In all of my many years on planet earth, there are three guarantees for me- 1. Death 2. Taxes 3. The never ending ingenuity of crossword puzzle constructors.
Constructors never cease to amaze me and today was your turn, Andrew and Garrett, to leave me RAPT and AWED. You took a Monday puzzle to the next level, not only with the astounding finds of "palindromes minus the first and last letters" (six of them!), but also with all the varied and clever cluing and fill. I laughed at "Their are too in this clue" and, of course, cringed at the thought that, unfortunately, nowadays they're (their/there) not always mere TYPOS. Thank you for a fantastic puzzle!
@sotto voce I think language is fascinating. I also cringe a little at the common misspell of there/their/they’re and then I imagine the future when “there” is the standard spelling for they’re, there, and their. Future cruciverbalists will have a “belonging to them” clue solved as “theirs” and will grumble in the comments that the word is too archaic. LOL
@sotto voce But if they are deliberate, are they really TYPOS? Inquiring emus want to know. !!!! !!!!
My five favorite clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Bad match on tinder? (5) 2. Here we are! (5) 3. Chips, cookies, etc. (4) 4. Starts off-key? (8) 5. Boy's name consisting an English word followed by its Spanish equivalent (4) ARSON EARTH TECH HOTWIRES ANDY
Lewis, I loved your #2 selection too. It took a while for constructors or editors to loosen up on the EARTH clues. This one from the Maleska era wasn't bad: Tue Aug 14, 1984 55A Your place or mine Norman S. Wizer
I'm clearly in a minority here but I thought this was the toughest Monday I've ever encountered. The KENO - KLEE-MATZOH crossing seemed super Natick-y to and I hardly see Matzoh spelled this way anywhere online. Hate being nitpicky but overall it was way too obscure for me and left me more annoyed than impressed.
@Rahul I agree. I needed lookups and autocheck to complete this. This almost never happens on Mondays.
@Rahul , I can’t believe nobody found this extremely difficult for a Monday.
@Rahul Definitely agree! I'm shocked an editor let that section through
"Any deliveries?" "No, only a letter from Pepé LePew. So just skunk mail." ("That stinks.")
@Mike What a mail lady after a day of delivering post from M. Pepé! Best to letter alone.
@Mike Pepe mustelid a charmed life to be a successful toon. I bet the emus are jealous.
GOP OOF!? Gee willikers, kids today! What will they think of next!? I don't want all this modern slang in my puzzle... Ohhhh, GO POOF! Yeah, that makes more sense! 😆 Lovely puzzle and seems a very impressive feat to have all of those palindromes after lopping off the first and last letter! Thank you, kind constructors! I had a lot of trouble in the low middle because I didn't know DEKE, KLEE, or KENO... And I genuinely thought that seder bread was spelled with an A. MATZaH. I had to do a little look up to bring all that home but certainly learned some things! Before that, the rest fell into place beautifully! And, aww, Pepe LePew... My husband's favorite! 😊
@HeathieJ I came straight to the comments after finishing to look for some reassurance - I had the exact same struggle of not knowing DEKE, KLEE or KENO while spelling the bread MATZaH. I feel better knowing I’m not the only one who had to pull out google for this Monday puzzle. The rest of the crossword was a joyful breeze but I sat stumped on that one section!
@HeathieJ Actually, that unleavened bread is correctly spelled מַצָּה. But since we (at least so far) have not been asked to place Hebrew letters into the crossword grid, the word has to be transliterated. The letters you see above (from right to left, of course) represent the sounds M, TZ and H. The vowel sounds are in the markings below the M and TZ. The English-language transliteration aims to approximate how the word is pronounced, Given that Hebrew has variations in pronunciation, like any language, this can be somewhat messy. The word in question is often transliterated as MATZAH, MATZOH or even just MATZO. Any of these spellings is as good as any other; it's just that in this puzzle, only one of them fits, as there's no such game as KENa.
@Audrey Yes, this combo killed me! I actually suspected I had misspelled MATZaH, but Wikipedia convinced me I had not. I had never heard of KENO, so that was no help to me. I kept TWEAKing letters and eventually this clicked in.
Rushed through the Monday puzzle and didn’t get the gold star. What the heck? Then noticed I had the candy bar as SKOL, and the crossing candy as SOUL patch kids. Now I can’t shake the mental image of a group of beatniks playing bongos and eating candy bars.
I, an experienced solver, rarely find the Monday puzzle challenging to complete, and rarely find mischievous wordplay – which I adore – in its cluing. Then why do I have the Monday puzzle as strongly on my solving rotation as later-week puzzles? There is just too much good stuff to miss. The Times has such a huge pool of stellar constructors to draw from, that the themes often have spark and originality – like today’s, with its never-done-before splendid theme. The grids often have a scattering of lovely answers, and while the cluing is usually easy, it’s a layer up from embarrassingly easy, so while the grid falls quickly, the solve doesn’t feel rote, like a waste of time. Then there is our commentariat, with not-to-miss wit and insight, plus bonus treats, like the Weird Al palindrome-based Bob Dylan takeoff posted by Guy Quay earlier – which, if you’ve never seen it and enjoyed today’s puzzle, is not to be missed. Mondays bring a shot that makes the day so much richer than if I passed on it. And thus I don’t!
My only struggle was keeping the thought, "But . . . these are not words!", at bay. So looked up PALINDROME afterwards and came to learn that even just a *sequence* of letters and/or numbers is part of the fold. Hoonooh?! It is not commonly known that the objects of said Mr. LePew's advances later went on to found the Meow-too movement.
Aloha, Hola! Thanks to Sam for the Greek palindrome which was truly good clean prose. I think this was one of the cleverest Monday puzzles I've seen. Palindrome themes always bring to mind "Bob" by Weird Al: <a href="https://youtu.be/gAfIikFnvuI" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/gAfIikFnvuI</a> Later, et. al.
@Guy Quay Thank you! I had never seen that Weird Al parody of Subterranean Homesick Blues. He must have read Jon Agee’s book, “Go hang a salami! I’m a lasagna hog!”
@Guy Quay OMG, that is a great video! Laugh out loud funny!
@Guy Quay -- Oh. Now. That video, which I'd never seen, containing marvelous material I've never seen or heard -- well, that is a highlight of my day and a perfect chaser to this puzzle. Thank you so much for posting this!
A little tough for a Monday! I got tripped up on KENO/KLEE, particularly because I had 38D spelled as MATZAH. Really liked the theme too, a neat concept and, by definition, easy enough to be Monday appropriate because of the repetition.
Fan of Engish language quirks that I am, this theme hit me in my sweet spot. I am agog three ways: 1. That someone thought of this theme in the first place. 2. That these theme answers were generated. How? How do you come up with these? 3. That not only were these theme answers begat, they fit the requirements of symmetry, with two pairs of 9s, and a pair of 7s. So, wow! I liked the theme echo of having three palindromes in the grid (DAD, LOL, OOO), not to mention the sing-song PAD / DAD / RAD in the middle area. Plus, the PuzzPair© of TIE and SKOR. I also took a side trip to see if there were any palindromes I hadn’t heard before, and came across two that charmed me – WAS IT A CAT I SAW, and the ponderous DO GEESE SEE GOD. I love the backstory that Garret, a college freshman, has already had six NYT puzzles published, and that Andrew (with 21 NYT puzzles) was one of his high school teachers. What a lovely Monday, Garret and Andrew, with clues and answers that were engaging, with spark, and for me, with a wow factor. Bravo, and thank you!
So clever! Constructors are so amazing, I don't know how they do it. A creative Monday is such a nice way to start the week.
@CarolinaJessamine — I would love to know how to construct a crossword puzzle, especially the very complex ones.
That’s not how you spell Matzah.
Huh, wonder if there's a word for a word that has an embedded palindrome, like endopalindrome or wallindrome or smooshindrome, or dromey-in-the-middle. My older brother and I shared this old paperback when we were kids, called "Palindromes and Anagrams." It had all the old classics, plus some silly ones that stuck in the memory: Kay, a red nude, peeped under a yak. I always imagined a skinny, almost cartoonish, sexless, uniformly red nude, like a harmless demon, spotting a yak in the meadow and gleefully dancing over to crouch down and peep at me, winking devilishly, the naughty weisenheimer! That crazy French skunk, Pepe Le Pew, will always delight me when he appears, for I always think of him pining after that cat he was in love with, "la belle femme skunk fatale" [he was under the mistaken impression she was also a skunk]. A good puzzle with some game to it (unlike the Ravens): loved flash sale next to acid, with summons flashbacks (the title of Timothy Leary's autobiography; maybe there will be a flash sale on it someday), loved the string of acronyms: DIY, TKO, LOL, ERA (counting it as E. R. A.) and the healthy papaya / acai cross; this is a healthy puzzle with a workout, twerk it baby, atta way! And after you work up a sweat, wipe it off with the terry cloth, get dressed & now you're ready for the evening, first maybe a little something from your stash, TGIF and all...but you pause, it's basically a DIY TKO (LOL) and who needs that? You're feeling sooo rad as it is!
@john ezra OT here, Continuing earlier conversation. That 1978 Streep/Julia "Shrew" cut the Induction. (They sure look young, though.) Here are some notes from the Introduction in the Folio Society edition to The Early Comedies, 1997. I have paraphrased the historical material and included quotation marks around a direct quote. I have not cited the author's name. If this be plagiarism, make the most of it. Many stories, ballads, and plays dealing with the basic theme of wooing, winning, and taming a wife were popular in the 16th century. Shakespeare himself may have written one of them. The Taming of the Shrew as we know it was published in the 1623 Folio edition. The Induction, or prologue, appears there. David Garrick removed the Induction for a 1754 production and that became the standard practice for more than a century. "The Induction, finely written, establishes a fundamentally serious concern with the powers of persuasion to change not merely appearance but reality, and this theme is acted out at different levels in both strands of the subsequent action." The dialog of their first meeting takes some close reading and archaic vocabulary to notice the bawdy bits. ("Cate" is an archaic word that means a choice food or delicacy. "Arms" can refer to a noble's coat-of-arms.)
Congrats to the Chalfin/Kingsley duo. You have created a memorable Monday crossword: an unusual and slightly askew take on palindromes (what process brought you the entries for this theme?), clean and interesting language (PERSEIDS, PAPAYA, OPART), all within the day-appropriate outlines of Monday. More, please.
That was rough as dogs for a Monday puzzle! Took me literally double the normal amount of time and I struggled hard on some of them… DEKE? I’m pretty well versed in sports but what on earth is that?
@Jack G H I knew DEKE but struggled on a lot of other proper nouns and obscure entries such as APBS, PERSEIDS, SOUR/SKOR (I didn’t know these and had SOUL/SKOL), KENO/KLEE. This puzzle was not only tough but not fun for me
Jack, DEKE is exactly what the clue says it is. There is some history of the term here: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deke" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deke</a> fake out the emus
@Jack G H The term DEKE is simply short for DECOY. It originated in hockey, but can be applied to other sports as well. In baseball, an outfielder may attempt to freeze the base runners by pretending a fly ball is easily catchable while all the while being over his head. If he can let it bounce off the wall and turn to catch it at the last moment, he might be able to keep the lead runner from scoring. In football and basketball, offensive players can DEKE their defensive counterparts by moving quickly one way, and once the defender commits, they can move quickly the other way and move the ball toward the end zone or goal.
Absolutely delightful. While definitely a Monday puzzle, a nice challenge!
This one was a little tough for me. Usually, I breeze through Monday puzzles. Maybe it's because I am so bummed out about the Lions losing -- I was so hoping they would be in the Super Bowl. I'm not a football fan -- last time I watched the Lions I wound up with pneumonia (in the early 70s, sitting in freezing rain with nothing but a ripped leaf bag to stay dry ... ). But everyone else in my family are faithful Lions fans (yep, I'm from Detroit) and I wanted them to be happy. Maybe next year.
@Lee I wanted Lions to win too but that's what happens when you treat statistics as a decision and not a data point.
The variety of the themes constructors come up with never ceases to amaze me. Nice job, Garrett and Andrew. A while ago, I asked a friend who does Bar/Bat Mitzvah tutoring about all of the different spellings for Hanukkah, challah, MATZOH, etc. She just rolled her eyes, laughed, and said, "Jews don't agree on anything." She proceeded to give me some regional examples, but I knew I would never remember them all. In short, I just wait for the crosses.
@Nancy J. There are many variant spellings because they are all transliterated any which way from the Hebrew. Always an iffy endeavor. Note that the Greek expression mentioned in the wordplay isn’t palindromic when transliterated into English.
Was it a car or a cat I saw? Where was I? Oh yeah - enjoyable Monday. A bit on the slow side for me with quite a few blanks on first pass, but catching on to the theme was a big turning point and that's always a nice touch. First answer history search today was (of course) for other palindrome puzzles. It's been done a few times, but one quite notable one was a Tuesday from January 4, 2011 by David Hanson. In that one the reveal (15 letters) was: PALINDROMICWORD with the clue: "What every answer on the perimeter of this puzzle is." And the answers around the perimeter were things like: DAD LEVEL SOLOS SIS REDDER TOOT TAT TENET MINIM... etc. That strikes as a rather challenging feat of construction. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/4/2011&g=37&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/4/2011&g=37&d=A</a> And... I went down a different path on another answer history search. I'll put that in a reply. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened. This has nothing to do with today's puzzle - just a joke I came across on another site. Anyway... First of all... can't help but wonder if the term "in cahoots" is still familiar to the younger generation. Anyway - did an answer history search for that and.. it's been in 12 puzzles. Only 3 times in the Shortz era and always on Saturdays. There were a number of variations in the clue, but they were mostly something like "Like conspirators." But a couple of times in Variety puzzles it was somewhat similar to what I had in mind (but not quite). e.g.: "Native Peruvian jeers part of a conspiracy." What I had in mind would have been more like: "Peruvian owls?" I'm done. ..
Lotsa fun — and much easier than Sunday’s. (Lucky for me, I don’t have to solve these for a living.) Reminds me of the classic palindrome probably not uttered by Napoleon: “Able was I ere I saw Elba” (Wouldn’t make as much arms without the opening and trailing “a”.) !!!!!! ….. Emus begon e nogeb sume!
@Strudel Dad “Wouldn’t make as much arms”. I’ve never heard that idiom. What does it mean?
I sped through this puzzle like a RACECAR!
I would argue that the two TYPOS are actually just poor grammar.
@Sonja - I would argue the opposite: the clue requires two deliberate misspellings; a deliberate misspelling is not a typo!
@Sonja Exactly. Don't try to pass off your confusion about 'their/ there (and probably they're) ' and 'too/two/ to' as TYPOgraphical slip-ups! Sheesh
@Sonja I came here to see if I was the only one who disagreed with that clue!
Yesterday's feeling a bit tired morphed into full-blown influenza. Horrid night with zero sleep, coughing and blowing, fever, and awful aches.... so much for the flu shot I had! I am worthless today and likely tomorrow. Holy cow. The nonsensical palindromes did nothing to cheer me up or give me a reason to live.
@Mean Old Lady -- So sorry to hear, and wishing you a quick turnaround!
MOL, Palindromes or not, chicken soup should make you feel better than a Monday puzzle would. Kleenex
@Mean Old Lady Wishing you a speedy recovery. You tested and negative for covid I hope.
Palindromish? Palindromesque? Why not: PÉPELEPEP — Frolicsome relative of the odiferous lover? FAIRTRIAF (var.)— Attractive mistake at a Seder dinner? ONEMOMEN(T)O— Faltering semi-Spanish delay? LASHSAL—Drop what you were doing and discipline Salvatore! TARTRAT — Snippy rodent? DNABAND — Related musicians Garrett may be in graduate school by the time the whole puzzle was rewritten, so if it were left up to me, I'd forget it. Nice job, Messrs Chalfin and Kingsley. A fun puzzle (as written!!) What's next?
I was expecting quite a few comments would be saying this was far too difficult for a Monday, so now I’m quite disappointed.
@suejean It was too difficult, and the nonsensical palindromes did nothing for me, but truthful comments expressing dislike for a puzzle aren't really a thing here - they rarely get positive feedback, even when they are well argued and polite. I would post critical comments much more often if it were not for the (cultured but still personally unpleasant) animosity they are sometimes met with. There is also the fact that anything we post here has little effect on the editors - they do their own thing, and mostly quite well. A few disgruntled posters will change nothing, especially when they are outside the target group of these puzzles - foreigners, say.
@suejean I agree. Tricky for a Monday. Mostly because of trivia terms and names that I wasn’t familiar with that make it hard to fill in on crossings (I don’t know who Paul KLEE is, I don’t know the game KENO, and I don’t know what a DEKE is in hockey, so I was basically forced to cheat in that section)
What a delightful puzzle! Whimsical and amusing fill plus a theme that perfectly fits Monday and was seamlessly woven into the puzzle.
I had just finished Sunday's puzzle, and immediately started Monday's.... what a difference! Finished in almost a record time, answers flowed out of my brain like river rapids, didn't even break a sweat. And yet, I was delighted by the clues and amazed at the theme. I wouldn't even know where to start looking for phrases that contain palindromes, and they found so many! As for Sunday... I really enjoyed most of it. I briefly got sidetracked by Minecraft, but once I figured out the rebus trick it all fell into place. Mostly. I struggled in the middle left, so I put it aside for a while. When I came back to it after a good night's sleep I was able to finish, but I still had one letter wrong. I had spelled WHACAMOLE with a K, and since I thought DUCAT was also spelled with a K. it took me forever to find my mistake. *Le sigh* (comments already closed for Sunday, sorry for the derail)
@Janine I did the same thing with the DUCAT misspell. And we can’t blame this one on the Canadian/American spelling differences ;)
Would have been a possible best for me had I not confidently entered PEPELEPEu and then lost a good 3 minutes searching for that one little letter. Regardless, I loved this puzzle and it flowed without stopping for me. The palindromes were a bonus once I solved it and such a fun little treat. Bravo constructors.
Off topic for today, but another interesting old puzzle find. Just stumbled across this one on one of my typical off-topic answer history searches. I think I would consider this definitely in the category of dad jokes. Anyway... a Sunday from January 12, 1975 by John Willig with the title "Fancy Foods." Some sample answers: LADYCHEDDARLY MUSTARDOUT SYRUPTITIOUS CARROTERISTIC Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=1/12/1975&g=43&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=1/12/1975&g=43&d=D</a> ..
@Rich in Atlanta With apologies - one more puzzle find today completely unrelated to anything other than an answer history search for PIGEON. This puzzle is just jaw-dropping. A Sunday from May 7, 1995 by Bob Klahn with the title "World War true!" Five 23 letter theme answers - all of them absolutely true references to instances from WW II. Clues and answers: The German troops' marching song was adapted from ___" HARVARDSFIGHTFIGHTFIGHT Hitler's blitzkrieg theory was based on the ___" WORKOFABRITISHHISTORIAN The first non-British to receive Britain's Dickin Medal for Gallantry was a ___" CARRIERPIGEONNAMEDGIJOE Negotiations leading to the surrender of German troops in Italy ___" HADTHECODENAMECROSSWORD The BBC promoted V-for-Victory in musical Morse code by frequently broadcasting ___" BEETHOVENSFIFTHSYMPHONY Just amazed at that one. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/7/1995&g=82&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/7/1995&g=82&d=A</a> ..
@Rich in Atlanta Wow Rich I would have found that impossible in 1975 and very difficult now!
I thought that today's crossword was a bit challenging for a Monday. It took me 15 minutes and I had to look up a couple of them. Sadly, I've lost touch with culture a bit, so I didn't know about The WIZ or who SOO Phillipa is. Having two kids in liberal arts colleges causes you to lose touch with a lot of things. Speaking of culture, giga-kudos to the authors for including a Looney Tunes reference. We need more Chuck Jones in our lives!
@Alan Parker The show The Wiz was a hit in the 70s. I believe Diana Ross was in the movie version. Phillipa Soo was in the sensational Hamilton.
"Having two kids in liberal arts colleges causes you to lose touch with a lot of things." Interesting, Alan. I found it put me in touch with a lot of new things, and didn't cause me to lose touch with anything ... except some money.
A tough Monday for me. Started out immediately with awed rather than RAPT, followed by the TYPOS LIon (LIAR), MATZaH, SKOl ("Soul Patch Kids?" Sounds good to me!), and like Sam, OPARs. Found one mistake at a time before finally hearing the happy music. Clever construction, Mssrs. Chalfin and Kingsley! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Such clever inner palindrome entries! Well done!
Surprisingly fun for a Monday. Really surprised that I had to think, suss, check the down clues, and play a bit! Two 👍 from me!
I suffered through a diatribe on how PEPE LAPEW was demeaning to women. This was followed by a rant on how racist Fog Horn Leghorn is. I quietly left the room. I say, I say: You are no Chicken Hawk. Cute puzzle and the picture of chickens being fed is similar to our feeding of the litter of stray kittens that live under our house. Thank you Garrett and Andrew. Say hi to Archie at the Riverdale High alumni day.
Loved today’s crossword - a fun Monday puzzle to start off the week! I always enjoy a theme based around word categorisation - palindromes, collocations, homonyms, heteronyms. Today’s answers seemed to flow through my fingers easily, and for the first time in a while I didn’t need the help from the above article which gave me a confidence boost after the rebuses in Sunday’s crossword! I’ve been doing the crossword for about two months now and I’ve started to notice certain words that come up in almost every puzzle. Some of them being Era / Eras, Eta / Etas, Area, Aloe, Ape, Açai - for me this is what’s making the crossword less enjoyable. I realise the commonality between these words is the short length and number of vowels which probably makes them easy to slot in between other answers, but I’d really like to stop seeing the same word over and over!
@Meg Congratulations on finishing without help from the column! Constructors don’t like those commonly-used three-letter words any more than solvers do. But those words are the glue that holds these puzzles together. One can either accept that or find another hobby.
@Meg as another fairly-new crossworder, I feel the same way. The one that really gets me is EEL. I expect to see EEL or EELS at least once a week, but it still makes me roll my eyes every time. (They only rarely resort to EELY, thank goodness.)
I love semordnilaps and palindromes. Does that make me a backwards thinker?
Fun Monday. Loved the palindrome play. It brightened up a gray afternoon in NJ. Where’s the snow nowadays? It makes everything brighter and cheerier. After filling the grid, I got held up for a few minutes looking for an error. For some reason I liked “SOUL” patch kids better than “SOUR”! Oops.
Wow. I'm impressed that Garrett and Andrew found these end-capped palindromes in common Monday-appropriate terms and names. I would have never spotted the palindrome inside the name of a well-known skunk. By the way, if you like palindromes, anagrams, and other letter arrangements, you may enjoy this article that appeared in the San Diego Tribune last year. <a href="https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/columnists/story/2023-06-10/brand-new-letter-play-that-makes-the-alphabet-dance" target="_blank">https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/columnists/story/2023-06-10/brand-new-letter-play-that-makes-the-alphabet-dance</a> About Sam's column title, photo, and caption: I surmise that the "inside information" refers to the end-capped--and thus cleverly disguised--palindromes. Are Garrett and Andrew moles then (see Sunday puzzle)? I see that the photo depicts some "layers" but what does "bottom" refer to? I suppose the rear ends of hens might TWERK when they're laying eggs. Hopefully others have some ideas.
Was on track for a good time until I spent 10 mins looking for a typo!!! Grrrr
@Hamish If you have the NYT puzzle app on your phone, the List view makes it much easier to find errors than scouring the grid. It has saved me a lot of time and frustration over the past few years.
Sorry, but MATZaH is NEVER spelled MATZOH.
@Aviv S. It appears that, when the "o" spelling is used (generally in a commercial setting), the "h" is eliminated.
@Aviv S. Sorry, but it is: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/matzo" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/matzo</a> “When Passover begins at sundown April 5, Jewish people will retell the Exodus story over a ceremonial dinner called a seder, which includes the unleavened flatbread matzah, also spelled matzo or matzoh.” —Joan Elovitz Kazan, Journal Sentinel, 3 Apr. 2023
@Aviv S. Here are three products that spell MATZOH as such: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/56yat8s6" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/56yat8s6</a> <a href="http://tinyurl.com/5f88hsf8" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/5f88hsf8</a> <a href="http://tinyurl.com/afwn8ux4" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/afwn8ux4</a> I dunno. It seems fairly common to me. Maybe we have a wider selection in NY. !!!
I got the "not quite yet" message due to a typo in TYPOS. I guess that's appropriate -- and maybe this Monday needs another cup of coffee.
This must have been in my wheelhouse...breezed right through. Clever contruction!
I like PALINDROMES. Maybe not quite as much as Lewis does, but I definitely like them. But if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? This was a more interesting theme than many, and had it been embedded in a tougher puzzle -- a puzzle in which solvers had to rely on the palindromes in order to solve -- it would have been a lot more interesting and a lot more fun. In this case, it was easier and much more efficient not to pay any attention to the palindromes at all. In my case, I noticed them only after I'd filled in the entire answer -- and it would have been just fine if I'd never looked for them at all. But with fill like PERSEIDS, BASAL and FLASHSALE, it was a bit more challenging than many other Mondays. And I did enjoy TWERK and GO POOF side by side, though I'm not quite sure why:)
Clever 'almost palindromes'. I am consistently amazed by the creativity of X-wd constructors. Solving them is FUN. And sometimes I laugh.
Want to say thank you for the wonderful puzzle to Garret Chalfin and Andrew Kingsley. And, I’d like to wish a pleasant and restful evening to The Faithful. It was a stressful evening. You’ve earned your rest.