As always, this time of year, I am thankful for puzzles, and I am thankful for you. Five years ago, I wandered into a bookstore and found myself drawn to the puzzles section. I loved logic problems then (and still do!). But I felt pulled toward a type I hadn't explored in a long while: crosswords. And on the strength of their wordplay and creativity, I was hooked (sounds fishy but let minnow). Soon, I discovered there were people online who cherished them as much as I did! I found some kindred spirits, humbled by the power of this welcoming puzzling community. Crosswords - and puzzles more generally - are this beautiful, enigmatic balm, a diversion to cast away your chaos for the time being. They are even a conversation, a conundrum waiting to be cracked. Sometimes, it's a gentle ripple. Other times, the waters are choppy. Always, the experience is exhilarating. And if you know one thing about me, you know I'm a silly goose. Puns and wordplay are goofy - they're how eye roll. But in some ways, they're also therapeutic. Perhaps amid the chuckles and the groans (especially the latter), they give us a little ray of sunshine to scatter the clouds. Empathy and kindness still exist, and it's my fervent wish that you find them however you can. On this Thanksgiving, I am deeply grateful for all of you and hope your life is filled with love, joy, and peace. With steadfast compassion and an extra helping of puzzles and puns, Mike (PS: Pass the sweet potatoes. Boy yam I hungry!)
We’re grateful for your daily wordplay, @Mike!
Mike, Thanks for the serious message. And thanks for the daily hilarity. (You're no turkey.)
@Mike Well said. And thanks to you for giving us a smile or two every day. Your ability to consistently draw inspiration from the puzzle for daily puns is truly remarkable.
@Mike Thanks to you Mike for many many smiles “Why didn’t the TURKEY eat his dessert?” “He was stuffed.”
@Mike always thankful for your punny takes in the comments, Mike. What a warm sentiment you’ve shared for this holiday. Wishing you and yours the best this season.
@Mike I’m also grateful for the NYT puzzles and for your puns. Happy Thanksgiving.
@Mike Who dis? Shocking but somehow heartwarming to see you break character. Stick around with the cape off more often; we'd like to see what you have to say. I would think the (beloved) schtick can get constricting after a while. Happiness to you and all the other forum denizens. You make my days brighter. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@Mike Since I'm a Gemini, I have two things to say. 1. A NY filmmaker whose name must not be said has been quoted saying: "Showing up is 80% of life." You always show up. I speak for all of us who get inspired only once in while when I say we are in awe of that performance. For a TL;DR search on the provenance of that quote: <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/06/10/showing-up" target="_blank">https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/06/10/showing-up</a>/ 2. Far from a silly goose, I bet that your math students see you as a wise-cracking old owl. They know that you will show them all the angles to approach a problem. All the best for Thanksgiving, Pilgrim.
@Mike Oh, Mike, you butter be back tomorrow! Even one day away has bun too long! (We relish your puns.)
@Mike You are IMHO one of the most beloved commenters on this forum. You are one of a kind and I suspect your daily humor and cleverness are appreciated more than you know by a silent, hidden fan base that look for your post daily after solving. Your rare “serious “ post captured the spirit of solving and of this community. We are grateful for you!
@Mike I decided to chime in earlier than usual today so I'd be sure to have the chance to thank you for brightening so many of our days. Maybe tomorrow I'll throw in the pun I could use here; for today, I'll leave it at thanks, and love, joy, and peace back at you.
@Mike Dear Mike, you are a treasure.
Mike Mike Mike You’re the baste! Or should I say, poultry in motion. (So many puns, so little thyme.) Happy Thanksgiving!
@Mike I look for your puns every day—they always bring a smile to my face. Today, along with that smile I shed a few tears of gratitude for the sentiments you expressed. Thank you, and happy Thanksgiving to all.
Mike, What a pleasure to read - as always, and more.
@Mike I am thankful daily that you come here with wit and whimsy, and give us all a chuckle. You are appreciated.
@Mike thanks for making the day more pun.
@Mike - You're one of the best, Mike! I give thanks for your presence here.
@Mike I always look forward to your puns. Thank you for always making my day. Especially appreciated your post today.
@Mike Thank you for always being here for us. On a daily basis, I make sure to read the reader picks until I at least get to your entry (and frequently further). I appreciate how nice everyone (with very rare exceptions) is on this site
@Mike My day is not complete until I find your pun!
Very nice, Ricky. This puzzle stacks up well.
I used to almost never be able to get Thursday tricks. Over time I have greatly improved at this. Today the trick became obvious to me quite quickly. I thought it was clever, and it certainly can't have been easy to incorporate into the grid. I struggled with the Eastern stack though, as I have never heard of a Haunted HAY RIDE - how can hay be ridden, exactly, I wondered as I looked up the answer. Apparently a tractor is involved, so effectively it's a tractor ride? I also did not understand how bumpkin solved to HAY SEED - I looked it up now. Well, ok, but I did not know that. On the Western side the golf reference and the fact I last visited the US and ate at a diner 11 years ago hindered me - I know close to nothing about golf, so even though I had [ ]IRON there, and clearly some very common term related to pancakes was meant, I had no idea what to put there. It only became clear once I dealt with the other two tiers of the stack. I also had to look up some trivia. Still, I enjoyed the puzzle. I would never have believed one could actually like tricky Thursdays when I first started playing NYT games in 2023! I mean, I still fail on some Thursdays, but not on all of them, like I did initially 🤣. Anyway, I'm off for Jorge the lab's morning walk. It's cold and it's raining - his favorite weather 🤪.
@Andrzej If it's any consolation, hayseed meaning country bumpkin was new to me too.
@Andrzej Long ago hay rides were on a sled or wheeled cart pulled by a horse. Nowadays there’s a tractor and a gimmick involved.
What I am I thankful for on Thanksgiving eve? First, the countless constructors who labor so hard on our behalf to make picture-perfect puzzles like this one, and b) the NYTimes Crossword folks who do such a *fabulous* job of taking good crosswords and making them into epics. Happy Thanksgiving!
Thankful for that lovely double hit of pleasure when first, I figured out the triple-HAY rebus, then second, read its clue – [Place to find a needle, maybe] – and I saw “haystack”, followed by a “Hah!” and a “Oh, wicked clever idea!” Thankful for crosswords, which bring pleasure attacks like this all the time. Thankful for quality puzzle-makers, who are crafts-people and artists. Look in this grid, where coming out of each rebus stack are two abutting words – from which the pool of answer possibilities is exceedingly small – and yet in every case the areas around those words are cleanly filled. Wow! Thankful for high-level wordplay, ubiquitous in crosswords, a source to me of effervescent delight, as seen today in clues like [French, in England], [Pitcher for the reds?], and [Delivery person]. Thankful for this forum, which feels like family, which feels like a guesthouse in which all manner of humanity comes through the door at all hours with enriching insights and tales, and occasionally spurring involving back-and-forths. Wishing all here a heartwarming holiday. Thankful to you, Ricky, for crafting this gem that had enough TEETH to satisfy my workout-loving brain, that brought many happy pings, and that exemplified so much of what I am thankful for in Crosslandia.
@Lewis Thankful for your seemingly limitless insightful positivity and encouragement. Your words simply feel like those of a dear friend. I appreciate you, very much.
@Lewis Thankful that you’re in Asheville and feeling thankful. That makes me more thankful.
How lovely to have my favorite kind of puzzle on my birthday. I’m definitely thankful , Ricky.
Happy birthday, @suejean!
@suejean Happy birthday! Enjoy every minute of SueJean Day! 🎈 …
@suejean Happy birthday to my sister from another mister. Hope you have a great day. ..
@suejean , Many thanks thanks to everyone for your good wishes, adding to my lovely day.
Wishing all of you a fine Thanksgiving, filled with mirth, affection or even love, and good food. I'm thankful for you, the Puzzle People: your wit, care and devotion to words, your quibbles, your odes, your puns, your comments, your willingness to engage in discussions from the ridiculous to the sublime, for all of that, thanks! A gentle, funny puzzle. Very much like the stacks of stacks. For a short time, I had ENDS UP IN SMOKE, which gave me SNOT for [Flue residue]... made sense, since I'd read it as [Flu residue]. Achoo! Also like the trio of oblique Humphrey Bogart references in this one: he's great in Key Largo, starred alongside Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Comtessa (1954) and Ingrid Bergman plays Ilse Lund in Casablanca. Guess I know what I'll be doing on my day off tomorrow, if Hulu cooperates.
@john ezra You didn't mention "The Maltese Falcon," one of Bogart's best films—Huston's first film and their first film together, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
A fun solve for my birthday! Enjoyed the aha moment.
@lis , Happy Birthday, lis. As it happens it's mine as well. Doesn’t always fall on Thanksgiving of course.
@lis Happy birthday!
@lis Happiest of birthdays for you!
I am thankful for NYT games. All of them.
For a Thursday rebus, this was surprisingly fun to do at 5am when sleep eluded me. I think it might even be my fastest rebus yet. After the first two, I could guess what the others were without looking at the clues. Right, I'm heading back to sleep now. Wishing my fellow Puzzlers across the pond a Happy Turkey Day. Over here, it's just another Thursday. Cheerio. Pip pip.
@Sebastian Also, is it wrong of me to wish the SMOKE and SUB stack positions were reversed? Visually, it makes sense for the SMOKE to be at the top (like a chimney) and SUB to be at the bottom (like a basement/cellar). But it's not a criticism, I can only imagine what it takes to create a crossword - and a rebus one at that - so I'm grateful for this fun, clever and accessible creation.
Hi everybody from my new home by the sea. I'm here only to say Happy Birthday to suejean, falling right on TG this year. Loved this triple rebus stack puzzle. I'll be partaking of this year's turkey at my daughter's home, a ten minute walk from mine (the reason I left my Jerusalem home after 56 years and came to live here).
Viv, Thanks for stopping by (and for a good reason!). I hope you will enjoy your new home by the sea.
Good to see you, @Viv!
I had EXTENSIVE before SUBSTANTIAL because I had the last letters in place but hadn't figured out the SUBstack trick yet. But then TONERS told me that was wrong. Figured out the trick with HAYstack. Enjoyed it!
@Liz B haystack also set me up for the rest! 😊
@Liz B Same here. It was the TONERS what did it 😀
Great puzzle. Not the hardest, not the easiest, and the perfect amount of clever. Favorite one in a long time.
I don’t always comment here, but I do enjoy reading the comments, so I feel like I’ve come to know many of the regulars here. I am terrible with numbers for some reason, but word puzzles and games are my jam. I so look forward to the NYT games every day, even panicking occasionally when we travel internationally because I don’t want to miss a day with the time change and blow my streak! To those of you celebrating today, have a very Happy Thanksgiving, and to those who don’t celebrate, have a lovely day! Also, I loved this puzzle and was thrilled to solve it in less than 15 minutes with no hints needed. 🙂
@Jen Same to you, and some advice passed down from some other solvers: as long as you do the puzzles in order, you can maintain your streak. Don't worry about the time zone changes so much!
Try putting a “D” where 30D meets 43A. That oughta get you your gold star. I’m thankful for the gift of patience given to me by the NYT. A clean solve on any puzzle, Wednesday - Sunday, has been exceptionally rare for me all year. I do not like searching for mistakes and I would suggest that informing users how many clues they have wrong on the “so close” pop up would be a fantastic add. I don’t think it would detract from the challenge and it would make the flyspeck much more palatable. Luckily for me, only one square was off tonight! I thought this puzzle was really fantastic. I’m thankful for this puzzle - all puzzles - all constructors - all editors - all members of “The Games” team - and all of you solvers out there. Happy Thanksgiving!
@Striker I agree that it would be nice to know if you're looking for one mistake or five. It's virtually impossible to find the right combination if you have five independent mistakes. Or, realistically, more than two or three. OTOH, it's not supposed to be too easy. So I've learned to live with it. BTW, I love that you thanked the NYT for the gift of "patience". Very solid sentiment.
I am thankful for this tasty morsel of a rebus puzzle, the NYTimes Games Department and the Wordplay community. Wishing all a peaceful day. And any puzzle with Principal Ava of Abbott Elementary is okay by me.
This puzzle stacked up nicely! I always like a rebus. 👍 Happy Thanksgiving, fellow solvers. ✨🦃
This was fun, my first ever sub 15 minute Thursday! And with no lookups!
This was a fun one! I didn’t get the baseball reference for TATER; rather, I interpreted the “more ways than one” in a more meta fashion, that the word POTATO had been mashed to create the answer. 🙃 Oh, well.
@Christina I agree, I don't think it even needs the baseball meaning to work at all. I've never heard of it anyway, and I think the clue works fully for food. Mashed potatoes the food is one way, and shortening the word is the other way.
@Christina There are few things I know less about than baseball, despite Steve L's best efforts (which I appreciate! Thanks, Steve L 🙂), and I thought the clues was about, well, potatoes, and it was gimme-ish.
@Christina Anyone who grew up in New England (at least east of the Q-bridge in New Haven) in the 60’s-70’s would be familiar with this baseball term for a homer. It was very much popularized by George Scott (“Boomer”), the long time first baseman for the Bosox who loved his TATERs!
@Christina Same here. I never thought of the baseball meaning, even though I loved the Nationals radio team calling a "Michael A. Tater" when Taylor hit a home run.
I think we can all agree that the STACKS are brilliant, and especially the constructors ability to mix putting the rebus at the beginning and at the end in each stack. But I'd also like to show some love for PIED A TERRE and ATOM ANT, great answers, nicely clued.
In addition to the many things for which I'm thankful--my Partner, my friends, the bounty of seasonal fruit from which to make pies, the invention of the aluminum-framed road bike, the piano music of Federico Mompou-- --I'm thankful for the New York Time's crossword puzzle, which daily keeps my intellect from atrophy; and this community of like-minded persons, with whom to share and shandy! Happy and Blessèd Thanksgiving, everyone! The pumpkin pie is in the oven. Meanwhile, enjoy some seasonal music from [Jazz great Not-Etta]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgn7VfXH2GY" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgn7VfXH2GY</a>
ROBERT Redford ROBERT Pattinson ROBERT Downey Jr. One of my favorite rebus puzzles ever AND one of my favorite Mike from Munster posts ever! Thanks to everyone here!
ad absurdum, An untouchable post!
A lovely combination of much fun for the solver and serious construction chops from the constructor. This was a holiday treat -- and, happily, it didn't have a Thanksgiving theme either. I saw the three "SUBS" immediately -- failing to look at the 14D clue, which wouldn't have meant a darned thing to me anyway, as it turns out. I saw the three "SHORTS" immediately -- failing to look at the 34D clue. I doubt that would have meant anything to me either. I've never ordered a "short stack" of pancakes and thought that in our society, everyone wanted to be "Supersized". The triple "SMOKE"s went in quickly, too. It was high time to ask myself: "What on earth is this theme, anyway?" I had looked for a revealer clue, but failed to find one. The revealers of course were hiding in plain sight. But SMOKESTACK is a Thing -- and this time I actually read the "Factory chimney" clue. Aha!!! It's STACKS!!! The "HAY"s confirmed it. Yes, STACKS!!! Were they all STACKS? Yes! Challenging before you get the trick and easy thereafter -- but very entertaining and enjoyable at every stage. And a lovely job of construction too. I loved this puzzle!
@Nancy A SHORT STACK of pancakes is very often served alongside eggs of some sort and then you've got your side of bacon, sausage or whatever. And maybe toast. I personally never ordered this, but I hear tell.
When I got the TURKEY SUB, and then the mashed TATERS, I thought for sure this was going to be a full-blown Thanksgiving theme. It did not turn out to be the case. But it was the pancake clue (34D) that made me think that some kind of STACK was afoot, and RUNS SHORT told me that I was right, and the pancakes were a SHORT SHORT SHORT (or, a SHORT stack). I initially put MADE BANK for 41A, but then realized there was no such thing as a BANK stack, so I looked at the adjacent squares and realized that you MADE HAY, and with the RIDE and the SEED, there was a neat HAY stack in there. I had put TUNA SUB without any rebuses in for the hoagie shop order (19A), but then the crosses after the first two didn't work, and I realized that although I didn't really know that a [Digital newsletter platform] was a SUB stack, SUB ZERO and SUBSTANTIVE worked, and therefore my sandwich had to be a TURKEY SUB. (And I didn't put "substantial" because I'd already gotten the last two letters.) The SMOKE stack was fairly easy to suss out at that point. All in all, a pretty good workout for what turned out to be an average solve time. A happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Let's focus on what we have to be thankful for, and not the things we'd rather were different.
I like rebuses, and this is one of the cleverest ones I can remember. Kudos, Mr. Sirois!
How is Will? Happy Thanksgiving to you. We miss you.
@Harriet Will is doing great. He’s still recovering, but he is editing some of the puzzles and you should see his byline on some of them in January. Here’s an article about what happened to him and how he’s recovering: <a href="https://www.brainandlife.org/articles/crossword-editor-will-shortz-says" target="_blank">https://www.brainandlife.org/articles/crossword-editor-will-shortz-says</a>
@Deb Amlen Thanks for the update on Will Shortz! It’s great to hear that he’s back at work. Joel Fagliano is doing a fine job, but it will be nice to see Will’s byline again.
@Harriet I'm pretty sure Will is still doing the NPR Sunday Puzzle, so you can check in on him there. Happy Thanksgiving!
@Deb Amlen Thank you for the link. I'm very grateful to hear that Will is improving.
@Mr Dave Very glad to still hear Will do the Sunday Puzzle on NPR. That’s the whole reason I started doing NYT crosswords in the first place.
@Deb Amlen thanks so much for the update! And I always enjoy your columns.
@Deb Amlen we do miss him and glad to hear he is recovering! Thank you for the update Deb 🙏
So, fun, but the answer to 19A Common order at a hoagie shop - TURKEYSUB is geographically inaccurate. You wouldn't go into a "hoagie" shop (which would necessarily be in Phladelphia or its surrounding areas) and order a "sub." Believe me, they'll know what you're asking for but they'll pretend that they don't.
@Chesty Puller I believe that mixing the regionalisms was a purposeful part of the trickery. Or maybe I'm being too kind. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
Thank you, Ricky, for this neatly stacked grid you created. I’m now craving pancakes for breakfast and maybe smoked turkey for dinner with some mashed taters! Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, especially our constructors, editors, and our regular commentators who bring a little joy into my life each day.
At last, a rebus that didn’t leave me feeling like a turkey. I have a terrible confession to make. I love rebuses, even though they often defeat me. So, a rebus combined with a themeless? Well, that’s the cranberry sauce to my stuffing, the pecan in my pie, the cherry on my cake. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, those of you who celebrate. And a great day to everyone. Fun fact: there is no way an American-sized turkey will fit into an average European oven.
@Rusty Wheelhouse Themeless? There's a stack of reasons that says otherwise.... /Okay, revealerless maybe ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@Rusty Wheelhouse Our solution has been "personal turkeys" in the form of Cornish game hens. Not too much in the way of left-overs, no all-day roasting, plenty of room left for the pecan pie... Memories flavor every dish.
@Mean Old Lady Hello there. We get a real treat on Thanksgiving, when we celebrate it, which is not a regular thing, but just occasional fun. This takes the form of a Dinde de Bresse, a specially raised, smaller bird from the Bresse region of France, and which does fit in our oven. The Bressans also do capons for Christmas and the famous Poulet de Bresse. All are gastronomical treats. Ce qui est rare est cher - I know you know what that means, but for the others, it means what is rare is costly. We have a lot of Thanksgiving-esque celebrations in Switzerland, depending on the geographical area, ranging from a chestnut festival (from the times when it was a dietary staple), to dried prune pie (Geneva), to the widest-ranging, the Jeune Fédéral, and here, jeune means fasting, and not young. Officially called the Federal Day of Thanksgiving, Repentance and Prayer. It is interfaith. And makes an American Thanksgiving look positively like an orgy. Enjoy your feast.
@Rusty Wheelhouse Over the years I have spent a number of Thanksgiving holidays in Holland in a small, very international, town just outside of The Hague. Since we never saw whole “American sized” turkeys in the stores, we could special order them from the local “poelier” the week or two before. They did a huge business in these and charged a small fortune, but we managed to squeeze them in the oven!
@Hardroch Hope you enjoyed yours today. Always good to hear from you, not easy to keep up with replies from our different time zones. I don’t know how Andrez does it!
This was fantastic! My favorite in recent memory. I was frustrated, then inspired, then thrilled. Oh man, I give thanks for this puzzle. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Really enjoyable puzzle. Typical slow start for me, but finally caught on with the SMOKE stack and then just had a great time figuring out all the others. Had to be a heck of a challenge to manage to put this puzzle together. I give thanks for it. A couple of puzzle finds today. First - a Sunday from December 26, 2004 by Hal Turner with the title: "The other half." One clue/answer example: "When some people pick up turkeys :" THANKSGIVINGADAM "Classic doll :" RAGGEDYAMOS "Popular negotiation location :" CAMPGOLIATH A few other theme answers in that one. Took me a long furrowed brow moment before it dawned on me what was going on there. Just a great 'aha' moment. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/26/2004&g=97&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/26/2004&g=97&d=A</a> ..
@Rich in Atlanta And... the other puzzle find. A Wednesday from January 13, 2016 by Jeremy Newton. The 'reveal' in that one was: "Elementary education ... or feature of the last words punned upon in 17-, 29-, 49- and 66-Across :" THREERS And a couple of example theme clues and answers: "Frost mixed with pebbles? :" ROCKYHOAR "Pond admired from the back porch? :" REARVIEWMERE "Chiffon mishap? :" SHEERTEAR Here's the Xword Info link for that one: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/13/2016&g=35&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/13/2016&g=35&d=D</a> ..
@Rich in Atlanta I am thankful and so appreciative of the thought and time you put into these searches! It’s a little package of gifts we get to open every day! 🦃
Sirois-ly Ricky? Nailed it. Perfect amount of resistance and such a satisfying *Aha!* that leaves me plenty of time to… get cooking! My husband is a historian, so my children heard (as soon as they were old enough to speak English) that a more authentic way to celebrate would be to go to the neighbor’s house, kick them to the backyard, and eat their food. Such fun. But after we got past the humbling history, we ate. And then we all “went to the floor.” (Which is basically sliding with minimal effort to the floor to lay flat and begin to digest the 5700 calories we’ve just inhaled.) Happy Turkey/Tofurkey/Pie Day to all who celebrate! Don’t be afraid to Go To The Floor. It feels so much better that you could imagine…
Stacks of praise for this great puzzle! Thank you to everyone in this community. Thank you for making these great crosswords!
Mmm, pancakes! I should have plenty of Bourbon-roasted pecans left over from the sweet potato casserole to make some stacks of my own tomorrow. Thankful for all the folks getting their turkey and fixings at mess tents and chow halls, far from home.
As a relatively new crossword solver, this was my first time encountering a rebus. I put HAY and SUB in what were supposed to be their rebus stacks but was wondering how to fit in SHORT and SMOKE before opening the wordplay blog, and learning how to do rebuses on my phone.
Really clever puzzle. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Fantastic work!
So, just the minimum amount of flailng around here (it IS, after all, just a Thursday...never mind that my plans got derailed yesterday when DHubby "forgot" the ONE simple task he was assigned, and PhysDau "forgot" she was assigned to remind her dad.... What the HAY. At least there was a wisp of a Thanksgiving mention. You guys remember back when everyone raked up ELM leaves and lit off the pile, and the Fall afternoon was scented with SMOKE? Really nice puzzle, Ricky J. .....Siroisly.
I always admire puzzles that contain a TRIPLE TRIPLE TRIPLE Thanks for some classic Thursday trickery, Ricky! Happy Thanksgiving!
I really liked this Thursday! Good mix of simple clues and others that really needed some thought. I did have a couple of look-ups, mostly the proper nouns. I am happy nonetheless as this was one of the first times I figured out a rebus was needed without coming to the Wordplay for help! Extra pleased as I figured out the stack theme organically as well.
Perfect Thursday. I loved that the need rebus squares were not indicated in a revealer.
Philly centric perspective: nice to have turkey hoagies on the thanksgiving clue menu!
The archetypical Thursday puzzle. Nice work. Decent, fun theme, fair clues, and moderate difficulty. The theme became apparent pretty quickly after I stopped staring at sub/sub/sub long enough to finally realize how it answered the down clue. If you can stomach rebuses, and I've learned to, this was a fun, doable affair. If you still despise them, well, sorry. At least a couple of the words left (turkeys, stops) are still words this time. Other notes: 1. I just thought the other meaning of mashed was that tater itself was a (mashed) abbreviation. D_rned sportballs. 2. Tried to get OBGyn to work for delivery person. :( 3. Was anybody else dying to enter Morocco Mole and distressed it wouldn't fit? 5. Really straightforward cluing, with nothing very tricky or clever, aside from the theme. Really only French, in England, which was pretty mild. This is not a criticism - the puzzle was well made and enjoyable to complete. Guess that's it. I liked it. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@B 4. Apparently, I can't count. ;) ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@B I'm with you on the Morocco Mole and OBGYN. I kept wondering if they were called something else in the States! 🤣
@B I really, really wanted OBGyn to work too 😂
The stacked rebuses were a slam dunk (listening to the Warriors game and it's halftime at the CHASE Center). Some very clever clues, especially [Delivery person?] and [Pitcher for the reds?]. Early on I looked at [Bakery byproducts], hoping for a STACK of doughnut holes, but it was not to be, only what lingers in the SMOKE. Welcome back, Ricky, and thank you for this one. Just right for a Thanksgiving Thursday.
Awesome puzzle. It took me 62 minutes to wrap my head around it, but when it finally clicked, everything fell into place quickly. I was about to start looking up the proper nouns, but the crosses kept me going! Masterful work. Stacks upon stacks of great clues. Difficult but very rewarding.
From a team of colleagues that enjoy a cheeky daily solve, we struggled greatly today - maybe it was the hit to our inflated egos that we needed! The Rebus was a fantastic solve, and we had a good chuckle over Hay Stack! I guess we need to brush up on our proper nouns...
This puzzle made me wish the app supported copy and paste.
@Roberta Hint: Actually … the software is content if you only enter the first letter of the rebus word
@Roberta I was thinking the SAME THING!
Well that was fun. I caught onto the theme with the SMOKE stack, but it took a while to work out the rest. I had house for RIDE as I hadn’t heard of a haunted HAY RIDE, how does that work? HAYSEED also a new term, but I can see how that fits. The only stack I can’t make sense of is SHORT. I get it for the crossing clues, but what has that got to do with pancakes please? This is why I love the NYT crossword, I exercise my brain figuring out the grid, plus I learn new stuff most days. What’s not to love? A happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate; from the comments here I guess you genuinely do make a point of saying what you’re thankful for. I thought it was just a trope of tv shows (I’m thinking Friends). I’m impressed that you all can contemplate two huge turkey feasts in less than a month, assuming you repeat it at Christmas. My once a year blow out on Dec 25th is quite sufficient. NB: yesterday’s comment has been emued. I presume the feathered fiend objected to my mildly derogative comparison between the noted sisters. As a proud Yorkshire woman who lived in the same area as the literary girls, I had to elevate them beyond the, er, others. Will this pass the test?
@Helen Wright. In some places pancakes are served in stacks which can be of varying heights. A SHORT STACK is one with only two or three. . Emus prefer waffles.
@Helen Wright Hi Helen, I appreciate your perspective and interesting questions. As for Hayride, you travel through the haunted sites sitting on hay bales in a wagon pulled by a tractor or horse.
@Helen Wright Thanks all for your responses. I love learning about our cultural differences, as well as others like Andrzej in Poland.
@Helen Wright In my experience, a full stack of pancakes is three, a short stack is two. Pancakes here are often seven or eight inches in diameter.
Loved the puzzle! I was surprised that I had no look-ups on a Thursday (I allow myself a few on Thursday thru Sunday). I thought I had found the trick: I put SUB in 14D (not entered as a rebus). I thought the trick was to use the word in each of the three rows that crossed 14D. Since it was a down entry, I thought the "stack" was implied. Hah! It worked again with 35D! I'm so smart! 😁 Then came 34D and 54D. Could not think of a three letter word that fit all the crosses. Low iron? Bum a cig? Went to bed without finishing the puzzle. This morning, I filled in a few empty spots and the other two answers dawned on me! I entered all 12 rebuses but no Gold Star. 🙎 Finally figured out the wordplay at 65A and got the happy music! The second letter was blank as I know very few 90's rappers. Thanks to the whole crossword gang! Happy Thanksgiving! My main contribution to the family gathering is on the stove reducing from apple pieces to applesauce (we serve it warm!)