SP

Now that’s a spicy Thursday! I know there will be haters, no worries, everyone likes different toppings, I found this one delicious.

Wow. Not sure why I am not seeing crazy raves about this crossword yet. One of the most enjoyable I have seen for along time on a lot of levels: 1) fun theme and clever theme entries 2) massive level of difficulty constructing that didn’t feel forced 3) the theme actually contributed to solving (I was stuck in the NW but knowing the theme helped me find DRI(PP)ED) 4) Rest of the clues were pretty interesting and well clued Massive kudos from me

Well Gosh I don’t know what all the phone app users like myself are complaining about. The theme was simple, each answer is a synonym for the clue, the word “and” and some other word that has nothing to do with the clue but finishes a common expression. How very clever! Seriously though this could have been a simple fix why not capitalize some letters but not the rest? CarOL brAdy. Pretty obvious, but so would have been the underlines if we saw them. Either way kind of tame for a Thursday, and frankly a slap in the face to the creators. I’d be pretty disappointed putting all this work in a puzzle, getting it published, and having probably a majority of solvers not get to enjoy my theme.

Wow, you had me at SPANISHRAMADA. This is probably my vote for puzzle of the year. Not just for the theme, which was funny, complex, witty and had no duds at all. But just look at the rest of the fill. You had seven great long themes like this and still had room for two great 14 letter additional entries? Right next to ZOLAESQUE and SUCCEEDED? Are you kidding me? Very little glue, clever clues, perfect amount of challenge, I have nothing but praise and amazement for this one. Only disappointment—would it be too much to ask “ringmaster” to clue to FRODO in a puzzle with Sam GAMGEE?

I feel like doom scrolling is when I go through the comments here on a Thursday with a rebus puzzle I really liked.

These were a stretch, even for me, and I’m a dad. But while we are at it: North Pole? MERRYLAND Appropriate jailhouse behavior? CONETTIQUETTE Catch an unusual deer? COLLARODDDOE Nag the nearby bishop? NOODGEYOURSEE

Gotta echo Barry and Andrzej today. Kudos on the double pangram, but way too many hoops to set there. Started out pretty easy. Then I got very bogged down in all the proper names. Now I know how y’all feel. RIPA, KOBE and LENIN I knew. ZINN, ELIA, EAZYE, REDD, MARLO, DOERR, RENATO, and DOLAN I had to get on crosses, and on the last four guess the crossing letter. Guessed right, but guessed wrong on JFK and JCCAR which I couldn’t remember but thought was right. So I had to flyspeck and Google to see if I was right on all my guesses (I’m not too proud to do that) until I finally got there. Wasn’t too thrilled with some of the clues either—hoppi-ness? Disappearing ink vessel? Is a driver a SELLER? Is QUIDPROQUO “foreign” or just Latin? Again a stretchy clue or two is OK with me especially if it’s otherwise amusing but these didn’t thrill me. I didn’t mind “Boos” so much and a couple of bonus points for Star Wars and Plato. But overall a bridge too far for me.

Two thumbs up for me. I so miss Roger Ebert. I did wonder as I was reading the clues whether these were movie critiques or quotes from crossword commentators. Pretty straightforward clues—maybe more a Tuesday? Nothing too tricky, except “Amazon wrapper” which gave me a smile. One comment, I never noticed signs at school zones that say SLO instead of “Slow”. If so it’s pretty ironic that we can’t even teach our kids to spell in a school zone.

I don’t know if it was easy or I was just absolutely on the same wavelength as the constructor. Can’t remember so many Saturday answers that fell so quickly. PICKLEBALL was a gimme. GALEFORCE, RACINOS, OPENLYGAY, TWISTERMAT all popped in effortlessly. Heck when I saw _____ suit first thing that came to mind was ZOOT even before I saw ZEBRA, how weird is that? Only corner that gave me a little pause was the SE but loved the MATRYOSHKA clue, my grandmother had them. I don’t know if everyone will find it so easy, I just think it’s one of those days when everything clicked for me. In any case fun and well-constructed.

Wow! What a great debut, and I can see some of the mentoring from Robyn Weintraub, this was a smooth but clever solve for me. I thought I was off to the races when LEAMICHELE, ROCKETSCIENCE, COMEHITHER, and HOLESINONE were practically gimmes to me (I don’t think they are particularly easy, except LEAMICHELE if you know her, just on the same wavelength). But then I got hung up with MANSPRAWLS instead of SPREADS and the NE corner, with IRKED instead of cross, no clue about MACS and Tahoe (ok now I get it), TOLL before TOOT and once again no clue about how to remember or spell AYOEDEBIRIs last name. (I’m sorry, she’s a great actress, the show is great, she is absolutely worthy of being in a crossword, and her first name is crossword gold, but we’ve had her full name 3 weeks ago, and again in April, and again now? Please, enough). Got there eventually with some help from FRAIDSO, and RIRI two days in a row (yay me! I even know how to pronounce Rihanna now). And finally, if there’s an award for crossword clue of the decade CESAREAN has got to be in the running. So thanks for a very fun solve that stretched me when I least expected it, and I look forward to more puzzles from you!

As a pediatrician I should point out that 11D should probably be “Oral vaccine target, ONCE”. Oral polio vaccine hasn’t been used in the US at least for 25 years. I suppose it may still be used in developing countries. Also, anyone else think “How Firm a Foundation” might be a Serta slogan?

F-ULOUS debut! Really enjoyed this!

PETS just seems a little odd to me. You can pet your pet, but you don’t really give him a pet. You give him a pat. Maybe literally correct but it’s just not something anyone would say, especially since PAT is an option and there are lots of better clues imho

I’ve got two more: Mercury could be in this: USEDCARLOT (Or Mercury used to be in this: FORDLINE) And Mercury is in this: ROMANPANTHEON

I think this was about the perfect Friday for me. Some clever misdirects, nothing too arcane or trivial, fun facts and some fun clues. I thought it was more challenging than usual but I actually came in 4 min under my average , but it didn’t feel like it

I have my occasional nit now and then as well but the capacity for some people to complain is gobsmacking to me. Yes, I know you don’t physically cut the grape leaves with a microtome to stuff inside each individual leaf, and we know they come from the vine of the grape plant. But go to a Greek restaurant and order stuffed grape leaves and they will give you dolmas; order a “grapevine leaf wrap” and they will look at you askance. Shouldn’t that be obvious to anyone who is otherwise literate enough to solve a NYT crossword?

Surprised at some of the negativity here, I thought this was on the straightforward side for a Thursday. My 2 cents: I thought the fill was pretty good. I think the constructor gets major style points (if not solving points) for coming up with interlaceable words that make other words (Python or not) and anyone complaining about the new words not being related is smoking something—how many words do you think you could do this with? On the other hand, the braids don’t add much to the solving experience, once you get the trick, which is pretty quickly once you get enough acrosses. So for me this solved more like a Wednesday than a Thursday and the braided answers became more of a confirmation rather than the focus. But still enjoyable and impressive.

Challenging, and some interesting misdirects—I had SCARE and SCOOT instead of SPOOK and SPLIT, which oddly fit, which let me try SPORKS for the Libby offering (I was thinking of the canned food company, maybe they sometimes include plastic utensils?) And of course ART instead of AIR so that corner took a lot of manipulating. Also oddly DELAY(S) could work instead of AVERT or DETERS (and of course DEFERS). And RUCKUS instead of RACKET. So all in all I was flummoxed for a bit. But fun once I sorted it all out.

Pretty niche theme, but one that is close to my heart. Love the musical, have watched the recorded version several times with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters (you can probably stream it or watch it online). Stephen Sondheim is an acquired taste and it’s definitely not a TOETAPPER, but it’s a very beautiful and evocative show about the nature of art and probably my second favorite Sondheim musical (behind Company and above Into the Woods). I highly recommend it. “Look I Made a Hat” is also the name of Sondheim’s biography, so it’s not just a random lyric but a meaningful concept of art creating something that didn’t exist before (like a crossword puzzle, in fact). Anyway, not a bad crossword even apart from the theme, with some unexpected clues, and I enjoyed it. Last comment just to nip some nitpickers in the bud—yes the name of the painter of “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” is Georges Seurat (with an S at the end) but the musical is also about his (fictional) great-grandson who is named George and that is whom the title refers. Also, if you are Star Trek fan and watch the original version, you can get a glimpse of Brent Spiner (Data) in a supporting role; I’m afraid that probably won’t be enough to tempt Andrzej, though.

Congrats on your debut, Topher! As you suggested, a very user-friendly rebus puzzle that was not hard to SCOPEPOUT—for me at least, as all the culture references were gimmes for me—Joe PESCI, THESCREAM, THISISSPINALTAP (agree, too soon), WHATABOUTBOB—not to mention MEEMAW. It’s too bad you couldn’t fit in a fourth key. Could have been clued a lot trickier for a Thursday, but that’s not up to you, I suppose the editors wanted to be gentle for everyone with hangovers. Anyway, what a great New Year’s gift for you, and I look forward to seeing you hone your craft and more of your work!

I’m sure Mr. Hale gets this way too often, and perhaps one should know better than to make a joke about someone’s name, but let me at least be the first to inaugurate it in the NYT crossword community: Nathan Hale did not “regret that he had more than one theme to give to his crossword”. Honestly nice debut. I got the bears quickly (even Boo-boo, I guess that shows my age) but the across clues gave me some paws. It’s a bit of a nit that the across theme really didn’t have anything to do with the down theme, but heck two themes are better than one and it was really fun and clever. Great debut and a revolutionary idea.

I have a lot on my BUCKETLIST but bungee jumping isn’t one of them!

I’ll put myself in the positive category for this one; I enjoyed it, but I’ll have some sympathy for the naysayers. WISHBONEFORMATION is a pretty arcane sports term, although gettable from the clue; KREBSCYCLE a pretty arcane biochemical term, and only gettable from the crosses if you aren’t familiar—but pretty fair crosses except maybe for ODEON which is bread and butter to experienced cruciverbalists but maybe not to newer solvers. And, there’s math. But I thoroughly enjoyed the theme and thought the theme entries were fresh and interesting. I LOVED the misdirect that the first rebus was the same up and down but not the others; that absolutely sold the puzzle for me. And for all you rebus haters out there, that’s cool, but if your issues are technical I say again, don’t try to shove “three/nine” in the circle or whatever, just put in one number and do the rest in your head, it’ll save you a headache and eye strain.

I was curious if others would have found this easy or not; I finished it quickly but had to jump around a lot, and I had a few footholds with proper names which I wasn’t sure others would know immediately. Seems like so far that’s the case but it’s early and the jury’s still out. Still I enjoyed it, and it was nice that even when I had one or two sections the rest weren’t gimmes. Gotta thank Steve L today, if memory serves, for using SETTERS in a comment recently which would have been a mystery otherwise. Gotta show some love for ROSIE although it’s a gutsy call to cite a character who is barely in the books or movie; still that last scene of LOTR is so affecting and IMO is one of the best endings in literature, I for one will never forget her name. Had a few misdirects which didn’t fit the puzzle so didn’t slow me down; thinking of EMMA before ALICE, CRACKERJACKS before CHEESECURLS and some sort of office putting green before WORKETHIC. And everyone, you are entitled to your opinions but remember BADATTITUDEs are not constructive. George—this may be an easier Friday, or not, but Tuesday??!! Come on.

I have nothing against the full but the clueing was overly opaque and tangential even for a Friday. Barely eked it out

Fun and excellently constructed. Solved it pretty quickly, but only because I dropped down to the revealer faster than usual because the top wasn’t getting anywhere for me

I solved it without ever realizing the across clues ended with an exclamation point (until I read the column). Clever idea though, my bad. Since my first name is Sheldon I should have at least had a big BANG theory.

If I were a gymnastics judge I might take a few decimal points off for having to resort to repetition twice in the themes, but it definitely stuck the landing. Even getting the revealer EARly and the rebus gimmick, there was still a fair challenge and some fun clues. I think “odd duck” for DECOY ought to be one of the best clues of the week.

Love this puzzle, kept me guessing for a while even after I got the revealer. And some nice additional clues. Loved the shout-out to Zoe Saldana, let’s not forget Star Trek too! Could have really made people think by clueing her as “the second highest grossing film actress after Scarlett Johansson”. Certainly wouldn’t have been a gimme for me.