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I had the whole puzzle otherwise done for about 9 minutes before I corrected "NOT I" to "NOR I." I knew that's where the error almost certainly was, but I just couldn't get past the obvious correctness of "NOT I." Crosswords really force you to confront how easy it is to cling to a mistake, even when you know darn well that it's wrong.
While everyone notes their fast solving times (sometimes with implied disapproval of the "too easy" Friday crossword), I'm going to mention my streak: 1461, which I believe is exactly four years. (365 x 4 + one Leap Day). And like many commenters, I solved it well below my average Friday time, but I enjoyed it a lot. Nice set of entries!
Appreciated the wordplay in retrospect -- didn't see it while solving. But as the great-grandchild of Swedish immigrants, I do have to point out that the puzzle omits the best one of all: Swedish rye bread. My mother, an excellent baker, spent much of the 1960's and 1970's trying to match Great Aunt Alice's rye bread (and quietly suspecting that Alice had omitted something important from the recipe she provided). Mom finally got there through considerable trial and error. It's one more thing I really miss about her every Christmas. Anyway, that's why I teared up just a little at the end of this crossword. Miss you, Mom!
Sometimes the ones that stump me the most annoy me, and sometimes they impress the heck out of me. This was definitely the latter. Almost double my average Friday time, and I enjoyed it enormously. I just hope Saturday isn't this hard, or I'll be at it all night.
It wasn't a near Wednesday for me! I "finished" in about average Thursday time, but then had to spend over four minutes finding mistakes and corrections before it finally clicked. I tried entering the inflated grades as rebuses (A/B, B/C etc.), but of course that didn't work. (I still think maybe it should have.) The Heineken subsidiary was a large time waster, since the vowel (U) necessary for it to cross the Boolean value was a "true" Natick for me. If only I'd been a beer-loving coder! It's never as much fun to wrestle with a puzzle you thought you had finished, but I can't blame this one on the constructors. Now that it's done, I admire the idea and the execution. Nice work!
Excellent puzzle, and memorable to me because my streak just hit 1000. I read the Oresteia trilogy for "Masterpieces of Western Literature," which I took as freshman in 1976. "Omoo" was one we read for a course on Melville and Twain. Neither of those stumped me (and both are much worth reading), but I kept thinking "stressate" was one word, not "stress ate." Very pleasantly surprised to get the happy music on the first try.
As a tea drinker, I found the proposed mix of Pekoe, peach, and Assam as horrifying as the puzzle was fun. Definitely both not my cup of tea and my cup of tea.
Deb-- Very sorry to hear about the loss of your father. My Dad passed on last June at age 96. He wasn't a crossword solver, but he loved puns, and the staff in his Memory Care unit all noticed the twinkle in his eye when he invariably corrected their grammar. I think the last time he reminded me to say "Mary and me," not "Mary and I," was Christmas 2023, when he was 95. On the other hand, my six year-old granddaughter now eagerly watches and occasionally helps me solve the crossword, Wordle, and other games when we are together. I enjoy the thought of her solving on into the 22nd century. Please make sure the NYT puzzles are still good then.
Another Themeless Thursday. I finished the puzzle (faster than average time) and stared at it, and eventually saw that Ts would make the lines with starred entries correct. Didn't even notice the actual Ts above the black squares until I came here, which makes me feel pretty dumb, since that's exactly where the revealer says they are. Impressive construction, but I never saw it until after filling everything in.
@Beth Town and Gown can refer to the local permanent residents and the students in a university town. It can suggest a rivalry or hostility between those two groups. New Haven residents and Yale students would be an example.
Themeless Thursday for me. Solved it. Stared at it. Got mad at myself for STILL not getting the theme. And then came here to read about it. Any further comment I would make would be unfair to the constructor. It's not his fault I couldn't see his theme.
@Bruce Lecture appreciated. If people my age need to learn and remember relatively well-known rap artists, then younger folks can keep Eudora Welty handy. She is not obscure at all. Also, TGel is a good shampoo. I used to use it a lot, so neither of these entries was remotely Natick-y for me.
@Will R From memory: "I've been Ayn Randed, nearly branded a Communist because I'm left-handed. That's the hand to use, well, never mind." I'm young enough that my Mom, a huge S&G fan, had to explain "left-handed" to me. It's also how I learned to pronounce Ayn Rand's name.
Double my average time, but I can't complain about any of the answers. I thought they were all legit; just hard! I do think this would have been a worthy Saturday (and my time would have been slower than my Saturday average too). Nice construction!
I enjoyed it! Never thought I would be the first to comment, though.
@B You might want to look into The Miracle of the Marne, which some historians have called the most important land battle of the 20th Century. Then next time you're visiting the military museum at Les Invalides, you'll know why there a Renault taxi cab among the exhibits!
@GuyAy In crosswords, Chicago's public transportation system is always elevated trains, or "els." They actually have subways and street-level trains too, but in the crossword, just els.
@Steven M. I thought the exact same thing, while solving. I saw "PST" and refused to enter it for a long time for the reason you cite.
@Steve L That's why I never thought I'd be first!
@Rich Furman I came here to make the same complaint. Also, the Mississippi as a border between Minnesota and Wisconsin is much longer than between Iowa and Wisconsin. Having lived nearly all my life along the river (in Illinois and Missouri before the last 42 years in Minnesota), I definitely think of the Mississippi as a river bordering Minnesota and Wisconsin.
@Steve L But Frodo is not the ringmaster. That's his salvation. The Ring has only one master!
@Paul Congrats, Paul! As always, I'm 121 behind you on the streak.
@coloradoz I saw complaints elsewhere in the comments about the obscurity of Al Oerter, and I guess it's been a while, but he had a truly remarkable Olympic career - 4 gold medals in four separate Olympics, and in an era when track and field careers tended to be pretty short. I also appreciated the Drake Relays reference. I grew up in Moline, Illinois in the 1960's, and the Des Moines Register was our Sunday paper. The coverage of the Drake Relays (in, of course, the peach-colored Sports pages the Register ran on Sundays) was wall-to-wall.
@Liz I have a grand-daughter who is fanatical about Peppa, but the key was that I already had _EPP_ by the time I read the clue.
@Marshall Walthew Marshall=-- I would say exactly the same about my solving experience, except I would fill in the parenthetical with a different law school alma mater (30-across instead of 37-down), handily cross-referenced in the puzzle.
I've finished the puzzle and gotten the original acknowledgement, but now it says I'm not done. Is anyone else getting anything similar? I have kind of a long streak going and would prefer not to lose it on an NYT technical glitch.
@Steve L I'm just over 6 years behind you (1174) and very impressed. If I hadn't (a) failed to see how to fill in the answers on a non-standard puzzle, and (b) just plain forgotten to do it one day while I was still working, I could be at about 2700 by now. Hang in there and nail 10 years as an early Christmas present for yourself.
I'm not sure what the rules were for entering the rebus and being recognized as having completed the puzzle. I went through the first time just entering one letter in the box and omitting the other. (I knew what both letters were, but only entered one of them.) When that didn't work, I started entering both letters as a rebus. I did that for 3 or 4 of the rebus squares (so less than half of them), at which point the puzzle was completed and the remaining rebuses (rebi?) filled in themselves. I knew what the words were, but not what the rules were. A little bit too frustrating to love, although I admire the constructing skill required.
@RP Congratulations from a fellow Minnesotan (and former Minneapolitan)! I'm in the 1460's somewhere. Great dedication!
@CCNY Thanks! I followed your suggestion, and they say they are looking at it.
@HeathieJ Thanks for the reference. My question here is why did the puzzle complete right in the middle of entering the rebuses? I only got through entering the rebus in 4 of the 12 rebus squares, and suddenly it told me I was done.
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