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Small fox with unusually large ears / SUN 5-14-23 / Miniature cheese wheel brand / Electrical wiring nexus / Potential scenario in which a piece of software might be helpful / Cocktails named after motorcycle attachments / Holding areas in Capture the Flag / Potential scenario in which a piece of software might be helpful / Conflict over seceding from the Galactic Republic in sci-fi
Sunday, May 14, 2023
Constructor: Sid Sivakumar
Relative difficulty: Medium?
Theme answers:
- JAMBA-LAYA (15D: Meat-and-vegetables dish with Creole and Cajun varieties) + TIMEKE-EPER (1D: Person with a stopwatch) => LEAP YEAR (47D: Many a presidential election occurs in one)
- "HOW CAN T-HAT BE?" (7D: "Is it even possible?!") + SILVER M-EDAL (8D: It'll take a second to get it) => HEAD TABLE (58D: Where newlyweds are typically seated a at wedding reception)
- RED LAN-TERN (14D: Chinese New Year decoration) + SWITC-HBOX (21D: Electrical wiring nexus) => THE BRONX (53D: Where hip-hop originated)
- IDEA-L GAS (55D: Theoretical substance for which a chemistry law is named) + ROTISS-ERIE (42D: Revolutionary cooking device?) => LEG RAISE (87D: Exercise that strengthens hip flexors)
- STYLIN-G GEL (46D: Hair salon goo) + DAYC-ARES (62D: Toddler drop-off locales) => GAG REELS (89D: Compilations of laughably bad takes)
Mini Babybel (/ˈbæbɪbɛl/) is a brand of small snack cheese products that are individually packaged and available in various flavours. It is a product of Le Groupe Bel (French for 'The Bel Group'), a company with roots in the Jura region of France, started by Jules Bel in 1865. Half of the global production of Mini Babybel is made in Évron, a commune in the northwest of France.
In the United States Le Groupe Bel produces the Mini Babybel cheeses in Kentucky. In March 2016, Bel Brands USA opened a new plant in Brookings, South Dakota. At the time, Bel Brands projected that its 250 employees would produce 1.5 million Mini Babybel cheese wheels a day. In July 2018, Le Groupe Bel announced that the company had 12,700 employees in 30 subsidiaries around the world and that their first Canadian office would be in Quebec. (wikipedia)
• • •
The fill on this one was occasionally odd. OOZESIN, definitely odd. I'm parsing it OOZE SIN now, and liking it much better that way. SALTPIT was a shrug (92D: Mineral collection site), as were a Lot of the names (AIMEE, LILA, MEIR, etc.). Never heard of USECASE (3D: Potential scenario in which a piece of software might be helpful). I've bought plenty of things on eBay but BID PRICE (48D: Prospective eBay buyer's figure) ... is that just ... the winning bid? And we're doing CLONE WAR ... singular? Huh. The puzzle seemed to be reaching a lot of the time. Before I looked at the online/newspaper grid, i.e. before I knew there were little yellow merge signs involved at all, I sincerely thought BABYBEL was one of the themers. "BABYBEL ... what?," I thought. No idea what that is. None, zero. I know "BABY BELuga," but whatever this cheese brand is, nope. The larger blocks of answers are kinda nice, from a themeless angle. That center block is especially impressive given that it's got a theme answer running right through it. I also like the image of SKYWALKER on AUTOPILOT up in the sky there (i.e. the top of the grid). And it's true, THE BRONX is NOT SO BAD. So in bits and pieces, here and there, there are things to admire. And again, as stunt grids go, this one is pretty fancy. I just can't say that merging answers like zippers is very zippy. It just ... is. There it is. Hope you liked it more than I did.
What needs explaining? Probably the rules to Capture the Flag, which I haven't played ... in maybe 40+ years, and even then maybe only played once. JAILS, you say? (15A: Holding areas in Capture the Flag). OK. I had GUMBO at first where JUMBA(-LAYA) was supposed to go, so that section was a mess early on. Fun fact, BEARCAT (41A: University of Cincinnati athlete) is a Binghamton University athlete too. I still don't know what a BEARCAT is. Fictional, maybe? No, it looks like what gets called BEARCAT is actually a binturong. But ... I mean ... OK, they may be real, but I think sports teams have definitely fictionalized their energy and ferocity level. I mean, compare:
Totally forgot a FENNEC was a thing (40A: Small fox with unusually large ears). Why are there no schools with the FENNEC as their mascot? The Fordham FENNECs! They should consider it. I don't know what they are now, but FENNECs has a ring. The MARY repeated in a nursery rhyme is (I assume) MARY, MARY, Quite Contrary, whose garden grows ... some kind of way, I forget. Fred ARMISEN (103A: Fred who co-created "Portlandia") has a cameo appearance in the latest episode of "Barry" as a very bad assassin. Always happy to see him, wherever and whenever, even if I am never going to be entirely sure what the last vowel in his name is.
Happy Mother's Day to all relevant parties! We're heading over to the Hudson Valley today to see our daughter, who is taking time off from scoping out NYC (in preparation for an impending move) so we can have lunch with her in Beacon. See you tomorrow, or next week, or whenever. Take care.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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154 comments:
Medium-tough. It took a while to figure out what was going on. Plus age before OLD and lit before CIV made the top half tougher than the bottom.
Clever and complicated and worth the effort, liked it.
I did this in the NYT iPad App and the word “highlighted” was in the LANES clue and the all zipper answers (LANES) were highlighted whenever you clicked on one them.
LMTR. The architectural complexity Rex acknowledges in passing is little short of astounding... one can hardly fathom the amount of effort required to put this thingie together.
I am with Rex on the BABYBEL issue, however. Never hoid of it neither, lol, and crossing it with the equally obscure "FENNEC" makes it technically a natick, but because "E" is the most sensible resolution and it works, I'll give it a pass. Four and a half stars for this puzzle, I say!
Surprised red ant and red lantern was allowed by editors. I got the gimmick and OK. More annoying than cute.
Hates it. So many 3-letter answers that it turned the puzzle into a major slog of filling in so very many short words.
The theme, meh.
I should have paid attention to the verb tense on 114 A, because the 116A/117D crossing stuffed me up.
@Rex You really should either use the NYT app for solving or stop complaining about things not done right by the third party products of your choice. I saw pairs of merging lanes right away and that helped to make my solving experience enjoyable. A pity that you choose to deny this to yourself.
RP writes "Hope you liked it more than I did." And I did! I thought it was a really clever construction, and the most entertaining Sunday puzzle in a very long time.
This massive amount of short fill deflates any possible bounciness.
All you can do is pity poor Mr. Sharpe, who seems unable to enjoy a good crossword puzzle now and then. Really enjoyed this architectural marvel, and yes, I am clapping. Did end up as a medium for me, which is perfect.
Sid usually manages to kick me square in the rear end, but this time it was more like a kick to the zipper.
Huh, my experience with this one was much more positive. Best Sunday in weeks, I thought. To each their own, I suppose. It helped that I didn't have the software related issues that Rex did.
My heart sank when I saw the byline. As I've said here before, Sid is one of the constructors whom I know I can count on for an intelligent, well-put-together puzzle that's totally outside my wheelhouse. But today we got a masterpiece of construction that was at least on the same ship as my wheelhouse.
Two hangups: 41A, where I thought Cincinnati athletes might be wildCATS, and 76Dx82A, the last letter I entered: I'm not up on the history of curling and thought at first that its home might be an IcE riNk, then thought (reasonably?) that it might have originated in IcELAND. Jessica MEIc seemed like a reasonable name for an astronaut.
I read an article recently about how ZIPPER MERGES are going to eliminate traffic jams as drivers evolve into a higher form of humanity that efficiently merges one car at a time at exactly the right place. Yeah, right.
Fordham University are the FU Rams
Absolutely baffling that Rex doesn't use the official app / website... when puzzles like this are all about the idiosyncratic visual clues. No surprise he didn't enjoy it! Can he explain to us his thinking?
As is often true for me, I understood the conceit but just didn’t bother with it. Yes, there were those highlighted answers that were obviously incomplete but I just shrugged & kept solving. Somehow they zipper merged with something, okay. I don’t really understand why constructors delight so in hiding elaborate schemes in the fill that are basically irrelevant to my task as a solver. I don’t enjoy driving with a dirty windshield but I can still see the road. Afterwards I just read Rex’s column to find out what the annoying arcane clever trick was this time, because having solved the puzzle already I’m not interested in taking the time.
Sorry to sound churlish, but the clever trick should be witty or delightful or essential to the solution.
@conrad. Agree about humanity. If I’m in the slower left hand lane why should I let the cars that come racing down the inside lane merge in. Almost no-one knows you’re supposed to fill both lanes and then alternate.
Hi Rex. Will wave to you in Beacon from across the river in Newburgh. Looks like a perfect day.
SID!!!
I loved this puzzle. Very clever construction. When I read Rex's critique, I had no idea what he meant by the "highlighted" LANES... No highlight here. Seems he got hung up on this and couldn't get past the ensuing dour mood. I use good ol' paper and pen, has always worked.
I can forgive Sid for so many short answers, as they are interspersed with quite a few medium-ish length answers.
Some nice cluing for standard answers. I never saw OBOE clued this way, for example - that's a lot of fun, and Victor Borge of course was a very funny musician.
My only (small) beef was a fair amount of PPP.
Methinks when Sid finishes his medical training, his degrees should be M.D., Ph.D., D.Cv. (Doctor of Cruciverbalism).
wiliwili is worth the price of admission. Can't decide if the word is more fun to look at, to write, or to say. Plus learning what the plant and the seed look like... A great start to my Sunday.
Also made me wistful for the well-executed ZIPPER MERGE. It's the "Do into others" mantra of the road. A concept so basic, you wonder why certain humans refuse to play along.
Yes, the theme was sloggish, but clever. It did help my solve asking, especially in the to half of the puzzle.
Thank you Mr. Sivakumar!
1. Zipper merges work (as fo diverging diamonds)
2. Enjoyed navigating through this despite the # of short answers --- especially when I had the zipper and needed to figure out the lane by "putting myself in reverse'"
I loved this, and add me to the list of those who think that Rex should just say that he can’t really comment on the theme because the third-party software he uses can’t render it the way solvers on paper or on the app see it.
I used the theme A LOT as a solving tool, which is one of the reasons I liked it. I worked down the puzzle figuring the two separate LANE answers would merge into something but I wasn’t sure how. I got the MERGES part of the revealer right away. Then I went back to the top and started looking at the lanes more closely. I saw that hip hop originated in THE BRONX, and then saw RED LANTERN and SWITCH BOX, and I was delighted. For the other four themers, I often had the merged-lane answer but not the merging-lane answers, so I looked at the alternating letters to get the ends of the merging-lane answers, which made them obvious. So, for example, I had HEAD TABLE, and that helped me complete HOW CAN THAT BE and SILVER MEDAL, which had a gold medal clue (“It’ll take a second to get it” - brilliant.)
As usual, Rex’s curmudgeonliness is offset by his sense of humor. The juxtaposition of the menacing BEAR CAT mascot and the lazy binturong made me guffaw.
Speaking of guffawing, Rex, if you love Fred Armisen, as I do too, check out Los Espookys, which he created with the bizarrely hilarious Julio Torres and Ana Fabrega. It is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea but I think it would be yours.
... and 3. Baby Bels are great. You'll find them near the cheese sticks and "cheese products"
Stuck with it for a while out of respect to the constructor and an appreciation for I’m sure was a lot of time and effort put into pulling this whole grid together. Agree with Rex that the solving experience suffered from the tediousness of dealing with the “merges” as well as all of the three-letter gunk. A very ambitious effort that seems like it came up a tad short. I think we can live with that though.
My wife and I were always impressed at the ZIPPER MERGE capacity often, but not consistently, demonstrated by drivers in the hideous Long Island traffic. Impatient and rude as some were, most understood that this actually got them there sooner. Still boo to the pigs who drove up as far as they could and forced their way into the front of the line. Yet they were still allowed to ZIP into the line. Amazing! Now, this was late 1980s … I hope they have not since gone to the dark side. Think, for instance, Chicago …
Loved this one. First of all, I always enjoy seeing bilateral symmetry.... In this case it was functional, not just esthetic. Secondly, I do it with pen and paper and the printout was immediately intriguing with the yellow merge signs. A lot of complaints seen to stern from the medium used to solve. Never a problem for those of us who scratch the nib across the page.
If people solved the puzzle without appreciating (or using) the zipper merge construction, they missed out on what I thought was great fun... And a remarkable feat
of puzzle architecture.
Finally, I will never understand why people will express annoyance when there is an answer they've never heard of, like it's a personal affront. Hasn't that always been the fun of crosswords?
I knew Babybel... they are in every cheese case at the supermarket..and fennec,often described as the cutest of all animals.
Thanks Sid for a fun solve!
Works great in the UK during commuting hours. Not so great with weekend traffic.
For the number of times Rex complains that his solving software doesn’t show him things, you’d think he would see that the issue is his choice of software, not the puzzle.
I liked this one, because it was more of a challenge than the usual Sunday.
I absolutely do not understand the hostility to those who drive as far as they can in the empty lane and then try to merge into the full lane. That’s the most efficient way to do it, people! Use all the space available in any lane and then ZIPPER MERGE!
I did not get the them until I filled in the last theme answer. Once I understood I went back and checked my answers. I agree with Rex that it was probably fun for the constructor to make but, it was not fun for me to solve.
Why doesn't Rex do the puzzle on the NYT app? Tell us! If you don't we will continue to think that you are a dope - not generally, but about this issue. Construction of this puzzle had to take a vast number of hours. So let us all - you too, Rex - praise the effort, the constructors, and the puzzle. I like the zipper merge, and stay in the lane that will disappear right to the bitter end. Where I will have to wait for a few angry drivers to give me the finger, sound their horn, and refuse to let me in. But that's okay.
I guess a HEADTABLE is like a HEADDESK but performed at dinner rather than at the office?
I disagree with Rex about there being no theme. Or that a theme must contain content affinity between theme answers. I think themes can be of a wide variety of types. These ZIPPER MERGEd answers constitute a perfectly good theme, based on placement of letters that both continue two answers above and form a third independent answer. (Yes, the construction was quite a feat.) It took me a while to get what was going on but once I did, I found the theme helped with the solve (hi, @Wanderlust). In several instances, I was having trouble with the two truncated answers but had solved the MERGEd answer. So by untangling the letter string and seeing how the truncated answers ended, I was able to get them. This happened a few times, but the first instance I remember was LEG RAISE – giving me the LGAS of IDEAL GAS and the ERIE of ROTISSERIE.
When I saw the revealer was ZIPPER MERGES, I greeted it as an old friend because I remembered the term from a previous crossword. In fact, I thought it had been a puzzle with some sort of merged answers like today. But all I could find was Wed, 22 June, 2022, in which ZIPPER MERGE (singular) is one of four theme answers, each beginning with a different kind of fastener or "closer." (The revealer was FIND CLOSURE.) I must be mixing up the ZIPPER MERGing concept with some other phantom puzzle from the past.
I had an elusive error at the end, which at first I couldn’t find and then had trouble fixing. It was the ENSNARL/SALTPIT cross. I had ENSNARe which had resulted in SAeTPIT – clearly wrong, but it took a minute to figure out how to change ENSNARE, which I thought was right, to something more workable. And, of course, ENSNARL is a much better answer because it gets at the “knotted” concept.
Thanks to @Matthew B’s suggestion that the FENNEC may be the cutest of all animals, I just had to look them up. Aww. Loved learning about FENNECs and binturongs today. And, BTW, binturongs can look fierce.
[SB: Thu -1, Fri 0, Sat -1. I impressed myself on Friday by dredging this out of some nearly defunct memory bank – they don’t live around here. But these brought me down on Thursday and yesterday. And, really, they were both should’ves.]
I did have highlighted clues and merge symbols and it was helpful because once I figured it out, (pretty quick), I could take the answer that didn’t finish and put every other letter in and then I had half the answer for the merged clue. Anyway, very easy overall.
Why not whine that he can’t see/enjoy the puzzle because he prints it on black paper? And it takes forever to even do that on his dot matrix printer!
Rex/Michael/Pseudonymous:
BUY THE DAMN APP!
A “use case” is generally a short description of a task performed by a user that can be automated: “as an accountant, I need to merge two spreadsheets to create a report”. Here the action of merging spreadsheets can be automated.
Worst. Sunday. Puzzle. Ever.
Fun Sunday 😊😊👏👏
C'mon, the construction here was really clever. You can't deny that. This is one of those puzzles where I got the revealer before the clues, and that actually helped me solve the themes. Like, it worked. Well done.
This seems to be one of those puzzles requiring me to scrounge up many, many tiny bits of esoteric information. Many, many more tiny bits than usual since it's a Sunday. I started it and then stopped abruptly because I'm really not in the mood right now, to tell the truth. But I haven't read a word of the blog or the comments just in case at some point in the future I do find myself in the mood. I doubt I will, but -- hey -- you never know.
Dear My Name, I find the NYT app clunky and irksome, so I intentionally refuse to use it. I had it open in another screen today, so I could see where the "lanes" were supposed to be, which let me solve it in my beloved Across Lite without too much hassle.
On another note, I have never heard of a zipper merge. When I learned to drive, we were taught "bread and butter" for taking turns.
Use Cases are common nomenclature in the world of product management and software development. But given that Rex didn’t know what an A/B test was awhile back, this seems to be outside his area of knowledge.
Never, ever, ever in the history of ever has anyone said "pass me an AA CELL to put in my Wii remote."
Also got Naticked on the IRELAND/MEIR cross as I thought it was ICELAND/MEIC.
At least I knew what BABYBEL was.... except that my brain pictured that little bag of tiny cheese wheels with a MARYBEL logo on them. Doh!
Yes, I will clap! I can't even think about how to come up with words in which every other letter can be the end of a longer word or phrase. A friend of mine was trumpeting the superiority of ants, because unlike humans, they naturally ZIPPERMERGE. Watching a video, it became apparent that they are allowed to drive on top of each other to accomplish this. We can only learn so much from the natural world...
I will say that the rest was a bit sloggier than I would have preferred. I'm with RP on final vowel problem with ARMIS_N. USECASE: heard of you, but never would have recalled you without every cross.
This is a really clever idea and I wish I had enjoyed it more, but alas solving was like doing a regular puzzle where a bunch of answers cut off early. I think this is a case where having the revealer up top and easily gotten would have been better. And get rid of the merge symbols. Make us work.
Driving in New Zealand was the most pleasant driving experience of my life, despite needing to drive on the left. In the US, if you are on a windy road behind a slower car, it’s pretty much tough luck. In NZ, as soon as there is any room at all to pass, the car in front will slow down and pull over to let the faster car go. Also, the ratio of white dashed lines to double yellow lines is much, much higher in NZ. They actually trust people to make decisions.
The National Zoo has BEARCATs. They are adorable.
I graduated from Binghamton when we were the "Colonials" but some thought that moniker uncool. Better than "Bearcats" though.....
"There it is. Hope you liked it more than I did."
Well, yeah. Way more than Rex, especially at the sheer notion of creating the idea of zigzagging alternating letters that derive from other clues (or is it the other way around?). And yes, I actually think that the architectural framework IS a theme, reinforced by its repetition, revealer and the ultimate OH WOW moment when it first hit me, after staring at it for quite a while, trying to figure out why it made no sense.
I'm old school and don't use software. I always complete the puzzles and have fun.This was one of the worst I've ever seen. The "directions" were confusing and obtuse. The little yellow signs were a distraction. "Lanes" was a silly hint. No one I know had heard of a zipper merge. I did not say "oh, I get it" when I was through. A bad puzzle.
Rex obviously rarely comes downstate. If you were to make a habit of ignoring the zipper merge* on entering the Lincoln or Holland Tunnel, your car would soon be demolished.
Isn't it a bit of abuse of language to say that "many" an (American) Presidential election occurs in a LEAPYEAR? Out of 58, 55 have been leap years (not 1789, 1800, and 1900).
* I have called it an alternate merge my whole life. I have occasionally read zipper merge, but now I'm wondering if that's only on the NYT Crossword Puzzle.
Villager
I liked this one a lot, as I found the zipper merge construction a great help in untangling a lot of the clues. It feels like this puzzle would not be reviewable if it was solved on software with no lane markings.
Rex is like the guy who goes into McDonalds and starts pounding on the counter in anger when he will not be served a Pepsi. Seriously, Khrushchev, put your shoe away.
The NYT builds their puzzles and their back end for the NYT app. To downgrade and denigrate your solving experience based on someone else’s software is weak sauce. Here’s an idea Rex, give the Times their hundred bucks a year and use the app that the puzzle is designed to work in. In this particular instance, that solves 2+ paragraphs of your bitch and moan session.
Maybe a few too many 3 letter answers for my taste, but I liked the aha moment with the merge….and I experienced exactly -0- seconds of fake outrage.
Hey All !
OK, I greatly enjoyed this one, so yes, Rex, enjoyed it more than you. It was fun figuring out the every-second-letter-merge thing in the answers below the signs. What a neat idea! (Side note to Rex: You've never heard of BABYBEL? Holy moly, get your ASS to a grocery store and get some! They're quite good.)
I'm hoping Sid had some sort of computer program that helped him find the Themers, because if he did this manually, well, I bow down to his superiority.
What an amazing execution of this theme. I mean, not only do you have to find Themer words, but then have to find words that would alternate letters with other words, Then find 10 (!) Symmetrical words, And THEN somehow get them in a grid! AND THEN try to get fill that would work around so many constraints! Holy JAMBALAYA!
The fill in here is outstanding considering all the space the Themers take up. I mean, look at the Center, which has a 9 Letter Themer in it, surrounded by two 9 Letters answers, with the crossers being actual words! ASTRODOME! HARSHNESS! REDANTS! SWORDSMAN! Then, with your Revealer being in the third-to-last row, makes you have two blocks of 6's that need to be filled cleanly, with Longer Downs going through them. I'm blown away.
If you've never constructed a grid before, you're probably wondering why I'm in such awe of this. But if you have constructed one, you know just how tough this was to pull off. Even aided by a computer, this definitely was not an easy puz to make or fill.
Even my one-letter DNF (had JuMBA/uIMEE [which I definitely should've gotten AIMEE]) can't take away from how good this puz was.
And a Pangram, to boot.
Sid, you the man!
One idiot = ASS
Two idiots = ASSES
A bunch of idiots = ASSESS?
Har.
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Star Trek deserves equal time in the NYT crossword. We’ve hit the quota of Star Wars based clues, thank you very much.
BTW can we please dispense with the myth that red ants bite and black ants don't?
Put me in the “Yes” column on this puzzle. Big time. Once I saw the theme and construction concept, I was thoroughly amazed and impressed. Texted all my xword friends and told them about it. Really. As the kids today would say, this puzzle is “objectively” excellent. On a related note, while I enjoy OFL’s blog, effort, insight, etc etc, I agree that his “get off my lawn” attitude about the NYT xword app is getting old.
RooMonster -
Also made the misspelling of JAMBALAYA at first. Think it’s because I remembered Newman in the Soup Nazi episode (though it was spelled correctly on the sign).
Newman says jUmbalaya
Hated this with the white hot fury of a thousand suns.
I agree! Don’t understand Rex dissing the architectural imagination that went into this puzzle!
Yes!
Ken
My usual port of entry in the NW was going nowhere so I started at the bottom. And wound up in the NW at last and it took JAMBALAYA to show me what was going on. Western LIT made the center mergers impossible to see. Oops.
Couldn't think of what kind of a MERGER we were talking about until I had nearly every letter of ZIPPER, which rang a bell, if only faintly. Someday we may have enough traffic in my little part of the world to require such things, but I don't think that will be any time soon. After driving from LA to Anaheim to see a baseball game, I was far more than happy to return to NH. I know this is normal driving behavior for millions of people, eight lanes of fast moving nearly bumper-to-bumper traffic, but for me it was a little like visiting Mars.
I am in awe of the construction chops it took to come up with this, SS, but I'm afraid too much of it for me was a Sustained Slog. PPP knowledge and tech skills required were a little above my pay grade. Thanks anyway for a fair amount of fun.
Yay - my Newman link worked (after being rejected many times before)!
Another mistake I made was putting in Busch for COORS. I was account exec on Busch Beer in 1981 and sole judge of the Florida Build Busch Mountain college challenge (the original BEERAMID competition - thousands of cans stacked to shape like a mountain). 42 years later, was my go to response (Head to the Mountains was the Busch tagline).
As to the puzzle itself, nothing short of brilliant construction. Look at the color coded answer at Xwordinfo.com to see it in full glory.
Got the merge sign and goal but even after completing it (with a couple of cheats), still didn’t see the zippered words.
Don’t think I’ve ever completed a Sid puzzle honestly. That’s fine - and a cut above most Sundays. I enjoy the challenge and tend to marvel after the fact at his cleverness.
Thx, Sid; whew! what a great workout! 😊
Med-hard.
Slow and steady all the way.
Didn't grok the theme until very late in the game. Liked it!
A most gratifying solve; much relief at the end! :)
___
Sewell's Sat. Stumper was med (just over 1 1/2 hrs); the top 1/3 was by far the toughest, with the NE being the last to fall.
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness & Freudenfreude to all 🙏
Amazing and thoroughly enjoyable puzzle. One of the cleverest themes in years. A sublime solving experience. Once I figured out the merge (long before I hit the zipper merge answer) I was able to work backwards from the merged answers when I got stuck. Mwah indeed.
I join those with deep scratch marks on their scalps from Rex denigrating the puzzle because he chooses to use an obviously underseveloped third party software. Is that a "use case" scenario? Could a firmly and creatively worded email to the Across Lite folks perhaps get them to write a little code so you could see the symbols that the constructor intended (and understood the publisher of the puzzle would include)?
As for a zipper merge, I live in the Midwest and am part of one every morning that works to perfection.
P.S. the levels of the solve here remind me of the brilliant puzzle making displayed in Puzzles for Democracy, which I highly, highly recommend.
I write a blog every day about solving a puzzle. I use certain app to solve, and often my app doesn't handle the intricacies of the puzzle. So I often have a bad experience, and then I bitch about it. Who am I?
I still have my original copy of the Sticky Fingers album and the zipper on it still works! Is that worth anything these days? Hmmm
Lotsa work. Not lotsa fun. It was a Sunday.
FENNEC.
Geez, reading through for uniclues and this thing is a short-answer mess. I guess the theme leads to bad fill, eh?
Oh, uh, grampa, "dirty film" is a ridiculous geezerism, but RATED X and ASS continue the "How to Get Published in the NYTXW" textbook.
Uniclues:
1 Vlog from sweetly named Greek bowling alley.
2 Future medical professional plan to graduate on February 29.
3 Pubs on a green isle.
4 Try to make the furniture in the cheap rental hall look less cheap.
1 BAKLAVA LANES WEBCAST
2 AIM AT LEAP YEAR NURSE
3 ALE LABS IRELAND
4 PAINT HEAD TABLE
A very well made puzzle, since the merged answers made full and complete new phrases.
Rex.
It's time.
You need to let your old software go and use the website.
That's the only way.
You can't keep on like this, and blog about the NYT Xword, and not use the NYT website which shows that Xword as intended.
The highlighting and merge signs were minor, but hugely important, features. Your .PUZ files are not cutting it any more.
This is the comment I was going to write.
I always use the ZIPPER MERGE but get very upset with those who try to ZIPPER exit. You know the jerks who wait until the last second to move into the exit lane from the right lane? They simultaneously piss off the patient souls who entered that lane when they were supposed to, while holding up those in the right lane who have no intention of exiting.
Awesome AHA moment! Naticked at BabyBel/Fennec. And my "Mary" had a little lamb.
Wow, just wow. First, I was SO happy just to be able to figure out the theme (there IS a theme) and second, actually finish one of Sid’s puzzles with out cheating! (@Barbara S, had the SAME thing happen with ENSNARE/SAETPIT…and I luckily actually could FIND the mistake!). I disagree with @Iris…once I figured out what was going on the ZIPPERMERGES helped me solve the puzzle.
@Andrew and others. @Rex HAS access to either the whole enchilada of the NYT OR has a subscription to NYT Games because he can access the puzzle. Either way, the NYT app is free. You just need to go through the username/password for NYT when you download. I AM curious as to why he doesn’t use it though when it doesn’t show key features of the puzzle.
And how do you not know what BABYBEL is? Do you just, at the market, run screaming past the cheese section with your eyes closed? The objectively best part of a market? The CHEESES!
Cheeses, man.
Technically, this is pretty marvelous. 10 real phrases whose endings can zipper together to create 5 other real phrases. Fill was hit or miss as Rex noted, but overall a solid Sunday!
Maybe it’s the exasperated bridge and tunnel driver in me, but I had a good laugh at the revealer and an enjoyable time solving.
Once I cracked the code on this, it was easy and tedious. It failed for me in being one of those gimmicks that leaves a trail of nonsense in the grid for the sake of the joke. I got highlighting and merge signs from the NYT App so I had a perhaps unfair advantage over Rex
Well now I know the inspiration for Baby Yoda - the FENNEC!
The ZIPPER MERGE theme was clear but I didn’t know how it was going to work right away. Would the entire merging word represent a single vehicle? Or? I figured it out at GAGREELS and then was able to use it to go back around and complete the rest. Some areas here in Portland we ZIPPER MERGE, but it does seem to arise most reliably among commuters.
I was unfamiliar with FENNEC, BEARCAT (funny photo with your comment, Rex 😀), ARMISEN, Capture the Flag, AIMEE, and MISSLE Command.
Liked seeing AUTOPILOT, REDANTS, and learning about SWORDSMAN. Good clue for SILVERMEDAL.
I agree with @RooMonster - this must have been a BEARCAT to construct!
Most enjoyable Sunday in a while.
I got commissioned by the Oregon Dept of Transportation to write a 30 second jingle explaining the zipper merge... for some PSA's they ran. Not easy to do in half a minute, but they liked it and ran it. Sorry I can't post here. Bouncy modern rock feel...
'They're working on the road, Uh oh
How we gonna flow, I know... here ya go
Move it up to the front, make two lines
Then you merge together in a zipper design
It's terrific, Zip it
It's scientific, Zip it
You're not being rude, Zip it
Use two lanes, dude, Zip it'
I thought the puzzle was brilliant and original
I was in awe of the mind that could come up with this theme/revealer concept. Even more so after I read Sid’s comments on xwordinfo.com:
“But the most compelling story behind this puzzle is a personal one: I spotted the central theme answer, HEAD TABLE, on a seating chart my then-fiancée Mahima sent me for our upcoming wedding reception. At the time, I noticed that alternating sets of letters in this phrase were hidden in WILL THAT BE ALL and RED ALERT, but I couldn't find a tidy way to present these curiosities in a crossword puzzle. Six months after the wedding, I merged onto my local highway in rush-hour traffic, and — aha! — the theme mechanism for this puzzle suddenly came into focus.”
Rex’s complaint about his software is like saying that, instead of buying War and Peace, he got a friend to scan it and print it out for him. In doing so, no punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing or chapter breaks showed up. “I can’t call this a fun read” opines Rex.
I used the merged portion to get most of the feeder answers. It helped that the top letter of the merge consistently went with the left lane. Absolutely top notch puzzle. Thanks Sid, and happy Mothers Day to all.
Even with the ZIPPER MERGES filled in, I cheated to finish this by hitting reveal towards the end to see my wrong squares. I had started in my usual solving software and then saw the note. So I went back to the NYT puzzles, saw the merging arrows in the grid and thought, "I got this!" and went back to my original software. Once the revealer revealed, I looked at the spots where I remembered seeing the merging arrows and still couldn't make sense of some of the answers. I held onto guMBo for far too long and even after I got JAMBA, I couldn't see where LAYA had gone.
This makes me annoyed with myself. Minnesota has roadwork season from May until November and on freeways, the signs say to use both lanes when merging. MN prides itself as an early adaptor of the zipper merge but people insist on not doing it. And if you try to use it, flying by all of those people who merged too early, inevitably someone in the other lane will pull out enough to block you because you aren't doing the "right thing", merging earlier, even though you are doing the right thing. Arrgh. I try to find alternate endings, i.e. routes. Anyway, knowing the concept of the zipper merge, I can't believe I didn't see the zippered answer endings in the shared "lane".
Another roadblock to solving that I caused myself was putting Western lIt in at 28A. This gave me HOW long (a nonsensical answer) for 7D and the even more nonsensical SILtERM at 8D. Headdesk.
Two coincidences that helped - just saw the 54A answer in a puzzle this week and just overheard my husband on the phone talking to a buddy about the mountains logo on the COORS can.
ASS, ASSESS.
Thanks, Sid, it made me think!
@Conrad—the clue is “Hurling” not “Curling”. Similar names, much different sports. For one thing hurling is not played on ice.
Phew. I genuinely don’t know how I feel about this one. I don’t think I liked it though I can admire the construction?
That said, it was weirdly easy-medium for me? At least for a Sid puzzle. I think wheelhouse alignment is owed major credit for that, with answers like FENNEC, ARMISEN, THEBRONX, PLASMA, and USE CASE (even though I don’t quite agree with the cluing) falling right into place.
As per usual, strongly agree with @Wanderlust re: cultural recommendations - Los Espookys is an incredible show and one of the star’s @spaceprincejulio IG account is an amazing absurdist follow.
Strong disagree on driving practices though, even though my parents do the same thing as described in the 7:59 am comment. I actually looked into it when I was trying to convince my folks to stop and while it might be more efficient for the individual driver barring a crash, it’s a major cause of accidents and in general yields *much* slower overall travel times, causes jams, etc.
To that point, agree with Anon @9:23 am re ZIPPER MERGES being a majorly important thing in NYC. It’s not usually signed but it’s the practice that’s taught in driver’s ed. There are plenty of jerks who don’t follow the rules, but they get a lot of stank eye and honking and worse. My friend actually has a little wooden sign that he holds up that says “You are a bad driver and an inconsiderate person” to folks who insist on cutting their place in line. It’s one (amusing) way to ventilate the annoyance I suppose.
I agree with the sentiment expressed here by many that it’s high time for OFL to use the right app so he can more rationally evaluate the solving experience of all NYT puzzles.
As for this one: a brilliant construction but missed the mark on the pleasure scale.
A winner for me: a fantastic construction feat to admireand very enjoyable to solve. My path took me down the left side and then across the bottom, so I saw ZiPPER MERGES before having any of the merging LANES in place. Needless to say, a huge help in figuring out the rest, which I did from the bottom up, thus getting the "merged" word before its two contributors. Favorites: the title, with its clever use of "alternate" (I'd assumed it simply meant "different") and the clue for SILVER MEDAL.
Do-overs: guMBo before JAMBA, grainy before RATED X. Help from studying Italian: reading an Italian novel the other day, I needed to look up the Italian word "FENNEC" :) No idea: MEIR, ARMISEN.
Lament: it's construction season in the Upper Midwest, with LANES closed right and left and no concept of ZIPPER MERGES! Arrgh!
Really liked this Sunday puzzle. Best one in a long time.
Horrific. Just horrific. Terrible. Another strong candidate for worst ever. I do not understand how TPTB at the NYT continue to allow this kind of rubbish in the Sunday crossword. Particularly the Sunday crossword, which once upon a (pre-WS) time was intellectually demanding and relatively gimmick-free.
Very clever computer-generated stunt puzzle that was absolutely whatsoever no fun at all to solve. I have a headache. I need a drink. I never want to do a NYT crossword again. Other than that, I liked it.
Zipper merges are way too socialist/sensible for Amurica.
Babybel is a surprising OFL miss. They are everywhere.
Boring slog of a puzzle, but anything that doubles as an ode to zipper merges is a win in my book.
If you are a cheese enthusiast, the case can be made for running screaming past the BabyBels with your eyes closed. They're just no Gouda.
Note to Rex: if you’re going to write a daily blog about the NYT crossoword, use the NYT app instead of whatever other software you’re using. They built the puzzle to be solved in their app. It’ll save you from whatever anguish you go through, and it’ll save us from having to listen to you complain about it
this truly is a puzzle only the constructor could love. the hopes i had for a solid sunday puzzle when seeing sid sivakumar’s name disappeared upon encountering the gimmick and all the 3/4-letter fill.
Completed the whole puzzle without regard for the merges -just used cross clues. Interesting in retrospect, but ..
A slog. About as much fun as sitting in traffic waiting to MERGE.
Stay strong, Rex, and don’t be misled by readers who think the solving experiences should require specialized bells and whistles.
My first reaction when I opened this one was "That's a lot of black squares!" I ZIPPEd over to xwordinfo.com and saw there were 89 of them, compared to an average of 74 for Sunday 21X21 puzzles. That's a 20% increase and leads to solve buzz dampening 67 3 and 4 letter entries.
I whole heartedly agree that the theme is a marvel of construction but all the short stuff plus the pre-MERGE non words like JAMBA, TIMEK, HOWCANT, SILVERM, REDLAN, SWITC, etc., etc., was a bit too much HARSHNESS for me to give the puzzle more than an overall rating of NOT SO BAD. I'm sticking to my opinion and will not REARGUE the issue.
I was a bartender for a few years during grad school daze but I never made any SIDE CARS, not even one. Poured a lot of drinks for zythophiles, though.
Note that they’re asking about Hurling, not Curling
The constructor wants us to say, "Of course!" after learning the trick? Uh...sorry, but I say, "That was a waste of two good hours."
If someone tried to develop the most complicated crossword puzzle ever, this would provide competition. Complicated, without being particularly clever. And what is USECASE?
I have serious concerns for the sanity of the person who constructed this.
Across Lite is excellent for crossword solvers. The NYT software is awful in so many ways. If more of you complained about the deficiencies and bugs, maybe the NYT would not have forced it on us.
I love that Rex still complains! As so I.
It's about time for Rex to solve the puzzle on the NYT app or website. It's now predictable that for a certain variety of visual gimmick, his review will be prefaced (and often overshadowed) by the complaint that he had to solve the puzzle without whatever aid experienced by the vast majority of his readers. It's growing tiresome, and he comes across as aloof and out-of-touch with his audience.
Clever theme. Good challenge but fair. Best Sunday puzzle in quite some time.
HURLING is what you end up doing at the end of a long night in an Irish pub, downing too many shots of Jameson with Guiness chasers.
Yes! Annoying is a much better word
Ditto Amazing what he did . Three dimensional thinking
Absolutely agree that this was not only an architectural marvel, but also truly enjoyable to fill out. Quite a change from the last few Sundays!
I think Rex might getting too old to do these...
Fantastic puzzle, cleverly done, and no Naticks to speak of
I too had highlighted clues and little Y s but it still didn't help me figure it out
I didn't have any fun. I'd rather have a mother's day themed puzzle today. Poor me
As much as I love OFL, I'm getting tired of his constant bitching about this. I work off the website and rarely have problems. C'mon! You're a Ph.D., for chrissake... figure it out!
😄😄😄. Love your description. I'm with you!
Zipper merges are in every major city in Canada and no one has killed anyone yet ...
Is relative difficulty relative to the day of the week?
REX!!! 🤔. Well said
I don't give EDAM about this!
I enjoyed your post better
One of the cleverest and most satisfying Sunday puzzles I have ever done. The NYT app made it clear what was happening with the zipper merge. Kudos to the constructor! Rex, you need to give up on that third party software ...
Iceland gave me a FIW (finished it wrong). Never dawned on me Ireland only has one diff letter! Doh!
Oh, yeah. Liked it lots more than @RP did. One of the best SunPuz themes ever, for one low on the humor scale [did have one ?-marker themed clue].
Luvly E/W symmetry, too boot.
Solvequested on paper, so had full view of the cute little "Yield" signs, which I'm sure helped out in preservin some precious nanoseconds. Stuck it out with the NW JAMBA/TIMEKE theme rodeo, until I figured it out.
Wild, fun, different solvequest. Lotsa times you'd sorta figure out one of the two mergin-in lane answers, which helped solve the single outgoin merged lane answer, which in turn helped with solvin the other mergin-in lane. Or somesuch.
Did have a few no-knows, but not bad for a ginormous grid: AIMEE. FENNEC. ELSA. MEIR. LILA. BABYBEL.
Surprisin absence of ?-maker clues. M&A counted only 2 out of 142.
IPAD clue was har-lariously yeccho. {Don't forget to wash yer IPADs! Upper dishwasher rack recommended.]
other faves: AUTOPILOT. BEARCAT. BAKLAVA. ARMISEN. TUMULT.
staff weeject pick (of a mere 35 choices): CIV. Better clue for this here puz: {Bare cat??}.
Musta been kinda hard to come up with themers for this puz. Will have to try it out sometime, on a runtier scale perhaps.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Sivakumar dude. Primo job.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
@bocamp-Found the Stumper to be a little harder than a hard NYT Saturday but easier than lots of Stumpers I've tried. Good fun.
I agree with some commenters that the courtesy required for a ZIPPER MERGER may be too woke for many American drivers. Sadly.
That’s the whole point of zipper merging: to use both lanes for as long as possible.
I looked that one up. Wikipedia has nice examples. It’s a map of the user inputs and results from those inputs, as in a set of computer menus which can loop back to each other.
I hate it when the constructor tries to turn a Sunday puzzle into a Thursday puzzle. Takes all the fun out of it.
It’s clear many people here don’t understand what a zipper merge is. You’re supposed to stay in existing lane until you reach the point where the obstruction is. Then the 2 lanes alternate entry at that single point. To merge earlier causes confusion and slowdowns. Those people who move on down the lane to the obstruction point are doing the correct thing. Keep both lanes full until the last minute, then merge at that point like a zipper. Google it and you will find lots of videos from transportation departments explaining the process. I wish Rex had posted a link to one of those videos.
Ps I enjoyed the puzzle, especially liked process of using the “merged” answers to back into the incomplete answers in the lanes above. I would like to see more of these. There could be a special genre of crosswords called zipper merges!
“Anonymous said...
Stay strong, Rex, and don’t be misled by readers who think the solving experiences should require specialized bells and whistles.
1:01 PM”
OK, NOW I understand why Rex chooses “anonymous” for commenting! (Since he didn’t respond to my direct question as to why he doesn’t use one of his names or Pseudonymous).
I kind of LIKE Bells and Whistles.
Should have been a fireman/teacher or policeman/referee!
People don't complain about answers they never heard of, they complain when two answers they never heard of cross each other!
Didn't realize till I read your comment that I got naticked after all, having assumed IcELAND to be the only possible answer (though I'll bet 9 out of 10 Americans would answer "Canada!" LOL. Never realized before only one letter difference between these neighboring nations. My enthusiastic take on the puzzle is somewhat diminished, but this is something a good editor might have caught.
Cheese whiz!
I really liked this one. Recently, Sunday has become my least-favorite puzzle. If the "trick" in the puzzle and the cluing aren't that imaginative, it ends up just being a tedious slog to finish a big puzzle. I was therefore surprised that Rex found this one tedious. However, when I saw that his software omitted the merge symbols I could see his point. In the NYT software, the highlighting also showed up on the three relevant entries when you were filling in any one of them. It wasn't very difficult, but it was fun to see how the zipper merges worked. I filled in the first merged answer without looking at the clue, but after that I tried solving the three answers in different orders. Thoroughly enjoyable.
To clarify, I do in fact know this. What I take issue with is when aggressive drivers overstay their presence in a lane in which they’re no longer supposed to be crossing over the solid line to bully their way in to a certain exit or on-ramp or merged lane. Maybe I misunderstood @wanderlust, though, in which case mea culpa.
This was a great fun puzzle, one of the more enjoyable Sundays in weeks. Sometimes I feel like there is no puzzle good enough for you, this is a great creative theme that I found to be not only clever but fun as well. Begging for a puzzle with all related theme answers, structural complexity, and a revealer that doesn't make things obvious is often way too much to ask for every week. Also you shouldn't complain about not having highlighted clues or the merging logo on your software. It's not the NYTX fault that you don't use their software that they have available to everyone. The three clues associated with the merge were highlighted when you were on it, so the revealer clue made perfect sense. Other than that, just wanted to say I love the blog, I read it every day and I always am excited to see what you thought of the puzzle after I finish it.
We just had a Thursday puzzle where the comments section was taken over by people complaining the NYT App.
Now we have a Sunday puzzle where the comments section is taken over by people insisting the NYT App is the way to go.
So, here in the NY metro area, what the puzzle calls ZIPPER MERGES are indicated by signs reading "Alternate Merge". I always read it as an adjectival description of what was supposed to happen (thus pronounced "Alter[nit]" Merge), but I once had a boyfriend who was equally sure it was an imperative order from on high (You there, driver! Alter[nate] Merge!). But I still think I'm correct because an imperative would need an exclamation point. !
Anyway, I don't think I've heard this alternate term before but it was pretty descriptive. The only trick for the solver was to determine which lane was up first for the merge and otherwise the puzzle was easy (altho, hand up for MEIc/IcELAND).
On the other ✋️ you really have to admire the construction!!
I haven't read you all yet, so sorry if any repetitions.
@anon 4:16
They are talking about people who are on the shoulder bulling their way forward.
Lots of folks unfamiliar with ZIPPER MERGES and USECASE. The corner is inferable, the latter i agree might not be so obvious.
In fact, I've written dozens (hundreds?) of USECASEs, but needed a bunch of crosses before i realized that's what the clue was looking for. In my line of software sales, it's a description of how a specific user uses your product. Meant to help productive buyers recognize their own situation, and understand how it will help them.
Of course, USECASEs are very carefully crafted/embellished, and ZZZZZzzzz zzzzz zzzz....
Huh? What?! Oh yeah... Now i remember... Nobody knows what they are because nobody READS them because they BORING!! (Save mine...)
Zipper merge is the term that traffic agencies are using to describe the concept. It has become a fairly common expression around the US as evidenced by what bloggers here are saying. It is most definitely not a creature of the Times Crossword.
There is one situation I am aware of in Boston in a tunnel on the way to Logan Airport. It is not a construction site but an everyday mess. (In case you don’t know, Boston traffic backups are up to the level of much bigger cities like NY & LA.) There is a point where 2 lanes are together but not that far ahead the left lane will veer left, where most of the traffic is going, and the right veer right. Naturally, an aggressive rude minority will stay to the right as far as possible and try to bull their way into the left lane at the separation point. NOT a zipper merge because they block those unfortunates headed to the right! Of course people who have been inching along in the left lane are often adamant about not letting these rude people in. It is an odd situation that the Boston traffic engineers have no clue on how to resolve
Impressive, even ingenious, but I didn’t get it because all of the “ending” lanes were self-contained answers that gave no reason to suspect a rebus. AND, two of the “start” lanes seemed like complete answers: IDEA and (what in a kealoa moment I thought was) guMBo. I don’t know, maybe if one start lane was shaded grey and every other square in the merged lane were too? The print edition says the constructor wants the solver to say “of course!” upon figuring out the theme, but that definitely did not happen here.
I've never heard the term ZIPPER MERGE. And there were no highlighted squares using the NYT website though the merge symbols appeared on appropriate black squares. That said, clever construction rarely leads to the high degree of payoff I enjoyed with this puzzle. Challenging but doable, a few shrugs and side-eyes, but very little dreck. I've no desire for frequent nontraditional Sundays but today's was a rare treat.
Ditto. This was a home run.
Why is the print edition different than online? The Rex referenced clue above is “cocktail named after motorcycle accessory” in the print edition of the magazine it is “some brandy cocktails” ???
While I agree it’s silly for Rex to not use the NYT app to solve and comment on the puzzle, it’s his blog and since he’s showing no signs of changing his ways, isn’t it perhaps even sillier for us to continue complaining about his complaints?
Yes, “for a Sunday” (or the like) is always implied if not said explicitly, since the puzzles generally get progressively harder Monday through Saturday. Sundays have about a Thursday/Friday difficulty level but they’re larger grids, so they still usually take about as long to finish as a Saturday, even though Saturdays are more challenging.
An update on whether I did or didn't try to finish yesterday's puzzle (no spoilers) for all of you who didn't ask.
Reader, I didn't.
After finishing today's puzzle, I went to yesterday's blog to see what the gimmick was. The staggering amount of pop culture knowledge needed to fill in enough answers to even get to the gimmick was so soul-crushing that I just couldn't go on. [Big sigh. Brow wipe.] And now that I see how tangled and complicated and baroque the gimmick itself is, I'm sure glad I stopped early.
It's Monday afternoon, so hi to all you syndicated solvers. I haven't read the previous 142 comments, sad to say. I suppose most people did what I did, took a look at the title and expected the two top parts of each theme answer to end with the same bottom part, like kindness/goodness. Nope. That really messed me up until I saw that it really had to be JAMBALAY with LEAPYEAR already in place. After that it was easy.
OK, on to Tuesday! (I've posted Monday already.)
agreed, honestly maybe best sunday ever??? i was so sure this was gonna tickle rexy...but that's also what i love about his blog. i will never guess!!!
I got zipper merge almost immediately. And I solved this one pretty fast once I got the gimmick. I thought it was clever and fun.
Officials in my state are trying to get people to do a zipper merge in construction zones. But there's always that "enforcer" guy who didn't get the memo, and deliberately straddles two lanes to prevent anyone getting ahead of him. I say guy, as I've never seen a woman do this.
Brilliant!
The term ZIPPER MERGE is unfamiliar to me, but makes perfect sense. I know it as "Alternate feed," as appeared on a sign in New Jersey quite a while back. There were no problems while I went through it.
More recently, a busy intersection near where I live was without traffic signals one day after an accident knocked out a transformer. Police had not yet arrived. The scene was incredible: everybody behaved perfectly!! I tell you, it was like synchronized swimming. There wasn't even a single horn honk! Who needs lights anyway?!
This puzzle, unfortunately, did not go so smoothly. I figured out the trick right off, with JAMBALAYA, etc. But the entire solve was a major slog. There was much I didn't know, and an either-or natick at ASI_NA/IP_D. I wrote A, liking ASIANA more than ASIoNA. But it was a guess. And then FENNEC?! ARMISEN?? Yikes!
Admittedly clever mishmash, but it made me think: this guy has WAY too much time on his hands to sit around thinking up something like that. Why do it? Because he can, I suppose. Par.
Wordle bogey.
I got all the letters (but for a name or two) correctly in the grid.
and...I figured out what the theme was.
However, I did not read the mergers until coming here.
I guess it is brilliant, as @Fred said. I think all constructors are brilliant. But it wasn't my favorite theme of all time. 'nuff said
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Hurling might be the most brutal team sport there is. It's like a combination of soccer and rugby, plus hockey without the skates or ice, and a ball instead of a puck. They don't even stop play for injuries. Let's say a player gets knocked out.
2 guys run out onto the field with a stretcher , and put the player on it, then run off the field with him, while the game plays on.
ZIPPER MERGES
ANOTHER SWORDSMAN RELIES
on A WEBCAST RATEDX,
his EGO'S ATEASE with THE size,
he's NOTSOBAD AT THE SECTS.
--- MME. MARY MEIR
Awesome construction. Sloggish to do. Noticed: OOZEDIN DOIN. Circled: REESE Witherspoon, yeah BABY.
Wordle bogey.
Pitch: Perfect clue for TAR.
Seattle Times site adds this bit:
Note: The puzzle contains elements that this format cannot reproduce.
Well, gee, thanks, guys! Could you maybe give us some idea of WHAT those elements are? No, afraid not. And the "highlighted" clues aren't highlighted in any way shape or form. Yeesh.
@ Brett Alan - Amen ! Where the heck is the Seattle Times editor ? Oh well - when a computer meets a newspaper sometimes things get mucked up.
The only happy thing I can take from this particular syndication is that the original puzzle was printed on Mothers Day and the Seattle syndication was printed on Fathers Day. Now that is a happy merge !
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