Ruby
Queens, NYC
I love this theme! But... where are the women who deserve more credit? It's so interesting that this puzzle was inspired by Emmy Noether but that no groundbreaking women made it into the final cut. Here's a few I came up with (which are not nearly as good): [Rosalind Franklin?] MOLECULAR MODEL [Ada Lovelace?] PROGRAM DIRECTOR [Grace Hopper?] COMPUTER MONITOR [Hedy Lamarr?] RADIO HEAD Anyone got more ideas?
With all the discussion around MAHERSHALA ALI (in spelling or relative obscurity), I'm surprised no one's yet mentioned Sebastian COE crossing TWIN CAM engines - neither of which I knew without running the alphabet + googling. Maybe COE seems more obscure to me due to my age...? whereas M.A. has won two Oscars less than a decade ago. He also happens to be from Oakland just like me - if anyone's interested, he produced an amazing, Emmy-winning documentary about the Oakland MLK Oratorical Fest that's worth watching.
I'm super happy to see lots of women in STEM pop up in this very medically-themed puzzle - spotted both ADA Lovelace and EMMY Noether, and surprised Grace Hopper didn't make it in somehow. Kind of shocking and sad that Noether is a debut in NYT, but hopefully she'll make plenty more appearances going forward!
@Skeptical1 You'd be surprised at how difficult it can be to create a crossword suitable for a Monday, which welcomes all solving levels. Let's drop the bot accusation and start recognizing the hard work of constructors, please!
@Tim I see two comments that could have set Lou off - one describing Mahershala Ali as "a Muslim actor you’ve never heard of" and another as "random letters". I would prefer to see more positive comments (along the lines of "I hadn't heard of this actor before but his work sounds interesting" or "this was tough because I don't know a lot of actors or movies") rather than disparaging comments like those I quoted. And, I personally found that COE (a white athlete) was tough fill for me but possibly not for others. Sometimes knowledge is relative, and sometimes we do need to ask questions about what we assume "everyone" knows. That said, I don't think comparing fill or comments is the point here.
re: thoughts on FEMININE SIDE, i wouldn't mind having it in the puzzle if the clue was different - maybe a reference back to BARBIECORE could've worked. btw, surprised (and delighted) that BARBIECORE wasn't considered "too niche" or "too young". when will we see BRAT or COCONUT-PILLED?! <3
KILLING EVE MENTIONED!!! Great grid and theme, great execution. Noticed the mononyms and lack of men's names towards the end of my solve and was amazed.
@Charles Anderson Could you provide some examples of words you found "dull" and "pointless"? Personally I thought the freshness of the grid extended beyond the longer answers to the cluing for shorter/more common words - like EDIE Brickell, Virgil's thoughts on ETNA, or religious ICONs. To each their own, I guess...
@Sandip Jersey is a breed of cow, so a "new" Jersey is a baby cow or calf. That took me a moment too!
@Lewis I noticed a really low number of 3-word answers too, which is super impressive construction for such a constrained grid!
@Helena 17A and 31A are explained in the column as theme clues, and 18D is explained in the column under tricky clues. For your other questions... 48A [Single or double] refers to two types of HITS in baseball - a single lets you run one base forward and a double lets you run two bases forward. 51A [Beltway bigwigs] uses a shortening of politicians, POLS, to describe the people in power ("bigwigs") in the US capital/DC region (also called the "Beltway"). 51D [Hoosier hoopers] is asking about a basketball team ("hoopers") whose members are based in Indiana (residents are called "Hoosiers"), so the Indiana PACERS fit the bill. Hope that helps!
@Jane Wheelaghan You'll get the hang of it after a while, and as Helen pointed out people are always happy to help in the comments. For what it's worth, I've been solving US-style crosswords for many years and when I went to London recently I found myself unable to complete any UK-style crosswords in the paper. It's a different style but definitely rewarding and fun!
@Sean I'd guess that "razor" is meant to indicate (somehow) that the owner is a man. Not sure I know any men who'd carry around a razor in their bag (presumably for shaving on to go?).
Anyone doubting the existence of an OMELET BAR should come to Harvey Mudd for weekend brunch! No HAM for me.
@Patrick J. I hope you got a chance to read more about Anna May WONG and her work (and racism in early US cinema)!
@Nancy the "valley" part of UNCANNY VALLEY makes more sense when you see the associated visual - with "human likeness" on the x-axis and "affinity/positive feelings" on the y-axis. wikipedia has a graphic i found helpful: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley#/media/File:Mori_Uncanny_Valley.svg" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley#/media/File:Mori_Uncanny_Valley.svg</a>
@Nancy Delighted to learn that WSJ crossword is accessible without a subscription. Looking forward to solving your puzzles!
@Aidan Deshong Harvey Mudd stays winning!
cute theme!!! and very satisfying to spot my name so prominently in the nyt puzzle just a day after my birthday :)
I've never heard the phrase "CALL OUT THE CARPET" before - is this an older term or something?
@Bill I didn't know about Tara Hill, so any of the other options seemed just as feasible to me. But now I do know, or at least can look it up, so I get to learn something new out of my frustration!
@Etaoin Shrdlu Agreed, the acrostic knocked it out of the park! I wish it and the other Sunday variety puzzles were still available online.
@Mia Video game ratings are slightly different from movie ratings. A game that's RATED E is "E for everyone", as opposed to movies rated G as in "general audience". Definitely tough to get that last letter without some familiarity with video game ratings, but worth knowing!
@Helen Wright you may be combining (as i often do) ULURU, the cultural site in Australia, and UHURA, the Star Trek character, into UHURU. and that poem is lovely, thank you for sharing!
@Linda F I've previously reached out to the tech crew about this sort of thing! You could try emailing the folks at <a href="mailto:nytcrossword@nytimes.com">nytcrossword@nytimes.com</a> (Also, for some reason my streak is more likely to break on desktop/browser than on the mobile app.)
@LORI as Barry says below, that crossing technically doesn't break any broad crossword rules/conventions. duplicating words between the answer and its clue is a no-no, but duplicating words in one answer and a different clue is subject to the editor's opinion (some publications care more than others - NYT clearly is not bothered by this!).
@RozzieGrandma Just keep in mind that "cai" sounds more like "tsai", and that your local Chinese restaurant staff may speak Cantonese (rather than Mandarin), and you'll be a-okay. You can also say "xin nian kuai le" or happy new year!
@Mike 1A took me some re-reading. It's US EMBASSY, a "home" in a (non-US) "country", playing on implications of country more like 43D's TWANGY country singers. A little too stretchy for my taste though.
@Ray the puzzle was definitely old-school crunchy (though not so much as to be un-fun for me). but yes, i challenge complainers to try making puzzles with no crunch - it's not as easy as it seems!
@ad absurdum would LOVE to see Sasha Fierce in a puzzle!!!
@Jim or a secret third thing - you're getting better at crosswords!
@Captain Kidnap bing bong!!!
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