Post Mortem

@Ken Burk If by GPS you mean the Genesis Positioning System, we have this: “Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon . . . . The name of the second river is Gihon. . . . The name of the third river is Hiddekel [Tigris]. ;. . . The fourth river is the Euphrates.” Please stand by while Iraq my brain to come up with the modern equivalent.

@Steve L The earliest NYT puzzle I remember doing was at recess in 5th grade, where my friend Joan and I found a place to hide from the sports we were supposed to be doing, and we discovered the crossword in a discarded paper. That was in 1956, so if I’m supposed to wait to start liking rebuses I’m getting just a little impatient. The tediousness of the puzzle itself is compounded by the failure of the app developers to find a satisfying way of entering the non-standard fills. In this case, the joylessness was compounded by the banality of the non-theme clues. Most of the answers could, for me, simply be written down rather than solved.

@Super8ing Charity Navigator give the Girl Scouts a stellar rating of 100. There’s no reason to expect the administrative staff and senior officers of a non-profit to receive less compensation than they would in a comparably sized for-profit enterprise, especially since perks like stock options aren’t available to them. If you don’t pay competitive salaries, you won’t attract the best talent. Cookie revenues don’t benefit the CEO, they go to local chapters that are largely run by volunteers.

@NYC Traveler It’s not like I’ve made no progress. Time was, a Saturday puzzle might just as well have been in Sanskrit. Today they take about ten minutes. Living in the Western burbs of Boston, sometimes I solve them at the Natick Mall, just to thumb my nose at them. I have traveled to New Zealand to see the EMU, and to East Africa for GNU and other crossword antelopes. But with all that under my belt – or OBI – I still lose my enthusiasm when a rebus arrives.

@Sam Lyons Before you dismiss Netflix, remember that in “Netflix and chill” it has given us an importantly mysterious euphemism for the act of love. Our distant descendants (if they’re not searching under rocks for grubs) will fill the Comments section of some unimaginable future medium with speculation* about its origins and meaning. Gotta keep the ball rolling! * “We must first understand why this ‘clue’ was placed among terse instructions for disbursement of an estate (Will Shortz)….”

@Sam Lyons I’m with you in principle, but a hundred years isn’t nearly long enough for me to let go of my prescriptive persnicketiness. My own speculation about why “paint” disappeared is that the whiteness of lilies is not now seen as a virtue, perhaps because of another figure of speech – lily white – that originated in the Black community to represent racial segregation. Also, stock phrases tend to shrink, even when it destroys meaning. Everyone now says, “The proof is in the pudding”, which makes no sense. The original was, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating”, which is coherent but way too long for modern patience.

@Ben Blackwell I agree that it’s ugly, but we’re stuck with terminology like this and the prefix “cis” lest our lexical revulsion be mistaken for a political position. BTW, in the explanation of AROACE I initially read “aromantic” as “aromatic”, and was wondering, why bother to apply perfume if you’re not interested in attracting someone?

@Jemima C Yes, “Different puzzles for different folks”! I’ve been teaching my grandkids the difference between something’s inherent quality and one’s own reaction to it. “I hate broccoli” is fine. “Broccoli is bad” is not. “This broccoli is bad” might be either one. As adults we should understand that. And so, “I can’t believe people didn’t enjoy this” is discordant with that noble sentiment. I didn’t particularly enjoy this puzzle, because once I figured out the trick it became way too easy, and just a slog. But I applaud the creativity, and I’m happy you had fun with it.

Since criticism should be constructive, I offer this alternative, invoking the retired Senator: The Santa ______ _______ scored a TKO at La Playa Stadium. Or for something less pugilistic, The Santa _______ ________ managed a UPS Store near Stearns Wharf.