A crosswords-in-general comment. There was a piece in yesterday’s Times about the value of fostering intergenerational understanding by bringing older and younger people together – which results in benefits for both. I see that in crosswords. When I solve a puzzle made by one in their teens or 20’s, say, it provides a glimpse into the world as they see it and into the way they think. I find that so enriching; it broadens the way I see things. In the puzzle comments, I often hear the olds complaining about puzzles by the youngs, and vice versa, and it makes me sad. This promotes us-them thinking and begets tension and stress. Thing is, when unfamiliar not-part-of-my-generation words appear in a grid, the Times puzzle team is so good, that they make sure that these answers are fairly crossed. These words can be bridges rather than moats. They, in my view, are precious gifts, and may they continue!
That Times piece: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/18/health/intergenerational-programs-older-younger.html?searchResultPosition=1" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/18/health/intergenerational-programs-older-younger.html?searchResultPosition=1</a> Et tu, emu.
@Lewis So many of us account for our introduction into Crosswords by citing a parent or *grandparent* with whom we solved. (In my case I was the scribe after Granny lost most of her sight to macular degeneration. I also learned how to balance a checkbook, but only in her idiosyncratic way, which involved a hidden $500...) Cool article!
@Lewis What about, " haterade", what generation does that belong to?
A puzzle with serious kick for a Monday and awesome revealer! I had just picked up "The Fellowship of the Ring" to read for the first time since I was twelve, so I naturally filled in FRODO for FREDO. It got corrected pretty quickly; you don't see Mae West in gold LAMO after all. This turned out to be prophetic: I never learned to spell ANORAK and put down ANARAK. This made TWO TIMING slightly more raunchy and yet oddly appropriate. I corrected myself, all the while ruminating on the connections between the Godfather franchise and Lord of the Rings, the evil characters, the good guys, the compromised ones, and the best parts: all the minor characters & bit players. I could see mixing the two to interesting effect. Well. Alternative clues/answers in honor of Tolkien: What did Sauron forge to rule them all? What follows The Fellowship of the Ring? Lord of the Rings is often marketed as a ____ _____ _____. Who joined the Fellowship from the Shire? What did I eat while reading The Fellowship of the Ring? ONE RING (to rule them all) The TWO TOWERS THREE VOLUME SET FOUR HOBBIT BUDDIES FIVE-SPICE CHINESE CHICKEN
@john ezra I hope you find Tolkien’s trilogy as enjoyable as you did at 12. I’ve read it multiple times since I first read it at about that age, and I still enjoy most of it.
@john ezra When you finish Tolkien, you should try the Chronicles of NARNIA, C. S. Lewis's seven volume fantasy series. The Solver, the Grid, and the Emu.
I absolutely loved this puzzle! Just when I thought I'd seen it all in crosswords, along comes Adam Wagner to floor me -- and to let me know I've been missing out on the wonders of the English language by not counting SYLLABLES. Cruciverbal magic! Kudos, Mr. Wagner. In addition, TIL that Japan has a bowling alley with 116 lanes, something I could never have conceived of existing, and that Cleopatra's tomb is still undiscovered, something to which I'd never before given any thought. A most wonderful start to my week, being awed and inspired. Thank you, Mr. Wagner!
A musical interlude in honor of 61D, SHE, with Charles Aznavour on the speaker and a stroll through Paris on the screen... <a href="https://youtu.be/ajjdY070VU4?feature=shared" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/ajjdY070VU4?feature=shared</a>
Yes, I am in the “felt like Tuesday” camp which is also an “I loved it” camp! There were some names I didn’t know and had to rely upon crossings to get. One clue made me cry 😭 like a toddler: WAWA. Not because I didn’t like it but rather because I am reminded that I won’t be eating a delicious hoagie or bowl of soup from WAWA any time soon 😩. If you have lived in Pennsylvania or New Jersey and then moved away from the region (or country, in my case) you may understand. You’d get a little rumble in the tummy but it’d be easily resolved by pulling into your nearest WAWA and ordering on that wonderful little kiosk. Then you’d stroll over and make yourself a huge coffee with a plethora of creams and other fixins. Go pay for it all, and then grab your food and go. How I miss that!! In Portugal, where I otherwise happily live, one goes to a cafe or restaurant and properly sits down to eat for ridiculously long, relaxing time. No wait staff will bother you until you ask. The food is fresh, and the coffee was just beans just moments ago. The bill will be shockingly inexpensive. However, the American in me would love to go to a WAWA again, but may that fast-paced culture never spoil Portugal.
@Pani Korunova I miss WAWA, too, and I'm only 2750 miles away in Las Vegas. Wish they'd open up here.
"Thanks so much for calculating length and width for me!" "Oh, dimension it." ("You really measure up!")
@Mike It's plane to see, you are-a whiz at these. It would speak volumes if you had some depth. Now I just need to square things away with the emus.
@Mike Area figuring out sets for a square dance or what? 🕺💃 (Maybe an emu in the straw?)
Not bad, but a bit too difficult for a Monday in my opinion.Too many clues with names of obscure individuals!
David, There were quite a few people in the grid. You may not know the actress, the mayor, the novelist, the screenwriter or the artist, but I would not call them "obscure individuals." Or were you talking about my brother FREDO? ............................
@David Gropper Interesting. I was expecting commenters to say it was too easy even for a Monday,
@David Gropper FREDO, ADRIAN, RENE, EPHRON, ADUBA, NIN. Those are all the personal names I found in this puzzle, and the only one I wasn't completely sure of was ADRIAN Fenty, but he sounded familiar once I saw it. One fictional character from a movie that I'm the only person on earth who hasn't seen it (but still knew immediately), a famous mathematician and philosopher, one of the most famous screenwriters of the past 50 years, an actress on a hit TV show, and perhaps the most famous erotic writer of the 20th century. Obscure is in the eye of the beholder, but I didn't find many of these names obscure. Imagine how some of the other answers could be clued with famous names but weren't: ODOR: Major leaguer Rougned COCA: Comedian Imogene GONZO: Muppet with a beak LEMONS: Don and Meadowlark LANE: Reporter Lois PEPPER: Sgt. or Dr IRIS: Singer DeMent OPUS: "Bloom County" penguin BEANS: Orson and lima WAWA: Radnor character Several of the above words have been clued thusly, more or less. Now the puzzle seems fairer, doesn't it?
My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Bill supporting public television (3) 2. Told where to go, say (4) 3. Bug that sounds like it was in the air? (3) 4. Lays down some ground rolls (4) 5. Windy part of a kite? (4) NYE CUED FLU SODS REEL
Lewis, As I recall, 2. has a second answer: CUSSED. It was a NYT (if not overall) debut clue for that answer too. cue the emu
Clever theme, but this puzzle committed a cardinal sin: crosswording 3 proper names at the same time. Adrian, Aduba, and Nin. Crosswords rely primarily on word play and analogies, but with proper names you mostly lose both game elements. you either know the answer or you use the annoying alphabet plug and play technique. I have a good proper name to make a puzzle solvable and educational, but please avoid crosswording them, especially three!
@David B Exactly what I came to say! I was really looking forward to a quick Monday Gold, and when I got to that section, my hopes were dashed. My assumption is that the author just had a block full of nonsense and then went to searching for a way to make it work.🤷🏻♂️ But ptui was still pretty awesome despite my rurnt Gold attempt😂
@David B normally I would agree, but Adriol Fenty was pretty easy to deduce from the other crosses. I'm at work, emus.
David, If crossing three "proper names" is a cardinal sin of crosswords, it is also an original sin. The "northwest" of the first NYT Crossword in 1942 has three names crossing. Solvers of these crosswords have *always* been expected to know people and places, not just "improper" nouns. <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=2/15/1942" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=2/15/1942</a>
Good Monday, only issue I had was the triple proper noun overlap, but it was workable.
If I may quibble with the mini here, I think as Mario’s actual brother, Luigi ought to be more than just a “pal”. Though getting short shrift is kind of his thing, so, maybe it’s appropriate.
This comment is everything - Luigi is vastly under-appreciated and frequently unrecognized beyond just being Player 2’s character. Thank you for quibbling & please do it again sometime
@Nick Came here for the first time to see if anyone else was annoyed! Toad? He's a pal! Yoshi? Both a pet and a pal! Luigi? That's his kin, his ride or die! It's not Super Mario Pals!
@Nick I'm not even a prolific Mario player and I had that quibble.
Mr Wagner, thank you! So clever, and yet so elegant. A charming puzzle. As soon as the solver revealed itself from the crossings, I understood what you had achieved, building with genuine phrases.
This was a perfect candidate for the Guess The Revealer game I like to play, where I fill in the puzzle except for the revealer, don’t read the clue for it, and try to figure out what it is. It creates an extra layer of riddle that makes the puzzle more compelling. So, there I was looking at the ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR theme answers, wrestling my brain, trying to find some connection anywhere. Totally stymied. I went to step two – read the clue to the revealer, which led me to look at what was counted in the second word of each theme answer. At first, I thought it was vowels, because that worked for the first two theme answers. But no. Nor did consonants work. When SYLLABLES finally hit me, well, I have to say, that was one sweet I GOT IT moment. And right after the spontaneous “Hah!” and “Aha!” it wrought, my whole being was flooded with praise for what hits me as a most original and splendid theme, and filled with respect and gratitude for being so superbly outwitted. The cherry on top was when I saw GONZO and BEANS in that little SE corner, and my brain shouted “Garbanzo!” Lovely touch, Adam, stacking three NYT answer debuts VAPER, FOUR DIMENSIONAL, and BAD NAME. But your theme especially hit my happy button. This was one terrific Monday puzzle. Thank you for making it!
Scene at a coffee shop. Two wordplayers have finally met in person. WP1: “well, it took SIX degrees of separation for us to figure out how to meet.” WP2: “yes, thanks to Adam’s puzzle.” WP3, self-appointed nitpicker, pops up from the next table: “Hang on, that has SEVEN syllables, not six!”
Since there is no other forum to discuss the Mini this is the place. But, please be kind and issue the . . . . . . Spoiler Alert! Thanks.
Now, that's what I call a theme. Or something. It was fun. Thank you.
This was a pretty quick Monday. The only entry that made me squint was ERM. I love the track and field column photo, Sam. It pairs well with RUN, LANE, UNI, BIB, and in this Olympic year, HOST. Come to think of it -- how about FIVE-RINGED OLYMPIC FLAG?
@Henry Su The answer history for ERM is interesting: 10 appearances in the pre-Shortz era, always clued as a fur (abbr.), a long hiatus (1977–2016), and then six appearances clued more or less as it was today. That was the last word I put in the grid. Somehow, I managed to type an O for the R of ODOR.
Really clever theme answers here. perfect Monday puzzle.
So, the athlete going over the bar is a visual pun on having people over? I don't know! As for WAWA, we don't have to bring Gilda Radner into this. But I'd like to mention that the child of an ex-pat friend of mine, faced with the insoluble choice of water or agua, settled on Wagua as a viable compromise. Hey, slake your thirst now and you can worry about the right word later.
@Roberto I thought the pic might be an example of ONE UP (over the bar...)
Rarely enjoy a quick Monday as much as this one. Spot on. Fun, plopping in a spanner like that! Thank you Adam!
Nice Monday puzzle. On the slow side for me (hi suejean) with more than a couple of unknowns as clued and I don't want to google anything on a Monday. No big deal - I managed to work it all out. Side note: Was a bit surprised to see that VAPER was a debut answer, as it seems like a friendly piece of fill. To semi-confirm that... VAPOR has been an answer... 52 times. Hmmm.. Oh, and the only other answer that contains the string of letters VAPER is... EVAPERON. That's been an answer 11 times. I'm done. ..
@Rich in Atlanta I was wondering what "evaperon" might mean, why it could be so frequent if I didn't recognize it. Something to do with evaporation? Yet another subatomic particle? Then I realized it was the name (insert facepalm emoji :-)
Don’t think I’ve ever heard GOB used as a GOB of cream. I may have put “Prince Harry should keep his ___ shut”. 😜
@Len319 I agree....one offers a DOLLOP of whipped cream. If offered a GOB, I would decline, because it's probably overwhipped and turned to butter. Ugh.
Loved this one, Adam! The theme answers felt really tight: elegant and unforced. I love a Monday puzzle that doesn't seem basic! I almost didn't read the constructor notes, but now that I did, I'm here to root for some Adam Wagner themeless grids!! C'mon, if you can stretch and make an "easy" (Monday) theme this lovely, surely you can bring that same composer's eye to Friday/Saturday! Perhaps a way of easing into it is to permit yourself a "mini theme" -- you know, where some subject just happens to crop up more than once. ...My vote is for chocolate, always! Something delicious to keep you motivated. :) Thanks again. It's a great start to the week!
Felt more like a Tuesday, which is to say - I loved it
Adam, I love your made-up term "theme cycle," and this was a fine Monday with which to hit for it. No BADNAME for you; maybe EPICHERO? Hey, if you don't want to construct themeless puzzles, that's fine; we have people here who don't like to solve them. You can not make them just for them. I do wonder how many Naticks will be called on the 43 square. HEEL on top of ENDS? Are we feeding the emus?
@Barry Ancona I did have trouble there. It was the last little area for me because I didn't know the mayor and I didn't know the, what was it, Orange is the New Black clue? I vaguely remembered the writer's name. But with all my other answers filled in, it made sense that the mayor's name was either Adrian or Adrien. I picked the wrong one but once I didn't get the happy music, I changed it to an a and there we were! Nary a look up needed, which always makes me happy!
Cue music . . . The older brother in the grid - FREDO: HOST "Mike! You don't come to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Moe Greene like that!" FREDO: WAWA "Send Fredo Off To Do This, Send Fredo Off To Do That!" FREDO: LIAR "I Swear To God I Didn't Know It Was Going To Be A Hit." FREDO: ENDS "..pray for us sinners"
Nice Monday puzzle though honestly I didn't catch the theme until the revealer, very subtle. WAWA was a bit questionable and the CAPRIS x NEPHRON and ADRIAN x ADUBO crossings were a bit oofish for Monday. Overall, good.
Well, ADRIAN, a normally spelled name, was guessable even if ADUBA wasn't. So I don't think it's really Natick territory we're in. Other than that, I thought this was pretty smooth -- and with a theme I quite liked. It's one I'd give to a novice solver: Interesting enough to engage the brain and require thinking, but without being particularly hard. Nice Monday.
Sam, Here in the States (and in Canada too, I believe), an ICEBOAT is used primarily for racing and secondarily for cruising. I'm not aware of its use for commuting. Snowmobiles be used here for that too. See, for example: <a href="https://www.iceboat.org" target="_blank">https://www.iceboat.org</a>/ emus on skates?
@Barry Ancona Thanks for the link with the first image featuring Madison's Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center, originally proposed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1938 as a multi-purpose way to link the Wisconsin Capital square to the waterfront of Lake Monona. Its final realization in 1997 overcame the obstacles of WWII, Wright's death in 1959, environmental concerns, and the presence of native Ho-Chunk Nation historic burial mounds. Alas for me and my bride, the project required the teardown of the lovely Madison Club, where we had our wedding reception in 1980. In the colder winters back then, we used to watch the iceboats on the much larger Lake Mendota, on the opposite side of the capital isthmus. Those boats are fast; sailing across the wind on good ice conditions they can reach speeds four times faster than the wind propelling them! I fear climate change will limit future opportunities for the sport at that latitude.
Enjoyed it! Solve was harder than I expected until I noticed Mr. Wagner’s byline. I tend to finish over par on his puzzles. 42A crossing 43&44D had me guessing for sure.
Definitely not a Monday puzzle for me, but I assumed that it would please most solvers so fair enough.
Knowing who mayors are in other cities always seems like a stretch, but I respect it because mayors have really hard jobs and should have high-ish profiles. This goes double for us in DC where we don’t elect anyone more “senior”! Mr ADRIAN Fenty was an energetic and innovative mayor … which meant that invariably he drew the enmity of established DC political machines and got turfed out after a single term. Glad he made an appearance in the clues!
Crunchy for a Monday! More proper names than usual to start the week but all were gimmes for me so I sped right through without needing the revealer (which proved to be capital C-Clever). Great, very enjoyable puzzle.
Anyone else hoping for BAKED ZITI? I've never made Baked BEANS. Mom bought the canned ones, to be served alongside hamburgers. In the early 60's, our mom acquired a fancy crock meant for making Boston Baked BEANS. She was pretty-much a non-reader, but she mixed everything and put it in a slow oven all day... and then served up bowls of rock-hard beans in the soupy sauce, having missed the part about parboiling the 'navy peas' first. We never saw that crock again, now that I think of it.
@Mean Old Lady Thanks for bringing bake back great memories. In the 60’s my mother had a traditional stoneware Boston Baked Bean Pot and made the most incredible beans. I do remember it involved soaking the navy beans overnight, then boiling, then baking for many hours. Amazing the stuff that went into that pot (ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire, molasses, brown sugar, onions, bacon). As a kid on vacations at Rangeley Lake in Maine, we used to make “bean hole” beans by cooking them for a day underground on hot coals. I try to avoid all those carbs these days, but fond memories!
@Mean Old Lady My mother also served us canned Boston baked beans. I don’t remember what they accompanied. As a child, I disliked beans in general, so I rarely ate much of the baked beans. Then in college, I started eating Tex-Mex frijoles and Cajun red beans and rice and discovered I actually liked legumes. About 20 years ago, we made Julia Child’s brown bread in a coffee can and Boston baked beans. The bread was very tasty, but the beans were so sweet that we haven’t had them since. (And neither my husband nor I normally rejects anything sweet.)
Great theme - a little too proper noun heavy.
Adam, as an older yet beginner-level cruciverbalist, and not much of a movie buff, I still really enjoyed solving this Monday puzzle! Today's puzzle causes me to look forward to tomorrow's.
That 3-way proper noun intersection in the SW was a bit nasty...only got there by guessing at ADRIAN.
Did I nod off with the timer running? Maybe because I was 114% slower than average. But I am not so sure as it did seem awful crunchy for a Monday. Whatevs. Got ‘er done. Congrats Adam!
@Jim I say this with some trepidation, as I am liable to provoke a firestorm from this community. I’m not sure, even nodding off with the timer running, you could be 114% slower than average. If A is running 100% faster than B, A covers twice as much ground as B does in a given time frame. B’s speed is 50% of A’s speed. If B were running 100% slower than A, B wouldn’t be running at all, but would be standing still. See this link: <a href="https://ask.metafilter.com/164990/I-NEED-MATHS-How-do-I-slow-this-track-down-to-800" target="_blank">https://ask.metafilter.com/164990/I-NEED-MATHS-How-do-I-slow-this-track-down-to-800</a> It’s the same mistake one often sees in newspaper stories, where some object is said to be half as small as another, when what one really means is that it is half as large. ……… !!!!!!!! Emus be 0%!
As bright and fresh as the thrilling afternoon I spent iceboating on Lake Geneva some years ago with my old friend Tony. (Too scary for the wee pup BB, even though she loves the wind in her face.) Well done. Thanks for the fun.
Fun puzzle. Thought the theme was cool! See you again, Adam Wagner? emu food more emu food
I really liked [Achilles or Aeneas] crossing OPUS--The Aeneid could definitely be said to be Virgil's major opus. But OPUS is more commonly used referring to musical works--here's Opus 27 (No. 2) by Anton Webern--major only in terms of musical delight: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fO6FTamG3o" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fO6FTamG3o</a> Think that Webern is Noise, and not Art? Here's someone elses's Opus Four--performed live: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUnPHvOchr4" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUnPHvOchr4</a>
@Bill Did dodecaphony serve as a palate cleanser after the intensity of such opera (plural of opus) as "Verklärte Nacht" and the late Mahler symphonies? So many hothouse flowers blooming out of Vienna in those years, with Webern serving as one the most careful gardeners. Is this an inevitable bloom? <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcfy3UmnyDY" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcfy3UmnyDY</a>
@Bill So you don't think _Principia Mathematica_ is a MAGNUM OPUS? If we're going to say OPUS, we ought to upgrade from 'major' to the Latin, don't you think?
I really enjoyed this Monday! It was fun and full of surprises. Let’s hear it fir the Three Musketeers! .. .. Unfortunately I have a Bad Name with the emus.
Really enjoyed this! By the time I got to the revealer, I was scratching my head as to what it could be. Once it hit, I was able to go back and fill in all the missing letters. I was stumped trying to figure out how to fit a dollop into three spaces... until I got GOB. One gob? I'm happier with gobs. No matter. It's done. Today is a volunteer day, so I'll be spending the non-busy time working on that 5-syllable challenge.
A fun and enjoyable Monday. There is a town in north Ontario ... called Wawa. Famous (sort of) for their giant goose. Probably too obscure for a Monday, but maybe it will make the cut someday!
@Michael Bonnell Thanks for mentioning the Wawa Goose. Seems it’s on its third iteration now. I just had to post a link to the local coverage of the unveiling of the latest giant goose. I agree this should now be a fantastic new clue for some clever constructor. Let me suggest, “Trumpet sound, or Ontario town with a giant ‘trumpeter’ since 1960.” (Okay, it’s not a swan, but close enough.) <a href="http://tinyurl.com/37eyj8h8" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/37eyj8h8</a>
Fabulous puzzle. Light, friendly, accessible. Also interesting, fun, just the right challenge for a Monday. You did it, Adam! Thank you!
I don't want to read too much into this, but I just noticed the cross of EMU (nestling in THE THREE MUSKATEERS) and LAME... Et tu, emu
@Lewis I can see them! The emus, strutting and Vogue-ing in their gold lamé outfits. Stunning. All for one, and one for all!
"Light and friendly and accessible" Check! ✅️ It was all of the above, not to mention clever. Great Monday puzzle!
This should have been a Tuesday or Wednesday puzzle. There were too many obscure clues and entries for a Monday.
I loved today's puzzle but I finished it last night and wanted to do one today over lunch. I've been working through 2023, since I didn't start doing puzzles until August. When I catch up with myself, I'll go back to 2022. Why I'm sharing this is because I just completed February 15, 2023 and it's got to be my favorite ever, in my short time. I loved everything about it! Clues that made me smile and a fantastic theme that taught me a thing or two. And I was able to get it all without a single lookup! Simply terrific! If you're looking for another puzzle to do and started later in 2023, like I did, I highly recommend it!
One Wordle shy of a 100 Wordles streak and I blew it this morning. I was hitting the enter key when I saw a mistake too late to stop the crash. Oh well, I just have to start again again. (Sigh)
OMG, @dutchiris -- what an unspeakable tragedy! Horrors! I can't even begin to imagine how it feels when... They come and brazenly snatch your prized Ph.D. certificate right off your office wall! They kick you unceremoniously out of MENSA! They lower your IQ score by 53 points! They hold a public press conference to announce to the NYT, WaPo and "60 Minutes" that your IQ score has been lowered by 53 points! They rescind your MacArthur Genius Award and -- worse! -- demand the money back! And, finally, when you wake up tomorrow morning, you'll discover that the Rhodes Scholarship and the Pell Grant have also gone "bye-bye". Actually, @dutchiris, what you'll really find out is that no one cares about that meaningless cyberspace streak but you. And since you know that you really ARE smart enough to have seen your error a fraction of a second before pressing "Submit", I suggest that you not give the matter another nanosecond's worth of thought.
@dutchiris I don’t even know why mine are constantly restarting but just saw Curb Your Enthusiasm(S. 12 E. 3) where they fought over friends spoiling Wordle, whether accidentally or on purpose! Hahaha.
Almost 150 comments and no one has mentioned John Cazales’ fantastic performance as FREDO Corleone? He’s wonderful at capturing Fredo’s ineffectualness and the anger he feels because of that. Probably the only reason John Cazale wasn’t nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar was that three actors from “The Godfather Part II” were nominated in that category (Lee Strasberg, Michael V. Gazzo, and Robert DeNiro (who won).
@Eric Hougland But...but...we were counting on you, our resident Godfather aficionado and expert, to point it out. With all the amazing tid bits you've shared, I'm inclined to rewatch the whole trilogy. When I do, I'll keep an eye out for Cazale's performance. Thanks!