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Brilliant! A perfect Thursday puzzle. Loved the theme, the cluing, and the satisfying AHA when it came together. Especially liked Viking ships and X Boxes ! Well done, and congrats on the NYT debut. This is how it's done.
Very solid puzzle, favorite was the Lear Jet offset with West Side Story! BTW, speaking for myself only, please disregard some curmudgeons who feel entitled to demand every puzzle to be designed to match their taste. These crossword police don't allow trivia, rebuses, puns, or anything too esoteric. The puzzle must fit within exact specifications of difficulty level per relevant day of the week. Any violations will be met with derisive trolling. They'll even challenge fellow crossword solvers who post a positive comment, and taunt such lack of malice as 'mollycoddling.' Lacking EQ, they jump at the chance to spend 1 minute trashing something that others took days to build and are proud of. And which at least some others in the crossword community appreciated. Dear crossword creators, I appreciated your puzzle and look forward to more from you as partners in cluing and your solo puzzles as well. Cheers!
For a while I was wondering if Drunk Twerking was a fad I missed
Great Monday puzzle! Must admit I didn't notice every clue began with a c until I got to the theme... Like that experiment where you're so focused on counting basketball passes that you don't notice the gorilla walking by
@Andrzej Counterpoint: I found this puzzle fun, interesting, and delightfully challenging for a Tuesday. I encourage this constructor to carry on and bring us more like this 😀
@Chris Sorry but Aristide should be well known to anyone with basic knowledge of modern history. And Klee is hardly an obscure artist. Your other points don't track either. I hope the editors don't start engineering the puzzles to fit into a lowest common denominator framework of general knowledge.
32 Across, Business Magnate, I had only the ___on. 1st word that came to mind was 'felon.' Lol
Very nice! And congrats to the constructor on the successful debut! Really like the theme. Using the word 'Echo' literally + in 3 other, widely different contexts, all of which are consistent with the 'location' requirement in the clue.... well done! Looking forward to your 2nd puzzle!
Zachary: congrats on the fantastic debut! And for the gracious Constructor's Note John: Awesome work as a mentor Teens with curiosity, wit, initiative, and humility? Experts willing to share their time and expertise with the next generation? There's hope for us all yet!
@Devon No let's please not do that, as figuring that out is part of the mystique and the fun. But as a helpful hint, Thursdays and Sundays are more likely to contain shenanigans!
Great puzzle with brilliant cluing. - Miss Piggy & Captain Kirk by birth - professional juggling act - forget to proorfeed Well done!
@Mos Bravo! 'Just enjoy the puzzle' is exactly the point. Can't really fathom how some feel the urge to gripe about a crossword puzzle not taking them enough minutes to solve. And yeah btw this was a very enjoyable puzzle.
'The first thing you do if you sit at a new table is look for the fish. If you don't see the fish, you're the fish.' I read this years ago in an interview with a legendary card shark. This was his answer to the question, 'What's one thing you've learned in your career?' I later heard it in the movie Rounders. Not sure if the movie or interview came 1st or if that's just a standard of gambling folk wisdom. Anyway, the clue 'one who makes a living off fish' ranks now as one of my all-time favorite clues. Even though I know that line, I still was barking up the wrong tree in the wrong forest, trying to make 'sushi chef' fit until I erased my whole top left corner and started again. Liked the Catch 22 cameo, liked most clues, liked the grid... Well done!
A Modest Proposal This amazing Thursday puzzle is behaving like a Thursday puzzle. It has a trick to solve. Many of us look forward to this. For those who feel otherwise, may I suggest a deal? We won't complain every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday that the puzzles are too literal. We won't say 'so boring. Meh. What a slog. no tricks to solve.. don't make any more puzzles without a trick.' So you get 5 full days without hearing us complain. Can you reciprocate? If on the other 2 days, the constructor has managed an elegant, surprising experience, that gets different synapses firing while still tickling memory banks and logic circuits, can you try to appreciate the creativity and hard work? And recognize that people around the world are enjoying that moment of 'aha!!!'
A nice Saturday puzzle: fun, bright, and fresh. When your top 2 rows are waffle maker and macaroni salad, it's time to get comfy and enjoy the ride 😄
Fun puzzle, congrats on the 1st NYT puzzle!
Perfect Saturday puzzle. Just the right mix of 'dang it now I'm stuck' and 'oh yeah that fits now I get it nice one'
@LARRY I assume you're joking, but just in case you're not, then no that's not the whole point of a crossword puzzle. 'Chicanery' is very welcome as long as it's logically consistent. The answers which seem to have offended you are covered by the Bottomless Brunch answer / clue so are well within the Ministry of Crosswords protocol. And once one understands the connection, this puzzle is a thing of beauty.
@Michaela You didn't get the theme. Please read the puzzle notes and it will become clear. Then if your experience is like mine, this puzzle will blossom into something with mystique and beauty.
@Francis Yeah, from the comment, I'm guessing they would not like green eggs and ham here or there. In fact, they might not like them anywhere!
Dear fellow NYT crossword fans: 1: Today is April 1st, also known as April Fools Day 2: Quoting the Cambridge Dictionary, April 1 is 'when people play tricks on each other and try to make people believe things that are not true.” 3: This puzzle seems to have successfully made us all believe that we were solving for a witty 4-line quip. After filling in Parts 1 and 2, many of us probably expected it to rhyme. (I did!) 4: In the end, we were had! It's a prank! There is no witty quip, just circled letters spelling out 'quip'. 5: Be honest: did you sit there, trying to figure out why this seemingly random set of phrases was a quip? I did! 6: We fell for the prank. April Fools Day in the US is not meant to be a day for funny jokes or stories or even witty quips. It's a day to trick people, and this puzzle seems to have achieved this to an amazing degree. Happy April Fools Day!
@Kathy B Wha??? I loved 'nosering' as it fell into the category of a clue which taught me something interesting. Perhaps some are already familiar with Mesopotamian fashion, but I wasn't.. And what's wrong with Kitten Chow?
Cake, work, advice, information, the action, my mind, jewelry, paper : Pieces of Eight Bulls, Bears, Cubs, Board of Trade, Tribune, White Sox, Deep Dish Pizza : Chicago 7
I liked this a lot. The 'ad free' was a great way to glue it all together, very impressive to deliver all those '___ n ___' fills + a fun thematic reveal , all within a bright, sunny Monday puzzle
Great idea for a puzzle, and just what is needed now: empathy and communication
Bright, airy puzzle, with a fun theme to tie it together; enjoyed it! And nice cluing on 'this might be hot!.
Great puzzle. Source of schadenfreude! Small businesses that don't require permits! And the epic Maggie / Ashlee misdirection. Well done!
Hey at least we don't have anyone complaining today that it's too easy! Or 'felt like a Wednesday!'
Great puzzle, and dont't listen to naysayers. Kindly suggest folks who don't like to think outside the box (ha) stick to the 5 days of the week that play it straight, and let the rest of us get some more synapses firing on Thursday and Sunday. No other puzzle platform (I'm aware of) has such a breadth of variety and stimulation, and puzzles like this contribute to that! BRAVO!
@Mutsukoh This type of fun fact is why I check out the comments section. Like icing on the cake. Arigato !
I've never heard of this musical, and don't usually like musicals. But hey I liked the puzzle! And I appreciate 'niche' puzzles which go outside my usual areas of interest, and let me learn something new! And gimmicks are fun: it's hard to imagine not being at least slightly amused by a hat suddenly activated! Good job, nice surprise for a Wednesday grid! Hats off!
Fun puzzle, nice example of a theme which isn't needed to fill in the full puzzle, but then delivers a nice 'aha' payload when you make the connection. Enjoyed going back through it to find all the characters and their respective benefit.
Great puzzle! Loved the double negative theme, and lots of nice clues too (impala!) I saw a couple of comments asking that spoilers on how to enter the thematic rebus be included with the puzzle itself. Counterpoint: heck no! The revealer 'double negative' is earned by filling in the grid. Applying a bit of energy, hmmm double negative... might this be a clue? Looks like there are 2 rebuses in each relevant answer... and looks like 'no' would fit for each... and writing 'no' twice would fit the double negative theme. Done. Works. Puzzle completed with that cheerful jingle. It's all part of the puzzle. Let's keep it that way.
I'm not an expert, but IMHO this seems to be a very satisfying Tuesday puzzle.
Loved this! In a meta sense this puzzle slyly double crossed the 'no doubles' protocol lol
Good work giving our friend the 'j' more gameplay than usual! Impressive
Awesome, really enjoyed this. Loved the final twist!
For anyone complaining that the word 'line' wasn't accepted, the name of the puzzle is 'multi-hyphenates'! The hyphen is staring us in the face from the beginning. Writing 'line' everywhere a hyphen should be would have conflicted with the theme and led to a less elegant puzzle.
@Andy Sorry but... 'Young Turks' is a well-known description of someone pushing for radical change. There's even a famous (or notorious, take your pick) YouTube channel of the same name. I guess the Jaguar clue may only be appreciated by Jaguar fans, but imho some Jaguar XKE models are some of the most beautiful cars ever made. 'Longo' is not a word, the answer is 'long o' referencing the 'o' sound. PDQ Bach is esoteric, I'll give you that.
@nash.mark Nothing wrong with a xwp without gimmicks.... unless it's a Thursday in the NYT! A Thursday NYT without something a bit devious would be a tad disappointing!
@Brian Murphy Hopefully you're joking. If not, kindly look up 'crossword rebus'.
Fast but fun, all good. I especially liked the 'doesn't take the regular train home' clue
Nice one. Especially like the combo at the end: Double Black Diamond warning that the hill would be a steep drop, and for the answer bonechilling. Beautiful
@Francis I agree wholeheartedly! The sense of entitlement among some here is incredible. As if they're owed a puzzle which perfectly meets their expectations every single day. And those expectations often conflict. 'Too hard! Too easy! Too much trivia! Too much Americana! Too gimmicky! There was a natick!! There was a rebus!!' From my perspective, I appreciate the hard work and energy put in by the constructors, and end up enjoying every day. I can't imagine the mindset of someone who casually tosses out a 'meh'. Imagine a constructor working hard, getting the puzzle accepted, waiting for the day it's in print, only to find a page of entitled graffiti. Last I checked, this is the NYT crossword puzzle forum, not X.
Very cool. I had the rebus literally the last clue to solve. I thought it would be some city in Switzerland, which seemed off-brand but hey maybe. Do they call Geneva The Big G? That would be weird, and that would mean there's a popular drink called SNG. Nope. Maybe The Big B? And the drink is SNB? Nope. Checked the clue again. Ah ok it can be anywhere, think think the Big... Aha payload achieved. Nice one!!!!!
Fantastic puzzle! That business / pleasure clue was especially bold... loved it. Definitely a puzzle that will be popping up in 'best of NYT puzzles' lists.
Great puzzle, lots of fun. And I liked the constructor story about Gigi and Xi!
Masterpiece. A perfect puzzle. In one Wednesday grid, we get a 3-part quote. Cool. Each word in the quote functions as an action and a theme. Related to the original quote. Whoa. Each of the 3 themes then performs its own specific action, 'creating' words found on the grid. No. Way. Really enjoyed this. Massive respect for the idea and the landing. This is one I'll clear from time to time in the archive and do it again.