Major applause. Like you, I was stunned to realize that all 15 theme entries also read as actual words. No nonsense fillers clogging the grid just to make the them work. Bravo. A great Thursday offering.
@UCCF Along the same lines, while I really appreciated the clue for 38D ABUT, what can we do with its de-tailed version, ABU? Aside from its existence as a proper name, is it a meaningful word ?
This was a fun puzzle. But because I’m a dope, I made all 15 theme cells, a 2 letter rebus. (xT). When I finished the grid, I didn’t get a gold. I reviewed, and didn’t think there were any errors. I removed all the 2 letter rebus, removing the Ts. Gold Star. I came to say this was bad programming. I now realize the Ts were proved by the grid. I’m an IDIO.
@Weak Not my journey tonight, but I do recognize it from other nights. It's amazing how we forget about the black background in these puzzles, forget even to look at them.
If I was a pop diva and had won three of the four major awards given to performers -- an Emmy, Grammy and Obie -- my ego would feel like it was lacking something. Fabulous puzzle. Top Tier. Titillating. Too good. To come up with all those words or phrases that make sense with or without the final tea, to place them symmetrically, to fill in the whole grid with interesting and witty clues and fill, what a Triumph. Loved the NOSEEUM /UM NO combo, the piney gin sharing space with a sommelier's fine palate, the obscure clue for Tess (at least to me) and equally obscure -- to me -- Ottessa. Yesterday the lake was SERENE. Today it is RIPPLING. I have a bad feeling about this lake. Plus, who doesn't like a puzzle where a tyrant with a bent ego, known for declaring whatever the scribes write about him to be fake and demanding they erase the truth, gets a stern talking-to from a pop diva, who takes him to the lav, makes him get down on his knees, and gives him a big whack on his backside with something piney and roughly the weight and size of an atlas, a wallop you might see at an MMA event while in the company of the Secret ari of State, who should be negotiating how to open sea lanes again but instead has taken a ripsaw to any diplomatic options and has to cede to the crazy demands of the leisure-loving tyrant; yes, whacks him hard enough that he actually does cry out an apology!
@john ezra the last paragraph has made me start the day with a smile. Thank you very much.
@john ezra; did you mean “pope diva”?
@john ezra Brilliant finale!!! Just brilliant!! Encore!!!!
@john ezra Bravo John. Well said, spoken like a gentleman.
@john ezra I think the O is an Oscar, not an Obie.
Jus barely bea my average time. I go stuck on the top lef corner for too long. Grea theme and a solid Thursday puzzle.
@Dave K. I came in 1 second over my average time, and it was great fun!
"You said there'd be Earl Grey but there isn't any! You're such a teas!" ("Sorry, how brewed of me!")
@Mike Oh, let's just leaf it at that, though I do love Constant Commenting.
@Mike Mike, you usually resort to cheap puns, but these were pretty steeped.
@Mike “Let’s get your mind off that old bag. Wanna play a game of pekoe boo?”
@Mike Sometimes I feel warm and cozy about replying, but today I'll just bag it. PS. If you need some Earl Grey, Rev. Spooner has some in a jar, dealing it out when asked.
Yes! Didn’t take forever, was more than my average and I enjoyed figuring it out. A Thursday worthy of being on Thursday. Thank you to the constructor and the editor. Good night!🌙
I’m down with a vertical theme and the clever trick suits me to a T. So very elegant that the T-less entries are valid words. Great work, Rafa and Sala. Flawless execution.
HIP HIP HURRUMBA!!! This is how you do Thursday.
@Heidi Thank you for keeping that catch phrase afloat! It shall live on forever! Or at least another couple weeks.
@Heidi. I still say it’s “HIPHIPHURRU”. That fit!
Don't know if it was an Easter egg or a terrific coincidence, but I love the homophonic perfect theme echo in TEA SET.
@Lewis This puzzle was a T-SET TEASE[T]!
Got off to a rough star, but soon the end was in sigh
I got greedy and plunged into the solve rather than scanning the empty grid for hints about what the puzzle was about. As a result, it took me longer to crack the riddle. To play on a well-used expression, I couldn’t see the gimmick for the tees! No-knows and tricky cluing compounded my confusion. The longer my bafflement, the higher the tension, so that when the curtain finally fell, the aha was huge – epic! – bolstered by a thrilling whoosh to the finish. That was aha number one. Number two came when I saw that the theme answers all were genuine words without the black-square Ts – there my jaw dropped due to the skill and talent behind the construction. Dessert was a lovely serendipity -- that there's a down DOWN and an up UP. A worducken! -- An aha bogo amidst a brain pleaser housed in a top-notch build. Result? A strong Puzzle of the Year Thursday candidate. This was royally good. Thank you, Sala and Rafael!
A tough Thursday that makes me feel like I’m getting better at crosswords. This would have sunk me a year ago. 71 day streak stays alive
The following xwstats.com numbers are very early stats, but still: 🌎 Global Stats Difficulty Very Hard Median Solve Time 15:10 Median Solver 55% slower ⚡0% of users solved faster than their Thursday average. 0% solved much faster (>20%) than their Thursday average. 🐢100% of users solved slower than their Thursday average. 100% solved much slower (>20%) than their Thursday average. I think those stats are based on fewer than usual solves for the first 25 minutes of solving, which in and of itself is telling. I don't think the difficulty level is going to change much, at all. Myself, I got more stuck than usual, with quite a lot open on the top and bottom left. The trick didn't hold me up that much; it was the dense cluing reminiscent of the olden days. There's not going to be much "too easy" griping today.
@Steve L I don't know where those stats come from, but on checking my time (and doing the math) I finished in about 65(ish) percent of my Thursday average. It was actually pretty close to my Wednesday average (but only 50% of this week's Wednesday - which I struggled with).
@Steve L Somehow, this one hit my sweet solving spot, I guess. I'm in the much faster category today. I was super surprised to see it still rated as very hard just now. I'd fully expected be the "too easy" complaints again today. I did find it very enjoyable though. I have tended to really enjoy and appreciate puzzles involving Mr. Musa.
@Steve L though my solve times are always much slower than the xwstats average, my experience with this puzzle tracks what those stats reveal: a tough, though solvable, puzzle. I’m in the midst of a pb streak, nearly twice as long as my previous best, but I was becoming disillusioned with the quality of the streak owing to the underwhelming puzzle difficulty of late. It was nice to take on a chewy challenge, and affirm I can still complete such a challenge!
I think OTTESSA has taken the number 1 on my least-guessable-names ranking.
Tremendous. Thinking this touts top-tier talent! Themed Thursday thrill! Thank you!
I'm all in favor of the many forms of wordplay that Will Shortz has introduced to the NYT crosswords. But if I had my druthers I'd be totally in favor of going back to a time when no brand names were ever mentioned, people's sexual orientations were never alluded to, there was no slang that only a niche crowd knows, and no answers involved not-nice words (the kind that people used to teach their young children not to say).
@Dan My earliest memories of solving crosswords were clues like [African river, var]. I don't want to go back to those kind of niche crowd clues. I assume you meant 57D concerning words we teach children not to say. I actually teach them that the context and the spirit of the word usage is a factor for any word, not just the words we deem as "dirty". I can call someone a "fool" and it would be the worst f-word I could use, depending on the circumstances.
@Dan “Lighten up, Francis” (not the Francis below). The vast majority of Americans don’t want to go back to the 1950s. I’m not being nasty. Words are just words. If anything, we’ve gone to a whole new sub-basement thanks to that orange guy who’s in the news every day. That Easter message was really something, wasn’t it?
@Dan I can live with all that (and I so HATE the very niche slang) but just stop with Thursday. I swear i'm going to start skipping them. Obviously many or you enjoy them, so fine--I know the day, I just need to skip them. I cannot see how people think these are "clever". I can figure them out; I just don't WANT to. Reminds me of when people have some exciting news and they say, "...can you guess??" (No, and I don't want to.)
15 theme answers STACKED DIRECTLY AGAINST EACH OTHER is insanity-level crossword construction. Genuinely awed that such a feat was possible.
I. Cant. Even....... These two constructors have assembled what may be the finest puzzle I've ever seen. The first trick, words ending without their T, wasn't good enough for these two. Nooo, they shot for the moon and made the (otherwise "unclued)") words make sense too. Early, I know, but easily PotY material here. Terrific job you two 👍👍👍
@Down_Home, not to mention the grid shape with the Ts! Very well done!
That was a tough solve. 30 minutes, but the vast majority of that time was spent in the NW.
A nice Thursday puzzle that had something for almost everyone: an aesthetically pleasing grid; a gentle twist that was integral to the solve; and some clever clueing. I appreciated fault line for APOLOGY. I also liked NOSEEUMs, which are best encountered in a puzzle rather than in real life.
Nice puzzle! I really enjoyed it, even though I didn't have to dig very deep for it. Solved up nicely in above average time, but it was fun and engaging throughout! I noticed the T design right away, and then I pretty much had it figured it out at the revealer on my first run but I tend to start with across, so hadn't encountered the downs yet. I briefly wondered if it would be a rebus but, as usual, just waited. But by TEASET, I was pretty certain. Still had some crunch to it and was glad (mostly b/c of thinking ahead to the comment section) that the theme/trick clues left full words... if not, 🫣 RE: NOSEEUMS, I first heard that word a thousand years ago on the old Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt sitcom, Mad About You. He had a funny little bit about them. But now that I've been experiencing them (as sand flies) every year on our island second home (Utila, Honduras), I can tell you, you really can't see um and they're the literal worst!!! Because we care for my 90+ year old (with severe dementia) mother-in-law when we're there, which has become increasingly intensive, I've not been able to get out of our house/property very much, so last year I didn't get any bites from the little sobs for the first time. A mixed blessing! Next month, we'll be back to the OPENSEA with her and we'll see how it goes. Every year, we know it might be the last time bringing her there, at this point. It's where she is the most happy and content, even in her dementia, so it's worth it.
It’s T-time in the Times, therefore time for tea. Terrific Thursday!
I saw Rafael Musa’s byline and immediately hoped we would finally get a challenging, tricky puzzle that was worthy of a Thursday. I was not disappointed! Oddly I got there a little sideways. I read the first clue as away from instead of towards and tried to fit AORTAE in; then put the E in the black square and used it for E-VENT—which still left real words in the grid. That primed me for the rest of the puzzle and I quickly saw the Ts and TEASED out the rest of the theme (and fixed the top). But even once I got the theme it was fun and challenging. Amazing dense construction to get 15 clues that still left real words with the T off ( a little leeway for INDIC and ABU), stacked, and the perfect revealer at the bottom. And some very clever ones at that—DAYSPAS, OPENSEA. And then, finally, the editors didn’t overcompensate by making the rest of the clues gimmes or too easy. THANK YOU!!! Fun clues for LEISURE, POPDIVA, APOLOGY and TAROT. As mentioned something similar has been done before but this had its own vibe and was by no means derivative. Bravo and Brava to the constructors!!!
@SP Regarding 1-A, I confused my "ventricles" with my ATRIA, and thought the answer was going to be "veins" or "venae". When that supplied no helpful crossings, I put it aside for later. It ended up being the last area of the (delightfully) tricky puzzle to fall for me.
Fantastic Thursday puzzle. Just what I was looking for. Well done
I personally loved this puzzle but I also can understand the frustration if you didn’t get the T theme… I have said this often, but for me, I love a tricky puzzle where the theme (although tricky to discover) ACTUALLY helps you solve themed clues and essentially the whole puzzle.. This theme answer(s) were tricky though as the crosses were brutal. Perfect Thursday puzzle! Rating: 10/10
@Darren Seeing the five giant Ts made out of black squares was a HUGE help once you understood the theme.
Nearly gave up on the NW corner, yuck. But every once in a while I'm amazed at how a constructor manages to pull an idea off. Definitely one of the best of the year so far.
Nice to finally have a Thursday puzzle on Thursday (or any day). Thanks, Rafa and Sala (two To a T).
Lovely, elegant puzzle - very impressed by how the T-less words are still good fill.
I love it when I think I've figured a theme out, then even after completing the grid, I realise that there is some much more to it than I thought. I figured out the revealer and the missing T's, but I was not until I came to this page and read other comments that I realised two more things: first that all the T-less words were still actual words, and more importantly that they all ended on the massive dark squared Ts (that I somehow failed to notice!). Mind blown. Really well done.
Thursday is my favorite puzzle day, because of puzzles like this one! Thank you!
The brilliant Elle Cordova illustrated when a simple APOLOGY leads to a genuine [Fault line]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aayStR3xjrU" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aayStR3xjrU</a>
This is the best puzzle in quite a while! The best ones where you get almost nothing on the first pass, but then somehow you find it all!
Wow! Absolutely loved this puzzle! Took me a tad longer than my average for a Thursday puzzle, but well worth the time for so many aha moments and pleasant discoveries. I don’t normally comment, but had to give credit where it’s due!
ADP and TESS were unknowns so the bottom left used up a lot of time. The rest was elegant and very much Thursday level for me. The trick and the double use came relatively quickly and brought a smile Thanks
This weeks has just been made unpleasant by the amount of proper name trivia and frequent natick. Not sure if it's random or part of some meta theme but IMO it's much worse. Do difficulty without relying on knowing the names of payroll services etc.
@M If you think you can construct a puzzle without needing to use any fill such as ADP or SSN, you are welcome to try. I'm sure it will be a masterpiece. As for Naticks: there weren't any. None of the proper nouns in this puzzle are crossing each other. A Natick is when two proper nouns cross each other, and their shared letter can't be easily deduced.
@M Every paycheck I've ever received has had ADP printed on it. You must have a different company for that in Canada.
Salut, M. I too had trouble with ADP but they do operate in Canada. As for the larger question; there were plenty of crossings where I was left with a space that could have been any number of letters, even with crossings considered. But I am usually prepared to accept that I may be less informed than that elite creature, the average NYT reader, all of whose resources may be called upon in the hunt for a Thursday grid's solution. I got there eventually but that can be a long time.
Saw the large T's and guessed the theme instantly ... but solving still took almost 20 minutes. So the level of difficulty seemed about right for a Thursday. Excellent theme, expertly executed. Especially liked that each vertical entry that extended DOWN TOAT was valid crossword fill in its own right. DAYSPAS(T) and OPENSEA(T) were especially good. To me, a puzzle of the year contender for sure. Bravo!
@Xword Junkie I'm with you. But, since the theme was so easily inferred, it doesn't rise to PoY status, IMHO.
This was a "keep the faith" puzzle for me as I scampered away from the fiendish NW and hoped I'd be able to solve it when I got back to it. Alas, my faith was not rewarded and I ended up having to cheat on TAO. The theme was clever and baffling until I saw it at BRA/BRAT. I was so eager to write in TO A T as the revaler that I failed to see it was a two-part answer and wrote it in at 63A instead of 65A. What was that first word ending in N because of SSN? Aha -- DOWN! But I needed crosses to get it. DOWN TO A T. Yes, that is indeed a phrase. Great clue for LEISURE. Thought for the day about 18A: While I like my cleaning products completely odorless rather than PINEY, I understand that some people do like them PINEY. But please keep PINEY out of my gin!! Thanks so much! A puzzle where I was grateful for the fact that the revealer eliminated much angst. It was nice to know that the missing "T"s were only in the Downs and not, well, everywhere. And for once in my life, I really enjoyed the grid art. The design took nothing away from the cleverness of the puzzle, while adding a certain je ne sais quoi that was funny and delightful. A great job of construction and a real treat for the solver!
@Nancy PINEY gin does sound awful! I'm guessing this is the gin-haters assessment of the (pleasant, to me) juniper berries that are an important part of the gin experience.
@Nancy But the very word 'gin' refers to the piney juniper berries that are the beverage's chief flavoring.
@Nancy Cheap gin can indeed taste PINEY. The juniper in good gin is a more delicate flavor.
@Nancy et al. "Juniper smells, first and foremost, like gin—crisp, bracing, and intensely aromatic. It features a refreshing blend of piney, woody, and slightly citrusy notes with a mild, peppery, or herbal bitterness. It is often described as a "cold" or "icy" scent, reminiscent of a clean forest breeze."
This puzzle was a gem. I figured out the gimmick fairly quickly and the puzzle flowed nicely...except for the NW corner which was somehow impenetrable to me. I had to look up one proper name to kickstart my brain. As I've said before, I am amazed by the creativity and cleverness of these Thursday puzzles (or any day of the week for that matter). I don't know how these constructors do it.
This was really hard for me, but not because of the them answers, which I figured out almost right away. There were just so many things in the non-trick answers that I simply don't know.
Once again I barely squeaked by. I saw that we several answers were going to be words ending in T fairly early, but like Steve L (I always like it when my experience and Steve L's are similar) I found a lot of the answers hard to come by. For example it took me quite a while to see INDIC(T), LEISURE, SCRIBES, didn't know ADP and TESS. PINEY seemed pretty difficult to me, as did GIGABIT, because I've only ever heard of GIGABYTE. I like APOLOGY for [Fault line?], but again, that was anything but a Monday clue, and I'd say more like a Friday or Saturday. But I had a good time with it. A little confusion and panic before a gentle thought followed by everything falling into place is a nice way to spend some time.
@Francis SCRIBES was a gimme, but ironically ADP eluded me almost the whole way. Ironic because it used to be the alarm system in a former apartment and I spent years punching keys on a little panel bearing the mystic inscription ADP.
@Francis for some reason, Internet speeds are always given in “bits” not “bytes”. Maybe because it results in a number 8 times as large. Usually given (these days) in Mbps (megabits per second). Gigabit refers to throughput of 1000 Mbps (1 Gbps). If referring to bytes, you would generally capitalize the B.
Almost had it but the SW had me stuck. I had DIREC instead of DIVER and it just wasn’t working. Gave up and read the column. I had all the “hard” answers, and TOAT, but was missing DOWN. That helped me finish the SW corner. As a relative beginner, not too bad. Maybe if I had slept on it I would have solved it on my own.
I don't like a vulgar term for rear in my puzzle. Keep it civiliized.
@v The clue was [Modern intensifying suffix]. No mention of body parts. Any scatalogical connection is on you. The word from which all variations derive is a reference to an unintelligent donkey. That makes more sense than an unintelligent tushie.
@v It’s not an uncommon fill word, actually. Often clued as something like “oaf.”
Let me find my pearls. So I can clutch 'em.
Very much Enjoyed this Thursday. After a few of the down answers were missing the final T, I imagined them in the black squares. It wasn't until I got to the revealer, I then saw the Forest through the 'Tees'! Oh, and thanks for reminding me that noseeum (?no see em?) and black fly season is about to begin here in Maine!🪰🪰🪰
Am I the only one who thought that 57D ("Modern intensifying suffix" was "ASF" -- and then thought, "Wow, Will is really pushing the edge here!"?
Remember in the Disney movie when Aladdin's pet monkey swiped the ruby in the Cave of Wonders and ended up destroying the cave? Peak Abu!
That was a bear. I had AORTI (which isn't actually word, I don't think?) in the top left for a loooong time to much consternation.
@Sean I put down AORTA first because I know names of parts of the heart but don’t know details for how they interact.
@Sean I also had AORTI (which could be a word in NYT Crosslandia) until filling in much of the rest of that quadrant and realizing, though I didn’t know Terrence, I knew it couldn’t be OAO.
@Sean yeah, it's feminine so the Latin plural would have been AORTAE. An earlier poster entered AORTA, mentally placed the E in the black square next to 5, and then used it as the first letter of (E)VENT going down. That must have been a mess to clean up!
Hi, @Sam! Great to see you again (even if it's only for a one word comment).
@Sam Lyons What Bill said. Whoa Nellie showed up yesterday, which got me wondering about you.
@Sam Lyons So glad to see you, even if just a trace. Hope all is well or, at least, good enough.
When I printed out my puzzle, the first thing I noticed was the giant T's. Then somehow I promptly forgot they existed, and until I came to the revealer I had a T's written in the grey boxes to keep track and wondered how the missing letters would be explained. Didn't see the forest for the trees. This was an entertaining solve for me. In recent Thursday puzzles, once you saw the trick, it was game over. This one had interesting clues that kept the puzzle alive. I thought for sure [Source of a deal with The Devil?] was going to be a reference to Robert Johnson. <a href="https://youtu.be/Yd60nI4sa9A?si=YbOi107I4ozae7Uu" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/Yd60nI4sa9A?si=YbOi107I4ozae7Uu</a>
@Nancy J. It took me a long time, too, to get the word play on "deal". And yet the question mark was there, staring me in the face, at the end of the clue.