kit
RI
IMO, solvers who take crossword puzzles personally are tiresome. Sure, themes and grids might not be to your taste or liking, but the cleverness and thoughtfulness needed to create a puzzle like today’s is (are?) commendable, regardless of your personal feelings. Crosswords are meant to be brain exercises, asking us to think outside the box and expand our proverbial mental horizons. Authors/creators are not out to make *your* life in particular difficult. If you don’t like it, find another puzzle to try, or take the opportunity to learn from the grid for future solving (there are so many repeat clues/answers that I personally know nothing about, but because I’ve been solving for years, I know who Brian ___ (3 letters) is, and what kind of cheese starts with an “E” (4 letters)). All that to say, excellent puzzle today. Loved the AMBIGUOUSFIGURES and OPTICALILLUSION; one of my favorites and a really fun children’s book! Loved the clever use of a rebus for the EYE. 🐇🦆quack!
Wish came true, Malaika! A PB at 8:15. A fun jaunt! As a lover of DARKACADEMIA, I was excited to see it referenced (although my speed is more the literary version, rather than the clothing, etc.). Love it or hate it, The Secret History is my favorite book, and one of the most referenced examples of DARKACADEMIA.
First pass through….oh dear, this is going to take a while. Second pass, okay getting there…. Figured out PE-LI-CAN and smooth sailing from there! NW corner was a little troublesome, but with help from crosses filled in quite nicely. Enjoyable Thursday - cross wording is my antidote to doomscrolling so I love a challenging puzzle (last Saturday was a whopper 😅)!
I thought for sure this was going to be another “Wicked” themed puzzle, with the premier of the second film happening this weekend… I was surprised when my OZ pattern shifted to NO in the NE corner, and then continued to incorporate “N” instead of “Z” elsewhere. This one was interesting, and because my brain was stuck in OZ, I missed the trick until the revealer. Ah well. TIL that Egyptians buried ONIONs with their dead…maybe it will come up in pub trivia someday 😅
A very fun, quick Saturday! Especially enjoyed “R-V guy?” and “One who’s off-base?”. 👏🏻 Now to go back to solve Friday 🥴🥴
Really superb Saturday. Had to come back a few times to get out of brain ruts…enjoyed WHALESONG. A meandering solve and got an earworm for Les Mis after filling in WHOAMI (Alfie Boe’s Valjean singing 24601!!!! <a href="https://youtu.be/oAXlynjt1GQ?si=jzAmiVI_2S_NVe2Y" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/oAXlynjt1GQ?si=jzAmiVI_2S_NVe2Y</a>) Thanks for a great brain workout!
@Francis I agree on the beauty of other languages - Celtic and Gaelic are distinct, where all Gaelic languages fall under the umbrella of “Celtic”, but not all Celtic languages are Gaelic. I find language families fascinating - I’m a linguistics nerd… there’s a beautiful tree diagram linked here that shows language relationships quite nicely. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/gallery/2015/jan/23/a-language-family-tree-in-pictures" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/education/gallery/2015/jan/23/a-language-family-tree-in-pictures</a> I recently found myself referring to it as I was watching “The Asset” on Netflix (in Danish) and noticed the similarities of Danish, German, Swedish, and Norwegian. I wanted to know more about the distinctions and derivations…ended up on a really interesting research dive - now I want to learn more!
@Nicole I knew about it and thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle! There’s a children’s book about it!
@riled @Cyndie I hope so! How exhausting it must be to be so negative, hostile, and sour. And then to actively choose to lambast and denigrate a creator/author for…….being creative? Disagreements are expected, but attacks (one commenter called the creators “lazy” (!!!) for using the rebus the way they did) really have no place. It seems people have become emboldened by the anonymity of the keyboard. It really costs nothing to be kind, or to hold your tongue if you’re just going to be mean or rude for the sake of it.
Excellent, excellent! Bottom left gave me fits, but got there in the end. 32A section was also tricky…Had tEe for “Disney World souvenir”, and EXtoL for “Stand out”, and oXiDE, which gave me eiBE for “Garage job”…self checking and asking myself what the heck is an eiBE??! Reworked those and saw the gold star *phew*. What a fun Sunday!
@Francis It’s really interesting! The only thing I wish is that the tree showed beyond Indo-European languages…I would love to see a neighboring tree (or trees) with the languages not represented in this diagram.
@Linda Jo It is dark, but it is enthralling. I wouldn’t necessarily classify it as horror (in the gory way), but perhaps suspense? Psychological thriller? A contemporary look into the unraveling of the young, wealthy, elite who have too much time, money, and intelligence but no constructive outlet or positive adult role models? In the end, I think it is a beautiful novel, centered on a terrifying concept, with horrifying outcomes.
All 12 comments loaded