Wish me happy birthday. I've stepped into 91.
@dutchiris happiest of birthdays to you!!
@dutchiris, 🎉🎁🎈🍾🎂 Happy Birthday!!
@dutchiris ohmigosh, HAPPIEST of birthdays to you!!!
@dutchiris happiest birthday!!!!! 🎈 🎈🎈🎈🎈
@dutchiris Many happy returns of the day! Have a very happy birthday.
@dutchiris -- Happy birthday! Here's to a decade ahead rife with happy surprises!
@dutchiris Happy Birthday, show-off! I was still pretty bright too, when I turned 81.
@dutchiris Solving crosswords at 91: Now, there's something I can aspire to. Happy birthday today, and to all the ones yet to come!
@dutchiris Happiest of birthdays!
@dutchiris Happy birthday! (And what a wholesomely sneaky way to crank up the comment count! Well played!)
@dutchiris Thank you @Tonya, and @Barry Ancona, and NYC Traveler, and zhousefine, and @Joya, and @Jane Wheelaghan, and @Noemi, and @Lewis, and @kilaueabart, and @ Amaranth, and @CrispysShot. I feel like I'm at a party!
@dutchiris Happy happy 91!!! I’m always curious to read your comments. Enjoy your day.🌻
@dutchiris Well, somehow the emus have taken exception to my birthday greeting. Guess I should have removed all the expletives.
@dutchiris Happy Birthday!
@dutchiris Birthday wishes from across the Bay!
@dutchiris Happy birthday!!,🎉🎈🎂. Please keep commenting!
@dutchiris Happy birthday, Dutch!! You’re the best!
Within a ten minute walk of every MUNI line and I still put BART in first.
@DIVAS IVLIVS. Me too, at least the BART part. And rig a BOAT… step a MAST, hoist a SAIL… but close enough.
@DIVAS IVLIVS I was riding cable cars and MUNI when BART was still just a ditch down Market Street, so approached the clue with caution.
Usually, it’s the quarterback who takes a KNEE, but today we found out that it was the tight end that did it, and Swiftly ushered in a new ERA. How prescient to have planned both words for tonight’s puzzle!
@Steve L Oh, did it finally happened? Haven't checked the news today.
@Steve L As quoted on the News Hour, " Taylors search for a husband finally came to an END"!
Totally lived up to the hype created by yesterday's constructor's notes. Easy but nice aha moment when I got the theme. Sign me up for a Schroedinger any day.
This one had its UPs and DOWNs. I thought it was a simple rebus, and entered UP in all the circled squares. I was charmed to find that DOWN worked as well and that the rebuses worked both ways. That was a very neat trick in my book.
Kevin here (Zhou and I share our NYT account). First time commenter. It's clear that I've lost the comment war, so please consider this my final bow before I step graciously back into private life. I hope the paparazzi in our bushes can read this as a sign to leave :) Anyway, I really just came here to echo NYC Traveler from a few minutes ago. What a special place this niche part of the internet is. I usually enjoy looking for all the haters of my puzzles, but seeing all the love here has been way more fun. Thank you all for contributing to this day of only ups in our household! #TeamZhou, for sure.
@zhousephine I’m staying in your boxwoods until I get a hi-def shot of you rending your garments while Zhou gleefully dances around you. It’s not me. It’s what the people want.
@zhousephine Kevin: You'll always have your Scrabble coup!
@zhousephine Congrats to both of you for two fun days!
I was so chuffed to get in the first comment that I forgot to say: I think Ms. Zhang should reconsider wanting quantity over quality of comments. Seems like the puzzles with the most comments around here are the ones where there's a "trick" that gets everyone riled up or a deviation from the expected "hardness level". I think if I was a constructor I'd be happy with fewer comments, which would mean everyone found it perfectly cromulent and not worth complaining about (Lol).
@Lpr I know Zhou Zhang is trying to be witty and "fun" in her constructor notes, but "I once refused to play Scrabble against Kevin for over a year because I was so upset about a game where he stole a win right from under me by bingo-ing on his last turn. True story." is not exactly something to be proud of. Over a YEAR? Really? And she says the thing about wanting to have more comments than her husband, and over at XWord Info, she says something about wanting to get more crosswords published than her husband. I hope their marriage isn't truly that competitive, and it's all exaggerated for the Internet.
@Chiara She was trying to be witty and fun(and succeeded, imo), but she was also admitting that she can be too competitive. I appreciate her openness and her willingness to take that vital first step of admitting she has a problem. I'd like to see that sort of self-reflection in more people, say people who don't take the time to read carefully and would rather just make unwarranted rude remarks.
A shiver runs UP/DOWN your spine when you realize you get to Schrödingize! (my favorite puzzle flavor). Zhou, our Wednesday fun was UP to you, and now it is DOWN to you!
@Cat Lady Margaret I’m so impressed by this I sat UP/DOWN
Oooh, Oooh, up-down girl, She's been living in her up-down world Emu's earworm for today.
@Linda Jo Now she's looking for a DOWN/UP man. That's what I am!
Selling yo-yos has its ups and downs. (Sorry to toy with you.)
@Mike No need to apologize. I’m down with it.
@Mike I'd like to see where you live; is it a walk-up downtown??
@Mike True fact: I had a job one summer as an elevator operator. It had its ups and downs.
This one will go up in history?
Since I posted a comment for Kevin, it seems only right I post a comment for Zhou, too. I don't want to get in the middle of THAT little competition.
I’m really not saying this just to contribute to the Great New York Times Crossword Comments Competition, but doing these puzzles from the last two days and reading their Constructor Notes and learning the background and reading everyone’s comments here, including those from the constructor herself, … I’m just so impressed and thankful to be a part of this community. May we never, ever take for granted the special space that we have here.
As a toddler, my daughter coined the term "uppie-down." Whether she wanted me to pick her up or put her down, she had the word for it.
@Puzzled Isn't there a dance called the "upside-down"?
@Puzzled My now adult son did the same thing. I’ll never forget “up-down” when he was a toddler
@Puzzled My toddler son always said “up down side”.
A delightful puzzle. No downs. Only ups. May the comment count only go upupup
The letter “Z” priZe. Nicely done. Make me put in the whole alphabet to figure out why PRICE isn’t VALUE…precise definitions notwithstanding l.
@Paul I did the same thing. Noun value vs verb value. The Z was my last letter to fill, because HAcE didn't make sense.
@Paul i tried priCe, then priDe, then finally landed on priZe
@Paul PRIcE is "value", but it's not the only value. And I'd like to believe that it's not the most important value. And, as ever in crossword puzzles, crosses are your friend.
@Paul This was my Natick today. Wasn't sure about spelling of SEPAL. HAcE didn't make sense, but I couldn't figure out what it should be. No answer in the coumn. Finally got it from your comments. Thanks!
What a fun couple! And great puzzles. Did only seeing "downs" "up"set me? Not a bit.
@Golfsan And did only seeing "ups" get me "down"? Not a bit, either!
Not only am I commenting today. I also did *not* comment yesterday (at least, I don’t think I did). That’s like a +2. No offense to Mr Curry on his beautiful puzzle - a solid A, to be sure… (And let’s all spark on UP (or burn one DOWN) in honor of Curry’s comment count stopping at 420) … but let’s be honest: a rebus and a Schrödinger? That combo should be an automatic ticket to the 600 Comment Club.
Kevin did not oversell it -- this was amazing! A true Schrodinger, beautifully built and clued. These two puzzles back to back are something really to be proud of. Thanks so much!
Between today’s puzzle and yesterday’s, this one wins. Yesterday’s main gimmick was asymmetry, always used in service of a theme. There have been 44 asymmetric puzzles, rare enough. Today’s is a Schrödinger puzzle, which are even rarer. There have been just 21 of those. It’s also a rebus puzzle. There have been just 3 rebus Schrödinger puzzles ever. And of those three puzzles, only this one has letters that behave like a normal rebus. (The others had three letters in two spaces, with the middle letter jumping from one square to the other for the alternative, or an alternation of one or two letters in the Schrödinger square.) So while the other puzzle was clever and rare, this one is a unicorn.
@Steve L -- You give excellent plusses for today's puzzle. I thought yesterday's puzzle had plusses as well, with its theme about symmetry within asymmetry, with it having a theme with *no* theme answers, and it having symmetry within asymmetry in a way never done before.
Steve, Today's puzzle was indeed objectively rarer. "Better" is subjective. I enjoyed both of them.
Two days, two extraordinary puzzles, and the fact that a wife made one, and her husband made the other, brings dash to the mixture, makes this a Crosslandia event that I feel privileged to have experienced.
Anyone else have PRICE and HACE? HACE or High Altitude Cerebral Edema, a condition in people with Acute Mountain Sickness can present with confusion as a symptom.
MFSTEVE, A few other solve-by-Google (or AI) readers mentioned HACE earlier, also apparently missing that there was no abbreviation signal in the 46A clue.
@MFSTEVE While realistically that would never be a crossword clue because it’s too obscure and not marked as an initialism, I still think it’s crazy funny that there is an extra Schroedinger box if you think about it that way.
@MFSTEVE Apparently, you’re not the only one, but I doubt many of you didn’t glom onto PRICE without question, and then Googled to see if HAcE was a thing. Why isn’t HAcE as good as HAZE as an answer? —It’s obscure to the extreme. —It’s an acronym not clued with a cue for shortening. —Appropriately so, it has never been an answer for the previous two reasons.
Woah!!! Fastest Wednesday (12:43) I’ve ever completed in one sitting with absolutely no hints/googling. I’m 24 and been doing crosswords for only the last 3+ years—feeling super pumped right now, especially it being a rebus! What a lovely puzzle @Zhou :D
@Amy L. - Wow, good on ya... I went the other direction and was about double my usual time. I got caught from clue one with BOAT/BART and also struggled with the the center E section.. I had SAPEL instead of SEPAL which took me a while to unwind. Had zero issues with the rebus, but came here to agree with everyone commenting on how tricky this was for a Wednesday... but then learned I'm the sole dummy today.
I have to admit that, until today, I had never heard of the word "sepal". Hopefully I will now be able to use it in a wordle some time.
@Craig Ditto. I spent all that time learning "pistil," and now discover there's another obscure flower term to remember?
No APBIO (or non-AP, for that matter) for you two?
@Craig There are also "tepals," used informally when the seals and petals are so similar as to make no difference. Lilies, as an example.
@Craig. You did learn this in grade school biology.
@Craig It was a perfect starting word for today‘s (28 Aug) wordle! 😂
I’m up/down to help her get more comments — I mean, I commented yesterday and if I don’t write something down/up, I’ll feel guilty.
Zhou Zhang, I'll add a comment to your count. Loved it. A perfect Wednesday. I think this may have been my first Schrödinger since I've only been solving since December, unless I'm forgetting one. Like Sam, I entered all the UPs first and only figured out the alternate DOWNs when I got to 51D. Did anyone else have PRIcE for 32D and as a result, get stuck on 46A for a bit? Took a second to realize "Value" was a verb in this case. And now for something truly silly... references to BLACKPINK make me think of poor JENNIE's reaction to spicy wings in this episode of Hot Ones: <a href="https://youtu.be/sUl6zhUKeAw?si=ID1HhX8vm3AW9ogq" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/sUl6zhUKeAw?si=ID1HhX8vm3AW9ogq</a>
@Beth in Greenbelt Yep PRIcE was the one thing I needed to fix (well, other than fixing my rebus entries). A quick flyspecking pass turned up the very suspicious HACE.
@Beth in Greenbelt I'll bet most of us had PRIcE first, but it was an easy fix, for me at least, when I saw that I had to correct HAcE to HAZE. And isn't it nice to be reminded that there's more to "value" than monetary and economics matters. Let's talk about ethical value, aesthetic value, and the values that make life worth living.
I don’t comment very often but this one was so good that I have to. It revealed itself in layers – I suspected a rebus fairly early on, but because I got solving the northeast corner quickly it was a while before I even reached the clue for DOWNS. At that point I went from “this is a fun little trick” to “this is genius”. It tapped into a linguistic quirk I’ve always found interesting (is there any difference between up for something or down for something?) and I like that all the down clues cover polar opposites while the across clues cover similar/identical meanings. Then some fun phrases (“yay me”, “oh be a pal”) and fun clues (“contents of some boats”, “hides a tear, say”) helped the puzzle hit my sweet spot. Great stuff.
@Ally I've only heard of being "down for" something when it refers to something written down, eg "I'm down to do the teas at the fair" or "Put me down for two of them." Being "up for" is used for being keen to do something. Maybe US usage is different. UK usage is "It's up to me" but I've noticed people have been using "It's down to me" which I think comes from the US.
Fun puzzle. I solved the way I did because my UPtake was faster than my DOWNload.
@Henry Su, Hello, Henry! 🙋🏻♂️
@Henry Su, how do you do? Is the cat on the prowl again?
Great back to back themes. Great love story. But the thing that really hit home was the amount of rejection it takes finally to succeed in the constructing world at the NYT level. Stories of perseverance always welcome!
After the incredible sales pitch in yesterday’s constructor notes, I was jazzed for this. So as 10pm (and bedtime 💤) rolled around, the voices started saying- “Do the puzzle! You know you want to! Sleep is overrated! Do. The. Puzzle.” What would you do? I made the decision any normal puzzle addict should. My first confident entry was 1D (SF transit option) -BART seemed right. And thus, ended my success in that corner, After going UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN, I finally let it go and happy music time. Now I’m a little too amped to sleep!! Maybe some Spelling Bee to calm me down. Great puzzle, Zhou! Thanks!
@Steve H I was very certain it was BART too and held onto it for too long.
@Steve H I started with BART and BOAT in the NW, too. They seemed obvious. But problems ensued almost immediately. I was sure that the Hawaiian nester was going to be our NENE, and I (initially) thought "One end of the day" was going to be "dawn". When I figured out the rebus of UPS, order was quickly restored. Well, relatively quickly.
Curious about your name, Zhou, so I googled it and it can be either masculine or feminine, so even that is in keeping with your Schroedinger puzzle!, adding to the complexity and delight!
@dutchiris Another funny thing about “Zhou” is that it’s typically a surname and not a first name… but my mom’s last name is Zhou, and my parents wanted to name me after both of them so I ended up with two last names and no first names. 😆
@dutchiris The name Kevin can be masculine or feminine as well.
I wondered why “could appear” was in the clue for UPS. “It shouldn’t be ‘could appear’; it should be ‘appear’!” I thought with a harrumph. “It should be [Highs … that appear four more times in this puzzle]!” So, when the second revealer revealed that DOWNS could also go in the rebus squares, I experienced not only a jaw-drop at that piece of information, but it also explained the “could appear” in the clues for UPS and DOWNS, making for a double ephiphany, and let me tell you, that was one sweet aha. Fun to fill in a 14x16 grid rather than the standard square 15x15, and, remarkable that Zhou made the rebus squares work in both directions, given the paucity of phrases in which UP and DOWN can be swapped. Apt to see ASHE, the name of the U.S. Open tennis tourney’s biggest venue. I was inspired by your persistence, Zhou, by how you kept submitting puzzles to the Times after 15 rejections. That on top of being uber-buoyed by that double-whammy aha. Thank you and brava!
@Lewis Oh for Pete's sake, I didn't even notice this was a 14x16 grid. Not enough or too much coffee, I guess. And you're right, Zhou has some real persistence going there.
Not Kevin crouching in some closet furtively flagging every single comment today.
@ad absurdum, Ah, but for whom will they be at half mast?
Loved the puzzle! Little circles helped me remember what goes UP must come DOWN, and at the same time... Love your puzzle, which contains your initials... Long-time solver, first time poster...
Delightful! I loved that UP or DOWN could go in either way. Very clever!
@Lpr I didn't realize that until late, probably because the first revealer I encountered was UPS, after which I immediately went to all the circle clues and filled them in with UP.
My favorite dessert is upside down cake - this was sweet and chewy - perfect to solve our Wednesday evening munchies.
Well, this puzzle certainly had its Ups and Downs! (Oh, come on. Someone had to do it.) The Up: I love me a good Schrödinger, and this one did not disappoint. I found it clever, breezy, and fun. The Down: The intersection of 46A and 32D. I was sure 32D was “price”, but “HACE” didn’t make sense— until I looked it up and learned it’s an acronym for a type of altitude sickness that causes, among other things, confusion! So I left that alone and looked for my error elsewhere. Never did find it, of course, so I ended up with a Check Puzzle cheat and a blue star. But despite that, I land firmly on the Up side. I’m an optimist, and I like the color blue. This was a lovely debut. Please come back and play again soon, Zhou!
@Heidi I literally did the same! Completely agree with your comment though. Loved the puzzle so I'm not too disappointed!
@Heidi. Ooh, I absolutely HATE it when I look up an answer I'm uncertain of and find plenty on Google to support it. Doesn't make it right. Awesome puzzle.
@Heidi I only knew that because I read and reread Into Thin Air when it first was published. There's HAPE (high-altitude pulmonary edema) and HACE (high-altitude cerebral edema). Both were mentioned frequently in the book!
A Wednesday rebus! A beautiful bonus for us rebus-philes! And a Schrödinger puzzle, too! Such a lovely present! Is it my birthday? [I checked the calendar. No, it is not.] I solved this puzzle from the top down, as is usual for the first half of the week. I saw UPS early on and quickly saw that it was a rebus, replacing "dawn" with SUN[UP] in the NW. My only nit is that I didn't get to DOWNS until I was almost done with the puzzle, so I didn't get to enjoy the Schrödinger element until the very end. But that is a very small nit. A lovely puzzle for a Wednesday! P.S. to Zhou Zhang: By including a rebus element, you almost guarantee that you will get more comments than Kevin Curry did yesterday. I don't know if it one-ups getting a Bingo in your last turn in Scrabble, but it should give you bragging rights for a while.
Looking at the comments, I'm surprised to see that the rebus-haters are strangely silent. I'm guessing that they don't want to criticize Zhou Zhang after reading the lovely constructor notes from husband and wife. But Zhou needs the comments. So, get with it you haters! #TeamZhou
@The X-Phile They're probably getting flagged and deleted
Funny quantum science jokes for those who are into it: Heisenberg and Schroedinger are driving to a conference when a cop pulls them over. He says do you know how fast you were going? Heisenberg says, “No, 0fficer”. The policeman says “You were going 80 miles an hour”. And Heisenberg says “Damn it, now I don’t know where I am!” Then the cop says “I’m going to have to examine the car, can you pop the trunk?” He goes to the back and says, “Did you know you had a dead cat back here?” And Schroedinger says, “Well, I guess I do now!”
Well, I loved this puzzle. I love rebus and Schrodinger puzzles (and sharp clueing), so this was right up and/or down my alley. But then I read a certain news story about something that happened in this area, and my happiness waned dramatically. I wasn't going to comment but it was such a good puzzle that I still wanted to add to the positive feedback.
@HeathieJ hope everything is okay! Ty for always adding to the positivity 🩵
@HeathieJ Yep. Time for "thoughts and prayers and not a thing else".
I’ve been lurking silently in the comments for several weeks without posting, but since Zhou asked nicely (albeit competitively), I’m adding to her count. Which is not to say I’m not on Kevin’s team, too. I loved both puzzles and both constructor’s notes. And Sam, you had me at “Schronanigans”!
@M. Biggen I too loved the Schronanigans!! Fun puzzle , and cute competition between yesterday and today!
I filled in DOWN from the crosses, so never saw the hint that a Schroedinger puzzle was in play. Truthfully, I probably wouldn't have figured it even if I had seen it. Any puzzle mentioning BEL Canto is okay by me. This week is the 20th anniversary of Katrina's landfall in the US. I couldn’t get through Spike's documentary about it. Too sad. Too horrifying. And here's a song from the last century in honor of today's puzzle. What goes up must go down. <a href="https://youtu.be/SFEewD4EVwU?si=2jTkFGyW9z5-Maaz" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/SFEewD4EVwU?si=2jTkFGyW9z5-Maaz</a>
Had DOWN in every circle. Filled the puzzle but no happy tune. Came to the article. Skimmed Today’s Theme section. Changed my DOWNs to UPs. Still no music. Came to the comments only to find I was not alone in the PRIcE/HAcE. So thank you fellow solvers! I had fun and I’m excited to come back and do it again tomorrow.
@Lauren Ford. That’s where I got stuck too! I knew HACE did not work. Eventually caught my mistake.
Aaaiiieee! I almost went up/down in flames on a Wednesday! It all boiled down to stubbornly sticking with value=price rather than value=prize; I was reluctant to realize that "prize" is also a verb.
@Jeff Z I was stuck on the same one! It had me convinced that "State of Confusion" must be HACE which stands for High Altitude Cerebral Edema, which is a mountain sickness that causes disorientation (according to Google). Bit obscure for a Wednesday puzzle.
@Jeff Z Yesssss, I was stuck there for the longest time. I hadn't yet finished my coffee, so I was in a HACE.
I used to teach ESL. Apologizing to my students for the whacky inconsistencies of English spelling, pronunciation, and idiomatic expressions was a regular feature of any lesson from me. How could “one” and “won” be pronounced the same way, or “bow” two different ways? Why at a drive-through are we told to “pull to the window”? Pull what to the window? So yes, I am down with this puzzle, two thumbs up.
just here to contribute +1 to your comment section competition ;) lol jk this was a brilliant puzzle and a joy to solve. Bonus points because this is my first ever comment and you earned it !!