Boris
Chicago
52
Comments
-0.125
Avg Sentiment
9
Positive
27
Neutral
16
Negative
Chicago
My eyesight is rather poor, so I don't generally count squares when considering answers. Thus I got myself all hopeful that 19A would be "Clippy."
I, for one, would prefer that the New Yorker constructors stay where they are more easily ignored. This was more trivia quiz than crossword.
"[Y]ou could practically inishfay this olehay uzzlepay without ussingsay its emethay and go on with your ayday...." Yes, and I don't feel that I missed out on much of anything with this approach.
OK, there's one bit of crossword hoariness that's been irritating me for quite a while, so on the occasion of 48A, I will note that there is a frankly obnoxious bias built into this trite clue-answer pair, which is that you don't know if someone studying English actually knows more languages than you do in the first place. I have been a technical editor who specialized in prose from non-native speakers. "EFL," for "English as a foreign language," serves quite accurately. And it's nobody's business what time of day someone might have available for such training.
I am duly unimpressed by this three-car pileup of largely stale gimmickery.
@Beth in Greenbelt Just don't ask about the infield fly rule.
67A betrays a wholesale lack of knowledge about its topic, which is radio signals.
@Mary Yeah, I boxed myself in with 'Nob' for a while.
Nice use of misdirection. I wound up having to undo more than a few entries before it all came together.
@David Johnson Over four decades for me.
@Times Rita Indeed. I fell down at flight of stairs, and while the in-home OT/PT folks did seem to have their knowledge of musculature well and truly down (not to mention weirdly wanting to check SpO₂), this isn't close.
I'm starting to think that the crossword is actually making me dumber.
@Michael Weiland There were a lot of identically dressed Hemingway wannabes when I was in Pamplona and Sanfermines was on. (Note: Bulls are faster runners than people.)
Re 10D: Yah, try telling that to mine. He considers his job to be done once they've been delivered alive to me to hang out. (Unfortunately, the most recent one is too clever for the humane trap and also talkative, keeping me up at all hours. This has been going on for well over a week.)
Re 54A, I'm prepared for when "aquafaba" shows up.
@Alexis Way back when I was in high school, my friends and I had the fortune to join up with an exchange student from Perth (he even left me his three-piece suit when he departed). One never knows when the Rotarians are going to drop you in McHenry, Illinois. I probably looked a bit silly giving him a call after his return from a pay phone in the foyer of a local Greek restaurant, what with the big bag of quarters and all.
@Rachel Mine is race-car driver Tom McEwen. The Hot Wheels toy-car rivalry with Don "The Snake" Prudhomme was a stroke of genius.
OK, I can be in a silly mood after a nap, but I got a good chuckle out of 9D. Halfway to Gordon Lightfoot, and there's a nautical reason the general region of Portland, Maine, is called what it is.
As a former editor, I reserve the right to selective presrciptivism. 10D is a contract gig from the Sveriges Riksbank, not a bona fide Nobel.
@Matt The random upside-down spellings trick is hard to do well, as this mess amply demonstrates.
Fun fact: "Cut the blue wire" cones from Richard Lester's movie "Juggernaut." I'm very fond of this one. He also directed the Beatles movie "Help!"
Also, my ex got stoned with 1A and Amy Carter at Brown one time.
@Susan E Oh, man, the CVS here spews out so many coupons on the receipt that it can take longer than actually checking out.
@Sandy The original Powell's bookstore remains here in Hyde Park, Chicago. I've been to the Portland one, but it was kind of overwhelming, given that I had to get on a connecting train up to Seattle before long.
@Francis Or passed balls, which are not errors.
@dutchiris I wasn't expecting Jonathan Richman to come in handy for 19A. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbZzC7DTs_U" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbZzC7DTs_U</a>
48D could perhaps have used a bit more nuance, as the ownership is now Japanese.
And it's never been a Mexican company, nor does the product line bear any particular relationship to actual Mexican food.
@Moira Fun fact: Bottles of Ballantine Ale used to come with rebuses on the bottom of the caps.
I really am tired of the repetitive, core error that is 19D. Carbonation is not the same. Your fizzy beverages are not made fizzy by some weird process of injecting air.
@Weak I'm not a fan of the "Hooked on Phonics" school of reading acquisition, but English has three nasal consonants.
@Steven M. The nearest Costco has some pretty good Danish pastries. I can't really fly any more.
@Steven M. Dropped third-strike ball with two out, allowing the runner to advance to first and forcing the pitcher to face another batter, is similar (and similarly uncommon).
Fun fact: Van Morrison covered 35A, I think on "Hard Nose the Highway," an album that might be underappreciated. It's easy to find.
Fun with "hash": <a href="https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/438092/why-is-the-word-hash-associated-with-the-character" target="_blank">https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/438092/why-is-the-word-hash-associated-with-the-character</a>
With the small quibble that I tend to think the absurd syncretism with Bön that is 14A may not qualify, that was a lot of fun. The opportunities for misdirection were well deployed.
@Teresa Yeah, having three out of four that plainly seemed as such was pretty annoying to me.
@Marlene Sanctimony duly noted.
@Pat-a-pon Yah, I haven't paid attention to the film work of Tom Cruise since before he became an Operating Thetan Level VIII (possibly higher, becausse it's all just about money, with psychological control as the lever arm).
@Barry Ancona "It would be appreciated"? Talk like a person, not like a monarch.
@Patrick J. This is an extraordinarily repetitive clue. (I've done about three-fifths of them, maybe more, dating to the start of Mr. Shortz's tenure.) It's a category error.
Side note on 27A: I have the soundtrack to Li'l Abner on vinyl.
@Steven M. It took until the 19th century to really sort this one out, courtesy of Karl Weierstrass.
Remarkable achievement. It should be submitted to the Annals of Annoying Commas.
@Mark Sorry about misreading.
@Beth in Greenbelt The MLB rules may well be the most turgid bit of prose in existence.
@B Fair enough. I was only just starting the puzzle when I noticed it. I did scroll down afterward, and there only seemed to be one other commenter at the time who had made the same observation, not several, but whatever.
@Andrzej Hey, I could have complained about the inapt 4D.