retired, with cat
Michiana
I think I’ll change my Comments handle to “retired, with DE-RATters”. 😹
Who even knew we had a state fossil?😆
Loved MAKING AN IMP ACT - excellent puzzle!
I would like to weigh in on the side of getting a kick out of this puzzle, and considering it a Thursday treat. I suspected from previous experience that letters might be outside the grid when uPABLOm didn’t make sense, and the revealer confirmed that. The graphics at the end were fun. It definitely would have been easier to follow on paper.
@MmmmHmm I didn’t know there was a contest going for NYT Wordplay’s Most Peculiar, Unwarranted, and Unsupported Comment of the Year. Somebody wants to be way out in front, hey, MmmmHmm? Yeesh.
Excellent puzzle!
@Kevin Elliott Hello, Kevin, here’s something to think about: “this Mr. Quigley” is a highly respected crossword constructor who has had 178 puzzles published by the NYT alone, starting in 1996, I believe, and is very popular with long term solvers who recognize his name and relish the challenges he offers. I for one have been doing NYT Sunday crosswords since the 1990s, and I did not know IMMIX either, but it was solvable from the crosses.
Loved this for a real NYT Friday crossword. As others have said, tough but fair.
@Christopher Actually Robert Frost read from his poetry at President John F Kennedy’s inauguration, so he was pretty well known outside of academic circles.
I got CHESSBOXING from the crosses, so I Googled it to see if it could possibly be a real thing. The AI Overview was “Chessboxing is a sport that combines elements of chess and boxing in alternating rounds. Competitors play chess for a set period, then switch to boxing, and the process repeats.” That sounded to me like AI, as it has been known to do, was completely making things up in order to to fit the word combination, LOL. (I did go on to look at the other Google entries, which confirmed its reality, so I apologize to AI for doubting its integrity.)
@Dvorak Like many other commenters, I don’t think constructors are “lazy” because their puzzles include commonly-known proper nouns. It’s actually kind of a compliment on their part, to assume that NYT crossword solvers are acquainted with a wide range of singers, composers, writers etc. and well-known popular sports figures and American brands. (Foreign solvers generally fairly acknowledge that an American crossword is going to include American references.) So, politely, you shouldn’t assume that solvers in general are unfamiliar with some names that you don’t recognize, and therefore the constructors are lazy and make lame puzzles.
I wasn’t crazy about OAT BAR, and it is regrettable that FACE TAT (which for me emerged only by crosses) seems to be a denigration, although inadvertent, of a culture’s heritage. Maybe tighter editing? Also, maybe bring back veteran constructors for Thursday-Saturday puzzles, who might have a better sense of wordplay, and rely less on newer generations’ abbreviated slang phrases?
Someone last week mentioned not having seen Suejean commenting for a while. Hope you’re still following the puzzles and Wordplay, Suejean.
Very fine Friday puzzle!
Excellent crossword ! FYI, lovely Robyn Weintraub New Yorker puzzle today; “Preamble to an ill-conceived impromptu stunt”, LOL.
Odd thing: I just did a May 2005 puzzle from the archives, coincidentally also by David J. Kahn, and ANOINTS and EZER were in that one too. Saving up words to use every 20 years, maybe?
So, I’m guessing a Times crossword editor saw LORIS coming up in this puzzle that they’d accepted, and told Wordle editor Tracy Bennett that LORIS should be the Friday, July 18, 2025 WORDLE word, hey? It’s not like LORIS is an everyday word for most of us.
@JDJ “Detecting arrogance” is an unsubstantiated allegation, hey? Your personal reaction to the crossword does not actually prove the constructor’s “arrogance,” does it? Maybe cite the “arrogance” and “ smugness,” to be fair.
Very amusing puzzle. Nice to have a Sunday crossword with a bit of meat to it.
@Times Rita EZ Pass works in the Midwest, too.
@alan If you have ever seen “Breaking Away,” it’s got a lot of TOWN and gown going on.
@Linda F But, you know, for Monday solvers to start to remember the ARILs and AGRAs and LULUs, and of course good old etui, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in my opinion. In the most challenging late-week NYT puzzles, or the challenging Monday New Yorker crossword, or the often mind-bogglingly difficult Saturday Stumpers, those old standbys could be their only toeholds. And I, for one, would not want to miss out on the satisfaction of completing those great crossword puzzles.
@Timothy In my busy working years, I never had time for the Thursday - Saturday crosswords. Now I’m enjoying them. Hope you end up doing so someday, too.
@Scott K Don’t try the Saturday Stumper.
I started off doing ordinary crosswords in the local paper, ( nothing like the NYT’s), where you ended up seeing obscure European rivers and weird unknown words like IMARET, which you committed to mind. I get a kick out of a constructor or editor paying homage to old-timey puzzles when I see good old IMARET.
My brain must have different “word” and “arithmetic” sections because it felt like there was a big mental clunk each time my brain had to switch over from my usual crossword mode to multiplication table mode. ( I did see the little “x” symbols from the beginning so I knew what was needed.) Eventually I got them all except 56D, 106A, and 100D, not knowing anything about Invisible Woman and the Thing, or Nintendo consoles of any vintage. Which is okay, not a complaint. I think I will complain about “YENNED”, though, which hurt my brain in an entirely different way.🙂
Very amusing puzzle!
Nadiya Hussain was my favorite contestant from the original Great British Bake-off, so I’m delighted to see her in today’s puzzle. Very enjoyable one.
On my second round of Acrosses, I saw O _OLDIER_UNE, and I was off to the races 😊! Great puzzle!
Wordle 1,383 1/6 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Xword Junkie I believe the original name of O’Hare was ORcharD Field.
@John Carson Knowing stuff is a good thing, even when it’s not on the test, right.
Shiver me timbers - where are Captains Kidnap and Quahog today??? It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
@Ken Burk My old house in Milwaukee had an oil tank.
Knew 48A and 3D right off the bat because of Green Bay Packers’ connections: NAMATH graciously offered to unretire his no. 12 when Aaron Rodgers went to the Jets, and AMON-RA’s brother Equanimeous St. Brown was originally a Packer. ( AMON-RA is now, of course, a star receiver for division rival Detroit.) Go Pack!
Caught on with BLUE BAYOU. I print out and solve with pencil, so the grayish-“black” squares were harder to see than I like, but apparently the online version was quite challenging, from the comments. Good puzzle, though.
For a number of the reasons posted by others, I too felt this puzzle was a little disappointing for a Friday. Also, to Coke commenters, I frequently ask for “Diet Pepsi, if you have it,” and servers do actually say “Is Diet Coke okay?”
@Dan “Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony please come around. Something is lost and must be found.” Works if you believe hard enough.😇
@Jane Wheelaghan Meatless Mondays is a movement to encourage people to eat more plant-based meals and less meat. Apparently also called Meat Free Mondays.
This was the sort of puzzle that is a delight to do: enough Across footholds to suddenly see the long Downs, loved it!
@dutchiris My recently adopted senior cats have pretty much left the tree alone so far🤞- only one low hanging ornament lost to curiosity. (They were strays, but must have been in households at some time because they are quite adapted to indoor life.)
@Nick Simon Well, in the indigenous Koyukon Athabaskan language, it’s been Denali for about 17,000 years. In English, the mountain got named McKinley in 1896, on the whim of an outsider prospector. So, not so much your call, hey?
@Andrzej A Sunfish is a type of small sailboat.⛵️
@John Carson I always remember the tennis player’s first name because my favorite character on “The Doctors” soap opera was ALTHEA. I’m pretty sure that the NYT Crossword has never used “Dr. ______ Davis on daytime 1964-82” to clue the name 😊.
@Hope M I grew tomatoes in planters and the rabbits couldn’t get at them, but the chipmunks could. And they too would take one bite out of a ripe tomato and then leave it. Now I just plant flowers and attract hummingbirds.
Fun rebus puzzle!
@Cat Lady Margaret Multiple times a day!
@Fleming There’s no ignominy in skipping difficult puzzles. I only did the Sunday through Wednesday puzzles until I retired and could spend the time working on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Solve at your own pace.
It is very odd that the full digital access NYT app that comes with a print subscription has the relevant letters in the clues not only underlined but bolded, but apparently the NYT Games app doesn’t and can’t. I get the paper and did the puzzle in print (very enjoyable it was, too) and when I read the column and all the comments, I opened the NYT app on my iPad, and there they were. On my iPhone, they’re in parentheses and upper and lower case. Peculiar.
@SusanEM In yesterday’s New Yorker crossword, Robyn Weintraub had a great clue for ELON: “Musk who set a record for the largest loss of personal fortune in history, according to Guinness” 😆.