Edward Rice
Virginia
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Virginia
A camera on a dolly, or tripod/bipod, pans from side to side. The motion of getting closer to the object being imaged is zoom, not pan.
Mr. Moser made me work. Hard. I really enjoyed doing this puzzle! I do question the Wordplay explanation that "arias" forced "soli." We use a lot of words, including "arias," that have a foreign basis but are part of English now. That one didn't cause me any problem, I just don't agree with Deb's reasoning that Italian -> Italian.
Sam Corbin: "62A. This [Competitive poker?] is an object that pokes, not a card game. The answer is ÉPÉE, which is a lance used in fencing." When I fenced in high school and college, we never referred to an epee (nor foil nor saber) as a "lance." To cite Google's AI, which I think is correct in this specific case: "No, an epee is not a lance; an epee is a fencing sword with a large guard, used for thrusting attacks in the sport of fencing, while a lance is a long, pointed spear typically used by cavalry on horseback in warfare, making them very different weapons with distinct purposes and designs." Further: "The word "epee" comes from the French word épée, which means "sword". The word "lance" comes from the Roman word lancea, which means "javelin"."
Not sure about "misdirected clues," but I did find the puzzle delightfully (!!) challenging to finish. I loved it, worked hard at it, was happy with solving it, and thought I had really gotten my money's worth when it was finished. And solving it required a lot of crosses and back-ups, so I suppose "misdirected" was a piece of my delight. It felt very fair to me, just tough.
The cluing was excellent, perfect for a Friday. "Paperless pup" had me lost for quite a while.
Very witty and cleverly misleading puzzle. A nice one!
An hour of head-scratching challenges, an hour of great fun. I enjoyed the misdirecting clues. For some reason, most of the spanners came easily to me (plus or minus parts of a couple) but the small tokens seemed hard -- and especially happy to figure out. "David and Bathsheba" is sitting on the TiVo and I will watch it tonight, I think. FIRST NYT acceptance -- gee whiz. I look forward to more.
@Barry Ancona Deb wrote: "Sometimes I think calling this type of puzzle a crossword is a misnomer." Obviously many subscribers agree, as you yourself note. And she continued, "So maybe we should broaden the name. Maybe we should start calling it a 'square word puzzle where almost anything can happen.' That would cover most circumstances, don’t you think?" Or, the Times could provide seven crosswords a week for those of us who subscribed to /crosswords/, and start another puzzle for people who like the non-crossword "square word puzzle where almost anything can happen." Or would we be scolded for that, too, Barry?
I think the scoring software should have allowed "LINE" in lieu of "----" in the solution. Once again, it's not a crossword issue, it's an emu problem. Games.
@J The Motor City, Detroit, is why Motown Records called itself that -- because it was a Detroit label. Aretha came up in Detroit, regardless of who published her music. Wikipedia says (inter alia): "As a child, Franklin was noticed for her gospel singing at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father C. L. Franklin was a minister."
@Paul Long (pronunciation) letter "O"'s -- "O" sounded as in "Owe" rather than as in "Not".
"G.I." wasn't a term for soldiers when the song, "Over There," was written, or for quite a few years afterward. The song was WW-I era, but "G.I." meaning a soldier only came along in the run-up to the Second World War, in the mid to late 1930's. So, George M. Cohan was not referring to "G.I.s" in his song.
Loved this puzzle. Multiple missteps and re-thinks were great fun. No lookups, no checking comments or notes, just a delightful group of smart clues and answers.
Loved it! The Midi puzzle and main puzzle each had one clue that incorporated the answer (stale and old, in the Midi), which I thought wasn't supposed to happen.
The Crossword ain't easy, but it is a zinger of a puzzle. Fun, hard, and VERY smart. I enjoyed it very much. It would be wonderful to see more, perhaps a bit harder.
Woman in dire need made my head hurt. Got it, but on the cross.
Pretty easy, but a delightful set of clues. My other car isn't a Zamboni but I wish it was.
I also thought this was a little easy for Saturday EXCEPT the easy parts fell after some reasonably hard ones. By accident, I figured out "second-most portrayed literary character in film" just by reading the clue, and it was the first entry I filled in. An awful lot of the puzzle gave way, with that. And the same was true with several other long answers. I liked the puzzle; now I'll wait for someone to announce "likers gotta like" and dismiss my reaction.
T/Gel shampoo from Neutrogena gone bye-bye. It's not just resting, it's DEAD. Neutrogena T/Gel was withdrawn from production and distribution starting a year ago, and is now officially discontinued. Unless you want to pay $40 to $70 a bottle for remainder stocks, sold by third-parties through Amazon. Thank California's Prop 65 warning label law, which insisted on a label warning (without any proof) of it maybe being carcinogenic. Other manufacturers produce salicylic acid shampoos without the coal tar extract. It is okay, but it lacks the anti-pruritic effect of the original. Walgreen's produces a salicylic acid shampoo WITH coal tar, which is terrific. Maybe they don't market it in California. Check the ingredients label. There is /no/ evidence that coal tar is carcinogenic, I have been assured by a real, live dermatologist.
This made me WORK. Each of three times that I set it aside and came back to it, I jumped forward. I liked it very much, misdirection included. And the results were awesome fill. Speaking of equations, Happy Pi Day, all.
@jennie An initial "1" wasn't the country code back in those days. It was a prefix that indicated you wanted to call outside of the local office of the telco. You then followed it with (exchange number) to dial a toll call that was not long distance, or (area code exchange number) to place a long distance call that might or might not be a toll call (long distance information is the best example of that -- an 800-number actually generated a billing entry which was subsequently discarded!).
NYT: "Part of your body that smells the most?" -- the answer in the puzzle doesn't actually smell at all. If surgically removed, a person would smell just as well [or as good] as before.
@Barry Ancona "I found it interesting to learn the words cower and coward have separate etymologies." I am gobsmacked, kind of. Very interesting.
@Selective Walrus It would be a nice frill for solvers if there was an option to _not_ count a day's "best" value into the permanent record. Then, each person could eliminate puzzle scores they thought were out of line _for them_.
I really hate these gimmicky puzzles. I like reasoning to a solution, not guessing.
@Jamie I am coming to resent this "haters gonna hate" tripe. It suggests that people are entitled only to positive opinions, that someone who disagrees with your positive opinion doesn't have a viewpoint worth considering. ALL opinions should be welcomed, not denigrated with a flip (and usually incorrect) remark like that one.
I enjoyed the twists in the cluing. VERY amusing in places. But it fell rather quickly after a few entries were filled in, and I wish it had been Sunday-hard. Very fun.
@Brad Ellis Or turning over the keys to the nuclear arsenal to some kid who doesn't understand the agency that controls them. That one is really pretty scary. "Pantex? Whuzzat?"
@Whoa Nellie Double entendres all through the lyrics, euphemisms, and even the album cover looks like something other than rain. Great music, too.
@M When I finished, I expected the images to animate in some way. Do they, on platforms other than iOS?
@J-J Cote Agree with your plaint but not your math. This is Trumpian arithmetic, actually. Decimate meant to kill off every tenth warrior in a line, so from 200 it would remove 20 leaving 180. Trumpian "reduce prices by 150%" is what brought this into the public arena a year or three ago. But to reduce something by a factor of one would mean to take 200 out of a line of combatants. Reducing the strength by a factor of ten would mean taking 2,000 away. Reducing by a factor 10% would be taking 20 away from a cohort of 200.
Lovely little puzzle! North, south, east, west, wherever I go home's the best. Simeon's cute directions had my gyro spining a LOT.
@Nathan "one of the great facepalm moments I have experienced in my time as a solver." But you mean that as a PLUS, right? I would, anyway, and I share the sentiment.
Puzzle: "Bring back to life, as an auto battery" Grumbling at the clue for this answer. "Jump-starting" a car meant to get it moving forward, typically down a hill, and then as it gets up some speed to jump in and engage the clutch so that the moving vehicle turns then engine over and the car will, if you're lucky, start. A booster start, or a boost, is to connect cables from an external power source to temporarily supplant the vehicle's dead battery. But there's not "jumping" into the car, so not technically a jump-start.
I've had a DVR since they first came out, but I have never, ever heard or read someone refer to a verb that would satisfy "Save for later viewing, for short." On the other hand, I still call it "taping."
@Michelle i never knew the form of agape used in this puzzle before, but I've known the "unselfish love" (also, non-passionate love, is how I learned it) since I was in high school. Unfortunately, knowing one made the other one of the very last words I could fill in to the puzzle. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing...
@Kirsten It will get easier with time and practice. You're not alone!!
@mjengling GET BACK HOME IT'S TIME FOR DINNER!
A nice little puzzle. Enjoyed the wit, was on the same wavelength, and thus it seemed very easy (and quick) to me.
@MC I always do the Mini first -- it feels like it gets my brain into orthogonal-words-mode. I should try doing Mini-last once to see if it really makes a difference. It's such a habit now.
@Michael Weiland "and I'm worried about my streak, which is closing in on 1500." Cancel your trip! You can always go to New Zealand after you're dead.
I've had a DVR since they first came out, but I have never, ever heard or read someone refer to a verb that would satisfy "Save for later viewing, for short." On the other hand, I still call it "taping."
@Steve L But the subscription said "crosswords," not puzzles in general. Perhaps you're thinking of Games magazine, which I also subscribed to for a while and enjoyed. I've been doing Times Crosswords (not every day of every week, at first some were too hard for me) since I first subscribed to the Times in about 1964. I'm not new to them nor they to me. I do go back to the archives, as well, and agree that it's a rich resource.
@Francis Decoct slowed me down for a while, too. Good luck with your NEXT streak!
@Barry Ancona A commonplace, yes. Perhaps an idiom.
@Eric Hougland "(and I’m curious about how one communicates in a language that lacks tense)" This is brief, I cannot swear it's correct: <a href="https://medium.com/@forge_co/chinese-has-no-verb-tenses-82c7c759326a" target="_blank">https://medium.com/@forge_co/chinese-has-no-verb-tenses-82c7c759326a</a> When Chinese- and Korean-speakers have explained it to me, it makes sense (Korean has tenses so they were contrasting the two); since those individuals felt entirely comfortable in their own language as well as English so they made it sound very easy.
@Stewkak Blur could be double vision?
@Kvetchy Kvaddle Sorry, didn't mean to chop your liver! Your explanation is a very clear one.
@Andrzej I salute you. Doing a crossword, and a NYTimes crossword, in a language not your cradle-language, is extremely brave!
I thought this was easy. "Too" easy is personal opinion. The theme was cute, but it seemed inescapable to me: it would be hard to get into the solve very far without figuring it out and then having it emphasized over and over. For me, it was a PB. I don't keep records but I'd guess my previous best for a Thursday was about twice what this one took me. So, I'd prefer to have harder Thursdays. Don't forget to watch the moon landing, late this afternoon (ET)!