Re-sharing an old Reddit gem on 44D. Always makes me smile. "When I was young my father said to me: “Knowledge is power, Francis Bacon.” I understood it as “Knowledge is power, France is bacon.” For more than a decade I wondered over the meaning of the second part and what was the surreal linkage between the two. If I said the quote to someone, “Knowledge is power, France is Bacon,” they nodded knowingly. Or someone might say, “Knowledge is power” and I’d finish the quote “France is bacon,” and they wouldn’t look at me like I’d said something very odd, but thoughtfully agree. I did ask a teacher what did “Knowledge is power, France is bacon” mean and got a full 10-minute explanation of the “knowledge is power” bit but nothing on “France is bacon.” When I prompted further explanation by saying “France is bacon?” in a questioning tone, I just got a “yes.” At 12 I didn’t have the confidence to press it further. I just accepted it as something I’d never understand. It wasn’t until years later I saw it written down that the penny dropped."
@Rahul When I was little, I thought there was a singer named Franksa Natra. I figured it out before I graduated.
@Rahul Also, France isn't bacon so much as it is quiche Lorraine.
@Rahul A favorite song I used to sing at the top of my lungs when I was about 7 years old: "He flies through the air with the greatest deveze, the daring young man on the flying trapeze..." I finally asked my mother what deveze was, and she said she didn't know and asked where I'd heard it. I sang her a few bars and she cleared it up.
@Rahul I learned a night time prayer as a 5 year old with the phrase "lead us not into eggs aisle." Being very visual, I imagined an open air market with vegetables, fruits, and eggs. Not sure why I wasn't supposed to go there.
@Rahul And who was "the bridegroom of the butterfly of love"? About 30 years later.... "bright, elusive butterfly of love".
@Rahul, Who remembers the 1970’s hit by the Motels, Only the Lonely? Well, 16-year-old me thought the line “Only the lonely get laid” was incredibly profound and insightful, and I patted myself on the back for understanding the implications. (It was YEARS later that I realized it was “can play.)
@Rahul A child of my acquaintance was inspired by this line from “Silent Night“: “Round yon virgin mother and child.” He drew a picture of Mary, baby Jesus, and a chubby guy. Asked for an explanation, he said that was Round John Virgin.
@Rahul When I was young, I misheard the phrase "six of one, a half dozen of the other" as "six 'n' one . . . " I could never understand how seven could equal six.
@Rahul et alii So many mondegreens! Loved them! I'm partial to the one from a Beverly Cleary book: a new kindergartner has to sing the "star-spangled Banner" each morning [along with reciting the pledge of allegiance] and she really wants to see a "lee light." The one that belongs to the donzer.....
There's something not quite kosher about this puzzle. Can't put my finger on it.
Speaking of not quite kosher, I have a friend who was raised Conservative Jewish and did a PhD in linguistics. She did not eat pork -- pork chops, pork loin, or pork sausage. She did eat ham and bacon.
@john ezra I wish I could remember where, not long ago, I saw bacon described as “gateway treyf.”
Got me thinking about Miss Piggy, whose signature accessory is a pearl necklace. Et tu, emu.
@Lewis It's not as on point as yours, but I've been thinking about Scout Finch in her HAM costume. Can't find a clip of the school show, which totally cracked me as a 10 year old when I first saw it, only the scary walk home.
On foggy mornings, Charlotte's web was truly a thing of beauty. This morning each thin strand was decorated with dozens of tiny beads of water. The web glistened in the light and made a pattern of loveliness and mystery, like a delicate veil. Even Lurvy, who wasn't particularly interested in beauty, noticed the web when he came with the pig's breakfast. He noted how clearly it showed up and he noted how big and carefully built it was. And then he took another look and he saw something that made him set his pail down. There, in the center of the web, neatly woven in block letters, was a message. It said: SOME PIG Lurvy felt weak. He brushed his hand across his eyes and stared harder at Charlotte's web. "I'm seeing things," he whispered. He dropped to his knees and uttered a short prayer. Then, forgetting all about Wilbur's breakfast, he walked back to the house and called Mr. Zuckerman. "I think you'd better come down to the pigpen," he said. "What's the trouble?" asked Mr. Zuckerman. "Anything wrong with the pig?" "N-not exactly," said Lurvy. "Come and see for yourself." The two men walked silently down to Wilbur's yard. Lurvy pointed to the spider's web. "Do you see what I see?" he asked. Zuckerman stared at the writing on the web. Then he murmured the words "Some Pig." Then he looked at Lurvy. Then they both began to tremble. Charlotte, sleepy after her night's exertions, smiled as she watched. (From Charlotte's Web)
@john ezra my favorite childhood book! “charlotte’s web,” along with “to kill a mockingbird,” “alice in wonderland” and “eloise” pretty much informed my life and told me everything i needed/wanted to know
@je Charlotte A. Cavatica--the quintessential [Campaign manager].
"You brought your pet hog to play cards with us?" "Why, what's the pig deal?" ("Well, I guess he's got a good porker face.")
@Mike I bet he'll bring home the bacon
@Mike Is he stoat of heart?
@Mike Another brand new entry -- I never sausage a post before. Although this one may be the wurst. (No, I'm not being a brat, emus.)
Fun theme and a cool grid design. The revealer made me squeal with delight. Playful inclusion of BACON at 44D. Nicely done, Natan.
Anita, I like the grid design, too, kept on trying to find something vaguely porcine, like a big fat pig staring right at me, those two feet on the ground, the block of six black squares in the center representing a snout, but I couldn't sustain the illusion...
The porcine theme reminds me of possibly the greatest newspaper correction of all time… <a href="https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2951" target="_blank">https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2951</a>
@Petrol 🤣 30 sows and pigs … 30,000 pigs 🤣
@Petrol That gave me a proper belly laugh (not slow cooked). Thank you!
@Petrol I just read the original (erroneous) bit to DHubby, who "heard" the same thing as the reporter..."Wow!" he declared. I almost spit out the sip of coffee I'd just taken. Wonderful! Thanks so much Petrol!
Petrol, Pigs are pretty smart. While drifting downstream, they were probably sinking the whole time.
Two fun puzzles in a row, can't do much better than that! 😊
I enjoyed the puzzle, but crosses were essential. Some of the more arcane clues I knew, e.g., SLOAN (Ash Can School of American Art) and HANS Castorp (Mann's "Magic Mountain") because they were acquired before my brain became so porous. Less sticks these days, and who knows, I may have heard of that Eurodance hit, and just forgot it (oh right). In any case, I had a good time and found the grid to be Sunday worthy. Thank you, Natan.
@dutchiris Hans Castorp was a gimme. One of my hands-down favorite novels of all time. I can say without hyperbole that The Magic Mountain changed the way I looked at the world.
Theme was decent, but the fill was not fun except a clue here and there, and it was also full of non-fun trivia.
@Apurv and this could easily have been a weekday puzzle. The theme did not require a Sunday grid.
Happiness is solving a Sunday puzzle without any typos and getting a gold star and understanding the theme. For me this was a fun, clever puzzle very nicely clued. Thanks Natan.
@Vaer Indeed, regardless of how long it takes! (In my case, an order of magnitude longer than the 9 minutes mentioned by another solver…)
The theme was IRKSOME for me - it relied too much on factual knowledge, and even though I got and understood the revealer, I needed the column to explain everything to me in detail. I always think if it takes an essay to explain a theme, there is something wrong with it... I found the fill largely gettable, with the exception of the two bottom corner areas. In the SW quadrant I needed lookups because of the intertwined NIH/RICO/LOOIE (looie? That must be a lieutenant, but I've never seen or heard the tem, or at least remembered it), and SCRIM/OHARA/RARITAN. I was also so sure of MAYHaM being spelled that way I never checked the cross (it was sport-related, and I always ignore those as I virtually never know them, anyway), and in the end I only resolved this by checking the puzzle. In the SE corner I was stumped by two things. First: VAMPING and its clue. I have no idea what noodling may refer to, and even though VAMPING is mentioned in the column, and a dictionary entry has been linked there, I apparently know too little about making jazz music to get any of it. It's like a description of a cricket match - it sort of looks like it's in English, but I have no idea what's going on. Second, greasy spoon solving to EATERY. Ok... I could google it, but please indulge me and elaborate below - I'd rather learn about this from the community.
Some entries were gimmes because of previous NYT puzzle experience, like TESSA, and SOFA as a coin collector. As I have mentioned here before, there never are any coins in Polish sofas, as we change into house clothes and slippers as soon as we come back home, so coins from street clothes never get anywhere near our sofas. I won't go as far as saying this was a bad puzzle, but personally I didn't enjoy it much.
@Andrzej I can help with EATERY. An EATERY is one rung above a "greasy spoon", the sort of place where you check the stool before you sit down, check the glass before you drink, check the cutlery before you use it. The food may be greasy but still good; the ambiance ain't. You don't want to catch a glimpse of the kitchen at work! An eatery is at least better that that; adequate hygiene, adequate food, basic, still lower class but could be applied in a humorous way to a more upscale place. EATERY was my first answer to that clue.
@SBK Thanks. I knew EATERY but not "greasy spoon". The Polish equivalent of EATERY is "jadłodajnia", literally "the place where food is served". "Jadło" is an old Polish term for food (derived from "jeść", "to eat"), no longer used on its own, and "dawać" - a verb which shares a root with the noun-ish suffix "-dajnia" - means "to give". These days "jadłodajnia" is almost always used quaintly, virtually exclusively in proper names of old-school-y, no-no sense eateries serving a small selection of Polish staples, like "pomidorowa" (tomato soup) or "kotlet schabowy z kapustą zasmażaną" (thick loin schnitzel with fried cabbage). When I was a kid in the 80s, it was never a proper name, but always a generic one. I'm trying to think if we have a concept of "greasy spoon". The closes equivalent would probably be "mordownia", literally "place where you can get murdered", which denotes a dangerously dirty and raucous establishment. However, a typical mordownia would be a seedy bar rather than messy eatery - it's alcohol that makes it dangerous, and not only low hygiene standards 🤣.
@Andrzej I agree that RARITAN, OHARA was awkward.
@Andrzej in the UK, a greasy spoon is a cafe that serves heart-attack inducing fried breakfasts of sausages, bacon, fried bread, hash browns, mushrooms, beans, tomatoes and (if you're lucky) black pudding, plus rounds of white toast and mugs of tea or coffee. Going to a greasy spoon is a hangover ritual.
@Andrzej VAMPING is actually imprecisely clued here I think. A vamp in jazz relates more to a repeated chord progression or section over which a musician can improvise. More of a rhythm section thing. It’s not really noodling per se (noodling refers somewhat speciously to aimless and uninteresting soloing/improv that lacks musical interest). I used to perform as a semi professional musician for years and whenever the instruction was to vamp, it meant to essentially play the same section over and over until the next cue.
@Steve L Thanks! So basically, "greasy spoon" has many positive connotations? Our "mordownia" doest not :D. "Portowa mordownia" - a dive bar in the port - is our term for the worst possible establishment :D My wife and I knew your diners from books and movies, of course, so we were excited to eat at one during our 2011 trip to the Western US. It was pretty nice, with a casual vibe and inexpensive, tasty food. The portion of pancakes I got for breakfast was unbelievably large :D @Jeremy Thanks! I don't understand all of that (not your fault but my less-than-rudimentary musical education's) but I'm much less in the dark than I was before. I appreciate it :)
@Andrzej It seems it's less that there's "something wrong with the theme" and more that you, personally, didn't understand it, or much of the fill. That's not really on the constructor. Liked this one a lot
Yuck. That was the least fun Sunday puzzle I’ve done in years. Actors crossing with writers crossing with Nobel Prize winners crossing with place names. Booo. I prefer more words in my crosswords.
Not a gem...a SLOG. What's the opposite of impressive? That's this puzzle. On top of 'not fun'. COME ON, NYT!!!! You need to do better than this tripe.
@Ben Blackwell You've managed to string together six sentences of insults. How about telling us the specifics of why you found it to be a slog? I've done a lot of puzzles, and I didn't get that impression at all. Maybe you could share a few specifics? (I'm not saying you don't have the right to not like it.)
@Ben Blackwell I'm choosing to pretend that you're simply demonstrating the idiom in the revealer: like PEARLSBEFORESWINE. Bravo! 🙂 Although, I'd give you points if tripe came from pigs, which maybe...? but I don't think it does.
@Ben Blackwell Well, at least tripe is kosher. I wouldn't say such boorish potshots are.
@Ben Blackwell "What's the opposite of impressive?" That you had to ask that question may be related to your problem with word puzzles.
And now for a nit. 15A. An ADREP is not a [Campaign manager] even with a [?] An ADREP works for the medium and sells space or time. A media buyer at the ad agency buys the space or time. An ad "campaign" is "managed" by an account executive at the ad agency. There have been fine clues for ADREP. This incorrect clue appeared once before, in 2012. It should be retired. Thank you. (this was a 30-second spot)
See, folks! Barry doesn't reflexively like everything.
@Barry Ancona I think you've been DOOKed. The correct separation of the word is A DREP. A. Drep was a campaign manager for McKinley's first term. The "A" didn't stand for anything. His parents simply couldn't think of a first name. So Mr. and Mrs. Drep said "He's just a Drep." I wouldn't try to google any of this. This is specialized knowledge, known only to a few.
@Barry Ancona This is a crossword puzzle, not an advertising class in The New York University Stern School of Business .
BTW, speaking of pearls before swine, the former showed up on earth about half a billion years prior to the latter.
@Lewis So....it was pretty exciting to shop back in the day?
Authentic Beijing duck is not served with Hoisin sauce. It’s served with a fermented sauce made from wheat flour, called Tian Mian Sauce. Hoisin sauce is from Canton, and used to serve Beijing duck with in Chinatown Cantonese restaurants, most likely because Tian Mian sauce wasn’t available.
I’m glad the Martín Espada and Marsha P. Johnson clues made the puzzle. Personally, I want the puzzle to go political. Everything is political. If you don’t stand apart from evil, you are part of evil. As ever - go Gunners! ❤️🤍
@Becky i respectfully disagree. the most beautiful things which man (read woman, too) has wrought are not political. starry night bachs cantata 82 moby dick to name but a few...
Adorable puzzle! But the NW corner nearly killed me, even after a full cup of coffee. I had a ton instead of A LOT until the very end. I can never think of PUMP UP THE JAM without thinking of Cunk on Earth, the hilarious Netflix documentary about our stupid planet.
Is it hard to peppa so many bits of wisdom into a puzzle with such necklace abandon? Shoat is. But that’s why the NYT is a puzzle of great price.
Found this one rather challenging, in part due to the many proper nouns that I didn't know, especially in the western portion of the grid. That said, I was able to solve the puzzle unaided, with the help of crossings and with assistance from the theme itself to get PUMPUPTHEJAM---since I knew the grunge group. Some interesting *words* today: ASSAY, ELECTOR (cleverly clued), DOJO (also cleverly clued), SOPOR, IRKSOME, MAYHEM, DESPOT. LOUDOUTS is new to me, despite having followed baseball for about half a century. Quite a nice term, just not one I recall having heard. Very fine construction, though perhaps a bit too heavy on the proper nouns.
@Xword Junkie This sums up exactly how I felt too.
@Xword Junkie Not that fond of SOPOR -- pretty obscure, although its child SOPORific is still serving effectively at the opera, in lecture halls, and occasionally at the doctor's office.
I can't even... (but of course I can! What else would we expect of the Wunderkind, given his already-stellar CrossWorld Career?) This was intriguing from the get-go, reshaping the grid, and circling a group of words that seemed unlikely associations... The proper names (all mysteries to me) and concepts such as Eurodance...not helpful!!...made this more difficult (whereas otherwise I thought the entries were pretty simple.) My favorite thing was the 77D clue, " Literary runt of the litter," because it salutes an absolutely wonderful book, the last line of which is poignant and true. Hats off to Natan Last!
Very clever! It took me a bit to get the theme, but delighted when I did. And yes, loved both Babe and “that’ll do” — can you tell I have border collies?
As usual these days, some solvers go HOG WILD, and for others, the puzzle is PEARLS BEFORE SWINE.
@Barry Ancona Just so you know, I took this personally 🤣
@Barry Ancona You may have meant *casting* pearls before swine, which is not good. Pearls are good
I’ve never heard of POLLO guisado or Zosia MAMET, so a ton made as much sense to me as ALOT. I guess the only thing that I can complain about is my own lack of knowledge.
Another one that was a great Sunday puzzle! Never got the theme. Oh, well. Lots of good clues and answers. A little sports, a little arts, a little entertainment. Lots of fun. Thanks, Natan! Y’all have a great Sunday!
VAMP might have meant freeform improvisation in 1789, as your dictionary cites. But in the modern music world, it has the opposite meaning from “noodling“— it’s a fixed pattern that can be repeated without variation in preparation for a solo entrance.
@Alan Young "your dictionary" -? What, pray tell, is that? And it really references jazz in 1789??
SO SWEET that the answers included THATLL DO
Whenever I think of pigs, I imagine them with the contented smiles that often show up on their faces, and my whole being calms and feels happy. That warm fuzzy feeling also accompanied my solve. There were sticky areas that I couldn’t crack, but I somehow knew I eventually would. Throughout the fill-in I felt engaged and interested, never frustrated. It’s actually my favorite part of this puzzle – how I felt while solving it. There’s an art to creating that sweet spot. That’s on top of the science. Look at how tight this theme is, due to the PEARL element. Aside from “barley”, “Bailey”, and “diver”, what other possibilities are there for the circled words? Despite this, Natan found theme answers to fit symmetry, all the while fitting them in a sorta image of a pig made out of the black squares. Wow! Anyway, this puzzle was made by a pro. Natan, I loved this – thank you!
@Lewis earring? as in: the girl with a... too soon? bueller? bueller? anyone...?
@Lewis I would have loved Bailey and barley!
@Lewis "my whole being calms and feels happy." ... Sometimes reading your comments makes me want to quote When Harry Met Sally, ie "I'll have what he's having."
The Day Lady Died By Frank O’Hara It is 12:20 in New York a Friday three days after Bastille day, yes it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner and I don’t know the people who will feed me I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun and have a hamburger and a malted and buy an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets in Ghana are doing these days I go on to the bank and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard) doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine after practically going to sleep with quandariness and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT while she whispered a song along the keyboard to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing
I love the poems of Frank O'Hara, and thinking of him always takes me back to my college days and the good friend who first recommended his poetry to me. So I thought that this was a good opportunity to share that love with others.
@The X-Phile Thanks for sharing the poem. I love that, in addition to being about Billie Holiday, it mentions Mal Waldron, who was her accompanist the last 2 years of her life. Mal was a prolific composer and fine pianist with a distinctive style in his own right, and one of the most genuinely nice guys in jazz history.
If you squint your eyes, you can almost make out a little pig staring back at you in the grid... Or maybe I've just been staring at it for too long lol
I liked the main theme, currently have not finished it. I got all the theme clues already but sit at about 85% complete because there's a ton of Naticky proper noun clues in the puzzle. The name of a co-Nobelist, the painter named John, Lenape people from New Jersey, a Paramore hit. Also I don't understand the LOUD OUTS clue. I was thinking LINE OUTS. Even Google doesn't seem to know what LOUD OUTS are besides a podcast.
@Chris A “loud out” is a common baseball term. It is used when a ball is hit hard or far, but nonetheless results in an out. Line drives and balls caught on the warning track come to mind.
@Chris Loud outs has been a baseball term for a long time. I didn't think there were any Naticks here. I didn't know who John Sloan or the Raritans were either but they were gettable with the crosses.
@Chris Here you go: <a href="https://www.baseball-almanac.com/dictionary-term.php?term=loud" target="_blank">https://www.baseball-almanac.com/dictionary-term.php?term=loud</a>%20out <a href="https://kids.kiddle.co/Glossary_of_baseball_(L)#Loud_Out" target="_blank">https://kids.kiddle.co/Glossary_of_baseball_(L)#Loud_Out</a> <a href="https://www.translationdirectory.com/glossaries/glossary320_l.php" target="_blank">https://www.translationdirectory.com/glossaries/glossary320_l.php</a> You got to know how to search so as to eliminate the noise if there's a lot of interference. I searched: "loud out" baseball -podcast ...to keep the two words together and eliminate references to the podcast. I'd say, though, that the term is literally "inside baseball"; I'm guessing that it was the only thing that would work in that spot and they had to use it. It's really very obscure an expression, although as a big baseball fan, I was familiar with it.
@Steve L I usually don't pay strict attention to baseball announcers at all times, but have been listening for many, many years and was not familiar with the term, and it was the thing that made sense in the puzzle.
@Chris - From the replies to your comment, it looks like LOUD OUT is an East Coast regionalism. Not used by Bob Eucker on his broadcasts.
@Chris I think that the Rutgers University Alma Mater is "On the banks of the old 96a"
I read the column. Don't understand it. Some words in the puzzle relate to pigs, but I don't see how the circled words relate to each other or to pearls before swine. And I don't recall what pearls before swine have to do with wasting time. Also, I never ever heard of a loud out. Don't believe Bob Uecker used that term. Winter has come. Lots of snow.
@jennie "don't cast pearls before swine" is a saying meaning don't waste valuable materials (which can include time and effort as well as physical resources) where they won't make a difference and won't matter. Pigs don't care about pearls, so save the (valuable) pearls for a pearl necklace instead. The circled words all relate to pearl: pearl JAM, pearl HARBOR, pearl ONION. And they're right above the pig-name entries, meaning if you read the columns top down, the pearls come before the swine.
@jennie Hey there! Everything that Isabeau said, but to expound a little bit more, pearls before swine is originally a biblical saying I think from the book of Matthew... It's about giving something valuable to something that isn't valuable, if that makes sense. Like, what could pigs ever do with pearls!? It's sort of getting out like wasting resources. And all of the circled words could have the word pearl before them.... So the word pearl before the words with the circled letters. I also didn't know the baseball term, once I got enough crossings, I figured itout but I agree I don't think Bob Uecker, the greatest everrrrrrrr, said it to my recollection. Hope this helps!! ☺️
@jennie - Thanks Isabeau and HeathieJ.
@jennie a loud out has been a baseball descriptor forever... vin scully popularized the term in the 50s when referring to players, particularly his friend jackie robinson, arguing with umpires over contested calls which had not gone the formers way. the loudness referred to the yelling. but it has since come to refer to a well-struck ball, based on its sound off the bat, but usually hit straight at a fielder and scored an out like any other.
@HeathieJ thank you that makes more sense than the column did
@jennie Uecker may not have said it but it’s in fairly common usage today
@jennie. I’ll trust the opinion of the others that it’s a real thing, but as a fellow Milwaukeean I haven’t heard it either from Bob Uecker or anyone else. Thanks for bringing him up though! Fond memories.
Another sloppy puzzle to complete the weekend. Why do the editors accept this type of slop. If the constructor cannot complete the fill with real words and real (actually spoken) phrases it should not be acceptable. LOOIE? I was in the Army (maybe different for other branches) at many different locations never heard that in reference to LT. There weee others I had issue with but I am not wasting any more time on this slop. 4 out of 10 🚮
Darren, Which Army were you in -- and when -- when you never heard a lieutenant referred to as a LOOIE?
@Darren I happened to enjoy the puzzle, but given the theme, I do like your use of the word slop. 4/10
@Darren My recommendation would be to get a thesaurus and learn some words other than "slop." It will make these puzzles easier, though it may not improve your manners.
@Darren Exactly whose army were you in?
@Darren I've never served in the army, but I've heard of LOO and LOOIE from watching police shows on TV.
@Darren I scanned the puzzle for the phrases you might be referring to. Pass the buck? Pearls before swine? I speak those phrases frequently. There are so many similar phrases, especially taken from Shakespeare and the more poetic portions of The Bible. I for one am not ready to toss them all out quite yet.
@Darren There are legitimate criticisms of puzzles, and then there's your slop.
@Darren In Sunday school at an evangelical church in the fifties, we used to sing the song: "I may never march in the infantry, ride in the calvary, shoot the artillery, I may never swoop o'er the enemy, but I'm in the Lord's army." We sang this while pretending to march, firing a machine gun, bombing people. And I can tell you, I never heard "looie" in the Lord's Army.
Count me among those who loved this puzzle and theme. Natan Last, as Caitlin pointed out, is a pro. As others have suggested, it may have been (insert revealer) for the haters. Thanks to @The X-Phile for the Frank O’Hara sample, and to @john ezra for Charlotte’s Web. Just two of the many reasons I regularly lurk here in the comments section after solving.
GOA / OAST is a tough Natick
What other letters did you consider?
@Jack I suggest you console yourself by eating a nice vindaloo curry. :-)
Hey, a knighthood is an honour, not an honour! I know you guys have your own folksy way of spelling stuff, but last time I heard there weren't too many knighthood being given out in the US of A.
The clue wasn't [Knighthood, in Knightsbridge], so we get to spell HONOR our way.
@RP According to Patricia O'Conner's book Origins of the Specious, and to Linguistics professor John McWhorter's wonderful podcast Lexicon Valley, it was actually British spellings *and* pronunciations that changed after the Revolutionary War. I.e., it is you guys who have the folksy way of spelling stuff.
@RP “Before I would haue granted to that Act. But thou preferr'st thy Life, before thine Honor. And seeing thou do'st, I here diuorce my selfe, Both from thy Table Henry, and thy Bed, Vntill that Act of Parliament be repeal'd, Whereby my Sonne is dis-inherited.” -Shakespeare (famously not American), early 1590s.
Thank you to the constructor for the gift of a clue pointing us to this poem (and for his work for refugees, so needed in these awful times): <a href="https://www.rosalienebacchus.com/poetry-corner-january-2023.html" target="_blank">https://www.rosalienebacchus.com/poetry-corner-january-2023.html</a>
9D Martín Espada reading his poem, "___ to the Soccer Ball Sailing Over a Barbed Wire Fence" is a marvelous poem, new to me, read by the poet in 2019: <a href="https://youtu.be/HCIkFVlrSJA?si=67vebVQa15M4jMwC" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/HCIkFVlrSJA?si=67vebVQa15M4jMwC</a> ⚽️🌎🌍🌏⚽️🗽🌺💗
@Hallie Robbins Wow! Wow! Wow! Poetry usually escapes me entirely. That one knocked my on my keister.
A busy late week [holiday feast>50th anniversary(ours)>funeral(not ours)>recovery day] so catching up with some fine puzzles. Was not even going to do today's but, Natan Last??, I'm in! Good fun all around. Many thanks.
This piggy themed puzzle is certainly au courant. I’m not one who hates general knowledge/trivia in puzzles as a rule, but this one had ALOT. Thanks to the theme, and other swine adjacent clues, I didn’t find it boaring, and the unknowns were easy enough to get via crosses. In fact it was a tad easier than I’d like. But in the end I decided THATLLDO. Now if I’d been constructing the puzzle I might have slipped in a couple of musical references, such as sixties folk/rock band Pearls Before Swine, and sixties blues/rock band Blodwyn Pig, or something about Linda Ronstadt’s album, Silk Purse, the cover of which features the singer posing in a pig sty. Fortunately for all of you, I’m no puzzle constructor.
Marshall Walthew, au courant indeed ("Quiet, piggy"). I'm wondering whether "That'll do, pig" -- as Caitlin mentioned, an iconic line from "Babe" -- was on his mind when he uttered that. The idea of him watching "Babe" seems crazily believable, maybe on TV in his bed, eating junk food, in gold satin pajamas, it's 2am, he's done enough all-caps tweet vamping to satisfy his army, and Fox is all dumb stuff, he starts channel surfing, Babe comes on and he's hooked, stuffing cheese curls in his mouth and watching the movie with rapt attention...even starting to tear up at one point, his mind spinning with feelings he hasn't opened himself to in decades... Nah, probably not. PS, love the way your mind wandered over to that album Silk Purse.
Lovely puzzle. Loved the additional Babe nod at 36A with THATLLDO, a saying that gets a lot of play in our house.
Just one silly person’s opinion: Ain’t it fun? No, no it ain’t.
I thought Caitlyn’s link to the caricature of Dorothy Parker, a sketch by Peggy Bacon, the cherry on top.
Naticks upon naticks. Just an awful slog. I hope this is the Last.
Does this count as a Natick? ATON made sense for 2D IRK made sense for 3D POTRO made sense for 12A MAMEN seemed as likely as anything for 21A I decided to reevaluate that section when I realized that IRK and IRKSOME were unlikely to both be in the same puzzle. Alas, I fear my streak may be soon to end. I've gotten threw the weekend, but if it ends, it'll be on Tuesday's puzzle. I'm currently in Suriname and going on an overnight hike in the rainforest on Monday. I'm not sure when I'll get my signal back, but a little birdie told me I'll have until 10 PM Wednesday night to finish the Tuesday that comes out at 10 PM on Monday. Not sure if that's accurate. We're spending Monday night atop the mountain, so definitely no signal. Tuesday night is in a lodge so maybe a signal? Back in Paramaribo Wednesday afternoon.
(1) No, it does not count as a Natick. (2) I can think of worse reasons to end a streak. Enjoy!
@Steven M. I don't think so... I can see it being ATON, but I don't really see irk being the answer for strain. I think I know what you mean though, if you irk someone maybe you're putting a strain on your relationship, or something like that, but that would be pretty stretchy. And I don't think they make potro colt stew in the Caribbean. Certainly none of the places I've been too in the Caribbean, at least that I have ever known of. I could be wrong, but of all the Caribbean places here and there, I've never seen that word on the menu. Enlighten me, if you have! I've been wrong once or twice before... Har! I do agree about the actress though since that could have been many things if you didn't actually know her name, outright, which I also didn't. Sure hope you manage to keep your streak, but sounds like an amazing trip and I hope you have a great time!! ☺️
@Steven M. The timing seems accurate. I've solved puzzles the following day quite late. Just don't open the current day while the previous day is unsolved.
@Steven M. Enjoy your trip. For at least a couple of days you can finish a puzzle even after the next one is published as long as you do them in order. I did this earlier this month when in Europe. Fun Puzzle!
For me, THAT’LL DO is the cherry on top that makes this puzzle.
For the first time in 20 years of solving crosswords, I dont understand the theme even after reading the column. Why are the circled words pearls? This was a sad slog from start to finish for me. This “idiom” is such a deep cut from the Bible I can’t believe it was deemed NYT Sunday-worthy. Never heard it myself. Bummer!
@Marty PEARL BUCK PEARL JAM PEARL HARBOR PEARL ONION And the down words immediately below the PEARL endings are: HAMM BABE PORKY WILBUR
@Marty The circled words pair with the word Pearl. The word directly below it is the name of a pig.
@Marty Did you click the links in Caitlin's article? They explain the peral references.
@Marty I didn’t understand it from the column either. The explanation at xwordinfo was much easier to follow.
Tough but excellent puzzle! I can’t think of “Pearls before swine” without thinking of the comic strip, so this brought a smile and a good read of some new ones I hadn’t seen yet.