retired, with cat
Michiana (South Bend adjacent)
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Michiana (South Bend adjacent)
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.
Today is Brian Eno’s 78th birthday.
@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.
If you click onSean McGowan’s byline, this is his description: “I’m a writer for The New York Times’s Games team. I contribute to the Wordplay column and the Gameplay newsletter. What I Cover I write about games in all forms, though I specialize in crosswords and other language puzzles. You can find me demystifying The Times’s late-week crosswords in the daily Wordplay column or contributing to the weekly Gameplay newsletter. My Background I’m a comedy and games writer who joined The Times in 2026. I’ve contributed headlines and jokes to satirical news outlets like The Onion and ClickHole, and penned humor pieces for The New Yorker’s Shouts and Murmurs. In addition to covering games, I’ve written a few myself. I’ve served on editorial teams for video game developers, board game companies and online chess apps. I also construct my own crosswords and variety puzzles. For me, there’s nothing more satisfying than popping open the hood of a puzzle, joke or game to discover its mechanics. I suspect that curiosity is what led me to earn a B.S. in electrical engineering from Penn State, though I’ve since swapped wires for words. They’re generally safer.”
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.
It’s almost always pleasant to work one’s way through a Sunday NYT crossword. Some are better than others, of course. The concept that “some famous people have the same letters in their names as other famous people” is a quite a bit on the lame side, but Sunday mornings aren’t supposed to be grueling.
@Jennifer I agree. Somehow this puzzle lacked personality: does the constructor really have an interest in post WWII Germany? Does he PAN ROAST his Sunday dinner? Is he actually a fan of ETTA JAMES? Did he ever play ATARI GAMES that were popular before he was born? And so on. Just felt kind of disengaged, to me.
@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.
@Julian Boomer here, born in 1952. Completed puzzle in 17 minutes 17 seconds. Can’t comment on your particular perspective of “horrible clues, worse answers” or “clearly made for one type of thinker” but I can definitely refute “very millennial coded.” (And I myself thought it was a highly enjoyable puzzle, for what it’s worth.)
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.
It’s funny how you can guess the probable age and crossword-solving experience of a commenter by whether or not he or she is familiar with the word “SNEE.”
Yay, España! (or Olé)
@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.
@Ron I’m going to suggest that you acquaint yourself with some crossword toeholds. ON AIR usually applies to a TV studio 5 letter clue. The Japanese beer known in crosswords is going to be ASAHI 99% of the time. Short Native American tribes will usually be OTOE on the Great Plains, UTE in the Rockies, CREE IN Canada, and ERIE on the East coast. The pasta that looks like rice will be ORZO. Crossword constructors need vowels, so ONYX, ARENA, TIARA, etc. are good bets when a clue remotely relates to one of those options. Hawaiian islands are loaded with vowels: OAHU, MAUI, MOLOKAI. Their rare goose is the NENE. A 3 letter fish will probably be EEL or KOI. I myself never knew anyone who did the NAE NAE dance, but it is beloved by vowel-hungry constructors. So when you can fill in some toeholds, you’ll find yourself off to the races, in my experience. Good luck in your crosswording future!
A fine Tuesday puzzle!
@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.
@Jeff B MD SOAP STARS was nice long toehold for me too, as a daytime drama fan for more than 60 years. This was an excellent Saturday puzzle.
@Ιασων I disagree. I think many voters in the last presidential election wanted gas to be under $2 a gallon, and the country to stay out of futile Mideast wars. Obviously that didn’t happen, but I would say that those voters were gullible, or engaged in magical thinking, not that they hoped to replace our democracy with an absolute monarchy.
Excellent puzzle! 🇺🇸
Very cute puzzle!
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?”