Earlier this week there was a request put in for us to share a glimpse of the endless joy that is solving the Saturday NYT crossword puzzle at stately IPB Manor. So it was with great anticipation that we settled in for a blogably delicious puzzle tonight. As is the tradition, we sat down in front of the TV, each with our own xeroxed copy of the puzzle, armed with dinner (spaghetti with a pink sauce made with our first basil harvest of our garden’s summer) and a huge-assed glass of wine. While we normally solve either with hockey on in the background, or with IPB’s Official Favorite Move, “Master & Commander”, tonight we opted to go with “Intermission”. But as it turned out, no manner of scrumptious dinner or entertaining background noise could make up for one thing — today’s puzzle sucked.
First off, the majority of it went down without a fight. We had all finished nearly half the damn thing before there was any need for clue-sharing. The SE corner of it gave as much fight as a particularly stiff Tuesday, and the NE corner wasn’t much harder. 18-across flummoxed Pookie and Boomer (“Barn door features”), but when Schnookie spotted them with the further clue “It’s, uh, like… farm hardware” (Answer: Hasps), it was lights out. Without any further sharing, we all rolled relatively unimpeded into the NE corner. (Boomer needed a hand with 15-across, “It’s pictured in Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night Over The Rhone’”, and Schnookie spotted her the clue “Big Bear”. [The answer: Ursa Major.] Pookie and Boomer also needed some prodding to get 17-across, “Vaudeville bigwig”, and Schnookie’s relatively inarticulate cues of “It’s, uhhh… a phrase… Like, uh… a, uh…” somehow managed to help them both get “Top Banana”.) Again, they call this a Saturday? The only stumbling block there was 8-down, but we all were content to get all the across clues and take whatever the word they spelled was without complaint. And the word they spelled? “Rondure”. Um, that is so not a word. But whatever.
The SW corner, though, was a bit more of a bear. Boomer had an unfair advantage with age — she knew 43-down, “He played Winchester on M*A*S*H” (Answer: Stiers). Pookie and Schnookie did not. Which will stand as today’s excuse why Boomer did the unthinkable — she finished first. NOOOO! Boomer never finishes first and this is now two weeks in a row! Our good names are taking a major hit here. Anyway, Schnookie managed to work all the acrosses in that corner first, and then with no small displeasure confronted what that left her with for 31-down. While pondering the total bogusness of the word that had been formed, Pookie caught up. And so it was that Pookie and Schnookie capped their pens almost simultaneously, under severe protest, because dudes, who’s ever heard of the term “Imputed to”? We’re sorry, but making a puzzle Wednesday-tough but then tossing in made-up words like “imputed” and “rondure” does not a Saturday make.
In a post-puzzle debrief, we discussed why things played out tonight the way they did. Boomer admitted it was highly out of character for her to finish first, and Schnookie, a bit fuzzy-brained, remembered that Boomer had even gotten up to putter in the kitchen for a few minutes while her daughters still worked their grids. Pookie: “Well, that’s a sure sign it was generationally biased. This puzzle blew.”
In an inaugural attempt at blogging our Saturday puzzle we really hoped to have hijinks and hilarity to report. Things like Pookie last night struggling to come to terms with the answer to one of the long across clues, which was “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride”. Schnookie and Boomer weren’t sure how much clue to give, because they weren’t entirely sure Pookie was very familiar with all that Disneyland has to offer. They prodded a bit, testing what Pookie had sussed out already in her puzzle, and Pookie declared a bit crankily, “I have ‘Mr something’s wild something’.” Looooong pause. Boomer: “I think we can just give you the answer, because you clearly don’t know it.” But alas, tonight’s puzzle was uninspired and uninspiring. In short, it sucked. Maybe we’ll try this exercise again someday when Will Shortz gives us something worth writing about.
Thank you for the post, anyway! Hope this first disappointment doesn’t deter you from future IPB Puzzles.
As promised, I tried it and spent most of the day on it. There was a particularly silly moment when I kept trying to shove “amputated” into 31D. I knew it didn’t make any sense, but I kept trying, anyway. And I liked that (hot)spur and spike(heels) intersected.
In the end, I knew this was going to be a disappointment for IPB Manor when I got everything but the NW corner. I was really annoyed when I saw (via Rex the answer to 15A. The Big Dipper does NOT equal Ursa Major! It’s just an asterism, a group of stars that is a part of Ursa Major. I’ll bet other astronerds are going to give Will Shortz hell for that one.
I’m glad to hear you were able to work this puzzle today, Grace! I’m also glad you have a legitimate beef with it, rather than our pathetic, “But rondure and imputed aren’t real words!” whining. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had an absolute bear (an ursa?) of a Saturday puzzle, though, so I’m sure it’s out there, lurking on the horizon, waiting to smack us down. And we’ll be blogging it when it happens…
I am utterly, utterly horrible at crosswords. I even hook myself up with a thesaurus when I’m stumped. My friends and I had a lot of fun doing the quick quizes though. I am a bit of a sudoku addict, it’s just so easy to do!
I can only do sudokus on the computer. I don’t know why I struggle with them in hard-copy form. Crosswords were really an acquired thing for me. I picked up a Times puzzle many, many years ago and just decided I was going to be a puzzle solver. The thing about them is that it’s not about knowing words; it’s about knowing patterns. The more you do one specific puzzle, the more you learn their vocabulary and tricks. So I’m pretty handy at the New York Times, but I suck at every other puzzle, because the Times is the only one I ever solve!
Ditto to the NYT crossword puzzle love. My local paper carries another two syndicated versions, but my love/hate relationship with Will Shortz prevails and I’ve never attempted the others. I think Shortz purposely sends out inconsistent (difficulty-wise) crosswords to maintain some sort of image over how quirky and unique the NYT puzzle can be. He’s probably still mad that the “Wordplay” documentary downgraded him from enigma to random curse word. Seriously, yelling “Damn you Shortzy” while figuring out the puzzle on the bus is highly satisfying.
And about the patterns, I can’t count how many times they’ve used the clue “Actor ___ Morales.”
I picked up a Times puzzle many, many years ago and just decided I was going to be a puzzle solver.
That’s going to be part of your biography in the future!
Rondure are imputed are perfectly cromulent words.
I found imputed in the dictionary, rondure is a big blank.
SYLLABICATION: ron·dure
NOUN: A circular or gracefully rounded object.
ETYMOLOGY: French rondeur, roundness, from Old French, from ronde, round. See round.
That’s from the American Heritage Dictionary, which I found online.
I bet Shortz uses the most up-to-date version of the OED though, the jerk.
Rondure and imputed are perfectly cromulent words.
Iain, one “Comment that Made P&S Laugh the Hardest” award coming right up!
We did look the words up online before we wrote this, so we were stretching the truth just a bit to say they weren’t words. But… they’re not words. :P
I’m the slowest of the group here to pick up on words that appear all the time in the NYT puzzle. I had been doing them regularly for like 4 years and still kept putting in “Eric” for “Actor Morales”. For someone who has a mind like a steel trap in every other area of life, I’m pretty pathetic when it comes to this. Fortunatley, Will Shortz appeared on the Daily Show a while back and made a crack about Esai, and that was all I needed. Now if only he could go back on and crack about ICMBs, dusters and the county seat of Little Rock, I’ll be ok.
Oh, who the hell knows who Esai Morales really is, but damn if he’s not a staple of the L.A. Times crossword experience.
It’s always kind of strange when at first “Esai” would be the absolute last thing you would fill in from cross-clues, and later it just became so regular that it’s the first thing I fill in on a puzzle.
Woo, an award for my first comment :)
Just found the blog a few days ago via John at In Lou We Trust – kudos on the most entertaining hockey blog I’ve seen! I’m hoping to use it to convert my house-mate from Avs-dom, but I’m not holding my breath…
Just found the blog a few days ago via John at In Lou We Trust
Wait, does this mean we have another Devils fan aboard? I think that brings the total to 4! Seriously, we’re so glad you’ve found IPB and that you’re enjoying it. Obviously John’s the source for Devils news, but during the regular season we’re planning to write game diaries for as many of the Devs games as we can. We’ll try to make the team as appealing to Avs fans as possible to help your cause. It shouldn’t be hard, but with Avs fans, it can be tough to tell what’s going on! :P
Wow… We’re still painfully outnumbered.
Hello Iain. Lucky you didn’t have to jump into one our double Dutch with roller skates sessions…
Yeah, Devils all the way for me :) I wouldn’t hold your breath on the Avs front, though – the only way Nat’s ever going to see the light is if they trade Sakic to us!
My dad and grandma are crossword wizards. But somehow those genes skipped me and my brother because we have NO clue how to do crosswords.
[...] last week’s puzzle, this one contained only real words, so that was a marked improvement. However, it wasn’t [...]
hello everyone ,
I am new here and I hope to help as needed