BART runs along Market Street, intersecting the Embarcadero, not along it (SF MUNI's F line runs along the Embarcadero)
@Arjun Why is it so often the case that *we* have to do fact-checking for them? How embarrassing.
@Arjun yes, this. I had a feeling it was going to be BART because it was 4 letters and obviously “F-Market” doesn’t fit, but as an SF resident, I’m annoyed about it
@Arjun born and raised in SF, my thoughts exactly, and, while I personally was happy, it seems awfully esoteric. Maybe I missed the moment humble Embarcadero became a station like Grand Central that people might know?
Using a terribly obscure brand for an answer, using a non-word like ATTAWAY (not in Merriam-webster) for another, and writing an inapt clue like “view with disdain” (not at all a definition for HATEWATCH) all add up to a poorly designed puzzle.
@Keith Law I thought "view with disdain" was a delightfully deceitful way to clue HATE WATCH. I laughed when I finally got it. .............................................
@Keith Law Hard disagree. ATTAWAY is borderline, but the other two were perfectly good clues. Due to the pun, it's perfectly reasonable to get to INCOGMEATO without familiarity with the brand. And "view with disdain" is a GREAT clue for HATEWATCH.
@Keith Law. Different strokes on this one. I loved INCOGMEATO. First it is a hilarious name for a plant food brand. And with MEAT in the answer (very meta), it is gettable with the crosses. And yes, it is less known than other brands, but that’s OK by me for a Saturday. Also liked HATEWATCH as a fun answer. Took the clue as a hint, not an exact definition . As a NJ Devil fan, I occasionally click into a NY Rangers game. Definitely hate watching!
I’m in Alberta and it’s never abbreviated ALB - it’s AB or Alta.
@Patrick Ryan My goal in life is to find the kind of completely unconditional love that exists between the NYT crossword editors and whoever pays them.
Got stuck in the NW and needed a lookup for the meat substitute. Otherwise very happy with my puzzling the other clues out. Feeling happy I'm getting better at the Saturdays! And now I can sleep a little longer tomorrow a.m. Just want to express my gratitude to all of you in this "puzzleverse". I love the puzzles, the Wordplay column, and all of you commenters.
@lhwp Glad to have you in our mostly happy band. The decision to skip the NW and solve from the bottom up was the key to my success. By the time I got back I had remembered STARSEARCH and abandoned the idea of a natural history museum that had pReHISTORY and even apeHISTORY. (Well, 7d wEepY gave that "p" and the wordplay on AP HISTORY seemed pretty clever at the time.)
“Ha! Starting off great with ROTOTILLER! And then it’s IMPOSSIBLE meatless brand!” Some time later… “Too bad they couldn’t put in EUMENIDES to go with EURIPIDES” Some time later… “Yeah you can’t trick me again into thinking this could be RAND PAUL”. Altogether, a good time!
@Cat Lady Margaret The old joke about the Greek tailor's sign reads: EURIPIDES, I MENIDES.
@Al in Pittsburgh: I’m pretty sure that’s why Cat Lady Margaret wished it had been in the grid in the first place. :)
@Cat Lady Margaret Ha ha....I almost spit out my kefir at the thought of Rand Paul. Extra lines for hungry biirds. They seem even more voracious than usual.
TO BE HONEST I struggled even more than usual on a Saturday, but did hit a 2,000 streak for Wordle.
@suejean Wow! I keep forgetting to do it from time to time (plus have spells of just not doing it) so I don't really have a streak... I don't think I realized it had been around quite that long!
@suejean Wordle has only been around for two years. So how do you have a five-year-plus streak? !!! !!! !!!
Filled in rotorooter at 1A thinking of rototiller. (Yes, DUH was Friday’s puzzle but there it is.) The company at 1D could wait, I figured, ONTAP was obvious, some exams for science majors have known to be Traps, could a strip clean an Ogre? Not sure but I was willing to find out. Then it all stopped working so well. Moved over to the SE, where it started solving like a midweek puzzle but, eventually, I wended my way back to my rotorooter, of which, unaccountably, I’d as lief let go as a firstborn. Oof. Spent some time on that corner. 3 decades of a vegetarian diet, yet INCOGMEATO and I had never crossed paths. I guess it doesn’t come in a can. And it sounds like it might taste as meat. The COMPOST BIN resisted me for a bit, too. I wanted COMPOST bag. Tried composting once, I did. Filled a bowl with parings for a week while I waited for the weekend do we could go buy a COMPOST BIN. The weekend came; we got busy. So I kept adding parings and peelings and corings and pittings as I waited for another weekend to come. (Okay, fine, it was mostly coffee grounds. But some veggie parts went in, too.) Then, one misty PNW morning, I came down to the kitchen and— the contents of my proto-compost bowl had come alive. Grown new parts. Definitely legs. Possibly teeth. Shrieking, I ran for my husband and (he says, unprovably) locked myself in the bathroom till he took the… the… creature outside and… and sent it away to live with a nice family on a farm. Our compost now comes in a bag.
Late post - an old favorite joke that I'd forgotten about: A classics professor goes to a tailor to get his trousers mended. The tailor asks: “Euripides?” The professor replies: “Yes. Eumenides?”. Oh, and EUMENIDES has been an answer 4 times. Hi emus. ..
Just checking: the sexiest man alive in 2021 was NOT Rand Paul, right?
@Fender - Well, whoever made this judgement never checked me out, so... I'm not sure I trust their judgment. ;^)
@Fender are you asking for a friend?
Thanks for the Saturday-like Saturday, Caitlin and Matthew. I thought I was going to SEEred, but I could only SEETHE. I'm glad it wasn't ATTAboY; ATTAWAY, constructors! FIREWATER may have drawn the SHORTSTRAW. TOBEHONEST, I'd never heard of INCOGMEATO, but I'm not cross, the puzzle did that for me. BART but no Simpson nor ELS. ALES, CIDER and BAT HASH, anyone? ITDEPENDS. YETI RULE!
“Initialism for a pleasant tingling on the back of the scalp or the neck” = ASMR. Got it from the crosses. Per Google ASMR = Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (!) and “the term used to describe a tingling, calming sensation some people report experiencing in response to close personal attention or certain audio or visual stimuli’. I suppose I should say I learned something new!
@Lori Taum I’ve read one or two articles about ASMR, but for a long time, I had trouble remembering the term. I’ve finally reached the point where I can call up the initials without much trouble, though I don’t always remember what each one stands for.
Just don't Google ASMR at work with safe search off, as it is a thing in a lot of adult content. . . . . Do emus enjoy ASMR?
@Lori Taum I’ve never run across this term in the wild, but I remember seeing it in the crossword before and I at least remembered that it began with “A” (got it on the crosses). It appeared 12/3/2022 and was clued as, “Brain-tingly feeling that may come from hearing whispering or crinkling, in brief.” In that day’s column Caitlin linked a NYT Magazine article (linked below) from 2019 which described its appearance on YouTube videos. When it debuted in 2022, Rex Parker picked it as his “word of the day” . In today’s column he mentions that although he remembered the term (“the important thing, puzzle wise”) he couldn’t remember what it stood for and had to go back to the old column to look it up. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/mu7fr27x" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/mu7fr27x</a>
Highlights: • All the cities and companies in the country, and yet when the clue asked for a company whose name is a city’s last two syllables, CISCO popped into my head. How does the brain do that? Okay, I had the second C (from CATE), but still. • That moment after the answer BACONATOR came to me when I thought, “Where did THAT come from? I had no idea I knew that!” • Heart melts at gorgeous answers BAREBONES and SHORT STRAW. • “Hah!” at seeing the serendipitous cross of TEARY and CRY. • Never heard of either answer in the cross of OGS or INCOGMEATO, so that G-spot (as it were) had the true makings of a natick. But there was the extra layer – the “incognito” connection, to give it away. That brought out an inner "Bravo!" to the constructors and NYT team. Speaking of highlights, Crosslandia itself, which brings a box of boxes to my door, and it becomes a highlight of my day, day after day. Especially a high-quality box of boxes, as you two created, Caitlin and Matthew. Thank you so much for making this!
8D really threw me off because while BART yellow line has a stop named Embarcadero, the line that runs along the shoreline is administered by MUNI
@Will, Exactly! I actually didn’t get stuck on this because I intuited (correctly as it happened) that this was one of those sounds-right-to-an-out-of-towner-but-not-quite-accurate clues, and that BART was what the editors were looking for. But I entered it under objection :) (I don’t live in SF but I grew up on the peninsula, and visit every time I can conjure an excuse.)
BART runs under Market Street in San Francisco, crossing the Embarcadero at almost a right angle, near the Embarcadero Station, at the west end of the Transbay Tube. The BART tunnel along Market was built in the Dark Ages Before Tunnel Boring Machines, using the old "cut and cover" method. It's difficult to imagine, today, cutting big holes in the middle of a major city arterial, disrupting traffic for years. There's your Civil Engineering History Lesson for today.
@Thomas Ward Yeah, I confidently entered MUNI at first for that clue, because the Muni really does run along the Embarcadero, unlike BART. That also made me think it was an unusually localized clue
@Thomas Ward I've lived in San Francisco for over 20 years but had to get BART from crossings, because I thought the clue was referring to the streetcar line, the waterfront, or something else.
This one went quite fast for me, despite some wrong guesses, like "rototiller" for the gardener's item that breaks down a lot, which wound up being COMPOST BIN...so it wasn't the actual lot being broken down, and on a Saturday, no less. I also put "mash" for HASH, and then had to figure out why MATE WATCH was disdainful. I also had never heard of INCOGMEATO, but it was inferrable. And speaking of meat... Although the clue is technically correct in saying that the BACONATOR is a non-kosher Wendy's offering, I'll point out (on a Saturday, no less) that nothing Wendy's offers is kosher. Although there are several kosher McDonald's in Israel, none of the national fast food chains in the US offers any kind of kosher food. The BACONATOR isn't kosher because, obviously, it's made with bacon, but also because it's made with meat and cheese together, it's made with non-kosher products in general, and it's made in a non-kosher environment. If it met all the other requirements, it would be non-kosher if it failed to meet one of them.
@Steve L Not to beat a dead boar (or behave like a wild bore), I think the clue is defensible in that, even if Wendy's met all the requirements for a kosher kitchen, etc., because this has bacon on it, it can't possibly be kosher. On the other hand, I'm happy to have learned something new about fast food America. If I ever see a Lubavitcher eating at a Macdonalds I'll know he's meshuga.
Took my time with this one, thinking, as I slowly sowed words in the fertile rows of this puzzle, and not for the first time, how themeless puzzles provide more of an insight into the minds & psyches of the constructors, than themed puzzles, which provide cover, in a way, for the puzzlemaker to keep our attention fixed on the puzzle & not the Wizard of Oz. And when there are two constructors, who can tell which words are whose? But I really enjoyed this grid for its -- ironically -- off-the-grid ethos. At either end: compost bin & spare parts. Likewise, Incogmeato balances nicely with To be honest: going off the grid means losing one's online ID; going incognito, to be honest. Hiding one's identity. Living a barebones life in the Alberta styx, under a roof whose eaves you've thatched with straw, short and long. Doing a star search in the night sky to determine by the angle of constellations when it is, now or then...and waiting for the last hard apples to ripen, so you can bat them into a hash and make an acrid cider of it. Attaway, you say, as the firewater courses down your throat, attaway... And you wish you had a paper to read by firelight as you quaffed that liquor, but the last print issue of the Cisco Examiner featured a Paul Rudd, Cate Blanchett baseball rom-com, "No Hitter" if that dates it. Oh hi, Sasquatch. What's up. "Seen a red yeti?" Sorry, no. "You hear a loud, teary cry that's likely him & a boar. Know the joke about the Greek tailor?" Euripides...
@john ezra …Eumenides, is the reply to the tailor. Do emus wear pants?
@john ezra, I always love your posts, and this one is no exception. Thanks for the delightful excursion through the grid. Or (said no one ever) — ATTAWAY!
The answer to Sat 8 down is simply incorrect … BART does not run on the Embarcadero. MUNI does.
@ERIC SCHIMMEL I came here to make the same comment!
I started out 1 A. with rototiller. Hey, it fits lengthwise, and ya gotta admit, properly used, it does break up a lot.
@Charles I did too! I was so proud of myself for getting one across on a Saturday puzzle … and then … not so much. Oh well!
@Charles 100%, right off the bat. Threw me off for a while! NW corner was the last to fall.
@Charles apparently, crossword minds think alike!
As a public transit enthusiast and someone fascinated by cities and geography, I was feeling pretty confident that "line along the Embarcadero" would be the MUNI, the light rail that runs along that San Francisco street mentioned in the clue. I was a bit disheartened to see its answer as BART, the subway that runs perpendicular to the Embarcadero, not along it
Muni runs along the Embarcadero, BART goes everywhere else.
ATTAWAY? Seriously? The common vernacular is "attaboy". Always has been, always will be. Silly puzzle, overly vague cluing--and ATTAWAY...yeah, right. Not a fan. At least it was gimmickless.
@L B your comment reminds me of the time my English teacher told us that a double negative is positive, but a double positive is never negative. From the back row someone shouted “Yeah, right!”.
@L B I've heard it used a few times. Not as common as …boy or …girl, but it's out there. Generally used when the gendered versions aren't appropriate (groups, teams, etc.)
The composting movie is waste on a true story. (This pun is recycled.)
Is there such a thing as a low key, tour de force, calmly brilliant crossword puzzle? There is now—so simple and so complex. I'm still smiling in delight. There were so many clues where I thought, "Oh, I know this!" and it wasn't that. Thank you, Caitlin Reid and Matthew Stock. What a work of art this was. Once again, practice made perfect.
Everything was going along smoothly until I was left with only the northeast section. Between being completely wedded to ATTABOY and unfamiliar with ASMR, I simply couldn’t make it work. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard ATTAWAY. I finally ran out of patience and resorted to guess-and-check. Looking forward to the Sunday puzzle.
Attaway? Said nobody ever. In my vast experience, that is.
@Margaret My vast experience is a mere 71 years, but I regularly say "Attaway!" when watching my beloved Dodgers. (There weren't too many "Attaways" during the latest NLDS, though.)
@Margaret This is the first time I've ever come across it, too. I guess we are in the vast minority here.
Like probably no one else, I put in rOtotiller first thing, thinking myself so clever. Then ON TAP gave me a little confirmation, and off I went down the east side and up from the bottom, back to the NNW, where I sat for a bit. Nice Saturday - lots of new PPP that I didn't know or forgot existed, but very gettable on the crosses. Had fun.
@Jay You just outed yourself as one who never reads the comments before commenting. Rototiller for 1A was not only my big slowdown, but several other people have mentioned it. And I still think it's a better answer than COMPOST BIN.
@Jay Right or wrong, coming up with a10-letter word from nothing that perfectly matches the clue is clever indeed. I was the opposite --- with eight of the ten letters I was still scratching my head.
Sweet TEA before sweet PEA. This Yankee has lived in the south for too long.
I enjoyed “aided” and “abets” being in close proximity to one another. Fun Saturday puzzle!
Never heard of it, but I think Incogmeato is a terribly clever and terribly unappetizing name. There used to be a shuttle that would take you from the UC Berkeley campus to the Bart station. It was called Humphrey Go-Bart. (That's true, but I understand having doubts when it comes to me.) The emus went attaway.
@ad absurdum I remember the Humphrey Go-Bart!
Now I'm going to have to live with the fact that I didn't know INCOGMEATO. But you know, I think I can live with that.
@archaeoprof I've been a vegetarian for about 45 years, and I didn't know it. I knew Morningstar, but not that particular product of theirs. I seldom eat meat substitutes, though, so I don't keep up.
@archaeoprof I never heard of it either, but I did get a chuckle when I got to “INCO_MEATO” and saw what it had to be.
@archaeoprof They serve INCOGMEATO in my employee cafeteria so I should've known it, but I've never tried it and it was one of the last things I filled in.
The only reason I was not undone by rototiller was that is was right on the tip of my tongue, for ages. While I was drawing a blank on that wheeled thingy, the puzzle gradually filled and out popped COMPOST BIN. Not the first time my slow wits have kept me from straying.
I breezed through most of this, but hit a wall in the NW, mostly because I don’t recognize the name INCOGMEATO at all. Once I realized that the “Subject for a museum curator” was not preHISTORY, that corner came together a little more easily.
@Eric Hougland Similar to my solve. Scowled at the NW for a bit. I had NWA as the rap pioneers (“I suppose you might call that slang?” I thought.). Led me to guess UN COW MEATO for the brand. OGS finally came to me, allowing me to guess at the better corporate and brand names (CISCO and INCOGMEATO) and the garden thing. Funny, to me, that the small change from NWA to OGS was the key to my brain.
@Eric Hougland Hey, I was so proud of plunking in PROVENANCE right away. Took me a long time to abandon it.
Most of the puzzle was not too difficult (though delightfully clued), but I sure made a mess of the NW corner. "The X Factor" before STARSEARCH "Impossible" before INCOGMEATO (never heard of it, was the last thing I filled in) "Rototiller" before COMPOST BIN "Nose" before PORE Of course, none of the downs made sense with those, so I emptied that section and started over. The clue for CISCO helped me get that one correct, but I resorted to Google to finish the puzzle. If I only have to do look ups on one puzzle this week, I'll call that a win. :)
Tough one for me. Worked out most of it (with some googles), but then there was the NW corner. Never heard of INCOGMEATO and that's not the kind of thing that's going to dawn on you with some crosses. Finally just flat-out cheated on that one (googled the clue) and managed to work out the rest. Probably shouldn't count this one, but... I'm not getting paid for this; doesn't matter. And... before I started this morning I had a pair of related 21 letter answers pop into my head. Figured I'd go check those out after I did the puzzle, but... by that time I had completely forgotten what they were. Oh well - maybe they'll come back to me later. Oh - did have a nice puzzle find this morning. I'll put that in a reply. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As promised: A Sunday puzzle from October 7, 1990 by Dorothy Smitonick with the title: "Midway Mergers." Six 21 letter theme answers in that one. A couple of clue/answer examples: "Nurse joins Weld to get Porter phrase." TUESDAYANDNIGHTINGALE "Young Rooney backs N.M. town in quest for radio team." LOSALAMOSANDANDYHARDY The other theme answers: PLYMOUTHROCKNROLLOVER JOHNNYCASHANDCARRYALL TEDLEWISANDCLARKGABLE LINDAHUNTANDPECKSNIFF Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=10/7/1990&g=40&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=10/7/1990&g=40&d=A</a> ..
Very knocked out to see the great jazz trumpeter Woody Shaw clued. Very lucky to have heard him with both Art Blakey and Horace Silver. Whether in person or on record he always gave 100% - very inspiring.
@John Dietsch There is a great Larry Young organ record called Unity on which Woody Shaw plays and which features some of his tunes.
This felt like a proper Saturday to me. Borrowing from yesterday, lots of aha moments when the correct answers finally came. SHORT STRAW (52 A), FIRE WATER (31 A), and CIDER (34 A) were particlular favorites. The NW was nearly my undoing as I struggled not knowing STAR SEARCH, guessing at rOtotiller, and being unfamiliar with processed plant based protein brands. In spite of being a vegetarian for more than 30 years, I never eat those processed foods at home, and the only name I could think of was ImpOssible. I always have trouble with actor names, but actually knew of Cate Blanchett from Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarerettes so I was happy to at least get that easily. The last letter to go in the grid was the G crossing of INCOGMEATO and OGS. I finally made the incognito connection and felt confident putting that G in. Thank you, Caitlin and Matthew, for making me work today. I needed that.
@Nancy J. Similarly, rototiller was my undoing in the NW until the crosses made it clear my choice was erroneous.
I really liked good puzzle even though it felt easier than most Saturdays My only hiccup was having SWEET TEA and figuring out the meaning of turer
I had SEE red instead of SEETHE, which made the bottom right corner last to fall. INCOGMEATO is new to me but I like the name. I'm off to HATE WATCH something....
Oh, and yes, OGS was a gimme. The O.G.s are the ones I like!
This was reasonably doable for a foreigner, for a Saturday puzzle, except the center N and NW bit - that was one giant natick for this Polish guy. INCOGMEATO may be a cute name but I've never heard of it before, and it crossed with answers to clues that were also a total mystery to me. I have just looked up MCATS (seriously though, do all Americans know the acronyms of all those exams, or is it just a crossword thing? In Poland nobody knows stuff like that, excepts those directly involved), but I still don't know what OGS are - such short words are not easy to Google. Could somebody please explain that to me? I am sometimes able to enter BART into a puzzle, when it is simply clued. I learned that acronym from these puzzles. However, not knowing Embarcadero, I was stumped today by the clue. I actually visited SF but I don't remember all the names of all of the places there. And finally, I would appreciate an explanation of It's not often seen on a diamond: NOHITTER. Is that some baseball thing?
@Andrzej Yep, NW was the last to fall. Not familiar with INCOGMEATO or STAR SEARCH. OG stands for Original Gods, a generic term for pioneers that I did not connect specifically with rap. BART didn’t come easy as I wasn’t sure which Embarcadero is being referenced and the clue wording was deliberately awkward. NO HITTER is indeed a baseball term when a team does not score a hit.
@Andrzej Had exactly the same problems (but knew BART). It didn’t help one bit that I had entered gmats for the tests, of course…
@Andrzej Even if you choose a very different academic path in college, you’re bound to pick up acronyms like MCAT, LSAT, and GMAT by osmosis. These exams are major hurdles. You’ll see ads for prep courses, books, etc., and of course you’ll know people who are going into medicine, law, or business, and whose lives revolve around around getting into their respective grad programs.
Liked this puzzle even despite BARTgate. Was a bit grumbly at first about the obscurity of INCOGMEATO and thought the cross at 6D could have been kinder (like others, I had SwEAR for a while, and discovered that there are a surprisingly large number of words with S_EAR). But on reflection INCOGMEATO is such a delightfully loopy name, to borrow @Caitlin’s term, that I could hardly hold a grudge against the constructors for including it. Thanks Caitlin and Matthew for sharing the fruits of your collaboration.
EURIPIDES, ancient tradgedian and OG of dad jokes, is my second favorite dead Greek guy, next to the outspoken philosopher Testicles, known for his feats of daring more than his ruminations. I know, emus, I know, but it's a word play, not a dirty joke.
I'm surprised at the number of commenters here who are perplexed by OGS. The slang acronym O.G. stands for "original gangster", but its meaning is broader than that (see definition below). It has been widely used in pop culture since at least the '90s. Merriam-Webster: "Someone or something that is an original or originator and especially one that is highly respected or regarded. The Nashville Tennessean recently tweeted, "What does the owner of Prince's think about all these hot-chicken imitators?" One Prince's fan replied, "… Prince's is the OG. And that's that on that."
With apologies: One more late puzzle find, completely unrelated to today's puzzle - just one of the strangest puzzles I've ever encountered. A Sunday from November 4, 1984 by Ernst Theimer with the title: "Taking 60 across literally." And... 60 across clue/answer: "Like the Three Musketeers" ALLFORONEANDONEFORALL And... a couple of theme clue/answer examples: "ACTS OBSTRUCTIVELY" STALLWONES "RING-UPS" PHALLCONES "WORDS FROM SIR JOHN HARINGTON" NALLDARECONEITTREASON "STAR OF 'ROCKY' FILMS" STONEALL Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=11/4/1984&g=60&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=11/4/1984&g=60&d=A</a> ..
If there was something to stub your toe on in this one I took every opportunity to do so in this, what should have been smoother, terrific outing. Well done and thanks.
I’m Canadian, and I know my provinces. But ALB had me hung up to the end. I got the gold star solvent by way of the cross of LOUD, and only had the “aha!” moment after the fact.
I almost took exception to 44D being clued as a "direction" (AVAST means stop). But then I realized the clue meant a command, not a way to go. Great nautical misdirect(ion)!
HASH is ham or corned beef going INCOGMEATO. I learn something new every day doing crosswords.
I am *begging* the setter of the mini to learn the difference between Britain and the UK. The UK is "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". If something is UK wide it is not just in Britain. "Great Britain" is a political entity comprising the 3 nations of Wales, England and Scotland.
@Alice I think most educated Americans understand these differences, including Mr. Fagliano, but let's say you're in Scotland, as you are. Are you in Britain? Yes. Is your publicly funded medical association the NHS? Yes. The fact that this does not cover every square inch of your nation doesn't make the clue wrong. Note that in the US, any outline map of our country serving the purpose of simply being a symbol for it generally excludes two of the states. That doesn't make it invalid. We know that Alaska and Hawaii are still there.
Anyone else feel PRINTISSUE like a sock to the gut? And the photo... Is that the last stack of paper newspapers? The full NYT Saturday print run? A museum display? Sigh. I admit, I read on my phone. I don't miss newsprint-smudged hands. Yes, fewer dead trees. And no need to sharpen a pencil for the crossword anymore. So why do I feel this way?
@Maria I miss the print edition. NYT stopped delivery to my area a year or so ago, and I feel like I'm not doing the in-depth reading I used to do. I get distracted and think of things to look up while I'm reading and annoyed when I accidentally hit the back arrow and lose my place. Hopefully, I'll adjust over time. On the plus side, I appreciate the fact that I'm not always wiping black marks from my switchplates and other surfaces and that our recycling bin only needs emptying every couple of months.
@Maria You can always plant another tree. Not so easy when using rare earth metals.
@Maria, I hear you. Come tomorrow I will be solving on the PRINT ISSUE, as I always do on Sundays rather than squint at my iPhone. (Of course I could just do it today since the Sunday paper arrives on Saturday, but then I wouldn’t have a crossword to do tomorrow!)