What does a math teacher sing on New Year's Eve? Auld lang sine. Why can't he get a home loan? Nobody will cosine. Why can't his students follow his lectures? He's always off on a tangent. He'd like to stop punning, but it's a compulsion, so of cosecant.
CRABLOUIE crossed with HOGAN and RIELS 🫤🫤 Not puzzling … quizzing. Never heard of the salad and history of golf is particularly esoteric. The fishing ‘trick’ was nice. The cluing reasonable for mid to late week.
Ιασων, BEN HOGAN's name extends beyond his playing years... <a href="https://www.benhogangolf.com" target="_blank">https://www.benhogangolf.com</a>/
@Ιασων I had to Google CRAB LOUIE - I’ve never heard of this dish in my life ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It seems to be a very West Coast thing, so not sure why it would be featured in the NYT. The whole SE corner was pretty tortured imho
CRAB LOUIE originated on the West Coast more than a century ago, and if you want it with Dungeness crab, it's best to have it on the West Coast, but you can have it in New York. ISLAND AIR also did not serve New York, and OGDEN isn't in New York. The New York Times Crossword is not that provincial.
"Did you see the fishing movie?" "I'll probably stream it." ("I heard it's reely good!")
@Mike It's current, and loved by the small fry, but debaitable as to its story line. Canoe not sea it hasn't much depth?
@Mike If you can't afford Disney+ then good luck finding Nemo.
@Mike I heard it has a great cast! But I’ll probably wait till it goes on sail
A riddle-fest from start to finish; a capital-P puzzle. Yes, the obvious riddles to crack. What is the theme? What are the grayed and circled letters for? But then there were also tough areas to fill in, tough clues to crack. Each riddle solved brought pings of pleasure. “Oh, the grayed letters are fish!” “Oh, the circled letters are hooks!” “Oh, the first word of [Exchanged words] is an adjective!” All this, and yet, maybe, the highlight was [What am I, chopped liver?] for PATE, where my jaw actually OMG-dropped in elation. And it was an impressive build. The hooks alone greatly restricted what answers could surround them. Not to mention, those hooks had to catch fish, and film titles had to go in as well. Are you kidding me? And even with all that, there was answer loveliness – COME ON MAN, CRAB LOUIE, OSCAR BAIT, WHAT NERVE, RAINMAKER. There was pop as well, with eight NYT debut answers, all worthy. I came to the box, Lance and John, curious and hopeful for a stellar Thursday, something clever and something I had to earn, and you two came through handsomely. I relished this. Thank you!
That SE corner was fiendish for me
Can you believe I've gone through my whole life not realizing the tree creatures in Lord of the Rings were tonsillectomy specialists? What a great TIL! What am I going to find out next? Tom Bombadil was an OB-GYN? That orcs were proctologists?
@Francis Orcs are coroners, since they have knowledge in Mordor cases. Tom Bombadil was a weight loss surgeon since he specialized in Barrow-atrics. The only OB Gyn I know of in LOTR was Earendil the Mariner since he studied sea sections and berth control.
That fill... Monday easy almost everywhere, except the SE corner, where the constructors decided to intertwine several trivia entries, including a *golfer* from over 70 years ago. At least for once the theme didn't involve the signature Kugelman dad jokes...
I recently needed to buy several black polo shirts for work. Since I was just going for whatever was reasonably affordable, I didn't pay much attention to what I bought at the time. About an hour after struggling through the SE corner's trivia, I realized that I was wearing a BEN HOGAN shirt this whole time.
Our columnist asks for other clues like [Toys for tots, perhaps] for TYPO. OK... [Care for cars?] [Cars for cats, say] [Ore, for one?] [Tears for Fears, e.g.] [Four for for, for one] [Nooks for books, maybe] [Run for fun, perhaps] as well as [Embarassing mistake] [Bad character] [Unlucky strike?] [Result of a bad stroke] Note: These have only appeared since the start of Will Shortz's tenure. Prior to that, clues for TYPO were dry ones like [Printing error] or [Steno's slip].
@Steve L Thanks for posting these. They're brilliant!
@Steve L All very fun clues! One especially nice thing about [Toys for tots, perhaps] as a clue for TYPO is that the swapped letters (y and t) are next to each other on a standard English keyboard, and not in the "home row", making it more likely to be a true typo. The same is true for nooks/books, but not for ore/one, for example. I'm plagued with other types of typos related to muscle memory - I inevitably type "ration" when I mean "ratio", and switch a lot between German and English keyboards, which have Z and Y swapped. I've often wondered if the fact that the face cream known as "Oil of Olay" (now just "Olay") was marketed in Germany/Europe as "Oil of Olaz" was the result of a typo!
@Steve L Very nice! I especially like [Tears for Fears, e.g.] — big fan of the band.
I generally find that a puzzle that has both shaded squares and circles has one gimmick too many, unless the payoff is phenomenal.
@Steve L So what did you think of the payoff here? I more or less ignored the circled letters until I was finished, and then I saw the film titles. Sean McGowan describes how BEN-HUR helped him get BEN HOGAN. I had no idea who the golfer was (though I recognized the name) and BEN was not the part for which I most could have used some help.
So this was definitely a constructor’s puzzle, and for me the hook was trying to guess what on earth Oscar winners had to do with fish, and marveling at a clever grid and execution. So kudos for that, even if I’m a little disappointed because CHAR, for me at least, was a pretty obscure fish. Still this had a lot of complexity between the hooks and making sure the fish were embedded seamlessly into the theme so who am I to complain? Maybe the last fish should have been “boWANDArrow” since “A Fish Called Wanda” really was Oscar bait for Kevin Kline. But, realistically, you have to admit that otherwise this entirely solved like a themeless (and not a hard one at that) so I have to suggest that it is more suited for a Wednesday. It could have used some more misdirecting clues although I liked AUDIT and TYPO (although inevitably someone will point out if it’s deliberate for a clue is it really a TYPO?) I would like to point out that KITTLES are not only for rabbis and are worn by many religious Jewish men on many occasions. Yes the clue said “maybe” but it still seems as misleading as saying the same thing about a yarmulke. On that note for those of you who like to rely on AI, I would like to point out that when I asked AI to verify if “kittles were only for rabbis” (ok I did misspell it) it told me with a straight AI face that “anyone can eat Skittles, although they have recently been certified kosher so Rabbis can eat them.” Phew. Silly Rabbi, Skittles are for kids!
@SP "A constructor's puzzle..." That's what I was getting at, I guess, when I made my short comment earlier about having one gimmick too many.
@SP Pro-CHAR piscivore here. The further north you go, the likelier you are to see it on the menu. It is really delicious and, as northern waters require, it is luscious and fatty and therefore gorgeous when smoked. If heaven doesn't have goldeye on the menu (let's say they've run out for that day), I'll settle for CHAR.
@SP In Polish "kitel" (which we pronounce the same as you do "kittle") is the protective coat worn by doctors or lab workers.
@SP “But, realistically, you have to admit that otherwise this entirely solved like a themeless (and not a hard one at that) so I have to suggest that it is more suited for a Wednesday.” Agreed. The themers would have needed to cross some exceedingly hard/obscure entries to be of any use in the solve…in which case the relative obscurity of CHAR and the reversed orientation of the PATTON “bait” (i.e. hook) might have complicated things a bit. But regardless, it’s a fun-ish idea, and well executed.
Hmmm. Trying again. Maybe changing words? Not a tricky Thursday, but a funny one. Nothing fishy, of course. (Was 38A knocking yesterday's puzzle?)
Did the word "silly" block my first attempt?
@Barry Ancona I think the emus are getting increasingly arbitrary.
An enjoyable puzzle and super clever construction. I just always feel a little disappointed when a Thursday puzzle doesn’t require me to do anything quirky to solve it. There was no catch in this one (despite all the hooks! lol), just filling in the answers in a straightforward fashion revealed something cool. I like a Thursday that comes with a trick!
19 day streak but the big news is: 2000 Puzzles Solved! Thought you fellow cruciverbalists could appreciate that! Nice puzzle
@Mary 🥳 Nice milestone I’m less than 2 years on NYT and took the streak stress out of my personal equation. So many others (Wordle, Connections,Strands). I’m grateful to all those who construct for my daily enjoyment.
I make this observation with bated breath, but 50A was a bit of a revealer as well, since most hits on pop charts feature a good hook.
@Michael G I see what you did there!
Our columnist writes: "I hope there is a door — for either film fans or fish fans — to help crack it." The third door is to solve the Across and Down answers -- knowing them or filling with crosses -- and then discover the fish and the films.
@Barry Ancona Indeed. I didn’t see the film titles until I was finished.
Imagine my delight when I remembered that I have a bank note featuring the temple of Angkor Wat right here in the room with me! ...Now imagine my disappointment when it was no help at all. XD
At first I ignored both the tiny little circles and the gray squares. But when I was really, really struggling in the SE, I thought that maybe those gray squares down there could help me. So I looked at those that I'd already filled in and I saw...FISH!!! So now I needed a 4-letter fish beginning with C. Aha -- CHAR!!! And thus my Big Trouble in the SE was overcome. And I saw what the problem was: The answer to "Shortchange" isn't DECEIVE. It's DEPRIVE. And thus I solved the puzzle without noticing the movies in the tiny little circles. Didn't need them and therefore didn't care -- though I suppose it's a praiseworthy, intricate bit of construction. There's a nice Nancy-clue at 45D. Those of you who know my penchant for heaving puzzles I don't like against the wall will probably have picked up on that. But, happily, this puzzle didn't make a sound. I love the clue for PATE (11D). Knowing BEN HOGAN was a big help to me. Today I learned that AETNA is named after the volcano (odd choice, AETNA). And clues for TYPO like the one at 22D fool me every single time! I've never heard the term OSCAR BAIT, btw. Doesn't every film try to appeal to the Oscar voters? How do you bait your movie hook in some special way? Beats me. A puzzle I quite enjoyed -- even while ignoring half the theme.
"The answer to 'Shortchange' isn't DECEIVE. It's DEPRIVE." Nancy, CRAB LOUIE was helpful to me to get the right answer there.
@Nancy "Doesn't every film try to appeal to the Oscar voters?" Huh? No! Of course not! The vast majority of films try to appeal only to numerous ticket-buyers. 'Oscar bait' refers (I think) to self- consciously Serious Drama, often replete with period costumes and/or Serious Actors portraying the Differently Abled. It's a specific genre.
I didn’t have much on my initial pass through the acrosses and I thought something fishy was going on. And I was right! And I was hooked. Fortunately the downs were much easier and I was able to reel this one in without too much agita. Not the trickiest Thursday ever, but cute enough.
I think a minor claim to fame of mine might be that I'm the only person on the planet who's sung Auld Lang SYNE on all Seven Continents. On January 1st of this year, I celebrated NYE on my seventh continent, having drunkenly sung Auld Lang SYNE each time.
@Steven M. If you want to extend your record, you could repeat the continents using the original (better!) tune for Auld Lang Syne. Here it is: <a href="https://youtu.be/x5KWTlXkGlM" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/x5KWTlXkGlM</a>
"Toys for tots, perhaps" is obviously TOPS, right? Couldn't be POTS... Wait a minute – TYPO was such a great AHA moment!
@Down_Home Same here. I thought that was a great clue.
@Down_Home I dont get it and think it's a poor clue
@Down_Home i am having trouble understanding this clue… could you explain it to me please 😊
The only things making this puzzle Thursday-difficult were c;iues about GenZ and Mario stuff. I don't even know if my own children are Z's (or X, Y, or what-all.) I have never had anything to do with those Mario brothers, though once I did play Pac-Man...and was reduced to holleriing, "Run!!" Here's hoping we don't have another debate about the utterings of baby goats vs. baby sheep. Bah! The clue at 41A gets my vote for The Winner/Best Stumper of the Puzzle...possibly of The Year! RHONE wanted that spot SO badly, but I knew it could never be correct....and even when I finally (and I do mean FINALly) entered the D, it took me a second to understand. Good one, fellas. Happy to be home, but...wow, Seattle was lovely!
It's silly Thursday. No trick today, but quite silly. Was 38A mocking yesterday's puzzle?)
@Barry Ancona 😂😂😂 I think you're right! I had no idea puzzles were mean to each other like that!
As someone from Ogden, that is the last waterfall in Utah that even occurred to me because it’s man made. It’s just spillage from a pipeline. It’s not real. Does anyone outside the state even know about that waterfall?
I knew the answer had to be OGDEN, but I didn't know about the waterfall until I looked it up (well post-solve). <a href="https://www.visitogden.com/blog/chasing-waterfalls-in-ogden-utah" target="_blank">https://www.visitogden.com/blog/chasing-waterfalls-in-ogden-utah</a>/
@Eric Godfrey I've been to Ogden, Utah, but never knew about the waterfall. Today's Google Doodle celebrates the 100th Anniversary of Route 66. But on that trip, we didn't take Route 66 but a northern route. My co-driver had family in Ogden. We went through Reno; Ogden; Jackson Hole; Grand Tetons; Yellowstone; Cody, Wyoming (home to a great museum of Western art); on to Rapid City, South Dakota, where we were almost in a flood; Ann Arbor, Michigan (where my co-driver had attended university); Chicago; Pennsylvania where there was so much rain that the vehicles formed a convoy driving slowly and in order behind the lead vehicle; and onto, by some miracle, New York.
@Eric Godfrey I was on an (hush-hush) assignment in Ogden in ‘93, when CNN exposed it. We had to relocate quickly. Maybe you remember that story? I’d not heard of such a waterfall, either.
@Eric Godfrey fellow Ogdenite. I've never even heard of it. Is it just that pipe that runs off Pineview? Lol
@Eric Godfrey Not being from the US this was the one I googled and STILL couldn't find the answer - so yes it was tough.
@Eric Godfrey - I also live in Ogden and it was my last fill because I thought the clue surely couldn't be referring to the leaky pipe!
Great job. Really clever. Fun gimmick.
Fun theme but obnoxious levels of trivia crossing in multiple areas. What's the point? I think I'm going to get into cryptic I'm sick of having to google arbitrary bs. The amounts of trivia lately has gone full throttle. Not enjoyable.
@M - I treat the puzzles as scavenger hunts. I look up the trivia I don't know and move on.
@M "I think I'm going to get into cryptic I'm sick of having to google arbitrary bs." I recently tried to get into cryptic crosswords, and this statement is the funniest thing I've read in a while! (If intentional, I applaud you; if not, here's why I laughed...) The word "sailor" in a clue can imply the letters "AB" in the answer (for Able Boatman, I think?) and the word "book" can imply the letters "NT" (for New Testament). That's where I gave up, but I wish you luck.
@M if you’re looking to get into cryptics, Parseword and Minute Cryptic are a couple of online, single-clue games worth checking out (both free & have a new puzzle daily). A great way to dip your toe into the cryptic pool before facing a full grid. Warning: you may start anagramming everything.
@M The point is to use the *crosses* to help with unfamiliar entries. Being familiar with the relative frequencies of letters and digrams in English is surprisingly helpful as well. I haven't resorted to a look-up in years. Trying to be helpful here, not snarky.
@M What you call "trivia" I call the base of general knowledge in the current US. Same thing, different attitude. What I don't know, I learn. And what I'm not interested in, I learn to get better at crosswords, and be able to act like I have some idea of what people are talking about at parties. Someone complained about BEN HOGAN, a golfer whose last tournament win was sometime in the 50s. But he was a major star (think along the lines of Babe Ruth in baseball) and is still known as the eponym for a line of golf products. I have never watched golf, nor was I alive when Hogan was a star, but somehow I knew his name. How? I have no idea. Learning trivia is like batting practice in baseball.
[Fear of a launderer] Yep. I went for STAIN hook, line and sinker. WHAT NERVE! 😂
Am I the first to comment on the lovely column? I thought Sean's description of the multiple entryways to solving was quite Poe-etic. And true to my experience.
No, No, you are not the first to comment on the column; you are the first to call the column lovely.
This was nice and chewy but still pretty straightforward for Thurs. Felt like a great Weds puzzle. I was reading the hooks left to right and thought NOT TAP was some oscar winner I had never heard of!
@Charles Nelson Reilly You've never heard of the Coen Sisters' famous movie "NOT TAP", a whimsical faux bio of a failed tapdancing Vaudeville hoofer who veers into ballet due to his sensitivity to percussive sounds? It's brilliant. A bit long but the Jazz Swan Lake dream sequence rivals their siblings' LEBOWSKI bowling vision scene in a NY minute > /dontgoogleitimadeitup <
I may be expecting too much but I would've liked to have seen more of a connection between the particular hook (the movie) and either the fish or the cross containing the fish. It seemed a bit random and not really bait worthy. I was snagged but not landed.
I thought the construction was clever and unexpected. Thanks!
This theme, for me, was more of "appreciate after completion" than "help solving puzzle". This is not a criticism-- I love both -- but by the time I figured the theme out, the only themed across left was POP____T, which could have been any number of four letter fish. In the top left I had CRude before CRASS, but then _uBB_ didn't make sense. Put in RABBI and let CRA__ percolate and it came out fine. I still hate not being able to refer to the grid while commenting (unless I navigate separately to Wordplay in my browser, which is a pain even with bookmark). Grumble.
@Isabeau Yes this bugs me to no end also, constantly having to go back and forth . Maybe I should take a screen shot in the future, although even then I like to quickly look at the clues too.
@Isabeau I solve in the NYT Games app on iPhone, and clicking the “i” at the top right when the grid is shown then tapping “Get solving tips” on the next screen opens the column in the NYT news app. Can easily switch between puzzle grid and column/comments by swiping up at the bottom then tapping the other app. I know not how it might work on Android. Mark
@Isabeau I mostly use my iPad to solve (in the NYT Games app) and comment (in the NYT website). To see the puzzle easily when commenting, I sometimes open the appropriate page at xwordinfo.com. (I think Steve L. originally suggested that.)
This puzzle felt tough as I was going through it, moving around a lot, nibbling away at it. And like others, I found the southeast tricky. But then I finished at 75 percent of my Thursday average. Weird. Or, as someone else might describe it, about 600 percent less than my average time.
Typical tough Thursday for me, and must confess that I really wasn't catching on to the theme at all until I after I had it all filled in. No big deal - that's just me. And of course a puzzle find today. A Wednesday from March 17, 1999 by Myles Callum. Three grid-spanning theme entries in that one. One clue and answer example: "Basketball's Archibald injured the Dalai Lama, palindromically." NATEBITATIBETAN And the other two theme answers: BOMBARDADRABMOB TOOBADIHIDABOOT Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/17/1999&g=36&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/17/1999&g=36&d=A</a> Oh, and NATEBITATIBETAN was a clue in one other puzzle - a Wednesday from February 14, 1996 by C. Lundberg. The two other theme answers in that one: ABLEROFFFORELBA SLUGOMAHAMOGULS I'm done. ....
I had SALMON for dinner, but those omega-3s don't seem to have done much for my brain, maybe because I had a lot on my mind today. For someone who loves music, I just couldn't wrap my head around _O_ CHART being anything other than a gangster's [hit list.] I went completely blank, not even the crossers could save me, so I came to the column and...TADA! At the start, I was a bit worried when I saw it was a puzzle co-created by Mr. Kugelman because I always find his puzzles super clever but also a workout. If only the salmon had given me the oomph I needed... Still, all's well that ends well. However long it took for me to tackle this puzzle, I enjoyed every minute of it. (And now I get to read the comments while listening to Hall & OATES... <a href="https://youtu.be/ccenFp_3kq8?si=cWrOZ7e9T5CFrR-E" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/ccenFp_3kq8?si=cWrOZ7e9T5CFrR-E</a>)
@sotto voce Hall & OATES were at the peak of their fame during my high school days. They’ve never been favorites of mine (sorry; can we still be friends?). I managed to not listen to them for decades until one ski trip to Utah about 10 years ago. Every single time we were in the cafeteria at Brighton (our favorite resort), we heard at least one or two Hall & Oates songs. (You don’t need oldies radio to hear “classic rock.” You just need to hang out in ski resorts.) Have some salmon for me. I love it. We don’t get it much in the Four Corners area. (Though I’m told that the place where we buy the fantastic beef we eat too often also has great seafood flown in twice a week. Not PNW fresh, but on the plus side, it’s almost always sunny here.)
@sotto voce That long intro, just waiting to see those 80s outfits and the hair. Here's a version with CEE LO Green Live at Daryl's House. <a href="https://youtu.be/U98RMxIMrng?si=rA4moun5l8pVY9kT" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/U98RMxIMrng?si=rA4moun5l8pVY9kT</a> @Eric Hougland No, we can't still be friends. :) I'm just a few years older than you, maybe older enough to make Hall and Oates more palatable.
@sotto voce POPCHART is green paint, imo.
Calling a term that has existed in AAVE for decades and only recently been appropriated “Gen Z slang” is a bizarre choice to put it mildly.
Good morning! I got the fish in the shaded boxes, but didn't even stop to consider the circled letters. I really should pay more attention to construction - this was simply elegant. Thanks for a lovely Thursday.
the construction is impressive but the absurd amounts of trivia just kills the enjoyment of these puzzles. there's nothing to solve ... you either know the trivia or you just shrug and look it up. the nytxw and jeopardy! venn diagram continues to increase in overlap.
Solving The New York Times Crossword has always required being well read. If anything, less is required today.
@Charles there’s no trivia in this puzzle. There are perhaps a few things that you did not know, and that are easily deduced from crosses and from having done a crossword puzzle before. It’s got four letters, you knew it was Cher, it’s always Cher.
I love both salmon and trout but I've never had char. I just looked it up and learned that it's in the same family and the three are very closely related. Thought that was kind of neat. I'm going to have to find us some char to try. Enjoyed the clues for pate, obey, and drama. Some other fun ones. A fine puzzle! I have learned many things from doing the crosswords these last couple years, but I don't think I shall ever, no matter how many I do, remember the names or initialisms of game consoles. It's never caused any real problems but I don't know why it doesn't stick like so many other things do. Probably because I don't have a way to reference it, like when I learned agora, agoraphobia, fear of the marketplace... Voila! Oh well, pobody's nerfect!
@HeathieJ Interesting take. The three kinds of fish are all in the family Salmonidaeand so have some similarities, but to avid anglers, salmon, trout and char are three very different categories with different life cycles, preferred habitats, methods of angling,and other characteristics. All are delicious, and some say char species are the best. They prefer the coldest cleanest water which probably contributes to their excellent texture and flavor. Unfortunately, I can’t fish for any of those where I am currently, but I know you, as a lover of tropical locales, would appreciate that I did my puzzle this morning sitting on my crossword – friendly LANAI overlooking the OCEAN on KAUAI!
Definitely benefitted from sleeping on this one. Woke up and what seemed unsolvable last night suddenly was right there. (Still can't believe how many letters I had before SHREK dawned.) Even though it wasn't a "Tricky" Thursday per se, there were plenty of tricky clues. I had fun solving. Thanks, guys. PS Never heard the phrase DO A good turn. I had One for a very long time.
@Vaer Obviously, you were not a Cub Scout. "Do a good turn daily" is their motto.
@Grant No I wasn't. Nor was i ever involved with them in any manner. So thanks for the explanation. .
This was a nice, tricky puzzle. It had some good misdirects, a lot of unknowns and uncertains for me, which I like. I want some crunch in my puzzle. Yet,... I saw the revealer, I got the theme, and I can see that it's clever, but... Somehow I'm still unimpressed. I want more on a Thursday. I blame myself.
Fun! SE took a second but oscar bait is worth it as a theme
Today's poem made from words found in today’s puzzle <br> <br> a/ we go the way of all things<br> the past leaves the bones <br> in the tombs left <br> the name of the egyptian king carved in to <br><br>never<br> a billy goat’s cry<br> d/ and we are here perhaps<br> and what am i perhaps a parade of words<br> brief new i you awesome good put away<br> a/ come close<br> stay<br>
I thought the theme was great, even though I didn't pick up on the movie names being hooks for the fish. I noticed the two thematic categories separately. I also enjoyed the puns and misdirects. Unfortunately for me, trivia clues crossing trivia clues is my weakness, so I had to do some half-cheating Googling (e.g., "golfer Ben H"). Overall, I enjoyed it, and I can't relate to all the huffing and puffing in the comments.
@R.J. Smith Yes, really. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drip" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drip</a> "6 African American English : a fashionable style or look" "also : something (such as fashionable clothing or jewelry) that is part of one's drip" Just because you haven't heard a word doesn't mean it isn't real.
My Bubbie used to make chopped liver with sautéed onions and schmaltz. No, PATE, you are definitely not it.
I strongly disagree with Sean's take on the cluing for 41A. How anyone was expected to deduce that it referred to "Rhode" Island is beyond me.
Sean *did* say it was difficult for him, and he did *not* say he got the answer straight from the clue without any crosses. (I had the R and the H from crosses before reading the 41A clue; it didn't require much deduction at that point.)
@William Kash Because RICO was too short?
@William Kash what else could it be
@William Kash Deduced from crosses, like any other tpugh clue. I originally had RURAL, as in Mayberry RFD.
I entered it on my first pass through the empty grid, and thought, “that can’t be right but what else could it be?” I was tickled when it held through the crosses. So, me?
@Cool Papa Bell I tried ROUTE. More common use for R on envelopes in my experience!
Loved all of the movie themed clues in this one. The gimmick didn’t do much for me, but they rarely do, so hey. Perhaps a tad on the easy side for this late into the week, though the SE corner was brutal. Putting the name of an old golf player as the vanguard to a trivia-heavy section made it pretty impenetrable. Why it wasn’t included in the Wordplay column as a tricky clue, even when it was alluded to, is beyond me. Not bad, not great. Happy Thursday!
A bit of a natick for me at the cross of 53 down and 61 across. If you don’t know the spellings, you don’t hear the music. Had to consult the answer key. But… so it goes in crossword puzzling.