Sometimes I daydream about a small area of land. It's a lot to think about. (I've got a one-tract mind.)
@Mike I’d like to say something about your plot of land but unfortunately it’s not my field
Mike, Don’t be like the daydreaming farmer who starved to death. When it comes to working the land, something not to forget is: the realist ate.
@Mike Sow earthwhile yearnings can lead to real estates.
Oh, man, there's beauty in the box today: LIVE WIRES, NEEDLE DROP, LET ME AT ‘EM, ROGUE WAVE, SEA GRAPES, SMASH CUT, APE COSTUME. Those last five are NYT debut answers, by the way. All these answers are longs – eight letters or more, of which today’s puzzle has a sky-high 16 – which have the potential to invigorate a puzzle, and they sure do today. Then Maddy throws in a contronym – a word with two opposite definitions – with CLEAVES. Language-quirk-loving me adores contronyms, such as sanction, ravel, splice, garnish, oversight. The solve gave me areas of whoosh, and spots of struggle, both of which happify my brain. And two TILs, both worth knowing: TELUGU and SEA GRAPES. This is Maddy’s second Times puzzle. After her first, also a themeless, I commented that this was a constructor with potential. Today’s entry solidifies that suspicion, and Maddy, I hope they keep coming. Thank you – I loved this!
@ad absurdum – Thank you for asking. When I woke from the 3.5-hour spinal fusion surgery on Cinco De Mayo, my first three thoughts were ebullient – that I was alive, felt like myself, and didn’t feel like I lost a single brain cell. Full recovery can take up to a year, but after a couple of months I’ll be able to do quite a bit. So far, it’s been a blend of grinding away toward progress, and the thrill of experiencing said progress. My spirits are good, and I’m learning much.
@Lewis, glad to find you up and at 'em and hope the surgery won't interfere too much with your yoga practice -- maybe no downward dogs for a while!
I thought this was a nice Friday with tons of fresh entries and some off kilter clues. The SE really slowed me down. I had wand and then cane before CAPE, and tidal wave before ROGUEWAVE. Couple those missteps with not knowing of the MODELT or TELEGU and I was hot MESS for a hot minute. I loved APECOSTUME and VACANTLOT. So, in the Thursday puzzle, I had never heard of IHEARTRADIO. Wouldn’t you know, I was reclining in the dentist’s chair undergoing a root canal and an ad for IHEARTRADIO came on the tv playing in the room.
Marshall Walthew — isn't is TELUGU ?
@Marshall Walthew I think that's called selective perception. Years ago, my wife wanted to buy a certain vehicle and showed me a picture. I had never seen that model before. But the next day, and the next and the next, I saw one every time I drove to work. So many things pass our eyes and ears that we can't possibly remember them all. But once a seed is placed, bang! there they are.
@Marshall Walthew I got fooled,with MAELSTROM. Also, things you’ll now see everywhere: the number 37!
I found this impossibly difficult, and thus personally unenjoyable, as I'm not a fan of impossible challenges - take a look what I had after my first across and down pass, and what the grid ended up looking like: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/SKToc0g" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/SKToc0g</a> There simply was too much I didn't know, and I mean both proper names (TELUGU? SEA GRAPES? The name of the mother of a literary character I last thought about 20 years ago?) and expressions, and the clues just didn't vibe of with me. Much of my confusion was about cultural differences of course. Bikes with BANANA SEATs were never a thing here, and our difficult time for farmers is "przednówek" (literally, "[the time] before the new [harvest]"), that is late winter and early spring, when last year's harvest has been used up and one still has to wait for new crops. We don't get dry and wet seasons (but of course, with climate change, we can get long, devastatingly dry periods at any time: this spring has been the dryest in 70 years). Also, Matt and others below praise "Here goes nothing!" for VACANT LOT, and I don't get it, at all. My simple mind sees it like this: a vacant lot is not nothing - I own one and it certainly is something - and it's going nowhere, it just sits there. Clearly I'm missing something.
Didn't vibe with me* No idea how that "of" got there.
@Andrzej I got VACANT LOT only after getting six of the crosses. Makes no sense to me, either. I hope someone replies with clarification.
@Andrzej I am a native English speaker. Have American family, lived in the US. I found this puzzle impenetrable - full of clues & answers which made little sense. The column's claim "It’s jam-packed with kinetic entries that seem to bounce off each other, giving the puzzle a kind of zip and verve" wasn't my experience. Just a frustrating look up puzzle.
@Andrzej "...a vacant lot is not nothing..." I am very much with you there. I mean, everything we see, touch, imagine is something, if nothing more than a place for something else to be. True nothingness is terrifying.
@Andrzej I'm kind of surprised by this thread. When I finished, I imagined it would further fuel the "difficulty" controversy. It's pretty rare for me, especially these days, to think of a puzzle as on the easier side.
@Andrzej "Here goes nothing!" goes like this: So let's say you're sitting in on a municipal planning committee and the members are brainstorming how to make best use of a land parcel. "Over here goes a convenience store," says the comptroller. "Oooh...and over there goes a dog park," says the mayor. "And maybe over there goes the daycare center," says the landscaper. "But what about that irregularly shaped vacant lot in the northeast pasrt of the parcel?" asks the commissioner. Silence ensues for a few minutes as all struggle to figure out what to put there. Finally, the building janitor, who's been listening while tidying, boldly approaches the group, points at the space and declares: "Here goes nothing!"
@Andrzej A vacant lot has nothing on it. So when looking at it, you might note that “here (on the lot) goes (is placed) nothing (not even one building!)” It took a minute to register for me, but I think it’s a brilliant clue.
Perfect Friday difficulty for me - intimidating at first, but slowly & steadily came together. Also, after welcoming a baby a few months ago and breaking a years-long streak, the first time a new streak has made it out of the teens!
@Amy Congratulations on A) the new baboo B) the nascent streak. May both prosper and grow.
@Amy Congratulations on all counts!
@Amy Don't see why such a little thing like a baby would interfere with your daily solve. Yep...priorities, I guess...
Raising hand for people stuck with a CAnE for too long. Favorite NEEDLEDROP: Ragnarok with Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2defet1tLNs" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2defet1tLNs</a>
@Daniel Lemke Great example! I'll have to go with probably the most famous: Layla in Goodfellas. Just an amazing montage.
@Daniel Lemke That is a phenomenal needle drop! You post immediately explained that it is a record player needle dropping. Aha, I needed this. Thanks!
Sheeple. Both the word and the instances of the word scare the living daylights out of me.
@Francis It’s so interesting and disturbing to me that the language of the deepest, darkest parts of the Internet is now becoming mainstream. The people who used to use these words were once considered gross creeps, and now they rule the world.
@Francis Back when I took business courses the concept of "group think" was considered the bane of a successful company. So what have they been teaching for the past 25 years?
Tonight’s fun wrong guess: “Like some kitchens”= CLEAN As for the APE COSTUME: if there’s still anyone who hasn’t seen this - well I guess I’ve spoiled it. I was totally taken in the first time I saw it. <a href="https://youtu.be/vJG698U2Mvo" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/vJG698U2Mvo</a>
@Cat Lady Margaret This is a classically hilarious demonstration of human foibles. There's another great example in which someone stops someone on the street to ask directions. While the "mark" is giving the directions, a big object is carried between them, eclipsing the person who asked for directions for second or two. When it's gone, the question-asker has replaced by someone else, and the person giving directions rarely notices. I am incredibly unobservant. You can ask me if someone wears glasses, or has a mustache or is bald, and I won't remember the face well enough to answer with any authority. Probably why I am an ex-chemist. I should have been a detective.
@Cat Lady Margaret I saw it, but had stopped counting by then.
@Cat Lady Margaret I hadn't seen it before. Even with the tipoff, I failed in all senses. I missed four passes despite the obvious intense concentration.
@Cat Lady Margaret Fun! I counted the 15 passes *and* saw the gorilla, but only because of the spoiler. I know I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise.
@Cat Lady Margaret I heard the researcher Chabris talk about this experiment and the serious real world implications on witness statements. See <a href="https://nobaproject.com/modules/failures-of-awareness-the-case-of-inattentional-blindness" target="_blank">https://nobaproject.com/modules/failures-of-awareness-the-case-of-inattentional-blindness</a> for a good description of the work. The relevant passage: "Chabris and colleagues simulated a famous police misconduct case in which a Boston police officer was convicted of lying because he claimed not to have seen a brutal beating (Lehr, 2009). At the time, he had been chasing a murder suspect and ran right past the scene of a brutal assault. In Chabris’ simulation, subjects jogged behind an experimenter who ran right past a simulated fight scene. At night, 65 percent missed the fight scene. Even during broad daylight, 44 percent of observers jogged right passed it without noticing, lending some plausibility to the Boston cop’s story that he was telling the truth and never saw the beating."
@Cat Lady Margaret That’s amazing. I was laser focused on the passes (counted 14– almost correct!) but never saw the gorilla. I even rewound to the start of the video to make sure I wasn’t being pranked. My detective ambitions have been crushed.
A Telugu association (they show movies and do things that help people keep the language going) sponsors one of those clean-up-the-highway things in Cary, North Carolina. I've driven past the sign hundreds of times. It was a delight to find a use for that word stuck in my head. Fun puzzle that offered resistance but didn't frustrate me.
@Alita Shaver "Fun puzzle that offered resistance but didn't frustrate me." Perfect summary, I felt exactly the same. Best kind of difficulty level.
Got ready to call "Natick!" on TELUGU/MODELT Modelt...Modelt...Modelt...Huh??? Ohhhhhh MODEL T I been dooked!
@Long walks n sunsets I did the same thing yesterday.. “What does NEEDED A SAP mean? Why would you need a sap? Ohhhhh NEEDED ASAP”
@Long walks n sunsets I thought I was the only one! I've been sleep deprived for more than a month and I'm especially prone to DOOKs right now.
@Long walks n sunsets If I ever knew the meaning of dook, I've forgotten it. Anybody? Anybody?
“Careful what you wish for…” maybe I was tired and that one aggravated me at the end. I had CAnE instead of CAPE. I never heard of TELUGU. For some reason, I knew I could’ve stared at it for days and I wasn’t going to figure it out. I didn’t know what SEAGRAPES were. I’m not complaining. I haven’t had to look something up in a long, long time. It’s good for me. Thank you to the constructors.
@Jake G Readers of Metropolitan Diary have learned of TELUGU from the posts of Sivram, one of the favorite commentators who I believe is a native speaker.
Fun puzzle -- I thought it was going to be too easy when I zipped through the north, but I am grateful that I got bogged down in the south. SEA GRAPES! I'm familiar with this species -- I have worked on a group of nudibranchs (sea slugs) that have a very specialized diet -- the saccoglossan slugs. They have a radula (basically, a tongue with teeth on it) that is specialized to slit open large cells. A few of them eat only fish eggs, specializing in one or a few species of fish. Since eggs are just huge cells, one puncture and you can suck up the entire innards of the egg. A great reward for little work. But most saccoglossans slit open coenocytic or siphonaceous algae -- filamentous algae that don't have cell walls separating their "cells" They do undergo mitosis, producing two nuclei where there was one, but instead of forming a new cell by laying down new cell wall between them they just elongate and do it all over again -- the result is a long, multinucleate filament. So when a saccoglossan slits open the cell wall of a coenocytic alga, the entire length of the filament is just there to be sucked out. "I drink your milkshake!" I did not study the species that preys on SEA GRAPES but a related species that preys on algae found in New England. The fun part of why I studied these is that the slugs digest everything except the choloroplasts. They incorporate the chloroplasts into their own cells and use them to photosynthesize. Photosynthetic animals!
In case anyone is interested, this is the species I studied. I collected them on Martha's Vineyard. You may have heard about the sea slug that can decapitate itself and then regrow its entire body. That has been shown in two species in the same genus (Elysia) but not in this one -- yet! <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysia_chlorotica" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysia_chlorotica</a>
@Captain Quahog Really cool stuff, Cap. Have not seen a Nudibranch referred to in AGES.Brought back memories of my undergrad years at Cornell- spent 2 summer sessions at the Shoals Marine Lab (off Portsmouth NH) and invertebrate biology there was such a treat 🦪. All that remains is to work “veliger larva” into a conversation (sorry for the marine bio geek out folks).
It’s amazing to see all the different experiences we have with puzzles. For me, this one was super easy and I completed it 16 minutes faster than normal with no lookups! Probably a first for a Friday puzzle. But yesterday’s puzzle killed me while many of you loved it. Just goes to show that each puzzle is aimed at a particular set of knowledge and language. That’s why I love it!
When I was around 6 years old in the early 70s, my father got a bike for me at a garage sale. It was an amazing gold-colored Schwinn Sting-Ray with a banana seat and those high curved handlebars (we might have called them monkey bars). It was absolutely the coolest bike ever! Then my annoyingly sensible father replaced the banana seat and handle bars with standard versions, making it one of the lamest bikes ever. I was devastated 😭😭😭
@Jeb Jones I had an awesome Sting-ray about that same time period. It got stolen! My dad bought an off-brand replacement at a garage sale but it was never the same as the original
@Jeb Jones That makes me sad just reading it.
@Jeb Jones I wanted that soooo bad! But my pops went to the BX and got me a Murray - same handlebars, same banana seat, but like getting a Johnny Lightning die cast instead of Hot Wheels.
@Jeb Jones Opposite. I had a lame Rollfast but fixed it up with aftermarket ape-hangers, banana seat, and sissy bar, and later a 16" front wheel.
I laughed out loud when I got VACANT LOT. Really enjoyed this Friday puzzle. Not much resistance but a fun solve.
Nice Friday. It seemed about average difficulty to me at first, but then the SE definitely was a stretch for me especially since I was one of the folks who had WAND before CAPE and TIDAL for the WAVE. Very enjoyable over all and I also appreciated VACANT LOTS. A few fun notes: CLEAVE is a great word that can mean its opposite: to hold on to or cut in two. Great shout out to FRED McMurray who was outstanding in that movie along with Barbara Stanwyck. It was weird seeing it after seeing him in “My Three Sons”. Love the retro clue of BANANASEAT. Finally nice dual movie clues with SMASHCUT and NEEDLEDROP, both of which were fairly new. What’s your favorite NEEDLEDROP? I suppose the quintessential one would be “Unchained Melody” in “Ghost” although I have a soft spot for “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” at the end of “You’ve Got Mail” and just about every song in “The Parent Trap” remake. What’s yours?
@SP I've always liked the Scott Joplin piano rags in "The Sting".
@SP I'll put up "In Your Eyes" for consideration.
@SP Radiohead’s “Codex” at the end of season 2 of Westworld, which is my personal fever dream of a dark, mazy, philosophical western with robots. Consciousness, mates, we live it yet do not know it. Close second is “She’s A Rainbow” in Ted Lasso. Roy Kent is a legend. Love his arc.
@SP, Excellent choice of NEEDLEDROPs for “The Parent Trap” remake. And I have to second @Francis’s choice of Scott Joplin rags from “The Sting”, my all-time favorite movie.
@SP So many to choose from, I'd have to go with probably the most famous in cinema: Layla in Goodfellas.
@SP The Doors "The End" in Apocalypse Now.
Really enjoyed Maddy’s puzzle and Sean’s column. His discussion of constructor word lists was new to me, and I was fascinated by it. I may never be clever enough to construct a puzzle, but I definitely want my own word list! Thanks Maddy and Sean! On a side note, I’ve been trying to restore a multi-year streak by appealing to the NYT Games crew. No response so far. (The app ended the streak despite solid gold star solves. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s wrong.) At the same time, I’ve been posting comments here since the error, but most of them don’t show up. Is it something I said?
@M. Biggen My daughter had to prove a solved puzzle after an NYT error took away her 1700+ streak. (They eventually reinstated it, but there were a few nervous days in between.} Since then, when I finish a puzzle, I take a screenshot of the Games page that shows the gold star, date, and streak.
@M. Biggen I made a comment yesterday morning that didn't appear until 6:12AM today. Just a technology burp to be sure, but I like to think that the Board of Censors pored over my words for a full day, then sent it to the Supreme Board of Censors on appeal where it was approved by a 5 to 4 margin.
Today is Brian Eno’s 78th birthday.
@retired, with cat ICONIC!! 🥳
Found this slightly more difficult than recent Fridays, but it did end in a more satisfying finish (once I finally got there). Loved most of the long answers in this: LIVE WIRES, LET ME AT EM, NEEDLE DROP, BANANA SEAT and APE COSTUME were all very fun (I particularly enjoyed entering BANANA above APE). Wish I could say the same for SEA GRAPES ("green caviar" is slightly out of my tax bracket, so I've never heard of the variety). The SE corner in general was, for me, the bane of this solve. I began with BEGOT, not BEGAT, and was unfamiliar with TELUGU. For "magician's accessory" I trial and errored CANE, CAGE and even HARE (when one runs out of white rabbits, naturally) before finally landing on CAPE and picturing Liberacci and Dracula magic shows. MODEL T had me thinking MODEST and FOREST before realising it was a split answer. I also didn't see DOES until I had OES, and was imagining something a tad less pedestrian for "pulls off". VACANT LOT and NIT were my final entries. I am blissfully unaware when it comes to basketball competitions, and I couldn't get VACAY out of my head for "here goes nothing!", but I had no idea how that would pair with LOT. I think my reasoning was blanking out a calendar for personal days? Mostly enjoyable, however, and I always feel more accomplished solving grids with an above-average count of long entries. Bravo Maddy!
@Billy So funny--I had almost the same issues/misses! The Atlantic doesn't seem so wide today! Hope you post more often.
300 day streak. Soooooo... 19A crossed with 6D. Two fictional characters, which means only one correct answer, but both S and Z in the crossing square yield common spellings of the respective names. SEAGRAPES. I've had just about every type of caviar imaginable. Red, black, gold. Even lime and eggplant caviar. Never heard of green caviar. It crosses with CAPE, which could be CAnE, BEGAT, which could be BEGoT, and TELUGU. So an esoteric word crossing with two squares that have alternate valid possibilities and an uncommon Proper Noun. Took *a lot* of trial and error to work it out, but I did in the end. 35 minute solve
@Steven M. That certainly could be considered a Natick. For me, ELIZA Doolittle was my first gimme, and INEZ is more common than Ines, but I could see how that could be tricky. Maybe the constructor’s last name could have been a hint.
@Steven M. I was lucky to somehow scrape ELIZA out of my memory from seeing a high school production like 25 years ago. But that entire SE corner was insane.
At first I was surprised at how fast I was tackling the upper half of the grid, and even more surprised that I'd been able to break the puzzle open in the NW, something I rarely do on Fridays and Saturdays. Ah, but then came the lower half and that stubborn SE that I had to wrestle with. Glorious resistance and a few TIL opportunities to boot. Also loved the subtle misdirect of GMC being clued as [Sierra, e.g.] which had me thinking of the NATO alphabet and wanting the entry to be "ess." All in all, it was a very satisfying puzzle that SEGUEd straight to this also satisfying NEEDLE DROP: <a href="https://youtu.be/mng_tvLBH7Y?si=QjcwXfyTXuLciqPt" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/mng_tvLBH7Y?si=QjcwXfyTXuLciqPt</a> Maddy, welcome back and thank you for this sparkler!
@sotto voce For me, ROGUE WAVE immediately resurrected this old NEEDLE DROP <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_KdmWzvaC6A" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_KdmWzvaC6A</a>
I don’t know why BANANA SEAT came to me instantly. I never had one. I was obsessed with Pygmalion and My Fair Lady as a child, so of course ELIZA was a gimme. Dredging Nancy’s friend BESS from the mental file cabinet took a bit longer but I got there. And isn’t that what crosswords are all about? Keeping the old file drawers from rusting shut while creating new folders? Nice combo of the old (FRED), the new (TELUGU), and the clever (VACANT LOT) in this one. Along with a timely reminder: don’t be SHEEPLE!
Had TIDALWAVE and WAND crossing in SE corner. Took a while to straighten that mess out. Yet another fantastic puzzle. I'm grateful for all of the NYT constructors who create these gems.
I started the puzzle in the NW, not the usual place for me on a Friday, and thought, wow, this is ridiculously easy. That continued for the top half. Then I got my comeuppance. Two film clues that I never would have gotten in a million years. TELUGU. SEA GRAPES. And a few others. Potential double Natick in the SW, but as a New Yorker and regular solver, I knew Duane READE, and of course, CASEY. But GMC took a while. In the SE, I struggled a little. But I remembered Bess, having owned the entire set of Nancy Drew books. In the end, I managed to complete the puzzle without any lookups, but unlike most others, I found it a slog. What saved me in the SE was that I had the "pleasure" of being a victim of a ROGUE WAVE. I was on a cruise returning to NY across a very rough North Atlantic. I was a veteran cruiser, but this cruise line was a new company for us. The incompetent captain docked us in the ocean for 24 hrs. to avoid a storm.Then he drove right into the storm. I was sitting at the desk next to the balcony door on Deck 11, yes eleven!, when a ROGUE WAVE came crashing onto that door. It lifted me and my chair and hurled me halfway across the room, where I landed in the small space between the foot of the bed and the wall, with my legs still wrapped around that chair. I was bruised but unbroken. I went to the main desk to report the incident, passing people who were bleeding. The crew couldn't have cared less. Never cruised with Norwegian again.
A pleasant tussle. Not so hard as to drive me crazy, but plenty of thinking required. For me the hardest answer was the language: I had CAnE for the magician's accessory -- which would have left me with SEA CRANES/TELUcU as the cross. But SEA CRANES did not sound like a Thing -- certainly not something you would eat with great pleasure like caviar. What to do? Aha! If it's a CAPE for the magician clue, then I can get to SEA GRAPES/TELUGU. And while I've never heard of SEA GRAPES, I can picture them looking like caviar, if not exactly tasting like caviar. As for the Indian language: You say TELUGU and I say TELUCU -- let's call the whole thing off. And that was just one section! Re SMASH CUT -- Don't know what it is, but it sounds much too "jarring" for me. Sounds like a movie I should miss -- and I plan to. Other new to me answers: BANANA SEAT and NEEDLE DROP. Question: Is there such a thing as WASHTUB ABS? Lively and interesting, this puzzle felt very fresh to me.
Nancy, I'm more familiar with "washBOARD abs." (Tomato)
@Nancy I'll never have Washboard abs, but WASHTUB abs seems like something I could aspire to.
@Nancy For me, it was WAND, then CANE, then CAPE (which was the last to fall in the puzzle).
I thought 39A [Sired] might be POPPED. But no.
You’re officially old when your bike as a kid is vintage.
@Frank Even older when it’s your kids bike that’s vintage
I live up against the Pacifica Ocean. If you ever see those signs warning about "Rogue Waves", take them seriously. They only install them after a tragedy, not before. Happens several times a year, and each story is heartbreaking. Respect the ocean, beachcombers!
I think @Francis has already mentioned that the word SHEEPLE gives him the willies. I understand that. The word always reminds me of the wonderful (and awful!) New Yorker cartoon from the Deal Maker in Chief's first run for office. "He tells it like it is." <a href="https://condenaststore.com/featured/he-tells-it-like-it-is-paul-noth.html?srsltid=AfmBOopmqq8SucSYYPNccqBOycASlUsCAQ4xtxf25dfg2V-jdjZ82fxr" target="_blank">https://condenaststore.com/featured/he-tells-it-like-it-is-paul-noth.html?srsltid=AfmBOopmqq8SucSYYPNccqBOycASlUsCAQ4xtxf25dfg2V-jdjZ82fxr</a>
The X-Phile, To paraphrase @Margaret from Muskegon, that makes me sad just reading it in *Canada*.
I don't usually start with a long answer, especially on Friday and Saturday, when the constructor is often trying to be tricky and surprising. But today's first entry for me was BANANA SEAT, and it immediately triggered a wave of nostalgia for me. My brother had a bike with high handle bars and a BANANA SEAT in the early '70s. It was a Huffy, I think, and everyone called it a StingRay (like the Corvettes of the era). He was the only one in the neighborhood to have one, and it certified his image as the coolest dude on the block. He was younger than me, so I couldn't admit that I was jealous. Instead I had to find some way to torture him. Ah, the joys of sibling rivalry!
@The X-Phile haha, I was recounting my own Stingray story at the same time (posted like a minute after yours). See just above (or below - depending on how you sort).
@The X-Phile I had the same bike as you did. It was very cool, right up to the moment my neighbor got a Diamondback. (That's a BMX bike, for our mates overseas.)
@The X-Phile Stingrays were Schwinns.
Love those roe grapes found near the sea waves. Yesterday I thought I saw a troop of gorillas downtown, but it was just a bunch of sheeple in apes’ clothing. On banana bikes. A nice puzzle.
I love these when you start out with a few fills and then slowly add in as your brain cells turn over another rock. Really fun clues.
I found that very touph, and had to revisit most areas of the diaphragm over and over to finally get the last letter right. Seems there were a lot of clues endingh in the last character in this sentence — weren't there? But also a lot of nicely deceptible clues to boot.
@Dan It's Phriday. There will always be a lot of deceptible clues on Phriday. They will indeed be touph.
@Dan Wait a minute... Who's diaphragm are you revisiting over and over?
I was sure that my crosses were correct but I had no idea about telugu .needle drop and smash cut were new to me but inferable
Well...today's backhanded compliment is: there have been easier Fridays. But I feel like the meal abruptly ended after the appetizer of SEAGRAPES. To the archives, Robin! (See now I've made myself all sad cause I was trying to reference the old TV show and I wrote "Robin" which naturally got me thinking about Friday "Robyn" and how she doesnt do puzles for us here anymore...Apologies, me...)
@Matt Does she write puzzles somewhere else?
Ran into trouble all over the map. The gimmies were few and very far between. The Northwest was the last to fall. Had one flyspeck, and I was finished within minutes of my average. It was very satisfying to be done.
What a treat that was, not nasty at all, when a right word suddenly emerged, all by itself, (sired-sired-sired BEGAT! and hoods-hoods-some kind of neighborhoods—no! WOODS!), and the fills started to tumble in. A rich Friday, full of surprises. Thank you, Maddy Ziegler, you made my night!
Just came to say, I think this was a perfect Friday puzzle. Just the right balance between fun — at times, whimsical — and challenging.
Per the banana/ape costume discussion: where I lived when banana seat bikes were popular, the high handlebars those bikes used were called "ape hangers."
@Bruce And of coursw the Sissy Bar.
@Bruce I had one of those bikes in the 60’s. We called them “spider” handle bars. It later became fashionable to tilt them downwards towards the rider. Then came the baseball cards in the spokes for noise, attached with wooden clothes pins.
@D GORILLA SUIT didn't fit so...
I'm not a big Tom Cruise fan, but even so, his star turn in his tighty whities has to be in the running for the greatest NEEDLE DROP of all time. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_gcV7Nmeaw" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_gcV7Nmeaw</a> Give me that Old Time Rock & Roll any day, Bob Seger!
@The X-Phile Oh Yeah. Also brings back Danka Schein and Twist and Shout from Ferris Bueller!
Hat tip to @Grant for reminding me of this classic scene.
@The X-Phile Another awesome needle drop: Final scene from Breaking Bad: Badfinger - Baby Blue
As usual lately, I haven't had a chance to read comments yet, but I just wanted to say once I removed wand from 54 across, I quickly learned how very many words start with CA that could possibly be a magician's accessory. You've got your cane, your card, your cage... I think they were a few others that I tried before CAPE. Hahaha! SEAGRAPES never occurred to me because in Honduras, where I'll be already at this time next week, there are little fruit that grow along the shoreline that they call seagrapes. My husband loves them!! The golf cart comes to a screeching halt anytime he sees them. Just kidding, we're never going very fast out there. Anyhow, here is a little information about them for anyone who might be interested. <a href="https://mahindranursery.com/blogs/plant-guide/coccoloba-uvifera" target="_blank">https://mahindranursery.com/blogs/plant-guide/coccoloba-uvifera</a> Fun puzzle! I enjoyed it, though that lower right and right middle area were my toughest spots so I added to the hard rating on x word stats. But all very doable in the end with some persistence and digital erasing of things. All those CA words, lemmeatem before let me, REeDE before correcting it. Etc etc. Too many to mention. Anyhow, I am off to a taco lunch with a friend now! Hopefully I'll have a chance to read some comments later. Cheers to the weekend!
Maybe this was just me, but brutal day for the non-Americans today. I did know ESL from previous crosswords, so that was a teeny tiny win.
ROUGE WAVE made my day. Floating in the ocean is about peak spiritual experience for me. And many (it’s a long list) of my favourite animals live there. And my least favourite animal (human) doesn’t. Arsenal winning both the Prem & Champions League may rocket me to a new spiritual high tho. 🏆🏆❤️🤍
@Becky If I may be so bold, I'd point out much of the human nature that causes Arsenal to be successful competitors, also probably contributes greatly to the features you like least about your least favourite animal. A nice irony that probably applies to almost all of us. I think we have a design flaw. We need aggression and competitiveness, but we also need to moderate it, if we want anything resembling peace and justice.
@Becky What about oil-rig workers? Or tanker crews stranded in the Strait of Hormuz? Or folks who live on houseboats moored at sea? People are EEVVEERRYYWWHHEERREE! Just think about THAT next time you're having a bob. Neener.
@Becky Is a ROUGE WAVE accompanied by a lipstick tsunami?
The definition of a NEEDLEDROP is using any licensed commercial music (that is, neither custom composed for the film, nor from a production music library) in a film scene. It doesn’t need to be “iconic” to count.
@pmom I'd like to see the word "iconic" banned from all discourse. It's been overused to the point of being obnoxious. Like when people simply would not stop saying "epic."
@pmom Actually @editors Where's the Reply? I tapped it and ....Nada...
A fine Friday puzzle. Only a few gimmes and lots of freshness. I especially liked NEEDLE DROP and SMASH CUT. Tricky, but gettable. We've been asked to give our favorite NEEDLE DROP, and the first that comes to mind is the powerful "Feeling Good" by Nina Simone in Wim Wenders' exquisite "Perfect Days". <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHRNrgDIJfo&list=RDoHRNrgDIJfo&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHRNrgDIJfo&list=RDoHRNrgDIJfo&start_radio=1</a> That's my favorite in this movie, but the entire soundtrack is magnificent!
Here's the scene from the movie: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXtWyPcLd1Y" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXtWyPcLd1Y</a> No SMASH CUTs here! Just a single, long take of Kōji Yakusho reacting to the song (and to his life). What brilliant acting!
@The X-Phile I like the link you posted, which makes me think: Nina created a work of art by covering a Broadway song — all of the brass, the rhythm of this version are unique and fresh; the original song from ROAR OF THE GREASEPAINT or STOP THE WORLD (I can’t remember which at the moment) by Leslie Briceuse (sp.?) and Anthony Newley has none of the signature features of Simone’s version. Bublé’s version is a direct lift of Simone’s creativity. Is that appropriation? What she added is so personal and powerful, and Bublé seems to be wearing it like a fashionable fur coat. but I digress: I thought NEEDLEDROP referred specifically to the early film scoring practice of playing pre-existing recordings under films, without regard to synchronization with the action, for example in Laurel and Hardy sound movies, or Our Gang reels, as opposed to “song placement” and “montage” which might be more apt to the given clue. Did NEEDLEDROP acquire a new meaning in recent decades while I wasn’t paying attention?
@The X-Phile For me, it's the moment in "Top Gun" when Tom Cruise starts singing, "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling" to Kelly McGillis. I'd link to it, but everybody's seen that movie.
My best Friday time ever. Really enjoyed solving this one, and thought the "vacant lot" clue was genius. I also thought the forum moderator missed disapproving a certain much-responded-to post. Differences of opinion, likes, dislikes--great. Crude to the nth and worse that gratuitously unpleasant? Spare us, please. And, really folks, if you simply ignore the whiners and attack dogs, their posts won't piggyback to the top of reader picks on your responses where they then dominate what otherwise can be a very worthwhile conversation. There are some very smart, knowledgeable, and creative people here who make the day more interesting, and I say, let 'em prevail.