What do you get when you cross Octoberfest garb with a 2010s dance craze? An alphabet run on a Monday!
TUG clued under massage table was…interesting
My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. It often features panels with speakers (6) 2. Highly controlling? (8) 3. Something you may be willing to hold? (6)(4) 4. Person who gets a lot of texts? (4)(6) 5. Reflective post (4)(6) STEREO PILOTING ESTATE SALE AVID READER ROAD MARKER
My favorite encore clues from last week: [Pictures] (6) [Ticket selector] (5) CINEMA VOTER
@Lewis It just occurred to me that ESTATE SALE might have been clued as [Something you may be dying to hold]
Is it the same STIEG Larson that makes the Far Side?
@HeathieJ That’s Gary Larson. (Or was that intended as a funny post that went over my head?
@HeathieJ Well, one retired, and the other is dead, so take your pick!
Liked it. A cute theme, with no junk and intelligent fill. Though if I were the Germans, I might sue. They haven't been allowed to say anything but ACH since possibly the 1990s. Well. at least here they're given Oktoberfest and the chance to wear a DIRNDL. Actually, you don't have to be German to wear a DIRNDL. I first heard the word in a Harry Belafonte song from the 1950s. I've always thought the song exceedingly beautiful, but I probably haven't listened to it for more than 65 years. This time it made me cry. I think you'll understand why. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTL-fwRsEdc" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTL-fwRsEdc</a>. (If this doesn't come up in blue, the song's title is "Turn Around".)
@Nancy Wow, what a song. I understand.
Everything went very quickly with this one, as Monday's should, and the only problem was the dance clue. Fortunately, that was revealed by the crosses, because I didn't do so much fad dancing in the 2010s. I know that dirndl skirts were a thing when I was a teenager, and I may even have had one. I don't remember what they looked like, but I think they were something Heidi wore in the Alps. Very folky and cute. Thanks, Chase, for a dandy Monday.
@dutchiris The dance/dress got me, too. Moreover, I couldn't decide between BOA and BrA.
@dutchiris Munich is absolutely chockablock with ladies in Dirndls and gents in Lederhosen in the two weeks of the misnamed Oktoberfest (last two weeks of September). In Munich it’s called the Wiesn and it finished yesterday with the highest attendance ever (7.4 million). Even companies with dress codes or uniforms allow/encourage employees to come to work wearing dirndls/lederhosen. My kids and spouse attend with various degrees of enthusiasm. I try to be in another country. The atmosphere in Munich is joyous but the town is overrun.
If German "ach" is an ouburst, then so is English "oh." Examples: ach je (“heigh ho”), ach ja (“why, yes”), ach was (“by no means”), ach der (“oh, him”), ach so (“so I see”), ach nein (“you don’t mean…”), ach wo (“no way!” or “get out of here!”), ach wie schön (“oh, how lovely”), die ach so eingebildete Dame (“the oh so hoity-toity lady”).
@Fact Boy Right? I didn't like that clue. Poles also say ACH and it's almost never an outburst.
Was humming along pretty well on acrosses only but even if I had gotten through to the bottom, ETHOS instead of ETHIC would have tripped me up (although maybe TOC isn’t a word for the down—but ASH is.) Then OLE before RAH and maybe POISON BREAK is a thing? What a Black WIDOW takes on vacation? But the DIRNDL and DOUGIE cross would have gotten me anyway. The only word I could think of for the down was BOUGIE. Once I let myself do all the downs I vaguely had a notion of DIRNDL from somewhere—so if not a Natick at least a Framingham. Pretty surprising cross for a Monday. Loved this cute theme though. Tight!
@SP DOUGIE was a huge unknown, but a DIRNDL is probably a gimme for anybody who's visited Bavaria and Austria. The servers in most restaurants and bierhalls in München old town seemed to wear dirndls and lederhosen when I last was there, and it's also typical garb during Southern German/Austrian country fairs, which one encounters on most weekends during the summer.
@SP Yep, that was pretty naticky for me as well. I ran through the alphabet and correctly guessed that DIRNDL/DOUGIE was the answer. Maybe I had heard those two words somewhere, but I couldn't recall... I also had a typo somewhere else, which I found pretty quickly and managed to solve it. Tough for a Monday!
Chase had me at REPLETE, DIRNDL (a word hibernating in my brain for many years), and BLASÉ. BTW, if you, like me, are AT SEA regarding what the DOUGIE dance looks like, here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tWyelmgF4F8" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tWyelmgF4F8</a> . I’ve chronicled for ages how challenged I am at trying to guess the revealer from the theme answers, keeping it blank and not reading its clue. And, as usual, it’s been a long time since my last success, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying. Well. Today, after many LABORS, with a flash, a mighty flash, I suddenly saw that the theme answers involved rubbing. Then came another flash – “Could it be?”, “Could it be … THERE’S THE RUB?” Oh, this is going to be a very good day. Ain’t nothing going to dent it. Thank you, Chase!
@Lewis If only you'd said, "AYE, there's the rub..." THAT would have made the day.
@Lewis Thanks for dance link. Had never heard of it and can now confirm have never seen it. Don’t think I missed out on anything.
Never heard of ecru, supe, drindl or whatever the German dress was, dougie, fstop and had no idea when that song was in Les Mis nor have I seen Roman numerals in an answer before. What an insanely difficult corner for a Monday crossword.
@George Nixon I can't say for sure if it's typical for Mondays, but using Roman numerals for play and musical act numbers is rather common both in general, and in crosswords. I know I've seen it often enough in NYT puzzles that my immediate instinct was to fill in ACT_ and check the crossing down to figure out if it was ACTI or ACTV (although in hindsight, perhaps I should've guessed dreaming a dream was likely to be an early occurrence?)
@George Nixon But now you do know them, so that’s like 6 things that won’t stump you next time, and you’re coming away from the puzzle a little more knowledgeable. Seems like a pretty good deal to me!
@George Nixon Maybe you need to get out more? ECRU is a color often seen in fashion, upholstery, paint, and crosswords. Usually a gimme. ACT would be a gimme for any play...even if you don't know which act it is, there are few Roman numerals that fit in one square. FSTOP...well, with smartphones, perhaps fewer people use SLR cameras, but the F STOP is important in photography...
@George Nixon ECRU and ACT[x] are crossword-ese. Commit them to memory!!
Cute Monday theme! DIRNDL crossing DOUGIE was a tough cross for a Monday for this Boomer but I survived it. 🙂
@Peaty n Oaty This millennial perished.
Had to run the alphabet for the DIRNDL/DOUGIE cross. Pretty rare for a Monday. Took 12% more time than average to complete.
DIRNDL/DOUGIE had me guessing on a Monday. Not familiar with either entry, but chose the right letter and made it through this Monday(!) puzzle. Seemed like a rough crossing there, especially for a Monday. But maybe that's just a reflection of my own ignorance.
This feels surreal - for once my two gimmes of DIRNDL and BOA were stumpers for many 😃. So far it's always been the other way around! Is *this* is what it's like to be a pro solver? 🤣
@Andrzej Honestly, I've been rather surprised by that, as well. From what I've seen, any time it's about drag, it's a BOA. I don't think that I've ever seen BrA clued to drag—usually something about support or cups. This puzzle ranked as one of my fasted solves without any slowdowns, but then other days what others find easy, I find hard, so who's to say?
Also, I wonder if BOAs are worn with DIRNDLs when one is Oktoberfesting in SAO Paulo.
@HeathieJ Dunno about the people of Saõ Paulo, but I always wear a boa with my dirndl (and fishnet stockings with my lederhosen).
How now, constructors? Can we get themes on “mortal coil”, “soul of wit”, or “piece of work” next?
@Cat Lady Margaret Piece of work—ERG as a rebus. INGRIDB(ERG)MAN, MOTH(ERG)ODDESS, ALL(ERG)EN, etc. If you want to get really fancy. If you could fit it in, you could do What a Piece of Work is A Man, then cross a double rebus with ERG down and MAN across. Dont worry, I would never do it myself.
I rarely have to change anything in a Monday puzzle but today there were two such things: "ole" turned out to be RAH, and COWherd ended up being a COWHAND. RAH is one of the many common American words I find very weird, and remembering which just does not come naturally. Apparently it's short for hurrah? Many stadium cheers are international (I've screamed "Woo!!!" at the top of my lungs with crowds all over Europe), but not this. LOLCAT! Now that's a blast from the past. It hasn't really been a thing for, what, 10 years? 15? Sitting crosslegged is "sitting Turkish style" (siedzieć po turecku) in Polish. Teachers in kindergarten and elementary school required us to sit like that for long periods at a time. Apparently these days it's no longer practiced, and children are encouraged to change the positions they sit in, as it's healthier. I guess "nonchalant" works as a clue for BLASE in a crossword, but personally I feel the words mean distinctly different things. I feel and act BLASE when I'm bored to death with something, or simply unimpressed by it, because it's just bleh, to me. I act nonchalantly when I don't care about something because I just don't feel the gravitas of the situation or don't care about the social mores being expressed. Polish people are often very serious, grave even, for the weirdest reasons, often inspired by conservative catholicism or a toxic caricature of patriotism, and nonchalance is my typical reaction to it.
@Andrzej Rah is one of those words that comes up in crosswords a lot and almost never in actual speech. I think cheerleaders said it in my grandma’s day.
@Andrzej Sitting cross-legged here used to be called sitting Indian style. Apparently criss cross applesauce is now the preferred term. As in "Look at Buddha sitting criss cross applesauce".
@Andrzej Agree with you on BLASE. As you say, it’s not wrong, just not quite the right translation.
I got every single one. No help, except from crossers. My mother was German so DIRNDL was easy, she made them for us as kids.
Worst Monday puzzle of all time and with a theme that made no sense. DIRNDL with DOUGIE Crosses and throw in LABORS for those not familiar with Hercules? Wow… Then throw in FTSOP. This was not fun. Rating: 1/10
@Darren "those not familiar with Hercules" Those myths have been around for a mere 3000 years, we can't expect people to know them, can we?
Just did a puzzle from 25 years ago and ran across one of the 40 other NYT XWP appearances of FSTOP (that one clued a bit more obliquely as [Shooter's setting]).
@Darren “With a theme that makes no sense.” You tell me everything I need to know right there.
@Darren, not familiar with Hercules? Come on; that borders on the unbelievable! Dirndl isn't obscure. Have you ever attended an Oktoberfest? Dirndls and lederhosen on parade! I feel like you've labeled many puzzles as "worst ever". They can't ALL be the worst. 🤷🏼♀️
@Darren I guess it's just what trivia you know. I'm old enough to have used SLR cameras, so FSTOP was a gimme. And a semester in Austria had me buying a DIRNDL. I thought this was pretty easy and about 2/3 my usual Monday time.
Nice Monday, Chase, even if you're shooting for Tuesdays. Thanks for the nod to my solving platform at 1A. A clue comment for the editors: if we're using borrow words like EID and DIRNDL, why not clue NORI as seaweed?
@Barry Ancona Because it's a Monday puzzle and the editors evidently thought this clue was easier. I agree.
Came to grizzle over DIRNDL / DOUGIE like a few others. Not only is it Monday, but Daylight Savings has just started here so it's unreasonably early to be hit with this 🥱
@Ged no kidding! Monday is supposed to be cruiser. Monday took longer than Thursday and Friday!
For all those who didn’t know DIRNDL, i humbly submit that its place in Bavarian culture is rather akin to the cultural status of the beret in France. ie it’s not obscure.
@Petrol, absolutely! Not only that, but it's Oktoberfest season, with dirndls and lederhosen on display at any and every celebration.
DIRNDL is a new one to me. Nice puzzle.
@Selective Walrus DIRNDL looks like it belongs on a gearshift.
This was a gimme. I did study-abroad in Salzburg Austria 58 years ago!! Of course I had to buy a DIRNDL. I ran across it recently in the back of my closet. I can't bring myself to give it away, even though pregnancies stretched my rib cage enough that even if I could ever get down to my college-level weight I won't be able to get into it again. Sigh.....
No difficulty for me with this puzzle, though I did notice some words that were a bit unusual to see in a Monday puzzle. Some filled in with crosses, but most of them I knew anyway, Nice one, Chase.
OTOE/STIEG, and DIRNDL/BOA (vs BRA)/DOUGIE was brutal no matter what day of the week. A nice, easy puzzle until it wasn't.
@Joe, Otoe probably appears at least once a week in at least one of the crossword offerings. Stieg Larson was all over the internet when the books were published, and again when they were turned into movies. I've never seen bra clued for drag, always boa. And dirndl, to me and clearly many others, isn't what I'd call obscure. I guess it was a puzzle not aligned with your wheelhouse; hope tomorrow will be better for you.
DIRNDL has to be the most obscure word I've ever seen in a Monday puzzle. And as for TILT, that is hardly a "modern" innovation on pinball machines. Most tables since the 1960s have tilt alarms. Only the very oldest extant machines can be manhandled into cheating without a tilt, and you are only likely to see those in museums, not arcades.
@Matt Heffernan, I see no reference to "tilt" as a modern innovation. The word doesn't appear in the clue or the column explanation of the clue.
Beaten by a monday… beaten… what is a dirndl… i don’t know… it destroyed me
@Lewis J Basically, it's a high-waisted jumper, worn with a blouse, as part of a traditional Bavarian costume. (Not the British jumper, by the way, which we would call a "sweater"...) An apron is often included.
In honour of SPAM, which might charitably be called a ‘hamlet’ and thus theme-adjacent, here is a link to a page from Florida State University with our famous Shakespearian source material undergoing some translational toing and froing, resulting in a processed item they call Spamlet: <a href="https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/fun/spamlet/spamlet.html" target="_blank">https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/fun/spamlet/spamlet.html</a> And a sample, after a trip to Esperanto and back: “Sleep - maybe dream: yes, here's the friction, Because in that sleepy sleep, what maybe dreams When we dragged this deadly bolt, It is necessary to give us a break.”
@JohnWM Fun stuff! I wonder how the German translation compared to an actual translation, as published in Germany. Recently, I've had to translate a couple short texts into (Brazilian) Portuguese, using Google or DDG translate--I ran the texts back and forth a couple times to see how it really translated.
Tough Monday for me. A number of things that were never going to dawn on me from the clues, so there was just a lot of working the crosses and pondering. No big deal. And.. puzzle find today - one of the more amazing I've ever stumbled on. A Sunday from October 7, 2018 by Tom McCoy with the title: "Mind the Gap." All of the theme answers included one square that was not actually part of the across answer. But... all of those answers actually kind of hinted at some kind of gap. Some examples (with the one square in parentheses): R(S)AILSPLITTER OUT(Q)ERSPACE RO(U)OMDIVIDER NA(A)SALCAVITY SECUR(R)ITYBREACH PA(E)PERCUTTER S(P)AFECRACKER LUCK(E)YBREAK GRAN(G)DOPENING And... all of those circled letters in sequence spelled out: SQUAREPEG Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/7/2018&h=106a" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/7/2018&h=106a</a> Always nice to see something different. ....
I entered DIRNDL for "Dress seen at Oktoberfest" while thinking, "If you think it's a dress and that's all you wear, you'll be picked up by the Polizei pretty quickly!" But then I decided it's "dress" meaning "attire," which would have been more exact.... I also had a moment with THE REST...at 52A. Most Meh clue/entry: Dance craze of the 2010's/DOUGIE. Nevah heard of it! Is it DEW-GHEE or DUG-ghee? In that decade, both of our kids were entering their Thirty-somethings. (Also, neither of our kids danced--one due to disability, the other due to "two left feet--one from each parent.") Any of you guys do the DOUGIE? Was it any fun? (I remember when The Twist was all the rage, and back injuries were the result...) On with the week!
@Mean Old Lady, It’s Duh-ghee. That according to my now 30-year-old. (I thought I knew it, so I was asking for confirmation, which she provided!)
Anyone else think the drag accessory was a bra? I couldn't even entertain another option and since it crosses German dress it did me in!
@Rami I've seen that clue a few times and it's always been 'boa'. 'Bra' gets clued as 'support'.
The DIRNDL/DOUGIE was completely unnecessary for a Monday. I can whine but accept it if it was a deliberate choice but if was just some random thing to complete the crossword when the setter was stuck at the section then this was really bad.
First time in ages I couldn’t finish a Monday puzzle because of the DOUGIE and DIRNDL cross. Have never heard of either and DIRNDL in the crossword is just evil.
500th in line to say I also could not get DIRN*L/*OUGIE, I vaguely remember seeing the dress name before after plugging in random letters, but the dance craze completely passed me by. I'm not sure I've ever had to use guesswork to solve a Monday puzzle, so that's a feat for today's constructor.
This was a delicious Monday romp. Had it been a dish served for dinner, and were I an adolescent, I would say A-RUB-ah-dub-dub Thanks for the grub! I happened to remember DIRNDL once the D and R were in, so I had no problem there ( DOUGIE wrote itself out from the crosses.) The real rub for me was the last to fall: ROTGUT. I had to look up what "hooch" is. Both clue and answer, two things I'd never heard of before. Conversely, two things I had indeed heard of before were MASSAGE and BLASÉ, two words I had *just* used, not even two hours before this puzzle dropped, in a reply to @dutchiris in the Sunday forum! Cue The Twilight Zone theme. — and most definitely cue ANITA Baker with "Giving You The Best That I Got," the song... <a href="https://youtu.be/8lbJgOJIS_8?is=L7hossot7CHWTKG6" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/8lbJgOJIS_8?is=L7hossot7CHWTKG6</a> ...or the full album (a lovely one for winding down from the weekend) <a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m_FAUexJq5d909mIi3yads_Kln1LWZi5c&si=i941V9RHugD0EaJm" target="_blank">https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m_FAUexJq5d909mIi3yads_Kln1LWZi5c&si=i941V9RHugD0EaJm</a>
@sotto voce Same on DOUGIE and DRINDL. When I read of DOUGIE in the comments, I had to go back and find what that was about. For better or worse, I did know both hootch and ROTGUT. 😏
"Phonetic spellings of alphabet letters will never be normal to me. Why are we using letters to spell words for other letters?" - Because you gotta fill the grid with something, and when no actual words fit in we get delights such as phonetic spellings of alphabet letters...
If the dougie could be danced at the Octoberfest, I suppose one could wear a drindl to dance in! Luckily the letter D is only the 4th letter in the alphabet to allow for a short alphabet run to figure out drindle dress crossing the dougie.
@Jeff B MD the alphabet run for me goes MNBVCX…
Today’s poem made from words in today’s puzzle… a/ when i dreamed of the clouds in your mouth, i dreamed d/ the woods filled with a warning light that you and i might see a/ the magic
This was tough! DIRNDL, ELLE, DOUGIE, and LABORS (in this context) are all new to me, but somehow I got there, at 600% of my average Monday time :)
Glad you made it. And you had six times the usual fun!
I've been solving but not commenting, too busy with the campaigns, but had to check in on this cutie. Tried to guess the revealer with no result so when that came into view - DOH! A fun one this morning.
@John Carson - If you're the John Carson I think you are -- I wish you success in your campaign!
Chevy Volt was a hybrid - not electric. Chevy Bolt is the electric one.
@Caroline Bowker Plug-in hybrids, of which the VOLT was one, are considered electric vehicles.
I'm surprise I haven't seen any outrage yet on SUPE for [Manager of an apt. bldg.]... ...IMO it's definitely borderline, at best.
@Francis - SUPE was a gimme for me from the old sitcom "One Day at a Time".
@Francis It's a $tupid word but it has appeared here before, and I even remembered it myself today.
@Francis even if you aren't familiar with that particular abbreviation, there's pretty much only one word for manager of an apartment building, and that's SUPERINTENDANT, so you can get there easily just by typing the first four letters.
@Francis I wouldn't call it outrage, but I paused a second at that clue/answer combo. Not because it's a silly shortening, but because of the definition. First of all, the only context I've ever heard SUPE as a superintendent was to refer to a school superintendent, which is a professional position, not a building custodian. In fact, it's a fairly high position, often the highest in the district. The custodian of an apartment building in NY is also called a superintendent, but I've only heard it shortened to "super." I guess I may not be keeping up with recent lingo, but it seems to me "super" should be pretty well entrenched by now so as not to need further alteration. But my main point is that the supe(r) is not so much a building manager, which is to me someone who works in the rental office and manages the building's business, including scheduling work orders, as he (and it's practically always "he") is the custodian is the one who carries out those work orders and does the regular maintainance of the building, including cleaning common areas, upkeep of the mechanicals, etc. Those to me are two separate positions, quite different from one another, but I realize that terminology might be different in other places (like Tasmania, apparently), so I didn't register a quibble.
Constructors and editors are kind, under most circumstances, about cluing archaisms as such (avid NYT cruciverbalists are accustomed to seeing "obsolescent," "erstwhile," "one-time," or "... ,once" appear in at least a thousand clues a week on average). So, while it's never a tough get, I'm never going to cotton to seeing "RAH" clued as though it were a thing people still do.
@Ned S Why am I remembering "RAH RAH Sis Boom Bah." Because I'm old. Don't RUB it in.
@Ned S Canadians of a certain age will remember the tv ads for Turtles candy --a female lounge singer in a slinky dress with a male chorus in tuxedoed turtle costumes singing Turtles, Turtles ha ha ha Turtles, Turtles rah rah rah! Ooooh, I love Turtles.
Suzie went to Cheerleader College and wss confused when her first lecture was a dissertation on 'Sis-boom-bah!'. She raised her hand and asked, "Excuse me, isn't this RAH 101?" "No, " came the reply... "That's a course of a different holler." I'll get me coat.
What advice do you not get on a MASSAGE TABLE but i urge you to heed on a Monday morning?? Don’t look down!! Yes, I succeeded with the Across Only challenge (ie not using any of the Down clues) although it took me a bit longer than usual — i took some wrong turns with RAH (“ole” — but PoISON BREAK is obviously not a thing) and ETHIC (i had “creed”) and WOMEN (i tried “in use” and “gents” — i suspect that isn’t used in America?) and SPARERIBS (I tried to shoehorn a “cajun” in there, stupidly). Also i could only picture Josephine Baker, but couldn’t remember her name! I guessed ANITA from the crosses. Yay me, eventually! Happy Monday everyone!
I thought SUPE was the new name for A.I.
A quick Monday. I had to stare at the revealer for a moment or two before understanding dawned. Nonchalant/BLASE? Eh, I wouldn’t link the two meanings myself; the first being relaxed, the second unthinking/arrogant for me, but ok.
@Helen Wright I'm hoping BLASÉ is indeed "nonchalant." That's how I was thinking of it when I used the word in a comment to @dutchiris. I sure hope that's how it was understood!
Having recently celebrated my German heritage at Oktoberfest, DIRNDL was a gimme for me. No, I do not own a pair of lederhosen, but I do own a jägerhut. (That's the hat that goes with the pants.) No, I never did the DOUGIE, but I remember when it was a thing.
One more puzzle find. Not sure how one could possibly figure this one out (at least not me). Anyway - a Sunday from May 16, 1993 by Robert H. Wolfe with the title: "Genetic Jumble." Some theme clues and answers: "Clark's show?" AMERICNBDNASTDNA "Time piece?" GRDNAFATHERCLOCK And some other theme answers: MAGICWDNA HDNATOHDNACOMBAT LDNASCAPEGARDENER SDNAALWOODTREES ROWANDNAMARTINS And there were more. All of those were substituting DNA for AND, but I'm not sure what kind of chance anyone would have to figure that out. Here's the link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=5/16/1993&h=85a" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=5/16/1993&h=85a</a> ...
This was rough, IMHO, for a Monday puzzle. While a DIRNDL might be culturally commonplace in Bavaria, it's not part of my vocabulary. Aside from that, I also have no clue about dance crazes, not forts in different states. While I got DIAN FOSSE?, I wasn't sure of the correct spelling. All of thay made for a rough southeast corner that defeated me. Once I was off my flight, I was able to cheat and solve the puzzle.