Lot of fun in this puzzle. Took me a little longer than usual, but I barely noticed. Hopefully they’ll try one with repeating syllables at the end, because working too hard on this puzzle might give you a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack.
If you had asked me a year ago about a Wednesday puzzle, I would have dismissed it because I thought it was too hard. These days Wednesday is my favorite puzzle of the week and today’s was a pure treat to do. Maybe in another year or two I will say the same about the Friday or Saturday puzzle.
@_chs_ Yes, yes, yes! Keep going!
@_chs_ Agree! I'm on a three-week Wednesday streak, but I also got last Saturday's puzzle.
Hi gang (and also relative newbies)! I'm back! I think? My computer is pretty much fixed, and the crossword clues are once again visible. They weren't for quite a while, and that made for rather more of a challenge than I was up for. Also, 2023 was a bad year for me. Broken hip, taking about a year to heal. Broken very expensive dental work, with very expensive redo still in the works. Anyway, this puzzle was not in my wheelhouse, since I didn't know ANY of the songs. But the theme was easily figure-outable (figurable-out?). And also quite enjoyable. The CODA/deaf cross wedded to the GIF/Slack cross kinda hit me in the face. Or made me stumble. Or something. But I eventually figured it out, and that made me feel good. It also makes me feel good to be back with my XWPs, and I hope going forward with old and new WPers.
@Deadline -- Deadline! Welcome back! Oh, it makes my heart so happy to see you! Et tu, emu
Deadline! It's good to see you "in print" again. You have been missed by the old hands here, and the newbies should be pleased to meet you. Don't trip over any emus.
@Deadline I’ll try to do what dutchiris did yesterday. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 Welcome back!
"What's 'Baba O'Riley' about?" "Who knows." (Yeah, "I Can't Explain.")
@Mike We’re on to you, Mike. We won’t get fooled, again! cc: emu handler
@Mike Do you think it's alright to fiddle about words that way? We're not gonna take it anymore. Amazing journey.
This was quite a nice puzzle with a fun theme, even though I only knew the Lady Gaga lyrics, and I did not remember them at first, either. The unknown lyrics were easy to figure out though once I had some crosses. As almost always, some trivia got me and I had to look it up, especially in the naticky crossing of DEAF and GIFS: naticky because I had no idea what CODA was - you Americans you and your pathological love of acronyms! - and I've never heard of Slack, so it was a cruel way to clue my beloved GIFS (I've had entire conversations consisting solely of gifs, but on Signal, the non-spying IM app). I also had to Google PIERRE (I have never read War and Peace, which is on me I guess; my mom loved 19th century Russian literature, but she always told me one has to read it in Russian to fully appreciate it, and since I never learned that language, I passed on the books; I knew from experience how much English literature lost in translation and figured the same was true of Russian) and ADWEEK (are we really supposed to know the titles of trade mags?). You'd think I could get those with crosses, but since the two unknowns were stacked, I had problems figuring out the other words in that SE corner.
Small correction: I knee The Who lyrics, too. . . . . Emumumumumu.
@Andrzej I, an American, had the same problem as you with the pathologically lovely acronym CODA and what on earth is Slack (had to look that up)? Took a while to get ADWEEK... hey, I had to look that up too! Ditto your "War and Peace" comment. Wonder how many of you Americans out there have read it? Anyway, as usual, your not being American didn't make much of a difference as I see it. Anyway,
I liked: • Having a few need-to-return-to areas, satisfying my brain’s work ethic. • EGG crossing a backward EGG. • The rare-in-crosswords five-letter palindrome (RADAR). • Being reminded that CODA stands for “child of deaf adults”, as it was inching out of my easy recall. • The food subtheme: CHILI, YAM, SUB, RELISH, EGG, CLAM, ROTI. • The theme answer rrrrepetition, which quickened the fill-in. • Words I adore: LUCID, TORRID, and the lovely LILITH. Daniel, I have found all your seven NYT puzzles entertaining, especially your last one, which started in the NW corner with ANTICI and ended in the SE corner with PATION, and the theme answers in-between being ALMOST THERE, WAIT FOR IT, and NOT QUITE YET. Hah! Your puzzles are so different that I have no idea what’s coming next; except to know that I will be charmed by it. As I was today – and thank you!
@Lewis - I have two cousins born profoundly deaf (they are siblings), who both married deaf partners they met at Gallaudet. One proudly refused to enlist hearing/speaking partners in raising their children; one insisted on it. I have resisted watching CODA (the film) for the same reason I have not yet watched Maestro - when you’re close to the subject matter, there’s more at stake. One of the enduring memories of my childhood is an afternoon when my cousins and I were playing in their yard, and a sudden summer thunderstorm broke. We all ran into the garage for refuge, all except my younger cousin, who stood in the rain with joy on her face, hearing/feeling the thunder as it broke all around us.
@Lewis This was so nice to read, many thanks & happy solving!
Re “Oh, you wanna fight,” I may have related this before, so forgive me if I have. It was a big trial in New Jersey and I was a newish lawyer . . . Just kidding. What a fun theme. I pledge to click on every link to every song posted in these comments. (Well, except for My Sharona and that Hanson song, MMMBop? or something like that).
@Puzzlemucker Yes, you did tell us this story already and I loved it. I would not complain if you related it again... and a ga ga ga ga gain! emu foor more emu food
Please don’t leave some of us hanging, PM. I don’t recollect the newish lawyer story and now I really would like a recap, if possible. Thanks in advance if you can get yourself to retell the story! — — — — — — — —
Sam, Re: 15A ROOTER Take me out to the ballgame, Take me out with the crowd Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks I don't care if I never get back, Let me root, root, root for the home team, If they don't win it's a shame 'Cause it's one, two, three strikes your out At the old ball game.
@Barry Ancona Take me out to the ballgame, Take me out with the crowd Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks I don't care if I never get back, Let me root, root, root for the CUBBIES, If they don't win it's a shame 'Cause it's one, two, three strikes your out At the old ball game. FTFY
@Barry Ancona cracker jack (singular) you’re out, not your out c’mon, barry, don’t make an emu outta me.
What a contrast in constructor experiences: Mauer has this idea for repeated syllables in songs, the grid comes together in a day, he sends it off and Bob's your uncle, even with the LOLOLOLO chchchchanges the editors reworked as LALALALA. But in the last few days the Daring Duo submitted 122 puzzles before they finally hit paydirt and the Sunday puzzle took nearly 2 dozen versions before everyone was satisfied. Now I'm not the world's most intellectual guy, if I got rejected 50 times I'd be tempted to die, get out your vee-OLA, make a SUB with capicola, C-O-L-A cola... So glad Pierre was clued with War and Peace. What a character, lumpy, big and oafish, propelled more by his heart than by his head, forever getting into trouble because of his impulsiveness, but well meaning, spiritually a searcher, and not stupid. It's only when he finally, luckily, gets it right in his love life that his life begins to make sense to him, and all this against the backdrop of late Czarist Russia and parts of western Europe as he seeks his fortune (and then becomes blessed with enormous wealth, which causes no end of problems). It's no accident that Dune, the bildungsroman of my gggggeneration, makes an appearance, too. Paul Atreides must also confront inheriting enormous wealth and power, and his spiritual journey like Pierre's, is the backbone of the book. How I do go on. We won't ask what ANI (Skywalker) is doing here! As for those skunks the only thing they REEK of is cuteness!
@john ezra A looooong time ago, I had an evening class, and my husband said he was going to start watching a new BBC version of "War and Peace" on PBS while I was out. We had both read it, and he said he wasn't expecting much. When I got home I asked him how it went, and he said there's this guy who plays Pierre, who's really, really good, a new guy name of Anthony Hopkins. That was around 1972.
@john ezra I was super impressed by the tenacity of said "Daring Duo"! For what it's worth, it took me many many attempts (and many fill revisions once I'd come up with a theme the editors liked) over a couple of years before I got my first "yes", and I still get around 10 rejections for every acceptance. And it's pretty unusual for a grid to fall into place so quickly, I just got on a roll with this one :)
Big day here in Puyallup. My eight year old grandson got his first fill when I casually asked him, “William, where do bad guys hang out?”
Oh yeah. Super cool puzzle. Loved everything about it. Thanks, Daniel Mauer! So far, each puzzle this week has been the perfect difficulty for the day, in my opinion. Got me thinking. What is my perfect difficulty in terms of ideal solve time? Never really thought about this, so going to think out loud a bit, here. Monday: 5-10 Tuesday: 8-15 Wednesday: 15-25 Thursday: 20-40 Friday: 30-50 Saturday: 40-60 Sunday: 45-75 I think these are pretty ideal numbers for me, personally. Anything much under and either I felt especially sharp / on the same wave length as the constructor(stoked!). OR the puzzle just felt a bit too easy (less stoked). Anything much over these times can often (but not always) feel like a slog, for me. Especially a really tough Sunday. And the worst is when I finish a puzzle around the target time and then spend twice as long fly specking! Always made worse when I don’t know if I’m looking for one square that’s off, or two, or three. (Or five!)
@Striker For my own averages, Wednesday takes about twice as long as Monday Friday takes about twice as long as Wednesday Tuesday takes about 1.5 times as long as Monday Thursday takes a bit more than twice as long as Tuesday Saturday takes about 1.5 times as long as Thursday
@Striker wow, I'm nowhere near that fast on time. I doesn't help that I usually do the puzzles after work, and often fall asleep. While they do close automatically after awhile, the minutes do accrue. Sunday's are almost always a slog unless they have a theme or trick to make it interesting.
I felt this puzzle was B-B-B-B-Bad to the bone! Love the RONS, both Carter (maybe the most prolific recording artists of all time, from Miles to Chet and even A Tribe Called Quest, he appears on over 2000 recordings) and Perlman with a impressive number of film and tv credits in his own right, they may be my two favorite Rons. Even ROOTER didn’t bother me too much. FDR brought fond memories of after adopting an adorable puppy, our family watching Annie while discussing names for the little guy when my daughter looked up from the tv and shouted Roosevelt! We all agreed it was a fine name for a beagle mix.
@Phil Aw shucks, you B-B-B-B-Beat me to it.
My version of a themer was: 28A. Refrain in a 1957 hit by The Silhouettes. SHANANANASHANANANANASHANANANASHANANANANASHANANANASHANANANANAYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPYIPSHABOOM But, apparently, suggesting an 89x89 grid is “lunacy” (Shortz’s word) followed by “What is wrong with [me]?” (again, his words)! cc: emu handler
Loved this! Loved all those songs. The first three are from my G-G-G-G-GENERATION. The Lady Gaga song I heard for the first time when I saw the figure skater Johnny Weir skate to Poker Face at a showcase event in Lake Placid around 2008-9, and even though I'm probably on the older side of Lady Gaga fans, I went to see her at Citi Field in around 2017-18. Great performer, love her! As for the puzzle, it was fun, and I got a little stuck on GIFS/CODA, so had to look that up. It was interesting to read about the famous CODAs in history--I didn't know much about this and appreciated learning about it. And the little litter of skunks, to top off my evening!
So much fun, thank you! Also, baby skunks are extremely cute, as are baby anythings even though a lot of them grow up to be real stinkers. Imagine a baby Godzilla. Or a baby fisher cat. Or a baby politician. Whatever gets the oxytocin flowing. But I digress. I solved speedily and was surprised to get the error message . . . had to reread the grid twice to spot my error. I personally considered Andy Warhol's work IRONIC and knowing nothing much about vehicles I kinda liked the award winning LURID AIR. Finally, Ray Davies was way ahead of his time.
@AudreyLM I had the same IrONIC error you did. It took me much longer to fix that than it did to solve the rest of the puzzle.
I absolutely loved this puzzle. I kept thinking (hoping?) "ma ma ma myyyy Sharona," C-c--could make an appearance, but - alas, not the case. Nevertheless, I wasn't disappointed! Nice Wednesday puzzle (vs a "Whursday)." Well-done!
@DanaBrainia But oddly enough MY SHARONA did just show up only last Friday and clued as “1979 hit whose titled is stuttered”—don’t know if the editors had that on the brain and were giving us a little preview or just coincidental. And I owe THAT answer, oddly enough, to Daniel Radcliffe’s delightful Weird Al Yankowitz movie which had “Ma Ma Ma My Bologna” which recently reminded me of it.
Hello, like @Deadline, I’m back. Major technical glitches ruined my enjoyment/ability to post for months. Sadly I’ve had to delete the NYT news app as it became impossible to use. I’ve managed to keep the Xword going using Safari and the Games app, so fingers crossed I can rejoin you chaps without screaming at my screen every five minutes. As for today’s puzzle; an excellent solve. I love all the songs referenced so the fill was easy. Joining the LA/LO debate, I’ve always sung LO LO LO LO LOLA, but it’s all good.
@Helen Wright Welcome back, hope all continues to go well
@Helen Wright Great to have you and Deadline reappear on the same day. Quite a momentous day! My new welcome back message: ♥️ ❤️ ♥️ ♥️ ♥️ ♥️ ♥️ 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏👏👏
Mr. Ma Ma Ma Mauer, this was a gem of a puzzle, delicious all around, fluid as a lovely melody, and a joy to solve. It's true that a musical theme will always make me smile, but I'm very impressed with this one wherein all songs stutter exactly four times. What a find! What offers worldwide protection? I only had the E and was tempted to write in peacE. Oh well. I'd like to say I RELISHed every bit of this puzzle, but why would I do that when I can make it poetic and say I enjoyed (it) with gusto? And I did. Thank you!
“What makes most moist?” “An I” recalls James Thurber’s delightful little book “The Wonderful O,” wherein a spiteful pirate eliminates the letter O from the speech of the people of the island of Ooroo. A boy comes home from school (schl) and tells his father what he learned that day: “What is mist is always mist, but what is mist isn’t always mist.” —— “Ophelia Oliver hung her head in shame…” [what is mist is always moist, but what is moist isn’t always mist]
@David Connell for anyone confused about this one, read clue like - what makes the word, most, moist? Add "an i" to most.
@David Connell I had no idea what that clue and answer meant until I read your comment. I even looked up what an Ani was, a black bird in the cuckoo family btw. Haha. Thank you for hitting me over the head with it. :)
Confidently entered "Tesla" for 16A, only to have it pop up again a few clues later. Glad to see I wasn't the only one who had "Lola Lola Lola" filled in first, lol(a) That brief bit of confusion aside, this puzzle was a lot of fun. Is it possible to have four ear worms at the same time?
And here I am shocked that anyone ever thought it was lo lo lo Lola. I've always sung, shockingly loud and completely off-key, I'm sure: LA LA LA... It always made sense to me because it comes off of the la at the end of Lola. Interesting that I seem to be in the minority. I think I will have to survey everyone in my life about this. Of course, bear in mind, for a very long time, I thought the lyrics to the Stevie Nicks song included a one-winged dove, instead of a white one. To be honest, it's still how I hear it. So, what do I know?! The theme also brought to mind the other famous la la la song, at least for Schitt's Creek fans if you're out here: A little bit Alexis - la la la la la la la la a little bit Alexis... cracks me up every time! Fun puzzle! I don't know the Lady Gaga song but the others came pretty easily and PPPPOKER FACE was easy enough to come up with once I gave up on forbes at 71A and got the crosses. I was a bit skeeved out by the clue for 66A (AN I) and fortunately got it on crosses so I didn't have to dwell on it.
@HeathieJ This brings up a question: when and how did "moist" become a triggering word? Seems to have been sometime in the late 80s or 90s when people started being revulsed by the word. Was "moist" in some movie scene? Or Seinfeld? Or maybe a routine by Gilbert Gottfried. It baffles me.
This one was right up my alley with so many musical themes, although the Lady Gaga song was not in my musical lexicon. I was in the LOLOLOLOLOLA camp myself, but knew the answer had to be LALALALALOLA from the crosses. Like many I went back and listened to the song again and was surprised at how ambiguous the chorus sounded.
Ting, tang walla, walla........ Aside from the Lady Gaga entry all would have been on my play list for the No Request Show that aired from about midnight to about 4AM. I taped the entire show on a Revox reel to reel. Thank you Daniel for the trip down memory lane.
What a “mixed up, muddled up, shook up” puzzle, except for 18A. I had a problem in the SW corner, with ISA_ crossing _ EN. “Oho!” Is another filler word that could mean anything. ISAY, ISAW, whatever. And everyone knows “WEN” is a form of copper currency used in Imperial China. It took several passes trying to find my mistake before I realized modern Japanese currency also fit, allowing me to pour a glass of champagne to celebrate. Of course it tasted just like C-O-L-A Cola
Except for briefly having RIOTER for "Enthusiastic fan", a CLEAN solve for me. It helped that I knew all the lyrics. Some interesting non-thematic entries here: ICONIC, LILITH, NORISK, FLYINGSOLO, HEMOGLOBIN. Nice Wednesday puzzle!
What a good way to celebrate four great songs! Or get four earworms stuck in my head. Interesting about LALA instead of LOLO for LOLA. Now I'm hearing it both ways in my head.
@Liz B It sure sounds like Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola to me. And at least some lyrics sites think so too.
@Liz B Yup, I want to pile onto this train (in a good-natured way) too. Outrageous slip-up by the NYT. I have been singing LO-LO-LO-LO-LOLA for years, there is no possible way I have been wrong. I sound great.
You have radar “hits” (or “blips”, or “beeps”, I suppose) and sonar “pings”. It’s from/due to the frequencies of the EM waves used when the systems first were used.
@Marc I agree with you that I associate the term “ping” with sound waves emitted underwater to “bounce off” targets so that the reflected sound waves can be analyzed. Sonar = “Sound (or Sonic) Navigation and Ranging”. I remember so well Sean Connery calling for “a single ping” in “Hunt for the Red October”. RADAR instead uses radio waves (a form of electromagnetic radiation with the longest wavelengths) rather than sound. I have heard of computers “pinging” other computers, or cell towers “pinging” cell phones, but I’ve never heard the term related to RADAR.
Loved this puzzle, found it the perfect Wednesday difficulty! The only real hiccup I had came from the Kinks song, but not for the reason everyone else is expecting. It was my first theme solve of the 3, so I hadn’t yet realized how narrow the theme was — I saw “funny transcribing of repetition in song” rather than “repeated syllables in particular.” So rather than typing La-La-La-La-Lola part of the song, I jumped to “Lola, L-O-L-A Lola” with virtually no fill to guide me. Those alternating O’s and A’s in the NW probably cost me 5 minutes of extra solve time to notice and fix. I’d blown through the horizontal fill in the NW so quickly I didn’t even notice the vertical fill was busted (MOOT, ERO) — at a glance they seemed like plausible solves to *something*.
I have to correct myself before someone else does it: *4* theme entries.
@Stephen Yeah, unfortunately "LOLA, L-O-L-A LOLA" fits the space exactly! And since it was the first themer I encountered, it went straight in... Sure did mess up a bunch of the downs in the NW for a while. But I got it sorted! Fun puzzle!! Do emus drink Coca Cola?
Loved it!!! However: I’m still stuck in the SW trying to squeeze in Lady Gaga’s PAPAPAPARAZZI. Ha ha ha!! Fun puzzle!!
@Mary i was hoping it was Ra Ra Ro Ma Ma Ro Ma Ro Ma Ma… :)
@Mary I know exactly two Lady Gaga songs, and Paparazzi was the one I thought of first.
Thank you to Daniel and Will for cluing 7D in a non-CLAMicidal manner. Always happy to see my clan included in a puzzle, especially clues is such a respectful and sensitive manner!
I was a 17-year-old college coed drinking away my Vietnam heartbreak on the dance floor of The Brown Jug bar while the cover band regularly played the Kinks' Lola, so I confidently entered LoLoLoLoLOLA. But a "type that leans right" can only be ITALIC, so I begrudgingly changed the Kinks' refrain to LALALALALOLA. Then the fuzzy memory of the dance floor came into audial focus, and, yes, it was: LA LA LA LA LOLA
Loved this puzzle. Not since the one a few months back that featured the word “shoegaze” (my favorite music genre ever) have I nerded out with such delight. I am a straight-up fanatic of Bowie, the Kinks, and the Who, and mammoth box sets containing all three of the featured songs grace my shelves. By the way, it’s definitely LA not LO. The editors got it right. I also love Lady Germanotta. Who doesn’t? Poker Face is an earworm. Great puzzle - made me sing and smile!
Loved this! Definitely had los before LAS, but not for too long. The baby skunk basket: so cute!
Great puzzle! Probably as with most people, David Bowie's refrain (which I love) gave the theme away. BTW, loved the cute pic of the skunk babies. And, TIL that a "surfeit" is a group of skunks. Wow, what a name! Thank you for this morning's fun, Daniel.
My favourite today : TORRID 🔥🔥🔥 Yes it was a fun puzzle, though only song I knew was Poker Face 😅🙏 I enjoyed having to go back and forth on a few answers, just to make everything fit
It's been many years since I read War and Peace but I was able to suss out PIERRE thanks to the Napoleon reference. Love the puzzle and all of the music. Every song is iconic and for those of you who don't like LALALALALOLA, I think you need to make some CHCHCHCHCHANGEs in your listening preferences.
Definitely not with the vast majority today, pop music being probably my weakest area. Not even remotely familiar with any of the theme songs. At least I could appreciate the cleverness of the construction.
@suejean You’re speaking from my heart!
@suejean Me, too! It was the crosses all the way, practically. I'm in good company.
This was so fun! Had to work for it but a great Wednesday. I was cracking up reading the constructor notes because the thong song recently resurfaced in my life after my 4 month old daughter giggled uncontrollably when I sang “baby move your butt, butt, butt” to her a few weeks ago. Now I sing that line to her every diaper change…Oy!
I managed the first two lyric samples from the crosses, but meeting four songs I've never heard or even heard of before sure makes me wonder about myself. Where have I been? At least I recognize the names of the second and fourth singers, and maybe the third.
@kilaueabart Welcome back! So good to see you here. I'm sure you're not the only one who hasn't lived life listening to pop, rock, or alternative radio, so it's all good. If you'd like to know what the fuss is about in this forum today, please click on this link to listen to LOLA and come to your own conclusions as to if the chorus is LO LO LO LO LOLA or LA LA LA LA LOLA or a mixture of both: <a href="https://youtu.be/LemG0cvc4oU?feature=shared" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/LemG0cvc4oU?feature=shared</a>
A lot of sparkle in this musical puzzle; loved it! (And even pulled Lady G’s song out of some dusty corner of my brain…) How about a nice trip to K-K-K-K-K-K-Katmandu, emus? (And welcome back to Deadline and Helen W!😊)
I had to give Lola a relisten after many years. It’s been burned into my brain as LOLOLOLOLOLA but indeed the first time through it does sound like LA. It becomes more of a LO as the song progresses, though. I guess you get a pass on this one NYT but my feathers were ruffled there for a second :)
Thanks for an entertaining romp* through my musical history, Mr. Mauer! I don’t know the Lady Gaga song, but the others are all very familiar. I had to laugh when I read that “contrary to lots of lyrics pages on the internet,” the Kinks’ song has a repeated “La-La-La.” I’ve used almost every lyrics website on the internet, and an error on one site is often repeated on every other site. A lot of the sites solicit corrections, but no one ever reads them. Use them at your own risk! *Having to re-enter every character in the grid at least twice was no romp; it took me way too long to realize that 9D was ICONIC, not IrONIC. But I’m not sure I’d buy a car called the LUrID Air, Motor Trend designation or not.
A Wednesday with the cluing on the tougher side for me, always something I look forward to. Didn't know the Lady Gaga song and had Jump instead of DARE for quite a while, which made the southeast corner troublesome.
I don’t care what the printed lyrics sheet says, it’s very clear to me that Ray Davies sings “lo-lo-lo-lo-Lola.” The puzzle was right the way it was originally drafted.
If anything, it’s “L-L-L-L-Lola” but on the released live version it’s clearly LO. As for the lyrics sheet, when Lola was originally released, the lyrics sheets were typically done by someone at the record company, not by the songwriter, so they are typically of no value in circumstances such as this.
@Jake Cooper I hear “la”, but that is what I expected.
@Jake Cooper, Can you believe that the refrain actually changes pronunciation through the song. At 32 seconds, I clearly hear Lo-lo-lo-lo-Lola, and then at 51 seconds I hear La-la-la-la-Lola. There are 20 more versions of the line, and some lean a lot heavier to Lo, and others to La, which actually really works for the song and I didn’t appreciate before listening to it a half-dozen times with new ears. Perhaps in this instance, everyone on the internet is both right and wrong (like that dress from a few years ago). PS, this isn’t the first time I had to listen to the song again. We named our Cavoodle (as we call King Charles Cavalier/Poodle crosses in Australia) Lola after the Kinks song. Then one day my kids happened across a lost dog which was the spitting image of ours, with the same name on its collar, but was a boy (not a girl like our own). This confused the kids a bit, so we asked why it was named so as we returned it, and were told it was from the Kink’s song. Of course, we promptly went back and listened to the song again, and now realise there is more going on in that song than a catchy refrain.
Cute theme and a typical Wednesday solve for me. Relieved to see that I'm not the only one who was unfamiliar with the Lady Gaga song. I actually went ahead and googled for that one. I guess I'll give myself a pass on it. A couple of puzzle finds today, but... I was beat to the punch by our constructor mentioning one of them in his notes - the Thursday puzzle from April 3, 2014 by David Benkof and Jeff Chen. Thought that was an enormously clever puzzle. For those who didn't go check it out. The theme reveal in that one was: "Chorus starter in a 1972 David Bowie song ... or the theme of this puzzle, phonetically" CHCHCHCHCHANGES And then the theme answers were: CHANUKAHMENORAH CHAOSTHEORY CHAINSMOKED One more puzzle find that I might put in a reply. ..
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: I used to be a math guy, and for no discernible reason this morning I wondered about the possibility of a 'math' puzzle - with just a number in the clue and then some calculation as the answer. e.g. something like: "17" FOURSQUAREDPLUSONE Well... it was done once, and the puzzle took it a step further than my idea. A Thursday puzzle from May 10, 2007 by Peter A. Collins. In that one, the implied number was the clue number, so the actual 'clue' in each theme answer was just "=". And, to add to the amazement, all of the theme answers were 15 letters. Here we go: 17a: "=" TENADDEDTOSEVEN 25A "=" HUNDREDOVERFOUR 42A "=" FIFTYMINUSEIGHT 55a "=" FIVETIMESELEVEN That's just... incredible. I'm done. ..
@Rich in Atlanta I knew POKERFACE from the hilarious Christopher Walken rendition from SNL <a href="https://youtu.be/AJDx3H_hvI8?si=BbBo_mEHmrL2aenl" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/AJDx3H_hvI8?si=BbBo_mEHmrL2aenl</a> Watch the video before you pass on it
Da plane! Da plane! Really fun one! Saw the party starting in the NW and had a ball through the SE. Took a couple minutes to find I’d crossed ISAw/wEN, but otherwise very smooth a satisfying Wednesday! And ear worms to last through the weekend! Happy hump day!
Overheard in the galley during dinner service onboard FLYINGSOLO airlines: "Passenger in 42A asked for NAAN" *ping* You are now free to walk around the cabin. (Meanwhile, rather than indulge the person next to me with persistent middle armrest battles, i adjust my earbuds, and drif back to younger days.... mmmmysharona!
@Whoa Nellie It's me, the passenger in 42A. It took me a while to get that one straightened out! Once I did, the rest of the right/top right of the puzzle came pretty quickly.
Great theme and puzzle, thank you! Additionally, a note of appreciation for the photo choices that accompany this column, always a fun little wink 😁
I enjoyed this puzzle. Some time back I googled songs that have a "stutter" in the lyrics. Of course, the list included My Generation, Lola, and Changes. Which are also three songs that I like. Totally unfamiliar with Lady Gaga's song -- but I'm an old guy.