Sorry folks - if you don't like puns, you are out of luck with many puzzles. Instead of leaving a cross word, just move on. Thank you.
@jennie Sorry jennie - if you don't like negative impressions, you are out of luck with many comments. Instead of telling people to can it, just move on. Thank you.
@jennie Also, have you ever been told to keep quiet by somebody who disagreed with you? If so, how did that feel? Not great, huh? So why would you treat others like that? (I appreciate the "cross word" pun though - I actually might not mind a puzzle themed around it)
@jennie I hear ya. A few folks here may not mean to be trolls but they serve the same function. Spreading discord, a creepy negative vibe, and a shadow over what is otherwise a fun NYT crossword hangout. Some are so persistently downbeat, condescending, and disrespectful of the constructors that I usually just skim to the end of their comments and pick up the thread when they're done.
@jennie, Nah, y'all WILL be hearing from me. :)
@jennie I don’t visit the comments section as often as I used to, but when I do, I actually enjoy reading the negative reviews. It makes for a much more interesting community. Also worth noting, in my opinion @Andrzej comments are always a must-read, and his comment today was top notch. Rather than shaming people for not being 100% sunshine and rainbows, I’d suggest creating a sub on Reddit where you can moderate the conversation to your liking. Based on the response your comment received, I think a lot of people here would follow you over there.
I'm not a huge fan of today's puzzle. The theme seemed kind of random. Okay, combining a singing term with some other random word that don't go together in any other context? Why? I guess they vaguely phonetically resemble sayings but not closely enough to be clever. The cluing was also just super off. Besides having so many obscure proper names, the sort that if you don't have specific area knowledge you get entirely with crossing clues and aren't even sure you got them right. ARISTIDE crossed with a _ MINOR clue that could be five different letters. KLEE. IDLI. And some other common noun clues that just felt like reaches. Not a great puzzle, IMO.
@Chris The other words in the theme answers aren’t random, they make a common(ish) phrase. “So not a thing”, “stands a chance”, “code of silence”, etc.
@Chris I don’t see how the other letters work as a name.
@Chris None of your comments ring true to me. Every crossword has unknowns. I finished the puzzle in 27% less time than average so obscure clues or not, I got through it pretty quickly.
@Chris Sorry but Aristide should be well known to anyone with basic knowledge of modern history. And Klee is hardly an obscure artist. Your other points don't track either. I hope the editors don't start engineering the puzzles to fit into a lowest common denominator framework of general knowledge.
@Chris I misread your first sentence, and thought, "Yay! A huge fan!" So....disappointing to catch on seconds later as I read on. In "Concert Band" season (as opposed to "Marching Band" during football) we played a lot of classical music. Being a BAND, not an orchestra, we had no strings, and clarinets got all of the violin/viola parts. The overture to the OPERA "FORZA del Destino" was one of our pieces (and it's often heard on radio stations that feature classical music.) All of that gave me extra reasons for enjoying this puzzle. So sorry you missed out!
@Chris The theme relies on what is called a "pun." It was not random; it was a thoughtful construction substituting musical terms for parts of common phrases.The theme was coherent and consistent. We were even given a hint in one of the theme clues, which mentioned another musical pun: the Looney Tunes short "What's Opera, Doc?" Also, none of the names in this puzzle were all that obscure. Just because you personally do not know a name does not mean it is obscure. I did not know ARISTIDE, but that is my fault, not the constructor's. There were names from world history, fine art, Hollywood, and a massively popular rock band. This represents a wide range of common knowledge, so if you don't know any of these names it says more about you than it does about the puzzle.
@Chris How do you get 5 different letter choices for ARISTED_ and _MINOR? I only count two, and a French-ish Haitian name would be unlikely to end in -IDa.
Why is Sibelius a better composer than Schubert? Because his symphony is Finnish.
@Fact Boy Schubert wanted to Finnish his symphony but, of course, he died, and now he’s too busy decomposing. (His last words, if I recall, were “I coda been a contender…l”)
@Fact Boy @SP Ya’ll have made my day. Hyperventilating belly laughs!
Crabby solver: “What? Musical terms, yuck. Puns, what, again? And must there always be a foreign language clue?” Happy solver’s reply: “Chaconne à son goût”.
@Cat Lady Margaret No idea what that means but I hope your son’s foot gets better soon.
@Cat Lady Margaret How do you get the cat picture next to your name? I've tried changing the L next to my name, but no luck.
[Perfect for the Ides of March] ETUDEBRUTE
What a great debut! I look forward to the next one.
Forzamoment I didn't think I would stanzachance in solving this puzzle. I says to myself ariakidding and after plugging away succeeded. Gosh, sonatathing!
What a lovely debut, Philippe. I have to admit this was a pretty loose theme, with some stretchy pronunciations, but most of them were clever enough and made me laugh so I won’t be a stickler about it. I especially love SONATATHING and ARIAKIDDING, with STANZACHANCE a close third. I probably would have clued CODASILENCE as “Audience reaction to a particularly bad orchestra ending”, since I can’t imagine a lack of applause no matter how reverent the reaction. The first word ending in A was a consistent part of the theme and it’s too bad the key at the end wasn’t in A Minor—and though I can understand someone calling foul at a Natick there, the whole point of supporting diverse constructors is for them to include a part of their heritage, and what a great opportunity to respect your Haitian history by including ARISTIDE, which in any case should not be such an obscure figure for anyone nor unguessable phonetically. This was a great grid for a debut as well, with not a lot of junk and good accessory fill like SEWERRAT. Love the LADS and LASS pairing. Andrzej, sorry about the math. Finally, nice call out to TRINITY where my son got his theater masters. Again Phillipe glad you came on the scene with a delightful debut!
@SP 😘 (Seriously though, I get a pang of anxiety recalling the horror of high-school math lessons, and I literally freeze up for a second when I see equations. No cap)
@SP I understood the SILENCE to be the audience staying quiet during the performance of the CODA, not their reaction afterwards. Of course, one might hope that the audience remained silent during the entirety of the performance.
The speed at which you lose control? Tempo tantrum
Jesus... This was the sort of puzzle that makes me want to cancel my subscription. Punny, phonetic theme worthy of John Kugelman, mostly direct, Monday clueing, but also unpleasant arcana, like American abbreviations - some of them solving to other abbreviations ("Assns." looks like somebody had a stroke while typing and crahsed head first into the keyboard), and a musical key (I'm glad I knew the Haitian guy!), and a mathematical equation to boot, giving me flashbacks of highscool trauma.
@Andrzej I was wondering how you’d react to the equation and the RADIANS :) I’m not musical and not fond of puns so I’d say it was a Wednesday that won’t be remembered fondly. It was certainly solvable with normal Wednesday effort. A decent puzzle.
@Andrzej Yep. Maths: might as well be written in Sanskrit. Music terms: ditto.
@Andrzej Yes, you’ve discovered that it helps to know things when you’re trying to solve a crossword puzzle. Shocking, I know.
@Joe Thank you for your kind comment. Valuable contributions like yours are why I feel proud and privileged to be part of this community. I will take what you said to heart and learn all the facts about all the things by tomorrow. It might sound daunting, but apparently you managed to get there. You are a true inspiration. I appreciate your uncompromising yet ultimately friendly and supportive stance.
@Andrzej Still angry when you find some clues that are easy for Americans, but hard for everyone else? Or were you just happy it gave you the opportunity to compose a well-constructed insult?
@Andrzej Does it bother you in the least that you might be giving a debut solver some of the same trauma you feel about mathematics? I'm not saying you should sugar coat or whitewash things, I'm just saying that for a debut puzzler constructor, maybe just a bit of encouragement along with the criticism? Wouldn't you have liked that when you were in a math class? I know I'm testing the bounds of our cyber-friendship here, but I am certain you would support my right to critique your critique, in the same way you claim a right to be critical.
Congratulations on your fellowship and the birth of your daughter, Phillipe. I really enjoyed solving this puzzle, It was fun, full of clever clues and I loved the musical theme. Looking forward to the next one!
Baroque composer discovers Delorean? BACH TO THE FUTURE
What this puzzle provides if you only get two of the themers and thus no happy music? ACAPPELLA GOOD PUNS
I liked the combination of the musical portions of the answers with the slangy construction. After getting CODASILENCE I had fun trying to guess the rest of the themed answers with no crosses, which I don’t often do. I thought all those answers were appropriate for the KLEE club.
@Marshall Walthew I know you were attempting a pun there, but I’m sorry to inform you that the artist’s name is pronounced “clay.”
I started smiling after uncovering one theme answer, and the smile grew with each new one. The wordplay, the elegant clues – a playground in the box today. A puzzle with moxie, and a debut yet. More, more please, Phillipe! Encore! I liked the trio of musical helpers in the grid: OLEOLE, E MINOR, JAGGER. I liked a trio of non-musical answers as well: NOOGIE, PARABOLA, TOP KNOT. My brain liked that the theme answers needed crosses to fill in, followed by a CODA SILENCE and an aha-laden FORZA MOMENT. I, a wordplay lover, happy-danced away from this one, and my ear worm for the day is the feeling of a smile. Congratulations, Phillipe, on your first Times puzzle, and thank you for a splendid outing!
Nice puzzle ; fun theme -- loved it! Congrats on debut and new baby both!
ATONALSUCCESS [What one achieves when playing a piece without a wrong note[ BAGATELLECASTER [Score a classic guitar] BAROQUETHERECORD [Dropped a Vivaldi LP] ÉTUDEDONTMAKEITBAD [Beatles’k first line in a classical music lyric] MADRIGALMOMENT [Sublime juncture at a Ren Faire] SCHERZOMANY [What Haydn’s Surprise Symphony did] STACCATOLOT [What an out-of-tune note did] TENORMORE [How many keys apart a large hand can play on the piano] TUTTIINSTRUMENT [Piccolo, for one]
... that k after "Beatles'" is a typo ...
This one really staccato me. Classical music puns?! Yes, please! I was smiling at every theme entry, and this made me want to dust off my piano. Congratulations on a fantastic debut, Philippe. Looking forward to more from you!
Fun one! a nit to pick, or perhaps a request for someone with actual farm experience to chime in. I've always been fascinated by the varied terms for livestock and the nuances they carry. For example a horse can be a foal, colt, filly, mare, stallion, or gelding. For cattle you've got calf, dogie, heifer, cow, bull, and steer. My understanding was that a female pig is a gilt until she births her first litter, at which point she becomes a SOW. With a name like Miss Piggy I have to assume she's single, so unless she had a litter out of wedlock or reverted to Miss Piggy after a divorce, I don't think she'd take kindly to being referred to as a SOW, and anyone calling her that would get a karate chop.
this was incredible thank you Philippe for real one of the most ingenious puzzles bravo!
Really fun wordplay! The puns seem very original and I found them both unexpected and funny. SONATA THING made me laugh out loud. The fact that they're all musical terms makes the theme very cohesive. I'm wondering if Phillippe is a musician? In any event, you can never give me too many wordplay puzzles if the wordplay is good. Every theme clue is a game of wits with the constructor and solving one will be of no help in solving the next one. FWIW, I have no idea what a FORZA is, but I imagine it's a note played with "sudden strong emphasis". And we have a really excellent grid with no crosswordese and no pop culture. I've seen so many grids that wouldn't STANZA CHANCE when compared to this one. Lovely job, Phillippe.
@Nancy you can pat yourself on the back as you realize that you’re so comfortable with Ms KATY Perry’s career that her appearance doesn’t even trigger your pop culture detector! 🎤
@Nancy In music, forza (Italian for "force" or "strength") is a directive instructing performers to play with intense emphasis, energy, or vigor. Often used as con forza (with force) or tutta forza (full force), it marks passages requiring dramatic, robust sound. It is distinct from sforzando (sudden, strong accent).Key aspects of forza in music:Definition: Means strength or force.Musical Context: Con forza indicates a passage should be played powerfully. Tutta forza means with all possible force, or as loud as possible.Related Terms: It is related to forzando or forzato, which indicate that a note or chord is strongly accented, according to.Common Use: Composers use these terms to guide performers to bring particular energy to a section.Other contexts:Forza (Music Group): A, the brass and percussion ensemble of "Music to My Mind," known for playing music from various genres.Forza (Producer): A music producer and artist affiliated with rappers like Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti, noted in.Forza Horizon 5 Soundtrack: Known for featuring electronic and varied music, including songs like "Route 174" by Metrik.Estelon Forza: A type of high-end loudspeaker, a high-fidelity speaker.
Early week Griddy nominee?
@Bill in Yokohama Are you volunteering to take over the Griddies this year? Thanks!
Good one Philippe. Enjoyable and fun….really liked the wordplay. If only “What’s Opera, Doc” could have worked in Bugs Punny…. I’ll see myself out now.
At a meeting tonight where coffee was served and . . . here I am. An utterly charming debut and, as others have already commented, some of the themers are a stretch (I'm lookin' at you ARIA = "Are 'ya") but, who cares? Nice one. Thanks.
@John Carson personally I think embracing the spirit of puns means not holding them to a very high standard
This was much brainier than I expected for a Wednesday, with clues and answers that felt fresh-- what a joy! The fellowship is giving us many of the paper's best puzzles. And grousing is the natural response to symphony puns, of course.
After a string of Monday-like and Tuesday-like Wednesday puzzles, I'm not surprised this one is taking xwstats folks 9% longer than usual. It actually requires knowing a few things and being up for some wordplay. Shocking. Thank you, Philippe.
@Barry Ancona I solved it 5 minutes under my average even though I got stuck several times. Just kept coming back to it over a few hours. That makes my morning! I am actually starting to like Wednesdays (17 in a row)!
Cherry, Way to go. Happy solving!
The only downside to my solve of this wonderful puzzle was considering how painful it would be for Andrzej. Thoughts and prayers.
@ad absurdum Never mind, I see he's posted. And the search implementation has got to be a joke, right? Something to do with April Fool's and managing to make the most essential data / web function nearly impossible to use properly the first time? It's like viscerally shocking.
Nice debut! Possible Griddy for me. I loved the musical puns and the lack of repetitive fill. The Naticks tripped me up briefly, but I was able to make educated guesses to solve it 5 minutes under my average. I’m confused though, why so many here are holding puns to such a high standard. None of these seemed off the mark to me. Comedy is hard, people!
@Cherry Dying is easy, comedy is hard: <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XP-p6Ag1W7k&pp=0gcJCcQBo7VqN5tD" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XP-p6Ag1W7k&pp=0gcJCcQBo7VqN5tD</a>
Cherry, These were high-brow, classical music puns, so everyone is uptight, not sure if they should laugh or applaud. But if they were based on hip-hop word play? Those rap puns’ll let down your hair!! :)
Even as a musician, this wasn’t for me. I’d appreciate the puns if the non-pun clues were a little less obscure. Lots of Thursday or Friday hints for a Wednesday, imo.
@Nic I agree. It’s not really a pun if the literal answer is meaningless, like FORZA MOMENT or STANZA CHANCE. This ruins an otherwise fine puzzle. It is what I call “clever adjacent,” which is far worse than not clever at all.
@Nic As I said in response to a different comment, these are more homophones than puns in my opinion. I found them rather clever but they were definitely tricky. Mark
I recognize that this reaction may seem disproportionate, but when I see a clue like "Dudes, in British English" for LADS, I realize that whoever created this crossword (constructor + editors) has an entirely different idea from mine about what makes a crossword clue good, or even barely passable. And that turns me off to the whole puzzle.
I also have not found any evidence that to ZIGzag means to move in a "darting" motion. Zigzagging does mean conducting a series of sharp turns, but does not carry any meaning about how fast they need to be. (Of course, zigzagging in a military context will involve quick motions, so of course zigzagging *sometimes* involves darting.)
@Dan Why yes, that reaction does indeed seem disproportionate.
Dan, Re: ZIG Reminder: Hints, not definitions. (Read your own parenthetical.)
It’s been a while since I had to do lookups on a Wednesday, but I guess that’s…. good? Or just the result of too many naticks, Either way, it was a fine puzzle. Congratulations on the birth of your baby girl, Philippe, and welcome to the fold.
I liked this puzzle, it was fun trying to crack each of the theme clues. I’m also one to double check my answers using Google and I had a fascinating dive into Jean-Bertrand Aristide and other such topics I wouldn’t have the opportunity to discover if not for this puzzle. Fun solve! :)
An enjoyable Wednesday solve. I got a few of the music related solves without fully realizing the theme. Fully appriciated Isaac Aranow's Wordplay column that gave a hint to the theme without revealing the answers until you clicked the provided link. I wish more of the writers of Wordplay would use the same technique as I often need to go to the Wordplay column for hints but not necessarily the answers (until I do need need the answers ;-) ). Happy Wednesday everyone.
@Dianne I was going to say the same thing about the tricky clue revealers. I hate it when I scroll too far and see an answer before I need to.
As a music lover I enjoyed the slightly wacky puns, a much-needed bit of lightheartedness thank you!
I found myself entering and then deleting an unusual number of answers with this one. For instance, I had ado before DIN, sats before PSAT, end before AIM. Still, they all fell in line with a few appropriate crosses. Overall, right in my average solving time. I was actually expecting more positive comments on the level of difficulty, but what do I know? Nothing that was a pure Natick for me, but there were definitely challenges there. Thanks, and congratulations!
@Jack McCullough What put me off was the contrast between how easy whole areas of the grid were and how naticky certain crossings seemed. Consistent difficulty of all quadrants is what I'd ideally see in a grid.
Speaking of meeting people, did I miss a posting of this in the comments, or is it news to all? <a href="https://www.colefuneral.com/obituary/Robert-Panoff" target="_blank">https://www.colefuneral.com/obituary/Robert-Panoff</a>
Thanks for sharing, Barry. We don’t always get to find out what’s happened. It was good to read about his life.
@Barry Ancona Sorry to hear this. What was his handle here?
B: here’s one of his comments from 2020: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/37iiki?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/37iiki?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a>
You'll see comments from Bob -- and a few other people you may know (or knew) -- here: <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/its-not-common-knowledge" target="_blank">https://archive.nytimes.com/wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/its-not-common-knowledge</a>/
@Barry Ancona I wasn’t aware that we had lost Bob. He was a staple at the annual luncheon meetings of the Durham (NC) Wordplay group. He wasn’t in good shape when we met last summer, but he was still sharp and fighting. As somebody said in reference to old age, “Too many funerals and not enough weddings”.
@Barry Ancona Thank you for sharing this sad news. I always made sure to read his Comments. And of course I have a soft spot for physicists...
What is this mess? Ofc the comments cult is fawning over it, as they do everything, but what a lousy puzzle
Anker, Before the cultists start fawning over your comment, I got to say it’s not your best ever. But I learned ofc, among the mess.
While trying to deal with the column and comments section makes me get a bit grumpy (it's doing a whole new weird thing for me the last few days), fun puzzles like this help keep me coming back for more. I really enjoyed this puzzle. It was on the adagietto side for me, but it was never out of reach and I filled it out gioioso. STANZACHANCE is when the nickel dropped for me, and I was reasonably proud of myself as I'm not great with musical terms, despite my terribly impressive paragraph above, for which I definitely did not, ahem, consult Wikipedia.... but once I got going on the puns, they were definitely accessible. The only one I don't recall ever knowing was FORZA. I might have known it in my clarinet playing days, but those were a very lunga time ago. Anyhow, I got a kick out of it. Especially because SOLO and SOFTIE were in there next to each other. Just yesterday, my boss told me what an ole SOFTIE I am, and my husband often asks me to sing him a SOLO... So low, he can't hear it! Ahhhhh, ha ha ha! An oldie but a goodie. I couldn't resist. Congrats to Mr. Monfiston for a wonderful debut and a wonderful new addition to the family.
@HeathieJ I laughed out loud at your solo “so low” pun. Touché! And, I agree, this was a fun puzzle and an impressive debut!
Late to the party, but this was a fun one. Picked up on the puns with 18A, and it kept going… There were a few entries that caused me to hesitate briefly, like DIN, but I already had the "I" in there so knew ado was out. Definitely a Wednesday and IMHO a good one. Thanks, Philippe, and congrats on both your and your daughter's recent debuts.
A mess. The ugliest fill of a puzzle in recent memory, a niche theme that, as Isaac Aranow writes, makes the puzzle "way harder" (read, impossible), and trivia/naticks galore. (Hey you, you got it? It wasn't impossible for you? Cool, I wasn't talking to you. Congrats, but I don't need to hear about it.) Kudos to the constructor for debuting here, but I found this a total slog to get through. Pass.
@D It’s a sad day when basic musical knowledge is considered “niche.”
@D Sometimes I read comments like these and wonder if people read the full article about the constructor. I don’t know much music terminology, but this got me learning a lot about Haitian culture just because I was curious and that’s what I got out of today. Reading this gave me the realization my mindset has changed since I first started a couple years ago from “this crosssword did or did not entertain me” to being in awe of how other people think and build. I think about it kind of like an interactive art piece—I don’t have to like the puzzle, but I do appreciate it more when I read how it was made. This is what has made me enjoy the crossword each day, whether or not it was trivia filled.
@D The theme is not "niche," but rather contains extremely common musical terms, such as CODA or STANZA. You're likely to have encountered them in anything from a music publication suck as Pitchfork to a hymnal at your local church. ARIA, specifically, shows up so often in the NYT puzzle that it should be a permanent part of your vocabulary. The theme also references an extremely well-known Looney Tunes short. Ain't no excuse for not knowing "What's Opera, Doc?"
@D Speaking of things I don't need to hear about... oh, nevermind. If you're still commenting here a year from now I predict your tune will have changed at least a little bit.
No notes, fun puzzle, congrats on the debut.
each successive theme answer got a bigger groan than the last. great puzzle, loved it.
E was my first guess, but ARISTIDE/EMINOR is a total Natick. It could have just as easily been A or D
@Steven M. You aren’t the first person to bring it up and probably won’t be the last, and it’s a fair comment. My only other suggestion if you hadn’t heard of him might be that, if you considered the French influence on Haiti, it might have led you to guess an E before an A or D.
@Steven M. But with an A or a D ending ARISTID_ wouldn’t be a name.
@Steven M. Aristide was President of Haiti four separate times in the 1990s and 2000s and was repeatedly overthrown in coups that were major news in the U.S., especially because of the refugee waves that followed. He was the dominant figure in Haitian politics for fifteen years. Everything's a Natick for someone I guess but this really seems like fair game (plus "Aristida" and "Aristidd" seem like rather unlikely French last names, right?).
I liked this a lot. I didn’t really know the musical terms, but could see the wordplay emerging as I filled in the crosses. That was fun.
I used to really enjoy, and contribute to, this comments section. Lots of interesting addenda to particular entries, personal stories about solving, and humor. Also, yes, some specific objections to certain clues or entries that were delivered thoughtfully. I’m sorry to see it’s devolved into a debating society about whether the puzzle is good or bad, with an angry tone.
Agreed. I come here to feel superior to the would-be pedants who are nevertheless WRONG but these days have to wade through all the general complainers to find them.
This puzzle really sang to me. Spear and magic helmet?
@Mark M Someone hasn't seen "What's Opera, Doc?" in a while, apparently.
I loved this puzzle! especially the many reasons to chuckle. Congratulations, Mr. Monfiston.....but Isaac, has the NYTimes discontinued the Fellowship? Your article provides a link to the story about and how to apply, but it was for last year's fellowship.