When a puzzle asks for the singer of a 2006 hit and your first reaction is, "Come on, I don't know this new stuff," and then you realize 2006 was 18 years ago, that's when you graduate from old to whatever it is I am today. I loved the accompanying photo of the Northern Lights!
@Jeff Z My nephew missed hockey tryouts at my Alma mater high school. As the former coach, he asked if I might call the coach and grease the wheels. I said sure, give me the coach’s contact information. I immediately recognized the name. He was the goalie when I coached and we nicknamed him Red Light because he was a bit raw at the time and sometimes let in a raft of goals. Now he was the coach and the AP history teacher!
Oh, the humanity! I truly like this era of the Times puzzles, all these clever tricks and puns. Spritely cluing in this one, and some unusual fill. Mooch...hah, wasn't that what they called Trump's shortlived Chief of Staff? God save us! I see SPLAT is making a big comeback, and each time it's clued I first think it must be THUNK. I have never heard a sound that sounded like SPLAT. No water balloon, paint ball, fat man cannonball, mosquito swatting, stamping on a Macdonalds ketchup packet, big gob of spit against a car window, ever sounded like SPLAT. Splat is to the sound of a toddler hurling his oatmeal to the floor as instant coffee is to real coffee. Yet I love the word SPLAT for trying as hard as a word can to approximate that sound. Splat, you're living your best life. Congratulations on appearing twice this week, dude, you thunk my world. And oh, the humanity, here I am 4 hours after this column shoulda been up - somebody asleep at the wheel probably keyed it in to appear at the "usual" time -- 10pm -- forgetting it's supposed to be 6 pm. And I like that, that this place hasn't become so AI-driven and homogenized that accidents like this never happen. I like the feckless bumptiousness of the whole affair, that it's a community of real people, who sometimes make little mistakes, or (in other news) big ones like those Crowdstrike bozos. To put it mildly.
@john ezra I love the phrase "feckless bumptiousness" and wonder if we'll ever see it in a crossword.
john ezra, For the fullest noise, put your ketchup packet in the microwave. Pretty sure SPLAT is there somewhere. Or so I’ve heard. :-O
@john ezra Sir, you are clearly an aficionado of Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" in which delightfully crazy tale the term "feckless bumptiousness" first appears. I particularly like the one-page chapter describing his life's path as a great black squiggle, which bears a certain familiarity. My encomium.
Low-rise jeans (25D), here’s what I think of you, made with more post it notes: Is IT FAir that *all* the trousers offerings are like that? What consumer problem does IT SOLve? Are you trying to save on fabric and make IT LAst? Don’t tell me to give IT TIme: I’ve waited decades for them to go away. In conclusion, we want more waistline choices: get IT DOne!
@Cat Lady Margaret Brava!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 . . . . thE MUsical post-it notes we were missing.
My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Major undertaking? (7) 2. They often take bows (9) 3. Things that are head and shoulders above the rest? (7)(4) 4. Appealing subject? (3) 5. Horses around? (8) COLLEGE SHOELACES PROFILE PICS LAW CAROUSEL
@Lewis Those were all great! ........................ ................ .........
Longtime reader, first time commentator but had to come here to say: this was a great puzzle! There were some really cute, clever clues and I had a lot of fun solving. I’m glad so many others found it as delightful and satisfying as I did!
@Tippy Don't be a stranger! I love that you have the same name as my first kitty...though probably not for the same reason. Welcome!
@Tippy Yes, please do feel free to comment any time you like. We are a (mostly) congenial community, always looking for fresh voices.
Usually the answer-set stars – sparky entries – are long. The shorter answers are so often a supporting cast, forgettable glue. But man, today this puzzle starts off dense with short beauty – SPLAT, MOOCH, UNSEE, TUFT, FLAK, SMUG. Brava on that! And the theme – mwah! Left me wondering why hadn’t any constructor thought of this before. The perfect revealer, eliciting from me an inner standing-O. That’s enough to make me a fan of this puzzle, to PUT IT MILDLY. But then there are lovely serendipities as icing: • PuzzPair© of EYES and LIDS. • The GET across and STAND down. • Lovely contradictory abutting pair of GAGA and PUT IT MILDLY. • Parallel prepositional phrases with parallel clues UP A TREE and IN A SPOT (Hi, @ Elie Levine!). Laura, your first puzzle (collabed with Katherine Baiker) also had a primo revealer, with theme answers that ended with same-sounding words, like PIG TAIL TALE and MR. RIGHT RITE, all given wacky clues, with the revealer being AD HOMINEM. Wow! So just what will you come up with next? Anxious to see. Thank you for a puzzle that left me buoyant!
Long, long before I was anywhere near the revealer clue or had looked at the length of the answer, I fairly yelled out "POST-IT NOTES!!" At that point I had only BREAK IT DOWN and KEEP IT REAL filled in. So I am feeling quite pleased with myself and perhaps a little SMUG. A very nice play on words and very nicely chosen themers. All theme answers are very much in the language and all are well-clued. I kept wanting PUT IT gentLY at 40A, but GE is not a note. I needed crosses to get MILDLY. Just couldn't think of it. Nice clues for OWLET and SPANK. ROUGE is so yesterday; these days it's BLUSH. (I'm old enough to have used ROUGE back in the day, but then I'm old enough to have used a rotary phone too.) A cute theme and no junk. Liked it! (A note to whoever wrote the sub-headline in the column: PLEASE DON'T DO THAT!!!! Don't completely give away the theme with the word "musical". While I never come to any of the xword blogs before solving the puzzle, I imagine there are some people who do. The word "musical" gives away the whole shebang and there's no way to UNSEE it. And even if most solvers won't mind, it's definitely not fair to the constructor. I'd be having a fit if it were done to me, TO PUT IT MILDLY.)
Favorite clue today was about the bird still getting wise to the world.
Just a tad stickier than a usual Monday, and all the more enjoyable for that!
This was my 365th gold streak crossword! A full year streak!
@Savannah D Quite an accomplishment! Congratulations!!
Oh, the horrors of low-rise pants. TO PUT IT MILDLY, I have been totally REPELled by the many sights on display since they have become the norm. There are so many things I wish I could UNSEE. I mostly keep my EYES averted, but sometimes it's just right there in front of me. I wonder if it's RUDE to mention to someone bending over that their pants RODE down lower than they might think and are now IN A SPOT that they might wish they weren't. Maybe it would be welcome, but I never take the chance. As for the wearing experience, why are women forced to pull up their pants every time they STAND up? Pants used to stay where they belong, but I guess it's too expensive to make pants that accomodate a human form that includes a waist that is smaller than the HIPS. Choices would be nice.
@Nancy J. -- I don't know what on earth possessed me about five years ago. And I wasn't 22 anymore, either. Having never even tried on a pair of low-rise pants, much less ever owned any, I was in a ritzy Madison Avenue UES shop and chanced upon a pair of the most gloriously soft chocolate brown cashmere pants. They were beautifully cut: shaped in a way that made me look taller -- no mean feat. And they were on sale. Chocolate brown cashmere pants are quite rare. Ones on sale are rarer still. I didn't feel completely secure walking in them, but there wasn't all that much walking to be done in the shop. And the elastic seemed firm... I never sat down in them. There was no place to sit in the shop and no reason to sit. Dear Reader, I took them home. I had them on at home (thank heavens!) when I made the mistake of sitting down in them for the first time. And when I got up...!!!! Dear Reader, I have never worn them. No eyes have ever seen me in them. The most ridiculous excuse for "clothing" it has ever been my misfortune to own.
@Nancy J. Sometimes it's because of slippery undies. I have made this mistake a number of times lol.
I was one of the few who found this tougher than usual for a Monday, but was quite impressed by the the clever construction. Perhaps we will be seeing a later week puzzle next from Laura.
Sometimes I fill in a Monday puzzle so quickly on my first pass that I don't have to read all the clues to finish. I like to go back after it's completed and see what I've missed. Today it was the theme.... when I reread the revealer and then the theme answers it came to me in a rush of delight. I love "aha!" moments like that!
Such a nice start to the day! This wasn't the best night's sleep I've ever had, so I am feeling a little dull; I got the puzzle filled without pause, sussed POST IT NOTES without waiting for the entire clue-- but could tell I wasn't picking up on *something*! That's on me, and I still enjoyed the Aha! when I read Elie Levine's column. Win-win! Hope LauraD is working on our next puzzle!
@MOL Sorry to hear about your poor night's sleep: one of the worst aspects of surgery recovery! Here's something to cheer you up! Late yesterday, this was posted in the Sunday comments for you (I'm being intentionally vague for the suspense and lovely surprise!!): <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/40j2nd?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/40j2nd?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a>
What a great Monday with a perfect amount of chew! LOVED the clue for EDIT and OWELET. MOOCH and SHOOS were fun and TUNISIA and ARMADA were nice to see. When I was done I looked back to check out the theme and thought "is that it? just a little do re mi???" and then it hit me... 'post IT notes' and I cracked up. Needless to say I am easily amused. (Hi Elie!)
Clever theme and an enjoyable Monday workout; just a bit on the slow side. Didn't catch on to the trick until I was finished, but that just made for a nice 'aha' moment once I caught on. A quite amazing puzzle find today, inspired in part by today's theme. A Thursday from June 9, 2005 by David J. Kahn. That one had a grid spanning set of 15 rebus squares as an answer across the middle: DOREMIFASOLLATIDOTILASOLFAMIREDO And two other grid spanning answers that included one rebus square: MUSICALSYL(LA)BLES SCALINGUPAND(DO)WN Here's the Xword Info link. <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=6/9/2005&g=38&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=6/9/2005&g=38&d=A</a> I'm done. ..
Felt more difficult than a typical Monday, and it was… because I had a typo in (conservative estimate) 1/5th of my answers! Sometimes the crossword kills you, and sometimes you do it yourself.
Thanks, Elie, for a very helpful write-up. I'm not a new solver, but though I saw the do-re-mi scale notes, I didn't see the point until I read your account. And congrats, Laura, on your first solo NYT puzzzle! Looking forward to seeing more from you.
any elucidation on the relevance of ‘nova’ to smoked salmon? Or is it mere product placement?
@Spmm It's a type of smoked salmon. See the link for a discussion of the types and differences. <a href="https://www.eater.com/2019/9/14/20865463/whats-the-difference-between-lox-nova-smoked-salmon" target="_blank">https://www.eater.com/2019/9/14/20865463/whats-the-difference-between-lox-nova-smoked-salmon</a>
Thanks for the question and answer, as I wondered about this, too. In Polish smoked salmon is... Smoked salmon ("wędzony łosoś"), possibly with a description of how it was smoked (cold/hot) or seasoned.
@Spmm Back when I did the shopping, I ofte bought "NOVA Lox." I didn't know why it was called that, but it was delicious.
Remember when people (don’t skip over that word easily) used to write and sing songs? When I can’t skip stations on the radio fast enough, I notice that today it sounds like many “artists” post IT notes - voices and instruments vocoded and auto-tuned to a horrifying degree. Anyway, today’s puzzle had a nice, human quality to it, nothing seemed jarringly robotic. (Note to self: make some gooey lemon bars tonight.)
@JohnWM It’s been empirically shown that lyrics are getting simpler. The dumbing down of society is a bit horrifying.
@JohnWM My son asked for my lemon bars recipe this week, but said he was going to try them with raw passion fruit juice instead! Sounds yummy, but I haven't heard about the results yet.
This was such a great Monday puzzle! I loved the wordplay in POST IT NOTES - so fun! Congrats on your first solo!
I can concur that seeing the Northern Lights does evoke a sense of awe. I got to finally see them on a transatlantic flight last month and started tearing up.
@Jill from Brooklyn And I got some pretty cool photos of the Aurora AND the start of the sunrise. Polar dawn and real dawn!
"Get one's story straight" means "to communicate clearly and accurately"? I don't think I've ever seen it uzed in that sense. I generally see it in the sense of "to come up with a more convincing lie."
@Rob yes, but it has a question mark, indicating that there is some misdirection in the clue
Cute theme---post "it" notes. Took me longer than usual for a Monday. Perhaps I was trying to make it LAst. LOSESLEEP, THEBOSS, INASPOT and MADSKILLS were nice non-thematic entries. Interesting that we have NOVA and PALEO in the grid---one derived from Latin for new, the other from Greek for ancient. Fun Monday puzzle!
I usually skip Monday, since they are too easy for my taste. But I am fogged up with covid and thought I'd give it a try. Very clever and satisfying. Clearly a lot of thought went in to this one.
The first adjective that came to mind for this puzzle was "cute," in this case appropriately descended from "acute." In solfege, we have "fixed do" in which "do" is the note of C in a major scale, and "moveable do" in which "do" is the tonic of the Ionian Mode, regardless of pitch. Moveable do accommodates any voice type, as does this charming acute offering. Well done, and thanks for the fun.
I live in a country that prides itself on the best smoked salmon in the world, and 51d is unknown to me in that context!
@Rosalind Mitchell -- I'm a real lover of smoked salmon. I've had NOVA and I've had smoked Scottish salmon. Yours is better.
Smooth solve but must confess that took a bit for me to get IT. Great solo debut and many thanks.
Oh - one more late puzzle find, inspired by a search for our constructor's surname. Nope - Dershewitz has never been in a puzzle, but I considered an alternate spelling and that led to a Sunday puzzle from September 1, 1996 by David J. Kahn with the title "Who said that?" Clue/answer that led me there: "Nobody wants justice" : ALANDERSHOWITZ And... some other theme clues and answers: "Vote early and vote often" : ALCAPONE "By the time we've made it, we've had it" : MALCOLMFORBES "It's not easy bein' green" : KERMITTHEFROG "You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap" : DOLLYPARTON Here's the Xword Info link to that one: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=9/1/1996&g=22&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=9/1/1996&g=22&d=A</a> ..
When the clue is Indian flatbread, the answer is always ROTI. A strange lack of NAAN fans in crossword puzzle land.
@N.E. Body You’ve been solving different puzzles than I have. Naan has been in the NYT puzzle 61 times, most recently on June 12. Six of those times, it was clued as “Indian flatbread.” I didn’t count the other clues for it that use “flatbread.”
@N.E. Body Not sure what point you are trying to make, as it seems to me both appear on a regular basis. As I check xwordinfo I do see that [Flatbread] yields only 16 NAAN to 46 ROTI and [Indian flatbread] shows 9 NAAN to 28 ROTI. Overall NAAN chowed up 61 times to ROTI’s 127. Seems there is some preference for ROTI here, but not enough to aid in a solve. I wonder what the breakdown is for KEA/LOA?
@N.E. Body I keep waiting for CHAPATI to show up as the answer one of these days... Of course in crossword puzzle land, [Indian flatbread] is inevitably of the 4-letter variety. Maybe we'll get chapati in a rebus someday? Mmm, as if I weren't already hungry enough. It's just about noon here. But it could be lunchtime Anywhere! :)
Very much enjoyed the puzzle! When I got to the revealer, I looked back and saw the "it"s and the musical notes. Ha! Figuring that I wasn't done, I looked at the first word of those entries to see how it related to "post" and...nothing. Did I think back to Sunday's crossword where the Latin phrase Post Hoc Ergo.. was spanned across the grid? Where "post" means after (post office, post-op)? Nooo! Had to read the column to set me straight. Thanks Elie L! And thanks to Laura D!
@SuzyQ I read your post and wanted to reply post-haste about one point in it… "post hoc" and "post-op" both share that meaning of "after", but "Post Office"? That hit me a little wrong, so I searched online from pillar to post and found this page and remembered there are multiple meanings for the word "post". The "Post" in "Post Office" doesn't mean "after" the office (after all, people mailing letters or packages— whether current day or years ago via the Pony Express— were not necessarily sending office business mail, it might be a personal letter… So the Post Office doesn't mean "After the Office"; this page covers a few of "post's" possible meanings: <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/post#:~:text" target="_blank">https://www.etymonline.com/word/post#:~:text</a>=%5Bmail%20system%5D%20c.,sense%20(late%2015c.). The Washington Post might have a thing to say about it too
Upon spotting the circled DO, RE and MI, I predicted that 50A would be PLAY IT BY EAR. Oh, that NOTES all follow IT? Well that's clever too, I guess. When I got married, it was a World Cup year, so my groomsmen all got jerseys as gifts...because nobody needs another monogrammed pocketknife. Luckily for my friend Naoufel, TUNISIA qualified that year, so his was easy to find.
A little tricky for a Monday, but nice fill and I enjoyed the theme!
And... what the heck - one more late puzzle find. This one pretty remarkable. A Sunday from November 8, 2015 by Tracy Gray with the title: "Three-Peat." Took me a long moment to figure out what was going on, but nice moment when it dawned on me. Don't recall ever seeing one like this before. The clues were straightforward so I won't list those. It's the answers... Some examples: CONANTHEBARIAN ENTECORDIALE CHIHUAMEXICO TRAINEDASSINS ALFASPROUTS REPOSSEDCARS MISSIPPIMUDPIE Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=11/8/2015&g=66&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=11/8/2015&g=66&d=A</a> And then on that day's puzzle, Jim Horne posted a comment that included a link to all possible answers that would have a string that fits that repeated 3-letter pattern. Quite amazing... 719 answers that have actually been in a puzzle. Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Finder?rx=BQHQ7u4JQgjEA" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Finder?rx=BQHQ7u4JQgjEA</a> ...
@Rich in Atlanta I think I might try this. But I’ll screenshot your comment and refer to it if I get stuck (I didn’t read where you explained the trick yet!)
Ah, the [Early PC platform]s! I read that companies that are still using Windows 3.1 (e.g., Fedex) were not affected by the recent outage due to a bad Crowdstrike update.
@WindowBlinds Yes, I believe that Southwest was not hampered due to running old software!
didn’t get the gimmick so i came here for help and gotta say, i was thoroughly delighted 😄 have a great week, everyone
This puzzle changed my life
Since it was 11 pm in the time zone where I am until later today, when I finished and the column wasn’t up yet, I just went to bed. Rather tired when solving, I did not even notice the theme, although the puzzle didn’t give me any trouble. Still, a very basic theme for a Monday, as it should be.
Finished almost twice as fast as my average for a Monday which is what happens when I am able to solve every clue correctly on first pass (rare!). Enjoyable and cute theme, but the theme was not necessary for the solve and overall the puzzle could have used a little more grit in my opinion, but sometimes what seems easy to others is not to me, and vice versa. Anyway, it’s nice to get a quick start to the day and I appreciate the construction.
I went through this one pretty fast so I didn't even look at the theme until afterwards. Fun one! At first I was a little underwhelmed by just the circled notes but then it was a fun aha when I noticed the notes were all POST IT! Very nice Monday! Apparently I'm not working today. I know that because I find myself not working... Is that circular reasoning? I'm pretty nervous about something this afternoon and couldn't focus, so I threw myself into an archived Friday puzzle... March 24th, 2023. I didn't really enjoy it that much, possibly because of aforementioned nervousness, but also the clues and answers were all just a little bit bland to me so I don't know... but the grid was awfully neat! In my short time doing these and the archives, I don't think I've ever seen a grid that was all just vertical black squares. I'm probably not describing it correctly but I thought it was kind of cool. I really only glanced at a few comments on it this time, so I'm not sure if that was remarkable to others who know about these things or not. There were a lot of emu issues t that day, so I came back over here instead.
@HeathieJ I vaguely remember that puzzle. It was pretty amazing. Here's the Xword Info link for that one: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/24/2023" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/24/2023</a> But... pulling it up on Xword Info led to the mention of another even more amazing puzzle with only 17 across answers. Here's the link for that one: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/14/2004" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/14/2004</a> ..
@HeathieJ Good luck with the something you're nervous about. I, too, try go to the archives when I'm frightened about something--which of course means I'm there 24/7 these days.
@LL Whoa! SOMEbody got up on the wrong side of the bed. I myself have to get out on the wrong side of the bed every day now because of the incision in my right elbow's cubital space. Ole Rightie is what I usually employ to lever myself up of a morning. My big take-away is: I need to do more sit-ups. What's your excuse?
@LL Maybe you know "KT" the first post today, also from NYC? They said the puzzle changed their life, and while I find that almost certainly sarcasm, it is nevertheless 180 degrees from your opinion. Maybe you two should get together and compare notes.
This was almost a "gotcha" by the constructor. But I don't know if it was intended. I was not familiar with Ne-Yo. (Now I am.) I had SIP for "Soak (Up). Therefore going down I had Neyi. With the puzzle filled in I got the message I was close but not quite. As I checked for spelling errors I searched Neyi and found Neyi Zimu, also a singer. <a href="https://spiritmusicgroup.co.za/artists/neyi-zimu" target="_blank">https://spiritmusicgroup.co.za/artists/neyi-zimu</a>/ Still thinking that was correct, it took me some more time to change SIP to SOP. A better fit for the clue.
@Evan Highly unlikely that Neyi would show up in a Monday NYT crossword puzzle.
Throughly enjoyed this clever puzzle. Thank you Laura Dershewitz!
All these years working through the archive and seeing “Wordplay blog debuted on 10/27/2008”. I finally got there tonight and…nothing. Just the Gameplay main page. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/column/wordplay" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/column/wordplay</a> Man, what a let down. I was looking forward to seeing the first posts or even Deb’s first article.
@Geoff Offermann Unfortunately the columns are not linked. They are linked on xwordinfo.com. go to that website enter the date for the puzzle and when it's page opens up look for the link that says Wordplay on the upper left.