Mark Carlson
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@RayinVa Why not? We're also expected to be up on a multitude of rap artists, sports figures, sports jargon, etc., none of which I happen to know. Learning unfamiliar stuff is fun, don't you think?
@acjones Clearly a matter of opinion. I enjoyed it a lot and thought it was very clever.
@Brian Sinclair The point was to strip away the elegance and the depth. It was just meant to be silly and fun, and it succeeded well at that, in my opinion.
@Lynn Thank you. I still don't get it, though. I guess it's just me, but I would never say "I hope to do something" when I *plan* to do it, as "hope" suggests that there is some doubt that I will be able to.
@Kurt I thought that figuring out where the openings were was part of the fun!
Wow! That's impressive!
Would someone please explain why the clue "intend" is answered with "hope"? I searched all of the comments for someone else asking this and found one other person wondering the same, but it had no explanations.
@J-Dub In the musical world "in tempo" is correct.
This was really hard for me, but not because of the them answers, which I figured out almost right away. There were just so many things in the non-trick answers that I simply don't know.
That was fun! But has anyone actually used or heard the term C-Store?
I've never heard of "scad" as a singular for "scads". I just looked it up and found that it is a kind of fish, but I find no support for its being a singular version of "scads". Aren't some words used only in their plural forms? Are we just to accept "scad" as a crossword-puzzle-only word? I guess so—but why, oh why?
That was a delight! Thank you!
So much fun! And ingenious!
I thought this was fun!
@PuzzleDog It may not be nonsense, but I doubt that I am the only one who has never encountered that word, and I have lived a decently long time and am reasonably well-read.
That was fun! I enjoyed it a lot, partly because it was challenging, but not TOO challenging for me. I thought it very clever, too. Thanks, Sam!
@Andrew That messed me up, too. I tried to enlist Google to help me understand, and what I got were Reddit comments that said the likes of, "The NYT crosswords editors do not make mistakes!" and "Get over it!"—not helpful at all. But I swear that you and I are right about this!
@Edward I'm not sure if this is what you are asking, but just in case: etudes, while occasionally lyrical, are studies intended to help a musician learn a particular skill. So more often than not, they are anything but lyrical; in fact, the majority of the flute etudes I spent hours and hours learning are downright boring, musically speaking.
@Brett I think that Siva is an acceptable alternate spelling of Shiva. At least, according to Vijay Nath it is. But the missing 've annoyed me, too.
So many things that I had never heard of or couldn't have known, crossing with similarly difficult answers. This one was impossible for me without the help of Google, alas.
This one was hard for me: I didn't grasp the grid art at all until I read Sam's column, and I had never heard of nor seen any of the theme answers. I never think I live under a rock, but maybe so!
@Charles Which clues confused you?
That was a lot of fun!
@festy Just looking it up, most sources say that "cab", as in the cab of a truck, comes from "cabriolet", not from "cabin". Thanks for the lesson!
@Nan C. I never saw a single one of those promotions, and I don't know the song, so those two words were among the last I got.
@Joseph At least, you had heard of it! I had not, alas.
Fabulous! That was fun!
@Daily-Solver As one who has had Mac computers since 1987, I am quite sure that "Mac" is used generally for any sort of Macintosh computer, regardless of the model—not including iPhones. I have had a Mac SE, Mac Mini, an iMac, a MacBook, among others, and I have referred to all of them as Macs.
That was a lot of fun! Thanks!
@Margaret This is the first time I've ever come across it, too. I guess we are in the vast minority here.
@SP Yes, she said those things, too, but imagine what it was like for Mr. Marquez to read this mostly negative review. He is probably licking his wounds now, rather than enjoying the few positive words by Deb and all of the positive comments here. You have to have a shell for skin in order to slough off a bad review, even one purporting to be positive. I know from experience.
That was fun, but surprisingly easy for me for a Saturday!
@Mean Old Lady Is your objection to the word "carve"? As far as I know, professional oboists always make their own reeds. I asked one once how many hours per week she spent on reed-making, and she said 20. I know she also practiced and performed a lot, which makes me wonder when she slept!
Things I had never heard of until doing this puzzle: PAH, TENREC, GROUPDATE, CROCKER (grocery stores, I guess), GOTCHADAY That's a lot for one puzzle, but I guess I live under a rock.
@Cal Gal As a retired prof, I have written countless letters of rec on behalf of students and colleagues.
@Adam Can you fill us in with the details for what you are alluding to, please?
@K I can 't explain the two runs, but the Italian clue is a word I've heard fairly often at American dinner tables. It's slang.
@Jerry, actually, some drums are single-headed: frame drums, tambourines, timbales, toms, timpani, congas, bongos, tablas, and others.
@LordBottletop and Joya, Thank you! I get what "rocked" means, as in "He rocked those sunglasses", but if I substitute "wore" in the same sentence, it doesn't really have the same meaning at all. "He wore those sunglasses!", or "I'm gonna wear my blue suede Pumas today". "Wore" hardly seems equivalent to "rocked" to me. That's what I'm not comprehending.
How to feel stupid. I had the entire puzzle right except for the top three rows, and nothing I could do (short of spending all day on it) would make it work. I gave up and looked almost everything up. Ugh.
@Calhouri When I'm in the same boat, I check it against Rex Parker's completed puzzle.
That was really hard for me: one answer after another that I did not know and could not have known—far more than usual. I guess that's OK. But I really would not consider the actor of 97 across to be a co-star of the movie. Shouldn't that term be reserved for the actors in the principal actors?
@Laura Stratton Count me as one who solved it without any lookups.
@Wes "Mic" for "microphone". Why an atrocity?
This was a lot of fun!
@Pax Ahimsa Gethen It would have made more sense if it had been. I think that is Mike's point, and I agree with him.
Yeah, it was kind of easy, but so what? It was so much fun. I chuckled quite a bit as I solved it.
I am still not getting how "rocked" = "wore". I was hoping someone else would have asked so that I could understand, but I guess I'm the only one. Can someone please explain that one for me?
I had all of the doubled letters correctly filled in and everything else correct, but I didn't "win". So I went back and deleted all of the doubled letters, and then I won. Is it just a glitch, or were only blanks accepted as corrected answers for the circled letters. 433 comments are too many to read, so I might be asking a question already asked. My apologies to those who are bothered by that.
@Caitlin B and B, ie, Bed and breakfast I was wondering as I filled that in whether B and Bs are now all booked through Airbnb, like everything else in the world seems to be.