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Ack it’s sleeping cars (from 2023) all over again! I would have appreciated having “LINE” being accepted. It’s annoying for these innovative puzzles to be bogged down by me wondering if the interface is going to accept what I think is correct, rather than accepting all permutations of “-“, “L”, “L/-“, “-/L”. Other than that, I thought the puzzle was delightfully breezy. Congrats and thanks Harry!
Stunt puzzles can often pit a constructor's ambition against the solvers' patience, but I found today's to be quite enjoyable with the natural clueing and fill, and the wide open spaces to lob (and miss) a few Hail Mary answers. Congrats on the feat Gene!
It's worth noting that Mr. Mendelson maximizes the number of twists in the puzzle. Out of the seven across answers that share an ending with the beginning of down answers, he twists all of them. Pretty neat!
Remarkable construction, without the clunkiness that usually comes with remarkable construction. The difficulty felt right for a Tuesday with a solid fill and cluing. Incredibly well done!
It was my last square, but DUSK for [Call it an early night?] is brilliant. Thanks for ending (for me) this Tuesday puzzle with a dose of wit and color!
I think this is a decent enough example where an exceedingly clever theme comes at the expense of the solvers. I can only imagine the wrangling it takes to create a grid with a border composed of only 7 tones with 3 witty, long revealers, but apparently it requires some gluey names to fill it out. I marveled at the theme, but winced finishing the rest.
I’m usually hopeless when it comes to classical music key signatures, but today I confidently entered _MAJ for 24A, as Vivaldi’s Spring would sound quite different in a minor key…
54A: [Weapon that killed Medusa, in myth] Is there a weapon that killed Medusa outside of myth?
The SW corner was brutal for me, with INATRICE intersecting with three proper names and enough ambiguity for me to second guess TCM and AMBIT. I was surprised when I got the solved screen!
@dutchiris I hope it comes as some form of relief that the puzzle that you're commenting on is in fact a Tuesday
For ages, my Saturday best time has been better than my Friday's. It was an aesthetic blemish in the stats section in my games app: a slow, steady increase in the blue average times over the course of the week, and an echo in yellow record times, until the start of the weekend where there'd be slight downtick due to a freakishly easy Saturday from November 2022. Ever since that freakishly easy, and potentially miscategorized Saturday in November 2022, for every Friday puzzle I've put on my racers hat and tried to right this temporal wrong. Every Friday puzzle since then, I've tried and I've failed, occasionally chipping away at my Friday record, but not overcoming my Saturday. Until today. Thank you Rafael for making my crossword world make a little more sense!
Whenever I see ZOLAESQUE, I’m reminded of the scene of the finals of the Stamford Crossword tournament in the documentary Wordplay when Trip Payne exclaims “Oh, Good God!” when he finally deciphers it (then clued as [Stark and richly detailed, as writing]). Counting today, it’s only happened once, but that’s something.
As someone whose sentences have been accused of being overqualified, I greatly enjoyed the theme’s wordplay, literally. Thanks Adam!
If an airline told me "YOURDELAYSARENUMBERED," I would be absolutely livid. Like, dude, you felt you had to number them? This was a delight to solve. Thanks Mrs. Robbins!
This construction features a very rare quadruple stack, made possible by the 15x16 grid. I thought the spacious middle was intimidating, but by dissecting a few key phrases, I managed and enjoyed it. Thanks Erik!
@Steven M. As an authority in this thread (as yet another Steve), I’ll add that this was painful since the theme answers weren’t known phrases, but instead they are oddities (“emotional xray”? Okay…). When I filled it out, the theme answers technically fit the specifications of the clue, but weren’t really recognizable, which I found more annoying than enticing. It only becomes a known phrase when it’s phonetically unpiglatinified, which ultimately salvages the answer rather than offers any hint to the solver (“emotional wrecks”? Oh, okay…). If the constructors wanted to add a pig latin twist that’s a little more gentle for solvers, they could offer both clues, or better, have the unpiglatin phrase as the answer with the pig latin clue as an additional, bonus clue. Here the theme/gimmick of phonetically playing around with pig latin seems more for the constructors’ enjoyment than the solvers’. Sometimes that can be impressive, like in an incredibly constrained stunt puzzle (like the stellar “One L” puzzle from a while back). But here, reflecting in pig latin, idn’tday ooday itay orfay eemay.
To me, this is the ideal Friday, with plenty of chewy clues that when properly chewed educe a smile from the wordplay. Thanks Kelvin! For 37A, I was under the impression that the answer shouldn’t contain any of the words from the clue. Am I mistaken in that?
Anyone else have “Sue” as a [Good name for a chef?]?
@Zalman Stern I’m pretty sure it’s clued that way because [*Horse/power*] has a much stronger ring to it than [*Horse/unit of electrical potential energy*]. It’s the same reason why for 48A, a ditch only vaguely resembles a tunnel. While I’m sure much can be said about the poetic liberties taken in crosswords to seem more clever, I’m not sure if too many are led astray in their understanding of electrical physics by contrived, contorted wordplay. This is a rather convoluted way to say the choice is deliberate and not a careless error. Whether you still think the constructor and editors blatant disregard for accuracy so they can make a silly pun is offensive depends on your sensibilities, but for me, it elicits an eye-roll at worst.
@JJ, I got there by (maybe incorrectly?) extrapolating that a SAMLET is a baby salmon. Though, then I thought shouldn't it be a salmet? Or maybe a salmlet?
@Dave S That’s what clued me in to replace LINE with “——“ to arrive at the “correct” fill and didn’t make it too painful. But I don’t recall a revealer ever invalidating legitimate answers before. You say it makes nonsense of DASHEDLINE but ——CHART is similar nonsense
After yesterday's Wednesday level Thursday, I was curious to see what the actual Thursday was, and found it to be a pleasant and brisk Schrödinger-that-wasn't. Nevertheless there's a decent amount of glue holding this one together. I think OWEITTO is simply painful to look at.
@Steve L Thanks, that's something I'll pay more attention to! I originally typed out a snarky reply rhetorically asking who the "in myth" really helps. After all, if a person knows Medusa, they almost certainly know that it's in myth. But then I realized it could be a foothold for people who (unfathomable to me) *don't* know who Medusa is. And that realization has really pumped the brakes for this train of snark.
Completely tangentially to the puzzle, the automated voice that reads the article correctly pronounces "Polish" and "polish" the first time (at 4:04), but as of this writing, the second go around mixes them up (even though they're both capitalized the same way as "Polish"). That the voice even chooses different pronunciations is fascinating to me.
I found this puzzle to be fun and breezy, but I have an ongoing quibble with the editing team regarding formatting. For the fourth time in four weeks (or three times in 8 days), there’s been a “bidirectional” puzzle where there are answers squares that read differently across than down. Two of the crosswords allowed for entering those squares as “across/down” (i.e. “I/ERNST” and “PH/F”), while the other two didn’t accept that formatting (i.e. no go for “-/L”, and “EVIF/FIVE”). I prefer entering bidirectional answers as “across/down”, and IMO it should be accepted unless there’s a very good reason not to. As I commented on Thursday, that while the puzzles that have less permissible formatting have been mercifully breezy, their mere existence leaves me paranoid when spending minutes fiddling squares on any bidirectional crossword that it might be the formatting rather than other answers that are incorrect. Could the editors always accept the “Across/Down” formatting or maybe clarify the circumstances in which they wouldn’t accept it? It would save me minutes— minutes!— of my time.
Anyone else have [One addressed as "lord"] as "ByRON"? Thankfully REDyLE sounds less plausible than REDALE
@Steve, Her, “Latin I” refers to the level of difficulty or type of class, akin to “Latin 101”
I was going to grouse that "allined" (for "on the same side") was spelled with one "l" and a "g", no matter what obscure variations there may be, before reading the column and realizing that indeed I am the idiot. Very clever construction and quite fun!
This was a satisfying solve for me. A good sign for a tough puzzle is when I have only half the grid filled in when my average Saturday time rolls around, yet the clues don’t feel too unfair. I barely grasped a hold on the answers, finally running the alphabet with the PLOSIVES/IVES natick. Thanks for the challenge!
Fun and breezy! Spent an embarrassingly long time on onomatopoeia!
What a delicious double triple stack with little glue. Congratulations Adrianne!
@Michael As a student, I always had the urge (but not to courage) to sass back “I guess I can” and then leave the room. I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I did…
@Fact Boy Quibbling over the right units for luminance seems like light nit picking. (Seriously though, I found this mildly irksome too)
For me, this was just about right, with pieces falling just so satisfyingly into place. The NE and SE corners did get naticky for me with SANTE/MUST/SKATE and RANI/INNES/BIGDO. The NE seemed unnecessarily trivia laden when there are less obscure (but perhaps more clever) clues, and I’m not sure if I like making puzzle more fiddly for the sake of it. I found this one quite enjoyable but with a few more naticks, I could see this tipping over the edge towards frustration.
For me, this was one of those satisfying puzzles where it seems I did 2/3rds of the puzzle in the last third of the solve time. Everything just fell into place. Thanks Ryan!
I struggled through this one, which doesn't bode well for my first ACPT. Hope to see you all there!
Do you want ants? Because *that's* how you get (ten)ants. Bravo Alexander!
@JA The full answer is read as (JP)EG (with JOKER/POKER for the cross). The app has fairly permissible formatting so it accepted just “P”, when it really should be “JP” or “J/P”, for the answers to make sense.
@Shrike, there are dozens of us. Dozens!
In his show, “The Enigmatist,” David Kwong constructs a crossword in real time, right in front of his audience. I’m not sure how genuine it is (he is a magician, after all), but the effect is dazzling. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing his show, here’s a clip: <a href="https://youtu.be/U1VPUZDr-fY" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/U1VPUZDr-fY</a>
@john ezra It is worth noting that a significant number of the gripes about Art Heist had to do with the interface of the puzzle. In the puzzle, there are pairs of clues: for example 8A is [*Painting stolen from 71-Across*], and 71A is [Common scale range]. The referring clue significantly helps solving the other. Normally when there are related clues, the corresponding clue(s)/answer(s) are highlighted. When it was first published, when solving 71A, 8A wasn't highlighted. This left it to the solver to keep track of all the pairs of clues, for seemingly no reason. It has since been updated to properly highlight the paired clues, but I wonder what feedback it would have initially gotten if it was published with the standard clueing interface. Some people are still grumpy about it a year (and maybe years) later!
@eevans They aren’t synonymous, but solar winds aren’t composed of photons, but rather charged particles (including ions) shed by the sun
@Mike Thursday and Sunday puzzles more often than not have some sort of gimmick to them, and steering clear of all Thursdays and Sundays by default might save you some grief. There might be some kind person on the internet that identifies which Sundays and rare Thursdays have no gimmicks to them. I’m not sure, but maybe that information is out there already?
I have never heard of rose hips, and confidently filled in lyes for [Tanners’ stock]. Rosebel seemed plausible enough for an answer, and befuddled me for many a minute.
I do believe these theme answers are the most clever set in recent memory. Slightly clunky fill, but well done Eli!
@Steven M., yeah I wasn't a fan of that one either. Add in OTTOI, and there are some rough-looking answers. And with SAMLET/SASSON, the fill felt a little underdone. Fun, clever theme though.
I found the theme to be a bit more obscuring than illuminating, with the payoff of de-icle-ing a phrase not always worth the mental energy. Combined with a fill full of names and arcana usually reserved for a stunt puzzle, it made this a bit of a slog for me. This one reminded me of the Pig Latin puzzle last year (spoiler: August 17), which phonetically contorted phrases to the point where my enjoyment peaked at begrudging recognition. I’m personally finding phonetic mutations most enjoyable with particularly clever cluing (like if they were all like TWOPARTICLEHARMONY) or if there is a uniting categorical theme in addition to the mutation. Otherwise it seems a bit frivolous.
Wow! Now this is a crossword!! The theme, grid art, and fill are so well crafted, with so little glue and waste. That there are 15 theme answers that work with and without a T (adjacent to each other) is impressive, but the unnaturally natural fill for such a feat really elevates it to me. This is one of my frontrunners for puzzle of the year, and a contender of all time. Very well done Rafael and Sala!
I know I’m one of those people to grouse when I feel a Sam Ezersky crossword is not entirely baked, so I figure it’s only fair to give credit where credit is due: This was a delight Sam. The misdirects were clever and the fill quite satisfying. My first pass was quite sparse, until I took a chance on 32A, which was a helpful pointer indeed, and the rest soon fell into place. Nicely done!
The NW corner was rough where I stubbornly tried to get RiSeRs to work for 21A for a long time. Crossword experience pulled me through with a vague memory of the jargony answer of ROSTRum, and PECOS Bill kept it from being too naticky in the corner, but it was close. I like Fridays and Saturdays that are just within grasp, and this scratched an itch for me. Thanks!