Heidi

The trivia in this one was so far out of my wheelhouse, it was on a completely different lake. Too much sports and geography. Two much Star Wars as well. Vocabulary is usually a strength for me, but a lot of it was really obscure— including the definition for the revealer, which put up another barrier to entry. And those theme entries… TELL ALLS? Fine. But APIA SAMOA? When there’s an actual Samoa Beach in California? Too confusing. I considered quitting a few times because I simply wasn’t having fun. But I kept going because I wanted to see the animation. Which I didn’t get. Clever idea, poor execution. This was a disappointment.

Sometimes it’s not what you say, it’s what you leave out. Suff* it to say, we all have a cho*. We can give in to coward* or fight for just*. *, *, baby.

Solutely fulous debut! I found this undantly enjoyle; clearly a lor of love. Was it too stract? Too impenetrle? Don’t be surd! And don’t let the nobs of negativity spoil the fun. . . . . (I’ll stop bbling now.)

Like most others, I delighted in the very un-serious line of Os. At first I thought something was amiss, but once I caught on I cheerfully filled in the rest of the string without even reading the Down clues. Sometimes a little bit of whimsy is all you need to really bring a puzzle to life.

I know Saturdays are supposed to be tough, but this went above and beyond. I won’t complain, because not every puzzle is for everyone and there was nothing I could call out as unfair, exactly, but it just wasn’t fun. Not for me, anyway. Sorry.

Difficult puzzles don’t bother me. A challenge is always good. And when it gets the best of me… maybe it’s just not on my wavelength, and that’s fair. But when there’s clue after clue that makes no sense, even when I reveal the answer… I don’t know what to do with that. Is it me? Is it the puzzle? Should it bother me this much? Should it bother me at all? I guess there’s always Sunday.

Looking up answers isn’t cheating, it’s learning. But I try to avoid learning until it’s absolutely necessary. Today, I did a lot of learning.

I’m glad for all of you who have been wanting a difficult puzzle, because you sure got one. What I got was an exercise in frustration and futility. And after 30+ minutes of lookups and still getting nowhere, I decided to cut my losses and bail. This is the first puzzle I have ever quit since I started doing them here, around 3 years ago, but if I’m not having fun I just can’t see the point. I hope to have fun tomorrow.

Are the puzzles getting easier? Absolutely. For two reasons: A. The more puzzles you do, the more you come to recognize certain patterns. Tonight’s “canine” clue didn’t fool me for a second, because I’ve seen that misdirection before. I know that cookie references almost always mean Oreos, and certain actresses with short, vowel-heavy names will always have a career here. Question marks tell me to look for double meanings, and a little knowledge of French (or tennis) goes a long way. The more you do, the better and faster you get. Compounded daily. B. Of COURSE the editors are trying to attract and retain new customers. Can you blame them? Games subscriptions are a key revenue driver for the company. To some extent, they’re helping to keep the news division afloat. Attracting and retaining those all-important subscribers means keeping them happy, which requires a certain editorial balance. Make the puzzles too hard and people will get frustrated and stop playing. Make them too easy and no one will bother. But with the balance of subscribers tilting towards newbies, the difficulty level will trend in their direction. It is what it is, people. Complain about it all you want, but it’s not going to change. And if solving a Friday puzzle 10 minutes faster than usual is the price I have to pay to keep great journalism alive, I’m happy to do it. As long as the puzzles are fun and the interactions here are enjoyable, I think I’m definitely getting my money’s worth.

Wait… how long was I asleep? What day is this? I think the editors may have forgotten to reset more than the year on today’s calendar. I like a challenge, but this wasn’t an enjoyable one for me. ADOLFO/L-DOPA, clunky phrases like THERE’S NO TWO and AT A LOW EBB, the NO-IT-ON gag that took too long to figure out and wasn’t worth the payoff. Plus, RARIN? That word alone almost convinced me that the circles indicated rebuses. Something to indicate a truncation was really needed there. Meh. Maybe I’m just grumpy because of all the time travel.

Midweek’s Very Excellent Maker Just Served Us Nice Puzzle (And yes, Puzzle stays.)

Like most Thursday puzzles, I skipped the “trick” clues, waiting for the revealer. It wasn’t until I got POCKETS through the crosses, and saw that they were lined, that I realized the revealers were there all along. Very clever. Aside from that, any puzzle that includes a ZEDONK is aces in my book. The first time I saw one, I laughed so hard I made myself a little horse.

Ah-hooo! A Warren Zevon mention is always most welcome. And the image of Dracula hopping around because light on his feet? Love it. I could really sink my teeth into this one. It was fun.

Oodles of poodles Are fun to conceive of No matter the reason or rhyme. But when cute fuzzy muzzles Come into my puzzles I must say it’s truly sublime. Even those who hate dogs Won’t find it a slog Or feel that they’ve wasted their time. They’ll just say “Thank Jebus, It wasn’t a rebus” And savor the victory chime.

I refuse to engage in the alumni/a/ae debate. The clue led me to the answer, so as far as I’m concerned, it worked. And not to curry favor, but I enjoyed the Indian puns. Dad jokes: bringing all nations together in a common groan.

I thought this a fine puzzle for any day of the week. Easy in some spots, challenging in others. Enjoyable throughout. (Just balancing out the complaints, of which I have none.)

Is AYO the new ONO?

I am always amazed by the number of people who hate it when their puzzles are puzzling. I thought this was brilliant. Like many others, I started out thinking this was a rebus. But I soon realized a traditional rebus fill wouldn’t work because that just created a long incompatible string of letters for the Down entries . (A rebus always has to be legible in both directions, if I’m not mistaken.) That told me something was amiss. My strategy when confronting a puzzle like this, that I don’t immediately understand, is to first avoid the areas that are obviously “tricky”. In this case, any fill that intersected a line. After I got some adjacent clues filled in, and especially once I revealed the revealer, the light bulb went off and the rest went smoothly. For me, this was all sunshine and rainbows. Sorry others had a different experience.

I IMAGINE I’m a puzzle constructor. I spend weeks, maybe months on a puzzle, working out the details and polishing the clues until I think I have something special. I achieve my DREAM of publication, and then… All anyone can talk about is that it ran on the wrong day. I can’t disagree, but I have no control over that. I PICTURE people liking it as a Tuesday puzzle, but then I THINK about appreciation being tied to publication date, and how weird that is. I decide to ignore all the negativity and feel proud of creating what was, after all, a pretty good puzzle. Then I start plotting the most devilishly inscrutable Thursday crossword that anyone has ever seen. (Happy birthday, Kevin. Make us eat our words.)

I wanted “Munster man” to be Herman, but I’ll settle for HERR. Not the trickiest of Thursdays, but I thought it was sweet. Anyone who doesn’t like it is probably just jelly.

And you may ask yourself, “How do I work this?” And you may ask yourself, “Where do those extra letters go?” And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful puzzle.” And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful day.” Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. (For the record, I thought this was a beautiful puzzle. Thank you, Daniel Bodily. And happy birthday, Daniel’s dad!)

I might understand the grumbling about ABYSM if it weren’t for the fact that the theme pointed directly to the need for a symmetrical letter. Look, I had ABYSs, too, but my failure to recognize my error is on me, not the puzzle. It’s not like the unfamiliar word was just dropped in with no context. Clever puzzle, good challenge. I may have fallen into the ABYSs, but I still had a great time. And I learned a valuable lesson about attention to detail.

Some ponies and their cronies Drank iced oolong by the pool While toy poodles with foam noodles Swiftly paddled a canoe. The snorlax awoke to the smell of fresh trout That (poof!) soon went in to his welcoming snout. The sky was azure, sunshine out the wazoo “Are we cool?” asked the ponies. But they already knew.

This was brutal. I may have set a new record for Things I Had To Look Up. That doesn’t mean it was a bad puzzle, it just wasn’t on my wavelength. Kudos to anyone who made it through without help.

What’s more fun than a rebus? Two rebuses with a twist! There will always be naysayers, but today I think it’s safe to say the aNONO have it.

SO many posts about how easy this was for a Friday (it was), but not enough posts about how satisfying it was to solve, for any day of the week. I think both had a lot to do with the relatively low number of black squares. There were so many crosses to every answer that there was always a way in, for even the more challenging clues. Thanks, Malaika, for showing me a good time while also making me feel Friday smart!

My first thought was, this is too hard. That was after I made my first pass and had about 5 words filled in. My second thought was, this is interesting. That was after I filled in BOROUGH and SENSEI and began to realize where we were going with those last syllables. My third thought was, this is fun! That was when I had enough of the revealer and the theme entries to quickly fill in the rest. My last thought was, that was awesome! That was when I completed what first seemed impossible without a single lookup. From a dud to a bottle rocket: the most satisfying kind of puzzle. Happy 4th, everyone!

See, this is what happens when you poke the puzzle gods! “Sooo… you think we’ve been too easy on you? Okay, how about THIS?” I hope you’re happy.

When my husband and I bought our house, the realtor referred to it as a “starter” home. Apparently, we were meant to learn the basics of homeownership here, then move on to something bigger and more challenging. I guess we didn’t learn our lessons, because we’re still here. (Actually, we just really like our house.) But in that spirit, I think this puzzle would make a great “starter rebus”. It’s intuitive and easy to grasp. If the inability to squeeze SEE SPOT RUN into 15A causes a little uncertainty, having the inability to squeeze NEPOTISM into the *very next clue* is like a gentle guiding hand. And then the circles… This is not to say I thought the puzzle was too easy, or boring. On the contrary, I thought it was a fun drive. Having the potholes scattered among the various thoroughfares was a clever bonus. And the clues were definitely challenging enough to be engaging. This puzzle probably won’t sway anyone who is already determined to hate rebuses. But for anyone else, and especially those who are new to the concept, I think this is a great example to show just how much fun it can be to navigate a rebus puzzle. Just watch out for the potholes!

I will admit, when I saw the clue about “bottoms decorated with characters from ‘The Odyssey’”, I had an image of two drunken English professors entering a tattoo shop. Bottoms up!

Aww… no confetti? Happy New Year, everyone. 🎉

Roses are red Violets are blue I done did this puzzle Bet Eddie did, too

I think I broke my record for number of changes needed to complete. Is it “eenie”? No, “eeney”. No, EENSY! How about “uies”? No, must be “uees”. Or possibly UEYS. Is it “ahh” or “OHH”? “Ahs” or AWS”? No matter, I made it threw. I mean through. (It wasn’t too tough.)

I have heard the phrase “uncanny valley” before, but I never knew what it meant until now. Basically, a feeling of revulsion towards beings who seem almost human but are not quite. That explains a lot about my reaction to certain members of our government.

PWNED?? I’ve since looked it up and I get it now, but at the time… I guess sometimes it pays to just shove some letters together and hope for the best. OREO COOKIE felt like a little good-natured trolling. As in, “You’re tired of entering ‘Oreo’? Ok, so how about we just make it loooonger…” Made me laugh, anyway.

At first, I was amused by “MOM JEANS” and “DAD BODS” living side by side. Then I got the theme and, just like dad’s waistline, my heart grew a size or two. Thanks, Kenneth, for a puzzle that not only challenged my brain but also warmed my heart. That’s a pretty rare achievement. Happy Pride Month to you and everyone you know.

By my estimation, at least 50% of commenters so far finished the puzzle without understanding it. (I am in that group.) This feels wrong. What is the point of having a Thursday-level trick if it can be bypassed so easily? I am not sure who to blame for this. The puzzle creator, for not making it harder? The editors, for not placing this on a day where tricks are optional? The tech team, for not making rebus entry mandatory? Or me and my fellow solvers for just not getting it? I don’t know, but I am feeling a different kind of Schrödinger effect right now: simultaneously impressed AND disappointed.

LOVED IT. I’m in awe.

AGLET is one of my favorite “wait, there’s a word for that?” words. I also like: Philtrum (the indentation between the nose and lip) Tittle (the dot over a lower case i or j) Petrichor (the smell of rain hitting dry earth) Lunule (the crescent shape at the base of a fingernail) I’m not sure I’ve encountered any of these outside of a crossword puzzle, but they’re still fun to know.

About 90% of this puzzle came very easily to me. And then things got hard. I didn’t know either of the one-named singers, but the crosses helped me there. ALEE didn’t really fit the clue, but it fit the grid, so OK SURE. Never heard of a CONEY dog, but “chili” didn’t work so I went with it. The crossing of TNUT and ASIANA held me up for awhile as I’m not familiar with either one. But my Waterloo was Jack PAAR. I got the name, but I was sure it was spelled “Parr.” Even a peek at the answer grid didn’t help me spot the mistake, so I resorted to a puzzle check and a blue star. As the stumblers say, “ER!” (Do they, really?)

Yesterday’s brouhaha over proper names got me thinking about how they can be as much of a help to some solvers as they are a hindrance to others. When I started doing crosswords, the wordplay in the clues was intimidating. I didn’t know what to make of clues ending in “, say” or a question mark. Could I trust the ones that seemed more straightforward? And wait, now you’re telling me the answer can be more than one word? Within this sea of uncertainty, proper names were a godsend. Same goes for pop culture titles. They were unambiguous, they didn’t have multiple possible synonyms, and they often became the crosses that brought clarity to tougher clues. Did I know them all? Of course not. But the ones I did were immensely helpful. So when a veteran solver gets stumped by a person, title or term that seems too niche for the NYT crossword, I would ask them to consider that that Thing they’ve never heard of may also be a novice’s way in. Even (or especially?) on a Monday!

As a big fan of Roger Ebert back in the day, I love love loved this puzzle. He called ‘em as he seen ‘em, and even when he was scathing he was always fair. I used to follow his Movie Answer Man column on Compuserve.(And if that doesn’t date me, nothing will!) One day, I wrote him an email to offer a counter opinion to something he had written, and much to my surprise, he replied with a lengthy, thoughtful and appreciative response. He was a true gentleman, and movie criticism hasn’t been the same without him. Two thumbs up. (Gene, I miss you, too.)

I really struggled with this one. Ready to give up, I clicked the “info” button and saw the byline: SAM EZERSKY. Big sigh. No wonder! Unwilling to let that dastardly Spelling Bee-er get the best of me (AGAIN), I went back to the puzzle and persevered. Did I resort to a couple of Google consults? Yes, of course. But did I ultimately finish with no reveals? You bet I did. HA! This Queen Bee is not afraid of you, Sam. (Much.)

There is more music here than meets the eye (or ear). In addition to the theme entries, we have: URIAH Heep (the band, not the fictional villian) ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) New ORDER Here Comes the SUN (doo-di doo doo) HELP (another Beatles entry) Def Leppard’s HYSTERIA ESAU Ortiz Tori AMOS It’s Janet…Ms. Jackson, if you’re NASTY. Pick a tune, cue it up, and dance! (Da ya think I’m SEXY?)

What’s more fun, that “aha” feeling when you’ve figured out the theme, or that “wow” feeling when you see it’s even bigger than you realized? I was deep into the puzzle before I discovered that the “back” words extended in more than two directions. And when I did, my initial sense of cleverness was replaced by deep respect. (Along with a very large grin.) This was like a slow burn reveal, and in the very best way.

Very clever! I guess you could call this an anti-rebus? I wonder if people who grumble about squeezing two letters in one square will appreciate the ability to simply leave one off. Probably not. I just hope the complaints are not BOTTOMLESS.