"Look at all these capacitors and inductors!" "How can I resist?" (That one does well on the comedy circuit.)
@Mike Nice, I got a charge outta that one.
@Mike Positively electrifying. / /
@Mike Your reluctance to resonate indicates a low Q-factor.
@Mike (2nd attempt) Your reluctance to resonate indicates a low Q-factor.
@Mike Just the thing for a Wordplay coulomb. Don't let any alternating facts impede your current performance. To use the cups at Maxwell's house you must follow a right hand rule.
@Mike. Watt are you all going on about?
@Mike Ohm Mike, you're a real live wire!
The puns today are real joules. But I re-fuse to be tempted into adding to the load.
@Mike Ohm my God, that pun gave me acid reflux. Truly revolting.
@Mike Sometimes my comments take longer to show up because I ampere reviewed.
Oh, that Weintraub brain. Let me just give three examples: • POD has been in the major crossword puzzles more than 300 times, almost always clued boringly. But today we get to be delighted with [Seal team?]. • Ditto RAVEN (appearing more than 100 times), but today – [Literary bird with a one-word vocabulary, apparently]. Are you kidding me? Every thumb up! • And the less ubiquitous CEMENT MIXER but OMG clue [Concrete example of rotational forces and fluid dynamics?]. Doth we not feel like royalty to be treated like this? This keen wit may hide the skill beneath it, a grid so cleanly filled that my whole body relaxes when I look at it. A grid saturated with beauty as well, for example – AS EXPECTED, HOW CAN I RESIST, NOSHES ON, TRAGIC HERO, YOU GET THE IDEA. Oh, did I mention that these five answers have never appeared in the Times puzzle before? Wit, craft, freshness, beauty – artistry in the box. Spectacular Friday. You’ve amazingly done it again, Robyn. I am so grateful that your path crossed with Crosslandia’s!
Happiness is a Robyn Weintraub Friday puzzle. With the added bonus of constructor comments.
@Eddie Hey Eddie, seems you won't need a bigger boat after all.
@Eddie Your daily comments actually remind me a bit of that guy from Mars who used to post here. I kinda miss him….
@Eddie I think I'm gonna eat some chipotle for lunch, thoughts?
@Eddie i scrolled down to ensure you did!
@Whoa Nellie Y'know I was watching The Long Goodbye on Prime last night, and the writer fellow, at frist I thought he was Robert Shaw but I looked him up on IMDB and it was junst some guy named Sterling Hayden....
@Eddie Are you cousin Eddie from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation?
25A. HOWCANIRE_I__ Making it to Friday after a long work week, there was only one thing on my mind, if the offer was really amazing: HOWCANIRETIRE TGIF!!! 😀
As your resident alphadoppeltotter, a role I’ve inexplicably taken in the past eight years, it is my duty to inform you that this puzzle has an unusually low number of double letters, at four, where unusual is any number less than five. This is the second time this year that this has happened. I remain your humble servant, ever on the alert.
@Lewis From a humble afficionado of your edifying and enlightening posts, a salute!
@Lewis We appreciate being successfully accommodated by your ever-watchfulness.
ONION RINGS! HOW CAN I RESIST!? SIPS ALES SENDS STAR Thanks Robyn!
How lucky am I to hit my 1,000 no-lookup streak on a Robyn Weintraub puzzle? And it was a gorgeous spring day today. Even the doggo was chill while getting his nails clipped and his locks shorn. The weekend is looking good for putting in tomatoes, too. Ahhhh.
@kkseattle That is simply astonishing. Congratulations of the highest order!
@kkseattleFor me it was 999! So close.
A quite theatrical puzzle this time, not only the two more-than-clever Disney-Bard combos, but beginning with "The Crucible" and working in "Hello Dolly," the tragic heros (I'll give you Hamlet as a one but think Gatsby qualifies as one by a nose, if that), Ilsa from Casablanca, a star for sure in the divine Ingrid Bergman, who, no crooner, won E_OT, the triple crown of acting, a "suit," the Mah Jong ladies might say, but not the Grammy. And let's not forget Ides, beware of the one in March quoth the soothsayer in Julius Caesar. Also, beware the snows of yesteryear while you're at it. Can a tragic hero really also be a fashionista spokesperson for the United Colors of Benetton? "He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them one by one before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired, the soft rich heap mounted higher — shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly with a strained sound Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. “They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such — such beautiful shirts before.” I love that scene. Daisy sounds so coked up, it could be right out of a Warhol film with Joe Delasandro as Gatsby and Edie Sedgwick as Daisy.
@john ezra It's been many years since I read The Great Gatsby, but I recognized the source from the first sentence sentence immediately. Do you remember, "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy . . . "? So many times I have met/known people who personified that carelessness. I've seen some comments questioning Gatsby's status as a TRAGIC HERO—of course he was. So was Fitzgerald, who gave Gatsby rich details from his own life and stepped by\back into Nick, the dispassionate observer of the story. I have never seen a movie that was able to catch the pervading madness of that time and place as Fitzgerald wrote it.
Who among us doesn't smile when we see the Robyn Weintraub byline on a Friday NYT puzzle? I wasn't forced to take physics in high school. So I didn't. My first glance at the clue filled me with dread. For a couple of seconds. And then CEMENT MIXER made me howl with laughter. ONION RINGS have sadly been on my no-no list for a very long time. But when I finally filled in that answer, I swear I was able to conjure up the taste of them, and also the memory of those fabulous Brooklyn Greek diners where I ate too many of them. As many of you know that I'm usually cranky and tough to please as of late. Not tonight. Loved it. Thank you, Robyn!
I am definitely part of a Seal team, so I'm singing with him "I have been waiting, waiting for you" ‐ <a href="https://youtu.be/tpv36VoqYzU?si=Fbh49NrLbRu7Zo-R" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/tpv36VoqYzU?si=Fbh49NrLbRu7Zo-R</a> Yes, I have been waiting for you, Robyn Weintraub...for that Friday puzzle you always sprinkle with magic, and the way it flows (not because it's easy, but because of that je ne sais quoi that pulls me in and doesn't let go.) The entries wrote themselves in, and I could just sit back and savor the fill, enjoying every second. Thank you for a perfect start to the weekend, Ms. Weintraub. Your REPORT CARD says A+!
Alternate clue for 9D: Has Robyn Weintraub been pulled from today’s puzzle by an app glitch? NOSHESON (A fun one, quick witted.)
I had a very long and tiring day, but seeing Robyn’s name on this one as I flopped into bed cheered me right up. If you disliked this crossword, you should probably stop doing them.
@Jamie I didn't dislike it, but I definitely didn't love it as much as some folks did. To me, it felt like a Wednesday. Easier than I would have wished for. But some cool clues and entries. I would beware of making statements like your last one. We all have different tastes and skill levels. Just because someone doesn't like what you like doesn't mean they should stop solving crosswords.
OK, it's Friday… gonna be difficult, but let's see who did this one… Wow! it's Robyn! This is gonna be a good one! It's been a long time, and it's nice to see an old friend show up. Of course, the NW, where I always start, turns out to be the toughest, but I managed to get started anyway, and it proved to be a typical Weintraub creation, with tricky clues, good misdirection, and along with that, everything is totally fair. Couldn't ask for more in a puzzle, but I do want more of them. Thanks, Robyn!
Very nice cluing. Believe it or not there are TWO Malaysian words in this puzzle. Penang of course, and amok, which may mean unchecked in English, but in it's original language still means on a wild rampage. Unrelated, but in Cambodia amok is a fish curry.
@Joe Felice Uncle Roger ex-wife Auntie Helen is a mok. Now Uncle Roger upset, put food down from chair. Fuiyoh !
@Joe Felice (2nd attempt) Uncle Roger ex-wife Auntie Helen is a mok. Now Uncle Roger upset, put food down from chair. Fuiyoh !
@Joe Felice A wild rampage is unchecked, no?
@Joe Felice Uncle Roger ex-Auntie Helen was a Mok. Now Uncle Roger upset, put leg down from chair. HAIYAA ! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrXW0B5qgHc&t=49s" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrXW0B5qgHc&t=49s</a>
@Joe Felice Terima kasih (thank you, in Malay) for knowing the word AMOK and the beautiful island of PENANG. Wanted to clarify that “Malaysian” refers to the country of Malaysia with its diverse (multi-ethnic) population while “Malay” refers to the rich language and culture of the Malay people who are based across several Southeast Asian countries (and beyond). Hence AMOK is a Malay word while PENANG is a Malaysian island (and state).
@Joe Felice @Jean F So cool - thank you! I did solve both of these easily. But I had no idea about the etymology of AMOK. I do love a fish curry...
Well, THEN… A Weintraub Friday. A Freintraub. A Weinday. But I’m not whining. I’m no CRAB. I really wanted to SIP, savor and HONOR the art before me, but AS EXPECTED, I started slow, but after MINIMAL confusion, and a moment to THINK IT OVER, I SAILed through as each entry OPENed three more, which opened five more, which…YOU GET THE IDEA. RIVETing. Happy Friday all!
TIMON again Robyn delivers ARIEL winner.
What's in a name? A smashing back to back Shakespeare / Disney character reference, that's what. So much in this puzzle to admire, but it went by much too fast.
@JBW my favorite part of the puzzle
Robyn Weintraub’s in da house! That’s all I’ve got. It’s a good day, this. Capping off a day graced by a Robynian Weintraubian creation is the fact that my husband’s flight will be landing soon after his being gone 7 (!) weeks plus 1 day. It’s really that last 1 day that was the hardest to take, due as it was solely to rotational forces and fluid dynamics Texas style: tornadoes. I had already told Señor Gato that, come Thursday, the brusher-in-chief would be back, restoring all order to feline worlds, including—though not limited to—the random singing of nonsensical songs about one Señor Gato, an overabundance of energy and constant motion, cat videos on the big TV (because TVs would be plugged into outlets again), and the general happy commotion that is my husband. (I may have also let out a “Yipee! I can go back to not being the litter box-cleaning parent again!” but I digress.) Then I had to take it all back. (And clean the box myself for one more day.) But after being rerouted around the country a few times, my husband finally managed to leave tornadoes behind. Now he can get back to the disasters here in Europe. And right off the bat, there’s the one I put in the fridge after the pizza place delivered it to me yesterday instead of the veggie pizza I’d ordered. This pie is topped by glops of what appears to be cabbage drowned in mayo over Italian sausage. I am so, so very too flyover-country for this continent…
@Sam Lyons I've always wondered whether Senor Don Gato was named for the song, which I remember my little brother singing long ago. I often catch it as an earworm after reading your posts.
@Sam Lyons I'm utterly aghast about your description of the pizza. Say it ain't so! Glad your husband will be home soon!
@Sam Lyons I am also aghast at the pizza and also appalled and am hoping it was surprisingly delicious in the end.
I finished House of Doors (recommend) just before I started this puzzle so I got PENANG easily. It’s wild when that happens.
@Laura I second the recommendation for The House of Doors, historical novel by Tan Twan Eng
I had to get out of bed due to a fit of rhinitis, and there it was: Robyn’s name, I knew this would be good. It was one of my fastest Fridays despite continually stopping to sneeze and using 1/2 a box of Kleenex. HaHa, I thought 24 down was out of my wheelhouse, never getting physics, but laughed when it filled itself in from crosses. The mahjong answer also needed crosses but got me smiling as a dear friend has taken it up at age 84. Thanks, Robyn, this puzzle is a favorite gift.
Robyn W. never disappoints (me anyway). Beautiful themeless.
It's weird to see [Every month has one] in the singular, since "ides"--a single day--was grammatically plural, in Latin, English, and to titular Shakespearean tragic heros: "The Ides of March are come"/ "Ay, Caesar, but not gone." The Roman Republican calendar was, to our minds, an incredibly complex an illogical system, the calculation of which is best left to the *servi Flaminum*, or their modern descendants, computer AI servers. By one such on-line calculator, which appears to account for the shift from Republican to Julian to Gregorian year counts, today's date is: a.d. XIII Kal. Mai. MMDCCLXXVIII A.U.C. Which translates to "thirteenth day before the Kalends of May, 2778 [years] from the founding of the City" ("Which city?" "Like there is any other!") So (once again, accounting for that calendar shift), although today would fall just past the mid-point (the Ides) of April, it's still referenced in terms of the beginning of May. Also, we would call it "twelve days before . . .", but the Romans counted "inclusively" so those Kalends were included in the count: "thirteen days." Similarly, the Romans had an eight-day "nundial" ("nine days") week. But they named the days A-H, so there's that. <a href="https://planetcalc.com/8496" target="_blank">https://planetcalc.com/8496</a>/ Felix dies Veneris Veintraubiensis!
@Bill Thank you for your comment. It reminded me I needed to reset the date on my old school watch from 1 to 2 as there is no April 31. So, instead of Et tu, Brute, it could have been Yikes! I thought the Ides were (was) tomorrow!?
Looks like I'm the odd one out today! I had a weirdly tough time with this one. I think Robyn Weintraub and I have very different brains. To be clear, I enjoy her puzzles, I just think I have a disproportionately tough time of them. I loved a lot of the cluing today, especially CEMENT MIXER and ONION RING, which were among the few that I got on a first pass. For some reason I just struggle with Weintraub's clues for plainer fill, like CRAB, LURKS, PITA, FOB etc.. Anyway, always fun to come to the comments and see the people who had the opposite experience to yours. It hit me at just the right time, too -- I've had some really easy solves in the past week, setting new personal bests on both Sunday (16:08) and Wednesday (5:46) -- if it hadn't been for this I might have started to get pretty full of myself.
I didn't know a few things: Penang, Levi, suit, sail. I was still happy with it, not having to google anything to get the answers. It's rare to have that much consistency: nothing too hard, and nothing too easy, for a smooth solve.
What is a "TRAGIC HERO"? Aristotle's definition (which I offer from memory, so the details may be off): A noble character (noble both of birth and of character) who exhibits a sudden downfall of fortune, due to some "hamartia" of character, eliciting a catharsis of pity and fear from the spectators. "Hamartia" is often translated as "tragic flaw", but "lack" may be more accurate. Are Hamlet and Gatsby examples of this? Neither is without fault, but that is not part of the definition. In fact, a tragic hero must possess a flaw, cannot be perfect of character (or else, according to Aristotle, their downfall is absurd rather than tragic). I'd say "Yes" to both. Although it's interesting to note that Gatsby's "nobility" is not of birth, but is put on (much like his beautiful shirts), but his "social mobility" and his dreams of success are what make him peculiarly American. So ends today's lecture. Tomorrow we will discuss...
@The X-Phile I had “IRONICHERO” until I found some crosswords.
Saw a few “too easy” comments, but for me it was just about right. Did some at breakfast time, and the rest after my morning hike. It was just crunchy enough for my taste, so thanks, Robyn, for another one of your sparkling puzzles. Not knowing anything about Mahjong, and also missing the misdirection behind “Sunfish feature” that crossing of 36A and 36D was my final spot to fill. Thanks to the whole team for a sparkling Friday puzzle.
Puzzle isn’t showing up in App. First time that’s happened in over 2 years of solving. Major bummer.
@Striker Got to it from the archive - in case anyone else runs into the same problem.
@Striker Finished. Enjoyed it the whole way. 3 relatively easy quadrants and then there was the NE which took me as long as the rest. Didn’t know AVERY, LEVI or HONORS, + was sold on LeerS in place of LURKS, so it took me a bit to battle through that section. From “bummer” to “blast”.
@Striker It’s been up for me in the app since at least about 11:30am (AWST, which is 12 hours ahead of EDT I believe)
Well, HOWCANIRESIST letting you know that this was my fasted Friday by a fair bit. I'm as surprised as you are. I'm not a speed solver. (I tanked Connections today, which is super rare for me, so this was a good EGO boost.) Anyhow, it was also bright and fun and I was RIVETed by it. The long entries came pretty easily but each one sparked a little joy in me. I did briefly have WINBYAhair at 27D but it resolved itself. I feel like I haven't heard WINBYANOSE before, but it honestly makes loads of sense, so I'm sure it's very common and just doesn't register for me. Loved the back-to-back Disney/Shakespeare entries. ONIONRINGS (yum!) gave me a great chuckle, as did 25A HALF, the F of which was my last fill. Really good! The "apparently" in the clue for RAVEN 38A was also really fun. Anyhow, YOUGETTHEIDEA, I liked it! But lastly, was it just last week or so that I was so excited to have my full first name in the puzzle? Well... I was almost that excited because my pre-marriage name came so close to showing up today! Just have to take off three letters at the end and add one in their place. While I haven't done my ancestry background, it is believed with some measure of likelihood that the name as seen in the puzzle was actually my family's name before coming to the U.S. and changing it. Heck, I'm still gonna give a little squeal of delight!! 🥳
@HeathieJ Ever been to a horse race? I wouldn't mind if you hadn't because I think it is a cruel, thoughtless sport. Heck, horses even died in the making of the HBO series about horse racing, "Luck". My apologies in advance to horse racing lovers out there. Anyway, the idiom comes when a horse beats another horse by only the length of a horse nose. It usually is a photo finish.
@HeathieJ Want to hear something hilarious? Although I might not be able to get it to you. I can see all your responses, tests, etc, when I click on the link to my comment in my email. But I can't see it otherwise. Maybe the team working freelance for the administration has rewritten *this* software, too.
@HeathieJ I’m just popping by to say that I did see your post late last night. Long distance comment board hugs right back at you. (I almost tanked Connections today, too, by the way. I got the green and yellow ones, but then I had to leave and come back to the rest not once, not twice, but three (!) times before the purple key word magically presented itself to me.)
I thought I'd try a themeless puzzle to see if it will be more fun than a themed one in my current blase/depressed/mysterious mindset. Well, it was quite fun, but the areas NE and directly E defeated me and I needed lookups and reveals there. Dolly and that Hall were both unknowns, as was CRAB for grouch. I had no idea what a sailfish is, and I only ever played mah-jong on the computer so I know no words to describe it - I'm just familiar with the visual side of it, and I never thought of it as having SUITs (btw, in Polish a suit as a card suit is "kolor" - color. Polish terminology being so different from the English is probably another reason for my confusion here). I also never know if the Casablanca role is ILSA or eLSA. The cross did not help - I still don't understand why X solves to CHI - could somebody please explain? The names and trivia in other places I got from crosses - I'm hopeless with both Disney and Shakespearean characters. Funny, eh? Not familiar enough with high-brow culture to know Shakespeare, but also clueless about pop-culture's Disney - that's me 🤣. About ONION RINGS - I love them even if these days I eat them very rarely for health reasons. They were one of the many things to arrive in Poland with market economy and democracy - before our only deep fried side were plain potato fries. As a kid in the 80s I just loved the typical lunch on a seaside vacation: flounder and fries, served on a paper tray. Onion rings came 10 years later.
@Andrzej We don't learn it in school in America, except as math symbols if you are studying engineering, typically
@Andrzej I'm with you on the 'Ilsa' or 'Elsa' issue. If I flipped a coin, I'd be right about 1/2 the time, but my brain usually enjoys conjuring some fake mnemonic to make it 'Ilsa'. Today I smugly filled in 'Ilsa', only to watch the fill become 'Che', and the across clue wasn't a revolutionary or a Vietnamese dessert. Next time I'll nail it. Elsa like in Frozen, or Elsa Martinelli.
@CB Holy cow, I just realized I did it again, not intentionally. I did fill in Elsa, which led to Che, which was wrong. Erase the Elsa from Frozen and the Elsa Martinelli mnemonics. Need a new one for Ilsa. Here we go: Ilya Kuryakin from the Man From Uncle. Not great but best I've got 😅
@Andrzej Hmmm… I’ve been getting an unsettling vibe recently too. Odd portentious-feeling things happening. Getting on a plane to France last week and a young man in line behind me carrying a box of Timbits (a Canadian baked specialty) onto the plane sobbing silently but deeply. Yesterday saw a man receiving chest compressions on the side of the road in Paris. At the same time emergency vehicles, sirens blaring racing every which way. Odd… Also been feeling flat despite being on vacation with my family… A few other small things…
@Andrzej A Sunfish is a type of small sailboat.⛵️
@Andrzej Welcome back. please stick around. For many reasons but definitely to keep reminding us about Poland's recovery from authoritarianism. Latest New Yorker magazine has an article about the Trump brand and mentions this. I hadn't realized it was as recent as 2023.
Per Deb, I absolutely admired 24D. I thought it in the moment, and I’m glad to see I wasn’t alone. There have been myriad great clues over the handful of years I’ve been doing the NYT Crossword (about 7 maybe?), but this one stands out as one of my favourites.
I don’t know if there will be a 2025 Puzzle of the Year “contest” (for lack of a better word), but just in case there is, I’m keeping a running list of candidates. Today’s fun puzzle is the first themeless puzzle on my list. Thanks, Ms Weintraub!
So proud today! My first Friday with no look-ups and a best time for me! Loved the breezy wordplay as well! I also learned that there were once Uh-oh Oreos! (Although my first thought was Spaghetti-Os, but that was too long!)
A total pleasure. Well done with no obscure proper nouns or rap references. The cluing for the ubiquitous oreo was interesting. How many different ways has oreo been clued, I wonder??
@Robco To each his own, but just in case someone is counting, I welcome rap clues.
@Robco AVERY fisher and dolly LEVI were obscure proper nouns to me, they even crossed each other. Here on the West Coast we have Avery labels (Pasadena) and Levi Strauss (San Francisco.)
@Robco Those Disney/Shakespeare proper nouns weren't remotely mainstream. And while AVERY Fisher Hall is a no-brainer for this New Yorker, I can see where @Spelling Marauder has a point!
Loved this puzzle. So many good clues and felt really satisfying when they all clicked.
Any Robyn Weintraub Friday is a happy Friday! Loved the puzzle
As a longtime NYT crossword fan, daughter #1 thoughtfully gifted me the app for Christmas— and it’s become a real problem. Since there’s always an archive puzzle to do when I’ve “got a minute”, the Stats tell me I’ve now done 421. And by doing all those puzzles, they get easier and easier (because now I know answers like “NOOB”, and”ANYA” Taylor-Joy). Puzzles that used to take me literally days to wrestle through (which I loved) are now over in under 20 minutes— far too soon! Can anybody relate?
@Joe P Yes. Then I went back deep into the archives and had a very different experience. They were significantly harder in the 90s, for example. So if it turns out you and I are immortal, there will be plenty of puzzles to keep us busy.
@Joe P The first Saturday puzzle I ever attempted, almost 2 years ago, took me 4 hours to solve, with help from my wife. These days I'm 8-10 times quicker. Also, if you mean recent puzzles have been ending too quickly - yes, I've noticed that, too. Ever since Mr Shortz returned, the editing has been unpredictable, with most puzzles being way too easy for their day. I sometimes struggle but only with trivia and name-heavy grids.
@Joe P I certainly can relate to the growth in puzzle ability. I went from 3+ hours on the weekends to usually under an hour. I suppose everyone is a little like this, but it seems to that I am enormously helped by a single cross letter. An answer can be completely escaping me, but if I get a single letter, especially the first or the last (for a non-plural) I'm much, much more likely to come up with the answer. It's like I need a little grounding. And that being the case, then knowing and quickly entering even few crosswordese words like ONO and OREO and AVOW and AVER, which I didn't know at the start, gives me a lot of letters to work with on the harder ones.
very nice puzzle. thank you. I got a bit stuck on Penang because I was sure the final letter was a "c". Oh well, gap/cap yadda yadda.
I loved the clues for the Disney/Shakespeare pairing at 29A and 30A, but I'm embarrassed to say that took me just a bit longer than it should've on 29A! When I saw five letters, I immediately started thinking "Mulan" and "Moana" - characters whose actual name was the title of the movie - even though I knew there was no way either of them would be Shakespeare names. I got it once I got some of the crossing answers, and only then remembered that the titular character need not have their actual name be the title. It was a bit of a facepalm moment for me. I also LOVED 24D. It may be my favorite question mark clue I've ever encountered in the five-plus years that I've regularly solved the NYT crossword!
@Matthew I just posted almost the same comment regarding 24D (before I read yours of course)!
@Matthew My solve experience 100% at 29A! I kept telling myself that Moana and Mulan are not names I recall from Shakespeare, but my brain was stuck on them. (Didn't help that I kept gps for 37A for far too long. Correcting it then gave me enough crosses to solve that section - finally!)
@Matthew Doesn't "titular" mean their name is in the title? I got Shakespeare right away because his name is in the title, but I had to cross solve Disney because hers is not.
I thought I'd try a themeless puzzle to see if it will be more fun than a themed one in my current blase/depressed/mysterious mindset. Well, it was quite fun, but the areas NE and directly E defeated me and I needed lookups and reveals there. Dolly and that Hall were both unknowns, as was CRAB for grouch. I had no idea what a sailfish is, and I only ever played mah-jong on the computer so I know no words to describe it - I'm just familiar with the visual side of it, and I never thought of it as having SUITs (btw, in Polish a suit as a card suit is "kolor" - color. Polish terminology being so different from the English is probably another reason for my confusion here). I also never know if the Casablanca role is ILSA or eLSA. The cross did not help - I still don't understand why X solves to CHI - could somebody please explain? The names and trivia in other places I got from crosses - I'm hopeless with both Disney and Shakespearean characters. Funny, eh? Not familiar enough with high-brow culture to know Shakespeare, but also clueless about pop-culture's Disney - that's me 🤣. About ONION RINGS - I love them even if these days I eat them very rarely for health reasons. They were one of the many things to arrive in Poland with market economy and democracy - before our only deep fried side were plain potato fries. As a kid in the 80s I just loved the typical lunch on a seaside vacation: flounder and fries, served on a paper tray. Onion rings came 10 years later.
@Andrzej CHI is the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet, and it's uppercase form looks just like our letter X (although it looks different when it's lowercase: χ).
@Andrzej ILSA-Casablanca. As Time Goes By. ELSA-Frozen. Let It Go. That is all.
Timon is a meerkat first seen in Disney's 1994 animated film The Lion King voiced by Nathan Lane. Here he is with his buddy, the warthog Pumbaa, voiced by another Broadway great, Ernie Sabella, singing Hakuna Matata. <a href="https://youtu.be/mzABW42AIhM?si=GJi83aAoCSrkkao_" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/mzABW42AIhM?si=GJi83aAoCSrkkao_</a>
@Vaer Thank you! I had no idea which Disney movie had a Timon. I boycotted a lot of them at one point because I didn't like the icky sweet colors and the dumbing down of the plots, but with a Frozen-mad granddaughter, I had to check some more recent ones and admit they are pretty good.
Once again, thank you Robyn, it was delightful! <3
Sigh—a fabulous Robyn Weintraub Friday—what could be better?? Still remember her Friday, October 5, 2018 puzzle with total fondness. Just learning to do the puzzle then, and watching it unfold was a delight.
@Lizziefish I had to go back and do it, as that fell in a period where I wasn't doing the puzzle daily. "Ones who have game... but shouldn't" is one of the greatest clues ever!
There's a fly in my soup! It didn't go as expected, I KEPT the poke bowl a bit too long. He who noshes on AKI tuna must wait. The happy music was held up as the grid was scoured - coulda used a sea scallop to help fly speck. Well then, What a thrilla of filla! No flies on Robyn Weintraub, that's for sure.
I knew I'd enjoy this one as soon as I saw who constructed it. Typical long Friday workout for me, but very enjoyable with a lot of nice 'aha' moments as I worked things out from the crosses. Six debut answers in this one and almost all of them quite familiar terms - HOWCANIRESIST, YOUGETTHEIDEA, ASEXPECTED, and others. That's just amazing. And of course my puzzle find today. A Sunday from September 9, 2007 by Patrick Berry with the title: "Process of elimination." Can't even describe this one. Here's the 'reveal' clue and answer: "The Process of Elimination: In the answer to each starred clue, cross out any letter that appears ___; then read the letters that remain :" TWICE Never seen another like that. Here's the Xword Info link" <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=9/9/2007&g=108&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=9/9/2007&g=108&d=A</a> I'm done. ....
Everybody but me seems to have found this easy. For me it was an hour plus of looking up things like "dolly," "shakespeare timo," "igor si," etc., etc. I even had to look up "malaysia." In spite of attending a conference there for three days in the 1990's, __NA__ refused to shout "Penang" at me.
Lots of fun! Although it went by awfully fast. I loved some of the juxtapositions--TRAGIC HERO next to ONION RINGS, PIGEONHOLE under AS EXPECTED, etc.
A bright and breezy puzzle that went down as smoothly as a black and white milkshake. There were lots of witty clues, especially those for ONIONRINGS and REPORTCARD. And as an old English major I loved the plethora of Shakespeare references. I do question though whether Gatsby qualifies as a true tragic hero.