Mark
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Phoenix
The amazing coincidence of Einstein's birth and Hawking's death both occurring on Pi Day is akin, in long odds but delightful symmetry, with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, long-time rivals and later pen pals, both dying on the same day, July 4, 1826 -- and, for the perfect icing on that cake, that date being the 50th anniversary of the signing of the document -- the Declaration of Independence -- to which they were both so indelibly attached. The universe gives us some fantastical stories. I wonder, if you gave Einstein, Hawking, and Euler the task of calculating the odds of both of those coincidences, which one would hit the buzzer first.
@Lewis That might be a good passage to read every morning upon waking up.
I admittedly have nowhere near the experience of a lot of NYT solvers, but I have done at least a couple hundred or more. And nothing has ever given me the idea that I can type a letter in a black square. So when I got the theme today and it started to click, I filled in the extra letters as rebuses (rebi?). Yes, they are uni-directional, but I thought I had read somewhere that this was one possible use of the rebus. I had more of a thought that this was permissible than typing letters in the black squares. Today was one of the not-all-that-frequent times that I completed a Thursday puzzle. I even got that the "trick" involved HORSES both Across and Down, and I found and rebused all of them. But lo and behold, the pop-up window told me I've got mistakes. I went through the puzzle four times, clue by clue, word by word, and couldn't find a mistake. So, I had to hit Reveal, which was a huge disappointment. And that's when I learned that the puzzle called for typing letters in black squares. If they had only made those squares gray, or given them some way to be distinguished from the other black squares, I would have gotten it. Thus, on a day that should have felt like a big triumph for a guy who can complete a fair number of the puzzles but only a relatively small minority of Thursday ones, it felt like a kick in the nads. Which is too bad, because it was a beautifully clever puzzle / theme.
@Times Rita Sorry, when I visited my niece IN LONDON. That probably helps the story a bit.
Rats, I got almost all of it, but despite having just recovered from the flu I couldn't get 119A without turning to Wordplay. Makes me sick.
I'm a fairly decent crossword solver but not yet on a level with what I would call the skilled and highly skilled in this community -- in golf terms, I'm probably a 3 handicap, but not scratch, and certainly not a + 4 (if you're a skilled solver but don't get the reference, look it up, this is a chance to expand your knowledge). So, having gotten through today's puzzle without a ton of difficulty (I originally had inserted a "LIT" rebus at the end of banana, until I followed the circles, and struggled with the SEC because I couldn't get the answer for 73A), I can empathize, at least to a degree, with the "plus handicaps" who complain that this was not worthy of a Thursday placement. I do think, though, that as the "middle" puzzle of the week (Mon-Wed being the easier three, and Fri-Sun being the progressively more challenging), it should be okay that the difficulty varies on Thursdays, sometimes more to the liking of the Mon-Wed crowd and other times delighting the Fri-Sun afficionados. Not all Thursday puzzles have to have the same course rating and slope (again, with this being Masters week, look it up and enjoy!).
@Anonymous As a decent but not yet highly skilled solver, I tend to agree. Over the last five years, I'm finding some - certainly not all - of the Thursday - Saturday puzzles more doable than earlier. I'm sure some of that is just me getting better at it, but although my ego fights the concept, objectively I have to acknowledge that part of it is that these "second half of the week" puzzles aren't quite as challenging as they used to be. If I'm able to do more of these puzzles than I used to, and in significantly faster times, that doesn't speak well for their difficulty -- realistically, I shouldn't be able to complete many of them yet. Now, in defense of the NYT, I'm betting that a lot of people subscribe primarily for the puzzles, and in this age of declining readership and trending away from traditional newspapers, they have to keep the majority of those "I'm here for the games" subscribers happy -- even if that means disappointing the small minority of "elite" solvers.
I made what was admittedly a lucky guess with B as the cross-letter, but I don't get 85D NABOB or 96A BAE. I'd be happy to have someone elucidate.
@Aaron P. Pretty commonly heard on sports fields and courts.
Also, point of minor interest, as soon as I completed the puzzle, all of the triple letter rebi (rebususususes??) converted to single letter squares. I honestly don't recall if that's a standard feature of genus rebus.
@Adam Crapper is clever; a perfectly acceptable reference to a plumber who obtained several patents relating to the much-appreciated advancement from chamber pots. For those offended by Crapper, you'd probably be even more horrified by a clue where the answer is one of his patents, the floating ballcock.
@Ann Yup, also got stymied with BUSINESS SAVVY for awhile.
@Keith Thanks for adding this one to the mix, I hadn't been aware of it!
@Steve L I admittedly have nowhere near the experience of a lot of NYT solvers, but I have done at least a couple hundred or more. And nothing has ever given me the idea that I can type a letter in a black square. I fill in rebuses (rebi), and yes, they are uni-directional, but I thought I had read somewhere that this was one possible use of the rebus. So, today, it's one of the not-all-that-frequent times that I complete a Thursday puzzle. I even got that the "trick" involved HORSES both Across and Down, and I found and rebused all of them. But lo and behold, the pop-up window told me I've got mistakes. I went through the puzzle four times, word by word, and couldn't find a mistake. So, I had to hit Reveal, which was a huge disappointment. And that's when I learned that the puzzle called for typing letters in black squares. If they had only made those squares gray, or given them some way to be distinguished from the other black squares, I would have gotten it. Thus, on a day that should have felt like a big triumph for one who can complete a fair number of the puzzles but only a relatively small minority of Thursday ones, it felt like a kick in the nads. Which is too bad, because it was a beautifully clever puzzle / theme.
@Bill Bill, I LOVE questions like this. Hope you get an answer from Francis, who is to be commended for her very interesting and diverting "comment."
@Times Rita I've never understood why driving in Manhattan gets such a bad rap. I get that it can be quite busy and noisy, but I'll take driving on a grid any day over the haphazard, apparently-laid-out-during-a-hangover mazes that you find in a lot of major cities. I visited my niece several years ago while she was there for ten months working in a high-level job on the set of Mission Impossible. They rented her a nice house and a car, and on the first day she tried driving from the house to the set, she ended up pulling over in tears. And she's a good driver, having lived in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Nashville.
@G Sorry, Francis, I was just groggy enough still to not have paid attention to e v. i, but of course, yes, I should have discerned yours was the male version of the name. I put "comment" in quotes because while that's technically what it was (being in the Comments section and all), it was substantively more than a comment, with its interesting / academic / educational diversion from the more standard fare we generally see in the Comments. It was an enjoyable read, thanks.
@Francis In case you come back to this, Francis, my bigger gaffe was not commenting on your Grand Marais locale, what with me having spent many summer vacations at Lutsen Lodge and my dad and brother and his family living a little ways to your west, on the Iron Range.
@Bob T. Love that, I'll get some good mileage from it! Thanks.
@Anonymous It's probably too late for you to see this, and I agree with much of what you say, but as to you having more difficulty with puzzles from 14 years ago than current one, I think you'd likely acknowledge that a certain percentage of clues are always going to be more accessible to the synapses in real rather than historical time.
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