That is a lot of obscure proper nouns crossing for a Monday. On a personal note, I used to attend (and was later a counselor at) a summer day camp on Iona campus
Steven, Could you please identify the many obscure proper nouns crossing where you could not -- or you fear others will not be able to -- come up with the crossing letters?
@Steven M. I agree. The collection of ELLIE, TEAM COCO, SEAMUS, and O'SHEA interconnected with SMEW felt more challenging than the typical Monday. And personally, TARDIS crossing SET-TO had me guessing my way through many consonants until the S finally completed the puzzle.
@Steven M. For any day of the week! Two emphatic thumbs down 👎🏼 👎🏼
@Steven M. But do you know that Iona basketball coaches have included Jim Valvano 95–46 and Rick Pitino 64–22? Do you remember Richie Guerin? I watched him play for both Iona and the Knicks at the 50th St Garden. Yes, I am that old :-)
@Steven M. The only one that felt obscure to me was TEAM COCO. Podcast producers, really? Though I suppose they should get more credit and recognition than they do. Wheelhouses vary, and it is interesting to see that variation amongst us. (And that's what Barry's questions poke at, the impact of wheelhouses on crossword solving.) But what I'd like to hear ---any good anecdotes from Iona day camp?
I hate complaining about puzzles (I really do), but UHURA, crossing with ARARAT, crossing with TARDIS on a Monday is absolutely insane.
@Kachi You might find it insane, but it seems to me that all three are firmly in the collective consciousness of most Americans.
I am finding it difficult to accept -- and I think the puzzle editors would be too -- that there are more than a few people doing the NYT Crossword having trouble coming up with ARARAT for [Mount where Noah's Ark Landed]. Even on a Monday. Even if this is your first crossword. Sorry, but I just don't get it.
@Kachi I only know tardis from the "My other ride is a tardis" bumperstickers.
@Kachi My family once had a SET TO over Dr. Who because one of us couldn’t believe another of us had never heard of the series. I still haven’t watched it, but I did learn some basics, including TARDIS in the interest of broadening my horizons for future games. And maybe also crossword puzzles. I’m really surprised that so many people think ARARAT isn’t a gimme. I’m not sure when I learned it academically, but that lesson has certainly been reinforced through its usefulness in crosswords.
Hi @Steve L, I think it's important to remember that the world does not revolve around you and your experiences. Based on your response, you seem like an older gentleman who had an opportunity to dive into Biblical scripture. If that's the case, it would make sense why these answers were "gimmes" for you. I've watched Star Trek a handful of times (with the last time being 25 years ago) and the only character I know off the top of my head is Capt. Picard; I know the story of Noah's Ark, but the name of the mountain that he landed on could easily qualify as minutiae; and I've never seen an episode of Dr. Who in my life. Believe it or not, there are a bunch of other smart & worldly people who probably fit this same profile. That's why so many people are complaining about these terms crossing on a Monday. Monday puzzles are marketed as low barrier of entry puzzles that reference terms in the collective zeitgeist. Based on the response to this puzzle, that's not what happened today. And given the fact that way more people agree with my initial comment than your reply, you are clearly in the minority here.
@Steve L Thank you for your patient and kind answers to legitimate questions. My internal reactions to some of the comments tend to be neither. I had no problem solving the puzzle despite not knowing SMEW or SEAMUS off the top of my head. That said, I did hit "Recommend" on some comments regarding the difficulty for a Monday. Since I started solving daily in the app about 5 years ago, I've come to expect easy breezy solves and considered today's to be a little more chewy. It didn't take anything away from my own enjoyment, but I appreciate that new solvers may be disappointed. (I also understand but don't love that that some editing decisions are likely made to cater to Games subscribers. My ideal week would be Wednesday, two Thursdays, Friday, two Saturdays, and Sunday. Back to the good ole days of the 1994 Archives!)
SMEW? In an area with with TEAMCOCO and OSHEA. On a Monday?
@Tim Carey Wait. Somebody will come up with the statistics for how many times SMEW has appeared in NY Times puzzles. It was almost the Oreo of another day.
@Tim Carey O’Shea Jackson Jr has been in the crossword a number of times. He’s the son of rapper Ice Cube, whose given name is, naturally, O’Shea Jackson.
@Tim Carey Is it just me or is 22D an unfamiliar word?
@Tim Carey I never have to do lookups on a Monday. Today I did for SMEW and my puzzling goes way back to the print only days where I had a NY Times crossword dictionary as a last resort when I started.
I don't normally comment, but this is not a Monday puzzle. I know many people enjoy a "challenging" Monday puzzle, which is fine, but as I see it, Mondays are what they are for a reason. A casual, non-crossword user should reasonably know almost all of it. Obscure trivia is not acceptable in a Monday puzzle. My average on Mondays is under 10 minutes. For this to take 22 between myself and my partner (casual puzzle-doer) is almost comical. Bottom line is, for those who enjoyed the challenge, more power to you. But for people who come to Monday puzzles for the satisfaction of the solve, this is bordering on insulting. Based on some of the comments already, it seems I'm not alone in my opinion. NYTG, please remain conscientious of the essence of Mondays going forward.
@J What's obscure for you isn't obscure for everyone. My average time is 50 - 100% higher than yours (it's 15min) but I finished this one in just 14min. I found it simple and accessible, with a few tricky ones to confirm with crosses (sport teams, US colleges, ancient actors - no idea). I mean, you can't know everything, right? According to the comments, I'm not alone either! It was just lucky that today I knew most of the "obscure" ones people have mentioned in the comments (for me, ARARAT, TARDIS, SEAMUS, BATEMAN were gimmes!). The Crossword Gods move in mysterious ways, especially on Mondays.
@J You are definitely not alone in your opinion! Thank you for speaking up. Took me 15 minutes when it usually takes me 6-8... And it wasn't any fun either which is the point isn't it?
@J Thanks for your well-reasoned opinion. Most of us react very well to thoughtful comment, whether we agree with it or not. And if we don't we strive to reply in like manner. (Notice the wiggle word "strive"--I definitely sometimes fail.) Come back soon!
Over 20 random proper nouns on a Monday grid... Didn't know at least 8. Way over my average.
"You know what would be cool on Monday? If we crossed a name of a city, actor, podcast producer, poet *and* some weird word for a little duck!" FUNNY HA HA When I did not get my gold star, I did not even feel like looking for my typo or error - I just checked the puzzle to be done with it. For me, one of the least enjoyable Mondays followed one of the least enjoyable Sundays. It's like the editor is telling me to take a break from NYT puzzles, perhaps for the remainder of his era. I know people prefer positivity here, and believe me, I do too, but c'mon! A quintuple Natick on Monday?
@Andrzej Please don't take that break! You are one of the people whose comments I always look for. I really enjoy getting your viewpoint on these puzzles.
@Andrzej for real, I struggled hard with this puzzle, and not in a fun way
@Andrzej I could not agree more! I solved that Sunday yesterday, too and what an unenjoyable puzzle that was... and now on a Monday THIS??? Like you, it seriously gets me wondering about whether I should keep doing these or take a break. The editing lately has just not been what it used to be.
@Andrzej Ha! I just did Sunday's Connections and got the 1982 songs first. I agree that it's become the most EYKIOD game in the app.
Aaaaand did today's. "Attractions Iconically Different From Their Original Forms"? Snew!
This appears to be yet another puzzle where some people have complaints (as I did, see below) and others retort, gee, aren't puzzles supposed to be puzzling? I love being puzzled. I love word play and puns, love the AHA moments when I finally figure it out. Look at Lewis's weekly top 5 favorite clues/answers - always good examples of the trickery I'm here for. And I'd love it if every Monday were as tricky as the typical Robyn Weintraub Friday. But there's another kind of clue/answer - you either know it or don't (YEKIOD). A handful of YEKIODs, fine, if the crosses are kind I learn something new, hope to remember next time. But, for example, in today's puzzle, there's nothing tricky or puzzling about 48A, 33D or 49D - they're all YEKIODs. Crossing each other doesn't make this puzzle pleasantly trickier, it just requires brute force. I much prefer puzzling wordplay over brute force YEKIOD on any day of the week.
@Bill in Yokohama Yeah, agreed. I'd throw in SMEW as well. I only know PRADA from that Meryl Streep film, and for a long time I thought it was a kind of shoe. Which get me wondering... Of all the typical cis gender differences I can think of, the difference in attitude about shoes is to me the most perplexing. I've probably had fewer pairs of shoes over my lifetime than my wife does now.
@Bill in Yokohama Thank you for your post. You expressed my feelings, exactly, but did so more calmly and reasonably than I ever could.
@Bill in Yokohama well said! Thanks to my geek cred, UHURA and TARDIS were gimmes, and I knew ARARAT too. It was the YEKIODs of SEAMUS, OSHEA, TEAMCOCO, and SMEW that I didn’t know. At least with most of those that I didn’t know, the unknown letters could be guessed pretty easily. ARARAT, UHURA, and TARDIS all being either transliterations or made up words makes it much more difficult to guess the missing letters. I guess TARDIS is made up acronym made up of common English words, but still unguessable if you are unfamiliar with it. And thanks for “YEKIOD”, I like it 🤓
@Bill in Yokohama YEKIOD! I like it.
@Bill in Yokohama Brute force is exactly what this puzzle required! At the end of a tough Monday this is not the puzzle experience you want...
@Bill in Yokohama So if you cross two YEKIODs, you get a nantick?
@Bill in Yokohama let me ask the question backwards….conceptually aren’t there a list of words that a person “should” know for the challenge of a particular day of the week? And if they don’t know that “complete” list of words that it’s really their issue to learn more and learn those words? There was once a point where I didn’t know most of those words…and over a lifetime learned them. Yeah I may have needed brute force the first time I filled them in and maybe the 2nd or the 5th time too…but at some point they just become part of your internal lexicon. I guess my question is…where is the line between what one knows and where the puzzle determines it difficulty lies?
My favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Make two dos, say? (9) 2. This might come after the check (4) 3. Common component of ranch dressing? (7)(3) 4. Where people typically go to the mat? (5) 5. They're known to open with some jokes (6) TRANSLATE MATE STETSON HAT PORCH APRILS
@Lewis I was proud to get STETSONHAT with no crosses!!
@Lewis Thank you for doing this, Lewis. Revisiting some of the really wild and crazy clues that made me laugh when I got them is such a pleasure.
@Lewis "Make two dos" was stand-out superb, in my view. Like SP I also got the stetson one without any crossing letters, lovely clue though.
@Lewis #3 brought to my attention that BUTTERMILK has the same number of letters as STETSON HAT.
@Lewis I love that list of clues also. The only reason I knew Stetsonhat was because Malaika Handa had a puzzle very recently, and when I looked up her old puzzles I saw she also had a similar "ranch dressing" clue for Stetson a couple years ago. I think it's a brilliant clue and that helped me get it this time around! 😀
@Lewis I don't get the "make two dos" one, can someone please explain? P.S. I love all the others!
So isn't anyone going to mention that our constructor, Patti Varol, is the editor of the LA Times crossword? Omitting that little detail is like publishing a puzzle by Will Shortz in the LAT and not bothering to mention he's the editor of the NYT.
@Steve L I've always wondered if there is a LA Times / NY Times rivalry, over the name if nothing else.
I’ll just put in my 2 cents that I very much appreciate a Monday that requires some work, like this one. I know Mondays are gateway puzzles for newer solvers, which I respect, and this one will get some blowback for being “too hard forMonday,” but what a pleasure to be puzzled by a Monday puzzle!
@Puzzlemucker one foot in each camp. I enjoyed it (I usually do) and solved in less than average time. But SMEW crossing TEAM COCO and SEAMUS felt beyond a normal Monday. Not surprised we're hearing blowback.
20 proper nouns, most of which are niche, and nearly all of them crossing each other. not only is this not a monday, it's also not a crossword. crossword requires solving. the nytxw continues wandering more towards bar trivia/jeopardy! than what a crossword ought to be. y'all are losing the plot.
@Charles But proper nouns have always been part of the crossword! Ever since it began. And it’s not right to blame the game for things you don’t know.
A puzzle in which everyone knew all of the answers to every clue would be mind numbing. I appreciate learning new words and names, even if I am exasperated when some wind up crossing one another. Rappers who are completely unknown to me and physics terms that I am not likely to remember are part of the game—there are words and people and references to the past that I know from my staggering number of decades on the planet that might be a mystery to you. Complaining that a puzzle was too hard for a specific day doesn't make a lot of sense. If it took you longer than you expected, well, it's probably not going to ruin your life.
@dutchiris Hear, hear! Completely agree! And I do like that you left room for the possibility that it *could* ruin someone's life.... It probably won't, these are crazy days, you know!! Har! 😉
@dutchiris While I agree that a puzzle where everyone knew all the answers immediately would be dull, it’s not really fair of you to determine that people shouldn’t be put off by a puzzle being of a difficulty they are unaccustomed to on a particular day of the week when the NYT itself readily recognizes an internal protocol regarding difficulty/thematics on certain days of the week. Many solvers, especially those who are new to NYT puzzles, may only work Monday, Tues, Wed puzzles, for example, to build up their puzzle knowledge and confidence. Throwing them a puzzle that’s possibly out of their league or at least not of a level they were expecting is off putting and discouraging. You sound like an experienced puzzle solver. Good for you. You didn’t get there overnight. Give others the chance to learn to get there too.
Famous headline on 3-10-2025: SMEW SLEW WORD CREW!
@John Carson The puzzle did not make me smile, but your post sure did :D Thank you :) (Polish man loses head in pub trivia quiz - much worse than yours but quite accurate)
This Monday kinda kicked my butt…and I don’t care. I enjoyed it anyway! I don’t care about my solving time (I do the puzzle to relax, not to stress). I don’t care if I don’t know an answer that lots of other people know (I get to learn something new, and remember that I’m not as smart as I like to think). I don’t care if it doesn’t “feel like a Monday” (because it will to other people, and my world doesn’t need to be *quite* that ordered). I *do* care if the puzzle makes me smile a little, teaches me something new (SMEW!), and gives me a sense of satisfaction even if I have to look up a couple things to finish. And this one was all that.
@Eric A solver after my own heart. Bravo!
My old Physical Astronomy professor worked on the Uhuru satellite that surveyed the sky for cosmic X-ray sources. He explained that it was named after the Swahili word for 'freedom' -- which, of course, was the inspiration for the name of Nichelle Nichols's character on Star Trek. This boring interlude is brought to you by the sort of insufferable nerd who found this puzzle a walk in the park. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
@LBG Boring? I found this really interesting. Thank you 🙂
@LBG I majored in physics, and remember hearing about it as well. If I remember correctly, it was instrumental (as it were) in the verification of black holes.
@LBG I heartily second Andrzej. Anything involving space or space explorations will always be fascinating to me.
I lit up when I saw that this puzzle was by Patti, who, as editor of the LA Times crossword, has worked on puzzles of mine. She’s cream-of-the-crop on my list of editors. She listens, she’s smart, and she always makes puzzles better. And man, I enjoyed her puzzle today: • FUNNY HAHA. A phrase I love. A relatable phrase that Patti caught in the air and placed in a major venue crossword for the first time ever. • LITTLE LULU. This pinged a long-neglected spot in my brain. I saw Lulu clear as day after filling this in, and experienced a full-body smile. • Learned “Police box” – fun to see and read about in Wiki. • Colorful theme answers, every one of them. Plus, all had appeared in the Times puzzle before today a mere four times or less, including two debuts, bringing spark. • Lovely answers LOOPY, BIBB, SPAT, FOMO, BALM, and WONK. • Speaking of WONK, sweet that it is KNOW backwards, as you need to know to be a wonk. A crackling good puzzle. Thank you, Patti, for a sterling outing, and more please!
I have a 300+ day streak at the moment, but if I go to the archive, it happens quite often I'm left with a few empty squares in a Monday puzzle - where minor celebrities cross obscure TV shows and words not used in an actual conversation since the 1870's. Some commentators here would say that this shows that the puzzles have become easier, but I would actually say that it's that they've gotten better. Constructors (a shout-out to all of them! I can't tell you how much joy you bring to my life!) now use computer software, they have great word lists, and there is so much competition that a puzzle with TEAMCOCO, SEAMUS, SMEW and OSHEA in one section, and UHURA and NORAD in another, has no chance of being published. Or rather, that's what I thought until today. How on earth was this puzzle accepted? And how could it run on a Monday? The cluing was at least Wednesday-level in some parts. And the theme was meh at best. My least favorite puzzle since 2020, when I started solving. This one brought zero joy.
@Turing While I was solving it, I actually thought briefly that some of the answers might be a little troublesome to beginners. And yet I completed it 37.6% faster than my average Monday puzzle (as per xwstats.com). So I think maybe some puzzles bifurcate for the newer crowd and the more experienced crowd. This one may have been easier for those with more crossword experience.
@Turing I’m sure you’ll make it to 365 days. My take on the puzzles is that the world has changed and the puzzle had to change with it. It was once a local paper for the erudite NYC crowd…even with ex NYkers and others doing it remotely and in the international editions. But we now live in an online world…a more pop culture focused world…and a more financially challenging world for newspapers to say the least. So the NYT is going to do everything in its power to capture that new younger audience and so we get the less bookish puzzles today…with a much broader and microfocused knowledge base. Just like its audience.
Certainly a tad chewier than the average Monday but I loved this. I couldn’t imagine a puzzle that would contain a Dr Who reference alongside the immortal SEAMUS Heaney. Throw in LADY GAGA and ELLIE Goulding and we’ve got ourselves a party. TIL SMEW and the fact that UHURA ends with an A. I always assumed it was a U. Huh. I well remember our local TARDIS aka the police phone box. We kids would hang around waiting for it to make THAT sound and disappear. We were the bane of the local Bobby’s life. And now, in honour of my monthly gin club and one of my favourite Heaney poems, I give you, Sloe Gin. The clear weather of juniper darkened into winter. She fed gin to sloes and sealed the glass container. When I unscrewed it I smelled the disturbed tart stillness of a bush rising through a pantry. When I poured it it had a cutting edge and flamed like Betelgeuse. I drink to you in smoke-mirled, blue-black, polished sloes, bitter and dependable. Try saying ‘polished sloes’ aloud after 7 or 8 of them (aka a normal gin club evening). Thank you Ms Varol for a real Monday treat.
@Helen Wright Fabulous poem. Thank you.
@Helen Wright you may be combining (as i often do) ULURU, the cultural site in Australia, and UHURA, the Star Trek character, into UHURU. and that poem is lovely, thank you for sharing!
The First Amendment says you can believe what you like, but if the Good Book is anything to go by, the Ark did not land on "Mount" Ararat. Here's the passage in Genesis 8:4: "And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the *mountains of* Ararat." Ararat is a mountainous kingdom, one item in a list of kingdoms found in Jeremiah 51: 27 — and not a mountain. "Ararat" appears four times in Hebrew Scripture and is rendered twice in King James, and also twice in the Vulgate, as "Armenia," a country roughly conterminous with the Biblical Ararat. The really ancient land of Biainili was known to its Assyrian neighbors as Urartu. Scriptural Hebrew made no provision for written vowels, so Urartu was rendered as RRT. When the Masoretic scholars invented vowel points centuries later, nobody remembered how RRT was originally pronounced, and the vowel A was arbitrarily inserted in front of each consonant. The same procedure turns FLORIDA into AFALARAD.
@Fact Boy As sure as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, I was counting on someone mentioning this "fact" about the Ark. And I wasn't the least bit surprised that it was you.
@Fact Boy Maybe that explains Afalarad man.
@Fact Boy So Mount Ararat was a ... no-arking zone?
@Fact Boy fascinating, thanks for the tidbit!
Just for fun, I counted proper noun crosses and stacks for three Mondays. The standard arguments we've heard over and over about tough crosses apply, of course - let's not rehash them. Mar 10 Crossed (19) BIBB/BATEMAN IONA/ANA LITTLELULU/BATEMAN LITTLELULU/ELLIE TEAMCOCO/ELLIE TEAMCOCO/OMAHA TEAMCOCO/OSHEA SEAMUS/OMAHA SEAMUS/OSHEA ARARAT/UHURA ARARAT/NORAD LADYGAGA/UHURA LADYGAGA/NORAD ASTROS/PRADA ASTROS/SOCAL ASTROS/SKYE ODAY/PRADA ODAY/SKYE ODAY/SOCAL Stacked (2) TEAMCOCO/SEAMUS ARARAT/LADYGAGA Mar 3 Crossed (6) ELIS/ETRADE RAMI/ETRADE AYO/GENEVA DENISE/LIU SNL/LASSIE ICEE/FRANCE Feb 24 Crossed (2) MAE/PETERPAN UPS/PETERPAN Feb 17 Crossed (5) LIN/ARCHIE LIN/SERENA ARI/URANUS UAE/DEBRA VESPA/ARETHA Stacked (1) ARCHIE/SERENA
@Mr Dave So Lewis regularly points out how many double letters are in a puzzle, which he admits is for no good reason. Now you’re going to list crossing names. To make some point, I guess? I’ve said before—quite recently, even—that proper nouns crossing has been a feature of NYT crosswords since the very first one in 1942–when 1A crossed 2D. You don’t like them, we get it, but obsessing over them isn’t going to change anything. They’ve been a part of the crosswords since Day 1. And they will continue to be.
@Mr Dave thanks for sharing. I do find it interesting if nothing else. It is indicative of a harder than normal Monday as others have expressed. Personally, this is the first Monday in months I have been completely stumped and need to come here for some "nudges."
@Mr Dave you left out Tardis, an answer almost as unreachable by non-watchers of Dr Who as the clue’s opaque “police box”.
Tricky, but not too difficult with the help of solid crosses and some informed guesses (for instance, can't be X so must by Y), and no look-ups necessary. If you read any modern poetry, or pay any attention to Nobel Prizes in literature, Seamus Heaney is not obscure. There weren't many FUNNYHAHA fills , but it was an entertaining way to spend a bit of time on a chilly Sunday afternoon. Thank you, Patti Varol, I thought your puzzle was a LULU.
@dutchiris if you have the specific knowledge, of course you will know the answer. I’ll bet very few people “read any modern poetry, or pay any attention to Nobel Prizes in literature“ though. I sure don’t, and I consider myself a well-educated person with pretty broad interests and knowledge base - so yeah, pretty obscure for a Monday. Mr. Heaney came entirely from the crosses (except for the E in SMEW and the S in OSHEA, neither of which I never heard of either). Luckily not too many names that fit S_AMU_ or O_HEA.
I came here to say thanks for the breezy Monday after yesterday’s punishing workout, only to find that several people are still feeling a bit punished. Yes, there were some obscure names, but the crosses made them easy to figure out. I also did not know SEAMUS, OSHEA, ELLIE, LITTLE LULU or SMEW. And I couldn’t remember TEAM COCO at first. But SAUNAS, SIDECAR, OMAHA and CUTUP were easy enough to solve, making S_AMU_ a snap to fill. The revealer made COCO apparent, even if you didn’t know Conan’s nickname. Same with LULU. The other names were also discernible from the crosses. For me, the last to fall was SMEW, which revealed itself as I dropped the W into WRATH. I would understand being annoyed if the crosses were difficult, but to me they seemed like regular Monday fare. I’m honestly puzzled by the complaints. And by the way, if I ever write a novel with an evil antagonist, I’m calling him “Smew”. What a great villain name.
I also wasn’t such a fan of this one - I look forward to a smooth, satisfying solve on a Monday morning with my coffee. Today was neither for me - had to resort to google quite a few times for the number of proper nouns (though I am surprised about the number of TARDIS complaints - I guess Doctor Who isn’t as well known outside of the UK as I thought!) Today’s puzzle theme, rather than brightening my morning with its usual “Aha!” and a chuckle, came with an eyebrow raise and a “…Really? I mean… I guess?” Just a bit clunky and unsatisfying today, unfortunately….
@RJ I picked up TARDIS from the kidz (our son and his wfe, mostly) though I think it looked like a phone booth... Never got into "Dr. Who." Capt. Aubrey and Dr. Maturin, however....Yes!
@RJ My ex has a USB charging station on her desk, in the shape of a TARDIS, and I've been watching the show since Tom Baker was the Doctor, cheesy special effects and all. It may be niche nerd culture over here, though.
@Mean Old Lady It does look like a phone booth - I don’t even really know what a police box is! The jokey concept was that the Tardis was supposed to change its appearance according to whichever time/place it landed in so as to blend in, but the Doctor’s had malfunctioned and so only ever appeared as a police box (something which had already gone out of fashion when the show started in the 60s)
I think this is the only Monday ever that used a word I'd never heard of: smew. And I love birds, so shame on me. Also, my spell checker is flagging it, so shame on spell checker too.
I enjoyed this puzzle, I found it aSMEWsing. Y'all may groan in unison.
Typically very happy to say "it is not for everyone to know everything" about trivia clues outside my sphere of knowledge, and move on with my life. But who on god's green earth can rattle off the names of podcast producers?? Got that entirely from crossings, much guessing was involved at the fourth. Positive spin: thrilled to have learnt the charming word SMEW today.
@IL I'm very split on that Conan podcast one. On the one hand, I never would've come up with the answer on my own, but on the other, it was a very satisfying moment to put together the puzzle theme and a vague recollection of that play on his name to get the answer out of only a couple letters. So who knows how to feel overall. But it was a fun puzzle regardless, and I'm happy to join the SMEW crew!
@IL The Jay Leno / Conan Obrien "feud" in 2010 was actually a pretty noteworthy cultural to-do. #teamcoco was possibly one of the early hashtags to cross over into cultural consciousness. I didn't follow it closely at all, but I could not escape being exposed to it, despite the fact that I did not watch late night TV at the time. Remembering that whole affair made that answer a gimme for me, at least.
Smew. Really? Even spellcheck doesn’t know what it is. I want to win on Monday…I’ll learn the other six days.
@Kyle what spell check are you using? none of the first three i checked choked on it. admittedly it was new to me, but not to my spellcheckers.
@Kyle something wrong with your spellcheck…
Not so new to the puzzle but I am new to this column and of course my favorite part is your comments especially when you point out clever crosses and other fun, hidden treats. Here is my inaugural offering: today I delighted seeing SEAMUS and PEAT BOG!! Heaney has whole collection of Bog Poems and it felt like too great a coincidence to go unremarked upon :)
@Jolierae great catch! And welcome
I think 27 D is inexcusable any day, but Monday?. A name with two name crossers? We’re supposed to be able to figure things out…
@PB I can't tell if you're joking or not....
@PB I have to admit that part of the puzzle gave me fits.
@PB Mr. Jackson is the son of the rapper and actor known as Ice Cube. (Not to be confused with Tracy Marrow, who is the rapper and actor known as Ice-T.) Junior has been in three of the last four clues for O'SHEA (since late 2023); the other one was his pops. Before 2019, the actor Milo O'SHEA was reliably the go-to reference.
Not only the issue of all the proper nouns that everyone is mentioning, but largely proper nouns nobody under 40 can reasonably know. wack puzzle for any day of the week, somehow being harder for me than the average thursday
@Y @Y I'm going to push back at the under 40 part of your comment a bit. I only see two entries that someone under 40 might have trouble with, LITTLE LULU and Anita O'DAY. And possibly SEAMUS, because poetry. Everything else is pretty contemporary and/or classic. The TARDIS is both contemporary and classic as is UHURA.
This was a bit of a stretch for a Monday, in my opinion, but then a stretch is a good thing every now and then. I had an extended time, but I was using my iPad, and I'm a faster typer than user of an Apple pencil, so I think my time was more an indication of pauses and one letter at a time than lack of knowledge. I'm a little surprised about the objections to OSHEA. It's only been 12 days since Jackson, Jr. was last in the puzzle (2/27), and he and his dad (Ice Cube) are currently tied at four appearances each. I didn't count them, but the clue leaders for the answer are actors Milo and Tessie. TEAM COCO and SEAMUS were my biggest unknowns, but the crosses were very fair, so they didn't stump me for very long. LITTLE LULU was a not-often seen, and not remembered character, but again, the crosses resolved the problem. Nice NYT solo debut, Patti, and looking forward to more, thanks.
@JayTee I forgot to complain about the clue for 10D, which should read "for some motorcycles", not "on a motorcycle". A SIDECAR is non-standard equipment that sits beside and attaches to the frame of a motorcycle, and is also supported by a lateral wheel. They're not suitable for cycles with small engines due to weight and balance issues. Sidecars are now mostly made by specialty manufacturers as most of the major manufacturers have either never produced, or have stopped producing them.
Well, I'm almost afraid to say that this was one of the fastest NYT crosswords I've ever done. I only had ONE to look up, and that was .... OMAHA. I should have waited, because I got the crossers later. I'm a little shocked at the ignorance of SEAMAS (SHAY-MUS) Heaney, and Mount ARARAT. Lots of clues I couldn't solve but I got everything with the crossers, eg wiith TEA- I thought it might be an M. I had the B missing from BIBB (not known) and Bateman (not known) but there are not a lot of choices of letter there).
@Jane Wheelaghan Wow, huge respect! Often you and I struggle with the same puzzles, but today you breezed through a grid that had me stumped. I'm happy you enjoyed it 🙂 As for the poet - the horrible things we were expected to do with poems in Polish (literature) classes in primary school tainted the idea of poetry for me. So I've never had any interest in poets and their work, and in general I rather read different stuff than what gets Nobel prizes.
@Jane Wheelaghan I don't know anything about his poetry, but pretty much every undergrad over here reads SEAMUS Heaney's translation of "Beowulf," usually paired with John Gardner's "Grendel." So that push-back was a head-scratcher, as everybody had plenty to say about orcs and elves last week.
This comment section never ceases to kill me. When it’s easy for my husband and I, it’s tricky for everyone else, and vice versa it seems. A couple of minutes slower than our average time, but I attribute that to sleepiness from the time shift. I loved the double back theme, adored the MANY references to space travel that came up. Any time you get Uhura and Tardis in the same puzzle it’s a win for me. I little harder than a typical Monday, but not significantly. We needed no look ups or double checks and it came together fine. We haven’t enjoyed several of the last puzzles, but this got us off on the right foot for this week.
@Kate Well, except for where you said "...for my husband and I" when it should have been "me." Not ME, "me", the "me" that meant YOU. But I got a Fai on this puzzle, so what do I know?
@Kate I’m with you. Usually I’m the lone dissenting voice and it seems I remain in the minority. I liked this puzzle a lot and thought it was great for a Monday.
I didn't think this puzzle was as bad as others, but SMEW on a Monday is insane.
Definitely doesn’t play like a typical Monday puzzle. Several clues are very obscure.
Not really that hard - only a few minutes slower than my normal Monday time - but it's highly unpleasant to do that many proper nouns in a Monday.
Of the 350M people in America, I bet fewer than 2000 know who produces Conan O’Brien’s podcast. Next week we’ll have “My grandmother’s SSN” as a clue
@Gus I certainly didn’t. HOWEVER…. Lots of times with a crossword you don’t need to know the direct answer to a clue….you just need to be able to infer it or understand it when the answer starts to unfold. Team Coco is a pretty well known entity or concept. I didn’t watch Conan much or at all…but I was definitely aware that Team Coco existed. Just like I may not know a specific presidential issue…but if the clue was Teapot Dome scandal administration I could work backwards and get to Harding. Or Olympic sob story for that matter.
Gus, I am *not* one of your conjectured "fewer than 2000." Luckily, this is a crossword, not a trivia quiz. I got SIDECAR, OMAHA and CUTUP from the clues and remembered OSHEA from a puzzle less than two weeks ago. The theme confirmed COCO. I got COURT and SAUNAS from the clues. I recalled SMEW from earlier puzzles and inferred the second E in ELLIE, but even with just T _ A _ I think I would have come up with TEAM. It may have been a tougher than usual Monday, but it was still a crossword. And even on "normal" Mondays there are answers I don't know from the clues. Happy solving to all!
@Gus 2 million followers on instagram 6.1 million followers on Facebook 28 million followers on Twitter/x 873 thousand on TikTok. I guess that adds up to more than 2000.
@Gus I got that easily enough with a few crosses. What I would never have gotten was SMEW.
@Gus, I had heard of it before, but didn't retain the info. However, it was fairly easy to deduce with the crosses.
@Graphic With those statistics, I'm happy to be one of the fewer than 2000!
@Gus I guessed Thai Coco and perhaps that says something about being Southeast Asian American. Maybe it was an unskilled guess — but just as random as the name ‘Team Coco’ if you don’t follow Conan? But maybe the Polish gentleman here will agree with me: the NYT Crossword is a bit of a cross-section of the modern American brain (albeit a very NY-centric one). For me, I often think of this crossword as a cultural standardizing device: through references and associations, I get a quick lesson on the northeast prep school education with some Midwest wordplay thrown in for flavor — the party-trick trivial pursuit edition.
@Gus Yeah, no, Barry. Or at least not or me. I had all the letters but the M from the crosses and still thought that for "the producer" we were looking for a single proper name. Teal CoCo? Teak CoCo? Yes, they'd be proper names I've never heard before, but those exist.
Hi Sam, Waving off my shock that you had never heard of a DRY DOCK. We have them right here in New York City, now privately operated in the Brooklyn Navy Yard (that used to be a Navy Yard). <a href="https://www.gmdshipyard.com" target="_blank">https://www.gmdshipyard.com</a>/
@Barry Ancona New Yorkers of a certain age may remember the Dry Dock Savings Bank. <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_Dry_Dock_Savings_Bank" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_Dry_Dock_Savings_Bank</a>
Nearly broke a 50-day winning streak on a Monday! Trial and error up there in the northeast. Smew… well, love to learn a new word. And that sure is one cute duck.
Seems like everybody hates the Smew. That one was a gimmie for me, which makes me feel soooo smart. Almost makes up for all the times I have felt soooo stupid because I didn't know something that it seemed everyone else did :)
@Doug TIL of the SMEW. I don't think I'll ever stop creating opportunities to use this word. Apparently it's been in the puzzle a lot and I'm a long-time solver, so I can only guess that I must've cross-solved it previously, without going back over the puzzle. It definitely would've caught my attention if I'd been paying attention at all. And SMEWs are so darned cute! Just love 'em. Glad there are people around who know about them :-)
@Doug Yeah, that's exactly right. Puzzles with enough gimmes (or at least confident guesses) and in the critical positions in the puzzle, can make a Friday puzzle into a Monday, and visa versa.
Very cute theme with LULU, COCO, HAHA, PAPA, GAGA. It's fun just reading that string. Maybe that will be my new mantra. FUNNY HA HA was a great debut.
If every Monday gave as much push-back as this one, I’d be ever so pleased. But, I understand that Mondays are designed for solvers who are testing the waters, non-US solvers, and those that simply don’t want this level of crunch. So, to those folks- I’m sorry this was probably not much fun. And to the solvers like me who beg for a brain-bending challenge and just get through early-weeks, looking for glimmers of fun, today was our Monday! Guessing tomorrow’s chorus will be singing that Monday and Tuesday got switched this week. Anyway, have a wonderful week all! Tough one for me, so [deep breath] let’s do it!
@CCNY I appreciate your post, but at the same time I'm not sure I understand how stacking proper nouns in not one but two places is a brain-bending challenge. I'm not being snarky - I would really like to understand. Having one's memory and general knowledge tested may be enjoyable, but how is it brainy? Don't get me wrong, I am in true awe of your solving skills, I always gladly read your posts, and I am truly happy you enjoyed the puzzle. I understand how people get excited by the thrill of getting witty clues which were beyond me. However, today the areas of the puzzle many found problematic were just name-heavy. Is that fun?
@CCNY I hope your week goes more easily than you're expecting. And I hope the puzzle is a fun spot in each day regardless.
@CCNY I'm a non-US solver and I found this puzzle quite easy. Didn't know LITTLELULU, OSHEA, IONA or SEAMUS but they were not hard to get from crossings. Still for a Monday I thought there were a few too many proper nouns.
SEAMUS, OSHEA, and SHEW were a bit of a natick for a Monday. But now, on with the SHEW!
I 'd like to point out that today is National NAP Day, as most of us lost an hour of sleep yesterday, and also to suggest that some of you might benefit from one. I enjoyed the puzzle, but was slightly disappointed that there were no GOGO dancers.
Not complaining, but in my experience 32A is usually used in the negative to indicate something is disturbing as opposed to entertaining. "ad absurdum is funny, but not funny ha-ha." Measles Are Growing Again
@ad absurdum I usually see it in a question. X is funny? Do you mean funny ha-ha or funny strange?
Did I just have to use the Wordplay column clues to solve a Monday??
Noah's words before landing? I smell ARARAT. Where was I? Oh yeah, a little tough for a Monday but still found this to be an enjoyable workout. Tumbling to the trick was a big turning point and I think that's always a nice touch. A bit surprised at all the complaints, but no big deal. Odd puzzle find today. I might put that in a reply. ....
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: A Wednesday from May 17, 2017 by Paul Hunsberger. Quite surprised that this wasn't a Thursday. Anyway... This one had clues and answers that were in two parts and overlapped with each other in both the clues and answers. Hard to describe beyond that. Here are some examples: 18a. "... for a loop, say / Area that an N.B.A. team has eight ..." DOUBLEBACK Followed by: "... seconds to clear / Successful detective's ..." COURTCASE Followed by: "... declaration / Critical computer ..." CLOSEDCIRCUIT So the implied answers were: BACKCOURT CASECLOSED (and CIRCUIT got hooked up with a following answer so the implication was) CIRCUITBOARD Here's the Xword Info link. You have to look at it to really get it. <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/17/2017&g=18&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/17/2017&g=18&d=A</a> I'm done now. ...
@Rich in Atlanta Still laughing at Noah's words... Thanks !
Wow, there were a few unfriendly crosses in today's puzzle. I'm surprised I managed to finish just under my average time. Once I remembered the SMEW, I was able to unravel the tangled mess I had in that section, phew!