My streak hit 2000 today! What started as a hobby to keep me occupied during the start of the pandemic has become a wonderful daily ritual. While I rarely participate in commenting, the community here is wonderful and is a nice break from the chaos of the world these days.
@Kevin Well done. I’m about 9 months behind ya!
@Kevin Wow! And here I am, excited about the possibility of hitting 365 tomorrow. Impressive!
@Kevin, Congratulations!! That’s a great milestone to reach! 🎉🎶🥳🥂🎈👏🏻🍾
@Kevin amazing! Congratulations!! 🥳
Putting a TV above a working fireplace gives you a terrible viewing angle, a sore neck and a piece of electronics exposed to dramatic heat variations and possibly smoke.
@Spmm We love our tv over the fireplace. It’s quite comfortable to watch.
@Spmm If you can tell me how to put the fireplace above my TV I'm willing to give it try.
@Spmm In our old place, we had a wonderful working fireplace in the family room, and the TV was always kept off to the side, on a TV table, at a 45 degree to the two walls forming the corner. The sectional couch was positioned in the center of the room to line up with the TV. There was a closet behind it that was accessible via just barely enough space to get through on its left side if you swiveled the TV back in order to avoid hitting it. We loved using the fireplace, though we didn't do so that often, since I was always the one tending the fire, and I had a ground rule that the Mrs. had to have at least two hours to sit in the room enjoying it. (I also was the one cutting the wood for it.) The new place had a fireplace, too. It was a plug-in electric one. It looked so cheesy! One of the first things we did was give it the boot, and replace it with a ginormous TV that practically covered the whole wall. We also bought a small table to place below it, to hold the subwoofer and a few other items, and hide the wires. I personally am not going to miss the fireplace. (The room will be a lot cleaner, too.)
@Spmm Very true... and yet it's still a popular place to install a tv (for those who have a fireplace).
@Spmm Don't get me started. 🙂 I was thinking of posting this but thought I would get shouted down. Every ergonomic guide I've seen says screens should be about eye-level. I'm glad you got 60+ recs.
@Spmm We spent a lot of time researching this issue when we had a fireplace installed in our living room. Placement of the TV and your sofa or chairs can be done to avoid neck problems. We use recliners, and found they tip us back just enough to make viewing the TV very comfortable. You can find guidelines on the internet.
I relish pickles. (Dill with it!)
@Mike that’s kosher with me
@Mike Angry dog related to a pickle? Gherkin.
@Mike Wish I could come up with an acid remark.
Deb, thank you for mentioning Daniel Naroditsky's passing. I really enjoyed his chess columns from 2022, although I am guessing they didn't have enough clicks to become a long-term addition to the puzzle family. But they were very clever and very well-written. Here's the first one, with links to the others: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/13/crosswords/chess/chess-replay-you-versus-frumkin.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/13/crosswords/chess/chess-replay-you-versus-frumkin.html</a> and here's a nice story about him: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/crosswords/chess-columnist-naroditsky.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/crosswords/chess-columnist-naroditsky.html</a>
Mike — yes, I very much enjoyed working through those lovely chess puzzles and learning about many beautiful checkmates in the process. I was very much saddened to learn of Daniel Naroditsky's passing.
@Mike Chess has always amazed me with its strategy and its timelessness, though I play rather seldom. Anything suffused with deep logic and analysis is a thing of beauty to me. Thank you for sharing these and for honoring Daniel's memory.
How can the answer to 15A "Button to hit after accidentally deleting an entire manuscript" be anything other than PANIC?!
Well, if for some reason you need a bit of cheering up, try what I did. When I look over a puzzle after solving, my brain inexplicably sees the answers backward as well as forward, and when I saw KAREEM, it shouted, “It’s almost MEERKAT!” I forgot what meetkats look like, and did what I suggest you do – I punched it into Google. Oh, the happifying divine-cuteness images that came up – the beauty in this world! Speaking of which, this quality puzzle, where: • Each rebus connects both words of a two-word phrase in BOTH DIRECTIONS (Hi, @Anita!)! • Lovely answers adorn the outing – NINJA MASTERS, COAT ROOM, JOULES, GOLEM, FRESCOS, OPERA BOX, THUMB INDEX, and even PICKLEBALL, a sport name so silly as to be endearing. • A new and clever clue appeared for an answer – SNL – that has appeared more than 500 times in the major crossword outlets. • You’ll find the lovely PuzzPair© of SUNBATHE and NO SHADE. To start the day with beauty? That is a gift. Thank you so much for this, Aimee!
@Lewis Meerkats *are* fun animals to watch. And they were just here in the puzzle (September 21).
@Lewis Don't you mean pickle sphere? The "ball" is hollow. And for the last three days, we've had a Minecraft mini-theme, with ORES, PORTALS, and GOLEM.
I've barely done any NYT crosswords before. Imagine my confusion when I had to figure out how the circle-in-square tiles worked. T'was fun! 😅
Welcome, @Bruno! The fact that you figured it out on a tricky Thursday is fantastic. Keep on solving!
@Bruno tell me please. I have no idea
@Bruno when I first started doing them rebus puzzles were the bane of my week, but now they're absolute favorite! They're usually on Thursdays so the rest of the week you're usually safe.
@Bruno If you’re anything like me, welcome to your latest obsession.
@Bruno Careful though, those circled tiles don't *always* call for rebuses!
Glad I checked the crosses for 1A: I was expecting "uteri." I hope this PICKLEBALL puzzle will bring a few more players into the happy rebus camp. Thanks, Aimee.
@Barry Ancona I initially had UTERI on my first pass...until the down clues denied it.
@Barry Ancona I understand why the rebuses in this puzzle were in circles, but I hope that is not the new normal.
@Barry Ancona I think this is the first rebus puzzle I've done where there is a different rebus each time. That threw me for a while because, having got one, I was trying to shoehorn it into the other circles. Duh! The penny (or should that be the FDR dime?) dropped eventually. Proud of myself today because for the first (possibly last) time ever I got the name of an NBA player! I guess KAREEM must've cropped up before. 😊
@Barry Ancona I too had uteri at 1-A, and got confirmation with “earner” for “Money maker.” Slowed me down for a while, but I persisted.
@Barry Ancona Haha, “expecting”… pun intended?
Yes I’m being a stickler, but BMI, technically owned by broadcasters (as opposed to ascap) is not a composer’s rights organization.
@The Alien Dog It's not *only* a composer's rights organization, but it is a composer's rights organization. Crossword clues have been doing this for as long as I can remember.
What's with all the naticks? The small quadrant in the NE was simply not doable without lookups for me, as were bits in the NW corner. AL__/O__S/RE__ - how was I supposed to deal with that other than knowing brands and a title from when I was a toddler? The jumble of ALEX, BAJA MEXICO, LATOSCA and ACAD was almost equally confusing. Especially La Tosca irritated me here. Of course I've heard of Tosca, without the La. But when I was looking at LAT_S_A, all I felt was lost. That's all too bad as otherwise it was a nice, relaxing puzzle, possibly slightly too easy for Thursday. However, I wouldn't be writing this had I not known JA(MESS)PADER - my wife watched "Blacklist" and the guy's name stuck. Actually, the revealer, PICKLEBALL, I have learned from these puzzles, so also that would have caused me problems not long ago. I liked some of the clues, but mostly I just want to say Meh after this experience.
@Andrzej 100% agree - I had to look up a couple of bits (to be fair, I’d guessed on of them but not tried it). Felt very trivia heavy for a Thursday *but* when I looked back over the grid it doesn’t look as bad as I thought; think it was just a couple of spots that had trivia clues that unlocked a lot of others.
@Phil To me it was as bad as it gets - there were several spots where I simply could not make progress because of stacked and crossing trivia entries. In that NE corner I actually figured out KAREEM (with crosses) and KPOP was a gimme, but those were just two of the *five* trivia-based clues there, and they all crossed! In fact, only two ouf of the seven clues in that almost completely closed-off quadrant were *not* about proper names, brands, and other trivia. That's simply excessive :(
You open a case with a statement, not an argument.
Easy enough to come up with entries that contain jam, bind or mess, but not so easy to find ones that span across two words in each crossing direction. I especially like THUMB INDEX/CABIN DOORS. Nicely done, Aimee.
@Anita -- Amen. Impressive accomplishment.
It’s Baja California not Baja Mexico. It’s in Mexico :)
@Hi hi "Peninsula south of California, colloquially." Works for me.
@Hi hi - I've never heard it called Baja Mexico. It's usually just Baja colloquially. Everyone knows it's in Mexico. Formally, it's Baja California and Baja California del Sur.
@Hi hi native Californian here and I’ve never heard it referred to as Baja Mexico?! The San Diego radio station 91X says “Baja California, Mexico” 😆 Who knows 🤷🏼♀️
@Hi hi I’m thinking that colloquially it’s called Baja … Baja, Mexico. It works with a comma.
@Hi hi That's why it's clued "colloquially". Obviously the constructors needed fill with the consecutive letters JAM in it, in two separate words. It wouldn't need colloquially if the answer were Baja California.
Late to the party...DHubby had a Coffee Emergency, so I had to drop everything and mop up scalding coffee, salvage enough to fuel the rescue operation, and treat his burned hand (MERE first degree, but of course it hurt. Immersion in ICE water for 10 minutes is the treatment for burns; once the pain of the cold is able to OUTDO the pain of the burn, you'll find there isn't even blistering.) So I got breakfast under way, too. I don't know how to work the NINJA coffee-maker, so there was a wait... In short, we were IN A PICKLE. (Not exactly having a BALL, though.) Hope the rest of our day goes more smoothly. Yours, too!
it amazes me how many different ways the dreaded oreo and snl are clued. enough with them already. other than that, puzzle was interesting. I had hoped for more than 3 themed rebus type answers. I,too, was confused about the tv over the fireplace reference. I guess it s ok if the fireplace is just for show and not actually used.
@Robco Gas or electric fireplaces don’t generate the heat, smoke or ash that can be problematic for a TV’s electronic components.
Every mantelpiece I've ever seen would be way too high for comfortable TV watching, and TV sets should never get too hot.
@Robco We have a tv over our gas fireplace. It complies with the building code. There are definite regulations that have to be followed.
@Robco There's usually no problem with mounting a TV above a properly constructed fireplace of any kind; gas, electric, or wood-burning. There are also electric fireplace TV consoles, which allow TVs to be placed on top of them without being mounted to a wall as well.
@Robco I appreciate the fresh ways constructors and editors have come up with to handle crossword glue such as oreo and SNL.
Clues for SUNBATHE and SNL—absolutely brilliant. An excellent, excellent Thursday. Thank you, Aimee.
@Sam Lyons I thought the SNL clue was sneakily evil. Unlike you*, I am plugged into pop culture and if Maya hadn't been out and about promoting the new season of her current show, Loot, in the last week, I'm not sure i would have gotten it without using the crosses. *NO SHADE, for which i first had NO SHAmE.
@Sam Lyons My reply to you hasn't shown up possibly because I used the word e-v-i-l? But in a good way, referencing the SNL clue. Perhaps Deb will release it in the morning.
@Sam Lyons Maya is terrific. Her mom was a singer and she also has a voice. Her Beyoncé impersonation was spot on and she came back to the show last year to do Kamala.
@Sam Lyons Thanks for mentioning the SNL clue. I didn’t see it while solving and I agree it’s clever.
@Sam Lyons I hated the SNL clue. I had no idea what it was about 🤷🏽 Maya Rudolph... Um, ok.
@Eric Hougland Kristen Wiig's character was really the main character of the movie, I thought, and I enjoyed it, except for the bodily functions scene. I never find them funny. Excuse me while I go clutch my pearls.
@Sotto voce Yup. But I didn't want to drown Sam in too much trivia, and I thought she may be too young to know who Minnie is. Maya is also the partner of the director Paul Thomas Anderson, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, among others.
@Sam Lyons Maya Rudolph starred in Bridesmaids. If you haven't seen that film, I highly recommend it.
Sorry but I just cannot help myself when I'm being robbed. Our tax dollars at work. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/us/politics/trump-justice-department-compensation.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/us/politics/trump-justice-department-compensation.html</a>
@Francis Whats a good clue for "self-dealing"?
@Francis Try harder. Most of us are here to take a break from the real world.
@Francis I was just thinking to myself yesterday that I was having so much fun engaging with this forum. ‘preciate your curbing my enthusiasm. Again.
Francis: Thanks for mentioning that — I appreciate it!
@Francis This is completely off topic. Please do not post this here. So inappropriate.
Famous quote: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world, she walks into mine." Rephrased in modern day: “Of all the social media sites in all the webpages on the Internet, he has to rant on this one.” (Moving along now…)
A big thanks to Mr. Navarro, my high school math teacher, who taught us the Latin for QED, but also referred to the phrase as "Quite Easily Done," which I've passed along to my students.
My husband and I did not like the crossword today. It was confusing, and clearly being new to crosswords we didn’t get the whole ‘rebus’ situation. As we are in Canada we often think some of the problems are just Americanisms, when in fact today it was just us. Humbled.
@Sleepyinsummerland I've been doing these for about a year now. The Thursday puzzles can be really tough. And if you're unfamiliar with rebuses, they're even harder. I was really happy about finishing today's. After a year I'm still missing some Thursday's. Friday's I'm about 50% on (but that's way better than where I started). I don't even try Saturday's. Keep at it, I think most people playing for a full year will be doing much better than I am. :)
@Sleepyinsummerland I remember the first time I encountered a rebus. I had no idea what I was supposed to be to do with it but thankfully, my crossword mentor helped me out. It was very frustrating, but I have since then grown to enjoy and look forward to them.
@Sleepyinsummerland Be aware as very rarely an unannounced rebus can be sprung on any day of the week (but likely not a Monday or Tuesday.)
@Sleepyinsummerland - Thursdays are always a gimmick of some kind and often it involves a rebii (is that a word? I think I'm in the right forum to learn the answer!) Don't be discouraged... you get better at sniffing the tricks out and over time, you'll feel great figuring out the tricks before they have a chance to trick you. I had dabbled in crosswords on airplanes or in the newspaper when traveling before getting a subscription a few years back and doing it daily. I recall being proud of completing my first Thursday without hints and then getting my first Friday and Saturday and my first 7+ day steak. Fast forward a few years and I just got my 1200th puzzle in a row on Tuesday. Aside from breathing and eating / drinking, I don't think there is anything else I have done for 1200 days in a row unbroken. Hang in there and enjoy the fun one without being discouraged by the tough ones.
@Sleepyinsummerland Don't be too hard on yourselves. With no indication of how it works or even what's afoot, you're stuck figuring it out the hard way, or not at all. There is the column to help. As for Americanisms, I was born and raised in the US and often encounter references that would baffle someone who wasn't (and baffle me too if they date from this century). Today's was particularly brutal in that respect. The cross at 10A and 12D was utter gibberish. I've been doing the puzzle for a long, long time but pop trivia, of which this one had a surfeit, leaves me cold.
@Sleepyinsummerland By and large, this is a friendly-to-Canadians place. (Try not to mention politics -- see below 😖 ). Rebuses are indeed confusing the first time you stumble upon them but there is an article referenced in every Wordplay column to explain what they are and how to cram more than one letter into that minuscule square. I hear that practice makes perfect but I can personally report that practice makes better. Please stay.
colloquially, its Baja California, or just Baja. never Baja Mexico, not once. fun solve, did it in less than half my usual :)
@Jon Z Point taken, but you might resolve this as colloquial for Baja California, Mexico.
@Jon Z Baja is a state in Mexico…Baja Mexico
@Jon Z Agreed, the answer makes no sense whatsoever. "Lower Mexico" would be Oaxaca. The peninsula is in the west of the country.
Former trial lawyer here. You give a closing argument but an opening statement. Argument isn’t permitted in opening.
@Rebecca It is if both opposing counsel and the judge are incompetent!
@Rebecca Here in the South, opening a case of whoop[bum] is definitely started with an argument. If I was being robbed, and forced to open my case of rare jewels, I’d argue, then open it. It’s all a matter of perspective 😋
@Eric, @Warren, @Bruce, @Cyndie, @SBK, @Mean Old Lady, Thank you. Update. Fever is gone! I have random sessions of chills/fever, a side effect from chemo for pancreatic cancer that ended 9 years ago. Doc says no, once the chemo ends, so do the side effects, but support sites confirm that I'm not alone, and they don't. As for COVID, thanks so much for your concern. We get booster shots as soon as they are available, and we had ours this month. We always have tests on hand just in case. Despite being vaxxed, we had COVID during the lockdown, considered mild cases, ended by Paxlovid, but if that was what it's like when it's mild, you don't ever want to have it at all. The ongoing damage from unrestrained COVID can be devastating, for those who manage to survive it, and we dodged those by being vaxxed. The world was able to stop polio, and we could do the same with COVID if we all participated in the fight together. People are still dying from COVID and others are suffering long COVID. Get vaccinated, people. It could quite literally save your life, as I'm sure it did ours. Again, thanks for your advice and good wishes. I'm a bit shaky today, but no chills, no fever. Just another short visit from my old "friend" Gemzar. It only happens only once or twice a year now, but early on I had a lot of trips to the ER. I have some sneaky new health issues, but they were bound to start sometime. I turned 91 last August.
@dutchiris Glad you’re feeling better. And congrats on your birthday. My mom and aunt (her twin sister) just turned 90. Her doc says my mom is doing so well it makes him feel great whenever he sees her. Here’s to a future return to prior levels of government investment in medical research. The miracles it has produced over the decades have been taken for granted for too long.
@dutchiris and I'm just thrilled you are here doing crosswords! Many blessings.
@dutchiris I'm glad you're feeling better. Thanks for letting us know. And stay healthy!
@dutchiris I always enjoy your comments but some days I don’t have time to read very many. I guess that’s why I didn’t know you were so sick. I’m glad you’re doing better and really gobsmacked to know your age 😲 I’m a cancer survivor too (breast cancer, 8 years ago, so far so good 🤞🏻The worry never goes away does it? I had an uncle whose favorite drinking toast was “Here’s to us. There’s none like us. More’s the pity.” He always did it with a Scots accent, put on for show but part of his heritage. So, cheers!
@dutchiris Like Shari, I missed your post about being sick but I'm sure glad to hear you're doing better now!! Wishing you all the best as you tackle these health issues. 💛
@dutchiris I'm not sure about equating the covid "vaccine" to polio's, or others. I kinda fell in line early, thinking a vaccine was a vaccine. You get it, your immune-right? In fact, I was told that by the highest authorities in the world. Turns out, that was not true. I, and many people closer to me were all fully "vaccinated" and all got, and passed along covid. Then the messaging changed to "well, you might not get get as sick". Who knows? By the time that was acknowledged, covid was running around for a year or two and was much less potent anyway. Do as you see fit and let others do the same.
For "Difference between a B and a C," I had HALF A CUP, which seemed perfectly reasonable. Alas. I liked the crossing of ORIOLE and ARIAL, and the proximity of ORIOLE to OREO. For the record, I have tried those OREO cookie cakes, and they are not good. However, mint OREO is the best kind of Blizzard to get at Dairy Queen. (I have studied this extensively.)
Haha, when I got the revealer, I thought the rebuses might turn out to be pickles made of CUKES! Like: dill, sour, sweet. It is still the case that you can experience a JAM, BIND, or MESS when making a batch of pickles. You forgot to pick the cukes every day and now they’re too big; you’re halfway through and find out you’ve no alum; a jar breaks in the canner.
Cat Lady Margaret, Did you see this note from the constructor, jammed way down deep in the column? Dear Wordplay readers, I need your helP IN CHoosing the theme of my next crossword. Though I still think my rebus with kinds of pickles (dill, sour, etc) haS POTential, after a lot oF “IXnay” from the editors, I had to SCRAP Everything. Please send ideas soon, it is SO URgent! If you send one that gets publisheD I’LL give you credit. (PS: only serious ideas, not the lauGHER KInd.)
NO shade on this puzzle but it struck me how many entries began NO...and began to wonder, am I just seeing things? NO, I'm NOT. I would have liked one more rebus in the Southeast, despite being the location of the revealer (cute!), just for the sake of balance and also giving us one more of the marvelous rebuses -- they were all super good -- loved the half rhyme of Baja Mexico and Thumb Index -- and admired the sub-theme of the good life -- a day of sunbathing (NO SHADE) and pickleball, then a night out on the town, first dinner at Aldo's which had earned a coveted Michelin ONE STAR, then Tosca at the Met, where you check your Xena-fur lined cape at the coat room and admire the marvelous frescos that are part of the elaborate set in the Acad. Ural style (Reds are in this year). That evening, James Spader sings in the role of Baron Scarpia and, wait, what?? No! SHADE as Floria Tosca?? No way!
Totally Naticked at 38D 42A. Two three letter initialisms, neither of which had ever crossed my path.
@Patrick J. On Reddit.com, there are occasional sessions where a company exec, designer, author, or other expert is willing to discuss their field/product/experience, etc. It's called AMA for Ask Me Anything, and they'll usually advertise that it's coming up so that people are aware of it and how to get to it. Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), along with ASCAP, are organizations that license music for performance, radio airplay, background ("elevator") music, etc. They try to make sure that the composers/writers get paid for performance of their works (aka royalties).
@Patrick J. That was my last square. Somehow BMI was in the back of my mind and I lucked it out on my first try.
@Patrick J. Me too - had to cheat to get the M. It was my last empty square and I couldn't be bothered to go through the whole alphabet. 😏
I'm feverish and think I'm coming down with something (it's okay, I'm wearing my mask while I'm here), so a Thursday that wasn't too taxing was welcome. Sort of dreamy actually. I KAREEMed around the puzzle (slowly), bogged down on a couple of clues that turned out to be NOT ALL that hard, just a bit of A TEASE, and now I'm ready to crawl back into bed, hoping to drift off in an imaginary OPERABOX, listening to the sublime TOSCA. Sometimes these things are just gone by the next day. Hope so.
@dutchiris Sorry to hear you’re not feeling well. If you can get someone to go to the grocery store, you can make a soup that will make you feel better. Or at least it will keep you from infecting anyone else, no masking required: <a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/6210-you-will-get-better-soup?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share" target="_blank">https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/6210-you-will-get-better-soup?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share</a> I hope you feel better soon.
@dutchiris Have your husband buy you a Covid test along with Eric’s ingredients. If you have Covid, my wife swears by the antivirals she was given last year. Take advantage of our terrific, cutting-edge medical advances while they last. Get better soon!
@dutchiris The current mutation of COVID is unusually mild and often not recognized for what it is. Many people haven't had a recent vaccination. I suspect it's spreading quickly. Maybe that's what you have.
@dutchiris I get every vaccine that becomes available and constantly wash my hands. Yes, I am a germaphobe. On the third day of an extended trip I developed a sore throat. I told my husband, this is not good. I have never had a sore throat that didn’t develop into something bad. Happily, this time was the exception! Mild stuffiness but nothing to slow us down. I hope yours turns out the same.
I enjoyed figuring out the theme entries in this puzzle. But having once lived in France, I do not believe any of the ILEs in la Seine are "specks" (other than when depicted on a map).
I'm surprised XENA wasn't clued as [Nickname that's an alternative to Cam]. No way it's a coincidence that this puzzle was published on the tenth wedding anniversary of Ash and Ang Lee. May your next ten years be equally fabulous!
I won't say I sailed through this, but my only real hold-up was BMI crossing AMA. That was definitely a TIL for me.
@HEK That cross was my last fill. I had no idea what either answer was and was prepared to slog it out with a trip around the keyboard. But I decided to try M first for some unknown reason and lucked out. Googled the answers and learned what BMI is after weeding out the “body mass index” results. I still have no idea what an AMA is other than a professional organization that to me seems curiously silent in the RFK era.
@Geoff Offermann In this case AMA is for "Ask me anything". <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reference/ama-meaning" target="_blank">https://www.businessinsider.com/reference/ama-meaning</a>
@HEK Not an everyday expression if you don't go on Reddit at all, but AMA has been clued this way over a dozen times since it became part of the culture.
Loved the CUKES crossing the PICKLE Thanks!
I really like Thursday puzzles, and don't mind a well used rebus too. The only critique I have with today's puzzle is that it was over too quickly! 27 seconds off a PB and well under half my Thursday average :)
@Paul Same, set a new PB today, also under half my Thursday average! Was looking forward to a bit more of a challenge, but at least this might allow for a bit more sleep tonight.
I knew who Blackpink was because they've been in the arts pages alot recently. I think I would have gotten REDS* fairly quickly most days, but it was fresh in my mind, because it's been mentioned in many of the appreciations of Diane Keaton written in the past week or or so. She was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role as Louise Bryant. Thought it was a fun puzzle to solve, though clued fairly easily. Enjoyed it, Aimee Can't believe I was once able to sit through a 3 hour plus movie, but it was very absorbing.
@Vaer 3 hours plus — with an intermission! I think I saw it for one of my Radio-TV-Film classes. The theater where I saw it has long been a branch of the Austin Public Library. And I still remember how effective the scene at the train station was.
Yes, I dug it. NYT informs me that this was 11 Thursdays in a row for me, which legit amazed me, because Thursday is so often the day that derails me.
@Jeff Z Where did you see that information?
THIS is how you make a great crossword. Well done all involved.
Interesting that yesterday’s crossword included PROP BET. Just watching the news and see some NBA personnel getting arrested in a gambling probe related to said PROP BETs. Eerily timely, no?
This has little to do with today's puzzle, beyond it being posted by a solver. However, the title photo of the article below is the prettiest picture of Warsaw I have ever seen so I thought I'd share it: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/oct/23/train-tour-europe-cool-northern-capitals-london-vilnius-berlin-warsaw-amsterdam?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/oct/23/train-tour-europe-cool-northern-capitals-london-vilnius-berlin-warsaw-amsterdam?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other</a> To not be completely off topic, some of the people in the Castle Square may be Canadians in ALDOs!
@Andrzej All you can see above was just a sea of ruins in 1945. Wikipedia has a decent article on Warsaw's destruction in WW2: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Warsaw" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Warsaw</a>
@Andrzej That really is beautiful! You're so lucky that Poland doesn't have cars.
I liked this rebus puzzle, it seemed pretty fresh and I thought all the crosses were very clean; this was not an easy construction. Glad to see a shout out to JAMESSPADER who is a fabulous actor and mesmerizing in Blacklist. BEGA was new to me but gettable on crosses. Oddly, for me I had a Natick in AMA and BMI, I had to run the alphabet; also oddly because as a doctor they could have been clued medically and both been gimmes for me. So close to a pangram! I thought she had it when I misspelled ZENA but, alas, not to be. Finally after that dustup a week or two ago I had NORI before NOTI and had to flyspeck to find that mistake in the cross; that’s what I get for being so pigheaded about it the last time!
@SP After many repetitions, I finally absorbed AMA (Ask me anything) into my crossword toolbox. Before tonight, I think I would have been befuddled by that cross.
Love me a good rebus! Breezed through :)
As I was solving, I was wondering which would get the most complaints, CUKES or rebuses. And the answer is: BAJA MEXICO! I guess everyone got their CUKE hate out the last time it appeared. As for BAJA…, I wonder if an implied comma would have mitigated the grumbling? Personally, I’m never bothered by clues that are close but not perfectly accurate. It’s a puzzle, and the clues are not definitions. They’re just hints to guide me to the right response, and if I get there I figure they’ve done their job. I’m also happy when a bit of misdirection brings life to some overused fill. In this case, the clueing of “Rudolph” (not the reindeer!) for SNL. Loved this puzzle.
@Heidi I got messed up cause BAJA MErICa almost fits.
@Andrzej You just wrote my epitaph!
Typical Thursday workout for me. Managed to work it all out but have to confess that I wasn't grasping the theme even when I was finished. Yeah, I'm familiar with that usage of 'Pickle' but it just wasn't dawning on me. That's all on me - really clever theme. Puzzle find today - A Sunday from December 31 (!), 2023 by Matt Linzer and Rafael Musa with the title: "It's going down." One partial theme clue and answer: 29a: "Where to see the 86-down." TIMESSQUARE And then 86 down: "End-of-December tradition depicted five times in this puzzle" BALLDROP And some sample clues and answers for those five reference clues, all of which were down answer: "Event for Cinderella" BALL "Foot Part" BALL "Great Time" BALL "Umpire's call." BALL Thought that was quite clever. Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/31/2023&g=119&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/31/2023&g=119&d=A</a> ...
@Rich in Atlanta, You’re back to being Rich in Atlanta again!! Hooray!!!
I knew 62 across right away, and went looking for Dill, Kosher, Gherkin...it left me sour.
@The Poet McTeagle So...not your bread and butter?
@The Poet McTeagle Me too. And JAM was the first one I filled in, and I was still going "is there a 'jam pickle' ??? Like a bread and butter pickle?"
You'd think the constructors wouldn't cross answers that require specific knowledge (sports team names, singers, writers, plays, podcasts, etc) with other such answers. Since if you don't know either of them you're stuck with overlapping squares that you have to brute force to answer correctly. Looking at you, "A.L. East Athlete" crossing with ""Call Her Daddy" podcast host Cooper" AND "Activist Brockovich", among others in this weird trivia filled puzzle.
@Frankie B The 2000 movie ERIN Brockovich was a pretty big hit and got Julia Roberts an Oscar. For a lot of us, I’m sure that answer was a gimme. I’d never heard of ALEX Cooper. And I needed a few crosses for ORIOLE, as the AL East comprises five teams and I would have been hard pressed to name any ones other than the Yankees and the Red Sox.
@Frankie B For me, this puzzle had seven naticks - proper name crossings - I had to resolve with Google, including a triple one in the NE corner. It would have had more had I not known some of the trivia this grid was positively saturated with. I always think of trivia entries crossing as low blows 🤷🏽
@Frankie B Agreed. Trivia, sports, TV shows, movies, video games, rap music, cars, brand names and random phrases. This one had 'em all. My personal worst nightmare was the crossing at 10A and 12D. No fewer than four names in the clues that had absolutely no meaning for me.
@Frankie B I have great admiration for those of you outside the US who regularly complete the NYT puzzle - particularly if English isn’t your first language. That said, I’ve always been under the impression that the “trivia” answers in the puzzle were fair game if they could typically be found / have been found in the pages of the New York Times. Alex Cooper, for example, has pages and pages of search results in the NYT app; was the second most popular Spotify podcaster after Joe Rogan; and made huge news last year when she moved to Sirius XM for a $125mm deal.
Love my Rebus Thursdays! This was an easy one. I don’t have much sports trivia or musical expertise but managed to QED without using assistance. NO SHADE on those that did. I think BAJA MEXICO is fine colloquially. This San Diegan is posting early because I’m in the UK right now celebrating Dad’s 90th and snug by the Aga while Storm Benjamin rages outside.
Oooo! Too hard for me! Only knew one of the rebus clue answers (CABIN) and had no idea about the others, the 'revealer' didn't help at all. So many completely unknown, from ALDO/KAREEN/ODDS, ORIOLE/ALEX, BAJA/NINJA, GOAT, SOSA, BMI, AMA, ACAD, IROCS (Camaros?) .... I even stumbled at first on COAT instead of cloakroom. But I pressed on, trying to reveal just one square at a time to help solve and finished in about an hour. Still enjoyed puzzling over it.
Some fun fill, but for me, it was much too easy for a Thursday. If the circles weren't there, I would have enjoyed it more. I suspected a rebus with 40A (__DOORS), and then there was no puzzling over where to put the extra letters. I just shoved BIND in the circle, and voila, another word. Gee I wonder how that fits the theme. Not a lot of suspense, which is what I look for in a Thursday. WOMBS was very funny. And today I thought about the fact that 20 years after FDR includes HST, DDE, JFK, and LBJ. The reason why presidents are limited to two terms. Maybe not only for crossword puzzles...
@Nora I agree. The circles take a lot of the fun out of it.
@Nora & @NJ Yeah. the circles made the "where and how" part the gimmick pretty obvious, but I think they were necessary for the "ball" part of the "pickleball" theme.
@Nora Yeah, the circles dropped the difficulty level substantially , but I gathered that the PICKLEs were all in a BALL. Hence, the circles…?
@Nora Speaking as an 'average' solver, this felt to me more like a Friday. I needed fifteen cheats, as there were so many obscure names, etc. And yes, all of the rebuses were among the cheats. This puzzle did make more sense after reading the wordplay, bringing some sweetness to this sour pickle. But though 'average', I am stubborn, so the streak goes on. We will see what tomorrow brings....
Oh, I loved this puzzle! Until I could not find my mistake! Left out an S in JAMESSPADER 🤦🏻♀️, which I figured out after reading Wordplay and knew the rebus had to be MESS. Had not figured out the theme even though I got the revealer early on. Oh, well. Thanks, Aimee, for a delightful Thursday! And thanks, Deb, for the assist. Y’all have an awesome day. See all y’all tomorrow!
We've really had our workout in Music Theory this last week! The last time HALF STEP (or ?SEMITONE, which means the same thing) came up as an entry, I linked a YouTube video of the second movement of *Musica Ricercata*, a suite for piano by the late 20th c. composer György Ligeti. The movement is built around a half-step between the notes E-sharp and F-sharp, repeated insistently. The recording I linked was by the great pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Apparently this piece was used for a scene in the Stanley Kubrick film *Eyes Wide Shut*, which I've never seen. I have no idea what the film is about, but the scene involves a bunch of people wearing Halloween fright masks, parading around a baroque ballroom in a circle, whilst someone in a red cape waves a censor at them. The whole thing looks like a scene from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, except the Buffy scene would have peppier music. But at least we don't have to hear Tom Cruise speak. In the spirit of the Season, I will link it anyway (the recording used is the same one by Aimard): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch-x7wZulYQ&list=RDCh-x7wZulYQ&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch-x7wZulYQ&list=RDCh-x7wZulYQ&start_radio=1</a> Kubrick was famously fond of Ligeti's music, and in *2001: a Space Odyssey*, used a couple of his pieces--a the Kyrie from his Requiem, and the orchestral piece *Atmosphères* (used in its entirety, or almost)--to great effect.
@Bill In the clip you saw, did the person in the red cape wave the censor by the censor’s ankles or by their wrists? I’m just having a little trouble imagining that. :-) Actually, I’ve seen Eyes Wide Shut, but not since it was released. It’s not Kubrick’s best work.
@Bill Curious here. I've had this discussion several times with other musicians, and we always end in a stalemate. Does it depend on the instrument as to whether there is an E#? The musical genre? The key of a composition? I've always learned that E# and F are one and the same, and there is no E# or Fb. I agree that E sharp*ed is F, and F flatt*ed is E, but... I know that the interval between B and C is a semi-tone, because there are no black keys in between (whole other discussion), and there is no B# or Cb. Again, B sharp*ed is C, and C flatt*ed is B. Any advice?