The pièce de résistance actually is the fact that all the words minus their covered-up initial or final letter, are themselves the names of trees or plants: ASH, FIR, PEAR, APPLE, ELM and LOTUS. LOTUS flowers are a real thing; there is a mythical thing called the LOTUS tree mentioned in the Odyssey.
My tree puns are back by poplar demand! (I'll have to take a bough.)
@Mike Oh, fir heaven's sake, we knew you could not leaf that alone. (I don't mean to needle you.)
@Mike Puns are made by fools like me, But only a Scot can make a tweed.
@Mike I'm not sure this is a fruitful discussion; no matter how serious your readers are, they end up getting a lot of sassafras by the end of the post.
@Mike Always glad to linden ear when you give us something from your larch collection of puns. I could say I pine for them but that would be acorny comment.
@Mike I was pining for more puns, and this one really resin-ated.
@Mike Your puns leaf me breathless.
Hope no one grew B(alder) scratching their head over this, nor had to S(oak) in a cool tub to calm down, nor suffered any spasms of the S(pine) from crouching over their device.
@Cat Lady Margaret One can hope. It's a Thursday puzzle, so somebdy will birch about it! 😉
@Cat Lady Margaret Ha! As soon as I read his name in the constructor notes I had to check if he was real. From Wookieepedia: "Fred Wood is credited by John Mollo as portraying one of four 'local ugly men' in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope as documented in the 1979 book The Art of Star Wars." Oh sure, him.
@Cat Lady Margaret that’s super clever! Speaking of which, I’m going to start calling the potus, a YARN SPINNER since that’s all he does! Namaste!!
Remarkably executed theme. Three spellings that seemed wrong and made me question my third grade Spelling Bee award - did everyone get that award just for showing up? ISOSCELES, SCHWEPPES, PAULO. Also, many bonus points for including John MCPHEE.
@Puzzlemucker I hadn't realized there were two Es in SCHWEPPES, and I've never spelled ISOSCELES correctly, so why should tonight have been an exception? PAULO was a gimme.
@Puzzlemucker The "privileges" of being older with a fairly good memory (my wife would sometimes say it's selective, though). I remembered seeing SCHWEPPES in ads many times, and didn't have any trouble with its spelling. ISOSCELES was mostly filled in with crosses, so turned out to be easy, and I've heard enough about Brazil over the years that São PAULO was an instant fill-in. I did have other problems, though…
So elegant, having the theme answers each be two words, one a clue to crack, and the other a theme-affirming type of tree. So original, coming up with this idea in the first place. It’s never been done before. Wow! So sweet, having the theme echoed by centering the grid with a visual tree. Such admirable chutzpah, sending a renegade asymmetrical submission to the Times when you’ve never had a puzzle published there before. Such a lovely touch, sprinkling beauty into the box, with ESPOUSES, MNEME, THITHER, SOLACES, BEARNAISE, ISOSCELES, MCPHEE, ABLOOM, and SEMINAL. All this in a NYT debut, and what promise it portends. I so hope to see more from you, Ilan and Shimon. This was eye-opening as well as entertaining, and thank you so much. What a boost!
I skimmed the comments but didn't see much love for the "USE THE FORCE/EMPIRES" cross. A gem hidden amongst the trees, if you ask me.
All these years in the Western Hemisphere, thinking the largest city in Brazil was São Paolo. Talk about being SET IN one's ways.
As soon as I read in the constructors’ notes that this puzzle was originally Ilan’s idea, I was reminded that “ilan” means “tree” in Hebrew…
Sometimes, while doing a puzzle, I can’t see: -the coastline lengths for the fractals. -my lack of Portuguese for my lack of Spanish. -the pop-culture answers for the classical mytharcana. -the criminals for the abetters. -the uhs for the ahs or the ohs. -the keys to solving for all themlocks. A fun puzzle. Didn’t quite stump me.
A very elegant concept, the product of a clearly well-ordered mind(s). A pleasure to solve and contemplate.
This was an excellent debut! ELMO was the one who clued me in to the theme. Many thanks to the little red dude, and to the constructors. I wanted [Plot problems] to be moles so very, very badly. I tried googling "toe smoe" in the hopes that this was a ballet thing I was unaware of. Google instead showed me results for "toe smoke," which was mostly pictures of people holding cigarettes with their feet.
How clever is that, having those little tree images blocking the word FOREST to graphically illustrate the well-known phrase, AND to have those little tree images be embedded in the large graphic tree made of black squares in the center of the grid, AND to have those little tree images attach to names of trees, AND to have those little trees represent the letters of FOREST in perfect order?
@Lewis yes!!! So many levels of clever- I didn’t realize the words spelled out types of trees until I thought I’d already solved the theme!!
@Lewis realizing that they were types of trees aided me in solving the puzzle. I thought it was a brilliant debut.
@Lewis No amount of fulsome praise will induce me to solve on my iPad or PC, and if I miss out on some gimmicks and frou-frou, so be it. They should spend their energy in preventing foul-ups like last week's Page Not Found (that was clearly not a priority, as it *could have been* easily corrected.) I was entirely happy with the pleasant surprises (well, except for the mythological LOTUS tree. Ptui..)
@Lewis Absolutely brilliant!
I had a moment when I was trying to figure out how to make “The Aunty Jack Show” start with a j. Then I realised that ABC was NOT the Australian Broadcasting Corporation but the AMERICAN Broadcasting Company. Too funny.
MNEME has released in me so many memories of the Muses that I couldn't refrain from these musings. MNEME is one of the "original" three Boeotian muses. She isn't one of the nine Muses I learned as a young lover of Greek mythology. (You know, the ones that include Calliope and Terpsichore, and Clio and Erato [beloved of cruciverbalists]). However, the mother of these nine was Mnemosyne, the personification (or rather apotheosis) of Memory. How wonderful, I thought, that all the Arts are viewed as something divine and dependent on Memory. And, when one learns of Homer's tremendous feat of being able to recite the Iliad and Odyssey from his capacious memory, you begin to understand. And let us remember that both "music" and "museum" originate with the Muses.
Wow SCHWEPPES sure is a lot of letters for a one syllable word.
@Joe P In fact, further research makes me think it might be (at least tied for) the longest non-past tense one syllable word!
@Joe P I thought the same exact thing too! Namaste!!
Cool puzzle…one mistake though… LL COOL J released “Going Back to Cali” in 1987. Biggie Smalls (Notorious B.I.G.) released “Going Back to Cali” in 1998.
@Big Daddy correct and very annoying. I just read an article about the diversity of NYT crossword reviewers and this was a big miss. I know it happens but still a quick search or call to any casual listener to rap or hip hop would have caught it. I'm still hoping to find a clever reason for the wrongness if it all. Back to solving.
Recorded in '87, released in '88. Likely reason for '98 is the clue, as per clues in the crossword: One on a sic list? Embarassing mistake? An eye for an aye, say? Result of a slip of the finger on a keyboard Slip-up in writing Care for cars? Run for fun, perhaps Cars for cats, This cluue has one, apparently etc.
The Thursday gimmick was pretty pedestrian. I give the puzzle high marks, however, for highlighting John McPhee. I have an entire shelf full of his books, some of which I’ve read multiple times. He is a fine writer with tremendous intellectual curiosity, and he’s capable of making anything from geological theory to oranges interesting. My favorite of his books is Coming Into The Country, which explores aspects of the state from a variety of perspectives: environmental, political and personal. His depiction of life among the characters who came to the state to live away from civilization is fascinating.
@Marshall Walthew He’s one of my favorites too. Great to see him get a shout out today.
@Marshall Walthew Put my life on hold while reading Coming into the Country. Could not put it down.
@Marshall Walthew Other than the CARLESS entry can’t see what was pedestrian about it. Thought it was unique and brilliant
@Marshall Walthew Please direct me to the inspired puzzles you’ve created.
I'm so pleased I saw each individual tree name, and also latched on to F-O-R-E-S-T being the missing letters. So I guess I saw it all, the forest and the trees. I feel so accomplished! The real accomplishment, though, is that of the Kolkowitz brothers. Brilliant execution, having the FOREST letters cascading down, in order, from top to bottom and left to right. Bravo! Mars with bars put a smile on my face when I changed my initial BRand to BRUNO. The song Deb posted is a great one; here's another one, a down-tempo one, and my favorite of his: <a href="https://youtu.be/ekzHIouo8Q4?si=KnIARhSVrpDCofDU" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/ekzHIouo8Q4?si=KnIARhSVrpDCofDU</a> Thank you to both messieurs Kolkowitz for a terrific Thursday puzzle!
"Thither" reminded me of a high school classmate named Heather who, while waiting to go on stage in a school play, lost part of her costume. Without any hesitation another performer said, "come hither Heather thou has lost a feather." Clever puzzle in which the trees "stumped" me for quite a while.
Ditto the many shout-outs to John McPhee-- his books are many times re-read in my house! I liked this puzzle and did not miss the asymmetry, though I can see that it might not seem harmonious to everyone. But I liked the visual of the tree. Lots of fun clues and answers plus the cute theme well done with tree names. Last thing for me was TUN /ACTIN pair which brought a fond memory that my mother-in-law taught me the word TUN many years ago during one of our many co-solves of crossword puzzles. That was the first and last time (until today) that I'd ever heard the word...
@Sal Z I'd never heard of TUN either, and I've worked for several wine companies; however, I was the bookkeeper, not a vintner, so maybe that's why I never heard it. Or maybe it's not used anymore?
Brilliant The trees were relatively obvious and I was quick to realize they were the key. But even then I wondered if there was something about being able to see the Forest. Until it was solved…I didn’t see it coming.
@Paul I got the trick when I got the revealer, about ¾ way through the puzzle. Went back and looked at the tree-adjacent and "tree" themers, and figured out that the missing letters spelled out FOREST in order top to bottom, L to R. I admit it was a nice Thursday trick.
Lots of fun but I realized when I filled in ELMO as E-L-MO that I was barking up the wrong tree...
Kudos to the NYT for the Crossword Fellowship that embraces diversity, equality and inclusion. A rare thing nowadays.
@Hope M I hope the games subscription is not federally funded. Do you know how many archive puzzles would have to be scrapped???
The New York Times Diverse Crossword Constructor Fellowship is a wonderful idea! Please don’t knuckle under to the thought police.
@Kevin and a good gummy too lol! Namaste!!
Fun one, I enjoyed the theme a lot! And Mars with bars was brilliant, well done ;)
This was fun. I did recognize that the "treed" words without the tree were... trees (starting with ELM(O). I can't say i recall ever seeing a NYT grid that did not have either diagonal or bilateral symmetry. Not a complaint, just an observation.
@Michael Weiland I gotta say, I'm surprised that this puzzle has no symmetry at all, when there is no theme-related reason why symmetry is missing and the theme isn't so amazing IMO that it merits opening the door to asymmetric puzzles in the future. I would have thought the editors would have insisted on symmetry here.
@Michael Weiland There have been 43 asymmetric puzzles in the Modern Era. The last one was a little over a year ago. <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Thumbs/?select=symmetry" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Thumbs/?select=symmetry</a> There were 68 asymmetric puzzles pre-Shortz. Most are presumably unintentional. <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Thumbs/?select=psSymmetry" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Thumbs/?select=psSymmetry</a>
@Michael Weiland I'm wondering if someone can explain to me why symmetry is important in a crossword puzzle. It doesn't help with solving, as it would in a diagramless puzzle, so why is it generally insisted upon? Am I missing something that should be obvious? (It is close to bedtime.)
Weelll... Congratulations to the Kolkowitz team. Geez, to have a family member call, much less construct a puzzke together. Well done. Just a little conflicted here - wonder if anyone else is of a like mind? The asymmetrical grid, the vestigial tree are fine, yet there was a little dissonance that still niggles even after solving. The gimmick revealed itself cleanly, and the unfamiliar Mr. MCPHEE filled via crosses and a lucky guess. I enjoyed the doublecross of hiding the forest in a wonky grid. So why the disquiet? Mayhaps my equilibrium is off? Xwordinfo notes a scant 43 grids with no / unusual symmetry in the 'modern' era. The first one dates from 1994. So 365pa x 31 ys, over 11,000 grids offered up by Times constructors which have some sort of symmetry, and only 43 with a prickly pattern? Ah, that must be it. Angst averted. One moment changes a day, one day changes a life, one life can change the world. Anyhoo, go out and hug that family member you've been meaning to call.
@Whoa Nellie You live out west an haven't read Coming Into the Country? You are in for a treat! Not to mention his many other worthy volumes. Pulitzer Prize, Wallace Stegner Award from the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado. Taught many now famous authors at Princeton. American treasure. TYL
Could somebody please explain the BRUNO Mars clue to me? He sings bars, the column says... What does that mean? What are EES, MIT grads? What's an SST? Also, I know the US date format when using days, months and years is mm/dd/yyyy but I don't get 10/03. Is that October 2003 or March 2010? In Polish we tend to use Roman numerals for months to avoid such confusion, or we just make the Herculean effort of writing two more digits to denote the year in full. (I got the theme but it did not excite me so I'll just keep my comment short for once. I also needed lookups in the middle of the grid)
@Andrzej A bar is a measure of time in music, a set number of beats. EEs are electrical engineers. SST means supersonic transport, faster than sound commercial airplanes. The Concorde was the last one.
@Andrzej... and 10/03 is October 2003, when British Airways retired the Concorde.
@Andrzej Bruno Mars owns some bars, and he also sings bars. "Bars" is another word for measures, because a black bar separates one from another. SST is SuperSonic Transport, a plane that flies faster than the speed of sound. It was retired in 2003. The US puts the month first, then the date. You had a third question that I can't see when typing this reply.
@Andrzej - EES & SST were the exact same answers I scoured these comments to find their meaning. I'm wondering if SST is one of those olden x-word answers that everyone used to just know by rote. I'm pretty sure after doing the NYT puzzle for a little over two years, I've never seen it. But, HEY - we learned something new! Thanks, Dave S & Shan!
I guess with all the coastline length discussion going on, I'll take a shot at explaining something I find fascinating. According to chaos theory, all coastlines are infinitely long. Imagine actually doing the measurement. You take a string 100 ft long, say, and lay it out time after time going around the coast you're measuring. You'll come up with an answer, but it's certainly going to be off, because most of the time the 100ft segment didn't fit cleanly along the shoreline. So you use a shorter string, and you'll get a longer answer. But you've still missed some nooks and crannies. So you go with a shorter string, and get a longer shoreline. But you've still missed some smaller nooks and crannies. Eventually, you'll get down to microscopic errors and longer lengths, right down to and beyond the atomic a subatomic levels, all the time getting longer. (At a certain point this all breaks down, if truly works only in continuous media, unlike ours which breaks up into discrete particles. So what you come down to is that shorelines have infinite length, even though they enclose a finite area. The world is really interesting, if you can stomach much of its misery.
This idea isn’t really from chaos theory, but is related to the concept of fractals - another wonderful idea to explore.
@Francis A variation of Zeno’s Paradox - the sum of an infinite series is finite.
@Francis Why would you bother with lengths of string? Get a measuring wheel and you can get into any nook or cranny you need to.
@Francis To have an infinite coastline you'd need infinite molecules to measure. For a nerdy head explosion, check out the paradox of Gabriel's Horn on YouTube.
Great puzzle! However I've noticed a small mistake. "Going Back to Cali" by LL Cool J was released in 1988 and not in 1998. A little confusing since a year earlier a song of the same name was released by The Notorious B.I.G.
@Matt Commented about this too. But I certainly wouldn't call it a small mistake to hip-hop fans. Incensed, I was! 😆
@Matt a year earlier? Biggie would have had to travel back in time lol. LL’s version was 1988, but Biggie’s was 1997.
@Matt never mind - you must have meant a year before 1998, not a year before 1988 :)
I love how this puzzle unfurled. I caught on to the theme with ELM(O). I immediately thought the trees must be hiding the word FOREST. Hand up 🙋🏼♀️ for having BRaNd before BRUNO and PAoLO before PAULO. But NO HELP solved the former and DUPLO solved the latter. Just seeing ELM made me think all of the starred clues would be trees and panned out. I thought this was a brilliant debut and I look forward to seeing more from the Kolkowitz brothers. Maybe I should try constructing with my brother…we already compete to see who finishes the mini first. Why not join forces?!
Wow. Just wow! I'm about two thirds of the way through, and just figured out what is going on. I laughed out loud and sat here with my jaw hanging open for a good long while, taking it all in. I guess I can erase those extra letters I've been putting in, now that I can see ... well, I don't want to totally spoil it for anyone here who has not figured it out, but if you have, you know what I was going to say! And now, back to this GREAT PUZZLE!!
Congratulations on a clever NYT debut, Messrs. Kolkowitz! It was obvious that there was a hidden letter from the moment ELM{O} wouldn’t fit, but I wasn’t paying enough attention to realize that the hidden letters were going to spell FOREST. I’m of two minds about FLOTUS. On the one hand, it seems to have enabled y’all to bring your puzzle idea to fruition. On the other hand, that acronym has always put me off: It’s possible that I just don’t like the whole SCOTUS/POTUS/FLOTUS thing, but it’s more likely that FLOTUS is just too close to flatus for me.
@Eric Hougland I do personally enjoy the acronym thing solely because it lets me refer to the six Justices who usually write awful opinions in an obliquely rude way by calling them the “Supreme Court Republicans of the United States.”
The first word that comes to mind about this puzzle is "graceful." It was lovely to solve, with only two confirmations-of-spelling look-ups, but I was so sure of SAO PAoLO and know zip about Legos (there, I've said it) that I had no idea DoPLO would be wrong and never checked it. The trees were still standing and I was completely lost. Finally came to the comments, and the mystery was solved (thank you, Michael). The Brothers Kolkowitz are to be congratulated on their perfect debut. I'm looking forward to more. (I stared at "Mars on bars" for longer than any other clue and loved the fill when I got it from the crosses.)
Such a fun puzzle, albeit more of a Wednesday for me. The only bone I have to pick with it that no ballet professional under the sun will ever call a pointe shoe a TOESHOE. That is something...very different.
@Sonja Once again my ignorance did not prevent me from arriving at the "correct" answer.
@Sonja And yet, those of us who are not ballet professionals, arguably most of the puzzle solvers, do call it a toeshoe, and OED and most North American English dictionaries define it as such.
@Sonja I must beg to differ. I studied at the School of American Ballet and performed as a child with the New York City Ballet Company. We called them both toeshoes and pointe shoes, with equal frequency.
While the construction and use of theme were admirable, I felt the puzzle overall was a bit too easy. (I got ELM on my first pass and the theme fell in place from there.) For me the best Thursday puzzles are when I go from “what the heck is going on” to “oh, I now get it, what a clever puzzle!”. And yes I know I’ll be regretting my comment when we get some quadruple rebus monster next Thursday!!
@John Ah, now you’ve done it. I thought the same, but was afraid to poke the sleeping bear that is Thursday rebii. Run!
...And little ELMo shall lead them... I wanted the wizard's weapon to be a SPELL, of course... I did not solve in a strightforward fashion, but danced about (hither and THITHER) as I was often stymied. Three is a PRIME, I instantly decided. São PAOLO, right? Yet another children's book (series) that arose long after my offspring outgrew childish things... French sauces?? So very many to choose from! And....how much of an outcry will 36D engender? Given that we lived down the road from an Ohio horse farm (with its wonderful composted manure pile), I had no hesitation once I accepted the somewhat ridiculous "enthusiast." Horsehoes are a "tool of the trade," I'm not sure FARRIERS describe themselves as aficionados...but there IS a lot to know.
Great Thursday puzzle, gentlemen! I especially loved the nod to Star Wars with the USE THE FORCE and EMPIRES cross. I look forward to your next clever entry.
Seems a little inelegant that sometimes the missing letter is the end of an answer and other times the start of one, but I get that it’s necessary due to the tree shape the “forest” forms. I guess it’s one of those puzzles that begins to make more sense once you find the revealer, and before that, you might flail around a bit.
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Year is wrong for Going back to Cali clue. Kept trying to make Biggie work until I realized the clue was flubbed up and not me.
@Ann I think the clue works. Wikipedia says that “Going Back to Cali” was released as a single in 1998 (though the two albums it’s on, the “Less Than Zero” soundtrack and the LL Cool J album “Walking with a Panther,” were released in 1987 and 1989 respectively).
@Ann Oops. I should have read the clue. I assumed it said 1988, not 1998. Yep, it’s wrong. Someone confused two songs released 10 years apart.
Stuck on MNEME? Don't be ashamed, she's so obscure, she doesn't get mentioned, by name, in either Grimal or Graves! She does appear (or so I hear) in the work of that Fodor of the 2nd century, Pausanias (who admits that the lore was even then obscure and obsolete), and that eminent historian of Ancient Greese, Fικιπαίδεια. (The base root, connected with the Greek word for "memory," and the Latin one for "mind," is pretty easy to suss out.) @Sam Lyons already addressed LOTUS, below, but I'll have to concur, it does seem to weaken the theme. But then, sometimes it's hard to see the FEN for the lilies.
@Bill - nice to see a digamma now and then.
@Bill Was I stuck? Not really, I don't think. I wanted MNEMON, but of course had to give that up... I guess. I can't remember.
@Bill further musings: There were various groups (sisterhoods?) of Muses, in various locales, of various numbers, and with various names: three from Pieria in Thrace; seven from Lesbos; three (of which Mneme was one), then four, then five, then finally the nine familiar ones*, from Helicon in Boeotia. Although I love his "Claudius" novels and some of his poetry, when it comes to mythology I consider Robert Graves a total nutcase, and I find his retellings of Greek myth almost unreadable. But he does make a strong case that the Muses were, in origin, wild, orgiastic mountain nymphs ("Mousai" would be derived from the I-E root for "mountain," rather than "mind"); only later did they become associated with the graceful Arts and Sciences of civilized culture. *Roz Chast would like to increase their number to twelve: <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/85075880436566554" target="_blank">https://www.pinterest.com/pin/85075880436566554</a>/ And here's Canadian Muse Jane Siberry: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDy1W9X5GDA" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDy1W9X5GDA</a> @DC: :-)