Loved it because my name was featured!! I started solving the Crossword everyday as a New Year's resolution, and now I am on a 301-day streak and very proud of myself! Greetings from Denmark :)
What a thrill! But shouldn't you have been watching out for a Hamlet clue?
Not really a fan of the Abbott Elementary clue... Have never heard anyone refer to the station as "ABC TV," only "ABC"
It's a network, not a station, and those of us who work(ed) in or are familiar with media would hear it to distinguish it from ABC Radio (now renamed). <a href="https://abcaudio.com" target="_blank">https://abcaudio.com</a>/
the nipple of the eye is in the natick of the beholder
The clue for 15 across is incorrect, it would be iris, not areola.
The clue is fine. <a href="https://www.rxlist.com/areola/definition.htm" target="_blank">https://www.rxlist.com/areola/definition.htm</a>
@Anna I completely agree. I am a recently retired MD of 30+ years and practiced both in and outside of the US and I have never heard that term used to describe the iris. Ever. It is an archaic and shortened derivative of latin which means small open space or something similar and when used half a century or more ago was followed by a clarifier like mammae which no one but maybe a retired anatomist would use these days. While I did solve it with the crosses and overall I enjoyed the puzzle that was the one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb. What's maddening is that the clueing could've taken care of this and still be obscure. This is what the editors get paid for.
Good puzzle. Not a big movie person but the quotes were gettable.
I’m not a fan of the horror genre, but the theme answers here were pretty familiar to me and appropriate for the spooky season, so this puzzle didn’t prove too scary.
Nerts was a head-scratcher! Apparently areola has more than one meaning.
Until today I had never heard the word NERTS.
@Emily O Nerts was a familiar response of Frank Burns on M*A*S*H.
@Emily O that was my last unfilled square and I kept on trying different letters until I got the happy music 😆
Cabeese, for plural rear ends.
Am I the only one who thinks that “orang” is just not an informal way to refer to an orangutan?
I've never heard it used that way either. In Malay/Indonesian, "orang" means "person." (Orangutan = person of the forest.) So referring to an orangutan as an orang is, in a way, rather nice, since it confers personhood on a close relative of ours.
It's definitely a thing: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/orang" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/orang</a>
Oh, it’s that time of year again, is it? Ok Halloween begets Halloween themes. I suppose; this is probably more fun for the movie lovers (count me in) and though I’m not a horror fan I still knew all of these except for Jigsaw off the bat and between that and very less than scary clues this was a breeze. Almost didn’t need a revealer, maybe another quote would have been just as well. When I saw SCARE—- I had another idea of what it could be, which leads me to an idea for a new Halloween candy idea: SCARE TICTACS (sorry). Anyway, if you didn’t like this puzzle, feel free to yell as loud as you want here in the comments, because “in (this) space, no one can hear you scream” (my favorite horror movie quote).
I wanted SCARE TACTICS, too. In Chagrin Falls/Solon, it was usually snowing/icing/raining on Halloween, so our costumes had to work over a parka. Our most successful was Little Red Riding Hood and The Wolf. Natty had cleverly inked claws at the ends of his glove fingers. Alas for my flannel nightgown --didn't come back in usable condition...
Well, it’s an easy jump from the phrase SCARE QUOTES to this theme, but that phrase has been around for about 70 years, and no constructor has jumped on it until now. High props to Daniel for seeing it first, then running with it. There was plenty of pop in the grid, as three of the four theme answers are NYT debuts. I didn’t know two of them, and I’m glad I didn’t, because that gave me some brain-loving rub, bolstered by some vague cluing. I also liked the extra bang for the buck with having an additional column and row. The most let-out-a-scream memorable jump scares for me came from “Wait Until Dark”, with the unexpected leap of the villain, and the iconic end of “Carrie”, when the bloodied hand suddenly juts out from the ground. How about yours? So, some pre-Halloween-appropriate memories on top of a satisfying solve. A most enjoyable puzzle, Daniel. Thank you for making this!
I've seen ORIOLEs dozens of times in these puzzles. And yet, as clued today, they were a huge mystery. That's one of the difficulties I face when solving American puzzles - there are countless ways to clue stuff that's effectively alien to me. Learning the name of a baseball team isn't really worth much when it can be referred to in the puzzle in so many ways: by stadium, mascot, city, state, division, coach/player (current and historical), and apparently also visor color. I found the puzzle very hard in the NE and SE. In the NE my problem was the trivia. Like I said, ORIOLE was not gettable from the clue. The dance move and tv station were equally arcane. Entering "naif" for a gullible sort didn't help. In the end I realized it had to be some other word, and once I deleted it, the few crosses, all of them correct now, gave me ORIOLE, and that allowed me to resolve that corner. I've never heard of SCARE QUOTES as indicators of irony. I don't really understand how that expression works. Not being familiar with the two guys or that they were or are QBS was another problem. And then there were MEESE. Is that supposed to be a jokey plural for a MOOSE? If so... Do you consider a moose a deer? That's certainly not how the names work in Polish. I would never call a łoś (moose) a jeleń (deer). Btw, somewhat on topic given the RUBE clue - jeleń is one of the slangy Polish terms for a naif. I had to guess some of the quotes, too, but I managed to complete the solve without help.
@Andrzej It was explained below that MEESE is to moose as geese is to goose. And that this is funny. All of this was news to me.
@Andrzej The family Cervidae, commonly referred to as "the deer family", consists of 23 genera containing 47 species (quoting from animal diversity.org ). And yes, moose are in that biological family.
.....Wikipedia has beautiful photos of the bird called Baltimore oriole .....worth seeing!!! .. A beautiful bird, orange and black. ...The state bird for the state of Maryland.
The only teams I know about are the ones I cheer for. I have no idea what the visor colors are for any other teams, nor do I care. It didn't stop me from filling in the answers, however, as the crosses did most of the work for me. I greatly admire all of you puzzlers from non-English speaking countries. Your grasp of the language is far superior to my grasp of your language; I would never even attempt a puzzle in anything but English. (Well, I might attempt French, but it would have to be on a very juvenile level.) Still, that you expect a puzzle based in New York City, USA, to be equally understood all over the world strikes me as kind of unrealistic. Enjoy the learning experience, and file the information away for another use, whether it's a puzzle or conversation, or your own writing project. There is no harm in learning a new phrase or word.
Many accusations of ‘trivia’, but I thought the theme clues were excellent. You’d have to be a pretty keen movie buff to know them outright, but all of them transcend the movies they come from. People who have never seen those films use them without knowing their origins. I saw The Fly many years ago, but if I ever knew that the ‘Be Afraid’ line came from there I had forgotten. It was fun working it out from the crossings and learning the connection.
The only quote I remember from The Fly is "help...me..."
Well put. I have certainly never seen any of them and never will. But I have had many occasions to think and some to say SPOILER NEEDED? BE AFRAID; BE VERY AFRAID
ALOFT (vertical) crossing AFLOAT (horizontal) was an elegant touch. (I'm sure Lewis is typing this same comment, even now.) Very smooth solve, which might translate to "easy," save for the fun.
"It's a cookbook!" Scary good puzzle even though I'm not much into horror films, although I loved Shaun of the Dead and Tucker and Dale vs Evil. I can't help wondering what inspired 14 popes to form a line in the first place. Were they doing the Running Man?
Obviously they were after an altar boy.
' "It's a cookbook!" ' ;-) We have a DVD copy of Tucker and Dale at our place Up North. We invited the neighbor kids over to watch it, but they never showed up. Bummer.
@ad absurdum They were all tied together. Haven’t you heard of the game “Pope on a rope”?
Took me ages and in the end I peeked. Waxy seal is one of those that is, I guess, technically correct, but has no resemblance to the word’s usage. A wax seal. Perhaps, old school, waxen. I feel like waxy denotes resembling, rather than made of, wax.
I think the hint was "like", which suggests adjective. How did that seal feel when you touched it? Oh, it felt waxy. (There's a conversation you're never going to hear!)
@Phil I do kind of get your objection. Aquatic seals do have especially high levels of wax in their ear canals to protect them on dives. Does that make them waxy creatures? It’s a stretch.
@Phil In the olden days they didn't lick an envelope flap to seal it. They used sealing wax. That's my interpretation anyway.
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Ya done good Daniel. I liked this one a lot. Excellent theme, excellent clues. I'm not sure about DOE chasing the bucks though; I think it's the other way around.
Perhaps the reference is to the Dept of Energy chasing the bucks by loosening federal regulations to accelerate energy production.
A puzzle containing movie quotes, scary or not, is enough to inspire fear in me. Luckily, the fact that I haven't seen any of the movies (Well, I *did* see Young Frankenstein) was not an impediment to success. The quotes are very much in the language, and the crosses were kind. Perfect revealer.
Um, MEESE? The link with deer is lost in the HAZE for me. Other than that, a fun theme that was entirely approachable even though I’ve only seen The Shining, out of the selection. That scared the pants off me in the cinema; the twins! the tricycle! Jack’s demonic expression! Halloween isn’t such as big a deal as it seems to be in the US, but still lots going on. The village is holding a fund raising scare night disco on the 31st, complete with home brewed witches potions. Pray for my liver.
@Helen Wright if you and I each have a goose, we have geese; if you and I each have a moose, it stands to reason that we have MEESE
A killer clue for those of us without a US cultural reference. The Moose/MEESE meme doesn't seem to have crossed the Atlantic, probably because MEESE are not found here. Further compounded by Moose not being the first of the deer family to spring to mind! Halloween seems to be getting bigger every year, even if it's got a long way to go to match my experience when living in the US. I picked up a bunch of flowers for my wife at the supermarket yesterday on a whim. When she went to put them in water she discovered a spooky spider on a stalk nestled in the blooms!
Still can't watch The Shining. Youngsters and our foreign solvers may not understand the Here's Johnny reference. Johnny Carson was the longtime host of NBC-TV'S late night talk show. One could even say he was iconic. Anyway, the show always started of with the band playing the the theme song and Ed McMahon announcing Johnny and that's intro is what Jack Nicholson is SCARE QUOTING. This video starts off with the intro. I couldn't find a shorter example. <a href="https://youtu.be/HOJL0EreRu8?si=xREZulMcHi_SoZTE" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/HOJL0EreRu8?si=xREZulMcHi_SoZTE</a>
I Love Lucy comes in handy again! When Lucy and Ethel are vying for the club presidency, Lucy makes a sign that says "NERTS to Mertz". (Bonus points. Name that club!)
I'll put you out of your misery. The Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League.
Here’s a lovely juxtaposition that this puzzle tripped off. The face of Jack Nicholson as he’s uttering “Here’s Johnny”, and Norman Bates’s quote from “Psycho”, “We all go a little mad sometimes.”
If I may wax pedantic--or perhaps, indulge in a little waxy pedantry--for a moment: Now, we all know that the "correct"* plural of "moose"** is "moose"**, and, were I writing a scholarly article on the Cervidae, that is exactly the form I would use. But linguistics is not about correctness, it's about usage--the difference between "prescriptive" and "descriptive"--and a comprehensive dictionary should reflect that. So, I was shooketh--shooketh!--to discover that neither M-W nor the OED mention the form "meese", even labeled "var. joc", even though it's certainly been used ion print/broadcast/on-line media--look! I did it just there! (The OED has a few alternative listings for "meese," including archaic/regional variants of "mice" ((the animals)) and "moss" ((the plant)) ). They may not have meese in Letterkenny, ON, but they certainly have gooses: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1exJGPZyhs" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1exJGPZyhs</a> and I suggest you let that one marinate! *Those quotes are pretty scary, aren't they? **Those quotes aren't nearly as scary (although if I were standing in front of a herd of stampeding mxxse, I'd be a little on edge).
For some reason moose totally escaped me in reference to meese, but mice did come to mind.
@Bill ai thought it was pretty funny though:)
@Bill I was in the middle of a herd of stampeding cows today! That is in a 'movie.' We were visiting the Mormon Battalion Historic Site in Old Town San Diego. You go through a 35 min 'walk' simulating the 2000 mile march of 500+ people in 1846-47. They were sent to fight the Mexicans, but the war ended before they got to San Diego. On the way they were 'attacked', but by a thundering herd. It's called "The Battle of the Bulls". Interesting place to visit....
I've never been a fan of horror, get enough of that from the news. But the 1st three were easily guessed and I don't even want to know about number 4. Cute and clever and thanks. "I hate MEESES to pieces!" (How's that for SCAREQUOTES?)
Got everything then stared hopelessly at the first square. For me, the definition of a Natick.
@Dave Rosenbaum. For me it was the third square that had me stumped, but I guessed N for the solve.
Yeah, same! Very annoying. I only got that B after reading the column. Honestly no way to guess it if you don't know either proper noun. Definition of a Natick, as you say. A tough Wednesday for me all around. i managed to figure out/guess a lot of other stuff... ORIOLES, AREOLA, MEESE. And I got the theme although I'd never heard of SCARE QUOTES before. But was ultimately defeated by that first letter! Bummer.
Lots of terrific cluing… WAXY seals, MEESE, ORAL vaccine. And learned SCARE QUOTES. If it was too easy, I guess you’re “bored”. Loved this puzzle.
Turns out I know a lot of movie quotes from movies i haven’t seen. This puzzle sent me down a rabbit hole because i was wondering how many other quotes i knew without having seen the movie (“Nobody puts baby in the corner” sprang to mind for some reason). I rapidly alit upon the Hollywood Reporter’s list of the top 100 movie quotes. This turned out to be very annoying, because i felt that lots of the choices were bad and actually lots of the quotes are annoying in themselves. Best factoid: after Clint Eastwood’s “make my day” line… In Kenya the mispronunciation of "make my day" is "makmende," which is slang for someone who tries to be a hero and was the name creators chose for the country’s first locally created superhero, described by CNN as "one part Shaft, one part Superman." <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/best-movie-quotes-hollywoods-top-867142/heres-looking-at-you-kid" target="_blank">https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/best-movie-quotes-hollywoods-top-867142/heres-looking-at-you-kid</a>/
And then there's Poland - the 1980s cult satire "Seksmisja" (where a 2044 all-female dystopia in which two 1990s men find themselves becomes an analog of life in the Eastern Bloc) is the source of most of our famous film quotes, but the whole thing is so enmeshed with Polish pre-1989 reality that probably none of the quotes would be even remotely understandable to Americans.
While I was working this I was saying to myself, “This is a pretty big puzzle for a MIDI”. When I finished it and the gold star came up I laughed at myself.
Fun puzzle today, great theme. I got hung up in northeast for a while because I had MRNA instead of ORAL for the vaccine question. Northwest was also tough due to answers like BAHAI and NERTS.
poem made from words in today’s puzzle… a/ silently the shining of fish whose light like shouts to the eye d/ dance through a/ chasing… chasing…
All work and no crossword play makes me a dull girl! As a lover of both classic horror and Halloween, this puzzle was a lot of fun. Particularly enjoyed all of the Ws together in the SW corner! Twee and Wow Me is too cute.
Had initial trouble with the NE crossing Navy (seals) with norms but it sorted itself out. Great collection of 4 classic horror movies and their "classic quotes". After you see the shining check out The Fly. The original 1956 version with the great Vincent Price ( You will recognize his scary laugh from Michael Jackson's Thriller. Remake with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis well done. Happy Halloween!🎃
When you’re going old-timey relative to Darn I was expecting something almost biblical. Given the amount of my day that is taken up discussing Pokémon it was annoying that ABRA was not one of at least a hundred of them I could name.
Just in time for Halloween! Fun puzzle, good Wednesday, good chewiness rating. LEOI had me puzzled until I realized it was "Leo I" -- a classic dook. Thank you!
I see we've gone Halloweeny. Can't wait for the month to be over. But I did just get up and take my Black Widow ring out of the "junk drawer".....checking how DHubby's nerves are holding up. (He once called me --in anxious tones, urgently--to come quick. There was a snake on the front walk! All of 6" and about half an inch in circumference. ...) The horror bit I like is the ad where the scared teens all go hide behind the sharp implements in the barn--and the disgusted look on the killer's face. I saw "The (Ick Factor) Fly" and "The (boring) Shining".... For real terror, you need the phone to ring in the middle of the night when your teen isn't back from a date...stuff like that. (I picked one that hasn't happened to us.)
“They’re he-ere!” Cute. Very cute.
"What a scream" would be an appropriate comment. Fun run.
Nice puzzle! Not a horror fan by any stretch, but I thought this was fun and surprisingly fast. I was hung up a bit by nAvY (seals) at 23D and nOrmS at 23A, but nonts and oven certainly didn't make a whole lotta sense for their crossings. Never had occasion to use these, but the word TWEE is one I only know from critics out here on the forum. Who knew the negative comments would turn out so helpful. Same as "To clever by half." I'll never really understand that one exactly, but maybe someone wants to do a theme around that frequent criticism. Thought ALOFT crossing AFLOAT was quite charming. Lastly, I rather liked seeing my mother-in-law's nickname in there, though she is very much not a RUBE, her niblings and the numerous removeds all call her Aunt RUBE. As of yesterday, we even more know we won't have her around much longer physically... dementia has already robbed us of her in so many other ways. She is quite beloved and seeing her name up there brought a big smile amongst the angst. In honor of Major Frank Burns and his many, err, "burns," I leave you with a collection, starting with NERTS. Always a fun one!! <a href="https://swamprats4077.tumblr.com/post/37817557662/a-collection-of-major-frank-burns-silly" target="_blank">https://swamprats4077.tumblr.com/post/37817557662/a-collection-of-major-frank-burns-silly</a>
I’m sorry to hear about the progression of your mother-in-law. I know it wasn’t completely unexpected, but that doesn’t make it much easier to deal with. Wishing you a lot of love and support during this time 🙏🏻❤️.
I also got stuck for a while with navy and norms - what a mess!
If anyone wants some prime examples of scare quotes…search up ‘Arsenal’. 😅😂💀 @Ιασων if you’re still around - NERTS!
@Becky penalties are a terrible way to settle a game. @&€)($#%
Doe's do NOT chase Bucks so that kind of threw me off a bit
No kidding! No chasing. However, the bucks kind of claim a nice (perhaps secluded) clearing and wait for "visitors." The does come along if willing.
Hence the question mark.
This puzzle was filled with wonderful news for me: I have never seen a single one of these movies and therefore the lines -- a few of which have become cliches even to the non-horror-going public -- do not conjure up any nasty screen images that might give me nightmares tonight. Whew! I also must confess that I've never heard the term SCARE QUOTES. I've only heard of "air quotes". But maybe the term SCARE QUOTES is only known to the horror-attending public? Rant coming. I do not understand the popular taste for horror. I have never understood it. From the time I went to "The Wizard of Oz" at, I don't know, maybe age 5?, and had nightmares from it, I have avoided all things horror like the plague: movies, books, plays, TV programs. Why do people do that to themselves? Beats me. Isn't real life scary enough? People saw Psycho and couldn't take a shower. I can take showers. People saw Diabolique and couldn't take baths. I can take baths. People saw Jaws and couldn't swim in the ocean. I can swim in the ocean. Once again I ask: Why do people do that to themselves? Pure masochism, I say. End rant. Bottom line: Because I saw no absolutely no images in my head, this puzzle didn't scare me at all.
Miss Gulch on the bicycle turning into the witch. I got goosebumps just typing it.
Scare quotes have nothing to do with horror movies except in this punny xword theme. Like the clue sez, they are irony indicators, sorta. I'm having trouble formulating a good example but I know em when I see em.
As a horror fan, I feel compelled to answer this question. There are a few reasons why I like a lot of horror: 1) There’s a nostalgia factor. It reminds me of being a kid, scared about things that don’t really exist. For reasons I won’t get into, things became pretty difficult for me when I turned 16. Watching the movies I was scared of before 16 ironically brings me back to a happier time. 2) I find horror is great at communicating the absurdity of our modern world. Zombies are a great metaphor for the mindless masses that drag down the world with their prejudice and xenophobia. Vampires are the magnates and elites that drain the world’s wealth and horde vital resources. It’s grotesque because the world is grotesque. 3) Pure escapism. I have some awful stuff happening in my life and would rather sit down and watch the awful stuff happening on the screen and say “at least I’m not being slashed to death right now”
Nancy, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes</a>
Horror lets people go through a really cathartic "tension and release" stress cycle without having to experience any real risk. As someone else already pointed out, it shares the world-expanding "what if" mechanic of science fiction with a setting, scenario, or nemesis that usually makes people more grateful for their own mundane lives in the process. And of course, the dirty little secret of horror books and movies -- most of them have happy endings.
With you 100%! I just abandon popular culture from October 15th on. I do get scared and have nightmares. Why would I choose that? There are boundary issues, though. I'll be trundling through a thriller when up crops a horrific death scene, complete with mutilations and decay. But you never know. Hitchcock's horrors are unbearably horrific but his thrillers are witty and even charming. i can watch Vertigo without terror and I loved North by Northwest! And Family Plot is adorable. But Psycho makes me shudder as I type.
i had heard that scary movies were great date nights because they could arise desire--or at least the wish to grab each other.. But I don't like them either. And one should be able to find plenty of other reasons to snuggle.
Been yearning for something to put me in the Halloween spirit. Over the past couple weeks I watched a ton of horror flicks, ate a lot of candy, and even went to Sleepy Hollow with my partner for a retelling of Washington Irving’s story at the Church mentioned within the text. But it still felt like something was missing. Thankfully the horror quotes in this puzzle went some ways toward satisfying my holiday yearning. I’ve seen all of these movies so this was so far the easiest puzzle of the week for me. It’s unfortunate that Geena Davis’ catchphrase from The Fly is kinda cheesy and campy in an otherwise brilliant film. Her delivery of the line also feels uncharacteristically bland. I also got my Wargames and Saw lines crossed. I thought it was SHALL WE PLAY A GAME. Looking forward to the rest of the week!
I have been to Sleepy Hollow and it was wonderful!!!
Thanks Daniel Grinberg .... A really fun puzzle for Halloween!!!
AFLOAT being described as “Not in financial trouble” seems like an optimistic “message in a glass bottle half not sunk” point of view. Remember the Scare Quote Scare of 1968, when people thought Richard Nixon wasn’t really running for president, but was just a look-alike joke candidate commenting on the irony of the situation if the actual RMN did?
Funny you should mention RMN... Earlier this morning, I went on one of my periodic searches to see if there was a copy available of a satirical movie about him that I remember seeing in 1972. I found it! For anyone who's interested, here's the link: <a href="https://youtu.be/ZsQhJsivf2U?si=56_uyo5AEwpb2cup" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/ZsQhJsivf2U?si=56_uyo5AEwpb2cup</a> I don't know how it'll hold up, but I'm looking forward to re-watching it tonight.
Don't be misled by the appearance of a note from the "Communith Engagement Manager.' He is either unable or unwilling to engage. Replies are erased. So don't waste your time. The question is, should we keep wasting our money as the ratio of grass to manure keeps falling?
Interesting! I was amazed that no one had commented on his post. But this is even more amazing to hear that the comments are being deleted.
I have a wonderful kind friend who is of the Baha'i faith. His family had to leave Iran because they were terribly discriminated against.