I’d be happy if I never see another non-descript sound like BLEH in a puzzle again. Seems like the lowest kind of filler.
@Peabody Yes! Similar to all the conversation bits they insert now. Lazy.
@Peabody while I dont like non description sounds in puzzles, I still have an irrational hatred for "playground retort" which irks me more
@Peabody Sometimes a constructor has to settle for a marginal word to avoid blowing up and reworking a whole sector of a puzzle.
@Peabody BADASSERY didn't bother you? Multiple references to butts?
@Peabody I like these. Changes in these utterances mark the evolution of guttural sounds over time, and it is likely that different sub-cultures employ different such sounds!
@Peabody I actually enjoy these and find them fresh, even sparkling sometimes. To each their own, I suppose.
Crossing BLEH with LIPO is kinda .....
100 DAY STREAK!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 Proud (and embarrassed) to say this is one of my finest accomplishments. Going for 365!
@Harry A remarkable cyber-community of which to be a part!
@Harry That's awesome! I'm at 394 and doing the daily crossword is consistently the best habit I have every day!
Delightful! A few moony poems by Li Po. STILL NIGHT THOUGHTS Moonlight in front of my bed -- I took it for frost on the ground! I lift my eyes to watch the mountain moon, lower them and dream of home. (Burton Watson, trans.) MOUNTAIN DRINKING SONG To drown the ancient sorrows, we drank a hundred jugs of wine there in the beautiful night. We couldn't go to bed with the moon so bright. The finally the wine overcame us and we lay down on the empty mountain— the earth for a pillow, and a blanket made of heaven. (Sam Hamill, trans.) ZAZEN ON CHING-T'ING MOUNTAIN The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. (Hamill) DRINKING ALONE UNDER THE MOON I take my wine jug out among the flowers to drink alone, without friends. I raise my cup to entice the moon. That, and my shadow, makes us three. But the moon doesn't drink, and my shadow silently follows. I will travel with moon and shadow, happy to the end of spring. When I sing, the moon dances. When I dance, my shadow dances, too. We share life's joys when sober. Drunk, each goes a separate way. Constant friends, although we wander, we'll meet again in the Milky Way. (Hamill)
@john ezra Mountain Drinking Song is especially beautiful. Thank you.
@john ezra You beat me to it. Here is a longer one A Poem of Changgan. It begins: My hair had hardly covered my forehead. I was picking flowers, playing by my door, When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse, Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums. We lived near together on a lane in Ch’ang-kan, Both of us young and happy-hearted. ...At fourteen I became your wife, So bashful that I dared not smile, And I lowered my head toward a dark corner And would not turn to your thousand calls; But at fifteen I straightened my brows and laughed, Learning that no dust could ever seal our love, That even unto death I would await you by my post And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching. ...Then when I was sixteen, you left on a long journey Through the Gorges of Ch’u-t’ang, of rock and whirling water. . . The whole poem is here: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56596/a-poem-of-changgan" target="_blank">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56596/a-poem-of-changgan</a>
@john ezra This line made me shiver (in a good way): “We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.” And @Al, this imagery: “ on a bamboo horse, (…) trotting in circles and throwing green plums.” Thank you both for giving me a dreamy start to my day.
@john ezra Your comment is why entries containing the name of “some obscure poet” are really so much more. Thanks for posting these.
When I worked in a public library many years ago, I never got a request for a book about a Scottish artist named McEscher, but I did get one from a mother helping her seventh grader out with a report for a book about a French artist who lived ca. 1890-1910 named Art Noview.
@Fact Boy Traveling through Texas, I really did see Cocoa Van on a menu. Loved it.
@Fact Boy when I was a TA for a music appreciation class, the students had to do concert reports. One student wrote, in his description of one of the pieces at the performance he attended, "The artist was W.C." (The composer was Debussy.) 😂
Challenging for a Tuesday! Fun theme that took some thinking, and it reminds me of my fifth grade teacher, who had a very memorable way of ensuring that we would never call our socks "holy" when they started to fall apart. BOLT down? As someone who, ahem, eats at a pace that some would consider uncivilized, I am certainly familiar with WOLFING, SCARFING, or GULPING down your food. Never heard of BOLTING it though. (Please don't reply with a link showing its common usage, I already Googled it.) BLEH also tripped me up for a minute or two.
@Michael B. I found it challenging for a Tuesday, as well. I needed two cheats, (DDT banner (I had in mind the wrong meaning for 'banner' and so was stumped, trying to remember who DDT was) and LOCO, not 'lolo', which intersected a sports question, which I didn't know "AFC"). Bleh fell easily, once I cheated on 'EPA'. It was fun anyway. (It would have been even more fun on a Wednesday.)
@Michael B. My mom called a slotted spoon a “holey” spoon, and for much of my childhood, I thought it was blessed by the priest!
@Michael B. Definitely WOLF But it was the mid-west that added double-digits to my time, as I had USA instead of EPA
@Michael B. Bolting is in common use in BrEnglish, unlike scarfing!
@Michael B. This (mostly) Southwesterner knows BOLT only from crossword puzzles. (OK, I’m sure I’ve read it somewhere at some point as well, but clearly I blocked it out.) As a kid, I scarfed things down—still do around old friends. In the wider circle, where I don’t get slangy, I gulp things down. Bolting down is the domain of things bought at Home Depot.
@Michael B. Agreed. And way over my average Tuesday time. The clueing for BOLT was all sorts of wrong. DDT banner also did not make sense as BLEH is not really used.
@Michael B. Yeah, there has to be a dozen better clues for BOLT, but the constructor or editor was just trying to deke us into to writing "wolf".
If you define BRIE as gooey spread, we must be eating very different cheese. This one unfortunately wasn’t for men on several accounts, too tough for a Tuesday and lacked charm.
I really need to learn how to proofread my own comments. I hope men don't have anything against this puzzle, which wasn't for me.
@Sonja I can only guess that it’s an Americanism: they so rarely actually see the full cheese itself (only ever seeing it when gooey, fresh from the oven) that they don’t connect it to once being a solid cheese. I remember seeing on IronChef a good few years ago that ground/minced beef was called ‘hamburger’.
@Sonja I was trying to put my finger on it, and "lacked charm" is exactly what I felt after finishing this one. The BRIE clue indeed was extremely odd. Fine theme I suppose, and nothing awful to complain about. I'm happy for the morning diversion, so thanks to the setter as always!
@Beldegraded Americans rarely see the full cheese? Srsly? You know this how?
@Beldegraded It's ground beef in the US; minced beef in the UK. You could call it hamburger meat in the US, but that's informal. In the supermarket, it's always ground beef.
@Sonja I found “spread” for BRIE to be a little unfair. It’s a cheese, period. Spreads come in a tub or a bowl.
Caaaaaaaaar was awesome. Reminded me of a Far Side cartoon. Cows in a pasture, standing upright, smoking cigarettes and drinking. One yells, “Car!” Second frame, the car is diving by ans someone yells, “Cows!” Cows are all back on all fours, chewing grass. Happy Tuesday all!
@CCNY Thank you for this—Gary Larson is pure genius. I, too, giggled at that clue.
N.B. The cartoonist is not the constructor.
@CCNY Ha! I just posted that above in Nancy J's comment. <a href="https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/416020084319109012" target="_blank">https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/416020084319109012</a>/
@CCNY I also thought of the Far Side cartoon when I saw that clue! It took me longer to figure out the answer because I was stuck thinking about the cartoon. 😂
Very surprised by all the objections to BLEH and BOLT, neither of which is new to me. If anything, I’d have expected protests over BRIE being referred to as a “gooey spread”. But no complaints here. As far as I’m concerned, any puzzle that features BADASSERY is fine by me!
Haha. Almost got me. I had BLaH (which I was pretty confident with), no clue on LI_O, and was not seeing the alternate meaning of banner (that which bans). After running the alphabet on that square and getting nothing, and looking through the rest of the puzzle like 4 times and seeing nothing wrong, I eventually changed BLaH to BLEH and finally figured out what was going on. I thought I was going to lose my 467 day streak on a Tuesday! I think my last streak break happened on a Wednesday. You’d think it would be a later-week puzzle that did me in, but sometimes there’s a section in an easier puzzle that just catches you.
@Jeb Jones I feel like making a copyright claim, as I came here to post pretty much EXACTLY the same experience! Overall an excellent puzzle, but those three clues have me a lot of game. So far Sunday Monday and today have had no googling for anything (which for me usually means no baseball or NFL clues that can't be solved with crosses). Let's see how I go for the rest of the week.
@Jeb Jones, this fellow Jones had the exact same experience?! Is it a Jones thing?! 😆 Literally ran through the alphabet, then changed BLaH to BLEH and then saw that EPA worked. 😅 phew!
Nice theme. Reminds me of the year I got small Jarlsbergs as a stocking filler: Holey baby cheeses!
This was a Tuesday puzzle!? To that I say BLEH, whatever that means.
This was too hard for a Tuesday, IMO. I filled the grid in Wednesday time, and with one lookup. I struggled in several places, especially around LIPO, whom I've never heard about (neither her/him or that book). I have no idea why duck-hunting hangout solves to BLIND (some help, please?), I wanted OHmy rather than OH NO, and "caaaar" completely stumped me (I only got it when crosses revealed it. The fact there are no stretch limos on European streets may be the reason. Audi A8L is the longest sort of car one sees around here). I only got out of this mess by looking up LIPO. I can only imagine how much more still I'd have been confused there had I not known about HOLI FESTIVAL and EPA. BRIE clued as a spread confused me, too. I eat it like the French - I cut bits off and put them in my mouth. I've never literally spread a French cheese on anything in my life. I may sometimes go Polish and put it on bread, but I don't spread it even then. I've just read up on brie-eating in the US. You cut off the rind??? You spread it on *crackers*? Ye gods... I suppose I knew about the crackers things from a previous puzzle, but I must have repressed the factoid as very alien and slightly disturbing to me. DEB made me shrug. Americans will shorten everything, won't they. Or was this just crosswordese, like RETOOLS and RETAG? Also, I wonder what Deb Amlen thought of this 🤣 The theme was OK, and it helped me solve. Still, I would have preferred this puzzle to run on Wednesday.
I just learned from a post below that I do in fact know Li Po, but spelled as Li Bai. I had no idea those could be the same person - the transcription is so different!
@Andrzej A duck BLIND is a structure that people hunting ducks hide in or behind while waiting for the ducks to show up so they can shoot them. RETOOL is a legitimate thing. I don't know how other Americans eat Brie, but the people I know will let it age and then serve at room temperature so the insides are runny (gooey) and eat it, including the rind, on a cracker or a slice of baguette.
@Vaer Thank you. I keep trying to think if I know what that sort of blind is called in Polish but nothing comes to me. Poland has its hunting lingo, of course, but I'm not familiar with it - few things are as alien to me as hunting. I just can't understand how anybody can possibly enjoy killing animals. I wish they would shoot back... I understand populations of some species need to be controlled for ecological reasons, but I still don't get why anybody would want to actually do the deed.
@Andrzej I eat brie, with the rind, on warm French baguette. But Président makes a spreadable brie, without the rind, perhaps only for the American market? It comes in a small tub, much like Philadelphia cream cheese.
@sotto voce How can it even *be* brie without the rind? Ripening for weeks in its rind is an essential characteristic of brie, and so it would be considered false advertising to sell a non-rind-ripened cheese as brie over here. The cheese brand President is known in Poland, too, and they do sell a spreadable cream cheese, but it's not called brie (President-brand brie wedges cut from wheels, and small camembert wheels, both with rind, are available).
@Andrzej I agree that spreadable brie in a tub sounds horrifying, but if you go to the President website, it is a thing they make and sell in the US.
@Vaer Maybe it should be called "I can't believe it's not BRIE" 🤣 (I could quite easily believe it though). I was so amazed by the American brands of non-dairy spreads when I first went to a US supermarket! Over here it is illegal to use "butter" in the product name of anything that does not contain at least 82% milk fats. "I can't believe it's not butter" would be a no-go.
@Andrzej I actually forgot it's Tuesday and thought i was solving the Wednesday puzzle 🙃 😅
@Andrzej I too was startled by the word spread used to describe BRIE. The horror. Here I can get Brie de Meaux, an unpasteurized piece of heaven. Mmmmmm. A spread with no rind, there are hardly words...
@John I'm not saying transcription isn't tricky. Believe me, I know just how tricky it can be - I've tried transcribing Polish into English here often enough. What I am saying is: there is no way to guess the alternative transcription if you are only familiar with one. @Nora It's so rare to find unpasteurized milk cheeses here! I'm happy for you having easier access to them 👍🏾 @Divs I can't blame you!
@Andrzej Sure, on a warm day you *can* spread Brie. But being able to spread something does not make it a spread! Though as per your other replies, it seems that the supermarket Brie brand "Président" does in fact sell a "Créme de Brie" spread. 'The rich and creamy essence of brie without the rind', they say. Just don't tell the French.
@Nora I love to do voiceovers for our Jorge the Lab. In them he speaks like a loveable rascal slash gentleman - he never utters profanities, and when he does curse, it's always mild expletives in either old Polish, Spanish or French, preferebaly with a resounding R in them. Carramba and Sacre bleu are among his (well, my) favorites :D I myself tend to cuss like a sailor, which I learned from my late mother: published author, respected professor and university administrator, and high-ranking public servant :D
@Andrzej I always smirk and do a high five with the animals when I hear about a drunk hunter falling out of a blind or doing a Dick Cheney to his hunting buddy. Hunting for food = fine Hunting for "sport" = grotesque
@Andrzej Americans eat American cheese a lot, including my wife. When she brings it into the home, I go, "Why???" But she likes it, even though it wouldn't even qualify as cheese in Europe. But we occasionally also eat BRIE. Baked brie is a common way to eat it, and since I don't like the taste of the rind, it works well for me, as I can avoid it. The brie is placed in an baking dish, and you heat the whole thing up until it is gooey. There is usually fruit on the top, notably figs, caramelized apples or pears, or berries. Served this way, brie is definitely a spread. <a href="https://entertainingwithbeth.com/baked-brie-with-fig-jam" target="_blank">https://entertainingwithbeth.com/baked-brie-with-fig-jam</a>/
@Steve L I mean, prepared a specific way, anything can be a spread, but sure, you do have a point: crossword clues are not definitions, and it's ok if they work on only some level. Still, clueing brie as a spread threw those who eat it the way its original makers intended, which is a bit bleh. As Li Bai would put it: I drink wine in the moonlight And admire the morning dew Baked brie melts before me And I spread it on my crackers
@Andrzej When observing (not hunting) ducks or any other creatures I would use a 'hide' - a camouflaged place that the animals have got used to, so will congregate as they usually do.
@Andrzej My point is that for many Americans, their first association to BRIE is in the baked, runny, gooey version; it's the Europeans who are more likely to eat it in solid form. (Note: that doesn't mean that many Americans don't eat it that way.)
Saturday's too easy, Tuesday's too hard; This clue is cheesy, That one's a bard.
Nice job by Ginny TOO. Or was it Ginny TWO? Or was it Ginny TO? Or was it Ginny TÚ?
@Steve L Terrible twos, eh, Steve? Think we got ourselves a puzzle theme.
Stealing a few minutes to work this puzzle. It's our 55th anniversary, and even though we're not celebrating intensely, I'm glad the puzzle was not more difficult and is quickly done. Thank you, Ginny Too. It was worth coming for.
@Here at Home What a milestone! Congrats!
@Here at Home Congratulations. Coincidentally, my divorce was 55 years ago almost to the day.
@Here at Home Happy anni. Emeralds are the suggested gift for your 55th. Our 48th is soon, and the suggested gift is feldspar. A few years ago, it was groceries. Who comes up with these things? (Yes, I was an infant bride. Of course. Snickering, eye-rolling emoji here.)
HOLY smokes, this was crunchy, but it made for a WHOLLY terrific Tuesday. Thank you, Ginny Too! For those who were thinking I might post Bowie for some glam rock, the logic is fair but somewhat HOLEY. I give you Roxy Music instead: ;-) <a href="https://youtu.be/bpA_5a0miWk?si=p915g6G4N2pqUvv_" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/bpA_5a0miWk?si=p915g6G4N2pqUvv_</a>
@sotto voce I was hoping for Dance Away, but Avalon works too.
@sotto voce Avalon!!! One like button is not enough.
@sotto voce Nice leap for Glam Rock. I was thinking more on the nose with Neil Diamond's Holly Holy.
@Elizabeth Connors Just for you... :-) <a href="https://youtu.be/4nT1-eE2E0M?si=GakYcJb6CP2TaSK3" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/4nT1-eE2E0M?si=GakYcJb6CP2TaSK3</a> @Heidi Thanks! That whole album is timeless. Here it is: <a href="https://youtu.be/wwXtPu-iA4Q?si=G__6BGrzwr10T25z" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/wwXtPu-iA4Q?si=G__6BGrzwr10T25z</a> @Vaer Thank you! When I see/hear "glam rock," GEODE is not what comes to mind, so I couldn't pass it up! :-)
@sotto voce But, since yesterday, apparently, was Mick Ronson’s birthday <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bJO97AKDgH0" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bJO97AKDgH0</a>
@sotto voce Hey, back at you. They were so young then, and with their original teeth. 16 year old me too, at Philly’s Tower theater in 74 (just after he parted ways with Ronson, unfortunately). (Hope I’m doing this right to avoid whatever this week’s NYT commenting antagonism might be.)
Kudos to Joel Fagliano, whose mini crosswords so often amaze me with their wit and surprise. He takes command of that little box and transforms it into a gem, time after time, and once again, today. Bravo, sir.
I would have liked to like this one, but there were three or four clues that soured up the whole puzzle. His name is Li Bai, not "Li Po." BLEH was a travesty. No one BOLTs down a meal. HOLE puzzle felt '90s in a good way, though.
@P. I’m not a fan of bleh, but he is known as Li Po in the West and I’ve been using the term bolt for decades.
@P. Thank you for your post. I have just posted myself above, saying how I've never heard of LI PO. Apparently I have though - I just had no idea Li Bai (whom I know from a quote in Civilization the strategy video game, of all places) was the same person.
@P. I am BOLTing down my breakfast as I write this. A bit behind schedule! Super common term for eating quickly. Not slang, though, which might be the issue?
@P. The small wood carved statue I bought in China was identified as being LI PO
@P. I'm always amazed by the confidence of commenters who say, "No one says..." or "No one does..." I stand in awe of the research that must go into such confidence.
No problems with this one until the west edge. I’ve never heard of a duck BLIND, which is not the puzzle’s fault of course, but I still feel for a Tuesday puzzle a more conventional clue should have been given there, especially considering it is crossing the obscure LIPO and non-word BLEH.
Ginny has wit. She proved that in her last Times puzzle, a debut (Sunday 6/30/24), where her theme answers were hilarious, and it returned today, IMO, with three clues: [Xing user], [DDT banner], and [Caaaaaaar, you might say]. Add a revealer that is a punchline (and how many times in your life have you heard HOLY TRINITY as a punchline?), a terrific NYT debut answer in ALL GOOD, an artist I adore (ESCHER), animal cuteness in CAT and STOAT, plus the sweet serendipity that CHEESES rhymes with a member of the Holy Trinity – and I was highly entertained. This was a day lifter, Ginny, and thank you greatly for it. I am so hoping for more from you!
@Lewis What did the church mouse say to the field mouse? "I'd like to talk to you about CHEESES."
I really didn’t like this puzzle. Maybe I’m tired, but my first instinct was almost never correct, and I didn’t care for some of the cluing. I’m usually a 6-minute solver of Tuesday puzzles, and for some reason this one took me more than 11. It’s just a weird puzzle all around, in my opinion.
The theme was fine. Everything else bothered me, from brie to bleh to loco.
@Tim My favorite puzzles are the ones where “my first instinct was almost never correct.” We should be forced to ponder.
CAAAAAAAR immediately brought to mind playing stickball in the street on a warm summer day. Two things we would look out for: CAAAAAAARs and the Pied Piper man. He would hit the ball, and whoever caught it got a free ice cream. Loved the theme and the memory. Thanks, Ginny.
@Nancy J. Thanks so much for that pleasant memory jog! I, too, had a bit of a flashback to an interruption of a street football game because of a passing car. I was thinking about how primitive humans didn't have to interrupt their street football games because of a passing car. But, on the other hand, they did need to keep an eye on those leopards over there, and that's one nasty panther Trog saw. And don't even get me started on the raptors. ...pardon the digression... Anyway, thanks so much for the pleasant memory jog!
@Nancy J. There was this small, artificial hill in the middle of our part of town when I was growing up. We sledded down it in winter and rode our bikes off the steepest slope in summer. At the foot of the hill there was an alley, not really a proper street: it only provided access to a small car park in the courtyard between two buildings. These were the 1980s, when few people owned a car. I once narrowly escaped death under the wheels of a Fiat: my friend's scream of CAAAR came when I was already going too fast to stop. Fun times. That's the spot as it looks now: <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/k5AcvuzBMjVQ2fzz5" target="_blank">https://maps.app.goo.gl/k5AcvuzBMjVQ2fzz5</a> And here are some pictures I took there in 1993: <a href="https://ursynow.org.pl/himki-i-wielka-przygoda" target="_blank">https://ursynow.org.pl/himki-i-wielka-przygoda</a>/ The title photo was taken on the hill, and it is also in the background of the photo third to last. The dog was Max, a rescue who was with us 1989-2004. (the server for that website is really poor, so the article may take time to load, and a reload may be necessary if the pics don't show)
Nancy J. and all: Road hockey memory for me. Move the nets, stand to the side leaning on sticks à la Ken Dryden, the adventurous holding their sticks low so the car’s tires would drive over the blade but not break it. If the “nets” were just two piles of snow, then build new ones if the car crushed any. Time to go home soon if the car’s headlights were on.
@JohnWM Oh right, they did the street hockey thing in "Wayne's World." Car! (Move the net off the street. Replace the net.) Game on! I've played plenty of roller hockey, but always on a basketball court, never in the street, mostly because I've never lived in a city.
@Nancy J. Reminded me of this classic Far Side! <a href="https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/416020084319109012" target="_blank">https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/416020084319109012</a>/ :-)
As CNS says before me, "Poet written about in the Books of Tang" -- who has even HEARD of that reference? -- for LIPO instead of "weight reduction procedure, informally" is just too much badassery for a Tuesday puzzle. I liked the resst of it, though.
So there have many glitches with the comments recently, and a lot of discussion about them. I am curious-- -- Currently, I have a Games-only subscription to the NYT, although for a couple years (as a result of a promo), I have a full (digital) subscription. I assume that most, if not all, article-pages have a section on which readers can leave comments. My question is--are these glitches happening on all reader comment forums*, or just on Wordplay. Of course, the comments on this forum serve a different purpose from many--sort of a club-house for like-minded persons, on which to gather and play that Glass Bead Game we call Wordplay. We swap stories, opinions, songs, even recipes! We have *conversations*. Sometimes we argue, but in general the tone is positive, at least towards one another. Political commentary is kept to a minimum, and, when expressed, usually veiled. Of the core group of regular posters, when someone ceases to post, their absence is noticed. Does this sort of camaraderie happen on other articles or columns? I don't know, but I doubt it. So in that sense, we have different expectations from the NYT website than most readers.
@Bill (cont) The glitch that I have been noticing the most often happens when I view Wordplay on my (Android) phone app, or on my i-pad (but not my laptop): when I click on "View all replies," not only do they not appear, but the entire thread, including the origial post, disappears! Only by refreshing the page (which often takes a while) can I try over, with the timestamp trick. Now on to today's puzzle! *yes, yes, Mr. Latinate Plural, I know it's "fora."
Bill, Metropolitan Diary has a somewhat similar community of commenters. There may be others.
@Bill Yes, the problem with the display of the View All Replies button is across the entire NYT comments platform. Thanks for confirming the "disappearing thread" bug on an Android device. I see the same behavior on iPhone but was not able to confirm on that platform. From the responses that I and others have received from NYT customer support the problem with the VAR display was actually designed in by their developers. They clearly did not solicit user input on this one. Major fail.
@Bill (@BA) So is the Metropolitan Diary comments forum experiencing similar glitches?
Bill, Yes. This "enhancement" was NYT-wide, so the "benefits" accrue in all comments.
@Bill The Guardian in UK has similar friendly forums.
Lots of hate here for BLEH. Sometimes a constructor has to settle for a marginal word to avoid blowing up and reworking a whole sector of a puzzle, which can be a huge time suck. Constructing/editing is not as easy as some folks think it is.
@Ken We don't think it's easy; we just think that sometimes you are compelled to Undo and start over. Happens all the time in constructing quilts, I can attest.
Interesting to see several people who'd never heard the word BOLT associated with eating food in a hurry. Must be a Midwest colloquialism.
@Puzzled I live in Australia and I would say it is reasonably common here too.
@Puzzled I heard of it long before scarf.
@Puzzled I knew BOLT, but maybe my age is showing. Do emus bolt down their food?
@Puzzled Or Northeast, which is where I grew up? Maybe those people are too polite to eat fast, or simply never tasted anything worth bolting down. It’s a shame, really.
@Puzzled To the synonyms for eating fast, I would add “inhale.”
@Puzzled Nope. It is often said in New York City. WOLF, GULP, BOLT, SCARF, etc. are some others.
@Puzzled Born and raised a Wisconsinian and a decades-long Minnesota.... never heard of this.
Challenging for a Tuesday. Barely beat my average. I particularly enjoyed the clue for ERIE. There's more than one London in the world! Thanks!
@Jack McCullough I was thinking somewhere in France.
Jack, I liked the ERIE misdirection, but as noted here earlier, there seems to be a misdirection in the clue itself; London is only about 20 miles from the lake.
@Jack McCullough I am one of those people who from time to time doesn’t even read thru the clue…unless I need to I guess, which I didn’t because I already had the starting e from cheeses…so never even noticed the London part ;)
A very challenging crossword for a Tuesday. A lot of obscure answers clustered together with poor cluing makes for a frustrating solve. 1A Puccini heroine who “lived for art, lived for love” 2A Like the base-8 number system 3D Animal with chestnut-and-white fur There is a good possibility many people have never heard of the answers and this makes a horrid solve.
@Darren I agree this was a thought Tuesaday. I needed help in some areas. But... 1) Opera clues are pretty standard fare for NYT crossword,s and even I (who've never been to an opera) have heard of Tosca 2) Octopus, octet, etc. My objection to the clue is that base-8 is not "like" octal, it IS octal 3) "Stoat" is fairly common in the NYT crosswords.
@Joe The clue doesn’t say the base 8 number system is like OCTAL. It says that anything that is OCTAL is like the base 8 number system.
@Darren OCTAL was a gimme. But then I was a computer programmer on UNIVAC machines in the early 1970's where we had to read data dumps that were in OCTAL. My husband still teases me that I can do math in OCTAL as easily as in Decimal. It was true 50 years ago -- not so much now. But then IBM grew its monopoly and everything switched to hexadecimal. That's base 16. Much harder to do the math in your head. What is 2E * 3F?
This felt poorly constructed and unduly hard for a Tuesday :-/
If it felt unduly hard to you for a Tuesday, it felt unduly hard to you for a Tuesday. Your solve is your solve, but what do you know about puzzle construction?
Great fun, especially the almost pearl-clutching HOLEYCHEESES! Hand up for the original G.A.A.P clue.
Loved the theme, hated the multiple obscure clues on a Tuesday.
We were really just throwing junk against the wall with this one, huh?
I was surprised to see so many negative comments. I thought this puzzle was a bit crunchy but lots of fun to figure out, with a very clever theme. Thanks Ginny Too. Guess I’ll weigh in on the BOLT controversy too. I was definitely familiar with that usage.
Shari, I'm guessing that with the three-day weekend some of our fellow solvers were expecting a Monday puzzle.
@Barry Ancona That's not true for me. This is a tough Tuesday! Not complaining, but I came to the comments specifically to see if others thought it was a tough Tuesday.
@Shari Coats I solved 16 seconds (or 4.4%) faster than my Tuesday average, and didn't find anything unusual about the difficulty level when I was solving. The difficulty level is set to a solver who is familiar with the type of content found in the rest of the NYT and other literate sources. (If you're not that kind of a person, you are on an uphill climb.) So we understand [EPA banner] because: a. we know what the EPA is, b. we understand the punny meaning of "banner", c. and we remember or know what it was that the EPA banned many years ago. We know who LI PO was from either being familiar with his works, or merely because we've heard his name. We know what a STOAT is and that the giveaway in the clue is the white fur. We somehow know that duck hunters hide in a duck BLIND while hunting, even though we may never have done so ourselves. Also, rather than blaming the puzzle if we're not at this level yet, we learn from every answer we don't know and get better and better every time. There are still new things that I learn by solving puzzles. But I can always solve by using the crosses, or by inferring the missing letters using our knowledge base (e.g. House of Tang points to a Chinese--or at least East Asian--answer for LI PO). If you go through the week expecting every clue and answer to be like [Pet that meows]/CAT, you're going to be complaining a lot.
Holy Cow* Ginny, you had me right off the bat with TOSCA, which coincidentally was on PBS this past weekend. Another nicely Toughened Up Tuesday, which had me worried for a moment, because I did not know LI PO, and the tricky clue for EPA had me stymied for a bit. And Patty Lupone will always be EVITA to me. *RIP Phil Rizzuto.
@Vaer I always grit my teeth when someone calls "I Will Always Love You" a Whitney Houston song. And so I can see your point about EVITA being a Patti LuPone role, but the clue doesn't deny that. I read it as "a title role for Madonna," which is factually true. And I'm sure more people saw the movie than the musical. Besides that, given the clue, what else could the answer have been?
Susan? (As noted earlier by several others.)
@Steve L I know all about Madonna and EVITA the movie and was not saying the clue was wrong, in fact, EVITA was a gimme in that corner that helped me fill in other stuff, I just wanted to give a shout out to Patti.
@Vaer Well deserved. Probably the premier Broadway actress of her time.
I was nearly stumped by CPA. With my computer background, I assumed it was a CPU, which stands for central processing unit, the heart — probably better expressed as the brain — of a computer. (North of the border — not a line drawn arbitrarily with a ruler, by the way — CA, standing for “chartered accountant”, was, until fairly recently, the term used here.) But that left me wondering what on earth (off earth?) a FUE is. Google told me that it stands for “follicle extraction unit”, a method for addressing baldness. In conclusion, this was one hairy Tuesday puzzle.
Strudel Dad, If you check the users’ manual, I think you’ll find a CPU is also known as a bookkeeper. Although that may be debated, especially if any artificial intelligence reads this comment. :)
This took me 10 minutes longer than my average! Tough Tuesday for me. I spent almost 5 minutes flyspecking for my error and had the exact same experience as @Jeb Jones. That intersection of BLEH/EPA/LIPO almost had me lose my 1,418 day streak! Phew 😮💨😅 Thank you for this brain workout, Ginny! I appreciate a good challenge!
@Jacqui J IMPRESSIVE!
@Jacqui J I got to that one square between LI_O and a_A, but couldn't get anywhere. Wrong definition in my head for banner, of course, and BLaH. Had to peak at the answer key....
About a minute faster than my average for a streak of 2277. Only comment about the crossword, as others have mentioned, is that “fake” London, aka London, Ontario, Canada, is about 25 miles north of the shores of Lake ERIE and 75 miles from the southern shore. Perhaps the editor meant 120 km? Still, the answers had to be BRIE/ERIE but it felt weird.
An amazingly fun puzzle. TOSCA, ESCHER, and Lake ERIE in one grid? I felt as if I had come home. Not to mention the punny theme, and the bonus clever, misleading clues. And cheeeeese, Gromit! Too-too wonderful, Ginny. Let's see more from you soon!
@CNS Or you could say, "wow I learned something about poetry today!"
"BOLT" down? Not so sure about that one. I had "CHOW", which fit the space, and slowed me down for a bit.
@Dave K. Not sure that BOLT down means to eat quickly? (It does.) Or not sure you like the answer? I'm not sure what you're not sure about.
Ginny, I work in tax and I would have LOVED the GAAP clue :’) great puzzle!
@Emma Ginny, your G.A.A.P expert in-laws would tell you that an entity can have at most one parent. And, to be a parent of a subsidiary, you don’t have to own 100% of the common stock. The clue is cute, but technically flawed.
@Emma and Ginny: I now await the day that GAAP (with those handy adjacent vowels) is a xword answer. Would [CPA's Bible] be a valid clue? Sounds like really fun dinner conversation. Our daughter used to get annoyed when spouse and I got too computer-nerdy over meals, but luckily it didn't put her off tech for life. She did go into medicine but is handy with computers.
Hard for a Tuesday. Maybe rather than "Poet written about in the Books of Tang," we could have had "Dumb surgery for the pudgy narcissist." And I've also never bolted anything down (except with actual bolts).
I thought this was really tough for a Monday. Til I realize it wasn’t Monday. That’s what Monday holidays will do to me. Still took me longer than the average Tuesday. But who doesn’t enjoy a little Escher and badassery
Once again, my undergrad major in East Asian Studies pays dividends, although I learned the Tang Dynasty poet as LI BO. He wrote lots of poems about getting drunk and getting into sword fights...my kind of guy! (H/T to John Ezra for posting a few) And who could forget the classic, "13 Ways of Looking at a Jug of Wine." I may be wrong, but I think Opus the Penguin said BLEH to express disdain.