I like puzzles that evoke the simple joy of playing with words, and this one did that. All the themers were fun, but QUASIQUASIMODO, was a true standout.
A fun and quirky theme. I like the crossing of two "kinda” entries with the “Most authentic” (REALEST) entry. Interesting trivia about ABBA. I never would have guessed they were the first pop band on SNL. I kinda cleaned my carpets today. I gave them a sham shampoo. Thanks, Aaron.
I can't watch the hunchback ring the bell right now. But Hugo ahead. (It does sound a pealing, though.)
I never comment here, but I had to tonight to applaud Tuesday's excellently designed and crafted crossword. Fantastic job! Thank you for keeping this game so interesting for the rest of us.
What I love about NYT crosswords is that even the easy ones are entertaining. I have yet to be bored by one! This puzzle did not disappoint, with a fun theme that snuck up on me.
Oh, Aaron can build a grid. You may remember his “Vertigo” puzzle last year (4/26), where diagonal symmetry enabled him to include a spiral made of gray squares. But what I love most about his puzzles are their themes – uber-entertaining, novel, unpredictable, and how-did-he-think-of-that? That is, bravo-worthy. Some experienced solvers skip Mondays and Tuesdays because they’re “too easy”, but man, so often these solvers are missing blasts of brilliance that could fire up their day. This theme had me smiling all the way through and gave me a scintillating time trying to guess its answers (after grokking the theme) with as few crosses as possible. That smile was bolstered by running across lovely serendipities: UNC crossing UNCLE, crossing rhymers ALE and BALE, and ONE LUMP abutting WASABI (try swallowing that!). No ish about it, this gave me a splendid outing, Aaron, and I’m all eager for your next – thank you!
Administrative note: I am going on my first real vacation since covid! I will be away until Monday, July 1. Regarding my clue-of-the-week list, I don’t think I’ll be able slip one in this coming Monday; most likely there will be a double list extravaganza on my day back. Wishing all a terrific stretch of puzzles, and a sweet stretch of days ahead! Et tu, emu.
Kinda Tiny Tim singing voice? FALSEFALSETTO Kinda mimicking songbird? MOCKMOCKINGBIRD
Well the term can be bowdlerized as Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition, often said along with Situation Normal—All Fouled Up; neither of which I'd apply to this puzzle. And there's another military acronym with a similar wording in this puzzle: Lazy Inefficient Fellow Expecting Retirement, as opposed to the career type. I always appreciated working with the latter. No HASSLES working through this one, a pleasant Tuesday. Thanks, Aaron!
@JayTee I came here hoping to find somebody complaining that 21A didn't pass the breakfast test so that I could comment that it really is a 4-Q kind of puzzle.
50A sounds familiar, kinda rings a bell.
Fun and fast, I loved it! Great idea and gave me some lols. As an ocean swimmer living in tropical Queensland, I shudder to think of anything brushing past me that feels JELLYFISHISH—and yep, that’s a term I have truly used in real life to describe some marine past-brushings that I’ve brushed past! *shudder* (Luckily it’s usually just a floating clump of seaweed.)
@Horsefeathers People ask me how I can stand the cold water in Maine and New Hampshire, but at least I never encounter JELLYFISH or the dreaded JELLYFISHISH larvae like I have in visits to warmer waters. I'll take that initial ice cream headache any day.
Any puzzle with CYNDI Lauper in it is okay by me. But should anyone call me their GIRLIE*, I'd make them cry UNCLE. *I had Gal Pal at first.
@Vaer Agree, 100%! Love me some CYNDI. I have to admit, my brain registered GIRLIES as a term for a part of our anatomy... and thus I would definitely want to put the speaker in a half-UNCLE if I was addressed that way! Or at least give them a very BALEful eye. Hahaha. I had GIRL__S and couldn't figure out at first what the missing part was-!
@Vaer GIRLIEs just wanna have fun, ya know?
@Vaer Had Cindy at first ... then (due to crosses) had to change it to Cindi ... and finally Cyndi! I'll never forget the spelling of her name now! I also had Gal Pal first. The only time I heard girlies is when my sister in law caller her new girl identical twins that. It fit.
This kind of wordplay, I'd like to see on Sunday, to enjoy longer!
For everyone unfamiliar with Grok, I learned that word nearly 4 decades ago when I read Stranger in a Strange Land. The word was invented by the author for that book, and somehow over the decades it made yes way into English speech, probably due to all of us engineering geeks who loved that book. 😀
@Daily-Solver I'm not an engineering geek and never even liked SciFi, but I did read Stranger in a Strange Land as soon as it came out in paperback and loved it. Never forgot the word Grok.
Every time a crossword uses "grok", a nerdy angel gets its wings. Thank you for making my morning!
As a part-time M.Div student, I really am a "semi-seminar(ian)"! Loved this theme, though I had never heard of GROK.
Nice puzzle. And a record fast time for me!
Cute theme. Never heard trail mix called GORP before, but all the crossings were easy. Finished in a slightly distracted 7 minutes, about average for me
Sorta endearing LIKELIKEABLE I like this kind of theme where I really look forward to what the next answer will be
What imagination it must have taken to come up with a theme so wildly original and playful. I absolutely loved this! And boasting four theme answers, two grid-spanners and two 12-letter ones, this puzzle is impressively dense. I tried to come up with any other prefixes or suffixes that mean "kinda", but I couldn't. That doesn't necessarily mean there aren't any; it just means that I can't think of any. And the clues are as much fun as the answers. I love the way the characteristics of BURLESQUE and JELLYFISH are summed up in two colorfully droll adjectives each. Just a pure delight. Can there possibly be anyone who DIDN'T like this very breezy puzzle -- a puzzle that was so obviously meant to entertain us all? I'll go find out now.
@Nancy Yes, my favorite was JELLYFISHIISH! Felt fun to say. emu food more emu food
Charming theme! I don’t call my friends GIRLIES, however. Is that an age thing? Coastal difference? Maybe a TikTok thing (am regularly surprised by the names TikTok gives to things that already have perfectly good labels)?
@Clare I’ve definitely only heard it used by younger people online. Kind of in the same way guys say “homies.”
@Clare i've only heard very specific demographics use it, and not restricted to age. heard college age girls mention "drinks with the GIRLIES" and middle-aged women talk about "meeting the GIRLIES for brunch". as a guy i use it when i find myself hanging out with an all-female group.
Fun puzzle! I might have had a record time if it were not for so many typos. Also, I decided the Queens neighborhood was 'Astonia', why? I should have been able to correct that with "Obama-care", but I was.... maybe it's too late at night? Puzzle was still fun! Not just "funn-ish"!
I agree with all who loved it, and just want to submit personal thanks for honoring Q , my favorite letter.
At first the answer to 49D had a slightly salacious sound to me. Nuns wear habits, but I was not aware that monks' robes were also called habits so it seemed a little racy until I googled it! Also, "GIRLIES?" GAL PALS made sense for the clue. I don't know a soul (male or female) who refer to their women friends as "girlies."
There's ABBA, and then there's ABBA-esque: <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L-d4J3YUQmU&pp=ygUbZXJhc3VyZSB0YWtlIGEgY2hhbmNlIG9uIG1l" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L-d4J3YUQmU&pp=ygUbZXJhc3VyZSB0YWtlIGEgY2hhbmNlIG9uIG1l</a> (Check out those BOAS!)
loved seeing FUBAR... but it's rarely heard outside the military I was literally FUBAR once after an accident where my face was so damaged that my mother didn't recognize me a little bit of titanium, several hundred stitches, and multiple reconstructive surgeries later, i was no longer FUBAR
@JWDinSC Jeez! the emus are horrified
@JWDinSC I know the term only because my brother-in-law, who was in the Navy in Vietnam, taught us the term—and not the sanitized version—along with SNAFU. When he and his wife moved into their first home later, they named one of their golden labs Fubar. She was a sweetheart, and not at all FUBAR!
Thanks for the helpful guide to the acronym FUBAR. A nearby acronym, GORP, comes from “good ol’ raisins and peanuts,” which used to be the standard go-to for day hikes, before the invention of boutique-style “trail mix.”
@Alan Young Actually, it comes from "granola, oats, raisins, peanuts," which is used most often. But if you check the OED, it was first noted in 1913 as a verb meaning "to eat greedily." In other words, my brother. And he wasn't even born yet!
@Alan Young Some folks, and Wikipedia, say it stands for the ingredients, Granola, Oats, Raisins, and Peanuts, which was the first description I heard of trail mix, and that was back in the 70s or 80s. Now there are all kinds from plain to flavored and with dried fruit, mixed nuts, and coated chocolate candy.
I started typing in limos for 17D and was sad to see it didn't fit.
absolutely LOVED this one. QUASI-QUASIMODO made me laugh out loud. this is going down as one of my favorite puzzles Definitely some tough clues in there (got stuck on GROKS and GORP in particular) but ended up just filling in the crossings and hoping for the best. Didn't have to look anything up, and finished just under 5:30!
So fun! No help needed. FYI, I'd never dream of calling my female friends 'girlies'. Must be a regional thing. Otherwise, great job!
@Fran J Not regional, generational - it’s Gen Z/millenial slang.
Fun puzzle. Took me a bit to catch on, but finally had enough crosses to work out QUASIQUASIMODO and then just had a nice time going back and figuring out each of the others. Don't recall one quite like this before - nice to see a new type of theme. 15 letter answer find today was inspired by 35d. Went from YESIAM to... SAMIAM, and then from there to: GREENEGGSANDHAM That's been an answer in 8 puzzles. Would you eat them in a box? ..
Pardon my reach: Kinda Yiddish extra-terrestrial hated this pun? Humanoid oyed.
Totally bonkers but very enjoyable. I like the NYT crossword because it baffles, challenges, makes me laugh, makes me think WTF, and gives me a cultural education. For the second time in a week one of the only two gridiron players I knw came up and I didn't have to look it up. In fact I got through this one without lookups at all, which is a first for me. Although I did have to check to see if a couple of entries were actually real as they had not previously swum into my ken. I tried to read Stranger in a Strange Land once. I didn't make it to page 10.
@Rosalind Mitchell A lot of Heinlein was aimed at tween-teen level readers, but his later books had more (and sometimes very) adult themes, and he tied a lot of books together as you'd see characters from even his early books show up in later adventures. He had some 'interesting' comments and views on human nature and behavior and also on the political landscape. "Stranger" has its (shall we say) prose and cons, but I think it might be worth another try.
@Rosalind Mitchell It was required reading for me in high school, and remains one of my favorite 100 books. (English majors don't have top tens...top 100s are also restricting, but you have to draw a line somewhere!). Looking back at it now, it's amazing to see how it predicted the future, as Sci Fi often does. On the first pages... the birth control pill!
@Rosalind Mitchell I did not get very far into SIASL either the first time. But I picked it up again and once I got past the first 30 pages or so, I could not put it down. It is one of my all-time favorite books; I've read it at least 3 times.
Funny, I never thought of a MONK wearing a habit, but it turns out that habit is not gender specific. Who knew? Next, you'll be telling me a nun wears a tunic.
@Grant So is stitching up such a garment habit forming?
Had a late thought for a different kind of theme and went and did some extensive searches, but couldn't find any evidence of a theme like this. Anyway, I was thinking of some thing answers like: THECAUGHTACT THEABIRDHAND THECANDLEWIND THEBAREFOOTPARK But I did stumble across a Sunday puzzle from October 8, 2006 by Fred Piscop with the title "Turnabout is fair play." Just a slightly different take on something like the above. Some sample theme answers: FIREINTHEIRON ARMINTHESHOT SANDINTHELINE MUDINTHESTICK And a few others. Here's the Xword Info link for that one: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/8/2006&g=12&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/8/2006&g=12&d=D</a> ..
Ah, I really wanted to offer "a pen name that fools few" for PSEUDOPSEUDONYM, but that would, per Aaron's note, fail his affix test. But then if I were as clever as this constructor, the puzzle wouldn't have been half the fun. Thank you, Mr. Rosenberg & eds., for a delightful diversion.
Fun, slightly more difficult than I would expect from a Tuesday. A better translation of GROK is “to consume”, it also has the related meaning of to grasp or understand completely. L
@LarryF You know the origin of the word I presume. It means merge or blend, more than just grasp. Not consume.
Hi all, just in case my original comment never makes it up, please note that the Times and the puzzle were not loading in Chrome but I had no problem using Safari. You might want to try an alternative platform to Chrome before going bananas. I'm sure it's the Times and not just me. Just a PSA. I hope it's not FOOBAR (I originally commented with that spelled correctly but emus pulled it, I guess).
@john ezra I learned that expression as ….repair. Maybe a Midwest usage?
Never heard of Groks, had Llamas for Lifers which really screwed me up tonight. A little too squirrelyish for a Tuesday
@Megan Not sure I understand. How did you squeeze Llamas into the squares for Lifers? emu food more emu food
Ho, boy! Knowing some of the regular posters here, and knowing the clues/answers, makes me think of Creedence: "I see a bad moon arising."
As solvers of a certain age GROK was not unknown. We liked the puzzle. I found the clueing for REALEST to be strained but who cares what I think. Thank you Aaron
I enjoyed seeing GROK and GORP for quite different reasons. As others have noted, GROK is familiar to solvers of a certain age. When I was in high school, in the late 60s, someone would read Stranger in a Strange Land, recommend it with cultish enthusiasm to his or her friends, and before long everyone would be overusing GROK until it became tiresome. Half a century later the word remains fully part of my passive vocabulary but not, fortunately, part of my active one. I have a feeling that if I ever reread Stranger I would detest it now as much as I loved it then. GORP, on the other hand, is one of those terms that crossword puzzles rescue from the fraying edge of memory’s fabric. “Oh yeah, I’ve heard that before.” I appreciate that, and I resolve to use GORP (the word, not the substance) once today before letting it drift back to the periphery.
@Paul Turner We could go on and on about the use and misuse of the word GROK, as coined by Heinlein so many years ago. I found that those people who used and misused the word then often were somewhat boorish and affected. I agree that the book it originated from developed a cultish following among many. I also agree that I would also probably find the book less alluring at this stage of my life, for various reasons. Sadly Heinlein became very self indulgent in many of his later works and they often lost the charm of his earlier works. The puzzle was fun, using the wordplay quite effectively. I would also say that recently, however, these modifying terms have become somewhat overused.
@Paul Turner Aww, give Stranger another read. When I read it as a MOASA, I found much of it silly and pretentious (like many) of Heinleins ouvres) but some of the societal and religious criticisms of the time ring true even today. I cringe when I hear people us GROK when they mean understand--misses the sense of truely taking something in. I hope my ashes are turned into a delicious batch of, ahem, magic brownies.
@Paul Turner I sometimes see GROK or GROKked used here in this comment section, and that's about it.
Am I the only one who now wants to read all about the race in the header photo?
@T Jones I know, right? I Googled "hatbox race" and got a motorsports venue in Oklahoma with that nme. Those are hatboxes though, aren't they?
@T Jones Google image search tells us it's a basket race, in old London. "Porters at Covent Garden and Billingsgate balanced baskets on their heads as part of everyday life, conveying fruit, flowers and fish around their respective markets. A column of 12 wicker receptacles was the standard for the workplace - and most porters could manage to balance them almost indefinitely, a 1904 edition of the Daily Mirror reported." <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-67651000" target="_blank">https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-67651000</a>
Sam, while “kind of” often is an idiomatic disclaimer, it can also be used literally, as a synonym of “type of,” as in, “that bird is a kind of eagle.” I think the harmonic limbo usage could go either way, which probably means it’s a bad construction since it’s kind of ambiguous.
Point of order: bog and fen aren’t synonymous. They’re distinct ecosystems with unique characteristics.
@CK Point of order: Crossword puzzle clues are clues, not definitions.
@CK from Bogs and Fens by the Michigan DNR, <a href="https://www2.dnr.state.mi.us/publications/pdfs/huntingwildlifehabitat/Landowners_Guide/Resource_Dir/Acrobat/BogsFens.PDF" target="_blank">https://www2.dnr.state.mi.us/publications/pdfs/huntingwildlifehabitat/Landowners_Guide/Resource_Dir/Acrobat/BogsFens.PDF</a>: “Bogs and their close cousins-- fens…”. Think that meets crossword clue similarity.
I liked this puzzle. It was kind of funish!
Lots of fun playing with words.
Kinda some pies? ALAALAMODE Et tu, emu.
@Lewis D’oh!! Lewis, I was so excited to get this one out I didn’t read the comments! You beat me to it! Of course you did! Happy to be outdone by Lewis.
Back in college, in my first computer programming class (learning PPL on a PDP-11, for you geeks out there), variables were commonly named FOO and BAR. It was a while before one of the teaching assistants clued us in as to why. Loved today's puzzle.
@David Reiffel I still use "foo" as a variable name if I'm doing some quick hack, as a reminder to myself that it's a variable that should not remain in the code.
Grok is a perfectly cromulent word. Fun!