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Relative difficulty: Medium
Theme answers:
- ANTI / QUE ST / ORES (1, 5, 10A: Shops / Peddling / Collectibles)
- MIRA / CLEO / NICE (35-37A: Historic / Hockey / Upset)
- GARB / AGED / UMPS (54-56A: Waste / Disposal / Locations)
- KALE / IDOS / COPE (76-78A: Dazzling / Pattern / Generator)
- DRAM / A LES / SONS (92-95A: Classes / For / Actors)
- MART / HASTE / WART (115-17A: Home / Decorating / Guru)
Enoch [...] is a biblical figure and patriarch prior to Noah's flood and the son of Jared and father of Methuselah. He was of the Antediluvian period in the Hebrew Bible. [...] Enoch is the subject of many Jewish and Christian traditions. He was considered the author of the Book of Enoch and also called the scribe of judgment. In the New Testament, Enoch is referenced in the Gospel of Luke, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in the Epistle of Jude, the last of which also quotes from it. In the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Oriental Orthodoxy, he is venerated as a saint. (wikipedia)
• • •
I also don't think reading BET / WEE / NTH / ELI / NES really gets at what's going on here. I'm not reading "between" anything. I have to read *across* a series of clues, and then *across* some black squares, but there are no lines between which I am reading [addendum: I’m told the “LINES” are the black-square diagonals … never noticed them]. Maybe I'm supposed to understand that phrase only in the most metaphorical of ways, i.e. I have to read non-literally. OK. But that revealer still feels less than spot-on. The only real difficulty I had today involved the theme, particularly before I figured out what was happening. "How does [Shops] mean ANTI" I wondered, as did probably most solvers in the early solving stages. It took longer than it should have, probably, for the penny to drop (again, I blame the whole puzzle lay-out issue, the expectation that I could see successive Across clues or that I would ever look at them in order—no, never). Then there was one time after I understood the theme where I just got caught unawares by a themer that didn't begin flush left, specifically KALE / IDOS / COPE. I puzzled over [Dazzling] = KALE way, way longer than I should have. I think before that moment all the themers I had started on the far left of the grid. But that was just a hiccup. The journey from 'aha' to the end was mostly just a chore, an exercise in dutifully and methodically filling in boxes, without much in the way of excitement or surprise to brighten the journey.
- 30D: Sound of shear terror (MAA) — this is both bizarre and horrific. You're asking me to imagine the shorn animal screaming out in terror ... and you're asking me to imagine that that animal is a goat? Goats say MAA, right? Sheeps BAA, goats MAA. I feel like these are the rules of American animal sounds. Anyway, the "terror" part of this clue is disturbing and mildly sadistic. I get that you want the "shear terror" pun, but sheesh.
- 38A: ___ Toy Barn (where Emperor Zurg chases Buzz Lightyear) (AL'S) — wow you have vastly overestimated how much I remember about the "Toy Story" universe. The only AL'S I know is from "Happy Days" ... which I know was actually "Arnold's" but I really thought that it got renamed at some point after Al Delvecchio took over as owner ... sigh, 8-year-old me would be so disappointed at middle-aged me's poor memory of this obviously important show.
- 43D: Fourth man to walk on the moon (ALAN BEAN) — wow this answer would've killed me if I hadn't (eventually) figured out the BET part of BET / WEE / NTH / ELI / NES. I had ALAN -EAN and could easily have been convinced that he was ALAN DEAN. I feel like maybe (certainly) people knew all those '60s/'70s astronauts a lot better in and around the '60s and '70s. I think I know an Orson Bean? He's an actor, right? Alan ... I probably heard of him at one point, but it clearly didn't stick.
- 47D: A charismatic person has one (AURA) — ??? This feels like some weird New Age-y nonsense to me. Do you mean "allure?" Because I've known a bunch of charismatic people, but I would never (ever) have said they had an AURA.
- 65D: Makes beloved (ENDEARS) — I had ENAMORS, which is wrong for the clue, but close enough to the clue's universe that it felt right. I didn't have any other missteps in this puzzle that I can remember.
- 95A: Get off berth control? (UNDOCK) — this is only the second NYTXW appearance ever for UNDOCK, possibly because it's a singularly unappealing word. The pun in the clue is good, the answer ... sigh. [Berth control devices?] would be a good clue for MOORING (which has appeared seven times, but not once in the past 20 years) (MOORINGS has appeared only once ever, and that was in 1950 (!?))
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Agree kinda with Rex... the revealer left me scratching my head. However (harrumph) : no naticks (yay!) probably due to the low PPP quotient (double yay!) , and it seemed to me that there was a good balance between gimme's and gotcha's, so I give this puzzle relatively high marks.
ReplyDeleteMedium. I’m not sure how I feel about this one. It was quite sloggy until I caught the theme well into my solve. So...clever and relatively smooth but also more tedious than interesting, liked it more than @Rex did or maybe not?
ReplyDeleteWhat about ‘Adverb repeated in the Star Wars prologue’ - is ‘far’ an adverb there?
ReplyDeleteThat caught my attention as well. An adverb modifies a verb, adjective or another adverb. An adjective modifies a noun. “Away” is an adverb of place, modifying the implied “that is” verb in the phrase “in a galaxy (that is) far far away. So the “fars” are both adverbs modifying the adverb away. Thanks to my 8th grade English teacher Mr. Smith if I’m correct.
DeleteIt’s an adverb in modifying position before the adj “away”; the latter can also double at times as an adv.
DeleteWordle 491 4/6*
ReplyDelete⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
This was the epi-tome of the FTCDTS (Fun to Construct, Drag to Solve) puzzle. I am absolutely in awe of the difficulty in taking this from interesting concept to NYTXW-worthy puzzle. But the solve was like a long water torture followed by a glass of champagne and topped with being assaulted by a gang of Super Soaker wielding maniacs. I can’t tell you how long I stared at 67A NES, clued as “23 answers in today’s puzzle that don’t seem to match their clues.” I said NES out loud every possible way. I I thought about adding or subtracting NE’s in unending permutations. I even thought I must be on to something when I noticed that you could combine NES with IMUS immediately below it and it anagrams to “MINUSES”. This has to be the key, I figured. Yeah, right. So I worked my way through, short answer by short answer, until I probably had 60% of the grid filled, feeling that I might succumb to the water torture and confess my imbecility.
ReplyDeleteThen the cork popped!!! ANTI + QUE = ANTIQUE. How sweet it is! Glug, glug, glug. Please pass the caviar.
The rest was still an obstacle course, but at high speed, leaving me soaked and exhausted.
On xwordinfo, Jeff Chen talks about how hard they had to work to make the lines that the broken words are between. I can’t see the lines. Where are they? Also, this is a solve that would be easier on paper, as you could circle the answers that don’t go with their clues. Doing this, the emerging pattern would be a big help that is not available to online solvers.
Despite my bashing, I really think it was a cool feat of construction and I’m glad to have made it through without cheating or collapsing.
I wish all of the bottom row had been one of the themers: SAT ON MARTHA STEWART.
Thanks for a memorable drag of a puzzle, Daniel Bodily and Jeff Chen.
Worst crossword puzzle ever.
DeleteTotally, ruined my streak
DeleteTerrible - NYT Crosswords are not what they used to be !
DeleteTime to retire Shortz!!
ReplyDeleteAs is so conspicuously bruited in the XWORDINFO Constructors’ Notes, this puz required a Lot of Technical Computing, which might explain why the non-standard solve seems to require Intelligence of the Artificial kind.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, for what it’s worth, l sort of cracked the code by first reading’ the clues sequentially to see if l could discern the clueless cluing conceit that was hinted at. Doing so, l identified the 6 single-word sequences of clues that together comprise the phrases that constitute the themers. (It’s ok if this doesn’t make any sense to you - it took me a while of decidedly non-human intelligence effort). By now I’d used up my Sunday Solving-Effort budget, so l ceased further solving attempts.
I finished the puzzle without ever getting the theme. I just keyed in words that seed to fit with the other letters I had. Both perplexing and a bit boring.
ReplyDeleteSo not fun. Double plus unfun. Solving online, never got the theme. I'm too "inside the lines" maybe. Had to come here to have the theme explained. Still not amused!
ReplyDeleteNo enjoyment here. Quit and BOPped over to the Wall Street Journal puzzle which was much more enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteThis was a dreadful, painful slog.
ReplyDeleteHad to solve this as a themeless - had no idea what was going on! And even with the explanation, it was a fairly unenjoyable puzzle. It's dark and gloomy here in London, maybe that's making it worse...
ReplyDeleteThe long strips of diagonal black squares are the lines.
ReplyDeleteNnnnnno. The responses are not “between” those lines in any meaningful way. In some places they’re before and in some places they’re after. It’s just a missed-the-mark revealer.
DeleteIt took me longer than it should have to get what as going on … a slog for a while — but it was one of those puzzles where. as soon as you figure it out, you fly through it. The theme was pretty clever and I enjoyed it in the end.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe penny dropped at 1/5/10A and 63/64/65/66/67A, where I had enough of the answer(s) from crosses to get ANTIQUE STORES from Shops and BETWEEN THE LINES from READ, but I thought that was it. I was almost done when the dime dropped and I belatedly realized what was going on. So the progression was confused slog -> mini Aha -> slog -> Aha -> finish up.
An unfortunate bad choice on PILAF at 28D almost cost me my (minimal) streak. That went uncorrected until I failed to get the happy music. Like @Rex, my poor synapses have better things to remember than a minor plot element of a movie I may or may not have seen.
What a bunch of crankypants today ..I was sure I was going to see "Wow, two good Sundays in a row!". I suspect that for those of us who do it on paper, it was a very different experience. I start in the southeast, bop around the grid tackling the northwest last. For me, this was a rare case where the construction cleverness dovetailed with the solving experience. I agree somewhat with Rex about the "MAA" clue but I guess it's the equivalent of a young child going for his or her first haircut.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, a fun solve for me.
@Matthew B – yay! Hold a seat for me, I’ll be right there.
ReplyDeleteI have to state unequivocally that I absolutely loved this.
Jeez Louis. I’m used to disagreeing with Rex, but *everyone*? After seeing Jeff was involved, I vaguely noticed those tilted lines in the middle and figured there’d be some grid art Chenanigans. But between that thought and solving, I completely forgot about the lines.
I can see what y’all are saying about it being a slog – the solve was tedious – but I was so mystified that I soldiered on blindly filling in some acrosses based on their down cross. (As such, I have to complain that ALAN BEAN/BET was a pre-reveal full-on natick.)
Here’s the thing: I finished and Still didn’t understand. I felt like I was in an epic Death Match with this damn thing, determined to figure it out. I looked at the stuff before and after the words, never considering looking at the entire row. I looked at the letters in the words’ clues. I looked to see if the words shifted directions. I looked on the back of my paper - Chen’s that sneaky. I looked under the couch. Then, Eureka: I changed it from ALAN Dean to ALAN BEAN and finally finally finally saw the reveal. Even then, my brain wouldn’t crawl out of its Saturday food hangover (new Cuban restaurant with Yuca Frita, Midnight Sandwiches, Ropa Vieja. . .)
I tell you, when those phrases materialized, my relief was at once magnificent and delicious. The mother of all aha moments in that it was a three-stage BAM BAM BAM.
1. See the phrases.
2. See the stacked trios of clues for them.
3. Remember the lines I had noticed what seemed weeks ago.
I was utterly delighted, delighted that it all had been so obvious the whole time. So elegant – “Historic Hockey Upset” – MIRACLE ON ICE. Wow, wow, wow.
Daniel, Jeff – this is a tour-de-force, and one I will never forget. Bravo.
As if I needed another reason to come to this blog primarily to read your comments LMS, you write this. While nearly everyone here is messing themselves over this wonderfully clever and ultimately rewarding head scratcher of a Sunday, I came away so elated I literally said to myself, "I don't care one bit that Rex is gonna hate this.". Lovely to see a kindred spirit, though not at all surprised.
DeleteI enjoyed this puzzle also.
DeleteSo many Sunday puzzles are a slog, but not this baby. I LOVED it. That Baa sound we heard was the puzzle speaking. It was the GOAT.
DeleteHated it. So inelegant and un-fun.
ReplyDelete“So not fun” sums it up. Or, as Queen Victoria would have said about this, “We are not amused.“
ReplyDeleteI got about 1/3 of the way through, saw what was going on, and—for the first time ever—pulled the plug.
What a nice themeless this could have been with straight up clues to the tricky dicky doo entries. The title, "to be continued', told me roughly what would be going on. I tried working around it and completed most of the west half. Then my self said, "HEY! why are you wasting your time on this slog?" So I stopped. MHO is that JC likes feeling clever. There had to be something better than this available, or maybe not.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Matthew and LMS here. I was in awe, and I had fun. Yes, it's a construction feat but I had fun even though I was scratching my head so much, half my hair fell off. Since I solve 99% of my Sundays on paper, I think this made it more enjoyable; I agree that solving online is a different experience.
ReplyDeleteI think FAR modifies "away" in "far, far away"... that's the only way to make this an adverb.
I was held up for a while at 85A ("Noel" instead of BDAY) and 90A ("Pass" instead of POOR).
But, I have to agree that BAA would've been better than MAA for "shear terror."
And forgive my rambling... at this time of year, "Shear Terror" might evoke a new Jamie Lee Curtis (or Sigourney Weaver) horror movie with the tagline, "At the barber, no one can hear you scream..."
Not that difficult. Not much fun.
ReplyDeleteI love a puzzle that takes a long time to finally figure out the theme. I get that Rex is frustrated when he’s trying to speed solve, but most of us are just tying to finish it- however long it takes.
ReplyDeleteI got the READ BETWEEN THE LINES fairly early and still had no idea what that was getting at. MARTHA STEWART, at the very bottom, made me smile. When I saw MIRACLE ON ICE I was shaking my head—stunned disbelief! Loved it! What a great ride!
Thx, Daniel & Jeff; stellar effort! :)
ReplyDeleteMed.
Somehow managed to finish without a dnf. Still trying to grok all the themers, tho. [ok, got it; very clever!]
Semi-malapop at LOOM, where I wanted HARP, but didn't insert it.
Pleased to have recalled TCBY.
I remember exactly where I was for the 'MIRACLE ON ICE: a downtown Vancouver bowling alley with the students; TV playing in the background.
Noticed that OPENING CEREMONY crosses the aforementioned 'M.O.I.'.
Mossberg's Sat. Stumper played like a med-hard Croce (or 5 x my Sat. NYT' time); the SW took forever.
Off to the NYT' Acrostic (didn't have time for it after yd's Sat. Stumper); will see if it's as easy for me as it was for @Joe & @JC66.
Loved this early a.m. workout! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Rex's reaction to the theme pretty much mirrored mine. Feh! And all the short fill, double feh!
ReplyDeleteFWIW, ALAB BEAN was the astronaut artist, as in, the dude had a second career. So once I had a few crosses, I could fill his name in without remembering what Apollo mission he flew. But I am now looking at a list of all the men who have walked on the moon, and about half of them, I'm like, "Who?" And that said, work for NASA.
I saw Jeff’s name on this one and was hoping we would go for sterling cluing rather than a gimmick puzzle. Realized early on that this was not the case, so just kept plodding along (and plodding along), hoping that the gimmick would reveal itself to me - unfortunately that never happened and I eventually ran out of squares.
ReplyDeleteSo I basically got a practice round in today - started with a shoot around by just wondering around the grid and solving the standard crosswordese - and then tried to come up with things that looked like viable answers to the entries with the gibberish clues.
Tough puzzle for a NYT Sunday - the concept seems more amenable to a Friday or Saturday from a difficulty perspective. I’m a pretty experienced solver and have even finished a half-dozen Sunday grids with no cheats, and this theme made my hair hurt, even after Rex explained it about as clearly as it can be explained. It’s obvious that Chen loves what he does and from a construction perspective it obviously really shines. It comes up short from the solvers perspective for this solver at least.
I’m somewhere in the middle it seems here. The chicanery fell quickly - like @NYDenizen parsing the clues sequentially worked for me. It was MIRACLE ON ICE that did it for me. That said - the center diagonal stacks of 3s and 4s were ridiculously tedious and seemed like never ending. The necessary result of the deep rooted trickery - but unbearable nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteThe two 15 downs were a nice aside - and I liked IM NOT A ROBOT AND NICE AND SLOW. The rest of it gets lost in the shuffle - good or bad we’ll never know because who cares.
Apollo 11 rightfully gets all the credit - but BEAN and Apollo 12 was pretty neat too. The HBO doc does a nice job explaining things.
IRIS Dement
Incredible chops to build this one - the fun factor did not follow.
Well, to me, the test of a puzzle is "How was the solve?", far more than "How impressive was the construction?" I’ll get to that first question in a moment, but I do want to address the second.
ReplyDeleteI’ll just touch on one aspect, the fact that the theme answers are symmetrical. That means, for one thing, the word patterns of the symmetrical theme answer pairs have to match, i.e., the (4)(5)(4) pattern of ANTI QUEST ORES matches that of MART HASTE WART. That’s just one difficult element of putting this together, but trust this Xword-nerd, this had to be a beast to construct, and I offer high praise for the result! I also marvel at the brilliance of spreading the theme clues over three answers.
Okay, the solve? Terrific for me! After running into a good number of non-fitting clues, I had faith that I’d figure it out if I just kept filling in squares. I produced myriad blobs, islands, and patches of fill-ins, with no theme enlightenment until, out of the corner of my eye, I saw ANTIQUE bridging ANTI and QUEST. Then the curtains parted and my inner being echoed with a huge “Hah!” (and a touch of “Also sprache Zarathustra”).
Thus, I was deliciously motivated through half the puzzle to figure out the theme, then in a glorious dash, I splashed in the rest.
Plus, I liked seeing IDOS, which evoked yesterday’s NEARLYWEDS, and I applauded seeing a new and very good clue for ETA, a word that has appeared in the NYT puzzle more than a thousand times.
A terrific outing. Thank you, you two, for all you put into this!
I’m another rare voice in support of this puzzle. Here’s the story. I was in the dark until the last 5 minutes of the solve. I’d been doing my usual BOP-around-the-grid, filling in here and there. I hadn’t the slightest idea of what was going on until suddenly I saw GARB/AGED/UMPS, checked back with the sequence of the three clues, and there it was – a tremendous earth-shaking, window-rattling AHA! After that I was able to go back and fill in the themers that were still incomplete, but I was so close to being finished that there wasn’t much left to do. Yay! I had the sense that I’d overcome a mighty foe and I was delighted about it.
ReplyDeleteThe solve had started badly. I do read the across clues one after another to begin (and I solve online), but I tumbled to absolutely nothing when I read those for 1A, 5A and 10A. In fact, I got nothing at all until I hit 29A [“Person of the Year” magazine], made an error at 34A, yorkIE for WESTIE [White terrier, informally], and went back and filled in ODIN at 25A [One-eyed war god], being none too confident that I’d identified the right deity. This was not going well, so I started working on the NE corner and got the very easy down answers, ACHY and RAY, and then OPENING CEREMONY with no crosses, which enabled me to complete the corner and then start working my way down the eastern seaboard. I had spotty success, but ran into the ends of 3 themers plus the revealer, none of which I could get. But seeing the clue for NES, 67A, [23 answers in today’s puzzle that don’t seem to match their clues] told me just what I was up against. By this point, I hadn’t filled in a whole lot, but I knew what was going to happen 23 times. Help!
In the end I had to look up two things, so my victory lap should be tempered by the knowledge that really I had a DNF. I can never remember Don IMUS (although I think he’s been in the puzzle before – [checking…] yup, 15 times in the last 10 years – damn!) and my car knowledge, with a couple of exceptions, is about on a par with @Nancy’s, so I had to google for KIA SEDONA. But given the puzzle’s difficulty level (which I’d put at Challenging rather than Rex’s Medium), I don’t feel too badly about my cheats. And hooray for sussing out the seemingly unsussable!
I had a historic chuckle over 85A's BDAY [Xmas, for Justin Trudeau]. In 1971, there was much sardonic merriment over Pierre Elliott Trudeau's firstborn arriving on Christmas Day ("Hah! I guess our Prime Minister really IS God!"). And then on December 25 two years later, his secondborn, Sacha, followed suit!
It was a much better puzzle than our moderator, "Krossword Karen", describes. A few minutes of mental calisthenics is all I expect from a newspaper puzzle which Bodily and Chen delivered with this one.
ReplyDeleteUGH. Just UGH. Zero enjoyment in this one.
ReplyDeleteUsually, I can do Sunday as a fill-in-the-blanks while I am doing something else. This one I tried to do (unsuccessfully) while watching my hometown baseball team (the Padres) get thrashed, followed by my alma mater, Cal, being humiliated (again).
ReplyDeleteMy personal bummer trifecta.
No fun. The constructors can fold this puzzle five ways and put it where the monkey put the cracker, as far as I care.
ReplyDeleteSolved on paper (always on Sunday) which made it much easier to see the clues as a group. I remember thinking right off the bat that there were an awful lot of single word clues... and shops and peddling seemed related.
ReplyDeleteNot until here did I realize I finished with errors. Had atHOME, because I know nothing about sports and PHa could work, since a is the last letter, and didn't know Alan BEAN so he could just as easily have been BEAt.
Today the acrostic!
Put me in the 'Wow, what a genius concept!'group. Never seen anything like it, and the Aha, when it finally came at DRAM ALES SONS was well worth the long and confused struggle. Yes it's uncomfortable to be in no man's land of 'what the hell is going on here', but the payoff was excellent. Bravo!
ReplyDelete@NYDenizen for the win.
ReplyDeleteMy online version doesn’t even give the title of the puzzle, so no help there. Never got the trick. Just slogged. Sigh. But, yay, I remember Alan Bean!
ReplyDeletePenny never dropped on the theme for me. It became apparent that whatever was going on was in the acrosses, so mostly ignored those, which made the solve pretty difficult. I think Rex is right that the theme would be more discernible for paper solvers.
ReplyDeletefasLANES for EXITLANES was my biggest error. Tried “aha” for “Stellar!” and that made two of the three acrosses “work” as words with no connection to their clues (OafS and ThaI), but I couldn’t make sense of OasN for the third across so something had to give.
Agree with Rex and really agree with eggs for breakfast. Far too cute for its own good. Tried too hard. Only positive was a few interesting longish downs. I stopped even reading the across part. Lots of short across fill, some of which were nonsensical parts of the overly cute thematic structure.
ReplyDeleteI really don’t get the idea of between the lines. It seems like it’s between the columns. Didn’t like this one at all.
ReplyDeleteExtreme reactions to the puzzle. Just reactions, which is different that rating the puzzle good or bad. I liked the puzzle. I would rate it as good. On to the new home of the NY Philharmonic for my first look at the renovation.
ReplyDeletePainful. The NYT used to include helpful hints and that's before on-line solving became so prevalent. I never do the puzzle on paper anymore. Would it really have made a difference? I'm skeptical.
ReplyDelete"...It's the constructor showing off—I don't really discover anything myself," sez Rex.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
A slog, a lot of junk short fill, and no fun at all.
The Sunday puzzle is fast becoming my least favorite of the week.
Gimme back my 12¢.
ReplyDeleteUniclues:
Should've taken the day off before undertaking this horrendous puzzle, or more aptly, those who wrote a pile o' poo.
DANIEL BODILY AND JEFF CHEN
I "got" the trick after a bit, but overall I felt this was an absolute dog's dinner of a puzzle. Not enjoyable, and not worth the slog for me.
ReplyDeleteSecond time in about ten days that I said "Screw this" halfway through. Only shred of enjoyment this morning was @LMS' "Chenanigans".
ReplyDeleteI'm in the "thought the slog was more than worth it" camp. Had much of the grid filled before I realized the theme, which came about when I noticed GAR/AGEd (hello, @Barbara S) could be connected to the clue for 54A (Waste). But what about that straggling d? Aah, DUMPS! (Waste Disposal Locations).
ReplyDeleteBut it still took me some time to identify all 23 of the "nonsense" answers.
I persevered, and got my online "Congratulations!" with nary a single "cheat." (I don't ever look up an answer, and very, very rarely "ask a friend." If I can't complete a solve, I simply resort to the Check Word/Puzzle or Reveal Word/Puzzle and accept my dnf.
Like @Rex, I didn't notice the "lines" that were there to read BETWEEN until it was pointed out. Very impressive!
I enjoyed the puzzle -- it did not do Bodily harm, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteLMS: Love "Chenanigans."
I was impressed that each theme segment stood alone, e.g., MART HASTE WART. I will never think of Martha Stewart the same again.
But doesn't NES at 67A violate that? How does NES stand by itself?
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteSo here's the puz that the people want. I've read on here multiple times about not highlighting the Themers, we're smart people, we'll figure it out. Well, apparently, I'm not a smart person, cause I had absolutely no frickin clue what in the world was going on. Give me some shaded squares! Give me some circles! Give me some asterisks in the clues! Something. Stop taxing my brain, which isn't what it used to be. 😁
Haven't read y'all yet, gonna go back and see who says "it was great without shaded/circled/highlighted squares/clues." And who said, "what in tarhooties is going on?" (Add me to the latter.)
Many an ARG! as I couldn't figure out the Themer-Lines. Even with the Revealer clue help (which didn't help see the single word succession clues), I was clueless (har!). Some of the regular cluing was vague also. Did figure out the Downs had nothing to do, theme-wise. So concentrated on them to try to solve this thing. Was getting antsy, so hit Reveal Word on both MAA and EGO. And still had about eight wrong letters in when done. Dang.
Puzzlingly puz today. Funky Blocker pattern, which is apparently the "lines" you're supposed to "read between". Or the answers that are between the lines. Or something. My brain hurts.
Have an ETAT AKEB DAY.
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Nothing new age-y (nonsense or otherwise) about AURA and charismatic. Not an uncommon idiom in certain kinds of writing, "He had an aura about him that made people notice when he came into a room."
ReplyDeleteA small editing nit, regarding 62A: The NIH does not set Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA). These have been determined for 80 years by a board that is part of the National Academies, which is a nonprofit NGO.
ReplyDeleteInteresting!!
DeleteI hated this puzzle. I had to come to Rex's blog after I finished it to find out what the heck the theme was, as the light bulb never went on over my head. And Rex is right; the 'maa' clue is horrific.
ReplyDeleteOh, good grief, I am so happy that I decided to bail on this puzzle!!! And early on, happily, when I was only a WEE bit miserable -- not later when I would have been thoroughly miserable.
ReplyDeleteI knew something was "to be continued" but I had no idea what. When clues don't match their answers, the NYT has trained me to look for something tricky about the clue itself. It's an anagram!!! One letter's been changed!!! But that didn't seem to be what was happening here...and it wasn't.
So I came here to find out what the bleep was going on. And now I know and I didn't have to continue to suffer in order to find out. Thank goodness for the invention of the crossword puzzle blog.
Terrible. Absolutely terrible.
ReplyDeleteChen was right in his write-up about “sniffing our own butts.” It reeked of self-indulgent stench.
This was a puzzle that seemed a constructors’ ego trip of attempted cleverness that was no joy whatsoever to try to solve. Which I didn’t. Not even close.
And when I finally found what they had done, far more WTF than AHA.
As Comic Book Man on Simpsons would review: Worst. Sunday. EVER.
Like most of you here, I didn’t enjoy this puzzle much. Unlike most of you here, I found it very challenging. I ended up bailing on it. I gathered that they were 23 clues that wouldn’t make any sense initially. And I didn’t know what those were. Since I didn’t figure out the theme, I wouldn’t know which they were. So I was never sure how hard I should be figuring out a clue, because I wasn’t sure if it would make sense in the end, even if I got it right.
ReplyDeleteNow that I see what it was, I do think it was incredibly well done. But I really struggled with it.
I thought it was awful. Did not enjoy this at all.
ReplyDeleteWow - great puzzle! The lines are not the diagonals they are the verticals between the themer words. Not only, as Lewis notes, do the themers symmetrically go from 4/5/4 to 4/4/4 to 3/3/3 to 4/4/4 to 4/5/4 the number of squares in the verticals lines that separate the themer words symmetrically go from 3/3/3 to 2/2/2 to 3/2/2/3 to 2/2/2 to 3/3/3. Great engineering feat and great puzzle!
ReplyDeleteFun to figure out, lots to admire in the construction, engaging all the way for me. I solved in the mag, finding my entry in the NE at AROMA x OPENING CEREMONY, and then proceeding down the right side of the grid, and thus needing to back into the theme answers. I thought the way they were "continued" across 3-5 real words and were so nicely disguised was ingenious.
ReplyDeleteI especially loved the combination of KALE + IDOS + COPE, but the hardest - and last - for me to see was the very first, across the top row. I had tried to get into the "Collectibles" part via the crossing "???? LANES" ("fast?" "left?"), an exercise in futility...until I got things figured out. So: hats off to constructors: even though I'd seen through the theme long since, they still managed to fake me out at the end. A fine and fun exclamation point.
Count me among those who liked this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteMy breakthrough came at GARB/DUMPS.
I didn’t see the lines on the grid, but the listed clues are easily viewable together on the NYTXW app, so I differ with Rex there, re digital solving. That said, I never thought to look for the connected clues that way. Going back to where things didn’t make sense, or were incomplete, ANTI/QUEST/ORES was next, and OMG for MIRACLEONICE! I'd never have known that! What a great phrase!
Seeing the trick allowed me to complete the puzzle. In particular the central revealer, which didn’t help me nearly as much as the title did. The only thing I knew for sure was that 23 !!! words were involved.
I also liked the clue for OCTOPUS.
Was this supposed to be fun? Sure wasn't for me, even after I came here to discover what the gimmick (and metagimmick and metametagimmick) was/were. I'm still not sure I understand it. Horrible waste of a Sunday morning.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the puzzle was today's Wordle writ large. First two guesses in Wordle all gray, then three correct letters, then all correct.
ReplyDeleteHad no idea for a long what was going on in the theme areas - lots of empty clusters in the crossword grid. Believe it was DRAM ALES SONS before the bulb lit up. Early on saw ice nearly the hockey clue, but didn't suss out the hat trick of clues.
Didn't loathe it, didn't love it. On to the other games.
I could not for the life of me figure out the gimmick. I almost completed and started trying to decipher the theme. No dice. Until I noticed BETWEENTHELINES. Then I looked for more little bitty words in the clues and answers and Voilà! Triumph points for me as I uncapped the highlight marker and ran a neon yellow stripe across all the theme answers and circled all the theme clues. Medium? No way. Not for me. Maybe if you got the gimmick right off the bat. I would say this one is one of the most challenging Sundays in some time. Extremely frustrating at first, and then strangely fun, once you solve the theme.
ReplyDeleteI finished this (with a few mistakes, like ALAN dEAN -- bad guess) with no idea what was going on. None whatsoever. I stared and stared and tried all kinds of things... were the (nonsensical) answers missing a TO or a BE (as in the 'TO BE CONTINUED' theme)? Were they missing an NES, given the clue of 67A? Or some "ANY's (NE=any, maybe)? Nope. Nothing, nothing, nothing. After reading Rex, I see, oh, okay, that's how it works. But a Sunday puzzle where the theme remains utterly invisible (even if there's some clever construction) isn't really my idea of a good time.
ReplyDeleteMy main beef is that the online version did not include the title “To Be Continued”—that appeared only in the info pop-up, which I try to avoid. And the clue that *23 answers* would not fit their clues was daunting. At first they looked like gibberish, but post-solve, when I realized each piece of the puzzle was an actual word that “could have been clued appropriately”, I was really impressed! (5A QUEST was probably the first “word” I saw there, just by the crosses, and I was almost convinced “peddling” had an archaic meaning or something.) If they had been “correctly” clued, there would’ve been some sweet Easter Eggs this morning!
ReplyDeleteThe first …/…/…/ I got was BETWEEN THE LINES, which spanned the whole grid, so I expected others to also, but instead they each had an “extra” word in front or back (forced by the diagonal lines, but I only saw that post-solve.) NICE to have so few PPPs. VERY NICE to see clues for both Aeneid & Iliad, my 2 favorite epics. (And for all the CAPTCHAs I’ve filled in, I was sure 4D was I aM NOT A ROBOT, which really made me mad til I checked this blog to be sure)
For the first time in years, I bailed about halfway through the puzzle and finally came here to see what was going on. I’m impressed by the construction and love the MART HASTE WART themer, but this sure was no fun to solve. Oh, Sunday, why dost thou always torment me so?
ReplyDeleteI’m with the minority LMS camp today. . . didn’t LOVE it (like Thursday and Friday’s masterpieces) but enjoyed it more than most Sundays, keeping in mind that the bar is low. I didn’t find the “gimmick” that hard to grok, and I solve on an iPad. Today’s comments here seem particularly venomous. Is it something in the air? Looming elections, inflation, Ukraine, mass murder, Britain, what?
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very good puzzle. Fun to solve, with a theme that is interesting to figure out. No complaints from me. Except for 30D, MAA. Had to have something to complain about, after all.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that the ANTIs here are the online solvers; the rest solve on paper, as I DO.
ReplyDeleteNope. I solve on paper and really dislikes this one.
DeleteAdd me to the NO votes. I can't remember the last time I just gave up and quit. Years and years ago. Trying to read the explanation at xwordinfo made the experience even worse.
ReplyDeleteI don't post often, but having thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, I wanted to add another "yes" to those liking it. This was so polarizing, it might be of interest, when all is said and done, to tally and compare the two extremes.
ReplyDeleteUgh, this was a slog. Maybe this would have worked 15 years ago when most people solved on paper? The theme was tough to see on the app and I had to come here to see what the gimmick was.
ReplyDeleteI actually liked all of the long answers and even knew the Usher song with a few crosses and INDONESIA with no crosses. It’s a shame about the theme.
I had TEETH for headset
ReplyDelete@howardk 12:45pm:
DeleteExcellent wrong answer!
I had teeth for headset
ReplyDeleteJust to add some levity today, I recommend the 1994 parody of Martha’s magazine, Martha Stewart Living. It was called “Is Martha Stewart Living?” The one article that sticks in my mind was titled something like “Make Your Own Water from Scratch.”
ReplyDeleteN.E.S. NOT ELSEWHERE SPECIFIED
ReplyDeleteWell this is clearly a puzzle where app solvers who don’t see the title got punished- or maybe rewarded. I tried for a long time to figure out what NES had to do with the answers that made no sense, like ANTI. I got nothing and just kept solving using the straightforward down clues. But I could not get anything using downs in the north central area, and then I thought, “Oh yeah, Sunday puzzles have titles that I never see - better check the info link.” And voila, as soon as I saw “to be continued,” I went back and looked at a string of nonsense answers and saw GARB AGED UMPS. Then I had real fun finishing the only ones I didn’t have — ANTI QUEST ORES and MIRA CLEO NICE — and figuring out the long answers I did have. And finally the revealer line. So add me to the thumbs-up minority despite my being befuddled for most of the solve.
ReplyDeleteI chuckled at one down because whenever I am not sure about whether I will do something I probably shouldn’t do (have a second cookie, take a nap on a workday, binge another episode), I often go ahead, saying to myself in the sternest possible judge voice: “I’ll ALLOW it.”
I guess I'm the odd ball cannon here. I will tell you why I didn't do my usual eschew Sunday. Gesundheit...
ReplyDeleteI saw Jeff Chen had a hand in this and I like his puzzles. I was curious. Should I give it a try and maybe end up with a fandango tango, or should I go do laundry.
I did the fandango tango and pleased that I found an ANTI QUEST ORES of my liking. I had to tip-toe in and maybe stare at all the goodies before I found the Tiffany Lamp. So that's the gimmick I cried. AND I LOVED IT!. I haven't skated in years but I really felt like this was a MIRA CLEO NICE. What a clever idea. How did they do this? Why did I enjoy it so much? Maybe I'm a sadist at heart?
I'm sorry so many of you didn't share my joy. I sang through the puzzle. I actually wanted more. I'll remember this puzzle because it was so different...from ANTI to WART....
May I suggest doing your puzzle on paper with an erasable pen!
LION ENOCH ODIN and HYENA entered a bar........
DIF FER ENT. MAN DAL IKE SIT SORTA.
ReplyDeletestaff weeject picks: Clearly, hafta go with: BET, WEE, NTH, ELI, NES. They kinda get more desperate, as U progress across the row.
fave fill selections: SEC TIO NED. IND ONE SIA. ADDS UP TO. IMNOTAROBOT. The bajillions of little words, some of which were bigger ones in disguise.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Bodily and Chenmeister dudes.
Masked & Anonym007Us
**gruntz**
Loved it. Solving in the app made it harder to see the gimmick, and when it finally clicked I laughed out loud. I’m surprised by the number of commenters who didn’t enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I think Rex is too damn good at crosswords to get a whole lot of enjoyment out of them, or as much enjoyment that a lot of other people get.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it took me well longer to decipher the theme than it took him, and the revelation didn't come in one fell swoop. At some point I saw that GARB/AGED/UMPS meant that some of the answers were to be continued, but it took a little longer to see that the accompanying clues were also to be read as part of that continuation. (I do the puzzle online.) Finally, the only question was which clue starts the given sequence, but Bodily and Chen helpfully applied the usual constraint of crossword symmetry to those sequences -- and it helped me to see that. In the end the puzzle provided a satisfying level of resistance, and I thought it was well constructed and architectural. I'll bet a lot of short fill was unavoidable, given the type of puzzle it was.
I'm glad JDC spoke up about AURA. People do use this word this way without a hint of New Age. It has to do with a certain indefinable something that sets those who have it apart.
There's ASS again. How many days in a row is that? It occurs to me that ASS and boob are synonyms.
Good question someone asked: in what way is NES a standalone answer for a crossword? Some initialism?
Never heard of the MIOCENE Epoch.
ARG and MARTHASTEWART bring to mind Martha Argerich, whom I love. My daughter Lydia is learning Ravel's Sonatine; here's Argerich playing it. Beautiful. As far as I know, she's still going strong (she's over 80 now).
Some people are saying the Acrostic today was really easy. I'd say easy to medium. I've certainly seen easier. Today's SB was also on the easier side.
I'M NOT A ROBOT, I keep telling them.
Started it at 7:00 AM, finished it at 1:20 PM (with the spelling bee, church and lunch in between). I couldn't figure out why NES represented answers that didn't fit the clues. Fortunately I discovered ANTIQUESTORES by accident, then DRAMALESSONS, and the rest was dealing with fill.
ReplyDeleteI agree that MAA is a bad answer. The clue suggests sheep, so BAA would make sense.
Got the trick pretty quickly and agree that it was just a slog after that. Rarely solve on paper but it is an unusually lovely October day in Western NY so I sat on my deck! Probably would have had a harder time with the app.
ReplyDeleteEmily Dickinson did it first: In her poem "Further in summer than the birds," she begins a line with "Antiquest felt at noon - " Generations of graduate students have struggled to decide whether she meant "most antique" or "a contrary sort of quest." Maybe Jeff Chen was one of those students.
ReplyDelete❤️
DeleteNES
ReplyDeletehas been in the NYT';s puzzle many times. It stands for Nintendo Entertainment System.
I rarely agree with Rex (in fact this may be the first time) but I completely agree this time. It was a dreary morning here and I was so looking forward to coffee and the puzzle and the puzzle was just a hot mess. I solve on paper and it was no better than Rex describes the online experience as being.
ReplyDeleteDiego 12:08
ReplyDeleteI was far more venomous last night when I gave up on this polarizing clever/awful ordeal. Couldn’t wait to come here this morning and launch why I despised this so. I mean it’s only a crossword!
But happy to see others shared my dislike - and happy that some found it good. To each their own.
And was calm enough by sunrise that I was almost not going to comment here but Chen making the “sniffing each other’s butt” was too much of a setup to ignore.
The Sunday is supposed to be at Thursday level and fun for people who don’t go to Rex blogs to have “what the hell was that?” explained. On that level, regardless of the construction complexity and competence, it failed bigly!
@egs 12:47 – there was also a follow-up, "Martha Stuart's Better at Entertaining Than You", which included menus for all the Catholic holidays. Best was the Circumcision Day menu. For Easter, Martha changed the water she had made from scratch into wine, which her guest the Pope was unable to do.
ReplyDeleteUnsurprisingly, the Catholic League was not amused.
“ The gimmick is clever, but this was no fun to solve. Once you see what the hell is going on, the only interesting thing about the puzzle is laid bare, and all you're left with is an absolute ocean of short fill to slog your way through.“
ReplyDelete^This. Bang on. I hated nearly every second I wasted on this puzzle.
Absolutely hated this. Such a disappointment for the the highlight of my Sunday.
ReplyDeletePut us in the "enjoyed it, but struggled " category. We solve together on paper and have seven and a half decades of experience.
ReplyDeleteAgree it was a slog...No joy... All the theme answers were so disjointed and outdated. Starting with ANTIQUES STORE, then a sports phrase from 40! years ago, GARBAGE DUMP (Yuk), a toy kids don't play with anymore, DRAMA LESSONS, and 81 year old MARTHA STEWART. The young solvers really must be scratching their heads!
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the concept and how the individual answers were executed well but the reveal doesn’t really basil it. Could have been a hop skip and a jump, connect the somethin’ something’ but no not between the lines. Like the homage to MRACLE ON ICE!
ReplyDeleteI’m in neither the “hated it” nor the “loved it” camp. It was okay. Not nearly as good as the couple we had earlier in the week that were so fresh and sparkled, but the short fill could have been a lot more gunky, there were a couple of lovely longer ones, and some original and clever clues showed up as well.
ReplyDelete(And count me among the “yes, ALAN BEAN is perfectly familiar to me and I was delighted to see him today” contingent. Perfectly understandable that others would be baffled though.)
No amount of explanation can assuage my unhappiness over the revealer though. Yes, I see the lines in the grid. (I can in fact see more than one way you could interpret the “lines” here.) In no conceivable fashion are we reading the answers in question between those lines. It is in fact the opposite: you have to read across or through the lines as if they weren’t there.
Consider for example if I present this line:
WASH-123-ING-456-TON
and say you have to read “between the numbers” to get the name of our first President. No you don’t. Reading between the numbers gives you “ING”, doesn’t it?
This was a hot mess … for me.
ReplyDeleteGot the clues gimmick but at times thought they were 4 across not 3 = 1 hot 🥵 mess
The newness of that kind of clueing was interesting and the ONLY thing that kept me going.
Just SO not fun.
🦖’s reasons are better then mine, mine being mostly exasperated ones. May quit Sundays for the remainder of the CENOZOIC- HALOCENE epoch.
IAMNOTAROBOT
🥵🦖🦖🦖🤪
What a joyless grid. I liked this less than Rex, if that’s possible.
ReplyDeleteThe gimmick just doesn’t work. If we’re to read between the lines (or, more accurately, hop across the black squares), shouldn’t that hold for every word in the row, not just three-quarters of them? The leftover words are just as “between lines” (across the black squares) as everything else in the row. Hence, the real theme answers are:
ANTIQUE STORES AROMA
WESTIE MIRACLE ON ICE
GARBAGE DUMP SCREEDS
HATTER KALEIDOSCOPE
DRAMA LESSONS UNDOCK
SAT ON MARTHA STEWART
Challenging to get the theme, and very frustrating until I did (because I suspected everything I couldn't get of being part of the theme, and couldn't figure out how "nes" was any revealer); then it helped, although not so much that there was not some challenge left. So I forgave the puzzle, and said "touche," despite my initial misgivings; very well done, with some fresh cluing/fill IMHO.
ReplyDeleteLong time listener, first time commenter.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed every moment of today's solve. I thought the theme was clever and well executed, and I particularly enjoyed the cluing today.
I'm no Will Shortz fanboy (though I am a Jeff Chen stan), and I'll certainly voice my displeasure on lousy days. But today's brought me joy and was a great reminder of why I do this every day.
Haters gonna hate. But today I'm not one.
(Just ticked the I'M NOT A ROBOT box.)
I read the title and could see almost immediately that the answers would be interrupted, because as a good student I always try to follow directions. Actually found BETWEENTHELINES before any of the themers, but did I see the lines? I did not. Not sure where I figured out what was going on, but I did, as I was not going to let a Sunday wrestle me to the ground, and it didn't so yay.
ReplyDeleteFavorite answer was OPENINGCEREMONY because it gives me another opportunity to remember how I actually carried the Olympic torch as part of the across-the-country relay prior to the Salt Lake City games. I know I have mentioned this before so I won't say anything about it today.
Nothing like a stunt puzzle on a Sunday, DB and JC. I was Doggedly Bent on Just Completing it, and did that, so thanks for some hard-earned fun.
I am not eager to return to yesterday's Stumper, which is a bear, but I'll probably see if I can do the Acrostic while watching baseball, which fortunately has lots of downtime.
Agree with Matthewb. Appreciated the construction, enjoyed the solve. Fun and satisfying.
ReplyDelete"I finished the puzzle without ever getting the theme."
ReplyDeleteThis is what bothered me about it. I had the vast majority of the puzzle without ever getting the theme, and the false revealer of NES actually just actively made everything worse. Just putting in random words like KALE and WART for no good reason other than matching the crosses.
I love a good torturous puzzle theme, but it sucks the fun out when for every single across clue you're wondering if you're supposed to be trying to come up with an answer, or just entering something that appears to be nonsense.
Sorry I wasted my time on a puzzle solved but a clue that made no sense. I could construct a puzzle with words that were used to fit not to make sense
ReplyDeleteI kind of enjoyed this puzzle because I learned that crosswords are not for me. A friend of mine told me about how much fun it is and how good the site is and how the commenters are helpful. I opened up the paper this morning hoping for a new endeavor to continue to elevate my curiosity. Boy oh boy was I in for a rude awaking. The first clue I read was number one across which was Shops and the answer was anti. At that point I realized that this was an an endeavor that I would not like to pursue as a hobby. Thank you to my crossword solving friend, and I’ll bow out gracefully. I will not be back.
ReplyDeletehated Hated HATED this puzzle. Never figured out the gimmick and thought it was dumb once I saw how it worked. Better next Sunday, please.
ReplyDeleteugh - you Mamby Pamby complainers! this was a brilliant puzzle with a sizable AHA factor. HOF worthy in my book. Get off your damn apps and solve on paper like Gods intended. 10/10 from me.
ReplyDeleteWe have a lot of theater kids/adults in my family, and I’ve never heard anyone refer to DRAMA LESSONS. There’s Drama Club, sure, and you might also take Acting Lessons. You might take Theater as a class or elective. But Drama Lessons….. not really a thing.
ReplyDeleteI feel remiss not to have chimed in earlier. I'm saddened that the puzzle wasn't embraced more dearly.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I'm sure Rex's sentiment that once you groked the theme the challenge melted out of the grid is on target and, his having likely nailed it very early on likely turned the rest of the solve into a slog.
Having a more modest set of solving skills, I didn't latch onto the them until about 2/3 through, when MART/HASTE/WART, filled completely via crosses, caught my eye. That shed light on the "mish/mash" across the center line that was about 45% complete from crosses. BET/WEE/NTH/ELI/NES shouted it's presence out. And, yes, from thereon the fill proceeded like clockwork.
Upon finish, I found the cluing fresh and engaging and ended with a broad smile on my face. Then I started to contemplate the construction. Gobsmacked! What an incredible labor of love!
I'll sit up and take notice when the next Bodily/Chen work pops up!
So, a 50-50 split of love and hate. Velly interesting (he says, as he rubs his chin 🤔)
ReplyDeleteCW puzs @5:44
You can't use this puz as your absolute love it/hate it primer. You need to start tomorrow, do the week, then decide. This puz, as I said before, was half-loved, half-loathed.. It was a strange puz that isn't quite the normal SunPuz. Give the week a go.
RooMonster Puz Pusher Guy
@CW puzzles are harder than I thought (5:44) --
ReplyDeleteIt would be a real tragedy if you quit because of today's most atypical puzzle. I've been doing crosswords for about 40 years and, trust me, they are not all like this! Not even close. I consider myself a pretty capable solver, if not an elite one, and yet I dropped this puzzle like a hot potato. And if you read today's comments, most of the Rexblog's highly experienced and sophisticated solvers -- some who compete in tournaments -- had big problems with this one as well.
Start with the early week puzzles and work your way up to the late week puzzles. Thursdays tend to be tricky -- but nothing anywhere near this frustrating and incomprehensible for the most part. One DNF (a "did not finish") does not an amateur crossword-solving career spoil. Don't let it spoil yours.
I think the fact that I was able to solve the puzzle while never being able to figure out the theme says a lot. Mostly felt annoyance through the solve. I might not be too bright.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised that no one mentioned the similarity with the puzzle on Thursday, June 30 (COVER YOUR EYES). They both used the trick of one-word across clues that had to be read in sequence to get the actual clue.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the "really liked it!" camp. Saw the theme early when I noticed all the very short words and that sequential clues were forming phrases, called shenanigans and had a fun playful solve looking for the words that made up the actual answers. Mart / Haste / Wart is adorable. Would have been nice to somehow clue those too, but as it was I had a blast. Thanks Mr Bodily and Mr Chen!
ReplyDeleteSo damn slow on the uptake today! Once I finally saw BETWEEN THE LINES, as @Rex says, the aha lasted only a short while. The appreciation for the constructors, however, continues. I marcel at the cleverness and dedication it would take to pull this off in a giant Sunday grid. I am awed.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, some of the clues were so clever that even after I got the theme answers, my continued hunt fir the next humorous little piece of cleverness kept my interest. After all is said and done my faves were: “. . . shear terror” and “. . . berth control.” Absolutely gave me a welcome chuckle.
Thank you Daniel and Jeff.
Like Linda from NJ and others, .I filled in the entire puzzle with my husband and we didn’t get the theme until I read Rex Parker’s blog. Not fun.
ReplyDeleteyou're so right king
ReplyDeleteNo fun; threw it out unfinished halfway through. People don’t like feeling misled, Will et al.. The title here is meaningless (a more apt one might have been “Follow the…”) — and the minute I saw “23 answers…don’t seem to match their clues” I lost all interest. A challenge is one thing - inducing stress that’s reminiscent of homework or doing taxes isn't what I look for in my Sunday crossword.
ReplyDeleteThe NYT crossword creators/editors used to at least make one feel they WANTED you to solve the puzzle — with just enough helpful info included if it was particularly quirky. This one simply made me want to find something more rewarding to do. So I went out and spray painted stuff.
I actually figured out the theme about 3/4 of the way through but I couldn't finish off the top lines. This was not an enjoyable experience.
ReplyDeleteI'm with the few on this one. The gimmick took long enough to reveal, which made it a (mostly) fun solve. Not top-ten, but not a slog either.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like all the bitch & moaners should start creating puzzles for the Sunday Times.. Not as easy as it seems, and most of us working stiffs don't have the time for such pastimes.. That's what the Sunday Xword is.. A retreat from life's travails. Why complain?
ReplyDeleteFor information, sheep don't feel terror when they're being sheared, nor is it painful (unless the shearer accidentally nicks the skin). I've watched a shearer gently force a 200-pound ram to the ground, and as soon as the electric clippers start, the sheep completely relaxes into it, as if getting a massage.
ReplyDeleteHaha, I thought this puzzle was clever and fun.i didn’t get around to it until today, Wednesday, and started with 29A TIME, then saw the clues in a row for Historic Hockey Upset…and a little light started to slowly come on…as I read further I saw Waste Disposal Locations and bingo, I knew that answer and then looked for all the clues lined up like that, solving the theme answers first with a little help from the downs. Lots of fun for a chilly October afternoon with crisp apple slices.
ReplyDeleteThis was utter trash. A misery to solve. The approach makes no sense and the payoff is “why did I was my time?” The fill is bad. The clueing is monstrously poor as an attempt to make it seem harder when the clues are just inaccurate. Just bad.
ReplyDeleteAlan Bean became an artist and painted his experiences on the moon. See
ReplyDeletehttps://www.alanbean.com/gallery2.cfm?id=1999-A-New-Frontier
Apparently you either loved this puzzle or hated it. It would be interesting to know how many in the 'hated it' category could not finish it and rather than accept that fact, became embittered and blamed the puzzle rather than accept the fact that on this day they couldn't get it done.
ReplyDeleteThe explanation re diagonal lines formed by black squares does nothing vis-a-vis antique stores and Martha Stewart. In any event, the best thing about this puzzle, the thing I enjoyed the MOST, was that it was word-play and not trivial pursuit. NYT is 95% the latter and I'm hoping to find a satisfying alternative. I don't do pop culture, including rap, nor also-rans in the 40s Hollywood, but I love language, puns, and -- as the NYT documentary supposedly championed -- Word Play.
ReplyDeleteStarted solving from the bottom, yet completely missed MART HASTE WART. (Can't stand to actually write that name as is. Best part of her is the WART.) I somehow began by suspecting that there were down clues for across answers, and/or vice versa. (Note to constructors: Please don't do that one!)
ReplyDeleteI finally got it at KALEIDOSCOPE. Then all of a sudden the whole business at 67a became clear. NICE aha moment. There's a bit of side-eye fill here (somebody oughta write a song "UNDOCK My Boat" to the tune of "Unbreak My Heart"), but the fact that the broken-down parts of the theme answers are all legitimate as stand-alones is impressive.
Pretty neat stuff: birdie. One more than my Wordle:
BYGBG
GGGGG
Reading
ReplyDeleteFrom
One
Clue
To
The
Next
Is
Reading
Between
The
Lines
Yeah, revealer did not work for me. If it referred to the clues, I'd buy it. But it refers to the answers, so it does not work.
ReplyDeleteLots of really tortured cluing today.