Relative difficulty: Easy (the easiest puzzle I've ever done ... which I know I said about last Tuesday's puzzle, but hear me out ...)
THEME: "redundantly" — familiar phrases wherein a thing is equated to itself:
Theme answers:
"FAIR IS FAIR" (18A: "The rules apply to everyone," redundantly)
"A DEAL IS A DEAL" (23A: "Stick to the agreement," redundantly)
"WHAT'S DONE IS DONE" (36A: "There can be no changing things now," redundantly)
"IT IS WHAT IT IS" (47A: "We'll just have to adapt," redundantly)
"LOVE IS LOVE" (57A: "We all deserve to have our intimate relationships honored," redundantly)
Word of the Day: SINÉAD O'Connor (43D: O'Connor with the 1990 hit "Nothing Compares 2 U") —
Shuhada' Sadaqat (previously Magda Davitt; born Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor on 8 December 1966) is an Irish singer-songwriter. Her debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and charted internationally. Her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got received glowing reviews upon release and became her biggest success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Nothing Compares 2 U" (written by Prince), was named the number one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards.
She has released ten studio albums: 1992's Am I Not Your Girl? and 1994's Universal Mother both went gold in the UK, 2000's Faith and Courage received gold status in Australia, and 2005's Throw Down Your Arms went gold in Ireland. Her work also includes songs for films, collaborations with many other artists, and appearances at charity fundraising concerts. Her 2021 memoir Rememberings was a best seller.
Throughout her music career she has been unabashedly honest about her spiritual journey, activism, socio-political views, as well as her trauma and mental health struggles.
In 1999, she was ordained as a priest by the Latin Tridentine Church, a sect that is not recognized by the mainstream Catholic Church. She consistently speaks out on issues related to child abuse, human rights, anti-racism, organised religion, and women's rights. In 2017, O'Connor changed her name to Magda Davitt. After converting to Islam in 2018, she changed it to Shuhada' Sadaqat. However, she continues to record and perform under her birth name. (wikipedia)
• • •
Solved Downs-only, as I always do on Monday. Got the first 24 Downs I looked at. That's 24 answers in a row where I read the clue and wrote in the answer with absolutely no letters in place. Then I hit a Down I didn't know. Then I got the remaining 14 Downs, just like the first 24, all in a row, no stopping, no crosses in place. By that point, the one answer I hadn't gotten filled itself in easily. It seems ... at least plausible ... that I could've broken not just the two-minute but the one-minute mark, if I'd really gone full tilt. You'd think not looking at the Acrosses would *hinder* you—I mean, that's the whole point of solving Downs-only: to throw some difficulty into the mix. But when the puzzle offers absolutely no difficulty whatsoever, you actually save time by not bothering with Acrosses. I am all for easy Mondays, but this was ridiculous. The theme idea seems cute, if ... well, redundant, and a bit boring. Lots of word repetition—I mean, that's kind of the point of the theme, but still, lots of "IS" and then a double helping of "WHAT" as well. Three of the themers are perfect equations, with exactly the same thing on either side of the IS, but then the two "WHAT" answers change all that. Still, there's enough thematic consistency, I think— the "redundantly" clue gimmick pulls it all together nicely.
But I'm still stuck on how absurdly easy it all was. The Newsday Monday puzzle used to be the paradigm of easiness—it's the first puzzle I ever tried to solve Downs-only. Well, this gave me less trouble than even the most pushovery Newsday puzzle. This pretty much means that there's virtually nothing of interest outside the theme—nothing more than overfamiliar humdrum fill. It's a very bland grid. Unsurprisingly, the most interesting non-theme answer in the whole thing is the one Down I *didn't* get at first glance: 37D: "They just want to see how we'll react" ("IT'S A TEST"). I thought "IT'S A TRAP" then "JOKE" then "IT'S NO BIG" (which is a thing I think we said in the '80s, omitting "Deal"). The point is, I didn't know for sure, so I left it. "IT'S A TEST" is kind of a contrived phrase, but today, that gets it points for originality.
I did have to sorta look at the way the Acrosses were shaping up before I wrote in BLOW at 53D: Erupt. I wanted SPEW. Well, no one ever really *wants* SPEW, but you know what I mean. But I could tell that the themer down there was going to be LOVE IS LOVE, so I mentally slotted the first "L" and got BLOW that way. What else? Not a lot going on. "BE IT SO" and BASS ALE are kinda creaky. I'm looking around the grid for stuff to like, and not seeing a lot. "SPAMALOT" and DRYING UP are a solid pair of long Downs, so that's something. There just doesn't seem to be that much to say about this one. IT IS WHAT IT IS, indeed. See you tomorrow.
IAMTHATIAM was another possibility, but might not play well in crosswords, based on some previous commentary concerning the speaker of this phrase.
SUFFIXED? ARYA kiddin’ me? I suffix every chance I get. Suffixing is even more fun than Pluraling for Convenience. Just ask @Anoa Bob.
I actually liked this a lot. It really leant itself to a downs only solve, but would have been fun in any case. The theme was easy but made me chuckle and the fill was smooth and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Thanks, Gia Bosko.
I agree that this was pretty easy, even though I had to solve on the APP ‘cause we’re out of ink. I hate that. Messes up my nifty little system of circling great clues, notes in right margin for comment ideas, notes in left margin for other themer possibilities, darkening outline of unfair cross boxes . . .
I’m stopping by Walmart to get ink after my appointment at Kia for them to install something to thwart potential thieves. My students had warned me that there’s a TikTok tutorial about how to steal a car like mine (many are at my school for stealing cars), so I was happy to get the recall letter.
Annyyywayyyyy, I never knew SUFFIX could be a verb, but I like it. I’ve never met a word I couldn’t suffix. English is just so play withable, ya know?
I felt proud to know that Lady Macbeth said WHAT’S DONE IS DONE, but then I panicked briefly on the clue for the 53A novelists. Happily BRONTË went right in, probably because I love any name with a diaresis. I guess I’ve been teaching high school English long enough that I’ve accepted that my forte is not poetry and prose but rather grammar and writing. (Contrary to popular belief, I do teach “standard” English; I just don’t insist that it’s The Holy Grail of communication.) “When I first started, I would beat myself up terribly over my fear of literature, but these days I’m like, Enough is enough. I am what I am, and that’s that.
I love getting back to Mondays. Life's natural order is restored and the oof-ness of the weekend melts away ... clear up until you run into SUFFIXED.
Lots of chatty phrases in the puzzle made it feel friendly.
Uniclues:
1 Minimal way to make a bagel less awful. 2 Enthusiastically approved way to enter every apartment. 3 Crossword clue writer's suggestion for the answer, HOW SOME FISH GET DRUNK. 4 Student's jaded comment when the teacher says, "I have exciting news." 5 Take the "Sanitized for Your Protection" paper strip off the hotel toilet.
1 LOX, AT LEAST 2 AOK MASTER KEY 3 BASS ALE, SAY 4 I BET IT'S A TEST 5 UNSEAL SEATS
Also solving down clues only, it went smoothly but not quite at the blistering pace of Rex. I had a few wrong downs at first: CAMELOT wouldn't fit for SPAMALOT, WAIT before WHOA, Rex's SPEW before BLOW, and spelling challenged me put in ATILLA before ATTILA. (Amusing: that last one left me with BRONIE at 53 across and, not being "allowed" to see the clue, it looked fine cuz I'd heard of it. Google it!... it's kinda funny.)
xwordinfo's Jeff Chen said: POW (puzzle of week)!!! On a Monday.
[Spelling Bee: Sun 0 but it was tough. Struggled to get these last 4 words in that order. But the very first word I tried was MURIATIC which was rejected (why?) and would have been a pangram. Sam, Sam, Sam!]
On the tough side for me time wise but it was mostly self inflicted. The top third went quickly but I got hung up several times on the lower half which can happen when you put stuff in with out checking the crosses...pass Key (which didn’t fit, oaf before LUG, noted before WROTE which caused me to erase HAVEN, spew before BLOW...shot myself in the foot.
Smooth with two fine long downs. Liked it and Jeff gave it POW.
Croce Solvers: Croce’s Freestyle #800 started off very easy. The NW was early week NYT easy. The rest however was medium-tough Croce. As always, YMMV. Good luck!
I forgot that this is Pope Week. Yesterday we had Gregory, today Urban. No doubt Leo will show up tomorrow. Urban better steer clear of Sinead in the opposite corner.
Why was it necessary to add "redundantly" to every clue? The motif is obvious on its own. Will Shortz seems hellbent on removing any solving aspect from the puzzle. Everything gets telegraphed or explained in advance.
70-worder on a Monday?! And quite a clean one at that, pretty impressive for a grid with 5 theme answers. Still Monday-easy, especially with the redundancy gimmick. My only real snag wast DEEMS apT before FIT.
@okanaganer I agree that the Bee is not big on chemistry or medical terms. MURIATIC was my 1st word and I knew, as I was typing it in, it would be a no go. URTICARIA is also rejected.
“I am what I am, and that's all that I am.” Popeye
My five favorite clues from last week (in order of appearance):
1. Device for someone who is hopping mad? (4)(5) 2. Bird spotted in eastern Samoa? (3) 3. Metaphor for one's personal perspective (5) 4. They have bags under their eyes, for short (3) 5. Very formal, or very informal, garment (4)
Seemed like the same theme as yesterday, just with different familiar phrases. You know a puzzle is easy when all three of the Brontë Babes show up - usually they only give us one.
SUFFIXED is oh so NYT - it’s like it is in their DNA that they have to embarrass themselves on a daily basis (but it does provide significant entertainment value, for me at least).
Downs only. I doubt there are a dozen puzzle I’ve finished faster even when seeing all the clues. I think the only holdup was leaving it ASAD_ until the cross became clear, as I can never remember if meat is male or female.
Not familiar with LOVE IS LOVE as an expression. I do know Shakspur's sonnet 116, with 'love is not love'.
9A could have recycled the ‘popular papal name’ clue.
Yesterday in an NBA game Rudy Gober tried to punch his teammate Kyle Anderson. Afterwards, Anderson was fielding questions from the press – mostly doing a really good job of it – but towards the end he managed to say “IT IS WHAT IT IS” five times in 25 seconds. As a side note, that is the clip ESPN chose to use, so that an intelligent, thoughtful player came off looking like a cliche-spewing dolt.
Croce 800: Easy Croce. I had no idea what 34D is. Urban dictionary says it is used "liberally" on social media, but I've never seen it. And speaking of popular papal names ...
Yes, this was an impressively easy one without much sparkle, and, I felt like it was okay - not a memorable Monday but they can’t all be. Agreed with @Joe that the “redundantly” was unnecessary; it felt a bit patronizing given how easy the rest of the puzzle was. Fwiw, I definitely have heard ITS A TEST quite a bit (i.e. in a movie where the new person is trying to fit in with a specific crowd and there’s some kind of mild hazing going on).
I too paused at SUFFIXED, but since verbing is a thing, SUFFIXing should be too. Fairish, no?
I once shared a ferry ride back from Cherry Grove on Fire Island (big gay vacation spot) with WANDA Sykes. We all knew who she was and followed that New Yorker rule of just letting celebs be people too. She seemed lovely and down to earth. So this puzzle gets a plus for me for conjuring up that nice memory.
Why isn’t “SpamAlot” spelled like “CamElot?” Because it only has to rhyme and it’s a lot of spam. That slowed me down. And what a tease that they give us Bass Ale now that AB Inbev has apparently run it into the ground and we can’t get it here anymore.
Just as a reminder, Gia’s debut puzzle in February riffed off “Green Eggs and Ham” with sing-song theme answers like WITH A GOAT and ON A BOAT.
Today’s theme answers are sing-song as well, and, IMO, sing-song is one of the most delightful types of wordplay, so all of Gia’s NYT puzzles to date have enchanted me. Bolstering the sing-song is NEST / TEST / PEST in the southeast, not to mention the first-name-schwa-tail fest of ARYA / WANDA / RONA / ATTILA / ANITA. Rolls right off the tongue.
Underneath it all is skill. A junk-free grid with eight NYT debut answers, adding freshness, including the lovely SWOOPED IN, FAIR IS FAIR, DEEMS FIT, and IT’S A TEST. Also, the rebel in me liked seeing START at the finish.
Sparkling start to the week for me, Gia. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and I hope part of that is making more puzzles. Thank you for this one!
what is Croce 800? Lewis thanks always for your top 5. I see MOA made your list and was wondering why? I remember that one, but it was not until now I really “Got” it
So, a Monday Monday. Just right for an entry-level puzzler, I thought. I winced at SUFFIXED, but adulted and got over it.
OK, Shakespeare is more famous, but WHATSDONEISDONE will always remind me of Phil Coulter's lovely folk song about The Troubles, "The Town I Loved So Well", and especially my favorite version of it performed by Pierre BenSusan Highly recommended if you enjoy finger-style guitar and the bonus is his pronunciation of "There was music there in the Derry air" with his lovely French accent.
Also extra points for including SPANALOT and UTES, which always makes me think of My Cousin Vinny.
I liked this one just fine, GB. Good Beginning to the week, and thanks for all the fun.
Now off to Croce and The New Yorker Monday while I wait for it to warm up.
Unlike Rex, I didn’t find it all that easy and felt a few of the clues were a little bit of a challenge for Monday. But overall it was a pleasant spring breeze and very enjoyable to solve. I learned the word tautology and realized I had been hearing them all my life without knowing what they were called, starting with Saturday morning cartoons and Popeye. “I yam what I yam Olive Oyl.”
The only one that wasn’t familiar to me was LOVE IS LOVE. I have more often heard the expression “the heart wants what the heart wants.” But of course they won’t fit on the grid so you gotta do what you gotta do.
There may have been a Monday that I enjoyed more, but I don't remember what it was. Here's a puzzle that I'd happily give to a novice solver of whom I was especially fond: easy enough to be completely solvable, but lively and playful enough to show how entertaining a good puzzle can be.
And it's almost completely proper name-free, too -- other than the oddly-named ARYA (whoever he or she is) -- but I'm overlooking that because ARYA's last name is such a noble and beautiful one:)
About the truly awful SUFFIXED: Alas, @egs SWOOPED IN at the top of the blog and said everything witty about verbifying SUFFIX that there is to be said. I can't beat it, so I'll stay [almost] mum.
A really cute puzzle idea, neatly executed. Much better than most Mondays.
Had fun with this one - short lived yes but pleasant overall. Limited 3s and glue - slick fill throughout.
SUFFIXED was new to me also. Didn’t know SPAMALOT. Liked BASS ALE, MASTER KEY and RATS NEST. I thought SINEAD dropped her given name recently? That SW corner is loaded with trivia.
@Alice Pollard - Tim Croce publishes twice-weekly puzzles here. They are often fiendishly difficult -- although either they have been getting easier lately or I'm finally adjusting to the style. The last few have been 'hard NYT Saturday' level, instead of 2-3 times that.
First use of 'suffix' as a verb was in 1778. It therefore has a longer history than such johnny-come-latelies as "cookie", and "textbook".
Amy: very fast solve. Agree with @Gary about enjoying starting anew on Mondays, especially when they're bright, sunny, spring days. Thought this was a marvelous Monday. @LMS: taught a summer school class that was a lot like yours (e.g., when asked why she was taking the class, one young lady explained she'd punched out her former teacher). When I unlocked my car to drive off after the last day of school, there was a nicely wrapped gift from one of my more provocative students sitting on the driver's seat.🤷🏻♀️
This wasn't the "easiest ever" for me, contrarily, it wasn't tough, either. The way I like to solve a MonPuz, is read the Across clues really fast, filling in anything that is immediately known, but if I even have a nanosecond of doubt, I won't write anything in. Repeat with the Down clues. Once I have the first run through, I like to go to the Themers to see if I can figure them out, then just fill in the rest.
Checking my stats (on the NYT website on my desktop), my fastest ever Monday was 5:56. I usually average 7ish minutes, today was 9 minutes. So it's a way to slow down a fast solve.
Liked this puz. Don't know if I'd POW it, but, I haven't seen the weeks puzs like Jeff has. Bodes ill, though, for the rest of the week.
Or am I repeating myself. (See what I did there? 😁)
Cute enough, and certainly Monday-appropriate. But I ding it a bit because, to me, the first two aren't really said with the full "is" but rather with contractions: FAIR'SFAIR and ADEAL'SADEAL.
Hi all. I agree with Nancy about ease and fun of the puzzle. Just wanted to report that I did the rosswords.com puzzle ("Lonely Planet") created by ChatGPT and I wondered if anyone else did and what they thought.
p.s. about the ChatGPT puzzle: I saw one mistake, and I was wondering if the AI put that in the way fiber artists, for example, put in a mistake to show that they are human.
Agree on easy and nicely done. As I was solving, I especially liked the "say it twice" aspect of the theme after yesterday's theme of half-expressions. Today, too, I was struck by how many of these the constructor found and appreciated having my eyes opened to an aspect of our language usage I hadn't thought about. A cute Sunday-Monday pairing, whether intended or not, that added a second level of enjoyment to today's puzzle for me.
@kitshef 8:52 - Thank you for posting the link to Tim Croce's puzzles, which I've "heard" about here in the comments for quite a while and have been intrigued. Now I just need to work up the NERVE to give one a try.
@Sir Hillary - the same occurred to me, and it was particularly noticeable when the third themer abandoned that and went with WHAT'S DONE IS DONE rather than WHAT IS DONE IS DONE, which would at least have been consistent.
I'm typically easily entertained and just happy that someone created a puzzle for me to complete. But as this one went on, I became increasingly resentful at the tedium. Much too easy for the NYT, even for a Monday.
I find it so RICH that Parker laments, “There wasn’t much to say about this one.” I’d say he expelled more than a mouthful of nitpicks. SAME OLD, SAME OLD boring rant when he really has nothing to say. Sad. I thought it was fine for a Monday and agree with Nancy @8:31 that beginners would find it engaging, maybe enough to try harder ones?
ANITA SWOOPED IN to the town of SWAB and had the NERVE to write A LOT OF SPAM about the DRYING UP of LOVE. She had been given the MASTER KEY to the APPS of Mr. NERO, the town RAT, and after ONE SCAN, she knew she'd write a SOAP about his unFAIR DEAL with AVIS.
You see, AVIS was an URBAN FAIR lady who LOVEs LOVE but doesn't like LIES. She knows WHAT IT IS and she knows a good DEAL IS WHAT IT IS (At LEAST she thought so) when DONE in a FAIR manner.
NERO promised a REFILE on her taxes that DEEMS FIT for someone like her. She would be the PAYEE and he would be the GENT who would MASTER mind the SALE. He told her the DEAL would BLOW her CHAIS away in ONE fell SWOOP. Instead....it landed her behind LOX and KEY. SUFFIXED to say, she felt like ATTILA INA a rage. "LIES...all LIES" she'd yell. "AT LEAST you could've DONE a better DEAL with me...your one true LOVE!" NERO just sneered and said "BE IT SO...IT IS WHAT IT IS."....
It was then that AVIS WROTE to ANITA. They had a MASTER plan to UNSEAL this RATS true colors and write a SOAP about him. IT'S A TEST of their determination, they'd say, and cross fingers he'd be the one behind LOX and KEY.
At the START of the GALA LOVE SOAP, ANITA began to sing a LOVE song that would BLOW any SANE person away. She sang about the SPAM APPS in NERO's FILE. She sang about IT ISn't WHAT IT IS. No bad DEAL should go unpunished. What is FAIR is that LOVE can be a DEAL gone wrong. ...It was a MASTER performance and the crowd ran AMOK with joy.
That USER RAT NERO finally fled to the ISLES of BASSALE. He became a PEST in that HAVEN as well. No SANE person would have him SCAN them like he did AVIS.
As fate would have it, he ended up behind LOX and KEY. He would never have the NERVE to MAR LOVE DRYING UP in the town of SWAB again. In his adjoining cell, your could hear the guards sing: WHATS LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT, GOT TO DO WITH IT.....
Egsforbreakfast, I really like your clues and I wish they had used something similar rather than going so literal for the theme answers.
I think SpamAlot has to be spelled that way because I believe someone in the Holy Grail movie says something about eating Spam a lot, and it’s a reference to that line.
Since I now solve Mondays blindfolded, I found this to be an extremely challenging puzzle. For example, I had no idea what the clues were or where exactly to put the answers. I ended up writing many of them on my tablecloth which is a problem since I solve in ink.
@Leslie - I had not heard about it but just gave it a try. I thought it was pretty darn good - better than probably 35% of NYT puzzles.
I'm curious how much time Ross spent trying to get ChatGPT to do what he wanted, as I have found it utterly useless. Once I tried to get it to give me a list of pairs of words that when put together, form another word. Like MAN and AGE form MANAGE. It kept giving me crap like BOOK and PAGE form BOOKPAGE. After half an hour of pointing out that BOOKPAGE (and all the other suggestions) were not words, and trying different ways of phrasing the question, I gave up. That is just one example. Everything I have asked of it has been a waste of time.
Primo MonPuz. Was indeed easy, but not extremely so, at our house. I mean, shoot -- this was a 70-worder puzgrid, after all.
Really, for fave significant puz phrases, M&A will have to go with: "Nothing Compares 2 U". in other repeater phrase news: "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose". And this here puz theme smelled mighty good.
staff weeject pick of only 7 available candidates: INA. Sounds like it's probably good repeater phrases meat. "A ___ IN A ___ IN A ___", or somesuch.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clues: Downs only ones: {Emperor who purportedly fiddled as Rome burned} = NERO. Always cool to purport stuff up. Across only ones: {Daytime TV drama, informally} = SOAP.
other fave stuff: DEEMSFIT. MASTERKEY. RATSNEST. SWOOPEDIN. SPAMALOT.
SUFFIXED. har
Thanx for the fun, Ms. Bosko darlin. Very smooth work. And congratz on yer POW award.
You know what you call it when a hawk comes screaming out of the sky to grab a small rodent? You say the hawk StOOPED ON it. SWOOPED isn't wrong -- Dictionary.com defines "stooped" as "swooped down," after all -- but giving a hawk's action as an example is maybe too deceptive for a Monday.
I never solve downs only, but I think Rex is right that it would have been easier.. I would have avoided StOOPED ON, and not had to worry about ARYA was OK, or how to spell O'NEAL. Maybe I'll try it next week, but I'll probably forget.
I've read and seen Macbeth many times, but never really noticed Lady M. saying "What's done is done." It's a nice echo of Macbeth's earlier:
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly..."
This was not the easiest puzzle I've ever done. The easiest puzzle I've ever done was a TV Guide puzzle from the mid 1960's that had clues like "My Mother the ___" and "The Dean ___ Show."
@kitshef (11:31) -- Re the failures of Chat GPT: Phew!
As I said in a recent post -- I think here, but maybe not -- The Bot didn't understand! THE BOT DIDN'T UNDERSTAND!!!! It's Humanity = 1; Bot = 0. Yay, us!!!
@bocamp-Found the NYer tough but doable. One long answer, which apparently I should know, took every cross including one good guess. Be curious to know what you think.
While rex, who has spent an inordinate amount of time doing puzzles over the years, found today to be too easy - and gripes about it - he forgets that there are a ton of xw newbies for whom a puzzle like this is the perfect gateway into the hobby.
But for the inclusion of SUFFIXED, which just feels too forced (is SUFFIX really a verb?), I thought this puzzle hit all the spots: some nice long crossers, a fun theme, very little "typical" fill, and very very few proper names. Without going back to the puz to check it's only the BRONTES who stand out. What's not to like?
@Joseph Michael (11:25) 🤣 I’m gonna chuckle at that imagery the rest of the day.
@jberg (12:34) For what it’s worth, SWOOPED is the only word I’ve ever heard used to describe a raptor attacking. Swooped down more so than swooped in, but never stooped. Makes perfect sense though based on the definition of the word.
What I notice about entries like SUFFIXED is that it's an easy, convenient way to boost the letter count and, hence, the grid fill power of a base word like SUFFIX. There are numerous ways to boost the letter count of base words, the most frequent being tacking on a gratuitous S---see 1A APPS---to get a plural of convenience (POC). Some other examples in this grid can be seen when FILE, DANE, DEEM FIT, SWOOP IN, OAK, DOME, SEAT, LIE, DRY UP, ISLE and UTE all need some help to fill their slots. I think of these different methods as falling under the rubric of letter count inflation (LCI).
Nice to see 54D RONA clued as "Novelist Jaffe" rather than the recent "Covid[sic]-19, informally". (COVID or COVID-19 is already informal for Coronavirus Disease 2019.) I think the most convoluted NYTXW clue for RONA was "Woman's name that becomes another woman's name when the first and third letters are swapped". Sound familiar?
I winced at the fact that the INs in 30A SWOOPEDIN and 34D INA crossed each other. I guess multiple usages of IN in a puzzle isn't the worst sin, but to have them in close proximity, in this case actually sharing a letter, seemed pretty sloppy to me. Just clue 34D as "Celebrity chef ___ Garten" and avoid the issue altogether.
PABLOINNH - “what's done is done, what's won is won, what's lost is lost and gone forever” The Town I Loved So Well is a favorite of mine.... so poignantly beautiful. Did you know Phil Coulter also (co)wrote S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night by the Bay City Rollers. I’d be Gard pressed to come up with 2 songs more different.
Happy to hear you got it! I'm still working on Croce's 800, so Anna's New Yorker Mon. will likely have to wait until tm. I'll get back to you. :) ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
@bocamp-I know some thought this was "easy for a Croce", but that to me still means "pretty darn tough". Managed to finish but not without some work. Good luck.
Speaking of redundancy, one of my college profs loved to hear himself talk, and thus padded his oratory with superfluous words. I still remember when he admonished a student – without trying to be funny – with, “What you just said is redundant and unnecessarily repetitive.”
Previous discussion of SWOOPED IN remined me of the phrase "in one fell swoop". I learned long ago that it means "In one sudden action" but it was years later that I learned it originally referred to the sudden, swift attack of a bird of prey. So I thought the clue "Descended swiftly, like a hawk" was apropos.
I just now saw at phrases.org.uk that The Bard was a early source of the phrase:
"Shakespeare either coined the phrase, or gave it circulation, in Macbeth, 1605:
MACDUFF: [on hearing that his family and servants have all been killed]
All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop?"
"Fell" meant "fierce" back then. The "kite" refers to a bird of prey.
@Carola 1:05 Thank you for sharing the link. I was fooled! along with many others, I guess. Still, I wonder how ChatGPT would actually do with making a puzzle.
I first heard of Pierre Bensusan on my first trip to France in 1983 (along with Francoise Hardy). Our coach driver played their cassette tapes while driving through the gorgeous countryside. I brought home several of their respective cassette tapes and played them endlessly! I think it's time to listen to them again 😍 I'll crack open a nice French rose and dig out the cassette player 😉 I always look forward to your initialization of each constructor's name! You are so clever - and fun! Thanks!
Yes, it is a beginner-friendly puzzle. But that is not a negative thing. Especially on a Monday. Mondays are the gateway puzzle for new solvers. You would think Rex would welcome that. Aside from that, I thought it had a great theme and very little junk fill. Not bad for a two-time constructor.
I am all full of the Golden Knights' win to eliminate the Oilers from the Cup chase (hats off to Marchessault), so I'll keep it upbeat. This was a good puzzle to fill the Monday slot. Not much to the solving, but there doesn't need to be today. Birdie.
I solved this puz using only down and across clues and letters from the English alphabet, which made it rather easy. Noticed: SWOOPEDIN/INA cross, BEITSO ITS ITISWHATITIS lotsa ITs and ISes. WANT in the corners. Wordle birdie.
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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73 comments:
Words to live by:
Umpire: FAIRISFAIR
Card Player: ADEALISADEAL
Chef: WHATSDONEISDONE
Information Technologist: ITISWHATITIS
Tennis Player: LOVEISLOVE
IAMTHATIAM was another possibility, but might not play well in crosswords, based on some previous commentary concerning the speaker of this phrase.
SUFFIXED? ARYA kiddin’ me? I suffix every chance I get. Suffixing is even more fun than Pluraling for Convenience. Just ask @Anoa Bob.
I actually liked this a lot. It really leant itself to a downs only solve, but would have been fun in any case. The theme was easy but made me chuckle and the fill was smooth and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Thanks, Gia Bosko.
I agree that this was pretty easy, even though I had to solve on the APP ‘cause we’re out of ink. I hate that. Messes up my nifty little system of circling great clues, notes in right margin for comment ideas, notes in left margin for other themer possibilities, darkening outline of unfair cross boxes . . .
I’m stopping by Walmart to get ink after my appointment at Kia for them to install something to thwart potential thieves. My students had warned me that there’s a TikTok tutorial about how to steal a car like mine (many are at my school for stealing cars), so I was happy to get the recall letter.
Annyyywayyyyy, I never knew SUFFIX could be a verb, but I like it. I’ve never met a word I couldn’t suffix. English is just so play withable, ya know?
I felt proud to know that Lady Macbeth said WHAT’S DONE IS DONE, but then I panicked briefly on the clue for the 53A novelists. Happily BRONTË went right in, probably because I love any name with a diaresis. I guess I’ve been teaching high school English long enough that I’ve accepted that my forte is not poetry and prose but rather grammar and writing. (Contrary to popular belief, I do teach “standard” English; I just don’t insist that it’s The Holy Grail of communication.) “When I first started, I would beat myself up terribly over my fear of literature, but these days I’m like, Enough is enough. I am what I am, and that’s that.
I love getting back to Mondays. Life's natural order is restored and the oof-ness of the weekend melts away ... clear up until you run into SUFFIXED.
Lots of chatty phrases in the puzzle made it feel friendly.
Uniclues:
1 Minimal way to make a bagel less awful.
2 Enthusiastically approved way to enter every apartment.
3 Crossword clue writer's suggestion for the answer, HOW SOME FISH GET DRUNK.
4 Student's jaded comment when the teacher says, "I have exciting news."
5 Take the "Sanitized for Your Protection" paper strip off the hotel toilet.
1 LOX, AT LEAST
2 AOK MASTER KEY
3 BASS ALE, SAY
4 I BET IT'S A TEST
5 UNSEAL SEATS
This is not the easiest puzzle *I’ve* ever done as the ASADA/ARYA cross stymied me for a nanosecond. It IS Monday, they are supposed to be easy.
Will Shortz is playing with us, right? Yesterday he gave us abbreviated sayings and today's are redundant. Still, I had fun with both.
Also solving down clues only, it went smoothly but not quite at the blistering pace of Rex. I had a few wrong downs at first: CAMELOT wouldn't fit for SPAMALOT, WAIT before WHOA, Rex's SPEW before BLOW, and spelling challenged me put in ATILLA before ATTILA. (Amusing: that last one left me with BRONIE at 53 across and, not being "allowed" to see the clue, it looked fine cuz I'd heard of it. Google it!... it's kinda funny.)
xwordinfo's Jeff Chen said: POW (puzzle of week)!!! On a Monday.
[Spelling Bee: Sun 0 but it was tough. Struggled to get these last 4 words in that order. But the very first word I tried was MURIATIC which was rejected (why?) and would have been a pangram. Sam, Sam, Sam!]
On the tough side for me time wise but it was mostly self inflicted. The top third went quickly but I got hung up several times on the lower half which can happen when you put stuff in with out checking the crosses...pass Key (which didn’t fit, oaf before LUG, noted before WROTE which caused me to erase HAVEN, spew before BLOW...shot myself in the foot.
Smooth with two fine long downs. Liked it and Jeff gave it POW.
Croce Solvers: Croce’s Freestyle #800 started off very easy. The NW was early week NYT easy. The rest however was medium-tough Croce. As always, YMMV. Good luck!
I forgot that this is Pope Week. Yesterday we had Gregory, today Urban. No doubt Leo will show up tomorrow. Urban better steer clear of Sinead in the opposite corner.
Why was it necessary to add "redundantly" to every clue? The motif is obvious on its own. Will Shortz seems hellbent on removing any solving aspect from the puzzle. Everything gets telegraphed or explained in advance.
Black is black.
70-worder on a Monday?! And quite a clean one at that, pretty impressive for a grid with 5 theme answers. Still Monday-easy, especially with the redundancy gimmick. My only real snag wast DEEMS apT before FIT.
I liked RATSNEST, SPAMALOT, and MASTERKEY.
@okanaganer I agree that the Bee is not big on chemistry or medical terms. MURIATIC was my 1st word and I knew, as I was typing it in, it would be a no go. URTICARIA is also rejected.
“I am what I am, and that's all that I am.”
Popeye
My five favorite clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Device for someone who is hopping mad? (4)(5)
2. Bird spotted in eastern Samoa? (3)
3. Metaphor for one's personal perspective (5)
4. They have bags under their eyes, for short (3)
5. Very formal, or very informal, garment (4)
POGO STICK
MOA
SHOES
TSA
ROBE
Not the easiest puzzle I've ever done, but a normal Monday with a pleasant theme. I question whether SUFFIXED is a real word.
Seemed like the same theme as yesterday, just with different familiar phrases. You know a puzzle is easy when all three of the Brontë Babes show up - usually they only give us one.
SUFFIXED is oh so NYT - it’s like it is in their DNA that they have to embarrass themselves on a daily basis (but it does provide significant entertainment value, for me at least).
Downs only. I doubt there are a dozen puzzle I’ve finished faster even when seeing all the clues. I think the only holdup was leaving it ASAD_ until the cross became clear, as I can never remember if meat is male or female.
Not familiar with LOVE IS LOVE as an expression. I do know Shakspur's sonnet 116, with 'love is not love'.
9A could have recycled the ‘popular papal name’ clue.
Yesterday in an NBA game Rudy Gober tried to punch his teammate Kyle Anderson. Afterwards, Anderson was fielding questions from the press – mostly doing a really good job of it – but towards the end he managed to say “IT IS WHAT IT IS” five times in 25 seconds. As a side note, that is the clip ESPN chose to use, so that an intelligent, thoughtful player came off looking like a cliche-spewing dolt.
Croce 800: Easy Croce. I had no idea what 34D is. Urban dictionary says it is used "liberally" on social media, but I've never seen it. And speaking of popular papal names ...
Yes, this was an impressively easy one without much sparkle, and, I felt like it was okay - not a memorable Monday but they can’t all be. Agreed with @Joe that the “redundantly” was unnecessary; it felt a bit patronizing given how easy the rest of the puzzle was. Fwiw, I definitely have heard ITS A TEST quite a bit (i.e. in a movie where the new person is trying to fit in with a specific crowd and there’s some kind of mild hazing going on).
I too paused at SUFFIXED, but since verbing is a thing, SUFFIXing should be too. Fairish, no?
I once shared a ferry ride back from Cherry Grove on Fire Island (big gay vacation spot) with WANDA Sykes. We all knew who she was and followed that New Yorker rule of just letting celebs be people too. She seemed lovely and down to earth. So this puzzle gets a plus for me for conjuring up that nice memory.
Why isn’t “SpamAlot” spelled like “CamElot?” Because it only has to rhyme and it’s a lot of spam. That slowed me down. And what a tease that they give us Bass Ale now that AB Inbev has apparently run it into the ground and we can’t get it here anymore.
Just as a reminder, Gia’s debut puzzle in February riffed off “Green Eggs and Ham” with sing-song theme answers like WITH A GOAT and ON A BOAT.
Today’s theme answers are sing-song as well, and, IMO, sing-song is one of the most delightful types of wordplay, so all of Gia’s NYT puzzles to date have enchanted me. Bolstering the sing-song is NEST / TEST / PEST in the southeast, not to mention the first-name-schwa-tail fest of ARYA / WANDA / RONA / ATTILA / ANITA. Rolls right off the tongue.
Underneath it all is skill. A junk-free grid with eight NYT debut answers, adding freshness, including the lovely SWOOPED IN, FAIR IS FAIR, DEEMS FIT, and IT’S A TEST. Also, the rebel in me liked seeing START at the finish.
Sparkling start to the week for me, Gia. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and I hope part of that is making more puzzles. Thank you for this one!
what is Croce 800? Lewis thanks always for your top 5. I see MOA made your list and was wondering why? I remember that one, but it was not until now I really “Got” it
I liked the last entry being LOVE IS LOVE.
So, a Monday Monday. Just right for an entry-level puzzler, I thought. I winced at SUFFIXED, but adulted and got over it.
OK, Shakespeare is more famous, but WHATSDONEISDONE will always remind me of Phil Coulter's lovely folk song about The Troubles, "The Town I Loved So Well", and especially my favorite version of it performed by Pierre BenSusan Highly recommended if you enjoy finger-style guitar and the bonus is his pronunciation of "There was music there in the Derry air" with his lovely French accent.
Also extra points for including SPANALOT and UTES, which always makes me think of My Cousin Vinny.
I liked this one just fine, GB. Good Beginning to the week, and thanks for all the fun.
Now off to Croce and The New Yorker Monday while I wait for it to warm up.
Unlike Rex, I didn’t find it all that easy and felt a few of the clues were a little bit of a challenge for Monday. But overall it was a pleasant spring breeze and very enjoyable to solve. I learned the word tautology and realized I had been hearing them all my life without knowing what they were called, starting with Saturday morning cartoons and Popeye. “I yam what I yam Olive Oyl.”
The only one that wasn’t familiar to me was LOVE IS LOVE. I have more often heard the expression “the heart wants what the heart wants.” But of course they won’t fit on the grid so you gotta do what you gotta do.
There may have been a Monday that I enjoyed more, but I don't remember what it was. Here's a puzzle that I'd happily give to a novice solver of whom I was especially fond: easy enough to be completely solvable, but lively and playful enough to show how entertaining a good puzzle can be.
And it's almost completely proper name-free, too -- other than the oddly-named ARYA (whoever he or she is) -- but I'm overlooking that because ARYA's last name is such a noble and beautiful one:)
About the truly awful SUFFIXED: Alas, @egs SWOOPED IN at the top of the blog and said everything witty about verbifying SUFFIX that there is to be said. I can't beat it, so I'll stay [almost] mum.
A really cute puzzle idea, neatly executed. Much better than most Mondays.
Had fun with this one - short lived yes but pleasant overall. Limited 3s and glue - slick fill throughout.
SUFFIXED was new to me also. Didn’t know SPAMALOT. Liked BASS ALE, MASTER KEY and RATS NEST. I thought SINEAD dropped her given name recently? That SW corner is loaded with trivia.
Enjoyable Monday solve.
IT IS WHAT IT IS
@Alice Pollard - Tim Croce publishes twice-weekly puzzles here. They are often fiendishly difficult -- although either they have been getting easier lately or I'm finally adjusting to the style. The last few have been 'hard NYT Saturday' level, instead of 2-3 times that.
First use of 'suffix' as a verb was in 1778. It therefore has a longer history than such johnny-come-latelies as "cookie", and "textbook".
I did it better for the LA Times: https://laxcrossword.com/tag/latin-word-for-brought-back-used-in-titles-crossword-clue
Amy: very fast solve. Agree with @Gary about enjoying starting anew on Mondays, especially when they're bright, sunny, spring days. Thought this was a marvelous Monday.
@LMS: taught a summer school class that was a lot like yours (e.g., when asked why she was taking the class, one young lady explained she'd punched out her former teacher). When I unlocked my car to drive off after the last day of school, there was a nicely wrapped gift from one of my more provocative students sitting on the driver's seat.🤷🏻♀️
Hey All !
A MonPuz is a MonPuz.
DEEMS FIT.
This wasn't the "easiest ever" for me, contrarily, it wasn't tough, either. The way I like to solve a MonPuz, is read the Across clues really fast, filling in anything that is immediately known, but if I even have a nanosecond of doubt, I won't write anything in. Repeat with the Down clues. Once I have the first run through, I like to go to the Themers to see if I can figure them out, then just fill in the rest.
Checking my stats (on the NYT website on my desktop), my fastest ever Monday was 5:56. I usually average 7ish minutes, today was 9 minutes. So it's a way to slow down a fast solve.
Liked this puz. Don't know if I'd POW it, but, I haven't seen the weeks puzs like Jeff has. Bodes ill, though, for the rest of the week.
Or am I repeating myself. (See what I did there? 😁)
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Cute enough, and certainly Monday-appropriate. But I ding it a bit because, to me, the first two aren't really said with the full "is" but rather with contractions: FAIR'SFAIR and ADEAL'SADEAL.
Hi all. I agree with Nancy about ease and fun of the puzzle. Just wanted to report that I did the rosswords.com puzzle ("Lonely Planet") created by ChatGPT and I wondered if anyone else did and what they thought.
p.s. about the ChatGPT puzzle: I saw one mistake, and I was wondering if the AI put that in the way fiber artists, for example, put in a mistake to show that they are human.
Uniclues:
1) The pigeon did it
2) Trump's addendum
3) 29 rappers in one puzzle and @Nancy's response
4) Dressy orgy
5) "I stole money from every hotel room!"
1) SWOOPED IN, MAR
2) SUFFIXED LIES
3) "I BET IT'S A TEST"
4) LOVE IS LOVE GALA
5) AOK MASTER KEY
Agree on easy and nicely done. As I was solving, I especially liked the "say it twice" aspect of the theme after yesterday's theme of half-expressions. Today, too, I was struck by how many of these the constructor found and appreciated having my eyes opened to an aspect of our language usage I hadn't thought about. A cute Sunday-Monday pairing, whether intended or not, that added a second level of enjoyment to today's puzzle for me.
@kitshef 8:52 - Thank you for posting the link to Tim Croce's puzzles, which I've "heard" about here in the comments for quite a while and have been intrigued. Now I just need to work up the NERVE to give one a try.
@Sir Hillary - the same occurred to me, and it was particularly noticeable when the third themer abandoned that and went with WHAT'S DONE IS DONE rather than WHAT IS DONE IS DONE, which would at least have been consistent.
I think I'll start saying IT'S WHAT IT'S now.
Does anyone else hear Radar O’Reilly storming in and yelling, “A deal’s a deal!”?
I'm typically easily entertained and just happy that someone created a puzzle for me to complete. But as this one went on, I became increasingly resentful at the tedium. Much too easy for the NYT, even for a Monday.
I find it so RICH that Parker laments, “There wasn’t much to say about this one.” I’d say he expelled more than a mouthful of nitpicks. SAME OLD, SAME OLD boring rant when he really has nothing to say. Sad.
I thought it was fine for a Monday and agree with Nancy @8:31 that beginners would find it engaging, maybe enough to try harder ones?
suffixed
Thx, Gia, I DEEM this puz FIT for a Mon. offering. LOVEd it! :)
Med.
LOVEd the theme; found it quite helpful to the solve.
LOVE Jane Eyre and Arya of G.O.T..
Lots of LOVE today; very enjoyable adventure! :)
___
Thx @jae; on it! 🤞
@pablo: joining you on Anna Shechtman's Mon. New Yorker (prob tm).
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
ANITA SWOOPED IN to the town of SWAB and had the NERVE to write A LOT OF SPAM about the DRYING UP of LOVE. She had been given the MASTER KEY to the APPS of Mr. NERO, the town RAT, and after ONE SCAN, she knew she'd write a SOAP about his unFAIR DEAL with AVIS.
You see, AVIS was an URBAN FAIR lady who LOVEs LOVE but doesn't like LIES. She knows WHAT IT IS and she knows a good DEAL IS WHAT IT IS (At LEAST she thought so) when DONE in a FAIR manner.
NERO promised a REFILE on her taxes that DEEMS FIT for someone like her. She would be the PAYEE and he would be the GENT who would MASTER mind the SALE. He told her the DEAL would BLOW her CHAIS away in ONE fell SWOOP. Instead....it landed her behind LOX and KEY. SUFFIXED to say, she felt like ATTILA INA a rage. "LIES...all LIES" she'd yell. "AT LEAST you could've DONE a better DEAL with me...your one true LOVE!" NERO just sneered and said "BE IT SO...IT IS WHAT IT IS."....
It was then that AVIS WROTE to ANITA. They had a MASTER plan to UNSEAL this RATS true colors and write a SOAP about him. IT'S A TEST of their determination, they'd say, and cross fingers he'd be the one behind LOX and KEY.
At the START of the GALA LOVE SOAP, ANITA began to sing a LOVE song that would BLOW any SANE person away. She sang about the SPAM APPS in NERO's FILE. She sang about IT ISn't WHAT IT IS. No bad DEAL should go unpunished. What is FAIR is that LOVE can be a DEAL gone wrong. ...It was a MASTER performance and the crowd ran AMOK with joy.
That USER RAT NERO finally fled to the ISLES of BASSALE. He became a PEST in that HAVEN as well. No SANE person would have him SCAN them like he did AVIS.
As fate would have it, he ended up behind LOX and KEY. He would never have the NERVE to MAR LOVE DRYING UP in the town of SWAB again. In his adjoining cell, your could hear the guards sing: WHATS LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT, GOT TO DO WITH IT.....
An that's the truth.
Egsforbreakfast, I really like your clues and I wish they had used something similar rather than going so literal for the theme answers.
I think SpamAlot has to be spelled that way because I believe someone in the Holy Grail movie says something about eating Spam a lot, and it’s a reference to that line.
Since I now solve Mondays blindfolded, I found this to be an extremely challenging puzzle. For example, I had no idea what the clues were or where exactly to put the answers. I ended up writing many of them on my tablecloth which is a problem since I solve in ink.
@joseph michael -- Hah!
@Leslie - I had not heard about it but just gave it a try. I thought it was pretty darn good - better than probably 35% of NYT puzzles.
I'm curious how much time Ross spent trying to get ChatGPT to do what he wanted, as I have found it utterly useless. Once I tried to get it to give me a list of pairs of words that when put together, form another word. Like MAN and AGE form MANAGE. It kept giving me crap like BOOK and PAGE form BOOKPAGE. After half an hour of pointing out that BOOKPAGE (and all the other suggestions) were not words, and trying different ways of phrasing the question, I gave up. That is just one example. Everything I have asked of it has been a waste of time.
Primo MonPuz. Was indeed easy, but not extremely so, at our house. I mean, shoot -- this was a 70-worder puzgrid, after all.
Really, for fave significant puz phrases, M&A will have to go with: "Nothing Compares 2 U".
in other repeater phrase news: "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose". And this here puz theme smelled mighty good.
staff weeject pick of only 7 available candidates: INA. Sounds like it's probably good repeater phrases meat. "A ___ IN A ___ IN A ___", or somesuch.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clues:
Downs only ones: {Emperor who purportedly fiddled as Rome burned} = NERO. Always cool to purport stuff up.
Across only ones: {Daytime TV drama, informally} = SOAP.
other fave stuff: DEEMSFIT. MASTERKEY. RATSNEST. SWOOPEDIN. SPAMALOT.
SUFFIXED. har
Thanx for the fun, Ms. Bosko darlin. Very smooth work. And congratz on yer POW award.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
**gruntz**
You know what you call it when a hawk comes screaming out of the sky to grab a small rodent? You say the hawk StOOPED ON it. SWOOPED isn't wrong -- Dictionary.com defines "stooped" as "swooped down," after all -- but giving a hawk's action as an example is maybe too deceptive for a Monday.
I never solve downs only, but I think Rex is right that it would have been easier.. I would have avoided StOOPED ON, and not had to worry about ARYA was OK, or how to spell O'NEAL. Maybe I'll try it next week, but I'll probably forget.
I've read and seen Macbeth many times, but never really noticed Lady M. saying "What's done is done." It's a nice echo of Macbeth's earlier:
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly..."
I questioned SUFFIXED, but I stand corrected.
This was not the easiest puzzle I've ever done. The easiest puzzle I've ever done was a TV Guide puzzle from the mid 1960's that had clues like "My Mother the ___" and "The Dean ___ Show."
@kitshef (11:31) -- Re the failures of Chat GPT: Phew!
As I said in a recent post -- I think here, but maybe not -- The Bot didn't understand! THE BOT DIDN'T UNDERSTAND!!!! It's Humanity = 1; Bot = 0. Yay, us!!!
@bocamp-Found the NYer tough but doable. One long answer, which apparently I should know, took every cross including one good guess. Be curious to know what you think.
@Leslie 9:32 and @kitshef 11:31 - First, @Leslie, thank you for referring to the puzzle. I just solved it, and thought, "Wow, this is creepy!" Then I read the comments - I think you'll be interested in Ross's reply at 11:04 a.m. to one of many commenters who asked for more detail on the constructing process using ChatGPT!
Suffixed is terrible.
While rex, who has spent an inordinate amount of time doing puzzles over the years, found today to be too easy - and gripes about it - he forgets that there are a ton of xw newbies for whom a puzzle like this is the perfect gateway into the hobby.
But for the inclusion of SUFFIXED, which just feels too forced (is SUFFIX really a verb?), I thought this puzzle hit all the spots: some nice long crossers, a fun theme, very little "typical" fill, and very very few proper names. Without going back to the puz to check it's only the BRONTES who stand out. What's not to like?
@Joseph Michael (11:25) 🤣 I’m gonna chuckle at that imagery the rest of the day.
@jberg (12:34) For what it’s worth, SWOOPED is the only word I’ve ever heard used to describe a raptor attacking. Swooped down more so than swooped in, but never stooped. Makes perfect sense though based on the definition of the word.
@ Gary Jugert, Loved your unclues today
What I notice about entries like SUFFIXED is that it's an easy, convenient way to boost the letter count and, hence, the grid fill power of a base word like SUFFIX. There are numerous ways to boost the letter count of base words, the most frequent being tacking on a gratuitous S---see 1A APPS---to get a plural of convenience (POC). Some other examples in this grid can be seen when FILE, DANE, DEEM FIT, SWOOP IN, OAK, DOME, SEAT, LIE, DRY UP, ISLE and UTE all need some help to fill their slots. I think of these different methods as falling under the rubric of letter count inflation (LCI).
I'm not familiar with LOVE IS LOVE but it did remind me of The Bard's "LOVE IS not LOVE..." in his Sonnet 116, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments".
Nice to see 54D RONA clued as "Novelist Jaffe" rather than the recent "Covid[sic]-19, informally". (COVID or COVID-19 is already informal for Coronavirus Disease 2019.) I think the most convoluted NYTXW clue for RONA was "Woman's name that becomes another woman's name when the first and third letters are swapped". Sound familiar?
I winced at the fact that the INs in 30A SWOOPEDIN and 34D INA crossed each other. I guess multiple usages of IN in a puzzle isn't the worst sin, but to have them in close proximity, in this case actually sharing a letter, seemed pretty sloppy to me. Just clue 34D as "Celebrity chef ___ Garten" and avoid the issue altogether.
PABLOINNH - “what's done is done, what's won is won, what's lost is lost and gone forever” The Town I Loved So Well is a favorite of mine.... so poignantly beautiful. Did you know Phil Coulter also (co)wrote S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night by the Bay City Rollers. I’d be Gard pressed to come up with 2 songs more different.
@Joseph Michael (11:25) 🤣
@pabloinnh (1:04 PM)
Happy to hear you got it! I'm still working on Croce's 800, so Anna's New Yorker Mon. will likely have to wait until tm. I'll get back to you. :)
___
Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
@bocamp-I know some thought this was "easy for a Croce", but that to me still means "pretty darn tough". Managed to finish but not without some work. Good luck.
Speaking of redundancy, one of my college profs loved to hear himself talk, and thus padded his oratory with superfluous words. I still remember when he admonished a student – without trying to be funny – with, “What you just said is redundant and unnecessarily repetitive.”
Previous discussion of SWOOPED IN remined me of the phrase "in one fell swoop". I learned long ago that it means "In one sudden action" but it was years later that I learned it originally referred to the sudden, swift attack of a bird of prey. So I thought the clue "Descended swiftly, like a hawk" was apropos.
I just now saw at phrases.org.uk that The Bard was a early source of the phrase:
"Shakespeare either coined the phrase, or gave it circulation, in Macbeth, 1605:
MACDUFF: [on hearing that his family and servants have all been killed]
All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?"
"Fell" meant "fierce" back then. The "kite" refers to a bird of prey.
@Carola 1:05 Thank you for sharing the link. I was fooled! along with many others, I guess. Still, I wonder how ChatGPT would actually do with making a puzzle.
My nephew at the top of his lungs would belt out Sting’s lyric as “I’ll be washing you.” Loved this MONTEGREEN though I didn’t know the word.
Excellent post, Thanks for sharing this.
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I first heard of Pierre Bensusan on my first trip to France in 1983 (along with Francoise Hardy). Our coach driver played their cassette tapes while driving through the gorgeous countryside. I brought home several of their respective cassette tapes and played them endlessly! I think it's time to listen to them again 😍 I'll crack open a nice French rose and dig out the cassette player 😉
I always look forward to your initialization of each constructor's name! You are so clever - and fun! Thanks!
Have you done the Tuesday puzzle yet?
Yes, it is a beginner-friendly puzzle. But that is not a negative thing. Especially on a Monday. Mondays are the gateway puzzle for new solvers. You would think Rex would welcome that. Aside from that, I thought it had a great theme and very little junk fill. Not bad for a two-time constructor.
I am all full of the Golden Knights' win to eliminate the Oilers from the Cup chase (hats off to Marchessault), so I'll keep it upbeat. This was a good puzzle to fill the Monday slot. Not much to the solving, but there doesn't need to be today. Birdie.
Wordle birdie, keeping alive the three theme.
TEST TEASE
ADEALISADEAL and FAIRISFAIR,
ATLEAST IT should BE SO,
IBET IT'SATEST that DEEMS I care
'til ANITA SAYs, "UH,NO."
--- NERO O'NEAL
MASTER BEITSO
ADEALISADEAL and FAIRISFAIR,
ATLEAST that's WHAT they SAY,
IBET IT'SATEST that DEEMS I care
'til RONA SAYs, "AOK."
--- NERO O'NEAL
I solved this puz using only down and across clues and letters from the English alphabet, which made it rather easy. Noticed: SWOOPEDIN/INA cross, BEITSO ITS ITISWHATITIS lotsa ITs and ISes. WANT in the corners.
Wordle birdie.
Isn’t complaining about how easy a Monday puzzle a lot like complaining that a chocolate cake tastes too much like chocolate?
A nit is a nit
And a twit is a twit
But a nit twit isn't
Always a nitwit
🐍spear
@Rondo - hilarious!
A rose is a rose is a rose.
Diana, LIW
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