Not a lot of trouble with this one. Solving "downs only lite" (not reading the theme clues) I got that there were missing letters in the clues but the answers were regular words/names. I didn't understand why there were different missing letters nor that they were all B or N until I got to the revealer, which I had to read a few times to reparse it. Clever!
My only overwrite was at 13A, cpI before PSI (wrong type of inflation)
DIEGO (3D) was a WOE, but I somehow managed to pull Ana May WONG (12D) out of the dim recesses of memory.
Challenging day for me. I got the theme answer early but struggled parsing it as six ‘words’. Probably would have had an easier time if it was clued as six ‘parts’ or ‘segments’, because I don’t consider single consonants to be words…
Extremely challenging for me. Got the theme clue easily and had no clue about the 6 'words'.
Great sonic youth clip, btw.
what is 'ELHI'?
Yet another puzzle that was easy to solve without any idea what the theme was or might have been. Hard to care when the penny never drops. Came here to find out what it was. Phht. Still don’t care.
Lei around the head? Or neck!!!
I was not familiar with the word BOVID ("bovine," yes, "bovid," no; although I probably should have made the leap) so that confused me a bit. Otherwise, nice little "a-ha!" moment when the theme popped out at me.
Pretty solid Thursday puzzle, all things considered.
Also: nice inclusion of the Sonic Youth song. One of the bands of the 80s/90s that was not nearly as big as they should have been.
Seeing RIAN this morning reminded me of the recent puzzle in which I messed up the crossing of RYAN and TYRE.
Had absolutely zero idea on the theme. Generally got enough crosses and found a phrase that seemed sort of related. Assumed “allot” referred to drawing lots and kept trying to parse the first word of the theme clues into separate words.
Didn’t know any of the proper names today (aside from McCartney, which I absolutely could not get from the clue) so today was challenging for me.
Cute idea now that I see it explained, but just could not grasp the theme while solving.
Finished the puzzle, BUT couldn't figure the clue/ I'm with ANONYMOUS
Interesting concept, but for me the B was easy from BALLOT, but the N just never registered so I really struggled with the theme entries (RIVIERA should have dropped easily, but I just didn’t see the NICE connection). And THE CRETAN BULL was never going to register even if you gave me 75% of the letters. I imagine this one had kind of a binary personality - it would play pretty easily if you get the theme, but could be on the challenging side if you are left to your own devices to parse together something relatively easy like HATCHLING.
Rex can add Peter LORRE as another of the “Hollywoody” contingent .
Dreadful! Thursdays used to be fun.
Quite hard, until suddenly it was not. I had no idea what the revealer meant or why we were adding letters to the starred clues until coming here.
A case where rather than helping, the revealer slowed things down as I spun my wheels wondering what it meant.
Bloomers worn around one's head? (LEI)
A lei is worn around the neck, a haku is around the head.
Short for "Elementary - High School", but I only know this from crosswords.
Surprisingly easy solve for a convoluted and uninspired theme. The gimmick never caused me trouble despite getting to the end and still not understanding how it was supposed to work. And the revealer was a dud -- I didn't know A STAR IS BORN was a once-made film, let alone thrice-made. And parsing it into six words? You mean four words and two letters? I looked at it briefly, said, "Whatever," and finished the puzzle without it. Hooray.
Pretty decent puzzle despite that, however. I mostly enjoyed it, AYN notwithstanding.
Ugh. You reminded me of ELHI. I ran into again yesterday in an archived puzzle. It means "elementary to high school", but as you've probably deduced is not actually used by anyone ever besides crossword setters. It's only ever been called K-12.
I love when a puzzle reveals itself in layers, as this one did. Three layers for me, actually. First, when I read the clue to the revealer, which told me to look at the clues for the gimmick. Second, at MCCARTNEY, when it hit me with a bang that “assist” was meant to be “bassist”. And third, when I finally parsed the revealer – with another bang – to see that the asterisks in the clues were STARs, and why they represented B’s and N’s.
The puzzle opened like a flower – three times! – to create a most satisfying solving outing.
David the trickster loves to make Thursday puzzles. Seven of his 23 Times offerings fall on that day. And what trickery today! The theme clues are ingenious, with the play on their first words, and with their repurposing the asterisk, which often accompanies theme clues in puzzles, and that’s what it looked they were doing today – but no! They were part of the theme itself!
How can I not love a mind that looks at “A STAR IS BORN” and sees “AN ASTERISK is B OR N?” Brushing against that trick-and-treat mind once again today, David, has been a gift. Thank you for your talent, and for bringing it to crosswords, and for a phenomenal journey through the box today!
I'm with those who solved everything correctly and couldn't see the trick. I think my problem was that I never call a * a "STAR", only an asterisk, so that reference to the clues was never going to work.
Some unknowns in the proper name field, as usual. Hello RIAN and DIEGO and Ms. WONG. Hooray for Alice MUNRO, or I'd still be doing the top half of this one.
Agree with OFL that segmented puzzles like this are not among my favorites. Makes for a staccato solve instead of a legato solve, which I prefer.
Impressive feat with the B or N thing, DK. Didn't Know what was going on but that's not your fault. Thanks for some challenging fun.
I didn't have much trouble solving the puzzle but I'm laughably bad at parsing and could not come up with that ... fumbled with things like AS TAR I SBO RN and gave up.
I still don't really understand the theme, even after reading the explanation. "Parsing into six words" means put a star in front of each clue? OK?
Lacking the theme, this was doable but kind of a slog.
Agree with Mack on ELHI this is not a thing. Ban it.
And by the way, this puzzle has 73 theme squares -- blisteringly high, at 40% of the white squares! -- and yet, despite the constraint, the grid comes off smoothly. David backs up his trickery with remarkable skill.
And p.s. -- how can this be the first time MCCARTNEY has ever appeared in the NYT puzzle?
How is this possible? Replace the stars in the theme clues with a B or an N. That’s it.
Haku lei or lei po’o are traditional lei worn on the head like a crown
Typical far-fetched Thursday puzzle, but at least I was able to finish it. I caught on to the trick (partially) by figuring out "nascent" and "ballot" as clues. Never thought of "nacre," but the crosses helped. Like Rex Parker I counted 7 words, not 6 in ASTARISBORN.
I should have known Paul MCCARTNEY was a bassist, but I didn't. His first wife, Linda Eastman, was a high-school classmate of mine, and he later married Heather Mills, an English gal who might be a distant cousin of mine for all I know. Both Linda and my wife died at age 56 of cancer.
Think “it’s not on his head, but it’s around there”
Haku just means braided- the head one is called a haku lei or lei po’o. Traditionally they are made without thread or wire, braiding the stems together.
Agreed...I've been struggling with enjoying most of the NYT puzzles lately. Is it because Will Shortz is away?
I thought it was harder than @rex so I did use the theme and it helped a lot. I got RIVIERA and thought well there’s no Ice on it but there is NICE on it so that worked for the No and then Nassist in a foursome was not a thing but Bassist in a foursome IS a thing so I got, ok there are Ns or Bs in front of the starred words and then i got the long clues so it helped fill in the shorter ones that I had trouble with! Also googled a few things. Not gonna lie!
Jeez Louise, you know the clutter in your brain has gotten out of hand when you have an AYN Rand story to share (67A). (Steve Martin said it would be good as you grow old if you could shift some of the detritus from your brain, which is losing capacity, to your stomach, which has grown cavernous.)
Anyway, on AYN, back in college several of us had read some books of hers and a discussion about her arose one evening. It was the era of "free love," and the question came up: "What does Ayn Rand say about sex?" And Bob chimed in with "Not tonight."
Scrolling through Google results finally found this, from askmen.com, re: the False Good Samaritan:
“For those times when mugging a mark isn’t enough, there’s always the false good Samaritan scam. In this tried and true scheme, two con artists work in tandem with one posing as a mugger who steals a mark's wallet and the other posing as the good Samaritan who chases the mugger down and recovers the stolen item. The hero then returns the wallet to the mark in anticipation of being rewarded with money, which he’ll share with his partner at a later (and safer) time.“
So all of the risks of mugging, with a more uncertain return. No wonder nobody’s talking about it outside of crosswords.
Had DInGO at first instead of DIEGO. Not familiar with the Ice Age movies!!
Also Cpa before CFO.
How did Ali on into the Hollywood walk of fame? I can’t recall a movie that he was in.
I thought the revealer was cute. Liked it.
Thank you the Barbra clip!
I agree. Even when it's explained, the theme makes no sense.
A Star is born was made 4 times
Ah! Thank goodness for this column, and for the commenters.
@Mack for explaining ELHI
@Lewis for explaining the parsing of the revealer, which I was still a bit lost on.
I got A STAR IS BORN fairly early, after having only MOTHER OF PEARL (Nacre, yes, but how is this Nacre?) and HATCHLING (fledgling was stuck in my brain)
This, sadly, did not help me much. OTOH, I still had something to do when I woke up at 3 and couldn’t get back to sleep, so appreciated the difficulty, for me, of finishing.
I found the closed off nature of the grid a real challenge - when one area finally yielded, it didn’t give me much of a leg up on the next spot. Still, proud of myself for putting this one to bed, a tough but successful Thursday for me.
I really appreciate this puzzle, especially once I came here and had the theme explained to me.
This is from askmen.com Top Ten Scams: For those times when mugging a mark isn’t enough, there’s always the false good Samaritan scam. In this tried and true scheme, two con artists work in tandem with one posing as a mugger who steals a mark's wallet and the other posing as the good Samaritan who chases the mugger down and recovers the stolen item. The hero then returns the wallet to the mark in anticipation of being rewarded with money, which he’ll share with his partner at a later (and safer) time.
Anon (9:08) -- if it was made four times, the clue is correct. It says "remade" three times.
I was all excited because A STAR IS BORN was one of the first answers I put in - knew it cold. Thought this would be a breeze, but then two things held me up.
1) Are “B” and “N” words? “Parsed out as six words” made me think of multi-letter words. You know, what words are.
2) I got MCCARTNEY from crosses, and thought the joke was that Assist wasn’t a verb, but was being used here as a noun. Like Paul is an assist in the band. A stretch, but I’ve seen worse in xwords. Then I got HATCHLING from crosses, and thought “oh by ‘ascent’ they mean when it’s still growing.” So those sorta made sense as clued.
Ended up getting all the themers from crosses and basically played it as a theme less. Was still fun, but that theme was completely impossible for me to, ahem, parse out.
And even if you wear it around the neck it goes around the head first…
Yes but *remade* three times. “Thrice remade” means it was made (1) then remade three times (3). 1 + 3 = 4
This is one of those themes that I truly don't understand how the brain figures it out, and that's without actually getting the "B OR N" part, even though I did see that the missing letters were B or N. It was filling in MOTHEROFPEARL and then looking back at the clue... I sort of heard Nacre, saw Acre, and click. Not any conscious thought. With MCCARTNEY, like @Rex, I had __RTNEY so I ran the alphabet on the clue, that didn't take long! Bassist it is.
The revealer was easy enough but I. Could. Not. Make a six word sentence out of it so I gave up and finished the puzzle, counting on @Rex to illuminate.
Also fledgLING before HATCHLING but ASH fixed that.
Overall fun stuff!
Yes. RE-made 3 times
Hey All !
Tough! Maybe the ole brain just isn't working today. (Probably)
Got a couple of the Themers adding a B, but couldn't figure out the others (well, did get NICE.) I just couldn't figure out the theme. 🙁
My Streak* ended today in NE corner. Dang, stuck like crazy up there.
Lots of Blockers all over the place, with dead ends in a couple of spots. No flow through. But, the puz being so Theme dense, these things will happen.
Interesting puz. Happy Thursday.
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
I'm working on a screenplay right now for a whole new take on this thrice-remade classic. It'll be titled "An Asterisk is Boring". It's the poignant saga of a failed grammarian who has sunk into despondent alcoholism as modern punctuation has passed him by, only to unexpectedly fall in love with a struggling proofreader who can't give him what he wants due to her period and a testy colon. Watch this space .....
I think that Ars POETICA comes from the Latin for "fart in couplets."
While a TYPEA might be naturally competitive, a TYPEE, according to Melville, is a cannibal.
This is not the kind of puzzle ISLAM. In fact I really enjoyed working out the parsing quandary to get to where I could see the stars. Thanks for a delightful Thursday, David Kwong.
… making it thrice-remade, like it says in the puzzle.
@Mack 7:34 AM and others – I see this complaint on this blog repeatedly, but it's unfounded. It's been a few decades, but when I worked in publishing, "el-hi" was universally used to refer to books or other published materials for the K-12 educational market. A classified ad in a newspaper (remember those?) might require that the applicant have "el-hi experience," for example; such an ad would never say "K-12." Maybe publishing is or was the only place where that term is found, but that kind of restriction has never been disqualifying for a crossword entry in my experience.
A struggle till it became clear and then it was fun! A very enjoyable solve.
The first remake — with Judy Garland — was by far the best. The other two had their moments, but the Judy Garland version is a masterpiece that can be watched over and over and over.
For egsforbreakfast: I think that struggling proofreader sounds like a pain in the asterisk.
Last time I checked B and N were letters not words. what i wouldn't give for a themeless puzzle these days
The theme revealed itself perfectly today: I was able to piece together a few of them just because they were regular words or phrases, then MCCARTNEY insisted that I figure something out. Other than our own @Gary, no-one loves an ass-ist.
Despite geography mentioned, footholds could be had everywhere. EWE could have been a real problem if not crossed well as it was.
Easy, for understanding the theme; medium, for figuring out what to do with it; and fun all the way. Starting out in the NW with ELEC...in the grid and looking over at its clue, I saw that *Allot must mean "ballot." That explained my otherwise questionable looking MCCA in the NW, so the Bassist was next to go in. But then...Bs weren't working any more, and only after a couple of alphabet runs did I get that the asterisk was for B or N. Terrific repurposing of the movie title, and some really good theme answers: MOTHER OF PEARL and HATCHLING fun to write in, RIVIERA nicely disguised, at least for me (my alphabet run had "nice" rhyming with "dice"), and THE CRETAN BULL, which I, like @Rex, hadn't known was the father of the Minotaur. I wonder what mythological figure will turn up tomorrow.
A STAR IS B OR N. Wow!!!
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Every time you think no one can come up with a completely original puzzle idea, someone does.
Right away I saw all the missing "B"s and "N"s in the clues. I parsed them all perfectly. But why those missing letters? Would the thrice-made movie have the word "missing" in it? Or "vanished"? Or "disappears"? And what could possibly tie together an N and a B?
Had my life depended on it, I could not have come up with the answer.
So A STAR IS BORN comes in and I'm told to parse. And I parse away. Parse, parse, parse. As tar is born? What the--? And that's not six words.
Aha!!!! I see it!!!! A big grin comes over my face. This is so clever and so completely surprising. It gives me a real kick on a rainy miserable morning.
Into the running list I'm keeping for Puzzle of the Year. it goes.
This was definitely harder than a medium for a Thursday.
I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle. I was ambling along at my usual middling pace with no idea what was going on, but that's nothing new for me. When I got to the revealer, I looked toward the heavens and waited for the pneumatic tubes in my 63 year old brain to start working. Oh! Yes! A STAR IS BORN. And, yes, I realized the clue was technically wrong, because the film was made three times, but only remade twice; nevertheless, I knew I was right and plopped it right it. Still could not for the life of me figure out how to parse it as six words. Eventually I had enough crosses to get MCCARTNEY. Of course, I knitted my brow as I pondered the corresponding clue. "Assist?" I thought. "Hardly! How could you say that about one of the most significant bassists in rock—ohhhhh, yeah, got it, you put a "B" in front of *assist; but how is that—ohhhhh, yeah, got it: A STAR IS A OR B!" And then of course it was off to the races. I was quite pleased.
Delightful theme! But there was a price to pay. All but one of the columns intersecting ASTARISBORN contains a three, making a total of 29. Far too many.
Your blog really came to the rescue today. I finished the puzzle pretty quickly, and was just, "huh?" I didn't understand the parsing of ASIB or the themes, and convinced myself that they were just obscure terms I didn't know -- like Ovid must have been from Crete and super tough, hence the nickname; or sure, on Election Day you allot your votes to the candidates; or hatchling seems awfully soon for trying to fly, but ok; and wow, I guess "ice" means "diamonds" here, and from Bond movies, it's at the Riviera. But where I was really confused was McCartney . . . .I thought "that's weird, I've heard people minimize Ringo's role" (though vehemently disagree), but do people really refer to "McCartneying" as merely "assisting"? That seemed crazy . . . . Willing to accept it reluctantly . ...until your blog came to the rescue. Thanks.
@Mike in Bed-Stuy 10:16 AM – haha. sorry. A STAR IS B OR N. Those damn pneumatic tubes.
You could easily explain this theme to an 8-year-old
Wow. A perfect puzzle, but I count nine proper nouns, so it's teetering precariously on being a terrible puzzle. Loved those asterisks and the revealer is a home run.
Tee-Hee: TEATS. For those weeping yet again yesterday about improper pluralization of foreignisms failing to follow imagined rules rolling around in your xraniums, I posit: TEATAE, TEATIPODE, or TEATES are all equally and copiously squish-able.
Rhyme Repository:
SAGA POETICA DEBRA RIVIERA
CFO DIEGO MUNRO OWE TOKYO
Uniclues:
1 Gathering of costumed nerds obsessed with Tuesdays in November, or, if you believe one obsessive serial liar, the reason why Big Macs need to be delivered daily to Mar-a-Largo for four years.
2 What happens when you try to bathe kitties.
3 Persian hating how Americans pluralize مرحباً.
4 Pop him (or her) in the head.
5 Reason you know (and dread) a holiday playlist with Wonderful Christmas Time on it.
1 ELECTION DAY CON
2 CATS SUE
3 TYPE-A ARAB SAD
4 NUMB ALI (~)
5 MCCARTNEY LOOMS
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Your inner circle that acts like your outer circle on account of the sass. PARADOX COTERIE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm actually shocked by how much Rex liked this theme. At least the "no I" one was impressive once you stepped back to look at it, despite the bad fill. This "theme" was barely a theme. "Oh, the first letter is actually B... or N also, I guess? Okay."
I still liked the puzzle fine -- I'm generally a less harsh critic -- but I just don't understand why this theme gets to be good while others are so thoroughly criticized.
Oy. did not get the theme. did not like.
@burtonkd 10:15 AM
I'm just an amateur assist -- an assophile among many proassists in our assipode (or assae) for the Greek lovers among us.
Kudos to all the folks who got the theme while doing the puzzle. I solved without it because the theme answers were recognizable names or phrases even though they didn’t make thematic sense and had to be intuited from various crosses. Have to hand it to the author for coming up with an ingenious construction. Frustratingly hard on some places and am glad we have @Rex and this blog to explain things. And did learn something new about LEI’s today!
Delightfully devilish puzzle! I agree with Rex that the segmentation of the grid connected with theme answers made this especially challenging - until it didn’t. When at last I realized B OR N - doh! (as we say in NYTXW) and flew through the puzzle completing the remaining theme answers and all the rest too. A very nice surprise.
sAnd before SALT made for a tasteless quest in search of that elusive *assist needed for entry into that northeastern section. Once the penny slotted, the gimmes were in abundance….before the gimmick, not so much.
A good start for a Thursday, but I miss my rebus. Interesting Hollywood connections from Rex that sent me back to enjoy David’s amazing YouTube videos.Kwong is just an amazing entertainment and the introduction allowed a revisit to Will Shortz detailing how amazing it is for ANYONE to construct a grid.
Puzzle was okay but the theme was totally indecipherable to me. Even after reading RP‘s explanation, I had to think about it. If I could have made sense of the reveal that would’ve helped tremendously. But I had no idea that four words and two letters could be considered six words. So as it was, I gave up on the theme and just filled in the blanks, not much fun on my favorite day of the week. I finished, but a big messy SPLAT! would’ve been so much more satisfying.
Definitely a cool puztheme mcguffin, which I started to uncover at RIVIERA, the first themer I was able to unveil. The primo ASTARISBORN revealer really added some punch and further explanation to what was afoot.
staff weeject pick: ICE. Woulda been a conflict with RIVIERA's clue, except for that there * morph.
fave thing: WONG sittin in the puzgrid, just right below constructioneer Kwong's name.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Kwong dude.*ice job.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
Easyish. I sorta caught on that something was going on when I realized that N+acre fit the MOTHER OF PEARL answer. However, I didn’t grok the whole theme until I parsed the reveal. Fun Thursday, liked it.
Set to before SCRAP.
Did not know THE CRETAN BULL.
B and N are not words. Themer clue here is garbage. Oh well, still a fun solve.
"Sightsee" and "aim" suggested a camera to me, not a gun. But I guess that's because I own a camera and not a gun.
Cute gimmick, but didn't really know what was going on until I read it here. Got the missing "B" for MCCARTNEY, and from that I figured out ELECTION DAY, but the others didn't reveal themselves at all, and the movie title didn't help a bit. As usual, though, I got stymied by the damn names/brand names/foreign words, so couldn't finish without cheating.
Bit of Hollywood trivia that I'm guessing no one cares about: Streisand originally pegged Elvis Presley to co-star with her in A STAR IS BORN; they came close to signing the contract, but good ol' Colonel Parker deep-six'd it, as he did virtually everything else that might have given Elvis the opportunity he craved to become known as a serious actor. The part, of course, went to Kristofferson instead.
I DNF due to CFA/WANG instead of CFO/WONG. Anyone else make that mistake?
Surprised to see the execrable ELHI didn't get called out by Rex, but glad to see some other commenters were as put off by it as I was.
Best Thursday puzzle in a very, very long time.
Finished the puzzle with no idea what the theme was. I went to xwordinfo for the explanation and was underwhelmed. If there was some significance to the letters B and N outside of this nails on a chalkboard idea for a puzzle I'd like it more but what you see is what you get. Not my kind of puzzle but at least a Saturday's worth of hacking through crosswordese.
I had an ETS/UFO write over and it took me a second look to remember ELHI.
The NE was the last to fall. WONG was an unknown but a very common name and your 3 letter abbreviations for months are pretty limited.
yd -0. QB4
I found this brutally hard, because it took me quite a long time to figure out the revealer.
Wonderful theme, courtesy of a very clever constructor. Also, lovely clues for PSI and SAGA.
The fill suffers though -- POETICA and a bunch of 3-letter junk, the worst of which are POG and RIT.
My biggest beef is with the CFO/WONG cross. A CFa (Chartered Financial Analyst) is equally valid, and why not Anna May WaNG? I got no happy music, looked over every entry three times, and finally hit "Reveal". Frustrating.
@anon 17;16 Thankyou. I thought" lei" was wrong (tho obviously what the puzzle wanted) but couldn't think what the word should be .
With 17A and 10D I got that I needed to put a B at the front of the first word, then at 23 A saw it might need an N.
But could not understand the reveal until I came here.
@Rex Chuckled at ..."someone named DREAB is sad, Finally , recognition!...oh.
Could someone please pass law that captcha pics have to be big enough to see?
Awful. Joined the ranks of others that I haven't enjoyed since Will's absence :(
First thing I noticed when this one opened up on the screen was the dark cloud of black squares, 46 of them. Knew this would be a theme heavy fill light grid. With six longish themers and reveal, I wondered why this wasn't a Sunday 21X21 puzzle. That would have opened things up for more quality fill to balance things out. I did enjoy DEFUNCT---fun to say!---but that didn't make up for a ton of short stuff that served to NUMB my solve buzz.
I picked up on the missing "N" when "*Acre on the ocean floor" became MOTHER OF PEARL and the missing "B" when "*Assist" was MCCARTNEY but shouldn't those clues use lower case "*acre" and "assist" lest we wind up with "NAcre" and BAssist"?
Agree that it was a clever theme but not knowing THE CRETAN BULL (was that a gratuitous THE?) or never having seen any iteration of A STAR IS BORN took the edge off for me and prevented the solve from being a more delightful ROMP.
Despite having seen the same thing recently, I fell for the cpI, and could only remember Ars Amatoria for Horace -- which was one letter too long, so I looked for a rebus, and sort of found one. But then I was stuck. I did finally see A STAR IS BORN, which made me look for novas or something in the theme answer. At last MOTHER OF PEARL became so obvious I had to put it in, checked the clue for a hidden word, and noticed it started with Acre. That was enough for me to get the other theme answers, but it seemed kind of weak. So at last I checked the letters to see if they spelled something, noticed they were all B or N, and then about five minutes later parsed B OR N. Truly brilliant in retrospect.
I did have to look up DIEGO and, due to the cpI error, ISLAM. But at least I got the whole theme before I came here.
And I learned a lot about LEI terminology!
Never got the theme until looking here. Didn’t raise my opinion.
Agreed. How is “b” or “n” a word?
There was no parsing going on here today - I stared at A STAR IS BORN, got as far as AS TAR IS BO RN (or B ORN) and then back at the theme answers and said forget it, I'm checking out Rex's take on this.
Many of the non-theme clues were quite clever, like 20A, 13A, 29A and 61D. But then there's 15D. Not a fan of that one.
I had the hardest time coming up with 4A and 14A. I guess I didn't consider LEIs as something worn around the head but rather around the neck. And I'm glad 8D wasn't my original guess of "upon a". What's "upon a story", after all?
Fun trying to fit either rime or HOAR in at 24D.
Thanks, David Kwong, I like this puzzle much better now that my confusion has cleared.
@Mike in Bed-Stuy, thank you for clarifying that ELHI is not just found in crossword puzzles! I was always under the impression that it was manufactured for crosswords, but I'm glad to hear that it's a term that's actually used.
Actually there have been four ...
1937 - Frederick March/Janet Gaynor (non-musical)
1951 - Judy Garland/James Mason
1976 - Barbra Streisland/Kris Kristofferson
2016 - Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper
Strangely I’ve seen all versions except for the one with Judy Garland. Based on your recommendation I really need to see the best one now!
Great fun and great clueing. First really enjoyable puzzle in a long time.
"Six words" is correct.
1. "I" is obviously a word because it is a personal pronoun. "A" is the indefinite article.
2. Strictly speaking, every letter is a word. "M" is the name of the letter "m" and is a noun.
m (2) noun (ms, m's) the thirteenth letter of the alphabet. (Lexico: https://www.lexico.com/definition/m )
3. But if you are asking whether the letters are words when they are used to make up longer words then no. For example, if I write the word "globe", none of the individual letters within that word is serving as a word.
Unless six words are correct.
Lewis, this has nothing to do with the puzzle, I love reading your comments. I watched a movie last night, Perfect Days, directed by Wim Wonders and thought of you. I found it to be a beautiful meditation on life! Katy
I got it and that's good enough for me. But I don't count individual letters as words.
I’m pretty sure A Star Is Born has been remade four times, although the first, in 1932, was called What Price Hollywood.
It is interesting how often my experience mirrors Teedmn's.
Also, according to forebears.io, DREAB is "the 8,193,072nd most commonly held family name throughout the world ... most frequently held in Moldova, where it is held by 4 people".
Agree about THECRETANBULL; I have never seen this expression and I've been familiar with the story of the Minotaur since childhood.
Disagree about LEI. A garland, or perhaps a crown of laurels, or whatever, may go around the head, but a lei goes around the neck (and, for most people, hangs down to the chest). It is not "worn around one's head" except in the sense that you must put it on over your head, in which case pullover shirts and sweaters, necklaces, chokers, chains, etc. also are "worn around one's head," which makes the meaning of the phrase absurd. By the same token, pants, underpants, etc., are "worn around one's feet." Sure thing.
Hi @Conrad, hand up for the single cpi erasure/overwrite. Easy fill, ingeniously devilish theme.
Mmorgqn is correct. The 1954 version is the best of the four Star films. And for good reason. It was Garland’s big comeback and everyone who was anyone in Hollywood wanted to be involved. That’s how George Cukor became director—solely to work,with Garland.Same with Moss Hart who wrote it (there some question about how much Dorothy Parker had tow the script).
Add Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin, and it’s not just A listers it’s A+++.
Didn’t hurt that James Mason co-starred. ( Not sure why Mike in Bed Stuy believes there’s only been three versions)
Exactly! It all fit together well enough but the theme answers had nothing to do with each other. A couple of unconnected missing letters do not a "theme" make.
I'm late to this puzzling party but I want to hold hands with @Whatsername. I had absolutely no idea what hoops I was supposed to painstakingly jump through.
I just went with a few motions; they weren't fun. How many names have you crammed in today? @Gary J has supplied us with them. Thank you.
I stared at ELECTION DAY and even more so at it's *Allot time clue. Yawn...move on. Then I looked at my answer for *Acre on the ocean floor: MOTHER OF PEARS. Who is that kind of mother???? Yawn...move on.
RIVIERA has a hidden river and an era in it. Another yawn.
Even after coming here and reading @Rex and the rest of you who praised the glories of this one, I didn't understand your answer A STAR IS BORN....A movie I watched and forgot about. Doesn't it have Barbra Streisand in it? I forget.
This scored very high on my Angst, Agita, Dyspepsia meter. It's still running.
To those who've heard it, where do folks use ELHI? I have never seen the concept written or spoken as anything other than K-12 (in writing) or “K through 12” spoken. I think ELHI is 100% crosswordese, but would love to be otherwise enlightened.
What a complicated theme to suss out; I loved it! The solve was easy, but I finished and remained stumped. The language of the reveal also confused me for way too long. I had to go to my very roots and read more carefully.
Reading carefully has always been the root cause (my roots again!) of every silly yet important mistake I ever made on any important test or exam. I mean sweet mother all the gods ever worshipped, to this day I am certain all the stupid mistakes I must have made on the “multiple choice day” of the bar exam were because I raced through the pages of “back story” to get to the questions and then had to go back and waste time looking for what I missed. At least I passed the dang thing. I was told by my employer at the time who just happened to be the Chief Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court thatI had a “very high pass.” I still think he might have fudged a bit because he limed me. We remained friends until his death. 40 some years later, I’m still not always reading carefully.
Roots, right. I could parse a simple sentence by the end of first grade. Every English class I ever had K-12 included diagramming. In my first job in a law firm (as Law Librarian while I was in law school) I used compete with one of the tax partners to diagram (alleged) sentences from the IRS code. We’d argue over them for hours (and adult libations). How’s that for nerdism!
Anyway, I absolutely know how to parse.
And yet, I failed to understand the theme reveal today because I failed to read the clue here. Instead of doing exactly what the clue asked me to do, I went back to the clues with the asterisks and failed to make the connection with the clue because I didn’t follow its directions!!! Several important people in my life have advised me to slow down and read more carefully. Here I am still failing to follow such good advice. Sheesh.
So, when realized I was stumped and thought I was going to give up and come here to see what the theme was, I finally did go back one last time to re-read the clue. Turns out, my return to the reveal was to read and comprehend the clue for the first time!
Oh, parse the movie title which actually is a complete sentence. Hmmmmm, I guess this technically counts a parsing. OK, did it and . . . Once again, Bob is in fact my uncle, and I’m still in too big a hurry. Check and double check. The B or N, sure. I got that part from only studying the weird “extra words” that I figured out along the way - and obviously ignored. Yet, in the way back of my consciousness my “librarian” kept nagging me saying “Why the heck are these extra words here and why asterisks and ?s in the theme clues?
Yes, folks, it took me that long to equate the “STAR” with “asterisk.” I have no excuse other than the fact that from the day I learned the word “asterisk,” I have never, ever used “star” interchangeably if at all when meaning “asterisk.” That’s my paternal lawyer-grandfather’s heavy influence. “Speak clearly and precisely, say what you mean and be truthful.” He said that to me nearly as often as my Gran, his wife reminded me to treat people as I want to be treated. Excellent lessons both. So, because to me an asterisk is an asterisk is an asterisk, and never a “star” or an “asterix” it just took too long for me to connect all the dots, or maybe the “stars.”
So, enormous kudos, Mr. Kwong!! I love being forced to work hard , especially if it leaves me with egg on my face. I’m a fan! Getting fooled, being forced to work for it and being delighted when I finally sussed it out made for a wonderful Thursday solve. Keep ‘em coming, please.
A brilliant puzzle!!!
Writing from Friday, but I found this puzzle kind of brilliant!
@Diane Joan -- It may be the "best" A STAR IS BORN, but I found it one of the most excruciating movies I've ever sat through. I just wanted the melodramatic, over-the-top Judy to stop caterwauling and shut the bleep up. I just wanted James Mason to walk into the ocean already and stop bringing everyone in his life crashing down with him.
It felt endless. That's because it WAS endless. I think "Born In a Trunk went on for 20 minutes!! Admittedly I would have been 12 or 13 when I saw it for the first and only time. Was I too young?
Judy Garland has always depressed me even in her supposedly *happiest* film and TV moments. There's something so lugubrious about her. James Mason has always made my skin crawl. Which is fine when he plays the villain in "North by Northwest", but not when he plays the romantic lead. "What are you thinking, idiot? Get away from that repulsive scuzzball," I wanted to shout at Judy.
Basically I thought they was 1) no chemistry between them and 2) that they richly deserved each other.
It's late to be posting, sigh. No one will see this. And I need support and validation. I need at least ONE person to tell me that they, too, thought this movie was absolutely insufferable.
@Katy -- Thank you, that warmed my heart! I will keep that movie in mind...
*Rests on one's chest: TEATS
Thank you for your ever upbeat comments and your obvious love and understanding of crosswords.
No matter how much Rex grumbles, you aways find something positive to say! Suzy (Charlotte, nc)
Same here. I thought CFA was a bit esoteric for NYT but it’s common identifier in my line of work and since I don’t know Anna May, I moved on.
Agreed - why not just use neck?
Does anyone remember John Carpenter's famous run on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"? One of the questions he received was "Which of the following months has no U.S. federal holiday?", and this was a particularly amusing question to receive since he was an IRS agent. I still remember it to this day, so that clue in today's puzzle was very funny!
Yep. Came here looking for this
Ingenious! Made me think along multiple paths.
Great anagram!!
Puzzling Yodeler
Re Rex's comment about 35D, nowhere is anyone named DREAB sad, but some devotees of RBG might be.
Hand up for rime before HOAR, ink mess there. I too filled in RIVIERA, and just waited for the clue to make sense.
Agree that the grid is severely segmented and hard to get around in. Started with the central area and bled down toward the reveal line. Soon uncovered ASTARISBORN, and had quite a time dividing that 6 ways. The only way I could do it was A STAR IS B OR N. But what star? Then in one of my finer aha! moments, I knew: it referred to the *clues! The clouds parted, and the finish was lickety-split. My MCC problem in the NE vanished.
Though not thrilled by letter add-ons like TYPEA, I didn't find much tiresome detritus in the fill. Birdie.
Wordle eagle! Only guessed it because of the NBA playoffs, plus lovely Caitlin: I don't recall ever seeing a shot of hers touch the rim.
ASK AHEAD
THE ELECTION to RISE
at THE ENDOF THE DAY
IS A ROMP IN disguise
that may END IN A LEI.
--- DEBRA SUE MCCARTNEY
A Star is Born has been made 4 times, but I guess remade 3 times. Puzzle weird.
Loved the puzzle. Very very hard for me, until at long last I parsed the six word enigma. The star(asterisk) is either a B or N in those clues. Brilliant!!!
And totally worth it, even with all the short answers and segmentation.
ZOD has spoken!
ps: I know I've seen 3 of the versions, just can't recall if I've seen the first one.
Horrible, undiscernable theme. I'm tired of garbage like this one
Fine puzzle - finished with no prob.
But...WORST THEME EVER
Lady Di
Ingenious is correct, but I solved as though themeless.
Wordle birdie.
