Another one I completed, then checked Wordplay to see what it all was about.
It’s inspiring to me. Here’s a constructor with nearly 190 NYT puzzles, his first published 31 years ago – still coming up with fresh, crackling ideas. Still working hard, excited about making new puzzles (i.e., he says in his notes that how to play out the trick behind today’s puzzle is something that bounced around in his head for a long time). So there’s that. There’s also his cluing. When I’m making a puzzle and trying to clue an answer, I often look and see what clues have been made before, and David’s clues so often have fresh angles. Even today, ESAU has appeared in the major outlets more than 600 times, but never using “the sauna” motif. In addition, there’s his skill in crafting a grid. Today’s puzzle required a mammoth 64 theme squares but is filled smooth as silk, and design gorgeously accommodates the complicated theme. So, yes, this puzzle, with its tricky layered theme, provided a splendid outing for me, and I’m grateful for that, David. But thank you as well for the inspiring example you set.
Lovely serendipities today, BTW, included a backward DIDI to go with DEDE, and ACME appropriately on the top row balanced off by ON TOP inappropriately on the bottom row.
@Lewis It was indeed impressive how doable the puzzle was, given how many of its squares were themed. When I first clicked a themed entry and saw what seemed like the whole grid light up, I was scared 🤣. And yet the solve went quickly and smoothly, except that SE corner.
Said the check to its owner, "Cash me if you can!" (You can bank me later for this one.)
@Mike A centsible, balanced thing to teller, which she'll appreciate over time, unless she's nonplussed and just can't figure it out. (I do hope this registers.)
@Mike I'd like to go on the record as not endorsing this kind of humour!
@Mike This should generate a lot of interest, although I wouldn't bank on it. I'll check later.
Mike, My pun ideas today were Not Sufficiently Funny to post, but I hope to bounce back tomorrow. (P.S. What’s a check? ;)
@Mike You make a lot of cents.
Yes DENALI, DENALI, DENALI! I said it out loud, I wrote it down, then I said it again for good measure! Nyah, nyah, you can't stop me!
@Nancy J. Did you know that if you go to the top of Mt. DENALI, you can see the Gulf of Mexico?
@Nancy J. that is… the name of that national park, per the federal government
@Nancy J. What does your comment have to do with the clue or the answer?
@Nancy J. Hahaha, me too! Did a little mental jig. :) @Andrew As of now..... Perhaps you hadn't heard of that particular order back on the first day of the current federal administration.
Here in the COLONIES, we ORDINARY people demand that MONEY should STAND TRIAL. We will not be WON OVER by any old FIREBRAND. STAND TALL, ALLIES! CHANGES are ALL OVER. Express your opinions, ORALLY and loudly, before a FIREBALL consumes EVERYTHING.
@Cat Lady Margaret It's ALL or nothing!
Wonderful theme!!! I didn't think it was nearly as easy as others. But then again I'm not nearly as smart as others.
@Francis I needed fifteen cheats, so I'm there with you. I was able to find the currencies (except I was puzzled by the Costa Rica one), and couldn't figure out on my own that the currencies replaced the word 'all', so I didn't 'get' the clues, but managed those words without cheats. But that's why we have the Wordplay explainer, so much appreciated. It was definitely clever.
@Francis But you make up for it with charm and good looks.
@Andrezj 😀 Hey, you play the role of Cassandra for a while, the pessimist and contrarian who is dead right but it doesn't do her any good, and see how many rays of sunshine are coming out of your...eyes.
@Francis I had to use all kind of cheats on this one. Didn't get the revealer or see the switcheroos without help of the column and autocorrect. The currency names were obscure enough that I didn't catch on why the countries were listed. (Yes, I knew they tied into the gimmick , but I didn't catch on how.) Perhaps I should have waited until the light of day! I do agree the puzzle was quite clever. I want a do-over!
@Francis I *am* a pessimist and contrarian. Speaking about you, I'm speaking about myself. 🥂
Naticked in the SE corner. EZER sitting on DEDE (now there’s an interesting image), with the American specific GRE to complete, left me without my usual “try the most obvious” approach. Having UTILIsE for 42D didn’t help.
@Patrick J. I'm American and had trouble with that section too. I didn't know the two names and had SAT for the longest time instead of GRE.
Why would Olympic divers be proud of those any more so than any other athlete?
@GyrndiIm Before I had crosses, I was certain it would be TEN, the top judging score.
@GyrndiIm I'm reaching, but maybe it's because it is a sport where the males, at least, compete with abs exposed and are shown in closeups on the board. Boxers wear singlets. Wrestlers wear onesies. Even swimmers wear body length speed suits, I think. (Maybe they've been outlawed by now.)
@GyrndiIm I think the constructor was just trying to baffle-up the clue a bit. One of those, Okay, whatever fills.
@GyrndiIm I don’t know much about diving but I put ARC first, thinking they would be most proud of their form.
@GyrndiIm Core muscles are critical to the execution of twists and flips and for keeping good form throughout the dive.
"Why would Olympic divers be proud of those any more so than any other athlete?" GyrndiIm, 1. Who said they would? 2. This is a puzzle. 3. Did you see [maybe]?
@GyrndiIm Good question. Strong abs are crucial for just most high level sports, I guess. Perhaps a bit more on display than in other sports, at least in the men’s competitions?
Mr Dave, I'm not surprised it would seem that way to you.
That was amazing. Loved the opening ACID/BASE duo for the open.
Curiosity is my favorite emotion to be gotten from a crossword puzzle. Challenge is great, but challenge can sometimes be painful. Curiosity is always delicious. I was immensely curious when I read the theme clues. What on earth did the country have to do with its clue? But my curiosity didn't last very long. I had MONEY at the top; I saw that STAND TRIAL was coming in; and I saw that STAND TALL was the right answer to the STAND TRIAL clue. Aha! That means that the phrase is MONEY IS ALL. It's not -- it's MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING, which I've actually never heard said or seen written -- but it doesn't matter. The trick is the same, and the right words in the phrase will come in soon enough. What a beautifully conceived and executed puzzle! Sheer perfection. Well, except for the SW corner with its grp, director's name, song title, and Harry Potter clue. I thought I'd crash and burn there -- until I came up with COWL which somehow bailed me out. CAMERON (he was "Titanic", right?) came in and I realized NERD was the answer to "Square one" -- a clue that fools me every time. Loved this puzzle! I'm writing it down as a POY possibility.
@Nancy Good for you, Nancy! I went straight to the column amd totally forgot to puzzle over the meaning of the theme!
This is one of those themes I had to look up after I finished the puzzle. Clever, I guess, but a bit of a stretch.
I guess I’m in the minority here—I thought this theme was a real stretch. To come up with the phrase “money changes everything” (not exactly am every day phrase) then to figure out that each themed answer contains ‘all’ which is a synonym for everything and then to replace ‘all’ with the currency of the stated nation in the clue is asking quite a lot. I finished the puzzle but never understood the premise until I came here. Never had that “aha!” moment a good Thursday puzzle provides.
@AM Re: the "aha moment" - thank you for voicing what I couldn't quite put into words. Even after correctly solving the whole puzzle and recognizing the currencies in the starred clues, I couldn't parse the "ALL" connection until I read the article. I don't mind the occasional "ahhh, ya got me" when an obscure but clever puzzle (once explained) suddenly flashes into clarity, but this joke wasn't worth the effort required to get it.
Finished this one well under average time, then had to read the column to figure out the conceit. It seems I know trivia and minutiae but need to work on my logic and problem-solving skills.
Not a bad puzzle. However, I needed help in the SE corner. Even though I understood the theme, I did not know the currency of Costa Rica. I've never heard of EZER Weizman: it's the prime minister who is the chief of the executive branch of government there, so if I know Isreaeli politicians, its the PMs rather than the presidents, much like with Germany. DEDE (what kind of name is that?) Allen was a mystery, too. I would never have figured out "That's the pits!" (a phrase I understand) solves to UGH. The clues for RETITLE, UTILIZED and HES, especially, were just not on my wavelength. Also, it appears I will never remember who takes which American exam. I *know* GRE is an exam, but not who it is for. So yeah, I looked up the president, the editor, and I checked the column for GRE and RETITLE - that gave me crosses to deal with the rest of the SE section on my own. The crossing of T_EBO and SB_ was cruel for me, too, but suddenly TAEBO dawned on me - I must have seen it here before. Also, MINOR IN I only got because of the years of contact with American culture. Over here we do it differently. All courses have a major focus. Students take many classes outside this main focus, too, but they may be all over the place. For example, a management student can take classes in singing, geography, art, and philosophy. These additional classes don't constitute a coherent, minor focus of the person's studies. And 25-30 years ago we didn't even have that: I studied law only.
@Andrzej I don't know how common "minors" are anymore over here anymore. They used to be mentioned much more than they are now. I happened to get one (in math--yes I'm one of *those* people), but it was totally by accident. I needed all of it (and more) for physics.
@Andrzej - A major field of study requires a certain number of credits and configuration of coursework to attain a degree. There is room - not much in the first year or two, but more later - to study either more specially or more variedly as the student wishes and the academic adviser allows. But a true academic minor involves being committed to and permitted to satisfy the minimal requirements of a second field of study, usually but not necessarily related to the major. This is different from a dual-degree, where a student is fully enrolled in a program to satisfy all the requirements of two different degrees. Dual degree programs usually take at least another year and have strict standards about the student’s progress. A person who wanted to go into music entrepreneurship might get a B.Mus. and a B.A. in business in a dual-degree program.
@Andrzej That SE corner was difficult for me too. I didn't know either of those names and had SAT instead of GRE because I was thinking of high school seniors rather than college. In the end, I finally figured out my mistake and was able to fill everything else in from guesses and crosses without lookups, but this puzzle took me almost twice as long as usual.
@Beth I found the puzzle to be strangely easy, and were it not for the SE corner of doom, I would have solved it in Wednesday time. In the end though I was well into Friday territory, time-wise. My guess for the exam was GPA, but that's not even an exam, is it? 🤣 I'm hopeless with American abbreviations, and there are no signs it will ever change. I suppose deep down I don't *want* to remember them - it's some irrational act of self-destructive cultural definace 🤪. Had I taken psychology classes at uni, I would understand this mechanism better 😉
@Andrzej It's a chancellor, not a prime minister, but you're right, the president is the one with a ceremonial role.
@Teresa I truly appreciate your effort to teach a lawyer and scholar of public administration about government terminology. Heads of governments are known by different names all over the world. "Prime minister" is the most common generic name. For example, the German Chancellor is a prime minister, generically speaking.
@Andrzej DEDE or Didi is a nickname for people with names that begin with D, most often but not always women. Same for Cece, Cici or Ceci, for the letter C. Benjamin Netanyahu is called Bibi for similar reasons. For some reason, this is not done for people whose names begin with P.
@Steve L That final line made me smile. The B guy didn't though...
Thank you all for the studies-related answer. Apparently your system is quite different than ours indeed.
@Andrzej Most US College students are also required to do "General Education" requirements, outside of their major field. Everyone has to take English Literature, and some history, and some math, and some art or music, even if that is not your major. I have a daughter who struggled and struggled with math. Basic College algebra was required for graduation. She was a business/marketing major, so no other math needed. She failed algebra the first two times. It was holding up her graduation! On the third try a wonderful, understanding professor said that if she came to every class, every tutoring session and took every exam she would pass. She did, and was able to graduate.
Loved this one! Jampacked with punny but very fair clues, and MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING came pretty quickly based on the clue and the partial fills, then it was just a question of grokking the gimmick. Get one, get them all. It must have been very tricky to find phrases or words containing national currencies which, when you replace the currency word with the letters ALL, still makes a valid word or phrase. I mean who *thinks* of something like this, then actually is able to *execute* it? I guess, someone who has written 189 previous NYT crosswords! Hats off to the constructor and here's to reaching 200.
Rhetorical question here, (and first time commenter) but why/how are people so upset or angry at a crossword puzzle? Don’t like it? OK.. there have been plenty I don’t like but why so acrimonious? Let it go, wait for the next one. Be thankful someone made the effort to help you enjoy your pastime. Peace
@John this is a question I've been asking for years here and I'm still not remotely close to an answer. What really gets me is when the acrimony extends - as it often does - beyond comments on the puzzle itself and into nastiness about the constructor as a person. I simply don't get it.
@John completely agree! I wonder if people are frustrated at the puzzle itself, or frustrated because they’ve ended their streak or didn’t like their solve time.
Let me be FRANC. I was in tRUBLE there for a BIT, but I was able to POUND through without too much aGUINEA. Did you feel the struggle was worth it? I certainly hoPESO :) PS: I LOLed at NERD for "Square One".
@Keith Alnwick REALly! So verYENcouraging. YUANswered the bell. But MARK my words, the BUCK stops here.
@Keith Alnwick ThereZLOTYou out there who didn't know all the foreign currencies. EUROkay, I LEK you just the same. (This post is dedicated to Andrzej.)
I believe this was the first Thursday puzzle I've solved with no hookups! Yay me!
@Rob @ad absurdum I love when a post so eloquently matches the username. Congratulations on your first! May it be the first of many.
I was pondering the clue for 8D and suddenly… I saw ESAU!
@Mike R Was he by the seesaw? Just wondering. ...
Spectacular concept – not that I got ALL of it, only half. I danced around the grid, but once I got EVERYTHING and had the C in place, MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING wrote itself. From there, I caught on to the currencies and changed "all" OVER to WON OVER. This should have tipped me off to the second – and best– part of the gimmick. But I didn't take the time to stop and ponder. My loss! My mind is really blown by the creativity of this puzzle. Thank you, Mr. Kahn! I only wish I had done it justice and taken the time to think... (But one thing I do think of when I see MONEY in a puzzle is this: <a href="https://youtu.be/ETxmCCsMoD0?si=3JgX4sPwDSP8rVvC" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/ETxmCCsMoD0?si=3JgX4sPwDSP8rVvC</a>)
@sotto voce Ha, and I think of this! <a href="https://youtu.be/wTP2RUD_cL0?si=bDwrsfjmNzMkIoKw" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/wTP2RUD_cL0?si=bDwrsfjmNzMkIoKw</a> I had WON OVER as my first complete themer and immediately understood WON as the currency of [Korea]. (Both Koreas? I don't know!) It took me forever to figure out what the MONEY CHANGES *to*! Head slap. That's what I get for late-night solving! Thanks for the earworm! :)
@sotto voce Here's another one for you. Just came on the radio! In the opening bars, I immediately thought of the puzzle. It's no ORDINARY tune - rather such a classic love song by another* great chanteuse! (Cyndi is a great singer, IMHO.) ☺️ <a href="https://youtu.be/_WcWHZc8s2I?si=B3xnehz8zAJqJVox" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/_WcWHZc8s2I?si=B3xnehz8zAJqJVox</a>
Solved it once I clued into the hint (currency), but I didn't get the 'all' part until reading the write-up- wow, that takes it to a whole other level, and explains why the answers kind of worked, but not quite... thanks for the fun Thursday wordplay.
Yet another example of a theme so obscure and artsy that it's basically useless to the vast majority of solvers. If it's way easier to just complete the puzzle without trying to suss out the theme, it's not a good theme, IMO.
@Dan The vast majority of comments did not complain about the theme. It’s ok not to like a puzzle, but don’t make assumptions about everyone else, especially contrary to the evidence.
@Dan, what do you know about the vast majority of solvers? I'd venture to say it's not much. I've been solving for DECADES, as have many others here. Not understanding the theme doesn't mean the puzzle is useless, or garbage. It just means I personally didn't catch on. How is that useless, or threatening, to you? Maybe open your mind a bit; it might make a difference in future solves.
Francly, it's enough to give your colon krones. I found it centsless but the grupees find it sterling. So many shilling comments. Forint stance, a rial puzzle would not rely on Rube Goldberg-esque highlighting, asterisks, synonyms and substitution. A gold-standard puzzle stands on its own without device or artifice. A quality puzzle doesn't need to function like an escape room. One should not have to be a yegg or a peterman to sol ve it. Throw off your shekels and let the NYTs know they're being pennywise and pound foolish. Don't be a loonie, buck the system! We baht in, so ask for your money's worth in quality puzzles and a quality comments platform! [đồng] Sorry, It's time for dinar.
Even understanding the theme and reveal, this puzzle was atrocious
Themeless Thursday for me. Solved it. Stared at it. Got mad at myself for STILL not getting the theme. And then came here to read about it. Any further comment I would make would be unfair to the constructor. It's not his fault I couldn't see his theme.
@DYT "It's not his fault I couldn't see his theme." Thanks for saying that. I only halfway got the theme (I missed the everything/all bit). But that's my fault, not David Kahn's.
Theme aside, I found the clueing completely baffling. I wasn't anywhere near the wavelength of the constructor on this one. Can't remember the last time i struggled with a puzzle this much.
I cannot tell a lie. I finished—eventually, and with a few look-ups—but still didn’t understand the tricky theme until I read the column. You got me, David Kahn, fair and square. Thanks for the nice clear explanation, Mr. Aronow.
@Shari Coats Great way to make a comment indicating that you were puzzled by the puzzle. Much better than the three commenters who followed you.
I found this puzzle right on the money, although the revealer didn’t help me solve the puzzle. Only after completing the puzzle did I spot the embedded currencies (some of which were unknown to me). As always, I appreciated the musical answers (ELO, ONELOVE). The revealer also had a musical connection as Money Changes Everything, is song by new wave band The Brains, made popular by Cindy Lauper’s cover version.
@Marshall Walthew I thought of The Smiths. MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING: <a href="https://youtu.be/05lON3j1FH8?si=X2HJx9_uJNR8MgCq" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/05lON3j1FH8?si=X2HJx9_uJNR8MgCq</a>
@Marshall Walthew Marley was a gimme; ELO was a wild - and apparently accurate - guess... confirmed by ONE LOVE! Cyndi helped me grok the revealer pretty quickly, so here she is: <a href="https://youtu.be/cMVuRGw_a5A?si=M86_9ikyl7-dxUkm" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/cMVuRGw_a5A?si=M86_9ikyl7-dxUkm</a> @Nancy J. TIL that The Smiths had a track by the same name-! I (still) have the original album from 1986. Plus a CD of the same I picked up in the 90's. According to Wikipedia, "Money Changes Everything" wasn't released until 2017...
Add me to the list of those who solved the "moneychanger" clues entirely through their crosses and required the Gameplay column to splain me what the theme is. Feeling simultaneously dense (not TOO complex, after all), disappointed (uber-groany wordplay, if you ask me) and ultimately sanguine about the ease of this Thursday solve.
@Matt I missed the everything/all aspect of the theme, probably because I was falling asleep when I solved it before bed. Like you, I feel a bit dense about missing the theme. On the other hand, I solved the puzzle in a respectable time. I know there are some here who think that if you correctly fill in the grid but don’t fully grasp the theme, you haven’t “solved the puzzle.” There’s some validity to that argument, but I ultimately disagree with it.
A few poor clue / answer pairings today. SUER is not a thing. HES as a plural is not a thing. “That’s the pits” for UGH was pretty weak. And the EZER / DEDE sandwich was absurd with citations of humans no one had heard of. I solved without assistance because Ms. Allen has been misused this way before, but not without a lot of grumbling.
@Mark S agree on all fronts. That south-east corner was a total mess, two obscure humans and some sort of test, all mixed in together. Some ghastly clues too. Shoddy work imo, even if the theme was solid and I got it midway
Ms. Allen grumbled in previous grids? I missed that.
@Mark S Actually some of us had heard of former Israeli President Ezer Weizman. And why shouldn’t film editors get their day in the sun of the puzzle? This puzzle was brilliant and fun!
Oh I liked this ... I left the theme clues blank at first, but once the crosses had given me STANDTRIAL -- and I knew rial was currency -- that gave me the MONEY part of the revealer, it all clicked. (Or, should I say, it dollar clicked?) Turns out I didn't have a clue what currency Costa Rica uses. Also had roam before ROVE, but "mn_ user" seemed unlikely; else before ISNT, but I was sure enough of MINORIN that I deleted the across. And I would have guessed UCLA but decided I wasn't sure enough of the answer... Love the clue for NERD. And having sung Carmen (just in choir, but we did a semi-staged version with solos done by actual opera people), I really wanted TORERO to be-ador instead. Ah well. Also, now I have that going through my head -- <a href="https://youtu.be/YUBxaK9T5II" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/YUBxaK9T5II</a>
@Isabeau I've learned to wait to fill in the last two letters for 4-letter R words about traveling or wandering because it's a toss up whether the answer will be ROam or ROVE. I put in UCLA at first but then took it out and put it back a bunch of times before finally getting the SE section. Same as you, I knew TOREador but not TORERO, so that was confusing too.
@Isabeau My solve almost exactly! (Except the singing bit, haha.) Immediately I thought of UCLA (my partner offered up Yale) and ELO but held off putting them in because they were wild guesses, tempered by knowledge of crosswordese... I knew a surprising number of the currencies. Definitely not the Costa Rican one!
Good theme. The rest not so much. A bath room is not a loo. There is no bath in a loo.
@Lauren In fact, a loo is not even a room. The loos, with an "s" might be a room. But it would be worrying if there were a bath in there.
@Lauren Americans say “bathroom” all the time to mean a room with a toilet (and not necessarily a bath).
@Roberta The same is the case in Polish - "łazienka" (bathroom, literally) may mean either a bath or a toilet.
@Lauren The other Steve hit it right on the head but apparently was just guessing. The separated words [Bath room] indicate that it’s not just literally a bathroom, but rather, Bath is a signal that we’re in England. Arguing that LOO isn’t a room, just the toilet itself is beyond pedantic. Have you ever seen one out in the open?
@Jane W. I think "restroom" comes from our aversion to explicitly mentioning bodily functions. We use "restroom" more commonly in public settings, where we don't expect a bathtub or shower to be part of the setup, and if we are talking about the full setup in a private home, we might call it either a restroom or a bathroom, depending on one's preferences. Counting how many such facilities there are in a home is real estate lingo; a full bath contains a tub; a three-quarters bath (less commonly used) may imply a shower but no tub, a half bath is a powder room, with just a toilet and a sink, and (disgustingly) a quarter bath is just the toilet (I assume and hope there's a sink conveniently located in the vicinity). Full bath and half bath have become ordinary vernacular here.
@Jane W. Lavatory is a euphemism, too; it literally means washroom. But if you didn't use the other fixture there first, you could get by with just the kitchen sink for hand washing. Here, "toilet" means the specific fixture and not usually the whole room. Using "toilet" to mean the whole room is considered crass. But it's fine for the fixture, although we can call it a commode (funny, since the Spanish "cómoda" means bureau or dresser). With children, we can call it the potty.
My reaction to the southeast corner. <a href="https://youtu.be/wRnSnfiUI54?feature=shared" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/wRnSnfiUI54?feature=shared</a>
@Tom I concur!!! I threw my phone, more than once, (but it was ok, I was in bed). But I got there in the end, whew! Live long, and prosper, all...I guess you have, Mr. Khan, 190 puzzles is impressive!
@Tom, Brilliant! Wish I could give it more recommends! 😂
Fun theme once I figured it out. Made me feel like a genius when I explained it to my mom and fiancé and they both looked at me like I had three heads
I thought the theme was clever but it's tough to suss out if you're not current with your currencies. Crossers were fairly generous, though I thought the SE was somewhat tricky. Far from the worst Thursday I've done but not particularly memorable either.
@Hugh I had the exact same reaction. I was eventually able to complete the puzzle after struggling with some of the currencies and making some lucky guesses in the SE. But, yeah, not my favorite.
I solved the puzzler without a clue about what was happening with the money until very late in the game, but I never spotted the national currencies even then. A couple of clues were especially fun—Brother hood, which I got right away, and Square one, which I didn't. All in all, an enjoyable puzzle, but I'm worried that we're being set up for a killer Friday. Thank you, David Kahn, and I'm sure you'll keep up the good work without any help from me. A hundred and ninety puzzles?? Words fail me. Your head must be going a mile a minute, full tilt, all the time.
@Dutchiris I just wanted to remind you that because of the current glitch, if you want a reply to be visible to everyone, you have to reply to the original poster of the thread. You can delete his name in the @ line and replace it with the person to whom you would like to direct your reply. I'm mentioning this because in another thread, a reply you posted wasn't visible to me. The only way I knew you had posted was that someone else replied to you by name. I don't want to miss any of your comments!
@Dutchiris to Steve L Thank you for the heads up. I couldn't figure out what was happening when some comments appeared/disappeared/reappeared. And thanks also for your generous compliment. I look forward to your comments and replies too!
The ingenuity of constructors astounds me. That's why they earn the big colons! (enlarged?) Although I could do without the image of the furry guy in the sauna. Breakfast test anymore?
@ad absurdum I don't remember ever noticing- EL EM EN (t).
@JohnWM And here I thought I knew every potter in NB! (You replied to my reply instead of my OP, right?)
ad absurdum, Yup. OPQ you did, at the hidden replies, using the time-stamp trick?
Are you kidding me? I went to all the trouble of running the alphabet to get “OPQ” for the incredibly lame “oh, peek you..” and then also wrote out the “you” by mistake?
Popping in to say that the puzzle was a feat of construction *and* fun to solve, which, as ye other puzzling veterans will back me up, aren’t always synonymous. Also, I’m heartened to revisit the forum and see the ideological fray of earlier today deleted by the mods. NYT emus, you did right by Wordplay today.
@Sam Lyons Your second paragraph surprises me. I would have expected you to be in support of such discussions despite their irrelevance to the puzzle. We’re all free to skip comments that don’t interest us for whatever reason.
@Sam Lyons What did I miss? Was it Israel or South Africa? I see that the DENALI thread is still alive. TIL EZER Weizman served in the RAF in WWII, and was trained as a fighter pilot. He may or may not have shot down an RAF plane over Egypt in 1949, ironically while flying a Spitfire.
@Sam Lyons @Eric @Grant That discussion must have really gone off the rails! I saw some of it before going out for my morning walk, had intended to return and read it. I wonder if the ViewAllReplies/invisible-comments glitching exacerbated the heat of the discussion? Because missing some of the comments means missing some of the nuances and some of the train of thought. Grant, it started with someone feeling triggered by the inclusion of any Israeli political figure, Ezer in this case.
@Eric H Expressing surprise at Sam being happy about a post being removed.
Clever puzzle. Didn't get the theme till I read the explanation though 🤣
Any puzzle with SULU in it is okay by me. A perfectly fine puzzle, though not really a Thursday. Anyways, fell down a rabbit hole with DEDE Allen, who had a very interesting life and career. Anyone interested in movie history should check out her Wikipedia entry. Besides Dog Day Afternoon, she also edited Bonnie and Clyde and Reds, among others. Here's the famous Attica scene from Dog Day Afternoon. <a href="https://youtu.be/lB6Gk5EtunI?si=COPn6VhhDhzJq1N_" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/lB6Gk5EtunI?si=COPn6VhhDhzJq1N_</a>
@Vaer Thanks for sharing that. I watched it with the sound off so as not to wake my husband, and it’s nicely cut. I remember when we saw “Dog Day Afternoon” in the theater, I thought Pacino overplayed his part. On subsequent viewings, I’ve come to enjoy his performance more. The 1970s were such a golden age for Hollywood. Off to Wikipedia!
@Vaer Filmed just up the street from me! (And I think maybe you, too...) Though the bank was long gone by the time I moved to this end of the neighborhood. Three excellent films. Time to visit Wikipedia, like @Eric said, and make a viewing playlist!
@G Roughly 12 blocks and an avenue, though I was not around when the movie was filmed. I turned 18 in 1975 and it was one of the first "grown-up" films I saw. The Wikipedia article on the making of the movie is also interesting.
@Vaer 22 minutes ago, I made the "mistake" of replying to your reply. (Sometimes it works just fine!) So now I am reposting as a reply directly to your OP in the hopes it displays without having to tap the timestamp... (UGH!) @Vaer All uphill for me. :) I was too young in 1975 to know of Dog Day Afternoon, but a few* years later, the very first "grown-up" movie I saw was another iconic NYC film, Fame. (1980 in suburban Boston, the first R-rated movie I saw without a parent present. I forget now how we got in...)
Whew. This one was very challenging for me, but eminently fair. Took me 84% longer than usual. Could be because I'm tired and would have done better in the morning. Still, I persisted and finally finished with no lookups. It was nice that the revealer came so early in the puzzle, so I knew the theme had to do with MONEY, but it took forever to get CHANGES and EVERYTHING, and I didn't know most of the currencies, so didn't understand what money had to do with the answers. Things started to click with WONOVER. I recognized WON as currency, but still didn't know what I was supposed to do with it. Forgot that Palladium was an element and kept trying to think of words for theater or ballroom, so that and a few others in the NE slowed me down. Didn't know the two names in the SE and had SAT instead of GRE for the longest time. Once I finally figured out the NE and SE, the complete revealer "revealed" itself, and I caught on to the currency words replacing ALL to understand the theme. Loved "Square one" for NERD. And now I have Cyndi Lauper stuck in my head!
@Beth I got the MONEY, looked at the shaded squares, did a little counting and knew what the full revealer was...all because of Cyndi Lauper!
Not to be a yeller, but the suer might want a retitler. But the puzzle? This one was money, maker.
I’ve spent so much time working closely with Brits over the years that I had come to UTILIZE UTILISE as natural, so I had to stare at 42D for a long time before swapping in the Z to hear the music.
Surprised to see so much positive commentary today. That was brutal for me. Very frustrating. Even after getting the revealer, I couldn’t grasp how to apply it to the theme answers, and a lot of the other clues were not on my wavelength. Not a good performance for me today!
@Tammy in Toronto That happens to me often, on Thursdays. It's ok to fail on a Thursday. That's the thing about tricks - we are all good at dealing with some, but few of us can handle them all 🙂
@Tammy in Toronto I won't say it happens to all of us, because I'm sure it never happens to some of the people on this forum. For us mere mortals, however, falling on one's face is something we risk every time we start a puzzle. That's what makes it interesting, I've decided.
Awesome puzzle! It was super satisfying going from completely bewildered by the theme, to noticing the currencies but still being bewildered by the clues, to getting the revealer phrase but still not clicking, to the penny finally dropping! Very clever and lots of fun - many thanks David!
@Alex Yes! I also enjoy those incremental reveals and had the same experience with this puzzle.
If you'd like another tricky Thursday, I highly recommend today's Brendan Emmett Quigley puzzle, "Going Too Far." It took me a bit to get some of the answers even after figuring out the trick. But the payoff is worth it. And then, go read my review at Diary of a Crossword Fiend. <a href="https://www.brendanemmettquigley.com" target="_blank">https://www.brendanemmettquigley.com</a> <a href="https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/05/21/thursday-may-22-2025/#bq" target="_blank">https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/05/21/thursday-may-22-2025/#bq</a>
I solved it and understood the currency part but didn’t know about ALL until I read the column which makes the clues more sensible.
I can appreciate this puzzle in the write up, but I really hated this one. Found it near impossible. I should probably know world currencies better, but even when I figured out that was one of the tricks, I still couldn’t figure out what the answers meant anyway. I also didn’t like the theme clue, the phrase isn’t really something I attribute specifically to getting rich quickly but more just changing how much money you have. It both felt too obvious for the phrase and too much of a stretch for everything to replace all. Words I didn’t know even when I got them right: -EMIGRE (emigrant, sure, but not this spelling) -ELO -DEDE -EZER -ORR -PHIL -EINE -DENNIS Overall: woof. Total slog.