I’m a newbie in this and this is my first time solving a Tuesday puzzle without help!! I cried
@Erick It just gets better! And so will you!
@Erick First of many, I'm sure.
@Erick Another Newbie here.. the one tip I can pass along is to take a break when stuck. When i return, I find more answers. Sometimes multiple breaks are required!
Like most others, I delighted in the very un-serious line of Os. At first I thought something was amiss, but once I caught on I cheerfully filled in the rest of the string without even reading the Down clues. Sometimes a little bit of whimsy is all you need to really bring a puzzle to life.
I have never heard of Church Rock uranium spill until tonight. Thank you for enlightening me. Now that's wooooooooooooow.
@Heidi I had never heard of it either, and I live in NM! Although it did happen when I was a child, and I moved here decades later as an adult. But yes, thank you for enlightening me too!
Solving this puzzle was like going to another place. Unexpected fills (AREACODE) a shocking answer (CHURCHROCK) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Rock_uranium_mill_spill" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Rock_uranium_mill_spill</a> and HEADDANCER—all were recognition of the nation within our nation, the Navajo. The puzzle wasn't difficult (quickly solved) but the welcome distraction of different path (mostly clean as a whistle—a couple of IDOs and ONITs, which I didn't mind) was deeply appreciated. I am home almost all the time now, and I can't seem to stop watching the news and obsessing about the sinister path our country is on. Thank you, Erik.
@dutchiris And Cherokee—another nation, of course. One golden day we will be given a small grace period when we can correct our stumbles, but I'm not holding y breath.
@dutchiris "....can't seem to stop watching the news and obsessing about the sinister path our country is on." Stop watching that stuff. It's designed to make you obsessed - to get you to watch more, to become more obsessed, to get you to watch more...
@dutchiris As someone who spends probably way too much time at home, over the last five years I have learned to "time box" my attention to the news. I can't not know what's going on, but @Hanson has a point -- and it affects our well-being! (On the other end of the spectrum, a neighbor recently told me she'd so completely stopped taking in any news that she was surprised it was snowing out-!) For me, "music hath charms to soothe the savage beast"... so to speak.
@dutchiris Thank you for the link to the CHURCH ROCK disaster. I added to my post how upsetting I found it. I’m slightly surprised that very few here are commenting on it, or am I being super sensitive? I’m genuinely shocked at what seems to be deliberate cruelty against an entire community. Also, @Steve L pointed out that I’ve misread your handle forever. I have you down as @DutchChris. My apologies. Despite now knowing it’s Iris, my brain still insists on seeing Chris!
This was so cute!!!!! The final grid spanner was very fun. Probably closer to a Monday than a Tuesday in difficulty but a fun time nonetheless.
"Someone just installed an apiary at the topiary!" "I can't bee-leaf yew." (Hive been known to branch out with these.)
@Mike I feel like I should be having to pay for these. Probably the next re-leveling of NYT subscriber fees will include Access to comments sections, and Access+ if you want to see Mike's puns.
@Mike Oh, Mike, you are the bees knees! I get such a buzz out of you.
@Mike Is there an EpiPen to defend against reactions to epigrams?
@Mike I wasp raying for another one of your j-oaks. It's great that you do this for us; I like your serviceberry much.
Did anyone else feel a little twinge of delight after seeing four 0s in a row and realizing what this puzzle was accomplishing? Bravo!
I always enjoy Erik’s puzzles; he always seems to bring something special to them. This one was no exception.
Since when do I get my mind blown so many times on a Tuesday? First there's 66A. I was suspicious that something funny was up after about six Os. Brilliant!Then the two links in Sam's column about what is a word. Pow, pow! Then dutchiris' link to Church Rock. Holy cow! I worked in environmental remediation, including many Superfund sites, and I'd never heard of Church Rock. No wonder the Navajo Nation resists uranium mines. Well-funded, independent state and federal environmental protection agencies are vital to our well-being. I believe in using our natural resources, but never trust industry to police itself. Never. When push comes to shove, they will always chose the bottom line over public health.
@Nora A family member just lost his job with the Forest Service. Elon fired him. Bottom line chosen. :(
As your resident alphadoppeltotter, a role I’ve inexplicably taken in the past eight years, it is my duty to inform you that this puzzle, despite the stretched “wow”, does not have an unusually high number of double letters, where unusual is 20 or more. (That “wow” answer counts as six.) The last unusually-high puzzle occurred 1/31/24. I remain your humble servant, ever on the alert.
My comment got emu'd T'was politically skewed How rude! I haiku-ed.
First words out of my mouth when I woke up late were, “What day is it?” Staycation week has me *all* upside-down. Tuesday. Ah, crud. So rare to get an interesting Tuesday puzzle. Wait. It’s an Agard? An Erik A Tuesday? It’s gonna be silly and woke and smart and have stellar hair! I was not wrong. Wow.
An ideal opportunity, given that one of his favorite responses in these annals is "SRSLY" to call for the Mayor of this shire, Mr. Barry Ancona to serve for another term, at least, whereas the mayor of Mr. Ancona's own shire will not be so lucky (Lord willing). All hail Barry Ancona for his long service to his wordplaying constituents. Seriously! I'm of mixed feelings about this puzzle, and not least because [Identity thieves' targets for short] precisely describes the crew currently infesting Treasury and now coming after our SSNS. No, it wasn't the triggered mourning for my lost future means of support, although that weighs heavily on me, it was the lacklustre cluing of the top tiers (and some areas beneath) which so jarred with the brilliance of the theme set. Examples? [Got 100% on]--ACED. I see the name Agar I expect better, "mustered" level cluing throughout. Instead it's [____Major (bear constellation)] -- SRSLY? But on the plus side, great to see two black and white sea creatures, the swans and the orca (which also had a pedestrian clue), and a third, Nessie, who changes color with each sighting. I'd hazard she's puce. Loved Head Dancer. Made me cringe, remembering once in my young adulthood suggesting a pow-wow to a woman who turned out to be part-Seneca and who took deep offense, and that's the last time I ever used that expression, even though I can't remember what exactly I was proposing, but I was likely hoping for some canoodling. Seriously.
@john ezra Second paragraph: Lovely weave, there. Skating on the edge of Emu pond like that...
@Francis God I would love to read the NYT Crossword comments sections without sideways talking about politics. The way I can cope is by escaping and putting my head in the sand so I don't worry and obsess and feel overwhelmingly anxious about things I can't control. It would be great if I didn't have to worry about these sidetalking comments.
@john ezra “the Mayor of this shire”? SRSLY?!?! I must have missed the election. 🙄.
john ezra, If elected, I will not serve.
I loved the meta – Looking at WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW, then reading over the other three theme answers and seeing that they are the perfect reaction. What also gave me a big smile was [Dijon-mustered “yes”?] for OUI, mostly because of the scintillating wordplay, but also because this is an answer that has appeared in the major crossword outlets more than 400 times, but never clued like this. ‘Tis a special brain to come up with a clue like that. Regarding the o-train, two questions come to mind: • How many O’s did you have filled in when it hit you that it was going to a full string? • When it did hit you, what was your reaction? (My answers: Five and a huge “Hah!”) Loveliness along the way with BUOY, PITHY, THE AUDACITY, and WHO DOES THAT, plus a rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap in STOPS. As for the junk-free answer set, that comes standard in an Agard. A puzzle with a kapow is rare and wonderful, and thank you for this one, Erik!
@Lewis My original answer to 66A was ARE YOU KIDDING ME until I started solving the crosses. Once I saw that wasn’t working, I deleted it. I only had the ending OOW when I filled in the rest to see if that worked with the crosses and voila! 👩🍳😘
@Lewis I had the W in place, and as soon as the two letters to the left proved to be O's...the jig was up. Starting at the bottom is often either The Key to the Trick--or The Spoiler of the Surprise.
@Lewis Fun puzzle! I O_OW at the end of 62A. Plus I had looN at 56D, so my word started with oO. Then I had SCalE instead of SCOPE at 52D, so I had an "a" in the middle. Eventually the other crossing words (and figuring out that 69A was not oMPSUl) made it clear what was happening. My reaction was: cool!
I found this quite challenging for a Tuesday…finished around half a minute above my average for the day. Still, given our new era, I appreciated being able to focus on something other than cruelty and the tragic results of it, so, thank you.
Absolutely hilarious puzzle. First one to make me laugh out loud in a long time. Much appreciated, Erik! “Whyyyyyyyyyy? My only son!”
66A… it brought a smile to my face. I enjoy the occasional absurd answer, similar to that puzzle from last year that was full of T’s. Fun ride. Thanks for contributing.
Oh, and did I mention the rare-in-crosswords 15-letter palindrome? Et tu emu.
Credit for this post goes to @egs, a commenter on the Rex blog, who kindly pointed it out, saying "I'm sure Lewis noticed this," when in fact it flew right over my head.
I fair flew through this one, quite a few familiar friends (CDS, DAB, UAE) and fortunately got the proper names with the crossers, except 1A - I looked up Astro but got a Korean band? I also had to get the 'seriously' clues mostly with the crossers! I don't really use those phrases. The Scots equivalent might be: "Aye, right" "That's nae real" Or even "You think I cam up the (river) Clyde oan a bicycle?"
@Jane Wheelaghan Astro was the dog in the 60s Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Jetsons, a family living in the future. He was a Great Dane who "spoke," but replaced most initial consonants with R. Later, Hanna-Barbera produced the cartoon Scooby-Doo, about four teenagers and a dog who solved supernatural mysteries, starring a Great Dane who also "spoke," and also replaced most initial consonants with R. Since the same studio produced both shows, there was no fear of lawsuit over intellectual property. Now you know more than you wanted about 60s Saturday morning kids' television.
@Steve L Those shows aired well into the ’70s as I grew up watching them.
People loved this? Really? Meh. The whole puzzle created to create one single line oddity?
@Paul You didn’t like it? Seriously???
@Paul Skirting the issue of whether or not to love the puzzle in its entirety, where did you get the idea that the whole puzzle was created to accommodate one entry?
Laughed when I figured out 66a. Cute and fun one today!
Cute! Always look forward to Erik Agard puzzles.
Was anyone else reminded of... So when you're happy (Hurray!) or sad (Aw!) Or frightened (Eeeeeek!) or mad (Rats!) Or excited (Wooooooooooooow!) or glad (Hey!) An interjection starts a sentence right.
@MC I could guess the source, but this was one I missed back in the day. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ0696UhWrc" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ0696UhWrc</a> Incidentally, written by Lynn Ahrens who went on to co-write Ragtime, Seussical, Anastasia et al.
We Non-US folks sometimes struggle with americanisms, especially when it comes to sports-related clues. Sometimes it even goes over my head that a clue asks about an American sports. Or what sport. So it is very refreshing to have one with no such American trivia and barely any proper nouns. Thanks, Mr Agard, this was a very enjoyable solve!
Thought I was looooosing my mind at first with oooooolll the ooooooos. Interesting puzzle enjoyable
A discovery I just made about viewing the comments and the column at the same time on my desktop PC, and being able to scroll either one up and down independently: I had previously noted that at some point each day, the setup went from only being able to scroll the comments, while the column remained stationary unless you closed out of the comments. Recently, I realized that the first time you open the comments, you have that setup. But all you need to do is refresh the page, and you have the two scroll bars, and you can scroll either one. Even if it's the first few minutes the comments are up. Very convenient to be able to refer back to any part of the column without having to close the comments first.
@Steve L That's the way it was originally until sometime last year when they locked the column when the comment section appeared. I complained several times about that change, but I'm glad that they finally gave back the ability to scroll either one at any time. You may or may not see scroll bars depending on your system settings. I don't see them on the column, and only see them in the comments if I'm actually scrolling.
@Steve L Thank you! I tried it; it works; I'm tickled.
@Steve L Thank you x 10!!! Worked for me, too. It was an awful pain not being able to refer to the column while reading the comments.
@Steve L, thank you! This has been an annoyance here and in the Spelling Bee comments. Great discovery, thank you for sharing.
@Steve L I just tried it and it works the same on a Mac laptop. Such a small detail but very helpful. Thanks a bunch for sharing your discovery!!
Thank you, Erik! I CANTBELIEVEYOU! THEAUDACITY of you giving us WOOOOOOOOW! That’s why I love seeing an Erik Agard puzzle —it’s always something delightful to discover. Also, it’s funny that we recently had “damask” as the answer for a cloth named after a Levant country’s capital. Here it is again, as Damascus, SYRIA’s capital. I’m sleep-typing again so that ☝🏾 may be gibberish. Good night 💤🌙.
I never comment on here but this puzzle was just awesome.
Always like to see an Eric Agard puzzle (even on a Saturday). There's always something a little different or unusual that gives exposure to new ideas or facts that I normally would not encounter, and I appreciate the chance to learn, even at my age. Not much trouble with today's puzzle, although I guessed at something I shouldn't have and didn't cross-check until I got the "RUH-ROH!" message at the end. Fortunately, it didn't take long to find and fix. Thanks, Erik!
When I first saw the row of O's, I was convinced I did something wrong until I got to the W! That was fun!
The prolific Eric Agard always offers teaching moments and humor. I loved THE AUDACITY of including 66 A. When I saw how many comments there were so early this morning, I assumed there would be a lot of complaints, but was happy to see that many enjoyed this as much as I did.
L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace.
Crossword Revolution Day 28: REST Crosswords Saved the Day ™
@Puzzlemucker Here’s to REST! (And, if you don’t want to carry on CR rest assured we will understand. I’ve learned to find them on my own)!!
I confidently entered ARE YOU KIDDING ME for 17A, but alas it wasn’t to be when I attempted the downs. But then I entered the phrase once more at 66A thinking my brilliance was just a little too early 🤣 Imaging my surprise as that entry turned into WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. I still like my answer and it perfectly fit the theme. Thank you, Erik, for keeping me on my toes…seriously 🤨
@Jacqui J that should have said “imagine my surprise” instead of imaging. Darn autocorrect 😆
Thirteen O's. Wow. Is this another 13 ways to look at a blackbird? Oops, wrong constructor.
“Extends his regards”? “Bit of a stretch”? I see what you did there. I love it! Keep them coming.
Brilliant. Restored my good humor on a tough morning. Thank you!!
Absolutely loved this puzzle. Much Fun. WOW. I love puzzles with a simple straightforward twist and internal joke.
What a clever puzzle! I thoroughly enjoyed it. 65A was impressive all alone in making the answer fit, but the piece de resistance was Dijon-mustered "yes"? Kudos to you!
Hilarious and satisfying. Thanks, Erik.
13 vowels in a row, WHO DOES THAT?! So close to beating my PB, I thoroughly enjoyed this solve!
A fun and smooth solve - more Erik Agard puzzles, please!
Another tough Tuesday. This one took me 50% longer than average. I kept tiptoeing around the Kennewick area, but like Sam I broke it open with MAN. Once I accepted, there was gonna be a bazillion letter Os in a row, I kind of liked it. Wow, indeed.
With just _______________OOW in the grid it was unbelievably audacious to add in all the rest in one go, but it paid off! Great one, thanks Erik!
Not at all disapproving, but I found myself saying all the theme entries upon filling out 66A. How very meta!