Frustration increasing this week. These puzzles have been very sloppy. "B" and "N" are not words. I realized that Ice was meant to be Nice, and finished the puzzle from there, but I shouldn't have needed this column to explain what was meant by 6 words
@Steven M. I share your frustration, just regarding this puzzle, agreeing that letters are not words unless they are spelled out. .
@Steven M. See my later comment Or ask an emu
Call me an idiot, but I hated this puzzle. Obtuse - and not in a fun way. Even after I figured out the 'theme,' it was a poor puzzle. Not a fan.
@Thomas You are not an idiot. It was just a bad puzzle.
Densely studded with truly clever clues. An exceptionally rewarding Thursday puzzle.
B and N are not words. Would’ve preferred the clue to suggest adding two spaces, and then i wouldn’t have been stuck figuring out which six actual words fit in so few letters.
@Noah. See my later comment Or ask an emu
@Noah I must be missing something. Who said B and N are words? The revealer mean substitute B or N for star (asterisk) in the clue.
I finished the puzzle, checked the missing letters, said "a star is born... What? Six words? ... OH! A star is "B" OR "N." At that moment I felt as if the constructor elbowed my side and said, "get it?? B OR N?? They replace the stars in the clues! Hahahaha!!!!" And I have that half smile, half eye roll that's the reaction to all great dad jokes.
Wow, just wow. Could not figure this out. But when I did I was utterly blown away at the cleverness of the clues. Really wish I had seen it before I read the explanation but kudos for the *rillia*t execution.
No, not clever at all, imo, rather arbitrarily obtuse and unrewarding, one annoyance after another. Bah.
I don’t know how many people here solve the AVXC crossword puzzles, but yesterday’s puzzle had the clue “Puzzle columnist Amlen.” Congratulations, Deb! You’ve officially crossword famous!
Haha thanks, @Eric Hougland! It's always a thrill when constructors think of me
Really really clever. I figured out the trick easily enough—a missing letter where the asterisk was—which made it pretty easy to guess the themes, but I love a theme where you can’t wait to see what the revealer would be and this one didn’t disappoint. A quick solve but extremely fun. LOL before I realized that the missing letters were always B or N I was looking for COVID of Ancient Greece and imagining some sort of mythological epidemic!
Finished it, but would feel smarter if I had figured out the theme.
I love when a puzzle reveals itself in layers, as this one did. Three layers for me, actually. First, when I read the clue to the revealer, which told me to look at the clues for the gimmick. Second, at MCCARTNEY, when it hit me with a bang that “assist” was meant to be “bassist”. And third, when I finally parsed the revealer – with another bang – to see that the asterisks in the clues were STARs, and why they represented B’s and N’s. The puzzle opened like a flower – three times! – to create a most satisfying solving outing. David the trickster loves to make Thursday puzzles. Seven of his 23 Times offerings fall on that day. And what trickery today! The theme clues are ingenious, with the play on their first words, and with their repurposing the asterisk, which often accompanies theme clues in puzzles, and that’s what it looked they were doing today – but no! They were part of the theme itself! How can I not love a mind that looks at “A STAR IS BORN” and sees “AN ASTERISK is B OR N?” Brushing against that trick-and-treat mind once again today, David, has been a gift. Thank you for your talent, and for bringing it to crosswords, and for a phenomenal journey through the box today!
And by the way, this puzzle has 73 theme squares -- blisteringly high, at 40% of the white squares! -- and yet, despite the constraint, the grid comes off smoothly. David backs up his trickery with remarkable skill. And p.s. -- how can this be the first time MCCARTNEY has ever appeared in the NYT puzzle? Et tu, emu.
I genuinely shouted “ELHI?!” at my phone after solving for SOLE as the only logical cross. Look. I know, in retrospect, that it refers to ELementary-HIgh school, but come on. This is getting ridiculous. Tha, plus the atrocious 3x3’s with obscure, awkward fill to the east and west completely deadened my enthusiasm for the theme (which was actually quite clever.) This is sadly in keeping with many of the puzzles of late. I don’t know what else to say except to express my sincere gratitude to Joel for stepping up in Will’s absence, coupled with an equally sincere (and fervent) hope for Will’s return.
Edward, You seem to be blaming Joel for ELHI. This was appearance 91 in the grid for ELHI. It first appeared in the Maleska era. Some things don't change.
My hangup is that "b" and "n" are not really words. Bit I can't really think of a better way to clue it.
@Gilead Kutnick “6 syllables” would have been better phrasing. I agree, B and N are not “words.” My big issue is that 29 (29!) 3-letter words and 20 4-letter words are too much of a slog for the payoff. I can’t remember the last Thursday with so much short stuff. This is the consequence of excess theme pressure. Clever, but not necessarily fun to solve.
@Gilead Kutnick This is my complaint, too. How can 4 vowels lead to 6 words? The clue should have just been "when parsed differently." The 6 words was unnecessary and inaccurate
I thoroughly enjoyed the solving puzzle, some clues made me laugh, and even more, I enjoyed reading Deb’s article, which is an equally valuable contribution IMHO. What more could one want for a bit of puzzle-entertainment at the end of a day. Thanks.
A STAR IS B OR N. Wow!!! I've said it before and I'll say it again. Every time you think no one can come up with a completely original puzzle idea, someone does. Right away I saw all the missing "B"s and "N"s in the clues. I parsed them all perfectly. But why those missing letters? Would the thrice-made movie have the word "missing" in it? Or "vanished"? Or "disappears"? And what could possibly tie together an N and a B? Had my life depended on it, I could not have come up with the answer. So A STAR IS BORN comes in and I'm told to parse. And I parse away. Parse, parse, parse. As tar is born? What the--? And that's not six words. Aha!!!! I see it!!!! A big grin comes over my face. This is so clever and so completely surprising. It gives me a real kick on a rainy miserable morning. Into the running list I'm keeping for Puzzle of the Year. it goes.
Loved it so much, though I'm a tad worried about the comments to come . . . I sometimes imagine that Deb, for so long the heart and soul of this column, now chooses to emcee Thursdays because she has the thickest skin . . . the comments are so often brutal. I personally love Thursdays because they twist my tiny brain in delightfully maddening contortions before enlightenment dawns. David Kwong, you are a 'rilliant 'rainiac. This was worth the wait.
Let's put this to rest once and for all. I have consulted four dictionaries (Oxford Dictionary of English, Chambers, Collins, and Macquarie). They all have the entry: "B (or) b n. The second letter...." That is, they all ascribe the status "noun" to the single letter word "B" Bear in mind that it both the symbol for, and the name of the letter.
@Patrick J. Yes, I hope that puts this to rest. M-W agrees. It also mentions uses such as ,” My blood type is B positive”, “This song is in the key of B” and “I got a B on the exam.” For N there is 3b, “an indefinite number (especially a constant integer” as well as 5, “A haploid or gametic number of chromosomes”. — — — — — — — —
@Patrick J. i don't understand how a 'well actually' comment helps here... everyone doing the nytxw is fairly logical and enjoys a true puzzle. something can be hyper-technically correct and still be a dumb theme. puzzles are meant to be solved and this one fell short
As so often happens, solved it without the faintest clue as to the theme. I wasn’t aware that B and N are words. Silly me.
@Karl depends on the context right? Pretty clearly they are words in that sentence.
@B They are words, according to the dictionary.
Is it just me, or have the crosswords been consistently awful the past few weeks? Been playing daily for many years and don’t remember a run where they were so consistently convoluted and uninteresting with overwrought clues? Not a hater and will soldier on!
@Jim If it's just you then where does that leave me?? I feel the same. I would have used the descriptors "convoluted," "uninteresting," and "overwrought" as well.
@Jim I wouldn’t call them awful, but certainly more difficult, at least for me. I’ve had more blue stars and just plain incomplete puzzles the last month as I’ve had in the last year. Course correction or new direction in cluing is clearly evident, IMO - Thursdays and Fridays are now like Saturdays, for me at least. Not meant to be a complaint - just an observation. I’ve adjusted my expectations when doing the puzzles and try to focus on the bits of knowledge imparted by the puzzle rather than the “star”; journey vs end and all that. Things I didn’t know today become arrows in my quiver for tomorrow.
Lots of fun! Thank you, David Kwong. Are we going to get a lot of "I solved it but I don't get it?" Do emus like asterisks?
A constellation of clever clues - thank you David Kwong for bringing the brightness.
B and N are letters, not words. “Parsed as six words” is a failed clue
For the record, solved without getting to the final level of the theme. No matter. Any puzzle with Paul MCCARTNEY is okay by me. Not only is he a *assist, he's a left-handed *assist.
@Vaer Either the emus ate my video link or there was operator error. One more try. Get back, Jojo. <a href="https://youtu.be/TPzGZQINL0o?si=dheby151Ro-9Uln1" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/TPzGZQINL0o?si=dheby151Ro-9Uln1</a>
@Vaer I did finally figure out the B OR N trick, but before that thought the * in this clue referred to Ringo STARr, who Paul certainly "assisted", although this seemed pretty tenuous. I was happy to figure out NACRE a short time later and all the pieces fell into place. (Except a typo on RIT that took forever to find.) Fun puzzle.
@Vaer I kept trying to make this into a first name/last name answer, and finally said, "the only bassist everyone's going to know is Paul...." oh. Right.
Not a fan, some clues were really a stretch. But it looks like I'm in the minority!
@Amy it’s not just you. I can’t remember when I’ve found a puzzle less enjoyable. This one was awful.
I see many folks got the theme, easily. Me? I guess I was left in the sha-ha-sha-la-la-la-llow. cc: emu handler
I love it when I figure out the trick soon enough to help solve the themers! Great fun. And yes, I did picture underwear on the head before I got the bloomers of a LEI. [still chuckling] 🤭 Clever clue for Sir Paul! Thanks for a great Thursday puzzle.
@Beejay I never thought of a lei as being a head ornament...always a necklace.
The first movie that popped into my head for 63A was A STAR IS BORN, but I could not figure out how to parse it into 6 words, so I left that answer blank. As I went through the puzzle (still confused at the theme) I realized from the crosses that it was correct, so I spent some time trying to break up the words different ways. I can't believe how much gibberish I came up with before it occurred to me that the STAR was referring to the starred clues, lol. The puzzle was much easier and more enjoyable after that realization, and I am impressed at the cleverness of the constructor.
this puzzle shortened my lifespan by 5 years
Meh on the puzzle overall. The phrasing on the revealer clue (six "words") is utterly disgraceful.
@Mike Would you have preferred the simpler "or a hint to the theme clues in this puzzle"? The inclusion of "when parsed as six words" was clearly intended to help folks better understand the revealer and thus solve the puzzle. Did the inclusion of those five words actually make it more difficult for you to grasp the revealer? To me, "utterly disgraceful" seems a bit harsh.
Last time I checked “B” and “N” are not words. Finished the puzzle but had to come here for expla*ation.
@Patrick yes. This. This was brutal. B and N are not words!
@Patrick - Said with such confidence and conviction, yet completely wrong. EMUs know that single letter can be words.
Wanted to chime in and say that I really enjoyed this one. Just challenging enough overall and the reveal of the 6 words was a cute trick.
I thought this was a great Thursday puzzle, despite other comments here. I love going in cold and "discovering" the theme myself, and was pleasantly surprised when I figured out MCCARTNEY. The rest of the *lues fell into place after that.
Thought the trick was overly clever, with a very low aggravation-to-payoff ratio.
@Joe Perhaps you meant "a very high aggravation-to-payoff ratio"? hummingbird-to-emu (mass) ratio very low ----> emu >> hummingbird
A difficult to suss out theme with obscure, Saturday level clues made this truly unenjoyable. But my huge gripe was the clue for visitor from a faraway place. I refused to put in UFO until I had no choice, because this answer is completely inaccurate. An ET or alien is the visitor. A space ship is the vehicle in which they arrive. A UFO is anything seen by someone not wearing their glasses. Most UFOs are actually manmade objects (or atmospheric phenomenon), not from faraway places, that the observer simply did not recognize. The editors should have done much better with that.
@DocP The lack of precision in the clues has been a problem lately, but here's hoping precision - clever precision! - will return.
"You already built your intergalactic trampoline?" "Yeah, I got a jumpstar on it." (Gotta bounce!)
@Mike I hope this isn't too Vega response. And I'm Sirius about the emus.
I think my only gripe is with the wording of the clue "...parsed as six words...", since it really isn't six *words,* but four words and two letters. I think there was a better way to phrase that. Nitpick aside, though, this was indeed a brilliant misdirection. It was one of the few times I was stumped for this long on a theme and still managed to enjoy it when it finally clicked. Just such a cool concept for a Thursday puzzle.
Whether or not B and N count as words, based on the number of complaints, the phrasing of the revealer was clearly lacking. I thought it made figuring out the meaning more difficult, but not in a clever “I meant to do that” kind of way. I think it should have just read “when parsed differently”. What I really liked was how the trick was “hidden”, the same way a capitalized word is often “hidden” when it is the first word of a clue. Because theme clues are sometimes denoted by a leading asterisk (and sometimes referred to as “starred clues”), one had to realize that the star was actually a part of the clue and not just a marker. Good stuff.
Don’t like it when I finish the puzzle and still haven’t figured out the clue. I’ll take the ‘w’ anyway I get it though.
@Nom De Plume plus you got to see you and your family in the grid!
So, my head is around 5 to 6 feet off the ground. This theme was, conservatively, 200 feet over my head. I solved this thing well under average, but getting the theme? Haha, no. Then again, I'm constantly bewildered by magic, so this should be no surprise.
I just love a Thursday trick like this where the clue itself must be played with in order to figure out the answer. I caught on with MCCARTNEY. And how very impressive to find words where the pronunciation changes by adding a B or N to the beginning. I have to admit that today I learned that Ovid is pronounced Ahvid. Congratulations, David. Excellent puzzle!
Perhaps B or N aren't words *by themselves,* but surely all the puzzle-dunkers realize that, "I have a hard time writing the letter Q" is a 9-word sentence. The puzzle was an enjoyable solve and led to several satisfying ooohh-that's-what's-happening moments for me. YMMV, but we don't have to be rude or pedantic about what really constitutes a word. Happy Thursday, emus!
@GR I don’t think any of the objectors sliced it up into “a star is b or n” and then thought, “that can’t be it, b and n aren’t words!” So I find their complaints a bit disingenuous. The NYT puts out an extremely high quality puzzle every day. If they have to stretch a few things to keep it fresh and engaging, I say please do!
Just want to say I thought this was very clever . The puzzle was solvable without understanding the theme - but the AHA moment was sweet . Great job .
I got RIVIERA from crosses, didn't /think/ it got cold enough for Ice, then realized the asterisk was being used as a wildcard. I got the rest of the theme clues pretty quickly then, but without realizing they were B OR N. I misread ⁎Ovid as Corvid, in fact, and was trying to think of a crow in Greek mythology. D'oh! to use a popular bit of crosswordese.
Solved in just under 20 min and then kept returning to the completed puzzle to try to understand the theme without cheating. I gave up and read the column. Never would have figured that out in a million years. Count me among those thrown off by “six words”…
Thanks, Deb, for your column today (and thanks to my phone, which allowed me to stop reading without seeing more about the theme). "Asterisks, which are also called stars when they are included in crossword clues, are a fairly common feature in puzzles. They typically indicate that the clue and its answer are part of the theme. In Mr. Kwong’s puzzle, the stars mean something else, and solvers must read the revealer at 63A in a different way in order to figure it out. Can you solve this puzzle without doing so? Probably. Should you? In my opinion, no, because then you’ll miss out on all the fun." By starting this way, you encouraged me to return to the puzzle without reading more. I'd made several passes and was getting a word here and there, but no foothold. As soon as I went back after your intro, the asterisks started clicking as missing letters. And then the revealer movie revealed itself, and how fun to have used your intro as the needed foothold. I then returned to enjoy the rest of the column, and some of the comments. Solvers upset at the use of 'star' for 'asterisk' might take a longer look at those two words themselves. Thanks for the foothold and encouragement! Solving for years, first time to comment.
My oh my! The SW corner was the last to fill due to 62 and 67 Across...for whatever reason, I just couldn't make sense of those clue/entry pairs until suddenly the Olympic site came to me, and Voila! Caught on almost instantly to the missing first letter trick, but thought the letter would be B each time.... N ICE one, David Kwong! (Fortunately I did not see the constructor's name until just now, or I'd have been intimidated. I guess I have to say, "This puzzle was magical!" Amazing! Great start to the day! And now I must away!
Kwong made a wonderful puzzle and I really enjoyed it, but I agree with the other commenters that the imprecise cluing kinda ruined it. We who love words think very precisely about what words are, so to see someone describe letters of the alphabet as "words" is really quite shocking. If the clue were "parse the solution into six PARTS," then it would have made perfect sense. I hold out hope that - given all the generous feedback - the editing will improve.
Boy, did I struggle with this one. I was able to finish the puzzle without grasping the theme, but because I am incredibly stubborn, I refused to give in until I understood what was going on. More minutes than I'd like to admit elapsed before I half "got it" with MCCARTNEY. Back to read 63A, head slap, groan, then laugh. Well done, David Kwong!