My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Totally missing the big picture (11) 2.Emily Dickinson's early period (4) 3. Program for those trying to reduce screen time, familiarly (3)(3) 4. One of two typically used when rowing, in brief (3) 5. What you do when you tour a certain SoCal campus, phonetically? (4) NEARSIGHTED MORN TSA PRE LAT UCLA
My favorite encore clues from last week: [Heart on one's sleeve, perhaps] (3) [Tired old advertising mascot?] (8)(3) TAT MICHELIN MAN
Mombasa/MCI feels diabolical for a Monday.
I love hearing about first solves. Hooray for LES Miserables. Mine was when my mom was doing a puzzle and asked the room a clue: what is "tug backwards." I was four years old and I said "GUT."
I struggled with this - took longer than my average Wednesday puzzle, and 3x my typical Monday. Maybe a little too much trivia, or at least too much for me.
I'm not sure if it's intentional, but it's really sweet that BEAU is so close to BIDEN on the grid. I am once again reminded of Biden's closing words, when speaking to Gold Star families: "There will come a day, I promise you, when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen." The full (apolitical) speech and transcript can be found - EMU willing - at <a href="https://blog.aftertalk.com/joe-biden-on-grieving" target="_blank">https://blog.aftertalk.com/joe-biden-on-grieving</a>/ .
@RA - It's really sad that we no longer have leadership with that kind of empathy and kindness.
The puzzle? It was fine. The theme and revealer were decent, although I didn't much bother with it until I had finished the puzzle. It got an "Oh, I see. That's pretty amusing." out of me. It's Monday, and that's all I expect. But an excellent Wordplay column from guest columnist Julia Reinstein. What made it so good (IMHO)? I think it was the combination of relatable personal history (nice mom story) and her anecdote about the pleasures and problems of solving on paper vis-a-vis solving electronically, an issue I think about often. Had she mentioned the difference between solving with pencil vs. pen I would have thought she was inside of my head. So, thank you, Gary Cee. And an extra-special thank you to Julia Reinstein.
@The X-Phile As someone who solves in pencil, I've never understood the pen idea. Is it to have a record of answers changed along the way, or do ink solvers simply never make mistakes? Even though I check crosses before committing, I still sometimes end up having to change an answer. Sometimes I accidentally write my answers in the wrong box. Are pen solvers less careless? Is it because overwriting is faster than erasing and rewriting? Am I missing a reason?
@The X-Phile Before I got a subscription, I would buy books of crosswords and solve them in ink. If I made a mistake, I would simply draw another, darker letter on top of the incorrect one. The puzzle that changed that was one where the spanner was all rebuses, several letters in each square, spelling out Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. All the corrections I had to make were really quite atrocious! I solved in pencil from then on.
@The X-Phile Okay, okay. I'll go read the Column. (It's PEN you want; IMHO. Pencil gets smeary and if erasure is necessary, the paper can deteriorate quickly. FriXion pens are super, but with a printed puzzle there is room on the page and in margins for "maybe" entries to await confirming crosses..... I've only ever "solved" on the iPad when forced...maybe 4 or 5 times.
Nancy J., I solve on a stone tablet. Measure twice, cut once. My water clock tells me I'm not a fast solver, but I'd rather be sure: grouting is messy and really time-consuming.
Mewl, MCI, and Setter all across Mombasa was an absolutely brutal combination. Broke my monday streak :(
@Calvin Yep, that corner had me spinning wheels for a while too.
Little subthemes serendipitously in this grid: • Animals – EEL, OWL, DOE, FLY. • First names – ELI, BEAU, ROSE, BOB, ERIK. • Words that sound like other words: DES, ORE, BEAU, OWE, LYE, IRE, SINE, DRE, TRE, PAIR, DOE. • Airports – BAGGAGE CLAIM, GATE, FLY, and at some airports, TIME SINK for waiting in line. I really like the theme – things that can be BACKED UP, four completely different meanings of that phrase. It’s so random – how did Gary come up with it? I also like the no-isolated-islands grid design. I failed at trying to guess the revealer after filling in the theme answers, but man, the wrestling and hoop-jumping I went through in the effort got my brain sweating and happy. It’s nice to see you again, Gary, here for your 41st Times puzzle after a six-year absence. You haven’t lost a step. Thank you for a splendid outing!
Lost my 13 week golden Monday streak due to thinking RCA was the answer when it was MCA
@Kit anyone else get tripped up on that?
@Kit The Beastie Boys Master of Ceremonies Adam, or “MCA”, on the crossing clue could have helped you out there. “And this is me, y'all, I MC, y'all My name is MCA and I still do what I please” RIP Adam Yauch.
@Kit I did. I read “for BB” instead of “of BB” so my brain just thought RCA.
As coroner I must AVER I thoroughly examined her, and she's not only merely dead she's really most sincerely dead.
Enjoyable puzzle, but I had to check the day because it felt just a DRIB too hard for a Monday. To our guest columnist, Julia-I thoroughly enjoyed your comments! You held my interest to the final word. I'll look for your articles in The Cut from now on.
I though the theme felt very weak - some random phrases bits of which might refer to things that can get backed up? How exciting... not. I much prefer a good themeless puzzle to one with a tenuous theme like this.
@Andrzej But does it really matter on a Monday?
I actually wrote a lengthy reply but then I deleted it. I know what I think of the "theme." Others might think differently. Yet others, like you, might not care. I don't want to have my mind changed or to change anybody's mind about any of this. Let me just quickly TL;DR my deleted draft: I don't understand why the NYT insists on having themed puzzles on most days if a turkey like this is what they are prepared give us. I like Thursdays (and the rare Thursday-like Sunday, unless it's by David Kwong) because (in most cases) the themes are actually fun and they occasionally impress me. I enjoy Fridays and Saturdays because (often) they are full of clever misdirection and indirect clueing, unmuddled by some haIf-baked theme.
An even shorter TL;DR To me, a theme only makes sense if it's good enough to be the star of the puzzle.
@Andrzej Not trying to convince you to like it, but saying why I liked it—I like the fact that they were all slightly different ways of being backed up—ie a claim is backed up in a different way than a file and traffic. Other than that, sure, it’s pretty generic but that’s all it takes to make me happy on a Monday.
@Andrzej In general, I like a themed puzzle. On a Monday, when the solving involves little effort for the experienced, the theme may be the only thing of interest. As for today's theme? I agree with you that it felt pretty "meh", but it was still the best thing about today's puzzle (IMHO). It introduced some fresh phrases and tied them together. Often that's all you can hope for on a Monday.
@SP I'll grant you that's a good way of looking at this theme - as a constructor you must especially appreciate such additional levels of complexity a peasant like me won't even notice. @The X-Phile True - it's unrealistic to expect being wowed on Monday.
@Andrzej My thing is, why force a theme if it wouldn’t help you solve the puzzle anyway? The themed entries were so contrived I wouldn’t think to back up a sink, for example, if I was stuck in that area.
@D Or if it didn't make the puzzle more interesting by making it harder - I know you're not a fan of gimmicks, but I am, often, and I enjoy a hard Thursday theme. One like today's though... Meh - at best.
Fun puzzle today. It took me longer than usual for a Monday, 11 minutes compared to my usual 6. The MOMBASA/MCI crossing took me a while just because I first had BAWL instead of MEWL. Also the ICBMS/MCI crossing because I had DRAB instead of DRIB. All the other clues I didn't know had pretty easy crossings (Such as ASTI).
I felt like the missile clue was in poor taste given current events. Or maybe it's just been a hard few weeks in my part of the world and I'm being a touch sensitive.
@Divs I hear you. But since I discovered this little cruciverbal universe I've come to feel the crossword as an almost Platonic realm removed from 4D spatiopolitical-time and so the incidental appearance of such fill seems increasingly unimportant to me. Even as the missiles launched by lunatics are detonating nearby, shaking my building and terrifying my cat.
@Divs I hear you. But since I discovered this little cruciverbal universe I've come to see and feel the daily grid as an almost Platonic realm removed from 4D spatiopolitical-time and so the incidental appearance of such fill seems unimportant to me. Even as the missiles launched bilaterally by lμηatics are detonating nearby, shaking my building and terrifying my cat.
ICBMS is a little gnarly for a Monday, particularly when you start with aCBrS thanks to DRaB (a reasonable answer) and rCA (when you know the Beastie Boys, but can't quite recall their names). I guess because I've only heard or seen people say or write "inter-continental ballistic missiles" in full. But maybe I'm listening to the wrong podcasts and reading the wrong war propaganda.
@Tim Indeed. Had to come here to find out what it needed to be. Two acronyms crossing was definitely a Nattick, and I’m a Gen X American! (In the Great Level of Difficulty War, I fall on the “keep it challenging” side, so this didn’t bother me one bit. But for a Monday I’m sure several folks will be a bit tweaked.)
@Tim AND I just realized I read the clue wrong which is why I missed it! “Or” not “FOR” 😭
“But do you like being slaves?… Do you like being babies? Yes, babies. Mewling and puking…Don’t you want to be free and men? Don’t you even understand what manhood and freedom are?” -Aldous Huxley, Brave New World To be fair, this quote references Shakespeare’s more famous line from As You Like It. But “mewling” is a word— and a really good one, I think. It describes a certain type of whimpering in a way that the writer in me finds very visual. MCI Worldcom was my husband’s first employer as a computer professional. Fortunately, he left before everything blew up. But I remember the company well. I bet everyone has forgotten Enron, too.
@Heidi Lovely old word "mewling." Though not strictly onomatopoetic it sure is onomatopoeia adjacent, if you ask me. If you close your eyes and imagine a litter of newborn kittens, aren't they kind of crying a cacophonous "mewlmewlmewl?"
@Heidi thanks for the reference to Brave New World and As You Like It. It helps me put MEWL into context.
@Heidi MEWL is definitely something that applies to a newborn...riht before they escalate into louder screams, for instance. It's a perfectly good word, and it no doubt helps many a struggling constructor!
I felt as if the constructor really struggled with this one, and it made the solve a struggle as well. Mondays are often fast and fun. Not today. Most awkward answer: oneseed. No one calls it that. Clue was awkward too. My edit: Number one rank in a sports bracket TOPSEED The wordplay blog did a noble job of describing the puzzle, especially MCI. I am not a younger solver and I didn't know it either. Makes me wonder how the editors feel when they knowingly publish an awkward puzzle, especially on a Monday. This one took more than double my Monday solve time.
@KC I got most of this before ONE SEED came up....which I agree is quite odd. But it saved me from MUMBASA (I guess I conflated MUMBAI and MOMBASA) so....yay.
@KC Actually ONE-SEED is used every year for March Madness brackets along with two-, three-and four-seeds, etc., one for each tournament division. Only two of the one-seeds made it to the Final Four this year, with Duke (a one-seed) losing yesterday to UConn (a two-seed). There can only be one "top" seed, and I believe Florida (a one-seed) was considered the favorite to win the tournament, but they were surprised by Iowa (a ninth-seed) and got taken out early.
KC, Sorry you struggled with this one.
@KC ONESEED was a such a miss for this puzzle. That’s a Tuesday-level clue/answer pair if there ever was one. And in a sea of cheap 3-word answers, it stuck out like a sore thumb. Editorial should’ve caught it.
@KC This was a pretty chewy Monday for sure! Took twice as long for me, too. There's always tomorrow. Anyway, this is the first time I've noticed another Kansas Citian in the comments, so I just wanted to say hi neighbor!
I'm not sure a BACKED UP SINK passes the breakfast test...and the BACKED UP TRAFFIC at airport TSA lines is a sore point for passengers and airline employees alike. Is it me, or are there just a lot of sensitive topics these days? My BEAU--about to cross the line into Extreme Old Age--is hoping his PT will have him in shape to FLY by April 19th, when we hope we'll be on our way to Seattle. If the stars align, might there be a Cruciverbalist Meet-Up on the 26th at Cloud City Coffee in "Maple Leaf"?
@Mean Old Lady The "breakfast test"? I can just barely smell the smoke from the fire when that bridge got burned.
@Mean Old Lady I would most definitely drive up to Seattle to meet you and the PNW cruciverbalist contingent! How can we make it happen? Please keep us posted.
This was oddly tough for a Monday puzzle, agree with some of the top comments. Also I had no idea what an ICBM was and frankly would prefer not to learn any new military terminology right now.
Only one look-up - I had no idea was an ICBM was and I was sure that the record label in question was rCA (sorry, I don't know any of the boys!!). I liked today's column as someone who is trying to transition to a 99% analog lifestyle. Yesterday I forgot my phone at home and spent the day listening to my friends DJ at a coffee shop, drinking mojitos, rock climbing, crocheting, trying to make a dent in my crossword book, sharing left handed cigarettes at the beach, perusing outdoor gear shops, and eating Hawaiian barbecue. I haven't laughed so much in such a long time!!! I recently got back from a weeklong vacation and I've been aching under the mental switch from living completely unrushed back to the regularly scheduled grind - but yesterday, with no device to keep me tethered to the world outside of my immediate surroundings, I felt that familiar ease of being on vacation. Trying to fill in a physical crossword is no joke, especially since I was overly confident and wanted to start out with a book of Wednesdays. But I got to pass the book around to everybody I chatted with and get lost in the clues when I had some minutes to myself. So much more fun than just typing in answers. (I did lose my Sunday streak, though LOL) Yaaay Monday <3
@Rosa InterContinental Ballistic Missles--though at first I wondered if WMDS were wanted...I'm pretty sure we still have those missle silos manned and ready, not to mention our nuclear submarine fleet... and then there's that black satchel called "The Football" with all the launch codes that goes everywhere with...our chief executive. Ulp.
@Rosa Just be glad it wasn't MIRV. (Multiple Independently-targeted Re-entry Vehicle.) That would have been a bit much for a Wednesday. If you had grown up in the Carter years, you would have learned all about ICBMs and ABMs from the SALT II negotiations. And then there was Reagan's SDI. Signs of the times, I guess.
Very straightforward fast solve…admitting I’m surprised to hear people mention lacking familiarity with words that should be familiar…are people reading less? Or maybe retaining words less with audio books? Idk. Just purchased the latest edition of MW to read through at bedtime and discover meanings and words heretofore unknown. Have a great week all!
MaryEllen, 1. These days, many people are reading less and/or reading "lighter" reading material. 2. These days, many people will post a comment about a word they don't know rather than looking it up. 3. These days, many people doing the NYT Crossword are here to play a game, not to solve a puzzle, so they expect to know all the words in the game. IMO
@MaryEllen Looking up a word in my tattered Merriam-Webster has always been an expedition of discovery. Googling a word is quick and easy, but never as interesting and rewarding as browsing those thin pages.
@MaryEllen @Barry Ancona We might add that people also come here to take part in a "virtual community" of people with "similar values". It's more pleasant to ask a question of the community than to look it up for oneself. IMO.
The X-Phile, For thoughts and opinions, of course. For the definition of a word, I'll take a dictionary.
@MaryEllen From one dictionary-enjoyer to another, I think if your nightly reading is Merriam-Webster, you might be a little out of touch with the average person's vocabulary.
First, I couldn’t get to comments from the blog originally by my usual way through the puzzle. It didn’t show up. Very frustrating. Then, while my solve time was 1:43 under my average I felt that more than MCI was dated for a Monday puzzle. Beau is not a commonly used word. I also started solving puzzles on paper and while neither of my parents were crossword solvers my paternal grandmother was and got me hooked one summer. Now I’m on a 2418 day solvers streak and my grandma died many years ago but my dad died in January so I solve and think of both of them
@Megan Sorry for your loss. BEAU, in my opinion, is a bona fide word and used today--or do we say BFF? Also, a name. Think Beau Bridges and, sadly, Beau Biden.
@Megan Do all answers need to be common words? Isn’t that part of the challenge? (For the record, I think BEAU is pretty much a gimme, for Monday or any other day.)
@Megan It took me a while to find it, but when you are in the Wordplay column, instead of the big blue bar linking you to comments there is now a tiny caption icon in the bottom right corner.
President Hayes was also from Delaware. The city of Delaware l, Ohio.
@Greg H That may be the most astonishingly obscure pieces of trivia I've ever heard. 1) Delaware is probably the most forgotten state in the country. 2) President Hayes has to be one of the most forgotten Presidents in history. 3) Delaware, Ohio? Need I say more?
Nice Monday puzzle. Typical slow start for me, but things fell together pretty smoothly from the crosses. And... will confess that I wasn't grasping the theme until after I was done and went back and pondered. One clue history search today was for YMCA and... yep it was clued in reference to the Village People song about 30 times, often with just a reference to parts of the lyrics, e.g. "Where it's fun to stay" "Where you can hang out with all the boys" "Where you can do whatever you feel" "Where you can have a good meal" I'm done. ....
Hi Rich, I remember the YMCA branch of the song as described when it was on 23rd Street, across from the Hotel Chelsea. It's now on 14th Street, with a somewhat different vibe. <a href="https://ymcanyc.org/locations/mcburney-ymca" target="_blank">https://ymcanyc.org/locations/mcburney-ymca</a>
@Rich in Atlanta, I’m currently spending a few days with my son and his family and friends at the YMCA Camp of the Rockies in Estes Park, Colorado we’re celebrating his 40th birthday here. So beautiful. Blue sky, snow-capped peaks, herds of white-tailed deer, mountain lakes. I only wish there was a bit more oxygen for the five-mile hikes!
"Stag's mate" is not a good clue for DOE. In cervid species where the male is called a stag, the female is called a hind. Where the female is called a doe, the male is called a buck.
@Eric H. Dude…there were only three letters in the word…it had to be doe
Eric H., Take it up with them. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stag" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stag</a>
@Eric H. Thanks, quite interesting! And there is also the hart, sometimes an older stag. Probably all these words were once far more important than today. The white hart in The Hobbit was memorable for me. A sign that the terrifying march through Mirkwood was ending.
@Eric H. - Better let your northern friends know about this... they're doing it wrong! <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_and_doe" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_and_doe</a> Also: of you really want to get pedantic, the male companion of a hind is a hart, not a stag.
@Eric H. What about a roe or a roebuck?
Is there a way to filter out puzzles made by and created for people older than 80? I’d like to not waste my time on those puzzles in the future
@Mike S Are you suggesting that any information occurring outside of your lifetime is irrelevant?
Bit niche for a Monday. Didn't enjoy multiple naticks.
A ballistic missile type is general knowledge nowadays? Huh, I guess I'm just too sheltered. One of the crossings also being an abbreviation sure didn't help.
@Sonja ICBM has been a gimme for me for decades. I've known it for so long I can't even recall under what circumstances I learned it. However, having it in a Monday puzzle, and crossing it with another abbrevation/proper name, was probably an editing error.
Sonja, “too sheltered” to know about the missiles? Was that intentional? 8)
@Sonja Gather 'round children, and this old-timer will tell you a story: There was a time -- not too long ago -- called the Cold War, when counting warheads was a popular hobby. Back then, everyone knew what an ICBM (and an ABM) was... and how many "our" side had, and how many "they" had. Then someone thought to get MAD. And then we started counting warheads on submarines,... and then....
@The X-Phile One of my professors at OSU was a Soviet missile specialist at the SALT II talks. He joked that, as a lowly Colonel, he sat at the far end of the table and made the coffee.
Challenging Monday for me. Didn't even make my average. I can't be the only one who thought that it was frog who [goes a-courtin'], right? Oh well, If I was, that explains how I got my grid so confused. I've never used LYE to remove paint, at least to my knowledge. I just checked and Zip-Strip doesn't have it, but maybe it used to? I enjoyed the MCI/MCA pairing. MCI was one of the many parties in a month-long trial I did in the early 1990's. I suspect that none of us involved in that case would have guessed that many of the companies we were arguing about would be gone before long, and that debates over long-distance service would be moot. Thanks!
@Jack McCullough I just asked DHubby, who AVERred that the caustic properties of LYE make it a good stripper-- (of skin as well, I would add. Not for the uninitiated.) I don't even remember the name of a commercial paint-stripper, though I've refinished many a piece of old furniture, including some painted by Philistines.... Many years past...
@Jack McCullough interesting... I already had the "B" but others have mentioned Froggie. zi wonder if that was an intentional misdirect.
I find some satisfaction in being old enough to know when MCI happened and then didn't exist any more. I will say that if you didn't know ASTI it's almost like not knowing OREO.
EMERY, AMES, DRIB, MEWLS, EDGERS? This was harder than many Tuesdays.
@max Living in the same city as Emory University has caused EMERY to trip me up a few times, but by now I remember both spellings. Unfortunately, growing up in the era of duck-and-cover drills made me all too familiar with what an ICBM is.
I never heard of MCI, either. AT&T and the Baby Bells were too dominant. (I haven't heard of MCA, but I'm not into current and semi-current music.) I have to wonder why you don't have a printer. You should always have a paper copy of your tax return. And a photocopy of your passport. Do you think cell phones never fail? I hate having to keep my phone out to show tickets to events. I'd rather tuck my phone away and free up my hand.
@jennie Why have a paper copy of tax returns when they can be saved to the cloud? I do have a printer but keep important papers in photo albums on my tablet/phone in the unlikely event they need to be printed out again. Nice quick solve. I enjoyed this one.
@jennie We still have a printer out of occasional necessity for me, but for my wife, it's still an integral part of how she operates. As is the case for many of the people I deal with. For example, most documents can be sent in a format where an electronic signature can be attached, and the document can be sent back without any paper being used at all. But some of the people who send me documents send the old-fashioned kind, the ones you have to print, sign, scan and then attach to an email. Or, heaven forbid, fax! Sometimes, it's a government entity that requires the print/sign/scan/attach routine. Just the other day, I had to send the IRS e-file (yes, another e- word) permission slip back to my accountant, and had to go through the whole process. But it was faster and more convenient than using the self-addressed envelope he enclosed for postal delivery. And 78 cents cheaper! I use an old TV as a second monitor on my computer, and that saves me from printing out files in order to refer to them while working on something related. My wife finally started to do the same. And the end result is that both of us print far fewer things--next to nothing--these days. But we do use the scanner part of the printer a lot.
@jennie I have a printer but use it so rarely, I have to keep a YouTube bookmark to show me how to rehydrate the inks. I find though that having multiple types of media is always useful. All media fails, even paper; I have numerous saves to my credit because of my ability to quiet my temper and work around such failures. One cannot usually take a phone pic of anything to some government offices such as SSA or the DMV. If you live in a small town, it can be hard to find a place to print out stuff, especially without wasting too much time.
@jennie I’m sure it’s generational, but I always keep a paper copy of anything important. Digital files get corrupted, and servers are only as good as the programmers who maintain them. A bad line of code, and access can be lost for hours or days. I actually have a file cabinet, and it’s full of paper. But barring a fire, every document I need will always be there when I need it.
@jennie Printers can be useful, but not for someone whose printing needs are rare. Many libraries these days have both computers which are free to use and printers which have a per page fee which is fairly low, and librarians that can help one navigate the process.
@jennie I actually need to print anything once or twice a year, tops, and it's usually just a few pages. It makes much more sense to use the printer at work for that than have one of my own. I have never even looked at the buttons on that work HP - I just click "print" on the computer and voila. All Polish tax returns are handled digitally.
After a brief rating of Very Hard, the xwstats.com rating is now just Hard, and I think that's where it will sit. <a href="https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2026-03-30?sync=1" target="_blank">https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2026-03-30?sync=1</a> My time was slower than my Monday average, too, but only by five seconds. Hardly a noticeable amount. I think that for veteran solvers, the range in Monday puzzles seems unremarkable, while for newer solvers, certain things are speed bumps that we older solvers don't even notice. For example, so far in tonight's comments, I'm seeing trouble with MEWL (as Barry pointed out, used in one of Billy Shakes' most famous soliloquies), BEAU (a normal word for me), MCI (I did have to dredge it out of long-term memory, but it was solidly there), MCA, and the two-word A SHAME. None of these are remarkable to long-time solvers. To me at this point, the variations in my Monday solves include how tired I am (a bit today, having driven three hours), whether I'm splitting my attention with something, if someone is trying to talk to me, if there's noise outside, etc. Rarely does it have to do with the puzzle itself, as almost anything in a Monday puzzle has shown up before, multiple times.
The "Hard" rating is being produced by a median solve time only 8% slower than recent Mondays. IMO anything within 10% of median solve time should be deemed "Average." The water clock I use to time my stone tablet solves can't even detect a 20% variance.
@Steve L Yes, there was nothing in this puzzle that gave me significant pause, but I can see where newer solvers might have found it more challenging.
@Steve L I consider myself a newbie and I found it pretty easy today. I was 7:42 faster than my average. But l am old enough to remember MCI and MCA.
@Steve L My Monday best is 6 minutes (I solve on my phone, which as we have established slows one down considerably). I deal with most Mondays in 7-9 minutes. This took over 10, which is Tuesday territory. I am quite sure I would have been stumped by this grid in places in 2023, when I was beginning to solve NYT crossword puzzles. I don't think it was a good choice for Monday - new solvers might be put off by it.
Today's poem made from words found in today's puzzle<br><br> the mariana trench <br> <br> a/ where and where <br> in all the world’s discovered <br> places down the endless slope <br> where went the rope <br> went i <br> d/ who betrayed the air <br> for water… feeling… sounding <br> only down and long and long <br> i long to a/ fly <br> <br>
@Peter Valentine As a non-swimmer, I found this lovely. Thank you.
fun monday. ICBM always makes me think of Tom Lehrer, who rhymed it with "Te Deum" <a href="https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs</a>
It's odd that the clue writers would use [F-sharp major] as the exemplar for musical KEY: it has six sharps! The trick is remembering which note *isn't* sharped (it's B). It's also exactly the same--the "enharmonic equivalent"--of G-flat major, which has six *flats*--so it's sort of a no-win situation. The irony is that, once you learn to read them, for a keyboardist, those keys with five, six, or seven sharps (or flats) are the easiest to play--scales fit very comfortably under the fingers. Here's Bach's Fugue in F-sharp major--one of the most distinctive of the forty-eight in the Well-tempered Clavier--fitting comfortably under the steely fingers of Glenn Gould: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKd7ZVtadss&list=RDsKd7ZVtadss&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKd7ZVtadss&list=RDsKd7ZVtadss&start_radio=1</a>
@Bill It was slightly less "fun" playing the F-sharp major exercises in "Technical Fun" on the clarinet, but I was pretty proud of myself for mastering that assignment. (I wondered why they picked that one, too.)
Not bad. Never have I seen the word MEWLS before.
@RM It’s usually the word one most frequently sees as a description of what a kitten does.
Here it is again: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mewl" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mewl</a>
You may (or may not) have heard it here: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56966/speech-all-the-worlds-a-stage" target="_blank">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56966/speech-all-the-worlds-a-stage</a>
@RM Are you starting a drinking game in the comment section? If so, I'm totally here for it! Unfortunately, I have seen MEWLS before, so no shots for me this time. 😏
You know who also goes a-courting? <a href="https://youtu.be/kZjJET_VAGI?si=ZxIl3deqGtXg13W8" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/kZjJET_VAGI?si=ZxIl3deqGtXg13W8</a>
@Nancy J. Ever heard the Elvis version? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trB8tgwCawU" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trB8tgwCawU</a>
@Nancy J. I had FROG instead of BEAU for a bit. I figured it was probably wrong but it made me smile.
i got "Kenya's second-largest city" right away from playing so much Halo in my youth. nice clues kept this from feeling like a monday, and the bottom-left corner is a case study in layered cleverness.
@Peter M Mombasa always brings this one to my mind ... <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRWCK9zGynA" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRWCK9zGynA</a>
Nice smooth Monday. Enjoyable theme that I couldn’t guess ahead of time.
I cool combination of simple and difficult. All in all, a perfect Monday puzzle for a late Sunday afternoon. Thanks, Gary Cee. If we turn on the radio, will you give us some comments?
dutchiris, I think you have to be in the Poconos to hear him.
Definitely must be in the Poconos. Class D Power 250 watts day
Nice puzzle! And I learned a new word MEWL.
@David Gropper. Shakespeare, As You Like It, “First the infant mewling in his nurse’s arms” Pretty much the only place I’ve seen outside these crosswords.
But Biden is “from” Pennsylvania. You usually cite presidents as being from where they were born when talking about that subject.
@Ben Interesting point, although it applies less to modern presidents in a society with more mobility than presidents in a time where you stayed in the state you grew up in. I don’t think you would say Obama was “from” Hawaii. Frankly I don’t think you would say Lincoln was a president “from” Kentucky. So as long as you don’t imply he was born there I think we are in fair territory.
@Ben An interesting thought. I was born in New Jersey, and spent the first 10 years of my life there. But if anyone asks, I'm likely to say I'm "from" Minnesota. I've lived here 10 years, and this is my home. I've embraced the culture: the cheese curds, the passive aggression, the unwillingness to take the last cookie. Anyway, as Biden was a senator "from" Delaware, I think it's acceptable to say he's a president "from" Delaware. He was living there when he was elected, right?
@Ben I don't remember when old Joe stopped calling himself a "scrappy kid from Scranton" but that happened. He also graduated from the U of D, and We would see him at football games, occasionally.
A nice Monday puzzle, not too challenging, but a few chewy areas that needed some thinking time. I’d say what they were but I can’t remember without referring back to the grid…which I can’t do now. When did the comments format change? Or is it my iPad playing tricks? I don’t know what’s going on, but my last two comments over the weekend didn’t post ?emus? I strongly dislike the current look of this section, whatever the cause. So much so that, if this fails to post as the others have done, then it’s bye bye from me. Been nice knowing you all.
@Helen Wright Please, don't go. I understand, however, how you might be annoyed with what's been going on in the comments, interface-wise. I get some pr1m1t1ve version on my Android app, with no search function or functionality, and no nesting, which leads to very werid interactions when viewed via the website, where there is nesting. The IT team seem even more than typically lost, and the emus are as clueless as ever.
@Helen Wright I, too, have noticed the iPad issue, and have sent a note to the technical team.
@Helen Wright I no longer receive email confirmation of posts or responses even though I've checked the "Email me when my comment is published . . . "
@Helen Wright Your post had a very paradoxical twist to it. If your post never posted, then you might have stopped commenting, in which case we would not have known about it and could not have exhorted you to stay. But since it did post, we have no need to exhort you to stay, since you said you would only leave if it didn’t post. So I’ll say this instead—I’m glad it posted, and I’m glad you are staying.
I hope everyone had their “Play Harsh Sounds” setting turned on for today. Because that constant BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP that started as soon as I opened the puzzle was a Monday-level hint, and really helped motivate me to solve quickly.
Something I've long known is that the crossword puzzles are often submitted by people who do not work for the NYT. But just this morning I'm freshly interested by this. Is anything else in the NYT crowdsourced? Has anything ever been? I suppose some on-the-scene photos and video. Op-eds, but those are usually celebrity opinion-makers, not ordinary folks who just have an opinion. The crossword really does seem to be a case of "if your work has merit it will be published," although I suppose editors have biases and prefer certain known puzzle makers. Curious corner of the news world.
@Asher B. Letters to the editor are regularly published. I also had a comment on an article recently published, humble brag.
For me, ICBM always evokes the Elvis Presley movie, Kissin' Cousins, when Elvis's character is trying to 'splain to Pappy why the military is interested in the land up thar in the holler. Pappy keeps asking him where he sees all the BM. Doesn't smell any, either. As poor as Elvis movies usually were (and Elvis agreed with this assessment), this one was always pretty funny to me.
@Captain Quahog - I can't find the clip on YouTube, but it's on something called "clip cafe". My memory is the conversation went on longer than this, or maybe it was just repeated once or twice. <a href="https://clip.cafe/kissin-cousins-1964/well-see-pappy-the-government-whose-government/?srsltid=AfmBOorRN80FZ0f3n1sidt-MnjfbtaOZ6krKbGTYRT3r145KMT6GAtA6" target="_blank">https://clip.cafe/kissin-cousins-1964/well-see-pappy-the-government-whose-government/?srsltid=AfmBOorRN80FZ0f3n1sidt-MnjfbtaOZ6krKbGTYRT3r145KMT6GAtA6</a>
This was the first crossword I've solved in months and I thought it was a nice little warmup for getting back into the swing of things. Then I read the comments and found out I'm old because I didn't struggle with some of the apparently ancient references. (For the record I'm only in my mid-30s. But maybe that IS old.)
Brian, You gave it away. You refer to solving, not playing. I'll bet you can read, and do read. You're an ancient at heart.
Tricky but satisfying for a Monday. Surprisingly a little faster than average for me.
A little longer than usual for me, but I did it on my phone instead of the computer, and I'm almost always slower on the phone. No major issues, other than putting "anyway" instead of EVEN SO, but that was short-lived due to crosses, and the MOMBASA/MCI crossing taking a little time to resolve. Thanks, Gary.