The extra layer of having the hidden letters spell out PASSAGES was a perfect capper to a fun puzzle. A "chef's kiss" for Dan Caprera!
A little quibble from a nurse: “shots” are always given into a muscle, or layer of skin or other tissue - veins are what you are trying to avoid. “IV” meds are injected into a vein, but they are always described as dosages of the med given, never as a “shot”.
@Margaret exactly! I couldn’t believe VEIN was the answer… unless you’re trying to kill someone! How did this clue get through?
@Margaret I was shocked by that too, unless it's some sort of drug reference I happily don't know anything about. I don't like seeing those in the puzzle anyway. Which brings me to the cluing. Good puzzle, clever theme, but when there's an already vague clue like Prosecution figs. and it actually refers to persons, it definitely calls for a question mark to indicate wordplay. A number of the clues were like this, so far off as to take the fun out of it, in entries too short to be worth the effort. And despite the constructor's praiseworthy attempts, there was some crosswordese so stale you could taste the OLEO going rancid, to say nothing of far too many sports and entertainment entries for my liking. No offense to the constructor, who did a good job with a clever idea, but there have been so many really good puzzles with great, clever cluing in recent weeks that this one fell flat for me. Just my opinion!
Margaret, Right, of course. There are frequent reminders in the comments to not perform surgery based on crossword clues and answers. There are similar reminders for clues and answers about every profession and discipline.
Very nice. I appreciate clever use of black squares. And in this puzzle the use of the black squares was nicely tied together with the theme. Great Thursday puzzle.
Dan likes midweek. Two of his five NYT puzzles are Wednesdays and three are Thursdays. He also likes gimmicks. For instance, one of his puzzles ( <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/1/2023" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/1/2023</a> ) had three extraterrestrial vehicles, one beaming up a cow, one a man, and one a car. So, the machinations of today’s puzzle don’t surprise me. Much skill went into producing this. The theme answer in the top row, for example, has three words, their letter counts being 4-3-6, which means the theme answer in the bottom row must have a count of 6-3-4 to meet the requirements of symmetry. But not only that, only certain letters could go into the black squares of those rows. Tough, tough, tough to find answers that would work, and work smoothly! Most importantly, how was the solve? Sweet! For me, there was a terrific “Hah!” when the theme became clear, and the SW fought me hard there for a while – much to my brain’s delight. Other territory filled out in a swoop – much to my brain’s delight. Your puzzles are fun, Dan. Thank you so much for this one, and MOOR please!
COURT_IDE_EATS was obvious to me right away, so the theme quickly fell in place. Nice theme
@Steven M. same for us. Very pleasant puzzle.
Well... judging by my time I can tell you who *didn't* do it: Who: Me Where: Web Browser Weapon: Keyboard cc: emu handler
Perfect Thursday puzzle in my opinion. I did struggle to see the theme for quite a while, so a great AHA moment when I finally saw how it worked and I loved the graphics at the end. Hopefully no one will get mad at you , Dan , or send hate mail. It’s shocking when people do that.
@suejean So sorry I got your name wrong in my post down below. I could blame autocorrect, but it was more the late hour and my short-term memory getting worse.
Tell a Vietnam Vet who was drafted that he enlisted and see what he says… I don’t think you’d make it out of that conversation without some scars. I get that xws don’t have to be so on the nose but this one needs to be reworked.
Brando, Drafted Vietnam vet here. Some of my colleagues enlisted. Also, having been drafted, I was an EM (enlisted man). I had no issue with the clue. Short!
@Barry Ancona Exactly the point. "Enlisted" is not a "draft status." If you enlisted, you were not drafted. A "draft status" is Class I, II, III, or IV, and the various sub-classes.
@Brando It's one of those "technicalities" that they use to try to make the puzzle more "challenging." Technucally, every draftee has to enlist. I agree with you. It isn't a draft status. Your draft status was on your draft card -- Class I, II, III, or IV.
In re Dan's note about hate mail, know this: if one is even considering sending hate mail to a crossword constructor, one should back away from the writing implement and quickly look up available psychiatrists, because the chance that one has gone completely off the rails is very high.
@Jay I can’t even imagine a living a life where this would be a pressing crusade to endeavor. What a luxury.
Speed of Jason's ship?* Where was I - oh yeah, really clever puzzle; not terribly easy for me, of course, and even after I tumbled to the trick I had to struggle to parse exactly what was happening in various places. Took me quite a while but just made for a nice workout. *Oh... and "speed of Jason's ship?" ARGOKNOTS I'm done. ..
@Rich in Atlanta Wonderful!!
@Rich in Atlanta Love it! Can't help but think of the late, great Ray Harryhausen and his epic "argoknots" in motion: <a href="https://youtu.be/eO0Di-Iczuo?feature=shared" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/eO0Di-Iczuo?feature=shared</a>
I had fun. I hope you did too. EOM EMU
Signposted at Dionysus' shindig: Anyone with LICE will be asked to leave. No INTROS required. Mrs White: "EEK! Look at the ACNE on that rump! IBET there's MOOR ... shall we SEE?" Reverend Green: "Have you lot PAID for COURTSIDESEATS at this COARSE ORGY? Professor Plum: "Hmmm... it BEGS the question... how HER PRIMEREALESTATE fits into those ONSIES? Now, where did I leave my CASSIS? Ah yes, under the OLIVETREES, next to the POLOSHIRTS." Mrs Peacock: "Glad I haven't FORSAKEN SECRET PASSAGES ... might take a STAB at that MANEATINGSHARK." Colonel Mustard: "Cor Blimey! They ought not to RATION the OLEO tonight." Miss Scarlett: (thinking ALOUD) "Well, I'm here. At least they ENLISTED a pro!" Will this make it past the PARENTAL emus?
As some of you know, I spent most of Monday driving to and (mostly) back* from the totality path of the eclipse, so I had some light TV viewing to try to catch up on last night. So I decided to solve while also watching some recorded stuff in the background. Big mistake. By the end, I decided to just put the TV on pause until I finished. I started by putting PREP in 1A. A slam dunk, right? But then 1D had to be FALCO, and 1A turned into FOOD because ANNO was a gimme, LICE made sense, and COURT kinda halfway made sense. That's when I realized it was the return of the tricky Thursday that's been missing the past few weeks. I knew something was afoot with FOOD and COURT, but not quite what. The big issue here was that the other two entries on each line weren't clued with hyphens this time. They had real clues, so it was less apparent that unorthodox tricks were at hand. Well, eventually, I got the trick and filled in the first two. But then, because I was splitting my attention, I completely forgot what was happening when I got to the bottom two. That made the SW corner a debacle for me. Until I paused the TV, and said, "Wait a minute! I know what's wrong!" Up till then, I couldn't figure out for the life of me why PRIMER was "Valuable property". Finally finished at nearly double my average, but it wasn't the puzzle's fault. Multitasking is way overrated. * Sitting in traffic so epic the NYT had a major article on it yesterday.
(continued) I also wanted to mention, bonus elegance points for those incomplete answers (FOOD, COURT, MANE and PRIMER) all being actual words themselves, as well as the other two components of each phrase. You could reclue those four words and take out the reference to the four trick answers in the 44/46A revealer, and you'd still have a solid puzzle without the trick.
@Steve L There's really no such thing as multitasking; you just switch rapidly back and forth between two (or more) tasks, and neither gets the attention it deserves. Pausing the TV was the right move.
Just started reading these, so I suspect this may have been stated many times already. I've been doing these for years, and this may be the most stunning example of expert construction I've ever seen. No, I didn't get the entire theme until I got here. Learning the second level put a smile on my face. This is a very good day. I left the "don't make sense" entries in place since I was sure of the crosses and decided to take my chances. Finished slightly over average with no lookups. A real confidence builder!
I don't know what prime real estate looks like. But my agent drew a composite. (So if I move, that'll factor into it.)
@Mike You rascal! I've got your number, Miste!
My only issue with this puzzle was the answer for 57A, because we all know Mayor Vaughn was the real menace in Jaws! I liked this one. Have a wonderful day, everybody!
@Jen my exact thoughts! I was really hoping that clue would resolve to the mayor, or at least something more sociological than shark-centric. But at least in my case, that reaction was during my first pass through the grid, and before I had grokked the theme (especially as I initially figured the answer would be something like “bite”). I’m actually fine with the run-of-the-mill clue+answer pairing in the context of the theme :)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is a SPOILER for today’s Wordle in this comment section that for whatever reason hasn’t been removed as of my typing this comment
@Peter I finished today's puzzle, which was very clever, a number of hours ago and saw the Wordle spoiler post. However, after going back to sleep I had the great fortune of forgetting the word entirely. The (few) benefits of advanced age and insomnia.
@Peter I feel fortunate that I was able to avert my eyes before reading the spoiler. I hope the poster realizes at some point how inappropriate that comment was. For what it is worth, I flagged it. I hope not too many folks have their Wordle puzzle spoiled today.
Things may have clicked earlier for me if it read "Cluedo" but I eventually twigged when I saw the capital C in "Clue" and remembered that's what they called the game in the US. Coincidentally, I'm currently staying away in our newly purchased pop up camper (a 1980 Viscount) that because of it external paint colour we've nicknamed "Colonel Mustard".
Clue was my favourite game as a kid, so SECRET PASSAGES came quickly. And one of my favourite commercials as a kid was for the Veg-o-matic. “Dial from slice to dice!” So I caught the theme early. A little bit of Thursday nostalgia. Thanks!
@Andrew Coincidentally my granddaughter played Miss Scarlet is her high school production of the play Clue (based on the board game) last weekend. What fun.
Anyone else start with gREATwHITeSHARK on the 12th row? Fun puzzle, didn’t know or like SLOP/ARGOT… SLIP fit better in my mind.
Very clever. This goes into the (small) running list I'm keeping for POY because, as you know, I won't remember it otherwise. But it's going in with an asterisk: more pop culture names than I tend to like. Even though I know nothing about the game "Clue", I picked up FOOD (P)REP(A)RATION immediately. So, too, with COURTSIDE SEATS. This is because even though I have severe puzzle weaknesses in the pop culture arena, I'm very strong on word pattern recognition. OTOH, MAN EATING SHARK was extremely well disguised, I wasn't expecting it that as an answer, and I wasn't helped at all by not knowing "The Hound of the Baskervilles" location nor Walt's meth-dealing partner. (I hadn't gotten to the SHARK answer at 62A yet.) Was the crossing of the assorted names fair? Since I didn't have to cheat to finish, I'd have to say yes. A solving aid that worked for me: I put a small dot in the margin before the 1st, 4th, 12th and 15th rows right after reading the revealer. This helped me immediately know what I was looking for. Into my list for POY it goes. But with that asterisk.
“Ha, once I get to the end, maybe I’ll see if the letters of these secret passages spell anything!” [gets to the end] “Ohhhh!” I love a puzzle where something happens in the black squares. It’s maybe 5% more puzzling. Best theme row is FOOD REP RATION: it’s a scene where contestants in a pie eating contest have the slices of lemon meringue lined up ready to consume.
@Cat Lady Margaret Agree 105% with you! Love it when you don't know how, or when a Thursday will deliver. It's like that old commercial, waiting for that release - <a href="https://youtu.be/uoLoyg3JKRQ?feature=shared" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/uoLoyg3JKRQ?feature=shared</a>
Not only do the hidden letters in the black squares serve as SECRET PASSAGES across the grid, but the entries for 1A, 20A, 57A, and 70A are themselves SECRET PASSAGES in this crossword. Love it.
Very pleasurable Thursday. Nice easy to see theme answer to start off up top, followed by harder theme answers to keep us guessing. Its particularly enjoyable when I don't feel like the puzzling is over just becasue I figured out how the theme answer works. Thanks for reminding us why Thursday is fun
Can you please keep the theme revealer out of the the "tricky clues" section? I love to go to the tricky clues when stuck, but don't want to ruin the 'AHA" moment of a big reveal. This was disappointing to see Secret Passage as the first answer in the tricky clues section, ruining the theme for me.
What a treat! I did not see that coming! It wasn't until I dumbfoundedly entered MANE as the answer to *"Jaws" menace* and got the happy music with reveal that I discovered why some of the answers seemed off. Hats off. That was fun!
who else confidently went with QRCODE on 28A? Took me a while to realise :)
@Tristan I did too. I didn't hang on to it too long because I couldn't find any crosses.
@Tristan I had the same issue! Got RETINA after I saw what some of the crosses were supposed to be, though.
This was fun! I caught on to the secret passages fairly quickly, but didn't realize they spelled "passages" until the end. Clever! ..................................................
I had a lot of fun with this one. What was shocking for me was getting the trick on a sports related clue. Almost everything I know about team sports comes to me from crosswords. For whatever reason, I had trouble seeing MAN EATING SHARK. I was a little stuck with JLO crossing JESSE until I got the SSE, guessed at JESSE, and then saw that JLO looked familiar. Very nice job, Dan. I think you met your goal of avoiding crosswordese and presenting a clean and enjoyable grid.
Well.. I think the shot into a vein discourse has been put to death. I guess sometimes I say to patients “I’m going to give you a little shot into your IV” for IV push meds. Or perhaps “take a shot” at placing an IV for a difficult stick. Or maybe from when we didn’t have leur locks, and nurses had to use needles to shoot into the ports of IV tubing? Trying to be generous here lol. Just shows how even for very educated people with basic health literacy (assumed), there is a lack of understanding in what we *actually do* in healthcare.
@Eliz Oddly, I never even thought of healthcare for that clue. Illicit drugs were all that ever entered my mind. A shot of heroin is often mainlined into a vein. Not saying that's what the constructor had in mind, but just pointing out a different way of looking at clue 19D.
Anyone else put EAT for 25D? Fixed it when EATS was another answer. Much more scary to imagine what might be in that pantry. And I don't follow sports much and assumed 10D would be a man, so happy to see a woman (got name from crosses but the final A was the tip-off).
@David Connell - a simple intro for noobs <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P7nSD_PK38E&pp=ygUKTWFlIE1hcnRpbg" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P7nSD_PK38E&pp=ygUKTWFlIE1hcnRpbg</a>%3D%3D
@David Connell I loved them on Taskmaster! They rocked.
@David Connell I loved them on Richard Osman's House of Games. They won their week too!
For whatever reason I started on the bottom and was chuffed (Hi, SueAnn) to get POLO SHIRTS without any crosses. But not to worry, plenty of struggles elsewhere. VanGogh series of paintings: Haystacks? Irises? Cypresses? Nope, nope, nope. Oh, OLIVE TREES. Doh. A fun struggle. Thanks, Dan
Fortunate coincidence for today's puzzle. TARA Vanderveer just announced her retirement from coaching yesterday, so that hit the news just in time for this puzzle. Was a bit puzzled at the non-answers here and there until I hit the revealer and went back to look at the indicated rows. Bingo! Was hoping that the hidden letters would spell something, and it was a nice bonus when they showed up. My problem was partially insisting on 'hidden' instead of SECRET, and then a lack of TV trivia knowledge, but I managed to get things straightened out and finish up. Lots of fun! Thanks, Dan!
@JayTee Yes, I noticed that coincidence, too! But why a photo of a WNBA player instead of Stanford??
Awesome puzzle. The only iffy cross was ARGOT and SLOP. SLiP and ARGiT I had until the end, since slip also works for the clue and I’d never heard of ARGOT. A word to add to the vocab I guess. Great stuff
@Michael - the key element of argot is that it is insider talk - words that only mean what they mean to the people using them. So it’s not quite the same as “slang” or “lingo” or “-ese”. Emus, Naticks, themers, spanners = crossword commentariat argot. They have specific meanings unique to a community of speakers/writers.
I really enjoyed this puzzle! I always go in cold and try to discover the theme by myself and in this case, COURTsIDEsEATS was the clue that revealed if for me. The others came pretty quickly after that and I managed to complete it a few minutes under my Thursday average time :) Well done Dan Caprera on perfectly combining Cluedo into a crossword.
I really enjoyed this one today! A great Thursday puzzle! I was tipped off to the trick when I could only fit in "court" when the answer was court side seats! Man eating shark still took me a long time to piece together, but we got there in the the end!
@Cathy Yes, I was trying to fit "great white shark" in there for the longest time! But that didn't make sense with the letters that I knew should be in the black spaces, so I had to erase and rethink the whole thing.
Invisible rebuses are better because one doesn't have go through the onerous process of entering them. Especially onerous when one has an octogenarians's arthitic fingers!
Enjoyed this a lot more than some recent ones, the clueing made sense, not too many obscure references and a fun twist that wasn’t too self-consciously tricky. Lots to enjoy thank you!
Ah, a proper Thursday workout. Excellent. Took me forever to work out the trick, not having played Cluedo (as it was called here) as a kid, so I was unaware of how the PASSAGES worked even though I got the revealer early. I finally saw the light with the big rubber SHARK. It was one of the first films I saw unaccompanied by an adult ( I think I was 13). It scared the bejesus out of me. Took a while to figure out the rest; the bottom entry falling last just because we don’t call building stock REAL ESTATE here, so it just never occurs to me. A brilliant puzzle and no pesky rebi. Huzzah.
@Helen Wright You really don't need to know anything about the game (by any name) ...and the game had no SECRET PASSAGES when I played it at a friend's house in about 1961. Just rooms and weapons.
Lots of comments seem to indicate it was a fast solve for many but I was a bit north of my recent average. I’m definitely rusty. The puzzle filled nicely and the theme quickly became clear but, again, a few naticky (for me) crossers and the minutes added up. ARGOT was a new one and I was sure “spill” solved to SLiP. That plus a couple other sticky spots. No matter. Very cool puzzle and theme. Incredibly impressive construction. Well done, Dan Carpera.
I didn’t do any puzzles this week, so just punched out Monday->Thursday tonight. Maybe it’s in my head, or small sample, but I think the Joel is editing to make tougher puzzles than Will. Not really complaining, but puzzles seem to be taking me longer. That said, tonight was well below average and faster than Wednesday. That said, that said, I didn’t find the clues easier than an average Thursday, per Deb’s column. I finished relatively quickly, but more because I got the trick pretty early on. And four rows of tricks solved makes the rest of the grid pretty small. Other than ARGOT. With I never heard of. I had ARGiT. which seemed okay given a spill (on ice) can be a slip. In fact, I like that better than SLOP. The constructor mentioned getting “hate mail” for his puzzles. I know many of us complain on this forum. But going directly at the constructor is next level. Maybe when Vegas allows us to start ‘gambling’ on crosswords, will I get to that level of crazy.
@Weak, for me the puzzle taking longer is a good thing! I get to enjoy it longer.
Thanks Dan Caprera, that was a delight.
Just want to give some love to movie, Clue. No idea if it holds up, but I remember being delighted by it and the incredible ensemble cast. So many games that now have been made into movies and are awful - that one was a blast.
@Gabriel I remember that there were 4 different endings, and you did not know which one you were going to see.
As a PCP I would just like to say you take shots in the ARM , and get blood taken out of a VEIN . You don't take shots in a VEIN . Other than that loved this puzzle and had some words that we don't often see - FORSAKEN , CASSIS , the name JESSE . Very neatly crafted . Keep it up !
@Cathy Parrish As someone who's not a PCP, I thought that was a weird clue, too. Never, ever have I had a shot in a vein.
@Cathy Parrish I’m not a PCP, but rather I spent my whole career practicing anesthesiology. If you take the clue word “shot” to be synonymous with “injection” (it is listed as a primary synonym in M-W when you look up the latter) the clue is valid. I know there have been multiple complaints from nurses about this clue today, but as someone who very rarely gave intramuscular injections, it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m not saying that using “shot” instead of “dose” was the most common thing in the wild, but if it was said I would certainly know what they meant.
@Cathy Parrish There are certainly bolus injections that are given IV, usually through a line, sometimes not (rare). IV drug abusers often self-administer their meds directly into veins (shooting up), so I can see at least some partial validity for the clue. But yes, it's a bit awkward.
I got the trick fairly early on, but it wasn't until I'd completed the puzzle and saw how the blacked out squares actually spelled "SECRET PASSAGES" that I truly appreciated the next-level genius of the construction. Just amazing, that anyone has the wherewithal to think of such a thing in the first place, and then figure out how to pull it off within the confines of a crossword grid. Hat's off, Dan Caprera!
As a Gamecock alum and fan I was pleased to see the picture of A'ja Wilson on top of your blog. I guess you had her picture up due to the Tara VanDerveer clue, but she is also an ambassador for the University of SC and her name would make a great clue. Her dad named her for the album...
The "Broken Earth" trilogy by N.K. Jemisin (30D) is awesome; I highly recommend it. The fact that neither the author nor the title of the series or any of its books are in the answer make me think that the author must be a fan too, as there are many other ways to clue that word.
And upon re-reading the column, I see that the constructor is indeed a Jemisin fan!
Just a great, satisfyingly clever puzzle. What an amazing multilevel concept and construction! The SW corner was especially tough, but eventually fell to the old “leave for a while” method. I really loved this one.
What a fun puzzle to zip through as we head towards the weekend (I beat my average stove time by 4.5 minutes!). The layers of the passages theme were quite satisfying, and this would be a fun Thursday puzzle for someone dipping their toes in the more difficult days of the week.