Marshall Walthew

I completely missed the theme and solved faster than usual for a Thursday. I feel a little dirty.

I give this one an A. Just because.

At 12:45 a.m. on Sunday I received the dreaded, but expected, phone call that my 95 year old mother who had been receiving hospice care had passed away. Thankfully, she passed peacefully and with a minimum of suffering at the last. After making some phone calls that I needed to make to take care of arrangements for taking care of her body, and notifying other close family members I tried to get some sleep, but sleep would not come. So I opened the NY T Sunday puzzle and worked it. It was both therapeutic and poignant, as it was my mother who inspired in me my love of words, and,more particularly, my love of crosswords and other word puzzles. From a very early age I can remember the pleasure she took from sitting down on Sundays after church and solving the NYT Sunday puzzle. When I got older, I would sometimes help her with the puzzle, and when I got older still, we sometimes fought over who would have dibs on the first crack at the puzzle. She remained a puzzler right up to the end, although she never graduated to solving on line. So for me, sitting in my darkened bedroom, doing the Sunday puzzle was a comfort beyond words.

This tasty puzzle left me hungry for more. The puzzle highlighted one of my favorite foods — MAPOTOFU. When I was learning how to cook during my college years, it was one of the first things I learned how to cook. After graduating, I was looking for a summer job and walked into a Chinese restaurant here in suburban Ardmore where my fiancée and I had enjoyed several meals and asked for a job. To my surprise, the owners interviewed me. On the strength of my ability to describe how to cook MAPOTOFU (and perhaps also because I agreed to tutor their 8 year old son in English) they offered me a job as the third cook. I spent a great summer learning the restaurant trade and the secrets of Chinese cooking. Fast forward 20 years, and after years of living in Philly I moved back to Ardmore, and went back to eat at the restaurant, where the son was now the head chef, and he and I are friends to this day.

I found this one tougher than the average Tuesday, with lots of specific knowledge clues that were outside my ken. I actually used the theme to open up the pesky NE corner (having no clue about Emily OSMENT). Getting ANGELANGLE gave me enough letters to piece it together. I was struck by the plethora of Qs and Xs.

I found all the medium long entries in this puzzle delightful: HERDINGCATS, FAKEPLANTS, GETSABADRAP, SINKORSWIM and any reference to ANIMALFARM (George Orwell’s farewell to communism) is welcome. I was helped by knowing about SEALS in Scottish lore, which I learned from the folk song The Silkie of Sule Skerry, and which reminded me of the lovely trip to Scotland my wife and stepdaughter took in September, in part to visit my daughter, son-in-law and grandson. My one disagreement with the puzzle is that it doesn’t seem to me that it takes a long time to get OLD. It seems to happen in the blink of an eye.

There was a FUNFILLED puzzle, with lots to like. I, for one, liked the clue for BELLCURVE, and the use of AUTODIDACT, NOCAP. I also liked THECREATIONOFADAM. Though not a religious person I was very moved by the frescoes in the Sistine chapel. Seeing BBKING took me back to when I was 12 or 13. My best friend’s mom worked at the Lawrenceville School, and when BBKING performed a concert there, she insisted on taking us. Neither of us knew much about him, and were, of course, blown away. My somewhat unlikely intro to the blues.The funny thing was that my friend’s mom was a very refined lady whose musical interests lay in the classical sphere. Thinking back, I recall a couple of years earlier, she took us to see A Hard Day’s Night. So her outward appearance concealed hidden depths. Many years later I learned that she had driven an ambulance in France during WWII. She’s still going strong at 101 and still does the NYT crossword in ink every day.

I found this one to be a solid puzzle, with plenty of fresh answers, little glue and few proper names. As a former lawyer (although not a TAXLAWYER), I did bristle a bit at the clue: one skilled at withholding details. Then it dawned on me: withholding as in tax withholding, not as in hiding or refusing to produce. With such well established constructors, I should have known better. Bravo.

Seemed hard, then easy, then I bogged down at ATTACKAD and ANKLETAT. As a former insurance lawyer, I thought minimal coverage provider should be GEICO or AETNA. Nevertheless a good clue for THONG.

A gentle theme and a pleasant puzzle. Perfectly cromulent.

I solved without ever figuring out how the theme worked. I would never have gotten it without reading Wordplay. I’m a word person first and foremost, and while gimmicks like this do add a nice extra dimension to solving, I’m perfectly happy to just get by with word intuition and crosses. That said, I found this one very clever, but way above my pay grade.

This puzzle was a welcome RAY of sunshine, featuring the gentlest of rebuses. I would even go so far as to say it is the perfect puzzle to introduce the uninitiated to the rebus concept. The rebus was easy to spot and repeated itself, so, once gotten, it became even easier to spot the other rebus squares. For myself, I’d prefer a more challenging rebus, but since this is only Wednesday, it’s probably best that the constructor tried to minimize potential blowback. On a more serious note, I’d like to thank again all those who responded to my post on the Tuesday thread with kind thoughts, consoling words, especially those who shared their own stories.

A very fresh Friday with lots of nice long answers that were not PREDICTABLE, like the ending of a rom-com, but which were reasonably easy to get. I liked the little college theme going on in the SE with DEANS, BURSAR, SRS and TENURE. I was helped immensely by knowing TEXASTEA, which I learned AEONS ago when I first heard it the Beverly Hillbillies theme song: “black gold, TEXASTEA”

I don’t know if it was just me, but this puzzle seemed to have ATON of fairly esoteric general knowledge questions. I’m sure there will be quite a few complaints. I actually looked up ELLIE Bamber, the first time I’ve had to resort to Google in quite some time, and after that it did come together. Not my favorite puzzle, although I did learn some things.

NOIFSANDSORBUTS about it, this was a fun Thursday. I could see that the starred clues were missing letters, but it wasn’t until I got the revealer that the light bulb went on and I fully got the trick. A STandOUT puzzle.

I was wandering around the puzzle FRUITLESSLY until I got the revealer. Then the clever themers became clear in a trice. I like it when the revealer unlocks a puzzle like that. Lots of good clues and very little filler. An all around winner. And for me a bonus — my law school alma mater (UPENN) showed up.

What an elegant puzzle. The grid was lovely and daunting, as were the clues. Sesquipedalia for TENDOLLARWORDS has to warm the hearts of word lovers everywhere. I was a bit tired when I started this one and thought I might have to sleep on it when I had very little after the first pass. I did myself no favors by entering OTS at 4D rather than 3D, but then I came up with SHERLOCKHOLMES and his DEERSTALKERCAP and was able to crack the case. A bravura debut puzzle. Just a lovely end to the puzzling week.

This one had its UPs and DOWNs. I thought it was a simple rebus, and entered UP in all the circled squares. I was charmed to find that DOWN worked as well and that the rebuses worked both ways. That was a very neat trick in my book.

A pretty grid, but completely lacking in resistance. Even the long answers were guessable without crosses. Pleasant enough, but disappointing for a Saturday. I’ll check back to see if SHAG and its clue inspire any controversy.

This puzzle was sneaky good. The themers weren’t obvious (at least not to me) and each one was its own aha moment. My favorite, and the last to fall, was DRAGONSLAYER. I also got a kick out of seeing RAP and EMO stacked atop each other (even though EMO wasn’t being used as a music genre in this case). I had tried EMO as the mix tape genre, so I was amused to see it crop up right below where I had improperly inserted it.

I found this one delightful from start to finish. Despite the many decades of puzzles I’ve worked on I still get flustered when I see a lot of open white space and long answer stacks in the grid, even though experience has taught me that all it takes is enough crosses or good guesses to get one or two of the long entries and then there is enough information to make the puzzle unfold like a rose. Sure enough, I got RETIRETHESIDE and TOENAILSCISSORS and was able to build the puzzle from the bottom up — until I got to the top third that is. Up top, I had screwed myself royally by filling in COFFEECAKES (based on the K from KAEL) for 1A. My ignorance of all things car-related also led to my entering El Dorado, instead of ELCAMINO (Chevy, Cadillac what’s the diff, they both begin with C). Apologies to our resident car buff Grant for this bit of automotive ignorance. Having sorted that out I tried coffee maker before finally stumbling on WAFFLEMAKER and was able to cruise to a reasonable Saturday finish. Favorite entry: GOODSPELLERS I got DAB by recalling old Brylcreem ads, “A little dab’ll do ya.”

CAPITAL Tuesday puzzle!

I like puzzles that evoke the simple joy of playing with words, and this one did that. All the themers were fun, but QUASIQUASIMODO, was a true standout.

This was a perfectly fine puzzle, but it offered very little resistance for a Saturday.

How cute to have GOODMORNING on the side with sunrise and NIGHTYNIGHT on the side with sunset. I dutifully filled in IRON, but didn’t see the connection to decrease until after I completed the whole puzzle, which led to a belated chuckle.

I was struggling a bit with this one until I caught on to the stately theme at OZARKS. After that, the patchwork of words that I had accumulated proved sufficient to enable me to fill in the other themed clues and the puzzle fell into place. Other the three letter heavy NE and SW corners I thought this was a good workout. Given recent developments I was amused to see GULFOFMEXICO appear as an answer and deport as a clue. I’m not one to view crossword clues and answers with a political lens, but those two seemed oddly timely.

Usually I expect a rebus to make a puzzle more challenging, but here it quickly became apparent that all the circles contained the sin rebus, and a couple of crosses made it clear that the shaded squares had sin too. With so many free letters, and an obvious revealer, there wasn’t much mystery to the puzzle. Not what I was hoping for.

I had a wry grin on my face when I finished this one.

As is often the case for me, the fact that the key to this one lay primarily in the clues, completely eluded me. I was able to get the themed answers without the slightest clue why they made sense. Fortunately the crosses and a little logic kept the puzzle from being frustrating, and I got a nice, if belated, aha moment thanks to Wordplay. I was helped greatly by the pangolin clue, as my grandson is infatuated with all things pangolin. His favorite t shirt, correctly warns, “may spontaneously talk about pangolins.” I tried reading him Marianne Moore’s poem, The Pangolin, but, unsurprisingly, given that he is four years old, he preferred pangolin videos on You Tube. A couple of dodgy answers (CATDOM and EVILEST) had me wincing a bit - but all’s fair, as long as I can figure it out. And finally, I’m glad to see the puzzle on a first name basis with Ms. Streisand. I’m just glad they didn’t go with Babs.

Well, I had no idea that ELMS were a symbol of wisdom. I just took that one on faith. So much short fill made this one a bit choppy. I mostly just came to wish the merriest of new years to all the wonderful puzzle enthusiasts in this community who daily take my enjoyment of crosswording to a higher level with their wit and wisdom.

I smiled when I figured out the rebus and that the puzzle was a riff on MINESWEEPER. When i was working, MINESWEEPER was on the computer and I played many a game when I had downtime, or when I was on particularly boring conference calls. In this puzzle, spotting the rebus speeded the solve and success was MINEALLMINE. I liked the clue for ABACUS.

I usually listen to music while doing the puzzle at night, and when I saw SPINALTAP in the puzzle I turned my amp up to eleven. I was able to spot the rebus without too much trouble, and even spotted the theme before seeing the revealer (not that common for me). I did get a little twisted in the NW by entering strum for 1D instead of THRUM, but caught my mistake relatively quickly. I mostly just came tonight to say that I hope all my fellow puzzlers had a joyful holiday season and to wish you all the merriest of new years, and that all your puzzles bring a bit of happiness to your days.

Some fun clues in this one, like present day attire for SANTASUIT and they help you get off the lot for AUTOLOANS. It came together pretty quickly for a Friday. I was happy to see Marilyn McCoo get some love in the puzzle. Her smooth as silk vocals with the Fifth Dimension were some of the high points of sixties soul. Yet somehow she never gets mentioned when the great female soul singers get discussed or listed. Maybe that’s because she’s deemed more pop than soul, but it seems like an injustice to me. Her version of One Less Bell To Answer is as soulful as they come.

At first I thought the theme was annoying and esoteric beyond belief. I worked primarily through crosses, and was doing ok until the SE corner. Then the anagrammatic nature of the themed clues became clear, the revealer made sense and my frustration vanished. I stand in awe of the linguistic legerdemain that went into this one. And to top it off, the clue for MADEMAN was top notch. For reasons I won’t get into, I was unable to comment on yesterday’s puzzle, but suffice it to say GUMMO gave me fits.

This was a proper Saturday. It seemed opaque to me for quite some time, but after having the KNOWHOW to figure out the SW corner, it came together steadily and I finished a bit under my usual Saturday time. Getting RETINALSCAN and SPIDEYSENSE were key for me. SAINTED and TIMEMACHINE took me some time to catch up with. I was helped by the Philadelphia clue, USCOINS, especially because the mint here has been in the news recently because they minted the last penny there last week. While it makes economic sense to discontinue production of the penny, as a childhood coin collector and as someone who will still stoop to pick up a penny on the sidewalk, it feels like another piece of the America I grew up with vanishing.

Fun puzzle with lively clues, lots of fresh and interesting answers, and few three letter answers. I solved it steadily by jumping all around. I liked REFUSENIKS (maybe Bartleby was the first one). I was also happy to see DEIRDRE (of the sorrows), which I remembered because I long ago wrote a paper on the treatment of the DEIRDRE legend in Irish literature. Don’t let anybody tell you that a liberal arts education isn’t worthwhile. But all puzzlers know that.

This puzzle went from the sublime (the Brontës) to the ridiculous (the Kardashians). Cute theme nonetheless. I liked little buggy for ANT. I was happy to see Anthony DOERR in the middle of the puzzle. His novels, All The Light We Cannot See and Cloud Cuckoo Land are delightful reads.

I liked the puzzle well enough, and figured out the trick without really registering the brunch aspect of the bottomless answers. I needed lots of help from the crosses, as there were quite a few unknowns for me in the puzzle. One gimme, however, was the delightful Diana RIGG. While I know she was in Game Of Thrones, and stole every scene she was in, she’ll always be Mrs. Peel from the Avengers to me. I suppose those old episodes would seem horribly dated now, but at the time they, along with The Prisoner constituted some of the most adventurous fare on TV in the 60s.

This one was going down like a buttery slice of TEXASTOAST, but I stumbled a bit in the NW. for a long time all I had in that sector was TIBET. I tried uni for seafood delicacy rather than the more generic ROE which didn’t help. I stared and stared and eventually IOWEYOUONE jumped out at me, and the rest fell like dominoes. I wonder how many will try mint jelly before MINTSAUCE, as I did. Growing up it was always mint jelly when we had lamb.

I don’t normally complain about puzzles ….. but. This one was very cute, but way too easy for a Thursday. I’m ok with easier puzzles early in the week, but Thursday through Sunday I hope for at least a bit of a challenge, and relish the real toughies.

This was just a nice puzzle full of fun entries and a lovely grid with only a few, but strategically placed black squares. I got on a roll when I had enough crosses to recognize SANTAMONICAPIER and it’s ROLLERCOASTER. When I finished I was surprised to see I had finished quite a bit under my Saturday average. A tip of the hat to Thomas Jefferson for bringing us VANILLAICECREAM

A cute puzzle of typical Tuesday ease with a well executed theme. What grabbed my attention was the reference to A Fly Went By. I have spent quite a bit of time reading that one to my grandson and making up funny voices for the different animals. The singsong cadence seems to be a real hook for him. Amyway, it was nice to be reminded of quality time spent with the little guy.

I liked this puzzle, for reasons for which some people will hate it. Lots of general knowledge and pop culture references. Enough like BARTLEBY, MOMOA, DEADHEADS were in my wheelhouse and made the puzzle faster than average for me. As I young lawyer I often wanted to tell partners assigning me particularly mind numbing tasks, “I prefer not to,” but discretion being valor’s better part I elected to bite my tongue instead. Iloved the clue French buns for DERRIÈRES. It was interesting to see the Grateful Dead and Radiohead in the same puzzle as they are two of the bands with the most fanatic, dare I say cult-like, fan bases. In the realm of weird coincidences, after yesterday’s discussion of people’s reactions to the word MOIST, I was in a drug store today and a birthday card caught my eye in passing. The front contained only the word MOIST. Inside the card read “Now your day can only get better. Happy Birthday.”

For some reason the use of homonyms for the concealed monsters left me a little flat. I actually caught on to the trick at the first themer and guessed that none of the others would be spelt correctly, so it didn’t slow me down. What did slow me down a bit by making me get the dreaded “something’s amiss” message was having isayno and ene instead of ISAYSO and ESE, which actually could have been right. It was a perfectly fine puzzle, but just not my cup of tea.

LETSSAY I KINDASORTA KEPTITREAL. YEAHIMSURE.

This was a pretty sophisticated Tuesday puzzle, although the profusion of three letter answers made it go fairly quickly. It was interesting to see the COTTONCANDY theme juxtaposed with GILSCOTTHERON, whose works of bracing social commentary were anything but fluffy. Pieces Of A Man and Winter In America et al. were highly influential in the eventual development of rap and hip hop, although Gil worked more in the jazz/blues tradition than his progeny. Hearing The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and Whitey On The Moon, which were my introduction to his work, were galvanizing for me. His works remain sadly relevant today.

This was a pleasant enough Tuesday. It scored points with me by highlighting John McPhee, one of the most entertaining writers of non-fiction in English. McPhee had a great gift of finding the interesting in any subject, and the greater gift of being able to coax stories out of people he met from just about any walk of life. The book highlighted in the puzzle, Coming Into The Country, is a complex portrait of many aspects of life in Alaska. I’ve read it at least four times. Other books about the New Jersey Pine Barrens, life on a Hebridean island, Princeton basketball player, Bill Bradley, tectonic geology, oranges, and birch bark canoes, to name a few, are all great reads.