Famous Five 11-21

[Alana Fekety]

I'm older than Gen X and somehow managed to pull HALSEY out of my memory bank. I knew Kevin HART because of his uber-annoying commercials. No problem with that cross.

Where I ran into trouble was Western lIt instead of CIV at 19D. That made 26A FAt, which I thought was fine as a Twitter thumbs-up because I mistook it for "phat". And FRANK Olean looked okay, thinking maybe he named himself after the Upstate town. I needed Sergey and Larry to get me out of that one.

Other than that (which is on me), Tuesday normal.

Ugh, I cruised through the entire puzzle, which seemed to me to be Tuesday-level difficult, until I had two squares left: MU_CAT crossing E_A, and _ALSEY crossing _ART, neither of which are the least bit discernible to me, so basically I had 52 guesses. Thus, done in by a foreign city crossing a foreign word, and a singer crossing what apparently is a stand-up comic. A great example of, and precisely the reason why I absolutely abhor foreign words, phrases and places, and PPP in all of its manifestations. And the truly sad thing . . . Is that it would be so avoidable if the solving experience were of paramount importance to the constructor.

It was a fun puzzle to solve, I just have a nit to pick with one clue. I've worked in manufacturing my entire career (>25 years). I have NEVER seen a first shift that runs 9-5 in a factory. 6-2? 7-3? Absolutely. But never 9-5.

I found the clue for Kevin HART misleading. I know he's a stand-up comic, but I think of him primarily as a movie star, so I had to get, like, 3 crosses before going "oh, it's just Kevin Hart?" But, otherwise, I had a pretty good time (except for the minute-plus I had to spend looking for a typo at the end ?)

Hey! I'm pushing 70 and Halsey was a gimme. And how could you live in today's world and not at least have heard of Kevin Hart. Between his movies, obnoxious commercials, near fatal traffic accidents, and general ubiquity, he's nearly impossible to miss. Like him or no.

PESCI. heard of him. know of him. Thought it was PESCe. Which gave me _OGE, which meant it could only be dOGE, which seemed plausible given the clue with asanas and pranayams, I guess, and I thought, yeah, well, maybe the movie Soul has a character named Tina FEd. But then I figured it out. Duh.

Lots o' fun.

Hey, did anyone else want LIT instead of CIV? Oh, everybody?

Never mind.

My HALSEY clue would have been Uncle Albert/Admiral _____, but maybe that's not much better.

Went though this one so fast that I forgot to go back and see what all the themers had in common and instead came here and found out, which is the easy way, but less satisfying. Something in my brain is saying "show your work" to me.

The week is off to a flying start with two very nice puzzles. Thanks for the fun, KP. You keep making these and I'll Keep Playing.

Two or three clues into this beauty of a Tuesday puzzle and I had already done more thinking than I had during the entirety of yesterday's snooze-fest. My favorite clue was the inspired one for FIRE ESCAPE (3D), definitely worthy of a late-week puzzle. But even clues that weren't necessarily difficult or tricky were made interesting: GPS (11A); PERK (40D); UFOS (64A); CLASH (37A) and DRAW (56D).

I enjoyed the theme and thought the theme answers were well-chosen, lively, and well-clued. And for some reason -- one I can't really explain -- a puzzle always seems a bit more sophisticated and colorful to me when the long answers are in the Downs. I doubt that's a universal reaction, but it's one I have fairly often.

A real pleasure after yesterday. My brain finally had something to do.

Rex nails it today. The highs, the whoas, the movie poster.

I briefly confused Night Shift with Mother, Jugs, and Speed. One was morgues, one was ambulances, one had Raquel.

All fell together faster than yesterday's for me. Handup for the FAt-FAV lIt-CIV confusion with a touch of FRAN KOrEAN madness. But finally got OCEAN and saw CIV as written, not said.

Most unimproved clue goes to SPRIG today. Worst yesterday's echo too.

Six single POCs, one crossing pair, but zero doubles.

Tight theme, tightly packed with minimal bad effects. A bit heavy on PPP?

ORACLE best bonus computer reference.

Pray for our POWER GRIDS, no SPAYing allowed.

A newer constructor byline suggests to me the puzzle will contain much PPP and skew towards the interests of the construction. I don't think I was disappointed. (With what I expected, not with the puzzle.) Probably a bit too specific (if that's the word) for a Tuesday puzzle.

Do people work 12-hour shifts in Rex's part of the world? Around here in factories and other workplaces that go round-the-clock there's the FIRST SHIFT and then there's second shift maybe 4 to midnight, and third shift, midnight to 8 AM. The one's the Day shift, but the other two? Way different life rhythms.

As a millennial, I find it pretty jarring to hear complaints about two obviously famous people from contemporary Hollywood. Kevin Hart was supposed to host the Oscars before being cancelled for some homophobic tweets. Halsey has multiple #1 hits. To regularly solve NY Times puzzles, I have to memorize the names of dogs in 1950s kids TV shows and plenty of other completely irrelevant 70-year-old arcana.

One of the major reasons I do the puzzle is to keep up with current language. So learning the new meaning of "low-key" made today's worthwhile. Something done under-statedly or secretly. Nothing else of note.

@Z nails it on why a PPP-hating person like me didn't gripe about the HART/HALSEY cross. I didn't know either of them, natch, but what other letter could it have been? Also, if I'd been wrong, I simply would have pronounced the puzzle "Solved!" regardless -- as I always do in the case of PPP-crossing Naticks.

And another hand up for Western LIT. Only I didn't write it in, because FAT bothered me much too much. Eventually I figured out I wanted FAV -- even though I always think of it as FAVE.

Wondering if Rex could find an older picture of HALSEY. Why not just use Mom's first sonogram while you're at it?

I must be the only one here who didn't fall into that lIt/CIV trap. Mainly because (1) I've never heard of a course called "Western Lit", and (2) The Decline of Western CIVilization shouldered its way through the cobwebs of my brain. Sometimes it pays to be an idiot.

@Barbara S 832am Nice lawyering on the LOWKEY interpretation. It's the verticality of the themers that further supports that take, so I guess ESC can stay. ? Who will join us on the CIV-first bench, I wonder? I forgot to count the LENs!! ARGH.

Hey All !

Um, hello? The ESC key is on top of a keyboard. As TAB is also nearer the top than bottom. What's that? You say the KEYs in question are LOW in the grid, ergo that makes them LOW KEYs? Ok, sure. Iffy, but feasible. Would've liked to see something with the WINDOWS button. Har.

Semi-nit of LOW KEYs not quite 100% accurate aside, did enjoy this puz. Fell into the DNF spot of lIt for CIV. Dang. Isn't FRANK OCEAN the guy from Oceans Eleven?* And thought FAb was a new coinage for a Twitter thing. Not up on all the new phrasing those crazy kids are coming up with.

@bocamo, @TT, @Barbara Re:SB

Two days in a row of -1 (5/9, 5/10), closest in a long time. Disappointed I got that close without QB, especially the 5/9 one. And it was an easy word I miss Every. Time.

*Har, I know it's not, I may be stupid on lots of stuff, bit I did know he was someone else!

Five F's (FUN!)

RooMonster

DarrinV

Nice, low drek TuzPuz (Masked & Anon.) fun for kids of all ages. Lit, etc. It's Space Bar, as mentioned above.

Good to see Birth Control. Too bad it wasn't used before Sunday. But then we wouldn't have had Placebo from yesterday. Constructor said he originally had Motor Control, so pregnancy and Sprigs of herbs must be someone's new obsession at the NYT?

@rjkennedy98, I guess if you're hoping that people older than you will complain about what you assume they don't know, you'll find complaints. But I just went back and saw almost all neutral or positive comments. Look again. No need to be jarred today.

@Frantic, Sometimes it pays to be an idiot?. Agree (we're on the same page, yay!)

I've never heard of Western Lit but I've also never heard of Western Civ. Then again, when I was in college we had hand-cranked computers and a complete breakfast consisted of sugary cereal and bacon.

Isn't there a song by the Captain &Tennile called MUSCAT Love?

I liked this just fine but I thought it was a little too heavy on the names. I've heard of all of them except @Z's bALSEY bART. I haven't listened to music on the radio in eons. I like NPR and my favorite music was from the 80's. Your day is now complete.

I'm 59 years old. I dropped in FRANK OCEAN with no problem but am pretty sure I'd never heard of HALSEY and couldn't remember Kevin HART. I guessed at the H, but it didn't seem a very hard guess. (the only other candidate was a P).

I hadn't heard of HALSEY, but somehow Kevin HART's name rang a bell -- though if you asked me I'd have guessed he was in the NBA. And I've certainly heard of FRANK OCEAN -- didn't he do something at the Democratic National Convention last summer? Unfortunately, though, I had misread the clue as an Oscar, not Grammy winner, so I was stuck until I had most of the crosses.

But I, too, have never heard of Western Lit as a course. Some anon referred to Princeton, but they have a) European Literature, and b) Classical Roots of Western Literature-- i.e., a course in classics. I'm not even sure what the course would be: the literature of Europe and the Americas? Or the literature of the American West (Willa Cather, Bret Hart, Thomas McGuane,Annie Proulx, Zane Grey)? Western CIV, otoh, used to be taught everywhere, though I think now some institutions have replaced it with World Civ.

I knew of MUSCAT, of course-- I always thought it was where muscat grapes originated, but apparently that's only one of many possibilities. But on the maps of my youth the country was labeled "Muscat and Oman," so until today's puzzle I had assumed it was a sheikdom, rather than a city. Crosswords are so educational.

Since I managed to guess the H, I found it a fun puzzle.

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