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Loud thudding sound / SUN 5-16-21 / Two-legged stand / Highly resistant elastomer / Breakfast drink sans creamer / Nickname for the Wildcats of the Pac-12 / Fore-and-aft-rigged sailboat with two masts / Innovation in push-ups / Johnson Sirleaf Africa's first elected female head of state
Sunday, May 16, 2021
Constructor: Joe DiPietro
Relative difficulty: Challenging (roughly 2x last week's time)
Theme answers:
- 4D: Tools for landscapers (HEDGE TRIMMERS) / 43A: Fix for a bald spot (HAIR IMPLANT) (rim shot)
- 33A: Improved version of an existing product (BETTER MOUSETRAP) / 15D: "Hallelujah!" ("PRAISE TO GOD!") (set shot)
- 65A: Real deal (GENUINE ARTICLE) / 35D: Carefully avoid (TIPTOE AROUND) (earshot)
- 78A: Highly resistant elastomer (SILICONE RUBBER) / 57D: Phenomenon by which electrons radiate from a heated filament, so named for a famous observer (EDISON EFFECT) (one-shot)
- 100A: Detectives (PRIVATE EYES) / 74D: When the first "Peanuts" comic appeared (NINETEEN-FIFTY) (tee shot)
- 110A: Like some roller chains and ball bearings (SELF-LUBRICATING) / 89D: Very easy living (LAP OF LUXURY) (flu shot)
• • •
This is one where solving on paper was probably easier, because solving in software, where you can't see all the clues at once, it was just disorienting. And the theme was so dense it never ended. And the themers often felt very forced (see "PRAISE TO GOD!" which is missing the word "BE"; or EDISON EFFECT, which, LOL, what is that? Or SILICONE RUBBER, shrug, or SELF-LUBRICATING, if you say so, etc.). I see now that all the "shot" squares are symmetrical, but during the solve, that didn't help any. It was the sloggiest slog I've slogged in a good long time. The fill was also under tremendous pressure because of the dense theme, so it was frequently not good (CIAOS? more than one CIAO?). And on top of *that*, it was clued really difficult much of the time. This never evened out. Never got better. Just pain and annoyance from start to finish. Put it in the "Great Architecture" Hall of Fame if you want, but solving it was an extremely off-putting experience.
"Dude" is already slang, so the clue on BRAH is so weird (1A: Dude, slangily). Also, ugh, that can be spelled so many ways (BRAH, BRUH, BRO ... pretty sure I've seen BRUV, but maybe that's British ... yes, it is). What the actual [beeeeeeep] is CRUMP!?!?! (21A: Loud thudding sound). I thought there was some theme action going on somewhere there because that is not a word I've ever seen without an "-ET" on the end. Wow. The BOP-IT / BEER crossing nearly killed me, as I don't know BOP-IT at all, and the BEER clue was a Zappa quote, where the missing word could have been An-Y-Thing! (59D: "You can't be a real country unless you have a ___ and an airline": Frank Zappa). Again, ugh. The ENZI / 'ZONA cross, also double-ugh. I forgot ENZI existed (and was perfectly happy that way), and then, wow not terribly familiar with that abbr. of "Arizona." Seems reasonable, I guess, but really this crossing is a long, horrible way to go just to get a "Z" in the grid. Bizarre. You don't get a Razzy for being PANNED, you get it for being terrible, and while terrible movies do often get PANNED, the connection there between clue and answer is awfully weak. PANNED!? (98A: Like Golden Raspberry-"winning" films). Took forever, and then getting it was so disappointing. So many little short annoying answers that it felt like someone was throwing small rocks at me the whole time (the MITE / ATOMS / IOTA section was particularly noisome, but it was bad all over, frankly). Had IMS instead of DMS (direct messages) because it felt like it worked better (129D: Chats over Twitter, briefly). I "chat over Twitter" all the time but hardly ever DM anyone. DMS are specifically *private* chats. Again, appalling, sloppy cluing. So the final indignity today was not being able to see LAST DITCH EFFORT for a time because of this IMS / DMS muck-up. I must stop writing about this puzzle now. BOOP. Goodbye.
"Dude" is already slang, so the clue on BRAH is so weird (1A: Dude, slangily). Also, ugh, that can be spelled so many ways (BRAH, BRUH, BRO ... pretty sure I've seen BRUV, but maybe that's British ... yes, it is). What the actual [beeeeeeep] is CRUMP!?!?! (21A: Loud thudding sound). I thought there was some theme action going on somewhere there because that is not a word I've ever seen without an "-ET" on the end. Wow. The BOP-IT / BEER crossing nearly killed me, as I don't know BOP-IT at all, and the BEER clue was a Zappa quote, where the missing word could have been An-Y-Thing! (59D: "You can't be a real country unless you have a ___ and an airline": Frank Zappa). Again, ugh. The ENZI / 'ZONA cross, also double-ugh. I forgot ENZI existed (and was perfectly happy that way), and then, wow not terribly familiar with that abbr. of "Arizona." Seems reasonable, I guess, but really this crossing is a long, horrible way to go just to get a "Z" in the grid. Bizarre. You don't get a Razzy for being PANNED, you get it for being terrible, and while terrible movies do often get PANNED, the connection there between clue and answer is awfully weak. PANNED!? (98A: Like Golden Raspberry-"winning" films). Took forever, and then getting it was so disappointing. So many little short annoying answers that it felt like someone was throwing small rocks at me the whole time (the MITE / ATOMS / IOTA section was particularly noisome, but it was bad all over, frankly). Had IMS instead of DMS (direct messages) because it felt like it worked better (129D: Chats over Twitter, briefly). I "chat over Twitter" all the time but hardly ever DM anyone. DMS are specifically *private* chats. Again, appalling, sloppy cluing. So the final indignity today was not being able to see LAST DITCH EFFORT for a time because of this IMS / DMS muck-up. I must stop writing about this puzzle now. BOOP. Goodbye.
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216 comments:
I usually enjoy crosswords that are a challenge. This one was a challenge. And I enjoyed it only slightly less than a dental appointment.
I will, however, give the constructor props for his “shots in the dark” which I totally missed (but learned from xwordinfo.com after finishing the puzzle).
And finally, I have never heard anyone refer to the Wildcats as ZONA. But then, I’m a resident of ‘Fornia so maybe it’s just me.
So, the title of this puzzle is "A Shot In the Dark" and by now we know that means that different types of shots are hiding in some of the black squares; however, I don't get the revealer - if it even is a revealer - at 127A, which is clued as "Shot in the dark" (LAST DITCH EFFORT).
Is this a failed attempt at a meta? More likely it's another "joke" that I just don't get.
Although 27A UNEDUCATED GUESS pairs nicely with LAST DITCH EFFORT as the bookends of the solve. Stretchy, but there it is. And maybe that's all there is. Cue Peggy.
Anyway, if you like your crossword puzzles with puzzles within a puzzle and don't mind puzzling through the MIRE, then this baby's for you! Never mind that hey! didn't we just have this several months ago? And I believe that puzzle also had one themer that belonged in the remedial class - in that the hidden "shot" word wasn't split between two answers. Yes, SILICONE RUBBER, you have been outed.
Frankly, I don't really care. But Rex and others will point to its inelegance and pooh-pooh it, so I'm just going along to be liked. (Hey, Sloth! How's that workin' out for ya? Hahahahahahaha!)
Olio woo hoo:
Isn't dude "slangily" in its own right?
By THE way.
The line starts here for everyone who has anything to say about this. I'll go first: Why??
"Takes over (from)" seems a little tame for USURPS. One is like spelling someone for a rest, while the other implies wresting (something) from them for a spell...or longer.
Isn't it PRAISE GOD or PRAISE (be) TO GOD? PRAISE TO GOD? Thhhppp!
Definitely a love/hate relationship going on with me and this one. Usually, I'm one of those people who like the added riddle-y things, but this wore on me just a tad too much for some reason. Still...it kept me off the streets.
🧠🧠🧠
🎉🎉🎉
Nice puzzle. Enjoyed it thoroughly.
Fully agree with Rex that the difficulty level here was challenging, and that what we have here is an architectural masterpiece (as NYT Sunday puzzles go, at any rate). But Rex's criticisms seem a bit curmudgeonly to me... I thought the cluing was a bit coy but not inaccessible. The PPP ratio seemed tolerably low. I think it's a five-star puzzle... that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!
Rex really nailed it on this one. He excels at putting the right words (as if by magic) to my thoughts.
I just plain missed the "shot in the dark" clue for 27A. At least I noticed the relationship of the answers for 27A and 127A. So there's that.
And I totally forgot to mention the whole lookie-loo thing with the "-" continuation. Actually, the lookie part of the clue didn't even exist - it was just skipped straight to m'loo. A no-lookie-loo, as it were - which (hard to believe) is even worse.
Oh! And that Lilliputian block on the western edge. Keep your tiny bits in your knickers, please. Thank you.
My largest ever percentage of overlap of agreement with RP's comments
Medium-tough. Pretty pretty clever. Liked it a bit more than @Rex did, although the ZONA/ENZI cross was painful.
@bocamp - I’m about 3/4 of the way through Croce’s Freestyle #611. So far it’s mostly (I needed a wee bit of input from my bride for the Louvre clue) doable. Good luck!
I'm not sure I've ever hated a puzzle as much as this one, so I navigated over after finishing to see what you had to say about it, and I feel seen!
I had SET a TEE in my EAR to get ONE RIM FLU shot, when this puzzle, kinda like yesterday’s kinda kicked my ass. Finished it I did, but I think there have been geologic eras that went by faster than my solve. Maybe I should retreat to USA Today or something.
Thanks, I think, to Joe DiPietro.
I really enjoyed this one. I solve with pen and paper so maybe that helped. I futzed around for quite a while until the rebus "aha". But what a pleasure once I got it. Too often we don't have a challenge on Sundays... My one snafu was being wedded to "scan" instead of "span" which gave me the incorrect "chis" which in turn did not lead me to silicone. By and large, a SUPERDUPER puzzle.
Hands up for major frustration at the ZONA ENZI cross. A random senator crossing a college team nickname, @#$%^&*!! (Have I mentioned that my most hated clues are US college team nicknames?
I mean I really really hate them. Really.) I tried about 5 different letters there, growing more incensed each time. Then I thought about trying Z, but I thought No, that can't be it. But it was. Yuck. I guess ZONA for Arizona, which if I knew the Wildcats were in Arizona (are they? I dont care and never will) I would get this?... I fucking hate college sports crap. Hate it!
As for SHOT, I finally got my first Covid shot today. Yay herd immunity!?
Rex's criticisms are always curmudgeonly. That's sort of his schtick.
Got about a third of the way through and pulled a @Nancy, there’s still a CRUMP in the wall. Life is way too short to put up with a puzzle like this one. Printed out the big Wall Street Journal Saturday puzzle and had a much better time.
Fully agree with Rex’s critique.
Rex, you should try actually solving the puzzle on paper sometime. I've read so many of your reviews where you point out problems with your solving experience and muse that it wouldn't be a problem on paper. Well, I do solve them on paper (actually an e-ink tablet) and I can tell you that you're always right when you say this. So you can keep torturing yourself and complaining about it, or you can actually print the pdf and enjoy yourself.
By the way, when you complain that nonstandard puzzles should "work properly" in software, I can tell you as a software engineer that your request is quite unreasonable. Nonstandard puzzles are (by definition) *not standard*, so the NYT would need to have a software developer available to make customizations any time they ran a nonstandard puzzle. In addition, people use multiple programs to solve these puzzles, so these customizations would have to be made in duplicate.
The paper tries to help digital solvers by giving them notes about how nonstandard puzzles should be understood when they don't work properly in digital format. So if you insist on solving digitally, perhaps you should design to read those notes.
Huge fan, by the way. I really appreciate your perspective and insight (except when you get self righteous about the imperfection of the digital solving experience).
Didn’t understand the cluing. Didn’t understand Rex’s explanation. Feeling very cranky.
I enjoyed this a lot. I do like my puzzles within puzzles with extra puzzle on the side, though. I liked figuring out what was going on with each “shot.” Definitely would have been easier on paper to note down each one instead of messing them up in my head.
Rex seems to hate any puzzle he doesn’t grok immediately. I’m fine with the setup being ambiguous for a while. I like the little dopamine hits from figuring out each element. Maybe it’s because I’m a gamer and not exclusively a crossword solver (nothing wrong with the latter). Anyway, thanks to Joe for a great workout.
Wow! I've been doing crosswords for almost 40 years and I can honestly say that this was the worst experience I ever had. I cannot fully express how much I hated this trek. At least four times, I almost ditched and dropped it.
I know I'm at a disadvantage being non-American but Enzi/Zona just wasn't fair. C'mon! Does anyone really want to see that shit?
I often think that Rex is a bit hard on the this one? I think Rex was about as kind as he could muster; this one is garbage.
Zero on the fun scale.
I solve on the computer using software (Across Lite). In addition to having the clue for the highlighted entry featured prominently above the grid, there's also the traditional lists of across and down clues off to the side of the grid. I'm pretty sure this is the case for online solvers as well. I'm guessing Rex also uses Across Lite, in which case his assertion that he "can't see all the clues at once" creating a disadvantage compared to paper solvers is untrue. I think he *chooses* not to look at the clue lists (just as he chooses not to read the yellow notes when they accompany the puzzle). Or perhaps he has configured the software to hide or minimize the list view. In any case, the complaint seems bogus to me.
Zona is the abbreviated name you see on sports tickers/scorebugs for the University of Arizona. A la Bama or Cal or Cuse for Alabama, California-Berkeley, and Syracuse
This one also took me 2x as long as usual. There is a small clue that is bugging me-- 47 Down "G" = THOU? I have tried all sorts of ways to understand this, like reading it out as "capital G" or with G as a slang for gansta/tough guy, and none it makes sense to me as the old second person pronoun. I just have a blind spot on this one, can anyone enlighten me?
Tough as nails for me, in the fuzzy cluing and in sussing the theme. Some areas did fill in easily, but others said, “No, you’re never getting past me.” That is, some gravy and some gauntlet. Recently, Sundays have often gotten fluffy, where an easy gambol does the trick, making a tough puzzle like this stand out and seem even tougher. I vote for more like this. I vote to bring up the level of the solver with challenging puzzles on Sunday, where success is well-earned. Please, more like this Will and company, and Joe, you are a pro. Thank you all!
A thoroughly unpleasant puzzle, a waste of a good cup of Sunday Morning coffee. Off now to the LA Times and Washington Post, hopefully better things are waiting there.
Shame on anyone who had anything to do with publishing this. Letters in the black squares and nonsense letter strings in the white squares. This is not a crossword puzzle. It needs a different name. I suggest CMP*.
Constructor Masturbation Puzzle.
I think if you’re going to have a tricky theme like this the theme answers should either be reasonably well known or, as a minimum, correct. Many did not fall in the former category, or were a bit arbitrary or in the case of praise to God, wrong (missing out the ‘be’ there is not good.) I do admire the ambition of this puzzle but the above issues meant it didn’t quite work for me, combined with some weak general fill and clueing skewing hard throughout it did get a bit sloggy towards the end...
@unknown 549am. G=grand=thou=thousand
@Rex was too kind. Speaking of shots, only about 35% of Americans are fully vaccinated against covid-19. Yet mask wearing is rapidly fading into history. The unvaccinated should continue to wear masks per CDC. Does anyone think the anti-vaxxers will wear masks? When you're at COSTCO or the ballpark 13 out of 20 people will potentially be spreading the virus, allowing new variants to develop which will eventually "learn" how to defeat the vaccines.
This was great!
This is what a NYTX puzzle should be. It was challenging and tricky but it was ultimately fair and solveable if you put a bit of effort into it.
This was so refreshing after all the easy milk-runs this week. Hopefully some solvers out there will get out of their comfort zone and start punching-up; start lifting a bit more weight. You learn how to play chess by playing someone better than you.
Unknown 5:49 - G/THOU as in "a thousand dollars." It's pretty musty crosswordese. Like geeks trying to speak street.
I'm with Rex on this one.
My issue with USURP is that the (from) was oddly unnecessary. Who says "usurped from?"
Not fun. Took forever because I kept forgetting what 3 letters I had filled in the other direction so therefore needed to fill in again, for the little black boxes. I also solve online so there was no way to write in the missing letters. The app filled them in only after I finished. When I was finally done I looked at the set of three letters and didn’t even recognize them as types of shots. Of course at that point I also didn’t care. And I also had to run the alphabet for ZONA/ENZI.
@Unknown 5:49–I think G stands for thousand, like a grand.
Thou as in thousand; G as in G-note.
Crossword equivalent of a root canal. More than twice my normal Sunday time and little pleasure in it.
Like others, I found this challenging and I had a Natick at ENZI and ZONA, but hard as it was I enjoyed it. I figured there was something about each of the words hidden in the dark rebuses connected to the theme and wrote them down separately on the paper on which I solved, but didn't get their connection to SHOT until reading Rex's notes. Now that I see that, I am more impressed with the construction and glad I worked through the challenges.
@ Ray Yuan 3:28AM
Real Americans LOVE to see that shit.
Just like walking on the Moon, flying on Mars, rock & roll, and apple pie.
Thx Joe for a perfect Sun. puz. Excellent theme and worthy challenge! :)
Med+ solve.
Good start in the NW; could see some kind of trick at HEDGET, but didn't fully get it until LAP OF LUXURY. The rest was just slow but sure plodding along, enjoying every minute of the adventure.
Always good to see Yogi BERRA.
Probably time to watch Forrest GUMP again.
Mockingbird Hill (Norwegian Melody) ~ Lennon Sisters w/Myron Floren & Lawrence Welk band members
"Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee it gives me a thrill
To wake up in the morning to the mockin' bird's trill
Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee
There's peace and goodwill
You're welcome as the flowers on Mockin'bird Hill"
@A (10:16 PM late yd) yw 😊
___
yd pg -1
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
On principle, I never agree with Rex.
But today I have abandoned all principles and agree with him utterly, totally and without reservation.
May God have mercy on my soul.
Not bogus at all. I have the same experience using the iPhone app. You only see one clue at a time unless you’re in list mode, which is disorienting.
@unknown 5:49
G as in grand
Thou as in thousand
Thou is short for thousand, and G is short for grand, a thousand. Great theme that must have taken a long time to construct. Harder=more fun.
@Unknown 5:40am: "G" as in this definition:
"North American informal grand (a thousand dollars): I was up nine Gs on the blackjack tables." Otherwise known as a "thou".
Shouldn’t the clue for 88-Across have “once” after it given recent legislation?
G > grand > thousand > thou
Who could hate a puzzle with MERLE, BERRA and Zappa in it? The gimmick took awhile to get but in the end I liked it. I don’t like seeing nonsensical word strings in the grid - and yes probably easier on paper although the app displays the highlighted shots upon completion. Couple of oddball plurals and some short glue but overall a clean, smooth grid.
Tricky and time consuming - but an enjoyable Sunday.
Didn’t “get” it and for some reason don’t care enough to check…
But that’s just me…
Wow -- 42 comments before 8 AM: we gotta live one! Another hard puz. I BOPped all over the grid trying to find not just a toehold (I found several of those) but more like a beachhead where I could build a larger area of filled-in squares. This was difficult because I kept running into clues that seemed to demand longer answers than would fit in the space given and all those “-“ clues that meant nothing. There also seemed to be ?-clues everywhere: only 9, I guess, but during they solve they seemed to have taken over. And, to top it all off, there was a discouraging number of straightforward (?) clues that left me AT SEA. CRUMP, BIPOD and BOP IT are a few examples of WOEs from up top. I finally got the gimmick at BETTERMOU[SET]RAP and PRAI[SET]OGOD, but I’d roamed all over the puzzle and back again by then. I only noticed after the solve that each word-in-the-“dark” was a type of shot. Well, duh, what else could they be? I got stuck in the center bottom and finally looked up one 4-letter name as I did yesterday. This time it was Senator Mike ENZI. I had the EN but no clue how the name ended, didn’t know ZONA (@okanaganer -- I heartily second your rant!) and hadn’t yet sussed out LAST-DITCH EFFORT. Man, the whole puzzle took an extraordinary amount of time and energy. Didn't hate it, though. Not my favorite but like Sundays that fight back.
Today there are two excerpts from the work of STUDS TERKEL, born May 16, 1912.
“Work is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. Perhaps immortality, too, is part of the quest. To be remembered was the wish, spoken and unspoken, of the heroes and heroines of this book.”
**************************************************************
“I think most of us are looking for a calling, not a job. Most of us, like the assembly-line worker, have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people.”
(From Working: People Talk about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do)
@7:36- I know you were probably joking but that is a common misconception. There were far more mail-in ballots cast in 2020 than ever before. Most of the new legislation, including the new Georgia voting laws, expanded mail-in voting eligibility.
Yeah, this was a torment. Took me quite a while to see the theme, upon which I heaved a sigh of relief, but it was annoying to me in other ways as well. Felt way too sports-heavy.
(Warning: rant ahead. No, I am not the least bit interested in your well-meaning attempts to educate me, and I probably won't even listen if you try, because I'm capable of googling stuff myself. [Covers ears, shouts "la la la la la, I can't hear you"] I'm not asking for help. I just wanna rant. Okay?)
Sample: the crossing of ZONA with ENZI. The name of this senator is only vaaaaguely familiar, these senators come and go you know, and I've never heard "ZONA" as short for Arizona, nor did I know this was the home of the Wildcats; I don't think even Pac-12 computes for me. What, is that college basketball or something?
Another annoyance: IT's A HIT which could have been IT'S good, which is what I put in at first.
Never heard the expression BETTER MOUSETRAP. What era is that from?
BURN? Just BURN? "BURN up" I know. "BURN with rage", sure.
I'm sorry, ELLEN is obscure to me (111 D, the female African head of state). Crossing that with one of these - clues is disconcerting.
CAFE NOIR. Ooh, that sounds sophisticated. No, I'll just take my coffee black, please.
Who here knew the Zappa quote? What's the provenance of that? We happen to have BOP IT in the house, so the quote happened to be complete-able by me.
CRUMP. What's that. Is it supposed to be onomatopoetic? ThUMP I know.
Well, I could go on. This was pretty hard, and felt too clever by half in places. Well over my historical average in solving time. Mebs!*
*SNL Coneheads expression.
Seems like a lot of those who post here (including Sharp) are not happy with a puzzle that challenges them. Took me a while to figure out the rebus thing (and I never truly understood the connection the rebuses had with each other). After understanding certain black suares were hiding a rebus (very easy to determine which squares by the cluing) I enjoyed this pzzle as much as a typical Sunday puzzle. Fpr spme that is akin to damning with faint praise. But I believe that, if you ignore the PPP entries, this puzzle hit home more than most. And I'm not a boozer.
Certainly an appropriate theme to select for someone who owns a bar.
A struggle… a challenge… a **PUZZLE** … I enjoyed it immensely.
This took a while. But because I figured out LAPO[FLU]XURY and its cross SEL[FLU]BRICATING first, a light bulb came on in the "dark", and I quickly then figured out what all the "---" meant. I too took issue with the crossing PPP's at 122A and 107D. And thanks to all who enlightened us on G and THOU.
I solve all of these on paper, because I get the NYT delivered on Sundays. Solving on paper allows one to jot down notes, and for this puzzle, I bracketed the linked clues and wrote down the type of shot once sussed out. Online solving is OK - I do this for the WaPo and USA Today puzzles - but to me, not quite as satisfying.
Thanks, Joe, for a very challenging puzzle!
The least enjoyable Sunday puzzle in a long time. No part of solving it was fun.
The mobile version is different than the desktop version because of lack of real estate. Hated this puzzle after a while, even after I figured out what was going on. Finally had to give up and look up answers to some of the fill in order to finish. Who is this Rex Parker'son that provides the clue answers? Is Rex double moonlighting?
Bravo! Dense, complicated, challenging. It gave me what I crave in a crossword puzzle: a sense of accomplishment at solving it. Whatever downers the rest of the day may bring, I can look back and say, "at least I whipped that M-----F----!"
I had "clop" and "wooed" instead of "clap" and "cooed," which gave me nonsense for 77d. And I never got silicone rubber. But I liked the puzzle, thought it was cute.
@chefwen I'm quitting. I never give up, no matter how hard but I'm done. Yesterday's puzzle was really hard for me but I got the music after 90 minutes. I chip away and finish- I force myself, but it's a great feeling to get a hard one done. But I'm not enjoying this. I looked at the answer key and I still am not getting anywhere!
Read the title of the puzzle. Sunday puzzles have titles, just like books. Ignoring the title, and then complaining, isn't clever. It's willful ignorance.
For unknown reasons, the app did not show the theme. It just said a crossword puzzle, which was not very helpful. I finally solved using the auto check feature.
Thanks, @Joe! I solved on paper so maybe that's why I liked it more than OFL. Haven't been puzzling as much of late, so this was a really nice challenge. Is it technically a dnf since I couldn't parse the words in the black squares as types of shots? Kept going over them...
Anyway, hope you're back in business and we'll stop by next time we're in town! I'm excited to get back on the train because last year I aged into half fare status and of course didn't get to enjoy it. But fully vaxxed and (almost) ready to go! Congrats on your Sunday triumph!
Was just about to say the same thing - pay attention to the title! A long slog through some painful fill and flying but got the gimmick quickly which helped bridge some rough patches. Had to run the alphabet on Enzi/Zona and was in despair as I got to x, y, ugh.
Last ditch effort = desperate attempt after other tries have failed.
Shot in the dark = blind stab at something, not necessarily after previous failures.
Not synonymous.
This puzzle is rubbish. The first time I’ve decided not to finish a Sunday puzzle. Hard is fine. I enjoy a challenge. This just wasn’t fun.
I thought I was clever with "agar" for 58 down ("And the pot thickens"). The G makes for "no go", which also worked. Held on to that until the bitter end. Isn't "agar" a better joke that "ante"?
Quite a feat of construction. I enjoyed it even though I got hung up on that pesky Z.
For me, Crump is Opie's teacher.
@ PGregory Springer (8:19 am)
Please stop calling me ignorant.
Simply a-ma-zing!
I mean, the idea, the construction, the complexity, the solving experience if you get the trick.. just wow!
The clueing was a bit too fuzzy at times and the title could be different (Black shots?) but this doesn't take anything away from this wonder.
Finest Sunday in a long time.
Awe and respect, Mr JDP.
HATED this puzzle!! There's "Challenging" and then there's CRAP.
It's thou as in short for thousand. It did take me until about an hour after solving it for that to click though so I feel your pain!
This was just like crossing a swamp -- beautiful if you're willing to navigate on its terms. You're forced to pay attention and work slowly and deliberately, mis-stepping and returning until you move forward. The "aha's" don't hit you over the head, they're just there to find gradually as you work your way along.
You will have mud on your boots when you're done and few scratches. AURAS of virtue for the rest of the day.
CRUMP is a good word. It means exactly what says. I have never seen the word but I know the sound.
I'm with OFL on this one. Absolutely. The. Worst. Puzzle. Of. All. Time. Full of mistakes, dominated by a horrible gimmick, linguistic stretchers galore. I cannot for the life of me understand what audience is being appealed to by junk of this sort. It just gets worse and worse.
"a la Bama" 👌
Saturday hard until I got the trick then Wednesday/Thursday hard which is all I ask of Sunday morning. Gotta go pull weeds now.
Showers later. Nice outside now. Have no time for a puzzle that's giving me fits and looks like it'll take forever if I'm able to/want to finish it at all. Haven't read any of you. Will come back to the puzzle another time.
So tough, so hard, so difficult, so tedious, so what!
I got to “bettermou(set)rap and couldn’t see a way to complete it... that’s my bad.
First puz in ages that I’ve given up on.
Rex’s write up showed me what an impressive feat of construction this was.
..... but fun!.... NOT
This is as good as it gets. More like this every Sunday please
There’s a difference between “challenging” and “time-consuming.” This was time-consuming. This puzzle has roughly 15 sections because of the way the black squares are distributed, meaning it felt* like I was constantly starting a new puzzle only vaguely connected to the rest of the puzzle. A section or two were harder than others, but there was a lack of flow and connectedness. Just a constant CRUMP of falling into a new section.
I don’t think the construction is any more impressive than any other rebus puzzle. All that happened was that rebus squares were made black. Whoop-de-doo. This also made the solve more time consuming because I couldn’t enter the rebus, so if the crossing rebus wasn’t immediately apparent I had to remember what was in that square. Again, time-consuming but not challenging. I did briefly wonder if I had any colored pencils with a white anywhere about.
@unknown2:30 a.m. - I don’t know how anyone solves on a phone, but PuzzAzz has an excellent record of replicating the print version. Much better than the NYT proprietary app.
@TTrimble - “Build a BETTER MOU(SE T)RAP and the world will beat a path to your door” has been pretty common since Ralph Waldo Emerson didn’t say it in the late 1800’s and is still used by engineering types all the time.
DNF/DNC at ENZI/ZONA - I had ENnI/nONA, thought “well, that’s not right…but I really don’t care enough to run the alphabet.”
*WTF - How did my auto-corrupt get to “okayed” from “felt?” I’m glad I caught that.
Did -- or tried to do -- this on paper. Could not understand it. Threw puzzle on floor after multiple attempts and intensely growing displeasure. Puzzle remains on floor. How on earth were we supposed to understand what was happening? Still don't fully understand despite Rex's explanation. Yes to more complicated puzzles, but NO to ones that cannot communicate their intent. Hoping this creator can improve on this next time.
Right on. We seem to be in the minority sp I feel I have to speak up to get more like these. Tougher is better
This puzzle was absolute garbage. I have never seen a more poorly-constructed, cryptic entry. Shortz booted this one a long way.
Fascinating...ENZI and ZONA are probably the two easiest clues in the whole puzzle for me. No Brainerd if you follow sports and politics.
This was one of those times when understanding the gimmick was essential to the solve. Took the time to grok it. Double checked the whole puz before filling in the final cell. Was able to connect 'shot in the dark' with the various types of shots. ONE shot seemed a bit of an outlier; didn't roll off the tongue as did the others.
Upon completion my iPad app showed the themers w/ white letters on black cells.
Overall, a very satisfying experience; time well spent! :)
Being a Pac12 fan, ZONA was a gimme, the senator not; so, thx to the UofA in Tucson. I sympathize/empathize with those who are unfamiliar with US college basketball and/or this particular moniker. Seems this would be a true Natick for many. Lord knows, I've been Naticked many a time when others had no prob.
ZONA Zealots
PRAISE GOD without the TO, would be my choice. (hi @Frantic)
@jae (12:45 AM)
Thx; looking forward to it! :)
@JOHN X (6:40 AM) 👍
___
td pg -5
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
“Brah” slang for “dude”? I had to get all the crosses. Anyway, isn’t it spelled “bra”? )Paul McCartney, 1968, Obladi Oblada - “life goes on, bra.”
Exactly!
Same!
This puzzle was garbage. Twelve entries that not only have no clues, they aren't even WORDS. I always thought the Sunday puzzle was supposed to be for the average solver, about like Wednesday difficulty, something share over coffee with your solving partner.
And, I resent the smugness of those who don't think the rest of us deserve a reasonable puzzle on Sunday.
Excellent puzzle. I've been getting complacent about Sundays (which I don't like as much as Fridays and Saturdays, because they are often a slog, but recently, a relatively easy slog). But this took me 45 minutes and, I confess, it took me from A to B to C to......Z on Enzi before I got a complete. 45 minutes is about twice my Sunday average and 3 times my best. Enjoyed it a lot. I got the hidden 'flu' first and so I thought all the missing letters were going to be some kind of infection/virus abbreviation. That didn't last long. In the end I finished without getting the generality of 'shot'. OK, now I can get on with life.
This puzzle was garbage. Twelve entries that not only have no clues, they aren't even WORDS. I always thought the Sunday puzzle was supposed to be for the average solver, about like Wednesday difficulty, something share over coffee with your solving partner.
And, I resent the smugness of those who don't think the rest of us deserve a reasonable puzzle on Sunday.
How LAMÉ am I? I could not for the life of me figure out what an EAR SHOT was. Wax removal? Gah, post-solve Googling let me know I was an idiot. Please wait until I'm out of EARSHOT before agreeing!
I was pretty well into this puzzle before PRIVA[TEE]YES let me in on the secret. Earlier, with U_E__C_ED GUES_ in place, I tried to make UNExpetED GUESt work, damn the clue, but the C of ETC just wouldn't shove over to make room. It was truly an UNEDUCATED GUESS.
Joe DiPietro, this was fun, thanks!
(I did DNF at ENZI/ZONA even if we just saw Mike ENZI days ago. Shrug. I hate college sports clues!!!)
About 15 minutes into this one I quit. Just decided it wasn't worth. I'm amazed that so many comments are positive, but different strokes. Waiting for @Nancy to weigh in, and @Southside.
I'm in the camp that liked to see a challenging Sunday for a change. Enjoyed it!
I'm usually a "can't wait for the Thursday puzzle" followed by a "can't wait for the Sunday puzzle" kinda guy, so when one or both of those puzzles is crap, it's a downer.
And make no mistake, this puzzle was simultaneously amazing and utter crap.
The construction is amazing. Kudos for cramming all that theme material in there, it's a wow-inducing effort.
But it was a horrible solving experience.
Firstly, if you've got answers that span across a black square, how about italicizing the clue or putting some kind of indication on those? You get to one, it makes no sense, then ages later you see the "-" on the second part and have to do some kind of seek-and-find to locate the first half. Having those pointed out in the first half would've saved some frustration.
Secondly, ENZI/ZONA should never, ever, ever get past the editorial process. I often give Mr Shortz a pass when others want his head on a pike, but this is one of those times when his boss should have him in the office with a stern warning about the integrity and reputation of the puzzle, etc.
Thirdly, WTF with that clue on ONE LB? I mean, I was able to get the answer, that's not the issue, but [checks pantry] not a single package of pasta in this house is ONE LB. None.
I could go on and on, but Rex already did. Suffice to say that I generally like the NYTXW much, much, much more than Rex does, but I think he was far too kind on this one. Heads should roll.
Brutal - I kind of discerned HEDGET, then saw PLANT for “-“ and THOU for “G” and gave up. This has got to be a Binary puzzle (in that you will really like it, or find it really tedious). I’m obviously in the tedious category. It’s not really a crossword puzzle in the sense that I have experienced them over several years of solving now - it’s just some type of cryptic, “decode me” detective game. I guess if you want to make an extremely difficult chore out of a crossword, this is one way to do it. Hard core solvers - have at it and enjoy !
I feel like there should've been another day added to the week for this one - Superharday, or something like that. This must've been fun for someone whose long mastered the NYT puzzle and sorely needed a challenge - it's clever, but a slog for us pedestrians. Would've been fine with a warning label not to solve it on-line 'cause its not only harder to see there, it'll wreck yer average :).
Hey All !
86 comments as I write, so not reading y'all til later, apologies if repeated stuff.
First themer I sorta "got" was PRIVATEEYES, however, not knowing the black-square-ness of the theme, saw that if you went up one square from the A, at the end of PRIVA, you got TE, then back down (skipping the X) to YES. And that got me PRIVATEEYES. So went looking for other up-and-back-down themers, thinking that that X would be an extra square each time, like a place holder. Got thwarted pretty quick, as the one for HAIRIMPLANT couldn't move up because there was a block. Then thought maybe some went up-down, some went down-up. But finally figured it out at my original get, since NINETARN (going around the TEE square) didn't make sense. Ah, says I, finally, it's a word in the black square. Figured out it was TEE, then thought they'd all be TEE!
So a rough puz to figure out. And I'm sure you're sick of hearing it, but I once submitted a puz with a "word-in-black-squares" theme that was rejected. Have to look for it, as now, with my wonderful memory, can't remember what it was! It was a SunPuz, however.
Tough cluing on the ONE answers. Dang. And then add a ? clue on CAIN in that same area. Had HEDGE ClippERS first, but couldn't get the cross to works. Eventually thought of TRIMMERS.
Kinda disappointed the black-square-words are just random. Shouldn't they all fit together somehow? Or make a phrase? In order they are SET RIM EAR ONE TEE FLU. Make up your own meanings. 😁 But, it was a challenging puz to figure out.
Sorta silly mistake led to my one-letter DNF. Argh! Had ScAN for SPAN, as either word works for the clue. Had chIS for PSIS, and when I changed the H to the S, never bothered to see that CSIS is not a Greek letter, but a series of TV series. Har. Oh well.
Eight F's (Seven all in lower half of grid, One in a black square)
RooMonster
DarrinV
As others have said...I felt frustrated the whole time especially since laying on my couch and solving the Sunday crossword is one of my favorite parts of my week. Just no pleasure in solving this one. Agree it would have been easier if I printed it out as I sometimes do versus doing it on a computer. Mad that it took me so long and felt like wasted time instead of a treat for myself. Would have gotten more pleasure cleaning my house.
My word of the day is PAEAN. I thought this was an amazing puzzle and I loved it - the wit of the SHOTs IN THE DARK squares, the constructing feat, the overall toughness. I really enjoyed grappling with it. I went wrong early, though, in thinking that HEDGET [rim] MERS crossed HAI [rtrans] PLANT, so the should-have-been-obvious concept that the crossing letters were the same eluded me for an astonishingly long time. Once I figured that out, my solving pace picked up from glacial to snail's. This puzzle took me a long time, but it held me firmly in its grip the whole way - unlike some much faster Sundays that can feel like a "When will I finally be done with this" slog.
@Matthew B 1:57 - Yes, me, too, for ScAN x chI, for way too long.
@Birchbark 9:19 - My thought was "Slow but steady wins the race," but your analogy is so much better!
@Teedmn 10:17 - Thank you for EARSHOT! Your Badger neighbor didn't get it either.
Wow, really surprised at the vitriol. I thought it was pretty fun although I flailed around a bit before getting the trick (at the SE TEE square). Fairly easy after that and finished just a bit over average, despite solving literally on my laptop while enjoying sitting on my deck.
My Rex-ish nit to pick is that ONE doesn't fit with the others in that it doesn't SPAN the answers.
But thumbs-up from me!
As soemone who's been complaining for a while that the Sunday puzzle is pretty much a large Wednesday, I guess I got my commeuppance here. Very hard for me. And not a lot of fun. Not sure what Will Shortz was thinking with this one.
It has nothing to do with being challenging. The puzzle is just not fun to solve whatsoever. The comment calling it constructor masterbation is dead on.
Excruciatingly difficult. That said, what a masterful feat of construction! I have commented before that sometimes we have a puzzle more fir constructors than solvers. This is a stellar example. While I did finish, it took me a very long time this morning including several cups of coffee and a couple breaks to read the paper and check the baseball scores in RV - and to watch the highlights (again) from the OU softball team run ruling OK State to win the Big 12 and move in to the NCAA tournament. I’m a huge women’s athletics fan.
But I digress. I almost just quit and took a DNF after my first 30 minutes with almost nothing. But, after a break, I moved down to the bottom half (which for some reason was decidedly easier than the top half) and the lightbulb came on at LAPO (FLU) XURY. Ugh!!!! Once Ingot the truck, I went looking forward all the themers, filled those in and all was well, mostly. Still lots of tough spots and some WAGs - but heck after 60 + years of solving, I am a pretty good guesser.
I did not hate this primarily because it’s density, both of theme and large sized grid, was impressive. As a solver only, the art to this and other clever grids exemplifies the building of a BETTER MOUSETRAP or at least a damned impressive one to me! Kudos Mr. Dipietro!
Put me at the bead of the “line” fir the poor clue fir USURP. C’mon Mr. D, you tried too hard there to confuse as you did in several places and the puzzle was challenging enough without resorting to non-clever weak clues.
Rex got this one right. My experience exactly. Didn’t even get the shot thing until I read it here. What a slog.
Definitely a slog.
An accurate title would have been "Shots in the Dark", which might have given me at least a little frisson upon solving. Typically, I disagree with our host when he goes off on a puzzle like this, but today I found his reasons compelling. No questioning the ingenuity of the construction, but there was, for me at least, no pleasure in the solving.
I’m with @John X (6:40 am). Tough, yes! But the clueing was fair, and once I got the “theme,” — well, it was still really tough.
Rex complains about easy Sundays. Here’s a tough, well-constructed Sunday, and he still complains. And now I know the meaning of crump! Thank you, Joe DiPietro!!
It's 11:30 am & I am still nowhere with this. Went to the comments to see if I was the only one & thankfully I'm not.
This puzzle really ruined my Sunday experience.
@OffTheGrid/6:36 -
unfortunately, not even most of the Fauci-ists are willing to say this. it will happen. India and Brazil have been in this situation for months. fortunately, it'll be morons in Red states who get sick and die. they won't be voting in 22 or 24.
Rex didn’t like it because (in addition to being hard, boo-hoo), the solving app he uses doesn’t show him the following clues, so he couldn’t identify the themers: “This is one where solving on paper was probably easier, because solving in software, where you can't see all the clues at once,”.
Dear Rex,
No, not “solving in software.” Rather, the problem is “solving in the software you are using.” Switch to Puzzazz.
Signed,
Faithful reader
I liked it.
I suppose this is the exception that proves the rule: Sunday is just a bigger Wednesday. Not this time.
I almost wanted to borrow @Nancy's wall last night but I was afraid it would be so full of dents that my puzzle would just slide off into her living room.
Well...I thought this most impressive. It left me with some leg cramps, though. Why, you ask? Because I had to get off my cumfy chair a million times. Boy, I wanted to give up but I couldn't sleep last night and nothing was on TV so I kept my chin up and forged ahead. TALLYHO.
OK...So a little bell and a little whistle blew when I fiNALLY saw that I had to tack on some hidden letters just to make sense of HEDGET. I thought that was a new word I never heard of. When I saw the missing RIM hiding in the dark, I let out a little MOU squeak .
So now I go back and look at all the things I didn't know. Is BRAH like Erin Go Brah? Then we have MIRACLE BRA. I suppose you can call it a MIRACLE if your 136A Ta-tas are hanging down to your navel and you manage to hold them up to your chin.
BOOP, CRUMP and ENZI walk into a bar. Or is that my law firm?
Apart from some painful crossings and being blindsided as well, I thought this was brilliantly constructed. Joe is pretty darn good at these feats.
@A from last night....Thank you!. Of course you can see some of my...what I call... "Whimsy's." Send me an E-mail (my address is under my profile) and I'll zip them over to you.
@OFFtheGrid. I agree with you on the face masks. Our governator has said that face masks are no longer required as long as you've been vaccinated. Can you imagine asking an antivaxxer for proof of vaccination? Shop-keepers and store owners are already having headaches over this issue since so many want the masks to remain in force until COVID is completely eradicated .....Imagine having to be put in a position that you ask for proof....Try that in California....
Was leery seeing all the hyphens, figuring there’d be spaces without their own clues to allow for adjacent answers to spill over and through some black squares, those being the “shot in the dark.” After plodding a bit, there was absolutely no fun in this for me so, though rare, I abandoned it and moved on to WaPo. Mama told me that sometimes there’d be puzzles like this. :)
@JC66 4:56 pm yesterday – ¡Gracias! When I get tired of typing nonsensical coding in a small box, I will surely email for your cheat sheet. But so far it’s frijoles frescos. (Used with permission; ©Gill I.)
@bocamp 5:35 pm – Of course! yw = you’re welcome! Much more useful, but still, watch out for those yetis.
@A 10:16 pm last night – Thanks for the amazing yodeling link. That girl was certainly not wary!
Hand up for long solve time - more than double my average.
@Birchbark 919am Perfect analogy.👍👏
@Z 950am Yes! Time-consuming. Having to remember/revisit whateverTF was in the black squares accounted for much of the "effort". Kinda cannibalisticly-likeish that you were eaten by your own name. Ironic, too. 😉
It’s true - misery really does love company.
Solving this puzzle made me miserable enough to ask myself aloud, “where is Nancy’s wall?” Then I read Rex and broke out laughing. Poor guy, he was really bummed. “Boop. Goodbye.”
He doesn’t know how much worse he could’ve had it. I seriously handicapped myself by "getting" my first “themer” in the SE corner; STERNFaced. Right square; wrong, wrong, wrong turn. Should’ve stopped at STERN, but I saw that “F” in STIFFS and had an aha moment; “Unsmiling” = STERNFaced, of course.
Armed with my new strategy of connecting the “-“ entries with a perpendicular beginning, I go back and try to find more. I even outlined in ink where the “-“ answers go. But, no. Zip. Zilch. Nada. I found some beginnings and some endings but couldn’t match them up, because there were missing letters. STERNFaced didn’t have missing letters, right?
Talk about following the path less traveled making all the difference! Hacking through the jungle looking for turns kept me from seeing the now-obvious “just go straight through the black square” solution. In desperation I wrote out the missing letters: SET, RIM, and FLU. (PRAI—OGOD I printed this one!) Saw the trick, started to make headway against all the vague “clues” and esoteric trivia. (Yes, I did even get ZONA/ENZI, so there!)
Finally finished, sans assistance, having found the TEE square and corrected Nfaced to NFIFTY. I even saw, having the missing letters written out, that they were all kinds of shots. With a bad taste in my mouth made worse by content like ‘Innovation in push-ups”/MIRACLE BRA and “First offer”/CAIN, I sought, and found, solace in fellow sufferer Rex who thought he had a hard time. Sheesh!
And now I see it’s National Mimosa Day, and I have the ingredients. I feel better already.
Thanks for the insight on G. I had no idea where thou fit in.
Well! Some people did not do so good on this puzzle, and “resent the smugness” of the solvers who liked it!
Think of the NYTX puzzle as the major leagues of crossword solving. You stepped up to plate at Yankee Stadium and you got a taste of some filthy big-league stuff. You got smoked, three pitches three strikes yer out looking, and you go back to the dugout and complain to everyone how unfair the game is. That’s okay, because you’re being sent back down to Scranton where you can be a real feel-good story in the minors (WaPo, USA Today, New Yorker, etc) or maybe you can go all the way back to T-Ball (People, Highlights, child’s placemat at Red Lobster, etc). I hear Scranton is a lovely and vibrant small former mill-town.
I took longer than average to solve this because it was a nice challenge. Also, I was eating real German brats from the German store that were seared in a cast iron skillet with a whole stick of butter and then dark bocker beer and coarse chopped yellow onion was added and then they steamed covered for five minutes and then uncovered for three and then removed and the butter/beer/onions were reduced and then spooned atop the plated brats (no rolls because Keto babe) with three types of German mustard on the side.
- - -
@Jim in Canada 10:41AM and @Ray Yuen 3:28AM
Move out of the Third World.
well said!
I think it's been asked before, but just to refresh: the only, only meaning of the "-" is to 'connect' that answer to the contiguous one(s)? if so, then the location of 'shot(s) in the dark' is obvious. one just needs to always remember the rule, if such it be. as I read OFL, he didn't.
Is this the worst puzzle ever to appear in the NY Times? I will nominate it as such. Ridiculous cluing. ENZI? Give me a break. ZONA? No one says that. What an utterly joyless slog. It becomes evident there is some gimmick going on, but the is one of the few times I grew increasingly irritated rather than enjoying the solve.
That should have been *deign* to read. I guess autocorrect didn't like my fancy vocab.
Yes, would have been a more descriptive title, but then could not have been recapitulated as two verbatim clues in the puzzle, you see...
@GILL 1151am Greeting cards?? Whimsy art?? How did I miss that?? Would love to see them - or any of your creations - but I'm not falling for that email scam. 🤣
By time @Nancy gets back from her outing, her wall is going to be obliterated. Doesn't seem fair.
Hee, hee... maybe this puzzle separates the ketos from the carb lovers... just sayin'...
Looking forward each Sunday morn to puzzle. Very disappointed in the unsolvability of this one. Be back next week to renew my joy.
Bye the way, HAIR IMPLANT is false. An IMPLANT is putting some foreign object, a hip for example, into the body. HAIR, on the other hand, is transPLANTed from the remaining growing regions (nape of the neck, mostly) to the Friar Tuck shiny dome.
Definitely thought it was a turn the corner puzzle with 78A..had SILI...and then ICON at 79D. Threw me for a bit. Maybe two bits.
Probably posting too late for anybody to read, but a few things:
(1) I enjoyed this for the challenge.
(2) I have my longest streak ever going. 45 days! I was worried that it would come to an end, with two challenging weekend puzzles in a row! But alas! It survives!
(3) PRAISE TO GOD is not a thing. Even in The Handmaid’s Tale the expression is “Praise be.” You’ve got to have the be!
(4) The first themer I got was FLU SHOT and, boy, was I excited! I thought all the themers were going to be various immunizations! It could have been a pediatrician’s crossword dream. Where are you @Loren Muse Smith?!?! I’m sure you could think of some good ones for TDaP, IPV, Hep B! But for real. In this country, vaccines are a victim of their own success. People feel comfortable not giving their kids a Polio shot because they’ve never seen Polio. Because of vaccines. But physicians need to stop bullying people; that changes nobody’s mind. Be compassionate. Provide the information. (Descends from soapbox.)
(5) In medical-speak, the word CRUMP creates a “loud thudding sound” in the treating team’s collective heart. It is used as a verb to indicate that the patient is about to die. e.g. “That kid is about to CRUMP; we need to get central IV access now!”
Have a great week ahead!
Well, I'm really surprised by the negative reactions. This puzzle is a real divider. I struggled and thought I must be too sleepy, but when I figured the theme (with BETTER MOUSETRAP) I loved it.
de gustibus non est disputandum.
I spent the first half of this unusually long puzzle tearing my hair out and fuming at how hard and confusing it was and how all the "-" clues were making a tough solve even harder. Then I got it at "better mousetrap" and spent the next half of the puzzle joyfully going back and forth to see which clues matched up and filling in the ones that I was completely mystified by a minute ago. Now this, to me, is a THEME. Bravo and thank you Mr. DiPietro. The only complaint I have is I feel the two bracketing longer themers (uneducated guess and last ditch effort) were unnecessary and made the actual theme more murky, but all in all I loved this puzzle!
Okay some very nice puzzle building here, and loved learning about CADILLAC. and I really enjoy the hidden letters theme. No so wild, though, about CRUMP, or having both RANUP & ACTSUP, or the clue [Do] in a puzzle where DOER appears as an answer.
More importantly, props for the timeliness of this theme, which asks us to <<>>? I mean, that’s pretty SUPERDUPER. Well done, Joe (yes, DiPietro, but also; Thanks OBAMAS Joe too.)
OR, if you’re a red/tin hat wearer, there’s plenty to support your misinformed, conspiratorial, dangerous worldview: This puzzle, which seems to see nothing wrong including MAILIN ballots, is also screwing with the grid’s dna by injecting tiny hidden letters into it. That’s right—you can see it with your own eyes (kinda): this puzzle is microchipped!
And not only that but it’s taking away some letters’ freedom by making them hide behind a square black mask!
You know what else? Now that You solved it, you can bet you’re gonna be infertile. Which might be okay if that meant you could quit using a SILICONERUBBER. But, you know, ya still gotta watch out for THE CLAP, BRAH.
With you all the way Rex. Even though I sussed out the schtick very early, I was stopped in my tracks several times by the cluing. I'd have most of an answer and sit there looking at the puzzle saying to myself, "Really? He can't possibly want that as the answer. Really??" Yep. Really. Ugh, Bi-ugh, Tri-ugh. Just ugh all the way through.
I think the only part of this one I liked was Beer close to Biers.
Favorite clue/answer yesterday was "Worked in Starbuck's business."
Although Rex may be too critical too often, he is dead on with this one. The theme was not only dense but buried and solving was not fun. Rebus answers are fine, but you can't put multiple letters or words in black squares. I am still hoping for some creative, witty, interesting and FUN Sunday puzzles.
I didn't hate it, and solved it without crying out in pain.
And, as often happens with a puzzle, I learned something new. Doing push-ups has become damned near impossible the older I get. So I've ordered a Miracle Bra.
well... is it a rebus, or a letter string? consider the square as a KEY: are you forced to draw same in the square? or just sorta, kinda, write those three letters?
RIM - it's easy enough to draw, if you have a program that allows it
SET - just a simple Venn Diagram
EAR - easily drawn
ONE - get ONE of those foam finger hands
TEE - any golfer can draw one
FLU - either a syringe or a bit of vomit
so, complaining about multiple letters vis-a-vis a Real Rebus is a non-starter. putting the rebus in a black square is unusual, I guess, but I suspect that lots of solvers never bother to physically write out the 'word' even in open squares. once you know what the entry is, why bother? I just scribbled the rebi in the appropriate margin and continued.
Agree with various previous comments.
ENZI/ZONA is only barely fair because for a western school nickname of _ONA, ZONA is a pretty good guess and ENZI is one of the few possible EN_I names.
I was sure I was wrong about USURP because of the "from" in the clue. That didn't belong there.
I've never heard of most of the different type of shots, so had to solve as if any three letter might be in a black square where the follow-on clue was "-".
Agreed, the clue for BRAH was absurd.
I liked the totally different clue for CADILLAC.
Leo
Great puzzle. Don’t get me wrong—well over my usually Sun solving time and many times when I said, “Screw this, life’s too short.” But I appreciated that this was a wrestling match until the end as opposed to the usual Sun puzzles in which you get the conceit early and it just becomes a slog (death march) to finish the thing. Excellent work, Joe. Don’t let the haters get you down.
this would be a reason to avoid shots.
Just by the way, in Google there are 3.7 million hits for "praise to god" all in quotes and 1.2 million for "praise be to god". So I guess the latter is a thing too.
Leo
Agonizing and lovely. If you didn't get a rush of setatonin when you finally figured out the schtick after struggling through the partial fill-ins, I urge you to get a check-up.
While this had too many short fills for my taste, it nevertheless hearkens back to an earlier golden era (possibly one of my own imagining) of typographic-aided theme construction.
I first thought every "---" was going to be a different word (e.g. "dash", "hyphen", "bleep", etc) that could be represented by "---" but then when I tried out "blank" for a couple the idea of the black boxes being, well, black boxes dawned on me. Strangely the clue I got it on was "Peanuts debut" which I knew on my heart of hearts was 1950, and I had sufficient crosses that I knew it must be so, and backsolved all the schtick answers fairly readily at that point.
Also: the Frank Zappa quote was a favorite witticism among model UN participants of my association in the early 80's, so at least it once was not obscure.
Can we all just take a moment to be grateful for a Sunday puzzle that isn’t built around dad jokes. Yes it was a little annoying they have to tab around to know which are the “-“ clues and to have the rebus squares unfillable, but I’ll take that medicine for a clever puzzle.
I was shocked and surprised defined out I solve the puzzle correctly after filling in the last square. All those crosses that Rex mentioned were question marks for me. Either I was very lucky, or they were all inferable.
Can someone please explain 74 down to me? The only guess I have is that was when morning editions of the paper came out, but that seems late, and I'm totally dissatisfied with my theory. I'm also a work and don't have time to research.
74 down is a themer that continues as 109 down. NINE(tee)NFIFTY is when Peanuts first came out.
Leo
@Anon 1:57 - A perfect example of why counting google hits is not a good way to determine if a phrase is a stand alone “in the language” thing. Here is a typical example of how the quoted words appear, how to give praise to God. In the first two pages of hits the phrase doesn’t appear as a stand alone phrase even once. In other words, drop the “to god” part and you still have a complete thought. On the other hand, PRAISE be TO GOD Even gets it own entry in a dictionary.
@Frantic Sloth - Maybe I should just start putting a Z in all my DNC squares.
I’m going to repeat this because I keep seeing “impressive construction” comments. There are six rebus squares, which is not all that many for a Sunday. Imagine the rebus squares are not black squares. Still impressed? We have six pairs of theme answers that cross at a three letter string that can all be paired with the word “shot.” That is not all that different from many other 21x21 rebus puzzles. Making the “shots” dark is a cute visual pun, but not any more difficult to do than any other Sunday with six rebus squares. If you are really impressed by every rebus puzzle’s construction then okay, this is impressive. But it is not any more impressive than any other Sunday rebus puzzle.
T Trimble "Another annoyance: IT's A HIT which could have been IT'S good, which is what I put in at first."
Please tell me how a baseball announcer's cry of "IT's good" actually works.
And not having any clue of what the PAC-12 is . . . so you don't know or care anything about sports, we get it.
Won't say much since my sentiments have been largely echoed by other people more well-spoken than myself, so I'll be brief. The construction was super impressive. The cluing was excessively hard for a Sunday by a large margin, and ended up making the experience not fun.
The NE-ish area was absolutely awful for my wife and I. MERLE/PAEAN/REEVE was a complete natick. We slogged through it all, but hit a hard DNF there.
Wow, so many people don't like puzzles. They like gimmes. I'll take this every Sunday. Loved every minute of it for 90 minutes.
74 Down continues as 109 Down with the ‘shot in the dark’ black square representing TEE shot. Thus, the answer to when the first Peanuts comic appeared is NINE(TEE)NFIFTY.
@Aelurus
👍
Such a great puzzle! A real work of art. Luckily, I’m taking the afternoon off after an hour’s drive each way to a “live” 5K running race. It was a ball working this one out. My only slight nit was with CRUMP.
So the rebus is hidden in the black, and all six rebus squares carry different words that make perfect sense when tied to the puzzle's title. Now that is something you don't see every day. And the rebus squares are symmetrical in the grid to boot. Fun stuff.
Different. Clever. Challenging. What are you looking for in a crossword if not that? Most enjoyable Sunday solve in ages. Thanks Joe DiPietro.
Reading @Rex I can see how solving on various devices and/or racing the timer could have gotten frustrating. But for the pen to paper crowd this was a blast.
Thanks again Joe,and you too Will Shortz.
Sussed out the theme at BETTER MOUSETRAP but since I had BIPeD instead of BIPOD I thought the down rebus was PRAISE GOD using just the S. That delayed me for a while.
Read all your comments hoping someone would explain why Byway connection is THE.
This section was rude, I wrote FU on my margins as a note to this Xword's creator:
"(the MITE / ATOMS / IOTA section was particularly noisome, but it was bad all over, frankly)"
Filled in as much as a could in paper and could not figure out the "-" clues, so did on the Times' site and after much staring (and checking the puzzle, tbh), did I finally see "build a better mousetrap" and then after much struggle, filled in the rest of the themers, so I finished the damn thing but didn't actually figure out the theme -- shot words in the black squares -- until coming here.
Hated this puzzle
@Bruce
By THE way; a cute clue/answer?
The small bit/small bit/small bits cross was a very clever and condensed bit of crossword construction. The rest was a slog, almost 50 minutes compared to my usual 20-25 for a Sunday
Agree with Rex right down the line on this, but he missed one thing that annoyed me no end: the "-" at 17D was a super red herring. Kept trying to figure out how it fit with the other dashes. Really slowed me down.
Loved and Hated this one.
Ughhhhh. I got the section with "private eyes" filled in first and guess what? The squares around the black one contain all the missing letters. I spent the whole rest of the puzzle looking for a trick about turning corners or dropping down (like into a ditch) or something. Even with the whole bottom half of the puzzle filled out (so I knew I was looking for the letters "flu" in "lap of luxury") I could not figure it out because of the "eyes" misdirect
har. This rodeo evidently kinda had somethin to please and displease everyone...
Some cool stuff:
1. Tricky theme mcguffin. But, hey -- puzzles should go ahead and do that, as long as they don't go totally berserk. This one seemed pretty fair, in that all the stuff hidden "in the dark" were splatzed into symmetrically-placed squares. And all the hidden stuff were consistently kinds of shots, all 3 letters long.
2. MIRACLEBRA & BRAH. SUPERDUPER. CADILLAC.
3. Bonus sorta-themers of UNEDUCATEDGUESS & LASTDITCHEFFORT.
4. 14 U's. Delicious, above-average number.
5. A bar-ownin constructioneer does "shots" for a x-word theme. Duly ironic.
6. Lower-right puzgrid corner don't contain an "S". [A pet peeve of today's constructioneer. See Puz Note.]
Some less admirable stuff:
1. CRUMP. [Sound of @Nancy foldin up x-word & pitchin it at the wall].
2. ENZI/ZONA. M&A guessed ENUI/UONA, U-neducatedly.
3. Not an especially humorous theme. For the long-haul SunPuz themes, M&A still contends that a little humor goes a long way in keepin the solvers interested/engaged/whatevs.
4. Very tricky theme, with stuff hidden from yer view. Speed solvers ain't apt to like that much. See @R(speedy)P's blog documentation, f'rinstance.
5. That ONE-shot themer had a faint trace of Ow de Speration to it. One-shot is in the Official M&A Help Desk Dictionary tho, I'll grant.
6. The lower-right corners of all the other bottom puzgrid sections contain an "S". [yo, @AnoaBob]
staff weeject picks: them 3-letter hidden "shots". Especially the ONE-shot wonder, of course.
Thanx for what musta been a heckuva round of shots to line up all together, Mr. DiPietro, brah. And U about had to do this … Alexander Hamilton wouldn't want U to "waste yer shot".
Masked & Anonymo14Us
**gruntz**
I thought I was having a stroke but Rex set me straight. It was the puzzle! Feel much better, thank you.
I hated it and almost quit. which I never do. bu I plugged away and somehow cracked the code. DIFFICULT. Noticed at ENZI/ZONA... got everything else right butt what a slog. I guess kudos to the constructor for somehow using “shot” related themes.. FLU, EAR, RIM, etc etc But man, it was not enjoyable and tested my patience.
Those Zorn cuts made my day.
Right on.
I have to admit that this one took longer than usual, mostly because after finishing it, I had to tear it out of the magazine, perform a ritual cleansing, run it through the shredder, crumple it into a wad, drive it 100 miles out into the bush, dig a Very Deep Hole, throw it in, pour gasoline on it, light it on fire, fill in the Very Deep Hole, roll a Very Large Rock over the site, drive home chanting "life is good - you will survive this", prepare a microdose and put myself to bed for a nap.
Just kidding of course....it burned well without the need for gas
I should've heeded my wife's warning. She got to it before me, and after only five minutes called across the house "WORST PUZZLE EVER!"
OK, everything's been said. So what?
I loved this one and it seems I'm in a fairly small segment of the commentariat, don't care. This one had a double AHA! for me, once when I finally saw what was going on with all those "shots" in the "dark" squares, and then later when I realized an EARSHOT was not an injection or tequila or something you pour in your ear, but a measure of distance, and an outlier, and the cherry on top of the AHA sundae.
This kind of Sunday puzzle has become a rarity and therefore more enjoyable when they do show up. If every day was Christmas..... and so on.
Thanks for all the fun JD. Just Delightful, you can be on my Sunday All Star Team and bat cleanup. Not often we get a Sundazo.
As the saying goes, “let me be clear.” I went out of my way to trip myself up on this one, and I suffered for it. I also thought some of the clues and entries were less than optimal. But I'll take this over most Sunday NYTXWs. Had a good laugh at my own expense, thanks to Rex sharing my pain. And if I can finish without googling, it can’t be totally impenetrable. Well, ok, now I see I did the same thing as @Roo with chI/cSI/PSI - didn’t know bc I solved on paper. Hey, Roo, we both tried a little too hard turning this way and that! I still like my STERNFaced answer. 🙃🤣 I bet your “word-in-black’ SunPuz was great.
@Carola, thanks for pointing out PAEAN - it does deserve special mention. Congrats on your peppy snail’s pace. Wish I had figured out my “should-have-been-obvious concept” error so I could have graduated from glacial.
@JOHN X, you’re so right - this puzzle was doable if you bring your A game. I would also like to order some of those brats. You inspired my Sunday dinner. We had rolls, though, with a zingy horseradish cheese sauce.
@M & A, great writeup as uusual! Classy ENZI/ZONA alternative u came up with!
@Frantic, you should ask @GILL to share those whimsies. They’re first rate! Pretty sure they’re free of malware, too. 😇
Hope y’all enjoyed your mimosae!
I usually object to Rex’s harsh critiques, but this really was an unpleasant slog. Challenging, but irritating and tedious to boot.
I’m in the great puzzle camp. Took me longer than an average Sunday but so what ? This whole speed solving thing has always baffled me. Growing up in Long Island during the seventies I remember my parents on our living room sofa doing the Sunday Times crossword and acrostic together. I’m sure it never occurred to them to time themselves.Did anyone ? I’m sure this speed thing is a function of the internet era. Hey, whatever floats your boat. I like reading all of the clues. Cheers.
Exact same experience as Jack @6:46. Hard and challenging, but really enjoyed it, even with the natick at Enzi and Zona. Also wrote down the hidden words on paper, thinking maybe they needed to be arranged in some sort of order to spell out a message, not getting the "shot" connection until coming here. Sorry to see so many folks didn't like it - I want more Sundays like this! Great puzzle in my book.
OK ... this was a challenge. Finished, and appreciated the theme ... but the whole thing really did have a shot in the dark theme to it.
Hey @M&A
I just picked up a person named Harr.
Har!
RooMonster Had To Share Guy
Rarely look at puzzle titles. This time “a shot in the dark” might have helped.
Would have hated it, if I hadn’t peeked at Rex’s comments/reveal because I was totally lost.
After getting the theme (from Rex, thank you!) thought puzz and theme were cool and kinda fun (would have been more fun without some of the vague unclever clues.)
It’s fun to get a stumper every once in a while. I learn and hope not to be fooled again. And I will start checking Sunday titles.‼️
🧩🤗😜🌹😜🤗🧩
Haven’t read comments yet. Sorry if this is repitious,
@Deb (6:04 PM)
Enjoyed your post. :)
I admit to clocking the NYT xword, which is purely for tracking my progress over the years. I've pretty much leveled out at this point and may decide to ditch the timing altogether. I do many other xwords and don't time any of them, so your post may just be the wakeup call to action on this one. 🤔
Thx for your thots! 😊
___
0
Peace ~ Empathy ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Hated it. Couldn't finish. Didn't care.
Exactly and more
Oh, stop crying Parker. . . You finally found a puzzle you couldn't solve in 3 minutes, so you rip it to shreds. . . This harkens back to the Eugene Maleska days, when solving times for Sunday puzzles were measured in HOURS not minutes. . . This one should be lauded and applauded. . . not nitpicked. . . BEST SUNDAY PUZZLE in AGES!!
Freaking brilliant puzzle...thanks for the challenge, amazingly I was up to it. OK, so it took a couple of hours, but what fun! Thanks for all the TLC that went into this.
OK..Got most, but couldn't finish. First time in a long time. And did NOT enjoy.
BUT: Please explain the PEANUTS answer? NINE? I don't understand.
I'm baaaack. And I ended up loving it!
Didn't have either the time or the patience this morning for such a demanding and baffling tussle, but tonight I was in no hurry and once I figured out the gimmick, I was in for the long haul. And it was certainly long -- the puzzle took me forever.
I got the gimmick at HAIR IMPLANT/HEDGE TRIMMERS and thought: This is pretty nifty. Once I learned to check whether the clue directly following was a blank or not, I knew where the theme answers would go. I have some nits about parts of the puzzle, but not about the theme set-up and answers. The theme is absolutely brilliant.
My nits are...
CRUMP. CRUMP is an absolute joke. I wanted to give PLAISE TO GOD (didn't you?) which would have given me CLUMP -- an actual sound. But I finally put in the R.
Why on earth is THE a "byway connection"? I don't know what that means. I had THO (I guess I was thinking of a bygone connection. And so I ended up with the ODISON EFFECT. (Never heard of the EDISON EFFECT, btw.)
So a 1-letter DNF -- but in a puzzle this incredibly difficult, that's a moral victory. One of the hardest and most rewarding puzzles I've ever done -- but I bet a lot of people are going to absolutely hate it.
@Nancy
I think it's amusing that you end the paragraph with btw after beginning it with: Why on earth is THE a "byway connection"?
Oh. I see!
Great fun if you have all day to solve it on and off with a partner. The theme was a clever challenge but perfect once figured out. Many of the clues were aha delights. Great fun but...don't have time for such very often.
Nobody refers to the Arizona Wildcats as "Zona" (122 Across). Nobody. You will hear lots of "U of A! U of A!" chants during games, and some "Air Uh Zona! Air Uh Zona!" chants as well, but nobody refers to the team as "Zona." I had U of A as my answer, since it was the only correct 4-letter answer, and that threw me off for a bit.
Agree with the comment about solving on paper. Better experience all around, standard or non standard, every time
Rex hated it. I loved it. Life goes on...
💯
@6:30
a shot in the dark
I read comments from the bottom up after the first troll through, so this may be the only quote. with appropriate capitalization, you get the title of the second Inspector Clouseau movie. bumbling. so apt for this puzzle.
I really liked this puzzle. Meta is bettah. One of the best Sundays in a long time.
Agree!! Keep these coming on Sundays!
Got all day??????
This is a puzzle with a dense, multi-layered, architecturally impressive theme, and I LOVED it. This is the kind of thing I want every Sunday, instead of the inspid "big Wednesday" puzzles inflicted on us, oh, 45 times per year.
Gotta agree that CRUMP is not one I've heard before.
No. Just no.
I love a good rebus and related types of challenges. But SOOOO many completely obscure names and references that were impossible to infer. Those are for Saturday puzzles, not Sunday.
Next.
hi, first of all. didn't realize blogger was still working. happy to learn this. back to business - the only way I was able to finish this puzzle was by my evil genius nightmare sister (who is a twin) figuring out the diabolical black square fiasco. ultimately, we were able to complete the puzzle without cheating. not bragging, just explaining that there were literally 5 brains working on this, many of them geniuses (not me), and we were very upset or screaming for 50% of the second half of the three hours it took us to do this godforsaken puzzle. please, please everyone please tell the nyt this was too confusing for the common idiot like I.
Am I the only one who thought it should be PRAI(SETH)ELORD - I was looking for other SETHs for awhile.. I finally realized (sort of remembered) that the dashes meant I should look at the previous clue. Like others I figured it out at SEL(FLU)BRICATING. Because I had all the letters in SEL—-BRICATING) but I had no idea what to do with the missing letters - since it wasn’t quite a rebus. I’m not good at puns so missed the “shot in the dark” joke too.
And yes ENZI/ZONA was a killer. I had so much of the puzzle filled in - I did have all the connected words except PRAI(SET)OGOD.
I confess that like many, I found this puzzle far more frustrating than fun. I wanted to enjoy it but I just couldn’t. And even when I started getting squares and words filled in I was still IN THE DARK about what was common about the missing letters. I solve using the NYTmes app which shows the clues on the left of the puzzle. Both the acrosses and the downs appear so it’s easy to suss out when clues are related.
Too, too for me. Jeeze I still don't get it.
Hated this so much.
Did not figure out the hidden square thing and just gave up with a bunch of stuff that didn't make sense ("BETTERMOU"?) after trying to fit in rebuses and getting nowhere. Looking up solution confirms I never would have gotten there, what even is a "SET SHOT"?
I loved it. This was the most fun puzzle I've done in a long time! I like a challenge for my brain, that's ... kind of why I do the thing?
DNF. I knew Rex would hate it and the puzzle nerds would love it. Gimmicky. Super Thursday.
I thought this was an indulgence in ego. I solve NYT crosswords every Sunday, but this? This?? Didn't enjoy at all, and my frustration level was outta sight. Stop being so cute with your clues, man.
I had to put it down Sunday night because of the cicadas in my head. By the time I replanetized all the weasels Monday, I was able to fill in most of the monster but BRAH, I tell ya, Yeh! it's quite the achievement but that was a lot of toil for the payback.
I hated everything about this puzzle except “BOOP.”
Agree. Enjoyed the challenge. But this puzzle isn’t for speed solvers…
I thought this crossword was excellent. It was hard, with so many "-" and "?" clues, and a theme that was difficult to uncover; but it was very satisfying when finally solved, precisely because of the challenge.
When Rex writes (as he essentially did today) "this puzzle was really hard for me, so it wasn't a good puzzle", he reminds me of a certain ex-president who said "I lost the election, so it must have been rigged".
I have been doing NYT puzzles for 50 years. This is absolutely the most pathetic, pretentious drivel. I must agree with all the negative comments.
Both the contriver and the editor should be embarrassed.
In what mortal universe is "brah" a synonym for anything ("bra"?)? How about a simple set of rules for clues, "brah"?
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