Adam
Somewhere near Boston
Isn't it a SNOOZE *button* that would be pressed on an ALARM?
"Bacon bits" and "Northern hemisphere" have to be up there among my favorite NYT clues so far!
My first thought for the "going concern" in 58D was UTI - I had to look up ETD after the solve to figure out the connection!
I wonder just how long it took to find a set of words that fit both the color and the crosses (and were straightforward to clue). A feat of Olympic proportions!
@Barry Ancona Thanks for pointing that out, I had no idea! I went back to look at that crossword (which I had solved at the time) and felt like Gandalf in Moria: "I have no memory of this place..."
@Speede I had also thought at first there would be rebuses in this puzzle, but it's a different trick entirely: the title "Countdown" refers to the name of each number, which hangs *down* from the phrase it is a part of.
Challenging but doable, with the exception of two Naticks: IMARETS/URIE and EMEKA/PTAS (which could also have been PTOS). If you know basketball, obscure Turkish words, and last names of relatively unknown musicians, I guess it would all come together, but I wasn't able to complete this one without help.
If only I'd caught on earlier to the fact that the numbers count down as well as count down, I would have cut my solve time down! Oh well, fun puzzle nevertheless.
@Loufus I had ADVERTISER for a long while but yours is far better!
@Steve L oops! So it is - I stand corrected. Thanks - guess I went through this a little too fast! (Wish there a way to delete a foolish comment!)
@Darren I was thrown a bit too, but the name of the novel is "O Pioneers!" And I've never seen MTWRF, guess I learned something new today!
Tough puzzle, but it all came together in the end! And I learned a couple of things, which is one of my favorite things about crosswords. Only thing that bothered me was filling in ALOT for 23A because of how often I see it mistakenly written that way...
@Bill Same here, I had initially filled in SEX STORY for 13D...
For a long time I had BANKED for 35A (was thinking more of the brain bank at the Boston University CTE Center and less of the Brain Depository from Young Frankestein!)
Fun puzzle, and I think a PB for a Thursday! Only thing that would have made it better would be ANY OLD TIME for NEOLITHIC, since that's an era rather than an object...
@Tom I agree, it was a poorly worded clue. It means that the lines must meet themselves (i.e., to form circles), not meet all other lines.
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