I'm afraid to look. Do we *finally* have a Thursday puzzle that isn't going to incite a riot? Or is the *lack* or trickiness going to create a "too easy" backlash? We're a very hard lot to please.
@Francis Just guess. ;) ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@Francis I came to say this was way too easy for a Thursday. Very disappointed.
Editing books is a rewording experience. (This pun is write up my galley.)
@Mike One of your best! ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@MFSTEVE This is what I think of whenever EAPLAP comes up: <a href="https://images.app.goo.gl/3vHXzPE9h8bCyTKAA" target="_blank">https://images.app.goo.gl/3vHXzPE9h8bCyTKAA</a> Best (in Show) image I could find on short notice.
@MFSTEVE - A lap is a piece of cloth that folds back on itself. The words lap (when you sit down), lapel, lappet, overlap, etc. all keep the old word meaning alive, though earflap has largely replaced earlap.
@MFSTEVE I guess it's an earflap that doesn't give an "f".
@MFSTEVE Google Stormy Kromer.
One fun tidbit- About 20 years ago, we pulled our boys out of school at Christmastime, rented a Winnebago and cruised the country for four months. One very rainy night, we were heading into San Antonio and decided to get a hotel room. I had a cell phone and called at least 10 hotels- all fully booked. No room at the inn(s)! Finally, we got one. Almost $400 for the night, but we needed a room. It was late. It was stunning and we tucked the boys in, and all fell asleep on Egyptian cotton clouds. Woke at dawn a few hours later to bombs going off! Repeatedly!! We all ran to the windows and looked out. We had rented a corner room directly overlooking The Alamo. On March 5th. So we woke up on…March 6th. We had very expensive front-row seats to the reenactment. So, there was the boys “home-schooling” for the day. Croissants, strawberries, and guys shooting each other and falling down dead just feet away. You betcha they remember The Alamo.
@CCNY This reads like there's a secret code hidden in the first letter of each line
@CCNY What a great and fun story. There's something so special about experiences like the one you and your family enjoyed. Thanks for sharing.
Dear August, I know you didn't get to decide what day your puzzle ran. If you are reading the comments, realize that if it ran on a Tuesday, you would be getting a lot of compliments. Thursday are kind of sacred around here and strong feelings will be on display. It's not you, it's us. Fondly, Nancy
@Nancy J. However, some of the more average solvers found it a good Thursday. It equaled my Thursday average within a minute, and required the usual amount of cheat a Thursday does. I'm amazed at the brilliance of some of you. Meanwhile, I just keep plodding along.
@Nancy J. I agree. And if this had run on Tuesday, I'd predict a fair number of reports that the puzzle was harder than an average Tuesday. Even with the time wasted to discover I had a typo, this would still have been about 20% above my Wednesday average. I wish everyone who claims a puzzle was harder or easier than average would report the numbers, i.e. the percentage above or below average your time was.
@Nancy J. I second this, August. You made a fine puzzle, despite the bellyaching you see here.
Gosh, even more complaints when there isn’t a rebus ( or similar trick), and some of them quite mean which is totally unnecessary in my opinion. I thought the theme fun, but then I like a good pun. I’ll be happy to see more from August.
@suejean I'm with you on this one, suejean. Glad to know I'm in good company. Oh, and I enjoyed the puzzle and it wasn't all that easy for me. ...
@suejean I don't think the problem was that it was not a rebus or similar trick. I think the problem is that this was a Tuesday puzzle at best. I solved it while watching a baseball playoff game, and had I devoted my full attention to it, I'd probably have set a Thursday personal best. In addition, some people, including myself, thought the revealer was a little lame. I don't think that the nastiness should be condoned, but I do think that the editors may have been to accepting of the puzzle because it was constructed by a high schooler.
Oh, I like the subtlety of the revealer pun – ALTERCATION meaning a fight about changing things. I like the play in the theme answers, where grammar elements and arguments meet in common phrases. Therefore, I, a wordplay lover, am enamored with this theme. I also like dwelling among the verticals in that gorgeous NE corner, with the lovely adjectival meaning of BECOMING, the images evoked by FLORENCE, and the very becoming word FINESSE. Speaking of becoming words: BALM and LAGOON. I think it would be fun to answer the phone with “AHOY!” I’d also like to mention that this puzzle was made by a high-schooler whose first NYT puzzle, a Saturday (!), was made when he was 14. This grid, at 72 words and 34 black squares, is interesting and junk-lite, expertly built. Color me impressed. Thus, a happifying experience for me. Thank you, August, for a splendid outing!
It is wonderful to be back after my Helene-related absence. I received wi-fi yesterday as well as running water (though far from drinkable). And a silver lining: Because there has been so much neighbor-helping-neighbor in our neighborhood, we’ve grown closer-knit.
Lewis, I know this is going to sound corny and invented, but for real, as I read the comments this morning, I thought “what we need today is a Lewis.” Welcome back!
Lewis, Welcome (much of the way) back! ---------------------------------------------
@Lewis Glad you're back in the mix!
@Lewis It’s nice to see you back. I hope that the remainder of your area’s recovery from Helene goes quickly and smoothly.
Like many others, I found this lacking the usual trickiness that can make Thursday so much fun. It's difficult for me to say whether it was too easy, as I've recently started solving puzzles on our iMac. My touch-typing skills have deteriorated in retirement (I typed a lot working for the legislature). And there are all these extra keys that the developers of the NYT Games app kindly omitted! Would I have been faster on my iPad? I don't know. Nevertheless, I appreciated the punny clues, particularly PERIOD DRAMA and RUN ON FUMES. Note that August Lee-Kovach made his NYT crossword debut just a little over three years ago, at age 14. I don't know what y'all were doing at 17 or 18, but I certainly wasn't having crossword puzzles published in national newspapers.
Dispute over which version of a joke is tighter? LAUGHRIOT Difference of mind for the final paragraph? CLOSECOMBAT Disagreement about the intensity of certain quotations? SHOUTINGMATCH Duel about statistical data figures? TABLESCRAP Punny summary of the battle between editor and writer seen above? WAROFWORDS
Reading the comments, I'm reminded of the line from Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" "I can't complain, but sometimes I still do" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fds_2qH9sBQ" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fds_2qH9sBQ</a>
When I arrived at EARLAP I got a quick jolt of excitement thinking that I had discovered a rebus! Surely, that answer must be EAR*f*LAP! As the puzzle went on I quickly discovered that wasn’t the case and, by the end, EARLAP (without the f) sounded correct to me. So, no rebus. But I’ll still tip my hunting cap to August Lee-Kovach for a fun Thursday puzzle! Thanks you!
@Striker We had earlap come up as an answer not very long ago, along with the resultant criticism. That's why I remembered it.
In my experience the editors were usually right. Not always. One told me to I made too many lists and suggested I DECOLONIZE. Another insisted I stop writing like e. e. cummings, as it was a CAPITAL OFFENSE. Recently an editor refused to publish something of mine because it was too vague, too much telling, and THE SHOW MUST GO ON. One editor told me that stream of consciousness was out of favor and cited "Oxford rules," and I complied because he was the COMMANDER IN CHIEF. Once I had a job hand-printing poetry broadsides. The editor came in one day and got so enraged at something I was doing wrong that he upended the plate and threw it all over the room. I asked him to stop TYPE CASTING me. And recently I posted something here and it never saw the light of day. And that editor was wrong, it was probably the best thing I ever wrote. But I saw it as a ceremonial cleansing, the definition of EMUNDATION. Anyhoo, the puzzle was fun, all too quick, and caused me to recall old interactions with some of my favorite editors. I liked the earlap/batlike duo, learned something new about Florence, and the clue about Rome caused me to wonder how many countries entirely surround other countries. I can come up with Lesotho. Any others?
@john ezra Commander in chief. Really. For shame. Loved it. :) And a punctual response. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing) /Emus and all right-thinking humans demand Oxford commas without exception
@john ezra Wikipedia lists only three sovereign nations that are enclaves: Vatican City, Lesotho, and San Marino.
@john ezra Countries that are entirely surrounded by other countries are known as enclaves. There is a third one, San Marino, which is also inside Italy.
@john ezra Lesotho is a high-altitude country that kept its independence from Boers and the English because the high mountains are easier to defend than to conquer, and it doesn't have much farm land. Its main export is water to South Africa! Lesotho gets a lot of snow. But they are currently in trouble for a drought, which will affect South Africa, too, I'm afraid.
“The tussling in the comments section suggesting that certain puzzles, no matter how fun to solve, need to be reassigned to a different day” THROWBACK THURSDAY
I ended up completing the puzzle but still couldn’t figure out why 30 across is earlap instead of earflap. I looked up earlap and I guess it’s a synonym. Strange but fun.
@Cliff Butler Kudos for this approach rather than rushing here to declare that it's not a real word. You set a good example.
The puns were fun, but they seemed unsupported by Thursday difficulty. (It's not often that you never have to stop writing on a Thursday puzzle.) The construction was witty but, well, not really gritty. That said, obviously August Lee-Kovach has the chops to write really good puzzles. I'm looking forward to his next one(s) and trust they will better fits for the day they're assigned to. Thank you, August, see you again soon.
@dutchiris Does he or she, though? I don't think the evidence supports that. Glad you enjoyed it anyhow. I found it mediocre for any day and a waste of a Thursday slot - the place we come for the cleverest puzzle of each week. Sigh. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
I used to dislike Thursday puzzles. However, with time I have developed a Stockholm Syndrome relationship with them. On a Thursday like this, when there is no gimmick, I actually feel a bit let down. It was a fine puzzle and the constructor did a good job with it, but it was not a Thursday, was it? It would have made a good Wednesday though. Could somebody please explain how ALTERCATION is punny? Is it only about it being a word which sort of makes you think about editing ("alter") and meaning a quarrel at the same time? Or is there something deeper I'm not seeing because I'm a bit daft?
@Andrzej I might be daft too... Or maybe I shouldn't have had the second martini... But I only get the pun on the first half... Alter, as in edit, okay, sure, but altercation is just one word and the cation doesn't mean anything to my knowledge on its own. Maybe I should have another martini and that'll help me get it, never know until you try! The other themers were cute though. Enjoyed the puzzle but it did feel a little bit Wednesday-ish.
@Andrzej I had the same question about altercation.
@Andrzej, you’re right, it’s really a half pun. If it were a full pun, ALTERCATION would have the meaning / clue of something like [editing while on holiday] (which I almost never do). Still enjoyed the puzzle, though, maybe because it’s about a substantial part of my job!
I found this pleasant, and was not as disappointed as many of you seem to be. I enjoyed the theme and the puns— although I don't for the life of me get how ALTERCATION is some kind of great pun, I mean the word 'alter' kinda sorta comes into play, but, huh?? and why does Deb's explanation of it peter out mid-sentence? I smell a conspiracy!— but anyway HOW is nobody mentioning 52A INRE being clued by [Regarding]?! Isn't INRE just short for "in regard to"? That's weird. The clue [Regarding] is basically the same as part of the answer. Now THAT should incite some RHODESRAGE from any scholars out there
@Becca Legally speaking, in re is Latin for “in the matter of,” I think. But I dropped out of two law schools so what do I know.
I can hear the editors saying: "Hey forum - you say you don't like circles, rebuses or tricks? Okay, you asked for it!"
What does it say about me that I read 17A and instantly wrote in oxforD comMA? Took me a while to let go of that one :) Wonderful puzzle, clever and fresh clues, so enjoyable. And I'm definitely going to answer my phone with AHOY the next time I pick up!
August I think this puzzle was brilliant! Very clever theme, and crisp cluing. I look forward to more like this!
@Dave S Fun to see another Ottawa Valley boy commenting in here!
Nice theme and good fill, again. But this was far too easy for a Thursday. It was more like a Tuesday level of difficulty. The editors need to do better at, well, editing.
@Shannon I agree. I liked it, but my time today was quicker than yesterday.
@Shannon I required eight cheats, which is pretty much the average cheat count on a Thursday. At first I couldn't find my way in, but then gradually.... (I suspect most will find this Thursday level.)
@Shannon Not my experience... today's time for me was almost exactly my Thursday average.
@Paul It was my fastest ever Thursday and below my Tuesday average.
@Shannon Less than half my average Thursday time— but I’m not complaining! Enjoyed the theme and thought the fill was clean.
The garbage goes out tonight here, so it must be Wednesday night, which means that there’s supposed to be a Thursday puzzle at 10:00. What’s happened to my Thursday puzzle?
I read somewhere that the editors need more Thursday and Sunday puzzles. Could we cut them some slack and recognize that maybe they ran out of good options this week and had to punt? Even the Kansas City Chiefs have to punt once in a while (that’s a football reference for all the sports-reference haters out there). Perhaps some of us should learn how to construct crosswords to help them out. As a freelance writer/editor, I found this puzzle delightful. Also, it was 18:43 faster than my average, so why would I complain about that? Happy Thursday!
@Cherry Nope. There are massively more tools available than in the history of the paper to efficiently construct the things. There are many more constructors than ever before. The general population has never been more educated. The audience is global. The games section is the cash cow of the entire NYT enterprise. They've spent a century building a reputation for quality. So no, I see no reason at all to "cut them some slack" and meekly accept such a disappointing Thursday offering. It's nice that you enjoyed it. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
A great puzzle for anyone who has spent much time in the newspaper business. I remember many a discussion with the copy desk in nearly 40 years as a reporter and assigning editor. I thought in those days there were too many copy editors, but now, when my reading of several newspapers gives evidence of far less copy editing than I recall, I lament what appears to be a serious decline in the copy editor ranks. By the way, the puzzle was a lot of fun.
I just don’t see what’s ‘punny’ about ALTERCATION. What am I missing here….? I know I’ll feel silly once it’s explained. (Tonight’s write-up even falls apart at the explanation! Not sure what’s going on.)
@Hub Exactly. Sometimes I don't fully "get" one of these things and it turns out later that sure enough I was missing some of the intended cleverness. I'm deathly afraid that is NOT the case here, and that the theme and particularly the revealer are exactly as dull, pedestrian, and undercooked as they seem to be. :( ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@Hub I'm guessing that it's because the editor and the author are having an "alter"-cation about what should or shouldn't be altered in the writings in question. Seems weak to me, too...
Count me with those who found this one a little light on Thursday trickery. In fact I’d say yesterday’s puzzle was closer to what I hope for in a Thursday puzzle. That said, this was a perfectly pleasant crossword experience. The theme was fine (although I found RUNONFUMES a bit of a stretch) and the revealer a little flat. OTOH, I did learn (or did I?) that Florence was the first European city to have paved streets. I had thought the streets of Rome had been paved in antiquity.
@Marshall Walthew I agree about RUNONFUMES, plus the clue isn't really correct. A run-on sentence isn't necessarily grammatically wrong, it's just stylistically undesirable and/or difficult to follow. Count me as another who didn't understand the revealer. ALTER, yes. CATION? I did like the puzzle itself, though. Lots of interesting words and good cluing!
My favorite puzzle of the week is Thursday's but this one was a bit weak. There was no fun trick, just a standard puzzle which was well constructed but... that was all. I feel like the editors put this puzzle on the wrong day of the week. I'm hoping next Thursday (and beyond) are more fun.
Reminds me of that old movie -- If It's Thursday, It Must Be Bellyaching. Please.
It’s already been said, but this was a breezy, gimmick less Thursday. No issue with that. I’ve learned to love the rebus etc in a Stockholm syndrome kind of way, but I’m not going to complain about the occasional straightforward Thursday. Like the theme, even if the revealer felt a tad clunky. Also TARTAN. Hmm, it’s not wrong but the clue felt a little non specific. It yelled chevron at me rather than plaid. TIL AHOY. I was taught as a child to answer the phone by stating our phone number, so the caller would know they’d hit the right line. Maybe something to do with having a party line? These days it’s a simpler Hello. It’s my turn to host gin club tonight. I’m going for Japanese distillers, tea eggs and spicy rice crackers for snacks, dates to bring out the fruit undertones of the gins. Yes, there are several to be tested. I expect a woolly head tomorrow but regret nothing.
@Helen Wright I'd join that club in a heartbeat!
@Helen Wright Oh, that kind of gin club; I thought of cards first, but you Brits do love your gin. On "The Simpsons," Mr Burns always answers the phone with, "Ahoy hoy," with the implication being that he is old enough to have known Alexander Graham Bell.
LOL answer the phone! Okay, boomer. Is that one of those things you'd do at Blockbuster while fashioning tools out of stone?
This was a great Wednesday puzzle! (Pity it was published on Thursday.) I loved CAT SAT because I've seen "ANTED" so many times. I actually looked at it and thought "It would be really cool to make a puzzle with CAT SAT instead of ANTED. Oh, wait..."
@Adina Help! What does ‘anted’ mean? And why is ‘cat sat’ the answer. I totally foxed, being newcomer here.
A fun puzzle for editors, writers, English majors, proofreaders, etc. And the general devotees to crosswords, of course. Some puzzle themes don't fit into your garden of known flowers, and you still figure them out (like me, in today's Strands), and some are familiar and go quickly. Today's XWD was closer to the latter, but still with enough challenge to keep it from being a Monday or Tuesday. Every now and then, a puzzles tickles me in such a way that it makes me want to try my hand at a construction. Luckily, I had enough coffee left to chase that idea out of my head. You're welcome.
First known use of earlap was the 12th century. Last known use also the 12th century
@Max…agreed. Earlap was the weakest clue/answer portion of this puzzle. That and axe=big fella. We’re apparently just making stuff up
Looks as if I'm not alone in thinking this really doesn't measure up to other, better Thursday puzzles. The theme is pretty weak, nearly gossamer-thin compared to SO many others. There were Monday and Tuesday themes recently that were chewier than this one. And the revealer - how very disappointing. My reaction was, wait, surely there must be more to it? My other peeve was "ahoy" as I had been trained that Bell wanted "ahoy ahoy". But a pleasurable little rabbit hole after finishing the puzzle led me to inconsistent reports, including that he actually wanted and used "ahoy hoy". Even more fascinating, apparently the word "hello" didn't EXIST until the mid-1800s, and was popularized when Edison championed it for phone use. It's like learning Oreos preceded the existence of the chocolate chip cookie. Unfathomable, yet somehow true. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@B I came here to mention ahoy-hoy But did not know about Oreos vs choc chip 🤯 and now I guess I'm headed down another rabbit hole!
@B The great Charlie Chan would answer a phone call by saying "Yes, please." I was a big fan of his in my younger days, and that was an affectation I adopted until late in my 20s, much to the mirth of my friends.
@B I think you're being a bit harsh. This would have been a fitting puzzle for a Wednesday, with a fun enough theme. Perhaps it did not display utter brilliance but I found it to be quite witty and enjoyable. A Thursday it was not, but surely it deserves more than dismissing it as mediocre in general? As for the phone greeting, one of the traditional Polish ways to answer a phone was to say "Proszę?", so basically the "yes please" of Alpha Bravo's post. These days it's more common to say "Słucham", "I'm listening". For some reason, as a child in the 80s I was taught saying "Halo" ("Hello") was rude. I never understood why. Perhaps because it lacks the politeness of "Proszę?"
@B Interesting history of "hello", plus cute dog photo! <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/the-origin-of-hello" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/the-origin-of-hello</a>
@B Probably was better suited to a Wed., but calling it “weak” seems a bit mean. The creator undoubtedly worked hard on this, and didn’t choose the day.
@B I'm surprised nobody posted a Simpsons link. <a href="https://youtu.be/SWleZY-8evw?si=7JdCKm9xS4zIfi0v" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/SWleZY-8evw?si=7JdCKm9xS4zIfi0v</a>
@Mr Dave It's the first thing I thought of, too! (I also think of Homer when I put on my readers to dial the phone.)
Not a bad little puzzle but prefer the gimmicky ones on Thursday
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!! Yes!!! That was my wavelength. Once I solved ALTERCATION, all the theme clues fell into place. There was some decent trivia. But, it wasn’t unattainable trivia! Please come back. Those are the kids of toughies I like! Side note: Currently getting my rear handed to me by the snowman snowball fight rebuses in 2/20/2020. Highly recommend.
The latinist in me loved the clue [What is to be done?], since that is the direct translation--in Latin Translatese, at least--of *[res] agenda*: "the [thing] that is to be done". It's the future periphrastic of *ago*. Incidentally, that elided *res*--"thing" or "matter"--is the same word in the contentious IN RE. I'm late to work now.
@Bill - Just to be quite accurate, rēs agenda is the plural, ergo “the things which are to be done”; rēs agendum being “that which is to be done.” The clue works either way, of course.
This is a fine puzzle for a Wednesday, but disappointing on a Thursday. I really look forward to a brain teaser on a Thursday.
When an editor takes a working holiday, is it an altercation? * And in case the puzzle has anyone feeling down, I thought some of this puzzle’s downs made the cut: If you’re in your second childhood, are you BECOMING UNRIPE? I was never once in a meeting with an AGENDA TODIEFOR. To stop those shady spies in their tracks, remember: LUMENS HALT CIA
Ahoy there! It’s ironic that this is a puzzle about editing, because I feel the editors failed the constructor on this one. I think this would have had a much warmer reception on a Tuesday or Wednesday (where I agree it belonged) and so it’s a shame it was dropped here. Excluding the day from consideration, I thought this was a satisfying puzzle with some good wordplay. Nothing terribly tricky, but nothing to make me call foul, either. (I don’t have a problem with ALTERCATION, since it’s a revealer and not one of the theme entries.) About the Alamo: I saw the remaining bit of the Alamo several years ago and was shocked at how small and overwhelmed it seemed by the surrounding modern structures and tourist traps. It remains an interesting piece of history, but I wish San Antonio had remembered to preserve more of the surrounding compound. These days, if visitors are remembering anything, it’s probably just to get to the River Walk and order a margarita.
@Heidi I have never been to the Alamo (my mother visited in 1996 though and I think I learned from her about the place and its significance), but I visted the Alamo's counterpart in Greece - the battle site of Thermopylae. There is a quite elegant, mid-20th century statue of Leonidas, but it sits on a neglected site by a sad, gravel carpark at the side of a busy, national road, with a huge, ugly power pylon in the background. It is such an emotional anticlimax for somebody who knows the tragedy of this place, and its place in European culture (if not history - in reality the battle was not terribly significant, strategically).
@Heidi I visited the Alamo about 30 years ago, and it was not "the remaining bit"; it was pretty much intact. I hope nothing has happened to it in the ensuing years that I was unaware of! !!!
@Heidi One of our Arkansas summers was actually spent in San Antonio, where our dad had a TDY assignment for 3 months. This was around the time that the Fess Parker/Davy Crockett movie was popular; kids everywhere had coonskin hats (no EARLAPs) and knew all the words to "Born on a mountain-top in Tennessee, grrenest state in the Land of the Free..." Of course we visited The Alamo. "The compound" had long vanished even then (in The Fifties.) The River Walk wasn't capitalized, and Hispanic couples lay entwined on the grass, to our parents' horror. They hustled us into the nearest eatery where the food was HOT in every sense.
I really enjoyed the puzzle, though I did find it easy for a Thursday. Ahoy was my favorite answer!
Love the picture at the top of the column.
cATLIKE had me stumped for a while trying to figure out why one might see cOATS at the harbor.... Happy Thursday everyone!
I almost didn't need help on this one! The "earlap"was confusing but otherwise great puzzle.
Fun puzzle. Some tricky clues. Yes Deb, I found out that "anted" didn't work too...
Hercule's, not Hercules. D'oh. Reading that correctly would have saved me some grief. Was chuffed (hi, suejean) to dredge SANDRA from the depths. I'm trying to accept that the day of the week "rules" have evolved and they now are what they are. I found the cluing clever enough to make this a satisfying solve for me.
@Vaer The only Sandra I know is the pop singer of 1980s fame :D
@Vaer Google suggests that Andrzej' Sandra is Sandra Ann Lauer, later Sandra Cretu. "Wildly popular in Europe, Japan, and Russia throughout the '80s and beyond, pop singer Sandra was at one point the German equivalent to America's Madonna." Never heard of her myself, but then I wasn't paying much attention to music in the '80s.
The ALTERCATIONS don't entirely work for me....as when the target shows your bullet just missed... If we are going to talk about a city in the year 1339, we should dignify it by using the actual name: FIRENZE. "Pattern of intersecting stripes" .... of course I wanted PLAID... TARTAN satisfies the definition/clue, but is limited. A CHEVRON is also a pattern of intersecting stripes. And what about GINGHAM? I love, love plaids. Periodic 'yard sale' events that include clothing are a gold miine of men's shirts in 100% cotton; you can harvest quite a lot of quilting fabric by ...well, slaughtering them. 38A Harbor sights = COATS ??? That's about it for today's puzzle IMHO. Now for Comments!
@Mean Old Lady "38A Harbor sights = COATS ??? " Oopsie - it's BOATS and BATLIKE. Looks like you didn't do a final check.....