Gee, not exactly the punishment we expect for a Thursday: a clean, well clued, non rebus puzzle, with a wacko twist. I liked it a lot; made me smile (bum's place in a bar), made me feel smart (folie à deux), and I could drop in the fills as I listen to the Warriors' game (also very satisfying). Kit, there are two camps for every Thursday puzzle: those who carp about it being too hard, the other saying it was too easy. Ignore them. Most of us will be delighted to see you again soon. Congratulations on your debut puzzle!
@dutchiris, thank you for saying it so well! My sentiments exactly. It was a great puzzle.
I could solve a crossword seriously A practice rather solemn But rows by any other name? I don't know what to column ("You've got to be gridding me.")
@Mike Wow, after your poem, I don’t think there’s anything left to write
@Mike You've branched off into poetry. Well done!
@Mike -- That's not only in, but may be on top of my Mike from Munster A-list.
@Mike Excellent! I wonder if a row was raised While trying to construct it. Did one non-G in 20A Make Sheffield say... "Oh [darn] it!" ?
@Mike Roses are read. Violets are violence. A rose is, uh, rows, is arrows. Fine punishment, Mike. Agreed it may be your best yet.
Mike Bravo, Bard of Munster!!!!
Fun puzzle, Kit! Congratulations on your NYT debut. Impressed that you met one of your retirement goals. I’ve been retired almost 20 years and still haven’t declutterred my garage.
Valerie, Fifteen years from now I will, if still breathing, almost certainly whisper to myself: “At least I’m no worse than Valerie in Los Angeles.” :)
This theme brought to you by Shakespeare. 36A: When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. 52A: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day. 20A: Geez! Is there a funnier bit in a play than the rude mechanicals doing Pyramus and Thisbe?
@Cat Lady Margaret If you can look into the seeds of time / And say which grain will GROW and which will not... Macbeth
@Cat Lady Margaret 20A Especially as performed by Kevin Kline and Sam Rockwell
Surfacing from obscure lurking to say nice job, Kit! (I actually kinda sorta know Kit). I didn't figure out what was going on with the three theme entries until I read the column. But I liked seeing MACGYVERED and the (non-architectural) example of LESS IS MORE.
Bravo, Kit! 🎉 Thrilling debut, novel theme, devious cluing ... I didn't even mind that I filled in the entire grid before slowing down to suss out the theme rows. Sometimes understanding the theme helps me to finish faster, but in this case it was enough to spot the pattern (as others have noted.) No complaints here; I still experienced a delayed epiphany when the realization dawned on me. I just needed to return to the completed grid and FURFURFURFURFUR my BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB for a moment! And how is it possible that MACGYVERED has never appeared in a grid before? I feel certain that it has at least appeared in clues!
Maybe I’ve been doing these things for too long now (8 years, I think?) because I landed this one in about a minute longer than a typical Monday, and only that long because I stopped to think about the theme entries. Was it just me or was this an exceedingly straightforward puzzle?
Sam, Hand up for "exceedingly straightforward." I think quite a few people will solve this one quickly and only get the trick (if they care to look for it) after solving. That may make for a nice puzzle -- and this was -- but it doesn't make for much of a Thursday.
@Sam Lyons Very straightforward (TOMORROW is the only answer for the last theme row, and that kind of gives the theme away), but that's okay. It's never the constructor's fault if the puzzle's on the wrong day. I really liked the puzzle.
@Sam Lyons To me it felt like the fill was Friday-hard in places yet the repetitive theme, which was gettable without even understanding the details, made the whole thing exceedingly straightforward for Thursday by providing dozens of letters for free. My solve took slightly shorter than a typical Wednesday, but quite a bit longer than a Tuesday (17 minutes, versus 18 for Wednesdays and 12 for Tuesdays).
@Francis doesn't really fit the clue tho, foreign language or not
@Sam Lyons I'm only here for the "Magic Mountain" discussion. Imagine my disappointment!
@Sam Lyons @The X-Phile (Having a poblem. Hope this doesn't appear twice) A few more random thoughts on Mann's Mountain 1. The Title: Magic is the first choice for Zauber in dictionaries. Related to Magus it contains suggestions of supernatural or wizarding powers. Enchanted or Enchanting Mountain could work, but so could Wonderful. Seems like Magic sounds better to an English reader and it's alliterative. 2. Hans is no Percival or Parzifal. He is not on a Quest. He's just following a Doctor's suggestion. Possibly The Fool of the Tarot deck proceeding, unbeknownst to him, on a Hero's Journey or a more prosaic process of psychological Individuation. 3. How about an oddysey trying to return home? Settimbrini raises this explicitly: “This is the island of Circe and you are no Oddyseus.” The patients haven't been turned into pigs, but they “eat like wolves” and spend their time with flirtation and temperature. Hans does not take the advice to escape while he can, . 4. The music at Hans' first concert included operatic pieces from Carmen and Der Freischütz. Carmen shows how an exotic, (Gypsy), temptress destroys a young man through the power of love. Der Freischütz, which has been described as the most German of operas, has a young man make a deal with The Devil so that he may win his girlfriend's hand. Coincidence or Premonition?
As promised, here is a pic of Foxy, the beloved pomerian in her sunflower cone, spreading joy to all. She is 2.5 weeks post OP from bilateral knee surgery for subluxing patellas. Being penned in is giving her cabin fever. The irony of not being allowed to move after getting a procedure to improve your movement. <a href="https://imgur.com/a/t9VvE9N" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/t9VvE9N</a>
@DocP And one of her with big brother Benny, who if you may recall, survived liver cancer surgery last summer. <a href="https://imgur.com/a/iNPMc0W" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/iNPMc0W</a>
@DocP Sweet girl… You’re good people, DocP.
@DocP Foxy and Benny are too precious. I just had to have my dear old chocolate Lab Pete put to sleep, and a coworker told me to avoid all things dog-related for a while; but I'm finding that doing just the opposite is a balm to my feelings. So thank you for sharing your pups with us! Wishing long life and excellent health from this point for your beautiful Foxy and Benny.
@DocP My niece's German Shepherd also had knee surgery. Not quite as cute of a recovery outfit as Foxy! He's doing well, but like Foxy, its not exactly easy. Lucky you to have those 2 good friends!
@ColumbaNine I'm so sorry for your loss. Please share pics of Pete, if you can.
@DocP For more pics, you can follow Benny and Foxy on Instagram @foxy_benny
@DocP Caring for dogs is one of the ultimate tests of humanity. You pass it with flying colors. I wish Foxy a speedy recovery. @ColumbaNine I'm so sorry for you 😢. I had to do the same with my beloved chocolate lab Jorge last year and I still can't get over it. However, looking at pictures of him - and other dogs - makes me feel better, even if I tear up every day. Remembering the good times with Jorge and appreciating the general awesomeness that dogs are helps with my grief.
@DocP Benny could be our Gunner’s cousin: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/dk6RpTY" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/dk6RpTY</a>
Don’t let the theme thththththththth you. It’s not that highbhighbhighb.
This is my personal best which, along with the comments from others, might have convinced me that it’s too easy. Or maybe we all got immensely better at the same time.
The answer to 2 down ('capisce') is notionally 'I dig', but that's wrong: the correct answer should be 'you dig?' or 'dig?' (third-person singular, the polite form of 'capisci', 'you dig?'). 'Capisco' is 'I dig'. I think this clue confuses the shortened gangster dialogue version, 'capeesh', with 'capisce'.
Sweet to see DERRY/AREA sharing the grid with what sits on the STOOL.
@Lewis There's a town in NH called Derry. When we drive through, I like to say to my husband "roll down the windows and smell the Derry air". After 35 years, he still laughs. Another of the many reasons I was so lucky to find him.
I hope I don’t start a row, but this struck me as one of those puzzles that was more fun for the constructor than the solver. The repeating patterns were easy enough to spot and provided a lot of free fill in a puzzle that wasn’t otherwise terribly hard. I admit I didn’t get the significance of the patterns until I came to Wordplay, at which point I shrugged — clever, especially making all the crosses work, but meh. [Olympic projectile] ARARARARARARARAR. Like I said meh.
@Marshall Walthew Clever but meh - what a perfect description of this theme!
The theme is fabulous. First, while it was easy to fill in, it still left a capital-R Riddle to figure out – what do those answers mean? I’m sure I’m not the only one who exulted when the answer hit me. Second, in a 15-wide grid, those theme answers are limited to one-letter, three-letter, and five-letter repetitions. What a terrific touch to have the theme answers, from top to bottom, go in that order. Bravo, Kit, on that, and high props for those colorful long downs – LESS IS MORE and MACGYVERED. There were other pings of joy that serendipitously showed up. SLOG and SLAG. Symmetrical corner alcohol clues. The rare sighting of a 15-letter palindrome. STOOL echoing yesterday’s LOOTS. I was also highly inspired, after reading your notes, to learn that you kept on, didn’t turn away, even after 30 puzzle rejections. Wow! Your debut, Kit, pushed many happy buttons, and thank you for that. Regarding your puzzlemaking future, I see by your name a definite UPARUPARUPARUPAR!
@Lewis kind of cheap to call GGGGGGGGGGGGGGG a palindrome lol. But yes it was a fun puzzle.
I feel like this one was way too easy for Thursday but I loved the trick once I spotted it.
Congrats on your debut, Kit! You are going to get a few justifiable negative comments today, but don’t take it to heart. This was a fine debut, a nice puzzle, and cute theme, but it’s just not a Thursday, and barely a Wednesday—but that’s not your fault. The problem is that once you notice the repetitive nature of the theme entries—which is pretty obvious right away once you get a couple of Gs on the downs in the first themer—you can imagine that the other long entries are also repetitive even if you don’t get the theme right away, so half the puzzle is filled in with almost no work at all. And with only three themers and no revealer, there’s no real Aha moment while solving. The fill was decent but the clueing was also pretty straightforward for a Thursday (which is not entirely your fault either). I did enjoy MACGYVERED a lot especially on the same puzzle with WINGIT and IMONIT. I was able to divine the FABFIVE but not the Brooklyn NETS without crosses; I didn’t remember they had moved to New Jersey but even if I had I would have called “foul” on the clue, even if they train in Brooklyn the clue is grammatically way off (unless I’m missing something?) No shade on INIGO Montoya or Princess Bride, but just once I’d like to see a throwback clue to the great London architect INIGO Jones who is worth learning about. Anyways, Kit, congrats again this was a fine effort and I look forward to seeing more from you!
@SP [Lawyer mode on] C'mon, you can't have a cake and eat it, too. You said: "You are going to get a few justifiable negative comments today, but don’t take it to heart. This was a fine debut, a nice puzzle." Either the negative comments are not justifiable, or the puzzle was nice. It can't be both - unless you mean it *would have been fine* (on Tuesday, maybe, given how obvious the theme was even if one didn't fully understand it). But if it would have been, it was not 🤷🏽♂️. Now, if you rephrased that as "many will justifiably not like this but I did", I'd have no complaints. [Lawyer mode off] PS. [Humorously] And you can keep your niche trivia! Indigo Jones... SRSLY!
@SP Mostly agreed (Tuesday would probably have fit) but I did experience a mild aha moment when I finally fully got the theme midway through. It was cute. I think Andrzej is being overly persnickety this once. There was really nothing wrong or contradictory about your wording.
I solved the whole thing but still didn't understand the theme until I came here!
The real tricks for this Thursday puzzle were GONG instead of sONG, ADORE instead of AmORE, and DLIST instead of BLIST. Such deviousness could start a row. But the intended theme was pretty good even if it did seem strange at first. Despite spending almost half my time flyspecking, I still finished around 10% under my average time.
@Jim I completely agree about D LIST for (65A) I also had “B List” written in first. I’ve always thought it was B list. I don’t watch “The Simpsons,” so I thought it possible he could go by “Tod B.” When I didn’t get the music, I wasn’t sure if I was missing something with the theme (which still didn’t make sense to me at that point) or if it was another wrong square somewhere. Eventually, I Googled 52D and corrected the error. And my first thought was, “Wait, I solved it?”
I suspect that the setter doesn’t choose the day of the week the puzzle is used for, so for those who found it easy why don’t you pick on the editor or would that be anathema here? I found it just fine, chewy enough and with some clever wordplay. The trick took its time to reveal itself. MACGYVERED was super nice. Thanks to the constructor and the editor
@Ιασων I'll argue the sort of theme the constructor has designed dictates the day the puzzle will run on, or at least it greatly limits the options. If the theme is gimmicky, as in, involves some highly unusual trick - say, entries not being actual words but rather rebuses (of sorts) - the puzzle is pretty much destined to run on Thursday, if it runs at all. IMO today's constructor may realistically have only expected their submission to be considered for a Thursday release. That being said, you're right to the extent that ultimately the editors select puzzles, so all complaints should be on them, in the end.
@Ιασων The experts here have asserted that themed puzzles have appeared on (just about?) every day of the week...
Now let's see the constructor make a puzzle using "column."
Pleasant enough puzzle, I guess. It didn't really intrigue me enough to wonder what the theme meant, but honestly, that's totally on me. I did smile at 10D though because I love the Princess Bride. Good ole INIGO! One of his best lines is one we could adopt in Crosswords: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Back at some college thing a million years ago, I did capture the amorous attention of a young man because the name tags read, "Hello! My name is" and then blank, of course. I wrote Inigo Montoya, prepare to di-e! Spoiler alert, I went on a few dates with him but I did get around to making him di-e. Totally irrelevant, I know there are a lot of music buffs out here. If you like Bruce Springsteen and care about what's happening here in MN, you might be interested in listening to this. I'm not sure how wide it's spread, so thought I'd share: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKSoxG1K7w" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKSoxG1K7w</a>
@HeathieJ I loved the Princess Bride reference too. Also wanted you to know that I do care very much about what’s happening in Minnesota and so many other places in this awful time. It’s disgusting and criminal. I did see the Bruce Springsteen clip on You Tube this morning and watched it. Love that guy. Have you read his memoir “Born to Run”? I enjoyed it so much. Stay safe.
@HeathieJ That's some song, huh? Takes me right back to the 60s. Or at least back to his "41 Shots" in the early 2000s.
@HeathieJ There is a lot in your post I could respond to, but I will pick just one. I have noticed more than once that when you don’t like a puzzle, you explain it in very respectful way. You are one class act.
@HeathieJ These days, that nametag would have gotten you arrested and possibly expelled. And many thanks for the Springsteen song. Thanks to all Minnesotais for hanging tough. You know how to stand up to ICE. Unfortunately, every day provides me with new fodder for my little billboard above. I look forward to just being from Toronto again.
@HeathieJ the song is the number one listened-to around the world today. Yes, it spread.
What a weird solving experience this was. At first I thought I would be needing lookups and reveals - my across and down pass yielded little. I felt like I didn't know enough of the proper names, and I simply was not getting the clues. I decided to persevere on my own though, and sure enough, surprisingly quickly I managed to fill most of the grid, making some ultimately correct guesses for the arcana (the like of FAB FIVE - not only was I unfamiliar with the name: I have no idea how many players there are on any other sport team than in soccer). With crosses it became obvious what the themed entries would be. Not that I understood the theme, mind you. This was the biggest letdown today - I believe it should not be possible to solve a Thursday without getting the gimmick. It's fine on Monday or Tuesday, but today, when rhe gimmick is supposed to be (IMO, anyway) the main feature of the puzzle? I needed the column to get what I had entered, but I still solved in Wednesday time. In Poland you are allowed to drink in any vehicle - other than on public transport. What is illegal is exceeding the maximum blood alcohol level. As long as you're under the limit, you can be sipping vodka behind the wheel even. Strangely enough, because it's illegal to drink (rather than be under the influence) in public places, the municipal police often fines people for having an open bottle of alcohol with them on the street or in the park - even if they're not actually drinking.
@Andrzej What a shame you can't drink on public transit - arguably the safest vehicle in which to do so. Over here, I'm pretty sure it's a rule that you must enjoy a beer or sake on the shinkansen while going by Mt. Fuji at 300kph; that you can't do same on your Pendolino is very unfortunate.
Were Thomas's and Sotomayor's alumni status rescinded after they graduated? Why "once"? One remains a Yalie all one's life upon graduating.
11-down in today's crossword: "Mining waste." Answer is "slag;" however, mining waste products are called tailings. Slag is the waste material produced when smelting or refining ores.
@Will Olscamp In the UK, the piles of waste soil etc left over from coal mining are known as slag heaps.
I enjoyed this one because while the theme isn't the most complex for a Thursday, the idea of entering straight G's is so hard to commit to. My brain looked for any other solution. Having it clued as "expand" and you need to do the opposite? Cherry on top!
SIBDUI. (solved it but didn't understand it)
@Ethan When your brother gets pulled over after a few drinks?
I loved this, Kit! My "Aha Moment" was huge. And it didn't come until the TOMOR-row -- which is exactly as it should have been. The G-row baffled me completely -- though having worked on a Cryptic puzzle at one point with Kit, I was looking for a Cryptic-like trick, because Kit is a Brit and that's the sort of puzzle he cut his teeth on at a formative age. But I still didn't see it. I sensed it at the SOR-row, but it was the TOMOR-row that nailed it for me. This is SO original, so clever and so imaginative! I will write it down on my list for P-O-Y. I just loved it! I did have to semi-cheat to finish it. Having never heard of MACGYVERED, and missing the C, I had to make sure that 17A was NICE. I had LA?G for the Rocky III villain, typed into Google "Lang in Rocky III" and was thrilled when "Clubber" filled in. That's much less of a cheat then typing into Google "Clubber villain in Rocky III" -- yes? Please tell me it is. Congratulations, Kit! Very well done!!! But where's the photo of you that I was hoping to see at xword.com?
Congrats on the debut! Simple theme, but clever. Rather easy for a Thursday---at least if one sees the theme---because of the repeated letters or blocks of letters. Lots of boxes get filled with no work at all. MACGYVERED and LESSISMORE were both interesting long verticals. Editing here seemed a bit disappointing---aren't Justices Sotomayor and Thomas still Yalies? And isn't SLAG more a waste product of smelting or refining---rather than mining---ore? I suppose the whole process of turning ore into metal can be subsumed into "mining", but still. Liked this one a lot, all in all.
@Xword Junkie I grew up near a coal mining community, the heaps of coal spoil we played on were called SLAG heaps.
@Xword Junkie That is correct -- slag is not a mining product but a refining product. From a steel company's web site: "[slag] is a non-metallic substance that separates from molten steel during production, helping to purify the steel by trapping these impurities". Wrong clue.
Oooh! A chance to be pedantic! 2D CAPICE. The first person singular of 'I dig' in Italian would be CAPISCO. As pointed out in the great Nelson DeMille novel The Gold Coast!
@Eddie How nice to hear your advice on a clue! Now it's clear how you keep getting those puzzles done.
Sam writes: "...it’s hard enough to design a tight grid without the added zigs and zags of a rebus." Sam, Now everyone who reads the column before doing the puzzle is going to be trying to squeeze more than one letter into some squares! (People are so conditioned to thinking a rebus in a crossword only means a squish.)
@Barry Ancona Few read the column first. Fewer still would interpret that sentence to mean today's puzzle contains rebuses. None would read the entire column and try to enter rebuses.
@Barry Ancona I’m with Barry on this one. If/when I come to Wordplay for help, I’ll generally read it a sentence or two at a time to limit spoilers. An early line like that would have had me back in the grid, determined to find the rebus. Fortunately, as for many, the crossings were attainable for me today, so I don’t fall into that trap, hopefully others will avoid it too.
I finished this puzzle (with a little help from Mr. Google) but I still didn't figure out the gimmick until I read the Wordplay.
I don't often kvetch when I don't like a puzzle, but I will make an exception here. The solving was far too easy for a Thursday, and the theme was a lame contrivance. Sorry, but you can't please everyone.
@John Daly So we see.
REALLY enjoyed this one! This had it all! Fun cluing (partner of 1st lady), fun fill (Macguyvered), TIL (Nice, Derry), and a mini-theme that took me just long enough to figure out that I had that combination aha + yes of course which is one of my favorite crossword sensations. Very well done, keep em coming!
I think this was unsatisfying because understanding the gimmick was unnecessary to solving the puzzle. With a rebus or most other gimmicks, you have to figure out the trick in order to make the crossing clues make sense. Here, all you had to do was recognize the repeating pattern of letters in each of the three rows. If you didn’t get why it was what it was, it didn’t matter to solving the rest of the puzzle.
@N.E. Body Exactly. Not only didn't a lack of understanding of the whole theme hinder the solve - it rewarded you with dozens of letters.
@N.E. Body It's like solving the purple set in Connections - you could just submit the last four and finish the puzzle, but doesn't it feel better to pause for a bit to work out the link?
Sports trivia generally escapes me, but the "Five train in Brooklyn" clue seems like an extra long stretch.
Gregg, The answer should be accessible to everyone from the four crosses. The clue should not be a misdirect for New Yorkers who know The Times must follow style in clues: the train is never "five" and always "5."
@Barry Ancona Yes, I got it from the crosses. I'm not complaining about the misdirection. I'm saying the clue as written is not very good. Five players may be on the court on each team, but there are many more than 5 on the whole team, and the whole team trains together. I just think it's a poorly constructed clue.
@Gregg - Not a stretch, although the five are all surely over 6 feet tall. I thought it was a super clever clue. Took me awhile after seeing NETS to get commuter trains out of my head and think NBA. Hope they don't take Giannis from us.
Did anyone else start quoting MacBeth while working on 52A?
Amanda, “Lay on, MacGyver!” (I’m just winging it, so that might not be a exact quote…)
@Amanda I was going too fast to resort to that petty pace.
Oh by the way, the constructor is a kindred spirit to many of us here, as he is a regular commenter on a crossword blog (Rex Parker's), and has been for a long time. Seeing someone from a community I love hit it big, as Kit has today with his debut, just makes me feel good all over.
"Revealers? We don't need no stinkin' revealers!" Almost the perfect Thursday puzzle! Why? >>It shows that simple math can be elegant, like calculating the area of a parallelogram, or that the prime factorization of 15 is 1 x 3 x 5. >>The oblique reference to the Scottish Play, *Mac . . . Mac . . . MACGYVER!* >>The parallel references to Roman and Greek mythology--'twould be nice if Diana and Ares were in-laws, but no, they're half-sibs. (a couple afternoons ago, my Partner and I binge watched old episodes of *Xena, Warrior Princess*, in which the character of Ares, as portrayed by Kevin Smith, figures prominently.) >>The only clumsy bit was the crossing of ORAL and ORATE, but at least we had NASAL, so to make the otorhinolaryngolists happy. >>If you're ever driving I-90 between Cleveland, OH and Buffalo, NY, may I suggest you get off the freeway and visit the quaint borough of North East, PA, in the Lake Erie wine country. Like Erie, it's in the northwest corner of the state, but at least it's north east of Erie. >>Before Lewis tries to tell us this theme has never been done before, it, or something very like, has--in a puzzle from Mon., 1Apr.2019 by Joel Fagliano, which I solved last Thursday while my Partner was having total hip replacement surgery. He's recovering quite well, Thank You, although he's getting tired of watching Xena re-runs, and PBS Create.
@Bill As a musical offering, here is *Les Folies françoises,* by François Couperin. Like much of Couperin's work, it is for solo keyboard (Aya Hamada, harpsichord), but in this clip, the individual variations are given ORAL introductions (Philip Orawski, narrator), which makes it sorta À DEUX: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZReyXPd2taI&list=RDZReyXPd2taI&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZReyXPd2taI&list=RDZReyXPd2taI&start_radio=1</a>
@Bill actually, it's 3 × 5. 1 isn't a prime.
@Bill We loved stopping of in Northeast (one word) --and the fact that it's in the Northwest. There was a nice little café back in the day, and an antique shop or two. We always loved seeing the Welch's vinyards--though one tragic trip the entire crop was left on the vines; the chilly Summer had left the 'sugar content' of the grapes too low for their standard. (The wastefulness just about did me in.) We were usually on the way to Fredonia...
@Bill Also, the Rocky III role and actor
Whew. Not all that easy for me, of course, but finally tumbling to the trick was enough to work it out, though I still had to ponder for a bit on each of the theme answers to get what was happening. And.. appropriate puzzle find: A Monday from April 1(!) 2019 by Joel Fagliano. Three grid-spanning theme entries: TTTTTTTTTTTTTTT GGGGGGGGGGGGGGG BBBBBBBBBBBBBBB With those clues being: "Tea set?" "G-string?" "Beeline?" Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/3/1994&g=50&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=7/3/1994&g=50&d=A</a> Finito. ...
@RiA Coincidentally, I had just solved that puzzle, a week, ago, as I mentioned in my post.
@Rich in Atlanta Wow, how did you remember a puzzle from six years ago?
SAVILESAVILESAVILE would have suited this puzzle.
@ad absurdum The grid would have had to GGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
@ad absurdum When I first read your addition to this thread I hemmed and hawed. Now you have me in stitches.
@YooperJake I didn’t see anyone else talking about this, so I’ll share that my struggle was in the NW corner. Did you know that LUMO is an emerging robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi? Also, in my experience, usage of the word “capisce”, is almost exclusively expressed as a question, as in, “You dig?”. I didn’t capisce until I ca-peaked. 🙄😅
Congratulations on a fine debut, Kit!
Congratulations on the fantastic debut, Kit. You caused quite a row in the comments section today 🤣 But you also demonstrated that persistence pays off which is so inspiring. I caught onto the trick with TOMOR… which helped me to fill in the other two themers. D LIST automatically made me think of Kathy Griffin. Loved the references to MR T. I met him when I was in my early twenties in Old Town Scottsdale. He had his thick gold chains on and a small entourage with him. He was charming and bought a round of drinks for my group of friends. I absolutely ADOREd the show MACGYVER and got a huge grin when I noodled out that answer. Thank you, Kit. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
As an 80’s kid I much appreciated “macgyvered”. The clue was wrong, however. No chewing gum. There is always chewing gum.
Lots of fun, with a fairly tricky theme. Wonderful debut! Looking forward to more from you, Kit Sheffield.
Xwstats calls this Easy right now, but it’s definitely bordering on Very Easy. <a href="https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2026-01-29?sync=1" target="_blank">https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2026-01-29?sync=1</a> Although it’s a solid puzzle, it probably shouldn’t have been slotted in as a Thursday.
NICE puzzle. Got the row of Gs, stared at it, and then figured it out and filled the remaining theme rows. Smooth fill, except for putting cAdS instead of WAGS; cINGIT was impossible to parse, so I changed c to w. It seemed plausible both with WAdS and dONG (spicy for fill but a short ding-dong might be a signal), but then I changed d to g and was fine. Bet we'll get "it should have been a rebus" comments though...
I'm not at all sure that three long stammers constitute a theme.
@Matt Ever so pleased that you've cleaned up your act. (I, too, wanted more than three Themers, but then the crossings might have been impossibly demanding to devise.)
Finally, an NYT puzzle giving the respect to Mr. T that he deserves. Which reminds me: How does Mr. T's wife compute integrals? With respect to T.