Well, some say we are living in a post-truth world now. But we here in Crosslandia still know the difference between 20 & 21, 14 & 15, Wednesday and Thursday. We cannot be fooled! Thanks to this puzzle for making sure we’ve still got what it takes, and have a little fun too.
Did this Thursday puzzle on a Wednesday night & couldn’t figure out why WEDNESDAYPUZZLE was the only clue answer that was correct 🤦🏻♀️
@Emma I’m sorry but I laughed out loud after reading this.
All high marks & love for this puzzle. I'd give it an 11 out of 9. I meant... I really like the tricky [Character profile?] at 1D. Set the tone right there (for a while I had WONT for the answer, thinking that, in the phrase "as is my wont," wont means character profile. That gave me WANED for [Past its glory], and NUDE for [Man]. Man = nude, sure, why not? We're all nudes under that ephemeral architecture we wear. So fun to see Dior in the puzzle, and what a great clue! And poor Dave. What does that dang computer Hal say to him? "I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that." Dave goes through a lot, after that, but ends up meeting some superior beings, dies, comes back as a sentient star hurling itself back to earth. God help us when AI (Hal) starts making xword puzzles that "pass" as human-made. Seems like any day now that, like, Eric Agar will be fiddling with a new puzzle on his laptop and attempts to enter some words and the computer says, "I'm sorry, Eric, I can't do that." Great puzzle. I'm pencilling in it my little notebook as a potential POY since it's a / I'M SORRY, JOHN EZRA. I CAN'T DO THAT
@john ezra ‘I’m sorry Eric, I can’t do that’ in that cool, inhuman tone that was HAL made me choke on my cuppa laughing.
@john ezra I was confused initially, until I realized 11 out of 9 is a double one-off.. In the realm of sexy cyborg science fiction, 7 of 9 is another good one Enjoyed the puzzle, but too easy for a Thursday. Not the constructors fault...
For most of the puzzle I thought that I was the ONE OFF. You took us FORA ride, Peter Gorman. It was TAXIng, I'd say, but not in VANE. Thanks, DUDE.
That was fun, cute and puzzly. However I am a bit disheartened that it seems AIART may become the new OREO. I feel we may come to regret this when the AI take over and cause the downfall of human civilization. Hopefully they'll still let us do puzzles. 🤖 [I'm sorry I can't allow that DAVE]
@Lpr I just love that gradually, year by year, there are more and more allusions to "2001: A Space Odyssey". I was way ahead of the pack in 1968, and I'm proud of that.
@Lpr Loved 54D. For once, a movie question I knew the answer to!
@Lpr - There are plenty of people working hard right now to beat AI to the punch…
Congratulations on and thank you for a great debut, Mr. Gorman! I fondly took to all the misdirects, and now I also have a warm place in my heart for the theme – after all, it showed me I can still read numbers, I can still count, and I still know what day of the week it is. And the revealer earned my special affection, assuring me I haven't yet lost my mind. In summary, this has been a welcome joyful and sanity-affirming ride.
Crossword Revolution Day 30: DUTY/PLEASURE Last day (for now) for the Crossword Revolution. I’m torn between Tagore and Nash’s takes on DUTY and PLEASURE: I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was duty. I worked — and behold, duty was joy. –Rabindranath Tagore O Duty, Why hast thou not the visage of a sweetie or a cutie? Why glitter thy spectacles so ominously? Why art thou clad so abominously? Why art thou so different from Venus And why do thou and I have so few interests mutually in common between us? Why art thou fifty per cent martyr And fifty-one per cent Tartar? Thou so ubiquitous, And I so iniquitous . . . - Ogden Nash, from Kind of an Ode to Duty Crosswords Saved the Day ™ (I hope!).
@Puzzlemucker Crossword save the day every day, in my humble opinion. The first poem ending "duty was joy" seems the best of the way to see life now and for four more years.
Never-done-before theme, playing on ONE OFF, and in a fun way. I’m guessing Peter couldn’t believe his luck when he found that “fourteen letters” contains 15, not to mention the other two theme answers. Then he had to design a grid in which TWENTY-ONE ACROSS actually landed on 20A – impressive! So, bravo on the theme and build, but how about the solve? Well, IMO, much to like: • The arts mini-theme – Literary (Ferrante, Roy, Lovecraft, Melville); movies (2001, Lynch, Fellini); music (Winehouse), style (Dior), and theater (Blue Man Group). • The lowly-located PEON, and the rare-in-one-puzzle double-sighting of two architecture references (the DIOR quote, and the clue to ANNEX). • The clever original clues for FONT (“Character profile”) and HOLIDAY INN (“Home to many kinds and queens). • A couple of areas that I had to return to, work that makes my brain happy, and the feel-good that comes with getting something that was previously ungettable. A lovely debut, Peter, that felt not-in-the-least debut-ish. I had a grand time with this, and thank you!
@Lewis "The arts mini-theme" Were you deliberately SCORNing the genius of our Artificially Intelligent MUSES at 22A?
@Lewis I'm also impressed by how the constructor put the revealer split and in an unusual location, so that for me (and, I assume, others), we didn't solve the revealer until after solving several theme answers...and scratching our collective heads. Do you think the constructor did this intentionally?
@Lewis I spotted HUT ONE and SNAP in the NE quadrant. Agreed on the clever clue for FONT.
Not sure how many folks here are involved with software development, but it reminds me of an old joke in the field: There are 2 truly difficult problems in Computer Science: 0: Naming things 1: Cache invalidation 2: Off by one errors
This one was faster than average for me. I got the themers mostly through crosses before seeing the revealer. Similarly, I got ARUNDHATI solely through the crosses. Looking her up afterward, I now have another book to add to my list of books to check out. So many books, so little time. Maybe if I spent less time doing puzzles …. Nah.
@Marshall Walthew The novel for which ARUNDHATI Roy won the Booker Prize — “The God of Small Things” — is one of my favorite books.
BAS-RELIEF crossed with BOFFO is diabolical
@Dave BAS-RELIEF was fine, but BOFFO? Noffo.
@Dave I have no idea how I pulled those two out of the recesses of my mind. I could almost hear the gears cranking in my brain.
@Dave I was scanning the comments for someone to tell me what that was supposed to be. Thanks! I had gas-relief and goffo because I'm not familiar with either of those and couldn't figure it out.
I liked this puzzle. I guess I was on the constructor’s wavelength. I have read Ferrante and seen 2001 and watched the Simpsons. I have kids who play video games and eat TAKIs. ARUNDHATI was a nice gimme, and I know just enough about art to know what BAS relief is. I feel like this almost forms a demographic profile. Often it’s the opposite for me, where the puzzle’s use of certain words or phrases feels strange or not quite right (see: INSULATIONS recently) or downright foreign. Kudos and thank you to the constructor, this was fun. But I’ll say, in regard to people complaining that they haven’t heard of a cultural reference: maybe it’s my generation, but I feel like it behooves me to learn about my forebears’ culture and youth culture alike. It expands your horizons.
I can't believe how many commenters hadn't heard of Bas Relief. For me, that was a gimmie, and really kickstarted my solve. That little three letter word made 24, 25, and 26 down no brainers, and I was "one off" to the races. Fun puzzle. Thanks Peter.
@Doug I thought of BAS for 24A almost immediately, but at that time I could not have explained what it was. TIL it is the feeling one gets when the woofer starts working again. Or is it the feeling one gets when, after a day of no bites, one finally reels in a largemouth? Or would it be the opposite of impressionistic art? OK, maybe TIDL.
@Doug I've heard of it, but it took me a while to get it from the clue. But yes, I was surprised at how many folks found BAS / BOFFO to be a Natick!
Congratulations on your debut, Peter! Very creative and fun to solve. My kinda puzzle. Looking forward to your next one.
I can’t tell you how many times I asked myself what day it is until the theme dawned on me. 🤦🏻♀️😂
Congratulations on your debut, Peter. Very nice clues for FONT and HOLIDAY INN. I just checked, and it's good to know that, at least for right now, the clue for 11 D wasn't ONE OFF.
Nancy J., Nice catch - and thanks for the news feed :)
They do say that the two hardest things in computer programming are cache invalidation, pointer arithmetic, and off-by-one errors.
Nice one, Mr. Gorman. I was able to get the long answers via crosses, thankfully, as none of them made sense til the revealer. I had never heard of taki before. TIL.
@Dave S Taki is a brand name. Spicy crispy chips.
@Dave S I only knew of it from the seemingly ubiquitous TAKI183 tags in the subway in the late 60's. Never knew it was a food.
@Dave S Some of the characters on “Orange Is the New Black” talk about how much they miss Takis. That’s where I first heard of them, though I have since seen them in the grocery store.
Having never heard the term "bas-relief", I found myself wondering a) why "gas relief" was hyphenated and b) how the editors let in such a gross clue.
Oh dear! When everyone, including the column, say how easy and gentle this one is and you found it just not completable... Ugh! I'm obviously getting less smart by the minute these days. The theme was a breeze but the upper left quadrant was just not coming to me. Bust and banal, instead of FONT and FADED. NODES and OCULI, nope, just didn't get them. ELENA, nope, didn't know. Thought "Man" would be a verb answer. OLMEC, nope! BOFFO, nope. I thought the Blue man clue was implying a blues musician. At well over my average, I'll admit it, I eventually did a reveal to see the last quarter fill in. And after seeing the answers, I honestly don't think I'd have ever gotten it myself. Only to find out how easy it was. (Insert sobby faced emoji here.) Ahhh, not feeling very good about myself today but tomorrow is a new day and sometimes I think puzzles are easy that others think are hard. It's all relative, I guess.
@HeathieJ Take heart, I struggled. And not a little, this was near impossible for me. I don't know why, maybe I just wasn't in the correct state of mind, nothing clicked except a few obvious clues. I never have to look up clues on a Thursday, but eventually I gave up and did just that...sigh. Anyway, there's always tomorrow, well, that's a Friday, soooo maybe I'll just wait for Monday to come round again. Take care, HeathieJ, you are not alone!
@HeathieJ I found this one easier than I anticipated. It seemed very hard at first, but then things started to fall in place in clumps, each clump after a bit of a struggle. The theme was definitely helpful, which I always appreciate. But I get what you are saying, as that is my experience too. Sometimes a puzzle is just too hard for me, and then I read the comments and find that I am mostly alone. And while my ego can get pretty bruised, which is not fun, I find solace in knowing when to give up. Sometimes, after going around in circles for five or ten minutes, I get the sense that it is time to give up, which I hate to do. And when I do the reveal, I see that the one or two places I was struggling with would never have come to me, and I feel a bit of satisfaction at not having continued a fruitless struggle. But today, my random bits of vaguely remembered tidbits, such as the Olmec being a mesoamerican culture, came in handy. Kind of made up for me never hearing about that guy with an idea about a canal that showed up in January.
Started slow, but suddenly came together. I’m getting better at these.
How sad that so many don't know what a bas-relief is but are well-informed about Oreos & Doritos & pop singers & rappers. AI-generated crosswords could be a real step forward, evolutionarily speaking.
@jp inframan I'm not sure whether I should feel complimented or insulted given that I knew what bas-relief is but also get real enjoyment from many different forms of popular music and snack foods. One thing I am not, however, is sad. You're on your own there.
@jp inframan I have a feeling that the general, even well-educated, public will always know foods (traditional food, fast food, junk food, etc) better than sculpture techniques. Seems more like a fact of life than commentary. I was glad to learn the term today. That crossing B was my hangup.
Difficult puzzle, but the most devilish move was giving us the off-by-one-day clue after a Monday holiday. I've been confused about what day it is all week!
On my first run through I confidentently (?) filled in "selfreferential" for 20A. It didn't survive long, but I still think it would've been wonderful if it was right.
@Grumpy I like that. Maybe we evolve that into a clue something like [This clue is false]
@Grumpy I love "self-referential" and think it would make a nice germ for some would-be constructor out there. But what would the other theme-related answers be? META? PARADOXICAL? And then you'd have to check whether someone else had already done that theme. Gee, it's hard to be a constructor! I'm glad that there are others willing to take up the challenge!
I completed the puzzle without lookups in 16 minutes, which is one of my fastest Thursday solves ever. This means that either I was on the constructor's wavelength, or - more likely! - the puzzle was just very easy. I like effortless wins though so I enjoyed it 🤪
Didn’t know either BAS-relief or BOFFO so that cross was the last to come together but otherwise a fun and clever one
Yes, Bas-relief is a new one for me as well. Very obscure
@Intermediate level Came here looking for this. I assumed it was gAS-relief
Gas relief and Goffo seemed perfectly plausible to me!
@Greg It’s familiar to students of art history or archaeology.
Absolutely loved this puzzle. Was actually disappointed when I finished it since I was having so much fun! Loved the clever trick and smiled when I got ONE OFF and solved the rest of the puzzle. Fabulous debut.
If this was 'easy' please no one burst my bubble. I'd rather believe I'm finally cracking the Thursday code! I was pretty stuck at one point, but there were two tricky clues I had yet to get. With those, I was able to finish 6 minutes under average with no other lookups. TWENTYONEACROSS was my first theme solve. I was feeling so excited about my new career as a crossword editor (as obviously they needed my keen eye) until getting WEDNESDAYPUZZLE. This was my favorite puzzle in some time.
@Emmy Some may say it was easy but I thought it was a nicely crunchy Thursday puzzle, so I think you should be very pleased with yourself. I’m pleased with myself for sure. We all have our own rules for our own solves. I thought this one was both tricky and lots of fun.
Had gas relief in for two long, but I do what bas-relief is from AP Art History. Maybe I should have taken AP World History and/or AP Theater because BOFFO/OLMEC was an ugly crossing
As one who frequently forgets what day of the week it is, I just thought I had it wrong, once again! 😂 Once I got the theme it all made sense. Fun!🤩
Fantastic debut. I was thrown off by 20A because both 20 and 21 are in that row, so I knew something was up, I just couldn’t see the forest for the trees at that point. I also didn’t clue in to the fact that this was not, in fact, the WEDNESDAY PUZZLE since I solved it last night 🤦🏼♀️ 😆 I **finally** figured it out when I got FOURTEEN LETTERS. Brought a huge grin to my face. How very clever of you, Peter. Hope to see more of your grid work soon.
Network connections, digital work, subreddits, broadband connections, battletoads console, social posts, the grams--what poetic cluing.
Teddy, Roses are red. Violets are blue. I laughed at your comment! I bet you did too. :)
It felt like I used up at least half of my time in the little 5 x 4 grid in the NE corner. They say most (all?) wounds are self-inflicted, and it was certainly true in this case because I scrambled AIART as iaART at 22A and that certainly was a factor in prolonging the solve in that corner. I really appreciated the theme, which I sort of understood as I was filling the theme answers in, but I did not understand it fully until I (finally) got the revealer. Nice construction, Peter! Looking forward to the next one, when hopefully I'll be more careful and avoid a completion time that is 35% longer than average.
A digression for sure, but I think worth sharing. I had a 62A experience yesterday. Early in the day I was reading about the Five Nations hockey final that is to be played tonight between Canada and the U.S. (see what I did there?). There was an article about this fellow Matthew Tkachuk which pointed out that he had achieved a “ Gordie Howe hat trick” in the past. Being unfamiliar with this expression, I looked it up….cute. Last night on Jeopardy it appeared as a clue! Pretty funny….
Gordie Howe actually only had two Gordie Howe hat tricks. But here's a list of the top ten and their Gordies: Rick Tocchet – 18 Brendan Shanahan – 17 Brian Sutter – 17 Wilf Paiement – 16 Cam Neely – 12 Jarome Iginla – 11 Keith Tkachuk – 10 Gerard Gallant – 10 Al Secord – 10 Paul Coffey – 9
@Hardroch I had a similar experience the other day, but the inverse! We'd been talking in the Wordplay comments about RAIL TRAILS after that answer was in the puzzle. Someone had brought up the High Line and I replied I hadn't thought of it as a rail trail. Later that same day, I was channel surfing looking for something to watch (on my antenna tv-!). Lo and behold, an episode of "Blueprint NYC" devoted to the High Line was playing!! EERIE. P.S. Even though I knew a fair amount about the development of the High Line already, I learned that the practice of "railbanking" is what enabled it and other rail corridor parks to be created. Fascinating! Blueprint NYC full episode: <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/site/media/shows/blueprint.page?id=2867" target="_blank">https://www.nyc.gov/site/media/shows/blueprint.page?id=2867</a>
Very amusing theme. There was a 2006 animated movie "Barnyard". It had male cows. With udders. Seriously. Look it up. Kinda Felliniesque, no? Google suggests it was done intentionally for comedic purposes. Like most of you, I didn't see it, so I don't know; I only remember reading the not-so-boffo reviews. I guess nobody ever told the filmmakers "Don't have a cowman." boffo buffalo boffo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo boffo buffalo
@ad absurdum That sounds like some kind of bull to me.
Am I the only person who thought today’s puzzle was hard? Man, I could not get anything going on the whole west side. BOFFO, BAS (I kept trying to make “tax-relief” fit but knew it was unlikely with the placement of the X), OCULU, FORA, OLMEC, and multiple authors I wasn’t familiar with… I powered through and kept the streak, but this one tested the bounds of my internal rules for being considered “not looking something up”….
@Amanda Some days just go like that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Amanda I totally agree! I needed lots of help to figure out that area of the puzzle
@Amanda A brief but intense interest in numismatics as a child seared BAS-relief into my brain, and I don't know how I know BOFFO, but I do. Probably from 1940s cartoons. I had aztEC in there, but I know it had to be boffo, so that saved me some grief. That part was actually not bad for me - just giving perspective from another experience.
@Amanda You’re not alone. Thursday puzzles are always the bane of my solving successes and this was no different. I thought I was making good progress with 80% of the puzzle and then the NW corner just completely tripped me up, especially with the words you CITEd.
Loved the puzzle today but would just like to clarify that the Irish word for Ireland, as in “Shamrock Land,” is spelled Éire. A grammatical change occurs if the sentence is talking about something ‘in Ireland’ which makes it Éirinn ☘️
@Kate All that you say is fine and interesting, but this crossword is in English, and ERIN is an English word. My understanding is that this word in English was a transformation of the Gaelic word Éireann which is the genitive form of Éire. The word ERIN is very common in English language literature and poetry. It has very often been clued as such in crosswords. E.g. [Ireland in literature], [Dublin’s land, to poets],[Ireland to an Irish poet] or when referencing leprechauns or shamrocks, as today. See: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/vwkuun9m" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/vwkuun9m</a>
Very fun puzzle, very clever theme, although a bit easy for a Thursday [IMHO]. (Or is today Wednesday? It is at about Wednesday difficulty.) I especially enjoyed the fact that I didn't solve the revealer answers of 29- and 43-Across until I was almost done with the puzzle. The result being, "I know these answers are right, but I don't know why or how they're right." Can the puzzle constructor do that intentionally? Do they think about the order in which we solve their puzzles? If so, it's another reason to be amazed by them and to be thankful for their hard work! Fun!
I hate that AIART is being used as an answer. Ugh.
@BDJ - well air quotes are omitted in NYT puzzles…
@BDJ Good art provokes. You just gave AI art credibility 🤪
@BDJ same here! Especially twice in the past week I think. Doubly infuriating working in data science and that’s the only plug our field gets :)
@BDJ I could deal with it as an occasional answer, but I definitely rolled my eyes when it showed up twice in four days. (The first usage feels more recent than Sunday, but I went back to find the exact day) I suppose I should be grateful that neither puzzle used it as a theme answer.
This was fun. It didn't start off feeling that way. I had to double check what day it was and if I ever really knew how to count, but once I figured out ONE OFF, life made sense again.
Trivia: Badabing was a real strip club in Lodi, NJ. Its actual name was Satin Dolls. L
@LarryF More trivia: The Ramsey Outdoor Store lost a lot of business because people thought they had actually gone bankrupt.
Delightful! Been doing the NYTC for about 20 years and some clues have a unique perspective. Really enjoyed this one. Thank you!
As a tech person, I had to look up whether DSL is still defined as “broadband” despite maxing out around 25mbps. The answer? For now, yes— but not for long! Looks like 100mbps is the minimum on the horizon, which will render this clue/answer pairing obsolete. Today I learned!
@Ashley The slowest (sic) service I can get at my Warsaw location is 600 Mbps, and 8 Gbps is available for households. So you can imagine my expression when I had to enter DSL for broadband 🤣
I solved WEDNESDAY PUZZLE early but was very confused because I knew for a fact it was not a Wednesday puzzle. It was really amusing when I got it.
I love puzzles with meta-themes--even easy ones! I cannot tell a lie: as HOLIDAY INN began to work itself out from the crosses, all I could think of was *the* Holiday Inn--and the Washington's Birthday scene: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxh52CY7EsU" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxh52CY7EsU</a>. Didn't even consider the IRL hotel chain--despite having worked, briefly, for IHG, Holiday Inn's parent company. Even then, wondered what "kings and queens" meant--did Fred and Bing have a sequel in which they hosted drag events? Appropos of 1A: This is the fourth time this vid, from Elle Cordova, has been linked on this forum--and only three have been by me! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXbW42uTKYo" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXbW42uTKYo</a>
@Bill And I had rap lyrics going through my head: “Motel, hotel, Holiday Inn…”
@Bill Homecoming fit in 28D, but "Home" was in the clue, so that was a no go. And I highly doubt that low-end hotels have king-sized beds, or even queens. Just doubles and twins, to keep the laundry simple. Still got the correct answer, though.
@Bill And I'll watch it every time. Thanks!
Thursday puzzles must be in short supply at the moment. Like many Thursday offerings of late, this really was a WEDNESDAYPUZZLE. Though, of course, it had to run on a Thursday (or a Tuesday) to be ONE OFF. No idea what TAKI is, but its appearance along with TAXI is interesting. A pair of Latin plurals---OCULI and FORA---added to the fun, as did ARUNDHATI, which I got entirely from the crosses. RECORDDEAL felt like something from another ERA, but OLMEC and AZTEC was a lovely pairing. Solved this one unaided, but took almost 25 minutes. Not quite a PLEASURE to solve, but a solid puzzle, as one would expect from Mr. Gorman.
@Xword Junkie Oops, I confused today's constructor with Peter Gordon. That's actually a compliment! Congrats on the debut, Mr. Gorman.
@Xword Junkie Takis are a taquito-shaped snack chip. My kids love them!
I can thank the granddaughter once again for my knowledge of TAKI, and my kids back in the day for watching the SMURFs. SNAP-PICS at the upper right corner, and (Don't have) A COW & DUDE are both nice placements. Thanks to the last A in MAMMA for pointing me to which Mexican civilazation goes where. I'm weak on that history. Thanks, Peter Gorman! I hope your puzzle is not a ONE OFF.