Dave
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Kabab kebab/tinman tinmen š„²
@Jim. I liked your suggestion for future cluing for YAHWEH. The Roman Catholic Church - the nuns of the Archdiocese of New York parochial schools in particular - taught me the word YAHWEH. So it is their fault. Though they also informed me that it was unutterable out of respect for the deep mystery of G-d, and, as we read from the Old Testament, that the origin of Christianly was rooted in the Hebrew faith. Thanks for this comment as it bought me to consider, with awe, the deep mystery of G-d.
Done in by Donne. I had Dunne, and couldn't find my mistake so no happy musicš„². "Don't send to know..." As a long time solver, I would note that Sundays difficulty has always varied, often based on the theme. If the theme is known, the puzzle becomes much more doable. I enjoyed today's puzzle, and once I had the theme I was off to the races, which for me was a little over an hour.
Fun puzzle! After this weekends dust-up about accepting that different generations will be more familar with certain words, I wanted to comment on why puzzles can be delightful. For one, "mea culpa" though common enough, took me back to my high school Latin classes and reading Horace - I was not good at translating so I had to memorize thirty of his poems. I was born in 1960, so the NATO alphabet has been in the air throughout my life, especially during the Cold War. I still had to work for Charlie and Sierra though. And when it comes to that kind of knowledge, or who John Foster Dulles is, I see that everything is flux and how my understanding of the world is passing. Not for the worse, though I have lived in interesting times. I teach high school in The Bronx, so this puzzle also brought up for me my immigrant students from Kosovo and their lives, and my efforts to teach them science such as the march of human understanding from ancients through Ptolemy(and how to spell that) and beyond. It brought me back to Bob Ross who I believe painted pictures on PBS back in the day? And there was the delight of the solve, the tricky clues - "lets" which I thought meant lets do this, "shark's mark" which only came to me after several crosses, or talk radio which I only hear leaning right. Land of elephants was tricky, thinking of Africa, until I remembered a childhood visit to The Bronx Zoo where I saw a smaller Asian elephant. Now I'm going to look for Mike's puns.
@Francis For what it's worth, after a double take, I got the wry joke and smiled.
I really enjoyed working this puzzle. Thanks for the workout!
Fun puzzle and perfect for today! 9 across and crosses stumped me.
A little embarrassing for this physics teacher to admit that I was over forty-five minutes in before I got the central theme answer. But once I did and connected it to the six answers the puzzle meshed nicely and the solve made much more sense. Enjoyable!!
@Mike. Took me a moment to recognize "Tiny Dancer." Of course and well done!
@Times Rita. It's actually almost 29 years since that election puzzle. Back in the days of pen and pencil in the paper.
Fun, challenging puzzle for me. I really had to slowly work at it to get a toehold in each section and was baffled by the long theme answers. When I was halfway through (after over an hour!) I discovered the theme which enabled me to complete the puzzle more quickly. I would not have completed it without the theme. Nicely done.
@Mike. Everyday, I have a steady descent into something close to a mild paroxysm of laughter as I read your comment followed by the replies. Usually, when I read yours, it's a mild laugh with a smile and a groan, followed by a steady sinking into guffaws and groans as the puns pile up and get worse - as in funnier. Thank you cherry much Mike and everyone for this daily break!
@Kathryn. Not a neuroscientist here but I had a similar experience with Medusa. I find it interesting how the subconscious works. Many times if there is a word that I cannot bring to mind - or a whole section that I cannot solve - I leave it for a few hours without giving it a thought. On return I often find it much easier sledding. As if part of me was working at it while I was away.
@Don H Whats the worst that could happen if you submitted a puzzle?
@Andrzej. Not sure if that's meant to be a diss or a compliment, but I agree with Sonja. In "Fight Club," he diminished himself to not stand out. In secondary roles, he has raised the caliber of several movies - "Birdman," for one; and in "The Bourne Legacy," he raised the caliber of the action genre.
@Francis. Despite the discord - most current scientific advancement stem from Bohr's quantum model of the atom. In "Copenhagen," the excellent play about the meeting between the Jewish physicist Bohr and his former top student Heisenberg - then working to develop the atomic bomb for Germany in 1941 - there is one magical scene where they discuss the mysterious quantum atom in a very accessible manner. Highly recommend the movie, which is based on the Michael Frayn play.
I liked this challenging puzzle - made me think and puzzle over the clues. But I was stumped by a Wednesday rebus and did not put together the now obvious "bottle" that the rings are tossed at. Still very satisfying.
@Barry Ancona W While it seems obvi to this middling puzzler that the stats indicate a heavy skew toward "way better than me" solvers (my median solve time for Saturday is probably 119 minutes - and for Saturday I use "solve" loosely. More like "finish" time.) But today's "solve" time was faster than usual - about 60 minutes -( for"ranks" I stuck with "pawns" - tripped me up so no happy music for meš). But in this instance the faster solve time indicated by the folks who enter their stats held true for this fair solver. So, perhaps meaningful??
@Comet. Same!!! And on the Ides of March!! Though I missed the happy music because I had entice, uber and the improbable name ABCe? Lotsa fun.
@Mike Eggscellent puns today.
@Francis. I have mixed feelings. 2 things: At that time - before huge salaries made the All Star game more of a show than a game - the players played a real game, not a show game. And second, a lot of people who played baseball have said that it's part of the game. Plate collisions were not uncommon. If a catcher is protecting the plate, as Fosse was, the runner can bowl him over in order to reach the plate. They have more recently (2014) changed the rule - catchers can't block the plate.
@Kenny I got stuck in a couple of places, particularly trying to finish up in the Southwest corner where I really had to work - look back at the theme, consider what "John" could mean("can" did not immediately come to mind), reconsider IPAD. It was this struggle that made the puzzle special for me and a small triumph on hearing the music.
@Steve L. over 30 years later - still cracks me up.
This puzzle was like pulling teeth. For me, every answered clue provided very little help to the clues around it! I loved it! PS Usually I only look at comments when I'm done or thrown in the towel. After over two hours of interrupted solving - ball game, grading tests, etc - I decided to take a quick look at the comments to see the general tenor - and the first comments had NITRO and OHIO - which spilt the beans on my nemesis - the NE corner - so I called it a day and do not think I would have finished at any rate. Solving about 3/4 felt like a real accomplishment! Thanks Hoody!
@SBK. Have you heard the things coming out of his mouth the past few years? You think he is very wise??
@Chris //Many more to follow for sure!
@Steve L W hen I come upon a tough Saturday - I got about a quarter of it done - I always recall Paul Sorvino's comment about the Saturday Times crossword. It's unprintable, but came up in AI when I googled it. Always makes me laugh.
@Steven M. Reminds me of an SNL sketch: <a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x54vjte" target="_blank">https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x54vjte</a>
@Francis And of course neon has the stable octet of electrons which renders it largely inert.
@George. I believe it's only for cold drinks - like ice tea.
@Charles. Took a minute - but funny!!
@Mike. Each of these puns is worse than the one before it. I love it! Still giggling.
@Sylvia. Idiom (Type or Sort): Used in phrases like āof every stripeā or āof all stripesā to mean a particular category, background, or political opinion (e.g., "politicians of every stripe").
The NYT's Saturday puzzle is supposed to be a slog. Sometimes miserable slog at that. I always recall Paul Sorvino's - an avid crossworder - memorable description of the Saturday puzzle that described it perfectly (look it up). I read it in the Times in the 90s. Today's was true to form - I got about 2/3 and could go no further. But I was very pleased to get that far.
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