Canniest for instance has to be one of my favorite clues ever!
This was a brilliant puzzle! One additional note that I have not seen mentioned is that the six circled letters were each symmetrically placed in the puzzle. To have six letters, symmetrically placed that can be dropped out of the entry in both directions, still making sense of the clue, and themselves spelling DROP IT is really mind-boggling! Puzzle of the year!
@Andrew -- Yes! I came here to mention this, the symmetry of theme answers AND circles. Are you kidding me? The skill behind this is amazing.
@Andrew Not only brilliant, but also fun. Sometimes, they are just brilliant.
Wow! Construction wise, this was mind-bendingly brilliant. I do wish there was more for the solver to do. The cluing was pretty straightforward and I wonder if solving on paper made the theme too easy to see. I tend to write the letters in circles smaller, so that little "D" in COMPANY CARD just made it too obvious. [Fight back tears?] for DARNS and [Canniest, for instance] for ANAGRAM were so good I wish I could see them for the first time again. Yesterday, I participated in an event in the GAY MECCA of Ogunquit, Maine. One of my favorite signs: No Kings but Yass Queens! Nice touch crossing CLOSET with COME OUT.
Thank you, Daniel, for adding DROP IT. For me, the added layer elevated this puzzle from clever to magical. Sort of like a magician who is wearing a tall black topper when he starts doing a card trick and at the end of the trick you look back up at his head and the topper’s gone. You exclaim: HOW DID HE PULL (T)HAT OFF?
One of my favorites in a while. Everything sparkles, and COMEOUT crossing CLOSET? ACED it!
Guess I shouldn't be surprised that most everyone else found this unusually easy. Me? Couldn't work it all out. Was stuck in more than a couple of places. No big deal. Side note - tomorrow I'll be moving into a VA facility. Not sure if or when I'll be able to get back into solving these puzzles. I'll miss it (and miss all of you). Hope I'm back here soon.
@Rich in Atlanta I hope you can work out a way to access whatever you need to continue to contribute. I always look forward to your posts.
@Rich in Atlanta Good luck and good health, Rich! We look forward to seeing you more. You're a pillar of this sorta-community.
@Rich in Atlanta I'm not sure what media you use to solve there crossword, but If you don't have the NYT Puzzles app, that might be a good way to make the puzzle portable.
@Rich in Atlanta, Best of luck with your move. Sounds like a big transition, and I hope it’s a smooth one for you. We’ll miss your insights and discoveries in the meantime. Hope it’s not too long before we see you here again. 🙏🏻
@Rich in Atlanta I hope you get to come back here soon - sending sunshine your way!
"...tomorrow I'll be moving into a VA facility." Rich, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
@Rich in Atlanta -- Wishing you well on every front, and I will miss your rich posts. Hopefully you'll find a way back here.
@Rich in Atlanta Hope your move goes smoothly and that you're back here soon!
@Rich in Atlanta I'll bet they have WiFi and can get you on. Most VA facilities do. Whatever device you use should be able to come with you. You might miss a day getting settled, but I'll lay odds you can get back on by Tuesday unless the move is too exhausting. Even if you have to use a device they own, all you will need is your NYT log-in info. I'd suggest writing that down somewhere. If they don't have WiFi you may need a smart phone or to purchase a mobile hot spot. You can get them at Best Buy and there are several near Austell. May your move go smoothly!
@Rich in Atlanta To be clear, I was not suggesting that you solve on your phone. I meant that most smart phones will function as mobile hot spots. One way or another, folks at the VA should be able to get you connected.
@Rich in Atlanta Oh please come back! You'll be missed.
@Rich in Atlanta I hope you’ll be back soon, too! And I hope it’s a fantastic facility. I know there’s a big range. The ombudsman and Congresspeople are your friends, if needed.
@Rich in Atlanta Wishing you all the very best... And especially that you'll be back here with us soon! In the meantime, know that you will be missed! ❤️
@Rich in Atlanta I hope the move goes smoothly! As many have said, this space wouldn't be the same without you, so here's hoping that you find your way back to us sooner rather than later!
@Rich in Atlanta Hope to see you back real soon.
@Rich in Atlanta I'm hoping that the move is a temporary one, and that you'll be able to connect with us once you're settled in, and that your stay is as short as possible but gets whatever's necessary taken care of. Good luck, and hope to keep seeing your comments.
@Rich in Atlanta goes without saying that I'm not sure what sort of a VA facility you're headed for, but if it's anything meant for a long-term situation you should certainly be able to log on and keep participating here. It seems important to you, I think, and I hope you can advocate for yourself, or get help doing so, such that you can keep your access. In any case I wish you all the very best, and know that this fellow puzzler is thinking of you as you navigate this transition.
Wow! This appears to be a very simple theme, but the Schrödinger-like construction is awesome! Finding crossing entries in which one letter is dropped and the resulting entry still answers the clue is most impressive. Plus, the circled letters spell DROP IT. Bravo, Daniel. Really well done!
Oh, Daniel stoked my affinity for wordplay and word quirks with this theme, shot my thumbs up early on. But then he went a leap forward, raised the bar. Had a vision for making the theme elegant, and worked a full month through 19 iterations to have those circled letters spell a revealer AND have them and the theme answers be symmetrical. That lifted this already smart and impressive theme – an envelope-pushing Schroedinger variation that has never been done before – into magic. Really? These theme answers are already hard enough to come by, and to have all twelve be of certain letter lengths is remarkable enough, but then to restrict the circled letters to specific squares and SPELL A REVEALER – I bow down. This didn’t feel like showing off; it felt like Daniel wanted to create beauty, like he wanted this puzzle to be the absolute best it could be. For me, Daniel, it not only showcased the science of puzzle building, but came off as art. Not just a “Wow! Look at that!”, but also yes, a thing of beauty. Thank you, sir, for this, which I will remember for a long time.
Icing was the PuzzPair© of HAS A BALL and HIT IT, not to mention [Care to dance?”] for SHALL WE, which had me picturing Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr in “The King And I”.
@Lewis I wholeheartedly agree with you, Lewis. It even inspired me to post on Wordplay, something I haven't been doing for quite some time!
So this to me is an example where the brilliance of the theme and its execution is dimmed by the blandness of the solve, which is a shame because it IS brilliant, and well executed in the sense that it’s got pretty smooth fill and the theme entries are very clever. It’s too bad it solved, to me at least, like a very boring themeless and many people will miss the theme altogether (I was proud to say I noticed it early on which livened the solve for me). There’s just too many Tuesday level clues and entries and anything clever seemed to be easily gotten by the crosses. Wish they had stepped up the difficulty of the cluing and we saw more like “Canniest, for instance” which is about the only one that sticks in my mind. I think we need another physics analogy to call this puzzle; Schroedinger puzzles exist in two states simultaneously whereas this one, while existing in two states, really hinges on a particle that doesn’t make a difference. I propose “Neutrino” puzzle: neutrinos are particles that are super abundant in the universe and are everywhere, but don’t interact with anything so you don’t notice them. Physicists please elaborate and educate us further; they are colloquially known as ghost particles but I hesitate to bring it up because I’m sure the physicists will chastise me and explain why it’s a misleading nickname. What do you think? Any other proposed names for this very interesting type of wordplay?
@SP Wow. It’s just a puzzle. I loved it.
@SP I'm not really a physicist, but I'm pretty close as a physical chemist with interests in quantum mechanics, particle physics, and cosmology. You are right about the neutrino. A fast, low mass particle that rarely interacts with any other particles. It has been referred to as a ghost particle, I believe by real physicists. Interestingly, there's a theory that much of the "missing mass" of the universe (missing, because things are behaving to gravitational forces as if there is more matter we can see in the form of atoms and such) are essentially heavy-neutrinos--particles that have a good deal of mass but rarely interact with regular matter. They've been called Machos, Massive Compact Halo Objects. But they are still theoretical.
@SP Interesting that you got the theme and yet still found it as bland an experience as I (who missed the theme pretty much entirely). It's a pity really, all that amazing effort (and some terrific non-theme clues) and some of us just didn't notice and it made no difference at all in completing the puzzle. :( I am fine with your suggestion of Neutrino Puzzles. No great alternatives come to mind... Sixth Sense and Forrest Gump don't really fit.
@SP For what it’s worth, I agree with your first sentence. Some of the great fill that the constructor said was cut should have remained! This was technically brilliant, but didn’t have the wit I suspect it started with.
@SP You hit the nail on the head as to what bothered me about this puzzle. Such skillful construction, such lame and boring clues. Thanks to you and Francis for the WIMPS vs. MACHOS laughs.
@SP I love neutrino puzzle! I didn't get the theme at all, even read DROPIT in the circles and thought about "it" for a while. A few of the theme answers seemed a little off to me, but not far enough to raise suspicions. Finally got the theme from Wordplay, at which point I appreciated the difficulty of construction. But not difficulty of completion, which I suppose is OK for a Sunday. My favorite clue was "fights back tears."
@SP I thought [Fights back tears?] was another awesome clue. And there were fun crosses that stood out, like COME OUT crossing CLOSET.
@Francis Just a thought here: Heavy neutrinos would not be an example of MACHOS. Both are hypothetical, but the former would still be an elemental particle, albeit a heavy one, while the latter would be astronomical bodies. We look for heavy neutrinos experimentally (e.g. in a collider), and for MACHOs observationally. With MACHOs, we’re talking mass numbers on the order of billions of tons. Extremely dense, but not subatomic: such as neutron stars, black holes lacking an accretion disk, and others I don’t remember off hand. Yes, I was reading up on dark matter somewhat recently. I’m also not a physicist: I only minored in physics as an undergrad, back during my misspent youth when I was still resisting going into “the family business.”
1. [It's not to everyone's taste] 2. [It might make you drowsy] 3. [How to see a show on a budget] 4. [Most people don't want to encounter it] 5. [Mealtime staple for some] 6. [He's known for his big hits] 1. POP (T)ART 2. NAP(A) 3. (R)USH 4. RED (T)APE 5. (R)AMEN 6. SO(U)SA
ad absurdum, Sound(s) sometimes when I read a comment by ad absurdum: WHOOS(H) ( usually like today, without the H ;)
@ad absurdum there are two types of people: those who love pop tarts, and liars.
@ad absurdum Those were really good. My favorite is rUSh. Great... play on words.
@ad absurdum These are great! Except REDAPE, I’d like it encounter one.
@Frank Make that two types and me, who ate a Pop Tart back in the late 1960s and threw up soon after and never touched one again.
I feel badly for those whose only goal in solving a crossword is to fill in the grid from the given clues, (often as quickly as possible), without contemplating what the title might mean or how the circled letters might relate to the theme. To me this is a significant part of the puzzle, and I don't really feel that I have solved it until I have grasped those intricacies. I realize that not everyone shares my appreciation for clever construction, but it's those Aha! moments that are the real joy of solving puzzles like this.
@Andrew I was looking real hard for the gimmick the entire time… but since all the answers work with the circled letters there wasn’t really a way to see anything was amiss until the end. I needed the column to get the full picture. I thought DROP IT referred to removing IT from words, or moving those letters down into lower entries. He should have circled the letters TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT.
I liked COME OUT crossing CLOSET. I caught on to the theme early on when SKIS and CARS did not agree with the tense and case of the clue. When I realized that SKID and CARD worked better, I had CARS on the mind and thought how interesting that both CAR and CARD worked equally well. Seeing the title "Same difference" I had my AHA moment and used the theme to help solve the other circled letter clues. This puzzle was a SMASH!
Canniest, for instance!?! Come on…brilliant! Fun Sunday solve. Went perfectly with my morning coffee.
@Dominic I still don't get it...help please!
@Joy Harkin 'Canniest' is an anagram for 'instance'
@Dominic Great clue - it was actually a WHOOSH for me. ANAGRAM popped into my head, thinking oh I but you can make some other word(s) out of "canniest". A little weak, but ok whatever. Only reading the comments did I actually GET it.
Subtly mind-blowing. A: This puzzle _____ D: Appropriate descriptor of this puzzle. 🔲🔲🔲S 🔲🔲🔲U 🔲🔲🔲P 🔲🔲🔲E 🔲🔲🔲R CANTBE(B)EATEN
@JohnWM I don’t know— we always hear “the dog ate my homework”, can’t the dog eat my crossword puzzle? At least the print version? 😉
The theme clue/answer combo that blew me away was [Go downhill fast] for SKI/SKID. In all the other combos – and mind you, they are all gorgeous finds – the clue has basically one meaning, and its two answers fit that meaning. But [Go downhill fast] has two meanings; SKI fits one, and SKID fits the other. This is so elegant and so jaw-droppingly perfect, all I can do is deeply bow before greatness.
@Lewis An even more subtle example is 90D. If you take the clue “Sorry, I’m unavailable!” and stress the word “unavailable”, then NO TIME fits best. If you stress the word ”I’m”, then NOT ME makes more sense. Two very slightly different meanings.
@Lewis The D in SKID was the error I needed to find to get the gold star. I had s, because that fits the down clue just fine. And it almost fit the cross as well, COMPANYCARs. Except that I should have know that was wrong because of the plural/singular disagreement with the cross clue.
I came here to say 74D was the best clue ever. I filled it in and stared at it for quite a while until it clicked. And then had to show it to my husband it was so good. Wow just wow. Closet x come out was clever. I’m embarrassed to say I did not get the theme until I came here. Doh!
@SusanEM Came here to say the same thing about 74D. I’m not even done with the puzzle yet but had to interrupt my flow to say that. Made me grin from ear to ear.
coming up on a year as a prodigal x-worder (wandered for 40 years or so in the quotidian desert) and just love the way every few weeks finds my crucigram esthetic subtly altered. when i first (re)started out i found clever symmetries, tricks and themes which were at best tangential to, and at worst utterly unrelated to the solve - often revealed to me post-puzzle either in the wordplay column or the comments - to be mere frippery. why bother? its just showing off. such a wasted effort. but then i got to thinking about how great painters from michelangelo to kahlo do the very same thing: add little flourishes and fillips and inside jokes and obscure references to some of their most smashing works, which have very little to do with the meat of the painting and can impart unique little after-quivers of pleasure after theyre pointed out by others or discovered upon subsequent viewings or prolonged gazing. another incidental insight for me of how crosswords are not mere puzzles. this medium is art.
@Matt I do love posts which flicker with the filigree—the flights, the flaughts!—of frasing such as frippery and fillip. Plus, don’t tell anyone, but alliteration will get you everywhere with me. Plus, I agree with your sentiment.
@Matt id love to know from some grid artists: do you sometimes include the bells and whistles for your own pleasure, without much thought given to us solvers?
Clever construction, thank you! (Pedant point - “gasoline” is a fuel, not a fuel source. “Source of energy” would have a more precise clue.)
Various mutterings to be heard while solving: “Yeah I’ll figure out those circled letters at the end.” “Oh it’s NO TIME, not NOT ME.” (so close!!) “Wow, it’s a really good Schrödinger, but I bet the downs don’t work.” “Whaaat! Amazing!” In other news, when I had -YSTE- for the oppressive political regime, my brain instantly piped up with OYSTER. Too bad I already used another sign today — one reading “no oysters” could have been fun.
I enjoyed this. The puzzle seemed quite hard to me at first. At one point, having very little after my first across and down pass, I actually considered abandoning it. I liked much of the clueing though, and the theme, which I did not understand yet, did not look like a typical Sunday set of groaners. So I persevered. Some squares I filled in with the digital pencil, expecting having to go back to them later. Astonishingly, all my guesses turned out to be correct. The solve took 35 minutes and no lookups, which is a good result for me on a Sunday. The theme was nice and tight, only slightly clunky in a place or two - I wasn't a great fan of the awkward clue for ANT(I)VENOM, and its cross, but I dealt with that, too. The crossing of the rapper and composer could have been a natick - I've never heard of the former, but I seemed to remember the latter from previous puzzles, so it was no problem in the end. BTW. "Polka" means "Polish woman" in Polish. I just did a bit of research: Polish linguists seem to be unsure whether there is a link between the name of the Bohemian dance and the Polish language. Some support a purely Czech etymology, completely unrelated to the Polish meaning of the word, while others make a connection. @Sam Lyons to the rescue, maybe? 😃
@Andrzej You flatter me as I’m no Slavicist, but it seems that the words Polska and Polka/Polak derive from your word for ‘plain’ (as in, e.g., the Great Plains): ‘polana.’ (‘Plain’ and ‘polana,’ btw., are likely false cognates. The former comes from Latin ‘plānus’—‘flat;’ the etymology of the latter is out of my “jurisdiction.”) The Czech-derived ‘polka’ comes from ‘půl’ or ‘half,’ (‘pół’ in Polish) as in ‘half-step.’ Good to see you on the Sunday beat, btw, Andrzej.
@Andrzej You beat my solve time by 6 minutes. But given that I started in Feb/March with Wednesdays taking over an hour and SUndays over two, I'm glad to be closing on on the times of one of the regulars, albeit not a native English speaker
@Sam Lyons Thank you for all this. I have known for ages polka is not a Polish dance. I have always wondered about the name though. Taniec (dance) is masculine indeed. Except polka, which is feminine, our other domestic and imported dances are masculine - polonez, mazurek, krakowiak, walc. However, I'm not sure it has anything to do with taniec being masculine. That's not how our gendered language works, as far as I know, and I'm quite good at it. Mebel (piece of furniture) is masculine, yet szafa (wardrobe), szafka (cupboard), skrzynia (chest), kanapa (sofa) are feminine, łóżko is neuter, and stół is masculine. Also, it's good to do a Sunday puzzle form time to time, as long as it's not a John Kugelman 🤣. That guy is a master of constructing the exact opposites of the kind of grids I enjoy solving 🤪 @Peter Doing these puzzles is about experience, but also about familiarity with language and culture - soon you'll be beating me by every metric, as my only advantage over you is that of experience.
I popped in to read the comments this morning only to realize that, in solving it last night during the nail-biting, beer-enhanced halftime of the fiercest—if apolitical, mostly areligious, and definitely not Levantine—Holy War known to college football fans anywhere, I had missed a whole layer of the puzzle and its, well, puzzlement. Not only had I forgotten to look at who the constructor was (the name Daniel Grinberg always spells good puzzling times ahead), but also to put on my glasses. I’d’ve barely registered those circles on a good day; at 2am in front of Hubby’s Obscenely Large TV the Purchase of Which I Had Nothing To Do With, there was no hope for my blurry eyes. Well, bummer. What I had already thought was a lively puzzle is actually a puzzle extraordinaire. And I missed it. Chalk it up to my list of this morning’s tragedies. (Looking at you, BYU. As if my ilk needed more things to resent about you right now after those last few agonizing minutes of the 4th quarter.)
I had so much fun with this. 74D worth the price of admission alone. Nearly choked on my cuppa when I got it. Yes, it was a tad easier than the average Sunday, but I found the clueing to be fresh and entertaining, the theme a delight. Only a few clues held me up; looking at you SORORAL/SEROTYPE. Interestingly my iPad doesn’t recognise the former and offers Sorrel instead. Smooth before no bits (which is how it’s labeled here) before finally hitting NO PULP. That helped me work out which BEAD I was looking for. The relative ease was a bonus today. I’m v tired after a marathon fundraiser for the Village Hall yesterday. Lots of money raised for repairs to the 100 year old building, lots of fun had. Happy to stay home today as the weather is filthy, though the Alpaca poo pick still awaits. Better shrug into my waterproofs. Yuk.
The brilliance required to create a grid like this makes me want to hide under a rock.
Just for fun, I typed SORO into Google and SORORAL came up before sorority and George Soros! Shows you how many NYT puzzlers must have been Googling today...
@Andrew It's creepier than that. It shows how well Google knows what you search for, and what time of day your searches are likely to be looking for NYT clues
Highly disagree with 120-across, but fantastic puzzle!
@Rachel Haha, yes, I haven’t had that nickname either! Rache maybe, but usually it just doesn’t get abbreviated.
@Rachel I had an Aunt Rae when I was a child. It was many years after her generation’s passing that I found out her real name was Rachel.
After I had completed the puzzle I met someone named Rachel who spelled her nickname "Ray". Glad I did not meet her before finishing the puzzle, might have been a problem.
I am definitely a fan of Schrödinger puzzles!
While yesterday’s seemed super hard, today’s flowed quite quickly. But to me, it seemed like a themeless until I got done and looked it over. (Although I had looked at the title before starting, it didn’t reveal anything to me while I was solving.) Once down, I noticed that the circled letters could be included or excluded from the across answers they were it. Neat! Then I saw they worked with the downs, too. Even better! At that point, I figured the circled letters had to stand for something, too. But I was solving on a phone tonight, and I could barely see where all the circles were. I figured I’d see it in the article. Sure enough, there it was. Three levels of clever! Too bad I didn’t see, or need to see, any of it during the solve.
@Steve L This was a strange one for me. I can usually tell when I'm acing a puzzle because I'm filling in sections entirely before moving onto others, indicating I'm having no problems with crosses, no uncertainties. That gave me a smug feeling right up until I got the "Close" screen. Then I looked *everywhere* for mistakes, and very nearly did not find it. So the puzzle "flowed" for me, too, right up until I crashed shipwrecked on the "Close" screen.
Brilliant Puzzle and my best Sunday by over 7 minutes. I hope I am not an EGOIST for saying that I did it at TOPSPEED. Some clever clues, COMPANY CARD next to the COUNTRIES the business travelers visit, and the cross of COMEOUT and CLOSET stood out to me.
@SamG Totally forgot to mention the clever use of the circled letters. Just DROPped It, I guess.
A long time ago, just after I had started to regularly getting weekend puzzles fairly regularly, I was stunned by a Tuesday that I could not complete. That was tough on this EGOIST, as I thought failing Tuesday was something I was long past. The reason I failed is because I did not know about the LENAPE Indians, an several on the board chided me saying I should have known that. Well, this time I did! So we do learn things from puzzles that stup us. I even remember the cross with LENAPE. It was the a banjo player named BELA Fleck.
@Francis I never heard of LENAPE but the crosses were all straightforward so now I know too
Francis, if I may reply to your comment yesterday where you lamented MLB's wealth inequality and particularly the Dodgers' advantage in that area over the Brewers... In their 6 regular season meetings this year, the Brewers swept the Dodgers 6-0. That's not to say that MLB doesn't have the problems you describe, but with the Dodgers and Brewers this season, payroll advantage seems not to be a factor. The Brewers won 60% of their match-ups; the Dodgers happened to win the more important 40%
For four years in the 1930's, Ronald Reagan was the announcer for Chicago Cubs baseball games. He sat in the WHO radio studio in Des Moines and received information about the game from a wire service. The wire would indicate a pitch was a ball and the future President would add a flourish, such as, 'the pitch was low and outside'. 154 games a year for 4 years enhanced his storytelling ability. My father wasn't close friends with him but was an acquaintance from frequenting the same prohibition dives during1933. Prohibition ended and Reagan became a well-known man about town. I was not old enough to observe any of this-heard the stories from people like my father and others his age
@coloradoz I wish Reagan had done that the rest of his life--I would have loved to have listened to him broadcast baseball in the 70s and 80s.
@coloradoz This triggers memories of Les Keiter's radio broadcasts of Giant games working off the ticker tape feed. He had a variety of sound effects, (bat hitting ball, crowd noise), to add a sense of "being there".
@coloradoz, Here’s a famous story from those days: “On June 7, 1934, with the Cubs and the Cardinals tied 0-0 in the ninth inning, with Billy Jurges at-bat and Dizzy Dean out on the mound, the line went dead. Rather than lose his audience, Reagan improvised a streak of foul balls that lasted nearly twelve minutes until the wire came back. He would share this humorous anecdote with audiences for decades to come.”
Entering this puzzle was like stepping into an arcade where you wanted to play every game. So many changes in direction and so much fun to wander through. Yes. Thank you, Daniel Grinberg, for this lovely Sunday puzzle.
I was so pleased with myself because I solved with no looking up or revealing, only to find I missed the theme completely! It's quite a feat to work out all the cultural references I am unfamiliar with; harder than for some of you, and I really enjoyed being able to finish. I didn't know of MR ROBOT/O and I took a while to get the O of gasoline anyway;I got stuck on the meaning of GAS meaning something you cook with, not petrol. Didn't know ANT VENOM existed. Little things, like NO PULP for "no bits", CELLS, ANN, OLDSTER. Remembering LOVE BEADS, such a long time ago. Remembering JOAD when I read the book an equally long time ago. If I found it fairly easy going, I can see why some thought it was not too demanding. But enjoyable for me.
@Jane Wheelaghan I noticed that you are the second commenter from the UK who wanted NO BITS before NO PULP. The latter is a very common descriptor of orange juice in North America. I would have struggled to find NO BITS.
@Jane Wheelaghan I went for NO bits first, too.
@Jane Wheelaghan You are fortunate to not have experienced the itch/burn/swelling of a fire ant bite, especially if bitten more than once. Most common in the southern states, I had not encountered them until moving to Florida from Wisconsin, whereupon they introduced themselves when they invaded my ground-floor apartment. It was not a pleasant introduction, but at least it was not a major invasion and was quickly repulsed. So yes, some ants have venom that humans react to, and the effects lasted about a week.
I actually had to finish the puzzle this morning after starting it last night due to overwhelming exhaustion 🥱 I loved various clues, especially [Canniest, for instance], [Fights back tears?] and [Place to hang at home?]. The crossing of COME OUT and CLOSET was brilliant. I also smiled at ENT crossing EMT. Hand up for making the same mistake as others in having s before D in the first circle. Stringing the circled letters together is what made me realize my error or I probably wouldn’t have ever found it! This is probably one of my favorite Schrödinger puzzle I’ve done with the exception of the Star Wars/Star Trek one. Thank you Daniel (and Brandon Koppy for your assist) for creating this mind blowing grid. Chef’s kiss!
@Jacqui J also wanted to mention that it would have been awesome if the circled letters would have been animated after the solve to disappear and reappear. That would have been the icing on the cake.
@Jacqui J Among the fun crosses, I hope you never SKID in your COMPANY CAR(D). Also loved the clue Canniest, for instance.
@Jacqui J That s/D killed my streak, not that it was especially long :(
I'm still bruised (grumpy) and exhausted from yesterday's puzzle so this was a welcome relief that solved quickly for me. Enjoy the day everyone!
@Lpr Same here! I started yesterday’s puzzle at 9 AM and finished at 9 PM.
@Steve Lol my solve was similar!! Started Friday night then took me all bleepin day Saturday. I like a hard puzzle but that one sure was a slog.
Best. Clue. Ever. "Canniest, for instance?" Ha! Luckily I already had all but one letter filled in, or that would have taken me a lot longer. As it was, I filled it in, then took awhile longer to figure out this glorious, very clever trick...I could kind of see what was going on with the right-hand side of the grid's circles, but was not quite clear on what would work on the left or how the whole thing worked in general. (I'm being obtuse because I don't want to give anything away here!) But when it all became clear, it was a big wow!! What a great Sunday puzzle; thank you, Daniel Grinberg!
@Heather Kingham Don't worry about spoilers here. The consensus is that spoilers are inevitable if we're really going to have a good discussion about the puzzle. So give away all you like (for the crossword--other rules apply for other games discussed here).
What a hoot! What a lark! Proof that a puzzle doesný have to be hard to be fun! I confess, I struggled with 114A: I kept trying to squeeze GOLF MECCA in--true I have been a haji to neither Palm Springs nor Puerto Vallerta, but now I'm worried they're going to take away my "company" car(d). *** I searched YouTube in vain for a polka in D-flat major. Someone *must* have written one! D-flat major was a very popular key among Romantic Era composers for the piano, if nothing else. Of course, in both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Bach filled the slot between C and D with pieces in the enharmonic equivalent key of C-Sharp major, 'cause, well, why wouldn't to play in seven sharps? Anyway, here is the Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp from BOOK II*: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BXGsQMPWUw&list=RD0BXGsQMPWUw&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BXGsQMPWUw&list=RD0BXGsQMPWUw&start_radio=1</a> In his set, Chopin didn't bother with fugue, nor did he write in seven sharps--here's *his* Prelude in D-flat major--I'm sure you'll recognize it: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG9Hsc3rJYA&list=RDGG9Hsc3rJYA&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG9Hsc3rJYA&list=RDGG9Hsc3rJYA&start_radio=1</a> Shostakovich followed Chopin's ordering for *his* set of Preludes and Fugues--stay around for the fugue, it's pretty wacky!: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO1APDlYURo&list=RDeO1APDlYURo&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO1APDlYURo&list=RDeO1APDlYURo&start_radio=1</a> *Normally, I'm pretty fond of Glenn Gould's recordings, but I gotta say, this one is pretty weird; but, alas, Angela Hewitt's was broken up into two tracks.
Very fun and made me smile with delight several times. This was a lovely refresher after yesterday's slog.
Brilliant! Love how Lowercase i crosses with egoist, as they should. So much to love in this puzzle, like the canniest anagram too! Good to have the hajis going to Mecca, Palm Springs is mecca of a different sort, and the Joads were also heading for California, their own Mecca, envisioning a promised land, a place of redemption. After a long and grueling journey along Route 66 from Oklahoma, into the Mojave Desert, they finally reach California, the agricultural San Joaquin Valley, only to discover that the “Promised Land” they hoped for is not the paradise they imagined. Instead of plentiful work and good wages, they find overcrowded migrant camps, brutal labor conditions, and widespread poverty. But we all have our meccas, don't we? We're all idealists...at least it felt that way today, marching with my brothers and sisters in collective love of our country.
I posted this yesterday at 11pm and it was approved at 2pm the next day. When it did not appear immediately, I posted it again. I won't speculate on why there was such a delay, since it happens to lots of people here. It's just a sign of how badly the comments mechanism at the Times are run in general. You'd think that the "paper of record" would have a better grasp of modern technology. But they don't.
@john ezra I'm glad you had to repost because I probably won't make it all the way through the comments today, and I loved everything that you had to say here! ☺️
@john ezra I'll never forget the feeling of reading "The Grapes of Wrath". It was stunning.
I have sent a note to the NYT Games support team complaining about the non-obvious circles in the iOS app when using dark mode. The circles are there, but they're black, and with the background very dark gray, and the grid in white, the circles are very easy to miss, as was the case today since I decided to solve on my iPad, and I use dark mode. So, I missed a lot of the theme, and it solved more like a themeless. When I came to my iMac to review and write the comment, I saw that the column mentioned circles, took a look at the grid on the web page, and there they were, so I finally got to appreciate the theme. Definitely liked the puzzle more with the circles visible! Very clever, Daniel, and glad you stuck with it through all the changes!. Thanks!
@JayTee Dark mode isn't very elegant in the iPad app. I stuck with default for that reason, but for evening solvers, dark mode would be preferable. You might try flipping it to default mode briefly, just to see if there is some sort of graphic. Especially Sundays.
@JayTee I solve in dark mode on my iPhone and have taken to the habit of zooming in on the grid before starting to see if there are any anomalies.
A lively, smooth, well clued puzzle with a nifty theme and lots of bright answers. Well done. A little more grit, and it would have been an all timer.
I finished the puzzle except for one square, but still hadn’t cottoned onto the theme. The square that was still empty was the last letter of COMPANY CAR and SKI. I couldn’t figure out what to put there, since both clues were already solved by my answers. I checked the remaining circles and saw that it spelled -ROPIT. It took a second, but the penny finally DROPped, and I got my gold star.
@The X-Phile Yep, that was my same final letter!
A sign of the crosswording apocalypse? Nabisco and Hershey have done a product tie-in, whereby there are now Oreos with Reese's filling, and Reese's cups with Oreo filling and topping. I am not volunteering to try either of these, not even for science.
Bravo! Mr Grinberg deserves a hard-earned p[o]int!
Last year I started reading a mystery series by D.L. Keur. The Jessica Anderson k-9 series. From that series I have learned “kakistocracy” government by the least capable. And “depilatory” for hair removal. The second gave me depilate today. The first I frequently use in my vocabulary. Enjoyed the puzzle very much today
I knew the circles were going to spell something but I didn't get the second role of the circles until I had every letter of DROP IT, even as a SKIer who triple checked the verb tense of 9D because I couldn't believe it wouldn't fit. Really really cleverly done to the point that it reminds me that my brain could never write one of these grids! Sadly I think that it will go underappreciated due to the relative ease of the clues.
@Carrie Even though I saw DROP IT when I finished the puzzle I had no idea what the relevance was until I read the article. Extremely clever - wish I'd been smart enough to work it out for myself! 🥺
After a blistering hard Saturday puzzle where every square was a victory this nice fun easy solve was a blessing (Not just OK) Had a glimmering of the theme while solving but really didnt need it to get to the finish lne. Happy Sunday to all!
I had a great time with this one after a tough Saturday. The wordplay was great fun and the clueing creative. Also I was 7 mins faster than my Sunday average so that might have something to do with how much I liked it :)
@Rosianna man, Saturday was a bear for me. I finished this morning. Finally! I thought I was going to have to give up on it. Whew.
Oh, masterful. I’m glad I took my time and savored it. The theme was unobtrusive and clicked so satisfyingly once my slow brain grasped it (i.e., once literally I read the column after solving, lol), precisely because those were all clues that gave a bit of a wobble —even though the answers made perfect sense— like there was more than one way to make them fit. Kudos for some amazing clues: "Fights back tears?" and "Canniest, for instance” were hall-of-fame good. The one about Apple product names and the one where SECRETE didn’t mean “ooze” were also totally fresh. Even such a tired recurrence as KEN had a clue good enough to make me chuckle, and I actually learned something about old ENO this time. My one gripe, not to be JUDGY: 121A (“Verbally expresses disdain”). People colloquially use “verbal” to mean “oral,” but I expect constructors to observe the more technical meaning, “pertaining to words.” Though there is much overlap between the two things, tutting is precisely a form of oral paralanguage; that is, it involves sounds coming out of the mouth but zero actual words. When one TUTS, one lives in that tiny sliver of Venn diagram covered by “oral” but not “verbal.” (In contrast, this comment is verbal-unto-verbose but not oral.)
@at Well, okay, except there are people who verbally pronounce it, e.g., "tut tut, my good man". So it's fine anyway?