STALK OF THE CELERY MONSTER
NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD PUZZLE of Monday, April 9, 2007 -- COMMENTS FROM AN OUTPOST:
DONALD:
"Forest fires", "pine sap" and "avocado pits" are not green, nor are "pea soups" (how about fog or black-eyed) or "olive branches" (gold laurels) necessarily. Celery stalks are, but "celery" is not a shade of green. So, "It's not easy being green!" My vote for the GREEN OSCAR award goes to -- who else, green Oscar on Sesame Street!
As are pine green, forest green, pea green, avocado green, and olive green. Many themes hinge, as this one does, on the first or last word in each theme entry rather than the entire phrase.
DONALD:
I know all that -- however, you may also wish to enlighten Wikipedia about "celery" green, which is obviously a rather new commercial tag for an already-named green -- just has a better ring to it! Officially, however, I can find no reference in any dictionary or the like to a shade of green called "celery". I read "the starts" notation, of course, but one must admit it is rather odd that none of answers including "start" is a green thing except CELERY STALKS and "celery" is not in any dictionary I have consulted including my own gargantuan Websters Third New International Dictionary Unabridged. One does find references on Google to pillow cases, sheets and home furnishings on E-Bay and other commercial sites, but no official reference in the English language with which I have conferred lists "celery" as an official shade of green. Do quote me an official reference, as I am happy to be wrong when the other guy is right! Oh, don't you just love all the references to orangeness over the past week -- flaming, flame, flame war, now forest fire! Things are getting hot! I have not prfoeaord this comment.
ANONYMOUS :
Seems to me CELERY is just as much a color as are BISCUIT and ALMOND. Gosh, its almost lunchtime here, and I am salivating like Pavlov's dog. How dull would our lives be if we could only see and speak in primary colors and their qualifiers . As a language lover, I'd rather someone describe them to me as sage, celadon, chartreuse, absinthe, jade, moss, mint, serpentine, or yes, even olive or avocado!
ANONYMOUS:
Celery doesn't need to be in the dictionary to be considered a color—hell, just leaf (leaf green!) through a few clothing catalogs and you'll probably run across it. The New Yorker recently had an article about the maven of commercial color trends, and wasabi green (and all related bright, light green shades) were the last big trend. The NYT does cover fashion in the style section, so clothing and paint colors that aren't in the dictionary ought to be fair game for the crossword.
DONALD:
Oh, like the emperor's new clothes or the Pope's infallibility. What a wonderful world is the crossword world, rules for no rules and no rules for rules, a veritable Charles Lutwidge Dodgson a priori!
ANONYMOUS:
Every leaf of every stalk of celery I have ever eaten was green, and every piece of celery I have ever eaten has been a nice, light shade of green on the ribs (except, of course, at the wide end where it fades to a very bleached, almost translucent, shade).
ANONYMOUS:
What color is your celery?
ANONYMOUS:
Maybe it is a list of things that simply are green: A forest are green, A pine is green, A pea is green, An avacodo is green, An olive is green (unless it is black), A celery stalk is green.
ANONYMOUS:
A forest is partly green. A pine is partly green. Peas are many colors. An avacodo is green and its pit brown. Olives, yes, both black and green. A celery stalk is green. A forest fire is many colors. Pine sap is transparent amber. Pea soup (like fog) is what -- pea soup depends on the color of the pea used. An avacodo pit is brown. A celery stalk is green. No one is debating the color of a celery stalk. It's undebatable that it's debatable that the use of celery as a "color" is in the same category. Perhaps the confusion arises from the definition of "celadon" which is defined as a delicate green (or a tender lover) and as a pale grayish green, whereas "celery" is defined as a biennial plant of the parsley family whose long, crisp leaf-like stalks are eaten as a vegetable.
ANONYMOUS:
A tisket, a tasket
A celery-colored basket,
I left a comment on this blog,
And someone lost a gasket!
ANONYMOUS:
I don't see any problem with the theme. The starts of the theme answers are all types of green.
ANONYMOUS:
HTML Color NamesThe following is a list of the color names that are supported by all major browsers:Alice Blue, Antique White, Aqua, Aquamarine, Azure, Beige, Bisque, Black, Blanched Almond, Blue, Blue Violet, Brown, Burly Wood, Cadet Blue, Chartreuse, Chocolate, Coral, CornflowerBlue, Cornsilk, Crimson, Cyan, DarkBlue, DarkCyan, DarkGoldenRod, DarkGray, DarkGrey, DarkGreen, DarkKhaki, DarkMagenta, DarkOliverGreen, DarkOrange, DarkOrchid, Dark Red, DarkSalmon, DarkSeaGreen, DarkSlateBlue, DarkSlateGray, DarkSlateGrey, DarkTurquoise, DarkViolet, DeepPink, DeepSkyBlue, DimGray, DimGrey, DodgerBlue, FireBrick, FloralWhite, ForestGreen, Fuchsia, Gainsborg, GhostWhite, Gold, GoldenRod, Gray, Grey, Green, GreenYellow, HoneyDew, HotPink, IndianRed, Indigo, Ivory, Khaki, Lavender, LavenderBlush, LawnGreen, LemonChiffon, LightBlue, LightCoral, LightCyan, LightGoldenRodYellow, Light Gray, LightGrey, LightGreen, LightPink, LightSalmon, LightSeaGreen, LightSkyBlue, LightSlatGray, LightSlateGrey, LightSteelBlue, LightYellow, Lime, LimeGreen, Linen, Magenta, Maroon, MediumAquaMarine, MediumBlue, MediumOrchid, MediumPurple, MediumSeaGreen, MediumSlateBlue, MediumSpringGreen, MediumTurquoise, MediumVioletRed, MidnightBlue, MintCream, MistyRose, Moccasin, NavajoWhite, Navy, OldLace, Olive, OliveDrab, Orange, OrangeRed, Orchid, PaleGoldenRod, PaleGreen, PaleTurquoise, PaleVioletRed, PapayaWhip, PeachPuff, Peru, Pink, Plum, PowerBlue, Purple, Red, RosyBrown, RoyalBlue, SaddleBrown, Salmon, SandyBrown, SeaGreen, SeaShell, Sienna, Silver, SkyBlue, SlateBlue, SlateGray, SlatGrey, Snow, SpringGreen, SteelBlue, Tan, Teal, Thistle, Tomato, Turquoise, Vilet, Wheat, White, WhiteSmoke, Yellow, YellowGreen
ANONYMOUS:
Who would have thought that GREEN would inspire such output in the photosphere
ANONYMOUS:
To those who have posted lists of colors:There is no data incumbent or intrinsic in your posts to suggest that these lists are either consistent or complete. And if you thought there were, you may wish to consult the work of Kurt Godel. Follows a comment provided by Frank J. Welte, University of Massachusetts Medical School:It is now believed that humans can perceive on the order of millions of colors. Most estimates are around 10 million. This makes sense when we consider, for example, computer monitors: We notice a difference when we switch from "thousands" to "millions" of colors. Millions in this case corresponds to 2 to the 24th power —or 16,777,216—colors for a 24-bit display. Of course, this simple test only tells us that we can see more than "thousands" of colors, but it doesn't give us an upper limit. According to Kandel et al, "The superiority of color perception over brightness perception is evident in the fact that we can discriminate only 500 gradations of brightness but we can discriminate more than 7 million gradations of color."Or, as my daddy always said, "Just 'cuz you can't find it, don't mean it don't exist."
DONALD:
Stalk of the Celery Monster is a 1979 short animated film written, directed and animated entirely in pencil by Tim Burton during his time as a student with Cal Arts. The film caused such a stir among his class, which included future Pixar director John Lasseter, that it attracted the attention of Disney, who offered the young Burton a position as animator for their studio.
ANONYMOUS:
And according to imdb, if you enjoyed Stalk of the Celery Monster, they also recommend Doctor of Doom, The World of Stainboy and Frankenweenie. Ho-kay!
ANONYMOUS;
I guess all those years of being green really took their toll on Kermit. Poor little feller.(Note: Don't click that link if you're offended by Muppet debauchery.)
04.09.07 -- It's Not Easy Being Green
Puzzle by J. K. Hummel
This little lost Monday puzzle states its “theme” as “GREEN” (39A Like the starts of the answers to the six starred clues); however, none of the “starred clues’” answers are green per se, except CELERYSTALK and “celery” by itself is not a shade of green -- see Wikipedia "Shades of Green". Maybe that doesn’t matter. This looks like a construction that got completely re-clued before going to press. It’s almost an Earth Day or St. Patrick’s Day puzzle (neither of which we had this year). Hollywood gave Al Gore an OSCAR for “An Inconvenient Truth”, but the New York Times doesn’t give it to anyone (5A High Hollywood honor), so let’s take that election away from Gore also and in trying to help the “GREEN” theme, give it to that other “OSCAR” on Sesame Street. At least he's the right color!
Illustrations: OSCAR, FORESTFIRE, AVOCADOPIT, PEASOUP, OLIVEBRANCH, OSCAR, PINESAP.
04.08.07 -- IN OTHER WORDS...
Read this -- don’t waste your time doing this nasty Sunday construction which is more akin to a big-grid Saturday with an ort of a theme thrown to the solver -- after struggling through numerous coy clues and arcane answers my postganglionic neurons were flat on their back.
“In Other Words” (title of puzzle) indicates anagrammed words -- the long answers have one or two un-anagrammed words mixed with an anagrammed word or words that relate to two other anagrammed word(s) which cross each other in the four corners of the grid. Each of the four long answers indicate the elusiveness of the anagrams with the words "masked", "in disguise", "undercover" and "secret".
50D MASKEDAVENGERS = 96D ENGRAVERS and 123A NERVEGAS, 67A BLESSINGINDISGUISE = 127A BSINGLES and 91D GLIBNESS, 76A UNDERCOVERFBIAGENT = 23A BEINGFAT and 19D FANGBITE, 93A SECRETADMIRERS = 24A = DISARMER and 5D MARRIEDS
Hanging dead-center of the puzzle there is REDRUM (11D clued as "reverse mantra of 'The Shining'"), which is an anagram of "murder", and an antigram ("red rum"), dangling from the top of the work like a dagger and presiding over this slice-and-dice, mix-and-match clever construction like a monstrous clue. There, I’ve spoiled it! Be glad! -- unless you have nothing better to do this Easter Sunday (hey, there’s a subject for a “theme” -- but no!). Hell, you may want to unearth some words that no one ever uses, such as AMARANTH, ENTRAINS, ECUS, NAIAD, CARNELIAN, AITCH, DELED, TAVERNER, MOLOCH, and VENTI. Maybe devious cluing is your FORTE (Piano’s counterpart), then you’ll enjoy “It begins here” AITCH, “pommes frites accompanier” SEL, “what goes to your nose to make noise?", ANI. Maybe initialed answers like BGIRLS, BSINGLES, FTSMITH, FBIAGENT, TBAR, UPENN, ALGEBRAI or just initials themselves, EMI, LGA, RNA, LBJ, MGM, PAC, DSL -- oh, how’s your grasp of the other languages to help you with HAUS, ESTADOS, SEL, NISI, CIELO, and places like the SAONE, or obscure gods and actresses? -- they're all right? Well, if they are, then don't read this! -- for the love of Heaven, do the puzzle!!! Illustrations: 11D (Reverse mantra of "The Shining") REDRUM, and 99A (Caravaggio’s “The Sacrifice of _____“) ISAAC .
Left click to enlarge. Puzzle by Byron Walden - Edited by Will Shortz
04.07.07 -- In A Perfect World...
Puzzle by Michael Shteyman
The answers in this puzzle of no"theme" that crossed the whole grid (INAPERFECTWORLD, THINKINGOUTLOUD, GALAPERFORMANCE, SILENTTREATMENT, HUGECONTROVERSY, NICCOLOPAGANINI, EVENINGRUSHHOUR) came to me easily while I spent most of my time pondering over diminutive fill. It just became perfunctory bookkeeping once the unrelated 15-letter answers were complete. Further, nothing seemed to relate to anything else, not that it should, but it makes it a lot more interesting. That said, this type of construction must take a bit of imagination to compose; however, in this case, the solver gets nothing from the experience except “well, it’s done!
38A INAPERFECTWORLD Hieronymous Bosch. Garden of Earthly Delights. 1510
38A INAPERFECTWORLD Hieronymous Bosch. Garden of Earthly Delights. 1510
04.06.07 -- FRIDAY FARRAGO
Puzzle by Will Nediger
Ever look at the clues for a puzzle and think “word”? -- "the clue for all entries is word ”. Today’s crossword looked that way to me when I first read the list of clues -- I found nothing! Well, I went to the bottom and saw 58A, “Order of roses”, hedged a bet for ONEDOZEN and worked my way up the grid via CADIZ, CEASE, HALO, HASTO, SAMESIZE (wrong!), IVEHADIT, HID and FLATTEN. End. Nothing. So I let it be and came back later to start back at the top -- I knew TONY, but I kept thinking "Carousel" (which doesn’t fit) -- suddenly it hit me, its OKLAHOMA! Down I went, FLAMEWAR, MAYHAP, ARSENAL! When I got back to SAMESIZE, it turned into LIFESIZE. From there to the bottom left of the puzzle quickly filled and I was half finished. Always feel like I’m on my way when there’s a full stream of filled-in squares from top to bottom. Loved seeing FLAMEWAR after yesterdays FLAME (both utilizing synonymous clues). “Flaming” is reacting to someone's newsgroup posting or e-mail in a hostile manner by publicly chastising the person or bombarding the person with nasty e-mail. Flaming may occur to users who ask stupid questions or who engage in behavior that violates what is considered proper online "netiquette". A flame war occurs when two or more users flame each other in an escalating manner that threatens to continue unabated. Yesterdays clue for FLAME read “scathing online criticism”, today’s FLAMEWAR, “result of provocative posters?” The right half of this construction took a little more effort and a bit of Wite-Out® (see here "Why Do the NYT Puzzle in Ink?" -- 03.19.07) and was every bit as miscellaneous as the left. Particularly liked MOONUNIT, VERTIGO, CODEX and FLIES, each answer I got seemed like I'd solved a mini-puzzle in itself. I finished somewhere around CEASE. Looking at the overall, there’s the duality of CIVICS and CIVILIZE and the locality of MEXICO! -- could it be Rex Parker in Cancun -- see Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle for explanation. TGIF!
Illustrations: Above -- 26A CODEX. Below -- 34A Kim Novak as Judy Barton and Madeleine Elster in Alfred Hitchcock's "VERTIGO" ; 2D FLAMEWAR; singular of 24D PANTS and 44A FLIES; 8D LOUISXIV; 41D Cancun MEXICO. Left click to enlarge images or puzzle.
04.04.07 -- H2O
Puzzle by Bette Sue Cohen
Four theme answers JOANRIVERS, CLAUDERAINS, BILLYOCEAN and ETHELWATERS anchored by H2O in the center of the grid make this a tidy little Wednesday puzzle. Added in for good measure are UNDERSEA and EELS.
Images: Above - H2O -- Below - 20A Captain Renault player in "Casablanca"; 11D “Enter Talking” autobiographer, 1986; 29D Singer with the 1984 hit “Caribbean Queen”; 57A Oscar nominee for “Pinky,” 1949; 5D Like Costeau’s work; 13D They’re caught in pods. Left click to enlarge images or puzzle.
04.03.07 -- Double Double
Puzzle by David Quarfoot and Mike Nothnagel
Three films whose clues (20A. Eddie Murphy/Nick Nolte double feature?; 38A George Clooney/Brad Pitt double feature?, Jessica Alba/Chris Evans double feature?) have the number contained in their titles (“48 Hours“, “Ocean’s 11“, and “Fantastic 4”) multiplied by 2, sprawling 14 letters horizontally across the grid to become NINETYSIXHOURS, OCEANSTWENTYTWO and FANTASTICEIGHT. The clues might more accurately read “doubled” rather than “double” and someone will point out something in defense of the clues’ usage -- uh, like the question mark indicates that a dispute between “double” or “doubled” to have been anticipated…or…the non-existence of such titles, or….who cares! It’s just cute cluing and that’s the point, isn’t it?
Glad to see ZSA (Zsa Zsa) (46D "When doubled , a Gabor") is cued correctly. Yes, she’s still around (clue, "Zsa Zsa's number of times around the sun"; answer, NINETY)! Liked seeing MANET (17A “Olympia” artist) and SHEBA (27D Biblical queendom), but other than those three references, the rest is just splattered fill for the three theme answers, much like Quarfoot’s puzzle READMYLIPS NONEWTAXES puzzle of last week (see BUSH MUSH BUSH -- 03.30.07). The fill was better this time, two heads (Quarfoot and Nothnagel) are better than one…uh, double that! Now, now, don’t get your knickers in a twist, I liked the puzzle!
Images -- Above: Suzanne Duchamp (French, 1889-1963). Broken and Re-Established Multiplication (Multiplication brisée et rétablie), 1918-19. Below: Advertisements for "48 Hours", Ocean's Eleven", and "Fantastic Four" (20A, 38A and 54A); Zsa Zsa Gabor (46D); Gustave Dore's "Solomon Receiving the Queen of Sheba"; and Edouard MANET's "Olympia" (17A) -- left click to enlarge images and puzzle.
04.02.07 -- Latin Lover
Puzzle by Richard Hughes
Three 15-letter Latin phrases each stretching completely across the grid, AMOR VINCIT OMNIA (love conquers all), NON COMPOS MENTIS (not of sound mind), PERSONA NON GRATA (an unwelcome person), bracketed at the beginning and end of the puzzle with LATIN and LOVER, with the sad little notation "Shuffles off this mortal coil" as a clue for DIES, which "Latin Lover" Rudolph Valentino did most famously. This grid is PEPPERY with other pseudo-Latin and Latin Lover fill. One could almost join the three phrases into a spurned lover’s lament -- or they could serve as an exercise from Latin 101 for those who love Latin! This is a wonderful little Monday puzzle.
Pictured: 1A, 71A and 28A (Rudolph Valentino Dies), 39A (Anthony Perkins in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”), 20A ("Amor Victorious" by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio), 57A (Napoleon Bonaparte) -- left click to enlarge images and puzzle .
It’s sad when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. I can’t allow them to think I would commit murder. They’ll put him away now as I should have years ago. He was always bad and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man. As if I could do anything but just sit and stare like one of his stuffed birds. They know I can’t move a finger and I want to just sit here and be quiet just in case they suspect me. They’re probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of person I am. I’m not even going to swat that fly. I hope they’re watching. They’ll see. They’ll see and they’ll say, “Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly.”
It’s sad when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. I can’t allow them to think I would commit murder. They’ll put him away now as I should have years ago. He was always bad and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man. As if I could do anything but just sit and stare like one of his stuffed birds. They know I can’t move a finger and I want to just sit here and be quiet just in case they suspect me. They’re probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of person I am. I’m not even going to swat that fly. I hope they’re watching. They’ll see. They’ll see and they’ll say, “Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly.”
04.01.07 --Sunday, Bloody Sunday
The ides of March has come and gone this year, but this Sunday, Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon have conspired to present us with an EXCURSUS (word entry P. 72, 159, 105, 58, 2, 90, 45, 136) from Palm Sunday, a bloody affair in the Forum known as the assassination of Julius Caesar. Acrostics are a lot of “bookkeeping” so to speak -- a good amount of time is consumed transferring letter by letter, alphabetically and numerically, from line to square or from square to line. To add to this difficulty, The New York Times allows the most meager area in which to enter answers to the defined words listed alphabetically. Nevertheless, the acrostic is a puzzle I admire when considering the difficulty in construction that it must entail. Not only do we get a quote of some worth (in most cases), but also the author of the quote’s name and the title of the publication (via the first letter of the words defined). Guessing a word from the majority of letters achieved in the grid is not always possible and sometimes very misleading due to the fact that many of these constructions utilize odd quotations --- so in this case we have (in part) “HAD HE SAID HW WX EUXWH INSTEAD…” Now that's an answer that slays me! Sunday, bloody Sunday! (Image: The Assassination of Caesar by Camuccini) Left click to enlarge illustration or puzzle.
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