Wow. Not sure why I am not seeing crazy raves about this crossword yet. One of the most enjoyable I have seen for along time on a lot of levels: 1) fun theme and clever theme entries 2) massive level of difficulty constructing that didn’t feel forced 3) the theme actually contributed to solving (I was stuck in the NW but knowing the theme helped me find DRI(PP)ED) 4) Rest of the clues were pretty interesting and well clued Massive kudos from me
@SP totally agree. Usually I'm meh on Thursday gimmicks that aren't necessary for solving but this one was more like a hidden layer of meaning that unlocked another level of enjoyment.
@SP - same. I appreciated that the theme reveal was (for me at least) both necessary and motivating. It was a really rewarding puzzle overall, even if I may have felt the cluing on a few entries was substandard.
Pro tip: if you Google "xwordinfo" to look up a few answers then immediately close the tab and delete the search from your Google history, it's like you never looked anything up at all.
@Josh I would still know.
This was a brilliant theme plain and simple. I initially thought the double letter played in answers to the across clues, while the down answers included the “nothing”. I had quite the “aha” moment when I realized “double” and “nothing” played in both directions! Bravo to an excellent theme and a very fun solve!
Rebus lovers and rebus haters unite ! Use them, or not. You be you. What a show of bipartisanship ! Let's hope it's catching ! Bravo, Team Katz !
Seems I’m in the minority here, but I thought this was miserable to solve. I even like rebuses. The theme was clever, but for me there was so much odd fill and too few moments where I thought “ah great clue”. I applaud the constructors for creating this headache, very complex, but for me personally it was misery. Nearly doubled my average time.
@Emilie Agree, I liked the theme but the rest of the fill was way more of a slog than it needed to be as I'm not too familiar with US slang. It's as if the constructors tried way too hard to be clever with this one. The bottom half was especially bad. There were very few satisfying "aha" moments outside the themers and more "how was I supposed to know" moments which really soured this puzzle for me. Not great.
@Emilie Thanks for posting this. I found this puzzle miserable too, but I’m on 50 day streak and I had to finish it. Just thought many of the clues were so very vague. The tricky clues felt more like esoteric knowledge than clever turns of phrase. Not my cup of tea but at least it’s over with.
Was anyone else as completely convinced as I was that the way to “make love” was to END WAR?
@SS as I just learned today, yes indeed, same here "HONDOS"
@SS Nope, but I confidently plopped in enamor and it made the NW the last to fall for me.
@SS I also had "ENDWAR" in there forever... I only finally changed it to the correct answer by solving 13D. I still like "ENDWAR" better. 😂
For a rebus puzzle to receive so much praise in the comments really says something. I’ve never seen so few complaints. Well done!
Wow - this is taking the Schrödinger idea to a new level! When you open the box, there is NO CAT inside. And I love how a single clue can so cleverly be answered two ways. K and K came up with some fun ones. I thought of some more, but this margin is too small to contain them. Oh wait, that wasn’t Schrödinger who said that. Anyhow! Great Thursday.
I have to say I did not enjoy this. The "double or nothing" thing was great and beautifully executed, but I got stuck so many times, even Googling couldn't get me there without straight up looking for answers. It didn't feel well balanced to me
This is the cleverest puzzle I’ve seen in awhile. Figured out the double letter rebus pretty quickly and was mightily perplexed when they disappeared upon completion of the puzzle. Despite having tried bloom before BLOSSOM, and despite the revealer, I didn’t catch on to the nothing portion of the trick until I tried reinserting the double letters. DOH! I had no idea what hundos are. Thank heaven for the crosses! And the top central portion gave me more trouble than I care to admit. This too shall pass bedeviled me as I tried gas and law before FAD dawned on me. And NYE whizzed right by me. Overall, a real gem of a puzzle, just what I hope for when Thursday rolls around.
@Marshall Walthew Yeah, I whiffed on the Nye one too, initially. Then doctor for kids came up. Uh, not pediatrician or vet doc (kid=baby goat). No both of those were names of peeps!
Wordplay heaven, this was. Here you have a word with double letters, then you take out the double letters and it makes another word. That’s level one. Then you come up with a definition that perfectly fits both words. That’s level two. Then level one and two repeat with a crossing word that involves the SAME double letter. WHAAAAAT? REAAAAAALY? And then the Katzes katzenjammered five of these in the grid, conforming to the demands of symmetry? Then, when you think you’ve been blown away, they, in their notes, calmly reveal ten more excellent word pairs that follow the theme, that they had to leave on the editing room floor? Thumbs sky high. But the wordplay didn’t stop there. I love it when there is a ratatat of a-one wordplay clues throughout the solve, as there was today, underscoring the solving task with smiles. This was a feast of entertainment. Throw in the gorgeous LISSOME, plus AGO crossing AGO, and the magnificent PuzzPair© of ONO crossing LONG O’S – and I am high on life before breakfast. Which maybe should be a bowl of Special K. Thank you, you two, and come back soon, will you please?
By the way, just pointing out that this is the third day in a row and the fifth time in the last six days that the Times puzzle has had L/R as opposed to the usual rotational symmetry. Don’t know if this is an aberration or the start of a trend…
@Lewis I think that another PuzzPair© could be LONG OS and DOTTED I. The two anchor the SW nicely. !!! !!! !!!
I’ve only been doing crosswords for about a year, but in my opinion the crossing and clueing of Blossom, Bloom, Cussed, and Cued is the best I’ve ever seen. It is incredibly clever, yet so simple once it clicks. Bravo to the constructor!
"Want to grow your beard?" "Let's go stubble or nothing." (It was a close shave.)
@Mike Could you just please, please strop it!?!
@Mike When you think of a pun, you mustache it away until you fine a time to use it. I hope you hide them from the emus.
This puzzle was the hardest for me in recent memory. Not the theme, which I found challenging but doable (incredibly impressive), but the high density of words I’d never seen or heard before supported by vague / indirect clues. What a tough combo. Finally had to resort to several look ups and was very happy that I did because I could not have solved this one on my own. Biggest problem (only problem?) with the Wordplay Column is how seldom the “Tricky Clues” section actually touches on any of the tricky clues.
@Striker If the “Tricky Clues” section of the column doesn’t address something you had trouble with, ask here! There are always people who are happy to offer an answer. And at least 9 out of 10 times, the answer will be correct.
Wow. What an amazing puzzling. I managed to work out the reveal and then... half caught on to the trick, but I had convinced myself that it was either going to be blank in one direction and a double letter in the other, or.... some of the squares would be blank and some of them double letters. But then found that all of the across answers worked with just blanks and was appropriately puzzled to finish it successfully. It wasn't until I went to Xword Info that I realized that ALL of the answers were legitimate with either a blank or the double letters. That's just jaw-dropping. I can't even imagine the amount of work that had to go into making this one. POW - absolutely. How about puzzle of the year or puzzle of the decade (at least)? Just wow. ..
@Rich in Atlanta Addendum. Or maybe we could just refer to this puzzle as... The KATZPAJAMAS I'll shut up now. Hi emus. ..
I mentioned to Lewis last month that since, unlike him, I tend not to remember puzzles once I've done them -- and certainly not for an entire year -- that I planned to keep a running list of puzzles that I considered candidates for Puzzle of the Year 2024. "It won't be long," I said. "I'll only write down puzzles I think are extraordinary." Today I made my first entry to the list. The cleverness of the concept and the brilliant way it's executed is equaled only by how smart the puzzle made ME feel. I got the trick at DIMMED/DIED/TOMMY/TOY -- I was still struggling at the DRIPPED/DRIED/RIPPLE/RILE section and I immediately said out loud to no one in particular: "Aha! It's DOUBLE OR NOTHING!" And so it was. The way the meaning changes between having FLINGS and having FEELINGS; between being CUED and being CUSSED is nothing short of genius. This must have been really hard to construct, I'd imagine, but it was a joy to solve. !'ll nominate it for POY when the time comes -- now that I know I'll remember.
@Nancy Yay! Great post (as usual), Nancy. emu food
so…tough…to…write…while…I…applaud… Um, thank you? Wow? Yes? Clueing felt more Friday but revealer totally Thursday! Short of a single answer (as I recall) that was standard fill (sit down, Yoko), this was so fresh I nearly slapped it on the face! Hit or miss. Nice one. I have but one nit I shall pick. I hoped - nay prayed - that “This too shall pass” was *gas* but otherwise, one of the most brilliant, why-I-dive-in-every-single-day puzzles. I’m always hoping for this.
@CCNY Based on actual data, xwordinfo.com gives today's puzzle a "freshness factor" of 11.9% overall, 4.2% for Thursdays, meaning that about 88% of all Shortz Era puzzles had fresher fill, and 96% of Thursdays did. I didn't feel like the puzzle was stale, and I still enjoyed it, but numbers don't lie. The gimmick is not factored into this stat, and I don't think it was ever done before quite like this, so the appearance of freshness might derive from that.
What a wonderful puzzle! I had almost the whole puzzle completed, leaving all the circles blank ... with a nagging suspicion that I was missing something. Why "double or nothing"? All the circles are empty. Where's the "double"? But then I wanted a double D for "long odds," and a blank for "skied" ... but wait, "skidded" works too ... and then I see O M G they *all* work that way. 5 downs and 5 acrosses, clued so that they work with doubles or nothings. And good, fair clues. Wow. Delightful!
I completed the puzzle with double letters and they haven’t disappeared. What bothers me more is 15D: the clue is singular and the answer is plural. Italian apology is SCUSA (and also the informal “sorry” or “excuse me”), not SCUSE. SCUSI would have been OK too, as the polite form.
This was a fabulously clever puzzle! I immediately got the revealer at the start, so I had an idea of what to do, but! On the first rebus crossing, accustomed to puzzles where the rebus reads differently for the across and for the down, I thought, "oh, for the across there is a doubled letter, and for the down you skip the letter - clever!" Then when I did the second one, the double vs nothing seemed to be in the opposite direction. ...then I realized that IT WORKS BOTH WAYS! Impressive! Kudos to the Katzes, who are much better doubled than nothing.
My sense is that although this puzzle was “gimmicky” (it is, after all, a *puzzle*) and although there are rebi afoot, it was gentle and clever enough, and lacking in technical glitches (fingers crossed), that there will not be too much of a “Thursdays stink! This is not a crossword!” response. Hoping that’s the case anyway. The only real resistance I felt was in the NW. I lingered there longer than I should have, trying to make some version of DRying . . . work. But once I moved next door to the upper Midwest and saw TO[MM]Y crossing DI[MM]ED, things picked up considerably. Still did not see the Schrodinger aspect to the themers until very late in the game. Very clever cats, these Katzes.
* That should be some variation of DRIED work, which of course would have worked by itself had I simply left the circled square blank.
@Puzzlemucker I think you have grossly misunderestimated the "This is not a crossword" crowd. But you'll find most of those complaints tomorrow, as most of the people who solve at night seem to be the diehards who know what's up.
Hmm. "Told where to go" / "Flower" for me was BLOSSOM and CUSSED, not BLOOM and CUED. Cussing someone out you tell 'em to go somewhere, like "jump in a lake" or "to hell." Cussed is a little awkward but I've seen worse. I feel snookered. Speaking of which, I dig the trio of snookered, cued & talc. Having played pool all my life I recently tried snooker (played like pool on a table with six pockets, the table either the same size or a bit larger, biggest difference being 15 balls, all red, plus 6 object balls which are numbered (& the cue ball, white as usual), whereas pool is played mainly with 9 or 15 balls. And billiards is completely different, the table without pockets & played with three balls. What with MASSE yesterday, and the main revealer today, I think the Katz boys might just be some pool sharks. They'd definitely double-team you. And if they bet you double or nothing that they're gonna sink the six ball in the corner pocket, don't take them up on it, because any odds would be LONG ODDS against those two. I've lost many a c-spot to roués like them, in old pool halls, lights dimmed, a fog of cigar smoke massing overhead, a lissome femme fatale with an ash blonde chignon, one bright truss trailing loosely over her nape, plugging a quarter in to put "That's Amore" on the juke. There's no fee for this advice. Merci? De Rien. Speaking of AMINO, the role of Iago was first played by Robert AMIN (1568-1615).
By the way, I understand that the clues work without the letters entered as well as with, so I accordingly filled in DRIPPED, TOMMY and SKIDDED and didn't hear the music even after taking the esses out of blossom. It turns out, from Deb's column, that filling in the double letters is not one of the acceptable answers. I think that's a mistake.
Arrgh, forgive all the fuss please on my part. Turns out I had to flyspeck it to find a mistake and the double letters all work after all. I wish I could delete my entire post: fatal error! Emus, please do your magic!
I see I am just joining a large chorus, in feeling and giving in to the urge to express admiration for all the creative work that went into finding and placing and clueing those 20 (!) words. Holy moly.
The rebuses were annoying me today in that I thought a single letter of the double would work. When I finally just deleted them all, the puzzle was complete. Question about 15D- I thought "scusi" was more appropriate. What tense is "scuse"? Also, more familiar with C note than C spot which yields some... non-monetary results on google.
@Greg4734 I agree that the app was confusing. If it’s ‘double or nothing’ then only a single letter should appear in the answer. It is then ‘doubled’ or ‘nothing’. I spent 20 minutes painstakingly checking and rechecking every other answer before using the Rebus button to put in two letters and voila! But that violates ‘double or nothing’. You don’t ‘double’ a pair of letters. The Tech people at NYT need to pay a little closer attention imo. In all other ways, a great puzzle.
@Greg4734 I wonder if it’s because then your grid wouldn’t have real words (skided, long ods)?
@Greg4734 I think SCUSE is a plural noun, meaning “apologies,” so not a verb at all. Scusate me, emus!
Perhaps someone more expert in Italian can correct me, but as far as I'm aware, an Italian apology could be scusa, scusi, scusate, not "scuse." Am I missing something here?
@Christopher TOTALLY! If using a foreign language in the puzzle, it must at least be correct!
Raise your hand if you had "GAS" for "This too shall pass" ?
I tell you what, I just did not want to let go of ENDWAR as the answer for "Make love?" and it almost cost me the puzzle. I was so pleased with myself!
Brilliant! On my list for Thursday POY. Congratulations, Rich and Teddy. On a side note, It seems odd to me that the NYT cannot do graphics as well as xwordinfo. Yesterday, they had “love”ly pink letters. Today a flashing illustration of the double or nothing theme. Much better, in my opinion. One other note, an aggravating flyspeck for me was HIs/sOPS instead of HIM/MOPS.
@Anita I had the exact same issue 🤦🏼♀️ Solving across first did me in. Once I looked closer at 37D I realized my error
@Anita SOPS/MOPS was exactly the one that I messed up an made me believe when I completed the puzzle and didn't get the music that there was something wrong with how I filled in the circles. I also think the puzzle is brilliant enough to bookmark for future contention as a POY candidate.
@Anita Thank you!!! Could not find my error and came here to figure out why! HIs/sOPS. Ugh thank you thank you! Great great puzzle! So clever.
Windowpane is not a generic slang term for LSD, but a specific "brand" that was a bit like a clear or translucent cellophane, LSD treated square that dissolved on the tongue.
@Rob D I'm glad to have your description. I always seemed to show up at parties just after they were gone. Always wondered what they looked like.
Incredible theme which was very fun, but the difficulty level of the surrounding fill was rough. It felt more like a Saturday. Some of the clues felt opaque, like "Windowpane" for example. I mean, I struggled with drug addiction (and found recovery thank goodness) so I'm pretty familiar with drug terms yet I've never heard that one.
@Gregg Congrats on the recovery!
@Gregg I certainly can’t speak about recent or current terminology, but I do remember that “windowpane” was one form of providing an LSD dose in the mid 70’s. Far from “opaque”, it was a little see-through piece of gelatin-like stuff resembling a small piece of glass. “Microdots” were another form. Neither term is synonymous with LSD, just a distribution format.
I've only been doing these for a few months, but I have never had so many unanswered clues after a first go-around as I do now. Happy Thursday!
Very fun puzzle. Tough for me, but that's a good thing, and the theme was great - clever in the bestest of ways. My only hitch was when I was staring at FEELINGS thinking "ok, but what the heck are F - LINGS? Is this some euphemism the kids are using these days?" Then light dawned. I had been contradooked.
AREEL into LISSOME crossed with CSPOTS. Ouch. Love the theme idea, but the fill was pretty damn rough.
As a rebus admirer, but someone who is terrible at solving them myself, I couldn’t have been happier with this puzzle. I got to have my cake and eat it too! Many thanks to the Katzes for one of the first Thursdays in a while I’ve felt confident (though definitely challenged) solving.
Not a fan. I got the theme but many of the clues were too cryptic for a Thursday. AREEL x LISSOME? SEAEEL is not a thing. LONGOS is not a thing. CUSSED does not mean told where to go.
@Mike oh but doesn’t it though? If I tell some jerk where they can go, it’s usually to hell, which I would call a small bout of cussing. I loved that clue, it was sort of sassy.
@Mike It finally hit me - Long Os in each of the clue words.
I’m only getting the blanks. And the final only shows the blanks. No rebus entries. So how can I see the double meaning?!
Hi @Alexia, If you are having a technical issue, please send a note to customer service at <a href="mailto:NYTGames@nytimes.com">NYTGames@nytimes.com</a>. They can diagnose and help you resolve the problem.
@Alexia Me too. And I was so proud of myself for finding them all almost right away!
Congratulations on your NYT debut, Teddy Katz! Thanks, both of you, for a fun and fast Thursday.
Wowwwww. What an amazing puzzle! Ultimate Thursday greatness. The brilliance of the constructors leaves me shaking my head...in bafflement and admiration. Awesome.
Double Katz kudos! What a clever and brilliant theme. Can’t even begin to imagine how they came up with all of those pairs x 2. Thanks for a fun solve!
I really wanted 27A ("Make Love?") to be notwar or ENDwAR... too many bumperstickers I guess.
First take away “Ooooh—we have a rebus!” Fun Second take away “DOUBLEORNOTHING! Ooooh—some circled squares double the letters and others work with nothing!” Clever Third take away “All circled squares work with double letters OR nothing!” Brilliant One minute+ longer than my Thursday avg. (thanks to a hard-to-find typo—I don’t think Eli ever threw a medal into the Ohio) but worth every second! Thank you guys!
@James Morgan--After putting the SS in BLOSSOM, and then experiencing the equivalent to your 2nd takeaway, I thought the trick was merely that some circles could have double letters and others could have nothing. Leaving blanks didn't work but entering a "-" for TOY/DIED and SEALS/FLINGS gave me the victory signal. Yay me! It was only when I read a comment praising LONGODDS/LONG OS that your 3rd take dawned on me! There should be a word for understanding the theme of the Thursday puzzle only after you've solved it. I am not creative enough to think of one.
Fantastic puzzle. The LONG ODDS/LONG O'S pairing was out of this world.
I don’t know enough Italian or German for that clue. I guessed it may be HIS. Unfortunately SOPPED worked just as well for the across (as in “cleaned up” the drippings on a plate with bread). Oh well…
@KK That was the exact error I had made too and couldn't figure out
@KK We came up with SOP too. Your comment was the first one that came up and proved to be the key to finishing the crossword!
My mouth is agape at this puzzle! I didn’t even realize the full trick until I read the column! Some of my circles had doubles and some I left blank and I thought that’s just how it was solved given the revealer. Wow! This is top-notch constructing! I love it! POY nominee!
I found this quite difficult for a Thursday but also immensely satisfying to get the trick and enjoyable to solve. A brilliant puzzle -- I could never have constructed this in a million years.
Took me a long time to give up on Life of Brian.
This puzzle was everything I hope for on a Thursday! Thank you!
My stone tablet required that I cut the double letters into the circles when I did the puzzle last night ... and they still haven't vanished this morning, much less going blank right after I solved. NYT isn't up on Stone Age technology. Fun Thursday: this one was like herding Katz. Emus: Please remind Deb that the expression FATAL error predates the computer age.
@Barry Ancona Heck, yeah! It always reminds me of Coach Scott and Junior Year of HS; in his English class, there were four FATAL Errors (comma splice, run-on sentence, subject-verb disagreement, and sentence fragment) which meant a grade of 70 (Fail)...and any other errors were deducted from that! One poor soul managed to make all four in the same paragraph....