Today is the day of 100 day streak. I'm proud (and embarrassed) to say that this is one of my proudest accomplishments.
@Harry This is absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about, it's awesome! Congrats Harry!
@Harry I know the feeling about proud and embarrassed. Ya gotta take what pleasure the world offers.
@Harry I'm too emabarassed to admit what I am proud of. Thwarting moderation of short posts is not one of those things.
"I really love consonants!" "Sounds like avowal." ("You alphabet it is!")
Nice work, Daniel! Don’t listen to the drama department. I admire constructors of all stripes, but this puzzle felt a tad more interesting than the average Tuesday. A worthy challenge for solvers as well as the constructor. And Sam, I don’t know which I enjoyed more today—the puzzle or your column. Loved the full alphabet sentences, and of course we won’t forget to pack your liquor jugs!
Took 20% longer to complete this one. Just call me a Man of Consonant Sorrow. (Emus? Are you out there? Hope not.)
@Jim I’m with you - mine was 10 minutes over my Tuesday average. I was just happy I solved it without lookups!
@Jim - now git on along with that singin’ <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zHamgwlQ1yo" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zHamgwlQ1yo</a>
Some may balk at constructors using Python instead of sitting with pen and paper, sifting through the OED or a Thesaurus. Me, I don't care if they use Python, cobra, viper or boa when the resulting puzzle is a feat of construction as this is, and an engaging solve as this was. This was the ultimate in a pangram puzzle, and on a Tuesday to boot. Congratulations, Mr. Bodily, and thank you so much! Signed: Xaxes (pronounced "eksaxes" though not the offspring of Elon Musk)
Anyone with a cat knows the OWNER in the relationship is not the human. (Can emus be cat ladies?)
@Katie Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.
In "The Marine Biologist" episode of "Seinfeld" (from season 5), George Costanza utters the following line: "The sea was angry that day, my friends. Like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli." I think the first part is rather Hemingwayesque, but the second part - well, not so much. Here's a link to that scene: - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a3TZC69tSg" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a3TZC69tSg</a>
53 Down - Abey the giant black cat objects! I am less an owner than a servant. (But he’s handsomer than 98% of the cats, so it all evens out.) Eat that, JD Vance.
@Clare: indeed! I came to say the same on behalf of Claudius. He feels the correct answer to that clue is right next door: STAFF
@Clare My beloved furry owner is demanding breakfast at this moment!
@Clare. What’s the old saying? Dogs have owners, cats have slaves. Emus run free
At first, I thought the reveal meant that the theme answers EACH had non-repeating consonants, and my reaction was, “So what?” Then I saw that it meant that all the consonants were in those three answers, with no dupes, and my reaction was, “Hah! Cool! And look – it’s a pangram in three answers!” It gave my wordnerd brain a happy jolt. A worth-it day brightener for me. And the hits kept coming. Lovely rhymers WASABI and HOBBY. Scrabbly letters outside the three theme answers: Z, K, X. A huge parade of schwa-enders – RASTA / KAMALA / ESPOSA / ERICA / ZETA / ELSA / ELBA / MOMA and even TORAH. All Daniel’s 11 puzzles have been themed, and he is a high-level coder, according to Jeff Chen. Today, he combined theme and coding to wonderful effect, IMO – performing a terrific language trick. I just love terrific language tricks. Thank you, sir, coming up with this!
Bonus for me in this puzzle was a Philadelphia related clue right in the center of the puzzle. I thought it was cute to squeeze all the consonants into the circled squares in three answers. I liked HEMINGWAYESQUE. When I was teaching legal writing to young lawyers, I always advised them that it was generally better to write like Hemingway than Proust.
Nicely done Daniel, nicely done. It's been a long time since I've done a Tuesday slower than my average, and I'm attributing that to the level of your puzzle and not to the big Jameson and the warm fireplace beside me.
@Dave S Actually, aren't half of your puzzles slower than your average? 😀 (No, they're slower than your median, but you get my drift)
It seems to me that Sam Corbin is doing just fine in her Greek mythology … “Idioms are the sirens of crossword clues, beckoning you into a sea of false interpretations.” Brilliant! 😃😃😃 And a nice straightforward puzzle
@Ιασων But aren't the sailors already on the sea? The sirens lure them onto rocks or something, right? I'm not up on Greek mythology.
Daniel Bodily, my apologies . . . unable to control the willies while contemplating a certain "TALK" in Philly . . . 21A. Delivery of some political messages? Lemingwayesque 26A. Ennui before the debate storm? eLecutiveboard 51A. The also-rans? consoLants BONUS: 19A. My goal for Tuesday? NOTV! (May just tuck my hand away in ELBA) more 35A, less 50D please!
@Whoa Nellie No TV? I'll be glued to the set. No one can really predict what is going to happen.
Relived to see others found this a chewy Tuesday too. Took a little more working out than the average Tuesday grid, but nothing wrong with that. I struggled with the landmark and ski resort, but got there in the end. I would have a SEISM if Mr Bodily set a Thursday grid! In other news: with thanks to all those who sent best wishes yesterday for our daughter’s upcoming engagement. She said yes (that was never in doubt), he got down in one knee and everything (he took a video, her reaction was priceless). Champagne and happy tears flowed. I think we’ve got about 18 months to plan the wedding of the year.
Has this constructor ever been charged with Bodily Harm? Before I got to the Reveal, I was turning myself into a pretzel trying to make something of the hash.... So, *now* I want Daniel to make a puzzle where all the CONSONANTS are in order (as they appear in the alphabet.) Or what about the Greek alphabet? Prove to me that I did not learn that for nothing! (And he's already made a start at 8D, but I know he can do beta!) Could we please have a restriction--perhaps a respite--duriing which No More "Frozen" mentions/characters/songs are allowed??!! I'm AXING this as my LAST WISH. Sorta.
X AXES? Y KNOT? Where was I. Oh - nice puzzle and a fairly smooth solve. Can only wonder how hard it would be to come up with three long answers that fit the restrictions on the consonants. One answer history search today was wondering how many answers there are that use all vowels (a,e,i,o,u,y) in order. There are a few but the only one that uses them once and only once that I could find was - HALFSERIOUSLY. And... puzzle find today: A Sunday from May 16, 1976 by William Lutwiniak with the title "Jewel cache." Some sample answers: STARTSAPPHIRE COMETOPAZ CONSTANTINOPAL DIAMONDTHEMOOD Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=5/16/1976&g=35&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=5/16/1976&g=35&d=D</a> I'll shut up now. ..
@Rich in Atlanta Thanks for explaining. Was still scratching my head at 'Xaxes'.
As someone who used to docent at the shake house in SF’s science museum, I can’t help but mention that the Richter scale has not been used in quite some time (maybe since the 70’s?) by most authorities. We’re all about the moment magnitude scale (Mw) now. It’s more applicable to different frequency types to have more consistent measurement around the world and is more reliable particularly for larger earthquakes. Not an earth-shattering tidbit by any means but hope it was a fun fact for y’all!
@Sarah this never occurred to me— color me fascinated!
Wow, now that's a puzzle. Best Tuesday in a while. Love AHAB who is truly the Old Man of the Sea in there with HEMINGWAYESQUE, with his unforgettable -- easy to imitate & satirize, tres hard to get right -- style & diction. And to get each and every last consonant in those circles, that's a real feat. I admit, some things came hard. Putting "I'M ON" and misspelling CONSONENTS didn't help. I kept wondering if there was a landmark JFK PIZZA in Philly I didn't know of, which kinda made me jones for some Philly style pizza. No, there's no Velveta on it. Don't get me started! A scene from "Up in Michigan" first written in 1921, revised in 1938: Jim began to feel great. He loved the taste and the feel of whiskey. He was glad to be back to a comfortable bed and warm food and the shop. He had another drink. The men came in to supper feeling hilarious but acting very respectable. Liz sat at the table after she put on the food and ate with the family. It was a good dinner. The men ate seriously. After supper they went into the front room again and Liz cleaned up with Mrs. Smith. Then Mrs. Smith went upstairs and pretty soon Smith came out and went upstairs too. Jim and Charley were still in the front room. Liz was sitting in the kitchen next to the stove pretending to read a book and thinking about Jim. She didn't want to go to bed yet because she knew Jim would be coming out and she wanted to see him as he went out so she could take the way he looked up to bed with her.
@john ezra The best, purest writing Hemingway ever did was in his first book, "Three Stories and Ten Poems," about his boyhood in Michigan. I have often thought how different his writing and his life would have been if his wife had not lost a suitcase filled with the only copies of his unpublished stories in a train station when she was on her way to meet him in Switzerland. He hadn't asked her to being them. It's the kind of thing that can never be truly forgiven. Everything changed after that. You can't actually reproduce stories—they couldn't just be rewritten. After that, the novels started and they were never as good.
I might have done this before, but I remember for sure. Anyway... ... inspired by 35a, some possible tricky answers. Have to wonder if something like this has ever been done. So... ,LAHARRIS :OSCOPY .ICTABLE I'll done. ..
My vote for a perfect clue: “Basic plot lines?” A lovely misdirect!
Fn pzzl! Hd m thr fr a scnd, bt fgrd th grp nd rlly njyd ths brzy Tsdy!! Thnks Dnl!! … …
This seemed more like a Wednesday to me, but again very impressive construction. As I’ve probably said before it doesn’t help that my memory is not great and today is a good example. I baked bread weekly for many years but today couldn’t remember the word at 20A, YEAST. Fun puzzle, Daniel. I bet you could do a good tricky Thursday.
Not bad. Nice clue for XAXES. I haven't seen it before, any idea if it is a novel clueing?
@Shannon This is its eighth appearance. First time using the word "plot" in the clue. Another clever clue was "Baselines?" by David Steinberg in 2013.
Any other lifelong Philadelphians learn that we have a landmark called JFK plaza today? Despite 41 years living here and working within 2 blocks of Love Park for 11 years, if you made me guess where that is, I'd have said New York.
@Kate I think it's pretty common for natives not to know stuff like that. And I lived in Chicago for years before learning--at a food kiosk in Boulder, Colorado--that there was such a thing as a Chicago hot dog. And since another commenter asked: Is there a JFK pizza anywhere?
@Kate I know, right? Everybody just calls it Love Park, because of the sculpture.
This Tuesday puzzle boasts a clue that I found baffling enough for a Saturday. I couldn't get it without the crosses and I don't even understand it now: "Dolphin's fluke" = FIN. Perhaps someone will explain? I also thought the constructor put a lot of care into the cluing. Wonderfully un-Tuesdayish clues for STAMPEDE; ABOUT; X AXES; ENVY; MATH. As to the latter at 56D -- that's a rumor that I certainly never heard!! You? And HEMINGWAYESQUE is a really delicious answer. Just feel the way it rolls trippingly off the tongue. So that if the whole CONSONANTS are all there with none repeated conceit rolled trippingly off my back, so what? As is my wont, I ignored the tiny little circles completely and found to my delight that there was quite a nice puzzle there without them. And once again the randomly placed tiny little circle has been shown to be all about the constructor's constructing challenge rather than the solver's solving challenge. But if you give me a Tuesday puzzle this enjoyable, I really don't mind.
@Nancy Fluke is another word for FIN. Whales have them too.
@Nancy I remember learning the tail of a dolphin is two “flukes.” Who knew? emus didn’t. …
Hmm, ICHOR was a gimme while my last fill was KAMALA. Maybe I should read the actual newspaper a bit more...
Bonus 10 points if you know what President was being chided by Corbin's NO NEW X AXES. Warning--you'll show your age.
@Francis Read my lips- I’m not *that* old! Emu tax. It’s a new one. …
Francis, I think knowing that should be worth at least a thousand points… of light.
@Francis Same one who looked at his watch during a debate.
Loved the symmetry of MANIAC with PSYCHO
Basic plot line = xaxes? Sigh....
Sam, I think there might be a way to change your blood to ICHOR, It requires major dietary restrictions and a relocation. Move to Mt. Olympus. Find the stash of nectar and ambrosia.
Fell a couple of minutes behind my Tuesday average purely because I spent so long staring at XAXES and wondering what the heck it could mean 😂. I'm with you Sam, don't wanna see it again any time soon! Excellent puzzle... a bit challenging for a Tuesday perhaps? I actually thought it was a Wednesday puzzle while solving. Maybe that was just the XAXES effect though 😂
"What is this 'HOBBY' business?" he said, after standing on his feet for the last eleven hours. Perhaps I should establish an apiary.
This was a good one. However, can we put to bed the three-point TREY clue/answer? Nobody in modern-day sports calls it that. Such a tacky answer.
@Kristopher Yet a Google search for the phrase "hits a trey" returns enough recent results that one might consider it common.
Nice puzzle with a good behind the curtain peek into what went into making it.
Maybe I've been in a brain fog but I found the last four puzzles more difficult than usual. Saturday is usually hard, so no surprise that I went over my average and took two days to solve. Sunday I struggled, felt more like a Friday level... I can usually finish without lookups on Sun, but not this time. I did find the theme amusing though. Monday I also had to look up something (the horror!) and also went over my average. I did think "throwing shade" was a pretty clever concept. Today I finished over my average again, but was able to finish without look ups, so maybe I'm getting back in the groove. I'm also caught up again (Saturday threw me off) so that's a relief. I didn't get the theme until I was almost done, but was very impressed at the complexity of making it work. At first I thought it was in alphabetical order but realized it would be virtually impossible to pull that off!
Crunch crunch crunch for a Tuesday... This puzzle was all that and a bag of chips. Loved it. Keep 'em coming Daniel. Thank you for the work you put into this.
“Y” is the only consonant that can also be a vowel. Something I’m sure the other circled letters ENVY. cc: emu handler
@Steven I started learning English at age 6 in the mid-80s, but only last year did I realize (because the related sounds were always there for me to hear, and my pronunciation is fine) that "y" can be either a consonant or a vowel in English. In Polish it is always a vowel, akin to "i" - I don't know enough about linguistics to describe the difference in pronunciation though. "Być" means "to be", and "bić" means "to beat" - both sound very similar, but different, which must be awful for the precious few English speakers learning Polish.
@Steven In words that English has adopted from Welsh "W" can also be a vowel, as in LLWELLYN and CRWTH.
SEISM makes sense, but SWIFT recently caused a blip on the Richter scale too, and that had me perplexed for a minute.
And, did anyone else notice the large number of common words that are “not in the word list” today? So odd! Otherwise, pretty straightforward! **No spoilers before View All Replies, please…** Strands #191 “Give it a whirl!” 🔵🔵🔵🔵 🟡🔵🔵
@CCNY Strands #191 “Give it a whirl!” 🔵🔵🔵🟡 🔵🔵🔵 Fairly easy today. Eric noticed that it's been easy recently. Maybe because they've added Strands to the games app, so the puzzles have been easy to get players hooked on it?
@CCNY yes but that's because some of them are insulting and/or vulgar. Wouldn't allow BIMBO a couple of days earlier (let's see if the emus do here) and never allows the abbreviation of RACOON , Davy Crocket's cap notwithstanding
I’ve been doing these long enough to recognize and laugh at crosswordisms like SEISM and SRO, but it seems cruel to lead a Tuesday puzzle with them.
agree about the X AXES. Don’t care how it is a “good” clue. If you care to argue the point, I didn’t x axe u.
Up at our lake camp, we've resorted to wrapping metal fencing around the bases of all the trees along the shoreline, to keep the local beaver from GNAWing on them. It's hard to tell if he's actually building anything, or just likes killing trees, because he never seems to drag them away. Friends of ours came up one summer and found a completed beaver lodge inside their boathouse.
@Grant They use trees for food and building, but they also have to chew to keep their teeth from getting too long. When I had hamsters as a kid, I had to give them little sticks to chew on for that purpose.
This puzzle was way too hard for a Tuesday, too clever by half and really annoyed me. I've heard of a lot but never heard of "straightforward" as "Hemingwayesque." Get out of here.
Another solve in which the theme was not necessary And even if you “got” the theme was it really helpful?
@Michael Agreed. The clue for the solver could be “vowel-less” I couldn’t read the circles and had enough of the crosses to solve. I think themed puzzles are still fun on harder days because it wraps everything together. I used to think people were whinging about puzzles in the past, so I went back to 2021 and have found them to be more of a challenge.
@Michael Some themes help the solve. Others, we just sit back and admire. For me, this is one of the latter.
@Michael Not sure I would have come up with Hemingwayesque without the theme. I didn't have enough crosses because I had trouble with the entire north although it seemed straightforward enough once I' solved it. Also, a clever theme always just tickles my fancy, an extra treat, so to say.
The phrase “fake it ‘til you make it” has always really irritated me, not sure why. I can’t even pretend to like it, and making it a “motto” is not for me. I just always think it usually turns out in real life as “fake it ‘til you break it.” Trying very hard and being honest about that process, like our puzzle constructor describes, with all the pain (and fun) required for the gain, I get that. Enjoyed this puzzle, but maybe not as much as Mr. Bodily did!
@JohnWM When I was 20, I was broke. Condiment sandwiches were a daily thing. I got a waitressing job at a gold mine. The Anchor Bar in Buffalo. I had attempted waitressing before, but after I had broken down *crying* at *three* separate tables, in my first week, my boss pulled me aside and asked if I’d be more comfortable working in the kitchen. Two years later the golden ticket of waitressing was offered to me and I needed the money. I knew I was a horrible waitress, but I also knew I could BS, and pretend pretty well. I would start to panic, then whisper to myself “fake it til you make it, CC” and I became a powerhouse waitress. So, I get what you’re saying, but does work in a certain way…
I was in consonance with Daniel in this puzzle. You could call it Bodily Harmony. I got the theme right away, because it was such an odd assortment of letters that were circled in HEMINGWAYESQUE. But I have to agree with Jeff Z that Hemingway's prose was not always straightforward. The three A's in KAMALA make that useful in constructing crosswords.
@Linda Jo And as i suggested when she got the nomination: a Schrodinger's puzzle with KAMALA and DONALD on Election Day?
When I first read 27D, I immediately thought 'axes', but the five spaces threw me off. Why I knew 'axes' but didn't think either X-AXES or y-axes is beyond my small brain.