"WERENAUTICALWORTHY" is a "comICAL/ICLE mutation" of "We're not worthy?" "LYRICALJET" is meant to funny up "Lear jet?" I won't bother with the others. I'm calling "no clothes" on this theme. Sorry. These aren't even "dad joke" funny. Have I missed something?
@Matt one of the rare puzzles where the theme actually makes it worse, to be sure.
@Matt i dont think they are intended to be funny. I think the title was chosen because "commutation" is a word. I may be selling the puzzle makers short.
Matt, Your assessment here is missing the clues, which I think count for something in lending a hand to the humour of the ickly phrases. I found the puzzle fun. Not that your take is worthy of a CYNICAL TAX.
@Matt The purpose isn’t to “funny up” anything (whatever that means). It’s just the theme, and a pretty common type of theme at that.
I thought this was a clever conceit, but a few of the theme clues felt a bit off—as well as several other clues. NOT and NAUT and FALL and FOLL are hardly homophones. On the other hand I loved TWO PARTICLE HARMONY and BOSTONPOPSICLE and “news hound” was a very artful clue. As for other clues that put me off—INMONO? You can say “in stereo” so the extra IN is really odd there. It just doesn’t work. BLACKART—has anyone ever said that not in a plural? Help me gamers—LIFEBAR? Is that really a thing? I’ve always called it a HEALTHBAR. AMNESIA for “never mind”? Just…off. There were a lot of sections especially the NW that seemed pretty ambiguous and/or Naticky and a bit forced. I don’t know what it was but I just didn’t have fun with this one even though the theme should be one I would enjoy. What did you all think?
@SP Right there with yah bud. Liked the theme, disliked the puzzle Choice between a painfully slow solve or just looking up the answers? TRICKLEORCHEAT Double pun there for yah.
@SP I’ve heard an obscure technical task referred to as a BLACK ART (singular); I have no idea what gamers call anything anymore, having stopped gaming in the ‘90s; but I’m with you on the stereo-INMONO mismatch, and I really don’t get how AMNESIA makes for a “never” mind. The mind was there and still is there, it’s just lacking some memory.
@SP Life bar and health bar are both used. HP is more common than either, probably.
@SP Naut and not aren’t homophones as I say them, but I think for most people they are. Fall and foll (as in follicle) sound the same for me, though.
@SP I would for sure class health and lives and two separate bars, lives for sure becoming less of a gameplay feature unless there is some design driver linked to an eventual permanent game over.
@SP It was a typical John Kugelman mess - cringey groaners drowning in a sea of trivia and tortured clues.
@SP It was a typical John Kugelman cringefest - groaners drowning in a sea of trivia and tortured clues.
@SP It was a typical John Kugelman cr!ng3f3st - groaners drowning in a sea of trivia 🤷🏽♂️
@SP I tried to reply 3 times but even the mildest version did not make it past the emus...
@SP Agreed. Your complaints were my complaints. Your INMONO complaint was similar to one I made the other day, on the exact same issue.
@SP All the nits you raised fall under crossword license. I see these kinds of answers all the time in the NYT crosswords. Can you get the answer from the clue (and perhaps some crosses)? Yes? Then move on. FOLL and NAUT are not perfect homophones, but why do they need to be? They are close enough that you should be able to get the intended catchphrase. You know, like a pun? Not all answers have to be something you've heard of. Can you get to the answer from the clue and crosses? Yes? Move on. The puzzle is a game where the "rules"(There are none, only conventions, and in your nits none of those were violated) get bent all the time. Expect more of the same in the future.
@SP To your IN MONO complaint, which could have easily been fixed with better cluing, I'd add that the clue for YO MAMA should be "Crack open-ing", but that one's harder to fix.
@SP Yes. Not wrong, but definitely off. This is the first Sunday in a long time that I really did not enjoy.
@SP I'm here because I'm scrolling for a Lifebar comment. Thanks!
@SP LIFE BAR is a legit thing, and it was one of the few gimmies in this odious grid for me.
@SP I don't even understand the complaint about FALL and FOLL. How do YOU pronounce FOLLICLE? Foal-icle? Fool-icle? The FALL and FOLL in this instance are definitely homophones.
@SP I'm curious why you say they are "hardly homophones." That would likely depend on your accent considering those vowel sounds are highly variable.
@SP Whether NOT and NAUT, or FOLL and FALL, are homophones for you depends on whether your dialect of English has what linguists refer to as the "Cot-caught merger," a phenomenon widely discussed in English dialectology. At the risk of TMI: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cot" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cot</a>–caught_merger
Here in Minnesota, our favorite was 55 Down: Give the cold shoulder, with “Out.” Thanks NYT for the shout out.
@Matt 55D was my favorite part of the whole puzzle, and I live in Maryland! (My sister lives in Minneapolis, though.)
Very solid puzzle, favorite was the Lear Jet offset with West Side Story! BTW, speaking for myself only, please disregard some curmudgeons who feel entitled to demand every puzzle to be designed to match their taste. These crossword police don't allow trivia, rebuses, puns, or anything too esoteric. The puzzle must fit within exact specifications of difficulty level per relevant day of the week. Any violations will be met with derisive trolling. They'll even challenge fellow crossword solvers who post a positive comment, and taunt such lack of malice as 'mollycoddling.' Lacking EQ, they jump at the chance to spend 1 minute trashing something that others took days to build and are proud of. And which at least some others in the crossword community appreciated. Dear crossword creators, I appreciated your puzzle and look forward to more from you as partners in cluing and your solo puzzles as well. Cheers!
@CB I very much agree with you. But I also agree that a friendly forum for suggested improvements would probably be of great benefit to a constructor's development. I agree criticism can be both constructive and destructive. I think most here aim for the constructive kind.
@CB I agree, I thought this one was fun. None of the fill was too hard, good Sunday level. Sports stuff I didn't know, but filled in on crosses. I've had my nails done with ESSIE polish, and Opi was too short, so that was a gimme. My favorite was TWO PARTICLE HARMONY. That was funny. I agree that most comments are constructive, but many aren't, they are just mean. To each of those, I'd like to see your puzzles, let us all know when they will run. And what the heck, why do people get so testy when they don't know something?? Your "obscure" isn't so obscure to some of us. Mostly I'm irritated by people's need to share their negative opinions. The internet age seems to be robbing us of our ability to keep our mouths shut. No one cares if you enjoyed it or not. This isn't Yelp. No comments on SEXTOYS? That was a surprise. I got it on my first pass, when a word that starts with V occurred to me first, but still thought "nooooo." (I hope this doesn't get emued.) With the previous word in my head, PILS wasn't my first thought for "Pale lager, informally", that fit P__S. I don't think of pils as an informal version, but as another name, but at any rate, the Gray Lady didn't get that vulgar today.
@CB You make a very fair point and I tend to be curmudgeonly, so well done. I will, however, quibble with some of today's fill and cluing, which contained far too many brand names and pop culture for my taste and often were a real stretch, and they don't have to be that way. There are always other choices. But that's no put-down of the construction itself, which I admire.
@CB Well said, CB. It's possible to disagree with choices for cluing without sounding like armored guadis of an arbitrary set of standards and condemning a puzzle to the trash bin. The column is meant to be a forum for sharing our experience with working the puzzles. If you didn't like a puzzle, say why you didn't like it, but don't sneer at it and the people who constructed it.
@CB what does lear jet mean and why does everyone like the entry so much? only some company is coming up when i try to google it
The story of solving this puzzle? CHRONICLEPAIN Issues had trying to sort out this puzzles clues? LOGICALJAM Where a solver of this puzzle might be after it's completion? CYNICALCITY The theme was fine, but I did not enjoy the rest of the puzzle. Hard to put my finger on what exactly. The clues just felt bad.
For the first themer (23A), I added ICAL to CLASS CLOWN. Adding ICAL for the second themer (40A) didn't work; I needed to add ICLE to TWO PART HARMONY. For the third themer (65A) I not only had to add ICLE but I had to pretend FOLL was "fall" for the base phrase. The next two -- 88A and 94A -- also required phonetic changes after ICAL, and the last (113A), with ICLE, was a straightforward BOSTON POPS. There certainly was MUTATION in how the themers worked, as promised in the title, but I can't decide if that was fun or just a very loose theme set. Such are the mysteries of Sunday Crosswords.
@Barry Ancona agreed. feels lazy to me.
@Barry Ancona agreed. the theme not following a structure didn't really make sense, especially with no themed clue.
@Barry Ancona I thought it was fun. Just phonetic. If you say them aloud they all match!
@Barry Ancona If you arbitrarily say they can't be just phonetic, then the theme is not consistent. If you say the theme answers are all phonetic, then the theme answers are consistent. Since one of those is consistent, why would we not assume that was the intent? One answer is that some take great sport in finding fault with the puzzle (when most of the time there is none).
@Barry Ancona technically the second themer in the puzzle was TOPICALDOG at 37 across (also added ICAL) which really made it seem like an ICAL pattern. But you probably just meant the second themer you came across in your solve. 🤓
John Ezra, Marshall Walthew and I are pleased to announce the winners and runners-up for the 2025 Griddies (f/k/a the Puzzle of the Year Awards): Best Early Week Puzzle: Winner August 27 (Zhou Zhang), Runner-Up April 1 (Sande Milton) Best Thursday Puzzle: Winner October 2 (Aidan Deshong); Runner-Up July 17 (Sam Brody) Best Friday or Saturday Puzzle: Winner July 19 (Erik Agard); Runner-Up October 24 (Kelvin Zhou) Best Sunday Puzzle: Winner July 6 “Escape Room” (Zhou Zhang and Kevin Curry); Runner-Up May 25 “Travel Bug” (Dylan Schiff) Congratulations to all the winners and almost-winners! Thanks to everyone who voted. And double thanks to everyone who had to re-enter their votes in the second round. Instead of repeating the ballot’s descriptions of the winning puzzles, John, Marshall and I have borrowed the words of the wonderful Wordplay columnists and puzzle constructors and editors (which, due to space limitations, will appear as replies to this comment).
@Eric Hougland Best Early Week Puzzle Winner August 27 (Zhou Zhang) — A next-level Schrödinger puzzle. “In a Schrödinger puzzle, each theme entry can have two possible correct answers in the same slot that differ by one or more letters, and the crossing answers work with either entry.” (Deb Amlen). Zhang notes on xwordinfo: “This puzzle has a very special place in my heart because it's the first one I had accepted by the New York Times. Looking back on it, I'm honestly shocked I even got it to work. Unusual grid size … a lot of theme material … plus a Schrödinger…rebus??? This is clearly the hubris of somebody who has no idea what they're getting themselves into, and I say that with only love and affection to my former self.” Runner-Up April 1 (Sande Milton) —Unique puzzle with the revealer IN-FLIGHT MAGAZINE explaining why some of the squares have been filled in (sometimes wrongly!). As Sam Corbin wrote, “I encourage you to think of these less as mistakes than as points of departure. They add to the satisfaction you’ll feel when Mr. Milton’s brilliant joke finally lands.” Corbin also wrote, “I found the real brilliance of the theme to be its red herrings. The right answer to 17A’s [Declare openly] is AVOW — but “aver” could have been right. [Genetic material] at (41A) is DNA here, but the clue could just as easily have solved to RNA.”
@Eric Hougland Best Thursday Puzzle Winner October 2 (Aidan Deshong) —A MINESWEEPER themed puzzle. Deb Amlen: “I don’t think I am overstating things when I say that this grid is brilliant. It’s a rebus, which is a reasonable thing to expect on a Thursday: The word MINE or the first letter, M, needs to be entered into six of the puzzle’s squares. The rebus works for both the Across and Down answers. For example, the answer to the clue at 17A, [How something distinctive appears] is PRO(MINE)NTLY, and the crossing answer to the clue [AD ___] at 4D is HO(MINE)M.” AND the grid also works as a real MINESWEEPER game. “The numbers indicate how many bombs they are adjacent to,” puzzle editor Christina Iverson said. “So the two means that square is touching two bombs.” Runner-Up July 17 (Sam Brody) —A MATRYOSHKA DOLL themed puzzle, the famous Russian nesting dolls. In this case, the parentheses “nest” clues inside each other, and the same is true with the answers (such as (TI(ME(MACH)IN)ES), or TIME MACHINES). Deb Amlen: “Did your brain, like my own, immediately shut down as soon as you opened Sam Brody’s puzzle? How about your heart? Did it pound as you tried to figure out what was up with all the parentheses in the clues?” But as she concluded, “As strange as the clues look, they are admirably consistent, or what constructors call a ‘tight’ theme set. As a whole, today’s puzzle is a great demonstration of how constructors think: They tend to notice patterns in language.”
@Eric Hougland Best Friday or Saturday Puzzle Winner July 19 (Erik Agard) —[A] beautiful grid with a low word count and lots of long interesting fill. Its showpiece is the quadruple stack of full-length entries in its center. It looks like a beast to solve, and indeed there are many areas where a solver needs tenacity and mental flexibility to move forward, but it’s very fair. … I think this puzzle is great for anyone who rises to the challenge — a puzzle that’s intimidating but doable and that makes you feel accomplished in the end. …[I]t’s high art for a constructor to be able to combine so many imposing elements into a harmonious solve. (Caitlin Lovinger) Runner-Up October 24 (Kelvin Zhou) —[Mr. Zhou’s] grid is quite good. [It] even introduces us to seven debut entries. The solving just required a substantial tug of war between my brain and Mr.Zhou’s. … The experience perfectly demonstrates what I like to think of as the cruciverbal version of a popular idiom: some days you get the puzzle, and some days the puzzle gets you. … There’s some greatness in Mr. Zhou’s puzzle and you won’t want to miss it. (Deb Amlen)
@Eric Hougland Congratulations to all the winners—Zhou Zhang winning two, that’s quite a feat! Champagne in the Curry/Zhang household tonight. I’m pleased and a bit surprised at the Escape Room win, because it was quite polarizing at the time, if I recall. It just goes to show that it’s worth going out in a limb and stretching boundaries even though some people won’t like it, you may astonish others. I’m reminded of a lyric from the little known musical [title of show]—yes, that’s really the title—“I’d rather be nine people’s favorite thing then a hundred people’s ninth favorite thing.” Congrats again!
@Eric Hougland Winner July 6 “Escape Room” (Zhou Zhang and Kevin Curry) — "[T]hough everything that you need to solve this puzzle is here, I think its final steps will have many solvers climbing the walls. … If you are at the point where you’ve solved everything in the grid except for [the isolated word at] 69-Down and are stumped, here’s a hint: Each theme entry hints at another entry in the puzzle, which furnishes the missing information. …[T]he whole process to determine the final key is quite a challenge. I won’t be surprised if some solvers guess the word and reverse engineer each letter." (Caitlin Lovinger) Runner-Up May 25 “Travel Bug” (Dylan Schiff) —"This is a wicked puzzle from Mr. Schiff, whose last Sunday puzzle included an inventive series of jokes about the digital era. Today’s grid goes beyond the digital, to an intergalactic degree. … In order to see [the theme], it’s important to register the six circles [in the grid] as three pairs. One pair is blue .… One is pink …. And one pair is yellow, .… Each color — blue, pink and yellow — has a different rebus element, which therefore appears twice in the grid. … [The rebus] BOOK goes in the pink circles, as the fulcrum where each of these entries moves to its corresponding spot in the grid. Why BOOK? I only understood once I’d filled in 69-Across, partly by deduction, mostly from the crossing entries. It solves to WORMHOLE." (Caitlin Lovinger)
@Eric Hougland -- Thank you, John, and Marshall, for all you put into this. It's been grand remembering some of the best puzzles of the year, it's been fun to have a voice in the results, and I'm guessing the Griddies echo not only in this forum, but all throughout Crosslandia. Much gratitude, and bravo!
@Eric Hougland thank you Eric, John and Marshall. This was really fantastic and just wanted all of you to know how much I appreciated your efforts to pull this off.
@Eric Hougland Thank you for all of your hard work! So excited 10/2 won - it was such a clever idea and so well-executed. Fitting that Escape room won as well, although it was a streak-killer for me.
@Eric Hougland Thank-yous to all of you who worked so hard on this. It was fun to be reminded of all the great puzzles we had this past year. And thank you for making voting so easy. (Fortunately I'm a procrastinator so I only had to vote once in the last round. There's a lesson there somewhere.)
Well, I’m a fan of silly, when it's good. And today, to me, it was. First of all, “ickle” is funny sounding. That helps. Then, when you add it to a word and substitute it for the original word in a common phrase, that’s prime wordplay, and today it hit my happy button. The two constructors, per their notes, brainstormed hundreds of possibilities before landing on today’s seven. That not only shows remarkable perseverance, but also that they worked hard on making this puzzle the best it can be. So, add inspiration and respect to my smiles. Extra points for the lovely shorts GRIST and MIASMA. Regular NYT solvers will know John well from his seven puzzles last year alone. Lance, with three puzzles in four years, maybe not so readily, but let me remind you of his wit from two of his past clues: [Competition that begins and ends with a tie], and [Material for a lighter wheel]. (Answers in a reply). Thank you, John and Lance. This was splendid!
[Crustacean that doesn't need oxygen to survive] HERMETICAL CRAB
I thought I'd take a break from flyspecking and come here to say how much I liked this puzzle. Only a minor smattering of Oreos and plenty of fun clues to lighten my gloom about the Warriors' loss to the Pistons last night (so close! so close!). The theme made me think of a Pollyanna friend's sunny rejection of my favorite pastime: "Never a Cross Word!" You make a great team, John and Lance. Thank you. What's next?
Apparently some are unfamiliar with a Lear jet. Once again it helps to be of a certain age. You're So Vain, sing it Carly...... Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia To see the total eclipse of the sun... <a href="https://youtu.be/UXrpJ0VAeC8?si=j60lf9fv3RMG-PVp" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/UXrpJ0VAeC8?si=j60lf9fv3RMG-PVp</a>
@Vaer I've always loved that song, especially the lyrics. And the lines you quoted are my favorites from the song, along with the hat strategically dipped below one eye. My wife accused me of striking a sexy post once at a church picnic. I was in equal parts indignant and complimented. I didn't even know I could even do such a thing. At least I wasn't with the wife of a close friend at the time.
@Vaer I'm very familiar with a Lear jet. However, I pronounce Lear as "leer," and "lyrical" with a short "i" sound. And I'm of a certain age. So even though I finished the puzzle without having to look anything up, I didn't quite get the joke, even knowing the theme.
@Vaer I think that song was about me!
@Times Rita I can't even force my brain to pronounce the y in lyrical the way you do.
Thanks to Eric Hougland and Marshall Walthew, we made the Griddies happen again this year and had good voter turnout and lots of good choices for the final round. See Eric's announcement of the winners in today's comments below (or above). And thanks to all of you here who voted! And remember to vote again in the future, here and also where you live. Democracy depends on those who vote.
Chance to attend a spiritual gathering: MYSTICAL OPPORTUNITY "You're not gonna eat that prairie oyster?" PASS THE TEST___
@Andrew, despite it being an ordinary anatomical term, the emus decided to quash my comment from last night that included a Rorschach test.
I can't believe I did the whole thing!😊
@Wendy P My sentiments exactly. Somehow I finished. I'm not sure how, but I did. It reminded me of the many times when I struggle to remember where a given note is on the upper neck of my guitar, only to discover that my left hand had already arrived there all by itself. I never fully understand the theme, either.
A very challenging Sunday for those of us who aren’t sports inclined! Eventually got it without lookups, but BLEDSOE, NLMVP, the proper Bruins to get BOSTON POPSICLE…ouch!
@Stephen I'm a sports fan so those were no problem for me but I fully agree with your complaint. I feel the same way when a puzzle is overloaded with entertainment. All puzzles have trivia but let's not have too much from one area of interest.
I figured out the ical/icle trick and solved the clues with answers that made sense. I never caught on that dropping the ical/icle sound yielded a common phrase. My reaction: the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.
There was no cheating with this puzzle, so there was no fudgsicle.
Meh. A quick solve, but not fun. As someone who can't construct crosswords, I respect and admire the skill of putting them together. But the last time a Sunday puzzle was fun was the August 3 "Star Trek"-themed one; and I commented then how long it had been since I'd enjoyed a Sunday puzzle. Have I done so many that I've become jaded??? Add a few letters to a phrase, switch a few letters in a phrase ... the themes are becoming repetitive and boring.
@Crazy Cat Lady I agree with you completely. This was no fun at all.
I'm with the band on this one. By coincidence, [Orbit(al)] = EYESOCKET was the subject of a Jeopardy question this past week. According to Cousin Ken, that usage predates the astronomical one. I wondered why [tech] wasn't capitalized. Then I found out that the California Institute of Technology brands itself as "Caltech," one word. Wait, educational institutions need branding? THEA, usually spelled Theia, is just an adjective meaning "divine," which she probably used as an epithet, like Scary, Posh, or Sporty, in place of a birth-name she found embarrassing. She's one of the Titans, and the Titans, apart from Kronos, were a pretty boring lot, basically just there to fill up genealogical lists.
@Bill If she's one of the Titans, she's probably from Tennessee, where they give them two abbreviated names as a first name, like Bobbie Jo. No wonder she'd find it embarrassing.
@Bill I saw that our friend Paolo got EIDER the other night, a real gimme for a crossword constructor.
A little too 'clever' for the creators own good. When I was done done didn't go 'aha', or 'that's clever'... I went 'meh'. Did of a waste of my Sunday.
Hitch, The creators got their puzzle published, so it was clever enough for them. It was either too clever -- or not clever enough -- for you. (I wasn't wildly impressed either, but I didn't find solving a waste of time. Sorry you did.)
@Barry Ancona I'm no troll on this site, but it also isn't just there for blind praise because someone got their puzzle published. Feedback is needed from both sides, and I feel my review gave it it's dues, but I also feel the 'theme' was tenuous at best. Sunday puzzles take time, and when there is little reward at the end, it irks me.
Seemed like a puzzle where the constructors really wanted their theme to work, but, despite their best efforts, it doesn't quite. If the theme were something outstanding then this might be OK. But here, well the theme seems rather pedestrian ... and it doesn't really work. "FOLL" is not "FALL", and they don't sound the same. And "NAUT" isn't "NOT", and they're also not homophones---at least to me. Solved it without assistance or errors in about 40 minutes. Liked some of the entries, especially the vowel-free NLMVPS and the uncommon words MIASMA and MYOPE. But overall ... well, I hope others actually enjoyed this one.
@Xword Junkie Yes, and no one would actually say, "WE'RE NAUTICAL WORTHY!" But, c'mon, it's a puzzle! And for me, it was plenty clever.
@Xword Junkie NAUT would indeed be a homophone of NOT in the land of the BOSTONPOPSICLE.
Once again... WAY too many proper nouns.
@LJADZ Yep. Lots of proper nouns, but all solvable with the crosses.
@LJADZ, after seeing this comment from you (and others, to be fair) many times, I have to ask: How many is too many, exactly? Do you make this comment only when you don't know the answer or don't recognize the proper noun when it's part of the clue? If you know all the proper nouns, do you just merrily complete the puzzle sans grousing in the comments? I'm sometimes stumped by proper nouns; today, I didn't know the horror director. I've never heard of him/her. But it was easy to deduce on the cross.
@LJADZ Some times a proper noun can become a verb. As in a recent puzzle clue where a person had to MacGyver something to fix a problem. There are other examples.
Very clever gimmick! Like Caitlin, I got TOPICAL DOG fairly early, but had no clue how that was going to become the theme. And like Caitlin, when I got BOSTON POPSICLE in the bottom, the theme became crystal clear, and helped with finishing the puzzle. (And how nice to have SOX crossing there!) LYRICAL JET was especially clever (perhaps because I was thinking that it would have to be musICAL), and CLASSICAL CLOWN was very nice, the last of the themers to fall for me, allowing a pleasant ending to the puzzle. Of course, FOLLICLE was a bit of a reach, and so was NAUTICAL, but the latter was worth it, if only to hear Wayne and Garth in one's head: "WE'RE NAUT WORTHY!!!" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjaqrPpdQYc" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjaqrPpdQYc</a> And there's Mike MYERS, hiding in the SouthEast!
The X-Phile, I know that the homophonery of NOT/NAUT and FALL/FOLL has been discussed a lot below. For me (for whom both examples are perfectly sounding the same when said by me), what we need is a phonetic analog to the “check definition #3 on this Webster’s link” tactic often seen in these comments. I haven’t yet found an online sound file library of “different people saying the same word” , but if someone knows one, it would be good to popularize its use here, for phonetic puzzles like today.
Whew. And Wow! Long workout for me but catching on to the theme was the big turning point and that's always a great touch. Just a LOT of working the crosses but that just meant a bunch of nice 'aha' moments when something finally came to me. And.. theme was in the vicinity of dad jokes so that, at least, was right up my alley. And... my puzzle find today. A Wednesday from May 20, 2015 by Jacob Stulberg. Don't recall one like this and thought it was quite amazing to come up with the theme clues and answers. Some examples: "In relation to someone's travel document?" VISAVISAVISA "Grandpa Simpson, describe a Genesis figure"? ABELABELABEL "Jockey who's jeered by me?" RIDERIDERIDE "Detective catches sight of baker wares?" PIESPIESPIES Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/20/2015" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=5/20/2015</a> ....
Speaking only for myself, the best Sunday puzzles are ones where the clues aren’t too tricky. I mean, there are a LOT of them. I don’t like to work too hard on the “day of rest”. But that’s just me. The puzzle was impressive, but not my favorite for a Sunday.
First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you to the editors for not giving away the game with circles. I found this enjoyable, especially trying to figure out the phrases with as few crosses as possible. TWO PARTICLE HARMONY was my favorite, with BOSTON POPSICLE a close second. The clue for IN MONO could have been improved. Maybe "How early records were recorded" or something like that would be better.
Just right for a Sunday. I like how the gimmick shifted around and the fills brought smiles. Nice work!
John Kugelman... K thx bye.
@Andrzej I kept coming back here anxiously waiting for your comment!! 😘
@Andrzej And while I'm normally okay with his puzzles, generally enjoying them a good bit, I'm going to have to agree with you on this one.
@Andrzej Why can't I remember the names like you guys? I'm good at names in most settings... Had to search him via Diary of a Crossword Fiend and instantly recalled not liking his puns after I perused two previous grids. He really does seem to be all about the dad-joke puns.
@Andrzej the column did try to appease you with a picture of poodles….
@Andrzej Once again, I have to agree with you. But after reading some of the comments made after your post, excoriating those who don't like a particular puzzle, it seems that only those who praise every constructor and every puzzle are welcome here.
@Andrzej But did you do the puzzle? I'm curious! Saw his name and wondered if you would just take a pass on solving today. Does your distaste for John run so deep that you pass on a day of puzzle play?
One of my favorites!! Not only were the theme answers plentiful and amazing (lyricaljets was CERTAINLY my favorite; twoparticleharmony second ) but the rest of the fill seemed unusual and fresh. So fun!! Thanks constructors!
@Barbara Barnes. After a first pass through all i usually make my way through the puzzle in one more or less continuous sweep working and chaining through top to bottom or maybe from a corner in sort of a triangle. Today was very different: worked through the middle of the puzzle using mostly crosses to recover the theme, then worked the top and bottom mostly using the themes to recover the crosses. That made it extra fun for me.
That was tough, until it wasn’t. A good Sunday workout with a cute theme. I caught on with WE’RE NAUTICAL WORTHY. Don’t really understand BOSTON POPSICLE but I guess it’s a sports reference. Trouble is 94A has stung me with Hotstepper as the ear worm of the day, ‘I’m the LYRICAL gangster’. I’m going to have to go through the whole song now to get it out of my head.
@Helen Wright The Boston Pops is an orchestra that often performs popular music in classical orchestrations.
@Helen Wright The Boston Pops’ long-time conductor was the legendary John Williams. Since Williams is the only thing I really know about the organization, I googled them and see that Arthur Fiedler was the conductor for nearly 50 years. I now recall that my parents had a record of the Pops with Fiedler. And although the ‘lyrical gangsta’ sounded familiar, I pulled up the video to make sure. Now I will be humming that hook all day, so… thanks for that🤣🤣
@Helen Wright I used to have a copy of "The Boston Pops Play The Beatles." It was one of the first cassettes my parents bought for me.
@Helen Wright And the other part of it, which I assume could also cause trouble for Brits, is the popsicle part. It's what you'd call an ice lolly.
How the trained geese flew to advertise for Crazy Ed’s Used Car Lot? INVEHICLEFORMATION Fun puzzle. But as the constructors hint, we all know what their *seed* entry was, it just didn’t TEST well.
Not a very satisfying theme in my opinion. I could get over there not being a theme revealer in the puzzle. I'm okay with "ical" being spelled differently, even though it's a little bit of a reach, it's okay. But when you also throw in the homophones needing to be used at the beginning of the phrases for them to make sense, along with all the rest, I feel like it's too much of a reach to be considered a consolidated theme puzzle. Reaching as far as the freaking moon. Leave it themeless next time <3
Had a Natick with MIASMA/PILMICO, but was able to brute force it. Wednesday will mark 200 Days on my streak. Now, what do I do with the 8 hours until the Djokovic/Alcaraz Final...
Steven, I'm sure you entered PIMLICO in the grid, and the typo here resulted from the MIASMA of near-Natickness.
@Steven M. I was OK with MIASMA, but BLEDSOE / PIMLICO was an absolute Natick for me. I had to look them up.
Top 10 WW2-era movies? SCHINDLER’S LISTICLE
@BR Nice answer, but you need to work on your clue. Perhaps "If Oskar could use an on-line resource to keep track of who he was saving?"
I am kind of in the middle on this one. It was not one of my favorite Sunday puzzles, but I don’t believe that it warrants much of the negativity in many of the comments. Most of the theme fills were somewhat predictable once the “mutation” device was figured out. As a longtime fan of the orchestra, BOSTONPOPSICLE was my favorite. A shout out for OLESTRA. It was at first thought to be the answer for a non-caloric fat substitute to make chips less fattening, as long as you didn’t mind a little GI distress and diarrhea. Whoever came up with that bad idea is in the same league as those who put wood dust in some breads to cut down on calories.
@Ken S This clue prompted me to do a quick search on 'worst inventions' (not ChatGPT), and Time magazine has a top 50 list. Wow, there are some reeeeeally bad inventions, some dating back several years. Not surprising, Ford Pinto, Subprime Mortgages, the Segway and Crocs made the list.
I'm surprised by the mixed reactions today as I thought the puzzle was superb both in theme and execution. No trouble here with any of the homophones, and BOSTON POPSICLE was one of my all-time favourites! I haven't seen any mention of the fact that by applying the theme to the puzzle's title one is left with "Commutation".
@Andrew someone mentioned commutation in the very early comment threads last night. I don’t remember who though?? 🤔
@Andrew I agree. I thought the theme, homophones and all, was enjoyable and fair as well.
It seems that the squeaky wheels are more likely to comment, so in an attempt to balance things out, I enjoyed the puzzle and didn't find it too hard (3 minutes slower than my Sunday PB). Nice work Lance and John!
@Seward Parker I concur! Well, partly; this one was significantly harder to me than most Sundays (50% longer than my average 😅), but it was a very enjoyable solve for most of the way, and the theme clues were especially delightful!
Grab the chips and dip may be my new all-time favorite clue 👏👏
I can only imagine how many hours it took to cuticle and polish (messy manicurist?) this gem of a puzzle. Super clever. Loved it.
For me, this was the worst ever Sunday puzzle over the past 2 years I have been playing. Diabolical theme with homophones, too niche trivia, poor clues, unsolvable crosses, and so on. This puzzle shouldn't have passed the editor's desk. Other commenters have mentioned about other poor clues. I will take my grudge out on [Not Stereo] which should ideally solve to MONO, but it solves to IN MONO. With so much of trivia already in the puzzle, I didn't appreciate how simple words like SIR were also clued niche trivia. The puzzle seemed forced and not at all a happy fill.
Oof. That NE corner was an absolute slog. I enjoyed the rest of the grid, but that whole area felt like repentance for some nondescript sin I may have committed this morning. PIMLICO/OPIE crossing with BLEDSOE was a torturous density of proper names I had to fill with guesses, and I really don’t enjoy clues as painfully generic as “some school subject” and “some Atlantic fish.” It contrasted rather sharply with the rest of the puzzle, which had some delightful, original clues, like those for NINJA, AMNESIA, SERIF, and SEXTOYS. One of the more challenging Sundays in the last few months, no doubt. I just wish proper names and utterly vague clues didn’t make up such a big part of this challenge.
It was sad to lose Jane Goodall last year, but my favorite primatologist (we all have one, right?) is Robert Sapolsky. I highly recommend all of his books, but I especially enjoyed his most recent, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will (However, I listened to the audiobook and don't recommend that format; I plan to re"read" it on paper/e-book.)
@Bill in Yokohama Sapolsky's critique of free will seems to me to be an example of "scientism" in which things that cannot be understood scientifically are inferred to be unreal. He forgets that our best scientific theories are simply predictive models, not perfect images of reality. One can see this problem also the "scientistic" critique of "consciousness".
Really enjoyed this one. Many of the aha moments coming with exhalations halfway between groans and peals of laughter - the highest praise possible for an NYT Sunday puzzle. Well done!
Enjoyed today’s theme, once I caught on, and ended up with a “well below my average Sunday” time. To Lance Enfinger, congrats on the Sunday selection. Enjoyed it greatly, and chuckled often on the themed answers. How much snow did you end up with? I’m within shouting distance (a snowball’s throw away?), and we had 8”. Not a bad dusting for our part of the country.
@BobSolo We got somewhere in the 8-10” range at my house. Quite amazing!