Who else had BD_M and wondered exactly what type of real estate they were selling?
@Lou Scheffer i didn't even look at the clue and had to correct later
@Lou Scheffer I did look at the clue and still couldn't imagine anything but an S going in that blank space. I got the correct answer from the crossing entry. Never heard that term before.
@Lou Scheffer I think there are a lot of dirty-minded people out there. Although I didn't have that issue, I could nitpick it differently. I've only seen "bedroom" abbreviated as BR, with "bathroom" as BA. (Sorry, Barry.) I've also seen "beds" and "baths". With most real estate advertising moving from tiny newspaper ads to the internet lately, there is much less need to abbreviate everything to death.
@Lou Scheffer, yes I did, with "EXisT crossing it seemed almost plausible for a bit!
@Lou Scheffer I got the 3 letter through crosses. And I wondered. Bedrooms abreviated!
Is it just me or was there something vaguely suggestive about this puzzle? There's that muscle-head Atlas dancing solo at the disco in Reno, you make come-hither heart-eyes at him, slip him a note that simply says "Bdrm?" along with your spare room key. Take me as I am, you say when he comes a-calling, and then it's all a blur -- off with his Tommy Bahamas, minty breath, aloe and balsam, something he called oral-b and you called mouth organ, then something else about the leaning tower of Pisa, and Si Si Si! and Olé, Olé, Olé! and Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!...& when it was all over and the two of you lay enlaced like two little pupples, your hands back behind your heads, it was like ESP: you both said at the same time "Well YOU certainly brought your A-game!" like you were both the kind of professor who hands back grades for things like that. Then Atlas put back on his wrinkled Versace suit, said "See ya!" while you lay there in bed, lost in revery, thinking: does anyone ever take tees as souvenirs? What kind of a weirdo would get back from a vacation and look at the souvenir tees from the Irish golfcourse on the edge of the Shannon? What kind of a life is that? And also about Atlas; you had looked in his wallet during a trip to the loo; his license read Atlas Carlo O'Neal. What kind of parents would name their kid Atlas? Wouldn't that exert a lot of pressure on the tyke?
@john ezra I know a little kid named Atlas. Yes, that’s my SOLO response to your comment 🤣.
@john ezra yep! I blushed at MOUTHORGAN and paused at BD_M… among other things.
@john ezra now that you bring them so vividly back to mind, I think tees might be referring to shirts
@john ezra -- It started as just you, yes, but after reading this magnificent musing, it is me as well, and probably a host of others.
Got hung up by having SEXTET instead of SESTET and not having heard of LAY as a type of ballad. So I couldn't get to EYES as the last part of HEARTEYES.
@BB That area gave me a lot of trouble for the same reasons, until I finally decided to focus on the 35A revealer and other theme answers; with HEARTE_E_ and needing another body part, it had to be EYES But yes, another puzzle where I really needed the theme to finish.
@BB The Lay of Luthien, a ballad sung by Aragorn in Lord Of The Rings, is the only reason I know what a lay is.
@BB Agree. I had HEARTFACE for a long time. I have never heard of LAY for ballad and think it is a terrible clue for a Tuesday level.
@BB I eventually got it but I also was surprised when a ballad was a lay. Never heard of that one.
@BB Same here! Had to go to the column to get those two letters!
"Where are your anatomy notes?" "Not sure. Have to get organ-ized." ("Nice pun. Humerus with some more of them.")
Mike, Likely you could do 50 more anatomical puns. But I liked your single shade of Grays. (plus, you’ve got avoid many bawdy parts).
@Mike I have a bone to pick with you, although I doubt my carpal do any good -- since you've already put this one into circulation, my attempt would be in vein.
@Mike It is almost impossible to forego disecting the body of your work, but I am rendered limb from laughter...
Woke up to this light and breezy puzzle, and the coolest husband on the planet, who I married 30 years ago, today. As I walked in to the kitchen, Bruce Springsteen’s “I Wanna Marry You” was playing. It’s a *very* good day for this lucky gal. Thank you Paul! Happy Tuesday all!
@CCNY Happy Anniversary! May you enjoy many more. We got hitched in 1984, requiring a large and very boozy party last year.
@CCNY It’s our 30th anniversary today too! We were living in WI then and it was 11 degrees with a 30 below wind chill! 🥶 All our FL relatives were wearing fur hats and coats 🧥 IN the sanctuary! And … we had a small fire 🔥 (a candle lit the bow that was tied to it ‼️ by my sister-in-law). 🤦♀️ Thankfully, no one was injured and no damage was done. It was memorable though! Happy anniversary! 🎉
@CCNY @Cherry We're just young'uns I guess. Celebrated 12 years on Sunday. I remember one of our guests flipped their car on the icy highway. Fortunately, everyone was alright. Of course, days after the wedding we escaped to Bora Bora for 2 weeks for our honeymoon.
I miss the era when BTS was just everywhere. Those boys are so wholesome and nice. My daughter is still crazy about them. She also has been singing every Alicia Keys song since she was four. I mean belting them out! ISSARAE is one beautiful and talented person 😍. I’ll watch anything she plays in or produces. I’d hoped that her role of President Barbie would have been prescient but, *sigh* that was not to be. I don’t hear MEWS coming out of our litter boxes, just scratching and litter getting CAST onto the floor. It’s a small price to pay for all the purrs and snuggles 😻.
@Pani Korunova The new era of BTS being everywhere is upon us! We just have a few more months until each of the seven has completed their military service.
@Pani Korunova - I think "Litter box" in this context is a box in which you keep a litter of kittens. A bit of misdirect, welcome for a Tuesday.
Okay, what is going on over there? This is a real problem - I have been trying to coax a couple of people into the crossword and this kind of unpredictability is making it impossible. Mondays and Tuesdays are supposed to be easier. This Tuesday puzzle was more difficult than EVERY puzzle last week, including Thursday through Sunday. Lay for ballad? Seriously? Seriously?? Exert for bring to bear? Pas for father figures? Sestet? The Shannon river? All of these are Saturday level, if not just unwise cluing. This inconsistency does not speak well of the editing. This was supposed to be a Tuesday. I was and am delighted that Will is back but we must have better than this. Please. (I haven't read the other comments yet; I hope I have some company.) ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler) [Oh and the theme was fine.]
@B Interesting. I don't usually comment during the week, but came today because I was expecting to see complaints about it being too easy. Every answer in this one felt like a gimme and I filled it in as fast as I could type, so fast that I missed the theme entirely. Sorry so many people are not familiar with "lay." I used to love stories about minstrels and going to Ren faires. The term conjures up delightful hours. Really impresses on me how different each wheelhouse is.
Because of SExTET instead of SESTET, and not having heard of LAY in that context, I had a hard time coming up with HEARTEYES. If not for that, and a typo elsewhere, I believe I would have been very close to my Tuesday average. As it turned out, I was below, but closer to my Wednesday average. Individual puzzles can be way below or over one's average -- it happens enough that I don't care when it does. The overall increase in difficulty over the week still exists when you take the average of a large number of times.
@B While I found this a bit crunchy for Tuesday I must admit that LAY was a gimme. I can see you’re far from the only one not familiar with the term. Perhaps because it’s an old English (as in Medieval) word? That would be reasonable. I find place/tribal names of Indigenous Americans difficult to remember and impossible to pronounce. Thank goodness no one hears me mangle them.
@B Often, when you've said one is too easy, I found it quite difficult. Today, I found this pretty standard. Not a best time but definitely quite below my average for a Tuesday. Felt like a very reasonable Tuesday puzzle to me. I didn't know the SHANNON river or LAY (in that context) but both of them filled in very easily for me. But we'll always have Jesse Goldberg's 8/28/24 puzzle!! HEARTEYES!!!
@B I feel your pain. I've been trying to get my friends into crosswords for a while now and the random difficulty spikes on Mondays and Tuesdays are destroying them :(
Fast and lots of fun too. I really enjoyed it and I’m very surprised that it was rejected by so many. I’m glad you persevered, Paul Coulter. After reading only the latest few comments, I noticed several complaints about LAY. It is definitely in my wheelhouse, but it would be lovely if folks who haven’t heard of it would just add it to their list of discoveries instead of griping about it.
@Shari Coats Agreed! :-) Its mere three crossings were all so gentle that LAY filled itself in for me. It was not in my wheelhouse but I looked it up and learned (or perhaps remembered) something. Same with SHANNON, which is a river I'd not crossed before today.
Fun Tuesday—fast but a little chewy in parts, and for me, the most challenging clues were held in check by accessible crosses. I really admire the editing and construction work that must go into something like that. Thank you for this fun diversion, Mr. Coulter & ed’s! While I’m here though, I’d like to also defend the use of this space to air less than positive feelings about other puzzles. Sunday’s, for instance, I thought was a bit dull compared to our usual fare. I don’t usually post my thoughts if a puzzle isn’t great, but in this case, the constructors were both veterans, what I was saying wasn’t mean-hearted, and I felt comfortable offering the critique. In response to a similar post from someone else, a commenter asked: if you’re not enjoying the puzzle, why don’t you just stop doing it (instead, I presume, of complaining about it)? This bothered me. I personally see puzzles as challenges, and I don’t like to turn away from a challenge once I’ve begun—even if the challenge is not as fun as I’d hoped it would be. Are enthusiastically engaged posts more fun to read? Sure! But—and I guess this is all I’m really saying here—there are better ways to respond to honest, if less entertaining, comments.
@Josh Amen! It is just to express honest feelings about any particular crossword puzzle, and it's helpful for the editors and constructors to know a solver's true feelings. Please ignore the nattering know-it-alls and speak your mind.
@Josh Agreed. I rarely post negative comments, but I think there's a place for them here if they are respectful and constructive.
@Josh I certainly think we should feel free to express our opinion, whether favorable or not. And others can agree or disagree, as long as it’s respectful and couched as opinion and not unassailable fact (there are a few commenters who do that regularly). I draw the line at commenters who question the motives of or outright drag the constructors. Calling a constructor lazy or smug is uncalled for. A puzzle didn’t do it for you? Fine, not all of them will. Just don’t insult the people who worked hard to offer you something to entertain you. Feel free to tell them why you didn’t like it - maybe they’ll craft something more to your liking in the future.
@Josh I agree with you. I think a big part of the issue is the way in which too many people post their criticisms. I've seen far too many, as CrispyShot mentions, that are just out of line mean and abusive. Commenters accusing constructors of laziness or bad intentions... or the constructor just thinks they're too clever by half. And worse. I recently saw someone say quite meanly about a debut constructor that this was their first puzzle -- and they hope it's the constructor's last. Why do that? There's just no reason for that. If one doesn't like a puzzle and wishes to say so, that's fine. I feel like most people who express that it wasn't their cup of tea and—like a reasonable human to other reasonable humans—calmly expresses their opinions without personal attack are usually accepted. I don't think I saw the post you mentioned though, so I can't speak to that.
@CrispyShot I couldn’t agree more. Personal attacks on our constructors (or editors) are never ok. That *should* go without saying, really, but clearly it sometimes needs said. (And yeah, among those ad hominem attacks, “lazy” is perhaps the most vexing!)
Well, my brain likes to crack riddles, and because I often don’t catch on to things quickly, it had a good workout trying to figure out why TWO PART hinted toward the theme answers. Finally, finally, came “Oh! PART as in body part!” I am an enigma unto myself. I often without effort crack deviously misdirecting and arcane clues, while the obvious often soars over my head. I loved the clue [Add years to one’s life] for AGE, as well as the long-O northeast and southeast corners. I popped MOUTH ORGAN in, a term I haven’t come across or thought about in decades. MUSCLEHEAD triggered lovely images of Caroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker, who constantly called Rob Reiner’s character (Michael Stivic) “meathead”. It was sweet to see AHH PEACE in row two; my whole body relaxes every time I look at that. So, Paul, I left the box with a lot more than I came into it with – a gift. Thank you so much for making this!
@Lewis I will join you in the back of the room; I'm sitting on a stool wearing a dunce-cap. I didn't notice that BOTH halves were indeed PARTS. My excuse is that the puzzle was filling in too fast--see? It's the puzzle's fault!!
@Lewis I loved "All in the Family", but for some inexplicable reason Archie Bunker doesn't seem humorous right now.
A great puzzle -- just the right level for a Tuesday. I thought there might be some lookups, but the names of unfamiliar bands and actors were nicely filled in by the crosses. At one point, I had filled in BD_M, thought, "No! Not in the NYT Crossword!" And sure enough, the answer was BDRM (doh). Once I let go of HTTP and put in HTML (another doh), it was all smooth sailing. Did not even realize that the two-word theme answers were all two *body parts* until I read Sam Corbin's column (there were other two-word answers). May all Tuesday puzzles be like this. Congratulations to the constructor. Let's see more from him! P.S. Appreciated the cat-related clues (purrrrrrr).
LAY = “Ballad”? I guess I learned something, but sheesh.
6-Down? Huh? I’ve been solving puzzles, usually fairly well, daily for over 50 years. Never saw that clue-answer relationship, and don’t understand it now. I’m sure Barry Ancona, or someone else, will just say I’ve missed it over the years, but I think I might not be alone in this gripe.
@Desert Dweller It's been clued that way 20 times, though only 4 times in the Shortz era. And... 26 times as "Minstrel's song" or something similar, and a number of other clues that reference it in that way. ...
@Desert Dweller - Well, if you don't want Barry to explain this rather easy clue/answer pair to you, would you be open too consulting just about any dictionary of the English language? Honestly, that was a gimme.
@Desert Dweller--More than fair. Barry never misses the chance to tell us all how we can be a little bit more like him. It brings him much joy. Don't let it bother you. You are allowed to make a small gripe.
@Desert Dweller Yeah. I think i hear someone furiously typing. :D
Desert Dweller, Rich has noted the prior appearances of the clue and answer over the years, but I don't have a personal recall of seeing them and I see no reason you should. I have known LAY to be a ballad for well more than sixty years -- before I was solving the NYT Crossword. Not sure if I encountered it first in school reading, personal reading, or singing Child Ballads. P.S. You are not alone in what you call a gripe.
I definitely agree with Sam that MOUTH ORGAN is the outlier here, and although it doesn't violate any rules, the fact that ORGAN is a general term and not a specific body part makes that entry rather inelegant. HEART EYES was inferrable, but I've personally never heard that term (but I have seen the emoji). MUSCLEHEAD was fine, but KNUCKLEHEAD would have been better. ICES OVER works better with lakes than windows. I'd say the latter ice shut. In fact, I did say that, but I had to delete it. I found HTML in this puzzle and HTTP in the Mini interesting. That's all I got.
@Steve L I had HTTP in both puzzles... until it didn't work in this one. (And yeah, I know HTTP isn't "code.")
@Steve L Other than that, Mr. L,, how did you like the puzzle (or what was left of it)?
@Michael Weiland I blame the Mini for HTTP as my first entry. When that didn't fit, I reread the clue, or should I say actually read the clue. This was a challenging Tuesday !
@Steve L An organ, like a muscle, is a non specific body part. Isn’t it?
Nice puzzle, Paul! Today marks the first day I was able to fill in BTS without thinking. For some reason, even though it pops up over and over, I had a mental block and could never remember it. The last time it appeared, a post -solve look up revealed that it meant Bulletproof Boy Scouts. That wasn't going to help, so I made up my own reminder: big teen sensation. It felt good writing it in without a cross. And for MOUTH ORGAN? *This* is what it's all about: <a href="https://youtu.be/jU8m5-FOc38?si=ONpZ3_DQMUZXRoYb" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/jU8m5-FOc38?si=ONpZ3_DQMUZXRoYb</a>
@Nancy J. Yes!! 👍🏻👍🏻 Thanks for the link!
@Nancy J. I have the same block on BTS, and did not get past it today. I’m going to try your mnemonic, as behind the scenes, which is what I always think of when I see BTS, isn’t cutting it for me!
@Nancy J. Now you’re talking, Nancy! I love that Big Mama video. A lot of people, including Elvis, made big money off of her, none of which she saw. (Folks should listen to her original version of Hound Dog if they want to hear what the song was really about.) My favorite reference to her is in Dave Alvin’s Johnny Ace is Dead. <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SVV9kbi0b1c" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SVV9kbi0b1c</a>
@Nancy J. Thank you for that!
Just a bit on the tough side for a Tuesday for me. A lot of working the crosses but managed to get it all eventually. And... must admit that I wasn't grasping the theme at all until I was done and reviewed and pondered for a bit. No big deal. And... this type of theme has been done before. A Monday from May 24, 2021 by Adrienne Atkins. The reveal in that one was: "Stand-in during a film shoot ... or a hint to 17-, 25-, 38- and 51-Across" BODYDOUBLE And those theme answers: MOUTHORGAN RIBJOINT KNUCKLEHEAD BACKLASH Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/11/2025" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/11/2025</a> I'll put my other puzzle find in a reply. ....
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened - one of the most amusing themes I've ever encountered. A Sunday from June 13, 1999 by Rich Norris with the title "Le puzzle." A couple of theme clue/answer examples: "Hypothesis about the origin of bracelets?" BIGBANGLETHEORY "A little knight life?" CASTLEPARTY And other theme answers: SLOEGINFIZZLE DRAFTPICKLE THUMBTACKLE GROUNDCHUCKLE And there were more. Here's the Xword Info link for that one: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=6/13/1999&g=45&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=6/13/1999&g=45&d=D</a> I'm done. ....
@Rich in Atlanta Do you think the editorial staff considered the 2021 puzzle and its variation on the theme when deciding to publish today’s?
I would have liked to have been a fly on the editors' wall when they were discussing [Ballad] for LAY (6D)on a Tuesday. No I didn't know it, despite knowing a lot of musical terms and having once been a big Middle Earth fan. Yes I was able to get it from crosses. Yes I enjoyed learning a new term. Fun fast solve, slightly faster than average. Enjoyed seeing the River SHANNON in the grid. Heads up that a new movie just opened called HEART EYES. Just in time for Valentine's Day, it's a rom-com/slasher pic. I'll pass, but if any of y'all check it out, circle back with your review. thx.
Crossword Revolution Day 21: SEA LEGS Starting to get mine back. Enough to attempt a SESTET below. A Crosswords Saved the Day ™ production.
Yes, Yes Take me AS I AM and SEND HELP My SEA LEGS feel as firm as kelp, DOOM’s in the next ROOM and I’m being come-HITHERed by gloom, But HEAD and HEART are KEY, HAND BACK hopelessness? Si, Si!
@Puzzlemucker: I’ve invented a new puzzle within the puzzle, namely, “guess which entry PM will choose as the CR”. Today was my first try. I guessed PEACE. Yeah, too obvious. I’ll let you know if I ever hit the target!
At first, I thought reviewers hATED movies, but then I realized they just RATED them.
I was completely flummoxed by LAY to the point where this puzzle was a staring contest between me and 4A due to that hole. The rest was fairly smooth, but I don't think I found the theme as amusing as intended. Still, always appreciate a slightly tougher Tuesday than usual to ramp up for the rest of the week!
In broad daylight, yesterday, I read a Poet's mystic lay; And it seemed to me at most As a phantom, or a ghost. - Longfellow
Meh. The theme did nothing for me, possibly because of my ignorance and slow wit, but still, for me there was no enjoyment to be had. I've never heard of TWO PART harmony, and besides, a body part is not just *a part*. I needed the column to get what was going on. There were also some sections of the puzzle that to me felt too hard for a Tuesday, like the one in the middle on the bottom of the puzzle, with two abbreviations next to one another. BD*M... Srsly? I only saw one letter there, obviously the wrong one. When I filled the grid having needed three lookups, I did not get my happy music. By this time (and it was Wednesday time) I was too annoyed by the whole thing to look for my mistake so I just checked the puzzle to be done with it. I had made a typo, but I don't regret not taking my tike to spot it. BTW, Polish classified ads for real estate feature abbreviations too, but different ones, some even more arcane than the American ones, possibly. Over here traditionally not the number of bedrooms was listed but the number of rooms in general. Thus M3 meant an apartment with 3 rooms, with the M coming from "mieszkanie", our word for apartment. For decades M3 was standard accommodation for a typical family of parents plus two or three kids. The shortest Warsaw real estate classified ad from 30 years ago I can imagine would be something like: "M3 Wola 75000 [phone number]" (Wola is part of town in Warsaw).
@Andrzej Would that be a bedroom for the parents, a bedroom for the kids, and then a combined kitchen/living area?
@Andrzej In France the same idea is used, my apartment is a T2, or one bedroom. Kitchen, bath, toilet don't count, all other rooms do. I have no idea, however, what the T stands for! Maybe someone else does...
@Andrzej There's a play from 1972 called "6 Rms Riv Vu", for Six Rooms, River View.
Looks like the missing entry should be SORE HEADS. I enjoyed solving the puzzle (listening to a Warriors game, and more into that instead of kneecapping the fills), and I was surprised to see such a chorus of dissatisfaction when I came to the Comments. Mr. E. got a LOT more out of it than I did (nice jigsawing the fills into that steamy tale!), but I still found it Tuesday-worthy. Thank you, Paul Coulter, and don't let the 🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃 get you down.
A slightly chewy Tuesday, but nothing too indigestible. Album, film director and group needed crossings. I really should know BTS by now, though I always start with BST as in British Summer Time. Catches me out every time. Needed to stand back and look at BDRM to get it. Don’t think that’s a common abbreviation here, fairly sure you get a bed symbol online and the full word in print. I long for the days you got an actual 46D. It’s always KEY cards now that take forever to hit the green light. Off to book club this afternoon, one of my favourite activities…after the crossword of course.
@Helen Wright You didn't mention what you're reading! I have just finished several of Tana French's mystery novels.
@Helen Wright Or even when you get the green light the handle needs a HUGE push!
Overly forced theme with inconsistincies, switching between plural and singular body PARTS, when the theme was TWOPART. Other forced clues made this absurd for a Tuesday. "LAY" for "ballad?" Really?
Andrew, Really. As I posted about five hours ago... One person's tricky clue may be another's gimme, but I'm always a bit sad when people push back on clues that are definitions of their answers. lay 4 of 5 noun (2) 1: a simple narrative poem : ballad <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lay#dictionary-entry-4" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lay#dictionary-entry-4</a> P.S. I trust you filled LAY from the crosses. Is it really absurd to solve and learn a new word on Tuesday?
This word was actually used alot in the nineteenth century, especially under the influence of the PreRaphaelites who tended to paint and write a lot of works romanticizing the Middle Ages, which we today would view as sharply innacurate and overly romantic,but somehow appealing as fairytales are appealing. If you read any nineteenth -century literature, tomantic or not, you may well come across this synonym for ballad, or chanson de geste. It is just sn historical word like any other.
What constitutes a body part? I like heart, mouth, head and back. Not so crazy about eyes (two parts?), muscle, and hands. The theme would be a lot tighter with just simple single body parts. Daily difficulty seems to be getting more random every day.
There could have been a great theme here. Like maybe involving the phrase “body double.” As it is, this one was awkward and clunky. A lot of it was absurdly easy but then cluing LAY as “Ballad” was very Fri/Sat and tripped me up for a long time. Not a fan.
@Charles Nelson Reilly I liked the puzzle but agree odd cluing for LAY
@Charles Nelson Reilly The Lay of the Last Minstrel by Sir Walter Scott is a long narrative poem containing six Cantos. It's most well-known line is: "Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, As home his footsteps he hath turn'd, From wandering on a foreign strand!" The whole poem TL;DR can be found here: <a href="https://www.theotherpages.org/poems/minstrel.html" target="_blank">https://www.theotherpages.org/poems/minstrel.html</a>
@Charles Nelson Reilly I like your BODY DOUBLE as the revealer. Each themer has two *body* parts, not just any old parts. Your revealer captures this essence.
@Charles Nelson Reilly -- "Body double" is a fantastic reveal for this puzzle!
One person's tricky clue may be another's gimme, but I'm always a bit sad when people push back on clues that are definitions of their answers. lay 4 of 5 noun (2) 1: a simple narrative poem : ballad <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lay#dictionary-entry-4" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lay#dictionary-entry-4</a>
@Charles Nelson Reilly @Richard @Lewis Uhh, "body double" was already done. With MOUTH ORGAN among other theme answers. On a Monday not long ago (2021). @Rich in Atlanta provided the details here: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/4572rc" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/4572rc</a>
@Barry Ancona I learned something new today! I wasn’t familiar with that definition of the word lay.
It was interesting to read Paul Coulter’s comments about the development of this puzzle and how it was rejected by all but the NYT. I loved solving this one. Nice and thoughtful clueing throughout. Not difficult but with plenty of food for thought. I like puzzles, such as this one, that speak to the author’s brainpower and feel organic, rather than puzzles where the fill seems artificially sweetened with trivia gleaned from outside the head. I can sense the difference, actually solving the puzzle rather than just filling in the blanks.
I liked that the theme answers work directly as clued, so you may not notice the theme til you hit the revealer. Lots of pleasant word choices too, especially "bring to bear" for exert.
And all is fine in the world. Nice Tuesday Thanks
I regret looking up BDSM for 56 down…
@Jonathan Baldwin You were in the wrong room, I submit
@Jonathan Baldwin ACAI is my safe word.
@Jonathan Baldwin Not just you! I thought realtors had really stepped up their game there for a minute…
@Jonathan Baldwin You’ve caused quite the chain reaction.
Band aid unnecessarily annoyed me. Not as poor cluing or anything, just because I truly couldn't get my brain off of the brand name and into the other meanings. My own fault and a very FACEPALM solve, if you will. ;) I don't typically need a lookup on Tuesdays, but I struggled in the southwest corner until looking up the Alicia Keys album. Also: team 'don't really get the hate for LAY' check in here. I thought it an easy solve on crosses even if the definition was new to me.
I thought I had everything right and couldn't for the life of me figure out where I went wrong — I begrudingly looked up the answer for 63-Across because it looked funky. It was then I realized that I misread 53-Down ("Flings") as "Filings" — this is what got me to change CASES to CASTS and wrap everything up. I don't know if that was intentional, but I found it quite uncanny that misreading that clue by one letter caused a one-letter error in the solve that fit the misread clue.
@D. 😀 Every now and then, many of us hilariously misread a clue. It often has to do with those sneaky little "i"s that disappear or magically appear between other, bigger letters.
Thanks for the note on 6D! Like you I only got it through the crossings and had no idea what it meant. You saved me from having to do the research!
It's a good day when the first clue you see is BTS 💜💜💜 Lovely puzzle, I enjoyed the theme and got it fairly quickly.
@Cathy A happy day for ARMY indeed, and so specific! I loved that the constructor didn't feel the need to place "k" before "pop."
What is the meaning of 60D? “Can” solves to AXE? I’ve stared at it for 15 minutes and have no idea. Also, can’t say I was a fan of BDRM. Seemed very much forced into the puzzle.
@Steve - can as in fire from a job. “Got the axe”
@Steve Can and Axe can both be slang for firing someone from a job or something similar. Hope that helps. ...
@Steve BDRM is absolutely forced, IMO. Real estate ads, which I read constantly, always state a bedroom as BR.
@Steve I saw BD_M and was pretty relieved when I read the clue
Si Si was a bit of lazy clueing imho
I was starting to wonder is real estate shared an acronym with BDSM as I had EXIST. For the best for a lot of realtors out there
TIL LAY Not willing to try my luck in the emu filter, adding some padding.
Enjoyed this one very much. Very cool theme!
I'd like a show of hands for who else popped PEG LEGS into 11D without hesitating.... even if the plural should have warned us off. MUSCLEHEAD? SRSLY? And don't we just call them 'compound words' without need for further explication? There are also bedding plants called BALSAM (quite pretty bordering one's driveway.) Just so you know. In case you get ambitious. In seed catalogs (which have already arrived in the mail.)
@Mean Old Lady Agree about MUSCLEHEAD. Really ridiculous
So does this mean that all those years in high school when I was trying to get LAYd, that all I was really trying to do was get serenaded by a ballad? Or serenade someone with a ballad? I thought I was just lustful.
@Francis You were just hankering for chips. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@Francis Should have put that lust to work performing LAYS. Very romantic, I'm sure! A LAY in hopes for a LAY! Worked for Lloyd Dobler <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Y8tFQ01OY" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Y8tFQ01OY</a>
@ everyone on the this thread I hope you all see what's happened here. If I don't get to talk about current events, I tell a bunch of crummy jokes.
Just to weigh in and provide some feedback to the team... I too found this to be unbalanced in a couple of ways. The top middle threw me because I barely see emojis and never heard of the word that means "ballad." So I second, third, and fourth guessed myself and would say that the difficulty really spiked in that area. But I see that this, as is usual, depended on what each of us knows. My ignorance made that very tough. But like some others, I found the execution of the theme not very elegant. The revealer was logically insufficient (so to speak), and the combinations in the themed answers seemed to not have enough parallelism (for want of a better way of saying it). So yeah, like some meals, it was okay but not that tasty. I thought I was a gourmand, but apparently not entirely.
I noticed the body parts, but didn't really see a strong connection between the theme answers. Having one plural word at the beginning, another as the end, with the other two answers being all singular bothered me a bit, along with the generality of ORGAN rather than there being a specifically named body part. It still worked as a decent Tuesday puzzle, but I wasn't particularly thrilled with the theme.
Tonight I was a full on MUSCLEHEAD. Could not figure out the bottom of this puzzle for anything. 3 mins over my average. Probably my slowest Tues in months. I just wasn't on the right wavelength with this puzzle. I couldn't even get AS I AM an album I've listened to beginning to end more times than I can recall. It was a struggle, but I'm done.
@Jamie Me too! Which is not a complaint about the puzzle, I find it fascinating that sometimes I just don’t click with them…
Yes, always hoping it will ice over during that little “winter window” of late October, November, December, January, February, March, and early April. (At least body parts stay warmer when paired up.)
@JohnWM Where I live, that window seems to be getting smaller all the time. We have a dogwood festival in Atlanta. This year it's April 13- 15, in Piedmont Park, which has many dogwood trees. It's always been held around that time. When I first moved to the Deep South, in the mid-1970s, that was when the dogwoods bloomed. But the week or so when the dogwoods bloom has been moving back continuously. It went back to about the first week of April, and stayed there for a long time. Then in started creeping back into March. Last year it jumped back dramatically when they started blooming in late February and the first week of March. So now we have an annual dogwood festival that's held long after the dogwoods have blossomed. Nobody seems to want to bring up the implications of that. Probably it will eventually get blamed on 'chemtrails' and some secret plot.
That was good, I was lucky to notice the body parts theme fairly quickly and use it to scaffold other parts of the grid. Not an enormous fan of the "si si" entry though, since Paraguay is pretty famous for being a rare (if not unique) South American country with more speakers of its main indigenous language than the colonial alternative. Overall, a satisfying and very nicely-made Tuesday puzzle, thanks!
@Alex I thought it unfair that SEALEGS did not count as a themer. Tsk! I rather enjoyed thinking about the speed with which one acquires SEA LEGS. We had a vacation that began with a 2-day 'voyage' from Oahu to The Big Island on an LST-- (a flat-bottomed vessel that will wallow in a calm SEA.) We had rough seas, so a lifeline was rigged in case we land-lubbers had the bad manners to go overboard. (We kids felt insulted.) After we landed, for hours all of us lurched about riiculously in anticipation of the pitching deck...
Having chased down "The lay of the last minstrel" thanks to @Al of Pittsburgh's link, I cannot resist pasting this, from Scott's foreword; The inhabitants living in a state partly pastoral and partly warlike, and combining habits of constant depredation with the influence of a rude spririt of chivalry, were often engaged in scenes highly susceptible of poetical ornament. So now I understand why this might not be read much these days. Even those of us who'd heard of it seem to have only been exposed to the "Breathes there a man....." part