"You can't remember how to play Scrabble?" "I'm drawing a blank." ("Well, that's pointless.")
Mike, Pointless but very useful. (Triple Crossword Score)
@Mike Did you have to rack your brain for that one? By the way, my mother always liked the blank because it always made it easier for her to find a good word since she was getting on a bit—she called it “an old wives’ tile”.
@Mike Don't say another word. You've got this one in the bag. Anyway, there's a 50/50 chance you've still got all your marbles if you'd like to play something else.
@Mike Well, there's no tile like the present tile to rack it up again.
My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. Slice of Life or nick of Time? (5)(3) 2. They typically come in sets of four (4) 3. "What on earth WILL you show some respect for?" (3)(7)(6) 4. Overtook? (7) 5. What might add a bit of flavor to a salsa? (5) PAPER CUT PAWS IS NOTHING SACRED HOARDED BONGO
My favorite encore clues from last week: [Does as a group?] (4) [You're doing it every day] (5) DEER AGING
On #3 of the original clues it should be -- (2)(7)(6). I'm sorry for the goof and I hope it didn't cause anyone any trouble!
@Lewis I think #1 should be in the running for clue of the year.
@Lewis I have to admit, I just got #5 after reading your comment... when I did the crossword I was stumped, lol
@Lewis Overtook? for HOARDED was a cut above IMO. I remember reading the clue referencing Time and Life and wondering if younger solvers would get the references. Nice niche you've carved out for yourself here, congrats.
By Monday standards pretty tough. Having the inherently ambiguous EEG in there with a crossing like NEW ERA not everyone has heard of. Then ATHEISM crosssing ASMR which people have never heard of when ATHEIST arguably fits the phrasing better. Just confusing and ambiguous for a Monday.
@Chris It was the clue “bikini and others” that I thought wasn’t Monday. I reflexively put ATOLLS on first pass, but thought I’ll probably have to erase that later.
Chris, ATHEISM is the grammatically correct answer; ATHEISt would be incorrect. ASMR was here just a month ago, on a Monday, from the same constructor. I've never heard of NEWERA (as clued), but EEG was a no brainer (as it were).
@Chris I just learned ASMR last month as well. That might have given me pause otherwise but agree with Barry ATHEISM makes more sense grammatically. Never heard of NEWERA either. Just out of curiosity why is EEG ambiguous? EKG/ECG is a Kealoa but not sure what else “brain tests” could be (maybe MRIS but none other letters overlap?)
@Barry Ancona I was just going to write a comment about the reappearance of ASMR so soon and by the same constructor. This time I recognized what the clue wanted, and fortunately the crosses provided the correct order of the letters. Next month I might actually remember the order.
@Chris EEG is a brain test. - electroencephalogram. ECG (aka EKG) is a heart test. - electrocardiogram Others, if I remember what you said, were more general scans, I think
@Chris You all do realize that NEWERA is two words?
@Chris I’m ok with asmr but a brand name crossing with an acronym is clunky for a monday.
@Chris How is EEG "inherently ambiguous"? The clue and answer were very straightforward. ATHEISM fits the clue, but atheist does not. An atheist is one who lacks faith; ATHEISM is the lack of faith. I think, when you say "people have never heard of" ASMR, you mean you have never heard of ASMR. It is a very popular genre of video on YouTube, and has been for years. Millions upon millions of people have heard of it.
And with that, I hit my first 365 day streak! For years I have been wanting to teach myself how to do a "proper crossword", and somewhere along the road, stumbled across the NYT crossword. As a Brit with a different approach to spelling (what's the colour of aluminium I hear you ask?!!), I definitely didn't make life easy for myself but regardless, started plodding away day by day. Only 18 months ago I managed to break free of the shackles of the Thursday, progressing to the Friday (with huge thanks to the Easy Mode newsletter for teaching the tricks of the trade!) and the tackle the impenetrable Saturday. Replacing the social media app so often clicked on my phone front page with the NYT Games app, doing puzzles instead of doomscrolling, the streak started in earnest. With a little assistance from my "partner-in-crime" wife still on the weekends (Sundays are her fav, she can't resist getting involved!) , the year flew past with the fun, discovery and challenge of puzzling. Thanks so much to all the constructors and the NYT puzzle team over the past 365 days for their hard work - it has been a wild ride, and long may it continue! Right, time to start delving the archives!
@Si Congrats! I'm always impressed that non-US players are able to navigate some of the niche Americentric clues, so doubly well-done!
@Si Congratulations and welcome to the Foreign Crossworders Club! I had the same experience as you; it took forever to get the US spelling of so many words, plus sports names/terms, ditto products, tv actors, politicians, State motto/flower/animals etc and so on. It’s a great way to expand our knowledge of the culture of our cousins across the water.
In the ice cream parlor I owned with my hubby (who made the cream) for twelve years, we offered cakes. Smallest size was a 6” round. Decorating them was on me, and I was quite proud of my prowess with an icing bag and gel tubes. One woman called and asked for “Happy Birthday Victoria” to be written on it. Tricky, because with piping around the edge I was left with only about a 4” circle as my canvas. “And could you add horses?” …?… I saiid I’d *try* to squeeze in some horse head, somehow. “But not tame. She loves wild horses, so the horse should look like a horse running free on the beach.” In - at most - a 1” square. With frosting. A wild-eyed untethered, majestic animal with a sea breeze flowing through its billowing mane. Some days, I miss our little microcreamery. Some days, I do not.
@CCNY 🤣🤣🤣 What a delightful read!
I’m not an expert on Mondays, but this seemed like a tougher Monday? I guess we’ll see. I’ve always heard the expression, no fuss, no muss. Either I learned the expression wrong or people say a different ways. I’m sad. The World Cup is over. nothing compares to the excitement of the global game. Not to get to political, but did Trump have to hand out every medal. I mean the leaders of Mexico and Canada didn’t get to do anything, and they cohosted this tournament. Of course, I’m not surprised by our president. but I would have thought FIFA would’ve been a little more equitable Smh.
@Weak "...I would have thought FIFA would’ve been a little more equitable..." Hilarious. I thought it was a somewhat tougher than usual puzzle, but my feelings are all mixed up the the problem with the Greek and US letters I mention below. It's the first blue star Monday puzzle I've ever had, since I starting solving the NYT puzzles seriously.
@Weak Early numbers from xwstats.com say no: 🌎 Global Stats Difficulty Average Median Solve Time 4:43 Median Solver 7% faster ⚡68% of users solved faster than their Monday average. 29% solved much faster (>20%) than their Monday average. 🐢32% of users solved slower than their Monday average. 4% solved much slower (>20%) than their Monday average. My solve was a little faster than average. But just like your experience, a sample size of one is meaningless.
@Steve Median solve time 4:43. lol. Does everyone solve on a laptop, where you can ‘type’ in entries? Maybe iPad using two hand typing? I wanna see a video of a 3 minute solve of someone holding the phone in one hand and entering with their thumb like I do. I’m not mad that folks solve so quickly. I just can’t picture it, when solving from a phone.
@Weak I think the emus ate my reply to this. Well, I'm sure you can imagine. I hear the crowd was loudest when they booed the Orange Menace when he was presenting the award to Spain. Good.
Oddly difficult today. I just wasn't on the right wavelength, I guess. Even a Monday can throw you a curve from time to time.
My brother is proudly dyslexic and i hope it’s not too politically incorrect to say that i invented something called dyslexic scrabble — you have to spell the words wrong. It’s great fun and quick and much less arduous than real scrabble. Difficult tiles are a breeze because you can use them to spell words like LANGWIJ or CHIQIN or BOOX. Or, for a confident spelur, ZAILAFOWN. Try it! Prepare for a challenge if you accidentally spell something correctly! PS A fun Monday puzzle today, i used only the Across clues and finished in 18:09. Yay!
@Petrol That sounds like a lot of fun! I'll have to try it sometime.
@Petrol Wait....I would insist the MISspelled words sound like an actual word. It's not just a free-for-all. As a sp ed tchr, I love the concept...
@Petrol I was playing Scrabble at work (lunch hour) and my opponent laid down BRAW. When I challenged, he responded, "Braw, like a woman wears." He was from Kentucky, not dyslexic.
I had already uncovered the theme answers, and when I revealed I FEEL FOR YOU, then looked at LIGHT SWITCH, it was a big “Huh?”, and then came a big “Oh!”, when I realized, “Ah, when it’s dark!” And I actually pictured feeling for a light switch in a dark room. I made a similar leap when I went from picturing SCRABBLE TILEs on the game board to the ones in the bag. And I pictured feeling for them in said bag; I even heard the sound made when the fingers jostle those in-bag tiles. How often do puzzles draw in the imagination like that? That made this puzzle a cut above for me. Adding serendipitous spice were a trio of palindromes (ALA, EKE, PUP), a profusion of double E’s (9!), and a rare-in-crosswords five-letter semordnilap (STRAW). A sweet experience all around, a lovely wake-up for the week ahead. Thank you, Eric!
P.S. -- Amazed that LIGHT SWITCH, SCRABBLE TILE, and I FEEL FOR YOU have never been in a Times puzzle before.
Another thing you might feel for: LOSTGLASSES
The SCRABBLE TILE theme entry reminded me that at age 5, shortly after being introduced to Scrabble by my grandparents, I developed an amazing ability to sense via braille which letter I was about to pluck out of the bag of tiles, and pick something else if it wasn't the letter I wanted. This was not unrelated to my grandfather's offer of a dollar if I ever got a seven-letter word.
@MJ Grammatically, but that’s not usually how the sign reads.
@MJ I am really with you. For some reason, misuse of "less" and "fewer" is something that really grates on my ear, and I have no idea why.
@MJ In most other languages I’m aware of, this distinction is not made. In Spanish, for example, “menos” is used in either case; the same for “moins” in French. It’s a distinction that serves no purpose, so it’ll probably die out eventually.
@MJ “I couldn’t care less” or is that “I could care less” 😉
@MJ You can't expect the people in line to be sticklers for grammar when clearly they can't even count.
Slightly chewy Monday and I needed to stare at the revealer for a while before I got it, but nothing wrong with that. Life settling back to normal now the World Cup has run its course. The best team won. The less said about antics post match the better.
Regarding questionable signage at the grocery store, I once saw a hand-lettered sign at mine proscribing "pandering," among other things. I asked the manager if he had an issue with prostitution in the parking lot. (It was a rough part of Columbus.) The sign was supposed to read "no panhandling."
@Grant Loved your grocery store memory ;-) :-)
@Grant Well, you just taught me another meaning for the word pandering.
Yay, España! (or Olé)
Well, the first words of each themer had nothing in common and the second words of each themer had nothing in common so therefore all the answers as a whole had to have something in common. So I tried to figure out what? You flick it on? Nah. It sits on a rack? Nah. It jingles? Nah. I could have stared at the puzzle until the cows came home and not figured out the common bond. Even when I had IF...FORYOU, I didn't figure it out. IF NOT FOR YOU? I FELL FOR YOU? And then...bingo! The SCRABBLE answer must mean that the tiles you pick from are in a bag. I think that when I played SCRABBLE w-a-a-a-y back in the day, we put the tiles face down on the table and picked carefully from the group -- as carefully as if we could actually see what they were. What a waste of time turning all those tiles upside down after each game. A bag would have been so much better. A cute and original idea for a puzzle theme -- boasting a nice junk-free grid. Well, with the exception of ASMR. You can tell me I've seen it before and I probably have -- but however many times I see it, I will never have the vaguest idea what it means, nor will I remember the clue. That's a promise. And one nit at 4D. ATHEISM is far more likely to stem from never having had faith than from having had it once and now having it "no more." The "no more" in the clue is cutesy but inaccurate. Still -- I wish that all Mondays were as breezy, as junk-free and as enjoyable.
@Nancy I used to have (some) faith but I grew out of it 🤷🏽
Nancy, Inaccurate? SRSLY? You know crossword clues and answers need not be the most common case.
@Nancy @Barry Ancona I thought the clue was phrased that way as a bit of wordplay because there's a rock group of that name, though I have no idea if they have anything to do with ATHEISM.
Nancy — I agree about atheism. But do we have any hard data about that?
@Nancy While the others go down the rabbit hole on the ATHEISM clue, I'd like to share that ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, and refers to the tingling sensations from the scalp to the neck and down the spine that are triggered by various stimuli, such as soft touch and oddly satisfying sounds. Common cultural use of the term most often refers specifically to audio stimulus that triggers the response, as opposed to the response itself (e.g. "ASMR videos" of soft speaking or crinkling paper). Perhaps familiarity with it is strongly correlated with age (I'm on the younger side of 28), but I actually found that cloud and answer to be one of the quickest and most plainly obvious of this puzzle. To each their own strengths!
poem made from words in today’s puzzle a/ in my orchard of regret is a small hammock for the scarecrow — who had a brain — and i regret to say the scarecrow is d/ not thinking more on this it’s a shame, really… who’s to go and put back the a/ wet straw
If only I weren't so full of GLEE for Spain creaming Argentina in the World Cup final, I might make SELECCION ARGENTINA a theme entry in this puzzle... but alas (and please forgive my lack of compassion and the tinge of schadenfreude) I am not feeling even a bit for the losing team... Congrats to Spain for a beautiful game and well-deserved trophy! Congrats as well to Mr. Rollfing for yet another lovely romp, and thank you! NEWERA and ALGI were complete unknowns, and I had to wait a while for EEGs and DRIVER to come to me and resolve the white squares. That was a nice bit of spice for a Monday. Wishing all a wonderful week, I do something I haven't yet done – link to a full album. <a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_koE4rtsIJ002pzrNOUIjuhnft_Aun9pkY&si=DRwJv1dzRucPhER4" target="_blank">https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_koE4rtsIJ002pzrNOUIjuhnft_Aun9pkY&si=DRwJv1dzRucPhER4</a> The album is Talk Talk's "The Colour of Spring" which contains the song "CHAMELEON Day." Aside from the puzzle having sparked the song in my mind, I link the full album because I'm a huge fan of Talk-Talk, consider Mark Hollis (RIP) a genius musician, and regret terribly that they were one of the most underrated bands of the 80s. This year it will have been 40 years since the album was published, and Hollis's fusion of jazz and art-pop remains timeless. This is my small way of honoring him.
@sotto voce 1-0 qualifies as a "creaming"? I'll probably never understand soccer style football. I don't dislike it, and in fact I even like highly defensive sports with limited scoring (A 2-1 baseball game with a total of 22 runners left on base is ideal for me. But when it comes to point differentials, the language surrounding it is strange to me. Anyway, thanks for the music recommendations.
sotto voce, You must have filled ALIG from crosses -- or missed a day? -- when he was here last with the same clue: Thu May 7, 2026 34D Sacha Baron Cohen character John Guzzetta and Jeff Chen
@Francis Sotto has some Brazilian them. So you can’t blame them for being happy Argentina lost. But game was pretty much total control by Spain. The score is deceiving. But that is what makes soccer and hockey compelling. A goal is always a split second away. I am glad it didn’t go to PK though. I love the drama but hate that is how a game is decided.
@sotto voce Empire State building lit up for Spain tonight. <a href="https://www.esbnyc.com/about/tower-lights" target="_blank">https://www.esbnyc.com/about/tower-lights</a>
@sotto voce I didn't recall ALI G until I had AL- in there. I wanted BORAT (not sure if it's the same comic.) I still haven't found an explanation for ASMR (even after I "fixed" my error.)
@sotto voce I only remember Ali G because he spoofed a guy I used to work with. Before he worked for us, he worked for the FBI, and Cohen’s character used the guy’s (somewhat naive) sincerity against him. He was a good sport, and told us to check out the video. <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e_GNSD9JSiE" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e_GNSD9JSiE</a>
That was quick but fun! I'm all caught up with my crosswords now, since I started my vacation on Saturday (I was a few days behind). I noticed that the Midi has started keeping track of streaks, previously my stars were all blue but now a bunch are gold. I hardly ever carry cash anymore, it's nice not to have to fumble around for POCKET CHANGE. My purse feels a lot lighter too, lol Count me as one who has their SCRABBLE TILEs in a Crown Royal bag! 😂
@Janine But what do abstainers and Muslims do?
SBK, They use a Crown Royal bag.
As someone from Hungary, today’s puzzle was so refreshing! It relied more on vocabulary than on American sports for example, so I barely had to guess with the autocheck feature. Really enjoyed it, thank you!
"10 ___ or less" (sign at checkout)" If it is countable then it's "fewer", not "less".
@wlieu We all know that. Most of the supermarket signs don’t care. The clue is asking what is on the signs, not what’s grammatically correct. (Not to mention that the grammatical distinction is a difference that doesn’t make a difference, so in time, it’ll change, anyway.)
@wlieu A friend of mine who was a newspaper editor convinced a grocery store manager to change the sign to "Ten ITEMS or fewer"
@wlieu At the risk of getting on the wrong side of any strict grammarians, I have to say that a language is a living, breathing thing. Making it go back where it came from is not easy to accomplish. My personal pet peeves are: 1) when people say "stunning" for something yucky, like a "stunning pile-up on a highway in the snow" or even "a stunning volcano erupting" 2) when people pronounce "blender drink" like "blinder drink" and "Wednesday" like "Windsday" 3) when people say "sthring" for "string" and "sthreet" for "street" But these changes--just like "10 items or less"-- are probably inevitable and trying to undo them is as impossible as making a puzzle that everyone will like!
@wlieu about 25 years ago the Co-oP in Berkeley changed their signs to “fewer”, and it sparked a change all over the east bay, at least. When I saw this clue was surprised the NYTimes would help enforce this bad grammar since the correct grammar in this widely known phrase helps figure out in other situations what the proper wording should be.
Inspired by the picture Sam's provided us today, here's the Rolling Stones and Florence Welch with a beautiful rendition of Wild Horses from some years ago. <a href="https://youtu.be/-8YRkL_pzQA?si=Egxu0Bum622h_tQe" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/-8YRkL_pzQA?si=Egxu0Bum622h_tQe</a> Aside to the constructor: There's an episode of the TV show The Closer that has storing a gun in a Crown Royal bag as a plot point.
@Vaer Nice. I loved the pictures of the horses, too. My mind always runs to Michael Murphy's "Wildfire". <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc3OnSQc48s" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc3OnSQc48s</a> I wish I was a horse.
@Francis Well, that was cheerful. I love horses, too, but am deathly allergic to them.
Fine, straightforward Monday grid but a pretty bland theme today, in my opinion. For this to be interesting or amusing to me I’d like to see each entry reflect a slightly different take on the revealer; for these, you FEEL for them in all the same ways. Frankly I didn’t even see how SCRABBLETILE worked here until I read the column. Ok, I guess you feel for it in the bag when you pick it, but you don’t really “feel” for it like you do with a light switch or loose change when you grope around for it trying to find it; you just pull one out of the bag and they are right there. So, meh for me today; but hard to get worked up over a Monday.
@SP You're obviously a person with a strong ETHIC, but some folks—far less honest than you and I—might feel for the etched shapes in the bag. ☺️
@SP The naticky crossing of some Ioser politician, a brand of *baseball caps*, and an abbreviation of a medical test actually made me look up the brand 🤷🏽. The name of an American brand can be anything (I will never forget my shock at first seeing TCBY in these puzzles), and people's names often surprise me with their spelling, too (looking at you, Hoda Kotb). I didn't get the theme, either - I've never played Scrabble or carried change in my pocket (um, wallets?) - so I couldn't see the connection between the revealer and theme entries 🤷🏽
I would have gotten your clue right away. Our Scrabble tiles are also stored in a Crown Royal bag!
@Wendy Yes, definitely! Purple bag with gold drawstrings
@Wendy Upside-down in the box top. (Vintage Scrabble game that was my Grandparents' property...when the game was new. ...they were born in the 1890's.)
@Wendy My Crown Royal bag hold my polyhedral dice for D&D. My mother picked out the liquor logo when I was a kid, as she deemed it inappropriate.
One more puzzle find - a Thursday from October 24, 2019 by Matt Ginsberg. All of the theme answer clues began with: "When prefixed with 72-across...". Some of those theme answers: BUTHEBEST TOSNEEZEAT UPMYSLEEVE LEFTBEHIND And... the last across in that puzzle was 71-across, so there was no 72-across. Thought that was pretty clever. ....
Oh. I thought the plural of "spouse" would obviously be "spice."
Eric, your comment about a Crown Royal bag reminded me of finding same bag hidden in a drop ceiling of a rental I lived in 40 years ago. Hoping to find $$, I was disappointed to find only a very old stash of Mary Jane. [No, didn’t smoke it]
Last night this one topped off a very enjoyable solving weekend. Even did Sunday's, which I normally skip, but this time I rose to the occasion. Many thanks to all.
Was on AUTOPILOT for most of this until it came time to crack the theme, which was pretty clever! So this was a very good Monday puzzle!
Solved this one using only the horizontal clues, which made figuring out the thematic entries and the revealer a lot more fun than usual. Last box filled was the G common to EEGS and ALIG, only because ALIG looked so utterly wrong to me. But EEGS seemed the only option, so in went the G. Found the theme rather weak, but it was compensated for by the interesting long vertical entries. Mondays are a lot more fun now that I've started using just half the clues. So, while I have the time to spend, I think I'll continue solving Monday puzzles in this way.
@Xword Junkie I've been doing the Across-only challenge, too, on Mondays and Tuesdays, and had the same problem with ALIG that you did. I put it in and thought I'd come back later when I learned that something was amiss, but got the Gold Star instead.
Weird Al knows the difference: <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc&list=RD8Gv0H-vPoDc&start_radio=1&pp=ygUUd2VpcmQgYWwgd29yZCBjcmltZXOgBwE" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc&list=RD8Gv0H-vPoDc&start_radio=1&pp=ygUUd2VpcmQgYWwgd29yZCBjcmltZXOgBwE</a>%3D (at 1:00 min. in)
ASMR is obscure. Probably not quite right for a Monday...
@Jeff P. It really isn't obscure these days
@Jeff P. - "I have not heard of it, therefore it *must* be obscure. It couldn't possibly represent a gap in my own personal knowledge base. I don't have any of those.'
ASMR got me! Never heard of it. So it was atheism not atheist! Ouch!
@David Gropper I needed to flyspeck to work that one out. It almost got me too!
This has never happened before. I finished the puzzle with little effort. It said I had a mistake, I went over and over and over it. I finally got sick of looking and did "Reveal Puzzle". It said the "M" in FARM was wrong, at the cross with MUSS. I revealed the letter, and it said M. Did no one else have this problem?
I think I found the problem. My keyboard has a key which shifts from US letters to Greek letters. I must have accidentally had the "Greek" selected when I put in the "M", which looks identical to the US "M". That's one for the record books. It's alarming enough to try to deal with 0 and O, now I have M (US) and Μ(Greek).
@Francis Wow that is an odd issue. I have the Greek keyboard as well but that’s never happened to me
@Francis When I get sick and tired of flyspecking for a typo or error I can't see, I reset the puzzle and start over. This has worked for me in the past. Of course, the better solution might be "not caring".
Not a Monday puzzle in my opinion.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Data suggest this is a Monday puzzle (and, of course, so does the calendar). <a href="https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2026-07-20" target="_blank">https://xwstats.com/puzzles/2026-07-20</a>
Did you feel for the switched the light? <a href="https://youtu.be/ZdIJOE9jNcM?si=iYG6RQjYMGVfqAlj" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/ZdIJOE9jNcM?si=iYG6RQjYMGVfqAlj</a>
Definitely need to get checked out...a miss on a Monday! I see it is ASMR, which is equally opaque for me. I asked Audiophile DHubby (at least 60 years of obsession) about ASMR and he's never heard of it. Some kind of reverb? Audio is in the clue, so A is for...?? Help help
@Mean Old Lady ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. It describes a pleasant, static-like tingling sensation that typically begins on the scalp or neck and moves down the spine. Often triggered by specific soft sounds or visual cues, it is frequently used to promote deep relaxation, reduce stress, and aid in sleep
@Mean Old Lady it stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, and it’s the tingling, goosebump inducing sensation received from certain types of audio (this can be anything from whispering to eating pickles). There are content creators and YouTubers whose whole channels are dedicated to this producing this kind of audio for their followers.
thanks, @Francine and @Billy I finally looked it up. I have unusually acute hearing, and noise bothers rather than soothes me. Crinkling paper was suggested (I'd think the cat was up to something); whispering (i'd be trying to understand what was said); and soothing touch--here I quote "Personal Attention: Roleplays that simulate intimate care—such as a haircut, a massage, or a doctor's examination—using spatial audio to make the listener feel present." And right there at "doctor's exam" I clamped my knees together and hit Delete.
@Mean Old Lady I was trying to solve with across clues only, and got stuck at ASMR. I've seen it before, but didn't remember it, nor am I likely to remember it in the future.
NADER crossing with NEW ERA was far too much American trivia for my British Rolodex of crossword knowledge.
If the crossing was the only problem, what letter(s) other than N were you considering?
Breezy for me and I used only the down clues. I had never tried that before. Fun! Though I almost missed my favorite clue of the day (40 Across Blue state?) but I had time and inclination to go back and peruse.
Lost the gold star on Atheist/m. Bummer. Oh well. Cheers and Happy Monday!
@Joe That t/m choice was the last spot I fixed. It was tough for folks like me who aren't familiar with ASMR. I love that you aren't completely focused on the gold star. My sentiments exactly. I'm old and life is getting shorter.
I'm shocked, shocked I say, that ASMR is coming up so frequently in these comments as an unfamiliar clue and answer. Familiarity with ASMR, including its saturation in internet content for many years as to become something of a meme, is something I've clearly taken for granted. It was one of the quickest and most plainly obvious clue and answer for me in this puzzle, which may be in part why I didn't suffer the ATHEIS(M/T) dilemma many others did. Is ASMR age-dependent, or have I just run in exceedingly esoteric circles of the internet? Surely 28 isn't exceptionally young to be enjoying crosswords in the year of our Lord 2026?
@miniMeissner I am shocked that you think it is such a big deal.
I think there was a typo! I had a tough time with the “Begin to grow choppers” because I think it was supposed to be “chompers”. I was only able to complete that clue with solving for the other letters.
Candice, No typo; the clue could have used either one. Choppers and chompers are both informal for teeth.
If you'd like more of a challenge from a fresh puzzle, try: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/crossword/2026/07/20" target="_blank">https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/crossword/2026/07/20</a>
@Barry Ancona Man, I was sailing along thinking it was way too easy for a Natan Last Monday and, bam!, got comletely stuck dead center on the poet laureate and the crossing "went to pieces". A DNF but still a nice challenge.
@Barry Ancona Nice challenge. It embarrassed me that I didn't know who the Poet Laureate is.
Not being sure of how to spell 14 Down, not knowing what 17 Across was, and not recognizing the wordplay at 21 Across flumoxxed me. I thought I was doomed because of the poet and the poem, but they both came in with the crosses. It seemed to be a kinder, gentler Monday New Yorker puzzle, but still a challenge.
I've often thought it would be great if the New Yorker had a forum for the xwords like this one. But I guess that's what the Crossword Fiend is for so I checked that out. Interesting that almost all of the comments are about Natan Last's entry today and much of that not complimentary. FWIW I thought his puzzle today was great and I've even gotten a few chuckles on his wordplay that I missed this morning. <a href="https://crosswordfiend.com/2026/07/19/monday-july-20-2026/#more-189481" target="_blank">https://crosswordfiend.com/2026/07/19/monday-july-20-2026/#more-189481</a>
47D? if only . . . Though the problem is not with the programmers, it's with the implementation. 6D, baseball fact I've never heard from Steve. Karma! earworm <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmcA9LIIXWw" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmcA9LIIXWw</a>
@Linda Jo 6D. It’s never come up before. Anyway, it’s just a sports brand.
Cute, unguessable revealer. Given it's position in the grid I thought SPOUSES was a themer and it works, imo. Late at night in bed when it's dark or in the morning when you don't want to open your eyes yet, one might feel for one's spouse.
Fun puzzle! And, set my new Monday PR at 3:20! ZOOM!!! Hopefully spelling bee takes me a while today!
Daily brain tests for short= Final Jeopardy.
I learned several things today, which is super cool for a Monday! I struggled a bit with this one compared to other Mondays. I realized I’ve often entered the word “atoll” in crosswords (from filling out other clues) but never actually knew what it meant. No bathing suits here!
had SCRABBLEwords for too long, then deleted it all, which is why that area took too long. still, a nice break from yesterday’s crossword.
I can produce some tingling sound samples regarding 31A.
@Brennan Tingling cymbals?