Orangish-brown gem / THU 2-2-23 / Holiday dependent on the lunisolar calendar / Mythological being with a horse's tail / collar iconic Ruth Bader Ginsburg neckwear at the Smithsonian / One of the two main ingredients in idli

Thursday, February 2, 2023

Constructor: Elise Corbin

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME: "DARK MATTER" — Ten answers have their first letters missing: those letters spell out (from top to bottom, L to R), "DARK MATTER," which, the puzzle tells me, is a phenomenon dealt with by the science of PHYSICS (27D: Science that deals with the9o0p [sorry, cat walked across the keyboard] (27D: Science that deals with the phenomenon spelled out by 10 missing letters in this puzzle):

Theme answers:
  • DREAD (1A: Pit-of-the-stomach feeling)
  • AISLES (9A: Wedding walkways)
  • REACH (20A: Get through to)
  • KITTY (21A: Pool of money)
  • MARIA (40A: Natalie Wood's role in 1961's "West Side Story")
  • AIDES (42A: Capitol Hill staffers)
  • TAUNT (54A: Make fun of)
  • TRIAL (56A: Error's counterpart)
  • EASTER (69A: Holiday dependent on the lunisolar calendar)
  • RAILS (71A: Train tracks)
Word of the Day: DISSENT collar (31D: ___ collar (iconic Ruth Bader Ginsburg neckwear at the Smithsonian)) —

To express her disapproval over a court ruling, Ginsburg opted for a black bib necklace with rhinestones by Banana Republic. The dark colors and punk-inspired design certainly stood out from her collection of predominantly white lace jabots. "It looks fitting for descent [sic!]," she told Couric. (Harper's Bazaar)
• • •

Quick write-up today, as the bus comes early and the new cat (Ida) has learned the subtle art of coming into my office and crying for food and knocking things over etc. and since she is still healing from her traumatic pre-shelter experience, I am in Extremely Indulgent mode (i.e. not throwing her out, which is causing ... let's say, distraction):

[Live look at "distraction," aka Ida]

I was startled by how easy this puzzle was. The most struggling I did was at the very beginning, not getting 1A: Pit-of-the-stomach-feeling right away. Got it all—very easily—from crosses, could see that READ was wrong, thought about it for two seconds ... and realized the "D" was missing. That's pretty much the puzzle right there. I didn't know where it was going, but I knew the gimmick's basic idea. I thought maybe all the missing letters would hang off the edge of the grid like that, but nope, some of them are just ... missing. This is the part of the theme I don't think works. If your concept is DARK MATTER than the missing letters should *all* appear in the "dark" (i.e. the black squares); the ones hanging off the edge of the grid ("D" in DREAD, "M" in MARIA, "E" in EASTER) undermine the core concept. Apparently “DARK MATTER” is “dark” because it’s “hard to detect” (Wikipedia), but you’re dealing in B&W here and so the fact that “dark” didn’t have anything to do w/ black squares felt odd/awkward. Further, PHYSICS is an incredibly anticlimactic revealer. . . on the other hand, the "DARK MATTER" discovery kind of makes up for that. Except then you (if you're me) realize that not all the "matter" (i.e. the missing letters) is "dark" (implicitly hiding in black squares). And then you're back to disappointment again. All the headless words (i.e. the themers) look like real answers in the grid, which is a nice touch, but also a necessary one—this puzzle with gibberish in the grid would be unbearable. It's a neat idea, overall, but the execution is a bit wonky.


The fill, on the other hand, is very wonky. Lots of short fill, lots of repeaters, lots of crosswordese, not a lot to lift it out of the tired and ordinary. HYSTERICS and DECK CHAIR are solid entries, but ESS ENT EMS NOUS STET ... there's just so much of that. Also ... there are ... well, just guess how many "IN"s there are in this puzzle? Without looking, what would you say? Hint, there are so many that I stopped counting at a ridiculous number, figuring that there's no way there could be more ... and then there was another ... and another. Bringing the total to [drum roll] SIX! To be clear, I'm never going to complain about an "IN" dupe if the "IN"s are not crossing and at least some distance away from one another. I might not even notice. The same is true with TO, AN, UP, ON, all your very short prepositions (or articles). But if you cross them, ick, no. And this puzzle crosses "IN"s ... *twice*!!! (WENT ALL IN x/w AS IN, PEER IN x/w EXCEL IN). And then there are just two more "IN"s (IN GENERAL, IN STORE). This is comically bad. I don't ... I ... yeah, someone will have to explain what the hell, because what the hell? You could have clued at least one of those answers in way that would make the "IN" disappear:


The worst thing, and hardest thing, in the puzzle is AROUSER (44D: One giving a wake-up call), because again, I ask, what the hell? "Stop being an AROUSER," he shouted, improbably, as he tried to go back to sleep. [One giving a wake-up call] is a hotel desk clerk or more likely a phone bot, neither of which I would (ever) call an AROUSER. Yeesh. Haven't seen SARD in a while. Ugly, ugly word, but it's real enough. No idea about DISSENT collar and nearly botched it because I thought 36A: Commercial lead-in to Clean (OXI) was OXY with a "Y"! OK, gotta run, the cat was calmly cleaning herself for a while there, but that time is now over and the stirring threatens to become something more mischievous, so I'll see you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

93 comments:

Davis 5:40 AM  

DARK MATTER is called “dark” because it’s extremely difficult to detect, not because it’s “dark” in the sense of color—so the decision not to “hide” all those letters in black seems if anything more consistent with the subject matter.

Conrad 5:52 AM  


Never heard of a DISSENT collar and could have sworn the product name was OXy. That hurt me more than it should have because SARD was a WOE (or long-since-forgotten crosswordese) and when I failed to get the happy music I ass-u-med that was the error. Other than the time it took to find and fix 31Dx36A, yeah, easy.

Bob Mills 6:09 AM  

For once I used the theme to solve the puzzle. My only stumbling block was SATYR (I had SATAN). But DARKMATTER meant the "pool of miney" had to be KITTY.

Anonymous 6:18 AM  

The puzzle was so easy but with no piece of paper or writing implement immediately at hand to record the missing letters, I never discovered Dark Matter. No matter, having read the review I think I made the right choice to eschew getting up and walking 3 feet to the table to acquire the tools to solve the mystery. Guess that attitude's why I have yet to win a Nobel prize.

Anonymous 6:29 AM  

I went straight to rebus for the crowded words, then spent too much time trying to figure out the theme behind the letters in the rebuses. I didn't love this one!

OffTheGrid 6:33 AM  

Stop the presses! A thursday puzzle was fun! No rebus, no turning or dropping or raising. INGENERAL I don't care for using anything but white squares but this was straightforward and did not result in any gibberish, as @Rex noted. When I had (D-A-R-K) I figured it was (MATTER). I don't know if that was a big help. I still had to find the incomplete words. I had a good time and didn't notice the plethora of IN's. And now that I know, I don't care. I also loved seeing a (K)ITTY in the write up as well as in the grid. In about an hour I'll be off to the shelter where I volunteer.

Happy World Wetlands Day. What! You didn't know that?

Anonymous 6:57 AM  

Can someone republish the info for helping to support the blog. I was out for a few months and missed it. This blog and the comments are such a calming way to start a frantic day. Thanks to OFL and those who comment. As to the puzzle , easy but really not what I want on a Thursday. For me, last Thursday was exactly what I look forward to on Thursdays—an interesting rebus and aha moments.

SouthsideJohnny 6:58 AM  

My kind of gimmick puzzle, where the gimmick is hiding in plain sight and is eager to reveal itself. Agree with others that the cluing had an early week feel to it - which in my opinion is a plus as I don’t enjoy parsing together cross after cross attempting to discern cryptic nonsense when the theme becomes overbearing.

In addition to physics, solving the NYT Crossword may be thought of as an art that deals with the phenomenon of DARK MATTER - as one will more likely than not encounter some in the grid on a daily basis (witness SARD in today’s for example).

Anonymous 7:06 AM  

I had ANTE for KITTY for a while… LORA for the name and thought SATER could be an alternate spelling so I tried to fit NITWIT in the cross down. I circled back to that spot at the end, figured out DAR?MATTER and then the missing K seemed obvious and all was righted.

I enjoyed this puzzle. Solid Thursday (of somewhat easy) in my opinion.

Lewis 7:13 AM  

I loved that the theme answers minus the first letters were actual words. Nice touch.

I loved and found helpful that the theme answers were symmetrically placed.

I loved the moment where I realized a letter was missing and that I needed to look for more of same, and enjoyed the hunt.

I loved the moment I figured out the invisible answer was DARK MATTER. This came after uncovering DARK, and knowing from the clue to the reveal that ten letters were missing, and that they revealed a scientific phenomenon.

I loved learning SARD and being reminded of RBG.

I love life’s simple pleasures, and found todays puzzle to be one of them. This was a joy to fill in, and thank you for that, Elise. Congratulations on your most lovely NYT debut.

kitshef 7:23 AM  

Yes, the INs definitely went from 'tsk tsk' to annoying to hilarious.

But weren't we all just swelling with puzzly joy to as we filled in AROUSER?

Shirley F 7:27 AM  

Wanted to let all of you know about a mystery series featuring a 77 year old crossword puzzle constructor. Judith Potts also swims every day in the Thames and has a medicinal draft of Scotch every night, although sometimes "the thinking scotch she'd been drinking had very much turned into unthinking scotch sometime around ten-is, and she wasn't sure what she'd achieved since then."
She utilizes the same skills she has honed while making crosswords to help solve the mystery. Her cohorts are a vicar's wife and a dog walker. The first book, the only one i've read so far, is called "The Marlow Murder Club." There's a second book that just came out, "Death Comes to Marlow."

Unknown 7:44 AM  

Hi and welcome, Ida.

TaylorSlow 7:45 AM  

I got that something was up at 9A, but I didn't get what it was right away: Was AI supposed to go in one square or did the A go somewhere else or...? I needed the revealer to get it, and then everything fell into place. Since Thursday is all about the unusual twist, I enjoyed this and didn't even notice all the INs. Agree that AROUSER is terrible and DECK CHAIR is great. But it's mostly the trick, and I liked this one.

Anonymous 7:52 AM  

More cat content please.

Tom T 7:54 AM  

Played easy time-wise for me, but I was genuinely surprised when the Happy Music played, because it felt like I must have made a mistake somewhere.

Didn't spell out DARK MATTER until after completing the grid (and managed to do it without a writing instrument). It was at least a little more interesting than "Remember to drink your Ovaltine." And it added a nice "hidden dimension" to the theme. (See what I did there, PHYSICS buffs?)

Nice to see my beloved AUNT RIAL in the grid (har).

Marissa 8:05 AM  

I am tickled that I actually caught on to a trick right away, which probably speaks to the easiness level of the puzzle. But no matter! I’m still celebrating! Never bothered to figure out the DARK MATTER part of it. DEKE and SARD were brand new to me. Liked DISSENT collar and the nod to RBG.

Son Volt 8:08 AM  

Fun trick - love the geek slant. DARK MATTER doesn’t emit or absorb light - if it does exist the only way to identify it is it’s gravitational effect on things that we can see. So - the big guy’s black square take is a little off. Agree that the overall fill here is early week tough - filled in quickly. The plurals gave it away.

I Will DARE

Really liked the center west block - HYSTERICS, EXCEL IN, DISSENT are top notch. I equate “wear” with erode and EAT AWAY with corrode. We’ve seen IOWA quite a bit lately.

I’ll keep you warm and you’ll keep me sane

@Pablo - got a good laugh from the alternate Third Rate Romance cover.

Enjoyable Thursday solve.

Waits

Anonymous 8:08 AM  

what about 11D? facilities should have been LOOS not LOO?

mmorgan 8:11 AM  

I first thought this was a rebus, because Thursday, but I soon figured out each themer just lost a letter. At the end, I wasn’t interested in going back and figuring out what the missing letters spelled, because PHYSICS doesn’t matter to me, even darkly.

king_yeti 8:14 AM  

Knew OXI because it is the transliteration of the Greek word for “no”; so the ongoing joke in my (modern) Greek speaking family is that the detergent is No Clean, kinda like the Chevy Nova doesn’t go in Spanish speaking areas.

ncmathsadist 8:14 AM  

The missing letters were like annoying gnats.

Anonymous 8:17 AM  

I agree with you, but to Rex’s point, we’re dealing with crosswords and therefore puns, and whenever thursdays wield a word like that they typically utilize the black squares.

Joe Dipinto 8:17 AM  

@Thanks for the tip , @Shirley F 7:27. Some personages here might be interested. (The author's name is Robert Thorogood.)

Anonymous 8:19 AM  

Just go back to any posts from January and it’s posted at the top.

Anonymous 8:19 AM  

First week from January that is…

Anonymous 8:29 AM  

Just came here to complain that an ARC is not a line segment. Lines are straight, ARCs are curved. Humbug.

LEO 8:30 AM  

Played very easy for me. The A in aisles cross gave it away. I am betting it took much longer to construct than it took me to solve. Very clever though! And fun.

Laura 8:30 AM  

I can live with a too easy Thursday with a clever theme, but where are the clever clues? Duplicate words may violate rules some where but they don't stop the fun. Good puzzle but with better cluing it could have been great.

Weezie 8:37 AM  

I was fine with the missing letters not being in black squares, but otherwise largely agree with Rex’s review. And, it’s a first-timer, so I can be gracious. Agree with you, @Son Volt, about the center *east block. The DISSENT collar is a good piece of trivia to have under our belts, I think.

In general I think I was disappointed because I let myself get back in bed to do the puzzles, and I wasn’t ready to get back up when I was done! But alas, the first leg of a long road trip awaits me today. At least I get to see my best friend of 25 years and meet her new baby!

pabloinnh 8:39 AM  

Remarkably similar solving experience to OFL, right down to cat interaction, except that our old-timer Fenway played his usual AROUSER role at about 6 this morning. As usual, I get up to see what he wants, and as usual, he's the only one who knows.

Caught on to the missing letter at DREAD, which was confirmed by AISLES, and filled in the rest without much trouble. Fast enough that I had to go back and find all the letters that were missing and make a reveler out of them, but after DARK it was obvious.

Today I learned SARD (SARD???) but my favorite answer was ASHCAN. When I was a kid ASHCAN used to be as common a term as trash can or garbage can, as lots of people burned coal for heat. I know we did, until we finally put in an oil furnace.

Also liked seeing "lunisolar", even if it was in a clue.

Nice enough Thursdecito, EC. Entertaining Concept but a little on the easy side for a Thursday. Thanks for a fair amount of fun.

Mikey from El Prado 8:43 AM  

Rex, so happy for you all and your new kitty, Ida!

Worked this one like a themeless… didn’t bother sussing what the missing letters spelled as the revealer was easily solved.

Barbara S. 8:46 AM  

I enjoyed solving this. (D)READ occurred to me immediately at 1A but I didn’t fill it in because there weren’t enough squares, and I pressed on. Then, right away, I encountered not enough squares for (A)ISLES. Aha! A pattern is emerging. The missing letters were easy to find, which made for a pretty simple solve. I didn’t use it to help me finish, but I did look back at the end to find that we were dealing with DARK MATTER.

DARK MATTER and DARK energy are subjects of great interest to my husband and, believe it or not, we’ve had some “DARK” discussions around the dinner table. My understanding is that the two things counteract each other in the cosmos: DARK energy is the force which speeds up the expansion of the universe by driving galaxies apart, while DARK MATTER slows down the process by pulling them together. You see various percentage estimates, but it’s been theorized that our universe is made up of:

68% DARK energy
27% DARK MATTER
5% normal matter (i.e. everything we can see on Earth, and everything observable through telescopes)

DARK MATTER and DARK energy are everywhere in the universe, so I don’t think Rex’s point about hiding the missing letters in black squares really holds. But I agree with him about PHYSICS being a weak revealer, even “astroPHYSICS” would have been (slightly) better.

The intelligibility of the words without their first letters was a great feature of this puzzle. I didn’t notice all the INs until Rex pointed them out, but I’m not particularly bothered. I can’t remember seeing SARD before – I assume it’s related to SARDonyx? AROUSER was pretty funny. Wow, DISSENT collar: all I knew was that RBG wore white lace collars, but I didn’t know about this special “non-conforming” one.

Uniclues:

1. What the doomed were drinking as they rearranged the outdoor furniture on the sinking Titanic.
2. Barely suppressed laughter at a funeral.
3. System of measurement for how committed one actually is.
4. Possible answer to the question: “What’s the last thing a hippie takes off when undressing?”
5. Sexy couple giving each other meaningful looks while driving slightly too fast in a shiny Bugatti on a deserted but scenic mountain road.

1. DECK CHAIR STOUT
2. TAMED HYSTERICS
3. WENT-ALL-IN SCALE
4. BEADS, IN GENERAL
5. CAR AD AROUSER

[SB: yd, -1. A heart-breaker: I was absolutely sure that I’d entered the word that turned out to be missing. I’d certainly thought of it: it was a perfectly unchallenging 6er. But when I checked my list against the answers, it wasn’t there. Dang!]

Anonymous 8:50 AM  

When I realized that 1a was dread I noticed that the d at the end of the word was the letter needed at the front. I figured this was the trick and fell into a deep rabbit hole.

thfenn 8:52 AM  

I didn't get the theme until I went looking for the reveal, then got myself sorted out. But before that I languished in the NE, convinced there was some rebus thing going on with vowel pairs because, mainly, LOOs HAD to be plural. Not so, in the end. Also had no idea it was always the first letter missing, or that DARKMATTER pops out if you read the letters like you'd read this. So, a bit of a mess but I guess if I did a Thursday in 20 minutes it had to be easy. For me that's because of the downs and the fill, though ANAL and AROUSER got a weird vibe. Thought it was nice that all the answers with missing letters were words themselves. That felt elegant. And I get to walk my daughter down the ISLE on an ISLE in a few months, so that was sweet. And I learned what SARD is (after conceding the answer was not something missing a letter somewhere). Fun Thursday.

RooMonster 9:22 AM  

Hey All !
Happy Groundhog Day!
Shout out to y'all who are IN/went to Punxsutawney today!

Figured out the PHYSICS off just the P, already having figured out the missing letters thing, and writing them down as I got them, to get DARK, knowing I would need MATTER eventually. #Humblebrag

Hold up was finding where the M&A (Hi @M&A!) would be. Thankfully all the missing letters were symmetrical, as MARIA was unknown to me. Really like how all the missing letter words are real words, not some gibberish. Ala, ibberish would be without its G.

TWITS. Har! Reminds me of The TWIT of the Year "contest" on a Monty Python episode.

Cool ThursPuz.

Six more weeks of winter, as Phil saw his shadow. 😁

No F's (BAAd!)
RooMonster
DarrinV

Nancy 9:26 AM  

I didn't pick up the theme at 1A, DREAD, though maybe I should have. I had written in FEAR, natch, but then because of RED EYE, I had to change FEAR to READ. Well, I supposed that that was Ok. Because maybe that "pit-of-the-stomach feeling" wasn't fear at all, but rather a gut reaction. Where you're "reading" a person or situation from intuition alone. I didn't continue to think about it.

It was EACH for REACH at 20A that made me realize there was a missing letter. Rather than try to figure out why or what letters would be missing, I simply tried to establish some rules of the road. Acrosses only. What remains is always a real word. Always the first letter-- Oh, wait, nope. HAIR/HAIRS just spoiled that one. Well, enough remaining rules of the road to make this very solvable -- and the non-themer fill was very easy besides. But if this wasn't hard enough to be hard, it was hard enough to be enjoyable.

Did I write out the missing letters and form them into a PHYSICS-related phenomenon. Oh, you know lazy ol' me. Of course not. I was quite happy to let willing volunteers do the grunt work for me.

Gary Jugert 9:32 AM  

Well, they can't all be winners. I was proud of writing in PHYSICS off of DARK from the first four missing letters. HYSTERICS is nice, but the other long answers fall with a thud.

Disappointments (i.e., SPARE ME):

Why, for the love of Princess Peach, would a constructor and a whole army of college-educated editors run with ANAL top dead center. Change the friggen L to a T, clue it as [Premed subject.] and the down becomes [Singer Amos.] Honest to Pete, I am dumb as a rock, and even I can fix it. What is the NYTXW obsession with this juvenalia? Some brain-donor on staff with a Master's degree in English literature no doubt probably said, "Oh sure, that's a phrase we use to describe fastidiousness, so it's okay. Put it on the top of the puzzle, in the middle. {Tee-Hee}."

ESS: These starting letter clues are funny twice a year and we've already used up the allotment for 2023.

RASP isn't a verb. APE MAN is great if you're in science class in a Catholic school in 1940. A little peeping Tom action with PEER IN, eh ... hoping to see some fastidiousness no doubt. Bananas are yellow and that's worth crossword real estate to straighten that up. AROUSER doesn't get me up.

Didn't have time to read much from yesterday, but happy to see @Barbara back. I see we're both on board with hippies and beads.

@🦖: Ida has eyes that know things. You're doomed.

Uniclues:

1 How one describes the body shapes of buffet loving tourists.
2 Every non-itsy crossword occurrence.
3 Said, "You fine. You fine."
4 What every criminal of wealth and privilege thinks prosecutors are planning.
5 Basically the only purchase required to become a hippy.
6 Go for the vegetarian chili.
7 Televised sports.
8 The car they have on display at the mall for no apparent reason with felt ropes around it.

1 DECK CHAIR STOUT
2 EACH ITTY
3 TAMED HYSTERICS
4 TAUNT TRIAL
5 BEADS IN GENERAL
6 DEKE MEAT LADLE
7 CAR AD AROUSER
8 IN-STORE SEDAN

Anonymous 9:38 AM  

Amy: pretty much 100% with @OffTheGrid today, except I don't volunteer at a shelter (but I would). What they said.
Do you think Ida awakes each morning thinking she's a lucky cat, or has she moved onto considering what types of mischief she will engage in?

pmdm 9:47 AM  

I thought this was an apt puzzle to publish this week. For most newer solvers, the concept was probably a bit tricky, but easy enough to get. And once you got it, you must have felt happy, so whatever the problems with the execution (which did not bother me at all), it was a charming puzzle, one that I'd like to see more often. But it must have been a bit difficult to settle on, and even harder to execute. What a lovely way to end the weekday themed puzzles this week.

I don't understand why anyone would ask for a reprint of something you can display by simply clicking on the few links. Mike graciously updates the site each day to allow looking at all the previous posts. That's what a Blog Archive does.

A word about dark energy and dark matter. As did Galileo when he dropped a few apples from a tree, we discover reality by observing what happens when something is done. We then infer the rules that govern why what we experience happens. Because we live in a medium size world, what we experienced was only a generalization of the laws of physics. That's why when we started considering the atom or the larger universe, we had to update the laws of physics. E = m c squared may work in our fairly slow world, be when one accelerates to near the speed of light, the law becomes a bit more complicated.

We observe that the universe is expanding at ever greater speed. We observe that the galaxies rotate in a manner that our known laws of physics don't predict. Therefore, there must be unknown forces causing what we observe. We decided, for want of better terminology, to call these forces dark matter and dark energy. Additional observation may someday solidify the laws and explain how the force laws are all related to each other.

Some may be bothered by the law which claims energy can be neither created or destroyed. That is true in a closed system, but the expansion of the universe demonstrates that our universe is not a closed system. Therefore, as it expands, "dark energy" can be created. Or at least, this is how I understand it.

Hopefully, those not interested in these types of things stopped reading my comment long ago. For those who are interested, imitate Einstein and construct a world explaining why what we observe happens the way it does. If you are good at math, reduce your thoughts to mathematical laws. Maybe you will win a Nobel Prize. And add to our knowledge of reality. Good luck.

Masked and Anonymous 9:51 AM  

The dark matter was pretty day-um organized, in this puz's universe:

* Always an invisible first letter of a themer word.
* Each themer answer with a missin letter still remained a word. Just not the right word.
* Always a pair of themer answers in a row were affected: the first and last answer in the row.
* All the dark matter was in symmetrical Across rows.

PHYSICS was kinda wimpy reveal matter, I'd grant. But maybe the missin ASTRO- prefix was more dark matter.

staff weeject pick: IN. har
Primo weeject stacks in all 4 corners, btw.

Thanx for the different solvequest, Elise Corbin. Different is mighty good. Different matters. And congratz on yer debut puzmatter.

Masked & Anonymo3Us

p.s. Good to see that Ida Cat has about got @RP trained.

**gruntz**

Georgia 9:52 AM  

You can Venmo to @MichaelDavidSharp.

Anonymous 9:52 AM  

i rarely go back through missing (or circled) letters after finishing a puzzle—they often have an underwhelming christmas story “drink your ovaltine” feel to them—so i appreciate Rex’s diligence to include them in the write-up.

Anonymous 10:01 AM  

at the end, I thought I was in preposition heaven. gonna suggest some revisions to the "relative difficulty."
stupid
very stupid
stoopidest (homage to LMS yesterday)

wasted ten minutes
wasted fifteen minutes
tossed in the towel

want my mother to call will and see if he's awake.

I'm starting think that most of the best constructors have left the NYT for greener pastures. Pay, editing?



George 10:02 AM  

Morning all! My first themer to go in was "ISLES", instead of "AISLES" -- so I wondered for bit if this was a wacky homonym puzzle.

I had the trusty pencil and paper -- FYI, if you're looking for a good mechanical pencil, I love my Kuru Toga 0.5mm, and I even have one with red pencil lead (!) -- and had a portion of my solving experience where I knew that there was dark "MATTER" to be had in the bottom half, but I didn't know *where it was* -- this was fun, like actual dark matter.

That said, it made SARD very ornery, because who doesn't want TOPAZ there, when you know there's a "Dark T" floating around?!

Welcome Ida, who I am quite confident will have a nice day; I wish you all the same.

Flying Pediatrician 10:03 AM  

There's a good little movie that came out about 20 years ago called Danny Deckchair. I'll never forget my then girlfriend (now wife) and I going to Blockbuster to rent it and asking the teenaged desk clerk if they had it available. He asked me how to spell it! I was so taken aback that I responded, "D-A-N-N-Y SPACE Deckchair." To this day, my wife and I can't pass a deckchair without looking at each other and saying, "D-A-N-N-Y SPACE Deckchair." Ahh ... it's the little things. I think that was the first time I ever said "kids these days" and I was only 20 years-old myself.

Whatsername 10:04 AM  

Well I’ve got quite a streak going in the theme department as I have no more interest in DARK MATTER than I did about science fiction or Mariah Carey. But that’s just me. This puzzle is one of those where I sat back and thought - wow, what a marvel of construction - but the solve itself, not quite so marvelous. Still it was enjoyable IN GENERAL and figuring out the missing letters did provide a bit of a challenge.

I absolutely loved DISSENT collar and absolutely loathed the six duplicate IN entries. No, just … no.

jberg 10:06 AM  

Well, it's like this -- there is dark matter in the physical universe, and then there's dark matter in crosswords. In the latter case, it's a plus if you can use a word in other than its original meaning, which is what Rex was looking for. Me, I never thought of that, but was hoping that where the words on the left were missing their first letters, those on the right were missing their last ones.

@thfenn--if one is really into euphemism, one asks "where are the facilities," which means the same thing as "where's the LOO?" You'd only pluralize LOO if you were referring to different rooms, e.g., this building has five LOOS, one on each floor. Don't ask me why.

I agree that AROUSER was bad but I had been dreading "alerter," so it was almost a relief.

Whatsername 10:21 AM  

@Anonymous (6:57) The info on how to contribute to Rex’s blog can be found next to his completed crossword grid under the heading “Thanks For Your Support.” If you want to read the whole spiel, go to the Blog Archive on the far right and pull up any day from January 8 through the 15th.

@Rex: Thanks for the KITTY photo. She is a beauty. I can relate to the office haranguing HYSTERICS which I also experienced while working on taxes yesterday. At this rate it may be April 15 before I’m done.

JC66 10:27 AM  

Surprised @Gary J didn't suggest that the editors should have clued AROUSER as "Viagra, e.g."

Anonymous 10:30 AM  

Agree!

The Joker 10:31 AM  

Although this crossword is appearing in the NYT, it's actually and INdependent puzzle.

egsforbreakfast 10:48 AM  

First, and most importantly, let’s clear up this LOO crap. Here, we say “I’m going to use the facilities”. We don’t ever say “facility” as a stand-in for bathroom. So, although the smell might be foul, LOO is fairly clued.

Second, perhaps the 6 INS are code for INXS, whose 12th greatest song (according to The Guardian) was Disappear. Great tie-in with DARK MATTER. Can’t believe the subtlety of that find by our constructor.

I think the wife and I are coming up on our SARD anniversary.

I love the crossing of my two favorite disciplines, PHYSICS and HYSTERICS. I couldn’t decide which to pursue in college so I went with ROTC.

Congrats on a fun debut, Elise Corbin.

CT2Napa 10:49 AM  

@Shirley F

Thanks for the tip. Just downloaded it from my library's HOOPLA account.

mathgent 11:03 AM  

I think that it's a wonderful puzzle. Clever theme, some sparkle, very smoothly executed, smart cluing, no junk.

I enjoyed the comments about dark energy and dark matter. That's what I like most about the blog. People who are expert in a topic mentioned in the puzzle who talk about it.

Not as thorny as most Thorny Thursdays but not at all easy for me.

Bad editing. Cluing ARC as a kind of line segment.

jae 11:05 AM  

Yep, easy. No WOEs and no erasures (except for OXy to OXI), plus the missing letter aspect of the “theme” was pretty easy to pick up. Fun and sciency, liked it, but @Rex is right about the fill. Nice debut!

GILL I. 11:11 AM  

Ay Dios mío....This wasn't easy at all for me. Maybe I should get out more often or stop drinking pinot noir before starting a Thursday.
So my first entry was ANAL. Good gravy, I thought...Why was this WORDED. I get that way on Thursday; having to remind myself that I have to sniff out a trick. Some I like and others give me the angst, dyspepsia, agita ailment. I left the ANAL area and moved on down. Wait...I knew that Natalie's role was MARIA. OK...so you have to stick a letter in somewhere...now just try and figure out where or why or what.
Back upstair and try to figure out the missing letters in 1A and 9A. OK so it has to be DREAD and the wedding took place down the AISLES. That gave me the first DA.
EACH ITTY...missing the R and K...Ok again, so now I have DARK. Six more to go.
PHYSICS slid in. I had the P from RASP, the H from HAIR and the Y from HYSTERICS. So now I have some DARK something or other...Could it be MATTER? I'll go looking for the other letters and see if I'm right.
I was.
I want to say that I was BLOWN away. I always want an AHA OOH YAY ME to fill my somewhat deflated ego. It didn't happen.
Yes..I noticed the IN's. I wanted an OUT. I dislike the starts of something or other clues. ESS can disappear. Does one really RASP while singing? My AROUSER is the snoring of my two pups snuggled up with me in bed. I wanted RBG to be wearing a lacy collar of some sort. Instead, she wears a DISSENT. (sigh)
I found my MATTER. It didn't MATTER. As a MATTER of fact, I was glad twas over.
I shall now skip to my LOO.

bocamp 11:13 AM  

Thx, Elise; a fine Thurs. theme and execution! :)

Easy-med.

Very smooth solve.

Fun coincidence: yesterday's xword reminded me of a SPACE themed TV series I've been intending to re-watch; so I teed it up for viewing today, after first taking in 'Groundhog Day' – one of my all-time faves. The title of the series: DARK MATTER. The only thing I regretted about this series is that IMO it would have benefitted from one more season.

Loved Naomi Watts in 'Mulholland Drive', as well as in 'Twin Peaks' (2017).

Thx to previous xwords, have LORI Lightfoot down pat.

Learned: DISSENT 'collar'; SARD.

Enjoyed this offering very much! :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏

Anonymous 11:32 AM  

Yes! So happy this is the first comment. As far as I know we don't even really know what it is or if it truly exists. We just know observable galaxies don't behave as they should using our equation for gravity without it. It has nothing to do with being "dark" that's just a clunky name.

I knew Rex would complain about this and you're absolutely correct. In fact hiding them in the dark squares if anything is a larger problem. They maybe should have just been omitted in the middle of answers or something.

Though, I do get the point, considering most solvers probably aren't space physics nerds.

Anonymous 11:32 AM  

Well, when people are going to the restroom, they sometimes say they are going to use the facilities. Never singular. And they never mean that they are visiting more than one. So facilities = singular restroom = singular loo.

Anonymous 11:32 AM  

I'm not as seasoned as you all, so this puzzle was a lot of fun. I figured out the first D, A, R and then I got the theme. So from there I knew I was looking for the missing K, M, A, T, T, E, R.

Yes, that made it fairly easy. But never underestimate the fun factor for folks who are newer at this game.

Gary Jugert 11:33 AM  

@Masked and Anonymous 9:51 AM
"IN. har" LOL 🤣

Newboy 11:41 AM  

Bizarre solve on an iPad. Trying to keep the missing letters in mind while grappling with the next clue was anything but easy! Madame Newboy solving on paper had much more fun than I today, & with her assistance NOUS finally got it done. The NW was a real hang up when neither bosnCHAIR or cptnCHAIR made sense and led to HYSTERICS as the grid continued to EAT AWAY self-confidence. I felt like I was facing a 10 square Wordle with half green & mixed YELLOW and grey for most of the hour, but luckily my self-esteem survived the trauma of Ms Corbin’s AMPLE (d)READ.

Carola 12:02 PM  

A crafty puzzle, an Ida update, and enlightening comments -->happy start to the day. I remained in the DARK longer than many of you, unsure how to deal with the too-many-letters situation of (D)READ and (A)ISLES, since all of the Downs worked, without a rebus being involved. Blindly pressed on, then saw the pattern of the missing initial letters; still I needed the reveal to alert me to the presence of DARK MATTER. Great idea for a Thursday puzzle! And, no kidding, "hard to detect," with all of the altered entries being real words. I'm aptly agape at this feat.

@Anonymous 8:08, @thfenn, @jberg, re: "Facilities" - Your comments made me wonder why the plural "facilities" can refer to a single bathroom, while one, say, hospital, is a health care facility, singlular. After some digging, I'm guessing that it's a euphemistic shortening of "sanitary facilities." The OED says the plural usage meaning "lavatory" is North American; their first citation is from the 1930s.

Anonymous 12:08 PM  

Thank to all. Will do.

Joe Dipinto 12:54 PM  

I think it's kind of careless to let some of your theme letters fall out of the grid and not go back and pick them up.

My eyes keep seeing a hidden anagram of in excelsis Deo on the right:
— E D
O X I
— C S
— E S
— L E
— I N

EACH, out in the DARKness. (1968, not 67)

Kate C. 1:01 PM  

"The stirring threatens to become something more mischievous" is an excellent description of my early twenties.

Thanks for all you do! I love my daily ritual of doing the puzzle and reading the blog. It's a short part of my day, but I always look forward to it.

Kate

Anonymous 1:06 PM  

"The worst thing, and hardest thing, in the puzzle is AROUSER (44D: One giving a wake-up call), because again, I ask, what the hell?" And even worse is that "a rooser" works for "a rooster" with a missing letter (different pattern but still missing) and is a much better answer imo. Had me stuck for a while.

okanaganer 1:16 PM  

Wow, yet another enjoyable theme; this has been a great week so far. I think it went pretty fast; my timer say 13 minutes but there was a short phone call in the middle, so probably was really about 9 minutes.

Hand up for OXY before OXI, which for 31 down gave DYS---- which I thought might be Freeman Dyson, the PHYSICist.

[Spelling Bee: yd 0; Barbara S I sympathize, it was really hard to keep track with all those ---ING words. My last was this 7er which does a lot with only 3 letters.]

Jack 1:39 PM  

Perhaps having the missing letters stuck in the black squares would work if the hidden phrase was "black holes" rather than "dark matter".

HowardA 1:49 PM  

I totally agree with you. Missing letters should absolutely, definitely, unequivocally, be hidden in black squares. You were rather lenient with your dissatisfaction with this non concept. Some of my peers replying to your comments are trying to explain the physicist definition of “dark” but this layman ain’t gonna listen to the science here. Dark is dark when black and white squares are involved. And the black squares are dark. What’s the MATTER with that?

CDilly52 1:59 PM  

Physics and I are not well acquainted, and during the one long and stressful year we were, every day seemed to present a new seemingly indecipherable challenge, and the only DARK MATTER was that between my ears.

Be that as it may, I didn’t need to know that term because it wasn’t required. In fact, I never knee the puzzle had a thematic element missing because it was so easy. Sure, at 1A I thought rebus, but quickly discerned that it was simply a missing letter after glancing at the downs and then almost instantly confirming with 20A (R)EACH as I wended my way diagonally down from the NW tonthe SE corner.

My wandering solve meant that I did not discover the missing letters in “order.” Sometimes I solve an early week puzzle making myself go through the solve numerically, but it’s not something that floats my boat. Throughout my speedy, solve (the app says I beat my former Thursday best but I almost never look at that) I truly felt that this one should have been placed earlier in the week, but we aren’t “the boss of” (as an angry kiddo might say) the NYTXW, and are not entitled to direct placement of chosen puzzles. Maybe it was the fact of the missing letter that the editors thought would utterly flummox new solvers. Whatever, this one just seemed out of sync for a Thursday and better suited for Monday or Tuesday.

All this to say I still have no idea how I feel about this one. It was fine, and easy and not offensive and I did learn a nee word for “orangish-brown gem”. SARD.

I also did see the reveal finally. When I went back to loom for the missing letters, they instantly (to me) spelled “trademark.” Missed the extra T in my scavenger hunt. HooBoy.

ChrisS 2:03 PM  

I would think the most accurate revealer would be Cosmology. Also I had also thought satyrs were goat/man not horse/man (those are centaurs) but maybe I'm confusing Greek and Roman mythology

thfenn 2:32 PM  

LOL, glad we've sorted out the LOO crap. Thanks all. I do get it. Have probably even said "I need to use the facilities". Just got stuck on the plural clue requires plural answer rule and couldn't recognize facilities' singularity.
Been away for months so will just add I missed you all.

Smith 3:04 PM  

Easy, yes. New pr for Thurs. Saw the trick at EACH. Like that the unclued answers are actual words.

New to me: SARD, so much so that I was surprised on putting in the A to get the congrats screen.

I wrote this earlier and posted it but looks like it disappeared... like the DARK MATTER (or maybe I mean black holes).

Thx to Shirley F early this am for the book reco; have it on hold at my home library.

Anonymous 3:45 PM  

I am in the seeming majority of people who thought it was OXY.

I liked the theme, but do agree this was easy for a Thursday. I know that because I was able to do the whole thing--not something I always accomplish at this point in the week. Some of the fill was dull, but I did enjoy spelling out dark matter. Of course, I already had PH and S, so I would have guessed PHYSICS anyway.

Beezer 4:11 PM  

Late to the party today but @CDilly52 pretty much summed up my experience with puzzle AND physics! (Hey…someone may have also summed up my thoughts but if I don’t get to blog until late, I go to bottom and scroll up). Lol, CDilly…only difference was I didn’t see “trademark”! Usually I am like @Nancy…but today I figured out DARKMATTER post-solve. Cracks me up because my husband is an IP attorney!

Beezer 4:20 PM  

An addendum. Hand up for OXy-Clean. I was so stunned I went to my laundry cabinet to check post-solve! Speaking of which…I need to pitch my plastic container of Oxi-Clean unless someone can tell me how to get it back to being granulated! My only past experience in this type of thing is to stick a heel of bread in a bag of brown sugar!
PS…I’ll recycle the container if I have to chuck the “block” of Oxi-Clean…

CDilly52 5:09 PM  

@Beezer. 4:11. Haha. Kindred spirits today. I did a lot of copyright work. IP is the only really new area of law to come along. If I were starting now, that would be where I would go.

Anonymous 5:52 PM  

I would have just made the first letters of MATTER be dark rather than the whole phrase DARK MATTER.

Anonymous 6:59 PM  


I enjoyed this puzzle, which was very decent for a cruciverbalist's first NYT entry...but it would have been a less easy and more intriguing solve if it hadn't been tipped that there were 10 missing letters.
One of the most creative 'missing letters' puzzles I've yet encountered...and I'm a Baby Boomer lifelong puzzle lover...was created by Matt Ginsberg, and appeared in a volume of Simon & Schuster's Mega Crosswords Series.
*SPOILER ALERT*
The puzzle was titled 'The Invisible Man', and at first appeared innocuous and simple, with Theme Answers related to various Invisible Man movies and media. But there was one long answer that stretched across the center of the grid, 'M.A.S.H. Nurse', with the answer 'HotLipsHoulihan'... and none of the crosses worked, unless you added a letter to each word. And those missing letters spelled out (you guessed it) THEINVISIBLEMAN. Get it? The Invisible Man was in the puzzle...but he was 'invisible'.
I was so impressed with the puzzle that I bought a second copy of the book just for that crossword, which I keep copies of and give out to other puzzlers when I encounter them.

Cat Advocate 9:04 PM  

Yes, very easy for a Thursday. Beautiful cat, btw.

Magen 10:06 PM  

I read it as “A_ROUSER” not “AROUSER.” Two words, not one. That makes more sense, yes?

Anonymous 11:59 PM  

Easy enough. Got ‘em all and went
back to write in the missing letters.

Just wanted to say I got my thank you card from Mr Michael Sharp IN today’s mail. This old timer says, nice!

CAK 10:15 AM  

Lewis, you are my kind of person - KIND! By any chance, are you as bothered as I am with the AMPLE use of these derogatory terms in clues and answers: TWITS, nitwits, idiot, oaf, etc. It's disheartening and so unkind...

Anonymous 10:37 AM  

I thought Isaac Newton was the apple guy 🤔

Anonymous 11:21 AM  

That was Steve Jobs.

RickLevenson 9:51 AM  

Has no one pointed out... An *ARC* is never a line segment!!! In no branch of math(s) does this make sense, Euclidean or not. Major editing fail, IMHO.

A line, by definition is straight. And an arc...

What am I missing?

rondo 11:16 AM  

I call "Foul". Not only because I didn't like this ouz, but because of the INs: WENTALLIN ASIN PEERIN EXCELIN INSTORE INGENERAL. 6 INs and at least two cross on the IN.
Wordle birdie.

spacecraft 11:21 AM  

At first I thought "Hoo boy! This is gonna be impossible!" Because where are the missing letters going to occur? But then as I worked I saw that they were all the words' first letters, and quickly ascertained what they were going to spell out...the thing got easier and easier as I went along. So I guess finally, OK, easy.

Didn't even notice all the INs; I just don't notice that stuff. This was a refreshing solve for me: instead of letter add-ons, we had letter um, subtract-offs? Quite neat that all ten theme words appeared as legit entries in the grid; kudos to Ms. Corbin for that.

I liked this one. DOD to NAOMI Watts, but honorable mention to the first-time constructor. Birdie.

Wordle birdie also.

Burma Shave 11:40 AM  

AMPLE DREAD

MARIA WENT IN to HYSTERICS,
she had NOT TAMED her YELLOW HAIR,
it's ALLIN the BASIS of PHYSICS;
BLOWN AWAY while IN a DECKCHAIR.

--- LORI LOO READ

Diana, LIW 12:55 PM  

Same initial reaction as @Spacey, especially when I KNEW the answer to 40A (MARIA) but saw it wouldn't fit, and then saw at 27 D that there were 10 places the puzzle would attempt to foil me. Oh no!

Talk about triumph points. And in retrospect, once I got going it was not all that difficult. But was it worth it for all that DARKMATTER? Mebbee

Diana, LIW

Diana, LIW 12:56 PM  

PS - But...I agree with @Rondo, too, about all the INS. Give IN a break.

Lady Di

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