July 15, 2017

The NYT crossword has BALLS and DICK at the top of the puzzle grid today.

And Rex Parker is angry.
Did he have a bet with his friends as to how much sexual material and innuendo he could cram in here. ARSE and SEX and KNELT and BLEW (!) and, I don't know, MELON? Ugh. SO BAD. Actually, more SAD than bad...
All the boldfaced words there are in the puzzle. The BALLS and DICK in the top row are actually AMAZEBALLS and DICK. DICK is clued as "Veep between Al and Joe." (ARSE, by the way, is clued as "Seat in Parliament.")

Here's the NYT column about the puzzle. The puzzle's author, Zach Spitz, is 20 years old. He writes:
I made this puzzle last summer, after watching too much of the Republican National Convention. I don’t think I consciously tried to make a Trump-themed puzzle...
Trump themed! Not frat-boy-sex themed. Trump themed.
... but let’s just say that my seed answers were TAX EVASION up top and TWEET STORM down below. Given that, I’m especially pleased with the bottom right corner, which turned out very ... presidential. 25-Across!
25-Across is SAD.
I can only assume that the editors sensed the vibe, because they changed my original clues for 25- and 28-Across [ATROCIOUS] and made them both “Deplorable.”...

61 comments:

Skipper said...

Just one more reason to work for the demise of the the putrid anachronism called the NYT.

rcocean said...

He writes it up and then he Spitz it out.

rcocean said...

How much longer before the NYT is printing Cunt, fuck, and motherfucker?

Isn't that standard Lib speak on most American Campuses?

Unknown said...

More True:

Every answer should be "Russia"

rcocean said...

That said, aren't "Balls" and "Dick" rather commonplace these days?

In the old days, women were the bulwark against profanity in public. As a kid, I can remember a women actually slapping a man at a restaurant for using "foul language"

The older women simply wouldn't tolerate it, and considered it "disrespectful".

Today, they probably consider it a compliment to be called a cunt.

Paco Wové said...

Dirtbag crosswords for a dirtbag readership.

campy said...

A Trump-themed puzzle should contain PUSSY.

George M. Spencer said...

I hear the new Bazooka Joe cartoons also condemn Trump.

traditionalguy said...

The Antifas are probably taking Meth and sharpening their bayonets. The Soros Whistle is about to blow.

Fabi said...

"What's a five letter word for 'life long Republican'?"

Gahrie said...

To the Left everything is political.

n.n said...

The overlay of external stimuli either amplifies or suppresses native patterns. Spitz may want get to get his mental state reviewed. It reveals a weird and potentially progressive obsession with sexual objectification.

Narayanan said...

@Fabi ... TRUMP ... He was lost and now he has found the way!!!

Kevin said...

Nothing about FAKENEWS, CNN, FAILINGNYT, PUSSY, SOCALLEDJUDGE or TWEET?

What a weak attempt at a Trump puzzle.

Anonymous said...

Ann, we are being overwhelmed today with modern culture(?): art that isn't art; words for snowflakes; a couple of foppy kids confused about gender - I guess it really was Vogue that was confused -and now an "obscene crossword". Makes you wonder what is going on out there. Too hot, too much sun, slow news day? It's another hot day in the midwest; we'll do anything for entertainment? Maybe the underlying message is that people in NY, and similar places, are just as "clingy" as the deplorables without the beer and brats.

h said...

In recent years, I more and more see public discourse through the prism of virtue signaling which so often takes the form of "woke-signaling". I let my boy wear dresses -- see how woke I am? I have a BLM sign on my lawn, see how woke I am? "Holier than thou" has transformed into "woker than thou". And showing off intensity of anti-Trumpness is a way of demonstrating "woker than thou", or at least pretty darn woke. Anti-trump jokes don't need to be funny. Accusations need to be intensified ("not simply corruption, treason!"). And bad language is an intensifier -- "he's not simply a traitor, he's a f---ing traitor!" It's not a way of making an argument more coherent or convincing, it's a way of showing that that the arguer is a better person, a more woke person.

tcrosse said...

The NYT crossword appears in newspapers across the country. This one should hit the stands in a few weeks. I wonder how it will be received west of Tenth Avenue.

Fabi said...

Also a good answer, Narayanan Subramanian!

Darrell said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCAD-yNB74k&feature=youtu.be


Trump to NYT: You are fake, too.

rcocean said...

I'm always amused at the NYT dislike of some profanity. I mean aren't they liberals?

They did a study of liberal vs. Conservative websites and found the liberals used profanity at x5 times the rate of Conservatives. Of course, the liberals called that "bullshit". Its not that they actually believed that, they just thought it was bad P.R. for the Left to be thought of a "potty mouths".

I can remember when the tea party started and the liberal started calling them "tea baggers". What the fuck was that, I thought. Oh, it was some weird oral sex phrase that the all people in the MSM were totally familiar with.

Okey-dokey.

Anyway, I predict the NYT will be using the phrases cunt, fuck and motherfucker in 3 years.

'Cause otherwise they're "prudes".

rhhardin said...

Cunt is a great word. Huge performance possibilities.

Some man thought it up. He needed the just word.

rhhardin said...

Dick and balls were also thought up by men, but they didn't have the same need for them as for cunt, so they're lesser words.

rhhardin said...

Women's words are pussy words like the curse. Women lack motivation.

rhhardin said...

Probably dick and balls were first needed for limericks.

There was a man from St Paul

rhhardin said...

Mary had a little lamb
It was a little runt
It stuck its nose beneath her dress
And shoved it in her

what do you want, teacher, prose or poetry?

Prose, please.

Asshole.

rhhardin said...

Bring back the pleasures of boys' grade school to the NYT.

The fix for a thousand evils.

rhhardin said...

College level, 4 across

Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village though
He will not mind if here I sit
To watch his word fill up with ____

rhhardin said...

four letters, starts with s

rhhardin said...

woods fill up, not word

David said...

"He will not mind if here I sit
To watch his word fill up with ____"

Letters, of course.

Kylos said...

Reading the NYT, article the author said the editors swapped out a different word with dick.

Earnest Prole said...

BALLS and DICK.

Thanks, I've always wanted to simultaneously ALL CAPS and BOLD something once before I died, and I just did it twice.

Jim at said...

If the Times isn't working overtime to get Trump re-elected, just what would they be doing differently?

Achilles said...

I fear Carlos Slim is not getting much out of his investment in that rag.

I suppose he keeps the idiot readership of the NYT properly focused on his agenda.

Be said...

Four letters, starts with "S." Seed. Seed. Unless you're a lover of a certain kind of scat, which is a 10 letter word starting with C and ending with E.

***

Then there's the other lover of scat, which could be considered a Jazzer, I guess.

mezzrow said...

I read this and think of Vonnegut. It reads like something from a later Vonnegut novel. That would make this world a dystopia of some sort to some minds. It would seem so if I had read this in the 80's. Especially with Trump involved.

You could make an argument.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see...

rehajm said...

Why does tax evasion fit the 'theme'?

Unless the 'theme' is ____ from the left that helped get Trump elected?

Bay Area Guy said...

The NY Times crossword puzzle is obviously Communust agitprop.......

h said...


Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village though
He will not mind if here I sit
To watch his word fill up with ____

It would have been more clever if you had spelled it "world" instead of "word". I assume that is the typo.

Unknown said...

The NYT has plagiarized Laslo. Fact. Not opinion.

Ralph L said...

The NYT papergirls should sue for their hostile work environment.

n.n said...

The NY Times crossword puzzle is obviously Communust agitprop

Social-ist agitprop.

I can't decide if it's sexist, progressive, or androphobic. It's clearly hostile to women, and their little dogs, too.

glenn said...

The Dems are pushing the obscenity envelope because they think we won't respond in kind. They never learn.

chuck said...

That's so cute, the Times is trying to speak prolish. At least as they imagine it.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

Crosswords in Hilbert Space.

Simplified pre-post graduate MIT level.

Solve: Paul Krugman’s Affordable Eternal Life Act (NYT version):

Telomere extensions for quantity “ax” infinite series,

Penis extensions for quality “bx” infinite series,

No mineshaft gap (despite the negative: this is a positive definite) ax, bx ≥ 0

Costs infinite in [solve for this] directions.

robother said...

Always wondered what Beavis and Butthead would turn to in their "adult" years.

Rae said...

The New York Times is now a Mexican owned real estate company that sidelines as a trashy supermarket tabloid.

The best thing to come out of the Trump presidency will be the destruction of the Old Order of the Fifth Estate.

Drago said...

The last thing you want to be is a contributor to the NYT or a politburo member and be seen to stop applauding first......

Jon Ericson said...

Bevis and Butthead's "splooge stooges".

https://youtu.be/4_cmvvA7PGE

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Watch Norm McDonald Live on YouTube and discover a proper use of fowl language.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

“Always wondered what Beavis and Butthead would turn to in their ‘adult’ years.”

There’s mercy in the lifecycle to grow up.

At the mean, Beavis and Butthead might look like Trump, through Greg Mankiw’s eyes. “My Take on Mr. Trump.”

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2016/08/my-take-on-mr-trump.html

Mankiw, whatever, if Trump doesn’t get substance victories, and some substance, he’ll be “gambling for resurrection.” Maybe against Kochs (undercover) and Bloomberg (above cover: running for Prez).

Bloomberg should not be mistaken for substance-less Beavis and Butthead.

God help us if Trump goes Bill Clinton with military strikes gambling for resurrection, in the heart of failed-substance scandals.

Gambling for resurrection doesn’t look pretty in half-mummy wraps.

Clyde said...

Spitz is the right age to be a sophomore, appropriately enough.

vanderleun said...

You can bet that Zach Spitz spent the first part of his career being passed around the Times with a box of Kleenex. It'll end the same way except he'll have to buy the Kleenex.

Bad Lieutenant said...

vanderleun said..

OH NO YOU DI'INT! 🤤🤣😱😂

Michael Fitzgerald said...

I read your headline, and I knew the "reason" was gonna be "Trump made me do it." ...Yup.

It's a good thing the NYT has never assailed president Trump for coarse verbiage or uncouth remarks he may have made, otherwise publishing a vulgar crossword puzzle composed by a potty-mouth progressive frat boy would be hypocrisy. Unless Trump made you do it...

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

My little crossword puzzle for your enjoyment

1 ACROSS - An insignificant but annoyingly loud pooch
5 DOWN - What Hitler kept his ball in

Solution

Quaestor said...

My improved little acrostic for your amusement.

1 ACROSS - An insignificant but annoyingly loud pooch
4 DOWN - They tried to kill him, too
5 DOWN - What Hitler kept his ball in
6 ACROSS - Hillary is probably this
6 DOWN - Often heard at the Jacob Javitz Center last November 8th
7 DOWN - 45 made a fortune with these
8 ACROSS - Egyptian deity
10 ACROSS - Common preposition
12 ACROSS - Would be 45 if everybody was a sophomoric as 1 ACROSS
13 DOWN - Stirred
14 DOWN - 12 ACROSS would have been better off to have spent more time here or none at all
19 ACROSS - Often heard at the Jacob Javitz Center after 6 DOWN
23 ACROSS - 43's middle initial
24 ACROSS - Heard a lot lately from NYT staffers

Solution

Laslo Spatula said...

1 across: Tilt (something) in a particular direction.

1 down: the hammer in the lock of a firearm

5 across: the adult male of the domestic chicken

5 down: a device (such as a faucet or valve) for regulating the flow of a liquid

I am Laslo.