Just wanted to thank folks for their kind comments and to address a couple of questions that I saw in the queue: Someone asked about Joel's eleventh-hour edit, and the answer is that he removed ROUGH/ROUGE (Abrasive powder) from the bottom left and relocated the H/E pairing (to PATH/PATE -- Trail/head). Why? Because he was concerned that (Carol) Heiss, the figure skater who defined the crossing entry, might not be sufficiently well-known nowadays. As to the nitpicks vis-a-vis DUTCH/DITCH, they are absolutely right: It's syntactically awkward. Yet I found it irresistible, especially given that it doubled-up the upper right corner. (Whose other entry was originally ZANE/MANE, as in Grey hair, as opposed to ZANY/MANY.) And COLT/VOLT is indeed a slight abuse of "power," but this puzzle required some artistic license. The TOAST repetition didn't faze me at all, given that the word is only part of the answer and it's being used differently, but the RACKS dupe was indeed real. CD RACKS came out of Joel's late effort, as WINE RACK already existed in the NE corner. I suggested replacing it with WIN A RACE, but CARED then would become CAR AD and we had a few cars already, including within a theme clue. Finally, my original puzzle had thirteen slashes (unworkable online), which was a faint clue of the pangram -- which I in turn hoped would be a genuine solver's aid as they progressed through the puzzle (what letters haven't appeared yet). Oh, well. Thanks again to all.
@Derrick Stunning, brilliant puzzle. Thank you! I had a ball.
@Derrick, I love it when constructors respond in the Comments. Thank you, Derrick, for this amazing creation. When I read here that the rebuses formed a pangram, I was stunned. @Lewis’s comment on your puzzle today is perfect. An awesome accomplishment. Thank you, sir!
@Derrick Today's puzzle was thoroughly enjoyable. I only wish I had caught on to the pangram, it would have made life easier!
@Derrick How nice to know these details. (I agree about the skater; I definitely do not remember her, despite trying to watch figure-skating competitions for many a long year.) Keep up the good work!
@Derrick I loved this too. Amazing work. Once I figured out what was going on I had a ball. Just a tad longer than my Sunday average.
@Derrick This was a fantastic puzzle. Thank you!
@Derrick ___ 142A Dull/Roar A few might have been BLASÉ, but many of us had a BLAST! B L A S (E/T) _____ #2 Alt.: 182A Monster / Storm A handful of solvers (as on any Sunday) might say it's a BEAST, but again for many, a BLAST. B (E/L) A S T _____ #3 Alt! 279D 😊/😊 The BEST! Thanks, Derrick Niederman. B E (😊/😊) S T
@Derrick fun for you maybe. Waste of time.
@Derrick this puzzle was so fun! I think people sometimes forget the charm of crosswords and get hung up on semantics. Creative wordplay is what it’s all about for me and I love a good rebus! Great work
@Derrick -- An absolutely brilliantly conceived and executed puzzle as well as a superbly entertaining one. I've just written down a reminder note to myself to nominate it for "Best Sunday Puzzle of 2025." Please see my full rave comment on the Rexblog. Thanks for this treat, Derrick!
@Derrick This was great fun, from start to finish. Thank you!
@Derrick absolutely brilliant. Thanks for posting this. Great to get into the mind of the creator. My only nitpick was the Toast duplication but it totally makes sense that something had to bend a bit, given the incredible constraints of the theme.
Oh, sure. Anyone can find a pair of words with a one-letter difference, like SLIM/SWIM. But to find such a pair that can be clued with an in-the-language phrase like “Skinny/dip”? Well, okay, maybe once or twice, but even that, to me, is remarkably difficult. But then to do it thirteen times? “Wild/bunch” for ZANY/MANY? “Card/game” for JOKER/POKER? And so on down the line? And then have the one-letter-difference letters form a perfect pangram, each letter used just once? Are you kidding me? Who does this? Derrick does. He does it in all his puzzles. He did one Sunday where every symmetrical pair of answers HAD THE SAME CLUE (12/18/16 – find it and look at it!)! This man is a word quirk genius, a master nerd who creates masterworks. An amazing talent. Every theme answer today jaw-dropped me, and that is a solve that I cherish. This puzzle is easily entering my Best Puzzles of 2025 list. Derrick, you are amazing. You are a Crosslandia treasure. Thank you, thank you for illuminating my day with the sheen of brilliance and for highlighting the astounding possibilities that lie in this quirky language of ours!
@Lewis Um, ditto? And thank *you* Lewis, for your master ability to say what so many of us are feeling. And for always saying it poetically, and beautifully. Master constructor *and* commenter!
Wow, I thought this was a brilliant puzzle and that was before I realized the 26 letters constituted a pangram. That takes it to a whole other level of awesomeness! I really had to work at figuring out exactly where and how to double up letters, and that’s my favorite kind of challenge. So much fun! I wasn’t sure whether or not to enter slashes in the rebus squares, because both letters are required in one direction but either letter in the other direction. I decided not to enter slashes, which was accepted for the solve, but slashes were entered after the music played. I hope the puzzle doesn't get TROLLED, because I loved it. Thanks, Derrick. Excellent job! P.S. Fabulous clue for NONE OF “Your business start-up?”
@Anita Thanks for writing the comment I would have written.
@Anita I thought "start-up" was kind of a stretch. Would you ever describe the first part of a phrase that way? Maybe I'm missing something
Wow, what a S/Funday! Crossword Revolution D12: SIESTA/FIESTA Because we need to continue to sleep and have fun if we want this revolution to have staying power. A Crosswords Saved the Day production. No ™ anymore.
@Puzzlemucker "Because we need to continue to sleep and have fun if we want this revolution to have staying power." Amen, brother puzzler.
Clever theme but waaaaayyy too many archaic answers that just felt like a stretch!
@Sara & Sponge One person's archaic is another's gimme. E.g., AGIO, DOGE.
@Sara & Sponge And not to mention YESM. That said, I guess my age was a help, because I had no trouble. AGIO was my one blind spot (and we have done some foreign travel). Haven't seen it in a xword either. My age is probably going to make it hard to remember that word. How many times has it appeared? At an ACPT I attended (as a spectator/ fan girl for a smarter friend), Will led off with a ?poem? reminding us of the common GLUE words like ARIA and OREO. Those were in it and also ETUI (which I haven't seen in a while), but not AGIO.
@Sara & Sponge you just have to roll with it. Sometimes there are too many current pop-culture answers and jargon for me. I just keep on learning!
I’m pleased to announce the winners and runners-up for the 2024 Puzzle of the Year Awards (a/k/a the Griddies): Best Early Week Puzzle: Winner June 10 (Kareem Ayas), Runner-Up May 13 (Jeremy Newton) Best Thursday Puzzle: Winner June 27 (Paolo Pasco and Sarah Sinclair); Runner-Up May 23 (Adam Wagner) Best Themeless Puzzle: Winner December 21 (Barbara Lin and Lewis Rothlein); Runner-Up August 2 (Kate Chin Park) Best Sunday Puzzle: Winner December 15 “Art Heist” (David Kwong); Runner-Up December 1 “Drive Around the Block” (John Lieb); Almost Runner-Up July 28 “The Big 5-0” (Paolo Pasco) Congratulations to all the winners and almost-winners (especially Wordplay’s own Lewis Rothlein)! Thanks to John Ezra and Cat Lady Margaret for their help in the balloting process. And thanks to everyone who voted. Instead of repeating the ballot’s descriptions of the winning puzzles, I’ll borrow the words of the wonderful Wordplay columnists (which, due to space limitations, will appear as replies to this comment).
Early Week: June 10: “The reason all the three-letter words [in the puzzle] can be identified so quickly is that they’re all the same word. That word is the ‘Guinness world-record holder for ‘English word with the most meanings’ (71A): SET./SET has 430 senses recorded in the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, according to the Guinness entry, so the ‘Complete collection’ (62D) of meanings (that is to say, the SET) could not be featured in today’s puzzle.” [Sam Corbin] May 13: “The summary of today’s column is a play on words. I’m not saying that Mr. Newton owes us an explanation — I mean that he O’s us one. Because we learn, ‘by following the path of O’s in this puzzle’s grid’ (33A), exactly what Mr. Newton is up to./These O’s, which ‘Zig or zag’ (11A) — i.e. TURN — through a winding route from left to right, represent a ball in a game of MINIGOLF (18A). I was especially delighted by this game’s alliterative clue: ‘Popular pastime played with putters.’” [Sam Corbin]
Thursday: June 27: “At first, I thought that Mr. Pasco and Ms. Sinclair’s rounded grid represented a cell, with all its parts swirling around inside, and that the revealer was going to be something like ‘The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.’/I was disabused of that notion when I got to the actual revealer, at 26A, which reads [Pepperoni, mushroom or green pepper . . . or what each cluster of black squares represents in this puzzle]. The answer is PIZZA TOPPING, but I had a problem: The answer, like many of this puzzle’s entries, didn’t fit in its slot.” [Deb Amlen] (The grid contained 40 rebuses, in each outside square of the “rounded grid.”) May 23: “First, allow me to give kudos to Mr. Wagner for filling this grid. Making a puzzle where the true answers are basically hidden but what we write in the squares are unrelated words or phrases is next-level constructing as far as I’m concerned. You’ll see what I mean./In this grid, we’re making BOX BRAIDS as a nod to the ‘hairstyle worn by Janet Jackson in the 1993 film Poetic Justice.’ Solving it may make you feel as if you have a lot on your plait.” [Deb Amlen]
Themeless: December 21: “This is not an easy crossword, but it’s certainly a friendly one. The humor is kindhearted, and the trivia is pleasantly nostalgic. It’s the first collaboration between Barbara Lin and Lewis Rothlein, two terrific constructors. They’re both crafty and clever, and they harmonize beautifully./Many entries in this grid aren’t notably difficult, but their clues have a subtle enough twist to look impermeable — until you tilt your angle of thought just a smidgen. That aspect makes for a winner of a solve for a maximum audience, and it is no small feat.” [Caitlin Lovinger] August 2: “It has been a while since I’ve written a First Pass Friday, the occasional feature in which I show readers how I forged my way into the dreaded, second-hardest puzzle of the week (the hardest is on Saturday). I had trouble finding a way into Kate Chin Park’s entertaining, formidable puzzle, so I thought that some of you who are just starting to play the crossword might be interested in seeing how even an experienced solver can be tripped up.” [Deb Amlen]
Sunday: December 15 “Art Heist”: “Solvers, I needed scratch paper and a pen to get through this amazing puzzle — if you’re feeling like your head is a snow globe with the Louvre inside that’s just been shaken, jotting things down will help. There are 20 entries in this theme set, half of which involve a deleted letter string and the appearance of a discordant, unchecked letter from a crossing entry. Those single letters, read from top to bottom, are a punchline for the whole theme./It’s a lot, but it’s fantastic! It took me a lot of circling the grid, and a few missteps, to see the big picture (no pun intended).” [Caitlin Lovinger] December 1 “Drive Around the Block”: “We are in the arena today! You may notice an island of squares in the center of this grid, a three-by-five rectangle that is disconnected from the rest of the puzzle’s entries. Circling this area are seven theme clues, all indicated by asterisks, . . . . There’s also a revealer entry at 93-Down. . . . Solve 93-Down, the [Machine waiting to enter the middle of this grid, as suggested by the answers to the starred clues], and your solve will move from frigid to red hot. This is a ZAMBONI — which smooths, cleans and glosses over the scratched surface of an ICE rink. (Also, for the purposes of this puzzle, on a “Drive Around the Block” of ICE that forms the grid’s center.)” [Caitlin Lovinger] (Kudos to the NYT tech team for the animated Zamboni that appeared when the puzzle was solved.)
@Eric Hougland Wow, of the 8 winners/runners up, I only voted for 1! (12/21) I guess when it comes to the Griddies, my tastes are outside the box. Thank you Eric, John and CLM!
@Eric Hougland Nice! Thank you Eric, John and Cat Lady Margaret, and thanks all for voting! It's an honor! Glad you all like my stuff :D
Thank you @Eric, @John, and @CLM for all the work you put into this, and it's plain to see there was a lot of it. Everything you did was so clear and easy, and those ballots were so professional! Thank you also to those who took the time and effort to vote. My themeless collaboration with Barbara Lin was one of those constructions where things seemed to click all the way through. When I was stuck on making a worthy clue, for instance, Barbara would pop up with one. Our guiding force was the enjoyment of the solver, and I think the results here mean we succeeded, which makes me happy beyond measure. Happy and greatly honored. Thank you all!
@Eric Hougland Lots of fun working with Eric and Cat Lady Margaret and there was very good turnout and in each of the categories there was a clear winner. As Barry alluded, the Sunday winner, David Kwong's "Art Heist," was also controversial -- it generated over 1500 comments, many of which were two thumbs down: almost like a movie winning an Oscar AND a Golden Raspberry, but one had to admit that it was virtuoso puzzle-making. And if it got so many people talking, it had to be doing something right! (A rule that doesn't apply to politics). This year, may I suggest (to myself as well as you all) that we make a physical note of it when we especially like a puzzle, and nominate them at the end of the year. Like today's: it's a great puzzle, witty, well clued, clever theme, a lot of words you don't often see, all of which qualifies it as a candidate for a Griddy. Thanks again, Eric and CLM! And all of you who voted...
@Eric Hougland Thanks EH, JE, and CLM for the effort you put into this. Congratulations (and thanks) to the winners.
@Eric Hougland Yeoman's work, indeed! Thrilled that Art Heist took the Sunday win! Thank you!
My first year participating in this contest, despite being a regular solver for well over a decade now, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to go back and look at the entries. Thanks Eric, and everyone else, who worked to put the contest together! And congratulations to winners, runners-up, and all the constructors who had puzzles nominated.... And to the editors, of course....
@Eric Hougland Thank you as well as many thanks to john ezra and Cat Lady Margaret. It was so sweet to remember those puzzles. I really think all NYT puzzles are good so every constructor should be proud whether they were nominated or not. But funny that the announcement came out on another potential POY puzzle day! As Nancy from NYC has said. I will note the note on notes!
@Anonymous Let the rest of us have our fun. There's always tomorrow (Monday).
@MExpat Your condescension sums it up perfectly, thank you for that!
This puzzle is the crossword equivalent of conceptual art: I can step back and appreciate it as an intellectually impressive construction, but as an actual crossword it was so forced as to be unenjoyable. I solved the puzzle without lookups, but basically did so under protest. So many problems: — JAGUAR XKES may be beloved by sports car aficionados, but that’s well outside common knowledge. I deduced it from the crosses but it felt forced. — MMMDCV wasn’t obscure, but it sure was artificial. The feat of a pangram in the themers looks less impressive when you get the V and X from these sorts of gimmicks. — VOLT is not a measure of power. A DITCH is not a tunnel. This isn’t a matter of “a clue is not a definition” — they are simply wrong, justified only by the requirements of the theme. —“Gummi Bears” is a trademarked name for a particular brand of candy; “gummy bears” is the generic term in wide use. So if the answer is GUMMI then “Bears” needs to be capitalized in the clue. There’s no way around it. — Understanding 18D, 24A and 77A relied on knowing what movies a B-list actress starred in 15 years ago, being familiar with a 30th-century classical music satire, and knowing that a country singer popular 50 years ago adopted his last name for the stage. Again, I managed to solve the puzzle. I know it’s called a “crossword” for a reason. But when 7 of 13 themers rely on esoterica or outright gimmicks, that’s a sign to me that the puzzle is too clever by half.
@Nat K The XKE shows up often enough in the archives that as soon as I had the J I knew the answer. I've always wondered how that particular combination of letters made its way into the puzzle enough that I latched onto it, because I agree that it seems it would be obscure to most.
@Nat K Don't forget the brand of jeans that went bankrupt 30 years ago.
@Nat K It's funny - I know nothing about cars, but the Jaguar XKE immediately popped into my mind.
I'm trying to solve the puzzle but the amount of proper nouns and trivia clues is just mind boggling. As I'm doing my across and down passes, I run into whole sequences of names, abbreviations, etc. This is beyond unenjoyable 😢 I have an idea! Why not make a puzzle that would consist *only* of proper nouns?
@Andrzej 😂 Yes! Why not make a puzzle consisting of only proper nouns? As it is, we're only teetering on the brink of disaster, we're only staring into the depths of {h-e-double toothpick}. Why not go completely with proper nouns and complete the process of going down the abyss.
Am I the only one bothered by 48A, [Holland/tunnel]? DITCH and Tunnel are not the same things. A DITCH is open above, while a tunnel has a roof. It's brilliant wordplay, except that...it's not correct. Other than that, I loved the theme!
@Adina , also “Dutch” doesn’t mean “Holland!”
@Adina Why, I always wanted to go to Dutch, where there are so many tunnels in all the fields. Did you know Holland tunnel jumping was what spawned the Olympic sport of pole vault (stick hop?)
Regarding STAGE NAME for “Denver”, Jim Horne at xwordinfo explains that the popular singer Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. performed under the STAGE NAME John Denver. I love that “Colorado” is the other half of that clue …. Rocky Mountain High Colorado.
@Anita Boy, that Henry sure was ahead of his time!
@Anita so the clue is DENVER for STAGE NAME…because whenever we see Denver, we understand it is a stage name? How about next time, the Times puzzle says ACTOR and we just accept that whichever actor they use as the answer is the correct one? Really, defending or accepting this answer for an otherwise clever puzzle is insulting.
I can see it’s brilliant, but I’m giving up about halfway through, which rarely happens. I would need way too many lookups. Maybe it’s just my mood today. Looks like I’m very much in the minority. Ah well.
@Wayne I wouldn't worry about it, the commenters usually praise all puzzles with the odd exception which is fair enough if that's what you want. On r/Crossword it's getting panned with most votes skewing towards poor/terrible as they tend to be more critical over there. I like to read both sections to try and balance out my opinions and biases.
Same. Too clever by half. Unrewarding sense of frustration with each time having to locate the rebus then resume thinking.
Fun puzzle. The "perfect pangram" is truly amazing. I am in awe of the skill needed to make this puzzle. No sketchy crosses either! Bravo to the constructor. Solving this was time well spent.
I think two things can be true at once. This puzzle can be an incredibly intricate feat of wordplay and an impressive construction. It can also be somewhat flyspeck-y and Natick-y with some pretty contorted and overwrought clues or obscure, trivial answers. Your mileage may vary, but this one seemed like it was more fun to construct than to solve.
Edward, You didn't like the puzzle, I liked the puzzle. What does whether we liked or disliked the puzzle have to do with whether the constructor did or didn't have fun making it? Also, unless you are a puzzle constructor, how would you know what it feels like to construct a puzzle?
@Edward I agree. I have constructed puzzles, and I can say that this one would have been more fun (for me) to construct than it was (for me) to solve.
@Edward I adored this puzzle, and to me it seems it would have been more fun to solve than to construct, but in any case, what has one to do with the other? I'm delighted to have some Naticks and flyspecks from time to time. They help me learn and grow.
Nobody who enjoyed this puzzle gets to complain about needing to know 21st century pop culture trivia. This thing came out of a time capsule. If I have to learn about GITANOS and JAGUARXKES (are you kidding me), y’all can learn who Missy Elliott is 25+ years into her career.
@Diana Yeah, wouldn’t want to go around learnin’ stuff all the time!
much puzzle very brain great clever super yes high smart mighty think too praise
Sometimes it's clear when a puzzle is designed for the author over the audience. The word pretentious comes to mind. In the "How to Solve the NYT Crosswords" article it says that only the clues are harder throughout the week, not the answers. That's definitely misleading for puzzles like this. Although I like the theme, I find too many answers obnoxiously esoteric. For instance, I've never heard of the Young Turk Revolution, Gintano jeans, a Jaguar XKES, the words longo and pate, or of PDQ Bach. Sure, now I have, that's true. And while I love learning from the puzzles, I can only stand so much at once. It makes sense that a puzzle like this level of trickery would have to rely on uncommon answers, but the dedication to fitting in the pangram certainly rendered it an overall unenjoyable process.
@Andy Sorry but... 'Young Turks' is a well-known description of someone pushing for radical change. There's even a famous (or notorious, take your pick) YouTube channel of the same name. I guess the Jaguar clue may only be appreciated by Jaguar fans, but imho some Jaguar XKE models are some of the most beautiful cars ever made. 'Longo' is not a word, the answer is 'long o' referencing the 'o' sound. PDQ Bach is esoteric, I'll give you that.
@Andy One thing to point out is that 91A is referring to the vowel sound which starts the hymn, i.e., a LONG O. I do think Jaguar XKES was highly esoteric, but it was easy enough to figure out from the crosses as TREX/TREK was a gimme once you figured out the trick. In difficult crosswords, not every clue needs to be very solvable as long as the crosses are.
"...I find too many answers obnoxiously esoteric." Andy, Thank you for sharing some of the answers you didn't know, didn't understand, or couldn't figure out from the crosses. You were clearly not the audience for which this puzzle was designed.
@Andy and yet I knew all of those. Everyone has different experiences and knowledge. That doesn’t make any of them right or wrong - just different.
I just didn't like it. For one, there was a lot of glue, especially abbreviations. SOC, ETAS, STA, REL, etc. Second, some of the theme fell flat. The METRODOME has been gone for more than a decade, so the clue felt oddly outdated. Unforgivable for me, though, was 48A. Holland and DUTCH are not interchangeable, and DITCH does not mean tunnel.
Blimey. That was a workout and a half, in the best possible way. A proper Sunday poser. It took a little while to work out the rebus element; HAZ/MAT SU/IT was my eventual way in, though it took forever to get some of them; D/NOME, STAG/TE in particular, but what a thrill when I worked each one out (I really should get put more). Boston before IN A BAR made me chuckle. I also liked the mini car theme as well. An Xtype JAGUAR, as we call them here is my dream car. I got to drive one many years ago, lent by my boss to take my best friend to her wedding. Smooth as silk, gorgeous as an Arab stallion, the bonnet (hood) a mile long in front of me. I still have the photo of a 25 year old me, looking proud as punch behind the wheel. Yes, there were a couple of clunkers (DITCH for tunnel, TOAST twice) but forgivable as the overall theme and grid gave me so much pleasure.
@Helen Wright Edit: get OUT more, I had a late night, the eyes aren’t quite focusing.
@Helen Wright One Reason "How to Steal A Million" is one of my favorite movies. Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in a yellow XKE!
@Helen Wright I was singing "Dead Man's Curve" to myself to get the proper letters for the Jag. "I was cruisin' in my Stingray late one night when and XKE pulled up on the right. He rolled down the window of his shiny new Jag, and challenged me then and there to a drag...."
@Helen Wright Car nut here; I think you mean the E-type Jag, which is a wonderful classic car, and I'm so jealous that you got to drive one. They sound amazing. The X-Type Jag is a modern front-wheel drive saloon car for bankers and barristers. It's essentially a Ford Mondeo in fancy dress.
@Helen Wright I remember the first time I drove a Jaguar. It was in Vegas just over a decade ago, for my birthday. And it was right after a drove a Ferrari and Lamborghini (birthday gift from my better half). There is a stark contrast in the obnoxious noise and power in the Lambo vs the elegant refinement of the Jag. The Jag was definitely my favourite of the trio, and the F-type is on my short list of next cars to get. Bonus that it has a very high WAF (wife approval factor).
Having just explained DOGE to my mother, who asked me if I was referring to the Venetian DOGES, I found that entry particularly timely and a wee bit snarky. Gotta get our kicks somewhere, I suppose.
EXCELLENT puzzle! The best Sunday puzzle I can remember in quite some time. At exactly the right level of difficulty for me. (I didn't think I would be able to finish at more than one point, but then pushed through.) If you read this, Mr. Niederman, thank you!
The year is young, but this is definitely on my list for best Sunday. It was well worth the long wait to get this one to print. A rebus pangram mashup with common phrases for the dual clues....... Wow! ❤️
This is one of the most wonderful puzzles I’ve ever completed. I caught onto the idea very early, with the fictional composer crossing Fast/car and then protective outfits crossing Wild/bunch. It was great fun to find the other combinations, and on top of that there were so many entertaining entries. I got stuck for a while in the NW. I just don’t know many names from popular culture, and I thought dip might be SkIM. But it was a fun fun fun puzzle.
A clever puzzle, but too much work. I gave up eventually.
Who are these people who do crosswords and get angry when they don't know a clue? You are invited to become more educated. The crosswords have already become far easier over the years. your not knowing something is not the fault of the puzzzle. It is totally possible to solve this without reading about it.leave blanks, keep an open mind and enjoy figuring it out. You don't need to know every single clue to solve. i assumed that people did these to be challenged and learn, not to prove the very limited knowledge they already have. If you thought a clue was hard, take it as an invitation to learn beyond what you know.
Fun puzzle! And a great one for me to solve today as the 3000th in my solving streak since November 16, 2016!
Random thoughts Very absorbing puzzle to complete. I caught onto what was going on Pretty D_rn Quick, with Mr. Bach and then the Roman numerals. Greece, Athens, ATTICA. (Duh.) I've been to the Temple of Poseidon, but Cape Sounion didn't fit. Any puzzle that mentions Maya LIN is okay by me. Did they save up the rebus puzzles for Will to edit when he got back? Thanks for the fun, Mr Niederman.
This was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed the theme and rebus answers—most were fun! But overall, it got a bit tiresome to me, especially in the non-theme areas. Things like SPEEDCOP, KEYDISH, and LEAPTON, instead of LEAPTat felt odd to me. There were some others like that. They're all valid, but just felt off. Guess they're just not things in my lexicon, so they felt awkward to me. INABAR at 87A is amusing, since Boston obviously fits. I also liked 126A DOC for "Happy companion!" Liked that one a lot! And NONEOF at 70A for "Your business start-up." I enjoyed the theme enough that I wish it would have run smaller on a Thursday, perhaps, but then I suppose there would not be a pangram, which is admittedly pretty cool. Anyhow, ultimately, I did not know the crossing of AGIO and DOGES at 10D/20A, and being so certain of LEAPTat down in the SW—along with not knowing how to end the JAGUARXK answer, and, honestly, just feeling ready to be done despite my nine unknown squares, I hit reveal. Everything else was correct, so that's good. Streaks don't motivate me and this isn't work or chores... I don't have to keep doing it if it's no longer fun. ;-) On a related note, sheesh, designer jeans in the 80s!? I wish! I got my jeans from Kmart and that's just the way it was going to be! Ah well, a little teenage trauma but I'm no worse off for it, as it turns out. ;-)
@HeathieJ Your last paragraph especially, was very close to my experience. Not only did I not have those so-desirable jeans, I didn't even know they existed. The world of fashion is a gigantic mystery to me, so much so that I don't even understand when people talk of the House of Gucci or the House of Prada. Moreover, I want it to remain a mystery. There is nothing in the world more useless to me than fashion. And I almost gave in on this one. I knew there was some thing going on with the italicized clues, but I could not for the life of me find the pattern. Seemed pretty obvious once I found it, but not at all up to then.
@Francis Haha you sensible Minnesotans (?) don’t get all excited about the Met Gala then, I surmise 🤣🤣. Have you watched the Meryl Streep/Anne Hathaway movie The Devil Wears Prada?
@HeathieJ In the 1980's I had a $10 limit on what I'd pay for kids jeans. My daughter learned to hit the local GoodWill. Lots of designer jeans for under $10. Everyone is happy!
To me, this felt like a perfect puzzle. It was challenging and layered, with no clues that, as Peter Griffin would put it, "insist upon themselves." It also had the hallmark of the crosswords that first hooked me into solving puzzles back in the late 1980s: respect for the past. I liked how the puzzles of yesteryear used to make me have to learn about old Hollywood, old language, old sports stars, etc. They never felt like they catered to me, which made me even more determined to try to solve them. Waiting until the next day to see what I missed was instructive and also made me feel like I was being woven in to greater culture that was forged before me. While a young solver would struggle with clues like 75A, 77A, 94A, 123A, and my favorite, 61A (I just last night told my son, while watching old Super Bowl shows that the Vikings have not returned to the Super Bowl since moving into (and now out of) the answer to this clue), they will be learning about various aspects of our culture. And because I went through those struggles as a Gen Xer, today I was able to answer such clues as 27A, 98A, and 126A, answers that stretch back to well before my time. Mr. Niederman, much thanks!
Whoa. I was initially a bit irritated at the awkward abbreviations, but I can't stay mad at this puzzle... what a spectacular feat of construction! I can't say I necessarily *enjoyed* solving it more than other Sunday puzzles but it has a definite "wow" factor that makes it memorable for sure. Kudos and all that.
This was fun! It was a kind of near-Schrödinger trick - maybe even better? To find phrases like “card game” that can become “joker/poker”. Once I saw how it worked I enjoyed figuring them out with few, if any, crosses (50% success rate). Naturally there were a few temporary funny wrong answers: The start of O Come all Ye Faithful could be a CONGO solo. Help me out here, because I’M A DORK.
Bollocks to Rebuses. Doubly so if they break the central idea of crosswords. If you get to insist on different letters across vs down, you’re playing tennis without the net.
Chet, You need to work on your analogies.
This was fun - not super hard, but definitely took a looong time to finish. Enjoyed solving the clues (once I caught on). Thanks!!
Wow! This was a really amazing piece of construction. Getting all those two letter rebuses to work in two different ways in the across and down answers is just incredible. Oh, and of course a tough workout for me and did have to cheat a bit in places, but just a really enjoyable challenge. And.. a quite amazing puzzle find today. 21 letter answer that dawned on me this morning, for no discernible reason, was - APARTRIDGEINAPEARTREE And that was an answer in a Sunday puzzle from December 22, 1974 by Anne Fox with the title: "Holiday gleanings." Three other 21 letter answers in that one: ALITTLECHILDINAMANGER WITHHEALINGINHISWINGS ONEVERCEASETHYSHINING And there were other long theme answers as well. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://xwordinfo.com/PS?date=12/22/1974&g=3&d=D" target="_blank">https://xwordinfo.com/PS?date=12/22/1974&g=3&d=D</a> I'm done. ...
Now that the Puzzle of the Year Awards are in, I urge everyone to stay calm if their favorites were not among the winners. True, if "Art Heist" hadn't won, I would have spent my day flipping over cars and trashing my town, but that's just me.
@Nancy J. Boy I hope you're joking. That would be the equivalent of the latest election results. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@Nancy J. I like the image of Nancy J. Hulk flipping over cars. I’m right behind her, whatever side she’s on. Lead the way.
The big question for the Mexican groundhog today: SIESTA o FIESTA? And what will the French groundhog see? Her chateaux? Does anyone know any other groundhog jokes? Because I keeping hearing the same ones over and over again.
@Justin If you are old enough, you would remember The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour which was cancelled by CBS for the comedians’ humo(u)r that was either too political — remember, this was the 1960s — or too irreverent for the network’s top brass. One of the funniest jokes I ever heard on the show was the one in which Dick asked his brother if he knew what the significance of Easter was. I won’t repeat Tom’s answer for fear of offending anyone, but google it and I’m sure you will find the clip.
@Justin I got you, babe— Here: - Phil Connors: "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" - Punxsutawney Phil: "I told you not to badger me" *climbs back into den for six weeks* It's not much of a made-up 'joke'. It was mainly an excuse to invoke "I Got You Babe" 📻🎶😣
@Justin There was a joke about Joe Biden emerging from his basement. If he saw his shadow, we would have six more weeks of inflation.
Caitlin doesn't link to the how to enter a rebus the way Deb does. Which is confusing a number of people not familiar with how to do it. And why some rebus squares accepy single letters, instead of double letters. Here's the link. <a href="https://nytimes.com/2023/12/08/crosswords/rebus-crossword-puzzle.html" target="_blank">https://nytimes.com/2023/12/08/crosswords/rebus-crossword-puzzle.html</a> Hopefully, someone will be along to explain much better than I can.
I solved it in a little less than an hour, so I guess that l shouldn't complain, but a Sunday rebus is just so tedious to me. They used to be a relaxing fun solve. A rebus is very seldom fun.
@R.J. Smith amen. Keep that tricksy, self-indulgent foolishness to Thursday.
"...a Sunday rebus is just so tedious to me. They used to be a relaxing fun solve." R.J., There have been Sunday rebuses since the 1950s...
Great puzzle and impressive construction. Minor quibble - “Volt” is a unit of electric potential, not power.
@Andrew Correct. But you have to remember that the editors absolutely do not care about accuracy.
@Andrew You probably object to the term “power company.”
This was a trip! Complicated, intriguing, challenging, exasperating at times, but definitely doable. Had to take a break or two to let things settle, but when I came back to the puzzle I always made progress. Very clever construction, and I can imagine why it took so long to get it done. Impressed by the pangram with just the rebus letters! Thanks for the exercise, Derrick!
Sometimes you just have to get through a puzzle and enjoy the hate you have for it once it’s complete. This is one of those puzzles for me.
Voting for the 2025 Sunday Puzzle of the Year is now closed. Incredible. And something for everyone from the Young Turks to the Ancient Romans!
I'm in the "mixed feelings" camp on this one. It is a marvel of construction when it comes to the complexity of the theme, but it came at the expense of fluidity and fun factor for me. I ended up looking up a few answers (which I rarely do these days) to get through it in time to make the game I'm headed to. Happy for those who had the time and bandwidth to thoroughly enjoy it. I also think this will be the last time I solve a Sunday on my phone. It's just not meant for a small screen.
Pretty amazing puzzle, theme-wise. Took significantly longer than average, but I enjoyed the challenge. Had to run the alphabet on the 20A/10D cross to get the gold star.
Hi Jim, Unless you engage in foreign exchange or have been doing crosswords for decades, AGIO for 10D would likely be a mystery. Old crossword hands will know it in a flash, since it has appeared 244 times, but the last time was more than ten years ago! 20A was here more recently (as the singular DOGE): Tue Dec 3, 2024 24D Venetian magistrate of old
Ooooh! This was a slog for me. Not because of the theme and clever work with words but everything else! A seasoning brand, a Missouri quarter, a bunch (forgot it means MANY in US), KIA, a stadium. Mount Rainier, AGIOand so on, and all the proper names apart from OTIS and PRAD A. I finished through crossers and guessing, going over and over as I got a letter here and these. BUT hooray! My first ever baseball clue solved with HOME RUN!
@Jane Wheelaghan Similar for me, though I knew TAHOMA from (bizarrely) an interest in typefaces. A lot of the stuff that seemed impossible at first sight (like that condiment) turned out to narrow down so much on the crosses that the completion was hardly a guess at all. My only real guessing game was down in the SE, where I just couldn't make any sense out of the letters I had from BE A DOLL (a slapworthy phrase if ever there was one). I do relish these puzzles that seem too intractably full of unknown proper nouns, cultural references and idioms, but nevertheless fall to a bit of determined chipping. But perhaps more in retrospect!
Long solve, but enjoyable from start to finish! I’m glad the rebus squares weren’t clued with a circle or anything like that: Knowing a double letter would exist somewhere, but not knowing where it would be, was a fun wrinkle!
@Stephen I completely agree with you here. Being a Sunday, they might have been able to go either way on the circles for the rebus squares. The fact that they didn’t made it so much more fun for me to solve.
@Stephen I loved it too. And that gold star reallhy felt earned.
Wow, this has to be one of the best puzzles in recent memory! What a stellar feat of construction with the phrases, rebuses and pangram all working together beautifully. Nothing too cute, great clueing and an absolute joy to solve!
This puzzle gets nothing from me. Another case in which I spend more time trying to figure out how to enter the double letter squares than I do solving. I’m about to give up. To hell with it.
@Dardanus Now, now. Take a deep breath, print out the puzzle (on two pages if you like space) and put a slash in the box when the need arises. Take an acetaminaphen and report back in the morning!
@Dardanus You can always just enter the first letter and it will be accepted as a solution
"Congratulations! You solved a Sunday Crossword in 1:14:00." Am truly terrified to read the comments. A very interesting concept, especially with no circles to show where the paired letters should go. To me, a terrific example of a puzzle that (might) have been fun for the constructor to create, but which, from this solver's point of view, was pretty much misery---and I love being puzzled. I solved it unaided, but only persevered because the alternative was to start planning my lectures for tomorrow's classes. Some of the paired thematic clues were clever, but Holland/tunnel for DU/ITCH is hard to take. "Holland" as a clue for DUTCH? And "tunnel" and DITCH are really quite far removed from one another. Cringed so many times while filling this one in---won't even bother listing the entries that provoked me. Kudos to the constructor for the concept and the construction, but no way on earth I'd ever have published this. OK, let's take a look at the posts so far. Might be MMDC/V by the end of the day. Hope most will be a lot more positive than mine. (As a point of information, not a complaint: In non-euclidean geometries, parallel lines can CONVERGE. For example, in hyperbolic geometry, parallel lines can converge to the same "ideal point on the circle at infinity".)
"...ideal point on the circle to infinity." Made me laugh out loud, involuntarily. I love numbers, but that is the kind of thing that just leaves me wondering what I am missing. (Maybe a hit of LSD?)