CrossEyedDave here... When CC asked me to fill in, it was a Saturday morning, and i thought, "Great! I can do this instead of the Saturday Stumper!" Well, right from the get go, 1Across just screamed out "Cube!" And with that, my Saturday turned into a Wednesday Stumper... I did finally work my way out of a DNF/FIW/TiTT, and was looking forward to reading the write up for someone to explain it all. (Wait! What! I have to splain this!! Aw nuts and dang it all...)
Well, at least Rebecca provided a title:
16. Intentionally delaying, or a punny title for this puzzle?: PLAYING FOR TIME.
"Playing For Time."
Now unless you can play Tetris blindfolded, i don't want to hear any complaints in the comments about circles. I would still be trying to solve this puzzle, if it were not for these life saving theme circles, that helped me discover all of the "off my wavelength" clue/answers that tripped me up.
The Reveal:
54. Constant reshuffling of one's schedule, or what's depicted in this puzzle's circles: CALENDAR TETRIS
The Calendar items circled included: Gala, Game, Work, Yoga, Call, Date, and Trip. You could possibly turn this into another puzzle by trying to find "another" calendar item that wasn't circled. Please let me know if you find any, I'm already too exhausted by Rebecca's offering to even try...
Here is a short Bio:
 |
Across:
1. Sugar serving: LUMP. My horse sense told me this should be "Cube." I mean, you don't give a horse a lump of sugar, you give him/her a sugar cube! Which led to disastrous stabs at the early downs.
5. Crockery flaw: CHIP.
Hmm, i wonder what was wrong with the kid "before" the spell?
9. Paper or plastic items: BAGS.
13. Microbiology lab gel: AGAR.
14. "__ that the truth!": AINT.
15. "At your earliest convenience," less politely: ASAP. (Not STAT!)
19. Error message?: SIC. Latin, literally ‘so, thus’. used in brackets after a copied or quoted word that appears odd or erroneous to show that the word is quoted exactly as it stands in the original.
20. NYC nabe near the Bowery: NOHO. (Not SOHO, or South of Houston, but North of...)
21. Added to the team: HIRED.
22. Kicking sport: SOCCER.
24. Actress Palmer: KEKE. The second K was a personal Natick with 9 Downs Batik, and caused and alpha run ending to this almost DNF/FIW/TiTT...
25. The Queen of Pop: MADONNA.
27. Network featured in "Good Night, and Good Luck": CBS. (3 letters awaiting a perp)
30. Low voices in a women's choir: ALTOS. (Really?)
33. Lav: LOO. (What? Not Water Closet? Hmm, which reminds me...)
34. Sailor's assent: AYE.
35. Shabby: WORN.
36. Rare opening in 54-Across: SLOT. (A Clecho! Or Clue Echo...)
37. Screen writing?: BLOG.
38. Squeak (out): EKE.
39. Tom, Dick, and Harry, for example: MEN. (Not "anybody"...)
40. Name after peach or before toast: MELBA.
41. Mom, to Auntie: SIS. (I don't know why I wanted "Tia" here...)
42. "Be glad to": SURE CAN. Or put another Glad Bag in the Trash Can...
44. Image file format: JPEG.
46. Like the pick of the litter?: CUTEST.
49. Beefy, casually: SWOLE. Learning moment, i can't complain if it's legit...
51. Move like a hummingbird: DART. (Not flit)
52. D-backs, in box scores: ARI. (A crossword fill staple...)
54. [Theme Reveal]
57. Shawkat of "Search Party": ALIA. (Either you know her, or you dont. Perps to the rescue...)
58. Team with a red-tailed hawk mascot named Swoop: UTES. (If you say so...)
59. California county with a wine train: NAPA. More info here:
60. Ran in the wash: BLED.
61. "__ there, tiger": EASY.
62. Gender-fluid pronoun: THEY. (Could have been Them, I could blame Them. But I can't blame They...)
Down:
1. Slurps (up): LAPS.
2. Uniq fruits: UGLIS.
3. Body shop franchise: MAACO. I must have misread this clue, because Maaco with lump and laps turned this corner into a nightmare...
4. Ask too much, say: PRY.
5. Paddled about: CANOED.
6. One regularly experiencing bettor days: HIGHROLLER. Not familiar with this, I wonder why...
7. IT part: INFO. (New to me)
8. Vacay from work: PTO. Paid Time Off (another tricky clue/answer)
9. Patterned fabric that originated in Indonesia: BATIK. I'll let A.I. explain this Learning Moment
4. Ask too much, say: PRY.
5. Paddled about: CANOED.
6. One regularly experiencing bettor days: HIGHROLLER. Not familiar with this, I wonder why...
7. IT part: INFO. (New to me)
8. Vacay from work: PTO. Paid Time Off (another tricky clue/answer)
9. Patterned fabric that originated in Indonesia: BATIK. I'll let A.I. explain this Learning Moment
10. "If memory serves": AS I RECALL. (Without the spaces, reminds me of nothing...)
11. Up for a challenge: GAME.
12. Went a mile a minute, maybe: SPED.
17. Quechua speakers who didn't have a written alphabet: INCAS. Not entirely true They used ropes!
18. Seehorn of "Pluribus": RHEA. (If you say so, but I say its just a smaller Emu from a different country)
23. "Please be serious": CMON. (I am serious about the Rhea/Emu's)
24. Twist into a pretzel: KNOT.
26. "Sounds like a you problem": NO ONE CARES. (Ouch!)
28. Notation on an invite: BYOB. Bring Your own Bottle/Beer.
29. Sonic the Hedgehog developer: SEGA.
30. Leaves speechless: AWES.
31. Norse god of mischief: LOKI. Around long before The Marvel Universe took over his image on the internet. And is now invading politics?
32. "Ooh la la!": TRES JOLIE. It's French...
36. Self-satisfied: SMUG.
37. Good start?: BENE. Italian. Curiously, when I went to research,
IT WASN'T Bene Nota?
(I get this confused with Bella Notte.)
40. Low-gloss: MATTE.
42. Checked out: SEEN. This nose wrinkle really gave me angst crossing 49A. Swole
43. Bow alternative: CURTSY. (Not bow,,, bow... AhNuts!)
45. Be appealing?: PLEAD. (Cute)
47. One of the Torah's four matriarchs: SARAH. (Perped in, because i always leave off the H.)
48. Type of offal: TRIPE. (Anyone want a picture?) Offal is the internal organs and parts trimmed off an animal for food, although tripe has other meanings as well...
49. Sign of healing: SCAB.
50. Muralist's canvas: WALL.
51. Target of some mining: DATA.
53. "My word": I SAY. (Sounds kinda British to me, an I do say so myself...)
55. Expected any minute: DUE.
56. Explosive used in some mining: TNT.
Well, that about does it for this year. On to the next!
Happy New Year!
CE:D Out...
Once again, they got
ReplyDeleteme on a single letter. “Tres JolLe and
“AlLa.” I think that is a bogus combination, OBSCURE French term and very OBSCURE person. What do folks call that?
A “Natick”?
Anyway, I’ll try to do better tomorrow.
Subgenius out!
ALIA Shawkat is an instant fill for me at this point, but I can totally understand getting Naticked there. There's just no way to remember all those crosswordese clue flawlessly. I always get tripped up by Gasteyer and Garten, are they ANA? INA? ANI? ARI? IRA?
DeleteI really like how all 7 Tetris shapes are included (notice that the YOGA and DATE squiggly shapes can't be overlapped by just rotating, and the same goes for the CALL and TRIP L-shapes), and using 7 letters from the revealer for CALL, DATE and TRIP is a clever way to minimize the amount of theme squares. But you can definitely see the strain on the grid that comes from all these wacky shapes used as theme material.
Good catch, Anon, on those Tetris shapes. Unsurprisingly, d-o totally missed that.
DeleteGood morning!
ReplyDeleteIs "Sounds like you a problem" missing a verb? The only "Tres.." phrase I know is "Tres bien" -- JOLIE never occurred. Thus ALLA/JOLLE got to stay. Bzzzzzt. Skewered on the last day of the year. Rats. Thanx, Rebecca and C-E-D. (Methinks your Aussie roots are showing in that Rhea comment.)
Not clued as "Sounds like you a problem," it was clued "Sounds like a you problem," which makes sense to me.
DeleteI like how tripe and data were also spelled by an adjacent letter making another Tetris shape (?) And call to called; game to gamed. And with Rebecca's bio, is it a coincidence that woke is in the puzzle 2 Tetris shape ways? Like CE:D cube instead of lump got me off to a bad start and made this Wednesday offering a challenge. Good way to end the year. HNY!
ReplyDeleteDart and darts
DeleteI FIR but could not figure out the theme. Thanks CrossEyed Dave for trying to explain it. But I still couldn't figure it out. Then anonymous at 4:35 talked about the tetra shapes. This did not help me either. It is very rare I don't catch on to a theme, but this is one of those times.
ReplyDeleteWell I managed a FIR w/out help in one tick under 15 on a Rebecca G puzzle, so I’m a little happier than SubG this morning, feeling SMUG even. I have to admit though, even with the triple reveals, I still had no idea what the theme was all about, the circled words didn’t seem to have any relation to one another, and it took the expo and the comment from Anon @4:35 to make me realize it was the shape of the foursomes that were central. I got CALENDAR TETRIS by perps, I knew TETRIS was a game but I am not familiar with it at all. My last fills were successful first try WAGs at the J, O, and I in TRES JOILE (I thought of ‘mpeg’ first, but went with the J), ‘rsvp’ quickly changed to BYOB. Other unknowns were RHEA and KEKE. I liked the clue for BLOG. Thanks Rebecca for the challenge, and to C-E-D for taking the reins today and explaining it all in layman’s terms.
ReplyDeleteFIR, but didn't have much fun. Got my WAGs @ KEKE x BATIK, KEKE x RHEA, and ALIA x TRES JOLIE. C'MON, man! Erased utah, then utep for UTES, tech for INFO, able for GAME, and rsvp for BYOB (which DOES NOT mean "bring your own broad.")
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm not likely to convert, I'm thinking about studying Judaism. The more I learn about it, the more respect I have for it.
The sure-fire Mexican hangover-curing soup is menudo, which is made with TRIPE. But to be honest, I haven't eaten any since I gave up the bottle nearly 10 years ago.
I have no problem with THEY/them as plural pronouns, but I will never, except under threat of bodily harm or financial ruination, use either as a singular pronoun. Your desire to be special doesn't override my need to improve my hillbilly vocabulary. Until recently, I thought it was "youens."
Thanks to D-O for the fun review.
Today's review was written by C-E-D.
DeleteTHEY- Patti can't help herself, or after reading "About the Cruciverbalist" maybe Rebecca can't help "theyself" for including some of those TRIPE clues.
DeleteApologies to both D-O and CED.
Delete@Jinx Can you say something about why you have a growing respect for Judaism? We have a surprising number of Jewish people on the blog, considering that Jews are a tiny fraction of the population. I am curious about your interest. Thanks!
DeleteAnon, it started years ago, when I went to a Dodgers game with a co-worker and her husband. I went up to get a Dodger Dog, but they didn't want one. She explained that although they were Catholic, they kept kosher. Later I started listening to Howard Stern (back before he became a political hack) who was raised Jewish. He had many stories of the rituals he participated in growing up, and the reasons and history behind them. That's where I learned about Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs. I've also read a history of the Mossad, their search for Nazis after WWII, its mistakes and coups, and how it serves Israel and Judaism. I'm biased against governments and religions getting too close, from abuses going back to the Galileo days, but I do think that Israel is achieving a pretty good balance.
Delete@Jinx Thank you for explaining a bit of your attraction to Jewish things. Is there anything in the religion itself that is special for you? Or is it more about Jewish people and Jewish culture?
DeleteI'm not as interested in the religion in a stand-alone sense, as in comparing it to other religions in a scholarly exercise. But I am interested in how it affected history, and now affects daily life. I read the Old (and New) Testament as a young man, but I now realize that the King James version only tangentially intersects with the Torah.
Delete@Jinx Thank you for the clarification about your interest in the Jewish religion with regard to its historical and modern day impact. It was a great advance in ethics when it was invented. And it has evolved to keep up with the times in a way that few other religions have done.
DeleteReading the Jewish Bible is not enough to understand the current religion. You may want to talk to some rabbis and/or random Jewish people. Thank you again for your interest and explanation.
Pretty fast solve from wily veteran Rebecca, even though it solved as a themeless.
ReplyDeletePluses - I liked the new-to-me term CALENDAR TETRIS and that all the scheduled items were shaped like in the game.
Minuses - These are all DATEs of one sort or another, so having one be "DATE" (as in on a DATE) seems an bit redundant. Also, since these items are generic things that many people schedule (WORK, GAME, TRIP e.g.) a GALA seems like an outlier.
Nice job, CED, of pulling of this all together. Happy New Year!
Gala can mean a fancy ball that would be scheduled
DeleteYes, that was my point. Not many people have galas on their agenda.
DeleteGood Morning:
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I know about Tetris is the name, so I have no idea whether this puzzle does justice to the theme or, for that matter, what the theme actually is. Even though I was totally lost throughout the solve, some interesting fill and clever cluing kept me engaged. I just think Rebecca and I usually are on very different wavelengths, especially with this offering.
Thanks, Rebecca, and thanks, CED, for trying to make sense of it all, especially for the non-Tetris crowd.
IM, @ 8:51 --> that was as close to a "Thumper" reply as I've seen from you! ;^)
DeleteDid you notice - or anyone else, for that matter - that the puzzle has only 14 columns? A 14x15 puzzle (by definition in the rules set up by the LA Times editor) has to have a "reason" for not being a 15x15. I suppose that given the theme (whatever it is), the reveal(s), and the four-circled Tetris shapes, it couldn't work in a conventional template
Nope - A FIW on the last day of the year :-(
ReplyDeleteHi All!
Thanks Rebecca for the puzzle. The theme was fun (and I saw the Tetris bits) but the names in the fill sponged up some of the fun.
Nice expo, CED. LOL Emu comment.
WOs: hand-up "cube" & UTEp
ESPs: I mentioned names, right? TETRIS - CALENDAR TETRIS is a new-to-me phrase but I like it*
FIW: TRES JOLlE | ALiA
Fav: c/a at HIGH ROLLER
The office is a ghost town today. Most everyone is on PTO or working from home -- there's only three of us on the floor that usually houses ~85 IT peeps.
Happy New Year!
Cheers, -T
*Remembered2Refresh says: I see RustyBrain thinks so too
I also thought of Texas Western, aka UTEP until I made my CURTSY.
DeleteSorry, the Publish button is too close to the writing area. Continuing to CED. I think you’re adapting to the Blogger role very well and have found your own voice. Congrats!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year, everyone.
FIW. Like SubG a single letter got me. I've never heard of calendar tetris so I took a WAG at tres jolie and was wrong.
ReplyDeleteThere were way too many proper names for me, and even some crossing. I give you Keke and Rhea. Quite nasty!
I also failed to see the tetris shapes in those stupid circles. Circles, yuk!
Overall not an enjoyable puzzle.
Blah. FIR but did not enjoy this one
ReplyDeleteMy Frawnch AIN'T that good and the SW was the last to fall into place today. SWOLE and ALIA are unknowns, and it was either MPEG or JPEG. JOLIE looked better than MOLIE, so I did FIR. I noticed TETRIS filled by perps and guessed CALENDAR from the rest of the available perps. KEKE and RHEA were others filled by perps.
ReplyDeleteWrong Wednesday. Thanks for the fun, Rebecca and CED.
ReplyDeleteOfficially a DNF since I struck out in the North of NOHO.
That personal Natick cross of RHEA and KEKE left that NE corner unfinished, and my total ignorance that the “sugar serving” could be anything other than a CUBE left the P in PLAYING blank, the unknown-to-me body shop as BAACO, and “ask too much” as Err.
Hopefully I do better in 2026.
Happy New Year’s Eve to all.
Maaco had some clever, catchy ads back in the day. Here's one from 1984. (BTW - MAACO was started by Anthony A. Martino, the man who started the transmission shop giant AAMCO. Surely his initials (AAM) drove the names - the AAM company, (AAMCO,) and the MAA company (MAACO.))
DeleteDNS. (Did not start) As I don't find any sense of accomplishment or enjoyment even when completing an RG puzzle, I just pass them up and forgo the aggravation. A happy and healthy New Year to y'all!
ReplyDeleteUpon seeing her byline I thought about skipping it as well but forged ahead and completed it sans joy. You did the right thing.
DeleteYes, SubG, the unifier and the Frawnch expression constituted a Natick. I WAGged the JOLIE part of the expression, and DW was familiar with the tie-in between TETRIS and scheduling, so I managed to FIR.
ReplyDeleteI loved the way Dave's approach to the blog took lots of subtle digs at Rebecca's many pretensions.
Musings
ReplyDelete-This follows our pattern of slang-du-jour theming which usually elicits an “AHA” from me.
-I have done several Saturday themeless collaborations of Rebecca and Rafa Musa
-TRES JOL_E/AL_A was my last fill which yielded a satisfying “got ‘er done”. I immediately texted my French major granddaughter and she said she was so proud of me. :-)
-My cube also took its lumps at 1Across
-ALIA: Sometimes the clue and fill are familiar, the clue is familiar and the fill is not or, in this case, the clue and fill are not familiar. That all seems fine here because Rebecca need the vowel-rich name to fill the cells and there is plenty of help.
-The first time I ever heard "they" being used as a singular pronoun was in Grey’s Anatomy and it took me (and the character in the dialogue) a while to parse out its use.
-As I’ve said before, here in farm country, PTO means Power Take Off on a tractor
-“If memory serves” can plague politicians when are reminded of past stances that are exactly the opposite of their current position.
-I remember RHEA being the long-suffering girl friend of incorrigible Saul Goodman in Better Call Saul
-The school where I sub has many SARAH’s – some use the “H” and some don’t
Busy morning... would you believe DW and I had to drive 50+ miles to have our last will and testament notarized... (fun stuff...). But I did check in several times to see how everyone was doing. And while we were doing that, "somebody" (I dunno who) sent us wine via fed x. I had no idea until this morning when I got a flurry of emails from Fed X saying I had to be home to sign for it between 10:30 and 12:30. What to do? Go sign our will, or stay home and accept free wine? What to do?.. (if it were beer I would have stayed home...)
ReplyDeleteAh! DW just yelled they are going to redeliver Friday!
Anywho, thanks for the additional info I had missed regarding Tetris shapes. (Learning moment.). And it made me wonder if it can still be played online (it's been years) and I don't trust those game sites on the web. They cater mostly to kids and download spam and other bugs... turns out Tetris has its own site, where you can play immediately right on your computer without downloading anything sketchy. I tried it, and while you can change all the action buttons to your liking, I could not get my iPad to show its keyboard while the game was running. Turns out the App Store has its own free app for iPads that makes it work. here's a video explaining playing it on apple devices. (apparently it has been updated with new power ups etc...)
If you want to play on your computer, here is a link to Tetris.com
And, oh what the heck, here is a link to my old fav, Minesweeper. with no downloads. Just tap or click hand to clear and flag to flag...
Hmm, I wonder if Asteriods Deluxe is still around...
BATIK is an actual word. But crossing two obscure and weird names is just unfair: RHEA/KEKE. Why not just clue it: Four random letters?
ReplyDeleteToo bad. The rest of the puzzle was ingenious.
NOT a fun CW. Too many names, 15, of which I DNK 8. I include MADONNA in the DNK category. I know who MADONNA is, but many singers could fit the clue. Once I perped MAD.... I knew it was MADONNA. I did FIR but took 18 minutes, and did not have fun trying to fill all those names, including NATICKs. Never heard of KEKE or BATIK. I Googled KEKE, and don't call it a cheat since the name is obscure, and crosses another unknown. SWOLE? Wait, WHAT? Somehow JOLIE popped into my head, and 45D had to be PLEAD, so... Still, never heard of SWOLE. Like CED, confidently filled CUBE at 1A, buggering up the NW for quite a while. I've heard the word TETRIS, and that's as much as I know about it, so even after the theme was 'splained I, like Sgt. Schultz, knew nothing. Overall, I did not have fun. Thanx anyway, RG, but no thanx. Thanx CED for the terrific write-up. Happy New Year to one and all.
ReplyDeleteHola! i echo the above comments. Although I finished, there was no joy. My daughter discovered TETRIS many years ago and loved playing it.
ReplyDeleteI'm very familiar with NAPA, CA and know about the WINE TRAIN but have never been on it. Sadly, Brother Ricardo, whom we visited there, died suddenly.
SWOLE is an ugly word.
CSO to my grand-niece, SARAH.
Inserting French in the puzzle is just unfair.
I had SOHO before INCA forced me to change it to NOHO.
I know of Kiki Dee, but not KEKE Palmer. Learning moment.
I wish you all a joyous New Year's Eve!
One person’s obscurity can often be another’s no-brainer, as not everybody enjoys the same tv shows or movies.
ReplyDeleteRhea Seehorn, like recent puzzle-fillers Adam Scott and Taika Waititi, is a marvelous talent. I tuned into her new, highly-acclaimed series “Pluribus” because of her, but bailed after one episode because I hated the storyline.
I dunno, maybe it didn’t have enough “white cis-het male normativity” for me.
As for the rest of the puzzle, it was more difficult than most Wednesday offerings, but I managed an unenjoyable FIR in 11:21.
To me, the theme (which I ignored) was messy…maybe if I knew as much about Tetris as I do about tv and movies I might have had a better chance of understanding it.
I’m giving this one a 5/10.
Keke Palmer is the hostess of the gameshow Password along with Jimmy Fallon.
ReplyDeleteThis is not her first appearance here.
An engaging and challenging puzzle from Rebecca.
I FIW but enjoyed the tetris theme.
Thanks for a fun recap CED
I enjoyed the recap Dave way more than the puzzle. I had "flit" instead of "dart" and "Iowa" instead of "Utes" so I was screwed. Combine that with "swole" and Frawnch, not knowing anything about Tetris, well, I went straight to the "Crossword Corner" to be entertained. This puzzle isn't worth a "bow" or a "Curtsy".
ReplyDeleteHappy new year good wishes to you all.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyable puzzle, many thanks, Rebecca. And thank you too, CED, for your help.
ReplyDeleteWell, once again this puzzle started stirring up a possible story in me, with all those interesting words and phrases. For this one I imagined a gal named Mandy, carrying BAGS with LUMPS of CHIPS and other stuff. She was PLAYING FOR TIME, hoping someone would try her products and HIRE her to sing ALTOS in music for shows maybe sponsored by MADONNA. None of that worked out for her but her SIS kept telling her "You can do this" and she kept saying "NO ONE CARES". Sis responded SURE you CAN--you are the CUTEST. Anyway, AS I RECALL they got Mandy a role at a concert and the newspaper wrote that she was TRES JOLIE. It hadn't been EASY, but this finally made Mandy a HIGH ROLLER.
Happy New Year, everybody.
Thanks to Rebecca Goldstein for the last 2025 puzzle. I was impressed by the way you fit all 7 TETRIS shapes into a 14X15 grid. I would have guessed that having more room would have been helpful but I suppose the two 14-letter grid spanners said different. FAV: Asked too much, say
ReplyDeleteIronically, I did not care for NO ONE CARES.
Thanks to CED for a very enjoyable write-up! My one-box FIW was your red K. I knew what BATIK was but guessed a C for the spelling.
About signing your will.... the lawyer who did my most recent will gave me some good advice: Destroy all copies of your old wills because when you die, people will go through your stuff looking for a will. They will stop looking when they find A will, not knowing that a more recent will exists.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Angelina JOLIE should have made JOLIE part of our language. Just remember that Angelina JOLIE is beautiful and you won't forget that word.
ReplyDeleteFilled in right, but since I know nothing about Tetris (other than it was some kind of video/arcade type of game), the theme and placement of the circles meant nothing to me.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Rebecca, and thank you CED.
This day in blog history - 13 years ago:
When I was looking for C.C.'s words about constructing Monday puzzles, I also came across CanadianEh's first comment after (in her words) "lurking for ages." Congratulations on your anniversary, CanadianEh. Time flies!
Also found this quote by some rando (anonymous commenter) in the blog archives that day. Wait no, that was me quoting Steven:
"An optimist stays up to see the New Year come in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old one goes away." - Steven Wright
@TTP Amusing quote. It comes from Bill Vaughn
Deletehttps://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/bill_vaughan_105780