Peter
USA
Tuesday puzzles don’t get much better than this! The theme isn’t too gimmicky, and everything feels fresh and interesting. Beautiful fill. Kudos to Geoffrey and Will. Best Tuesday I’ve played in a long time.
Can we point out how amazing this is for a Monday? It really takes the cake.
@Barry Ancona True. 1. I know, just playing it safe 2. Very possible 3. I would kind of argue that it does, but again, I was qualifying it as a minor inaccuracy, not a huge blunder. But hey, I’m not here to stir up controversy in the NYT comments. Just pointed out a tidbit that popped into my mind while solving.
Random comments on today’s crossword- 24 Minutes without Autocheck 🤷♂️ guess I’m not nerdy enough to be on this forum 😅 WORD REVIEWS: 16A is one of those entries practically asking to be in a Saturday. It seems to have the perfect combo of a lot of vowels and relatively common consonants without overusing “S”. 22A is an anagram of 21A with an added letter, interestingly. 45A is a phrase more people should use. I don’t have a problem with the lack of a B, especially considering it’s already been used in such circumstances before. I had 28D as PAWNS for a while, which I was confident was correct. Spoiler alert- it isn’t. 28A is a lot easier to figure out when you don’t think it starts with a P! 49- and 50A weren’t exactly common phrases, but they were pretty self-explanatory with the other cross-references. Seeing 11D in a Saturday was cool, considering it’s a very inconvenient word to incorporate, especially directly off of a three stack. What on earth is a 34D, by the way?! 😭 And finally, say your goodbyes to 33D, because I highly doubt that niche answer will ever appear again 😅 Great puzzle, Jiang. I hope to see more Saturdays that maintain the excitement this one gave me. And this might sadly be my fastest Saturday solve with no auto check.
Da Vinci cut off his ear for his lover. She was the only one to know the true meaning of new ears day.
Minor inaccuracy: the clue “like the Red Sea after a visit from Moses” shouldn’t be “P•••••”, because after Moses and the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, Moses raised his staff and all the enemy soldiers drowned. Hence, Moses did not leave until the sea was normal again.(See Exodus 14:26-28)
CELLRECEPTION cracked me up, and kind of carried the whole grid. I kind of don’t get the grid art… I get why it’s there, I just don’t think it needs to be there. Really clean fill until I got to the bottom middle section… proved to be more difficult than the rest but still very excusable. I originally thought 31D was “GETSa----,” but AMNESIC turned out to be very slightly deceptive. I put in 63A without 61A, because, of course it was PARTY, what else would it be? And accidentally put hIjAB for NIQAB, which tripped me up initially. Overall, pretty good L/R symmetry Wednesday! And a Happy New Year!
19A is sponsored by Squarespace 35A is sponsored by T-Mobile 43A is sponsored by Amazon 61/63A is sponsored by Lego
@DaveMTheDude Arguably yes, 24D is wrong. But… you could counter on technicality that a “handhold” is just what your hand is holding onto, which could be a part of the crag. Is it the best clue? No. Could it pass the editors? Evidently, and somewhat reasonably, yes.
Monday NYT Crosswords are hit or miss. Some are amazing, some are just okay. And this one, in my opinion, is both. The theme for this one was relatively unique, and it’s also kind of fun to have the grid design allow for across and down theme entries. Good clues - Messages on which you might be cc’d; Gesture suggesting “I see what you did there”; Half of a train track. But then there’s the “miss” section. All relatively minor perspectives I’ve taken against this puzzle on the whole. For one thing, SOHO is a relatively difficult answer for a Monday, but could easily be gotten from context without LYCRA directly on top. Filling in that part of the puzzle was the hardest section. Not that it was too bad, but for a Monday, it felt unbalanced. Also, ASTIN intersecting with NEILL was a bit challenging, considering I wasn’t sure on either of the references. Overall, more good than bad. A nice collaboration by the constructors. That’s my two cents.
@sonnel Ok ok I have an idea Replace “LGBTQFLAG” with “LGBTFLAG” to make it 1 shorter. Then that would make it short enough to replace the “BUYAVOWEL” slot with “PMTRYSTS”. And the cool thing would be if that Y’s down clue was two clues, one including the Y and one not, so it would be “sometimes Y”. And then with no revealer the puzzle would be a Thursday.
@john ezra I see your point on the anti-semitism; sometimes, people make their mark on history in ways other than what they’re cancelled for. For better or for worse.
ASHES and OAKS are right next to each other, and not cross-referenced. I love a good cross-reference. I don’t know— that’s just my two cents.
I in vain wish they would’ve done something with pianist Jon BATISTE with 48-Across. I’d never heard of the fabric. 66-Across really tripped me up because I thought it would for sure be MAniS, especially with the M, A, and S in place. Sadly, that was not the case. Also, if you changed “IBEX” to “apEX” and changed “LANCET” to “LANCES”, I feel like that would be a lot easier to clue? Maybe that’s just me. And it would work with the downs too!
@Francis I realize it’s not that deep, I’m just a nerd :)
@Clare This review has been insightful. I appreciate the support! 😂
Got the whole puzzle in 10:26 without knowing what the theme is!! Seriously, I still don’t know the theme 😅
@Megan Yeah— that tripped me up too; I’ve never seen ROI in the Times, just REI and REY
@Cat Lady Margaret That is a good point, some aliases would’ve been cool for this puzzle.
@Andrzej Audio schizophrenia! US-core.
@Chris I thought that too about the theme! And you’re right with ESAU, it’s certainly a sort of failsafe for constructors at times.
@Yer That happens to me if I ask Siri a question in the middle of a crossword solve. I just have to exit out of it and resume it to fix.
@Barry Ancona I saw the 39A, I just didn't understand what it meant....
46-Across has a typo! “absolut” was in place of “absolute”
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