Hand-blown wine bottle that's also title of 1968 Beatles song / MON 3-28-16 / Pear-shaped string instrument / Opposite of bench player / Did stylized ballroom dance / Early caucusgoer

Monday, March 28, 2016

Constructor: Gary Cee

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME: APPEALING (35A: Winsome ... or like the ends of 17-, 24-, 51- and 58-Across, to a punster?) — last words in theme answers are all foods that you "peel":

Theme answers:
  • ADAM'S APPLE (17A: Bump on the neck)
  • HOT POTATO (24A: Issue that's too dangerous to touch)
  • TOP BANANA (51A: Grand pooh-bah)
  • GLASS ONION (58A: Hand-blown wine bottle that's also the title of a 1968 Beatles song)
Word of the Day: GLASS ONION
Glass onions were large hand blown glass bottles used aboard sailing ships to hold wine or brandy. For increased stability on rough seas, the bottles were fashioned with a wide-bottom shape to prevent toppling, thus making the bottles look somewhat onion-shaped. (wikipedia)


• • •

Well, I learned what a GLASS ONION is, so the puzzle wasn't a total loss. As for what a "punster" would do—look, if that "punster" were any good, he/she wouldn't be making this truly awful and tired pun. I get that that is the *point* of many puns—they make you groan. And I also get that, as an avowed pun-disliker, this puzzle isn't really *for* me. And yet this pun is so cheesy and third-grade that I feel like, even from a pun-lover's perspective, this has got to be disappointing. It is somewhat interesting that all the peeled foods appear at the end of non-food phrases. And I appreciate how clean the grid is, overall. And I don't even mind that the puzzle skews pretty old (CLASSIC rock, including the Beatles' "GLASS ONION," and SHEMP and ARP and STAN Lee and really nothing recent). Puzzles are allowed to do that from time to time. But yikes, that pun.


I think the clue on HOP UP is odd. I can't really use it in a sentence to replace [Increase the energy of]. "Let's HOP UP this party?" You can get "hopped up" on, let's say, goofballs. But "HOP UP" is more of an invitation to get on a stool or someone's lap or a horse or something somewhat elevated that you sit on. Any other usage feels a little awkward. I think I wanted PEP UP at first. Otherwise, there were very few hiccups or missteps in this one. Tore straight through it with little hesitation. Maybe I waited to figure out what letter shape the [Letter-shaped girder] was going to be. In fact, I'm sure I did. But nothing else was even slightly vague or unclear. Straightforward, familiar words, terms, places, etc. That is, a Monday.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

55 comments:

Anonymous 12:52 AM  

I hated this. I hated every minute of this. It was awful. I'm not picky at all, but from start to finish I hated this puzzle. Yuck.

Unknown 1:06 AM  

I had ZZZS first before realizing you can't end that many words that way and switched to ZEES

Carola 1:26 AM  

I had fun solving this one, although I don't think I really get the pun. Eight maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming....and an APPLE, a POTATO, a BANANA, and an ONION all APPEALING, or a-peeling? I found it more difficult than a typical Monday, mainly because of the Downs. I was looking for the name of an artist where PAINTINGS belonged, and the idea of "Bottom line" kept me from seeing BARE BONES for a while. Overall, I needed to relay more on crosses than I usually do on a Monday

jae 2:32 AM  

Easy-medium for me. Got slightly hung up in the NW, HEM IN and CLASSIC took more than @M&A a few nanoseconds.

Got to agree with Rex on HOP UP.

I'm also not a pun fan and this puzzle did nothing to change that.

That said, it is a Mon. and the grid is pretty smooth, so a mild liked it.

Hays 3:10 AM  

I like puns, but they have to be a little bit novel or clever (they can also be reaaaally bad if they're novel/clever, I love that point where a joke goes way beyond bad to funny again). "Appealing" goes in the same pun category as "purpose/porpoise" which makes this pun apologist borderline homicidal. Thankfully, this was a Monday and so it was easy and quick and whatever. Of course, I've seen a lot better Monday puzzles, and you could argue they should all be better, but there are definitely people (my Dad, for example) for which this puzzle would be their favorite of the month. Enjoy Dad.

Lewis 5:33 AM  

Easy puzzle that went by in a wisp, with a couple of satisfying "nice answer!" moments with HOTPOTATO, IMPINGE, BAREBONES, and PALATE. Mondayish theme which is not terribly memorable, but then again, this one was not like watching paint peel, that is, more APPEALING than appalling. Got my brain rolling, and I'm grateful for that. I think ART and PAINTINGS could have been cross referenced, and I like that backward OMEN crossing the rhyming ROMAN. I also like seeing FINN, the name of my first-grandchild-to-come (due in May)(his full name is Phineas!).

And this puzzle brings to mind a quote I love, from Carl Sandburg: "Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you cry."

Loren Muse Smith 5:51 AM  

I probably looked at the reveal wrong – kept seeing a'peelin' as in

Where's Grandpa Jack? I haven't seen him in a while.
He's still in the kitchen a'peelin' the potatoes. Because he patently refuses to use a potato peeler even for Easter dinner when we have a bajillion potatoes to peel.


Many people around here – even tweens – still do this a'verbin' thing, and I always get a kickout of hearing it.

I agree with Rex – I liked the list of idioms with peeled foods at the end that describe a person. And I also agree that the clue for HOP UP made me pause. That's something I would have said to Joanne H when my sisters and I were, inexplicably, a'playin' on top of the washing machine. Good times.

Two initial wrong thoughts: "swarm" for STING and "cutesie" for CLASSIC. That latter one was stupid.

EMERGE could've been the reveal for Joel Fagliano's puzzle a few weeks ago.

CRAB is another peeled food that describes a person. Cool. (Though on my new favorite show, Naked and Afraid and I'm not joking, lots of'em eat little crabs without peeling them. Seriously – once I realized that the naked part was not about silly TV but rather about being even more vulnerable, I was fascinated. I'm learning all kinds of skills, man. Moss can serve as a quasi water- purifier in a pinch, bamboo can be anything from a drinking vessel to a makeshift laptop, yucca can make a shampoo…)

Gary – a Monday right across the plate. Thanks.

Go Heels.

George Barany 6:03 AM  

Straightforward puzzle by @Gary Cee, which shows some influences from his day job as a disc jockey (see 1-Down clue, as well as the theme entry at 58-Across). Thanks, @Rex for the @Diana Kraal link, your second within the past two weeks (and I had never even heard of her before then).

The original "peel me a grape" line came from a 1933 movie called " I'm No Angel," which reminds me of Steppin' Out by our friend (and frequent commentator on this blog) @John Child. You'll have to solve the puzzle, or skip straight to its "midrash," to see the connection.

jberg 7:23 AM  

I was a little slowed down by omitting the P when I first wrote in TOP BANANA, but otherwise my experience was pretty much like @Rex's. I also hesitated over pluralizing a SLAP on the wrists (but I guess with two wrists you need two slaps, right? Unless the slapee is tied up, of course -- but not on a monday, surely?)

I would have been misdirected to c MajOR, except that I had the N already. So I guess I ACED this one.

No, wait .. I mentally tried out ADenoid something before ADAM'S APPLE-- I actually needed STAMINA to get it. But aside from that, whoosh...

@Rex, you're too young -- back in my youth, when CLASSIC rock was just rock and roll, teenage boys would buy an old car to HOP UP. Sometimes there were tragic results, as with poor Tommy.

Unknown 7:36 AM  

I never peel apples or potatoes. Ever!

Glimmerglass 7:50 AM  

HOP UP is what teenegers used to do to an old car, about the time classic rock was new. Metaphorically one could HOP UP a drink or a recipe or a party or a relationship. Fun Monday puzzle today. I guess it was easy, but it had some unusual words (IMPINGE, GLASS ONION, APACE, HOP UP). Anything that makes a Monday a bit harder is okay by me.

Dorothy Biggs 7:58 AM  

"35A: Winsome ... or like the ends of 17-, 24-, 51- and 58-Across, to a punster?" APPEALING.

So let me get this straight, the themers are "puns" in this puzzle because the word APPEALING has the homonym of the word "Peel" buried in it and apples, bananas, onions, and potatoes can be peeled? Just that? Am I missing something? You peel an apple and you get an apple peel...not an apple peeling...unless you're Italian, then maybe you're "a-peeling the apple-uh?"

How does APPEALING relate to anything that can be peeled as a pun? Maybe puns are the highest, most complicated form of humor after all...because clearly this particular instance is way above my head. ApPEALing...APPLE..."peeling" an apple...get it? Yeah, no...I don't.

Otherwise, this puzzle played longer than my average today. It wasn't that it was difficult as much as the answers just didn't seem to flow or come easily. So the accumulative times of all my hesitations seemed to add up to a longer than average solve...but nothing stopped me in my tracks. Looking back at it, it really should have gone much faster.

chefbea 7:59 AM  

Loved the puzzle - what's not to like??? I love food and I love puns!!!! Put the two together and my palate is heightened.

Unknown 8:17 AM  

@Rex: “Interesting phrases…clean grid overall, [OK] that the puzzle skews old….Straightforward, familiar words, terms, places, etc. That is, a Monday.”

It would seem the pun is the only thing really” wrong” with this puzzle. As such, by piling an inordinate amount of the review to expounding on this point, I’d say someone went to bed cranky or got up on its wrong side.

I won’t hold it against him the fact that, as others have already noted, one might HOP UP a car, resulting in a car that is HOPped UP, at least in “skewed old” usage, meaning its engine’s power [energy] was increased. As well, cf. “souped up.”

Loved the ROMAN clue. I thought about those who always CRAB about those numerals as answers, so thought the turnaround was fair play and fun to see.

The last letter in gave me the cutesy NYT DNF message. I could not see any errors so finally did a puzzle check. Now, because I’m a musician (and I’ve been called worse things) this is just between you and me – There was one error and of all things it was an “E” instead of an “A” for 21a. It musta been the PALETE for the PAINTINGS that threw me off, misspelling aside. Just ugly all around.

To redeem my musical shame, I give to you the hidden musical ART theme (@George Barany: no doubt from the DJ in the constructor):

[concert] EVENT
VIOLIN
LUTE
A[sic!!] MINOR
STING
[U2 guitarist: The] EDGE
APPLE [Records]
GLASS ONION [released on APPLE Records]
AMERICA
ZEES [as in ZZ TOP, who created…]
CLASSIC [rock music]
AUDIO [hidden In AUDITOR]
ANDRE [Previn / Kostelanetz]
TANGOED
[piano / organ] PEDAL

And…

[Johnny] CASH, who sang --
“A Boy Named SUE.”

Not to mention (which he does and thus EXTENDS the theme)…

MAX [“11” on guitar amplifiers]

Cheers

Z 8:29 AM  

Diana Krall? Singing Peel me a Grape? Natural Viagra.

Pun haters are like Republicans. I know all the words. The syntax is the same. I can diagram all the sentences (well, usually with Republicans, there are some notable exceptions). Yet they make zero sense to me. Hard to believe we co-exist in the same world, but somehow we manage.

I was amused by the ROMAN clue. I guess Gary or Will were feeling nostalgic for the increasingly rare RRN.

Nitty gritty in no way relates to BARE BONES as I've heard the two phrases. I guess they both can denote, "essential," but they connote very different essentials. I balked solving and I still don't see how they relate in actual usage.

Hungry Mother 8:31 AM  

An easy slog, at best.

kitshef 8:32 AM  

Way easy.

And yes, a very weak theme.

But look at how clean that grid is! Almost everything is actual, Scrabble-ready words!

SLAPS crossing SHEMP is a nice touch. HARE crossing APACE. We've got ART and PAINTINGS and ARP. And a mini-music theme with AMINOR, GLASSONION, VIOLIN ,LUTE and STING. And Simon and Garfunkel's AMERICA. You prefer your art written? We've got ODE and SAGA and Captain NEMO and Huck FINN and STAN Lee.

Solved as a themeless, this is a great (though again, very easy) Monday.

Unknown 8:58 AM  

"And I also get that, as an avowed pun-disliker, this puzzle isn't really *for* me."

This puzzle is an avowed pun-disliker?

;)

jbabs 9:14 AM  

Glass onion is also British slang for monocle, which is probably the meaning that the Beatles had in mind ("looking through a glass onion").

Hartley70 9:16 AM  

Well shoot, it's good to know that I'll have @Hayes' Dad on my side when I say that I liked this just fine. He's obviously a man of excellent humor.

I thought the cluing was on the sophisticated side for a Monday, even though it gets an easy/medium from me. I was pleased with the vegetarian theme and I got a kick out of the revealer pun. Extra points given because I really am fond of the word "winsome".

The best thing about this offering, however, is the sense of amazement I got when I realized there is a Beatles song still to be discovered by me. I feel like an archeologist who first hears his shovel ping when he digs in the Egyptian sand. I'm off to iTunes to have a listen.

The hardest entry for me was SHEMP. That's a new name to me and actually I would have replaced the lot of them. I found the Stooges most unAPPEALING. My French father-in-law found that zany slapstick hysterically funny, however, so I have to concede it's a matter of taste, just like this puzzle. Bon Appetit!

Amy 9:16 AM  

you don't "peel" crabs.

Alicia Stetson 9:24 AM  

Has anyone else noticed that Monday puzzles tend to be easy and mostly intended for new or very young solvers? The themes tend to seem silly to experienced solvers. It's like this pretty much every Monday. Seems strange to expend a lot of energy criticizing a puzzle for doing exactly what it intends.

Mike D 9:40 AM  

Wow @Craig @ 7:36, that's interesting! Thanks so much for sharing.

Mohair Sam 9:43 AM  

Tough for a Monday in this house. Thought the cluing was vague (see HOPUP), and in some cases debatable - i.e. 1d CLASSIC. Not all old things are CLASSIC, some rock is old, some is CLASSIC. One summer while in college I drove a Studebaker Starlight (old), I wished I'd had a Studebaker Golden Hawk (CLASSIC). See what I mean?

GLASS ONION a Beatles tune I missed, gratefully. Didn't know the wine bottle shape either. But things filled easily enough, and it was a clever themer.

@Rex - This Krallite household thanks you for the link.

cwf 9:51 AM  

@Craig Trueblood: You don't know what you're missing. This apple peeler is just about my favorite kitchen implement.

Bob Kerfuffle 9:54 AM  

Amen, Rex.

I am generally a lover of puns, but I did not find this one APPEALING.

@Loren Muse Smith: You remind me of a story told by an old friend of mine. When he was young and travelling for the first time somewhere just mildly exotic, he ordered, for the first time, soft shell crabs for a meal. When they arrived, he innocently began peeling off the shells. The waiter rushed back to his table and asked, "Sir, is there something wrong with our crabs?!?"

Mickey Bell 9:59 AM  

Hop up I think refers to filling a hopper with fuel, a la coal for a steam engine. Sort of dated but I got it after getting to Night and ESPN on the downs. Fast is fun.

RooMonster 10:15 AM  

Hey All !
So, this should be a week of weak/bland puzzles if my theory of Will alternating the tough/good puzs with the weak/bland. We shall see as the week continues...

Nice MonPuz, no pangram, but nice Scrabbily letters strewn about. Nice long Downs, with 7 stacks in the corners. And an APPEALING a'peeling theme. Gotta like an EEL and ASS-less puz. Plus FEZ, which HOPsUP this little puz.

Writeovers, aslap-SLAPS, Swarm-STING, Zzzs-ZEES. Rate it PAP. :-)

Tax man known for non-stop digging? CLASSIC AUDITOR STAMINA

CRAB
RooMonster
DarrinV

Nancy 10:24 AM  

I expected to see some raves here, but I guess I'm an outlier today. I thought this was a nifty Monday, with more crunch than usual, and absolutely no junk fill at all. No pop trivia. No crosswordese. Some gimmes of course -- it IS Monday -- but some clues that made me think. Was it lyre or LUTE? Was it ZZZZ or ZEES? Liked the clue for ADAM'S APPLE and liked the answer BARE BONES. As for the "pun" -- I missed it completely, since I solved it as a themeless. Unless I need the theme to solve, I always solve as a themeless.

One answer was counter-intuitive for non-musician me, so I'll ask @Alias Z and our other musicians on the blog. I couldn't believe that the key with no sharps or flats was A MINOR. Although IOWAN at 22D was clearly the right answer, I balked at putting it in, since I wanted A MajOR. I always thought that minor keys had the MOST sharps and flats, so this was a huge surprise to me.

Unknown 10:28 AM  

Do we know the bees are "angry"? I know I'm a bit pissed off when they swarm. But to them it might be just another day at the office.

While gibbons swing most APEs don't swing. Chimps, gorillas are too heavy and smart enough to know limbs snap. And when you see an orangutan swing it's with great care and a bit of trepidation. And btw, know the difference between a monkey and an ape? Answer: Apes don't have tails.

Lastly: Obama did it poorly and inappropriately in Cuba: TANGOED

Teedmn 10:32 AM  

I solved on-line, always a drag on my usual time so I'm not sure if this was tough for a Monday, or just my poor navigational skills. And there was the trouble with LyrE/LUTE and Luxe/POSH. Thinking SHEMP was SHEP so where did the space for that last letter come from? Wondering if a gourmet's heightened sense had something to do with UMAMI (too short). WIRED wasn't anything to do with a Mafia informant. PAP reminds me of the pablum of my youth (and if you clued PAP as a father-figure, is MAP his counterpart?) Any port in a storm was not "ruby" or "tawny" so I had to settle for GIN. I smiled at the inverted RRN clue/answer at 48A. Two PEDALs on a bike makes it bi-PEDAL. FEZ started out as "tam". 52D reminded me of the eye-roll-inducing response my husband gives when I ask him what the time is and I get an answer of "daytime" or "nighttime" whichever is appropriate (why, I oughta...!)

All in all, a fun puzzle with much to enjoy on this fine post-Easter Monday. Thanks, Gary Cee.

puzzle hoarder 10:35 AM  

I always assumed the Beatles just made the term glass onion up the same as newspaper taxis. Coming up with glass off of onion was one of my few hesitations. I will always have to wait for the crosses to know if it's MAJOR or MINOR. The two Ps in 17A caused a little confusion. I accidentally wrote NIP in 7D moved it over to 6D then had to change it to LOP. With the INGE already in place I read the clue for 41D and instantly thought INFRINGE I wrote the INF and moved on without noticing that the R had been left out. That was two more letters I had to write over. Mistakes like these and a haphazard pattern of solving combined with slow writing left me with a 9 minute solve on what was an effortless Monday. Even when I try to be fast I'm not. I suspect my getting clues instantly isn't quite as instant as I think it is.

Mel Curry 11:18 AM  

Thank you for the musical theme extension! That was great. But why is A Minor wrong?

Luckily I know angry bees do not swarm. When they swarm they are very docile.

Joseph Michael 11:24 AM  

This puzzle was OK but the theme felt like it came from a children's magazine.

For me, the pun doesn't quite a'work or make a'sense because of the AP in APPEALING,

And, besides, I don't peel APPLEs or POTATOes either (hey @craig).

Fred Romagnolo 11:29 AM  

I'm surprised no one mentioned the brilliant crossing misdirect of Van Goughs and C major. It had to be meant and raises this otherwise simple Monday puzzle a few notches up.

Fred Romagnolo 12:31 PM  

As to yesterday's puzzle: people who don't know that Catholics and Protestants use different versions of the Lord's Prayer had best leave it alone in clueing or editing crosswords.

Masked and Anonymous 12:52 PM  

Neat, wide-open (74 words, 34 well-shaded areas) MonPuz. Liked it. "Peal" is somethin U get used to sayin, if U ever play Bananagrams. Thanx U kindly, Mr. Cee.

Bullets:
* ION. Missed opportunity clue: {Yoda's quick reply to a 62-Across offer from the Lone Ranger}.
* SUE. This gets M&A to wonderin … which weeject name gets used by the Shortzmeister the most? Answer: ELI, with 391 usages so far. Then M&A naturally wonders … which weeject name like SUE with a "U" (lil darlin) in it gets used the most? SUE has 115. M&A's money bucks are on UMA (136).
* NW corner (yo, @jae). yep. Trouble. Probably mostly cuz of that wicked 7-stack grouping. And lack of LUTE knowledge. And wantin 1-D to be COOLEST or RAPLESS. And Yoda-less clue for ION, of course.
* BAREBONES and RANLOW. Primo fillins.

Masked & Anonymo2Us

Nancy 1:34 PM  

@Paul Johnson and @Mel Curry: Unfortunately in this puzzle, the angry little buggers aren't SWARMing. The angry little buggers are STINGing. (See 23A). Which has to mean they truly ARE angry, right? And if they're not angry, if they're just stinging for the pure enjoyment of it, then they are truly EVIL little buggers!!

But @Paul J, I found your comments on monkeys and apes to be both amusing and quite informative. I learned more than I normally learn on this site most days.

Jamie C 2:55 PM  

I dunno, maybe the goal is to decrease the average age of Times solvers from90 or so to 80 or so by appeeling to children with this sort of puzzle? Just a thought.

Unknown 6:52 PM  

Last week and this week I have followed a suggestion that I've seen here and there and tried to solve Mondays using only the Down clues. It makes for a very different solving experience.

For instance, in the SE I had the S from PAINTINGS, AMERICA, NEMO, and ESPN. I didn't have the answers to VENAL and TANGOED, and I incorrectly entered EXpaNDS for EXTENDS. To crack the corner, I would need some crosses. SA_E could be several words. M_X would be MIX or MAX. My EXpaNDS error helped to prevent me from seeing EVENT (E_E_p) and EMERGE (EM_R_a). _C_D was probably ACED or ICED, and _A_S could be just about anything. I was saved by theme answer, spotting the ONION in O_I_N. That cross gave me TANGOED, which gave me a cross of E_ENp, which was wrong. I deleted much of EXPANDS, spotted EMERGE, and then EXTENDS, EVENT, and VENAL fell into place.

The solving experience was more of a logical puzzle. Analyzing all the possibilities resembled the process of constructing a crossword. Heck, it felt like I was designing a grid in which all the answers were magically falling into place. That's a feeling that I can get used to!

For the record, I did need to cheat and use some across clues to solve the puzzle. I answered the first two Across clues (CASH and SLAPS) before remembering to use the downs. The SW stumped me (I couldn't suss out PROVIDE and IMPINGE), so I checked the clue for 39-Across (SPIRE). That cross cracked open the corner.

Solving the puzzle in this manner made me appreciate just how clean the fill was.

Leapfinger 7:13 PM  

I thought this puzzle an absoLUTE CLASSIC and give it a Hi-Cee for quality.It captivated me at the outset by cleverly indicating that SIMIANS include APEs and monkeys, the latter being those which (as per 18D) have the 'multigenerational tail'. That seems to be SAGAciously put.

If I may carryon, I found the SPIRE APPEALING, and the clue/entry reversal of nonrandom ROMAN numerals a nice bit of tongue-in-cheekery. Granted we had some continuing gunplay with ARMED, but it was with a lower level of VIOLINs, obviously avoiding any reference to Idi AMIN OR to Che Guevara. So touché for that effort, which was enough to give me the warm FEZ ZEES. The ARP PAINTINGS indicate a FINNe ARTistic PALATE, so it wasn't too disappointing the CRAB had no carAPACE. Probably a soft-shell that doesn't need APPEALING.

As the man says, Winsome, losesome.

Andiamo

Clark 9:26 PM  

@Nancy -- Here goes, in case no one else has answered your question yet: For every major scale there is a corresponding minor scale with the same key signature. If you play eight white keys on the piano from c ascending one octave to the next c, you get C Major (no sharps or flats). If you play the white keys from a to a, you get A Minor (no sharps or flats). A couple of examples: G Major, one sharp; E minor, one sharp. C-flat Major, 7 flats; A-flat Minor, 7 flats.

I hope that helps.

Lynn 9:53 PM  

Same here.

burgundy 10:38 PM  

A glass onion is slang for an English monocle. It was actually clued as such in a NYT puzzle a few months ago.

Burgundy

spacecraft 9:57 AM  

Wow; I'm glad 58-across was filled in by the downs. I have never heard of EITHER definition of a GLASSONION. And me a (supposed) Beatles fan? Must have been an album cut. No way it was ever released as a single.

As to that "worst form of humor when somebody else thinks of it first," I don't mind. Too many other things in life to groan at. I have come to appreciate Mr. Cee as one of the better constructors, and today is no exception. Loved the switch on the old RRN, which today appears in the clue! But I'm a bit hazy on Stooge history: didn't Curly replace SHEMP?

Really have to stretch to find the Daily Damsel. Go to 42-across and make a right: GINA Lollobrigida, an oldie but a goodie. B+.

Burma Shave 11:22 AM  

APE HARE ONBOARD

She was a POSH HOTPOTATO and very APPEALING,
we TANGOED all NIGHT and EMERGEd with a feeling
to have a CLASSIC EVENT – a Greco-ROMAN grapple,
but only ‘TWEEN BAREBONES, due to HER ADAMSAPPLE.

--- SHEMP SIMIAN

rain forest 12:34 PM  

I was away for a three-day weekend of golf in the sunny Okanagan (lived up to its name), and so I return to a straightforward but clean Monday with a groaner of a pun as the theme. Nothing wrong with that.

Some discussion about BARE BONES and "nitty-gritty". I accept that they are similar, in the sense of "getting down to the --------".

When you haven't done a puzzle for a few days, it's nice to have an easy one, especially one without a bunch of dreck.

Mary in Oregon 2:12 PM  

5 weeks behind in syndication land, but to REX: "Hop up" was a slang term when I was a teenager (1953-59) for making a car engine "hot", turning into a racer. Guys would say, "I have a hopped-up 1956 Chevy!"

rondo 2:15 PM  

So I tried to put a little speed into the solve, had the As at both ends of AMERICA, and promptly entered AlabamA after seeing only the word “Sweet” in the clue, as in the CLASSIC rocker Sweet Home Alabama. That and EMajOR put a whole lot of inkfest quality into a Mon-puz. Maybe the speed thing is not for me.

@D,LIW – APACE to be satisfied with in the Bloomsday EVENT, I’d say. It’d look alright on a Bell curve. I’ll bet you enjoyed it more than the runners did.

@spacey – since there isn’t a yeah baby as clued, I think you reached a bit far because POSH (Victoria Beckham) Spice is up there in the NE corner. I appreciate your effort though. According to Wiki, SHEMP was an original, replaced by brother Jerome (Curly) until Curly passed on, then SHEMP was in again. When he passed, two different actors both named Joe played Curly Joe. Probably TMI on Stooges, of which my favorites played with Iggy Pop.

Did I ever mention that I played in a band that opened for Johnny CASH? Yeah, you’re probably tired of hearing it. But I did.

Don’t like Monday punday? Get over it.

Anonymous 5:45 PM  

West coast syndicated solver here. These days you do not need to be wired to be connected to the internet.

Diana,LIW 7:02 PM  

News bulletins. Mondays are easy. (20 min for me) Puzzlers use puns. Puns make you groan. (Secretly wishing you'd thought of it first.)

I'm a happy camper, albeit one who's moving kinda slowly today. But no blisters and no sunburn make yesterday's race a total success.

I had the same error as G. Barany.

@Spacey - Curly replaced Shemp and later Shemp replaced Curly. You can read the whole saga on Bill Butler's blog.

The registration form is up and running for the MinnySoda tourney. As soon as I can get me credit card in the same room with my computer I'll be joining Teedmn - but only as a spectator.

@Rondo - did you sign up?

Diana, Lady-in-Waiting to Sign Up

rondo 9:25 PM  

@D,LIW - I'll see about signing up tomorrow. 99% chance as only a spectator. So you're tellin' me there's a chance . . .

jade 1:25 PM  

Added the gesso and glass filler on some places. RS Glass Bottle

Mattvictor 1:35 AM  
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Mattvictor 1:36 AM  
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