For the first time, the crossword has become a BOARD game.
@Steve L There was a crossword board game way back when. It was endorsed by none other than Lucille Ball. <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/941863826/cross-up-the-competitive-crossword-game" target="_blank">https://www.etsy.com/listing/941863826/cross-up-the-competitive-crossword-game</a>
@Steve L Isn't that what Scrabble (basically) is?
I used to like jumping into the water, but now I'm diving bored. (The chances I take it up again are swim to none.)
@Mike Sounds fishy. We all enjoy it when you're making a splash.
@Mike Please continue. We'd flip if you became a piker.
@Mike This pun as a certain spring to it.
At the bar near the El station that serviced O’Hare I let the backwash of ale flow with hardly a care… but soon enough the usher called “All aboard! Don’t be late!” I don’t know if it’s kismet but it surely was fate to be seated between Princess Leia and distant Estella! Behind us sat Ono and Valentino-clad Etta. “Che Bella!” I managed to croak at the lot. “ Order! Be early! Enter! All in! Your luggage on deck!” shouted the surly, meaty, not lithe, conductor with a scowl as he led on Darth Vader, or an orc in a cowl? A man wearing a head cheese from the game in Green Bay said “Lookie loo, Conductor, we gonna sit here all day?” Enya consulted her geode and said sourly, “We should be so lucky as to leave when Evening Falls and scents of miso and anise seed arc from the east,” glaring at Ono as if in rebuke. In reply Yoko in her soft accent said just one word: “Cuke.” “Leia,” I asked, “that Deathstar scene when from the lees of the sewage those critters rose up, like living E. coli disease?” “Straws,” she said, “chalk, a beige lasso were used in that clip: you thought it was real? Get a grip!” “Oh Estella,” I said, “why DID you cast aside Pip?” “Didn’t you see,” said she, “my cameo on ‘Ellen’? I said I didn’t care for the fable he was sellin’ - I say ‘oui,' off to the Serta, a baby, a Kia, happily ever aft- er, who do you think I am, could I be any daft- er?” “Etta,” I said, “Sorry I confuse you with Ella when doing a solve. “So do I!” shouted Leia, Ono, and distant Estella.
@john ezra I think you've come up with the next NYT Games' game! Bravo!
I'm surprised 44D wasn't clued as "code for 55 Down".
@Michael Weiland I think because it's a Monday puzzle, a cross-reference with two unknowns is a later-in-the-week construct. Being able to specify Chicago keeps the puzzle at a Monday level.
No doubt this is just me, but I *never* want to se either HEAD CHEESE or SEWAGE in my crosswords.
@Dan Ha! See my comment above. How did I miss sewage in my list?
So yeah, I completed the puzzle very fast yet not understanding the theme. I looked at the revealer and themed entries for a moment once the grid was filled in but still didn't understand what was going on. I needed to check the column for an explanation. Oh. I'm just not very bright, it seems. Certainly I have problems parsing differently things right before my eyes. I have no idea what HEAD CHEESE is, but the disturbing name name and the description in the clue make me nauseous. As for Trotsky (or Trocki in Polish, and Trockij in Russian), I have always wondered why English speakers think his name was Leon. In Russian and Polish his name is Lew (pronounced [Lev]. Incidentally, that means "lion" in both languages). Both Russian and Polish also use the name Leon. Lew and Leon are two separate names, if related to one another.
@Andrzej Yeah, and Head Cheese is even more disturbing when you find out it isn't cheese at all. But I think its existence is probably because the more efficiently we consume our prey, the more of us will at least get something.
@Andrzej Yeah Trotsky caught me out too ‒ Lev Trotskij in Swedish which I assumed would be Leo in English
@Andrzej I find it odd that you give the Russian spelling of Trotsky's name using the Roman/Polish alphabet. His name in Russian is Лев Троцкий. His given name at birth was Лев Давидович Бронштейн (a Russian will always include his patronymic [and Jews and anti-Semites will always note his birth name]). Leo, the Latin word for lion, is usually given as the first name of Slavic people with the name Лев or Lev. (An American will pronounce Lew as Loo, as in LOOKIE-LOO, abbreviated from Lewis.) Tolstoy is also called Leo in Anglophone countries. This kind of replacement is (or was) common for names that translate easily.
@Andrzej Lol! You should look up "head cheese" in the Urban Dictionary!
Those of you looking at the Cyrillic rendering of Trotsky will note a letter which looks like a U with a little squiggle off the bottom right. It's pronounced "ts" and is the first letter of that old crossworld standby "tsar". And like "Kaiser" it's based on "Caesar". I assume early translators figured Native English speakers would stumble on "ts" and therefore changed it to "cz". Go fig. Russian also has some very common words that begin with double consonants--in our alphabet GDE, KTO, KNIGA... This has been another episode of Fun With Languages.
27D. This has happened on numerous puzzles but the channel isn’t TMC, it’s TCM. Short for Turner Classic Movies. I’ve seen this mistake before and while I get how it’s used as a way to construct puzzles, the fact that I’ve seen this answer that is factually wrong on multiple puzzles has been displeasing as to a regular TCM viewer.
@Matthew it’s short for “The Movie Channel.” Different channel.
@Matthew Totally agree. There is nothing pleasing to cinephiles on TMC in my mind. TCM caters exactly to cinephiles and I feel like this is a purposefully driven misdirect on the part of Will Shortz.
Well, it looks like my comment got stopped by the EMUs. Let me try again: I wrote a little verse about how much I detest liver in the Sunday comments section. Now I guess I have to come up with something for head cheese, but that would require thinking about it too much, and I'd rather not. There used to be a truly offal restaurant in San Francisco that I tried exactly once and never again. It was like eating barnyard droppings with a side of twigs. Hoping for fewer references to consuming innards in the next batch of puzzles. That said, I did learn some things from this puzzle... alternative definitions of phrases I know. For me, LOOKIE LOO is another word for rubber necker. Never heard it used in the context of shopping. And BACKWASH is what pours back into someone's water bottle after they take a drink. (Sam didn't want to spell it out, but I will.) I also detected a mini theme here with the words that are probably the reason my original comment got held up. E. COLI, SEWAGE, and two 3-letter words, one that starts with a B and one that starts with an A. So, this is a fine puzzle that unfortunately gave me the icks. YMMV.
@Beth in Greenbelt “Lookie loo” is valid. Real estate agents and car salespeople sometimes use that term for people who are shopping with no real intention to buy, i.e. wasting their time. As for “headcheese”, “backwash”, et al, I’m with you. Yuck.
@Beth in Greenbelt An offal restaurant sounds awful. 🙂
@Beth in Greenbelt I'm no fan of offal either, but it's been pointed out that there's something xenophobic about our Western/American visceral (pun intended) response of disgust (or "dis-guts") to such things. "You people eat WHAT???" In general, it's a good idea to try new things, preferably more than once.
Rule the first: The emus should allow any word that has sppeared in the puzzles.
@Ιασων The emus should stop treating us like children at a 19th century catholic orphanage.
@Ιασων Especially in the Spelling Bee!!!!!
I learned today that the disgustingly named HEAD CHEESE is the Polish salceson, which I have always liked. Dishes of offal are among the staples of Polish cuisine. Blood sausage (kaszanka - "kasza" means "groats", and groats are an important ingredient of Polish blood sausage) is one of our favorite things to put on the grill or in the oven, either as is, or wrapped in tin foil with thin onion wedges). Cheap, nutricious, delicious <3. Flaki (literally, guts; you know the dish as tripe) is another old Polish favorite. I loved it already as a kid. We boil them in a beef and vegetable stock with lots of marjoram, all spice, bay leaf, and pepper. Hearts and stomachs of poultry, especially chicken, are another Polish staple, prepared as you would goulash. I first had the dish on holiday in the Tatra mountains, when I was 4 or 5. It was great. Liver, either chicken or veal, is also very popular, fried in light batter. I had it often as a child, as did many of my friends. Then there are regional dishes, like czernina (literally something like "the black thing") of Wielkopolska, in the West of the country. It's a soup made with duck stock, ducks' blood and cherries. Yep, you read that right. I love it. My mother-in-law makes killer czernina. I also enjoy offal all over Europe. Especially memorable were: beef heart in Czechia, deep fried spleen sandwich on Sicily, and sweetbread in France (what is it about offal having strange names in English? In Polish it's grasica, thymus).
@Andrzej There is a truly strange interplay between what our taste buds prefer, and how our minds interpret what we're eating. With no preconceived mental construct of a food, it's purely taste, and so I learned to love things that later sort of disgusted me, mentally. Good examples are lamb and veal. I just cannot bear the thought of eating such a young animal with such an artificial life. I promise I don't think this is a virtue on my part--in some ways I think I'm being very hypocritical. But it's just not something I could do. Anyway, not having been introduced to the sweetbreads and such when I was young, there really isn't any way I could now.
@Andrzej My parents, of mostly German and some Dutch heritage called head cheese “siltz,” and ate it straight from the fridge. I don’t think I ever tried it. I always referred to it at “pig gelatin,” because that’s what it looked like to me. One thing I did try in college was something they had for New Year’s Eve - raw ground beef on pumpernickel with a little salt and pepper. That was delicious! Though, of course, something you should only eat if you know the cow these days. I’m tempted to try sweetbreads sometime because the TV show, “Chopped,” always made it sound so delicious. If I ever get to Europe, I might try it.
@Andrzej Tripe here is a cow’s stomach lining. My Grandad would eat it raw, but I could only manage it if it was boiled in milk with onions. It was very popular in the North of England when I was a kid but I think it’s fallen out of fashion now; the younger generation turn their noses up at such plebeian dishes. Blood sausage aka black pudding is one I never got the taste for. DH eats it every weekend as part of a huge fried breakfast. I actually tried chicken hearts for the first time a couple of weeks ago, as part of a Brazilian bbq event. Nice, but I prefer kidney.
@Andrzej I'm glad that on my trip to Poland I didn't even see those items on the menus. I definitely would have gagged and gone hungry. I also never ate my grandmother's calves feet in jelly. But different strokes for different folks.
@Andrzej I grew up eating all sorts of offal, head cheese included. My family consists of dairy and pig farmers plus city dwellers. No animal products were wasted… never! All my great grandparents originated in Northern Europe. Everyone enjoyed all these “delicacies”. It’s been years since I’ve had any decent offal products, as I don’t live in an area where people want it. However, when I visit family in Chicago and Milwaukee, my options suddenly open up and my palate is happy.
@Andrzej My wife and I are planning a trip to Central Europe soon, and one of our stops is going to be Kraków. Do you know that town well enough to recommend restaurants? (Preferably ones that serve traditional cuisine, but not necessarily offal.)
@Andrzej One of my favorite dishes at dimsum is baiye: book tripe (aka omasum) steamed with ginger and green peppers.
Solved this without seeing the theme, which took me two additional minutes to finally get. Liked the theme and the puzzle. LOOKIELOO was new to me. Having both ORD and OHARE in the grid was a nice extra. Fine Tuesday offering! Happy Pythagoras Day to all: 3^2 / 4^2 / 5^2. Or, in much of the world, 4^2 / 3^2 / 5^2.
@Xword Junkie On your personal definition of a satisfactory solve, do you have to get the theme before you put in the last letter? If so, I failed today. I got the revealer, briefly thought what the theme might be, but didn't get it until after I had finished. (By the way, shouldn't the revealer have said something like "parsed differently"?)
@Xword Junkie I love "Pythagorus day"!!
I wasn’t BOARD with this one. I liked seeing LOOKIE LOO 👀 Perfect Tuesday in my opinion. Thank you, Jonathan ☺️
@Jacqui J Lookie loo was fun, I agree. Always glad to see a debut puzzle too!
@Jacqui J I always thought that this was LOOKIE LOU, a nickname for a certain type of non-buying shopper. Similar to other stereotypical characters like a Nosey Nelly, etc.
@Jacqui J Yes I pointed out LOOKY LOO to a friend thinking it was just a funny word. There is a greeting card artist who calls her company that and one of the cards has a cockroach lying back on a valentine-shaped bed(like in some Pocono PA honeymoon resorts) and there was nobody to give it too, but it’s funny!
Oh, prime revealer, one that lands perfectly. Bow-down beautiful. A phrase I’ve heard all my life – ALL ABOARD – re-parsed in combination with the theme answers so I see it with fresh eyes, bringing a bow and a wow. Hall of Fame revealer. And it’s in the right place, down low, not in the middle where it would have given everything away too soon. Every theme answer checks out perfectly. A splendid theme never done before in any of the major outlets. Kudos for originality, Jonathan. Those theme answers add spark to the grid, too, with two being NYT answer debuts and the other three being once-befores. Beauty comes in many flavors – even in crossword themes. See also: KISMET and LITHE. And, in my case at least, such beauty makes any nits go poof. Congratulations on your debut, Jonathan, and thank you so much for this day brightener!
I know it's the NYT puzzles, but given wordles reach, I'd have hoped that the Mini crossword would have been a little less US centric constantly. Asking super local geography or sports clues all the time has me seriously reconsidering never renewing my subscription.
@Ryan If you are referring to today’s (Tuesday’s) mini, I think you are completely off base (sorry to use a U.S. centric expression). The answers to the Down clues were so obvious that no knowledge of U.S. cities/towns was required to solve the puzzle. Also, there are more than 20 towns with the name “Paris” in different States in the U.S., and I’m sure most here are not knowledgeable of the populations of each. Three of these States have five letters (IDAHO, MAINE, and TEXAS). These same three States also each have a MOSCOW. Icing on the cake is that MAINE and TEXAS each have a BELGRADE. Thus the beauty of this puzzle today.
Fresh and breezy, I was not BOARD. :D Clever to find entries where both halves were boards.
As you may know, I have a bit of a fetish for airport code, so seeing both ORD and O'HARE in the puzzle was a treat. The code derives from the original name of ORcharD Field, and the name was changed to honor Medal of Honor winner edward "Butch" O'Hare, who won the Medal for shooting down five Japanese bombers in a single mission. Richard "Dick" Bong also won the CMH in WWII, and had the most aerial victories of any American pilot, with forty. The Air Force intended to name an air base after him, but construction was never completed (deemed redundant) and the site is now a state park. That's right, you can recreate at Dick Bong Park. (I hope the emus are okay with that.)
Upon further review, there is a municipal airport in SUperior. Wisconsin (cede SUW) which was renamed Richard Bong Memorial in honor of the Wisconsin native.
Ah yes, elves. Thought it was a typo 'cause of the mighty ENT Resist the dark lords!
28A Star Wars is NOT science fiction! NYT - stop allowing this. Star Wars is a space drama fantasy. Allowing this type of clue over and over again is offensive to Science Fiction fans. Just because it has elements of futuristic tech or because it is in outer space does not make it science fiction! This has been well documented on the internet by several people, including George Lucas. Please no longer let a Star Wars clue include anything related to science fiction.
@JH You're right, of course, but that (star)ship has sailed (into space)... I've always thought SW was fantasy - it has princesses and evil emperors, and knights and battle mages storming castles. There is nothing scientific about it, at all.
@JH I am a sci-fi fan of decades' standing. While it's amusing that you claim that "this has been well documented on the internet", that is not conclusive. It's barely even evidence, these days. (Cf. AI slop) Star Wars is set in an alternate universe filled with nonexistent (so far) objects, cultures, and technologies. True, these are largely background and not plot elements where science is explained. It's just a space opera but it's also sci-fi. I'm not remotely offended by the clue. But you do you. Feel free to disagree.
@JH My preferred classification of Star Wars is as space opera.
@JH Offended? Most people don’t care at all…let alone are offended. But let’s dwell on that word a moment. Who is being wronged by the theoretical classification of a movie? Is there some grand union of fantasy writers stomping about in their libraries up in arms over this slight? Is JRR Tolkien rolling in his grave? Ya think maybe living in outrage culture has gotten to you? Just because a headline wants you to be outraged for clicks…doesn’t mean that you actually have to be outraged. You could be better than that.
@JH I think you are trying to pigeon hole what science fiction is. I think it’s definitely in that category regardless of its fantasy and epic elements. If it’s got futuristic tech beyond what exists today it is in the realm of science fiction, especially if that tech is meant to be explained by scientific principles. Even the mysterious “force” is attempted to be explained by some scientific principles—ie midichlorians. Even if not just because there are some mystical elements doesn’t mean it’s not science fiction. You can subclassify it all you want but it’s not an incorrect clue, and saying “princess in a space drama fantasy” sounds clunky and unnecessary (it’s a gimme clue in any case).
@JH and @Andrzej "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Arthur C. Clarke
@JH and EVERYBODY We've got serious national/international problems! And we're supposed to focus on this?? Plus Robert Redford died in his sleep, at age 89.
@JH It's a Space Opera, which is a sub-genre of... Science Fiction. This isn't a hill to die on.
@JH And this is why Roman can’t get a date <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ywWhhkWntfA" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ywWhhkWntfA</a>
So, like yesterday I needed the Wordplay explanation to understand the theme. The bacterial undercurrent in the grid (SEWAGE ECOLI) is doing nothing to make me feel better. The less said about HEAD CHEESE the better, though I have happily eaten tripe aka cow stomach lining. It was a cheap, filling staple of my childhood, along with ox tongue and tail, and pigs trotters. I’d rather have those than a 57D, thank you very much.
@Helen Wright One of the small grocery stores that I patronize here has items like "Chicken Paws" and Gizzards in the meat displays. (I'm not attracted, but I know they're edible.) It's one of the few places where I can find Smoked Pork Neck, properly "cured" sweet potatoes, and really good grits (NOT Quaker products, in other words.)
@Helen Wright Whenever anyone talks about eating tongue it reminds me of a restaurant near our apartment when we lived in St. Peterburg Russia. (Not Florida....) St. Petersburg is a very tourist-y city, so many restaurants have English language menus, if you ask. One of the dishes on this menu was "beef language." We puzzled for a minute and then said, "Tongue!" In English we can often use the words interchangeably. In Russian they are the same word.
I was surprised to see several complaints in the first few comments I read. I thought this debut puzzle was a lot of fun to solve, and I applaud you Jonathan. Looking forward to seeing more from you. 👏🏻👏🏻
Clever theme! I also like the supporting boards CHALK and CLIP. Congratulations on your debut, Johnathan. I expect it will be a springboard for your continued success.
A likely PB if not for that upper middle section. The clues in that section all felt a level or two more difficult than they did rest of the puzzle. Didn’t pick up on “veggie” so i was looking for a four letter veg. Not familiar with CAMEO as “jewelry”. And wasn’t expecting MBA for “Wall St.” (Was thinking more along the lines of CFP, or similar.) Really enjoyed the entire puzzle.
@Striker Cameos are oval broaches, usually of a person's profile carved so that the profile is a lighter layer of stone and the background is a darker layer of the same stone. I think the Cameo as short appearance in a movie comes from the jewelry being a little profile of a beloved person.
Paolo Pasco Jeopardy watch, day four. The top-tier crossword constructor/solver entered Final Jeopardy down nearly $11,000. The question was, “Today it’s used as a verb in social media; in previous centuries its meaning included an enemy and not a Quaker.” Pasco was the only contestant to get it right (the answer is below, in a reply). He wagered $1 more than the opponent who led, pulling out the victory. His four-day winnings now stand at $107,342. Go Paolo!
@Lewis In NYC last night Jeopardy was preempted by ABC showing Monday Night Football instead. Annoying, especially since MNF was also being shown on ESPN and did not feature any local teams. I did see a promo late at night touting his win and that today he'd be going for 5 wins, which would automatically qualify him for tournament of champions.
@Lewis That was a tricky Final question. Once the winnings get into this upper echelon, the Final question ramps up... Paolo stayed calm about being behind in scores.
An enjoyable ride. This puzzle transported me to a time when conductors on regional Philly trains actually shouted out All Aboard. That was also when smoking was allowed and the windows opened! Now it's a sealed can that emits chorus of beeps and buzzes and robot voices indicating stops and starts. But it's overall a faster and much smoother ride, so that's a plus. I still remember my neighbor-friend's dad Mr Balakian from when I was 5 years old coming home from his job as a conductor in his crisp grey uniform and military-looking cap, and I always thought he must have been very important. In hindsight, he was. Considering this area's public transit debacle this summer, a very timely theme!
ALL ABOARD! <a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7716/27695710246_353fc80bf8_b.jpg" target="_blank">https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7716/27695710246_353fc80bf8_b.jpg</a>
@Long walks n sunsets It has occurred to me in recent years that we (Baby Boomer) Military Kids experienced bygone means of (and reasons for) transportation --trams, electric streetcars, ships (both Naval and commercial), even the air travel had differences. Nowadays there are "cruises," but no one sails to Europe or to Hawaii meaning to stay... I've only heard "ALL ABOARD" in movies or TV shows...
@Long walks n sunsets My grandfather was a conductor on the Pennsylvania Railroad and, as a benefit, my grandmother had a pass that allowed her to ride free along with children under, lets say 12 because I don't remember exactly what the age was. We would regularly travel from Philadelphia to Wildwood NJ. As I got older I was instructed to "look out the window" when the conductor came through since I looked older than my actual age.
Thanks for the memories!
Fun! I didn’t get the connector until coming here; nice lightbulb moment For the ppl bellyaching re: LOOKIELOO - pretty common term in erry retail job I had, and tho it’s been years since I was forced to work in the Hades of CS, it came to me easily; not sure what the fuss is about Thanks & congrats on the premiere entry!
There's a banner that keeps appearing at the top of my Games screens, inviting me to add family members to my subscription. Unfortunately, this banner takes up space on my screen and forces me to repeatedly scroll my screen as I complete the puzzle. I'd love it if this banner could be removed.
@AL I experience similar woes. Not to sound too snarky, but it's what I expect from NYT.
@AL I think it's only permanent if you're using the app. without that, the ad shows up often but is easily closed. on Android phone, any way.
@AL I'm beyond sick of it. It's made the Spelling Bee unplayable on my phone. I've had to play it on my laptop, or not at all. And for the record, no, there is no little X to get rid of the banner, not even on an Android. It is stuck there, seemingly forever.
@AL AGREED!!! I get it. They want more money. But I don't HAVE any family that wants to do the puzzle! I wish they would take it away!
@AL Cory Doctorow coined a name for it. My first attempt to link to the Merriam-Webster definition page was too factual for the emus. One synonym given by Wikipedia is “platform decay.”
Very sad to hear the passing of Robert Redford an incredible actor and director. 💔 It caught me for a minute that he was 89 yrs old … to me he’ll always be the dashing heartthrob 💗 may he rest in peace. Puzzle was fast but the theme was a bit clunky. After reading Wordplay the theme was still 🤷♀️. Regardless congrats on your debut puzzle Mr. Daly 👏🎉.
@Dawn on the road Hearing the news this morning on the car radio had a definite Sting. RRedford made the Sundance for me also.
Ah, I solved without getting the theme, and was prepared to think it was kind of lame, but reading now what the theme was I do think it was pretty clever.
@Somak I assume that neither have you heard of zuke.
@Somak I also said that it seemed an odd shortening last time CUKE appeared only to be told in this comment stream that it was common parlance over there in the US. Glad to hear of others so dictionarily challenged 😀
@Somak I eat cukes all the time! Usually in a sally, but sometimes in a sam.
I guess the emus ate my post for using 58A. I really enjoyed your puzzle, Mr. Daly! It has everything: HEADCHEESE, 58A, SEWAGE, SCENTS, ECOLI, BUM, and ANISESEED. I think that about covers everything.
@Francis Yep. The same thing happened to me when I posted the same words you did. I see they let your B word through, so it must have just been the A word that triggered the EMUs. So weird that they haven't figured out how to allow otherwise "naughty" words when they're current puzzle entries. Funny that you noted the same words as I did, but in your case, they were a positive, and in mine, decidedly not!
Five Themers plus a Reveal! Crossword Heaven. UNO before UNA (no noun to hint at the gender) ESTELLE before ESTELLA (long time since I read that!) All over too soon...a la Tuesday (aka Martes, since "Se HABLA español.")
@Mean Old Lady UNO is the counting number one. It is never an article. The indefinite masculine article, the counterpart to UNA, is UN.
@Mean Old Lady It's hard to specify a gender when nobody knows how many there are.
@Mean Old Lady ESTELLe got me too, as I read that book in 1984. (Junior year English.)
Oh, very crafty, @Sam Corbin, including "flat-out" in your column's subhead, a term that could have been a theme answer. Brava!
@Lewis "Flat as a board," okay, but flatboard? Doesn't make it less clever, though. AI says it could be a writing surface.
Life simply is not fair. Robert Redford gets to go through life looking like, well, Robert Redford. THEN he gets to die in his sleep. He must of been one hell of a nice guy in a previous life.
An enjoyable Tuesday puzzle. Thank you, Jonathan.
Sped through most of it quick and it was good fun, but I had to look up CUKE/CAMEO, felt a bit of a strange crossing
Quick fun with a nice payoff at the end in this very fine debut. RTE filled from the crosses and I had to check the clue. Jonathan was not talking about . . . <a href="https://www.rte.ie" target="_blank">https://www.rte.ie</a>/
Today's puzzle was perfectly fine, a nice Tuesday. The clue to the revealer was practically a gimme (for me), but I didn't GROK the theme until after I had completed the puzzle. This by itself is not a complaint, but my reaction upon getting the theme was not "A-HA! How clever!" but rather "Ah, I see." This means I didn't find it as fun as yesterday's THERE'S NO I... That was a nice example of an A-HA moment. Today's nit: Shouldn't the revealer clue have included the phrase "parsed differently" to indicate the change from ABOARD to A BOARD? I look forward to hearing from the crossword purists.
@The X-Phile Dunno about the purists, but for me the revealer was too opaque. I did not understand the theme before checking the column. Then again, I'm not sure an indication the revealer needed to be parsed differently would have helped dim me.
The X-Phile, The clue doesn't say ALLABOARD needs to parsed to be the train conductor's cry either. Solvers are expected to know they are not going to DOOK.
27D - Are you cluing that channel as being "for cinephiles" intentionally now just to troll us?
Rick, Now? "Cinephiles" has been in TMC clues since 2011!
Loved this one! And once I figured out the theme, thought it clever!
Glad I wasn’t eating breakfast while doing this puzzle! Lots of 🤢 in this one!
Nice crossword again. I didn't have to look up anything but the clues were still interesting. I thought maybe the spelling of leek was leke in the US, I couldn't think of another thin green vegetable. I wouldn't have got the theme in a month of Sundays. I tried. But no matter.
Solved it pretty fast, didn't need to look up anything, and didn't need the theme. More of a Monday than Tuesday?
Quick and tidy puzzle for me. Number me among the people who learnt LOOKIELOO today. I'm pro learning.
Congrats on your successful debut! It was my best Tuesday solve. I didn’t get the theme though.
On the theme of Sam Corbin's opening question: has Will Shortz or anyone else ever said anything about whether certain answers are published close to each other intentionally? Sometimes, an obscure answer will appear in two puzzles just a week or two apart. I assume this is an intentional gift for the solver the second time around, but I don't recall if the editorial team has ever answered that directly.
@Bob The puzzles are created separately by freelance constructors that are not NYT employees. Most of them are not even in New York. While it is common for the editors to change a clue, when they think an answer is not a good fit, they ask the constructor to rework that section; they don’t do it themselves. This, I doubt it’s feasible to tailor any significant number of puzzles to echo previous ones. It’s just that some answers are prone to be repeated a lot. Or it’s a coincidence.
@Bob I think Sam was referring to a specific type of theme which I think the editors could control if they wish and probably do. In this case “double word association” puzzles are such a common type of theme it doesn’t really matter. I think specific unusual words that happen to pop up in nearby puzzles is harder to control. I do think it’s weird when that happens and there’s identical clues. I think the editors could pick up on that—although it may be that Will green lights puzzles but different assistant editors look at the clues closely, which might explain things.
@Bob I’ve wondered about this too. I’ve noticed that each week seems to have a non-crosswordese term that is sprinkled about into 3 or 4 puzzles. It feels like an Easter egg.
Can someone explain TMC? Isn't it Turner classic movies (TCM)?
@Curtis As Robco writes, it's The Movie Channel, which is a Showtime channel. Whether it's a channel for cinephiles is debatable.
@Curtis Whenever this clue comes up I now go straight to TMC even though I think TCM is more correct. Constructors seem to love The Movie Channel
@Curtis TMC and TCM are a kea/loa, but I'm of the school that thinks Turner Classic is much more for cinephiles than The Movie Channel; the latter is for folks who like movies.
On the subject of head cheese….unappetizing name notwithstanding…it’s really just smaller pieces of meat held in a gelatin matrix. In the US people eating jello from molds and more specifically eating savory meat flavored gelatin used to be a thing. I’m not completely sure why it went away…but probably the hassle of trying to cool with little packets of unflavored gelatin and maybe the disgusting excess which gelatin cookbooks were pushing made the whole thing déclassé and weird. Really…everyone should pick up an old gelatin cookbook sometime and see how weird those things often were. Andrew Zimmern who hosts the show Bizarre Foods loves the stuff…or as it’s called in its more pleasant name “aspic” which is basically savory meat gelatin. Actually….if one watches Bizarre Foods…so many of the items presented are actually pretty tasty in person…and can make for really interesting travel to remote places if you get to try those “bizarre foods”. Of course I have yet to try head cheese…but maybe if I make it to one of the places the show went I’d try it….all of those looked delicious as opposed to the odd ones I remember from the deli counter as a kid.
@Paul “Its more pleasant name, aspic…” Have you really ever said it out loud?
@Paul I’m sorry that the name headcheese evokes so much repulsion. Living in Germany for many years, I’ve gotten to know many variations of headcheese (Sulze), all of them delicious. They usually have a sweet/sour component in the gelatin and are especially delicious with fried potatoes and tartar sauce. Being a meat eater, I feel that it is somehow important to justify the consumption of an animal by minimizing waste. That means utilizing every part, not just the juicy steaks and chops.
@Paul Well, it *does* use the less-attractive edible parts of the pig...
I was convinced that I was going to find the word "all"on top of each of the theme clues 🤣🤣 I didn't let it show me down but I didn't get the connection until I read the article.