JoeS
Vermont
Got it but clueless to the end until I read Wordplay. Brilliant! One of the best.
Agghh! This one did me in! I had two fatal mistakes making sense to me - not knowing Huckleberry Hound, YORI seemed perfectly reasonable as did a 4 and 6 point STAR…hmmm…and then, while maybe IRONON hipster t-shirts seemed better than IRONIN hipster t-shirts, IRONIN seemed perfectly reasonable alongside SIN as a solve for [I know it’s wrong]. Two great traps! Defeated, off I go into the night. It was a fun puzzle, though!
I enjoyed this puzzle - just challenging enough not to get frustrating. The tough ones for me were having a more general idea of a target market, i.e. GENERATIONS not GENERATIONZ and trying to figure out an athleisure portmanteau ending in U because I was sure a lift type was UBER and I couldn’t get HERON because I had UPPITY not UPPISH. It’s all connected, isn’t it? It sorted itself out eventually and was rewarding to finish.
Taking a 15 minute nap and getting rid of NONCHALANT for BLANKSTARE and STAT for ASAP made all the difference for me today. It’s always such a challenge when you get one letter in a crossing early on and you cannot replace that seemingly correct solve in your mind or in the puzzle.
Congratulations on your 1 yr anniversary, Sam! I enjoy your upbeat early week columns. And, I dare say, your punniness.
@Barry Ancona Ooof! So I guess one offers a vow and it’s not an exchange until both do. Ok. Thanks!
Couldn’t figure out why [“!!!”] solved to ORG but that had to be my fatal flaw. Never heard of ERM and ERR… seemed logical: uhh…err interchangeable, no? Had to run the alphabet but OMG it worked!
Tougher than the average Tuesday, whatever that may be, leading me to carp on… CLOSETHIGH didn’t fit. Neither did close thigh now that I write it out. If NERTS was a stretch, DRILY was a pulled muscle. Agree with all the ones who have pointed out SSGTS as not quite accurate. Fell into the trap for ISAW (VIDI). CHIANG and AGGRO was a particularly annoying crossing. I do enjoy seeing Mel Torme still making the rounds.
Sorry if I missed it, but I didn’t see anyone else get thrown by the 5D [Common lunch box item] and 15A [Like sci-fi’s Jabba the Hutt] crossing. PNJ I thought. That lead to ONESE. Not knowing Jabba the Hutt’s exact origins led to Onese ancestry seeming to be perfectly reasonable. PNB then never crossed my mind.
@Tom Martin I also thought that was the reference. It’s always interesting how so much language works in so many different directions at the same time. It’s a wonder we can ever communicate and get things done.
@Times Rita I had the same problem with this. It took me forever to see Vaio even though I had one once. Never knew it became a brand.
@coloradoz I got OERTER right somehow through the mists of memory. I was tickled the other day to see Warren Spahn as well. Never saw him pitch in person, though growing up in Boston I remember hearing Spahn, Sain and a day of rain whenever stories were told of the old Boston Braves.
@Laurence of Bessarabia Glad I wasn’t the only one remembering the Rambling Jack Elliott cover of this Woodie Guthrie song!
@Byron Well I realized it was CONTACTHIGH. Just a joke to see if anyone else recalled CLOSETHIGH which was in common use in NYC in the 60s. @Steve L is correct. I felt that DRILY spelt that way was a bit more than Tuesday calls for. Clued straightforwardly enough but WRYLY ran through my permutations too!
Shouldn’t [Wedding exchange] be [Wedding exchanges]? If not, please explain. Thx
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