Got it but man I hated that
@Matthew Conroy My feeling exactly. When something requires this much explaining someone is just trying too hard to be clever.
Now that it has been shown possible to construct this puzzle, please don’t do it again
@Jon Mark If they do it again, you'll nail it. I don't in general believe that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but I do believe that whatever learning experience is the most painful will be the most remembered, and most inoculated against.
Most self indulgent and tedious puzzle of the year, easily. No stars.
@Chet Most objective and informed comment of the year, easily. Five stars. [That was sarcasm]
@Chet why do you still do this puzzle? You seem mad at it... pretty regularly.
Yes, indeed, Ella. This was a very Thursday Thursday. I hope it has lots of takers. I was taken with it.
This adding letters in one place and subtracting them in another would have benefitted from better cluing, I think.
@Tom As long as you follow the directions stated in the revealer (35A), all the theme clues make perfect sense. You just have to cotton to the trick. !!!
This. This is the best kind of Thursday themer, where the theme is an extra layer of puzzle, rather than making the puzzle easier by giving away answers. This was fun and clever. And it has SEATTLE in it, so that's cool.
@Classic Hip-Hop Fan early on in the puzzle I was planning my TIL comment about the city being named for stinging jellyfish
I thought that jurors were empaneled, not impaneled and I never heard of the water brand so bae seemed as likely as bai. Oh well!
@Wayne Harrison. Same feeling. Could be one of those language variants that can make American English puzzles extra challenging.
@Wayne Harrison That was my sticking point as well. A quick search revealed that IMPANEL is the British spelling, and EMPANEL is the American version. And I've never heard of BAI. I guess it's the equivalent of SmartWater.
@Wayne Harrison Hey, Wayne, Off topic, but I wanted to catch you because a while back I wrote an overly sarcastic response to you. I apologized, and I hope you saw it. If you didn't here's another chance for me. Sorry. I got over-heated.
@Francis It’s forgotten. Don’t worry about it.
@Wayne Harrison 100%, same boat here. BAIIIIII!!!!!!
@Wayne Harrison I had to look at the answer key to get the IM prefix. No idea about water brands, since I refuse to buy water in little plastic bottles. Such a waste of plastic!
"My favorites are the ones where, until I find and interpret the revealer, I am actively confused." I agree with Ella, and her puzzle is brilliant! I don't know if people still use the phrase "self-own" but so many of these overwhelmingly negative comments say more about the commenter than the constructor.
@Chance Yeah, and what is says most about the commenters is that they're either frustrated that they couldn't get it, or they resent having to solve these kinds of puzzles. I get the frustration part--I've been there many, many times. I don't get the resentment.
Thank you, Ella, for one of the Thursdayest Thursdays we've seen in quite some time! A Thursdayass Thursday. Got held up a bit thinking 4D had to be trump.
@ad absurdum "Thursdayest Thursday"... I love those two words, because it demonstrates that we stretch the language *all the time* playfully. I would imagine that if THURSDAYEST was ever an answer in a puzzle there would be a lot of objections about it not being a word. (Question to the veterans here: has THURDAYEST ever appeared?) But, the language is a lot more complicated than "is a word" and "is not a word". Consider this: Shakespeare, I'm told, introduced a huge number of words to the English language with this kind of playfulness.
Ugh. These puzzles just keep getting worse: gimmicky & boring. Well, at least I'm getting a lot more reading done.
@jp inframan Huh? You think ALL the NYT puzzles are getting worse? Thursday puzzles are almost invariably enriched by some gimmick or another. That's the challenge, which many of us prize. This one was as tricky as they come, but the construction was admirable. (Or so it seemed to me.)
@jp inframan Sorry you feel this way. I look forward to Thursdays because I know I'll not only need to figure out the words, but also whatever gimmick is thrown in to make the day more interesting.
Oh dear. I don’t like being a hater and I’m always in awe of others ability to construct amazing grids, but this one was just too gimmicky for me. A real slog with a ‘huh, ok’ at the end. I’m glad that plenty of you enjoyed it though. Onwards to Friday.
Ah, a capital-P Puzzle. “Crack me!”, it taunts, until you do with great satisfaction, and say “Thank you!” Much to crack indeed – the theme of course, some no-knows, and a wealth of thorny clues. Then, after figuring out the theme, employing it on unsolved theme answers, and that, for me, was not automatic. This Puzzle, IMO, worked like Leonard Cohen’s lyrics: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Persistence and brain sweat opened the door and led me through. And kudos to Ella for coming up with this theme, which included the perfect tie-everything-together reveal, and for forging a Puzzle that so excellently showcased it. Kudos for a clue-and-answer set with, IMO, a just-right Thursday balance of pushback and yield. I adored [Block in Atlantic City] for DIE, and a pair of serendipities – ATE up and EDGE resting on one. Stellar, Ella! Stellar! I loved this. Thank you for dreaming it up and bringing it to fruition!
@Lewis Great line from Leonard Cohen. I've thought of that line many times in my life, and it gave me comfort. I think part of it is this: I am retired. It doesn't matter if I have to spend all day on a puzzle (although that's pretty rare). If you're still working, you've got a lot of time limitations. I suspect, no, I *know*, that I would never have gotten this puzzle a year ago.
His headstone no longer reads that. It was replaced around 2021. It now reads Sleep Well, Poppa.
@Jenn Thanks for alerting me to that. I just read the article at the Palms Springs Life website about how the headstone got changed. What a mess!
Excellent puzzle! Loved the trick. Thank you, Ella.
Great puzzle, so cleverly constructed with the trick showing up in different positions each time. Loved it. More!
When a puzzle relies on phonetics, I just give up, not believing I will be able to understand what's going on. Is it a self fulfilling prophecy or am I indeed too dim to figure out phonetic tricks? I'm leaning towards the latter, sadly. My English pronunciation is very good for a foreigner - already as a teen I was sometimes mistaken for a native speaker, and I cringe when American movies always give Eastern European characters heavy accents, implying bad education or lack of care. Still, throw a phonetic clue or trick at me, requiring me to differently parse familiar looking - and sounding - words, and I fail. I occasionally get phonetic categories in Connections, but I struggle much more with such trickery in the Crossword. There was not a single moment today when I was in any way close to understanding the theme. The phonetic revealer did nothing for me, and I just had no idea what to do with the themed entries. Take something... but what and how? Having never heard "impaneling" (omniscient Google keeps wanting to change the spelling of that to "I'm paneling, btw, so it can't be too familiar with it, either), not knowing Sinatra's headstone (and not believing in an afterlife, thus not associating declarations about things to come with epitaphs) did not help. I needed multiple lookups and autocheck to finish. I almost broke down enough to actually reveal some entries, but in the end I did not have to.
@Andrzej I would think, on a 10 point scale for how "American" a puzzle is, this would have to be at least a 9.5. Your trouble is very understandable. I thought it was difficult, and I didn't have any problems understanding that "N" and "E" were wild cards.
@Andrzej I got the ANY => NE phonetic association fairly quickly, but the random placement of NE in the theme answers was unhelpful, as was the fact that theme answers (with NE included) had no connection to the clues. Top that with unknown words (to me) like BETTA and TASSE, along with an unfortunate typo at RTE, led me to a somewhat unenjoyable solving experience.
@Andrzej Have you ever seen the old 1960s/ '70s "Mission Impossible" TV show? So many of the accents of the bad-guys from some unspecified fictional vaguely Eastern European nation are what I call the "Mission Impossible Accent". Generic and kind of hilarious. This is not a criticism of that old TV show, it's just kinda their thing. And of course the visual version of this is the various street signs and building signs that are always the same kind of vaguely familiar gibberish: POLITZIA, ADMINISTRANAZAD, etc. It's kind of fun to watch. Maybe they air some of the reruns in Poland, it's sure available here in Chicago USA. At 2 a.m. With that wonderful Lalo Schifrin music. 👂〰📼💥🔥🎶🕴🔎 this post will self-destruct in 5 seconds if the emus have their way
"I am giving this horror movie zero stars because I don't like being scared."
@Tex That's great! Even better than "the food there is lousy and the portions are small".
Genuinely baffled by all the hate for today's puzzle - this is definitely going in my puzzles of the year list. Proper Thursday fare, and superbly executed. Thank you Ella!!!!
@Luna Max That's great--these just aren't everyone's cup of tea. Saying so is not to disparage the constructor who sounds like a lovely and talented woman. I complain to give feedback to the Times, not to be mean to anyone. It's only Thursday's, so there is the option to skip them and I think I will.
I don't care for Thursday gimmick puzzles and this one was really bad.
BOY. I can hardly wait to not read the comments on this one. It knocked me on my 32A, which stunned me. I had a mistake and had eSS. Knowing that vowels are often the mistake, I started through them. When I tried "A", I thought, nah, they'd never do that. Then I got the happy piano, surprising my 32A off.
Never heard of SZA -- then again, this is coming from someone still listening to WAX, with all that HISS. Yeah, yeah ... BETTA get out more. Sorry.
There's hard and then there's ridiculous. There are also limits to how much suffering I'm willing to do on any given morning. So that after -- and I'm not sure exactly how -- finishing the 3/4 of the puzzle that wasn't the NW, I came back to the NW and said "No more! Please! Can't do this! Don't wanna." I gave up and came here to learn that I wouldn't have been able to finish the NW in a million trillion years. I thought this was a confusing mess for the solver. I'll be interested to know how many of y'all finished it. And I have this sneaking suspicion that if Ella Dershowitz hadn't constructed the puzzle but rather come to it as an innocent and unsuspecting solver, she might not have finished it herself.
@Nancy I thought it was a thoroughly enjoyable Thursday puzzle; challenging without feeling impossible, and with a clever, satisfying theme. You can't please everyone!
Nancy, Sorry you found this a confusing mess. So did some others, it seems. I found it a delightful challenge. So did some others, it seems. I'm also quite sure that if she hadn't constructed it, Ella Dershowitz would have been able to solve it.
@Nancy Agree with you. This was by far one of the most bizarre puzzles ever. Into the recycle bin it went with about 10 answers filled in.
@Nancy I got there eventually, but the NW corner was indeed tricky. It seems more often than not the gimmick is fun and not too hard, but the filler is a bit sadistic.
@Nancy I can’t tell if you read the constructor’s notes, but she does say, “There is an extra special satisfaction in making something and putting it into the world, thinking, “I would love this. This is one of those puzzles for me…” I’m guessing she would indeed be able to solve this one, and would have great fun doing so.
@Nancy Love your very witty comment! We enjoyed this tough Thursday (even if stuck for a while EM/IM at 17A (never heard of BAI water, so BAE sounded reasonable). But we appreciate your amusing take!
I got the theme fairly quickly, but the fact that the “NE” can disappear from NEwhere and reappear wheNEver it suits made some answers very difficult to parse. It doesn’t help that the themed answers as-written have nothing to do with the original clues (SEATTLE is not a stinging jellyfish, as far as I know.) I always find that type of one-sided themed answer a bit dissatisfying. The wordplay feels much more clever if the resulting answer works “both ways,” and this style ends up feeling more contrived than clever. That, plus some odd/choppy fill like SZA, BAI, PPS, and ATL—this puzzle feel like it need some more time in the oven, rather than a quick PAN SEAR.
@Edward - SEATTLE is not a stinging jellyfish, nor does the puzzle indicate it is. However, the SEA NETTLE most certainly *is* a stinging jellyfish. As the puzzle correctly notes.
I've never heard of IMPANELING before, so that tripped me up a little bit. Nevertheless, I ended up finishing at almost half of my average Thursday time, so overall it seemed fairly straightforward. It helped that FARGO was so obviously the right answer that the presence of two extra blanks in that answer made it obvious pretty early that shenanigans were taking place.
@Shrike Exactly my pattern of solving on this, but could make no sense of the said shenanigans. Yes I moved the letters around until the answers made no sense but it all seemed too cute for my taste. Glad these are there for those who like this stuff, but I'm thinking of skipping Thursdays in future.
Not sure what's up with the comments today. I'm a relatively new crossworder from a far away country, and I easily completed it within 30mins and no lookups. I found this really fun, no rebus and plenty of gimmes to help figure out the theme!
@T Since you are a relative newbie, I will inform you that the more the haters come out to comment on Thursday, the better the Thursday puzzle. Will cover the deal about emus later.
I'm still relatively new (compared to others) to crosswords - I did NOT understand the theme but I got more of the regular answers than ever before! I'll take that as a personal win. Lately the harder puzzles have been slightly less-difficult for me... maybe I'm getting better!
@Lara I guarantee you're getting better.
I appreciate the trick, it helped me immensely when I finally understood what was happening. But I still think the clues should take into account the fill words that serve as misdirection. For example “Selecting for a jury or almost ready to bury” is IMPANELING or IMPALING. Otherwise the words IMPALING, SEATTLE, FARGONE, etc have no meaning in the context of the puzzle.
@Charles Nelson Reilly That would have given away the whole trick, and it would no longer be a Thursday worthy puzzle. You just have to imagine the removal or insertion of NE, and the answers make perfect sense,
With the greatest respect, this one felt like a contrivance too far. It’s heading in a very clever direction, but none of the theme solutions actually correspond to their clues, and can only be solved by deduction across two themers. Would have appreciated it more if the solutions were in any way related to their clues.
@Rory but... that's often enough the case. If the theme solutions were answers to the clues as they appear in the puzzle, it wouldn't be the eastside answers "taking" NE from the west side, the theme would just be "answers that have NE in them," I guess? Wait til you try one of the old-school puzzles in which the theme answers throughout the entire puzzle are clued by nothing but something like "quip from Napoleon to Josephine upon buying a new horse" (I made that up) and it applies to all six or eight or ten answers in the puzzle 🤷♀️
I never get these Thursday grumblings. This was a good puzzle, cute little trick, solvable. Thumbs up from me.
I think there have been several quantum leaps in my ability to solve the NYT puzzles. I'm not bragging, just describing my learning curve. 1) When I finally realized I knew a lot of answers even if they wouldn't come to mind. I would just give up, thinking I didn't know the word at all, but then found that I did know it. So now I don't give up as easily. 2) Discovering rebuses. It was a thunderclap when I first learned about them. They don't jump out at me, but there's a cumulative indication that they're there, because so many things aren't quite right without them. 3) Discovering that there are tricks even more subtle than rebuses. One day I could not do a puzzle, and I found that the answers weren't just a linear string, up or down, but that the word could change directions. This is a new one on me--letters that can tunnel from one answer to another. 4) I don't know what this one is--I haven't gotten there yet.
@Francis Yes! Keep at it, you will get better and better. The wordplay can be frustrating sometimes but it's also really satisfying to figure it out.
@Francis I think most highly experienced solvers would say that they went through a similar process. And if they’re being honest, they’ll say that they are still learning. Happy solving!
Way to go, @Francis! That’s quite a journey you’ve made.
One of those puzzles where I figured out the theme quite quickly, but some of the other non-theme clues like SZA, BAI, BRUH etc were so obscure (at least to me) that most of the time was spent trying to do random guesses to see what might work. Did finish ultimately, but a bit of a frustrating exercise.
Got the trick fairly early on, and went through it fairly fast until I was left with mostly the northwest corner. I hadn't heard of SEA NETTLES or IMPANEL or the infused water, so I cheated until I got it. Last letter to get filled in in this puzzle was also the very last letter in the southeast corner, so the last word I filled in was DIE, which pretty much put a stake in its evil heart. A clever puzzle, but tough for me.
I thought this puzzle was great. Some of you don’t like “Thursday gimmicky puzzles”, apparently. But isn’t that what the Thursday puzzles are all about? And to come up with something completely new? I thought this was a fun one (although I did get stuck on the top left for a bit!)
@Chris G LOL... no. How about crossword puzzles that are just crossword puzzles with NO gimmicks. ...ever.
@J&A To do that would be to utterly miss the point of a Thursday crossword?
That was quite clever! I was ready to rebus NEW into a single square to make NEWAGERS, but I couldn’t get the cross to work. Somehow, the “NE” eventually rang a bell and then I understood why the next answer was COCKNEY instead of COCKY. Very satisfying.
i don't usually do thursdays, i'm not personally a fan of puzzle crosswords, and this one didn't change my mind lol, but I feel the need to say I do appreciate the creativity and think it's important to experiment the way todays puzzle did!
I got more than a little lucky here. Still, it impresses me that a constructor can come up with a unique yet worthy theme after zillions of puzzles that came before them. I rather enjoyed this one.
clues were just painful.... its all about the clues... without fun clues its no fun.. its suppose to be FUN and enough with banal trivia clues... not a fan
I don't get all the hate, so I feel the need to post here. I absolutely LOVED this puzzle. I got the revealer ANY TAKERS right away, and knew that it was crucial to understanding the puzzle. I kept rereading the clue and answer and could not make sense of how it was helpful. I got HEADSTO through the crosses (after epitaph didn't fit), and had my first aha! moment: the revealer is telling is to take away NE. Ok, so how do I make this work... I couldn't solve "on the same side" directly, but given the blanks ALL I NEED seemed to fit. It didn't make sense, but oh well. And as I left and came back and left and came back to this puzzle I reread "all I need" without the NE and aha! #2 came! The clue and answer made sense by taking away NE. The 2 separate satisfying moments of the solve were when these lightbulbs went off, transplanting NE from one word to the other, and voila the world made sense again. A very satisfying solve, and still just under my Thursday average. I would love to see more like this.
@DocP The complaints mainly come because it was too much of a challenge for many. But that’s what makes it the NYT crossword and not your local paper’s crossword. I hope puzzles like this keep coming at least until my mental capacities falter from extreme age.
Gee whiz. That NW section. I try hard not to complain on this forum but I did not enjoy some of the answers / crossers in that section. Other than that, the theme was very manageable and the other 75% of the puzzle was great. Thanks, Ella Dershowitz.
@Striker I know it's hard to distinguish sometimes, but there is a difference between complaining and raising a valid conversation about a clue/answer pair. In the past, when that's been done well by others, there is an interesting comparison of perspectives, and it's a net plus, rather than something ugly. Sometimes, not often, a consensus evolves around the puzzle simply having a preventable error. It happens. But, you know, we're all human, constructors, clue writers/editors, and puzzlers alike.
I thought 1A was in fact referring to Lincoln’s law career to begin with. Happy coincidence, I suppose.
@Richard Barrett I thought it meant the legal "bar" as in "passing the bar exam".
Really good puzzle! I have no idea what people want who complain about a puzzle like this. It took me a long time and a few different leave-it-and-come-backs, but I solved it with zero lookups, and so could you. Honestly, the people complaining about lookups before 9am Eastern time... like, why did you give up so soon? You have all day to come back to it and see the clue in a new light! And then it all falls into place. This was a challenging, weird, and fair puzzle. If you couldn't solve it, well, cool, that means you have an opportunity to grow your skills.
@AJ I give up in two circumstances: when the time required to complete the puzzle starts to impinge on my plans for the day, and when the frustration makes it not worth pursuing (because it's supposed to be enjoyable). I'm not complaining that I wasn't able to solve it. As noted, given enough time I probably could have. There's just a point where I start to expedite things.
Yes it was hard. So what? I still loved it. Very witty construction and I learned some things. (Unlike others here, I care 0 about my “time”. I often look up answers because I learn new things)
Heard in the wee hours here in passwords.recur.barman: ‘Ohhh. *That’s* what she means by “the answers next to them!”’ Top marks for a revealer that added another puzzle for me until I got it. Great one! Or should I (lamely) say, GREATO!
@Cat Lady Margaret That looks like a nice hotel 🙂
Another "meh" twee "look at me, I'm clever" puzzle. I ignored the theme and solved my way into the nonsense answers.
@TLC Many people, including me, enjoy clever puzzles, and appreciate the constructor’s work in creating one. I see no evidence that Ms. Dershowitz’s intent was to call attention to herself.
@TLC please enlighten me: how are they nonsense? And furthermore, why do you feel prepared to make such a conclusion about the constructor's motivation?
@Regine nothing gives pretentious NYT puzzlers more satisfaction than insisting that obtuse nonsensical themes were in fact perfectly simple.
This solve was 20 minutes over my Thursday average, but I definitely enjoyed it :) I think this is a pretty perfect example of a good Thursday puzzle. Not quite as difficult as Friday or Saturday, but with a reasonable theme that justifies its late placement in the week. Just a couple clues I had to make an educated guess on, but nothing I needed to look up! I've got a good streak of no "cheats" going, and I'm hoping to keep it up. I'm sad to see so many people upset with this one. Use it to broaden your horizons folks! You get to learn something new every day :)
This crossword was fun for some people. Just not me.
@N. D. Graham Just not me too. Like, at all.
I managed to fill in the revealer before I had many of the theme answers, and it made perfect sense even without those answers. I did have a few minor hiccups, such as epitaph in place of HEADSTO(ne) and iCE before ACE. The latter mistake cost me a few minutes at the end because I couldn't come up with BOAST and didn't know BETTA fish are known for fighting. Here's the only song I know of that mentions BETTA fish (about 2:20 in): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U9RJqqX3E0" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U9RJqqX3E0</a> Thanks for the fun, Ms Dershowitz!
@Eric Hougland we had a betta at my old job. We named him Wanda. We learned it was a him bc similar to birds and many other creatures, males are the more colorful of the sexes.
@Eric Hougland When I worked at a pet store in the early 70s Bettas were pretty commonly known as "Siamese fighting fish". Perhaps not so commonly these days.
This is a very fun theme, and I felt so satisfied when I worked it out, but I think crossing BAI with IMPA(NE)LING was a little cruel...