abelsey

@Brian Murphy the first ever NYT rebus was on a Monday. In 1954. It has long since established its right to show up on any day.

@TholosTB any puzzle that is harder than about a Wednesday level will have griping, especially if there is anything about the puzzle that elevates it beyond straightforward letters, one by one, in a grid. This is because those who have not yet developed the skills to do the NYT crossword daily nevertheless want to be able to say they do it daily. They don’t want to put in the hours of work that make them a skilled solver. They have failed to understand that if this crossword were solvable by everyone every day, it would cease to be an aspirational thing to be able to do. Nevertheless, I believe that with practice they could indeed figure out, for example, the straightforward and consistent rules for entering a rebus. With practice they’ll learn the words “nobody has ever heard of,” and they’ll figure out the general patterns that make puzzles that were impossible for them a year earlier solvable in record time.

@Phil telling the solver that there is a trick to the puzzle ruins any puzzle with a trick. It’s called a puzzle because you have to figure it out.

@Lewis are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?

@Phil and if you’ve never heard of MAMA CASS, not only is that very much on you, but I’ve also got a whole load of tunes to add to my “Hit Songs NYT Crossword Commenters Have Never Heard Of” playlist

@mistermiranda nevertheless, they are offerings at some Chinese restaurants.

@Andrzej I would personally never tell anyone who dislikes rebuses to avoid Thursdays. I would tell them to avoid the NYT crossword altogether. We all have preferences; I’d personally prefer every puzzle to be at Saturday level with a difference kind of trick every day. I suspect empathy with my position will also be less than forthcoming.

@Workingmom123 ACTUALLY I SOLVED IN 8 MINUTES ON AN IPHONE. Just use the rebus button. It’s been there for years.

@Andrzej You also do a prestige crossword in a language that is possibly not your first language. You're doing great.

@Phil they really don’t. Or, if you like, the “tell” is typically just like it is here: you can’t fit the answer in the grid without doing something unusual. Of course getting the hang of spotting a rebus can be tricky, but I’m sure you’ll get there if you just KEEP ON IT.

@MmmmHmm what is more productive than learning about new things?

@Ms. Billie M. Spaight that is the point of Connections. Sometimes there is a red herring set. You have to work out all of the categories, not just one. Honestly, so many people come here to complain that they had to figure out a tricky puzzle they willingly did. If you don’t want a challenge, why are you here?

@Francis also, if you want to know the process, I actually used CRIB as my first thought for “Home, in slang” and just immediately confirmed with the down clues. As in, ABBA was a gimme, CRIB was a maybe, but it gave me ACT, BRAIN, BIKE, and AB__ which I then immediately knew was ABET. So it was a tentative guess which I think was able to confirm straight away with crosses.

@Nate he’s SORCERER while they’re at work (ie being Mickey’s boss); he’s Yen Sid when they’re down the pub.

@Nancy throw away the element that makes this puzzle a playable bonus game and serves as the essential substance of a huge part of this incredibly clever construction—and what also serves to make the theme instantly clear to the millions upon millions of people worldwide who have played this game over the past 35+ years? Ok Nancy

@Mac sounds like they did give you a puzzle: one you couldn’t figure out.

@Francis it’s just practice. I’ve done over 3500 of these crosswords (nearly 2k in a row and the rest from archives) and, yes, SESH and ARCH came straight into my head. But they probably would not have presented themselves to me as the obvious answers in September 2019.

@Mango the first ever rebus appeared on a Monday in 1954. It has long since established its right to appear on any day. (And this is where my other comment saying the same thing was supposed to go.)

@John X is 100% a kiss.

@Laura Whitaker the book was published in 2019 and was a reasonably big bestseller; it had already sold over half a million copies before the TV adaptation came about.

@Phil no there “usually” is not; please desist in this falsehood.

@B I’ve definitely made daisy chains and put them on my head in a crown in the summertime. Maybe even right smack the middle of the summer.

@Kaitlin the word tragic ends with a c (aka a “cee”)

@abelsey it also probably helps that I ate a 2D tonight and I have 3D on my living room wall.

@Nanorama this puzzle’s answers do read in all directions as they should. This was not a rebus puzzle, so it is no surprise that when you put in rebuses you did not correctly solve the puzzle.

@Barry Ancona yeah it’s weird; maybe it’s because I linked to a personal substack. I’d like to say (if I’m allowed!) that someone sent me a series of photos showing the process of setting the time on a Garmin watch, which includes at one point a (virtual) toggle that allows you to set the time to AM or PM. I believe someone else mentioned a microwave that does the same thing. These things are obviously not the same as a physical switch on a clock radio, which so many claim and which I’d really like to see (Rachel still hasn’t provided that photo 🤔), but they are indeed AM/PM toggles on digital clocks. In my opinion they are more convincing than Sam Lyon’s alarm toggle within a digital clock app, but that is certainly arguable and may be enough for many. Your comment, though, to think of AM/PM as *the thing which is toggled*, was particularly useful, as it doesn’t require any consideration of whether an alarm in a clock app still counts as a clock, or if a toggle that only exists in a virtual state for a moment while you’re setting the time counts, and so on. So I have changed my thinking; I believe it skates under the line of technically correct through the ability of the English language to name things after the processes which are done to them—which is, of course, the only kind of correct that matters here. AM/PM is a toggle in the same way I can eat a traybake. I think?

@Matt Kopans Juneau

@Chris I’m 48 and it was a gimme!!

@Jeff you mean oringbay or ateverwhay. Oohay oobay.

@sonnel can’t use “man” in a clue where the answer also uses “man” unfort

@Ryan but that would mean you had (in your down fill) either REDPILLICE or AVEICER in that particular example, and similar in every other example. If it’s neat there is no ice. That’s the only way to actually solve the puzzle. Leaving the ice in there, simply because you know the words, doesn’t engage with the puzzle part of the puzzle.