Good Morning, Cruciverbalists. Malodorous Manatee, aka MM aka OO, here with a recap of a puzzle by Will Pfadenhauer. Will has previously had puzzles published by both the LAT and NYT and the puzzles seem to evoke strong responses from the solvers. It is strongly suspected that today will not be different in that regard.
'Splainin' this one is going to take some verbal gymnastics so let's jump right in with the reveal:
70 Across. With 73-Across, insert for some water pitchers, or what has been used row-by-row on the answers to the starred clues?: BRITA. and
73 Across. See 70-Across: FILTER
Like it or loathe it, Will has executed quite a tour de force. All of the themed-answers come in pairs with each of the five pairs (ten themers in all) placed, one following the other, on the same row (once with an intervening answer the other times not) . What we solvers filled in, via perps, early on no doubt made no sense. How can ARIES, e.g., be the answer to the clue at 19 Across? Well, what our puzzle setter has done is consecutively FILTER out the letters found in BRITA ... each letter (dis)appearing twice in each of two words found on the same row. Double or even quadruple filtered, if you will.
The first pair is found at 17 and 19 Across:
17 Across. *Youthful helpers on tennis courts: ALLOYS - from BALLBOYS. If one commenced solving in the northwest, then it soon became apparent that something "tricky" was going on. BALLBOYS was not a difficult answer to suss out but it certainly was not going to fit within the allotted space. Next, we got the aforementioned ARIES. This solver moved on to something else trusting that the gimmick would become known somewhere further down the road. Later, returning to where he started, this quote came to mind:
If one removes the Bs from BALLBOYS we get the word ALLOYS. Will has removed the same letter twice from a word and drived a perfectly acceptable word as the residual. Then he goes ahead and does it again with another word focusing on the same letter!! Doing a single pair of these would be impressive enough but in pairs five freaking' times!?
But I digress. The Bs were also removed from 19 Across, on the same row:
19 Across. *Fashion toys from Mattel: ARIES - derived from BARBIES.
That takes care of filtering out the B of B R I T A. Now, on to the rest, which appear in the proper order (top to bottom within the grid), no less. I could go on and on about the gimmick but let us allow the technique to speak for itself.
For the R:
25 Across. *Restaurant freebie: BE A DOLL - from BREAD ROLL (was the BE A DOLL bit following the BARBIES bit a mere coincidence?)
28. *Weapon in Clue: EVOLVE - from REVOLVER
For the I:
34 Across. *Italian red wine: CHANT - from CHIANTI
36 Across. *Sasquatch trait: HARNESS - from HAIRINESS
For the T:
50 Across. *NCAA basketball powerhouse in Milwaukee: MARQUEE - from MARQUETTE
52 Across. *Tornado: WISER - from TWISTER
For the A:
59 Across. *Weekend part: STURDY - from SATURDAY
61 Across. *Finding the means?: VERGING - from AVERAGING Mean in this case as the companion to mode and median (methods of finding an average). We encountered mode used this way in yesterday's puzzle.
This is how it all looks in the grid:
Below are the rest of the clues and answers. It does not escape us that the puzzle setter has employed some not-too-often-seen vocabulary and has sprinkled more than a bit of tech-speak into the grid. This is befitting of a high school teacher who recently received a PHD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. (I wonder if he and his former fellow-classmates were teased about that first one):
Across:
1. Pong publisher: ATARI. A familiar bit of tech-related-ness.
6. Garden variety?: ZEN. Not as in run-of-the-mill. A place of serenity. We visited such a place this past Monday. One example:
9. Untrue: NOT SO. Well, actually in this case, yes. See also 2 Down.
14. Motto: SLOGAN. A friend was commissioned to come up with a Slogan for the year 2020 that was as catchy as, say, "click it or ticket". She came up with "mask it or casket".
15. Glass of NPR: IRA. A frequent visitor.
16. Thickset: BURLY.
18. Tit for __: TAT. Equivalent retaliation.
20. Support: AID.
21. "Assassin's Creed" game company: UBISOFT. A not-so-familiar bit of tech-related-ness. Unknown to this solver. Thanks, perps.
24. __ peeve: PET.
30. Sandwich on telera: TORTA. One had to recognize that telera is a Mexican bread. TORTA being Spanish for sandwich.
31. Furry foot: PAW. On your pet peeve, perhaps.
33. Social equal: PEER.
39. Throbbed: PULSED.
41. "Find out if they know": GO ASK. These something-that-someone-might-say type of clues provide great flexibility to constructors.
42. School in L.A.: USC.
45. Mature: AGE. Used a a verb. The adjective, AGED, was too long.
46. Obtains: GAINS.
48. Remote login protocol: TELNET. Another not-so-familiar bit of tech-related-ness. Unknown to this solver. Thanks, again, perps.
53. Snail-mail org.: USPS.
56. Feed letters: RSS. Yet another not-so-familiar bit of tech-related-ness. Unknown to this solver. Thanks, yet again, perps. An RSSfeed consolidates information sources in one place and provides updates when a site adds new content. With social media, all you see is the favorite stuff that people share.
57. Representative: AGENT.
64. Ultimate goal: AIM.
65. Drop dramatically: PLUMMET.
69. "The Matrix" hero: NEO. A motion picture reference.
72. Cha or chai: TEA. We also see Black, Green, Oolong, among others.
76. Thinking clearly: LUCID.
77. Aardvark snack: ANT. What does an aardvark order on its pizza? ANT-chovies.
78. Agree: ACCEDE. IMHO, A word not often seen in our puzzles. Do you agree?
79. Fencing blades: EPEES. Blunted weapons often found in crossword puzzles.
80. Simple structure: HUT.
Pizza The Hutt from Spaceballs
81. Flushed: RUDDY.
Down:
1. Basketball great Quigley: ALLIE. From the WNBA. Not to be confused with Immanuel Quickley of the NBA.
2. Fibbed: TOLD A TALE. See also 9 Across.
3. Many moons __: AGO.
Emma, the Yellow Wiggle, Explains
4. Writer Bradbury: RAY. When, as a child, my family lived in a section of Los Angeles, RAY was a neighbor. He drove a Corvette.
5. Dig: INSULT. Not as with a shovel. Not as a hipster would "grok" something. Used as a noun.
6. Cylindrical pasta: ZITI.
7. Notable ages: ERAS. Sometimes clued with as baseball pitching statistics.
8. Gp. joined by Sweden in 2024: NATO. Uh, Vladimir, are you familiar with the law of unintended consequences?
9. Jazz station?: NBA TV. A refence to where on TV one might watch the Utah Jazz professional basketball team. One of those clues that attmpts to mislead us because all clues, by convention, start with a capital letter. Not an abbreviated clue but an abbreviated answer this time.
10. Team's adjective: OUR.
11. Bases-clearing hit: TRIPLE. A baseball reference. All of those who had been on base are now "cleared" but there is now a runner on third.
12. Slob's napkin: SLEEVE. Or where we have now been taught to sneeze.
13. Grayish-white: OYSTER. Not the first hue that came to mind.
14. Bygone Volvo rival: SAAB. An automotive reference.
22. Uninspiring: BLAH.
23. Easiest to count, perhaps: FEWEST.
26. Puts on: DONS.
27. Taco sauce brand: ORTEGA.
29. Photo __: OPS. OPportunitieS
31. Plain text: PROSE. As contrasted with, say, to poetry.
32. Actress de Armas: ANA. The use of a minimal number of proper names in the grid is much appreciated.
34. No. pro: CPA. A pro. Not no pro. No as in the abbreviation for number. Certified Public Accountant.
35. Embrace: HUG. I like to crouch down, HUG my knees and lean forward. It's just how I roll.
37. __ Dei: AGNUS. AGNUSDei is the Latin name under which the "Lamb of God" is honoured within Christian liturgies descending from the historic Latin liturgical tradition, including those of Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism and Anglicanism.
38. Barbecue rod: SKEWER.
40. Strawberry whose No. 18 was retired by the Mets: DARRYL. Originally from Los Angeles. A baseball reference.
42. Full-throated: UNSTINTED. Anyone recall previously seeing this in a crossword puzzle?
43. Spot: SEE. The combination of the clue and answer bring back memories from early elementary school. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run.
44. WNBA pos.: CTR. Abbreviated clue.... CenTeR. A basketball reference.
47. Mensa stats: IQS.
49. CBS News contributor Lisa: LING.
50. Brand sold at REI: MSR. Another set of abbreviations. Although both companies pretty much only use their initials these days. Recreational Equipment Inc / Mountain Safety Research.
51. Roof overhang: EAVE.
53. Fit for service: USABLE.
54. Provoke: STIR UP.
55. Exfoliation stone: PUMICE. PUMICE is also USABLE for cleaning hard water rings from toilets.
58. Make good progress: GET FAR.
60. Thumb-operated controls: D-PADS. More tech-speak.
62. Not self-sufficient: NEEDY.
63. Singer Lesley: GORE.
Nobody Knows Where Her Johnny Has Gone
66. Provo's state: UTAH.
67. Main information source?: MENU. Another bit of tech-speak?
68. Actor Damon: MATT.
Sarah Silverman Receives an Emmy for a bit of NSFW Singing
(originally aired on the Jimmy Kimmel Show)
71. __-dyeing: TIE. Far out, man!
74. Hospital dept.: ICU. Intensive Care Unit
75. Rock's __ Soundsystem: LCD. From Brooklyn, NY. This solver was not familiar with the band but we do solve these puzzles, in part, for the joy of learning new stuff.
I couldn’t get this one, until I turned on the “red letters” and saw all my mistakes. So I finished it “with help.” I can’t say I’m happy about that, but I am happy to be here with you good folks and see how many of you did better than I did!
D-o realized that the Bs were missing from bALLbOYS. Later realized that a different letter was missing from other themers. That's as close to the theme as he came. Got BRITA FILTER, but failed to realize it was a reveal. D'oh. Unknowns included MSR, UBISFOFT, TELNET, RSS, DPADS, and LCD (as clued). GORE was a gimme, but younger solvers would scratch their heads on that one. Don't believe I've ever seen UNSTINTED in a cw before, nor anywhere else for that matter. Thanx to Will for a real stumper, and to Mal-Man for yeoman service untangling it. (Enjoyed your "unintended consequences" quip.)
When it comes to eye-raising job titles, I think the prize would go to a guy I worked with at a heavy equipment manufacturing company. His job was to travel around the country setting up huge cranes. His business card read "Erection Specialist."
D-o, I had a friend who worked as a sales rep for a company that sold various adhesives. His card read, in part, Adhesive Services - We're Into Bondage.
Yikes, D-O! 🤣 Well, that business card job title certainly would've been a conversation-starter while he was introducing himself. Wonder if he's kept it as a "memento" after all these years.
Unlike Anon’s disparaging opinion @ 6:16, I think this puzzle goes beyond clever and borders on brilliant. How a constructor can even conceive of a theme like this and execute the fill is beyond me. Quite complicated, and about halfway through I thought I may be headed for the dreaded DNF. Thankfully, perps gave me BRITA FILTER which clued me in on the missing T’s and A’, and I somehow managed a FIR w/out help in 22:29. DNK’s were the same as d-o’s plus ANA, LING, TORTA and ALLIE. Looking forward to reading all the other comments about this one. Thanks Will P for your outstanding grid, and to MM for expertly explaining it all!
Even tho I didn’t know most of the tech stuff - and was hoping y’all would ‘splain all to me (thx for RSS). And - yes - thank you for doable perps!
What I loved were the themed clues. I too was boggled at the complexity of the creation. How to even come up w the idea; THEN all the two-way fill words; THEN the cluing; THEN …. I could/would never get there. Well Done!! averaging to verging almost foiled (?epee-ed🙄😊) me - but mean’s multiple meanings finally dawned - and I was done!
I’ve always been the BEST audience for punsters - laughing/groaning at every twist
Wow! What a tough puzzle to FIR and I stumbled my way and managed to do it at the cross of USPS and MSR(never heard of it; no REI stores near here). It wasn't USPO and MOR because I get an email from USPS every morning that show what 'should' be delivered that day. It's still the Post OFFICE.
I noticed something was missing at EVOLVE (knew it was not a weapon). The perps for ARIES were solid and then I noticed the starred clues. B&R were missing and that allowed B-ALL-BOYS and B-R-EAD-R-OLL. But if it weren't the easy fill for BRITA there was no way I would have finished. Too many unknowns. UBISOFT (Assassin's Creed), RSS, ALLIE, D_PADS, TELNET, LING, LCD, TORTA (telera), OYSTER (didn't know it was a color), UNSTINTED for full-throated and LCD.
IRA and ANA show up so often they can be added to OTT, NEO, and ORR. I did know RAY, GORE, and MATT.
ORTEGA- I bought a two-pack of PACE'S 38oz from Sams yesterday for $7.32.
Loved this puzzle and am amazed at the skill and cleverness of the maker. Spent a while trying to make the r in oyster work with revolver and the a in eave with averaging. Lots of fun. Like the echo in beadoll after barbies pointed out bt MM.
On one hand, I applaud the constructor for what had to be painstaking work. On the other hand, this felt painful, even excepting an add/subtract letter(s) theme, which is par for the course on Fridays. To me, the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze.
I didn't know Gore, ruddy, telnet, msr, or ubisoft.
FIR. Is this Saturday and nobody let me know? What an incredibly hard puzzle! It took a while to get the theme and once I had the reveal the solving went a tad faster. But missing letters in starred clues is pure evil and cruel. And the number of unknowns was ridiculous. A major misstep for me was throwing down false at 9A instead of "not so". Talk about set me back! Ugh. Overall not an enjoyable puzzle at all.
Wow, that was tough! I missed it by one letter. I had USPo instead of USPS. It would have helped if I had heard of MSR.
It was only after getting BRITA FILTER that I realized what was happening. From top to bottom, BRITA was being FILTERed out two times on the left side of the puzzle, and two times on the right side.
I struggled with many of the needed perps today. I knew ALLIE Quigley, but first entered tshirt before SLEEVE. I also sleepily entered arial before PROSE. I had AngUS befor AGNUS, and didn't know LING. D PADS is new to me, and I'll have to look that up. Lastly, I not only misread the clue at 75D, I put the answer in at 74D. Speedwagon doesn't look like Soundsystem.
After breaking for coffee and getting a sugar rush from a couple of creme puffs my wife made, I finally figured it out and got it all except that USPo/USPS error.
A great challenge, Will. Very well done. Bravo. For me, it was very reminiscent of many of Evan Birnholz' types of puzzle. I look forward to those every week.
Very well explained, MM. I ACCEDE that we don't see it very often. Ditto, you and D-OTTO, UNSTINTED.
You are correct, D-O. I had a heck of a time trying to figure out who the singer Lesley was. That was even after I had ORE filled in. I got the G because of getting (A)VER(A)GING with the missing As as part of the theme.
Big Easy, I agree. It will always be the post office for me.
I was going to ask you if you signed up for some special service to get that email notification, but then I did a search and read about USPS Informed Delivery. Neat.
TTP@3:18. I get Informed Delivery from the USPS. I recommend it. One thing to know about it is the images are sometimes scanned at the "sent" location so they do not always show up on the day you get the email. Still, very helpful.
I have to admit this puzzle stumped me for a while. But once I figured out the clue, I was absolutely amazed at this constructors mind. Very slick. at first I hated it, but I have to admit it’s a very good puzzle.
After starting the CW, like yesterday, I “EYED UP” the clues and realized I couldn’t “COTTON ONTO” the rest of the puzzle so I regretfully concede to an early DNF😔
Good Morning! Being Friday, I went the “easy” route doing it online with the red letters. Lots of alphabet runs. Good decision because this puzzle made no sense to me. I don’t expect fun on a Friday, but this went way beyond any hope for that. MalMan, you did an exceptional job explaining it. Even in that, this puzzle had no redeeming qualities for me though I was surprised reading the recap there were more straightforward clues/fills than I thought.
FIR, but erased false for NOT SO, soso for BLAH, con for CPA, and PUMaCE.
I had lunch at USC yesterday. Not that USC - the one in Columbia. Nice time with freshman grandson.
I did confuse Quigley with Immanuel Quickley, a product of the Kentucky NBA player development machine.
Speaking of basketball, how long ago was Marquette a powerhouse? Has it been since the Al McGuire era?
This one stretched my limited solving abilities to the breaking point. Couldn't have done it without figuring out the theme. I did know TELNET and RSS, but not DPADS nor LCD Soundsystem.
Thanks to Will Pfadenhauer for the pfabulous pfriday workout. Any puzzle with PAW and PET is OK by me. And thanks to our MalMan for delivering again,
Grandson and I were discussing that very thing over lunch. USC is a very good football team and clobbered my KY Wildcats, but when 7 of the top 8 teams in the country are in the Southeastern Conference, a "very good" team is gonna get beat up a lot. There will be a rankings bloodbath as those top schools play each other over the course of the season. I'd still bet on some SEC team winning the NCAA championship this season.
Not my cuppa tea. Figured out the theme early and hated it. You can call it clever, brilliant, or any other accolade you can think of, and you’d be right. But the end result was a puzzle filled with gibberish. I prefer puzzles whose answers are actual words.
Musings -Wow, I don’t want to do one of these all days but I had a blast! -The obvious (B)ALL(B)OYS/(B)AR(B)IES gave the hint that something weird cometh and a clue to the gimmick -Having perfectly good fills remaining after the double extractions made this even more amazing. Did I say Wow?! -ATARI was a given but unknown DPADS and UBISOFT went quietly. -GORE evokes “turnabout is fair play” for our usual contemporary names -BURLY, when I worked retail, clothing for larger boys carried the label “Husky” -GO ASK: What Joann says I excel at! New neighbors always get a quick visit from me. -DIG as a noun (not archeological) took a while but I finally dug it. -OYSTER replaced PEWTER at _ _ _ TER -AGNUS Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem. I have sung it hundreds of times… -The NBA CTR’s are making a comeback after the 3-pt line nearly pushed them to extinction -Where I first encountered the word PUMICE -Lesley’s hairdo screams 1960’s -MM’s thoughts seemed to mirror mine. I hope that's a compliment, Joseph! I wonder what our friend Irish, Agnes (not AGNUS), will say.
HG - obvious? I have to say only obvious if the obvious answer fit. And when they didn’t, you’re pulling your hair thinking of alternatives. So, obvious in hindsight certainly!
Obviously Mensa would laugh if I tried to join. Finally TITT. I’d like to think I might have gotten the theme had I been able to fill in the many names, sports, and tech references to use as perps. Unfortunately that’s my Achilles heel.
After reading HG's comments, I went back to MM's review to see the image of Lesley GORE's hair. I somehow missed it as a video earlier, so I played it. I know I've heard that song on the radio station many, many times in yesteryears. I certainly would have failed a trivia question about "Who sang it?"
I knew a guy who worked in a company known for its use of initialisms in job tiles. His title was Analytics Support Specialist.
I think one of my most important requisites for puzzle solving is enjoying the journey to a satisfying completion. I have solved many difficult puzzles with no enjoyment or satisfaction and this was one of them. IMO, this was constructed to please the author, not the solver, and while this may be a brilliantly executed theme, I prefer less showy style and more solid substance. I did like the CSO to Subgenius, AKA, Darryl!
MalMan, many thanks to you for unraveling and explaining in detail a difficult to describe theme. You get an A+ from me.
HG, I don't think I'll see "what Irish said" from you today! 😉
Count me on the side of the happily amazed solvers. A tough one to start, but I got Brita Filter early on (although I at first doubted it was correct...), and that eventually rang the bells. I am in awe of the constructor's abilities and am thankful for the opportunity to enjoy them! More like this, please :)
Once I picked out "revolver" in EVOLVE (thanks to the Clue board game), I was on to Will's gimmick, and a clever one at that. I've always had a Brita pitcher, so the main puzzle theme presented itself pretty clearly--and cleverly.
Here's my problem: the rest of the puzzle. It was inundated with baffling and impenetrable entries. Examples include UBISOFT, OYSTER (as a color?), TORTA, RSS, ANA, UNSTINTED (not unstinting), MSR, DPADS, GORE, TELNET, NEO, LCD (as a rock sound system), and I could go on.
Will's brilliant Brita filter scheme was to me tainted by an onslaught of perps that could have been helpful, but were instead inscrutable.
Many chores today, I kept putting it down but had to keep coming back for more puzzlement. I finally got this gimmicky Friday done, but quite honestly, The BlogSplanation was the most fun part. I knew the brita letters were missing, but I never figured out how or where or why...
It did not help that there was a healthy smattering of Naticks. (Possibly personal Naticks, but Naticks nontheless...)
Bravo! I wanted a puzzle, and I sure got it!
2 notes: In yesterdays comments, there was a late comment that alerted me that TTP had inserted a reply (somewhere between 9 and 10 am) that included an excellent reference for learning how to use HTML. I would never have seen it without the later comment.
MalMan! What can I say! Awesome splainin' thank you! (But I am still mad at you...) You see, the pumice stone reference reminded me that for months, I had been searching the house for that special Home Depot pumice stone, and could not find it. This morning, I found a pumice stone in the kids bathroom cabinet. Now I have to clean the stupid toilet, and I blame you! Normally this would not be such a pain in butt, but it's not the ring I need to scrub, the entire toilet above the waterline is discoloured. ( our house water is very hard, and self scouring. But any pipe leaks are self sealing...) so I will be up to my elbows in the throne all afternoon thinking I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for MalMan!
CED, I was getting caught up on yesterday's comments and Darren commented that the same thing happened to him as had happened to NaomiZ. That is, the word(s) they tried to bold disappeared.
I think they misunderstood what you meant when you did your Capital B example.
I figured out what went wrong when they tried, and I have posted a new comment at the end of yesterday's comments explaining it.
Darren, the only thing I would ask is that you post your comments no later than the day after the puzzle originally was reviewed. I have C.C.'s blog configured to send anything older than Day 2 to moderation. That is to catch and prevent spam comments that all of the bots generate. It took me months to find and delete all of the spam in the history of this blog.
FIR in 14:09. Fairly impressive theme, but count me as one that did not particularly enjoy the puzzle. After two quick runs through all of the acrosses and downs for low-hanging fruit, I had enough perps to see the gimmick and solve the themers without paying attention to the reveal (which immediately popped into my head having just changed the filter on my pitcher at home!). I liked 9/10 theme answers. I was not a fan of BE A DOLL for two reasons: primarily because it was a multi-word answer while the rest were single words; and secondarily because I don't think BrEAD-rOLL is actually a term used by many people. I feel like people say either bread or rolls. That could simply be my experience, but it was just a little less satisfying than the other themers.
But, all in all, I actually liked the theme, and I do think it took a fair amount of creativity and skill to make it work. To me the thing that made this not particularly enjoyable was the 28 TLWs and the 21 (as clued) proper nouns (especially when 5 of 21 could easily have been clued to make them not proper nouns); to say nothing of the field-specific jargon.
Finally, a real question for those who follow basketball, is CTR the widely used and accepted abbreviation for center? I would have thought just the letter C, like in football.
Players and coaches just call it "the five." (Point guard is "1," shooting guard is "2," the small forward is "3," and the power forward is "4.") "Center" is for announcers, sports writers and casual fans.
I commented previously on CWs that were no fun. Boy, did this one fit the bill. I struggled early, was tempted to TITT several times, could make no sense of the theme answers, only knew 8 of the 19 names, DNK any of the tech stuff. But I decided to persist, be stubborn, and cheat my way to a finish. After 25 minutes of looking to Google for assistance, I finally had all cells filled, and came here to discover I still had ONE wrong cell: ACeEDE/LeD cross. I woulda had to take a FIW anyway due to the massive cheating, but now it's a double FIW. Reading MalMan's excellent write-up was far more fun than frustrating myself on this CW. WDOS @ 6:22 pretty much sums it up. WP is an absolutely BRILLIANT CW constructor for being able to put together this magnificent CW, very clever indeed, and a complete piece of frustration. The T.S. Eliot quote MalMan provided is an excellent "Thought for the day." It is eventually going to occur to mankind that travelling to another galaxy is not possible, and we need to take care of our spaceship, the planet Earth, on an emergency basis. Living in SOFLO, the Drain the Swamp thought is also quite relevant. Early settlers set out to drain the Everglades before it occurred to them that the Everglades, directly or indirectly, was the source of their drinking water. Another item: ...ABLE or ...IBLE? Why is it DOABLE but FLEXIBLE? Oy. No wonder I'm so confused. WP, I'm not sure whether to say thanx or curses for this stumper. But I can DEFINITELY say thanx to MalMan for his excellent write-up, by far the best part of this morning's CW experience.
This one fell completely out of my enjoyment zone. I'll Echo Irish today. Fortunately, MM was, as always, smack in the middle of that enjoyment zone! TITT, but wasted way too much time before admitting defeat.
Wow! After much struggle, FIR. But even after I sussed out the trickiness, I still didn’t know that each row was missing the same letters or what the correct answer should be since unknown perps made it quite the challenge even with the concept. DKN’s included Ubisoft, MSR, telnet, dpads, and wasn’t sure unstinted was a good match for full throated! Just because I knew Italian wine should be Chianti, doesn’t mean I could guess chant; same with Marquette, hairiness, revolver (haven’t played clue in over 50 years! And could only think of lead pipe, candlestick, rope and figured gun! Wrong) twister, etc. I agree I wasn’t sure about accede also as it’s not much in use.
I am on Team HG - the theme was fun and amazing as far as construction,creativity, and challenge The unknowns perped in.
I think many women have heard of OYSTER as a color in clothes. Between fabric and wall paint colors, the manufacturers have so many varieties of words to describe them beside red , yellow, white, etc. I just glanced over LL Bean and Land's End sites and colors listed for items that were not bright white were: ivory, heather, smoke, mist, cream, sailcloth, and birch Thanks MM for the fun blog and Will for the puzzle!
I enjoyed this one immensely despite the convoluted gimmicks that MalMan explained so well (or maybe because of them), and despite a couple of naticks and other annoyances. CHIANTI and MARQUETTE assured me I knew what was going on, and I even began storing B’s, R’s, I’s, and T’s in the margins in case there was a what’s-that-spell? unifier. Before I reached that stage, DW deduced BRITA from the 70-across clue. She also sorta knew LING and TELNET.
The REI brand and the thumb-operated control made for a pretty nasty natick, but the most galling piece of the puzzle for me was the one-down basketball “great” few if any of us have ever heard of. I know what a TORTA is, but some of you understandably don’t, and the “telera” in the clue made it worse. UNSTINTED came only via perps but made sense. Other unknowns that bugged me included UBISOFT and RSS. One of the theme entries, BREAD ROLLS, was less satisfying than the others.
STUFF I LIKED: You don’t see PLUMMET and ACCEDE in many puzzles. I liked BURLY, too . . . I have a RUDDY complexion. . . . I got GORE right away because of the spelling of Lesley. Her younger brother Michael, who was my age, was writing her songs as a teenager and was an important contributor to “Fame.” He died young. . . . “Many moons ago, in a far-off place” are the first words sung at the outset of “Once Upon a Mattress. They're sung by the Minstrel, a role I still would love to play in that very underrated show. . . . A PUMICE stone might be an exfoliator, but mine is a bathroom-cleaning aid and therefore is NOT used for anything else.
Loved this puzzle and really enjoyed finding the next missing letters although it took a very long time to solve. With the obvious bALL bOYS, bARbIE, rEVOLVEr, CHiANTi, etc. it was clear it was spelling out something. Reading the reveal I thought of my BRITA pitcher and , tada! However, many guesses - RSS, MSR, LCD, UBISOFT, ANA, ALLIE and DPADS made no sense until MM explained it and all the Unknowns. Thank you!
Interesting to have aVERaGING today when yesterday we had MODE and there was much discussion about mean, median, etc.
D-O @ 6:22 - Would younger solvers know GORE if the clue was Al?
I understood the theme didn't feel like allotting the amount of time needed for this one. Using letters more than once, no order, this was so bad I don't even want to waste the time to critique.
Well, Friday puzzles are expected to be a bit tough, and this one was not easy, but still very enjoyable. So many thanks, Will. And thank you too, MalMan, for your always helpful commentary.
This puzzle then began a bit negatively with a reference to 'untrue' or NOT SO true, and a suggestion that things would be BURLY and not TIT for TAT as we went on, but hinting we might get some AID. And we did as things began to EVOLVE, suggesting we might become a better PEER as we AGE. We were also encouraged to GO ASK if we had a question, and that might make us WISER and more STURDY. And there was also a hint that a FILTER (not EPEES) might make us a bit more LUCID.
By then I was tired and ready for some TEA. Have a great weekend, everybody.
With a last name Pfadenhauer it makes sense to me that this author would create a puzzle removing "unnecessary" letters. What did surprise me, as I have in my tenure as Friday sherpa never been faced with a 16x16 grid which is what we have today. This gave us room for the intricate theme as well as many, many 3 letter fill. I thought the theme was very creative and the fill not overly hard for a Friday. Did not know ALLIE as clued, TORTA , D-PADS or UNSTINTED which to me is a total stinker, but not so bad for a Friday. Enjoy the week-end all, thank you MM and Will.
First off, the word ACCEDE does show up regularly in modern day crossword puzzles, but perhaps not in the ones that this audience usually solves (self, included)
Second, to my friend Jason?Lemonade @ 2:08 pm ... I don't remember, but I've heard that the early sherpas to this blog did not have the luxury of a lot of time to both solve the puzzle and do a recap. Today's puzzle would've been impossible for any of us bloggers if we had less than 24 hours to solve and publish. I would bet that MM took at LEAST an hour or so of thought and edit just to the introduction; maybe more. BTW, good catch on the 16x16 grid. I saw that, too. Knew I'd be in trouble right from the get-go
Third, to my friend Joseph (aka, MM) => you exceeded all my expectations for the recap. Unlike you, it's not in MY contract to preview your work, so I read it AFTER spending almost a half an hour (and at least a couple of red letters) solving today's puzzle. As you know (from a collaboration with me) the pay for daily puzzles (with exception of Apple News, NYT, and WSJ) is pretty low. Will Pfadenhauer's per hour "pay" for this was well below minimum wage, I'm sure. This one had to have had several back-and-forth edits before getting a final "thumb's up" from PV
I don't normally add another blog's recap to one here, but the one at Crossword Fiend was on my radar today. That group of reviewers tend to be quite stingy with their "star" ratings, as well as being very critical of the work
If you don't care to open the link and read the entire recap, the first paragraph says it all (for me, anyway): "This was significantly chewier than I’m used to in a Friday Los Angeles Times crossword. I sort-of saw the theme with the first relevant entry, but didn’t appreciate it fully."
That speaks volumes ... now, if only a novice constructor as I can ever come up with a puzzle that is so creatively done
Moe, did you get to watch the Backyard Brawl last week? That was one heck of a game. This week, the Panthers shouldn't have as much difficulty in winning the game over the Penquins. :-)
Hola! "Not overly hard for a Friday"! I'm sorry, Lemonade, but I must disagree, for myself, anyway, and I note for a few others as commented above. I finally quit after about 80% filled as I also like actual words in a puzzle and not a puzzle within a puzzle. Sadly I would not let go of FALSE at 9A and that set me up for failure in that section. to add INSULT to injury, I failed to suss the theme and so missed that level of the puzzle. However, I'm pleased that I did fill a good portion of it even though I may not have entirely understood the theme or the constructor's intent. Thank you, MalMan, for your wisdom and insight which greatly enlightened me. Have a wonderful day everyone!
TTP @ 3:46: Yes, to watching the Ackyard Rawl ... (see what I did there??!) I also watched the Pitt #1 women's volleyball team game vs PSU on Wednesday night. THAT was as satisfying as watching the football game, IMO. It is certainly a great time to be a Panther fan; football is undefeated, Volleyball is #1 and hasn't lost a set in their 7 games, both men's and women's soccer teams are nationally ranked in the Top 10 ...
Duzz has to keep the boys focused on the YSU game; no let down
Thanks to everyone for your kind comments. It is kind of nice to have a puzzle that sparks so many (and so strong) opinions. That said, if it happens again in a couple of weeks I just might TITT 😄.
Wow, what a genius construction! Loads of fun solving this one! Love the words SKEWER, PLUMMET, BURLY, ACCEDE, RUDDY, and UNSTINTED. I've never heard of D-PADS. Sorta funny to see RUDDY GORE. I'm a happy man.
It is late and I am not sure anyone will see this. I just wanted to say that I am one who found this to be an amazingly brilliant construction. Definitely a challenging solve. I was not happy about crossed obscurities/names, but I did manage to WAG them to FIR. We shop at REI fairly often and I never heard of MSR.
Had no idea what BEADOLL meant until I came here. Again, even if I had FIW I would say I appreciated the extraordinary effort that went into the construction.
Fascinating Frantic Friday. Thanks for the fun, Will and MalMan. Officially a Crash (PLUMMET) and Burn, but I did get the BRITA FILTER theme (although I still couldn’t figure out the last two themers). Actually a brilliant creation!
But in my defence, I had too much Canadian disadvantage, and thus did not have enough perps to finish properly. And when Patti insists on using WNBA clues, even my “call a friend for sports names” DH is not of any help.
This Canadian did not know NBA TV, UBISOFT, TORTA, ORTEGA, MARQUETTE, LING, ALLIE, MSR, USC. But I did get USPS and UTAH!
Then I erred with False before NOT SO, and Lowest before FEWEST. TELNET and DPAD were unknown tech terms for me, but I knew RSS.
Yesterday we had GO AS; today we had GO ASK.
I’m late to the party and haven’t read you all yet, but I can see there are plenty of comments (and probably plenty of opinions).
This puzzle was a challenge and a learning experience. Good to see a reference to the late Ray Bradbury. He lived in Beverly Hills in the 1980's and frequently visited the students at the Westlake School for Girls. He loved to talk science fiction!
Busy day for me, but I solved the puzzle and read MalMan's great explanation. I thought the puzzle was brilliant, and am glad to see so many folks came out to say so.
Dear Constructor Will: Leave my classroom immediately. Go directly to the dean’s office and pick up a drop slip. Meet me in the quad for my signature. Then, transfer majors, and don’t even think about auditing any of my classes; I’ll audit yours.
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I couldn’t get this one, until I turned on the “red letters” and saw all my mistakes. So I finished it “with help.” I can’t say I’m happy about that, but I am happy to be here with you good folks and see how many of you did better than I did!
ReplyDeleteTotal garbage! Ican't even believe that was published
ReplyDeleteGood morning, er, ufda!
ReplyDeleteD-o realized that the Bs were missing from bALLbOYS. Later realized that a different letter was missing from other themers. That's as close to the theme as he came. Got BRITA FILTER, but failed to realize it was a reveal. D'oh. Unknowns included MSR, UBISFOFT, TELNET, RSS, DPADS, and LCD (as clued). GORE was a gimme, but younger solvers would scratch their heads on that one. Don't believe I've ever seen UNSTINTED in a cw before, nor anywhere else for that matter. Thanx to Will for a real stumper, and to Mal-Man for yeoman service untangling it. (Enjoyed your "unintended consequences" quip.)
When it comes to eye-raising job titles, I think the prize would go to a guy I worked with at a heavy equipment manufacturing company. His job was to travel around the country setting up huge cranes. His business card read "Erection Specialist."
D-o, I had a friend who worked as a sales rep for a company that sold various adhesives. His card read, in part, Adhesive Services - We're Into Bondage.
DeleteYikes, D-O! 🤣 Well, that business card job title certainly would've been a conversation-starter while he was introducing himself. Wonder if he's kept it as a "memento" after all these years.
DeleteUnlike Anon’s disparaging opinion @ 6:16, I think this puzzle goes beyond clever and borders on brilliant. How a constructor can even conceive of a theme like this and execute the fill is beyond me. Quite complicated, and about halfway through I thought I may be headed for the dreaded DNF. Thankfully, perps gave me BRITA FILTER which clued me in on the missing T’s and A’, and I somehow managed a FIR w/out help in 22:29. DNK’s were the same as d-o’s plus ANA, LING, TORTA and ALLIE. Looking forward to reading all the other comments about this one. Thanks Will P for your outstanding grid, and to MM for expertly explaining it all!
ReplyDeleteI loved this one! Thanks for every eye-roll!
ReplyDeleteEven tho I didn’t know most of the tech stuff - and was hoping y’all would ‘splain all to me (thx for RSS). And - yes - thank you for doable perps!
What I loved were the themed clues. I too was boggled at the complexity of the creation. How to even come up w the idea; THEN all the two-way fill words; THEN the cluing; THEN …. I could/would never get there. Well Done!! averaging to verging almost foiled (?epee-ed🙄😊) me - but mean’s multiple meanings finally dawned - and I was done!
I’ve always been the BEST audience for punsters - laughing/groaning at every twist
Sophia- you made me laugh/groan with that “foiled/epee-ed” comment!
DeleteThat was me commenting above
DeleteWow! What a tough puzzle to FIR and I stumbled my way and managed to do it at the cross of USPS and MSR(never heard of it; no REI stores near here). It wasn't USPO and MOR because I get an email from USPS every morning that show what 'should' be delivered that day. It's still the Post OFFICE.
ReplyDeleteI noticed something was missing at EVOLVE (knew it was not a weapon). The perps for ARIES were solid and then I noticed the starred clues. B&R were missing and that allowed B-ALL-BOYS and B-R-EAD-R-OLL. But if it weren't the easy fill for BRITA there was no way I would have finished. Too many unknowns. UBISOFT (Assassin's Creed), RSS, ALLIE, D_PADS, TELNET, LING, LCD, TORTA (telera), OYSTER (didn't know it was a color), UNSTINTED for full-throated and LCD.
IRA and ANA show up so often they can be added to OTT, NEO, and ORR. I did know RAY, GORE, and MATT.
ORTEGA- I bought a two-pack of PACE'S 38oz from Sams yesterday for $7.32.
Yooper- guys are always looking at T's & A's.
Loved this puzzle and am amazed at the skill and cleverness of the maker. Spent a while trying to make the r in oyster work with revolver and the a in eave with averaging. Lots of fun. Like the echo in beadoll after barbies pointed out bt MM.
ReplyDeleteTook 16:06 today to filter my way through this.
ReplyDeleteOn one hand, I applaud the constructor for what had to be painstaking work.
On the other hand, this felt painful, even excepting an add/subtract letter(s) theme, which is par for the course on Fridays.
To me, the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze.
I didn't know Gore, ruddy, telnet, msr, or ubisoft.
FIR. Is this Saturday and nobody let me know? What an incredibly hard puzzle!
ReplyDeleteIt took a while to get the theme and once I had the reveal the solving went a tad faster. But missing letters in starred clues is pure evil and cruel.
And the number of unknowns was ridiculous. A major misstep for me was throwing down false at 9A instead of "not so". Talk about set me back! Ugh.
Overall not an enjoyable puzzle at all.
This was the most satisfying puzzle I have ever finished. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteWow, that was tough! I missed it by one letter. I had USPo instead of USPS. It would have helped if I had heard of MSR.
ReplyDeleteIt was only after getting BRITA FILTER that I realized what was happening. From top to bottom, BRITA was being FILTERed out two times on the left side of the puzzle, and two times on the right side.
I struggled with many of the needed perps today. I knew ALLIE Quigley, but first entered tshirt before SLEEVE. I also sleepily entered arial before PROSE. I had AngUS befor AGNUS, and didn't know LING. D PADS is new to me, and I'll have to look that up. Lastly, I not only misread the clue at 75D, I put the answer in at 74D. Speedwagon doesn't look like Soundsystem.
After breaking for coffee and getting a sugar rush from a couple of creme puffs my wife made, I finally figured it out and got it all except that USPo/USPS error.
A great challenge, Will. Very well done. Bravo. For me, it was very reminiscent of many of Evan Birnholz' types of puzzle. I look forward to those every week.
Very well explained, MM. I ACCEDE that we don't see it very often. Ditto, you and D-OTTO, UNSTINTED.
You are correct, D-O. I had a heck of a time trying to figure out who the singer Lesley was. That was even after I had ORE filled in. I got the G because of getting (A)VER(A)GING with the missing As as part of the theme.
I get an email from USPS every morning that shows what 'should' be delivered that day. It's still the Post OFFICE.
DeleteLeslie sang "You Don't Own Me", "It's My Party", and a few others
Big Easy, I agree. It will always be the post office for me.
DeleteI was going to ask you if you signed up for some special service to get that email notification, but then I did a search and read about USPS Informed Delivery. Neat.
Never mind
TTP@3:18. I get Informed Delivery from the USPS. I recommend it. One thing to know about it is the images are sometimes scanned at the "sent" location so they do not always show up on the day you get the email. Still, very helpful.
DeleteI have to admit this puzzle stumped me for a while. But once I figured out the clue, I was absolutely amazed at this constructors mind. Very slick. at first I hated it, but I have to admit it’s a very good puzzle.
ReplyDeleteBusy Friday.
ReplyDeleteAfter starting the CW, like yesterday, I “EYED UP” the clues and realized I couldn’t “COTTON ONTO” the rest of the puzzle so I regretfully concede to an early DNF😔
Happy Weekend
This was not fun! At 81 years old, it could have given me a heart attack!
DeleteGood Morning! Being Friday, I went the “easy” route doing it online with the red letters. Lots of alphabet runs. Good decision because this puzzle made no sense to me. I don’t expect fun on a Friday, but this went way beyond any hope for that.
ReplyDeleteMalMan, you did an exceptional job explaining it. Even in that, this puzzle had no redeeming qualities for me though I was surprised reading the recap there were more straightforward clues/fills than I thought.
FIR, but erased false for NOT SO, soso for BLAH, con for CPA, and PUMaCE.
ReplyDeleteI had lunch at USC yesterday. Not that USC - the one in Columbia. Nice time with freshman grandson.
I did confuse Quigley with Immanuel Quickley, a product of the Kentucky NBA player development machine.
Speaking of basketball, how long ago was Marquette a powerhouse? Has it been since the Al McGuire era?
This one stretched my limited solving abilities to the breaking point. Couldn't have done it without figuring out the theme. I did know TELNET and RSS, but not DPADS nor LCD Soundsystem.
Thanks to Will Pfadenhauer for the pfabulous pfriday workout. Any puzzle with PAW and PET is OK by me. And thanks to our MalMan for delivering again,
You mean the USC that somehow managed to lose to LSU last Saturday? The 'other' USC beat LSU two weeks earlier.
DeleteGrandson and I were discussing that very thing over lunch. USC is a very good football team and clobbered my KY Wildcats, but when 7 of the top 8 teams in the country are in the Southeastern Conference, a "very good" team is gonna get beat up a lot. There will be a rankings bloodbath as those top schools play each other over the course of the season. I'd still bet on some SEC team winning the NCAA championship this season.
DeleteNot my cuppa tea. Figured out the theme early and hated it. You can call it clever, brilliant, or any other accolade you can think of, and you’d be right. But the end result was a puzzle filled with gibberish. I prefer puzzles whose answers are actual words.
ReplyDeleteMusings
ReplyDelete-Wow, I don’t want to do one of these all days but I had a blast!
-The obvious (B)ALL(B)OYS/(B)AR(B)IES gave the hint that something weird cometh and a clue to the gimmick
-Having perfectly good fills remaining after the double extractions made this even more amazing. Did I say Wow?!
-ATARI was a given but unknown DPADS and UBISOFT went quietly.
-GORE evokes “turnabout is fair play” for our usual contemporary names
-BURLY, when I worked retail, clothing for larger boys carried the label “Husky”
-GO ASK: What Joann says I excel at! New neighbors always get a quick visit from me.
-DIG as a noun (not archeological) took a while but I finally dug it.
-OYSTER replaced PEWTER at _ _ _ TER
-AGNUS Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem. I have sung it hundreds of times…
-The NBA CTR’s are making a comeback after the 3-pt line nearly pushed them to extinction
-Where I first encountered the word PUMICE
-Lesley’s hairdo screams 1960’s
-MM’s thoughts seemed to mirror mine. I hope that's a compliment, Joseph! I wonder what our friend Irish, Agnes (not AGNUS), will say.
Compliment gratefully accepted.
DeleteHG - obvious? I have to say only obvious if the obvious answer fit. And when they didn’t, you’re pulling your hair thinking of alternatives. So, obvious in hindsight certainly!
DeleteI knew you were going for the Lava bar. Still effective after all these decades.
DeleteRegarding the theme: A big fat Thumper. Using too many red letters was a fun sponge. I threw in the sponge and didn't even try to finish.
ReplyDeleteObviously Mensa would laugh if I tried to join. Finally TITT. I’d like to think I might have gotten the theme had I been able to fill in the many names, sports, and tech references to use as perps. Unfortunately that’s my Achilles heel.
ReplyDeleteThank you MM for a nice explanation of this CW.
You got to be kidding me. Give me a break! I also like puzzles with actual words.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading HG's comments, I went back to MM's review to see the image of Lesley GORE's hair. I somehow missed it as a video earlier, so I played it. I know I've heard that song on the radio station many, many times in yesteryears. I certainly would have failed a trivia question about "Who sang it?"
ReplyDeleteI knew a guy who worked in a company known for its use of initialisms in job tiles. His title was Analytics Support Specialist.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteI think one of my most important requisites for puzzle solving is enjoying the journey to a satisfying completion. I have solved many difficult puzzles with no enjoyment or satisfaction and this was one of them. IMO, this was constructed to please the author, not the solver, and while this may be a brilliantly executed theme, I prefer less showy style and more solid substance. I did like the CSO to Subgenius, AKA, Darryl!
MalMan, many thanks to you for unraveling and explaining in detail a difficult to describe theme. You get an A+ from me.
HG, I don't think I'll see "what Irish said" from you today! 😉
Have a great day.
Count me on the side of the happily amazed solvers. A tough one to start, but I got Brita Filter early on (although I at first doubted it was correct...), and that eventually rang the bells. I am in awe of the constructor's abilities and am thankful for the opportunity to enjoy them! More like this, please :)
ReplyDeleteOnce I picked out "revolver" in EVOLVE (thanks to the Clue board game), I was on to Will's gimmick, and a clever one at that.
ReplyDeleteI've always had a Brita pitcher, so the main puzzle theme presented itself pretty clearly--and cleverly.
Here's my problem: the rest of the puzzle. It was inundated with baffling and impenetrable entries. Examples include UBISOFT, OYSTER (as a color?), TORTA, RSS, ANA, UNSTINTED (not unstinting), MSR, DPADS, GORE, TELNET, NEO, LCD (as a rock sound system), and I could go on.
Will's brilliant Brita filter scheme was to me tainted by an onslaught of perps that could have been helpful, but were instead inscrutable.
What T-Ken said…
Delete====> Darren / L.A.
Wow! Just Wow!... what a sussfest!
ReplyDeleteMany chores today, I kept putting it down but had to keep coming back for more puzzlement. I finally got this gimmicky Friday done, but quite honestly, The BlogSplanation was the most fun part. I knew the brita letters were missing, but I never figured out how or where or why...
It did not help that there was a healthy smattering of Naticks.
(Possibly personal Naticks, but Naticks nontheless...)
Bravo! I wanted a puzzle, and I sure got it!
2 notes:
In yesterdays comments, there was a late comment that alerted me that TTP had inserted a reply (somewhere between 9 and 10 am) that included an excellent reference for learning how to use HTML. I would never have seen it without the later comment.
MalMan! What can I say! Awesome splainin' thank you!
(But I am still mad at you...)
You see, the pumice stone reference reminded me that for months, I had been searching the house for that special Home Depot pumice stone, and could not find it. This morning, I found a pumice stone in the kids bathroom cabinet. Now I have to clean the stupid toilet, and I blame you! Normally this would not be such a pain in butt, but it's not the ring I need to scrub, the entire toilet above the waterline is discoloured. ( our house water is very hard, and self scouring. But any pipe leaks are self sealing...) so I will be up to my elbows in the throne all afternoon thinking I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for MalMan!
What the world is coming to...
I am sure that you know how I knew about that particular use for pumice, or as we used to say. "I can relate!"
DeleteCED, I was getting caught up on yesterday's comments and Darren commented that the same thing happened to him as had happened to NaomiZ. That is, the word(s) they tried to bold disappeared.
DeleteI think they misunderstood what you meant when you did your Capital B example.
I figured out what went wrong when they tried, and I have posted a new comment at the end of yesterday's comments explaining it.
Well, let’s see if I can make it work, TTP.
DeleteThanks!
====> Darren / L.A.
Darren, the only thing I would ask is that you post your comments no later than the day after the puzzle originally was reviewed. I have C.C.'s blog configured to send anything older than Day 2 to moderation. That is to catch and prevent spam comments that all of the bots generate. It took me months to find and delete all of the spam in the history of this blog.
DeleteWell, let’s try it out, @TTP:
DeleteThanks!
====> Darren / L.A.
FIR in 14:09. Fairly impressive theme, but count me as one that did not particularly enjoy the puzzle. After two quick runs through all of the acrosses and downs for low-hanging fruit, I had enough perps to see the gimmick and solve the themers without paying attention to the reveal (which immediately popped into my head having just changed the filter on my pitcher at home!). I liked 9/10 theme answers. I was not a fan of BE A DOLL for two reasons: primarily because it was a multi-word answer while the rest were single words; and secondarily because I don't think BrEAD-rOLL is actually a term used by many people. I feel like people say either bread or rolls. That could simply be my experience, but it was just a little less satisfying than the other themers.
ReplyDeleteBut, all in all, I actually liked the theme, and I do think it took a fair amount of creativity and skill to make it work. To me the thing that made this not particularly enjoyable was the 28 TLWs and the 21 (as clued) proper nouns (especially when 5 of 21 could easily have been clued to make them not proper nouns); to say nothing of the field-specific jargon.
Finally, a real question for those who follow basketball, is CTR the widely used and accepted abbreviation for center? I would have thought just the letter C, like in football.
Players and coaches just call it "the five." (Point guard is "1," shooting guard is "2," the small forward is "3," and the power forward is "4.") "Center" is for announcers, sports writers and casual fans.
DeleteI know "bread roll" as a Britishism. Have heard it there often; here, rarely.
DeleteI commented previously on CWs that were no fun. Boy, did this one fit the bill. I struggled early, was tempted to TITT several times, could make no sense of the theme answers, only knew 8 of the 19 names, DNK any of the tech stuff. But I decided to persist, be stubborn, and cheat my way to a finish. After 25 minutes of looking to Google for assistance, I finally had all cells filled, and came here to discover I still had ONE wrong cell: ACeEDE/LeD cross. I woulda had to take a FIW anyway due to the massive cheating, but now it's a double FIW. Reading MalMan's excellent write-up was far more fun than frustrating myself on this CW. WDOS @ 6:22 pretty much sums it up. WP is an absolutely BRILLIANT CW constructor for being able to put together this magnificent CW, very clever indeed, and a complete piece of frustration. The T.S. Eliot quote MalMan provided is an excellent "Thought for the day." It is eventually going to occur to mankind that travelling to another galaxy is not possible, and we need to take care of our spaceship, the planet Earth, on an emergency basis. Living in SOFLO, the Drain the Swamp thought is also quite relevant. Early settlers set out to drain the Everglades before it occurred to them that the Everglades, directly or indirectly, was the source of their drinking water. Another item: ...ABLE or ...IBLE? Why is it DOABLE but FLEXIBLE? Oy. No wonder I'm so confused. WP, I'm not sure whether to say thanx or curses for this stumper. But I can DEFINITELY say thanx to MalMan for his excellent write-up, by far the best part of this morning's CW experience.
ReplyDeleteThis one fell completely out of my enjoyment zone. I'll Echo Irish today. Fortunately, MM was, as always, smack in the middle of that enjoyment zone! TITT, but wasted way too much time before admitting defeat.
ReplyDeleteWow! After much struggle, FIR. But even after I sussed out the trickiness, I still didn’t know that each row was missing the same letters or what the correct answer should be since unknown perps made it quite the challenge even with the concept. DKN’s included Ubisoft, MSR, telnet, dpads, and wasn’t sure unstinted was a good match for full throated! Just because I knew Italian wine should be Chianti, doesn’t mean I could guess chant; same with Marquette, hairiness, revolver (haven’t played clue in over 50 years! And could only think of lead pipe, candlestick, rope and figured gun! Wrong) twister, etc. I agree I wasn’t sure about accede also as it’s not much in use.
ReplyDeleteI am on Team HG - the theme was fun and amazing as far as construction,creativity, and challenge The unknowns perped in.
ReplyDeleteI think many women have heard of OYSTER as a color in clothes. Between fabric and wall paint colors, the manufacturers have so many varieties of words to describe them beside red , yellow, white, etc.
I just glanced over LL Bean and Land's End sites and colors listed for items that were not bright white were: ivory, heather, smoke, mist, cream, sailcloth, and birch
Thanks MM for the fun blog and Will for the puzzle!
Varieties of the same color: They even made a series of books and movies out of it “ 50 Shades of Grey”
Delete😀
inanehiker, welcome back!
DeleteI enjoyed this one immensely despite the convoluted gimmicks that MalMan explained so well (or maybe because of them), and despite a couple of naticks and other annoyances. CHIANTI and MARQUETTE assured me I knew what was going on, and I even began storing B’s, R’s, I’s, and T’s in the margins in case there was a what’s-that-spell? unifier. Before I reached that stage, DW deduced BRITA from the 70-across clue. She also sorta knew LING and TELNET.
ReplyDeleteThe REI brand and the thumb-operated control made for a pretty nasty natick, but the most galling piece of the puzzle for me was the one-down basketball “great” few if any of us have ever heard of. I know what a TORTA is, but some of you understandably don’t, and the “telera” in the clue made it worse. UNSTINTED came only via perps but made sense. Other unknowns that bugged me included UBISOFT and RSS. One of the theme entries, BREAD ROLLS, was less satisfying than the others.
STUFF I LIKED: You don’t see PLUMMET and ACCEDE in many puzzles. I liked BURLY, too . . . I have a RUDDY complexion. . . . I got GORE right away because of the spelling of Lesley. Her younger brother Michael, who was my age, was writing her songs as a teenager and was an important contributor to “Fame.” He died young. . . . “Many moons ago, in a far-off place” are the first words sung at the outset of “Once Upon a Mattress. They're sung by the Minstrel, a role I still would love to play in that very underrated show. . . . A PUMICE stone might be an exfoliator, but mine is a bathroom-cleaning aid and therefore is NOT used for anything else.
Oops. Michael Gore is alive at age 73.
DeleteLoved this puzzle and really enjoyed finding the next missing letters although it took a very long time to solve. With the obvious bALL bOYS, bARbIE, rEVOLVEr, CHiANTi, etc. it was clear it was spelling out something. Reading the reveal I thought of my BRITA pitcher and , tada! However, many guesses - RSS, MSR, LCD, UBISOFT, ANA, ALLIE and DPADS made no sense until MM explained it and all the Unknowns. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteInteresting to have aVERaGING today when yesterday we had MODE and there was much discussion about mean, median, etc.
D-O @ 6:22 - Would younger solvers know GORE if the clue was Al?
Happy day, all!
I think they'd be more likely to know...to the tune of about 30 years.
DeleteAbove is Parsan. (foiled again with this new blog lay-out)!!!
ReplyDeleteI understood the theme didn't feel like allotting the amount of time needed for this one. Using letters more than once, no order, this was so bad I don't even want to waste the time to critique.
ReplyDeleteWell, Friday puzzles are expected to be a bit tough, and this one was not easy, but still very enjoyable. So many thanks, Will. And thank you too, MalMan, for your always helpful commentary.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle then began a bit negatively with a reference to 'untrue' or NOT SO true, and a suggestion that things would be BURLY and not TIT for TAT as we went on, but hinting we might get some AID. And we did as things began to EVOLVE, suggesting we might become a better PEER as we AGE. We were also encouraged to GO ASK if we had a question, and that might make us WISER and more STURDY. And there was also a hint that a FILTER (not EPEES) might make us a bit more LUCID.
By then I was tired and ready for some TEA. Have a great weekend, everybody.
Ugly
ReplyDeleteWith a last name Pfadenhauer it makes sense to me that this author would create a puzzle removing "unnecessary" letters. What did surprise me, as I have in my tenure as Friday sherpa never been faced with a 16x16 grid which is what we have today. This gave us room for the intricate theme as well as many, many 3 letter fill. I thought the theme was very creative and the fill not overly hard for a Friday. Did not know ALLIE as clued, TORTA , D-PADS or UNSTINTED which to me is a total stinker, but not so bad for a Friday. Enjoy the week-end all, thank you MM and Will.
ReplyDeleteNope. Not a fan of this type of hi-jinx in a cro--word pu--le.
ReplyDeletePuzzling thoughts:
ReplyDeleteFirst off, the word ACCEDE does show up regularly in modern day crossword puzzles, but perhaps not in the ones that this audience usually solves (self, included)
Second, to my friend Jason?Lemonade @ 2:08 pm ... I don't remember, but I've heard that the early sherpas to this blog did not have the luxury of a lot of time to both solve the puzzle and do a recap. Today's puzzle would've been impossible for any of us bloggers if we had less than 24 hours to solve and publish. I would bet that MM took at LEAST an hour or so of thought and edit just to the introduction; maybe more. BTW, good catch on the 16x16 grid. I saw that, too. Knew I'd be in trouble right from the get-go
Third, to my friend Joseph (aka, MM) => you exceeded all my expectations for the recap. Unlike you, it's not in MY contract to preview your work, so I read it AFTER spending almost a half an hour (and at least a couple of red letters) solving today's puzzle. As you know (from a collaboration with me) the pay for daily puzzles (with exception of Apple News, NYT, and WSJ) is pretty low. Will Pfadenhauer's per hour "pay" for this was well below minimum wage, I'm sure. This one had to have had several back-and-forth edits before getting a final "thumb's up" from PV
I don't normally add another blog's recap to one here, but the one at Crossword Fiend was on my radar today. That group of reviewers tend to be quite stingy with their "star" ratings, as well as being very critical of the work
If you don't care to open the link and read the entire recap, the first paragraph says it all (for me, anyway): "This was significantly chewier than I’m used to in a Friday Los Angeles Times crossword. I sort-of saw the theme with the first relevant entry, but didn’t appreciate it fully."
That speaks volumes ... now, if only a novice constructor as I can ever come up with a puzzle that is so creatively done
Moe, did you get to watch the Backyard Brawl last week? That was one heck of a game. This week, the Panthers shouldn't have as much difficulty in winning the game over the Penquins. :-)
DeleteHola! "Not overly hard for a Friday"! I'm sorry, Lemonade, but I must disagree, for myself, anyway, and I note for a few others as commented above. I finally quit after about 80% filled as I also like actual words in a puzzle and not a puzzle within a puzzle. Sadly I would not let go of FALSE at 9A and that set me up for failure in that section. to add INSULT to injury, I failed to suss the theme and so missed that level of the puzzle. However, I'm pleased that I did fill a good portion of it even though I may not have entirely understood the theme or the constructor's intent.
ReplyDeleteThank you, MalMan, for your wisdom and insight which greatly enlightened me. Have a wonderful day everyone!
Enjoyed the solve, appreciated the sparseness of proper names, admired the concept, and loved MM's blog...thank you!
ReplyDeleteTTP @ 3:46: Yes, to watching the Ackyard Rawl ... (see what I did there??!) I also watched the Pitt #1 women's volleyball team game vs PSU on Wednesday night. THAT was as satisfying as watching the football game, IMO. It is certainly a great time to be a Panther fan; football is undefeated, Volleyball is #1 and hasn't lost a set in their 7 games, both men's and women's soccer teams are nationally ranked in the Top 10 ...
ReplyDeleteDuzz has to keep the boys focused on the YSU game; no let down
H2P!!
Thanks to everyone for your kind comments. It is kind of nice to have a puzzle that sparks so many (and so strong) opinions. That said, if it happens again in a couple of weeks I just might TITT 😄.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a genius construction! Loads of fun solving this one! Love the words SKEWER, PLUMMET, BURLY, ACCEDE, RUDDY, and UNSTINTED. I've never heard of D-PADS. Sorta funny to see RUDDY GORE. I'm a happy man.
ReplyDeleteWYPS@6:59...excpet for the FIR part...and the under 30 min. part. Still, heaps of fun trying to work it all out!
ReplyDeleteThanks to Will and MalMan!
It is late and I am not sure anyone will see this. I just wanted to say that I am one who found this to be an amazingly brilliant construction. Definitely a challenging solve. I was not happy about crossed obscurities/names, but I did manage to WAG them to FIR. We shop at REI fairly often and I never heard of MSR.
ReplyDeleteHad no idea what BEADOLL meant until I came here. Again, even if I had FIW I would say I appreciated the extraordinary effort that went into the construction.
As long as I am here, I will add this TIE DYE photo.
This lovely young lady sold us several TIE DIE outfits at a delightful shop in Haight-Ashbury in SF called Love on Haight.
I saw you too Picard - and those beautiful, colourful TIE DYES!
DeleteI saw what you wrote, Picard.
ReplyDeleteDitto
DeleteFascinating Frantic Friday. Thanks for the fun, Will and MalMan.
ReplyDeleteOfficially a Crash (PLUMMET) and Burn, but I did get the BRITA FILTER theme (although I still couldn’t figure out the last two themers). Actually a brilliant creation!
But in my defence, I had too much Canadian disadvantage, and thus did not have enough perps to finish properly. And when Patti insists on using WNBA clues, even my “call a friend for sports names” DH is not of any help.
This Canadian did not know NBA TV, UBISOFT, TORTA, ORTEGA, MARQUETTE, LING, ALLIE, MSR, USC. But I did get USPS and UTAH!
Then I erred with False before NOT SO, and Lowest before FEWEST.
TELNET and DPAD were unknown tech terms for me, but I knew RSS.
Yesterday we had GO AS; today we had GO ASK.
I’m late to the party and haven’t read you all yet, but I can see there are plenty of comments (and probably plenty of opinions).
Wishing you all a good evening.
Well, after reading you all, I see that it was not all Canadian disadvantage. I think I’ll echo what Tehachapi Ken said.
ReplyDeleteJayce, CanadianEh Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the TIE DYES! I should note this was on our last trip to San Francisco.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle was a challenge and a learning experience. Good to see a reference to the late Ray Bradbury. He lived in Beverly Hills in the 1980's and frequently visited the students at the Westlake School for Girls. He loved to talk science fiction!
ReplyDeleteBusy day for me, but I solved the puzzle and read MalMan's great explanation. I thought the puzzle was brilliant, and am glad to see so many folks came out to say so.
ReplyDeleteDear Constructor Will: Leave my classroom immediately. Go directly to the dean’s office and pick up a drop slip. Meet me in the quad for my signature. Then, transfer majors, and don’t even think about auditing any of my classes; I’ll audit yours.
ReplyDeleteAlso, excuzzzimoi for being Pur user!
Delete