OK, I tried my hand at this theme idea. It took 10 minutes to type on my phone, so you only get the one: | X | | Y | | X | | Y | | X Y | | X Y | ZIPPER MERGE
@Cat Lady Margaret Traffic jam theory ftw And also public transit. And mixed use neighborhoods.
@Cat Lady Margaret Can also clue as “What only 20% of Portland drivers know they should do.”
@Cat Lady Margaret from the only time I drove in NYC: | X X X | | X HXx | | H X X | | X XXX | The H is for random hot dog vendors suddenly appearing out of nowhere, and nobody seems to be in an actual lane. But eventually I got where I was going lol. Next time I'll take a cab and close my eyes!
@Cat Lady Margaret Please forward this to Minnesota, because literally no one here know how to do this. Minnesota, I love you guys, but you got to learn how to merge.
Two roads diverged near a math class: I subtracted one number from the other, And that has made all the difference. (Not the same author, I know - might get a Frosty reception.)
@Mike Aw, Mike - it's nice to read your quotient here!
@Mike I suspect the replies will multiply over time, as people add them. You could keep track of the rate at which they're entered -- log the rhythm, so to speak.
@Mike I shall be telling this with a psi Somewhere in some quantum state hence: Two wave functions appeared I chose the one less normalized, And that, probably, has made all the difference. (apologies to Max Planck, and any physicists out there)
@Mike Perfect description for what happened to my dance class and the loss of a brilliant career on point. All the sines were there.
__________________________ xxxxxxxxxxxx x x x x -------------------------------------- (That guy who drives the speed limit in the passing lane and holds everyone up.) ______________________________________ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ------------------------------------------------------- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX __________________. ___________________ |X| |X| (Me trying to go "down-island" on the nicest summer day of the year at Martha's Vineyard, and no one let us in for maybe 20 minutes!) Too bad there were no hitchhikers, beatniks, dharma bums or other references to Kerouac's masterpiece, but his spirit lives on! Very much liked this puzzle and its road-adjacent words, SPARE, and SLIM JIM -- I only take note of them in gas station stores -- plus GUN LAP, CAR FARE and for all you jeepsters, EAT DIRT. _____________________________________________ % | xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "!!!%&(B$*^&#@###!!!" x % _______________________________________________ (Me obliviously texting while stopped at a light, which has turned green, and a bunch of cars behind me are beeping and cursing at me)
Two tennis clues and an Italian term crossing a racing clue was rough but the clue for ERR gave me enough of a laugh to make up for it
@Joseph C it was my favorite clue tonight!
Congratulations to Paolo Pasco, who caught fire in the second half of Jeopardy last night, and ran away with the victory, winning the Tournament of Champions, and getting a spot on the Masters tournament. His broad knowledge, quickness, generous spirit, and that mischievous glint in his eye made him a joy to behold. Go Paolo!
@Lewis Thank you for the update, and congrats to Paolo!
@Lewis Yes, a wonder to behold as he swept two very worthy opponents. His knowledge was truly amazing and speed with the button second to none. Gutsy betting on Daily Doubles made him untouchable in the Final Jeopardy rounds. A force to be reckoned with in the Masters Tournament.
@Lewis I note that one of his answers was SLIM JIM, referring not to the meat stick, but a tool for breaking into a car.
He’s so much fun to watch! So happy for him!
@Lewis Yes it was a dominant performance. Finding so many daily doubles and winning big bets on them clearly dispirited his two opponents and the games were over quickly. Very happy to see a puzzle constructor seize the crown.
@Lewis I was so happy for him! He seemed so modest and unaggressive, the kind of player you love to see win on Jeopardy. Along with an extraordinary scope of info and speed on the button, he had Lady Luck on his side. It's seldom that other players can catch up with a successful, big Daily Double all-in bet, and when a contestant hits three Daily Doubles, as he did on night 2, they are sunk. Daily Doubles can doom a contestant to lose if they bet it all too late in the game and get it wrong, but he didn't.
So, the Rebuses are in the clues today, I’m OK with that. But final go-round being the GUN LAP? That’s usually the BELL LAP in my (long) lifetime. But maybe once upon a time. Yes, I know it’s in the dictionary.
@Mike R Has anyone here heard 'gunLAP' in the wild? The number of car races I have observed is statistically insignificant but I've watched plenty of late night sports reports and have never heard this. It obviously can't be from horse racing. Is it from track and field?
Kind of a joy ride for me. Lots of riddles, which I adore – not only in translating the visual clues, but also in the regular ones. I found that several times I had to run the alphabet to figure out the last square in an answer. That, to me, is a sign of s good clue/answer. Interesting answers too, from a wide range of fields: SHAM, SHIRE, ALL CAPS, BEAR PAW, CANASTA, CHINO, HELIXES, MAESTRO. CAR FARE (44D) could have been the puzzle title. Lovely clues, such as [Case of emergency] for ALL CAPS, and [Paragraph starter, perhaps] for TAB, but my favorite was [Mistake “air” for “heir”, say] for ERR, with those two “err” soundalikes – so dang clever, and furthermore, ERR has been in the major crossword outlets more than a thousand times – you’d think all the clues would have been thought of – but this is a clue debut! All this plus some brain-loving speed bumps made for a splendid outing. Thank you for that, Dario, and congratulations on your NYT debut puzzle!
@Lewis For me, ERR doesn't rhyme or sound like air/heir; pretty sure I'm not alone. FERNs have fronds; I guess they meet the definition of 'leaves' in some sense, but I've never heard anyone call them that. Hmm... Fiddleheads, bracken, fronds, spores....someone should do a FERN puzzle!
Down the Garden Path & T 🌷____🌷 🌷 ____🌷 🌷 _____🌷 🌷______🌷 🌷_______🌷 🌷🌷🌷🌷 🌷 _________ 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷
The confluence of ADIN, ADUE, and GUNLAP almost did me in, as I wasn't really familiar with any of these terms. But I got lucky with a few guesses and still beat my Thursday average by 6 minutes.
@Jim That area seems to have been a pitfall to many.
Re 31A, in a former life, I worked on the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, Canada. It was just as its name implies; a huge tract of farmland in the middle of the city where dozens of research scientists worked, seeking ways to breed animals in as efficient a manner as possible. Chickens were one such group and I learned that there were very skilled workers called “chick-sexers” most adept at quickly determining the sex of a newly hatched baby chick. Armed with this knowledge, I happened to be in the audience at an improv evening. One of the performers wanted to demonstrate the group’s facility in creating sketches on the spot, asking the audience for ideas. He asked for someone in the audience to name an occupation. Being clever, so I thought, I called out “chick-sexer”. Quick as a flash, he shot back, “It doesn’t have to be your job!”
@Strudel Dad In saying this skill is performed "with" a SEXER, the article seems to imply it's a device, but I was pretty sure it was a human being. Fascinating skill that according to the linked article has implications for other kinds of quick decision-making as well. When I saw the clue, I was all ready to scream "sexist language!" Happily, I was wrong.
@Strudel Dad hello from Carling Avenue across from the Experimental Farm!
I almost had to verify answers at the adue/adin/gunlap crosses. From the comments, adin was a bit tricky, but not the others. I am in a definite minority. Who knew so many were well versed in music notation, tennis scoring *and* running race terminology. I am impressed. Loved the cluing. Looking forward to more from this constructor.
@Karen I was hopelessly lost there, too.
@Karen same here. All three terms were new to me!
@Karen ADIN and ADUE were a cinch because I’m a three-time grand slam-winning orchestral composer, but GUNLAP? Please..
@Karen I hit two out of three there because I ran track in high school and played some college tennis.
@Karen I know absolutely nothing about music. I've watched a lot (really, A LOT) of tennis but don't play it so I've never heard ADIN. GUNLAP only came to me when I had G__LAP, and even then I had to remove advt, which was my best guess for the tennis score.
I really liked the visual rebus element here. Not sure why, but it reminded me of my early years messing around with our calculators in class to create words with numbers or later our pagers to send funny messages with numbers 😉 Early emails that we sent included “images” like the theme clues. This puzzle just really made me smile tonight. Congratulations on your debut, Dario.
Breezy puzzle with ACOUPLE of nice clues. I particularly liked the clue for that old standby ERR. I confess to solving without bothering to figure out what the graphics in the themed clues, because the revealer and the crosses gave me everything I needed.
@Marshall Walthew Once i got one theme answer with the crosses, I understood the mechanics of the theme, so then part of the enjoyment of the puzzle was figuring out the other three theme answers.
Regrettably, Sam's column today has two infelicities. First, the rebus clues do not use Wingdings. They are all straight-up ASCII characters. Second, while the association of CPAs with schedules (55A) could mean 'fee schedules', that's a very green-paint explanation. Surely, what we're talking about here is tax schedules which require CPAs' expertise. On the plus side, I needed Sam's explanation of ADIN for 34A. That bloc held me up forever. No idea about GUNLAP, and ADUE still seems wrong to me.
@SBK ADUE/GUNLAP/ADIN defeated me 🤷🏽♂️
@SBK The gun lap is for medium to longer running races where the final lap is signalled to the athletes :) and "adue" is a due, from Italian, for two people to sing together as one. I did have difficulty here too though, it was a tricky block, but hope this helps!
@SBK I know next to nothing about car racing, but put in LAP because it seemed probable. Later, it occurred to me that I've seen (heard?) of a gun being used to signal race starts, so it seemed a logical addition here. But I knew the tennis score and A DUE made sense to me. This method was true for a lot of this puzzle for me. Wild stab > correct guess. Felt a little weird, but good!
@SBK When I ran track 60 years ago the starter had a pistol which would be used to start the race. For multi-lap races the same pistol would be used to signify the final lap. The more genteel bell came later.
@SBK I don't think Sam was saying the theme clues used WingDings, I think she was saying because the clues used no letters it was like they were using WingDings. Your right about fee schedules, though when I read "fee schedules" somehow I was imagining tax schedules, never occurring to me it could mean the fees that CPA charge, which I suppose could have a schedule.
When ASH from HOTDOGS that flew too close to the flame makes a SLIMJIM sound good, you're likely UPFOR anything. There's folks what CRAMS a BEARPAW into any jar of pickled eggs at the first STORE nearest the FREEWAYEXIT. (Thems the same what ATEDIRT in gradeschool). Say, do you know the difference between ALPO and OREOS? ASTO me, I ainn't no MAESTRO of fine TASE, but I kin suss SHAM PATE on a saltine. They ADIN who knows what, and you end up with a belly ACHE. Why, I heard tell how IRA OCALA (YES, the same IRA at the SPARE PIN ALLY that WEARS ALLCAPS) Well, IRA had ACOUPLE too many at last week's CANASTA game. He told us he was ONTHEROAD and came OVER in a cold SWAT! - "YES, DUTY calls, purt near always in a TRAFFICJAM or LANECLOSURE!" Well, to AERO is human . . .
Mommy, mommy, what's a TOLLBOOTH?
You don't remember? It's where they shot Sonny.
@Steve L The booths are still there. Most of them are unoccupied by people these days. Lots of cameras and scanners tho.
@Steve L A recent scam here in Vermont is to send e-mails or texts informing the target that they owe a highway toll for nonpayment, and that dire consequences will ensue if the bogus charge isn't paid. Of course, if you've lived here very long at all you will realize that we have no toll roads here.
@Steve L To answer your question from last night, since you'd be unlikely to see it: @Steve I love Jeopardy, and even tried to get on it when Art Fleming was the host! A combination of factors, mainly because I got rid of cable. I watch some things on YouTube, mainly Jimmy Kimmel's nightly monologue. But I can't find Jeopardy on YouTube, and checking ABC showed that I'd have to subscribe. I don't have any streaming services except Netflix, on my daughter's account. But it's not on that service. P.S. The only show I got on as an adult was the short-lived Merv Griffin's Crosswords. I got a Merv Griffin watch as a consolation prize.
@Steve L - There's still one at the righthand side of the toll plaza for people without an I-Pass or easy pass sticker or transponder.
@Times Rita We regularly watch Jeopardy on YouTube, but it comes on about 4 pm Pacific time and only stays for a few hours before the copyright police kick it off. So, it works if you can't get broadcast TV, or don't want to be tied to the exact 7 pm time slot each night. It is now also on Hulu -- but just the last 5 days, and one day late. someone recently shared his Hulu account with us. So, I read the spoiler tonight that Paolo Pablo won. Haven't watched last night's yet. But no surprise. He trounced everyone in the first 2 games of the ToC.
Rebuses again? At least with them in the clues, I hope nobody tries to squish more than one letter in any boxes. Nice puzzle, Dario. Easy week continues. This one would have been nice for next Tuesday.
@Barry Ancona Agreed, very easy week so far. However, while not what I’d typically expect from a Thursday puzzle, Tuesday may be too far in the other direction. A Wednesday feels about right to me. P.S. I’m getting within striking range of my all time best streak (modest as it may be by some high standards here). I feel like I may be jinxing my chances with the comment I made above!
@Barry Ancona I know you make a habit of this kind of comment but it's hard to take you seriously sometimes, and I do want to keep giving you the benefit of the doubt. AD-IN crossed with ADUE and GUNLAP is not Tuesday fill by any means. Plus fill like PATE, SEXER, and SALTTAX meant this puzzle had very technical and arcane terms, as well as a fairly clever theme that should require some crossing answers to complete.
30A clue for ERR is without a doubt the best one I've seen for that bit of crossword glue. I had a tough time with the NW corner. My lone entry was the incorrect levy instead of DUTY in 20A. When 3D had levy in the clue, I was puzzled, but that didn't help at all, cuz I sure didn't know what type of tax funded the Erie Canal. (But an unusual sighting, Erie in the clue, not the answer! Like using Oreo to clue black or something.) I thought the theme was fun. I didn't have a clue on what it actually was until the crosses started filling in.
@Nora agreed! I literally laughed out loud and came here just to praise this clue.
Whilst confucian has a Taoist element, the tao is literally the philosophical juxtaposition of the “Confucian way”, much like the relation between Aristotle and plato. This isn’t the first time the editors are confused about this.
@Ggb I think I mentioned this last time there was a similar clue, but 道 (“tao” in the now less commonly used Wade-Giles system) is just a fairly bog-standard word in Classical Chinese, about as common as the English word “way.” Taoism, as the name suggests, adopts it as a particular term of art, but you can find it used more generically as far back as the original Analects, with English translators rendering it based on context: (from James Legge's translation) 子曰、父在、觀其志、父沒、觀其行、三年無改於父之*道*、可謂孝矣。 The Master said, "While a man's father is alive, look at the bent of his will; when his father is dead, look at his conduct. If for three years he does not alter from the *way* of his father, he may be called filial." 有子曰、禮之用、和爲貴、先王之*道*、斯爲美、小大由之。 The philosopher Yu said, "In practising the rules of propriety, a natural ease is to be prized. In the *ways* prescribed by the ancient kings, this is the excellent quality, and in things small and great we follow them.” 子曰、君子食無求飽、居無求安、敏於事、而愼於言、就有*道*、而正焉、可謂好學也已。 The Master said, "He who aims to be a man of complete virtue in his food does not seek to gratify his appetite, nor in his dwelling place does he seek the appliances of ease; he is earnest in what he is doing, and careful in his speech; he frequents the company of men of *principle* that he may be rectified:—such a person may be said indeed to love to learn." Given that TAO has more specific connotations in English, a better clue would probably have just been [Chinese “way”].
Outstanding puzzle w great clues. The ADIN x ADUE x GUNLAP was.... Less than ideal...
I loved the theme. My dad worked for WI Department of Transportation Division of Highways and helped design the Interstate system here. This was right up my alley, or freeway lane.
Music nerdy comment here: Yes, "A DUE" is used, musically, for "in unison," but only under certain limited circumstances--when two (and only two) instruments are playing from the same staff--two oboes, say, reading from the same part. (I mention oboes, as orchestral woodwinds are often scored in pairs). And then, only when they are both playing the same pitches, and not, say two sets of pitches, but notated on the same staff. "A due" is most often abbreviated "a2." If there are *three* instruments--trumpets, say--playing from the same staff, it would be marked "a tre," or "a3." And if two instruments are reading from the line, but only one of them is supposed to play at that moment, the part would be marked "solo," or more precisely "primo" ("1°") or "secondo" ("2°"), for first or second chair player, respectively. The notation gets even more complicated when the two instruments are capable of playing more than one pitch at a time--violins, say. Then the composer/engraver has to be very careful and specific about note-stems, stem-directions, etc.
@Bill If anyone can bring home a music theory dissertation, you can. Thank you!
@Bill Thank you for your explanation! I am a professional musician (choir, voice, piano), and couldn’t remember ever hearing of this term! Knowing it is limited to orchestral use makes me feel better… Fun puzzle though!
30A was my favorite clue! Made me laugh, especially so close to 10D
@DW That was quite clever! A nice Thursday...
@DW I didn't see the 30A clue as the down entries solved it for me, so I had to go back to see what you were talking about. Truly an excellent clue for a familiar crossword answer. Now Mr. Salvucci can get to work on a similar genius-level clue for OREO.
Enjoyed the theme and the visual/symbolic clues, which I understood as soon as I forced myself to change HELICES to the very unpleasant variant HELIXES to make FREEWAYEXIT fall into place. The fill was less enjoyable, especially HASAT, ACOUPLE, EMEET and UPFOR. Overall, a decent debut puzzle that felt (to me) like one that should have run on a Wednesday. Seems like the drought of real Thursday-esque puzzles continues.
@Xword Junkie I left that square blank just in case of an actual (correct) plural....but no.
@Xword Junkie I too was disappointed with HELIXES. So I poured myself a big bowl of Crispices and milk and felt much better.
Well. I had pillow CASE then pillow SLIP and finally came up with SHAM And tennis scoring will forever be a mystery to me. And happily so. The Revealer helped a lot but still had to stare at the theme clues for a while. Scratching my head at SEXER but OK -- its a dirty job but someone has to do it. Quite liked BEAR PAW and the clueing for it. Fun puzzle congrats and cheers to the debut setter.
@Jim in Forest Hills My cousin had a summer job at a lab sexing flies; now THAT can't have been easy.... it was in the 60's. She did not go into a scientific field.
Thank you for the ASCII art. Keep the arcane crafts alive. But I'm not sure emeet is a thing. (And kind of hope that it isn't)
@mirle234 Oh e-anything is legal word construction these days. etyranny, anyone?
I loved the theme, particularly the revealer (ON THE ROAD), which gave me a twinge of nostalgia: When I was a junior at Northwestern, living in a Rogers Park apartment and driving to campus most days, I often picked up the TA for one of my classes and took him to campus, too. At one point he started talking about a book he was reading, the Kerouac classic in today’s crossword. I mentioned I’d like to read it and when he finished, he loaned it to me … a paperback with a vibrant yellow cover, which enthralled me from the first sentence. Back then, this being college in the early 1970s, I often went to parties where we smoked a certain substance that was then illegal but which now, at least in my state, one can buy legally at any number of dispensaries. One night during the time I was in the middle of the novel, the …substance… came my way. I looked at it and thought, if I do this, I won’t be able to go home and read the book, and passed it on, and never partook again. I also never returned the book to the TA, which gave me pangs of guilt quite often, as I carried that book with me every day for years, re-reading it often. A few years ago, I re-read it after not even dipping into it for decades…and, honestly, I felt no pull at all. As for the puzzle…I found it moderately challenging for a Thursday, finishing around 40% under my average time.
Fun gimmick, but I could have done without the GUNLAP/ADIN/ADUE intersection.
@N.E. Body that was my last fill. I was stumped!
I appreciate the theme but there were some rough patches that felt a bit forced. The GUNLAP/ADIN cross was obscure and brutal, and "sexer" is a bit odd.
Terrible clueing. I have an especially irrational hatred for “dynamic starter”. -> aero Tremendously jargony. Salt tax is historically incorrect. Felt forced. Bad puzzle. Do better.
I never tuned into the wavelength of the clues - it showed mostly in the NW corner, where I only made progress having looked up OCALA and SALT TAX (I thought Levy would be the name of a guy...), and in the SW corner, where I broke down, checked the puzzle and finally revealed some stuff, The "Case of emergency?" clue was the perfect example how cultural differences may hinder a solve - while in the US all caps is used for important messages, it is not, over here, because all caps is more difficult to read quickly than lower case letters. Elsewhere the cluster of the mysterious GUN LAP, A DUE and ADIN was impossible to resolve for me. I actually watch tennis, occasionally, and I'm familiar with "advantage", but ADIN does not ring a bell. I've never heard of a GUN LAP, and I'm hopeless with musical terms. I've never read Kerouac and I know nothing about him, really, but somehow I recalled the title, with a few crosses. However, since I've had no personal experience with him or his book, the theme did nothing for me. I didn't think this was a bad puzzle - it simply proved too difficult for me, and the theme was a miss, for personal reasons.
@Andrzej I, too, know next to nothing about Kerouac— except for the title of his most famous work. And I don’t think any more knowledge was needed. In this case, “On The Road” just meant traffic. I share your frustration with the ADUE/AD IN/GUN LAP juncture, though. I used to watch a lot of tennis and I remember commentators saying “That’s an AD”, but I don’t remember any AD IN or AD Out calls. As for ADUE and GUN LAP, those are brand new to me. I used to watch some Indy car races, but I don’t recall a gun firing for the final lap. Sounds a little scary. Maybe that’s a NASCAR thing? Overall, I found the clueing fairly easy, but as tends to happen for me, the things I didn’t know were all bunched together. So it goes.
@Andrzej I found myself channelling you today, and looking forward to your scathing review, so I'm afraid you've let me down this time. Now have to write negative things myself, sigh. It was an ok crossword, probably a nice one for newcomers, which does seem to be the theme of the week. But the theme of the puzzle was a bit Tuesday, being just picture clues, which I found the easiest bit of the puzzle to complete rather than the crunchy satisfying bit. And the hard bits were trivia-hard not wordplay-hard. So not a particularly fun time for me really. Oh well, there's always tomorrow!
@Andrzej Ad in is common, vs ad out. I played tennis as a kid (recreationally) and we said it all the time. That said, it was a Tuesday-Wed difficulty for me. The theme was gettable without even looking at the clues, once I got the obvious Kerouac title and a few crosses.
@Andrzej Ad in is not something you would hear watching tennis on TV, but recreational tennis, the server calls the score before hitting a serve, and when the server has the advantage, they call out ad in, and if their opponent has the advantage, its ad out. On TV, the commentators would just say, advantage Alcaraz or, advantage Swiatek.
Nice one, Dario! I loved the ASCII art element in the theme clues, which reminded me of old character-graphic games like rogue and nethack — and their descendants, like Dwarf Fortress (<a href="https://indiewod.com/dwarf-fortress-how-to-understand-the-ascii-visuals" target="_blank">https://indiewod.com/dwarf-fortress-how-to-understand-the-ascii-visuals</a>). 🤓 Yes, it was a quick solve for a Thursday (13:30) — but I also found it challenging every step of the way, and had an especially slow start in the chewy northwest corner.
( ^-^)/ …. X X X X X X X Pedestrian crossing X X x X Pothole
@Heidi | | | ||(^-^)||||||||||||| | | | | | | | | | | |(BMW)| | | (x-x) | |||||||||||(BMW)| | | | | | | | | | | | |
@Heidi Maybe something flattened ON THE ROAD for the Pedestrian Crossing....?
There were some fun ones in here, but I strongly feel making me know tennis facts should be punishable with a trip to the hague.
@Jacob - Having watched the Australian Open men's final, it was easy for me. NYC hosts a major tennis tournament, so fair game for a NYT newspaper. Also, we had tennis in gym class and learned the scoring.
Jacob, So are Jennie’s gym teachers worthy of “the hague”, or only if they had tried to teach *you* tennis facts? :)
@Jacob I understand the scoring but I only ever watch the Wimbledon matches where the score in this case is announced, for example as "Advantage Świątek". Unfortunately when this question comes up in the crossword I struggle to recall the ADIN / ADOUT version
@Jacob I absolutely do not get why a trip to the Hague would be a punishment. I've spent time in the Dutch city and it's a lovely place. Are you thinking of somewhere else? Reply Friday!
Interesting puzzle. Got ONTHEROAD fairly early and that helped. This was a bottom up solve for me
Clever! The theme took me a hot minute, but I got it, and I appreciate the creativity that went into this construction. That said, the crossing of tennis and racing (34D and 48A) stumped me. Then again, if Mr. Salvucci had crossed music and ice hockey, I’d have thought nothing of it. Once again, (all together now), “Your mileage may vary.” Y’all have a lovely day and give yourselves and one another grace.
@Barb Prillaman That crossing At 34D/48A railroaded me and was my last detour navigating this fun journey, with a guess that N might work. Otherwise, I sped along and nearly halved my typical Thursday travel time.
Typical tough Thursday for me. I got the 'reveal' right away just from the clue, but needed to work the crosses for all the other theme answers. I was never going to get to those just from the clues. No big deal. Puzzle find today: A Wednesday from April 11, 2001 by Brendan Emmett Quigley. All of the theme clues included the word: "Disoriented." One example: "Disoriented 1949 musical?" WESTPACIFIC And the other theme answers: GONORTHYOUNGMAN EASTDALLASFORTY SOUTHOFEDEN Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/11/2001&g=10&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/11/2001&g=10&d=D</a> See you tomorrow. ....
@SP I hope you change your mind. I'd miss your posts.
@ad absurdum, Your reply has unfortunately been orphaned by the NYT. Sadly, no clue what you’re responding to.
@ad absurdum I second that. I look forward to his take coming from a constructor’s mindset. The comment section won’t be the same.
Congratulations on a great debut, Dario! So clever and so fun!
Sheldon, You get right back here!
@Barry Ancona I second that!!
What fun! I always enjoy the visual clues, even if I don't quite get them at first. Huge 'aha's' when reading Sam's column- which I adore by the way, clever and familiarly quirky (like me, the latter part)- they often make me giggle >:-) Heir, Air, ERR was delightful, as did that it almost crossed SPARE... made me contemplate and empathize with the challenge and bizarre psychology of growing under those contrasting labels. Crown and PATE eluded me, even after looking it up- is it a person's name, or a brand of paté?
Paula, Crown and PATE are synonyms for the top of the head.
That was fun! Just what I needed after a not so fun day. Congratulations on your debut, Dario. Looking forward to your next one.
Fun puzzle definitely, but put me in the boat with the head-scratching ADIN/ADUE/GUNLAP puzzlers. No tennis knowledge, plenty of music knowledge (but never ran across A DUE), and TIL GUNLAP (which I’ll dutifully forget tomorrow) :/
@James Morgan If only I had simultaneously known about musical terms, track and field terms, and terms for tennis scores I could have finished this cleanly. (Actually, I do know a fair amount about musical terms, but I had never encountered this one, possibly because I have never used sheet music that included anything but my part...maybe the term is more commonly used, say, in a conductor's score. No doubt someone will set me straight.) I think at one point I did have that little knot filled in correctly (I figured GUNLAP sounded plausible), but was unaware of a single typo which I found later, so I flailed around, changed it, and ultimately looked up enough to finish, then when that still didn't work spent close to ten minutes finding the typo. I figured that the strings of punctuation marks were visual representations of traffic, but it didn't help.
Well, let's hope that today's Comments are less bone-headed. To Reply to a Comment, at first be sure you understand what someone has written (and what conclusions you might draw from it) so as to avoid sounding foolish.... I started in the NE thanks to PETA and ALEE (SamE, please note: this is a word!) FOUR-WAY EXIT? Almost....but it did cause the PINs to tumble in this game, and I went bowling down the highWAY. Capital ize? ist? Still not making sense of 66A.... Ah, YES: an ISM. Still a bit easy for a Thursday. Maybe the Crossworld Gods feel sorry for us due to the weather and all the ice...
@Mean Old Lady - I has IST for Capital so it got a bit easier go to ISM for me since I was already in economics mode. I thought ALLCAPS was hilarious having spent decades in IT services.
Got the theme pretty quickly (I used to love ASCII art) and filled in most of the grid rapidly. The only entry actually new to me was GUNLAP. Laughed at ALLCAPS. But then, as seems to happen with me a lot recently, I got held up in the NW. Spent almost as long there as the rest of the puzzle put together. At one point I thought maybe "Friend in tough times" was an initialism, and then briefly wondered whether there could be a rebus in that one corner--but there would have to be some logical justification for that related to the theme and I could find none. Finally it all fell together. Thursday puzzle is done, time to look for, or create, joy elsewhere in my day. May you find that, too!
Good morning! I see I missed some sort of comments dust-up. Without knowing anything, I just feel dismayed when anyone feels like they have to leave. Today's theme was fun. Had to pull a couple of U's ! I had highWAY, HELIcES, jolt before TASE. But the crosses set me straight. Never even saw the clue for 10D, as it filled itself. Did read the book, though. Learnt about SALTTAX - looked it up after I finished. Learnt the SEXER is a thing. OK...back to work for me. Have a good day.
@Amy FYI, the Erie Canal was not funded by a salt tax. Construction costs were recouped by charging for use of the canal, of which salt was a significant part. Actual salt taxes like those imposed by the British in India were monstrous policies that extracted money from the poor by holding a vital nutrient hostage. The misuse in the clue here is irresponsible, bordering on offensive.