Thank you everyone for solving my puzzle! Excited to see all the personal best times and folks learning new things from the puzzle.
@Nate I actually finished over average, but I think that was because I was enjoying it so much.
@Nate Thank you for a nice puzzle. Very rarely do I get the long answers on the first try, and today I did with NOT MY FIRST RODEO, which felt great. I needed crosses to put me on the track of SAN ANTONIO SPURS, but I filled that in reasonably quickly, too. In the end though I did not get a personal best, because of confusion over the crossing of STAN_ and POR_ BARREL. STANK is a word I see very rarely, and I did know PORK BARREL as an expression, and I lost several minutes figuring out that crossing. That was on Polish me, though. Very pleasant puzzle.
@Nate Loved this fun and breezy Monday with an original theme and a nod to the brilliant Ted Lasso. I appreciate your insightful comments about the show's vision of masculinity. Also it offers a powerful portrayal of mental health issues and the benefits of finding a great therapist. Many thanks for a fantastic Monday!
My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Cool place in a hot place (5) 2. Concern for the 1%? (4)(7) 3. Common spots for autographs (6)(5) 4. Breeze for the beach, maybe (4)(4) 5. Olympic bars? (8)(6) OASIS DEAD BATTERY DOTTED LINES EASY READ NATIONAL ANTHEM
@Lewis Just curious, why was your best of 2023 a Top 9 list? (Not 5 or 10?)
I'm absolutely thrilled - after a year of doing puzzles (mostly Mon/Tue/Wed), this is the first time I've solved a puzzle so quickly without any help. I'm not a native English speaker (and don't live in the US), so sometimes some words are obscure (23A for example). I had a lot of fun this morning and the dopamine hit is real. Thanks Nate!
So POUTINE is now well enough known to appear as a Monday NYT xword answer! I emigrated to Québec some 40+ years ago, but I've only eaten poutine once. That was some 15 yrs ago when my coworkers learned that I'd never tried it, and took (herded) me to the greasy spoon (La Belle Province) across the street from the office in Longueuil. I ate most of it, out of politeness. It was very salty. I love many iconic Quebec and Montreal specialties, including tourtière, tarte au sucre, smoked meat, and Saint-Viateur bagels. But I will never be able to stomach poutine. And here's an alternate clue for POUTINE (for a Friday or Saturday, maybe): Russian president, to a Rimouskois **** Bonne année à cette belle communauté du NYTxword!
Esmerelda, Great story! I think the crosses were gentle enough for a Monday appearance by POUTINE. There have been POUTINE jokes here in the comments, and this was not a debut. Sun Dec 18, 2022 96A Québécois dish of French fries, cheese curds and gravy Ryan McCarty
@Esmerelda My friend who grew up in upstate New York literally within easy walking distance of the Canadian border, something like an hour from Montreal, had never heard of poutine, and didn't believe that it existed when I described it. She finally had to admit it was real when we found it on a menu. In British Columbia. At a Dairy Queen. And she didn't care for it.
@Esmerelda They have a counter-service restaurant that serves a few varieties of poutine in the Disney Springs shopping area in Walt Disney World. I wasn't impressed but it was edible.
The rodeo without male cows got the no-bull prize. (I couldn't steer clear of that one.)
@Mike The Torero has been shot. Roundup the usual suspects.
If you served the Canadian fries-and-gravy dish on the right crackers, you could call it POUTINE on the Ritz. / / / / It might become a Meme U.
what would we ever do w/o puns? tnx dutchiris
Excellent puzzle! with a lot of delightful stuff. And POUTINE.
Nate the Great, well done, sir. A very tight and smooth puzzle. Sam, I love the column photo. I assume "swelled heads" is in plural because it's describing both the champion cabbage and the champion grower. Now, let's see, can we make POUTINE from the fill? WEDGEs of russet potatoes - check. PEEL or not, hmm? OIL for frying - check. Wait, all we have is FETA for the cheese curds? I guess I'll have to make this Greek-style. I think I can get away with that since we're in MALTA. DIET SODAS for anyone who's thirsty. Cheers.
@Henry Su My take was the photo referred to 31A. The guy just had a Red Bull and now he's racing down the road pushing his 54 pound cabbage. But then, if that's not a swelled head I don't know what would be, so I am inclined to agree with your interpretation. Senorita Corbin has not lost her touch as we move into the new year!
Just a little R.E.S.P.E.C.T for this puzzle and 13D <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A134hShx_gw" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A134hShx_gw</a>
@Ann That's a long time favorite of mine. Couldn't help but note that one line of that song is quite appropriate for tricky clues in crossword puzzles: "Find out what it means to me." You know, like 'emus.' ..
@Ann, Did anyone else sing softly to themself as they filled this one in? 🎶 R E S, P EEE C T …
I got it, I got it, I got it!!! Without looking!!! Word for word!!!! NOT MY FIRST RODEO! Yay!!! Of course it helped that this was the only RODEO phrase I could think of. I didn't think it made the perfect revealer, especially-- I wanted something about things you find at a rodeo. But there's no such phrase. Trying to guess the revealer gave my brain something to do during this very, very easy solve. The only other thinking I had to do was guess whether the kealoa would be WHIRLS or TWIRLS. But even though easy, I applaud this puzzle for a smooth-as-silk grid and for two grid spanners. I guess that's enough for a Monday.
Wow, the first (at least in recent memory) crossword I’ve solved by myself!
I have a friend, let's call him Leo, whose diet of Red Bull soda and poutine has made him into a bit of a pork barrel (although he would correct you and call himself a sow, genders being pretty fluid these days). He has a showdog named Dean from Malta -- but not a Maltese -- that he took to the Westminster show, but Dean proved to be erratic, whirling when he should have swirled, ignoring all of Leo's oral commands, including "Psst!" which had always worked in the past, and he finally got loose, having stretched his leash so taut it broke, and peeled off to a cheese store to roll around in feta, then dashed back out again, straight back to the dog show and stood in front of Leo wagging his tail and shaking off the feta, which flew off him in arcs reminiscent of some Tim Duncan jumpers. This incited a riot among the senoras' chihuahuas, and it got pretty hormonal (if they were human you'd have seen some sexts, or is that TMI?) One judge opined that the dog stank and refused to select him for the final round. "That dog don't hunt," he said. It took a visit to a Tea Tree outlet to get their special oil shampoo before Dean was entirely clean. Dean stared up at Leo as if asking, "What now?" "Those dog people are all bores to panic over something like that. We're getting no respect at all here. Let's get some potato wedges," Leo said to Dean. "Then you can do some CPR on me when I have a heart attack." Nice puzzle, Nate, you definitely came in under par!
@john ezra Very well done! (I had to google Tim Duncan to confirm he was indeed on the Spurs.)
5 minutes no lookups. Love. Good Monday puzzle with some solid entries. Respect to the greatest power forward of all time. TIM duncan!
Oh, gorgeous-looking and peaceful-feeling grid, so lovely that it has its own First Place sash. Its beauty is backed up by a polished junk-free grid. Top notch construction all the way around. With some sweet serendipities. An ACTS up. Rhyming crossers SELECT and RESPECT. The OW-OW-OW angling down in the SE. WHIRLS in the same line as LASSO. And SPORE over SPUR. What a terrific clue for POET – [Versin’ person?]! Also, I find it amazing that in its 80 years, this is the first time the NYT crossword has had SAN ANTONIO SPURS as an answer (nor has it appeared in any of the major crossword outlets!). High RESPECT for your creation, Nate, which brought spark to my day. Thank you, sir!
Personal Best for a Monday: 3 min 21 sec. No lookups or hints. Just a good, clean solve because, after all, this is NOT MY FIRST RODEO.
The hotel I work at host a lot of visiting professional sports teams, mainly NHL and NBA, which allows me to interact directly, if briefly, with the players. Of the NBA teams, I can say that the San Antonio Spurs are the most polite.
@Bill Wow! Have you seen Wembanyama yet? He's amazing to watch on the court.
My crossword approach is maybe not efficient, but I like it: I start off by going through every single across clue without cross-referencing or looking at the downs, then all the down clues where cross-referencing is allowed. This is the first time ever that I've solved a puzzle in a single sweep of going through the across once and the downs once and not circling back at all! SO SATISFYING
@Lisa B I like to do that on Mondays as well. It's a sprint, and if I can get all the across clues, I feel I've won the race. But my eyes are all over the place while solving, and I'll definitely glance at a down clue if I'm even slightly hesitant about the across answer.
@Lisa B I use the same strategy, and I like doing it in list view on my phone. Fewer distractions than looking at the whole grid to start with! Then after I’ve been through all the clues once, I go back and look at the grid for the rest of the solve. Congrats on your one pass today!
A nice and easy Monday puzzle to start the work week, and like a few commenters here, a PB for me too! (less than half my Monday average).
Well, yeeee-yaw!! After a very tough (for me) last three days of crosswords, I got back in the saddle again with Monday's puzzle and had a rootin' tootin' grand ole time! Don't worry—that's about the extent of my rodeo-ish-speak, but feel free to whoa Nellie me if you like! I've never finished a puzzle in under ten minutes—until today—besting my typical Monday by half or so! It was good fun to sail through it! A good confidence rebuilder, as well! I have no idea about basketball teams that aren't in WI or MN, but I got SAN ANTONIO SPURS entirely by crosses and got the revealer with nothing but the clue and TED LASSO. Speaking of, we treated ourselves to a new TV last week, and it came with a three-month Apple TV subscription, so I suppose it's time for me to watch the good coach, at long last! I still got the answer immediately because so many people in my life love the show! Favorite: RESPECT—a great song that I love, and Aretha deserves all kinds of RESPECT! Least favorite: also RESPECT—because I reckon the song will be playing on repeat in my head for the next several days now... ;-) Still, I've had Afternoon Delight in my head all day today, and anything that replaces that will be welcome!! Thank you, Mr. Cardin!
@HeathieJ I hope you had a”Afternoon Delight” in your mind for good reason. Otherwise, *shudder*!
I need to clean my laptop screen -- I initially read 64A as "Certain risqué massage", and thought, whoa, where is this headed?
This was a very fun, very clean puzzle. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's always fun to fill in spanners like SAN ANTONIO SPURS and NOTMYFIRSTRODEO immediately.
I don’t usually pay attention to my times but this was my fastest! I’ve been honing my Monday skillz for about four years and so it’s no longer my first rodeo!!! I’m home caring for my sweetie who has Covid for the first time. Pow! It’s been a long week. Stay healthy, puzzlers. If you get sick, don’t panic! Wear a mask in public, use yer hand sanitizer, stay hydrated, and watch some Ted Lasso.
The easiest puzzle I have ever solved and my first-ever downs only solve.
Like many others, a personal best today! I especially appreciated the inclusion of RESPECT because I’m just starting to learn how to sing it for an upcoming show. Such iconic songs require care to even remotely do them justice.
@Rachel Maybe avoid a simple mimic. Hard to compete directly. Try some unique phrasing leading up to the refrain. It worked for Sinatra and Ella when covering standards.
This puzzle left me thirsty. DIET SODAS, REDBULLS, a MUG of half-CAF, and a TEAtree. All sorts of FLUIDS. The theme was solid enough. And, as is appropriate for a Monday, the fill was POUTINE. Oops, I meant routine.
@Xword Junkie Oops, didn't you mean 'liquids'? (See above) Poutine! tee hee
Oh this was lovely! Tight clean fill, rollicking themes, and nary an Oreo to be found. Thank you Nate!
For the first time I completed a Monday puzzle in under 10 minutes without needing a single hint! If that's not the bee's knees I don't know what is!
Fun puzzle that even my crossword-hating skiing companion might have enjoyed. (Deborah is a big Spurs fan, and it’s probably only because of Deborah and her husband Greg that I immediately knew the answer to the Tim Duncan clue.) I second Nate Cardin’s praise for “Ted Lasso.” It’s both genuinely funny and moving, so much so that when we decided to cancel our Apple TV+ subscription, we watched all three seasons a second time. It deserves every Emmy it won. You don’t need to be a soccer fan to enjoy the show, but knowing a little about the game helps. I can’t pass up the opportunity to post a link to a favorite song: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/3nrbp9wc" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/3nrbp9wc</a> Thanks, Mr. Cardin!
@Eric Hougland agreed! Ted Lasso is fantastic, from a Spurs fan (Tottenham, not San Antonio :P )
Don’t be jelly, I just Monday-PBed! cc: emu handler
easy one! Nice under 5 minutes with no look ups. Love a monday to build that confidence. Mad RESPECT
Fun and straightforward! I solved PORKBARREL through crosses without knowing what it referred to - so I looked that up and learned something new today. Great start to the week!
For the Buffyphiles, the Sunday puzzle theme revealer was the title of the incredible musical episode (I posted about it Saturday evening, but it never went through…). Today we get “Where do we go from here?” - the title of the final number in the musical! They are really getting the mustard out.
@David Connell Nobody ever gets it when I sing Bunnies, bunnies. It might be bunnies. But never emus.
@David Connell Nobody ever gets it when I sing Bunnies, bunnies. It might be bunnies. But never emus. With the clip. <a href="https://youtu.be/gISEekxuEgk?si=zYp0bauPGCL5uDey" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/gISEekxuEgk?si=zYp0bauPGCL5uDey</a>
The wads a wonderful puzzle that came together easily and elegantly! Congratulations, Nate: I hope you are doing well! - Bill
My wife and I do the puzzle together every day and often note how our average solve times on the Stats page reflect the much-touted increase in difficulty of each puzzle from Monday to Saturday. The only exception being Thursdays, which have a greater increase over Wednesday, likely because we sometimes we struggle with the Thursday trick that week (still fun, though!). So we decided to do some basic analysis of the increase in solve times between each day. For the ~3200 puzzles we've done (love the archives!) and taking out (or "normalizing") Thursday, the percentage increase in average solve time is remarkably consistent about 28% (a bit larger percentage increase from Tu to Wed). Even the increase in average solve time from Saturday (hardest) to Sunday (bigger grid, but less difficult) is nearly identical to the other days of the week, Thursday excepted. This indicates, over time, how really well the editors and constructors consistently adjust the difficulty level for each day of the week. Pretty amazing. Here are our numbers, showing the percent increase in average solve time between consecutive days. it would be interesting to see if others' Stats page show similar consistency. M-Tu: 27.3% Tu-W: 32.6% F-Sat: 26.7% Sat-Sun: 28.2% And if you look at the Wed-Fri difference in our average solve times (thereby ignoring the inevitable tricky Thursday anomalies) and divide the increased average solve time by 2 days, the percentage increase is exactly 28.0%.
@Tom For “average” did you use the mean or the median? Median might be more interesting because it would give less weight to the Thursday “anomalies”. Also, some measure of variability would be interesting to see. Do Thursdays really have a lot more “spread” in the solving times than other puzzles ? Interesting stats. Thanks for posting.
Personal best for a Monday but honestly I don’t think I’ve ever just sat and focused solely on a Monday crossword. Good for me.
A nice quick solve for a Monday, with my only minor glitch being flea for little hopper initially instead of TOAD, but that was easily fixed. Future fungus for SPORE tickled my fancy, while versin’ person for POET made me groan. After two hectic weeks of having houseguests and then being a guest on a trip to D.C. it’s nice to have time to savor the puzzle after solving. A nice shout out to the great Aretha Franklin, and while RESPECT is indubitably a great song, her gospel singing is just as good and well worth checking out.
@Marshall Walthew I always get a kick remembering her pushing Matt Murphy around and singing “Think!” in the Blues Brothers movie.
@Marshall Walthew If you haven't seen the documentary "Amazing Grace" -- about Aretha Franklin's recording of that gospel album -- check it out. It's amazing, and grace-filled.
Very smooth, Mr. Cardin, very smooth indeed. Thank you for that and for spreading so much happiness, like Oprah distributing gifts-- "A PB for you and you and you! PBs for everyone in the audience!" And it's not because it was too easy. It's because it was a really tight and well-crafted Monday puzzle which gave it the *appearance* of being easy. Kudos! A shout-out as well to Joel Fagliano for the clue "Diversion on a long flight." So simple, so elegant. Two choices of diversion and of course I picked the wrong one, laughing at my own thoughts ("...hm, let's see...is it a Boeing 737-9 Max?... can I make Portland fit?...") Bravo and touché, Mr. Fagliano!
2023 POY FINALIST The various Puzzle of the Year Categories can be assessed and voted on via the following links. Please stop by and vote. Sunday POY finalists: <a href="https://nyti.ms/3H5F3ih#permid=130285736" target="_blank">https://nyti.ms/3H5F3ih#permid=130285736</a> Monday to Wednesday Themed POY List: <a href="https://nyti.ms/48K6zgV#permid=130285760" target="_blank">https://nyti.ms/48K6zgV#permid=130285760</a> Thursday POY List: <a href="https://nyti.ms/41RM7IA#permid=130285793" target="_blank">https://nyti.ms/41RM7IA#permid=130285793</a> Friday/Saturday Themeless POY: <a href="https://nyti.ms/47segXW#permid=130285814" target="_blank">https://nyti.ms/47segXW#permid=130285814</a>
@Tito You do know that the Sunday comments are going to close shortly? They're not open as long as they used to be.
@Tito How does one vote? I must consider this as I solve throughout the year so I can remember!
I feel like NOTMYFIRSTRODEO is an old phrase, but according to Google Ngram Viewer, it was almost unheard of until the late 1980s, and then continued to be barely visible until around 2000. But its popularity has skyrocketed since then, and its about 10 times more visible now than in 2000. Was that growth because of some movie or TV show or someone's catch phrase? I don't associate the phrase with anything in particular.
@Moira I think you’ll find your answer here: <a href="https://grammarist.com/idiom/this-aint-my-first-rodeo" target="_blank">https://grammarist.com/idiom/this-aint-my-first-rodeo</a>/ No wire hangers! !!!!
@Moira A little while back Tom Selleck did a commercial for some outfit selling reverse mortgages, where he informs us that "this isn't my first rodeo" and so you can trust him when he tells us that a reverse mortgage isn't some kind of trick to take your home. Seth Meyers astutely asked why he would feel a need to mention that it wasn't some kind of trick in the first place, but I'll just leave it at that.
Fun puzzle and theme, clean and well constructed. I was beginning to think I’d never get another PB, but here it is, so thank you, Nate Cardin!
Because I am a puzzle savant, I have solved some Mondays using only the downs. But I’ve never done one using just the across. It’s much harder, I think, because themers aren’t obvious. Unless you are doing today’s puzzle. So it was a fun challenge for me. I’ll probably never be able to do this again. So thank you Nate.
@Newbie Congratulations on your one-way solving! One way I try to make Monday puzzles more challenging is to get the first theme answer, make a guess as to what the theme is, and then get the rest of the theme answers with as few crosses as possible.
@Newbs How quickly they grow up [she says, having been a Wordplayer only a year or so longer than he]. [grin] Not sure if I’ve ever done across clues only successfully — for all the reasons you list. Nice job, Cali.
Really starting 2024 with a swing beating Monday records one after another - today was my shortest yet, 2/3rds quicker than my average! Thinking it’s time to start braving the later week crosswords…
just a joy.... if only every puzzle every day whether tough or not was so nice to the Brain... good work
Got it with no help. There’s a song for that… Monday, Monday…
Set a new Monday best at 3 min 34 sec (no look-ups - just two clean cycles through). Great way to start the week!
Nice smooth puzzle. None of the theme answers were dawning on me just from the clues, but one run through the downs and they all came together. Will confess that I had to ponder just a bit after I was done to get how all the theme answers worked. Not quite a record Monday time, but close. With my usual answer history searches today, I stumbled across a rather remarkable puzzle. I'll put that in a reply. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: For no explainable reason, one phrase that popped into my head this morning was the Texas poker game: "holdem or foldem." I just wondered about answers that contained the string of letters OLDEM. And that led me to a Sunday puzzle from October 24, 2010 by BEQ with the title "Risky Business." The answer that got me there: HOLDEMCAULFIELD Some other theme answers: CRAPSSUZETTE SLOTSOFLUCK BURTBACCARAT DONTROULETTEOUT STAKEPLATTER Very much in the dad jokes realm. Here's the link to the Xword Info page: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/24/2010&g=30&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/24/2010&g=30&d=A</a> ..
I don't know if they do, but if SPOREs have HORMONEs, I hope they're called spormones. - - - - - - - - - Et tu, emu.
@Lewis Naw.... ain't that an Eye-talian dessert?
I love the photo for this column. Old(er) man grinning widely while taking his prize-winning cabbage for a victory lap.