Very difficult for a Tuesday.
@Alex By the standards of the past few years, where difficulty has been watered down to the point of near nonexistence, yeah sure. For the Shortz era in general, this is a perfectly fine, even easy Tuesday.
Hardest tuesday in quite a while, and sadly very Americana focused too. Had a very hard time.
@Mental State G-day, matey, perhaps you can construct one that's Aussie focused. :)
I feel like a lot of obscure trivia made this harder than a Tuesday should be. To me, a fun crossword is able to be solved with enough brain power and time using context clues and such. Now I understand that that simply isn’t possible when making a crossword given how hard it is to make one, however I feel like that should be a factor that determines crossword difficulty. As someone who only plays Mondays and Tuesdays because I can usually solve them in a reasonable time, I was nowhere near able to complete this one. Frankly, it made me frustrated enough to make a comment for the first time.
@Chase I get you. I solved this in Tuesday time, in the end, but it felt like a Friday in places. I enjoyed it, but I understand why you wouldn't if you didn't have experience with late-week grids.
@Chase Welcome to our jolly band.
I found this puzzle to be harder than last Friday’s……..
@Andrew I very much agree. While the easiest crosses were pretty easy, the hardest crosses were virtually impossible or anyone who doesn't know Canary Island geography, or gymnasts. Moreover, it demonstrates the absolute mess English spelling is.
I have opinions on this and none of them are good sadly, which is a shame as I don't like to be overly critical of constructors let alone new ones. My main problem is alot of the cluing is just not up to scratch; or it's overly obtuse for an early week puzzle. And this is something that I feel the editors should have stepped in on and offered suggestions if this was the day of the week the constructor was aiming for. Which ultimately led to this feeling like more of a slog than being fun. I would list particular clues but there were alot and I don't want to make this post an essay. This is me venting my opinion more than anything and if you found enjoyment in this where I sadly didn't, please dont take this too personally.
@Chris LEDGE, URGED, HATE could have been clued better but overall, a fine debut imo.
@Chris I disagree. For me it was fun and not too difficult, as the crosses allowed me to fill the unknowns without much trouble. I had one flyspeck, then the gold star. I don't like "wrong day" comments, so I won't make one. For me, on this morning, it was an enjoyable experience.
@Chris "or it's overly obtuse for an early week puzzle" I miss the pre-2020 era, when people didn't complain about having been challenged in even the slightest way when trying to solve a thing called a "puzzle"
Well, it looks as though the emus won't allow me to express my true feelings on how dispiriting this puzzle was for me. I repeat, for me. It seems no one else has noticed what seems to me to be blindingly obvious. The cross of PALMAS and LEE was absolutely awful, as the L could have reasonably been any number of letters. Worse, I've seen LEi far more often than LEE for Asian names. Beyond that, the spelling of WEENIE ROAST is awfully irregular--it seems the frankfurter can be spelled either as "wiener" or "weiner", but the word magically transforms into a double "e" word in the diminutive. Utterly illogical. I'm glad you got your debut puzzle, Mr. Falkowski, and I hope to see more from you in the future. But this one was very much not for me. I repeat, for me.
@Francis Guessing you didn't watch women's gymnastics at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
@Francis Now you know how it feels for me when a baseball player crosses with an American town, or a SNL alum with a Florida college 🤣. Las PALMAS and Suni LEE were both gimmes - trivia in these puzzles rarely is, so I was quite surprised.
@Francis I needed the column to understand the theme though. And yes, WEENIE seemed a bit ridiculous, didn't it.
@Francis Around here, WEENIE ROAST is the most common name for roasting hot dogs over a fire.
What in the world was that? Not sure where to begin. Wrong difficulty level. Impenetrable theme. Vague clueing. Worst one in a while.
The witty omelet chefs were full of wisecracks. (They egged each other on.)
@Mik Some people just can’t take a yolk.
I can see the whites of your eyes.
@Mike Beats me whyI thought they were a hard boiled lot.
@Mike You SLAY me. BTW, see also 13D [Question exclaimed after misfortune] WHYME and from Job--("Though he SLAY me, I will hope in him")
@Mike Oof, that one shirr isn't what it was cracked up to be.
@Mike This one deserves a pan. What a ham. Cheese!
Some years ago, I discovered our local grocery chain was pricing their in-house brand of garbanzo bean cans 10 cents higher than their in-house brand of chickpeans. Garbanzos are 10 cents classier than chickpeas! Got a kick out of At East (or, A TEASE) in a puzzle about teasing! And 20% of clues, according to constructor, made by the NYT. Wow, wonder if that percentage goes down the more veteran and established the constructor. At, St. Ex...everyone knows him for The Little Prince. But Wind, Sand and Stars, his memoir of aviating on a mail route that took him to South America, all over Europe and north Africa, a crash in the Sahara -- is just as lovely a book, contemplative yet action-packed, with a different notion of what it means to be virile (MANLY): “To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.” Some might disagree with this, however: “One cannot live any longer on refrigerators, on politics, on balance-sheets and cross-word puzzles. One cannot live any longer without poetry, color and love.” Also, “Aimer, ce n'est pas se regarder l'un l'autre, c'est regarder ensemble dans la même direction.” (To love is not to look at one another, it is to look, together, in the same direction.)
@john ezra "To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.” You mean it's not all about taking testosterone supplements and doing pull-ups? Who knew? I like that quote as a description for what a good citizen is, gender neutral.
@john ezra I find it interesting that they went to the trouble to make different labels for the same product. I'm going to look at the canned legumes more closely next time I grocery shop. Coincidentally, I bought a can of field peas last week and noticed the calories per serving had decreased from the last can I bought.
@john ezra I always thought that quote about love was from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. I stand corrected, it is indeed from Antoine de Saint-Exupery. But it does sound like something from Gibran. For example, "Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."
First, it’s a beautiful day and this is one little corner of the world where I hope to find camaraderie rather than vitriol. Yes it was a little hard for a Tuesday. So what? It was a good solid puzzle with no more naticks than usual. I enjoyed it. There are always things I don’t know that I need crosses for, even on mondays. I had trouble with Moto and Suni Lee and Weenie (so many possibilities) but that’s the game, right? I knew coati right away because I had the I. (I come out from under my rock for natural history). Nice debut, thank you.
@Crevecoeur I believe the large amount of dissatisfaction is directed at the NYT and editors. Remember that we all pay a subscription so just like in real life, when someone is doing a poor job they are called out on it. It's the only real avenue of feedback a subscriber has.
Gosh, this one was hard for me. I spent several minutes staring at VENAh wondering what it could possibly be, considering I was positive that 37D was hEDGE. (I may have misremembered what it meant to "hedge one's bets"). Overall though, it was a fun Tuesday that was definitely a good challenge for me! I learned VENAL, what a COATI is (hopefully I'll get to see one when I go to Peru with my Mom this May!!), and I added Raging Bull to my watchlist. Gotta love when you come away from a crossword knowing more than you did before. As an aside, I've felt recently like the tricky clues outlined in the column are not as reflective of the tricky clues in the puzzle! For example, other then the inclusion of "Hell" in the clue for 42A, I am very confused by SATAN. The cluing for ADOS and HAVANA (as I stated above, I'm not sure I totally understand it other than the vague idea of a Cuban cigar) also tripped me up. Comparing these clues to straightforward ones like 1D, 14A, or 27A (which were oddly included under Tricky Clues) it doesn't seem like Tricky Clues are truly the tricky clues! This is a little disappointing as I like to use the column as a tool for improving my solving and reading of clues. Just a suggestion for future columns! Congrats to David Falkowski on his debut!!!
@Emma I was very confused by SATAN as well. Why would Satan say "Hell if I know"? The joke simply does not work. It would be as if one clued God with "Heavens to Betsy".
@Emma the column seems lazy these days. I agree it never includes what I think are the most nonsensical clues. Satan makes no sense!
@Emma To address the Satan clue in the column would invariably address its inadequacy / inaptness / awkwardness. As SBK implied, the columnists almost NEVER criticize the puzzle in question. If I were in their job I would likely not be allowed to either. So better to just ignore the really weak spots...
Am I being dumb? I cannot understand why Satan would say "Hell if I know!" Can anyone explain?
@Michael one of the many confounding and nonsensical parts of this awful Tuesday puzzle.
Great Tuesday puzzle, thank you!
I like [Where to find dogs in heat] much better.
And the constructor's clue would have been just fine for a Tuesday puzzle a few years ago.
@Steve L totally agree. That was a great clue!
@Steve L Steve, I agree that "where to find dogs in heat" is a much more clever clue than the one the editors chose, but I think it's not right for a Tuesday. I'm glad they changed it, but I'm happy David told us what his original clue was.
@Steve L Puzzle editors are a vital and important part of puzzle creation and publishing, and what a sorry world we would live in if puzzle authors were given free rein to use their own, original clues, verbatim ac litteratim. So please stop calling them venal, hyena-brained weenies. Just cut it right out. That said, I'm in the mood for a dog in heat.
6D "Appears to be going down the drain" I tried but GESTURES BROADLY AT EVERYTHING AROUND ME doesn't quite fit.
@Andrew W So relatable!
@Andrew W I was having a particularly bad day once when I noticed the bumper sticker on the truck ahead of me. It read: WHERE AM I GOING AND WHY AM I IN THIS HANDBASKET? Cheered me right up.
@Andrew W Smile of the day right there. Probably the only one.
@Andrew W Hey, I'm suppose to be the gloomy Gus, here. You're not allowed to out-cynical me. 😀
I'm sorry, but this was probably the least enjoyable crossword I've done in a long time. So many crosses that were way too niche for a Tuesday.
Would you have enjoyed it on a Wednesday?
I would say that this one was not ready for prime time solving. Don't stop making puzzles David Falkowski. The editors should be able to spot clues that don't really work and offer some adjusting. This was a debut, and I'm betting that this one wlll give you a lot of insight into cluing that is thought provoking without being off the mark. I'm looking forward to seeing you again!
@dutchiris He explained in the Constructor Notes that most clues were edited by the editors, and some were entirely replaced.
James Bond taught his dog to shake but not to stir.
What a thoroughly unenjoyable Tuesday puzzle. Challenging in the least fun way.
That. Was. Extremely. Hard. For. A. Tuesday. Ok, with that off my chest, I see some of you also found that a toughie. Not the fault of the constructor, but I’d argue definitely not Tuesday level and I say this as one who loves a challenge. So, the unknown US product aside, what the heck is a GARBANZO? I’m assuming it’s what you all call a chickpea? I’ve never seen hummus made from any other bean, but I do lead a sheltered life. As the pea of the chick also fitted nicely into the squares, that *really* messed up that corner for me. ZANIER is also a word I rarely come across, though I do know what it means. Didn’t help me today. I gave up and looked at the completed grid to finish. Far too many gaps in my knowledge, far too little time to fret over them. Hey ho.
@Helen Wright and far too little fun. SLOG!
@Helen Wright yes, garbanzo beans are chickpeas, garbanzo from the Spanish name.
@Helen Wright it’s not that it was hard, it just wasn’t good. The clues were simply not good.
I sincerely disliked this for a Tuesday. I’m sure I’ll be told it’s very clever but the clues were obscure and didn’t match the answers in my opinion. Begun vs began irks me, and hell if I know = Satan somehow? It was all a little bit of a stretch and getting any clues filled in took more of a wild guess than an actual solve.
@Shannon I didn't care for this puzzle, but not for any of the same reasons you cite. BEGAN and BEGUN would be grammatically correct, but only one is correct in the puzzle, which you see via the crosses. So why would that irk anyone?
Pretty by the numbers Tuesday, not too much to say but I was raising my eyebrows at WEENIEROAST wondering if COCKROACH, DICKCAVETT, and WILLYWONKA were coming up. I so wanted the speaker of the”Hell if I know” to be DANTE. Seems like Dante might have some doubts about his knowledge of Hell, Satan surely not.
@SP I saw this puzzle as an anything but "by the numbers". I see this as a puzzle that crossed reasonable last names with exceptionally weird spelling. I don't think any puzzle is easier than the hardest cross, and I thought this puzzle had some monster crosses.
@SP, Pen is mightier than the sword?
Not only too difficult in my opinion, but one of the few puzzles I've come across where the revealer in no way assists with solving the puzzle. What a slog.
This puzzle/solve felt oddly unsatisfying. (This means I finished the puzzle, understood the theme, admired some of the ZANIER clue/entries, but.....no chuckles, no "Aha!" Maybe I missed something? some aspect of a relationship between the first half of the theme entries and the over-all puzzle? Maybe I'm just spoiled? Is a silo considered a GRANARY? SATAN really uses that phrase? Why? Do kids get into ADOS at recess? Hello MOTO???????
@Mean Old Lady Some Motorola phones say that when first turned on.
@Mean Old Lady, A guy “wakes up” in an unusual place. Guy: “where am I?” Satan: “Hell, if I know.” (Weak, I know. But it’s all I’ve come up with.)
I'm predicting that maybe as many as 4 out of 5 people on two different blogs will find the SATAN clue pathetic or ridiculous or both -- as well as definitely not funny -- and will say so. Why would I say "Hello, MOTO" to my smartphone? Is MOTO a brand or a model from a particular brand? Is MOTO a kind of Siri or Alexis? Is it an acronym of something? Beats me. I thought this was a serviceable but ho-hum puzzle that, while KIDDING was its theme, had surprisingly little humor in the clues. Except for the weak attempt at humor with SATAN -- which I think misfires badly.
@Nancy My Motorola phone used to say Hello Moto when first turned on. I turned that "feature" off since I found it annoying.
@Nancy As a serial owner of many Motorolas over the years - they are still the best bang for the buck for US Android users - this was not only a gimme but a warm fuzzy to me. Our current ones still do it as the loud startup sound. (Yeah it's a little annoying. Part of the BIOS and can't be stopped so far as I know.) I mostly found the puzzle unremarkable and the theme (which I missed until completion) lackluster. Not sure about the Satan controversy. But yes it's a pretty bad clue.
@Nancy - Besides the phone, Motorola used "Hello Moto" in their TV adds for awhile. I had a Motorola phone and was able to shut that off. Looks like, from other commenters, that is no longer the case, or they haven't found the right control. There are plenty of situations in which you wouldn't want your phone to make noise when you turned it on. Like most of them.
This is by far the hardest Tuesday I've ever seen, and also some really bad cluing. Like okay, some high points like ALL KIDDING ASIDE, BRUISED RIB. But the amount of really obscure "Know it or you don't" knowledge you needed. Types of cigars, obscure animals, spellings of foreign language words with bad crossings, obscure city names, foreign yogurts. HAVANA, COATI, MOTO, PALMAS. Also I always thought of the short morse code symbol as dot, not DIT. NINJA cool answer but I don't associate them with blowguns. Of the many weapons and infiltration techniques associated with ninjas, that is not one of them. A Tuesday as challenging as you expect from a Thursday, but with no satisfaction when you finally figure out the clue.
@Chris When I learned Morse code (admittedly years ago, it was all about "dit" and "dah" which I think is how it would be read out to a transcriber as it is much easier to say than dot and dash
@Chris, You may be new-ish to solving NYT? Just guessing, but “dit” and “dah” are the crossword answers (usually) for Morse code clues. (I’m not sure I’ve seen anything else, but I could be wrong)
Bob, DOT and DASH have also been clued to Morse. Those are what is written, DIT and DAH are what is said. DAH and DASH can be distinguished by square count; for DIT and DOT, wait for the cross (which today was not a problem).
@Chris When Morse is (was) taught, the symbols are described as dahs and dits. Not just more brief in singular, but much easier when spelling out letters. "Dah-di-dah-dit" for C, for example.
I don’t really get the ire directed at the constructor about this being the wrong difficulty level too early in the week. Shouldn’t the onus be on the editors who decided to place it in the weekly order? Are they not the final arbiters of what gets to appear when? While I do think that the puzzle was more difficult than the average Tuesday, it was by no means impenetrable. I had a few chuckles along the way. And the pearl clutching here; seriously, it’s a puzzle. Move on to the next thing in your day.
@Loopy Typically commenters blame only the editors for day-of-the-week difficulty mismatch, or complain about it without blaming anyone. Did someone blame the constructor? Seems odd since as you allude, the editors decide the day a puzzle gets published.
Seriously, this was a splendid debut, Mr. Falkowski. For a Tuesday it had bite and humor – and that is most welcome. I’ll let others debate whether this was the right level of complexity/clueing for a Tuesday. I’m simply grateful there’s another puzzle to solve each day and a talented new constructor on the roster to keep us amused going forward. Please come back soon to needle and rib us.
Not a fun Tuesday for me … I can usually breeze the ones early in the week. Add my comments to the ones below.
A vey poorly constructed Tuesday puzzles. Boo.
I agree with others. Good puzzle, but very difficult for a Tuesday. Congrats on the debut!!!
Disgraceful... What an arrogant and obtuse construction. Thanks for nothing.
For a theme about humor, the puzzle seemed to lack a sense of it. Clues felt dated or obscure, and it just wasn't that fun?
Congrats on the debut! I liked this Tuesday puzzle quite a bit. I'm astonished, however, at the vitriol in some of the comments. IMO, blaming a constructor's clever cluing for one's lack of knowledge is not a good look.
This audience is tougher than this Tuesday - yikes! I found it to be a challenge, but I didn’t need any look-ups & had a few grins a long the way. Thanks for the fun!
I don’t want to say this was a bad puzzle, just not a Tuesday puzzle (in my opinion!) Many of us (myself included) only stick to Mondays and Tuesdays, sometimes Wednesdays, because we do not enjoy filling a grid of clues that have either multiple levels of abstraction or require very specific knowledge (author/artist names, foreign language, etc) that you cannot figure out without explicitly knowing them. I think whoever approved this for a Tuesday did this debut dirty! If this was Wednesday or Thursday, a lot less people would be complaining!
Just in case you are reading these, Mr. Falkowski. Even though your puzzle stumped me on a day that I didn't expect to be stumped, I really want to emphasize that I still appreciate your puzzle and the effort and passion that went into it. Please don't let me discourage you on that front. I hope you produce a whole run of terrific puzzles. You're off to a good start.
I haven't commented in a while, but given some of the comments I wanted to weigh in to say how much I enjoyed this puzzle! I loved the theme, and I thought the clueing was delightful throughout, with my favorites including "[Hey, I can hear you, you know]" for AHEM, "Loud speaker, maybe" for ORATOR, and "Further out there" for ZANIER. I savored the unexpected level of difficulty required, as Tuesday puzzles have been a little too Monday-ish for me of late. Thanks, David, for a wonderful start to my day, and congratulations on your terrific NYT debut - I'll be looking forward to seeing your name here again soon!
I’m usually critical but honestly I enjoyed this one and didn’t find it frustratingly hard - though it certainly wasn’t easy either. Surprised by the comments.
I found this one rather difficult for a Tuesday (I like that!)... Quite US trivia heavy, so I understand the polar reactions to the puzzle. Either exceptionally easy, or too difficult. I'm now familiar with rolaids advertising and weenie roasts (for all the good that'll do me 😬😂)... As a non-American, I'm gonna have to give this one a B-. It felt a bit exclusive.
@Hitch as an American i give it a C-
Nice debut, David, and nice Tuesday puzzle. Thanks!
a bit fun but i'm always pretty saddened when the monday/tuesday is made to be much more difficult. TT you smart fella's already get so many days to work your brains !! thankfully it wasn't also super american, i might've given up ;_; i try the crossword every day but i have a disability so i'm usually not very good past tuesday. only being able to solve 1/7 puzzles on my own is always a bummer. (i do get i'm not really the target audience though 😅) still grateful for NYT, the app is much more accessible and not absurd or just a trivia show off like other sites. or just straight primary school level/AI generated... i appreciate the care put in here. ^_^
@Blaise Hey, good on you for trying and sticking with it :)
The theme is a common Monday or Tuesday motif – what do the last words of the theme answers have in common? It does have a subtle layer that I like: all the “kidding” words in the theme answers are nouns, but in their kidding sense they are verbs. Nice touch, David. Another nice touch was the Scrabbly-ness, with the grid just a Q short of a pangram. ALL KIDDING ASIDE is just a gorgeous spanner smack in the center of the grid. I also liked the alliterative [Pugilist’s pain point, perhaps] and was briefly and delightfully misdirected by [Big scoop], where I was trying to think of words for a reporter’s big scoop. Some vagueness in the cluing and not-everyday answers (such as MOTO, FLAY, FAITA, VENAL GRANARY ARTES, and ORA) made me think, David, that you should try your hand at later-week puzzles. In any case, this was a splendid outing for me. Congratulations on your debut, and thank you!
@Lewis Faita? And where do you see MOTO fitting into our lives? Mr. MOTO from Charlie Chan mysteries?
Yes, as Barry said, a typo for RAITA. Good catch!
Oh, if this is the new Tuesday vibe I am *so* here for it. Yes. Just…yes.
Wonderfully chewy Tuesday. Great debut, David!
Ughhhh I did not enjoy this one at all. Way too many proper nouns and foreign language clues crossing, felt like a real slog.