Lou Scheffer
Ashburn, VA
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Ashburn, VA
Who else had BD_M and wondered exactly what type of real estate they were selling?
Not a fan of crossing two words from the title of a work. If you don't know the reference, it's a square that cannot be solved from the crossings, and must be guessed. That's not kosher in general, and particularly on Monday.
For "activity requiring a map", I confidently filled in ORIENTEERING, which fits the space and crosses with AGARS and GREER, which I already had. Of course, every other letter is wrong...
Math was straightforward but the cluing was not. For example, SAMBAL is an Indian paste (reasonable close to a stew) and many Christmas ornaments are LED (those that light up). And lots of names I didn't know even after I filled them in, so no good for checking: Hanif? Rorem?
I thought I was clever for "AT A LOSS FOR WORDS", but when the downs would not fit, I was at a loss for words.
The "backwards" answer "stand" is not backwards. When you reach the circle, you head WEST as on a map. The others are the same, go north, south, east or west, in the direction of the entry.
A palindromic clue to a (supposed) Napolean palindrome was a read misdirection!
No need to go to the tropics for papaws. You can find them is southern Maryland (and they are tasty...)
Crossing two obscure artists seems Naticky.
Should have allowed you to put the "HA" in literally as a rebus, in my opinion. I spent far too long with the puzzle correctly sussed, but not acknowledged.
As soon as I got DISC, and ADA (Lovelace), it was clear I was dealing with a mathematical constructor. That helped with OCTAHEDRA, where words ending in A are hard to find.
@Pezhead DOs, in contrast to 23 across, NO-NO.
It's annoying that WASH and WADI are both dry streambeds and start with the same two letters, especially if solving from the top down.
@Barry Ancona, I agree that names such as Hanif are easily found on the internet. But if you try to complete the puzzle without external help, they are of no use in checking if their crossing words are correct, at least to me.
@Liz B Agree. I thought this perhaps a camera roll, like the old movies with sprocket holes, or 35 mm film.
Two mildly subtle math clues. Someone's background is showing.
Not one, but two squares where two names cross. 59A/60D, and 118A/101D. Not kosher.
@Jonathan: I much prefer this style of clue, where you can 'aha' the meaning, to obscure proper names where you have no chance.
@Eric Hougland To each his own. For me proper names are largely blank clues. For today, in particular, crossing an actress clued from her role in a movie I've not seen, with a singer from a genre I'm not familiar with, is a natick.
@Dan Agree, "Regional" would be better
Crossing an actor with an actress seems unnecessarily Natich-y. At least make one from the domain of sports, politics, or academia to give those of use who are not media fans a chance.
Not a fan of crossing actor/movie names. First time in forever I had to look up to finish a *Monday* puzzle.
Not knowing the grandmother, I tried "Antoinetto", which gave "moan" as excellent, bad, or average. Excellent and bad fit well (though a little spicy for the NYT), and average could as a stretch (for example, a Steeler fan could moan that his team is always average, never excellent).
"Target for salicylic acid" could either be "ache" or "acne". It's not obvious when you get a good fit with 3 of 4 letters matching that there might be another possibility. When you see it you remark "Holy Cannoli"!
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