I myself sport a tilde hairstyle. This is what I look like ~:-) Speaking of brows, I used to have a mono-brow, and this is what I looked like back then: ~I:-( Recently, I let my tilde go and it became a SNARL: $% *&~~~: - ) (((# Even more recently, the tilde ran away with a question mark, and they met up with an interrobang (don't ask, don't tell). One day I woke, and it was just gone. It wasn't good for my ego, nor was the keto diet I was on: several ozs of Cheez-its per minute and no sit-ups. Plus, my mono-brow grew back: I:-( But this morning, a pair of curly brackets settled on my head and I stopped feeling like a gothic hobo and more like I had a new lease on life: {{:-)
@john ezra Aw, you looked really cute with a tilde hairstyle. I'm sorry it ran away with a question mark. But curly brackets are the cri du jour and very in demand. I've no doubt you're rockin' it!
@john ezra Ha! Excellent. This reminds me of Vonnegut’s sketches in his books.
Thanks all, unfortunately those pictograms in Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions might be a little NSFW for this scene, but since I have a "So it Goes" baseball cap from the Vonnegut Museum in Indianapolis I can definitely relate!
@john ezra Brilliant, my friend. Just fantastic.
@john ezra next time I have to try to describe my personal style I'm going with gothic hobo.
Nice relaxing puzzle. I took the time to mullet over.
The rabbit farmer had a bad hare day. (But his friends don't carrot all.)
Mike, Lettuce always enjoy your puns. (I relish them.)
@Mike There's a fine line between being hare-full and ───────────── being carrot-less
@Mike The farmer should know that one day does not warren feelings of hop-lessness. It may seem like passing the buck, but he needs the doe.
@Mike That tickles the bunny phone.
@Mike The March Hare got good publicity, thanks to Alice, but there was no sign of a Welsh rarebit--that part of the story just Petered out-- flopsy writing! ....and besides, rabbits are not the same as hares.
In the app on an iPhone, the second EMOTICON didn’t display, leading to a very odd clue.
@Steve L It shows on the Android version. I tried to look at the xwordinfo.com version of the puzzle just now and got a server error notice.
@Steve L It also did not appear on my iPad. Fortunately, it was not difficult to figure out. ;-)
@Steve L I didn’t really know what to make of “;) and” ,which is what appeared on my iPad. I thought maybe it was the start of some emoticon improv.
@Steve L Me too. I’m on the app on iOS
Decades ago, I played saxophone in a soul group, and our manager would shave his head on June 1 every year. He said it would guarantee a lush head of hair, and it sure did in his case. Anyway, this bald-to-afro puzzle whooshed me back into those days – the people in it, the gig, scary and wonderful things that happened – memories that have been dormant for many decades. For a few moments, I was right back there. What a gift! Regarding the puzzle, I liked a pair of serendipitous echoes: • “King of the road” in one clue and “King of the gods” in another. • Theme echoes that made me think of hair: SNARL, BALL UP, BROW, HATS, GELS, SET, A PART. I also liked seeing SNOW falling in the SE, and the trochaic train of long-O enders (LEO, EGO, NATO, AFRO, PESO, HOBO, KETO). And the inspiring backstory that Ryan kept going through 39 puzzle rejections. Wow! So much lovely out of a simple box. Congratulations on your debut, Ryan, and thank you for such a rich start to my day!
Complementing Ryan’s perseverance is the kindness of the NYT team, which I’m guessing continually encouraged him to continue. A backstory tale of Persistence and Patience.
@Lewis Wow! Another musician. What an august group this is!
@Lewis : I like your parsing of Ryan's debut puzzle. Since he is majoring in "actuarial science" -- a subfield of biostatistics -- we can expect he's able to extrapolate from his current age [imprecisely stated as "teen"], his success rate [1/40], and the lag time between his first submission and success [4 years] to how many puzzles he can expect to have published before his ultimate demise* RYAN: If you're reading this, be sure to show all calculations and please include the 95% confidence limits to your prediction.
@Mean Old Lady Dear M.O.L.--- My mistake! I have always thought of you as being an "Arithmetic Mean" as opposed to being a "Happy Median."
@Grant All: This idea might be old hat, but I would love to read a detailed example of the crossword editing and help process. Maybe someone like Jeff Chen could do it
@Lewis Add to that "lovely {in} a simple box" the clean crossing of AGO and EGO. Somehow it really caught my attention! And that theme! As neat and trim as a barber's razor 'do. Certainly made me sit up and take notice reviewing the grid post-solve!
Isn't it ironic that one thing this puzzle was *not* was "hairy." A breezy delight is what it was for me. To those who would object to BALD as a themer, I would like to remind that baldness is not always permanent and hair does grow back. A while back, I was bald due to chemo and now I have a full head of hair (yay!) Also, some people might just choose to shave their head and then let their hair grow back. So yeah, BALD can definitely work in the context of IT'S GROWING ON ME. Side note: When I was BALD, I learned really quickly why bald people wear HATS. Especially in the Winter, boy does it get freezing up there. Beanies to the rescue! But I also wore a wig which not only kept the head warm, it earned me so many compliments on my beautiful hair and/or beautiful haircut, I would laugh the rest of the day. And, to wrap up the topic, as the grand-daughter of a bald man, the niece of a bald man, and the sister of a bald man, all of which didn't/don't have the option of regrowing hair, I just want to say, "Bald men of this Earth, I salute you" (and let me start with the baldest of heart-throbs...Sir Patrick Stewart.) For today, the song I'm inspired to post is not "LET it be," gorgeous as it is, nor an AFRO-CUBAN one, but rather Radiohead's beautiful "Street Spirit (FADE Out)" – <a href="https://youtu.be/LCJblaUkkfc?si=I70lE05zDbPhLT4U" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/LCJblaUkkfc?si=I70lE05zDbPhLT4U</a> Congratulations on your NYT puzzle debut, Ryan, as well as on your persistence and resilience. I'm so grateful for all three!
@sotto voce I think society has actually come a long way on baldness. We had Morey Amsterdam tormenting Richard Deacon's (and Carl Reiner's) cue tops. Now, it's quite the look. And Patrick Stewart is a great example.
@sotto voce My bald celebrity crush is Molly Tuttle. She has a great essay on her website about her alopecia. <a href="https://www.mollytuttlemusic.com/alopeciaareata" target="_blank">https://www.mollytuttlemusic.com/alopeciaareata</a> And here she is doing her terrific song “Crooked Tree” with her band: <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aX3dPxXk-W4" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aX3dPxXk-W4</a> As she sings: Oh, can't you see a crooked tree won't fit into the mill machine? They're left to grow wild and free Oh, I'd rather be a crooked tree ————————————— Personally, I can’t think of anything more gorgeous than a crooked tree.
@sotto voce Thank you for posting that gorgeous song. For some reason, when I think of Radiohead, I forget about The Bends, a totally underappreciated album... by me. I think I'll listen to the whole thing again right now!
@sotto voce A fair number of babies start out with a cue ball as well.
@Francis Thank you! I am indeed being very lucky. Chemo wasn't working, so I've been on immunotherapy and, thus far, miraculously stable. ;-) @Warren I know I've heard her name before, but didn't know anything about her nor was familiar with her music. That's a great country ditty, and the banjo is superb. Her recounting of her experience with alopecia should be read by anyone and everyone. Thank you for posting it. @Beth I agree, it's a gorgeous song. I never get tired of it. I'm so glad it inspired you to listen to the album again. @kkseattle I didn't think of babies, but right you are. One more reason BALD definitely works as a themer.
My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Spirit guide? (3)(4) 2. Provide a brief glimpse? (4)(4) 3. Oh, brothers, where art thou? (6) 4. It requires a flipper (4)(4) 5. Feature of a safe landing, perhaps (4) BAR MENU DROP TROU ABBEYS COIN TOSS RAIL
My favorite clue from last week that has appeared in crosswords before: Spanish uncle? (2)(3) NO MAS
This is a first for me as well--the first time I've had a friend get a puzzle published! What Ryan doesn't tell you is that in addition to his crossword skills, he was also a standout player on his high school basketball team. A genuine Renaissance man!
Ryan, from another Wisconsinite, love the puzzle. Reminder to you and your fellow school mates, please do your civic duty on Tuesday. Vitally important.
@Janis I'm in neighboring Minnesota, waiting and hoping.
When you’ve been doing this awhile, Mondays can frequently solve on autopilot. Plus, if you’ve passed 40 but are too vain to wear glasses (and absolutely, categorically refuse to do that thing where you own several pairs and place them strategically around the house, because you’re not your mom—yet), you may frequently solve with vision so blurry that the alphabet reduces to maybe 15 unique letters. And then if you’re solving while waiting for the first snoozed alarm to go off again… All this to say that it took me embarrassingly long to parse (and correct) those kids in the 90s whose moniker of ASTUtE NT’S I just couldn’t remember ever hearing, and to stop pronouncing STARANISE to rhyme with ‘sterilize.’ All’s well that ends well. Except, of course, that it’s still Monday. But there’s a cure for that, one that will travel well in a handy 20-oz thermos and make an astute nt out of just about anyone. Have a good day, fellow Wordplayers.
What's going on? A new constructor! Congratulations, Mr. Mathiason FELIZ resolución, a todos! Ryan, Ryan Glad New York Times was buying Ryan, Ryan, Ryan After 30 NOS you kept on trying You knew you had to find a way To bring your crossword here today, yeah Ryan, Ryan Your words won't FADEAWAY Just BALLUP those rejection letters And TOIL on through Will's TSA* You know you finally found a way To bring some actuary ZEST today TILDE lines over PESO signs Don't punish me with glycyrrhizic STARANISE HATS off from me So you can see Oh, ITSGROWINGON (ITSGROWINGONME) ITSGROWINGON (GROWINGONME) ITSGROWINGON (GROWINGONME) ITSGROWINGON (GROWINGONME) Right on, Ryan Right on, Right on! *Testing SHARP ASTUDENTS
My last squares to fall were, unsurprisingly, in the cluster of CNBC, LEAH, BALL UP and CHEEZE. Had I not recalled the Biblical name - which I must have seen before in these puzzles - which gave me more crosses to trigger recollections (also from NYT grids) of CNBC and CHEEZE, I would probably have needed lookups. I know I would have googled around there a year or 18 months ago, when I was greener at this. BALL UP is nothing unusual, but it just did not come to me on its own. As for going bald, a trichologist can help you. One did wonders for me, and generally helped me improve my health by linking scalp issues to various things that were wrong with me (bad diet, vitamin D deficiency, etc.). Also, there is medication for male pattern baldness. These days I have more hair than I know what to do with 🤣. It's also much stronger than it was before. Awesome stuff.
@Andrzej Now I'm picturing you like another perennial crossword favorite, The Addams family cousin Itt! 😂 <a href="https://addamsfamily.fandom.com/wiki/Cousin_Itt" target="_blank">https://addamsfamily.fandom.com/wiki/Cousin_Itt</a>
I have always felt that bald is bold—a sign of dome-ination. (Let us not split hairs.) 🧑🦲🧑🦲🧑🦲🧑🦲🧑🦲
@dutchiris GOL (Groaning out loud)!!!!!!
@dutchiris Yeah, well, I'm well on the way to BALD myself, and it's not a happy circumstance. (Genes... grr. My sister and I --looking at our mother and her mother, both balding in their 40's-- lost that lottery. There are very nice wigs out there, quite affordable. People often compliment my cute haircut. Sometimes I say, "Thank you! I only wish it was mine.")
I never liked the phrase "Man up", but BALL UP is worse. A perfect Monday, debut or not! But 37D is plain wrong. I MAY clearly means I won't.
@ad absurdum I disagree about 37D. The first definition of may in MWD "used to indicate possibility or probability".
Wow, Ryan, I am glad you persisted in your quest, and that you are now among the amazing contributors whose puzzles entertain me daily here in the NYT. Forty times, now that is dogged! Congratulations on your triumph today. I enjoyed your debut crossword puzzle so much. I hope every one of your next forty makes its way to these pages!
Congratulations on your debut. Well done.
Fun Monday puzzle. Not quite a personal best time, but close. And best of all it was Day 365 in my current (and longest) streak! Yay me!
@BarbWho Congrats on your streak!! I blew mine last week when I finished Thursday's puzzle late on Friday, but before I opened the Friday one. So a blue star on that one. I had a personal best time today! Very happy about that. Next to get under 11 minutes on a Monday.
I have to admit some serious problems in the extreme southwest. 17D [Happy: Sp] and 63A [Citrus peel] very nearly did me in early in the week, Could it be I'm not as stunningly brilliant as I think I am? Naw, must the the constructors fault. 😀
Francis, Here's a reminder for 47 Down: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8NcQzMQN_U" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8NcQzMQN_U</a>
@Francis It’s not easy to be stunningly brilliant AND devastatingly handsome 🙂
@Francis But at least you're still devastatingly handsome... or so I've heard... from you!! 🤣🤣
What a great Monday start. An attractive puzzle that was Monday light. I imagine that’s difficult to pull off, so kudos to Mr Mathiason. STAR ANISE is one of my favourite spices; I add it to everything, including my tea if I don’t want milk. I BUZZ my DH’s BALD head once a month to keep the dome shiny smooth. Note to other hairless gentlemen; DH has recently been diagnosed with squamous cell skin cancer on said dome. None melanoma, caught very early and (we hope) totally removed. He gets final results next month but the consultant is pretty happy. The cause; his stubbornness in refusing to wear either hat or sun cream for decades. He’s an outdoors man and I’ve been nagging him forever. This has finally persuaded him to do the right thing. Guys; as the Aussies say, ‘slop on the cream, slap on a hat, slip on a tee’ I may be paraphrasing slightly. You know it makes sense.
@Helen Wright He is also lucky NOT to have Merkel Cell ca—brought by the sun and #1 in mortality . Jimmy Buffett is most famous victim. Much deadlier than melanoma Derm in MD
@Helen Wright I've lost count of the squamous-cell carcinomas that have been removed--some with Mohs procedure, some simpler. One that recurred (in spite of the Mohs technique) meant an extensive surgery on my left forearm. Our family was stationed in Hawaii in the 1950's--fun in the sun!--and the "Sea and Ski" green goop was really no protection. So, several blistering burns even before my teens... and a lot of outdoor work in adulthood... has all come home to roost. "Eternal vigilance is the price of peace."
I loved today's puzzle and congrats to Ryan Mathiason on his debut!! I particularly liked the answer for "Kids in the '90s?" I only got it when the puzzle was done and it took me a second. Then came the realization and the smile. Thank you!!
Mondays are always over too quickly. GROWL before SNARL; I guess a snarl is more menacing, as it would involve a show of teeth... Never heard of: FADE-AWAY (one word? Two? Hyphenated?) AFROCUBAN was also new to me. Jacob had two wives--and LEAh wasn't the one he wanted; RACHEL must have been pretty long in the tooth by the time he earned her hand in marriage, given life expectancies back then... The father of the girls ran a SCAM on Jake....
Great Monday puzzle. And, as always, a great intro by Sam!
Congratulations on your debut puzzle, Ryan! A thoroughly enjoyable Monday. Glad you stuck with it.
I thought it more difficult than usual for a Monday, but that just made the fun last a little longer. Like others, very impressed with Ryan's perseverance. I remember The Andy Griffith show and especially liked Opie, who had some very moving scenes.
A nice crossword and my fastest fill since I started doing the NYT last month. And no resorting to google or look-ups to confirm my guesses. There were about five new names or phrases to me but the crossers helped out. Or in the case of CHEEZ it became an obvious guess which also helped with CNBC and BUZZKILL
Just imagine - first, sixth, tenth, thirteenth, seventeenth, twentieth, … and then finally fortieth - YES! That’s the ticket. Ryan, your perseverance is highly remarkable. I love how it seems even the pros here seem to have had a struggle or two. Great outing and best of luck in your studies!
Congratulations on a solid NYT debut, Mr. Mathiason! Your perseverance is impressive and inspiring. Good luck with your studies, and I hope you’ll be back here soon!
Your persistence paid off, Ryan. Congratulations on an excellent debut.
Congrats on you debut and persistence! Smooth puzzle
Pardon me for splitting hairs, but in what sense does a bald person have anything that grows on anyone? A fun puzzle, none the less. I’m impressed with the perseverance of the constructor in continuing efforts after so many rejections.
@Strudel Dad Baldness can grow from a little bald spot to a whole lotta baldness! My take, anyhow! :-)
@Strudel Dad I had to think a bit on this too! The key here is “in order” — it’s the progression from BALD through the other clues to AFRO that is the act of “growing.” My mind went to chia pets! (Child of the 80s)
@Strudel Dad I didn’t entirely buy 16A, either. SHAVED ICE would have fit the BALD EAGLE slot, though it might have been impossible to work around.
@Strudel Dad a shaved head that would otherwise have hair could be described as bald. Just means no hair on it, not that hair is incapable of growing there. IMO
@Strudel Dad Most bald people aren’t completely bald. They often look completely bald because they shave off what little is left.
The 55D that I keep watching fall from the sky is a bit of a BUZZKILL, but nothing about this puzzle is! A SLEW of ZEST and a fun theme! Congrats (from a Gopher) on a great debut, Ryan—and nicely done on the perseverance! I hope you will be HAIR to stay in the constructing business!
@HeathieJ In these parts it's (so-called) ICE RAIN coming down.
@HeathieJ I keep hearing from people in parts of the country who are getting SNOW and don’t want it. It would be more than welcome here, both for extending our ski season and giving us a hedge against a likely drought this summer.
Nice Monday puzzle; glad to see another new constructor. This was just a bit on the slow side for me with a couple of unfamiliar things (STARANISE, e.g.) that had to be worked from the crosses. No big deal - clever theme though I must confess that I'm not grasping exactly how FADE fits into the sequence. That's all on me. No big deal. I'll put my usual puzzle finds in a reply (or two). ...
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened. First, a Sunday from December 25, 1994 by Randolph Ross with the title "Joy to the world." Several theme answers. One example: "Season's greetings from Madrid." FELIZNAVIDAD Then all the other theme clues were: "Seasons greeting from _____." Some other examples; "____SEOUL" CHOOKSUNGTAN "____ROME" BUONNATALE "______OSLO" GLEDELIGJUL "_____DUBLIN" NOLLAIGSHONADHUIT "_____OAHU" MELEKALIKIMAKA And there were more. Dont' think I would have had much of a chance at that one. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/25/1994&g=54&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/25/1994&g=54&d=A</a> .....
@Rich in Atlanta <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fade+haircut&t=ffip&ia=web" target="_blank">https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fade+haircut&t=ffip&ia=web</a> Many photos of fade haircuts. C'mon, get with it here. I'm not even a man, although I suppose a woman can sport a fade, too. ;)
Especially clever! Well done! Enjoyed!
I always look forward to a Monday sprint after a Sunday marathon, but what should have been a quick puzzle turned into an average time killer! I solved this one before bedtime on Sunday night. I wasn’t watching, but I’m guessing it would have been 15-20 minutes. But when I filled the last square it did not end and I knew I had a mistake somewhere. I thought I must have been too tired to see it last night, but it took me another 25 minutes this morning. Everything looked right. I finally found it because it was bothering me that I had never heard of the king of the Egyptian pantheon. Ha! I had read the clue to be a noun meaning “mouth”, as in shut your YAP! So I put down GOB-a perfectly fine fit, but how had I made it through 50 years of life and probably 25+ years of NYT puzzling without ever hearing of this god of gods, OMAN? I finally deleted OMAN completely and thought to myself wouldn’t the king of the gods be the sun god RA? AMON RA? 🤦🏻♂️ It wasn’t the noun definition. It was the verb! Not your fault Ryan! Great first puzzle and great Monday.
@Cory C The plasticity of words is what I find most enchanting about crosswords. And how long it can take for the meaning of a word to "flip" from one to another, like one of those optical illusions that have two equally meaningful ways to interpret the picture.
Ha! 31D [Kids in the 90s?] had me confused until the very end! 😄
Yikes! Terrible time today. It went very smoothly right up until the end, still got the "keep trying" message. I couldn't tell you how many times I went over every single answer before I realized I had a noun/verb confusion, leading me to fill in GoB for GAB. Possibly my worst Monday time ever. Other than that, fun puzzle. Thanks!
Nice work on the Z’s, Ryan! Especially happy (Sp) crossing the peel!
Nice Monday puzzle! Happy to see the BALD EAGLE entry since I’ve been a little obsessed with the eagles’ nest live cam at Big Bear Valley: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/B4-L2nfGcuE?si=z_hxxnrvDCupiot9" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/live/B4-L2nfGcuE?si=z_hxxnrvDCupiot9</a> We’ve been seeing a few baldies here in Oakland and have hopes that they’re nesting!
I didn’t have any problem solving 50D: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcM1kTZm-nM" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcM1kTZm-nM</a>
Please allow me, Ryan, to add my voice to gratulations for your magnificent achievement and resilience. It should serve you well in life.
We had a small poster which read "God made few perfect heads. The rest He gave hair." My husband loved that one.
Hey, congratulations Ryan on your first NYT puzzle, and mega-props on your persistence! That's passion that deserves to be saluted.
Nearly got the rare sub-9-minute Monday puzzle, but I’ve never seen the Andy Griffith Show and… didn’t know what a HABO or a HEBO was. We all have those days :p
Robin, King of the road. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrhAC0dFis0" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrhAC0dFis0</a>
@Barry Ancona and now I'm picturing another king of the road, that being Andy Griffith walking down the dirt road with OPIE, aka Ron Howard, during the opening credits. They were both so darn good in that show, plus Ron is freaking adorable.
@Barry Ancona I thought of that as soon as I filled in the answer. Thanks for the link!
Welcome back Monday puzzle! Thank you NYT. Feel remotely competent again
Today I tried to solve using only the across clues. It was harder than I expected! First I had to work pretty hard not to see the down clues (using an iPad, would have been easier on a phone or paper). Then I just couldn't get them all, my downfall being CNBC. "Well, any combo of letters could go here..." Sort of a fun exercise, but then I missed fun clues like Producers of six-packs and Kids in the 90s.
10D seems to be cut off after the word “and” for me. App issue? Congratulations on the debut, Ryan!
And I must say, 31D is a fabulous clue. Bravo!
Dan, App on an iPhone, I presume? That was reported here last night.
@Barry Ancona thanks, I see the comments now. I scanned earlier, but without comment search it takes some commitment to find things.
@Dan Solovay I’m going to bet it is a parsing issue … the < sign is probably being interpreted as opening an html command
May have to listen to the Afro Cuban All-Stars tonight. Son, opining to my brother that he wanted to live a life on the open road -- Oh you want to be a HOBO he responded. Fun puzzle, although for a moment I thought I might be turning into a pillar of salt. And, yes I know the difference between LEAH and Lot's wife. Thank you Ryan and: Go Badgers
Nice flow for a Monday. Had to read the explanation for growing on you. Didn’t make sense until then. However I had no difficulty with the puzzle