Not necessarily related to this puzzle, just something I've been thinking about lately: I've been doing crosswords for a long time, but only started the NYT puzzle in 2016. When I started, I wasn't very good at them, and it would often take me days to complete the end of week puzzles. I never for one minute thought it was the fault of the puzzle, realizing that I had many deficiencies and needed a lot of practice. So I got to work and practiced. I get the feeling that some newer solvers think they should be able to just rip through a puzzle with few struggles. There's nothing wrong with making mistakes or being unable to complete a puzzle. When you finally give up (maybe days later!), check the answers and learn from your mistakes. These are supposed to push, challenge, and, yes, puzzle us. That's what makes us better solvers. Finally, if you come across a word you don't know, don't get mad, memorize it. You will likely see it again.
@Nancy. J I endorse this message 1,000%. Well said and much more diplomatically than the many similar comments I’ve started to compose and then deleted. Here are the starts to a few of those deleted comments: No one ever said, “What the world needs is more critics! Especially critics who don’t really know what they’re talking about. That’s what we need more of!” Do new chess players ever say, “You know, this game would be a lot better if all the pieces could only move like pawns”? Stop complaining! Stop it already! Enough. Just stop. Please. I beg of you. In a few years, you’ll look back and wish you hadn’t been such a know-nothing complainer. And if that’s not the case in a few years, then you can go ahead and start complaining . . .
It felt to me like years went by while I sat and stared at MADA SHELL. Maybe a shell from Madagascar? And so I (actually) Googled MADA SHELL. Ah, a shell so rare and exquisite that even Google hasn't tracked it down. Thank you, Mr. Schoenholz. I shall always treasure this duh moment of mine thanks to your puzzle. You see, it didn't make me MAD AS HELL. It just reaffirmed that I don't need a DOOBIE to trip out! After a million face palms and laughter galore, I think it's time for me to call it a night.
@sotto voce -- Hah! I resided in MADA SHELL for quite a while myself! Et tu, emu.
@sotto voce I have the same experience whenever the L.A. Rams are in the puzzle ("What the heck is a LARAM?")
@Rick Ditto. No, just no. Can be solved without getting it.
@Rick I got the theme easily. but jake/jape annoyed for way too long. i got so irritated.
Hi @Rick, What was it about the puzzle that was terrible?
Kales? nobody says that. Too many stretches Too tired to file my other complaints . The theme didn’t thrill me .
@Rebecca I gave up my streak because it was too much pain doing this
@Rebecca There are something like 150 different cultivars of kale in a variety of colors, shapes, heights, and flavor profiles. KALES has appeared 19 times in the NYT puzzles. IMHO, I’d give the constructor a break on this one. — — — — — — — —
Jake/jape was a head-scratcher for me. At the age of 52 and with what’s likely an above-average vocabulary, those were bafflers. Managed to figure out that the starred clues required dropping the first couple letters, but didn’t grok the significance those dropped letters until the very end of the puzzle. Somehow finished slightly under average, but it made me work for it. Also thought the emus had actually insinuated themselves into the grid for a minute, until I realized that millions of them would be Hitchcockian, even if they were in sheep’s clothing.
@Aaron Teasdale I stared at JAKE/JAPE for literally 20 minutes with the rest of the puzzle solved before I got it by accident...
@Aaron Teasdale I had a vague idea of what copacetic meant, but for the answer to be JAKE I was extremely confused. I only know that word to be a brake on a semi truck and the name of my pet cat.
That was fun enough in general. But I never heard of either JAKE or JAPE, so I was s.o.l.
*Elfish LAMPREY *Jaywalk JAUNT *Escape SHAWL *Bemuse BEATRICE *Seared CRIMSON cc: emu handler
@Steven -- I don't know you, but those are lovely. "See red", forsooth!!
@Steven -- Oh, as Leapy says, they are lovely, and I was eagerly looking forward to your list. But only one of your pairs (seared/CRIMSON) meets Dan's tight theme requirement, as he said in his notes, the phonetic change needed in the clue. So your post is both a testament to your sparkling creativity as well as Dan's extra layer of skill.
Oh wow, I read way too much into the theme. I thought ENSIGN was a sign in English (ENglish SIGN), and DEPOT meant like a Danish cooking vessel, thinking DE meant "German" which is close enough to Dutch... and ARBITER was an ARabic term for a biting creature like a snake, which may informally be called a "rattler"... ...I need to not smoke as much weed before doing these crosswords, I think.
@Josh But think of all the fun you’d miss without being infused with such elegant observations.
@Josh I had the same thought after DUTCH OVEN, and then I thought arbiter as ARizona biter... but then I realized AR was Arkansas and DE is Germany. But I kept trying that line of thought anyway.
I gotta say, I didn’t love this puzzle. And I’m laughing at myself because I know I would have come here and pretended I did if it weren’t for JAKE and his prankster pal JAPE. But, having struggled with that one crosser for longer than the rest of the puzzle, I’ve come to the comments tired and in a foul mood. But honestly, beyond that, the theme really didn’t dazzle, in my mind. Dan Shoenholz, I thank you sincerely nonetheless, and, should you happen to read this, do keep in mind I’m a sleepy, cranky dude right now which would account for my less than stellar review.
I enjoyed the puzzle (though I didn’t actually grok the theme until looking back at the completed grid)…but I’ve gotta say, that jape/jake pairing is 20 minutes of my life I’m never getting back.
You have no idea how frustrating this puzzle was for me, personally - as a non-native speaker I never understand themes revolving around "sounds like" concepts. My English is very good in writing and in speech, yet tricks like this always elude me, and probably always will (and today some of the clues were very hard for me because of cultural differences, too - in Poland a "no parking" sign is a pictogram, a round sign with a border and one or two diagonal bars across it, so "N sign" would have meant nothing to me even had I understood the theme). Then there were clue/answer combos like copacetic/JAKE - impossibly hard for a foreigner (and this one crossed with the enigmatic JAPE, too), with an icing of US-specific trivia (NBA DRAFT is probably well known to a hundred million people, if not more, but I would never have figured it out). Other than that the puzzle was very easy, and I enjoyed many clues - the one for LAVA was brilliant and I got it instantly. So basically, being who I am was my undoing today, and it felt rotten (which as always in such cases is on me, but it still sucks). I understand why many people liked this puzzle, but it was one of the least enjoyable for me in a long time.
Thanks for helping me troubleshoot my puzzle. I’m a native English speaker, a practical joker, I have multiple friends named Jake, and I had no chance with the JAPE/JAKE cross. I had convinced myself that CAPE/CAKE made sense, which it obviously didn’t, but it made more sense than the right answer. Well, I suppose we are all always learning!
@Andrzej I knew you'd check in. I've lived in Germany for 23 years but still there are loads of things I'll never understand because I didn't grow up here. That's the life of a stranger in a strange land, and I accept it. I'd have the same problems with a German crossword puzzle. Sadly, there isn't an equivalent to the NYTXW, but if there were it would understandably be geared to a German readership. I can't begrudge them that. And as I've mentioned before, even though I grew up and was educated in the US, lived in five cities in three states and consumed the English language in all its facets for 46 years before leaving those shores, I don't know NBA trivia any better than you do. Well, maybe slightly better. And television shows, pop stars and car brands take all the fun out of it for me. In that respect, you're not alone. But that's life! I didn't love today's either but I did know the word COPACETIC because Duke Ellington used it. There's always a bright side. 😁
@Andrzej It’s not just you. A “No Parking” sign in the States is not an N Sign, so I’m not sure how we can figure out “No Parking” from “N Sign”, even if you got “N Sign” from “*Ensign”
I was so delighted that I figured out the trick while solving the puzzle (frequently I don't on puzzles like this) and used it to finish off the theme answers. (I saw it with MAD AS HELL). It was enough of a challenge to keep me entertained but not enough to frustrate me.
@Liz B Same! I've been puzzling daily for just over 2 months now and these tricks still often go right over my head--not so today. BEEFEATER did it for me. I enjoyed it too!
This was such a terrific ride, so much fun, and so very different from typical Thursday puzzles. No look ups necessary because there were such perfect crosses for guidance. The starred clues were baffling (some still are), but once you got the downs, they showed you the acrosses. There were some really clever clues that seemed easy, but were meant to throw you off,(and I fell for some of them) and some clues that were not so easy —I loved ARABICA, because somehow I knew it, but AIR GUITAR was one of my last fills. There may be complaints about the puzzle being too easy, but considering what a fraught week it's been already, I was grateful to finish the puzzle smiling. Thank you, Dan Schoenholz! As for your Friday and Saturday puzzles, still in the DUTCHOVEN, bring them on!
Add me to the JAKE/JAPE group — I maintain that CAKE/CAPE is just as plausible, although any fellow reader or watcher of Games of Thrones will have heard JAPE many times. I implore anyone in @andrjez’ boat to take this whole solving activity as a learning opportunity. Many of the clues elude those of us who were born and raised in the US, especially (for me) sports clues. I would have lost a million dollars if someone offered me that for saying when the NBA DRAFT is held! I never fully caught on to the theme but 🤷🏽♀️. Finally, I get a clue from my experience of living in Portugal! The RIA FORMOSA is one of this country’s seven natural wonders. It’s in the Algarve, so I suggest visiting in the off season.
@Pani Korunova I enjoy learning stuff, obviously, but the whole issue is much more complicated than just appreciating learning opportunities. My memory has its limits, and there actually are some things I have almost zero motivation to remember (given that remembering comes with a cost for me, there has to be some tangible benefit to the cost I bear, beyond proficiency in puzzle-solving). I had a photographic memory as a teenager - when I visited friends of my mother's in Stockholm, I kept surprising the Swedish husband of my Polish-Jewish-Swedish host with my knowledge of Swedish demographic and economic statistics, which I picked reading almanachs and browsing statistical yearbooks (I was not a very fun teenager). These days it is much harder for me to remember things. Some of the things I remember sometimes, but that's it. And I have the most problems with remembering stuff that I don't care about, like most sports. Also, there are so many ways to clue the things that are alien to me - a college sports team may be referred to by its own full name or short name, or various versions of the name of its college, and also by its nickname, city, state, conference, mascot, and more. I will never remember all of that for all of the teams, especially as they often engage in sports I care nothing about, so I will never see any of them play. I am and will always remain a foreigner here, in more ways than one.
@Andrzej Rezumiem! I have been trying to learn Polish and Slovak for nearly 20 years with limited progress. What happened to my brain!? I now am focused on learning the much easier (but still difficult) Portuguese language! I enjoy your posts 😊
My experience to get going on this one: Hot topping for a cone? Must be fudge, right? Only four letters. Uh oh, look out for a rebus. Practical joke? Must be prank, right? Is every answer going to be a rebus? If so, this'll be a long night. Tricky billiard shot? Must be MASSE; didn't we just see that last week? Yup, last Wednesday. Put it in; maybe they're not all rebuses. Get a few more in the NE, got mostly through MAD AS HELL but still don't know what it is or why it's conected to "Emirate." Move back to the NW and get enough crosses to see that 17A has to be NO PARKING...but why? The clue is "Ensign"...move back to the NE and try to figure out all of 25A...aha, it's MAD AS HELL...but how does it connect to "Emirate"? Look back at NO PARKING...Ensign. MAD AS HELL...Emirate Ensign. En sign. N sign. BAM! NO PARKING is an N sign. And MAD AS HELL is M irate. And...no rebuses at all!
@Steve L Yeah, I wanted fudge topping, too. Pranked us, amirite? There was a different trick AFOOT.
A frequent theme in this forum is the relative difficulty of a puzzle for a particular day. The discussions are generally goldilocksish--too hard, too easy, or just right. Individual perceptions are, of course, welcome, but we might also acknowledge that solvers come with a wide variety (possibly normal curve) of solving skills and abilities. The senior guard members have decades of experience solving NYT puzzles. They've seen everything and are quite skilled. Newer solvers (I've been at it for about 3 years) are not as skilled. A puzzle that an experienced solver might find "too easy" is likely rather difficult for a less-experienced person. I know it's much too much to ask of the editors, but as membership continues to grow, they might consider novice, intermediate, and expert modes to satisfy a larger swath of solvers. That said, as soon as I read a comment about a puzzle's difficulty, I scroll on. It's an opinion (everyone has one like other anatomical features) that doesn't add value to my experience. I peruse the posts that contain interesting anecdotes, alternative clues/answers, explanations, and other ideas that enhance my experience. Post as you feel fit, but let's all take a moment to wonder if we're contributing or merely spouting. IMHO
@Chris from Utah How much do you want your annual subscription to cost? They already have that: Mondays and Tuesdays are easy, Fridays and Saturdays are hard; Wednesdays medium, Thursdays tricky; Sundays medium but oversized. And they have the Friday Easy Clues newsletter. Eviscerating Thursday puzzles to make them easier would be an exercise in pointlessness. The Thursday puzzle exists to be tricky.
@Deb Amlen: Loved your David Attenborough version! I can hear him saying it. (Sotto voice of course, so as not to startle the predator.)
Just the sort of theme I like. I figured out the theme early enough that it helped me get a number of the theme answers and those answers were enough to help me solve the puzzle with no look-ups.
@Wayne Harrison I filled in three of the theme answers without understanding what was going on. After pondering BEEFEATER for quite a while, the Aha moment arrived and the remaining themers fell at once. All that remained was to clear and correct a few errors. NBA final seemed a sure thing until it wasn't.
Had to come here to figure the theme. I solved it OK with crosses but had no clue how they worked until Deb told me. It's amazing to me how, after doing these for a while, 1A Hot topping for a cone? = LAVA comes to me in a few seconds, yet I can still be outfoxed by a theme staring me in the face. Life's rich tapestry etc.
What a clever theme – try coming up with a theme like this. High props on dreaming this one up, Dan! I know that when the scheme hit me, I felt a simultaneous “Wow!”, “Hah!”, and “Cool!” That’s what I want a theme to do to me. That wins me over to where I’m forgiving of anything that would normally turn me off in a grid. But there was nothing that put me off anyway. Terrific execution all around. My solve was of the before/after variety. Before cracking the theme, there was plenty of splendid bite through tricky cluing amid the riddle of the theme itself. After the theme fell, so did the grid, in a splat, with much “Whee!” Scanning the completed puzzle, I liked seeing the schwa-start party, with six in the grid, including the entire second row with AFAR, AMID, and AKITA. Also, I learned “plein-air painting” – that’s a keeper – and I learned “ensiform”, which I’m guessing will slip out of my memory soon enough. I also liked the theme echo with the sounds-like-a-letter VEE and EWE. Sweet Puzzpair© of LIT UP and DOOBIE. Crossword loveliness abounding today, Dan. Thank you so much for making this!
@Lewis I want to keep ensiform, too! I'm trying to think of a mnemonic. MASSE seems helpful (I might need to brush up on billiards terms in general?) and JAKE wasn't totally new to me, just not a word I keep close by. I enjoyed the word nerdery of this puzzle!
The actor played an oven in his last production. He's got such range. (Must be appliance fiction film.)
Mike, He played an oven with such convection. Would you say he was electric, or a gas? (baked emu)
One of those puzzles that seem daunting but then you get a couple clues then breeze through in the best way possible. Everything starts to make sense at once!
OK, so about air guitar: I feel that air guitar players should really want to Carpe the whole Diem and experience everything that other guitarists do: Breaking a string. Flubbing the key change. Making the rest of the band mad at you. Trying out a new riff and missing. And yes, sometimes being out of tune!
@Cat Lady Margaret Works for me! I have known people who are so unmusical that their air guitars are out-of-tune.
I enjoyed this one. I enjoyed the wordplay embedded in the starred clues. I caught on to the trick at BEEFEATER, which happens to be one of my favorite London dry gins, although my current favorite gin is Barr Hill, a Vermont gin flavored only with juniper and, of all things, honey. Seeing what was up for once actually helped me finish the rest of the puzzle in good order. I was also helped by knowing OTIS Williams, courtesy of having recently seen the musical Ain’t Too Proud, which tells the story of the Temptations. Great fun for any Motown fans.
That was fun. Unusually for me, the NW corner with NO PARKING filled in first after my first trip through the entire puzzle. Had a hard time letting go of Emu instead of EWE, even though I knew it was wrong. Those pesky birds. And then I fell down a Temptations rabbit hole for a while. <a href="https://youtu.be/YDasi1jiqRs?si=cgpOZnW_DR0FRisl" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/YDasi1jiqRs?si=cgpOZnW_DR0FRisl</a>
Really fun puzzle and i'm not usually a Thursday kind of guy. i got BEEFEATER from the crossing and then said "Ok now how does that connect with the clue?" and i got GIN and i got B and i was off to the races. You guys will make a Thursday solving kind of guy out of me yet.
@Jim in Forest Hills My theory about Thursday puzzles is that once you spot the trick, they’re usually not too difficult. Of course, sometimes it takes a while to spot the trick.
@Jim in Forest Hills Thursdays are iffy with me as well. But today was a winner!
It’s rare I solve a whole theme puzzle without figuring out the theme, but it happened this time. The lack of a revealer was probably the main reason. Fortunately I figured it out on my own when it was all done.
Started this the way I do most Thursdays, with trepidation, and the first pass didn’t yield many fills… but then something clicked and I ended up finishing in 22mins, my fastest Thursday ever by 40mins or more! This despite lamentably not *getting* the starred clues for a shameful length of time. Guess I do seem to be getting the hang of things lately. Still need to look up some of the Americana topics that I just don’t know, but am at least remembering them for next time!
I got by with a little help from my friend, Deb. Whew, that was a trek.
As I solved I felt the theme was very similar to one we had recently. I’ve not yet checked to see whether that’s true. But crosswords have their own time, and may well be that the puzzle I’m thinking of was years ago, though I don’t think so. Putting that aside, I enjoyed this, though I would have preferred more RATTLER (bite). I’ve been doing Thursdays from the 2000s for the past few months. Amazing how “easy” they seem compared to the Fridays and Saturdays of the same decade. Really tough Thursdays seem to have been much more prevalent in the 2010s and they seem to be falling back out of fashion, with some notable exceptions. Now I’m rambling, so I’ll stop and simply, Thank You, Dan!
@Puzzlemucker I recently solved a Byron Walden Thursday puzzle from November, 2005. The revealer was “Divided Capitals” and the theme answers incorporated the names of world capitals, with those letters circled. I was impressed that he managed to work Caracas into the grid, and it would have been a fine Tuesday or Wednesday puzzle. But it wasn’t a Thursday puzzle of the type we’ve seen in the past few years.
“Spitting in the wind” Def.: Expecting newer NYT Xword solvers not to criticize puzzles simply because they are newer solvers who are just learning how to solve puzzles. Alt. Def.: Leaving comments like this one. @Eric: Yeah, hate to sound like a crank, but I fear the NYT Xword is regressing in terms of difficulty and pandering to the rafts of newer solvers who have subscribed since the start of the pandemic. Imo, we are consistently seeing less difficult puzzles, especially on Thursdays. But true of Fridays and Saturdays, and Sundays, as well. I suppose it makes sense economically. If people can’t solve puzzles, they are less likely to renew their subscriptions. But it’s a bit disheartening to me. Or perhaps, it’s just that I woke up at 2:00 a.m. and I’m not thinking clearly. Or perhaps I’m just turning into (turned into?) a crank.
Forget it, JAKE; it's.... Chinatown. Where was I? Oh yeah - long, long workout for me, but finally tumbling to the trick was a big turning point and that's always a nice touch. Then at the end I spent a long, long time on 1d - trying to figure out something that made sense. Finally just went with my best guess on the crosses and filled it in. Still not familiar with that usage of LANDS. I guess that's all on me. Was really, really surprised to see that the only debut answer in this puzzle was: PRIVACY. And... that string of letters has never been a part of any other answer either. Such a familiar term -just baffled by that. A couple of interesting puzzle finds today. As always, I'll put those in replies. ..
@Rich in Atlanta Actually... I think I'll just leave it at one puzzle - A Monday from February 12, 1979 by Tap Osborn. This one was just impressive because of the usage of SIX 15 letter theme answers that all worked quite well. The across theme answers: BRUSSELSGRIFFON ALASKANMALAMUTE BELGIANSHEEPDOG SPRINGERSPANIEL SCOTTISHTERRIER And the one 15 letter down answer: WESTMINSTERSHOW The Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=2/12/1979&g=36&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=2/12/1979&g=36&d=A</a> I'm done. ..
@Rich in Atlanta Scores...LANDS Like a customer or a sale, is how I read it anyway. Tough puzzle for me, I was staring at over half empty before I started making guesses. And I had three of theme answers filled in before I finally got it. DOH! And, of course since it was hard, FUN FUN FUN!
@Rich in Atlanta I had the P so I put in PROCESS. Duh. It's always good to make a few dim-witted guesses; keeps me humble. ...then I get an obscurely-clued item ("Big star, in Spain") and feel smart again. Briefly.
Very happy to report that I managed to get through this one (possibly first Thursday ever) without any help. Yay me!
@Cele Congratulations! I’m sure it’s just the first of many solo Thursdays.
I got the theme early on, so probably my fasted Thursday solve ever. However, I spent too much time post-solve trying to figure out how scores=LANDS. I guess maybe I figured it out: Scores (LANDS) a job
Certainly, the beauty of the theme is the phonetic differences. The short "i" of arbiter vs. the long "i" of biter. The hard "g" of begin vs. the short "g" of gin. I appreciate the extra effort Dan put into the puzzle to find such differences. As he noted, there are many examples that do not meet that criteria, and would not have been as interesting. Well done, Dan.
@Anita Thank you for clearing that up. I didn't quite understand the Constructor Note. In fact, I thought 50A was a bit off when I was solving when I realized I needed a type of pot in the answer. When I had enough letters in 61A for BEEFEATER to materialize in my brain I made the connection with the gin in the clue and the fact that it began with B but I didn't notice the hard g soft g difference. Actually, just now I realized begin is the perfect clue as the name of the gin begins with B. That was a good Thursday puzzle especially since there was no revealer. I'm looking forward to a Friday and Saturday from Mr. Schoenholz!
Just came across this xkcd. I'll give the link but here's the text: "Dear Ms. Swift, Mr. Sheeran, Ms. Minaj, Ms. Grande and Mr. Weeknd, We are a group of crossword puzzle constructors and we would like to suggest some titles for your future albums: *AETE *ENI *ORETA *AROE *OINE *ENTA *AERAE <a href="https://xkcd.com/2896" target="_blank">https://xkcd.com/2896</a>/ Put those in your Funk and Wagnalls!
@John Oh my, now that's funny! I love xkcd. Not at all surprised that the creator is a puzzlehead.
Has anyone seen my tricky Thursdays? They seem to have disappeared. No criticism for the puzzle itself, though, and the themed clues were fun to figure out. I was surprised to see that PRIVACY was a debut. Just in time since it seems to be disappearing IRL.
@Nancy. J That PRIVACY was a debut surprised me, too. I assume it has not appeared before because the letters (particularly V and C) are hard to work with.
Am I the only one who wanted 21A to be EMU?
@RozzieGrandma EWE are not alone in this
@RozzieGrandma I had emu and needed your comment telling me that was wrong to finally get the answers crossing it! Thanks!
Quite surprised this puzzle has generated so many comments! I read them, mostly, and conclusione (as an Italian friend likes to say): “You can please some of the people all the time, you can please all the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” (!) I was pleased but would’ve liked more trickery. Just got my happy husband back home from the hospital—two nights was about all he could handle. Onward!
@Kate I'm glad your husband is home. Was it he who was having a hip replacement replacement? In any case, I hope he has a quick and thorough recovery. Best of luck to you both.
This was a fun theme but took me a while to catch. The first complete one that I had was 61A BEEFEATER but I had no idea why it was the answer. DUTCHOVEN in 50A finally made sense. Then, I was able to go back and fill in the rest. JAKE? Never heard of it. Definitely a new one for me. Loved the clueing for REDHEADS and LAVA.
I signed into this website for the first time just so I could comment on how bad this puzzle is to me. I am not an aficionado of crosswords by any means, but I am FAR from a simpleton, and this puzzle strikes me as designed by someone with an old point-and-click designer’s seventh-dimensional thought process. Nearly half of the clues I had to look up and learning the solutions invariably made me furious, either because the logic required to reach the conclusion was entirely alien to me, bewilderingly vague, or, as in the case of one very strikingly recurring answer throughout this comment section, positively ancient in origin. If I have to pay for puzzles of this caliber, I shan’t continue to do so for much longer.
@Wes Dude. Start with Mondays and Tuesdays. As a neophyte they will be less tricky. Also, read the explainer. It gives context on what each day's puzzle is supposed to be. You are angry because you misunders tand what a Thursday puzzle is supposed to be. Th is is supposed to be oblique\obscure\punned.
@Wes Since you're from Texas, maybe you're a Rangers fan. They landed our former ace on the Mets, Jacob deGrom, who has the best fastball in baseball when he's healthy, but alas, he's on the injured list most of the time. I mention this because I used to analogize, back when he was on the Mets, that a person with your kind of complaints is like a batter saying: "DeGrom is a horrible pitcher. No one can hit that fastball." Which, at the time, was Jake with me. But it doesn't make the comment valid. Take some more batting practice, and see how you do in a couple of years. These things take time.
@Wes Agreed. Next up, wait for the usual "do Mondays and Tuesday snark."
Count me among today’s naysayers. I did not like this puzzle. Annoying.
Sean, If your post was meant to mean something to anyone other that you, it really needs a bit more detail. As it is, it's not clear whether you didn't like the puzzle because it was too easy (or maybe just because it wasn't a rebus), because it was too hard (theme or fill), or because you're allergic to clue asterisks. It's fine to state your annoyance; it's more useful to add why you were annoyed.
Did my usual "ok, something is going on here but I'll just whistle past the graveyard for now" routine and finally caught on at what was once my favorite gin. Also fell into the MADA SHELL trap. Employee showed up one day in a new SILVERADO and had to endure coworker's teasing songs to the tune of *Desperado* all day. Nicely done and thanks.
I agree with everyone else that the puzzles should be easier/harder/exactly the same! Get cracking, Shortz! I kinda wish the themers hadn't been starred, but I recognize that wouldn't have been jake with many other solvers. Anywho, I enjoyed it. Here's Howard Beale's MADA SHELL: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwMVMbmQBug" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwMVMbmQBug</a>
Feature request: It sure would be nice to be able to block certain commenters who seem to get off on belittling and talking down to other solvers. I saw another commenter request this feature a while ago and I didn't understand why. After reading the comments here for a few months, now I get it.
This was so cool. I had to read your article to understand the themed clues and I thought BEEFEATER was particularly clever. After getting those down pat the northwest, northeast and southeast quadrants were a fun yet challenging puzzle. The southwest corner just didn't click for me, though, and I finally had to go to the answer key... but that's okay. The point is, I had fun! Peace and hair grease from the most dysfunctional state in the union. Not all of us are psychotic.
Nice theme. I had some of the big answers without fully understanding the trick. Finally got it about 3/4 thru and finished it up quickly. Good work.
Fun theme. And finally a rebus free Thursday with decent fill for once. No idea about JAKE though. Happy? Really? "I'm so jakey to see you." weird.
@Ern. The clue is “copacetic”. My understanding of its meaning is something like “going well”, “better than satisfactory”. “Happiness” might be a consequence of things being copacetic.
Figured this out with *Ensign when the answer came out NO PARKING. Then figured out that you had to parse the theme clues correctly to get the actual intent. Which made deciphering the themers fairly easy, but I got a bit stuck in the SW for a while. It was fun! Thanks, Dan.
This marks the second time, given the clue "Bon ___", that I penciled in MOT, only to discover it's AMI. One day I'll learn.
@James Curran And on that day the answer will be MOT, guaranteed!
I come to be challenged and I'm rarely disappointed. This is what puzzling is all about. Bring it on.