kt mo

I think it’s great when a cultural gap stumps our crossword community. Lots of “Never heard of LOCS” comments - well, now you have and that’s awesome! They’re a beautiful, protective hairstyle for Black hair. I never heard of the grape variety “GAMAY” so hopefully we all leave these puzzles a little smarter and more worldly. I especially appreciate a variety of cultural references in the crossword, so including 16A was fun too. And 58A was hilarious once I got it. Good stuff.

Sleazo???!!!!!!! Sometimes I am happy when the puzzle teaches me a new word (like Flirtini!) but sometimes I just become more convinced that a thing is not a word.

When I tell you I sat here for WAY too long stressing over what POSSIBLE pasta shape could look “pinched” if not farfalle??? Pain.

I automatically had BEST SELLERS for BANNED BOOKS on my first pass, and that held up in that section for awhile. Luckily BOOTY CALLS and ACNE saved me. It’s like being 17 all over again!

this was a FUN Thursday, exactly what I look for in a tricky one! I used to hate the tricky ones, but the more I do the more I look forward to them. I also thought this was clued exceptionally well, gave me a ton of haha moments. Luckily I knew Vivien Leigh right away, so I was clued into what the whole gag might be pretty quickly. Even still, it took me awhile to make sense of it. I would say for people who hate tricks either avoid Thursdays or just lean into it! let them elasticize your brain :)

28D tripped me up for the longest because I couldn’t get the lactation pro slogan out of my head: “breast is best!” doesn’t help that my answer and CREME share the 2nd and 3rd letter, so it was hard to let go of! still managed to finish in about 20 minutes which is par for me :)

Chewy and satisfying! If you didn’t have a good time with this one, then you simply don’t like the Times crossword. This is an example of what I would submit to an alien race to explain what it’s all about.

I grew up typing 5318008 into my calculator in Algebra II class, so I finished in 20 minutes. Finally, growing up in the 90s pays off!

There were sooooooo many things I’d never heard of in this puzzle like sly boots and octahedra, and a great number of clues above my pay grade (headdress of Persian kings in Greek? heavenly figure in German??) Throw in skin tag, octet and geometry, and you have me puzzling away for over twice my average Friday time. But I love chewy puzzles, I appreciate being stumped, and I found the “aha moments” quite satisfying.

I was so proud of myself for understanding the gag early(ish) on without help, but to answer your question: no, I absolutely would never have gotten it without the shaded squares!

I had the joy of being on the same wavelength as the Constructor and completing this puzzle under my average Thursday time, but I was still vexed because I couldn’t figure out the theme! I am in awe of the cleverness, now that I’ve read an article explaining it to me.

I was really plugging along and got stymied by CAN SO of all things! That just didn’t make sense to my ears or occur to my mind whatsoever. Still beat my average time by quite a bit, but I’ve been doing these a long time, very badly. So my average time is not impressive!

I will say the vitriol from so many commenters here, while a sad shift from the overwhelmingly helpful, curious and encouraging tone of comments in the past, at least serve to make me feel better about my online presence. If puzzles - entertainment, diversion, little games - bring this much ire out of people today, then there is no reason to take the comments I get online personally. It seems people are just…madder. Fun puzzle. Took me longer than my usual Sunday, but zero lookups and LOTS of aha! moments. “an i” was particularly tough on me.

Etoiles is pretty much exclusively used by the Paris Opera Ballet, so it makes sense that if you are only (or mostly) familiar with NYCB you wouldn’t hear it much. I was delighted to see an obscure-ish ballet term in the crossword, although much of the rest of this puzzle was too hard for me! Couldn’t have solved it without the article and help from the commenters :)

My trouble was the first themed clues I got involved Pagliacci, the Boston Pops and 2-part harmony. Plus there was a clue in the SW corner galling me but I knew it had something to do with West Side Story. Therefore I expected all the answers to be musical in nature. Phew! Trying to make what I was pretty sure were “nautical” and “worthy” into something having to do with music may have caused a minor injury. But I enjoyed it overall!

I completed this one in almost-record time for a Thursday thanks to great cluing that gave me enough info to fill in all the theme answers without having ANY idea what the theme was! Came to the article, and once they explained “Shoveling” it all made sense. Super clever. But that is never a connection I would’ve made myself (which is probably why I’m so bad at Connections!)

I solved the whole puzzle without lookups but was black flagged at the last lap by ROSAMUND crossing REEM. I had Rosalind, as it was the only name I could think of that fit, and didn’t know Reel from Reem. Satisfying puzzle other than that small proper noun obscurity.