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@Eric Ressner. I did the same. Then went back and used only the “innies” (in Severance speak). Once the “outies” were ignored, then the happy music played. Like in Severance, I initially had no idea what was going on. But I was sure the work was mysterious and important.
Did the puzzle Tuesday night with our daughter, who came to higher ground to escape the monsoons in New Jersey. Fun puzzle and clever execution of the theme. GIFTCOP and ALAI were the new words for us, but readily solved with the crosses. Well done, constructors! Our family’s gold star streak hit the happy number 1234 today!
@Niki B. You are welcome! I love your banana cream pie story. The mind is an amazing thing and can recover in so many ways. Btw, my sister used to own a bakery and her signature bake was banana cream pie!
@Warren. Thank you. Her journey continues but happily we do it together!
@LordBottletop Your post made me spit out my morning tea! Very funny. Loved this clever, fun puzzle! The rebus entries were well signaled and created a fun solve. Only trouble was SAMSA/PLOSIVE crossing. Had to whack away at the top square with lots of letters to finally get it done. Very appropriate ending! Great job, Mr Hasegawa!
Loved this Friday puzzle! Tough, fun and fair. So many good, fresh long answers. My spouse and I solve together and I was stuck on “partner who is deep under cover”. She just looked at me and said “You don’t know the answer because you are the BLANKETHOG and sleep through the annoyance!” I agree with the others that didn’t like the clue for COB. Better options were available. “Male swan”, but maybe a bit easy for a Friday? How about “5 pm for some shops, for short”? By the way, the puzzle inspired us to make lamb chops tonight. Here’s a favorite recipe for MINTSAUCE. <a href="https://food52.com/recipes/4179-mint-sauce-for-lamb" target="_blank">https://food52.com/recipes/4179-mint-sauce-for-lamb</a>
My reaction to the southeast corner. <a href="https://youtu.be/wRnSnfiUI54?feature=shared" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/wRnSnfiUI54?feature=shared</a>
@Steve. Ha! We did think (very briefly) about a whole puzzle of only common crosswordese. Perhaps grouped by the editor’s era? And crossed or imbedded in their names? But OREO won out over all the others.
@Lewis. Thanks, Lewis. That is very kind. She is indeed an amazing and resilient person. And the daily challenge is great for me, too!
My carpentry skills are more MEASUREONCECUTTWICE. Fun puzzle!
@hitthejohn Sorry this puzzle didn’t do it for you. One think that might help is to consider that the “?” can signal a play on words or some misdirection, not always a pun. “Gives a hand” most commonly means “helps”. But with the question mark, the playful answer becomes “CLAPS”. That kind of cleverness made me smile. This was very similar to 36A: “Preserves thing?” was not the action one might have thought without a question mark. The play-on-words answer is JARS. I initially put in JAMS, but corrected with the cross. Still a good clue/answer. For me it was fun and well done Sunday puzzle.
Given the recent news article below, I was really hoping 24D was MANKINI. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/19/world/australia/australia-mankini-shane-rose-olympics.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/19/world/australia/australia-mankini-shane-rose-olympics.html</a> Dude almost lost his shot at the Olympics. But the Aussies thought it was hilarious!
@sotto voce. Thank you for your very kind words. We both appreciate it. Creating the puzzle with Dan was a lot of fun learning. Hopefully we’ll make another!
@Gary Scheele. Thanks for sharing your story. My wife be happy to hear about your recovery. Ours a mysterious and amazing organs.
Loved the clever theme. I like when the theme helps with the solving, rather than the other way round. A good, fun struggle. But what a shame the animation didn’t work on my IPad.
@Mark McLaughlin In my experience watching lots of golf tournaments on TV, the announcers use the phrase “even par” all the time. It’s used to refer to a player’s score during a round or for the whole tournament, as opposed to any given hole. It is also used to show how a player has done over several days on particular types of holes. As in, “She is shooting even par on the par fives for the tournament”. Sure, it is a bit redundant, but that is quite common (and even useful) in spoken English. Btw, “even par” is not used for a score on one hole.” Maybe that was what you are referring to. One would just say, “He shot par on number 14 today”. I do know of one place where the phrase “even par for the round” is never used. The golf league I play in. No one ever comes close to even par for a round!
It’s great how sometimes these puzzles sync (I.e., FIT/Meet) with one’s experience, knowledge or peculiar way of thinking. And sometimes not. For example, yesterday’s was very difficult for me. That’s not a complaint. It was a really good puzzle that required it a back-and-forth fight to get it all. Sometimes it’s a slog, but that is no bad thing. Puzzles should puzzle us. Fairly, of course. Today was the opposite, but just as enjoyable. I finished in a third of the time Friday took. The long answers (NEWNORMAL, JURYRIGGING, NOLUCKSOFAR and ROOTCAUSE) jumped right in place with minimal or no crosses. Just happened, no idea why. And STRIPY made me laugh, thinking of this old bit from the Muppet Show I used to watch with my nieces and nephews. Here’s the video clip. <a href="https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/5dc92514-f6fa-4ec3-8d05-d3a23f3d2103" target="_blank">https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/5dc92514-f6fa-4ec3-8d05-d3a23f3d2103</a> The two new words for me COSET and INFODEMIC were fun, and fairly assisted with the crosses. Well done and thanks, Mr Guzzetta!
My wife and I do the puzzle together every day and often note how our average solve times on the Stats page reflect the much-touted increase in difficulty of each puzzle from Monday to Saturday. The only exception being Thursdays, which have a greater increase over Wednesday, likely because we sometimes we struggle with the Thursday trick that week (still fun, though!). So we decided to do some basic analysis of the increase in solve times between each day. For the ~3200 puzzles we've done (love the archives!) and taking out (or "normalizing") Thursday, the percentage increase in average solve time is remarkably consistent about 28% (a bit larger percentage increase from Tu to Wed). Even the increase in average solve time from Saturday (hardest) to Sunday (bigger grid, but less difficult) is nearly identical to the other days of the week, Thursday excepted. This indicates, over time, how really well the editors and constructors consistently adjust the difficulty level for each day of the week. Pretty amazing. Here are our numbers, showing the percent increase in average solve time between consecutive days. it would be interesting to see if others' Stats page show similar consistency. M-Tu: 27.3% Tu-W: 32.6% F-Sat: 26.7% Sat-Sun: 28.2% And if you look at the Wed-Fri difference in our average solve times (thereby ignoring the inevitable tricky Thursday anomalies) and divide the increased average solve time by 2 days, the percentage increase is exactly 28.0%.
@Barbara It is also used as a dipping sauce. My favorite is with fried calamari! Yum!
I really hoped 3 Down would be BUTTINSKIS! Fun puzzle to start 5he week.
@Catplants. Good point. The alternative clue was: “Young Frankenstein” brain donor Abby ___”. Funny, but a bit wordy.
Tough, but enjoyable, Friday. Really had to work to finish this one. The 3 long spanners were all great. I knew, but initially misspelled, PHILLISWHEATLEY with a Y, so made it harder to get SHILOH coming down. That’s puzzling for, you! I really liked the clue/answer combos for PECOS, SELFIE, NOTV, and TAXTIP. Less of a fan of BOPS, MERER and ZINES. Looking forward to Saturday!
A fun Saturday challenge! Like a lot of them, we went through the crosses and got nothing much until the bottom third. So we had to solve from the bottom up. KNICKS (painful memories, then), ONLITTLECATFEET (high school English class), LEDA (loved the child’s picture book we had on the Iliad), LONGESTDAY (really long movie, too, as I recall) and USSR (usually SSR) came quickly. The downs had had to sussed out backwards, starting with the ULTIMA syllables. So that fit, too. Great job Mr Norris! And come to think of it, wasn’t the CAT with little feet in the Harry Potter stories named Mrs Norris?
Based on today’s puzzle, here’s an APOCALYPTICPOST signaling the imminent death of the English language: “OMG gr8 to EMEET hit me your ADDY to MIRL” Just kidding, of course.
Brilliant puzzle! It was an enjoyable struggle working out the stretched word theme. I liked that it had no revealer. That made it tougher, but still fair, fight. And lots of fresh (to me) answers. Well done, Mr Capra!
@Mr Bill. It is delicious! And to Andrzej’s point, of all the OECD countries the U.S. has the worst health outcomes, and, by far, the highest costs (both in total and per capita). Not the things to be first in. Some day, hopefully, we’ll have the courage and will to fix this chaotic system.
@Tom. So many better four letter words to describe them!
Never saw the FTROOP show, but got the answer because near where I grew up there was a state police barracks called Troop F. They apparentl hated being called F Troop! Funny what sticks in one’s mind.
Fun Monday. Loved the palindrome play. It brightened up a gray afternoon in NJ. Where’s the snow nowadays? It makes everything brighter and cheerier. After filling the grid, I got held up for a few minutes looking for an error. For some reason I liked “SOUL” patch kids better than “SOUR”! Oops.
Enjoyable puzzle and a very clever theme. A# one indeed! I love listening to all kinds of music, but am not musically literate. So didn’t get the theme until it was all completed. Big smile. 53D was a cute meta clue. Good job, Andrew Kingsley and Garrett Chalfin.
What an enjoyable and clever puzzle! I especially like how figuring out the revealer was essential (for me) to solving the complex theme answers. All the years of watching Star Trek: DS9 really helped.
What a fun puzzle to solve. Chock full of fun, fresh clue-answer combos. And also cool to see the constructor’s own word/phrase list so heavily used. It is always great to see new-to-me fill or clues that sound fun and interesting. Like hypocorism today. Now that is something to let loose at an especially nerdy party! Sometimes such new-to-me words or phrases seem less interesting/fun, or just sound hopelessly outdated. Sure, they are in a dictionary somewhere, but that alone doesn’t make me say, “Wow, that is fun to learn!” Great job, Carolyn!
@Jacob. Now that is a true LOTR deep cut!
@Bill. Really good summary. And the “practice” meaning of “moot” can sometimes go just a bit further as a verb. Practicing attorneys will sometimes “moot” their oral arguments in front other attorneys to prepare for oral arguments in significant matters, particularly appellate cases. It can be very helpful for one’s case.
@Margaret from Michigan After the great OCTOPI kerfuffle this week, I tried POSSUMI here. Didn’t work :( Sigh…
@Jon Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to his daughter, jokingly made fun of the (apparently badly drawn) bald eagle as the choice for an insignia of the Society of Cincinnati, suggesting it looked more like a turkey. Many think Franklin actually preferred the turkey for the Great Seal of the United States, but that seems not to be true. Here’s a partial quote from his letter: "For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perch'd on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him…like those among Men who live by Sharping and Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District…For in Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America. Eagles have been found in all Countries, but the Turkey was peculiar to ours…He is besides, tho' a little vain and silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."
@Andrzej You likely right on the “e” angle. But also, elm trees were once deeply connected to American life. From the 1800s through the 1930s the elm was the most popular tree to plant along streets and roads in cities and suburbs. Its growth habitat created huge and beautiful cathedral-like canopies. Beginning in the 1930s , Dutch Elm Disease wiped out virtually all these trees. Some disease resistant varies survive, and scientists are trying to help them stage a come back. Uncertain if it will work. Also, in the 1760s an elm tree on the Common in Boston became famous as a rallying place for colonists challenging British rule. They named it the Liberty Tree. Just before the war, Loyalists to the Crown chopped the Liberty Tree down, but its spirit lived on. Many towns across in the other colonies designated their own Liberty Trees and they all became symbols of the revolution. So, elms were “stately” in form, but also in American history as a symbol of the creation of a new country.
@Steve L And frequently referenced (and did a guest appearance or two) on the original Night Court TV show. Great show! Judge Harry Stone was a huge stan of the Velvet Fog.
@Oscar Pansy He is a very well known actor. Oscar-nominated for starring the the hit movie 12 Years a Slave. I see no problem with seeing someone of his stature being in the puzzle, especially if fairly crossed with some easy answers. Is he not in some folks’ knowledge base? Of course. Is he too obscure to be in the puzzle? No way. This From IMDB: “ English actor, writer and director Chiwetel Ejiofor is renowned for his portrayal of Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave (2013), for which he received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations, along with the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. He is also known for playing Okwe in Dirty Pretty Things (2002), the Operative in Serenity (2005), Lola in Kinky Boots (2005), Luke in Children of Men (2006), Dr. Adrian Helmsley in 2012 (2009) and Dr. Vincent Kapoor in The Martian (2015).” I’ll add he had a major role in a Marvel Comics blockbuster Dr. Strange. He is a star, for sure.
@Westchester, NY The clue refers to the “heart” (read” center”) of the word “black”. It is a SHORT A” phonetically.
@Jennifer It’s possible it may help the guild. Management tracks the daily usage rate, you can be sure. If there is a significant dropoff, theycould be concerned that customers may not renew, or even cancel, their subscriptions to what is a huge money maker for them. A bit indirect, but possibly effective.
@Stefan. Good point. For most here, I guess, it’s great to hear perspective. It’s part of the fun of crosswording, to hear different takes on the clues/answers.
@David Connell. Growing up in the NYC area, we heard constant traffic updates on AM radio (usually 1010 WINS and WCBS 880). They often mentioned traffic issues on the Kościuszko Bridge on the BQE and the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey. So I read up on the two as a kid, history nut that I am. Now, whenever I go over them, I give a little nod of thanks to these amazing people.
Nice to see a shout out for master gardeners! If you’re not aware of it, each state (and several provinces in Canada) have a wonderful and totally free master gardener volunteer program to answer all your home gardening questions. In the U.S. it is funded by the land grant/cooperative extension program and nearly every county in the has this program. The “Master Gardener” volunteer help-line is a wonderful and free resource is staffed by highly trained volunteers. If you have gardening questions or problems, you can call, email, or even just pop in!
The printed version of the NYT had (has?) one sentence reviews of movies in the day’s TV schedule. Its review of ARMAGEDDON was something like “ Not one believable moment in the whole film”. Also, one of the stars, Ben Affleck, said to the director during filming “ Wouldn’t it be easier to train some astronauts to drill a hole, than to teach a bunch of misfit oil riggers to fly a space shuttle? The director’s response: “ Shut the __ up. It’s a movie.“ I did like the movie, though!
@Mimi. IMO, no one should feel obligated to read all the comments before posting their own. It’s perfectly fine if certain points are repeated.
@sam. FWIW, I’m a regular solver, and I do not think I would have got the trick without the shaded squares. But it would have been a fun struggle trying!
@Keith Law. Different strokes on this one. I loved INCOGMEATO. First it is a hilarious name for a plant food brand. And with MEAT in the answer (very meta), it is gettable with the crosses. And yes, it is less known than other brands, but that’s OK by me for a Saturday. Also liked HATEWATCH as a fun answer. Took the clue as a hint, not an exact definition . As a NJ Devil fan, I occasionally click into a NY Rangers game. Definitely hate watching!