Very playful and cute though I’ve never seen “ROWR” only “RAWR”
@Kyla This comment made me do a double take because I thought I had actually put RAWR since that's obviously correct. But no, I unwittingly put ROWR without even realizing that's what the puzzle wanted.
@Kyla That O was my last letter before the happy music, but I've certainly seen both rawr and rowr. Then all of a sudden Tatooine looked familiar.
@Kyla I think they’re both valid, but IMHO, they have slightly different connotations. I think ROWR implies some sexual/sexy connotations that RaWR doesn’t. As in the following exchange: Partner 1: So, you wanna try something a little different in bed tonight? Partner 2: Rowr! I hope this comment is not too scandalous for the emus.
ROWR made my earlaps go batlike in surprise but maybe I'm showing my age gap. I bet it'll make some solvers do a little rage-rooming here. I can't imagine ever doing that myself, because why would a word in a puzzle make someone angry? There's a lot to be angry about in the world, why bring it in here? Lodge your complaint elsewhere! There now, see what you've done? I'm getting angry thinking about people getting angry at this puzzle! Paint by number (usually NUMBERS?) over counters is a nice little thing, and having Marc COHN in here with the constructor being Jesse Cohn is sweet, I don't think I've seen a self referential move like that in years. In stead of ET CETERA, I confidently filled in E TU BRUTE like an idiot (I know, it's "Et tu, Brute?") and felt almost as betrayed as Caesar when it wasn't. Hot tea crossing ice water also seems providential, and good for the throat. A combo of the two, plus some ginger ale, will make that ROWR sound almost mellifluous. Hammerklavier sounds like what a psycho pianist might do in a rage room, but the Beethoven sonata, one of his late ones, is just about the most sublime, transcendent sonata in the canon. Gonna waddle over to the turntable right now and put on Wilhelm Kempf having at it. And then off to that rage room. I have a door that needs dashing.
@john ezra The opus 111 is pretty good too, and a fitting culmination of Beethoven’s career. I love the piano sonatas because you can trace the whole course of his evolution in them.
"Did you like how I sat down at the piano and didn't play a single key?" "Perfect! No notes!" (But even if it weren't perfect, it's sonata big deal.)
@Mike, I don’t have a pun to respond to you with, but it did make me think that it might have been clued as [John Cage composition].
@Mike Mike performs here for scale. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
After completing his debut puzzle in May, I suspected that Jesse had that secret sauce, the ability to craft top-notch puzzles. After finishing today’s, that suspicion has grown to a near-certainty. Twice now, he has: • Crafted a low-word-count (68), low-black-square count (30), with hardly a whiff of junk in it. That is SO HARD to do. Look at those chunks of white in each corner, not only cleanly filled, but alive with interest and variety! • Created a grid with a high number of long answers (eight letters or more), that is, answers that can wow, and are fun to guess at with as few crosses as possible. Today’s grid design is a NYT debut, BTW. • Brought in a passel of NYT debut answers. When debut answers are good, they and their never-before-seen clues bring spark. Today’s, IMO, are glorious additions to the oeuvre: MYSTERY SOLVED, NO NOTES, PAINT BY NUMBER, POOR SOUL, RAGE ROOM, RETRO VIBE. • Taken great care with the cluing. Loveliness in the clues for COO, SLEEPS, ONE ACT, ESPN, TORAHS, and the wonderful misdirect [Geometry figure] for EUCLID. Jesse, thank you for a sterling outing today, and I eagerly await your next. Bravo!
Here's an example of Jesse's charming cluing from his debut puzzle in May: [One who can't handle their moonshine well] * * WEREWOLF
@Lewis In case you didn't see my late afternoon post, it's great to see you back, and safe.. Emus delendae sunt.
Lewis, I hope you didn't read the comments on the Monday puzzle, or didn't feel too "unseen" if you did read them. All that talk about choices of potable water [Alternative to sparkling, at a restaurant]. SRSLY!
I’ll be the first to say it…. NO NOTES! This felt like a perfect Friday, for me. I got through it pretty quickly, but I think that was maybe more a “wavelength” thing vs a too easy thing. Nothing felt easy but it also didn’t include any of those words / phrases that I’ve never heard before or words / phrases that only live in Crosslandia. Really enjoyed it. Thanks, Jesse Cohn!
Please consider never allowing ROWR in crossword ever again. Thanks.
@Dan I would like to BOO AT that answer as well.
@Dan The only really sour note in this puzzle. I've only ever seen RAWR in the wild.
I heard the law firm that represents Invisalign has no other clients. I guess they work on RETAINERs? (I'll show myself out.)
If you rowr instead of rawr, you are rowng. Journalists, please respond.
@GOOPY came here to say this! RAWR. who in the world says or writes ROWR?!
@GOOPY agree!! As a proud tumblr millennial I am shocked at ROWR vs RAWR and came here to complain like the impending middle aged lady I am :’)
Not-so-fun-fact: The item most often left behind in the ER is a phone CHARGER. Probably the next-most-often is the phone itself. So if you, heaven forbid, find yourself in the ER, have your phone with you but no charger, just ask your nurse, politely please, if there is perhaps a charger you can borrow. By virtue of my volunteering in the ER, I am aware of the many left-behinds that I have gone looking for, while gloved for health reasons, in rooms that have not yet been cleaned. And thanks to my husband's recent spate of trips to the ER, I am well aware of the cache of left behind chargers. Of course, some of the really cool beds have chargers on them. But you still need a wire. I enjoyed this puzzle, probably because I was able to get some of the stacked answers fairly early. I have become a much better Friday solver, due to my usually needing to stop, go to my shift at the hospital, and then comeback and look at it with fresh eyeballs. But I was able to finish this one all at once, and that will give me a boost when I falter on Saturday, as I am sure to do. Here's to a lovely weekend!
@Momerlyn When my mom had a stroke this past spring, it was the charger for her hearing aids that got lost in the ER. It took three weeks to get a replacement charger. Meanwhile she couldn't hear much of anything the nurses or therapists said, hampering her recovery. So, yeah, it's a problem. And the patient may not be in any shape to affect it. Thanks for being a hospital volunteer. More volunteers are needed.
Liked the answer for 32A, but thought it would be FINGER PAINTING. (Hello, emus)
I love it when the stars align and I find myself on the same wavelength as the constructor. And so it was. I did however, have a misfire at [Play without a break] by chancing Overdo until ONEACT dawned on me. Of course it wasn't Overdo; one can never overdo playing... And that brings me to the Allman Brothers Band and the beautiful "Sweet Melissa" which could play on repeat and I'd never get tired of it: <a href="https://youtu.be/ggeab0lKz2c?feature=shared" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/ggeab0lKz2c?feature=shared</a> Thank you, Mr. Cohn, for a really great and extremely satisfying puzzle. I hope you had as good a time creating it as I had solving it. Extra kudos for sneaking yourself into the grid! ;-)
@sotto voce Nice! Look at Dickey and Warren go starting at about the 4:40 mark.
Fun solve. But ROWR isn't a thing. Will die on this hill. RAWR.
I enjoyed the puzzle and solved most of it quickly, but the whole SW quarter defeated me, mostly for cultural reasons. I knew ARIEL and came up with EUCLID, in the end, but I needed more crosses there to finish so I turned on auto check. GINGER ALE is virtually unknown over here and I have never heard of it being used as a remedy. Even though living minimum wage is a thing here, we sometimes tip servers in Poland, but mostly with cash, even when we're paying with a card or app, thus TIP is never a checkout option. GAS for a good time I simply did not know. What weird usage 😮.
@Andrzej GAS is also pretty dated. It would be used like "Hey, were you at Andrzej's party? It was a gas!". There was also an instrumental song from 1968 by Mason Williams called "Classical Gas", which started out as a rather classical sounding guitar solo which then evolves into something more modern sounding.
@Andrzej Or, as per the Rolling Stones: But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas But it's all right, I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash It's a gas, gas, gas
Also: T-rex Life's a Gas <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXlzmQYP1e4" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXlzmQYP1e4</a> and from one of the best Simpson's episodes, classical gas: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR0fcy5HrV0" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR0fcy5HrV0</a>
@Andrzej The ginger ale thing baffles me a bit. Because it *used* to be carbonated with real ginger, which is a powerful anti-nausea, antiinflammatory root. But now the most common brands like Canada Dry and Vernor’s are really just corn syrup and ginger flavor. So it’s more of a placebo, methinks. I plopped in GINGERtea cuz that stuff fixes whatever ails ya! But the crosses told me no.
@Andrzej And I find another wrong letter (to continue my trend)... I put TAP (as in tap the card on the screen vs swipe or stick into the slit) and didn't reconsider, thinking, well, maybe someone renamed a shape ...arrgh. Next time, MOL, RETHINK!
@Andrzej I do use ginger ale or ginger chews (candy) when my stomach is a bit upset. Ginger ale is a very old remedy for nausea or flu, but as CCNY and Rachel note, most modern ginger ales contain no ginger. I buy the smaller brands of ginger beer, the ones that are sold as mixers for cocktails, like Fever Tree, Q, Blenheim's, Barritts. Emus, tread gingerly.
@Andrzej Gas is really dated, in fairness to you! I don’t think anyone’s used the term in that sense in four decades.
@Andrzej GAS is dated, oh my.....true. Damn, you are gonna miss us Boomers when we are gone. Sounds like things will be far less LIT then.
@Andrzej When my daughter would have a stomachache, the pediatrician would always recommend giving her flat (no bubbles) ginger ale. I always wondered whether he thought I kept it on hand for emergencies.
This was a good one for me, with a lot of things in my wheelhouse, but made challenging by the fact that the corner quadrants were relatively isolated with only limited linkage to the center of the puzzle. I struggled a bit with the SE, until I got AVERSE, which led to NOVO (having taken appeals de NOVO as a lawyer, I should have spotted that more quickly), ETCETERA ……. From Beethoven’s percussively powerful Hammerklavier SONATA to fine guitarist Warren Haynes to Marc Cohn, the puzzle sang to me. Walking In Memphis has deservedly become Cohn’s signature song, but for personal reasons my wife and I have a special fondness for his very sentimental True Companion and the tougher Dig In Deep.
Finishing this puzzle was much easier than finding Comet Tsuchinshan tonight. Unlike the latter, this required no lookups. The great thing about comet humor is that it won't RECUR for another 80,000 years.
LBG, You’ve got excellent cometic timing.
Sorry, Deb. You have an error in your comment for 42D It should read [Scrolls from right to left]. Otherwise, in answer to your question about debuts and entries that feel fresh... As someone who's only solved daily for the last six months or so, most things seem fresh to me (except EKE and EMU). As far a debuts, what I most worry about is that the grumble bunnies posting here will discourage a new constructor, or dissuade a potential constructor from even trying.
The Detroit Institute of Art recently hosted an exhibition of works by the 19thc. American, Hudson Valley School, painter Frederic Church, including several sketches he made while on a his travels to the Mideast (including a visit to the archeological site of Petra). Many of the sketches were done in great haste, with intentions to finish them off as oils at a later date. Church would note colors--the evening light on the cliffs of Petra, say--by little numbers. Paint by Number! This might be common practice for landscape painters,but I'd never heard of it.
ROWR! That was fun. I surprised myself by getting the MANET anagram almost immediately. Possibly because I'm reading Ruth Reichl's _The Paris Novel_ which involves food and art and Manet's painting of Olympia and the model Victorine Meurent. The puzzle didn't quite feel Friday-difficult to me, but I'm not sure that's a problem. I expect Saturday's will be more of a challenge.
Interesting how the constructor signed his work at 8D. This one was tough…until it wasn’t. For me, that point was when I realized that 17A wasn’t a plural word ending in S. !!!
@Steve L Regarding 17A ... same for me. Once I got the M starting 15D, I decided 17A didn't end in S. But I was focused on a plural ending in A for a long time, since all I had of 17A was ????AND?. So I was looking for some Latin noun to pluralize, like "momentum" becoming "momenta'.
Fun puzzle, just about right for a Friday. Slightly daunting upper left but everything came together quickly for me. Maybe ever so slightly too easy in the end. A couple of smile-inducers in the lower right - when doves cry and the scrolls from right to left. Nothing else sticks out, but a smooth, honest puzzle. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
One of my favorite bits of Star Wars dialogue is from the beginning of Return of the Jedi which is set on Tatooine. Han Solo: I think my eyes are getting better. Instead of a big dark blur, I see a big light blur. Luke: There's nothing to see. I used to live here, you know. Han Solo: You're going to die here, you know. Convenient. My personal rulebook allows me to look up definitions of words I never heard of, which today gave me ESP. And then I also looked up the Allman Bros band guy. My knowledge of those band members only extends to Dicky Betts after the Bros. Other than that, patience got me the completed puzzle.
Oh, this was a good ‘un. The clever clueing, bits of humor, and after getting the NW filled there was an MY to unleash the down spanner in the middle- *solving mysteries* all over the place! Can’t even think of a potential look-up, as it was just fun, fresh and (I need another f word) figure-out-able! Fantastic Friday! Thank you Jesse!
TGIF! The sun is shining, a nasty headcold I've been battling has lifted, and this puzzle was full of sparkle. The first immediate fill for me was RAGE ROOM. (Was momentarily thrown off on 8A by the full name/last name mismatch, but it *is* Friday.) Like Escape Rooms, I don't really get it as a concept -- but I suppose as a New Yorker, I have plenty (too many?) real-world opportunities for both, lol. On the opposite end of the solving spectrum -- and grid -- I promptly completed [De ____] with Niro. 😂 (Blame it on the head cold...) That caused no end of snarls in the already-tough SE! The K in TOKER was the last to fall for me. Lots of lovely fill here. Loved MYSTERY SOLVED and RETRO VIBE; ANGUS over SEAR; BOO and "Halloween" seasonal references. Best of all, the creative misdirects -- literally -- with [Digital art?] and [Attention-grabbing visuals]. Thank you Mr. COHN!
@G I automatically completed De with Nada after considering Rien, but the crosses set me straight.
A comment about the Sherlock Holmes-inspired caption to the photo at the top of this column: in the expression, “the game’s afoot,” the word “game” refers to quarry, not a diversion such as tag or crossword puzzles. The “game” is a living thing — for Sherlock, a human adversary — with, you know, FEET. I feel that across the decades, we’ve collectively forgotten how to parse the phrase.
@Brad Ellis Interesting. I would add/counter that we've usefully expanded its original meaning by that misinterpretation. And I do wonder whether Rarhbone even had the original, rather than expanded, meaning in mind when tossing off the line in the early movie versions.... Are you quite sure that even Conan Doyle meant it to apply only to human prey, rather than playing on the meanings of the word "game"? ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@Brad Ellis - Yes, that is the origin, and it goes back to Shakespeare. where the was literally referring to game animals. "Before the game is afoot thou still let'st slip". He's talking about releasing the hours before the prey has stirred. (from Henry IV) Doyle used the expression only once that I have been able to find. I believe later adaptations and movies have made it a catchphrase attributed to Holmes. But -- do you understand that words and expressions take on new meanings over time, and those meanings need not adhere at all closely to the origin? How do you feel about the word "decimate?" Do you feel the only proper use for it is to describe only a situation where 10% of the people in a population are killed, and that all other uses represent a misuse or misunderstanding of the word?
I just popped in to see if Helen Wright was drinking plenty of GINGER ALE after her gin party last night. (I did not receive an E VITE.)
@Grant I did not. I’m also going to deny that I’ve spent most of today in a darkened room with a handy bowl nearby. In hindsight it might have been a mistake to introduce the gin club members to the dubious delight of Sake after sampling the many gins of Japan. The post mortem reports various versions of hangover today. Naturally the cows decided to escape their field today. Encouraging recalcitrant ruminants to return home while in a delicate state isn’t something I wish to repeat. I suppose I’d better have a look at todays puzzle now I’m slightly more human.
Loved it so much. Keep 'em coming, Jesse. Suffered appropriately for a couple of passes but each quadrant slowly revealed itself. Finished, no music . . . so reviewed and changed RAWR to ROWR (I am two with StarWars, as Woody Allen once said about nature). An unfair benefit to online solvers to still get the win amidst personal naticks, which I exploit on the daily.
@AudreyLM Is the “unfair benefit” the ability to easily change A to O (for example) and get the gold star? I would say that people who solve on paper have the advantage here. If A looks right in that square, you declare the puzzle solved and get on with your day. Sure, you could check it against the answer grid, but I doubt many people bother with that unless they have reason to think they made a mistake.
I really enjoyed GEOMETRY FIGURE solving for EUCLID. Simple but clever
Nice twist to a lot of clues. Once you're on the same wavelength as the constructor, you hit the groove and 15D : )
Oof. I struggled with this one mightily, and lost a lot of blood in the battle. Almost 7 minutes over my average. Nice one, Mr. Cohn.
@Dave S Same here. I raced through the center but spent a lot of time in the NW and SE corners. Then had to flyspeck to correct my checkout option from TaP to TIP. Never even noticed EUCLaD while solving, Four minutes over average.
Well, tough one for me, of course and had to look up some things but managed to get through it. 15 letter find today (already mentioned by someone below) - JUMPINJACKFLASH It's been an answer in 3 puzzles, but most notably a Tuesday from July 30, 1996 by the great Elizabeth Gorski. Two other 15 letter answers in that one: PUTTINONTHERITZ and BLOWININTHEWIND That's a pretty remarkable group of 15 letter finds. And... in other puzzles it's also been grouped with: SINGININTHERAIN (also 15 letters) I'll shut up now. ..
ROWR? I feel really old now.
Today’s NYT “Solve a Friday Crossword on Easy Mode” email has this interesting take by assistant editor Christina Iverson: _____________ Jerry Hathaway of New York wrote in to ask, “How long does it take to create a Monday puzzle? Saturday?” In my experience, the day of week doesn’t have any relation to how long it takes to make a puzzle. I’ve had Monday puzzles that come together really quickly, and others where I spend hours tinkering with the grid to make sure there aren’t any hard entries. Similarly, I’ve made Saturday puzzles that just happen to fall into place quickly, and others that don’t. Monday puzzles need to be free of any obscure or tough entries, so it can take a long time to perfect the grid. After spending hours on a grid, it’s common to realize that you’re stuck with a hard entry that won’t fly on a Monday and have to go back to the drawing board! Midweek grids are thought to be a little easier to make, because editors are more lenient with what we allow in the grid. Tough names or initialisms that we’d avoid on a Monday could fit on a Wednesday. Friday and Saturday grids have a lower maximum word count (72, as opposed to 78) so they can take longer to make. It also usually takes longer to write clues for a themeless puzzle than an early-week puzzle. I probably have a dozen themeless grids on my computer that I haven’t taken the time to clue because writing themeless clues is so much work. [to be continued]
Just barely edged it out. Took me a long, long time to get the NE corner. Barely under an hour for the whole thing, but a lot of it was in that area. 22A was brutal, even if it was playful.
The R in ROWR was my last entry...duh. I should have concentrated on the baseball clue, which was actually straightforward unless one was so discombobulated by all of the tricksiness that a gettable entry was beyond conception...which I was. I wanted a JUKE BOX, or a PINBALL MACHINE, but I guess the diner was too small. PROBLEM SOLVED had me messed up for a good long while, until Edouard MANET came to my rescue. Merci beaucoup, M. MANET! GINGER ALE! Egad, that was my next-to-last stumper. I am very seldom troubled with an upset stomach. And we don't have soft drinks around, taking up space where wine could go. And PeptoBismol is there just in case. Onward! Company arriving this a.m., so....I'll see you when I see you.
22a looks very dodgy to me. I don't think in this case its a SBACL problem, just a stretch to fill an awkward light.
The rest from the Easy Mode newsletter by Christina Iverson: _________ The day of the week that really takes a long time to make is a Sunday. Because the grid is 21x21 instead of 15x15, it’s exponentially harder to construct one of these beasts. I’ve spent days just trying to find a black square arrangement that will work, and weeks on filling the grid. We’re often shortest on Sunday puzzles because few constructors want to tackle the challenge.
So I just somehow knew ESP, and TATOOINE, no idea why. Also, Heston, which unfortunately I knew from seeing him play Moses and Ben Hur, but those were acts. He showed his true colors later, such irony, when he waved around a giant piece of styrofoam in the shape of a rifle ranting like a maniac, still causing misery.
@Ann I simply cannot watch Charlton Heston movies now. He and John Wayne are so repugnant that it's impossible to believe their characters. Also they were bad, bad actors. Terrible. Both of them.
Just here to request a gold star for figuring out an anagram. It’s possibly the first time I’ve done so in my life.
This puzzle was certainly tough enough for my Friday! Despite that, I found many of the clues delightful and clever, from 1A to 52D. I was also amused at how the constructor was able to slip their own name in the puzzle. :)
I like the way Jesse Cohn worked his own last name into the puzzle (8d) I wonder if that's a signature in all of Jesse's puzzles, with clues referencing Roy, Nate, and other Cohn's?
I've been having a login problem that occurs only on the NYT site. Has this been happening to others as well? I always stay logged in to my NYT account. But sometimes I am spontaneously logged out (I use a browser on a computer, not the app) and am unable to get back in. My login credentials are accepted, but when the page I was viewing returns, I am still logged out. Today when this happened, I was first presented (after logging in) with the screen asking me to accept the new terms of service, so I know that login credentials were accepted. But when I clicked "OK" on that popup, I was again logged out. This is not specific to my computer or to any browser. When it occurs, it happens in any browser and on my desktop or laptop. It's not a browser or platform issue. I always have to write to tech support and wait for them to fix the issue. But I should not have to wait, sometimes for a couple of hours, before being able to log back in. This happens ONLY with the NYT site, not with any of the many other sites I access almost every day. There is something wrong with the login coding that should be fixed. I have asked them to check into why this happens repeatedly, but all they ever do is fix it so I can l go in for that day and then they ignore the ultimate issue that causes this in the first place. Am I the only person this happens to? Anyone else? Anyone? Bueller?
@CaptainQuahog I've had the same issue occasionally, and it's very annoying. Glad I'm not the only one, and thank you for reporting it!
@CaptainQuahog That sounds similar to what I experienced this morning. I stay logged in to the NYT website on all my devices. This morning, after being on the site without problems for an hour or more, I had to log in two or three times. It’s been stable since then.
@CaptainQuahog I've experience the same thing occasionally. If I close out the tab and reopen NYT Puzzles on a new tab, I am usually logged in automatically.
@CaptainQuahog Yeah, that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Very annoying. I don't know what was wrong and I don't know how I solved it. It just started working again. The entire site seemed to be experiencing some hiccups at the time, so I figured it had something to do with that.
@CaptainQuahog For what little it's worth, I use the "send a code to my e-mail" passwordless method which generally works without issue. Seems to time out every couple of months. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (I do this instead of emuing)
@CaptainQuahog Happens periodically to me, too. For games, I use the browser on my mobile device and stay logged in. Every few months, I used to get booted out & have to log in again from the Games page menu. More recently, it's functioned as you describe. I kinda try everything before last resort contacting tech support... What works for me these days is -- after the "successful" login that still doesn't give me access -- to go to the NYT homepage, scroll to Games (either in the menu or down the page), and opening from there. As others have said, thank you for reporting it!
@CaptainQuahog Yep, it’s happened to me as well a couple or so times. It’s a mystery!
This one was very smooth sailing (my time was 40% less than average). It's nice to get one of those every now and then. Miscellany: - My first thought for juice provider was battery. - My first thought for "Portrayer of Laurie Strode in seven 'Halloween' films" was Jamie Lee Curtis, but I hestitated to fill it in until I had some crosses, because for some reason I thought she was only in the first movie of that series. - I thought HOTTEA was a good misdirect. I sing with several bands, and was thinking of vocal exercises for warm-up routines. - From now on, if I stay in an unsatisfactory motel, I will lodge a complaint. - "Geometry figure" was a clever clue. Luckily as a math fan, I thought of it pretty quickly. - 15D was tricky, because I had the "MY" before anything else, and assumed the answer began with the pronoun. - Had "pasta" for 31D, but that answer quickly went down the TUBES. - After today, perhaps I will finally remember the "deep-dish pizza maker", but I really doubt it. Ok, I'm getting tired of making up things to write. Have a great weekend.
Since the Easy Mode newsletter came today I thought I'd actually check out what solving felt like on "easy mode." I was surprised that the easy mode clue for 8A was "Vice President Charles ___, first Native American to reach the highest levels of the executive branch (1929-1933)"...I personally had a much easier time filling in the last name of my favorite scream queen. (Interesting to learn though!)
We arrived at the vaccine check-in desk at the same time She went first Later we sat together to waiting for our shots I saw the grid on her phone Today’s? Yes? Spelling bee, strands, wordle, and connections too? Yes? Me too. Please tell me you’re not finished already! Not hardly, I flip between this and the 🐝 if I’m stuck. Her name was Deb I enjoyed our time together. And I liked this puzzle too.
@Snorting Elk I got my COVID and flu shots this afternoon, too. But no line, so no time to work on the puzzles. But I do them all everyday. :o) Great minds think alike...
@Snorting Elk Comrades in arms? If there's any chance of a budding romance, d'you think you might give it a shot? Fun to have someone to jab-ber with while waiting for your vaccine. Hey here's Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee with "Love's a Disease" 🎶😓💗😻💉<a href="https://youtu.be/prPmObAt2Kw?si=PK9R34QPw-fAaMiF" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/prPmObAt2Kw?si=PK9R34QPw-fAaMiF</a>
A few nice clues and good fill overall. But this was not a Friday difficulty puzzle.
The white spaces looked daunting at first, but the clueing was pretty gentle and crosses were friendly, almost Wednesday level, so flew through the puzzle in the end. BATTERY before CHARGER, NOW before PAT. Had to look up the spelling for TATOOINE (as TATTOOINE didn’t fit). Not a fan of NOT DO, BOO AT and POKE AT. Had only heard of PAINT BY NUMBER as a plural (isn’t there always more than one number in the painting?). Hope the editors fix their radar for puzzle difficulty for each day…
Happy to see the mighty ”Hammerklavier” clued, a supreme 45 minute challenge based entirely on a simple motiv. Still favor Rudolf Serkin’s version on DG.
Fun solve except for RaWR, then RuWR then OOOOOOOO. Thank you Jesse
@dk I had the same reaction to ROWR - that W was very convenient, but "paint by numbers" was worth the price of admission. What memories I have of opening those boxes and turning into an artist. Digital art indeed! Thanks for the memory and smile. Great way to start the weekend. May it be a pleasant one for my wordy companions.
I’ve completed the grid with no clear memory of doing so. The fact that I’ve done it means it must have been a relatively smooth fill. The demon drink has rather taken over today, normal service should be resumed tomorrow.
I thought that 32A would be “finger painting” , but it didn’t fit. Good puzzle today. Personally for me, no internet lookups of trivia or use of the nyt help. Feeling good!