"You really didn't like that carpenter, did you?" "No, my criticism was measured." ("Yeah, I guess it was on the level.")
Like bad carpentry, Mike's puns are unparalleled
@Mike Did he do a varnishing act? In that case I'll shelve my project and I won't book him. I got so board with those last wood-be workers I saw horsing around in plane site.
@Mike I saw what you did there! Your humor used to be wooden, I was almost board, now it’s just cutting, and I fear it’s getting screwy.
@Mike Almost any reply I make wood work, so I'll just file this one.
@Mike “I’m plumb out of ideas, awl out.” (“Screw it!”)
@Mike The irate author sitting in his car penned a rant about the terrible traffic.
@Mike “I’m plumb out of ideas, awl done.” (“Man, that’s screwed up”)
@Mike “I’m plumb out of ideas.” (“Man, that’s awl screwed up”) Side note: My 4th attempt to post this, and my final edit.
What score would I give this? 10! 10! I hope another of Mr Schlossberg’s crosswords is so[✂️]rtified for publication!
Those scissors were cool. They acted as phantom rebus squares containing ONCE. You could only see that word in your imagination rather than crammed into a square. A symbol in a crossword grid between squares? – I don’t ever remember seeing that before. Just a brilliant stroke, IMO. High props, Michael! Also, props, sir, for pulling this off at all. Are you kidding me? Nine theme answers, all with lengths in double figures? Four instances of theme answers abutting for four squares? Finding four ONCE-embedded answers to be symmetrical with the four double-circle answers? Wow! I’m guessing you measured more than twice in making this work, Michael! In your notes you lamented over the handful of gluey bits in the grid, but, IMO, those were easily outweighed by the stellar strokes that created a most lovely riddle-filled solve. A famous ZEN KOAN is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” But what your puzzle evoked from me, Michael, is the sound of two. Thank you!
@Lewis An art professor once told me that, by now, “everything’s been done before,” and that trying to come up with something novel was a fool’s errand. In the century-plus of crossword puzzle-making, given the constraints of the grid and a language written in only 26 letters, you’d think the same would be true of new ideas. And then, like today, you get surprised. A very nifty Sunday puzzle.
As a stage magician, I learned MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE the hard way.
For sale. Magician's assistant. Assembly required.
@ad absurdum I hope you kept your better half.
I guess there still may be a testosterone molecule or two floating around in my blood stream. I was very proud of beDtiME for [When mating typically occurs]. And I've played a whole lot more chess lately than...well, you know.
I loved SCTV when it played back in the early 80's, so somehow I managed to pull HOSERS out of my ....whatever. Also, unlike most American college students, when they went south, I went north, and spent almost every spring break in Montreal or Toronto, so I heard "eh" quite a bit. Too bad I didn't stay there, as I had wanted to during that terrible era. And want to again. Just look at how tasteful that Oval Office is, and compare it with how garish and gaudy and tawdry it is now.
@Times Rita That’s where I knew HOSERS from too
@Times Rita I live close enough to the Canadian border that this was also a gimme for me also.
A Sunday puzzle with a theme that's not a set of groaners? Wow! So it *can* be done 🤷🏽 I mostly enjoyed the solve. I figured out the theme on my own even though the imperial measurements used in it are largely alien to me. I struggled with the fill in two or three places and had to resort to several lookups, especially around the MERC spot. That entry alone caused me problems. To me Merc is a Mercedes - that's what we call it for short in Polish (we just pronounce it [Merts]), and I've been hearing it in English-language car shows for decades, too. I'm familiar with the brand Mercury, and I guess I had an inkling it became defunct, but my mind just could not accept Merc could be anything other than a Mercedes. I did not know the etymology of ABBOT, either, or any type of sax other than alto. Neither was I familiar with SPINROOOMS. All that wreaked havoc in that area for me. I was so confused I had to turn to Google for help. Elsewhere I had WILe for the coyote, and the American sport cross did not help me in spotting the mistake. I wasn't really comfortable with that square though so I changed the e to a Y and got my gold star. It was not a bad puzzle. My struggles were Andrzej-specific.
@Andrzej And to me, MERC was always a Mercury (older usage, I guess). I always find it weird to refer to a Mercedes, with its soft C, that way.
@Andrzej You probably won’t be the only one to miss the coyote question. To be clear his full name is Wile E. Coyote, so his name is WILE but he can be described as WILY “you might say” both as an adjective and how to say his full name. Pretty clever clue, I thought; and for the crossing now that the NYYankees are out of the playoffs it’s easy to just fuhgetaboutem.
@SP It was a clever clue, which is why I realised I had to change that letter there. As for NYY, that's just a letter salad to me, as you can probably imagine.
@Andrzej the gdansk daily mail uses only metric in its sunday puzzles.
@Andrzej Here's a video with a baritone sax played by perhaps its greatest virtuoso, Gerry Mulligan. <a href="https://tinyurl.com/bddtsr22" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/bddtsr22</a> It's over 5 minutes long, but the first couple of minutes give a sense of the size and tone of the baritone. There is also the tenor sax, used by some of the best-known names in jazz. John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Lester Young are just a few. 1950s Rock and Roll had many hits with a honkin' tenor sax. To complete the quartet, there is a soprano sax. It has a distinctive straight shape more like a clarinet or oboe but the sax is made of brass.
This was frickin’ brilliant hands down. Forget about the brilliant fun theme even, for those of you who don’t pay attention to grids look at the symmetry of all those long entries and consider what went into placing those and then finding fill that worked, admittedly a little clunky in spots as the constructor admits but still decent. Loved the clue for ENDGAME Barry, I hear you but I personally don’t think it was too easy even with the hints and without them most people would be totally lost. One minor nit and two notes: ALEPH is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet but isn’t an A or even remotely like an A or even a vowel. As long as we are mentioning Rob REINER, if you liked “This Is Spinal Tap” check out the sequel that just came out. Mixed reviews but I thought it was hysterical. And to add to my growing list of crossword answers I learned from “Survivor”—Lisa Weschel who played BLAIR came in second in Survivor: Philippines. Also, Charlotte Rae who played Mrs. Garrett live in Milwaukee just blocks from where I grew up. (GO Brewers!)
@SP its exceedingly a-adjacent and it certainly is always a vowel in all its incarnations when its being used rarely as a silent letter (as in the hebrew word for "sin").
@SP "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues" Thank you, but how did I not know about this?!?!
What a concept, to conceive a concert of words concealing ONCE, as if from a sconce-lit brain. I toast you, Michael, with a limoncello!
Wow, this was fun! Took just the right amount of puzzlement. As usual, I found little stories in the theme pairs: The orange juice hoarder spent two whole minutes gloating MINE ALL MINE. I drafted a business letter to my gardening partner griping why he had only grown two pounds of FENNEL BULBS. GALILEO GALILEI gave an elegant lecture to his doubters explaining what it meant that his water clock had collected two gallons. I lost the bet, so we WENT FIFTY FIFTY on the price of the two feet of raffle tickets.
Quite appreciate this puzzle's theme. Wish it had run before I tried my hand at installing wood flooring in our master bedroom.
Oh, this was a good one! Not too hard, although I did struggle with the scissor ones for a while. Thanks for a fun end to a weekend of solving. Y’all enjoy your Sunday! Thanks, Michael!
I print out the puzzle, so I've learned just recently, thanks to a hint from, I think, Steve E., to check the newspaper version, especially on Sundays and Thursdays, because the regular .pdf omits any of those things that often make the difference in solving a puzzle. I'm not sure I could have finished it without having done that for this puzzle. Those scissors don't appear in the regular .pdf, were an instant alert as soon as I saw them. And that helped me get the theme very quickly, both parts of it. But it was tough going, since I have something wrong with one of my eyes and had to solve it using a big magnifying glass. Sunday print is SO tiny. But today is my birthday, so it was a really nice way to start the day. Thanks for a lovely gift, Michael! As for the revealer, I learned it years ago. My only woodworking was in building a huge dollhouse and a lot of dollhouse furniture, so I always had that phrase in the back of my mind. Also helpful when I'd hem my own pants.
@Times Rita Happy birthday!
@Times Rita, Happy Birthday today!!! 🎂🎈🥂🥳🎉
@Times Rita Happy Birthday! 🎉🎂
@Times Rita. This is my husband’s birthday as well. Only the best are born this day!
The puzzle was tailor-made A credit to the setter trade A little treasure Made to measure Bespoke and top grade
Wanted to point out how the measurements could be considered in four different contexts: distance = feet, weight = pound, volume = gallon, time = minute. Wonder if this was intentional? tc
Fan. Flipping. Tastic. Puzzle. Olio and all.
It took me a bit to figure out the theme but once I did my solve went fairly briskly and I finished roughly 30% under my average time. The theme reminded me of the time 20 years ago when I was selling my house and decided to replace the baseboards on my own, after getting a carpenter’s bid on the project. Getting the length right, given the necessary angle cuts often meant measure twice, no three times, no four times, cut once, oops, measure five times…you get the idea… At any rate, I ended up admiring this puzzle quite a bit and enjoyed a lot of the clueing…37A “Rock bands” for SEAM; 118A “When mating usually occurs” for END GAME; 29D “Cycle at night” for REM. Again, given our present circumstance I felt a twinge for anything connected to governance…71A “Biohazard regulator” for OSHA and especially 70D “‘Resolute’ item in the Oval Office” for OAK DESK. The photo illustration for the Wordplay column made me nostalgic for saner times.
@Joe You mean, before all the gold frou-frou? People putting their feet on the sofa? Stuff like that?
Very clever puzzle, and the best Constructor Notes in a while.
I’m not sure which I enjoyed more, the puzzle or the constructor’s self-deprecating comments about OLIO. This was a pretty smooth solve for me, save for the altoSAXES entry that really slowed me down in the NE quadrant. As the wife of a hobbyist woodworker, I am very familiar with the “measure twice, cut once” adage— although sometimes, it really helps to measure three times. Trust me. (That also applies to sewing projects, which are more in my wheelhouse.) I’m grateful for the explanations for BENEDICTS and ENDGAME, because those had me totally confused. Proud of myself for getting BAD DOG right away, though. (I’ve had experience.)
This one was an unalloyed joy. I got the first part of the theme very quickly but those cut marks took awhile longer. I left a hole to the right of each of those until I realized that what was needed was not a rebus. An anti-rebus? It took longer than my usual although I was never stuck. Just extra time steadily uncovered its delights. A perfect Sunday! I loved that the apparent primness of the 4A clue was belied by just going ahead and saying the word, alright, already! in an answer that crossed it.
I also adored the constructor comments about his gluey bits.
I confidently put in RING for "Rock band" (like a band on your finger that might hold a rock or gem) and congratulated myself and the setter for being so clever. But no.
@RobJ LOL thanks for sharing. I love when I do that. So humbling. :)
I was stuck for ages with a bass sax, moving forward only once I allowed myself to peek at today’s article. Ah yes. BARI sax. The other four letter low sax starting with BA- 😆
@Elizabeth Bari sax is the traditional low sax in a jazz band. Rare to see a bass sax there!
My carpentry skills are more MEASUREONCECUTTWICE. Fun puzzle!
Caitlin, thanks for the column and especially for including the origin of BENEDICT. I got it from the crossings, and guessed that it was an allusion to a literary or historical figure, but you saved me some googling.
@John Appleseed Yes, wonderful puzzle, but I agree that my only constructive (ha!) criticism is the cluing for BENEDICTS. Would have been less esoteric but just as brain-scratchy to clue it as either a verb or as a reference to multiple popes IMO.
Carpentry keeps me ship fit and trim! More than I can say for me belly. It's my peg leg, I tell ye! Argh!
As a hack carpenter, I always thought the adage should state: Measure five times, cut once, sand for an hour. Works for me! Amazing tricky puzzle! the scissors kept moving a few squares when I zoomed in and out on my android screen before I got the trick, so I had to close and reopen several times, adding yet a third trick to the puzzle
@Long walks n sunsets Forget Google. Caulk is your friend.
@Long walks n sunsets As a former pro carpenter, it's actually measure once, set a stop block, and cut sixteen times. As The Hawk (my old foreman) would say, "We ain't buildin' a piano."
Just finished Saturday. Thankfully, as it took twice as long as average, wasn't sure I was going to get it. Sam Ezersky's reputation for tough puzzles remains intact.
I'm pretty late because my eyeballs have practically dropped out of their sockets from the strain. Now that I've completed this TOTALLY WONDERFUL puzzle, I see NO reason whatsoever why I wasn't permitted to print on two pages. It would have speeded things up, prevented mis-identification of numerals, and prevented this headache that has started up... So, so clever and fun! That said, it actually was not that difficult, but when a puzzle is this entertaining, ALL is forgiven. I had roasted FENNEL BULBS in the restaurant at Hotel Alfa in...um, 1971 ...along with chateaubriand and a lovely red wine. SWOON. I got MIN-MIN first, and then TO WHOM IT MAY CRN completed the SATANic double whammy. The single Nit: not ONCE did anyone call his BARItone SAX a "BARI." Had some fun with BIG DESK, THE DESK, OLD DESK...tsk. Why not walnut? I must go check on the source of the "Men who marry later in life," because there's one sitting across the breakfast table from me right now. Adieu.
@Mean Old Lady The Hotel Alfa is in Basel, Switzerland. I see no reason why it wouldn't still exist, but it has been a while... in case you were wanting to stop by for dinner.
@Mean Old Lady My high school jazz band would disagree with your claim re: bari saxes!
Omg! This puzzle had me in stitches. Starting with HOSER as any self respecting Canadian should get on the first pass, with no crosses. But then REM for cycle at night, ICE for pretty cool stuff and BAD DOG for Out damn Spot (I was looking so hard for a Shakespeare reference!). I was really hoping bull in a Chihuahua shop would be typo, but TORO works as well. Overall, a fresh, lively, enjoyable puzzle that had me grinning throughout, and served as the perfect palate cleanser for yesterday.
@DocP Also, fun bit of trivia, the first couple of seasons of SCTV were filmed right here in Edmonton, before it moved down south. And,to add to the delightful list of witty clues that made me smile, gives heat for ARMS
Good fun. Thanks. The BENEDICTS/BLAIR "B" was the last to fill as I had no memory of either. The theme brings to mind an incident when we were repairing a deck. I was up on the scaffolding shouting down measurements to the guy running the saw. Every single piece came up a quarter inch short. Finally I had to climb down and asked to see his tape. The tang at the end had been bent from it being dropped. I treated him to a new tape measure.
I *love* this puzzle. The way the theme is included in two different ways, the elegant clueing, nothing forced ... just everything about it. To me this is the perfect Sunday crossword.
I’m surprised to be the first to point out the Shakespeare misquote. “Gild the lily” is erroneous. The correct phrase refers to painting the lily; it’s the already gold thing that gets pointlessly gilded. The Resolute Desk clue provides a perfect case in point: the once-elegantly austere and now tastelessly gilded office in which it sits. Sorry for the gilt trip.
@Post Mortem To be fair, [gild the lily] in the clue is not in quotation marks. It is not given as a Shakespearean quote, but rather as an expression. The latter is attested by the OED as an alternative to ‘paint the lily’ for the past hundred years or so. I’d actually be curious whence the gilding of the lily (neither the OED nor our dictionaries speculate). The original context might be as interesting as the 1616 painting of the lily.
@Post Mortem I always associate "Gild the lily" with Chaucer, and by that I mean Paul Bettany says it in A Knight's Tale when he's offering to fabricate Heath Ledger's patent of nobility
Oh my gosh! Was at parents’ and did this in ink. My mistake was I forgot about BARI SAXES and wrote Bass Saxes. My face is red. I have been in concert and stage band. Enjoyed the puzzle!
Not a single complaint with this one. Though it was quite a slog for me, not once did I feel stumped and helpless. A word dawning here and there led to a succesful completion. My brain is still catching a breath as this is what a crossword is supposed to be.
Any puzzle with COLIN Firth in it is okay by me. Amazingly, to me at any rate, I figured out all the moving parts to this one all by myself. Was able to plunk the revealer in with no crosses, though the little scissors were something of a hint. Finally, I'd like to thank the movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which was recently on cable, for teaching me about the RESOLUTE DESK. Knowledge is everywhere.
@Vaer that’s how I knew about the resolute desk as well!!
@Jacqui J I also have a connection to the first movie. For years i worked in a building across Broadway (here at the Wall) from Trinity Church. And at the time the movie was made the store where Abigail and Riley watch the action from was a Borders Book Store. I was somewhat irked that the treasure was below the church. There's a subway line both in the front and the back of the churchyard. No way they wouldn't have found the treasurewhile excavating. 😄
I’ve been thinking about other examples for the measure twice side; there are obviously plenty but many wouldn’t be very interesting; “mi” for miles, “mm” etc. I think the constructor did a good job of finding challenging and interesting ones even if they were a bit repetitive. But here’s an another fun one although a bit obscure: “Third book in an L Frank Baum series (4 tablespoons)” —OZma of OZ.
@SP (Two tablespoons). But you knew that. :)
@SP Ozma of Oz! A great book in the Oz series, and one I will always associate with one of my favorite Jeopardy players, Amy Schneider. She has a tattoo of Ozma, a character who was raised as a boy but is revealed to be actually an enchanted princess. What an inspiring and hopeful story that must have been for a transgender little girl.
@SP I love your suggestion. I was admiring that Michael actually came up with four different types of measurements (time, weight, volume, and distance).
This was totally in my lane. I am in the midst of building a magazine box for group photos with my husband and my cousin for her son’s wedding. My husband literally reminded me this morning to MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE 🤣 I’m enjoying this construction project with them and expanding my carpentry skills. All in all, I thought the grid was NEATO. Thank you, Michael 📏📏✂️
@Jacqui J Whatever is a magazine box for photos?
Woo-hoo! I got this one! Took a while, but figured all the tricks, found phrases, filled circles, had fun! Although on my phone, the scissors were faint and the light parts "implied" that letters were missing. ONCE I got that, cruised home and thought I'd try my hand at commenting. 😊 Greetings, all!
Very playful. I had fun.
Awesome LOL constructor notes. The riff on cherry cola Oreos, mansplaining… Loved all of it… and, of course, the puzzle. Thank you.
Great puzzle but I feel like it should have counted as a solve for keeping the rebus with ONCE in the squares. I get that the point is to “cut” the once out, but it’s not like the across words worked without the rebus. Seems like either/or should have worked for the app to count it as a solve.
@Jared but a rebus is not the same as "cutting" the letters - and plus you still need the downs to work normally? Not sure how this makes sense, sorry.
Fun puzzle, and wow! two tricks! But I was done in by typing in ONCE in the rebus square. 17D: I knew there was some crosswordese word for doofuses in Canada, but as it's not a term I ever hear in actual conversation, I had to rely on the crosses. On the topic of Canadianisms ..... not many people say "eh" either.
@Esmerelda Bob and Doug Mackenzie of Second City introduced America to both hosers and eh, or at least to me and my friends. Here is an example: <a href="https://youtu.be/u3niShPaKFY?si=BLJwmln457CACDpD" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/u3niShPaKFY?si=BLJwmln457CACDpD</a>
@Esmerelda I have known many Canadians and Buffalonians and can assure you that I've heard "eh" used a lot. From the Montreal location, I'm guessing that it may not be used in the Francophone community. On reflection, probably the first time I heard it I was in high school in NYC and our English teacher was from Saskatoon. He used it often enough that it became part of our vocabulary. Still think of you, Mr Murray Edwards. Hope that you're still around as a centenarian.
Absolutely fantastic. 3 payloads for me: 1: learned a nifty new adage 2: cozy aha! when the 'measure twice' clicked 3: fireworks when the 'cut once' clicked
What a concept, to conceive a concert of words concealing ONCE, as if from a sconce-lit brain. I toast you, Michael, with a limoncello! Et tu, emu.
I am so sorry for the dupe. I submitted this last night and when it didn't post for a long time, I submitted it again, and finally both posts appear this morning. I can't imagine why it was withheld.
The first time in recent memory where I got the theme early enough for it to help me fill the grid. Great puzzle.
@Jim I love it when that happens! I figured things out early and STILL struggled, the bottom central squares, particularly. It would've helped if I'd ever heard of ZYNGA. Man, was I psyched to finally get that jingle.
@Jim it was so fun! i want more like it!
Fun puzzle. Ingenious is the only word that keeps coming to mind. Had me puzzled for a bit at first - but the aha moment came quickly enough. Definitely a great Sunday. Thanks tons for this one.
Maybe it’s just because I’m under 50, but I found the cluing on this one to be really challenging and obscure in spots. Made for a pretty painful fill.
@Cody. It is a really interesting concept—I often ask the younger generation if they know of some gimmee, for me, adages, or slang, and find that they have not translated for them. “Me…twice”, for example, I heard from my father and father-in-law regularly, both of whom owned and used saws. One was high-ranking military and one was high-ranking government, but both did simple tasks themselves. On the other hand, I depend on this puzzle to keep me aucourant with rap and slang terms.
@Cody I’m barely 30 and nothing popped out at me as being geared towards an older crowd in particular. No old pop culture references. Some stuff was obscure (zenkoans) but I imagine that was obscure for everyone.