their name due to "false advertising". ;-)
Steve, This is not the first time you have posted this comment about a Monday puzzle. You do understand Monday puzzles are supposed to be the easiest?
@Steve That's a fun word game, actually <a href="https://imsqueezy.com" target="_blank">https://imsqueezy.com</a>/
Finished in 8:56, cut my average almost exactly in half(8:55 faster)! Been really fun to see how much I've improved in 64 days of daily xwords ^v^
We’ve seen “___ it!” clues before, such as [Darn it!] for SOCKS and [Beat it!] for EGG, but I don’t believe that they’ve ever been turned into a theme, as Zhouqin (aka CC) did today. That is a stellar crossword mind at work. Nailed it! Plus, some lovely serendipities: A SIDE touching a side, a rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap, and the rhyming BLIP and DRIP (saying those two words over and over sounds like windshield wipers). A touch of brilliance, fun, and little treasures brought sweetness to the box today. Brightened my day right up – thank you, CC!
@Lewis Yeah, BLIP and DRIP over and over *does* sound like a windshield wiper! How did you know that! It reminds me of on of my favorite Kurt Vonnegut bits, in "Sirens of Titan". He opened every chapter with a quote. One was "Rented a tent, rented a tent, rented a rented a rented a tent", attributed to a snare drum on Mars.
It was one of those things that I didn't know, but then after I tried it to see if it felt like a tongue twister (which it didn't), and as soon as I heard it, it sounded just like wipers. Kind of a cool TIL.
Yorkie-Poo? I thought that was something a sly dog named Fido might leave as a little present outside your bedroom door. Like others, I felt a can of dill pickles was quite jarring. I like the trio of leak, drip & seal (Plug it!), the trio of blip, sonar & signal (and one can throw in Roger and radio for a quintet), and there are groups, too, but I'm too lazy to list 'em. If you haven't read it, I recommend Benet's "By the Waters of Babylon," a post-apocalyptic tale that came out in 1937, and prefigures many science fiction stories published in the wake of the atomic bomb. First paragraph: The north and the west and the south are good hunting ground, but it is forbidden to go east. It is forbidden to go to any of the Dead Places except to search for metal and then he who touches the metal must be a priest or the son of a priest. Afterwards, both the man and the metal must be purified. These are the rules and the laws; they are well made. It is forbidden to cross the great river and look upon the place that was the Place of the Gods—this is most strictly forbidden. We do not even say its name though we know its name. It is there that spirits live, and demons—it is there that there are the ashes of the Great Burning. These things are forbidden—they have been forbidden since the beginning of time. *** The rest can be found here: <a href="https://www.btboces.org/Downloads/13_By%20the%20Waters%20of%20Babylon%20by%20Stephen%20Vincent%20Benet.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.btboces.org/Downloads/13_By%20the%20Waters%20of%20Babylon%20by%20Stephen%20Vincent%20Benet.pdf</a>
@john ezra Thanks for the Benet tip - it'll be my next read. Years ago, I came upon a worn volume of "John Brown's Body" on one of my dad's (many) bookshelves, and was for some reason intrigued. Once I started it, I couldn't put it down. Recently, I tried to track down a copy for myself, only to discover that it wasn't stocked by one of the largest U.S. bookseller chains. After scolding a company representative over the phone, I finally tracked it down elsewhere, but I have often thought that it is a sadly overlooked classic. It is a beautifully written, and thoroughly American, epic poem, and deserves more recognition than it gets.
Agree with others that when preserving food in jars, you “Can it!” I was worried that answer was going to be sauerkraut. If someone approaches me and offers me a helping of their homemade sauerkraut, my response is: “Can it!”
@Cat Lady Margaret But... Why? Sauerkraut is a staple here, and it can be eaten in so many ways! As is; as a salad with grated carrots and/or apples; as a filling of pierogi, with mushrooms; in a bigos stew. I really enjoy all of those. A good bigos is to die for. When not cooked it's healthy, too, very good for gut bacteria.
@Cat Lady Margaret I'm sure you'll all be fascinated by this piece of personal trivial from a trivial person: Of all the foods that are repulsive to me, sauerkraut is light-years ahead of second place. I absolutely cannot stand the sight, smell, or sound of it. (Oh, it has a sound--I can hear the sound.) Just thinking about it is causing my stomach to get queasy. And I have a very strong stomach. I once went 38 years between.
@Francis - Sauerkraut mellows considerably if you bake it 20-30 minutes. With short ribs or even just hot dogs in a baking pan.
@Cat Lady Margaret I love the idea of canning, and I respect those who do it, but it's always seemed like too much work to me. The tools one needs, the boiling (in an enormous pot), the STEAM in the middle of Summer. Too much! The obvious solution is to have friends who can and are generous with the fruits of their labor. @Andrzej I like sauerkraut, and in some dishes I love it. Still it's not a big part of my diet. Do you (or your friends) make their own?
@The X-Phile Nah, it doesn't really make sense for city folk to make one's own sauerkraut ("kapusta kiszona" - pretty much: fermented cabbage) - you can get it cheaply at stores and farmers markets, even the good quality stuff. I think it is much more common for people to make their own in the country, where they have their own cabbage and enough room to prepare the sauerkraut in huge vats. Many people, incuding my mother in law, make their own kiszone ogórki (pickled cucumbers; they don't include any vinegar, just cucumbers, water, salt, and ingredients that provide extra taste, like garlic, horseradish, etc.), but I buy them ready made, too. (My love for fermented cabbage extends to kimchi, too) @Ms. Billie M. Spaight Really? I don't think I've met anybody who was so passionate about disliking or not tolerating mushrooms. Interesting :D
Anything over 5 minutes on a Monday means I struggled. This came in right at 5:17. Fun fact about 64A. For my 30th birthday, I did a two week two to what I call "American Oceania." Hawaii, Guam, Northern Mariana, and American Samoa. The last one not to be confused with the independent nation of Samoa. Locally, the jurisdictions were referred to by their capitals to avoid confusion (or perhaps for anti-Imperialism reasons), Pago Pago and APIA. Even more interestingly, the flights from Pago Pago back to Honolulu were once every three days, so it was the longest leg of my trip. I seriously considered spending one of those three days in APIA, but being on the opposite side of the international dateline from Pago Pago, I was worried I would mix the dates up and miss my flight back to Honolulu and put paid to my plans to wake up at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the day I turned 30.
Nice one, C.C.! Thanks and best wishes.
Fun puzzle. But I would think that dill pickles are canned, an end product of the process. What are canned are cucumbers, which become pickles. My buba’s garden, Clearfield County, PA. Tall, fragrant stalks of dill, grown next to garlic and onions. Pickling day was a big affair and with hot stuff I had to keep out of the way. Not so with pie day. My dad, uncles, and I brought back buckets of blackberries. Buba let me help wash them and fill the pies. Then she would roll out the leftover pie dough, slice it, sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar, and bake. A treat just for me.
@George Krompacky How lovely.
@George Krompacky My mother did the same thing with leftover pie dough. But with six siblings, I rarely got the entire ”croissant” to myself.
@George Krompacky not necessarily! My inlaws fermented pickles in a large container and then canned them to store. That was the usual method in their community (rural Alabama)
@George Krompacky Yeah! And Peter Piper never picked a peck of pickled peppers, but he may have pickled the peck of peppers that he picked...and then canned them. I grow my own jalapenos, and then take them over to Mom's house for a day of pickling. She's got all the gear.
I got the dreaded "So close" popup as I filled in my last square - the L at the crossing of GE_T and LI_. Obviously that letter was correct so I had to look elsewhere for the error. It turned out you Americans do things differently than we do. Over here we generally report phone scams to the Office for Electronic Communications, our equivalent of your FCC, so that was what I entered. I haven't seen any bra or purse with ScRAP parts, but since "scrap" is a legitimate word rather than gibberish, it took me some time to spot the error. It was an OK puzzle. Btw, I started filling the grid yesterday - the fill seemed Tuesday level, so things went smoothly - but once I realized the theme was about wedding puns, I abandoned the solve. Puns annoy me, and I can't stand weddings. The grandest one I ever went to was of the most miserably mismatched couple I know - like they thought throwing money at the party would change things between them. Well, it didn't. Fourteen years later they are obviously unhappy. The only time I see them smile is looking at their staged wedding photo. My wife and I got married at city hall, with just the official and two witnesses there, and then we had a laid back party for our closest 15 people at our favorite restaurant. That was so much more *us* than a grand wedding! Secular, private, almost intimate, and completely against tradition. As you can guess, we didn't hire a photographer to pose us against some random backdrop for perfect photos, either 🤣
@Andrzej We loved our wedding day but unlike so many, I'll never call it the best day of my life. It was beautiful and fun and happy, but everyday since I met him has increasingly been the best day of my life. Even though the shi%tiest of circumstances. We were very budget conscious and did a bunch of stuff ourselves and or friends offered to use there particular talents as their gift to us, such as my friend who did all the flowers as her gift and similar things. So many people said to us on the wedding day and later and even years later that they thought it was the best wedding they've ever been to and that it truly felt like... Like it embodied both of us, that the wedding itself reflected who we are separately on as a couple. That was the best compliment I could have received. But I also don't disagree with you about a lot of very fancy weddings that have been to that seemed to be more about the wedding than the person. So I totally get your feelings about weddings.
@HeathieJ "... it embodied both of us, that the wedding itself reflected who we are separately on as a couple." That speaks to me! Our "wedding" felt the same - we did it how we wanted. BTW, ever practical and rational, we got married for legal reasons - I had inherited some money and property, while she earned more than me, and we were about to buy a property of our own - we wanted there to be no doubt what would happen with all that we owned when one of us died, say. We could have sorted all that out with contracts, but getting married seemed less complicated than that. Does that sound pragmatic and not at all romantic? It should, because neither of us believes in rituals, so emotionally marriage meant little to us. We had already been living together for years, trusting and respecting one another. We needed no antiquated rite to strengthen our bond. We also almost never do something because "that's what you are supposed to do." Don't get me wrong - my wife is the best person I have ever met and I love how she completes me and gives everything meaning - but what we have and what we feel is in no way dependant upon marriage. The day we got married was not "the most important day of my life" - that would be the day I met my partner, because she really has changed me myself and my life, making it something I would never have imagined before. All that being said, I'm sad and angry same sex couples can't get married over here. It's so inhumanely cruel and discriminatory!
@Andrzej Legal marriage was invented to deal with property rights, and your wedding ceremony is a modern example. It does eliminate estate paperwork between the couple.
Very enjoyable, a nice relaxing Monday. Well, it was relaxing once I realized I wasn't being constantly told to be quiet.
@Janine Silence is (a) golden (star upon completion).
A lot of cultural unknowns made this quite a tricky Monday for me, but I got there on the crosses. Today's crossword adjacent trivia: The old kingdom of Samoa used to be on the Asian side of the International Date Line, until persuaded to shift its calendar to the American side in 1892, by having two July 4th in succession. In 1899, the Kingdom was divided between the colonial powers of Germany and the USA. After the First World War, German Samoa became a dependency of New Zealand, then independent as Western Samoa in 1962, then just plain Samoa in 1997. And in 2011, that Samoa (half of the original Samoa) shifted back across to the Asian side of the Date Line by going straight from 29 December to 31 December. All, that is, except for the Samoa & Tokelau Seventh Day Adventist church, who (mainly) stuck to the seven-day succession of weekdays, and so ended up celebrating their Saturday sabbath on the same day as other denominations were celebrating their Sunday sabbath. (Some Adventist congregations did make the calendar switch, however, and it's been a source of tension in the community.)
@Oikofuge Every time I hear about a massive time shift (24 hours is pretty massive) I wonder if people who are paying or receiving rent are able to come to terms with what should or should not be paid for "extra" days or "missing" days.
@Francis Over here rent is calculated by the month, generally, not matter how long it may be. February rent is the same as January rent, for example. Is that not the case in the US? Also, if you shift your calendar, the amount of days elapsed does not change - just the way you think of them does.
Always good to see Zhouqin's name as we know we are in for a treat.
Leave it to CC to give us a perfect Monday puzzle! The only thing is, my solve wasn't a quiet one. It was more like bam!-bam!-boom! (and finished too soon.) I had wonderful fun with it. Thank you! (ROGER took me straight to Pink Floyd. Though these days I'm not a fan of his specifically, the band's albums continue to be top-notch... <a href="https://youtu.be/84Tq-eAJIk4?si=Z7uyDzbv5MUhWuJY" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/84Tq-eAJIk4?si=Z7uyDzbv5MUhWuJY</a>)
@sotto voce Who is this CC you and Barry both mention?
Bill, C.C. is the constructor. She offered that years ago as an easy way to come close to pronouncing her first name.
@sotto voce Hey, Sotto. In case you haven’t seen it, this is my favorite video of David Gilmour playing Wish You Were Here (live unplugged, sorta). Bonus: no R. Waters. <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3j8mr-gcgoI&pp=0gcJCf0Ao7VqN5tD" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3j8mr-gcgoI&pp=0gcJCf0Ao7VqN5tD</a> The song is timeless. First one I played on the acoustic my family gave me for Christmas. In fact, you inspired me to start my day playing it right now!
@Xword Junkie I had a Chinese student who told the class we should call her Maddy. I tried to pronounce her given name, and she said that I did a passable (but not completely accurate) job of it, but she said that when most Americans tried to pronounce her name, it sounded like the Chinese word for monkey. Not a pleasant experience. It was preferable for her to have an American name of her choosing than to have her given name mangled by the American tongue. Her preference seemed entirely sensible to me.
@ The X-Phile Indeed, many of my Chinese students have chosen American names, but some have not. In the latter case, I simply do my best and hope no one giggles or gasps. In any case, I'd try something like "Zhoh-chin(g)" for Zhouqin, so "C.C." still puzzles me.
@sotto voce Just for the record, Ms. Burnikel publishes her constructions elsewhere (e.g. LA Times) using the nickname “CC”, but my understanding is that the NYT’s policy requires no pseudonyms (this policy I believe came about when a constructor was banned and then got a puzzle published under a different name…interesting story). Ms. Burnikel explained her choice in the constructor notes back in 5/22/2017: “Several readers asked about my name last time. ‘C.C.’ is short for Chou Chin, the Cantonese spelling of Zhouqin (Mandarin). Shortly after I arrived in the United States, I found out that Zhouqin was hard for others to pronounce. I was also surprised to receive a green card with a misspelled name: an extra U after the Q. So I decided to just use C.C. instead.”
@sotto voce She gives a fuller explanation for her name in the constructor notes for this Wordplay article: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/crosswords/figure-skating-event.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/crosswords/figure-skating-event.html</a> Times style is a stickler for Mandarin transliteration, it would seem.
Fun Monday puzzle (all in the clues) from one of my favorite constructors. None of the theme answers were going to come to me just from the clues, but they all came smoothly with just some down crosses. That added to the enjoyment - and... I still came in right at my Monday average. And... a quite unusual puzzle find today. I'll put that in a reply. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened - a Sunday from April 2, 2006 by Bob Klahn with the title: "Take Five." In that one - the 'five' in the title actually referred to the roman numeral (V). A couple of clue/answer examples: "Writer Fleming as a two-year-old?" IANTHETERRIBLE "One lacking bucks?" LONESOMEDOE "Comedian Tomlin as a bowler?" LILYOFTHEALLEY And some other theme answers: OPENINGMOES HOMEOFTHEBRAE DRIEREDUCATION YOUONLYLIEONCE And there were more. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/2/2006&g=120&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/2/2006&g=120&d=A</a> ...
But...but...where was the VELCRO? (As in, "One, two; velcro my shoe.") I have a guild meeting to get to, so in a burst of excess efficiency, I've already put the puzzle in the recycling bin--both sdes having been used. If I had thought of something more to say, it's gone now... Oh--ZIP your LIP? CC always delivers a solid and enjoyable puzzle. Thank you!!
beat my monday record today! 5:43
Paraphrasing from today’s Gameplay newsletter by Elie Levine: Starting June 30, there will be a new forum called Strands Sidekick.
Zippy Monday! Cute theme. I thought it was interesting that all of the theme answers included double letters (DILL, SLEEPING, BEDROOM DOOR, and DRESS). DRESS SHIRT had a triple S. Since there wasn’t a revealer, I pondered whether the double letters signified something? They sort of spell Leos 🤔 I found another mini theme SONAR, BLIP, SIGNAL, ROGER, RADIO, and maybe including SPY and LEAK. I also liked ALOHA crossing APIA and RAH crossing HAD A BLAST. I’m always impressed by the constructors who have “hit the cycle”. Thank you for starting off the week with a fun grid, CC!
We’ve seen “___ it!” clues before, such as [Darn it!] for SOCKS and [Beat it!] for EGG, but I don’t believe that they’ve ever been turned into a theme, as Zhouqin (aka CC) did today. That is a stellar crossword mind at work. Nailed it! Fun theme, too, with trying to guess the theme answers with as few crosses as possible. Plus, the grid today is awash in lovely serendipities: • The rhyming BLIP and DRIP. Saying them over and over sounds like windshield wipers. • A SIDE touching a side. • Crossing echoes: IN APP (which appeared yesterday), and CRIB (as in Saturday’s “Crib for a doll” for BARBIE DREAMHOUSE). • Double-O gathering with SPOON crossing BEDROOM DOOR. • Rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap: STRAP. • DOG crossing POO (Hi, @John Ezra), and also, re dog: FIDO and STAY. A touch of brilliance, fun, and little treasures brought sweetness to the box today. Brightened my day right up – thank you, CC!
I will apologize in advance -- this post, which was posted several hours ago, may appear again, as may another post which is shorter, minus things that I thought triggered the censor.
Nice one CeCe. TORSO is making the rounds these days along with ODOR. I guess they are related. Off to Maine this week after several delays (cue rants about auto repair and shipping). We will return to MS in late October missing some of the hurricane season. Smooth Monday solve, thanks again.
@dk Have fun in Maine! I live so far away now, but when I was young, we would go visit family in Maine. I guess I was last there about 15 years ago. The coast/Boothbay area is so wonderful in the summer.
Fun puzzle. And it was a nice drill for remembering how to interpret the imperative when it's not in quotes. That has taken me a while.
Shout-out to Captain Quahog: You're in today's Brendan Emmett Quigley puzzle! <a href="https://www.brendanemmettquigley.com" target="_blank">https://www.brendanemmettquigley.com</a> (After you do the puzzle, you can read my Diary of a Crossword Fiend review.) <a href="https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/06/22/monday-june-23-2025" target="_blank">https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/06/22/monday-june-23-2025</a>/
@Eric Hougland - Thanks! The clue is even an area in which I have done research!
It's a pleasure to see a Monday puzzle by a seasoned constructor. Everyone is saying it (or not): <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r3kQlzOi27M&pp=ygUfb3VyIGxpcHMgYXJlIHNlYWxlZCB0aGUgZ28tZ28ncw" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r3kQlzOi27M&pp=ygUfb3VyIGxpcHMgYXJlIHNlYWxlZCB0aGUgZ28tZ28ncw</a>%3D%3D CC, you go-go, girl!
@Bill Good choice of song. We saw the Go-Go’s and Marshall Crenshaw at a short-lived outdoor venue in Austin that’s been a strip center for years. It was kinda weird buying a sleeper-sofa in the same place where we’d been to a pop concert 20+ years earlier.
I'm SCOLDing myself because I had FCC instead of FTC. Phones are communication after all (and SONAR, SIGNAL and RADIO probably help solidify that frame of mind). It made SCRAP which is clearly wrong in retrospect, but since it is a word, my mind kept on skipping over it when I was looking for errors. Worst Monday time since OLDEN days. Still a fun puzzle. Thanks for letting me vent. Now I'll make like a SLEEPING BAG and zip it.
@Justin I made the same mistake!
@Justin I frequently get confused about which one (FCC or FTC) does what because they seem to overlap in my mind. A phone scam is a perfect example of that overlap. It's both communication and trade.
Down only clues and solved with no problem. For any 10-minute Saturday solvers (?!?) out there, Mondays down only is always a fun challenge! One of my favorite - albeit lowbrow - pieces of literary-inspired music is Kama Sutra by surf rock band the Swamis. Fun album if you're a fan of surf beat. YouTube never heard of them apparently or I'd post the track but their cd is for sale on ebay
@Long walks n sunsets Were you able to go back after solving the puzzle to notice the theme? I believe the theme answers were only across.
@Long walks n sunsets I do Mondays as down-only too but unlike you, had to peek at 30A to get 31D and at 13A for 4D. so you should indeed feel chuffed!
Ms Burnikel is awesome. Her friends call her CC. She is a master at crossword design. I always love solving her puzzles. I did not know she "hit for the cycle" but it does not surprise me. Well done CC.
Fun. Easy. Great Monday! Thanks!
11 Across, cluing is weird. It’s a music *player*, not a provider. “Provider” would typically imply a service eg Spotify.
@Scott G Right? I was very confused by the clue. Weird wordingx especially on Monday.
@Scott G I think you're being a little too literal. The Nano provided (as in supplied, gave, spewed, etc.) music, so it's not unfair to say it's a music provider.
It's always nice to see a puzzle from CC. This was a quick one for me. Thanks, CC.
Pretty nice theme, and really fun fill. I never felt I was getting bored while solving. I think this one of the best Mondays we've had in a while
Because Monday puzzles are of course usually easy I try to fill in all the blanks just using the across clues. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t. Today I could.
@David Kudos! This is my schtick too. Very chuffed when I can do it. Not today alas.
@David Congrats. I started across, but I had very little by the end of the pass :D. I never seem to be on the wavelength of Zhouqin Burnikel. The puzzle only became Monday-level for me once I did my Down pass.
Good morning! Had mini before NANO, SLYfox before DOG. KOLA nuts always remind me of the (old) 7up commercial about the "uncola". I'm sentimental. I still miss the old AOL platform. Made a lot of (still) good friends in the Trivia chatroom back in the 90s. None of the current apps enable quite that kind of casual conversational flow. And I'm still attached to my old screenname.
@Amy I sent away for the Uncola glasses! They were shaped just like Coca Cola glasses, but upside-down. Even the 7up logo was inverted.
@Amy A few days ago, I had put nano when it should have been MINI, so I paused on this one until I had a crossing entry.
It didn't get as much news coverage as the sourdough baking, but there was a definite spike in home canning during the Covid lockdowns. We were going through pallets of Mason-type glass jars at my A to Z warehouse every night. And that's a good thing.
@Grant I found all of that pandemic "homesteading" quite amusing: all those people hoarding* "staples" like flour, and dried grains and legumes--how many of them really had any sense of what to do with them? (It's worth pointing out that one can make oneself quite sick by eating improperly cooked dried beans.) Of course, we do still have a basement larder filled with canned fruits and vegetables, which we are unlikely to ever eat. *A friend told me that the German slang term for this is "Hamsterkauf,"--literally "hamster-buying."
@Margaret from Brooklyn Do you live near New York Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital? Such a ridiculous mouthful. If so, we're neighbors.
Where's the Constructor comments? Also, there is an old-fashioned custom of "canning" that involved preserving foods in jars. I gather that's what the "can" refers to. Nice puzzle. Would love to see more of these.
@Ms. Billie M. Spaight Canning is still done in many places. We do it with tomatoes from the garden.
@Ms. Billie M. Spaight Ms Burnikel seems to have eschewed constructor comments for a few years now. (I didn’t look at every one of her puzzles at xwordinfo.com, but I found a note with her puzzle from August 22, 2022.) Perhaps she feels she has nothing new to say after 80+ puzzles. Perhaps she prefers to just let the puzzle speak for itself.
That felt a little crunchy for a Monday, but no less enjoyable. Lots of unknown names, offset by a few gimmes. It took me a while to work out the theme, DILL PICKLE didn’t help. I’ve never seen a can of the above, only in jars. The penny didn’t drop til I got to DRESS SHIRT. Doh.
@Helen Wright Wait. There was a theme?
@Helen Wright everyone I have ever met who "puts up" their garden food in jars calls it "canning"... I haven't ever heard them say "I jarred my tomatoes yesterday", for instance. I grew up mostly in Alabama so maybe regional? But somehow I never thought about that until seeing your comment! Interesting! Here's an article about safe canning that says it refers to using jars or cans but I haven't seen home cooks use cans. <a href="https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can" target="_blank">https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can</a> Canning - National Center for Home Food Preservation
@Helen Wright Check this out: <a href="https://waywordradio.org/etymology-of-canning" target="_blank">https://waywordradio.org/etymology-of-canning</a>/ It's from a fun show I catch sometimes on public radio about the etymology of words.
@Helen Wright I think the author had to stretch things a bit because the clue couldn't be "Jar it!" or "Preserve it!" I'd prefer she found something more obvious, given it's a Monday puzzle.
My ear memory messed me up with "Stephen Vincent ___," and I had no idea how to fix PRTIAMS at 37D. "Spin doctor" means nothing to me anymore/so far.
@kilaueabart "Spin doctors" might comprise PR (Public Relations) TEAMS", which "spin" how events are reported, typically to favor those who hired them.
So fun and fresh clueing for a Monday. Thank you!
Strands #477 “Breaking up the band” 🟡🔵🔵🔵 🔵🔵🔵 Clever one today. No spoilers above the fold 😉
@Jacqui J Strands #477 “Breaking up the band” 🟡🔵🔵🔵 🔵🔵🔵
@Jacqui J Strands #477 “Breaking up the band” 🟡🔵🔵🔵 🔵🔵🔵 Agree it was clever, plus wheel house.
@Jacqui J Strands #477 “Breaking up the band” 🔵🔵🔵🔵 🟡🔵🔵 I had to find a few non-theme words first, but once I had the NE corner, I knew what to look for. That was fun, thanks. I don’t often play Strands, but I liked that one.
@Jacqui J Strands #477 “Breaking up the band” 🔵🔵🟡🔵 🔵🔵🔵 Roger that.
@Jacqui J Now that we’re below the fold: TALKING/HEADS was the first band I saw in the puzzle, then [The] SMASHING/PUMPKINS. Then, for a half minute, I was amused by imagining a band called PEACH TRICK. Vaer commented that this one was in her wheelhouse. Mine, too. Thanks again for starting this thread.
I got all of the bottom words first and thought it was going to be shorthand for each band, then I got Talking up top, and the light dawned on how apt the title was.
@Eric Hougland Ha! I missed "in the puzzle" while reading your comment and thought those were the first two bands you saw live. Very selective! Definitely my wheelhouse, though I enjoy Smashing Pumpkins almost as much as @Francis enjoys sauerkraut. 🤣 Strands #477 “Breaking up the band” 🟡🔵🔵🔵 🔵🔵🔵
@Eric Hougland And of course, 40 seconds after I posted this I saw your comment about seeing The Go-Go's. 🤣