Kirsten
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Montreal
I have to throw my name into the loved it camp on this one. I’m a millennial through and through, and this one was such a fun solve, both for the throwback theme and for the fact that I must have been on the constructor’s wavelength (which is a rare thing for me) as every answer just seemed to fall into place, and landed as a Sunday personal best by a long shot. The art and cleverness of the theme answers was a delightful touch as well. Sorry to all the haters that you didn’t enjoy it. Not every puzzle is for me, I guess not every puzzle is for you either. Can’t say I’ve ever bothered to complain so much about the frequent puzzles loaded with esoteric knowledge of subjects that are out of my wheelhouse though, especially ones so carefully and elegantly crafted.
I liked the idea of this puzzle. I absolutely hated the execution. The theme was clever, and I would say well done. But the puzzle was ruined for me by all the short (3 and 4 letter) acronyms and obscurities. I can accept obscure answers/spellings and the occasional lousy short fill here and there, but it felt like this puzzle was absolutely littered with it. When it feels like the words are stuffed in there just “to make it work”, the puzzle loses its appeal - and that was what a lot of this one felt like.
Well, colour me maple-flavoured, neighbour, but actually I’m Canadian. 🇨🇦
I must have been on the same wavelength as the constructor because this one came together very smoothly for me. I always enjoy a good math or science theme, and this one did not disappoint! It was a nice touch that the entries still spelled legitimate words too. I appreciate that attention to detail – it makes the puzzle feel more creative / well thought out.
I’m all for a good pun, and this puzzle did not disappoint! Loved it!
I don’t usually comment, but I loved this one today! Good balance of tricky and straightforward clues so that it was interesting but not “bang my head against the wall frustrating”, and I could get the ones I had no “clue” about on the crosses. The ANTs were super fun to find, it was the “Dear SANTa” that got me onto it 😸
I really enjoyed this puzzle!! My knowledge base is such a glut of science and technical data that I was proud to have caught on to this literary/biblical themed puzzle given it was so out of my wheelhouse. I thought I was finding it to be a tricky solve and was surprised to have come in 20% faster than my Sunday average, with no lookups! I’ve been doing these for a bit over a year now, so I guess I’ve learned a thing or two along the way. Thanks Jill and Michelle for the satisfying frontal cortex workout!
@Ezra that is exactly what I came here for too, thanks to you folks who had done the hard thinking before I got here and saved me the trouble 😸
What a wonderful puzzle! Difficult? No (the basic French clues were gimmes as a Canadian). Elegant? Absolutely! I loved the celebration of women and the clever way so many were represented. Thank you Kelly for the puzzle, and for sharing your anecdote about writing down the names of 100 women - I might try it with my family later. A lot of proper names? Well, hopefully the complainers for this one can try to enjoy the learning opportunity today instead :)
I enjoyed the puzzle, and the theme gave me a good chuckle once I “clued” in. Thanks for the solve Brian! I was disappointed in the Wordplay column today though. As mentioned in an earlier comment, there were in fact four theme clues, not three. On top of that, two of the four were not numbers. I usually really enjoy reading the column, but this one felt rushed and sloppy, and did not do the puzzle justice (the constructors note seemed longer than the article itself).
@Ethan I’m sure there are some actors and actresses, and maybe a waiter or waitress or two that may beg to differ :)
Tough but excellent puzzle! I can’t think of “Pearls before swine” without thinking of the comic strip, so this brought a smile and a good read of some new ones I hadn’t seen yet.
Really wish all the people jumping in the comments to point out errors in the puzzle would take 5 seconds first to look up whether they are actually right. Nonetheless, an enjoyable Monday, with a few smiles (lookin’ at you THE LORAX and DELOREAN). Thanks Hannah!
@Chris To answer one of your questions, the technical term for pages in a book are called RECTO (front) and verso (the flip side). The RECTO side is the right hand side and is typically an odd number (usually the first page is the right hand side) and the verso side is the left hand side, typically an even number.
@Mark The correct spelling of the Dutch city, to which the clue is referring (not the namesake jar), is indeed Leiden.
@Kurt It isn’t a rebus puzzle
@Dawn This mistake is also clearly identified with an apology in the Wordplay article that you are commenting on.
I confidently had manBuN for 37A for far longer than I care to admit..
@Mean Old Lady LIM refers to limit, a concept in calculus (i.e. Calc.)
Absolutely loved this one! The nostalgia is real haha
This was a fun one, thanks!!
Easy but fun and enjoyed the theme! Nice Tuesday puzzle.
Anybody else put brownBEAR first in the Midi today, read the result of the circled (odd) letters, and back track *real* fast with a wide-eyed “OMG nope, that’s gotta be BLACKBEAR”? Or was it just me…
Fantastic puzzle, enjoyed it thoroughly! Thanks!!
@Jim And the GNR guitarist is Slash (also not a number, but probably my favourite theme clue of the lot!)
@Steve L Whether you subscribe to the two Americas or not, we still have Africa and Antarctica in the “ica” club too
@Fred Katz It’s not just S, those are rebus squares. It’s SIN again squished into one square i.e. smaller. So there are two “evils” so to speak - SIN spelled out in the grey squares, and the smaller (or “lesser”) SIN in the rebus squares. It’s explained in the column.
@Clutch Cargo Same for me, I had Maggie in at the start and it threw me off for ages 😅
@Pudly No it’s a different Larson, I recall a discussion about that in the comments of the last of his puzzles that ran.
@Barry Ancona I thought that Natick was more specifically usually used for crossings of obscure proper nouns? Not just clues that someone has trouble guessing. If I’m wrong in my understanding of it, then happy to stand corrected! I agree with your question though, as to where they were in this puzzle.
@Darren The Greek letter PHI looks like a letter I on top of a letter O, no just an O, so the clue answer is in fact hip hop artist (hI/Op artist). You read the “phi” square as I for HIP and again as O for HOP (that’s how the I/O pair makes hip hop) for one direction and as the letters PHI in the other direction (the cross for this one makes dolPHIn).
I didn’t mind the puzzle, and smiled at a few answers, but was very surprised to finish a Friday in less time than my Monday average! I wasn’t calibrated for that kind of solve today
@Barry Ancona If you’ve tried all variations of printer settings such as colour vs greyscale, full size vs fit to page etc, it’s possible you need to check the box for background graphics.
@DocP As someone who has heard (and used) the term “app” for appetizers countless times, yet never once had an “appy” or any “appies”, I suspect that might be an opinion and not necessarily quite the fact it was stated as. Possibly a regional thing, as others have suggested. Though per that line of thinking, depending on where you live the entree IS the app (here’s lookin’ at you anywhere that speaks French)..
@Chris COVEN is referring to a group of witches (hence the “spelling”) and you may have heard of SPOONERisms, where one “wixes their murds” (mixes their words) up
@Maamazon I’ve never seen the colon clue before, and got it fairly quickly. Though I can’t say the same for a lot of other clues, this was a hard one for me today!! But that was my personal experience, and I don’t consider the puzzle unsolvable just because I found certain parts so difficult.
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