Theme: "Show Me the Money" — Theme answers are phrases that end with a word meaning moneyTheme answers:
- 20A: NBA team that drafted Lew Alcindor (Kareem) in 1969 (MILWAUKEE BUCKS).
- 33A: Joaquin Phoenix's "Walk the Line" role (JOHNNY CASH).
- 43A: Dine (BREAK BREAD).
- 55A: "Jerry Maguire" catchphrase, and this puzzle's title (SHOW ME THE MONEY).
Crosswordese 101: An AERIE is a nest of an eagle or other bird of prey that's built at a high altitude. It's a great crossword word because of its high vowel density. In puzzles you will most often see AERIE clued as a nest, home, dwelling, or roost of an eagle, raptor, hawk, falcon, or condor. The words high, lofty, mountain, or cliff might also appear in the clue.
Hi, everyone. Sorry I couldn't make it in yesterday, but we took a very quick trip to Iowa City this weekend. We tried to do too much in too little time and, oh yeah, it was graduation weekend so all the acceptable hotels were sold out which means we stayed in one that was ... unacceptable. I'd really rather not talk about it.Let's talk about the puzzle instead! This was an easy, breezy solve for me. Okay, I've never heard of [5A: Italian-American singer Jerry] VALE, but the crosses were easy enough. Also, for some reason COAX [67A: Cajole] is Always indecipherable to me when I have the AX in first. I briefly wanted jars for JUGS [33D: Moonshine vessels], but overall, this puzzle put up very little resistance.
Spare change:
- 28A: Wine storage spot (CELLAR). One of the reasons we were in Iowa this weekend was for a dinner party on Friday night. It was held in, literally, the most beautiful home I've ever seen. Our host had raided her wine cellar for the shindig and I'm pretty sure I've never before seen as many empty bottles of wine at the end of a party.
- 47A: 1977 Cy Young Award winner Sparky (LYLE). This was a gimme for me, and I have no idea why.
- 62A: Rain delay covering (TARP). Also the largest part of the $700 billion U.S. bailout plan.
- 66A: Slammin' Sammy of golf (SNEAD). Not to be confused with Slammin' Sammy Sosa of baseball.
- 1D: Snail-mail need (STAMP). I believe a first-class stamp now costs somewhere around $18.00.
- 3D: Great Seal bird (EAGLE). PuzzleHusband has a tattoo of an eagle on the top of his foot.
- 34D: Cousin of a Tony Award (OBIE). Off-Broadway Theater Awards presented by The Village Voice and future Crosswordese 101 lesson.
- 35D: Use a strop on (HONE). According to Wikipedia, stropping and honing are actually two different things.
- 37D: Fix, vet-style (SPAY). Ouch.
- 41D: Construction support piece (H-BEAM). I'd only heard of I-beams, but turns out they're the same thing. Tilt the I on its side and whoa! Lookie there! An H!
- 43D: Earthen wall adjacent to a ditch (BERM). Originally a Dutch word (Hi, mac!).
- 49D: Museum artifact (RELIC). Speaking of museums ... (so glad I get to tell this story!) ... Last week Ben Stiller made a surprise visit to PuzzleSon's classroom while on his publicity tour for "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," which premiered last week at the Smithsonian. He gave each of the kids a stuffed squid (??) and a movie T-shirt. Pretty exciting.
- 54D: Used the Selectric (TYPED). Speaking of RELICs, I bet you whipper-snappers had a hard time with this one!
18 comments:
"Used the Selectric' was my favorite clue. This one was quick and easy.
Fastest puzzle I've ever done, anywhere, ever, by a HUGE margin (20 seconds). Theme? There was a theme? Never heard of Jerry VALE? Well, I never saw the clue, so no problem here.
That MOT-L pic is Awesome.
rp
Go away, Rex, it's not your day.
Fastest puzzle I've ever done, anywhere, ever.
Agree with Rex. Very fast. No issues in any area. Did not bother to look for a them until the puzzle was complete.
easy easy. And I remember Jerry Vale.
Haven't received my nytimes puzzle yet!!!! Might have to splurge and buy the dead tree version.
No food today...We ate weigh too much yesterday!!!
I loved the cross of AERIE and ERIE and if you look above there is EIRE. Very Fun!
Rex put the pressure on with his comment about speed in the NYT blog but I am happy to report I rose to the challenge and finished in my fastest time ever (although still a quite pedestrian 2 or 3 minutes slower than you gunners :) The only problem with speed solving is having to get back to the real world sooner.
Would have been a very fast puzzle but ny paper had a black line down the first column of Across clues and the first column of the crossword itself, making it almost impossible to read the clues. I tried to do the puzzle with all Down cles with pretty decent success.
A shame that SHOW ME THE MONEY basically didn't mean, well, money. CHICKEN SCRATCH, maybe? FRANKS AND BEANS? On the whole though, approved.
This is a prime example of why doing xwords on little to no sleep is so frustrating. I only got about three hours of sleep last night, and when I started this puzzle the top was borderline impossible for me; my brain hadn't woken up yet. But then I got the first gimme theme, MILWAUKEEBUCKS, my brain woke up, and I breezed through the puzzle so quickly that in the southeast corner I wasn't even looking at the clues, but just assuming letters, and was correct! The top ended up being the last thing I did, and by the time I got back to it, I blazed through it. I could have easily lopped a minute off my time if I hadn't been so sleepy. Sigh.
@PG: Yeah, nice house. Little bit of the Robie House there, lots of FLW-like detailing. The view of the house from the back is particularly impressive. I'm a big fan of the Arts & Crafts Movement, collector of furniture, etc., from that era, so a house like that speaks to me. As a wine lover, too, I can't help but be envious; I'll bet there was some amazing stuff in that wine cellar.
Puzzle: I don't time myself regularly, but the clock on the LA Times website version of the puzzle showed a very fast time--for me. I honestly don't know how the speed solvers do it. Almost every answer in this puzzle was a gimme, but it still took me 6 minutes to fill it in. There must be some routine or strategy that speed solvers use that I just don't know about.
Jerry Vale was a prominent singer of the National Anthem at ballgames in the late sixties and early seventies. Is SPEC a detail of work or more a descriptor of work? "Task" would fit the bill better imo. I don't time myself but I'll bet this was the fastest I ever solved a puzzle as well.
- - Robert
obertb: I, too, marvel at the speed solvers. I did this one online and typed about as fast as I could and it still took me 5:17. ZOEY was unknown, but I think everything else was a gimme or near gimme. Anything under 5 mins is fantasy land for me.
The applet (online) is a drag. I can't navigate it to save my life. Across Lite, on the other hand, handles like a dream. It's how I solve nearly every puzzle I do. I recommend it (it's free, downloadable from the NYT site and other places).
ZOEY ... was yesterday :)
rp
Another easy breezy. I have to go along with PuzzleGirl, Sparky Lyle came out of nowhere, and then there was Orr! It's r's, so no skaTes....
I have seen many beams in the puzzles, but this is my first H.
What a wonderful experience for your boy, PG! Also, the berm is very Dutch, as you said, and Wall Street is also derived from the Dutch, and a wal is very similar to a berm, just maybe a little higher.
I can just imagine some horror story connected with that MOT'L sign.....
@Rex: I don't like the applet either. Tough to navigate and no Mr. Smiley Pencil either. Is there any way to do the Newsday puzzles in Across Lite?
@Puzzle Girl: OMG, a show tune clip? With Liza Minelli yet? I almost fell off my chair! :) Thanks for that.
For some reason, I did this puzzle almost exclusively via the downs. Probably not the best approach given the long across theme answers. I made an exception for SHOW ME THE MONEY. Couldn't resist just throwing that down.
I think it's pretty cool that we are commenting in LA time! It has startled me several times.
greene, there is a way to do the newsday puzzle in across lite, but it's not publicly available. not sure what else i can say about it, since i don't know if the higher-ups at tribune media services actually want the puzzle to be available in across lite. but my understanding is that there are at least three (maybe exactly three) people who solve the newsday puzzle in across lite.
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