[ ? Superb ] OUTSTANDING BEYOND QUESTION
(My assessment of Simeon's puzzle...)
@Lewis A I myself WE (I am beside myself in awe)
@Lewis [ A s ? l e e p ] Same answer as yours. Hope you don't mind.
This is pushing what might be considered punctuation, but I’m sharing it because I want to see if the symbol shows correctly: Existing ♮ SUPERNATURAL BEING
@Cat Lady Margaret -- Hah! That's terrific!
@Cat Lady Margaret I’m not a musician. Don’t you presume that a note is a natural unless it’s marked as a sharp or a flat? Why do you need a symbol that means natural?
@Eric Hougland It’s because music is written in various keys. The key of C major has no sharps or flats, but most other keys have at least one sharp or flat. The key signature is identified on the left of each line of the staff. The key of D major, as in Pachelbel’s Canon in D, has an F sharp and a C sharp. In order to stay in the right key, the musician must play every D and C as sharp. Thus, when the music needs an adjustment to a note, called an accidental, you might use a sharp, flat, or natural sign, depending n the note and the key the piece was written in. If I recall correctly, these accidental signs only impact the note they appear next to. Hope this helps. It’s been years since I read music. I’m sure that David Connell could do a much better job explaining this. By the way, great write up over at Crossword Fiend!
@Eric Hougland the natural symbol is required in two common instances: if the note has received a sharp or flat accidental earlier in the SAME measure, or if the key signature of the piece labels that note as sharp or flat throughout but one particular measure needs that note to be natural. Funny enough, I’m writing this comment during my kids’ piano lessons :0)
Oops, sorry, my phone didn’t load all the comments. Didn’t realize this question had been very thoroughly answered already!
With this puzzle I hit my first 1000-day streak. I’m choosing to think of these 1000 days retrospectively as small acts of anti-fascism. Here’s to the pursuit of knowledge, truth, and community. And the joy of crosswords!
@Mark Congratulations! I’m way behind you. Maybe someday, I’ll get there.
@Mark Wonderful. Congrats on ann accomplishment that I, with my 601-day streak, aspire to. Now on to your next thousand days!
@Mark Amazing accomplishment! And I love the sentiment, cheers to a bright future of many more puzzles and small acts of resistance.
@Mark Amazing stat. Congratulations!
⚫ It NOT TO PUT TOO FINE A POINT ON IT Fun puzzle. All of the themers were excellent, especially since there were not “∞ Options” INFINITE POSSIBILITIES
@Puzzlemucker I can’t hear NOT TO PUT TOO FINE A POINT ON IT without wanting it to be followed by “Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet.” IYKYK. And I know Bill in Detroit knows.
@Eric Hougland Ha. Nice call out.
@Puzzlemucker love your New Moon emoji since we just finished that phase. I was born under a New Moon too lol! Namaste!!
"Do I have to use a period here?" "Yep! Dot's the way it is!" (Ooof, that pun will leave a mark.)
@Mike Sometimes a dot and a comma will give your sentence a semicolonial gravitas.
Seigel and Geisel are anagrams. Coincidence? Obvs. I loved this puzzle! Does this work: [=Adam=] FIRST AMONG EQUALS
My second ever 14 day streak, and my best month ever with (assuming I get the Monday) 27 Gold Stars
@Steven M. Fantastic...keep up the good work
@Steven M. That’s what I’m striving for. Last week I got 5/7. Congrats!
I felt a shiver of excitement upon seeing Simeon’s name atop the puzzle. Simeon, purveyor of devilish wit, surprise, and how-did-he-do-that? The devilish element today, IMO, was in the cluing. Oh, I enjoyed the theme, especially the brilliant PRE- and POST- theme answers, given their clues. But the puzzle’s cluing – this I savored. Wordplay was effusive, and wordplay-lover I was in my happy place. My sense is that Simeon takes time and care with every clue; that he hangs out with every answer until a clue passes his bar. So many of his clues have never been seen before in the major crossword outlets. Examples: [Feature of a safe landing, perhaps] for RAIL, [Average killers] for DEES, [Reproductive systems?] for COPIERS, and the marvelous misdirect [Not partial] for ENTIRE. Terrific wordplay in all of these. This was a splendid outing, and once again, I am so grateful for what you bring to the box, Simeon. Thank you!
BTW, you are cheating yourself out of experiencing crossword gold if you’ve passed Simeon’s other Sunday puzzle (3/17/24) by.
@Lewis I liked how the theme was echoed in the clue for EDIT at 107A. That was my hidden gem.
The trick was quite interesting, and definitely much more so than last week's dad-joke "wordplay". The section with AUGER (I've seen the word but don't know what it means), BLADE (I fixated on stiletto being a shoe thing) and TRAP (I'm hopeless with music genres) was beyond me - I did 80% of the puzzle myself, but the top section remained largely blank, with that one area a complete mystery. I first enabled autocheck, and then revealed the AU of AUGER. Good thing about the autocheck, too, as it revealed a typo elsewhere I would never have seen myself - one of the things I dislike about the Sunday crossword is how hard it is to spot mistakes in a grid as large as this. I rarely get a gold star on Sunday simply because I make typos and can't be bothered to look for them. Not caring about a streak saves me a lot of grief.
@Andrzej Basically, an AUGER is a drill.
@Andrzej An AUGER is one who AUGs.... I mean, of course... I AUG all the time, personally! Can't get enough of it! It's one of my favorite things to do... AUG. I can seriously AUG all the live long day!! Go, AUG win!! 😂❤️😂 PS totally agree with you about trying to find mistakes on a Sunday grid! Most of the time they're just silly typos. But then I just turned back to AUGing and life is better again!
@Andrzej I had a lot of trouble with that same area around BLADE, AUGER, TRAP, PEDI. For some reason I jumped to MANI for 8D, and that really took some time to overcome. I need to write your last sentence fifty times.
@Andrzej “Not caring about a streak saves me a lot of grief.” Same here! When I know I’ve completed a puzzle correctly (save for some random typo), I count it as a win no matter what color star appears. I’ll give it a scan before hitting auto check, but I place a higher premium on my time and sanity than gold stars.
@Andrzej (1) Don’t feel like you missed anything on TRAP. There are lots of different hip-hop subgenres, and the clue didn’t give you anything to go on. (If the clue had mentioned Atlanta or the southeastern US, I *might* have gotten the answer without crosses. Probably not, though.) (2) For AUGER, I held onto “drill” for a while. As I wrote elsewhere, I found this puzzle more challenging than most Sundays, and answers like TRAP and AUGER were part of that. (3) I respect you and the other people in this thread who can ignore the streak that the NYT thinks we all want to maintain. I don’t know why they don’t give us the option to hide that the way we can hide the timer. But for anyone reading this thread who does care about gold stars, once again: The List display for the clues in the phone version of the Games app is a terrific time saver when you’re trying to find a mistake, especially in a 21 x 21 grid. (4) In case you missed my comment yesterday, I truly enjoyed your comments about Saturday’s puzzle, particularly your philosophical musings about the meaningless of human life.
@Andrzej If there were no puzzle at all, I'm confident I would still enjoy your comments about it ;-)
@Andrzej Augers are usually big drills for drilling down. They are for breaking through rough stuff like concrete or gravel to, for example, take a core sample or put in a pole. Some corkscrews look like augers. Drills have more finesse.
YAY!! I did it without looking at any of the down clues! Only used the crosses. Phew! Never managed that on a Sunday before. Finished in 59.20… a long breakfast!
@Petrol Unbelievable! I didn’t even know that was a thing.
@Petrol I’m going to try that out tomorrow. Baby steps.
Spent far too long thinking 'Average killers' was BEES ie average grade/killer bees. Otherwise a lovely solve before bed on a Saturday night. Yup. That's me. The party animal. Roar.
@Sebastian I imagine a lot of us are not super sociable on a Saturday night. That suits me just fine.
I had never bothered to wonder what the Emmy statuette was holding. Now I know. I clung to OBVi for far too long. And I couldn't get an airplane image out of my head to figure out why a RAIL would signify a safe landing. I had to look that up after I finished. The themed entries, of course, were fun and clever.
Nice puzzle! I like the theme, especially because I was able to use it to crack some of the theretofore opaque clues. I don’t like that it took me a relatively long time to solve it. I had more “I don’t know what that might be” moments and more answers that I had to change than I typically do when solving a Sunday puzzle. If you’re interested, I wrote a longer review for Diary of a Crossword Fiend. <a href="https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/03/29/sunday-march-30-2025" target="_blank">https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/03/29/sunday-march-30-2025</a>/ Thanks, Mr. Seigel!
@Eric Hougland Thanks for your link - enjoyed your review. Had a little chuckle at your 72D initial entry - guess that's just human nature (ain't that the truth).
@Eric Hougland Fun read. I especially liked "72D [First to the finish line] SPEEDIEST Why did I originally put GREEDIEST?" It made me laugh. Were you maybe thinking first to the *buffet* line? (In which case, either they're the greediest or the hungriest, I never know.) Well done!
@Eric Hougland Glad to know I’m not the only one who pictured the winged woman with arms grasping at…something. Funny how an image you’ve seen a thousand times can be so elusive. Also, the SPEEDIEST could also be the gREEDIEST if there’s prize money involved!
@Eric Hougland Thanks for the link Eric. I really enjoyed your review! I chuckled at “I’m glad the clue wasn’t ‘Weasley family member.’” Maybe a sketchy BIL who you suspect DINESANDDASHES? OTHO, that could be a Harry-Potter-based clue.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one!!! A fun theme and I did lots of giggling when I shifted my thinking and got the answers from the many less-than-straightforward (but all completely sensible) clues. Thanks Simeon - from my point of view the perfect Sunday puzzle.
Seuss was the maiden name of Geisel‘s mother. She was the daughter of German immigrants. The name would indeed be pronounced to rhyme with voice.
Goodness; that was tough but ultimately satisfying. I had to fight to get 99.9% of the grid filled, but each completed clue gave me a nice aha moment. Revealing the theme didn’t help much until the grid was complete. Enjoyed the journey.
First, “What is OBVS?”. But then, “Duh!”.
@Joe P I had VINE for 11D and then took it out because what 4-letter word ends with VS and means "Duh?" Put it back when I remembered the name of the Vietnamese sandwich 😋 and filled in the B. My reaction, having spent way too much time on Reddit and seen that particular acronym repeatedly, was the same as yours. "Duh!"
This one was “just right” for me. Not easy breezy, but not full of trivia I am forced to look up, either. Clever theme, totally solvable with no lookups, just a little perseverance! Well done!
This puzzle was especially fun for me to complete. I just had hip surgery last week and my daughter, who lives in Australia and is over visiting, was able to help me with the house chores while I completed it. Whilst I have not personally heard of “sump” before, the author’s “sumptuous” choice of words helped me in my endeavour. Also my dog died. Looking forward to more from the author.
@Kieran I’m sorry to hear about your dog. And I hope you have a quick and complete recovery from your surgery. You might have heard of a “sump pump”? I knew that term long before I heard SUMP by itself.
@Kieran I second Eric’s well wishes and condolences. You might appreciate “The Greatest Wish” by Curtis Salgado: <a href="https://livesessions.npr.org/videos/curtis-salgado-the-greatest-wish" target="_blank">https://livesessions.npr.org/videos/curtis-salgado-the-greatest-wish</a>
@Kieran I’d like to add my condolences. And, to PM’s great selection, I’d add Charlie Parr’s “Dog”: <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=odsEKcvjA_4&pp=0gcJCWIABgo59PVc" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=odsEKcvjA_4&pp=0gcJCWIABgo59PVc</a>
@Kieran I’m sorry about your dog’s death. I’m glad your daughter is there to help with both that and your recovery.
I believe this was record time for me on a Sunday which is too bad - I like to linger over the Sunday puzzle. Clever theme - 35A was the last to fall for me. Originally had ROAD at 23A and a few others threw me off balance but overall enjoyed the solve. 😃
Re: Dr. Seuss If you think of pronouncing Seuss in the German fashion, it’s more like Zoice which is apparently how his mother pronounced it as her maiden name.
This was a lot of fun, and a good distraction on a day when I’m in a lot of pain 😣 (long story which won’t interest you). I jumped around the puzzle a lot, looking for as much low hanging fruit as I could find. The first themer I got was the one for “—PERUSE—“ and then was able to go back and suss out some of the others. The title of the puzzle was some help. Thanks for the challenge Simeon Siegel.
@Shari Coats Oh, Shari! I'm so sorry to hear that you're in a lot of pain! I know what you mean about the puzzles being a good distraction! So grateful for them for so many reasons! Hopefully, you won't need the distraction for long and can get back to doing them just for some pain-free fun! Thinking of you!!
@Shari Coats I hope you feel better soon.
Reproductive systems was my favorite. This was a very fine Sunday outing.
I love all rebuses, but traditional visual rebuses are my favorites. This was a perfect diversion to get me through a violent storm and distract me from all the thunder and lightning. (Fortunately, nothing hit the ROOF.) Thanks, Simeon!
@Heidi I hope Heidi will forgive me for the image that popped into my head when I read her comment. Who might turn to a crossword as a comforting distraction during a thunderstorm? Why, a golden retriever of course. Which immediately evoked the classic cartoon caption, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
Finished just under an hour. A delightful puzzle with some solid chuckles + misdirects. I had ADHERE for 61A but was a little confused what an ASIDE was doing on an album…
@Robin oops I’m also using ADHERE! As for a double album on vinyl, the “third” side can be A Side for Disc 2 or it can be C Side… or Side A or Side C!
There is a satisfying moment when you try a fill and it slides firmly into place with what you already have that is unlike any other. A small affirmation that you have correctly READ BETWEEN THE LINES. A lot of smiles this time, as I jumped around puzzle, and I finished it feeling quite elated. Thank you for the buzz I got from your elegant construction, Simeon Seigel. I may have wept through some of your Thursdays, but this one was a honey. (Full disclosure: I'm still trying to figure out why RAIL was right.)
dutchiris, RAIL for a safe landing on a staircase. (The constructor is an architect.)
So much love for this puzzle!! 😍 I always love solving a good rebus. Thank you, Simeon, for this stellar work. I am just 99 days away from reaching a 4 year consecutive streak and this was such a pleasure along that path 🤩
Really fun. I like this kind of theme. Caught it fast. Then had to fly-speck. Oops - had "plions" and "Lusk". Hmm yeah I think his name was RUSK. Thanks, Simeon!
I liked the puzzle except for my personal pet peeve—those are hyphens not dashes. They are too short even to be en-dashes. Maybe they didn’t want to confuse with the lines later, but they have periods and points used interchangeably so why not dashes and lines? I wouldn’t care so much for the puzzle’s sake, but in real life people use hyphens instead of dashes all the time, it’s terribly annoying to read, and I wish at least the New York Times would try to teach people the difference. Oh well, as I said it’s my own pet peeve.
@SP Ha! I said much the same thing in my Fiend review! What irks me is seeing two hyphens used as an en dash or an em dash. If you’re not using a typewriter, you don’t have to do that! (Please excuse me while I put two spaces after each period.)
@Eric Hougland lol that’s my other pet peeve. I’m a physician, but I work in IT helping providers with medical record templates—and I’m constantly having to edit what they send me when they use two spaces instead of one—no longer necessary in today’s world. But old habits are hard to break.
This was an enjoyable outing. Two clues gave me pause for thought - Feature of a safe landing & Group in "a pension fund." (no IRA there!) Hope the week ahead is a good one for all. Happy Puzzling!
@Min Oh yeah, I wanted to ask about that. How is RAIL a feature of a safe landing? The only thing that comes to mind is that one may grab a RAIL as one slips on the stairs (The stairs into the basement of my family home feature no rail and I've had some nasty accidents on them over the years...)
I enjoyed this puzzle— not surprisingly for one by Simeon Seigel! I found the gimmick clever, if not particularly difficult to deduce. For 52A, I briefly had “Sold…” rather than BUYS…: wondered if anyone else fell into that trap? I found it interesting that my phrase could be read as both synonym or antonym of the correct answer. Tbh, though, I think i’ve only heard “Sold on” rather than “Sold BY”! Still, it made perfect sense to me until EBB made things clear. I had never heard of Pamana Island, and was chagrined to realize how distorted is my view of world geography. I never would have thought that the southernmost point in Asia was in Indonesia, and *only* 750 miles below the equator. When I looked at a map after completion of the puzzle, I saw how skewed was my mental image of how the continents aligned themselves!
@Darcey O’D I'm sure I'm not the only one who mis-read it as Panama, and thought of the Caribbean...or Florida.
@Darcey O’D I'm used to hearing soldBY THE POUND. But I had EBB early on, so that helped. This was the first of the theme answers I got, so it helped a lot to figure out what all those special characters were doing!
That was a lot of fun. Not all that easy for me, of course, and did cheat a bit early on. But catching on to the trick was just a terrific 'aha' moment and then really enjoyed pondering and working the crosses to finally have each of them dawn on me. Was VERY surprised to see that almost all of the theme answers were debuts, as a lot of them were pretty familiar terms or phrases. And.. of course I had a puzzle find today. Another one that was all in the clues. I'll put that in a reply. ...
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: Another one that was all in the clues. A Sunday from February 5, 1995 by Frank Longo with the title: "Peruse the clues." Some theme clue and answer examples: "CHALTUPID :" STOPINTHENAMEOFLOVE "VISSADAGE :" BLUEINTHEFACE "JASOWB :" PIGINAPOKE "SNILTIR :" MUCHADOABOUTNOTHING "GAINBEAK :" WINBYANOSE "SPORETAFF :" READBETWEENTHELINES Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/5/1995&g=101&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=2/5/1995&g=101&d=A</a> I'm done. ....
The grin that widens as I go to the puzzle, see the constructor’s name, and open up a Christmas morning of clueing. I know it’ll be fun. I’m certain it will abound with wit and humor. I am also slightly afraid. But it’s Sunday, so probably gentle. Mr Seigel delivered. Santa Seigel. Stuffed this Sunday stocking with sly, Seuss (Soice!), batsuits, banhmi… Ah, me! I dare say I have a soft spot for this constructor. Obvs. Happy Sunday, Wordplay world!
Well that was fun! By the time I got to completing the NE corner and the final special clue, I had a good chuckle with how clever "that" one was in particular. Learned some new words (ken), slang (obvs) and trivia along the way too. Not sure I'd ever get used to saying, "Dr. Zoice", but it'll be amusing to try, and likely annoyingly nerdy to others when I do.
When I see Simeon Seigel's name, I prepare to have my brain melted. I guess he has a gentle side. Still, it was an enjoyable solve with an amusing theme. Six of the seven themers were debuts, which surprised me considering how common the phrases are.
I thought Garfield was a marmalade (ginger) cat. My beautifully fluffy grey, black and brown stripey Bella is a tabby.
@Janet technically, all orange cats are striped and therefore tabbies. And tabbies has become a generic term for all cats, anyway. But yeah, I was thinking of the cartoon Garfield. I tried "fat cats" for a while. :D
@Linda Jo oh, I'd never dare use that phrase in Bella's company!
Feeling pretty good now. At first, I was able to fill in about six, and I felt worthless, hopeless, and caffeineless. Fortunately, the theme isn't ridiculously cryptic, and once I got it, I was able to get the rest. Now a semblance of self-esteem has returned.
I loved it. Cute gimmick & I solved it in record time for a Sunday. No hesitations, no typos - just whoosh with a smile. Thank you for a fun Sunday, Simeon :)
Crossing a long dead diplomat with a rare protein is just cruel. Rusk/prions?
@Elijah Bush I'm guessing you're rather young. Dean RUSK was a household name in the 60s. He wasn't just any diplomat; he was the secretary of state for nearly the entire decade. And he was responsible for shaping much of the world in the mid-century, including the partition of Korea, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Vietnam War. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Rusk" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Rusk</a>
@Steve L Yep. Too old for the millennial stuff and too young for the baby boomer stuff. Welcome to GenX 55 was the only square that I got by guessing, too. Agree with OP
And here I was thinking that was an easy one with my bio degree. Maybe I’m having a quartz/feldspar moment! (<a href="https://xkcd.com/2501" target="_blank">https://xkcd.com/2501</a>/)
@Elijah Bush "Long dead diplomat..." Did Silas Deane make an appearance today? I must have missed that.
@Elijah Bush Yeah, that one was tough. No idea who the diplomat was, and I'd never heard of the protein. It has been a long time since high school history/biology.
I really enjoyed this puzzle because the gimmick was so helpful to figure out fairly early in the solve. Each instance was then an opportunity to drop in a lot of letters. The one area that beat me was the NE, where I didn't know ORIEL, and had SHY for 17D. That combination made 16D completely inscrutable to me for some reason, leaving me grasping for potential abbreviations of chess piece names. The trivia on DRSEUSS was a great little nugget to share!
* “Well, I never!” Asterix, the Gaul.
@JohnWM , That one didn’t really follow the pattern, but I’m a glutton for self-inflicted punishment, so: @Habitat for Humanity CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME
Began and ended Caturday with cat breeds (or fur patterns)!
It's a good thing I do the mini a lot more than the big one, because I am truly amazed that so many thought this puzzle was easy. How did everyone know what a Stoat is?
@Steve C. Just do enough puzzles and you learn about a bunch of things which fit the definition of weasel…thread winding tools…politicians…the raw materials for fur coats. Now you know what a stoat is.
@Steve C. - Stoat was a gimme for me as a children’s librarian. The villains in Kenneth Graham’s Wind in the Willows are the weasels and the stoats. It’s all about whatever your personal “wheelhouse” is. I have to google most sports and rap clues, but I also knew the Dr. Seuss clue right off the bat - Theodore Seuss Geisel’s family were German and that’s how he pronounced the middle name that he used for his pen name. He also wrote occasionally as “Theo LeSieg” (Geisel spelled backwards)
@Steve C. Several years ago, before we moved to Colorado, I was driving down the highway about 30 or 40 miles from where we now live. A weasel of some sort, all white except for the black tip of its tail, ran across the road maybe 20 feet in front of us. My husband had his head buried in Google maps and missed it. Was it a stoat? Beats me, but it was pretty cool. Live long enough and you learn all sorts of things. (Incidentally, I immediately plunked in STOAT and took it out when I was *sure* that 23A was “Hit the road.”)
@Steve C. The old meme: "VOTE VOTE VOTE like a baby stoat!" Don't know why they got a reputation for doing their civic duty because they look too young. With the possible future draconian rules they might have problems at the polls with proof of citizenship because I don't think they have pockets to carry papers in.
@Steve C. Believe it or not. On Friday I was looking through a copy of The Wind in the Willows, stoats, as already mentioned, play a significant part.
@Connie I learned about STOATS from Wind In The Willows too. I’m waiting for my grandson to get bored with Captain Underpants, and be ready for some classic kid lit so I have an excuse to reread it.
@Steve C. Before I ever saw them in crosswords, I've seen STOATs in the wild. They are very cute little weasels - I highly recommend looking at images of stoats (aka ermines and short-tailed weasels) if you need a quick uplift.
@Steve C. A lot of folks are telling you how they knew the word STOAT. But I'll bet there are just as many, if not more, who didn't know the word but got it through crosses. I needed every cross to get it, which is often how I finish puzzles with entries I don't know. I've only been solving since August, and I'm still slow, but I've gotten to the point where I rarely need to look anything up.
@Steve C. I really enjoyed very, very much reading all these comments. And I absolutely will for sure check out Wind in the Willows.
@Steve C. For me, STOAT was a gimme after more than half a century of NYT crossword puzzles. Solve and learn!
Just a fun puzzle top to bottom. I like architecture but had never heard the term "oriel" - thanks for an edifying inclusion!
Knew this was going to be a fun one when I saw the constructor’s name. Honestly this was really tame compared to some of his Thursday brain destroyers.
23:05. Such fun once I got the clue theme!