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At least I’m confident I googled less in solving this than the author did in creating it lol
@Tryer Agree. How nice it must be to meet the person you admire most in the world and realize it is … YOU! Please don’t play it again, Sam
@Michael Sixty-five years ago, my dad smiled at my struggles with the NYT crossword, then he gently taught me about ANIL and SERE and a dozen other staples I’ll think of in my dreams tonight. Know what? His xword advice has been of much more value to me than anything he said about the birds and the bees. Go figure LOL
What do you give someone with big aspirations? Heimlich maneuver. Nice puzzle. The constructor might be my doppelganger. So many oldy-but-goodies! Haven’t seen ANIL in years, and WELBY brings tears to my eyes. Thanks
TELOS, LAMBDA, GAIA, GEMINI, ASTRA, and even OLIVE TREE. It’s all Greek to me but happily … I know Greek! ZOO too, actually. And … what were the discussions for cluing AGAPE? You can’t get more Greek than that, can you? Also: hat tip to SERE, ANIL, SAL … blast of the past! How did Mel Ott, Gordy Howe, and Bobby Orr not get invited to this party?
Dang but don’t I feel respected! Wonderful puzzle with terrific clues. The very best in a long while. Thank you.
PIANO TUNER twice in a couple days. Crazy coincidence? If you think so, I have a bridge to sell you Compare the probability of that to the alternate explanation I’ve presented in similar ‘coincidences’, to wit: ALL these puzzles are composed by one fellow, who comes into the office at the NYT at 6 every morning, turns in that day’s puzzle by noon, takes his pay daily in cash and retires to one of his favorite Manhattan watering holes with his three best friends (initials JB, JD, and SGR). Sometimes he gets lazy and reuses an entry two or three times in one week, as this one. He is always abashed but never gives any money back. He has three interns assigned to him, none of whom he has ever met. Their job is to make up bios of mythical ‘interesting’ constructors and compete to write the silliest ‘constructor notes’. What do you think? What are the odds? Lol
Okay, I’m out. There’s no entertainment in these “Have your bot call my bot” puzzles. You’ve ‘perfected’ your way out of my life. Throw some letters on a grid then search the web for foreign actresses whose names they accidentally coincide with? Uh uh. Naticks everywhere. Thanks, I guess, for giving me back three hours a week. Bye.
One more demonstration of what I’ve noted here before: ARHAT two days in a row after not being seen in years. It happens all the time! PEOPLE: all the daily NYT crosswords are composed by one guy, who comes in at 6 a.m. and submits the next day’s puzzle by 1 p.m. He gets paid in cash and then retires to his favorite watering hole to spend the afternoon with his three best friends (initials JB, JD, and sweet GR). He constructs the puzzles himself but has a staff of 3 interns who compete at dreaming up the fake bios printed here along with the hilarious ‘constructor notes’. He’s never met them. Now you know.
Bartender: I’ll have what she’s having
Imagine that! TIVO two days in a row! What are the odds??? (About fifty-fifty, I’d say - lol) Gotta laugh. Don’t believe the baloney about these puzzles being submitted by diverse people all over the country. Here’s the fact, as I’ve pointed out before: ALL the daily xwords are composed by THE SAME GUY. He comes into the NYT office at 6 every morning and turns in the next day’s puzzle between 9 and noon. He gets paid daily in cash and retreats for the afternoon to a favorite watering hole with his three best friends: Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, and Sweet Gypsy Rose. And sometimes he gets a little lazy and re-uses a word two or three times in a week, then retires it for a year or two - or five. He does all the puzzles by himself but has a staff of three interns, who compete in making up the fake bios and composing the hilarious ‘constructor’s notes’. He has never met them. And now you know.
TIL: YEET Bet I encounter it twice more this week. Not counting its ‘absolutely coincidental’ re-appearance(s) in the daily xword puzzles. Just like ARHAT. Give me a break, NYT.
Quelle surprise! CABOOSE - again! I’m not even going to go through it again: it’s so clear that these puzzles are NOT submitted by different people around the country and edited for months and … odd words keep popping up on consecutive days and then disappearing again for years. It’s a sweet facade … but I’ve grown rather fond of the idea of the one guy who writes them all and gets paid daily in cash (and retreats to his favorite watering hole with his three best friends JB, JD, and sweet GR, etc.) [See my previous comments on the subject.] Never forget ARHAT. Pull my other leg, NYT! LOL
I agree: we’ll remember ADATWIST the next time it appears because … based on recent experience, it will probably be in the next three days lol
Holy cow! Besides his Asian novels, he also wrote The Fly, The Great Escape, and To Sir, With Love. Prolific
Question: were there xwords before there was a TSA? How did that work? Like, empty spaces awaiting a federal agency? Is there a fine or a punishment for publishing a puzzle without a reference thereto? Also: note the recurrence of ARMYANT. Another bit of evidence for my theory of the origin of these constructions …
@Fact Boy Well, if you’re going to start in the late 12th century, of course you’re correct. But in your effort to be concise, you’re leaving out a full millenium, aren’t you? Seems sloppy to me …
Gotta laugh at the convoluted explication of 1-A, and wonder if the constructor had thought of Abe’s grocery before she read it here. I sure didn’t. Simpleton I may be, I had just asked myself “Hmmm, where does a trial lawyer work?”
I’ll be darned. I just checked with google and it turns out this puzzle constructor and I have identical search histories! WIM? Check. TIG? Check. VAL Cherm …? Yup. Swedish holidays? Of course. Gospel of Matthew? You bet. I happened to know Awkwafina’s name, because I had an aunt, but we both googled it just to be sure. ALLYSON? A gimme (please, Siri, gimme sumpin!) He did catch me on 16 across: Alexa suggested HOLOSEXUAL from aesthetics.com. That hung me up for 4 minutes. Coincidence, you say? Sure, why not. Ha! There should be allowed a generic clue for ‘a nonsense syllable ot two I got stuck with after all my very clever entries kind of almost stacked up, and I’m sure if I wanted to spend the time I could devise a clue, but solvers can too, so whatever letters you want to put in I’m cool with it’. It would feel so much more honest, wouldn’t it?
King Rat. Wonderful novel by James Clavell (Shogun). Don’t know the film.
Ha! I think of Bert Lahr all the time when whatzizname starts in with the “I’d hit him with a left, the I’d hit him with a right! You life would be so HAPPY if you’d just hand me your wallet.” LOL
I’ve seen American Gothic in Chicago and … in Paris! (Along with Hopper’s Nighthawks.) I’ve seen ‘Whistler’s Mother’ in Paris, Nashville, and Pasadena. Good stuff does get around, doesn’t it?
All-time best! Over twelve years of Sundays. It could have been even faster but I kept looking for any sort of misdirection, but WYSIWYG, in spades. One entry summarizes this ‘puzzle’: YAWN
In a just world … just right for an October Sunday in an election year during the mlb playoffs. Thanks, guys. Ya made me smile
Rebuses: I suppose most people know this, but it can’t hurt to state it again, to wit, there is no need to utilize the ‘rebus’ button, just put the first of the letters to be entered in the square and move on: the program will credit you with knowing what you’re about. HETTOHET may look bizarre, but this works and it makes an onerous slog in a puzzle like today’s into ‘a walk in the park.’ [I solve in the iOs version of the NYT Games app, but I have to believe the scoring algorithm is the same in all interfaces.]
@NRW It’s ‘half’ of Las Vegas … in an alternative universe. Like me, you must be stuck on Earth One?
Marveous, Marc! I see what you did: ‘The proper spelling’ of letters in the PHONETIC alphabet! Two hours and 30 comments and no one has recognized what a card you are …
@Steve L Actually, he lives within walking distance. He doesn’t own a computer, nor a cell phone. The puzzles are submitted on graph paper. In ink. Trust me. This explains so much, doesn’t it?
@Eric Agreed! But the PATTERN of these words showing up in puzzles submitted by various people some time last year and then scheduled for publication days apart is inconsistent with that LEGEND (as a coincidence), while it is COMPLETELY consistent with the puzzles being constructed in consecutive order by ONE GUY who finds a word useful one day and naturally calls it up a day or two later (like, recently, ARHAT). It has been suggested that our journeyman constructor submits his puzzles daily on graph paper in ink, and one commenter asserts he uses a fountain pen (because he nearly stabbed her with it when she tried to look over his shoulder). It’s ALL good, but some of us find it degrading to be subjected to an unreasonable mythology. Sometimes, as Freud might have said, a puzzle is just a puzzle
@Steven M. Do they serve lampreys at the stadium? If so, King Henry I advises moderation. Absolute moderation.
Referent to the constructor’s notes: At the Dali Museum in St Petersburg (FL) is exhibited - along with The Persistence of Memory - ‘Lincoln in DaliVision’, built of a few dozen large pixels which look like nothing up close but at a distance of 20 meters (down the corridor) resolve into the face of Lincoln from the five-dollar bill. A fun place, a nice visit. The building itself includes huge windows made up of hundreds of triangular panes - no two of which, it is said, are the same shape and dimensions. A rather firm rejection of manufacture via interchangeable parts.
@JoeS Knew YOGI Bear, got SIC, didn’t know Bacardi logo. I know both Cellini and Bellini as artists but figured a brunch cocktail was more likely to involve celery than bell peppers. Had Bacardi associated itself with rats, I would never have completed the puzzle. Anybody ever drunk a Bellini?
I remember July 17, 2016!!! Who doesn’t? It was the day we all thought nothing at all had happened to anyone anywhere … and now it’s confirmed! JK! We all remember turning points in our lives that nobody else noticed … kinda like wetting our pants in the rain. Nice puzzle. Quick.
It’s been awhile since I’ve finished a late-week puzzle with clues remaining that I hadn’t even looked at. Today, ATT and PEELS both fell into place via the crosses. Still, a decent Friday. Thx
@SP Ha ha ha! Fact is, as I have noted before: ALL the NYT crosswords are composed by one guy we’ve never heard of. He comes in at 6 a.m. and by noon he hands in the next day’s puzzle. He gets paid in cash and retires to a favorite watering hole nearby to pass the afternoon with his three best friends (initials JB, JD, and sweet GR). He does have a staff of three NYT interns who compete in composing the silly ‘bios’ people here get so wrapped up in. He’s never met them. Now you know.
What luck that Tito PUENTE showed up just a couple days ago! Or … is it a coincidence at all??? As I may have noted a few times already: What if … all the daily puzzles are composed by one person, and sometimes s/he gets a bit lazy and uses a word two or three times in a week, then lets it disappear for a year (or seven)??? Does someone really still believe these puzzles are developed independently in diverse places months and months ago? Lol
Gotta laugh at deb’s convoluted explication of 1-A and wonder if the constructor ever thought of that before she read it here, as I certainly hadn’t. Idiot I am, I had just asked myself “Hmmm, where does a trial lawyer work?”
Cheers for [Galley command]. Superb clue. Jeers for [Sully]. Lousy clue: imprecise and barely accurate. Meh for [Unhappy chorus], no cheers, no JEERS.
“My mother’s best friend in third grade”
@Greg Anderson Watch for PELE three times in the next two weeks. Sports people are like that: Bobby ORR and Mel OTT, for instance, often show up in spurts, then disappear again for months or years. When I hear about these puzzles supposedly being a year in preparation, coming in from different people in diverse places, I just have to laugh. Pull the other one, NYT!
Oops. Egg on my face. It’s The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory that is in St Petersburg. I’ve been to MOMA more than once; alarms should have gone off even before CV reminded me (below).
@GyrndiIm How do you want that bridge delivered? Once your check clears … I have contacts with all the delivery companies, but I personally recommend DHL
All time record for entries I had to go back - after finishing the puzzle in near PB time - to read the clues … because they’d been completed just with the crosses. An awful lot of 3-letter gimmes today! Probably next week it’ll be a film I’ve not seen or heard of. Imagine sussing out ANDYDUFRESNE??? Stinker. Way below par. Sez I.
@Roberta Hint: Actually … the software is content if you only enter the first letter of the rebus word
@Nicola Well, it did come through to us via Latin. Would you insist ‘heavenly being’ is an ‘aggel’ too?
@Leanne Well said! I know I and all my friends binge on kiwi sitcoms constantly - and grill each other on the names of the cast just for fun! @Alex I salute you for your skill - and for your tolerance of obscure here-today-forgotten-tomorrow faux-cultural trivia clues
Best Saturday time over 8 years! I love - but really hate - these puzzles with so many gimmes. The cluing of USEMBASSY is nonsensical but by the time I got back to it it was completed on the crosses. If I hadn’t dithered around NPR, I might have broken 10 minutes. Thanks, NYT! Feels like a Monday.
@Aarglefarg Bâtard pluralization. Next: ‘German guys’ = ‘Manns’?
More Monday than Sunday, I think. When I find myself filling in a grid without even looking at the clues … it doesn’t feel right. Still, fun! I have other things to do anyway. Thanks!