Jeremy
Ottawa
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Ottawa
This was easy…until it wasn’t! Great Friday puzzle and a lovely opening to the weekend. Happy solving, and please don’t annex my country. Thanks.
A bit gnarly for Wednesday but some of the clueing was delightfully cruel. Big name in ketchup? I had Heinz.
I loved this one. A bit longer than my average Sunday. Props to the constructor for getting AGLET and EYELET in the same puzzle.
I’ve been going through the archives doing Saturdays and today’s was by far the toughest I’ve encountered. Virtually every clue was a total mystery to me. Took me all the help and even then I needed to autofill. Kiva? Dds? Etonic? Ok, sure…
48A: Inuk refers to a singular person, and isn’t used interchangeably with Inuit. Humbly submit that the NYT crossword team takes some time to learn correct/contemporary usage around this, because I feel like I often come across misuse of Indigenous terminology here. Never mind some real dingers in the archive (Māoris, Eskimos etc). Not trying to word police, but this is actually just incorrect. As a Canadian solver these pop out at me pretty sharply. Just saying.
Crosswords are crazy. Today was my 851st NYT crossword, after getting into them about a year ago now. Somewhere, sometime eons (or aeons) ago, I heard the term tin lizzie in its context. But when I saw the clue, having not encountered that term in decades, I instantly was able to fill in the answer. Brain training indeed.
Question: does the NYT ever seek appropriate consultation before going ahead with “Inuits”? Like, maybe ask and see whether or not it might be culturally out of step/inappropriate. Or maybe the NYT doesn’t care? I am a daily solver but the misuse of Indigenous names is a recurring theme in these puzzles. It’s kind of a bummer.
I found this to be insanely hard. Twice my average. To the person who solved this in 8 minutes: chapeau but also — how? I found most of these clues to be indecipherable.
Re: Americanisms. I’m a Canadian daily solver, and once you’ve done enough puzzles (I’m at 1200 or so) they get a lot easier to identify. Like “Eli” or the myriad US govt org acronyms. I thought this was just the right amount of chewy for a Thursday.
@Jonathan not “no nets” but NONETS. an ensemble of nine players. Like a sextet, septet, octet, etc.
Uh, well that was fun! Bravo.
Hands down the hardest Friday in ages for me.
Should have swapped yesterday and today’s puzzles. Today was lovely, but I think would have made for a gentler weekend opener than the torture fest that was yesterday.
I hated every minute of this until I solved it and saw the theme emphasized.
This was great. But I felt like I was time travelling into Wednesday. The theme was very Wednesday-ish and this felt a tad tough for Tuesday.
Funny that some folks here say this was easy/breezy. This one was well above my Friday average!
Great, chewy, challenging puzzle. I also delighted at STONEHENGE. Also MEGA. Brilliant.
There was some truly great (and devious) clueing today. Bravo!
50 across stung badly. Too soon. Way too soon.
Yesterday’s puzzle was impossible for me. Needed all the clues and all the googles. Today I got a Friday PR (sub 14 min) with no help. Life is funny.
Fun puzzle. I was a bit annoyed that LINE wasn’t accepted. I figured since the “art thief” / “I was framed” gimmick from two weeks ago allowed for non-words to appear in the grid - as a result of trickery like this - on a Sunday, that LINE would work. Streak broken.
@Andrzej VAMPING is actually imprecisely clued here I think. A vamp in jazz relates more to a repeated chord progression or section over which a musician can improvise. More of a rhythm section thing. It’s not really noodling per se (noodling refers somewhat speciously to aimless and uninteresting soloing/improv that lacks musical interest). I used to perform as a semi professional musician for years and whenever the instruction was to vamp, it meant to essentially play the same section over and over until the next cue.
FEN and HEROIZE are my two new words learned today. Very fun and took me a little longer than usual.
@Nancy GAMELAN were introduced to university music departments extensively in the 20th century and have become an instrument of Indonesian cultural diplomacy. But I have graduate degrees in ethnomusicology and musicology, so for me that was a very satisfying answer to see!
Very, very difficult. Would not have been able to finish without the Wordplay column help.
Great puzzle. Tough but unlike some of the recent Saturdays, this felt very satisfying to solve (I did need a wee bit of help). Let’s see what’s on tap for tomorrow 😬
Same as others — I found the SE corner to be so much harder than the rest of the puzzle. Lovely though. Thank you!
Tricky in places. Spectacular puzzle. It’s the weekend - yay!
Marvellous puzzle - this was almost Saturday PB for me, but I’m stunned by how gorgeous this solved. Bravo.
This was insane and impossible for me. Even with auotcheck on it took me 45 min and a bit of that was randomly hitting letters because I just couldn’t. I felt bullied. LOL.
Great puzzle! Tough one for me but every clue made sense once solved. Auspicious start to the solving weekend!
@Derrick I loved this too. Amazing work. Once I figured out what was going on I had a ball. Just a tad longer than my Sunday average.
Tough Wednesday workout!
I also found this puzzle a fairly quick solve in around half my usual time. But I found myself staring at the competed grid in admiration. Almost no filler! Bravo. Auspicious start to the solving weekend (long weekend for me in Ontario with Family Day on Monday)
For a while I had THE HUMANITY for THE AUDACITY until I realized it was wrong. But I leave this as a challenge for any constructers to use that as a seed for a Shrödinger puzzle!
@CLN I don’t really get how Meet is FIT. like, it seems too tenuous to work as a clue.
@Bill I did! But — Canadian provincial abbreviation is ON, not ONT. I often also see ALB but we use AB for Alberta. Editors could take note…just sayin
At first I was sailing through this on my way to a PB, wondering if I’d woken up on a Tuesday. But no, ended up slower than my Saturday average. Needed one little help with TIE and the rest came together. Great puzzle.
@SP that’s what I thought, but then also thought there was no way that would make it as a clue. That’s too bad. Otherwise a fun and chewy Saturday.
Brilliant, crisp, surprising, and punchy. Loved it.
This was fun! I loved it once I got the theme. I found the cluing pretty straightforward for a Thursday, and the symmetry is impressive. Not to mention that the letters in HORSES are in order if read left to right, top to bottom. Chapeau.
Fun! Kudos — I always love a grid graphic. Very satisfying. Sunday personal record, with no googles or help.
Great puzzle and theme but an absolute nightmare on my tiny IPhone SE. I feel nauseous 🤢
@Rich in Atlanta That is eerie—I literally did that puzzle yesterday from the archive and also struggled to understand what was going on. Only got it long after finishing.
Loved this puzzle. Weirdly, it was much quicker than my Saturday average! Now I know who Nero’s successor is…
Great puzzle. Took me 2 min longer than my average Wednesday. NE and SW corners were tough.
@Rich in Atlanta I just did that Thursday “asymmetry” puzzle a few days ago. Took me a fair bit to figure it out. Great puzzle.
Didn’t realize it was Wednesday!
Hardest Friday I have done in a long time. Totally stymied on a bunch of clues. Shamefully had to peek at the answer key 🫣
@Melanie D. This has appeared before, and is a funny and dated expression of something touching on incredulity, indignation, frustration etc. This puzzle was super challenging. ROSTRA. Evil.