I have no one to tell this to so I’m telling you all: I went to a crossword competition at my local library today and I won :)
@Elena Congratulations!!! That's terrific!
@Elena First: Congratulations on taking the initiative to enter. Second: Brava! Great job. A remarkable achievement. We're all proud of you.
@Elena Brava! That's phenomenal! Thank you for sharing it here with us. We love crossword successes!
@Elena well done! BTW did you used to post (or maybe still do?) on the Wordle "board"? We seem to remember an Elena from SL who had a streak that went back to Wordle Day 1. But we could very easily be wrong
@Elena Congratulations! You are an inspiration - and you won!
@Elena So cool! I still have butterflies in my stomach from middle school spelling bees.
@Elena Proud of you from New York! (And yay local libraries!)
@Elena wow, congrats! Also, you have a cool local library!
@Elena Congrats! Love seeing all the support from the Wordplay community.
@Elena Congratulations, cruciverbalist champion!!!!
@Elena I work at a library and would love to have a crossword program. What was the format?
@Elena, Yay you! Way to go, Elena! Thanks for sharing that here. Congratulations!! 🎉🍾🥂🎈
@Elena First: Yee-haw! That's great. Second: I need more. Was this your first competition? Was it a big crowd? Did you get a prize (beyond the respect and awe of your competitors)? Speak up, please.
'Arid' as an answer to jejune is tenuous at best!
@Hitch I'm all for difficult clues, but I draw the line at synonyms of synonyms...
@Hitch See definition 2 of ARID: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arid" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arid</a> "lacking in interest and life : jejune"
Wow. Now that was a Friday! Other than some sports trivia that even my sports-obsessed husband didn't know, I thought every clue was tough but gettable. I always enjoy a puzzle where the first pass makes it feel impossible, but bit by bit I can get a foothold here and there, and after several more passes, I'm rewarded with the happy music. Great puzzle!
@Chungclan Not me. I suffered. Took me ages with repeated razing and rebuilding. Unfavourites included: LAMELO - if it ain't baseball, I don't know it SIA - too late for me, too early for my radio station OOH AAH POINT - c'mon, how is this fair?! SLOANE - I'm sure his/her parents are proud And I'm not even going to mention BEDHOG, FUELROD, or CESAR. I got there in the end but it was not fun. Sigh.
"It’s got “I should know this” trivia." Not in my book. OOHAAHPOINT, EMILE and SLOANE, etc are not "I should know this" trivia. There are a lot of proper nouns in this puzzle.
@Bradley. I didn't know any of them, but got them from crosses.
@Bradley For me it was 'Lamelo Ball.' No doubt he's a very talented individual, but neither he nor his 1st name had never entered my consciousness before.
@Bradley All fair points, and a good reminder that, like puzzles, trivia's difficulty can be very subjective. The ones I felt I should have known cold, but needed some crossing help: KUROSAWA (I'm a fan), ARAMAIC (I'm sure this was taught to me in Sunday school), and Champs-ELYSEES (I've walked it, but I couldn't remember how to spell it!)
@Bradley, I’m currently reading a book by Sloane Crosley, so 13D was a gimme for me. She is a very talented and funny writer. “I Was Told There’d Be Cake” was my introduction into her world.
Copper and tellurium make such a CuTe couple! (They have chemistry.)
@Mike Are you expecting some kind of reaction?
@Mike and if methyl and ethyl had a first date with them it might be a MeEt CuTe
@Mike They don't always bond together - Te: "Do you expect me to talk? "Cu: "No... I expect you to dye!" (fade out)
@Mike I really got a charge out of that one.
I don’t normally complain about “trivia” because I normally don’t really notice it as I solve. Tonight, for whatever reason, I noticed and didn’t particularly like it. Felt like one question was trivia and then the next was something French. Not my favorite puzz but solved it in below average time.
@Striker Sounds like my solve was similar to yours — most of the trivia was opaque to me (the only names I knew were TAO and KUROSAWA), and yet I finished in below average time. One thing I continue to love about crossword puzzles: you can solve them even while being forced to treat large sections of the grid as black boxes, and learn new trivia in the process. Not that I feel particularly enriched by knowing OOHAAHPOINT or the name of SIA’s record company. I just think it’s so cool how you can correctly input an answer into a puzzle…without having a clue what the answer is!
@Striker and then the next was a French trivia proper noun, such as EMILE. Yes, for the pedants, I know Ratatouille was an American cartoon, But the mice were supposed to be French.
About 11 proper nouns, several clues requiring knowledge of US geography... I didn't actually mind the French (which I could work out on basic principles) or the Hebrew (likewise). Yes, this is a Friday (hardish) puzzle in a USA publication, but I come for witty, clever wordplay (15A) not a gruelling session looking through lists of NBA rookies (23A) or Grand Canyon lookouts (24D)
@Ged Yeah, the Natick at 13D is inexcusable.
@Ged US Geography crossed with with errant E's in US spellings did for my streak this week! Must remember to put my English (US) hat on next time.
"Arid" as a synonym for "jejune"? It's a stretch to even call that a stretch.
@Daniel Yes but arid is a synonym for dry so obviously you can use it in any context where you might use the word dry. 🙃
@Daniel Did you consult a dictionary on this matter? <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arid" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arid</a>
Excellent challenge, snapped together artfully like a good puzzle should.
After first pass I realized this was a First Gear puzzle, time to shut the door and grind. Many no-knows and vague or multi-answer-possibility clues. Time to give the brain solitude to work behind the scenes as well as on the surface. My brain lives for this. Maybe the Times is easing toward making tough themeless puzzles the rule once again. May it be. Those three-stacks in the NE, center, and SW have zing and pop, six of those nine answers NYT debuts, including the lovely THEATER GEEK, MEATBALL, and GETS THE AX. Lovely short answers as well, in JOSTLE, ROCOCO, BRASH, and BOCCE. And more loveliness in the form of splat fill rewards after finally getting tough answers. In my crossword gym, this was a hard day, and I left the box feeling very satisfied. Freshness, toughness, loveliness – a right proper Friday. More please, Adryel. Thank you for a splendid outing!
P.S. -- Lovely PuzzPair©️ in the SW of HEWS and GETS THE AX.
(Second try) P.S. -- Lovely PuzzPair©️ in the SW of HEWS and GETS THE AX.
@Lewis yes, a real grind. Way over average time, but engaging to the point of obsession.
Nine proper nouns, some of them crossing. This puzzle was no fun.
Somebody has to say it. The cow is of the bovine ilk. One end is moo, the other milk. ( Nash)
@Patrick J. And in between, make no mistake, That bovine cow is made of steak.
Yikes, like half the answers were trivia
@Frankie B And how did all that trivia somehow come to clutter the attic of my brain? I’m actually a productive citizen. I actually have a job and raised a family. What was I thinking?
I done did this puzz.
@Barry Ancona Wonderful. All hail the stone tablet homage to our absent Ed
I had to ask my wife about the Ooh Aah Point, and she said, if only I could put my finger on it...
@Salty Dogs Dodging the emus, a rare talent.
@Salty Dogs A challenge many men encounter. Helpful illustrations for guidance can be found online.
@Salty Dogs Never has a post and its author’s pen name been so perfectly matched. Well played.
When I wrote my Travelogue, I came up with a term called a "Grand Canyon Moment" and associated "Grand Canyon Theory." The short of it is, the value you get from staring at something like the Grand Canyon decreases at an exponential scale. I posited that 90% of the value you get from seeing the Grand Canyon comes in the first 30 seconds and 99% in the first five minutes. I went in 2001 and am going back next month. I booked the in park lodge because the one thing I most remember about the Grand Canyon was that feeling of pure joy when I woke up in the lodge and ran to the rim first thing in the morning to see the view. I think the scale resets after 25 years...
@Steven M. Your comment that 99% of the value comes in one’s first five minutes (if I re-phrase correctly) made me ponder. You could be right. The first OOHandAHH moment is indeed a flood of awe, a deluge of delight and disbelieving wonder, and I know it comes at not just one POINT (though if I ever get to go back, I’ll make sure I see it). In 1992, I saw the canyon in passing, totally unreserved, and was dazzled at the view from the nondescript place I pulled off. Yet, years later, just now, I got tears in my eyes thinking of the grief and turmoil and hope I poured out that long ago sunset, and it’s all awfully vivid. I envy you your return visits—and especially your reservation for a room in the lodge—but I’m not sure percentages really pertain. Bon voyage, Steven.
@Steven M. I agree! My wife and I did a Vegas helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon in 2017, but that barely compared to when we first saw it in 2015 on our honeymoon. We will never forget that first sight at the South Rim. There's a lot of natural beauty in Australia, but there's not many places in the world like the Grand Canyon!
@Steven M. We stayed at a hotel next to the lodge years ago. One of my best travel memories was escaping my companion’s snoring to sit at the rim listening to The Grand Canyon Suite on a cassette tape. Any mention of that amazing place brings me right back to that moment, view and music sans snoring. Have a wonderful time, Steven M.
@Steven M. I agree about the first five minutes. But then, an hour later, when you see three separate thunderstorms happening at the same time in the same sky and a helicopter in the impossible distance seemingly barely moving among them even when reglanced ten minutes later, a different but no-less-intense wonder takes hold.
@Steven M. I had an extremely different experience. Arrived at the south rim around 9 or 10am. (A weekday in March or April, very few visitors, still patches of snow on the ground.) Walked around slowly. Stopped often. Throughout the day, the light and shadows are constantly changing; a canvas in motion. Stayed until sundown and it wasn't enough. Couldn't peel myself away from it.
@Steven M. I rafted it a few years ago, from Lees Ferry to Phantom Ranch. Ooh aahs every day. But I'm a geologist, and following in John Wesley Powell's footsteps was especially profound. Plus moving back in time from younger rocks to older rocks. Oh boy. Have a great trip. If you're a reader and have the time, you might read about Powell's trip.
@Steven M. I visited the Grand Canyon in 1975 and I'm pretty sure there was no OOHAAHPOINT, in fact there wasn't very much there at all, and very few people I believe I was in awe for quite a bit more than five minutes though.
@Steven M. Clark Griswold would agree.
@Steven M. My wife, dog and I will begin our 3-week, cross-country, round-trip, overly-hyphenated car ride on about September 20, from the Chesapeake Bay to Los Angeles. We're now plotting points on maps and planning day segments. Ooh Aah Point may well make the list. I'm banking on those first five minutes.
@Steven M. The GC newspaper (if the Park Service still has money to put this out) has the day's sunset and sunrise times for the South Rim. I was able to hoof it from the campgrounds (with a flashlight) to the rim in time thanks to that paper.
Oof, a proper tough Friday. Needed several swings at this before it came together. As a non-Christian I was pleased I got ARAMAIC first pass, but honestly, it’s because I recently saw the clip with the Pope correcting someone’s error. I’m being careful how I put that as I had a post AWOLed by the emus the other day as I referenced what we think of MINK around here. I used asterisks but still, they who must be obeyed did not like it. A couple of Brit/US trip ups for me; fells will always automatically mean moor (land), my Anglo Saxon brain went to DAmN. Ok, memory of the day; many, many years ago as a young, prettyish thing, I was driven up the Champs ELYSEES and round the Arc D’Triumph in a 1950’s open top Aston Martin by a very suave, elder Frenchman, on a hot Summer evening. If you know ‘The Ballad of Lucy Jordan’ then yes, I had the warm wind in my hair. Also yes, the French are terrifying drivers. Happy memories. Thank you to the constructor for a terrific Friday and the resurgence of a lovely memory. I’m off to bring myself back down to Earth with a poo picking session in the Alpaca fields.
Appropriately difficult for a Friday puzzle. Had to work hard. Loved it.
Unpublishable and certainly no fun, IMO. Names are fine when a constructor gets stuck, but as the main part of the puzzle? I think not.
"Kagemusha,"in 1980, was my introduction to KUROSAWA. At the movie theater, I sat between my brother and a stranger, a Japanese man. I stole glimpses of both of their faces throughout the movie, looking for direction because I felt lost. Whenever my brother was serious, the Japanese man smiled; when the Japanese man was serious, my brother was smiling. That's when I deeply understood, at 16, that there was something intrinsically different in our cultures. No wonder I was lost. That's the indelible mark the movie left on me. That and a most traumatizing scene of horses on a battlefield falling over in slow motion, struggling to stand back up, or succumbing and dying. Gut-wrenching. In brighter news, today I was able to resist my self-doubt and bad habit of doing "check puzzle" halfway through a Friday solve. To my surprise, I gold starred without having to flyspeck! But I don't feel smug because all credit goes to Mr. Robles Ojeda for creating a puzzle that was crunchy but doable, inspiring me to keep going even through uncertainty. Thank you! (Capping it off with RadioHEAD... <a href="https://youtu.be/yudEj4W1TjU?is=0SyQhPscFN2ayyhv" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/yudEj4W1TjU?is=0SyQhPscFN2ayyhv</a> ...and AHMAD Jamal for the jazz lovers: <a href="https://youtu.be/SiARr9JhLEo?is=k9y9NP7O_UbIzG13" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/SiARr9JhLEo?is=k9y9NP7O_UbIzG13</a>)
@sotto voce Lovely Kurosawa memory. Sounds like you were coming to your awareness of him around the same time I was. My introduction was at a college film-club double feature of Kagemusha and Ikiru. I'll be happy if the image of Takashi Shimura slowly swinging and wistfully singing in the snow at the end is the last thing I think before I go.
I still have no idea how I finished this puzzle. Now I feel like my brain is the attic of a hoarder.
For those commenters uncomfortable with too much French in the puzzle, I think that 42A [Étendue bleue] is a nice turn of phrase. It means something like "blue expanse." Etendue means stretched out, sort of. I knew it meant "sea" or "sky": MER for "sea" in French. By the way, La MER is feminine in French. (All nouns are either feminine or masculine.) Therefore, the adjective "bleue" has the added "e" to make it feminine. As noted in a recent comments section, the adjective "bleue" follows the noun here. In addition, 20D [Paris's Champs-___] ELYSEES is a really nice place. A broad tree-lined avenue leading to the Arc de Triomphe, one of the spokes of the wheel in that spectacular grid. The boulevard is lined with some of the most elegant stores of the city. I visited The American Drugstore there, right near the Arc. Vive la France.
@lucky13 I've always wanted to visit Paris, if only to see the Champs-Élysées. I even love the name of it - Elysian Fields.
@lucky13 100% did not know étendue, but I looked it up after. Noun (feminine) that means stretch or expanse. Related to the verb étendre which means to spread or extend or stretch. So literally "blue expanse", which is then easy. Having written all that, I did know étendre from Pilates class! Dang. I gotta go back to Pilates, at a minimum so I don't forget all those words.
@lucky13 The only time I visited Paris was with my middle-school aged eldest son. He loved, loved, loved it and dragged the two of us all over the city for a week. (All my other kids opted for their “vacation with mom” to go to Tokyo, which was a bit of a relief, since my Japanese is a heck of a lot better than my French.) The happiest day we had was drizzly, lunching on the Champs-Élysées after hoofing it to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, he sporting the (pricey!) Lacoste golf shirt he had been saving up for for months. He still has that shirt, along with the golf shirt my husband bought him when the lucky ducks won the lottery for tickets to the Masters—he said the pimiento cheese sandwiches were no match for escargot. Clever boy. And now he easily out drives me, even when he lets me play from the ladies tees.
A fantastic puzzle, one of the most enjoyable for me this year. I completed it quite quickly, in 9:38, which is only one second away from my Friday PB, but I do not think it was easy - rather, it was one of those puzzles where the wavelength really clicked for me, and many of the answers I knew from obscure but indelible places. Having visited the Grand Canyon in 2017, OOHAAHPOINT has always stuck in my mind because I found it quite humorous when we stumbled upon it, and fellow Australians will understand when I reference a certain fast bowler named Glenn McGrath. Being a fan of his, I’ve always recalled it. The Dylan Thomas poem was familiar to me and the answer a gimme, but only because of a recent reading by a certain UK comedian, Diane Morgan, on the series “Last One Laughing”, which once seen, can not be easily forgotten - if you have not seen that, do yourself a favour, but prepare to potentially be in pain from laughing, (if that’s your kind of thing) - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s3nK3p9YG0" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s3nK3p9YG0</a> I’m a zythophile, so AMBERALES was great; as a secondary school teacher, I hear the term CRASHINGOUT at least every second day; I teach music so ABC was simple; BOOTYCALLS was hilarious and genius; everything just clicked today. An all-round great puzzle, thank you Adryel!
@Sam So disconcerting to discover that your linked clip is indeed my thing.
@Sam funny, I teach music and the solfege was hard for me! My mind kept going to arrivals, as the scale ascending to the tonic.
Mon Dieu! Is there a place less forgiving than a puzzle grid to discover you have no idea how to spell a word? "Laissez les bons mots rouler !"
The one which left me head scratching was the response ARID for "jejeune." I equate jejeune with childish, lacking depth, unsophisticated...but "arid"? Not a satisfying answer for me...or did I miss something?
@Michael Whistler I looked up jejeune and one of the definitions was dry. Never would have gotten it otherwise.
@Michael Whistler totally agree; I feel like it's pretty much divorced from the meaning of dry in anything other than a metaphorical sense.
@Michael Whistler I, too, assumed jejune meant childish and owed its etymology french jeune. But a quick googling says it comes from jejunius, hungry or empty in Latin, and got conflated with the French word at some point.
Aw, you never turned around to see the frowns On the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you Never understood that it ain't no good You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you You used to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat Ain't it hard when you discover that He really wasn't WHERE IT'S AT After he took from you everything he could steal? *** Yeah, how does it feel? Great puzzle, such a wealth of great phrases and long entries, the great trio of triple stacks and no fill, no xwordese, no green paint, nothing to quibble about except maybe ARID isn't quite jejune, or am I being naive? *** Aw, princess on the steeple and all the pretty people They're all drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made Exchangin' all precious gifts But you'd better take your diamond ring, ya better pawn it, babe You used to be so amused At Napoleon in rags, and the language that he used Go to him now, he calls ya, ya can't refuse When ya ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose You're invisible now, ya got no secrets to conceal
@john ezra -- Thank you for the ear worm from one of my heroes!
@John Ezra When I was in the dorm during my first year of college, I put a sign on the outside of my door stating "Where It's At". Can you tell who my folk hero was at the time? I won't give myself away by mentioning the year. Am I still listening to said artist? Yes. Especially the early work.
@john ezra How does it feeeeel?
@john ezra This is WHERE IT'S AT for an iconic song – not recognizing its words, but then the first line of the chorus comes along and you're singing it, knowing exactly how it goes and who the composer is. Wondrous.
@john ezra Thanks for the inspiration. I was wondering what to get for my friend’s 80th birthday. He’s a writer, a guitar player, a singer and a vintner. I’ll bet he doesn’t have a copy of “Bob Dylan: The Lyrics”. And if he does, a trip to Powell’s for an exchange is a gift in itself.
It was quite a challenge for me. In a good way. I really struggled with the southwest specifically I had fReSH for BRASH. I knew fEDHOG was wrong and I just Couldn’t get my brain to decode it. Although it seems so obvious after the fact. A fun set of long entries. I think this was a really nice Friday. Maybe everyone will find this is super easy Friday. But I feel like it harkens back to Friday’s of a couple years ago. Congrats on the debut
@Weak I agree. I really wrestled with virtually all of this puzzle. I got very few without a cross--one was critical: ARAMAIC. Without that anchor in the top left I'm not sure I would have made it. So this may have been a fairly rare puzzle for me--a puzzle done with the absolute minimum of answers without using a cross. I wish I could replay my keystrokes. (Some of them I could have gotten without a cross, like HEAD for [Focus of a concussion protocol], but by then I already had a cross.)
@Weak Ditto on fresh for BRASH. I thought "fed hog?" what the heck? The fact that fed is an actual word and that hogs eat a lot had me totally stuck for a bit.
Crowds don't nestle. Dylan Thomas wasn't late. Ornate isn't necessary rosate -- which isn't even a word (Notre Dame's window is rosette). The inventory isn't on the backlot. But eventually you figure it out.
@LBG By the time you reach 70, Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” truly resonates. Here it is in its entirety: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Too much French even by this crossward's standard.
Fun, clever puzzle, especially with Ahmad Jamal clued. I’m always delighted when a great jazz musician gets included, and Jamal certainly was one.
This feels like a crossword that Fraser Crane would create
I was so smug putting ACK (Nantucket airport code) for "Mass. summer setting" and STEVE COOGAN for the Sinners director. It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble, it's what you know for sure that just ain't so. Two hours later I sorted it all out and got the gold star. Tough but fair. May be my hardest clean solve. Whew!
Good puzzle. I'll admit I was not aware of Ooh Aah Point -- but I am now.
I got a late start, but this took me much longer than Fridays have been taking me lately, and it provided the perfect extended Friday NYT puzzle experience. Everything took me a long time this evening, but the time spent was well rewarded with a tightly constructed, very clever puzzle. This got solved little by little only after I kept returning over and over to the same unsolved areas. Very satisfying to finally solve a puzzle that stayed unsolved for so long.
I thought it was a Good Friday puzzle. The clever bits were clever and the trivia getable from crosses. It provided fair resistance. Visiting the Grand Canyon was one of the best experiences of my life. Beauty beyond belief. OOHAAH indeed if you stay at the top. Ouch ouch if you walk down and back up …
What is the point of all this random trivia and French stuff? Literally had to run the alphabet for 2 squares. This puzzle is an apt answer to 14A and would actually be a proper usage of the word.
So, in solfège--the musical practice of singing syllables to notes--there are two main methods: "fixed do," in which "do" is always C, no matter what key one is singing in, and "movable do," in which "la ti do" (or "la si ut") are the last three notes of a major scale, no matter in which key it is. Unfortunately, I learned the latter, so [La ti do] meant, well, la ti do, since MINOR THIRD ain't gonna fit in three letters. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge#Modern_use" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge#Modern_use</a> In musicology at least, the distinction between "baroque" and "rococo" is a rather vague one. I'm not sure Sylvius Leopold Weiss would count as rococo, but the Villa Zilari certainly does: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEIDLFusTYg&list=RDWEIDLFusTYg&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEIDLFusTYg&list=RDWEIDLFusTYg&start_radio=1</a> Nancy J., below, already beat me to Beck.
@Bill I equate ROCOCO with works of art and furniture, not with music, so the clue was one of the few gimmes in this puzzle. A good clue for ROCOCO might be "On beyond Baroque" though, come to think of it...
@Bill It was worth it waiting through the 64 second intro to see that rococo room. And yes, I would say it was "beyond baroque."
@Bill The baroque lute was beautiful, though.
@Bill I was looking for someone who thought as I did about La Ti Do… glad to see your comment!
Sorry Adryel, Not a nice solve. I did not care for it.
I enjoyed this and felt it was appropriately challenging for a Friday. I am always surprised how “easy” Friday puzzles and “hard” or “too obscure” puzzles, like this seemed to be for many, draw seemingly the same number of complaints here. For me, this was “just right,” but I realize that is in part due to studying French for years and to working with teens helping me keep up with pop culture and current slang. In general, I try to take each Friday puzzle for what it has to offer, and I almost always find them enjoyable in some way.
Is no one going to point out that scones are more typically served at afternoon (or low) tea? High tea is the equivalent of supper. Americans persust in the belief that the "high" in "high tea" means "classy." It refers to the height of the table. Afternoon tea is served to the Dowager Countess and her guests in the sitting room at low tables. High tea is served at the kitchen table.
@Suzanne I guess we’ll just have to persust on persusting. 😘
@Suzanne oooh I wondered about that! Glad you mentioned it.
@Suzanne I’d suggest you ask Raffles Hotel about that
Could not get on the same wavelength as the constructor at all. This was a battle from the very start to the bitter bitter end.
@essay..... But you made it, yes? And that is all that counts!🥇
I really revved my brain cells to, and maybe past, the red line on this one. Very jungly. I'd hack out a corner with one or two squares, but nothing fell out all that easily. I had some "sure things" that turned out to be mirages, notably 46A that went from "tor" to "cHI" to finally PHI and I was stubborn about OOHAAHPOINT ending in tOwer. It seemed to me that [Jejune] for ARID was a tad off. I can see now it's a synonym for "dry", but it came to me slowly. Also, musicians in the crowd, is "la ti do" considered to be the notes A, B, and C? I thought they do-re-mi thing was to avoid a particular key. Couldn't it just as easily be "D sharp, F, F sharp"?
@Francis I see the emus have finally let you out of their pen. Welcome back. Had to wonder at first whether jungly was arboreal or psychological!
@Francis I also agree with you about the music clue; it threw me off because no reason it has to be in C major.
@Francis Remember a while back when we talked about explaining the light generated by combustion before the quantum revolution? How about this? 1. The ancients, in both the West and East, considered Fire one of the basic elements of all matter and that belief persisted well into the Middle Ages. 2. Combustion releases the Fire element from the fuel. 3. Light is an inherent property of Fire so there is nothing special about it and nothing needs to be explained. Too simple?
@Francis "Couldn't it just as easily be "D sharp, F, F sharp"?" See my post, above. Basically I agree, but if you're going to be such a rococo snot to pick F-sharp major, you'd know that it was "D-sharp, E-sharp, F-sharp."
@Francis Ha! You were better off than this little solver. My little axon tires were squealing and burning out 'cause "jeune" means what does not go in those squares! "kids?" "baby?" "itty?" Start your engines! And they're off! (in the wrong direction!)
@Francis there are multiple solfège systems, and this is likely a reference to the fixed-do system, where C is always do, making la = A and Ti = B.
How did I ever finish this? More important question, WHY did I ever finish this? Darting around the grid, trying to avoid all the criss-crossing names of some of the most forgettable people and other kinds of names imaginable, I felt as though I was in the desert trying to step over spiders and snakes. Or in the ocean trying to avoid jellyfish and sharks. It was a masochistic exercise on my part to keep going. Still, it's never too late for my bottom line, conclusion-wise. And my conclusion is RATED E for "Expletive deleted." Oh, and btw... SPLAT!!!
AMBER ALES BOOTY CALLS CO-CHAMPION CRASHING OUT THEATER GEEK MEATBALL SUB WHERE IT’S AT SO DARN CUTE GETS THE AX All stuffed into one Friday puzzle? Are you freaking kidding me? This is the work of a genius.
@kkseattle We're not complaining, not disagreeing, and we did gold-star the puzzle without any assistance. Perhaps there was a tradeoff in terms of an excessive amount of proper nouns and French necessary to obtain usable fill around the entries you cited? There's no way to for us to know for certain, but that seems plausible to us. Of course what is excessive is subjective. But FWIW those proper nouns and all that French are getting a fair amount of play here.
Rough go. I had very little on the first pass and went back looking for clues that might be gimmes. I mean, is it really a gimme if it only might be? Cashed in the music clue as C major, otherwise it wouldn’t be a gimme. Same for the French sea and the High tea treat. Jazz great Jamal was an actual gimme, but reaches back 65 years to sharing a bedroom with a musically curious older brother. SALT. And so on. I still had more white space than any puzzle in recent memory. But, it’s finally done and I feel pretty good about that.
TIL I’m from a “movable do” country so I was vexed by 5D. Why must the notes be A, B, and C? Musical theory taught me that do was the first note of the scale, any scale. Apparently in “fixed do” countries, do is always C. Doh! Go Gunners!!!!
@Becky I also have the same nit to pick about this cluing. At least my eyebrows got a bit of a workout during the puzzle-solving part of the morning. Remember to be kind, y’all, even when your mileage varies. Take care!
@Becky The clue doesn’t say that the “do” must be “C.” Even in a “movable do” system, “la, ti, do” can be ABC. 😘
I had very little completed on my first pass through, but kept whittling away and finally completed it with no look ups. I thank the Barenaked Ladies for a big assist (“like KUROSAWA I make mad films”)!!
@Mark M THAT’S where I got it from! It just popped into my head and I couldn’t figure out why. #CanadianAdvantage
@Mark M Re yesterday's homophone battle: Do you say Glaston BURY or Glaston BARE EE or something else. I lived there for a few years but don't pronounce it consistently.
Man, this was a tough one. I know that the proper nouns I don't know are obscure, and the ones that I do know are commonplace, but SIA, RYANCOOGLER, LAMELO, SLOANE, TAO, none of whom I've ever heard of, all in one place? Hardly seems fair.
@Jack McCullough I'm a 77 year old grandmother, and I've heard of all except Sloane
@Jack McCullough If you submit your complaint directly to Will Shortz, he'll make sure all future puzzles only have facts you personally know.
@Jack McCullough And SLOAN and TAO intersecting!? Major flaw IMO. And agree with others about ARID.